"We already tangled once." Bolan quickly unbuttoned his shirt, spread it wide, and displayed a quarter-inch-wide groove in the flesh just beneath his left armpit. "A .45 slug dug that trench, and it had the Executioner's brand on it."
"Don't say that word!" DiGeorge snapped.
"What word?"
"Don't call the punk by his pet name! Lemme see that scratch!"
"Scratch, hell," Bolan said. He adjusted the shirt to afford DiGeorge a better inspection of the wound.
DiGeorge clucked his tongue and said, "You were lucky, Franky. Another inch to the right, and you . . ." He let go the shirt and studied the wound with an academic air. "It's healing pretty good. What is it — about a week old?"
"About that," Bolan said. He rebuttoned the shirt and carefully tucked in the tails.
"Yeah, you were lucky," DiGeorge repeated. "Franky Lucky, that's a name that ought to stick. Not many guys walking around can talk about their gunfight with this Bolan. You sure that was him?"
A new air of respect had pervaded the previously strained atmosphere between the two men. Bolan recognized it immediately. "It was him all right," he replied. "We came up eyeball to eyeball down by Desert Junction last Tuesday night."
"That's only a half a mile from here," DiGeorge uneasily noted.
"Yeah. I was coming up to lay out this place. I guess he was too. We laid out each other instead."
"You hit 'im?" DiGeorge quickly asked.
"I don't think so. It came up too quick, too unexpected you know. We're side by side, at this stoplight, see. I see him, and he sees me seeing him, and then we're banging away at each other. There's lights coming down from your place. He whips his car around and takes off. I figure there'll be another time, and I don't want to go off on no running gun battle through the city. Besides, I'm hit, see."
"What kind of car was he in, Lucky?"
"Big job . . . Chrysler, I think."
"Uh huh." DiGeorge smacked his palms together and paced an erratic circle around the desk. "This was a week ago Tuesday night?"
"Yeah. But I'd take book he's still around."
DiGeorge raised a fist to his mouth and nibbled a heavy knuckle. "Maybe you hit 'im," he said. "Maybe that's why he's laying low."
"Maybe."
The conversation was interrupted by the noisy appearance of Andrea D'Agosta. She swept into the room with a small overnight bag dangling from one hand, viciously banged the door, and dropped the bag to the floor. "Did you tell the punk to get lost yet, Poppa?" she asked loudly.
"Not yet," DiGeorge growled, eyeing her unapprovingly. She wore a. glittering mini-sheath with thigh-revealing slits up each leg.
"Well, hurry up!" the girl commanded. "I'm getting lost with him, and I can't get out of this nuthouse fast enough." Her eyes rested on Bolan. "Come on, Frank, let's split."
"You're going nowhere," DiGeorge told her. "You're staying put!"
"Or you'll shoot me if I leave, and you'll cut my throat if I stay." She laughed shrilly and went over to put a hand on Bolan's arm. "How about that, Frank?" she giggled. "What do you think of a man who threatens his own daughter with a Mafia-style rubout? Isn't that the dying end?" From somewhere a small nickel-plated .22 had appeared in her hand. "Come on, Frank. I'll shoot our way out of this joint." She laughed even more shrilly and said, "Don't look so shocked, Poppa. It's in my blood, see. Like father, like daughter. I was born with a right to kill."
DiGeorge had the look of a man who could just lie down and die. Bolan twisted the little gun out of the girl's hand in almost the same motion as he hit her with the flat of his other hand. She staggered across the floor and sank to her knees, the angry red handprint standing out starkly from a bloodless background. "Well, for God's sake," she murmured in a dazed voice.
Bolan dropped the gun onto the desk, crossed to the girl, tenderly kissed the handprint on her cheek, and tossed her across his shoulder. "Where does she belong?" he quietly asked DiGeorge.
"First room up the stairs," DiGeorge mumbled woodenly. He followed Bolan to the hallway, where they were met by an obviously uncomfortable Honey Marasco.
"For God's sake," Andrea repeated weakly, her head and torso inverted down Bolan's back.
"Drunk as a skunk," Bolan told Marasco with a grin. He stepped around the bodyguard and started up the stairs.
DiGeorge headed up with him, then paused at the first step and turned back to Marasco. "Oh, this is Frank Lucky, Phil. He's coming with us. Right, Franky?"
"Right," Bolan replied without turning around. Lucky was right, he was thinking. Lucky that Julian DiGeorge could not tell the difference between a week-old and a two-week-old wound. Lucky that Bolan always seemed to be at the right spot at precisely the right time. And luckier than all, perhaps, for so much dissension in the DiGeorge household. He carried the girl into her room and gently placed her on the bed.
DiGeorge sat down beside her and said "Thanks, Franky. I'll stay with her awhile. We got some things to talk out, me'n her. You go on downstairs and get acquainted. And, later on, you'n me have some things to talk out."
"I'll be looking forward to that," the Executioner assured the Capo. And then Franky Lucky Bolan went downstairs and joined the family.
Chapter Fourteen
The pointer
Carl Lyons, released from the Hardcase Detail upon his return from Palm Village, had immediately taken a ten-day vacation, most of which he spent with his wife and young son on a carefree motor trip along the Baja California peninsula. He had returned to duty on October 20th, tanned and rested and eagerly wondering about the nature of his new assignment. The life and fortunes of one Mack Bolan had been insistently tamped into the lower reaches of his mind. He hoped he could keep the maverick down there. Carl Lyons had always been a "good cop." He wanted to go on being one. He did not want Mack Bolan back inside his official life. With some perverse persistency of fate, however, Bolan was destined to get there again just the same.
The most interesting scuttlebutt in the bullrooms all had to do with the demise of Hardcase and the uncertain future of Big Tim Braddock. This information saddened Lyons; he had a great respect for the hard-boiled Detective Captain, if not outright affection. Lyons was, of course, in no small measure responsible for Braddock's failure to apprehend the Executioner. This was a sore point to his conscience and a constant irritant to his sense of duty and loyalty; still, Lyons continued his silent argument that even a cop's first duty was to his own sense of personal ethics. In this context of understanding, he had pursued the only course open to him in his handling of the Bolan case. Twice he had turned his back and allowed the Executioner to walk away from him. Braddock had never known of this treachery, of course, and Lyons himself simply could not regard his actions as treacherous. The life of one damn good man had hung in the balance, and even Big Tim Braddock and his ambitions had been outweighed on the scales of Lyons' ethics.
In every sense, then, Lyons was happy to be off Hardcase. He hoped never to see or hear of Mack Bolan again. He picked up his assignment, a nightwatch in Vice, and went up to check in with his new lieutenant. Lyons was welcomed to the squad, they chatted briefly, then the young Sergeant went into the bullroom with a stack of directives and memorandums which required his reading. At shortly past midnight, while still poring through the bulletins, his new partner, Patrolman Al Macintosh, informed Lyons that he was wanted on the telephone. "Switchboard says it's an eyes-call," Macintosh added.
"I don't know any Vice informants, Al," Lyons replied, glaring ruefully at the imposing pile of reading matter. "Why don't you take it."