"No," Braddock wheezed.
"How long ago, Braddock?"
"Five minutes . . . maybe ten."
"Hang on, I'll get an ambulance," Bolan told him. He went quickly out the door, through the lobby, and into Brantzen's surgical chamber. There he found compresses and hurried back with them to the fallen policeman. Bolan peeled away the clothing and applied the compresses to the wound.
"I'll bet you make it," he told Braddock.
The Captain merely stared at him, obviously in too much pain for conversation.
"I hope you do," Bolan added. He returned to the lobby, phoned for an ambulance, and made a hasty exit. Moments later, the powerful Mercedes was screaming around the curves of the high road to Palm Springs. Bolan thought he knew where he could intercept a torture-murderer. He was, in fact betting his very life on it.
Chapter Nineteen
The hit
The six men were squeezed into the speeding car, Willie Walker in the front seat with a veteran triggerman named Bonelli and a younger wheelman who was called Tommy Edsel because of his one-time membership in a club of Edsel automobile enthusiasts. Screwy Lou Pena, all expansive smiles and high humor, took up nearly half of the rear seat, Wedged in with him were one Mario Capistrano, who had been recently released from the Federal Reformatory at Lompoc, and Harold the Greaser Schiaperelli, a 59-year-old Italian-born contract specialist who had been deported three times but had never spent a night behind bars.
Willie Walker freed an arm and leaned over the backrest, saying, "Lemme take a look at that picture, huh Lou?"
"Nothing doing," Pena objected, happily patting his jacket pocket. "Deej gets first look at this little jewel." He smiled archly and added, "After all, it's my passport back to the livin', Willie. Let's not be throwing it around the car, huh?"
"You're not forgetting," Walker pouted, "that us guys put our necks right up there with yours."
"I'm not forgetting," Pena assured him. "Don't you ever get to thinking that way, Willie. And Deej won't hold nothing against you when I explain this was all in the plan. He might be a little sore but he'll get over that quick enough. When he sees this picture, eh? Hell. Didn't he tell me not to come back without Bolan's head? Well, I got it," He tapped the pocket again. "I got Bolan's head."
"Hell it ain't even a picture," Tommy Edsel remarked. "It's just a drawin', ain't it?"
"Yeah but what a drawin'," Pena said. "A drawin' for a face job ain't just no drawin', you know. Hell, it's a blueprint."
"That back there made me sick at my stomach," Capistrano complained. "I never saw a guy turned into a turkey like that before."
"Yeah but don't you forget, Mario, a singing turkey," Pena said. "Hell, I don't enjoy that kind of stuff any more than anyone else. His own damn fault, you gotta say that."
"You did that to his fingers after," Capistrano grumbled.
"That was for the lesson," Pena patiently explained. "Those guys gotta know they can't get away with it. Don't worry me with no blues now, Mario. Today's my day and I'm gonna enjoy it. You wanta walk back to the Springs, just say it."
"I wonder what about Franky Lucky," Bonelli fretted, perhaps only to change the subject.
"What is this Franky Lucky?" Pena snorted. "Some kinda goddam greaser golden boy?"
"Watch it," Willie Walker suggested in a low voice, his eyes shifting meaningfully to Harold the Greaser.
Pena laughed. "Aw hell, Willie, Harold ain't sensitive about being foreign born. Are you, Harold?"
Harold muttered something unintelligible and laughed. Pena laughed with him, although obviously he did not understand the comment. "Everybody's happy today," Pena observed.
"Except maybe Franky Lucky," Walker said. "Now Lou . . . this guy is as cold as a fish. And you were about right, he's a golden boy, at least as far as Deej is concerned. And he's got his contract. And Deej says we'll just have to avoid him the best we can until he calls in or comes in. And the way Deej talked, this boy ain't going to be listening to anything we might have to say. He's going to shoot first and save the polite conversation for after."
"Didn't you say he's handling the hit personally. Pena asked thoughtfully.
"This guy's a loner, Lou," Bonelli piped up. "They tell me he never takes no one along."
"Well hell, there's six of us, ain't there?" Pena said. "Anyway, he's not gonna be gunning for us between here'n home. Is he? What the hell are you worried about?"
The wheelman glanced over his shoulder and said, "Don't Franky Lucky wheel a blue sleek Mercedes?"
"Yeah, Some kind of hot wheels," Walker replied. "Why?"
Tommy Edsel's head was now wagging to and fro as his eyes moved rapidly from his own route to a winding road descending from the hills to their right. "I bet that's him," he said ominously.
All eyes turned to the mountain road, about a quarter-mile distant. "You sure got better eyes than me, Tommy, Pena said, squinting with his forehead pressed against the window.
"Just keep looking," Tommy Edsel replied, his head still wagging rhythmically. "He's in and out. Look for a flash of blue. There! Did you see? Shit, man, that's him, that's Franky Lucky! And is he wheeling!"
As alarmed sounds rose up around him, Pena braked, "Awright awright, settle down. If it's him, and it probably ain't, just remember there's one of him and six of us. He ain't likely to try nothing. He'll trail along and wait for a chance. He ain't gonna highway duel us, that's for damn sure."
"With Franky Lucky," Walker said worriedly, "nothing's for damn sure."
"Where do these roads come together?" Pena asked. He wet his lips nervously, affected by his companions' alarm.
"Just around this next curve," Tommy Edsel reported, "where the highway turns back toward the hills."
"Well dammit, you gotta beat him there!" Pena exclaimed.
"Dammit don't think I'm not trying," the wheelman replied, grunting with exitement. "But this boltpile sure as hell ain't no Mercedes!"
Pena and Walker were lowering their windows and the others were squirming about in the tight space trying to get their weapons ready.
"Just watch where you're shooting!" Pena yelled. "You guys onna other side be careful!"
Bolan had recognized the big Mafia vehicle at almost the same instant he had been spotted by Tommy Edsel. His visibility from the mountainside was unrestricted and gave him a panoramic sweep of the flatlands from the south horizon to the north. No other vehicles were in view; indeed there was nothing but desolation for as far as the eye could see. He ran a quick mental triangulation on the speeding vehicles and smiled grimly at the incredibly perfect timing of his gamble. He would beat them to the junction by perhaps ten seconds; it would be ten seconds enough. The precision driving required to traverse the winding mountain road at such speeds had taken the full use of all his faculties, both mental and physical. There had been little left of Mack Bolan to mull over the unspeakable atrocity he had left behind at Palm Village . . . and just as well. Beneath his peaking consciousness lurked a consuming rage such as this normally unemotional man had never experienced. His executions of the past had always been performed with a cool detachment, his combat-trained instincts dominating and guiding the actions of the mission. Never before had Bolan stepped forward with rage governing his performance, not even while avenging the deaths of his own father, mother, and sister. But that rage was there now, just below the surface. It was about to eruptm . . . and, with it, the full potency and ferocity of the Executioner.