A few minutes later their vehicle radio began making noises. "Strike Cadillac. This is Strike Seven Honcho."
Larson's eyes leapt along the communications bulletin. "That's the roving detail leader," he told his partner. "Delta channel."
Papado punched a button on the radio and grabbed the mike.
"Go ahead, Honcho Seven."
"Activity report."
Papado rolled eyes at his partner and replied, "Negative. No come, no go."
"Any contact with your surveillance subject?"
"Negative. Insider reports he is not logged in, repeat, not on premises."
"Okay. The whole horseshoe is quiet. Spell each other for a break. But stay close."
"Roger. Thanks."
Papado returned the mike to its bracket and told Larson, "I thought the roving detail didn't start 'til dark."
The other officer shrugged. "They change the game every five minutes. You want to eat first?"
"Too early. But I'd like to air my ass. Walk around the block, maybe."
Larson chuckled. "Okay. Go ahead. Don't pick up any stray envelopes."
Papado took a playful swing at his partner's chin, stepped out of the vehicle, then leaned back in to say, "Don't you pick up any stray Executioners. Save them 'til I get back."
"Never worry," Larson replied to that. "I'd bet a tenner the guy isn't within fifty miles of here."
The bored detective would have lost his bet.
"The guy" — most recently known as "Strike Seven Honcho" — had just cruised them at a distance of fifty yards.
Some minutes and some miles farther along, another patiently bored officer on the quietest duty of all completed an activity check with "Strike Nine Honcho" and turned to his partner with a sigh. "You ever get the feeling," he asked, "that the watchers are always being watched? That was a strong signal. Ill bet he was looking at us all the time we were talking."
The other man shrugged and fed in another stick of gum to sweeten the tension-relieving cud. "Whole town's uptight," he commented. "You want to play the game, you take the cards they deal you."
"I just don't like playing the game with a joker in the deck."
"Roving Leader is no joker. We get a positive contact, you'll be damn glad that guy's out there somewhere to back you up."
"I hear Bolan doesn't shoot at cops."
"Maybe true. Maybe not. How's he going to know you're a cop? You got it tatooed across your forehead with neon ink?"
The patrolman chuckled nervously. "Maybe you're right. The rovers weren't due on until night shift. I guess this really is a Mad Dog alert."
"Right. A guy comes busting up, shooting and throwing explosives, he doesn't write any names on it. You just can't call shots in a game like that guy plays, jack. You can't call them. Right?"
"Yeah, right, I guess so. Right."
Wrong.
The "Strike Honcho" of the unofficial day watch was indeed writing names and calling shots.
It was the name of his game — the only game he cared to play.
16
Shivered
John Holzer was a cop who trusted his instincts. In the final analysis, according to Holzer, effective police work relied at least fifty percent on the intuitive process, with or without all the fancy technology that had been plugged into the war against crime. A cop who could not react to spinal shivers was only about half cop.
And Lieutenant Holzer had been fighting the shivers for a full twenty minutes. He finally gave it up and went into the tac room for a word with Joe Daley, an inspector with thirty years under his belt. Daley had been the long route with the Detroit force, from beat cop up through the ranks and now he was a candidate for promotion to district inspector. At the moment, he was the watch commander for the special strike force alert. He'd been a friend of Holzer's father, a good cop who'd died with his badge on some years back.
"You've got the look," Daley intoned somberly, "of a pup that went out to tree a bear and found himself up the tree and alone. Don't like your detail?"
"It's okay," Holzer told the old family friend. "Tell me something, Joe. What do your shivers tell you about this case?"
"They're not talking to me yet."
"No?"
"No. But yours are, I guess."
The inspector picked up a phone and said a few crisp words into it, Holzer held his tongue and fidgeted, his gaze roaming over the wall displays.
Daley hung up the phone and told his young friend, "Look, the guy hit your beat first. I can understand how you feel. You have a territorial claim. Okay. But a good cop — "
"It isn't that, Joe. It's... well... either I've completely flipped or I was talking to that guy a little while ago."
Shrewd eyes measured the youngster. "Yeah? Where?"
Holzer's gaze swerved left. "Right over there."
"Right over where?"
"Just about where Kelso is standing right now."
"I thought we were talking about Bolan."
Holzer swallowed and said, "That's the one."
Joe Daley scratched his cheek. "And when was this?"
The lieutenant from Grosse Pointe consulted his watch. "Thirty minutes ago."
"Why didn't you say something then?"
"The guy had vanished by the time my shivers stared talking sense."
"And when was that?"
Holzer made a wry face. "Just about the moment he disappeared. I looked for him. Ran through the building like a loony searching for him. No catch."
Daley commented, "And still no speak until now. Why not?"
"Do you always speak your shivers right off, Joe?"
"If it seems appropriate. Just what are you telling me, Johnny? Are you saying the guy came in and looked us over? He walked right into a police station, somehow found the right office out of a hundred possibles, cased the joint, and walked out? Without anyone in the place recognizing him — except you?"
"Yeah. Yeah." Holzer bunched his shoulders and gazed at the wall.
"Why would he do that?"
"That's what I've been wondering for the past thirty minutes. Aw, damn it, Joe. Look at the record on this guy! He's made monkeys out of every force in the country. The feds have been chasing him from hell to breakfast ever since his first hit. Not only that but every hood in the country who can scrape up the price of a Saturday night special is dreaming of collecting bounty on the guy. The mob has been fielding special head units from the word go. But he just strolls blithely through it all. How? How does he do that? We can't even get a decent artist's composite! What the hell does he really look like? Are cops really turning their heads when he passes by, or is it just that they don't even know the guy is there? There has to be some explanation for — "
"Hey cool it, hold it there! In one-syllable words, exactly what the hell are you telling me, Johnny?"
"That's the hell of it, I just don't know," Holzer admitted miserably. "Except... damnit, I know the guy was in here. And..."
"Yeah?"
"It doesn't seem to be a police case, Joe."
"What is it, then?"
"I don't know what it is. I know what it's not. Look. Police methods are geared to the apprehension of criminals."
"Whoever said they weren't? And whoever said Mack Bolan was anything but a criminal?"
"That's just it. You've hit it right there, Joe. It's why the guy comes and goes as he damn pleases. Wrong methods, Joe. Damnit, we're going about it all wrong."
"You're a cop, Johnny."
"Right, I am."
"Your old man was a cop. I'm a cop. Every man in this damn room is a cop. Now, how should we go about our jobs? What method should we be using?"