He stood beside her in frozen immobility and groaned, "Canuck, baby — okay, okay."
She tried to speak, but then he saw that she had no tongue and also no teeth — but no speech was really necessary to convey the message from that pleading eye.
He whispered, "Okay. God rest you, Georgette."
The automag roared and the reverberations of that blast sent him reeling out of there.
The lunatic from Hades was still curled into a knot on the floor. He'd managed to get his pants down and was attempting to stanch the flow of blood with his bare hands.
Bolan stepped over him without a second glance and went on to the larger chamber and through to the main basement. He shrugged off the backpack and carefully removed the contents, shaped the plastics and emplaced the timers, then methodically set the explosives for maximum demolition.
He took a last look around, murmured woodenly, "Rest in peace" — and got out of there.
He was onto the grounds and in clearing atmosphere when the charges detonated. The ground beneath him quivered, and the whole flaming wreck collapsed in on itself, like a giant sand castle gone dry and all its props kicked out.
Bolan was free of excess baggage, now — of the mule-pack variety — but loaded even heavier with burdens of the soul.
Two guys ran upon him in the confused jumble of darkness and promptly wished they hadn't. The automag bellowed massive anger from beneath a face carved in granite death — and the man strode on, oblivious to the shouts and screams and tumult behind him.
He walked unseeing past a crouching Toby Ranger at the edge of nowhere. She trotted along beside him, casting anxious glances into that frozen face but saying nothing, asking nothing.
Finally he halted and dropped to his knees, head falling forward to rest upon the heaving chest, the snout of the .44 pressed into the earth.
She knelt beside him, anxiety now overriding temerity, and she cried, "Are you hurt?"
"No," he whispered. "Not where it shows, Toby."
"My God, but you zonked them. I never saw such a ... Mack — what about — what about ... ?"
"She's dead," he croaked. "Long dead, Toby."
And then he wept.
But not for Georgette Chableu, particularly.
He wept for all mankind.
Epilog
Bolan would not presume to question the internal logic of a universe that he would never understand. He played the game as the numbers fell ... and what was the sense of shaking one's fist at the heavens?
Death had brought him here to this troubled but improving "City of the Strait"… but the death of whom and what?
Death had watched as he stumbled blindly across that makeshift stage of human destiny … and he'd imagined that he was gazing back at her when in reality he had seen nothing but his own distorted image in search of the role written for him in the stars.
Perhaps a tortured and desperate soul had searched for him through that universal maze of living misery, and had led him here to lend it death.
Yeah, maybe.
Death was a happening, not a state of being.
He had recovered from the spiritual shock of that ghastly stroll along hell's corridors, and he and his partner were hurrying toward greener pastures when a stolid figure loomed out of the darkness and halted their plunge with a pistol at Bolan's head.
Toby gasped, and Bolan shoved her facedown onto the road as a calm voice inquired, "What took you so long, Stryker?"
The snout of the automag was buried in the guy's belly, Bolan's finger frozen on the trigger by that quietly amiable voice.
He slowly withdrew Big Thunder and holstered him. "You're not the enemy, Holzer," he told the cop. "Either squeeze off or stand aside. There's only one way to take me."
"Take you where?" the guy asked. He sheathed his own pistol. "Sorry about the weapon. Cop can't be too careful on a Mad Dog, you know."
Bolan replied, "Yeah. I know."
"Your, uh, vehicle got destroyed. About the same time and place as mine. Lucky for me, eh? I, uh, figured you'd need a replacement."
The tall man in black held out a helping hand to his partner. She scrambled to her feet and stood beside him, glaring into the confrontation with a puzzled frown.
Holzer was asking, "Who was wheeling? The lady here?"
Bolan said, "Could be."
"You've got to be more careful, Stryker. You bear an amazing resemblance to another guy. The whole town is after him. Thought I'd better find you and advise you to vacate the area, very quickly. The, uh, vehicle is just down the street. Keys in. Leave it where it's convenient."
"Thanks," Bolan growled. A hint of a smile played at his lips. "Glad you found me."
"Me, too. Straight-lined you, thinking in a military manner. Figured you might like to know — a place over on the lake shore tumbled down a little while ago, very troublesome place for a cop with territorial pride. With it went three of the meanest old men in Detroit. Plus half of the torpedoes in the area, and half of their boss — a guy called Charley Fever. The other half of Charley, the living half, is enroute to the hospital. Might make it and might not. I'd guess he'd rather not."
"Men die easy, Holzer," Bolan growled.
"As opposed to things, eh. Guess you're right. Some things you can never touch. Well, a few things died tonight, too. Good luck, Stryker."
They touched hands. The man and his lady went on, finding the car where promised.
"Some men die hard," Toby observed, speaking for the first time since the encounter with the law.
"Only if they stay hard," Bolan said. He cranked the engine and put distance between themselves and that hellground back there.
"Does that mean no green pastures?" she asked, small-voiced.
He gripped her hand and showed her a brief smile. "Green pastures are a state of mind, Toby," he said quietly. "I have business in New Orleans and I guess nothing is green down there, not even the grass."
I see.
"Travel with me part of the way?"
"All the way," she murmured. "Far as you want to take me."
"How about Cloud Nine?"
"I'd settle for Cloud Three or Four. For a day or two."
"Sold," he said, "to the lady with the shiny gold badge."
A tear popped loose as she whispered, "To the memory of Georgie girl. She was a damned good cop, Mack."
Bolan said, "Yeah."
"I'm coming back up here after ... after ..."
He said grimly, "Do that. Bust their asses, Toby."
"I intend to."
"Stay hard. Don't give them a goddamned inch. Fight them until they're digesting you, then spit in their bowels. Hit them any way you can, anywhere you can."
She said, "Let me write that down. I'll save it, for your epitaph."
"Do that," he muttered.
She curled an arm into his and whispered, "That's enough shoptalk for now. Let's forget, huh? For a day or two? Just forget?"
Bolan would never forget. Nor would Toby, he knew that. His gaze slid to the rear view mirror, in which was reflected the fading red glimmer above the hellgrounds.
And Death gazed back through there ... smiling, content, sated for the moment. She would rise again, soon, on Bolan's next horizon. He would be ready for her there, too, gazing back upon her.
But, for now, the deathwatch was over.
He snuggled his temporary helpmeet to his side and soberly intoned, "Long live the dead. Forever die the living."
"Down, Captain Coffin, just damn it down."
He chuckled, and squeezed her, and they drove into the cosmic sprawl of things to be and things not yet dreamt.