"How does Owens tie in with Parelli?"
"Same as anybody else who makes porn," Griff replied with a shrug. "The family has control of production and distribution, not just where that sick crap plays, same as they do with a fair share of the porno publishing trade. Don't tell me I'm telling you something you don't already know. I don't get it."
"What about Mrs. Parelli?"
Griff frowned. "What about her?"
"I've heard Owens has a more personal tie-in with her."
Griff thought about that for half a moment.
"Uh, could be. Seems like I have heard rumors along those lines, though why Owens would want to bang somebody like Mrs. Parelli when he can hang around with all those young porno babes all day... guess there's no accounting for taste..." Griff let his voice trail off.
Bolan, recalling Denise Parelli's sleek, mature good looks, did not comment on Griff's last statement.
"Where can I find Owens?"
"He's got an office downtown in the Loop, but he's not there much," said the cop. "You can usually find the creep out at his so-called studio. I'll give the guy credit for working hard; that place turns out a whole shitload of those movies in a very short time."
Griff gave Bolan an address on the South Side, which Bolan filed away in his head.
"You're not afraid of me showing up at Owens's and doing what I did at Parelli's club?" Bolan asked.
"Maybe I plan to call in to the station house after you leave," said Griff. "Maybe I'm setting you up."
"Or maybe you just don't mind seeing vigilantes like me take on pornographers like Owens."
The glint in Griff's eyes told Bolan he was probably right. "Yeah, you might say that."
"Does Owens make kid porn?"
Griff tensed at the very thought.
"If I thought he did, I'd probably break some laws myself."
"And you won't tell me what you were doing at Parelli's house tonight?"
The cop's jaw set evenly. "Not now or ever. That's something else. Your days are numbered, Bolan. You'd better move fast."
The door into the den opened behind Bolan.
He moved around, hand going under his coat, fingers resting lightly on the grip of the Beretta, though he made the movement look casual enough, knowing that the newcomer was most likely Griff's wife.
He was right.
Kathleen Griff came into the den and smiled at the two men.
"My goodness, hasn't he even offered you a drink yet, Captain Blanski?" she asked Bolan.
"Well, I am on duty, ma'am," he answered with forced lightness.
"Then you can't join us for dinner? It should be ready soon."
Bolan shook his head. "I'm afraid not. In fact, I have to be getting back to work." He turned and extended a hand to Griff. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Detective."
Griff hesitated, looked as if he might shake the Executioner's hand, then he stayed where he was, not accepting the proffered hand.
"Sure."
"Maybe I'll be seeing you later."
"Yeah," said Detective Sergeant Griff uneasily to Mack Bolan, "I imagine you will."
Bolan nodded good-night to Mrs. Griff, assured her that he could let himself out and left the couple in the den.
He walked out of the house quickly but did not hurry enough to attract any undue attention.
He did not want to hang around long enough for Griff to change his mind and try to arrest him.
He did not want any more trouble with the cop than was necessary, at least not right now.
Griff would have the license number and description of Bolan's car by now, and Bolan figured he would call it in within minutes.
It wouldn't do any good. It was a rental car and Bolan would abandon it within blocks and hoof it to an elevated station about a quarter of a mile away. He would be well on his way before an APB could be put out on the car.
Bolan was not sure what to make of Detective Sergeant Griff, but one thing was certain.
The cop had some sort of connection with Parelli...
Bolan was not about to forget the way Parelli's mobster sentries had not paid any attention to the cop's car when Griff had parked outside the walled Parelli estate not too long ago tonight. And that meant Bolan would more than likely cross Griff's path again, probably before this night was over.
For now, Randy Owens's porn-movie operation was next on Bolan's hit list.
Another unknown equation, a senator named Dutton, needed some serious looking into, sure, but Bolan realized that Owens's link to the Parellis, even if it was just banging a mafioso's mother, could be the lead he was looking for to tear the evil in this town apart before another cold day dawned.
It was time for the Executioner to raise some more hell.
7
The address Griff had given Bolan was in a warehouse in that no-man's-land, deserted after dark except for the very lowest scum, near the teeming black ghetto of Chicago's South Side.
The neighborhood was rundown, with little traffic on the streets. Trash blew in the gutters as Bolan strode along the cracked sidewalk.
If Griff was telling the truth, there was trash in the warehouse up ahead, too.
A pornographer Bolan should not have let off so easy once before.
Or a trap. A police trap or, if Griff was a bad cop, maybe another Mob trap. Yeah, it could be that, Bolan knew.
He eyeballed the warehouse and its immediate environs carefully from a deep-shadowed doorway across the empty, dark street.
It was a towering structure, appearing as uninhabited as the rest of this vicinity at this hour.
A trap?
Maybe, but Bolan did not think so, not this time, and he would not have turned back anyway.
He wanted Parelli dead too damn bad...
The windows of the warehouse were boarded up and so was the big sliding door near the loading dock.
Bolan left the shadows of his position, moving rapidly, AutoMag in hand, across the street to the side wall of the warehouse.
A streetlight at the far end of the block cast a dirty circle of illumination down at the next corner that did not reach this far. There were several economy cars... and a Lancia that had to be Owens's, he thought... parked there.
He gained the wall of the warehouse and paused another moment, his combat senses flaring, his internal radar probing the night around him for danger.
Sounds of the city carried faintly to him from somewhere else, distant rumbles of an elevated train uptown in the Loop, of a siren heading somewhere, not in this direction. The barely discernible noises of the night were muffled by this warehouse district as if that were another world where people dared to congregate, not like this sleazy, night-blanketed neighborhood of desolation and danger.
He wore his blacksuit, blending with the wall of the building. He moved along it, looking for a way in.
There was a smaller door next to the big one, but Bolan did not try it to find out if it was unlocked. Even if it was, he did not want to make his entrance that way.
He turned down an alley that ran alongside the warehouse. He headed for the rear of the building.
There were high windows along this side of the building, but they were well out of his reach.
On the rear wall of the building, he found a smaller window, this one only eight feet or so off the ground.
Behind the warehouse was a vacant lot, and on the other side of that he saw the rear walls of other warehouses.
He had the night to himself, or seemed to.
With a quick little spring, he grabbed the narrow sill of the window and chinned himself up level with it.