She nodded.
"Sure, you can hang out around here, Randy boy. Go on in the club and tell Phoebe I said to take you upstairs to my office. Use the phone there if you need it. I'll go and get Jimmy."
"Thanks, Sheba. I really appreciate this."
She gave him a friendly slap on the back, the heavy thump only staggering him a little bit.
"Don't mention it. What are friends for? I'll see you in a few minutes."
She moved on down the corridor toward the bar, not the least bit self-conscious in the body-hugging leotard.
Owens went through a curtain of beads at the far end of the hall, similar to the doorway that led into Jimmy Kidd's.
Sheba's place was strictly functional on the first floor; massage rooms opened off the hall where the whores plied their trade.
The lighting was dim, the atmosphere smoky, stifling.
The walls pulsated like an eerie heartbeat from the jukebox and voices from Jimmy Kidd's on the other side of the partition, but in here was a closeness that Owens found to be spooky and uncomfortable.
The rooms on the second floor were fancier, better furnished, Owens knew. The clients with more money to spend were steered up to the second floor. The variety of services available up there was wider, too.
The third floor included the offices, Sheba's own personal quarters and a few very special rooms where anything could be had for a price.
Not many people made it to the third floor.
Owens had been up there a couple of times, but only as a guest. David Parelli threw parties for the employees from time to time on Sheba's third floor.
Now Owens went to the front of the parlor, where blackened windows provided privacy from the street.
Phoebe was on duty there, wearing a diaphanous, togalike garment that revealed more than it covered.
Owens passed on the message from Sheba.
The hooker led him to the elevator and accompanied him on the ride up to Sheba's office. She stood against him in the close confines of the elevator.
"Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Owens?"
He felt a warmth in his groin but knew he could not relax, not tonight.
Not with Bolan after him.
"Uh, no thanks," he told the whore. "I appreciate it, really, but right now I, uh, just want to take it easy."
"Suit yourself."
She led the way impersonally from the elevator to the door of the office across the ratty-smelling hallway. She carried a key with which she unlocked the door to Sheba's office, then stepped aside for him to enter.
He did, and she left him alone, closing the door after her.
The place was a combination office and gym, he saw as he looked around. One side of the big room had a desk and several comfortable chairs along with some filing cabinets, the other side was occupied by weight benches and Nautilus machines.
Sheba wasn't interested in anything as trendy as aerobics. Her workouts were serious business for her, not just a new way to pick up men.
There were several posed photographs of her on the walls, showing off her figure in skimpy bathing suits.
He crossed to the desk, on the side of the big room that was carpeted with a deep pile rug, where his footfalls made no sound.
The whole room was unnaturally quiet, in fact, and his experience with movie sets told him that the place was soundproof.
He put his hand out and touched the phone's receiver, then hesitated.
This phone could well be bugged, either by the cops or rival families of David Parelli, or by Sheba herself.
Whether the line was secure or not, though, he still had to get in touch with someone.
He had to find a place to hide.
Some place where the Executioner could not find him.
Or Bolan would find him, and then there would be hell to pay.
9
Bolan strode into Jimmy Kidd's like any other customer. He was not as well dressed as the other patrons, he saw as he looked around, but he did not look so rumpled as to stand out, either. The overcoat was a little smudged from where he had dropped it in the alley behind the warehouse, but he realized he could blend in easily with the other patrons.
The swirling haze of cigarette smoke seemed to hang like a curtain in the subdued lighting of the club. Rock and roll music throbbed from a jukebox, but the sounds were still only slightly more audible than the drunken, raucous conversations taking place all around him.
The name of this place had popped up from time to time in the intel updates Bolan received periodically on the current situation in Chicago.
This was reputed to be Mob connected, a rumor that had been verified by Tess.
According to the porn actress, David Parelli owned Jimmy Kidd's, as well as the adjoining massage parlor.
The bar was crowded, but Bolan found a space without having to shoulder his way in. He ordered a beer from an iron-eyed bartender.
There was a prickling on his back, as if a bull's-eye had formed there.
Several feet down the bar were two people who stood out even in this flamboyant crowd.
One was a woman, tall, flame-haired, wearing a leotard that revealed a heavily muscled hourglass figure.
The other was a blond man about half the size of the woman, wearing a sour expression.
The bartender brought Bolan his beer and set it on the hardwood surface.
"Randy Owens around?" Bolan asked.
"Don't know the guy," the bartender said offhandedly. He jerked his head in the direction of the small blond man and the large redheaded woman.
"Better go ask the boss. Anybody asks questions around here, Jimmy answers 'em. If he wants to."
Bolan left the beer untasted. He made his way through the press of people toward the blond punk who was obviously Jimmy Kidd.
He walked up to Jimmy Kidd and said, "I'm looking for Randy Owens."
Kidd stared at him, bug-eyed, and made noises with his mouth.
The redhead in the leotard turned and punched Bolan in the face.
Bolan saw the blow coming, but the sheer unexpectedness of it slowed his reaction time just enough to let the punch connect. He was moving his head out of the way when the woman's hard fist grazed his jaw. He took an involuntary step backward, regaining his balance.
By that time the woman was leaping into the air in some sort of martial arts kick, lashing out at him with a foot.
The kick caught him in the chest and staggered him once again.
She landed and tried to follow up with another spin kick.
Bolan caught her ankle in midair, lifted, twisted, heaved.
She went down head over heels, crashing hard on the floor.
Nearby customers scrambled out of the way.
Bolan glanced back at the bar.
Jimmy Kidd came up from behind the bar with a sawed-off shotgun, tracking both barrels at Bolan, his finger starting to curl around the trigger.
The guy wasn't thinking, Bolan knew. Even if Jimmy Kidd hit his target, the shotgun blast would injure innocent people at this range in this crowded bar.
Bolan swept aside the overcoat and the Beretta 93-R leaped into his hand, discreetly coughing once in the microsecond before Jimmy Kidd could fire that shotgun.
The 9 mm stinger drilled into the bridge of Kidd's nose, plowing on through into his brain, driving Kidd back forcefully, knocking bottles from the bar shelves, the barrel of the scattergun dropping as he staggered.
The dead man's finger tightened on the trigger and a blast erupted from the shotgun.
Kidd succeeded in blowing off his own feet.
Total bedlam gripped the bar.
Customers pushed and pulled and screamed in their struggle to get out of there before any more gunfire exploded. Bolan saw two bartenders diving for weapons underneath the bar.
He could not allow a firefight to erupt here.
Spotting a curtain of beads on the wall that opened into a corridor beyond, he forced a path through the stampeding mob and dodged into that hall.