Her eyelids flickered moments later and she looked around, getting her bearings. The eyes settled on Bolan, sparking with recognition, and he was pleased to see her rigid form relax a bit beneath the coverlet.
"It's you, again," she said when she had found her voice."
"Afraid so."
She risked a little smile, without conviction.
"Don't be scared. I'm glad to see you."
There was a momentary silence, as she searched the shadows in each corner of the room for any hostile presence.
"The others..."
"They're not with us anymore," he told her simply.
"You... oh, I see." She was remembering Minotte's more than likely, and the showdown on the highway afterward.
He changed the subject, treading softly.
"Where's your roommate?"
"Working nights. She wasn't here when they showed up, thank heaven."
Bolan felt a measure of relief. He had been half expecting to discover yet another female on the premises, this one already cold and stuffed into a cupboard somewhere by the goons before they settled down to handling the main event.
"Okay," he said, "you'll need to warn her off before we leave. Police will have the place sealed off."
"Those men..."
Bolan read the question in the woman's eyes, and answered it forthrightly.
"I don't have time to move them out." He paused, then continued. "Some questions, then we have to get you out of here."
"I understand. I'll make it up to her... somehow."
She started to sit up and the covers slipped. Hasty fingers grabbed for the sheet, color flaming her cheeks before she made the save. For the first time Lucy Bernstein seemed to realize that she was naked — and that she had not put herself to bed.
She tried to feign bravado as she spoke to him again, putting a bold face on her obvious embarrassment, "I guess I don't have many secrets left."
His answer was a thoughtful frown.
"I wouldn't say that."
"Oh"... She saw that he was serious. Her small self-conscious smile evaporated. "You said you had some questions?"
Bolan nodded, jumped right into it with both feet.
"How long have you worked for the Beacon?"
Lucy looked surprised, taken off guard by his choice of subject matter.
"Going on three years now. I applied right out of journalism school. That's USC," she added, perhaps attempting to impress him.
Bolan was impressed already — by the woman's beauty, by her courage... but he was curious about her, too. And he could not afford to take her at face value.
He still needed answers, and he tried a new approach — direct now, sharp.
"I guess the family hookup helped," he said.
She looked confused again.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He shrugged.
"It means Jack Goldblume and your grandfather go back some forty years. It never hurts to know the boss."
"My grandfather..."
"What do you know about him, really?" Bolan interrupted, silencing her protest.
There was more color in her cheeks, and it was temper now, with no trace of embarrassment. She came up on one elbow, losing the covers again in the process and retrieving them distractedly, her full attention on the nature of Bolan's questioning.
"I know that he's a kindly decent person, Mr. "Blanski." Oh, I've heard the stories — all about his whiskey during Prohibition, and the gambling clubs. I know that he was questioned by Congress more than thirty years ago."
She paused, regarding Bolan with a fine hostility, and when she spoke again her tone was almost haughty.
"It's ancient history, my fine self-righteous friend. He's never been indicted, never been convicted — nothing!"
"What's that supposed to prove?" he asked her calmly.
She was momentarily speechless and the soldier took advantage of it, veering off along a different track.
"You're working on the Syndicate. I guess you've heard of Frank Spinoza?"
"Certainly." Her tone was stiff with barely suppressed anger.
"That's Frank Spinoza from New York," he prodded.
"I said I know who he is."
But Bolan would not let it go until he made his point.
"Spinoza from New York, who has his office at the Gold Rush."
Lucy was silent now. She watched his face with something close to apprehension in her eyes.
"Your grandfather's casino," Bolan finished.
"Jack Goldblume used to run the PR there."
"I know all that," she said. "So what?"
"So, maybe nothing. Maybe I don't buy coincidence."
"You think that my grandfather got me this job?"
Bolan shrugged.
"Well, you're wrong, mister," she snapped. "I'm a damned good reporter. There were other offers when I graduated, other opportunities. I picked the Beacon and Las Vegas. Me. I like it here, okay?" She was convincing, sure, and Bolan wanted to believe her. But even if she was leveling, it did not mean she knew the full extent of what was going on behind the scenes.
"Who came up with the idea for a Mafia series?" Bolan asked her.
Lucy frowned and somehow it only made her more attractive.
"It just came down," she answered. "I guess the city editor..."
"Or Goldblume?"
She thought about it briefly, nodding.
"Maybe. He's involved in every aspect of the paper. What's the difference?"
Bolan answered her with a question of his own.
"If you were trying to get rid of someone like Minotte or Spinoza, how would you go about it?"
She paled briefly as the memories of last night came flooding back on her again.
"I'd say the Bruce Lee fan club had a fairly workable idea," she said at last.
"Agreed. But let's suppose you're trying to avoid a shooting war. What then?"
"I don't know. Set him up, I guess. Indict him on some charge." An idea clicked inside the tousled head, and Lucy's mouth was dry when she continued. "Or you could turn the spotlight on him. Make him vulnerable... run him out of town with bad publicity."
"It's worked before," the soldier told her.
She saw where he was going now and did not like it.
Verbally, she tried to head him off.
"What's wrong with that?" she challenged. "They should be driven out of town."
"I'm less concerned with method than with motive."
"Obviously."
Bolan took the jab for what it was and let it pass, forging ahead in hypotheticals.
"Suppose you had a score to settle, from the old days. Suppose that someone ripped you off years earlier, and now you've got a chance to make it right, with interest."
Lucy Bernstein's voice became indignant.
"This is nonsense. I don't understand..."
"I think you do," he told her softly.
"Well, it doesn't matter what you think. My grandfather... Jack Goldblume... they're not gangsters like Spinoza. They're both respected businessmen." He did not answer. In the silence, she continued speaking, and if Bolan read her tone correctly she was trying to persuade herself now. "Do you know how much money my grandfather gave to charity this year?" she asked him. "Last year? How much Jack Goldblume spent on civic service programs?""
"Where'd it all come from, I wonder?"
"God damn you!"
"He has," Bolan told her simply, rising from the straight-backed chair and stretching his legs. "You may still have a chance. Get dressed."