Just the same, there was a noticeable apprehension all along the Strip and in the city's Glitter Gulch — wherever games were played in that valley. Dealers flipped their cards with one eye on the table and the other on the door. Pit bosses nervously scrutinized unfamiliar faces and security personnel strolled about with hands resting on pistol butts.
The city's visitors, assiduously kept "out of the know" by the regulars, remarked upon the number of police vehicles cruising the Strip and the hordes of foot patrolmen on Fremont Street, particularly in Glitter Gulch. If one were to look carefully he might note that some of these officers were from other areas adjacent to Las Vegas — such as North Las Vegas, East Vegas, Henderson, and even from Boulder City. A person with a practiced eye for concealed weapons could possibly discern the presence also of great numbers of alert guntoters in civilian clothing, although the observer would need a great instinct for separating the good guys from the bad.
And all about Las Vegas — the city of strangers — faces suddenly became highly importar't almost an obsession, for those who lived and worked there. Police accosted everyone who seemed to stand out a little from the crowd, frequently they accost d one another Hardfaced men in tailored silk suits and dark glasses stood in hotel lobbies and prowled the lounges and the casinos also "accosting" anyone who aroused their suspicious natures and here, also, the frequent mutual stare-downs and violent reactions between accoster and accosted would have been comical, if not so potentially tragic A minor shoot-out did occur in a Fremont Street tavern between two men who were 1ater identified as "free-lancers," bounty hunters seeking the pot of gold in Bolan's head.
In this latter regard, special police details were stationed at the airport and in bus and train depots to turn back an expected invasion of gunmen, both freelance and otherwise.
The "Bolan Watch" was on, and if the atmosphere in the civilian community was tense, it was downright explosive in the police and underworld segments.
It was leaked in the press, for example, that a special federal "strike force" was in town and that a highly placed official in the Justice Department was coordinating all police efforts in the matter. There were rumors of hard feelings among the local cops, and a wire-press reporter in Carson City, the state capital, charged that state and federal officials had clamped a "news blackout" on the events at Las Vegas.
Rumors of a different nature began flowing from the Gold Duster when Vito Apostinni "didn't show up for the noon count." The story that swept along the Strip claimed that "Heart o' Gold Vito got planted in Skeleton Flats," this latter a reference to the unofficial graveyard supposedly existing in the desert somewhere along Highway 91, far south of the city.
It was also being said that eastern bigshots had taken over the entire top floor of the Gold Duster Hotel and that the whole place had become an armed camp, with much coming and going on the part of the area's criminal element. Those "in the know" whispered about an underworld purge in the western crime capital, and the stories became more persistent as the day wore on.
Bolan himself seemed unperturbed by the commotion. He had gone directly from the dawn strike at the airport to his modest tourist-home accomodations on the north side. After a leisurely meal in his room and a shower, he went to bed for a refreshing six-hour sleep.
At two o'clock he was on the move again, dressed casually in modish flair slacks, sport shirt, and bright blue blazer. He walked through Glitter Gulch, the gambling center of the downtown area, and fed slot machines at several of the joints. He kept his ears open and his nose clean, and after an hour of this "scouting," he invaded the Strip via taxicab and went directly to the hotel where he had met Tommy Anders and the Ranger Girls some hours earlier.
He scouted the parking lot, decided that the watch on his wheels had been lifted, reclaimed his Pontiac and set out on a tour of the neon jungle's high spots.
The Executioner had, many death-waits ago, learned to blend into a given environment and to become a part of the background of almost any situation.
A "watch" could work in more directions than one.
The watchers themselves were being watched.
Chapter Twelve
Crap out
At nightfall, Bolan returned to his room and again changed clothes. He donned the black skinsuit and covered it with the dark silk tailormade threads favored by big time torpedoes, beneath the coat a pastel shirt with flaring collar and oversized tie and — the trusty Beretta in sideleather.
He fussed with his hair to achieve the just right look, then put a band-aid across the bridge of his nose and another just off the chin along the jawline. Purple tinted lenses in gold wire frames and a black rollbrim hat completed the job to his satisfaction.
Then he went directly to the Gold Duster.
A congregation of hoods and uniformed deputies stood outside, eyeing everyone who passed.
The smirking Bolan flipped them a bird as he swaggered through the cluster. One of the men behind him muttered, "Wise ass."
Bolan jerked around and quietly demanded, "Who said that?"
None responded or even returned the hard stare. He sniggered and proceeded to the lobby.
"Boys" were all over the place, several of them almost identical in appearance to the new arrival. Band-aids sprouted freely, here and there a head-wrap, and a guy going into the lounge was showing a pronounced limp.
Bolan felt right at home.
He went straight to the desk, elbowed an elderly lady out of the way, and commanded the immediate attention of a room clerk.
"Are they still upstairs?" he asked the guy.
The clerk nodded his head uncertainly and replied, "Uh, yes sir, I think so."
"Check!" Bolan demanded.
"Uh, come to think of it," the clerk suddenly remembered, "they are. We just sent up dinner."
The guy started to turn away. Bolan leaned across the desk and grabbed his arm. "Get Hard Mountain for me."
"Sir?"
"I got a friend out there. Make the call, eh?"
The clerk nervously pulled loose from Bolan's grasp and said, "Yes sir." His eyes fled to a corner area of upholstered chairs and mahogany tables. "You can take the call in the telephone lounge, sir. Just pick up the receiver, I'll have the switchboard put you through."
Bolan growled, "Thanks," and threw the guy a fiver.
The light was on when he reached the house phone. He picked it up and said, "Yeah, who's this?"
"I'm ringing, sir," the operator reported.
"Oh yeah. okay. When they answer, honey, you get the hell off. This is private."
"Certainly, sir," the house operator assured him in an offended tone.
"Don't mention it," he said.
A few seconds later she told him, "Go ahead, sir. Fin leaving."
He snickered into the transmitter and said, "Who's this?"
A guarded male voice replied, "This is Desert High Ranch. Who'd you want?"
Bolan chuckled and asked, "Been laid lately?" '
The guy chuckled back. "At this goddam joint? Hey who's this?"
"This is Vinton."
"Who?"
"You know. I came in this morning." Bolan snickered. "By the skin of my teeth, I mean."
The guy laughed. "I know what you mean. That bastard hit up here, too, last night."
"Yeah I heard," Bolan said chattily. "We're at the Duster, you knew that."