Randy Owens was scared.
He parked his Lancia one block away from Jimmy Kidd's, the closest space he could find in the after-show crush. His legs were shaky as he hurried along the sidewalk toward the bar. He could not get that awful image out of his mind, the way that Bolan guy had looked when Randy and Carson came out of the office.
Owens had not even considered doing anything except running. And he had not looked back. He didn't want to know.
All he wanted now was a drink and a place to hide out for a while. He thought about calling Denise when he got inside, then the ache in his groin reminded him that maybe it wasn't such a great idea, not after what had happened earlier at the house. It had been bad enough after he and Denise Parelli had forced their way out of the closet where Bolan had stashed them.
Randy still felt queasy from the knee in his crotch and from being knocked unconscious by Bolan, but he did have enough presence of mind to realize he was on the Parellis' hit list as well as Bolan's.
The realization made him feel worse. He fought off the panic that threatened to take control.
A biting wind stung his face as he hurried toward the entrance of Jimmy Kidd's.
A flashing neon sign above the door announced the name of the place, but that was the only decoration on the squat little brick building.
The bar was only one side of the building. Next door housed Sheba's.
He pushed open the heavy wooden door and was glad when it swung softly shut behind him. He shuddered briefly. And it was not only from the cold. Sure, it felt good to be out of the chill wind, but it felt even better to be where Bolan would not find him.
Jimmy supplied his barmen with shotguns, which were kept under the bar. All of the employees in Jimmy's and Sheba's were well acquainted with handling trouble and not just obnoxious drunk trouble, either. The bartenders also carried handguns tucked under their aprons. Many high-ranking mobsters frequented Jimmy Kidd's. They had to feel secure here. They wouldn't have it any other way.
The pub was low-ceilinged and paneled with dark wood, creating an atmosphere that was supposed to be cozy but that actually bordered on the claustrophobic.
The closed-in feeling was just what Owens wanted, he realized. He seemed safer, somehow, than being outside in the night, running for his life from Mack Bolan.
He settled into a vacant booth and lifted a finger to one of the bartenders; they knew him here, and he'd soon have his usual drink, Scotch straight up.
The place was busy, the after-movie crowd filling it almost to capacity.
That was good, too, thought Owens.
Bolan would not come in here and start slinging bullets around, not with the chance of hitting a lot of innocent people. Not everybody who came in here was Mafia, after all.
A waitress in a short skirt and low-cut blouse sashayed over to the booth with a drink on a tray. As she set it down, Owens drummed nervously on the table with his fingertips.
"How's about walking over a phone, babe?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Owens, this booth doesn't have a jack and all the other booths are full. You can use the phone behind the bar, though."
He picked up his drink, swallowed half of it, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"No, never mind," he said shakily. "I'll use the pay phone in a minute."
The girl gestured at the glass in his hand.
"Are you going to want a refill?"
He stared for a second at the amber liquid in the glass, then tossed it off.
"Damn straight," he breathed.
The liquor's fire warmed his insides and he suddenly felt a little stronger.
He didn't much like the idea of going into the corridor where the rest rooms were to use the pay phone there, but he didn't have much choice. He could hardly use the bar phone to call any of his friends, asking them to put him up under cover until this thing blew over. That would get ears listening and he didn't want that at all. He was paranoid, sure.
Owens could practically taste his own paranoia. He reminded himself that he had damn good reason to be afraid, on the run as he was from the meanest damn widow-maker to ever hit Chicago.
The waitress came over with his second drink and he disposed of it with one gulp.
Then, gathering what he recognized as alcohol-induced courage, he left the booth and made his way through the crowded, noisy bar to the corridor that opened up behind a curtain of beads on the left-hand wall of the bar.
This was actually the connecting corridor between Jimmy Kidd's and Sheba's. The rest rooms there served both establishments. Three pay phones adorned the wall.
He went to the first phone, dug in his pocket for change and fed coins into the slot.
The dial tone buzzing in his ear was a comforting sound.
He had just lifted his right hand to punch the digits of the number he wanted when strong, hard fingers clamped down upon his right shoulder.
Rush Street runs north of the Loop between Michigan Avenue and State Street and it is about as varied a thoroughfare as anyone could want: numerous bars and clubs, from the top-notch to the sleazy. A multitude of restaurants offered a diversity of ethnic foods. The term "melting pot" could have been coined for Rush Street.
Bolan drove the Datsun down Rush.
Traffic was heavy as he looked for Jimmy Kidd's and Sheba's.
The soldier had little reason to think fondly of Chicago, considering that this and his previous visits to this City of Big Shoulders, as Robert Frost had termed it, invariably tied in solely with his War Everlasting.
Still, there was about this city a vibrancy, a vitality, an immediacy that he found invigorating and quintessentially American, for Bolan recognized that the history of this one-of-a-kind metropolis squatting on the southern shore of Lake Michigan was a microcosm of the whole of American history and experience, mirroring a nation's greatness as well as its dark side; its dreams and its nightmares.
He knew something of the Windy City's past: how French explorers and trappers like Marquette and Jolliet had braved the hostile, uncharted interior of an expansive new continent, mapping the area as early as 1673; how Fort Dearborn was established in 1803.
Prosperity had first come to Chicago in the wake of harbor improvements, lake traffic and the settling of the prairies.
From the ashes of the fire of 1871 had risen a city of stone and steel that had not yet stopped growing, burgeoning into the free-wheeling big town of today, boasting a population of well over three million, a vital Great Lakes port and a busy rail, air and highway hub.
Rapidly growing industries had brought thousands of immigrants to Chi around the turn of the century, imbuing the metropolis with its rich ethnic diversity that continued to thrive.
The opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 made Chicago a true city of the world, a major port for overseas shipping.
And if this wild and woolly, sooty, noisy, friendly town had gained itself a sometimes unsavory reputation, thanks to the likes of Capone, Accardo and Parelli, Chicago could claim equal fame for its symphony orchestra, its art institute, its civic opera and its natural history museum, barometers all of those heights of achievement in the arts and sciences of which the human spirit is capable.
The full array of the good, the bad and the ugly that Chicago had to offer were out in force along Rush Street this night.
The biting cold night wind snapped through the high, narrow canyons of this north-side district of clubs and restaurants. Shops attracted browsers, tourists, off-duty servicemen and down-and-out street people in droves around the clock, around the calendar, and this November weeknight was no exception.
Automobiles and human rabble made the night alive and slowed the Datsun's progress.
Bolan recognized the value of losing himself in the crush of people who clogged this multiblock stretch that is the principal Rush Street scene. He used the crawling pace to look for the establishments where he hoped to find Owens. As he cruised along in the traffic's flow, he thought of everything that had transpired during the short, roller-coaster ride since he had blown into Chicago earlier that night.
There had been intangibles about this mission from the beginning, but Bolan had vowed to take on the odds and deliver a strike against the Parelli empire in spite of those intangibles.
Parelli was worth Bolan's attention, damn right. The mobster had to be located and terminated.
Intangibles, yeah.
Bolan was convinced that there was more to this Chicago strike than he had first suspected. The warrior could sense a foul, evil undercurrent pulsing just beneath the surface, but time was running out too fast, and time was something Bolan had not had much of to begin with.
Bolan had never expected to survive his first assault on the Mafia those years ago when he had come home from Nam to avenge his family.
Vengeance, then, had quickly given way to duty, determination, when he fully understood the bigger picture. The Mafia was evil, sure, but it was only part of the problem.
And yet Bolan had lived his life since with the full expectation that every day could well be his last.
Thus far fate, luck, whatever, had seen him through mile after bloody mile, but Bolan understood that it could not last forever.
One day his luck would change and there'd be a bullet with his name on it. No matter.
Chicago was due for some cleansing fire.
He'd play Fate's game. He, too, had some aces up his sleeve.
He would not go to his death knowing that the truth had eluded him in Chicago.
Cold fury gripped his insides each time he thought of the sickness he had seen on Parelli's TV screen. He had to nail Parelli more than ever now, and he had to clear up this tangle before one more child came to harm.
There had to be something big, that was the only way it played, what with Parelli being so impossible to find. The Chicago boss had gone to ground and taken his terrible secrets and plans with him, but Bolan would find him, hell yeah, and Bolan would bust the thing apart so they'd never put it together again, no matter what it was.
And the best lead he had now was a creep he'd let slip through his fingers twice.
He would find Randy Owens.
He would learn the truth about Parelli and Griff and Senator Dutton and, he hoped, about a woman named Lana Garner.
If hesurvived.
Chicago seemed wired for the Executioner; there had been too many close calls already from the Mob and the cops, but Bolan would do it, yes.
He spotted his target.
Both the bar and the massage parlor had distinctive signs bearing their names and both had a steady flow of customers, Bolan saw as he cruised by.
The closest parking spot he could find on the busy street was two blocks away. He did not like being that far from his wheels, but there was little he could do about it.
He locked the car and strode back down the bustling sidewalk toward Jimmy Kidd's.
Owens almost fainted on the spot.
Heart pounding, he flung himself around, half expecting to find himself staring down the barrel of that goddamn cannon the Executioner carried.
Instead, he found himself looking up into a strong but attractive female face framed by a wild mane of fiery red hair.
"My God, Sheba!" Owens exploded. "You just about scared the shit out of me!"
The towering redheaded beauty cracked a coarse chuckle and jerked a thumb at the door of the men's room, a few steps away.
"Well, we're in the right place for that, aren't we, hon?"
She was taller than Owens by a couple of inches. The leotard she wore revealed the impressive musculature of her body, reminding Owens of the fact that she was a bodybuilder who spent every minute she could spare away from the running of the massage parlor, pumping iron, developing muscles that came in handy for dealing with customers who got a little too carried away in the parlor. The stamina she gained from her workouts made her a tireless sexual performer. Owens had used her in several movies.
"What's the matter with you anyway?" she asked, studying Owens more closely, noticing his somewhat disheveled appearance. "I've never seen you this scared."
"I've never had Mack Bolan after me, either," Owens snapped.
"Bolan?" The name burst out of her. "What's the Executioner want with you? No offense, Randy, it's just that... you don't seem the type he usually goes after."
"Don't I wish," Owens muttered, making a sour face. "Look, Sheba, can you and Jimmy hide me out for a little while? I'll get in touch with..."
He broke off abruptly, unsure of how much to tell Sheba. It suddenly occurred to Owens that perhaps he could not trust the woman.
"I'll work it out," he finished limply.
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.