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  Then came the flash of motion at the edge of vision, and he was lunging clear of the Mercedes, allowing his own bodily motion to jerk his hand free of the clutch pedal. The powerful vehicle leapt forward like an arrow from a bow, the slamming door missing Bolan's shoulder by a hair, and Bolan completed his roll with both pistols in his fists.

  "We've beat him!" Pena yelled triumphantly.

  "We better had?' Tommy Edsel cried. "At a hunnert'n ten I ain't stoppin' nowhere soon!"

  And then they were flashing into the intersection and catching first glimpse of the blue sports car nestled just outside the junction on the intersecting road. For a startled instant Pena wondered what the guy was doing on his knees beside the car; another microsecond and his finger was tightening on the trigger of his gun even as wheelman Tommy Edsel's reflexes began deciding to brake and turn.

  The blue lightning bolt proved faster than Tommy Edsel's reflexes, however, and his foot was still heavy on the accelerator when the other car leapt into the intersection with a powering screech.

  Willie Walker screamed, "Look out . . . !" just the Mercedes crunched against the right front fender in a grinding impact of protesting metal and showering glass. The velocity of the heavier car swung the Mercedes into a centrifugal tailspin, almost welding it to the side of the Mafia vehicle in another shattering impact. Willie Walker was thrown over Bonelli's head and rag-dolled into the windshield almost directly in front of Tommy Edsel. Harold the Greaser screamed something in Italian as Capistrano and Pena descended on him.

  Expert wheelman Tommy Edsel fought the crazily spinning motion of the paired vehicles for another microsecond, and then the Mercedes was falling away, leaving the larger car to plunge on alone. The rear wheels moved out in front, jumped the shoulder, and then they were shuddering into soft sand and the big car was heeling over and going into its first roll.

  Bolan had only a momentary glimpse of contorted faces and two protruding gun arms and then the two cars were together and moving away from him in a spinning plunge along the main road. He ran along in pursuit but was far behind even before the Mercedes dropped away and spun off into the scrubby desert. It seemed to be happening in slow motion, with the big vehicle coming around in a gentle swing and leaving the highway several hundred feet beyond. Its rear wheels slid gracefully onto the sand, dug in, and the heavy car began rolling sideways in a wide arc back toward the intersection, disgorging curiously flopping bodies along the way. Bolan counted six rolls before the journey ended in a wheels-up settling of mangled metal.

  Tommy Edsel was still clutching the collapsed steering wheel when Bolan reached the wreckage. Blood was oozing from both corners of his mouth as he hung there in the seat belt. The entire front seat had moved forward; Tommy's chest had apparently been crushed by the steering wheel, but he turned his head and gave Bolan a glazed, upside down stare. Bolan shot him once between the eyes and moved around to the other side of the inverted automobile.

  Bonelli was twisted into a caved-in section of the roof, partially pulped and obviously dead. Bolan wrestled his head clear, just the same, and shot him between the eyes. Then he began the back track of strewn bodies.

  Willie Walker was the nearest. Part of his head was missing and the legs were bent into an impossible configuration under his back; Bolan had to settle for a bullet between where the eyes had been.

  Harold the Greaser Schiaperelli was next. He was partially decapitated and one hand was missing. Bolan drilled another hole between the gaping eyes.

  Mario Capistrano lay on his side in the sand. He was weeping and contemplating a number of jagged ribs which protruded from his side. Bolan rolled him face up, said, "Close your eyes," and promptly gave him a third one which could not be closed.

  Lou Pena was on his knees, watching Bolan's advance. His right arm was missing, from the elbow down. The nose was smashed and two teeth protruded through his lower lip. In a strangely quacking Donald Duck voice, he said, "I got it. I got Bolan's head."

  "Do tell," Bolan said, and shot him between the eyes. He caught the torn body as it toppled forward and felt through the pockets, finding Brantzen's sketch next to Pena's heart.

  Bolan struck a match and held the flame under the sketch, turning it carefully to insure an even burn. Then he scattered the ashes in a fine powder across the sands as he retraced his steps to the roadway. He returned to the Mercedes, looked it over, and wrote it off. He opened the gas tank and encouraged a flow across the parched land until he was a safe distance removed, then he struck another match and touched it to the spillage.

  The flames raced quickly along the gasoline trail. Bolan was already trudging toward the Palm Springs and did not even look back when the explosion came. A terrible force was afoot in the land, he was thinking, when a man like Jim Brantzen could be reduced to a mound of mutilated meat by the likes of that back there.

  And there were more, like those back there, up there across that horizon. Mack Bolan's new horizon had never been closer, nor more passionately sought. Death on the hoof was moving toward Palm Springs.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The squeeze

  The sun was approaching the high point in the sky when Bolan staggered into Palm Springs, picked up a taxi, and went on to his hotel. The desk clerk gaped at this appearance and said, "Did you have an accident, Mr. Lambretta?"

  "I lost my car," Bolan told him. "Get me another one just like it, will you."

  The clerk's chin dropped another inch. "Yes sir," he replied crisply.

  "Send up a couple of buckets of ice."

  "Yes sir, and the liquids that go with it?"

  "Just the ice," Bolan said tiredly. "I'll need the car in an hour." He swung about and wobbled toward the elevator.

  "Uh, Mr. Lambretta, we might have to compromise a bit on the color. The Mercedes, I mean."

  "I said just like it," Bolan snapped back. He went on up to his room, stripped off the sweat-soaked clothing, and moved immediately to the bath. Shocked by his own dust-streaked image in the mirror, he scowled at the still strange mask of Frank Lambretta, stepped into the shower, and luxuriated there for several minutes, frequently raising his face into the spray to suck the water into the parched membranes of his mouth and throat.

  Two small plastic containers of crushed ice were on the dressing table when he returned to the bedroom. The dust— and sweat-encased clothing had been removed; his revolvers lay on the bed beside a layout of fresh underwear.

  Bolan got into the underwear and stuffed a small snowball into his mouth, then reached for the telephone and called the unlisted number in DiGeorge's study. Phil Marasco's voice broke into the first ring. "Yes?" he said softly.

  "This is Frank," Bolan said. "Tell Deej that order's been filled."

  A short pause, then: "Okay, Franky, I'll tell him. Where are you?"

  "At the hotel. I'm beat. I'll be in pretty soon."

  Bolan could hear DiGeorge's quiet rumble in the background but could not distinguish the words. Marasco said, "Deej wants to know about the picture."

  "What picture?"

  "The subject was supposedly carrying a surgeon's sketch of another interesting subject. Do you have it?"

  "Of course not, Bolan snorted. "I don't go around collecting souvenirs."

  Another background rumble, then: "He wants to know where you left that contract."

  "Where the mountain meets the desert," Bolan reported cryptically, "and where one subject might wait for another."

  "Okay, I got that. Deej says come home as soon as possible."

  "Tell Deej I took a five-mile stroll in the sun. Tell him I'll be home when I can forget that."

  Marasco chuckled. "Okay, Franky, I'll tell him. Get yourself rested, then come on out. There's things you should know about."

  "I'll be there," Bolan said. He hung up, stared at the floor for a moment, then opened a fresh pack of cigarettes, lit one, and stretched out across the bed.

  "Yes, I'll be there," he repeated in a dull monotone, speaki
ng to himself. "With bells."

  Philip Marasco led the search party out the little-travelled desert blacktop which links Palm Springs and Palm Village. Two cars, each carrying five men, made the short trip to the crossroads and found the scene of Franky Lucky's "hit" with no difficulty whatever.

  The ten Mafiosi ran excitedly about the scene of action, poking, pointing, and animatedly reconstructing the details. Marasco searched each body thoroughly, went over the vehicle with precision, then arranged his troops at arm's-length intervals for a wide scrutiny along the entire length of the death car's travel.

  Returning to the villa, Marasco dolefully reported to his Capo, "If Lou had a sketch, he must've ate it. And you should see the mess this Franky Lucky made of those boys. I never saw nothing like it."

  "It don't make sense that he had no sketch," DiGeorge argued fretfully. "He had to have something up his sleeve or he wouldn't have been beating it back here. I guess there was nothing left alive, eh?"

  "Not hardly," Marasco replied, shuddering. "There wasn't hardly anything left even whole. I never saw such a mess. This Franky Lucky is a mean contractor. And let me tell you, Deej, he don't mess around on a hit. Remember those six-to-one odds we was talking about last night?"

  DiGeorge soberly nodded his head. "Didn't mean much, eh?"

  "It wouldn't have meant anything at twelve to one, Deej. I tell you, when this Franky Lucky does find himself a piece of that Bolan, I want to be around to see what happens."

  DiGeorge was staring thoughtfully into empty space. He noisily cleared his throat and said, "I wonder if you've thought of something, Phil. I wonder if you realize that someone has been playing games with old Deej."

  Marasco inspected his Capo's face, found no clue to his thoughts, and replied, "What kind of games, Deej?"

  "What was it Franky Lucky was telling me about this fight he had with Bolan? He said he saw Bolan down at the corners, and he recognized him, and they shot it out. And this was just a few days after Bolan ducked us over at th' Village. Right?"

  "Yeah." Marasco was chewing the thought. "But I . . ." His eyes widened and he said, "Whuup! Willie Walker says on the phone that Bolan got his face carved the day of the hit."

  "That's just what I been thinking, Philip Honey," DiGeorge mused. "Now somebody has got a story crossed. I wonder who?"

  "Why would Franky want to cross you up, Deej?"

  "That's what I have to wonder about, Phil. We're just saying if, now. If Screwy Looey was telling it straight. Have you ever caught Lou in a lie, Phil? I mean ever? An important lie?"

  Marasco was thinking about it. He shook his head and replied, "I don't believe Lou ever gave you anything but a straight lip, Deej. But we got to remember one thing. Lou could have thought he had something. Maybe someone else wanted him to think that."

  "You ever know any boys that got face jobs, Phil?"

  "Yeah. It used to be the fashion back East."

  "How long before they're out of bandages?"

  "Oh, two or three weeks."

  DiGeorge grunted. "And the boys I knew, they went around with puss pockets and Band-Aids for sometimes a month after that. It's a messy thing, this face job."

  "They're even moving hearts around from body to body now, Deej. Maybe they got better ways to give face jobs now, too."

  "I want somebody to find out about that," DiGeorge commanded.

  "Sure, Deej."

  "Meanwhile, Franky Lucky is right back in probate. If Bolan did get a face job, Franky didn't see him at no desert corners a few days later, no matter how fancy they get with face jobs. There's only one of two ways, saying that Bolan did get carved. He either saw him in bandages, or he saw him wearing the new face. Now that's plain, ain't it? Franky Lucky could not have recognized Bolan three days after a face job!"

  "That's a fact, Deej," Marasco said. He appeared to be slightly out of breath. "Saying, of course, that Lou had the straight lip, then Franky Lucky has been using a curved one."

  DiGeorge sighed. "That's a fact, Philip Honey." He sighed again. "You say the boy shoots a hard hit, eh?"

  "You'd have to see what I saw, Deej, before you could ever know."

  "Wouldn't it be hell," DiGeorge said tiredly, "if Franky Lucky turns out to be this Bolan's new face."

  Marasco lost his breath entirely. His face paled. "I wouldn't go that far, Deej," he puffed.

  "I would," DiGeorge stated matter-of-factly. "That's why I'm the Capo, Philip Honey. I would. When is Victor Poppy due in?"

  "L.A. International at two o'clock," Marasco replied mechanically. "Franky might have lied a little, Deej. About shooting it up with Bolan. Just to get your attention."

  "I thought of that, too. I have to think of everything, Phil. Don't worry, I'm thinking. I sure want to see this gift Victor's bringing us."

  "I'd have to guess that Franky Lucky is straight, Deej," Marasco stated, phrasing the strongest argument he dared.

  "You do the guessing, Phil," DiGeorge replied with a weary smile. "I'll do the thinking."

  Bolan stopped at a secluded public telephone booth and gambled on finding Carl Lyons at the contact number. The gamble paid off. Lyons immediately asked, "What do you know about the events at Palm Village early this morning?"

  "Enough," Bolan said. "I'll trade some intel with you."

  "No trades," Lyons clipped back. "Tim Braddock's at the point of death, and the most grisly damn piece of . . ."

  "I know all about it, Lyons," Bolan said humbly. "Will Braddock make it?"

  "The doctors are hopeful, At the very best though, he'll be out of things for quite a while."

  "He's a good cop," Bolan said, genuinely regretful.

  "Better than some I know," Lyons replied in a faint self-mockery. "What'd you call about, Pointer?"

  "My cover's in danger. I need some intel."

  "Just a minute . . . Brognola's here and frothing. He was doubling up between us and Braddock, and . . . just a minute, Pointer."

  Bolan heard a whispered consultation, then the light click of another receiver coming on the line.

  "Okay," Lyons said. "Brognola's on with us. You give us some words first. Who made that hit up there this morning, besides Pena?"

  "I don't know all the names, but you can identify the remains," Bolan replied. "You'll find them scattered around the junction of the Palm Springs high and low roads. Six of them, including Pena."

  "All dead," Brognola's smooth voice stated.

  "That's right," Bolan said. "Now can we talk about my problem?"

  "Who killed them?" from Brognola.

  "Call it a double contract," Bolan said. "Julian DiGeorge got the idea that Pena has been informing. The other five boys were siding with Pena."

  "Then the rubout had no connection with the murders of the Conns and the plastic surgeon?" Brognola asked.

  "I didn't say that," Bolan replied.

  Lyons snarled. "This guy is playing games with you, Hal. Bolan, you executed those men, didn't you!"

  "Who's he talking to?" Bolan asked Brognola.

  "They found out that Brantzen had altered your face, and they went up there to wring something out of him! That much is obvious so save all of us the time and stop playing games. You happened along, saw what they'd done to your doctor friend, and went gunning for them. Now you're saying that your cover is in jeopardy. What kind of information did Pena get back to the mob before you killed him, Bolan?"

  "Just a moment, before you answer that, Mr. Pointer," Brognola said. "Please don't leave the line."

  Again the sounds of a muted, off-phone discussion came to Bolan's ears. Then Brognola came back on. "Mr. Pointer," he said, "we appreciate the work you've been doing for us, and we have no wish to compromise your position. You don't have to say anything to incriminate yourself."

  "Fair enough," Bolan replied.

  "We are not questioning your identity. Just tell us this much. Were the murders at Palm Village this morning ordered by Julian DiGeorge?"

  "No," Bolan said. "
It was all Pena's idea."

  "I see. And now Pena and his squad are dead."

  "That's right."

  "At DiGeorge's orders?"

  "There was a contract out on Pena"

  "I see," Brognola replied with some confusion.

  Bolan sighed. "Okay, Lyons," he said. "I don't want you people to start questioning my intel. You're right, it's no time for games. Besides, I'm about as incriminated as one person can get already. This is Bolan. I've penetrated the DiGeorge family, and I pulled off the hit on Pena this morning. I was acting purely for myself on that one, though. You saw, or heard, what they did to Brantzen."

  "Yeah," Lyons said softly. "Braddock gave a pretty good description of the guy who helped him, Bolan. It fits a man who was sitting in my car the other night, in Redlands."

  "Yeah," Bolan said. "About my problem."

  "Go ahead," Lyons sighed.

  "I hear that: the Commissione employs a private staff of enforcers. I need to know who runs that show."

  "That's your department, Hal," Lyons said.

  "Presently only ten bosses sit on the Commissione," Brognola reported. He rattled off the names. "You'll note that DiGeorge's name is not present. He walked out in a huff two years ago over some dispute about the narcotics traffic. He sits in from time to time, though, when some subject important to him comes up for discussion. Technically, he still has a voice on that council."

  "But there are tensions?" Bolan asked interestedly.

  "There are tensions," Brognola assured him. "The council wanted to regulate prices. DiGeorge won't go for it. He controls a big slice of their narcotic imports. He feels that the pricing is his affair, and he wholesales to the other families on his own terms. Yes, there are tensions."