Savannah Swingsaw te-74 Page 2

  "Uh-huh," Bolan said. "You think I'm pretty."

  The driver sighed, shook his head sadly.

  "Then again, I'll knew anything I wouldn't be driving this damn car spending all my morning with criminals, would..."

  "Guess not," Bolan said. He hated to come on so rough with the old cop, but he didn't want anybody getting the idea he was anything other than what he was pretending to be: a hardened career criminal. But, yeah, he knew what the driver meant because Bolan had seen the same look himself in the scum he'd been dealing with these past years. That arrogance in the expression, as if nothing else in the world mattered but what they wanted. As if there was no greater good than satisfying their enormous appetites.

  Yeah, he'd seen that look, even managed to blow it off a few choice faces. Now he had to wear it himself. The sneer, the swagger, the cruel talk.

  The driver's overweight partner opened the car door and climbed in, a clipboard in one hand, two doughnuts in the other. "Here, Gus," he said, handing one to the driver. "Jelly, just the way you like."

  "Thanks, Deke," Gus said, nodding, taking a big bite, licking the jelly from his lips. He gestured over his shoulder at Bolan. "What about him?"

  "Hell, it was tough enough wrangling these two. Those guys are more interested in guarding their doughnuts than this gate." He fastened his seat belt. "Besides, Gus, you'd think that damn scar on your neck woulda taught you what happens when you care too much about these cons."

  Gus shrugged, accelerated the squad car through the open gate.

  Despite himself, Bolan felt a sense of relief as they passed through the gate. As if tight metal bands had been snipped from his chest. He took a deep breath. Better not get too used to that feeling, he warned himself. In case things go wrong.

  "They did it again," Deke said, chuckling.

  "Did what?" Gus asked.

  "Last night, they hit Clip Demoines's bookie joint down in Augusta. Those guys at the gate were telling me about it. Broke in and trashed the place."

  "Cops?"

  "No, them night riders. The ones the papers are calling Savannah Swingsaw."

  "Jeez."

  "Yup. They chewed that place up with chain saws and axes, took the money and closed the joint down for good."

  "Demoines," Bolan interrupted. "Isn't he the local Mafia kingpin?"

  "As if you didn't know," Deke sneered, munching on his doughnut, crumbs powdering his chin.

  "Maybe this guy's not local," Gus said, referring to Bolan. "Don't sound local, anyway." Gus caught a yellow light and gunned the car through it. "Yeah, Demoines is connected. Runs most of Georgia, from Atlanta to Savannah. But not for long, not if this Savannah Swingsaw keeps up the pressure."

  "Just some other thugs muscling in," Deke said.

  "Not likely," Gus said. "Don't act like no Mob I've ever seen. All dressed in black with hoods, like them Oriental ninjas."

  "Kept these guys carry guns and axes and chain saws."

  "Guns or not," his partner said, "I'd hate to be in their hoods when Demoines's hoods catch up with 'em. I've seen some bodies he's ordered extinct. Hardly qualify as human afterward." He gobbled down the last bite of doughnut.

  "Well, the Swingsaw's hit him three times so far. Managed to get away each time without a scratch."

  "Just a matter of time, Gus. Time and manpower, and Demoines has got plenty of both."

  "That's true. Only this Swingsaw bunch seems to know its way around these Mob types. Kinda like that Mack Bolan fella used to."

  At the mention of his name Bolan looked up, startled. He listened to the conversation for a moment, then settled back into his seat, unconcerned. The Executioner was a master of role camouflage. It had worked for him in Nam many times, dressed as a peasant in a paddy, while the enemy walked by a few feet away, none the wiser. But sometimes no disguise is the best. The brain doesn't register what the eyes see. Now, as Bolan listened to the good-natured bantering in the front seat, he realized this was one of those times.

  "Hell, that guy was nuts, man. Taking on cops and the Mob."

  "Maybe," Gus said. "And you know I don't condone no vigilante behavior. Only this Bolan, he was different. Seemed to know the difference between the law and justice. Wasn't afraid to do something about it, neither."

  "Don't matter. He was then and this is now, Gus."

  "Could be this Savannah Swingsaw is Mack Bolan. Same MO. And word's gotten around he ain't dead at all, like they was saying before."

  Bolan rapped his handcuffs against the screen.

  "Hey, just where is this Demoines guy located?"

  "What's it to you?" Deke asked.

  "Might want to look him up when I get out. Guy with that kind of dough might be looking for a few good men. If the price is right."

  Deke snorted.

  "He may not be around when you get out of jail, Blue. If you get out alive, that is."

  5

  "You know those prison movies where the new fish comes in and his cellmate is this muscle-bound asshole that tells him to take the top bunk or else get his head busted?"

  Bolan nodded. "Yeah."

  The muscular black man in the wheelchair looked at Bolan menacingly. "Well, you got the top bunk, new fish."

  Bolan didn't move. "What if I'm afraid of heights?"

  The man rolled his wheelchair to within three inches of Bolan's feet.

  "How do you feel about a shank in your gut?"

  Bolan aimed up to the top bunk, bounced on the thin mattress. "Hmm, not as high as I'd thought."

  The black man in the wheelchair grinned.

  "Well, well, fish. You're a lot smarter than most guys in here. One look at me in this chair and they figure they can take me. All they got to do is maybe tip over my chair or run around behind me. Some tried." He chuckled in a gruff rumble.

  Bolan jumped down from the bunk, carrying his toothbrush to the sink. The black man whirled his chair around faster than Bolan thought was possible in the small cell. He was in his late thirties, but his arms were huge globes of muscles with thick veins crisscrossing his forearms like underground cables.

  His chest was equally as developed, slabs of dark stone straining at the cotton prison shirt.

  Only the legs looked out of place, shriveled stems flopping limply from side to side as he moved the chair.

  "My life story isn't any of your business, chump, so don't ask," he snapped, catching Bolan's stare.

  "Right," Bolan said. He didn't have to ask.

  He'd seen men like that before. And there was a look in the man's eyes, the kind of hidden pain recognizable only by someone who'd shared at least a glimmer of that pain. Bolan splashed some cold water on his eyes and turned to face the man in the wheelchair.

  "Nam?"

  The black frowned with surprise, nodding slowly.

  "When?" Bolan asked.

  "Sixty-six, near Saigon. We bulldozed some rubber plantations near the Cambodian border."

  Bolan nodded. "Operation Cedar Falls."

  "Yeah, that's right. You there?"

  Bolan hesitated. He heard a hopeful note in the man's voice, but being in Nam wasn't part of the biographical file he and Brognola had created for Damon Blue. If there was going to be any chance at all of this, mission succeeding, he'd have to stick to the script. "Nah, I wasn't there. My brother had a friend. He yapped about it all the time."

  "Sure," the man in the wheelchair said bitterly. "Everybody had a friend. Shit." He spun his chair around and wheeled forward to the bars. "Just stay outta my face, Blue."

  "Fair enough. Only what's your name? I like to know whose face I'm staying out of."

  The big man in the wheelchair kept his back to Bolan, his dead knees pressed against the bars. He didn't bother answering.

  * * *

  "Lyle Carrew," Gordon Schultz said.

  He blew his nose into his napkin, then peeked into the napkin before crumpling it and tossing it onto his lunch tray. "That's his name. Shame about him being crippled and all."


  Bolan shrugged, spooned more tomato soup into his mouth. The food wasn't too bad, no worse than most hospitals, but there wasn't enough of it. He'd finished his Salisbury steak and beet salad and had given Gordon Schultz two cigarettes for his soup and half a pack of crackers. The information came free.

  Schultz stashed the smokes in his shirt pocket.

  "Cripple or not," he went on, "the guy can handle himself. Saw him bust the arm of Billy Fieldstone last week. Young Billy's from down Folkston way, that's Okefenokee Swamp land, and he's got a bit of the KKK in his blood. Figured Carrew was an easy target. Learned different real fast."

  "What's he in for?"

  "Lyle?" Schultz smiled. "He's 'waitin' trial like us. Only he ain't as smart. At least you and me was just practicin' our trade, tryin' to make a buck. You holdin' up the liquor store, me a bank. But Lyle there..." Schultz chuckled "...he was just havin' fun. Tore up a whole wing of the V.A. hospital. Dumped files, beat up a doctor, scared the hell outta the nurses. Tossed a desk and a coupla TV'S from the eighth-floor window. Took four cops to cuff him. Not bad for a guy in a wheelchair."

  Bolan stopped in midsip and looked across the room to where Lyle was eating at a table by himself.

  "Has a temper, huh?"

  "Damn straight. And that ain't the first time he tore that joint up. Last time he got thirty days. This time, I dunno. If he opens his smartass mouth to the judge...." Schultz shook his head to indicate it would be plenty of time. "They usually keep guys in wheelchairs in the infirmary, but Lyle put up such a fuss, you know, discrimination against the handicapped, that kinda crap, they stuck him in here with the rest of us. Some victory, huh?"

  Bolan shrugged. "That's his problem, not mine. He's just my cellmate." He pointed his spoon at a table across the isle where Dodge Reed sat hunched over his ice tea looking frightened. He seemed even younger than in the photograph Hal Brognola had shown him. "What's the kid doing here? Mess up on some fraternity prank?"

  "Him? That's, uh, Reed. Got some stupid first name, what is it? Chevy or Ford. Somethin' like that." Schultz laughed. "We got him coupla days ago from the downtown jail. Some kind of embezzlin' from a record store. Kid stuff. Well, he's going to do some growin' up real soon."

  Bolan kept his voice bored, indifferent.

  "Whaddya mean?"

  "See that guy over there? The one with the bullet head and the tiny eyes."

  Bolan followed Schultz's gaze to a tall lanky man stacking empty trays and glancing possessively at Reed. "Big fella."

  "Yeah, about six-six. Strong, too. Name's Bertrand Stovell, but calls hisself Rodeo. He's let it known that the Reed kid is his."

  Bolan studied Rodeo from across the room. There was the mean look in the eyes that Gus had talked about.

  Tattooed snakes crawled out of each sleeve of his shirt and coiled around his wrists like bracelets. He was completely bald except for one six-inch tail of braided hair at his nape.

  Reed glanced up from his tray once and saw Rodeo looking straight at him. Rodeo grinned, showing a set of brown, twisted teeth.

  Reed frantically looked back into ice tea.

  "Rodeo always get what he wants?" Bolan asked.

  Schultz snickered. "Mostly. Hell, just look at him. This ain't no federal pen, Blue. Not the Big A or anythin', where they got your hard-core dopers and killers. This is county, mostly made up of nonviolent types who're just pullin' their time, smokin' a little weed now and then. But basically they're just tryin' to get as much good time as possible to get out. They don't want no hassles. Problem is, we got a hell of a lot more cons in Georgia than we got cells, so the Big A, that's the Atlanta pen, been sendin' their overflow here. Screwed everythin' up, man. Those guys got their own rules, their own way of doin' shit, man. The rest of us just stay outta their way. Rodeo wants the Reed kid, fine. Who's gonna stop him? There'll be more tomorrow. One thing this place ain't short on, it's residents."

  6

  It was never dark.

  It was never quiet.

  The lights were everywhere, the noise constant. The hardest part was never being alone. And never being alone meant never feeling safe. It was like being back in the war, but with no place to hide. No jungle underbrush, no heavy darkness.

  Bolan's concentration on the problem of protecting Reed and planning their escape was never as complete as he liked because he was always watching his back, checking out any con who came within arm's reach as a potential attacker.

  Yet he continued to fine-tune his battle plan, mingling with other cons, gathering information as only those who'd spent time here would know. Together with what he'd learned from Brognola and what he'd been able to observe himself, Bolan had a pretty accurate picture of the place. Most of the 825 residents were housed in larger cells-two thirty-eight-man dorms, a bunch of sixteen-man cells and a sprinkling of two-to-four-man cells, even a few one-man isolation cells. There were no jobs, but most of the cells had TV'S. Still, boredom was the prison's worst enemy, distorting every action, making every grumpy aside a cause for fighting. The atmosphere was tense.

  And to make matters worse, the spillover from other prisons brought an even worse element.

  The average stay at Fulton had been thirty days, now there were real hard-timers. Contraband had been minimal, now it was rampant. Violence had been under control, now they were imitating Atlanta's policy, where prisoners were killed on "contracts" up to $2,000.

  Fulton was trying a few reforms to keep the less hardened cons from joining the hard-core punks.

  More frequent visitation, more recreation. It wasn't working. The really bad guys, like Rodeo, had more power over the average con's life than the entire prison system. That was the first lesson anyone interested in survival learned. All Bolan had to do was sit in his cell, go to meals and smoke in the exercise yard, keeping a discreet distance from the others but staying close enough to keep an eye on Reed. The rest of the time he perfected his plan.

  But even with that to occupy his mind, the ceaseless boredom of the place, mixed with the anxiety of watching his back, gnawed at him. The cell itself was cramped and stark, a little larger than a bathroom.

  It had bunk beds, two shelves, a sink, a toilet. Most of the other prisoners had decorated their walls with photos of family or raggededged pages torn from girlie magazines. Some with paintings or poems they'd done themselves.

  Lyle Carrew's cell was barren. Nothing adorned the walls. No TV. A hunk of string was stretched between two walls to hold some hand laundry, socks and T-shirt, but that was all. He had a couple of books on the wall shelf, which he told Bolan not to touch unless he wanted to lose an eye.

  He wasn't much company either. He sat in his chair or lay on his bunk, either reading one of his books or scribbling in a steno notepad. Bolan tried a couple of ruses to get him to talk, mostly to find out more about the prison routine, the kind of inside info — like which guards sold drugs or were employed by which prisoners — that even Brognola hadn't been able to find out. But Carrew ignored him.

  There wasn't much time. Zavlin's deadline for killing Reed was approaching. And to complicate matters, Reed was also in danger from that hardcase Rodeo. Bolan had to get to Reed first.

  His first opportunity came in the exercise yard. Reed was standing against the wall, watching a bunch of cons playing a rough game of three-on-three basketball. One of the guys, with two teardrops tattooed on his cheek, threw the ball at the guy guarding him, but the guy threw the ball back at him and the game went on.

  "You play basketball?" Bolan asked Reed, leaning against the wall next to him.

  Dodge Reed shifted nervously, looking around the yard for the nearest guard. He mumbled something.

  "Huh?" Bolan asked.

  "In high school. Played a little, if the team was far enough ahead or the starters all fouled out."

  Bolan laughed. "Used to wrestle some myself. That and football."

  Reed nodded, relaxing a little, but still tense.

  Bolan stud
ied the kid without looking at him. This would be the tough part. Telling him some Russian assassin was after him and would he mind explaining why.

  That might make Reed bolt and stay away from Bolan, which would make it impossible to protect him. Play it cool for now, Bolan told himself.

  Take it easy.

  "You serving or waiting?" Bolan asked.

  "What?" Reed look confused.

  "Serving your time or waiting for trial?"

  "Waiting for trial. Got held over in the prelim, set to go in two weeks. My lawyer's asked for a postponement." He shrugged.

  "We'll see." Bolan saw Lyle Carrew over by the weightlifting area, curling a couple of heavy dumbbells. There were a dozen or more other lifters tugging at the weights, their bodies pumped up with blood and muscle, slick with sweat, glistening in the hot sun like armor. Armor, Bolan thought, just what they're building. Something that warns others to keep their distance. Another wall within the walls.

  Bolan saw Carrew look at him, then away again, as if they were strangers. Bolan also saw Rodeo. Tall, lanky, mean. Walking toward him and Dodge Reed. His sleeves were rolled up and the fat tattooed snakes were more apparent now as they wound their way up his arms, their fanged mouths open and angry on each biceps. Their eyes were red, the only other color against the rest of the blue tattoo.

  His bald head reflected the bright sun, the little braid of hair bouncing off the back of his neck.

  Rodeo had his thumbs hooked in his pants, cowboy fashion. He wasn't alone. Two other rough-looking guys matched him step for step, though they fell off and waited about ten yards away as Rodeo approached Bolan and Reed.

  "Hiya, kid," Rodeo said to Dodge Reed, winking.

  Some of the other inmates who'd been standing nearby quickly drifted away. Apparently, Rodeo expected Bolan to do the same, because he suddenly gave him a harsh look.

  "You waiting for something, asshole?" Rodeo said to Bolan.

  "Yeah," Bolan replied. "A tan. And you're standing in my light."