Don Pendleton - Continental Contract

He acknowledged the strong possibility that Rue Galande held nothing of further interest for the Executioner, but it was also his only starting point. It would be here or nowhere, and he had decided upon here.

He made several passes of Madame Celeste's, then left the car on Rue St. Jacques and returned on foot to a small sidewalk cafe which afforded him an unobstructed view of Celeste's front door. He dawdled there over coffee for some twenty minutes, during which time there was no traffic in or out of the Madame's — a normal condition for this time of day. Then he walked down to a modest hotel directly opposite the house of joy and rented a room on the third floor, front. As a soft drop it was perfect — and he had an interesting view from there of most of the neighborhood.

The manager of the hotel, a nervous man of about fifty, explained to Bolan that he was extremely fortunate to have found such a vacancy — actually the house had been filled with a Swedish touring party until that very morning. A gunfight in the street just outside had unnerved his guests and they had checked out shortly thereafter. Actually, though, this was a very quiet neighborhood where such a disturbance was extremely rare, and M'sieur must have no worries concerning a repetition of the morning's disturbance.

Bolan thanked the man and assured him that he was not worried. He also asked a few offhand questions and learned that none of the establishments of the neighborhood had been involved in the disturbance, non, it had been merely a passing disturbance of the street. This suggested to Bolan a thing or two concerning the official protection being enjoyed by Madame Celeste; her house had not become involved in the police investigation. Bolan idly wondered just how high that protection extended. A veil of official disinterest would work as well to Bolan's favor as to the enemy's.

As soon as the manager left him alone, Bolan opened the gun case and assembled the machine pistol, attached and adjusted the neck strap, loaded the weapon, and placed it on the bed. Then he undressed, down to the black nightsuit, took the .45 rig from the briefcase, double-checked it, and buckled it to his waist. Extra clips for the machine pistol went into the belt pouches. He tried on the new weapon again, letting it dangle from the neckstrap in front of him, found this awkward, and readjusted the strap for an under-arm hang. This felt better. He removed both rigs then and placed them on the bed, removed his crepe-soled sneakers from the briefcase and put them with the weapons, then went to the window to begin a patient surveillance.

It soon became evident that someone other than Bolan was interested in the neighborhood. An odd-shaped automobile, perhaps a Citroen, had taken up a peculiar patrol of the street below. Bolan clocked the interval between passes at an average of five minutes. The reversing directions of travel suggested a figure-8 circling of the neighborhood. He could not read police into that maneuvering.

At five o'clock other things began to happen. First a lone man of rather nondescript appearance approached the house of Celeste, went past for about ten steps, then crossed to Bolan's side of the street and out of sight. A light in the lobby across the way flashed on, off, then back on. Immediately the man reappeared below Bolan's window, crossed the street, and went into the maison de joie. Others had obviously been watching his performance; they began drifting in from both ends of the street, in ones and twos. Bolan counted eleven entrants, each of them fairly young and casually dressed.

The Citroen continued the patrol. Nightfall was approaching, lights springing on here and there along the street. The cafe trade was moving inside; bistro time was looming. Across the way, however, all was dark except for the dim lights of the lobby.

At a few minutes before six o'clock a light went on upstairs. The blinds were open; Bolan was looking into the upstairs chambre de soir'ee. A man appeared briefly at the window and then the blinds were drawn. Moments later a door at the third floor balcony opened and a woman stepped outside. Bolan could not see her too well in the failing light but he could see that her hair was touseled and she seemed to be doing a great deal of yawning and stretching. The woman then went back inside and a light came on, muffled behind heavy draperies. Bolan grinned. The mademoiselles were coming out of the sack; another working day was beginning.

Something was wrong, though. Some minutes later a young man approached the house, went hesitantly to the door, and rang. Madame Celeste appeared briefly in the open doorway, some sort of discussion took place, the door closed. Too early? The man stood there for a moment, then turned to stare across the street. Even in the dim light Bolan could read the disappointment there. The youth swung angrily away and went back the way he had come. During the next hour this same act was repeated twice, but with different callers. Meanwhile the Citroen continued the merry-go-round.

Bolan watched, pondered, and waited. Obviously Celeste was not open for business. But at least eleven men were inside that house. A private party? Hell no. The entire thing had an ominous smell — precisely what Bolan was hoping for.

One lingering far-out possibility cautioned Bolan and kept him waiting. Those eleven men inside could be French cops, planted early into a hard drop. The Citroen could be an outside patrol, and in radio contact with those inside. Somehow, though, the scene did not ring with cops. The thing reeked of a Mafia hardset, but Bolan was not yet ready to bet any cop's life on the accuracy of his intuitions.

The Executioner could wait. Patience was a tool of his trade. Often he had lain unmoving in a clump of high grass for hours with Viet Cong moving all about him. Once he had sat submerged to the chin in a rice paddy for ten hours awaiting an opportunity to fulfill his mission. The hotel room on Rue Galande was much more comfortable than a rice paddy.

As the night moved in, so did the Latin Quarter atmosphere. Small groups of students of both sexes paraded about the street, moving from joint to joint. Snatches of conversations, uttered in a dozen languages, drifted up to Bolan's drop, mixing with the distantly muffled rhythms of jazz and rock music — here and there a congregation in the middle of the street as groups of youngsters stopped to talk or exchange information — and the ever-present Citroen threading its way through it all.

At ten o'clock the other side began showing an edginess. The Citroen tooted its horn on a pass of the house and kept moving. Seconds later two men came out and moved down the street. Bolan watched them intently. The car came around again and halted beside the men. The driver got out and stretched himself during a brief discussion from the rear seat, then he reentered the vehicle and drove on.

The two men from the house crossed the street and into Bolan's blind area. A pair reappeared moments later, crossed back, and went into the house. Moments later another two came out and went the other way. This time Bolan saw the switch. A man swung out of a shop front just up the street, another crossed over. The four conversed briefly, then the two outside men went on to the house and the other two took their places.

Bolan grinned. A bottle operation, with the Citroen as kicker. This said something very definite for the identity of the crew. Bolan could not mistake that set. It was typically Mafia.

He decided to make his move while they were un-kinking and stirring around. He buckled on the .45 and swung into the pistolet, donned the crepe-soled sneakers, and went into the hallway. A dim bulb near the stairs was providing the only illumination at that level. The sound from a television program drifted up the stairwell from the lobby. No other interior sounds could be discerned.