Don Pendleton - War Against the Mafia

She giggled and relaxed against him. "If I have a choice, I'll take it flat on my back and breathing slow." "Okay," he said agreeably, "-at least we've got the display-window starch out of you."

"What?" She had fallen back onto the bed, tiredly drawing her legs onto the edge.

"All that posturing and posing," Bolan explained. "You put that on for all your callers?" "I never get any complaints," she assured him. He dropped his knees to the floor and encircled the lush female body with an arm, raking his lips across the torso, pausing momentarily at the breasts, then onto the throat and lingering on the pouting lips. "This is more like it," she said a moment later, sighing and running hands along his back. He doubled one of her legs and drew it forward, kissed the knee, kneading the leg and thigh with both hands.

"You, uh, like legs?" she asked, a new light beginning in the depths of her eyes. "I like yours," he told her. "But probably not in the way you're wondering. I'm just trying to discover where you tick."

"Hell, I tick all over," she said quickly. His hands had moved onto her hips, fanning along the heavy cones of firm flesh, and up into the juncture of legs and body. The raised leg jerked involuntarily and she inhaled sharply. He was grinning at her. "Well, okay, so I tick some places better than others," she admitted. "Are you going to, uh, get up here on the bed with me?"

For reply he pushed, pulled, and rolled her over and ran his hands along the back of her, hesitating here and there to probe sensitive spots. The blonde was beginning to puff again. "Say," she said, "say..."

"Yeah?"

She lunged about and flung her arms about his neck, mouth eagerly seeking his. He went onto the bed then and they lay in tight embrace, limbs intertwined, mouths joined, her hips moving rhythmically against him.

He withdrew from the urgency of her mouth and said, "Now, that's the proper movement for the bed set"

"Okay, Professor," she puffed, "-on with the lecture." Her mouth again grafted onto his, the heavy globes of breasts worrying frantically against his chest. Both hands came down off his neck and moved between them, searching, grasping.

He evaded her, saying, "I haven't seen your steam yet."

"God, God-how much steam you want a girl to have? I'm going nuts all over."

He rolled to the other side of her, carrying her over atop him, lifting her high, head beneath her chin, and buried his mouth in the luxurious flesh. She gasped and flopped, hammering at him with her hips, whining, entreating. Some moments later he pushed her onto her back and rolled off the bed to stand beside it and gaze down at her. Her knees and arms lifted together and her eyes were pleading. "Please," she moaned, "please..."

Bolan smiled approvingly, murmured, "Now you're a woman," and fell onto her.

She arched up to meet him, capturing him in a death-grip with all four limbs. "Yes, yes, yes," she panted, then her midsection exploded in a convulsive grasping, and it was not until some moments later that she was able to complete the statement. "I am a woman," she declared languidly.

"Hell, don't I know it," Bolan said tiredly.

All tests were A-OK.

An unexpected caller presented himself at the door of Mack Bolan's Liberty District apartment in the early morning hours of August 31st. Bolan grunted with surprise, swung the door open, and admitted Detective-Lieutenant Al Weatherbee. The see-all cop's eyes made a fast appraisal of the expensive lodging, then settled onto the slightly exasperated tenant

"Consider this a friendship call," the policeman said, smiling tightly. "I want-"

"Five in the morning is a bit too early for friendship," Bolan observed.

"A friend in need doesn't know the time of day," Weatherbee advised him. "I just dropped by to pass along an interesting piece of information."

Bolan was not being a gracious host. He left the lieutenant standing in the center of the living room and went back to the small kitchen. He put a pot of water on the stove, pulled two cups and a jar of instant coffee from a shelf, then turned sleepy eyes toward the front of the apartment. "Come on back here," he called.

The huge bulk of the detective moved into the narrow dining compartment. Bolan was perched on a high stool at the breakfast bar. "Coffee be ready in a minute," he announced in a thick voice. "What'd you say about some information?"

Weatherbee nodded. "Came by way of an informant." He settled tenuously onto a stool, sitting sideways and studying Bolan's face in the dim light. "A contract has been let on you, Bolan."

Bolan thought about it for a moment, then said, "I don't understand you."

"A kill contract," the policeman explained. "Somebody has set you up for an execution. Understand now?"

Bolan stared at him briefly, lit a cigarette, and glanced toward the pot of water. "Why does it take water so much longer to boil in the morning?" he asked soberly.

"You do know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, I know." Bolan slid off the stool and stepped to the stove, touched the pot experimentally with fingertips, then angled a penetrating gaze toward his companion of the early morning. "You trying to shake me up, or something?" he asked softly.

Weatherbee sighed and shook his head negative. "No, this is on the level, Bolan. Look, I've had you under observation. I've known that you've been playing some sort of game with these people. Well-now they know it. You didn't really expect to insult their intelligence forever, did you?"

Bolan dug a spoon into the coffee jar, extracted a heaping spoonful, and slid the jar toward Weatherbee. "You're speaking of the Matthews," he declared. The water pot was just beginning to sizzle. Bolan glared at it, then lifted it off the stove and poured hot water into his cup, swizzling the coffee crystals mechanically with one hand while pouring water into his visitor's cup with the other. "They haven't seemed so intelligent," he murmured.

"Many, many dead men have had that same first impression," Weatherbee said. He stirred his coffee and took an experimental sip, "They've pegged you, Bolan," he declared, exhaling noisily. "They know who you are -and obviously they know why you are interested in them. And there's a contract out, with your name on it."

"What can I do about it?" Bolan wondered aloud.

Their eyes met. Weatherbee smiled grimly and said:

"Run. As fast and as far as you can. Southeast Asia, if you can get there."

Bolan shook his head. "I'm not running anywhere. How long has this, uh, contract been in effect?"

Weatherbee glanced at his watch. "About four hours, if my informant's information is accurate."

"And how long does it take them to get something going?"

Weatherbee shrugged the massive shoulders. "Not long. They must figure it as a fairly easy hit. The price on the contract, I'm told, is only five thousand." He sighed. "To tell the truth, Bolan, I rather half expected to find you already dead when I came up here."

"Why all the intrigue?" Bolan wanted to know. "I've been under their noses for days. Why the cat and mouse routine? They could have taken me any time."

"Why yours?"

"Huh?"

The big cop smiled. "Why have you been holding off? Your object is to kill them-and don't bother denying or confirming that, I don't expect you to. It's a matter of modus operandi, isn't it. The same is true of the Mafia. Contract killings are their way." He pushed the coffee away from him with a grunt. "The coffee is lousy. You didn't let the water boil. Well..." He got down off the stool, placed his hands on his hips and rocked back, stretching himself. "...I've told you. That's my duty, as I see it. It's all I can do, unless you want to request protective custody."