Save the Children (12 page)

The kitchen noises from one direction and the ballroom sounds from the other continued unabated. No one had ventured into the narrow passageway connecting the two areas during the thirty or so seconds of this exchange between Bolan and Dutton. But Bolan knew that luck could not last forever.

"I've... only heard rumors," Dutton said haltingly, "but they could be rumors you haven't heard."

"You're stalling, Senator."

"All right, all right. It's... his mother. Parelli's mother."

That caught Bolan's interest, but he did not let Dutton know that.

"What about Denise Parelli?" he growled.

"Well, uh, it's unsubstantiated, but I've heard some people in the know suggest that... well, that David Parelli is a figurehead, that he only appears to run things, but somebody else is really pulling the strings. You know how those gangsters would feel about taking orders from a woman. The Mafia is sexist, to put it mildly."

Bolan frowned thoughtfully, wondering if he had finally found what he was searching for since he arrived in Chicago.

"Are you suggesting that the real head of the family is Denise Parelli?"

"That's what I've heard," Dutton answered with a nod. "It's just a rumor, but I've heard that Denise took over the reins when old Vito was fighting off the Big C. Everyone thought The Butcher was still running things, and after he died Denise didn't let go. Her son gets all the respect, but she tells him what, when and how much. But like I said..."

"Right," growled Bolan. "Just a rumor. Now tell me where Parelli is."

"I have no idea! We've never met. I only received phone calls from the man."

That was the only way it would be handled, thought Bolan, turning this provocative tidbit over in his mind even as he decided what to do about Dutton.

The senator sounded sincere enough and he was sure still scared enough. He was either telling the truth or he was a consummate liar, which, considering his line of work, was altogether probable.

It was not often Bolan heard something new from the underworld grapevine, but Senator Mark Dutton was close enough to the source that there just might be something to it, which put an interesting new twist on things.

Sleek, attractive Denise Parelli, the actual boss of a ruthless Mafia family, ruling things from behind the scenes with an iron hand?

Yeah.

Bolan could see it, all right.

The revelation didn't really change things that much, though.

There were still too many loose ends, too many dangling questions.

When the time came for the all-out blitz that would write a fiery end to the Parelli family... son, soldiers and maybe mama, too...

Bolan wanted no loose ends, no questions.

Dutton's eyes were darting left and right frantically, looking for the first opening so he could bolt from the man who had him cornered here, but no one had showed yet from either end of the passageway.

"W-well?" he asked Bolan. "You won't kill me, will you, Bolan?"

Bolan made up his mind. "Not this time, Senator. You just bought your life back."

Dutton sighed all the way from his shoelaces.

"Because of what I told you?"

"Because of the things you said to the crowd in that ballroom," Bolan corrected. "Because of a check for forty thousand dollars to a ghetto playground. That bought you your life, Senator. Clean up your act. You won't get another chance."

"I... I..." Dutton was too shaken up, then he found the words. "Thank you," he said fervently.

"And don't raise a ruckus while I'm on my way out of here, and maybe you'll be lucky enough never to see me again."

"W-whatever you say," Dutton replied, pale and trembling.

Bolan left the politician standing there and elbowed his way through the swing door, back into the ballroom.

For what seemed like a long time, Mark Dutton stood there, his ears ringing, his throat dry, his heart pounding, but it could not have been more than a couple of seconds before he forced himself to raise his eyes and look up and down the passageway.

The Executioner was gone.

Dutton did not care where, but that was all right. Just as long as Bolan wasn't here with that hard voice and those cold eyes.

The politician wondered what to do next. He pulled out a silk handkerchief and dabbed his sweaty brow.

Dread made him almost nauseated.

The door from the ballroom suddenly opened.

Dutton practically jumped out of his skin, jerking around to see who was there.

"Oh, there you are, Senator. I wondered where you had gone off to."

The mild voice belonged to Floyd Wallace, who ambled into the passageway to peer more closely at the visibly shaken Dutton.

"My God, Mark, what's wrong?" he asked. "You look like something's just scared you out of your wits."

Dutton held out his closed hand, then opened it, revealing to Wallace the marksman's medal clutched in his fingers.

"Bolan was here," he croaked hoarsely.

Wallace's eyes widened behind his thick glasses.

"He... knows?" he asked in a quiet voice that dripped menace. "About you?"

Dutton nodded.

"About us," he said.

Wallace pursed his lips.

"Hm, that's not good. What did you tell him?"

"N-nothing," Dutton lied, inwardly damning the stutter that fear had produced. "He didn't say a thing about you, actually, Floyd. He's incredible. He just... gave the impression of knowing."

Dutton saw no reason to mention the ideas he had voiced to Bolan about Denise Parelli.

The senator could see Wallace's brain clicking into high gear.

"Bolan is very clever. We know this. He could be bluffing, to learn more."

Wallace's tone was brisk and businesslike now. "We shall have to attend to Mr. Bolan. It's that simple."

"What do we do?" Dutton asked anxiously, eager to turn over the responsibility.

"How long has it been since he was here?"

"Just a few moments. You may have passed him on your way back here. He was pretending to be a reporter."

Wallace didn't give that a second thought.

"You notify the hotel security force that there is an intruder in the building, that he tried to rob you. I'll get word to my own people that Bolan is here."

"We... have people in the hotel?"

"Of course. You don't think I'd have come here otherwise, do you? A man of my position can't afford to take chances, Senator."

"What about Parelli?"

"I'll take care of that, as we've agreed upon. Satisfactory?"

Dutton nodded uneasily. He half expected to see Bolan come bursting back in there to pump him and Wallace full of holes.

"I... guess so."

Wallace smiled then, again transforming himself into the kindly figure the crowd in the ballroom had listened to a short while ago.

"Then, if you'll excuse me, I'll get things started. And I really have to get back to the orphanage. We're having a basketball tournament tomorrow. All the dormitories have teams and I can't disappoint the children by not being up bright and early for the finals."

He didn't wait for Dutton to respond, but turned and hurried back into the emptying ballroom.

Dutton watched Wallace go through the door.

It was hard to believe the mousy little man was as deeply involved in the whole operation as he was, thought Dutton, who wondered with more anxiety than ever what his own fate would be.

He cursed his weakness, and his needs.

If Bolan found out, there would really be hell to pay.

And Senator Mark Dutton would be burning right along with all the other lost souls.

Bolan went out through the big main doors of the ballroom and started down a wide corridor toward the lobby.

Smaller meeting rooms opened off the corridor.

The hotel lobby was huge, ornate, its ceiling three balconied stories high. Glass-enclosed elevators ran up and down one whole wall. In the center of the large open space was a fountain. On the opposite wall from the bank of elevators was the long counter where the hotel's guests checked in and out.

The security office was at the end of the counter.

Bolan was halfway across the lobby, almost to the gurgling fountain, when three men came hurrying out of the security office.

One wore a suit while the other two had on rent-a-cop uniforms, their heads swiveling from side to side as they anxiously cased the lobby.

Bolan knew they were looking for him.

The lobby was busy with guests checking in or leaving for the evening, plus the mass exodus of those who had attended the fund-raising dinner.

Bolan's pace never faltered as he moved to his right, circling the fountain, heading for a door marked Stairs.

In a high-rise hotel like this the stairs would not be heavily traveled. He could make it down to the basement garage and out onto the street that way.

Maybe giving the senator the white flag hadn't been such a bright idea, he told himself. Ditto, Randy Owens.

He wondered if he was going soft; or maybe, when it came to granting absolutes like life and death, some men deserved the benefit of a doubt.

Bolan reached the door to the stairwell and shouldered through it, casting a glance over his shoulder as he did so.

The security men back there hadn't seen him.

He let the door swing shut behind him and headed toward the steps to the garage... and came face-to-face with two security men, their uniforms identical to those in the lobby. The pair reached the top of the stairs, hurrying on their way from the garage to the lobby.

They looked jumpy, their hands hovering near holstered side arms as they gave him a careful going-over with suspicious eyes.

"What is it, officers?" he asked innocently.

"You just stand still," the one on his left ordered as Bolan came closer. "We got a report that a man answering your description tried to hold up somebody here in the hotel."

Bolan shook his head.

"Sorry, guys, but I don't know what you're talking about and I'm in a hurry."

He started forward.

The hotel cop on the right gestured at him.

"You're not going anywhere until you're cleared. You just come along with me back to the security office and we'll see what's what."

As he spoke, he reached down and started to un-holster the pistol at his hip.

"Really, officers, there must be some mistake," Bolan said, spreading his hands.

Then he brought those hands down sharply, chopping at both sides of the closest man's neck.

The man grunted in pain and went to one knee, but he was still able to yank the pistol from its holster.

Bolan lashed out with a foot and caught the guard's wrist with the kick.

The gun flew out of the man's numbed hand and clattered down the steps without discharging.

Bolan followed the kick with a sharp right cross that bounced the first man into the second, and they both went windmilling noisily down the steps toward the garage.

So much for that route of escape.

Bolan raced down the corridor that angled off from the landing.

He spotted a metal door at the end of the corridor. He tried it and found it closed but not locked.

He eased the door open, finding a storage area for the hotel's kitchen.

Large containers of foodstuffs lined shelves along the walls. On the other side of the room was a larger door that probably led into the kitchen. The storage room was empty at the moment.

He pushed the door open, striding through the storage room to the other door, heading through with a confident stride and an unconcerned expression, passing into the kitchen itself.

There were four men in the kitchen, not a chef's hat to be found among them. They did wear white outfits, though, and one of them had a menacing-looking meat cleaver in his hand.

Bolan grinned at them.

"Health inspection. Just go on about your business, guys."

The man with the meat cleaver stepped into Bolan's path.

"Don't give me that bullshit. There's no damn health inspection in the middle of the goddamn night. Now what are you doing back here?"

"Taking a shortcut," Bolan growled, dropping the pretense of good cheer. "Out of my way, pal."

The man's face flushed.

"You're the guy we heard about, the thief everyone's after." He glanced at one of his buddies.

"Call security, Al. I'll hold this guy until they get here."

He hefted the wicked-looking chopper meaningfully, glaring at Bolan.

"If that's what you want."

He turned the shrug into a punch, sliding the blow in over the cleaver before its wielder even knew what was going on.

The guy fell backward, the cleaver flying from his hand, and he slid several feet on the highly polished kitchen floor when he landed.

The other men retreated with all the speed of two souls who would rather be anywhere else in the world at that precise moment, letting Bolan know they had no intention of blocking his escape.

He headed for the outside door, not knowing what he would find on the other side. He pushed on through, out into the cold, dark shadows, knowing that those left behind in the kitchen would already be howling for the security men in the stairwell and in the lobby and elsewhere. There was no time to lose.

Two big dumpsters sat a few feet away, but Bolan saw nothing else in the narrow alley.

He glanced both ways.

The streets at each end of the alley were busy with traffic.

A car turned into the alley and came racing toward him.

He lifted the Beretta, ready to fire over the glare of the headlights, aiming for the windshield and the spot where the driver would be.

Before he could fire, the car practically stood on its nose as the driver applied the brakes, the screeching of rubber on pavement intensified by the confines of the alley.

The driver's door popped open and a voice he knew called out to him.

"Get in! Hurry!" a woman's voice urged from inside the Camaro.

Lana Garner had turned up again, just as Bolan had thought she would.

He ran to the driver's side of the car.

"Move over," he rasped.

In the shadows of the alley, he could not see her face but he had the feeling for a second that she was going to protest, then she climbed over the center console, letting him slide in behind the steering wheel.

He slammed the door, dropped the gearshift lever into drive and stomped on the accelerator.

The Camaro catapulted down the alley, picking up speed as Bolan swerved around the dumpsters.

He palmed the wheel into the turn at the end of the alley, shooting into a small gap between cars.

An irate driver honked on the street somewhere behind him.

Glancing at the woman, he saw in the glow from the instrument panel that her face was taut, expressionless.

"How did you know where to find me?"

"I didn't. I wasn't looking for you. I was just there in that hotel and spotted you, then security people started chasing you. I went back to my car and cruised around the hotel, looking for you."

He grinned at her spunk.

"That's easy. Senator Dutton. Nice to see you again, Lana."

"Nice to see you, too. You saved my hide earlier tonight. I'm glad I could return the favor."

Traffic had thinned out somewhat while Bolan was in the hotel, but the taxicabs changing lanes erratically and pedestrians everywhere made clear navigating impossible.

He steered the Camaro east, onto the Eisenhower Expressway, for a place to drive aimlessly for a while and talk.

"It's time to level with me, Lana. Just who are you and what's your connection with Dutton and all the rest of this? I know your name and that you plant homing devices in senators' cars. I do know your real name, don't I?"

The young woman took a deep breath.

"And I know yours, Mack Bolan. Your fame precedes you. When you were in the hotel tonight, did you see a man named Wallace, Floyd Wallace?"

Bolan nodded.

"I saw him. He was sitting at the podium with Dutton. Is he mixed up in this?"

On the face of it the possibility seemed farfetched to Bolan. He remembered the mild-looking Wallace.

"He's involved somehow," Lana said slowly, staring straight ahead through the windshield at the city lights as she spoke. "I'm just not sure Wallace ties in with the rest of it... or even what the rest of it is, if you want to know the whole truth."

"I want to know nothing but," Bolan told her.

"Until four months ago, I worked for Floyd Wallace," said Lana Garner. "I was the manager of one of his day-care centers."

Bolan's eyes narrowed. He rolled down his window several inches, letting the cold night air blow into the car. It felt good.

"What happened four months ago?"

She hesitated before answering.

"Three of the children at the center... disappeared," she finally went on. "It was terrible, having to face those heartbroken parents and tell them that their kids were just... gone."

"Wait a minute," he cut in. "What happened, exactly?"

She seemed to be staring into the past, upon that day again, as she spoke.

"The children were having their naps. I was watching them. We were a little shorthanded then, so I was the only one there. The phone in the office rang. I went to answer it. It was Mr. Wallace, and when I told him I was by myself, he told me to go back and watch the kids, that he would call again later. I went back into the other room, where the children were, and... and three of them were gone. Two little boys and a little girl."

Her voice broke, racked with emotion.

"It was horrible. I woke up the other children, but of course they didn't know anything. Whoever it was who came in there and got those kids, they knew what they were doing. And the worst part is I'm sure that wasn't the first time. I'm positive they'd done it before I came there!"

A coldness grew inside Bolan that had nothing to do with the icy night.

"What happened then?"

"I called the police, but then... they seemed to think that I had something to do with it.

"Mr. Wallace showed up and he was suspicious, too. He pretended to be sympathetic but he said that under the circumstances he'd have to let me go. He said he couldn't keep me on or all the other parents would pull their children out of the center. He was probably right about that. There was news coverage of the disappearances and my picture was on TV and in the papers."

She began to cry quietly to herself.

Bolan could not afford himself the luxury of comforting her, not when there were demons driving him and precious time lost by the second.

"What makes you think that other kids have disappeared from Wallace's facilities, besides the professionalism of that one job?"

Lana brushed her eyes with a finger.

"You've got to understand, I couldn't just leave things like they were. I've been working in the child-care field for years. The police lost interest in me soon enough, and that was virtually the end of it. So when I saw that the authorities weren't going to do anything, I started investigating on my own."

Bolan kept quiet, knowing it would be better to let her work her way through the story on her own.

"I started with Mr. Wallace. I don't know why exactly, but I just felt that something was wrong with his operation.

"I went down to the Hall of Records and started trying to trace the deeds on his properties. I found out that Mr. Wallace doesn't really own them."

Bolan raised an eyebrow. "Who does?"

"Some corporation I'd never heard of. A post office box operation called Tri-State, Inc. I did some more digging and came up with some interesting information on them. The corporation has more than a few underworld connections. It's just a front, in my opinion, for the Mafia.

"This corporation owns the buildings where Wallace operates. The day-care centers, the orphanage, everything. What does that tell you?"

"Nothing good," Bolan growled.

The dark-haired woman nodded emphatic agreement.

"That's not all. Tri-State, Inc. also happens to own the New Age Center and several other profitable business concerns. The principal stockholder and chairman of the board is none other than David Parelli.

"That's how I got interested in Senator Dutton. He's on the board of directors of the New Age Center."

"You were on the right scent," Bolan told her. "Dutton is in Parelli's pocket. Parelli's got an ironclad hold on him."

And not only that, Bolan thought, but Dutton had lied to him about simply being a member of the health club. Dutton was in this whole thing a lot deeper than he claimed to be. Maybe giving the guy a break had been a mistake...

"I won't ask what that hold is," Lana said. "I don't think I want to know. To get back to Wallace, once I uncovered all of this, I went after something even more concrete."

"You live dangerously," Bolan noted.

"I live honorably," she countered. "After tonight, I know how careful I'll have to be."

"What about Wallace?" he pressed.

"His main office is at the orphanage," she went on. "I used to work there sometimes, filling in when somebody was sick or on vacation. When Mr. Wallace fired me, he forgot to get the key to that office and the one to the side door back from me."

"You went right into his office?"

"Maybe it was dangerous. I was mad, I was out of a job and there were three kids missing.

"Anyway, I ended up walking out of there with an armload of files, enough to tell me what was really going on. Up to a point, anyway. There were all these kids, dozens of them, unaccounted for. It was like they were just systematically dropping off the face of the earth!"

Bolan felt fear gnawing at his gut.

Not fear for himself.

Fear that he stumbled onto the most repulsive form yet of Cannibal Man in all his savagery.

"Could there be any other explanation?" he asked.

"I... don't know. My instinct says no. Those kids are being kidnapped and Wallace is part of the scheme. He knew I was at the day-care center by myself. He called to get me out of the room where the children were sleeping, out of the way. That's why I said the kidnappers had done it before; they've been working with Wallace."

"It all hangs together," he said softly, half to himself. "I wish it didn't, but it does. Who's going to report orphans missing? It would have to be a big operation, then they got cocky and got you suckered into it. What did you do when you put it all together? Whey didn't you go to the police?"

She emitted an unladylike snort.

"You saw Wallace at that banquet tonight. I'd be the sour grapes out to smear the good-hearted employer who had to let her go, and even if the police did follow through, Wallace would have enough connections to know what was coming and doctor the records, and I'd be left there looking like a bigger fool than before.

"At the first sign of an investigation he could play enough tricks with his computers to cover up anything, even something this bad. Phony adoptions, you name it. He'd find some way."

"So you went after Dutton, trying for another angle of attack."

"It seemed to be the only thing I could do. I knew if I could find some weak point somewhere in the puzzle, I'd have a good chance to put together something the police could really use, maybe even pressure the senator into helping me."

Bolan shook his head.

"He's been pressured by experts. You wouldn't have gotten anything but dead. You've been playing out of your league, Lana."

She turned to him.

"But I've been doing all right, haven't I?"

He grinned in spite of himself.

"Yeah, lady, you've been doing all right. But no further."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean from here on out, I do it alone."

"Do it? "she echoed.

"Put it together and take it apart," he growled. "You've helped me a lot, Lana. I came into this wanting to take out Parelli, you came into it wanting to get something on Wallace, and we connected at Dutton.

"A Mob boss, a dirty politician and a scumbag you think is dealing wholesale in missing children. That group needs to be taught a few lessons."

"I can help you."

"You won't help me by getting killed. I've lost too many people I cared about because they wanted to help me. I don't want that to happen to you."

"It's
my
fight too, goddammit," she snapped angrily. "I knew how dangerous this was when I started. I didn't ask for this, but when I saw what I had and that the police weren't capable of doing anything about it, I couldn't put it down and you're not going to take the fight from me."

Bolan believed what she said because in her voice he heard fragments of his determination and beliefs.

He made his decision, knowing he could very well regret it.

"All right, up to a point, you're on," he told her. "Until the shooting starts, or until I think it's about to start. Then you do as I say, Lana. You have to promise me this."

"Is that so?"

"That's so. Take it or leave it. Decide now."

She saw that he wasn't joking.

"I'll take it," she said.

For a few moments Bolan remained silent, thinking.

His thoughts raced to the children whose faces he had never seen, who were in trouble, who had been torn away from those who cared for them.

And now some demons out of hell were masquerading as human beings and ripping that security and love away.

Bolan knew now with a cold certainty that he had at last identified the undercurrent of this Chicago setup that had been bugging him since this strange night began.

Not the dirty senator.

Not vague talk of a Mafia
Godmother
running the show.

Not even the elusive target of Mr. David Parelli, himself.

Every one of those angles combined to make this an unusually touchy operation for a man on the run from all sides, but here at last was the thread that tied all those diverse elements into one tight package marked for termination.

The warrior shook his head sadly.

Stealing children, the true innocents of the earth.

But there would be a reckoning.

And more hellfire and killing to back it up.

Tonight.