War Against the Mafia

8 - Sanctuary

A bleary- eyed Lieutenant Weatherbee stepped from the squad car and walked over to the police cruiser that was swung into the intersection just above the Turrin residence. He nodded tiredly at the uniformed cop who stood at the open door of the cruiser and said, "How soon after the gunshots did you get this street sealed?"

"Must have been less than a half-minute," the officer replied. "I was on station two blocks down. Soon's I heard the shooting I came right on up, and I've been here ever since. Only thing I've seen is our own people."

Weatherbee grunted, stared down the street for several seconds, then returned to his car. The plainclothesman behind the wheel gave him a sympathetic look. "Slipped through, didn't he," the man said quietly.

Weatherbee sighed. "I'm sure he did. Turrin says he was dressed like a commando, all in black. Said he moves as soft as a cat, and just about as fast. That Turrin is a mighty lucky boy, and doesn't he know it."

"You have to admire that Bolan guy," the officer commented.

"Maybe you have to." Weatherbee grunted. "I don't."

"Don't get me wrong, Al. I just meant-well, you know, he didn't even return the Turrin woman's fire. I mean, he could have taken her easy, we both know that. Instead, he elected to break off and run."

"Maybe he panicked," Weatherbee mused. "She thinks she hit him. Just because we couldn't find any blood... A wounded man isn't going to run too far, Bob. I'm going to get about twenty more men on foot in this area, I've got to stop that guy before..." He picked up the radio microphone and smoothly passed instructions over the special net, then he told his driver, "Okay, let's get over to the eastern perimeter and work back this way."

The man nodded, wheeled the squad car about and speeded eastward on the city arterial. "We shoot to kill, right?" the man said under his breath.

"You damn well better," Weatherbee replied glumly.

They turned onto a north-south residential street and immediately went into a slow cruise. Weatherbee released a short-barrelled shotgun from the rack and inspected it for readiness. The driver unholstered his revolver and placed it on the seat beside his leg. "Well, it's a lousy way to make a living," he muttered, sighing heavily.

"Hell, you're talking to an expert on the subject," Weatherbee said. "Look..." He stiffened suddenly. "Somebody just opened a door down there in those duplexes. Cut your lights!"

Bolan's legs were getting rubbery and each breath he took was becoming sheer misery. He had reached a more modest neighborhood and was painfully making his way across an open expanse of well-kept lawn bordering an apartment complex when he saw a window light up on a ground floor in the curving row of buildings. He dropped to one knee and examined the gauze pad he'd thrust in between his blouse and the shoulder wound. It was not bleeding quite so badly now, he decided-or maybe he was just running out of blood. He made a wry face and felt gingerly with fingertips the scratch at his temple. He'd lost a bit of skin on that one, and that was all, and the blood had started to clot pretty well, but it still hurt like hell and he had a headache that wouldn't quit.

He threw himself prone suddenly and rolled into a clump of hedges; automobile headlights had swept around the curve in the street downrange from Bolan's position and almost at the same instant a door had opened in a building slightly uprange. The headlamps winked out immediately and Bolan knew a sinking sensation as he noted that the car was still moving forward slowly in his direction. An outside light flashed on, up at the open door, and a woman stepped outside. She was wearing a housecoat and something was tied about her head. She was calling out something in a soft voice; to Bolan's exhausted consciousness it sounded as though she were whispering, "Titty, titty."

The automobile glided past within spitting distance of Bolan and stopped opposite the woman. She recoiled back toward her door and a man's voice, from the driver's window of the car, sang out briskly: "Police, lady. What's the trouble?"

Bolan could hear the woman catch her breath then giggle nervously. She walked halfway across the lawn toward the curb, remaining well within the glow from the porch light, then halted as the door on the opposite side of the car opened and a huge bulk of a man stepped out and addressed her over the top of the automobile. "I'm Lieutenant Weatherbee," he said genially. "We are looking for a man. Would you mind telling us what you are doing out here at this time of night?"

"Well, I'm not looking for a man," she replied, laughing breathlessly. "My cat woke me up yowling, and I thought I'd better bring her in. There's a big mean tomcat around here that just-"

"Yes, ma'am-well, there is a dangerous man in the area. We'd just better check it out." Weatherbee had moved around the rear of the car and was standing on the sidewalk, a shotgun cradled casually in one arm. The other officer got out of the car and was looking about nervously, peering into the darkened areas to either side of the building. The trio was near enough that Bolan could hear the woman's flustered breathing.

Weatherbee had requested permission to look inside the house, and the woman had consented. "Stay here with the young lady, Bob," the lieutenant said, and went cautiously down the walk and into the building.

The other officer had leaned inside the squad car and was now directing a spotlight along the sides of the buildings. Weatherbee reappeared, then went out of sight again in the shadows. Something brushed against Bolan's cheek; he checked his reaction in the flashing recognition of purring cat fur, and quietly curled his good arm about the animal and stroked it lovingly. The cat settled there in the crook of Bolan's arm, curled into a contented ball.

Weatherbee showed up again, walking into the brilliant spot of the police car light, stepped quickly out of it, and approached the couple at the curb in a tired amble. "Did you find my cat?" the woman asked.

"No, ma'am, nor mine." Weatherbee replied. "You'd better let the cat go for now. Go on back inside and lock your door. We will wait here until you're safely buttoned up. And thank you for your trouble."

The woman said something Bolan did not catch, laughed lightly, and ran to the door, turned and waved at the policemen, then went inside and closed the door. The porch light went out. A moment later the headlights of the police car flashed on and it moved on down the street.

Bolan clung to the cat and ran to the building in a low crouch, then harshly ruffled and pulled the cat's fur, holding it against the screen door. The cat screeched and clawed at the screen, fighting to loose itself from Bolan's grasp. Almost immediately the door cracked open. Bolan flung the screen door aside and stepped in, thrusting the cat into the arms of the stunned woman.

"I brought you your cat," he said, grinning. He closed the door and leaned against it. "Please don't raise a fuss. I'll leave if you insist."

She was looking at him as though it were all too unbelievable, and as though she expected him to vaporize or disappear into the thin air he had sprung from. Her eyes took in his weird costume, the gun at his waist, the blood-soaked shoulder. "You're hurt," she mumbled.

He nodded his head. "I've been shot. If you'll just let me stay a while I promise you won't be hurt." The shoulder was beginning to burn as though a hot poker had been stabbed into it.

"The policeman said you're dangerous," she said in a half-whisper.

"Not for you," he assured her.

The cat leaped from the woman's arms and ran into another room. Bolan gazed longingly at the couch. "There's a small bullet in my shoulder," he said. "I need some disinfectant and a pair of tweezers."

"Of course." She moved swiftly toward a narrow hallway. Bolan followed, not certain that she was not trying to get to a telephone. She stepped into a bathroom. He sighed, returned to the living room, and sank onto the couch.

"Do you live alone?" he called out tiredly. Her head reappeared in the open bathroom doorway. "Nope. Tabatha lives with me." She wrinkled her nose. "Tabatha is my cat. Two old maids together, that's us." She went out of sight again, and Bolan began working his way out of the jersey blouse. When she returned to the living room carrying a small metal tray, Bolan had succeeded in freeing one arm and his head from the tight-fitting slipover and was carefully peeling it away from his injured arm. The woman had removed the scarf affair from her head and had obviously taken time to hastily brush out her hair from the large rollers it had been wrapped around. Bolan decided that she was a very pretty woman, small and delicate with luminous eyes and a decidedly intelligent face.

She set the tray on a coffee table and helped him with the blouse, making sympathetic sounds over the shoulder wound. "It's been bleeding a lot," she observed. "Is the bullet still in there?"

He nodded grimly, his eyes on the tray she had brought in. A pair of eyebrow tweezers stood upright in a small glass of colorless liquid. A roll of gauze, a box of bandages, and a large bottle of merthiolate completed the assortment.

"I'm sterilizing the tweezers in alcohol," she told him. "Is that all right?" He nodded his head again and reached for the merthiolate. "Do you expect me to take that bullet out?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I've done it before. I can do it again."

She pushed him over flat and moved a pillow beneath his head. "You're not going to do this one," she said firmly. She picked up the tweezers. "Now hold still," she said, between clenched teeth.