California Hit by Don Pendleton Page B

cigarette for another long moment, then: "Your neck."
    "Tell me about it."
    "Mr. Wo Fan, I fear, is a dirty rat".
    "Why didn't you fear that when you introduced us?"
    "Because I..."
    "What?"
    She was busying her speech equipment with a delicate and thoughtful sipping at the coffee cup. Bolan stood up and removed the denim jacket. He put the purple lenses in a pocket of the jacket and came out of his gunleather.
    The Auto Mag was locked up in the warwagon. The Beretta Belle he deposited on a table at his right hand, then he slipped off the Levi bluejeans and dropped them to the floor with the jacket. The black-suit smelled faintly of gunpowder and blood.
    Bolan rubbed at a large stain on his sleeve and returned to the chair with a sigh.
    Mary Ching was giving him the unblinking appraisal. In a quiet voice she told him, "I like you better that way. You look like just what you are."
    "And what is that?"
    "A death machine."
    He curtly nodded his head and told her, "Okay, I accept that."
    "And the very image of male virility."
    He said, "I'll accept that too."
    She smiled, almost timidly. "Right now?"
    He replied, "Hell no, not right now."
    She giggled.
    Gruffly he said, "Watch it. I've already killed a couple million people this morning."
    "You can joke about it?" she asked soberly.
    Bolan sighed and told her, "It beats crying about it."
    "It does bother you, then?"
    "Sure it bothers me. Wouldn't it bother you?"
    She blinked her eyes. "I don't know. I guess it would depend on who I was killing."
    "It doesn't matter who, dead is dead," he said.
    "You're a weird hombre, Mr. Executioner," the girl informed him. "I guess that's why I left, and it's why I came back."
    "Because I'm weird."
    "Right"
    "Okay."
    "You don't ask many questions, do you."
    He said, "Only when they seem important."
    She stared at the tip of her cigarette and seemed to be talking to it instead of Bolan. "I left because I don't deserve your protection. And I came back because you do deserve mine."
    He threw it back at her. "Thanks, but I guess I don't want it."
    She appeared to be a bit confused. "You'd let me just walk out of here, I mean right now?"
    "Sure, if you want to."
    "Then you trust me?"
    "No I do not."
    The China doll chewed on her lower lip and crushed out the cigarette in an ashtray in a slow and deliberate mauling of the tobacco. "You're a very frustrating conversationalist," she told him.
    Why not? That perplexing little chunk of Oriental beauty had crawled right back into his guts again, and it wasn't a nice feeling.
    In a voice very tired but firm he told her, "Hell, Mary, I haven't slept for about thirty hours. I haven't eaten for sixteen. I've made two very hard hits on this town and I've killed a hell of a lot of people. Now I wasn't worrying about any of this until you walked out of here a couple of hours ago. Don't ask me why, it just bugged me suddenly and I had to puke the whole mess up. And I was okay again until I walked in here and smelled your damned coffee. So what do you want of me? What the hell do you want?"
    She licked her lip and said, "Wow, you can talk."
    He muttered, "Go to hell."
    "What are you planning on doing now?"
    "Nothing."
    "I mean..."
    "I'm sewed in. Cops all over the place. So I'm going to get some sleep."
    "Oh. Well that's perfectly clear, I guess. The cops are all around, so you're just going to crawl peacefully into bed and catch a few winks."
    "That's exactly right."
    "You're weird, Mack Bolan. You're really weird. Why don't you pace the floor, like the caged rats do in the movies. Why don't you get drunk or beat me up or something. Why don't you go over and smash out the window, stick your gun outside and scream out your defiance to a world that's laying all over you."
    Bolan laughed, and it felt good. He did not feel like puking anything up now. He told the girl, "You're something else."
    "I haven't had much sleep either," she solemnly reminded him.
    "Be my guest," he said, as solemnly.
    "Okay. Have you ever had