MacK Bolan No. 62: Day of Mourning by Don Pendleton

the pool cue set down by the punk to his right. He moved too fast for any of them to register a reaction short of startled grunts. He held the cue with two hands and lunged sideways so hard and fast the pointed end pierced the eye and brain of the guy on his right. Bolan yanked the stick out of the man's head and whipped it backward in a continuous motion with both hands. Bolan threw his weight behind the move hard enough to impact the second punk's forehead with death-dealing force. Both men collapsed on either side of the table, dead.
    One of the whores screamed.
    The guy across from Bolan lost his cool and his cue. He fished for concealed hardware, coming out with a .38 Saturday Night Special, tracking on Bolan real fast, fading back from the table.
    Bolan feinted the guy like a fencer and flicked the stick.
    The solid end of the cue clipped the pistol from the punk's hand before the guy could fall back far enough. Then Bolan cracked the thick end of the cue hard across the man's skull, knocking him to the floor.
    The two hookers fled the room.
    Bolan came around the table and grabbed the punk by his shirtfront. He yanked the creep to his feet. He bent the guy backward across the elevated lip of the pool table.
    The punk retained consciousness but almost lost it when Bolan rammed the man's head down onto the felt with a thump. The Stony chief leaned onto the cue that now held the black pinned across the throat.
    "Where's Jones?"
    Beads of sweat popped out like pearls on the punk's frightened face.
    He cried out an address.
    Bolan shifted his hold on the stick closer to the sides of the man's neck. He gave a mighty push on the cue, snapping the neck of the punk.
    He stepped back and let the limp corpse sag to the floor to join the other two.
    The Executioner's fury was abating.
    They'll pay, Konzaki. Starting with these cannibals.
    He tossed down the pool stick and walked out of the game room. He left the club via the alley exit.
    No one tried to stop the tall man with the icy eyes as he disappeared into the night.
    * * *
    Bolan drove past a one-story brownstone in a lower middle-class, racially mixed residential neighborhood. Dim light suggested itself from behind heavily draped windows.
    It was the address given him by the black thug whose neck he had broken.
    A man came out of the house. He strode briskly to the sidewalk and climbed into a parked car.
    Two more men moved up the path that led to the front door of the house. They entered without knocking.
    Bolan left his parked rental auto some distance down the block. He concealed the AutoMag under the driver's seat again. He preferred that whatever happened next not escalate into a firefight like the one back at the Interstate office.
    The brownstone was the only house on the block showing any signs of life at this hour.
    He walked up the front sidewalk, opened the door and stepped inside without knocking.
    He was in a whorehouse.
    He entered an old-fashioned parlor whose walls were lined with mirrors and couches, the couches occupied by whores of all shapes, colors and descriptions in various forms of intimate attire from lace to leather. The subtle strains of Muzak emanated from somewhere. There was a portable bar, and several men were in the first stages of appraising the merchandise.
    Everyone casually looked around at Bolan's entrance.
    Then not so casually as he strode through the room toward a hallway that led off the parlor to the private rooms.
    "This is a raid," Bolan barked gruffly, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at the way he'd come in. "Everybody out."
    There was a mad scramble as half-dressed ladies of the night and flustered Johns poured out, looking for any available avenue of flight.
    Bolan stalked into the hallway. He confronted two heavyset white men who appeared to be in charge, drawn by the commotion in the parlor.
    Bouncers.
    Digging for pistols.
    With the edge of his flattened palm, Bolan hammered one guy at the base of the neck. The man slipped