Violent Streets Read Online Free PDF Page A

thirty-dollar haircut and the expensive suit that somehow never matched the swarthy face of a street-wise, slum-born punk.
    And yeah, Bolan was certain. But he had to be certain in his soul, where it counted, as well as in his mind and in his gut. There would have to be one last, indisputable test.
    Bolan made the split-second decision, recognizing all possible consequences in the space of a heartbeat. If his instincts were wrong, and the guy was a lawman or an armed civilian bodyguard of some sort, he would have to withdraw as best he could and contact Fran Traynor another time. If he was right...
    Bolan moved. He stepped out of the shrubbery, deliberately exposing himself and holding the Beretta out of sight along his thigh. The driver saw him at once, and his boredom vanished in a fast double-take. His reaction was swift, practiced, and it sealed his fate. The sawed-off shotgun that came nosing up over the dash told Bolan all he needed to know.
    No cop or trained security man would react in such a fashion, without warning, and none would have armed himself with such a weapon. The guy was dirty, all right. And he was dead.
    Bolan extended the Beretta to arm's length, the squat muzzle of its special silencer a foot from the wheelman's face, and he stroked the trigger lightly. The shotgun muzzle continued to rise and level out. The Belle coughed out a single breathless phut. The driver slumped sideways in his seat, the cigarette a fading ember now on the blood-spattered floorboards of the Caddy.
    Bolan moved on, rounding the rear of Fran Traynor's house and finding the back door unlocked. From that angle, he could also see that lights were burning inside, although they had been invisible from the street.
    The Executioner entered the house silently, moving through a cluttered utility area and down a hallway, following the source of illumination. The silenced Beretta nosed its cautious way ahead of him, ready for trouble.
    At last he stood beside a partially open bathroom door, poised and listening, his every combat sense alert. From beyond that threshold came the sound of water and the low mutter of voices, as if someone within was washing clothes by hand and talking to himself.
    Bolan risked a glance around the doorjamb, taking in the whole scene immediately.
    Two hardmen, both in shirtsleeves, knelt beside the porcelain bathtub. Their jackets had been laid carefully aside, their sleeves rolled up above the elbows to avoid becoming drenched as the men went about their task.
    They were drowning a naked woman in the tub.
    Almost reluctantly, it seemed to Bolan, they would dunk the blonde head under water and hold it there, strong hands subduing what were minimal struggles at best. He guessed that the woman had been drugged or otherwise rendered semi-conscious as a prelude to her watery execution.
    And they kept dragging her up again from beneath the water's surface, shaking her as if they sought to keep her at least partially sentient and aware throughout the ordeal. Bolan caught a quick glimpse of a flushed face half-hidden by a screen of sodden hair, and the roundness of one breast before the lady was submerged again.
    And close up now, he could understand the words spoken by the two rental ghouls.
    "I still say it's a shame all of this has to go to waste," the one on the left was saying with a leer.
    "Forget it, stud," the guy's partner snapped. "This is supposed to look like an accident, not an orgy."
    "A goddamned shame," the first guy grunted, bending to his task with renewed vigor.
    Mack Bolan had seen and heard enough. He stepped through the doorway, the Belle up at full extension and steadied in a two-handed grip for optimum accuracy in rapid fire. He nudged the bathroom door wide open with one foot, and the hinges gave out a tiny squeak of response.
    One of the gunmen was half turned toward him, growling, "Dammit, Joey, I told you to stay..." The kneeling man saw not Joey, but the dark, grim specter of Death poised in