Mr. Vinton was tough, sure, but an okay guy. Not once in sixteen years had anything, either crumb or sip, been served up "on the house" at the Duster.

The place was emptying, over the loud objections of several "hot" patrons.

Bolan climbed half of the stairs and yelled, "If they don't wanta leave, throw 'em out!"

He caught Max Keno's eye, down on the floor, and motioned him to front and center.

"You're on me now, Max," he told the tagman.

"You bet I am, boss," the little guy told him with a smile.

Instant loyalty. It was the name of the Mafia game. Off with the old and in with the new.

Max dropped into his chair and "Mr. Vinton" went into his new joint — which, briefly, he Would be sharing with a certain sleeping beauty.

The time was 8:20 and Joe Stanno was still asleep. Bolan had been quietly going through the desk and pocketing various useful items of intelligence.

He selected an entry from a list of telephone numbers, leaned against the front of the desk to keep an eye on his unconscious companion, and made a call.

"Hello, this is Vinton, who's this?" he announced as coon as the receiver was lifted on the other end.

The quietly jubilant tones of Red Evans crowded the line. "We found it, Mr. Vinton, we got the stuff."

"That's great," Bolan said, his manner entirely businesslike now. "Is it all there?"

"Yessir we think so. Two cases, we found both oi 'em. The button-collars are counting it right now. But it looks all there."

"Here's what you do, Red. You get the stuff counted, and you get two witnesses to the tally. I mean, other than the jerks. Two of your own boys, right?"

"Right, I gotcha."

"Then you tell the — who's the head jerk?"

"Oh that's Lemke, L-E-M-K-E, Lemke."

"That guy. Okay, here's what I want Lemke to do. He sets up a whole new route, I mean everything right down to the final stop. He tells nobody, but nobody, what that route is, not even the pilot. Then he puts that stuff in the chopper, and just hisself and the pilot. You got all that?"

"I got it, Mr. Vinton."

"He leaves the other jerks right there, 'cause we're going to need that room in the chopper."

"Oh yeah, I gotcha."

"He keeps that route a national secret, now. Our you-know-who's will drop out whenever they feel like it. But he keeps it quiet, you hear?"

"Oh sure, I understand that."

"What time you got now, Red?"

"I got, let's see, it's eight-twenty-one."

"Okay. You get Lemke's clock to ticking right with yours, and you shove that chopper off out there in exactly twenty minutes. That would make that eight-forty-one. Right?"

"Uh, right Mr. Vinton."

"You tell that jerk — who's that pilot?"

"That's Jack Grimaldi, Mr. Vinton. He's an okay guy."

"Okay, you tell Jack I want that chopper settling down on this roof here at exactly nine o'clock. I don't mean a minute before or a minute after, I mean exactly nine o'clock. You got that?"

"On the top of the hotel, boss?"

"No hell no, not the hotel, the casino."

"Oh yeah, I gotcha."

"He comes down on top of the joint."

"Yessir, I got that."

"That don't give you much time, so you better get busy."

"Oh yeah, sure. Uh, you coming out tonight?"

"I might. I might not. Depends how things go. I guess it's in good hands out there, eh Red?"

"Oh, yes sir, you can count on that."

"Right. Now you get busy."

Bolan hung up and massaged his fist against his neck and stared glumly at his sleeping beauty.

Damn! The numbers were getting brutall.

The brothers had finished a six-course repast elegantly prepared by the self-proclaimed best chef on the Strip. It was their first meal of a long and hard day, and now they were relaxing and unwinding taut nerves on the penthouse terrace with brandy and handrolled cigars.

"How long can this go on?" Pat wondered aloud.

"It'll break. Any minute it will break," Mike assured his brother.

"I wish I could be that sure. I keep wondering if he's halfway to the border by now."

"No, the guy's an ego-freak. He knows we're in town.

He knows he missed us at the airport. He'll be showing."

"I wish Joe could get something out of the funny man."

"I don't believe the funny man knows anything," Mike said. "If I did, I'd be talking to him myself — or I'd have him torn in half by now and gagging on his own cock."

The other brother made a face and said, "Not on a full stomach, my brother."

A bodyguard at the roof railing chuckled and commented, "Not on any stomach. Yuck."

The brothers laughed and sipped their brandies.

Presently, Pat observed, "Bolan doesn't leave many tracks."

"Just all over our backs," the other said, smiling.

"It's a hell of a way to fight a war. You wait until the guy rears up and pops you. Then you try to pop him back before he disappears again."

"Go tell it in Vietnam."

They laughed again. "You want to call it off?" Mike asked.

Pat Talifero snorted and got to his feet. "Not until I take a bath in his blood," he said.

They laughed again.

Pat went to the railing and stood beside the bodyguard to gaze down upon the neon jungle spreading in both directions away from their position. "That's some battlefield," he said. "You know something? I hate this goddamned town. Always have. Don't they have an atom bomb testing place somewhere around here?"

The bodyguard said, "Yessir."

"They oughta have a mis-fire."

Mike Talifero laughed. "What you need is a fresh lay. There's lots of talent around."

"As long as that guy is alive," Pat replied, "it would be like playing with myself."

"You swearing off for the duration?"

"Not hardly."

Mike laughed some more, then told his brother, "Well, tonight will be the night."

"I wish I could be that sure," the other said glumly. "I just can't see the guy hanging around after what he did to us this morning."

"Look, he'll hit again, I know he will. So stop beefing."

"I hope it's soon. I want to get out of here."

"It's the wrong foot we arrived on I'd like to take that fuckin' Stanno and shove something up his ass. And I might. If the guy wasn't so damned effective.…"

"Most of the time, you mean," Pat said.

"Yeah, that's what I meant. Joe's okay, I guess."

"Yeah, but one more fuck-up like this morning, and…"

"Right," Mike agreed. "The next is the last."

Bodyguards were supposed to develop hearing problems during such candid moments This one was gazing at the stars and totally out of the conversation.

"Remember Siffy Peters?" Pat asked.

"They sometimes called him Shaker Sam," Mike recalled.

"Right. He tried to pull that amnesia gag on old man Marinello."

"That was that Bronx rumble," Mike said.

They were laughing it up.

The bodyguard continued to stargaze, but put in with, "I never did hear what became of Siffy."

Still laughing, Mike told him, "You never will, either. Not unless you can operate a jackhammer at the bottom of the Hudson."

Pat sniggered and added, "And you'd have to chip away two feet of concrete bathing suit."

"Siffy Peters was a better hit man than Joe Stanno," the bodyguard said. "That is, until he got all conked up with the siff."

"You think so?" Mike asked.

"That's what I think," the guy replied.

A lieutenant stepped onto the terrace and stood quietly by the doorway, awaiting recognition of his presence.

Pat Talifero was leaning against the railing, staring straight at the new arrival. Presently he asked, "What is it now?"

"Guy here to see you, boss. Guy runs the hotel."

"What the hell does he want?"

"He says, just droppin in."

"Tell him to just drop out. We got no time for — what's new from the street?"

"Glitter Gulch checked in, 'bout five minutes ago. Another zero."