"Not you and me, Nick. Me and her. She wanted out. So I took her out."

"That's the most outrageous damned-" The guy turned very pale. "Wait a minute! You didn't!."

Bolan moved the idea away. "Hey, she's okay. I just did you both a favor. She'd become a liability to you. Much longer and she'd have become a dead liability. You get my meaning."

Copa got the meaning. "You did me a big favor, eh?"

"It's your only loss. Out of it all, Nick, your only loss. Count the possibilities. You could have lost it all."

A moment later, "How?"

Bolan spread his hands. "Why am I here?"

"You're here because I let you in."

"Wrong."

"Wrong?"

Bolan pulled a playing card from his breast pocket and snapped it toward the lord of Nashville. It sailed through the air and dropped at Copa's feet. And it did not matter which side came up; the ace of spades adorned both sides.

Copa placed a foot on the card and asked, "Is that for me?"

"It could have been."

"Why?"

"It didn't look good, Nick. They were wondering."

"About me?"

"Trade places. Wouldn't you wonder?"

The guy showed him a pasty smile as he replied, "I guess so. But they know better, now."

"They Will, yeah. Soon as I get the report back."

"Well don't waste too much time doing that."

Bolan smiled coldly. "Just so we understand it, Nick. The report does have to get back."

Copa laughed over a private joke. Then he sobered abruptly to ask, "What's all this have to do with my wife?"

"Nothing," Bolan told him.

"Nothing?"

"Except from me to you."

"I don't get it."

Bolan got to his feet, nudged the paper sack into the pool with his foot, and returned to his chair. "It's clean now. Leave well enough alone. The lady helped me. I helped her back. Call it quits at that. Leave her go, Nick. That's from me to you."

Lord Copa pulled his chair closer. He was mad as hell. But he was trying to cool it. Presently he said, "Okay. I guess I can live with that. You better hope you can, too. I guess you know what you're doing. For me, it's a small enough loss."

"That's the way I saw it."

"Yeh."

"Did I hear you say thanks?"

"You heard it. So. Now, what about the Leonetti punk?"

Bolan said, "Just the way we figured it. Gordy was going for the whole pie. He snatched the kid and took him to a cabin out near the reservoir."

"I never heard of it."

"Gordy was the kind to keep secret places. Even from his boss. Especially from his boss."

Copa growled, "Crazy Gordy was a fink."

"More than that. He was a thief who stole from his own father and brothers."

Copa said, "He was a rotten shit." He spat at the pool.

"It was a one shot deal. He never planned to work with Leonetti. He just wanted to rob him. That means robbing you. And your friends. He put the kid on ice while he checked him out. Meanwhile he was working the kid for all he could get."

"How much was that?"

Bolan smiled soberly. "Not a damn thing."

"That's nice. That's damn nice."

"The kid checks out clean.

He's got the stuff. It was to be Mazzarelli and Clemenza, not Mazzarelli and. Leonetti. But the kid blundered in and spoiled their game. He didn't like the smell of the deal. That's why he came. He was trying to get to you when Gordy snatched him away."

Copa smiled craftily and said, "You knew he was clean all along. When you first came in here, you knew it. That's why you were cat and mousing me and Gordy. You wanted to see which one would take the break."

Bolan smiled at the Lord. "You're a big man, Nick. I'm glad it worked out this way."

The Lord was smiling back at the Executioner. "Me too," he said grandly. "You're not so small, yourself. Well. Well this is just wonderful. It calls for a celebration. We'll have some-"

Bolan held up a hand and said, "No offense, but I can't stay."

He stood up. "Leonetti's at the Holiday Inn. A bit worse for a week of wear with Crazy Gordy but I think he'd probably enjoy a celebration, himself, right now. He's waiting for your call. The kid held out for a whole week, Nick. Now you and I both know what kind of guts that takes."

Lord Nick knew, sure. His eyes were shining as he said, "I've been looking for a kid with real guts for a long time, Omega. A man has to think of the future. Right?"

Omega replied, "Oh right, right."

"What's the kid's first name?"

"His name is Carlo. They call him Carl."

"Carl and me will get along just fine."

The Black Ace was sure of that.

Yes. He was very sure of that. For as long as Nick Copa's future might last.

Which, after all, was saying not a hell of a lot.

EPILOG

Bolan checked in the rented car and stepped outside to the darkness of the service apron to await his pilot. He walked straight into Toby Ranger.

She said, "Leaving without saying goodbye, Captain Chicken?"

"Did you come all the way out here just to say it?"

She wrapped an arm inside his as she replied, "No. I thought I'd give you one last chance."

"At what?"

"At me. You don't really have anywhere to go tonight, do you?"

His regret was genuine.

"I'm afraid so. Maybe there will be another time, Toby."

"Probably not," she replied spiritedly. "Well okay. Don't say I never offered. Uh, the others send their love. Carl got his call. He'll be meeting with Copa at midnight."

"Good. That's good."

"You're quite a guy. Know that?"

"Thanks. You're quite a gal."

"All's forgiven, then?"

"What's to forgive? We did the job, didn't we?"

She said, "I mean-well, you know. My mouth doesn't always have it together. And I go a little crazy sometimes. It's the damn work, I guess."

Yes. Bolan guessed that was true.

"And to tell the pure truth, Mack-I guess I couldn't get Georgette off my mind. That crazy night in Detroit. You know."

Sure. Bolan knew.

"I was afraid you were going to find Carl or Smiley like-like you found Georgette. I knew you'd go crazy if you did."

Maybe so, yeah.

"And that's why I was so uptight. You know I love you. And you know that I worry about you."

No, he had not known that.

He said, "Toby-"

"No, don't say anything. Nothing obligatory. I just wanted to… apologize."

Bolan grinned. "Must have been damned hard."

She smiled back. "Damned right."

He took her in his arms and kissed her; slowly, thoroughly; it was a very warm embrace. Certainly he knew where all of her was at. And he told her, "There'll be other times, Toby."

"I know there will," she whispered. "Take care of all that beauty, huh?"

He said, "You too."

She faded quickly, then, like so many of Mack Bolan's dreams.

He was still looking at the spot where she'd stood when a heavy voice from the wall of the building declared, "She nearly nailed you that time, Striker. It was getting downright embarrassing."

The man who stepped from the shadows looked more like a Wall Street executive than what he really was: the ranking cop in the country, the one and only Harold Brognola, chief of the U.S. government's official war against crime.

Bolan shook a warm hand as he said, "Fancy finding you here. You're a bit late. It's all over."

Brognola grinned with the reply: "I've been here longer than you. Which says something for your methods, I guess."

"I got lucky."

"Baloney. Luck is something we make for ourselves. You make it all, guy. We thank you."

Bolan said, "You didn't go to all this trouble just to tell me that."

"Course not. I thought I'd offer you an overview."

"Of what?"

"You know how it is when you're wandering through a forest? How all the trees look alike. I thought I'd give you a late picture of the forest."