"Last and least," Shawnee said, "Rita St. Clair. Big-bucks Boston family. Banking or something."

"Insurance," Rita said.

"Whatever. Anyway, Rita chucks the whole debutantest Vassarst married-to-an-ambassador crap to become — get this — a cop."

Bolan's jaw flexed.

"Relax," Rita told Bolan, "I'm not a cop now. Not that I ever really was one. After all my Academy training in Boston, I get this job in Coolidge, Georgia. Five-person police department. In Boston I'd dragged bodies out of the river, been shot at, even stabbed by some junkie with a hunk of mirror. Here they make me a meter maid. Fine, I'm willing to pay my dues like anyone else. But every time there's a promotion, they give it to one of the men, guys with less experience, less seniority. I'd gone into police work because I wanted to make a difference, and I sought out a small town so I could at least see the difference. But it never happened. So I quit."

"Well, not completely quit," Shawnee said, a huge grin arcing her lips. "She joined with us."

"Us?" Bolan said. "Who's us?"

"Us," Shawnee said, gesturing with her hand to include the four women. "We're the Savannah Swingsaw. And we, Mack Bolan, are gonna help you bust your friend out of jail."

11

The man with one blue and one brown eye walked among the dusty antiques, some authentic, some merely old junk. He picked up various objectsrusting swords, musty hats, carved ivory chess pieces — examined them carefully, then replaced them. Never making a sound.

The shop owner, Giles Tandy, a native Atlantan whose father had started the store and tried to teach its intricacies to his unwilling son, had inherited the business two years before, following his father's third heart attack. By that time, Giles had already been an unsuccessful insurance salesman, unsuccessful swimming pool salesman and unsuccessful truck salesman.

Since his father had always been successful, Giles decided to try his hand at Daddy's antique business. His mother, who helped out part-time, tried to argue with him to maintain the same business integrity as his father, but Giles was indifferent to integrity. He added shoddy garage-sale crap to the quality items his father had carefully purchased, making the store what it was today. A mixture of superb antiques and castaway junk. He thought the dust added an air of authenticity.

"Help you, sir?" he said to the man with one blue eye and one brown eye. Hadn't even noticed the stranger sneaking around back here so damn quiet.

He looked at the man's expensive suit, the quiet manner, figured him for some kind of banker or accountant and turned on the charm. "We got the finest antiques this side of the Mississippi, sir. Indeed, the best on either side." The man continued to browse, ignoring Giles.

On the other side of the store an elderly lady was pawing through the cheap bric-a-brac. At most, she'd spend ten dollars. He decided to stay with the money man. Giles shivered slightly when he looked at the man's face. His eyes were spooky, not just because of the different colors, but just the way they looked at Giles, as if he wasn't there. As if Giles was a bug and he was trying to decide whether or not to squash him. Still, the man obviously had money. The watch and ring were gold.

Giles was having trouble maintaining his smile while the tall thin man ignored him. The old lady had left, leaving just the two of them in the store.

The browser ran his hand along one of the music boxes on the glass showcase that Giles had bought from a bankrupt bakery. He watched the fingers and shuddered. They were long and skinny, like the legs of a spider.

"Now that's a hell of a choice, sir," Giles said enthusiastically. "That there music box comes out of France, made around 1683. A present from the French to, uh, Spain."

The thin tall man turned his head and stared at Giles. It was like being slapped in the face. Giles swallowed nervously.

"You are a liar, sir," the man said. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. His English was precise yet without tone, not American, yet having no identifiable accent. "The music box was not invented until about 1770, probably in Switzerland. Second, in 1683, France and Spain were at war." The man turned away and continued through the store, examining other items. Giles felt sweat trickle behind his ears. Hell, he'd been called a liar before, but never with such a menacing, threatening tone. Okay, so he'd made up a date and some history for the customer. He did it all the time. Was that such a crime?

"Anything in particular you're looking for, sir?"

The man looked up again. He smiled, his teeth small even squares. "Branding irons."

Damn nuisance, Giles thought, wondering what the guy wanted with a branding iron. But then he smiled because he remembered they actually did have a couple of irons his father had bought from a ranch that had been plowed under into an eighteenhole golf course. "Er, yes, we've got branding irons. All kinds. Just take me a minute." Giles went into the back, rummaged through one of the storage lockers and returned to the display area with three rusty branding irons. "Quite a history here," he started to say, but stopped abruptly when the man's eyes met his with an unspoken warning.

The three branding irons looked completely different. One had a long handle with a reversed K on one end. The K had little upward angles at the bottom, like feet. The second iron was much shorter, with an ornate heart around the letter N. The third iron merely had a curve or hook at the end, no symbol.

Giles thought maybe the third one had lost its branding symbol. "I'm sure I can find the rest of it out back," he offered. "Just take me a second."

The man's thin mouth curved downward in distaste. "You are not only a liar, but also a fool."

"Now look here, mister..."

The man raised the third branding iron and pressed it against Giles's forehead. Though the metal was cold, Giles winced as if it was glowing red. Still, he didn't dare move.

"You see," the man explained patiently, "originally in this country, brands were used chiefly to punish humans. Runaway slaves, indentured servants who tried to escape. Not until the expansion into the West did branding cattle become common."

"Well, uh..." Giles swallowed.

"The brand..." he pressed it harder against Giles's forehead, cutting into the skin "...called a running iron, was used to draw a brand on a hide, rather than just stamp it on like these others. It was favored by cattle rustlers because it allowed them to change brands so easily. This branding iron has been outlawed in several states." He lowered the iron, stroked the metal.

Giles took a deep breath. "Oh."

"How much?" the man asked.

"Sir?"

"For the branding irons. All three."

"Well," Giles drawled, figuring in his head, "lots of history here. Cattle rustlers and all. Worth a lot of money."

The man with one blue eye and one brown eye opened his wallet, pulled out two crisp hundreddollar bills, laid them on the counter, picked up the irons and walked toward the door.

Though he figured they might be worth more, something told Giles not to argue this one time. He rubbed the indentation on his forehead where the man had ground the branding iron.

As he reached the front door, the man glanced at his watch, turned to Giles and asked, "Pay phone?"

Giles pointed. "Half a block down, next to the grocery store."

Outside in the early morning sun, Zavlin blinked his sensitive eyes and quickly put his sunglasses on. He glanced at his watch again. Still a few minutes before he was due to call in. He was in a good mood, having picked up three additional items for his collection of Western memorabilia. He had perhaps the largest collection of branding irons in the world. On more than one occasion, he'd had the opportunity to actually use his irons, firing them up over coals until they glowed a fierce orange. Then pressing them against the skin of a yelping man, woman or child from whom he had requested information.