Here was London night life in all its late twentieth century splendor… and squalor. It was Greenwich Village and Fisherman's Wharf rolled into composite, an assortment of joints, dives, stripperies, fish-and-chip houses, fine restaurants of all nations, and the ever-present discotheques and go-go palaces. Bolan strolled casually through the neon jungle, orienting himself and getting the feel of the area, walking in an atmosphere of far-out jazz, electronic flashers, and the jarring crescendos of rock amplitudes. He found Soho Psych precisely where the matchbook advertising promised he would, "on Frith, just off the square," snuggled in between a Pakistani restaurant and a rundown theatre whose billboards offered "the best in London flesh."

Bolan was an hour early, and this was by design. He went on by the club, crossed the street at the corner, and wandered back slowly. Diagonally across from his target was a budget self-serve restaurant, calling itself a tea house but very obviously a cafeteria. It provided tables near the front windows, and though Bolan's appetite had been fully sated in Ann Franklin's kitchen, he entered and went through the motions of purchasing a meal, filling his tray with an assortment of selections from the buffet.

The girl at the cash register glanced at his tray and said, "That'll be six and six, sir."

Bolan was reaching for his wallet. He said, "Six and six what?"

She smiled understandingly and inquired, "American?"

Bolan nodded and slipped a ten pound note from the wallet.

Still smiling, the cashier explained, "Your bill is six shillings and six pence, sir." Then she saw the ten pound note, the smile faded, and she asked, "Is that the best you can do?"

He muttered, "I'm afraid so."

The girl made change for his seventy-eight cent purchase from an equivalent twenty-four dollar note, gave it to him rather grumpily, and watched disapprovingly as he casually dropped the change to the tray and made his way to a front table.

He dawdled there for forty minutes, forcing himself to eat some of a steak and kidney pudding, grilled tomatoes, and several other tidbits of English diet. His view of the street was unobstructed, and he was cataloging all traffic in and out of Soho Psych.

At ten minutes before eleven a cab stopped at the club and Ann Franklin emerged. Bolan lit a cigarette and watched as she leaned back in to say something to another passenger, a man, who was obviously staying with the cab. Then the vehicle went on and the girl entered the club. Bolan waited and watched. Another cab came up minutes later—perhaps the same one, Bolan surmised—and a man got out. Bolan recognized him as the big one who had chauffeured them from Dover—Harry Parks, the girl had called him.

In the corner of his vision, Bolan became aware of another vehicle quietly edging to the curb some yards behind the cab. It was a smallish car of English make. Two men debarked and threaded their way casually along the sidewalk, then entered Soho Psych a few steps behind Harry Parks. The car moved forward and another man stepped out just above the club, and crossed over to Bolan's side of the street. Bolan watched this last man, studying him intently, as the man lit a cigarette and leaned back against a lamp pole as though waiting for someone.

Bolan knew who the man was waiting for. He sighed and unbuttoned his shirt, withdrew the Beretta and held it in his lap as he affixed a silencer to the barrel, then returned the pistol to the side leather. The stage was fully set, it seemed, awaiting only the appearance of the principal.

So the principal left his observation post and went outside.

Bolan stood at the curb, gazing up and down the street for any further obvious signs of the hardset awaiting him. There were none, but the man at the lamp pole immediately stiffened to attention and flipped away his cigarette. Somewhere along that street, Bolan knew, another outside man had been waiting for that cigarette to fly. Bolan casually stood his ground and waited. Evidence came quickly from the direction of Soho Square, as another man hurried across the street and took up a position on Bolan's other flank. • Bolan smiled grimly to himself and crossed over to the club. He was not overly appreciative of intrigue; the time had come to make the cut between friend and enemy, to determine precisely where Ann Franklin and the Sades stood in that separation, and to engage the enemy—whoever they might be—in open combat. As he entered the club, the two men behind him started across the street.

An immaculately dressed older man stood just inside the door at a foyer desk. A quiet sign announced that only members were allowed on the premises. Bolan went immediately to the desk and told the man, "I'm meeting a young woman here. Maybe you—"

The doorman interrupted. "You'll still be required to purchase a membership, sir. It's the bloody law here-abouts. It takes three quid, sir, plus another ten bob entry fee."

Bolan dug for his wallet and asked, "How much is that in pounds and ounces?"

The man chuckled. "Bloody confusing for you Americans, I know sir. Never mind, we're shifting to the decimal system ourselves by and by. Then well all be bloody well confused."

The two men had come in from the street and were hovering near the door, trying their best to look disinterested in the proceedings at the desk.

Bolan fingered the bills in his wallet and asked, "How much?"

The doorman was looking at something on a note pad. He said, "Would that be Miss Franklin you're meeting, sir?"

"That's the one."

"Then I'll beg your pardon, your entry is all piped up. Sorry sir, I just took the carpet at eleven, and I 'adn't time to read me notes."

"Does that mean I go on in?" Bolan asked.

"Oh yes sir, to be sure sir. You proceed on through the bar, down the stairs, across the clubroom, and up again to the mezzanine. Room number three, sir."

Bolan dropped a tenner on the desk and said, "Let's keep our little secret."

The ten pound note disappeared immediately beneath the doorman's hand. He said, "We're the soul of discretion, sir. By the by, are those two gentlemen at the door accompanying you?"

Bolan said, "Not hardly."

"I'd say that's a bit unfortunate then, sir. Those chaps are Scotland Yard."

Bolan's eyebrows rose. He murmured, "Thanks," and went on into the spider's den.

The game had changed, disconcertingly so, but there was no turning back now. The only way out led straight into the jungle.

Chapter Nine

Trap play

Soho Psych was fairly representative of the rock music clubs that proliferate upon the London scene, most of them appearing and disappearing with amazing rapidity. This one was unique chiefly because of its seeming permanence. It had remained on the "in" list for several seasons, drawing locals and tourists alike and packing the house nightly while competitors rose and fell in cycles typical of the new mod culture of swinging Londontown. The club had become a favorite watering hole for local musicians as well as visiting ones, and thus was also a favorite of the "groupies"— the young girls who followed the rock groups about.

The bar itself offered no live entertainment, unless the nude models who posed in glass cases, tall tubes, really, all about the place could be classed as entertainment. The bar was overflowing with a standing room crowd and the conversational level was about equivalent to roaring surf on a rocky shore. The only light came from the glass tubes of the living mannequins, in varying and changing shades, each girl changing her pose with each alteration of the lights. No one seemed to be paying much attention to them.

Bolan paused in front of a statuesque blonde mannequin to light a cigarette, wondering why the two cops had not moved on him out there in the lobby. Perhaps, Bolan surmised, they were under orders to attempt no immediate apprehension—perhaps Bolan had popped up before they'd had time to get set the way they wanted to be. So now they would be getting set, and with jaws of steel.