He laughed softly. Friends, yes, just as long as they knew that he had enough on them to send them to prison for life. He had and they knew it. It became a delicate matter of compromise and cooperation.

Now this damn Executioner guy storms into town. Not even he could get in the way of the timetable. Davis took off his shoe and rubbed his foot. It still hurt once in a while. He’d been in too many fights with drunks and dopers to get off without any injuries. Even been shot twice. Damn, the years had gone fast!

He brushed back what was left of his brown hair and pushed his reading glasses in his pocket. Still had perfect distance vision — that was what counted now.

Bolan the Bastard, Jo Jo used to call him. Yeah. He’d have someone check the BPD files, then call the FBI.

In the meantime he could have a bigger problem. He consulted his phone list, then called a number he seldom used, almost never from this office. The call went to the Alonzo Fruit Company. When an operator answered, his message was brief.

“I’d like to talk to the man. This is Keno.” He hung up and returned to work on a burglary case that two of his detectives had almost wrapped up.

His phone rang and he picked it up. “Yeah, Davis here.” When the other voice came on he sat up straight and smoothed down his hair.

“Yes, sir, good to talk to you, too. Sir, this Mack Bolan matter. Is this going to hurt our timetable?”

The voice on the other end was slow, relaxed, with a touch of Old World Italian.

“We don’t think it will affect us. We know about this small problem and our people are working on it. We will solve it perhaps today, and then nothing will be in our way. This Bolan is human — he bleeds. If you bleed you can die.”