“What do you do?”
“Little bit of everything, I guess,” Bolan said. He didn’t want to seem too obvious. He could already tell he’d garnered some attention from the two men who, having finished their meals, seemed to hang on every word of his conversation with the waitress. If he came straight out with something directly in their line of business, he might raise suspicions.
“I build houses, mostly,” he continued. “Do some electrical or plumbing work here and there.”
“Ah,” she said. “There’s always work to be had for a man who’s good with his hands.”
While the comment didn’t seem offhanded, Bolan could tell the waitress was making a show of flirting with him, particularly in front of the other pair. His eyes snapped quickly to her hand, he saw neither a wedding band nor the remnant of where she’d worn one, so either she was divorced, unmarried or nontraditional. She hadn’t made the remark to spark the two men into any type of action; they didn’t seem to care one way or another. In fact, it seemed that they had taken more than a passing interest in Bolan. Had he been followed? Were Gowan’s men on to him? If so, how had they managed to predict where he’d land?
It seemed too coincidental, but these guys were definitely more than they appeared.
“Do much working with wood?” the man in the trucker cap asked suddenly.
“Like I said, just building houses,” Bolan said.
“Never worked in a lumber mill?”
Bolan shook his head. “No, but I’m always willing to learn. Does it pay well?”
“It’s honest work,” said the man’s partner.
The first man withdrew a small card from his pocket and handed it to the waitress to pass to Bolan. “Tell you what, you show up at that address tomorrow morning and ask to talk to the lumber foreman. Louise here can give you directions. Give the foreman that card and tell him I sent you.”
“And you are?”
The man got up to leave with his partner and walked over to Bolan. He extended his hand. “Buck…Buck Nordstrom.”
Bolan held up the card with a nod. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said. “Grip like that and a guy your size…you’ll do a good job, I’m sure.”
With that, the two men walked out. It seemed almost too easy to the Executioner, but he decided to play it out and see how things went. Since logging and milling were the major industries in Timber Vale and he knew from casual talks at Tulelake that Mickey Gowan had his hands into everything in the town, all the odds were in his favor. He’d have to play it carefully; there was still a chance, however remote, he was about to walk into a trap.
But for now, the Executioner had his in.
3
With the waitress’s help, Mack Bolan managed to find a place to stay for the night. The shabby motel on the edge of town would make a remote and unobtrusive base of operations, but he politely declined Louise’s offer to join him. Once settled, Bolan stripped, showered and then crawled between the sheets for a few hours of sleep. The rest did him well, and he was up and moving by dawn.
Bolan dressed in his best working-man duds, a pair of jeans and plaid flannel work shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and then drove to the address on the card. He didn’t know what to expect or even whom to ask for, but that didn’t seem to matter; the three large men who met Bolan at the gate had apparently been told to expect him. One man offered to park his car. Bolan agreed without reservation, since he’d elected to pack the Beretta 93-R in a modified shoulder holster that rode high under his left armpit, its bulk concealed by the loose flannel shirt jacket, and nothing remained in the vehicle that would betray his identity. He’d even left some fast-food bags and a few empty beer cans under the seat just to reinforce the cover.
The remaining pair escorted Bolan to a security guard for sign-in and then handed him a hardhat and hearing protection. He declined the muffs with a shake of his head, but one of the men insisted it was policy. Bolan shrugged and donned the equipment. They continued through the mill, and the Executioner used the opportunity to study his surroundings. The earmuffs did a lot to decrease the piercing buzz and whine of saws cutting through massive logs. A few separate areas were crowded with workers running band saws, jigs and even a couple of lathes.
At the other end of the mill, the men escorted Bolan up a flight of metal steps to a second-story landing. They followed a catwalk that eventually terminated at a massive office with a large glass overlooking the mill floor below. An old-fashioned potbelly coal stove stood in one corner. The men showed Bolan to a seat where they indicated he could take off the safety equipment and then made their exit through a side door.
Bolan sat in one of the three chairs positioned beneath the glass window. A young woman with blond hair and blue eyes sat at a computer terminal. He detected a faint clacking sound as the secretary’s fingers almost danced over the keyboard. Other than a single furtive glance and a smile she completely ignored him. Bolan considered speaking to her, but the sound of a door opening distracted him. He looked up to see a large man step out. He had red hair, large lips, square jaw and a broad face. He stood at least six-foot-six with meaty forearms and broad shoulders, and he moved powerfully.
His face broke into a grin and he extended a hand as Bolan stood. “How ya be, laddie? Come on in.”
Bolan stepped through the doorway into an expansive office that he could only have described as a first-rate pigsty. Books and papers were strewed across a massive desk and equally large tabletop such that no part of their surfaces went untouched. The garbage can overflowed, and the room reeked of cheap whiskey and cigarette smoke. Bolan took a seat as the man wedged himself into a chair about two sizes too small between his desktop and credenza.
“The name’s Fagan MacDermott,” he began. The Irish accent when he pronounced his name left no doubts in Bolan’s mind whom MacDermott worked for. “I understand you’re new in town. Maybe lookin’ for work?”
Bolan showed him a wan smile. “Word travels fast.”
MacDermott shrugged in way of explanation and said, “No more than usual for a small town like this one.”
“I noticed you got quite a crew out there. Everybody work for the mill?”
“Hell, pal, the mill’s what keeps this town running!” MacDermott burst into laughter.
Bolan considered him uncharacteristically cheerful, but he decided not to push. Not yet. “I’m Matt Cooper. I’ve been on the road quite a bit, doing some odd jobs here and there.”
“On the run from the law?”
“No,” Bolan said.
MacDermott fished a cigarette from the pack on his desk, lit it, then sat back in his chair and studied Bolan through a cloud of smoke.
The Executioner remained impassive. He got the impression that if he’d said he was on the run, it probably wouldn’t make any difference but he decided not to make it up as he went along. He wasn’t working this one for Stony Man and thus he didn’t have time to put a real cover in place. If MacDermott decided to look into his criminal history, he figured it was better not to state he had one and then have to explain later why “Matt Cooper” not only had no record, but also had no fingerprints on file.
“It don’t make no difference if you got something to hide,” MacDermott said. “Best to be honest with me, Coop.”
“I’ve got nothing to hide,” Bolan said with a sigh. “And I’m not running from the law. Just looking for maybe a place to settle down. Sleeping and eating out of my car gets a bit old after a while.”
MacDermott studied Bolan a moment longer, and then leaned forward and tapped his smoke into a beanbag ashtray. “Yeah, I’m