Free The Bone Yard by Don Pendleton

half expecting it, knowing Kuwahara would not let them off this easy.
    He would make them crawl some more, rub their faces in it, retreating only when he felt the heat.
    And where was the goddamned heat, anyway? Someone downstairs must have called police by now. The bastards were taking their time, letting him squirm, sure as hell. Spinoza was certain of it. The heavy rounds were raining down around him once again and Frank Spinoza ate the carpet, squirming back into the sanctuary of the conference table. He was safe there, for the moment, and he would let the others take care of theirs.
    He was planning ahead with the slim edge of rationality he still possessed, thinking past this nightmare and on to the other side of it. If he survived, there had to be a change of game plan. He had been sitting on the sidelines long enough and waiting for the coach to send him in. Somewhere along the line, the coach had lost his playbook, and the team was getting murdered out there, right before his very eyes. And Frank Spinoza was not waiting any longer. If he lived — when he got out of this — he would sure as hell be making waves. A tidal wave that could be felt across the frigging ocean... in the streets of Tokyo.

9
    It was early evening in the Strip casino, the action heating up as tourists finished dinner or awoke from noonday siestas, coming out in all their finery to try their luck. Bolan merged with them, quickly becoming lost in the crowd.
    Fully half the gaming tables were still covered, unmanned roulette and baccarat, poker and blackjack, the games that would draw high rollers when the tux and evening gown contingent emptied out of headline dinner shows and sought a way to fill the lingering hours of darkness. For the moment activity centered on the banks of slot machines — the clanking, jangling one-armed bandits that filled up the vast casino with their harsh discordant music. Here and there the flashing lights and buzzers called attention to a jackpot winner, bringing momentary interruption to the action as the other players paused to look in the direction of the lights and Klaxons, paying homage briefly or else cursing underneath their breaths, then turning back with new determination to the own machines.
    The neon sign out front lured devotees to try the "Liberal Slots" by promising a "ninety-seven percent return" on house machines. No small print there to clarify the message but the locals understood it well enough. The slots were never meant to pay off ninety-seven percent of the time — and never did; rather, ninety-seven percent of the slots could be expected to pay off in some amount, sometime. As for the other three percent... House odds, damn right.
    It was the name of the game.
    Bolan crossed the casino floor, rubbing shoulders with the players and security guards — some of them county deputies moonlighting in the private sector. He followed lighted signs to the Tahitian Lounge and found the double doors already closed, the dinner show in progress. Brushing past a life-sized cutout of the grinning star, a stand-up comic billed as "The Ethnologist," he slipped inside the semidarkness of the showroom. Through the murk, a waitress in full black-tie regalia moved to intercept him.
    "I'm sorry, sir..."
    The soldier palmed a fifty, made the handoff smoothly.
    "Don't be. And never mind the table. I'm just passing through."
    All smiles now, pocketing the cash.
    "Of course, sir, as you say."
    The showroom was a horseshoe layout with the rows of mess-hall tables ranged along declining tiers, the stage some fifty yards downrange at center field. Bolan moved to his left, keeping to a narrow aisle that ran along the wall, moving on until he reached the curtained door that led backstage.
    The wings were crowded, bustling with musicians, stagehands, nearly naked dancers and a juggler sorting through a crate of sharp-edged kitchen instruments. A pair of six-foot-tall show girls wearing spangled capes and very little else