The syndicate:

TRAILER

STORY

Don Bolles wanted to be the best reporter in Arizona. That was all he wanted. It had always been enough for him. Above all, Bolles was a shrewd reporter, a writer of cautionary tales—tales to which few of his readers paid much attention. Suffice it to say that Don Bolles lived for little more than his work and his family. He did not die satisfactorily.

Bolles had been an investigative reporter for fourteen years. He prided himself on his accuracy. It was a quality on which he placed the highest value. Since going to work for the Arizona Republic in 1962, Bolles had rapidly become the state’s leading journalist.

On Tuesday morning, June 2nd, Bolles agreed to meet an informant at the swanky downtown Phoenix Clarendon Hotel. After a no-show from the informant, Bolles got into his car to leave. Reversing a few yards, it was then that the explosion occurred. The blast ripped the car’s four hubcaps off, blew out the windshield, and cut a 2’ hole in the floor beneath the driver’s seat. Windows in nearby cars were blown out, and a huge cloud of white smoke billowed up from the shattered Datsun. The explosion blew open the door on the driver’s side and Bolles flopped out onto the pavement.

He was semiconscious. His legs were all shattered. The right leg, the kneecap, had been blown off, and part of the calf, and the same on the left. He was trying to get up. But Bolles could not move. Lifting up his head, his glasses gone, his face blackened from the blast, Bolles spoke his final words —

“They finally got me—the Mafia, Emprise. Find John Adamson.”