Miami Massacre te-4
Page 13
Chapter Sixteen
Bolan's battleground
The Beach Hacienda was of old Spanish architecture, complete with bell tower and ceramic-tile roofs, covered walkways through colorful gardens, fountains and lily-pools, and poolside cabanas posing as adobe huts. Three major buildings comprised the hotel proper, set at clever angles to exclude the patios and gardens from the outside world, except for the exposure to the ocean. There, a smallish replica of a 17th century Spanish galleon served as a floating pier for those who preferred their beaching with all the comforts of iced drinks and shaded lounges. A broad expanse of well-combed sand was also provided, for those who took their surfing seriously; surfboard racks, outriggers, and other water toys were in ample evidence though in general disuse.
The hotel buildings were single-story, except at the center where the bell tower reigned above a luxurious penthouse suite. The mock-adobe structures presented a windowless, walled appearance to the street; inside, all rooms opened via sliding glass onto the garden patios, in a setting of obvious and no-expense-spared luxury.
The Beach Hacienda, in local Mafia circles, was known as "the joint," and the penthouse had served, until very recently, as the meeting place for the Council of Capos.
Now, the penthouse was virtually abandoned. A sleepy-eyed man in a waiter's jacket sat tiredly upon a barstool in the corner of the main room. Two other men were standing on a small balcony which hung out over the enclosed gardens; these were Ciro Lavangetta and his underboss from Tucson, Salvatore Di Carlo. Lavangetta was at the extreme corner of the balcony and trying to peer around to the street-side of the building, an impossible project. He told Di Carlo, "I'm telling you, Sal, I heard gunshots and explosions. Something's going on out there somewhere."
As though to confirm Lavangetta's conclusions, the wail of sirens rose up faintly in the distance. He said, "I knew it!"
"It's a long ways off, Ciro," Di Carlo assured him.
"Just the same, it makes me nervous. I wish the Talifero brothers would report in. I'd sure like to know . . ."
After a brief silence, Di Carlo said, "You should have gone out to the boat, like the others. That's the safest place, Ciro. You should've gone."
"All of 'em didn't go yet, Sal. And that's why I didn't either. Look down there and tell me who you see gossiping by the pool."
Di Carlo craned over the railing, "Looks like Georgie the Sausage Man and Augie Mary."
"That's exactly right, and I'll tell you also exactly what it is George the Weenie is try'na put in Augie's head!"
Di Carlo soberly nodded his head. "He's really been pitchin', Ciro."
Lavangetta snorted a string of obscene words, then added, "I ain't going to stand for it. You know that. I won't take that, Sally."
"I wouldn't take it either," Di Carlo agreed.
After a brief silence, Lavangetta fervently declared, "I wish this Bolan would come in here, Sal."
"He's going to be a dead son of a bitch if he does," Di Carlo growled.
"Yeah, but so might somebody else, Sally, if you know what I mean."
Di Carlo thought about that for a moment, then: "I guess I get you, Ciro."
"Yeah, I guess you do. I wish he'd come in here before everybody makes the boat, that's what. And I wish he'd blast a certain weenie king right in his liver sausage, that's also what."
The sirens were becoming louder. Di Carlo sniffed the air and said, "I smell smoke, Ciro. Maybe this Bolan is already here and is right now burning the joint down."
Lavangetta laughed quietly. "Maybe somebody is going to think so anyways, Sally."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"This Bolan" was not at that moment burning the joint down, but he was quietly casing it from a soft drop some 200 yards down the beach. The binoculars could not give him the full details, but his mind supplied what the eyes omitted and the general lay of the place came out into a quite logical extension. He studied the bell tower and the men standing on the balcony just below, then shifted to the adjoining roofs and what he could see of the beach area and the galleon. Hardmen were everywhere. They patrolled the beach, perched upon the otherwise deserted galleon, and hovered in the shadows of the red slate roofs. It was a hardsite, no mistake about that.
Bolan's attention returned to the men on the balcony of the penthouse. The one who was waving his arms about seemed vaguely familiar. Bolan racked his memory, sliding through the newspaper and magazine photos he had studied so often, and then he had his "make." It was Ciro Lavangetta, a bit heavier in the jowls than his pictures indicated, but Ciro nonetheless. The man with the worried face standing beside him Bolan could not make, but he would remember him if he ever saw him again.
Bolan wondered what would happen if he were to lob a round of HE into that bell tower. If he could work in about a hundred meters closer, he could do it . . . but then he might lose his angle in the intervening rooftop. As he debated the question, the two men left the balcony and went inside.
Bolan was a bit elated around the core of cold deadness which had settled into him upon finding Margarita's mutilated body. He had located a Capo; undoubtedly others were on hand also. It was a hardsite, and that usually meant VIPs present. He fell to studying the terrain between his soft drop and the hotel. If he could find a rise down there somewhere, maybe he could get that angle he needed, and maybe that angle would give him the passport he needed for entry into the hardsite. One way or another, he meant to get in there.
Salvatore Di Carlo was greatly disturbed and excitedly whispering "Dammit, Ciro, I'm telling you — cold crying Christ, it ain't worth it. You can't just take it on yourself to-"
"Stop telling me what I can't do!" Lavangetta replied furiously. "The old weenie's got one foot in the grave already anyway, he's got hardening of the dollar signs in his arteries, and I'm not taking no more shit from that weenie!"
"Just th' same, Ciro, you know better than me that-"
"That's right, I know better than you, Sally. Listen, he's done everything to me all day except shiv me. And if you could only see, I probably have shivs sticking out all over me just the same. If I'd been screwed by that old cock knocker every time he thought about it, I'd have a hole like Madame Bazonga."
"Well, it's your funeral I guess, Ciro."
"What do you mean, my funeral? It's our funeral, Sally, if we let Georgie make weenies out of our territory. Isn't it? Our territory, Sally."
"Yeah I figured you'd be getting around to that, Ciro."
"You better be damn glad I am. It's just you and me now, Sally, don't forget that. You and me. And listen, I don't want no fucking around on this job. I'm hoping, Sal, that you're understanding what I am telling you."
"Sure, I understand you, Ciro," Di Carlo replied in a defeated voice. "But I guess you better tell me exactly what you've got in mind."
"What I got in mind, Sally, is bleedin' the weenie with a Bolan bite."
"Shit, you say the funniest things at the funniest times, Ciro," Di Carlo complained soberly.
Hannon was positive that he was going to retire after this case. He had used up an entire year of police energy in this one orgiastic day of unbridled mayhem; anything after this would be anti-climactic anyway. He took a final look at the charred corpses in the rubble-heap, said tiredly, "Okay, get them out of here," and moved aside to give the coroner's boys the grisly remains.
A uniformed patrolman followed Hannon back to the street and, in a conversational tone, asked, "What'd he use on those guys, captain — a flame thrower?"
"I would not be at all surprised," Hannon replied in a quiet voice. He paused and stared toward the death car. "There's a story lurking here," he mused half-aloud. "And it could be a very romantic story. But I'm not quite ready to buy it."
"Sir?"
"Never mind. Any make on the girl yet?"
"No sir. Except that she's Cuban, and she's wearing-"
"Hell I know all that!"
"We don't have an identification, captain."
"Yes sir."
Hannon sighed and went to his car, picked up the mike, and contacted Dade Force dispatch. "How many mobile units are tied up in that soiree out at the raceway?" he asked.
"Twelve, sir," came the reply.
"All right, release six of those and send 'em over here. We'll assign definite stations while they're en route. What'll it take, about an hour?"
"Half that if we blue-light them, Captain."
"All right, blue-light them. Next I want a Dade alert call. I want every man on the job, and it'll take a doctor's statement to alibi any absence. You get them in and assembled and I'll have instructions by the time I get in. Have they gotten anything from Tommy Janno yet?"
"No sir, but he's conscious and they're still trying. He's in the room right next to Lt. Wilson, by the way."
"Okay, I'm coming in. Get those calls going."
Hannon racked his mike and set the car in motion. This massacre had gone far enough. It was going to be stopped . . . or by god Hannon was going to call the President.
Bolan had completed his recon and the picture was entirely readable to his mind. No one, it appeared, was going to bed. The patio gardens were filled with seemingly relaxed and congenial men, sitting around tables, talking, laughing, drinking — living it up. Except for the hardmen who were placed strategically about the perimeters, the Hacienda reeked with party atmosphere. Only a couple of details belied this. First and most graphic, no women were present. This was a large item. Secondly, the waiters did not move like waiters. They were clumsy, and frequently dropped things, and seemed to forever be scrambling their orders, producing an almost comic opera effect with much good-natured kidding and heckling from those being served.
All this fitted neatly into Bolan's developing strategy. As long as the Mafiosi had been intermingled with the "straight" public, his angle of attack had to be geared to pinpointed singling-out and man-to-man confrontations. But with them clutched up in an exclusive gathering, Bolan could go for the big strike, using massive-kill techniques — he did not need to walk amongst them.
Bolan did, however, need a "hard drop" — a site with reasonable cover from which to conduct the assault. He had worked his way to the water's edge and just north of the hotel. The illumination from the Hacienda's outside lights was creating a twilight effect all along the ocean-front in that immediate area, except right at the waterline where the sloping beach provided a thin band of dense shadows. The tide was running low, giving Bolan several yards of hardpacked sand in utter darkness. Hardmen were thick in that particular perimeter, stationed close enough to converse with one another. With the covering purr of constantly breaking waves behind him, Bolan was moving slowly and carefully along that shadow-area and toward the galleon. The pier, he had decided, would make an ideal hard drop. The problem was that the enemy had evidently reached that same decision, and was then in possession. He passed within a few feet of a hardman who was trying vainly to light a cigarette in the stiff ocean breeze. Another man stationed several yards farther on had evidently found this amusing and was calling over heckling instructions.
"Hey, go tell Augie we need a smoking tent out here."
"Go to hell."
"Hey, my brother Angelo was in the navy. He says you gotta climb up inside your ass to light up, but then you got another hazard."
A chuckle, and, "Come over here and lend me your ass then."
Bolan slipped on past and made the overhang of the galleon. The mock-up was built to look as though the ship had been run aground, bow end to, and rode perpendicular to the beach. At high tide, very little of the floating pier was resting on dry sand and much of it was actually afloat. Now, with the tide running out, the situation was reversed; only the stern section was actually afloat. Three heavy cables angled down from the stern, holding the galleon firmly in position. Bolan slung his weapon parallel across his shoulders and moved quietly into the water. He was in to his chest and fighting the turbulent pull of the surf when he reached the nearest cable. Then he clenched a commando knife between his teeth and began the hand-over-hand climb to the galleon's deck, some fifteen feet above.
Hannon charged into the bull room and growlingly announced, "Okay, we got it. It's the Beach Hacienda, North Beach — let's roll! Pick up on the Dade Net for your assignments!" He wheeled about and led the squad of riot specialists through the tunnel and into the parking lot. A uniformed officer in a white helmet ran along beside him for a short distance.
"Standard riot roll, captain?" he inquired.
"We'll play it by the seat of our pants," Hannon puffed.
The officer nodded and peeled off toward his own vehicle. Hannon dropped into his car and muttered beneath his breath, "It's a blood roll, sergeant." Then he was screeching away, leading the blue-light procession to the massacre.
Lavangetta intercepted George the Butcher as the latter was making his way along the covered walkway toward his room. He said, "Listen, Georgie, I think it's about time we had an understanding."
Aggravante tried to push past him. "I've understood you for a long time, Ciro," he replied.
"I don't think you have, Georgie, and I think that's been the cause of all our trouble."
"You've never been any trouble to me, Capino," the old man replied nastily.
"That's all over with now," Lavangetta assured him, and quietly slashed George the Butcher's throat from ear to hairy ear.
The Boss of Arizona stepped quickly clear and dropped the knife into a lily pond, then began hoarsely shouting, "Get 'im! Get that guy! Get-"
His voice was quickly drowned out in the roaring of a heavy revolver in the courtyard just beyond, as Salvatore Di Carlo unloaded his gun into the roof. Nervous fingers all about the enclosure quickly joined in and a hail of slugs began chewing up the roof area directly above Aggravante's room.
Lavangetta had run into the courtyard, gun in hand, and joined the firing party. Augie Marinello charged out, flanked by two smooth-faced men in impeccable Palm Beach suits. "What is it?" he cried. "What's going on?"
"That Bolan!" Lavangetta spat. "He just shived Georgie Aggravante!"
Di Carlo ran over to corroborate the story. "He swung up on the roof," he excitedly reported. "I think maybe I hit 'im!"
One of the Talifero twins snapped a vaguely disbelieving glance at his partner and said, "Let's check."
The other brother waved his arm in a signal to the quickly approaching hardmen and led them in a running sweep through the main building and toward the street. The remaining brother touched Lavangetta's elbow and said, "Come on, Ciro, let's look at that roof."
Bolan had quietly dispatched three of the galleon's sentries and was working his way toward the fourth when the pandemonium erupted in the courtyard, some twenty yards distant. The hardmen of the beach area congregated in a loose knot, then began spilling slowly toward the disturbance. Some one yelled, "Bolan's on the roof!"
From the darkness just ahead of Bolan, a galleon hardman softly called over, "You guys back there stay put. Me'n Happy are gonna go see."
The only one remaining "back there" was Bolan. In a softly slurred voice, he replied, "Sure, sure."
Two men ran down the gangway and up the beach toward the hotel. Bolan quickly reconned his position, assuring himself that he was alone on the galleon, and immediately swung his 16/79 into firing position. The M-79 rounds had been carefully mixed in the ammo belt, with HE, buckshot, and tear gas, in that order then repeating.
A tight clutch continued to hold forth on the beach directly below Bolan's position. He decided that he should take them first. He checked the clip on the M-16, positioned the switch for automatic fire, and swept 30 rounds of tu
mbling projectiles into the group at 700 rounds per minute. They went down like pins in a bowling alley, and then the heavy weapon was swinging over and up and Bolan's hand was moving onto the pistol grip of the M-79.
Chapter Seventeen
Holideath Inn
The bell tower exploded and rained debris into the courtyard, the heavy bell itself crashing down onto the balcony of the penthouse. Augie Marinello froze and cried, "My god, what . . ."
A calm voice from the roof called down, "He's firing from the pier. How the hell did he get-" The speech ended abruptly with another detonation and a sweeping spray of ballbearing-size buckshot, and the Talifero swung himself recklessly over the edge of the roof and into the courtyard, landing jarringly on his feet.
"On the roof, eh?" he yelled at Salvatore Di Carlo.
Another projectile impacted several yards to the side of Marinello and released a cloud of smoke. Someone coughed and exclaimed, "Tear gas!"
The courtyard was in a state of unrestrained panic now as another round of high-explosive sailed in, this time directly on target into a crowd of scrambling men. Instantly-mangled bodies were hurled in all directions and a cry of consternation swept the Spanish gardens. Talifero was swearing loudly and trying to lead a pack of hardmen through the confusion as round after round of grenade, buckshot, and tear gas continued to pelt the bawling mob. Men were leaping into swimming pools and lily ponds, crowding into cabanas, and racing for covered walkways as the panic reached peak level and the assault continued without letup.
The Talifero squad reached the edge of the gardens, almost in the shadow of the galleon, and tried to take cover behind a foot-high wall. With the first volley from their pistols, the chatter of a light machine-gun answered back, interspersed with the whoomps from the galleon, and four Taliferi learned the hard way that a foot of wall was not wall enough. The man in the now-dishevelled Palm Beach suit commanded, "Back, back, this is no good!"