Panic in Philly

by Don Pendleton

  “Good for you,” Turrin growled. He rubbed the back of his neck, then moved the hand around to massage the throat. “Hell,” he told the bodyguard, “I got to get some air. I’m going out to smell some sunshine.”

  Turrin started for the door. Rubiello trudged along behind.

  “Not you,” Turrin growled. “Stay put. I’m expecting Jake to call. Get the number where he’s at and I’ll call ’im back.”

  “Don’t stand on no street corners,” the bodyguard suggested, as he gladly returned to the comfort of his chair.

  Turrin grunted and ambled into the hallway. He lit a cigarette and displayed outward patience as he waited for the elevator. In the lobby he chatted for a moment with the girl at the newsstand, then drifted out the back way and across the parking lot, pausing now and then to sniff the air and flex his shoulders at the sun.

  Precisely five minutes after rejection of the collect call from LaMancha, Turrin stepped into a public phone booth a block and a half from his office building, just in time to answer the first ring.

  “Yeah, dammit, what’s been keeping you?” he asked without preamble.

  A cool chuckle drifted through the instrument and a pleasantly modulated voice informed him, “Just got your broadcast twenty minutes ago. What’s the flap?”

  “The flap, buddy, is your bloody ass,” Turrin growled. “Everybody wants it, and in that condition. I was hoping you’d call before—”

  “Too late,” reported the real live Man from LaMancha, Mack Bolan.

  “Yeah, I know, I heard it,” Turrin said gloomily. “Of all places, Sarge, why Philly? Why not Kansas City or Hot Springs, why not Dallas or Phoenix or—hell, even St. Louis or Detroit? Philly is where the big guns are mobbing up, Philly’s the place—”

  “You know why I’m here, Leo.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I guess it figures.”

  “Did you have something specific in mind, Mother, or did you just want to say good-bye?”

  “Specific, yeah,” Turrin growled. “I’d say that. Message from your buddy in Washington. He suggests quote take a vacation unquote.”

  “Brognola, eh?”

  “Yeh. He’s walking a tightrope, you know. Officially he’s running the entire national Get Bolan show. Unofficially his guts turn over every time he thinks about it. But you know Hal. The job is the job.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Bolan murmured. He sighed. Turrin heard the click of a cigarette lighter and a slow, hissing exhalation. “Sounds like I’m back in season.”

  “Worse yet. The heat is on—very. Some congressional subcommittee is stoking the boiler. Hal thinks it’d be a good time for you to catch some R&R. He says Argentina is beautiful this time of year.”

  The chuckle from the other end of the connection was downright icy. “Lousy hunting down there, Leo.”

  “Yeah.” The number two man of Pittsfield shook away a spinal shiver. “Well, listen …”

  A moment later, Bolan replied, “I’m listening.”

  “I wouldn’t try Philly right now. Don Stefano has been expecting you. The word I hear, he’s imported a private army just to wait for your head to show. I think—”

  “Imported from where?”

  “The old country. Sicily. Very mean—”

  “Gradigghia,” Bolan muttered.

  “That’s the word. And I’ll give you another, buddy. Malacarni. It means a very bold dude, capable of anything. These old-country gradigghia, the Sicilian Mafia gangs, are composed entirely of people like that. They are very mean boys.”

  “So I hear,” Bolan commented. “How are they getting them in?”

  “Canada’s the usual route. The New York bosses started it. I hear now that Augie Marinello is running a regular body shop in imported guns. And old Stefano Angeletti isn’t letting any grass grow under his feet. He’s got a—”

  “They running out of native talent?”

  “You should know,” Turrin replied soberly. “Anyway, Don Stefano has this standing army of imported torpedoes. And they’re not standing there just to shade his tired old head from the sun.”

  “Thanks, Leo. I’ll keep that in mind. Well …”

  “Hold it, don’t hand up yet. Listen. This isn’t from Brognola. This is from me. Don Stefano’s army isn’t the only one you have to worry about. They’re bringing in cops from all around. City cops, county cops, state cops, federal cops. I’ve been watching the movements. They mean to get your ass this time, buddy.”

  Bolan’s voice had gone totally sober and just a shade fainter. “Nobody lives forever, Leo. I have to fight it where it lays.”

  “Well, you’ve picked the right lay this time.”

  “That’s the idea, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Turrin agreed, sighing. “I guess that’s what you’re all about, windmill slayer. Okay. It’s your war. I just wanted you to know what it is you’re walking into this time.”

  “Thanks. While you’re here, give me something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “A weakness.”

  “Well …” Turrin was thinking about it. “The kid, I guess. Stefano’s son, Frank Angeletti. The old man has been grooming Frankie for the keys to the kingdom. But nobody really likes the choice.”

  “Kid’s not rotten enough, eh?” Bolan said.

  Turrin laughed feebly. “He’s not what you’d call a strong man. He’s not Capo material, Sarge.”

  Bolan replied, “Okay, I’ll look into that. How about the girl?”

  “Sometimes,” Turrin said, “I wonder who is feeding whom in this crazy interchange of ours. I’ll bet you know Stefano Angeletti’s whole family more intimately than he does.”

  The cold chuckle sounded again. “What about her, Leo?”

  “I’ll just say this, Sarge. If the Mafia outfits were not full of male chauvinist pigs, old Stefano would do a lot better to hand over his keys to his daughter, not his son. She’s everything the old man would like for Frankie to be, which he definitely is not.”

  “Okay. That checks with my reading. Thanks, Leo. Uh, just one more item.”

  Turrin knew what the “one more item” was. Bolan always sounded a bit embarrassed to inquire about his kid brother, Johnny, and the girl he’d left behind under Leo’s protection, faithful Val.

  “They’re fine,” he replied. “They—”

  “Okay, great, don’t tell me anything else. Our time is up, anyway. Thanks, Leo. I couldn’t hack it without you.”

  “Bullshit,” Turrin replied mildly.

  And then there was nothing but the hum of the broken connection.

  Turrin sighed, hung up, moved out into the warming sun, and allowed the shivers to play with his backbone.

  The guy couldn’t keep it going forever, God knew.

  Very probably he would not keep it going even through Philly. Not with those odds—the cops, all those cops—the gradigghia…

  Shit!

  Leo the Pussy squared his shoulders in a movement of self-reassurance and strode quickly toward his office.

  One thing those Angeletti gradigghia had better understand, for damn sure.

  Mack Bolan was one hell of a superior malacarni himself.

  Chapter 3/ The Challenge

  Sure, Bolan had known about the importation of old-country gradigghia to bolster the U.S. Mafia’s sagging hard-arms.

  It had been an inevitable development.

  Guys like Capone, Luciano, and Anastasia had been products of their times—the hard old days of the American boom-and-bust era when the Italian-Americans, as an ethnic group, were in the cellar of American society—when a hungry, angry young man had to simply grab what he wanted and to hell with the consequences.

  Times had changed.

  Big city ghettoes were now peopled by Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and a general hodgepodge of have-nots of all races and national origins.

  The Irish gangs were gone.

  The Italian gangs were all but gone.

  The Jew boys were gone.


  The Blacks and those others who were left could not put it together—not like the Lucianos and the Lanskys and the Schulzes, the Legs Diamonds and the Mad Dog Colls. One reason they couldn’t put it together was because the American crime scene had become so institutionalized—incorporated, almost—finely organized. The guys at the top of the pyramid were the survivors and the heirs of those hard, early days when “welfare” meant a pick and shovel and the Italians were the meanest, the quickest, and the most utterly determined to escape those selfsame picks and shovels and push-brooms.

  Those same guys continued to dominate the organized crime territories of America.

  But they were getting old.

  And those who were coming up behind them were products of far different times. They didn’t have the hunger, the desperation, the sheer driving determination to survive and excel in a dog-eat-dog world.

  The American Mafia had grown “soft”—in comparison with the old days, at any rate.

  Success had spoiled Johnny Matthew.

  He wanted it safe, now. He wanted it comfortable. He wanted to have without risking, to keep without struggling, to succeed without trying.

  So he hired Blacks and Puerto Ricans and other hungry young men to do his dirty work.

  And it simply wasn’t working out. The mob was losing its sense of solidarity in brotherhood—and with that loss went the teeth, the muscle, and the heart of the organization. Nickle-and-dime guys simply didn’t give a shit about omertà, family fealty, discipline.

  The thing that had made Johnny Matthew the lord of his jungle was his ferocity of spirit, his unwatered orneriness, his instinctive leap to violence.

  And those “attributes” were disappearing from the latter-day American Mafioso.

  A man did not become a Capo because he was loved by those he ruled. He was Capo because he was the meanest and the most feared. It was as simple as that.

  Of course, there were still plenty of the mean ones around. Bolan could certainly attest to that. But he himself had removed quite a few of those from circulation. The federal strike forces had put away a few more. These actions, coupled with the normal attrition through aging and interfamily violence, were combining to put the handwriting on the wall for all who had eyes to see. So, sure, it was no surprise to Bolan to learn that “the organization” was trekking to the old country for an infusion of hot new blood into their declining empire.

  It was still “the hard old days” in Sicily.

  The rugged country villages and harsh ghetto streets of the urban centers where Onorata Società—the Mafia—was born could provide virtually bottomless pools of malacarni manpower; new blood which was still immersed in the old ways, subject to disciplines of omertà—honored silence—and unquestioning loyalty to the chief.

  There had been a time, and not too long ago, when foreign-born lower-echelon Mafiosi had been treated contemptuously by the native Americans. They’d been referred to as “greasers” and “mustache Petes” and other uncomplimentary tags.

  Not now.

  The new immigrants were being accorded considerable respect, even from those whom they had come to replace. Augie Marinello, the New York superboss, had started the trend toward imported hoods, bringing over an occasional one or two for specific tasks at hand, then retaining and absorbing them into the established ranks.

  They had proven to be nerveless assassins as well as loyal servants of the brotherhood.

  So old man Angeletti had gone Marinello one better. He was bringing in entire gradigghia, or gangs, in an awesome buildup of muscle such as had not been attempted since the old Castellammarese wars.

  According to Bolan’s intelligence, Don Stefano intended to use the new cadre not only for his own security but as an eventual base of power for his son, Frank Angeletti, who would soon be succeeding the old man as boss of Philadelphia.

  It was, to Bolan, an ominous development in his war. Until recently there had been a gleam of light at the end of the tunnel; he had begun to see the possibility of victory in this impossible damn war. But if the Capi could draw upon an unlimited reserve of manpower, then, yeah, the whole thing was beginning to look hopeless again.

  So Bolan had come to Philadelphia to face this new enemy, to test them, and—if possible—to turn them back.

  He had to discourage the whole idea of imported gunners. If he could not convince the American Capi that they’d placed their chips on the wrong numbers, then he at least had to put the fear of something else into the Sicilians.

  Those guys had come from withered pastures to what must have seemed like lush new fields. They’d had everything to gain and very little to lose by venturing into the U.S.

  Bolan would have to give them something to lose.

  It was precisely why he had come to Philadelphia—to bring war, death, fear, panic. Especially death.

  The Executioner had come to Philly to rout the foreign armies.

  So maybe he could and maybe he couldn’t.

  Maybe Leo was right and he didn’t stand a chance against the Philadelphia defenses. But he had to try. He had to.

  Following the brief telephone contact with Leo Turrin, Bolan returned directly to his latest version of the warwagon.

  It was a late-model Chevy panel truck, closely resembling a telephone company service vehicle. Actually the Chevy was a mobile combat command post and arsenal. In there was everything he would need to wage war against the Brotherly Love Outfit and its outriders.

  Over his black combat outfit he had donned loose-fitting coveralls similar to those worn by telephone linemen.

  He had located the main enemy force. He had served notice of his presence and had delivered his declaration of war.

  Two days of painstaking recon and combat planning had shown him the most likely approach to this new enemy.

  Nothing remained now but to do it.

  It was time. It was time to tell the gradigghia that they had ventured into hell’s pastures.

  It was time for the first big Philly hit.

  Chapter 4/ Combat Zone

  He had been watching them closely for three hours, inspecting every movement, taking mental note of every coming and going, counting their numbers, identifying each one by size or shape or by peculiarities of walk and posture.

  Among the many he had tagged were Big Swagger and Little Swagger, a couple of Palermo street types who must have once been influenced by an American gangster movie. They looked like very dangerous boys, movie-struck or not.

  There was Joe the Ox, a big guy with barrel chest, massive shoulders and spindly legs who walked as though the oversized torso was continually straining against a heavy load—the guy must have pulled many a plow through the rocky soil of Sicily. Bolan made a mental note to remain well out of reach of the big animal. He looked like a spine crusher.

  Then there was the sharp dresser who stood around a lot and watched the others, his arms folded across his chest, speaking to none, every so often brushing the back of his hand against a bulge near his heart as though to reassure himself that the hardware was still there. Bolan tagged him Shotgun Pete and marked him as an early target.

  Several times during the surveillance old man Angeletti put in an appearance in the little courtyard just outside the main building for an armwaving, emotional conversation with one or more of these principals, each of whom was obviously a crew leader or whatever they called themselves in the gradigghia.

  Once Bolan caught a glimpse of Frank Angeletti, the Don’s shrinking heir-apparent, well flanked by a retinue of alert bodyguards. Once also he thought he saw a female face peering through an upstairs window but the sun angle was bad on that side and he couldn’t be positive of the identification.

  He could be certain of one thing, however. They were setting their defenses in an apparent anticipation of a night attack. Don Stefano had beat it out there almost the moment he’d received word of the Liberty Garage strike. The preparations for an Executioner visit had been going on at a fever
ish pace ever since. They’d buried almost as much wire as Bolan had strung over their heads; they were putting in cute little electric-eye floodlight traps, digging foxholes and positioning fire teams.

  Bolan did not intend to play that hand. He had been up and down every telephone pole in the neighborhood, stringing dummy wire as he went, studying the layout inside those walls from every available angle and planning his own strike his own way.

  And this, he had decided, would have to be a daylight hit.

  It was in Northwest Philadelphia—out beyond Germantown, in the upper Fairmount Park area—that Bolan had decided to issue his first dose of blitzkrieg to Papa Angeletti. It was a quiet neighborhood of parkland, hospitals, social institutions, schools, and private clubs of various types.

  The combat zone itself had once been the site of a small college, about a four-acre plot of land abutting the park and set off by a crumbling eighteenth century wall of fieldstone. The original building remained, a vine-covered brick structure of two stories, rather small and unpretentious in this age of super-architecture. Surrounding it were a collection of ten bungalow-style smaller buildings. These had obviously been built in more recent times, with no apparent attempt to gracefully bridge the centuries between the architectural styles.

  The college itself had long ago ceased to exist. Somewhere around the beginning of the twentieth century the site had become the home of a local millionnaire who had renovated and modernized the interior facilities. Little else had been done to the old building until the early 1950s when it once again became a seat of learning. The original classrooms were restored at that time, the bungalows added, and the “Fairmount School for Special Children” came into being.

  The new school had catered to handicapped children of well-to-do families, providing resident education and medical services “in a homelike atmosphere”—this latter claim being attested to by the new bungalow-style dormitories, each of which could house eight to ten children in a family environment. Each bungalow featured a kitchen, dining room, recreation room, a large formal living room and five double bedrooms.