Panic in Philly

by Don Pendleton

  Bolan replied, “I’m in grace. Just got here today.”

  “You better drop downtown in the morning and register. Is that a gun permit there? New York?”

  “I’ll be back over the line by midnight,” Bolan assured him. He showed the cop the front side of the Ace of Spades, just for the hell of it.

  Thompkins commented, “Consultant, huh? You must be a very busy man.”

  “I try to be,” Bolan told him. “You’re not going through this routine with every guy in the place, I hope.”

  “You want to read the warrant?”

  The FBI guy was looking around, casing the layout.

  Bolan told the big cop, “Let’s be men. You boys must have better things to do, I’m sure. Go on. Get with it. Let’s make this quick and easy.”

  “We’ll need to talk to Stefano Angeletti.”

  “Does it say that in the warrant?”

  “No. But I’m sure he’d like to cooperate. Oddly enough we have a common cause, I’m not exactly proud to say.”

  Bolan jerked a thumb toward the library and said, “He’s in there. But it’s getting late and he’s tired. He’s an old man, remember, and this is his doctor here.” Bolan indicated Kastler with a twitch of the thumb. “It’s been a tough day and I’m sure you know what I mean.”

  Thomkins said, “You are telling me,” and walked into the library.

  Drasco and Kastler followed him in.

  A younger plain-clothes cop stepped in from the outside, stared curiously at Bolan for a moment, then led the uniformed men into the big living room where the crews hung out.

  Another troop moved in through the open doorway and went up the stairs to the second floor.

  Bolan and the FBI guy were left alone in the reception hall.

  The guy was giving him a very intent look. He cleared his throat and, in a very casual and low-pitched voice, told Bolan, “Brognola sends his regards.”

  Bolan’s chest went ice cold and he tried to keep his eyes and face the same as he replied, “Who?”

  “He says it’s a bad time for a hit.”

  Bolan let his lips slide into a lopsided, disbelieving grin. “Come on now,” he said. “Not you. Amicu di l’amici?”

  “Forget it and drop dead,” the fed replied disgustedly and went on to the library.

  Bolan watched him walk away. Under his breath he said, “Yeah, I almost did.”

  A loud commotion overhead at that moment brought the young plain-clothes cop hurrying from the crew room. Two uniformed men were retreating in confusion toward the stairway landing, accompanied by a variety of flying objects, some of which were crashing into the wall behind them and sending fragments of broken pottery and glass bouncing down to the main floor.

  A young woman appeared at the top of the stairs, screaming vile words in an unending stream. She was clad only in bra and panties.

  Frank the Kid ran into the hall and exclaimed, “Philippa!”

  The young cop was starting up there.

  Bolan jostled him aside, growled, “Let me,” and led the way.

  One of the uniformed officers told Bolan as he went past, “We have to look in that room.”

  Bolan said, “Sure you do. Come on.”

  He ducked a flying vase and scooped the woman up, carrying her back along the hallway under one arm. He called over his shoulder to the cops, “Get with it, let’s go.”

  They went.

  Philippa the Bitch was kicking and yelling and trying to bite a chunk out of Bolan’s leg.

  His free hand grabbed her by the hair of her head and he told her, “You’re disgracing your papa. What’s the matter with you, huh?”

  She yelled, “I’m going to kill you, all of you!”

  The young cop brushed past, gave Bolan a sympathetic smile, and went on to aid the men in blue.

  Bolan recognized the cop. He’d spent a pleasant minute or so with the guy earlier that day.

  The inspection upstairs took only another few seconds. The cops filed past, giving the man and his burden plenty of clearance; then Bolan carried the girl to her room and dropped her on the bed.

  “Behave yourself,” he said gently, and went out.

  She was quiet now, sending a thoughtful gaze after him as he closed the door.

  A guy down on the landing was reporting to another in the reception hall, “Nothing up there. It’s clean.”

  The cops were leaving.

  Another crisis was ending, another test met.

  Others, however, were lying in wait for Mack the Wild Card. The night of tests had only just begun.

  He flexed his shoulders, removed the tinted wire-frames and dropped them into the pocket, and went down to see what could be stirred up on this, his possibly last night on earth.

  Chapter 14/ A Stirring

  Captain Thomkins held a brief meeting with his detail leaders just outside the entrance to the Angeletti property; shortly thereafter the army of cops began their decampment from the neighborhood.

  The Captain himself, with FBI Agent Joseph Persicone in the vehicle with him, was among the first to take departure. He had the look of a man who would like nothing better than to simply let go and have a good, unembarrassed cry.

  Persicone respected the mood until they were well clear of the area, then he broke the silence to admit, “That Cavaretta guy … for a minute there, for just one trembling moment, I had the creepy feeling that the guy was Mack Bolan.

  “I just made an ass of myself. The guy thought I was trying to pose as an amicu di l’amici—a friend of the friends—a bought cop.”

  Thomkins grunted and commented, “You’ve been chasing the guy across too many towns, Joe. Glad I’ve just got the one. Few minutes ago you were trying to convince me he was blown to pieces.”

  “I know,” Persicone said, sighing.

  “Anyway, it just couldn’t be. I know what that Cavaretta guy is. I’m going to run a make on him, just for the hell of it, but I already know. Did you notice his finger … tips? Sealed solid. He was sent down here by the old men in New York. And it was obvious that he was acting with plenty of authority. He was running the joint. Did you see the way he took over Philippa the Brat?”

  “That was the young lady with tantrums? Yes, I caught the tail of it. Angeletti’s daughter, eh?”

  “The one and only.”

  Persicone said, “I gather she’s not very popular with the official household. I caught a lot of sniggering and quiet cheering-on when Cavaretta grabbed her. Even old man Angeletti was whispering, ‘Hit her, hit her.’ Had to feel a bit sorry for the old guy. I’m Italian, you know. I know how he felt.”

  “Okay, Italian, tell me something I’ve often wondered about. How does the girl feel? Raised up in all that? She knows what her old man is, knows what he’s done to get where he is. What’s her place in all that?”

  “She has no place,” Persicone replied quietly. “Mafia or not, liberated twentieth century or not, the female members of a traditional Italian family have no place. They cook, they bear children, educate them, teach them to love the Holy Mother of God, and generally stand as the very center of the universe for their family. But they have no voice, no vote, not even any opinions in the affairs of their men. Worst of all, they even have to shed their tears in private.”

  “It’s not still that way,” Thomkins said. “Is it?”

  “In a family like that one back there? Sure it is.”

  “It figures then,” the Captain said. “Philippa’s fit, I mean. I’d say she’s about ready to blow a gasket. That one is no shrinking madonna, I’ll tell you.”

  “Could be,” Persicone agreed. “I’ll jot that down in my notes for future considerations. Unless Bolan makes future considerations unnecessary.”

  “What’s your learned expert opinion in the matter?” the Captain growled. “Will the guy pop up again? Or is he through with our town.”

  “If he’s not dead then he’s not through,” Persicone replied without even thinking about it.r />
  “Well, he’s not dead,” Thompkins quietly declared.

  “Then he’s not through.”

  The Captain sighed, He stuck a cigarette between his lips and viciously jabbed his thumb against the dashboard lighter. “Neither am I,” he said.

  Persicone grinned. “What? No bottle and bedsprings?”

  “Not until the guy is through,” Thomkins growled.

  “It’s going to be a long night,” Persicone said, sighing.

  Thomkins lit his cigarette, expelled the smoke with a hiss, and said, “It’s already been a long night. I left Strauss back there, though. He’s young; he can take it.”

  “Take what?”

  “The suspense. I put ’im on bird-dog stake-out. Told him not to come home until he’s got the man by the throat.”

  “That could be dangerous … a man alone …”

  “He’s not all that alone. Three squads are backing him up—way back but not so far away they can’t give instant response.”

  “That’s not a stake-out,” Persicone said. “It’s a forward scout at the enemy’s door.”

  “That,” said the get-Bolan chief, “is precisely what it is.”

  Stefano had gone up to “look in on” Philippa.

  Doctor Kastler had taken his departure, leaving behind a supply of sedatives for both Philippa and Jules Sticatta.

  Frank the Kid had found his own brand of sedatives at the library bar and it was obviously going to take a major disaster to blast him out of there in any foreseeable future.

  Bolan/Cavaretta had taken a turn around the grounds to “hoorah” the troops out there, carrying a bottle of Frank’s best bourbon for ambassadorial purposes, returning with an empty fifth and a lot of new friends.

  He found Carmine Drasco huddled with his boys at a large card table near the TV set and dragged him off to the rear for “a kitchen conference.”

  It was all too obvious that Drasco held this “wild card” in the highest esteem. He was bursting with smug pride over this personal confab with the impressive storm trooper from New York and transparently anxious to make a good showing for himself.

  Bolan watered that down immediately between gulps from a milk bottle at the refrigerator door. “You’re flat on your ass, Carmine,” he told the guy. “We had you figured for too smart for this.”

  “I don’t, uh, I don’t get you, Johnny,” Drasco replied in a rapidly deflating voice.

  “I have better things to do with my time than to run around playing stink-finger with guys like this.”

  “What guys? I don’t know—what’s happened?”

  “You tell me what’s happened,” Bolan bored on. “What’s been happening in this crazy town all day, Carmine?”

  “Well, God, it’s been—hey, you just don’t know. It’s been sheer hell. One thing and another.”

  Bolan relented suddenly, smiling sympathetically and placing an arm around the caporegime’s shoulder to lead him toward the far corner of the room. His voice dropped to a near whisper as he said, “I know more than you think. Listen, why do you think I’m here?”

  “Well, to—hell, Stefano said they were sending you to—you came to get Bolan off our backs, didn’t you?”

  “Has this Bolan been on your backs, Carmine?”

  “You damn well know it! He took Cappy clear out of the picture early this morning. Then he hit us out at the Emperor’s this afternoon like—well, you’d have to be there to know like what. He—”

  “Did you see the boy, Carmine?”

  “What boy? Who, Bolan? Of course I …”

  “Did you see him? With your own two eyes?”

  “Well … I guess I didn’t. But somebody sure as hell did. He left about thirty dead men behind who I guess saw him.” The Southy lieutenant had been whispering. He raised his voice to inquire, “What the hell are we whispering for?”

  “You either go on like you were or shut up!” Bolan hissed back. “This whole damn place might have ears. Listen! What makes you think it was Bolan at the Emperor’s today?”

  “What makes me think…? Are you saying …? I don’t get this, Johnny. What the hell are you telling me?”

  Bolan pushed him deeper into the corner. “Look,” he said, “I don’t belong to any family. You know? Like a guy living in the District of Columbia—right? He has no allegiance to any state. Right? That’s me, Carmine. And that’s my boss. And my boss tells me this, Carmine. He says, ‘Do what you can, Johnny. Talk to those boys down there in Philly, but talk to them quietly. And don’t you do a thing else until we get all this cleared through council.’”

  “All this what?” the guy wailed.

  “All this, you know.” Bolan rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, patted his chest, and dropped his gaze to the floor.

  Carmine Drasco was in danger of popping several blood veins in his face and throat. His eyes were shifting violently from side to side and his breath was coming in stuttering gasps. He half-whispered, half-shouted, “What the hell are you telling me?”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” Bolan/Cavaretta quietly assured him, the tone a sombre sotto voce. “But I’m going to show you something, Carmine. After that, what you decide is your own business. Like I said, I have to stay neutral. I have to stay that way until somebody way upstairs says otherwise. You know?”

  Carmine Drasco obviously “knew.”

  After all, it had been a most difficult day in Philadelphia. A day to believe almost anything. At this point, Drasco was ready to believe most anything.

  Johnny Cavaretta was being one hell of a nice guy, letting Carmine in on something earth-shaking. It had to be … and, yeah, Carmine Drasco was ready to buy everything.

  He was not quite prepared, however, for what Bolan/Cavaretta had stashed away in the luggage compartment of the Maserati.

  Bolan led him out there without a word, snapped open the lid, and told the guy, “See what there is to see. But—on your sacred blood, Carmine—not a word, not a Goddamned word to anybody.”

  Carmine looked, and his eyes boggled at what they beheld. He reached in for a feel, patted the lifeless face, then spat on it.

  Bolan pushed him away and closed the exhibit, then dragged the muted, almost staggering caporegime back into the house.

  Drasco dropped into a chair and passed a quivering hand across his face. He said, “I don’t get—I guess I don’t—how long has that been in there, Johnny?”

  “Since about noon today,” Bolan/Cavaretta lied without a qualm.

  “Well, okay, I—yeah … I guess I had it figured for something like that, from what you … I mean …”

  The guy was all torn up, pinned cruelly upon the horns of both joy and wriggling fear.

  Bolan prodded that latter emotion a bit. “Like I said, Carmine. I’d show you something. After that it’s up to you.”

  “But if you bagged the guy about noon … then … well, wait a minute, now. Who …?”

  Bolan nodded his head and gave the guy a sober wink. “Exactly,” he said. “Who hit the Emperor’s?”

  “Well, I’m damned if I know,” Drasco declared raggedly. “I didn’t see anything, to tell the truth.” His eyes flared suddenly and he yelled, “Hey!” He staggered off the chair, pivoted toward the door to the crew room and cried, “That rotten fink!”

  “What rotten fink?” Bolan asked quietly.

  “He kept saying he saw him, he saw him—clear as day and big as a mountain, that’s what he said! And that little bitch! She hit him, she said! Imagine that! I thought she was just … kept saying it over and over, she hit him! Jesus Christ, what a fucking sap I been! Poor old Jules, Goddamned near cremated!”

  Drasco spun about to show Bolan a tortured, betrayed and utterly demoralized loyal liege to the chief. He was almost sobbing as he asked, “Why would he do that, Johnny?”

  Bolan felt like a bastard for sure and he did not have to fake the sadness as he replied, “Because he’s dying, that’s why. An old man sometimes gets desperate, espe
cially when things are untidy behind him. Don’t blame him too much.”

  “Naw, you got the wrong slant on it. It wasn’t Stefano. It was that fink of a kid, fucked-up Frank, the ninety-second wonder. Those were his boys, his wops—and he even knocked off a bunch of them just to get to us! What d’ you think of a kid what would hit his own papa?”

  “And can’t even do that right,” Bolan added.

  “He sure didn’t! All he got was a bunch of his own wops and a piece of poor old Jules. That rotten—I’m gonna—”

  Bolan grabbed the guy and jerked him back as he lunged toward the crew-room door. “You’re doing nothing!” he said coldly. “Don’t you worry, it’s already in council. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Well, dammit, what’m I supposed to do, just sit here and smile about it?”

  “I’m just going to tell you what I would do, Carmine. I leave the rest up to you. If it was me, I’d take Jules home, I mean straight home. He’s hurting and he needs to be home. I’d do that first. Then I’d round up all his regime; I’d get them hard and I’d tell them to shoot the first greaser that crossed the line. Then I’d go home and do the same for my own, and I’d sit tight and let Johnny Cavaretta do his own job his own way.”

  Drasco’s gaze was darting about the kitchen. He was thinking—survival thinking. Presently he asked, “What about Stefano?”

  “Johnny Cavaretta is here with Stefano, Carmine.”

  Drasco was huffing and puffing and still thinking about it.

  Bolan lit a cigarette and passed it to him.

  The guy huffed some more, ignoring the cigarette, then said, “That’s why you’re here?”

  “It’s exactly why I’m here. I didn’t even have to come to Philly otherwise. I bagged my game over in Jersey.”

  Drasco had come to his decision. He grabbed Bolan’s hand and pumped it throughout the long speech. “I want you to know, Johnny, and I want you to tell all our dear friends in New York, that this is the nicest thing anybody has ever did for me. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. All these years with Stefano and he never done nothing like this for Carmine Drasco. He even sat on his tail once’t and let Cappy horn right into my territory without no explanation—not even a by-your-leave. Not even, no, not a gentle cough to warn me. I mean it, I’ll never forget this, Johnny.”