Hard Targets

by Don Pendleton

  He was referring to an old case, broken only at the turn of the new century, wherein some Boston G-man helped one of their Mafia informers frame four minor rivals for a murder he’d committed. Two of them had died in prison, while the other two emerged old, crippled men—and won a fat six-figure settlement that still would never make up for the time they’d lost. While that deal was unfolding, DOJ investigators learned that one of the agents involved had also fingered prosecution witnesses for hit teams, banking payoffs when the targets were eliminated. That agent served three years of a ten-year federal sentence, and was now locked up for forty, back in Massachusetts.

  “So, you got something else?” Brognola asked.

  “A guy on Buffalo PD who’s been cooperative with the Bureau, to a point. He hates bad apples, but he won’t go public. Sure as hell won’t testify.”

  “Not my concern.”

  “Okay. Detective Sergeant Rudolph Arnold Mahan. Goes by ‘Rudy,’ so you don’t get off on the wrong foot.”

  “He’ll talk to me?” the big Fed asked.

  “Can’t speak for him,” Hansen replied. “I wouldn’t want to promise anything I can’t deliver. Buffalo thinks Mahan may be having second thoughts about continuing collaboration. On the other hand, since Greg O’Malley screwed the pooch, he can’t exactly put his head back in the sand, can he?”

  “You never know. Thanks for the tip, regardless.”

  “Sure. I would say, ‘Anytime,’ but let’s not make this thing a habit.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Brognola lied, and cut the link.

  In his experience, the FBI had never learned the Golden Rule. Headquarters loved receiving information—solid leads or flimsy gossip, anything at all—but hated giving back. He knew that he’d incurred a debt with Hansen that would have to be repaid, and wondered how far he’d be tested when the time came.

  A Buffalo detective, this one honest, if the Bureau’s information could be trusted, wasn’t prepared to break the wall of silence in a public way, but would help federal investigators weave a basket to contain some of the rotten apples on his team. Or was he? How could Brognola be sure this character wasn’t corrupt, himself? It wouldn’t be the first time that a dirty cop fed his competitors into the grinder, standing by to claim a bigger slice himself—or to protect someone above him.

  On the plus side, he could talk to Mahan, feel him out, without exposing Bolan or his brother. Maybe play it off like he’d been a money trail for one of Vinnie Gallo’s operations and noted the O’Malley hit, then checked with Buffalo regarding any semi-friendlies on the local force. He couldn’t play it like he took for granted that the two of them were comrades. Mahan, by the time he’d made detective sergeant, would have seen the FBI in action, and he’d probably have some issues with the way they commandeered a case, throwing their weight around.

  So, unobtrusive. Asking, without telling. Maybe hint something about an inside angle on the recent mayhem sweeping Buffalo?

  No, leave that out. Whatever happened in the next few hours, he couldn’t leave a trail of bread crumbs leading back to Justice, much less Stony Man.

  Unless a miracle occurred, the Executioner was on his own.

  Lower West Side, Buffalo

  FRESH BACK FROM Jamestown, the Bolan brothers checked into a motel on South Park Avenue. The clerk who handled registration ignored their faces, didn’t ask to see IDs and looked at “Matt Cooper’s” Visa only long enough to make sure that the charge had cleared, before he passed it back. If he was on the lookout for a pair of guys ducking the Mob, he hid it well enough to rate an acting award.

  “Room 18, far end, ground floor,” he said, and pushed two keys across the grungy counter.

  In the seedy room, the brothers spent an hour cleaning weapons and reloading magazines, talking through plans and watching live news broadcasts on the ancient Sony television set. The city and surrounding Erie County were in uproar over what the talking heads were calling the Niagara Massacre. Some of the dead had been identified, including Joseph Borgio, born Giuseppe, known to colleagues and a few reporters as “The Hammer.” Lacking evidence of what had actually happened, they were reaching back through history to Russell Buffalino’s era and the ancient raid at Apalachin, running old stock footage of the mafiosi from another time, long gone.

  “They’ll have Capone up next,” Johnny said, topping off another 15-round magazine for his Glock.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” Bolan said. “They have to justify their salaries.”

  “Good luck with that. You plan on calling Gallo back?”

  “I want to let him stew awhile. Maybe rattle his cage a little more.”

  “Suits me. I’d still like to find out where Zoe’s brother is.”

  “You may not find him, Johnny.”

  “Sure, I know. But—”

  Bolan’s cell phone rang. He checked the number before answering. “It’s Hal,” he said. Then, to the man from Washington, “What’s up?”

  “With the feed I’m getting from CNN, I should be asking you.”

  “Working some issues out,” Bolan replied.

  “Is there a resolution in our future?”

  “Getting closer. Are you taking heat?”

  “Not me. In fact,” Brognola said, “I may have stumbled on to someone who can help you.” He made it sound casual, when Bolan knew he had to have pulled every available string in an effort to help.

  “I’m all ears,” Bolan told his oldest living friend.

  “They’ve got a sergeant of detectives there in Buffalo named Rudy Mahan. Word around the house is that he’s fed up with a handful of the slugs, like that O’Malley. Not enough to testify, but if somebody caught him in the right mood...”

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “Not yet,” Brognola said.

  “Let me do that.”

  There was a silent pause, then, “Sure. If you think that’s the way to go.”

  “No reason he should link you up to anything that’s happened here,” Bolan replied.

  “Just so you know, I wouldn’t mind.”

  “It’s understood,” Bolan said. “Thanks.”

  “Jesus. If we start to thank each other now, where does it end?” the big Fed asked.

  “You’re right. Scratch that.”

  “Okay. Is Johnny doing all right?”

  “A-one. We’re hoping to be out of here before much longer.”

  “That sounds like a plan. If you need anything...”

  “I know. See you.”

  And that was all. Bolan turned back to Johnny, telling him, “Turns out there may be someone on the force that we can talk to.”

  “Risky,” Johnny said.

  “I won’t walk into anything that seems off-key.”

  “You mean, we won’t.”

  “Same thing,” Bolan said, as he grabbed a telephone directory out of the nearby nightstand, found a number and began to dial.

  East Side, Buffalo

  “THIS THING HAS gone to hell,” Strauss said.

  “Ya think?” Kelly replied.

  “What kinda goat screw was that? They lose the girl, Joe Borgio, all those other guys—for what?”

  “You said it. Goat screw.”

  “It makes me think we backed a losing horse, you know?”

  Facing each other in a corner booth of a small mom-and-pop diner on Sycamore Street, with coffee on the table, Kelly eyed his partner, trying to figure out where Strauss was going with his gripe. No question, they were in the shit, but if Strauss thought he’d found a way out of the situation, he had kept it to himself so far.

  “What are you getting at?” Kelly asked.

  “Hey, I’m just thinking out loud. If the old man can’t hold it together anymore, what the hell do we owe him?�
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  “It’s not what we owe him,” Kelly said. “It’s what he’s got on us that counts.”

  “And what’s he gonna do with that?” Strauss asked, his voice lowered almost to a whisper. “Think the Feds are gonna deal with him, to take us down? If anything, it’s gonna be the other way around.”

  “You wanna be a rat, now?”

  “Who said that? My point is that if Mr. G. goes down, we aren’t obliged to try to save him. What’s he gonna say to put us on the spot? Confess that he told us to do some hits? That’s life without parole, murder in aid of racketeering, right? They’d likely throw his ass in supermax.”

  “And how’s life looking to you, after that?” Kelly asked. “Think we’d walk away from it? Pick up our pensions and retire to the Bahamas?”

  “All I’m saying is—”

  “We need to clean this up,” Kelly said, interrupting him. “The best case, if he falls, we both go back to living on our salaries, no frills, with I.A. looking up our asses. No way the media will buy O’Malley as the only cop on the pad.”

  “All right. When you say clean it up, what did you have in mind?” Strauss asked.

  “The girl, for one thing. She can nail us both for kidnapping.”

  “You’re crazy if you think she’s still in Buffalo.”

  “So, what? Airlines don’t fly to San Diego anymore?”

  “You’re kiddin’ me,” Strauss said. “Head west and cap the broad, when all this other crap is going on? Just tell the captain, ‘Hey, we thought we’d take a few vacation days’?”

  “You want her out there, talking to the Feds?” Kelly asked.

  There was no response to that, at first, then Strauss replied, “Well, both of us can’t go.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Just hang on a second. If she isn’t running to the Feds already, don’t you think she’ll worry about someone finding her at home? She knows we got her phone number, for chrissakes. Can you see her sitting there eating popcorn, waiting for the knock?”

  “Goddamn it!”

  “Right. We need to get a tip on where she’s gone, then roll her up.”

  “A tip from who?”

  “Gallo’s got someone in the D.A.’s office. We could start there.”

  “Hmm.”

  “If you’ve got something better...”

  “No,” Kelly admitted grudgingly. “You know his name?”

  “I’ll get it. Then, we have a little tit-a-tit.”

  “Rosetta Stone isn’t working for you, partner.”

  “Women love it when I talk dat jive,” Strauss said.

  “Just get the number,” Kelly told him, “or you’ll be talking in the joint.”

  Buffalo Police Headquarters

  RUDY MAHAN THOUGHT he’d picked the wrong time to quit smoking. Wrong week, month, year—any way you sliced it. He’d be better off if he bought stock in Nicorette and spent his dividends on Marlboros. Unless you listened to his doctor. In which case...

  “Damn it!” Reaching for the phone before it shrilled at him a second time, Mahan prepared himself for more bad news.

  What other kind was there?

  “Mahan,” he growled.

  “That’s Sergeant Mahan?” asked a voice he didn’t recognize.

  “The very same. Who’s asking?”

  “Would you like to get a handle on what’s happening with Vinnie Gallo’s Family?”

  “I didn’t catch your name.”

  Ignoring him, the caller pressed ahead. “It started with a missing person. Joseph Dirks. He was a contractor in Buffalo.”

  That name again. And then, the sister.

  “You said was a contractor.”

  “He’s dead now. We should really talk about this face-to-face.”

  “Okay. Why don’t you come on by and—”

  “I was thinking of a private meeting. Someplace where his killers won’t be eavesdropping.”

  “If you’re inferring—”

  “That would be implying,” he caller said. “You infer. I’m saying it flat-out. You want more details on this line?”

  “Can’t say I like where this is going,” Mahan answered.

  “It’s already gone,” the stranger said. “One hit, for sure. At least two more attempted. Something’s rotten in your house, Sergeant, but I was told it hadn’t tainted you.”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking to, but—”

  “Same folks you are, I imagine. More or less.”

  Mahan wasted a scowl on the phone in his hand. “Hey, I like a wild-goose chase as much as the next guy, but I’ve hit my quota of crazy for this week, okay? If you want to come by here and see me—”

  “Could you call in Strauss and Kelly?” the stranger asked. “Makes it easier than going after them with warrants.”

  “Listen, now—”

  “Joe Dirks,” the caller said again. “Ask them what happened to him. Ask about his sister, while you’re at it. She’s alive, no thanks to Strauss and Kelly. Ask them what happened in the park, and why.”

  Mahan felt sick, but there was only one way he could play it on an open line. “If you have a complaint to file—”

  “I’ve filed it,” the caller said. “It’s in your hands now. Take action, or stand back and keep out of the way.”

  “You can’t just—”

  Click.

  “Goddamn it!”

  Mahan punched *69 for last-call return, sat strangling the handset while it rang and rang and—

  “What?”

  “Who’s this?” Mahan demanded.

  “Who ya lookin’ for?”

  “I need your name!”

  “Name’s Yarta.”

  “Yarta? Yarta what?”

  “Yarta go screw yo’self.”

  Click!

  Red-faced and steaming, Mahan called downstairs to have his last incoming call traced to its source. Five endless minutes later, he heard back: a public pay phone near the riverfront.

  Useless.

  Kelly and Strauss. Good friends of Greg O’Malley, who was looking dirtier with every passing hour since his death.

  There’s no such thing as one bad apple, Mahan thought. Hell, every cop knew that. Unless you had some two-man force out in the sticks somewhere. In which case, if one cop was dirty, he figured they both were. One of very few things old Jack Webb got right, when he was preaching to the choir on Dragnet: police departments would always have problems, since they had to recruit from the human race.

  “I don’t need this,” Mahan muttered to himself.

  But at the moment, who else could he trust?

  Chapter 11

  Calaguiro Estates, Niagara Falls, Ontario

  “We all set, then?” Al Cavallaro asked.

  “Ready to roll,” Elio Mangano replied.

  “You got it straight now, for the border?”

  “Sure. No more than three guys to a car, and space them out so it don’t look like a parade or something.”

  “And the guns?”

  “Be waiting for them on the other side,” Mangano said. “Don’t worry about Customs.”

  Taking unreported weapons either way, across the border, was a serious offense. Already pissed about the call for troops to mop up Vinnie Gallo’s mess, the last thing Cavallaro needed was to have the bulk of his garrison jailed overnight on some stupid gun-running charge.

  “All right, then. Get them rolling,” he said, “before Vin calls back, PMSing.”

  Mangano snorted at that. “Good one, Al.”

  “Don’t repeat it!”

  “Who, me? What if he asks when you’ll be coming over?”

  “I’ll be there before he gets a ch
ance to ask. Gino’s driving me.”

  “The two of you, alone?”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought, with all that’s going down...”

  “It’s back across the river,” Cavallaro said. “Why the hell you think he needs our boys?”

  “Not, sure.”

  “Go on, now. Hit the road.”

  It sucked big-time, Cavallaro thought, the whole damned thing. Of course, he was an underling of Vinnie Gallo’s in the structure of the Family. Shit rolled downhill, and captains took their orders from the general. No big surprise there, but it rankled Cavallaro that his apple cart should be upset by trouble Gallo brought upon himself somehow, in Buffalo. They might be next-door neighbors, but it felt as if they lived in two distinct and separate worlds. Not just the easygoing atmosphere of Canada, although that helped to keep Al’s blood-pressure below volcanic levels. Life was easier, seemed to run smoother, since he’d been dispatched across the river to Ontario.

  And now, goddamn it, he was going back.

  Into a war zone, yet.

  Cavallaro tried to remember the last time he’d seen this kind of trouble in the Family, but came up empty. It was more like something from the bad old days, turf wars and stuff his old man used to talk about—but more so. Almost like—

  “You ready, boss?” Gino Pinelli asked him, standing in the open office doorway.

  “Yeah, let’s do it,” Cavallaro answered, rising from his desk.

  “No heat, right?”

  “Nothing.”

  Pinelli nodded, looking gloomy. “Hope they got some decent stuff across the river.”

  “Same stuff we got here,” Cavallaro said. “Only more so.”

  “Weird freaking deal,” Pinelli said. “This trouble coming out of nowhere.”

  “Trouble always comes from somewhere, Gino. We’re just getting hit with someone else’s mess, this time.”

  Pinelli made no reply to that. He was a soldier, knew his place and wouldn’t comment on the foibles of a boss unless invited to, by his direct superior. Cavallaro thought he might have said too much already, but he’d only make things worse by warning Gino not to carry tales. A soldier ought to know that on his own, regardless.