California Hit
Page 18
“Well what was it, either five-thirty or six, what was it?” the clockmaker wanted to know.
“God I don’t know exactly, I was—wait, it was before the six o’clock news. Yeah. The guy stood there at the bar and watched the news with me for a minute before he took off. Wanted to see how the Patriots were doing. So… he was here altogether about a half an hour, maybe less. I guess.”
The bosses had formed a semi-circle about the jittery steward. Tramitelli was standing off the side a little, staring down the range toward the whirring targets.
Figarone was saying, in that quiet purr of his, “You mean you let a perfect stranger just walk into our club, Charlie? You let him just come in here and look around and do whatever he wants to do? You didn’t even come downstairs with him?”
“God, he had your card, Mr. Figarone. He said you wanted him to do some work on the pistol range. He showed me his stuff, he was from this gun factory. It all looked on the level to me. But why would he come in here and tear everything up? I mean, what is the guy, some kind of nut?”
Tramitelli was still staring at the moving targets. His voice overrode a comment from one of the lesser bosses as he said, “This nut of yours, Charlie. What’d he look like?”
“Just a guy. Wore coveralls, you know, like these service guys wear. Carried this tool kit.”
“What’d he look like, Charlie?”
“Uh, big guy. You know, tall. Kinda young, I guess. Yeah, no more’n about thirty. Laughed a lot. You know, joking, carrying on a lot. Okay guy, I thought. You know. Lotta fun. We, uh, I even set him up a beer. God, now that’s thanks for you, the guy comes down here and leaves a mess like this.”
Tramitelli sighed loudly and sadly. “Where were the other boys while you were setting up beers?” he asked.
“Uh, well there was just Paul and Lacey. You know. We were soft until—I mean, we didn’t go on alert until Mr. Greco called, about seven o’clock. We were eating supper when this guy got here.”
Tramitelli again sighed and walked off toward the target pits. Greco followed a few steps behind him. Figarone was arguing loudly with the hapless steward and the lesser bosses were standing by in a strained silence.
Andy Nova pulled loose from that group and trailed after Tramitelli and Greco.
The chief triggerman reached the pits first and stood there with hands on hips and watched the automated figures go through their motions.
Nova and Greco pulled up beside him, and Nova softly exclaimed, “Well, do you see what I see!”
Tramitelli growled, “Yeah. I thought I saw it all the way from the firing line.” As one of the target figures moved past, he reached out to snare an object which was dangling over the target heart.
Greco silently leaned forward and snatched another, then Nova picked off the third one.
Each object was an identical military marksman’s medal, drilled cleanly through center with a neatly punched bullet hole.
Tramitelli remained in the pits, thoughtfully tossing the mutilated medal into the air and catching it, while the other two returned to the firing line.
Greco turned his souvenir over to Books Figarone and said, “Well, there you go.”
The Cambridge lawyer’s facial lines settled into a deadpan expression. He said, “Let’s get out of here.”
The other bosses were quietly examining Andy Nova’s medal.
No explanation was necessary, and apparently none could think of a fitting comment.
Tramitelli came up from the pit area and solemnly declared, “I think you’d all better beat it, Mr. Greco. The guy could’ve planted bombs, anything.”
Greco’s eyes were worried, almost panicky. He nodded and quietly commanded, “We go out in hard convoy, Hoops. See to it.”
The triggerman grunted and hurried out.
The others quickly followed him up the stairs, and the lawyer from Cambridge was heard to remark, “Don’t take it so hard, Charlie. You’re not the first to fall for a Bolan stunt.”
“He was such a straight Joe, Mr. Figarone,” the duty steward was insisting. “I just don’t think it could’ve been him. I mean this guy was… well he was an okay guy, know what I mean?”
And at that very moment, the “okay guy” was less than 200 yards away, patiently waiting for the Middlesex Combination to quit their “impregnable” hardsite.
He was attired for night combat, and he was no more than a softly breathing black shadow of death on a landscape carefully made ready for war.
In a snap-out rig beneath his left arm rode the silent black Beretta. A big silver automatic, the .44 AutoMag, was worn in a flap holster at his right hip. The same weapons belt which supported the AutoMag also provided berths for a number of personal munitions. At his right knee stood an unimpressive little artillery piece which thousands of ex-GI’s would recognize as a field mortar; beside it was a neat stack of 40mm mortar rounds.
The peace and quiet, out there on that no-man’s-land, was but a deceptive lull before the storm which would soon engulf all of Boston in a savage sea of blood.
His time was at hand, and the Executioner was ready for the first pitched battle of the most important war of his life.
This one is for love, he told himself.
And let those others sink into their own stinking sea.
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About the Author
Don Pendleton (1927–1995) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. He served in the US Navy during World War II and the Korean War. His first short story was published in 1957, but it was not until 1967, at the age of forty, that he left his career as an aerospace engineer and turned to writing full time. After producing a number of science fiction and mystery novels, in 1969 Pendleton launched his first book in the Executioner saga: War Against the Mafia. The series, starring Vietnam veteran Mack Bolan, was so successful that it inspired a new American literary genre, and Pendleton became known as the father of action-adventure.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author᾿s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1972 by Pinnacle Books
Cover design by Mauricio Diaz
ISBN: 978-1-4976-8564-2
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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