Knockdown

by Don Pendleton

  There was a service room nearby. She opened the door and stashed the black briefcase behind a big box of cleaning supplies.

  As she walked through the terminal toward the exit, she affected a rhythmic, rolling gait, as if she were a little high on something. People noticed her, men particularly. But neither men nor women looked at her face. They stared, approving or disapproving, at her outfit and manner.

  When she walked out of the TWA terminal, the airport was teeming with police. They had begun to concentrate on the TWA domestic terminal, which meant that the cabbie had already talked. But she boarded a Carey Bus for the East Side Terminal, and it pulled away without interference. Ten minutes after that bus left Kennedy Airport, the police blocked all the exits and checked every passenger in every car and bus that left. By then the bus carrying Salina was well out on the Van Wyck Expressway, on its way to Manhattan.

  * * *

  "What can I say?" Joe Coppolo asked sadly.

  The newspaper lay between them.

  OCTF LAWYER SHOT, KILLED AT KENNEDY!

  NEWLY HIRED WOMAN LAWYER VICTIM OF MOB HIT!

  DAUGHTER OF MURDERED UNION DISSIDENT

  WITNESS, MAY BE REAL TARGET

  Bolan's face was stone-hard. "Somebody is going to pay for killing Joan."

  "Yeah," Coppolo grunted. "But who? We don't even know who's responsible."

  Bolan slapped the newspaper. "The black woman who shot Gina in the Summit Hotel. The only question is — who does she work for? Which Family?"

  "Until you find out…"

  "I don't have to find out," Bolan said grimly. "She works for one of them. They're all responsible."

  * * *

  Across town, Joe Rossi slapped the same edition, even more firmly. "A young woman lawyer for the Organized Crime Task Force! Have you lost your minds?"

  Salina regarded Rossi with calm, heavy-lidded eyes. She'd decided how she would play this confrontation, and shrugged. "You said get Gina Claw. The first time I tried to hit Gina Claw, Bolan was there. I almost got him, too, but Bolan's a tough guy to get. The second time, this woman lawyer was there. Claw's boyfriend jumped on top of her and knocked her down, and my shot hit the lawyer."

  "Salina," he said quietly, "we are lucky that the heads of the other Families don't know who you are and don't know you work for me. Each of them contributed to your million-dollar fee for the hit on Bolan. If they knew you're the one who hit that Warnicke woman, they'd switch that fee to a contract on the two of us."

  "I'm going to get Bolan," she said simply. "Keep your million ready. I'll be calling on you for it very soon."

  He fixed a sober stare on her. "It'd be better if you got out of town."

  She shook her head. "We got a deal."

  He considered that statement for a long, silent moment. "Okay, we got a deal. But, you know, the risk has doubled or tripled."

  She smiled wryly. "And the fee hasn't."

  * * *

  Mack Bolan and Joe Coppolo sat at the counter in a small diner on Vandam Street. Though it was early evening, Bolan was eating ham and eggs.

  "Dammit, I cared for her, too."

  "Joe…"

  "Hal assigned me to work with you. What am I supposed to do, sit around and applaud? My leg's first-rate again. I…"

  "What I'm going to do is strictly outside the law," Bolan warned.

  A faint wry smile came over Coppolo's shiny face, visible more in his intent dark eyes than on his mouth. "Do tell."

  "I work alone, Joe."

  "You wouldn't be working alone or otherwise if Gina Claw hadn't blasted those hitters in the Meadowlands. And I thought we worked pretty well together at Bedford Beach."

  Bolan closed his eyes to think for a moment. A vision of Joan filled his imagination.

  "What do you want to do?"

  "What do you want to do?"

  "I want to turn up the heat," Bolan said. "I want to take out the head of a Family."

  "Hey, you…"

  "Barbosa, Corone, Segesta, Lentini, Rossi. Any one of them. I don't much care which."

  Coppolo tipped his head to one side and raised his eyebrows. "The Lentinis are into some rough business, according to Saul Stein. Speaking of Stein, he said to tell you he'll cooperate in any way he can in avenging Joan. Since you've gone entirely off the reservation — his words — he asked me to act as liaison between the two of you. He said he hopes you'll understand that he can't work directly with you anymore, but if you need help, information or whatever, just send the word."

  Bolan nodded. "Lentini…"

  "Rough businesses," Coppolo continued. "His guys pick up little girls at the Port Authority bus station, for example."

  "Prostitution," Bolan said.

  "Child prostitution. They hook the kids on something, heroin usually, then literally enslave them."

  "Where do we find Lentini?"

  "You mean Carlo himself?"

  Bolan nodded.

  "You want to go after the man? Not just one of his capos?"

  "The Five Families changed the character of the fight this morning. So, where do we find Carlo Lentini?"

  For a long moment Coppolo sat frowning, pondering. He ran his tongue around his lips. Then he stood up and nodded toward a telephone booth. "Let me make a call or two."

  * * *

  "Campbell."

  "Hi, Alex. A voice from the past."

  "Joe?"

  "You got it. Can you talk?"

  Detective Lieutenant Alex Campbell glanced around the squad room. All the others were intent on what they were doing — taking calls, straining over their paperwork, studying tip sheets.

  "I can talk."

  "I want to ask you for a big one. If you can't do it — or if you don't want to get involved — just say so."

  "Lemme hear it."

  "I need to know where Carlo Lentini is, where he's going to be tonight."

  Instinctively the detective glanced around the squad room again. He knew no one was listening, but instinct moved him to check. He frowned at the telephone, as if wondering whether the instrument could be trusted.

  "What's comin' down, Joe?"

  "You don't want to know."

  "Yeah. It looks like war. Or worse. I can't believe that hit at Kennedy this morning. Hey, you guys think Lentini?"

  "Don't know. Hey, and there's no 'you guys' in this. The question's strictly unofficial."

  "Yeah, right," Campbell replied. "Anyway, I may be able to find out. We got guys permanently assigned to Carlo. I'll have to make a call — after I think of some excuse for doing it. Where can I call you?"

  "You can't. I'll call you. Half an hour?"

  "Good enough. If I don't know by then, I won't ever know. But don't call me here. I'll go over to Larry's Other Place for a drink. I'll be at the bar. You got the number?"

  "I'll get it."

  * * *

  All a person had to do was walk down the block to know that a big man was eating at The Palm, and a look at the two men who leaned against the big gray Mercedes suggested that the man might be mafioso. The average citizen wasn't protected by bodyguards like these.

  Bolan and Coppolo walked past the Mercedes and the two mafioso guards. They were dressed like a couple of guys out for a night on the town, on their way, perhaps, to a nightclub or singles' bar. They wore white shirts, open at the collar, under summer-weight sport jackets.

  Bolan's Beretta hung in its harness under his jacket. The Desert Eagle, with its six-inch.44 Magnum barrel mounted for tonight's work, was in a brown paper bag that the warrior carried as if it held a bottle from which he was sipping as he walked.

  The Palm was located on Second Avenue, only two blocks from United Nations Headquarters. A little before ten o'clock the traffic on Second Avenue was moderate and fast. Not many people were on the sidewalks, though they weren't deserted. The Mercedes sat in the pool of bright light directly in front of the door to the restaurant.

  "I'd guess he's got at least one more hardman ins
ide," Bolan said. "We'll have to take them all."

  Coppolo nodded, and they crossed the street and walked up the block on the opposite side.

  Second Avenue was too wide, with too much traffic, for them to stay across the street until Lentini emerged from the restaurant. They'd have to be on the west side when the don came out. Their plan was to get him as he got into the car. If they couldn't, they'd run to their own car, parked on Forty-fifth Street, and tail the Mercedes to its next stop. The word from Alex Campbell was that Carlo Lentini probably wasn't dining alone but with a woman he kept now, and he'd go from The Palm to her apartment, where he would spend the night. There would be a second chance to get him there — plus a third when he left in the morning.

  Half a block beyond the restaurant they ducked through traffic and returned to the west side. They separated and walked apart now, south toward the restaurant. Four doors short of the intersection, they met in a doorway where they could stand out of sight of the hardmen guarding the car.

  "I'll take Lentini with my first shot," Bolan said. "That is, if I can get a shot at him. As soon as I fire, you fire at the bodyguards. The point is to panic them, send them scrambling for cover. Let them hear a lot of noise, see a lot of muzzle-flashes. When they hit the pavement, we'll get away."

  They waited.

  Rain began to fall. It had rained or drizzled off and on all day. Mostly it had been drizzle, and in the evening it had stopped entirely, though the skies had remained leaden and threatening. Now a sudden gust of wind seemed to shake the moisture loose from the air, and a steady, moderate rain began.

  "Just as well," Bolan said. "Not so many people on the streets."

  "Better yet, Lentini's bodyguards are getting inside the car."

  "They won't stay in there when they see the boss coming out."

  Other people left the restaurant. Cabs were scarce in the rain, and some of the former diners stood ten minutes or more under the restaurant's sidewalk canopy, trying to hail a cab. It was certain but unspoken between Bolan and Coppolo that they couldn't fire on Lentini if there were other people standing around. They watched for cabs as anxiously as the satisfied diners coming out of The Palm.

  "Uh-oh," Joe muttered.

  Bolan saw what he meant. The two bodyguards had scrambled out of the Mercedes, and one was hurrying to open the rear door.

  "Some kind of luck," Bolan said, drawing the Desert Eagle out of the paper bag. He meant they were lucky that a cab had just pulled away with four people. The sidewalk was now clear.

  A man came out. He stood under the canopy and glanced up and down the street. One of the bodyguards threw out his hands and shrugged dramatically. The man turned and nodded at someone inside the door.

  Carlo Lentini stepped out onto the sidewalk, and he, too, glanced up and down the street. He paused to light a cigar. Bolan had a perfect shot at that moment, except that the woman the detective had mentioned was on his right arm.

  Lentini was a squat, heavy man — bald, with a round face, thick lips, a flattened nose, maybe once badly broken. He wore a loud-checked light-blue-and-cream jacket, a cream-colored shirt with a necktie in colors vaguely matching the jacket, loose at his throat. The breast pocket of his jacket bulged with cigars.

  The «woman» was a blonde, not more than seventeen years old. She was dressed in a silver lame minidress so tight she looked about to burst out of it. The stiletto heels of her red shoes distorted her legs. A short sable jacket was carelessly draped over her shoulders. She was smoking a cigarette in a long black holder.

  The man who had been inside the restaurant with Lentini moved over to the bodyguard at the car door and said something sharp to him. The man moved away, and the inside man held the door open and bowed slightly at Lentini and his companion.

  Bolan stepped out of the doorway and walked casually toward the intersection, pretending to be annoyed by the rain. The big automatic hung at arm's length at his side. Coppolo stepped out behind him and slipped along close to the walls, keeping as deeply in shadow as possible.

  The rain was an advantage. It began to fall harder, and the hardmen not protected by the canopy were more concerned with getting inside the car and keeping dry than with making any further survey of the vicinity.

  Lentini's cigar was aflame. He shrugged the girl off his arm and nodded toward the car. She stepped ahead of him, and the man at the door offered his arm and assisted her in the somewhat awkward process — awkward because of her tight, short skirt — of climbing into the back seat of the Mercedes.

  For a few seconds Carlo Lentini was alone, impatient that the girl should get in the car, not even appreciative — as far as Bolan could tell from across the street — of the display she made as she struggled into the back seat.

  The range was about sixty feet — too great for accuracy for anyone not used to a big, powerful pistol and not strong enough to control it. A.44 Magnum was a small cannon. Even Bolan gripped it with two hands.

  Lentini never knew what hit him. The huge, high-velocity slug happened to strike his elbow first, blowing it apart, then exploded into his chest cavity, blasting fragments of rib into his lungs, bursting every vital organ with the immense pressure generated by its invasion. The energy behind the big bullet threw him off his feet and to the side, onto the pavement beyond the canopy, halfway out of the light.

  Bolan heard the sharp crack of Coppolo's Browning. The agent had taken aim on the man by the car door, and he spun around and dropped to the ground.

  The Executioner looked for another target but he saw none. The surviving bodyguards were cowering, as he had expected. You couldn't shoot at one of them. They were in the car or under it.

  Even so, Joe put a couple of bullet holes in the back of the Mercedes.

  "It's done, Joe," Bolan grunted. "Let's go."

  Chapter Twelve

  Eric Kruger had moved Gina Claw to a motel on the West side, registering both of them under false names. They were terrified, yet calm, and Gina still refused to leave New York.

  "Don't you see?" she asked Bolan when he arrived at the motel on Sunday. "They want to kill me, too. I'm a decoy. If you had taken advantage of that…"

  "Stop, Gina," Eric said. He turned to Bolan. "She's in shock."

  "When do you take her back to California?"

  "No!" Gina whispered hoarsely. "I want a gun. Get me a gun. I could have shot that woman. I saw her. I could have put a bullet right between her eyes…"

  "I doubt that," Bolan said dryly. "The woman is almost certainly a cold professional killer. You almost got yourself shot. If Eric hadn't been on top of you, and if the cabbie hadn't panicked, you'd be…"

  "Dead," Eric finished. "And probably me, too."

  "The people who killed my father and grandfather, and now Joan, are still on the streets," Gina said bitterly. "I'm not walking away. With you or without you."

  "You only make it harder."

  "I'm part of this fight. I'm in it. You can't get rid of me. No way. Count on it. I'm not leaving New York."

  * * *

  Four grim men sat at the conference table in Joe Rossi's midtown office on Monday morning: Rossi, Barbosa, Segesta and Philip Corone.

  In chairs behind their dons — places carefully chosen to suggest subordination — sat a few other men. Whitey Albanese was making his first appearance at a sitdown of the council, which signified the importance of the meeting.

  The Lentini Family was represented by Carmine Samenza, a capo. He sat in an armchair drawn up within two feet of the conference table, and he kept it just that far back, precisely. He was senior to any of the men in the chairs that lined the walls behind him, but he didn't head a Family. It was widely understood that Samenza would make no move to capture the position held for decades by the late don. He held his own Queens territory in so firm a grasp that no one, even a new Lentini don, would have the power to dislodge him, and at sixty-six he had no great ambition to hold anything more.

  Carmine Samenza was the largest man in
the room — tall, still sound and hard muscled, conservatively dressed in a black suit. His graying hair was thin, especially on his pate, but his brows were black and wiry. Because of a stroke he had suffered five or six years before, he tended to distort his mouth, unconsciously shoving his lower lip to the right. For a long time his thoughts had raced ahead of his words. It was no longer so, but he spoke slowly; it had become a habit. His words were carefully chosen and often trenchant and witty.

  "We have much to discuss," Rossi began.

  "Indeed," Luca Barbosa interjected belligerently. "Who's responsible for the hit on the lawyer for the OCTF? That was a piece of stupidity worse than anything…"

  "We don't know," Rossi interrupted.

  "Somebody knows," Barbosa grunted. The old man's loose cheeks fluttered. "Somebody around this table. / have been accused of acting intemperately. Ah. So, who whacked the young woman?"

  "Who whacked Don Lentini?" Samenza asked. "I'm interested in that question."

  "In the past month," Alfredo Segesta said in a ponderously solemn voice, "we have lost two of our most valued friends. May the good God rest Arturo Corone and Carlo Lentini. Don Corone, may the Lord receive him, had the good fortune to die in his bed. Don Lentini was murdered. This is not to be forgiven."

  He stopped and looked around the room, directly into the eyes of each man at the table.

  "May justice prevail over him who took the life of our valued friend."

  "Maybe it was Bolan," Barbosa suggested.

  "May a benevolent providence grant that," Segesta replied. "Better it should have been Bolan than any of us."

  "I want to know who this tall black woman is," Barbosa said. "She hit Michael Grieco and now this Warnicke woman. She's bad news." He glanced around the table. "Who's she work for?"

  Rossi looked across the table at Carmine Samenza. "For the Lentini Family?" he asked.