Canadian Crisis

by Don Pendleton

  His eyelids raised with the Beretta. “You didn’t knock,” he said in a flat voice.

  Hers was shaky as she insisted, “Yes, I did. Like this.” Timid, tiny knuckles beat a barely audible tattoo on the open door.

  He chuckled and told her, “Okay, maybe you did. Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you knock?”

  “Because I wanted to come in.”

  “But you came in anyway,” he pointed out.

  “Please put away that gun,” she said, that pert voice still shaky.

  She was a real honey. About five-five or -six, long dark hair, very unusual eyes, lovely skin. French. With a body that knew it. It was clad in a simple silk chemise, short-sleeved, hemming out about midway between hip and knee and gloating over the delicious treasures concealed beneath.

  “Come here,” he commanded roughly.

  She advanced to the side of the bed. He twirled her around and patted her down, then sighed and holstered the Beretta. “See what a rotten world it is?” he growled. “Nobody’s trusted, not even a beautiful kid like you. What’re you doing here, anyhow?”

  “I was sent,” she replied, demurely casting those lovely eyes downward.

  “Who did the sending?”

  “The man in charge. I can’t think of his name. He said you needed some relaxation.”

  Bolan the Bold did not believe that, not a bit. He’d seen them all, every size and variety, and this one just did not fit the mold anywhere. He said, “Okay, take it off.”

  Those eyes came up quick—cornered, scared, resigned all at once. “Can I—can I use the bathroom?”

  “Who’d you say sent you?”

  “The man.”

  “Attica?”

  “Yes. Mr. Attica.”

  “He let you in?”

  She nodded. “May I use the bathroom?”

  “There’s no windows in there, kid. Even if there were, it’s a long drop to the ground.”

  “I-I don’t know what you mean.”

  He smiled and stepped aside. “Straight ahead,” he directed her. She paused at the open bathroom door to gaze back at him, then quickly slipped inside. The door clicked shut. Bolan sighed and picked up the telephone.

  No, Larry Attica had not sent any broads to Frankie’s room, but he’d be glad to do so. What type did Frankie like?

  Frankie already had the type he liked, and he told that to his bosom pal from Syracuse—then he hung up the phone, gazed at that bathroom door, and wondered what the hell was coming off.

  A silk chemise, as it were.

  She came out in glowing flesh tones, and nothing else, and it very nearly took away the iron man’s breath.

  That first step had been taken with obvious, desperate bravado. Then she saw the look in Bolan’s eyes, and the essential woman of her took over—as though maybe she was turning on just a little to the whole idea—and she aproached him the way a naked woman rightly should. But then, an arm’s length away, it all deserted her. She stood there swaying, eyes brimming, biting at her lower lip to stop the darned thing from quivering.

  Bolan had to turn away from that.

  He went to the bathroom, got her dress, returned, and draped it across those shiny shoulders. “Just how far did you plan to carry this?” he asked gruffly.

  “I need the money,” she quavered.

  “Baloney. You didn’t come here for money, and Attica didn’t send you. Who did?”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Get the dress on!”

  She staggered back to the bathroom, bawling openly now. Bolan paced the floor and watched the door. Presently the sobbing ran its course. He heard the water running. A moment later she reappeared in the doorway, fully dressed, more or less composed, patting at her face with a towel.

  He disgustedly told her, “You’re the lousiest hooker I ever saw.”

  She shrugged and made a pained face.

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  “No. I can’t.”

  He growled, “Okay. Good-bye.”

  “I can leave? You’re not going to beat me up? Burn my feet with cigarettes?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  The kid smiled wanly and stepped back into the bathroom momentarily to carefully arrange the towel on the rack.

  “Can I leave now?” she asked timidly.

  “I told you to.”

  “Well then—do I have to leave now?”

  He said, “Ah hell!” and went into the drawing room. The girl stood in the open doorway and watched him pour coffee from the Silex. “Want some?” he growled.

  “Coffee? No. Thank you.”

  He took a pull at the coffee, made a face, and gruffly told her, “You’d better beat it, kid. I don’t know why you’re here—and I really don’t care why. But you’re out of your element. Go home.”

  Damn. She was doing her best to hang in there.

  “I-I’m sorry I chickened out. Can we … start over?” Nervous hands were plucking at that chemise again. “I promise—no more tears.”

  He said, in mild rebuke, “Don’t do that”

  “I—my name is Betsy Gordon.”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t fit. You’re French.”

  “Half.”

  “You don’t talk right.”

  “I went to school in the states for a while. Now I’m at the University of Montreal. Performing Arts.”

  He said, “Congratulations, but you won’t get your diploma here. You blew it. Now blow out of here. I have things to do.”

  Those lush lips were quivering, about to let it all go again. Bolan turned to the window and growled over his shoulder, “What the hell is going on here?”

  “You’re not so tough,” she challenged him in a breaking voice.

  “Not that tough, kid,” he assured her.

  “You’re not who they say, are you.”

  “Who do they say?”

  “Super crook. In charge of everything.”

  He turned on her with a scowl, prepared to scare the hell out of her. “C’mere,” he snarled. “I’ll show you who’s in charge.”

  That damn chemise hit the deck again. Very little else was left for the imagination—a scrap of silk about two fingers wide at the base of that pretty little belly. He steeled himself and crossed to her in two huge strides.

  Those eyes were two wide pools of downright terror.

  And, hell, he just couldn’t do it. He grabbed that long hair just below the skull and twisted his hand into it, jerking the lovely head into a hard angle. “Be glad I’m not who they say, kid,” he said savagely. “I’d eat you alive.”

  He roughly shoved her into the bedroom, then snatched up the dress and threw it after her. She hit the bed and crumpled onto it, sobbing.

  He was fighting down a strong impulse to go in there and comfort her when an insistent rapping at the front door stole the moment.

  The girl’s eyes came up with alarm and the tears shut down as though by a concealed switch.

  Bolan’s eyes flashed meaningfully as he instructed her, “Under the covers. Mess your hair some more.”

  He closed the door and crossed to the other side of the room. “Yeah, yeah—just a minute,” he called to the impatient visitor in the hallway.

  It was then that he noticed the chain lock. It was intact; that door was locked from the inside. His gaze traveled back to the closed door to the bedroom and dark things began tugging at the pit of his mind.

  It was shaping into one of those damn nights.

  A naked juvenile in his bed—for whatever confounding purpose—and very likely a shark at his door. A door through which no one had entered during the past few hours.

  “Wait a minute,” he growled loudly at the door, then he hurried to an inspection of the windows. He had already checked those avenues once but he had to do it again. The result was the same, however. There was no alternate path into this suite. Entry to the bedroom was only via the drawing room. Of cours
e, that held for exists, as well.

  He returned to the door and cracked it open, leaving the chain intact. “Who’s there?” he growled.

  “This is Joe,” came the irritated response. “Joe Staccio. Let me in.”

  Oh yeah.

  Sure.

  Already it had become one of those nights.

  9: A BULLET FOR LEO

  Joe Staccio was a capo. Not even a Black Ace threw his weight against a big boss—not openly, anyway.

  Still, there were those unusual circumstances when he could. The Black Aces constituted a sort of Gestapo organization—a secret police, accountable only to the will and wishes of La Commissione which, itself, in the purely physical sense, was no more than a council of bosses. That council, however, was larger than the sum of all the bosses and much more than the whim or fancy of any individual capo.

  The Black Aces were the physical manifestation of that larger spirit of La Commissione. They could, yes, take independent action against a boss. Mike Talifero gunned down Ciro Lavangetta in Miami in a ceremonial execution which brought no repercussions onto the head of Iron Mike. Bolan himself, even, had carried it off against old man Angeletti, in Philadelphia.

  It could be done, if done very delicately.

  Chebleu’s word, bravura, flashed into that moment of crisis as Bolan addressed the crack in that hotel room door.

  “Joe! Great! I’ve been trying to locate you. Listen, I’m on the horn with you-know-who right now—but you and I need a parley. I want you to—”

  “Open the goddamn door!” Staccio raged. “I’m not standing out here in the goddamn hall and jawing through a crack in no door!”

  “Do what I say, Joe. Please. Are your boys with you?”

  “Of course my boys are with me! And that’s something I wanta know—why are all the road crews pulled back into town? What the hell is coming off here? I send boys to cover the map and I come back to find them slopping it up in Montreal.”

  The guy was in quite a lather.

  “I called them in, Joe. The guy is already here, he’s in town. Now here’s what I want you to do. Get it up to the penthouse and park yourself inside solid walls. Stay there and—”

  “Who the hell’re you?” the boss stormed. “Where’s Leo? What the hell is coming off here?”

  “I just took a shot through the window, Joe—not five minutes ago. Now get it up to the penthouse and do like I said. Aw hell—who’s out there …?” Bolan already knew who was out there. The dapper figure of Little Al DeCristi had just moved through his line of sight. “Al? You there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Do it. Get Joe upstairs and put a shield around him. Don’t take any shit off of him, just take care of him.”

  “Sure, I get you,” the bodyguard replied tensely. “Come on, Mr. Staccio. You heard the man. It ain’t safe here.”

  Staccio was spluttering a stream of obscenities. But the sounds were moving along the hallway, now, and Bolan knew that he’d made his point.

  And he’d made himself some breathing room.

  He pushed the door shut and headed for the bedroom. A ring of the telephone halted him in mid-stride. He scooped up the instrument and gave it a cautious “hello.”

  “This is Leo.”

  “Good for you. Guess who was just at my door.”

  “He’s not now?”

  “I deflected him to the penthouse. What’s going?”

  “Well I just called to say that he was back and to watch. I have that package for you. I’m coming up.”

  “Make it quick if you mean to see me.”

  Bolan hung it up and went on to the bedroom, prepared for a no-nonsense scene with the soft visitor.

  There was no visitor.

  She was not in the bed nor under it. She was not in the bath. She was not behind or beneath a stick of furniture in the joint. She was not on a window ledge because there were none. Other places where she was not included closets, dresser drawers, toilet bowl, and everywhere the dumbfounded mind of Mack Bolan could explore.

  He was working on wall panels when Leo Turrin’s soft knock put an end to the search.

  “Hell’s about to pop,” said the man from Pittsfield as he hurried into the room. “Get it together and get out of here.”

  “I’ve decided to stay,” Bolan quietly informed him.

  “That’s nutty and you know it.”

  “A lot of things seem nutty until you look closer. Leo, a beautiful kid somehow got in and out of this suite without using doors or windows. I wasn’t dreaming and I wasn’t hallucinating.” He held up his hand and picked off a long, lustrous, black hair. “This place has secrets. I mean to find them.”

  Turrin handed over the intelligence package as he said, “I don’t get. What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Forget it. I’m staying. Now get out of here and let me study this package.”

  The underboss from Pittsfield made a worried face. “I don’t know why I bother worrying about you. All of it isn’t in the package, either. Best thing you can do is set a bomb and get out. Not a bad idea, at that. The intelligentsia of the whole world of crime is under this roof. You could probably count on getting at least half of them.”

  Bolan growled, “Sure, along with a hundred or so hotel employees, maybe a dozen firemen, and an entire square block of Montreal. What’ve you been smoking, Leo?”

  “I was kidding,” Turrin said, sighing. “But I’d almost go for it to put this bunch inside a flaming tower.”

  “Don’t tempt me, Leo. What’s not in the package?”

  “First let’s cover what is there. Hal telefaxed it up from Washington. I picked it up in the cover office here. Most of it is pretty bland stuff. The real shit is too harsh for commitment to written reports. Hal gave it to me on the scramble line. It will take me about an hour to repeat it to you.”

  “I’ll settle for highlights,” Bolan decided. “I may not have an hour, Leo.”

  “You may not have a minute, friend. I’ll give it to you as brief as I can. But don’t blame me if it comes out sounding like pure horseshit. Just believe me when I tell you that the conclusions are pretty well substantiated by the wealth of intelligence data I’m leaving out.”

  “So go,” Bolan said, lighting a cigarette and pitching an area of his awareness to that hallway door and beyond.

  “First off, our relations with Canada are worse than they’ve been since the Revolutionary War. Many hard feelings stemming from many problems—balance of trade, fluctuating economies, Canada’s almost total dependence on US markets and the shutting down of some of those—you know the gaff.”

  Bolan said, “Yeah. Let’s get to the next plateau.”

  “Energy,” Turrin reported sourly. “They don’t like our pipelines from Alaska idea. They’re shutting off our own sources of Canadian oil. And a lot of people are now shouting ‘power to the provinces.’ Picture forming?”

  “Yeah. Go on.”

  “These are real headaches for the Canadian government, Sarge—not just paper ones. Quebec, now, is a special problem. Less than 20 percent of the total Canadian population is exclusively French-speaking. That constitutes a minority, on about the scale of our black people. For many of those, the quality of life is not much better. Montreal is the largest city in Canada—and most of the French-speaking population live in Montreal. Anti-American and anti-British feeling has been running very high here for some time. For a developing nation—which Canada certainly is—that’s probably a pretty good thing if it doesn’t get out of hand. That’s the official feeling in Washington, anyway. But right now the official barometer is reading a trade crisis, a political crisis, an energy crisis—the whole damn thing is in a state of crisis.”

  “And ripe for manipulation from outside,” Bolan commented.

  “That’s the feeling, sure. For the people over in Justice, it’s much more than a feeling. It’s practically a conviction. Because of the other tensions, though, there’s not too much flow of in
telligence between Ottawa and Washington—practically none out of Montreal. The Canadian feds are here, sure, but they’re intimidated by the fact that a Frenchman is Prime Minister and they don’t know exactly where they stand between Ottawa and the Quebeçois. So we’re not getting a lot of cooperation from Montreal. We didn’t even know about this summit meet here until it filtered through our own sources.”

  “When did you hear of it, Leo?”

  “Last night.”

  “It’s that close, eh?”

  “It sure is. I never knew the boys to be so clammy. Nobody knew except those directly involved in the preparations.”

  “So it sounds pretty big.”

  “It sounds downright colossal.”

  “What are the general conclusions from Washington?”

  Turrin scowled and chomped his cigar. “It sounds pretty far out.”

  “I can take it. I probably already know. Confirm it for me.”

  “Takeover.”

  “Uh huh. The whole thing?”

  “The whole damned thing, meaning French Canada. Staccio has been working very quietly up here ever since he came back from England. You remember that,” the little guy added, with a sudden grin.

  Bolan grinned back. “Yeah. What’d he do? Conscript the militants?”

  “That’s the feeling. Ever hear of QF?”

  Bolan shook his head.

  “Quebeçois Français. That’s what goes for the national army of liberation here, now, since the big bust a few years ago that put the FLQ out of business.”

  “What’s that FLQ?”

  “Front for the Liberation of Quebec,” Turrin explained. “Terrorist group, kids mostly. Kidnapped a British diplomat and Quebec’s labor minister. The labor minister got killed. FLQ claimed responsibility. Wrong thing to do. They’d gone too far. The British don’t dick around with that kind of shit. They rounded up the FLQ and jailed them all. End of a movement. That is, until the QF surfaced a while back.”

  “What has Joe Staccio been doing with this QF?”

  “Leading them astray, probably. Hal has been reassessing the situation since we learned of the meet. It looks now like Staccio has been feeding them money and arms.”