Monday’s Mob

by Don Pendleton

  “I called Mr. Brognola to report the developments. He was, uh, thrilled to hear from me. Been trying to reach you since early morning. Uh, what’s a floater?”

  “Mobile phone in the cruiser,” Bolan explained. “Automatic answering and recording system.”

  “He says you should turn it on and collect your messages. He’s been leaving one every hour since nine o’clock.”

  The waitress had arrived to take Bolan’s order. He sent her after a screwdriver, then asked his lovely companion, “What’s the message?”

  April was busy checking out his attire. “You’re beautiful,” she said, “in a gangsterish sort of way. Is that the idea?”

  “Uh huh. What’s the message?”

  “Something big is brewing in Indiana.”

  Bolan frowned and replied, “Tell him I said thanks for the message but I’m several jumps ahead of it. Now you—”

  “There’s more. But, first, you and I have to find an understanding.”

  “We found it,” he told her, lightly. “There’s likely to be a pile of sacred blood spilled around here, and very shortly. Message or no, I want that noble body of yours to hell and gone out of here on the double-damn-quick.”

  Her eyes were glowing. “Uh huh. He said that was the real problem.”

  “What?”

  “Mr. Brognola. He told me about … all the friends you’ve lost, uh, that you’ve lost. That you were just concerned for my safety.”

  Sure he was concerned. But it went a bit farther than that, too. And Bolan could not tell this lovely lady that she was poison to him—a double hazard to his survival all the time she remained in his shadow.

  Instead, he said, “Okay, so I worry. With very good reason. But that’s not the all of it. There are fighters and there are lovers, April. I read you as a lover. It’s just—”

  “It’s just baloney,” she said sweetly. “You told me that war and love are one and the same. If I’m a lover than I must also be a warrior. And if you are a warrior …”

  Bolan had to smile. She’d turned it back on him. Nor had he been entirely truthful with her—he was expecting no bloodshed in the immediate moments ahead. He said, “Have I told you how very lovely you are?”

  It took her totally by surprise. And it flustered her. Their eyes locked for a moment, then she bent quickly to her drink to cover the confusion. A moment later she murmured, “No, you hadn’t.”

  He said, “Well … I noticed.”

  “Thanks for telling me.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “A lover?”

  Bolan was trying to keep it light. He screwed his face into a thoughtful grimace as he told her, “Let’s leave the question open for now.”

  The lady was very solemn. “Mr. Brognola says you are. He said that hate could never have brought you this far.”

  “What else did he tell you? What’s that message?”

  “Am I staying?” she asked soberly.

  “You can finish your drink, yeah.”

  “Gee, thanks. You’re a peach.”

  “We’re running out of time, April,” he said, with genuine regret. “What’s the message?”

  But they had already run out of time.

  Tuscanotte’s chief headhunter, Fuzz Martin, stepped into the lounge and went straight to the bar. The first eye the guy caught was Bolan’s. Something flickered and danced briefly in that clash of eyes before the Martin gaze moved on to April Rose and then to a quick scan of the other patrons.

  Martin was a former sergeant of detectives with the Chicago police. He’d been busted off the force some ten years back—some said because he wouldn’t share his mob envelopes with a superior—and had been in Tuscanotte’s personal cadre ever since. He was a big beefy guy with purple veins in his nose and maybe a touch of insanity in the eyes. It had been widely reported that he delighted in breaking bones and wallowing in other men’s blood. Bolan had an electronic file on the guy twenty-eight lines long and he could have added another thirty to the computer’s data bank if he’d wished to clutter it with ghoulish repetition.

  A touch of madness, yeah—but insane did not mean dumb.

  The guy was in and out of there in a flash. April Rose had not even noticed him. She was beginning to relate the long delayed message from Brognola when Bolan put a hand on hers and said, “Save it. Get up right now and go to the lady’s room. Don’t delay and don’t look back. Just go.”

  Her eyes were seeking an explanation but Bolan was already up and moving. He went around the partition to the dining room and caught a glimpse of Willie Frio as the number two tagman darted past the cashier’s station in a quick withdrawal along the hall toward the lobby.

  That hallway also served the main entrance to the lounge.

  Bolan was moving swiftly, with single-minded purpose, but Frio was rounding the corner into the lobby as Bolan gained the cashier’s station.

  That main hall traveled east-west, between lobby and dining room. A short north-south passageway struck off just above the dining room and carried toward the north side of the building—the entrance side.

  Bolan followed his instincts and turned into the short hall just as April Rose came through the doorway from the lounge.

  His irritation with that circumstance quickly melted as he realized that she was following instructions; the short hall led to the rest rooms. But it also served an entrance to the motel offices, and he reached that point at the same moment that Martin and Frio were exiting from the lobby.

  He had them in perfect view via the glass wall of the office and an outside window—and he had Tuscanotte framed there, as well.

  The Mafia boss was standing beside a burgundy Continental town sedan with the passenger door open. Apparently he had just stepped out of the vehicle. Frio was trying to push him back inside. An argument was going down, with Fuzz Martin quickly joining in.

  A perfumed presence moved in behind Bolan and April Rose’s breathless voice whispered in his ear. “Is that him?”

  “The little guy, yeah,” Bolan replied. “I blew it. His headhunters spotted me.”

  “Do they know you?”

  “Don’t have to,” he explained. “All they saw was a possible threat. It’s all they were looking for.”

  “Well, what a terrible way to live! So what?”

  He gave her a gentle shove and growled. “Back to the table—quick!”

  Tuscanotte was coming in anyway. The super cautious tagmen had lost the argument.

  And April Rose was giving none whatever. She moved quickly along the hallway without a murmur.

  Bolan moved on past the offices, through a cloak room, and into the lobby. It put him right at the front door. And he was standing there when Carmine Tuscanotte stepped inside.

  “Hi, Carmine,” he said breezily. “Long time unseen. Come on in and I’ll tell you why you sent for me.”

  CHAPTER 9

  STRETCHING

  In earlier times, the guy would have never amounted to anything more than a third rate neighborhood boss—and even that level of power had been handed to him through bloodlines via the late Jake Vecci. At the time of Bolan’s purge of the Chicago power trust, Tuscanotte was not even on his hit list. But the wheel of fortune had spun quickly and dramatically for the smalltimer from the suburbs, once the real power structure of Chicago had been dismantled. And though he was not exactly a visionary, the guy had shown himself to be, at the least, a superb opportunist.

  Not so dumb, either.

  Dumb never made it big in the underworld. Nor did blind luck. But Carmine Tuscanotte had suddenly emerged as one of the three most likely to succeed to the reins of power in the Chicago Mob. By simple extension, that also could mean boss of the whole damned USA. Chicago was not the only area reeling under the Executioner’s persistent assaults. All the Mobs everywhere were now in disarray. But none were down for the full count. One of them, somewhere—if left to its own
devices—would find the right combination for a true power structure to replace the old.

  Bolan was reading the Chicago Outfit as the most likely to succeed in that endeavor. Which is why he had picked them as Monday’s Mob.

  And now he was shaking hands with the emerging boss of that Mob. It seemed the only thing left to do, considering the circumstances.

  The lobby was still crowded with guests. The two little girls still played near the entrance. The sightseer choo-choo was making another arrival.

  Tuscanotte was giving him a shrewd appraisal over the handshake. “I don’t think I know you, Lambretta.”

  “Everybody back east knows you, Carmine.”

  “They do, eh? You mean everybody that’s left back east.”

  Bolan-Lambretta chuckled soberly as he replied to that. “So things are tough all over. How ’bout you?”

  “We’re getting by.”

  Bolan’s gaze deliberately swept the lobby. He said, “So I see.”

  The guy laughed a little at that. “I said, getting by. How’d you find it?”

  “Ben Davis sent me.”

  There was no change of expression as the Mafioso asked, “Why?”

  “He got hit this morning.”

  “What d’ya mean, hit?”

  Bolan spelled it for him, adding, “The whole damn operation went up in flames. All the product—everything. Somebody torched it. Ben thought you’d want to know. He’s, uh, indisposed at the moment.”

  “Let’s go to the bar,” Tuscanotte said quickly.

  That was fine with Bolan. He was playing the ear, accepting whatever could come from the busted play. The two bodyguards were staying loose, watching him from a distance.

  Tuscanotte exchanged pleasant greetings with various motel employees as they threaded their way through the lobby. The guy was obviously well known and respected as “Mr. Tucker.” A barmaid tossed him a cheery hello, also, as they entered the lounge.

  Willie Frio had gone on ahead and was taking a seat in one of the back rooms.

  The renegade cop stood casually at the check-in desk in the lobby, small-talking with the bearded clerk.

  Tuscanotte’s eye went instantly and interestedly to April Rose—and Bolan noted that he selected a table that afforded a continuing view of that pleasing sight.

  Bolan sat down with his back to the lady.

  A waitress was there before they could get settled in, smiling at the genial “Mr. Tucker.” The guy patted her hip and asked, “How’s Joe?”

  “Joe’s fine,” she replied. “Where’ve you been drinking lately?”

  “Business trip,” Tuscanotte replied, making an unhappy face. “No place like home, eh? Bring me the usual, Jenny.”

  The girl asked Bolan, “Shall I bring your screwdriver from the other table?”

  “Leave it there,” he instructed. “I’ll get back to it in a minute.”

  But it was already a lost effort, the Mafioso’s eyes had already scanned across to pick out the screwdriver at the table with the beautiful lady.

  “Invite the lady over,” he suggested, when the waitress departed.

  “We need a few words, first,” Bolan told him.

  “Okay. But speak softly. What happened down there?”

  “I don’t know exactly. There was gunfire. Then the whole place went up. Total loss, Carmine.”

  “Call me Roger, here.”

  “Sure. But you still lost it all.”

  “Where do you fit?”

  “I was making a buy. We been doing business with you for a long time.”

  “How’d you know it was me?”

  Bolan gave him a knowing grin. “Come on,” he said. “We always know.”

  “You’re out of New York?”

  Bolan nodded an affirmative response to that.

  “Who’re you with?”

  “It used to be Marinello. Poor Augie. God knows who it is, now. Do you?”

  Tuscanotte chuckled. “I’m not God.”

  “The word I hear,” Bolan said quietly, “is that you could be … if you play it right.”

  The guy chuckled again. The waitress came with his drink. He exchanged a couple of wisecracks with her then watched her departure before he got back to his visitor. “So Ben sent you to Nashville.”

  “He sent me to Stoney Gap Hill. The Ape-man sent me on here.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Don’t believe it, then. But I’m here.”

  He was a deceptively laid-back guy, full of chuckles and genial smiles. Not a bad looking guy—still hard and lean at forty—maybe even handsome, to some women. But Bolan knew where he was at—and he knew how thin the ice at his feet.

  Tuscanotte was smiling at his wristwatch. He turned the same smile toward Bolan-Lambretta as he said, “I’m meeting some people here in a few minutes. Why didn’t Harry send himself?”

  “You better scrub your meeting. Harry didn’t send himself because he wasn’t able to. All of your Stoney Lonesome boys are dead.”

  The guy had iron self-control; Bolan had to give him that. He casually got to his feet, still smiling, and very quietly said to Bolan-Lambretta, “I suddenly remember another appointment. You hang around here and I’ll call you back. This is all very interesting and I want to hear more about it when I get time. Hey—I appreciate all the trouble you’ve gone to, and I’ll make it up to you.” He sent another flick of the eyes toward April Rose and went out, pausing for an instant at the bar for a friendly word to the bartender.

  And Bolan was suddenly very glad that he’d come to Indiana.

  Carmine Tuscanotte was no third-rate punk.

  The guy was a survivor—and that was the kind who worried Mack Bolan the most.

  Willy Frio was nowhere in sight. Apparently there was another way out, beyond the dance floor.

  Bolan sat there for a couple of beats, then joined April Rose.

  “What happened?” she whispered furiously.

  “I sent him away,” Bolan told her.

  “But why?”

  “To get some stretch.”

  “To get what?”

  There was no time to explain the ground rules of Mack Bolan’s war. He asked the lady, “Did the strike force cover it in Louisville?”

  She nodded vigorously. “Yes. They closed in right behind us. Why?”

  “Because I used a guy’s name in vain,” he explained. “Carmine will be looking into that. I need to know how far he can look.”

  She replied, “If you mean can he speak to any of the principals, the answer is no. Not for at least another twenty-four hours.”

  He said, “Good enough. I’m playing the ear now, April. I don’t know where it will take me. My name is Frank Lambretta. Remember it. You stick right here. If a call comes from me or for me, take it and play it.”

  He was rising for a quick departure when she caught his arm and urgently whispered, “The message from Brognola. It’s—”

  He said, “It will have to keep,” and went quickly out of there, again through the dining room. This time he used the kitchen exit and reached the northwest corner of the building in time to note the leisurely departure of the burgundy-colored Continental.

  They were running east, taking the back way out.

  And that was okay. It was fine.

  So was Bolan—in his war machine—rolling, he hoped, toward some combat stretch.

  CHAPTER 10

  BEYOND

  The target was tracking east on the old highway—headed, apparently, toward the junction with the bypass route about two miles out of town. And that was a puzzle for the man at the con. He had not expected them to run toward Columbus. Returning immediately to the scene of the reported hit was not exactly standard routine for a guy in Tuscanotte’s situation.

  But the puzzle was solved a half-mile short of the junction. Bolan was coming down off a high, winding hill and dropping back into the Salt Creek Valley, the target vehicle in plain view several hundred yards ahead. He coul
d see the choked bypass route running parallel to the south along the valley floor and converging for the meet at some unseen point ahead. Coming in along the north flank was another converging road, joining the old highway at the bottom of the hill at a very close angle to form a vee. It was a gravelled, narrow road with a broad turnout. Several vehicles were parked there, their snouts pointing into the northwest.

  The burgundy Continental took the 150-degree left turn and halted beside the parked vehicles. Doors sprang open all along that line and guys were scrambling out for an obvious roadside parley.

  Bolan drove slowly by, the optic scans at full operation. He did not like the looks of that dirt road. Signboards at the junction proclaimed the existence, somewhere along that road, of Camp Palawopec—“For Boys and Girls”—and also a CYO Camp called Rancho Framasa. That seemed innocent enough, sure—but the roadway itself ran along the base of a steep, wooded ridge and became almost instantly swallowed by overhanging trees. A rushing creek, fed by recent rains, tumbled along at the other side of the narrow roadway. It would not be a comforting route on which to go a’venturing.

  He proceeded on for another several hundred yards to a point where the old highway took a sudden 90-degree jog around that same ridge and found there a place to pull off and take stock.

  The video recorder was showing fourteen seconds in the collector. The slow-mo replay showed quite a bit more than that. And it indicated that Harry the survivor Venturi had kept out a card or two in his survival showdown.

  Without further ado, Bolan plugged in his radiophone and played a card of his own. “This is Striker,” he told the familiar, responding voice at the funny phone 800 miles away. “I’m on the floater so be guided.”

  “I was about to give you up, Striker,” said the old friend. “What’s your present situation?”

  “Not too happy,” Bolan admitted. “You’ll remember the living legends of a day or so ago. I’m near the little town of the same name. And I just found a couple of surprises. Living legends of a different type. Is that why all the flags on my floater?”

  “That’s why, yeah,” Brognola told him. “We intercepted some rather revealing, uh, communications this morning. I hate to say it but it appears that you’ve stumbled into, uh, no man’s land. A veritable, uh, Shangri-la for those living legends of the other type.”