"Wait, waitaminnit!" • Vito cried, shoving the bodyguard away from him. "He's locked in there, dammit!"
The casino boss punched the intercom button and yelled, "Okay, dummy, that's all for you. That's a regular vault you're in there, you dumb shit!"
A wave of humanity was surging up the stairway, pistols waving all over the place, and towards the rear of the wave Joe the Monster was pushing people this way and that and fighting his way to the front.
"What the hell is it, Vito?" Stanno yelled.
"That nut, that Bolan dummy, I got 'im locked up inside my joint!" Apostinni cried exultantly.
"Well shut off the fuckin' alarms, huh?"
A full sixty seconds were required to still the pandemonium outside "Vito's joint" and to line up a wavy wedge of gun soldiers, and then another twenty seconds to override the electronic lock. Then the door was flung open and six of Joe the Monster's best dived through the opening, guns blazing in every direction.
It took less than three seconds to completely shoot up Vito's joint.
And when the firing ended, Joe the Monster stepped warily into the room, gazed stupidly around at his boys, and then called out, "Mr. Apostinni. Who'd you say was locked up in here?"
"Didn't you get him?" Vito asked in a hushed voice.
Another voice sang out from inside. "Nobody in the bathroom, Joe."
Apostinni entered the "vault" on trembling legs. "He couldn't have got out," he insisted in a dazed voice.
"Who shot Bruce Serena, Mr. Apostinni?" Stanno swiveled about to glare at his guncrew. "Did one of your boys drill Bruce Baby?"
"They didn't do it!" Apostinni cried. "That Bolan bastard did it, and he was going to do it to me too! I outsmarted him and made a break! Look, dammit, he's in here somewhere!"
"Should we look under the rug, Mr. Apostinni? We looked every place else."
"I'm telling you he's in here!" the casino boss ranted. "There ain't no way out! He's in here!"
"Mr. Apostinni," Joe the Monster said quietly, "you been working just a little too hard. You better get to bed now. Get some sleep. I'll handle the explanations downstairs."
"I'm telling you he's in here! I ain't sleepin' in here until you find him!"
"Somebody pull Bruce Baby down from there," Stanno commanded, sighing. "Where's the gun, Mr. Apostinni? You better let me get rid of it." Stanno signaled to Max Keno, the surviving bodyguard. "Come on now, Mr. Apostinni, we got to take care of ourselves, right?"
"Look, Joe, I'm not off my marbles," Vito declared, his voice now cold and controlled. "I didn't drill Bruce, I'm telling you..."
"Hey boss!" cried an excited voice from the security platform. Two hardmen had gone up to bring Bruce Baby down. Now one of them was leaning forward with something in his hand. "This was in his lap."
Stanno and Apostinni hurried over to the tower and the hardman dropped his find into the enforcer's outstretched hand. It was a sheet of note paper, with something heavier folded inside. A marksman's medal slid out of the fold.
Stanno cleared his throat, which had suddenly become very tight, and read aloud the message that was printed neatly on the paper. The message was, simply, "Twenty-four hours, Vito."
"See, I told you," Apostinni murmured in a voice with everything suddenly gone out of it.
With cold frustration, Stanno growled, ."Well, how the hell did he… ?"
The men on the tower were intensely occupied with another find. "What's this up here on the wall?" one cried. "Boss! This thing is loose! It's…"
"What is it?" Stanno yelled.
Apostinni died a little further and mumbled, "The accessory shaft."
"The what?"
"You know," Goldhearted Vito whispered. "Air conditioning, power cables, TV lead-in, all that."
"Well where does it go to?" Joe the Monster fumed.
"Out back I guess, Joe."
"You guess? Stanno clapped his hands together and dispatched a gun party to check it out. The hardmen bolted away and Stanno yelled at the men on the tower: "Well go on, go on through!"
But it was too late, Apostinni knew in his heart, for a hot pursuit now. The casino boss had been high-rolled by a real pro, and he was experiencing a new and terrifying insight into the mathematics of chance.
The guy had just casually dropped in, allowed Vito to hand over his black book, and then just dropped the hell back out again.
Some men made their chances, others merely rode with them.
And Heart of Gold Vito would never again be absolutely certain as to which category he himself fit into.
Chapter Eight
Combat brief
A Negro beauty in a nurse's uniform opened the door to Bolan's third buzz. Her eyes recoiled somewhat as the black-clad figure stepped inside the private clinic, then she giggled and told him, "I didn't know you in your soul underwear."
"How's the patient?" Bolan asked her.
"Doing fine," the nurse reported, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Doctor looked in on him at four o'clock. He's going to be all right."
"Is he sedated?"
She shook her head. "No, he's resting easily."
"It's very important that I talk to him, Mrs. Thomas."
The woman pursed her lips as she studied Bolan's face, then she smiled and told him, "Just a sec. I'll ask Doctor."
Bolan watched her disappear through a doorway off the lobby, and again he reflected upon Lyons' determination to remain in his role. The clinic was situated in the city's Westside, in the Negro district. There was a personal relationship of some sort between Lyons and the doctor, and the cop had insisted upon being brought here. The setup seemed ideal to Bolan, and apparently Lyons was in the best of hands. Still… Bolan had an uneasiness about the thing.
A tired looking black man appeared in the doorway, wearing pajamas and a cotton robe. He looked Bolan up and down, then wryly commented, "I see you're dressed for destruction. Why do you want to talk to Carl?"
"It's urgent," Bolan assured him.
"He's resting good. Can't it wait at least until daylight?"
"It can. But maybe I can't."
The doctor understood. He stared at the visitor through a brief silence, then he jerked his head and said, "Okay. Don't take too long."
Bolan said, "Sure," and went on along the corridor and into Lyons' room. The doctor's wife had gotten there ahead of him and she was quietly rousing the ailing cop.
"You have a visitor, Carl," he heard her say.
A dim lamp on a side table had the room in soft shadows. The cop was flat on his back, no pillows. His left arm was tied to the bed and he was getting an intraveinous drip-injection from a bottle of clear fluid in a bedside stand.
Bolan moved in on the other side. Lyons looked him over and said, "You're blitzing."
"Softly," Bolan replied.
The nurse cautioned, "Don't get him too excited," and she made a quiet exit.
"What's up?" the cop asked.
"Maybe a hell of a lot. First, though, I brought you a gift."
Bolan produced Vito Apostinni's black book and placed it in Lyons' free hand. "Don't try to look at it now. It's the black money ledger on the Gold Duster operation."
"How the hell did you get that?" Lyons asked with a grin.
"I traded Vito his life for it."
The cop's grin faded. "Some trade."
"Yeah. Uh, your funny man is okay. For now. He told me about ASA and the show biz muscle."
Lyons smiled and commented, "It's hard to keep a secret in this town."
"But that's not the all of it, is it? It goes a lot bigger than Anders, doesn't it?"
Lyons gave him an odd look and replied, "I can't talk about that, Mack. New subject, please."
Bolan said, "New subject, hell. My game is survival, remember? I need everything I can possibly use."
"There's a place where friendship ends," the cop muttered stubbornly.
A smile formed at Bolan's lips and stayed there, unable to influence the eyes. A
cop's ethics could be a curious thing, he was thinking. A cop like Lyons would bust his own mother for pandering, then promise her immunity from prosecution if she'd turn state's evidence against her pimp. It was a game called "law enforcement" — a very close cousin to the game of survival — and Bolan could understand games like these.
"I didn't come begging," he said. "I came trading. I gave you Vito's book. Now what the hell am I getting in return?"
The cop sighed. The grin returned. "Not much," he promised.
"California carousel," Bolan said, getting right to the heart. "I figured it was an operational code. It's not. So what is it?"
"It's a mob circuit. One big wheel, turning endlessly."
"Turning what?"
"Everything. Talent, sex, narcotics, contraband, black money, extortion, corpses. You name it, the carousel's turning it."
"How does L.A. get into the action? I mean, what's your interest?"
"We have a seaport, remember? Also the major international airport in the west. And we have a border with a foreign country. Do I have to lay it all out?"
"So what's new?" Bolan asked. "That's been going on since year one."
The cop sighed. "What's new is the combination."
After a moment of silence, Bolan said, "Okay, I'm listening."
"You can quit listening. This is where you go to hell, buddy."
Bolan whistled softly. "That big, eh? Top Secret and all that?"
"Something like that," Lyons growled.
"Okay, just clue me. Then I'll drop something on you that's maybe bigger."
The cop's eyes were speculative, wary. Quietly, he said, "Get out of here, Mack."
"I actually do have something."
Lyons let his breath all the way out and sighed, "Okay. Vegas is where the brass ring is at. That help you any?"
"Sure. But I still want to know about that combination."
"You tell me something interesting first," Lyons suggested.
"The eye of the brass ring in Vegas is the Gold Duster," Bolan said quietly.
"Do tell. Why d'you think I broke my body there?"
"But it's like the eyepiece of a telescope. Another ring is at the other end, much larger, a hell of a lot more important."
Lyons was interested. "And what is that?" he asked.
Bolan smiled. "What's that new combination?"
The cop smiled back and muttered, "Bastard."
"Are we playing or not?"
"Red China," Lyons said.
"What?"
"Yeah. How's that for a mob combination? And the trade, we hear, is lively."
"In what?"
"In everything. It's developing into the largest invisible market in the world."
Bolan said, "Well it figures."
"What figures?"
"That other brass ring. It's within shouting distance of Havana."
The cop's eyes flashed. "Miami?"
Bolan shook his head. "Not the way I hear it, but Miami is probably somewhere in the loop. My information says that San Juan is the eye of the needle. They're calling it the Caribbean carousel."
Lyons chewed the news for a moment, then asked, "How good is your information?"
"Practically a dying confession," Bolan told him. "Straight from the scared-out-of-his-skull lips of Vito Apostinni."
"A guy will say anything at a time like that, Mack." . "Not that guy. He thought I was a dead man, too, and it was quite a poker game. No… I think he was leveling."
"It makes sense," the cop admitted. He sighed and said, "Bye bye, Bolan. The fuzz is getting fuzzy-headed."
"One more thing. It's a long route from Peking to Tommy Anders. What's the angle there?"
The cop's voice was weary in the reply. "That was our best route of entry, and I drew the short straw. Anders is in big trouble — and I've been worried about him. I mean, he's an okay guy — lots of guts — and I'd hate to see him a casualty of this mess. I mean…"
"You mean you've been using him," Bolan said. "And now it's hurting."
Lyons shrugged with his eyebrows. "Name of the game," he replied. "That isn't the whole thing, Mack. It's a rotten picture all the way, and the show business angle is as scary as any. The mob is clawing their way into Hollywood even. If the movie industry thinV they're in trouble now, just wait until the mob starts gangbanging 'em."
"How does, that fit into the carousel thing?"
Lyons frowned and said, "Hell, how doesn't it figure? Movies are big business. Distributing and exhibiting the finished product is even bigger. Once the mob has control in that arena they've got the most beautiful damn carousel you ever saw — for any damn kind of game they choose to play. Anything from popcorn concessions to theatre equipment, box office skim, and commercial dates with the starlets."
"What kind of claws are they using?" Bolan wondered aloud.
"The best kind there is. Money. When money is tight, black money is king. The guy that controls the purse also runs the show. In any business."
"But it all fits together somewhere, doesn't it? On the merry-go-round, I mean."
"Sure," Lyons said. "You know how the mob operates. They carve all the action into private concessions. One family has the entertainment concession. Another specializes in the narcotics angle. Still another gets the contraband. And on and on endlessly — a carousel, yeah. Now you're saying Havana, eh? Hell, that could mean anything. From atomic secrets to small revolutions to a whorehouse in Guantanamo Bay."
"Or…" Bolan suggested quietly, "a new Vegas."
"Yeah, that's possible. There's a lot of action in the Caribbean already."
"And the heat in this town is getting pretty fierce, isn't it? For the mob, I mean. How many dealers and shills and coin-girls do you figure are on the FBI payroll?"
Lyons snickered. "You noticed."
"Sure I noticed. And don't think the boys haven't noticed. When the heat gets too high, Lyons, the mob moves on. If they can't fight it or buy it, they leave it. Vito let it drop that he sent sixteen million to San Juan in one year. And that's just from one casino."
Musingly, the cop said, "Even our esteemed local billionaire has shaken the dust of Vegas from his feet… and moved on to…"
Bolan's eyebrows formed a peak. "I've never heard anything tying him to..."
"No I wasn't saying that," Lyons replied. "But you don't make a billion by playing trie losers. Maybe he knows something the rest of us don't."
"Like, maybe Vegas is dying."
"Like maybe something like that," Lyons said, sighing. "Bug off, will you? I can't keep my eyes open another minute. You heard the nurse, don't excite me."
Bolan grinned and said, "Okay. You lay here and snooze while I go play cop."
"Take a friend's advice and stay out of it, Mack. The feds are waltzing this thing along with a very delicate touch. I told you what Brognola said. That will go double, here in Vegas. They'll take no interference, buddy."
"I'm not competing with the feds," Bolan replied. "But I'm not playing tiddley-winks, either, and I need every handle I can get. I'm going to bust this town, Lyons."
"Don't. You've done enough already. Just pick up your chips and get out while you can."
"Too late for that now," Bolan told his friend. "From what I overheard on Vito's pipeline, my only chance is a sweep through the middle." He grinned. "Did you know, that guy's got his own casino bugged, ears everywhere."
Lyons smiled faintly. "In this town, nobody trusts anybody. And, I've learned, with damn good reason."
"Well, I'm going to flavor their pots a bit."
"Some Bolan spice, eh?"
"Something like that."
"Be careful, dammit," the cop said fiercely.
"My heart even beats careful," Bolan told him, and that was his parting line.
He went back along the corridor, thanked the nurse, and re-invaded the night. There was not much of it left — it was nearly dawn and almost time for the next maneuver.
The Executioner had a plane to me
et.
Chapter Nine
A dash of Bolan
Bolan was not only an expert marksman, he was also a highly skilled armorer — or gunsmith, to use the civilian term. His expertise with destructive weapons extended into areas of military ordnance, munitions and various types of explosive devices. He was a weapons specialist and his warwagon reflected this facet of the Bolan threat. It was a rolling arsenal, featuring the most advanced and versatile selection of arms available in the secret marketplaces.
Of all the weapons in the collection, however, his most cherished possession was a non-military piece, a sportsman's big-game rifle which could be purchased almost anywhere — though this particular one had been highly refined and "worked-in" — a Weatherby Mark V. He had acquired it during the London adventure, and he'd gone to great trouble and expense to have the weapon forwarded to him upon his return to this country.
The bolt-action piece handled .460 calibre Magnums with a point-blank range of 400 yards, maximum range 1,000 yards, and the big sniperscope that came with it would resolve the head of a pimple a half-mile away. The muzzle energy was 4,000 pounds; the Magnums carried more than 300 grains of push behind the expanding, high-shock projectiles which could tear a man's head off at 500 yards.
The range on the present mission would be much less than that. The only problem Bolan was sweating was the question of light. The scope would be useless in the dark. If that plane should beat the sun into the target area, Bolan would have to scrub and withdraw. He could not "work close" on this type of hit. The odds would be too great, the route of retreat too shaky.
There were no doubts regarding the target area. The private jet would almost certainly not use the facilities of the airline terminal, but would taxi to a convenient spot for transferring her passengers directly to waiting automobiles. This was SOP for Mafia war parties. And there had been no problem locating the line-up of crew wagons, the big eight-passenger jobs the mob. preferred for their headhunters. The limousines were waiting on a service apron, a hundred yards or so from the flying service building and about two hundred yards from the blast fence which was presently shielding Bolan's van, at the end of the primary runway.
He counted nine vehicles and ran his war party projection from there — sixty to seventy people were arriving. Figure the plane crew at about four, each of them a hardman, from the chief pilot on down. Say then, possibly, seventy-five guns out there, plus the nine wheelmen and maybe a couple of ranking greet-ers — round it off at even figures and call it ninety guns.
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