The blond opened the door, then turned back to Bolan in obvious confusion. “But Ralph and his boys are down there,” she protested. “Shouldn’t I put something on first?”
Bolan placed a hand between her shoulder blades and gently shoved her on out the door. “Just do what I told you to do.”
“Johnny’ll kill you when he finds out what you did to me.”
“And when will he do that?”
“Soon as he gets back from this trip.”
“What trip?”
The blond swivelled about and regarded Bolan with a curious stare. “Say … who are you?
“I’m Mack Bolan.”
The girl’s eyes flared wide. She wet her lips nervously with her tongue, said, “Well I’ll be,” and went on toward the staircase in a wooden walk. She threw a final look over her shoulder, smiled archly and, seemingly finding something perversely comforting in the sudden twist of circumstances, began humming lightly and swinging her hips in a provocatively swaying descent of the staircase. As soon as her head dropped from sight, Bolan trotted back along the hallway to the bedroom, stepped across the lifeless body, extinguished the bedlamp, and moved to the open window.
When he heard the girl’s shrill voice proclaiming the presence of “a nut, upstairs,” and the ensuing bedlam, he stepped quickly out the window and dropped to the ground. The two front men were staring curiously toward the house when Bolan touched down directly in front of them. One of them reacted immediately, clawing toward a shoulder-holster. He took Bolan’s first muffled shot squarely between the eyes and fell over backwards without a sound. The other man was sprinting toward the rear of the car and jerking to free a revolver from a holster on his hip; Bolan’s second shot tore into the back of his head and sent him sprawling face down on the driveway.
Bolan added a fresh clip of ammo to the Luger as he ran for the front entrance to the house. The door was locked. He seized an iron lawn chair and heaved it through the picture-window, following closely with his own diving body. The blond stood at a far wall, gawking at him. A pair of feet hesitated on the stairway, then hastily descended. A heavy man, big pistol in hand, bent low to peer back into the living room, grunted an exclamation, and quickly swung in against the railing for firing position. Bolan got there first, however, firing from the prone position with three rapid shots up the stairwell. The heavy body jerked and sagged as two more men charged down, became entangled in the crumpled body, and slid the remainder of the descent with guns roaring wildly.
Bolan had regained his feet and was whirling to the attack, the Luger phutting unnoticeably against the louder concert of exploding weapons. The firefight was brief, and ended with a tangle of bodies at the bottom of the stairs. Bolan was inspecting them with a probing foot when a fourth man appeared at the top railing and sent a new volley spraying down. Bolan fired twice. The man fell back with a moan and his pistol crashed onto the floor below.
The blond woman, still nude, had sunk to her knees and was trembling violently. Bolan crossed to her, knelt and gripped her shoulder. He clamped down hard with the hand and said, “About that trip … where is Portocci?”
“G-god I d-don’t know,” she stammered. “I th-think I’m sick. Yeah I am, I’m sick.”
Bolan moved the heat of the Luger close to her glowing flesh and said, “I can make you a lot sicker, doll. I want some words about Portocci.”
“I told you, I don’t know,” the girl moaned. “Flying. He’s flying somewhere. Some meeting. I don’t know.”
“Private plane?”
“Huh?”
“How’s he flying? Does he have his own plane?”
“Naw, he had reservations, that’s all I know. God, I’m sick, mister, I’m sick. Let me get out of here, huh?”
“In a minute—if I get the right words. Are you Johnny Portocci’s woman?”
The girl grimaced ruefully. “Yeah, I guess—one of ’em. I got some clothes upstairs. Please let me—”
“You recognized my name a while ago when I mentioned it. How?”
She laughed shrilly. “God, I ain’t heard nothing but for weeks.”
“But you’ve heard it very recently,” Bolan persisted. “Tonight. Right?”
The girl miserably nodded her head. “A guy called in awhile ago, some restaurant, some truck stop, out east of town. Said you was eating in his joint. Freddie sent a car to check it out.”
Bolan nodded. “And just who is Freddie?”
“He works for Johnny Musician. Fred Apostini. He’s dead, you killed ’im. And all his boys. You killed ’em all.” A crafty thought reflected in her face. “But there’s a car-full out looking for you right now. You better get outta here.”
“They found me,” Bolan told her. “They won’t be coming back.”
She crumpled again, under that news. “God, you killed them all then. Look, I’m not no moll. Johnny Musician keeps me around for kicks, that’s all. Let me go, huh?”
“I want the rest of them first,” Bolan said, carefully measuring the amount of strain the girl could bear.
“God, there ain’t any left! I told you! They all went off with Johnny. God, you killed all the rest o’them!”
“If I find out you’ve lied to me,” Bolan said ominously, “I’ll be looking you up, doll.”
“I ain’t lying! Please, mister. I got my clothes upstairs. Let me get out of here, huh? Before the cops come?”
Bolan was satisfied. He said, “Sure,” patted her shoulder, and made his exit through the shattered window. He circled to the rear and went back the way he had come, over the back wall and across the adjacent property to the side street. Houselights were coming on up and down the street. A man stepped out on his porch and curiously watched Bolan as he stripped off the black jumpsuit and got into his car.
Ten minutes and several miles later, Bolan stepped out of a public telephone booth, his face dark with speculation. The airline reservations clerk had most helpfully given him some food for thought. “Mr Portocci and party” had departed Phoenix earlier that evening on a flight to Miami. This information, in itself, held very little interest for The Executioner. Added, however, to several other items of intelligence he had accumulated on his trek of the past few days—and with the blond woman’s disclosure; “He’s flying somewhere—some meeting …”—a picture was beginning to form in Bolan’s inquisitive mind, an image of palm trees and bikinis and a swank playground onto which were descending top-goncho Mafiosi from various family trees—and Mack Bolan was beginning to smell an Appalachian style summit conference.
As he stood beside his car, pondering the possible implications of his suspicions, a police car screamed by a block away, followed closely by an ambulance. Another siren could be heard in the distance. Bolan smiled and climbed into his car. The time had come for The Executioner to take leave of the desert scene. Miami, he was thinking, should be entirely pleasant at this time of year. If he could line up a quiet air charter, he reflected, he could even get there in time for the hunting season—and, if his suspicions were correct, the Florida playground would be teeming with big game.
Bolan turned his car around and headed it toward the airport. He had tried to smash up the middle in Phoenix and it had proved at least momentarily successful. Perhaps he could smash with equal success right through the middle of the Mafia ruling council. Discovering that he was breathing very shallow, he chuckled to himself and tried to relax. What did he have to lose? Just his own life—and he would undoubtedly be losing that sooner or later anyway. What did he have to gain? Bolan chuckled again. This one would be for all the marbles. He found himself relaxing. He knew now how the VC suicide troops felt when they swept into a government stronghold. A walking dead man has everything to gain and nothing, absolutely nothing, to lose. Bolan understood this.
“Lookout, Miami,” he said aloud,”I’m sweeping in.”
Chapter Two
THE SCREEN
Johnny (The Musician) Portocci, at 39, had everything going for him.
Handsome, virile, educated, an instinctive and aggressive businessman—these attributes alone would have assured him some success in life. Add to all this the power, the wealth, and the influence of the organization, and Johnny simply could see no way to lose. He actually had been a musician once, and had financed two years of college through occasional stands at recording studios, dance halls, and night clubs in the Los Angeles area, filling temporary openings in musical groups, bands, and even an occasional symphonic orchestra. He had played in the Hollywood Bowl, and once with a nationally televised band. Johnny thought of this period, however, as “the bad old days.” Often he had gone to bed hungry, attended classes while giddy with malnutrition and groggy from lack of sleep, and had slept under the stars during frequent periods when he was locked out of his rooming house for non-payment of rent.
“That’s what you call being honest, dumb, and poor,” Johnny would say, when relating the story. “I wouldn’t have stolen a nickel from Rockefeller and I couldn’t have conned anybody, not even that old bag of a landlady.”
Johnny’s “education” improved dramatically toward the end of his second college year. He did not learn to steal, not immediately, but he did learn to “con,” and he was doing so well by the end of that summer that he decided to not return to classes that fall. He never returned.
Johnny the Musician had become a runner for a numbers operation in East Los Angeles. At that time Ciro Lavangetta had been an underboss in the DiGeorge Family. Johnny was “running” for one of Lavangetta’s lieutenants, “Sunset Sam” Cavallente. Cavallente had been an “old-days” acquaintance of Johnny’s father, long dead. During his Cavallente days, Johnny Portocci had enjoyed employee status only—that is, he worked for a salary and had no access to family rank and rights.
During one particularly hairy episode with the Los Angeles police, Johnny came under the direct notice of Ciro Lavangetta who was impressed by the youngster’s poise and “manners.” A short while later, Lavangetta sponsored Johnny for full-fledged status in the DiGeorge Family. When Lavangetta moved into the Arizona territory some years later, setting up his own little empire there, he took Johnny Portocci along as a ranking member of his administration.
Ciro had plans in which Johnny could prominently figure. He meant to take over the music business in Arizona, all of it—jukes, record distribution, live entertainment, unions, everything. He very nearly succeeded, thanks largely to Johnny’s efforts, but the prize was found unworthy of the labor. Arizona was not that big on entertainment. The big thing, at that time, was construction, labor relations, and land manipulation—and Johnny the Musician became the genius and the power behind a multi-million dollar operation that exacted a heavy tribute for the peaceful progress of Arizona’s land boom of the fifties and sixties.
And he became an underboss to Ciro Lavangetta. Some friction developed between the two, due perhaps to the Capo’s uneasiness over Johnny’s ambitious nature. Portocci was relieved of the land office responsibilities and was moved in to manage Ciro’s narcotics operation. He also began independently building a call girl service. Ciro promptly slapped him away from the girl operation, suggesting that Johnny should learn a lesson from the fact that alcoholics never run bars, and also suggesting that perhaps Johnny himself would do better in the bar business. So Johnny the Musician quietly bought into outlets for illegal whiskey, and later added mobile casinos to the circuit. This turned out to be his largest blessing; the entertainment business was finally beginning to come of age in Arizona, and Johnny was in on the ground floor of the swell. He added two dude ranches and a large resort hotel to his holdings, surreptiously adding “girls” to the latter, capturing a large share of Arizona’s convention trade.
Yes, Johnny the Musician had everything going for him. Some day he would no doubt succeed Ciro as Capo of the Arizona empire; one day there would be a Portocci Family. Johnny could wait, and grow wealthier and more powerful in the process. He had it made.
Except for one unpleasant development. Mack Bolan. The wise-guy had been running amuk throughout the southwestern territories, piece by piece destroying and looting the finest moneytree west of Chicago. In just two weeks he had knocked over three money-drops and half a dozen distributors of Johnny’s lucrative narcotics operation. In one hit alone the guy had walked off with 60 thou of hard-gotten gains, and the entire Lavangetta Family had begun to rock from the reverberations of the bastard’s raids. They’d had to shut down the entire business and lay low, waiting for a chance to trap the illusive smartass, with each day of idleness reflected in mounting thousands of dollars in lost income. And, if that wasn’t enough, now the old men had decided that everyone should go to Miami and talk about it. Talk! While this guy was tearing ’em apart! And stealing their money and then using it against them! Johnny the Musician could not think of Mack Bolan without experiencing a revulsion approaching nausea.
And so it was with considerable displeasure that Johnny received “the news from Arizona” shortly after stepping off the plane at Miami International. Vin Balderone, Ciro’s representative in the open city of Miami Beach, quietly reported, “That Bolan bastard hit your place a little while ago, Johnny, and just tore hell out of everything.”
Portocci marched woodenly on toward the cars as though he had not heard. Balderone added, “Freddie the Swinger is dead, so’s Ralph Apples, Toadie Pangini, and all your soldiers. Did you hear me? He got ’em all.”
Salvadore Di Carlo, another Lavangetta underboss headquartered at Tucson, cleared his throat nervously and curled his fingers into the sleeve of Balderone’s coat. “Any action down in my territory?” he inquired.
Balderone shook his head, “Not that we heard, Sal.” He glanced about for a quick check of the faces in the Arizona delegation. “Who’d you leave the store with? Marty?”
“Yeah,” Di Carlo growled. “I’m gonna call.” He split off from the main group and walked rapidly toward a line of telephone booths.
Portocci did not speak until the party reached the vehicles, then he turned to Balderone and said, “Does Ciro know?”
“Sure he knows,” Balderone replied. “He’s the one told me.”
“What’d he have to say?”
“He said he was glad you got out when you did. He also said he wonders if you left a trail outta Phoenix.”
“Yeah, I left a trail,” the musician muttered. “A condensation trail, at thirty thousand feet.”
“Huh?”
Portocci grimaced impatiently and said, “Where’s Ciro?”
“He’s out at the joint. He says you should go straight to the Sandbank and stay there until he calls.”
“Grapeshit. What kind of a dump is this Sandbank?”
“It’s okay, Johnny,” Balderone replied nervously. “Nice place, right on the beach.”
Portocci was scowling. “Why can’t we go out to the joint?”
“The bosses say no more Appalachians, Johnny. We’re not mobbing up down here. Guys are scattered all around. They’re setting up a schedule for the meetings and we’ll have some parties, don’t worry about that, but we ain’t living together. I mean, we ain’t setting up for no bust down here, like at Appalachian.”
Portocci soberly nodded his head in understanding. “So why’d we have to come in the first place, eh?” he asked sourly.
“Christ, Johnny, you know how things have been going. The bosses are plenty nervous. We’re getting busted everywhere. They even got Sammy—”
“I know about Sammy and his big damn mouth!” Portocci interrupted. “So did he make it for the meet?”
“Sure!” Balderone scoffed. “You don’t think a little bust like that is going to put down Sam the—”
“So the Commissione is in full session. So now you tell me, Vin—is there any reason why the rest of us have to come down here and lay out in a crummy fleabag motel? I don’t like this slinking around bit, Vin, and Ciro knows that. Listen. You get back inside there and give him a call. Tell Ciro that Johnny Portocci is goi
ng back to Phoenix. I got too much to lose back there to—”
“Hell no, I’m not doing that, Johnny,” Balderone protested. “Don’t drag me in the middle of you and Ciro.”
Portocci seemed to be pondering the idea. “You think he wouldn’t like it, eh?”
“You know damn well he wouldn’t like it. All the other bosses got their administrations here with ’em. That would be embarassing to Ciro, if you up and took a walk on ’im.”
“Is that the way it would look, Vin? Like I was taking a walk?”
“That’s the way it would look to me, Johnny. Ciro too. I know him and so do you.”
“What would you do, Vin, if some wild man had just shot up your palazzo?”
Balderone frowned and shrugged his shoulders. “Like Ciro, I’d figure that wild man was long gone from Phoenix by now, Johnny. You can’t use that as an excuse to go back. The bosses are already taking steps about Bolan, don’t worry. They figure he maybe will track you here.”
Portocci screwed his face into a thoughtful scowl and quietly watched the approach of Salvadore Di Carlo, who was then descending the steps to the vehicle area. The other members of the party stood about in a strained silence.
Balderone tried again. “Go on out to the Sandbank, Johnny. Ciro will get in touch with you there. That’s instructions, Johnny—and, hell, you know not from me.”
“What’re you going to be doing, Vin?” Portocci asked in a quiet drawl.
“I’m … we … the bosses want a screen at every airport. I’m in charge of this one.”
“You mean you got soldiers crawling all over this place, that’s what you mean, huh. I spotted some, so don’t tell me different. You’ve got something on this Bolan and you’re just waiting for him to show, huh.”
Balderone licked his lips and studied Portocci with reproachful eyes. “Don’t you go telling Ciro I told you that,” he said angrily. “He don’t want you in this, Johnny. He wants you at the Sandbank.”
“That’s what I figured,” Portocci said, his voice sullen. “He wants me covered up in a fleabag while somebody else does my work. I don’t like that, Vin. You know I don’t like that at all. It turns my guts over.”
Battle Mask Page 16
