Bolan muttered, “Sorry,” and removed his patch.
But he was not at all sorry. He taped a microtransceiver to the pole and made the connection, then returned to the warwagon and set up the voice-actuated monitor.
He was inside them, now. More than that—he was like a ghost, all over them—watching, listening—getting their form, fit, and function.
Soon, now—the fates willing—he would know what to do with them. But the question was no longer an “if”—it was now only what and when.
Right now, it was time for a talk with Leo.
Those guys were getting too bored, down there. It was time for a bit of outside stimulation.
He took the 8:05 contact on the floater and told his friend, “We need a plain language line. Give me a number, and make sure it’s clean. I’ll call you back in five minutes.”
Turrin complied without comment. Five minutes later, Bolan was up the pole again with another patch.
“Okay, it’s cleared for plain language,” Turrin told him.
“Have you had any dialogue with New York yet, Leo?”
“Nothing that counts, no. I’ve been hitting Augie every twenty minutes for the past two hours. All I can get is the house boss, and he’s putting no calls through. Sounds like they’re on full alert.”
“Do you personally know that house boss?”
“Sure. Guy named de Florio. Been with the old man for years. He’s friendly enough when I call. He just says his orders are that the old man cannot be disturbed. And he claims that Augie’s good right hand is not available for calls.”
“Who is that good right hand? Eritrea, still?”
“That’s the guy. He’s been sort of running things for Augie the past few months.”
“What are your feelings mere?”
“Eritrea? Damned good man. I wish he was mine.”
“He’s one of the new guard, right?”
“Right. Educated and polished. Took over for Augie as consigliere after a background in Columbia business school and a later stint with the Commissione. Very bright, and much harder inside than the outside might reveal.”
“Yeah, I have the guy,” Bolan commented. “You figure he’s entirely loyal to Augie, eh.”
“I honestly can’t feel that one out, Sarge. I just don’t know. He’s not the sort of guy you get next to, if you know what I mean.”
“You figure your message of the dawn got through okay?”
“For sure, yeah. I managed to get through to my man in Manhattan—and he was almost too nervous to talk to me.”
“Did you get the leper feeling?”
“Oh absolutely. The word is out, that’s for sure.”
“This is the guy that works for the Commissione?”
“Same guy, right. He says the town is uptight and I shouldn’t be calling around this way. They got my message out on Long Island, yeah, for sure. My man says some hot sparks got ignited out there early this morning. Says a full council has been requested, via Augie. They should be meeting about now.”
“Yeah, that’s very interesting,” Bolan said. “Tell me about this ‘man’ of yours. What’s his fit?”
“Well, you know how it works. Sort of like White House staff, aides and such. A lot of people take care of the routine business for the organization. Naturally, everybody wants to cultivate and con these guys as much as possible. It’s a link, you know, a tie to the top. My guy is one of those links.”
“He’s just a contact, though. He hasn’t been made by you.”
“Well, in a way, yeah, he has. We all do that and everyone knows it. It’s the way the game is played.”
A brief silence ensued while Bolan thought about that. Then he observed, “But nobody knows for sure which man is yours.”
“You got it. It couldn’t work, any other way.”
“So this guy is really in a dangerous spot, if word should get out that you’ve made him.”
“That’s an understatement, Sarge. The best could happen to him, he’d be sent to Arizona or New Mexico. In the mob, that’s the equivalent of Siberia.”
“Okay,” Bolan said thoughtfully. “We need to rattle some cages, Leo. You’re going to have to go public.”
The little guy sighed across the connection as he replied, “Yeah, I’m way ahead of you. I already sent out a roundup call. My boys will be drifting back into town, right about now. They also will be bringing as many friends as they can collect along the way. The numbers should be, oh, say forty guns at the best. Half of those will be amateurs. You know what I mean.”
Bolan replied, “Yeah.”
How well he knew what Leo meant. Street punks with no allegiance to anything but a quick buck, willing to do anything to anybody if the price was right. The major problem there was that their ambitions greatly exceeded their capabilities. Strong on talk but weak on delivery. Dreamers, these guys, who imagined themselves as big bad men until they found themselves in the midst of a firefight.
Bolan knew precisely what Leo meant. He said, “The show of arms is what’s important. You know the risks, buddy. There will be plenty of heat.”
“So what’s new?” the little fed replied. “Exactly what do you want me to do? I don’t want to know your gameplan. Just tell me what I do to mesh with it.”
Bolan chuckled. “Superstitious?”
“Naw, just sensible. If I fall, I don’t want you falling with me.”
“The gameplan, Leo, is to keep you upright. So let’s keep that goal up front. Everything else has to play to it. Tell me you understand that.”
Turrin gave a hollow laugh. “I understand it. And I’d be a liar or a fool to say that I don’t appreciate the goal. What do I do, then?”
“Fit yourself into a strong defensive position—something you know you can hold. Then start making your noises and dare them to send you some more trouble. Make sure you’re covered in every possible area. No weaknesses, nothing hanging out. Then start yelling and sit tight.”
“Got it Okay. Sounds easy enough. You’re expecting me to play some dirty pool, too, I take it. You’re thinking about my man in Manhattan.”
Bolan sighed. “Yeah. You’re going to have to expose the guy, Leo. Load him up, then cut him loose. I’m sorry if—”
“No no, it’s okay. The guy would do the same to me. Please note that I did not give away my position when I talked to him this morning. In a society of thieves, Sarge, you just don’t—”
Bolan broke in with a laugh, then told him, “Okay, Leo. You know what you have to do. I want some waves, high and fierce. Cover yourself and start your move. Right now.”
“Right now, okay, you’ve got yourself a wave-making machine. Just don’t get caught in the undertow, buddy.”
Bolan chuckled solemnly and rang off.
He was not particularly concerned about his place in undertows. It was, indeed, the best way he knew for getting the outside in and the inside out.
And that was the whole damn gameplan.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Shaking It
Billy Gino dropped off at the end of the ramp with two of his boys and watched with customary nervousness as the other cars swept past and nosed into their parking spots.
Everything was moving with the usual precision.
Four of the boys were hustling along the corridors while another pair quickly checked out the elevator area and sent back an all clear. Only then did David and his entourage disembark and flow swiftly across to the elevators.
Gino remained behind to put his personal seal of security on the parked vehicles. He called the wheelmen together for the routine instructions: “Stick close. Keep your butts off the floor and your ears and eyes open. Don’t let nobody near the cars. I’ll beep you when we start down. You have it hot and ready to roll when we come out of those elevators.”
He told the other downstairs boys: “Keep it casual but keep it tight. Anything at all bothers you, give me a beep.” He hauled out his little pocket radio, turned it on, and clip
ped it to his belt. “Let’s have a radio check when I get upstairs.”
Then he went on up, fighting the usual quivers within himself. It was always a nervous job—especially when they were “on the town.” Billy Gino was getting paid for his nerves. And he earned his pay. He was a good bodycock and he took his work seriously. Somehow, though, today the tensions were even worse than usual. Something was in the air—something ominous and worrisome—and a good security boss always respected those backbone shivers. Not that he suspected some sort of ambush and shootout right here in midtown Manhattan—not, anyway, right here under La Commissione’s exalted noses. But a guy had to be ready for the unsuspected. And something definitely was off key with the organization. Something was happening, and Billy Gino did not understand what that was, and his bodycock’s nerves were paying the price for that confusion.
He stepped off the elevator and into the foyer of the penthouse, re-positioned a couple of his boys there for better separation from the other contingents, and snapped at them: “Don’t mingle. Don’t yap. Stay alert.” Then he checked the radio. These big buildings had a lot of steel. Communications were never as good as Billy would have preferred. He always checked the radios when they came here—and he was never entirely satisfied with the results, although he had never, in his memory, really needed to use the damn things in this particular location.
It had never occurred to Billy Gino that the entire world did not conduct its business in this fashion. He had never even thought about it. This was the way it was—top security, peaking nerves, ugly suspicions, and guns never more than a fingerflick away. This was the way it had always been, the way it always would be. There were no other worlds.
He went on into the big lounge area which was off limits to all but ranking officers of the company and their personal men. The place was patrolled by frozen-faced steeleyes in hand-tailored threads who sort of blended into the decor like so many pieces of animated furniture. These were the Commissione’s own men, a gestapo elite without family ties or divided loyalties. They served no boss in particular, rather, they were responsible to all as to a corporate body—they served an idea, not a man. Or, so it was said. Billy had never liked those guys. He had never really trusted them. Today, he trusted them even less.
One of them approached and spoke to him, as if from some loudspeaker concealed under the coat, no expression in the face or eyes, no movement of lips or jaws—a damned ventriloquist. “How goes it on Long Island, Billy?”
“It goes fine, thanks,” the bodycock replied, in much the same manner.
“I hear you got some funny flesh out there this morning.”
“Where’d you hear that?” Billy Gino replied casually and strolled on past the guy.
David was waiting for him near the door to the council chamber. The security chief moved alongside to deliver his report. “It looks okay, Mr. Eritrea. But I have a nervous feeling.”
“So have I, Billy,” David replied quietly.
That surprised Billy Gino. Not that the guy felt that way—but that he had confided it to his bodycock. He had never known David Eritrea to reveal any feeling to anyone.
They went inside and Billy went through the usual quiet routine of checking the place out while David exchanged restrained greetings with the other men assembled there. The protocol was immaculate. David was not even a boss, yet he was the last to enter and he sat at the head of the table. In this chamber, David was not David; he was Augie Marinello—a walking and talking extension of the boss of bosses.
Billy Gino caught his eye with a silent “okay” and went back out to take up station immediately beyond the heavy door. That station was his prerogative, as bodycock to the boss of bosses. It was an unwritten and even an unspoken prerogative, but it was there, nevertheless, and Billy Gino exercised it. Not even the steeleyes could challenge his right to stand at that closed door. Nobody better, either.
Tensions, yeah—they were so heavy you could feel them gritting between your teeth. What the hell was going on?
A steeleye approached, acting like he was going right through the door past Billy Gino. Billy impaled him with a what-the-hell look, and the guy came to a quick halt.
“Where the hell you think you’re going?” the bodycock softly inquired.
“Message for Mr. DiAnglia,” steeleye explained, without really seeming to say anything.
Billy pointed to the house phone on a table nearby. “So send it,” he said.
He would have none of that shit.
The guy slid over to the phone and sent the message inside to DiAnglia, lord of the Bronx and Staten Island too. The conversation was exceedingly brief and hardly rose above a whisper, but Billy distinctly heard the word “Pittsfield.”
Steeleyes went away as quietly as he’d come, like a damn slithering snake.
Billy Gino stood at the door for another ten minutes, fidgeting inside and wondering about the contents of that “Pittsfield” message. Then the door opened, and David was there.
“Send for Angelo Flavia,” David commanded, then shut the door.
Flavia was one of the “executives” whose offices were on the floor below the penthouse. Billy raised a hand and a steeleye immediately drifted over. “They want Flavia,” he told the guy.
A minute later, they had Flavia.
He was a guy of about forty, fat and smooth and soft all over, a typical headquarters boy who probably lived in a fancy eastside highrise, spent his evenings at the Playboy Club, got a manicure and haircut twice a week, and spent the rest of his time trying to figure ways to increase his stock in the company. Billy had never had a very high opinion of these headquarters types. They were so many parasites clinging to the body of the work which every day was being gouged out of those streets far below—which work these guys would not touch even with leather gloves to protect their dainty, manicured paws.
Billy knocked lightly on the door and took the guy inside.
“Stay, Billy,” David commanded.
Billy Gino stayed, closing the door and planting himself against it from the inside.
Flavia was nervous as hell. The old bosses just sat there, staring at him. David was at the window. He turned to the guy and softly asked him, “How are things in Pittsfield, Angelo?”
The guy threw a sick look at Billy Gino, then put his knuckles on the table and leaned on them as he told Eritrea, “I haven’t been hearing much from Pittsfield, David.”
“That’s not the way I get it,” Eritrea said coldly.
“I don’t know what—look, really, what are you saying?”
“Flat out I’m saying that we know about you and Leo the Pussy,” Eritrea said, not unkindly. “We have a bad situation here, Angelo. We have to think that we can count on you to keep the loyalties unscrambled. Is that unreasonable?”
The guy was almost strangling on his own words as he replied, “It’s not a question of loyalties, David. I just—hell, I’m in a bad spot. I heard about the funny flesh out your way this morning, sure. That sort of thing naturally worries me. I’m trying to find out what’s going down, that’s all. Sure, I’ve had a few drinks with Leo. Seemed like an all right guy. But shit I’m not in the guy’s pocket. You ought to know better than that. If there’s anything at all I can do to straighten all this out, of course you can count on me. You have to know that.”
Eritrea’s eyes were saying precisely what he knew, but the voice was easier on the guy. “Now’s your chance to prove it,” he observed softly.
“Can I sit down?” the guy asked, already moving toward a chair as he spoke.
And, sure, that was a good idea. Another second and the guy would have been kneeling on the floor.
Eritrea gave the look to Billy Gino. The bodycock nodded solemnly and went back to his station outside the door.
Things were looking better. A lot better. And old man Marinello would have been quite proud of David if he could have seen him now.
The meeting dissolved a short while later. The bosses drif
ted out, looking solemn and troubled. David came out with a hand on Angelo Flavia’s shoulder. Things looked pretty cozy between them. But the guy was still sweating it. He was sweating it hard. Billy Gino knew why, too—he’d seen David Eritrea work on a guy like this many times in the past.
“Call the airport, Billy,” David instructed in a quiet aside to his bodycock. “Get the company plane ready for a run to Pittsfield. We’ll be leaving within the hour.”
“Him, too?” Billy Gino sniffed with a jerk of the eyes toward the sweating Flavia.
David almost smirked. “Bet your ass, him too,” he snarled.
Billy went to the telephone and made the call.
Things were looking better, for damn sure. It had all been in a slow slide to hell ever since Jersey. It was long past time for the company to shake itself—and it sure was good to have a whole man running the show again, no disrespect to Augie intended.
The bodycock had long known what was now being whispered everywhere in the organization.
David Eritrea was a whole man and a half. Boss or no boss, he was sure as hell running the show now.
And Billy Gino could hardly wait to see the fur start flying. His nervousness had evaporated. He supposed that it had been produced in the first place by an uneasiness over that Bolan bastard. Old Barney Matilda had said nothing to ease the mind on that score. “Doesn’t have the marks of a typical Bolan hit,” the old guy had muttered. “But you never can tell. With that guy, you never know.”
Billy Gino still did not know. But it did not seem to matter, now. No. It really did not matter now.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Fire Mission
It was precisely the sort of development Bolan had been angling for and it came whispering across the telephone monitor in hushed and guarded language.
“Club Taconic.”
“This is Peter. Tell Simon, please.”
“Yes, sir. One minute.”
Biblical names, again—shades of Atlanta.
A moment later, from the strong side of the connection: “We were wondering how you’ve been and why we haven’t heard for so long.”
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