"Clean," Turrin told him. "I came out smelling like a rose."
Bolan laughed. "I guess you're about the only one."
Turrin also was chuckling. He said, "Name of the game, Sarge. Listen, you watch your step in the big bad city. Something large is brewing over there and the five families are up tight, damntight. So you watch it."
"What's the brew?"
"Politics, baby. And you know how that goes."
"Isn't it the wrong time of the year for that?" Bolan asked, but something had already started crawling through his mind.
"It's always the right time for politics. You know that."
"Yeah, but, for a big brew?"
"Well… yeah, I guess you're right. I don't believe they have an election coming up there for… oh hell, when do they vote in New York?"
"Same as other places, I guess," Bolan replied. "And my nose says wrong timing."
"Yeah. Well listen. I'll see what I can pick up. You want to call me back or do you have a number there I — "
'Til call you back. Uh, Leo. Thanks."
"Go to hell you big slob."
A click and a hum told Bolan that the conversation had ended. He grinned and went back to his room, and then he stopped grinning as his legs buckled under him and he had to make a grab for the bedpost to remain upright. Too much too fast, buddy, he told himself. Put it down, put it down.
He put it down, clothes and all, and he was asleep before his head met the pillow, his hand resting upon the grip of the Beretta, and his mind resting upon the ties that held important lives connected to his own. And he dreamed bloody dreams.
Chapter Eleven
Majesty
At almost the same moment that Mack Bolan had entered the automat with his young friends, CapoFreddie Gambella was being awakened from a fitful sleep in his home a few miles away.
"Tommy Doctor's outside," his night house-captain informed him in a harsh whisper. "He's got some cunt with him that he says knows Mack Bolan."
Gambella threw a quick look at his wife, asleep in the other bed a few feet away, and growled, "Awright, I'll be right there."
The captain was Angel Paleoletri, a favored veteran of some twelve years of night duty at the Gambella residence. He received his mob name from a supposed resemblance to a professional wrestler known as The Swedish Angel who was actually a Prince Charming in any close comparison with Paleoletti.
Maria Gambella openly shuddered at every sight of Angel, and she had absolutely forbade his presence in the marital bedroom. In one of the few ultimatums Maria had ever imposed upon their marriage, she had served notice to the Caposome years back that if she ever again awakened to find Angel Paleoletti standing over her bed, she would exit running and never return. So Gambella, in his own words a man who respected the sensitivities of womanhood, had discreetly moved the beds a few feet farther apart and impressed upon Angel the need for soft movements on nighttime errands into the boudoir.
Per this arrangement, Angel was awaiting his Capoin the small sitting room which adjoined the bedroom when Gambella strode out in robe and slippers, a suit of clothes slung casually over his shoulder. "Okay, what is this now?" he asked the bodyguard.
"Tommy's outside with this cunt. He thinks you'd want to talk to her personal. You want me to let 'em in?"
"You know better, Angel," Gambella said quietly. "Tell Tommy I'll be out in a minute."
"Dress warm, boss. We got a storm out there that could put out hell."
Paleoletti slipped quietly away and Gambella took his time getting dressed, running through his mind the possible implications of this sudden break in the search for the elusive Mack the Bastard. He had known, of course, that they would tag the guy sooner or later. It wasn't possible for anything to happen in this town without the news filtering up to the king of the empire sooner or later. This was the empire state, wasn't it? Damn right. And Freddie Gambella and his friends had covertly ruled it for a hell of a long time — where rule really counted, anyway. And one day soon, maybe it wouldn't be so covert. One day soon, maybe…
Gambella had lately been given to studying world history, with particular emphasis on Europe and the royal families who had dominated that continent and much of the world for so many centuries. The feudal kingdoms particularly fascinated the Capo, the parallels were so close to this blessed thing of theirs — the families of America — and he was beginning to understand where old man Maranzano had picked up his ideas for the early organization. The old boy had been a real educated gentleman, probably the only one except for Lucky Luciano who had any class at all. Gambella had secretly felt for many years that it was a damn shame for old man Maranzano to go out the way he did — he really had the right ideas.
Freddie Gambella had those very same ideas. This kingdom was going to get better organized, by God, or Freddie Gambella would die trying. But not like the old man. Hell no. It took more than ideas to fashion an empire. More than class, too. Maybe Freddie didn't have the benefit of a fancy education but he read a lot, and by God he had the benefit of thirty-five years experience of handling these people, from soldiers to Capos.
The old ways were okay as far as they went. They just didn't go far enough. Why should they be standing still for all this damn snooping and harassment by the feds? And these damn grand juries, these punk bastards with the holier-than-anybody-look on their faces and their damn hands just as sticky as anybody else's in the world. All these big corporations — why those bastards stole with a license that nobody ever dreamed of. They conned and robbed and gouged just like any guy on the streets, and that made them part of the game, didn't it?
Freddie Gambella was not holding still for that crap anymore. Hell no. If those guys wanted to muscle, then they'd better by God start looking for a license from the kingdom, that's what. Those senators, those congressmen, all those hunky little thieves in Washington and the legislatures, all those guys scrambling after the buck had better start doing their scrambling for licenses from the kingdom. Pretty damn soon, too. The big thing was by God about to happen. And it would be a chain reaction, not just here in New York but all over. The whole world, yeah.
Gambella went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth, then rinsed with mouthwash, grinned at his reflection in the mirror and told it, "I gotta tell you this, Your Majesty, you got stinkin' breath." He laughed, went to the closet for his topcoat, put it on and came back to inspect his image in the mirror, then he set the hat on carefully so not to muss the hair that was getting handsomely silver at the temples — yeah, real majesty — and he went out to talk to the cunt.
She was a pretty thing, all round eyed and scared out of her skull, one tit hanging outside her coat and getting massaged by Earl Lattio, Tommy's top gunner.
Lattio gave him a honky kind of a smile and slid out of the car to let the Caposlide in. Gambella removed his hat and shook the snow off, then handed it to Tommy Doctor who was watching him smugly from the front seat. Then Gambella looked at the cute kid and told her, "Put your titty back in before it catches cold."
She just sat there quivering, the big eyes looking at him like maybe he was the big hero she'd been looking for to show up and rescue her. He let her see a friendly smile then reached over and tucked the tight little titty in for her and rearranged her coat.
He said, "Didn't your momma ever tell you to wear a bra? They'll get all broke down and start sagging before you even so much as have a kid. What's your name, honey?"
Her lips moved ever so slightly and she whispered, "Evie."
"Is that what Bolan calls you?" he asked in a soft voice.
She just stared at him.
Tommy Doctor informed the Capoin that smooth college delivery, "We've assured the young lady that our concern for Mack is the same as her's. But she's hung up on something. She simply will not believe that we're trying to help the guy."
"Well you've got her all scared, that's why," Gambella purred. "Can't blame her, poor little thing, you guys playing with her titties and all th
at. What's your name, honey? Where do you live?"
A lengthy silence fell, then Tommy sighed and said, "It's been this way for two hours, Mr. Gambella. We talk to her but she doesn't talk to us. I think she's a dummy."
"And you a doctor with psychology?" the Caposaid. "I thought you knew how to handle people, Tommy."
The doctor smiled and spread his hands. "Psychology doesn't work too well on idiot mentalities," he explained.
"Aw, don't call her no idiot," Gambella said quietly. Somehow, in Tommy Doctor's presence he always felt compelled to talk just as streety as possible. He couldn't figure it — maybe he had to prove something to that snotty shit.
He hauled off suddenly and landed a flat-handed haymaker against the side of the cute kid's face. It sounded like a shot and the blow propelled her over against him where she started crying with jerky, gasping little sounds. He roughly hauled her upright and held her face close to speak quietly into it.
"She's not no idiot, she's just a mixed up kid. Isn't that right, honey?"
The girl blubbered, "Please… Leave me alone… I can't tell you anything. I don't knowanything. I was just sounding off to sound big. You know."
"That's the most she's said in two hours," Tommy Doctor commented.
"Shut up, Tommy. Let me do the talking. Listen, honey, you're making me feel real unfriendly."
The girl's lips quivered and she flared. "You're not fooling me. And stop talking to me like I'm a child."
"Oh, she ain't no child," Gambella said in mock surprise. "Those little bitty titties and she ain't no child. Maybe she's just a stunted slut."
Evie's lips compressed and she closed her eyes as though to shut everything out. "Better that than what you are," she muttered.
"And what am I?" Gambella shouted. "What am I, huh?"
She flinched away from the sudden ferocity of tone, but kept her eyes and mouth closed.
Gambella sighed loudly and turned his gaze toward the young man in the front seat. "Where'd you pick up on this little dolly?" he asked quietly.
"She came running into Mike's about eleven o'clock. Mike's rooming with this kid from Columbia, you know that. Since about a month ago. Anyway, she comes running in to see this roommate. The kid isn't there. So she wants Mike to tell her if this kid has been spilling anything about her knowing Bolan. So Mike got in touch with me. All he knows about her is that he's seen her around with those CIG punks and that her name is Evie. And she has given us nothing, but nothing."
Gambella sighed again, then rolled down his window and called out, "Angel! Come around to the other side and get in."
A huge bulk crowded into the rear seat from the far side of the car, muttering profanities and brushing at clusters of snow on his clothing. The girl's eyes flashed open; she took one horrified look at the new arrival and recoiled toward Gambella.
The Capochuckled and commanded his bodyguard, "Take the little girl on your lap, Angel."
Angel did so, hauling her onto him with two huge hands which totally spanned her waist. She resisted briefly, gurgling some horrified plea, then she gave up and sat stiffly sobbing, the blonde head wedged against the ceiling of the car.
Gambella said, "She's going to break her neck, Angel. Cuddle the poor little thing."
The giant bodyguard did so, dragging her head down by the hair to nestle at his throat.
Gambella squeezed her thigh and said to Tommy Doctor, "Tell your wheelman we want to go to the weenie house. And don't hurry. Tell the other boys to stay close behind, we don't want to get separated in this weather."
A moment later the three-car caravan was out of the drive and heading slowly toward a meat-packing plant near the waterfront. Gambella was obviously pleased with the frozen terror of his "pigeon." He asked Angel Paleoletti, "Enjoying yourself, Angel?"
"Sure, boss," the huge bodyguard replied, showing his Capoa hideous smile.
"Well I don't think the dolly is enjoying herself very much. You should make her feel comfortable, Angel. I think she likes to have her titties felt up. Other places too, I bet."
Paleoletti guffawed and became busy. The girl went rigid, her eyes became sheer ice and held an unblinking focus on the domelight. The big man began squirming and a moment later announced, "Hell, boss, this is getting me hot."
"You'll just have to be patient, Angel," the Capotold him. "But I promise you this. You get first jump. The other boys will have to line up for sloppy seconds." The girl began screaming then, and they let her scream. Her frail lungs were no match for the wind-and-snow wall of silence surrounding that vehicle, and the ride to the waterfront was a slow, deliberate advance into a night of terror which could not have been remotely conceived by unsophisticated young girls such as Evie Clifford.
All three vehicles drove into the refrigerated plant at shortly before 2:00 A.M., and the hysterical girl was dragged kicking and screaming into a large room where sausages were made, begging them to listen to her and assuring one and all that she would tell them anything and everything they wished to know.
But the Kingdom of Evil observed a ritualistic attitude toward enemies of the empire, toward those who befriended such enemies, and especially toward those who could conceivably become future enemies of the empire. In the dogmas of this kingdom, Evie Clifford was all of these.
An image needed to be maintained, a reign of terror needed to be reinforced, an example needed to be made. So they would not listen to their pigeon — fast becoming a turkey — until she had been spread-eagled naked upon a wooden meat table in a refrigerated room, and then they listened, and a pleased Capomade his departure at approximately twenty minutes past two o'clock, when Evie Clifford's living nightmare began in earnest. The animal shrieks of a human being in unimaginable torment persisted through the frozen time of the night and into the unseen dawn, but not one of those sounds penetrated into the ordinary world beyond those walls of the kingdom.
Long before the nightmare had ended for Evie Clifford, His Royal Majesty, Freddie the First, was telling his lady, "Naw, go on back to sleep, everything's all right. I just went out to see the storm."
Indeed, everything wasall right with King Freddie. It had been a profitable night, and it would be an even more profitable morrow. It could wait 'til then, everything was falling into place beautifully, and Mack the Bastard would be screaming hislousy turkey-head off before the new day was ended.
The king's lady murmured sleepily and told him, "At first I thought you were that awful Angel, stealing in here like a ghost." She turned her back and nuzzled into her pillow and added, "The very thought fills me with horror."
Gambella smiled and returned to his bed. Maria, he was thinking, was a bigger dope than any of them. She did not have the merest idea of what real terror was. But a lot of dopes were going to find out what it was. Damn soon, too. Just wait until things got going good into the big thing. Today, New York. Tomorrow, the world. The Caposmiled again, closed his eyes, and went peacefully to sleep.
Across town, a mindless lump of whimpering flesh was periodically screeching out everything it knew, and everything it could never possibly know, and the ears that heard did not even care anymore what was known or not known. Man, it is said, is the only beast that laughs at the misery of others of its own kind. There was laughter amidst those shrieks, and vile jokes, and insane inspirations for new ways to produce new shrieks. And the night of terror that surpasses all nightmares wore on and on. For Evie Clifford, the kingdom had come.
Chapter Twelve
Fury
Bolan came out of his dreams with his teeth on edge and a queasy ball in the pit of his stomach. The snow had stopped falling and it was getting daylight. A thick blanket of white lay over everything he could see from his window. He staggered down the hall, cleaned himself up, then he returned to his room and dressed for combat. He put on the thermal suit and got into a set of fatigues, then strapped on his hardware, slipped on an OD field jacket and went downstairs. The night clerk was still on duty — manning a broom
in the tiny lobby. The guy did not even look up as Bolan dropped his key on the desk and strode past to the side door into and adjacent coffee shop.
He drank a pint of orange juice standing up, then he carried out coffee and Danish in a sack. The crisp air outside and the juice inside were making him feel more human by the time he reached the garage. He spent a few minutes arranging things inside the micro-bus, then he pulled onto the snow-clogged street and wondered where the hell he was going.
Something had driven him out here, something he did not even understand. Like that night near Thang-Duc when just Bolan and two Montagnard tribesmen were in night camp within shouting distance of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, when some indefinable restlessness had urged Bolan out of his hole and he'd gone off scouting the darkness alone where he'd found the Red general holding an impromptu staff meeting under the trees. The joint had turned out to be a major command post for the Northmen, and Bolan had directed air strikes that wiped the place out. All from a restless feeling like this one.
He gave the VW its head and let it go where it could along the streets of Manhattan. It was still too early for traffic — considering the street conditions, there would probably not be too many motorists even trying it. He sipped at the coffee, munched the rolls and sought out paths where the snow removal equipment had been busy. Presently he discovered that he was heading across the Harlem River and into the Bronx.
Bolan shrugged and thought, Okay, why not? — so, he set a course for the home of Sam the Bomber Chianti.
He took the back way in and left the VW in the alley behind the house. The sky was overcast and gray, and only the white glaze from the ground was saving the day from seeming totally dismal. A trail through the fresh snow had been walked off between the house and the garage. Sounds of activity within the latter drew Bolan to the side door; he approached with the Beretta drawn and ready.
Sam the Bomber was fussing with an assortment of suitcases, trying to fit them into the trunk of a Cadillac. He looked up and saw the Executioner standing in the doorway. Chianti's eyes blinked a couple of times and he said, "Oh, I guess I'm surprised to see you. I guess I thought you'd be dead by now."
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