He stared down the cul-de-sac, at the only house on the whole block that had lights on. It was time for decisions. What should he do now that he was here? He tried to think, to plan, but it was too difficult. He finally decided to wait for Yvette and her friends. They'd be glad to see him. He was sure Yvette would have explained everything to them by now and that she was sorry for shooting him.
Across the street was a house with windows that looked like lanterns instead of staring eyes. That would be a good place to wait, warm and inviting. When Yvette and her friends came to this place, he'd surprise them and they'd be glad to see him.
He crossed the street, his legs numb and weak. He had no control over his movements, falling several times and weaving drunkenly before making it to the house. He tried the front door but it was locked. Around the back, he found a stick and used it to break a window in the back door, reaching through to unlock the place and let himself in.
The house was dark and empty and quiet, like a huge tomb. What moonlight there was filtered stark, angular shadows into the empty, morguelike rooms. It frightened and depressed him to be in this place, the house of the dead.
Suddenly dizziness swept over him. He tried to lean against a wall for support, but slid down instead, ending up in a heap on the floor. Too spent to do anything else, he buried his face in hands and began to cry.
* * *
Bolan sat watching the Giancarlos in their den, while Meredith stood her watch at the window of one of the second-floor bedrooms. The old man sat like a statue in front of the television, which was never turned off. A silent telephone sat next to him on an end table. He never moved; he never laughed; he never reacted. Bolan sometimes wondered if he was even alive or if he was simply a festering ball of meanness in human form. Joey paced nervously through the house, unable to sit still for any period of time. The genial mood he'd been in when greeting Bolan at the door had now left him, replaced by a kind of unpleasant morose sullenness. Bolan could make no sense of it. Angela had still not left for the motel, using the dinner dishes as an excuse to hang around far longer than she should have.
He had cornered her alone in the kitchen earlier and asked her about her blond hair. She'd told him it was a dye job, that her natural color was black. She wore the wig so her father wouldn't see what she'd done and get angry. Old Sam had always called bleached blondes "floozies." Bolan wasn't sure if he accepted that explanation, but it would do until something better came along.
The news about Rocco was interesting. He was beginning to develop a theory about what was happening here, and Rocco fit very nicely into the picture. He expected they'd be seeing the man, if not tonight, then soon. Very soon.
"Mike!" Meredith called from upstairs.
He jumped up and hurried through the house, taking the stairs two at a time until he joined her. She sat in a chair by the window in the darkened guest room, her face set in perplexity as she turned to him.
"Take a look," she said. "I have no idea."
He looked out the window in the direction of her pointing finger. A man was trying to cross the street. He was obviously in great difficulty, either drunk or hurt. He kept falling, then slowly picking himself up and staggering a few more feet before falling again. They watched, fascinated, as he finally made his way across the road and a lawn, and started trying to open the front door of one of the vacant houses.
"What do you make of it?" she asked.
"Could be a vagrant," he said. "Could be a sacrificial lamb."
The man moved out of sight around the back of the house. Seconds later they heard a distant shattering of glass.
"What do we do?" Meredith asked.
"We go get him and ask him what he wants."
She smiled. "Actually, I was getting tired of just hanging around anyway."
They hurried downstairs, Angela meeting them by the door. "What is it?" she asked.
"Probably nothing," Bolan asked. "We think a vagrant just broke into one of the houses down the block. We're going to check it out."
Her eyes narrowed in concern and she laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Be careful," she said.
He nodded curtly, then opened the front door, peering up and down the block before slipping silently into the shrubbery next to the door, Meredith right behind him.
Big Thunder was out of his harness and in his hands, a live shell in the chamber. Meredith had dug a .45 out of her big purse and held it, barrel skyward, the safety catch off and ready.
"We edge the houses," he explained, applying the same rules to the urban jungle that he'd used in Nam. "Keep to the shadows. Stay low. We'll go in the same way he did, through the back."
She nodded. "Whenever you're ready."
"Now." In a semicrouch he charged through the bushes and around the side of the house, following the fence line to the property next door. He crossed that backyard staying close to the vacant house, his movements not visible from the target residence.
He reached the edge of the house, taking a quick look at the one next door that was their target, making sure no one was watching from the windows. He turned to Meredith, who had just moved up beside him, breathing heavily. "Here we go," he said, and raced across the space between the houses, coming up on the back door with its window broken.
The door stood wide open, swinging slowly in and out on the Oklahoma wind. Bolan put his back to the wall and edged around the doorframe, peering in. He was looking at a laundry room. An archway led into the rest of the house.
He entered the house slowly, with measured steps, Meredith duplicating his moves. When he reached the archway, he stuck his head through. The kitchen was to the left, the living room to the right. Turning to Meredith, he pointed at her, then pointed to the right. Then he indicated that he'd be moving to the left.
She nodded. They both moved silently through the archway at the same time.
Bolan turned left, hitting the empty kitchen, from which another archway opened into a large dining room. From somewhere in there he could hear sounds, whimpering sounds. He held out Big Thunder two-handed in front of him.
He took a long breath, trying to identify the exact location of the noises, then dived through the opening, rolling, coming up with the AutoMag extended to arms' length.
A man lay crumpled on the floor, crying. He was covered with filth and blood, looking near death. A movement to Bolan's left caught his eye. He swung around and saw Joan coming through an entry in a crouch, her .45 pointed at the man, too.
They shared a look. Bolan shrugged. "Keep your hands where we can see them," he addressed the man, who slowly looked up at them.
"Are you the ones who can save me?" he asked. "Oh, please, I can help you. I know... I know... so... much."
He fell back, weak, Bolan moving up to him and patting him down for identification. He had none. Meredith joined Bolan as he pulled a penlight out of the webbing and played its light over the man.
"Maybe a bum who got beat up pretty bad," the woman said, looking at the blood-soaked shirt tied around his middle.
"I don't think so," Bolan said. "Look at his shoes... they're expensive. And that's a twenty-dollar haircut if I've ever seen one."
"Then who the hell is he?"
"I don't know," he replied. "Let's get him over to the house and call an ambulance from there. He may not last it much longer."
"It's odd," Meredith said, "but there's something ... I don't know, familiar about this guy."
Bolan leaned down close to the man, who stared back at him through glazed, half-closed eyes. "Who are you?" he asked.
"It wasn't my fault," the man mumbled. He was incoherent, babbling.
"We're going to get you to your feet," Bolan said, "and get you some help."
"Help," the man repeated. "Yes, help."
Bolan put the stranger's arm around his shoulder, and wrapped his own arm around the man, grabbing his belt to avoid pressure on the injury to his side. Bolan stood, the other man leaning on him heavily.
"We'l
l go back the way we came," he said.
"You want me to take a side?" Joan asked.
Bolan shook his head. "You take point. We want to make sure this isn't some kind of setup."
He half walked, half dragged the deranged man to the back door, Meredith going ahead to keep watch. Their progress was slow and they made good targets, with Joan hurrying to each secure point, then waving them over.
When they reached the Giancarlo house, Bolan picked the man up and carried him across the threshold, taking him right back to the den.
"What the hell you got there?" Old Sam asked angrily. "You're not gonna put that mess on my good furniture."
Bolan just glared at him and laid the stranger on a love seat that matched Old Sam's couch.
"You're gonna pay for cleanin' that," Old Sam said, then went back to watching television.
Angela moved up close, her eyes narrowed as she studied the man. Joey was nowhere to be seen.
The man's eyes suddenly fluttered and opened wide. Angela took a step back when he looked at her.
"Thank God," he whispered. "Yvette." Then his eyes closed and he sighed deeply with satisfaction.
Bolan straightened slowly, then turned to look at the woman. "So, that's it," he said in disbelief.
"What do you mean?" she asked, turning away so the man on the couch wouldn't see her if he opened his eyes.
"What's going on?" Meredith asked, puzzled.
Bolan pointed to the man on the couch. "Meet Ken Chasen," he told her. He walked over to Angela, who stared at him defiantly, and jerked the wig off her head, her blond hair falling free. "And his contact, Yvette."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Angela said.
Bolan walked over to stare down at Old Sam. "You figured it out before I did. I'll bet this is really sticking in your craw."
"I don't understand," Meredith said.
Bolan swung around and looked hard at Angela. "You're good, lady. You're real good. You even had me going for a while. I can just picture you laying on the charm with that poor son of a bitch lying over there. 'Oh Ken, I need you. Please make love to me. Take me now.' I'm telling you, Angela, you're really professional."
"Writing wasn't all I did in Hollywood," she announced proudly. "But when my father turned government stooge, he lost his power out there and I got shelved."
"I want you clowns to put your hands behind your heads," Joey said from the doorway, leveling a Remington pump shotgun at Bolan.
"Ah," Bolan responded. "The gang's all here."
"Just do what I said," Joey said.
"Sure," Bolan replied. He nodded compliance to Meredith. "The fact is, I wouldn't miss this little show for the world."
"What little show?" Angela asked.
"Unless I miss my guess," Bolan went on, interlocking his fingers behind his head, "you'll be having some visitors in a little while."
"What..."
"Never mind, Angela, he's just bullshitting." Joey motioned with the barrel of the gun for Bolan and Meredith to move closer together. "Get their guns, sis."
Angela, who looked stunning as a blonde, felt inside Bolan's jacket to the combat webbing.
"What in the hell is going on here?" Meredith asked as Angela took the .45 out of her hand. She was still thoroughly confused.
"It's unbelievably simple," Bolan explained. "Joey is our mystery man, the man who hired Burnett and his scum to do the people in hiding, using his darling sister, Angela, to set up this poor so-and-so." Bolan looked over at Old Sam, who still sat calmly on the sofa. "How about it, Sam? Some kids you've got."
"But why?" Meredith asked.
"I don't have all the answers," Bolan replied, sitting on the arm of the love seat, "but I've got a pretty good idea. Let's say that Joey goes to Ben Villani and offers him a deal: the lives of the protected witnesses in exchange for Villani's territory. What an interesting way for a young man to gain himself a foothold in the world. Must be in the blood."
"But Old Sam wasn't on the hit list," Meredith said.
"That's right," Bolan returned. "Can I put my hands down?"
"No," Joey said.
Bolan shrugged. "Okay. That point about the hit list screwed me up for a while, too," he went on. "But then it made perfect sense. He can pay the hit man with money glommed from his chop shops here in town. He fixes it so the others are killed first. That way, if it works, he can do Old Sam himself. If it doesn't work, he simply leaves things as they are and hasn't lost his meal ticket. Villani isn't any the wiser because he never knew the addresses, and things continue as they were."
"Pretty smart, huh?" Joey bragged.
"To a point." Bolan looked at Old Sam. "What do you think of your loving family now?"
The old man sat silent, face expressionless.
"Joey was glad to see us when we showed up tonight," Bolan said. "Hell, why not? We'd tied up all his loose ends for him. All he had to do was blow away his old man, then head to Chicago to take over operations. It would have worked, too."
"Except for him." Meredith pointed at the comatose Ken Chasen. "How did he get here?"
"That I don't know," Bolan answered, "although he's obviously been down some roads. He knew the address because he copied it from the computer file and memorized it. The why of it is beyond me, though I have to think that sweet Angela... pardon me, Yvette, had something to do with it."
"It's still rock solid," Joey boasted. "We just take care of you two, plus my father, and say we were attacked. The rest of the plan still stands."
"Funny you should mention rocks," Bolan said, his agile mind linking one thought to another. "Your plan is about to run into a small problem. You thought you were too smart. I'll bet you went up and visited Ben Villani in Chicago, didn't you?"
Joey just looked at him, his jaw slackening. Old Sam began to curse, very softly, in Italian.
Joey moved to his father, his hands held out in front of him. "There's nothing personal here," he told the old man with sincerity. "It's just business. That's all."
Old Sam leveled his still powerful eyes on Joey. "I will live to see you in your grave. You and your sister."
Bolan looked at the old man, then back at his son. "Well, I don't know how, but they traced you back here when you left, probably because you got cocky and didn't pay attention." Joey jerked around to face him. "What, you think Villani doesn't take his vendetta seriously? He's used you, Joey. Yesterday morning he sprang Rocco from Joliet. He probably waited until tonight to hit you because he wanted to make sure Ottoni was hit before tidying up. Really neat, huh, Sam?"
The old man looked at him this time, and the darkness in his eyes was a frightening thing. Still he didn't move. Still he didn't talk. He simply sat and exuded the evil that had infected his entire family. Animals, all of them animals, Bolan thought, living on the ragged edge of death and deceit.
* * *
Vic D'matto pulled the Lincoln up about half a block from the intersection of Willow Way. The dark neighborhood was the perfect locale. With any luck they'd be on their charter flight out of this hick town within an hour and a half. Rocco sat beside him in the front seat with the shooters, Tony in the back.
He turned the car off and twisted to look at Rocco. "I figure we go up on both sides of the street and use the empty houses as cover."
"Sounds fine," Rocco said, pulling out one of the Ingrams and jamming a magazine into the breech. "But first, we got somethin' to talk over."
D'matto looked at his watch. "Maybe we ought to do the hit first, kid, and talk later."
Rocco gave a half smile, then reached out a beefy hand, grabbing Vic by the lapels and jamming the gun into his face. "I say we talk now."
"Roc... come on." D'matto was more angry than fearful. "We haven't got time for games here."
"This ain't no game, Vic," he said, eyes shining in the darkness. "You're gonna tell me how you found out about this place, and you're gonna tell me quick."
D'matto looked into his face and saw that he
meant what he said. Vic was caught in the fire, because if he told, Ben wouldn't understand the reasons why. "I can't tell you. Your pop would kill me."
"And I'll kill you if you don't," Rocco said.
"Tony," D'matto said. "Get this son of a bitch off me!"
Ferrari began to stir in the back seat.
"I want you to do some thinking before you move, Tony," Rocco told him, his eyes still locked with D'matto's. "When my old man dies, who're you gonna take orders from — Vic or me? In fact, it's about time for the old man to get out of the way, anyhow. He's gotten weak. He's just pissing away his business."
"Don't listen to him, Tony," D'matto said.
"Okay," Ferrari answered, "but Vic..."
"That's right," Rocco broke in. "When my pop goes, you think I'm gonna keep this old Mustache Pete around, either? You gotta make your choices now, Tony."
"Ain't no choice... boss," Ferrari said. "What do you want me to do?"
D'matto saw the power pass from one generation to the next, right in front of him, and knew enough to move with the tide. "Okay, I'll tell ya."
"Go for it," Rocco said.
"Your pop made a deal with Joey Giancarlo to bump off the protected witnesses, so there'd be no evidence against him. He told Joey he'd hand over his territory in exchange. But Joey, he didn't give us the people's addresses, so when he leaves, Tony and I follow him to the airport, right to the gate of a plane going to Oklahoma City. Then we just checked, figuring chop shops would be the place for them to start down here with no competition. We found some legit businesses called Lucky Sam's Body Shops and got the owner's address. This is it."
"Why didn't my pop tell me all this?" Rocco asked.
"I don't know... maybe he was afraid you wouldn't understand why he made the deal. Hell, Rocco, he did it for you."
"That's crap," Rocco said. "He kept his mouth shut about it because he figured if I got bumped off down here, he could still cut his deal with Joey. What else?"
"Nothing else." D'matto shrugged. "That's all we know."
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