Blancanales suggested, “Maybe some very straight big daddy with a dirty backside.”
Bolan nodded. “That’s what I’m hoping for. A hell of a lot of mob money is moving into the legit pipelines in this town. That’s what put Winco in business … black money. But it didn’t move directly from Lucasi to Winters. There’s a middleman somewhere, a guy with plenty of clout. If we’re going to find Howlin’ Harlan’s lost soul, then we’ve first got to find the Big Middle.”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense,” Schwarz said.
“The same guy is providing the umbrella for Lucasi and his hoods,” Blancanales added.
“Probably,” Bolan said. “It takes a certain kind of environment to support a Mafia entrenchment. If you find that entrenchment, then you know the environment is there also. So we’ll try to knock some holes in the entrenchment. Maybe we’ll get a glimpse of the environment as it rushes in to plug the holes.”
“This is different than the L.A. operation,” Schwarz decided.
“Quite a bit,” Bolan agreed. “L.A. is a big roaring city, liberal, free-wheeling. That’s enough natural environment right there to cover routine mob operations. This is a different sort of environment. Much smaller. Conservative, strong civic spirit, a proud town. Somebody in a position of power and trust within that establishment has to be dirty if the mob is operating here on the scale I suspect.”
“Or maybe a bunch of somebodies,” Blancanales growled.
“Maybe. Whoever or how many, we have to shake them up, get them churning, worrying. We already have a possible.” Bolan stared for a moment at Schwarz. “After you’ve collected the Winters’ intelligence, if you have time, find out what you can about a local wheel named Maxwell Thornton.”
“Pretty big guy?” Blancanales inquired.
Bolan replied, “Yeah, pretty big. Let’s examine our problem here for a minute. We know the mob people in this area. We know pretty well where their interests lie and the type of routine operations they’re running. We could blitz them … just lay all over them … and we could do that very well, I think. But that wouldn’t put us any closer to the deeper enemy, and that is the one we really want this time. The Big Middle … that’s our target. First, though, we have to find them.”
“And you think this guy Thornton may be one of this Big Middle?”
“As I said, he’s a possible. Lucasi dropped the name on me. Maybe just as a stall, but sometimes a lot of truth seeps out of a deathbed stall. We have to check it out … but very carefully. We don’t want to get these guys to running … just shaking a little.”
Schwarz asked, “What if they won’t shake?”
Bolan’s voice dropped an octave in the reply. “Then we’ll have to burn them out.”
The Politician wriggled under an involuntary shiver. He coughed into his fist and said, “I’m starting to understand why you didn’t want this town on your hit parade, Sarge. It could get pretty nasty, couldn’t it.”
Bolan was staring at the tips of his fingers.
Schwarz commented, “What happened to the good old days of simple warfare, eh?”
“They were left quite a ways down the trail,” Bolan replied quietly. “The thing gets more complicated all the time, Gadgets.”
The expression in the electronics man’s eyes reflected a new understanding of this quiet man in executioner black. This was a new Bolan, a wary and sophisticated warrior—essentially the same man he’d known earlier in the wars, but with that subtle shade of difference … he was a man with a high mission.
“There’ll still be plenty of fireworks before we close this one,” Schwarz muttered.
“Bet on it,” Blancanales growled. He sighed. “Well, I’d better be moving out. How much range we got on these shoulder phones?”
“Figure ten miles,” Schwarz replied thoughtfully, his mind obviously on some other matter.
“Figure a lifetime,” Bolan quietly corrected him.
In this business, Bolan knew, each beat of the heart was a lifetime in its own right.
“You guys be very careful,” he commanded gruffly. “Play it to the numbers, and very close.”
The three solemnly shook hands and went their separate ways.
A city under quiet siege awaited their heartbeats.
6: HARDCASE REVISITED
The daytime routine was barely underway at the Los Angeles Hall of Justice when Captain Tim Braddock found himself in an interesting telephone conversation with his counterpart at San Diego.
“What makes you think you’ve got Bolan down there?” he asked John Tatum, homicide chief at the southern city.
“It’s just an uneasy feeling, at this point,” Tatum replied in a troubled voice. “I’ve never had so much as a smell of the guy before, though … I guess I’m hoping you can tell me I’m all wet.”
“Well.…” Braddock sighed. He and Tatum had been friends for many years. “What’ve you got, John?”
“Item One, an apparent suicide. Let’s talk about that one first. Last night, late. Retired army general, once got a lot of press for his colorful combat activities in Vietnam. Lately head of Winco Industries.”
“Howlin’ Harlan Winters,” Braddock said with a heavy voice.
“You knew him?”
“Not personally. Go on.”
“He put an army Colt to his head and pulled the trigger, or so the evidence would indicate. Paraffin tests are positive—all the routine checks and physical evidence support the suicide angle. Coroner agrees.”
“Did he leave a note?”
“No note. The county is ready to close it as a suicide, but.…”
Braddock lit a cigarette and sucked in a lungful of smoke, exhaled violently and asked, “But?”
“Well … Winters was a bachelor. Lived alone, except for a niece. She discovered the body, and—”
“How do you figure Bolan in this? What’s your Item Two?”
“I’ll take the last question first, it’s easier. Somebody pulled a heist on a shipment of cash skimmed from a Vegas casino. Happened just a few hours after Winters died. One of our undercover men phoned in the report a couple hours ago. He says that Ben Lucasi is frothing at the mouth and importing triggermen from all over. Our operative couldn’t get the full story, but he says it smells of a Bolan hit.”
“Yeah, he likes to hit them in their money bags,” Braddock mused. “That’s all you have on that?”
“That’s it.”
“Okay, back to Item One. You think Winters was murdered, I take it. Is the niece a suspect?”
“Hell no, but Bolan is.”
Braddock sighed. “Okay, let’s have it.”
“Let me background you a bit first. Winters had this beach-pad out near Del Mar. You know that area. Fifty percent of his property line fronts on a sheer cliff overlooking the ocean. The only way up from the beach is via an elevator which is controlled from above. In other words, no visitors from below without an invitation from above.”
“I have the picture,” Braddock said. “But isn’t Del Mar out of your jurisdiction?”
“Technically, sure. But we got called in for routine consultation and … well … look, Tim, if Bolan is operating anywhere between Tijuana and L.A., don’t talk to me about police jurisdictions.”
Braddock chuckled drily and said, “Well said, John. And welcome to the club.”
The San Diego cop was becoming flustered. He growled, “Let me lay this out for you, will you? Now look, half the Winters property is secure from trespassers by the cliff. Okay. The other half is double-fenced and a pair of Doberman man-eaters roam a no-man’s-land between those fencerows. Those guys are mean as hell—a couple of very unhappy sheriff’s deputies will attest to that—and there simply is no way past them without calling the house and getting an escort through the fang zone.”
“Okay, this is getting interesting,” Braddock commented.
“Yeah. Just wait. Miss Winters says that there were no callers last night. That is, no visitors.
She doubles as a girl-Friday, housekeeper, chief-bottle-washer and all the rest for the general. She—”
“How much rest?” Braddock wanted to know.
“What? Oh, nothing like that, Tim. It was more like a father-daughter relationship. Winters raised the girl. Parents died when she was a tot. Army brat. He dragged her around the world with him. I checked her out thoroughly. She’s clean.”
“Okay. Go on. What about Bolan?”
“Where was I? Okay, no official visitors. She went to bed at eleven o’clock or thereabouts. The dogs were on station. The general was working in his study. At a little past midnight, she was awakened by a disturbance outside. The dogs were snarling and carrying on. There also may have been a gunshot. She’s not sure on that point. She ran downstairs and found her uncle slumped in a chair near the fireplace, half of his head blown away. Claims that she fainted, doesn’t know how long she was out. Her story comes confused along in here. When she came around again, she says, the dogs were still at it. Suddenly they got quiet. A minute later, this man walks into the study. Are you ready?”
Braddock growled, “I’m ready. Hit me.”
“This was a tall man, well built, athletic. She says he walked in like a cat. He was wearing a black combat outfit. Hands and face smeared with some black cosmetic. She further describes him as quote, guns and things strapped all over him, unquote.”
Braddock found himself leaning tensely forward in his chair. He said, “Now wait a minute, John.”
“No, hear it all first. She—”
“This was after she’d found her uncle dead?”
“Like I said, it’s confused. But’s that what she says. The guy walks in, looks at the dead man, gathers up a sheaf of papers from the desk—memoirs, she says—puts them in the fireplace, and sets fire to them. Then he simply walks out.”
“Bullshit,” Braddock growled.
“That’s her story, and we can’t shake it.”
“Did he leave a marksman’s medal at the scene?”
“No.”
“Then he didn’t kill the man,” Braddock declared.
“How can you leap to a conclusion like that?”
“Look, you called me as a Bolan expert, right? I’ll leap to any damn conclusion I wish. When Bolan kills he leaves no doubt that he was there.”
“Okay, forget that angle for a moment. Maybe Bolan didn’t actually kill Winters. Maybe it was a suicide, just as all the evidence indicates. Other than that, Tim … does this sound like Bolan?”
“Here and there,” Braddock growled. “Did you have the woman look at mugs?”
“Sure. Nothing positive. She said it could be the same man. Kept talking about his eyes.”
Braddock sighed. He said, softly, “Shit.”
“Does that mean I’ve got the problem of the century in my town?”
“First, let me straighten this out. Is the woman saying that the guy was in the house all the while? That he could have been there when Winters died?”
Tatum replied, “No, I didn’t get that from her statement. She’s apparently convinced that Winters did indeed kill himself. Even said that she had lately been concerned that something like this may happen. Said her uncle had been severely depressed, moody—obviously under some great strain.”
“Maybe he knew that Bolan was stalking him,” Braddock mused. “Would that be a valid theory?”
“Nothing official,” the San Diego cop replied, “but I’ve heard a few whispers about Winco Industries. They were under investigation once—the federal boys—but apparently nothing came of it.”
“You said the dogs were still alive and active when your men got there?”
“Yeah. Very much so. So you tell me, Tim. Is Bolan good enough to climb a hundred feet of sheer rock?”
“He’s no fly,” Braddock replied thoughtfully. “Did you test the dogs?”
“For what?”
“Drugs.”
The line between L.A. and San Diego hummed through a brief silence, then the embarrassed voice from the south admitted, “No. But I’ll get a pathologist out there right away.”
“That’s how he’d do it,” Braddock was thoughtfully deciding. “If it were Bolan, he’d know the dogs were there long before he started his move against the place. And he’d come prepared for them. You … uh … already know, I suppose, about the old connection between Bolan and Winters.”
Another embarrassed silence, then: “What connection?”
“We ran a total make on Bolan while he was in our town,” Braddock explained. “I talked to Winters myself, part of the routine. He was Bolan’s combat C.O. in Vietnam for awhile.”
The silence became oppressive. Finally the man in San Diego said, “You never cleared that with me, Tim.”
“Sorry, there was no time for niceties. Winters wasn’t suspected of any involvement with Bolan at the time. I was just looking for background on the guy. I set up the meet at the Del Mar country club. We had a drink; he told me what he knew about Bolan, supposedly; I thanked him and left. Had a hell of a hot war storming through my own town at the time, you may remember.”
“Yeah,” came the sour reply. “And now it’s an odds-on favorite that I’ve got one coming up in my town.”
“Could be. But don’t push the theory too far, John. The impression I got from Winters, I recall, was that he was holding out on me. The height-weight-serial number routine. He gave me very damned little. Later I discovered via other sources that he and Bolan had been very close friends, forget the difference in rank.”
The San Diego cop sighed heavily. He said, quietly, “How about giving me the benefit of your mistakes. If you had it to do over again, how would you have handled your Bolan invasion?”
Braddock replied, “Okay, I accept the dig. But I wouldn’t change anything. Except maybe I’d move a bit faster than I did against the mob. I suggest you do that. Hit ’em with anything you can think of, but get them behind bars. And keep them there until the guy gets tired of waiting and drifts on out.”
“That’s a cop-out.”
“Call it what you like. Just remember, Bolan doesn’t stay long in one place. Part of his survival M.O. Hit quick and get out. Disappears for awhile, pops up again far away for another quick hit and git.”
“You know how long I can keep these boys behind bars, Tim? Just as long as it takes their damned lawyers to hit me with a briefcase full of legal papers.”
“Sure, I know that. So you turn them loose and grab them again as they’re climbing into their cars. For spitting on the sidewalk, for making an obscene gesture, for sweating. And you keep it up until—”
“Yeah I know the routine,” Tatum declared wearily.
“I don’t know what else to tell you, John.”
“You told me precisely what I did not want you to tell me, Tim.”
Braddock said, “Maybe the Winters girl is more confused than you think. I’ll say this much: it doesn’t sound like the usual Bolan thing. I mean, when the guy hits your town, you seldom have to wonder if he’s really there.”
“So I hear,” Tatum commented sourly.
Another voice entered the telephone hookup, a voice which sounded as though it were accustomed to respectful listening. “Captain Braddock. This is Chief Larson.”
Braddock said, “Yes sir.”
“I’m sitting across the desk from John. Excuse me for not announcing my presence earlier but I thought it better that you approach the question without official intimidation. It’s time for that now. You’re considered the foremost authority in the West on the Bolan problem. I’m asking you now for an official opinion. Is the Executioner operating in this city?”
Braddock sighed. “I’d have to say, yes sir, it sounds that way. He’ll probably confirm it, very loudly, at most any time now.”
“All right. I’ll be talking to your chief but I suppose I should clear it with you first. I’d like you down here with us, in an advisory capacity.”
It was getting to be a habit. Br
addock had hardly unpacked from the trek to Boston.
He sighed and told the San Diego official, “I’ll have to beg off, Sir. My work here is stacked up around my ears. I think we could spring another man, though—and, actually, he’s been much closer to Bolan than I have.”
“I don’t want you unless you’re willing, Captain. You won’t reconsider?”
“I’m sorry, sir. The department wouldn’t allow it even if I wanted to go. If you’ll make the request via official channels, though, I’ll see that you’re provided the best man available.”
“All right. I’ll rely on that, Captain.”
Tatum chimed in with, “Tim, thanks.”
“You bet,” Braddock replied, and broke the connection.
He immediately poked his intercom and told his secretary, “Run down Sergeant Lyons for me—Carl Lyons. He should be in Organized Crime Division. Tell him to grab a toothbrush and be in my office within the hour. Then set me up for five minutes in the Chief’s office—make it urgent business conference—and request that Captain Mira of OCD be present.”
“Sounds like a bell-ringer,” the secretary commented.
“You better believe it. Oh—and when you’re talking to Sergeant Lyons—tell him it’s a Hardcase.”
“I thought Hardcase was dead.”
“Not yet,” Braddock growled into the intercom. “It’s apparently alive and well … in San Diego.”
Thank God.
Thank God it was not Braddock’s problem this time.
7: DANGER’S FOLLY
They were supposed to have gotten underway at seven o’clock and here it was eight already. If they were going to cancel these goddamn things, why the hell didn’t somebody have enough thought about them to let a guy know it was off?
Gene (the Turtle) Tarantini paced the glistening deck of the flying bridge and ranted inwardly at the sorry way things had been going lately with this chicken outfit.
He’d rather be back in the navy … almost. Not quite. But there wasn’t much difference … when a guy got to thinking about it. Same damn chicken outfit. Guys pulling rank all the time, giving out orders right and left, expecting you to snap-shit every time they stepped aboard.
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