Mack Bolan stood over six feet by a considerable margin, and weighed more than two hundred pounds, naked and bone dry. The cop scooped Mack Bolan up virtually one-handed, slammed him against the wall of a building near Lexington and East 27th and in a voice that conveyed absolute fearlessness, the cop said, "Okay, asshole, what about it?"
Dredging up from some long ago memory, Mack Bolan said, "I'm diabetic."
The huge cop shoved his hooked nose in Mack's face, sniffed loudly, said, "Okay, you're not drunk," then walked fast to the callbox on the corner. Minutes later Mack lay on the litter in an ambulance en route to Bellevue.
The ambulance crew off-loaded him, rolled the wheeled stretcher into the corridor and left Mack near the door of an emergency treatment room. He got up and walked out the door.
He had to stop and rest three times, but he made it back to the parking lot where he'd left the shark-like Maserati. He expected what he found, after scouting. Two malacarni stood patient watch.
He waited almost an hour, resting, building his strength and lasting power before he took the first. He came in low, behind, in sock feet, chopped the hardened ridge of his right half-doubled fist just under the soldier's ear and caught him as he fell backwards, unconscious.
Mack lowered the heavy bulk to the concrete, frisked, came up with a .38 snubnosed, twelve rounds extra ammo, and nine hundred dollars cash in ten and twenty dollar bills. It figured. Soldiers carried misdemeanor bond or bribe dough as a matter of course.
The Executioner put the loose ammo in his right trousers' pocket, stuffed the cash in his left pocket. He stripped the lightweight suitcoat off the soldier, wadded it around the .38 and shot the malacarni through the left cheek of his butt ... all meat, not deadly, a muffled sound.
A moment later, from across the parking lot, Bolan heard the other man call out, softly, "Lou! Hey, you Lou...! That you?"
Bolan grumbled an unintelligible noise.
"Lou — ?"
Bolan muttered again.
"Lou, goddammit!"
Bolan heard the shuffle of heavy feet, and a moment later saw the shape of a big man move from the shadows.
"Lou!"
"Here," Bolan called, muffling his mouth with his left hand. "Help — hurt — !"
The big shape broke into a run.
Bolan timed it perfectly.
As the big shape came running in, Bolan raised himself to a crouch, planting both heels solidly, and when the man came into range, he swung. His right fist, still holding the snubnosed revolver for grip and solidity, burying into Big Shape's guts, and the man haaawffed violently.
Bolan reached and gripped, tangling his left hand in Big Shape's greasy long hair, and jerked the head down as he rose in a single smooth motion and drove his knee upwards into the blurred face.
Bolan's knee met the face and he felt the whole nose go and some upper teeth. He jerked the head up and lowered his knee and smacked them together again, felt the man sag, and as he went down Bolan chopped the snubnose across the back of the man's head.
Once more Bolan had to rest.
He slumped beside the two unconscious forms, himself almost equally out of it. He was human, too. No matter what they said. Whoever in the hell they were . . . the assholes, the cops, Leo Bragnola, that Fed in Philly.
Oh God, thought Mack Bolan, I am so tired.
I am shot to pieces and I've been drugged and slammed up against a brick wall and it seems like I've walked halfway across Manhattan. If they came to take me now — whoever the hell they are — I couldn't even defend myself.
But I've got to get the snake! The evil, slithering, totally cold-blooded snake. Chop off his head. Back in the old country. Homeplate. Don Cafu's ballpark.
Through sheer effort of will, Bolan made himself roll over to his hands and knees and crawl forward. He had Big Shape's gun, his fat wallet, and was going through the rest of the man's pockets when he heard slow, deliberate footsteps approaching along the parking lot's concrete paving.
3
Purloined letter
Bolan dropped Fat's wallet and rolled over on his butt, bracing his back against the Maserati. It felt like lifting a ton, but he managed to bring the .38 Special snubnosed Detective Special up and gripped it with both hands, aiming into the dark toward the sound of approaching footsteps.
With effort, he cocked the hammer. He wanted to be sure his first shot killed. With the gun cocked, all he had to do was touch the trigger, breathe on it, and pow! He was afraid he'd throw the shot wide, pulling all the way through, double-action.
But at the slight, metallic sound of cocking, four distinct clicks, the footsteps halted.
Bolan wearily drew up his legs and braced his locked elbows on his knees, holding the revolver in his right hand with his left cupped around the bottom of his right fist.
A time without end passed.
With activity, Bolan had fought off the effects of the drug, but now in the silent dark, drowsiness washed over him.
He felt his hands sag under the weight of the gun and jerking himself awake, almost loosed a wild shot.
He swore at himself. Combat rule number one — how many kids had he pounded that into out in Nam? Don't reveal your position!
Bolan knew he could not last much longer.
He felt as though he'd lost a quart of blood. And he now bled afresh, feeling the sticky, wet clammy red running down his leg, and the wound in his side had opened again. His eyelids weighed tons. His chin sagged toward his chest.
He fought it, letting go the brace with his left hand, reaching back and cruelly pinching the back of his neck. The stinging pain made him gasp. He opened his mouth wide so the sides stretched as though a dentist had both hands inside his mouth, and Bolan breathed silently, deeply, in and out, oxygenating again. He dropped his left hand and felt around the concrete floor and found Lou's revolver. He picked it up, opened the cylinder, dumped the six bullets into his lap, caught two more bottom-reaching deep breaths, then with a backhand flip, Bolan tossed the gun skittering out across the concrete floor.
The instant he threw the gun, Bolan gripped the other Colt with both hands, waiting for the muzzle flash.
None came.
Bolan waited.
Then he heard a soft, low chuckle.
A moment later Leo Turrin said, "Good move, Sarge ... but I stopped falling for that one years ago."
"You son of a bitch."
"Easy, Sarge. I'm coming out now. You shoot me and I'll never speak to you again."
"Come on." Bolan let the hammer down on the cocked revolver, holding his left thumb between the shank and the frame, then easing his thumb free when he had a solid hold and knew the hammer would not get loose from him and strike the cap of the bullet hard enough to fire.
"You crazy bastard," Leo said conversationally. "Why'd you leave the hospital?"
"Why would any hunted animal spring a trap?"
"Crazy."
"Sure."
"I mean it. Last place in the world either side would look for you. Like the purloined letter in Poe's story. The fuzz couldn't find it because it lay right before their eyes in plain sight, while they searched all the dark nooks and crannies and looked for secret sliding panels."
"Fiction."
"So?"
Bolan dropped his head, eyes closing. "How'd you find me?"
"A friend of friends spotted you coming into town." Leo kicked the Maserati's front tire. "Whizzing across the bridge in this shark wasn't the smartest move you ever made."
"Going to that doctor you set up for me turned out worse."
"Look who's getting choosy."
"The bastard hyped me, even while I watched every move he made."
"A hundred Large is a lot of dough, Sarge."
"Original thought... so what's next?"
"Hospital."
"That's crazy. I'd be wide open."
"Okay, you stubborn bastard, have it your way. Hit the streets in Wild Card Johnny's wheels again and loo
k for a pad. Walk around leaking blood. Lie here and pass out — and when the Talaferi send more soldiers to find out what happened to these two assholes, they can carry you home like a baby asleep in momma's arms."
Leo spat on the gleaming hood of the Maserati. "You're the man, Sarge. You tell me."
"I'm sick. I've got to have help."
"Why the hell you think I'm here?" Leo spat again. "For kicks, to watch you play John Wayne?" Leo's voice took on a cruelly mocking tone. "It's okay, men, I'm only shot through the heart, both lungs and the head. Semper Fi and gung-ho, let's climb Surabachi and plant Old Glory."
Leo moved and leaned against the car beside the Maserati. "I hate like hell to muddy the image, Sarge; but this ain't that war, and nobody's arranged for a photographer."
"You bastard."
"As a matter of fact, I have papers to prove my father and mother were married for more than two years prior to my birth."
Leo's voice went hard as a keg of nails. "Now how about it? I've got my ass stuck out a mile on both sides of the fence. You want help or not?"
It tore Mack Bolan's heart, but he said, "Help me, Leo."
The nurse was not only young but delightfully pretty. Thick dark hair, high pert bosom, narrow waist, under-slung bottom, and legs with good meaty calves the way Mack Bolan liked legs on women, the all-too-rare times he could think about them. High-fashion could cram it. And hospitals could cram all these needles and tubes and most particularly the dripping bottles.
Handcuffs, leg-irons, and chains bolted to concrete walls could not have been more effective, but Bolan could have ripped loose and disengaged himself in seconds.
But the limber rubber tubes, the long needles taped into his arms, the clear glass bottles — they represented Life.
And Mack Bolan wanted Life desperately.
Not because he feared death. Long ago he passed that point in time and maturity. He no longer even prayed for himself, feeling he deserved nothing, but only for his brother, Johnny, and Val, and some pals ... as well as the souls of men rotting in Nam graves who would always be young and fair, for the dead grow no older.
Mack Bolan just did not believe in leaving jobs unfinished. A war not won came under the heading of unfinished business, and had the stink of defeat. No alternative for victory existed, so Mack Bolan's business had not ended.
He had a snake to kill.
Meantime, Mack Bolan's major concern was survival. Deads accomplished nothing, except stinking up the place.
The pert, high-bosomed girl, Mack's day nurse, had tentatively earned his possible trust. The night nurse — no.
She wore a name-plate reading, "M. Minnotte, R.N."
The name did not concern Bolan. Long ago he learned Italian did not equal Mafia. What did concern him was that M. Minnotte had not become his night nurse until a week after he'd been in hospital, and he'd never seen a hand so free with the needle. M. Minnotte would have hit him with a slug of dope every half hour, had Mack wanted it. And when he did not want it, she pouted.
And one other thing. M. Minnotte should never have been a night duty nurse. She had far too much seniority. In a mature way, she also possessed twice the beauty and a dozen times the raw sexuality of pert little dark-haired, "D. Douglass, R.N." Minnotte was the kind any reasonable man would expect to screw her way right up to Head Nurse, competent or not.
Yet, after a week, here she was Mack Bolan's night nurse, and wielding an ever-ready syringe.
Mack knew then... the Talaferi had found him.
4
Break-out
Despite his personal feelings, Leo Turrin was wondering whether Mack Bolan's time had finally come.
Not only had Bolan almost blown Leo Turrin's cover more than once, but The Executioner seemed to be getting much too careless with his own life.
Leo Turrin was a double.
He had been born into and held a capo, "boss" ranking in his hometown Mafia. His specific job was Chief Whoremonger. Leo himself "turned out" Mack Bolan's sister, Cindy ... made a call girl prostitute of her.
At the same time, Leo Turrin, former Green Beret, was a federal agent, and in that direction lay his true allegiance.
For that reason, reinforced by Leo's admiring, hard-won affection, he had not killed Mack Bolan in the parking lot. It was not the first time Leo'd had the time, place, and opportunity.
All the same, Bolan had become a pain in the ass. Everytime Leo helped Bolan, he jeopardized his own security. Not that Leo spent so much time "taking care" of the guy. Bolan possessed every instinct of a jungle cat; he was all bone and gristle with a remorseless desire for survival no matter who or what he killed to keep himself alive. So far he was succeeding beyond anyone's wildest dreams — or nightmares.
And yet, at the same time, Leo knew, Bolan was a gentle man, compassionate, loving and tender toward his younger brother. And then there was the girl, Val....
But playing both sides of the street could get Leo Turrin killed and he knew it. Dead, he would be totally without value to his government; and he honestly, truly believed that as an insider, a Mafia capo, he served better, performed his duties more responsibly, and had a hell of a lot longer to live than he did bodyguarding Mack Bolan.
Goddammit, he told himself, I did all I could. I got him into the hospital. I checked out everyone who might come near him, doctors, nurses, LVNs, even the scrubwomen and male hall orderlies.
Yet, something kept nagging at the back of Leo's mind. He cursed himself for having been a Special Forces officer, and having spent too much time with the CIA on special assignment. Having infiltrated VC and NVR lines, penetrated the enemy's innermost secrets any way he could — women, dope, liquor, catering to bestial tastes and human perversions.
Afterwards, Leo wondered why!
Why he'd said, "Yes," and meant it, when a certain highly placed government official asked him to become a double after serving with the Special Forces in Southeast Asia.
In the beginning, Leo's reasons had been simple. He loved his country. He'd fought for it and learned to love it all the more, because during the fighting he'd learned how excessively inhuman the alternative of communism was, and upon his return to civilian life he found great similarities between communistic and Mafia philosophies — namely, the end justified any and all means, treachery, terrorism, death, tyrannical rule. The best example Turrin could remember had occurred when he was only a child.
An innocuous little man named Arnold Schuster spotted the notorious bank robber Willie Sutton and notified the police. Sutton was arrested, and even though he had no connection whatever with the Mafia, a ferociously bloodthirsty Mafia underboss named Albert Anastasia ordered one of his soldiers, Fredrick Tenuto, to kill Schuster. This would serve as an object lesson to all would-be "squealers" — Mafia or ordinary good citizens. Then to cover himself, Anastasia had Tenuto murdered, and so well disposed of that twenty years later Tenuto's body has never yet been found.
Also, Leo Turrin had enjoyed some degree of formal education, so his decision to become a "double" had an intellectual basis, as well as moral and patriotic. So it was that Leo found himself helping Bolan out when he called, knowing the consequences if he was caught.
Turrin delivered Bolan's "tools." Then he got the hell out. He had no desire to witness what was about to happen, and his absences from Pittsfield had become increasingly harder to explain, the Mafia being a subculture constantly beset by undercurrents of intrigue, deceit, and murderous treachery. If Leo didn't stay home and take care of his business, one of his underbosses would start getting the idea he no longer needed Leo, and Leo would find himself wearing concrete coveralls at the bottom of Onota Lake west of the city.
"Okay," Turrin said, dropping the heavy canvas duffle bag on the foot of the bed. "Everything's here, info about the homeland, plus a bonus. I turned the Maserati over for fifteen grand, minus my commission."
"Commission!"
"Goddam right. I don't contribute my professional services free of c
harge. Besides that, I have to keep my head right, my thinking, you dig, Sarge? I stop thinking like a capo, first thing I'm not acting like a capo, and my ass is stuck out a mile. That, my friend, I don't owe you." Leo grinned like a wolf. "It wasn't all that easy, either. The Talaferi Family had a notion it should inherit their hitman's Maserati when you brought Cavaretta down."
"Okay, you earned it."
"And I'm taking it." Leo patted his hip where his wallet rested. "I won't ask your plans, because you would lie or not answer at all. Just do me one favor. Make your next blitz as far from me as you can get."
"That's a promise."
"You're kidding."
"I never joke about what I'm doing."
Leo stared at Bolan, curious and puzzled, but he knew better than to ask any questions. While Bolan dressed in his black combat garb and armed himself with the silencer-equipped Beretta and the silver .44 Automag, four frag grenades and extra ammo clips for both guns, Leo kept watch at the door, and told Bolan:
"I only saw four, but there were two cars, both with wheelmen, set at the northeast and southwest corners. I figure at least six and maybe more." Matter-of-factly, Leo added, "You know the nurse is in on it?"
"I figured it out."
"She's a hype, among other things."
"I'll get the pedigree later. You better haul ass ... and thanks."
Warmly, Leo said, "Arrivederci," and stepped out into the hall closing the door behind him, leaving the room in darkness.
Bolan waited. He found the waiting neither hard nor easy, but a neutral something he had long, long ago learned to endure. Waiting was as much a part of warfare as trying to stay alive. Waiting for chow, for mail, for relief, to leave for some new place or arrive after a long journey. Except that now, for Mack Bolan, the man in black, The Executioner, waiting had become an occupation with singular purpose; he was waiting for the enemy to show himself.
The room was in almost total darkness, door closed, shades drawn. A sliver of light came from under the bathroom door, just enough to back-light them when they came. Bolan had figured the geometry of the room and then positioned himself.
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