The guy backed off. His face moved into composed lines and he said, “Forget I said that, huh?”
Bolan shrugged and replied, “I didn’t even hear it. Go on, cut out. I’ll take care of your pigeon here, too.”
The guy squared his shoulders, took a long look at the sleeping man on the couch, then marched quickly from the room. The other two followed close behind. The door closed and Bolan went to work at the sashcord on Anders’ wrist.
The comic said, “I’m not no ethnician, but you Wops live lousy lives.”
“I’m a Polack,” Bolan said, using his own voice.
“I don’t care if you’re a.…” The little man’s eyes were opening wider and he was taking his first good look.
Bolan grinned and told him, “Come on, you’re going to be late for your first show.”
“Hell God, it’s you!” the comic whispered.
“I thought the other guy knew it too, for a minute there,” Bolan confided. He jerked the ropes away and pulled Anders to his feet. “Can you walk okay?” he asked him.
“Can a jackrabbit jump?” Anders smoothed his hair and straightened his clothing. “I could walk out of this place with two broken legs and a splinted dick.”
Bolan chuckled and pushed the comic ahead of him to the door. “Keep it straight until we’re clear and running,” he cautioned.
“What about Stanno?”
“Let Stanno worry about himself,” Bolan said.
They went out and Bolan carefully closed the door.
Max Keno was sitting sideways in his chair. He gave Bolan a scared look and said, “What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing you have to worry about,” Bolan told him. “Just don’t go opening no doors until I give the word. Not for nobody.”
“Hell no, I won’t,” the little tagman assured him.
“For nobody.”
“Right, that’s right, boss.”
Bolan grinned and touched Keno’s chin with his knuckles, then he interlocked arms with Anders and led him down the stairs.
“I’ve had enough,” the comic told him in a low voice. “If you can’t keep the ants out of the picnic basket, then you might as well give up the picnic.”
“You’re throwing in the towel?” Bolan asked, scowling out upon the casino floor.
“I’m getting out. Time to retire, I guess.”
“A priest can’t retire, Anders.”
“What priest? Who said anything—”
“If the mob is the invisible second government in this country, then your business is the invisible second church.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs, now unblocked and no sign of the two who’d been there earlier.
Anders was saying, “You wouldn’t say that if you’d played the dumps I have.”
“It’d be a damn gray world if everybody in your business closed up shop.”
They were moving across the casino floor, Bolan looking neither left nor right.
“I guess that’s right,” the comic said.
“It’s true and you know it. That’s why the biz captures anybody who brushes it. It’s where the soul is, and you know it. It’s where your soul is, Anders, and that’s why you’re straining so hard to keep the ratpacks out.”
“Maybe you’re right. I never thought of myself as a priest, though. How’d you find me?”
Bolan fiercely stared down a pair of gunners who momentarily blocked hit path. The guys gave way and Bolan pushed his man on through.
“How’d you find me?” Anders asked again.
Bolan kept his scowl intact and said, “A couple of unholy sisters showed me the way. I believe they would’ve gone after you themselves if they’d known exactly where to go.”
“What’re you talking about?”
But Bolan did not have to answer the question.
The two girls were waiting in the lobby and trying to ignore the ogling attention of the guys in the silk suits.
Bolan gave Anders a hard shove and propelled him into the girls. “Get outta here!” he yelled. “And take your gold-plated sluts with you! I catch you peddling flesh in here again and I’ll run you clear outta town!”
The twenty odd people milling around in there froze and interestedly watched the disturbance as the big “torpedo” advanced menacingly on the trio. “I said get out!” he yelled, the voice hard and threatening.
They got out, and the cluster of men near the doorway hastily parted ranks to let them through.
“That’s how it’s going to be around here from now on!” Bolan proclaimed to everybody within hailing distance, then he turned around and stalked back into the casino.
That took care of Anders and the girls.
Now all he had to do was complete this mission and get himself out.
For the moment, at least, he was rolling nothing but naturals.
14: NEW BLOOD
Time was of the essence now, and Bolan swept through the casino, loudly collaring the pit bosses and dragging them along with him. He was “high-rolling” with everything of value to his life, plus his life itself, in the stakes on destiny’s crap table.
The guys were murmuring among themselves as they tagged along, and snatches of the comments were reaching Bolan’s alert ears.
“I dunno, he just said. …”
“… for the new owners I guess.…”
“Hell who knows what to expect next around, this …?”
“… name’s Vinton, I think. I don’t.…”
“Vinton” halted the procession at the foot of the stairway to Vito’s ex-joint and yelled up to the tagman.
“Max!”
“Yes, boss?”
“Round up some boys and show everybody the door. We’re closing at the eight count.”
A pit boss in the Bolan entourage groaned, “Whaaat?”
Keno was scampering down the stairway and fighting his way into his coat. Bolan told him, “Pass the word they can come back at midnight. Meanwhile everything in the lounge and dining room is on the house. And I want a continuous floor show! Nothin’ stops but the action in the pits!”
Keno chirped, “Yes sir!” and hurried off on his mission.
A pit boss standing at Bolan’s elbow reminded him, “We’re just going into a shift-change, Mr. uh.…”
Bolan snapped, “Mr. Vinton and you better remember it. Listen, you run back and tell the new shift what I just said. It’s on the house for them too. They go to work at midnight.”
The guy grinned and said, “Sure, Mr. Vinton,” and took off.
The procession moved on to the counting rooms and offices at the rear of the building, Bolan bulldozing his way through the most elaborate security network on the Strip.
The people in the rear had been making preparations for the eight o’clock count, due very shortly. Bolan invited them all to sit down, and he shoved the pit bosses into a line against the wall and began his speech.
“I guess you all know by this time what’s going on,” he said, positive that they did not. “You all heard that Mr. Apostinni cashed out and moved on, but it ain’t going to be legal until midnight. We gotta close this joint out, and I mean tidy. You get me? Tidy!
“So we’re knocking off all the action, starting right now. I want all the table stakes brung in and counted, all of it, everything. No goddam balance sheets, understand? Counted! You got four hours, you hear me?—four fucking hours, pardon me ladies, to tidy this place up for the new management. I don’t want a nickel left out. Who the hell is the boss in charge of the count?”
A nervous man in goldrimmed spectacles stepped forward and identified himself as “the controller.”
“Awright, you control it then,” Bolan growled. “We clear it out and then start over clean at midnight with a whole new deal. You got that?”
The controller assured the “new boss” that he had that.
Bolan swung a fierce gaze to the pit bosses. “Are you guys coming on or going off?” he asked.
“Going o
ff,” one of them replied.
“Wrong,” Bolan said. “You’re staying to help out. Don’t worry, you’re getting paid. Grab the other guys when they come in and break the work. When you get everything cleared out and turned over to these ladies back here, go enjoy yourself on the house.”
The controller then hesitantly ventured to observe that it was customary and perfectly acceptable to open new books on the records obtained from the routine counts.
The “new boss” informed the controller, in no uncertain terms, that he did not give a good shit what was customary and that everyone would be wise to do precisely as they were told.
There were no more objections, and no questions. Bolan herded the pit bosses back to the casino floor and turned them loose. Their attitudes were now entirely jovial. It was all smiles and smirks, and Bolan’s parting shot to them was, “It’s gonna be a lot better around here from now on!”
Not a man present doubted the truth of that.
Vito had been a hard taskmaster.
Mr. Vinton was tough, sure, but an okay guy. Not once in sixteen years had anything, either crumb or sip, been served up “on the house” at the Duster.
The place was emptying, over the loud objections of several “hot” patrons.
Bolan climbed half of the stairs and yelled, “If they don’t wanta leave, throw ’em out!”
He caught Max Keno’s eye, down on the floor, and motioned him to front and center.
“You’re on me now, Max,” he told the tagman.
“You bet I am, boss,” the little guy told him with a smile.
Instant loyalty. It was the name of the Mafia game. Off with the old and in with the new.
Max dropped into his chair and “Mr. Vinton” went into his new joint—which, briefly, he would be sharing with a certain sleeping beauty.
The time was 8:20 and Joe Stanno was still asleep. Bolan had been quietly going through the desk and pocketing various useful items of intelligence.
He selected an entry from a list of telephone numbers, leaned against the front of the desk to keep an eye on his unconscious companion, and made a call.
“Hello, this is Vinton, who’s this?” he announced as soon as the receiver was lifted on the other end.
The quietly jubilant tones of Red Evans crowded the line. “We found it, Mr. Vinton, we got the stuff.”
“That’s great,” Bolan said, his manner entirely businesslike now. “Is it all there?”
“Yessir we think so. Two cases, we found both of ’em. The button-collars are counting it right now. But it looks all there.”
“Here’s what you do, Red. You get the stuff counted, and you get two witnesses to the tally. I mean, other than the jerks. Two of your own boys, right?”
“Right, I gotcha.”
“Then you tell the—who’s the head jerk?”
“Oh that’s Lemke, L-E-M-K-E, Lemke.”
“That guy. Okay, here’s what I want Lemke to do. He sets up a whole new route, I mean everything right down to the final stop. He tells nobody, but nobody, what that route is, not even the pilot. Then he puts that stuff in the chopper, and just hisself and the pilot. You got all that?”
“I got it, Mr. Vinton.”
“He leaves the other jerks right there, ’cause we’re going to need that room in the chopper.”
“Oh yeah, I gotcha.”
“He keeps that route a national secret, now. Our you-know-who’s will drop out whenever they feel like it. But he keeps it quiet, you hear?”
“Oh sure, I understand that.”
“What time you got now, Red?”
“I got, let’s see, it’s eight-twenty-one.”
“Okay. You get Lemke’s clock to ticking right with yours, and you shove that chopper off out there in exactly twenty minutes. That would make that eight-forty-one. Right?”
“Uh, right Mr. Vinton.”
“You tell that jerk—who’s that pilot?”
“That’s Jack Grimaldi, Mr. Vinton. He’s an okay guy.”
“Okay, you tell Jack I want that chopper settlin’ down on this roof here at exactly nine o’clock. I don’t mean a minute before or a minute after, I mean exactly nine o’clock. You got that?”
“On the top of the hotel, boss?”
“No hell no, not the hotel, the casino.”
“Oh yeah, I gotcha.”
“He comes down on top of the joint”
“Yessir, I got that.”
“That don’t give you much time, so you better get busy.”
“Oh yeah, sure. Uh, you coming out tonight?”
“I might. I might not. Depends how things go. I guess it’s in good hands out there, eh Red?”
“Oh, yes sir, you can count on that”
“Right. Now you get busy.”
Bolan hung up and massaged his fist against his neck and stared glumly at his sleeping beauty.
Damn! The numbers were getting brutal!
The brothers had finished a six-course repast elegantly prepared by the self-proclaimed best chef on the Strip. It was their first meal of a long and hard day, and now they were relaxing and unwinding taut nerves on the penthouse terrace with brandy and handrolled cigars.
“How long can this go on?” Pat wondered aloud.
“It’ll break. Any minute it will break,” Mike assured his brother.
“I wish I could be that sure. I keep wondering if he’s halfway to the border by now.”
“No, the guy’s an ego-freak. He knows we’re in town. He knows he missed us at the airport. He’ll be showing.”
“I wish Joe could get something out of the funny man.”
“I don’t believe the funny man knows anything,” Mike said. “If I did, I’d be talking to him myself—or I’d have him torn in half by now and gagging on his own cock.”
The other brother made a face and said, “Not on a full stomach, my brother.”
A bodyguard at the roof railing chuckled and commented, “Not on any stomach. Yuck.”
The brothers laughed and sipped their brandies.
Presently, Pat observed, “Bolan doesn’t leave many tracks.”
“Just all over our backs,” the other said, smiling.
“It’s a hell of a way to fight a war. You wait until the guy rears up and pops you. Then you try to pop him back before he disappears again.”
“Go tell it in Vietnam.”
They laughed again. “You want to call it off?” Mike asked.
Pat Talifero snorted and got to his feet. “Not until I take a bath in his blood,” he said.
They laughed again.
Pat went to the railing and stood beside the bodyguard to gaze down upon the neon jungle spreading in both directions away from their position. “That’s some battlefield,” he said. “You know something? I hate this goddamned town. Always have. Don’t they have an atom bomb testing place somewhere around here?”
The bodyguard said, “Yessir.”
“They oughta have a mis-fire.”
Mike Talifero laughed. “What you need is a fresh lay. There’s lots of talent around.”
“As long as that guy is alive,” Pat replied, “it would be like playing with myself.”
“You swearing off for the duration?”
“Not hardly.”
Mike laughed some more, then told his brother, “Well, tonight will be the night.”
“I wish I could be that sure,” the other said glumly. “I just can’t see the guy hanging around after what he did to us this morning.”
“Look, he’ll hit again, I know he will. So stop beefing.”
“I hope it’s soon. I want to get out of here.”
“It’s the wrong foot we arrived on. I’d like to take that fuckin’ Stanno and shove something up his ass. And I might. If the guy wasn’t so damned effective.…”
“Most of the time, you mean,” Pat said.
“Yeah, that’s what I meant. Joe’s okay, I guess.”
“Yeah, but one more fuck-up like thi
s morning, and.…”
“Right,” Mike agreed. “The next is the last.”
Bodyguards were supposed to develop hearing problems during such candid moments. This one was gazing at the stars and totally out of the conversation.
“Remember Siffy Peters?” Pat asked.
“They sometimes called him Shaker Sam,” Mike recalled.
“Right. He tried to pull that amnesia gag on old man Marinello.”
“That was that Bronx rumble,” Mike said.
They were laughing it up.
The bodyguard continued to stargaze, but put in with, “I never did hear what became of Siffy.”
Still laughing, Mike told him, “You never will, either. Not unless you can operate a jackhammer at the bottom of the Hudson.”
Pat sniggered and added, “And you’d have to chip away two feet of concrete bathing suit.”
“Siffy Peters was a better hit man than Joe Stanno,” the bodyguard said. “That is, until he got all conked up with the siff.”
“You think so?” Mike asked.
“That’s what I think,” the guy replied.
A lieutenant stepped onto the terrace and stood quietly by the doorway, awaiting recognition of his presence.
Pat Talifero was leaning against the railing, staring straight at the new arrival. Presently he asked, “What is it now?”
“Guy here to see you, boss. Guy runs the hotel.”
“What the hell does he want?”
“He says, just droppin in.”
“Tell him to just drop out. We got no time for—what’s new from the street?”
“Glitter Gulch checked in, ’bout five minutes ago. Another zero.”
“Tell them to tighten up that damn sieve!”
“It’s getting tougher all the time, boss. Cops are thick as flies out there.”
“I don’t give a shit about the cops!” Pat Talifero yelled. “How many places can a guy hide in this creep town? You tell those boys to—okay, send the jerk in.”
“Sir?”
“The hotel jerk, let’s observe the formalities, I guess.”
“Yessir.”
The guy faded out.
“Those guys aren’t trying hard enough!” Pat fumed. “I believe they’re all scared they will stumble on the guy!”
Mike shrugged and threw his cigar away. “He’ll stumble over us.”
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