Bolan could hear the cop breathing and he could feel the cogs moving in that mind. The heavy voice told him, “Yeah, I see your point. Look, fella …”
Bolan said, “Lindley and Silver are in deep trouble. This is no time for fine points of law. You talk to me and talk straight, or those girls could end up like the other one.”
The cop sighed heavily into the mouthpiece and said, “Okay, Bolan. Temporary truce, with none of the finer points of the law. How do you know that Gambella was behind this gruesome bit of work? Do you have evidence? Do you admit to rubbing out the eight guys down at Kluman Brothers?”
Bolan growled, “Look, you must know I didn’t call just to pass the time of day or to give you a telephone fix on me. So let’s keep this simple and to the point.”
“Okay, Bolan. Do you know the whereabouts of the two young women, Lindley and Silver?”
“No. I contacted them about three this morning and suggested they find a place to hide. I think I might have been too late. What does it look like there?”
The cop sighed again. He obviously was not enjoying his role as informant to a wanted criminal, but he carried on. “Not too good,” he muttered. “The place is in disarray, stuff thrown around, a half-packed suitcase in the living room. It could be a snatch. Or it could be simply a hurried departure.”
“Check the hotels,” Bolan suggested. “And check Paula’s Fashions, over in the—”
“Already did,” the cop snapped back. “Car just reported back, the shop didn’t open today.”
Bolan said, “Find them, dammit,” and he hung up.
Score another point for cops, he was thinking. They knew the Mafia mentality also, and they would be moving hell to find those girls.
So Gambella could still have those options. Bolan returned to the VW and headed into the next step of the counter-strategy.
At eleven o’clock on that chill Wednesday morning in New York, the Executioner invaded the Mafia heartland. Using information contained in his “poop book” some of it gathered from the CIG informants, MacArthur and Perugia, he “hit” three establishments in quick succession, all controlled by the Gambella Family, in a lightning blitz which left certain elements of the New York scene with a severe case of the shakes.
The first strike was against a “union hall” in the garment district. It was a phoney union, according to Bolan’s information, existing on paper only with the profits extorted from workers and employers alike. It was owned and operated by one of Gambella’s lieutenants.
Bolan double-parked outside the office building where the union was headquartered, took an elevator to the third floor, calmly walked into the office and shot dead at their desks the three officers who comprised the “governing board,” then handed a marksman’s medal to the stupefied female stenographer and walked out.
Twenty minutes later he struck again, this time at the Manhattan offices of Schwieberg, Fain, and Marksforth—purportedly an investment brokerage firm but actually the funnel through which Gambella’s illicit wealth was spread into the legitimate business world. The firm went abruptly out of business at 11:22 A.M. that Wednesday in December, the partnership dissolved by mutual death, its records consumed by a fire of incendiary origin. Again, a tall man in army fatigues and an OD field jacket pressed a marksman’s medal into the shaken palm of a female employee before he calmly departed the scene.
At a few minutes past noon, in the back room of a neighborhood restaurant on 144th Street, a weekly “business luncheon” of the Upper Manhattan Protective League was disrupted by an obvious lack of protection. This group, consisting of neighborhood politicians and musclemen, was severely depleted of active membership by the sudden appearance of two fragmentation grenades on the menu. A tall man in army combat dress stopped at the cashier’s counter and settled the property damages with a thousand dollars in cash and a marksman’s medal.
At one o’clock, Bolan telephoned the newsroom of a New York television station. In a recorded interview given at that time, he described the atrocities committed upon the body of Evie Clifford, spoke of his fears for “two of her friends,” and revealed his plans for the Gambella Family of New York.
The interview was aired on local television at 1:30, and the cool tones of the Executioner were heard on local radio outlets repeatedly throughout that day.
“I am going to destroy the Gambella Family. One by one, crew by crew, business by business—I am going to wipe them. I will not be bought off or scared off by threats against defenseless and innocent persons, and if one more sweet kid is turned to turkey because of me, then these turkeymakers are going to discover what a real nightmare is all about. There is no escape for these people. I know each of them, I know where they go and what they do, and I am going to hunt them down, all of them, and I am going to execute them.”
The sensational story was quickly picked up by television and radio networks, and two New York daily newspapers came out with special editions featuring pictures and details of the carnage at Kluman Brothers Packing Company, scene of Evie Clifford’s grisly murder; the destruction of the Gambella mansion and the added carnage there; the three strikes of the late-morning blitz across Manhattan. Speculation also linked the six bodies found in Brooklyn on Tuesday with Mack Bolan’s presence in town, and the body count of “at least thirty-five dead Mafiosi” was given considerably more attention than the instance of a single innocent victim.
And the big city settled back with an air of expectancy, a frantic air in some quarters, waiting to see what would happen next.
Bolan had given the Capo—indeed, all the Capos of New York City—another option to think about.
15: TUTTI
“Sure,. I’m getting feed-in from both sides of the stream,” Leo Turrin’s voice reported across the connection from Pittsfield. “You’re really rattling the cage there, buddy. Hey, it’s all over television here, even. You going nuts or something?”
“Maybe,” Bolan replied gloomily. “So what’d you find out?”
“First of all, let’s take the matter of official reaction. Do you know how many cops the city of New York has to throw against you, my blitzing buddy? At last count, roughly thirty-two thousand. That’s a lot of men in blue, more than enough to populate an average American city.”
“They haven’t bothered me yet,” Bolan muttered.
“Well, they’ve known you were in town since that first little fracas at Midtown Station. But they’re a pretty cool bunch, those New York cops. They have so much crime there, on a minute-to-minute basis, that they just play it by the numbers and everything waits its turn, even a Mack Bolan. But your turn has come, buddy. You’re on the hot list, and you can bet your ass that right now those guys are gearing up to stop you. There’s an unofficial quote shoot on sight unquote order covering you at this moment. You’re getting the mad-dog treatment.”
“Okay, that’s one,” Bolan said. “What’s two?”
“Two is Freddie Gambella and Company. I hear the guy is frothing at the mouth—throwing tantrums all over the place. You torched his beloved palace, you rotten shit, and stamped out the guard besides, plus terrifying his lady. Very undignifying, Sarge, for a Capo.”
Bolan said, “Yeah. So what’s new?”
“What’s new is that you’d better get the hell away from there, and via the quickest means. Try a time machine and go back to the seventeenth century or something.”
“Get serious,” Bolan growled.
“I’m as serious as I can get. I never saw such a guy. I thought I’d seen it all here, when you went after Sergio. Then when I saw what was left after the hit on Miami Beach I told myself, why hell no Leo, now you’re seeing it all. So here you are taking on the City of New York, complete with its Five Families and fellow travelers. When do you figure your luck is going to run out, buddy?”
Bolan was being gently chided, he knew it—but he didn’t mind. He chuckled and told his friend, “I guess I’m like the New York cops. I have so much crime on my hands I
have to take it minute by minute and luck by lucky break. You know what I want to hear, Leo. How’s the mob reacting to my Tarzan act?”
“Oh they’re impressed. Jittery as hell. A lot of ’em are suddenly finding reasons why they have to go out of town for awhile. And I get the feeling that a lot of displeasure is building against Gambella. High level displeasure. The other bosses, I hear, are quite concerned because of …”
“Because of what?”
“Aw, shit. And me a double agent.”
“Uh-huh. Okay, you started to spill. So out with it. What’s going on that I should know about?”
“Dammit, Mack, there are some things—”
“You know better. I need every item of intelligence I can get.”
There was a brief pause, then Turrin’s breath hissed across the line in a lengthy sigh. “Okay. Some day I’m going to get nailed up over this double-agent stuff. Why did I have to add you to my list of tragedies?”
“Give, Leo.”
“May I first impose on our friendship to give you a bit of very sober advice?”
“You may,” Bolan told him. “Go on, impose.”
“You’re a dead man. You know that, don’t you? I mean, not to be morbid but just to face facts, from one friend to another. You’re a dead man.”
Bolan said, “Thanks, friend … but … yeah okay, I accept that.”
“Okay. So it’s just a matter of time before your death certificate becomes official. You may have another day, another week, another month——or maybe just another hour. So what the hell are you accomplishing?”
It was Bolan’s turn for silence. Presently he replied, “I don’t know, Leo. I’ve just been playing it by ear, trying to stay alive, hoping to carry the fight against this Goddamned cancer that a lot of people in this country still think doesn’t exist. They’re all going to wake up one day and find it eating them alive. I don’t know, Leo. What the hell do you mean, what am I accomplishing? I’m harassing the hell out of them if nothing else. What kind of question is that to ask a dead man?”
Turrin chuckled. “Okay, it was a leading question. You’ve been waging a war of attrition—like in ’Nam, right? With the odds at about a million to one. So who do you think is going to win this war, Sarge?”
“I never hoped to win it, Leo,” Bolan told him. “The damned outfit is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. I know that. It’s like fighting heaven. You can spit in God’s face fifty times a day every day, but you know that in the end it’s all going to go his way. Okay. So I’ve just been pushing sand around on the beach, not trying to fill the ocean with it.”
“So why don’t you start filling?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’m serious. You think about it. And think about this. Have you ever heard the expression, Cosa di tutti Cosa?”
“No. I’ve heard of Capo di tutti Capo, the boss of all the bosses, but I hear that one’s a thing of the past.”
“It is, but not the tutti Cosa. It’s a thing of the future, or so billed, and it roughly translates as the thing of all the things.”
“Or Big Thing,” Bolan suggested.
“You’ve heard of it, then.”
“Not actually, no. A whisper somewhere, maybe that’s all. Is this what you weren’t going to spill?”
“That’s it.”
“So? Give.”
“I already gave. It’s all I know. It has something to do with politics, and I think I told you this morning that something big was brewing. Well, that’s what’s brewing, Cosa di tutti Cosa. So if you really want to accomplish something in New York, why don’t you look into that?”
“I’m no detective. I’m an infantryman.”
Turrin laughed. “Look, Sarge. It’s common knowledge that the mob is everywhere, in everything. They’ve got congressmen, legislators, mayors, and maybe even a couple of governors. They’ve infiltrated all levels of the legit business world, and they’ve got labor unions, a good chunk of the entertainment industry, civil servants up the kazoo, entire political machines—anyplace where money is king—and hell, it’s like you said, they’re a cancer and they’re eating into everything. So far as I know, they do not presently own any U.S. Senators or White House advisors or members of the cabinet. So far as I know, they’ve never had a piece of a U.S. President, or a seat on the Supreme Court. So far as—”
“Okay, I get the picture,” Bolan interrupted. “You’re saying, but what if they did? What if they decided to put it all together? Sha-zam! Cosa di tutti Cosa!”
“That’s about it, buddy,” Turrin said. “That’s just about it.”
“Do the feds know about this?”
“About as much as anyone else on the outside. I’ve been hearing rumbles since I was elevated to underboss rank, but even at my level it’s no more than an occasional remark or a slipped word here and there. Speaking of feds. Uh, I was talking to Brognola today. About you. He uh …”
Bolan said, “Why you lousy fink! You conned me!”
Turrin emitted an embarassed snort and replied, “Okay, so I slipped on purpose. But why don’t you look into it?”
“What can a dead man see?” Bolan asked quietly.
“Brognola feels that a guy as dead as you could see most anything. He’s still willing to go to bat for you. He thinks he can get you a federal portfolio, especially if—”
“No, dice, Leo. Tell Brognola thanks but I’ll stay alive my own way. As for this big thing, I’ll keep my eyes and ears open.”
“Okay, but keep them wide open. Avoid taxicabs, bars, and all public places. That’s where the mob is concentrating their look. And, uh, on this other thing … according to my feel, the thing is really coming to a boil and the tensions are high. This is why the New York mob is so unhappy with Gambella. They feel that he waved a red flag in your face at the most sensitively inopportune time. Or that’s the rumbles I get, at my level. Right now all of the bosses are out of your city, even Gambella—have been all day—and you know what that means.”
“A council,” Bolan said.
“Yeah, and a very touchy one. They’ve got a joint somewhere out on Long Island I think where—”
“Stoney Lodge,” Bolan sighed.
“Yeah. You do get around. So I’m impressed. I just heard about it myself today for the first time. Oh, and by the way—I looked into the election thing there. Nothing. So I don’t know what to figure, I mean I can’t read the timing.”
“How about my girls?” Bolan asked. “You’ve talked about everything but them.”
“Yeah, well I guess that’s because it’s bad news all the way, Sarge. They’ve got them. Since last night sometime.”
“Okay,” Bolan said, his voice tightening. “Where?”
“I don’t know. I can poke my nose in just so many places, you know, without getting it burnt off. All I know is that they definitely have them, both of them. Check me for wrong. A delicious brunette babe with milk’n honey complexion and an unbelievable body. An older woman-of-the-world who knows where it’s at and what to do with it, also a beauty.”
“That’s them,” Bolan groused. “So your tutti fruiti can go to hell, Leo. I’ve got my own war to think about first.”
“It’s all the same war, Sarge,” Turrin said faintly.
Bolan sighed. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“Well, di tutti, buddy. Time’s up.”
Turrin hung up, and Bolan told the dead connection, “Yeah, time is definitely up.”
He left the phone booth, returned to the VW and he mused aloud to his reflection in the windshield, “The time is up for me and thee, girls. Now where the hell do we go from here?”
So Bolan had mis-read and mis-gauged Freddie Gambella. So much for options. The crafty old bastard had exercised all of them at once. And why not? That old saw about a bird in the hand versus two in the bush was as valid as ever. Gambella could snatch the girls and still play soft games with Bolan.
Well—so nothing had changed, except that now Bolan
knew precisely where things stood. He did not have to try outguessing Gambella on strategy, and that was a poor game anyway when the other side held all the options. So things were simpler now, from Bolan’s point of combat-view. Gambella had the girls. Bolan had to get them back. It was as simple as that.
Now. How best to accomplish that simple feat? With thirty-two thousand cops on your back? Plus, at conservative estimates, close to a thousand Mafia soldiers and an indeterminate army of bought politicos, made cops, free-lance street gangs, waiters, cabdrivers, bartenders,—God knew who else. Even the dogs on the streets, maybe, were …
Bolan’s mind froze around that thought. Dogs! Stoney Lodge! Gambella had left home early in the morning. If one could believe his wife—and Bolan could, considering the circumstances—he went away saying he had a date with some girls. And all the New York bosses congregating at Stoney Lodge. Would Gambella have taken those girls out to …?
No. No. Women were supposed to be verboten at the joint. No women allowed at Stoney Lodge. And yet.…
Turrin had said something about the bosses being unhappy, that Gambella was waving a red flag at Bolan at a most sensitive time. Well hell! The bosses should have been overjoyed with a red flag in Bolan’s face! Especially if it was keeping him dancing around Manhattan looking for a couple of girls who meant not a damn thing to them—while they plotted their tutti thing in the peace and quiet of the countryside.
But … if crafty Freddie the Fox was exercising double options again … if he was throwing his weight against the other bosses and dragging a couple of girls into the sanctum of Stoney Lodge against all tradition, just to make certain he’d keep two birds in the hand … if he meant to keep Bolan off balance and chasing whippoorwills around Manhattan while the pigeons were securely fastened to …
Goddammit, it figured! Double-option Freddie, the Capo’s Capo, the most logical guy in the world to conceive of a Cosa di tutti Cosa. Freddie Gambella played for all the marbles, all the time. He was a real tutti Capo. Yeah, by God, it figured.
Okay, Freddie.
Get ready.
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