"Out at — you know."
"Okay, here's what I'd do. I'd give a call out there and try to catch Turk. Just tell 'im you're checking in about this latest thing. Tell him all about it. It's his job to think of something, isn't it? Let himdecide what todo, and it'll also prove that you're on the right side."
"Whattaya mean, prove I'm on the?.."
"Now hold your horses. Hell I didn't say Ithought anything like that."
"Anything like what, for Christ's sake!"
"You know what I mean, this boy calling you direct and all that. With this old trouble, somebody might get the wrong idea."
"Well somebody just better not!"
"They just might, anyway. Call Turk, Jake. Put it on him."
A brief silence, then: "I guess you're right. Okay, thanks. Are you staying right there?"
"Well, uh, yeah I might."
"Whattaya mean, yeah uh you might! What kind of answer is that? Are you afraid to tell me where you're gonna be?"
"Hell, you know better."
"Awright, then, just what are you telling me?"
A pause, then: "I'm not telling you a damn thing, Jake."
A click signaled the end of the connection. Bolan grinned, listening to Joliet Jake's dazed, "Well can you beat that?" as he hung up at his end.
The wait for the next call was much briefer. Again Bolan recorded the touch-tone combination, but it quickly became a useless piece of pre-intelligence as a smooth voice announced, "Giovanni's."
Joliet Jake's trouble tones crowded the line. "This is Mr. Vecci. I'm — uh — interested in a private party you got going there. You know the one I mean?"
"It's all private tonight, Mr. Vecci. We're hard." Bolan raised his eyebrows. "Hard" meant that mob figures only were present at Giovanni's, an exclusive nitery in the suburbs, even to the waiters and bartenders and kitchen help.
"All right, that's swell. Listen, who's this?"
"This is Charles Drago, Mr. Vecci. What can I do?"
"You can collar a certain someone and get 'im to the phone for me, Charlie. He's bringing somebody there to a carpet."
"Oh, well they haven't arrived yet, Mr. Vecci."
"Christ they should've been there long ago."
"I guess it's the storm, sir. It's delaying everybody."
"Well dammit."
"In the meantime, Mr. Vecci, you can channel reports for him through..."
"I'm not channeling no reports,"the underboss growled.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Vecci, my tongue tripped. I was just trying to be..."
"I know, helpful. Okay, Charlie, here's how you can be helpful. You watch that door like a hawk. The minute he comes in, you tell 'im to call me at Manny's."
"Yes sir, at Manny's."
"Right, and don't tell nobody else. And tell him it is urgent," Vecci added, spacing the words for emphasis.
"He'll get the message, Mr. Vecci. And nobody else."
"Okay, thanks."
This time it was Joliet Jake who broke the connection. Bolan moved his patch to the trunk line and scanned the Stein Intelligence with a pencil flash. On the fourth page he located the telephone number which corresponded to the coded beeps of Vecci's first call, and his lips pursed thoughtfully as he noted the name opposite that number.
Bolan pondered for a moment, then placed his second call of the mission. The same voice that had answered Vecci's earlier ring said, "Yeah."
Bolan asked, "Is he there?"
"No he's not here."
"I know damn well he is. Put him on."
"He — uh... who's calling?"
"Never mind who's calling. Put him on, and damn quick."
"He — uh — isn't taking no more calls tonight."
"He damn well better take this one," Bolan growled.
"Well... just a minute."
Presently the other voice came on the line, cautious, reserved. "Okay, what's all the fuss?"
"Listen, they want you to get it out to Giovanni's, and right away."
"They who? I'm afraid you have the wrong number."
"Have it your own way," Bolan replied coldly. "You got the message, that's all I got to tell them."
"Wait a minute. I don't recognize your voice."
"Maybe you're not supposed to. And maybe you better get it out to the suburbs, and quick."
"In this storm? They know I don't go..."
"You better go for this one. The cards are being cut, and you better be ready to pick a side."
The guy was getting flustered. Obviously he was not accustomed to being talked to in this manner. He wheezed, "I don't — well now wait a minute. You'd better tell me what's up. I'm not going anywhere unless..."
Bolan clipped off the protest with, "Just a minute." He held a hand over the transmitter, counted to ten, then came back in a warmer tone of voice. "They said tell you it's for your own good, and thinking of the future. A vote is going to be taken, maybe for a contract or something, and they suggest that you keep that quiet."
"Does this have to do with that carpet for Pete the?.."
"No, they wouldn't ask you out there just for that. I told you it's a new deal. A certain old man seems to be going off his rocker, and they're taking a vote for his retirement. Now I already told you too damn much. You keep this quiet."
"Oh sure, I understand. Well what — I mean, I don't have any vote."
"They say you got an interest, you should at least want to be here when it's all decided. If only to show where you stand. Uh, like I said. There's liable to be a contract or two made out."
"Well... okay, thanks. Tell them I'll try to make it. If I can get through this weather. Uh, about how much time do I have?"
"Not much. Most everybody's already there."
"Okay, thanks again. Tell them I appreciate it."
The line clicked and the dial tone hummed in Bolan's ear. He smiled wryly, shifted his position to unkink his muscles, and promptly patched back into Manny Roberts' private line. He got there as the phone was ringing and waited patiently for the conversation he expected to take place. It did.
"Yeah, hi."
"Hi Jake. Listen, I just heard something terrible. This is for old time's sake. Something's going on up at Giovanni's."
"Yeah I know, they got a thing going there. On Bolan I guess. What d'ya mean, old times sake?"
"I mean I can't even be seen looking out a window at you. You get what I mean. Stay away from that thing at Giovanni's. It's not what you think. Forget about Turk, don't let them even know where you are. Lay low."
"What the hell are you... ?"
"That's all I can say, Jake. I'm sorry, really sorry as hell."
Again, "City Jim" hung up on the underboss, and again Bolan heard the post-connection muttering of the bedeviled old man below: "What th' hell is goin' on around here?"
Bolan severed his patches, gathered his gear, and muttered into the teeth of the storm, "It's the name of the game, Jake. Odd man out. And you're all the oddest bunch I ever saw."
10
A call to battle
Bolan made the final telephone probe of the series from a public booth on the near North Side. A smooth voice answered with the standard announcement: "Giovanni's."
Bolan put his voice in the streets and asked, "Listen, is this Charlie Drago?"
"Sure is, who's this?"
"This is — uh just call me Phil from Jersey. Listen, Mr. Drago, I was referred to you. I got something I don't know what the hell to do with. I was told maybe you're the right man to put it on."
"Who'd you say this is?"
"Just say it's Phil from Jersey. I'm just passing through, I don't live around here. But listen, I'm down in this bar, this joint on South State, and I hear this strange conversation in this next booth to me, see. And I..."
"Well now wait a minute. I got no time to be..."
"You better take time, Mr. Drago, if you'll pardon me. This is red hot stuff and I ain't asking for nothing in return."
Grudgingly, but with appare
ntly growing interest, Drago replied, "Okay, what's this red hot stuff? Make it quick, eh?"
"These guys are talking about Bolan, this Mack Bolan creep. Listen, I know all about that creep. And one of them is saying it's sure funny how things're working out, with this Bolan turning out to be their best buddy. Naturally I keep on listening."
Drago interrupted the recital with a hurried, "Just a minute, Phil. I want to get somebody else in on this, too."
Bolan lapsed into silence, lit a cigarette, waited for a full two minutes, then he heard another telephone open onto the line and Drago's smooth tones told him, "Okay, Phil. Pick up where you left off."
"Where was I?"
"You're in this bar on South State and these boys are saying that things are working out now with Bolan their best friend. Take it from there."
"Okay, and I really perk up when I hear this. I'm afraid to look around the partition, I just freeze there with my head against the booth and I keep listening. This one boy is saying how they just been waiting for something like this, and I get he means the Bolan thing. Then I start getting a whole different idea when this other boy comes in with something about how he still can't figure the old man and Bolan cozying it. Well that put a whole different picture together, didn't it?"
"What old man?" asked a second voice from Giovanni's.
"I don't know, sir. That's just the way they mentioned him every time, just the old man. Anyway this other guy comes back with it's a good thing, 'cause the old man is about getting ready for an open war anyway. I get it right away these boys are talking up a street war, mixed up somehow with the Bolan thing."
"Is this all you heard?" Drago asked calmly.
"Naw, I also got it that this old man has got this hundred or so soldiers meeting at another joint somewheres around there. Let's see, Minnie's place or something I think."
"I never heard of no Minnie's place," declared the second voice.
"That's what it sounded like. Minnie's or something like that."
"How about Manny's?"
"Well, yeah, I guess it could've been that."
"God dammit," declared a totally new voice.
"How many boys did you say were meeting there?" asked the second.
Bolan/Phil-from-Jersey replied, "That's just how they said it, a hundred or so soldiers. Now I can't put this rest in no exact words, I mean you know how it is, a lot of grunting and hum-hawing around, and like you follow the drift but there really ain't that many words."
"Okay," Charles Drago put in. "What was this drift you got?"
"That these boys are gonna be loadin' up and comin' out to your place there, Giovanni's. And I heard something else just funny as hell."
"What's that?"
"One of 'em said something about police cars. I b'lieve they mean to make it look like a bust, you know?"
"God dammit," said the third voice.
"Wait, just wait," the second man drawled. "Let's sort this all out. Who is this giving us this story?"
"Phil from Jersey is all you got to know. I don't want to wind up in the middle of no local war. I'm just passing along what I heard. You'll have to take it from there."
"Are you one of us?" the man asked the "informant."
"Sure, I'm with — well, I'm familied-up in Jersey. That's all I want to say about that."
"Okay, we always got along good with our friends in Jersey. Now tell me, Phil — how did these boys think Bolan figured in all this?"
"Like I said, it sounded to me like he was mobbing up with them. Course, that sounds pretty far out. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe they're just using the creep as a smokescreen. You know."
"Yeah I know, Phil. Okay. Listen, we won't forget this. When the dust settles, you look me up. Okay?"
"I guess I don't know who I'm talkin' to."
"You just ask around for Benny Rocco."
Bolan's eyebrows lifted. Rocco was an up and coming big man in the North Chicago territory. The Executioner told the up-and-comer, "Okay, Mr. Rocco, I'll sure look you up first chance I get. Uh, Mr. Drago — are you still there?"
"Sure, I'm here."
"Okay, I guess that's all I know. I can't remember this boy's name that put me on you. But he said you'd want to know, and I figured you had a right to."
"You did right, Phil. And you'll never regret it. Give our regards to our friends in Jersey, eh?"
Bolan said, "You bet," and hung up.
He dropped his cigarette into the snow and hurried back to the war-wagon. The night was beginning to shape up now. And he did not wish to miss a minute of it.
* * *
The "back office" at Giovanni's in any brief comparison's with Manny's Posh would present the latter as an outhouse on a baronial estate. Heavily carpeted floors and panelled walls, a magnificent built-in bar and stereophonic sound system, original oil paintings, long and graceful leather lounges and heavily padded chairs, and even an adjoining powder room; a one-way window covering an entire wall and allowing an unrestricted view of the main clubroom — these were but the most notable features of this fabulous "office."
Arturo (Don Gio) Giovanni would proudly display to the most casual visitor the quieter but equally sumptuous details of this boyhood dream come true — such as the massive teakwood desk, handcrafted and flown in from Singapore; door, window, and even drapery remote-controllers built into the fantastic executive chair which was also fully automated and wired for sound and vibration; the sun and sauna terrace and massage room; and many miscellaneous fine appointments which made this truly "an office fit for a king."
And, of course, Giovanni deserved this office — he was the King of Chicago and diverse points east, south, north, and west. The imperialistic stretch reached into such unlikely places as Texas and Arkansas, to Florida and into the Caribbean, to Europe and even to Hawaii. Certainly no king, of any time or place, enjoyed more raw power and accessible wealth than this former Neopolitan street urchin turned American at the age of eight, reform-school veteran at fourteen, bagman and bodyguard and torpedo during the rough and rowdy pre-Capone Chicago of the twenties — and now undisputed boss of an empire with an annual take in excess of two billion dollars.
This seemingly benign old gentleman, so proud of this lavishly ostentatious office in which he spent perhaps eight hours per year and a criminal record spanning nearly fifty years, with a list of arrests covering six closely-spaced typewritten pages and on every charge from intimidation to mugging and murder, conspiracy, bribery, rape, simple assault, assault with intent, bookmaking, counterfeiting, bootlegging, and everything that could be worked into a busy lifetime of crime. In appearances before various crime committees, Giovanni had taken refuge under the fifth amendment for a grand total of one hundred and thirty-seven times. With all of this, however, Don Gio had been convicted of but two crimes since his fourteenth year, and both of these convictions were later reversed by friendly appeals judges.
Talk had been going around lately that the capowas getting soft with age, that he spent too much time pampering himself in places like Nassau and Rio and Honolulu, that he had so many personal "legit" financial interests now that he wasn't too inclined toward the nitty-gritty of syndicate management — and most of this kind of talk had been coming out of the downtown territories ruled by Joliet Jake Vecci.
Apprised of this loose talk by concerned court attendants, Giovanni usually waved it off with a chuckle; he would point out that Nixon had his winter whitehouse, his western whitehouse, his summer and spring and fall whitehouses — why the hell shouldn't Don Gio have his places to get away from the pressures sometimes. As for personal financial interests, what the hell was he supposed to do with all his money, sit and look at it? Hell no, he put it out to work for itself, and with enough spreading around to give the tax boys crying fits, and these other Chicago boys could learn something from the Don'sexample if they'd listen more and cry less. Crimemight some day start listening to all the nasty things being said about it, and it might stop paying, after all.
>
And Don Gio would laugh and step into his gold-trimmed limousine or his private Boeing 727 and go off somewhere to forget the pressures and the damn FBI guys falling all over him everywhere he went and writing down what he ate and if he grunted or burped.
On this particular night, however, the Capowas not laughing. The time had come to face a pressure or two head-on.
First off, this Bolan punk. The kid had been allowed to run too high, wide and handsome for too damn long, and it was about time someone shoved a cold bar up his rear and lowered him slowly into one of those blast furnaces down at East Chicago.
Secondly, there was this matter of shameful insubordination and maybe even open rebellion within the family ranks. When high-ranking and responsible officers starting running around and assing it up like common street soldiers, then something was certainly going very sour with the organization. Gio would have to make an example of this latest trespass, even though things went way back between the Capoand this old buddy from the street days under Capone, this Pietro Lavallo whom Gio in the old days always called Golden Peterbecause he always had such luck with the girls. So now this little Golden Peter was the magnificent fuck-up, Pete the Hauler, and old times never paid the way for new ones. Pete Lavallo would have to pay his own way now; it was the price of manhood in a disciplined society.
And now this latest blow, the exclamation point for this matter of family discipline. Sure, the Donhad known for a long time that his old pal Jake had been agitating for something. But this? And at such a time?
The Caposcowled and drummed his fingers on the polished teakwood surface of his Chinese desk and tried to read the minds of these three young men standing here and telling him about a street war right within the family. Did they really believe it theirselves? Were they hoping their information was good — or bad? Was everybody looking for their Donto step down and place the mantle of power on younger shoulders? Were they looking for a shoot-out between the oldsters, and a whole new deal?
This tough Larry Turk was telling him, "There is a Phil Tarrantino with our friends in Jersey, Mr. Giovanni. He was made by way of Danno Giliamo, and in fact he was with Danno in England on that Bolan hunt over there. He got hurt during that, Danno tells me, and he's been just sort of recuperating and taking it easy. Danno last saw him on Monday — he said he was drifting toward Vegas. Maybe some light action in the heat out there might help him get back on his feet.
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