The club itself was an imposing structure of American colonial architecture which, under standard construction procedures, would have cost perhaps a million dollars to build and outfit. It had not cost Arturo Giovanni nearly so much. Manipulation of building-trades unions and outright ownership of building materials and decorating firms could work economic miracles, and Don Gio was not a man to overlook such important details of smart business procedures. He would pay fifty dollars for a cigar without batting an eyelash, but "give a crummy plumber ten dollars an hour — never!"
Yes, it was an imposing joint — and Mack Bolan was also a man to not overlook important details. The road frontage covered about fifteen hundred feet, bounded by an iron fence and flashily broken at dead-center by an arched gateway and stone gateposts bearing huge coats-of-arms. The county plot-plan showed a trian-gular-like ground layout, with about three hundred feet of river frontage on the backside of the property. The plot was roughly one thousand feet deep. Bolan estimated the placement of the building at about a five hundred-foot recess into the grounds, reached by an oval-shaped drive from the main road. The joint was ablaze with lights when Bolan arrived on the scene, as were the grounds in certain areas — probably parking lots — flanking to either side.
He would have liked to had a daylight recon of the joint. He knew how deceptive could be the facades of the night, and especially on a night such as this one. The precipitation of the storm front had now degenerated to a light freezing drizzle. Visibility was fair but the ground was a mess of treacherous snow drifts overlain with ice; the roadway itself had incurred very little traffic and evidently no attention whatever from county road crews — not within the past few hours, anyway.
Huddled in a bumper-to-bumper lineup just below the arched entranceway stood a procession of limousines... "crew wagons" — with a Chicago Police Department cruiser in the tail position. Clouds of vapor were rising from twenty or so idling engines and all but the lead vehicle were displaying parking lights; the car in front had headlamps at full blaze. The police cruiser's roof beacon was flashing brilliantly in the falling mist.
Bolan's war-wagon sported a roof flasher, also — the yellow-light type specified for unofficial emergency vehicles. He pulled alongside the cruiser and slid across the seat for a window-consultation with the law.
The door glass of the cruiser descended halfway and Bolan boomed over, "What — is the road out up there?"
"Naw it's all right," was the reply. "Go on by."
"Kinda late at night for a funeral procession, isn't it?"
"Aw, it's just a VIP party for Giovanni's. You know the routine."
Bolan laughed. "Yeah, I know. How 'bout getting an escort for the Edison Company? What a hell of a night, eh?"
"Yeh. I guess the ice is playing hell with the lines, eh?"
The cop was trying to get a better look at the van, which could not have been better disguised by deliberate intent, covered as it was with frozen-on splatterings of dirtied snow from the Chicago streets.
Bolan was replying, "Yeah, and I had to draw no-man's-land out here to patrol. What's up on the other side of this joint here?"
"Damn if I know," the officer told the Executioner. "This isn't exactly my beat either."
Bolan chuckled, then said, "Well, I guess I'll find out the hard way," returned to his place behind the wheel, and sent the van into a cautious advance along the line of cars.
The windows of the crew wagons were frosted over on the inside, and only here and there had anyone bothered to wipe away the condensed moisture. But Bolan was head-counting on the basis of normal complements per car — two men in front, two in the jump seats, three in the rear — total seven men including the wheelman times twenty cars — and, yes, it was an impressive force.
The lead car was a crew wagon, not a police cruiser. Bolan speculated that someone, probably one of Vecci's lieutenants, had accompanied Captain Hamilton inside the joint to smooth the way for the grand entry of Vecci's party. And Bolan was thinking that Joliet Jake was behaving much more optimistically than Bolan himself would under similiar circumstances. If there was anything a ranking Mafiosofeared more than prison or death, it was ambitious competition within his own family group. The mob was forever being rocked from within by unscrupulous maneuverings and greedy intrigue, contrary to all the romantic ideals of solidarity and "brotherhood" espoused by the organization. Any "boss" had earned the name and arrived at that high station by virtue of his own expertise in treachery and double-dealing; he therefore lived in continual suspicion of those around him who had not yet arrived at that level of leadership, and particularly feared those in higher positions who might be inclined to "bring up" someone in direct competition with himself.
So, yes, anyone from the Loop who was crashing that conclave at Giovanni's was on a delicate mission indeed — and Bolan himself was not out here upon any idle business. Not at all. The Executioner had come to join the party... and to see that negotiations proceeded favorably.
Favorably, that is, for the Chicago wipe-out.
13
War party
Bolan crept on past the Mafia hardsite, stopping twice during the transit to leave the van and let the enemy see him eyeballing the power lines running past the property. During the last such "inspection," a voice called over to him from the darkness beyond the iron fencing: "Hey Mac — watcha doing?"
"Checking the cables," Bolan called back casually. "They're getting pretty heavy with ice."
"Oh, yeah, good idea."
Bolan stood in the middle of the road and lit a cigarette.
"Well, how do they look?"
Bolan told the chatty hardman, "I've seen better. But I guess they'll make it okay if the wind'll just stay down."
"Oh yeah, that could play hell, couldn't it."
Bolan said, "Yeah."
The guy was half-frozen, if the shivers in his voice were any indication. Bolan wondered how many more were patrolling those grounds, and how long they were required to stay out in that frigid weather. It could make a difference in the alertness and efficiency of the defending force; half-frozen warriors weren't worth a hell of a lot.
Casually, Bolan told the guy, "I got some hot coffee in th' truck. You sound like you need some."
"Christ, I'd give ten bucks for some. Make it twenty."
Bolan chuckled and said, "Just a minute," and went into the van. He emerged with a tall thermos and carried it to the fence. The man who stepped out of the night to join him there wore a long black topcoat, a snap-brim hat pulled low, and a wool muffler wrapped about his face. The muffler was frozen stiff and the guy's eyes looked like two burnt holes in a blanket.
Bolan poured the coffee and thrust the little plastic cup through the bars of the fence. The hands which gratefully accepted it were ungloved and stiff with cold.
Sympathetically, Boian said, "Tough damn night to be out, eh. Are you guarding this joint or something?"
The hardman replied, "Yeah." He sipped the heated stimulant and added, "Christ, you're a life saver. I wasn't kidding. I'll give you twenty bucks for this."
"Forget it," Bolan replied. "Do they make you stand out here all damn night?"
"It's startin' to look that way," the guy chattered. "Uh, you got a heater in that truck, huh?"
"You bet. And I'm wearin' three layers of thermal clothes too."
"What's that thermal?"
"Like insulation. Keeps the body heat in, the cold out. I'm not cold at all, not much, just my face. My face feels like it's dead."
"Well I'm going to tell these boys about that thermal, that sounds like the cat's nuts on a night like this."
"You got other guys standin' around in there freezin' their asses?"
"Yeah. You say your face is dead, listen my ass and everything that goes with it is dead. I bet I'm shriveled up to a half a inch. I bet if I pissed right now it would spray all inside my stomach."
Bolan laughed and the hardman laughed and a voice from the darkness called
out, "Milly, what th' hell're you doing?"
The guy swiveled about and called back, "Just checkin' things out over here."
"Well it's just the power guy. Get on back over here."
The shivering hardman quickly finished the coffee and passed the cup back through the fence. "Thanks," he said. "You'll never know how much I needed that." Then he thrashed off through the snow and disappeared.
Bolan returned to the war-wagon and pondered his new intelligence. They had sentries, and obviously a corporal of the guard who periodically checked them. Those sentires had been out there quite awhile, and were suffering — or at least some of them were. Also, the word had passed quickly along the front about the presence of "the power guy."
Okay, it was enough for starters. Bolan eased the van, along until he found the power pole he sought, then he stepped into his munitions lab and began molding a strip of plastic explosive. This he wrapped about his neck and carefully selected two detonators and shoved them into a pocket of the jumpsuit.
Pretty soon everyone in that joint would be made aware of the presence of "the power guy." Yeah, pretty damn soon now.
* * *
Captain Hamilton stood silently in the background and kept himself clear of the conversation between Pops Spanno, Charles Drago, and Benny Rocco. It was not a discussion to commit one's self to needlessly.
Spanno was saying, "Now look, Charlie, you're the one calling around and inviting everybody out. Okay, so we come out. Now you're saying..."
"It's not Charlie doing the saying," Rocco explained patiently. "Don Gio says it don't look good, havin' all these boys mobbed up out here this way. Charlie meant well when he put out that invite, but hell we already got a couple hundred boys out here, Pops."
"You got that many? I didn't see that many boys out here, Benny."
"You don't have to see them," Drago said. "The point is, Jake knows he's always welcome here, he don't even need an invitation. If he wants to come in, all he has to do is come in. But he's not bringing any hundred boys in here with him, and that's all there is to that."
"Well I dunno," Spanno replied quietly. "I don't think Jake will take it right, being treated like a poor cousin or something. You call around and invite everybody out. So Jake, bein' a good loyal brother, rounds up all the boys and makes sure they accept the invitation. Then when he gets out here, you're saying send all those boys back home. I don't think that's right, and I don't think Jake will take it right."
"I guess he'll have to take it or leave it, Pops," Rocco declared.
"Just who th' hell do you think you're talkin' about, punk?" Spanno said angrily. "That's Jake Vecci sittin' out there inna cold, waitin' to hear that he's welcome to come in with his party. He was a big man in this town when you was nothin' but a gleam in your poppa's eyes."
Larry Turk came in from the outside at just that moment, stamping the snow from his shoes. He growled, "Listen, Spanno. You go tell Jake that if he's scared to come in here by hisself, then he must sure know something that we don't. He can come in any time he likes, but he comes with no more than four cars. That's all. And that's all we're going to say about it."
Turk walked on through the foyer and disappeared around a corner.
"That sounds like the Christ hisself has spoke," Spanno observed drily.
"That's about it, Pops," Drago assured him.
"Okay, I'll go tell Jake. But I can't guarantee how he'll take it."
"I guess we'll just have to run that risk," Drago replied solemnly.
Spanno wheeled angrily about, caught Hamilton's eye, jerked his head toward the door, and went out.
The Captain stepped quietly toward the others and said, "Look, I don't know what's going on, but let's understand something. I'm not part of it."
"We're happy to hear that, Ham," Drago told him.
"I'm out here simply because Jake demanded an escort through town. He was afraid the traffic would be a mess, on account of the storm."
Benny Rocco said, "Well that isa head party he's got out there, isn't it?"
"I guess you could call it that," Hamilton replied. "But I don't know what it's all about. Tell Don Gio, eh?"
"We'll tell 'im," Rocco said.
"I'm going back to town," Hamilton pointedly informed them.
"Good idea," Drago declared softly.
"Yeah, uh, thanks. See you boys around."
The Captain took his leave and the two "youngbloods" grinned at each other and went off to find Larry Turk. Turk would get one hell of a big kick out of this.
* * *
Bolan laid in his plastics in a tight coil around the big cable carrying power into Giovanni's, then he emplaced the detonators and returned quickly to the ground. A minute later his war-wagon was plowing along the neglected and largely non-existent river access road which ran through the stand of timber to the north of Giovanni's.
The place had probably been used in years gone by to launch fishing boats into the river. The road simply widened into a turnaround area at the river's edge and plunged right in. Running without lights, Bolan nearly plunged right in with it. The river was frozen-over now and covered with an accumulation of snow.
He stepped out of the van and carefully tested the ice with his own weight, then he went back inside and put on the gray topcoat over his jumpsuit. The Homburg would never do — he passed it by and selected a dark snapbrim and pulled it on at a rakish angle. He checked the Beretta and added another stack of spare clips to the special belt at his waist, then shouldered a Thompson sub and quickly moved out. He sure as hell wanted to be there when the party started.
Quietly Bolan made his way along the frozen surface of the river, hugging close to the shrubbery along the bank. His fingers caressed the little square box at his waist, the miniature radio transmitter which would trigger the detonators on that power line.
Yes, he hadto be there when the frolic started.
In fact, he knew, he would probably have to be there to startthat party. Bolan was ready. Both sides seemed to be ready. It was about time for the enemy to engage itself.
14
Gentle business
Jake Vecci angrily declared, "Awright, dammit, I'm goingin! What'd he say, fourcars? Okay then, you listen. I want ten boys in every damn car, that'll give us forty. I want the best we got, the very best. That means first of all the crew chiefs, all of 'em. Mario, I want you and Pops right at my side. And, remember, the best forty boys we got. The rest waits out here."
"How long do they wait, Jake?" Meninghetti tiredly wanted to know.
"They wait until we get word back to them. Soon as I've got things smoothed out, I'll send the word out here and they can go on back to town. But if they don't get no word in say, half an hour — they better come in theirselves and see what's what. On second thought... Pops, maybe you better stay with these outside boys. I don't want to take all the brains inside with me."
"Okay," Spanno agreed, not at all disappointed.
"If you hear anything suspicious going on in there, you come a'running."
"I will, Jake."
"Awright. Mario, you go separate the men from the boys."
Meninghetti took his troubled face away from there and trudged back along the line of vehicles, rousting everyone out into the cold and reforming the head party into two sections.
Captain Hamilton told Vecci, "Well, I'll be getting back to town."
"What's your big hurry?" the Loop boss sneered. "You afraid of?.."
"That's right, I'm afraid," Hamilton interrupted the tirade. "I have no business out here, the cars from my precinct have no business out here — and in fact, Jake, no man in his right mind has got any business out here tonight. Bolan is probably back there right now just chopping your whole territory into spaghetti. That'swhere you ought to be, not out here on a..."
"Look who's turned into the expert, handing out advice and all, the big bad kinky cop from Central. You make me wanta puke, CaptainHamilton. Go on back't'town and count your envelopes.
And after you got 'em all counted up, then you sit down and try to remember what you was and what you had before Jake Vecci took you under his wing. Go on, Captain, get your dead ass outta here."
Hamilton stifled his rage and flung himself back toward the cruiser. He climbed inside and told the patrolman, "Blow, man blow. And don't look back."
The Captain was already remembering what he'd been before Vecci sprung the fifteen hundred dollars for his first promotion, to Sergeant. He'd been a good honest cop, a guy who slept well at night and could look his kids square in the eyes without flinching. How do you tell a kid that even an honest cop will eventually buy himself a promotion, when that's the only way there is. Yeah, he already remembered. He had never for a moment forgotten.
And as his driver swung the cruiser onto the roadway, during that split second that his headlamps raked the area, Captain Hamilton caught a glint of something in the misty darkness far across the road, over in the park area. Cars — lots of cars, official cars with bubblegum machines on top, moving silently through the darkness with all lights extinguished.
Hamilton whispered to his driver, "Jesus Christ, it's a set! Let's get the hell out of here!"
They got, pausing only for a moment to pass hurried instructions to the cruiser at the end of the procession. But it was to be a short run for the Captain and his two cruisers — less than a half mile — to the State Police barricade which at that very moment was being emplaced across the route of retreat.
Everyone, it seems, had accepted the party invitations.
* * *
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