“Pretty damned sloppy,” Weintraub commented bitterly. “After all our …”
“Right. But what could I do?” The house boss sighed wearily. “I was trying to make up my mind. Should I take the woman, too, or wait and check it out with you first? But she split too fast. And I didn’t want to come up here looking for her, with Tommy’s blood all over me. I figured we could handle it later. But then by the time I got my clothes changed, it had all gone to hell and I never had a chance to tell you.”
The lawyerly gaze shot to Bolan. “Did she tell you that?”
Bolan nodded and lied a little. “She told me. And she saw it all.”
“Well, then, where the hell did you send her. And why?”
“Where will be my little secret,” Bolan told him, arching an eyebrow for emphasis, “until I report back to the headshed, mission accomplished. Why should be very obvious.”
“Mission accomplished?”
“Right.”
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning they want to see the books. You’re not the only one, counselor, to wonder about Tommy’s finesse with figures.”
“Well, you’re a hell of a guy.”
“Thanks.”
“Had it all figured out, didn’t you? When you came down the stairs awhile ago, you already had it. And now you’re holding an eyewitness … pretty goddamn cute, aren’t you?”
“I try to be. It’s a cute world, counselor.”
Weintraub was mad as hell, in a slow burn leading surely along a short fuse. “How do I know the books will get there? Intact?”
“Money doesn’t make me crazy,” Bolan told him.
“That’s right. I forgot. You do it all for that thing of yours, don’t you?”
“That’s right. What do you do it for?”
“I do it for this thing of mine,” Weintraub snapped.
“Then do it. I need to know what I’m carrying to the headshed. Educate me. What’s the investment?”
“The thing that makes the world revolve!” the guy replied savagely. “The chug and the choo, the woof and the warp, four on the floor, the thing that makes everything go, and all the factories smoke all over the world!”
“That’s a damned long way to say oil,” Bolan growled.
“Any way you say it, it comes out gold! And it’s becoming harder to get all the time!”
“If you can’t buy it, guy, you can’t sell it. So where’s the hundredfold return?”
“That’s why guys like you are paid to kill!” Weintraub snarled. “Give ’em an order and they’ll carry it out to the letter! Give ’em a portfolio, though, and they’ll go broke in a week!”
“Then maybe you should explain it in words that a guy like me can understand.”
“Can you understand words like prohibition? That’s what built the modern mob, you know. Do you understand words like rationing and scarcity? Those two kept us going through the war—the big war, as they call it. Ever hear of big labor, big business, power politics—with everybody scrambling for the fastest buck? That’s what pulled us through the postwar boom and expansion. Ever hear of grass and horse and coke? Those little jewels propelled us right into the Age of Aquarius. Hey, Frankie, the Mob is a service organization! Understand? Service! Forget all that romantic bullshit about this thing of ours and allegiance to the ring and all that crap! That’s a con, to keep all the little people in line. We’re running a business, dammit! Our business is service and the service is our power. The power comes from serving up the thing that every man wants most, or needs most, or loves most. We get shaggy politicians elected. We make labor bosses rich and industrialists richer. We make drunks and junkies happy, and we put a woman within every man’s reach. We give a man what he can’t get all by himself. That’s not La Cosa Nostra, buddy, that’s the mob, and it’s service, and the service is power.”
“Oil service, eh,” Bolan said. “Okay, fill ’er up. And check the tires while you’re at it.”
“Ha ha, that’s very funny. A lot funnier than you realize. What happens when the guy says sorry, no gas. Check your own damned tires. I’m going fishing. What d’you say then? Do you say okay, I’ll walk. Or do you go find someone who’s willing to provide the service you need?”
Bolan was willing to play the game a bit longer. He said, “I’m looking at forty million bucks, counselor.”
“You’re looking at a drop in the bucket, too. This is just the first installment. It just gets our foot in the door. Mark my words. The day is coming when gasoline is rationed again in this country. In every country, all over the world. And the price? Shit. You’re going to see the biggest panic since the Wall Street crash. You’ll see gas stations boarded up, and people lining up for miles at those that are not, just to get a few gallons of that precious shit, and to hell with the price. And listen. That goes double for a hard winter and a cold house. And d’you know why?”
Bolan shrugged. “It’s not exactly late news, counselor, that there’s an energy shortage.”
“See?” The guy clapped his hands together and did a little dance in front of the window. “You bought it! Everyone buys it! Sure, everyone knows there’s an energy shortage. You want to hear something rich? This so-called energy shortage is the biggest con since Hitler bought Germany. The shortage is in the books! Nowhere else! Any damned fool can look in the right book and see that! They got more known oil reserves in the ground right now than at any time in history. Keeps growing all the time. The world is running out of oil, bullshit! Hey, you think La Cosa Nostra invented the idea? Pull your head out of the damned closet. OPEC and the oil industry as a whole makes your damned Cosa Nostra look like a Sunday communion service. There’s no shortage. Those sons-of-bitches will sell you all the fucking oil you want, anywhere you want it, if you make it worth their while. Hey! That’s our fucking business, buddy. And we’re going to get a piece of it.”
Bolan smiled wryly and said, “Going to buy yourselves a sheikdom?”
“Naw. Not even close. We don’t need one. It would cost too much, in the first place. And they’re sons-of-bitches to deal with in the second. Who needs it? You ever hear of the free market?”
Bolan looked at his watch and said, “Just in case I haven’t, tell me about it.”
But the guy was coming down off his hormonal high. He dropped into his chair and growled, “Go take a night course. You’ll learn that a hundredfold return is no idle boast. Maybe not right away. But soon. Soon. Maybe sooner than anybody thinks. Of course, it means nothing to me. I just created the thing. I got no piece of it. But you tell those gentlemen in New York … you tell them that Tom Santelli was robbing them.”
“You wouldn’t do that, eh?”
“I would not, no. A fair share would satisfy me just fine. You tell them, also, that Lawrence Weintraub is the one who put this whole thing together. Tommy took the credit, but I did the work. It’s my child. I’m the one with the contacts. And I’m the one that set up the deal. So they might want to take that into consideration when—”
“I’ll tell them that, counselor.”
“Please do. And what are you going to tell them about Tommy?”
Bolan sighed and replied, “I’m going to tell them that Tommy was robbing his own family. And that his own family corrected the matter. That’s all they need to know. It’s all they’ll want to know. After they see these books.”
That disclosure revived the guy a bit. His eyes showed gratitude even if the voice did not. “What about Tommy’s investment?”
“I’ll recommend that they impose a ten percent tax and turn the rest to the heirs.”
That revived him quite a bit more.
“That’s fine with me. I have an understanding with the heirs.”
“I would not,” advised Frankie the Ace, “talk too much about that if I were you. Let’s just leave it that Larry Haggle will be happy to continue on as administrator of the free market project … and that he knows he will be properly rewarded by the new management.”<
br />
The gratitude spilled fully and warmly into that voice, then. “Say, listen, Frankie … forget all that silly shit I was spouting. You know,” he chuckled, “about going broke with a portfolio. I was speaking from my ass.”
Bolan said, “I know that. Well …” He stuck out a paw and shook the counselor’s hand, then repeated with Carmen Reddi. “Don’t worry about your books. They’ll be in good hands.” He was almost to the door, when he turned back, as though with an afterthought. “Oh, by the way, did the shipment get off okay yesterday?”
“Like clockwork,” Weintraub replied happily.
“They may want to check it. You know, for confirmation of the books. And especially now with Tommy out of the picture.”
“Then they better hurry.” The counselor was checking his watch. “The tug was scheduled for twenty minutes ago. They should be clearing Hampton Roads before nightfall.”
Bolan nodded and went on out, then came back again with only his head and shoulders inside the room. “That’s the SS, uh …”
“Tangier Victory,” said the man who’d engineered a forty-million-dollar coup.
“Right,” Bolan said and went away without another word.
So.
Forty million dollars in gold and silver, eh?
So okay. It was shaping into a damned short day, indeed.
And it was time for Frankie the Ace to get the hell out of there.
CHAPTER 13
FATHER FIGURE
Bolan went by the boardroom to pick up Leo Turrin. The meeting there had disintegrated into factional powwows between the individual leaders and their cadres, huddling in tense groups at opposite ends of the room. Several new faces were evident in each group—crew leaders, no doubt, who’d been called in to participate in the discussions.
The atmosphere in there was nearing a flash point. Something was sour as hell, that much was obvious.
Leo was standing at the French doors, gazing wistfully toward the bay, a forlorn and obviously discarded figure as “the family” argued their “do or die” strategy.
It was not an easy job, his. The popularity of Commissione administrators had declined proportionately with that of the trouble-shooters, a sure sign that the organization as a whole was in disarray. Which was fine with Bolan. But doubly difficult and treacherous for a guy in Leo’s shoes, even if he’d been on the up and up.
Bolan walked unnoticed to the little guy and asked him, sotto voce, “You ready to quit this joint?”
Turrin turned to him with a wan smile and replied. “If I could find a good enough excuse, yeah. These guys are all crazy as hell. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them start shooting it out with one another.”
“It’s an unhappy ship.” Bolan agreed.
“That it is. I, uh, figured you’d rather see them all mobbed up. That’s the way I laid it down. But they’re not buying that. They’re just plain mad as hell that this do or die is on their turf. So I don’t know. I get the feeling they’re about ready to bolt and run, just scatter and lay low until the heat is off. I guess that’s what I’d want to do, myself, in their situation. See, what the hell do they have to gain by standing? That’s the attitude. La Carpa is the only one with balls. Even some of his cadre, though, is on the brink of revolt. He pulled ’em all to the other side of the room, and it’s been fireworks ever since. They want to go with Damon.”
“Where’s Damon going?”
“He says Jamaica is damned nice this time of year. If New York wants to stop Bolan, then let New York come down and stop him. Better still, stop him somewheres else. And that’s the prevailing wind, right now. These guys have all settled for small.”
“You’re right, Leo, I want them mobbed up. I don’t want them scattering like cancer cells. I want them right under the damned knife.”
“I don’t know how you’re going to get that. I’ve said all I can say. I had the feeling that one more word and someone would be tacking my balls to the wall.”
Bolan pulled the Santelli books from beneath his arm and said, “Guess I better hit them with this.”
“What is it?”
“Keys to the kingdom,” Bolan muttered. He hefted the books in both hands. “Weigh about three pounds, I’d guess. Worth about forty million bucks.”
“Solid gold, I presume.”
“You hit it, pal. And a lot of it came from their own sweat. But they’re not cut in.”
“No wonder they’re pissed!”
“Yeah. Okay. Let’s get them really pissed … something to fight for … or to fight over.”
“I’d bet for over” Turrin replied nervously.
“Better yet.”
“See what you mean. Okay, sure. I’m game if you’re game.”
The Ace’s presence had been duly noted, by this time. Damon was casting dark glances and La Carpa was giving him a high sign. A couple of the new faces were regarding him with open curiosity.
Bolan ignored the dark glances, returned the high sign, and instructed Leo, “Stay at my left hand, pal.”
He strode. directly to the master’s desk, and placed the books down there. All eyes were now upon him, and the chatter had quickly died away. In a voice which carried clearly throughout that busy room, he snarled at Leo, “Give me that rotten fucking chair!”
Leo picked up on it immediately. He gave the master’s chair a vicious kick and sent it rolling into Bolan’s outstretched hand.
The Black Ace from the headshed thereupon hoisted that “rotten fucking chair” high overhead and brought it crashing to the desktop. It splintered and pieces of it bounced onto the conference table. All those guys out there were frozen in dumbfounded reaction to the outlandish ferocity of that act. So Bolan did it again, then flung the wreckage at the table. The disintegrating chair slid along the entire length of that glossy surface, the bulk of it falling at the stunned Mario Cuba’s feet.
Not a goddamn murmur came back.
Bolan picked up the books and slammed them viciously onto the desk, the report of that impact slicing the heavy atmosphere in there like a rifle crack.
“Forty million bucks!” he yelled. “Did you know that? Forty million! It’s the rottenest piece of shit I ever came across in all my years on this job! So I am vacating the chair of that thieving son-of-a-bitch! If anybody here don’t like it … meaning if they love being robbed by their own father … then now’s the time to say their say! Because I, by God, in the name of all the fathers, am declaring that the chair never existed! So say your say!”
He was glaring malevolently at Mario Cuba.
The big guy dropped stunned eyes and said nothing.
“Not a murmur.
“Tony?”
Silence reigned.
“Any of you boys?”
No, not one of them.
“Today is Friday! On Monday, in New York, we carve up forty million bucks! Most of that, I’d say, belongs right here! But that will be for you to say! Because this kingdom does not exist! This family, I guess, died with the first father, Arnie the Farmer! Everything that came since Arnie is now declared null and void, it never existed! I write it off, here and now!”
He slammed the books down again.
Robert Damon flinched, the first real movement since the chair first came crashing down.
“Anybody with a say will be in New York on Monday morning at eight o’clock sharp! Until that time, this goddam family does not exist!”
“Now wait a minute, Frankie,” Damon said weakly.
“Somebody has been waiting too many minutes already,” Frankie the Ace replied, appearing to cool off a bit, if the amplitude of the voice was any measure. He flicked an imaginary speck from his lapel, and said, “I can’t believe you guys sat and let this happen. Where’s your pride? Where the hell is your faith in the organization? You don’t have to hold still for this kind of crap. That’s what the organization is for … to establish reason and justice for all its members. It’s us against the world, boys. If we lose ourselves, then
what the hell have we got?”
Robert Damon’s voice was still a bit shaky as he inquired, “What’s that about Monday morning again?”
“Eight o’clock sharp,” Bolan replied calmly. “Be there if you want representation. You too, Tony. You two are the logical heirs. But you first have to prove a claim. You have to show that a family exists.” “I, uh, guess I don’t really understand what …”
“Then you better talk to Larry Haggle. It’s about time you found out what’s going on inside your own turf. That is, if you figure you got any turf.”
The guy took no apparent offense whatever at that. He merely locked baffled eyes with La Carpa and said nothing.
“If you want my counsel, I’ll give it,” Bolan went on. “The two of you sit down and put the heads together. Make one head out of two. Draw up a charter. Lay out the new empire. Make it fair and equal. Then bring it to the headshed on Monday morning. Nobody up there wants to see you screwed. None of you. But they do want to see that you’ve got it together, that there’s something here worth saving. And they’re not going to throw no forty million bucks at a bunch of street punks. Get that understood. You return to grace. Get it together. Bring it to New York. You’ll get justice. First, of course, you’ve got to get past Mack Bolan.”
He tucked the books under his arm, threw an eye at Leo Turrin, and walked the hell out of there.
As they hit the hallway, Leo muttered, “Jesus Christ almighty! I never saw such a performance! They might make you boss of bosses!”
Not much chance of that, though.
By Monday, with a bit of luck, all the bosses would be gone … all the chairs vacated … at least for a little while.
The kingdoms of evil were nearing their rotten end. And not even a bona fide Frankie the Ace could save them from that.
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