A growing number of emergency vehicles were grouped on either side of the disaster zone, and the entire area was brightly illuminated by police flood-lights when the rackets specialist from NOPD, Jack Petro, arrived on the scene.
He left his vehicle at the western fringe, sandwiched between an ambulance and a rescue unit, and scrambled to the top of the barricade to view the incredible scene on the other side. A uniformed state cop recognized the new arrival and walked carefully along the trunk of the fallen swamp cypress to join him.
“Ever see anything like this before, Lieutenant?” the trooper inquired with a wry smile.
The detective pushed his hat back and surveyed the scene with hands on hips. “Tell me what it is,” he replied quietly, “and I’ll tell you if I have.”
“It seems that old man Vannaducci got his tables turned,” the trooper said, seeming to enjoy the idea.
“Then, no. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Petro stepped down to the combat zone and moved carefully among the wreckage, pieces of which were still smoldering. Medics were moving busily about in three-man teams, while a man Petro recognized as the St. Tammany coroner officiated over a mounting collection of human remains—some on shrouded litters, others in plastic bags.
He found the chief deputy sheriff inside the armored truck. “Thanks for the call,” the New Orleans cop said by way of greeting.
The deputy did not look up from his task. “Thought you’d be interested,” he grunted, and went on taking Polaroid pictures of the interior. “This truck belongs to Vannaducci. Another five minutes and they’d have been inside your jurisdiction.”
“Yeah,” Petro agreed sourly. “What’s it look like? Who did it?”
“Looks like a company of marines did it,” the deputy replied, turning to his visitor with a strained smile. “The tree was dropped with an explosive charge. My expert says it’s a very professional job. Remote-detonated, probably electronically. These vehicles were in motion and moving fast when the thing crashed down right across their path. No chance to stop or avoid. They hit at high speed and crunched together—following too close.
“Let’s get out of here.” The deputy moved past Petro and stepped to the ground.
The detective took a quick look around, then followed suit.
“Still hot in there,” the cop observed, tugging at his shirt collar. “You can imagine what it was like immediately after the hit. All three vehicles are armor-plated. The two sedans were under attack by bazookas—or something on that order. Opened ’em up like tin cans. The gas tanks ruptured and built a hot fire under this tin can. Wonder it didn’t blow sky high.”
A uniformed cop wearing asbestos gloves and a padded helmet was moving purposefully toward the chief deputy. Petro checked what he was about to say, yielding to the new arrival. The guy was carrying a couple of interesting-looking tubes.
“Here’s your answer, Chief,” he reported solemnly. “Found ’em laying in the reeds just off the road—about thirty yards downrange. I marked the spot.”
“What the hell are they?” the deputy asked, his nose wrinkling.
“Rocket launchers. Army calls them LAWs. Self-contained units, armor-piercing, high-explosive projectiles. One of ’em will stop a light tank.”
“Take ’em over to the lab truck.”
“Right.”
“There you go,” the chief deputy told his visitor from New Orleans.
“Where the hell do these people get military ordnance?” Petro wondered aloud.
“Just about anywhere. If you know the angles. I’d say that our man knows all of them.”
“Our man?”
“Uh huh. Left his trademark all over the job. Didn’t even try to conceal it. Even left witnesses.”
“You mean somebody survived this?” Petro asked quietly.
“You bet. The driver and three guards from the truck are okay. The guy let ’em go.”
“Okay. I’ll bite. What guy, dammit?”
“I’ll get to that. Let me fill you in some first. We got this anonymous report a few minutes past three—man’s voice, cold, hard, methodical, gave directions to the tenth of a mile. We dispatched a car to investigate. Place was still ablaze when our officers arrived. Four survivors hiding in the bayou, submerged from the neck down—one of them with second-degree burns covering twenty percent of his body. Shows you how shook they were. Hit the water and stayed there until our unit arrived. They—”
“I’ll want to talk to them,” Petro said.
“Sure. But maybe I have you a better one than that. If he makes it.”
“Another survivor?”
“Maybe. We evacuated him by helicopter. Guess who?”
Petro’s eyes jerked impatiently. “Who?”
“Your crown prince of Bourbon Street—Jimmy Lista. It seems that he was bossing this run. So you know what that means.”
Sure, Petro knew what that meant. A mob money run. “How big a haul?”
“Nobody’s saying. But you know how the estimates run. Maybe as much as half a mil.”
Petro whistled and nervously lit a cigarette. “Okay,” he said, breaking a heavy silence. “So they hit the old man for maybe half a mil, and there’ll be heads rolling in New Orleans when he finds out. So who did it? Who are they?”
The chief deputy was gazing across the disaster zone, a tense smile arranging his features into a sort of half-worried, half-humorous expression. “Would you believe … a him?”
“One guy?” Petro’s hands went back to his hips, and he swiveled his torso in another evaluation of the hit zone. His face suddenly underwent a radical alteration. “Oh, hell,” he commented quietly, resignedly.
“Yeah. That’s the guy. Left his calling card in the truck.” The chief deputy produced a small envelope, withdrew a folded Kleenex, and carefully unwrapped the “calling card”—a military marksman’s medal.
“Well …” Petro exhaled noisily. “I guess it was inevitable. The guy had to get around to us sooner or later. You put out the alert yet?”
“Not yet. Call it an official courtesy—I wanted you to see it first. The guy is, uh, probably into your jurisdiction by now. You got a complete file?”
Petro nodded. “In spades.”
“I’m glad it’s you instead of me,” the sheriff said, smiling grimly. “We’re just not equipped over here for a Mack Bolan war.”
“Who is?” Petro observed quietly.
Moments later he was speeding back to town and sending the word ahead via radio.
The Executioner, for God’s sake, was undoubtedly marching on New Orleans. Along with several hundred thousand other transients. What a time for a Mack Bolan visit! Tomorrow was Fat Tuesday, a day of local insanity better known by its French name, Mardi Gras. Unless Jack Petro missed his guess, it was going to be the fattest damn Tuesday in the city’s history.
3: ANGLE OF THRUST
It was an uncharacteristically early awakening for Thomas Carlotti, the acknowledged “boss of sin” in greater New Orleans. There’d been a time, of course—and not too many years earlier, at that—when most of Carlotti’s waking moments had been spent with the night. A guy who had to hustle those streets for a buck had to run when and where the action was. Carlotti no longer hustled the streets. Now he hustled the hustlers, pushed the buttons and pulled the strings, orchestrating a network of prostitution and gambling houses that encompassed all of New Orleans and her suburbs.
Carlotti was thirty-five, medium height, well built and muscular. He was a flashy dresser. Even his shirts and underwear were hand-tailored—and it was said that the Mafia chieftain cared more for his wardrobe than for any other thing in life. His shoes were specially ordered from “my little old bootmaker” in Rome. A barber visited the Royal Street manse three times a week to maintain the well-coiffed locks. It was gossiped quietly that Carlotti was impressed by his superficial resemblance to singer Enzo Stuarti and tried diligently to strengthen that resemblance.
Carlotti didn’t like to be
awakened in the gray hours of the morning. He’d seen enough sunrises from street level to last a lifetime. He preferred to arise about ten, several hours behind the rest of the household, when things were humming along and filled with life and movement.
God, but he hated to wake up to a still house.
“What the hell is this?” he growled to his night man, Scooter Favia. “What d’ya mean coming in here at a time like this? Turn off that goddam light. Use the lamp—over there—that lamp over there.”
The houseman moved silently to obey the instructions. Scooter had been with Carlotti throughout his rise to power, was reputed to be a nerveless triggerman and a remorseless killer whenever such actions were likely to please his boss. He had served others, many others, during his thirty years behind the gun—with about the same measure of faithful service.
Carlotti’s “broad for the night”—an unnaturally high-bosomed stripper from one of the Bourbon Street tourist traps—stirred sleepily, then sat bolt upright. Carlotti scowled at her and shoved her back down.
“Get those silicone boobs under cover,” he scolded. “What, you want to get poor old Scooter all tore up and nothing to work with?”
The girl, a blonde of about twenty, giggled and flipped the sheet up to cover her head.
The boss of New Orleans vice life pushed his own nude body from the bed and unhurriedly reached for a karate-style wraparound. He slipped into it and belted it loosely, lit a cigarette, told the girl to “Stay right there, tiger,” and went over to join his bodyguard at the door.
“Now what?” he asked Favia.
“Zeno called,” the houseman reported in a hushed voice. “Mr. Vannaducci wants you out at the farm. Soon as you can get there.”
“At this hour? It’s—what …?”
“Little past four. That’s what Zeno said, Tommy. Soon as you can get there. He sounded worried.”
“That rotten shit of a prosecutor again!” Carlotti fumed.
“I don’t think so. This sounded different. Zeno’s calling all the bosses. It’s a summit.”
“Aw, aw, aw,” Carlotti commented, shaking his head with disgust. “What the hell is it this time, I wonder!”
He dropped the cigarette into an ashtray and moved hastily toward his dressing room, pausing in mid-stride to turn a troubled gaze toward the bed—as though remembering some unfinished business there. He snapped his fingers at Favia and instructed, “Get that outta here. Give her some breakfast money.”
Favia went dutifully to the bed, hauled the girl out, scooped up her clothing from a chair, and carried the works out, tucked loosely beneath a massive arm—the girl wide-eyed but silent.
Carlotti called from the dressing room doorway, “Be a good kid and I’ll phone you some time.”
He shrugged out of the karate wrap and threw it at a wooden peg on the wall as he strode past. It held for a moment then slid free and dropped to the carpeted floor as its owner moved on toward the darkened bathroom. He halted, returned, bent down to retrieve the robe—then froze, bent over like that, something hard and ominous pressing against the crown of his head.
A chilling voice quietly commanded, “Stay there, Carlotti, and kiss your ass goodbye.”
At such a moment, something strange happens within the human psyche—even to a bruised and calloused one such as that of Thomas Carlotti, the Boss of Sin. A cacophony of conflicting emotions bristled into that moment of doom—anger, betrayal, hate, even repentance—but the greatest of all was sadness, an overriding and consuming sadness that contemplated the fall of domain, the final failure, life and all its grand plans for the future ending here and now.
It was all there in that ragged voice, as he asked the question that had already been answered. “What the hell is this? Whattaya want?”
“Just you, Carlotti,” was the icy response.
Hope dies hard, especially in the doomed breast. Still contemplating his own knobby knees, Carlotti gasped, “If it’s a contract, I’ll buy it out. Double your money. Triple it. Hell, you say.”
“This contract was written in the stars, guy.” Strong fingers curled into the hair of his head, straightened him, spun him, slammed him face-to against the wall—all the while the steady pressure at the crown of the head reminding him to be still, stay cool, keep hoping.
“If this is a gag, hey, you’re just in time for Mardi Gras.”
“No gag, Carlotti.”
“This is crazy, guy. I got a dozen boys under this roof.”
“Five.”
“Huh?”
“You had five, Carlotti.”
“And they’re light sleepers—uh—had?”
“Uh huh. They’re heavy sleepers now. All but Favia. He’ll keep.”
The underboss was coming totally unstuck. This wasn’t fair—for God’s sake, it just wasn’t fair. All those years on the street—all that work and sweat and tears—and just now when everything was coming together so beautifully …“Not fair!” he groaned.
“I’m not your judge, guy.”
“Who is then?”
“You are. I’m just the judgment.”
Carlotti laughed, at the edge of hysteria. “I don’t get that. Who sent you?”
“You sent me. And I don’t expect you to understand it.” The pistol muzzle slid slowly along the back of Carlotti’s head, boring up just above the vertebrae. “Ten seconds to tell it all goodbye, Tommy.”
“Wait, dammit, wait! We can work this out!”
“I don’t think so.” The guy spun him around, the pistol tracking on with the movement to punch in just beneath the chin.
All Carlotti could see during that first dizzying instant was the big blaster, black, tipped with an ominous bulb at the muzzle end—a silencer—and the black hand that held it. But it was not a Negro hand—it was artificially blackened, and extending away from it was more blackness, then glittering eyes—a big guy, black from head to toe—a fuckin’ commando, no less, belts and guns and grenades and all kinds of shit strung all over him. And, no, it wasn’t Mardi Gras.
All hope departed, like the final flaring of a shooting star, and the Boss of Sin felt his knees buckling, his whole frame sagging. The guy jerked him back upright and pressed something into his hand—sure, the clincher, the medal of death.
It was not hope that spoke but desperation, as Carlotti pleaded, “God, don’t do this, Bolan. Don’t do it.”
“Give me an alternative,” the iceman replied.
“What?”
“What do you love more than life, Carlotti?”
“Nothing!” He was scrabbling now, hanging on like a drowning man to a lifeline. “Listen, I revere life. I revere it. I never burned a guy in my life, not ever! I don’t deserve this, Bolan—I really don’t.”
“What do you deserve then?”
“God, I—a guy don’t get the chair for purse snatching, Christ’s sake.”
The big guy was just standing there, watching him with those goddam eyes—didn’t even seem to be breathing—no expression on the face, like carved in ice, head cocked a bit to one side.
Then Carlotti knew: the guy’s mind hadn’t been on him at all. The legends were true, the stories were straight—the guy was some kind of superhuman. He’d heard or felt big Favia moving through the house downstairs and starting up the stairway. The creaking step near the top was Carlotti’s first awareness of the approach—but this impassive bastard had already sprung another gun from his hip, a big silver autoloader with a ventilated barrel, easily a foot long, that went smoothly and quickly inside Carlotti’s mouth, pinning his head to the wall from the inside.
Scooter hit the bedroom door on the run and with a lot of noise, but all Carlotti could see at the moment was the silent black blaster extended at arm’s length, angling into that confrontation.
Favia had started yelling from the other side of the door: “Boss! Sam and all his boys got sliced in their beds, throats cut! We better …”
By this time, Scooter Favia was through the doorwa
y and hastily applying brakes, eyes bugging at that scene just inside the dressing room, his snub-nosed .38 waving in the air and instinctively falling into a firing lineup.
The black blaster gave out a little pa-tooey and bucked slightly in the tall guy’s big fist. Carlotti swore he saw that bullet hurtle out of there and thwack into big Favia’s forehead squarely between the eyes.
The old comrade and faithful gun toter went down without a sound, pitching over backwards through the doorway and out of sight.
Carlotti’s knees again gave way. He broke a tooth on the silver pistol before he could recover himself—then like magic it was gone and back in the guy’s holster at the hip—the silent blaster, a bit warm now, back in position at Carlotti’s throat—and that cold voice, as calm as ever, was saying, “Okay, I’ll take a note, Carlotti. A mortgage on this revered life of yours. I’ll take it written on the torn shreds of your oath of Omerta. You’ve got about two heartbeats to decide.”
What decide? Carlotti thought. “You want me to stool for you?” he whispered, at the ragged edge of human endurance.
“That, or die for me. One heartbeat left, beautiful.”
Hell, sure, what decide! Die now for sure or die later, probably when the organization discovers that Thomas Carlotti, heir apparent to the invisible golden throne of New Orleans, had shitted out on the sacred oath of silence.
Perspiration appeared suddenly in a film across his forehead and dripped from his upper lip. Moisture returned to the mouth and unstuck the throat. He felt like laughing and crying all at once. So this was how it felt to get a reprieve just as you were being buckled into the chair. The naked mafioso looked into those glittering eyes and squeezed the little iron cross until it cut into the flesh of his palm, then his gaze dropped, he took a shuddering breath and told the big cold bastard, “I’m not ready to kiss it goodbye, Bolan. You’ve got yourself a note.”
What Bolan had, at that moment, was his angle of penetration for the assault on New Orleans. It was, indeed, precisely what he had come for.
4: ANNOUNCEMENT
It was a grim and restrained group of Mafia chiefs who were gathering at the former sugar plantation on the old River Road in southwest New Orleans. The site was now the home and showplace estate of Marco Vannaducci, acknowledged “greatgod-father” of Southern crime syndication—lately a man trying almost desperately to display a face of respectability to his community. “Emergency” sessions called at weird hours, such as this one, had become almost a standard routine in recent months—a circumstance that had begun to wear the nerves and patience of the New Orleans hierarchy of organized crime.
New Orleans Knockout Page 2