The other guy had his hands full of Claudia Vitale. She was very nude and putting up one hell of a grim fight for her life. The Sandman was scratched and bleeding about the face; both of them were so preoccupied with their own troubles that they were not immediately aware of the new presence in the Vitale bathroom.
Roberts was the first to know, via the unsettling thing in the bathtub. He froze for a split-second, then gave the woman a panicky shove toward the far wall and came around in a fast pivot, clawing gunleather.
The silent Beretta tracked right along with him, and Tommy the Sandman kept right on going round, collecting Parabellum hi-shockers in the head and throat as he spun onto the john, then slid into a deflated heap, wedged between the porcelain fixture and the wall, dead eyes open and reflecting the bewilderment of that final instant of life.
Bolan stepped inside and turned off the bath water.
The woman was slumped against the far wall, one arm raised and steadying herself against the corner, the other pressed flat to the wall beside her as though she were trying to hold it upright. Horrified eyes rebounded from the mess in her bathroom and she moaned, “Oh God.…”
Bolan growled, “Get out of here.”
“They fed me p-pills,” she gasped, “…sleeping pills. Going to drown me. Make it look … accident. Already taking effect I guess.”
One knee buckled and she almost went down.
Bolan snatched a large bath towel from a wall rack and draped it over her shoulders as he grabbed her and pulled her out of there. “How many pills did you take?” he asked her.
“Too many,” she replied weakly.
She had her eyes on the bed but Bolan pulled her on into the kitchen and bent her over the sink. “Stick a finger down your throat,” he gruffly commanded. “There hasn’t been time for that stuff to get into your system.”
“You’re wrong,” she protested. “I can feel it.”
“What you’re feeling is Tommy the Sandman and Horse Lucchese,” Bolan told her. “Now whose finger is it going to be, yours or mine?”
She swiveled her head about and those dark eyes probed his briefly before she asked, “Do I know you?”
The towel fell to the floor.
Bolan stared at her for a moment, taking in all there was to take. There was quite a bit, then he retrieved the towel and knotted it about her waist as he told her, “You’re going to. I’m Mack Bolan.”
The eyes receded somewhat and a curtain seemed to fall into place there. In a very tired voice she said, “That’s all it takes to make my night.” Then she turned back to the sink and muttered, “For what it’s worth, thanks for my life. Now go away; leave my misery private.”
He instructed her anyhow, “If the finger doesn’t work, try some salt water. But get it up, empty the stomach completely. Then make some strong coffee and fill your belly with it. Wet the towel and slap yourself in the face with it if you’re feeling drowsy. And stay on your feet.”
“Okay, okay,” she whispered.
Bolan returned to the slaughterhouse.
Blood was spattered across the walls, and pools of it were oozing across the floor tiles. He threw some towels down, then he took two sheets from the linen closet and ripped away the laundry marks. He wrapped the corpses in tight shrouds and stuffed in heavy towels to absorb the leakage.
He heard Claudia Vitale retching in the kitchen as he carried Tommy the Sandman through the apartment.
The time was two o’clock. The quiet Georgetown neighborhood was wrapped up for the night, so there seemed little danger of being discovered with his grisly burden.
On the second trip he found the woman standing quietly in the kitchen doorway, the towel draped around her, sarong fashion, patting her face with an ice cube.
“What are you doing with them?” she asked in a solemn tone.
“Taking them home,” he growled.
Horse Lucchese was draped over his shoulder. Bolan gave the woman a reassuring wink and went on about his business. He took the elevator down and exited through the rear, depositing Horse in the Pontiac with the other two. He dropped his calling card, a marksman’s medal, into the pile-up of lifeless flesh and drove the cargo to an address just a few blocks away. He parked the Pontiac in a no-parking zone at the front of a renovated brownstone and dropped the keys into the mail box. Then he returned on foot to the scene of the hit and moved his own car to the parking slot in which the Pontiac had been standing.
Claudia Vitale’s door was safety-locked, bolted from the inside. He went on to the roof, locating an easy access to the balcony outside her apartment.
The lock on the glass doors yielded easily to the pressure of his blade. He found the woman in the bedroom. She was wearing a frilly dressing gown and she was seated cross-legged in the middle of the bed, sharing it with a half-packed suitcase.
She had one of those toy-like .25 calibre autoloaders in her hand. She was making a point of showing it to him.
Quietly he told her, “Go for the throat if you intend to make any score with that thing.”
Her eyes were luminous and regretful, her head tilted into a sad attitude. “I don’t know just how to take you, Mr. Bolan,” she said solemnly.
“I don’t want your head, Mrs. Vitale.” He stood quite still and snapped a glance toward the suitcase. “Good idea. Finish your packing. If they’ve decided to hit you, a momentary setback won’t change anything. Every breath you draw now is a stolen one.”
She gave a tremulous sigh and replied, “I know. Maybe you shouldn’t have butted in. It would all be over now.”
Bolan shrugged. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
“Why did you? Butt in, I mean. What are you looking for in Washington?”
“I’m looking for the man.”
She sighed again. “What man?”
He batted the question away with a flick of the eyes. “Why were the boys hitting you?”
She countered with: “Do you know who I am? I mean …”
He assured her, “I know. I’ve been living with you for five days.”
A tense silence took control of the atmosphere between them. Presently Bolan suggested, “You’re pointing the gun at the wrong guy.”
Her gaze fell away from his. She dropped the little weapon to the bed and lowered her face into her hands. “I guess it doesn’t matter,” she said in a weary, muffled voice. “Why’d you save me?”
He replied, “I don’t know. Why were they hitting you?”
All the fight had apparently drained from her. She gave the lovely head a dismal shake, still holding it in her hands, and told him, “Gang war, maybe. Who knows?”
He said, “Huh-uh, try again. Why were Carlo Spinella’s boys putting you away?”
She hesitated, then dropped the hands and tilted her head to meet his gaze as she replied, “Let’s just say I was getting tired of the game.”
“Okay.”
“The game of crud. Capitol Crud.”
“That’s the one,” Bolan said. A smile flickered briefly across that cold face. “Aside from Congressman Keel, who gives you your orders?”
Dully, she replied, “Leave Harmon Keel out of it. That poor old man hasn’t given an order to anybody in years. He seldom knows what day it is. We prop him up, send him out and pray he finds his way back home again.”
Bolan already knew that. He continued the probing.
“Who is Lupor?”
The woman did not respond.
He tried again. “That’s Italian for wolf. It’s a code name, isn’t it? Who is Lupo?”
Very quietly she told him to go to hell.
He ignored that and told her, “I guess you heard that Al 88 is dead.”
“Al who?”
“You know who. They buried him in Boston a few days ago, as Albert Greene.” Bolan produced a small notebook and riffled the pages. “His personal file was lousy with the names Lupo, Keel, and Vitale.”
She said, “So?”
“So … Al is
dead. Vitale was meant to be dead. That leaves only Lupo and Keel. Which one has the most reason to want the other one dead, Mrs. Vitale?”
She asked him, “Do you have a cigarette?”
He lit a Pall Mall and gave it to her. She took a nervous pull at it, then blew smoke at him with a long-drawn sigh. “It’s certainly not Keel,” she declared, sighing in resignation. “I told you. He’s almost eighty years old. Hasn’t had a new thought of his own for at least the past five.”
“And you’ve been the real power behind the man,” Bolan suggested.
She shook her head. “I’ve just been the control link. Until a few months ago, Mr. Castiglione … you know Mr. Castiglione?”
Bolan said, “I executed him.”
“That’s right,” she replied with a rueful wrinkling of the pert nose, “you did do that. Well, until then, Castiglione was running the Keel machine, through yours truly. The Washington end, at least. I got the job after … after.…”
“After your husband was gunned down,” Bolan suggested.
“Yes.” Her voice had become hardly more than a whisper. “Well … then … Lupo stepped into the picture, replacing Castiglione.”
Bolan commented, “Big Guss Riappi is supposed to be heir to that throne.”
She tossed her head and took another tense pull at the cigarette. “Not the political territory. Those strings are being pulled straight from the national head shed.”
“Via Lupo,” Bolan said.
“Yes, via Lupo.”
“So who is Lupo?”
“Look. I’m not in the organization. I just do what they tell me. They own me body and soul.”
“Who is Lupo?”
“I’m trying to tell you, I don’t know.”
He said, “I think you do.”
“You go to hell, then. I’m telling you I’ve never seen the man. This is real cloak and dagger stuff. I’ve heard his voice, muffled and disguised I’m sure, on the phone. That’s all. I wouldn’t know him if he climbed in my bed.”
Bolan asked her, “Do you want to stay alive?”
She said, “Of course I want to stay alive.”
“How would you go about doing that?” he asked quietly.
“I … don’t know. What would you suggest?”
“Play my game for awhile. Maybe we can figure something out, something lasting.”
“Your game?”
He showed her a thin smile. “Anti-crud.”
Her eyes fell again and she said, “Okay.” She handed him the cigarette and dropped onto her back, hands clasped behind her head. Delectably tapered legs dangled over the side of the bed and the dressing gown slid open, revealing, in a more provocative pose, the natural attractions exposed earlier.
She made no move toward recovery. Bolan leaned over her and closed the gown. “That’s not part of the game,” he said gruffly.
“What did you see?” she asked soberly.
“I saw a hell of a lot of woman,” he assured her. “But that—”
“You saw a whore,” she quietly corrected him.
So okay, maybe his earlier thoughts about the call-girl angle were pretty close on target.
He tried to tell her that he was not interested in a listing of sins. “That’s not—”
“Shut up and let me tell you this. I’m a mob whore. I disguise myself as a legitimate and respected member of the government community, and I seduce reputable and upstanding male members of that same community. I lead them into a set-up where the most vigorous and athletic styles of love-making are strongly encouraged and where hidden motion picture cameras record everything that takes place. Do you understand me?”
Sure, Bolan understood. He could have written the scenario himself, after about the third day of observation of this very interesting subject.
He told her, “So what’s new?”
She smiled, genuinely, warmly. “Thanks,” she said. “I wanted you to know. And.…”
“And what?”
“Well … you had to know. If uh, if you were to understand why the goon squad jumped me tonight.”
He said, “Go on.”
“Lupo has his own enforcers, but he uses the muscle of the local mobsters for the more routine business. My end of it is considered part of the routine. Lupo picks my victims and sics me on them. But then I deliver the evidence to Carlo Spinella. I assume that he takes it from there, applying the pressure to the victim plus whatever muscle may be required. That way, Lupo is never directly involved. As for me.…”
Bolan said, “You’re just one of the victims too, eh?”
She nodded, trying for a smile and failing. “That’s the way it usually comes out. I contact my pigeon after he has had time to squirm awhile, and I get hysterical all over the place, insisting that he do whatever has to be done to protect me from being scandalized. It’s just another pressure point, but sometimes it’s the only thing that will turn the trick. Some of these victims would actually take their lumps rather than submit to blackmail. I guess it eases their conscience to think that they’re protecting a woman’s honor. Anyway.…”
“So why did Spinella’s boys jump you?”
“I’m getting to that. All this rotten business started when Lupo appeared on the scene. Before that my job had been purely an administrative routine, contact work, payoffs, lobbying deals, that sort of thing. But Lupo hit this town like a plague. The acceleration has been really intense. They’re going for all of it, the whole thing, not just bits and pieces. The really tough nuts—you know, the critical men they couldn’t buy, trick, or intimidate—well, those were put on my list.”
“How many?” Bolan wanted to know.
“All total, I don’t know. So far I’ve destroyed eight of them, with my own special talent. And it became very scary. I mean, look, this always has been a dirty town. The deals, the payoffs, that has been just business as usual for as long as anyone can remember. It’s the American system, it simply lends itself to corrupt manipulation. I didn’t have too much trouble with my conscience as long as I was just playing the usual Washington games. But this … well this isn’t just politics now. It’s actual subversion, it’s a coup. The mob is taking it over, all of it, they’re taking over the government.”
Bolan could have written that scenario, also. Somehow, though, hearing it from this beautiful young woman’s lips, the truth hit closer to home and sent an apprehensive shiver along his spine.
“And you couldn’t live with that,” he muttered.
“No, I couldn’t. I had another love-nest assignment for tonight. And I just couldn’t go through with it.”
“Who was the pigeon?”
She gave him a name that quivered his eyelids.
Bolan said, “The White House guy?”
She nodded. “One of the bright young men of the administration, a presidential favorite. We’ve been setting him up for about two weeks. Tonight was the assignation. I didn’t go.”
Bolan whistled softly through his teeth. “When you said ‘all of it,’ you really meant all of it, didn’t you.”
She gave that classic Roman head a saucy tilt and replied, “Where do you think it would all end? I mean, once inside the White House, how much farther would they have to go?”
Vertically, not much farther. Horizontally, though.…
His eyes brooding, Bolan asked her, “Are you the only woman involved in the sex routine?”
“I’m sure I’m not,” she told him. “But I drew the big ones because it’s so easy for me to move in the various Washington circles. I’m known, you see, because of my position with Harmon Keel. I get invited to all the wing-dings. A lot of men who would never risk an association with an honest-to-God prostitute are just so much ripe meat for a discreet affair with a gal like me.” She sat upright and daintily shrugged her shoulders. “You know, men really are quite vulnerable to a routine like mine. I mean, even the greatest men. The Achilles tendon isn’t in the heel, you know. It’s in the.…”
Bolan
said, “Yeah,” wryly, and moved over to stand beside the window.
“It sounds pretty far out, though,” he said musingly, deliberately looking out the window instead of at the girl. “I’m talking about the move against you, now. You sound like a pretty valuable member of the team. I can’t see them rubbing you out, not for simply standing up a date.”
“Well … I guess I did a little more than that,” she replied in a small voice. “I guess I tipped my pigeon to the set-up, then I guess I sent him a file on my other eight victims.”
Bolan said, “Damn!”
She was gazing at him with a demure smile. “Dumb, you mean.”
He met her gaze and replied, “I guess that’s what I meant.”
She said, “Carlo’s goons intercepted the files. You know the rest.”
He growled, “Yeah.”
“Well … where do we go from here?”
“Far away,” he grunted. “You’d better get dressed. And finish your packing, but not too much.”
She slid off the bed and stood there swaying for a moment while capturing her equilibrium, then she began moving briskly about the bedroom, rounding up clothing and tossing it into the bag. This completed, she slipped out of the gown and hastily pulled on silken underthings while Bolan turned studious attention once more to the window.
The parking lot lay directly below.
His feigned interest in the scene down there took on a genuine tone as the woman asked him, “Should I wear something casual?”
“Suit yourself,” he replied. “Just so it’s fast. I believe we have new company.”
She joined him for a quick peek through the drapes, brushing feminine warmth disturbingly into his awareness, then she made a strangled little sound and dodged back away from the window.
Five guys were spilling out of a large car down there. Two were carrying choppers and another was toting a sawed-off shotgun.
He quietly asked the woman, “Did you send for those dudes?”
“God no!” she snapped, outraged by the suggestion.
He believed her, and that presented another huge question.
Washington I.O.U. Page 2