Knockdown

by Don Pendleton

  "Except for the tax conviction, Phil has no other criminal record," Coppolo added. "But it's widely believed in New York that he's the man who killed Campy Palermo. And Campy, incidentally, was strangled."

  "'Widely believed, " Bolan repeated. "Who believes it? NYPD?"

  "They don't have evidence," Coppolo said, "so they can't do anything about it. But… Speaking of NYPD, I've got embarrassing news for you. This place, this apartment, is no longer safe. We're going to have to move you. I got what was called a word to the wise from an old buddy, an honest detective with NYPD. It's known that this building is a safehouse, used occasionally by the Justice Department. Somebody at city hall suspects you're sanctioned, no matter how much Hal Brognola denies it, and that same somebody puts two and two together."

  "Great. A politician who can add."

  "Maybe he didn't have to," Joan suggested. "A little scenario — the Barbosas sent somebody to kill you at the motel in New Jersey. Gina shot two hit men, but there might have been other friends of the Family around. Witnesses. Maybe the Barbosas knew you were hurt. In fact, I'd say it's likely they knew it. They guess you've got a federal sanction. So, where would the Feds take a wounded man they wanted to protect?"

  "They don't know you're here," Coppolo said. "But they suspect it."

  "You said a guy at city hall suspects it."

  "The word's spreading. Some guys at Police Plaza suspect it, according to the man who told me. They're not going to raid a federal safehouse, but…" He shrugged. "Every time you go out the door. Or come in…"

  "Somebody's watching."

  "They'd like to collar you," Coppolo added. "But there's a worse problem. If the word has spread this far, then it's spread to the Families, for sure."

  "All of which means I've got to get out of here."

  "We've got another place lined up."

  Bolan shook his head. "I'll find my own place."

  Coppolo, who had continued to pace the floor, frowned hard. "Hal wants you to work with me. Put that another way — he wants you to let me work with you."

  Bolan nodded. "Will do. To start with, you can provide some cash. I'm going to have to pay my own rent, and I hear flats come high in New York."

  "What about me?" Joan asked.

  "I'll be in touch," Bolan promised.

  * * *

  It was time for Phil Corone to feel a little heat. Unless Bolan misjudged what he had heard of Corone, the young man was a hothead who would react with blind anger to any interference in his businesses. Just out of stir, compelled to grab his turf from a pirate, undoubtedly threatened with annihilation by the other Families, who were always voracious, Corone was likely an apprehensive, uptight guy.

  Bolan would find out.

  He didn't shave, and by midday he had a dark shadow all around his jaw. He stopped in a store and bought a hard hat. Since he couldn't stencil on a company name, he bought an American flag sticker for it, plus a black-and-yellow happy smile. He bought a plastic lunch bucket and found that the Beretta and a couple of extra clips of ammo fit snugly inside. Lastly he bought a pair of dark sunglasses.

  What the hell was going on with NYPD? He remembered something a black activist had said in Columbus, Ohio: "If my twelve-year-old can find the pushers on the streets and buy heroin or coke, why can't the cops?" Cocaine was traded on Wall Street almost as openly as stocks.

  But not by the Corone Family. The warrior had made his way into the financial district, and it took only a few minutes of observation to see that. The cocaine and crack trades had been taken over by a new crowd, Latin Americans, whose reputation for viciousness overwhelmed anything known of the Mafia. The Hispanic coke dealers didn't just kill a rival — they killed him and his entire family, women and children included. They, in their turn, were being pushed back by Oriental dealers, who exceeded even them in ferocity.

  The story was — according to Intel — that the Corones still controlled the less lucrative, less stylish trade in heroin, amphetamines, hash and marijuana. If you hunted, you could find these no-longer-chic substances from dealers who worked around the edges. If you wanted what the upscale crowd wanted — the Wall Street brokers and young lawyers, the showbiz hangers-on, the insecure people who would do anything to be au courant — you dealt with the Colombians.

  "Got the bes', man. Got the bes'."

  That was the approach.

  Bolan turned toward the slight little man with the heavy accent. "Best what?"

  The man grinned, showing a mouthful of black, jagged teeth. "Y' know." He laughed. "Nothin' but the bes'. The bes'. No shit, man."

  "South American."

  "What else?"

  "I got a habit for something else," Bolan said.

  The dealer shook his head. "Man, what you talkin' 'bout kills guys. What I got… pure happiness!"

  Bolan had been rolling a ten-dollar bill in his pocket. He slipped it into the man's hand, still holding tightly to one end. "That's yours if you show me where I get my kind of happiness." Then he pulled the bill back.

  "You die on that stuff, man."

  "I'll die on yours, too. Let me die my way."

  The dealer filled himself slowly with breath. "See the chick?" He nodded toward a young woman who stood in the street as if she were trying to hail a cab. "She's it."

  "Who's she work for?"

  The man shrank back. "What you? Narc?"

  "If I was, you'd be in deep right now. No way, buddy. I just want to know how good the stuff is. Like, is she connected to the Corones?"

  "Never heard the name."

  "Ten bucks more. You heard the name?"

  "Ten bucks more an' I heard the name Ed Koch, man."

  Bolan shoved the ten back into the man's hand, then reached in his pocket for another. "I want good stuff," he said. "No powdered milk. No rat poison. The Corones sell…"

  "Powdered milk and rat poison, man. When they short of the real stuff. But that chick — Gimme the other ten."

  Bolan handed over the money.

  "You can get the right stuff from her, most of the time. Tell her you're a friend of Hog's."

  "Hog?"

  The little man nodded. "Porcelino. Tell her Hog'll slice her from bottom up if she sells you powdered milk or rat poison."

  "What's her name?"

  The man glanced at the young woman. "They call her Rose. Never heard another name."

  "Okay. Now I got a name for you."

  "Huh?"

  "Your name is history unless you move to another street for the next half hour. I don't want you around making signals. Understand?"

  The dealer man stared briefly at Bolan, saw menace in the set of his jaw even though he couldn't see his eyes behind the sunglasses and decided to move. He waved and strode off.

  Bolan approached the woman.

  "Rose."

  Her head jerked around. "Who?"

  "Hog sent me. He told me to tell you there're Feds working the street. Narcs. Said you and I should go have a beer for a little while."

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "The name's Dan. I work for Phil."

  He opened the red nylon jacket enough for her to see the Beretta. The sight of iron hanging in a man's armpit usually made a firm impression — in this case the impression that the man did probably work for Phil Corone — and Rose concluded that he was a coworker in the street-drugs vineyard. She accepted his suggestion that they go to a neighborhood bar for beer.

  "Never saw you around before," she said when they were seated side by side at the bar in a small, dark tavern. "You don't work for Hog, do you?"

  "Directly for Phil," Bolan replied. "I'm another one of the new guys. Me, I'm down from Providence. Lucky DeMaioribus sent me down to help Phil put things together."

  "Well, I heard about that — I mean, I heard some out-of-town guys were here to help. A gal, too — the one that knocked off Mike Grieco." She frowned. "Dan… You're kidding me."

  He grinned and shrugged.

  "Hey, wait a min
ute! You… They ever call you Johnny?"

  Bolan raised his beer to his lips. "A guy gets called lots of names."

  "Hey… What the hell you doin'? Why the hard-hat disguise? Hog never sent you. You don't work for Phil. I know who you are. You're Johnny DePrisco!"

  Bolan didn't know who Johnny DePrisco was. He couldn't guess what she had in mind. But there might be something to be learned here. He'd play her game and see what he could find out.

  "Hey, I'm right, aren't I?" she insisted. "You're Johnny DePrisco!"

  "Drink your beer," he said. It wasn't a denial. Maybe it would keep her talking.

  "Why you come tell me there are narcs around? Why you tell me Hog sent you?"

  "How's Hog treat you?" he asked. Marks on her face suggested that somebody didn't treat her well.

  "Hey, why you wanna know?"

  "Just curious."

  "You thinking of taking over Hog's turf, forget it. Even if you are DePrisco. You got a rep, but you don't know Hog. I'm not sure even Phil could…" She jerked her chin up and stopped. "Never mind. Yeah, Phil… I mean, whatever Phil wants. Since he's back, he's the man."

  Bolan studied the tracks on her arms. She used what she sold.

  She saw him looking. "Sure," she said quietly. "It's my life. My whole life. I don't much care about anything else. Yeah, Hog treats me okay."

  "Who broke your lip?" Bolan asked coldly, nodding at her split lip.

  "Okay, the guy has a way of making his points. But he keeps me supplied. I make a little scratch, too — what pays for my room and like that. I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for Hog."

  She'd been pretty once. Now… Besides the tracks on her arms, her addiction was evident on her face, in her body. She was emaciated. She looked like a bag of jelly held in the shape of a human body by her skin. Her complexion, which had been golden brown once, was the dead color of unfinished leather. She wore tattoos on her arms, on the exposed tops of her breasts and probably other places. The swelling of her lip was ugly and had to be painful.

  "How much business does Hog do?" Bolan asked.

  "Hey, Johnny," she said, "take my advice. Don't mess around with Hog Porcelino. Don't even let it get told that you ask too many questions about him. The only guys he's afraid of are the Spics, and he's wasted half a dozen of them."

  Bolan didn't believe that. If Porcelino had in fact wasted any of the Colombians, the turf war would have been fierce. This girl wouldn't have been working the same block with the little Hispanic who'd pointed her out; she'd be dead if she ventured near the place. No, Hog had made a truce with the Colombians. He didn't venture into their trade, and they left him alone with his. A truce like that would last until somebody got greedy. Not a minute longer.

  "Tough guy, huh?" Bolan scoffed.

  Rose nodded. "One tough mother. Some think he's the guy who put out the contract on Mike Grieco." She shrugged. "Figures. You know? I mean, he was the old man's guy, and it figured he'd be Phil's. Grieco's guys were punks, you know what I mean? I know Hog, and I'd take a bet he's the guy that got the gal to take out Mike Grieco. So Phil owes him one, Johnny. And so do I, and I can't change anything about my life unless… Well, unless you was to offer somethin'. You know what I mean. I mean, a different place, different…" She shook her head, a picture of hopelessness, helplessness.

  "Sure," he said. "Something to think about." He shoved a five-dollar bill on the bar. "That'll take care of the beer. Give it another thirty minutes before you go back out. My best to Hog. Tell him I'll be seeing him around."

  * * *

  Bolan stood in a doorway half a block from Rose, watching her work. Some people pulled up in cars, others approached her from the sidewalk. She took her merchandise from her voluminous purse, then she stuffed in cash.

  Finally Porcelino showed up in a silver-gray BMW. He was an obese, sweating man in white pants and a loud sport jacket. He double-parked his car and got out to stand on the street to talk with Rose. When a cab driver blasted his horn in complaint about the BMW blocking the street, Porcelino shot him a finger. At the same time, a thin, pallid bodyguard got out of the car. The cabbie backed up and swung out into the left lane to get past.

  Bolan walked along the sidewalk toward Porcelino. As he got closer, he could see very clearly what the man was doing — as could any cop or narc who chose to look. He took the cash from Rose's bag, then reached into the back seat of the BMW and took out a briefcase. He opened it and began to count packages and drop them in her bag.

  Bolan stepped between two parked cars and paused to take the silenced Beretta from his lunch box.

  The bodyguard was inside the BMW again. The raucous sound of the music he was playing on the car radio was audible on the street, even though the windows were closed for the air-conditioning.

  Bolan could hear Rose pleading, but to no avail. Porcelino slapped her hard across the mouth. Her split lip broke open, and blood streamed down over her chin. She wept and shook her head.

  "Whore," Porcelino grunted.

  Then he noticed Bolan. What he noticed, actually, was a man who was offending him by standing too close. Hog Porcelino was territorial; he disliked having any man move within a certain, vaguely defined distance of him. When someone did, he bristled. Now he jerked his head around and glared at the idiot in the big aviator's sunglasses.

  Then he saw the Beretta. His eyes bulged, and his jaw dropped. He knew. A heartbeat later he was clawing inside his jacket for hardware.

  Two muffled thumps were barely audible as 9 mm slugs bored through flesh and bone. The dealer slumped back against the BMW and slowly slid to the pavement.

  Rose didn't scream — she stood petrified with fear. She was already crying, and only cried a little louder.

  As Bolan walked away she pounded on the car, and the bodyguard got out — irritated to have to enter the heat and dust of the street again — and came around the car. He was too late. The man he had been hired to protect lay on the street, blood streaming from his chest.

  A crowd began to form.

  "Hog…" someone muttered. "Too damned bad, hmm?"

  The bodyguard glared at Rose.

  "Johnny DePrisco," she wept.

  Chapter Ten

  "Who's Johnny DePrisco?" Bolan asked Joe Coppolo.

  "One of Segesta's capos," Joe answered. "A coming man, they say. Tough, smart and good-looking, too."

  "Somebody mistook me for him this afternoon."

  Joe frowned, then grinned. "Okay. So maybe he's not that good-looking. He has a reputation as a guy who gives people just one demand, just one warning, then…"

  "Hog Porcelino had a little accident this afternoon. Some people might think DePrisco arranged it."

  The two men sat at a lunch counter on Hudson Street. Bolan had called Joe and told him he could meet him there for coffee.

  "Porcelino? You get around."

  "The only witness — in fact the woman who fingered Porcelino for me — got the idea I was DePrisco, and I let her think so. If Phil Corone thinks one of Segesta's capos hit Hog Porcelino, it's a bonus."

  "You're right about that," Joe agreed.

  "Give me a rundown on the Segesta Family."

  "In some parts of town the Segestas collect a 'tax' on every shipment that moves by truck, every consignment of merchandise that's delivered. They've got books, a couple of really big crap games usually going and some prostitution. Cleaning services, trash hauling, restaurant supplies. Oh, another thing. They're big on credit cards. They've got a team of muggers that lifts them off citizens. Then they're altered and sold. The credit-card companies have gotten pretty good at making cards that can't be forged, but the Segestas are just as good at changing the names and numbers on stolen cards."

  "DePrisco?"

  "On his turf, if you run a restaurant, you buy meat from DePrisco, bread from DePrisco, vegetables from DePrisco, and DePrisco's people clean your kitchen. You mightn't be able to serve the food you buy from DePrisco, but it's cheaper to buy from him
, use what you can and supplement it than to pay what it's going to cost you to defy him. Also, your kitchen mightn't be particularly clean, but it will always pass city inspection. Johnny DePrisco guarantees that. Your best customers can park in front of your place, or double-park, or just abandon a car in the middle of the street. Johnny takes care of that. And you won't have a fire. He promises."

  Coppolo nodded toward a newspaper recently left on the counter by a man who had come in for a sandwich. The front page carried a large photo of the body of Hog Porcelino lying on the street. The headline read:

  GANG HIT! BYE-BYE HOG!

  HEROIN DROUGHT FORECAST

  "Gang hit…" Coppolo mused. "You might have started a war, man."

  Bolan shrugged. "Let them do a little of the work."

  * * *

  "All I want to know," Phil Corone growled, "is why you were talking to Johnny DePrisco. Why did Johnny buy you a beer?"

  "Man, he just come up to me on the street. Said his name was Dan and he worked for you. Said Hog told him to get me off the street for a while 'cause some narcs was comin'. And that's the truth!"

  Phil slapped Rose hard across the face. She stifled a scream, bent over and began to sob uncontrollably.

  They had bound her to a chair, simply by fastening a wide belt around her and the chair back, with the buckle behind. She couldn't rise, but the belt would leave no marks on her.

  Phil sat down facing her and mock-casually brandished his lighted cigarette close to her face. Her gaze followed the movements of the orange fire on the tip of the cigarette as he fluttered it back and forth in front of her, not more than an inch from her left eye.

  "Rose, you're not stupid. What'd he want?"

  "He said… He asked me how Hog treated me — I mean, like he wanted to take over Hog's territory. I told him. Hey, man, you can't do that. I told him Hog's a tough guy, works for you, Mr. Corone."