People nodded at him as he strolled along the walk toward the steps that led down over the terrace to the street. His eyes met those of his bodyguard, who winked. Wink… Why did he wink?
The bodyguard's knees buckled and he slipped quietly to the stones of the walk. Luca Barbosa froze with knowledge and fear. Then he felt the first slug drilling into his chest. He opened his mouth to scream, but his throat was full of blood. A second slug hit home, quietly.
A tall woman in a black dress shrieked. She continued to shriek as people ran to Barbosa and knelt over him. The priest ran down the steps of the church. After a minute they realized that Mr. Barbosa hadn't suffered a heart attack but was bleeding from bullet wounds. Then others screamed. They realized another man had fallen. And finally they realized that the woman who had shrieked was gone. Where? No one knew. Just gone.
* * *
Marco Napolitani liked to spend his Sunday afternoons at Luciano's, where he would sit at one of the back tables, drink wine and play cards with his friends. He was a Barbosa capo, but he was all but retired. His business had been drugs, ail kinds, which he had sold through pushers who worked the streets and reaped a weekly take big enough to make Marco a very rich man. He was out of that business now. Others had muscled in on it. What he did mostly now was lend money. He had a couple of legbreakers to collect for him, and he did all right, without much hassle.
Don Barbosa had called him for a sitdown yesterday afternoon to talk about what had happened to Lentini and Corone. The don thought Bolan was responsible. Bolan — just a name for everything that went wrong. A myth. Like Santa Claus. What was really wrong was that somebody was making war. It was the old story. It happened from time to time.
"Marco."
He looked up from his game of cards. Jackie, one of his breakers, had come in — a reliable young man, invariably well dressed, like a Wall Street broker. He was tossing his head significantly, meaning he had something to say. Napolitani sighed and got up.
Jackie spoke under his breath. "Don Barbosa's been whacked. I got it off the radio."
Marco Napolitani was sixty years old, still a powerful man, but the news of the death of Luca Barbosa staggered him — he gasped. He walked out of Luciano's into the sunshine of a summer afternoon. He stood there, blinking, full of thoughts. He hardly noticed the cab that pulled away from the curb down the street and approached him. He didn't see the shotgun protruding from (he rear window, and he didn't hear the blast.
Augie Karas tossed the sawed-off shotgun on the floor of the car and shoved it under the back seat.
"Nice work, man," said the driver, "Sandy Mac" McMahon. "Like you did it every day of your life."
"With the new boss-woman calling the shots, we may be doing it every day," Augie said quietly.
* * *
None of the members of the Commission had left New York. By noon on Sunday they were again in Joe Rossi's apartment on East Seventy-second Street, ringed around the bullet-shattered table where they'd been sitting last night. DiRenzo's right arm rested in a sling.
Rossi had hurried the three dons to the roof the previous night. They had scrambled down a fire escape on the rear of the building, to a service alley at the rear. They'd been away from Seventy-second Street long before Bolan and Coppolo.
Rossi and Eva had insisted to the police that they'd been dining alone when two men burst into the dining room and started shooting. The maid who had served their dinner confirmed it — there had been no one else in the apartment. The detectives had been skeptical, but half an hour after the first of them arrived, a captain from downtown joined them. After he arrived, the detectives dropped the question of how many people had been at the table. If Mr. Rossi said only two, that was how it was.
Eva knocked on the door, then entered. She told Rossi there was a telephone call for him. The instrument in the dining room had been shattered by a bullet, so he went to the living room to take the call. Then he rejoined the others.
"Gentlemen, I have bad news. Very bad news. Luca Barbosa has been killed."
Peter DiRenzo slammed his fist down on the table, spilling coffee. "New York is out of control!" he yelled.
Lucky DeMaioribus spoke quietly, in the voice ravaged by decades of heavy smoking. "It seems to be true. Lentini, Corone and now Barbosa. Even we, even in your house, aren't safe."
"That was Bolan last night," Rossi said.
"Was it Bolan who killed Barbosa?" Vincenti Sestola asked.
"They say it was a woman."
DeMaioribus frowned. "Your hitter, Joe?"
Rossi shook his head.
The three older men exchanged glances. Then their eyes, hard with accusation, settled on Rossi.
"Lentini, Corone, Barbosa," DeMaioribus said. "I think I would be very cautious if I were Alfredo Segesta."
* * *
The same thought had occurred to Segesta. If it hadn't, it would have been impressed on him by a visitor who arrived at his Staten Island home late in the afternoon.
"Rossi!" Angela Corone spit. "Not Bolan!"
Johnny DePrisco was there, too. He nodded emphatically, agreeing with Angela.
"War," Segesta muttered. "Johnny, call Samenza. He'll have to speak for the Lentinis. And who now speaks for the Barbosa Family? Napolitani?"
"No, not Napolitani," Angela Corone said. "I'm taking over the Barbosa Family."
"Oh? Just like that?"
"With your kind consent, Don Segesta," she murmured with a wry little smile. "And you will take over the Lentini businesses. Samenza will agree to it."
Segesta shrugged. "Who is there to deny us?" he asked.
"Only Rossi."
DePrisco raised his chin high. "And Bolan."
* * *
Mack Bolan and Joe Coppolo sat at a window table in a small, quiet Hungarian restaurant on East Seventy-second Street. Though it was on the corner of York Avenue a block away from the Rossi apartment at the far end of the street, the restaurant afforded them a good view of the traffic that entered the cul-de-sac and had to slow and turn around.
They were unsure of what they could accomplish sitting there. At best, if they had the kind of luck that almost never happened, they might spot Salina Beaudreau. At worst they would snack on savory Hungarian food and sip at a glass of Hungarian wine.
"I know the guy in the light blue Ford," Joe said, nodding toward a man sitting in a car on the opposite side of the street and halfway to the end. "His name's Rocco. Ex-cop. He's on the staff of the Organized Crime Task Force."
"Would he know you if he got a close look at you?"
Joe shook his head. "What do you think? I doubt my mother would know me — God forbid she should see me in this dress. As far as I can tell, the guy's the only stakeout on the street. He'll be taking pictures of everyone who goes in or out of that building."
"There's the Caddy with the Rhode Island plates," Bolan said. "Nobody in it."
"You don't suppose…"
"That the three old men are in the Rossi apartment again? If they are, they've got plenty to talk about."
Radio and television newscasts were full of talk about two more "gangland executions." Luca Barbosa was described in such terms as "reputed mobster" and "Mafia kingpin," while Marco Napolitani was called a "high-ranking mafioso." The broadcasters talked about a gang war erupting in the city.
As they watched, a taxi pulled up in front of the apartment building. The man in the blue Ford stirred himself. He leveled a fat telephoto lens and began shooting film. Two men got out of the cab. One was elaborately deferential to the other, and both of them hurried into the building.
* * *
The new arrival was Gaspare Nicolosi, from Los Angeles, a fifth member of the Commission.
Eva knew who he was. He had visited her father in Brazil. She offered her hand, murmuring, "You do our household great honor, Don Nicolosi."
The white-haired don turned over Eva's hand and kissed her palm — a far more intimate greeting than simply kissing the back
of a hand. It was a gesture pregnant with meaning.
The dining-room door swung open, and Joe Rossi came out, arms wide, to embrace the Los Angeles godfather. "Thank God you're here," he whispered. "The others are…" He shook his head grimly. Don Nicolosi would take his meaning from the omitted words. "And thank you for coming so far."
Nicolosi hadn't flown in from Los Angeles. He'd been enjoying the clean, cool air of the Maine coast. Rossi's call had reached him not long after noon, and he had taken a private plane to Boston, then an airline flight to New York.
Don Gaspare Nicolosi was a tall, muscular man. He moved with the self-confidence of an athlete, obviously aware that his was a commanding presence. His hair was thick but white, and his tanned face was deeply lined. At sixty-two he remained the handsome man he had always been. If there was a flaw in his appearance, it was in his hazel eyes, which exuded a threat of ruthless cruelty.
Rossi admired Nicolosi. There weren't five different Families in Los Angeles, only the Nicolosi Family, and Don Gaspare Nicolosi answered to no one.
He walked into the dining room, where his appearance was a surprise to DeMaioribus, Sestola and DiRenzo.
They understood why he had come. Since they had received word of the death of Barbosa and Napolitani, they had been putting severe pressure on Rossi. DeMaioribus had in fact accused him of breaking the peace in New York, of an ambition to take command of the city, and it had been distressing to Rossi to hear his own secret thoughts issue from the mouths of three angry old men. Rossi had somehow thrown a rock on his side of the scales. The Commission had twelve members. By no means were they equal. The Los Angeles don commanded ten times what the Providence don could command. Ten times? Fifty times.
Don Nicolosi sat down at the table. With a quick sweep of his eyes he took notice of the bullet scars. His eyes stopped no longer on DiRenzo's wound.
"New York is in chaos," DeMaioribus stated.
Nicolosi shrugged. "Sometimes we have to shake out a town."
"Never," Peter DiRenzo said firmly, "has all of New York been controlled by one family."
"Los Angeles is controlled by one family," Nicolosi replied. "Chicago, Miami, Boston, Philadelphia. But, anyway, who says New York is to be controlled by one family?"
"The heads of three families are dead," Sestola said soberly.
"Lentini," Nicolosi said. "That's too bad. He was a good man. Phil Corone…" He shrugged. "Which of you will deny it was good riddance? And as for Luca Barbosa, he has for a long time refused to enter the twentieth century. Or its final decades, anyway." Nicolosi paused and frowned. "This woman, Angela Corone. She must be disposed of."
"Don Rossi has the hitter who can do it, I think," DiRenzo sneered.
"The hitter who took out Luca Barbosa and Phil Corone," DeMaioribus muttered.
"But not Don Lentini," Rossi said. "I swear it. And not Marco Napolitani. Somebody else… Bolan."
"If one man," Nicolosi pronounced, "is strong enough to restore the peace, then let him restore it."
"And what of Bolan?" Sestola asked.
Nicolosi settled his cold eyes on Rossi. "Let him solve that problem, too."
* * *
A blue-and-white police car turned off York Avenue and onto Seventy-second. It cruised slowly down the block, turned at the end and cruised back again.
"The precinct isn't too interested," Joe said. "One car. No stakeout."
"It's a big city to cover," Bolan replied.
Joe shook his head. "That's the Commission meeting in there. They know it, too. They have to know it."
Bolan took the check from the waiter in the little restaurant and counted out the amount, adding a tip. They had sat as long as they could at the window table, and now they stepped out on the street. They walked along slowly, still playing the roles of a businessman and his woman. The scene hadn't changed. At the end of the street they stood for a minute or two and looked down on FDR Drive and the East River.
"Look at the Caddy." Coppolo pointed at the vehicle.
Bolan glanced at the car with the Rhode Island plates. No one had been in it before. Now a man sat behind the wheel, smoking a cigarette and scanning a tabloid newspaper.
A cab turned into the street.
Bolan and the Justice agent walked back along the north side of the street. Another cab turned in.
A man appeared in the door of the apartment building — an old man, shrunken and gray. He stood alone for a moment looking around, and then the man in the Rhode Island Cadillac hurried toward him.
"That figures," said Bolan. "Lucky DeMaioribus, Providence."
Three more men appeared in the doorway. One of them trotted down the steps and spoke to the driver of the first cab. One of the two men at the door was tall, white haired, ominous. "Nicolosi," Bolan tagged him. "Los Angeles."
"The big guns."
"Very big."
Nicolosi snapped his fingers. The man standing by the cab heard the sound — apparently he was alert to it — and trotted back toward the doorway. Nicolosi pointed at the blue Ford halfway up the street, where Rocco held the small camera with the big lens to his face, aiming it at the door of the apartment building. Nicolosi's man strode toward the Ford.
"Uh-oh," Joe grunted.
He grabbed the Browning out of his shoulder bag and shoved it under his jacket. Before Bolan could stop him, he walked across the street toward the Ford.
Nicolosi's man was direct. He opened the door of the Ford and grabbed the camera out of Rocco's hands. Rocco, who was a big enough man to defend himself and his camera, had been so intent on what he saw through his viewfinder that he hadn't noticed the hood approaching. Before he really knew what was happening, his camera was gone, and the man outside the car was smashing it on the sidewalk.
Rocco scrambled out of the car. Nicolosi's man was busy smashing the camera and didn't see the heavy fist driving toward his ear. It hit him, and he staggered back and slumped against the wall of a building. He blinked and shook his head, and then his hand went inside his coat and came out with a stubby revolver in his grip.
Nicolosi's man aimed at Rocco, but a 9 mm slug from Joe Coppolo's Browning flopped him on his back before he could pull the trigger.
On the steps of the apartment building, DeMaioribus's man shoved him roughly inside the lobby, out of danger. Then he ran back out, pistol in hand, and spread his legs to take aim on the little woman who had just blown away Nicolosi's bodyguard. Bolan's shot took him in the upper chest, and he fell to his knees, then toppled down the steps.
Don Gaspare Nicolosi stood almost calmly, analyzing the situation. He identified his adversaries — a tall, dark-haired man, a slight woman, possibly also the cameraman, who maybe wasn't a newspaper photographer after all.
They all talked of Bolan. Maybe this was Bolan — the man across the street, the tall, well-built fellow, a handsome man. For a moment Nicolosi let his eyes meet that man's, and he knew it was Mack Bolan. There he was, The Executioner, the man so widely feared. Nicolosi extended his arms to both sides. He had no weapon. He never carried iron. He let Bolan see that he wasn't going for a pistol, then he nodded and smiled. Faintly.
He wasn't surprised that Bolan didn't return the smile. But he returned the nod.
* * *
It was a fine line. Bolan could have leveled the Beretta on Don Gaspare Nicolosi and probably done a major service for humanity. But he had never heard anything of Nicolosi that definitely made him deserving of the death penalty.
For the moment, Bolan and Nicolosi shared an interest — in getting out of there as quickly as possible.
The Los Angeles don wouldn't take one of the taxis. That could identify him as having been at the scene of the shooting. He walked up the middle of the street, between Bolan and Coppolo, keeping his eyes fixed ahead as if he didn't see them.
Coppolo crossed to where Bolan waited for him. He nodded at Nicolosi, and Bolan shook his head. They followed the don up the street. He continued on Seventy-second Street, acr
oss York Avenue. They turned north on York.
* * *
Ned McGrory, Assistant Police Commissioner, sat over dinner with Councilman James Benoit. Benoit favored Italian food, and the restaurant was in Little Italy.
"Heat! Man, you don't know what heat is!" McGrory complained. "We've got two cars stationed permanently on Seventy-second east of York — I mean, permanently. You got any idea who lives in that building, besides Rossi? Prominent people, and they want Rossi arrested, indicted, sent to Attica, something — Anything to get him out of their building.
The major can't take a nap but they call! The Commissioner… Me. Heat, man. Heat."
The fat, florid politician pushed pasta into his mouth. "There will be no more envelopes from Chickie Asman," he said. "He's out of business. We couldn't save him once that Seventh Avenue job hit the newspapers. There's just so much you can do, you know. Asman Construction couldn't build a chicken coop in the City of New York right now."
"That was Bolan on Seventy-second Street last night and this afternoon."
"Well? What are you guys doing about him?"
McGrory sipped wine. "Everything we can do. Every cop in the city is looking for him. But…"
"But? But what?"
"The guy just disappears."
"What about Coppolo?"
"Gone. Disappeared. He's a Fed, and I have a feeling he's been called out of town."
"Well, Bolan's not out of town," Benoit complained through a mouthful of pasta. "He's here, and you guys aren't…"
"There's a limit," McGrory interrupted. "NYPD can't declare war on Bolan and literally put every man on him and nothing else."
"He's destroying us," Benoit said. "There's a war among the Five Families, which I bet you he started."
"I'd shoot the SOB myself," McGrory said, "but I don't even know what he looks like."
Benoit put down his fork and focused his eyes soberly on the assistant commissioner. "Asman Construction is ruined. What happened there can happen to half a dozen others. Lentini is dead, Corone is dead, Barbosa is dead. Every damned thing can dry up, my friend. Every damned thing. I mean, Ned, do you want to live on the salary of an assistant commissioner of police? Do I want to live on the salary of a councilman? The idiot mayor lives on his city salary and pronounces himself happy."
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