Rizzi, Mr. Natural in a silk dressing gown, appeared at the railing of the upstairs foyer to call down: “Jack! I heard gunshots!”
“It’s the cops,” Santini called back. “Chasing somebody down the street.”
“Could it be him?”
“Sure. It could be Jesus. Also it could be some terrified kid with a hot bag of second-story loot. Play it careful, though, Tommy. Go back inside and lock your door. Is Al up there?”
“No. He went down to get some coffee.”
“Okay. I’ll send him up. You stay put.”
Mr. Natural nodded curtly and returned to his room. He did not like to be talked to that way, and Santini knew it, but Santini also knew that it was the very thing which made him valuable to a punk like Tommy Rizzi. He’d always ordered the guy around, and the guy had always respected him for it. It had been that way from childhood even though Tommy had forever been the smarter of the two. Santini did not understand the deeper psychological ramifications of such a relationship but he did recognize that it was there—and he played his cards accordingly.
He was heading for the kitchen to roust the upstairs man when Rizzi’s door banged open again, almost like a rebound, and the man in mono-grammed silk again appeared at the railing.
This time, he was not alone—and something of the “Natural” look had deserted him.
He was sucking the muzzle of a wicked black pistol and standing there like an immobilized robot, eyes closed, barely breathing, the barrel of that pistol practically buried inside his mouth.
The other guy was big, impressive, cool, in full command. “Don’t even blink hard, Sailor,” he cautioned in a quiet voice that matched everything else.
Santini had seen sketches of what Mack Bolan was supposed to look like—a mere few hours ago he’d studied the latest batch of police composites—but nothing in those sketches had prepared him for the reality of this guy. It wasn’t just the outside looks. There was something that came from inside this guy that you’d never be able to see in a picture, let alone a damn composite sketch. The guy was more than eyes and nose, chin and hairline, ears and cheekbones.
The guy was something more than Jack Santini had ever seen. Reflecting back on that experience, during a more relaxed time, Jack the Sailor would compare Mack Bolan with those ice-peaked mountains out there in the beautiful world. The guy had a stirring effect on the senses.
The vision of that “stirred” Jack Santini into perhaps the first calm of his adult life.
“I’m not blinking, Mr. Bolan,” he replied easily, showing the man the innocent positioning of his hands.
“Call Al out here where I can see him.”
Santini did so, without cuteness, and further cautioning the youngster: “Don’t get heroic, kid. Stay loose, and let’s see what the man has in mind.”
The kid did precisely that, splashing hot coffee down his leg as he stared into that quiet confrontation, apparently not even aware of the scalding.
“What I have in mind,” the man was explaining, “is a short parley with your boss. You get his car and bring it around to the front door. Then you stand there and watch us drive away. Do it cool, and you’ll have him back in time for breakfast. Do it dumb, Sailor, and maybe none of us will be around for chow.”
“The guy’s my meal ticket, Mr. Bolan. I need assurances if I’m going to be cool.”
The big guy showed his teeth in a grimace which may have been a smile. “If I’d wanted his head, Sailor, you’d have never known I was here. It’s a white-flag meet. You know my reputation.”
Sure. The sailor knew all about that.
“Okay. But the kid brings the car around. Uh—the street’s full of cops, you know.”
Those teeth showed again. “They’re chasing east. We’ll avoid them.” Icily glinting eyes fastened on the kid. “Get the car.”
The kid glanced at Santini and hurried outside.
Marvelous, yeah, awesome and beautiful. That guy was something else—and the arm and leg man from ’Frisco was beginning to reassess the place of man in the universe.
They were descending the stairs now. The black auto was now at Rizzi’s ear. He was drooling uncontrollably and looking more unnatural with every step. By the time they reached the lower foyer, Bolan was practically holding the punk upright.
Terrified eyes anchored themselves to the cool stare from Santini. “F’God’s sake, Jack!” the great man burbled.
“It’s okay, Tommy. Be cool, and he won’t hurt you.”
Sailor Jack moved carefully to the door and outside. The mountains were really dazzling, now, dwarfing and flattening everything but the sky itself and making even that seem accessible to the puny men who stood below it all.
The Sailor and the Kid stood at the front bumper with hands pressed to the cold steel of the engine hood as Mr. Natural and Mr. Awesome got into the car.
A moment later, car and all were gone and the young houseman was marveling, “Did you ever see such a guy!”
But Jack the Sailor Santini was looking at the mountains and the big sky. He took his revolver from the shoulder holster and spun the cylinder without looking at it, then put it back away and told the kid: “No. No, I never saw such a guy.”
“What d’ya think? Will he let him go?”
Jack Santini was thinking of retirement … and a cabin up there at the edge of the big sky.
“Huh?” he responded absently to the youngster’s worried query.
“You think Bolan will really let Mr. Rizzi go?”
“Don’t tell me you really care,” the fisherman growled, and went back up the stairs to nowhere.
7: COMING TOGETHER
The guy was about forty, medium height and slightly built, almost handsome, with closely clipped hair and a pencil-line moustache, dark enough to pass for an Arab, scared enough to be mistaken for an ordinary citizen. He sat stiffly against the passenger door, struggling for self-control, never once looking directly into Bolan’s eyes.
The car was a sleek Pontiac with bucket seats, center console. Bolan was at the wheel, cruising slowly through a Littleton residential district.
They’d been underway for ten minutes without a word passing between them. When he thought the tension had built to the breaking point, Bolan pulled to a halt in a deserted shopping center, lit a cigarette, and told his prisoner, “You’re in big trouble, Rizzi.”
“I know that,” the guy muttered. “Can I have one of those?”
Bolan passed him the lighted cigarette and lit another for himself.
“This is your territory—right?”
The mafioso exhaled turbulent gusts of smoke and sighed the reply. “Yeah. Sort of.”
“It is or it isn’t, guy.”
“It is, then.”
“So I have you to thank for the little surprise party last night.”
“I don’t, uh, get you.”
“Sure you do. The party in the hills, the costume ball. Everybody came as soldiers.”
“Look, I don’t know anything about that,” Rizzi protested, too much.
Bolan dropped a marksman’s medal on the console. The guy winced and hastily averted his gaze from that.
“Too bad,” Bolan said coldly. “It was the only value you had to me, guy.”
“Wait. Okay. Maybe I do know something. Are you telling me that’s my way out?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Well, what d’you want?”
“I want Trooper.”
The trapped gaze caromed around the interior of the vehicle, finally coming to rest on the death medal. The voice was desperate and resigned at the same time as Rizzi told the Executioner: “Look, you’ve got me out of my weight. I’m not what you think. All I have here is an office. I’m, uh, a representative. They say do this, I do this—do that, I do that. I’ve got no weight of my own.”
“I don’t want your weight, Rizzi. I want Trooper.”
“That’s what I’m telling you, dammit. I don’t even
know what you’re talking about.”
“Too bad,” Bolan said coldly. “Okay, Rizzi. Pick up the medal and get out.”
The guy’s face drained. He mumbled, “What do you …?”
“Get out!”
“Wait! Now wait! I’m trying to be helpful! But you’ve got to ask sensible questions! I don’t know no Trooper!”
Bolan’s voice had become glazed with ice. “You knew about the surprise party.”
“Yeah. I was told to stay low and stay clear. That’s all. I was told to not get involved. Look, we got a big thing going down near the shale fields, a legit thing. They don’t want any compromise of that. They want me to keep clean. I had nothing to do with that thing last night.”
“But you knew about it.”
“Sure, I told you.”
“Who told you, Rizzi?”
“They told me.”
“Who are they?”
“You know. The men East.”
Bolan said, “Uh huh. Tell me again what they said.”
“They said it was a dead zone and the thing was on. I was to stay out of it. Completely. Out of it.”
“And when did they tell you this?”
“Yesterday. I was having dinner at my club, and I got this call. They said the thing was on. Go home and button up. So I did. I got home a little after seven. And I stayed there all night.”
“You’ve got my interest,” Bolan told him. “Keep going.”
“Well that’s all. I got another call about nine. They said the thing had gone sour. I should stay buttoned up and put out a hard line just to make sure. So we hired some boys for outside security and we sat up all night waiting for further word.”
“None came.”
“That’s right, nothing came. Except you. God’s truth, Bolan, that’s all I know about it.”
Bolan stared at the frightened man for a long moment, then he told him, “Okay, I believe you. What’s this thing about the shale fields?”
Those eyes flattened and went dull. “Oh, hey, that’s nothing you’d be interested in. It’s just a land bang.”
“Going into the oil business, Rizzi?”
“No, hell no. That’s all government land—I mean, the shale itself is. It’s purely a speculation. If they decide to mine those fields, there’ll be a boom down there. We’re just buying up some real estate, perfectly proper business—a simple speculation in real estate values.”
“You have an inside track on the decision to open the fields? Someone in Washington?”
“Aw no, hell no. It’s just commonsense. They’ve got to go after that oil, sooner or later. It’s a clean deal, Bolan.”
“Uh huh. And you never heard of Trooper.”
“God’s truth.”
“How about Jingo Morelli?”
The guy fidgeted, the eyes returning once more to the death medal then bounding away. “Sure, I know Jingo. Cleveland.”
“So what’s he doing in Denver?”
“He, uh—hell, I see the guy once or twice a week. He comes in the club. We have a couple of drinks and talk old times. I have nothing in common with that wiseguy. He’s a button man, always was, always will be.”
“What’s he doing in Denver?”
“Goofing off, I think.”
“He was at the party last night, God’s truth.”
“Uh, well, uh …”
“All of a sudden I’m not feeling so good about you, Rizzi.”
“For God’s sake, what do you want me to do? Hang myself?”
“That’s your decision,” Bolan replied icily. “You can fly now and pay later, bub, and that’s what I’d recommend. But you’d better decide damned quick.”
The guy had gone deathly pale, again. Apparently he’d made his decision—to pay later—and the weight of that decision was doing strange things to him, physically. His hands began to shake and the voice broke as he asked his captor for another cigarette.
Bolan refused the request. “You’ve had your last cigarette from me, guy,” he coldly advised him.
“Okay, look. For God’s sake, don’t ever quote me on this. Those people are after your ass, and they mean to have it.”
“What people?”
“I don’t know, for sure. It’s something big, I know that. Hush-hush, that kind of thing. Jingo tells me they have a thousand boys holed up around here, just waiting for a whack at you.”
“How’d they know I was coming?”
“I don’t know that. Well, maybe I do. Jingo said something once about baiting the trap. A soft bait, he called it. Hey—they’ve been expecting you. Jingo’s been around town for more than a month.”
“Where does he fit?”
“Who would know? To hear him tell it, he’s running the whole damn thing. Which is a bunch of shit, and you know it. Jingo never ran anything in his whole life before.”
“But he runs his mouth.”
“Yeah.”
“What’d he say about these thousand boys?”
“Says they’re hot stuff. Hey, you know, come to think—he did mention once—called ’em attack teams. I got the feeling he was talking about, uh, you know, army guys. Combat troops.” The guy paled even more noticeably. “Aw hell, Bolan—did you ask?—what was that name? I didn’t put it together. Trooper? Did you mean a guy, or …?”
It was a convincing show of confusion. Bolan was feeling better about Rizzi, now, but worse about the intelligence pouring from the guy.
“It’s a code name, Rizzi,” he said coldly. “Put it together.”
“Well, hell, I—maybe that’s it. Yeah, it has to be. Trooper must be the guy in charge of the troops. Right?”
“You tell me.”
“Hell, I don’t know. I’m just guessing.”
The guy was obviously trying desperately to please Bolan, to make him believe. It was a typical situation, and Bolan recognized it. Once the gag comes off, the rush towards truth is almost like a compulsion to get it all out. And, yeah, Bolan was convinced that the guy was cooperating fully now.
“Put it together,” he insisted. “A name dropped, a boast, a swagger—Jingo’s good at that. Anything—a name, a title—put it together.”
“It’s a captain!” Rizzi crowed.
“A what?”
“Jingo says he don’t take no shit off the ‘Captain’! He says the Captain has a broomstick up his ass, but he don’t sweep no crap onto Jingo!”
“Captain who?”
The excitement faded. For the first time, Rizzi’s eyes fell fully onto the cold gaze of the Executioner as he dully told him, “That’s all I have, Bolan. I swear, that’s all I have.”
Bolan believed him. He said, “Pick up the medal and give it to me, Rizzi.”
The guy did so, eyes humble, face composed but drooping now into signs of total exhaustion.
Bolan pocketed the medal as he told the lucky man, “Don’t forget what it looks like, guy. If I decide to come for you again, only your survivors will see it.”
“I appreciate it,” Rizzi muttered. “Don’t worry. You’ll never have to come for me again.”
“Keep it together,” Bolan suggested, almost smiling.
He opened the door and slid outside.
“Take off and don’t look back,” he commanded.
The guy said not a word as he struggled across the console and into the driver’s seat. As he started the engine, though, he poked his head through the window and said, in a friendly tone, “Take a tip, Bolan, and get out of this state. Get out as quick as you can.”
Bolan gave him a solemn wink and watched the vehicle ease away.
The picture was coming together, in Colorado.
And, hell, there was no way out for Mack Bolan.
8: ODDS UP
The streets were coming alive with cops. And the markings on the vehicles revealed the intensity of the hunt. State, county, and city cars were rolling—several cities and more than one county—and those were just the obvious ones. Without a doubt, the word had gone
down, and the net had drawn tightly around Denver’s southwestern corner.
Bolan had the feeling, also, that more than cops were out there prowling those streets.
He’d gone to ground in a prearranged “drop” near Englewood, on Denver’s southern approach. It was a small apartment in a respectable building—one of five which he had carefully selected and rented upon arrival in the area. Each of the widely scattered “retreats” was provisioned for a holding situation—a routine precaution for a man living on the heartbeat, but one which a man like Bolan normally did not expect to actually utilize.
This time, he was thankful for the cautious forethought. The situation here was scary, sure, but it was also intriguing—and he wanted time to unravel the thing before committing himself to a do-or-die bust-out.
He had a hasty meal of scrambled eggs, a quick shower and a change of clothes, then he took his coffee to a pay phone in the lobby of the building to make his scheduled contact with Leo Turrin.
He lit a cigarette and placed the call, then sipped the coffee while counting the rings into that distant connection. The line opened at the proper count and the familiarly gruff voice of his best friend in the world announced, “Yeah, okay, who’s there?”
“Hans Brinker,” Bolan replied. “And I’m skating right at the edge, buddy. Is it clear?”
“Yeah, it’s clear,” Turrin replied, relief flooding that voice. “What are you into?”
“About the second level of hell, I’d say. I guess—”
“Listen, you’ve got to get out of there,” Turrin interrupted. He was Bolan’s ace worrier. This time it was right up front, with no room for other emotions. “That whole area is wired for instant destruct. I helped set you up, Sarge—God-dammit I hate that—they used me just like they used everyone else, just oozing the word out and knowing it would find its level. I should’ve known better, I should’ve—”
“Hey, hey—cut it out,” Bolan said mildly. “What have you got?”
“Sheer hell, that’s what I’ve got. Forget about level two—this time it’s the whole joint, horns and all, and it’s the slickest operation I ever saw. They’ve been putting this thing together for months. I’d have never thought it possible, but they’ve—listen, you’ve got to cut and run. There’s no way you can beat this combination.”
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