Tennessee Smash

by Don Pendleton

  Bolan shook the question away and focused his mind on the positive aspects. There were one or two of those, sure.

  “There it is, soldier,” Grimaldi said suddenly. “Three o’clock horizon.”

  So there it was. A line of buildings nestled atop a wooded ridge, pastures flowing to lower elevations at either side and serving as buffer zones, lots of fencing to augment the natural barriers.

  Hellgrounds, yeah.

  The pilot sighed. “Last chance to change your mind.”

  “Go straight in,” Bolan instructed. “Set down on the pad. I go out, you go up. Just like that.”

  “And I come back in an hour,” Grimaldi growled.

  “Precisely one hour. But you don’t land unless you get a beep.”

  “Suppose your radio is not working?”

  “Then neither am I,” Bolan replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “No beep, no landing. You return to Nashville. And call off the play.”

  “What do I tell them?”

  “Tell them the side’s retired. One hit, no runs, one man left on.”

  “That’s a hell of a way to put it. So then what do I do?”

  “Then you go home, Jack. With my blessings.”

  “Bullshit, I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I. What’s that have to do with anything?”

  “They’re liable to hit you even if they buy you. Think of that?”

  “Thanks, I’ve been trying not to.”

  “We can still scrub.”

  “It’s not a scrub. It’s a go. So let’s go.”

  They went. Grimaldi flew a beeline in gradual descent and put her down on the little raised area of rear lawn. Not a head was showing anywhere back there.

  “Go get ’em, tiger,” the pilot said tautly.

  Bolan gripped the firm hand as he muttered, “Way to go,” and stepped to the ground.

  The chopper lifted away as soon as he moved into the clear.

  The lawn was thick, luxurious, well tended. Tennis court, left—fancy aquatic gardens, right. The sprawling ranchstyle house was ultramodern with plenty of glass and stone—huge, elegant.

  Hellgrounds for sure, though.

  Bolan produced a slim gold case from a breast pocket and extracted a long brown cigarillo as he casually studied the layout. He could feel the invisible force of eyes upon him. But no one was showing himself. He lit the cigarillo and wandered across the lawn toward the house.

  And he knew exactly how Daniel had felt, in the den of lions.

  The big man who stepped from the helicopter had headshed etched into him. It wasn’t just the handtailored threads and flashy good looks but something more subtle, some quiet essence that whispered power instead of yelling it, an aura of self confidence and absolute control.

  “Wonder what he wants,” Copa murmured as he handed the glasses to his head cock.

  “Recognize him?” Mazzarelli asked as he raised the binoculars to his eyes.

  “Only the type. You?”

  “Never seen ’im,” the head cock decided, after a long scrutiny. “Not with that face, anyway. But you’re right. That’s what he is. What nerve. I hear it’s open season on those guys.”

  “Not officially,” Copa said. “Not yet, anyway.” He took back the glasses and again trained them on the visitor. “Like to try him?”

  Mazzarelli chuckled coldly. “Not without good reason. I got no beef with those guys. Never hurt me none.”

  “Then maybe you’d better make him feel welcome.” Copa lowered the glasses and sighed, the face settling into lines of displeasure. “Wonder what the hell he wants.”

  “A free meal, maybe,” said Mazzarelli. He took a small radio from a waist clip and passed a guarded all-clear to his troops. “Bring him in, boys. And handle with care.”

  Copa watched the reception then turned away from the window and pressed a button on the desk intercom. An instant response came from the house cock.

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “You heard the chopper, Lenny. Looks like we got company from New York. One guy. Set up the garden patio. Let’s make it, uh, Tia Maria and something light, just some munchies—you know. Uh, let’s put a couple of the hottest pretties in the pool. Tell them to look stunning and keep quiet. And tell Mrs. Copa she’ll join us in ten minutes. That is exactly ten minutes from right now. Hop to it.”

  One of Mazzarelli’s boys was at the door of the study a moment later. He wordlessly passed through a small leather ID wallet. Mazzarelli took a quick look and tossed it on to his boss. “You were right,” he commented sourly. “You ever see one of those before?”

  “What is it?” Copa asked, instead of looking at the ID.

  “It’s a Black Ace. Funny. All these years and it’s the first I seen.”

  “Don’t feel bad about that.” Copa muttered. He opened the wallet and peered at the elegantly embossed and plasticized playing card encased there. “Ace of Spades, Gordy. It’s a death card.”

  “Wonder what the hell he wants here.”

  “So do I.”

  “Maybe you better call.”

  “Damn right I’m going to call,” Copa replied anxiously. He produced a ring of keys and fitted one into a large drawer of the desk, opened the drawer, and lifted out a “funny phone” which he set delicately down on the desk.

  Mazzarelli growled, “You want me to go out and—?”

  “No, not yet. Let’s confirm this hot ass first.”

  The Boss of Nashville donned reading glasses and consulted a small notebook which he withdrew from the base of the telephone. Then he lifted the phone and punched up a long combination on the relay diffuser. Thirty seconds later he had his roundabout connection into New York—via Atlanta, Dallas, Denver and Boston.

  The greeting had the metallic resonance which he had come to associate with the scrambler lines. “Headshed.”

  “Area Three here,” he responded. “I need a playing card confirmation.”

  “Hold it.”

  Another instrument clicked into the line almost instantly and a different voice announced, “Field Bureau.”

  “Yeah. Area Three, here. This is Highroller. I want a make on a black card.”

  “What’s the number, sir?”

  “Who am I talking to?”

  “This is Auditor, sir.”

  “Okay. This is in Spades. It’s zero two, dash, zero two, dash, one one one.”

  “That’s a Full House, sir. I can’t give you that. I’ll have to pass you higher.”

  “Do it, then, damnit, and snap it up. I got the man waiting.”

  “One moment, please.”

  Copa covered the transmitter with his fingers and asked his head cock, “What’s a Full House?”

  “You mean …?” Mazzarelli’s gaze flicked toward the door. “Beats me. Sounds like a high hand, though.”

  “Right.” Copa fidgeted and shook the telephone angrily, muttering, “Goddamn bureaucratic bullshit. I never saw such—you better take the man to the garden, Gordy. But watch him. Treat him with respect, but watch him. It may take awhile to check this out.”

  Mazzarelli nodded his understanding and went quickly out to greet the visitor.

  Copa waited and fumed at the silent telephone, staring at the “calling card” until his eyes glazed with the effort. At this particular time, an Ace of Spades was bad enough. A Full House sounded even more ominous—and he wanted none of it whatever it meant.

  Mazzarelli was right, though. The commissione’s Aces had fallen onto hard times. They had been all but repudiated by the surviving council of bosses, following the unbelievable fiasco in New York which had crumbled the Marinello empire. Now these hotasses were under tight leashes from their headshed and it was being told around that many of them dared not venture away from the New York area. A lot of wiseguys around the world were holding hot bags of hate for the former untouchables. Several of them had been hit in recent weeks, or so the stories went.

  Like Mazzarelli, Nick Copa had no particular rea
son to dislike the Aces. The guys had done a hell of a job during a damn tough period. They’d kept the families from slaughtering one another, and they’d brought a stability to an organization which by its very nature was patently unstable. Copa gave them all due credit for that. And he had no reason to hate them.

  He also, however, had no particular reason not to hit them—if any got in his way.

  And that went for Full Houses, too.

  CHAPTER 10

  NUANCES

  It was a strange world, this world of Mafia. As with most secret societies, it was held together by a rather rigid social structure and governed by quiet ritual. Custom and tradition were therefore important elements and tended to persist long beyond practical usage. It was this understanding of Mafia mind in which Bolan was investing his own strange game. He knew that the Aces had become an endangered species—thanks chiefly to his own destructive penetration of their ranks. They had constituted an elite force—a secret society within the secret society—with virtually unlimited power and authority in the internal affairs of the Mafia nation. They had been, in effect, a sort of gestapo. And it was a tailormade setup for a guy like Mack Bolan.

  He had been walking quietly among them since the third campaign of his war against the Mafia, taking on their camouflage when the “need versus risk” factor seemed to be in balance. It was not, however, a masquerade which a guy would contemplate for extended periods, or for capricious purposes. His enemies were not fools, even though he frequently made them appear as such. Bolan had survived this far in his war not by contempt for his enemy, but by careful respect for their intelligence and cunning. Each penetration was always on the heartbeat, with Bolan’s survival in their midst directly dependent upon every word being spoken to the finest nuance, each gesture carried to perfection, every movement of face and eyes geared to the dictates of the changing moment.

  It was not a fun thing, not even under the best of circumstances.

  Add to that the present reality that Bolan’s recent command strike on New York had severely undermined the authority of the gestapo force. In the immediate wake of that strike it had seemed highly improbable that the superhard force would survive at all. But it was a strange world and the Aces had survived, although in greatly modified form. They were no longer autonomous. They could not interfere in any intrafamily dispute and their function in the no man’s land between families was purely as fact-finders and arbitrators. Theoretically they were still at the disposal for hard duties—of that council of bosses known as La Commissione. So they were, in theory, still an enforcement arm of that council. But the council itself was presently in disarray, due to the instability of the Mafia world itself. It had not formally met since the New York fiasco, and La Commissione was in fact nothing more now than an executive staff functioning almost entirely as an administrative service. They maintained communications, and coordinated various operations between the underworld groups.

  All of this left the Aces as neither fish nor fowl in that predatory jungle constituting the Mafia world. A few had been hit—as the logical settlement (in this world) of old grievances. Others had simply drifted away and vanished, retiring, perhaps, to obscure fates. Those that remained in service did so at their constant peril—at least until a new stability could be established.

  So Bolan was well aware of the various hazards involved in this attempt to softly penetrate the Copa camp. But he was banking on that strange quality of Mafia mind which finds its sustenance in tradition, custom, and ritual. And he knew that success could be measured only from one heartbeat to the next.

  He was not here for fun and games.

  Mazzarelli was a bear of a man, half a head shorter than Bolan but commanding 300 pounds or more of tightly packed brawn—shoulders a yard wide, neck and head appearing as one unit with hardly any variation in circumference. The face was something else, though. Except for the bristly crewcut hair, it recalled memories of the long-dead comedian Lou Costello—radiating that same air of tragi-comic innocence and vulnerability. But Bolan knew better. This guy was as dangerous as a riled rattlesnake. All the time.

  “Call me Omega,” Bolan told him. He did not offer his hand.

  “Okay, call me Gordy,” said the Bear. The name fit no better than the face. The smile was pure mama mia and could have been entirely disarming had Bolan not known what lurked behind the smile. “How’re things in the Big Apple?”

  “Tense,” Bolan replied.

  “I’ll bet, yeah. I haven’t been there in a long time. I hate that damn town.”

  “That’s okay,” said Bolan-Omega. “I hate Chicago.”

  Those “innocent” eyes buckled a bit. “You like Nashville?”

  “Better than Chicago, yeah.”

  “I’m from East Chicago, you know.”

  Bolan knew, sure. And he knew this word game, too. “I hate it worse,” he said pleasantly.

  It was a tense little verbal shoving match, a jockeying for status. Every kid who’d ever been on a schoolyard would recognize this game.

  Mazzarelli said, “Yeah?” Bolan replied, “Yeah. How ’bout you?” The guy retreated with a chuckle. “Right, right. That’s why I come south. Guess I could stay here the rest of my life.”

  Bolan would try to see to that. He said, “Nick’s checking me out, eh?”

  “Sure. Wouldn’t you?”

  According to the rules of the game, it was now Bolan’s turn to retreat—if, that is, he wished to demonstrate style. He chuckled as he replied. “I hope he doesn’t get a wild man up there with a sick sense of humor.”

  It was enough; not too much. Mazzarelli understood the finer naunces of the word game. The smile became genuine as he stuck out a hamlike paw. Bolan shook the hand and smiled back. The Bear said, “Glad you could make it. We’re setting up hospitality in the garden. It’s very nice out there. You’ll like it. Nick wants you should get comfortable and feel at home. Can you stay awhile?”

  Bolan made it sound like a regret. “Not long, no.”

  They crossed a large room featuring a vaulted ceiling and two outer walls of glass. Directly beyond was an elevated garden overlooking the pool. Pools, rather. One was for swimming; numerous others very obviously were not—they were ponds, actually, containing varieties of aquatic plants and clustered about the large central pool to create a beautifully tropic effect. Exotic potted plants and miniature trees combined with all that for a stunningly sensual experience. Swimming there, one would have the definite sensation of a paradise.

  Two beautiful girls in microscopic bikinis added a positive dimension to that effect.

  “Nice, huh,” Mazzarelli said proudly.

  Bolan laughed lightly and said, “Maybe I could stay awhile.”

  “Stay as long as you like,” said the Bear. “Summer, winter—it’s all the same here.”

  Bolan could believe that. The whole garden area was enclosed within a dome-like metallic framework in which were emplaced hinged panels of tinted glass. Apparently the panels could be opened or closed for changing environmental needs.

  “I’d get soft, here,” Bolan growled appreciatively.

  Mazzarelli laughed. “No way,” he said. “Not with Nick around. And speak of the devil …”

  The lord of the manse was approaching, making his appearance via another doorway into the garden. He was a handsome man of medium size and graceful carriage. The sight of him triggered a small peephole in Bolan’s mental mugfile, bringing to mind the memory of a long obscure intelligence file on the guy. And Bolan had him made, now. Years ago, they had called him “the Professor” because of his interest in books. It was said that he nursed ambitions to be an author and had once been severely reprimanded for maintaining a clandestine diary toward a future attempt at autobiography. All that had been years ago, while he served the late Mafia lord of Los Angeles, Julian “Deej” DiGeorge. There was very little open knowledge of Copa’s activities during recent years.

  He came forward, hand outstretched, and smiling
broadly. “Omega … it’s a pleasure, a sincere pleasure.”

  Bolan shook hands and they sat down at a small table in a grove of miniature palms. The pool was directly ahead and about ten feet below. The bathing beauties were splashing quietly and without much animation in the shallow end. Bolan recognized them for what they were—stage props—as much a part of the scenery as the potted plants surrounding them. A couple of hard-looking guys in white coats were ceremoniously attending to the refreshments which had been wheeled up in elegant serving carts.

  Meanwhile, it was small talk time.

  Mazzarelli said, “Omega says he’d get soft here, Nick. I can’t believe that. Can you?”

  The boss of Nashville laughed politely as he replied, “He’s pulling your leg, Gordy. Omega here is the hardest case New York can send. So you better get worried. He didn’t come all the way down here to romp in the Garden of Eden.”

  “No I didn’t,” Bolan admitted, smiling. “But I’m almost converted. This must have cost a lot of bucks, Nick.”

  Copa the capo waved his hand in dismissal of the consideration as he replied, “What’s money for if not to improve the quality of life? I’ve got a hundred and sixty acres here of God’s country. It’s my own little kingdom. Everything I need and want is right here. How do you put a price tag on that?”

  Bolan said, “You’re right.”

  Mazzarelli had not come that far in the conversation. He quietly asked, “What should I be worried about?”

  Copa arched an eyebrow at Bolan and laughed softly. “What should he be worried about, Omega?”

  Bolan did not laugh with him. The small talk was ended. Very softly, he replied, “Plenty.” The nuance was perfect.

  And the Bear did not like it. He was very obviously on the defensive as he asked. “Did this guy check out, Nick?”

  “Of course he checked out.” Copa made a little ceremony of returning the ID wallet to Bolan. “That,” he said soberly, for Mazzarelli’s benefit, “is an Aces’ Full House. What Omega wants, Omega gets in this territory.” The next was directed only at the visitor. “Let’s talk like men.”