Bolan said, "It's great of you to say that. I guess we got quite a thing going, you and me." He laughed. "Too bad you're not forty years younger and split-tailed."
The old man thought that statement a riot. He laughed until he choked, had to sip some wine, pounded the desk for a full half-minute, then slyly reminded his guest, "I know somebody named Angeletti fills that bill to a tee—and its name ain't Frank."
Bolan laughed and held up both hands. "Oh hey, don't match make me, Steven. I'm nowhere near my quota yet."
"Well, you could do worse," Angeletti said, maybe a bit more than half serious. "And I'll bet she'd never give you any shit, I'll bet that."
Bolan said, "I'll keep that in mind."
"You should. I, uh, to tell the truth, Johnny. . ."
Bolan prompted him. "I'm always ready for the truth, Steven."
The clouded old eyes flicked toward the bar. The voice dropped as he confided, "I've about given up on Frank. I mean .. . let's be men, Johnny. The kid just never is going to have it. And I—"
Bolan cut him off with a wave of the hand. His face screwed into a troubled frown as he told Don Stefano, "Please—Steven, please. Let's don't discuss that. Nothing about that. I mean . . . I sympathize, I know the problem . . . but I'm too close to it and I. . ."
The old man was perched there on the edge of his chair, giving Bolan the Bastard a quizzical, searching scan of the eyes. "I don't, uh, I don't get you, Johnny. You're too close to what?"
"Let's just drop it."
"Drop it my ass! Now, come on!"
Bolan smiled soberly and said, "We have a thing, you and me. Right? Let's leave it that way, and never any hard feelings. Never you having to say that you sat right in my face and discussed this with Johnny Cavaretta and he never gave you a thing, not a tumble. Spare me that, Steven."
"Well, now wait. I respect your . . . I wouldn't, want to press a friendship, Johnny. But if there's something I ought to know, then I ought to know it. You can't do this, Johnny. You can't come in here and drop something like that, then just clam up. I mean, I pledge to you, on my solemn word and sacred blood, I'm telling you that I would never—no, never would I rat on a confidence from a friend."
Bolan stared at him for a long moment, then dropped his eyes, stretched his neck and said, "I'm not telling you this, Steven. I wouldn't ever tell a man I respect as much as I respect you that his heir problems are over."
"What?"
"I just couldn't say something like that to a man who has done so much in this outfit. For so many years. I mean . . I couldn't. Not even if I'd been sitting right there at the table when the problem got resolved, I still couldn't say a word."
Don Stefano re-lit his cigar. The hands trembled. He sipped his wine and the hands trembled worse.
"When were you sitting at that table, Johnny?" he asked, the voice hardly more than a sigh.
"I shouldn't say, Steven. Please."
"Today? Was it today?"
Bolan fingered the tape at his jaw. "I only got to New York today. I been up in the country for nearly a month, ever since that Jersey job."
"I see." The old man was obviously seeing quite a bit. He said, "Thank you, Johnny. One more thing. In strictest confidence. Look, I'm an old man. What could I do? What would I do? After all these years of loyalty, would I buck the outfit? What they want is what I want. But I got a right to know. After all these years. I got a right. What are they talking about doing to me, Johnny?"
Bolan hesitated, giving the moment its most dramatic play, then he sighed and told the old man, "Not just talking, Steven."
"So . . . what? Huh? Dammit, what?
"Why did they tell you I was coming here, Steven?"
"Well I—well, they—we couldn't talk right out. He just said he was sending me some help."
"Some help to do what?"
"Well, this damned Bolan shit, what d'you think? Isn't that what they meant?"
"Did he say anything about some delegations coming down? Some boys from upstate? Some boys from New York downtown?"
"What are you saying? Why did you come, Johnny?" half off his stool. He said, "God, I hate to be the” Bolan's glance slid to Frank the Kid, wobbling “one to tell you this, Steven."
"Let's be men, Johnny!"
"Okay." Bolan's chin came up. He fixed the old man with a cold, hard stare and told him, "Things just can't get to that, Steven." The gaze flicked to Frank the Kid and back to Papa. "Do you understand me? You wouldn't firm it up for yourself, so they firmed it up for you. They're not waiting, Steven. They're not waiting for you to die. Not with Frank the Fuck-up and a hundred greasers backing him up. They say there will be blood in the streets, money down the sewer and hell to pay all over this land, Steven. It's the sort of thing that keeps people like me so busy all the time. And they just can't have it. They will not have it, Steven."
A long silence ensued.
Angeletti played with his cigar, toyed with his wine, smacked his lips, looked at Frank, looked at the Wild Card from New York who'd brought him such distressing news, smacked his lips some more then sighed, "Well, I'm damned if they will."
"You promised me, Steven."
"I'd promise you hell, Johnny. But I won't give you my only kid."
"There's always Philippa."
"That slut?"
"Now, now."
"You can't have him, Johnny."
"I didn't come for him, Steven."
"Then, what did you come for?"
"If you'd like to take a little walk, I'll show you."
That old chin dropped and both hands crawled along the desk. Aghast, he asked, "Me, Johnny?"
'Oh, God, no, don't even think that. What I came for, I already have. It's in the car. If you want to go see, okay. If not, forget it. Makes no difference. But don't think . . . aw, hell, Steven, don't think. . .'
"I don't think I want to go out there in the dark with you, Johnny."
"All your boys are out there. Your boys, not mine." Bolan reached for the wallet and the old man jumped a foot. "Hey, easy, I told you, don't even think . . here."
He tossed the letter of credit from Cavaretta's wallet across the desk.
"Note the date on there. It's today. Look where it came from. Atlanta, Georgia—right? How did it get clear up here, so fast? It flew, by special courier. It flew to me, Steven. Look at the amount. Fifty gee, right? I picked it up right down here at North Philly Airport at two o'clock today. Two o'clock, Steven. Now. If you'll just walk out to the car with me, dammit, I'll show you how I earned that."
The old man's curiosity was definitely aroused. He sniffed and pushed the letter back across the desk, then slowly got to his feet.
"Show me," he commanded.
A minute and a half later, Bolan showed him. Angeletti had to feel the face, manipulate the stiffening arms and legs, examine the weapons. He said, "So that's the guy."
"That was him," Bolan said.
Stefano spun about suddenly and went back into the house. Bolan closed the exhibit for the second time and followed the Don inside.
At the library door, Angeletti asked him, "What does it all mean? You say you got paid at two o'clock. I say I got hit by the guy at about six. What does it mean?"
"It means somebody's playing games with you, Steven."
"Who?"
"Who did they say was coming down?"
Marble lips replied, "Delegation from Buffalo, two from the city."
"There you go. Maybe they got here early."
"Maybe they did." All of the old man's starch had deserted him. "I'm going to bed. I don't feel so hot. I thought that was too much for one lousy guy, I knew it was too much. I'm old. I'm tired. I'm going to bed. I respect you, Johnny. For this, I mean. Thanks."
"Let me tell you this, Steven. It will make you sleep better. There was a split decision. Understand? A split decision. Some said yes, some said no. Until that's finally talked out, Mike says we step in. Right? Understand me? We step in, Steven."
"I'm
glad to hear that. Just tell me this. Was Augie saying yes or saying no."
"Augie was saying no."
"God, I'm glad to hear that. You're here to, uh, see that the yeses pull back their horns. Is that it?"
"That's about it, Steven. Go on to bed. Don't worry. Let me handle it."
"Put the kid to bed, will you?"
"You know I will. Now, you put yourself there." "I wish to God I'd had a kid like you, Johnny." Bolan had to turn away from that and clear his mind of that pathetic sick old face.
He had to remind himself that the melody played by ear was not always the one a guy would choose for himself if there had been a choice.
For a moment—for one tumbling instant—he debated going out there and climbing in that forty thousand-dollar shark and simply driving the hell away from that place.
But . . . if he did that . . . what would have been accomplished in Philadelphia? What good all the dead, what good all the extra pressure and expense on a city already overburdened with her share of problems . . . what good any of it?
The Executioner had not come to Philadelphia for a split decision.
He had come for a knockout.
So, at the end of that tumbling moment of hesitation, Bolan reminded himself that there was no morality in warfare, no right and no wrong to any of it.
You had to hit them where you could, and drop them where they stood.
Even soul-sick, dying old men.
Chapter 16/ The Mark
Bolan had never regarded himself as a superior strategist nor as a genius at anything. He simply made use of what he had, and kept trying.
He knew that he could not have set up the Angeletti family for this sort of an inside knock over with any amount of genius or planning. It was daring, sure, and fraught with mortal consequences with every move, every word, every action. But that was what life had been for Mack Bolan ever: since the beginning of his home-front war. And he could not have set the family up that way had the stage itself not already been well prepared by circumstances far beyond any one man's control or manipulation.
He had simply barged in and played his game upon their stage.
It was as simple as that.
And it was quite a stage the mob had built for themselves. Constructed of rotting timbers upon unreliable foundations, erected with lust and malice, well-garnished with deceit, dishonesty, and a callous disregard for the essential nobility of mankind—it was a veritable hall of horrors, even for those who misspent their lifetimes strutting before its footlights.
Yes, it was quite a setting for any maestro who had the nerve to leap into the orchestra pit and strike up a funeral dirge.
Nerve, probably—in the final analysis—was Mack Bolan's chief stock in trade. And the market, in Philadelphia, was definitely bullish.
This was Bolan's own understanding of himself and of his task. Perhaps, however, he was too modest in his evaluations of self.
Perhaps there was a spark of greatness to the man, an effervescent something at the base of his being that just instinctively turned him into the right word at the crucial time, the proper deed at the intersection with its need.
None would deny that Mack Bolan had been "as good as dead" at that very moment when a police spotlight pinned him to an overhead perch, defenseless, within shouting distance of his enemy's stronghold.
Few would have given him any edge for survival, afoot and surrounded by hostile forces of over whelming superiority, even after his miraculous escape from that stunning confrontation with the law.
One or two, perhaps, would have guessed that he might seek refuge in the most unlikely spot—the enemy's camp.
But none in God's green world would have dared to predict that this desperate fugitive, within minutes after penetrating that enemy stronghold, would have seized upon his own stark misfortune and jeopardy to mold of it the grand-slam knockout punch that would rattle not only Philadelphia, but be experienced around the Mafia world.
It was precisely what he was attempting.
And perhaps Mack Bolan was not exactly a new idea in that cosmic experiment called mankind. From an ancient Chinese military manual (c.500 B.C.)
The mark of greatness is upon that general who, through daring and resourcefulness, rescues resounding victory from certain disaster.
And, yes—who knows? Maybe "the universe" does reserve a special place here and there for men such as these.
Had Mack Bolan asked the question, he would have his answer within a short few hours.
But he hadn't asked. He was simply trying. It was the mark of Bolan.
Chapter 17/ Intimations of Mortality
Bolan sent the house captain upstairs to keep vigil outside Don Stefano's bedroom door and he gave the other two inside boys to Sammy, the yard boss.
This left Bolan alone, downstairs, with Frank the Kid, who was passed out on the bar.
He went exploring, and found a music room or something adjoining the library at the bar end. There was a concert grand piano in there, a harp— a real, honest-to-God harp—that stood taller than Bolan, shelves piled with well-indexed sheet music and, in the back corner, a twentieth-century marvel which was a stereo theatre built into a cast-form plastic chair, made like a big bubble and looking a bit like a small helicopter's cabin, comfortable- looking padded seat, console, the whole bit. A neat stack of classical LP albums completed the picture —and somehow none of it fit the image of anyone whom Bolan had seen in the joint so far.
A record on the turntable attracted his attention —the label, mainly. It was pale lavender and had no distributor's tag on it. Printed on that label, though, was the answer to the entire room. The record, obviously privately cut, was tagged simply: Phil Angeletti, Private Moods for Concert Piano.
The find was quite a revelation. Bolan idly started it going, listened to the first minute or so, then stopped it. He was no impresario, but it sounded damn good to him. Who would have thought it of Philippa the Bitch?
He went out of there, then, and continued the exploration, finding that which he sought a couple of minutes later; a doorway off the kitchen led to a darkened stairway and a basement room—a crew room with six bunks in it, small refrigerator and hotplate, table and four chairs.
Beyond that and past a door about a foot thick was a pistol range, well lighted, probably acoustically engineered and soundproofed. At the far end were regular target pits and four steel targets in human form. One of these targets was wearing a black suit similar to Bolan's. It was bullet-riddled and torn half off the target.
Bolan bit his teeth and went out of there.
It was a little before eight o'clock when Bolan helped Frank the Kid upstairs and to his bedroom. He steered him on to the bath, bent him over the toilet, stuck a finger down his throat and urged up everything in the guy's stomach.
Then he washed his face with cold water and put him to bed fully clothed.
The guy was still out of it, marginally conscious babbling something in the old tongue.
Booze, Bolan knew, often talked—but never in its own words. It merely released those which were ordinarily repressed by a more prudent consciousness.
He patted the Kid's face with a cold towel an growled, "Talk American, dammit."
"Agrigento . . . told 'em . . . hell . . . the best see . . . hell's coming and we got to. Don Cafu, luck that guy . . . I told 'em, I told 'em.. . ." "Gradigghia," Bolan prompted.
"Damn right, I told 'em. All or nothing. But .. shit!"
"What'd you say about Agrigento?" It was a Sicilian province, one of the early homes of the Mafia.
"Don Cafu says a thousand a day. Can you beat that? A day?" The guy sniggered, choked, retched —Bolan yanked his head to the side of the bed and he vomited some more, onto the floor.
The interrogation went on, Bolan patiently probing through alcohol-wreathed mutterings and mumblings and retchings. It ended ten minutes later with the guy bawling his heart out and promising over and over to do better next time.
&
nbsp; Bolan quietly assured him that he would, and left him with his heartbreak.
He rapped lightly on the door to Philippa's room and went in.
She was sitting up in bed, pillows plumped behind her, gazing broodingly at a small, personal- sized bedside television.
She looked up briefly at his entrance, then returned her visual attention to the TV. "Privacy," she said in a low, unemotional tone. "That's what I like about this house, the total privacy."
"Put some locks on the doors," Bolan suggested. "Put in a word to Papa on that, will you?" she replied acidly.
She was not looking at him, not yet.
Bolan moved a chair to the bed, lowered himself into it, relaxed, lit a cigarette. He knew immediately that he'd done the wrong thing. It was the first relaxed moment he'd had all day, and it all came out—all the stress, all the vital systems too highly peaked for too damn long, all the small physical damages overlooked and awaiting their proper share of attention.
He was bushed.
His stomach growled and clutched at its neglect.
Overused and abused arms and legs ached. A dull throb was finding room to play at the back of his neck and along the base of the skull. Hot little twinges told of raw places in the flesh of his chest and shoulders.
In that moment of self-awareness, he also found a new awareness of the girl. She didn't look her thirty-two years, except where her mad showed through. She was wearing a frilly pink bed jacket with silk roses closing the front of it .. . and she looked great. Bolan was reminded once again that Italian women are among the world's most beautiful.
She switched off the television with a jerk and turned to the unbidden visitor with a sigh. "Did you come in here just to stare holes through me?" she asked him.
He replied, "No. I came in to relax a moment with the pretty lady who plays a hell of a mean piano."
She looked flustered, then smiled and told him, "You look tired."
"I am tired."
"Want a drink?"
He shook his head. "That would lay me out for sure. Okay if I call you Phil?"
Pendleton, Don - Executioner 015 - Panic In Philly Page 9