War Against the Mafia

by Don Pendleton

  “You’re going to freeze a tit,” he warned her, and brushed on past.

  “Fat chance,” she mumbled, hardly noticing him otherwise.

  It was a large living room, richly appointed with oriental rugs and tapestries and further decorated with wall-to-wall living flesh. The lights were low and nobody seemed to be moving about, but the conversation from the floor level was animated and unrestrained. Nobody seemed to be aware of Bolan’s presence. He went back through the kitchen, paused long enough to flip the ice cubes onto the drainboard for the nude girl, allowed her to kiss him in reward, then stepped onto the service porch and inspected the plumbing fittings of the laundry trays. He’d noticed the garden hose outside, on his way in; he went outside and brought it back in with him, screwed one end onto the fitting at the laundry plumbing, looped the other end over in a closing pinch, and turned on the cold water full force, then went back through the kitchen and to the living room, patting the ice-seeker’s derrière on the way through, dragging the hose with him. He found the wall with the light switch and brought the overhead lights into the action. A murmuring arose and someone said loudly, “What’s with the lights?” Bolan guessed that perhaps thirty people were present, all nude, and all bound together somehow in a confusing tangle of limbs and torsos. A girl in the center was beginning to shriek in a calmly controlled fashion; Bolan’s roving eye found her and noted that she was the recipient of multiple attentions, any one of which would have no doubt proved sufficient to produce the muffled little shrieks.

  Another person shouted an obscenity concerning the bright lights. Bolan shook his head regretfully, and bawled: “Look alive, everybody. The Executioner’s here!” Even then the reaction was limited to two or three startled raisings of heads. He thumbed off the safety of the .45 and crashed a single shot into the hi-fi set. It stopped its noise instantly, even before the thundering roar of the heavy gun had ceased reverberating through the tightly packed room. Everybody was staring at him now in shocked attention. He released the kink at the end of the garden hose and sprayed the cold water liberally over all, hating himself for the bastard he was all the while.

  There was a new tenor to the shrieks and mouthings now. Men were cursing and floundering about while women screeched hysterically. Bolan flung the hose into the room, stepped back into the kitchen, grabbed the nude girl and kissed her again, balanced a marksman’s medal on the slope of a high breast, and departed.

  There was to be one more prelude stop. He selected it carefully and headed the car toward the suburbs. It was just past two-thirty in the morning when he parked in the shrubbery a hundred yards or so down from the secluded pleasure palace on the eastern rim of the city. He rummaged in the back seat of the car and came up with three canisters about the size of a large can of beans. He stuffed them into a pouch at his waist and set off at a cross-country angle toward the house. Lights shone from every window, though dim and muffled by concealing draperies. Judging from the number of automobiles in the parking area, they were having a good night. As he drew closer he could hear music, and every now and then a feminine laugh. He walked upright across the grounds, pausing every ten or twelve yards to stand still and listen. During one of those stops he heard male voices nearby; one man was laughing restrainedly. He moved toward the voices and located the source quickly. Two men stood with their backs to him, about fifty feet from the side of the large house; each of them held a sawed-off shotgun cradled loosely in the crook of an elbow; each seemed entirely relaxed. One was large and beefy, the other of medium height and weight, and the smaller one was speaking.

  “Those guys are out of their minds,” he said. “I wouldn’t give no two hundred and fifty bucks for no party.”

  “Augh, two-fifty to these types is no more than two bits to guys like us,” the other man replied. “I’d give two bits any time for an orgy like that.”

  “I thought Leo was comin’ by,” the other said, shifting the shotgun about and digging into a pocket. He produced a cigarette and struck a kitchen match on the stock of the gun. “I ain’t seen ’im, have you?”

  The large man chuckled. “Naw, he won’t be around tonight. Bet on that. Blacksuit’s got ’em all walking around on eggs.”

  “I’d like to shove this fuckin’ shotgun up Leo’s ass. You know these things get heavy after a while.”

  “Lay it down then,” said a soft voice behind them. “But do it carefully and very, very quietly. Your first sound will be your last.”

  The men exchanged glances. The smaller one thrust his shotgun straight out in front of him, at arm’s length, then slowly bent to the ground with it and carefully set it down. The large man wanted to discuss the issue. “Says who?” he wanted to know, but staring rigidly forward.

  “You were just discussing me,” Bolan told him. “I wear a black skinsuit.”

  “How do I—”

  His words were abruptly halted by the shock of a heavy .45 automatic moving forcefully against his temple. He crumpled and a black-clad arm reached out of the shadows and caught the shotgun, broke it at the breech, and tossed it to the ground. The sharp tip of a pointed blade touched lightly upon the smaller man’s throat. “I have no bitch with you, buddy,” the soft voice announced. “You just give me some useful information and you might live a while.”

  The man’s lips moved soundlessly. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Anything you say,” he croaked.

  “How many guards?”

  “Two more, just two more.”

  “Shotguns?”

  “Yes. We weren’t supposed to bunch up like this.” He obviously wanted to keep talking. “I’m supposed to be at the front, Charlie had this side. Charlie’s the guy you just conked. Matt’s around at the back. Andy’s got the other side. There’s two guys inside, one upstairs in the hall, the other down at the front door. No shotguns, just shoulder holsters.”

  “Seems like a rather heavy guard for a whore house,” the voice purred.

  “Just since you started raisin’ hell,” the man replied, his voice taking on an ingratiating quality. “You got ’em shook up good, they even raised our pay.”

  “And a bonus to the one who gets me?”

  “You ain’t shittin’, a bonus. A hundred grand worth of bonus.”

  “Don’t you want to try for the bonus?”

  “Me?” The tight throat was cleared again. “Who, me? Hell, no. I got nothin’ against you, Blacksuit. Say, uh, the knife’s about to bust through. It feels like it’s gonna go through just any second now.”

  “Then be very still. Now, tell me …”

  “Harry.”

  “Eh?”

  “My name’s Harry.”

  “Tell me, Harry, what’s on the other side of that big window down here on the side?”

  “Oh, that’s uh, a sort of bar, you know. They can push back the walls in the middle there and it makes into a big clubroom. They got the walls back now and they’re having a shindig in there right now. Yeah, right now.”

  “What sort of a shindig, Harry?”

  “You know, a sex party. An orgy.”

  “What’s upstairs?”

  “Bedrooms, just bedrooms. Oh, and a long hall and a sittin’ room. The upstairs guard station is just outside the sittin’ room, in th’ hall.”

  “What’s on the other side of this party room, downstairs here?”

  “Oh, well, I told you, they push the walls back, and it’s all just one big room, clear across.”

  “How many people would you say are in there right now, Harry?”

  “Oh, well, I can tell you exactly. I got the front detail, see. I checked thirty-two guys through. There’s thirty-two in there, exactly.”

  “No girls?”

  “Oh, well, yeah, there’s girls. There’s the twenty-five regulars and about, uh, oh I’d say about, uh. fifteen or so specials.”

  “Specials for what?”

  “Well, for the party. They move ’em around for these parties, see. Specialists.”

/>   “Specialists in what?”

  “Different kinds of stunts, you know. Sex stunts.”

  “I see. Thank you, Harry. You’ve been very helpful. If I find out you’ve misled me, I’ll come back and skin you.”

  “I ain’t misled you.”

  “We will see,” said The Executioner. He removed the pointed blade and immediately applied the .45 just behind the ear. The talkative informant fell over sideways without a sound. Bolan picked up his shotgun, checked it over for load and readiness, and carried it with him to the large window at the unguarded side of the house. He removed one of the canisters from his waist pouch and dropped it to the ground, then swung the shotgun against the window, dancing back to avoid flying fragments. The huge window went with a roaring crash; Bolan waited but a split second to clear any falling slivers, then thrust the muzzle of the shotgun against the exposed drapery, angling high toward the ceiling, and pulled both triggers. The double roar must have sounded like doomsday to those inside. A watermelon-sized hole appeared in the heavy drapery material. Bolan picked up the canister, flipped a lever at its top, and tossed it through the hole in the drapery. Heavy black smoke drifted back through the hole and billowed up between the drapery and the window frame. There were sounds of pandemonium within as Bolan hurried back to the fallen guards. He grabbed up the remaining shotgun and restored it to firing condition just as a man ran around the corner from the back side of the house. Bolan pushed the shotgun in the general direction of the running figure and pulled the trigger. The man was flung into the air like a rag doll, catching the full charge in the chest. Bolan swung to the sounds of thudding feet in the opposite direction and let go the other barrel. The target screamed and fell writhing to the ground, hands clutching at where his stomach had been. Bolan dropped the now-useless shotgun and got a grip on his .45 just as an upstairs window swung open and a man leaned out with a gun in his hand, foolishly exposing himself in full light.

  The Executioner’s .45 arced upwards and exploded once. The man’s head snapped back and he disappeared from view. Bolan moved swiftly toward the front door, rounding the corner just as another man, gun at the ready, hurtled off the porch, firing wildly as he ran. Bolan dropped to one knee and his finger moved of its own accord, squeezing off two calculated shots at the running figure. The man stopped firing, stopped running, and began flopping about the ground. Bolan returned to the side of the house and tossed another smoke cannister into the open upstairs window, then dropped the last one on the ground and retreated behind the fast-forming cloud.

  He regained his car, turned it around, and headed for South Hills. The prelude skirmishes were at an end. The stage, he reflected grimly, should now be set for the big kill. He just hoped he hadn’t overplayed the prelude music.

  5 — The Gathering

  “Shit, I’m telling you the asshole is running wild again!” Plasky jabbered, pushing on into Sergio’s bedroom. “Leo’s on ’is way—”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” the old man cried. “Calm down, will you.” He shot a glance at his bodyguard and nodded his head calmly; the guard inclined his head slightly in an understanding and returned to his desk in the sitting room and picked up a house phone. Sergio sat stiffly upright at the edge of the bed, and said, “Now, Nathan, what is all this?”

  “I said Bolan is at it again,” Plasky replied, spacing his words in firm articulation, obviously smarting under the earlier shushing. “He hit three of Leo’s places in less than an hour, and he killed four of the guards out at the Meadows. Leo is on his way out here now, and he’s bringing Walt with him.”

  “Well, it’s what we have been waiting for, isn’t it?” Sergio replied, smiling calmly.

  “Yeah, but hell, are you just going to sit there?”

  “Would you like it better if I tried walking on the ceiling?”

  “Aw hell, Sergio, we gotta man the ramparts. We gotta get the men—”

  “Terry is seeing to those details at this moment,” Sergio said, his eyes flicking past the open door and to the man at the desk. “Now simmer it down and get ahold of yourself. I’ll tell you what. You go down to the council room and see that the stage is well set, eh?”

  Plasky nodded his head jerkily. “Sure, sure Sergio, I’ll make double-sure.” He moved quickly out the door, past the guard desk, and along the hall to the large chamber on the second level.

  The council table had been set, the chairs placed, and each one was occupied. Plasky smiled at the close attention to detail, readjusted an arm on one of the mannikins, and moved a wine bottle closer to the dummy hand. He walked about the table in a close inspection, hands clasped behind him like a proud maître d’, then went to the window and inspected the positioning of the thin draperies that had been added during the reinstallation of the huge window glass. He stepped slowly about the room, checking the lighting, rechecking each little detail and wondering how it would look in shadow, through a sniperscope, and from perhaps a thousand yards distant Then he punched a button on the hastily installed electronic device that would vary the lighting in a timed cycling and repositioning of light source, thus changing the projection of shadows onto the window-drapery. Plasky cackled inwardly as a shadowy arm was seen to move on the drapery, a head seemed to tip forward, a body appeared to lean across the table.

  He had to see it again from outside. He hurried from the room and down the curving stairway and onto the patio, then sat on the wall and gazed up at the second-level window. Yeah, yeah, it was perfect, just perfect. The place looked alive, with a full council going on. Plasky grunted with satisfaction and paced about the flagstoned patio in hot anticipation of the little welcome The Family had in store for the sonuvabitch of the century.

  Walt Seymour was about to burst with contained excitement. “How do we know he’ll hit South Hills tonight?” he asked nervously, watching Turrin’s face in the reflected glow of the instrument panel.

  Turrin’s teeth gleamed in a smile as he turned down the freeway ramp and began to climb into the exclusive neighborhood. “It’s a thing the cops call modus operandi,” he said. “Bolan isn’t interested in stirring up our whorehouse operation, he just wants to stir us up. It worked for him once, he figures it’ll work again. He sweeps in, see, and raises hell down in the grass roots to force us all to the council table. Then, he figures, he’s got us all together and he can plunk us like rats in a water barrel, see. This is what we been waiting for, Walt.”

  “I wonder where the bastard’s been all this time.”

  Turrin scowled. “Well—I hope he’s just been licking his wounds. I’m positive Angie hit him the other night.” The scowl deepened. “But from what I been hearing of his antics tonight—well—I dunno—he must o’ not been hit too damn hard.”

  “He’s probably onto us,” Seymour said, his agitation visibly increasing. “He’s probably been laying up there somewhere watching us all this time, probably with binoculars.” He shivered. “Or through that damn sniper scope. How good are those scopes, Leo? You were in the service. They any damn good?”

  “They’re plenty damn good,” Turrin replied. “Good enough to see a fly’s pecker at fifteen hundred yards.”

  Seymour exploded into a mirthful fit. “A fly’s pecker,” he howled. Turrin grinned along with him, and he chuckled for a while, his tensions seeming to disintegrate in the penetrating good humor. “If that guy is fool enough to hit us again,” he commented, following a long silence, “we’ll nail his ass for good.”

  “Yes, I believe we will,” Turrin agreed. But he was scowling again, and it was still with him when he turned into the hillside estate of Sergio Frenchi.

  Bolan stopped at a public telephone in the darkened approaches to a closed service station, dropped in a dime, and dialed a rehearsed number. The receiver at the other end was lifted before the first ring could be completed and a trembly feminine voice said, “Yes?”

  “This is the phantom of the bedroom,” he announced pleasantly.

  “Mack! Oh, M
ack! Everything’s okay?”

  “Sure,” he said. “But the night’s still young. I just wanted to check in, let you know I’m still in the picture. I may be tied up the rest of the night? Uh—you been waiting up for me to call?”

  Her reply came in a tumble of words. “Mack, I’ll never go to bed again until it’s with you. I tried, I really tried to, but that old bed just shrieked at me. No, I—I’m sitting up, I’m on the couch—oh Mack, don’t let anything happen to you.”

  “It’s not in the plan,” he said, chuckling reassuringly. “I, uh, you know, Val, there’s always a possibility of something going haywire, though. I forgot to tell you about the money. It’s in a leather case, in the storage space above your hall closet. If anything—”

  “I don’t want the darned old money!” she cried.

  “Just listen to me. If anything should go wrong, I want you to keep that money. Now, I mean it. Consider it as my estate. It’s as much mine as anybody else’s.”

  “Mack, you’d better come back here to me. You’ve just got to!”

  “Hell, I’m sorry I mentioned it,” he said uneasily. “Anyway—I’ve got this kid brother, see. You know about him. He could use some money, too, and—”

  “Mack, I’m going to start screaming!”

  “Don’t do that,” he said quickly. “Don’t worry, it’ll all come out okay. I just thought I should mention the money, just in case.”

  “I just want you. She was sobbing. “Call it off, Mack. Just come back. Come back right now.”

  “You’re making it awfully tough on me, honey,” he told her. “You know what I have to do.”

  She was regaining control. “All right,” she said. “I’ll be brave. Is this better?”

  “Much better. Be a good girl now and go to bed. I want you nice and fresh when I get home.”