And it made Venturi feel more nervous than ever. Large bodies of water had a way of affecting him in that manner. He’d helped prepare too many cement coffins to ever feel easy around water when things seemed to not be going well.
Frio had paused to give him a look. “Nice, huh?” the wheelman said, inviting comment.
“How deep is it?” Venturi inquired nervously.
“We ain’t found the bottom yet, in places. And it’s dark down there, man, really murky. The bottom is black mud, yucky muck. I bet almost anything would bury itself if it ever got down there. We dropped an anchor the other day and had to end up cutting the damn rope. Couldn’t pull the anchor out of the muck. Forms a vacuum, see. Just sucks it right down.”
Venturi shivered and said, “Yeah.”
“’Sfunny, it looks real clear up at the top. Like spring water. But I guess it’s all the crap at the bottom that yucks it up.”
“Cut the yuck and go on,” Fuzz Martin growled from the back seat.
Willy eased the car on across the dam. A lot of guys were out. Venturi recognized some of them, sure—but not many. So what the hell was it all about?
It was some joint, for sure. Big house on the hill with two levels, stone and wood with plenty of glass—apparently a screened porch clear across the upper level, a lot of lawn with umbrella tables scattered about. Just beyond the big joint, a two-story A-frame snuggled into the hillside with nothing but glass in front. Nice, yeah. But for what?
They climbed a steep hill and took another abrupt turn at the top. The driveway circled out from that point, encompassing another large oval of lawn and passing to the rear of the A-frame before returning to the main house. Woods, woods everywhere. Venturi was learning to hate trees with a passion.
“Home sweet home,” Willy Frio muttered. “If you don’t see the light here, Harry, you never will.” He chuckled at his joke. “None of us will, I guess. Boss says it’s now or never.”
“He should’ve told me,” Venturi grumbled. “The head cock ought to know—”
“Hell we just saw it ourselves for the first time last week,” the wheelman explained. “He didn’t want to take no chance on—”
“Knock it off,” came the warning from the rear. “We got big ears back here.”
Frio winked at Venturi and pulled the car into a parking space between the houses. Fuzz Martin hustled the broad out and hurried her into the big joint.
Venturi sighed and asked, “Who’s the ball-buster?”
“You don’t know?” Frio replied with a bit of surprise.
“No I don’t know. I asked, didn’t I?”
Frio sighed and said nothing.
Venturi opened his door and stuck a leg out, then lit a cigarette and turned back to the wheelman. “Who, uh, who’s all here, Willy?”
Frio’s eyes were dancing as he replied, “Hell, everybody’s here.” He laughed. “The gang’s all here. Natty Scarbo. Paul Reina. Gummo Gulacci.” He paused for dramatic effect. “And all their boys. It’s a full table, Harry.”
Venturi was beginning to think like a head cock for the first time in a long time. “How many boys have we got here?”
“They’re all here, Harry.”
“Since when?”
“Since about noon today.”
“All the boys from Cicero?”
“Sure.”
“Elmhurst?”
“Them too.”
“Who the hell is mindin’ the store?”
Frio got out of the car laughing. He said, “Carmine is prob’ly waiting to see you. You better go on in.”
“What’d you tell him, Willy?”
“About what? Isn’t this a beautiful joint? You can breathe up here, man. And wait’ll it gets dark. You. never heard such noises come outta these woods. Man, it is outta sight. You’ll be bunking in the A-frame, so you’ll get it all. The big joint, now, is—”
“I need to know what you told ’em, Willy.”
“Hey. I told ’im exactly what you told me. You got hit. You were cooling. What’s to tell? Take a friendly tip, Harry. You go in there and talk to the man with plain truth in your teeth. Don’t be asking me nothing.”
Venturi sighed, squared his shoulders, and entered the house. A kitchen went off to the right, just inside. Joe Torrio out of Hammond thrust a cold beer at him as he went past but Venturi waved it away and crossed a small foyer to a large, open room with shoetop-deep blue carpet, open-beam cathedral ceiling, huge stone fireplace at one wall, sliding glass doors covering the whole front.
Two jittery looking strangers sat alone in a far corner watching a ballgame on TV. They were obviously not company men and looked very much out of place.
The glass doors at the front wall were all open. Ten or twelve guys sat out there on the screened veranda with beers and quiet small talk.
The only one he recognized right off was Bebe Frazelli, a lieutenant under Scarbo. Bebe turned to him with a pleased smile and said, “Well, hell! Hi, Harry. Long time.”
“Too long, Mr. Frazelli,” Venturi replied. “You enjoying the country air?”
“Maybe I’ll get used to it,” the Bebe said, chuckling.
“I’m looking for Carmine,” Venturi told him.
Frazelli jerked his head toward the outside. “Downstairs on the patio. Maybe you should wait.”
“Why?”
The junior ranker rolled his eyes and said, “I think he just found a new playmate. Second thought, maybe you should go down. Maybe you can talk him into passing her around.”
Venturi forced a laugh and went down the stairs to the lower level. It was one of those joints where both floors touch the ground. It was built into the hillside, with the top level grounding at the rear, the lower at the front. Down there was another lounge area and more glass wall opening onto an oval shaped patio.
Twenty feet or so of lawn extended on from the patio to complete that level; from that point, the lawn sloped several hundred feet down to the lake.
Carmine was at a patio table with Scarbo and Reina. Gulacci was walking slowly along the grassy slope toward the lake. The broad sat between Carmine and Reina. Scarbo, across the table, was licking her with his eyes. Some guy whom Venturi did not recognize was placing a coke in front of the broad. Fuzz Martin stood off to the side—the perfect bodyboss—listening while not listening, watching while not watching.
Carmine looked up and noted Venturi’s presence but did not acknowledge it by word or deed. He was, for sure, very much interested in that broad.
Venturi went over to stand in Fuzz Martin’s shadow.
Carmine was talking to the broad. She was scared—really scared—and it showed very plainly.
“What’d you say your name was, honey?”
“I said it was April Rose and it still is. What’s yours?”
Carmine chuckled. He knew, too, how scared she was and he was enjoying it. “That’s not the name of a person,” he said amiably.
“It’s the name of this person,” the scared broad insisted.
“Changed from what? Roseberg? Rosenstein?”
“Maybe,” she said quietly. Even scared to death, the baby had a touch of class. But for how long?
Carmine was playing her. “There’s no maybe, honey. It is or it isn’t. So what is it?”
She took a shuddering breath and told him, “My daddy’s name is Rose. His daddy’s name was Rose. It’s a valid name. If you don’t like it, change it.”
Carmine poked Reina with an elbow and said, “I’d change it to Rosetti.”
The girl was trying to smile. She said, “A rose by any other name …”
Carmine laughed. Reina and Scarbo laughed. The babe just looked at her hands. After a moment, Carmine asked her, “What do you do, Miss Rosetti?”
“Did you say what or how?”
“I said what. For a living.”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business, is it?”
“I’m making it. What do you do?”
S
he showed him her teeth with what was probably supposed to be a smile. “Whatever I can,” she replied. “Like you.”
That one scored. Carmine laughed it up and took a pull at his coke. He was enjoying this broad. Scarbo and Reina were enjoying her, also—but they knew what was going down here and they were keeping their place.
Carmine asked her, “Where’s your fella?”
“Frankie?” She shrugged, and tried another smile.
Carmine’s voice took a hard turn. “No damn games, honey. Where is he?”
“He left just behind you,” she replied, the voice shaking again now. “I don’t know where he went. He asked me to take the call if it came. It came and I took it. So shoot me. What’s all the mystery? What’s going on?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to tell me what’s going on,” Carmine told her, the voice getting dangerously soft.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” the broad came right back at him. “And I don’t know anything about Frankie. I wish I’d never seen him. Or you! Now are you going to let me—”
“Shut up!”
She did.
“Fuzz?”
“Yessir.”
“What’s in her purse?”
“Just the usual junk.”
“How much money?”
“A hundred bucks, even. In shiny new twenties.”
“Where’d you get the hundred, honey? Frankie lay it on you?”
“Go to hell!”
“Show her, Fuzz.”
Martin stepped forward and slapped the broad from behind. It sounded like a pistol shot and it turned her head, nearly spilling her out of the chair. Tears were starting down the shiny cheeks and the voice was shaking but mad as hell as she told Carmine, “Don’t go crazy! This is all … insane! If it’s that important, I’ll tell you! What do you want?”
“I want your boyfriend.”
“Wonderful! When you find him, have your big thug here give him one for me, will you! I didn’t know he was a … a …”
“A what?”
“A gangster,” she replied quietly.
Carmine chuckled. All the bosses were smiling. The guys upstairs had been drawn by the pistol-shot slap and were watching with interest.
“What makes you think he’s a gangster?” Carmine asked her.
“Look … he wanted me to go to Louisville with him. That’s all. It was a fun thing. Next I know we’re in Indiana. I don’t know what … what …”
Venturi edged around to get a better look at the broad. A chill was creeping along his spine and it must have reached his face because Carmine had suddenly decided to acknowledge his presence.
“Something bothering you, Harry?”
“Yessir. I was just wondering … who is this guy Frankie? What’s he look like?”
“You don’t know?”
“I’m not sure. That’s why—”
“He knows you, Harry. Said all your boys are dead. Said you sent him over here to find me.”
The words escaped Venturi’s lips before he knew he was going to utter them. “Jesus Christ!”
The broad was giving him a very, very scared look.
And Carmine wasn’t looking so hot himself, of a sudden, from deep beneath that genial mask. “Who is the guy, Harry?” he asked through wooden lips.
“Bolan,” Venturi croaked. “I guess it’s Mack Bolan. He laid all over us at Stoney Lonesome.”
None of the bosses were smiling now. And the broad started crying again.
Carmine was on his feet. “You’re just now giving me this?” he snarled. “We find you holed up in Columbus and you’re just now giving me this?”
Venturi knew that he’d blown it clear out the window, but he was still trying. “It’s not like that, Carmine—please! I thought I’d led the guy off! I didn’t tell ’im about this joint. I didn’t even know about this joint! Alla my boys were dead. All but me! See? I figure he’s setting me up. He wants me to spring and run to you. I ran the other way, Carmine! And I was afraid to call or anything. We all know how that guy is—he gets onto everything! I didn’t even want to call! Hell—I didn’t know where to call. I was just—”
“You were just laying in a hole and shivering!” Carmine yelled. “Why didn’t you tell Fuzz or Willie about it when they found you?”
“Because I figured I lost him! I knew I lost him. And I figured—I didn’t want to cause a panic. I wanted to report to you, straight and quiet.”
“You been here five minutes now, Harry!”
“Yessir and I just been waiting my chance. I told you. Didn’t I tell you? Just now?”
By now, yeah, he’d told the whole joint.
Gulacci was coming back up the hill, about six of his boys suddenly swarming around him in a protective envelope.
Scarbo and Reina were on their feet and pacing nervously, casting anxious glances here and there.
All the second-echelon guys from the porch upstairs were hurrying down to join the nervous circle at the patio level.
And Carmine Tuscanotte was just fit to be tied.
Venturi could see it all, now—the whole rap. Carmine had invited all the bosses down to Brown County for a quiet parley in the trees—a “now or never” parley, which could only mean the reformation of the Outfit. With a bunch as nervous and edgy as this one, Carmine must have really laid on a heavy security sell. He’d gone to all this trouble and expense to make the other bosses feel safe and secure.
And now this.
Venturi could understand and sympathize with his boss’s rage.
It had all come down to this.
Mack the Bastard was probably somewhere out in those woods right now—preparing hellfire. Or he could even be walking among them, taking their pulse and waiting his chance.
But there was one sweet note to it all. Harry the Apeman was still the best cock on the roost. Any thought of disciplinary action would have to await another time. Carmine instinctively turned to the cock he trusted the most.
“Get it hard, Harry!” he snarled. “I want a line of steel all around this damn place!”
And Harry would see to that, sure. But he’d stood eyeball to eyeball with Mack the Bastard—had felt the guy’s ice and tasted his heat. It would take more than a ring of steel to stop that guy.
He turned a commanding gaze to Fuzz Martin. “Stay with the broad,” he ordered. “Sweat her, but keep her whole. If Frankie is Bolan then that’s our ace. I want to know what he’s got and what he’s after.”
Martin turned questioning eyes to the boss.
Carmine nodded and said, “He’s the cock, Fuzz. Do what he says.”
Damn right he was the the cock.
And he would stop at nothing to carve Mack the Bastard down to size. And then he’d step on that fuckin’ cockroach and spread his guts all over Brown County.
But the woman was the key. He was sure of that. Which was why he’d given her to Fuzznuts. The guy would enjoy every ounce of sweat she dropped.
But Mack Bolan would not. Hell no—Mack Bolan would not.
CHAPTER 13
A TIME FOR WAR
Bolan had called off the scouting expedition the moment he spotted April Rose. Nor did he consider it too great a loss. He’d already confirmed the defensive set at the joint and eyeballed enough of the denizens to verify the major nameplates. Scarbo was there, and Reina—for sure. Also he’d made a couple of guys who were thought to be closely associated with Gumball Gulacci, a guy who’d made a humble start in the rackets with punchboards and gumball machines, then parlayed that small venture into total domination of vending machines in several Illinois counties.
At last tally, Gulacci owned a number of key politicians and was regarding most of Southern Illinois as his own inviolable turf. He was now thought to be a likely candidate alongside Tuscanotte for eventual ownership of the midwestern U.S.
So Bolan had his set. There were no doubts about what was there and what was going down. It was no casual gathering of thieves. It was littl
e Miami, sure—and no doubt a king of knaves would emerge from that conclave.
As for the defenses—all of that was in the basket now, anyway. The reappearance of Harry Venturi made that a certainty. A Bolan alarm would go down, for sure, and the defensive set would move into a panic hard. So much for that. Bolan should have cooked that guy—and probably he would have, white flag or no, had he known at the time that such a major showdown was looming.
All that was past and deserving of no further thought. Venturi was here, the die was cast, and April Rose, the lover, was caught in the middle. That was the all of it. Those people up there would have no difficulty divining her place in all this. And they would have no compunction whatever about using her in any manner that would serve their needs.
So time was of the double essence, now. Whatever could be done must be done—as quickly and as vigorously as possible. That, Bolan knew, was the only prayer for April Rose.
He was off the bluff and moving quickly into the pines within seconds after that vehicle with its precious cargo crossed the dam. He had noted, earlier, the tire tracks in the clay, which told the route of the roving trailbike patrol—and he could hear, now, the whine of the small engine as it labored up the incline from the grasslands. In about thirty seconds, the guy should be approaching the crest of the hill at the northeast corner—and Bolan desired to be there ahead of him.
He was.
A narrow roadway had been carved along the ridge to run just above the east side of the lake. It was hardly more than a jeep trail, and it plunged down that east ridge from above the north end of the lake and crossed over at lake level to the west ridge, running along another but much smaller dam before climbing abruptly into the high country on the other side. A catch basin, or something, occupied swampy and impassable ground to the immediate north of there.
The motorcycle trail, though, traversed the far east boundary of the property along the ridgeline, moving in through the pine groves to the crest at the northeast corner before taking the dramatic drop to the lake. And those groves had not been planned for mature trees.
Monday’s Mob Page 9