Assault on Soho

by Don Pendleton

  Chapter Twelve

  THE INTERROGATION

  Nick Trigger, in all his years of gunbearing for the brotherhood, had never suffered such personal humiliation. He felt defeated, disgraced, and deeply dismayed at his own cowardly reaction to imminent death. He was alive, though. He kept telling himself that he was still alive, and that surely this counted for something. There was no profit for the family in a dead hero. When a guy saw how things were going, when he saw that nothing he could possibly do would change anything—then surely staying alive was more important than dying. Death was such a final damn thing—it never really seemed possible that a guy could actually cease to exist, not until he came face to face with death. Then he knew, yeah shit, boy, he really knew.

  And what could he have done against that Bolan at a time like that? An act of God, that’s what, had spared him from cremation in that damn car. He shivered violently in the mere remembrance of it. Another second, just one more second if he’d stayed with that car, and there’d be nothing left of Nick Trigger right now but a little pile of ashes. If he hadn’t had sense enough to get the hell out of there when he did …

  Nick was rationalizing his actions, and he was conveniently forgetting the fact that sheer revulsion, not combat sense, had driven him out of that car. Gio Scaldicci’s blood and brains were all over the back seat and floor, and Nick had found himself lying face down in the mess. He had flung himself on through and out, and he’d been no more than ten feet away when the explosion came. Then he lay there stunned and half unconscious while Bolan chopped up Danno’s hunting party. He had lain there also and watched the bastard in black walking quietly among the dead. He had heard him try to question Sal Masseri, and still Nick had lain there, his gun no more than a couple of feet away from his outstretched hand, and he’d played dead, and he had even said a couple of prayers.

  He hadn’t moved a muscle until after Bolan had struck down Stevie Carbon and the two boys he’d taken through the tunnel with him. Then, as Bolan walked back across the square, Nick slithered away in the other direction. He hadn’t gotten to his feet until he was completely clear of the square, and then he’d jumped up and started running … running!

  He was appalled at himself, despite the rationalizations. Nick was beginning to understand, though, why Mack Bolan had remained so long alive against everything the brotherhood had thrown at him. He understood why Danno had seemed so awed of the guy, so willing to humble himself and ask for help from someone outside his own family. When that Bolan bastard made a hit, he didn’t fool around with no light feints. He didn’t just hit, he broke hell all around a guy. For Christ’s sake, who wouldn’t lose his head at a time like that?

  Well, something had to be done about him. Some thing that hadn’t been tried before maybe, some new wrinkle. They couldn’t let that guy get away with that kind of shit. Until a few minutes ago, Bolan had been just a name to Nick, something to hit, just another name on a contract and another job and maybe another rung up the ladder of rank. That was all changed now. He had seen at first hand what Bolan could do.

  Nick himself had brought death to more than a a hundred men, yet it had remained for a guy like Mack Bolan to introduce Death to Nick Trigger, to make it a personal experience that Nick Trigger could understand. He understood it now, all right, and he wanted more than anything else to share that understanding with Mack the Bastard Bolan. He would, too, he decided.

  The luckiest part of the whole fiasco, for Nick, was that nobody else knew. Apparently only Nick had survived. Nobody would ever have to know that Nick Trigger had played dead and watched the bastard turn his back and walk away, nobody would have to know that Nick had even been there when it happened.

  Yeah, that was the luckiest part of all. Or so Nick Trigger thought.

  They were rolling slowly up Tottenham toward Regents Park, and the conversation was accomplishing very little in the way of intelligence. Giliamo was glibly avoiding direct answers to sensitive questions, playing his role of dumb street soldier to the very hilt. Bolan had decided to let him play … for awhile. They swung onto Marylebone and up to Park Road.

  “Go in the park,” Bolan directed.

  “Into the park, Bolan?”

  “That’s what I said, Stevie.”

  They crossed over the tip of a lake moments later and Giliamo nervously asked, “What’re we doing here?”

  “That depends,” Bolan told him. “There’s an open air theatre straight ahead. I want you to stop there, Stevie.”

  The blood at Bolan’s ribs had congealed, the wounds minimal, the pellets from the shotgun blast obviously having grazed the ribs and gone on. Still, there was some discomfort there and Bolan was finding his patience beginning to fray.

  They pulled to a halt in the theatre circle. Bolan said, “Give me the keys and get out.”

  Giliamo did so, watching his captor narrowly as Bolan slid out from the other side.

  “Over there,” Bolan said, waggling the Uzi.

  “Over where?”

  “Up on the stage.”

  Giliamo stared at Bolan for a silent moment, then whirled about and trudged away with Bolan close behind. They climbed the steps to the stage, then Giliamo blurted, “Hey look, what the hell are we doing up here?”

  “You like to act, Danno,” Bolan quietly replied. “I thought I’d give you a stage.”

  The big man stiffened, then sagged noticeably. His voice was muffled with anger as he said, “If you knew who I was, why’d you let me keep it up?”

  “Get out there at the center of the stage,” Bolan commanded.

  “You go to hell,” Giliamo snarled. “If you’re gonna kill me, do it right here.”

  Bolan rapped him across the face with the butt of the Uzi, not lightly. Giliamo staggered back, holding one hand to the injured jaw, and went where Bolan directed.

  “Down on your knees,” Bolan said.

  The caporegime glared at him, but did as he was told.

  “Where do you want it?” Bolan asked, thrusting the Uzi forward.

  Giliamo choked on the words. “You know I don’t want it anywheres, Bolan.”

  “You’ve been bullshitting me for ten full minutes, Danno. You can stop it now anytime you want. You can stop something else too, Danno.”

  “You know I can’t. If I talk, and you don’t kill me, then they’ll just do it later on anyway. I’d rather just get it over with right here.”

  “Who’s going to know you talked, Danno? Who’s going to tell them?”

  The Jerseyite was thinking about it. Presently, in an almost inaudible voice, he asked, “Just what is it you want to know?”

  “Who did it to the old man?”

  “You ast me that a dozen times already! And I still don’t know what you’re talkin’ about!”

  “The old man in the museum, Danno. Who tied him up like a turkey and shoved a hot iron under his back?”

  “Shit, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bolan, that’s God’s truth.”

  “Are you saying that you or none of your boys did it?”

  “That’s what I’m saying, whatever it is.”

  “You were in that museum, Danno.”

  “Sure. I was in there for about a minute. Me’n Nick, and Sal, and one other boy I can’t think of his name right now. But we didn’t do nothing to no old man.”

  “Who is Nick?”

  “Nick Trigger, also known as Nick Endante. Maybe you heard of him. He used to work for Don Manzacatti, way back when.”

  Bolan was becoming more and more satisfied with the tone of the interrogation. Giliamo was loosening up nicely. He said, “Yeah. So what is Nick Trigger doing in England?”

  “He’s enforcing.”

  “So what was he enforcing at that museum tonight?”

  “Nick was my contact here, see. I come over about a week ago, while you was in France. Look, I didn’t ask for the lousy job, Bolan. I never wanted it. I got nothing personal against you. But when the bosses say go, the Dann
o Giliamo goes. You gotta understand that.”

  “Yeah, I understand that, Danno. But about this Nick Trigger. How’d he get onto that thing at the museum?”

  The prisoner was obviously working towards a decision, a very important one to him. Life and death hung in the balance, and his soul was sweating. He grimaced and said, “You’re putting me on one hell of a spot, you know that.”

  Bolan shrugged his shoulders. “It’s just between you and me, Danno. But you better make up your mind. I’m not standing out here all night.”

  “How do I know you’re not going to execute me anyway?”

  Bolan shrugged again. “I guess that’s just the chance you have to take, Danno. But for what it’s worth, I don’t kill my friends. Not even temporary ones.”

  Giliamo took a deep breath and said, “Okay. What was it you ast me?”

  “I want to know the connection between Nick Trigger and that museum back there.”

  “Well, like I said, he’s enforcing. He’s got some hooks into the guys that run that place. I don’t know what exactly. They’re a bunch of queers or something I think, and Nick’s got it into them over that I guess.”

  “Okay, so how did he know to look for me there?”

  “Honest to God, Bolan, I don’t know. Nick isn’t—wasn’t, I guess he’s a toasted weenie right now—he wasn’t the most talkative boy around. He called me up the other night and told me to look for you at Dover. He even gave me the name of the boat and the time and everything. Then after we lost you down there, he told me to look for you at that joint, that museum up there. That’s all I know about it.”

  “But you guess he had a pipeline, eh?”

  “Yeah, it sure looks like it.”

  “Okay, now about tonight. You said you were inside the museum. When was that?”

  “That was about ten thirty, maybe a quarter ’til eleven. But we didn’t see no old man. There was just this uppity little prick, talked with a fancy English accent. We spent most of our time just getting up there where he was at, hadda tramp through all those queer rooms. They got some sick stuff in that joint, Bolan. Or I guess you know about that.”

  Bolan said, “Yeah.” His jaw had stiffened and his mouth was suddenly quite dry. “What about those little rooms on the second floor? What was in them?”

  “Buncha fuckin’ torture stuff, you know what.”

  “No people?”

  “No people ’cept us. What’re you getting at?”

  “This little guy,” Bolan said. “About five-six or seven? Stiff as a ramrod?”

  “Yeah, that’s the guy. Talked to us like we were dirt, and him queer as a three dollar bill I guess. I felt like sluggin ’im.”

  “What’d you talk to him about?”

  “Not me, it was Nick. They went off to themselves and parleyed about something. Just took a minute, then we left. Nick—”

  “Who else did you see in there, besides this little guy?”

  “There was a lotta people down in that cunt room, you know, kids. Getting ready for a party or something, I guess.”

  “Okay, go on with what you were saying about Nick.”

  “What was that?”

  “You left. Then Nick did something.”

  “Oh. Well, Nick sat out in the car with us ’til this guy came out, about ten minutes later. Then they took off together.”

  “Who took off together?”

  “Nick and this queer little prick. They took off together. Few minutes later the other queers started draggin’ in. In fancy limousines, some of ’em. Cars dropped ’em off and went on. I never went back inside after that.”

  Thoughtfully, Bolan said, “But there were three boys inside during the firelight. They came out and threw down on me.”

  “Well, that was something else all over again. Those boys found a tunnel or something, just before the fight started. We figured that was your way in and out, and we found your callin’ cards—the three boys with the broken necks or whatever. Those boys went in under the ground to smoke you out, Bolan. That’s all I know about that.”

  “I think you’re giving it to me straight, Danno,” Bolan said quietly.

  “I am.”

  “Okay, just one more thing. Where’s the family headquarters in this town?”

  “Aw shit, I just can’t give you that, Bolan. That’s too much, I could never live with myself.”

  Bolan watched him for a moment, then said, “Okay, I guess you’re right. Get going, Danno.”

  “You’re letting me go?”

  “A deal’s a deal. Goodbye, Danno.”

  “You’re not, uh, going to shoot me in the back, Bolan.”

  “You know better.” Bolan removed the clip from the Uzi and jammed it into his pouch. “Just go on.”

  The caporegime could hardly believe his good luck. He struggled to his feet and said, “I ain’t really told you anything to be ashamed of.”

  “You bet you haven’t,” Bolan assured him.

  “Uh, look Bolan. You’re not all that rotten. I mean, no offense, I didn’t mean it that way. I just mean I wish you’d been with us all along, instead of against us.”

  “War is like that, Danno,” Bolan said tiredly. “Now go on. Next time we meet, one of us will probably come out of it dead.”

  “Just the same, I’m not forgetting how straight you are,” Giliamo told him. He stepped to the edge of the stage and leapt off, turned to stare back at Bolan briefly, then hurried off into the night.

  Bolan murmured to himself, “I’m not all that straight, Danno.” He put the clip back in the Uzi, went down the steps and returned to the car. His outer garments were lying across the back seat. Affectionately he patted the little submachine gun, knowing that he would not be using it again, and lay it on the rear floor, then he quietly began getting into his clothing.

  It was shaping into a hell of a war, he was thinking. How was a guy supposed to separate the good guys from the bad. If the Mafiosi were not responsible for the torture death of old Edwin Charles, then who the hell was? And for what possible motive?

  He was wishing that he had never become involved with the Sades. But he had. And things were getting pretty badly entangled. Instinctively he knew that Danno had finally levelled with him. Bolan had taken all of the ham out of him as Stevie Carbon—Danno Giliamo had been talking straight. He was sure of that. So what did it all mean? That Ann Franklin’s foster father was a rat? And if it should turn out that way, what would this mean to the girl? And what would it all mean to Bolan and to his ability to get the hell out of the country?

  Yeah, it was getting tangled. Very soon now he would have to be doing something toward a firm identification of friend and foe. And then there was Charles. Bolan had liked the old man, even if the acquaintance had been microscopically brief. Living as Bolan did, you learned to take your likes quick, and he had definitely taken to the old soldier.

  So somewhere along the tangled threads Bolan meant to identify a sadistic killer, and he meant to see that justice was done.

  Right now, though, more pressing business was demanding his attention. He completed his dressing and sent the Lincoln rolling silently back through the park, lights out and prowling on the scent of an ex-POW.

  Bolan spotted him on the third pass, huffing along on foot down the west perimeter of the park. The slightly overweight Mafiosi was making better time than Bolan had expected. He ran the Lincoln into a stand of shrubbery, quietly said goodbye to it, and closed in on the prey on foot, taking up the stalk at a proper distance.

  No, Bolan was not all that straight. There was more than one way to extract intelligence from an enemy. Whether he knew it or not, Danno was not yet entirely free and the interrogation was still underway.

  And The Executioner was closing on the enemy camp. The Assault on Soho, Stage Two, was in progress.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE MEET

  The house was one of those inner London rarities, with a lawn, a courtyard, and an iron fence encircling
the whole thing. Off to the side was a portico and a huge circular drive that could probably take a fairsized funeral procession. In better days it had probably been the townhouse of some nobleman; now it served as the local business hub and visitor center for the most powerful crime syndicate in history. And it was within easy walking distance of the neon wonderland of Picadilly, but a hell of a long walk from Regents Park. Giliamo had apparently been in no great hurry to get back. Although the subway trains in London cease operation after midnight, there were still buses and taxicabs … and the Mafia underboss had spurned them all, staying with his feet.

  This was fine with Bolan; it made his task much easier. Maybe, he thought, the long walk was Giliamo’s idea of penance for his imagined sins against the family. Or maybe he was just walking off a sense of anger and frustration and humiliation. Humiliated he had certainly been. Bolan knew the writhings of psyche required for a high ranking Mafioso to bargain for his life with the likes of a Mack Bolan.

  Whatever the reasons, the journey from Regents Park back to Soho was a long and tiring one, consuming most of the early morning hours, and made worse by Giliamo’s obvious unfamiliarity with the streets of London. He did a lot of doubling back and circling, dipping down to within sight of Picadilly Circus before orienting himself into the final beeline to the house with the iron fence. During this last leg, Bolan noted that Danno was limping and moving along with more and more difficulty. Blisters, Bolan diagnosed. He had to smile at that. Blisters on the heel were armor for the soul, or so they’d told him in the army.

  Now Bolan stood in the darkness across from the big house and wondered what was going on inside there. Every room in the place was ablaze with lights and vehicles were lined up in the circular drive inside the gates. A group of men stood under bright porchlights, another smaller group idled near the vehicles.

  As Giliamo ascended the steps to the porch, Bolan heard a loud greeting of, “Hey Danno, where the hell you been?”

  A swirl of conversation hummed across the darkness to Bolan’s stakeout position, then the group on the porch went inside with Giliamo. Another man came out a few minutes later and lit a cigarette. He called down some barely audible instruction to the men at the vehicles. That group promptly melted and the men went to separate cars. Then the man on the porch called out something else in a half-chiding tone—it sounded to Bolan like, “The gates, the gates!”