"He's a shrewd warrior," Brognola said. "Everything he does is to the numbers. How much of a force are you taking?"
"I've gathered up ten men."
"You'd better gather up a lot more. What were you going to tell me? Something about your man at the Duster."
"He says it's hard to get a good look at the guy. Vinton. He keeps moving, waves his arms around a lot, always seems to find a shadow for his face. Wearing lenses and bandages also. But he's the right size, the right build, and roughly the right age."
"Uh, I'll get right down there," Brognola said. "You find my sidekick and tell him to get those marshals down there, all of them, and tell them to warm up their sharpshooter fingers. Get the locals to put a cordon around the place, very quietly, I mean like two men per square foot. Set up roadblocks. Send those horseback volunteers down there, too, semi-circle them on the desert side."
"It's going to make us look awful damn silly if..."
"Don't worry about that, we'd look even sillier with Bolan treating the town right beneath our noses. Anyway, my hackles are rising and I believe they're getting the Bolan scent."
"The guy has pulled these wild stunts before, hasn't he?"
"You bet your badge he has. Remind me to tell you about Palm Springs some day."
"Be careful, Hal."
"Yeah." Brognola threw the car into gear and screeched out of the parking lot with rubber burning.
Yeah. What a pity. What a hell of a rotten waste of a truly superior human being. Be careful. Those were not the right words, were they. Hell no. Be hard. Be hard,
Hal, do your duty, and go gun down a very superior human being.
He would, of course. Because he had to. He and[ Bolan were two of a kind.
They simply did what they had to do.
Joseph Earl Stanno had not fallen off a bed since he was six years old. Of course, it had been a hell of a bad day all the way around. One thing after another — the hit on the hill, the heist, eating shit from the Taliferis' plates, trying to run bastard Bolan to ground, the embarrassment at the Duster when the bastard rousted Vito — right under Joe's nose, then that Godawful hit at McCarran, the ordeal with Vito screaming and pleading for his hie all during that long, hot desert ride… yeah, and it had been a rotten day all the way along, and without any sleep even. For thirty-six hours no damn sleep. No wonder he fell off the damn bed, he was probably having nightmares in his sleep as bad as they bad been all day with his eyes wide open.
All this passed through his mind as he was struggling to get his swollen eyes opened, and he was thinking that, hell, he might never see again. Then he saw the pair of legs walking away from him, and he remembered where he was, and something swam up from his subconscious to make him realize that he hadn't fallen off — some bastard had drug him off.
Stanno rolled to his side and explored his face with probing fingers. The nose burned and it was throbbing some. He pulled his fingers away wet and warm and he knew that he was bleeding a little from his nose. What bastard had drug him off onto his nose?
He groaned and sat up, swaying drunkenly and wondering if he really was awake, after all. The guy perched there on the edge of the desk didn't look like anybody he knew personal, except for the expensive silk threads that a hundred guys he knew wore all the time.
Instinctively Joe's hand moved beneath his coat and came out empty. What bastard had relieved him of his hardware?
The guy at the desk was looking away from him, toward the wall, just sitting there and swinging his foot and staring off no where.
"Who the hell're you?" Stanno said in a raspy voice. "What the hell is coming off?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Stanno, I shouldn't be talking to you," the guy said.
What the hell did he mean by that, why couldn't he talk to him? Shit, it was too hard to think about. His goddam head was throbbing and he had that sick feeling in his gut, that hungry grabby feeling of not eating anything all night and all day.
Stanno struggled back to the couch. He pulled himself up and sat on the edge with his head in his hands.
The guy wasn't saying nothing.
Stanno looked up and asked him, "Where's that guy?"
He just swung his foot and didn't say nothing.
"Didn't you hear me, you creep?" Joe the Monster yelled. "Where's that guy, that smart-ass? Did he turkey out?"
Very quietly, the guy told him, "That's old history, Mr. Stanno. Look, you understand — nothing personal, I mean — but I can't afford to get heard talking to you."
"What the hell d'you mean? What not talk to me? What old history?" The bewildered man lurched to his feet. "Where's my rod?" he growled.
"Pardon me, but do you always wake up this hard?" the guy asked him. He slid off the desk and walked past, then returned and said, "You look like hell, Mr. Stanno."
And then the bastard threw a glass of cold water in Joe Stanno's face. It jerked him upright, though, and the red film in front of his eyes started going away, and his mind slipped into focus. And he knew with a terrible swiftness what the guy had been talking about.
"You don't wanta talk to me?" he asked, unable to accept the finality of that message.
"No sir, I'm sorry."
"What the hell is going on?"
"You know, Mr. Stanno," the guy told him.
Yeah, Stanno knew, how well he knew. How many times had he gone through this very same routine? How many times, and never ever believing that it would some day be coming back at him.
But… why? For God's sake, why? Shut up, Stanno, for God's bleating sake, shut up. You don't go out begging and screaming like Vito, hell no.
"They want to see you, Mr. Stanno," the silksuit said.
"Oh is that right? And where are they?"
"Well you should know."
"Don't get assy with me, boy."
"No sir, I wouldn't."
The kid was real polite. At least it was going to be dignified.
"I, uh, Christ I don't remember what's been going on, I guess. I mean I'm not woke up good yet. I was up thirty-six hours."
"Yes sir."
The guy came over and opened Joe's coat and, dropped a rod into the leather. Quietly, almost sorrowfully, he said, "I wouldn't send nobody out there naked, Mr. Stanno. Not my worst enemy."
"Is that fuckin' thing loaded?"
"Of course it's loaded, Mr. Stanno."
"Well what — I mean…"
"You got a right."
"Thanks. I know you, don't I?"
"Not very well," the guy said. He was holding a big black rod in his own paw now, a silenced rod. "Goodbye, Mr. Stanno."
He shoved him toward the door. Actually shoved Joe Stanno.
The big man staggered into the wall and turned crazed eyes to the smirking silksuited polite bastard. He swiped at his bleeding nose with the back of his hand and growled, "Where'd you say they were, tough?"
"Same place," the guy said. "You'd better get going."
The guy popped the desk buzzer and the door swung open.
Stanno lurched through the doorway and down the short hall to Max Keno's station. He bent low to whisper, "What the hell is going on, Max?"
"I'd rather not say, Mr. Stanno," Max replied.
A cold sweat broke out above Stanno's eyes. It was one thing to get the leper treatment from a stranger… Max was something else again. He recoiled from the masked pity in those eyes, then he jerked himself erect and found a handkerchief to hold against the nosebleed.
He took three steps down the stairway before being struck by the eerie silence.
His head jerked around and he gawked across the railing at the deserted tables and the utter desolation of a casino without people. It seemed to Joe the Monster like a Vegas version of the last-man-on-earth.
He snapped back to Max Keno and said, "God's sake, Max, what's going on?"
"I guess you better just keep on going, Mr. Stanno," was all Max would say to him.
The red film settled back over his eyes again and Joe St
anno descended into the pits of Mafia hell.
Behind him, faintly, he heard Max calling out, "It's eight forty, Mr. Vinton."
Chapter Sixteen
Jackpot
Bolan-Vinton strode past Max Keno and said, "Okay, Max. On me." He started down the stairway and saw Joe the Monster in his side vision, prowling about the deserted casino.
Bolan kept his eyes front and went on down.
Max fell in behind him.
From behind the partition was coming the muted sounds of a happy party in the adjoining dining room. That was great. Bolan grinned to himself; the house was living it up, and keeping most of the action where Bolan wanted it.
It was going by the numbers now.
Almost. Just as he reached the casino floor, four men swept in through the lobby entrance.
One of them yelled, "Hey there!"
Bolan swung around to confront the foursome.
The Talifero brothers, Pat and Mike.
Two tagmen flanking them, running on the quarters like a couple of destroyers in escort of capital vessels.
They were cruising toward Bolan, and they had reached about the midpoint between the door and the stairs. One step around the corner and Bolan would be out of it… very briefly.
He took a step in their direction, then swung his arm up in a dramatic sweep from the shoulder to point out Joe Stanno, moving like a sleepwalker along a row of gaming tables.
"There he is!" Bolan yelled.
The four came to a confused halt, their eyes tracking along Bolan's point.
Joe Stanno froze and his head snapped up.
The instincts gained by a lif etime of violence were all mirrored there in the big guy, in the street-fight stance, in the way the massive head swayed back to the rear of the shoulders — like a cagey old ostrich laying an eye into the situation.
And the situation he was laying into must have appeared as natural and inevitable to Joe Stanno as any of the hundreds of other similar incidents to which he had been party over the years.
Except that this time Joe Stanno was at the wrong end of the party.
Death… and eerie silence… where always before there had been action and at least a synthetic gaiety.
The pointing finger of doom.
And the execution party.
Joe Stanno was obviously having none of that crap.
He was not going out bleating and pleading like Vito, hell no.
"Okay, I'll take you all!" he yelled.
Bolan saw him go for his gun, then he swung quickly away in the other direction and Max Keno scampered in close pursuit.
An excited voice screamed, "He's crazy!"
The roar of gunfire and the zinging of bullets in confinement accompanied Bolan and his tagman to the rear of the casino. They were passed quickly through the security network, Bolan marling to the guards, "It's a rumble, don't let aobody in!"
More money than Bolan knew existed was stacked up all over the joint. Heavily braced wooden shelves along the walls were straining under the burden of thousands upon thousands of coin rolls, and the machines were still ticking.
Currency was stacked in foot-high bundles on four large counting tables, and the controller was pacing nervously back and forth and urging the ladies along.
Bolan speared the guy with a hard gaze. "You got it?" he yelled.
"Yes sir, it's all out. Do I hear gunshots?"
"Every damn nickel?"
"Yes sir, every damn nickel."
"What are you running, so far?"
"Just over a half-million, Mr. Vinton, but the confirmation count is just going into the..."
"Awright, kill it and get out of here!"
"Sir?"
"There's a rumble, can't you hear? Get your broads outta here, I don't want 'em caught in nothing like this!"
"You mean… just leave? Just leave it?"
"You can't take it with you can you, you jerk?" Bolan yelled. "Get those dames outta here!"
It was apparently the final straw for a business-methods freak already pushed beyond the strain-point. The guy spun about and walked stiffly to the door. "Get them out yourself," he called over his shoulder, and out he went.
Bolan yelled, "Leave them doors open! Out, girls, get the hell out!"
He was grabbing and shoving, and Max was lending a hand to a scene of confusion and pyramiding chaos.
Above the feminine hubbub, Bolan told Max, "Take 'em out, and make sure they get clear."
"Sure boss," said instant loyalty.
And then there was just Bolan and the inside guard. Bolan gave him a hard stare and said, "Well, are you going down with the bucks?"
The guy said, "No sir," and went out.
Bolan went over to the new money, obviously the stuff from the vault, and riffled through the stacks. There were packets of denominations ranging from fifties to thousands. He picked up a packet of the largest denomination and thrust it into his inside coat pocket. Next he found the fire station and disabled the automatic sprinklers.
And then he went to the door, bent down, produced an incendiary stick he'd been carrying in a leg strap, removed the cap, and tossed the firebomb onto the center table.
It spit and popped and began showering the place with white-hot chemicals, and Bolan got out of there.
The mob was so wild about hot money, he'd give them some. Skim that, he muttered.
He banged the door, ran the combination and commanded the hallway guard, "Nobody goes in!"
"No sir."
"Not Christ himself! The joint is sealed!"
"I got you, sir."
He went on through to the casino floor and repeated the command to the two guards there. The guys were nervous and obviously torn up. One of them asked him, "Did someone try a heist, Mr. Vinton?"
Bolan said, "Yeh, but don't you worry about the action out front. Just do your job here."
The guard unholstered his pistol and assured the boss that he would do just that.
Bolan went on around the corner and came out on the main floor. The last of the women were just then disappearing into the dining room.
Max Keno was returning, skirting warily around the scene of the shooting.
Two guys were laid out on the promenade, bleeding and not moving.
It was hard to tell from the angle of vision, but one of them looked like a Talifero.
Keno yelled, "Lookout boss! Joe is..."
A gun roared from somewhere in the tables and the little tagman took a dive.
Bolan did likewise, slapping leather in the process, and he came up against a gaming table with the Beretta up and ready.
A bunch of guys ran in from the lobby. Bolan yelled to them, "Out, get outta here!"
A gun roared again, a bullet splattered into the door moulding, and the guys dodged back to safety.
But Bolan spotted Joe Stanno on that round. He tired along the floor, beneath the tables, the Beretta phutting twice and cutting Stanno's legs from under him.
The monster man went down with a thud and a sigh.
And then the place was being invaded. People were dodging in from both doorways, hard people packing hardware and sprinting for cover wherever cover could be found.
Bolan had but one way to go, and that was toward Joe Stanno. He snaked along the floor beneath the tables where the big guy was lying on his side acd watching him come.
Stanno was sieved. He was bleeding from numerous punctures in the chest and one in the gut, a trickle of blood was oozing from the corner of his mouth, and his pants legs were turning red from Bolan's hits.
His gun was lying on the floor, under his nose. He raised his head off the floor and asked Bolan, "Hey, tough, which one did I get? Was it Pat or Mike?"
"I think you got them both, Joe," came the reply in Bolan's natural voice.
Joe die Monster smiled and coughed up blood and said, "I knew they wasn't so tough," and then he lay his head back down beneath the crap table and died.
A volley of fire hit the tabl
e at that precise moment, and Solan rolled on. From somewhere on his flank he heard Max Keno hissing, "Boss, what's going on?"
"Bets are off, Max," he called back. "You're on yourself."
Such a situation had apparently never arisen for the little tagman. After a lifetime of forever being "on" someone else, there was absolutely no mental concept of being "on himself."
He snaked and rolled to Bolan's outside flank and gasped, "Out the kitchen, boss, that's the best way."
A Taliferi was running down the stairway from the upstairs joint, another guy one step behind. Bolan heard him shouting, "That's Bolan! Don't let him get out!"
Bolan snapped a Parabellum toward the staircase and he saw the fabric of the Taliferi's suit pop and recoil, and the guy took a nose-dive down the steps. -
Someone yelled, "He hit the bossl"
Bolan had lost his purple lenses during the scramble, and now Max Keno was staring into his unshuttered eyes with the heady revelation of truth crackling between them. And obviously the truth had no bearing on the matter. The boss was tht boss, whatever else he might be. The little guy grinned and chirped, "Follow me, boss."
There was no immediate alternative, and Bolan's number were running out. He rolled and slid and crawled through the jungle of mahogany and green felt until it began to seem like an eternal trek — and then Max was grunting, "Go on, straight ahead, I'll cover you."
Bolan sprang toward a curtained doorway, no more than two table-lengths away. Guns roared and spat-angry little hornets of destruction in hot pursuit, and they were zipping the air all about him, thwacking into the wall beyond and plowing into tables to either side of his backtrack. Behind him he could hear Max's methodical response, the air suddenly cleared and the roar of weapons died off.
Also behind him a loud voice was proclaiming, "We are federal officers! All of you stop firing and throw down your weapons!"
And then Bolan was through the curtains and running along a short hallway and toward a swinging door to the kitchen.
The door swung open and Bolan skidded to an abrupt halt.
Harold Brognola stood there, blocking the way with a sawed-off shotgun raised and ready.
The sad-faced lawman hesitated for perhaps a heartbeat.
And, in that heartbeat, Bolan was aware of a small figure swinging in around him.
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