Adding to the general anonymity was Bolan’s expertise in what he called “role camouflage.” An “adaptability” learned in the war zones, this involved the true art of physical illusion without use of gimmicks. He had the knack of simply projecting an image of innocuous identity to other minds.
“Eyes and ears are simply instruments,” he once explained to a friend. “They record what is there, sure. But it’s the mind that comprehends. I don’t play to the eyes and ears. I play to the mind.”
As is the case for all living legends, Bolan was of course a figure of considerable public controversy. Some applauded him and his effect. Some were outraged by his extralegal activities. Some were simply amused and entertained by the thought that a guy could beat the system in such a dramatic fashion. And perhaps some, as Leo Turrin suggested, lighted candles for him.
He had learned to accept the full range of response, without puffing or shrinking at any of it. He was doing what had to be done, period. People could take it however they chose.
But Mack Bolan was human. He was not totally unaffected by personal censure. He was not totally unaffected by lovely young women such as Susan Landry. And no sane man enjoys being regarded as some kind of monster.
The girl’s whole manner altered abruptly the instant he introduced himself. He thought for a moment that she was going back into that trancelike state. But then those blue eyes crackled with some inner fire. She whipped the towel from her head and angrily muttered, “Oh fine, that’s great! And all I was worried about was my lousy hair!”
She went to the stove and banged the pan of chocolate from burner to burner, then turned to him with both hands at her head. “Do you have a hairbrush?” she inquired calmly.
He shook his head. “You look fine. Forget it. There are larger worries.”
She turned the full force of those blues on him as she replied, “You bet there are. And now I’ve got a damn vigilante on my hands.”
He said, “Funny, I thought it was the other way around.”
She made an odd little gesture with both hands and told him, “Look, it’s okay! You saved my life. Okay. Thanks. Now what?”
“That’s up to you,” he replied coldly.
“So goodbye and good luck.” She stepped off firmly and moved across the kitchen. “I’ll just get my things. Thanks for the use of the horse blanket.”
“The town is crawling with those guys,” he told her backside. “They’ll find you if they want you. And I’d say they want you, lady.”
She spun about in the doorway to give him a measuring look. “Why are you in Cleveland?”
“To bust it,” he answered candidly.
“What makes you think there’s anything to bust?”
He showed her a solemn smile. “Why were two of Morello’s crazies helping a naked lady drown in the Fifty’s swimming pool?”
She flushed brightly and said, “Nuts! All I owe you is thanks and I’m not even sure I owe you that. How do you know they really meant to kill me? And you would have killed them whether I was there or not Don’t deny it.”
He asked her, “What do you think I should have done with them?”
“Anything but that!” she spat. “That’s the trouble with men like you! You have a single answer to every problem in the world, don’t you? Just kill it, kill the problem with a gun. You make me sick.”
Some things made Bolan sick, too, but it was not the poor misunderstood cannibals who occupied his sympathies. He told the “sick” young lady: “You’ve got your values scrambled. The issue is not justice. It’s survival. And I’m not a vigilante. I’m a soldier.”
“And you take no prisoners!”
Right, I take no prisoners. Haven’t you heard the news? Our courts have revolving doors. Those two boys I burned tonight—have you ever seen the rap sheets on those guys? Lenny Casanova has been up for everything from raping an eleven-year-old girl to beating an eighty-year-old woman to death with her own shoe. Ten counts of assault with intent, two whole pages of intimidation for shakedown, and almost as many suspicions of murder. All that was before he graduated from the tender mercies of the juvenile court system. He hasn’t even been touched since Morello took him in hand. As for Charlie Guisti—he’s the one who taught Lenny all the cute tricks that made him Morello’s number two legbreaker.”
All of which had no visible effect on the angry young lady. I’ve heard all those arguments before,” she snapped back. It doesn’t change right and wrong. We can’t sink to their level. There has to be a better way.”
“I hope there is,” Bolan said quietly. “And while you and I are debating the question, your city is being eaten whole.”
Anger was moderating to exasperation. “Look,” she said, “I’m sorry I blew off. I can’t help the way I feel. But I am not ungrateful. Let’s get that understood. So what do you want me to do to prove it? What do you want from me?”
“I just want to understand,” he told her.
“Understand what?”
“You.”
She changed colors again, leaned against the doorjamb, fussed with the robe. Bolan was struck once again by the beauty of this woman. It was not a mere matter of planes and angles, curves and textures—though there was that, also; it was something else, something indefinable, something fine.
She said, “Look, I’m trying very hard to understand you. Now for God’s sake, don’t ask me to try understanding myself.”
“Let’s start with easies, then. What were you doing at the country club?”
She tossed her head, apparently still aggravated by the mussed hair. “I work there,” she said. “Let’s start with reciprocals. What were you doing there?”
“Looking for you,” he told her.
“Sure.”
“Truly. Judge Daly sent me.”
That brought a reaction. Those seething blue eyes jerked and receded just a bit, then fell to an inspection of her toes.
“I find that … just a bit confusing,” she said haltingly.
He said, “Reciprocals—remember?”
“Well, okay, sure. Listen, this is … you’re never going to buy … I mean …”
He told her, “Morello had a couple of arms on Daly, too. I shot them away from him but the judge collapsed with a heart seizure. I took him to the hospital. He told me a girl needed help. It seemed very important—more so than his own life. He thought he was dying.”
She seemed highly interested. “But he isn’t?”
Bolan shrugged. “Doctors do fabulous things with heart victims these days. What sort of work are you in? At the club, I mean.”
“I’m an assistant manager.”
“What do you manage?”
She smiled grimly. “Everything I can.”
“You weren’t doing so well at the pool.”
“Well, you can’t win them all,” she said sweetly.
“You’re not going to tell me a damn thing, are you?” he decided.
“Not if I can help it, no. We’re competitors, Mr. Bolan.”
“We are?”
“Yep.”
“You a cop?”
“Nope.”
“Moll?”
“Hell no!”
“So what are we competing for?”
She smiled. “Let’s just call it … an ideal.”
“I hope your ideals don’t kill you, Susan,” he told her, and meant it.
“Which hospital did you take the judge to?”
He told her, then added: “Don’t go there. Don’t call and don’t try to contact any of his associates. Morello will have everybody wired. You too, probably, so stay clear of any place that can be connected to you. Don’t use your credit cards. Don’t write any checks. Don’t—”
“It sounds like I’m on the lam,” she observed, eyes gleaming.
“You better believe it,” he assured her. “And it’s no game, so don’t take it lightly.”
“You’re really serious, aren’t you?”
“I really am
.”
She shivered. “Okay. It sounds like you know all the rules. I guess you must They’ve worked okay for you so far, haven’t they? Okay. Thanks. Now I really must go.”
“No need to,” he told her. “The place is yours, the rent is paid, it’s safe. I won’t be returning to it.”
He stepped past her and headed for the exit.
She said, “Well, wait!”
“The waiting is ended,” he said, from the door.
“Well, where can I contact you!”
“You can’t”
“Hey! Listen! I’m sorry! I mean … you’re a nice guy. Be careful.”
Well, he’d progressed from “vigilante” to “nice guy”—but that was as far as it was going to go, that much was plain. As for the girl, whatever her role in the Cleveland pipeline, he could only hope that it did not smother her. Clearly he could not impose protection upon one who rejected it.
He smiled at her, said, “God keep,” and went out of there.
And, yeah, the waiting was over.
5
SCENES
Tony Morello had been a small-minded punk all his life. He still was. At the center of the man was a nasty kid who’d never grown up. Not to say that he was not dangerous. In terms of sheer brute strength and animal cunning, Morello had few peers in the underworld. Add to that a natural ferocity and quick willingness to strike and you had the perfect picture of a Mafia bully boss. Which is exactly what the guy was. So far as Bolan could determine, the man had not a true friend in the world. Many feared him, but fear is no satisfactory basis for friendship—nor even for true leadership. It was remarkable, then, that the guy was still alive and bullying at the age of fifty.
Even more remarkable, to Bolan’s turn of mind, was the fact that this sadistic bullyboy had been able to engineer so many satisfying “connections” within the straight society of a city such as Cleveland.
Morello himself was not the core of the Cleveland problem; this was Bolan’s conviction. Left alone to his own devices, Bad Tony would be out hustling the streets with girls, drugs, and the usual petty scams—perhaps a contract murder here and there, a few floating crap games, oddjob muscling. But someone had lifted Tony Morello above all that—someone with clout and business acumen, someone with the vision to build and a willingness to rob. Someone “straight.” Tony Morello was nothing but a muscle.
Who in Cleveland needed and wanted that muscle? Wanted and needed it enough to put up with a nasty kid who killed for kicks and tortured as a relief from boredom?
The question itself could provide a logical assumption in many localities. Not so in Cleveland. The town was too stable in its foundations to provide a ready solution. The business community was healthy. The labor picture more or less placid. The politics relatively dignified. There had been no rampant corruption in local government since the heyday of the old Mayfield Road Gang.
Cleveland had never been a real cushy Mafia stronghold. The Jewish racketeers had pretty much dominated the area in the old days. Even the Mafia don who initially represented Cleveland on the national commissione was known to be little more than a spokesman for the real—Jewish—boss of Cleveland. Reform movements begun in the thirties sent the gangs to the suburbs and then to the hinterlands of Ohio, finally pushing them across the border into Kentucky. The real power began moving west long before that—to Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Southern California. Tony Morello was the heir to what was left behind—which had not been much, until very recently.
Now, suddenly, Cleveland was vibrating to the flow of big money moving along conduits below official eyelevel—a pipeline operation—and the nasty kid from Akron was seated squarely astride it. Bolan could have quickly and painlessly blown Tony Morello out of the saddle at almost any time during the past few days. He had wires all over the guy, had penetrated a dozen of the guy’s front operations, and had even paid a couple of quiet visits to his headquarters—an old riverfront estate on the Cuyahoga. But Bolan wanted more than the rider; he wanted the mount, also; he needed to put a few more wires around Bad Tony’s rotten neck.
It was nearly dawn and the old joint on the river was still ablaze with lights. Half a dozen cars were in the graveled parking area. Tired-looking men with shotguns cradled at the chest walked their monotonous posts. A couple of cute kids with more beauty than brains and more flesh than cover boredly sipped drinks on a lighted patio behind the house. Deep male voices raised in anger could be heard through an open window on the second floor. The cute kids kept tossing nervous glances that way, almost as though half expecting a body to come flying out at any moment.
Bolan was in blackface and blacksuit. He carried no weapon save the silent Beretta, a stiletto, and a nylon garrote. Twice in the past few minutes the garrote had bitten deeply into sentry flesh. But the “soft penetration” had reached an impasse at the patio, and the girls seemed to be planted there for the duration of whatever was going down inside the house.
Bolan began a circling movement, seeking another angle of entry. Just as he reached a point directly opposite the front entrance, the door opened and none other than Bad Tony himself stepped outside.
He was alone.
Bolan froze and watched as the bullyboss lit a cigar, then casually strolled to the parking lot.
Someone was waiting for him, in one of the vehicles.
Morello went halfway, stopped and gazed around, then casually lifted an arm. A slight man with thinning blond hair stepped out of the car and joined Morello; then the two of them took a walk along the garden path.
Bolan went with them, keeping his distance until the two halted at a cement bench and sat down. As far as Bolan could determine, neither had uttered a word since the meeting and still nothing was being said.
Morello sat and puffed the cigar.
The thin man sat quietly and nervously and looked at his hands. He was a guy of maybe thirty-five, neatly dressed, intelligent looking.
Presently Morello rasped, “So what went wrong?”
The guy squeezed his hands together as he replied, “I don’t know, Tony. I just don’t know. They had the girl in the pro shop when I left. I wasn’t really in favor of this, you know. I didn’t approve of it.”
“No kiddin’.”
“No, I am not kidding. This is all just crazy. Of all places to try something like—”
“Shut up!”
“I just meant—”
“I know what you just meant. Who ever asked you to approve of anything? Huh? Since when do I give a shit what you favor and what you don’t?”
The thin man had not a word in reply to that.
“I asked you what went wrong. You give me mealy mouth. I send my two best boys out there to do a routine job for you. My two best boys are found floating in their brains. Now I’m asking you, Sorenson. What went wrong?”
“The whole thing was wrong from the beginning!” the guy wailed. “I never dreamed you meant to—to—to do that! I thought you’d pay her off or scare her off or whatever you do in these situations. Those idiots were going to drown her, in our own pool! Can you imagine that? I got out of there as soon as I heard that. You’ll have to ask someone else what went wrong.”
Morello sucked on the cigar for a full thirty seconds, then quietly inquired, “How much do they pay you to run that joint, Sorenson?”
“A thousand a month, plus a percentage,” the guy replied petulantly.
“How much do I pay you for every little favor I get?”
The guy’s response was unintelligible.
“Huh?” Morello insisted.
“You know what you pay me.”
“Sure I do. I’m wondering do you know.”
“God’s sake, Tony, stop playing with me. You give me five grand per contact. That’s not at issue. I want to know—”
Morello had hauled off without warning and backhanded the guy, sending him sprawling to the ground. The guy just lay there for a moment; then he pulled himself up and resumed his seat.
Morello hit him again, and this time the guy stayed down. The old sadist put a foot on the humiliated man’s head and told him, “I don’t like you, Sorenson. I never did like you. You’re too damn good to associate with a guy like me but you’ve never complained about the color of my money. Now I asked you a straight question. I expect a straight answer.”
Sorenson’s voice was muffled in reply but the words were clear. “I didn’t kill them, Tony. I don’t know who did. I don’t know a thing about it. I didn’t know anything was wrong until I got your call. I was going along with it. Please believe me. I was going along. I went home and went to bed. I expected to go back to the club in the morning and discover a terrible accident in the pool. Now I swear. I had nothing to do with what went wrong.”
“Well now, that’s mighty damn strange,” Morello said. “Because something went wrong with the other guy, too. He never got to the ship.”
Sorenson’s head was still beneath Morello’s foot “What?”
“Yeah, how ’bout that. And another two of my boys are right now floating in the fucking lake, just dead as hell. Isn’t that strange? Wouldn’t you say that’s strange?”
“Yes. That’s very strange. I swear I didn’t know.”
“How much did I give you for that guy? All told, how much?”
“About twenty grand, Tony. I’ll pay it back. If it went wrong, I’ll pay it all back.”
“How much you gonna pay me for my four boys?”
“God’s sake, Tony!”
“Remember, I don’t like you! So you get your ass back where it belongs and you keep it in line. I get the smallest smell of something cute with you, I’m gonna pull your asshole off! You got me?”
“I’ve got you, Tony.”
“Let’s make sure.”
The bullyboss stood up and put his full weight on the guy’s head. Then he savagely jumped on it and walked away without a backward look.
The abused Sorenson did not move. Bolan gave him time to do so; then he went over and checked him out. The guy was unconscious. Blood was oozing slowly from mouth and nose. Patches of skin were ground off the face.
Cleveland Pipeline Page 3