Bolan stood up with a sigh and looked around him. A few minutes more and daylight would be arriving. The meeting was breaking up. He could hear the voices moving along the lawn at the front of the house. A car engine started. He had a pretty good idea who those people were. The war crews—the chiefs, anyway. They’d lost four men overnight. They would not be sitting back placidly awaiting the next loss.
At any moment, someone would be discovering a couple of dead sentries right on their headquarters turf—and there would be a hell of an outcry for sure. Bolan had already spent more time on this “probe” than he’d originally intended. All he had wanted was a feel—a finger on the pulse of Bad Tony Morello.
Well—he’d received that, all right. In spades. As a bonus, the missing chink to the whole puzzle could be lying unconscious at his feet. It could be the first real break in the campaign.
But the numbers were falling away, dammit.
He took a long look at the heavens, then made his decision—kneeling over the fallen man and working at the blood with a compress, inspecting for deeper hurts.
Then he slung the guy over his shoulder and carried him out of there.
Yeah, Susan, Mack Bolan sometimes took prisoners.
And this one was going to pay his keep.
6
PLAYERS
The gray hues of dawn were beginning to push away the night skies as Bolan found neutral territory beside the Morello estate. He eased his burden to the ground and sat down beside him with his back against the trunk of a tree, lit a cigarette, and silently contemplated his prize.
The guy was groaning, swimming toward consciousness.
It came swiftly then, with a twitching of sick eyes as they focused on the figure in military black, those graveyard eyes peering at him from a blackened face. A chilling voice commanded, “Keep it quiet and live awhile.”
The guy was tenderly feeling his face with trembling fingers. Bolan gave him a moment to allow the mind to settle before he told him, “The name is Bolan.” He dropped a death medal on the guy’s heaving chest. “That’s your ticket out. It’s the mark of the beast, Sorenson, and I’m hanging it on you. So get your breath. In about five seconds I’m going to route a bullet from one of your ears to the other.”
The prisoner reached instant panic as the significance of the moment penetrated. He had mouth injuries which made talking painful but the words were clear enough. “Please! Listen! I’m not—I have a wife and two kids! Don’t do this!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Bolan coldly inquired.
“Because I’m innocent!”
“Innocent of what?”
“I’m not one of them! I’m not … a thug!”
“What are you, then?”
“I’m general manager of the Pine Grove Country Club.”
“Besides that, what are you?”
“I … I’m not—”
“Let’s understand it,” Bolan said, the voice cold and flat. “You’re bought and paid for, a slab of meat in Morello’s freezer. Now let’s go from there. You make me happy, you’ll live awhile. But understand. I’m not Tony Morello. I get no kicks from this. I have nothing to prove. I don’t need evidence and I don’t honor the Fifth Amendment. As you lay there right now, you’re a dead man. Only you can change that. Now let’s start again. What do you do for Morello?”
The guy leapt to reply. “I guess you could call it recruiting. I recruit … business associates for him.”
“How do you do that?”
“I, uh, I line them up.”
“Let’s start again, once more only.”
“I set them up!”
“How do you do that?”
“I’m—it’s—wait now! I’m just trying to make it clear!” Sorenson’s eyes were rolling, seeking. He groaned loudly and put both hands to his head. “God, I think something’s broken inside my head.”
“I can give you a nine-millimeter aspirin,” Bolan offered icily.
The hands came down. “It’s better now. What was the question again, sir?”
“We were talking about the seduction of the straight business community, your employers at Pine Grove.”
“Yes, okay. Tony needed contacts. I was in a good position to make them for him. Sort of like a broker, you could say.”
Bolan commented, “That’s pretty heavy brokering, at five thousand a touch.” He sighed. “You still don’t understand. Now listen closely. This is the way we play this game. I know who you are and what you are. You’re a soul merchant, a business pimp, an ugly cancerous sore on your community. That’s why you are here. It’s why you are going to die, right here. I have not offered you a chance to prove what a nice person you are. That’s not the game. I’m offering you the chance to prove how sincere you can be. If you were one of those dirty thugs, see, I wouldn’t have to explain this to you. They know how the game is played. My time is short and my patience very tight. You try the game one more time, my way. Start again.”
“Okay,” Sorenson said feebly. “I set them up. Sex is the bait, usually. Not always.”
“Marks.”
“Right. Marks. These are very distinguished businessmen. They wouldn’t have anything to do with a man like Tony Morello.”
“Unless there was a gun at their heads.”
The guy took a deep breath and said, “Right. Or an equivalent threat. So I set it up for him. Morello has a funny ship.”
“What funny?”
“You know, funny. Girls. Gambling. All the forbidden delights.”
“You’re not talking about that grimy old freighter, the Christina.”
“That’s all front. I hear it’s okay inside. Very nice.”
“You’ve never been?”
“No.”
“What are you not telling me?”
“Nothing. I swear. That’s all I know.”
“You’re swearing on your life, guy. What about Susan Landry?”
Those frightened eyes bounced around for a moment before flaring into an understanding. “Oh! You’re the one that …”
Very coldly, Bolan said, “I’m the one. What about her?”
The guy sighed, very uncomfortably. “Beautiful gal, really. But obnoxious as hell. I didn’t know that when I hired her. About a month ago. Very efficient, though. Came on as a dining room hostess. I very quickly moved her up to an assistant manager’s spot. She was very good.”
The guy was feeling his way. Bolan allowed him the feel.
“I started getting complaints about her from the members. She was … always … out of place. Poking, prying, snooping around. I caught her in the private files, twice. Said she thought she should know little things about the members, you know, she could handle them better. I told her she wasn’t here to handle the members, she was here to serve them. I threatened to fire her the second time. We had a long talk. She agreed to settle down. I let it go. But she kept on snooping. I kept an eye on her. Then she made a play for—for one of the marks. Tried to warn him off, I guess. He told me about it. I had to tell Tony.”
“So what was her real interest?”
The guy seemed genuinely baffled. “I can’t figure it. I just don’t know. Listen—I’m playing the game. You ask, I’ll tell. Straight … honest …”
“That mark was Judge Daly?”
The guy sighed. “Well, I guess you know it all, anyway.”
“Just enough to keep you honest, guy. If Daly tipped you, then why’d he send me out there to save her skin?”
“He did that?”
“That’s what I said. How come?”
“I guess I blew it. Overreacted. It probably started him thinking. He was looking very troubled when he left last night.”
“You’re still playing games, Sorenson.”
“I swear!”
“Daly left your place under escort. He didn’t go willingly.”
“I swear I didn’t know that!”
“How many times had he been aboard the ship?”
“T
onight—last night was the first time. But I hear he didn’t get there.”
“You get five thousand per mark.”
“Did I tell you that?”
“I told you.”
“Yes. Five thousand per.”
“Then why did you get twenty thousand for Daly?”
“Oh, well … special case. See. He was very skittish. Took a lot of, uh, persistent effort. On my part, I mean.”
“He was also very important to Morello.”
“I guess so. Yes.”
“Let’s talk about the other marks. How many. Who.”
“Ten or twelve, maybe.”
“You can come closer than that.”
“About that many. I could run it down by names.”
“Let’s try it by pedigree.”
“What?”
“Business interests.”
“Oh. Well I never thought … let’s see. Tim Conley is big in insurance—industrials, you know. Uh, Hanson—George Hanson—big wheel with the utilities commission. Now this one makes sense: Ben Logan. He’s a captain in the Coast Guard. Works out of the district commandant’s office, Great Lakes, uh, something to do with law enforcement on the lakes. You want more?”
“I want them all,” Bolan assured him.
He got them all, committing them meticulously to his mental file—and he was feeling a bit sick to his stomach, when the list was complete.
He told Sorenson, “Morello I can understand. But you disgust me, guy.”
Sorenson closed his eyes as he replied, “Sometimes I disgust myself.”
“You knew why Morello wanted chains on those guys?”
“Not at first. I actually thought of myself as a glorified pimp.”
“There’s no such thing,” Bolan said coldly.
“I guess not. Anyway, I started putting it together. Sure. I knew what he was doing. But then it was too late. I was chained, too. Morello is a psychopath. He scares me.”
Bolan told him, “It’s not the psychopaths that scare me, Sorenson. For a few lousy bucks, a man like you …”
“Get off it,” Sorenson growled defensively. “I have a wife and kids. I needed those lousy bucks. Don’t try to make me feel like something unique. I’ve been through it all before. I’m rotten, sure, but it’s a rotten world, Mr. Bolan.”
Bolan got to his feet. “Is that what you’re going to tell your kids?”
The battered man’s gaze fell to a contemplation of his feet.
“It’s a beautiful world,” Bolan said coldly. “Don’t judge it by the company you keep.”
It was full dawn now. Pretty soon the sun would be showing. Bolan took back his marksman’s medal and walked away from there, leaving the rotten man adrift in his own rotting world.
Mack Bolan’s world was getting more beautiful all the time.
7
ACTION
Morello was pacing the floor of his study like a caged animal, rhythmically squeezing a small rubber ball in each hand as an additional release of tensions, when the house boss, Freddy Bianchi, rapped urgently on the door and poked his head inside to announce, “They found ’im, boss. Wandering down the road.”
“Which side?” Morello snarled.
“That side. But he’s all beat up. I don’t think—”
“Don’t think! Drag ’im in here!”
The door swung to full open. Bianchi stepped aside. A badly disheveled country club manager lurched through the doorway, propelled from the rear by two of Bianchi’s boys. Morello gave him a disgusted glance as he turned his back and went around behind the desk. He dropped into the chair and growled, “Leave him. Freddy—stay.”
The two boys went out and closed the door.
Bianchi said, “Front and center, Mr. Sorenson.”
The battered man looked around drunkenly, then staggered to the center of the room.
“Look at Mr. Morello,” the house boss instructed in a softly scandalized tone.
The guy swiveled about to peer at the man behind the desk. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m a little dizzy, Tony. I think you hurt me real bad.”
“Get off that sympathy shit,” Morello growled, the disgust heavy in his voice.
“Can I sit down?”
“When I say. Where you been, Mel?”
“I don’t know, Tony. I guess I was going home.”
“Something wrong with your car?”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of confused, Tony. I’m all hurt inside.”
Morello viciously hurled a rubber ball at the guy and yelled, “I said get off it!”
Sorenson reacted very quickly, ducking and managing to evade the accurately thrown missile.
Bianchi chuckled. “His responses look pretty okay to me, boss,” he observed. “I think he’s putting us on.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Morello said, staring murderously at the victim. “I think his damn brains are shook. Maybe you better unshake ’em some, Freddy.”
Sorenson straightened very quickly. “No, I’m better now. I’m feeling better. What were we talking about?”
Bianchi laughed.
Morello commanded, “Belt ’im!”
The house boss did better than that. He kicked the defenseless prisoner twice in the ass and delivered two ringing open-hand blows to that already battered face. Sorenson let out a shriek and fell to his knees, trying to cover up.
Morello said, “Aw, that hurt, Freddy. You made ’im cry.”
“I woke up out in a field!” Sorenson yelled. “This guy was bending over me! I guess he carried me out there!”
Morello got out of his chair and went to the window. He stood there for a moment, hands thrust deeply into pockets, then said, “Okay, sit down.”
Sorenson scrambled to a chair.
Bianchi went to the door and stood with arms crossed at his chest.
“He just carried you out there,” Morello said, after another moment of silence.
“Yessir.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why.”
“Who is this so-called guy that just carried you out there?”
“I don’t know, Tony. He just—”
“You call me Mr. Morello!”
“Mr. Morello, yes, sir.”
“I knew it couldn’t be. A punk like you—I knew it!”
Bianchi put in: “It didn’t even make sense. Even supposing he could. Why break out like that? He could’ve just got in his car and drove off.”
Sorenson’s frightened eyes were darting from one man to the other. He cried, “What’re you talking about?”
“We’re talking about a couple of our boys,” Morello informed him with sweet sarcasm. “Laying out in our yard with their eyes bugging outta their head. You wouldn’t know nothing about that, huh.”
“I swear!” Sorenson muttered.
“You better know something about something!” Morello growled threateningly. “This so called guy—this sounds mighty damned convenient. Don’t that sound convenient to you, Freddy? I think maybe the punk could, don’t you? If he snuck up behind, you know. He could.”
“It was Mack Bolan!” Sorenson screeched.
Bianchi’s arms came unfolded and fell limply to his sides.
Morello froze momentarily; then he walked jerkily to his desk and sat down.
“What did you say?” he asked quietly.
“I woke up and there he was bending over me. Eyes like … I can’t describe it, you wouldn’t believe it. He had on this black costume like raiders wear—like in the movies, all black, even his face was black, like the movies. He had this stuff all over him—this stuff—you know, war stuff.”
“And what’d he say?” Morello murmured.
“What’d he say? He said he was Mack Bolan. He said I was the mark of the beast.”
“The what?”
“The mark of the beast or something like that. He put this medal on my chest, this shooting medal like they say. He said I was laying there a dead man.”
T
he two interrogators locked gazes for a moment.
Morello said to Sorenson, “But here you are, not a dead man. Why not?”
“I convinced him he had me wrong.”
“How’d you do that?”
“He thought I was a torpedo or something. Anybody could know better. After I woke up, he just saw that he was wrong.”
“He carried you off the property just to wake you up and find out who you are?”
“I guess so, Tony—Mr. Morello.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this at first?”
“I was scared.”
“Scared of what? Scared of the truth?”
“Scared of how it might look to you.”
The two locked gazes again.
Bianchi said, “Tell us again what he looked like. Give us a description.”
Sorenson sucked in his breath and tried again. “He was all black, he—”
“Not that, dammit!” Morello roared. “Fuck the black! What’d he look like?”
The confused Sorenson replied, “Well God, that’s what he looked like! A damn black wraith, that’s all. Nothing but black and those damn piercing eyes—he scared the shit out of me, that’s what he looked like!”
“Sounds like,” Bianchi said, sighing.
Morello’s face had turned beet red. He surged to his feet and grabbed the massive desk with both hands—lifted it, tried to overturn it. That failing, he snatched the desklamp and hurled it through a window.
“Fix that fucking window!” he yelled at Bianchi.
The houseman’s face registered no emotion as he replied, “Sure, boss, we’ll fix it.”
Sorenson was frozen to his chair, hardly breathing.
Morello stormed around the room, overturning tables and hurling small objects against the walls. Bianchi moved not a muscle, nor did his eyes even follow the mad activities in there. When the fit had run its course, Morello returned to his chair and dropped into it with a satisfied grunt.
“Clean up this shit!” he commanded the houseman.
“We’ll clean it up, boss,” Bianchi assured him, but made no move from the door.
“Get my piece!”
“You want it now?”
“I want it right now!”
The house boss went out and returned a moment later bearing a bulky object wrapped in oilcloth. He placed it gently on the desk in front of the panting capo and went quietly back to his place at the door.
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