Cleveland Pipeline

by Don Pendleton

  They’d exited from the main deck housing onto the ship’s quarter. Two large cargo hatches took up most of the main deck from that point to the ship’s stern where another small housing formed the fantail. Although the hatch covers extended several feet above the deck, it was a relatively clear area except for a winch station and some cargo handling booms between the hatches.

  Above and behind Bolan, the entire superstructure was in flames. Off in the distance, a couple of small Coast Guard vessels were bearing hard on the disaster scene. Numerous other small boats were streaming out from the port area.

  Bolan was moving one pace behind the girl, alert to any threat to their withdrawal. And they were about halfway home when that stern housing began spitting out hardmen—and they came out shooting. Bolan unleashed Big Thunder, sending out eight big splattering bullets that changed some minds back there and gave the girl time to reach the ship’s rail. She paused there, though, crouching down and sending a stricken look back to the man with the thundering pistol. He had already ejected the spent clip and replaced it with a live one.

  He yelled, “Go, dammit, go!”

  “Not without you!” she cried.

  And then Bolan spotted Bad Tony. Or, rather, Bad Tony spotted himself. In inimitable fashion. The maniac had risen from the protective cover of the after cargo hatch, Thompson submachine gun in hand, to spray his own cowering troops.

  “Malacarni my ass!” he screamed. “You’re a bunch of old women!”

  It was an Old World term for the brave and the bold. And all these boys had wanted were some greener pastures. Bolan felt no particular sympathy. He simply saw it as another abomination in the unbelievable character of Bad Tony Morello. And yeah, Freddy—the guy had gone completely bananas.

  Bolan raised the AutoMag and squeezed off a single round, the thundering report blending with and stilling the guttural staccato of the other insanely bucking weapon.

  A huge red hole appeared in the area where Bad Tony’s rotten nose had once been, the heavy slug flattening on impact and splattering on through, ever growing in diameter and reaming an ever wider path through a brain which never had really functioned properly. The instrument of liberation exploded through the back side of that collapsing skull and kept on going, loath to be imprisoned there in such a foul environment.

  Bad Tony died with his Thompson on.

  And Mack Bolan was not “trying” those malacarni, those still alive, with any thoughts of gratitude. He grabbed his lady and dropped her overboard, then gladly quit that place himself.

  But now, for sure, Bad Tony Morello had no more damn bananas.

  19

  FITTINGS

  A fleet of small boats from the port had picked up all the survivors and several fireboats were working the fire problem. The Coast Guard was standing by and directing operations. Ben Logan was in working khakis and a Colt .45 was strapped to his side. A boarding party of whitehats with rifles and sidearms stood behind him. The captain knelt at the open gate of the cutter’s railing talking in quiet tones to Mack Bolan who was in a small boat alongside.

  “I’m not at all surprised to see you here, Sergeant,” he said, eyes glinting warmly.

  “Me either you,” Bolan replied. He sponged water from his face with a borrowed towel as he added, “Good to see you in work uniform.”

  “Well … I’d like you to know … I was coming out after this bucket when I saw her blow. I, uh, worked out that problem with the lady. You were right. She’s a hell of a fighter.”

  Bolan grinned tiredly and very enjoyably informed the man: “Bad Tony is no more. You’ll find him on the fantail. I don’t know where he keeps his goodies but if I were you I’d do a public service to some good citizens of Cleveland and shake that bucket down from stem to stern. Then I’d make a cozy bonfire with all the poison I found there. That’s what I’d do.”

  Logan smiled. “Sounds like what any public-spirited citizen would do. Look. I can’t say thanks. That simply isn’t enough. If, uh, I were in your position, I think I’d like to know that the civil authorities ashore are combing the city and setting up roadblocks for a certain fugitive. And I, uh, would want to keep well clear of all primary roads.”

  Bolan said, “You’re entirely welcome.”

  That good smile broadened. “Have you read John Donne?”

  “No man is an island, right.”

  “No man is an entire continent either, Sergeant. He’s just a piece of it. Try to remember that. And keep your head down.”

  Bolan grinned. “You, too. Don’t go baring your breast to the commandant. Wear your own burdens. The world has too many saviours hanging from crosses already.”

  “I see you read Richard Harris also.”

  “Every chance I get, yes. Don’t pass the judgment to others, Cap’n. Seriously. They’ll tear you apart.”

  “You’re a remarkable man. How did you ever get off into …” He changed his mind, deciding not to say that. “Keep on,” he said.

  Bolan smiled, glanced at his wet, woeful lady, and replied, “What else?”

  “Of course I’m still alive,” Bolan said to Leo Turrin. “What gave you the idea I wouldn’t be?”

  “I dunno, unless it could be that your four o’clock report came on like a last will and testament.”

  “Well … it’s A-OK here for the moment. I may have a bit of trouble getting out of town. May decide to just, uh, cool it for a few days.”

  “You and the wild card, eh? Just thee and she and deception makes three.”

  Bolan’s tone went suddenly very solemn as he responded to that. “Okay. I’ve been waiting for it. Give it. First-did Hal see my file?”

  “He saw it, yes. Where’s the babe? She there with you now?”

  “Zonked out on the bed, yeah. Whatever else she may be, Leo, right now she is at the end of human endurance. The kid has been through a lot of hell since this time last night. More than a lot of hard men I know could take as well. I’m telling you right off the top of the cut that my instincts all go with her. Now. Overturn it.”

  The little guy sighed. “I don’t know what she is, Sarge. That’s for you to say. But I know what her grandfather is.”

  “You know for sure.”

  “Not the kind of sure we’d want to take into court, no. The kind of sure that your gut knows is right, yeah. He is your fatcat, buddy. And I’ll] bet I can give you the names of his co-conspirators. There’s a Eugene Scofflan, Cleveland Cooperative Consumers Inc. And a Michael D. O’Shea, chairman of Lake Trade Enterprises, that’s a conglomerate, director status with a dozen others. Then you’ve got Aubrey Hirschbaum. If I have to give you his pedigree then you haven’t been reading Fortune magazine or the Wall Street Journal much.”

  “Hirschbaum’s in this?”

  “Clear up to his neck. Hal has a dozen old phone taps linking him directly to the western syndicate—that is, the Jewish interests—and a couple from six months ago indicating a very chummy relationship with your good buddy Tony Morello.”

  “Uh-huh. Morello’s dead, by the way.”

  “By the way, huh?”

  “Yeah. So how is Paceman tied with these guys?”

  “Scofflan has been his chief sponsor for years, chief fund raiser, and booster. Conversely, Scofflan’s personal fortune has not been hurt a damn bit by the friendship. He has had a, uh, uncanny sense of timing ever since Paceman became a power on various committees. You know—buying and selling at just the right time to insure a killing.”

  “And O’Shea?”

  “A new boy in town. Came there from Detroit two years ago. Brought his corporate headquarters with him. Just in time to benefit from legislative largesse. He and Scofflan now share ownership in a fancy yacht on which the Honorable Mister Paceman also takes frequent cruises. The four wives are closest pals.”

  “Where does Hirschbaum fit in there?”

  “He’s just the guy that put Paceman in office the first time. That was back in the days when the Jewish gangs practic
ally owned Ohio. Hirschbaum, it turns out, owned Franklin Adams Paceman. He’s owned him ever since.”

  Bolan sighed heavily. “Why is all this Just now coming out, Leo?”

  “What the hell, guy, it’s your game. Nobody knows better than you. It’s a matter of punching the right buttons at the right time. I’m sorry if you don’t like the can of worms—but it’s your can, pal, and you’re the guy that opened it.”

  “You mean it’s gas connected.”

  “You got it. Paceman has the fatcat role. Between the other three and all their devious interconnections, they have a damn hefty stranglehold on all the industrial energy supplies for not only Ohio but for the whole damn northeast. Add in some of the names on your pigeon list and it’s an absolute power monopoly.”

  “So what’s the feeling in Wonderland, Leo? What will they do with it?”

  “The feeling is that they will probably first withhold supplies. They’ll shut down industries in wholesale lots from Michigan to Maine, and they—”

  “All right, but give me an argument. How could they do that?”

  “They simply do it. They claim shortage, nonavailability, whatever they damn well please. Have you taken a look at the federal energy programs lately? No? I’ll tell you why. There isn’t one. Nobody knows what the true energy situation is in this country. Those guys can cap their wells and shut down the transmission pipes and simply say, well, fellas, we’re out of gas. Too bad about that. And there’s nobody to say different.”

  Bolan said, “Okay, that’s about the way I see it. Thanks for the argument. I guess there’s no argument whatever about step two.”

  “Cut and dried, I guess, yeah. They’ll jump the price about a zillion percent. They’ll bankrupt companies far and wide, then gobble them up. They’ll absolutely control the economy of the entire nation and—by logical extension—of goodly parts of the free world. Only it won’t be so free anymore.”

  Bolan said, “Could they really do it?”

  “The feeling is, yeah, they could do it. Especially if we get a hard winter. That’s the only fingerhold they’d need. That would be the government’s breakpoint. We just don’t have the machinery to deal with it on a hurry-hurry basis. It could take years of courtroom maneuvering. By then, well, let’s just pray for warm winters.”

  “These guys aren’t Mafia, Leo.”

  “Fellow travelers, though. Hirschbaum is as mean as any. He just doesn’t carry a gun.”

  “Morello carried the guns for them.”

  “Right. That’s the way it works.”

  Bolan said, “Okay. Let’s get some murder indictments on Paceman, Scofflan, O’Shea, and Hirschbaum. The employer is as guilty as the employee. Right?”

  Turrin laughed. “You’re developing a very weird sense of humor.”

  Bolan chuckled with him. “Yeah. Okay. So we’ll buck it up to a higher court.”

  “You got one of those?”

  “Yeah. It just found them guilty.”

  “You the judge?”

  “No. I’m the judgment.”

  “Good luck, pal. Step lightly.”

  Bolan hung up and turned troubled eyes toward the bedroom. Step lightly, yeah, sure. So where did she fit?

  20

  CONNED

  Those great luminous blues flashed up at him and she purred contentedly. “Ohhhh great, I dreamed you were gone and I was trying to catch you in my sailboat. But you just strode on with those ten-league strides, straight out across Erie. I’m glad. I mean that it was a dream.”

  He gently inquired, “You okay?”

  “I’m fine now, yes, thank you.” She patted the bed invitingly. “Don’t you ever rest?”

  He told her, “I can’t rest yet, Susan. We need to parley. We need to square it up.”

  Those eyes closed for a moment. A small tear popped loose and rolled along the velvety course. “Okay,” she said, after a moment. “Let’s square it up.”

  “That Pine Grove list—I know—”

  She bit it. “Sorry, that’s still confidential.”

  He said, “I wasn’t asking you. I was about to tell you. I know where you got it. It came from your grandfather, Senator Paceman.”

  Those eyes flared wide. “Why don’t you just let it go?” she moaned.

  “I can’t let it go. You conned me. Now we have to square the con or there’s nothing possible between us, nothing at all. I’ll put on my ten-league boots and I’ll say goodbye.”

  “Oh wow, you’re such a granite block of solid morality, aren’t you? So square, so perfect, such a fine masculine example for all your kids to follow. Ha!”

  He said, “There won’t be any kids. And I am what I am. Goodbye, Susan.”

  He was at the door when she yelled, “Well, wait a minute, dammit! Okay! Okay! I conned you! Does that square it?”

  He turned to her with a pained smile. “It’s a beginning.”

  “Look I—I’m not going to hand over any heads for you.”

  “You mean, you’re not going to hand over your grandfather’s head. That’s been the problem all along, hasn’t it? All of your squawling and posturing about justice and legal rights … you’ve just been trying to cover for that dirty old man.”

  She looked as though he’d slapped her. Those eyes recoiled and lashed back at him, then quickly subsided and fell to an inspection of her own hands. “Okay,” she said, small voiced. “Maybe I deserve that. And maybe he deserves it. But I’m not going to let you put a bullet in him.”

  “What makes you so sure I want to? I didn’t put one in Logan. Or in Sorenson. The only people so honored were Morello and his crazies. I just want it all out front between you and me. I want it squared.”

  Very quietly she said, “I worked for him from time to time. School vacations. Elections. Various little things. He was more than a grandpa. All my life he was a second father. Last of a line.” Another tear popped out. “The last of the Pacemans. My mother was his only child. And he always felt very bad about that. The family tree was withering up.”

  “You were working for him,” Bolan prodded.

  “Oh, just casual little tasks. But still every time I go to Grandpa’s I go into his study and sort of tidy up—you know, catch up his filing, empty his cigar butts, you know.”

  Bolan sighed. “And you’re a curious kid.”

  She took it with a half smile. “Guess I always was. I can remember his scolding me when I was ten years old, for going through his desk. Well … six weeks ago I was doing the same thing. That’s when I found the list. I was … shocked. Stunned is the word. Because, you see, here’s the irony. I really was thinking of doing a story on the society deaths. And it blew me out to find those names on the list. I, uh, I just had to check it out.”

  “But you didn’t begin the check at Grandpa’s lap, eh?”

  “Of course not. Franklin Adams Paceman simply is not a man to be confronted with vile and hasty suspicions.” She peered up at him from behind another half smile. “No bullets? Truly?”

  He smiled back. “That would hardly be a way to cement our relationship, would it? But this is very interesting. Go on.”

  “Well … dammit … call a spade by its name, Susan. I have known … for some time … that Grandpa was …” She held a hand flatly extended and wiggled it. “I mean …”

  “Kinky, I think, is the word,” Bolan said wryly.

  “Well, I was going for something not quite so harsh. Politically expedient, let’s say. He did a lot of wheeling and dealing. But he used to say that politics was a game of chance. And you had to make your own chances, if you meant to be an effective instrument of government.”

  “But you found some extracurricular instruments, eh?”

  “Oh, nothing to really put a finger on. It was just a … a feeling. You know, an atmosphere.”

  Yeah. Bolan knew those atmospheres quite well.

  “And I was a bit disturbed by some of his friends.”

  “Guys like Hirschbaum,” he said.
>
  Those eyes recoiled again. “Who’s been conning whom?” she flared.

  “But Grandpa didn’t send you to the country club, eh?”

  “Of course not!” The gaze wavered and finally broke. “I told you I was on a story. It’s true. I was. But I soon discovered … it was a story that could never be written.”

  “So why did you stay with it?”

  “I hoped to … get enough facts … with which … to confront …”

  “You were going for a coverup. You just wanted to safe the family. At any cost.”

  “That’s unfair! My God he’s my grandfather! He used to bounce me on his knee and tell me fairytales! What was I supposed to do? I was going to write my story, okay, yes! But for his eyes only! I wanted him to know that I knew!”

  “You were going to club him with it.”

  “Yes, to put it bluntly, exactly that. He was going to retire from politics.”

  “And put all the loot back?”

  She said, “Let’s be reasonable.”

  “That’s what he would say.”

  “I—I guess so.”

  “Susan, you are shamefully naive. That old man would put you on a spit and roast you. Retire from politics? Nothing but a bullet can retire that guy now. He’s owned body and soul by a syndicate powerful enough to put a man in the White House. You think they’d let him retire? Or that he would even consent to it? You’re—”

  “You said no bullets!”

  “That’s what I said, right. But I want you to understand what you really know. Do you believe for a moment that Morello caught you with your hands in the goodie box and kept the secret from his associates? You think he didn’t have you going in—from the moment you first stumbled? You think Grandpa did not know that Morello had his hands on you?”

  She was bawling again. And that was good. Yeah, that was very good.

  She was under control again, sipping hot chocolate and watching him with reddened eyes. He told her, “I’m sorry I had to drag you through that. But you had to face it. And the sooner the better. Those guys had to make a command decision. You had blown their little game with Judge Daly. He was a vital link in their chain of power. Morello wasn’t the brains of the game. He was just the muscle. And they had the guy under fantastic pressure. Loony-rello, as you called him, was not accustomed to parlor games of power intrigue. He’s a very direct savage—hit ’em and run, that’s his modus. His first instinct must have been to sandbag you damn quick. I’m not saying that the Big Four knew about that first try. But they had to know about the follow-up. Morello had to tell them because it was his only excuse for failure.”