California Hit (13 page)

"It's up to you if you live awhile," Bolan coldly announced.

The guy was a hard item, sure, and those eyes didn't flinch much but he was thinking about long life and happier times. The voice was strained with controlled fury as he replied, "Sure, tough, let's live a little."

Bolan asked, "Who's in there?"

"Just th' boss."

"No one else?"

"Would I lie to you, guy? At a time like this?"

Bolan promised him, "If you're wrong, silk, I'll finish you on my way out."

The bodyguard felt that perhaps he should explain, to cinch the deal. In a cordial tone, he reported, "They're all out chasing your tracks. He's in there alone, buy it. Who'd of thought you'd just waltz in here? In broad daylight yet?"

"You don't like the guy much," Bolan decided.

The hardman shrugged, but carefully. "Pay's the same whether I like 'im or not. There's no pay for dead men."

If the guy was expecting a pat on the back, he was sorely disappointed. The Executioner felled him with a jolt to the throat, then made sure with a Beretta slap to the head.

He fished the key from a special pocket and quietly let himself into the penthouse suite.

A stereo tape system in the corner was recreating the Nashville sound, with Johnny Cash artistically relating the glory of the old days of railroading. Bright lights were on behind the bar. The bar itself was littered with soiled glasses and overflowing ashtrays, and it reeked of stale beer.

Franco had been entertaining.

Bolan passed on through the living room and into the glass side of the joint. All of San Francisco and goodly portions of Alameda and Marin Counties were laid out there for inspection.

The sliding doors to the terrace were open. Bolan paused beside a planter with a real live tree embedded in it and called out, "Franco?"

The enforcer was on his terrace, leaning against the safety wall on both forearms, enjoying the sight and smell in the late-afternoon sun of his city.

He was in shirtsleeves and a pearl-handled snub was clipped to the belt at his waist.

Franco turned his head only, about halfway around, and said, "Yeah, who's there?"

"Me," Bolan replied quietly.

"Me — who the hell?" Franco asked nastily, turning fully around.

Bolan had moved through the doorway. He was standing there with the Belle extended for easy viewing, and he must have presented an unsettling sight.

The enforcer jerked upright and took one staggering step to the side, his hand snapping up with the movement in an automatic reaction.

Bolan growled, "Uh-uh!" — freezing the hand with the suggested threat. It hung there, beside the pearl handle, clawing impotently and helplessly at the air.

"Let's talk this over," Laurentis suggested in a strangling voice.

Bolan said, "Talk is cheap, Franco."

"We can make it expensive. Uh, I like your style, man. I really do. Always have. Look. I don't blame you for hitting the old man, Christ knows I don't. I been thinking about something like that myself. I mean it."

"Save the long-winded hope, Franco," Bolan suggested. "There's nobody here but you and me. So let's talk expensive. How expensive?"

"Huh?"

"How much are you willing to gamble on talk?"

The ambitious hood stared at his visitor for a long moment, trying to read him, and Bolan could feel the cogs turning behind those eyes. Presently he replied, "I guess we could work out most anything. Couldn't we?"

"Not quite," Bolan said in that icy voice. "Here's the choice you can make. Certain death right here and now. Or a chance to get away slightly dirtied and no doubt marked for death later. If you want to gamble, I'll give you that much of an out."

The eyes had narrowed, almost closed completely. "I don't get you."

"I'm going to drill you right between the eyes and shove your carcass over that wall there."

Franco stiffened again and threw a quick glance toward the city. He must have decided that there was little style in going that way. He didn't want to join the damned thing, he wanted to own it.

"Or what?" he asked tensely.

"Or you can walk in there to your telephone. Pick it up. Make two calls. One to Tom the Broker. The other to Vince Ciprio."

The guy nervously wet his lips. "And then what do I say?"

"You offer them a chance to come over with you, under you. You make it convincing as hell, or it's over the wall."

"I don't... I don't get you."

"Sure you do. Everybody in town knows what you've been setting up, Franco. You and Wo Fan."

The guy was starting to jerk around like a puppet trying to shake off his strings. He started to say something, choked, then tried it again. "You're telling me to slit my own throat, guy."

Bolan smiled the thin grim smile of death. "Depends on how you want to go, Franco. My way. Or yours. With a chance. An outside chance, sure. But... for a savvy boy like you, at least a chance. You've got thirty seconds to decide."

"Well wait..."

"Go for your gun if you'd like to, Franco."

"No I — wait a minute!"

With ice forming at his lips, Bolan assured him, "Thirty seconds, twenty-five now."

"So how do I know you won't rub me anyway, after I've called?"

"That's part of the gamble, Franco. Twenty seconds."

"You'll have to rub me. You won't just walk away and leave me standing here!"

"Fifteen seconds. I'll help you this much. I plan to lock you in a closet. I'll leave you a penknife. I figure I'll be well clear before you can cut your way out. Time's up, Franco."

The Belle raised higher and closed the distance by about six inches. Bolan gave him a clear view, right up the silencer.

"Okay! Okay! I'll play your silly fuckin' game!"

Bolan closed on him, lifted the pearled snub-holster and all — and dropped it into his own pocket.

"The phone, Franco," he said coldly. "Go cut your rotten throat."

That, Franco knew, was pure style.

By eight o'clock the DeMarco mansion had become the scene of much coming and going, tense consultations, and urgent telephone messages.

Thomas Vericci and Vince Ciprio were very much on the scene, as were many of their lieutenants and hardmen.

The developments which gave rise to this feverish pace of activity occurred in a chronological sequence which was roughly as follows:

At a little before 4:00 PM, an urgent long-distance conference connection was established between San Francisco, Buffalo, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, and three separate offices in New York City.

During this conference, Roman DeMarco was advised to cool things down in his town, particularly a rumored impending territorial war. It was also suggested that the commissione would view with harsh disfavor any outside arrangements of DeMarco's which could conceivably compromise the organization's infra-relationships.

Mack Bolan's name did not enter the conversation.

Roman DeMarco quit this telephone conference in a rage.

At about five o'clock both Vericci and Ciprio, at their respective offices, received telephone calls from Crazy Franco Laurentis. Each received the identical ultimatum — join Laurentis in a move to overthrow Roman DeMarco or take the slide with the Capo.

Both underbosses soberly promised to give Laurentis their decision before midnight, and then each promptly telephoned Don DeMarco to report this curious development.

DeMarco immediately sent a "delegation" to "the top of the joint" to summon the crazy man to a consultation with the Capo.

The delegation reported back that Franco's suite was deserted and that there was no clue to the whereabouts of Crazy Franco.

At 5:40 PM a "paper conference" involving DeMarco, Vericci and Ciprio was conducted in the study of the DeMarco Mansion. A contract was drawn and reportedly sealed in the blood of the three participants. Immediately thereafter, a number of tersely coded telephone messages were relayed around the town and to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Portland, Seattle, Honolulu, and Phoenix.

Meanwhile, less formal communications spread throughout the city via, mostly, word of mouth — with the result that "the silk suit brigade" disappeared suddenly from their usual haunts and became notably difficult to locate.

Speculation arose in various quarters that perhaps the underworld dragnet for Mack Bolan was falling apart.

At about six o'clock a "friend" at Harbor Precinct telephoned the DeMarco mansion with an urgent report to the effect that Captain Barney Gibson was quietly preparing a huge strike force to descend upon various quarters of Chinatown.

Several minutes later this same friend again called to breathlessly add to the earlier report. Gibson was also reportedly collecting warrants — secret warrants — for "a big sweep" early the following morning, this one directed against specific members of the Occidental community in and around Little Italy. It was further rumored that the warrants were being secretly coordinated with similar efforts in adjacent communities of the bay area.

At roughly twenty minutes past the hour of six, a physician was summoned to the DeMarco mansion to administer medication to a hypertensive old man.

As the doctor was departing, a man with an icy voice who identified himself as Mack Bolan was passed through to the DeMarco library via telephone. He talked to Tom the Broker Vericci and suggested that midnight could be the hour of doom — for everyone connected with Roman DeMarco. The caller gave special mention to a "Mr. King."

By seven o'clock all lights were lighted, inside and out, at the mansion on Russian Hill and jittery men prowled ceaselessly about the grounds and along the streets surrounding the property.

While, in the library, there was standing room only as the talk got down to the nitty-gritty business of personal survival in an uncertain world, and the hissing voice of Don DeMarco devoted itself to a series of cryptic telephone consultations with an unnamed "friend" who seemed entirely reluctant even to accept the calls.

Finally, at eight o'clock, DeMarco completed the last of these telephone conversations and turned to his cadre with a relieved sigh.

"Okay," he reported tiredly. It's set up. He'll meet with us in an hour. But we got to come alone. And we got to talk Wo Fan into coining with us."

At ten minutes past the hour of eight, a cautious acceptance from the Chinese community signalled a sure meet with Mr. King.

The hollow men, the stuffed men, had cast their vote to lean together... to the bitter end.

From his eagle perch, Mack Bolan watched them depart — three big limousines moving slowly out of the drive and easing onto the streets of the city.

He scrutinized them closely, burning details into his scout's memory cells, and he watched until they turned down Lombard, "the crookedest street in the world."

Then he made the scramble to his battered, mud-streaked war chariot and picked up the procession as it crossed Taylor.

They made a stop and a pickup at the gates of Chinatown, and one of the vehicles remained there.

Bolan prudently made a swing around that plant and picked up the remaining two vehicles of the procession at the corner of Stockton and Sacramento.

They turned up Market. Bolan spotted them a light signal, then he swung out in casual pursuit.

The limousines went on all the way up Market to the Portola district, then started the climb toward Twin Peaks. Another vehicle dropped out there.

Bolan again ran a disengaging pattern and came onto the taillights of the target car halfway up the hill.

He was getting an idea, now, of where they were headed, and he relaxed a little. But not much. A pair of lights had kept swinging on him throughout the trip, dogging him all the way from way back on Russian Hill somewhere — or, at least, they seemed to be the same lights. He did not wish to get overly hung up on that rear vision — whatever might be back there, the target was ahead and this was where his primary concentration must be focused.

Twin Peaks is one of those "mustn't miss" tourist magnets of the San Francisco area, the geographic heart of the whole scenic wonderland that is San Francisco. From her overlooking peaks, which rise majestically above the other terrain like the proud thrust of a sleeping woman's breasts, the breathless visitor gets the entire bay area spread out below him and for a seemingly infinite distance, and it is especially spectacular at night time. In fact, the many observation-point lanes and pullovers once provided a heady lure to the lover's lane crowds, before the car-window bandits and rapists found the lure equally rewarding.

Bolan had been there many times, but neither as lover nor bandit, and tonight he was feeling a bit of tugging from both frames of consciousness. He was, he hoped, going to rob the mob... and he was going to love doing it.

Not in any bloodthirsty sense, hell no. Bolan had long ago reached the point of gagging over blood offerings... but, yeah, this was a damned important mission. Much more so than he had suspected just 24 short hours earlier. And he hoped, he hoped with an almost romantic fervor, that Twin Peaks was the appointed place for the meet. Up here, way up here where on a clear day the entire kingdom was spread out for inspection, would be the most ironically proper spot to meet the hollow men.

And, yeah, it was the place.

He saw the limousine pull into one of the little lanes which circle into a secluded observation park, and he killed his lights on the curve and dead-sticked it on in.

Something flickered in his rearview mirror as he rolled to his stop, but he could not be sure that it wasn't a reflection of distant city lights — and he for damn sure was not going to start chasing rear-guard phantoms at this point of the pursuit.

He snatched up the stuttergun and pulled a brief and silent recon to the rear, then he went on forward, sticking to the hillside and blending with the shadows until he was looking down on them.

The Mafia limousine was standing there with her horns to the safety rail, engine idling, parking lights on, all doors closed and the lights of town reflecting from raised windows.

A light standard rose up between the limousine and another car, a drab looking little foreign job, Japanese or something, and the lamp which was supposed to discourage smooching and robbing also seemed to be discouraging the lone occupant of the smaller vehicle.

Obviously, if they were to have any sort of meaningful discussions, they would have to take place in the limousine — and that would be crowded enough — or they would have to take place in the open air.

The guy was shy. Obviously he did not wish to leave his vehicle.

He had rolled down his window and was half-lying across the seat in an effort to talk across to the limousine.

Bolan waited and watched.

Presently the doors of the limousine opened and the occupants slowly struggled to the outside.

Vericci was the first out. He had been driving. Then followed Ciprio and old man DeMarco and, finally, from the back seat, two gentlemen dudes of obvious Oriental backgrounds.

Bolan immediately recognized Wo Fan... but the other guy ...

He whistled softly to himself and wondered. The commie? All the commissioners of California crime... in one group?

Important, yeah. Maybe more important than Bolan could fully grasp.

The group straggled hesitantly toward the little import. Bolan automatically checked the safety switch on the burper and waited.

Come out, man, come out. Let me get a look at you before I rub you.

The guy didn't come out, but his head did, craning outward and upward beneath the overhanging lamp for a smiling welcome to his visiting dignitaries of despair.

Bolan stared at that face with a stunning recognition — and, for a moment, he tried to tell himself that he was not seeing what he thought he was seeing.

But then a lot of little things suddenly jogged together in that combat-hardened mind, and Bolan knew in a flash that indeed he was seeing "Mr. King" in the flesh... and what a damned irony.

The name wasn't really King, of course. Almost as big but not quite... almost as respectable, but not quite.

Bolan felt his belly roll over and quiver, and he left those concealing shadows and moved silently across the paved surface for a close kill.

He did not want to miss this one. He did not want to miss this rotten son of a bitch... this guy who was selling out not just his own people but maybe an entire nation in the bargain... this guy who killed and robbed and raped and starved and oppressed not just an occasional handful but thousands every day without ever experiencing the sight or smell or taste of blood in his delicate senses... no, Bolan did not want to miss this guy.

DeMarco spotted the spectre of death first, and the old man made a move which could have passed as a clutching at a suddenly fibrillating heart, but it went on inside the coat and jerked rapidly back out again, and it was hauling hardware.

The others whirled at about that instant, and there was panic... scraping feet and frightened grunts and diving hands... even the guy inside the little car was fumbling with something on his dashboard... and Bolan put everything he had ever been and ever hoped to be into that squeeze of the trigger.

He did not let off until the clip was dead, and all the hollow men had lost their stuffing, and were leaning together in a horizontal heap of carnal garbage.

He went over to the imported car, looked in, reached in, then withdrew and muttered, "Long live the king. The king is dead."

A voice behind him suggested, "Long live Able Team. Able Team is dead."

Bolan turned slowly, carefully, and stared into the tortured gaze of his old friend and flanker, Bill Phillips.

"That was you behind me," Bolan quietly decided.

"That was me, all the way."

"How'd you know?"

"You should know, Sarge. You taught me. I heard the cute stuff Gibson was letting leak. I put it together."

Bolan said, "Congratulations. You still intend to Wang Dang me?"

"It's my responsibility," the cop explained, regretfully.

Bolan nodded. He could understand that.

"Before you exercise that responsibility, Bill... remember, earlier today... hell, was that just today?"

"Remember what?" Phillips prompted. He seemed to be begging, "Give me a reason not to, Sarge, just give me a reason I can live with."

But he didn't say it, and Bolan told him, "We were talking about the importance of certain missions. You know who these guys are, Bill?"

Phillips nodded his head. "Most of them."

"Look at the guy in the car."

"Nothing cute, Sarge. Just cool it."

"I'll cool it. Look in the car."

The tough Frisco Brushfire cop stepped carefully to the window, risked a quick look, then tossed an unbelieving glance at his captive and went in for a closer inspection.

He came out with his face all twisted in the anguish that only a black man can feel at certain times, and his gunhand dropped to his side, and he mumbled, "Okay. Goodbye Mack. Good luck."

Bolan replied, "Okay," and he turned and walked away from there.

Too bad, Bolan thought as he eased into the war-wagon.

Yeah, too damned bad. Bolan knew. Or he thought he did. He thought he knew how tough it must get sometimes to simply be a black man.

Bill Phillips knew, for damned sure.

"Mr. King" would never know it again.

Long live the king. The king, God save his rotten soul, was dead.