Part 7 (2/2)
”If you mean is he an uncomfortable so and so to be around, then we feel the same way, Nick, yeah you got it right.”
”Then you might as well come out and say it. Arnie Farmer is a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and I don't like him coming over here. I wish he'd stayed home.”
”That's exactly right,” the Jerseyite muttered. ”And I wish to G.o.d we could've got Bolan before the other b.a.s.t.a.r.d showed up.” His eyes flicked to the man in the driver's seat. ”n.o.body better not go repeating that, though. Right, Gio?”
Gio Scaldicci, the wheelman, swivelled about with a grin. ”Right, Mr. Giliamo. I got ears that don't hear nothin' that's not spoken to 'em.”
The two men in back settled into an uncomfortable silence, then Nick Trigger said, ”Well, I'll ride back with you, Danno. Let's get out of here.”
”We gotta wait, I got Sal out on the street makin' his rounds. h.e.l.l be back in a minute.”
The three Mafiosi Mafiosi sat through a protracted silence, then a front door opened and a fourth man hastily entered the car. This was Sal Ma.s.seri, one of Danno's crew leaders. In a choked voice, he announced, ”We got three dead soldiers out there, Danno.” sat through a protracted silence, then a front door opened and a fourth man hastily entered the car. This was Sal Ma.s.seri, one of Danno's crew leaders. In a choked voice, he announced, ”We got three dead soldiers out there, Danno.”
”What do you mean?” the New Jersey caporegime caporegime growled. growled.
”I mean Willie Ears and Jack the Builder and Big Angelo are dead as h.e.l.l, that's what I mean. No blood or nothing, they're just laying there dead. I think their necks are broke or something.”
Giliamo was speechless. He gaped at his companion in the rear, then made a lunge for the door. Nick Trigger quietly restrained him and asked Ma.s.seri, ”How long have those boys been dead, Sal?”
”I'd say no more'n ten or fifteen minutes. I went on around and warned the other boys. n.o.body's seen nothing, though, Nick, not a d.a.m.n thing.”
”Ten or fifteen minutes,” Trigger repeated musingly. ”That means he could have hotted it straight over here and...”
Giliamo slid forward to the edge of the seat and craned his head for a tense inspection of the hulking outline of the museum, just around the square from their position. In an angered tone, he declared, ”That cuts it! That b.a.s.t.a.r.d has found some way to get in and out of there without being seen. I'll bet he's in there right now.” He tapped his driver on the shoulder and commanded, ”Pull around there slow and quiet, Gio. Park in front of that bus stop.”
The car moved quietly around the corner and eased to the designated spot, directly across the street from the museum.
”Are we going back in there?” Ma.s.sed asked nervously.
”Bet your a.s.s we are,” Giliamo barked. ”You get out there and pa.s.s the word along.”
Before Ma.s.sed could react, two men ran quietly up to the vehicle. Giliamo lowered his window and thrust his head outside. One of the new arrivals breathlessly reported, ”We just wanted to tell Sal that we found something. Over there.” He pointed to the opposite side of the square. ”A book store. The back door has been jimmied open. It could mean something.”
”Awright, take some boys and check it out,” Giliamo commanded.
The men jogged away. Ma.s.seri said, ”Maybe I oughta go see what they got, Danno.”
Nick Trigger chuckled coldly. ”I think Sal is awful anxious to stay out of my little playhouse,” he observed.
”As a matter of fact he is,” Giliamo answered for his man. ”And that goes for me double, but that don't cut any ice. You stick right here, Sal. We'll give Stevie a chance to check out that store, and then we're gonna be moving.”
”Well, I don't like it either,” Trigger growled, ”but I guess not for the same reasons. There'll be too many people in there now. That means too many witnesses.
Besides that, we're messing up the sweetest little operation I ever walked into.”
Gio Scaldicci turned toward the rear seat and asked, ”How'd you ever get onto a creepy joint like that, Mr. Trigger?”
The London enforcer shrugged his shoulders. ”You learn to use what's available, kid, and don't forget that. Don't ever forget that. That creepy joint as you call it has given our thing a clean sweep in this part of the world. I just hate to see it getting messed up, that's all. Especially over a crumb like this Bolan.”
The four men sat in a strained silence for another long moment, all eyes glued to the building across the street. Presently a man approached from the other side on a dead run. He pulled up panting beside the vehicle and reported, ”Stevie's found a tunnel! He wants to know should he go on through!”
”O' course he should go on through!” Giliamo snarled. ”Tell 'im to G.o.ddammit be careful and remember who he's going against!”
The messenger sped back into the night.
Giliamo said, ”Well, well.”
Nick Trigger produced a revolver and swung out the cylinder to check the load. He sighed and clicked it into place and said, ”I guess we better go in just the same, Danno.”
Sal Ma.s.seri swung outside with a Thompson sub under one arm, then leaned back in for a word to his boss. ”I'll bring the other boys over, Danno,” he said tightly.
”Do that.”
”Uh, listen Danno. Big Angelo was a good boy. Anybody can have any part of Bolan they want, but when we get 'im, I get the target practice on his nuts.”
”Sure Sal, I know how you feel,” Giliamo told him.
Ma.s.sed walked off into the darkness, the Thompson cradled casually in his arms.
Nick Trigger opened his door and slid his feet to the ground, remaining seated in the open doorway, no longer concerned about the dome light. He said, ”I've got a feeling.”
”Me too,” Giliamo replied. He opened his door and stepped onto the street, then paused to glare across the roof of the car toward the museum. ”He's in there, I know it.”
At that precise instant a door opened across the way, dull light spilled forth, and a solitary figure in black stalked out. He halted and framed himself momentarily in the lighted doorway, then he sent a burst of fire from an automatic weapon into the air, and immediately disappeared into the surrounding darkness in a diving leap. The Executioner was no longer ”in there.”
The driver of the Mafia vehicle gasped, ”Well, dig that cool b.a.s.t.a.r.d!”
But he was talking to himself. Danno Giliamo had gone to ground behind the car and Nick Trigger was scrambling for cover inside. The automatic weapon chattered again, but not harmlessly into the air this time. The window gla.s.s of the big vehicle exploded in an inward shower and Gio Scaldicci's head underwent an explosion of its own, pieces of the skull flying into the rear seat amid bloodied bubbles of brain tissue, and what was left of Gio slumped forward onto the steering wheel. The horn began sounding in an endless wail and presided over the louder booms and staccatos of combat weapons as thunder and lightning enveloped the night outside Museum de Sade Museum de Sade.
It had not been an act of mindless bravado that sent Mack Bolan through that lighted doorway. He was angry, yes, and disgusted right down to the s.h.i.+vering center of himself, but the combat specialist had known precisely what he was doing.
The idea was blitz blitz, from the German word meaning lightning war lightning war, and the intent was to shock the enemy, disorganize them, perhaps demoralize them, and then destroy them. Bolan knew what he was doing, from the first harmless burst into the air to all that followed.
The lighted car directly opposite his position had been a G.o.dsend. Even though he had just come from a lighted environment and his night vision had not been given time to develop, he was of course aware of the men grouped in and about that lit vehicle, and it was a natural target. The second burst from the Uzi Uzi went in for maximum effect. He saw Gio Scaldicci's head fragment, he saw the big guy in the rear scrambling for the floorboards, and he saw Danno Giliamo rolling frantically across the square in search of darkness. But heavy fire was already coming back at him from various areas of that darkness, and Bolan wanted to see more. went in for maximum effect. He saw Gio Scaldicci's head fragment, he saw the big guy in the rear scrambling for the floorboards, and he saw Danno Giliamo rolling frantically across the square in search of darkness. But heavy fire was already coming back at him from various areas of that darkness, and Bolan wanted to see more.
His third burst was to reach the gas tank and to make frictional .sparks ignite the ready fuel into a bonfire. He was rewarded: the big car went up in a towering fireball and with an explosion that rocked the earth beneath his feet.
But since someone out there had a Thompson, Bolan was not standing still for the thundering sweeps of that big chopper. He moved out with the shock of the explosion, circling deep around the fire and trying to get behind the main force, in the hope of backdropping them against the roaring flames. Someone rose up right in his path, grunting with surprise and fear, and Bolan cut him down with the b.u.t.t of the Uzi Uzi without breaking stride. He was following the traffic circle now, running along the street and coming around in the general area of the bookshop, moving recklessly through the open. Darkness was nowhere in that square now, the yellow glare of flames licking about in a wavering illumination of the entire area. The whole enemy force was apparently converging on the burning auto, shooting at only G.o.d knew what, Bolan didn't, and shouting excited instructions back and forth in a pyramiding sense of confusion. without breaking stride. He was following the traffic circle now, running along the street and coming around in the general area of the bookshop, moving recklessly through the open. Darkness was nowhere in that square now, the yellow glare of flames licking about in a wavering illumination of the entire area. The whole enemy force was apparently converging on the burning auto, shooting at only G.o.d knew what, Bolan didn't, and shouting excited instructions back and forth in a pyramiding sense of confusion.
Bolan reached the position he sought and threw himself to the ground at the curb of the traffic circle. The horizon thus presented was a beautiful one, to a combat infantryman, with the enemy highlighted as well-defined shadows against a blazing background. He emptied three clips into those shadows, grouping carefully and conserving the flow of ammo through the chattering weapon, until suddenly there was nothing left to shoot at.
Bolan lay there for a moment, listening and looking and refueling the Uzi Uzi. Utter silence had descended, except for the whoos.h.i.+ng of the flames of the burning car. Bolan arose, inviting fire but receiving none, then slowly advanced across the island inside the traffic circle. The dead and the dying were sprawled about, and the hated smell of blood was everywhere he walked.
Too easy, Bolan was thinking, much too easy much too easy.
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