Part 13 (2/2)
”Sammy said leave 'em right there 'til you said different.”
”It still goes,” Bolan said, and went on up the stairs.
Frank had latched onto a bottle on the way out. Bolan had to hurry back and s.n.a.t.c.h him away from it. He hustled the guy up the stairs and told him, ”Touch another bottle tonight and I'll break your face. We have things to do and, dammit, I want you on your legs.”
Even that couldn't spoil it for the guy. He chuckled and told Bolan, ”Hey, I'm no souse. I just got a little carried away there this evening.”
Bolan took him outside and asked him, ”Have you been in touch with your Sicily boys since that hit at the Emperor's?”
”Sure. What d'you take me for? It's the first thing I did.”
”What's your present head count?”
”What? Oh. Why?”
”Don't he cute, dammit How many?”
”Well . . . I got twelve stashed in a rooming house over by Connie Mack Stadium. Another fifteen at this other joint. Then there's . . . I got forty-two.”
”Out of how many to start with?” Bolan wanted to know.
”None of your d.a.m.ned business.”
”Go to h.e.l.l!” Bolan snarled, turning angrily away. ”I didn't come down here to play-”
”Hey, hey!” the Kid yelled. ”Okay. I started with seventy-five. So I got hurt, bad. You know what those malacarni are costing me? Listen, for every one that dies in my service, I have to send back ten grand over the original fee. You think I'm happy about that? For Christ's sake, that hit out there today cost me three hundred gees.”
Bolan whistled. This kind of warfare, then, could hit them where it hurts. He commented to the Kid. ”h.e.l.l, if I was your partner, maybe I'd have tied one on myself.”
The Kid thought that hilarious. He started to laugh, then cut it off quickly and grabbed the back of his head. ”Oh, oh,” he said. ”Maybe you would but I wouldn't if I had it to do over again. Hey, Johnny. We got off on a bad foot. Let's be friends.”
Yeah. A d.a.m.ned dangerous son of a b.i.t.c.h.
Bolan gave him a surprised look and said, ”h.e.l.l, I never said otherwise, did I?”
”I guess you didn't at that. What're we doing out here in the dark?”
Bolan said, ”Talking. Private.” And rippling across every key in the repertoire, trying to find a chord for a son of a b.i.t.c.h. ”Listen, Frank. You saw that mess in the bas.e.m.e.nt. That's just the beginning, not the end.”
”You're on our side I guess, huh?”
Bolan shrugged. ”h.e.l.l, I have to be neutral, you know that. But I was sent to advise your papa. That means I advise you, too. You know that. And I think it's time you brought your Sicily boys out of hiding.”
Frank was frowning. ”I brought 'em out once, and look what happened. The old man took advantage of me. He said the Emperor's would be more defensible. And he wanted to test my boys. He set that up, I know he did. He laid a trail a mile wide from here to there.”
”That's past history,” Bolan told him. ”The thing is, what he loses, you lose. Right?”
”I guess that's right.”
”He's about to lose a lot.”
”What do you mean?”
”I mean, dammit-”
”I get you. They picked a good time to lay down on us, didn't they? With this Bolan laying all over us, too. Now that guy. . .”
There it was. He saw the look on the Kid's face and told him, ”Forget that guy.”
”You forget 'im. I saw the b.a.s.t.a.r.d and I'll never forget him.”
Something turned him, moved him, compelled him, and Bolan voted to risk the exhibit once again. He said, ”Come over here and see 'im again then.”
He was pulling the guy toward the Maserati. ”What? What are you-?”
”Just shut up and look.”
Bolan sprung the lid and opened his prize exhibit for its third premiere showing.
Frank exclaimed, ”Well, Jesus! You got the b.a.s.t.a.r.d! When did you do that?”
He was all over that prize stiff-feeling, poking, jerking on the combat rig, fooling with the weapons. Bolan took the Beretta and AutoMag away from him and took them to the glove compartment and locked them away.
The guy was still playing with that stiff.
Bolan pushed him aside and closed the exhibit. ”When did you get him?”
Bolan growled, ”What's important now is he's had. You can forget about that. Right now we have to concentrate on beefing up Carmine and Jules. Those guys are in no strength to take on the New York boys. They need your Sicilians, Frank.”
”I'll rent them out,” the son of a b.i.t.c.h said.
”I'm ashamed of you, Frank,” Bolan said disgustedly.
The guy was still staring at the lid of that luggage compartment. ”Be ashamed, then. They're my boys and I paid through the nose for them. Would you believe a thousand a day? A G.o.dd.a.m.ned day?”
”It's your papa's money, Frank,” Bolan pointed out. There was an odd light in Frank the Kid's eyes and Bolan had to wonder who was manipulating whom. ”Jules and Carmine are papa's boys. Now, what's he going to think if. . .”
”Okay, okay,” Frank said, laughing and trying to pa.s.s the thing off as a joke. ”You know I wouldn't hold out at a time like this. Johnny. . . . What're you going to do with that guy?”
Right. Dangerous, very!
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