Part 15 (1/2)
Persicone was fidgeting, at the door. ”I think we should go.”
”You're convinced it was him?” the Captain asked.
”It was,” Persicone sighed, ”for d.a.m.ned sure him.”
Chapter 23/ All Numbers In.
The Don was seated at the window, precisely as Bolan had left him earlier, except that a telephone rested upon his lap. He was staring at it and humming, sort of, a discordant tune.
Bolan had him in the side view, the tired old features in sharp profile. They were tired with good reason. Stefano Angeletti had been one of the busiest and nastiest hoods in the business for nearly fifty years. He'd hacked his way through that jungle of deceit and brutality, giving more suffering than getting, and he'd made it through that jungle at the head of the pack in a crowded and viciously compet.i.tive field.
But it had been a rotten trip-and the evidence of that was all hanging out, here, tonight, in this time and place. The ravages of fifty years behind the footlights were there for anyone to see, and Bolan was seeing a lot.
The pity of it all was that the guy was still in that jungle-he hadn't made it through anything except fifty years of sheer survival.
And the guy was sitting there humming a song- a song of something. Something, no doubt, as rotten as himself.
Bolan leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and asked the humming man, ”Trying to conjure up a call, Stefano?”
”I already had my call,” the old man quietly re plied.
Bolan bent down to take the phone. He did so, and an ugly little black revolver replaced it in Angeletti's hand.
In that same motion, a silencer-tipped Browning auto slipped its snout between Angeletti's lips.
It was not exactly a Mexican stand-off. Bolan could have blasted him then and there, or so he figured, and walked away. . . maybe. But there was something in those watery old eyes that stayed him, and pulled him back, and instead he told the Capo, ”I'll wait if you will.”
”You got longer than me,” the Don replied in a very dry voice.
Bolan said, ”That must have been some call ” ”It was and it wasn't.”
Bolan carefully put the phone on the table and leaned a shoulder against the wall, the Browning there and ready.
”I got one and I sent one,” Angeletti was telling him, in a voice so tired it almost wasn't there. ”Philippa called to say good-bye. She's not coming back, she says. But blood is thicker than water, isn't it? Our kind of blood, I don't know about yours. She told me I should check you out. Said you had buckshot wounds, and it was bothering her.” He cackled but those eyes never left Bolan's trigger finger. ”Imagine that. She was worried about her Papa.”
Bolan said, ”Well, it figures, doesn't it?”
The old man went on as though he had not heard the comment. ”So I called Augie. I would've called earlier, I was going to. But the d.a.m.n phones were out. Then by the time they came back in- h.e.l.l, guy, by then you had me up your tree but good, didn't you? So I called Augie. He says this Johnny Cavaretta didn't leave there until late. Couldn't possibly get here before six. Not possible, he says. I'm gonna put a bullet right up your nose, mister smart-a.s.s. Whatta you think about that?”
Bolan shrugged his free shoulder. ”It comes to all of us, Steven. Question now is-which of us first? Even without me, though, yours is on the way. What did Augie have to say about your temporary insanity?”
”You crazy? I told Augie nothing! I got to figure out the damage you did, first.”
Bolan wondered if the old man was still in touch with reality. He seemed to have lost the awareness of the Browning.
”Irreversible,” he told the Don.
”What?”
”The damage is irreversible. Can't be patched up. One way you look at it, Stefano, you're a total a.s.s. The other way, you hauled off and wiped out the delegations from three friendly families for no good reason at all. Unless maybe you're trying for a takeover.”
”Aaagh, you think-”
”Or unless Frank is.”
”What? What'd you say?”
Bolan shrugged the free shoulder. ”It could look like Frank the Kid is trying for a takeover.” ”n.o.body will ever know,” the old guy said, his voice sinking again. ”You'll get all the credit for those dead boys down there.”
”No good, Steven. It'll never hang together. Anybody seeing that mess down there will know what happened. They'll know I couldn't have engineered something like that. Besides, it has your brand all over it. And too many boys know what really happened here tonight.”
The gray chin was quivering, eyes watering. ”What other kind of dirt have you been doing here under my nose?”
”Not much more. Except that Jules and Carmine are right now fighting for their lives against Frank's Sicilians.”
The old man lunged forward in the chair and cried, ”What!?”
Bolan nodded and watched that gun hand. ”That's right.”
The hammer of the revolver was back and ready, the snout angling at Bolan's face. He saw the hand that held it shake, and he was tensing into his own pull.
But it didn't come off. The old man wasn't, through with him yet. ”That stiff you showed me,” he was asking. ”Is that Johnny Cavaretta?”
Bolan nodded. ”It is.”
The hand shook some more.
Bolan could appreciate the emotional pressures building inside that tired old head. This was a bitter pill for a bigshot boss like Angeletti to have to swallow-the overnight destruction of everything he'd labored to pull together for the past fifty years. Yeah, there were plenty of emotions there.
He thought, what the h.e.l.l?-and tossed in another number for contemplation.
”I sold it to Frank,” he said.
”You did what?”
”I sold the stiff to Frank the Kid.”
”What the h.e.l.l would he want with-?”
”Well, just the head. Easier to handle. He dumped the rest in the bas.e.m.e.nt.”
”Oh . . . G.o.d!”
”Besides, walking in with just a head is cla.s.sier. You can toss it on a guy's desk and snap your fingers and say hey, look what I brought in.”
”Oh, G.o.d, no!”