Part 15 (2/2)
The old boy hadn't lost touch with anything. He'd picked that up d.a.m.n quick . . . and he knew. . he knew. All the pain and heartbreak and anxiety over a kid and heir with no legs at all under him broke through that ma.s.sive hatred and anger, that bitter will to survive and punish. He was shuddering all over as he asked the Executioner, ”Has he already left?”
”He's left,” Bolan said quietly.
”Go get him back!” Angeletti screamed. ”You can do it! I'll give you anything-I'll give you everything I got! Just don't let the kid do that to hisself. No telling what they'll think! Or do! My G.o.d, that guy was a Talifero! Dammit, you run get 'im back!”
Bolan leaned down and plucked the revolver from limp fingers and thrust it into his waistband.
”No way, Steven,” he said. ”That one was my grand-slammer.”
There was no way for Stefano Angeletti, either.The yelling fit or the new hopelessness or something had defeated him and he sank back into the cus.h.i.+ons of the chair with a rattling sigh, hardly a drop of gas left in his tank.
”You'll get yours some day, guy,” the old man promised the Executioner. The eyes were looking yellow now, blazing purest hatred as though all the strength of an abused lifetime had been consolidated into that moment.
Bolan sighed and said, ”Don't we all,” and turned to leave.
The house captain came through the doorway about then, attracted probably by the old man's emotional shouting.
Stefano spent his last drop of gas to whimper, ”Take him, Tony! G.o.d, take him!”
”Take who?” the houseman asked, the face that had suffered the idiosyncrasies of this inner family group for perhaps half a lifetime twisting in patient puzzlement.
Bolan showed the guy a sad smile and told him, ”He thinks I'm Mack Bolan.”
”Oh, Jesus,” the guy whispered, and backed out of there shaking his head.
Bolan paused in the doorway for a parting look at success, Mafia-style.
Don Stefano Angeletti was bent forward on his throne, leathery hands clutching at the mahogany arms.
”Kill me, you p.r.i.c.k!” he wheezed.
”I already killed you, Steven,” Bolan told the Don, then he went away from there, down to the carport, into the Maserati.
A familiar figure detached itself from the shadows as he was cranking the engine, and Sammy the yard boss stepped to the side of the vehicle.
”You checking out, Mr. Cavaretta?” the yardman asked, the voice a trifle uneasy.
Bolan grinned as he replied, ”Right, and you haven't even learned to call me Johnny.”
”I guess I never would,” Sammy told him. ”Uh .. . the house captain told me about the Don. Is he . . . is he . . .?”
”He's alive,” Bolan a.s.sured the guy. ”Listen, Sammy . . .”
The yard boss was giving him an anguished, sorrowful gaze-and Bolan was gazing back but he was seeing instead of Sammy a little tag-man at Las Vegas-Max Keno by name, instant-loyalty by game- and he knew that Max and Sammy were formed from the same mold. Nothing particularly admirable . . . not especially bad . . . they were just .. .
Guys like this had never been torpedoes or hit- men or squeeze-men; they'd spent their lifetimes in loyal service to a cause they didn't even understand -and they served a crown, not the man beneath it. Soldiers of the court, spending most of their days and nights just standing around to make some rotten old man feel important and deserving of kisses upon the hand.
Soldiers of the other side. But soldiers, still.
Bolan sighed and quit wrestling with himself. For Max, then-and probably for Sammy as well, he told the guy, ”The old man is alive and he isn't, Sammy. You'd better go up and sit with him. The stage is falling in.”
”What is?”
”All of it, the whole lousy hall of horrors is tumbling down. Put the old man to bed .. then you better round up all your boys and either split or get as hard as you know how, because tomorrow is going to be some kind of h.e.l.l day around here, believe me.”
”I-G.o.d, I knew something was sour. A crew of your boys just relieved us down at the gate. I guess I knew. . .”
Bolan felt a familiar iciness enveloping his heart. He kept the voice casual, though, as he inquired, ”What crew is that, Sammy?”
”Taliferi. Crew boss is a guy named Chianto. Uh, does this mean that we're . . . ? Uh, Frank is . . . ?”
”Frank won't be coming back,” Bolan muttered. ”Neither will Philippa if she has the brains I think she has. Naw. It's falling, Sammy. Get your boys together, cross your fingers, and sit tight.”
The guy was obviously confused but he said, ”Thanks. I-thanks, Johnny.”
The Maserati was already in motion, gliding silently along the drive toward the gate.
So. One of those chance numbers had dropped into the game, and now it was all numbers up for grabs.
This could be a reaction to the ”second front” effort he'd sent to New York with Leo Turrin. If so, then this elite crew of Commissione enforcers had already been on hand, in the background somewhere, hovering, awaiting a signal to join the game in Philadelphia. Maybe they had even come down with the real Johnny Cavaretta. Whatever and however, it was one of those unpredictables which Bolan had been gambling against . . . and twice in the same night he had pushed his chances one number too many.
There would be no brazening past these boys . . . not the Taliferi. Whatever they had come for, they would most likely tumble quickly to the fact that something was very much out of place, and they would certainly not be politely ”sirring” Bolan through that gate down there.
One thing would inevitably lead to another .. . and maybe another head would go rolling toward Manhattan on this night of nights.
A crew wagon, one of the big eight-pa.s.senger limousines, had been pulled well inside the grounds and was parked on the gra.s.s beside the drive.
A door was open and a guy was sitting in that open doorway, his feet on the ground. He would, Bolan knew, be cuddling either a shotgun or a chopper between his legs.
Two guys were flanking the vehicle, standing casually at either end, hands on hips.
Four more were down at the gate, two to each side, arms folded across chests-hands very close to concealed pistol grips.
So. Seven in plain sight. Another one or two, probably, skulking somewhere in the shadows.
And the time had come for ”combat quick”- frontal a.s.sault with all the stops pulled-no cuteness, no finesse, but simple and brutal battlefield- style bust-out.
He had already sprung the AutoMag from its confinement in the glove compartment. Now he added the Beretta, unmuzzled The Maserati's door eased open and Bolan rolled out, the vehicle continuing to creep along the drive, unpiloted.
The maneuver gave him a one-number edge. For a split second the forty-G shark ran interference and provided a screen between Bolan and the enemy.
There were warning cries and sprinting men moving in all directions when that screen pa.s.sed on -then the Executioner was on both feet and moving them in a demonstration of open-field running which would probably have swelled the football heart of his old buddy Wilson Brown.
The guy who had stayed with the crew wagon was the first target up. He was whirling alongside the limousine, trying to get a Thompson into play across the engine hood.
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