Damage Radius Read online

  The soldier pulled the suitcases inside as McFarley produced what looked like a gold-plated fingernail clipper. Evidently, word of Cooper’s success had already reached the Irishman; and Bolan wondered if the burglary and gunfight might even have made the news.

  Without preamble, McFarley said, “You didn’t find Namath’s ring?”

  “No,” Bolan replied as he dropped the suitcases to the floor directly in front of McFarley’s desk. He stared at the man as the criminal kingpin went to work on his fingernails. He was tempted to just draw the Desert Eagle and kill McFarley where he sat, but it was still too early. First, he needed to disrupt at least one of the man’s connections so that his operations would be left in chaos when he died. Eventually, Bolan knew that the various factions of criminal activity might come together again under someone else, or restructure as smaller operations independent of a central governing leader. It would be impossible to stop that from happening—there was always more evil ready to step up to the plate to fill the void when a player was removed. But he could delay that day for a long time if he scrambled some of McFarley’s infrastructure before he killed the man.

  So Bolan just stared at the man. “My guess,” he said, “is that Dill never had Namath’s ring. That story has all of the earmarks of an urban legend. Joe’s Super Bowl ring would be the ultimate prize for a Jets fan, and it seems logical that such an exaggeration would eventually creep into the tale. Dill himself might even have started it.”

  McFarley nodded as he continued to shorten his fingernails with the golden clipper. “Let’s see what you did get,” he said.

  Bolan unzipped the two suitcases, then began distributing their contents throughout the office on chairs, side tables and McFarley’s desk. He’d not had time to look at the items closely when he and Kunkle had loaded them, but took in the memorabilia as he pulled out both green and white jerseys, autographed and dated thigh and knee pads, chinstraps, miniature helmets and ticket stubs. Many of the souvenirs bore Joe Namath’s autograph. Others had been signed by other Jets, both current and retired.

  “Not a bad haul,” McFarley said when Bolan had finished. “Not bad at all. Not that I want this crap myself.” He curved the clipper around a thumb and a tiny speck of nail sailed up into the air. “I just didn’t want Dill to have them.” The chuckle he let out could only be described as obscene.

  “Well, you’ve got them whether you want them or not,” Bolan said as he placed an autographed football on McFarley’s desk. Glancing down, he saw the big black X stamped next to the brand logo. The X meant the ball had actually been used in a game.

  “You did even better than I’d expected,” McFarley said. “You killed Dill and a houseful of his men. I doubt that there’s anyone left in his organization with the skills to take over, which means they’ll be running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”

  “Anxiously looking for a leader,” Bolan finished for the man. He straightened in front of the desk. “And I wonder just who that new leader might be?” There was a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

  “Correct you are, boyo,” McFarley said. Smiling widely, he finally dropped the fingernail clipper back into his drawer and slid it closed. “They’ll be more than happy to switch sides.” He grunted out a short laugh. “Or maybe under these circumstances I should say teams. I’ll just add Dill’s operations to everything else I’ve got going.”

  Bolan placed his hands on his hips. “I didn’t figure this little errand was simply another test of my loyalty,” he said. “Oh, it was definitely that all right, but it was also to get rid of Dill.”

  McFarley’s smile still covered his whole face. “I knew it was a distinct possibility,” he said. “And it was a much appreciated dividend. I understand you shot him in bed.”

  Bolan paused for a moment. He doubted that detail had been leaked to the press. It was exactly the kind of information the police held back to help identify suspects during the investigation that would follow. Knowledge of such things helped separate the true suspects from the inevitable “crazies” who always came forward and claimed responsibility for high profile cases.

  Which meant McFarley had his own plant within Dill’s operation. Probably the same man who had drawn the crude blueprints of the house. There was simply no other explanation for his knowing such details.

  “So,” Bolan finally said. “I’ve got to ask you. Are we through playing these silly little grade-school games yet? Or do you have more hoops you want me to jump through before you trust me?”

  McFarley sat back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. “You noticed you got in here without being frisked, didn’t you?” he said.

  “I noticed,” Bolan said.

  Well,” McFarley said, “that should answer your question. Not to mention the fact that you committed a first-degree burglary, and I don’t know how many homicides for me.” He took in a long breath, then let it out slowly. “Cops, Feds, whatever, would never be allowed to do that. The law’s run at me every way in the book so far. But no department or agency would sign off on a spectacle like you put on last night in order to get an undercover man in with anyone.”

  Bolan let a thin smile creep across his face. “No, they wouldn’t,” he said honestly. “So now you’ve also got a hammer to hold over my head. There must be a thousand ways you could get word to the cops that it was me who shot up Dill’s place last night. Ways you could let them know without involving yourself, of course.”

  “Of course.” McFarley grinned back at him. “But it wasn’t just you at Dill’s last night.”

  Bolan knew immediately that word of Kunkle’s involvement had also reached the Big Easy crime boss. Had the plant recognized Kunkle through his disguise? Or did he simply know that Bolan had recruited a partner for the strike? Before he said any more about it, Bolan needed to let McFarley reveal more about just how much he knew.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

  “I didn’t mention it earlier,” McFarley said, “because, like you said, this was still another test for you. But I’ve had my own informant inside Dill’s operation for some time now.”

  “I’d guessed that,” Bolan said. “You already know too many details of what went on inside the house that wouldn’t have made the news.”

  “Right you are,” McFarley said. “I tipped off my man that you were coming, and he hid in the basement during the whole thing.” The crime boss crossed his arms behind his head and wheeled his chair in closer to his desk. “My man did catch a few glimpses of the action, however. You had some guy with you who was bald on top but had a short blond ponytail and goatee.” He leaned in over his desk and the grin on his face disappeared. “My man said there was something familiar about him, but he couldn’t place him.” Dropping his arms from behind his head, McFarley clasped his hands together in front of him, then continued. “Who was this guy?”

  Bolan met the man’s stare with one of his own. “An old Army buddy of mine,” he said. “He’s helped me out before, and I wanted someone watching my back last night.”

  “How come he looked familiar to my guy?” McFarley demanded.

  Bolan answered the question with one of his own. “How should I know? My man doesn’t work for you, but he works the same side of the law you do. It seems likely that their paths might cross now and again.”

  McFarley nodded. “Okay. You hired him, you pay him,” he said. Leaning down, he pulled out one of the bottom drawers of his desk.

  As he waited, Bolan remembered passing the stairs to the basement as he and Kunkle left Dill’s house a few hours earlier. And he remembered the hand-drawn map of Dill’s house. The basement was conspicuously absent from the drawing.

  Exactly how an informant would have presented it if he planned to hide out there to avoid being killed.

  As he waited on McFarley, Bolan wondered just what the man was about to produce from the drawer. It might be money for a job done even better than he’d expected. On the other ha
nd, if the Irishman’s snitch in the basement had actually seen through Kunkle’s new look and named him, the crime boss might well be preparing to pull out the British Webley revolver and add the Executioner’s brain matter to the traces of whoever’s had been on the office wall the first time Bolan had been there.

  The soldier slowly inched a hand up his lapel, ready to throw back the tail of his jacket and draw the Desert Eagle.

  But a few moments later, a stack of green hundred-dollar bills, secured in a brown paper wrapper, sat on McFarley’s desktop. “I’d planned on giving you ten grand for your time if you came through,” the kingpin said as he shoved the money across the desk toward Bolan. “Here it is. Cut it up with your man any way you want. But that’s all you get.”

  “Fair enough,” Bolan said as he lifted the stack of bills, then dropped them into the left side pocket of his corduroy sport coat.

  McFarley leaned to his side and pressed an intercom button on his phone. Apparently the kingpin’s secretary had arrived for the workday. He heard an older woman, with a somewhat hoarse voice, say, “Yes, Tommy?”

  “Send Felix in here,” McFarley said.

  Seconds later, the door opened and O’Banion—the last of McFarley’s personal aides and bodyguards—entered the room. He stood as if at attention during some military ceremony as he waited on his boss’s next orders.

  “Take Cooper into your office, Felix,” McFarley said. “Fill him in on our situation at the boxing matches tonight. Then send him back in here before he leaves.”

  O’Banion frowned, his gray and white eyebrows lowering over his eyes. “Excuse me, Tommy,” he said in his thick brogue, “but I thought it was going to be me you sent to—”

  “Well, you thought wrong then, Felix,” McFarley said abruptly. “Now, do as you’re told.”

  For a moment, O’Banion stood where he was. Then, with a look of resignation on his face, he turned and walked out of the office.

  The soldier followed.

  17

  The club was so filled with cigar and cigarette smoke that Bolan wondered how the boxers could even breathe.

  Next to him, in the back row of seats, Felix O’Banion added his own cigar smoke to the pollution. Far in the distance, Bolan watched as two featherweights danced around each other, tentatively throwing left jabs that were occasionally followed by a right cross, hook or uppercut. It was round three but, so far, neither man had been willing to completely open up and go for broke.

  And the crowd didn’t like it.

  Boos and hisses came from the men and women sitting in the rows in front of Bolan and O’Banion. Mixed in with the sounds were occasional words like “Box!” and “Fight, dammit!” But they seemed to have no effect on the men in the ring.

  Bolan wasn’t bothered by the poor showing on the canvas. The fact was, he didn’t care about this fight at all.

  It was the next bout that concerned him.

  The main card of the evening called for another heavyweight match between two old club fighters who had mixed it up several times in years gone by. Wimpy Booth had won four of his previous fights with Trevor Clark and was the favored man at odds of three-to-one. But McFarley was counting on Booth to take a dive, so he had bet heavily on Clark.

  Word of what had happened the week before to the boxer and his manager who had ignored McFarley’s orders was widespread within the club-fighting world. And no one in the know expected Booth to do anything but hit the canvas.

  Even if he had to knock himself out to get it done.

  Bolan leaned into O’Banion and raised his voice over the noise of the crowd. “How’d he get the name Wimpy?” he asked.

  O’Banion chuckled, but it was forced. He didn’t like Cooper or the quick rise the man had ridden toward the top of McFarley’s operations. “Got it as a teenager,” the Irishman said. “He used to get so nervous that he puked before every match. The other fighters started calling him Wimpy back then.”

  Bolan nodded, then turned his eyes back to the ring. That had to have been some time ago, he realized as he continued to watch the boring fight in front of him. He’d caught a glimpse of Wimpy Booth when they’d entered the club earlier, and the man had to be pushing forty. His days in the ring were numbered, so Bolan suspected he would be more than willing to take the dive and the large payoff McFarley would have offered for it.

  But McFarley had not forgotten the double cross of the previous week, either. And Bolan and O’Banion were at the fight just in case Wimpy won. The crime boss wanted to send an immediate message this time.

  If Booth won, Bolan was to shoot him before the referee even raised his hand in victory, which was why Bolan and O’Banion were in the back row. The club was not that big, and Bolan could easily draw the sound-suppressed Beretta and send a semiauto round into the man’s shaved head, then disappear out the back with the Irishman before the rest of the crowd even realized what had happened.

  As the fighters continued to dance and the crowd kept on booing, Bolan’s mind traveled back to his earlier meeting with McFarley. It had occurred right after O’Banion had explained to him what they’d be doing this night, and McFarley’s fellow countryman had not been present.

  McFarley had given Bolan a second assignment for the evening. It was an assignment that Bolan was to carry out regardless of what Wimpy Booth did in the ring. A duty he had not anticipated, and one that had all but shocked him. But the more he’d thought about it, the more it made sense. At least from McFarley’s point of view.

  McFarley believed he had discovered a true gem in his new man, Cooper. And he intended to restructure his entire criminal empire around that valuable commodity.

  “You pull off these last two things for me,” McFarley had assured Bolan, “and then I’m promoting you to the big time. Which means maybe a million bucks an assignment instead of the pennies you’ve been getting.”

  Bolan had forced a smile, feigning just the right amount of excitement—no more, no less—for a man who was confident in his own abilities.

  The third round of the five-round match ended, and the fighters walked to their corners amid the jeers of the audience. The seconds wiped the sweat off their faces with towels and held water bottles to their lips. Water boys held up funnel-topped cans so the featherweights could wash their mouths out, then spit into them. A minute later, the bell sounded and they were on their feet again.

  The dancing and fancy footwork continued, but few punches were thrown. The crowd grew even more angry and loud. Bolan studied the faces of the two men. The one named Jordan, wearing black trunks, was starting to grimace as the insults kept flying from down below. The other man, named Davis and wearing white, looked more oblivious to the crowd.

  Bolan could have predicted what was about to happen even though no fix was in on this fight.

  As the man in black’s face grew tighter, the white-trunked fighter suddenly lunged forward, throwing a flurry of hooks at his opponent. The man in black covered his face with his gloves, using his elbows to protect his ribs and midsection. Letting the blows glance harmlessly off his arms, he backed up slowly until he was against the ropes, then pulled himself in even tighter as the onslaught of punches continued.

  Gradually, the arms of the man wearing the white trunks began to slow. Then they dropped slightly, until his blows were all landing near the other fighter’s elbows. Finally, they dropped to his side for a much needed rest.

  Jordan didn’t hesitate. As soon as he saw the other man’s gloves go down he stepped in with a left jab, then a right cross. Both punches struck Davis full in the face, snapping his head backward each time. Then, as Davis raised his gloves to protect his head, Jordan went to work on his opponent’s midsection, striking the man repeatedly in the upper chest—right over the heart. Gradually, Davis’s gloves began to drop again as the blows disrupted the rhythm of the rapidly beating, blood-pumping organ.

  The crowd was cheering finally, happy that something—anything—was finally happening. As Jordan�
��s punches continued to jar Davis’s chest, they screamed for blood.

  And Jordan didn’t disappoint them.

  With Davis finally back-pedaling away from him, Jordan followed, still striking up under his opponent’s raised gloves with uppercuts to the chest. When Davis finally stopped with his back against the ropes, Jordan took a half step back, then sent a right hook solidly into the man’s jaw.

  A split second later Davis was on the canvas and the referee was counting him out.

  The crowd went wild.

  In the midst of the celebration, a girl in a bikini, carrying a tray of plastic cups filled with beer, entered the club area. O’Banion stopped her, took two of the cups off the tray, then smiled as he folded a ten-dollar bill and stuck it in her cleavage.

  The girl smiled back with a well-practiced, forced grin.

  Bolan took one of the cups from O’Banion and pressed it to his lips. One watered-down beer wasn’t going to interfere with what he had to do this night, and it would look strange to his companion if he turned it down.

  The next fight came and went with more action but no knockout. As he pretended to watch the fighters, Bolan went over the best way to handle the two duties he needed to perform. If Wimpy went along with the plan, the first action wouldn’t even have to be taken. But if he didn’t, Bolan would have to shoot him with the sound-suppressed Beretta. And he had been ordered to do it while the man was still in the ring—in front of an audience—in order to further publicize McFarley’s deadly reach and ruthlessness. Then, he’d have to get out of there before the police and security guards working the fights could pinpoint where the shot had come from.

  Not easy.

  No, Bolan thought, as he watched the two exit the ring, their fight over. The beer was no problem at all. The real problem he faced was what he was going to do if Booth decided to win his fight with Trevor Clark. He certainly wasn’t going to murder a man because he refused to throw a fight.