Knockdown Read online

  "The damned building inspectors…"

  Benoit interrupted. "You see the mayor's speech? He called the inspectors in for a meeting and read the riot act. Talk about living on your salary! They booed him, but he slammed his fist on the podium and ordered them to enforce the damned laws. He promised those guys indictments if they don't enforce every line of the regulations. Guys that've been on the take for thirty years won't accept an envelope."

  "They're scared," McGrory said. "Everybody's scared."

  * * *

  Only one of the Five Families remained untouched — Segesta's.

  The Segesta house on Staten Island was modest by comparison, for example, with Rossi's house in Chappaqua. It was old, a red-brick, three-story building surrounded by a brick wall. At the front the house faced a quiet, tree-lined street. Behind, the wall enclosed a half-acre vineyard, and there was land there also for Mama Segesta to grow her small garden of tomatoes and cooking spices. From the terrace at the rear of the house. Segesta and his family had a view of Upper New York Bay, though streets and docks intervened between the house and the salt water.

  It was a comfortable house. The neighbors knew that Alfredo Segesta was godfather of one of the Five Families, so they understood why there was almost always a car or two parked on the street, with men inside, watching. Because they had read the newspapers and watched television news, they also understood why more hardmen than usual were evident on the premises.

  Segesta was worried. He and Joe Rossi were the only two Family heads left alive. The others…? He had supposed Bolan had hit them. Angela Corone argued it was Rossi. Either way, the situation was dangerous.

  He had asked Carmine Samenza to meet with him this evening, and the big man was with him for dinner, speaking painfully slowly because of his stroke but speaking wisely, Segesta thought, with humor to back his points. As Angela had said he would, Samenza raised no objection to transferring his allegiance to the Segesta Family.

  John DePrisco had also stayed. Johnny, he supposed, would sleep with Claire tonight. Okay. That was what Claire wanted. So why not? Why not his best young capo for a son-in-law?

  Except for the threats of Bolan and Rossi, this would have been a wonderful day. He had a new ally in the powerful Samenza, and maybe his daughter had a man at last. Segesta could have been happy but for Rossi and Bolan. He wondered where they were, when they might make a move.

  * * *

  Bolan was fifty yards away. The street was lighted by lamps hung above the intersections, and he had kept in the shadows of the trunks of big trees as he approached the Segesta house. He'd had to search for the address, but now that he was on the street and on the right block, it was evident which house was Segesta's — the one with two cars parked in front, two cars with hardmen inside.

  The wall surrounding the property wasn't very high and wasn't difficult to get over. He wondered whether Segesta employed a security service and whether anyone climbing the wall would set off an alarm.

  There was only one way to find out.

  The neighbors' shrubs and hedges were an advantage to him. So was their anxious knowledge that something ominous was going on at Don Segesta's house. They kept away from the windows. The neighborhood was, in fact, unnaturally quiet.

  Bolan slipped forward in a low crouch. He covered a few yards, stopped to look and listen, then moved forward again.

  The Segesta house was lighted, upstairs and down. The don and his men were alert, as they should have been.

  On the last lawn before the wall he knelt in the grass, in the shadow of a tall blue spruce, and watched the house for several minutes. Very slowly he approached the brick wall.

  He judged that Segesta lived without elaborate security — or had until now, anyway. His neighbors' trees rose above his wall. A man could climb up and look down on the grounds on the other side. A man with a rifle — a woman with a rifle — could climb up and take aim on anyone inside those lighted windows.

  Bolan reached the foot of the wall. To the right was the rear of the house, to the left the front. He decided to check the front first to see what the men in the cars were doing. Clinging to the base of the brick wall, he worked his way forward.

  The neighbor had planted the foot of the wall with innocent yet sticky shrubs — bayberry and holly. As Bolan worked his way forward, the first drops of a light rain hit him.

  Three bulky shapes lay in the grass just ahead of him. The warrior drew the Desert Eagle, released the safety and crawled toward the indistinct shapes.

  They were corpses. Bolan knelt over the first body and examined it as best he could in the darkness. He smelled bitter almond. The man had inhaled cyanide gas.

  And so had the other ones.

  Cyanide gas was a deadly killer. Silent. A single whiff of it killed a man. It left a corpse with a characteristic odor, once smelled, never forgotten — and a characteristic smear of white foam around the mouth.

  Three men had died of cyanide poisoning, and their bodies had been dragged along the wall and abandoned.

  Don Segesta was under siege and didn't even know it.

  * * *

  Mama Segesta poured black coffee into two vacuum carafes, then tucked handfills of anise-flavored cookies into two brown bags.

  "Claire," she said to her daughter. "Some coffee and cookies for the boys on the street. Hmm? You take them out. One carafe and one bag for each car. Okay?"

  Claire was in a cheerful mood. Johnny was staying, and she expected a repeat of her experience of Friday night, when they had gotten away from the pier and to their private place before Phil Corone was shot. They had spent a glorious night together. They hadn't heard the news about Phil until Johnny had brought her home in the morning.

  "Sure, Mama. A snack for the boys outside."

  * * *

  Bolan had reached the corner of the wall. He pressed himself into the prickly shrubs and peered at the two cars.

  Three men had died here within the past half hour or so. He was cautious.

  The hinges of the wrought-iron gate squeaked. A plump young woman had come out of the house. In one hand she carried what looked like a big shopping bag, in the other an open umbrella.

  "Hey, Fredo!" she called. "Coffee! Eh?"

  The door of the vehicle in front of the gate opened and the woman hurried up to it.

  Then she shrieked.

  The man who had opened the door leaped out of the car and grabbed her around the throat. Her shopping bag and umbrella fell, and he wrestled her toward the car. The other man had jumped out of the vehicle and had hurried around to open the back door. He threw her roughly into the rear seat and shoved himself in on top of her while she continued to scream.

  Bolan was on his feel in an instant. What was happening was pretty obvious.

  He heard the starter grind, and the Chevrolet roared. Bolan leveled the Desert Eagle. As the vehicle careered into line to speed west, he fired once at the hood.

  The engine grunted and howled, and a plume of water and oil spewed from under it. The huge bullet had cracked the casting, and the pistons were driving out fluids, leaving the engine dry and hot. The Chevrolet traveled no more than twenty yards before the engine locked.

  A man bolted from the Toyota parked across the street, pistol in front of him, looking for a target. He tracked the shadows in front of him, but he didn't spot Bolan.

  The two men in the Chevrolet scrambled out, leaving the young woman in the back seat.

  Bolan took aim on a front wheel of the Toyota. The shot crippled the car, and the mangled wheel collapsed.

  Another man got out of the Toyota. Now there were four of them. They knelt and concentrated a wide, destructive fire on the gate in the brick wail, thinking, apparently, that the shots that had immobilized their vehicles had come from there. They walked toward the gate, firing through it and into the house.

  The warrior raced across the neighbor's front lawn toward the crippled Chevrolet. He reached it, circled it then opened the back
door.

  The young woman cowered on the floor, whimpering.

  "Come on," he grunted.

  She turned her head and looked up into his face, her eyes wide with fear.

  "Let's go!"

  "You work for my father?" she whispered hoarsely.

  "It looks that way," he replied.

  Bolan grabbed Claire Segesta by her right arm and pulled her out of the Chevrolet. He knelt with her on the street, on the west side of the car, out of sight of the hardmen who were firing at the gate and at the door of the Segesta house. She was trembling.

  "What happened to Fredo?" she muttered.

  Fredo, he guessed, was one of the dead men lying along the wall. The four hardmen had sneaked up on the Chevrolet and Toyota and tossed in cyanide bombs. The three Segesta hardmen had died in seconds, and the others had dragged their bodies away, aired out the two cars and taken their places.

  Now the firing stopped. The four gunmen had to reload. No gunfire was returned. The house was silent. Lights went out in houses up and down the street. The four hardmen held the street and reloaded without interference.

  "Hey! Come back here, bitch!"

  One of them had seen that Claire was no longer in the Chevrolet. He loosed a shot at the car, shattering the glass in a rear window. He began to double-time it toward the car, his revolver out in front of him.

  "It's come with us or go to hell," he growled as he neared the vehicle.

  He fired another bullet into the Chevrolet, careless of where the slug might go after it punched through the glass.

  Bolan's.44 Magnum round hit the hardman squarely in the chest with enormous force that shattered ribs, lungs, heart and spine and threw the man on his back on the pavement, a shattered, lifeless body.

  The other three had watched. For an instant they stood where they were, too terrified to move. Then they ran.

  Claire Segesta was on her hands and knees on the street, still trembling. She tried to speak, swallowed, then tried again.

  "Who are you?"

  Bolan glanced toward the house. Segesta hardmen were venturing out. He decided to move out. He looked down at the woman he had guessed was Segesta's daughter.

  "The name's Mack Bolan. Tell your father there's a war on and not to send defenseless women out on the street in the middle of it."

  * * *

  Natale Plumeri sat in Rossi's living room in Westchester. He was one of the very few business associates who had ever seen the inside of the Rossi country home. Roxy Rossi knew who he was and had seen to it that a good dinner was put on the table. She had no idea who the exotic black woman was and still didn't know even after Salina Beaudreau was introduced. She could only guess, and she disliked both of the ideas the woman brought to her mind.

  When they had eaten, she went to their master bedroom suite, as Eva did in the apartment in the city.

  Eva and her child weren't in the apartment. The neighbors were so hostile that Rossi was considering selling the place and setting Eva up with a suburban home. Right now, Eva and the child were at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Greenwich, Connecticut. They were under the protection of the Murese Family, and Italo-Murese alone knew they were in Connecticut. Murese had consented that Eva should be guarded by two Rossi hardmen, so she was doubly safe.

  The house in Chappaqua was surrounded by an invisible army. It was protected, too, by an elaborate system of electronic surveillance. Rossi had retreated to the country after Bolan's two appearances on Seventy-second Street, and he had called on his capos to send him twenty men. They were out there in the dark, under strict orders not to become obvious to the neighbors.

  "We understand one another," Rossi said to his visitors. "We are on the verge of undreamed-of success… or a nightmare catastrophe. I promise both of you a full share. Of either." He paused, smiled. Then he spoke directly to Salina. "With success… We have spoken of a million. Five million. Maybe ten."

  She was calm in the face of what she very obviously took as a grandiose promise. "First we gotta get Bolan," she said quietly.

  "First Angela Corone," Rossi countered.

  "No. First Bolan. We've had too many distractions. Bolan, man. We've got to get Bolan."

  "I've seen him," Rossi said. "I looked at him face-to-face. I…"

  "So have I," she interrupted. "You didn't see a killer in his eyes, did you? Neither did I. But let's not forget his record."

  "All of this," Plumeri interjected, "is pointless talk. Bolan isn't going to step out in front of you with a target pinned to his chest. If you want to hit Bolan, you have to draw him to you, set him up in front of your sights."

  "Okay," Rossi said crisply. "How?"

  "Think," Plumeri urged quietly. "How did you describe him? How did Don Nicolosi describe him? A man with a woman. Hmm? A man accompanied by a dark-haired woman."

  "The Mohawk Indian!"

  Plumeri nodded. "Find that woman. Take her. Make Bolan come and get her. That brings him into your sights. Hmm? That brings you Bolan."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Joe Rossi had never met James Benoit. He thought that politicians were chronically stupid. They were never to be trusted. They could be made to talk.

  Usually he didn't want his capos to talk to politicians, either. He liked to have three or four layers between him and the politicos. In this instance he had consented to a sitdown between James Benoit and Natale Plumeri. No matter what, Plumeri would never talk. Plumeri adhered absolutely to the tradition of omertà. Unconditionally.

  "It is very simple," Plumeri said to Benoit. "The necessity is to effect a hit on Bolan. How can that be done, when none of us know where he is or where he may be going?"

  "NYPD…" Benoit began.

  Plumeri snorted. "NYPD doesn't know its right shoe from its left. But I have a job for it. I want the Mohawk woman — Gina Claw."

  Benoit shrugged.

  "Even the famous New York Police Department ought to be able to find a Mohawk Indian woman from out of town. Half the work's done. Who were the Claw family's friends? Didn't they find out all about that when they looked into the murder of her father and grandfather? Who's providing her a place to sleep? Or is she staying in a hotel? If so, which one? A simple job. To be done today."

  "Today? Hey…"

  "Today," Plumeri repeated. "By five o'clock. It's our best chance to find Bolan, and we want it done now. Now, you understand?"

  "I… Hell, man. I don't know."

  Natale Plumeri put his hand on Benoit's. It was like the touch of a snake, cold and threatening. "By five o'clock, Benoit." His eyes were like the eyes of a snake, too. "Cash your chits. Get results. For sure."

  * * *

  Roberto Ortega was an honest young cop. He planned to make the NYPD his lifetime career, and he looked forward to the day when he would have enough years in service to qualify for the detective sergeant's examination.

  He was entitled to a midshift break. He unclipped the handie-talkie from his belt and advised the dispatcher that he would be off the street for fifteen minutes. Then he walked into Howard Johnson's Motor Hotel and into the coffee shop, where he sat down and ordered coffee and a Danish.

  The girl behind the counter called him by name and smiled warmly at him. She was the reason he came to this particular coffee shop. Her name was Maria.

  While Maria went to the glass cabinet to select the best cinnamon Danish, Roberto looked around to see who was sitting in the coffee shop.

  It was Ortega who spotted Gina Claw. The shift briefing had been to look for a Mohawk Indian woman, good-looking, in her twenties, long black hair, possibly in the company of a blond man. He was not to approach her, but should notify the dispatcher. Surveillance was to be maintained until he was relieved.

  Roberto followed orders. He went outside and reported on his handie-talkie. Then he returned to the counter and kept an eye on the woman and the man until, five minutes later, two detectives came in and took over.

  The detectives were honest cops. They had looked a
t photos of Gina Claw and satisfied themselves that the woman in the coffee shop was the same. They reported to their precinct captain that they had the Claw woman under observation.

  The captain was an honest cop, but he reported to Assistant Commissioner Ned McGrory.

  * * *

  At the same time that Natale Plumeri was meeting with Councilman James Benoit, Joe Rossi was meeting with Alfredo Segesta. The sitdown, on neutral turf, had been arranged by telephone during the night. It took place in a Holiday Inn in Ridgefield, New Jersey, in the breakfast room, where the two dons sat down alone, intently observed by two Rossi hardmen and two Segesta hardmen at other tables.

  Segesta told Rossi about the attempt to kidnap his daughter. He said he didn't think a kidnap had been planned, that it had been a spur-of-the-moment thing by men who had come to hit him if they could and had used Claire as a possible way to get him out of his house. Rossi swore he had nothing to do with it. Segesta said he never suspected Rossi had.

  They agreed that they had two problems — Bolan and Angela. They also agreed Bolan was the critical problem; Angela Corone could be taken care of later.

  Over that table, over ham and eggs, they formed an alliance — the two remaining godfathers against the gravest threat they had ever faced. At Segesta's suggestion, they also agreed to call on Samenza, to treat him as if he were head of a Family.

  Then they began to plan.