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  “Now dammit, Joe, I didn’t tell you to get things in shape by the time I get there. Now did I?”

  “No sir,” Joe the Monster growled.

  “I told you to see to our VIP’s comfort. Now that’s all, Joe. I told you to avoid direct contact. Right?”

  “Right, Mr. Tal—yes sir, I understand that.”

  “Don’t get your tail in the air over this busted deal. The big thing is the man himself. Tell me you understand that, Joe.”

  “I understand that, sir,” Stanno meekly replied.

  A click from the eastern end signaled the close of the conversation. Stanno quietly hung up, his face a mask of cold fury as he turned to his companions.

  “I had to eat shit,” he announced in a choked voice. “That’s the first time I—listen, I ain’t eating no more.”

  “Which one was that?” asked a crewchief. “Pat or Mike?”

  “Who the hell would know?” Stanno growled. “Look at one, you’re looking at both. Talk to one, you’re talking to both. All I know is, he made me eat shit. And they’ll be here about six o’clock.”

  The other man took a nervous pull on a cigarette and said, “You mean the brothers are coming here personal?”

  “That’s what I said!” the Vegas enforcer muttered. “What’s more, we’re being invaded. From all directions. They’re coming in from everywhere, taking over our action.”

  “So whatta we do, Joe?” another chief asked quietly.

  “Whatta we do?” Stanno showed them a sick smile. “We do what the brothers tell us, that’s what we do. They want the town buttoned down—and solid. Thank Christ we’re ahead of them on that. Did Ringer get all those calls made?”

  “He’s still at it, Joe. Want me to check?”

  “Yeah, check,” the boss said.

  The crew chief hurried out of the room and Stanno went over to a window to peer through a crack in the heavy draperies.

  “How do you button down a whole damn desert, though?” he asked in a thick voice. “I bet that bastard’s out there somewheres right now, looking at us through a scope. With a quarter million of the company’s bucks to keep him warm. And laughing. How the hell does one guy stay so lucky?”

  “I wouldn’t call it luck,” the remaining crew chief ventured. “Not with fourteen bodies laying out down there. I don’t think this guy is working alone, Joe. I think he’s got hisself a crew. Come to think of it, there might be a whole gang out there looking at us through scopes.”

  Stanno made a gargling sound and turned quickly away from the window. “Let’s don’t go making things worse’n they might be,” he said. “He had a crew at L.A. that time,” the gunner pointed out.

  “Yeah but I—”

  The enforcer broke off to receive the announcement from his returning lieutenant. “Ringer says he’s almost through,” the man reported. He rubbed his chin in a nervous gesture and added, “How many dead boys did we count, down on the road?”

  “All of ’em were dead,” Stanno rumbled. “Tell Ringer I—”

  “Wait a minute, Joe. Ringer’s talking to Mr. Apostinni right now. He says—well I only counted ten bodies down there. Is that right?”

  Stanno squinted at his crew chief and replied, “Counting the bits and pieces, yeah, four boys and a bagman in each car. That adds up to ten of my fingers. How many of yours?”

  “Well, Mr. Apostinni says he was sending out another shipment, besides the finance. He says he was sending us a fink, he says for a termination contract. That would make eleven—”

  “Bullshit!” Stanno yelled. “We don’t double up nothing on these finance shipments. He don’t go ringing in no terminals at a time like that!”

  “He did just the same, Joe. He says it was a urgent—”

  “Bullshit!” Joe the Monster snatched up the telephone and punched a button to join the conversation on the alternate line. “Pardon me,” he announced. “This is Joe Stanno, Mr. Apostinni. What’s this you’re telling Ringer about a double shipment?”

  A smooth but noticeably flustered voice flowed back in a nervous reply. “That’s right, Joe. I know it’s irregular but I had too many things on my hands at once here. I’ve had observers breathing on me all night, and I had to get this other shipment the hell out of here. Now you’re saying that this VIP in black has crashed the party, and frankly I don’t know what to think now.”

  Stanno was raging inwardly over the goddam feds and the goddam ever-present fear of tapped phones and other forms of electronic spying and the constant damned doubletalk on the telephones. Struggling to control the anger in his voice, he said, “Mr. Apostinni, I don’t know what the hell you’re saying. What I want you to understand though is just this. We’re in one hell of a bind and I ain’t got time for polite damn talk. Just exactly what are you telling me?”

  The other man sighed and replied, “I’m telling you we found a fink, Joe, operating right under our noses. We did what we could to straighten him out here, but he just wouldn’t straighten out. I sent him out there for you to handle. The men from up north have been here all night, nosing around, asking questions, everything short of an outright bust. I had to get that terminal the hell out of here, Joe. And now I’m wondering just which shipment your blackie was actually after up there. I mean …”

  “Yes sir, I know what you mean,” Stanno said in a troubled voice.

  “What’s bothering me, more than the other shipment, is right now this Mr. Fink, Joe. If that guy is on the loose …”

  Stanno whistled a brief tune then said, “Well, he is, that’s for sure. We didn’t find no strange faces in that mess. Chopped up bodies, yeah, heads with nothing under ’em, yeah—but put ’em all together and it’s nothing but ten company men all present and accounted for and with none left over. Plus, I might add, four of my own boys from right here.”

  “Yes, Ringer was telling me. Well listen, Joe.” The purring voice had dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “I realize that the men back east are going to be understandably upset over this financial loss, but listen, what’s worrying me the most … we entertained Mr. Fink here most all day. I mean, if this guy is a fed … well, Joe, some things money just can’t buy. You know?”

  “Yes sir, I know,” Stanno replied heavily. “Well look, all this means is this. We got to entertain that VIP, right? We do that, everything else might fall back in place too. Right, Mr. Apostinni?”

  “You’re the expert in that department, Joe. I’ll do whatever you say.”

  “Then do what Ringer says,” Stanno growled, and hung up.

  “Fuck ’em all,” he snarled at his crew chiefs. “Load up a couple of cars.”

  “Where we going, Joe?”

  “Where the hell you think? We’re going to Vegas. To nail down that red carpet.”

  Joe the Monster’s “red carpet” was actually a shroud.

  And he meant to personally drape it over Mack Bolan’s bleeding body.

  5: THE ETHNOLOGIST

  Coming upon the Las Vegas Strip, especially at night, is an experience comparable to finding Oz while wandering through the Sahara Desert. Beginning at the south edge of the city, the Strip is a four-mile panoram of hotel-casinos, bars, and motels to stagger and enthrall the first-time visitor, a shimmering neon oasis of glamour and excitement and sexuality that seems to continue into infinity across the wastelands of southern Nevada.

  The city itself still shows the evidence of its humbler beginnings; in the year of Mack Bolan’s birth, Las Vegas was a rough little desert town of some eight thousand citizens and nowhere equal to the fame and glamour of its sister city to the north, Reno. Now after thirty years of explosive growth, Vegas is a booming metropolis of nearly two hundred thousand year-round residents, and it is a city built and sustained by the state’s legalized gambling industry. Industry it is. An estimated forty percent of the city’s population earn their livings directly from the gambling tables. The annual “take,” or casino winnings, are more than double the annual budget of the State
of Nevada, and revenues derived from these earnings provide approximately one-third of all taxes collected by the state. Statewide, tourism-gambling enterprises account for the largest employment category; some twenty million annual visitors leave behind more than $700,000,000 each year.

  Las Vegas and its Strip get most of this, with fifteen major resort hotels and some three hundred hotels and motels to accomodate this constant surge and flow of fun-seeking humanity.

  Bolan was not overly concerned about “standing out” in such an environment nor did he have any particular respect for the ability of the mob’s local forces to effectively limit his activities there. Later, of course, when the reinforcements began pouring in … later there would be plenty of cause for concern. At the moment, Bolan had a quiet and relatively safe chore to perform … at the request of an old friend.

  Two days earlier he had acquired a room in a modest tourist home at the north edge of the city and had provided himself with “temporary wheels”—a three-year-old Pontiac convertible purchased at a bargain from a luckless victim of the city’s major industry. From this base, the Executioner had scouted the enemy, acquired useful intelligence, and launched the strike which had netted him Carl Lyons in lieu of the $250,000 skim shipment he was targeting on.

  Now he was sending the convertible into a leisurely foray along the Strip. Dark glasses—practically standard equipment in this part of the world, even at night—and fake sideburns considerably altered his appearance. He wore a light blue suit of the new doubleknit stretch fabric. Snuggled to his side beneath the coat was his favored weapon, the hot little 9mm Beretta autoloader he’d acquired while in France, nicely concealed in the snapaway leather, but ready to spring upon demand.

  It was 2 A.M. and the Strip was swinging. Just ahead and rising regally from the lesser glow of the neon maze was a dazzling display of electricity and color marking the internationally famous hotel and casino which was Bolan’s goal of the moment. Actually the goal was the man on the billboard in letters three feet tall, “America’s hottest comic Tommy Anders” headlining “the hottest show in town.”

  Bolan surrendered the convertible to an eager crew of parking attendants and followed the foot-traffic inside. The lobby was not what one would expect of a multi-million-dollar hotel. A small registration desk, notably neglected at this hour except for the presence of two sharp-eyed clerks, occupied an inconspicuous spot where the trails diverged—one leading to the three hundred rooms and fifty bungalows clustered about the pool-patio area; another angling off past banked rows of slot machines into the lounge, or bar, where one may sip whiskey at a dollar-ten a serve and play nickel and dime bingo; still another and much broader path led into the casino and beyond to the theatre-dining room.

  At a small desk, nearer the door, hovered three men wearing uniforms of the Clark County Sheriff’s Department. They were, Bolan knew, off-duty cops retained by the casino for security purposes. Bolan went directly to this desk and laid out the Beretta and an assortment of plasticized cards. “How’s it going?” he asked casually.

  “Quiet, sir, very quiet,” replied the deeply-tanned young deputy who seemed to be in charge of the desk. He scrutinized the cards, flashed a glance at Bolan’s face, and said, “Fine, sir. Thanks for checking in.”

  Bolan retrieved his cards and returned the Beretta to her leather. “Anybody else inside?” he asked.

  “Two of your people checked in about thirty minutes ago,” the deputy informed him. “What’s up?”

  “Routine jazz,” Bolan muttered. “The weekly jitters, I guess.” He nodded at the other deputies and strode into the casino.

  The gambling crowd was relatively thin, a normal condition for this hour of the day with a show in progress in the dining room. Devoid of the casual gamblers, the atmosphere within the casino was tense and decidedly unfunlike. This was the hour of the “high rollers,” as well as the compulsives and the heavy losers trying desperately to get back into the money. Pit bosses roamed restlessly about their areas, chatting with inactive dealers at the no-play tables and hustling shills about to keep up the pretense of activity.

  Bolan went on through and presented a card at the entrance to the dining room. A near-capacity crowd was on hand and completely in the hands of the masterful personality of the man in the spotlight, “America’s hottest comic.”

  A harried maitre d’ in formal black-tie grimaced at Bolan’s card and snapped, “This is impossible. I haven’t a table within opera-glass range of the stage.”

  “Forget the table,” Bolan said, and wandered into the sea of diners.

  Anders was at stage-center, front, holding a handmike and pacing about a small area defined by a red spotlight. Even from this distance Bolan could see the band-aids on his face and a puffy lump beneath one eye. Above and behind him, fanned out like a deck of cards, were the inevitable “showpieces”—the technically nude, leggy and beautiful chorus girls who typified the Vegas aura of sexuality. They simply stood there like mannequins—living props reflecting the barrage of multi-colored spotlights roaming their sections of the stage.

  Bolan stuck to the aisle nearest the wall and went on around and through the doorway leading backstage. It was regular big-theatre back there, with the usual hustle and bustle of activity. A rock group were taking places and getting set up behind a curtain, stagehands were moving energetically about and preparing the next act, half-clad showgirls wandered about, and through it all the amplified Brooklyn accents of Tommy Anders reigned over the delighted reactions from the audience.

  Anders had been in the business quite a few years and had always enjoyed a comfortable following. He’d appeared in a couple of minor movies and had recently been popping up on a variety of television shows, but this “Vegas stand” had, according to the show business reporters, marked the beginning of a whole new era for this “acknowledged master of stand-up comedy,” a biting satirist who wrote his own monologues, his most famous lines being directed at the sacred cows of America’ enthnic sensitivities.

  “I’m not no ethnician, but …” had become an Anders trade-line, an identity piece which shared honors with his other lead-in, “Now I’m not anti-ethnic, but …”

  Bolan, half-Polish, had heard and chuckled over many of the routines … and now he was standing in the wings in the reflected glow of a mostly-nude showgirl and listening to the familiar voice declare, “Now listen, I’m not anti-ethnic, but … (pause to allow an anticipatory giggle from the audience) … but I hear they’re making a new gangbusters movie in Hollywood. You all remember Eliot Ness and The Untouchables. Listen, Ness would get picketed in Hollywood today. Believe it. This new gangbusters flick? The working title is The Unfortunates. They’re changing the names of the criminals to protect the producers. That’s right, don’t laugh. Mike Mazurki has the leading role. He plays a brilliant and brutal FBI agent. Sure. George Raft is the big brains at the Hall of Fuzz, he’s the police commissioner. God’s truth. Donald O’Connor is the heavy. He’s a frustrated song and dance boss who’s getting hounded out of his skull by these ratfink feds who keep bugging his rooms and watching him through movie cameras. Yeah, they’ve got all this illegally-obtained evidence showing the boss feeding LSD to a knocked-up, stoned, fourteen-year-old prostitute. His sister. No, she’s not one of the unfortunates. Donald O’Connor is, he’s the guy fighting this illegal-evidence game.

  “You think I’m kidding. Listen, I hear that Paramount has agreed to change the title of The Godfather. They’re going to call it The Stepfather. A group of militant atheists objected to the use of religious propaganda in an entertainment medium. I’m not kidding, I’m not no ethnician.

  “Paramount already dropped the word Mafia from the dialogue, and I hear they’re giving all the characters Anglo-Saxon names. They’re working on the author now, Mario Puzo. Want ’em to change his name to Marion Push. You laugh, but I’m entirely serious. That’s the way it is in America today.

  “I was talking to Leonard Slye just the other day
. He’s been in trouble with the Violence Commissioner. Over his horse. Yeah, you’ve all heard of the Wonder Horse. Leonard’s gotta change the horse’s name. Trigger is a violent name, it gives the kids ideas. Leonard changed his own name years ago, of course, to Roy Rogers, you all remember that. Listen, don’t laugh, this’s no ethnical joke. Image is a very big thing in this country today. It’s a matter of freedom, and civil rights and box office. Can you imagine, on your theatre marquee, Leonard Slye and Trigger, the Wonder Horse? Course not. From now on you’ll be seeing Roy Rogers and Leonard, the Peaceful Equine.

  “There’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with it. It’s not anti-ethnic. You ready for the big one? Marion Michael Morrison. Never heard of him? You probably know him as the Duke, or as John Wayne. See, that’s not ethnic. Even the WASPs do it.

  “Image is very important in this country. What looks better on a billboard—Cary Grant or Archibald Leach? Uh-huh. You’re getting the idea. It’s not a real big deal, is it. It’s a matter of image, that’s all. Joseph Levitch gets changed to Jerry Lewis. Why not? Who’d pay to see a show with Martin and Levitch, huh?

  “It isn’t just actors that get their names fixed. Anybody here ever hear of a guy called Sam Goldfish? Of course not. You know why? Imagine. Metro-Goldfish-Mayer sounds silly, especially with a lion roaring out of the titles. Has anybody caught the smash act just up the street? It’s a hubby and wife finger-snapping team, Sidney Leibowitz and Edie Gorme.

  “Sure, we all do it. Even the Italians. How many of you haven’t heard the great rendition of Lucky Ol’ Sun by Frankie LoVecchio, also known as Frankie Laine. Vito Farinola got his name fixed to Vic Damone. But it’s not ethnical, it’s imagery. This all started a long time before the Godfath—pardon me, the Stepfather. What’s that, sir?”

  The comic stepped to the edge of the stage and pretended to be conversing with a man in the audience.

  “You represent who? The BDBHC. I see. And what did that mean, sir, before it got its name fixed? Oh. ‘A Better Deal for Broken Home Children.’ And you object to that new title, The Stepfather.”