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  The limousine lurched away from the curb, then moved smoothly into the Manhattan traffic.

  “Where to?” asked the chauffeur-bodyguard.

  “To hell,” Bolan muttered, “unless you’re very careful.”

  His cold gaze clashed with Sally’s worried baby-dolls in the rear-view mirror—and he knew that she had him made, too.

  Sure, yeah, there was a mover for old New York town. And the hackles were at full combat shiver.

  8

  PROMISES

  Bolan was seated sideways in the front seat of the limousine, hands folded atop the backrest as he sampled the mental atmosphere within that vehicle. In a word, tense.

  Softly, he said, “Surprised to find you in the neighborhood, Barney.”

  “How do you know my name?” Matilda asked, the tone a shade peevish.

  Bolan showed him a thin smile. “Come on—everybody knows Barney Matilda.”

  “Are you the guy was out on Long Island this morning?”

  Bolan kept on smiling. “I was a lot of places this morning. What was your business at the cool spot?”

  “What cool spot?” It was developing into a fencing match. Those alert old eyes were tearing Bolan apart and rebuilding him. “They call you Omega, huh?”

  Bolan shrugged. “Call me what you like. Alpha or Omega—it’s all the same. Right?”

  Matilda glanced at the girl. He told Bolan, “I’m going to light a cigar.”

  “Fine by me,” Bolan said. “As long as you don’t do it with a six-shooter.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  The smile stayed. “It’s tense times, Barney.” He waited while the oldster cautiously hauled out a stogie and lit up. Then he told him, smile gone, “I wish I hadn’t seen you back there at Tony’s.”

  “Why not? Tony sells good cheese and better wine.”

  “It wasn’t cheese and wine today.”

  “What was it then?”

  “Wrong place, wrong time, wrong people.”

  The old man chuckled. “Like 45th and Lex, huh? And maybe like the barber shop on 43rd? How many more wrong places were there?”

  Bolan wagged a hand. “Easy come, easy go. You know.”

  Matilda chuckled some more, played with the cigar, shot another look at the girl. “This is Miss Curtis,” he said amiably. “Miss Curtis, this is Alpha and Omega, I guess. That means the beginning and the end—and he’s letting us take our choice.”

  Bolan did not give the lady a direct acknowledgement of the introduction. He asked the old man, “And who is Miss Curtis?”

  “She’s a friend of mine,” Matilda shot back, with a bit of fire igniting. “One of the few I got left. So don’t try to tie me into any of the dumb action around here. I’m an old man and I’m all through with wrong places, wrong people, and all that. I leave that kind of stuff to you young squirts. I feed birds. I water my garden when I feel like it. I talk to my pretty friend here. Tomorrow I’m gonna go bury Augie; then I think I just might go to Florida and get me a condominium on the beach. I’ll feed the damn pelicans. That okay with you?”

  Bolan solemnly nodded his okay to that. “Sounds like a good move,” he said.

  “Sure it is. This whole country has gone to hell in a basket, anyway. For myself, I see nothing, say nothing, do nothing. Is that okay with you, too?”

  Bolan said, “You seem to hear a lot. About wrong places, wrong people.”

  Matilda flicked a cigar ash onto a console which had been built between the seats—an area occupied by jumpseats in standard limousines. Among other features, the console housed a mobile telephone and a citizen’s band radio. “I keep in touch,” he said. “Retired isn’t dead. I guess.”

  “Could be, Barney. I say this with all respect: the cut is coming. Make sure where you’re coming down—Florida and pelicans notwithstanding.”

  The shrewd eyes were measuring again, dissecting. “Those other boys … wrong side of the cut, eh?”

  “Dumb side,” Bolan replied.

  “Let’s talk plain out,” the old man suggested.

  Bolan looked at the lady. She demurely dropped her gaze and almost imperceptibly moved closer to the old man.

  “She’s okay,” Matilda said. “Plain talk. What are David’s chances?”

  “It’s wrapped,” Bolan replied quietly.

  “Especially since you’re cutting down all the opposition, eh?”

  “Let’s just say that the territory is now unified.”

  “That don’t say nothing. The other territories have to ratify it.”

  “Like I said, it’s wrapped. Tonight it gets ratified by the full council.”

  “That quick, eh? He must’ve been working it a long time.”

  “Long enough.” Bolan spread his hands in a gesture as he pounded the point. “Barney, what else? The old ways are dead. It’s a different time and it’s different people. You and Augie are the last of a kind. Who’s going to take over? Punks like Minotti? Scuba? Volpa?”

  Matilda heaved a deep, tired sigh. “Lot of people thought Augie was a punk when he took over. But he was ten times the man David will ever be. I don’t get it. I don’t get it, at all, when guys of your caliber line up behind a kid like that.”

  Bolan had no desire to win the argument. He was, in fact, deliberately throwing it. Barney Matilda might be semi-retired, sure, but the old guy was admired and respected throughout the mob. And Bolan was greatly satisfied to discover that Barney was not in Eritrea’s pocket. And, yeah, Bolan was throwing the argument. “David can be handled, Barney,” he said pointedly.

  “Oh, I get it,” the old fellow growled. “You want someone you can handle. Hey, stop the car and get the hell out! I don’t want your dirty breath polluting my air around here!”

  A senior citizen could talk that way to an Ace, sure—especially when that senior citizen also happened to be a living legend in his own right. Bolan chuckled and told him, “I wish you were twenty years younger, Barney. Then there wouldn’t be so much trouble finding the cut.”

  “Get outta my car!”

  “I’ll have to borrow it,” Bolan countered regretfully. He told the driver, “Find a good spot near a cab stand. You and Barney leave. The car stays.” To Matilda he said, “The lady stays, too. I’ll leave them both in the garage under corporate office. You know how to find that, eh?”

  The old man had abruptly calmed himself. He growled, “She can’t help you any. Leave it be.”

  Bolan smiled sympathetically. “You know the routine, Barney. Don’t worry. She’ll be okay.”

  “Don’t you misplace a hair on that pretty head. You hear?”

  “Stop worrying. If she’s clean, she’s clean. If she’s not, you’re not. Then all your worries are over. Right?”

  “You’re right about one thing,” the old man snapped. “I should be twenty years younger. And even without it—you better be clean, wise guy!”

  They were idling at the curb, some ten to twelve blocks removed from the “cool spot” on Eighth Avenue. Bolan ejected the loads from the .45 and returned the weapon. The wheelman got out and held the door for Matilda. The girl leaned across the seat to kiss the old man’s cheek. She whispered something which Bolan did not catch, but it seemed to reassure Barney somewhat. He kissed her hand, murmured a loving phrase in Italian, and haughtily disembarked.

  Bolan told the girl, “Up here. You’re driving.”

  A moment later, the Executioner and the Ranger Girl were blending swiftly into the traffic in the commandeered vehicle.

  She took a deep breath and said, “Well!”

  “Not very,” Bolan replied with a taut smile. “Just how clean are you, pretty lady?”

  “I’m as dirty as they get,” she assured him with a flash of innocent eyes. “And so is he. You’ve got yourself a bull by the horns this time, Mack Bolan.”

  “So old Barney is playing the game,” Bolan mused.

  “Say, old Barney invented the game,” she said. “And you weren’t selling hi
m a thing. Don’t you know what that old man is?”

  “I guess you’re going to tell me, huh?”

  Her eyes were flashing delightedly as she told him. “He’s the meanest man in town. The dirtiest dude around. That old man is the original horror story. Forget Frankenstein and Dracula. Don’t you know who he is?”

  Something moved deep within Bolan’s chest—a familiar iciness—and, yeah, maybe he did know. But who would have thought it? “I’ve been looking for a man called Peter,” he muttered.

  “Call him what you like, but you’ll never like what you’ve called up. He’s the granddaddy of it all, the master architect, king of the killers. The only question to be settled is who was the biggest boss of all—Augie or Barney. What do you think kept Marinello in the driver’s seat all these years? Love and kisses? Mack—Barney Matilda has always been the power behind the throne.”

  Yeah. Sure. A man called Peter. The rock of the church of La Cosa Nostra. Architect of the fascist secret police, mentor and chief executive officer of the Commissione’s own gestapo—Ace of Aces! It played. Hell, how it played! Old Barney, living legend of the good old days, Marinello’s sidekick from the beginning of time!

  “I didn’t sell him a thing,” Bolan said, echoing Sally’s earlier comment.

  “Not hardly. He had you coming in, big man, Alpha or Omega. He’s the one that sends the Aces.”

  Bolan chuckled, thinking about that. But then a new awareness diluted the humor of the moment. He told the girl, “Then I’ve just settled your case, Sally. The guy already has your contract written. He’d never let you survive a debriefing by Mack Bolan.”

  She vigorously nodded her agreement with that idea. “Don’t let it throw you, though. I was about ready to bail out, anyway. Besides, I’m sure that contract was executed right along with the employment agreement. Men like Barney Matilda carry the touch of death. Touch them and you’re dead. I’m afraid I’ve touched him in a lot of places.”

  “What were you doing for Barney, Sally?”

  “Intelligence,” she said, with a roll of eyes. “Isn’t that a kick in a soft spot? The Mafia is now an equal opportunity employer. I’ve been with Barney since shortly after I last saw you.” She winked an innocent eye. “I’ve been his secret weapon.”

  “Yeah, you’re quite a weapon,” Bolan agreed, meaning it.

  “Well … I’m loaded and cocked. Fire me when ready.”

  If there was a double entendre there, it was lost on the worried man. “You’ll have to fade quietly away,” he told Sally. “The town has about reached the flash point. Anything could happen now.” Sure. Any thing. “There will be no more brokering. It’s a full go now. It’s best that you find a hole and tuck it in until things settle.”

  It seemed that she had heard not a word he’d said. “I need to file a report. First things first, you know. I have a quiet place not far from here, safe phone and all. Then I’ll be glad to let you debrief me.”

  “Who knows about Barney, other than you?” he asked.

  “It’s just you’n’me, pal. Nobody told me to go out and find the boss monster. It just worked out that way. I’ve been keeping my ugly suspicions to myself, hoping to come up with some documenting evidence. If I’d told Washington what I suspected about old Barney, they’d have jerked me out long ago.”

  “So you’ve been sitting on it?”

  “Very quietly, you bet,” she said, flashing a huge smile. “I heard you worked with Toby and Smiley in Hawaii. Smashing. How’d they stack up against the hula girls?”

  Two more of the Ranger Girls. If this one was half the woman … “Smashing,” he told her, grinning. “Didn’t you hear me, Sally? I said no—”

  “I heard about Georgette, too,” she said grimly, cutting him off and leading him away from the mild reprimand, her mood altering in that twinkling. “So don’t try to ease me out of this, Mr. Blitz. I have a stake, too. I have a right.”

  Bolan sighed, knowing that it was true. “The only right we have, Sally,” he argued, though, “is the right to die.”

  “Well at least you said we,” she replied, reverting to that dear-girl mode which customarily melted masculine hearts and revived the age of gallantry. For some masculine hearts. Of course, there were still those savages who would play marbles with those baby-doll eyes, shove a busted bottle up that delightful bottom, and carve obscenities into the divine body of that dear girl.

  “And sometimes,” he muttered, “the duty to kill.”

  She gave him a quick look, then returned her attention to the driving chores. “What are you going to do about Barney?” she asked quietly. “What does it do, now that the monsterman has you made? What does that do to your cover?”

  “Nothing,” Bolan growled. “It wasn’t a cover. Just a casual wrap for coming and going, here and there. Aces wild, that’s all. I’ll meet Barney Matilda on his own turf, under his own rules.”

  The girl shivered and punched him delicately with an elbow. He had not realized that his voice had become so icy. He touched her arm and she placed a dainty hand over his. She murmured, “You’re the Ace of Hearts, that’s what you are. I’m sorry about Detroit, Mack. But you can’t erase it.”

  She was speaking of Georgette, who’d ended her last fifty days on earth as the most hideous “turkey” ever encountered by Mack Bolan anywhere. Bolan was speaking of Georgette also, as he replied, “Never again, Sally. That’s the way I erase it. Never again, and I promise you that.”

  “I’m going to stop this car and kiss you,” she said solemnly.

  And she did.

  And, sure, Mack Bolan knew that any thing could happen, now, in this tense old town. Except what happened to Georgette in Detroit. It would not happen here, to this dear girl.

  And Bolan promised that to the devil himself.

  9

  DEBRIEFED

  Sally Palmer’s “quiet place” was a twelfth-floor studio apartment in an east side highrise. One room, and not a very big one, but with all the comforts, very compact. Bolan sat at a tiny dining table with instant coffee, trying unsuccessfully not to watch as she casually stripped off her clothing and slipped into a robe. She’d already used the safe phone to file her report to Washington. Now she was briefing a friend and unofficial ally, as she began selecting clothing more appropriate for the hours ahead.

  “I’ve been with Barney since shortly after Vegas. Some day maybe I’ll tell you how we got together. Or maybe I won’t, at that.” She laughed at some secret joke. “I figured a man that age wouldn’t give me much trouble in the bedroom. Well, I’ve got news for Mr. Kinsey. Age has nothing to do with sex. And, of course, it started as simply a sexual thing. But then I began feeding him little morsels of intelligence from here and there. He was impressed, and my job gradually began to broaden.”

  Bolan asked, “When did you begin to tumble to who the guy really is?”

  She frowned. “Right off, I think. At least, I knew he was more than what everyone thought—his own associates included, by the way. I think I really knew it was something large when I saw the telephone. He has a scrambler machine in his bedroom, concealed in the bedside chest. That thing has twelve lines coming into it. It’s a regular little compact switchboard, with call-forwarders built into it and everything. He gets daily reports from all around the country. We have this little charade we play. He pretends that he’s handling lay-off purses for various bookies around the country, just as a sort of hobby, just to keep his hand in. I pretend to believe that.”

  “You’ve been living at his place on Long Island?”

  She wrinkled her nose as she replied, “Off and on, mostly off. He sends me here and there—sometimes as a courier, more often as a sexual loan-out for intelligence purposes.”

  “Where were you headed today?”

  “He didn’t say. He was being very enigmatic today. You think I should wear slacks? I think I’ll wear slacks. I wonder where those red—oh! Sure! He did say something about a new man at corporate office. I
believe he was going to introduce us.”

  “Turrin,” Bolan said quietly.

  “That’s the one. How’d you know?”

  “It figures,” Bolan told her. “He’s been trying to nail Turrin to the barn door.”

  “The Pittsfield boss.”

  “Right. What do you know about it?”

  She shrugged daintily and held a blouse to the light. “Nothing much, I’m afraid. Except that the Pittsfield territory has been disenfranchised and Turrin is now serving on the Commissione’s executive staff.”

  “You know anything about Turrin?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve never been to Pittsfield. Someone pointed him out to me, once, at a party here in New York. But we’ve never met. Is he important right now?”

  “Very,” Bolan said. It would be very unlikely that Sally Palmer would know anything about Leo’s undercover federal status, and vice versa. It was too hairy a game. The fewer people who knew these things, the better.

  “Well, I wish I could give you something. If we’d followed through on the usual routine, I guess I’d be having dinner with Turrin within the next few days. One thing would lead to another. This time next week I could tell you plenty about Mr. Turrin from Pittsfield. But now …”

  Bolan grinned faintly and told her, “Win some, lose some.”

  Suddenly the girl looked very stricken. “I just remembered. You’re from Pittsfield, aren’t you? That’s where you—that’s—I’m sorry I can’t help. I guess Turrin is a very personal matter with you, isn’t he?”

  “The personal matters are all behind me,” Bolan said. “Forget it. Turrin will keep. The target right now is David Eritrea. What do you know about the boy wonder?”

  “Barney dislikes him, I know that. He doesn’t like the way Eritrea is moving in to take over the Marinello territory. Even before that, Barney didn’t like him. I think there was a jealousy of some kind at work there. We were out there this morning, by the way. Right behind you, I guess. You really laid into them, didn’t you? Something puzzles me about that. We were on the way in to town when Barney got the call on the mobile phone. He seemed very pleased about it all at first—I mean, really gloating over Eritrea’s misfortune. But then, after a walking inspection, he became very grumpy. And troubled. He didn’t say two words all the way to town. Then he had to stop and use a pay phone to call someone. Whoever and whatever, he wouldn’t trust it to the mobile phone. A few minutes later he got a call on the mobile. I couldn’t catch the report, but it upset him even more. He told Charlie, the chauffeur, that Moe Dantim got hit on Lexington Avenue. I guess you know all about that. Aren’t you going to debrief me?”