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  Besides Joe Rossi and Al Segesta, Luca Barbosa and Carlo Lentini were at the table. Four of the Five Families were represented. The absence of Arturo Corone was silently noted. No business was discussed while Mama Segesta and her daughter Claire were serving the meal. It was only when the two women closed the door to the kitchen and the clattering of the cleanup could be heard that the men began, to talk serious matters.

  "Arturo…" Rossi began ominously, raising the subject.

  "They say he's dying," Segesta said. He filled his own glass and passed along the wine bottle. "Cancer."

  "Then who speaks for the Corones?" Barbosa asked.

  "They will fight for that right," Lentini said.

  "This cannot be permitted," Barbosa stated. "You agree, don't you, Joe?"

  Rossi nodded. This was why he had raised the issue. They couldn't permit control of the Corone Family to be decided by a murderous confrontation.

  "What do the Corones have?" Segesta asked. "I've lost track."

  "The dope, mostly," Rossi said. He spat the word. "Heroin. Amphetamines. Not cocaine. Others have muscled them out of that." He meant the Colombians. "Some unions. Teamster locals, mostly. Electricians, towel services, hauling. I have the figures. Some of it's pretty rough stuff."

  "You'd like to clean it up, eh, Joe?" Lentini suggested.

  Carlo Lentini was a moon-faced, bald man, with heavy jowls and a thick mouth in which the unlighted stub of a cigar usually resided. His reputation was for being an easygoing man, eager to avoid conflict, content to take his profits and make concessions where concessions could be made. Those who had known him for a long time knew that he had taken out the entire Silva Family, one by one, ignoring their tardy pleas for compromise and peace, until the last Silva fled New York — fled the United States, indeed, and retired quietly to a modest villa just outside Palermo.

  "I'll make you a proposition, Carlo," Rossi said calmly. "If we can settle the question of control of the Corone businesses in a quiet, reasonable way, you can have everything that's theirs. Or others can have shares. I won't demand a nickel's worth."

  Lentini grinned. "Peace at any price, eh, Joe?"

  "I'll make you another proposition, Carlo," Rossi continued. "Why don't you and I do like Hamilton and Burr?"

  "Who're Hamilton and Burr?" Lentini demanded scornfully. "What businesses they got?"

  Rossi glanced around the table to see whether the others had caught his meaning. He couldn't tell. "Old-time guys, Carlo," he said. "They couldn't settle their argument any other way, so they went across the river with a couple pistols and stood and fired at each other. Hamilton was killed. It didn't prove anything, except that both of them had the guts to do it. You want to do that? I have the guts to face you. I know you have the guts to face me. So what would it prove?"

  Lentini hadn't followed the logic at all. He shrugged. "Okay, what would it prove?"

  "That I want peace, not because I haven't got the stomach for war, but because scattering bloody corpses all over town is a bad idea, bad for everybody. It brings heat, Carlo. It cuts profits. That's why I want the Corone business settled around a table, not on the streets."

  Lentini scratched his cheek. "What do you propose?" he asked, a subtle degree of new respect in his voice.

  "I suggest we summon everybody before the council, and tell them, not ask them, how it's going to be."

  "While Arturo is still living?" Barbosa asked incredulously. "We divide up a man's business while he's still living?"

  "Do we divide it up?" Rossi asked. "Do any of us need it? I suggest one of us meets with Arturo Corone — assuming he can still meet and talk — and ask him how he wants it. Then, unless his wishes are unacceptable to us, we tell all the others it's going to be the way Arturo wants it."

  "Who meets with him," Lentini asked.

  "You do, Carlo."

  "You and I together," Lentini suggested.

  Rossi nodded. "Agreeable, Luca? Al?"

  Barbosa and Segesta nodded.

  "Settled, then," Rossi declared. It always surprised him how well he, the youngest member of the council, could prevail on most issues.

  "We got a bigger problem," Barbosa said. The wizened little gray man nodded solemnly. "A bigger problem."

  "Bolan?" Rossi asked.

  "Bolan," Barbosa replied. "He's in town. Or he was."

  "You think he's in town," Segesta said. "You can't be sure."

  "I sent two good men to take care of him," Barbosa told them.

  "Not such good men, apparently," Lentini taunted. "He whacked the two of them."

  "Good men," Barbosa insisted.

  "I suspect Luca is right," Rossi said. "They were good men. It takes more than two good men to take out Bolan. I sent the best hitter I know after him during the Boston business, and…" He shrugged. "Nothing. But I suspect Luca's two good men got a slug into Bolan before he cut them down with an automatic weapon."

  "Why do we think that?" Lentini asked.

  "A witness," Rossi replied. "A hooker working out of the Jersey motel where the man we think was Bolan was registered. She saw a man being helped into a car by a woman. And they took off before the cops got there. Naturally she reported this to us…and not to the police."

  "Who was the woman? What'd she look like?"

  "The hooker had never seen her before and has no idea who she was. She helped a wounded man — the hooker swears this — into a little red car. And she took off like a bat out of hell."

  "I still don't see why we think it was Bolan," Segesta said.

  "Start with the descriptions given by the guys who saw him in Luciano's," Barbosa replied. "One of the wise guys in there had run up against Bolan once before. He swears it was him."

  "That was no ordinary citizen in that parking lot in New Jersey," Rossi said. "He was wounded. I think we can take the hooker's word on that."

  "What would he be doing in New York?" Lentini asked. "What would he be doing in Luciano's, asking after Grotti?"

  Barbosa stared at Rossi, as if expecting the answer to come from him. But it came from Segesta.

  "It's probably what you bought us, Luca, when you whacked three citizens. That's what we talked about in Joe's office. You said you'd think about it, then you went ahead and had Albanese hit the old Mohawk and the witness. That was bad judgment, Luca."

  "Albanese got to them before I could call him off. I meant to take your advice."

  "What's done is done," Rossi said sympathetically. "The question now is, what do we do about it?"

  "Bolan hasn't been seen or heard from since he was shot. Maybe your guys really got him, Luca," Lentini suggested.

  "I'll believe it when he's been missing six months," Rossi retorted.

  "So, what do we do about him?" Segesta asked.

  "I have a hitter who'd like to have him," Rossi replied. "To settle a score."

  "Who is the guy?" Lentini asked.

  Rossi shook his head. "An element of the deal is that nobody knows. But I tell you what I need. A million dollars. My hitter has to retire on this one. One million dollars, cash. I'll put up a quarter of it myself. The other four Families…"

  "You're out of your mind," Barbosa grumbled. "There's no hitter worth a million."

  "Agreed," Rossi said. "No hitter. But the hit. What's it worth to knock off Bolan?"

  "Many have tried," Segesta reminded him.

  "I've got a hitter who can do it," Rossi insisted. "For a million. I'm putting up a quarter."

  "The Corones have to chip in," Barbosa said.

  Rossi nodded. "Something more to discuss with Arturo."

  "It had better work," Lentini said. "A million…"

  Rossi raised his chin. "We'll put up a quarter of a million in advance," he said. "My quarter of a million. When Bolan's dead, I'll call on the rest of you for the balance. If it doesn't work, it costs you nothing."

  Barbosa smiled thinly. "Now, that's the kind of deal I like."

  * * *

  Joe Rossi had a
n apartment on East Fifty-sixth Street, which was unknown to all but a few of his most trusted men. It was a handy place for him when he wanted to be alone, away from the jangling telephone. Early in the evening of the day when he met with the council of the Five Families he took a young woman there.

  Her name was Salina Beaudreau.

  She was an unforgettable figure — an exotically beautiful black woman, well over six feet tall, with a lithe, trim figure and close-cropped hair. She was wearing skintight black leather shorts and a white silk blouse. A heavy round pendant on a thick gold chain hung between her breasts. She sipped the Scotch that Rossi had poured for her and smoked a long, thin cigarette.

  "I have no complaint," he said to her.

  "I'm not apologizing."

  He smiled and reached for his own Scotch. "It was a dangerous assignment. But the offer stands. I want you to take out Bolan."

  She jerked her chin high and sniffed. "The first thing I'll need to do is to get near him. You know where he is?"

  "I'm not sure. But I think he's going to be in town, making big trouble."

  "I'll have to know where he is. And when I do, it's a big contract."

  "A million," Rossi told her. "I'll pay you twenty-five percent when you take the contract and the balance when you finish the job. You can retire."

  She sniffed again. "If I survive."

  "Well… Do you want the contract?"

  She nodded.

  "Then it's a deal. I'll call you when I'm sure Bolan is in town. The quarter million is payable then. I'll get you a lead on him, then he's all yours."

  "Thanks.".

  A few minutes later Rossi stood at his window and watched her hail a cab. Who would guess? Who would ever guess that bizarre young woman was the most dangerous hitter in the business? But she was, and she was damned good. She rarely failed, and she never left a mess.

  He tossed back his glass and drank the last of his Scotch. If anyone could knock off Mack Bolan, it was Salina Beaudreau.

  Chapter Five

  It was no wonder Arturo Corone hadn't gone to recent meetings of the council. He made Joe Rossi think of a building being demolished. On a sun porch at his home on Long Island, surrounded by a jungle of green houseplants and wrapped in a wool robe and blankets even on a stifling summer day, the man once known as The Giant was a pale, gray relic.

  If his two visitors hadn't been Joe Rossi and Carlo Lentini, heads of two powerful Families, plainly they wouldn't have been allowed to see him. It was immediately apparent to Rossi that Don Corone was a prisoner in his own house.

  The men in the house weren't the Corone Family capos. They were young wise guys — aggressive, sullen and with no respect for the authority of their elders. Lentini's suggestion to the most aggressive of them that he and Rossi wanted to talk to Don Corone alone had only drawn a smirk and the word that Don Corone was ill and didn't see anyone other than his closest friends.

  "Which is you?" Lentini had asked.

  "Which is me," the young wise guy had said.

  "And you are…?" Rossi had asked.

  "Michael Grieco," the young wise guy had answered.

  Rossi had taken a moment to appraise Michael Grieco. Young, sure. Too damned young. And what the Anglos called a greaseball. His hair was painstakingly combed and held in place by something with a faint, sweetish odor; he had heavy-lidded eyes and a sensual mouth — a pretty boy, except for the misfortune of acne on his cheeks.

  "So, who are you, Grieco?" Lentini had asked.

  Grieco had nodded at Arturo Corone. "I'm his son."

  Rossi and Lentini sat beside Corone, as close to him as they could. Grieco hovered over them, anxious to miss none of their conversation.

  "How are you feeling, Arturo?" Lentini asked.

  The wasting man shook his head.

  "The council has met," Rossi told him. "We have made a decision or two and would like your concurrence."

  Arturo Corone nodded. It was apparent that he understood. Weak as he was, he knew what was happening around him.

  "We think Bolan might be in town, Arturo," Rossi went on. "The Families are putting up a million dollars for a contract on him. The Corone share is $187,500 — payable only if the hit is made. Do you agree?"

  "He agrees," Grieco replied. "You can take the money with you when you leave."

  "Do you agree, Arturo?" Rossi repeated.

  The dying man glanced past Rossi, at the menacing figure of Michael Grieco. He shrugged and nodded.

  Lentini looked up at Grieco. "Leave us," he ordered. "We want to talk privately with Don Corone."

  Grieco smiled scornfully and shook his head.

  Carlo Lentini rose and faced Grieco. He spit out the stub of his cigar, which fell on Grieco's shoes and rolled off on the floor. "I said out!" he yelled in the man's face. "Now!"

  "I speak for Don Arturo," Grieco said defiantly.

  "You will be very, very lucky, Grieco, if you speak tomorrow," Lentini growled. "For yourself or anyone else."

  Grieco fixed a long, threatening stare on Arturo Corone, then turned on his heel and marched into the house.

  Rossi, who had remained seated beside Corone, bent nearer to him and asked, "Who is he?"

  "My daughter is married to him," Corone whispered hoarsely.

  "If… If you don't recover your health, Don Corone — and God grant that you do — who do you want to succeed you?"

  The weak old man stared past the two men, at the door through which Michael Grieco had retreated, as though he were afraid the young man could hear him through the door. "Not him," he whispered.

  "Then who?" Rossi asked urgently.

  Corone shook his head. "Philip," he muttered. "Not my older sons… They don't have the guts. Really, my daughter Angela is the strongest one, but she's in stir. I…" His eyes shifted toward the door again. "That one… is dangerous."

  "He will not survive you, Don Corone," Rossi promised coldly.

  * * *

  "A small job," Rossi said to Salina Beaudreau. "Something to tide you over until you earn your million."

  They were in his chauffeured car, a nondescript black Chevrolet, not an attention-attracting limo, although it was heavily armored and equipped with a powerful oversized engine.

  "Fifty thou," she said. "Not much. A capo…"

  "A punk," Rossi interrupted. "An overconfident punk. A piece of cake for a pro like you. Fifty thousand. If you get him within the next twenty-four hours, I'll make it sixty."

  Salina Beaudreau sighed loudly. "It suppose a girl's gotta eat."

  * * *

  Michael Grieco favored a kosher restaurant in Brighton Beach, called Leon's. He favored it so much that he and his friends had all but taken it over — partly to the delight of its guileless, devout owners, who were happy to have so much business from a group of generally quiet and respectful young Italians, but partly also to their dismay, since the subtly menacing presence of these young men had tended to drive away some of the old families who had eaten there for decades.

  Grieco favored Leon's for reasons of his own. Undeniably the food was excellent. Better, the place was respectable, out-of-the-way and unknown to certain people he didn't want to see. When he ate there, he saw no one from any of the Five Families. No one knew where to look for him.

  Also, when he was there, he was cock of the walk, king of the mountain, undisputed master. None of the wise guys came but those who acknowledged Michael Grieco as an unanointed don.

  They did the rituals. His men kissed his hand. He greeted his special friends with a great, back-slapping hug. He drank red wine and ate the kosher food with gusto. Leon Goldish and his wife, Emma, attended him deferentially, curious as to why this young man should spend so much money in their restaurant that he and his friends all but supported it.

  One of Barbosa's capos knew all about Leon's and the way Grieco lorded it over the little neighborhood restaurant. "Where the punk keeps out of sight," was how he put it. Four hours after Rossi sent the word ar
ound that he needed to know where to find Grieco, the answer came back: look for him at Leon's in Brighton Beach.

  When Salina Beaudreau arrived in Brighton Beach on Saturday evening, she concluded she had lost ten thousand dollars. Rossi had offered fifty thousand for Grieco, sixty if she got him within twenty-four hours. But the place where she'd been told he hung out was shut tight.

  Sure. The Jewish Sabbath. Then she remembered — the Sabbath ended at sunset.

  And when she returned a little after eight, Leon's Family Restaurant was open.

  She had rented a white Cadillac convertible, using a credit card and a New Jersey driver's license she would never use again. Even before she drove out of the Manhattan garage, she had pulled on clear plastic gloves, and there wasn't a fingerprint of hers anywhere in the car. Parked for two minutes on Seventy-ninth Street, she had pulled off the silk dress and wig that had given her a respectable appearance for the rental agency clerk. Now, in skimpy white shorts and halter, she had the appearance she wanted.

  She pulled the Cadillac to the curb in front of Leon's, got out and looked in through the window. Okay. The wise guys were at their big table, as Rossi had said. And the central figure was a man who fit the description of Michael Grieco.

  Of course, there was a chance that it wasn't Grieco. She would find out.

  Salina lowered the convertible's top and sat smoking, avoiding the eyes of the men on the street, who stared at her with fascination.

  After a quarter of an hour, she saw what she was waiting for: a young Italian-looking male walking toward her on the street. She flipped her cigarette away, got out of the car and stood leaning on the right front fender.

  "Hey," she called.

  He stopped, cocked his head to one side and openly appraised the golden-skinned beauty in the tight shorts and loose halter.

  "You going in there?" she asked.

  "Maybe not," he said. "Maybe not… now."

  "Sure. Well, tell Mike somebody's out here to see him. Samantha. Tell him Samantha is out here."

  The wise guy grinned. "Has to be Mike, huh?"