Battle Mask Page 7

  “I understand, Deej,” Willie Walker assured the Capo.

  During the following few days, DiGeorge had begun to relax somewhat. He went to Acapulco in his private plane on October 12th, combining a pleasant holiday with an urgent business conference which had been hurriedly requested by a Mexican associate. The discussion centered around the new U.S. border crackdown on narcotics traffic, and ways of circumventing this crippling interference with the multi-million dollar business. Returning by way of San Diego, he conferred there briefly with Anthony “Tony Danger” Cupaletto, Caporegime of the California border territory, to pass on the new strategy for the acquisition of Mexican heroin and marijuana.

  When Cupaletto tactfully questioned DiGeorge regarding the status of Mack Bolan, the Mafia boss expressed the conviction that the last had been seen of “big bad Bolan.” He suggested that Tony Danger “worry more about the Border Patrol and less about fancy ghosts.”

  “You just get the business communities to screaming about their lost bucks,” DiGeorge added. “The Feds think they’re pressuring us … you show them what real pressure is. Morales is working the other side of the border. You link up on this side and get the straight businessmen to howling about this harassment of border traffic. In the meantime, we’ll rely on the boats to get the stuff in.”

  The Family was going on with business as usual. As he returned to Palm Springs, DiGeorge’s mind was busy with the problem of succession to the Number Two, or “underboss” spot which had been vacant since Bolan’s execution of Emilio Giordano in September. Tony Danger was not even a candidate in DiGeorge’s thinking. Bolan had executed the most promising lieutenants of the hierarchy. DiGeorge realized that a decision would have to be made quickly to avoid the possibility of ambitious intrigues among his underlings. Rank in the Cosa Nostra meant much more than mere position and prestige; it represented raw power and pyramiding fortunes in what some federal officials were already beginning to refer to as “the invisible second government of the nation.”

  Bolan’s traumatic punches at the organization had produced a more far-reaching effect, DiGeorge knew, than probably Bolan himself even realized. Normal attrition through an occasional death or arrest within the ranks had never posed too much of a problem for the strongly organized and formally administered combine. Intra-family disputes and “licenses” came under the exclusive jurisdiction of that family’s Capo; he was a boss whose slightest whim was enforced by a life-or-death disciplinary code. DiGeorge could not remember a time since the Maranzano-Genovese wars of the thirties when there had been such a high attrition rate within a Cosa Nostra family. Thanks to Bolan, the hierarchy of DiGeorge’s family was now a shambles.

  Things were bad even at the crew level. DiGeorge smiled wryly, thinking of Screwy Looey Pena as his Chief Enforcer. Screwy Looey had been a good soldier. DiGeorge had no doubt that he would forever be a good soldier, loyal to the death, but he simply did not have the stuff for rank. Where would DiGeorge go to fill his vacancies? The families had been closed to new members for years and there was a notable absence of young new blood in the organization. Oh, there were young employees, sure, but hell, you couldn’t give an employee rank. DiGeorge filed a mental note to raise the issue with the Commissione, the national Cosa Nostra ruling council, at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, he would have to wrestle alone with the problems of succession.

  DiGeorge’s reception at Palm Springs on October 15th reflected the tenor of the times. Six vehicles, including an armor-plated Cadillac, awaited him at the private hangar. The reception committee numbered 26, but was headed by a long-haired “soldier” known as Little John Zarecky. Obviously nervous and awed by the great man’s presence, Zarecky stammeringly reported to DiGeorge that Pena had not been heard from and that Willie Walker had departed “with a crew” two days previously. This left the palace guard without a ranking commander; Little John had been left in charge. DiGeorge immediately passed the mantle of authority to Philip “Honey” Marasco, a 42-year-old bodyguard who had accompanied him on the Mexican trip. Thus it was that DiGeorge had no one to bring him up to date on the happenings at home as the motorcade wended its way to the sprawling Palm Springs villa, and thus it was that Julian DiGeorge had no inkling of the existence of the man called Frank Lambretta until the startling confrontation on DiGeorge’s poolside patio.

  The pool and patio occupied a “private” area of the villa, a preserve stormily demanded some time earlier by DiGeorge’s widowed daughter, Andrea DiGeorge D’Agosta, who strongly resented the presence of “hoods and goons” in the family home. Andrea, who had been ignorant of her father’s underworld connections until the Bolan adventures, was also nurturing an ill-concealed resentment of DiGeorge himself, and the two had been all but estranged during the weeks since DiGeorge’s exposure as a Cosa Nostra boss.

  DiGeorge was not particularly surprised to find Andrea at the pool. Indeed, she had been spending most of her daylight hours there since the incident at Beverly Hills—“mooning around,” as DiGeorge put it, “and wishing we could get the spilt wine back in the broken bottle.” What did surprise and shock him was the inescapable fact that his daughter was technically naked and that, moreover, she was entertaining a strange man who was in about the same state of undress.

  “You slut you!” was DiGeorge’s homecoming salutation to his daughter.

  The man in the case was clad only in a pair of wet jockey shorts. He was lying face up on a sunning board. Andrea, wearing only the scanty bottom half of a bikini, was lying atop the man in a tight embrace. She raised her face to her father and said, “Poppa! Turn your head!”

  “I’ll turn your head right offa your shoulders!” DiGeorge howled. “Get up offa there and get your clothes on!”

  In a voice choked with embarassment and anger, the girl insisted, “I’m not moving until you turn your head!”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” the unhappy father roared. “You’ll show your bottom to any two-bit bum that happens past, but your Poppa’s gotta turn his head!” He had already turned away, however, rocking angrily on the balls of his feet and squeezing his hands together in frustrated rage. “Who’s the bum?” he yelled.

  Andrea’s voice was shaking as she replied, “I’m not talking to you, Poppa, until you calm down. And Frank is not a bum. We’re going to be married, in fact, and … and …” She lost her voice completely and was having trouble hooking herself into the bikini top. A small girl, just over five feet tall and weighing hardly a hundred pounds, she made up in quality of what she lost in quantity, with all the planes and angles which have made Italian beauties the sex symbols of the world.

  Her “partner in crime,” as she laughingly referred to him later, exhibited no reaction to her “we’re going to be married” line. He rolled easily off the sunning board and pulled on a pair of white Levi slacks, smiled faintly at the girl, then went over to the brooding figure of her father.

  “I’m Frank Lambretta, Mr. DiGeorge,” he quietly announced.

  DiGeorge inspected him through veiled eyes. He saw a tall man, lithe, muscular, maybe 30 or 35, a bit too damn good-looking. A playboy, maybe. The Springs were full of them. DiGeorge felt cheapened by his daughter’s indiscretion. He let go a disgusted snort and delivered a stinging backhand slap to the man’s face. The tall man obviously saw the blow coming but he stood and received without flinching. A four-finger imprint showed a pale contrast to the smooth flesh surrounding it; a muscle bunched in the jaw and a nerve rippled the flesh beneath the eye.

  “I guess you figure I had that coming,” the man said. He spoke slowly, obviously laboring for self-control. “But that was your first and last free swing. Be advised.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” DiGeorge muttered, “I’m scared to death with your advice.”

  The girl had succeeded in covering her heaving bosom and was marching toward her father with fire in her eyes. “You’re a nut, a nut!” she cried. “You go all holy over an innocent thing like this while all the time you’re standing
there a murderer, and a thief, and a …”

  Grunting with rage, DiGeorge had been pushed too far and had let loose another slap, this one aimed at his daughter. She, too, saw it coming and ducked back, cutting off her accusations with an alarmed yelp, but the man called Lambretta had reacted even faster. His hand shot out and imprisoned the infuriated DiGeorge’s wrist, abruptly arresting the swing and holding the stiffened hand like a vibrating leaf directly in front of DiGeorge’s eyes.

  The two men glared into each other’s eyes for a tense moment, the silence of the struggle unbroken until Lambretta whispered, “Give the kid a break, Deej.”

  “I’ll give her a broken head,” DiGeorge hissed.

  “Call it all my fault,” Lambretta suggested in a barely audible voice, still gripping the other’s wrist. “I pressured her into it. Now let it go at that.”

  “You let go my wrist!”

  “If I do, and if you go for the kid, Deej, I’ll drop you in the pool. Now stop being old-country.” Lambretta released his grip and moved a pace backwards, smiling faintly at the outraged father.

  “Do you know just who you’re talking to, punk?” DiGeorge snarled.

  Lambretta jerked his head in a curt nod. “Yes, I know who I’m talking to. And it still goes. If I have to dunk you to cool you off, then get ready for a swim, Deej.”

  Suddenly aware that he had been repeatedly called “Deej” by the brash interloper, DiGeorge stared at his tormentor more closely and asked, “Where do you get off calling me Deej? What’d you say your name is?”

  Andrea began giggling in the sudden letdown of dangerous tensions. DiGeorge threw her an angry glare, then stomped his foot and opened his arms to her. “Aw, come on, come on,” he said forgivingly.

  The girl stepped into his arms and began crying on his shoulder. The tall man returned to the sunning board, sat down, and snared a pack of Pall Malls from the flagstones. He lit a cigarette and got into socks and shoes. DiGeorge and the girl approached the sunning board, arms linked, smiling at each other self-consciously.

  “Maybe it takes something like this to break up an iceberg,” DiGeorge was saying to his daughter. “It’s been weeks since you’n me were pals.” He nudged Lambretta with his toe and said, “So whoever said it was any fun being a young widow, eh? When’s the wedding? How long you two been making it big like this, eh?”

  Andrea said hurriedly, “We haven’t set the date, Poppa.”

  “You better set it,” DiGeorge said humorously, “… from the looks of things when I walked up.”

  Lambretta smiled around his cigarette and rose to his feet. He put on his shirt, then extended an open hand to the older man. “Friends?” he said simply.

  “Hey, a handshake for the future father-in-law?” DiGeorge protested. He bypassed the hand, grasped Lambretta’s arms, and planted a noisy kiss on his cheek.

  Andrea giggled, said, “I’d better get dressed,” and raced toward the door.

  DiGeorge watched her out of sight, then his smile faded and he stepped quickly away from the other man, inspecting him with a suddenly critical eye. “You better be able to stand a close investigation, Mister hopeful son-in-law,” he said ominously.

  Mack Bolan smiled through his Lambretta mask and said, “You can get as close as you like, Dad.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE COVER

  In the curious old-world formality still found in Mafia circles, pride and respect could be considered as the basics of any human relationships in that society. Indeed, it was rare for even a Capo to openly insult the lowliest of his cadre; it was a serious offense, subject to trial before a kangaroo court, for any member to “lay hands” upon another in anger, and one of the charter rules was that a man’s wife was inviolable by others of the organization. Mack Bolan was aware of this curious code of conduct—curious mainly because of its framework of crime and violence. He would not have deliberately chosen such a far-out introduction to Capo Julian DiGeorge, couched as it was in such strong overtones of disrespect and humiliation: one does not win Capos and influence Mafiosi by trampling all over their sensitivities, was Bolan’s own assessment of his bold faux pas, but the thing had been done, could not be undone, and perhaps it would turn out to be the best of all possible introductions.

  Andrea had changed quickly into colorfully appealing hiphuggers and tight nylon blouse, returning to the patio just as her father was leaving by another exit. She gazed shyly at the man she knew as Frank Lambretta and said, “Poor Poppa, I could have spared him that.”

  “I guess he’ll live through it,” Bolan said, smiling. “If I can, he can.”

  The girl laughed melodiously and carefully seated herself in a deck chair, her eyes remaining steady on Bolan. “I guess I do owe you an apology,” she said. “And a note of thanks. I’m sorry I had to spring that marriage routine. I was just thinking of Poppa’s feelings. If you …”

  “It’s okay,” Bolan interrupted. “We can carry the gag along for a while if you’d like.”

  The girl soberly nodded her agreement. “I was about to say, if you wouldn’t mind playing the charade for a while it would save me an awfully messy situation. Poppa is a bit old-worldly about such things.”

  Bolan showed her the winning Lambretta smile and said, “Can I pick you up for dinner?”

  She was staring at him fixedly as she shook her head in a slow negative. “You’re forgetting your family obligations,” she told him in mock sobriety. “Poppa will be expecting you for dinner, here, so make it by eight, please, jacket and tie.”

  “Eight it is,” he replied, grinning.

  She abandoned the chair and went into his arms, lifting her lips in a breathless invitation. He accepted the offering. She sighed into his mouth then wriggled loose and nuzzled his throat. “The weather’s pretty warm down here,” she whispered. “Don’t worry about dinner. Maybe we can go somewhere after.”

  Bolan patted her bottom, released her, and walked toward the exit DiGeorge had cleared moments earlier. He turned to wave a farewell but the girl was already disappearing around a corner. Bolan went on out, passing through a narrow archway and into the parking area at the side of the villa. A chunky man in a Palm Beach suit, whom Bolan had not seen during any of his frequent visits to the villa over the past several days, rounded a corner of the building, moving fast toward a parked car. The man did a double-take at Bolan and said, “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m sure you’ll find that out without my help,” Bolan replied pleasantly. He slid behind the wheel of a gleaming Mercedes, cranked the powerful engine, and spun out with a spray of gravel.

  The man in the Palm Beach was still staring after him as he stopped for clearance through the gate, a mere formality in view of Bolan-Lambretta’s now-familiar presence at the DiGeorge country estate.

  Not until the villa was a half mile behind did Bolan readjust the mirror for an inspection of his face. He probed the tender tissues with careful fingers, wincing at contact with the area that had fallen under DiGeorge’s stinging slap. It had required all his self-control to maintain a steady visage during that moment of incredible pain. He was hoping now that no interior damage had been done. Things were working out too well to have his face crumble on him. Yes … things were working out. He thought of Andrea, and knew a mixture of pleasure and regret. It had, of course, been a completely casual relationship … with no questions asked and none wanted. He had no reason to feel guilty about his opportunistic cultivation of the girl. She had been ready for a tumble … it could have been Bolan or anybody, so why not Bolan? He was using her, sure, but then she was using him also. This much was patently clear. She had wanted DiGeorge to find them in that compromising scene. She was using Bolan to strike back at her father, to hurt him. Okay. So Bolan was doing the same thing with her, and with the same target in view.

  These thoughts carried him back to his hotel. He went directly to his room, showered, changed to a light suit, and buckled on his side harness with the snap-out revolver.
Then he went down to the desk, nodded at the clerk, an ever-smiling and always immaculate man of about forty, and placed a twenty-dollar bill on the counter. “Who’s been asking about me?” Bolan asked the clerk.

  The clerk eyed the money, then raised a veiled gaze to his guest. “Has someone been asking about you, Mr. Lambretta?” he asked drily.

  “That’s what the twenty wants to know.”

  “As a matter of fact…” The man drummed his fingers on the counter and smiled cautiously. “… A man was in here less than an hour ago who seemed to have an interest in you, Mr. Lambretta.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  The clerk’s eyes fell again to the twenty-dollar bill. He smiled and said, “Well, really … what is there to tell, Mr. Lambretta? You’re registered here. You deal in cash, not credit cards. You’re quiet, mind your own business, and…” He flashed Bolan a hopeless look.

  “And I lay a hundred on the ponies every morning with my friendly local bookmaker,” Bolan added.

  The clerk’s eyes darted to left and right but the smile did not leave his face. “Loose talk is not very sporting, Mr. Lambretta,” he said nervously. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t speak so casually of such, uh, connections.”

  Bolan retrieved the twenty, leaned away from the desk and unbuttoned his coat, allowing it to stand open to reveal the snubbed .32 nestling there as he dug into his pocket and produced a money-clip. He returned the twenty to the clip, extracted a fifty, and dropped it in front of the clerk. The man’s eyes shifted from the gun to the new bill lying on the counter. He nervously wet his lips and said, “I really don’t see …”

  “I don’t want you to see anything,” Bolan said pleasantly. “And I don’t need to stand here playing games with my bankroll. I could just drag you across that desk and slap you silly. You think of that?”