Sicilian Slaughter Page 7

  Frode turned his head and looked at Vandalo; his upper lip twisted with contempt, as though Vandalo were something in a test tube from the VD lab. "Where the hell you been, and doing what? Hustling dope again, and shooting your own stuff?"

  "Listen, you bastard!"

  "No, you listen, all of you!" Frode shouted. "Bolan, that bastard Bolan." He pointed a thrusting finger at Vandalo, then at Brinato, the ice-cold bastard. "Any of you notice anything, here, this table you called on me?"

  All the dons looked around at one another. Vicercato, the foppishly overdressed don from Catania suddenly popped his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Hey! Hee-ey! Where the hell is Cafu, huh?"

  "Yeah," Frode snarled, voice peeling hide from these creeps who dared call a table on him. "Where the hell is Cafu?" His voice mocked Vicercato.

  The other dons looked at one another, and shifted uncomfortably. Frode felt his presence and counterattack regaining control of the situation. "You guys are nuts, if you think Bolan can't take down a whole goddam town, any town. You don't believe me, get in touch with what's left of the Angeletti outfit in Philly, huh? Or Boston. Huh? Is it coming back to you dumb bastards now? Is it?"

  Frode leaned back in his chair and lit a fat Cuban cigar. The other dons looked at one another, and began muttering to themselves. Frode let them talk for a moment while he got the cigar going well, then he slapped his palm down on the big polished table. "This is the guy, the guy, one guy, Bolan, a single man, who flew right into Glass Bay, Puerto Rico where we had a million fucking soldiers waiting for him. And all he did was blow up Vince Triesta's house, crashed an airplane into it, took down the hardsite, wiped out that thing of ours, the Caribbean Carousel."

  Frode turned his head and deliberately spat on the thick, expensive carpet. "You pricks make me sick."

  "And you make me sick," a gravelly voice said from behind Frode. The don froze, cigar falling from his trembling fingers. He knew the voice. It was that of his house boss, Astio Traditore.

  Frode swallowed heavily, jumped to his feet and whirled, shouting. "Get out! You don't belong here. This is a table for dons."

  "Then you don't belong either, Don Tronfio," Astio said, twisting the title obscenely.

  Big, swarthy, dressed in immaculate Italian silk tailoring and custom-lasted shoes from London, Astio stepped forward.

  "You know something, boss," again the snotty twist to the word, "the only thing a don has going for him is respect. Whether the respect comes from fear, from good treatment, from letting us have our own things inside this big thing of ours, a don stays a don because his lieutenants and his soldiers respect him."

  Astio Traditore spat at Frode's feet. "I don't respect no son of a bitch who cuts and runs with the women when someone tries to take down his hardsite."

  Astio shifted his attention to the sharklike faces around the table for Don Tronfio Frode. "One of the first out the door. Look at him. Cut and scratched all to hell, running through the groves, hiding. Came crawling back in after daylight this morning, rumpled and dirty, like a fucking hound with his tail between his legs. I got no more respect for this pile of guts, and I don't work for no man I don't respect."

  In his chilled voice, Brinato from Rome said, "You're taking over? Is that what you're telling the table?"

  "I'm telling the table nothing," Astio said, with just the right touch of humility, "except I can't work for him no longer. I'm taking myself and my crews out. I'm open to offers."

  Brinato gestured. "Bring a chair, join the table."

  After Traditore seated himself, Brinato said, "We discuss the other in a moment. First I want to know, we all want to know, was it Bolan?"

  Without hesitation, Traditore shook his head: no.

  "Lie!" Don Frode shouted. "Look, goddammit, LOOK!" He threw three marksman badges on the table. "The trademark—The Executioner's trademark."

  The table remained silent, each don looking at the badges, then at Frode, finally shifting their gazes to Astio Traditore.

  Astio smoothed his silk jacket, bent his thick lips in a slight smile, and said, "Dime store garbage. Anybody want a ton of them, tomorrow, this evening after dinner? I can get a good price on a trainload of that crap, all just alike."

  "You lousy goddam traitor!" Frode screamed. "All I done for you, a rotten goddam punk pimping your sister to American sailors, and I brought you in like a son, and now you stab me, cut my throat. Traitor!"

  Astio looked at Frode, his face totally without expression, and then after a moment, he nodded. "For respect. When I respected you, anything. Anything." Astio made a gesture as though brushing aside a fly. "No more."

  "Just a minute now," said the Catania boss. "We're not taking down no don on this kind of evidence. First, I want to hear someone else besides this boy here say that our friend ran out last night Then I want other witnesses, like what the hell? Somebody must have seen this Bolan if he blew up the city like our friend Frode claims."

  "No witnesses," Frode said helplessly. "He took everyone down each place he hit." He gestured at the metal objects on the table. "There's your evidence. That's his goddam MO, all of you know it."

  "And we know the kid is right, too. Anybody could make the hits and leave that crap behind, to blame Bolan, you agree?" Brinato looked at the other faces for confirmation.

  "But it's crazy!" Frode screamed, rising to his feet and pounding on the table. "Why would I hit my own guys? Why blow up my town? Cops all over the fucking place. A sub-chief of the federal judicial police from Rome on my doorstep while I'm at breakfast."

  "I remind you that is why we are here," said Ricercato from Palermo. "You can't keep your Family in line." He shot a quick look at Astio. "Maybe it's time for a change."

  "No!"

  Into the silence following Frode's terrified shout, Astio said, "As a matter of fact, gentlemen, if I am permitted to speak?"

  "Speak!" commanded ice-throated Brinato.

  "There is a witness."

  They all stared at Don Tronfio.

  In a single smoothly gliding move, Astio got from his chair, crossed the room and opened the door. He motioned and a soldier dressed in an obvious imitation of Astio came into the room with Hilde. Astio took the girl's hand and nodded. The soldier withdrew, closing the door. Astio guided the blonde across the deep carpeting and sat her down in the chair he'd just vacated.

  "Now, Hilde, tell these gentlemen exactly what you told me. Go on, don't be afraid." A thin edge of raw intimidation came into Astio's voice. "Tell them, exactly."

  "I ... was … was with Signor Mezzano—" She swallowed heavily and looked up at Astio standing by her side. Astio put a hand on her shoulder, and she remembered the cruel little Corsican and the incredible pain, and the more recent dose of pain almost as bad, and she flinched under Astio's touch. "Tell them, Hilde."

  It all came out in a rush then.

  She had been with Mezzano the night before when a man walked in on them.

  Yes, she had seen him before. No, not his name, only that others called him Dito, The Finger. He was dressed in black and armed with a long-barreled gun, she did not know what kind. Dito threw one of those, she gestured toward the metal objects on the table, on the bed, and then he laughed. He said the old man was tired of Mezzano skimming off too much from the top of the business for himself.

  "And then he just shot him," Hilde said woodenly.

  "LIES, LIES, ALLLLL LIES!" Frode cried out, sobbing, beating his fists on the table. He thrust his hand at Astio. "He's taking me down, using Bolan's hits to take me down. Look at that goddam German whore, look at her! She's terrified. Strip her, for the sake of God, and you'll find she's been tortured."

  Frode leaned across the table. "Tell them, girl. TELL THEM."

  Astio's hand squeezed Hilde's shoulder and she shuddered with fear. Astio shouted, "Rana!"

  The door opened and the same soldier came into the room. His face had a froglike look, and his imitation of Astio's wardrobe helped his appearance very l
ittle. He carried a sack in his left hand.

  Astio gestured and Rana came to the table, opened the sack, pulled the bottom corners, and a head rolled out. Even the dons gasped and recoiled with horror and disgust. Hilde screamed and Astio jerked her from the chair by her long blonde hair. He slapped her three times, hard, and she grew silent except for deep, shuddering sobs. Astio pointed.

  "Is that the man who killed Mezzano?"

  Hilde nodded.

  Astio slapped her again. "Look at the face."

  He twisted her hair and forced her neck to turn and made her look. "Is that THE MAN?"

  "Yes, yes, yes, yes," Hilde screeched and jerked free of Astio's grip, stumbled backwards and fell. At the nod of Astio's head, Rana jerked the girl to her feet and walked her out the door.

  "Get rid of that filthy thing," said foppish Ricercato, holding a handkerchief to his face, turning away.

  Astio shouted again and Rana returned to the room, rolled the head back into the sack and carried it out.

  Astio stood behind his chair and placed his hands on the back. "The head you just saw belonged to Ibrido Delatore. He has been employed by Don Frode for the past two years, to carry out, ah, special assignments."

  After a long pause, Brinato's icy voice broke the silence. "Gentlemen?"

  The man from Palermo, leaning back in his chair, said, "I'm ready."

  "And I," said Ricercato, wiping his lips.

  Brinato looked around the table. The men from Salerno and Genoa, Catania, Messina, Venice, and Reggio, and all the others either nodded emphatically or voiced assent.

  Brinato looked down the table toward Frode. "Before we vote, do you have anything more to say?"

  "Just this," Frode said, feeling slack and dry and old, and already dead. "Remember what I tell you here. Remember. Because you will have cause to remember." He looked up at Astio. "You will die within a week, the moment you are found out as the traitor you are."

  Astio made an obscene gesture.

  Frode found himself able to smile. "Cannibal," he responded to the gesture; then returned his attention to the table.

  "Remember that Cafu of Agrigento was-not-here! Unlike you, he is home watching his business, fortifying against Bolan. He knows Bolan took down my city, and he knows why, as do I. Diversion."

  In the sudden silence, the dons stirred restlessly in their chairs. "Of all you, only Don Cafu was not fooled and did not answer the summons for my table."

  Frode knew he had not long to live, perhaps five minutes, possibly an hour. He enjoyed watching them become uncertain, sweat, look at one another.

  Astio saw it too, and felt his victory slipping away. He spoke fast. "Then why haven't we any reports from elsewhere that Bolan's hit again?"

  All the dons nodded and muttered, getting the assurance they needed.

  Frode said, "You are so stupid, all of you. Cafu knows. That is why he is not here." He looked around the table. "Do you know why Bolan took Philly and our Angeletti Family down? Became Don Cafu has started a new business. Training soldiers. Mercenary assassins. He rents them to others in this thing of yours—not ours, because I know how the vote will go. He rents his soldiers for one thousand U.S. dollars a day, and Bolan took down seventy-five of them in Philly."

  Frode paused, then shouted, "Now VOTE, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!" He abruptly dropped his voice to almost a whisper. "And cut your own motheriucking throats."

  He got up and walked out.

  An hour later he was dead and lying in a box while Frog poured wet cement over the body.

  Only one man at the table knew Frode had told the truth, the man who'd framed him and then killed him, Astio Traditore. just confirmed as new Boss of Bosses in Napoli. Traditore had every resource at his disposal directed toward one single objective: find and kill Mack Bolan before he reached Agrigento. If he failed, Frode's prediction would become precisely true. The dons would discover Traditore had shucked them into killing one of their own, and what the German girl had undergone would seem like Paradise compared to the tortures Astio would suffer before he found relief in death.

  The entire Neapolitan organization turned to with a will, each man knowing that dozens of high-echelon vacancies now existed, and the man who made the best impression on the new don would be at the boss' right hand, a favorite, handed the most lucrative action.

  No one worked harder than The Frog, who idolized Astio. And it was Frog who turned up the first thin lead, traced it out from the airport and shortly after three o'clock in the morning stopped outside the "home" of a truck driver named Fretta. Frog stepped over the open-ditch stinking sewer and with a soldier at each side, he took down the front door of Fretta's hovel, kicking it in, gun in hand.

  Fretta made no pretense whatever of resisting. He knew who these men were, and when they asked, he told them exactly what they wanted to know: the old truck was a faded blue, it had a crumpled right-front fender, there were noticeable rust spots on the hood. The man? The man was big, over six feet tall, weighing at least 95 kilos, perhaps a hundred. And, yes, my masters, he did indeed have eyes like blue-stained ice. Go? I only know he sent me to buy native clothing for him, a few extra cans of gasoline and a crate of oil. The engine on that old truck needed a complete overhaul, valves and rings most, pumped oil like a furnace, looked like an old-time locomotive coming, gushing blue smoke. I saw no arms, only a large crate of wood which the big man lashed down on the bed of the truck. Yes, he spoke some Italian, not such fine grammar, Sicilian dialect, looked Siciliano, to me. Of course, at your orders, always.

  That they let him keep the new truck and did not damage it sent Fretta into such a fit of astonishment he decided to see a priest first thing tomorrow and legalize his marriage to the woman he'd lived with for nineteen years and who had borne all his eleven children.

  When the old truck quit on him, finally expiring by suiciding itself when it threw a rod through the block within sight of Reggio, Mack Bolan had no idea how lucky that seemingly disastrous incident was.

  Because during the last hours of darkness, Traditore, Frog, and four soldiers had chartered a plane and flown to Reggio. Traditore knew he should have been in Naples consolidating his new position, but at the same time he knew there would be no position, and he would be too dead to fill it, unless he got Mack Bolan, The Executioner, and took him down forever.

  Afraid to notify the Reggio don and recruit gunmen because that might expose his cannibalistic testimony which liquidated Don Tronfio, Astio had no choice other than recruiting and arming low-grade freelance local help, some of whom Frog had to show how to load their weapons.

  Then Astio spread dollars around, merchants, street hawkers, taxi drivers, shoeshine boys, everyone he could think of who might by remotest possibility spot Bolan coming into town, or see him if he was already in Reggio. Then Astio could only sit back and wait for Bolan to come into the trap, and Bolan did.

  11: REGGIO RAGAZZA

  Alma Bellezza had finished her morning milking, turned the cattle out, strained the milk through clean white sacking into pails, loaded the pails with sealed lids on the cart, and had the team hitched, when she heard the truck coming.

  She looked up as the old blue junker went past, moving hardly as fast as she could walk, rattling, and from its guts coming a fearful clatter. Stinking blue smoke fogged from the exhaust pipe.

  Then she noticed the driver. Her loins trembled and her breath caught, and she felt the nipples of her bosoms stiffen. Even as he sat in the cab of the truck, he looked immense; and she quivered under the fleeting gaze and white smile he gave her as he nursed the truck along the poor road toward the city. If she hurried, she could overtake him, perhaps. She started to climb up on the wagon, then changed her mind and ran back into the house. She emerged a few moments later in a fresh dress, her hands and arms and ankles freshly washed, and wearing her best bonnet. She checked the milk cans again, then climbed upon the seat and urged the astonished horses into a brisk trot. Ten minutes later, her heart seemed to co
me up into her mouth as she topped a rise and saw at the bottom of the hill that the truck had pulled off to one side, and the man was out with his head stuck down inside the engine box.

  She slowed the horses.

  Bolan had caught the movement on the road at the top of the hill when the team came into sight. He did not turn his head but a fraction of an inch, so he could see from the side of his eye, and recognized the milkmaid from the farm he'd just passed. He noticed at once that she had changed clothes. Eyes narrowed against the searing Calabrian glare, Mack unkinked his back and turned to face the approaching wagon. He saw she had gone to more than ordinary trouble, so—maybe … just maybe.

  He did not step into the road in an effort to stop the horses, but only moved a couple of steps, removed his cap politely and said, "Buon giorno, signorina."

  With trembling hands and a flutter in her breast, Alma pulled the team to a halt. "Buon giorno."

  She could not trust herself to say more. Her throat choked, and her chin felt unsteady. Never in her life had she seen such a man, not even in the cinema. Except, perhaps, Raf Vallone? No, not even he.

  The man gestured toward the truck. "Ma la mia baratto ha un guasto."

  Broken down, I should think so! Alma thought. A miracle he came so far. What a peculiar accent he had. Was it Sicilian? He also spoke with his eyes. She said, "E possibile rimorchiarla?"

  Bolan shrugged with what he hoped was authentic Latin eloquence. He thought the girl asked if it were possible to tow the truck. He couldn't hack it that well, so he returned to his deaf-mute act, modified version, as though he had a serious and humiliating speech impediment. The comely girl's instant sympathy made him feel almost ashamed. With gestures and guttural words, he made her understand the possibility of transferring his crate from the truck to her wagon. Once she understood, Alma expertly handled the team, backing the wagon, then pulling alongside the truckbed, tying the lines, climbing up and with a strength that astonished Bolan, helped him lift the heavy crate up and slide it off the truck onto the wagon.