Battle Mask Page 8

  Apparently the thought had crossed the clerk’s mind. The words came then in a warmly conspiratorial stream. “The man just wanted to know who you were and what your connections are, Mr. Lambretta. I figured you had nothing to hide. I told him how long you’d been here and what a quiet, cultured man you seem to be. Oh, and I believe I told him that Mrs. D’Agosta had called for you here a time or two. Was I indiscreet? I hope not. Mrs. D’Agosta is such a fine young lady … certainly too young to be widowed. It’s a shame, such a shame.”

  “And you told him about the ponies.”

  “Yes sir, I believe I did. Oh, but I’m sure it’s quite all right. I have handled bets for this gentleman also.”

  “So who is he?”

  The clerk’s lower lip trembled. “A Mr. Marasco. I believe they call him Honey Marasco. Odd name for such a burly person, but that’s …”

  “And you told him about my mail?”

  The clerk’s face was becoming contorted with the evidence of an inner conflict becoming apparent. “I … uh … Marasco is connected with Julian DiGeorge, Mr. Lambretta. You’re aware, certainly, that Mr. DiGeorge is Mrs. D’Agosta’s father. So, all things considered, I saw no harm in … in …”

  “You told him about my mail!”

  “Yes sir. I told him that you had received letters from New Jersey and Florida. Was I violating a…”

  Bolan said, “No, no, forget it,” and pushed the fifty into the clerk’s sweating palm. He was smiling as he crossed the lobby and went out the door. The cover was falling into place.

  Chapter Twelve

  THIN BLOOD

  “This guy is just a cheap hood, bambina,” DiGeorge told his daughter. Though he despised the use of old-country phrases in general conversation, the bambina was an endearment he used whenever he wished to emphasize the intimate nature of a father-daughter relationship. Andrea understood this bit of family psychology and went along with it. The so-called generation gap was nowhere more evident than in the DiGeorge household. Mother and daughter had long ago lost all semblances of a common ground for unemotional conversation; indeed, Mama was rarely at home these days, preferring to spend most of her golden age on the Italian Riviera. Between father and daughter, bambina had become a sort of truce word, with a history reaching back to the aftermath of Andrea’s first paddling at the age of three. So, bambina had become a place to bury the hatchet, or to gloss over ruffled sensitivities, or to smooth the way for an unpleasant bit of news, which DiGeorge obviously presumed that he was now delivering. “He don’t even have any connections,” the troubled father continued. “He’s a free-lancer, a punk, a two-bit rodman and drifter who’s for hire to the world at large. I hate to tell you this, but you got to be careful who you bring into the home, baby. A free-coaster like this could cause all sorts of trouble to your Poppa’s business arrangements. Besides, a guy like this is just going to wind up with a bullet in the neck and a weeping widow, and he’s liable to take someone with him. Now I’m not trying to say I should pick your friends, but … well … listen, bambina, you’re in the know now, and you know how careful your Poppa has got to be.”

  “Where did you get all this information?” Andrea asked in a surprisingly casual tone.

  “Hey, it’s my business to know things.”

  “Yes, I realize that, Poppa,” Andrea said patiently, “but your sources are off the track this time. Frank is a … a … well, I don’t know how he makes his living and I don’t even care. He’s first class in my book and that’s all I care to know.” Her veils came down and she sank her hooks into the tenderest area of her father’s psyche. “After all, where would I be now if Momma had asked you for a character reference 30 years ago?”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” DiGeorge groaned. He banged his elbow against the wall and worked his fingers into a series of fists. “You’re not trying to be reasonable, bambina,” he said. “You’re just trying to make your Poppa feel like a heel. Okay, okay. I feel like one. But not because of anything I ever did to you or for you. So I’ve done some things I don’t want to strut around and talk about—so any man can say the same. Times have changed now, the world has changed, and there ain’t no room in it for two-bit rodmen anymore. Hey, you think your old man hasn’t always had his wife and kid’s best interests in mind? Huh? You think that?”

  “You’d have cut Momma’s throat and mine too at the first demand of your blood brothers, and you know that’s true,” Andrea replied dismally. “Even now you’d do it. ‘Our thing’ first, last, and always—isn’t that the way it is, Poppa? Above family, above state, above God even, loyalty to ‘this thing we have’—isn’t that right, Poppa?”

  Andrea had again struck a raw nerve. The color had drained from DiGeorge’s face when his daughter spoke the phrase “our thing.” He laughed nervously and said, “Hey, where are you getting this stuff? These fairy tales you been listening to, eh? Who’s been telling my bambina these old-country fairy tales?”

  “They’re not fairy tales, and they’re not old-country,” Andrea stated flatly. “The vintage is the late twenties or early thirties, and the origin is strictly New York, a long ways from the old country. The whole thing is common knowledge now, Poppa. I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t being taught in American History classes. So who’re you trying to kid? You’d better get modern and get with it. The Mafia and the Cosa Nostra are one and the same, the whole world knows it, and you’re up to your eyes in it, and I know who you are and what you are. So don’t come around here giving me the bambina routine and trying to tell me that the daughter of a common hood is too good to become the wife of one. Like mother like daughter, Poppa. You’re stuck with us both, so you may as well decide to make the most of it.”

  Julian DiGeorge was not angry. Nor even hurt, now. He was frightened, and saddened. “Okay, so you wanted to hurt the old man and you’ve hurt him,” he said quietly. “Okay, I guess I don’t blame you. And I guess I’m glad it’s out in the open now, so I can see the claws coming before they scratch. You’re a hundred percent right, bambina. Deej was a nothing until the brotherhood came along and made him a somebody. You’re right. I got no fancy schooling like you did, and I didn’t grow up with roasted pheasants for breakfast neither.”

  He raised his arms to shoulder level and gazed around the luxurious surroundings as though perhaps seeing them for the first time ever. “As for a place like this—when Deej was a kid, a place like this was strictly from fairy tales. Everything you got, remember this, you owe to this thing of ours. The Cosa Nostra, yeah, it gave you the clothes on your back and the food in your belly and yeah, your old man is loyal to a thing like this and if you had any sense, you’d be too instead of smart-mouthing it. And you better remember this, smart-mouth, you ain’t so wrong as to just be digging your Poppa with emptiness. What you said was right, about throats getting cut and such. It could happen to anybody, even to a Capo’s bambina. Eh? You thought I’d deny it? Well, Deej is not denying it. If I was a Miss Smart Mouth, I think I’d be damn careful where my words were going and what they was saying about my Poppa’s friends. Huh? Deej is big, sure, the biggest thing west of Phoenix, but not as big as God, bambina. When an order comes down from the top, it comes down, and a hit is a hit, and it don’t ask whose daughter is this or whose wife is this.”

  DiGeorge got to his feet and stared at his daughter with forlorn eyes. “This is a rotten conversation for a father and his kid. There isn’t going to be no more like this.”

  “No, Poppa, there won’t be any more,” Andrea replied quietly.

  “You’ll tell this Lambretta punk to get lost.”

  She sighed. “Yes, Poppa. He’s coming to dinner. I’ll tell him then.”

  “You want me to tell ’im?” DiGeorge asked gently.

  “Yes. Yes, I guess so.” Her eyes suddenly brimming with tears, the girl jumped to her feet and cried, “I’m sorry, Poppa,” and ran out of the room.

  “I’m sorry too, bambina,” DiGeorge told the empty room. He picked up a heavy
glass ashtray and hurled it against the far wall.

  Chapter Thirteen

  CHARISMA

  Bolan was shown into the DiGeorge library by a steely eyed “butler” in formal attire which almost but not quite concealed a gun under the left arm. He was offered a drink, accepted a fancy tumbler of Scotch on the rocks, and was asked to make himself comfortable. He did so, dropping into a heavy leather lounge. A pedestal-type ashtray immediately appeared at his right elbow; the butler excused himself and departed. The lighting was dim and the dark panelling of the room seemed to cast ominous shadows across Bolan’s view. His eyes were roving the bookshelves, seeing while not seeing the obviously never disturbed volumes reposing there. A chill trickled down his neck to the base of his spine; he was, he knew, being watched from some concealed observation post. He casually lit a cigarette then got to his feet and paced about the room gulping the Scotch on the move.

  Bolan placed the empty glass on a desk, opened his coat, inspected his gunleather in an obvious manner, closed his coat, and paced some more. Presently the door opened and two men entered. One of them Bolan recognized as an obscure palace guard, a smooth-faced youngster who could have just stepped off an Ivy League campus. The other was a very light-stepping heavyweight with a ground-beef face, massive shoulders, and ridiculously small feet. It was the same man Bolan had encountered earlier in the parking lot. The youth halted just inside the doorway and allowed Bolan to see his .38—the older man stood an arm’s reach from Bolan’s gun hand.

  “You forgot to check your hardware,” said little-feet, pleasantly enough.

  “I like to know who I’m checking it with,” Bolan replied stiffly.

  “The name’s Marasco,” the heavyweight solemnly told him.

  Bolan nodded. “Okay,” he said. His hand moved slowly to the coatfront.

  Marasco said quickly, “Not that way. Lean over, both hands on the desk.”

  “Huh-uh,” Bolan replied, grinning. His eyes flashed in a quick round trip to the youth at the door. “I don’t turn my back to no rodman.”

  “Slow and easy, then,” Marasco said, almost smiling. “Lay it on the desk.”

  Bolan complied with the instructions. Marasco stepped forward, took the pistol, and casually dropped it into his coat pocket. “You can pick it up at the gate on your way out,” he said lightly. He took one step toward the door, then paused and turned back to Bolan as though in an afterthought. “Your name Lambretta?”

  Bolan nodded a silent affirmation.

  “You connected with a Rocky Lambretta from Jersey City?”

  “Rocky was a cousin,” Bolan replied unemotionally. “He’s been dead since ’62.”

  Marasco jerked his head in an understanding nod, took another step toward the door, paused and turned back again. “Frankie, is it?”

  Bolan grinned and said, “Why the twenty questions? You know my name.”

  “You ever work in Miami or Saint Pete?”

  “You want me to sit down and write you out a life history?”

  Marasco shrugged his shoulders and went on to the door. “Mr. DiGeorge will be down in a minute,” he said. “Just make yourself at home.”

  “I was comfortable before you came in here,” Bolan said sarcastically.

  Marasco winked and made his exit. The youth grinned at Bolan and followed the heavier man out, pulling the door closed. Bolan kept his face expressionless and stared at the closed door for a long moment, then went over to the sideboard and poured himself another drink. He still felt eyes upon him, but had no fears that he could not behave in a convincing manner. He had grown up in an Italian neighborhood; as for understanding the enemy, his brief apprenticeship with the Sergio Frenchi family in the opening days of the Pittsfield adventure would prove of inestimable value in the days which lay ahead. Bolan continued to play the role, gulping the Scotch while restlessly pacing about the room. Five minutes later, Julian DiGeorge made his appearance.

  Without preliminaries, he asked, “What’re you doing in the Springs?”

  Bolan said, “Look, to hell with it. It was just a gag I went along with. I never had no serious eyes on your kid. We had a few laughs and that was it. You walked in on us and I was just trying to save the kid some face. But enough’s enough.”

  “Answer my question,” DiGeorge demanded. His face had not changed expression.

  “You already got the answers!” Bolan exploded.

  “Why were you fooling around with my daughter?”

  Bolan bugged his eyes and said, “You kidding? What man wouldn’t go for…” He abruptly stopped talking, dug in his pocket for a cigarette, stuck it between his lips then pulled it away without lighting it. “Look, Deej, the girl’s of age, she’s a beauty, and she ain’t exactly no Virgin Mary if you’ll pardon the comparison. We met in the bar at my hotel, and we laughed around a little, and we got to be friends. No one could be more surprised than me when I find out later whose kid she turns out to be. Her name’s D’Agosta, you know, not DiGeorge anymore. Hell, I didn’t know who she was. We only met three days ago.”

  DiGeorge’s shoulders had tightened noticeably but his face remained impassive. “What brought you to the Springs?” he demanded quietly.

  Bolan whipped a large, folded news clipping from his pocket and slapped it on the desk. “Need you really ask?” he said disgustedly.

  DiGeorge stepped to the desk and picked up the clipping, unfolded it, glanced at it, then dropped it with a chuckle. “It figures,” he said.

  Bolan picked up his clipping, a news story concerning the Executioner’s Los Angeles exploits, a large close-up photo of Bolan’s face dominating the item. “The word’s that the contract is wide open,” Bolan muttered past his Lambretta mask.

  “And you thought you’d pick up a quick’n easy hundred thou,” the Mafia boss said, still chuckling.

  “I got it that you had a dugout here. I figured it was worth a play.”

  “Did you also get it that this Bolan punk is probably in Brazil by now? Or better yet, that he’s dead and buried in a secret grave by the cops up at the Village?”

  Bolan snorted and said, “He’s right here in Palm Springs!”

  DiGeorge’s amused expression immediately evaporated. “Where did you get that?”

  “We already tangled once.” Bolan quickly unbuttoned his shirt, spread it wide, and displayed a quarter-inch-wide groove in the flesh just beneath his left armpit. “A .45 slug dug that trench, and it had the Executioner’s brand on it.”

  “Don’t say that word!” DiGeorge snapped.

  “What word?”

  “Don’t call the punk by his pet name! Lemme see that scratch!”

  “Scratch, hell,” Bolan said. He adjusted the shirt to afford DiGeorge a better inspection of the wound.

  DiGeorge clucked his tongue and said, “You were lucky, Franky. Another inch to the right, and you…” He let go the shirt and studied the wound with an academic air. “It’s healing pretty good. What is it—about a week old?”

  “About that,” Bolan said. He rebuttoned the shirt and carefully tucked in the tails.

  “Yeah, you were lucky,” DiGeorge repeated. “Franky Lucky, that’s a name that ought to stick. Not many guys walking around can talk about their gunfight with this Bolan. You sure that was him?”

  A new air of respect had pervaded the previously strained atmosphere between the two men. Bolan recognized it immediately. “It was him all right,” he replied. “We came up eyeball to eyeball down by Desert Junction last Tuesday night.”

  “That’s only a half a mile from here,” DiGeorge uneasily noted.

  “Yeah. I was coming up to lay out this place. I guess he was too. We laid out each other instead.”

  “You hit ’im?” DiGeorge quickly asked.

  “I don’t think so. It came up too quick, too unexpected you know. We’re side by side, at this stoplight, see. I see him, and he sees me seeing him, and then we’re banging away at each other. There’s lights coming down from your plac
e. He whips his car around and takes off. I figure there’ll be another time, and I don’t want to go off on no running gun battle through the city. Besides, I’m hit, see.”

  “What kind of car was he in, Lucky?”

  “Big job … Chrysler, I think.”

  “Uh huh.” DiGeorge smacked his palms together and paced an erratic circle around the desk. “This was a week ago Tuesday night?”

  “Yeah. But I’d take book he’s still around.”

  DiGeorge raised a fist to his mouth and nibbled a heavy knuckle. “Maybe you hit ’im,” he said. “Maybe that’s why he’s laying low.”

  “Maybe.”

  The conversation was interrupted by the noisy appearance of Andrea D’Agosta. She swept into the room with a small overnight bag dangling from one hand, viciously banged the door, and dropped the bag to the floor. “Did you tell the punk to get lost yet, Poppa?” she asked loudly.

  “Not yet,” DiGeorge growled, eyeing her unapprovingly. She wore a glittering mini-sheath with thigh-revealing slits up each leg.

  “Well, hurry up!” the girl commanded. “I’m getting lost with him, and I can’t get out of this nuthouse fast enough.” Her eyes rested on Bolan. “Come on, Frank, let’s split.”

  “You’re going nowhere,” DiGeorge told her. “You’re staying put!”

  “Or you’ll shoot me if I leave, and you’ll cut my throat if I stay.” She laughed shrilly and went over to put a hand on Bolan’s arm. “How about that, Frank?” she giggled. “What do you think of a man who threatens his own daughter with a Mafia-style rubout? Isn’t that the dying end?” From somewhere a small nickel-plated .22 had appeared in her hand. “Come on, Frank. I’ll shoot our way out of this joint.” She laughed even more shrilly and said, “Don’t look so shocked, Poppa. It’s in my blood, see. Like father, like daughter. I was born with a right to kill.”

  DiGeorge had the look of a man who could just lie down and die. Bolan twisted the little gun out of the girl’s hand in almost the same motion as he hit her with the flat of his other hand. She staggered across the floor and sank to her knees, the angry red handprint standing out starkly from a bloodless background. “Well, for God’s sake,” she murmured in a dazed voice.