New Orleans Knockout Read online

  Bolan waved away the offer and said, “Aw, don’t bother him. I just dropped by to say ‘ay’—maybe look up some old friends. How’re things in Saint Loo?”

  “Getting tough,” Stigni replied.

  “Whole damned town’s crumbling to hell,” said smooth-face. “Whole damned state, I guess.”

  “It’s that kid governor,” the kid triggerman groused.

  Stigni sighed, adding, “Crime commissions in KC and pimp wars in Rolla.”

  “Well,” Bolan commented consolingly, “things’ll look better after Mardi Gras. Eh?”

  “Yeah,” all agreed, laughing.

  Bolan said, “Guess you got it nailed down pretty well, eh?”

  “We think so,” Stigni said, then immediately changed his mind about that. “Or we did. One or two loose ends right now.” He made a vague wave toward the map. “Got some inside poop, you know, got everything spotted and all. We figured it to go zip-zip, like that, quiet as snow falling. Nobody’d know ’til it was too late to know. But now Jerry’s not so sure. I guess you heard about this Bolan freak banging around over there. It’s probably going to take a war, now.”

  This “Bolan freak” had gone to the map for a look. It was of New Orleans and suburbs. Stickpin pennants in X’d circles marked the spots for assassination, with no surprises for Bolan.

  “How’s the recruiting going?” he asked casually.

  “Pretty good,” Stigni reported happily. “Picked up thirty through this morning. Expect to have another thirty or forty on board by tonight.”

  “That’ll give you—what?—about 100 to 125 guns?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good boys?”

  “Good enough.”

  The guy at the table chuckled and added, “Good enough to front-line. But you don’t exactly get command class off of these streets.”

  “We got a few over from the Mobile-Pensacola area,” smooth-face argued.

  “Same damn streets,” the other replied, snickering.

  “Frankie” was taking his departure. He said, “Well—tell Ciglia I’m on my way in to look at this Bolan problem. Maybe I can save it some over there.”

  “Hey, that’s great!” Stigni crowed. “Stick a Union Jack up that bastard’s ass for me, huh, Frankie?”

  “Jerry’s going to be pissed off we didn’t send for him,” smooth-face decided. “He’d sure like to meet you, I know.”

  “Tell him we’ll meet for Mardi Gras.”

  The guy smiled broadly. “Sure, okay. I’ll tell him, Frankie.”

  Bolan waved airily and walked out of there.

  There was no need for smooth-face to tell Jerry anything.

  The Executioner was headed for the pro shop. He’d deliver the message for himself … in his own way.

  12: UPSTAGED

  The pro shop was deserted. Bolan reached past a “gone to lunch” sign on the counter and pulled the book around to see what it could reveal.

  Apparently most of the Edgewater golfers preferred the early morning hours. No parties had been booked since 10:00, except for a threesome that went out at 11:45 under the name “Jackson Co.”

  Bolan studied the layout of the course and ran a timeline on the latest threesome, then returned to the warwagon and headed inland along a narrow road that paralleled the golf course for a distance, pulling off finally onto a cross-country approach.

  He found the spot he had hoped to find and set up shop in a stand of pines overlooking the tee for the eighth hole.

  The range would be about 500 yards. He broke out the optics and refined that figure to 480 on the nose—par one, straight down the fairway.

  He selected the Weatherby Mark IV for the task, a heavy-frame piece, built up even heavier, that would drop a charging grizzly from a thousand yards out.

  Pointblank range for the Weatherby was 400 yards—that is, the range at which trajectory rise and drop equalled and cancelled. He consulted the graphs and nicked the sniperscope to the proper correction, then took a wind reading and decided there would be no wind factor.

  He scanned and sectored the tee area with the telescopic sights while running a mental choreography of the probable movements down there—considering backgrounds, foregrounds, possible interventions across the target track, target approach, target escape, target zero.

  And then he waited.

  He filled the wait with thoughts of the chummy little tête à tête with Stigni and the other cheerful cannibals—and he thought of Vannaducci, Carlotti, Lanza, and all those of the decaying New Orleans “family.” He thought of Ciglia and his dreams of empire, and he thought of the St. Louis mob and the New York coalition—and, yeah, Mack Bolan knew his enemies.

  They were not “families”—certainly not a brotherhood of “friends.”

  Bolan was not the worst enemy the Mafia had. Nor were the feds or the crime commissions nor all the cops combined everywhere.

  The Mafia’s worst enemy was itself.

  Until Bolan came along, their greatest fear had been of one another.

  Family hell!

  A pack of wild dogs was more like it. Dogs that ran together and brought down the prey together, then frequently attacked one another over the disposition of the spoils. Cannibals, competing for the fruits of the hunt, each determined to the death to hog the greatest share or come out on top of the choicest territory—cannibals who laughed together and joked it up over organized betrayal, systematic deceit, mass assassination of their own kind.

  Yes, Mack Bolan knew his enemies.

  As a group they represented the basest aspects of the human species. They were evolutionary throw-backs, these guys, forging a Stone Age philosophy in a never-let-die jungle of survival.

  He felt no quiver of conscience whatever for returning guys like these to the age in which they belonged.

  Somebody had to stop these gays.

  Sure, Bolan had heard all the arguments against his own approach to the problem. But the other approaches had never worked. The official agencies had been “addressing” the Mafia problem in this country since long before the Chicago crusades of Ness and his feds, way back before Bolan’s birth. Forty years and more of “addressing” had gone by—and the problem had just gotten larger and more unmanageable. These Stone-agers owned courts, and legislatures, and governors’ mansions. They had handles on the Congress, and now the question was being raised as to whether they had access to the White House even.

  A motley collection of Stone Age hoods were being called “the invisible second government of the nation.” Bolan knew that it was no exaggeration. He knew also about the “little Wall Street” that was bleeding the national economy, and he knew that soon the Stone-Agers from around the world would have earned the right to be called “the second invisible financial establishment of the planet Earth.”

  The Stone Age was overcoming the twentieth century.

  That was the reality that haunted and motivated Mack Bolan. What the hell was personal conscience in the face of all that?

  Bolan would do what he knew had to be done. If, after all, it was wrong—then at least he would have a lot of company in hell.

  Then the wait was over. All the thoughts and second thoughts swirled and blended into the focal field of a twenty-power sniperscope as a motorized golf buggy swung into the crosshairs, just off the tee for the eighth hole—and Bolan knew that this was, finally, what he was all about; it narrowed down to this: there stood the enemy in his crosshairs and yes, the Executioner had a twentieth-century solution to the problems of the Stone Age.

  He lifted off the scope and went to binoculars for an area sweep, ensuring that no stray bystanders were in the target zone, then he studied the target area itself for visual confirmation of the identification his hackles had already made.

  Two of them were guntoters and nothing else, not even making a pretense of golfing. They stood to either side of the tee to keep up a constant, nervous surveillance of the surrounding areas—young, mean-looking guys who’d pr
obably murder their own mothers if the boss suggested that they do so.

  The third man wore slacks and a bright polo shirt, also a cap with a smoked plastic visor. He looked about thirty-five, darkly handsome, a bit chunky with plenty of hard muscle beneath the layer of flab. Sweat soaked through the knit shirt and glistened on hairy arms, though it was not a particularly warm day.

  And there was no question of identity, though Bolan had never seen that face before. This was Ciglia, the little general from the North—camped out and golfing a few miles from Jeff Davis’s Beauvoir.

  Bolan returned to the scope and watched through twenty powers of magnification as the guy washed a ball then paced around the tee getting his sightings and wondering, probably, which wood he should use for this drive.

  A serious golfer. Yeah. This guy would do everything seriously.

  The scope swung on to etch the spots where the bodyguards stood and to once more run through the choreography of reaction.

  The task would require three rounds at rapid fire, X to Y to Z without once lifting off the scope to search for reacting secondary targets.

  The primary target was not a man. It was a small, white sphere with a blue dot stamped into its rubber hide, and it was at that moment being placed upon the tee, scrubbed and shiny for its debut and demise.

  Bolan’s angle of vision for the 480-yard shot was right down the fairway off the tee, behind the swing. As Ciglia’s club swung back and reached its highest point, the hammer of the Weatherby fell onto the chambered round. Four thousand pounds of muzzle energy beat that swing and propelled a sizzling 300-grain chunk of hot iron that screamed in just ahead of the descending wood.

  The small white globe dissolved on the tee, too late for Ciglia to check the swing. He went on through and lost his balance in the reaction, falling forward across the secondary target track, that shocked face looming momentarily in the restricted field of vision as the scope swung along the Y-plot.

  Y-target was no more than a startled face frozen in the direction of thunder; again the hammer closed a fraction of an inch gap to reach out a quarter mile and explode into that face, and already Big Thunder was tracking the Z-course of panicky reaction.

  An ear with curly black hair framing it flashed through that track—a descending one, moving hastily from full vertical to stretched horizontal as the target flung himself groundward in a spinning dive—and the reticles were waiting for him there at the end of the track. Bolan’s curled finger traveled a distance of perhaps two millimeters and Z-target promptly ceased to exist.

  That third big boom was still rattling the air down there at the eighth tee as the Executioner switched to binoculars for target evaluation.

  The two bodyguards would not be with the boss in New Orleans. Goodly portions of their skulls would never leave the soil of Mississippi.

  The boss himself was still scrambling for cover, head down and ass high and no longer pondering the inexplicable behavior of a golf ball that exploded on the downswing. The serious golfer was now a very serious survival candidate in the oldest game of all, sprinting for the good life and the protection of the little mound of the seventh hole.

  Bolan shouldered the Weatherby and withdrew to the warwagon.

  He had not wanted the general of the Northern army dead in Mississippi. He wanted him alive in New Orleans. Alive but just a little less cocky, a lot more cautious, and mad as hell.

  Ciglia had his message from “Frankie.”

  No doubt a call would be going into New York within the next few minutes. Certain embarrassing questions would have to be asked, and even more embarrassing conclusions drawn when those questions were answered.

  Yeah. The Northern army had their damned message from New Orleans.

  Now let them think about it.

  13: READINGS

  Bolan was monitoring the state police radio net and knew when the official reaction had set in from the Edgewater Beach strike. If he was reading their signals correctly, they were going balls out in an attempt to seal off the entire beach area. The swiftness of the reaction came as a bit of a surprise. The state force must have already been on some sort of standby alert, and now they were moving very quickly to bottle him in.

  Most of the official attention was moving toward the bridge at Biloxi for eastbound traffic, toward the interstate route out of Gulfport for northbound and westbound traffic. Bolan had already decided to shun Interstate 10 for the return to New Orleans, continuing instead along the coastal U.S. 90 route, at least to the Louisiana line.

  As he was cruising past Pass Christian he intercepted the signal dispatching a single car from the Bay St. Louis-Waveland beat to the west end of the Bay St. Louis bridge—and Bolan lost that race by about six carlengths.

  It was a worry, sure; the last thing the Executioner needed at this stage of the game, or at any stage, was a police checkout of his new wheels. But it was not a panic situation.

  The official “artist’s sketch” of his face was not that close. He had the best credentials money could buy. The gear in the warwagon was well camouflaged and would pass anything but the most determined scrutiny.

  Cops on roadblock duty did not usually tear a vehicle down to its wheels—not unless something really aroused their suspicions. They would be looking for “probable cause” for a real shakedown—and Bolan did not normally give them that much.

  And for this one there was but one car, one trooper. Bolan shook his head over that. It was suicide duty, given the wrong kind of fugitive.

  He inched along to the inspection point, then lowered his window and showed the guy an understanding grin. “Somebody steal a seagull or something?” he joked.

  It was a young cop, well schooled in police procedure as well as good manners to visiting tourists. He smiled soberly and told the Executioner, “A shooting down the coast, sir. Routine check. Your driver’s license and vehicle registration, please.”

  Bolan handed them over.

  “Any other identification, sir?”

  Bolan handed him a press card, two credit cards, and was digging for more as he casually chatted, “Didn’t this use to be a toll bridge? Last time I was through here …”

  “Not since Camille, sir.”

  “Since what?”

  “Hurricane Camille. It destroyed the station, and I guess the state figured that was as good a time as any to close it for good.”

  “Hey, those hurricanes are hell. Did you say a shooting?”

  “Yes, sir.” The trooper waved away further identification and passed the cards back. “Sorry for the delay, sir. You may proceed.”

  Bolan touched the bill of his cap and proceeded.

  A city car came tearing up to reinforce the state’s finest just as the warwagon pulled away from the lineup. Bolan relaxed and began breathing “off the numbers” as he rolled slowly through the outskirts of the small community of Bay St. Louis.

  It was no reflection on the trooper that Bolan breezed past so easily. Far more experienced men than he had gazed straight at the Executioner without seeing him—many times, in many places. Besides which, the vehicle itself would hardly raise the eyes of those searching for a fleeing fugitive.

  There would be no more roadblocks across this route. There was time now to think of other things, and Bolan had plenty to think about.

  New Orleans was about an hour away. With luck, he could make it to the corner of Claiborne and Canal by two o’clock for a rendezvous with Toni Blancanales. Meanwhile, he was an hour late for the intelligence contact with Leo Turrin. And he was probably not within range of a mobile operator. He tried anyway, surprisingly raised one on good signal conditions, and placed his call to the New England number.

  Leo’s guarded voice responded to the first ring. “Yeah?”

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  “I’m getting used to it. But what the hell’re you trying to do?”

  “Stay alive. Why?”

  “I was worried. Just finished a call to the contract desk in
New York, fishing for words on you. The whole damn place is in turmoil. What’d you do down there?”

  Bolan chuckled. “A light roust,” he reported.

  “Light, hell. It got all the chickens off the roost. They’re sending a top squad down to the beach by special jet.”

  “Great,” Bolan commented. “That’ll make our man even more upset.”

  “The headshed is flapping about information leaks right now. They’re wondering how you glommed onto the beach digs so quick.”

  “You covered?”

  “Oh, sure. I always use the back door. Pays to have chatty friends. Hey—it looks like you’re right about Shoes from Rome. He’s been seen skulking around Commissione headquarters several times during the past few months. And somebody else.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The wearer of the twisted cross.”

  That meant gestapo, which translated to enforcer—who, in New Orleans, could only be Enrico Campenaro, Vannaducci’s strong right arm.

  Bolan said, “That’s very interesting. How does it read to you?”

  “Same way it does to you,” Turrin replied. “They’ve turned on the old man, figuring it’s sweeter to eat him than to run the risk of getting buried with him.”

  Bolan growled, “Yeah.”

  After all this time and bloodshed, treachery such as this still rumbled at his guts. From all reports, Marco Vannaducci loved Tommy Carlotti like an only son—which the old man had never had—and which, now, he could not even adopt. As for Campenaro, he’d been nothing but a Bourbon Street button commando when the old man took him in, bathed him and put decent clothes on him, and handed him an empire to guard.

  Yes. A rotten place, this world of Mafia.

  “You still there?” Turrin was wondering.

  “Yeah. Sorry, Sticker. I was just thinking about what a rotten world you and I dirty ourselves with.”

  “Name of our game, buddy,” the old friend reminded him.