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  "Luca," Rossi began, "when Cesare Frenchi had a federal agent killed in Boston, it was the beginning of the end for him. The federal government brought in Mack Bolan."

  "Bolan…" Barbosa grumbled. "You've got a million-dollar contract out on him, huh? And nothin'. Nothin'. Maybe the Fed who took a slug in the leg yesterday was Bolan. He wasn't FBI — some kind of special federal agent."

  "Sensitive Operations Group, so they say, Department of Justice," Rossi said grimly. "Luca, you may be bringing the roof down on our heads."

  "Down on my head," Barbosa growled. "You keep clean, Joe. I'll take the heat."

  "When you catch fire, the flame spreads to us" Lentini shouted, angry. "To all of us."

  Luca Barbosa leaned back in his barber chair and closed his eyes. "We've got other problems, gentlemen," he said. "Arturo Corone died this morning. You didn't know this? Alfredo knows. The Segestas grabbed two of his wholesalers within an hour after Don Corone passed to his reward. I don't like that. You like that, Carlo? Joe says he doesn't want a share of the Corone business, but the rest of us do, and it's being moved without the consent of the council. I think we better call a sitdown."

  * * *

  Joan Warnicke arrived at the safehouse a little before seven. "I've got some news for you," she announced. "We've got the identification of the two guys in the Ferrari."

  "Who are they?" Bolan probed.

  "Okay. One of them, the driver, is Patrick McMahon, better known as Sandy Mac. Thirty-one years old, and he's done time for aggravated assault. Not attempted rape. Just a vicious beating that left his victim scarred for life. He's hospitalized with broken ribs."

  "That all?" Coppolo asked.

  She glanced at him, then went on. "The gunman is Luigi Vigaldo, better known as Louey Vig. He's thirty-four years old, and has done time for assaults, weapons possession and grand theft. He wasn't wearing his seat belt and went into the windshield. He's got a skull fracture, a cut-up face… He'll live.

  "The New Jersey State Police found the Uzi," she continued, "which is a good thing for you guys. Witnesses on the scene called it a hit-skip, probably by a drunk driver."

  "Anything else?" Bolan prodded.

  "Louey Vig is Barbosa's man," Coppolo told him. "McMahon, I don't know."

  "Wheel man," Joan suggested. "I'm guessing. But why not? Vigaldo is sent to do a number. He hires his own driver."

  "Louey Vig…" Bolan said somberly. "A Barbosa soldier involved in what?"

  "The Barbosa Family makes a big buck from gambling," the Justice agent said. "They book horses, baseball, football, basketball. You name it. You know, the old deal. Bet on the cuff, pay with a loan from a Barbosa shark. Pay two hundred percent vig. The deal."

  "I need to know something," Bolan said. "Where's the layoff book? The big book? Where do the proceeds and the records go when a day's action is over?"

  Coppolo raised his chin. "Not until I'm well enough to go with you."

  "I don't want to pull rank, but I need to know where this layoff book is…"

  * * *

  It was in Bensonhurst.

  Each day the Barbosa books made bets, took money — or, more significantly, markers — from bettors and paid out money to winners. Because the books worked from the «line» — that is, the set of odds fixed by the pros — they couldn't lose. Mathematically, over the course of a day's business, it was impossible for a book to lose. An individual book that got too much action on one horse or one game could lay off to the bigger book up the line, the layoff book. In the long run the rigged odds would prevail.

  So, at the end of a day, each book sent a large payment to the layoff book. Even allowing for skimming by the operators, each day produced a large profit that was sent to the layoff book, which then went to the don's treasury.

  An important part of what each book sent to the layoff was the markers — the IOUs — collected from bettors who couldn't come up with the cash that day but had a sure tip or a firm hunch what horse was going to win. The markers were payable in a few days, and, since the bettors who had signed them were rarely luckier the next day than they had been the day they gave their markers, the markers went to enforcers — legbreakers. The legbreakers had two options: get payment or get the bettor to borrow from a Family loan shark.

  The Family would rather get the borrower on a loan. A fifty-dollar bet could generate several hundred dollars in vigorish — interest — before the terrified borrower finally found some way to come up with the money before the shark's enforcer did him some harm.

  The Barbosa layoff book in Bensonhurst, one of three it operated in New York, was located above a beauty parlor and beneath two floors of apartments, in a narrow, four-story brick building. The layoff book did no retail business. No bettors could place a bet there. Business was done strictly by telephone and messenger with other books, from Greenpoint to Coney Island.

  The book consisted of a big telephone room, where clerks took layoffs from subordinate books, alert always to the middles and other tactics by which bettors, and sometimes other books, tried to beat the system; a countinghouse room, where other clerks received and counted money; an executive office, where the man in charge sat behind a desk, took calls, adjusted disputes and kept watch on a little empire; and a lounge for visiting wise guys, legbreakers and hardmen, where they smoked, drank coffee and waited for assignments.

  The book was busy during the day, but not nearly as busy as it became during the evening, when the revenue from the retail books came in. In the evening, the hardmen were called out of the lounge to take up guard positions. It was all but unknown for Family books to be hit. Still, it did sometimes happen. Drugged-out characters, desperate for the price of the next fix, had been known to try to hit books. When one Family went to war with another, hitting the books was part of the game. No book was without a defense. Layoff books had a harder defense.

  The top man at the Barbosa Bensonhurst layoff book was Emilio «Pete» Pistoia, a forty-year-old Chicagoan who had come to New York eight years ago to join the Barbosa organization. He was a smooth, tall, handsome man, a careful, quiet-spoken businessman who never misplaced a dollar. One reason why he never misplaced a dollar was the certain knowledge on the part of his subordinates that a man caught skimming more than Pistoia was willing to tolerate would never have the chance to argue his case. Pistoia used his enforcers without mercy. What was more, he carried a simple Smith & Wesson.38, and he had used it four times since he'd come from Chicago.

  Bolan arrived at the address about nine, at the height of the evening action. He stood across the street and studied the site for ten minutes, watching the messengers come and go with what he took to be satchels of cash. It was perfectly apparent the precinct cops knew what happened here. There was no neon sign announcing the operation, but anyone could see what was going on. Patrol cars passing by were manned by cops who chose, for whatever reason, to ignore what they saw.

  The warrior checked his equipment, then crossed the street. He trotted up the stone steps to the entrance, as if he'd often been there and knew his way confidently. At the door he met what he had expected — a belligerent hardman, with his bulk blocking the way.

  "Out of the way, pal," Bolan grunted.

  The hardman's hand went for the pistol inside his shabby sport coat, his anger slowing and retarding his reflexes. "Who're you, sonny?" he spit.

  "Whitey sent me."

  That gave the hardman pause. For an instant he hesitated, an instant in which Bolan might have taken him out. Then he lifted his chin. "Whitey who?" he demanded.

  "Whitey Bust-your-Butt, smart guy," Bolan said.

  The hardman's fury impeded his judgment. He reached again for his weapon, but he was slow, and Bolan chopped him hard across the throat. The guy grunted, choked and fell, gasping. Bolan relieved him of his Colt revolver, tucking it into his own waistband. He pulled the unconscious gunner to the back of the entrance hall and rolled him down the basement stairs.

  The stairs to the
book rose from the front hall. Bolan pressed forward, once again miming complete confidence, as if he had been there many times.

  The operators relied on the man at the door, apparently. No other guards stood between Bolan and entry into the telephone room, which was now almost deserted, except for one man still on the telephone. The room was littered with scribbled slips, the discarded notes of deals made on the telephones, which would be quickly transferred to more permanent records.

  A bank of fluorescent lights glared on a dozen tables, each equipped with a telephone and a notepad and pencils. The day's line — horses and baseball games — was written in big letters in chalk on blackboards across the front wall. Game and race results were posted on other boards along the side walls. The ashtrays were full of cigarette and cigar butts. Empty soda cans added to the litter on tables and floor.

  The man on the telephone looked up. He didn't recognize Bolan, but he wasn't concerned. He returned to his conversation, and the warrior passed through the telephone room and into the counting room, where half a dozen men were shuffling money, separating bills by denomination, and making careful, elaborate entries into old-fashioned ledger books.

  It was the kind of number-crunching that in every legitimate business was now handled by computer but was never entrusted to computers by the dons, who feared the technology they didn't attempt to understand. Numbers written on paper remained there. They could be hidden, and could be destroyed. They didn't flit around in the mysterious circuits of electrical machines, from where they might be stolen or into which they might disappear forever.

  Bolan stepped into the accounting room. It was much like the telephone room: glaringly lighted, littered with butts, cans and paper, the air heavy with smoke. The men working there were no more conscious of him than had been the man on the telephone. They were confident they were protected by the hardmen in the hall below. They had no idea that an intruder had found it necessary to take out only one man to reach their sanctum.

  The Executioner glanced around. Through an open door he could see a man in a white golf shirt sitting at a desk and talking to someone on the telephone. The boss. Bolan stepped into the office and closed the door behind him.

  Pistoia looked up and gestured to Bolan to get out. When he didn't leave, the mobster put a hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone and barked, "Out!"

  Bolan stood there, remaining silent.

  "Back to ya, Harv. I got some smart-ass who walked in and doesn't want to blow."

  Pistoia got up and walked around his desk. "When I say blow, you blow," he growled, making a grab for Bolan's jacket but moving instead into an iron fist driven into his gut. Staggering backward, Pistoia gasped for air and clawed at his.38. Bolan's fist smashed a proud, sharp nose flat. Pistoia was stunned. He loosened his fumbling grip on his revolver and clutched at the bloody wreckage of his nose.

  The Executioner lifted the.38 from Pistoia's holster, flipped it open and dumped the cartridges on the floor. Then he seized the mobster's left arm and twisted it behind his back.

  "Who the hell are you?" Pistoia demanded.

  "Names aren't important."

  "You're right about that, you son of a bitch. You're dead no matter who you are."

  Bolan could sense Pistoia regaining his equilibrium. Even with his nose smashed and blood dripping onto his white shirt, the man was thinking again, calculating his escape. He could feel the guy testing the hard grip on his arm, speculating maybe on whether or not he could break loose.

  "Open the door," Bolan ordered.

  Pistoia did as he was told.

  The Barbosa bookkeepers looked up from their stacks of bills and their ledgers, startled by the bloody apparition in the office door and the big man who held their boss from behind. Two men went for their pistols, then quickly sized up the situation and thought better of it.

  Bolan glanced around the room. He spotted what he wanted.

  "You," he said, nodding toward one of the bookkeepers. "Pick up that trash can and dump it."

  The man looked to Pistoia for permission.

  "Do it," Pistoia muttered.

  The bookkeeper picked up the big round trash can and dumped a litter of trash, cigarette butts and ashes onto the floor.

  "Put in your fifty-dollar bills," Bolan directed.

  "Ha," Pistoia grunted. "Figures… a heist. Just another cheap heister. What do you need, pal? A fix? Ten fixes?"

  Bolan nodded toward a blue-and-yellow can of lighter fluid that sat on a windowsill. "Squirt some of that in. We're going to have a little bonfire."

  "The guy's nuts," the bookkeeper said ominously.

  "Do what he says!"

  The bookkeeper squirted a stream of lighter fluid into the trash can, coating the fifty-dollar bills.

  "Light it."

  The bookkeeper snapped open his cigarette lighter, set fire to a scrap of trash paper and tossed the burning paper into the can. The lighter fluid ignited with a whoosh.

  "How much do you have?" Bolan asked.

  "Two hundred twenty-eight thou," another bookkeeper replied glumly. "You aren't going to…"

  "Start another can, boys," Bolan said.

  A sweetish-smelling smoke rose from the burning money. Particles of white ash rose on the heat, then wafted down over the tables and floors. Two of the bookkeepers started a second fire and began to toss money onto the flames. The smoke began to fill the room.

  Two hardmen who had been lounging in another room rushed in to see what was going on. They stopped at the door.

  "Come in," Bolan snapped, leveling the muzzle of the Desert Eagle on them. "We need all the help we can get. Put your guns on the table, though, guys."

  The two edged into the room and pulled their weapons from under their jackets. They laid the automatics on the table and slowly backed away.

  "You'll never get out of here alive, you know," Pistoia growled.

  "I'll take my chances."

  It took fifteen minutes to burn a quarter of a million dollars. Other than the three men busy feeding the bills into the fire in small handfuls, the rest of the personnel stood with their backs to a wall and watched sullenly.

  "All right! The fun's over." Two brawny hardmen filled the doorway, guns drawn. One had a steel-gray.357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver, held close to his body and leveled toward Pistoia and Bolan. The other gunner pointed here and there, around the room, with a Colt Cobra.357.

  The man with the Smith & Wesson stalked across the floor and kicked the two trash cans, scattering the fire and half-burned ledger books. He began to stamp out the flames.

  "Hey!" Pistoia screamed. "Don't mess around with this guy!"

  The man glanced contemptuously at Pistoia and at Bolan. "So," he said. "You've got to be Mack the Bastard Bolan. Who else? Let Pete go," he growled. "Like I said, the fun and games are over."

  Two more hardmen appeared in the door.

  "You see," the man said to Bolan. "You don't have a chance."

  Bolan sized up the four gunners.

  He recognized the one with the Smith & Wesson. His name was Ruggiero Tokenese, and he was called Toke. Bolan had encountered him in Miami two years earlier. He'd regretted then that he hadn't been able to rid the world of this man, a stone killer, a person who killed without hesitation, without mercy and probably enjoyed it.

  The two who had just appeared were younger and in other circumstances would have been sneering, swaggering wise guys. As things were, they were afraid of Toke, and now that they had heard who he was, they were afraid of Bolan, too.

  The warrior seized Pistoia's arm again and twisted it up behind him to be sure he wouldn't lunge away from him and leave Bolan exposed.

  "You can't save yourself by hiding behind Pete," Toke snarled. "Pete's not that valuable."

  "Hey!" Pistoia shrieked.

  "Not that valuable," Toke repeated. "If you get my meaning."

  Bolan began to edge Pistoia to the door. He gestured with the muzzle of the Desert Eagle, and the two l
esser hardmen slipped aside and cleared the door.

  "No way, pal," Toke said. "You're not leavin'. I don't give a damn about Pete, but I give six damns about you." He gestured to his buddy to raise his pistol. "This is it for you, Bolan. Even if you get me, which you won't, it's the end of Bolan."

  "No!" Pistoia screamed.

  Toke fired his pistol, the.357 Magnum slug exploding Pistoia's chest. The bullet stopped just a rib short of coming out Pistoia's back and punching into Bolan, who was knocked backward with the shock and might have fallen but for the doorframe. Pistoia slumped, dead, no more a shield.

  Bolan could read one thing in Toke's eyes — calculation. The gunner was taking half a second to aim a shot that would pass all the way through Pistoia's body, a shot into the belly, where a.357 slug might burst through. The delay was his death. He hadn't calculated how fast Bolan could get off a shot from his.44.

  The blast from the big gun exploded in the room like a round from an artillery piece. It shook the walls. The slug threw Toke back onto one of the tables, where for one long moment he lay sprawled, until slowly he slipped off and fell heavily to the floor. His rib cage was split open, and the bloody devastation of the vital organs inside was exposed to the horrified eyes of the bookkeepers and hardmen.

  Everybody froze.

  Except one man. Toke's buddy raised his Cobra, and Bolan had no doubt he was good with it. There was no time to aim a shot, to place it carefully. The second slug from the Desert Eagle caught the killer on the right hip, spraying flesh and bone fragments, spinning him around and throwing him to the floor. In his agony he let his revolver fall.

  Bolan finally let the inert body of Pistoia drop to the floor. He faced the two younger hardmen. "Well…?"

  They shook their heads and held their hands out before them to show they weren't pulling guns.

  "All right," the warrior said, then nodded at the bookkeepers. "Let's get the fire going again, boys. There's more paper to burn."

  Chapter Eight