Continental Contract Page 9

  10: New Parameters

  The chateau at the edge of Paris was ablaze with lights, but there were no sounds of revelry in the big house this night. A large charter bus was parked in the circular drive; groups of heavily dressed men walked restlessly about the lighted grounds or stood in quiet circles and spoke of solemn things.

  Inside, in a large game room with a cathedral ceiling, Tony Lavagni perched atop a bar stool conversing in low tones with a statuesque French woman, the lovely Roxanne Loureau—confidential secretary and mistress to Thomas Rudolfi—a charming woman whose good breeding showed in her every gesture.

  Gathered about a billiard table but obviously not overly interested in the game were five of Arnie Castiglione’s most trusted hardmen. Each of these captained a crew of ten guns, all of whom had been personally handpicked by Castiglione himself.

  This was a no-nonsense company of pros which had descended upon the Republic of France. The dismay and cold fear which lurked in the depth of Roxanne Loureau’s eyes revealed that she, too, recognized this truth. Speaking in precise English, she told Lavagni, “I am certain that Mr. Rudolfi will be along most any minute now, Mr. Lavagni. But perhaps it is unreasonable to expect you to wait longer. Perhaps you would like to get some rest and—”

  “The night’s shot already,” Lavagni growled. “Look, we didn’t just drop in for protocol purposes. I need to make sure that Monzoor’s covering us—I mean, you know, official-wise.”

  “But I have given you the necessary papers.”

  Lavagni grinned at her. “It takes more than that, and you know it. We want the right words in the right places, so’s we can all go home when the job’s finished. I ain’t leaving no boys of mine in no bastille.”

  The woman was gazing at a list of names in her hand. “If they all are here, then have no worry. They will be protected.”

  Lavagni said, “I’d like to hear Monzoor tell me that.”

  “It is the same that I have told you.”

  Lavagni could almost believe it. This was a woman to be respected. He was telling her, “Just th’ same, I’d like—” when the screech of tires on the drive diverted his attention. He slid off the stool at the same moment that the huge Negro, Wilson Brown, stepped in from outside.

  “This must be him,” Brown rumbled.

  A Ferrari sports car had lurched to a halt just beyond the door. Rudolfi got out and stood beside it, gazing speculatively at the tour bus. He left the Ferrari’s door standing open and walked around for a look at the front of the bus, then entered the chateau through the main entrance.

  Roxanne excused herself and went through the passageway to the entrance hall. She reacted visibly at sight of Rudolfi. His right hand was bandaged and his hat was pushed back to clear the forehead where an angry circular blister marred the handsome features. Some sort of medicated ointment had been applied to the burn, only adding to the ugliness of it. Silently Rudolfi removed the hat and gave it to the woman. A small area of scalp atop his head had been shaven clean and an adhesive bandage applied there. His eyes were wild.

  Roxanne asked no questions, but announced, “The Americans are in the game room.”

  He said, “Yes, and encamped upon the grounds. I do not want to …”

  “Their mood is nasty and their patience is gone.”

  “I will be down in a moment. I must—”

  Lavagni stepped in and said, “Ay, Monzoor. Where the hell you been?”

  “At the hospital,” he snapped. “An accident. I am not feeling well, Lavagni. Can we talk in the morning?”

  “It’s already morning,” Lavagni declared. He could see that the Monzoor was not his usual suave self, but this was no time for tea and tears. “And we already lost four hours too many. We better talk right now. I got a message for you. From th’ council.” Lavagni spun about and returned along the passageway to the game room.

  Roxanne whispered, “These men are extremely dangerous. I would recommend that we conclude our business and permit them to leave.”

  Rudolfi nodded gloomily and followed Lavagni toward the game room. Roxanne stopped him and helped him out of his overcoat. He groaned as the bandaged hand passed through the sleeve. She hissed, “What happened?”

  “Bolan,” he sighed, and went on.

  Roxanne carried the coat and hat to a closet, neatly put them away, then sank into a chair and lowered her face into her hands.

  Lavagni was introducing “the boys” to their host. Rudolfi murmured a polite greeting and went to the bar. Lavagni said, “Accident, eh?”

  He replied, “Yes,” and filled a tumbler with bourbon.

  The Washington Caporegime withdrew a notebook from his breast pocket. “That message, Monzoor. You prob’ly can’t read my scratchings, so I’ll read it to you. This is a directive, and it’s straight from you know where. Thomas J. Rudolfi, Paris. Extend every cooperation and assistance to Anthony P. Lavagni and his touring party. Spare no expense and/or personal inconvenience toward assurance of a successful tour. Assure that all official and legal arrangements are both adequate and conducive to continued goodwill. Undertake no independent actions or activities which could conflict with the schedule for this tour. It’s signed Better Trade Council. You’ll get a copy by cablegram, so don’t get no ideas of laughing it off.”

  Rudolfi sighed and sipped at the bourbon. “Why should I wish to laugh it off? Orders from the top are orders from the top. Of course we will provide every necessity for your tour, Anthony P. Lavagni.”

  “That burn on your forehead. It looks like somebody branded you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “With a red hot barrel.”

  “How many members of your party?”

  “Fifty-seven. We chartered a jet. We’ll be going back the same way, same jet.”

  “When?”

  “When the tour is completed. We expect to have fifty-eight goin’ back. I gave all the stuff to Roxanne. You see to it we don’t have no problems at the airport when we decide to leave. Also I don’t know that I dig those Interpol credentials. They look phony.”

  “The real article often does. I assure you that they are entirely genuine and will be respected by any policeman in France.”

  “Well awright but you better be damn sure. I ain’t leaving no boys of mine in no bastille, Monzoor. It’s a lot easier keepin’ them out than it is gettin’ them out. You remember that.”

  “Pray that you do not leave any in a grave.”

  “You let me worry about that. What’ve you been doing to get yourself all bunged up like that? Arnie told you to lay off.”

  “Arnie does not command France,” Rudolfi haughtily replied.

  “The hell he don’t. He’s got a seat, remember that, and that seat says he commands.”

  “But that seat does not command the lion, eh?”

  “What lion?”

  “The lion called Bolan.”

  Lavagni snickered. “Bolan ain’t no lion. Except maybe around pussy cats.”

  Rudolfi’s lips curled back in a sneer. “He has killed twenty good men this day, and they were not pussy cats!”

  Quick Tony whistled softly and said, “Twenty? Last count I heard was seven or eight.”

  “It is now twenty.”

  “And one branded,” Lavagni added solemnly. “Okay, you better tell me about it. No wait—that can wait. I wanta get the boys busy. They’re goin’ nuts.” He swiveled about and whistled at the men at the billiard table. They straggled over to the bar, hard looking men who obviously were not easily excited.

  Lavagni began issuing instructions. “Mario—your crew gets the airport personnel. Track down every one of ’em that was on duty when that plane came in last night. You know what to ask and how to handle it. Don’t pass up anything, I mean not the littlest hint. We wanta know exactly what happened after that plane landed, right up until two hours afterward. Okay, Sammy—your crew takes the airline bunch, th’ plane crew. I don’t care where you have to go to find ’em—Rome or Timbuctu
—you find ’em. Pilot, copilot, hostesses, the whole smear. You know what we want. Angelo, I want you—”

  “I can save you all this trouble,” Rudolfi interrupted.

  “You ain’t savin’ us nothing,” Lavagni growled. “We’re startin’ at the start and we’re going through with a sieve. Angelo—your crew gets the cabbies, the subway people, the car rental places, airport buses, you know what. Don’t overlook the littlest possibility. If somebody farted on a subway, you better know what it smelled like.

  “Zinger and Littlefingers, you two divvy up the hotels. There’s a lot of ’em, I know, but we gotta hit ’em all. Make it a quick skim, you can’t spend too much time on each one or we’ll be here a month. Start over on th’ crummy side o’ town, you know where, and fan through there solid.

  “Now you all know what we’re after, and I don’t have to tell you again how Mr. Castiglione feels about this whole thing. He don’t want Bolan’s empty sack, he wants the guy hisself—so you know how to play it. You don’t go jumping the guy, no matter how easy it looks, you don’t go making no direct moves at all. We all check in every hour on the hour, you know where I’ll be. When we get a sniff, we don’t wanta go chasing lost crews around. It’s a big town and we wanta be in close touch. Now remember you play it cool. You spot the guy, you lay off and let me’n Wils go in and work the snatch. It’s gonna be that simple, so there’s no sense anybody gettin’ hisself hurt or in law trouble.

  “Monzoor has us all covered with the legal stuff, so don’t get bashful neither. Throw your weight around on th’ frogs if you need to, threaten ’em with arrest, anything you need to get cooperation—but listen—you all know this—we don’t dare go home without this Bolan in our mitts. You know?”

  The hardmen knew. They went out and gathered their crews into the bus and departed. Wilson Brown came inside, went to the bar, and carried a bottle to a couch and made himself comfortable.

  Rudolfi sat in a thoughtful silence. Roxanne reappeared with dainty sandwiches and wine on a tray. Lavagni accepted a sandwich and waved away the wine. Rudolfi would not even look at the offering. Wilson Brown graciously accepted the entire tray and placed it on the floor beside him.

  Presently Lavagni said, “Well Monzoor, I guess I better cut out. Mrs. Loureau knows where I’ll be. I need a car.”

  “Take the Ferrari,” Rudolfi muttered.

  “Okay, thanks. Hey—don’t be so down in the dumps. We’ll get Bolan. And you’ll get your cut.”

  “My cut!” Rudolfi sneered.

  “Yeah.” Lavagni was giving him a curious look. “What’s eating you?”

  “My cut is the heart, Lavagni.”

  “The heart of what?”

  “The heart of the lion! I will cut it out of him myself!”

  “Th’ hell you will. You got the directive, Monzoor. I got six or seven witnesses to that. You better not go off on no cocky …” Lavagni left the warning uncompleted, nodded his head to the woman, and went to the couch to collect his companion.

  Brown scooped up a handful of sandwiches, waved to the couple at the bar, and followed his boss outside.

  As the Ferrari roared away, Rudolfi told Roxanne, “Tonight I met myself.”

  “What does this mean?” she asked, her eyes worried.

  He brushed the half-finished glass of bourbon off the bar. It hit the tiles of the floor and smashed, the liquid spreading out in quivering streamers from the center of impact. “As that,” he whispered. “Smashed—and everything inside spilling out.”

  “Are you all right? Your hand …”

  “The hand will heal itself. The soul, never!”

  “Let me help you,” she whispered.

  “No, I … well yes. There is a detail you may attend. Contact our friend, M’sieur l’Androix. Tell him the House of Celeste, on Rue Galande. All of the girls, all of them, plus the madame, I want them taken to Algiers.”

  “Thomas, non!”

  “Yes. Tell l’Androix—they must go to the most devilish of markets, he will know. And tell him that he must find each of them—leave none unpunished. And tell him that I want this known, I want all to know.”

  “Thomas, this is—”

  “This is justice, Roxanne. But for them, I would have bagged the lion tonight.”

  “But Thomas … Algiers! It is better that you simply have them killed!”

  “That would not be enough. No. I want them taken to Algiers. I want them sold there, and I want them to know why they are being sold there, and I want them to contemplate their sins, and I want all of Paris to contemplate both the sins and the punishment. The example must be made. You will do this, Roxanne, without further question.”

  “Oui. Oui, Thomas. What else shall I do?”

  “Nothing. I will do the rest. Let Lavagni’s crew run with the sieve. Rudolfi has the aces.”

  The fear surfaced and spread across Roxanne’s face. “Thomas, let them have him!”

  “No. Rudolfi has the aces, and Rudolfi is even now playing a few of them. Rudolfi will bag the lion, Roxanne—or Rudolfi will die.”

  Roxanne was thinking that perhaps Rudolfi was already dead. This strange man with the wild eyes who would sell young girls on the hideux African slave markets and who defied the formidable powers of America—this man was not her Thomas. Where, she wondered, had he died?

  A tired and troubled group of law officers were assembled in a small office in the Paris police headquarters. The ranking officer present, a slender young-old man with graying temples and quick eyes, tilted his chair back and slid a clipboard of reports to the center of the conference table. “We must conclude,” he announced softly, “that Mack Bolan is in Paris. Stories concerning L’Americaine Formidable are being whispered throughout the Latin Quarter—and never since the days of the Algerian terrorists has such violence been done in a single day.”

  A young officer at the other side of the table quietly pointed out, “But there is nothing in the evidence, Inspector, to definitely establish that the man Bolan is this same L’Americaine Formidable.”

  “Let us tabulate,” replied the Inspector. “First, we receive a flash from the United States that the man known as The Executioner is suspected of having boarded Overseas Flight 721, Washington to Paris. At Orly, we encounter a man who meets every description of the one in question. But we are embarrassed. This American is identified as the film star, Gil Martin, beyond any doubt. We learn later that another American who fits the general description has been passed through with only a peremptory challenge.”

  “Yes, but this is merely—”

  “Continue the tabulation with me, please. Less than one hour after the arrival of Flight 721 at Orly, a battle erupts in the St. Michel neighborhood. The victims are identified as known underworld figures, and the whispering is begun concerning L’Americaine Formidable. Approximately one hour after this, the same Gil Martin arrives at his hotel on Champs d’Elysees. Or—is this the same Gil Martin? If so, where has he been for these past two hours? Sightseeing in the fog? The doorman at the hotel insists that this man arrived on foot. He is surly with the desk clerk and orders a rental auto even before going to his room.”

  “But what are you—? Why are we back to Gil Martin, Inspector?”

  “Let us see. Tabulate with me. Gil Martin goes to his suite and apparently to bed. Late in the afternoon he again appears. Again he is surly with the clerk, spurns an offer to speak with the most beautiful woman in all France, and departs in his rented auto.

  “Now—let us jump ahead in the tabulation. At thirty minutes past the hour of ten, this same evening, another battle erupts in almost the precise same spot as the earlier one. This is L’Americaine Formidable with a vengeance. When our—” he gestured to a young officer at the end of the table, “—investigating team arrive on the scene, they find incredible carnage at the House of Celeste. The dead are scattered about all three levels of the house, two are lying in the street outside—but one, one, remains alive. This is none other than the e
steemed M. Rudolfi, man of many involvements and influential connections—but, an American citizen—American, mind you.”

  “Surely you do not think Rudolfi is L’Americaine Formidable!”

  “Wait awhile. Let us proceed with the tabulation. M. Rudolfi cannot explain what has happened. He was driving by. He saw what he thought to be a business acquaintance entering this questionable establishment. He goes inside, finds a madman killing everyone in sight, is himself wounded and left for dead.

  “Now … to move back a bit in the tabulation.” The Inspector’s eyes went to a man down the table. “Would you repeat the events at Orly this evening, Claude?”

  A heavyset detective removed a dead pipe from his mouth and reported, “A chartered jet landed at nine-forty, Washington to Paris. A large delegation of American businessmen were hurried through customs by some official prearrangement and were met by a special bus. These businessmen did not look like businessmen. The bus took them to a fashionable section near the Arc de Triomphe. There the bus awaited while three men went into the town house of M. Thomas Rudolfi—,” his eyes flashed to the Inspector, “—man of many involvements and influential connections.”

  A man at the end of the table sighed loudly.

  The heavyset one continued. “The bus was there until some time past ten o’clock. The passengers sat complacently, patiently, penned up in there, uncomplaining. At shortly before ten-thirty, the three men returned to the bus and the entourage proceeded to the chateau of M. Rudolfi. At last report, the bus remained at that location, as did all its occupants.”

  “Remember now,” the Inspector reminded the conference, “that all items of the tabulation continually reflect American involvement. Rudolfi—we all know what he is and who he is. The American ‘businessmen’—we know also who and what they are. The—”

  The young officer across the way again interrupted. “Why do we not bring in this M. Rudolfi and put to him some cogent questions?”

  The Inspector released a harsh sigh. “The impatience of youth. You will ‘bring in’ this man of many involvements only when you have resigned yourself to a premature retirement, or when you have caught him in an indefensible act of murder—preferably with 100 eyewitnesses and substantiating photographs. Now—let us again shuffle the tabulation.” His eyes sought the young detective at the end of the table. “Petreau, you conducted the investigation at Rue Galande. Was there an American involved in this investigation?”