'I'll call at five.'
'Let me see if I have this straight,' Lyons said hurriedly. 'Are you inside the Mafia, Pointer?'
'I sure am.'
The connection was then broken. Macintosh replaced his instrument and quickly rejoined Lyons. 'This could be the biggest thing since Valachi,' the young Patrolman commented excitedly.
'I'm just glad you heard it,' Lyons replied. He pushed aside the stack of reading matter and scraped his chair back. 'Let's go tell the Lieutenant. Pointer said he was calling long distance. I wonder how long a distance. I wonder where he got my name. I wonder what the hell his angle is.'
Wonders would never cease, as Sgt. Lyons was to discover shortly. A few hours later, Big Tim Braddock would draw his new assignment also The life and fortunes of Mack Bolan, who was very much alive and well in Palm Springs, were beginning a new weaving which would involve them all in a new and violent tapestry of terror.
At 7:30 on the morning of October 21st, a new and highly secret undercover detail was launched at the L.A. Hall of Justice. Code-named Pointer, the operation was the ultimate in inter-agency cooperation and was staffed by Carl Lyons and Al Macintosh of LAPD; Harold Brognola of the U.S. Department of Justice, Racketeering Investigative Group; Raymond Portoccesi of the Los Angeles FBI Office; and U.S. Treasury Narcotics Agents George Bruemeyer and Manuel de Laveirca.
Mack Bolan's Lambretta mask was opening the Mafia doors to the fresh air of law enforcement, and the Executioner's unrelenting war on the giant crime syndicate was entering a dramatic and suspenseful new phase. As the various threads of the weave began coming together, pain and terror and violence and wholesale slaughter would stalk that gray no man's landscape separating the just from the unjust, Mack Bolan's definition of hell.
Chapter Fifteen
Inquest
Willie Walker and his crew had returned some days earlier with a completely negative report concerning the status and whereabouts of both Mack Bolan and Lou Pena. 'That town is clean as a whistle, Deej,' Walker reported. 'If they've got this Bolan buried up there, nobody knows it. We pumped everybody from the Mayor to the gravediggers. As for Screwy Looey, he ain't left no tracks nowhere. If you would ask me, I'll have to say it looks like Looey is layin' low. Or else this Bolan got to him and left 'im in a shallow grave somewhere.'
Walker and his crew were returned to a red-alert status and diffused into Palm Springs environs in a quiet but continuous patrol operation. All important visitors arriving at the DiGeorge country estate, of which there had been an unusual number in recent days, were convoyed from and to the airport by strong security crews, and the villa itself was a veritable armed camp. Andrea D'Agosta was under virtual house-arrest and was rarely seen about the grounds; on occasional brief visits to the family swimming pool, she had been closely escorted by several watchful members of the palace guard.
Tensions had seemed to grow rather than to dissipate and by the 21st day of October, Julian DiGeorge's uneasiness had reached an intolerable level. He summoned Philip Honey Marasco to his chambers in the early afternoon and told the burly bodyguard, 'I'm getting a nervous feeling about Screwy Looey. I wonder if you could find somebody to get in touch with him.'
His face an impassive mask, Marasco replied, 'Looey should know better than to worry you this way, Deej. He shouldn't make you go looking for him.'
'You're thinking like me,' DiGeorge said. 'We know what's what, Phil. Screwy Looey is laying low on me.'
'A guy shouldn't be afraid of his own family,' Maraseo commented. 'I think it's his pride, maybe. He told some of the boys he wasn't coming back without this Bolan's head.'
'Somebody,' DiGeorge said thoughtfully, 'ought to put the word out that Screwy Looey had better get back home.'
Marasco thoroughly understood the tone of this genteel conversation. To an outsider, DiGeorge's complaint might have sounded like nothing more than idle fretting. In the language of the Family, however, the message was as clear as a military command. Marasco jerked his head in a casual nod and replied, 'I'll put the word out, Deej. Is there anything special you want said to Looey?'
DiGeorge studied his fingertips and said, 'In this thing of ours, Philip Honey, we either stand together or we die alone.'
Marasco briefly drummed his fingers on DiGeorge's desk, then said, 'Yeah,' and turned to leave.
'What are you making on Franky Lucky?' DiGeorge asked casually.
Emotion entered Marasco's features for the first time during the interview. He turned back to his boss with a heavy frown. 'Everything checks, Deej, but hell, I just don't know. All the boys like 'im. He's tough and hard as a rock, but he don't go throwing his weight around. It ain't like he's trying to make up to everybody, you know . . . I mean, he don't step away from trouble, he just don't go looking for any. And the boys like 'im, I mean like they kind of look up to 'im, you know . . . But I just . . . don't . . .'
'Yeah. I know what you mean, Phil. Something bothers me, too, and I just can't finger it. You're sure his history checks out, eh?'
Marasco's frown deepened. 'Yeah, it all checks. He don't leave many tracks, though. I guess he's been pretty much of a loner. But I finally got a line on a guy that knew 'im out in Jersey. The guy's in jail down in Florida, though.'
'You know what to do about that,' DiGeorge said quietly.
'Yeah. I already started the routine to spring 'im, but it does take some time, you know. Meanwhile I sent Victor Poppy down. He'll make the conversation and he ought to be back tomorrow sometime. Then maybe we'll know just how lucky this Franky Lucky really is.'
'You know, I hope this boy checks out,' DiGeorge said, sighing.
'So do I,' Marasco replied.
'Meanwhile you watch 'im.'
'Sure, Deej.'
'We're going to have to open the family up some, you know. I'm going to take it up with the Commissione. And I'd like to sponsor this Franky Lucky. I just hope he checks out.'
Marasco turned away again. He paused with a hand on the door and said, 'He's got his own ideas. I'm letting him run around all he wants to outside. If this Bolan is still around, I'm betting Franky Lucky is the boy to come up with him.'
'Yeah, yeah,' DiGeorge said tiredly. 'And don't forget about Screwy Looey.'
'I'll have the word out in ten minutes, Deej.'
'You know what I want, Phil.'
'I know what you want, Deej.'
In such simple and seemingly casual terms were the preliminaries established for a Mafia murder contract. Screwy Looey Pena was behaving irrationally, to DiGeorge's thinking. Irrational behavior, went that thinking, was usually indicative of a guilty conscience. Capo Julian DiGeorge was intensely curious as to the reasons behind Lou Pena's continued avoidance of the family home. He would either have those reasons within the next 24 hours, or a murder contract, or both. Philip Honey Marasco, at that moment, knew precisely what his Capo wanted.
Thirty minutes later, no one at the DiGeorge villa knew precisely what anyone wanted. The electrifying news that rattled the family group arrived by way of a breathless 'runner' who was brought to the villa in a chartered helicopter. The messenger, a 'soldier' in Tony Danger's crew, received an immediate audience with the Capo and excitedly told him, 'They busted us wide open, Mr. DiGeorge. I mean everywhere. They knocked . . .'
'Waitaminnit, waitaminnit!' DiGeorge growled. 'They who?'
'Federals, I guess. They knocked over our warehouse in Chula Vista and picked off all the stuff, even the stuff under the floors. Tony Danger wasn't a block away, he just got away in time. He says to tell you the Mexicans picked up Morales just after he got off the stockpile shipment. He's try'na get word to the boats, but he ain't so sure it ain't too late for that.'
