'Me — who the hell?' Franco asked nastily, turning fully around.
Bolan had moved through the doorway. He was standing there with the Belle extended for easy viewing, and he must have presented an unsettling sight.
The enforcer jerked upright and took one staggering step to the side, his hand snapping up with the movement in an automatic reaction.
Bolan growled, 'Uh-uh!' — freezing the hand with the suggested threat. It hung there, beside the pearl handle, clawing impotently and helplessly at the air.
'Let's talk this over,' Laurentis suggested in a strangling voice.
Bolan said, 'Talk is cheap, Franco.'
'We can make it expensive. Uh, I like your style, man. I really do. Always have. Look. I don't blame you for hitting the old man, Christ knows I don't. I been thinking about something like that myself. I mean it.'
'Save the long-winded hope, Franco,' Bolan suggested. 'There's nobody here but you and me. So let's talk expensive. How expensive?'
'Huh?'
'How much are you willing to gamble on talk?'
The ambitious hood stared at his visitor for a long moment, trying to read him, and Bolan could feel the cogs turning behind those eyes. Presently he replied, 'I guess we could work out most anything. Couldn't we?'
'Not quite,' Bolan said in that icy voice. 'Here's the choice you can make. Certain death right here and now. Or a chance to get away slightly dirtied and no doubt marked for death later. If you want to gamble, I'll give you that much of an out.'
The eyes had narrowed, almost closed completely. 'I don't get you.'
'I'm going to drill you right between the eyes and shove your carcass over that wall there.'
Franco stiffened again and threw a quick glance toward the city. He must have decided that there was little style in going that way. He didn't want to join the damned thing, he wanted to own it.
'Or what?' he asked tensely.
'Or you can walk in there to your telephone. Pick it up. Make two calls. One to Tom the Broker. The other to Vince Ciprio.'
The guy nervously wet his lips. 'And then what do I say?'
'You offer them a chance to come over with you, under you. You make it convincing as hell, or it's over the wall.'
'I don't... I don't get you.'
'Sure you do. Everybody in town knows what you've been setting up, Franco. You and Wo Fan.'
The guy was starting to jerk around like a puppet trying to shake off his strings. He started to say something, choked, then tried it again. 'You're telling me to slit my own throat, guy.'
Bolan smiled the thin grim smile of death. 'Depends on how you want to go, Franco. My way. Or yours. With a chance. An outside chance, sure. But... for a savvy boy like you, at least a chance. You've got thirty seconds to decide.'
'Well wait...'
'Go for your gun if you'd like to, Franco.'
'No I — wait a minute!'
With ice forming at his lips, Bolan assured him, 'Thirty seconds, twenty-five now.'
'So how do I know you won't rub me anyway, after I've called?'
'That's part of the gamble, Franco. Twenty seconds.'
'You'll have to rub me. You won't just walk away and leave me standing here!'
'Fifteen seconds. I'll help you this much. I plan to lock you in a closet. I'll leave you a penknife. I figure I'll be well clear before you can cut your way out. Time's up, Franco.'
The Belle raised higher and closed the distance by about six inches. Bolan gave him a clear view, right up the silencer.
'Okay! Okay! I'll play your silly fuckin' game!'
Bolan closed on him, lifted the pearled snub-holster and all — and dropped it into his own pocket.
'The phone, Franco,' he said coldly. 'Go cut your rotten throat.'
That, Franco knew, was pure style.
17
Leaning Together
By eight o'clock the DeMarco mansion had become the scene of much coming and going, tense consultations, and urgent telephone messages.
Thomas Vericci and Vince Ciprio were very much on the scene, as were many of their lieutenants and hardmen.
The developments which gave rise to this feverish pace of activity occurred in a chronological sequence which was roughly as follows:
At a little before 4:00 PM, an urgent long-distance conference connection was established between San Francisco, Buffalo, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, and three separate offices in New York City.
During this conference, Roman DeMarco was advised to cool things down in his town, particularly a rumored impending territorial war. It was also suggested that the commissione would view with harsh disfavor any outside arrangements of DeMarco's which could conceivably compromise the organization's infra-relationships.
Mack Bolan's name did not enter the conversation.
Roman DeMarco quit this telephone conference in a rage.
At about five o'clock both Vericci and Ciprio, at their respective offices, received telephone calls from Crazy Franco Laurentis. Each received the identical ultimatum — join Laurentis in a move to overthrow Roman DeMarco or take the slide with the Capo.
Both underbosses soberly promised to give Laurentis their decision before midnight, and then each promptly telephoned Don DeMarco to report this curious development.
DeMarco immediately sent a 'delegation' to 'the top of the joint' to summon the crazy man to a consultation with the Capo.
The delegation reported back that Franco's suite was deserted and that there was no clue to the whereabouts of Crazy Franco.
At 5:40 PM a 'paper conference' involving DeMarco, Vericci and Ciprio was conducted in the study of the DeMarco Mansion. A contract was drawn and reportedly sealed in the blood of the three participants. Immediately thereafter, a number of tersely coded telephone messages were relayed around the town and to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Portland, Seattle, Honolulu, and Phoenix.
Meanwhile, less formal communications spread throughout the city via, mostly, word of mouth — with the result that 'the silk suit brigade' disappeared suddenly from their usual haunts and became notably difficult to locate.
Speculation arose in various quarters that perhaps the underworld dragnet for Mack Bolan was falling apart.
At about six o'clock a 'friend' at Harbor Precinct telephoned the DeMarco mansion with an urgent report to the effect that Captain Barney Gibson was quietly preparing a huge strike force to descend upon various quarters of Chinatown.
Several minutes later this same friend again called to breathlessly add to the earlier report. Gibson was also reportedly collecting warrants — secret warrants — for 'a big sweep' early the following morning, this one directed against specific members of the Occidental community in and around Little Italy. It was further rumored that the warrants were being secretly coordinated with similar efforts in adjacent communities of the bay area.
At roughly twenty minutes past the hour of six, a physician was summoned to the DeMarco mansion to administer medication to a hypertensive old man.
