Miami Massacre

the pool. 'Who's the other victim?'

'One of the owners of the hotel.' Wilson followed the captain to the other body, adding, 'His name was Vincent Anthony Balderone, age 56, single, kept an apartment here. That's about the only info we have at this point.'

The captain stood behind the medical examiner, gazing down at the lifeless form. 'I can add something to your make,' he said musingly. 'So can you, if you'll think about it a moment. Does the sound of Miami Vino ring any bells for you?'

The younger detective had moved to the other side of the body. He caught his breath and murmured, 'Sure, sure, that's the guy the Crime Commission was investigating last . . . wasn't it just last year?'

'Yeah. And the year before that, and the year before that, and just keep going back. We have a file on this guy a foot thick. He's had his finger in every illegal operation in the state for the past few years . . . a to Cosa Nostra, Lieutenant. Big man in the Mafia's Florida territory. Before that, he'd beaten eleven murder raps in three states, all of them gangland rub-outs in which he was either directly or indirectly involved. Nol-pros in each case, lack of evidence. Yeah, we've got a file.'

'You can close it now for sure,' the medical examiner commented, rising with a sigh from his examination. 'An inch of his jugular vein is missing, along with assorted other bits and pieces. Dead before he hit the water, I'd say.'

'Guess he ran out of nol-pros's'Wilson said soberly.

'You bet he did,' the captain replied. He nodded to the M.E. and led the Lieutenant a short distance away to speak to him privately. 'The Dade Force is taking over this case, Bob,' he said in a quiet voice. 'There's much more involved here than simple homicide.'

Wilson started to say something then checked himself and grunted a 'Yeah?'

'Yeah. Looks as though we have The Executioner in our town.'

'Aw, hell. You serious?'

Hannon said, 'Entirely. Portocci's Phoenix headquarters was shot up last night, bunch of his gang killed.'

The Lieutenant whistled softly. 'Then he's moving pretty fast. Is there anything to definitely place him here?'

The captain shook his head. 'No hard items, if that's what you mean. But this is the jet age, you know. A pilot flew a private charter down here from Phoenix last night. Left shortly after the hit on Portocci's place. His passenger got off in Jacksonville, but instructed the pilot to continue on to Miami and to deliver a package to a man who would meet him at the airport. He was met by not one man but about twenty. The pilot got suspicious and reported the incident before he departed on his return trip. I came upon the report by the merest chance. The package, Bob, was addressed to our friend Portocci there . . . and the description of the man who claimed it matches our late buddy Balderone.'

The Lieutenant's brow was furrowed with thought. 'But I don't see . . . I mean . . . how does that connect with Mack Bolan? If Balderone was there to pick up a package, and . . .'

'Bolan outsmarted them, way I read it. They got word of the hit in Phoenix, learned of the chartered flight following closely on Portocci's heels, and were waiting here for Bolan to show his face at the airport. But he foxed them. He got off at Jacksonville instead, hopped another plane down, maybe even got here ahead of the other flight and tailed Balderone from the airport. Then blaam. Here lie two Cosa Nostra bigwigs dead at our feet. It's just too perfect for coincidence . . . it's Bolan's way.'

'The package, then, was just a diversion . . . or a grandstand play.'

'More than likely,' Hannon replied, 'a clever ploy. He had it timed to get here ahead of the chartered plane. He was expecting a welcoming committee, so he sent them something to welcome, then lay back somewhere out of play where he could make an identification. The rest was a simple tail job.'

'Sounds pretty thin to me,' Wilson argued.

'It's thick enough to activate the Dade Force,' the captain said heavily. 'I'm here to tell you, in fact, that we're taking over. You can make your routine reports to Homicide, Lieutenant, but you see that I get it first. Understood?'

Wilson frowned and said, 'Yessir, that's understood.'

'All right, so wipe the frown away. The metropolitan police have one large-sized problem on their hands, Lieutenant, and it involves a helluva lot more than solving a couple of murders. How many more would you say are on The Executioner's list? Who and where are they? Our winter season is just gearing up. Thousands of people arriving daily in this city. Hotels filling up, the beach teeming, a music festival just about to get underway, the Caribbean traffic in high hypo . . . you know the scene. Now, who among those many thousands are marked for execution? How do we isolate them, and how do we find a phantom executioner before open warfare breaks upon our tourist season?'

'Okay,' Wilson replied quietly. 'So it's a job for the Dade Force. I want to stay on it, though. Can you swing it?'

Hannon grinned. 'I already did. You're my Homicide Liaison. So let's get to work. Haven't you come up with any leads as to where those shots were fired from?'

The young lieutenant pursed his lips and crossed his arms over his chest. He crooked a finger at the captain and returned to the chaise lounge. 'Let's run through it once,' he said thoughtfully. 'Our only eyewitness is a hysterical girl. She was apparently right here at the scene, in that folding chair there. Portocci was on the lounge. Balderone standing here somewhere, talking to Portocci. The girl says that Portocci was stretched out just about the way he is now, but sort of twisted to the side and staring at the girl. She said he reached toward her at the moment he was hit. Then he fell back to the lounge, present position. Doc says he got it right through the upper lip. The bullet tore through directly beneath the nose, took out the roof of the mouth, the palate, on through the throat and emerged at the base of the neck, severing the spinal cord. That's a superficial and might be changed some by a full pathology. Now, figuring that angle of entry and the fact that Portocci was lying back and turned toward the girl, we figure it came from up the beach . . . lord knows how far up . . . and from a considerable height. I have a small army up the beach now, canvassing for witnesses to the gunfire — but god, do you know how many buildings they have to cover?'

'How do these conclusions check with the hit on Balderone? Can't you come up with a triangulation?'

'There's the rub,' Wilson replied, smiling ruefully. 'The girl didn't even know that Balderone was shot until his body was found in the pool. She doesn't remember what his actions were when Portocci was hit. So we don't know where he was when he caught his, not precisely. We can guess that he was running for cover, toward the building there. If so, he lost the race by about two steps. We found blood at the corner of the pool, on the flagstones, so we assume that he went into the water at that point.'

Hannon was strolling toward the bloodstains at the pool's edge. He stood just off of them and looked back toward the lounge, then swivelled about to peer up the beach. 'Yes, that sounds solid,' he said, sighing. 'And I can see your problem.'

'A man is on his way over with a theodolite. In the meantime, I've arbitrarily ruled out the first three buildings. That still leaves about four within firing range — or, wait a minute! If Bolan is our man, I'd better scale that up some. Let's say there are six possibles. I'll get some men over to those other two buildings.' He spun on his heel and trotted quickly across the patio.

'Any way you look at it,' the captain said to no one at all, gazing down at the bloodstained flagstones, 'we've got a large-sized problem on our hands.'

Lt. Wilson hurried through the lobby and into the front parking area where a number of police cruisers were congregated. Several uniformed patrolmen moved forward to meet him. They conversed rapidly in low tones, then the patrolmen went to their vehicles and made a quiet departure.

Wilson lit a cigarette, flipped the spent match into air, murmured beneath his exhalation, 'The Executioner, well, well . . .' and went back inside.

Across the street, leaning against a palm tree and conversing easily with another interested onlooker, a tall man in a denim casual suit and dark sunglasses watched the detective re-enter the hotel. 'Well,' he remarked, 'I guess it's all over. The cops seem to be leaving.'

The other man laughed nervously and replied, 'I wish they'd let us in. I don't know . . . call it morbid, there's something about a shooting . . . I mean, wouldn't you like to get in there and see it?'