light.'
'He can't Vito,' advised an icy voice behind him.
Cold steel touched the nape of the casino boss' neck and the no-nonsense voice told him, 'If you're packing hardware, now's the time to use it or lose it.'
'I'm not packing,' Apostinni replied hastily, his throat suddenly dry and scratchy. What, he wondered, the hell was Bruce doing?
'Don't even breathe hard,' the voice suggested.
Vito did not. He felt, rather than heard or saw, the man moving past him — then the pencil-flood went off and the soft, indirect lighting along the walls came up and Vito got his first good look at the guy the whole organization was screaming about.
Yeah. Bolan the Bastard. A big guy, standing tomewhere above six feet high, dressed all in black in a skin- tight whattayacallit — commando suit or something — black sneakers on his feet. An ammo belt was slung at his waist, and this also supported a flap-type army holster on his right hip, with probably a .45 inside.
Another harness crossed his chest to put a snap-out rig beneath his left arm. The rig was empty now, and a mean looking black blaster with a silencer was filling the guy's big fist.
That face had been carved out of hot steel and f reeze-dried, and looking into those goddamn eyes was worse than looking into the bore of the blaster. Vito's eyes flinched away from the confrontation and up the security tower to find Bruce, or the remains ol Bruce. The area between the bodyguard's eyes was missing. One eye was laying out on the cheek, blood all over the goddamn place, and Bruce was just sitting there, the body sagging into the seat harness.
Vito's stomach lurched and his eyes fled that place, also. 'H-how'd you get in here, dressed like that?' he asked in a choked voice.
'Is that the last thing you want to know, Vito?' the cold voice inquired.
'No, forget it, I don't care. What do you want, money? Hell, it's yours, take it, take all of it.'
'Money means nothing to me, Vito,' that voice said.
What kind of a guy did money mean nothing to? Heart of Gold Vito could not understand a guy like that. He said, 'Look. Bolan, I'm clean. I'm a good man I live a clean life. I do my job and I do it good, and 1 spread my money around, I mean I give to the poor and needy, you know? Why d'you want to come busting in here, scaring me this way? You got no beef with me.'
The guy grabbed him and shoved him across the room, the blaster tracking him all the way. Vito stumbled to a couch and sat down, his legs no longer willing to support his weight. He whimpered, 'Okay, I'll level. I'm just fronting the joint. I'm a hired hand, I work for a salary, I practically punch a time clock. I'm small, Bolan, small fish. I got no say in anything, I just do what I'm told.'
'Prove it,' the bastard said, in that same cold economy of words.
'All right, so I got an interest too, myself. But it's a small one.'
The guy just stared at him.
'Okay, I can prove it. Let me open the safe. I'll show you black and white.'
The voice behind him again warned, 'Carefully, Vito.' Anything goes wrong, Vito, you're the first to get it.'
'Don't worry, I know that,' Apostinni said. He moved jerkily across the room and swung a hinged chest away from the wall, deactivated an electronic alarm system, and opened the safe.
The voice behind him warned, 'Carefully, Vito.'
With extreme care and in almost comic slow motion, the casino boss reached into the small safe and brought out a leather-covered notebook — the most carefully guarded possession of a lifetime. It didn't matter, he kept telling himself. The guy would never get out of here with it alive anyhow, and it might just save Vito's cautious life.
He carefully placed the notebook on the chest and stepped back a respectful distance. 'Just take a look,' he urged. 'That's the whole setup in there, the weekly payoffs, how much and who to. That's the book, Bolan, the real book.'
The guy flipped through the pages, grunted, then tucked the notebook into his belt. 'Not enough, Vito,' he said coldly. 'Tell me something interesting that could keep you living a while longer.'
Apostinni's legs gave way again, the thing was clearly way out of hand now. He wobbled to a chair and slumped into it. 'like what?' he asked miserably.
'I don't know. It's your joint. Entertain me, Vito.'
'I, uh…' Apostinni licked his lips and swung his head from side to side as though looking for a miracle. None was in evidence. What did the bastard want? He didn't want money. He didn't want the book. But he hadn't killed Vito yet, so what… ? 'I, uh, you've got the pat hand, Bolan. For now. But listen, you're in a bad spot, you've gotta know that. You better cut out of this town. Joe Stanno and all his boys are turning the whole valley upside down. And the sheriff's boys, they're shaking the town too.'
'Yeah, I know,' the cold bastard told him. He just stood there, staring, that black blaster never wavering an inch away from that spot directly between Vito's eyes.
'Well maybe this is something you don't know,' the desperate man choked out. 'Pat and Mike are due in town in about an hour. They're coming after your head, paisano, and those boys don't fool around. They're bringing a jet plane full of soldiers with them, and they're the hardest soldiers in the business. I guess you know that.'
'Yeah,' the guy said, unimpressed.
'Bolan… I got three hundred and seventy-five grand in the vault downstairs. Think of that. Say the word and it's yours. Every cent, I swear, it's all yours.'
'What would I do with all that money, Vito?'
'Hell I — buy yourself a pardon. I know a hundred guys could grease the slide for you. Hell I bet I could do it myself, I know lots of people, everybody, important people. Let me...'
'Shut up, Vito.'
'For God's sake, Bolan, why d'you want to kill me?'
Vito was starting to sweat. 'I'm a nobody, a nickel and dime front man. I'm not even worth the price of your bullet. Why me?'
'I'm trying to think of a reason why not, Vito.'
'Well God, I can give you plenty of reasons why not.'
'Look at it from my point of view, Vito. Then just give me one.'
'Well I — okay. Okay. I can get you out of here in one piece, Bolan. Joe Stanno is downstairs right now. There's no way out of here except past Joe Stanno. Joe the Monster, you've heard of him I know. I can guarantee you safe passage, Bolan.'
'I got myself in,' the rotten bastard replied. 'I'll get myself back out.'
'Okay! Wait a minute Bolan! For God's sake — okay, listen! What do you want? Something hot? Something really big?'
'You're getting close, Vito.'
'Well I…' Apostinni sent his gaze in a dazed search of his surroundings, as though wondering if it were really happening. He'd had this rooftop addition put on here like an oversized vault, just to keep nuts like this out. Now here was one in, and Heart of Gold Vito was in with him, and God there wasn't no way out. The odds of anybody coming up to look in on him, at this hour, were about a million to one. Everybody knew this was Vito's bedtime, nobody would come up disturbing him now.
Vito did not want to die like this, not this way, locked up with a lunatic gunsel who'd rather kill than be rich. If he could just talk the guy along… give him something, hell anything, and hope and pray for a break. Holy Mother, just one break. What a hell of a cold deck for Vito.
'What'd you say, Vito?' the icy bastard asked him.
'I said… if you want something big, I mean really big … how about the carousel? You onto that yet?'
Something flickered there in the big guy's eyes, an interest maybe. Apostinni plunged on hopefully. 'Yeah, that's the big one coming up. The Caribbean carousel, I'll bet you've heard a rumble or two on that.'
'Back up and try it again,' Bolan said, the blaster still centered between Vito's eyes.
'Try what?'
'What kind of carousel?'
