Miami Massacre (12 page)

The shack was engulfed immediately in roaring flames. Bolan stood and dispassionately watched as two human torches erupted through the doorway and flopped convulsively about the rubble. When the flopping ceased, he turned his back on them and walked stiffly away, back to their vehicle.

Bolan placed his weapon on the roof and leaned into the car for a final farewell to a too-brief friendship, and when he came back out of the car he was looking into the bore of a very large and ugly .45 automatic.

He looked beyond, then smiled faintly and said, "Hi, Leo. We meet again."

Leo Turrin, lately elevated to an underboss role in the former Sergio Frenchi family, showed a strained smile and quietly said, "Watch the gun now, Bolan, and note that I'm putting it away."

"I guess it doesn't matter," Bolan replied in a strangely flat voice. "I'm sick of this war, Leo. I am sick to death of it."

Another man, also an Italian type, stepped into view then and commented, "If what I just saw is an example of your sickness, Bolan, I hope you never get well."

"Who is this guy?" Bolan asked, not really caring.

"We're telephone friends, remember?" the man replied. "I'm Harold Brognola."

Bolan said, "Great. What do we do now, shake hands?"

Brognola stuck his hand out. "Yes, I'd like to shake your hand, Bolan," he said soberly.

Bolan unsmilingly accepted the hand. "Thanks for the assist at L.A.," he murmured. The sound of distant sirens were beginning to break the night stillness. Bolan said, "I guess I'd better be getting along." He glanced at Turrin and added, "How's it been, Leo?"

"Hairy, as usual," Turrin replied, smiling.

Brognola agitatedly declared, "Dammit, Bolan, I have to talk to you!"

Bolan simply smiled, shouldered his weapon and began trudging wearily to his vehicle. The other men hastened after him. Brognola said, "Bolan, dammit, will you listen to me?"

"Will those cops listen to you?" Bolan asked, inclining his head toward the advancing sirens.

"Talk to him," Turrin advised. "What have you got to lose? Just talk to him."

"What about?" Bolan asked. "That same portfolio?"

Brognola snapped, "Yes, that same portfolio. Look, you said you were tired of the war. I'm offering you a possible way out of it."

Bolan threw him an interested glance. "Yeah?"

"Hey, those Miami cops are getting with it," Turrin warned. "Better make this quick."

Brognola said, "Look, it's all in here." He was thrusting a rather fat, oblong wallet upon Bolan. "Look it over in your leisure and call me at the contact number I have in there. That's all I ask, Bolan — just look it over."

Bolan took the wallet and thrust it inside the neck band of his nightsuit. "Okay," he said. "I'll look it over." He carefully placed the weapon inside his car and then climbed in behind the wheel. "Good seeing you again, Leo. Give my best to the wife, eh."

Turrin smiled and said, "Will do. She worries about you a lot, if that's any comfort."

Bolan nodded and cranked the engine. "Uh, get lost for the rest of the night, eh."

Turrin replied, "That means that you're rolling."

"That's what it means. So stay clear."

"Thanks. I'll do that."

Brognola irritably said, "Look, don't go getting yourself killed
now.
Break it off, dammit, and go someplace safe and read that portfolio."

"I can't break it off now," Bolan replied in a flat voice. "Too much is already invested in this battle."

"Well at least-"

Bolan had stepped on the gas and left Brognola standing open-mouthed in the street. As the car disappeared around the corner, he turned to Turrin and said, "Now if that guy isn't the coldest number I've ever run into. He wasn't like that on the phone last month. Hell I-"

"He just buried a compatriot, Hal," Turrin explained. "You didn't see what was in that car up there, did you."

"No, I was just-"

"Come on." Turrin was dragging his companion back up the street, toward the bullet-riddled automobile. "I'll show you what makes The Executioner tick."

The Beach Hacienda was of old Spanish architecture, complete with bell tower and ceramic-tile roofs, covered walkways through colorful gardens, fountains and lily-pools, and poolside cabanas posing as adobe huts. Three major buildings comprised the hotel proper, set at clever angles to exclude the patios and gardens from the outside world, except for the exposure to the ocean. There, a smallish replica of a 17th century Spanish galleon served as a floating pier for those who preferred their beaching with all the comforts of iced drinks and shaded lounges. A broad expanse of well-combed sand was also provided, for those who took their surfing seriously; surfboard racks, outriggers, and other water toys were in ample evidence though in general disuse.

The hotel buildings were single-story, except at the center where the bell tower reigned above a luxurious penthouse suite. The mock-adobe structures presented a windowless, walled appearance to the street; inside, all rooms opened via sliding glass onto the garden patios, in a setting of obvious and no-expense-spared luxury.

The Beach Hacienda, in local Mafia circles, was known as "the joint," and the penthouse had served, until very recently, as the meeting place for the Council of Capos.

Now, the penthouse was virtually abandoned. A sleepy-eyed man in a waiter's jacket sat tiredly upon a barstool in the corner of the main room. Two other men were standing on a small balcony which hung out over the enclosed gardens; these were Ciro Lavangetta and his underboss from Tucson, Salvatore Di Carlo. Lavangetta was at the extreme corner of the balcony and trying to peer around to the street-side of the building, an impossible project. He told Di Carlo, "I'm telling you, Sal, I heard gunshots and explosions. Something's going on out there somewhere."

As though to confirm Lavangetta's conclusions, the wail of sirens rose up faintly in the distance. He said, "I knew it!"

"It's a long ways off, Ciro," Di Carlo assured him.

"Just the same, it makes me nervous. I wish the Talifero brothers would report in. I'd sure like to know . . ."

After a brief silence, Di Carlo said, "You should have gone out to the boat, like the others. That's the safest place, Ciro. You should've gone."

"
All
of 'em didn't go yet, Sal. And that's why I didn't either. Look down there and tell me who you see gossiping by the pool."

Di Carlo craned over the railing, "Looks like Georgie the Sausage Man and Augie Mary."

"That's exactly right, and I'll tell you also exactly what it is George the Weenie is try'na put in Augie's head!"

Di Carlo soberly nodded his head. "He's really been pitchin', Ciro."

Lavangetta snorted a string of obscene words, then added, "I ain't going to stand for it. You know that. I won't take that, Sally."

"I wouldn't take it either," Di Carlo agreed.

After a brief silence, Lavangetta fervently declared, "I wish this Bolan
would
come in here, Sal."

"He's going to be a dead son of a bitch if he does," Di Carlo growled.

"Yeah, but so might somebody else, Sally, if you know what I mean."

Di Carlo thought about that for a moment, then: "I guess I get you, Ciro."

"Yeah, I guess you do. I wish he'd come in here before everybody makes the boat, that's what. And I wish he'd blast a certain weenie king right in his liver sausage, that's also what."

The sirens were becoming louder. Di Carlo sniffed the air and said, "I smell smoke, Ciro. Maybe this Bolan is already here and is right now burning the joint down."

Lavangetta laughed quietly. "Maybe somebody is going to think so anyways, Sally."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"This Bolan" was not at that moment burning the joint down, but he was quietly casing it from a soft drop some 200 yards down the beach. The binoculars could not give him the full details, but his mind supplied what the eyes omitted and the general lay of the place came out into a quite logical extension. He studied the bell tower and the men standing on the balcony just below, then shifted to the adjoining roofs and what he could see of the beach area and the galleon. Hardmen were everywhere. They patrolled the beach, perched upon the otherwise deserted galleon, and hovered in the shadows of the red slate roofs. It was a hardsite, no mistake about that.

Bolan's attention returned to the men on the balcony of the penthouse. The one who was waving his arms about seemed vaguely familiar. Bolan racked his memory, sliding through the newspaper and magazine photos he had studied so often, and then he had his "make." It was Ciro Lavangetta, a bit heavier in the jowls than his pictures indicated, but Ciro nonetheless. The man with the worried face standing beside him Bolan could not make, but he would remember him if he ever saw him again.

Bolan wondered what would happen if he were to lob a round of HE into that bell tower. If he could work in about a hundred meters closer, he could do it . . . but then he might lose his angle in the intervening rooftop. As he debated the question, the two men left the balcony and went inside.

Bolan was a bit elated around the core of cold deadness which had settled into him upon finding Margarita's mutilated body. He had located a
Capo;
undoubtedly others were on hand also. It was a hardsite, and that usually meant VIPs present. He fell to studying the terrain between his soft drop and the hotel. If he could find a rise down there somewhere, maybe he could get that angle he needed, and maybe that angle would give him the passport he needed for entry into the hardsite. One way or another, he meant to get in there.

Salvatore Di Carlo was greatly disturbed and excitedly whispering "Dammit, Ciro, I'm telling you — cold crying Christ, it ain't worth it. You can't just take it on yourself to-"

"Stop telling me what I can't do!" Lavangetta replied furiously. "The old weenie's got one foot in the grave already anyway, he's got hardening of the dollar signs in his arteries, and I'm not taking no more shit from that weenie!"

"Just th' same, Ciro, you know better than me that-"

"That's right, I know better than you, Sally. Listen, he's done everything to me all day except shiv me. And if you could only see, I probably have shivs sticking out all over me just the same. If I'd been screwed by that old cock knocker every time he thought about it, I'd have a hole like Madame Bazonga."

"Well, it's your funeral I guess, Ciro."

"What do you mean, my funeral? It's
our
funeral, Sally, if we let Georgie make weenies out of our territory. Isn't it?
Our
territory, Sally."

"Yeah I figured you'd be getting around to that, Ciro."

"You better be damn glad I am. It's just you and me now, Sally, don't forget that. You and me. And listen, I don't want no fucking around on this job. I'm hoping, Sal, that you're understanding what I am telling you."

"Sure, I understand you, Ciro," Di Carlo replied in a defeated voice. "But I guess you better tell me exactly what you've got in mind."

"What I got in mind, Sally, is bleedin' the weenie with a Bolan bite."

"Shit, you say the funniest things at the funniest times, Ciro," Di Carlo complained soberly.

Hannon was positive that he was going to retire after this case. He had used up an entire year of police energy in this one orgiastic day of unbridled mayhem; anything after this would be anti-climactic anyway. He took a final look at the charred corpses in the rubble-heap, said tiredly, "Okay, get them out of here," and moved aside to give the coroner's boys the grisly remains.

A uniformed patrolman followed Hannon back to the street and, in a conversational tone, asked, "What'd he use on those guys, captain — a flame thrower?"

"I would not be at all surprised," Hannon replied in a quiet voice. He paused and stared toward the death car. "There's a story lurking here," he mused half-aloud. "And it could be a very romantic story. But I'm not quite ready to buy it."

"Sir?"

"Never mind. Any make on the girl yet?"

"No sir. Except that she's Cuban, and she's wearing-"

"Hell I know all that!"

"We don't have an identification, captain."

"All right. You stay right here with the car and you don't let anyone touch it, I mean not the chief himself, until the lab boys release it. Then you get it down to the police garage and you seal it up tight. You tell the lab people that I want something to definitely relate those charred corpses to this vehicle. I want physical evidence."

"Yes sir."

Hannon sighed and went to his car, picked up the mike, and contacted Dade Force dispatch. "How many mobile units are tied up in that soiree out at the raceway?" he asked.

"Twelve, sir," came the reply.

"All right, release six of those and send 'em over here. We'll assign definite stations while they're en route. What'll it take, about an hour?"

"Half that if we blue-light them, Captain."

"All right, blue-light them. Next I want a Dade alert call. I want every man on the job, and it'll take a doctor's statement to alibi any absence. You get them in and assembled and I'll have instructions by the time I get in. Have they gotten anything from Tommy Janno yet?"

"No sir, but he's conscious and they're still trying. He's in the room right next to Lt. Wilson, by the way."

"Okay, I'm coming in. Get those calls going."

Hannon racked his mike and set the car in motion. This massacre had gone far enough. It was going to be stopped . . . or by god
Hannon
was going to call the President.

Bolan had completed his recon and the picture was entirely readable to his mind. No one, it appeared, was going to bed. The patio gardens were filled with seemingly relaxed and congenial men, sitting around tables, talking, laughing, drinking — living it up. Except for the hardmen who were placed strategically about the perimeters, the Hacienda reeked with party atmosphere. Only a couple of details belied this. First and most graphic, no women were present. This was a large item. Secondly, the waiters did not move like waiters. They were clumsy, and frequently dropped things, and seemed to forever be scrambling their orders, producing an almost comic opera effect with much good-natured kidding and heckling from those being served.

All this fitted neatly into Bolan's developing strategy. As long as the
Mafiosi
had been intermingled with the "straight" public, his angle of attack had to be geared to pinpointed singling-out and man-to-man confrontations. But with them clutched up in an exclusive gathering, Bolan could go for the big strike, using massive-kill techniques — he did not need to walk amongst them.

Bolan did, however, need
a
"hard drop" — a site with reasonable cover from which to conduct the assault. He had worked his way to the water's edge and just north of the hotel. The illumination from the Hacienda's outside lights was creating a twilight effect all along the ocean-front in that immediate area, except right at the waterline where the sloping beach provided a thin band of dense shadows. The tide was running low, giving Bolan several yards of hardpacked sand in utter darkness. Hardmen were thick in that particular perimeter, stationed close enough to converse with one another. With the covering purr of constantly breaking waves behind him, Bolan was moving slowly and carefully along that shadow-area and toward the galleon. The pier, he had decided, would make an ideal hard drop. The problem was that the enemy had evidently reached that same decision, and was then in possession. He passed within a few feet of a hardman who was trying vainly to light a cigarette in the stiff ocean breeze. Another man stationed several yards farther on had evidently found this amusing and was calling over heckling instructions.

"Hey, go tell Augie we need a smoking tent out here."

"Go to hell."

"Hey, my brother Angelo was in the navy. He says you gotta climb up inside your ass to light up, but then you got another hazard."

A chuckle, and, "Come over here and lend me your ass then."

Bolan slipped on past and made the overhang of the galleon. The mock-up was built to look as though the ship had been run aground, bow end to, and rode perpendicular to the beach. At high tide, very little of the floating pier was resting on dry sand and much of it was actually afloat. Now, with the tide running out, the situation was reversed; only the stern section was actually afloat. Three heavy cables angled down from the stern, holding the galleon firmly in position. Bolan slung his weapon parallel across his shoulders and moved quietly into the water. He was in to his chest and fighting the turbulent pull of the surf when he reached the nearest cable. Then he clenched a commando knife between his teeth and began the hand-over-hand climb to the galleon's deck, some fifteen feet above.

Hannon charged into the bull room and growlingly announced, "Okay, we got it. It's the Beach Hacienda, North Beach — let's roll! Pick up on the Dade Net for your assignments!" He wheeled about and led the squad of riot specialists through the tunnel and into the parking lot. A uniformed officer in a white helmet ran along beside him for a short distance.

"Standard riot roll, captain?" he inquired.

"We'll play it by the seat of our pants," Hannon puffed.

The officer nodded and peeled off toward his own vehicle. Hannon dropped into his car and muttered beneath his breath, "It's a blood roll, sergeant." Then he was screeching away, leading the blue-light procession to the massacre.

Lavangetta intercepted George the Butcher as the latter was making his way along the covered walkway toward his room. He said, "Listen, Georgie, I think it's about time we had an understanding."

Aggravante tried to push past him. "I've understood you for a long time, Ciro," he replied.

"I don't think you have, Georgie, and I think that's been the cause of all our trouble."

"You've never been any trouble to
me, Capino,
" the old man replied nastily.

"That's all over with now," Lavangetta assured him, and quietly slashed George the Butcher's throat from ear to hairy ear.

The Boss of Arizona stepped quickly clear and dropped the knife into a lily pond, then began hoarsely shouting, "Get 'im! Get that guy! Get-"