Sicilian Slaughter (6 page)

Bolan got Lena through the forehead first shot, then ticked off three more as they froze for a moment before bursting into frantic action. Bolan opened the door and backed out, flipped a grenade, then leaped down the stairs. He was almost a half-block away when the delay-fuse set the grenade off and blew out every window in the upstairs room, killing the last two bosses.

One man survived the attack long enough to make a telephone call, but the man he called did not believe him. He laughed, said, "You're drunk again, Immondo," and hung up. He rolled back over and placed his dark, black-furred paw on the blonde's vast bosom. Jeeez-usss, thought Vistoso Mezzano, there's nothing like these Kraut and Dane and Swede babes, once our Corsican pals get them tamed down and broken in!

The girl's milk-white skin still showed faint bruise marks, and high inside one thigh the cigarette burn scars had healed but still showed plainly. This one said her name was Hilde and she had gone to Paris with her sister on vacation, the both of them school teachers in Bavaria, and one night a truly distinguished looking but slightly threadbare man offered to guide them on a tour: those parts of Paris the ordinary visitor never saw. Of course it wasn't dangerous, what a thought! And they could take pictures, too — eh? Eh? They went first to a dingy place full of hashish smoke, stinking of sweat and vomit, and watched a pair of Apache dancers abuse one another, then to another place where other women and some men sat around a large glass. Some of them had cameras. When Hilde sat down she could see that under the glass was a room. In the room was a bed. On the bed lay a man and two women. Hilde watched in astonished fascination for a moment, then got to her feet, held onto the back of her chair, and asked her guide, please, for a glass of water, she felt so faint. She awoke with a crushing sick headache, and cottony mouth turned wrong-side out. She lay sick, thirsty, hungry, cold, and terrified for what seemed days, until an incredibly cruel little man, hardly five feet tall, came for her. She had not believed such pain as the little man could inflict truly existed. She had been brought up on the myth that God provided His children with an automatic cutout device, so that when pain became unendurable, you became unconscious. Once she learned this an absolute falsehood, her training began … and now here she was, hoping
Signor
Mezzano would be good to her because she had graduated with honors and could make the
signor
very, very happy. No, she had never seen her sister again, since that night in Paris, why?

Mezzano giggled and buried his face between the vast pillowy milk-white bosoms, and he suddenly felt Hilde's entire body grow tense, then stiff as a corpse.

Mezzano raised up. "Hey, that's no way to be nice."

He saw her face. The total terror in her unblinking green eyes. Mezzano whirled around and looked up at the man in black. The man in black thrust out his hand, and Mezzano automatically accepted the preferred object. He stared at it. What the hell? It had the shape of a Formee Cross. A bar across the bottom read marksman.

Recognition came in an instant to Mezzano and he lunged back, trying to squirm beneath the girl, and death forever darkened the light. He heard a faint
phutt
and felt a millisecond of pain, then nothing.

By the time he left Mezzano's establishment, The Executioner left a total of ten deads.

Before midnight Bolan hit another union boss and his underbosses, leaving six dead in a central-city private dining room, and leaving the Neapolitan teamsters leaderless. He struck the waterfront numbers bank, doubled back, destroyed all the betting slips and set fire to the
lira.
He destroyed every last vehicle of a car rental agency which had been taken over by Mafia through extortion and terror. On the outskirts of the city he blew up a Mafia-owned bank which the feds had learned did most of the financing of international smuggling operations between Italy and the U.S.

At midnight, The Executioner made a telephone call: "Get your women out of the house."

In panic, the Naples
Capo di tutti Capi,
Boss of Bosses, fled with his women and most of his retinue, and Bolan virtually destroyed the Frode estate with his most recent acquisition, an M79 grenade launcher. Much lighter and more portable than a bazooka, it also had the advantage of not gushing out a huge black-blast of flame and dust when fired. True, it did not have the knock-down penetration power of a rocket launcher, but with practice, and The Executioner had gotten plenty in Nam, he could put one frag after another through doors and windows from maximum range.

Shortly after eight o'clock the following morning, two events occurred almost simultaneously. First, a non-union truck driver/owner who had barely managed to feed his large family for the past six years, carried a lighted lamp into a closet, pulled the door shut and locked it, and then counted the money again, just to be sure. It had not been a dream. The peculiar big man with the eyes that ran shivers up Fretta's back really had bought Fretta's ancient truck, for cash, in U.S. dollars, and paid more than a new Italian model would cost. He
knew
dealing with that customs man would pay off some day, and it had!

At the same time, on a dusty road a hundred miles down the peninsula, in Calabria not far south of Castrovallari, a big man in worn clothing, face grimy, cap pulled low over his ice-blue eyes, drove an old rattling truck with a crate lashed down behind the cab. The Executioner took a bite of the moldy cheese he'd bought just after dawn from a farmer's wife on the road. He washed the cheese down with some bitter-tasting native wine. Perhaps when he reached Reggio, at the toe of the boot, just across the Strait of Messina from his objective, Bolan would feel safe. Yeah, safe.

But so far his deaf-mute act had worked, buying gasoline, the food and wine, never dismounting from the truck except, on deserted stretches of road, to check the oil and water levels of the truck's engine. The last thing he could afford to do in the vast, sparsely populated, desert-like regions of Calabria was put himself afoot so he had to depend upon other people, other transport.

He nursed the old truck along, and wondered if he dare use the ferry across the Strait to Sicily. In the meantime, Bolan allowed himself a wry smile. He couldn't expect it to work every time, but hopefully his nightmarish multiple strikes in Naples had set off another internal war among the dons and bosses and soldiers, especially the ambitious ones left fighting for control of the unions Bolan had left without bosses.

"Have fun, boys," The Executioner muttered aloud, and took another sip of bitter wine.

To
mafiosi,
a nation at war, particularly their own country, is meaningless. Except that warfare invariably provides them with increased opportunities for illicit profits, most frequently black-marketing those items which became rationed: gasoline, meat, flour, sugar, liquor, auto tires, shoes.

Mafiosi,
members of "this thing of ours" owe a higher, overriding allegiance, to which they have given a blood oath, and into which they were born.

This heritage, tradition, and membership both requires and molds a certain mentality, so that Don Vito Genovese, Mafia ruler of southern Italy, headquartered in Naples, could not believe it when he was arrested by a U.S. Army CID agent in 1944. His disbelief became speechless, staggering incredulity when Sergeant O. C. Dickey flatly refused a $250,000 cash bribe and personally returned Genovese to the U.S. in 1945, to face trial for murder.

Into this sudden power vacuum, several Neapolitan underbosses moved, and with their crews fell into internal warfare for control until Charley Lucky Luciano, who had been released from a New York penitentiary, was deported from the States and came home to straighten things out. After Luciano's death and another inner struggle, Don Tronfio Frode emerged as Boss of all Bosses.

But after The Executioner's nightmarish strike in Napoli, the few surviving dons, and the capos who instantly seized power upon learning of their bosses' deaths, called "a table."

In a word, the Naples boss of bosses found himself on
trial.

From Rome, from Genoa, from Reggio and the Sicilian provinces, the dons came, and they all came with the same question on their lips: "What the fuck is going on here, can't you control your own Family?"

"Listen to me, this wasn't Family, you get that?
Not
Family!"

"Then what?" demanded Brinato from Rome in an icy voice.

"That bastard Bolan, the one they call The Executioner."

"Bullshit," said Vandalo from Palermo. "One guy blowing up a whole town. Bullshit."

Frode turned his head and looked at Vandalo; his upper lip twisted with contempt, as though Vandalo were something in a test tube from the VD lab. "Where the hell you been, and doing what? Hustling dope again, and shooting your own stuff?"

"Listen, you bastard!"

"No,
you
listen, all of you!" Frode shouted. "Bolan, that bastard Bolan." He pointed a thrusting finger at Vandalo, then at Brinato, the ice-cold bastard. "Any of you notice anything, here, this table you called on me?"

All the dons looked around at one another. Vicercato, the foppishly overdressed don from Catania suddenly popped his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Hey! Hee-ey! Where the hell is Cafu, huh?"

"Yeah," Frode snarled, voice peeling hide from these creeps who dared call a table on him. "Where the hell is Cafu?" His voice mocked Vicercato.

The other dons looked at one another, and shifted uncomfortably. Frode felt his presence and counterattack regaining control of the situation. "You guys are nuts, if you think Bolan can't take down a whole goddam town,
any
town. You don't believe me, get in touch with what's left of the Angeletti outfit in Philly, huh? Or Boston. Huh? Is it coming back to you dumb bastards now? Is it?"

Frode leaned back in his chair and lit a fat Cuban cigar. The other dons looked at one another, and began muttering to themselves. Frode let them talk for a moment while he got the cigar going well, then he slapped his palm down on the big polished table. "This is the guy,
the
guy, one guy, Bolan, a single man, who flew right into Glass Bay, Puerto Rico where we had a million fucking soldiers waiting for him. And all he did was blow up Vince Triesta's house, crashed an airplane into it, took down the hardsite, wiped out that thing of ours, the Caribbean Carousel."

Frode turned his head and deliberately spat on the thick, expensive carpet. "You pricks make me sick."

"And you make me sick," a gravelly voice said from behind Frode. The don froze, cigar falling from his trembling fingers. He knew the voice. It was that of his house boss, Astio Traditore.

Frode swallowed heavily, jumped to his feet and whirled, shouting. "Get out! You don't belong here. This is a table for dons."

"Then you don't belong either,
Don
Tronfio," Astio said, twisting the title obscenely.

Big, swarthy, dressed in immaculate Italian silk tailoring and custom-lasted shoes from London, Astio stepped forward.

"You know something,
boss,"
again the snotty twist to the word, "the only thing a don has going for him is respect. Whether the respect comes from fear, from good treatment, from letting us have our own things inside this big thing of ours, a don stays a don because his lieutenants and his soldiers respect him."

Astio Traditore spat at Frode's feet. "I don't respect no son of a bitch who cuts and runs with the women when someone tries to take down his hardsite."

Astio shifted his attention to the sharklike faces around the table for Don Tronfio Frode. "One of the first out the door. Look at him. Cut and scratched all to hell, running through the groves, hiding. Came crawling back in after daylight this morning, rumpled and dirty, like a fucking hound with his tail between his legs. I got no more respect for this pile of guts, and I don't work for no man I don't respect."

In his chilled voice, Brinato from Rome said, "You're taking over? Is that what you're telling the table?"

"I'm
telling
the table nothing," Astio said, with just the right touch of humility, "except I can't work for him no longer. I'm taking myself and my crews out. I'm open to offers."

Brinato gestured. "Bring a chair, join the table."

After Traditore seated himself, Brinato said, "We discuss the other in a moment. First I want to know, we all want to know, was it Bolan?"

Without hesitation, Traditore shook his head: no.

"Lie!" Don Frode shouted. "Look, goddammit, look!" He threw three marksman badges on the table. "The trademark — The Executioner's trademark."

The table remained silent, each don looking at the badges, then at Frode, finally shifting their gazes to Astio Traditore.

Astio smoothed his silk jacket, bent his thick lips in a slight smile, and said, "Dime store garbage. Anybody want a ton of them, tomorrow, this evening after dinner? I can get a good price on a trainload of that crap, all just alike."

"You lousy goddam traitor!" Frode screamed. "All I done for you, a rotten goddam punk pimping your sister to American sailors, and I brought you in like a son, and now you stab me, cut my throat.
Traitor!"

Astio looked at Frode, his face totally without expression, and then after a moment, he nodded. "For respect. When I respected you, anything. Anything." Astio made a gesture as though brushing aside a fly. "No more."

"Just a minute now," said the Catania boss. "We're not taking down no don on this kind of evidence. First, I want to hear someone else besides this boy here say that our friend ran out last night Then I want other witnesses, like what the hell? Somebody must have seen this Bolan if he blew up the city like our friend Frode claims."

"No witnesses," Frode said helplessly. "He took everyone down each place he hit." He gestured at the metal objects on the table. "There's your evidence. That's his goddam MO, all of you know it."

"And we know the kid is right, too. Anybody could make the hits and leave that crap behind, to blame Bolan, you agree?" Brinato looked at the other faces for confirmation.

"But it's crazy!" Frode screamed, rising to his feet and pounding on the table. "Why would I hit my own guys? Why blow up my town? Cops all over the fucking place. A sub-chief of the federal judicial police from Rome on my doorstep while I'm at breakfast."

"I remind you that is why we are here," said Ricercato from Palermo. "You can't keep your Family in line." He shot a quick look at Astio. "Maybe it's time for a change."

"No!"

Into the silence following Frode's terrified shout, Astio said, "As a matter of fact, gentlemen, if I am permitted to speak?"

"Speak!" commanded ice-throated Brinato.

"There is a witness."

They all stared at Don Tronfio.

In a single smoothly gliding move, Astio got from his chair, crossed the room and opened the door. He motioned and a soldier dressed in an obvious imitation of Astio came into the room with Hilde. Astio took the girl's hand and nodded. The soldier withdrew, closing the door. Astio guided the blonde across the deep carpeting and sat her down in the chair he'd just vacated.

"Now, Hilde, tell these gentlemen exactly what you told me. Go on, don't be afraid." A thin edge of raw intimidation came into Astio's voice. "Tell them, exactly."

"I ... was … was with Signor Mezzano — " She swallowed heavily and looked up at Astio standing by her side. Astio put a hand on her shoulder, and she remembered the cruel little Corsican and the incredible pain, and the more recent dose of pain almost as bad, and she flinched under Astio's touch. "Tell them, Hilde."

It all came out in a rush then.

She had been with Mezzano the night before when a man walked in on them.

Yes, she had seen him before. No, not his name, only that others called him Dito, The Finger. He was dressed in black and armed with a long-barreled gun, she did not know what kind. Dito threw one of those, she gestured toward the metal objects on the table, on the bed, and then he laughed. He said the old man was tired of Mezzano skimming off too much from the top of the business for himself.

"And then he just shot him," Hilde said woodenly.

"Lies, lies, alllll lies!" Frode cried out, sobbing, beating his fists on the table. He thrust his hand at Astio. "He's taking me down, using Bolan's hits to take me down. Look at that goddam German whore, look
at her!
She's terrified. Strip her, for the sake of God, and you'll find she's been tortured."

Frode leaned across the table. "Tell them, girl. Tell them."

Astio's hand squeezed Hilde's shoulder and she shuddered with fear. Astio shouted, "Rana!"

The door opened and the same soldier came into the room. His face had a froglike look, and his imitation of Astio's wardrobe helped his appearance very little. He carried a sack in his left hand.

Astio gestured and Rana came to the table, opened the sack, pulled the bottom corners, and a head rolled out. Even the dons gasped and recoiled with horror and disgust. Hilde screamed and Astio jerked her from the chair by her long blonde hair. He slapped her three times, hard, and she grew silent except for deep, shuddering sobs. Astio pointed.

"Is that the man who killed Mezzano?"

Hilde nodded.

Astio slapped her again. "Look at the face."

He twisted her hair and forced her neck to turn and made her look. "Is that the man?"

"Yes, yes, yes, yes,"
Hilde screeched and jerked free of Astio's grip, stumbled backwards and fell. At the nod of Astio's head, Rana jerked the girl to her feet and walked her out the door.

"Get rid of that filthy thing," said foppish Ricercato, holding a handkerchief to his face, turning away.

Astio shouted again and Rana returned to the room, rolled the head back into the sack and carried it out.

Astio stood behind his chair and placed his hands on the back. "The head you just saw belonged to Ibrido Delatore. He has been employed by Don Frode for the past two years, to carry out, ah, special assignments."

After a long pause, Brinato's icy voice broke the silence. "Gentlemen?"

The man from Palermo, leaning back in his chair, said, "I'm ready."

"And I," said Ricercato, wiping his lips.

Brinato looked around the table. The men from Salerno and Genoa, Catania, Messina, Venice, and Reggio, and all the others either nodded emphatically or voiced assent.

Brinato looked down the table toward Frode. "Before we vote, do you have anything more to say?"

"Just this," Frode said, feeling slack and dry and old, and already dead. "Remember what I tell you here. Remember. Because you will have cause to remember." He looked up at Astio. "You will die within a week, the moment you are found out as the traitor you are."

Astio made an obscene gesture.

Frode found himself able to smile. "Cannibal," he responded to the gesture; then returned his attention to the table.

"Remember that Cafu of Agrigento was-not-here! Unlike you, he is home watching his business, fortifying against Bolan. He
knows
Bolan took down my city, and he knows why, as do I. Diversion."

In the sudden silence, the dons stirred restlessly in their chairs. "Of all you, only Don Cafu was not fooled and did not answer the summons for my table."

Frode knew he had not long to live, perhaps five minutes, possibly an hour. He enjoyed watching them become uncertain, sweat, look at one another.

Astio saw it too, and felt his victory slipping away. He spoke fast. "Then why haven't we any reports from elsewhere that Bolan's hit again?"

All the dons nodded and muttered, getting the assurance they needed.

Frode said, "You are so stupid, all of you. Cafu knows. That is why he is not here." He looked around the table. "Do you know why Bolan took Philly and our Angeletti Family down? Became Don Cafu has started a new business. Training soldiers. Mercenary assassins. He rents them to others in this thing of
yours
— not ours, because I know how the vote will go. He rents his soldiers for one thousand U.S. dollars a day, and Bolan took down seventy-five of them in Philly."

Frode paused, then shouted, "Now vote, you sons of bitches!" He abruptly dropped his voice to almost a whisper. "And cut your own motheriucking throats."

He got up and walked out.

An hour later he was dead and lying in a box while Frog poured wet cement over the body.

Only one man at the table knew Frode had told the truth, the man who'd framed him and then killed him, Astio Traditore. just confirmed as new Boss of Bosses in Napoli. Traditore had every resource at his disposal directed toward one single objective: find and kill Mack Bolan before he reached Agrigento. If he failed, Frode's prediction would become precisely true. The dons would discover Traditore had shucked them into killing one of their own, and what the German girl had undergone would seem like Paradise compared to the tortures Astio would suffer before he found relief in death.