"Just this. Screwy Looey has been cozying it up with the cops at Palm Village. All this time. And get this. There's no charges on him, nothin'. I make it that he asked to be held."
Marasco's cigarette broke in half and fell to the carpet. He hastily retrieved it and tossed it into an ashtray. "Jesus!" he said.
"What was I telling you, Phil," DiGeorge said softly. "Wasn't I telling you just a few hours ago that someone needs to talk to Screwy Lou?"
"What made him fall apart?" Mamsco asked.
"The question is, who puts him back together again?" DiGeorge said.
"You want him put back together, Deej?" Bolan asked casually.
DiGeorge glanced at Marasco and said, "That is exactly what I want, Franky Lucky."
"I work better by myself," Bolan said.
"I like the way you work, Lucky."
Bolan got to his feet and carefully set the empty glass on a table. "Thanks," he said. "Also I see better in the early morning."
"A man should pick his own time and place for his work," DiGeorge said.
"I better get some sleep. I'm dead on my feet."
"Yeah, you do that." DiGeorge stared somberly at Philip Marasco. "You keep on working like this, Lucky, you're gonna wind up with a sponsor. What do you think of that?"
"I think that's great," replied Franky Lucky Bolan. He excused himself and went out.
DiGeorge and Marasco sat in silence for several minutes. Finally Marasco said, "Well?"
"It figures, that's clear enough," DiGeorge said. "He's the kind of guy would hire himself a stand-in."
"He's the kind of guy who's going to be a Capo some day," Marasco observed. He smiled. "You better watch out, Deej."
"That's part of the job, isn't it?" DiGeorge puffed. "I gotta leave an heir, don't I? Let's be realistic, Phil, this isn't saying anything against you, but who've I got to turn things over to now, huh? Who've I got?"
"You sure don't have me, Deej," Marasco admitted.
"Tell the boys to light a candle for Looey, eh?"
"Sure, Deej."
"I wonder," DiGeorge said thoughtfully, in a barely audible voice, "I just wonder . . . you think Frank Lucky's still big with Andrea?"
Marasco grinned. "You thinking of more than one kind of sponsorship, Deej?"
"Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Now wouldn't that be the all of it!"
Chapter Seventeen
Man on ice
Tim Braddock leaned forward in his chair and said, "I just don't see how you could let yourself into a mess like this one, Genghis."
Conn coolly replied, "I wasn't in a mess, Braddock, until you horned in. I had the man on ice, he wasn't bothering anybody, and he was beginning to come around. Now you've got him scared to death again, and he's insisting that I charge him or let him go." The lanky lawman spat wet tobacco leaves on the floor at his feet and added, "I don't see any warrant in your hand, Tim."
"We're getting one," Braddock assured his host.
"On what?" Conn asked disgustedly.
"You name it, we've got it. Criminal conspiracy, for one. And then everything from intimidation to Murder One."
"In what town were all these crimes perpetrated, Braddock?"
The Captain from Los Angeles smiled serenely. "The conspiracy was originally hatched in Los Angeles and we can prove that. The execution of the crime, or crimes, covered a three-county area and possibly four. Sacramento is working with us on this one. We're going to bust the syndicate in this state, Genghis, with or without the help of hick . . . of small-town cops."
"I was told that Hardcase was cancelled," Conn said quietly.
"That's right. And now I'm on special to the Attorney General's office. We're starting here, Genghis, right here in your nice, balanced town. And you'd better get ready to explain why you've been harboring a known criminal in this balanced little town of yours."
"Who says he's a known criminal?" Conn wanted to know.
"Don't quibble with me over semantics."
The Palm Village Chief pushed his hat back and scratched his forehead. "There's not one shred of anything to link Pena with the hell that hit this town, and you know it. Don't think for a minute that I wouldn't have him booked and walking toward the grand jury if there was. The fact is Braddock, I have a guest in my home who may or may not be a member of this syndicate you mentioned." Conn stood up suddenly and threw his hat to the floor. "Aw shit, enough of this pussyfooting, Braddock! Let's talk like men!"
Braddock grinned and sailed his own hat across the room. "Let's do that," he replied.
"This Pena character is scared clear out of his skin. He fumbled an assignment, and worse than that, he knows damn well he isn't ever going to have the stuff to get the measure of a man like Mack Bolan. He's scared, he's proud, he's getting old and knows it, and he don't want to go home in disgrace. Now that's the way it's laid out. I could like the guy. I could really like him, if I didn't know what he's been, and I say that even knowing what he is. Do you want to know the kind of a deal he came to me with? I'd help him get Bolan, he'd get the credit and see that I cashed in on the hundred grand bounty. Now that's what brought him to me in the first place."
"And your reaction?"
"Don't insult me, Braddock," Conn snorted. "You know how I feel about cops on the make. Twenty years ago I would have thrown him in a cell and clawed my way to an indictment. Just like you're wanting to do now. If there's one thing a man learns on this desert, though, it's patience. A month or a year makes damn little difference out here. I still haven't given Pena his answer. I've got him on the hook and I'm keeping him there. Meantime, he's on ice. Or he was, until you bulled in."
"What kind of hook?" Braddock asked, exhibiting remarkable self-control.
"We're bargaining. He knows I'm not too interested in the money. But he's got something else I'm willing to bargain for, and he knows it. Understand this, Braddock. Those boys busted my town, and I'm not standing for it. I want them, all of them, every damn one."
"What sort of bargaining?" the Captain persisted.
"It's been two weeks of Paris Peace Talks. I say something like, 'Well, let's see here now, Lou. I'll give you two of Bolan's fingers for three Mafia heads.' And he says, 'Well, you better let me think about that, Genghis.' He thinks about it for a day or so, then he comes back with a counter-offer. It's never enough, so I try to jack him up a little more."
"Are you levelling with me, Genghis?"
"Of course I'm levelling."
"What makes Pena so sure you have anything at all to offer him?"
Conn shrugged his shoulders. "I keep him pumped up. Look, Braddock, I told you the guy is scared to go home. Now the longer he stays away, the harder it gets to go back empty-handed. I told you I've got him hooked."
Braddock stared dreamily out the window. "It's a fool's game, Genghis," he said softly. "Unless you've got some real bargaining power on your side."
"Okay, so I've got that," Conn replied, his eyes dropping.
"I guess you'd better tell me about it."
"I guess you'd better go to hell."
Braddock sighed. "For the next five minutes, we're off the record. After that . . . well, I just hope you've got clean skirts, Genghis. If you've got Bolan on ice somewhere, too, then . . . "
"That sounds like a threat, Captain."
"It is."
Conn bent to the floor and retrieved his hat. He put it on and rocked back in the swivel chair, added a fresh wad of tobacco leaves to the cud in his mouth, and chewed furiously for a minute. Then he sighed and said, "I believe Bolan got his face lifted here at Palm Village."