"Not me," the Loop boss quietly replied. "I had enough of that hardship crap in the old days. Don't worry, I seen plenty of it. And there's lots of worse things then climbing poles."
Vecci cleared his throat with a harsh gargling sound, gazed at the police captain, and said, "Listen, Ham I'll be here probably all night, or until the big break at least. If something breaks on your end, I want to know it right away."
"You'll be the first to know," Hamilton assured his sponsor.
Vecci then decided that he would like a drink, after all, and Manny Roberts hastened to set 'em up all around. When the boss drank, everybody drank.
The conversation fell into small talk concerning the storm, the problems of "clouting" the reorganized police department and the new wave of morality in various areas of the city and county governments.
After several minutes another report came from out front. "This 'phone guy says he thinks it's fixed now, but he wants to check it out in there."
Manny Roberts lifted the telephone and said, "Yeah, I got a tone now."
"They got a tone now," the doorway reporter told the outside world. Then he jerked his head in a nod and relayed into the room, "He says he should check it out himself if you wanta make sure."
Jake Vecci decided, "Hell yes, tell 'im to come in and make sure."
The small talk went on, guarded now, as the outsider entered the office and crossed toward the desk, leaving a trail of melting snow along the carpeting. A tool kit was strapped to his waist and climbing spikes were affixed to his lower legs. Vecci drew back to avoid contact with the ice-and-snow-caked figure.
"Pole climbing," Spanno said, chuckling. "In a goddam buzzard yet. What a hell of a way to make a living."
The pole climber smiled agreeably at the Mafia lieutenant and accepted the telephone from Manny Robert's hand, tried to place a call, frowned and tried again, then announced, "Good thing I checked. The outage let the gremlins in."
"Did what?" Manny asked.
The guy was already tearing the telephone apart. "Aw it's the flux field," he explained. "You go dead for a little while, sometimes, and the polarities go haywire. I'll have it fixed in a minute."
"What the hell's a flux field?" Spanno wondered, smiling.
"Get your mind outta th' gutter," Meninghetti suggested. "That's technical talk and way over your head, Pops."
"Okay, technical expert, you tell me what a flux field is," Spanno retorted.
Meninghetti shrugged and replied, "Shit, it's just that stuff that comes outta the flux. Isn't that right, pole-climber?"
The man grinned and said, "Yeah, that's about it."
Vecci sighed and told Manny Roberts, "Give the boy a drink. He looks froze."
The "boy" shook his head at Roberts and said, "No thanks, I'd better not."
"I bet he keeps warm enough, Jake," Spanno suggested. "Christ, he's made up for the South Pole."
Indeed, the "boy" seemed quite well outfitted for pole-climbing, south or north. A heavy white jumpsuit covered him from end to end, and a hooded headpiece tightly encircled his face from mouth to brows, with a button-flap to protect the face itself. This latter feature was presently unbuttoned and swingingly loosely, only partially concealing the reddened and storm-lashed flesh.
Spanno added, "Hell, fella, I wouldn't have your job on a night like this for all the..."
"He's getting overtime," the cop put in. "What're you getting, about double time and a half?"
The "repairman" replied, "No such luck. This's my regular shift."
"Hey, leave the boy alone," Jake Vecci commanded. "He'll never get his job done with all this jawing at Mm."
"It's okay," Mack Bolan told the Capo. "I've got it now."
His audience sat in a strained silence and watched him reassemble the instrument, then he made the test call, grinned and winked at Pops Spanno while he mumbled something into the mouthpiece. He hung up, the phone promptly rang, and he picked it up and mumbled something else then said clearly, "Where? State and Madison, okay. I'll get right over."
Again he hung up and pushed the telephone across the desk to Manny Roberts. "Didn't take long, did it," he said pleasantly.
"Yeah, thanks," Roberts told him. "We didn't even know it was out. We 'predate you boys on a night like this. Thanks again."
Bolan was putting away his tools. Joliet Jake growled, "Thanks, hell. Give the boy a double-saw."
Manny sprang to do so.
Bolan accepted the bill and stuffed it into a pocket.
"Thanks," he said, and quietly withdrew from the enemy camp, past the hordes of bored warriors, and back into the friendly storm.
9
Odd man out
Steely nerves and a sharp application of during-do had accompanied that hazardous penetration of enemy territory, to be sure; but Bolan had more going for him than sheer audacity. He had learned in the school of harsh necessity that the human mechanism "sees" with more than the eyes. "Seeing" is a concerted mental activity consisting of a matching-up of retina-image with the mental storehouse of past experiences, as superimposed upon the awareness-needs and desires of the moment.
Bolan would perhaps not describe the process in just this manner, nevertheless he thoroughly understood the human mechanics involved and habitually made full use of this natural condition. Long before the Mafia wars he had become a consummate and instinctive actor in the masquerades he called "role camouflage."
Once, cut off and trapped inside enemy country in Vietnam, Bolan had draped a standard black poncho about his shoulders, donned a straw coolie hat, and knelt in the open over a fishing net in a narrow stream for two hours and in broad daylight while enemy soldiers searched all about him. Despite his relatively great size and the makeshift nature of his "costume," the image reflected in the searchers' eyes and as interpreted by their perceptive processes was that of a black-pajama-clad villager tending his nets and this, of course, was not the object of the frantic search.
Similarly, in the penetration of Manny's Posh, the enemy had been set-up by the storm (past experience) and by Bolan's own purposeful machinations (present awareness-needs) to accept in their midst the presence of a telephone lineman. It is doubtful that any person in that club could have later provided any sort of valid description of "the guy who came to fix the phones" except that "he was done up for th' South Pole."
Bolan's understanding of the enemy and his own remarkable self control played a heavy part in the success of such ventures, of course. Also, it seems, an appreciation of subtle situation-humor rode with him into the danger zones. Note, in this particular application, the meaningless double-talk about "flux fields."
The incursion into Manny's Poshhad meant considerably more to Bolan than a routine combat recon. He had been interested in finding a weak spot in the enemy's armor. Joliet Jake Vecci, overlord of the lucrative and therefore highly-prized downtown territory, emerged as the most likely target. An underboss, or subcapo, in the Chicago syndicate for many years, the aging Vecci had for some time been quietly agitating for "a kick upstairs" to the honorary status of co-Capo, or Capo Emeritusof the Chicago Family. This could and would have been accomplished but for Vecci's insistence upon retaining direct reins of power in his old territory, a desire which produced considerable friction and displeasure among the younger ranking members of the organization.
Friction, intrigue, and ruthless competition were, of course, no strangers in the supposedly closeknit Cosa Nostra families and a crafty old powerplant like Jake Vecci was not unaware of the restless maneuverings about him.
This was but one of the interesting stories to emerge from Leopold Stein's notebook, but it seemed to Bolan to be one of the best exploitable at the moment and under the circumstances of the night. Thus, the search for Vecci had been no routine probe but an important combat mission.