"Joey offered me one million."
"Okay, okay. That's the most I can get on short notice."
"Deal. In an attache case. Come alone. Anyone with you or following you, and Joey is turkey meat."
"Yes, yes. Don't get excited. This is just a business deal. Money for the boy."
"My terms. Go to Killingsworth and Thirty-third. Be there at exactly 2:00 P.M. From there you'll get new instructions."
"Whaddya mean, "new instructions"? Joey better be with you."
"He won't be. I've got to make sure nobody is following you and you don't have the place staked out. Take it or leave it."
"I'll be there. I'll drive myself. Satisfied?"
"At two." Bolan hung up.
The Executioner recognized the man walking along the sidewalk from pictures he had seen. He was about five-five and 250 pounds, and carried an attache case.
Gino Canzonari was doing as he was told.
Bolan moved his car slowly behind the Mafia chieftain. He could spot no suspicious cars trailing the Don. He might have kept his word doubtful, but possible.
The Executioner pulled half a car-length ahead of the man and motioned him to get in. The Beretta was trained on the Mob chieftain all the way.
"Canzonari, take off your suit coat," Bolan commanded.
Canzonari hesitated, then stripped it off.
"Now take off your shirt." As soon as the mobster opened it, Bolan saw the wires and the small radio transmitter. He jerked the apparatus off Canzonari, threw it out the window and hit the gas.
Bolan noticed the unmarked police car behind him, and another on Killingsworth. He flattened the Thunderbird's gas pedal and the big car surged on. He slid through a stoplight, wound north to Lombard and Union and was soon on the 99 freeway heading across the Columbia into Washington State, toward Seattle. His gun was trained on Canzonari all the time.
He exited on the Washington side, powered around two interchanges and finally parked below an overpass.
Canzonari scowled. "Cops made me wear the wire. They heard about you and about Joey missing. They made me do it!"
"Sure they did." Bolan frisked him quickly, found a .38 in an ankle holster and threw it out the window. "They made you wear that, too? Where are the rest of your boys? How many cars did you have following us?"
"Two, but you lost them."
"You bring the money?"
Canzonari pointed to the attache case.
"Good. Now you can tell me what happened to Charlotte Albers."
"Who?"
"Charlotte Albers and her twin sister, Charleen Granger. Two pretty black girls about twenty-five."
"Granger... yes, the black girl. I hear she died up in the park."
"Your men killed her, Canzonari, and used her for bait to get me. But they missed. I don't miss."
Bolan edged out from under the concrete overpass and turned south back toward Oregon. He drove with the flow of traffic-heavier now, nearing rush hour figuring the cops would not be watching close enough.
Eventually he turned off, heading along the Columbia River on the Oregon side. At Troutdale he turned south until he picked up U.S. 26, which became the Mount Hood Loop highway route.
"Where the hell we going?" Canzonari asked.
"I thought you wanted to see Joey."
"You got him stashed up here?"
"Right."
They drove in silence until they passed Brightwood. At the spot where he had run Joey's car off the road, Bolan pulled to the shoulder.
"Out. We're taking a walk." Bolan locked the Thunderbird, moved Canzonari across the road, and they plunged into the timber.
"What the hell?"
Ten minutes later Bolan motioned Canzonari around a pair of tall fir trees and pointed.
Joey lay where Bolan had left him.
Canzonari ran forward. He dropped to his knees and grabbed his son's body, rocking back and forth. Then he jumped up and charged Bolan. The Executioner sidestepped him, tripped him and pushed the fat hoodlum to the ground.
"You bastard! You promised me my son back!"
"I said I'd bring you to him and I did. Just think of Joey as payment for Charleen Granger. You killed her, and now your son is dead."
Canzonari rushed at him again. Bolan slammed the Beretta across the mobster's head, smashing him to the ground.
"There's still payment due from you for Charlotte Albers, Canzonari. We'll think of some way to even the scales. Now pick up your son and carry him back to the road."
Dusk had settled as Canzonari stumbled to the edge of the highway with the dead weight. He collapsed there. A car rolled by, and Bolan ducked out of sight.
Canzonari got to his knees and stared at his dead son.
Then he turned, producing a blade, and lunged at the Executioner's throat. Bolan drew Big Thunder and pulled the trigger.
The boom of the .44 AutoMag shattered the silence of the forest. The heavy lead slug caught Canzonari squarely in the heart with such force that the man's torso exploded. The smoking remains fell to the ground beside the dead youth.
Bolan held the big gun steady, then slowly lowered and holstered it.
Canzonari's demise had not been planned, but the Executioner was not sorry about this unexpected turn. Someone would find them come daylight.
Bolan crouched as a car passed, then ran across the dark highway to the Thunderbird and drove back to Sandy Boulevard.
He could not find an open car-rental agency so he continued to one on the outskirts of Portland, left the car and took his suitcase of weapons and the attache case of money. The Portland police would not be able to trace the Thunderbird back to him.
He changed taxis three times, then walked two blocks with the suitcase to the hotel.
When the Executioner stepped into the hotel lobby, Johnny jumped from a chair and took the suitcase and attache case without a word. Nor did the two speak in the crowded elevator.
As they walked down the hall toward their room, Bolan told his younger brother, "We're finished here. Time to move on." But it was not that easy. Bolan felt burdened by his war, pulled down by the gravity of his fearful commitment. The Executioner's mood was turning dark, and so it was that he began to think of Johnny in the renewed light of protectiveness.
Johnny had said he wanted to show Bolan the updated plans for his strongbase down in Del Mar. Bolan decided to go along with the kid.
17
He'd drive down from Los Angeles in the coming days and take time out to check into this strengthened strongbase with him. Then maybe he could talk to the kid. Dammit, he would talk to the kid.
And, dammit, Johnny was no kid, as was evidenced every time the young man clenched his jaw when he saw street signs in Portland that read "Sandy."
This was a battle-hardened young adult.
Much as Bolan tried to prevent it, after a couple of days his heavy mood finally got to Johnny. The two Bolans were driving down Route 5, Johnny at the wheel, cruising through San Clemente and south past the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton on their left, the midday sun burning above the rental car, their elbows stuck out of open windows.
It was hot, the breeze dry and bitter with fumes, but both men preferred it to the air-conditioning.
"What's up with you, Mack? You haven't said a word since L.A." Johnny looked over at his brother.
Bolan grunted.
Johnny persisted. "Want a cigarette? I know you're out because I saw you smoke your last one."
"You don't smoke."
"But I carry a couple of packs in my bags," Johnny said, "for just such occasions as this."
"I don't want your cigarettes." Bolan looked out of the passenger window, through the blustery air of sun-smitten dust and exhaust particles, and what he saw was far, far away.
"I don't understand you," Johnny said. "You just ripped open and rubbed out the entire underbelly of Portland, Oregon, and now you're down in the dumps."
"I did what?"
"Sorry to get poetic," Johnny said. "Let me put it another way. You trashed the loan files of finance companies, you scoured the streets of the east side of Portland, you busted a family-owned gun store under the Ross Island bridge approach, then hit the fancy Washington Heights district..."