"You said you were a friend of Freddie Gambella's?" The voice was accusing. It was the sound of death squeezed through a reedy clarinet.
"Hey, I met him couple of times. Maybe not like a friend. I heard you were in solid out here. Stopped by to pay my respects." Bolan's voice had a touch of Brooklyn and the eastern twang that was pure Mafia-soldier inflection.
"Come on, Scott. We need to talk." It was a command.
Bolan left the coffee and followed the walking skeleton.
Tony Pagano's office was a barren cube.
Everything within it was white: desk, filing cabinet, pictures, walls, even visitor's chair. In front of the white draperies on the far wall was a white couch, into which Bolan lowered himself as Pagano chose a seat behind the desk.
"If you knew Freddie, you know he died in a twisted crew wagon in New York State a few years ago. Some bastard cut him down with what the cops figured was a bazooka kind of rocket."
"Tough. But Freddie always did things with a flair."
"You connected?"
"Used to be with Manny the Mover-Marcello."
"San Diego. Yeah, rough down there recently. You got a letter?"
"Manny didn't have time to write no letters."
"True."
"Hey, I'm just a soldier, wheelman, you know," Bolan said. "Nothing high up."
The living skeleton pondered this a moment, then nodded. "We're with Gino Canzonari, but my people work directly under me. Mostly loans, classy loans, nothing under ten grand and with plenty of interest. This is fat city out here."
"That's what I figured," Bolan said, dropping the mobster talk and rising from the couch. "Back away from the desk slowly, Tony."
The Executioner pulled the silenced Beretta from its shoulder leather.
Pagano stared. A marksman's medal plopped on the white desk and Pagano trembled.
"The safe, Tony. Open up. Anybody ask any questions you put them down, or both of you are dead."
"Okay. Easy with the cannon."
They went through a second doorway and down a hall to a room at the side of the building. They entered. No one was inside.
Bolan, locked the door and motioned Pagano ahead. The tall man moved a file cabinet on wheels, to reveal a safe. He fixed his deadly stare on Bolan.
"Look, we run a clean operation here. High class. Nobody gets hurt. These rich bastards can afford the interest. We ain't broke an arm in over two years."
"The cash, Tony. Put it on the table in one of those bank bags."
Pagano obeyed.
"Fill it up. Hundreds."
When Pagano was finished, he looked up.
The Executioner shot him once in the forehead, blasting him against a wall. The deed would spare the guy the pain of the explosion to come. The slime-bucket slumped to the floor, lifeless.
Working quickly, Bolan pressed one C-4 plastic explosive on the inside wall and set the timer for five minutes. He moved into the hall and set another charge there with a five— minute timer.
He returned with the bank bag to the lobby and the pretty receptionist.
She saw him and smiled.
"How many people in the building?" he asked.
"Five or six, I guess."
"Notify them immediately that the place is on fire and that they must evacuate at once."
"But I don't smell any..."
"Hurry. There isn't much time."
She made the calls. When she was done, he took her hand. "Now let's head for the sidewalk."
"But my job..."
"Your job here is finished."
He led her outside. They had just reached the edge of the manicured lawn when the first blast shook the building. Two men ran up to her, their eyes wild.
"What the hell's happening?" one of them asked.
She shook her head as the next blast sounded and the building sagged.
Then the upper floor caved into the first in a shower of dust and crashing concrete blocks and timbers. When the smoke cleared, the receptionist turned to the tall handsome man — but he had disappeared.
11
Bolan went back to Portland the way he had come: the Willamette River due north toward the junction with the Columbia and on to the Pacific. As he drove, the Executioner reviewed what he knew about the Canzonaris. The big family house was in Washington Heights, an exclusive area. The family owned half a dozen firms, including a trucking outfit, several small legitimate businesses that laundered ill-gotten money, several lumberyards and a sport-fishing fleet that operated out of Astoria, Tillamook and Nehalem Bay. Most of their basic income was in gambling, drugs and girls.
Gino Canzonari's son Joey was a comer, and he was smart with computers. He lived in the Council Crest section, another exclusive area. Bolan had looked up the address in a roadside phone booth. To Bolan, it was ironic that the creep's address echoed the very slimiest thing about his father, the Don, which was the Council of Kings. Bolan figured a visit might be worthwhile.
Just after dark, the nightstalker was sitting in his car a few doors down the street from the Joey Canzonari residence.
The big house was walled, but Bolan noticed no gate or guards or dogs. Joey blended in with his rich neighbors. No need for conspicuous security.
Except lights. Floodlights bathed the front and sides of the two-story house, and the two Mercedes in the driveway, A half-hour after Bolan arrived, a man in his twenties left the estate in the 380 SL and drove away. Ten minutes later a woman emerged from the house and put the Mercedes 300 Diesel into the garage, opening and closing the door by remote control.
Twenty minutes later another woman left by the side door, walked to the street, and drove away in an old Chevy. The day help was leaving.
The rain had stopped. Mack shed his raincoat and sport coat, donned the combat harness over his black long-sleeved jersey, replaced the sport coat.
Seeing no one on the street, he darted into the yard beside the Canzonari place, ran to the back and leaped the six-foot stone wall. In the Canzonari backyard he moved to the rear of the house and away from the lights. It seemed too easy — the back door was unlocked.
Bolan went through it into a family room. He heard a television near the front of the house. He was looking for a den or home office.
Somewhere a baby cried.
"No! Cindy! Not now!" It was a woman's frustrated cry.
Hearing the woman walk toward him on the carpet, her slippers slapping against her feet, he slid between a couch and the wall. She went up some stairs. He heard her hushing a child, singing softly for a few minutes. Then she came downstairs.
"Oh, damn! It's over and I missed the ending age." More sounds came from what he guessed was the living room. A cocktail shaker was rattled and the television channel was changed.
Bolan edged down the hall until he could see into the living room. A blond woman with a drink in her hand sat on a sofa, looking at the TV. Her dress was open. He moved back through the hall to the stairs and ascended quickly on silent feet.
He found six rooms: the master bedroom, two other bedrooms, a bathroom, a playroom, a den-office with three computers in it.
Two of the computers were up and running and connected by modems to the telephone. A printer evidently linked to the computers came to life and chattered out something on tractor-feed paper.
Bolan carefully turned on the light. He examined the computer setup more fully. He figured it duplicated a system elsewhere, so Joey could work there or at an office.