"I can't break it off now," Bolan replied in a flat voice. "Too much is already invested in this battle."
"Well at least-"
Bolan had stepped on the gas and left Brognola standing open-mouthed in the street. As the car disappeared around the corner, he turned to Turrin and said, "Now if that guy isn't the coldest number I've ever run into. He wasn't like that on the phone last month. Hell I-"
"He just buried a compatriot, Hal," Turrin explained. "You didn't see what was in that car up there, did you."
"No, I was just-"
"Come on." Turrin was dragging his companion back up the street, toward the bullet-riddled automobile. "I'll show you what makes The Executioner tick."
Chapter Sixteen
Bolan's battleground
The Beach Hacienda was of old Spanish architecture, complete with bell tower and ceramic-tile roofs, covered walkways through colorful gardens, fountains and lily-pools, and poolside cabanas posing as adobe huts. Three major buildings comprised the hotel proper, set at clever angles to exclude the patios and gardens from the outside world, except for the exposure to the ocean. There, a smallish replica of a 17th century Spanish galleon served as a floating pier for those who preferred their beaching with all the comforts of iced drinks and shaded lounges. A broad expanse of well-combed sand was also provided, for those who took their surfing seriously; surfboard racks, outriggers, and other water toys were in ample evidence though in general disuse.
The hotel buildings were single-story, except at the center where the bell tower reigned above a luxurious penthouse suite. The mock-adobe structures presented a windowless, walled appearance to the street; inside, all rooms opened via sliding glass onto the garden patios, in a setting of obvious and no-expense-spared luxury.
The Beach Hacienda, in local Mafia circles, was known as "the joint," and the penthouse had served, until very recently, as the meeting place for the Council of Capos.
Now, the penthouse was virtually abandoned. A sleepy-eyed man in a waiter's jacket sat tiredly upon a barstool in the corner of the main room. Two other men were standing on a small balcony which hung out over the enclosed gardens; these were Ciro Lavangetta and his underboss from Tucson, Salvatore Di Carlo. Lavangetta was at the extreme corner of the balcony and trying to peer around to the street-side of the building, an impossible project. He told Di Carlo, "I'm telling you, Sal, I heard gunshots and explosions. Something's going on out there somewhere."
As though to confirm Lavangetta's conclusions, the wail of sirens rose up faintly in the distance. He said, "I knew it!"
"It's a long ways off, Ciro," Di Carlo assured him.
"Just the same, it makes me nervous. I wish the Talifero brothers would report in. I'd sure like to know . . ."
After a brief silence, Di Carlo said, "You should have gone out to the boat, like the others. That's the safest place, Ciro. You should've gone."
"All of 'em didn't go yet, Sal. And that's why I didn't either. Look down there and tell me who you see gossiping by the pool."
Di Carlo craned over the railing, "Looks like Georgie the Sausage Man and Augie Mary."
"That's exactly right, and I'll tell you also exactly what it is George the Weenie is try'na put in Augie's head!"
Di Carlo soberly nodded his head. "He's really been pitchin', Ciro."
Lavangetta snorted a string of obscene words, then added, "I ain't going to stand for it. You know that. I won't take that, Sally."
"I wouldn't take it either," Di Carlo agreed.
After a brief silence, Lavangetta fervently declared, "I wish this Bolan would come in here, Sal."
"He's going to be a dead son of a bitch if he does," Di Carlo growled.
"Yeah, but so might somebody else, Sally, if you know what I mean."
Di Carlo thought about that for a moment, then: "I guess I get you, Ciro."
"Yeah, I guess you do. I wish he'd come in here before everybody makes the boat, that's what. And I wish he'd blast a certain weenie king right in his liver sausage, that's also what."
The sirens were becoming louder. Di Carlo sniffed the air and said, "I smell smoke, Ciro. Maybe this Bolan is already here and is right now burning the joint down."
Lavangetta laughed quietly. "Maybe somebody is going to think so anyways, Sally."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"This Bolan" was not at that moment burning the joint down, but he was quietly casing it from a soft drop some 200 yards down the beach. The binoculars could not give him the full details, but his mind supplied what the eyes omitted and the general lay of the place came out into a quite logical extension. He studied the bell tower and the men standing on the balcony just below, then shifted to the adjoining roofs and what he could see of the beach area and the galleon. Hardmen were everywhere. They patrolled the beach, perched upon the otherwise deserted galleon, and hovered in the shadows of the red slate roofs. It was a hardsite, no mistake about that.
Bolan's attention returned to the men on the balcony of the penthouse. The one who was waving his arms about seemed vaguely familiar. Bolan racked his memory, sliding through the newspaper and magazine photos he had studied so often, and then he had his "make." It was Ciro Lavangetta, a bit heavier in the jowls than his pictures indicated, but Ciro nonetheless. The man with the worried face standing beside him Bolan could not make, but he would remember him if he ever saw him again.
Bolan wondered what would happen if he were to lob a round of HE into that bell tower. If he could work in about a hundred meters closer, he could do it . . . but then he might lose his angle in the intervening rooftop. As he debated the question, the two men left the balcony and went inside.
Bolan was a bit elated around the core of cold deadness which had settled into him upon finding Margarita's mutilated body. He had located a Capo; undoubtedly others were on hand also. It was a hardsite, and that usually meant VIPs present. He fell to studying the terrain between his soft drop and the hotel. If he could find a rise down there somewhere, maybe he could get that angle he needed, and maybe that angle would give him the passport he needed for entry into the hardsite. One way or another, he meant to get in there.
Salvatore Di Carlo was greatly disturbed and excitedly whispering "Dammit, Ciro, I'm telling you — cold crying Christ, it ain't worth it. You can't just take it on yourself to-"
"Stop telling me what I can't do!" Lavangetta replied furiously. "The old weenie's got one foot in the grave already anyway, he's got hardening of the dollar signs in his arteries, and I'm not taking no more shit from that weenie!"
"Just th' same, Ciro, you know better than me that-"
"That's right, I know better than you, Sally. Listen, he's done everything to me all day except shiv me. And if you could only see, I probably have shivs sticking out all over me just the same. If I'd been screwed by that old cock knocker every time he thought about it, I'd have a hole like Madame Bazonga."
"Well, it's your funeral I guess, Ciro."
"What do you mean, my funeral? It's our funeral, Sally, if we let Georgie make weenies out of our territory. Isn't it? Our territory, Sally."
"Yeah I figured you'd be getting around to that, Ciro."
"You better be damn glad I am. It's just you and me now, Sally, don't forget that. You and me. And listen, I don't want no fucking around on this job. I'm hoping, Sal, that you're understanding what I am telling you."
"Sure, I understand you, Ciro," Di Carlo replied in a defeated voice. "But I guess you better tell me exactly what you've got in mind."