A bearded male moved quickly forward and placed a hand over the camera lens. "Peace, man," he said in a soft voice. "Where does it say groovy group poses for pix at plane palace?"
The traffic had halted and there was some impatient pushing from the rear. Balderone covered his irritation with a forced smile as he looked the youth over. "If you're not ashamed to look that way," he replied amiably, "you shouldn't mind someone taking a picture. You could wind up on the cover of Newsweek, eh?"
Another of the group stepped forward, a tall man in buckskins with a thin leather thong tightly crossing his forehead, from which dangled a tiny peace symbol. A black bandanna was knotted about his head, Arab style, and covered his shoulders. A small guitar hung upside-down on his chest. The face was smooth-shaven but tiny blue tattoo marks dotted the chin and each side of the nose. "Let him shoot," he suggested to the bearded one. "Just get the name of the group right, that's all. It's Love's Family. Ed Sullivan introduced us as Lovers'—"
Balderone cut off the quiet statement with an impatient grunt. Other passengers had begun to push past and Balderone was greatly agitated over this. "Yeah, yeah, wait for me out front, I'll shoot you," he snapped, swinging quickly against the wall. "We're blocking the passageway, go on, go on."
The men shrugged and exchanged smiles and went on, the others following unhurriedly and eyeing Balderone with unconcealed interest. He was inwardly cursing himself for allowing his attention to be diverted by "a hippie band" and anxiously screening the faces that were now hurrying by in the wake of the traffic jam. Moments later the final straggler had passed his scrutiny. He sent a signal to his nearest screen man which would put a search party aboard the plane, then he dashed outside to a waiting service vehicle. "Let's go!" he commanded the driver. They dodged around a small train of baggage carts and sped along the service ramp, hitting the access road to the flying service terminal just as a sleek little red and white Cessna jet touched wheels to the runway far across the field.
"That's it," advised a voice from Balderone's radio. "The charter job. It'll take him about five minutes to get crossed over and down to the hangar area."
"He's gotta be on there!" Balderone snapped back. "Stay covered till I give the signal. And no gunplay unless you just gotta. Let's keep this as quiet as possible."
The red and white Cessna seemed to be taking its time in approaching the service apron. It had paused twice on the taxiway and now stood with engines idling about 50 yards downrange from the private terminal. A man in white coveralls had emerged from the service hangar and stood by the fuel pumps, hands on hips, gazing curiously toward the plane. As he began walking slowly toward it, the Cessna lurched forward and taxied clear of the runway and onto the service apron.
Vin Balderone, seated in the service vehicle in the shadows of the terminal, quickly thumbed his transmitter and said, "Hey Tommy, are you sure nobody jumped out during those stops?"
The voice from the man atop the main terminal came back reassuringly. "Nobody got out, Vin. He just stopped and sat there a while, both places."
Balderone growled something unintelligible and craned forward to study the aircraft. The man in coveralls was marking a spot for the plane to stop. It rolled to a halt and the engines immediately went dead. Balderone again thumbed the transmitter button. "Get set but keep outta sight."
A man with thinning blond hair swung down from the cabin of the Cessna, a mapcase under his arm, and said something to the service attendant. The attendant nodded his head and the pilot walked toward the terminal. Balderone said, "What th' hell . . ." and hastily emerged from his vehicle. "Check out that plane!" he snarled into the radio.
Several men in business suits immediately came out of the service hangar and quickly approached the Cessna. Balderone headed over to intercept the pilot just as five other men filed out of the flying service office and hurried toward the plane. The pilot glanced at Balderone, then halted and watched his approach with an expectant half-smile.
The Mafioso growled, "Where's your passenger?"
"He got off at Jax," the pilot replied, his smile fading. "Are you Mr. Portocci?"
The unexpected query threw Balderone momentarily off balance. He said, thickly, "He got off at Jacksonville? How come he— didn't he charter you through to Miami?"
The pilot repeated, "Are you Mr. Portocci?"
"I represent him," the confused Balderone snapped. A sudden thought crashed through his racing mind and he swung the tiny radio into position and barked, "Hey, he must've switched to that Eastern plane at Jacksonville. We missed the bastard somehow . . . fan around, fan around up there good and goddammit let's at least get a smell!"
The pilot was staring at him curiously. He had opened the mapcase and was fishing out a small package, giftwrapped in colorful paper and topped with a satin bow. "My charter said someone would be on hand to meet me here," he said. "Listen . . . if there's something illegal going on here, I don't know a thing about it. The man asked me to deliver the package — now if it's . . ."
Balderone was glaring at the man with undisguised irritation. He took the package and said, "Now what the hell is this supposed to be?"
"The name is on the tag," the pilot snapped, his own tone matching the other's irritation. "It's addressed, if you can read, to John J. Portocci, and that's all I know about it." He glanced over his shoulder, noting the men swarming over his small plane. "Look, I fly airplanes," he added dismally. "For a salary plus expenses. I didn't know this guy was-"
"No no, you got the wrong idea," Balderone said hastily. "We just can't figger out why he ain't here hisself, but don't you give it another thought, there ain't nothing illegal." He spun away, waved to the men around the plane, and marched back to his vehicle, tossing the small package from hand to hand as though it were too hot to handle.
"Instincts," he muttered as he settled into the vehicle.
"What's in the package?" the driver asked.
"Too small for a bomb," Balderone replied, sighing. "But I got a feeling it's just as bad. It's addressed to Johnny. Imagine that?" A new thought crossed his mind, and his face reflected the new hope. "Hey, you think I should open it? Maybe we been wrong all the way, about this plane, I mean. Maybe this is some of Johnny's business. Something he forgot, maybe, at Phoenix. You think maybe . . . ?"
The driver shrugged his shoulders. "There's only one way to find out real quick."
"Yeah," the big Mafioso growled. He eyed the little package for another deliberative moment, then sighed and carefully removed the ribbon, folded back the paper, and opened the top of the small oblong box. Inside and resting on a velvet pad was a U.S. Army marksman's medal. Balderone's face blanched, and he whispered, "Oh geez."
From a distance of less than a hundred yards, the watchers were being watched. A tall man in a shiny rental car was focusing his binoculars with considerable interest upon the men who were pacing about the service apron outside the flying service, studying the faces, memorizing them, with particular attention going to the heavyset man who had accepted the package from the pilot. He grinned at the look of consternation that swept the thick man's face as the tiny box was opened, then he laid the binoculars in the seat and awaited the next move. A small crease across his forehead was the only evidence remaining of the leather thong which had adorned that head only minutes earlier; a small blue "tattoo" mark showed faintly on the chin where a hasty cleansing had not quite removed all traces of the color pencil.