Someone was saying, "Ay, Mr. Gambella, take it easy, you're in bad shape, here you better sit down."
And someone else was saying, "Mr. Gambella, he already sprung the broads. I guess that's the first thing he done."
Again he was screeching, "Bullshit, don't tell me no sprung d'broads. You take some boys over there and bring 'em to me!"
The guys were giving each other knowing looks, then one of them shrugs his shoulders and says something dumb, something like, "That was FranMe, I know damn well that was Frankie all the time." He jogs off toward the little house, and some other boys trot off after him.
Then he hears Augie telling one of his lieutenants, "Get some boys over there and see what that hole was blasted for. And you better send some over the wall up here and let them check it out from the other side.
Come on, trot, I think this guy has brought a crew or two with him this time."
Bullshit, who cared, the goddam jucktrt made men were dead!Two years of sweat and tears gone up in flames, and Freddie is trying to get this across to Augiei, but Augie is just standing there and saying I know, I know, but how about Rocco and Philip and Johnny Satin, your brother bosses, aren't you feeling just a little sad about them too?
It still didn't seem real, it just couldn't be happening, and some guy is kneeling there over him and tying a rag around his arm — a broke arm ought to hurt more than this, shouldn't it? — then there comes gunfire, that just couldn't be possible, no gunfire until now? A chopper, a deep growler — Freddie knew that somebody was getting cut up… then more explosions and… Christwhat was that?
"What was that"? Answer me, you asshole, what was that?'
"This guy is hitting us with something I don't know what, Mr. Gambella. It's like guided missiles or something, I don't know. You just be still now and don't try to move around none."
And Augje's worried voice, "Rick, you gotta go get that guy. He's not through yet."
"Geez, it's suicide, Mr. Marinello. I mean, this is like battlefield type fighting, not street fighting. This guy has got hisself a armyout there."
"Then you got to go against that army, Rick. We can't just sit here and take this. Get some boys and rush that hole, and do it now."
"/ want them broadsl I want them broads brought here't You hear mel"
"You just better shut up about those goddamn fucking broads, Freddie. Or I'm liable to stick mydick down yourthroat!"
Where did Augie get off talking to Freddie the First that way? Where the hell did he get off saying he was gonna… ? "Did you say they're gone, Augie? He sprung the broads?"
Marinello's face was no more than a shimmering blob above his and it was patiently telling him, "Now look, Freddie, you're hurt bad. You're gonna lose that arm, it's almost blown clear off. Now shut up and be still or you'll be losing more than an arm."
Lose an arm? Freddie Gambella lose an arm? Whoever heard of a one-armed royal highness? I gotta tell you this, your royal highness, your goddamn fuckin' arm is missing.
Freddie began to laugh. Christthese fuckin' crazy nightmares. Hey Sam this is Fred. Wake me up, I'm having one of those goddamn nightmares again. You put it down, Sammy boy, you put it down on the streets for me and thee.
And he thought he heard his old buddy Sam telling him, "Sure, Freddie, that's me. No greater love is there but a guy will put it down for his friend."
Put it down, Sammy. Christ, Dear God, Reverend Holy Mother, put it down for old Freddie, eh? Wake me up outta this goddamn fuckirf nightmare, eh!
Chapter Nineteen
Animals
So they had decided that it was all over, and that it was safe to abandon the sinking ship now. The vehicles were being fired up and brought around in a line on the macadam road, a caravan forming. And, behind them, Stoney Lodge now more stone than lodge, but the flames still roaring high into the sky and lighting up the entire hardsite, even the little buildings were blazing and just about all gone. Yeah, ground to powder, dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
The gates opened as the caravan approached. The procession halted there while the two gatemen scurried into waiting vehicles, then the caravan began rolling again. Ten cars, Bolan counted them coolly as each one swung through and onto the road, the headlamps courageously blazing forth, each of them a big sleek limousine that gleamed even in the darkness. And what a terrible darkness.
The Executioner checked his supply of armor-piercing rockets, recalculated the range for the bazooka, and decided that he was satisfied and ready.
He was lying in wait for them atop a knoll barely a quarter-mile from the walls of the remains of Stoney Lodge, a few hundred feet above the roadway where it jogged through a shallow valley, and he urged them, "Come on, boys, close it up, take up that slack."
He wanted them bunched — bumper to bumper would be ideal — but he wouldn't be greedy, he would settle for just having them all in the valley at once.
Then they were there, strung out like a railroad train below him, taking it slow and easy on the snowpacked road, and he was sighting down on the lead vehicle.
Whoosh, one away. The missile streaked unerringly down the course, impacted on the forward doorpost, and the gleaming limousine instantly became a twisted mess of flames, stopped dead and skewed across the road in a perfect plug.
Whoosh, two away, and the rear vehicle went to hell hi a hurry and all the others were squealing brakes — spinning all over the place like a crazy-quilt derailment of rail cars.
Three away, and four away, and why weren't they shooting back? — the Executioner wished that frozen lump would move out of his chest. Guys were running around down there and yelling, car doors all standing open, those that were left, guys leaping into snowdrifts trying to run up the other hill, falling all over themselves and tumbling and shding back down.
Yeah, Leo, this is what I'm accomplishing. Dead as I am, this is my accomplishment.
And five, six and seven away, whoosh whoosh whoosh, as rapidly as the tall man with the grim face could fight another rocket into the tube and line-up again. Yeah, the scene below was an item of pure warfare. Burning and twisted and junked metal, raging flames and billowing smoke and the screams of the dying. Die, limousine, you who serve the darkness of the animal hi the minds of men — die, you lousy…
Yes, he was lolling cars, not men. Cars, the product of men's minds and hands and hearts and souls, and it was just a symbol, yeah, just a symbol of things that make men rotten. Die, symbols in burning twisted metal, giving way to the whoosh of another kind of technology — the exploding insanity of pure war and man's hatred for man.
And yeah, German Shepherd, you're a purer kind of animal than me, you kill because that's all you know howto do, and I kill because right now that's all I wantto do.
God in heaven knew better!This was not what he wishedto do, but whoosh whoosh whoosh it was a pure assault, no misses — ten of ten — and probably most of the people down there had managed to get out in time, except for those first two targets.
So good enough.
Bolan stood up, felt of the jerking muscles of his face, and he left the bazooka lying there, and he said, "That's what I think of your blessed thing, Freddie."
Then he withdrew, and got into his Ford war machine, and he shook the dust of that place from his feet.
For a little while, at least, the nightmare was over.