Stanno and Apostinni hurried over to the tower and the hardman dropped his find into the enforcer's outstretched hand. It was a sheet of note paper, with something heavier folded inside. A marksman's medal slid out of the fold.
Stanno cleared his throat, which had suddenly become very tight, and read aloud the message that was printed neatly on the paper. The message was, simply, "Twenty-four hours, Vito."
"See, I told you," Apostinni murmured in a voice with everything suddenly gone out of it.
With cold frustration, Stanno growled, ."Well, how the hell did he… ?"
The men on the tower were intensely occupied with another find. "What's this up here on the wall?" one cried. "Boss! This thing is loose! It's…"
"What is it?" Stanno yelled.
Apostinni died a little further and mumbled, "The accessory shaft."
"The what?"
"You know," Goldhearted Vito whispered. "Air conditioning, power cables, TV lead-in, all that."
"Well where does it go to?" Joe the Monster fumed.
"Out back I guess, Joe."
"You guess? Stanno clapped his hands together and dispatched a gun party to check it out. The hardmen bolted away and Stanno yelled at the men on the tower: "Well go on, go on through!"
But it was too late, Apostinni knew in his heart, for a hot pursuit now. The casino boss had been high-rolled by a real pro, and he was experiencing a new and terrifying insight into the mathematics of chance.
The guy had just casually dropped in, allowed Vito to hand over his black book, and then just dropped the hell back out again.
Some men made their chances, others merely rode with them.
And Heart of Gold Vito would never again be absolutely certain as to which category he himself fit into.
Chapter Eight
Combat brief
A Negro beauty in a nurse's uniform opened the door to Bolan's third buzz. Her eyes recoiled somewhat as the black-clad figure stepped inside the private clinic, then she giggled and told him, "I didn't know you in your soul underwear."
"How's the patient?" Bolan asked her.
"Doing fine," the nurse reported, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Doctor looked in on him at four o'clock. He's going to be all right."
"Is he sedated?"
She shook her head. "No, he's resting easily."
"It's very important that I talk to him, Mrs. Thomas."
The woman pursed her lips as she studied Bolan's face, then she smiled and told him, "Just a sec. I'll ask Doctor."
Bolan watched her disappear through a doorway off the lobby, and again he reflected upon Lyons' determination to remain in his role. The clinic was situated in the city's Westside, in the Negro district. There was a personal relationship of some sort between Lyons and the doctor, and the cop had insisted upon being brought here. The setup seemed ideal to Bolan, and apparently Lyons was in the best of hands. Still… Bolan had an uneasiness about the thing.
A tired looking black man appeared in the doorway, wearing pajamas and a cotton robe. He looked Bolan up and down, then wryly commented, "I see you're dressed for destruction. Why do you want to talk to Carl?"
"It's urgent," Bolan assured him.
"He's resting good. Can't it wait at least until daylight?"
"It can. But maybe I can't."
The doctor understood. He stared at the visitor through a brief silence, then he jerked his head and said, "Okay. Don't take too long."
Bolan said, "Sure," and went on along the corridor and into Lyons' room. The doctor's wife had gotten there ahead of him and she was quietly rousing the ailing cop.
"You have a visitor, Carl," he heard her say.
A dim lamp on a side table had the room in soft shadows. The cop was flat on his back, no pillows. His left arm was tied to the bed and he was getting an intraveinous drip-injection from a bottle of clear fluid in a bedside stand.
Bolan moved in on the other side. Lyons looked him over and said, "You're blitzing."
"Softly," Bolan replied.
The nurse cautioned, "Don't get him too excited," and she made a quiet exit.
"What's up?" the cop asked.
"Maybe a hell of a lot. First, though, I brought you a gift."
Bolan produced Vito Apostinni's black book and placed it in Lyons' free hand. "Don't try to look at it now. It's the black money ledger on the Gold Duster operation."
"How the hell did you get that?" Lyons asked with a grin.
"I traded Vito his life for it."
The cop's grin faded. "Some trade."
"Yeah. Uh, your funny man is okay. For now. He told me about ASA and the show biz muscle."
Lyons smiled and commented, "It's hard to keep a secret in this town."
"But that's not the all of it, is it? It goes a lot bigger than Anders, doesn't it?"
Lyons gave him an odd look and replied, "I can't talk about that, Mack. New subject, please."
Bolan said, "New subject, hell. My game is survival, remember? I need everything I can possibly use."
"There's a place where friendship ends," the cop muttered stubbornly.
A smile formed at Bolan's lips and stayed there, unable to influence the eyes. A cop's ethics could be a curious thing, he was thinking. A cop like Lyons would bust his own mother for pandering, then promise her immunity from prosecution if she'd turn state's evidence against her pimp. It was a game called "law enforcement" — a very close cousin to the game of survival — and Bolan could understand games like these.
"I didn't come begging," he said. "I came trading. I gave you Vito's book. Now what the hell am I getting in return?"
The cop sighed. The grin returned. "Not much," he promised.
"California carousel," Bolan said, getting right to the heart. "I figured it was an operational code. It's not. So what is it?"
"It's a mob circuit. One big wheel, turning endlessly."
"Turning what?"
"Everything. Talent, sex, narcotics, contraband, black money, extortion, corpses. You name it, the carousel's turning it."
"How does L.A. get into the action? I mean, what's your interest?"
"We have a seaport, remember? Also the major international airport in the west. And we have a border with a foreign country. Do I have to lay it all out?"
"So what's new?" Bolan asked. "That's been going on since year one."
The cop sighed. "What's new is the combination."
After a moment of silence, Bolan said, "Okay, I'm listening."
"You can quit listening. This is where you go to hell, buddy."
Bolan whistled softly. "That big, eh? Top Secret and all that?"
"Something like that," Lyons growled.
"Okay, just clue me. Then I'll drop something on you that's maybe bigger."
The cop's eyes were speculative, wary. Quietly, he said, "Get out of here, Mack."
"I actually do have something."
Lyons let his breath all the way out and sighed, "Okay. Vegas is where the brass ring is at. That help you any?"
"Sure. But I still want to know about that combination."
"You tell me something interesting first," Lyons suggested.
"The eye of the brass ring in Vegas is the Gold Duster," Bolan said quietly.
"Do tell. Why d'you think I broke my body there?"
"But it's like the eyepiece of a telescope. Another ring is at the other end, much larger, a hell of a lot more important."
Lyons was interested. "And what is that?" he asked.
Bolan smiled. "What's that new combination?"
The cop smiled back and muttered, "Bastard."