"I had to eat shit," he announced in a choked voice. "That's the first time I — listen, I ain't eating no more."
"Which one was that?" asked a crewchief. "Pat or Mike?"
"Who the hell would know?" Stanno growled. "Look at one, you're looking at both. Talk to one, you're talking to both. All I know is, he made me eat shit. And they'll be here about six o'clock."
The other man took a nervous pull on a cigarette and said, "You mean the brothers are coming here personal?"
"That's what I said!" the Vegas enforcer muttered. "What's more, we're being invaded. From all directions. They're coming in from everywhere, taking over our action."
"So whatta we do, Joe?" another chief asked quietly.
"Whatta we do?y Stanno showed them a sick smile. "We do what the brothers tell us, that's what we do. They >vant the town buttoned down — and solid. Thank Christ we're ahead of them on that. Did Ringer get all those calls, made?"
"He's still at it, Joe. Want me to check?"
"Yeah, check," the boss said.
The crew chief hurried out of the room and Stanno went over to a window to peer through a crack in the heavy draperies.
"How do you button down a whole damn desert, though?" he asked in a thick voice. "I bet that bastard's out there somewheres right now, looking at us through a scope. With a quarter million of the company's bucks to keep him warm. And laughing. How the hell does one guy stay so lucky?"
"I wouldn't call it luck," the remaining crew chief ventured. "Not with fourteen bodies laying out down there. I don't think this guy is working alone, Joe. I think he's got hisself a crew. Come to think of it, there might be a whole gang out there looking at us through scopes."
Stanno made a gargling sound and turned quickly away from the window. "Let's don't go making things worse'n they might be," he said.
"He had a crew at L.A. that time," the gunner pointed out.
"Yeah but I..."
The enforcer broke off to receive the announcement from his returning lieutenant. "Ringer says he's almost through," the man reported. He rubbed his chin in a nervous gesture and added, "How many dead boys did we count, down on the road?"
"All of 'em were dead," Stanno rumbled. "Tell Ringer I..."
"Wait a minute, Joe. Ringer's talking to Mr. Apostinni right now. He says — well I only counted ten bodies down there. Is that right?"
Stanno squinted at his crew chief and replied, "Counting the bits and pieces, yeah, four boys and a bagman in each car. That adds up to ten of my fingers. How many of yours?"
"Well, Mr. Apostinni says he was sending out another shipment, besides the finance. He says he was sending us a fink, he says for a termination contract. That would make eleven..."
"Bullshit!" Stanno yelled. "We don't double up nothing on these finance shipments. He don't go ringing in no terminals at a time like that!"
"He did just the same, Joe. He says it was a urgent..."
"Bullshit!" Joe the Monster snatched up the telephone and punched a button to join the conversation on the alternate line. "Pardon me," he announced. "This is Joe Stanno, Mr. Apostinni. What's this you're telling Ringer about a double shipment?"
A smooth but noticeably flustered voice flowed back in a nervous reply. "That's right, Joe. I know it's irregular but I had too many things on my hands at once here. I've had observers breathing on me all night, and I had to get this other shipment the hell out of here. Now you're saying that this YIP in black has crashed the party, and frankly I don't know what to think now."
Stanno was raging inwardly over the goddam feds and the goddam ever-present fear of tapped phones ind other forms of electronic spying and the constant damned doubletalk on the telephones. Struggling to control the anger in his voice, he said, "Mr. Apostinni, I don't know what the hell you're saying. What I want you to understand though is just this. We're in one hell of a bind and I ain't got time for polite damn talk. Just exactly what are you telling me?"
The other man sighed and replied, "I'm telling you we found a fink, Joe, operating right under our noses. We did what we could to straighten him out here, but he just wouldn't straighten out. I sent him out there for you to handle. The men from up north have been here all night, nosing around, asking questions, everything short of an outright bust. I had to get that terminal the hell out of here, Joe. And now I'm wondering just which shipment your blackie was actually after up there. I mean "
"Yes sir, I know what you mean," Stanno said in a troubled voice.
"What's bothering me, more than the other shipment, is right now this Mr. Fink, Joe. If that guy is on the loose…"
Stanno whistled a brief tune then said, "Well, he is, that's for sure. We didn't find no strange faces in that mess. Chopped up bodies, yeah, heads with nothing under 'em, yeah — but put 'em all together and it's nothing but Cen company men all present and accounted for and with none left over. Plus, I might add, four of my own boys from right here."
"Yes, Ringer was telling me. Well listen, Joe." The purring voice had dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "I realize that he men back east are going to be understandably upset over this financial loss, but listen, what's worrying me the most… we mtertained Mr. Fink here most all day. I mean, if this guy is a fed . . . well, Joe, some things money just can't buy. You know?"
"Yes sir, I know," Stanno replied heavily. "Well look, all this means is this. We got to entertain that VIP, right? We do that, everything else might fall back in place too. Right, Mr. Apostinni?"
"You're the expert in that department, Joe. Til do whatever you say."
"Then do what Ringer says," Stanno growled, and hung up.
"Fuck 'em all," he snarled at his crew chiefs. "Load up a couple of cars."
"Where we going, Joe?"
"Where the hell you think? We're going to Vegas. To aail down that red carpet."
Joe the Monster's "red carpet" was actually a shroud.
And he meant to personally drape it over Mack Bolan's bleeding body.
Chapter Five
The ethnologist
Coming upon the Las Vegas Strip, especially at night, is an experience comparable to finding Oz while wandering through the-Sahara Desert. Beginning at the south edge of the city, the Strip is a four-mile panoram of hotel-casinos, bars, and motels to stagger and enthrall the first-time visitor, a shimmering neon oasis of glamour and excitement and sexuality that seems to continue into infinity across the wastelands of southern Nevada.
The city itself still shows the evidence of its humbler beginnings; in the year of Mack Bolan's birth, Las Vegas was a rough little desert town of some eight thousand citizens and nowhere equal to the fame and glamour of its sister city to the north, Reno. Now after thirty years of explosive growth, Vegas is a booming metropolis of nearly two hundred thousand year-round residents, and it is a city built and sustained by the state's legalized gambling industry. Industry it is. An estimated forty percent of the city's population earn their livings directly from the gambling tables. The annual "take," or casino winnings, are more than double the annual budget of the State of Nevada, and revenues derived from these earnings provide approximately one-third of all taxes collected by the state. Statewide, tourism-gambling enterprises account for the largest employment category; some twenty million annual visitors leave behind more than $700,000,000 each year.
Las Vegas and its Strip get most of this, with fifteen major resort hotels and some three hundred hotels and motels to accomodate this constant surge and flow of fun-seeking humanity.