8: DOUBLE-TEAMED

There was no doubt in Bolan 's mind that Tommy Carlotti was "Mr. Kirk"—the man behind the mysterious surveillance of Rocco Lanza. The major question remaining unanswered was the one of motivation. Was Carlotti carrying the action on his own? Was he doing it under orders from Marco Vannaducci? Or was he working in collusion with some outside party?

It would be utter nonsense to even consider the possibility that the whole thing had been no more than a snare for Blancanales and Schwarz. There would have been no need to go that far with such a scheme; if Carlotti or others in the mob had known the true identity of the pair, the first contact would have been the last—if that had been the logic behind the contact.

Bolan had 'returned both boats to the yacht harbour and docked them. He asked Toni, "Were the guys still using their cover names?"

She nodded. "Morales and Logan, yes.. Rosie doesn't even introduce me as his sister, and I go by my married name—Davidson. Why? What are you thinking?"

He dismissed the far-out possibility with a shake of the head. "Nothing that would make sense. I was just wondering—you know, I guess, that there's an open Mafia contract on those two."

She replied, "Sure, I knew that. But what . ."

"Don't you know yet that Lanza is a Mafia boss?"

The girl's eyelids fluttered rapidly over that idea.

Bolan hastily told her, "Relax, I've already dismissed the thing as a coincidence. Look, Toni— I'm running on damn tight numbers. That means that I'm into a blitz and I have to place every step with care. Do you know what I'm saying?"

She gave him a mechanical nod of the head.

She was one who always had it together, he was thinking. So lovely, so damned alluring—even while obviously worried and scared half out of her skull, she kept it together.

She was telling him, "You're about the closest thing to a god Rosie has ever believed in. Talks about you all the time." She showed Bolan a stiff smile. Mack would do it this way—Mack did it that way. Yes, I know what you're saying. You're saying that Rosie and Gadgets can just go to hell, you've got a job to do."

He could not decide if she was working him, accusing him, or simply being outright candid. Pol had certainly thought the world of this kid sister, carried wallet snapshots of her all through Vietnam, bragged about her constantly. "A chip off the old Blanc," he used to call her.

Bolan smiled sadly to himself and lit a cigarette while he thought into the situation. He blew the smoke toward the horizon upon which was perched the glass and stone mansion of Rocco Lanza, then quietly replied. "That's the way you see it, eh?"

"That's the way," she said. "It's also the way Pol would see it if your situations were reversed. You're both crazy. You put such importance on—on . . ."

Bolan was still gazing toward nowhere. Speaking almost to himself, he said, "I'd knock down the gates of hell if I thought I'd find them there. The problem is that I don't know. And I've already blown the soft approach. The mob knows I'm here, and they know I'm blitzing. The whole New Orleans mob is walking around on eggshells right now. Your man Kirk, by the way, is a local hood and budding capo by the name of Tommy Carlotti. I've already rousted him and put the mark of the beast on him. He'll be nowhere but in a crowd of torpedoes from here on."

"I'm sorry," the girl said quietly, dropping her gaze to an inspection of delicate hands—folding them, clasping them. "It's a fault of mine—leaping to judgment. You are concerned, aren't you?"

Bolan growled softly, "Sure I'm concerned. But you didn't let me finish stating the problem. There's more, and you may as well be aware of it. Time."

"What?"

"Time.Too much of it. Too little of it. You say they've been missing for a week. That's too damn long. Do you read that?"

Toni released a quivering breath as she replied, "Yes, I guess I read that."

"Okay. I'm going to do what. I can. As I said, though, I'm on tight numbers. I'm committed to a timetable and a course of action that had all come together long before I knew about Able Group. I have to follow through, on the battle plan. It's the only thing I can do at this stage of things. It's also probably the best thing I can do, as concerns Pol and Gadgets. If they're still alive—and I do mean if —then they're for sure in the hands of at least one of the factions I came here to bust. The best I can think to do at the moment is to simply bust on— and hope that our guys will get dislodged somewhere in the process."

Toni's lip curled as she commented, "Isn't that sort of like blowing up a burning building to save some people trapped on the top floor?"

"That's about what it amounts to," Bolan admitted. "But the whole town has gone hard by now, and that's the problem. Let me give you some background first, Toni, then I'm going to offer you a choice of action. Marco Vannaducci is the man and the power here. But he's old, dying slowly from a dozen ailments and plain decay, hounded by the feds—a desperate man desperately trying to hold together what he's got. And what he's got is an empire with annual revenues estimated at about a billion—that's a billion."

"That's a lot," Toni agreed, eyes saucered.

"More than the average person can even visualize It's a lot of bucks and one hell of a magnetic attraction for a bunch of cutthroats who'd slash their bosom buddies for a handful of nickels. Marco's designated heirs are Carlotti, Lanza, and a few more psychopaths who each would love to be the only heir. And that's just one side of the coin. On the other are roughly a dozen other large Mafia families who control the rest of the country. They'd all love to get together and slice up this Southern pie for their own fat bellies. Are you reading?"

The girl had been watching him intently, studying him "I was just thinking," she quietly admitted, "that Able Group sure stumbled into one hell of a mess."

"Right," Bolan agreed. "You did. But it wasn't carelessness that got you here. Vannaducci has the best-covered tracks in the country. It's layer upon layer of business fronts, concealed interests, the whole bit so interwoven and complicated that most of his own underbosses don't understand it. Except for Lanza. He's the business brain—and that's where the wicket gets sticky. There's a lot of local jealousy and manoeuvring for position on the old man's inside track. At the moment, though, Lanza has the better track position because he's the only one who really understands the business. The others are hoods, street punks in the big time who got there by being the meanest on the block. Which doesn't make them the smartest—just the most dangerous. In one sense, they need Lanza. On the other hand, they're afraid he'll make the big grab and come up with all the goodies. So . ."

"God, we really walked into it," Toni commented miserably.

"That still isn't all. I've been orchestrating a few things on my own. Setting it up, helping it mature, heating the pie and sending the odours wafting northward. The best way to beat a strong organization, especially a furtive one, is to get them to eating one another. I—"

"Divide and conquer."

"Right. Let the enemy engage itself. The pieces that are left are much easier to mop up. It's no coincidence of timing that I happen to be on the scene now, that I started my blitz when I did. I've been getting very strong intelligence readings of a crisis approaching for the Dixie mob, and timed for Mardi Gras. I rousted Carlotti this morning because I figured him for the strongest heir apparent, and I wanted to add some stiffening to his backbone."

"I don't understand that. Stiffened against what?"

"An invading coalition of New York and St. Louis mobs. It's been brewing a long time. St. Louis is the poorest territory in the country. It needs expansion. The New York bosses have decided it's time to stretch southward, before the old man lets everything fall to hell in intrafamily rivalry. St. Louis got the nod to move in. They've just been waiting for the right moment, and I believe this is it. I don't want them to find it too easy. I want a double knockout here—not an easy victory for either faction."

Toni said, "Wow. You're a sneaky dude, aren't you?"

"Name of the game," Bolan said. "I just want you to understand what I mean when I speak of tight numbers. And now we come to the nitty gritty. A 'course of action for you. What I'm going to suggest will carry an element of risk. Play it right, though, and I believe the risk will be minimal. How's your guts?"

"Shaking," she admitted with a droll smile "But game. What's the suggestion?"

"Go to Lanza. Tell him the whole story—that is, about Kirk and the Able Group job. You've just discovered that your company was conned into an illegal surveillance contract, and your only wish now is to set things straight for the victim. Tell him how you conned him Point out every bug in the place."

"Hey, wow," Toni said, ashen-faced. "He'll choke me and throw me in the pool. Won't he?"

"You conned him once, you could do it again. He liked you, didn't he?"

"Well, sure . but ..."

"Play it right and cover yourself, you could come out with a friend for life. Consider the guy's position. He knows what's going on around him. You'll be doing him a big favour. You can show him his enemy. This Kirk guy, the one with a famous look-alike."

"He'd get that connection, eh?"

"He'd get it. Might even be inclined toward a bit of gallantry toward the lovely lady, help her spring her partners. That's the angle you have to play. Common friends against a common enemy. But— and this is important—you've never seen a tape from Lanza's house and you know absolutely nothing about his business matters. You're dumb, dumb, dumb—see?"

"That's easy," she commented shakily. "I just go in and be honest. Except I don't know he's Mafia."

"Right. You're scared, repentant, want to set things straight. And you want to find your partners."

She tossed her head and said, "Okay. I guess I can handle that. This will help your game, too, won't it?"

"It could," Bolan admitted. "It could also end yours—there's that possibility and you have to understand that. The whole thing could backfire. I'm not urging you to do it. But if you want a course of action ...

"What it sifts out to is 'put up or shut up.' Right?"

"That's not what I had in mind," Bolan assured her.

"It amounts to that, just the same. It's one thing to stamp one's foot and demand that somebody else do something. That's what I was doing, I guess. Now you're saying—"

"I'm saying nothing. It's a grasping at straws. I can't work an angle like that on Lanza. You can. If you want to." Bolan checked the time. "The meeting at Vannaducci's broke up an hour ago. Lanza will be home by now and digging fortifications. So I—"

"Where do you keep your crystal ball?" she asked, attempting a smile.

"I know my enemy," he explained. "First rule of warfare. Well—what do you say? Are you game for the game?"

"I'm game," she said, sighing. "But—how do we get back together? I mean, we will—won't we?"

"I'll try to cruise the corner of Claiborne and Canal at noon sharp, then at every even hour until we connect. I'll try, that's all I can promise."

"Fair enough. There's, uh, no place I can contact you by phone—or leave word?"

He grinned. "Not a chance. But if you just yell, from wherever you may happen to be, chances are I’ll hear."

"You mean you've got this whole town wired for sound?"

"The pressure points, anyway."

"Gadgets told me once that you were a very apt pupil."

"I had a good teacher," Bolan replied, very sober once again. "Ready to push off?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," she said, trying and failing to be flippant.

He showed her a stern smile as he said, "Okay, hit the beach. Remember—it's your game. Stay hard."

"I know what that means, too," she told him. "First, though, I've got to get hard."

"You are," he assured her. "Toni ..."

"Yes?"

"You're a hell of a gal."

"Thanks. You're a hell of a guy. You stay hard!" She leapt to the pier and hurried away without looking back.

Bolan gave her a count of ten, then moved out behind her.

He wasn't about to let that kid go it alone—not for all the timetables in funnytown. But he was cooling it, laying back and scouting the backtrack, and it was just as well that no one knew that but himself— not even Toni.

The hardest lessons learned were the longest remembered.

Mack Bolan was security-conscious, too.

The Lanza joint would be double-teamed.