Battle Mask

"Sure, Deej."

"I wonder," DiGeorge said thoughtfully, in a barely audible voice, "I just wonder . . . you think Frank Lucky's still big with Andrea?"

Marasco gri

"Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Now wouldn't that be the all of it!"

Chapter Seventeen

Man on ice

Tim Braddock leaned forward in his chair and said, "I just don't see how you could let yourself into a mess like this one, Genghis."

Co

"We're getting one," Braddock assured his host.

"On what?" Co

"You name it, we've got it. Criminal conspiracy, for one. And then everything from intimidation to Murder One."

"In what town were all these crimes perpetrated, Braddock?"

The Captain from Los Angeles smiled serenely. "The conspiracy was originally hatched in Los Angeles and we can prove that. The execution of the crime, or crimes, covered a three-county area and possibly four. Sacramento is working with us on this one. We're going to bust the syndicate in this state, Genghis, with or without the help of hick . . . of small-town cops."

"I was told that Hardcase was cancelled," Co

"That's right. And now I'm on special to the Attorney General's office. We're starting here, Genghis, right here in your nice, balanced town. And you'd better get ready to explain why you've been harboring a known criminal in this balanced little town of yours."

"Who says he's a known criminal?" Co

"Don't quibble with me over semantics."

The Palm Village Chief pushed his hat back and scratched his forehead. "There's not one shred of anything to link Pena with the hell that hit this town, and you know it. Don't think for a minute that I wouldn't have him booked and walking toward the grand jury if there was. The fact is Braddock, I have a guest in my home who may or may not be a member of this syndicate you mentioned." Co

Braddock gri

"This Pena character is scared clear out of his skin. He fumbled an assignment, and worse than that, he knows damn well he isn't ever going to have the stuff to get the measure of a man like Mack Bolan. He's scared, he's proud, he's getting old and knows it, and he don't want to go home in disgrace. Now that's the way it's laid out. I could like the guy. I could really like him, if I didn't know what he's been, and I say that even knowing what he is. Do you want to know the kind of a deal he came to me with? I'd help him get Bolan, he'd get the credit and see that I cashed in on the hundred grand bounty. Now that's what brought him to me in the first place."

"And your reaction?"

"Don't insult me, Braddock," Co

"What kind of hook?" Braddock asked, exhibiting remarkable self-control.

"We're bargaining. He knows I'm not too interested in the money. But he's got something else I'm willing to bargain for, and he knows it. Understand this, Braddock. Those boys busted my town, and I'm not standing for it. I want them, all of them, every damn one."

"What sort of bargaining?" the Captain persisted.

"It's been two weeks of Paris Peace Talks. I say something like, 'Well, let's see here now, Lou. I'll give you two of Bolan's fingers for three Mafia heads.' And he says, 'Well, you better let me think about that, Genghis.' He thinks about it for a day or so, then he comes back with a counter-offer. It's never enough, so I try to jack him up a little more."

"Are you levelling with me, Genghis?"

"Of course I'm levelling."

"What makes Pena so sure you have anything at all to offer him?"

Co

Braddock stared dreamily out the window. "It's a fool's game, Genghis," he said softly. "Unless you've got some real bargaining power on your side."

"Okay, so I've got that," Co

"I guess you'd better tell me about it."

"I guess you'd better go to hell."

Braddock sighed. "For the next five minutes, we're off the record. After that . . . well, I just hope you've got clean skirts, Genghis. If you've got Bolan on ice somewhere, too, then . . . "

"That sounds like a threat, Captain."

"It is."

Co

A muscle bunched in Braddock's jaw. He fixed Co

"Up at the New Horizons."

"Is there a plastic surgeon there? Is that a . . . well, Goddammit, Genghis! New Horizons! Are you telling me that's a plastics clinic?"

"Thought you knew," Co

"Co

"My five minutes ain't up yet," Corm replied, eyes twinkling.

"Five minutes!" Braddock yelled. "I could get you five years!"

"Yeah, but you already gave me five minutes," Co

Resisting suggestions that he "mob up" at the DiGeorge villa, Mack Bolan had maintained his accommodations at the resort hotel in Palm Springs while enjoying a free and ostensibly unrestricted run of the estate. He knew, of course, that few of his movements within the villa went unwatched and he suspected the existence of hidden observation posts behind various walls and ceilings. He had even discovered "bugs" in his hotel room. He had nevertheless managed to gather considerable intelligence concerning the combine's operations, such as the information he had been passing to Carl Lyons of the Pointer Detail. Contacts with Andrea D'Agosta had been both rare and fleeting, and characterized by a marked hostility on the girl's part. Through idle conversation with the other "soldiers," Bolan had learned that the girl had been but 20 years of age when her husband of less than a year drowned in a boating accident near San Pedro two years prior to Bolan's entry into Andtea's life. She was, of course, tolerated and deferred to by the palace guard but — as far as Bolan could determine — not actually liked by many of the men in DiGeorge's command. She was "the Capo's kid" and as such could do no wrong. She was variously referred to as "the American beauty rose" — "Miss Hot-ass" — "Th' damn debbatant" — and "Deej's bitter harvest" — none of these, however, within earshot of DiGeorge or his daughter or any of the officers in the guard.