Miami Massacre

"Hell, no, Joh

Portocci's nostrils flared and his hands quivered as he yelled, "Then tell that stupid broad there to get rid of that stupid damn top! Tell 'er Joh

The girl's head snapped up and her eyes glazed under an indefinable emotion — fear, or perhaps anger. Her hands dropped to her side and the glazed eyes sought the gaze of Vin Balderone. She knew, the eyes said, that Joh

Weakly, Balderone said, "F'Christ's sake, Joh

"I'll do it myself!" Portocci snarled, his anger seemingly feeding on itself. He shifted his weight to one elbow and seemed ready to lunge toward the girl. He halted, however, in mid-lunge as something incomprehensible happened to his face. The snarl disappeared and became a distorted grimace around the suddenly enlarged mouth, the tip of the chiseled Roman nose caving in and becoming lost in the collapsing structure just below as bits of flesh and bone and teeth seemed to explode outward in a frothy red fountain. In that same electrifying instant, he was flung rigidly back to the cushions of the lounge with a bounce of rapidly relaxing muscles.

Balderone's stu

The girl was screaming, crouched just off her chair and bent oddly off balance in a time-stopping inspection of the messy remains of Joh

Balderone took a confused step backwards, one hand clawing toward the hardware inside his jacket, instinctively reacting to the presence of sudden and violent death. In that micro-instant of understanding, a deeper instinct moved him and he began ru

And perhaps he remembered some of those many times in the past when Miami Vino had been on the opposite end of the gun, when others had been ru

He leapt into the air suddenly as he reached the corner of the pool, twisting grotesquely in a sidewise and uncoordinated fling into the purified waters in which he proudly owned a "solid half-int," defiled now with his own geysering blood, and Miami Vino sank slowly to the bottom without hearing that second cra-ack of a distant sniper's special.

Chapter Five

Case of prosecution

A deeply disturbed Captain of Detectives left his vehicle beneath the portico of the curving drive and entered the synthetic luxury of the motel lobby. He paused to get his bearings, then pushed on through the hushed atmosphere, beyond a line of potted palms, and through another doorway opening onto the pool-patio. Here uniformed officers stood in quiet consultations with guests and employees while men in civilian suits conversed among themselves and moved purposefully about the flag-stoned patio to point out specific features and to jot findings in small, identical notebooks. Two others stood beside a chaise lounge, bending to a close inspection of the still form of a man clad in bathing trunks. A few yards away a medical examiner knelt beside another corpse, this one fully clothed and obviously recently reclaimed from the waters of the pool.

A man at the chaise lounge looked up and noted the Captain's arrival then hurried over to greet him. "Looks for sure like a sniper's work, Captain Ha

The captain nodded curtly and proceeded on to the lounge. The other detective, Lt. Robert Wilson, kept him company. Ha

Wilson nodded. "Checked in late last night. What's your interest, Captain? Was he one of your VIPs?"

The Captain grunted and reached into his pocket for a cigarette, lit it, and let the smoke drift out slowly as he replied. "No, but I've heard of him. Thought I'd better come down and check it out. Doesn't the name mean anything to you, Lieutenant?"

Wilson shook his head and stared at the mangled face. "All I have is the make from the hotel register. John J. Portocci, Phoenix. That's all."

"Big man in the rackets out there," Harmon explained. He swung about and cast an oblique gaze toward the pool. "Who's the other victim?"

"One of the owners of the hotel." Wilson followed the captain to the other body, adding, "His name was Vincent Anthony Balderone, age 56, single, kept an apartment here. That's about the only info we have at this point."

The captain stood behind the medical examiner, gazing down at the lifeless form. "I can add something to your make," he said musingly. "So can you, if you'll think about it a moment. Does the sound of Miami Vino ring any bells for you?"

The younger detective had moved to the other side of the body. He caught his breath and murmured, "Sure, sure, that's the guy the Crime Commission was investigating last . . . wasn't it just last year?"

"Yeah. And the year before that, and the year before that, and just keep going back. We have a file on this guy a foot thick. He's had his finger in every illegal operation in the state for the past few years . . . a to Cosa Nostra, Lieutenant. Big man in the Mafia's Florida territory. Before that, he'd beaten eleven murder raps in three states, all of them gangland rub-outs in which he was either directly or indirectly involved. Nol-pros in each case, lack of evidence. Yeah, we've got a file."

"You can close it now for sure," the medical examiner commented, rising with a sigh from his examination. "An inch of his jugular vein is missing, along with assorted other bits and pieces. Dead before he hit the water, I'd say."

"Guess he ran out of nol-pros's"Wilson said soberly.

"You bet he did," the captain replied. He nodded to the M.E. and led the Lieutenant a short distance away to speak to him privately. "The Dade Force is taking over this case, Bob," he said in a quiet voice. "There's much more involved here than simple homicide."

Wilson started to say something then checked himself and grunted a "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Looks as though we have The Executioner in our town."

"Aw, hell. You serious?"

Ha

The Lieutenant whistled softly. "Then he's moving pretty fast. Is there anything to definitely place him here?"

The captain shook his head. "No hard items, if that's what you mean. But this is the jet age, you know. A pilot flew a private charter down here from Phoenix last night. Left shortly after the hit on Portocci's place. His passenger got off in Jacksonville, but instructed the pilot to continue on to Miami and to deliver a package to a man who would meet him at the airport. He was met by not one man but about twenty. The pilot got suspicious and reported the incident before he departed on his return trip. I came upon the report by the merest chance. The package, Bob, was addressed to our friend Portocci there . . . and the description of the man who claimed it matches our late buddy Balderone."