Caribbean Kill

Chapter Five The purse

Tony Lavagni's report to the war council of bosses was an embarrassing ordeal. His eyes were slightly glazed as he stared beyond the mouthpiece of the telephone and on to the scene just beyond the window of the office, as another sheet-draped corpse was being added to the lineup.

"The thing was sour from the start," Lavagni told his distant audience. "The guy had us set up right from the beginning, nobody can tell me different. And I mean all the way from Vegas. I believe he was counting on being brought here to Glass Bay all the time."

There was a long silence on the line, then a voice which Lavagni recognized as that of New York boss Augie Marinello came in with, "I guess you could be right, Tony. We now discover that the men from Washington have a certain black book that's giving them a lot of thrills. It turns out to be Heart of Gold Vito's last will and testament, mostly testament. We know also that Vito was closely involved with Mr. Blacksuit just before his — uh, untimely death. It figures that Vito's book was in our friend's hands before it went on to Washington."

"That's terrible," Quick Tony groaned.

"It's worse than that," another voice commented.

This one sounded like that little prick from the Bronx, the guy that took over Freddie Gambella's death-ridden organization. "Vito was too careful a bookkeeper. He had it down to dollars and dimes, destinations, names, the whole..."

Marinello's cautious tones cut in with, "Let's remember our problems with telephones, eh. The thing is, Tony, you're probably right. The guy is maybe on another bust. You know what that means."

"Yeah. Well I..."

"Of course we had thought of that possibility when we asked you to meet him there. And if you can't meet the guy at Glass Bay then tell me, Tony, where canyou meet him?"

"It's not all that tight here," Lavagni explained in a muffled voice. "I had nearly a hundred boys on the reception committee. We had everything covered, and I mean all of it. It's just… dammit, there's never nothing sure about this guy. It's almost like he's supernatural. You almost get the feeling sometimes that the guy reads minds or something."

"So what are you doing now to recover the situation?" Marinello asked.

"I got every car we had on the place out looking for him. I also got a couple of whirly birds that should be getting here in a few minutes. And I got in touch with our San Juan connections. They're sending committees out to cover all the roads coming in there from this part of the island. We got four big boats here. I sent them out. They'll check into everything that's floating, with the exception of the U.S. Navy. Soon as the whirlies get here, I'll send them on searching patterns from the air. Beyond all that, sir, I quite sincerely don't know exactly what else I can do."

"You can take some lessons in mind reading," said the little prick from the Bronx.

"What do you need from this end, Tony?" Marinello asked hastily, as though trying to soften the sarcastic comment from the youngest Capo.

Lavagni rode that wave of sympathy. He humbled himself to reply, "Whatever you think I could use, sir."

It didn't work. "Okay," the big boss told him. I'm glad to see you're thinking straight, Tony. Pride goes before the fall, eh? So you won't think it's a slap in your face if we sent Gus Riappi down to lend a hand."

Quick Tony choked back his displeasure at the suggestion as he replied, "Course not, sir. All I want is to stop this guy. I don't care about nothing else right now. I've worked for Gus before, I can..."

"You won't be working forhim, Tony. We're just splitting the territory. You keep on working that end. Follow wherever the trail leads."

"Right, I'll follow it to hell if I have to."

"That's the idea. Meanwhile Gus will be working some other angles."

Lavagni cleared a lump from his throat and said, "The... uh... the Vito book thing?"

"Right. We've cooled everything, naturally, and we'll be setting up a new chain. But we're also going to dummy the old one along. Just for our friend's benefit. We figure maybe he'll come right to us."

"He came right to us at Glass Bay," Lavagni commented darkly.

"Don't remind me," Marinello replied coldly. "I don't have to tell you how disappointed I am, Tony."

"Yessir. Well, uh, we can't write this one off yet. And with me and Gus working towards each other, surely we'll… uh, Gus knows how I work so I guess he won't be getting in my way."

Marinello chuckled and said, "Well come to think of it, Tony, I guess this does develop into a horse race, doesn't it. Winner take all, eh?"

Lavagni understood perfectly. He replied, "Right, sir, I get you."

"Just get Mr. Blacksuit, Tony."

"You make book on that, sir."

The connection went dead and Lavagni slowly hung up. He turned to Charlie Dragone with a tired sigh and told him, "I don't blame them; they're terrible disappointed."

"What'd they say about Triesta?" Dragone wondered aloud.

"I didn't hear any tears splashing off the table." Lavagni sighed again. "They're sending down a replacement. They better replace the whole joint. I wonder how we managed to keep the telephone line."

"Did I hear you say something about Gus? Big Gus Riappi?"

"Yeh," Lavagni growled. They're giving him a piece of the action." He got to his feet and walked out of the office, shielding his eyes against the bright sunlight and gazing into the skies.

Dragone followed him outside. "Just a piece?" he asked.

"Yeh. They've put us in a horse race. Winner take all."

"What's that mean, Tony?"

"It means that whichever one of us gets Bolan also gets to sit at Arnie Farmer's vacant desk, that's what it means."

"God, you mean…?"

"Yeh." Lavagni lit a cigar and watched the smoke drift skyward. "I think I hear those whirly birds. It's about damn time."

Dragone was looking at the potential Capowith new eyes. "You mean you'll be going clear to the top?"

"With Bolan's head in my sack, yeah." Lavagni took a hard pull at the cigar and sent his companion a sidewise glance as he exhaled the smoke. "How'd you like to change families, Charlie?"

The veteran triggerman took his time in replying. I'd have to think about it," he said slowly. "I kinda like it where I'm at. But I… well, I guess if there was something in it…"

"Would you think there was something in standing at the right hand of a Capo, Charlie?"

"Listen Tony… you know better than to ask. I mean, if you mean…"

"That's exactly what I mean, Charlie. Listen. We got to put a sack on Bolan's head."

The exultant glow in the triggerman's eyes was already hardening to a calculated determination. "Where do we start?" he asked.

"Get on the radio and see if Latigo has anything yet. Then pass the word, there's a ten thou' bonus for the boy that comes up with Bolan's tracks, twenty-five-thou' for the one that brings in his head."

"That'll put some lead in their peters," Dragone agreed.

"I hope they get a hard that never goes down."

Lavagni said. "I want them to wantthis boy, Charlie. The same way that you and I want him."

"Offer the contract purse, boss."

"Huh."

"Give 'em something to reallyscramble for."

Quick Tony was weighing the idea. By the time the various territorial bonuses were tacked on, that contract was worth somewhere around a cool quarter-mil. It was a hell of a lot of money. On a head-party expedition such as this, the pay-off ordinarily went to the contractor in charge, with the split going however he wished to make it.

"Well," he said musingly, "the man said winner takes all. That purse is peanuts compared to… Okay. The boy that comes in with Bolan's head gets the purse, all of it, the whole thing. You pass that around, Charlie."

"You just bought yourself a crew of man-eating tigers," Dragone replied, grinning. He hurried away to spread the news, and Quick Tony resumed his scan of the skies.

He hoped that he was buying Bolan's head. At a quarter-mil, that would be the sharpest deal a guy could ever hope for. Yeh. It would be a horse race well worth the price of winning. Big Gus, of course, could be thinking the same way.

Lavagni fidgeted and watched the helicopters swoop in over Glass Bay. Yeh. It was going to be one hell of a horse race.

Steady monitoring of the enemy's radio signals had produced the temporarily comforting conclusion that the hounds of hell were off the track and ranging far east of the retreat route. And, for Bolan, the end of a network of dusty trails was an isolated shack, several miles inland and well buried in the agricultural maze of the coastal plateau.

He pulled the jeep into a wooded area near the house and covered it with brush while the woman went on to clear the way for him with her friends. Before Bolan had completed the camouflage job, a slightly built youth of perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two emerged from the cabin and stood quietly watching him.

Bolan threw him a friendly wave and went on with his task. A moment later the Puerto Rican was standing beside him, a cautious smile on his face. "I will help, senor," he offered.

Bolan returned the smile and said, "Sure." He slung a Thompson across his chest and passed the other two to the youth. "You can take these inside."

The boy whistled softly under his breath and accepted the weapons.

"Call me Mack," Bolan told him.

The smile returned, stronger. "I am Juan Escadrillo."

"This your place, Juan?"

"Si, this place is mine."

"I won't be staying long," Bolan said. "Who else is here?"

"Rosalita, my wife."

"No kids?"

"Now, no. Soon, yes." He grinned. "One is in the belly."

Bolan turned away to mask the sudden displeasure he was feeling. This would be no good. A kid and his pregnant wife — Bolan had no wish to involve them in his troubles. So… perhaps a moment of relaxation, a bite of food, and he would be on his way.

The woman reappeared in the yard, the radio slung from her shoulder. "Will you come inside?" she called.

"In a minute," Bolan replied. He told the boy, "Take the weapons in, Juan. I'll be along."

Escadrillo gave him a fleeting smile and set off for the house, a Thompson balanced jauntily across each shoulder.

Bolan then undertook a routine reconnaissance of the area, taking particular note of the terrain layout and orienting himself with the compass points. He was on relatively high ground and in a patchwork area of small truck-farms. He circled about to a hillside south of the house, and from there he could see the Caribbean, glisteningly blue in the afternoon haze. Off to the east were patches of wild growth and untended fields which were reverting to the jungle. To the north, at a somewhat higher elevation, was evidence of a strip-mining operation.

As he returned to the house, Bolan pondered the information given him by the woman who had brought him here. Her name was Evita Aguilar. She was twenty-six, single, and an agent of the Puerto Rican counterpart of the U.S. Justice Department, Organized Crime Division.

For three months she had been "cultivating" Vince Triesta and observing the visitors to Glass Bay. During that period, she had been Triesta's woman.

Bolan did not disrespect her for that.

In a war like this one, conventional morality was often the greater of two evils. Rightwas getting the mob before it gobbled up everything in sight. Wrongwas not doing so.

Bolan understood. It was his own philosophy. Hit them with every damn thing you have. And a woman had a unique advantage when it came to infiltrating the enemy. Why disrespect her for using her greatest weapon? Bolan did not.

Evita Aguilar was a gal with a cause. She had told Bolan, during that wild jeep ride, "This syndicate is hoping to take from our Operation Bootstrap. This is an economic development program, and it is badly needed in this land of the poor. I will not let these Mafiositake the bread from my people's mouths. Sometimes we must fight the devil with the devil."

Exactly what Bolan himself was doing.

"Since Bootstrap," she'd added, "the per capita income has nearly doubled. This means a great flow of money, new money, at all levels of our economy. The syndicate would divert this flow to their own pockets."

"Yeah," he'd commented. "A five letter word beginning with M is both Money and Mafia."

"Or D," Evita said. "For Dineroand Devils."

Yeah, she was a gal with a cause. And Bolan was glad she was on his side, if only unofficially.

"We have known of you in San Juan since your very beginning," she'd told him. "Officially, of course, our position is that you are a criminal. We would apprehend you and extradite you to the mainland, if you should ever come to Puerto Rico. Unofficially, of course…"

She'd left the rest of it unsaid, but Bolan knew what she'd meant. Many people in her department felt that they were in a life or death struggle with the Mafia octopus, and they would be happy to have all the help they could get. She had made it clear, though, that Bolan must not expose himself needlessly to the authorities.

"Not all of us have the flexibility to take unofficial positions," she explained.

It was the name of the game for Bolan. He understood.

He also understood Evita Aguilar. She was a social worker turned cop; a concerned citizen who had seen social justice crumbling under the pressures of organized cannibalism — and she'd decided to attack the problem at its source.

"This syndicate is corrupting district officials and looting the economy at all levels," she'd explained. "But it is the poor people who suffer the greatest loss. Is it not always so?"

Yes, Bolan knew, it was always so. The Mafia game was no more than the old European feudal system, dressed up for the twenty century and operating invisibly. In its gentlest form it was a method of "taxation without representation," an unconscionable gouging and exploitation of the economy of a people. It was the invisible hand forever in the pocket of the consumer. The corruptor of a nation's morals and of its government. Looter and rapist of industry and labor alike, temptress and panderer, and cheerleader to mass-man's baser appetites and needs.

In harsher variations it was contract murder, intimidation, white slavery, manipulation of competitive sports, narcotics, unrestrained political power, bigtime theft, black marketry — the whole wide range of criminal conspiracy.

Bolan had framed his reply to Evita in characteristic terseness, however. "A guy I met in Vegas," he'd told her, "wrapped up the whole rotten mess in just four words. Ants at a picnic. That's the mob. They don't build or produce, they just plunder. And wherever the picnic is, that's where you'll find them swarming. Where are the picnics in the Caribbean, Evita?"

She had raised her shoulders in a gentle shrug and replied, "Everywhere. Caribe land is the new swinging scene, and not merely for the idle rich. From the Bahamas throughout the West Indies and the Antilles, this is where the action is. The picnic, yes, the one bigpicnic."

"The Caribbean Carousel," he'd commented musingly.

"I have heard this term and wondered about it," the girl replied. "I am sometimes handicapped with the language, you see. Spanish is our official language but English is required teaching in all public schools. And in English, the carousel is a… a…"

She was making a circular motion with her hands. Bolan grinned and helped her complete the idea. "Yeah, a circular horse race without a start or a finish — a merry-go-round."

"Ah yes. The British call it a round-a-bout. In the Italian, this word is carosello, originally meaning a tournament."

"Well, maybe that comes closer to the real meaning," Bolan had commented. "As the mob uses it, I mean. I believe you could help me get into that tournament, Evita."

"I will do what I can," she had promised him.

And now as Bolan returned to the shanty cabin in Puerto Rico's back country, he found himself wondering if any of it was really worthwhile, after all. Here was a lovely young woman, obviously well educated and strongly principled, offering herself up body and soul as a sacrificial victim to the gods of human justice — and to what damned end?

Long after Evita Aguilar had been fully and finally desecrated, long after she had ceased to exist altogether — wouldn't the ants still be swarming at every human picnic?

Well… that was what life was all about, wasn't it? It was neither the picnics nor the ants that made humanity worthwhile. It was the struggle itself, the fight for balance — and the sacrifices that some humans were willing to make to maintain that balance.

Sure, Bolan understood.

It was the story of his own life.

Evita was waiting for him at the doorway.

She smiled and waved to him and called out, "The food is waiting. Come in and meet your friends."

Bolan understood that, also.

He took her arm and went inside to warm human companionship and a moment of relaxation.

In a little while the hell would begin again and the Caribbean carosellowould resume at full gallop.

For now, it was enough to simply re-discover and remember what it was all about. The horse race without beginning or end could wait awhile.

For the moment, Mack Bolan was home… and remembering.