Chicago Wipe-Out

7 The course

The sign outside the modest North Side residence had announced the offices of Joseph Berger, "tax consultant." According to a brief note in Bolan's intelligence book, however, Joseph Berger was actually Leopold Stein, a brilliant Chicago attorney who, in his own way, had also waged a war against the mob... and lost.

Bolan was familiar with most of the details of Stein's story. He'd been a successful and respected lawyer, well-established in a comfortable practice, when he launched his "citizen's campaign" and began crusading for "a free Chicago." For two years he had weathered threats, beatings, economic pressures, and various forms of political harassment while he dug into and exposed the various links in the chains that held his city bound. And when he began to step on overly sensitive toes, the cancer of power focussed its attention on this insignificant upstart long enough to finally crush the source of irritation. Or so it must have thought. Stein had been indicated on charges of fraud and criminal conspiracy, disbarred from practicing law, financially ruined, physically maimed, crippled, and finally reduced to the shame of hiding under an assumed name.

Now forty-seven years of age, the plucky crusader looked sixty. His hair was snow-white. Prolonged pain and mental anguish had ravaged the once strong face — now heavily-scarred and bearing a leather patch over an empty eyesocket. He was partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair — but Leo Stein was still alive and, in his own way, fighting back. He spent most of his time now preparing legal briefs and background files, anonymously, and forwarding them to various grand juries and crime commissions in Illinois and neighboring states. According to Bolan's notes, Stein was the foremost living authority on mob operations in and around Chicago — it was said that he understood the interconnections of criminal influence even better than most men inside the mob.

In Bolan's thinking, this man had given more than anyone could reasonably ask. And so it was with an air of apology that the Executioner told him, "We need your help, Mr. Stein."

"Oh, I doubt that," the attorney replied, inspecting his visitor with a critical gaze from the one good eye. "I've been following your war with interest, Mr. Bolan. I don't entirely approve, but... well, I have to admit that your approach seems more effective than mine." His attention returned to Jimi James, and he added, "And certainly you're far more admirably supported than I."

The girl's eyes dropped. She murmured, "I'm afraid I'm just so much excess baggage."

"What do you want?" Stein asked Bolan, suddenly all business.

"Someone is helping you remain covered," Bolan replied, just as directly. "I want you to ask them to do the same for Miss James."

"I'll do that," Stein replied without hesitation. "What else?"

"I want protection for her right away, tonight."

"You mean that you want her off your hands."

"Think of it any way you like. I just want the girl protected."

"You don't feel capable of doing that yourself?"

The guy was probing him, and Bolan knew it. He said, "No sir. The chase is getting pretty hot." He drew an imaginary circle about the bullet hole in Jimi's jacket. "Toohot."

"And you have confidence in my security. That's it?"

Bolan nodded. "Yes sir, I have."

"But I'm not all that secure, am I?" the lawyer said quickly.

"Sir?"

"How the hell did youfind me?"

"Any security can be breached," Bolan replied. "She'd still be a thousand times better off than with me."

"You didn't answer my question," Stein said fiercely.

"No sir, and I don't intend to."

The attorney laughed and turned back to the girl. "All right. Leave her here. I'll see that she's provided for."

Bolan got to his feet. Jimi rose also and quietly told him, "I think I'd rather not."

"There isn't that much choice," Bolan quietly replied.

Her eyes fell and she said, "I — I guess you're right. You don't need me on your coattails."

A muscle rippled in Bolan's jaw. He steeled himself and replied, "That's right. Not tonight, that's for sure."

"H-how will we ever find each other again?" she asked in a barely audible voice.

"I'll find you," Bolan promised.

Stein coughed and dryly observed, "He found me." He threw back his head and yelled, "Missy!"

A cute kid of about sixteen appeared immediately in the doorway to the office. Stein told his visitors, "This is my daughter. She answers to Missy. Missy, say hello to the pretty lady and get her out of here for awhile. I have some business to discuss with the troubled gentleman."

Bolan showed Jimi a reassuring smile and nodded his head. "Go ahead," he murmured. "We'll say goodbye later."

Jimi accompanied the youngster into the living quarters, pausing just inside the doorway to throw Bolan a wistful glance. He again nodded his head, and she went on.

Stein had moved his wheelchair to a low buffet and was busying himself with a silver service. "Come and get it," he called over. "I can't play the perfect host in this rig..."

Bolan went over and accepted a steaming mug of coffee. "Thanks," he said, "it's just what I need."

"You need more than that, but it'll have to do for now. Go on and sit down. I'll be with you in a second."

Bolan took the coffee to an easy chair and carefully sipped it, finding that it was liberally laced with something more stimulating than mere caffeine. The attorney rolled over to the desk and told his guest, "That'll brighten your perspectives a bit, though. Tell me, Mr. Bo... aw to hell with that, let's get directly to first names. Tell me, Mack, what do you think your chances are of busting this town?"

Bolan again sipped the coffee before replying, then: "From one combatman to another, Leo, I guess it's about a chance in a million."

Stein soberly nodded his head. "About the way I count it. So why'd you come? Why Chicago, of all places?"

Bolan offered his host a cigarette, got declined, lit one for himself. He sighed and said, "After New York, I guess Chicago was a must. I ran into something there that really shook me up. You ever hear of a Cosa di tutti Cosi?"

"That translates, roughly, as..."

"The Big Thing, or Thing of AM Things," Bolan helped.

Stein shook his head. "Sounds very romantic, but no — I've never heard of anything like that around here."

"Picture," Bolan said quietly, "this entire nation chained the way Chicago is."

Stein was evidently picturing it. Presently he said, "Well, it's almost that bad already."

"You really think that?"

The lawyer nodded his head. "Sure. They're everywhere, into everything. The legislatures, the congress... ward, precincts, cities, counties — from one end of this country to the other. Sure, it's that bad."

"Think about it for a minute, though," Bolan urged. "Think of national party organizations, the federal executive, the senate, the house, justice department... all of it. Think of all that completely and in factdominated by the mob. Are we there already?"

"Oh, I'd hardly think that. No, hell no, thank God, things haven't become thatbad. On the other hand, they're not..."

"Not what?" Bolan prompted.

Stein's face was working at an old frustration. "Do you realize the amount of public propaganda that's being issued merely to convince the people of this nation that the syndicate — the Mafia — does not exist!It's the most fantastically flagrant public conspiracy I've ever encountered — why hell, it's a Madison Avenue campaign. Despite all the evidence, all the facts, all the sworn testimony, all the official revelations — despite everything that's been done for the past three decades to expose this menace — there are public officials in practically every echelon of government who are swearing and be damning that the Cosa Nostrais purely a creation of the American press."

"They can say it until they're blue in the face," Bolan declared quietly. "That doesn't change anything. I'm not fighting ghosts, Leo."

"Hell, I know that. And anybody with a grain of sense or a spark of honesty knows it, too. I was just drawing a contrast between the Gloomy Gussies and the Pollyannas. You're telling me that the mob is about ready to pull a national coup — these other idiots are trying to..."

"I'm not Gloomy Gussing you about the tutti Cosi, Bolan assured his host. "I lucked onto the summit affair, the organizational meet, at a joint out on Long Island. And before I busted it, I heard enough to shiver my underwear down. These guys are going for all the marbles. If they have their way, they'll soon be handpicking even our presidential candidates."

Stein seemed to be chewing the information. Presently he sighed and took a pull at his coffee. "Just last week," he said, "I read where this professor from Columbia or some school back East told us to quit worrying, the Mafia was dying in the generation gap."

Bolan smiled. "I saw that."

"Lord deliver us from the academicians," Stein groused. "This educated fool conducts a 'study' of an individual Italian family and then releases his breathtaking finding that there is no central pattern in the web of organized crime gobbling this country. Where the hell does he get off? Against a million pages of hard evidence — against facts, figures, names, dates, places, against the most overwhelming mass of evidence ever developed anywhere — where the hell does he get off interviewing one little Italian family and... Tell me something, Mack. You've been inside the syndicate. Have you ever known oneof them who would even give you his true name? Huh?"

Bolan chuckled. "Most of them can't even remember their true name," he replied.

"Ugh. Cosa di tutti Cosi, eh? Okay, I'll buy. It's the logical next step. But how does that bring you from Long Island to Chicago? What's the tie-in?"

"Chicago's the model city," Bolan replied quietly. "It's the unofficial blueprint for the nationwide thing." He sighed. "I just thought I'd like to try my hand at tearing up the damned blueprint."

"So why don't you hit this Big Thing itself?" Stein queried. "Why fool around with blueprints?"

"What the hell is there to hit?" Bolan muttered. "It's like taking on an invisible octopus. You hack away at it and you thinkyou're chopping off a tentacle here and there — but you're never sure — and even if you do succeed in chopping one off, the damned octopus just promptly grows another in its place. I can't hit things, Leo. I can only hit people."

"Uh-huh, I guess I get your drift. But that's the fatal weakness of your brand of warfare, Mack. The only way to beat the mob is to remove their avenues of operation. You must destroy the thing, the vehicle."

Bolan shook his head. "For me that's impossible, and you know it. Armies of crime-committees and federal agents are working that angle — and, hell, they're all hamstrung. You should be the first man to recognize that. For me, the thingis people, and they can't hamstring me. Their vehicle and their avenues of operation resolve finally into people— rotten, corrupt, grafting, grasping people."

"You can't kill every rotten person in the country, Mack. We'd suddenly have a population explosion in reverse."

"I can't believe that," Bolan muttered. "The rottenness is in that one percent at the core of the thing. They distort and manipulate everything around to the point where simple ordinary people have to get with the system or get out. I don't consider a guy rotten simply because he's trying to get along in. the world."

The attorney heaved a deep sigh and told his visitor, "Well, maybe you're right. Maybe I've allowed bitterness and self pity to get the best of me. Or maybe it's just the business I've been in all my life. The practice of law, my young friend, will make a cynic of any man. So all right, you're in Chicago and you're gunning for that one percent of rot at our core. For this town, call it five percent — and that's not bitterness talking, it's experience. But even if it were only one percent... do you know how many living souls constitute one percent of this city? We have something around three and a half million people in Chicago proper, about eight million in the metropolitan area. Take one percent of eight million... how do you propose to handle eighty thousand people?"

Bolan said, "I don't. That's where you come in."

"A-ha. So I docome into it."

Bolan grinned. "Sure. You're the man with the knowledge. You've been feeding info to the crime busters for three years or more. What has it actually accomplished? Try feeding me, for just a minute or two. I won't demand evidence, statistics, legal briefs, depositions, testaments, nothing. I simply want names. I want ninenames, Leo."

The attorney was showing Bolan a twisted smile. He said, "You want me to become an accessory before the fact — an accomplice to mass murder."

"Call it what you like," Bolan told him.

"What you want me to call is nine names."

Bolan nodded. "I want the Chicago Four, the cartel. I want the two syndicate bosses. I want to know City Jim's real name. And I want the two guys who are finking on the federal and state levels."

Stein's eye was revealing his surprise. He murmured, "You know quite a bit already."

"Not enough," Bolan said. "I need the names, Leo. I need to know the people."

Stein sighed. "You want me to finger nine men for execution."

"That's what I want. The same nine who fingered you."

The lawyer looked away for a moment, then he opened a drawer of his desk, withdrew a metal box, unlocked it, and produced a small leather notebook. He placed the book on the desk and told Bolan, "I really don't approve of you. You know that. But I have to admire you. And I think you deserve support — from somequarter — hell, from everyquarter. But I just don't... well, call me gutless."

Bolan snorted, outraged at the suggestion. "We should have a country full of such gutlessness," he growled.

"Hiding here," Stein muttered, "... like a groundhog, burrowing into the earth for protection. And now that I have a chance to really..."

Quietly Bolan observed, "You don't look all that groundhogish to me. Personally, since you brought it up, I'd say you're a bit too brazen about the whole cover. You shouldn't be engaging in a public business. Anyone could walk in here on the most routine business and spot you. You need to be..."

The attorney halted Bolan's monologue with a chuckling protest. He threw a photo on the desk and said, "Know this guy?"

Bolan was looking at the image of a youngish man with curly black hair, good strong facial lines which — while not entirely handsome — were ruggedly appealing. Gleaming eyes revealed an inner sensitivity, a humaneness and good humor that partially softened and dimensioned the man. "No," he said. "Who is he?"

"Me," Stein replied quietly. "Two years ago."

Bolan's eyes met the one good one; he smiled tightly and said, "Okay, yeah, I see you in there now."

"The point," the attorney said, "is that not even my own dear departed wife would know me now. Tell me, Mack — is it a blessing or a curse?"

Bolan fingered his own rugged features, altered by quite a different method. "I guess it's a bit of both," he muttered.

"Yes... well..." Stein lifted the notebook and dropped it back to the desk. "It's a bit of groundhog too, I'm afraid. I'm sorry, but I won't incriminate myself." He again lifted the notebook and this time slapped it noisily against the desk. "Call it gutlessness, or call it, simply, too damn much reverence for the law. I'm just another kind of learned fool, Mack — first cousin to the academician. But... law is my bag, and..."

Bolan got to his feet. "I respect your principles, Leo. Thanks, uh, for the coffee." His gaze swung to the door. "And thanks for taking the girl off my hands. Put her in good ones, eh?"

"I almost wish someone would steal this damn notebook," Stein said, ignoring Bolan's parting speech. "I don't know why I keep it locked up. I've sent copies to every damn crime committee in the country — several times, in fact. And still it's business as usual for our one-percenters." He sighed. "I guess I'd consider it good riddance if someone just lifted it, took it off my hands." He again slapped the desk with the book and let it lie there. "Stand still a moment, I'll send your young lady out — but don't expect me back. I detest tearful farewells."

The shattered man wheeled past Bolan, paused, turned back to fix his visitor with the one-eyed stare, and said, "Good luck, Mack. God, be careful. Don't end up like this." Then he wheeled about and rolled quickly out of the room.

Bolan picked up the leather notebook and secured it into the pocket of his jumpsuit. Thanks, Leopold Stein, he said to himself. If I end up half the man you are, I'll consider it one hell of a victory.

And then Jimi was running through the doorway and into his arms. "I don't mind staying now," she said breathlessly. "He scared me at first, but — well, Missy told me all about it. They threw acid on him, and bombed his home — oh, all sorts of terrible things. I believe they killed his wife, too — Missy's mother — but she only hinted at it, and I didn't want to pry. And — oh Mack! — that whitehaired old man is only forty-seven years old!"

Mack Bolan knew better. The guy was — about a million years old. And Bolan was gaining on him fast.

"You take care, Foxy," he sternly told her, and he kissed her hard and warm, and then he went out to close some more years between himself and Leopold Stein.