Tennessee Smash

CHAPTER 4

Bolan carried a small bag into the locker room at the private air terminal and began the Nashville transformation while pilot Grimaldi took care of the formalities at the desk. He changed into faded Levi's and Indian moccasins, nailhead shirt and denim jacket. He studied his hair for a moment, then went to work on a new look to fit the masquerade, combing it straight back from the forehead without a part, adding a streak of white through the middle, finally cementing it all in place with a heavy spray job. Purple-tinted oval glasses completed the transformation. A.38 snug Chief's Special with a high-rider waist clip holster fit snugly beneath the jacket.

He returned to the lobby and went to the telephone to leave a message on the SOG contact drop. "It's La Mancha," he told the recorder. "I'll be at the Holiday Inn for breakfast at six."

Then he stood casually at the large front window and lit a cigarette. Grimaldi completed his transactions and walked right past him en-route to the locker room. He halted suddenly, several paces beyond, and turned back with a sheepish grin overriding a questioning gaze.

Bolan chucklingly confirmed the identification and asked, "Are we set?"

The pilot ambled back to the window and stood beside the big man to tell him, "Yeah. Helicopter is usually available on an hour's notice but nothing's guaranteed. So I took a twenty-four-hour lease." He cracked his knuckles and gazed around the deserted flying service lobby. "How do you do it, guy? I saw you, but I didn't see you. It's downright spooky sometimes."

"Sleight of hand is all in the beholder, Jack," Bolan replied lightly. "The eyes take the picture but it's up to the mind to see what's really there."

Grimaldi was shooting him furtive looks. He said, "If you say so, okay. Uh-the wheels are out back. I got you an Impala. Hope that's okay."

"That's fine, yeah."

The pilot handed over the keys and rental papers. "Where can I contact you?"

Bolan said, "Check into the Ramada, downtown, and hang tight. I’ll be in touch."

"That's ten to fifteen minutes from here," the Mafia flyboy groused. "I'll take the chopper in. There's a place down by the river where I can leave it. Then I'll only be a couple minutes away if you should need me quick."

Bolan nodded his agreement "So long as it doesn't compromise you, Jack."

The guy waved a hand in dismissal. "Don't worry about me. Just hold onto your own ass. If you need a lift out, just scream. I'll be there."

Bolan warmly gripped the loyal friend by the shoulder then went out of there. Strange, sometimes, the curious weavings of fate. He'd first crossed paths with Grimaldi at about the same moment as the first encounter with the SOG people. Grimaldi, while not a truly "made" man was nevertheless an employee of the crime syndicate and therefore inherently an enemy to the grave. The soggers, on the other hand, though not truly cops in the usual sense were nevertheless federal agents bent on upholding the law and serving the ends of the country's justice system-therefore just as dangerous to a guy like Bolan. That both sides of the equation were now Bolan allies was, indeed, a curious and remarkable thing.

The local Holiday Inn was grouped with several other downtown motels overlooking the state capitol grounds. Bolan strolled into the dining room at precisely six o'clock. Employees were scurrying about trying to set up for the breakfast trade and it appeared that they were not yet open for business.

Toby Ranger and Tommy Anders, though, sat with cups held casually to their lips at a window table. Nobody else was in evidence. Bolan helped himself to some coffee and carried it to the table.

"What time does it open?" he inquired, by way of greeting.

Anders looked up with a disinterested gaze and replied, "Beats me, guy. I guess it's self-serve, they got a-" He stopped talking suddenly and flashed a glance toward Toby, then laughed softly and said, "Hell, siddown. I didn't spot you right off."

Bolan slid in next to the lady and gave her a peck on the cheek.

"Watch it, Captain Hard," she muttered. "I have a quick switch and this is no time to be tripping it." Lovely eyes flashed over him. "I like your little suit. But which planet did those hairdo and purple shades come from?"

Anders commented, "It's very effective. I'm still not sure who it is."

"The name is Lambretta," Bolan said soberly. "Guys in the know call me Frankie."

"It fits," Toby said. "… a Madison Avenue cowboy."

"That's the idea," he told her, and turned his gaze to the comic. "Where're you working, Tom?"

"I've been doing a gig out at the new Opry. Also looking into a couple of record offers. Toby's headlining, knocking ' em dead. We been here ten days, now. Should've been on our way out by tomorrow. But it's falling to hell, so I really don't know."

A teenage boy approached the table with water and menus. "We have a breakfast buffet," he announced. "Or the waitress will take your order in a few minutes. I recommend the buffet."

The three exchanged glances and unanimously opted for the self-serve department. Conversation was limited to small talk as they wandered to the steam table and made their selections. Bolan took scrambled eggs and bacon and carried Toby's fruit assortment to the table for her. Anders ended up with melon and tomato juice, but ate very little as the meeting got down to business.

"Tell me everything you know or think you know," Bolan demanded of his companions.

It took a bit of telling. The SOG-3 team had drifted to the Orient from Hawaii and began burrowing into the drug traffic from the Golden Triangle. It was about that time, they related, when Dandy Jack Clemenza had begun making his pitch to the collective families of Mafia for a centralized, single-source approach to America's illegal drug markets. Since the families bankrolled most of the big drug buys on an individual basis anyway, Clemenza's brainstorm was to move en masse to take over the entire North American operation-in an organized manner-thus cornering the entire American import market in illegal drugs. That way, they could control market prices at every level, manipulate the equation of supply and demand and fix an iron fist upon every user and dealer in the country. Included in the scheme was a proposed national distribution network which would minimize legal harassment while introducing a stability which had never been present in such operations.

Distribution was, of course, the key to the whole grand plan. And it marked an extension of interests for the Mob-who, because of the inherent risks, had traditionally remained shy of actual involvement in routine trafficking.

"And this brings us to Nashville?" Bolan commented.

"In spades," Anders replied. "We think that Nashville is shaping into the national headquarters for the entire operation. We know for sure that the first trial run into national distribution will be launched from here. The smack factory in Memphis is the prime facility. There are others, bigger and better, so there has to be a good reason for selecting Memphis as processing point for the first big batch to come over. Part of the reason is Clemenza himself, of course. He's been operating through the Delta Importers front for over a year-but it's always been small potatoes up 'til now."

"You're saying that this new empire has not actually come into existence," Bolan observed.

Toby picked it up. "We think not yet. Apparently Clemenza is still trying to sell the idea to the collective families. That's vital, see. Either they all come in or the whole idea falls apart. Competition would kill it. The shipment we knocked over last night was to have served as the proof run,"

"We weren't trying to kill it," Anders explained. "Just divert it a bit. If the thing looks good to the Families, they'll pick it up with or without Clemenza. We want them to pick it up."

Sure they did. The SOGs had a lot more in mind than the simple harassment of drug traffickers. They wanted what Mack Bolan wanted. They wanted an end to organized crime in America.

"So why did you knock over Clemenza?" Bolan wondered aloud.

"Because we had a replacement standing in the wings," Anders quietly replied.

Bolan sighed. " Lyons, eh."

"Right. But we're calling him Carl Leonetti, these days. He met Clemenza in Singapore last month while the guy was firming up the supply lines."

"Is there a real Carl Leonetti?"

"Used to be. He died of yellow fever ten years ago in Indonesia, at the age of fifteen. He was the only son of Roberto Leonetti who died in the Brooklyn wars a few years ago. The kid was on a hasty world cruise with his mother. They both got the fever, and died. Actually they were on the lam from Leonetti's troubles in New York. Somebody in the State Department neglected to pass the word to Roberto. He probably died thinking the lady took the kid and skipped out on him. Everybody in the Mob, back then, knew that he was scouring the world for them-very quietly, of course. Leonetti had a lot of enemies."

Bolan said, "Yeah." The story was coming back to him, now. "So Carl Lyons becomes the long-missing Carl Leonetti. Go on."

Toby said, "Clemenza liked his credentials and signed him on as his agent and courier in the Far East. It was Carl who brought in the major part of the stuff we seized last night."

Anders added, "By way of South America."

Toby continued, "But he also brought quite a bit more than he delivered. That's the story, anyway. We were setting him up, see, as an alternate to Dandy Jack."

"Good plan," Bolan mused. "What went wrong?"

Anders spread his hands in a gesture of puzzlement and replied with misery in the voice. "We just don't know. Smiley's traveling with him, too, as his wife and assistant. We dredged up a foolproof identity for her, too. She's a White Russian, a granddaughter of some refugees from the revolution. There's lots of them there. She died, too, awhile back-natural causes-but the records don't show it."

Toby said, "They arrived in Nashville right on schedule and left the message on our floater. Carl said that he was already set up with a meeting, to be held that evening, with some "future associates" of Clemenza. And that's the last we've heard."

"You have no idea who he was meeting?"

Anders shook his head. "Neither did he, apparently. We do know that Clemenza's main man in Nashville is a guy going by the name of Oxley-Ray Oxley-real name Raymond Accimentio. He's the figurehead of an outfit called Roxy Artists Management, Inc. We've had the guy under day and night surveillance for the better part of a week. Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

Bolan asked, "How many people are working this with you?"

The two exchanged troubled glances. "There's a bunch," Toby said quietly.

"Call them all in," Bolan suggested. "Clear the field. I don't want to be playing the friend or-foe routine."

Toby said to Anders, "I told you he'd just waltz in and take it all over."

Anders grinned feebly at Bolan and said, "We've been working this for a long time, buddy. We'd hate to see it all blow up now."

Bolan sighed. "It's already blown up, hasn't it? You've got Clemenza on ice and his powders off the market. Without Lyons, you've got no show. Tell all your people to get lost for twenty-four hours. If I'm not back with Carl and Smiley by then, well-then you'll know they won't be getting back. Meanwhile you need to be looking at your options, don't you? One more question. Where does David Ecclefield fit into your operation? Last I saw the guy he was running strike forces in Atlanta."

"He's not doing that any more," was all Toby said.

Bolan was giving the frosty gaze to Tommy Anders. The little comic fidgeted uncomfortably for a moment, then said, "What the hell, Toby-we don't keen secrets from this guy." The gaze shifted to a square fit with Bolan's.

"David has joined the game. He's domestic operations chief. It's a support outfit. Okay?"

Bolan smiled without humor as he replied, "Okay. Give him my respects. And tell him to keep his support out of my way for the next twenty-four hours."

"You're blitzing," Toby Ranger said with a sigh.

"Is there any other way?" Bolan quietly inquired.

For reply she leaned into him and snaked both arms around his neck, melting against him with a soulful kiss.

Anders, on the sidelines, chuckled softly as he commented, "There, damn ya. Now go out there and conquer Music City."

And Mack Bolan knew that he would have to do precisely that.