War Against the Mafia

2 - The Rattler

It was just a little past noon when the familiar black sedan pulled slowly through the iron gateway to the suburban estate, the front wheels pausing briefly on a raised lump in the driveway. The driver of the sedan nodded to the young man in the caretaker's overalls and moved the car smoothly along the curving drive of Pinechester. He wheeled on around to the garage area, left the vehicle, and entered the large house through the side door, going directly to the pullcord in the clubroom, announcing his presence. After a small wait, the tall redhead appeared, again sporting silken hip-huggers, these of a flaming green and slitted strategically for ultimate effect. The tailored smile faded from the pretty face. "S-sarge," she stuttered, eyes quickly flicking beyond him in search of another presence. "Wh-what...?"

"What am I doing here?" he finished the question for her, smiling. "Can't you guess?"

The professional smile immediately reasserted itself. She laughed nervously and took a hesitant step toward him. "Mitzi told me you're a devil," she said, her voice rising in obvious discomfort. "I suppose you-you've come to tame me this time, eh? Okay," She swayed forward, hands moving toward his neck.

He stepped back and batted her hands down. "You know better than that," he told her.

"What do you want?" she asked, now obviously frightened.

"I want you to get your girls out of here," he told her, "-unless you want them toasted like marshmallows."

She stared at him uncomprehendingly for a brief moment. "Is the house on fire?" she mumbled.

'It's going to be," he assured her. "Start getting them out. Now!"

Her eyes flared angrily, then wavered under the unrelenting impact of the Bolan gaze, and she spun about uncertainly, then went quickly to a small desk near the doorway, opened a drawer, and fumbled inside. Bolan the cat had moved silently behind her; he shoved her roughly and she fell into a nearby chair with a startled cry. She got hesitantly to her feet, rubbing a scraped wrist against the silken pants, glowering darkly at Bolan as he removed the clip from a tiny automatic pistol he had taken from the desk drawer.

"You better hurry," he told her mildly. "I'm putting the torch to this place in about thirty seconds. Take 'em down the fire escape in the back." He slung the automatic across the room, picked up a newspaper, and held it over the flame of his cigarette lighter. Rheeda gasped and bolted up the stairway.

Bolan tossed the flaming newspaper to the floor, beneath the window draperies, then quickly lit another. Moments later the clubroom was a blazing inferno. Bolan exited the same way he'd arrived, climbed into the car, and drove back to the gate. "The joint's on fire," he called to the "gardener." The man threw him a surprised look, then turned his gaze toward the house, reacted visibly, and immediately took off on a hard run for the flaming structure.

"These old places do go up fast," Bolan muttered to himself, then he grinned and pulled on through the gateway and drove up the road, paralleling the fence, for a distance of about a hundred yards. He pulled onto the shoulder, stopped the car, then carefully eased it alongside the fence and killed the motor. He reached into the back seat and produced the big Marlin, then left the car and scaled the fence, dropping lightly inside with the rifle slung over his shoulder. Smiling grimly, he crossed the grounds to a small knoll overlooking the house and drive, lay down, and again took up a patient vigil.

Women were shrieking and running about, most of them in various stages of undress. Bolan could easily spot the flaming green of Rheeda's outfit. He sighted her in with the scope and her angry face leaped into the field of vision. Bolan grinned. Rheeda was fit to be tied. The old structure was consumed in flames already. The "gardener" was moving slowly among the women, talking animatedly, a large revolver inanely clasped in one hand. The distant scream of fire trucks edged into Bolan's consciousness and a Chiefs car flashed into the driveway moments later, executed a quick circle on the lawn, and bounced to a halt just inside the gate. A uniformed man jumped from the car and waved down the hook and ladder truck entering just behind him, passed some brief instructions, then stepped back and allowed the truck to proceed on toward the house. Bolan grinned again. Telling them to never-mind the hoses, he guessed. The place would be gutted before they could even get the hoses laid out. Rheeda and the women were now clustered about the truck. The firemen seemed to be showing more attention to the girls than to the blaze. Another truck was turned back at the gate by the Chief, who then returned to his car and drove on to the house.

Bolan grinned and waited. There was an explosion down in the fire, followed closely by another. Bolan supposed that nobody had thought to move the cars from the garage. The generally unclad women were beginning to move about restlessly, and one barefoot young lady in a nightgown was trudging along the driveway toward the road. Getting worried, Bolan decided. He could understand why. Some embarrassing questions would likely be raised concerning the presence of so many underdressed young women on the premises.

A police car turned into the drive, stopped and picked up the deserter, then proceeded to the group on the lawn. Bolan could see Rheeda talking to the cop. He sighted them in, studying the faces. Old friends, obviously. The cop was grinning and nodding his head in response to something Rheeda was telling him.

The firemen were watching the house burn to the ground. Most of the young women were sitting on the lawn. Rheeda and two others were in the police car. The Fire Chief was leaning against the patrol cruiser watching the young women. A limousine pulled into the gateway, inched forward, as though from force of habit, and rested front wheels on the macadam hump. Bolan already had the occupants sighted in. Turrin sat on the passenger's side, in front. The man behind the wheel he recognized as one of the "guns" of Seymour's poolside party. Two other men, their faces not visible to Bolan, were in the back seat.

Bolan shot the front tires off the car as they rested on the hump, then put a quick round through the windshield between the two men. Turrin's startled and frightened face passed swiftly through the scope viewer as he hit the deck. A back door swung open and a large man staggered onto the drive, one hand held to a bleeding scratch at the side of his head. Bolan clucked his tongue; he had not meant to hit any flesh on that first salvo. The sounds of the big rifle boomed across the open ground. The policeman leaped from his car and started toward the fire; all attention in that area was directed to the roaring inferno. Bolan chuckled and swung once again onto the car in the gateway. The driver was trying to move the car on shattered tires. Bolan put an imaginary mark on the hood, under which the carburetor should rest, and levered two quick shots into there. The car stopped moving immediately; the hood blew open and resettled at a skewed angle, and flames licked up around the opening. All doors popped open and galvanized men erupted from the car and sprinted for the cover of the trees a few yards distant. Bolan had been expecting it; he punched a.444 through one man's leg and let it go at that, swinging about to scope in the police car. The cop was tugging at his holstered gun and running toward the burning car in the gateway. The confusion around the firesite was working to Bolan's advantage, this much was obvious; as yet, no one had connected the knoll with the gunshots. He decided to use the confusion while he could, and punched two shots down onto the police car, dropping two of its wheels onto the ground. The women vacated rapidly, darting about in panic while the Fire Chief's car settled onto two of its rims.

Bolan then slung the rifle at his shoulder and slid down the backside of the knoll, deciding that he had rattled enough teeth for the moment. He had to climb a tree to overcome the fence, dropping onto the roof of the car. He carefully stowed the Marlin, climbed behind the wheel and swung the car in a U-turn across the road, then cruised slowly past the scene of excitement he had just vacated. He caught a glimpse of the policeman, gun in hand and a baffled look on his face, staring at the remains of the wrecked limousine. The car's occupants were nowhere in sight. Curious sightseers were beginning to descend upon the scene, and already several cars were pulled over along the shoulder of the road. Bolan gunned on past the entrance to the estate, a satisfied smile on his face, and set course for the home of Leo Turrin, some eight miles distant in another suburban area.

He covered the distance in something under twenty minutes, arriving at Turrin's front door at precisely two o'clock. A pretty, dark-haired woman of about thirty answered his ring. She responded with a warm smile when Bolan introduced himself, and invited him in. He declined, preferring to deliver his message while standing in the doorway.

"My name is familiar to you, then?" he asked her.

"Oh yes," she assured him. "Leo has spoken very highly of you, Mr. Bolan. Are you sure you wouldn't like to come in? I don't know when-"

"No, I really didn't expect to find Leo here," Bolan said quickly. "As a matter of fact, I just left him a little while ago. I neglected to tell him something important -and I was in the area-I thought I could leave the message with you."

"Do I need a pad and pencil?" she inquired, smiling brightly.

"No, it's a simple message," Bolan replied soberly. "Tell him that the iron man broke the contract, and that I would have returned it to him at the fire this afternoon, but that I figured he could wait another day or two."

"I- I guess I have that," she said, gazing at Bolan curiously.

"Fine. And please remind him that I could have just as easily returned it to his wife and children." Bolan smiled. "That part is important also. Please don't forget it."

The pretty brunette's face had clouded. "Mr. Bolan, I -I don't..."

"It's a sort of a code," he said. "Leo will understand the meaning."

"I see," she replied. Bolan had turned and was heading down the steps. She followed. "Uh-Mr. Bolan-if you will forgive my forwardness-just what is your relationship with my husband?"

He turned to her with a pleasant smile. "Hasn't he told you? Don't you know what your husband's business is, Mrs. Turrin?"

"Well, yes, of course." A vague cloud of doubt seemed to momentarily eclipse the light in her eyes. Bolan guessed the eclipse had been there many times before. "But he has so many interests. I was-just-wondering..."

"Where I fit in?" Bolan finished the question for her.

She nodded, her face a mixture of curiosity and embarrassment.

Bolan hated to hit her with it. She seemed a very nice person. But there were overriding considerations. "I'm one of his guns."

"What?"

Bolan casually opened his jacket and let her see the.32 snuggling into his armpit. "Didn't you know that your husband is a Mafiosi?" he asked calmly.

"A what?" She practically screamed it, her face twisted into a stiff mask of shock and horror.

"I'm sure there's enough Latin in your veins to figure that out, Mrs. Turrin," Bolan said cordially. He moved on down the steps and into his car without looking back. She was still standing there in the doorway when he drove away, body rigid, hands raised to her face. Bolan felt like the biggest bastard in the world. It wasn't much fun rattling those kind of teeth. He sighed and headed the black sedan toward Walter Seymour's estate. Well, a rattle was a rattle. It was that sort of a war. Tomorrow that pretty woman would be a widow. And tonight she would have a very frightened husband on her hands. There was no morality in a holy war. It was simply a matter of ultimate good versus ultimate evil. It did not really matter that good becomes evil in the heat of the battle. Combat reduces everything to evil-life itself becomes an evil thing in the heat of the battle. How many times in bygone years had he threshed through these same old stale ideas? Why torture himself with mystical concepts of good and evil? The Mafia was evil. Any opposition to the Mafia is therefore good. The lines of battle were clearly drawn. The only morality in battle was to fight the good fight, to stand strong against the assault and to counterattack unfalteringly when the time was come. This was a soldier's morality. Mack Bolan was a soldier's soldier. He glanced at his watch. If the traffic did not get too bad, he could make Seymour's place by three o'clock. This rattle would prove interesting indeed. Yes. Perhaps he would make it a death rattle. And perhaps the vibrations would make themselves felt throughout the inner circle, the high council, the family fathers. Perhaps he would rattle their house down.