Chapter Nine

The imbalance

According to the official record, the October 5th bloodbath at Palm Village was sparked when the Chief of Police was stopped at an illegal roadblock on the eastern edge of that city. Aware that his small desert town had become the object of a search for the infamous Mack Bolan by a special detail of Los Angeles police as well as by "triggermen from an L.A. mob," Chief Robert (Genghis) Conn stated that he had at first thought the roadblock to be the work of the special police detail headed by Los Angeles Captain of Detectives, Tim Braddock, but that "it immediately thereafter became clearly evident that I had happened into a Mafia dragnet for this Bolan character."

Upon questioning by reporters, Chief Conn was unable to explain how he had single-handedly slain the eight gunmen at the scene, who were armed with two submachine guns as well as a variety of other weapons. "At a time like that, who's thinking?" Conn remarked. "It's a matter of reflexes and instinct, I'm as surprised as anyone that I came out of it with only a scratched rib."

Several newsmen, in filing their reports, hinted that the full story had not been revealed, pointing out the similarity of this initial battle at Palm Village with other known episodes involving Mack Bolan, the Executioner. The ensuing action in that previously peaceful city proved more typical of police-gangster confrontations and shootouts. Responding to Chief Conn's alarm, three cars of the special LAPD detail which converged on the scene flushed another group of supposed book salesmen (later identified as Cosa Nostra "soldiers," as was the first group) who had been canvassing a neighborhood several blocks to the west of the first encounter.

"They (the book salesmen) opened fire first," said Sgt. Carl Lyons of the L.A. detail. "I wouldn't even have noticed them otherwise. Apparently they had heard the fireworks from Genghis Conn's shootout and, misreading it as a hit on Bolan, were trying to divert us from the scene. There was just myself and Patrolman Hank Edwards in my car. We were sprayed by an automatic weapon from pointblank range, and Edwards lost control of the car. We rolled, and I guess that's what saved us. There were five gunmen in the attacking force, and they had quite an arsenal. The overturned cruiser gave us good cover and the radio was still operational. We had help in a matter of seconds. Three of the hoods were killed at the scene, one surrendered with a flesh wound in the leg, and another tried to escape in their vehicle. He ran right into Captain Braddock at the first intersection and was killed in the collision. The Captain got out of it with only a wrenched shoulder. I guess the single gunman who managed to break out and flee from the shootout with Conn just kept on going. No . . . we have no idea of his identity."

The Palm Village toll so far: 12 Mafia dead, 1 arrested; 3 policemen lightly wounded; 2 private automobiles destroyed; 1 Palm Village official vehicle moderately damaged; 2 LAPD cars heavily damaged. The worst was yet to come.

While most of the law enforcers in the city were still at the scenes of the earlier battles, a Palm Village foot patrolman, alerted to the hostile forces encamped in that city, had become suspicious of a man in a dark, late-model Lincoln Continental which had occupied the Municipal Parking Lot for most of the morning. The patrolman had noticed that the man had been paying rapt attention to an almost identical vehicle in a closeby space. The second vehicle had been ticketed for overparking, by that same officer. "Every time I showed the least interest in that 'overpark' this guy in the other car got agitated," the patrolman later reported. "Finally I just went over and invited him out of the car. I just wanted to see his driver's license so I could identify him later, in case something turned up, you know, but when I got a good look at the guy's face I started deciding I'd better shake him down good first. I just didn't like his looks. Well, he came out of that car fighting mad. He didn't pull no gun, not at first, but he tried to knee me. I sort of twisted around that, but I caught the knee in my gut and it sort of knocked the wind out for a second. But I rapped him across the elbow with my club, and I was down on one knee there, and the next thing I know I'm looking up the barrel of a gun. I don't know why it didn't tear my face off. He was so close when he fired that I got powder burns, and the Doc is still a little worried about my eyes — but believe it or not, he missed me. I heard the bullet sing past my ear, but I guess I still thought I was hit. I couldn't see much and there was a lot of pain in my face. Well, I went down . . . holding my face in my hands. Then I realized right away I wasn't really hurt and I came right back up again. The guy was running across the street. I saw him going around the corner into Lodetown and I ran after him. I saw him disappear into the old Brown's Mercantile, an empty store there. He was with those other people, those book people. I'd just been talking to them a couple of hours earlier, and they'd seemed like all right guys. Well, I was running on over to headquarters to get some reinforcements when I bumped into Gene Perkins, one of our patrolmen. Gene was off duty and downtown with his wife, doing some shopping. He sent me on to headquarters and he tore off for Brown's Mercantile. Headquarters was deserted when I got there. It took me a minute or two to raise the Chief on the radio. And then I guess I passed out. The Doc says I got a light concussion out of that blast in the face."

The narrative continues, as picked up by Patrolman Gene Perkins: "I saw this big black car easing out of the alley behind Brown's just as I was arriving at the scene. I was on foot and I wasn't in uniform, but I always carry a gun. I have a special off-duty revolver I carry m a swingout holster under my jacket. My wife always used to rag me about wearing that gun around — you know, she called me Joe Friday — but a police officer is always on duty, he's never really off. Well, I stepped out in the street with my gun drawn, and I signal for this car to stop. Instead of stopping, he throws into reverse and scoots back inside the alley. I see two men in the front seat, and I think one or two were in the back. I fire a shot in the air and yell for them to halt. I'm running toward the alley, see, and just about the time I get there, they're coming out again, fast this time, and I hear it even before I see it, so I know what's coming. I jump the curb and whirl up against the side of Al's Bar and Grill — I'm standing maybe ten feet from the alley when they come busting out. I put a shot right through the wing vent window and I have to say, the guy has quick reflexes. He stands that big job on its nose, he's not even completely clear of the alley yet, and he's in reverse and gunning backwards again. Meanwhile I'm flat on my belly and getting as small as possible — these guys are returning my fire!

"Soon as they're out of sight again, I'm scrambling to my feet and I'm peering around the corner of the building. They're already halfway to the other end of the alley, and wouldn't luck have it, there's a beer truck down behind Molly's Joint, blocking the alley. They're sealed in, see. This one gunman jumps out of the back seat and he's yelling at the guy unloading the beer truck. The beer driver is ignoring him and going on about his business. I pump a shot through their grill just to keep the pressure on. Then this guy that was doing all the yelling is back there clubbing the truck driver with his gun. I see it, plain as day, from less than half a block away. The one with the gun is climbing up into the cab of the truck. I'm getting plenty of return fire, don't worry about that. Those guys have a chopper down there, and they're using it, so I'm forced to shoot with my left hand around the corner of the building, so I'm not exposing myself. I never tried lefthanded firing before — call it a lucky shot with that little snubnose .32 — but I drilled that hood as he was standing behind the wheel of the beer truck. He falls back into the alley. Then another piece of luck came my way. Or don't call it luck, call it civic spirit and supporting your policemen. Old John Trappolino, lives down on the south side, retired bricklayer, I think, comes into Lodetown every day about that time for a quiet glass of beer and a couple of games of shufflebowl at Al's place. Usually parks right there on Second Street, at the side of Al's. I guess John saw what was going on. Anyway, all of a sudden here he comes in that little Rambler of his, just easing along in low gear, his door open. I see John stepping out of the car and it's still moving, like he was a teen-ager, that nimble you know. The Rambler jumps the curb right behind me and heads into that alley at an angle and it hits the wall of the Village Bakery and dies there, angled into the alley and corking it good.

"Well, these guys in the black car aren't going to be going anywhere for now, for sure. They abandon the car and they're scampering through the back entrance of Brown's Mercantile when I hear the sirens tearing toward Lodetown. I guessed that Arthur, the other patrolman, was sending me some help. I can tell you with no feeling of shame at all that I was damn glad to hear them coming. I'm running for Main Street now, and people are all out in the street trying to see what's happening. This hampers me a little, but I still round ,the corner just as the front door to Brown's opens and a guy pokes his head out. I throw a shot at him. It misses, but takes out the window behind him and this serves the purpose. He thinks they're covered front and back, see, and he dodges back inside the store, and I'd have given a nickel for their thoughts about that time. Then the Chief and the Hardcase cops arrive, and we've really got them sealed in there now. They died hard, though. I wouldn't want to die that way."

October 5th was the day that Lodetown burned to the ground, every building on the four blocks around the square being leveled in a spectacular fire that was immediately beyond the control of the small fire department. It is known that the blaze originated in the interior of an ancient structure which had originally housed a general store known as Brown's Mercantile Company, and which had been short-term rented only that morning to a Mafia cadre posing as book salesmen. It was suspected that the fire had been deliberate set by the three unidentified underworld figures who bad taken refuge in the building, possibly intended to create confusion and thus provide a diversion for their escape. If this was the intent, then the plan backfired on its perpetrators. Their charred bodies, burned beyond any possibility of identification, were found near the rear door of the building.

At the height of the fire, another shootout occurred between police and "two carloads of gunmen" in the street adjoining Lodetown. The running battle erupted when Captain Tim Braddock spotted the two vehicles cruising "in obvious curiosity" past the scene of the conflagration. Braddock identified one of the occupants as Lou "Screwy Looey" Pena, a long-suspected Mafia "enforcer" in the DiGeorge Family. Three of Braddock's officers were found wounded in this encounter, one seriously, and an innocent bystander, a familiar Lodetown figure known only as Indian Joe, was caught in the crossfire and killed. The two vehicles made good their escape, aided by the confusion attending the fire, and were later found abandoned in another section of the city. Dried blood was found in both automobiles, indicating that some of the police bullets had found their marks.

All in all, the full toll of the Battle at Palm Village was a fearful one: 32 commercial buildings, old but still functional and housing thriving businesses were destroyed, 26 private automobiles were burned to a total loss. Surprisingly, there were no human casualties of the fire, other than those previously noted. But Lodetown, a quaint if somewhat bawdy reminiscence of the Old West, suddenly ceased to be. The "balance" of Genghis Conn's town had been overturned. Upon the site of Lodetown would arise a modern business complex with no room for lonely farmhands and their naughty companions of the night. A new tax structure would necessarily emerge from the transformation; the Palm Village police force would become updated, more responsible, less "peaceful."

Staring solemnly at the ashes of Lodetown some hours later, Genghis Corm confided to Doctor Jim Brantzen: "It had to happen, Doc. Your friend was the catalyst this town needed . . . and that I needed. I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry for all the loss of life and property, but . . . at the same time . . . I'm not sorry. If you ever see that friend of yours again, tell 'im that Genghis Conn has no regrets."

"I'll tell him that . . . if I ever see him again," the surgeon replied.

Big Tim Braddock, returning to Los Angeles with his junior officer, Carl Lyons, offered a contrasting view. "You can see what a disaster this Mack Bolan is, Sergeant," he growled. "I hope I never again hear any Pollyannish nonsense out of you concerning the virtues and social values of this feud of his. He brings out the worst in everything he touches. We've got to get that guy! We've got to get him before he sends, the whole damn state sliding into the sea!"

"It's a damn shame," Lyons replied faintly.

"What?"

"I said it's a damn shame," the Sergeant repeated; his voice growing stronger. "It's a shame that Bolan has to take the rap for all of our mistakes."

"Whose mistakes?" Braddock said angrily.

"Ours. All of us. You and me and John and Jane and all of us straight citizens. Bolan's no disaster, Cap'n, no more than a compass is the North Pole. You can fire me if it'll give you any comfort, but if you and I were good enough cops . . . then there wouldn't be any Bolan. Bolan's no disaster, Cap'n. He's an indictment. He's indicting you and me and society at large, for malfeasance and gross . . ."

"That's enough of that!" Big Tim roared.

"Not even nearly," Lyons quietly replied.

They drove in silence for a moment, then Braddock said, "You're out, Carl. I guess I can't blame you for your own personal feelings. I mean, I guess I can understand. But those feelings disqualify you for Hardcase. I'll turn in your release tonight."

"Thanks," Lyons said. "But it's probably an unnecessary formality. Somehow I feel that we'll never see Bolan again."

"How's that?" the Captain asked.

"I don't know." Lyons sighed heavily. "I just feel that we've witnessed the end of an era. I think Hardcase is dead by default."

Braddock shifted his weight uncomfortably, reached for a cigarette, and growled, "Over my dead body, buddy. I'll see that bastard behind bars or I'll turn in my badge."

"Hope you'll enjoy your retirement," Lyons muttered.

"What?"

Lyons slumped over the wheel of the speeding vehicle and peered doggedly ahead. "I was just thinking out loud," he said. "I still think this is the end of an era."

"We'll see about that," Braddock said.

Sgt. Lyons was partially correct. The Palm Village episode did mark a turning point for the Executioner. But it was a turn into eclipse, not into extinction. Mack Bolan, behind his mask, was about to enter the most menacing and suspenseful stage of his adventures against the Mafia. He had decided to "get inside" Julian DiGeorge's Western family . . . and the Executioner's mask was going to put him there.

Chapter Ten

The Lambretta mask

Ten days had elapsed since the fracas at Palm Village and still Lou Pena had not returned to the Palm Springs estate of Julian DiGeorge. A brief message had come back on the evening of October 5th carried by a painfully wounded Willie Walker: "Lou says to tell you he'll be back when he's got Bolan's head in a sack."

DiGeorge promptly doubled his palace guard and spent several days in cautious seclusion. On October 10th, he summoned the convalescing Walker to his chambers and questioned him again concerning the events at Palm Village.

"Maybe the guy is dead," DiGeorge commented at the conclusion of the interview, alluding to Mack Bolan. "Maybe one of those unidentified bodies was his. Maybe the cops are playing it cozy, trying to keep the heat on us."

"I don't know about that," Willie Walker told DiGeorge, "From what I could make out, Bolan wasn't even in that town. We found Julio's car, like I said, but the way I make it Bolan just dumped the car there and stole another one on his way out. It don't make sense that he would dump the car and then hang around waiting for us to find it."

"Don't try to figure Bolan," DiGeorge warned his triggerman. "He likes to think he's tricky, so don't try to say what he would do and what he wouldn't do. You know the town, Willie. Soon as you're up and around good, I want you to take a few boys over there and give everything another quiet look-see. Plan it any way you want, but get some questions answered. If Bolan is dead, I damn sure want to know it. You understand?"

"I understand, Deej," Willie Walker assured the Capo.

During the following few days, DiGeorge had begun to relax somewhat. He went to Acapulco in his private plane on October 12th, combining a pleasant holiday with an urgent business conference which had been hurriedly requested by a Mexican associate. The discussion centered around the new U.S. border crackdown on narcotics traffic, and ways of circumventing this crippling interference with the multi-million dollar business. Returning by way of San Diego, he conferred there briefly with Anthony "Tony Danger" Cupaletto, Caporegime of the California border territory, to pass on the new strategy for the acquisition of Mexican heroin and marijuana.

When Cupaletto tactfully questioned DiGeorge regarding the status of Mack Bolan, the Mafia boss expressed the conviction that the last had been seen of "big bad Bolan." He suggested that Tony Danger "worry more about the Border Patrol and less about fancy ghosts."

"You just get the business communities to screaming about their lost bucks," DiGeorge added. "The Feds think they're pressuring us . . . you show them what real pressure is. Morales is working the other side of the border. You link up on this side and get the straight businessmen to howling about this harassment of border traffic. In the meantime, we'll rely on the boats to get the stuff in?"

The Family was going on with business as usual. As he returned to Palm Springs, DiGeorge's mind was busy with the problem of succession to the Number Two, or "underboss" spot which had been vacant since Bolan's execution of Emilio Giordano in September. Tony Danger was not even a candidate in DiGeorge's thinking. Bolan had executed the most promising lieutenants of the hierarchy. DiGeorge realized that a decision would have to be made quickly to avoid the possibility of ambitious intrigues among his underlings. Rank in the Cosa Nostra meant much more than mere position and prestige; it represented raw power and pyramiding fortunes in what some federal officials were already beginning to refer to as "the invisible second government of the nation."

Bolan's traumatic punches at the organization had produced a more far-reaching effect, DiGeorge knew, than probably Bolan himself even realized. Normal attrition through an occasional death or arrest within the ranks had never posed too much of a problem for the strongly organized and formally administered combine. Intra-family disputes and "licenses" came under the exclusive jurisdiction of that family's Capo; he was a boss whose slightest whim was enforced by a life-or-death disciplinary code. DiGeorge could not remember a time since the Maranzano-Genovese wars of the thirties when there had been such a high attrition rate within a Cosa Nostra family. Thanks to Bolan, the hierarchy of DiGeorge's family was now a shambles.

Things were bad even at the crew level. DiGeorge smiled wryly, thinking of Screwy Looey Pena as his Chief Enforcer. Screwy Looey had been a good soldier. DiGeorge had no doubt that he would forever be a good soldier, loyal to the death, but he simply did not have the stuff for rank. Where would DiGeorge go to fill his vacancies? The families had been closed to new members for years and there was a notable absence of young new blood in the organization. Oh, there were young employees, sure, but hell, you couldn't give an employee rank. DiGeorge filed a mental note to raise the issue with the Commissione, the national Cosa Nostra ruling council, at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, he would have to wrestle alone with the problems of succession.

DiGeorge's reception at Palm Springs on October 15th reflected the tenor of the times. Six vehicles, including an armor-plated Cadillac, awaited him at the private hangar. The reception committee numbered 26, but was headed by a long-haired "soldier" known as Little John Zarecky. Obviously nervous and awed by the great man's presence, Zarecky stammeringly reported to DiGeorge that Pena had not been heard from and that Willie Walker had departed "with a crew" two days previously. This left the palace guard without a ranking commander; Little John had been left in charge. DiGeorge immediately passed the mantle of authority to Philip "Honey" Marasco, a 42-year-old bodyguard who had accompanied him on the Mexican trip. Thus it was that DiGeorge had no one to bring him up to date on the happenings at home as the motorcade wended its way to the sprawling Palm Springs villa, and thus it was that Julian DiGeorge had no inkling of the existence of the man called Frank Lambretta until the startling confrontation on DiGeorge's poolside patio.

The pool and patio occupied a "private" area of the villa, a preserve stormily demanded some time earlier by DiGeorge's widowed daughter, Andrea DiGeorge D'Agosta, who strongly resented the presence of "hoods and goons" in the family home. Andrea, who had been ignorant of her father's underworld connections until the Bolan adventures, was also nurturing an ill-concealed resentment of DiGeorge himself, and the two had been all but estranged during the weeks since DiGeorge's exposure as a Cosa Nostra boss.

DiGeorge was not particularly surprised to find Andrea at the pool. Indeed, she had been spending most of her daylight hours there since the incident at Beverly Hills — "mooning around," as DiGeorge put it, "and wishing we could get the spilt wine back in the broken bottle." What did surprise and shock him was the inescapable fact that his daughter was technically naked and that, moreover, she was entertaining a strange man who was in about the same state of undress.

"You slut you!" was DiGeorge's homecoming salutation to his daughter.

The man in the case was clad only in a pair of wet jockey shorts. He was lying face up on a sunning board. Andrea, wearing only the scanty bottom half of a bikini, was lying atop the man in a tight embrace. She raised her face to her father and said, "Poppa! Turn your head!"

"I'll turn your head right offa your shoulder!" DiGeorge howled. "Get up offa there and get your clothes on!"

In a voice choked with embarassment and anger, the girl insisted, "I'm not moving until you turn your head!"

"Yeah, that's right," the unhappy father roared. "You'll show your bottom to any two-bit bum that happens past, but your Poppa's gotta turn his head!" He had already turned away, however, rocking angrily on the balls of his feet and squeezing his hands together in frustrated rage. "Who's the bum?" he yelled.

Andrea's voice was shaking as she replied, "I'm not talking to you, Poppa, until you calm down. And Frank is not a bum. We're going to be married, in fact, and . . . and . . ." She lost her voice completely and was having trouble hooking herself into the bikini top. A small girl, just over five feet tall and weighing hardly a hundred pounds, she made up in quality of what she lost in quantity, with all the planes and angles which have made Italian beauties the sex symbols of the world.

Her "partner in crime," as she laughingly referred to him later, exhibited no reaction to her "we're going to be married" line. He rolled easily off the sunning board and pulled on a pair of white Levi slacks, smiled faintly at the girl, then went over to the brooding figure of her father.

"I'm Frank Lambretta, Mr. DiGeorge," he quietly announced.

DiGeorge inspected him through veiled eyes. He saw a tall man, lithe, muscular, maybe 30 or 35, a bit too damn good-looking. A playboy, maybe. The Springs were full of them. DiGeorge felt cheapened by his daughter's indiscretion. He let go a disgusted snort and delivered a stinging backhand slap to the man's face. The tall man obviously saw the blow coming but he stood and received without flinching. A four-finger imprint showed a pale contrast to the smooth flesh surrounding it; a muscle bunched in the jaw and a nerve rippled the flesh beneath the eye.

"I guess you figure I had that coming," the man said. He spoke slowly, obviously laboring for self-control. "But that was your first and last free swing. Be advised."

"Yeah, yeah," DiGeorge muttered, "I'm scared to death with your advice."

The girl had succeeded in covering her heaving bosom and was marching toward her father with fire in her eyes. "You're a nut, a nut!" she cried. "You go all holy over an innocent thing like this while all the time you're standing there a murderer, and a thief, and a . . ."

Grunting with rage, DiGeorge had been pushed too far and had let loose another slap, this one aimed at his daughter. She, too, saw it coming and ducked back, cutting off her accusations with an alarmed yelp, but the man called Lambretta had reacted even faster. His hand shot out and imprisoned the infuriated DiGeorge's wrist, abruptly arresting the swing and holding the stiffened hand like a vibrating leaf directly in front of DiGeorge's eyes.

The two men glared into each other's eyes for a tense moment, the silence of the struggle unbroken until Lambretta whispered, "Give the kid a break, Deej."

"I'll give her a broken head," DiGeorge hissed.

"Call it all my fault," Lambretta suggested in a barely audible voice, still gripping the other's wrist. "I pressured her into it. Now let it go at that."