Ten minutes and several miles later, Bolan stepped out of a public telephone booth, his face dark with speculation. The airline reservations clerk had most helpfully given him some food for thought. "Mr. Portocci and party" had departed Phoenix earlier that evening on a flight to Miami. This information, in itself, held very little interest for The Executioner. Added, however, to several other items of intelligence he had accumulated on his trek of the past few days — and with the blond woman's disclosure; "He's flying somewhere — some meeting . . . " — a picture was beginning to form in Bolan's inquisitive mind, an image of palm trees and bikinis and a swank playground onto which were descending top-goncho Mafiosi from various family trees — and Mack Bolan was beginning to smell an Appalachian style summit conference.
As he stood beside his car, pondering the possible implications of his suspicions, a police car screamed by a block away, followed closely by an ambulance. Another siren could be heard in the distance. Bolan smiled and climbed into his car. The time had come for The Executioner to take leave of the desert scene. Miami, he was thinking, should be entirely pleasant at this time of year. If he could line up a quiet air charter, he reflected, he could even get there in time for the hunting season — and, if his suspicions were correct, the Florida playground would be teeming with big game.
Bolan turned his car around and headed it toward the airport. He had tried to smash up the middle in Phoenix and it had proved at least momentarily successful. Perhaps he could smash with equal success right through the middle of the Mafia ruling council. Discovering that he was breathing very shallow, he chuckled to himself and tried to relax. What did he have to lose? Just his own life — and he would undoubtedly be losing that sooner or later anyway. What did he have to gain? Bolan chuckled again. This one would be for all the marbles. He found himself relaxing. He knew now how the VC suicide troops felt when they swept into a government stronghold. A walking dead man has everything to gain and nothing, absolutely nothing, to lose. Bolan understood this.
"Look out, Miami," he said aloud, "I'm sweeping in."
Chapter Two
The screen
Johnny (The Musician) Portocci, at 39, had everything going for him. Handsome, virile, educated, an instinctive and aggressive businessman — these attributes alone would have assured him some success in life. Add to all this the power, the wealth, and the influence of the organization, and Johnny simply could see no way to lose. He actually had been a musician once, and had financed two years of college through occasional stands at recording studios, dance halls, and night clubs in the Los Angeles area, filling temporary openings in musical groups, bands, and even an occasional symphonic orchestra. He had played in the Hollywood Bowl, and once with a nationally televised band. Johnny thought of this period, however, as "the bad old days." Often he had gone to bed hungry, attended classes while giddy with malnutrition and groggy from lack of sleep, and had slept under the stars during frequent periods when he was locked out of his rooming house for non-payment of rent.
"That's what you call being honest, dumb, and poor," Johnny would say, when relating the story. "I wouldn't have stolen a nickel from Rockefeller and I couldn't have conned anybody, not even that old bag of a landlady."
Johnny's "education" improved dramatically toward the end of his second college year. He did not learn to steal, not immediately, but he did learn to "con," and he was doing so well by the end of that summer that he decided to not return to classes that fall. He never returned.
Johnny the Musician had become a runner for a numbers operation in East Los Angeles. At that time Ciro Lavangetta had been an underboss in the DiGeorge Family. Johnny was "running" for one of Lavangetta's lieutenants, "Sunset Sam" Cavallente. Cavallente had been an "old-days" acquaintance of Johnny's father, long dead. During his Cavallente days, Johnny Portocci had enjoyed employee status only — that is, he worked for a salary and had no access to family rank and rights.
During one particularly hairy episode with the Los Angeles police, Johnny came under the direct notice of Ciro Lavangetta who was impressed by the youngster's poise and "manners." A short while later, Lavangetta sponsored Johnny for full-fledged status in the DiGeorge Family. When Lavangetta moved into the Arizona territory some years later, setting up his own little empire there, he took Johnny Portocci along as a ranking member of his administration.
Ciro had plans in which Johnny could prominently figure. He meant to take over the music business in Arizona, all of it — jukes, record distribution, live entertainment, unions, everything. He very nearly succeeded, thanks largely to Johnny's efforts, but the prize was found unworthy of the labor. Arizona was not that big on entertainment. The big thing, at that time, was construction, labor relations, and land manipulation — and Johnny the Musician became the genius and the power behind a multi-million dollar operation that exacted a heavy tribute for the peaceful progress of Arizona's land boom of the fifties and sixties.
And he became an underboss to Ciro Lavangetta. Some friction developed between the two, due perhaps to the Capo's uneasiness over Johnny's ambitious nature. Portocci was relieved of the land office responsibilities and was moved in to manage Ciro's narcotics operation. He also began independently building a call girl service. Ciro promptly slapped him away from the girl operation, suggesting that Johnny should learn a lesson from the fact that alcoholics never run bars, and also suggesting that perhaps Johnny himself would do better in the bar business. So Johnny the Musician quietly bought into outlets for illegal whiskey, and later added mobile casinos to the circuit. This turned out to be his largest blessing; the entertainment business was finally beginning to come of age in Arizona, and Johnny was in on the ground floor of the swell. He added two dude ranches and a large resort hotel to his holdings, surreptiously adding "girls" to the latter, capturing a large share of Arizona's convention trade.
Yes, Johnny the Musician had everything going for him. Some day he would no doubt succeed Ciro as Capo of the Arizona empire; one day there would be a Portocci Family. Johnny could wait, and grow wealthier and more powerful in the process. He had it made.
Except for one unpleasant development. Mack Bolan. The wise-guy had been running amok throughout the southwestern territories, piece by piece destroying and looting the finest moneytree west of Chicago. In just two weeks he had knocked over three money-drops and half a dozen distributors of Johnny's lucrative narcotics operation. In one hit alone the guy had walked off with 60 thou of hard-gotten gains, and the entire Lavangetta Family had begun to rock from the reverberations of the bastard's raids. They'd had to shut down the entire business and lay low, waiting for a chance to trap the illusive smartass, with each day of idleness reflected in mounting thousands of dollars in lost income. And, if that wasn't enough, now the old men had decided that everyone should go to Miami and talk about it. Talk! While this guy was tearing 'em apart! And stealing their money and then using it against them! Johnny the Musician could not think of Mack Bolan without experiencing a revulsion approaching nausea.
And so it was with considerable displeasure that Johnny received "the news from Arizona" shortly after stepping off the plane at Miami International. Vin Balderone, Ciro's representative in the open city of Miami Beach, quietly reported, "That Bolan bastard hit your place a little while ago, Johnny, and just tore hell out of everything."