"I told you, it was trash. I thought you knew all about that. I thought...."
"You think too much, Turtle," Tony Danger told his uncomfortable skipper. He was opening the envelope — slowly, delicately. "You're gonna fool around and think yourself into an early grave. You think about that."
Turtle Tarantini's eyes clearly did not understand his boss's reaction to the superb job Frankie Lambretta had done for him.
"Too many people give orders around here," he muttered defensively.
Tony Danger did not hear the remark. He was staring into the brown manila envelope. He dug a finger into a small sample of white powder in there and touched it to his tongue. "Trash, eh?" he commented miserably. Then he withdrew the little iron cross with a bull's-eye in its center and showed it to his skipper. "That's your Frankie Lambretta," he said in a flat voice.
"I don't believe it," Tarantini whispered. "You'd better," Tony Danger quietly told him. "You'd damn sure better believe it."
He turned away to conceal the quivering of his lips and quickly descended the ladder to the main deck.
Damn right.
Everybody had better start believing it.
Hell had finally come to San Diego.
Bolan established a radio contact with Gadgets Schwarz to set up a rendezvous where he could screen the intelligence from the telephone tap on the Winters residence, but Blancanales broke into the conversation with an urgent report of his own.
"Been hoping you'd check in pretty quick," the Politician told his C.O. "All hell is breaking around here. My subject has had people coming and going ever since I reached station. It smells of a build-up and I want you to look at some pictures I took with the Polaroid."
Bolan had a vast respect for the judgement of the combat-intelligence expert. His decision was quick and positive. "Change the game plan," he replied. "Remain on station and cover Gadgets for his intel run. Gadgets, start your drain operation in exactly ten minutes. Pol, follow him out. Ill be covering from Station Charlie. Regroup with all caution at Point Alpha."
It was beginning to size up as a rather short siege.
The enemy, it seemed, was already gearing for the break-out.
The emergency conference had been shaping up for better than an hour. The key men from Mexico had arrived and the boys from the California desert interior were expected at any moment. Additionally, a four-point telephone conference was being set up on scrambler circuits with New York, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
Ben Lucasi was not letting any Bolan dust settle on him. Maybe the other bosses around the country were reluctant to yell for help when the bastard came crashing in on them — not Big Ben Lucasi. He had been accorded the "Big" tag not by virtue of his physical dimensions but by the size of his ambitions and ideas.
And Big Ben Lucasi did not take this brand of crap from anybody.
When the telephone sounded off, he'd thought it to be the scrambler conference coming through … but it was only Tony Danger.
"What th' hell, hang up," Lucasi ordered. "I'm expecting the national wire."
"Here's something maybe you weren't expecting," his lieutenant advised him. 'That goddam Bolan came out here and conned my boat crew into taking him out to sea. He hit our French connection, bumped the guy, scattered the shipment on the high seas. Whattaya think of that, Ben? A million fuckin' bucks giving the fishes a thrill."
"Th' rotten bastard!" Lucasi muttered angrily. "What the hell d'you think he's pulling this crap for?"
"Well, he's not just tweaking our noses," Tony Danger assured the boss. "Bet your ass, he's got something very serious on his mind."
"Awright, you get it on over here!" Lucasi demanded. "We're about ready to go to council. Listen, Tony, we're going to put an end to this bullshit here and now. You say he killed Beloit?"
"Yeah. And there went four hard months of sweat and tears. I tell you, Ben, this stuff is getting hard to come by. We just can't afford to lose good brokers this way."
"I know, I know," Lucasi replied, commiserating with his favorite lieutenant. "Well look, get it on back here. We'll take care of Mr. Smart-ass for good and all."
"Be there in ten minutes," Tony Danger promised, and hung up.
The delegates to the convention were all in the game room, quietly consoling their ruffled nerves with the best booze from the Lucasi liquor closet. He told his house captain, the Diver, "I'll be in there with the boys. That call comes through, you send it right in on the squawk box."
"I just come in to tell you," Diver said, "that something funny is going on outside."
"What d'you mean, funny?"
"If you got just a second, I'd like to show you."
Lucasi followed his chief bodyguard to the patio, his guts shivering just a little under this new "funny" business.
The big guy was pointing up the street. "See that bread truck up there ... up inna next block?"
Lucasi growled, "Yeah. So what?"
"So it's been in this neighborhood for the past two hours."
"Is the guy making deliveries?"
"Seems to be. But, hell, how long can a guy spend in one neighborhood?"
"Depends," Lucasi replied, with a stab at humor, "on how many stud-hungry housewives he's servicing, I guess. Is that what you brought me out here for?"
"That's not all." The Diver swiveled about to sight along his outstretched arm in the opposite direction. "See that up there?"
"I see a little green truck," the boss replied, with some irritation. "So what?"
"So I seen the same damn truck over on the next street earlier this morning. Right after we got hit."
Lucasi was attempting to appear unruffled. He drawled, "All right, I never accused you of bad instincts, Diver. What d'you think is so funny about this?"
"I think maybe we're being watched."
"Oh?" Lucasi thrust a cigar between his teeth and chewed on it for a few seconds, then said, "There was sure something funny about that hit here this morning. You thinking that, too?"
The Diver soberly nodded his head. "It just isn't like Bolan."
"He hit the Pepe awhile ago," Lucasi confided, sotto voce. "Bumped Beloit and dumped our shipment in the ocean."
"Sounds like he's getting smarts somewheres," Diver muttered. His eyes were roaming the exterior of the house. "He could've bumped you, Mr. Lucasi, as easy as anything. I keep wondering why he didn't."
"I guess maybe he just wasn't ready to," Lucasi replied in a strained voice. The tension was wearing through again. He loudly cleared his throat and added, "I guess he had something else on his mind." Lucasi was following the scan of his house captain's gaze. The hairs rose along the back of his neck. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he growled.
"Well, we know he's not working alone this time," Diver quietly replied. His arm rose and he pointed toward a second-floor window. "Do you see something up there? On that ledge there, by the window?"
Lucasi's blood almost stopped flowing. "Shake this fuckin' place down," he commanded, almost choking with the effort at speech. "I mean good and fast!"
The house captain took off on a run, loudly calling his boys together as he went.
Lucasi hurried after him, tremblingly intent upon clearing that open area with all speed.
"Suckered!" he muttered to himself. "Sonuva-bitch!"