Don Pendleton: California Hit

"Well I don't care," the Capo declared stubbornly. "You got to freeze, and that's my decision."

"Sure, okay," Ciprio replied, his voice muffled with anger.

"Franco, that's another worry you got. You make sure nobody gets assy with me, you make sure the freeze sticks."

"It'll stick," the enforcer assured his Capo.

Ciprio and Vericci stared at their fingertips, their faces utter blanks.

"And get Bolan. Bring his head to me."

"I'll gift wrap it."

"I don't care how it comes, just so it gets here. I want to kick it in the bay myself. Understand? Myself."

"You will, I promise that."

"Okay." The old man got to his feet.

Vericci asked, "What about a wake for Joe and our other friends?"

"Forget that for now," the Capo said sadly. "We'll make it up to them later."

The boss went out and the small man, Matty, followed quickly behind him.

The others remained at the conference table, eyes downcast with unhappy thoughts.

Presently Thomas Vericci sighed and remarked, "Well, this bastard is hitting us right where it hurts. Now just how long do you suppose we've got to play dead? I got a two million dollar import deal that's going to die quick if I don't pick up on it."

"The old man panicked," Ciprio said. "He's just..."

"He's just following orders," the enforcer declared heavily. "The Commissione has put out these guidelines, and this is the way they say to play it. So if anyone here don't like it, just go pick up that red phone and make your complaint to you-know-where."

"Do they know?" Ciprio asked quickly. "I mean, do they know that Bolan hit us tonight?"

"Of course they know," Laurentis told him. That's the first thing the old man did — was notify them."

"I guess we're going to have the Taliferi swarming all over us now," a lieutenant said dismally, referring to the mob's national gestapo.

"I guess," Laurentis agreed. "If we don't get to Bolan quick"

"Not we... you," Vericci said. "Remember? You wouldn't stand for it any other way."

Ciprio laughed and a couple of his lieutenants joined with him.

Coldly, Laurentis said, "You stupid shits. You stupid fucking shits."

"I don't see anything to laugh at, neither," Vericci commented. "The fact is, all of us have got to worry about this Bolan. Right, Franco?"

"Right is right," the enforcer growled. "I was putting that on for the old man's sake — that stiff upper Up stuff, I mean. We got a hell of a serious thing on our hands here, and I guess we better all face up to that right now. Look, anybody in their right minds stopped laughing at this Bolan boy a hell of a long time ago."

Vericci was nodding his head in agreement. "I saw what he did down in Palm Springs," he declared quietly.

"Right, he tore through there like a hurricane — and when he left, all anybody could say was, "What the hell happened? That is, anybody who was left alive. Now we got the bastard here. And you all heard Matty. He's right, you know. That guy comes on strong... damned strong. So we got to put it all together that's all."

"I don't see how one guy could be all that bad," a lieutenant commented.

Laurentis growled, "Well go tell it to New York, and to Chi and Vegas. Go tell it in L.A. and Palm Springs. I'm telling you, we got a hell of a thing on our hands here."

"So what is it you're saying, Franco?" Vericci asked. "What do you want us to do? Turn everything we got over to you?"

"Exactly," the enforcer replied.

The two underbosses locked eyes briefly, and some unspoken understanding moved between them.

Ciprio sighed and said, "Well, if we got a business freeze... then I guess... why not? The sooner you crack this guy the sooner we can get back to normal. Okay. Everything I got is yours to command, Franco."

"Me too," Vericci said quietly.

Ciprio added, "Except..."

"Except what?"

"Except you got just twenty-four hours. That's all."

"That's not enough," the enforcer angrily replied.

"That's all you got," Ciprio insisted. "That's all any of us has got. And then it all starts to cave in. How about those niggers over in Fillmore, Tommy? How long will it take them to realize that they're on their own? And how about the slant-eyes down on Grant? You willing to give them two or three days to get their tongs on the streets again?"

"Ah hell, I don't know," Vericci said.

"Well I do. And I got the same problems over in Richmond — also that bunch of sickle-and-hammer do-does in Oakland. Now we just can't go and freeze ourselves out of the action for more than a day, I know that. I'll tell you all, Don DeMarco with you, I've worked too hard to get this territory humming the way I want it. I ain't about to lose it now to some asshole soldier boy who thinks..."

"Bullshit!" Laurentis yelled. "Can't you understand nothing? This boy don't want your damned territories! He wants your blood, man, your blood! You can't limit me to no twenty-four hours for a hit like this!"

Vericci calmly moved in as peacemaker. "Franco's right, Vinnie. We can't tie his hands with unrealistic conditions. What d'ya want, Franco? Just tell us what you want."

"I want every rodman, every street soldier, every runner — I want every damn bookie and pimp and whore and bagman this town has got. I want all your union boys — the bartenders and waiters and cabbies and everybody. I even want the shoeshine boys and newspaper boys, the strippers and the musicians and everything else we got a handle on or a gig into. I want a damned army out on those streets, in the bars and the hotels and anywheres else this guy might want to light down. And I don't want no excuses or hardship cases. I mean I don't want no sick stomachs or aching heads or falling arches or any of that crap. I want vigilance — I want a town that's all eyes, ears, and noses — and I want it around the clock and everywheres within running distance of here."

Ciprio said "Whooosh."

"That's what it's going to take," Laurentis insisted. "I been studying this boy's footwork. I know how to bag him, but I got to have the troops, I got to have them."

"I wonder if Roman called Mr. King," Vericci mused.

"I figure he would, yeah, I think so," Laurentis replied.

"We might get some help from that direction."

"We might, yeah," the enforcer agreed. "But we can't count on it. We got to figure it's our problem and ours alone. That's the way I figure it."

"Okay, go to it," Vericci told him. "Well put out the word, don't worry. Same telephone setup?"

Laurentis nodded. "The same."

"Okay. We'll put out a net like this town has never seen before. We'll locate him, Franco. The rest will be up to you and your boys."

"Hell, I can hardly wait," the enforcer said. He pushed himself away from the table and strode to the door.

Almost as though some sixth sense had telegraphed his movement, the library door swung open and two of the silk-suited torpedoes met the enforcer in the open doorway. They fell in behind him, already others were leading the way across the foyer, and the Bay Area storm troopers made their impressive exit without a word spoken between them.

The war for San Francisco was now official.

And back in the conference room, a worried and fretful Vincenzo Ciprio was telling his brother under-boss, "I don't like it, Tommy. I just don't like it one bit. We just give Crazy Franco more raw power than even Don DeMarco has had these past years. I don't like it one bit."

"Relax," Vericci said soothingly. "You think I wasn't up on that idea too? But listen, that crazy bastard has had the old man's ear more and more these past few months. I worry about that, too. Listen. Maybe we finally gave Franco enough rope to tangle himself in, eh? Eh?"

Ciprio chewed the idea for a moment, then he smiled, got to his feet, and took his cadre out of there.