Don Pendleton - Blood Dues

Aiuppa's countinghouse was tucked away above a pool hall frequented by pimps and pushers. Bolan found his target and parked the Firebird a half block down, unable to get closer because of the Cadillacs and Lincolns lined against the curb on either side of the street. He walked back, feeling hostile eyes upon him as pedestrians turned to stare at his expensive tan-colored suit, dark-brown silk shirt and white silk tie. He drew grim comfort from the Beretta 93-R, which he wore beneath his left arm in a shoulder harness.

He reached the pool hall, pushed on through the swinging doors in front. The pool hall proper was in semidarkness, but he was still able to pick out the scattering of players grouped around two tables on his left. They were watching him, whispering among themselves, but Bolan ignored them, moving between the other deserted tables and on to a flight of wooden stairs set against the back wall of the long, narrow room.

A black man stood on guard at the base of the stairs, watching Bolan approach. He stood with arms crossed, back against the banister, prepared to block the Executioner's progress.

"What's happenin'?"

"I'm looking for the Duke," Bolan told him.

"He ain't expectin' any visitors."

Bolan flashed a stony grin.

"Well, let's surprise him."

"He don't like surprises, man."

The Executioner shrugged, the smile softening.

"In that case..."

He moved as if to push on up the stairs past the strong-arm, then pivoted with lightning speed as the guy tried to block him. Bolan ducked beneath a looping right cross, driving the rigid fingers of one hand deep beneath the black man's rib cage, punching the wind out of him and doubling him over.

The Executioner seized an arm and twisted it behind the slugger's back, high up between his shoulders. Then Bolan put his full weight behind the movement as he drove the man into the wall beside the stairs. One hard knee rocketed in, found a kidney once, twice, and the muscle slid to the floor in a boneless sprawl, leaving a blood smear along the wall where his face had made bruising contact with the plaster.

Bolan mounted the stairs, three at a time, barging on through an unguarded door at the top of the landing.

Five startled faces turned to face him, only two of them black. The men were ringed around a small desk piled with money — both bills and coins — and several thousand crumpled betting slips. Bolan quickly recognized the Duke of Liberty City by his broken nose and cauliflower ear.

The soldier nearest to the door was in his shirtsleeves, wearing iron exposed beneath his arm. He was already moving out to intercept Bolan, but the Executioner brushed past him, not giving any one of them a chance to think coherently.

"Hey, what's this crap?" he demanded, managing to sound outraged as he gesticulated toward the betting slips and cash. "You were supposed to have it packed and ready."

Aiuppa glanced at the closest of his aides, scowling as his eyes returned to Bolan.

"Pack what? Where's Jackson? Who the hell are you?"

Bolan knew that Jackson would be sleeping off their brief encounter at the bottom of the stairs.

"You didn't get the word?"

"What word?"

Bolan glared at the Duke. He sounded both suspicious and confused, but he was talking now instead of shooting, and that meant Bolan had a chance to pull it off.

A slim one, yeah — but still a chance.

"The Feds have got a raid lined up," Bolan snapped, checking his watch for emphasis. "With any luck, you may have twenty minutes."

Aiuppa raised a hand, as if asking permission to leave a classroom.

"Hang on there, slick. You can't just waltz in here and..."

"You wanna dick around and flush this bankroll down the crapper?" Bolan asked him furiously. "You think you can afford it, Dukev?"

Aiuppa bristled.

"I guess you'd better tell me just exactly who the hell you are, guy."

Bolan reached into his suit coat, seeing all of them tense, hands edging toward their holstered weapons. He brought out the black ace and skimmed it across the desk at Aiuppa. It landed on a pile of twenties and fifties, directly in front of the welterweight.

Aiuppa stared down at it for a moment as if trying to make sense of what he saw. Looking at Bolan now, Aiuppa seemed hesitant, a touch of fear behind the burning eyes.

"It's been awhile since I saw one of these," he said at last, his voice a bit subdued.

"They're back in style."

Aiuppa's right hand slipped down out of sight, below the lip of the desk top, and Bolan was braced for him to make a move — but now the hand was coming up, still empty, resting palm down on the desk among the bills and coins.

"I'm gonna need authority for this,'' the mobster said.

"You're looking at it."

Aiuppa straightened up, his shoulders flexing.

"It ain't enough,'' he said flatly.

Bolan tried to put a touch of sympathy into his mocking smile.

"Okay. You wanna tell the man you pissed away — what is it there, a quarter mil? "

Aiuppa hesitated again, but found the guts to call Bolan's supreme bluff.

"I'll have to take the chance.''

Bolan spread his hands in a helpless gesture.

"You called it, Duke," he said. "You live with it — if you can."

Bolan was turning to leave the crowded little office, one hand already sliding toward the open flap of his jacket, when the office door banged open and the black sentry reeled into the room.

There was a pistol in his hand, and he was spluttering with rage, mumbling through battered lips in confusion.

Bolan did not let him have the time to polish up his speech. He chopped down on the man's gun hand with his own hard right, seizing the hood's arm simultaneously and whipping him around. The human projectile hurtled across the room, impacting on the desk and scattering men, money and betting slips in all directions.

The battered gunner ended up atop the desk, his bloody face almost in Duke Aiuppa's lap, driving the Mafia capo backward, hard against the wall.

All of them were trying to recover from the explosive interruption as Bolan ripped the 98-R out of side leather, sweeping right to left across the room. In the heat of the moment he knew there was no time for anything fancy now. It was kill or be killed.

The bodycock in shirt-sleeves had his .38 revolver clear and rising, the guy beside him still struggling with an undercover rig. Bolan took them both out with a rapid double punch, 9mm manglers drilling skull, spraying blood and brains across the wall behind them in a gruesome abstract mural pattern.

The Executioner caught another gunner breaking for the sidelines, clawing at a .45 tucked in his belt. Bolan drilled him through the chest with a parabellum round that left him thrashing on the floor.

The man called Jackson was struggling up, rolling off the desk and onto hands and knees beside it, shaking his head like a wounded animal. Bolan's next round took off half of Jackson's face.

Behind the desk Aiuppa was clawing for iron beneath his jacket. The weapon was halfway drawn when a third unseeing eye appeared in the middle of his forehead and the Duke of Liberty City stumbled backward, blood pumping from the ragged hole.

The final gun slick had his weapon out and got a single shot off, gouging plaster over Bolan's head before the Executioner pinned him against a filing cabinet with a deadly 9mm slug.

Bolan moved swiftly to retrieve the black-ace death card, leaving in its place a marksman's medal among the bills and coins.

As he retreated from that kill zone he knew the numbers had run out and the only thing that he could hope for was an easy exit from the pool hall.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and found the poolhall empty. He swiftly crossed the narrow room, striding toward the front doors when he caught a glimpse of movement in the street outside. He hesitated for only a heartbeat as he spotted half a dozen troops leaving a bar across the street. They were all coming his way, two in front unlimbering sawed-off pump shotguns, the others dragging handguns out of hidden leather.