Don Pendleton - Blood Dues

Sacco stared at the silent telephone for a moment, allowing himself the luxury of pretending that he had a choice.

"I'll take it, yeah. Thanks, Solly."

Cusamano ducked back out and closed the door behind him. Sacco lifted the telephone receiver, listening silently until the houseman hung up on the other extension.

"Okay."

The black ace's voice came back at him across the line, deep and graveyard cold.

"I'm glad to hear your voice, Phil."

"Yeah?"

Omega chuckled, making a reptilian hissing sound.

"I had an idea I might be too late."

"Too late for what?"

Sacco did not try to hide the irritation that was slowly creeping into his voice.

"To say goodbye," the ace responded.

Irritation blossomed into full-blown anger now.

"It's too damned late for playing games," the capo snapped.

"You're wising up."

"Goddammit..."

Omega did not raise his voice, but still his words managed to override Sacco's outburst.

"Tommy Drake was pissing on you, Phil. He was setting you up."

"That's bullshit."

But the doubt was planted in his mind now. Sacco had lived too long in the Mafia's paranoid jungle to automatically rule out any treason, any treachery.

"You know he was connected with the Cubans," Omega responded, sounding almost disinterested. "Do you know what they were working on?"

"Of course, I knew," he blustered, bluffing. "What kind of question..."

"Then you know about the move on Key Biscayne."

There was momentary silence on both ends of the line, Sacco racking his brain, loathe to admit ignorance, but coming up with nothing that made sense.

Omega went ahead without his answer, reading everything he had to know into the capo's strained silence.

"It's a psycho proposition, Phil. The feeling is your boy came up with it to pacify the Cubans. On the side, he's had them laying trails that lead right back to you."

Sacco's hand was white-knuckled now on the receiver, so tight his hand was shaking.

"I... guess I don't know what you mean."

And Omega told him a horror story, speaking in dry, clipped tones, the weight of his words bearing down into the leather-upholstered cushions of his easy chair. When he heard it all, Omega offered him an out, explained how he could save it — part of it, at any rate — if he moved quickly and decisively enough.

"You think that you can handle all that, Phil?''

Sacco scowled at the receiver in his hand, hating the man at the other end, hating Tommy Drake for putting him in this untenable position.

"I'll handle it, all right."

"I hope so. Everybody's counting on you."

Sacco stiffened, knowing the reverse side of the coin. Everybody's waiting to see you screw up; waiting to divide your operations when you 're dead and buried.

"Tell them that it's in the bag."

Omega hung up on him without another word, and Sacco cradled the receiver briefly, glaring at it, not moving his hand. Then he lifted it again and started dialing rapidly.

Sacco was calling in the troops, damn right.

And the capo mafioso of Miami did not have a lot of time to lose.

Captain Robert Wilson drained the last few dregs of coffee from his mug and pushed it away from him across the cluttered desk. He rocked back in his swivel chair, stretching, deliberately closing his eyes as he turned toward the clock on the wall, refusing to acknowledge the hour and how little he had achieved this night in concrete terms.

Beyond the glass partition that contained his private office, a skeleton crew was manning the Homicide squad room on the graveyard shift. The hackneyed gag was often used to get a laugh from officers in Homicide, but Wilson did not feel a bit like laughing at the moment.

The first reports of Hannon's death were open on the desk in front of him. He could recite them almost word for word by now and still they told him nothing.

Everything was there, of course, in terms of the procedures. Ballistics and trajectories, points of entry and exit. Wilson knew precisely how John Hannon died, and he had a fair idea of who was responsible... but none of it had put him any closer to solution of the crime.

He had pursued LaMancha's lead on the dead girl and struck surprising pay dirt at the federal building. Her name had been Evangelina, and her file at Justice had included information on familial relations — on a sister, in particular.

Deceased.

And that had been a shocker, goddamned right. It raised some ghosts for Wilson, dating back to other days when Hannon was the captain, and a soldier newly home from Vietnam was settling a family score against the Mafia. The Bolan hunt had been an education in itself; it showed Robert Wilson a side of Hannon — and a side of himself — that he had never quite suspected.

A side that, yeah, could be damned frightening at times.

And Wilson had not overlooked the ominous parallels between that other time of killing and his present situation.

One sister, Margarita, murdered by the syndicate the first time Bolan was in town; the other ambushed now, with Hannon, just when someone had been knocking over mob concessions, leaving marksman's medals as a calling card.

Not someone, Bob Wilson corrected himself. It was Mack Bolan. He was still alive, somehow, against the odds. It was confirmed by FBI and press reports.

The bastard was alive and he was back, no doubt about it. And he was Wilson's responsibility this time.

The telephone jangled on his desk and Wilson grabbed for it absentmindedly, his thoughts still focused on his problem of the moment as he answered.

"Captain Wilson, Homicide."

"You're working late.''

He recognized Frank LaMancha's voice although they had spoken only once before. There was something in the tonal quality that sent a little chill along his spine.

"I've got a lot to do," he answered.

"You'd better wrap it up. The curtain's coming down.''

"That right?"

There was skepticism in the homicide detective's voice, but he tempered it with caution.

"Bet on it. Sacco and Ornelas are about to tangle. You'll want to be there.''

Wilson searched around in the debris heaped upon his desk, finally coming up with a pencil and note pad.

"Where and when?"

"Not yet," LaMancha told him. "We need to let this run its course."

"I see."

The image in his mind was grisly, littered with the dead and dying.

"You're telling me a shooting war's about to break, and asking me to sit on it."

"You won't be missing anything, unless you try to put the lid on prematurely.''

"Better I should wait until the county morgue is standing room only? It doesn't work that way around Miami, mister."

"Easy, Captain. All I'm saying is that you could blow it if you get too eager.''

"Maybe that's a chance I'll have to take."

"I don't. Goodbye."

Wilson felt a sudden rush, akin to panic, as he saw his chance begin to slip away.

"Hold on there, dammit! I'm still listening."

The "federal agent's" voice was cautious in its own right now.

"No specifics yet. You'll have to trust me."

"That's a rare commodity." Wilson hesitated, thinking it over briefly. "I'd like to take a look at what I'm walking into."

"Fair enough."

LaMancha briefed him quickly, sticking to the basics, but it was enough to put a sour taste in Wilson's mouth and set his stomach rolling. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, he had a hunch that blossomed into inspiration, revelation.

LaMancha was about to hang up, and the captain blurted out, "Hey, Mack!"

A heartbeat's hesitation, barely noticeable, on the other end of the line.

"The name's still Frank."

"Oh... right." Wilson suddenly felt foolish, asinine. "Uh... listen... thanks for the tip, okay?"