Swimming in and out of focus, Spitteri saw the giant coming for him, seemingly suspended from the ceiling. The specter was dressed in black, and he was looking down the barrel of the biggest goddamned silver handgun in the world, pointed directly into Benny's soul.
"I've got a message for your capo.1'
Benny tried to answer, finally discovered that his tongue was out of order, too.
The specter bent closer to him, making sure he could hear every word.
"Tell Don Aguirre he should watch his ass."
The looming shape retreated, leaving Benny Spitteri there to wrestle with his pain in solitude. He would convey the message, certainly, if he survived, and someone would be made to pay for what had happened there. His injuries. His buttons lost. The damage to Don Vito's pleasure palace.
When the message was delivered, there would be-hell to pay, and someone would be picking up the tab. In spades. It would be entertaining to observe the capo as he collected on that debt, with interest due.
Before the pain and darkness took him, Benny Spitteri hoped he would live long enough to see the show.
* * *
The Harlem numbers bank was set behind a soul-food restaurant, accessible directly through the kitchen, past a guard, or through a private entrance from the rear alley. Bolan opted for the front, aware of sullen eyes that followed him across the room, the angry stares attracted to his whiteness like iron filings to a magnet.
He felt no prejudice within himself, except toward savages who made themselves his targets by their choice of lifestyle. If his tours of Vietnam, his campaigns in the urban hellgrounds, taught him nothing else, he knew that color — just like beauty — was only superficial. The good or evil in a person was what counted, and it ran soul deep.
There was a sentry posted at the door, outlandish in his purple velvet coat and wide-brimmed hat. The guard's eyelids were half shut, and he was attempting to look casual as he watched Bolan. When Bolan drew abreast of him, he moved to block the doorway, arms crossed, glowering.
"Say, man, what it is?"
"It's business, dude. Why don't you step aside?"
The Black Ace in his hand restrained the lookout from a hasty move.
"So, how I know tha's straight?"
"You wanna bet your life it isn't?"
Momentary hesitation, then the sentry shook his head.
"G'wan in, man."
He held the door and signaled to another sentry stationed on the other side. The Executioner brushed past them both and through a second set of soundproof doors that opened onto the bank itself.
Inside, the place was jumping. Betting slips were piled along a cafeteria-style table and were being sorted into smaller stacks by number, and at the far end, a couple of hard-eyed types were busily cramming bills into suitcases, scraping coins into deep burlap bags. Bolan moved toward the table, already spotting the banker, with his bodyguards in tow, closing on an interception course.
"Hey, what is this, some kinda open house?"
The soldier swiveled, pinned him with a stony eye. "Why aren't you ready?" he demanded.
"Ready? Hey, ready for what? Who the fuck..."
The Ace of Spades cut off his words as effectively as a garotte and left the banker sucking like a mackerel out of water.
"They'll be here inside a ten minutes," Bolan told him fiercely. "You're suppose'ta be finished."
"Ten minutes? Finished? What is this?"
"You mean you never got the word?"
The banker spread his hands. "I dunno what the hell you're saying, Mr..."
"Weil, goddamn it. Someone was supposed to call." He made a show of glancing at his watch. "Forget that, now. We've still got time, if we get the lead out."
"Time for what?"
"You're being raided," Bolan told him flatly. "Feds. We have to get this bread out, like right now."
"A raid? You gotta be... they were supposed to let me know before they pulled this shit."
"Somebody blew it. Look, I don't have time to stand around and yap. You wanna bag this up, or would you rather tell the don to take it out of your allowance?"
The banker hesitated, finally nodded to the hardmen on the money detail. They packed up the Samsonites in record time and double-locked the bags, taking no chances. They were moving on to the coins when Bolan's voice stopped them short.
"Forget about the change," he growled. "Just pocket what you can and leave the rest. You've got... six minutes now."
"The bags..."
"They go with me," he told the banker, already hefting one, then the other, moving toward the alley exit.
The banker tailed him closely, red-faced, clearly worried now.
"Hey, I'm supposed to be in chargea that," he whined.
"So, whadda you want, a receipt?"