Baltimore Trackdown

A police chief betrays his code of honor to the Mafia and tries to persuade fellow officers to accept money from the Mob. Those who refuse are killed.

Through all his miles along the hellfire trail, the Executioner has always looked on the police as soldiers on the same side.

But Mack Bolan sees this lawman as a traitor, both to his badge and to Bolans cause. Will the warrior break his own rules to stop the corrupt cop?

The tension was felt by every person around the poker table. Mack Bolan, wearing a dark-blue suit, contrasting silk tie and shiny black shoes, stood out of the circle of light where he could see everyone and not be too conspicuous. His right hand hovered near the Beretta in his waistband. There had been no way he could attach the silencer and still dress well enough to be admitted into this fancy casino.

The Executioner casually watched the three Mafia hardmen in the room, who were concentrating on the spectators rather than the game. Security was their job and Bolan had pegged them as Mafia enforcers the moment he had entered. About twenty people watched the game.

This was the “big money” back room of the Flamingo nightclub in downtown Baltimore, the newest, classiest club in town, where the moneyed set could dance and booze, and their elite gamble with the sky as limit. This was the Highball Room where only five-hundred-dollar chips were used. With a pair of hundred-dollar bills Bolan had persuaded two doormen to let him inside.

The stakes in the game of seven-card stud were climbing. The last bet, ten thousand dollars, had been matched and raised by an equal amount. Only two men were left in the game — a sunburned Texan with oil gushing out of his pockets and with a temper as hot as an oil-well fire, and the house man, Spur, small and dark with black inscrutable eyes, who could make the cards do magical things. But apparently not now.

The Texan leaned back in the padded swivel chair and yawned.

“God a’mighty, suh! You gonna make up your mind and call me or fold?”

Both hands lay face up on the table. The Texan, with a pair of aces and a pair of queens showing, could go full house easily. The house man had three sixes and a seven showing; it wasn’t much of a start on a straight, but there was a chance one of his three hole cards might be the fourth six.

The woman behind the oil man, pretty but not beautiful, patted her face with a lace handkerchief. She watched impassively as the oil man consulted his three hole cards.

She touched the handkerchief to her upper lip.

The timing was too perfect for Bolan’s suspicious mind. She could be totally innocent. Or she could be with the house, and the handkerchief could be concealing a small radio transmitter. She had seen the Texan’s hidden cards. Did she somehow reveal them?

The house player wore a hearing aid. He shook his head, reached to his stack of chips, called and raised another twenty thousand.

“Bluffing me, you cotton-pickin’ roadrunner!” the Texan growled. He shoveled the blue chips out. “Call you — let’s see them.”

The house man tapped his three sixes. “I’ve got you beaten on the board unless you can top three of a kind.”

The Texan shrugged. “So what the hell — it was a good try. I didn’t have my goddamned full house, not even three queens or aces. But how did you know that?”

Spur felt the tension rise. The Texan could afford to lose the seventy-five thousand he had dropped in that hand. But with more than a hundred fifty thousand on the table, the hardmen were going to be doubly watchful.

The Texan turned, grabbed the linen hankie from the girl behind him and opened it to find a transmitter smaller than a matchbook.

“Now how you-all gonna explain this?” the Texan shouted, his face red.

The house man froze. Two bouncer gorillas moved in beside the Texan. They were armed, Bolan was sure.

He saw the floor boss reaching down, and the Executioner knew the man was dipping toward a leg holster. Bolan drew the Beretta, tracking the two Mafia goons who had reached for hardware.

“Don’t try it!” Bolan snarled. The floor boss straightened up, and the hardmen stopped, hands motionless inside jackets. “Freeze,” Bolan shouted, “and no one will get hurt!” He pointed with the Beretta at the two hardmen and the house man at the table. “Three of you, hands in the air. The rest of you go out the back door. This place is closed. Now, move — no panic, just file out. My Texan friend can take the chips he was cheated of, if he wants to.”

The Texan divided the pot, pocketed one half and left with the others.

Bolan ordered the hoodlums to the far door. He placed a block of C-4 plastique on the poker table, set the timer-detonator for thirty seconds and escorted the hardmen down the steps into the alley. They were well away from the building when the C-4 exploded. The club’s top floor rose about six inches, then sagged. There was no fire. No one would cheat gamblers at the Flamingo for a while.

Bolan told his captives, “Dump your weapons on the ground, and be glad you’re still alive. Tell Carlo Nazarione he’s going to be seeing a lot of me in the next week. Tell him I’ll get around to him soon.”

Bolan signaled a dismissal, and the three men ran down the alley toward the front of the Flamingo, where a police car had just arrived, its siren whining.

In an expensive residential district several miles away, Jo Jo Albergetti arrived home. His wheelman drove the car into the garage, then went to his own car and left. Jo Jo entered the big house via the kitchen and found his wife, Angela, sprawled on the living-room rug. She wore only panties.

She sat up and shook her ample breasts and laughed. “Hey, big guy, want some of these?” She crawled toward him.

“You’re drunk,” Jo Jo said, smelling the alcohol.

“So what? I’m fantastic when I’m drunk. Just took on two of your little helpers. Told them I wouldn’t tell you their names so they wouldn’t get shot. Oops! Not supposed to talk about guns. The two guys were marvelous! Both at once. Wanna hear?”

The phone rang. Jo Jo glared at his wife, his face revealing the anger inside. The phone rang again. He grabbed it.

“Yeah?” He listened a minute. “No shit?” He listened again. “Yeah, right... Bastard! Get Nino down there right away to start putting things back together. I want that place ready for business tomorrow night. We can’t afford to have the Flamingo dark. Get moving!”

He shook his head and hung up. He scowled at his wife. “Get some coffee and then go to bed. I’ll deal with you in the morning.”

Jo Jo went to the garage, stepped into the Cadillac and drove downtown to check on the damage at the Flamingo.

At the Flamingo half an hour later, Nino Tattaglia frowned. He had expected Bolan would hit them somewhere, but not like this. The Flamingo was the flagship of the Nazarione gambling operation. The old man had stuck to gambling as his main source of income, leaving narcotics to the other families.

Nino talked with the cops, identified the two slain men and began looking for some solid proof. He had talked to Mack Bolan a week earlier, and the Executioner had said he would be coming to Baltimore soon. Nino was surprised at how soon. Against a wall, he found a black-and-dull-silver army marksman’s badge, the Executioner’s trademark. He showed it to the police.

Little was left of the gambling room. One wall had been blown into the hallway. The roof sagged. The furnishings were a jumble of twisted metal and scorched upholstery. The remains of the poker table were visible as matchstick-size splinters all over the room.

Nino marveled that Bolan had bluffed his way into the inner sanctum of the back room. He was good.

Jo Jo arrived, looked at the wreckage, swore for five minutes, told Nino to get it fixed, then left. Carlo Nazarione arrived as the police were leaving; he stayed in his car and asked Nino for a complete report.

“Looks like those two rooms upstairs will be closed for a month. A team of carpenters is coming in tomorrow morning at eight. I suppose the city engineers will want to see if the building is structurally damaged. That could mean big problems.”

“Goddammit! How did the bastard get in there? Who we got on the doors? Talk to them. If they took cash to let him in, you fry their butts good. Make it so they never work for us or the other families again.”

He shook his head. “Damn Bolan. First time he’s hit us. Why is he concentrating on us, Nino?”

“I don’t know, Carlo. Maybe you’re getting famous or running such an efficient operation here that he heard of you.”

“Yeah, yeah, that must be it. Flattery — I guess that’s it.” He frowned. “Hell, you have the place fixed up fast. We need the income. Pick a new floor man carefully — no more dummies — and move somebody up as a hardman inside.”

“You can count on me, Carlo.”

Nino stepped back. Nazarione powered up the window of his crew wagon and the Caddy lumbered down the street.

As Nino turned toward the club half a block away, someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“Nino!”

Tattaglia jumped. He would know that voice anywhere. He turned and saw Mack Bolan standing in the darkened doorway of a closed jewelry store.

“We got your calling card.”

“That’s just the start. The old man riled?”

“Yep, and this is my end of the business. I’ve got to get back in there and twist tails, but I need to talk to you.”

They moved away from the commotion of people and police cars around the nightclub.

“I’ve been cooperating with Leo Turrin, but this is different. What the hell am I supposed to do if I’m in a joint and you come in spraying lead?”

“Duck!” the Executioner said. “That’s why we talk, so I know where you are and how to get in touch with you. If I’m going to blast some spot, I get you out first.”

“Good, I can buy that.” Nino pounded a fist into his palm. “Damn! I don’t know how I ever got into this. Here I am now with the cops looking for me on one end, and I got to be careful what I say and do so my own people don’t find out I’m a traitor to them. You know what they would do to me?”

“I don’t think you had much choice, Nino. Cooperate or face the electric chair.”

“Damn, I know it. The Feds nailed me good, and Leo turned me around. Now just how much hell you going to raise in my town?”

“Depends on what’s here. Right now I’m just trying to get Nazarione’s attention. The word on the wire is that something big is going down in Baltimore. I want to know what it is.”

Nino frowned. “Damn, I don’t know what the gossips are talking about. Biggest thing I know of right now is that I’m paying two thousand a week to a crooked cop. I’d like to get rid of that bastard. He’s Capt. Harley Davis, a real rogue flatfoot who’s getting rich. He’s the head of the burglary detail, which also handles gambling.”

“And you’re in charge of all Carlo’s gambling operations?”

“Right. I work through Jo Jo Albergetti. He’s a kind of vice president of sales and revenues. Leo figured I could work in from this end and get the fewest people hurt and still be in the middle of things.”

“Why don’t you just burn this Captain Davis?”

“A damn good reason. He says he has enough hard evidence on Carlo, me and half of his lieutenants to put us all away for life. If he shows up dead — for any reason — all his evidence is turned over to the cops within twenty-four hours. The Baltimore police, the D.A. and the mayor would mow us down.”

“Has he got the goods?”

“Probably. At least enough to bluff the rest. So we pay him off.”

“I’ll get around to him. Now pay up to Uncle Sam. Find out what’s making the criminal underworld so excited. Something big is happening or is about to happen in Baltimore. I want some information tomorrow. Ask Carlo. Tell him you heard about it on the grapevine and want the straight goods.”

“I might be able to — Carlo likes me. Anything else?”

“Give me the addresses of four more of Carlo’s gambling clubs.”

“You gonna hit them?”

“Wait and see.”

“Man, I’ll be busy tomorrow.”

Nino produced a small notebook from his jacket pocket and wrote down four sets of names and addresses. He tore the page from the book and gave it to the Executioner.

“Give me a phone number where I can reach you or leave messages. Two of them would be better. No matter what name I leave, I’m your cousin from San Francisco.”

The informer gave Bolan two numbers: his home and his office in a downtown catering firm that Carlo owned and Nino supposedly ran.

“I better return to the scene of the crime. The cops must be done by now. We got to be back in operation by 6:00 p.m. today.”

They did not say goodbye. Tattaglia turned back and Bolan simply walked on.

The Executioner continued another block to his rented car, and drove to one of the gambling clubs on the list. He put a full magazine in the handle of the Beretta 93-R and left the round in the chamber. From a soft zippered bag on the seat he took an army smoke bomb and slipped it into his pocket.

The Club Jasmine was half bar, half dance floor. A small combo was rocking. Bolan didn’t try to find the gambling rooms. He worked toward the back, drink in hand. He sat at a vacant table and pulled the small smoke bomb from his pocket. Under the table he removed the safety pin and rolled the device. As he stood he heard the pop, then shouting as the smoke poured out.

It would sting the eyes and the lungs but do no damage. He calmly left by the front door with the first wave of shouting, frightened people and was half a block away when the fire alarms sounded.

That night two more clubs were hit by the harmless yet irritating smoke bombs; Bolan arrived at the fourth near closing time. The clientele was sparse. Before he could send the smoke grenade rolling, a waitress appeared at his table. The pretty young thing looked at Bolan, turned pale and shivered. She seemed scared.

“Can I get you something?” she asked, trying to smile.

Bolan shook his head. “No thanks. I’m about ready to go.”

“You just came in.” Without waiting for a reaction she sat down across from him at the table.

“Hey, I’ve got a small problem.”

“Somebody giving you a bad time?”

“How?..” She nodded. “Yes. A real jerk. I told him he can’t take me home, and I don’t want to go anywhere else. I even threatened to report him to the management. He just laughed and said he was the management.”

“When do you close?”

“Fifteen minutes. Then it takes about ten minutes to clean up.” She sighed. “I know this must sound phony, but I’m not trying to pick you up. You have a kind, understanding face, that’s all.”