Doctor Kastler had taken his departure, leaving behind a supply of sedatives for both Philippa and Jules Sticatta.

Frank the Kid had found his own brand of sedatives at the library bar and it was obviously going to take a major disaster to blast him out of there in any foreseeable future.

Bolan/Cavaretta had taken a turn around the grounds to "hoorah" the troops out there, carrying a bottle of Frank's best bourbon for amba.s.sadorial purposes, returning with an empty fifth and a lot of new friends.

He found Carmine Drasco huddled with his boys at a large card table near the TV set and dragged him off to the rear for "a kitchen conference".

It was all too obvious that Drasco held this "wild card" in the highest esteem. He was bursting with smug pride over this personal confab with the impressive storm trooper from New York and transparently anxious to make a good showing for himself.

Bolan watered that down immediately between gulps from a milk bottle at the refrigerator door. !

"You're flat on your a.s.s, Carmine," he told the guy. "We had you figured for too smart for this."

"I don't, uh, I don't get you, Johnny," Drasco replied in a rapidly deflating voice.

"I have better things to do with my time than to run around playing stink-finger with guys like this."

"What guys? I don't know-what's happened?"

"You tell me what's happened," Bolan bored on. "What's been happening in this crazy town all day, Carmine?"

"Well, G.o.d, it's been-hey, you just don't know. It's been sheer h.e.l.l. One thing and another."

Bolan relented suddenly, smiling sympathetically and placing an arm around the caporegime's shoulder to lead him toward the far corner of the room. His voice dropped to a near whisper as he said, "I know more than you think. Listen, why do you think I'm here?"

"Well, to-h.e.l.l, Stefano said they were sending you to-you came to get Bolan off our backs, didn't you?"

"Has this Bolan been on your backs, Carmine?"

"You d.a.m.n well know it! He took Cappy clear out of the picture early this morning. Then he hit us out at the Emperor's this afternoon like-well, you'd have to be there to know like what. He-"

"Did you see the boy, Carmine?"

"What boy? Who, Bolan? Of course I. . ." "Did you see him? With your own two eyes?" "Well . .. I guess I didn't. But somebody sure as h.e.l.l did. He left about thirty dead men behind who I guess saw him." The Southy lieutenant had been whispering. He raised his voice to inquire, "What the h.e.l.l are we whispering for?"

"You either go on like you were or shut up!" Bolan hissed back. "This whole d.a.m.n place might have ears. Listen! What makes you think it was Bolan at the Emperor's today?"

"What makes me think. . ? Are you saying . . ? I don't get this, Johnny. What the h.e.l.l are you telling me?"

Bolan pushed him deeper into the corner. "Look," he said, "I don't belong to any family. You know? Like a guy living in the District of Columbia-right? He has no allegiance to any state. Right? That's me, Carmine And that's my boss. And my boss tells me this, Carmine. He says, 'Do what you can, Johnny. Talk to those boys down there in Philly, but talk to them quietly. And don't you do a thing else until we get all this cleared through council.' "

"All this what?" the guy wailed.

"All this, you know." Bolan rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, patted his chest, and dropped his gaze to the floor.

Carmine Drasco was in danger of popping several blood veins in his face and throat. His eyes were shifting violently from side to side and his breath was coming in stuttering gasps. He half-whispered, half-shouted, "What the h.e.l.l are you telling me?"

"I'm not telling you anything," Bolan/Cavaretta quietly a.s.sured him, the tone a somber sotto voce. "But I'm going to show you something, Carmine. After that, what you decide is your own business. Like I said, I have to stay neutral. I have to stay that way until somebody way upstairs says otherwise. You know?"

Carmine Drasco obviously "knew".

After all, it had been a most difficult day in Philadelphia. A day to believe almost anything. At this point, Drasco was ready to believe most anything.

Johnny Cavaretta was being one h.e.l.l of a nice guy, letting Carmine in on something earth-shaking. It had to be . . . and, yeah, Carmine Drasco was ready to buy everything.

He was not quite prepared, however, for what Bolan/Cavaretta had stashed away in the luggage compartment of the Maserati.

Bolan led him out there without a word, snapped open the lid, and told the guy, "See what there is to see. But-on your sacred blood, Carmine -not a word, not a G.o.dd.a.m.ned word to anybody."

Carmine looked, and his eyes boggled at what they beheld. He reached in for a feel, patted the lifeless face, then spat on it.

Bolan pushed him away and closed the exhibit, then dragged the muted, almost staggering caporegime back into the house.

Drasco dropped into a chair and pa.s.sed a quivering hand across his face. He said, "I don't get-I guess I don't-how long has that been in there, Johnny?"

"Since about noon today," Bolan/Cavaretta lied without a qualm.

"Well, okay, I-yeah . . I guess I had it figured for something like that, from what you . . . I mean. . ."

The guy was all torn up, pinned cruelly upon the horns of both joy and wriggling fear.

Bolan prodded that latter emotion a bit. "Like I said, Carmine. I'd show you something. After that it's up to you."

"But if you bagged the guy about noon ... then. . well, wait a minute, now. Who ... ?"

Bolan nodded his head and gave the guy a sober wink. "Exactly," he said. "Who hit the Emperor's?"

"Well, I'm d.a.m.ned if I know," Drasco declared raggedly. "I didn't see anything, to tell the truth." His eyes flared suddenly and he yelled, "Hey!" He staggered off the chair, pivoted toward the door to the crew room and cried, "That rotten fink!"

"What rotten fink?" Bolan asked quietly.

"He kept saying he saw him, he saw him-clear as day and big as a mountain, that's what he said! And that little b.i.t.c.h! She hit him, she said! Imagine that! I thought she was just . . . kept saying it over and over, she hit him! Jesus Christ, what a f.u.c.king sap I been! Poor old Jules, G.o.dd.a.m.ned near cremated!"

Drasco spun about to show Bolan a tortured, betrayed and utterly demoralized loyal liege to the chief. He was almost sobbing as he asked, "Why would he do that, Johnny?"

Bolan felt like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d for sure and he did not have to fake the sadness as he replied, "Because he's dying, that's why. An old man sometimes gets desperate, especially when things are untidy behind him. Don't blame him too much."

"Naw, you got the wrong slant on it. It wasn't Stefano. It was that fink of a kid, f.u.c.ked-up Frank, the ninety-second wonder. Those were his boys, his wops-and he even knocked off a bunch of them just to get to us! What d' you think of a kid what would hit his own papa?"

"And can't even do that right," Bolan added.

"He sure didn't! All he got was a bunch of his own wops and a piece of poor old Jules. That rotten-I'm gonna-"

Bolan grabbed the guy and jerked him back as he lunged toward the crew-room door. "You're doing nothing!" he said coldly. "Don't you worry, it's already in council. That's why I'm here."

"Well, dammit, what'm I supposed to do, just sit here and smile about it?"

"I'm just going to tell you what I would do, Carmine. I leave the rest up to you. If it was me, I'd take Jules home, I mean straight home. He's hurting and he needs to be home. I'd do that first. Then I'd round up all his regime; I'd get them hard and I'd tell them to shoot the first greaser that crossed the line. Then I'd go home and do the same for my own, and I'd sit tight and let Johnny Cavaretta do his own job his own way."

Drasco's gaze was darting about the kitchen. He was thinking-survival thinking. Presently he asked, "What about Stefano?"

"Johnny Cavaretta is here with Stefano, Carmine."

Drasco was huffing and puffing and still thinking about it.

Bolan lit a cigarette and pa.s.sed it to him.

The guy huffed some more, ignoring the cigarette, then said, "That's why you're here?"

"It's exactly why I'm here. I didn't even have to come to Philly otherwise. I bagged my game over in Jersey."

Drasco had come to his decision. He grabbed Bolan's hand and pumped it throughout the long speech. "I want you to know, Johnny; and I want you to tell all our dear friends in New York, that this is the nicest thing anybody has ever did for me. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. All these years with Stefano and he never done nothing like this for Carmine Drasco. He even sat on his tail once and let Cappy horn right into my territory without no explanation-not even a by-your-leave. Not even, no, not a gentle cough to warn me. I mean it, I'll never forget this, Johnny."

Bolan the Dirty b.a.s.t.a.r.d told him, "I'm sure you won't, Carmine."

Five minutes later, Drasco and all his boys plus the heavily sedated Jules Sticatta were off the property and huffing their way home.

Wild Card Bolan sent with them his blessings. He would do all in his power to help them huff their houses down. He and Frank the Kid and all his beloved gradigghia.

Chapter 15/ Requiem For an Empire.

Bolan pa.s.sed the word to his new dear friend, the yard boss, that no one-but no one-came onto that property without Johnny Cavaretta's personal approval. Then he went to find Don Stefano, and found him at his desk, glaring sourly at his kid and heir, who was by now finding it quite an achievement to merely maintain equilibrium atop a barstool.

The old man turned around with a sigh and told the Executioner, "I should've had a kid like you, Johnny."

"Give him time, Steven," Bolan replied, using the surname reserved for the use of capi and other stellars of the organization. "He might surprise you yet."

"Not tonight, I guess," the old Don said.

"Does he do this often?" Bolan asked.

"No, usually he just runs and sticks his d.i.c.k in some cheap broad. Tonight the bar just happened to be handier."

Bolan chuckled. "You're too hard on him maybe."

"Hard my a.s.s," Angeletti sneered. "I give him everything and he turns it all to dust."

"Whoever gave you anything, Steven?" Bolan asked gently.

"Huh? n.o.body ever gave me a d.a.m.ned-oh! I see where you're getting. Well, maybe that's right. I , thought about that too."

Bolan broke a lengthening silence to report, "I shuffled the hard defenses. And I sent Jules and Carmine home."

A vein popped in the old man's neck and he stiffened in his chair as he protested, "I told them to stay here with-where do you get off telling my boys where to go and when to go?"

"Hey, they got things to protect too," Bolan reminded the boss of Philly. "This isn't the only place in town the guy could decide to hit. You have all the protection you'll need. Relax and let me take care of it."

"You relax!" the old man yelled. "It's my hide, don't tell me to relax!"

"There's a hundred cops out there," Bolan argued. "You're paying taxes. Get a little back."

"I thought they'd gone," the old man said, easing off a bit.

Bolan chuckled. "They're not gone far. Don't worry. That guy won't get within sight of this joint tonight. And if he does. . ." Bolan slapped an imaginary figure in s.p.a.ce with the heel of his hand right into the trap and off with his head. You got to have more respect for the law in your town, Steven."

The old man cackled and reached for a cigar. Bolan lit it for him and told him, "There's not many like you left, Steven."

"I 'preciate you saying that, Johnny. Because I respect you, too. I know what you can do ... what you've done. That job in Jersey last month was, well, I mean, that was the neatest I ever saw, and I've seen some."

Bolan said, "It's great of you to say that. I guess we got quite a thing going, you and me." He laughed. "Too bad you're not forty years younger and split-tailed."

The old man thought that statement a riot. He laughed until he choked, had to sip some wine, pounded the desk for a full half-minute, then slyly reminded his guest, "I know somebody named Angeletti fills that bill to a tee-and its name ain't Frank."

Bolan laughed and held up both hands. "Oh hey, don't match make me, Steven. I'm nowhere near my quota yet."

"Well, you could do worse," Angeletti said, maybe a bit more than half serious. "And I'll bet she'd never give you any s.h.i.t, I'll bet that."

Bolan said, "I'll keep that in mind."

"You should. I, uh, to tell the truth, Johnny. . ."

Bolan prompted him. "I'm always ready for the truth, Steven."

The clouded old eyes flicked toward the bar. The voice dropped as he confided, "I've about given up on Frank. I mean .. . let's be men, Johnny. The kid just never is going to have it. And I-"

Bolan cut him off with a wave of the hand. His face screwed into a troubled frown as he told Don Stefano, "Please-Steven, please. Let's don't discuss that. Nothing about that. I mean . . . I sympathize, I know the problem . . . but I'm too close to it and I. . ."

The old man was perched there on the edge of his chair, giving Bolan the b.a.s.t.a.r.d a quizzical, searching scan of the eyes. "I don't, uh, I don't get you, Johnny. You're too close to what?"

"Let's just drop it."

"Drop it my a.s.s! Now, come on!"

Bolan smiled soberly and said, "We have a thing, you and me. Right? Let's leave it that way, and never any hard feelings. Never you having to say that you sat right in my face and discussed this with Johnny Cavaretta and he never gave you a thing, not a tumble. Spare me that, Steven."