He nursed the old truck along, and wondered if he dare use the ferry across the Strait to Sicily. In the meantime, Bolan allowed himself a wry smile. He couldn't expect it to work every time, but hopefully his nightmarish multiple strikes in Naples had set off another internal war among the dons and bosses and soldiers, especially the ambitious ones left fighting for control of the unions Bolan had left without bosses.

"Have fun, boys," The Executioner muttered aloud, and took another sip of bitter wine.

10

A table for the Don

To mafiosi, a nation at war, particularly their own country, is meaningless. Except that warfare invariably provides them with increased opportunities for illicit profits, most frequently black-marketing those items which became rationed: gasoline, meat, flour, sugar, liquor, auto tires, shoes.

Mafiosi, members of "this thing of ours" owe a higher, overriding allegiance, to which they have given a blood oath, and into which they were born.

This heritage, tradition, and membership both requires and molds a certain mentality, so that Don Vito Genovese, Mafia ruler of southern Italy, headquartered in Naples, could not believe it when he was arrested by a U.S. Army CID agent in 1944. His disbelief became speechless, staggering incredulity when Sergeant O. C. Dickey flatly refused a $250,000 cash bribe and personally returned Genovese to the U.S. in 1945, to face trial for murder.

Into this sudden power vacuum, several Neapolitan underbosses moved, and with their crews fell into internal warfare for control until Charley Lucky Luciano, who had been released from a New York penitentiary, was deported from the States and came home to straighten things out. After Luciano's death and another inner struggle, Don Tronfio Frode emerged as Boss of all Bosses.

But after The Executioner's nightmarish strike in Napoli, the few surviving dons, and the capos who instantly seized power upon learning of their bosses' deaths, called "a table."

In a word, the Naples boss of bosses found himself on trial.

From Rome, from Genoa, from Reggio and the Sicilian provinces, the dons came, and they all came with the same question on their lips: "What the fuck is going on here, can't you control your own Family?"

"Listen to me, this wasn't Family, you get that? Not Family!"

"Then what?" demanded Brinato from Rome in an icy voice.

"That bastard Bolan, the one they call The Executioner."

"Bullshit," said Vandalo from Palermo. "One guy blowing up a whole town. Bullshit."

Frode turned his head and looked at Vandalo; his upper lip twisted with contempt, as though Vandalo were something in a test tube from the VD lab. "Where the hell you been, and doing what? Hustling dope again, and shooting your own stuff?"

"Listen, you bastard!"

"No, you listen, all of you!" Frode shouted. "Bolan, that bastard Bolan." He pointed a thrusting finger at Vandalo, then at Brinato, the ice-cold bastard. "Any of you notice anything, here, this table you called on me?"

All the dons looked around at one another. Vicercato, the foppishly overdressed don from Catania suddenly popped his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Hey! Hee-ey! Where the hell is Cafu, huh?"

"Yeah," Frode snarled, voice peeling hide from these creeps who dared call a table on him. "Where the hell is Cafu?" His voice mocked Vicercato.

The other dons looked at one another, and shifted uncomfortably. Frode felt his presence and counterattack regaining control of the situation. "You guys are nuts, if you think Bolan can't take down a whole goddam town, any town. You don't believe me, get in touch with what's left of the Angeletti outfit in Philly, huh? Or Boston. Huh? Is it coming back to you dumb bastards now? Is it?"

Frode leaned back in his chair and lit a fat Cuban cigar. The other dons looked at one another, and began muttering to themselves. Frode let them talk for a moment while he got the cigar going well, then he slapped his palm down on the big polished table. "This is the guy, the guy, one guy, Bolan, a single man, who flew right into Glass Bay, Puerto Rico where we had a million fucking soldiers waiting for him. And all he did was blow up Vince Triesta's house, crashed an airplane into it, took down the hardsite, wiped out that thing of ours, the Caribbean Carousel."

Frode turned his head and deliberately spat on the thick, expensive carpet. "You pricks make me sick."

"And you make me sick," a gravelly voice said from behind Frode. The don froze, cigar falling from his trembling fingers. He knew the voice. It was that of his house boss, Astio Traditore.

Frode swallowed heavily, jumped to his feet and whirled, shouting. "Get out! You don't belong here. This is a table for dons."

"Then you don't belong either, Don Tronfio," Astio said, twisting the title obscenely.

Big, swarthy, dressed in immaculate Italian silk tailoring and custom-lasted shoes from London, Astio stepped forward.

"You know something, boss," again the snotty twist to the word, "the only thing a don has going for him is respect. Whether the respect comes from fear, from good treatment, from letting us have our own things inside this big thing of ours, a don stays a don because his lieutenants and his soldiers respect him."

Astio Traditore spat at Frode's feet. "I don't respect no son of a bitch who cuts and runs with the women when someone tries to take down his hardsite."

Astio shifted his attention to the sharklike faces around the table for Don Tronfio Frode. "One of the first out the door. Look at him. Cut and scratched all to hell, running through the groves, hiding. Came crawling back in after daylight this morning, rumpled and dirty, like a fucking hound with his tail between his legs. I got no more respect for this pile of guts, and I don't work for no man I don't respect."

In his chilled voice, Brinato from Rome said, "You're taking over? Is that what you're telling the table?"

"I'm telling the table nothing," Astio said, with just the right touch of humility, "except I can't work for him no longer. I'm taking myself and my crews out. I'm open to offers."

Brinato gestured. "Bring a chair, join the table."

After Traditore seated himself, Brinato said, "We discuss the other in a moment. First I want to know, we all want to know, was it Bolan?"

Without hesitation, Traditore shook his head: no.

"Lie!" Don Frode shouted. "Look, goddammit, look!" He threw three marksman badges on the table. "The trademark — The Executioner's trademark."

The table remained silent, each don looking at the badges, then at Frode, finally shifting their gazes to Astio Traditore.

Astio smoothed his silk jacket, bent his thick lips in a slight smile, and said, "Dime store garbage. Anybody want a ton of them, tomorrow, this evening after dinner? I can get a good price on a trainload of that crap, all just alike."

"You lousy goddam traitor!" Frode screamed. "All I done for you, a rotten goddam punk pimping your sister to American sailors, and I brought you in like a son, and now you stab me, cut my throat. Traitor!"

Astio looked at Frode, his face totally without expression, and then after a moment, he nodded. "For respect. When I respected you, anything. Anything." Astio made a gesture as though brushing aside a fly. "No more."

"Just a minute now," said the Catania boss. "We're not taking down no don on this kind of evidence. First, I want to hear someone else besides this boy here say that our friend ran out last night Then I want other witnesses, like what the hell? Somebody must have seen this Bolan if he blew up the city like our friend Frode claims."

"No witnesses," Frode said helplessly. "He took everyone down each place he hit." He gestured at the metal objects on the table. "There's your evidence. That's his goddam MO, all of you know it."