Damage Radius. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ like O’Banion and McFarley, he’d realized he would never be a champion on the professional level, and been smart enough to get out of the game before he’d damaged his brain.

      The Irishman behind the desk felt his jaw tighten. O’Banion and Westbrook might not have been particularly good boxers, but they had proved they could pull the trigger of a gun with the best of them.

      As the three men took seats on a couch across from McFarley’s desk, the Irishman studied their faces. Westbrook and O’Banion looked slightly puzzled.

      Gau was outright scared. And had every reason to be.

      McFarley broke the silence. “You did a good job of getting rid of our two troublemakers,” he said after the door had swung closed. His gaze moved to Gau. “But the problem goes deeper than those two men.”

      The three men on the couch shifted uncomfortably. Still staring at Gau, McFarley opened the desk drawer in front of him. He glanced down to see the pearl-handled Webley .455 revolver that he had brought with him from Ireland. It was still hidden from the men on the other side of the desk.

      “The New Orleans gym falls under your care, Jo-Jo,” McFarley said as he casually wrapped his fingers around the pearl grips of the wheel gun. “It was your responsibility to see that Kiethley took a dive.”

      Gau covered his mouth with a big fist and coughed nervously. “Boss,” he said, “I did my best. They told me they were both cool with it.”

      McFarley stared at the man. Gau. Was it a French name? It sounded like it. Not that it mattered.

      When he didn’t answer, Gau began talking nervously again. “I was in the dressing room with them right before the fight,” he said in a slightly trembling voice. “They both swore Kiethley would go down in the third round.” He coughed again. “Kiethley was going to wait on that jab-uppercut combination the other guy liked to use, let it land, then fall.”

      “But that’s not what happened, was it?” McFarley said.

      Gau’s coughing became almost spasmodic. “No, sir,” he managed to get out between the roars from his throat. “They lied. I don’t know why. Maybe the other side paid them more than we were going to.”

      “That’s really no excuse, Jo-Jo,” McFarley said. “It’s your responsibility to see that things like that don’t happen.”

      “I know, boss.” Gau coughed out once more. “And it won’t happen again. I swear it won’t.”

      “There’s no need to swear to it,” McFarley said. “I’m going to personally make sure it doesn’t ever happen again.” He paused as his fingers tightened around the pearl grips of the Webley. “At least not on your watch.”

      Without another word, McFarley lifted the big revolver, aimed it at Gau’s crooked nose and pulled the trigger.

      The blast sounded like a nuclear bomb going off in the closed office. The .455-caliber lead bullet struck Gau between the eyes and he fell back against the couch, his arms dropping to his sides. The man’s eyes stared wide-open at McFarley.

      The nervous coughing stopped, but Gau’s eyes still looked scared, even in death.

      The sudden explosion had gotten Westbrook’s and O’Banion’s attention, too. They looked at McFarley, then Gau’s corpse, then back to McFarley again. McFarley wouldn’t have called their expressions shocked by any means; they had seen him perform violent acts before with guns, baseball bats and other items. But neither had been expecting to witness a cold-blooded murder at this time.

      McFarley dropped the Webley back into the drawer and shoved it closed. “Get rid of the body the same way you did the others,” he said simply. “Drop him out of the plane somewhere between here and Cuba. The sharks need to eat just like every other animal on the planet.”

      Westbrook and O’Banion nodded and stood up. O’Banion grabbed Gau under the arms, and Westbrook took the dead man’s ankles as they maneuvered him off the couch toward the door.

      The telephone on the desk rang. McFarley answered it as the two men opened the door and began clumsily carting the former fighter out into the hall. “Yeah?” the Irishman said into the receiver.

      “Tommy,” a soft voice purred.

      McFarley recognized the voice immediately. It belonged to Sugar, the madam who managed the brothel on the lower floors of the building. She was no longer a working girl herself—McFarley kept her for his own private use. Of course he didn’t limit himself in that way, and in addition to her he had one or more of the other prostitutes several times a day. Sometimes with Sugar. Other times, alone.

      “What is it, sweetheart?” McFarley said into the phone.

      “Is everything all right?” Sugar asked. “We thought we heard a shot.?…” Her voice trailed off.

      “Everything’s fine, Sugar. Thanks for checking. Now, keep it warm for me and get the other girls back to work.”

      “All right, lover,” Sugar purred and hung up.

      By the time McFarley had replaced the receiver, Westbrook and O’Banion had toted the dead body from the room. The Irishman looked toward the couch and the wall behind it.

      Blood and brain matter covered the expensive upholstery, and he started to call down to the janitor—a man who was vastly overpaid to keep the brothel clean and his mouth shut—to come up and clean the mess but then thought better of it. He doubted the stains would all come out even with the industrial strength cleaner the custodian used. So he made a mental note to send O’Banion out in the morning to buy a new couch.

      McFarley looked down at his watch. Matt Cooper would be here soon, and an idea suddenly struck him. He could use the gory mess on the couch and wall as an object lesson to this potential replacement for Gau. He could bring the new gym manager up here to his office after dinner. Let him see for himself what happened to McFarley’s employees when they screwed up.

      The Irishman stood up and found himself nodding. An excellent idea, he decided, as he rounded his desk and left his office. He walked down another hall to his private living quarters. As he opened the door, the faint-but-familiar odor of perfume filled his nostrils. McFarley smiled as he walked through the living room to the bedroom.

      Sugar had known he’d be wanting her as soon as she had heard the shot. She was a smart woman—especially for a whore—and she knew the types of activities that made men’s testosterone levels rise.

      So there she was, already lying back on the bed, wearing a smile.

      And nothing else but a red garter belt, matching fishnet hose and five-inch heels.

      4

      It was half-past-eight when the limo driver pulled through the iron gates and halted in front of the mansion. He hurried around the automobile to open Bolan’s door. As he stepped out of the vehicle, the smell of salt water hit him in the face and the soldier remembered that Lake Pontchartrain was second only to the Great Salt Lake as America’s largest inland body of salt water.

      The driver escorted him up the steps, through two rows of chiseled marble statues in the forms of Greek gods, to the front door. The man pressed a button, and the melodious sound СКАЧАТЬ