"Дон Пендлтон. California Hit ("Палач" #11) " - читать интересную книгу автора

to him as I am to you right now, Mr. Vericci, and I seen them fuckin' -
excuse me, them damn eyes of his, like two chunks of ice, and I guess I'm
alive by a grace of God or something."
Enforcer Laurentis coldly declared, "What you mean is, you're alive
because you turned your ass to him and ran away, that's what you mean,
Matty."
"Yessir, I sure did, and I ain't ashamed of that. That guy had a
fuckin' - a machine gun and he was cutting down everything in sight. I ran
back inside to get some more help. He'd already blowed up the goddam joint
and set everything on fire. I wasn't about to face down a guy like..."
"You shut up, Matty!" Laurentis snarled.
"Yessir, I beg your pardon, I was just..."
"Franco is right, Matty," the Capo said. "You shouldn't go around
spouting off your mouth like that, about how mean this Bolan is. Our boys
are already nervous enough. You watch it what you say. Understand?"
"Yessir, I'm sorry."
"That Bolan is just a lucky punk" Laurentis said angrily. "He's got
hisself a big reputation just because of talk like that! I don't wanta hear
no more of it!"
"Yessir," Matty said humbly.
The Capo quietly observed, "I'm happy to hear that you're not nervous
about this Bolan, Franco."
"I'm not a bit nervous, Don DeMarco."
"That's good, because he's going to be your worry."
The enforcer's eyes roamed to the other rankholders as he replied, "I
wouldn't stand for it no other way."
"Fine, then that's settled," DeMarco said, sighing. "Tommy... Vince...
I want you both to shut everything down. I mean everything. Understand?
Don't give this guy one little movement to grab onto."
Vericci stared at the glowing tip of his cigar and replied, "Even my
Montgomery Street operation?"
The Capo nodded his head. "Even that. You don't move anything."
"I got a big deal, boss, just trembling at the finish line."
"Then let it tremble. Shut it down."
"We can't just shut down every thing," the East Bay boss declared in an
unhappy tone. "Like my powder network. We stop supplying horse and we're
going to have a town full of crazy people over there before the sun sets
again. The other stuff, maybe okay. But not the horse. Some of those habits
are running a hundred bills a day."
Ciprio's Berkeley lieutenant hurried in to support his boss. "That's
right," he said. "Some of those heads are popping four and five caps a day.
We cut 'em off cold, anything could happen. If we freeze the horse, the
whole town might go up in smoke."
DeMarco drummed his fingers on the table for a moment, then he asked
Ciprio, "How much dump have you been laying on your retailers?"
"Just like we agreed," the underboss replied. "We give them three days,
and that's the limit And a third of those are due for re-supply today."
"Well I don't care," the Capo declared stubbornly. "You got to freeze,
and that's my decision."
"Sure, okay," Ciprio replied, his voice muffled with anger.