Council of Kings by Don Pendleton Read Free Book Online Page B

nickel-and-dime stuff. Here the trade was for ten to fifty thou. Rich people needed loans more often than the poor, and their credit was usually better. If one of them got in over his head, he went to his old man or his rich girlfriend and tapped them for the cash to prevent a scandal. Loansharking had been here for years.
    Regardless of the affluence of the loan shark's victims in a place like Lake Oswego, Bolan had sworn long ago that he would remove every vestige of the Mob's loansharking operations from the face of the earth. The shark's customers might even resent it, but Mack Bolan's juggernaut of justice, out to avenge his and Johnny's family that had been so savagely victimized in the Vietnam war era, could not be stopped. The place must be hit. And the neighborhood had just better watch out for itself.
    Bolan stopped at a new office building near the east end of the lake, just off State Street. The Lake Oswego Loan and Trust Company, as the name plaque identified it, was a sleek and modern building with an all-glass front, curves instead of corners, a revolving door and modern sculptures outside and in the lobby. The lawn had been manicured within a blade of its life — every green shoot was properly clipped and trimmed. The big man in the beret and black-rimmed glasses paused inside the front door and shook the rain from his raincoat, which covered the hardware he carried.
    He walked to a reception area, sinking halfway to his ankles in red plush carpet, his eyes meeting those of a tall redhead who rose behind her desk and smiled. He stopped in front of her.
    "Good afternoon," she said. "How may I help you?"
    "I understand Mr. Pagano is in today. I don't have an appointment but it's urgent that I see him."
    "That might be difficult." She smiled, lighting her face with a special radiance that seemed to imply she was on his side.
    She sat behind the desk and motioned for him to sit. When he did, she punched a series of buttons on a telephone console.
    She spoke softly, then turned to Bolan.
    "His appointment-secretary wants to know your name and the nature of your business."
    "My name is Mack Scott. My business is old friends. I'm like a member of the family. Tell him we have a mutual acquaintance, Freddie Gambella."
    She turned back to the phone. When her eyes found him again, a touch of surprise was on her pretty face.
    "Marci says you can go right in. Her door is right over there, the second on the left down the main hall."
    "Thanks."
    "A pleasure, Mr. Scott. Anytime."
    Bolan approached the main hall; the carpet below his feet graduated from red to dark blue. He entered the second doorway on the left.
    The office was an interior decorator's dream, with subdued lighting, old-master prints in expensive frames on the walls and a typewriter and computer on the secretary's pedestal desk of glass and plastic.
    The secretary's blond hair was pulled back in a severe bun. Her dress was sleek and tight, highlighting her subtle curves. She wore a lot of makeup and stared vacantly in his direction. "Mr. Pagano is extremely interested in seeing you. He was a friend of Mr. Gambella, as you know. He's busy on the phone at the moment. Can I get you a drink while you wait?"
    "Coffee, please."
    She brought him a cup from a fancy vacuum coffeepot. The brew seared his lips. Before it was cool enough to drink, a door swung open and a tall, thin man appeared. His face was little more than skin and bone. Bolan could not remember seeing deeper-set eyes. Small blue veins showed through the tissue-like parchment covering his features as the deadly black eyes swept over Bolan.
    "You said you were a friend of Freddie Gambella's?" The voice was accusing. It was the sound of death squeezed through a reedy clarinet.
    "Hey, I met him couple of times. Maybe not like a friend. I heard you were in solid out here. Stopped by to pay my respects." Bolan's voice had a touch of Brooklyn and the eastern twang that was pure Mafia-soldier inflection.
    "Come