Lone Wolf #3: Boston Avenger Read online

  OTHER TITLES BY MIKE BARRY

  Lone Wolf #1: Night Raider

  Lone Wolf #2: Bay Prowler

  Lone Wolf #3: Boston Avenger

  Lone Wolf #4: Desert Stalker

  Lone Wolf #5: Havana Hit

  Lone Wolf #6: Chicago Slaughter

  Lone Wolf #7: Peruvian Nightmare

  Lone Wolf #8: Los Angeles Holocaust

  Lone Wolf #9: Miami Marauder

  Lone Wolf #10: Harlem Showdown

  Lone Wolf #11: Detroit Massacre

  Lone Wolf #12: Phoenix Inferno

  Lone Wolf #13: The Killing Run

  Lone Wolf #14: Philadelphia Blowup

  The Lone Wolf #3:

  Boston Avenger

  Mike Barry

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  Boston: fair Boston

  Home of the bean and the cod,

  Where the Lowells talk but to the Cabots

  And the Cabots talk only to God.

  —Old Proverb

  It’s been the Lowells and the Cabots too long and now the old order is changing. The scum think they’re safe here in old New England but I’ll bring them a friend of mine who I talk to quite a bit. His name is Mr. Death.

  —Burt Wulff

  For HWW: may he never have to read this!

  Contents

  Prologue

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  Epilogue

  Also Available

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  TO: Chief

  FROM: Information Division

  RE: Burt Wulff

  Our records indicate that the above-named resigned from the Department on 7/26/73 (Badge #1937567, Patrolman) for unstated reasons. Forms M31B and H261 were not filed. The subject did not await formal resignation-retirement procedures but quit by phone call to superior, Lieutenant Gage. He left last known address without forwarding information. Check in settlement was returned unknown and after efforts to locate the subject proved fruitless, was returned to the Finance Division.

  Subject is 32 years old. Full physical description and medical history accompanies this report. He served in Department from 7/5/73 until resignation date with absence of two years (2/66–1/68) spent in active duty with USA, most of it in Vietnam. Although police personnel are specifically exempted from draft calls, subject volunteered for duty, stating, according to Request for Leave of Absence form filed 1-14-66, “I want to see what’s going on there.” Subject received an Honorable Discharge and obtained the rank of Staff Sergeant (E-6). It is indicated that he served in combat.

  TO: Top Echelons Only

  FROM: C

  RE: Burt Wulff

  Subject is thirty-two years old, former (ten years) police officer NYPD. Served on narcotics detail last five years until two (2) days before his resignation at which time he was transferred to patrol car. Subject is a combat (Vietnam) veteran with a highly sophisticated knowledge of weaponry. He is extremely dangerous. A photograph accompanies this memorandum and the subject, upon identification, should be killed on sight, regardless of apparent risk.

  This man says that he is commencing a “war against the international drug trade.” He has already killed at least six people, two of whom, identities not revealed in this memo, can be considered to have been at high organizational echelons. One of them was killed in a massive fire and explosion which demolished his townhouse on Manhattan’s exclusive East Side. How Wulff was able to penetrate security is not yet known. Extreme caution must be used in approaching the subject.

  Circumstances creating Wulff’s decision to commence his “war against the international drug trade” (phraseology his) apparently trace to personal motives. Subject was engaged to a girl, name Marie Calvante, who was discovered to have died of heroin overdose on 8/12/73 in a furnished room on the West Side of Manhattan. Apparently the girl had died elsewhere and had been brought to this room by party or parties unknown where she was discovered by Wulff himself. Wulff was in the radio car which took the call.

  It is not known and will probably never be known whether Marie Calvante’s death was murder or whether, in experimentation with hard drugs, she misjudged and killed herself. Subject Wulff is convinced, however, that the girl was murdered in retaliation for certain prosecutions he had initiated as a member of the narcotics squad, and for his refusal to settle with various parties who wished to pay him well to have those prosecutions uninitiated. This is the apparent source of his goal to destroy the drug trade. Little else can be deduced.

  It is obvious that Wulff is insane in this quest but he is very dangerous. Certain activities of his in New York have shifted the line of succession and created problems out of all relation to the subject’s apparent powers to do so. It must be strongly emphasized that no known elements were connected in any way with the death of Marie Calvante, and the subject has thus from the beginning worked from a misapprehension. This however does not seem to be a matter which can be discussed with Wulff. He is, as stated, extremely dangerous and cannot be approached.

  Based upon certain information in a stolen attache case of one of our principals (whom Wulff murdered at close range before escaping with the case), the subject to the best of our knowledge has emplaned for San Francisco to continue his “war”.

  Reasons for subject’s sudden, unexplained resignation from PD have been inferred from several sources. It is indicated that subject, who had been transferred to Narcotics Squad at his request, became involved in difficulties with superior officers there and was involuntarily relieved of duties and, pending further disposition, was returned to radio car. On the first and only night of said assignment, Wulff’s car was sent because of an anonymous tip to a rooming house on West 93rd Street where one Marie Calvante was found by Wulff dead of heroin overdose.

  It has been found through informal channels that Wulff and Marie Calvante were affianced. Whether Miss Calvante’s death was murder by party or parties unknown or a genuine OD has never been established. It is known that immediately subsequent to this, Wulff threw away his badge and resigned peremptorily from the PD.

  We can infer that subject is extremely embittered. Embitterment alone, however, would hardly account for his subsequent actions.

  It is emphasized at this point in the report that everything which follows has been obtained through unofficial channels subject to your request to obtain as much straightforward information about Wulff as possible. The information comes from police informers and other sources similarly disreputable. Its credibility is, therefore, to be questioned although the sources utilized are considered to be reliable.

  Wulff, as a result of his experiences, declared a “war on the international drug trade” and let it be known that his aim was to singlehandedly trace and smash the supply and distribution of drugs in the United States and territories. In New York City, within a period of several days, he was able to kill at least ten individuals, three of whom have been subsequently identified as being involved at the higher levels of East Coast distribution. In order to kill one of them, Peter Vincent, the subject bombed Vincent’s three-story townhouse on the East Side of Manhattan.

  Subject apparently then came into information advising of a large expected shipment in San Francisco. From this point, reports are hearsay, although there is considerable newspaper evidence as to some of his acts in San Francisco.
In a major dock fire a freighter registered to the Government of Argentina was destroyed and fifty to sixty people were killed, including serveral law-enforcement personnel who arrived at the scene on a tip just as the ship exploded. (It is indicated strongly, however, that Wulff’s “war” is upon illicit traffickers and distributors and he considers himself to be aiding authorities.) This freighter contained approximately one quarter of a million dollars raw price of uncut heroin. The ship sank and the heroin was not recovered. It is possible that this quantity is in Wulff’s possession.

  This man is extremely dangerous. He is obsessed by a sense of mission, his intellectual facilities remain completely unimpaired, and he appears to have easy access to heavy weapons and the knowledge of their use (probably acquired from his military experience). There is no question, however, but that in the few months since he left the PD subject has made a small but appreciable dent upon traffic in the areas which he has attacked.

  It is agreed however that law enforcement personnel are not to assist him in any way and that he is to be placed under surveillance and apprehended as soon thereafter as arrangements have been made to protect the arresting personnel. Since the subject, however, is considered to be an enormous threat to traffickers it is quite likely that private assassination units will dispose of him before he can be apprehended.

  According to unreliable sources who cannot be identified, subject was able to save the shipment of heroin from the fire and is now heading with it toward Boston, using it as “bait” to move to ever-higher levels of responsibility for the traffic. END OF REPORT.

  PS: (Handwritten) This is the best I could dig up on such short notice; hope you’ll find it useful. It probably is only FYI though. Nothing to put in effect.

  I don’t give this guy four days, now.

  I

  Wulff was numb after thirty-six hours non-stop in a 1965 Lincoln Continental, two thousand miles with only gas stops after a one-night stopover in Wyoming. He drove up to the toll booth on the Massachusetts Turnpike at three in the morning and fumbled on the seat beside him for the ticket which he remembered having tossed there two hundred miles back. On the back seat behind him the valise containing a quarter of a million dollars in uncut heroin joggled and then, on the sharp deceleration, slammed into the front, jarring him. “Fuck it,” Wulff said absently and shook his head, trying to clear it. The damned valise belonged in the trunk, of course. But having gone through so much to get it, gone through so much to bring it here, he was damned if he was going to let it out of his sight. No. No way. He was going to take this mother with him all the way through Boston and convert it, before he was done, into a parlay of death.

  The man in the toll booth looked sleepy. Little business at this hour; Wulff had probably awakened him. Scratching his head, he reached for the ticket which Wulff passed across to him. A short fellow, mid-thirties, thinning blond hair. Another civil service hack working down shift. Wulff logged the face and put it away where it would keep. An old police habit; you never knew when you might need a face.

  “Three fifty,” the attendant said.

  Wulff went into his wallet lying on the seat beside him and got a five. There was only about three hundred of the New York stake left now. San Francisco had yielded heroin but Boston was going to have to give him money.

  “Five,” the attendant said. “That means fifty back.”

  “No it doesn’t It means one fifty.”

  “That’s right,” the attendant said. “Tired. Not thinking too well.” He retreated into the booth, began to fumble at a cash drawer. Had anyone ever tried to knock over a toll booth? Wulff thought idly. Probably not; that kind of energy went straight to banks.

  “Here,” the attendant said, turning from the booth. “Here it is.” His face broke into a peculiar smile.

  He showed Wulff a gun held in his right hand. “Here’s your change,” he said.

  Wulff, reacting if not thinking, dove, flattened himself on the seat. Someone yanked open the passenger door and hit him in the neck. He rolled to the floor of the car and found himself looking at another gun, this one held by a stocky, middle-aged man.

  “Don’t move,” the man said. “Just tell me where it is.”

  Wulff held himself in place there. His own gun was where it should be, in his right coat pocket. He had no more chance of getting at it then he did of getting to the machine gun and full clip in the back.

  They had him. He had rolled into it but good. Three thousand and eighty miles to dump into something like this. That took foresight. It really did.

  The stocky man cocked the gun. Wulff felt it prod his forehead. “No bullshit,” the man said, “where’s the stuff?”

  Wulff did not move, said nothing. The attendant was in the car now, leaning over the wheel, putting his gun into Wulff’s stomach. His eyes were cold and furious.

  “Let’s not shoot the son of a bitch and then search the car,” he said. “He’s got it on him, we know that.”

  “Yeah,” said the stocky man, “I suppose so—” and then his eyes fell on the valise in the back. He reached over, seized the handle and dragged it toward him. “I think we got it,” he said.

  “Open it you bastard,” the blond attendant said. He seemed very nervous. “Don’t tell me what you think you got, just get to it.”

  The stocky man fumbled with the clips, the pistol in his hand wavering. Wulff calculated a move but discarded it. He lay there, pinched up on the door. He could get to the stocky man the attendant would kill him.

  The stocky man beamed as he saw what was in the valise. “We got it,” he said.

  “Close it and get it the fuck out.”

  “All right,” the man said. He seemed hurt. Clumsily, quickly, he closed up the valise and manuevered it out of the Continental, put it beside his feet outside the car.

  “Come on,” the blond man said, “shoot him.”

  “Me?” the stocky man said, “why me? You were supposed to shoot him. I was just standing guard.”

  “You stupid prick,” the attendant said and raised his gun. Wulff compressed and closed his eyes. There was nothing else to do.

  Behind the Continental there was a screech of brakes, the sound of a horn. “What is this?” someone was shouting, “what’s going on here?”

  “Son of a bitch,” the blond said again, “they were supposed to block it two miles up. What’s going on here?”

  “Kill him,” the stocky man said. His eyes were quite bright and he looked at Wulff intensely.

  “I’m not going to kill him in front of witnesses,” the blond said. He moved away, the gun going last, took his head out of the car. “That wasn’t in the contract,” he said.

  The honking was more intense. Behind that Wulff could hear the sound of accumulating traffic.

  The stocky man backed out, waved his gun, seized the valise. “Next time, sucker,” he said to Wulff. He slammed the door viciously.

  Wulff wrenched himself from the compartment, vaulted to the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed. The toll booth was empty. In the dim light there, rising to his knees, he could just see the outlines of a form that might have been a man trussed.

  Wonderful. That was just wonderful. Traffic was backed up now ten cars deep to the one entryway with a green light. Turnpikes were really amazing. Even at three in the morning, there were a lot of people moving into Boston.

  Down the line people were starting to come out of their cars, some waving their fists and cursing. Wulff peered into the darkness beyond but he could see no indication of the two men or the valise. And he did not think that he was in any condition, on foot or by car, to pursue them at this time.

  The motor was still running. Swearing, he took the car out of Park, in which the blond had thoughtfully put it, floored the accelerator and drove out of there. Stupid. He had been stupid. Three thousand miles and only for this.

  And a quarter million dollars worth of junk now back in the hands of the enemy.

  “I’ll make
them pay for this,” Wulff said quietly, coming to an intersection, turning right, ramming the gas to the floor as he drove at ninety through the back roads of Newton, Massachusetts. It might not have been in the contract but they had made an awful mistake not killing him.

  The pain, the rage, his own sense of idiocy for being so exposed beat within him strongly. But, he thought wryly, there was one thing it could be said he had gotten away with anyway.

  A quarter of a million dollars of death off into the night. But at least he had saved the toll.

  II

  Tucci got a call but refused to take it. No phones. Taps were everywhere, the sons of bitches were closing in. Reform district attorney, press calling for mandatory life, the usual hardline shit. It would blow away and the survivors would get fat but the heat had been on for months now and still no sign of easing. He had lived through these before, though. No calls. Everything face to face, in a public area.

  He was at a luncheonette near Scully Square at midnight. A small man found him in the back drinking a cup of coffee and said, “we got it.”

  “That’s good.”

  “No,” the messenger said, “it isn’t so good. They didn’t kill the guy and they seem to have taken off with the valise.”

  Tucci’s face suffused. “Son of a bitch,” he said, “I don’t believe you.”

  The small man was one of the few within Tucci’s orbit in Boston who did not have to take crap from this bastard. “You better believe me,” he said. “They missed the block and traffic got right through. Started backing up and they weren’t going to do it in front of twenty witnesses.”

  “And they got the valise?”

  “Put it this way,” the messenger said, “it wasn’t delivered. They’re out there with it somewhere.”

  “Maybe Wulff got away with it,” Tucci said almost hopefully.

  “You kidding? No fucking chance. They spotted his car driving away with him in it but by then it was too late to do anything. Besides, what to do? They got the valise.”