Free Death Wish by Iceberg Slim Page A

open glass doors. The terrace was glowing and pulsing with colorful Japanese lanterns and Christmas merriment.
    The child actors took bows to the applause of their proud parents.
    He lit a cigarette and casually eyed through the crowd for Papa Bellini. He didn’t spot him. Once again, he swept his eyes through the terrace. The twins leaped from Tonelli’s lap. They scampered away toward a mound of presents and Santa Claus.
    Tonelli glimpsed Collucci, and his Barrymore-handsome face beamed. He rose from a sofa and left the terrace to greet Collucci. Collucci painfully managed to display his teeth as he went toward Tonelli.
    Tonelli embraced him and said in Sicilian, “Son, my very best to you and your family for the holidays and always.”
    Collucci replied in Sicilian, “Thank you, sir, and my best to you and yours.”
    Collucci stepped back gently out of Tonelli’s embrace and said, “Please excuse my lateness.”
    Tonelli said, “With Olivia and Petey under the weather, you don’t have to apologize. Besides, we cannot have undienza until Santa Claus Bellini finishes with the kids and shark Cocio trims the last sucker in the billiard room.”
    Tonelli said, “Excuse me, Jimmy,” and moved to a nearby table and lifted an intercom receiver. He gave a brief order and cradled the instrument.
    Tonelli said, “Let’s have a smoke while we wait for the others.”
    Collucci followed him to the steel door. It was opened from the inside by Tonelli’s eccentric and deadly chief bodyguard, lanky Carl “The Sphinx” Dinzio. He was heavily bearded and dressed as usual in a navy mohair suit. He wore heavy black sunglasses, and his black hair fell to his shoulders.
    Collucci nodded as he went past Dinzio. Dinzio grunted. A corner of Collucci’s eye snared a shiny device Dinzio manipulated in his palm. The steel door swung shut with a whooshing sound.
    Tonelli draped an arm across Collucci’s shoulders and took him down a shadowy corridor. Collucci felt a chill at the sound of Dinzio’s catlike footsteps behind him.

8
    T he Warrior ruling council, in uniform, stood at attention in the stripped-bare, echoing cavern of the church reviewing the troops. The church was used as an all-purpose assembly area. Once a month a portable obstacle course was set up for punishing guerrilla maneuvers and toughening of the Warriors.
    In the wintry night, the five hundred-man force of interracial Warriors was crisp and immaculate.
    The barrels of the automatic rifles on their shoulders shone like a dull blue lake in the fierce glare of klieg lights. The solemn-faced columns had marched and maneuvered for the council with precise and vigorous grace.
    The council gazed out at them proudly as they stood rigidly at attention.
    T. used the reviewing stand microphone to dismiss the assembly. The council hurried from the church-arena for their return to the command bunker. They went into the basement of the parsonage attached to the church. T., his family, and fifteen of his interracialsquad leaders lived with their wives in the once-palatial forty-room mansion.
    The basement was crammed to the ceiling with abandoned refrigerators, stoves, and shattered furniture. T. opened a heavy door.
    Here, if necessary, the Warriors’ total force could retreat. Here, they could indefinitely survive and pop in and out of the myriad camouflaged exits and entrances. The system and the Warrior training was designed to survive possible commando strikes by an enemy invading the Zone.
    The council seated themselves at the table in the command bunker. Bama nodded toward the tiny image of the Pontiac on a TV monitor as it approached the perimeter of the Zone.
    Tat Taylor’s wife, Rachel, and teenage daughter, Fluffy, in crisp white aprons, served Christmas dinner to the trio seated at the bunker table. They and other Warrior women had served dinners to scores of interracial residents of the