The Avenger 31 - The Cartoon Crimes (8 page)

He bent, grunted, and jerked one of the garage doors up and open.

Aloud he muttered, “I guess Nellie won’t mind if I borrow her jalopy.”

“Not if you take her along.”

Smitty wheeled around, mouth open. “You sure move quiet, Nellie.”

The little blonde said, “When you weigh what I do, it’s easy to be light on your feet. Can I tag along?”

“Oh, sure,” said Smitty. “This ain’t an exclusive job I’m doing. Only I figured you needed the shuteye, being as you’re—”

“Only a girl.”

Smitty flushed and studied his big feet. “Well, gee, it is true that girls aren’t as tough as guys. That’s a biological fact.”

Nellie made a dainty raspberry sound. “Baloney,” she said, walking to the car and grabbing open the door. “I’ll drive . . . if you don’t think I’m too fragile.”

“Gee, Nellie!” said the giant. He climbed into the passenger seat. He couldn’t think of anything else to say at the moment.

The clean-cut young man had a wrinkled tan raincoat thrown over his arm. He climbed up the steps of the police station and pushed open the glass doors.

There was a chunky uniformed sergeant standing beside the desk, making a puffing, grunting effort to touch his toes. “I don’t see how anybody can do ten of those,” he said, straightening up.

“Ten what?”

“Supposed to touch your damn toes ten times, but I can’t never get beyond two,” explained the chunky sergeant. “It’s really snafuing me, because if I can’t do the toe-touching I can’t go on to the next exercise, and that means I can’t finish my daily dozen. I been trying this every night for a week and still ain’t up to exercise number three.”

“Lieutenant Allen in?” asked the affable young man.

“Sure, Mr. Early. You can just walk on down the hall and knock.” He made another try at his toes.

“Don’t bend your knees.”

“Did I?”

Early went down the pale green corridor and knocked on Lieutenant Allen’s door. Nothing happened. He knocked once again.

Allen pulled the door open. “I said come in.”

“Didn’t hear you. Sorry.”

The mustached lieutenant wandered behind his desk. “What brings you here, Early?”

“What’s that?”

“I said what are you here about?”

“Found out something about the two the Avenger brought in.”

“He didn’t actually bring them in, Early. It was a couple of his sidekicks.”

“Avenger’s behind it all,” said the young government agent. “Anyway. The one who pretended to be Schantz, real name’s Hermansdorfer.”

“What about him?”

“I didn’t hear your question.”

“I said what about Hermansdorfer?”

“Got a pretty positive link between him and the sabotage gang,” said Early. “Meaning the Avenger is after spies, too. He may be pretending something else, but he’s trying to beat me to the punch again. Same way he did out in California. It doesn’t matter where I go any more—New England, the Southern California desert, Long Island. He’s always there.”

Rubbing at his mustache, Allen sat down and put his elbows on his desk. “You got an obsession, Early. I’ve seen it happen before. We had a plainclothes man named Russell here before the war, and he developed the same kind of fix about a cheap hood named Baby Face Ellison. All he thought about. Every crime on Long Island, from a bank job to the robbing of the till at a miniature golf course, he tried to tie it to Ellison. If the war hadn’t come along and put him in the MPs, I don’t know what might have happened.”

“Obsession is a fantasy, Lieutenant,” said Agent Early. “The Avenger
is
always working on the same cases as I am. What’s worse, he always solves them ahead of me. When I first met him last year, I was known for my easygoing nature.”

“You’re still pretty calm and collected, Early,” said the policeman. “Suppose you forget the Avenger and his gang, tell me about Hermansdorfer.”

“One of my men has seen Hermansdorfer visiting a tobacco shop in Rocky Point,” said Early. “We’re fairly certain the shopkeeper is a foreign agent. Not an important one, just somebody who passes along orders and money now and then.”

Allen gave his mustache a thoughtful tug. “Hermansdorfer’s record shows he’ll hire out to almost anybody,” he said. “Could be he’s working for the sabotage boys and for someone else altogether.”

“Don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“What’s that?”

“I said why?”

Early rubbed at a wrinkle in his raincoat. “Call it a hunch.”

“I got nothing against hunches, but for building theories that hold up, I like facts better.”

“Going to get facts,” said the young agent. “If the Avenger doesn’t beat me to them.”

“You need a vacation,” said Lieutenant Allen in his low voice.

Very few people can keep from flinching when an ax is hurled directly at them.

Gruber couldn’t.

He jerked to one side, but managed to pull the trigger of his automatic.

The slug hit Josh, who’d suddenly tossed the ax that had been resting on his foot. It hit him over a lower rib and drove him staggering back; the black man bumped into one of the round black tables, knocking it over, falling to the floor.

In the seconds while that was happening the unique streamlined blue-steel .22 which Benson had dubbed Mike appeared in his right hand. He fired once.

The shot smacked the weapon from the off-balanced hand of Gruber.

Cole spun and jumped to Josh’s side. “How’re you doing, old chap?”

Josh rubbed at his ribs. “Forty-fives are mean buggers . . . really knock the wind out of you.” The special celluglass bulletproof vest he wore had prevented any serious injury.

The Avenger moved, vaulting the ebony bar. “All right, my friend. We want MacMurdie. Where is he?”

Gruber put his gun hand to his lips and ran his tongue over the dark crease across the back of it. “His whereabouts we can bargain for, Avenger,” he said. “I don’t intend to—”

Benson gave an impatient nod. He swung out and delivered a chopping blow to the side of the neck.

The man crumbled and fell unconscious on the slated floor behind the bar.

“Not in the mood to bargain, Richard?” asked Cole.

The Avenger said, “There’s a sliding panel back here. Our gun-toting friend neglected to close it quite shut.”

“It should lead us to the secret recesses, I fancy.” Cole hopped to the top of the bar. “Haven’t done this since I got into a brawl in a Mason Street bistro out in Frisco while in the West to attend the World’s Fair of 1939.” He dropped down next to Benson.

“Let’s make sure we get a docile reception.” The Avenger opened the wall panel a few inches more. There were steps leading down. He flicked a glass capsule through and heard it smash on the bottom step.

Inside the capsule had been a colorless, odorless gas of MacMurdie’s invention. It would swiftly penetrate all the rooms down there, putting to sleep anyone within. In less than five minutes it would be safe for Benson and the others to descend.

“Boy, that slug really slowed me down,” said Josh. “Got me shuffling like Willie Best.” He hobbled up to the bar. “Think I’ll pass on jumping this bar the way you gents did. Use me the little swinging door over here.”

“Paternity makes conservatives of all,” said Cole, grinning. “You’re losing your old flamboyance and brio, Joshua.”

Benson stooped, collected the fallen Gruber’s automatic, and brushed a hand against the man’s coat.

Hands behind him, Cole was examining the bottles of liquor arrayed on the shelves. “Fairly impressive stock,” he remarked, “for a spot that’s only a front.”

“We can go down there now,” said the Avenger. Slipping Mike back into its leg holster, he pulled the panel wide open.

The stone stairs took a corkscrew path downward, ending in a low plywood-paneled corridor.

“Very cosy,” said Cole. “One of my Detroit uncles had a rumpus room very much like this. That was where I learned to shoot pool.”

There was a chill quiet down here. The sound of their shoes rasping across the stone flooring seemed very loud.

“Open door over there,” said Josh, cocking a thumb.

Benson held out a restraining arm. “We’ll go easy,” he said. He walked, slowly, toward the open door.

From the threshold he could see the slumbering MacMurdie.

“There’s Mac,” observed Cole. “Everyone else seems to have—as we used to say in my vanished youth—flown the coop.”

“Probably hotfooted it out a back way when they heard that guy upstairs hit the deck,” said Josh.

Eyes narrowed, Benson remained outside the room. Then he stepped, warily, inside. He stopped a few feet short of Mac. Kneeling, he scanned the stone floor all around the unconscious man. “Seemingly they didn’t have time to arrange any surprises for us.” Next he examined MacMurdie, then picked him up, with ease, and carried him out into the hall.

“He’s breathing evenly,” noticed Cole.

“Yes, they only gave him something to put him to sleep,” said the Avenger. “Cole, you and Josh look through the rest of the rooms down here.”

“Bet we ain’t going to find much,” said Josh, rubbing at his sore rib again. “This place couldn’t be the headquarters of nothing.”

“You probably won’t find anything, but I want you to look.”

Cole asked, “What about the publican and the chap who almost got the ax up there?”

“I’m hoping they’re gone by this time,” said Benson.

“Gone?” said Josh.

“I planted a tracking bug on the older gentleman’s coat,” explained the Avenger. “With any luck, he’ll lead us to their real headquarters.”

Fog came spilling out of the trees that lined the twisted road. It swirled around the car, blotting the headlight beams. The world got smaller and smaller, until it was only a few cubic feet of mist that seemed to float along with them.

Smitty had taken over the driving a few miles back. He scrunched his neck even more, gripped the steering wheel tighter, and slowed down. “The paper was right,” he said.

“About what?”

“Weather report predicted patches of fog for tonight,” said the giant. “And this sure is some patch.”

“Bothers you?”

“I never much like fog, makes me feel like somebody’s trying to wrap me up in a fuzzy shroud.”

“Seems sort of snug to me, and peaceful.” Nellie had her legs tucked under her on the passenger seat. “When I was a little girl I always . . . but that’s not pertinent to the matter at hand.”

A puff of wind sent a billow of fog charging along the road at them. Smitty eased up on the gas again. “I don’t mind hearing about you when you were a kid, Nellie.”

The tracking device resting in the palm of the girl’s hand began a faint binging.

“We must be just about there,” said Smitty.

“The question being . . . where is there?”

“We’ve kept close to the Sound.” He squinted, thrusting his head closer to the windshield. “We should be pretty near the water still.”

For a few seconds a road sign became visible on their right. “Cold Harbor,” read Nellie.

“Huh, that’s a funny coincidence.”

“What?”

“Cold Harbor is where that freckle-faced guy Harmon lives. He mentioned it when we were talking, told me there was a good Italian restaurant around here.”

“End of the paved road,” said Nellie.

Gravel rat-tatted against the underside of the car.

“Geeze, it sounds like we got the drum and bugle corps marching in front of us.” He gave the wheel a twist, swinging their automobile off onto the gritty shoulder of the road. “Better leave this crate here.”

“According to this invention of yours, we’re practically on top of our quarry.”

Nodding, Smitty got quietly out of the car and came around to the girl’s side. There were spiky tufts of grass dotting the sandy ground that surrounded them.

Nellie joined him out in the foggy early morning.

They moved, side by side, a few yards forward. Smitty got himself stopped just short of walking into a wooden sign nailed to a planted pole.

He slid out his flashlight and turned it on up close to the sign.
Welcome to Story Book Beach! 60 Elegant Beach Front Homes! 1 and 2 Bedrooms! The Most Exciting New Community of 1938! Starting at $1200!

“An old sign,” concluded Nellie.

Snapping off the light, Smitty said, “Probably never even built all sixty of them dream houses.” He scowled, scratching his head. “That Harmon guy’s got a little house here on this beach. Told me it was called Casa Cervantes.”

“
Don Quixote
must have been one of the story books the Story Book people had in mind.”

“Can you beat that?” said the giant. “Wayne Harmon must be mixed up in this business.”

“We haven’t actually followed the tracker right up to our man’s door,” reminded Nellie. “Maybe the palooka we want lives in
Bleak House
or
The House of Seven Gables.”

“Naw, it’s got to be—” He propelled himself sideways, knocking her over.

The wind had blown some of the fog up and away, as though a curtain had all at once been pulled aside. In the clear spot Smitty had seen a man crouching, a freckled young man holding a shotgun.

The shotgun roared now, and pellets went eating through the thick fog.