The Avenger 4 - The Devil’s Horns
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Authors: Kenneth Robeson
Also In This Series
By Kenneth Robeson
#1: J
USTICE
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#2: T
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ELLOW
H
OARD
#3: T
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W
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WARNER PAPERBACK LIBRARY
WARNER PAPERBACK LIBRARY EDITION
F
IRST
P
RINTING
: S
EPTEMBER
, 1972
C
OPYRIGHT
© 1939
BY
S
TREET
& S
MITH
P
UBLICATIONS
, I
NC
.
C
OPYRIGHT
R
ENEWED
1969
BY
T
HE
C
ONDÉ
N
EST
P
UBLICATIONS
, I
NC
.
A
LL
R
IGHTS
R
ESERVED
T
HIS
W
ARNER
P
APERBACK
L
IBRARY
E
DITION
IS
P
UBLISHED
BY
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RRANGEMENT
W
ITH
T
HE
C
ONDÉ
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EST
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UBLICATIONS
. I
NC
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C
OVER
I
LLUSTRATION
BY
P
ETER
C
ARAS
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ARNER
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APERBACK
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IBRARY
IS A
D
IVISION
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ARNER
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OOKS,
75 R
OCKERFELLER
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LAZA
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A Warner Communications Company
ISBN: 0-446-64-920-1
Printed in the United States of America
CHAPTER IV: The Devil’s Horns!
CHAPTER V: Undercover Songstress!
CHAPTER VI: “Shock ’Em to Death!”
CHAPTER VII: Unwelcome Visitors!
CHAPTER VIII: Official Frameup!
CHAPTER X: Behind Prison Walls!
CHAPTER XIII: The Gray Dragon Breathes Death!
CHAPTER XIV: Imposter—Get Him!
CHAPTER XVIII: Chamber of Death!
CHAPTER XIX: The Avenger’s Code!
THE
DEVIL’S HORNS
Murder Trap!
The apartment building did not cover much ground space, but it loomed ten stories up into the frosty winter night. Some others in Ashton City were larger, but this was the most ornate and commanded the biggest rents.
The surrounding streets were very dark. The shadows seemed blackest right around the building. And that was as it should be. For that building had a dark reputation. Its owner had an even darker one.
At the corner of the building, in the blackest of the shadows, a hat seemed to float six feet up in thin air. Then a hand appeared to shift the hat a little. And finally there was a match flare, illuminating a hard, scarred face for an instant, and igniting a cigarette.
A man’s voice sounded.
“Put that out, ya dope. This guy we’re waitin’ to burn down might see it.”
The fresh cigarette was ground under an irritated foot and darkness prevailed again. In the darkness, three professional killers with drawn guns waited to do a job they were sure of accomplishing.
The murder of a fourth man, soon to come.
The streets around there were dark because Ashton City hadn’t money in its treasury for decent lighting. There were no cops in sight for the same reason. The city hadn’t funds enough to pay an adequate police force. The force had been cut and cut again, in the interests of economy, till now it was only half large enough.
It was nice for the crooks in Ashton City, but not so good for the citizens.
The city treasury was not perennially impoverished because the town was poor. There was a lot of money there. A great deal was collected in taxes. The reason there was no money even for necessities was largely contained in that tall, slim, elaborate, apartment building.
The building was owned by Oliver Groman, and had been built, so the rumors went, largely out of the very funds that should have gone for municipal services.
Groman was political boss of Ashton City. He had been boss for a long, long time. The political jackals of the town had followed his lead—and a ruthless, profitable lead it had been.
So now three men could lurk safely in shadows that ought never to have existed, with guns in their hands—for Groman’s own undoing.
“Why do we turn the heat on this guy?” one of the three black figures in shielding darkness asked.
His voice was indifferent. The question was plainly queried out of only idle curiosity. The asker didn’t really care why a murder was to be done. It was only a way of passing time.
“I don’t know, exactly,” said the man who had snapped out the order to extinguish the cigarette. “Maybe he got in the boss’ hair. Maybe the boss thinks he’s gonna get in his hair in the future. Anyhow—”
He stopped, and all listened.
It was nearly midnight of a cold December night. There were few abroad. The steps of these few sounded clearly when they were near enough. Each time steps had sounded the three killers had slunk down and kept silent.
Other times the steps had gone on and they had relaxed. This time the steps did not die away. They kept on toward the corner—and death!
“This’ll be him,” whispered the man who had inadvertently lit the cigarette.
The third peered down the street. Under a far light a man could be seen, walking straight toward them and making the crisp, quick steps.
“Yeah, it’s him. Just a little guy. I don’t see why the boss is so anxious to get him.”
“Well, anybody comin’ to see Groman, at this time, may make trouble—”
“Shut it!”
Silence again. They waited confidently for their approaching victim.
Had they been able to see this fourth man a little more clearly they might not have remained so confident. For even at first sight, he was revealed as a highly exceptional and dangerous person.
The man coming straight toward the three waiting guns was only of average height and weight—surely not more than five feet eight and weighing about a hundred and sixty-five pounds—but he gave the impression of being much larger.
He walked like a cat, with each sure step a perfect flow of rhythm and accomplishment. His shoulders swung only a little with each rippling move, but they appeared to be ready at an instant’s notice to bunch for colossal action.
The man’s hat was down over his forehead, but at the temples and back you could catch a glimpse of white hair. Snow-white hair, thick, virile, but without even a trace of color.
His face was the most remarkable thing about him.
The man’s countenance was almost as white as his hair. Linen-white. And moveless. It was as dead, as immobile, as a mask of wax. You got the impression that that face would be moveless and changeless no matter what the situation into which its owner was thrust. And you would have been right.
The flesh and features were paralyzed. They could never move—unless the man moved them with his fingertips. In that event they stayed where put, like putty, till moved again.
But wait! His face his most remarkable feature? No! Perhaps the most remarkable was his eyes.
From the white, paralyzed face under the snow-white hair, peered colorless eyes to give a man the shivers. They were as pale as ice in a polar dawn. They were as cold as a death sentence. They glared from under moveless brows like small agates with a light behind them.
“Just a little guy.”
One of the confident three had said that.
But not one of them, fortunately for his own peace of mind, knew that the little guy—was The Avenger.
The three were completely ready now. Each had the safety off his gun and aimed. They didn’t aim from the hip, either. Each had his automatic braced on a raised left forearm, for pistol-range accuracy.
They waited only till the man should get to the apartment building doorway, which should be the nearest possible point to them. The doorway was only ten yards from where they lurked. Impossible to miss at that range.
The Avenger came on. And in his very walk could be seen his unusual capabilities.
The quick, crisp steps of a man who was young and powerful in spite of the appearance of snow-white hair.
The purposeful, almost grim movements of a man who has one sole aim in life, and unfalteringly pursues it with every waking move.