The Avenger 23 - The Wilder Curse (13 page)

“Rush him! We got to get outta here after those bombs!”

The Avenger couldn’t see who had shouted, but he could see the results. With the courage of fear, half a dozen men raced for the ramp up to the left end of the balcony—or of what now remained of the balcony. The other end would do nobody any good; it was knocked to bits, floorless and yawning.

There were three of the rolling book bins up here, half filled with books the attendants had been intending to put away when the librarian got them out of the place.

These book bins were of thin sheet metal, like boxes the size of wardrobe trunks, on four small wheels with a kind of baby-buggy handle at the end so they could be pushed.

Benson got one of these and rolled it down the ramp with a hard shove.

It hit the first of the men. It knocked him over as a bowling ball knocks over a pin; and, to carry out the simile, it toppled the two men behind him, too. The others, near the foot of the ramp, managed to jump back down and out of the way.

As the thing rocketed past them, they emptied their guns into it, just in case the man they were after was crouching in there. Methodical, they were taking no chances of his getting away.

The Avenger pushed the second of the three down while the men were reloading their guns. They were not trying to hide behind anything; they’d evidently sensed that no more unheard shots would mow them down.

Those of the gunmen who had bullets left in clips, shot savagely into this book bin, too; and their slugs were swelled in number by a fusillade from the guns of the rest, who were lurking farther back.

The third bin, like a rolling trunk of steel plate, came down. And after all, you can’t just keep on shooting at empty book bins forever. The gang in here was too wise to do that. They held their shots, and the men at the foot of the ramp tried another rush upward.

They went cautiously watching for more heavy bins coming down at them like thunderbolts—the first man in the rush before now lay safe to one side with a broken kneecap—and the men below, spread out and concealed, covered the upward advance with their automatics.

Three times, this murderous crew had gone after the man with the pale diamond eyes and the masklike face. They were going to be good and sure that this time would see success to their venture.

The men got to the top of the ramp. And as they did so, a furious shout came from below.

“Get the guy! There! If he gets away this time—”

A tall, skinny fellow, with a gray felt hat, was pointing his gun at the last book bin to roll down—the one on which the gang had been too clever to go on throwing away slugs they might need later.

The Avenger had been in that one!

There was movement looking more like a zigzag streak than a running man. Bullets lanced toward the shifty target and several hit. These men were good. But the impact of the lead against The Avenger’s bullet-proof sheath didn’t knock him off his feet.

He got to the librarian’s massive desk and slid down behind it as an especially well-aimed shot showered him with splinters from the corner. He dove to the opposite end, out for an instant and back.

His arm had flashed forward as he appeared, and a man with a leveled gun screamed and dropped the gun, staring with sick eyes at the blade which squarely transfixed his wrist.

The Avenger had done more than merely trade the hiding place of the balcony for the hiding place of the librarian’s desk, when he leaped from the bin and ran. He had also retrieved half his vest, calmly careful, even in that crowded half second, to get the left half. Beck had emptied the pockets of the right half.

He dipped into the inside pocket of this half, and threw half a dozen glistening little pellets over the top of the counter and back toward where the men were.

Half a dozen columns of smoke instantly mushroomed into being. They merged quickly and became a suffocating, impenetrable pall.

“Watch for gas!” someone yelled.

The Avenger didn’t have any of the gas pellets, which was unfortunate, but he had another brand. He tossed these. Explosions sounded that made those of the gangsters’ grenades, a moment earlier, seem like the pop of firecrackers. The screams took on an anguished tinge, which showed the power of imagination.

The bangs were just bangs and nothing more. Benson had long ago discovered that enemies can be disorganized by sheer noise if it is rightly timed.

He stood up, walked around the counter and out the front door.

The librarian and the library attendants were out there, with a few bystanders to whom they’d evidently been telling awful things. The librarian shrieked and turned to run. The Avenger caught her arm.

“Who,” he asked mildly, “do you think I am? Why are you so afraid, and why did you get out of your own library with such obedience?”

“You’re New York’s worst gangster and murderer,” the woman whimpered. “The man in the derby hat told me. He wrote it on a note and said he and his fellow policemen were going to arrest you and it would be wise for us to leave because there might be shooting.”

“Thoughtful of him,” commented Benson.

With his curiosity satisfied, he got into his car. He contacted police headquarters on his radio, and advised that a dozen or so first-class public enemies were at the public library to be gathered in after wrecking the place if squad cars could get there in time.

Then Dick Benson drove away from there, with bullets from the first of the gang to emerge through the smoke starring his bullet-proof windows as he rolled away.

The Avenger radioed Bleek Street.

Josh Newton was there with his pretty wife, Rosabel. Nellie was not there. Nor could Benson raise her on the radio.

He couldn’t get Cole Wilson, either. Nor could he get hold of Mac. He finally got Smitty, but not constructively and not for long.

“Nellie’s disappeared somewhere, chief!” the giant’s tortured voice threaded from the radio. “I’ve got to find her! Thornton Heights—Crescent Park. She just disappeared! I’m going nuts!”

The radio went dead.

The Avenger had been going to Thornton Heights, anyway. But now he drove even faster than he would have otherwise.

Just before getting to the swank subdivision of Thornton Heights, The Avenger passed a squad car. As he got to the beginning of the central street, Wilder Avenue, he saw a second squad car.

Everywhere he turned, there were men walking slowly, looking very tough and alert. These were special policemen that the corporation partners—the ones still alive—had brought in here.

Thornton Heights swarmed with special guards, and there were plenty of regular cops around, all with the idea of preventing more Jack-the-Ripper murders in the seven-block square.

The whole bunch of them didn’t seem to be doing much preventing.

Benson caught up with Smitty in the small playground called Crescent Park. It was almost dark, by now, but the giant was still dashing around the place, almost literally sniffing for a trace of Nellie as if he’d been a tremendous bloodhound.

“She just disappeared into thin air,” he groaned, telling The Avenger about it. “Somebody caused a commotion at the edge of the park, and I turned that way and took a few steps that way. And behind my back, in about two seconds, she disappeared.”

“I think she’s safe for a little while,” said Benson.

Pale, glacial eyes were as icy as ever, and his tone was as emotionless as ever, but there was a faint line between his thick black brows. No matter how expressionless The Avenger looked, he was always deeply stirred when one of his small band was in trouble.

“You do think she’ll be safe for a while?” said Smitty eagerly, clutching at Benson’s steel-cable arm with a vast paw. “But why? What makes you think that?”

“I’ve gathered that our killer, because of the nature of his murder weapon, has to move around a good deal to kill,” Benson said. “Therefore, late night would be the time he would prefer.”

“He killed Sillers and Carter in midmorning,” Smitty said gloomily.

“He took a big chance, doing it. He won’t take that chance if he can help it. And he’s in no hurry with Nellie. He has her in his power, so he can take care of her at the most convenient time.”

“If I could only be sure!” said Smitty frenziedly.

“Nothing is sure in life. Particularly in our kind of life. Come on to the office.”

They went into the central building, Benson with his cat’s tread, his deceptively average-sized body dwarfed by the loom and spread of Smitty’s six feet nine. And in the general office, Smitty found a companion in misery. In just the same kind of misery, too.

The employees had gone home at five, several hours ago. But one was still there, at the switchboard. This was Dan Moran.

Moran was plugging in lines and making one call after another. He concluded one and started the next as The Avenger and Smitty walked up behind him.

“Hello. Mrs. Smith’s boarding house? . . . Mrs. Smith? . . . This is Dan again. Has Myra come in yet, or phoned? . . . Any news of her? . . . Thank you.”

He turned a pallid face toward Dick and Smitty.

“I can’t locate Myra Horton,” he said. “I’ve tried for hours. She has simply . . . disappeared. Whoever killed Sillers, and the rest, has got her, too! I
know
it!”

Dick said, “I haven’t been able to locate Mac, Smitty. Have you seen him around?”

“He was with the police, searching the basement on the Sillers and Carter murders, last I knew of him. You don’t mean to say that Mac’s unaccounted for, too?”

“You and Moran stay here,” Benson said. “Stay together. Don’t either of you let the other out of his sight.”

“O.K.,” said the giant gloomily. “In union there is strength, and so on. Also safety. But I don’t care much about being safe if I can’t do something about Nellie and do it pretty fast.”

The Avenger went out. He went to Andrew Sillers’s apartment in another of the Thornton Heights buildings.

There were no guards here, now. With their boss gone, dead, their job was also gone. A middle-aged, foreign-looking woman in a maid’s dress opened the door for Benson. She was, it seemed, the only person left after the police search this afternoon.

The maid stared with wide eyes at Benson. “I thought you was a policeman,” she said. “I’m not supposed to let anybody in. Say, are you . . . you’re not . . . the one they call Avenger?”

She didn’t wait for Benson to answer. She had been staring at his face, feature by feature. And now, she shrieked wildly and burst past him and ran down the stairs. Benson heard the street door bang open and slam shut under a hysterical hand.

Pale eyes narrowed in his mask of a face. The Avenger went into the deserted apartment. The first thing he saw, on a little table beside a cleaning rag, was a picture of himself. It was a newspaper photograph, taken in spite of his displeasure—he hated publicity—months before.

The woman had been phlegmatically cleaning the dead man’s apartment, just as usual, and had sunk into this chair and looked at the picture. This explained how she had recognized him, but it didn’t explain her deathly fear.

The Avenger walked rapidly through the big apartment. He saw several more pictures of himself—same picture, same newspaper. Everyone working here, it seemed, had been carefully taught to spot him on sight.

He went to the master bedroom, identifiable as Andrew Siller’s by its extra richness and by a cabinet-sized photograph of the man which rested on the dresser.

There was an extension phone in here. He got the central office with it and heard Moran’s voice. Evidently, the distracted young man was still trying to find Myra.

The Avenger asked to speak with one of the detectives who had been at Sillers’s apartment that afternoon. In a minute a voice said, “Hello.”

Dick asked, “Did anyone come here while you were looking around the apartment this afternoon?”

“Not a soul,” said a cheery voice with a brogue.

“No one at all? You’re sure?”

“Well, no one but a building employee. Electrician.”

“You let him in?”

“Why, yes,” said the voice. “Wouldn’t have, while an investigation was going on, but the guy said a short circuit had been reported in here and that it had better be fixed or there’d be a fire. Didn’t seem any reason to take a chance like that, so we let him in. He only took about five minutes to fix the short.”

“Where was that short circuit?” asked Benson evenly.

“In Sillers’s bedroom, I think. It was all right to let the guy in, wasn’t it?”

“No one, of course, wants to risk a fire in a building full of people,” said The Avenger.

He hung up. He stood on a chair and examined the central light fixture in the ceiling. Beside the shield plate of this, next to the plaster, was a tiny hole.

Benson got down from the chair, went to his car outside, and came back up to the apartment with a small bag, looking like an overnight bag, in his hand. He went to the dresser and looked at the photograph of Sillers.

The Avenger opened the thing that looked like a woman’s overnight bag, and set it, top up, next to the photograph.

Dick Benson was one of the great masters of disguise.