The Avenger 34 - The Glass Man (2 page)

The grocer came closer. “Perhaps a glass of water?” He couldn’t think of anything else to offer.

Then a powerful blow struck him in the chest. A voice rasped, “Get away, fool!”

The Samaritan went tumbling back and fell against a crate of tomatoes which sat in front of his shop.
“Diablo!”
he exclaimed, and remained sitting on the sidewalk where he’d landed.

The very last thing Price heard was a single sentence, a sentence which seemed to come at him from out of thin air. “This is for Rusty.”

“Good Lord, what’s going on?” A big-boned old man, his white hair fluttering on his head as he trotted downhill, was approaching. “Price, what’s wrong, man?”

The grocer, still sitting, said, “Too late, señor.”

Old Ackroyd knelt beside his fallen friend. “Price, what is it?”

“He is dead, señor.”

Ackroyd took hold of Price’s wrist. There was no pulse. “What could have done . . . ?”

“The Devil took him,” said the grocer, crossing himself.

The Army major liked to talk.

“Grew up around here,” he was saying to the heavyset old woman who ran the art gallery. “First time I’ve been back since I enlisted. That’s why when I saw that painting through your window I had to come in for a better look.”

The old woman wore a floor-length black dress with a gray shawl over her rounded shoulders. “I was just closing up for the day. Tomorrow night is our night for staying open late,” she said, smiling pleasantly. “Yet I’m always glad to remain open a few minutes longer to serve a patron.”

“Not that I’m much of an art lover,” said the major. He was slightly overweight, a man in his mid-thirties. “That picture, though, it brought back memories.”

The painting, nearly four feet square, was mounted on an easel and turned to face the street. It was a somewhat impressionistic landscape, showing a stretch of desert and part of a ruined pueblo town in the distance.

“A fine painting,” said Madame Rosay, “will always open up many doors in our minds.”

Reaching out a hand toward the canvas, the major said, “Used to drive to college right by that spot every day. Not so many years ago, but it seems like another era. Everything before the war seems very distant.”

“Yes, many people feel that way.”

“And you know it was right near there they found the body of . . . hell, that’s enough ancient history.” The major took a step back from the picture. “How much?”

“It’s the work of Ellis Zanes,” said Madame Rosay. “He’s a local artist, a very gifted young man. Though as yet he has little national reputation. He is more or less a discovery of the Rosay Gallery.” She twisted her string of yellow beads around her fingers. “You could have it for two hundred dollars, Major.”

“Two hundred?” He studied the painting through narrowed eyes. “That’s a bit steep . . .”

“Perhaps a hundred seventy-five?”

“Let me sleep on it.”

“Of course. Buying a painting is an important event in one’s life.”

The major headed for the door. “I really like it, though.”

The old woman followed him, letting him out. “I will not sell it until you have had a chance to think about it,” she called after him.

Locking the glass front door of the long, narrow gallery, the old woman pulled down the shade. Then she turned off the window lights and the spotlight which illuminated the desert scene the major had been fond of.

“Such garbage,” said Madame Rosay in the direction of the now dark landscape.

Shuffling across the parquet floor, she passed through an arched doorway. At the end of the hall was another door. She unlocked that with a key taken from a pocket of her black dress. A curving metal stairway led down to a series of linked basement rooms.

Madame Rosay went into one of the rooms and switched on the overhead light. She sat at a small table, which faced a mirror. With one gnarled hand the old woman flicked a switch and the dozen frosted bulbs framing the mirror popped on.

Her shoulders straightened. She began to take pins out of her gray hair. In a moment the hair was lifted off.

He rubbed a hand over his bald skull. “Another brilliant performance by Werner Konrad,” said the man who’d been Madame Rosay.

Going to work with cold cream, he removed the rouge from his cheeks, as well as many of the wrinkles. When Werner Konrad’s own face had emerged, he cleaned his hands of wrinkles.

He stood and got out of the shawl and padded dress. Chuckling, he waltzed the old woman’s dress across the room and hung it in his wardrobe closet.

Out of the same closet he picked a smoking jacket. He put that on over the shirt and trousers he’d been wearing beneath his costume.

As he passed the mirror he stopped to study himself. “If only the war had not come,” he said. “Ah, well . . .
heil,
Hitler!” He gave himself the straight-armed salute and went out the door.

He walked to the end of the passage and knocked three times on a metal door.

A judas hole in the thick door snapped open. Then the door creaked inward.

“Late,” said the pale young man who let him in.

“I had a customer to look after, dearie,” said Konrad in an exaggerated version of his Madame Rosay voice. He crossed the room to seat himself at the wooden table.

A huge fat man was on the other side of the table. One fat hand held a brown paper sack full of unshelled peanuts. “You didn’t remove all the wrinkles, Werner,” he said.

The actor smiled. “Alas, I did, Hugo,” he said. “I’m fifty-two, you know. What you see are my own wrinkles.”

Hugo dipped into the sack for a peanut. After crunching it, shell and all, between his teeth, he said, “I take it there is no word about Dr. Dean?”

“None,” replied Konrad. “Our contact at the laboratory reports that there are absolutely no new leads as to his whereabouts.”

“The Japs,” said the pale young man, who stayed near the door of the meeting room.

“What’s that, Fritzi?” asked fat Hugo.

“The Japs. They got him.”

“No, no, my boy,” said Konrad. “They’d tell us if they had.”

“Can’t trust Japs.”

“We’ve always had excellent relations with the Japanese agents in this part of the United States.” The fat man ground up another peanut in his mouth.

“The Russians then,” suggested Fritzi. “They’re not on our side anymore. And even if they’re supposed to be allies of America now, I think—”

“It could be the Russians,” admitted Hugo. “At this point we don’t know. Although I haven’t been aware that there were any Red agents operating in this part of the Southwest.”

Konrad ran a finger along the side of his nose. “There was another of those odd reports in the paper this morning.”

“I’m inclined to think—”

“No, Hugo, don’t tell me it’s another hallucination on the part of one of the locals,” said Konrad. “This was a shopkeeper who swears he saw a loaf of bread and a package of breakfast food rise off his shelves and float on out of the store.”

“It must be Dr. Dean,” said Fritzi. “The old bird’s got it figured out.”

After crunching another whole peanut Hugo said, “Very unusual behavior for a man of Gardner Dean’s reputation.”

“Who knows what kind of side effects that stuff has? It maybe drove him goofy.”

“Our contact indicates that the doctor had no intention of using himself as a guinea pig,” reminded the fat man. “Nor has there been even an indication that Dean has perfected the invisibility formula.”

“Someone has,” put in the actor. “And, Hugo, these reports of floating objects and . . . well, let’s call them invisible pranks . . . they’ve only appeared in the past few days. Only since Dr. Dean disappeared.”

The fat man shook his head. “I don’t believe he disappeared by becoming invisible.”

“It’s seldom that I agree with Fritzi, but it does strike me as possible that the formula has affected the doctor’s brain.”

“Perhaps, but—

“All right,” said Konrad. “Forget the question of
who
this invisible man is. You must agree it now seems very likely that there is an invisible man.”

Hugo frowned. “Yes, you’re probably right.”

“Then our job is to find him,” said Konrad. “If anyone knows the secret of invisibility, we want him!”

The red-haired girl came running across the bus station and grabbed Cole Wilson’s arm. “I’m from
News
magazine,” she announced as she pulled him toward a row of lockers.

“Already have a subscription.” Cole studied her. She was pretty, nearly as tall as he was, and her hair was really red.

“A sample of the famous Wilson wit, is that what that was?”

Cole grinned. “Yes, it was. And not a bad one considering we’ve just spent the better part of this morning bumping along in what passes for a bus in this state. Prior to that I slept, and none too well, in a bumpy airliner out of New York.”

“I’m Jenny Keaton,” the red-haired girl told him.

“Not Jenny Keaton the daredevil girl reporter, the globe-trotting glamour gal, the—”

“Cole, are you being abducted?” Little Nellie Gray, who’d come to Nolansville with him, joined them.

“Interviewed, I think, princess,” he answered. “Is that what you wanted, Miss Keaton?”

“Yes. You’re out here because of the invisible-man murder, aren’t you?”

“Murder?” said Cole.

“A man named Byron Price was strangled in the Mexican colony last night,” said the redheaded reporter. “Strangled by an invisible man.”

“Imagine that,” Cole said to Nellie. “I hope there won’t be any further bizarre events to interfere with our vacation.”

“Baloney,” said Jenny Keaton. “Two of the top investigators from Justice, Inc., don’t come to Nolansville just for fun.”

“Ah, but that’s exactly why I am here, Miss Keaton,” said Cole. “I might as well confess that I have a weak chest. My physician insisted on a warm, dry climate. Miss Gray has come along to look after me and perhaps read me selected passages from Thomas Mann’s
The Magic Mountain
while gently—”

“When’s the Avenger due to arrive?”

“Who? Oh, you must mean Richard Henry Benson. Some people do call him that, don’t they?”

“You know, Wilson, I interviewed Hitler in thirty-seven and Mussolini the year after. Both of them were better liars than you.”

“I take that as a compliment. Now if-—”

“You’re not the only one who can dig up information, you know. I might be able to—”

“Scram, Jenny! Go peddle your papers,” bawled a gruff voice.

A bedraggled man of fifty was striding toward them. He had a broad face and a nose which had been broken at least once.

“Are you trying to intimidate the press, Mr. Pike?” the redhead asked him.

“Damn right,” replied Robert Pike. “Now leave my guests alone. If my damn car hadn’t broken down again I’d have gotten here in time to shoo you off before their bus pulled up.” He made an unsuccessful attempt to straighten his tie. “Cole Wilson? I’m Bob Pike, with the U.S. Special Security Agency.”

Cole shook the agent’s hand. “Yes, I’m Cole Wilson. This is Nellie Gray.”

“I hear you’re a tough little lady,” Pike said as he pumped the little blond’s hand. Scowling at Jenny Keaton, he growled, “You still here? Get lost.”

“I’m interviewing Wilson.”

“No, you ain’t,” the rumpled government man told her. “Now scram.”

“A moment, Mr. Pike,” said Cole. “I must admit I have promised Miss Keaton and
News
the exclusive rights to my memoirs. So perhaps—”

“Memoirs! Tell this character to take a walk for herself.”

“Dinner this evening,” Cole said to the redhead, “might be a better time to go into the fast-paced details of my life. Where are you staying?”

“At the Primavera Hotel.”

“I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“It’s a date,” said Jenny Keaton. “Nice to have met you, Miss Gray. I hope you step on a rattlesnake, Pike.”

“Same to you.” The government agent caught Cole and Nellie by an elbow each. “Come on, I’ll drive you out to the damn project. I don’t think you’ll do any better finding this Dr. Dean guy than I have, but some of the bigwigs in Washington do. So we’re stuck with each other. My jalopy’s right outside.”

“You wouldn’t by any chance be a graduate of a Dale Carnegie personality course, Mr. Pike?” asked Cole.

Everything echoed. The closing of the metal door, their footfalls on the corrugated steel floor. Voices bounced off the white metallic corridor walls.

“Quite a setup, huh?” inquired Agent Pike as he guided them deeper into the underground facility which housed the government labs.

“Cozy,” remarked Cole.

“Dr. Dean named this whole setup the Perseus Project,” said Pike, rubbing his flat nose. “Pretty fancy title. Know who Perseus was?”

“Greek chap,” answered Cole. “Often heard of his exploits at my mother’s knee. He rode around on a winged horse. I imagine the absent Dr. Dean meant the name as an allusion to the fact that Perseus could become invisible by donning a certain magical helmet.”

“Yeah, something like that.” Pike went on ahead, rapped on a blue-painted metal door.

“Didn’t realize you were an expert on Greek mythology,” said Nellie.