The Avenger 32 - The Death Machine (11 page)

“I get the feeling Don Early was fond of her.” Their elevator landed and they stepped into the lobby. “What did she look like? I never got a good look at her from the Skylight kitchen.”

“Oh, she was attractive enough, if you go for large women,” answered Cole. “This year, though, the fashion is all for diminutive blondes.”

“Let’s get going,” said Nellie. “We still have another job to take care of.”

“Lead on.”

Smitty said, “I sympathize with Early. I bet he kind of liked this dame.”

“Quite probably.” The Avenger sat in the front passenger seat, his eyes on the directional box which was tracking the tiny device Cole had attached to Emmy Lou Dennim’s dress.

“Sure, and why not?” He gestured at the red-painted girders of the Golden Gate Bridge. “You save a skirt from doing a brodie off this span, you’re naturally going to take an interest in her.”

“She’s staying on the main highway.”

“How you figure she got the car she’s using . . . swiped it?”

“Most likely it was left there near the hotel for her, in case of just such an emergency.”

“Boy, I guess you’d class her a regular Mata Hari, huh?” They left the bridge and continued on the highway. “Trying to work secret stuff out of Early.”

“I imagine he’s a tough man to worm anything out of.”

“Where you figure she’s heading?”

“Let’s hope it’s to the place where they’ve got the original death machine,” said Benson as they drove through the Marin County night. “She’s just turned off, Smitty.”

“That’d be the Baytown road, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

Nodding, the giant stuck his arm out the window to signal for a right turn. “Must be this dame is working for somebody else. I mean, she ain’t the brains of the whole operation.”

“From what we’ve been able to find out about her she’s not highly enough placed in the government operation,” said Benson. “Whoever’s running this has to be in a position to have found out the names of those people working on the various segments of the operation. The men who’ve been killed weren’t all working in the same place, as you know.”

“Huh,” said Smitty. “Fact means there’s a rotten apple pretty high up.”

“Looks that way, yes,” said the Avenger, his eyes still on the tracking box. “She turned onto a side road about a half-mile ahead.”

“We’ll do likewise.”

The road was narrow, ill-paved. It cut through grassy fields and worked its way, in no great hurry, down to the Bay.

“Those buildings there, where the lights are showing,” said Dick Benson. “She’s there.”

Smitty swiveled his head around. “How about I park under them trees over there? Then we can use our dogs the rest of the way.”

The Avenger gave a nod of agreement.

Emmy Lou had parked her car in the large garage next to the factory building. The garage windows, like most of those in the long low factory, were boarded up.

She got out of the car, walked through the dark garage and out the small rear door. She was very close to the Bay now. The black water lapped at the pilings of the wooden pier. Three motor launches, brighter and newer than anything else around, were moored here.

The girl walked quickly along the gavel path. She tapped on the metal door of the factory building.

After a full minute a tiny panel in the door slid open. A single eye appeared there, then the panel shut.

“What brings you here, Emily?” The door was opened by a very thin man in a tan work smock. “Has anything gone wrong?”

“Yes, and no, Gruener.” She entered the workroom, crossed to a rattan chair next to a toolbench.

Gruener wiped his palms on the skirts of his smock. “What exactly does that mean?”

“Don Early is aware that I’m working for our cause.”

“So. And were you not instructed, in the event that happened, to eliminate him with the machine?” He went to a workbench, stroked his thin fingers along a death machine he was in the process of constructing.

The blond girl said, “Yes, and I attempted just that, Gruener. Unfortunately the—”

“Unfortunately you failed. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“That’s what I’d be telling you if you kept your mouth shut for five seconds.”

“Ah, remember, Emily, that I am your superior.”

“In terms of rank, yes, I know.”

“Were it not for me, the list of the key men working on the Vermillion Project would never have come to light. Remember that also.”

“No need to, Gruener. You keep reminding me every time we meet, which is too often.”

“You scorn me,” he said, “yet come running here once there is the slightest trouble.”

“Having half of Justice, Inc. barge in when you’re trying to get rid of a government agent, that’s more than slight trouble.”

“Justice, Inc., eh? How did you get them on your tail?”

“They’re not on my tail, Gruener. It’s simply that when I was in the process of setting Early up for his suicide, they showed up. At least I think that’s who the waiter was.”

Gruener gave a sigh, drumming his fingers on the black box. “This is all very cryptic to me, Emily,” he told her.

“Okay, we’ll skip the details then,” she said. “I tried to get rid of Early, it didn’t work. So now I’m here.”

“Very well, I’ll do what I can for you,” he said “Of course you’ll have to give me the whole story eventually to pass on to the leaders. But for now, we can forgo that. I trust you were not followed?”

“Give me credit for some brains, Gruener,” she said. “I wouldn’t have come here if there’d been anybody following me.”

He turned from the workbench to watch her for a few seconds. “And are you certain that the reason Don Early is still alive has nothing to do with some possible romantic feeling toward him on your part?”

Emmy Lou laughed. “You have very strange ideas about romance. I set him up for the Macri boys. I used the death machine on him. No, I don’t think romance has much to do with the case.”

“Yet he still lives,” said Gruener. “Very well, we’ll let that pass.” He began to unbutton the work smock. “I’ll have to take you away from here. Perhaps we’ll use one of the launches.” Throwing the smock aside, he moved to the door. He slid the Judas panel back and looked out into the darkness. “All clear, come on.”

The girl followed him.

They were halfway to the boat before she noticed the Avenger.

Dr. Heathcote tilted his head to the left, then to the right. “Yes, a poor imitation of the real thing,” he said to himself. “Granted, it functions. Yet it simply doesn’t have the
look
of the true Heathcote artifact.”

Alone in Smitty’s hotel room, the inventor was scrutinizing the captured death machine. He turned away from the duplicate box, began casting his glance around the room. “Now where did I set that halfwit eggnog?”

Feet shuffling on the carpet, he began to circle the room. “On the mantel? No. Let me think, I was reclining on the bed for a spell. Perhaps . . .” He got down on the floor.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Yes, come on in,” invited the doctor, head half under the bed.

“Dr. Heathcote?”

“The same.” He inched out into the open.

“Didn’t recognize you from that angle.” Don Early closed the door, crossed the room.

“You see me in search of an elusive halfwit eggnog.” The inventor creaked to his feet. “How may I be of service?”

“Would this be your eggnog here under this chair?”

“Excelsior! You’ve found it. Yes, thank you.”

Early handed him the lukewarm drink. “I consider myself your friend, Dr. Heathcote.”

“As well you might after all we’ve been through together, Donald.”

“Good,” said the government agent. “Not asking you to betray any confidences, you understand. But could you tell me where your nephew is?”

“Algy, or Smitty as he calls himself?” Uncle Algernon slurped the eggnog. “He’s out in pursuit.”

“Pursuit of what?”

“Hum . . . that brings us to a delicate topic.”

“They’re following Emmy Lou aren’t they?”

“Well, when you put it that way . . . yes.”

“You haven’t heard from Smitty . . . You don’t know where he is?”

“Somewhere in the night, that’s all I know.” He swallowed another gulp of his drink. “Seems to have a good deal of faith in that gadget.”

“What gadget?”

“You know how boys are, always tinkering and imitating their elders,” said the doctor. “Algy, Smitty to you, has cooked up some sort of tracking gadget which he maintains can—”

“Ha!” said Early. “That’s what Wilson did.”

“Eh?”

“Planted something on Emmy Lou. I knew they let her get away on purpose,” he said. “Damn, I wish I knew where she was going to lead them.”

“Can’t help you there,” said Dr. Heathcote. “Though if you’d like to know where this gimcrack imitation of the Heathcote Ultrasonic Brain Control Box was made, I could tell you that.”

“You know where they’re making the things?”

“Tried to tell Algy, but he and Mr. Benson were in no mood for a leisurely explanation of how I came to—”

“Neither am I. Just tell me where.”

“This is merely a guess, mind you, but a good many of the component parts in this duplicate box are made by the Baytown Technical Company,” explained Heathcote. “Since that particular company went out of business before the war, it’s unusual to see fresh components of theirs turn up these days. It occurs to me that the old Baytown Technical factory, shut down but still standing, might be a good place to—”

“Thanks,” said Early on his way to the door.

“Ah, moonlight on the campus,” remarked Cole as he parked on the tree-lined Berkeley street.

“Moonlight?”

“Surely that pale white stuff fighting its way through the mist is moonlight, princess.”

Nellie joined him on the sloping sidewalk. “There’s the Delta Tau fraternity house over there.”

“Yes, I know. We passed it on our last ill-fated visit to Uncle Algy’s temporary home.”

They walked uphill to the large two-story shingle house. Lights were still on all over the place.

“I wager,” said Cole, “you were the belle of your college, pixie. The homecoming queen, no doubt, and the sweetheart of—”

“No, I was very scholarly in those days.”

Cole said, “I can’t quite see you as bookish, Nell. No, to me you—”

“Yeah?” asked a large young man in a bathrobe. He was on the porch of the fraternity house, slouched in a very old and faded armchair. He had a bottle of beer in one hand, a math text steepled over his bare knee.

“My name is Cole Wilson, and this is Nellie Gray.” Cole stepped up onto the porch. “We’d like to have a brisk chat with the DT president.”

“Are you the gravy people?”

“Gravy?”

“Some guy’s been trying to sell us dehydrated gravy,” said the young man. “You know, for the kitchen here.”

“No, we’re not in the gravy line. This is more in the nature of police business.”

The boy sat up. “Did those Tri Delt girls complain about the—”

“I’m investigating the recent unfortunate incident involving the late Lawrence Munn.”

“Oh, yeah, that jerk.” Standing up, the young man went into the house.

“See what a college education can do for a chap, Nell,” said Cole. “This particular lad, I happen to know for a fact, was a slovenly uncouth specimen before exposure to the halls of higher learning transformed him into—”

“I’m Ed Plaut,” said a lanky young man who appeared in the doorway. He was wearing dungarees and a blue and gold coat sweater. “The president of this chapter of DT. You wanted to see me?”

“If we might, yes.”

“Sure, come on in. I was looking for some reason not to read my Chaucer tonight.” He led them down a battered hallway toward the rear of the house. “Hey, Hootman, find some other place to snooze.”

Hootman, an overweight lad, had been sprawled on the sofa in the room the DT president took them to. He grunted, stumbled out into the hall.

“Hoot’s going to have a great time in the Army,” said Plaut. “He can sleep anyplace. This is supposed to be my study. Sit down, won’t you?”

Cole shared the sofa with Nellie. It was still warm from the dozing Hootman. At Cole’s immediate right was a window, with an overgrown holly bush pressing against the glass. “It was Miss Gray and myself Lawrence Munn tried to do in,” he said.