The Avenger 31 - The Cartoon Crimes (9 page)

Flat out on the ground beside the girl, Smitty said, “It’s Harmon, sure enough.”

“Wayne Harmon and his magic shotgun.”

The fog had dropped down again, and they could not see Harmon. Nor could he see them.

“He must have heard us drive up,” Smitty decided. “Stay put here, Nellie.”

“Smitty, don’t be foolhardy.”

“Naw, there’s no percentage in that.” He bellied across the rough, sandy ground. Stopping at the base of the wooden sign, the giant grabbed the pole and tugged.

The wood was old and rotten, so the pole came up out of the earth easily. Smitty, rising to his knees, listened. Then he threw the sign, like a warrior sending his battle ax off to slay an enemy.

Seconds later, Harmon howled in pain. The shotgun’s other barrel went off.

Smitty had thrown himself flat out again. He bounded to his feet. “Going to take a minute to reload.” He charged ahead into the swirling grayness.

His feet hit the sign. He could see around a clear circle with a diameter of about ten feet; beyond that it was all fog.

Harmon was not in the circle with him.

Smitty thought he heard running, but the thick fog kept him from hearing continually and clearly.

“Better get back to Nellie.”

Crouching, the giant made his way back toward where he’d left the girl.

Before he got to her, there was an enormous explosion that ripped the fog to tatters and slammed him down onto the ground.

Early sat up in bed, wide awake.

He’d been dreaming that the President of the United States had sent him to Mars. He was going to be the first man ever to land on the red planet. When he arrived, after a perilous rocket flight through space, a brass band was there on Mars to greet him. The leader of the band was the Avenger.

Yawning, blinking, he found the ringing phone in the dark. “Yes?”

“This is Thompson, sir,” said one of his men. “Hated to wake you up, know what a rough schedule you’re on. But I think I’m onto something.”

“What exactly, Thompson?”

“Could I come over and show you?”

“Now? At . . . what time is it, anyway?”

“Four-twenty
A.M.
, sir. I can get to you in ten minutes.”

“Okay, Thompson, come ahead.” Early hung up, rolled out of bed, wandered around his rented room in the dark, remembered where the light switch was, turned on the lights, located his robe, put it on, and plugged in the hot plate.

When Agent Thompson arrived, exactly ten minutes later, Early was drinking a cup of black imitation coffee. The bright-eyed younger man had a briefcase clutched in one hand and a bundle of newspapers under his arm.

“This has something to do with aircraft plan sabotage?”

“May I use your bed to spread this material out on, sir?”

“Might as well, I’m not using it for anything.” Early watched in silence for a moment. “Funny papers, Thompson?”

“Exactly, sir.” The young government agent had set out a dozen daily comic pages and several Sunday comic sections. “When you mentioned recently that the Avenger and his associates were supposedly investigating the murder in which Gil Lewing was allegedly involved, I got to thinking. I shared your notion that Richard Henry Benson was undoubtedly out here on Long Island to solve more than just a simple murder case.”

Early got up out of the lopsided armchair, walked to the bed, and looked at the display of comics.
“Wonderman,”
he said.

All the Sunday sections were opened to the page that contained
Wonderman;
each daily page had the
Wonderman
strip circled in red.

“Now then, sir,” said the eager Thompson, tapping the nearest Sunday page. “Look at the dialogue balloon right there.”

Early read it aloud. “ ‘It’s very queer, Kandy! Do you have the feeling the ceiling is coming inexorably down toward us right now?’ Yes, so?”

“Look closer,” urged Thompson, almost laughing in his excitement. “See those tiny dots beneath certain letters?”

“Oh, yeah. One under the Q and one under the K, then dots under the D, the O, the L, and the X, and the R.”

“Exactly, exactly. The next two pieces of conversation have dots as well,” explained Thompson. “When you put down all the dotted letters you get QKDOLXRYXOKW. It’s really a very simple substitution code they’ve used. All you do is start the second alphabet at K. Therefore K equals A, L equals B, and so on.”

“And what’s the message come out?”

“It says ‘Gate B N-H One AM,’ ” said the younger agent.

Early took up the comic page. “And this
Wonderman
page ran in the Sunday papers two days before the explosion at the Nils-Hardin aircraft plant.”

“That’s right, sir. You’ll find several other messages concealed in these comic strips.” Thompson grabbed up a daily. “For instance, this one is BYXQYEVKBDGBYDODRSCLYYV, which translates to—”

“We can go into all the specifics later,” said Early. “Just tell me now if they all pertain to aircraft factories that’ve been sabotaged.”

“Yes, sir, they do,” answered Thompson. “Sometimes there’s a specific place to be, sometimes a person to contact. The dates all tie in, too, always within a few days of the incident of sabotage.”

“So our foreign agent pals are using Lewing’s strip to send messages,” said Early, starting to pace.

“Lewing himself almost certainly has to be involved, sir.”

“Doesn’t have to be, no. Could be somebody else,” said Early. He began gathering up all the spread-out funnies. “Could be his wife, his assistant, somebody in the syndicate that distributes his stuff.”

“I really feel stupid that I didn’t notice this before,” said Thompson, taking back the bundle of newspapers. “I’m a great fan of
Wonderman.
Read it faithfully.”

“Do Kandy and Bruce get out of that shrinking room?”

“What? Oh, you mean in the strip . . . yes, of course. Bruce Fairfield is, you see, really Wonderman. The main problem he faced there was that he couldn’t openly change into costume without revealing the secret of his identity to both Kandy Kase and Luxor, the supervillain who’d entrapped them in the shrinking room in the first place. Finally he hits upon the strategem of—”

“Rather remain in the dark on how he did it, Thompson,” said Early. “You run along now. First thing in the morning we’ll pay a visit to Gil Lewing at his studio.”

“It’s morning already, sir.”

“Not to me,” said the government agent. “Meet me back here around eight.”

Gruber stepped over the crystal chandelier, edged around a wrought-iron one, and sat on a Windsor chair. He unbuttoned the coat of his double-breasted suit and reached into an inner pocket for a pack of cigarettes.

The fat man seated in the Louis XV sofa let out a sigh. “I never thought you’d clump your way all the way over here,” he said in his high-pitched voice, “without ruining something priceless.”

“So much clutter in this back room, Pournelle,” remarked Gruber as he lit a cigarette. “A room like this is an indication of an untidy mind.”

“My mind is tidy enough to have gotten me placed in charge of this entire operation, Gruber.”

“I can’t help think you love these antiques much more than you love the homeland.”

The fat man rested his palms on his knees, glaring at Gruber. “Many of you were sent here years ago to establish alternate identities and await the call to serve our homeland,” he said. “And yet look at you, Gruber, and that fool Kobler. What have you made of yourselves?”

“Good agents.”

Pournelle smiled. “Oh, really?” He rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling, from which another half-dozen assorted chandeliers were hanging. “We’ll let that pass. What I’m getting at, my friend, is that I’m the only one who made his cover identity into something. Pournelle’s Antique Barn is famed all over the East Coast, and it is thriving.” He gave a so-there nod of his head.

Exhaling smoke, Gruber said, “There is no need to excel in some secondary profession. We have more important things to—”

“Don’t flick ashes on that Bokhara, you moron.”

“If these old rugs are so valuable, you ought not to leave them lying around in great piles.”

“Everything in this storeroom is valuable. You must learn to behave when you are here.”

Gruber changed the subject. “What do you intend to do about Gil Lewing now?”

The fat man made a pouting face, not looking at the other. At last he said, “We didn’t succeed in driving him to another nervous breakdown.”

“Yes, agreed. Nor did we frame him for Walling’s murder.”

“Looking back now, I wonder if killing that ridiculous old man was sensible.”

“Had Lewing been arrested, the control of
Wonderman
quite probably would have fallen into our hands,” said Gruber. “Wayne Harmon would most certainly have succeeded him on the feature.”

“Yes, I know. Then we could have used the newspaper comic strip to transmit messages to our scattered agents with no fear of interference. We would also have been able to funnel a good part of the profits into our cause.”

“Once we’d put Lewing’s wife out of the way.”

The fat man said, “I believe we can use the wife.”

“In what way?”

“We’re now going to have to force Gil Lewing into cooperating with us,” said Pournelle slowly. “We need a lever.”

“You’re thinking of perhaps kidnapping the wife?”

“Exactly. We hold her until Lewing signs over his interest in the feature to Harmon,” said the fat man. “A sizable ransom, but I’ve no doubt Lewing will pay. I’ve discussed much of this with Harmon, and he is in agreement.”

Gruber left his chair and held his cigarette butt over a saucer. “Yes, it might—”

“Goon, don’t stub your cigarette in that!” warned Pournelle. “That’s a genuine Busino saucer from 1878.”

“I thought it was an ashtray.” Gruber cupped his hand under the still smoldering cigarette. “Well, where shall I dispose of it?”

“Don’t tempt me,” said the fat man, snickering. “There, buffoon, use the brass bowl there.”

Getting rid of the butt, Gruber said, “You are aware of the Avenger’s raid on the Yellow Rose, since Kobler filled you in. In view of the activities of Justice, Inc., I urge that we move quickly on the Lewing affair.”

“Yes, I intend to. I have sent for several men who I feel can handle the kidnapping efficiently. The best time will be tomorrow.”

“What part shall I play in this?”

“None,” Pournelle told him. “After the way you and Kobler and that moron Geiss handled yourselves last night, I think I’ll bench you for this one.”

“That’s a foolish—”

“Nevertheless, it’s my final decision.” He swung his small feet up onto the sofa. “Now if you can get yourself out of here without destroying anything priceless, Gruber, I’d like to catch a nap before we start on our kidnapping plans.”

Gruber took a half-dozen steps away from his chair. Then from downstairs came the sound of antiques breaking.

Smitty’s foot slipped on the sandy ground. Finally he got purchase and pushed himself up to a standing position. The fog had closed in around him again. He shook his head to clear it of the fuzziness it seemed filled with. “Nellie,” he called out. “Nellie, you okay?”

There was no immediate response.

“Nellie!”

“Yes . . . here . . . I’m over here, Smitty.”

The giant made his way through the mist toward the small voice. “You get hurt?”

“Not too much, I guess. I got knocked for a loop, but there wasn’t any major damage done.”

She appeared out of the fog now, kneeling on the scrubby ground. Her hair was tousled; a speckling of sand streaked her face and her bare arms. Smitty’s first impulse was to give her a hug. He refrained, fearing he might do more harm than the recent explosion. He still nursed the notion that the little blonde was much more fragile than she really was.

“What’d that jerk do,” said Smitty, “blow up your jalopy?”

Nellie’s head bobbed up and down. “ ’Fraid so.” She pointed to her left. “I recognize the fender.”

A jagged, twisted chunk of metal had imbedded itself in the ground about ten feet from her.

“Geeze, that could have mussed you up good.”

“Harmon must have taken a shot at the gas tank.” Gritting her teeth, she got up.

“Well, as long as we’re both in good shape, the heck with the car,” said the giant. “That tracking gizmo of mine’ll help us find Harmon again sooner or later.”

“Not this particular one.” Nellie poked her foot at an object on the ground.

Smitty stooped to pick it up. “Huh, look at that.”

“I dropped it when the concussion came,” said the girl. “And then I suspect I subsequently sat on it.” She rubbed her fingertips over her hip. “Yep, I’m sure I did.”

“Only one I got handy, too. Others are back in Manhattan at our Bleek Street offices.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s all right, Nellie. Long as you’re okay.” He glanced around. “Now we got a more immediate problem.”

“Right . . . what do we do for transportation?”

As the fog climbed away, the early morning light found its way into the big white kitchen. Jeanne Lewing, zipping up her skirt, crossed to the refrigerator. She took out a bottle of milk and set it on the table.