The Avenger 32 - The Death Machine (10 page)

The Avenger said, “Then they’ve been able to manufacture functioning duplicates of your invention.

“I fear so.”

Nellie said, “Which means we’ve got to catch the whole blasted gang.”

“We have to do that anyway, pixie,” said Cole. “The annoying part is that there may be more induced suicides now.”

“Too bad we didn’t get a longer list of targets from that pooch undertaker,” lamented Smitty.

“Ah, you obtained a list did you?” asked his uncle.

“Yeah, he gave us three names. Hershman, Dahler, and Markowitz. We couldn’t do anything about Hershman since he was the poor jerk who got smacked by my train, but—”

“That’s not a complete list,” said Uncle Algernon.

“Huh?”

“I was merely remarking that your list lacked a name.”

Benson asked, “You mean you know of another intended victim, doctor?”

“The only surviving one, until you fellows saved Dahler and Markowitz.”

“Someone else was saved? How did you learn that?”

“Well, Richard, you may not be aware of the fact that I’m a great listener—don’t make a face, Algy—and while Mr. Early and I shared a hole in the ground he chose to confide a few things in me. He was indiscreet, but I often cause that in people.”

“Cut the embroidery, Unc. Who’s the guy he saved?”

“Not a guy at all, but a young lady. Quite attractive as Early painted her. Name of Emmy Lou Dennim. Early himself was the one who prevented her untimely end at the hands of the death machine.”

“Do you know when,” asked Benson, “she was prevented from committing suicide?”

“A few hours after Hershman’s unfortunate meeting with the night train.”

“Most curious,” said Cole, setting down his fork and wiping his lips with his checkered napkin. “One would have thought your dealer in canine cadavers would have had the young damsel’s name on his list if she were intended to depart this life between Hershman and Dahler.”

“Timing’s wrong, too,” said Nellie. “There’s never been one suicide that close on the heels of another.”

“They was going to send off Dahler and Markowitz as a team,” reminded Smitty.

“Circumstances dictated that.”

Benson pushed back his chair. “Do you know where the girl is now Dr. Heathcote?”

“Ensconced in a suite at the St. Mark,” replied Uncle Algernon. “I imagine Mr. Early is with her by now, since he evidenced considerable interest in her well-being.”

The Avenger stood up. “We’d better get over to the St. Mark right now.”

“You think something’s wrong?” asked Smitty.

“I think I’d like to talk to Miss Emmy Lou Dennim.”

Don Early’s progress across the lobby of the St. Mark was slow; his walk lacked its usual bounce; he paid no attention to the young agent stationed near the cigar counter.

Head slightly bent, he rode up in the elevator.

“Good evening sir,” said Willis, who was posted near the door of Emmy Lou’s suite.

“What?”

“I said good evening.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Early didn’t knock, he used his own copy of the key.

“Who is . . . oh, Don, it’s you. Sort of scared me.” The tall blonde had been standing near the window leafing through a copy of
Coronet.
“I really must be getting stir-crazy when I start trying to read stuff like this.”

“Seeing me alive must be a shock to you,” the government agent said.

Emmy Lou’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, Don? I have been worrying about you, since I haven’t heard from you since breakfast this morning. But why—”

“The Macri boys are in custody.”

“The who?”

“Macri Brothers, of Macri Brothers Winery fame.”

“I think somebody gave me a bottle of their chablis once. Outside of that, though—”

“They’re the guys with the daisy design on their trucks.”

“Oh . . . the design I remembered. Then they must be the ones who tried to kill me,” said the girl. “Why don’t you sit down? Sit down and tell me all about it.”

“Don’t have the interrogating tricks the Avenger does,” he said, remaining on his feet. “Still, I’m not bad at getting information out of people.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’re quite good.”

“One of the brothers, Giacomo by name, decided he wanted to do a lot of talking,” continued Early.

“That’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Depends on how you look at things. One of the things he told me about was you.”

“Me? Oh, I see. About the plan to kill me.”

“There was never any plan to kill you. That was all just a little fantasy, a show put on to snag me.”

“I don’t think I see what—”

“Your suicide. It was a fake. Timed so you’d be at the rail when I passed,” Early told her. “Your people knew I’d be at the site of the Hershman death, and when I started back for the bridge you got a signal.”

“Don, that’s completely ridiculous.”

“If something went wrong . . . if I hadn’t stopped, for instance, you still could have gotten to me some other way. If a cop had reached you first, your hypnotized victim act was sufficient to have brought you eventually to my attention.”

The girl sank back against the window ledge. “I really don’t see how you can believe . . . What kind of object would such an act serve?”

“They wanted to have somebody in our camp, somebody who could find out how close I was getting. Somebody who’d eventually set me up for capture, capture and killing.”

“I’d never do anything like . . . And it was me who told you about the death machine in the first place. If I were on the other side, why would I do that? You had no idea there even was such a device.”

“You threw away a good card, because you figured you had a sleeveful of aces,” he said. “Sooner or later we’d have found out about Dr. Heathcote’s invention and what your people were doing with it. I was locked down in a hole with the doctor for several hours today, Emmy Lou, and he told me about the Heathcote Ultrasonic Brain Control Box.”

She said, “I don’t really know . . . how to cope with these . . . accusations, Don. I thought . . . I thought you liked me.”

“I did.”

“Then how can you believe what a gang of spies tells you? Naturally they’re going to try to smear someone who—”

“You made a small mistake.” Early took a slip of paper from his coat, unfolded it but did not look at it. “Nothing much else you could have done, I guess, being stuck in this hotel room. You had to use the phone here.”

“The phone?”

“The phone, yes. Fifteen minutes after I left you this morning you put through a call to the Macri Brothers Winery,” Early said. “To alert them to the fact I’d taken the daisy design bait and was heading their way.”

“You never trusted me, then.”

“Oh, I trusted you. But a check of all calls is standard procedure in a situation like this.”

“I see. Well, now what?”

“Going to have to take you in to our local office.”

“Let me get my things.” She walked toward the closet, which stood half open.

“Don’t try for a gun, Emmy Lou.”

The blond girl smiled, leaned down and touched something inside an open suitcase. “You actually carried this in for me, Don. I thought it might come in handy.”

A strange low humming began as the death machine warmed up.

Then nothing but silence.

The waves of silence hit Early. He felt as though he were being pushed back by a harsh wind.

“Listen to me,” said the girl. “You are going to do exactly what I say.”

“Yes, I’ll do exactly what you say.”

“Not really going to be too unpleasant, at first,” she said. “You’re going to tell Willis that I’m going to dinner with you.”

“Going to dinner.”

“Yes, right here in the hotel. Up in the celebrated Skylight Room, overlooking the panorama of the night city.”

“Skylight Room.”

“Exactly, and I’m going to quietly disappear in the confusion.”

“In the confusion.”

“Yes, in the confusion that will follow your suicide leap from the restaurant terrace.”

Emmy Lou frowned at the handsome grinning waiter. “You’re not our original waiter,” she said, setting her menu down on the crisp white tablecloth.

“The young lady is very perceptive,” said the new man. “Actually Michael, for such was the unfortunate chap’s name, has been most suddenly felled by what appears to be food poisoning.”

“Food poisoning?”

“Not so loud, dear lady,” cautioned Cole Wilson. “We’re all most chagrined by this turn of events. Particularly since the chef, a
cordon bleu
man of the first water, is starting to turn a little green around the gills himself.”

“Well, perhaps we’ll order another cocktail,” said the blonde, nodding at Don Early.

The young agent sat, rather stiffly, with his back to the magnificent view of the dimmed night city. “Another cocktail,” he said.

“Might cheer you up.” She smiled up at Cole. “My escort’s in a very glum mood tonight, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Having the old whammy put on him by the death machine isn’t conducive to good feelings and overflowing conviviality.”

Emmy Lou snatched up her purse. Who . . . ?”

“Cole Wilson at your service, Miss Dennim.”

She was on her feet. Her chair skidded into Cole.

He made a grab for her, caught hold of her sleeve for a second but lost his grip.

Cole appeared to stumble. “Drat and tarnation, she’s eluded me.”

She went running through the astounded Skylight patrons and out an exit.

“Almost time to jump,” said Early in a dull level voice.

“Afraid not, old fellow,” Cole said to him. “Thanks to our timely arrival on the scene and the information your man Willis reluctantly gave us, the scheduled leap of Don Early has been indefinitely postponed.”

Agent Early blinked. He took a deep breath through his open mouth. “So that’s what the thing looks like,” he said.

Willis had taken the now turned-off death machine from its suitcase and was holding it out toward him. “Not very heavy, sir.”

Early made no effort to take the box. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he said, “Appreciate what you did, Wilson.”

Cole, who’d escorted the then dazed agent back here to the suite Emmy Lou Bennim had occupied, said, “All part of our service.”

“Now,” added Nellie, who’d joined them there, “maybe you’ll realize there’s no need for competition between Justice, Inc. and your agency.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Early. “But I’m grateful.” He took another long breath and exhaled. “I remember everything that happened up there in the Skylight Room. Not the way I remember things usually, though, but more as if it’d been a movie I saw. I was there, but I wasn’t.”

“Do you really think,” asked Cole, “you’d have taken a high dive off the roof?”

Early said, “Yeah, once she turned that damn box on, I had to do everything she told me. And she told me to jump.”

“We won’t have to worry about any more suicides, sir.” Willis decided to set the box on the coffee table. “Now we’ve got the machine.”

“That’s right.”

“There is,” said Cole, “more than one machine.”

“More than one?”

“Dr. Heathcote says the one he’s seen is a copy, which would indicate the scoundrels have devised a way of duplicating the gadgets.”

Early stood. “How did Heathcote see one?”

“Oh, have I failed to mention that one was confiscated when Richard and Smitty rescued Dahler and—”

“So much for the spirit of co-operation,” Early said in the direction of Nellie. Then he snapped his fingers. “Willis, I just remembered. Get on the phone and alert the police and the FBI and our agency about Emmy Lou Dennim. I want her picked up.”

“Pity the wench eluded me,” said Cole, easing toward the door. “Usually I’m quite good at tackling fleeing females. Only last week on Manhattan’s crowded Fifth Avenue I was—”

“Wait.” Early’s left eye narrowed. “You let her get away. Didn’t you?”

“I? Are you suggesting I would aid a suspected foreign agent to—”

“Where’s the Avenger?”

Cole replied, “That’s a very good question. I was musing on that myself only—”

“And the big one, Smitty. Where’s Smitty?”

“Do you think he could be with Richard Benson?”

Early looked again at Nellie. “You two have been trying to bamboozle me.”

“Back in New York last week,” said the little blonde, “a boy scout got a medal for saving a cocker spaniel from drowning. I didn’t actually expect we’d get a medal for saving your life, but I—”

“You’re just like him.” Early pointed from the girl to the grinning Cole.

“You can mail us the medal.” Cole took Nellie’s arm and the two left the unhappy Early.

“He’s not really a bad guy,” said Nellie as they were descending in the elevator.

“For a white collar type, no.”

“You did manage to plant that tracking bug on the girl’s clothes?”

“Of course. Richard and Smitty should be following to the spy’s lair this very minute.”

“Let’s hope she doesn’t get picked up.”

“Unlikely, pixie,” Cole answered her. “Early didn’t snap out of his stupor for nearly ten minutes, and we stalled him another good ten. That should give the lass a good chance of not getting caught. Caught by somebody other than our team, that is.”