The Avenger 31 - The Cartoon Crimes (12 page)

The slant roof covered almost all of the room. It smelled of damp, of the rats, and of decay. The face curtains hung in shreds, and there were black ugly streaks of mildew across the remains of the bold paintings on the peeling walls.

“There’s good King Art being ferried to his final rest,” said Harmon. “Nice piece of work, very good figure sense the guy had. Too bad the rats got to it. I guess maybe you don’t feel these things, not being an artist yourself. But I really get to worrying sometimes. The guy that painted all this was famous once, really famous. Now nobody even knows who he was. And here’s one of his best pieces of work falling apart.”

“Maybe the
Wonderman
comic books you helped out on will last longer.”

“Sure, it’s possible,” said Harmon. “Oh, I know you’re digging at me, Jeanne, in that sweet way of yours. But I’m serious. I’m a very good artist. Gil isn’t bad, for that matter, though he hasn’t got the real spark.”

“He’s done all right.”

“How much talent you have and how much money you make, those things don’t always go together, dear.” He pointed at a gutted sofa that stood next to the sooty fireplace. “You go sit over on that like a nice girl.”

“Wayne, you must realize that what you’re trying to do isn’t going to work.”

“Sit down, like I told you, Jeanne,” said Harmon in a slow, careful voice. “You don’t seem to understand what I’ve been telling you. If I’m caught, I’ll be executed. I don’t want that to happen. But, get this through your head, if they try to close in on me . . . If the FBI or the cops or that fool Avenger come near me, I’ll kill you. See, they’re not going to win, no matter what. Not going to win everything. The only way they can get you back alive is to do exactly what I say. The minute anything funny happens, then you’re dead, dear. Do you understand me?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, seating herself on the wreck of a sofa. “I think I really do. You were probably the one who first suggested the whole scheme to your superiors, weren’t you? The idea of using Gil’s strip, the plan to make him have another breakdown.”

“Yes, dear, that was my idea. And a damn good one, if the idiots I work with hadn’t fouled it up.”

“Really, Wayne, I don’t think you care any more for their cause or for your homeland than you care for anything else,” said the girl. “You did all this because you’re jealous of Gil and of me.”

Harmon said, “Very profound, dear. You’ve got little Wayne all figured out, haven’t you? Well, you can tell that lovely theory of yours to all the rats here. I’m sure it’ll make more sense to them than it does to me.” He pointed the gun at her. “Now, you just sit there and you say nothing. I’m going outside for a while. Don’t try to leave, or I’ll shoot you down. You understand me?”

“Yes,” she said.

Cole took three steps out of the private hangar, then stopped dead in his tracks. He put one hand against his chest, against the harness of his parachute. “It’s you, Nellie,” he said. “For a moment I thought it was Amelia Earhart come back to haunt us.”

Nellie, in flying suit, helmet, and goggles, made a curtsy. “Nerts to you,” she said demurely.

The Avenger, adjusting his chute, joined them. “Ready to go, Nellie?”

“Any time,” she replied. “Unless Cole wants to do a few more double takes.”

“I’m eager to be wafted aloft, pixie.”

A monoplane, a Lockheed Orion, was being warmed up out on the strip.

A dark, grease-smeared young man in coveralls came trotting over to them. “All set, Mr. Benson,” he said. “And good luck to you, Miss Gray.”

“You act like I’m going to solo the Atlantic, Bud,” said the girl.

Bud smiled and dropped behind the trio as they walked to the airship and climbed aboard.

“Want me to tell you the names of all the little instruments, Nell?” asked Cole when he was seated. “Or would that spoil the romance of flying for you?”

Nellie, in the pilot seat, began to check out her instrument panel. She was soon ready for take-off, and she signaled Bud to pull away the chocks.

“Off we go into the wild blue yonder,” murmured Cole as the ship taxied down the field, turned, and began to climb into the sky. “Can I open my eyes now?”

“Very smooth job, Nellie,” said the Avenger.

“Thanks, boss.”

Cole said, “Let me add my sincere congrats, princess. I was certain I’d be picking shreds of windsock out of my hair by this time.”

Benson leaned toward the window, watching the afternoon Sound below. “We should see Grimm’s Island fairly soon.”

“Cheerful sounding place,” remarked Cole. “Must spend two weeks there sometime.”

“You really think Wayne Harmon took Jeanne there?” asked Nellie.

“The odds seem pretty good,” Dick Benson replied, “considering what Pournelle and Gruber told us.”

“Okay, so he is there,” the girl said. “Seems to me he has to be pretty wacky to think he can gain anything by a fool stunt like this. So, I don’t see . . . I mean, he may do something crazy like hurting Jeanne.”

“There’s always that possibility, Nellie, in any kidnapping,” said the Avenger. “Just as there’s a chance he’s already killed her.”

“Yes, that’s occurred to me.”

“Seems unlikely,” Cole said. “Unless the lad is completely bonkers. After all, this isn’t your run-of-the-mill kidnapping. Friend Harmon isn’t going to ask us to leave X amount of dollars in a hollow log in the middle of Grand Central Terminal.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, princess, I think he grabbed Jeanne to use as a ticket. A one-way ticket out of the enormous mess he finds himself in,” explained Cole. “If Jeanne is dead, then someone is sure to find it out long before Harmon gets clear of this country and off to whatever utopia he has in mind.”

“Maybe so, but—”

“There’s the island,” said the Avenger.

Smitty rested on the oars for a minute. “Boy, this little disguise of ours is maybe too good,” he said. “We sure look like a couple of harmless guys out to have a picnic, but I wish we were doing it in a motorboat.”

Josh said, “Don’t fret, we’re almost there, Smitty. Want me to row awhile?”

“You’ve got a bum rib, remember? It ain’t that, anyhow. I’m not complaining about the rowing, I’m complaining about how slow we’re traveling.”

“More convincing,” said Josh, “in case Harmon happens to notice us.” The black man had on a forlorn-looking straw hat and a gaudy shirt.

Smitty was wearing overalls and a checked shirt, with a cloth cap on his head. “I wish Cole’d drawn this job. He looks better in disguises than me.”

“Keep hunkered down like you are, and nobody’s going to recognize you.” Josh began idly rummaging through the wicker picnic basket resting at his feet in the rowboat. “Nellie put this together too quick. Two packages of hot dog rolls and no hot dogs. Here’s something Cole must have added . . . a bottle of champagne.”

“Maybe we can launch a battleship.”

“Don’t tell me you’re unhappy because Cole got to ride in the airplane with Nellie instead of you?”

“Naw,” said the hunkered-down giant. He squinted up into the clear afternoon sky. “Hey, there she is.”

“Be casual, Smitty. We’re two simple picnickers.” After another poke at the contents of the basket, Josh glanced up. “Yep, that could be them. Little bitty dot now, but it does seem to be coming this way.”

“It’s Nellie,” insisted Smitty. “I know her style of flying.”

“Here’s our picnic beach coming up.”

“Yeah, so it is.” Smitty turned his attention to the beach and away from the sky. “A Coney Island it isn’t, huh?”

“Seen worse.” Josh took off his shoes and rolled up his trouser cuffs. He hopped from the rowboat as it hit shallow water and helped beach it.

Smitty stowed the oars and stood surveying the small stretch of dirty sand. Beyond the beach grew a tangle of brush, and beyond that rose a forest of gnarled, twisted trees. “I think I seen Bela Lugosi work on an island like this once.”

Josh walked up across the sand and set down the picnic basket. Withdrawing a checkered tablecloth, he flapped it open and spread it out on the ground. “Yeah, that’s the Lockheed, Smitty. She’s circling.” He casually cased the woods above the beach. “Nobody watching us. Let’s see if we can travel through the trees and get us a little closer to this chalet Harmon is maybe holed up in.”

“Huh? Oh, sure, let’s go.”

“We’ll stroll, just to be on the safe side.” Josh began to shuffle upwards.

The plane was still circling high above them. Then there were two figures falling through the blue sky.

Seconds later a white chute blossomed, followed by a second.

“Okay so far,” said Smitty.

The two parachutes, carrying the Avenger and Cole, were drifting down toward Grimm’s Island.

When they were only a few hundred feet above the treetops, a high-powered rifle began to fire up at them.

The stocky cop said, “Down this way, Lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Allen worked his way down the weedy hillside and pushed through the wire gate in the fence. “Well, let’s have a look.”

The cop was standing beside a rundown wooden shed. “What was that, sir?”

Allen didn’t repeat it.

Agent Early came hurrying down from the road above to join them on the dilapidated pier. He took a look into the shadowy shed. “Harmon’s car, sure enough,” he said.

Going into the shed, Allen said, “Yeah, license number matches.”

“Registration, too,” said the stocky cop.

Opening the passenger door, the lieutenant stuck his head inside the car. “Perfume.”

“What?”

“Perfume. Somebody wearing perfume was in here recently,” he told the government agent.

Early wandered back outside, his gaze on the waters of the Sound. “Islands out there,” he said to the cop who’d found the car. “Anybody live there?”

“Oh, sure. There’s a year-round population on most of them,” was the reply. “Except for that one there, the one they call Grimm’s Island. I think it’s been tied up in some kind of court hassle for years. Anyways, it’s not got a soul living on it.”

“Fellow with a boat,” said Early, “wouldn’t have much trouble getting out to Grimm’s Island from here.”

“Nope,” agreed the cop. “Matter of fact, seems to me the last time I was by here, there was an old motorboat tied up here. Gone now.”

“Know who owns this little pier and shed?”

“Real-estate outfit owns it, but some guy’s been renting it for a year or so. I’m going to find out his name soon as the lieutenant is finished up here.”

“Where’s the nearest place I can rent a launch?”

“That’d be Abe Bunk’s boatyard,” said the cop, pointing to his left. “About a quarter of a mile from here. You can see his flagpole sticking up . . . see it right there.”

“Yeah.” Early returned to the shed.

Lieutenant Allen was on his hands and knees examining the floor mat of the car. “Nothing much.”

“Come on,” said Early.

Allen extracted himself from the car, asking, “Where?”

“We’re going to rent a boat.”

Yes, they were still afraid of her.

How long would that last, though?

Already a few of them were inching into the room, little clawed feet ticking on the raw floor.

How many of them?

At least a dozen.

No, more than that.

Jeanne began counting the rats who were gathered in the wide doorway watching her, watching her with their tiny sparkling eyes. Chittering away, like a bunch of little old ladies gossiping.

“Get out, go away,” she cried out.

Two of them ran away into the hall this time.

But the rest, fifteen of them, stayed there and kept watching her.

Harmon had tied her ankles together again before leaving her alone here. Still, she was able to lift her feet up and stamp them down hard on the floor.

“Go away,
shoo!”

Two more scared away.

But thirteen unmoved. Watching.

“Go away, go away!”

It wasn’t working.

One of the watching rats, his tiny eyes on her, began to come into the room. Creeping at first, then in skittering dashes. He halted, fat and gray, a few feet from her. His head tilted far to the right, whiskers quivering.