The Avenger 31 - The Cartoon Crimes (5 page)

“Everybody,” he said. “Everybody who ever worked for Walling would like to knock him off. He was a real . . . well, never mind. I guess you ought to speak well of the dead.” He got up. “You don’t think Gil killed him, do you?”

“I don’t have enough facts to make one of my famous predictions. What do
you
think, Leo?”

“You know, there aren’t many real geniuses in this business, though a lot of guys will try to convince you otherwise,” said Leo as he grabbed his jacket off a wall hook. “Gil, though, he’s really got some talent. Guys with real talent . , . sometimes they can get pretty strange. When Gil used to work inside the shop here, before the war and before he really hit with
Wonderman,
he was pretty high-strung. I remember one time he threatened to throw Carlotsky down the stairs.”

“And did he?”

“No, Gil was mostly threats and not follow-through,” said the cartoonist. He shrugged into his coat. “I hope you fellows can do something to clear up the murder. Though for the life of me I don’t see how that list of people who handle the
Wonderman
artwork can help.”

“You must keep in mind, Leo, that Dr. Watson often didn’t comprehend what Holmes was up to,” said Cole, heading for the door. “Nevertheless, he served a noble purpose.”

The hallway was still and shadowy. But the box of discarded art was gone.

“Your janitor work on Sundays, Leo?”

“No, why do you—”

Two men in suits the color of the shadows came up out of the stairwell. They’d apparently gotten rid of the box so they’d be able to move more freely. The dusty sunlight hit the silver handle of one of their .38 revolvers. They had four of them. One in each hand.

The man on the right—they were both big and bulky—had a tiny red feather in the band of his dark hat. He gestured with the gun in his right hand. “Out of the way, boy,” he ordered Josh. “We want these other two chumps.”

“You ain’t gwine to shoot me, is you, boss?” drawled Josh.

The other gunman said, “Wait a sec. One of the chumps we want is a colored boy. Okay, which one of you is Cole Wilson?”

Cole Wilson said, “What a coincidence. We’ve just had an interview with Cole Wilson. You’ll find him in that office over there, a balding chap with an unlit cigar dangling from his mouth.” He suddenly turned his head. “Oh, here he is now.”

Automatically the two gunmen turned their heads in that direction.

Cole moved swiftly, almost as swiftly as one of the supermen whose pictures hung in Leo’s office. He was sailing through the air toward the one with the red feather. He tackled the gunman just below the knees.

“Hey, you chump!”

Cole tightened his grip, flipping the man over backwards. The two pistols went off, a second apart.

The other gunman swung around, raising the butt of his gun to smash down on Cole’s head. “Hold still, Jocko, so I can bean this chump.”

Josh made his move then.

His tackle was a bit better than Cole’s, and it carried the number-two gunman back to the edge of the stairway down.

Josh shoved, then dropped clear.

“Hey!” yelled the gunman. He teetered, then toppled and went down the stairs, executing a ragged backwards somersault. Only one of his .38 revolvers went off as he went spinning downward.

He landed at the landing below with a thunk.

Josh looked down at him with narrowed eyes. “Out cold,” he decided.

“Josh, he’s doing something to Cole,” warned Leo.

Josh spun to see the red-feather man sitting on top of the sprawled Cole. He was slamming Cole’s head against the ancient linoleum.

The two men had rolled across the hall and were struggling in front of a door.

The black man ran across to them and made a grab for the gunman.

“What kind of a hullabaloo is this, I ask?”

Oppenheim shoved his door open to stick his bald head into the corridor.

The doorknob hit Josh hard in the elbow and tipped him over onto the pile-up.

“Jocko, let’s scram,” called the other gunman from down in the stairwell.

Jocko kicked Josh in the chin as he twisted around. He got up and went padding to the stairs.

“Leo, nobody is giving me a straight answer,” said the managing editor. “So I ask you, what is all this?”

Leo took a deep breath. “Uh . . . it’s a little tough to explain exactly, Joel.”

“You okay?” Josh asked Cole.

“As good as one can be after having part of one’s head added to the flooring,” said Cole, sitting up. “Go after them.”

Josh pointed a thumb back at the elevator they had ridden up in. “Watch the arrow. It’s going down, meaning our pistol-packing friends caught it down on the floor below and are now almost to the street level.”

“What is going on here?” repeated Oppenheim. “Can any of you tell me? I thought I heard guns shooting.”

“That’s exactly what you heard,” said Cole, getting to his feet.

The uniformed cop came flat-footing across the vast lawn. “Hey, what are you guys up to?”

Smitty was down on one knee in the neat-clipped grass of the Walling estate, dangling a necktie in front of the snout end of an oval mechanism he clutched in his big fist. “It’s okay,” he said.

“Here, lad.” MacMurdie reached inside his coat.

“Take it easy now, bud,” warned the Long Island cop, fingers swinging toward his holster.

“Hout, ’tis only a letter, mon,” said the sandy-haired Scot as he produced a folded sheet of bond paper.

“We already flashed it to your buddy down at the estate gates.” The giant bunched up the tie, shoved it into his pocket, and stood up.

The cop’s eyes left the letter for a few seconds to take in Smitty’s rising. “Which one are you?” he asked him.

“Smith.”

“And you must be MacMurdie,” deduced the cop. “Well, okay. I know the District Attorney’s signature when I see it. If he says you can nose around here, it’s okay by me.” He returned the letter. “The D.A. always plays golf on Sunday afternoon. How’d you get hold of him?”

“On the links,” replied Mac.

Shifting from foot to foot, the cop asked, “What’s that dingus?”

The object in Smitty’s hand was about the size and shape of a healthy avocado. There were dials and knobs dotting its metallic surface. “Little thing I cooked up,” said the giant.

“Yeah? For what?”

“Oh, it does this and that.”

The cop winked. “I get you. Some kind of top secret thingamajig. Okay, I’ll see you around.” He turned and walked back to his position at the rear of the murdered man’s mansion.

“He wouldn’t have believed me, anyhow,” said Smitty.

“ ’Tis a vast improvement over your other tracking devices, lad.”

“Yeah, well, I decided we need something smaller and more compact.” He depressed a button on the tracker’s side. “Let’s hope she works.”

The gadget began humming; a faint ticking could be heard.

“A veritable mechanical bloodhound,” said Mac with admiration.

“It got Gil Lewing’s scent off that necktie Nellie glommed for us. By the way, do you think she was looking a little under the weather?”

“Nay, mon. I’ve ne’er seen a healthier lass.”

Smitty nodded and got his mind back on the job at hand. “Now, if all goes well, this thing’ll pick up Lewing’s spoor and take us along the trail he made when he hightailed it out of here last night.”

“The police have been beating the bush ta no avail.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t have this thingamajig.” Smitty pointed toward the woods. “Come on, it wants us to go this way.”

The wheelchair made deep ruts in the bright sand. “This is private property, gents.”

Smitty clicked off his tracker and dropped it into his already overstuffed coat pocket. He put his hands behind his back and glanced up at the weathered sign hanging over the doorway of the white beach-front building to which his tracker had led them. “Ferman Point Yacht Club,” he read off the dangling sign. “Members only. This looks like a swell setup, don’t it, Mac? I’d like to become a member.”

The man in the wheelchair rolled closer. He was thick in the neck and shoulders. He had dark close-cut hair and was about forty. A plaid blanket covered his body from the waist down. “Nobody can join, gents. All closed up for the duration.”

“ ’Tis a pity,” said Mac. “M’ heart was set on having a spot of a drink on yon verandah.”

The two Justice, Inc., teammates had halted at the foot of the steps leading up to the screened verandah. The watchman rolled to a stop before them. Someone had once made borders of seashells for the path leading to the main building. The wheelchair wheels crunched over some of them now.

“You wouldn’t be officers of the law, would you?”

Smitty laughed. “Do I look like a cop?”

“Reason I ask, gents, is there seems to have been a killing in the vicinity, and the cops are looking for the goof who did it. They were here this morning asking if I’d seen anybody hanging around,” He paused to smile a jagged smile up at them. “I told them no, which is the Lord’s truth, gents. So if you’re more cops, I can save you some trouble.”

“Search the joint, did they?” asked the giant.

“No need. Everybody knows old Tom Schantz around here, knows he’s honest.”

“And you’re him?” asked Smitty, bending slightly toward the seated man.

“Sure am.”

Smitty leaned closer to Schantz, giving him a smile which was as shallow as his own. In a low level voice he said, “Well, I’ll tell you something, old Tom Schantz. I know beyond a doubt that you got Gil Lewing in that joint right this minute. Either you take us to him right quick or I’ll rip the place apart and maybe you with it.”

Schantz rolled back a pace. “Is that any way to talk to a helpless cripple?” Before anyone could reply he whipped off the blanket. A shotgun was resting across his knees.

“Nope, you ain’t going to use it.” The giant leaped, kicked.

The wheelchair went speeding backwards along the slanting path. It hit a large decorative rock at the path edge, teetered, and flipped over.

The shotgun went off once, frightening away the seedy-looking seagull who’d been dozing atop the flagpole on the clubhouse lawn. Schantz himself toppled over onto his back, his head thwacking the ground.

Smitty, for all his bulk, seemed to fly. He was on the man in an instant, wresting the shotgun from him and sending it spinning like a detached propeller through the afternoon. He yanked the thickset man up by the front of his coat. “Now, if you don’t mind—”

“Whoosh!” exclaimed the Scot somewhere to his rear. “Duck, mon!”

Smitty let go of Schantz and threw himself flat out on the gravel.

A pistol shot sounded, making a complaining whine across the bright blue of the day.

“That will be all, you berkie!”

Smitty raised his head to see Mac in the act of heaving a skinny man in a white suit off the verandah.

The man and his .32 revolver parted company in midair, each landing in a different spot.

The lank gunman bobbed up and made a snatch for the gun.

Mac had leaped before that. Both his feet came down on the man’s clutching hand.

“Hey, that hurts!”

“Aye, ’twas meant to.” MacMurdie picked him up, twisted his gun arm behind his back, and spun him to face the open door of the yacht club building. “Your chums’ll have to shoot through you to get me now, mon.”

“Nobody else in there,” said the skinny man, trying to brush the dirt off his white trousers and coat with his free hand.

The giant got hold of his shotgun friend again. “Is that so, Schantz?”

“I got nothing to say,” said the thick man. “Except I am not actually Schantz.”

“That I concluded a while ago.”

They watched the silent clubhouse for a full minute. Nothing happened.

“We’ll venture to enter,” said Mac finally. “With this beanpole skurlie in the lead. Let’s go.”

The skinny gunman had been truthful; they met no further opposition.

And in a small back room they found the bound and gagged Gil Lewing.

Lieutenant Allen said something.

Smitty cupped a hand to his ear. “Huh?”

“What’d you do to these guys?” repeated the police lieutenant.

They were gathered in one of the interrogation rooms at headquarters. Gil Lewing, despite the fact he’d had little or no sleep, was pacing next to one of the small dusty windows. Mac sat in a much-scuffed wooden chair; Smitty leaned against a desk. The two gunmen from the yacht club were in folding metal chairs, yawning and blinking. The lieutenant stood with his back against the door.

“Like I told you,” said the giant, “there was a brawl of sorts.”

“I know that.”

“Huh?”

“I said I know that. What I want to find out is, why are they groggy?”

“Some people get that way after a fight,” said Smitty. “I remember once Firpo took a—”

“You.” Lieutenant Allen pointed at the skinny one. “Did these two dope you?”

“I didn’t quite catch that, sir.”

“Did they give you something?”

The lanky gunman shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Mon, Lieutenant. Ye’ve taken all the old wives’ tales ye’ve ever heerd aboot Justice, Inc., for gospel.”