Free The Avenger 13 - Murder on Wheels by Kenneth Robeson Page B

for him, because he hurried out. If I ever get my hands on him—a man with a slightly enlarged vein in his forehead that moves when he’s angry or excited.”
    Benson nodded. That checked. It was the man who had headed the little group of choice thugs at the hangar.
    “Go on.”
    “There isn’t much more to say,” Mantis replied. “We were held there for hours. I kept working at my bonds and finally got them off. We picked a time when no one was around, escaped and came here by plane. Here, by the luck of the devil, part of the gang spotted us again, and Doris was recaptured. I got away, but I hung around, hidden, and heard where they were going to take her. I know about where the place is. It’s a roadhouse, west of town, on the Ann Arbor road. I’ve heard of the place. The Red Dragon. Anything goes, there.”
    Those pale, infallible eyes of The Avenger were staring at him.
    “Is Doris Jackson related to a man named Phineas Jackson?” Benson asked.
    “Why, yes,” said Mantis. “She’s his daughter. Do you know anything about Phineas Jackson?”
    “Only that he’s an inventor,” Benson said. “Come on. I’ll go with you to the Red Dragon.”
    “Alone?” said Mantis curiously.
    “Yes. It’s better not to have too many on such an errand. Someone in the place would be sure to see a lot of people approaching—and be warned. Just the two of us have a large chance of getting in unnoticed.”
    Benson called police headquarters.
    “Richard Benson talking. Have you a gangster’s bullet-proofed car in your police garage?”
    “Yes,” was the respectful reply. “We’ve got a sedan that Frankie Geraldi had done over. That’s the guy that got knocked off a couple weeks ago. It’s a regular fort on tires.”
    “I’d like to use it, if I may.”
    “Right. There’ll be some red tape with the D. A.’s office, but we’ll snap the car over to you first and go through the red tape later. Want any men, Mr. Benson?”
    “No, thank you. Just the car.”
    “You’ll let us in on—whatever it is you’re working on—as soon as you can?”
    “Yes,” said Benson. “As soon as possible.”

    In the nine-thousand-dollar job of Frankie Geraldi, deceased now and not needing any automobiles, The Avenger and Mantis rolled smoothly and ponderously down the Ann Arbor road.
    “So Doris Jackson’s father,” said Benson quietly, “is the inventor of the steel processing in the new Marr-Car.”
    Mantis stared quickly at him.
    “You seem to know a lot. Yes, he is.”
    “And you,” said Benson, “until just recently, worked for Ormsdale, in his competing plant.”
    “Why, yes. That’s right.”
    “Why did you leave him?”
    Mantis shrugged.
    “I wasn’t getting anywhere, with Ormsdale. I’m ambitious. I want to better myself. So I left his employ.”
    There was silence, then, with The Avenger staring straight ahead with pale eyes that reflected no emotion whatever, and with Mantis jerking quick looks sideways at him now and then.
    “I think the Red Dragon must be within a mile or so of here,” he said finally.
    The Avenger nodded, paralyzed face as cold and moveless as glacier ice. He knew where the Red Dragon was. It was a hotbed of crime, and such spots were usually known to him pretty precisely.
    He went on a half mile, and then stopped. There was a rutted lane leading off the highway into an orchard, used by the man owning the place only now and then when he wanted to drive his truck in and load it with apples.
    Benson opened the gate, parked Frankie Geraldi’s car in the dark orchard and closed the gate again. Then the two climbed the inner-orchard fence and started across the fields to the Red Dragon.
    They came to the back of the place.
    There was a lot of light coming from the many windows of what was really nothing but a huge old farmhouse, turned into a country night spot. A lot of noise came from the windows, too—a nickel phonograph going full blast; loud voices and shrill laughter.
    The