Free The Avenger 21 - The Happy Killers by Kenneth Robeson Page A

America.
    Through a small pane, Josh saw Brown shake his fist at Xenan, and then, suddenly, draw a gun! He held the gun poked into Xenan’s stomach. The look on his face showed that he was not fooling. The look on Xenan’s face showed that he knew it.
    Josh reached into a pocket and whipped out a listening device which The Avenger had invented. It was simple in appearance, a kind of vacuum cup with a wire trailing from it. The principle of the stethoscope had been used, plus the amplifying power of the tiny tubes in Smitty’s belt radios.
    Josh coupled the wire to his radio receiver, affixed the suction cup to the window, and listened. The voices of the two in the room leaped into audibility.
    “Keep your voice down, you fool!” Xenan said to Brown. “There are a dozen servants in the house, and every one of them listens at keyholes.”
    “I will not keep my voice down!” Brown said harshly. But he did lower it, perhaps without realizing. “I want to know—”
    “ I want to know why you burst into my house and shove a gun in my stomach!” snapped Xenan.
    “You haven’t the faintest idea, of course,” Brown said sarcastically. “You devil! For fifteen years you’ve—” He stopped, and made a palpable effort for self-control.
    Josh practically crawled inside the listening cup, he was so eager to hear. He had a hunch he was on the edge of discoveries that would solve this whole case. But he was not to hear any more.
    The next sound he heard was not from inside the house. It was from outside. It came from a little behind him, and this time it was unmistakable. No imagination this time.
    It was a high, wheezing laugh, as if someone had just heard the funniest joke ever told. It was joined by the laughter of others. How many others, there was no way of telling.
    Josh whirled, with the listening device hanging from the window. He saw dark forms leaping toward him in the night. And as they came these men laughed; laughed till shivers ran down his spine.
    Josh breathed sharply and did some leaping himself. Toward the hedge. But more dark forms darted up in front of him. He tried to swerve back again, toward the house. A laughing maniac tripped him. Two more men lit on top of him, chuckling with laughter, wheezing with laughter.
    Josh could fight like a panther when he had to. He did so now, flailing out with powerful fists, knocking the two off him.
    He got to one knee, heard glass crashing. He looked toward the house. The window at which he had listened had been smashed in. He saw three laughing figures climb into the lighted-room and start for the two men within.
    Then he didn’t see any more.
    One of the men he had hit came boring in again. The man had a dislocated jaw, but seemed not even to know it. He struck at Josh with a clubbed gun. It nicked Josh’s head.
    He swung again and this time connected more squarely. A couple of million Japanese lanterns caught fire in Josh’s head and then burst, leaving behind it the blackness of unconsciousness.

    Josh had been taken for quite a long ride. He knew that, in a hazy kind of way. He had been dumped somewhere at the end of it, and then somebody had kicked him in the head. At least it had felt like that; and if he ever caught the guy, he was going to make him sorry.
    He’d slid into unconsciousness again, after that. Now, he was coming out of it.
    The first thing he listened for was the terrible, maniacal laughing. He didn’t hear any. In fact, he didn’t hear anything at all, for a moment.
    Then he heard soft breathing, right next to him.
    He opened his eyes with a jerk. There was a person next to him, all right. But not a dangerous one. It was a girl, quite pale but quite good-looking, who regarded him with big scared eyes over a broad strip of adhesive tape which kept her from crying out. She had ash-blond hair and wide, amber-colored eyes.
    Josh tried to say something and realized there was adhesive tape over his mouth, too. He could feel the sting and draw