Free The Avenger 1 - Justice, Inc. by Kenneth Robeson

almost overwhelming him, and with his own muscles failing perceptibly, wondered in a dim corner of his brain at the giant’s resistance to that deadly grip. Was that vast bulk made of metal? Were there no ropes of nerves there, as in other men, to cut off consciousness as they were pressed?
    Then, all at once, like a falling tree, the big fellow sagged. His arms slid from their hold, and he slumped to his knees, shaking his head like a stricken bull to clear his vision.
    Benson reeled to the town car and leaned against a fender to get his own strength back. And in the silence, the screams of the woman from the house were apparent to the ears of both once more.
    “Police! Police!”
    The big fellow spoke, kneeling in the gravel, staring with utter unbelief at the comparatively small man who had beaten him, staring with something like awe at the white, set face which even now expressed no emotion whatever.
    “You’re the only man,” he said hoarsely, “who ever got away from me, once I got my hands on him!”
    Panting, Benson didn’t answer. It had been the nearest thing in his life. He concentrated on getting his strength back.
    “All right,” the big fellow said, getting to legs that shook under him like uncertain tree trunks. “You can take me in. Any cop that can do that to me—”
    “I’m not a cop,” said Benson.
    “You’re not?” said the giant. “Why, I thought you’d trailed me here to arrest me because my boss, Leon, disappeared from the house where I’d driven him—”
    “Leon gone?” Benson snapped, straightening. “Your employer, too? Is every influential person in the city menaced by this thing? Tell me what you can—”
    “All right. But make it some place else, fast,” said the giant, “before the cops do come in answer to Miss Leon’s screaming. Because if they come, they’ll get me for the boss’ disappearance—and they’ll make it stick!”

CHAPTER IX

Smitty Joins Up
    The giant was bursting out of the largest ready-made suit Benson had been able to get in Buffalo. But it would have to do till a tailor could make up a suit to order.
    “Or maybe ’tis a tent maker we’ll have to call in for ye,” said MacMurdie, frosty blue eyes traveling over the great body.
    The three were in Benson’s hotel suite. Benson was staring with gray gimlet eyes at the giant’s mild-seeming china-blue ones.
    “Your employer just walked into that house, belonging to John Lansing, and didn’t come out again?” Benson repeated.
    The big fellow nodded.
    “And you came back in a hurry and reported it to his daughter, and she hysterically discharged you, and indicated that she was going to hand you over to the police.”
    “Yes,” said the giant, voice too high for his bulk.
    “Why was she so sure you had something to do with the kidnaping? For kidnapping’s what it must have been.”
    The big fellow reddened. “Because I’ve been in jail,” he said defiantly.
    Benson’s gray eyes probed deep. He didn’t see the sly shrewdness of the criminal in the china-blue eyes. All he saw was a huge fellow, a lot smarter than he appeared to be, who would be as decent a citizen as anyone else—unless he were roused.
    “Care to explain the jail sentence?” he said.
    “I was framed,” said the giant. “It was with a big electrical-equipment corporation. I’m an electrical engineer. Graduated from Massachusetts Tech. I was working on television, and some platinum disappeared from the laboratory. Eight thousand dollars’ worth. They nailed me for it, and I got a year in the pen. I’d have gotten ten, only the evidence was so clouded the conviction wasn’t clear. I couldn’t get a regular job after that. All I could get was a job as chauffeur to Mr. Leon, who overlooked my past. Then something has to go and happen to him! If I’m ever tagged as the last man to see him alive, with my jail record, I’ll go up for kidnaping as sure as there’s a ceiling over our heads.”
    “That’s why you