The Avenger

by Matthew Blood

  “No. I did not know,” Vito said sullenly.

  Wayne shrugged. “All I want is an address where I can contact him.”

  Vito blinked his eyes rapidly. This Morgan Wayne! There had been rumors around the city for some time about a mysterious stranger from the West or someplace, and about a stupendous deal that Hake Derr was organizing to sew up the raw drug business in Manhattan with some improbably huge source of supply that would mean much money to everyone involved. This Wayne was bad, all right. He was mean and tough and soulless. The Barber, who had hummed happily in the past while he drew a razor neatly across the throats of men he had never seen before, men who had never done him any personal harm whatsoever, this same Barber now stood aghast at the spectacle of a monster in human form coolly biting off the head of one of his beloved goldfish and chewing it up and swallowing it with apparent gusto.

  Nothing on earth that Wayne could have said or done could so surely have convinced Vito Saietta that Morgan Wayne was not a man to cross. He shrugged his shoulders now and said, “I will have to telephone.”

  Wayne said, “Go ahead.”

  He followed Vito across the room to the telephone, watched while he dialed a number, and listened while he said, “This is The Barber. Hake there?”

  He bent his head close to Vito's and The Barber obligingly held the receiver away so both could hear the answer: “Nope. Left word he'd be at the White Star till midnight.”

  Vito replaced the receiver carefully. “The White Star Club is on West Forty-ninth.” He gave a street address.

  Wayne nodded woodenly. He knew Vito's type. Knew exactly what The Barber was thinking. That as soon as Wayne left, Vito would call the White Star Club to warn Derr that Morgan Wayne was on his way over. Always playing both ends against the middle. Always coppering every bet. That was Vito's way.

  Tonight, Morgan Wayne was playing both ends against the middle also. There was one driving compulsion inside him that overshadowed everything else. In a sense, Vito had been correct when he thought of Wayne as a monster in human form. At this moment, he was no longer human. He was athing, driven by a force over which he had no control.

  He drew a gun and shot Vito Saietta through the head. He pocketed the gun and walked out to continue his search for Lois' murderer.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Wayne found a parking space on Forty-ninth west of Eighth Avenue and slid the Hudson into it. He sat for a moment behind the wheel, then shrugged and reached inside both jacket pockets to lift out the guns reposing there. He opened the glove compartment and shoved them inside. He had a hunch the White Star Club would be one of Hake's regular hangouts, probably one of the stations from which he conducted his sordid business, and the chances were a thousand to one that he would be well covered in a place like that.

  There would be no bulling his way in as had been successful at the Gingham Gardens. Wayne was perfectly willing to take chances, but right now he wanted to stay alive until he had a chance to meet Hake Derr face to face. And walking into the White Star and asking for Hake with a couple of guns on him might not be the best way to ensure longevity.

  He got out and walked briskly up the street toward a neon sign that spelled out “White Star.” It was a long, low barroom typical of the neighborhood. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of stale beer and spilled liquor, mingled with the stink of sweating, unwashed bodies.

  There was a juke box blaring loudly, and the dozen or more customers at the bar were half shouting at each other to be heard over it. It was an ordinary-looking West Side crowd, Wayne thought to himself as he paused inside the door to look them over. Nothing at all to distinguish the joint from any one of dozens within a few blocks—except for the two men who sat together at a table in the back of the room.

  They were different from the hangers-on at the bar. They had highball glasses in front of them, but they weren't drinking. They appeared to be lounging there at ease, but there was a hard-eyed alertness about them that belied that appearance. Pals of the two sex-crazed lice who had been holding Letty captive that afternoon, Wayne surmised after one searching glance, and he let himself wonder idly for a moment if the one whom he'd left behind with a broken jaw had come around enough to give his buddies a description of Letty's rescuer. If so, Wayne was grimly aware that it was quite possible he wouldn't stay alive long enough to have his talk with Derr. But that was one of the calculated risks he had to take.

  He moved slowly down the length of the bar to an open space at the end and said, “Whisky,” when he got a glance from the bartender.

  When the shot glass was shoved in front of him, he asked, “Hake in back?”

  The bartender was middle-aged and cherubic, with two gold teeth in front. He said, “Whyn't you ask the boys?” and took the half dollar Wayne laid beside his drink.

  Morgan Wayne drank the whisky at a gulp and walked to the back. Neither of them seated at the table moved as he approached. They looked at him and waited.

  He stopped beside their table and asked, “Hake busy right now?”

  One of the men yawned. The other one asked, “Who wants tuh know?”

  Their attitude was neither friendly nor unfriendly. It was guarded and impersonal. It was evident that they, at least, did not connect this well-dressed stranger with what had happened to Al and Charlie that afternoon.

  Wayne hesitated only momentarily. This was it. He had to guess and guess right if he was to get in to see Hake Derr. He said, “Morgan Wayne.”

  “Huh?” The one who was yawning stopped suddenly. His eyes narrowed and he told his companion, “That's the guy Hake said—”

  “Shut up.” The other got to his feet without change of expression. He opened a door to the rear and went through it, pulling it shut behind him. Wayne stood negligently beside the table and got out a pack of cigarettes. He shook one loose and politely offered it to the remaining man. He shook his head without speaking. His mouth hung open a trifle and he stared at Wayne with intense concentration. You could almost hear the cells of his mind clicking as he strove ineffectually to add two and two.

  The door opened and the other man came out. He left the door open on a short corridor and said briskly to his companion, “We frisk him. Then if he's clean he goes in.” He jerked his head at Wayne. “If you don't like that, the three of us go for a little ride.” “I like it,” Wayne assured him, “fine.”

  He went through the open door and the two men followed him and pulled it shut. He turned and lifted his arms straight out from his sides and waited.

  “Not that way, Bud. Strip. Right down to the skin.”

  Wayne smiled easily and shrugged out of his coat. “Hake must be worried about something.”

  Neither man replied. They stolidly went about the task of shaking out and examining each article of clothing as Wayne removed it and handed it to them. They weren't satisfied with the outer garments, but demanded that he remove underwear, shoes, and socks also. Wayne had a derisive grin on his lips as he stood before them stark naked. “Do I go in like this?”

  He intended it for a pleasantry, but neither man smiled. The one who had gone in first said, “That's it, Bud. Your clothes'll be right here when you come out.” He jerked a thumb down the hall toward a door on the right that stood ajar with light streaming out. “Right in there.”

  There is a feeling of utter defenselessness about complete nudity. Although one knows consciously that ordinary clothing gives no protection against a lethal weapon, there is an unreasoning and panicky sense of vulnerability that accompanies nakedness.

  So Hake Derr wasn't taking any chances this time, Wayne told himself grimly as he gritted his teeth and forced himself to move down the hall on bare feet to the partly open door. Well, he'd asked for this, and now he wasn't going to complain. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  It was a large and comfortably furnished office. A fluorescent ceiling fixture flooded the room with brilliant light. A wide, flat-topped desk stood in the center of the
room and Hake Derr sat in a swivel chair behind it facing the door. There was a litter of papers at his right hand, a whisky bottle and small glass at his left. He was leaning back in his chair with both hands clasped together behind his neck and a look of pleased expectation on his smooth chubby features. The cleft in his chin was very pronounced in this posture, and his round, whitish eyes didn't protrude as much as normally. Looking at him, you had a feeling he had spent hours posing before a mirror to perfect just this attitude.

  It was the first time Wayne had set eyes on Hake Derr. He had heard the racketeer described, but no description had ever done him justice. Two thoughts flitted through his mind with his first look at Hake. First, that here was Priscilla Endicott's lover. And second, that here was the man who had defaced Lois Elling with a sharp knife just a few hours ago.

  The two thoughts swiftly following each other contracted his hard belly muscles and brought a faint mist of red over his eyes. He controlled himself with an effort and said, “I got your message.”

  Derr's face smiled. “So you came looking for me.”

  There was a comfortable upholstered chair across the room beyond the desk. Wayne crossed to it with as much dignity as his nakedness allowed and sat down. He said gravely, “You could have sent the same message some other way.”

  “But I enjoyed it that way.” A light flickered evilly in the depths of the protruding gray eyes. The tip of his tongue came out to lick his thick lips with sensuous pleasure.

  The man was mad. Wayne realized this with a shudder of horror as he listened to the purring voice. Mad on this one particular subject, at least. Coldly sane on all other counts, perhaps. He wondered fleetingly what form Derr's perverted pleasure would take with a man at his mercy. A naked man trapped here in his private office with not one chance in a million of escaping alive. He thrust the fleeting thought aside and made his voice angry:

  “There's only one thing I want to know now. How did you know where to find her—that she was expecting me tonight?”

  “That secretary of yours? Why do you care now?”

  “Why shouldn't I care?” Wayne demanded hotly.

  “Because you're not going to live long enough for it to matter.” Derr unclasped his hands from behind his thick neck and sat forward a trifle. He laid his right hand, palm upward, on the desk and displayed a four-inch clasp knife with a single blade that sprang open in his hand as he thumbed a knob in the handle. “My God, Morgan Wayne,” he asked wonderingly, “what kind of a fool are you? You know by this time that Hake Derr plays for keeps.”

  Wayne said wearily, “Maybe I don't want to go on living in the same world with a man like you.”

  “Maybe not,” said Derr indifferently. “So we'll fix that easy.” He was snapping the spring blade of the knife back and forth idly in his plump hand, seemingly fascinated by the play of light on the shining blade. “If you got any different ideas,” he went on without bothering to look at Wayne, “get rid of them fast. I still don't know what kind of play you thought you were making by coming here to get it, but I couldn't have asked for anything better.”

  “So I'm here,” Wayne agreed. “And I asked you a question. Who put you onto Lois Elling?”

  “I got pipe lines.” Derr waved his left hand.

  “Is that why you didn't take Letty Hendrixon straight to the boat this afternoon—because you know it's being watched day and night?”

  Derr appeared genuinely surprised. “What the hell would you do a thing like that for? What's your game, anyhow? I don't get any of this stuff you're pulling. Near as I can learn, you're not a cop, but you're not in the racket neither.” He shook his head in perplexity.

  Morgan Wayne had what he wanted now. What he had come for. Hake Derr didn't know about the improvised office overlooking the yacht basin.

  He said pleasantly, “You'll never be able to understand this, Derr, but since you're going to kill me anyway, let me try to put it to you the best I can. You know how some people have a phobia about snakes? Just can't stand even the sight of them. They go sort of crazy and smash hell out of even an innocent little garter snake if it gets close to them.”

  “Sure.” Derr looked baffled but interested. “I don't mind snakes myself, but I'm like that about rats. They give me the jimmies, honest to God. Even a damn little mouse.”

  “I happen to feel that way about human rats,” Wayne said evenly. “My God, even sitting and talking to one like this makes me so sick to my stomach that I need a drink to wash the taste of it out of my mouth.”

  He stood up suddenly and Hake Derr shoved back his chair in sudden alarm, only dimly comprehending what Wayne was telling him, but instinctively putting a couple of more feet between himself and the harsh-voiced man who had suddenly come to life in his office.

  “You won't begrudge me that, will you?” Wayne laughed as he reached for the whisky bottle. “One long slug of your whisky before you get started on the messy kind of killing you enjoy so much.”

  He caught up the open bottle near the base and with a swift motion whirled it so that hundred-proof bourbon spurted out and into Derr's face and eyes. He continued the swing downward as Derr sputtered and dabbed at his blinded eyes for one fatal instant, slamming the neck of the bottle against the sharp edge of the desk and cracking it off so a jagged half remained clutched in his hand.

  He lunged forward with the saw-toothed weapon out-thrust, rammed the splintered edges viciously into Hake Derr's face, and twisted as he rammed.

  There was one faint, inarticulate gurgle as Derr died horribly with the flesh of his face in shreds and red blood gushing from the pierced jugular vein.

  Morgan Wayne stood over him breathing heavily with the bottle still gripped in his hand and Derr's blood dripping from it down onto the faceless thing on the floor.

  Then he dropped the bottle and walked unhurriedly out of the office.

  The door to the barroom was closed and his clothes lay in a heap in front of it. He dressed swiftly but calmly, then turned the knob and opened the door. He turned back and hesitated as he was halfway through the opening, and called over his shoulder:

  “O.K. then. Ten o'clock tomorrow.”

  The pair of watchdogs were seated at the same table near the door, and they watched him curiously as he stepped out and closed the door firmly behind him. It was the first time a man had ever been ushered stark naked into Hake Derr's presence and come out alive, but there was something queer about this whole Morgan Wayne business that they didn't quite grasp, and they certainly had no reason to interfere with his departure after hearing him make a date with the boss for ten o'clock next morning. Maybe there was something in the rumors going around the city that Hake was on a hell of a big deal that meant cutting in with someone else. Maybe that someone else was Morgan Wayne. He had the look of a man who knew exactly where he was going and how to get there.

  He certainly had that look about him as he nodded curtly to the two watching men and strode out of the barroom.

  Yet nothing was further from the truth. At the moment, Morgan Wayne hadn't the slightest idea where he was going now, or the foggiest notion of how to get there.

  Indeed, as he went down the street to his parked car, he suddenly realized he didn't even know where he was going to spend the night.

  Chapter Sixteen

  One thing Morgan Wayne did know as he gunned the Hudson away from the vicinity of the White Star was that he hadn't had a single drink or a bite to eat all evening. He hadn't thought about the lack until now, but suddenly he wanted a lot of drinks and a lot of food above everything else. He looked at his wrist watch and noted with intense surprise that it was only a few minutes after ten o'clock. He couldn't recall consciously noting the time previously, and realized now that he had been going along with a vague idea that it was hours later than that.

  Only six hours ago, the telephone had rung in his office for the first time since it was installed. It was incredible that so much could have happened in those six hours. Now Hake D
err was finished and he could relax. Lois Elling was avenged, though the police would never know it.

  He had headed uptown after pulling away from the curb at Forty-ninth, and now a traffic light stopped him at Fifty-fourth. He remembered a small restaurant on East Fifty-fourth that catered to after-theatre patrons and served superlative drinks with the sort of good plain food that he wanted right now. It would be very lightly patronized at this hour, and Wayne turned eastward to look for it, resolutely shutting every other thought from his mind as he drove, concentrating pleasurably on the aroma and taste of a very cold and very dry Martini, and on deciding between a large sirloin steak or a thick slice of blood-red roast beef, which was a specialty of Heath House.

  He had decided on roast beef by the time he crossed Madison and began looking for a parking space. With creamed white onions and a baked Idaho potato, he thought, and coffee with brandy to top it off.

  He was greeted at the door by a smiling headwaiter who did not know him by name but recalled the generous tips he had left on previous visits. Only half a dozen tables were occupied, as Wayne had expected, and he was immediately seated in a corner with a waiter hovering expectantly.

  “I need drinks,” Wayne said succinctly. “Martinis as cold as a banker's handclasp and as dry as a deacon's cupboard. Half a dozen of them, probably. Just watch my glass and keep them coming. And tip the chef off to reserve me his bloodiest slice of beef.”

  He grimaced slightly as the words left his mouth, but the waiter noticed nothing and hurried beamingly away to bring the first cocktail. Wayne wondered idly how the waiter would react if he explained to him why he grimaced over the mention of blood aloud; if he described how Hake Derr's face had looked on the floor at his feet, only fifteen minutes ago. He felt enervated, now that it was over, and slightly listless. He had been keyed up for too many hours, of course. There had to be a letdown.

  He lifted the Martini eagerly when it came, sipped appreciatively, and then gulped half the glass. He nodded to the waiter, who had remained for his approval, and said, “I'll be ready for another by the time you can get it here.”