The Avenger 13 - Murder on Wheels by Kenneth Robeson

Avenger mused aloud as the two crouched beyond the rear parking lot in the shadow of a car.
    “The basement of such places is usually a storage space. With waiters and busboys going down constantly for liquor and other supplies, it is unlikely that a prisoner would be kept there. The first floor will have the bar and cafe room and kitchen. The second will have private rooms. That’s a possibility. But the attic rooms would be the most logical place—”
    He took from his pocket a small round object like a dollar watch. But the stem of the watch was hollow. He gave this to Mantis.
    “Stay out here. If you hear shooting or other disturbance, blow into this, and then run as fast as you can for the car. If you are pursued, lock the doors and sit tight. The body of that car should shield you from anything up to a full-size army machine gun.”
    “You’ll need help—” began Mantis.
    “I work best alone,” said The Avenger. And his voice brooked no back talk.
    “What’s this thing?” said Mantis, looking at the watchlike arrangement.
    “Siren,” said Benson. “When you blow into it, it makes a sound quite convincingly like a squad car. It should provide enough distraction to help, if I run into difficulties in the Red Dragon.”
    He was gone, then. And Mantis stared wonderingly. Not once did he see The Avenger’s whip-cord body as he slid among the cars across the parking lot to the wall of the building. Few men alive could move more unnoticed than he.
    There was no tree near enough to climb. There was no rain pipe strong enough to bear his weight to the attic or third floor.
    Benson drew from around his waist a length of something that looked like catgut. It was a length of fine cable, made from steel-strong, specially treated silk. On the end of it, he attached a thin steel bar from which four smaller steel bars unfolded like four ribs of an umbrella when it is raised. It formed a nice little grappling hook, with a sheath of silk over the steel to keep it from making too much noise.
    Surely, deftly, he tossed the hook up.
    One of the grapples caught on the gutter of the roof, and an instant later he was going up the thin cable, hand over hand.
    On the roof, he went to a dormer window that showed a dim light through a carefully drawn shade.
    His deductions had been right. There was a crack in the shade, and through this he could see a pair of silk-clad ankles with rope around them. Doris Jackson was held prisoner in this room.
    The Avenger put his forehead lightly against the pane. In this manner, the frontal bone became a sort of sounding-board to amplify any sounds in the place. But all he could hear was the breathing of one person—the girl. He slowly raised the window and held the shade aside.
    A girl’s deep-blue eyes stared at him in terror and dawning hope. But a strip of adhesive tape gagged her cry. He stepped into the room.
    Only then did he see that there were two prisoners there. The other was the man with the scraggly beard, Will Willis. He was gagged and bound, too.
    The Avenger stepped to the door and listened. No sound. He went to the girl.
    “I’m going to untie you and take the gag off,” he whispered. “Make no sound.”
    She nodded, and her eyes showed that she was gaining her self-control again. Benson ripped the gag off and bent to unfasten the rope at her wrists and ankles.
    And a voice said: “All right, monkey, just stand perfectly still, or I’ll put a coupla holes in your head.”
    The door was shut, the window shade was motionless over the open window, there was no one in the room besides Benson and the two prisoners. He stayed the way he was, in a crouch over Doris Jackson, but his right hand furtively was touching his leg.
    He saw the speaker, then.
    There was a hole in the wall, up high—a little square section that hinged like a small trapdoor. This was open and a man’s head showed. And a gun was trained on The Avenger!
    The man yelled: “Hey! Downstairs! Come up here,