The Avenger. Matthew Blood
Читать онлайн книгу.from the earpiece and she lifted it swiftly. Morgan Wayne drew deeply on his cigarette and attempted to look at her dispassionately. How much of all this had been an act? How much of it honest emotion? Before God, he didn’t know. Was she aware that when you pressed the mouthpiece of a telephone against your diaphragm and spoke even in a low voice, the words were transmitted over the wire by vibration just as clearly as though you spoke into the mouthpiece?
If she was aware of that, then she might as well have shouted to a jealous man that there was someone else in her bedroom with her and he’d better get there fast.
If she didn’t know about that vibration thing, of course . . .
Her voice was dulcet in the mouthpiece: “Hake, honey. Listen. A man named Morgan Wayne was here looking for you . . . I know, honey, I’ve heard you mention him. I suckered him upstairs here thinking I might hold him till you came, but he got cagey and beat it. Thought I’d better call you right away . . . Sure, honey. See you tonight.” She cradled the phone and turned exultantly. “He won’t be here for hours, so let’s—”
She broke off with a swift intake of breath as Morgan Wayne swung to his feet. He had what he needed now, and his face was grim. Whether Priscilla knew it or not, Hake Derr knew there was someone in her bedroom with her while she phoned. Besides that, every moment was precious now. Letty was just a youngster. Anything might be happening to her, and he had a telephone number.
He stood looking down at her and Priscilla shrank from what she saw in his face.
“Believe it or not, my sweet, I just remembered a date with my secretary. It can’t wait, so we’ll have to.”
He swung on his heel and strode away fast, carrying with him the memory of the stricken look on the most beautiful face he had ever seen.
He didn’t look back at Priscilla. He knew he might turn back to her if he did.
He heard her swearing at him as he went through the living room. He slammed the door behind him and went down the stairs two at a time, slowed as he reached the bottom, and moved casually out into the club, which was beginning to fill up now and hum with evening activity.
He didn’t see Willie Sutra, and passed by the bartender swiftly with face averted. The hat-check girl leaned forward expectantly when she saw him, but Wayne waggled two fingers at her and kept going.
His convertible was still at the curb and without a parking ticket. The doorman was busy helping a tipsy party of four from a cab, and Wayne went behind his back and pushed out into the traffic.
He drove expertly and swiftly to the first empty space at the curb in front of a blue telephone sign. He sprinted in and used a dime to dial a certain number. When a gruff voice answered, he said:
“Morgan Wayne, John. Get me an address to match this telephone number fast.” He repeated the number Priscilla Endicott had dialed and said impatiently, “It’s goddamned important. Of course I’ll hang on.”
He waited with the receiver to his ear, blue eyes hooded and hard as they stared out of the booth, seeing Priscilla’s face floating before him, hearing her voice again in his ears.
Then the gruff voice was speaking over the wire, and he memorized the address that went with the telephone number. He said, “Got it, John. Thanks,” and hung up. He hurried back to his car and slammed out into New York’s evening traffic again.
Chapter Four
HAKE DERR lowered the telephone gently to its cradle. He stood without moving for a moment, thick shoulders hunched forward slightly, straining the seams of his carefully tailored tweed jacket. He had smooth, chubby features with a deep cleft in his chin that gave him a deceptive look of almost innocent boyishness. Until you looked into his eyes. They were neither innocent nor boyish. Nor were they cold or lifeless like Willie Sutra’s.
Hake Derr’s eyes were round and slightly protuberant. They were such a light gray as to appear almost white—an effect that was heightened by fragmentary brows so close to flesh color that they were practically invisible. The result was curious and somehow frightening.
You looked into Hake Derr’s eyes and saw mirrored there such depths of depravity that you shuddered involuntarily. They were old with sin and with hatred for his fellow men. More than mere hatred, for that can be clean; there was bitterness and revulsion that encompassed all of humanity.
Derr pursed his thick lips and made a faint sucking sound as though he tasted something good. This was it. Morgan Wayne had finally come into the open. So he was real. All those vague rumors that had come to Derr’s ears recently had a solid foundation.
Letty Hendrixon’s snatch had forced Wayne to make an overt move. It was all right now. There was no great hurry. Wayne would keep all right. Set up for the kill in Priscilla’s apartment. Those whispered words that had vibrated over the wire to Derr’s ear were assurance that Morgan Wayne would be with her for some little time, at least. “He’s there, all right. I’ll tell him you’ve already gone and—”
Yeah, Priscilla was all right. And smart, too. Pressing the mouthpiece hard against her chest while she lured Wayne in a passion-laden voice to take his time and pleasure with her after checking to be sure her lover wasn’t likely to interrupt for a few hours.
Sure. Priscilla was O.K. But was she as smart as he was thinking? A tiny doubt gnawed at Hake Derr’s mind. Did she know that trick about bone conduction sending words over the telephone when the instrument was smothered against your body?
Wait a minute now. Maybe not. It wasn’t common knowledge. If she hadn’t done it intentionally, it meant she was actually two-timing Derr instead of Wayne. It meant she was up there in bed with him right now—and liking it, goddamn it. Not setting him up for the kill, but painting a large pair of horns right on Hake Derr’s forehead.
That made a difference. One hell of a difference. Derr could accept and applaud the idea of a woman taking a man to bed with her to hold him until her lover could get there to handle the situation, but a wave of red-hot jealousy swept over him with the other thought. He didn’t mind how many men she had as a matter of business, but not, by God, for any other reason.
He turned away from the telephone slowly, and Al, who was lounging in the bedroom doorway after taking the call, caught a glimpse of that jealousy in the momentary spasm that contracted Derr’s face.
Al was slender and dark and foppish, and now he smirked knowingly. “That Gingham Gal! She really does go for you, Boss, but sometimes I get to wondering if you really do get it all.”
Ordinarily Hake Derr would have shrugged off the remark. But ordinarily he was sure he was getting it all. Now that tiny doubt was gnawing at him.
His smooth, boyish face was blandly impassive as he neared Al. He smiled faintly and said without rancor, “You shouldn’t ought to think dirty like that.” His left hand came out of his coat pocket with brass knuckles over the fingers and they smashed cruelly and without warning into the middle of Al’s grin. He staggered back with blood spurting from his mouth, choking over half a dozen front teeth driven back into his throat.
Derr brushed past him casually, explaining, “If you do think it, next time you won’t be so quick to say it.”
He stopped on the threshold of the small bedroom and dispassionately removed the knuckles and dropped them back into his pocket. It was an ordinary bedroom with the sort of furniture that comes with a rented house. The gray light of late afternoon came through a single window to illuminate the bed on which the girl lay.
She lay on her side with her face toward Derr, twisting and straining futilely against the belt buckled about her knees and the length of clothesline that bound her wrists behind her back. A bathroom sponge was jammed into her mouth for a gag, held in place by a soiled handkerchief bound around her head.
Disheveled dark hair was splayed about her face, and one brown eye blazed with anger at Derr and the other man in the room, who leaned negligently against the opposite wall,