Read The Avenger 13 - Murder on Wheels for Free Online

have said, when they came to about twenty minutes later, was certainly a matter of opinion. Quite definitely, they didn’t think he had been easy on them.
    Smitty sighed and went downstairs and to the iron-grilled street door. Once again, he failed to note a vindictively pleased glint in the eyes of the butler.
    The butler had been staring out the glass of the door, between the ornamental iron bars, for the last few minutes. And he had seen something that made him look forward to the next few.
    But Smitty didn’t sense that at all. He didn’t even look at the outraged butler; he just opened the door and stepped across the small circle toward his cab, still at the curb.
    He did take the precaution to note that his driver was at the wheel. He was thinking exclusively of Marr when he muttered to the man: “Bleek Street, Justice, Inc.”
    He opened the cab door.
    A man stared up malevolently from the floor, and from the same direction a .45 automatic slanted at him. It pointed toward his head, not toward his chest, which had the celluglass garment under the coat to shield him from bullets. Nothing shielded his head!
    “What—” mumbled Smitty, caught completely off base, for once.
    “Stand easy, big boy,” said the man, gun and eyes not moving at all.
    Smitty’s physical faculties were trained to take powerful advantage of the slightest relaxation of an enemy’s guard. So were the faculties of all The Avenger’s aides.
    But sometimes that very power of concentration can be a drawback. As it was in this instance. Because Smitty was watching so hard for a break from the gunman with the .45 leveled at his head, he didn’t hear steps as men tiptoed behind him.
    From the door, however, the butler saw the three men sneak up. He had seen them arrive in a sedan and hide between this building and the next, after which the sedan had slid on down the block. He hugged himself as he saw the men get right up behind Smitty.
    “All right,” said the man in the cab. “Lean down and get in the cab, on the floor.”
    Smitty leaned, all right. He thought it was the break he’d been after. He leaned toward the man like a falling tower, to grab at that gun. And the foremost of the three unseen behind him, struck hard.
    Smitty kept on leaning forward, unconscious, with a spot on the top of his head that was going to be a turkey’s egg in a few minutes. And the four men laughed and slid his great bulk into the cab.
    The man who had been in it in the first place sat up on the seat, with the unconscious Smitty crammed on the floor. The man said to the taxi driver:
    “Get going. I’ll tell you where when we reach the Fifty-ninth Street bridge.”
    “Yes, sir!” said the cabby. Awhile ago he had ducked out of his car, abandoning it because things had got so hot. Then he had fearfully returned, to wait behind the wheel for the giant to come out of Marr’s house, thinking it was safe. And now look what was happening!
    Smitty, however, knew none of all this. He knew nothing of a long ride east and south. He was vaguely aware of having something smash on his head again. That was when the man in the seat above him saw a flutter of eyelids and swung his gun barrel in another vicious blow to keep the big boy out of this world.
    Finally, he moaned and stirred, with no one to bop him for it. He opened his eyes and spent about ten minutes recovering from the physical illness that comes of such blows. His brain slowly cleared, and he began to be himself again.
    But it didn’t look as if being himself was going to do him any good.
    He was tied at wrists and ankles and knees. And his bound arms were further bound to his body by a coil of rope over his chest. A very little attempt at movement told him that.
    He managed to sit up, and then was aware of a gag so that he couldn’t yell.
    He had been socked while it was still daylight. It was dark now—or dusk, at least. He saw stars when he looked out a dirty small window from across the very wide