Read Online The Avenger 33 - The Blood Countess by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online

perfected, they had questioned the gunman Ferro—who’d attempted to kill them They now knew where the gunman was due to report after his mission of assassination.
    “Geeze,” said Smitty, looking around him, “this ain’t no way for people to live.”
    There was no pavement here; the streets were dirt. There was a wind, blowing dust, tatters of paper, bits of rag along the street. None of the houses could stand up straight. They were built from scrap wood, flattened-out tin cans, and swatches of sacking. The light that showed at a few of the jagged windows was produced by candles and kerosene lamps. Dogs, thin-ribbed, sprawled in doorways of some of the shacks, indifferent to the passage of Mac and Smitty.
    Children hollow-eyed, none of them fat, watched, their faces showing nothing.
    The giant stopped and fished several Panazuelan dollar bills out of his coat pocket. Approaching three of the silent children, he said, “Here, take this. Pass it around, give it to your folks. Buy yourselves something to eat.”
    None of the children made any move to take the money.
    “It’s real money,” Smitty assured them. “Here. No kidding.”
    Finally a frail girl of ten came slowly forward. Then, snatching the money, she spun and ran, accompanied by the others. They ran behind the last of the shacks.
    Smitty rubbed at his nose. “This ain’t right,” he said. “A place like this for kids to live in.”
    “ ’Tis not a pretty world,” MacMurdie told him, “not in many places, lad.”
    Smitty said nothing. Shoulders slightly hunched, he walked on in silence.
    The scrubby fields were strewn with anonymous junk, bits and pieces of things which were of no use even to the people of the shacktown. And then trees, a small forest. Beyond that, a sharply slanting weedy hillside that led down to the railroad tracks.
    “Yonder,” said Mac, “that building made of corrugated metal would seem to be the one the gunman told us aboot.”
    Across the tracks stood a warehouse; on its rippled front were painted the now faded words American Produce.
    “Looks like nobody’s used the joint since American Produce moved to a better neighborhood,” said Smitty.
    “Nobody but these Nazi skurlies,” said the Scot.
    Smitty rubbed his huge palms together. “Well, let’s give it the once-over.”

    Bulcão sat in the pitch-black room which had once been the warehouse office, hands folded.
    The wind brushed at the metal roof, rattling loose bolts. The walls creaked.
    “Something’s gone wrong,” he said to himself. “Ferro should have reported to me by now. I knew we—”
    At his feet a tiny blue lightbulb, the kind you use on Christmas trees, had flashed on for a few seconds.
    Bulcão got to his feet, his right hand on the flap of his holster. A door had been opened, a door that wasn’t supposed to be opened. Ferro was stupid, but not that stupid. He knew which door he was supposed to use.
    He slid his revolver into his hand and crossed to the open door of the office. It was a rectangle of not quite so intense black. The alarm system he’d rigged himself, powered with batteries; if Ferro’d entered by the right door, an orange light would have flashed.
    Blue meant the small wooden door that led out to the old loading area. Bulcão, who knew his way around this warehouse even with no light, made his way toward that door. He moved slowly, making little sound.
    He listened as he walked through the blackness.
    “There must be someone in here, otherwise the light wouldn’t have warned me. But I don’t—”
    “Hiya, Bulcão. We kind of hoped we’d run into you.” A flashlight blossomed in the black, looking like a hole suddenly burning through a dark fabric.
    He fired his revolver.
    The slug hit Smitty below the ribs. His celluglass vest prevented a serious injury, but the impact shoved him back against a worktable, and he stumbled.
    Bulcão ran, then jumped up onto a loading platform that led to an exit door.
    MacMurdie’s