The meeting was to discuss that price war between the two absent ones — a war that was going to mean chaos for hundreds of thousands of people. When any main industry in a nation is crippled, that nation is also put seriously out of order.
So they met to see what could be done about it, and it was lucky they weren’t in a public place. For this time not just two men fought. They all did!
Twenty-five men, dignified, reserved, representative of several billion dollars, became raving males who wanted only to hit each other as hard as possible with the first weapon at hand.
Josh, on the outside of the house with a tiny stethoscope arrangement attached to the windowpane of the room in which the men had gathered, felt that he couldn’t be hearing correctly. Middle-aged and elderly millionaires behaving like gutter urchins! Bursting with hate for each other! Blacking each other’s eyes and throwing things around!
Josh ventured to raise his head a very little, so he could see into the room. The thing he saw was the exit of Edwin Ritter.
The handsome politician was slipping from the room with a small, enigmatic smile on his face. The rest were too busy screaming and fighting to notice. Josh went to the door, hiding behind shrubbery. He got there just in time to see Ritter step out, now with a broad grin on his face.
The fight back there apparently was precisely what he wanted. And that confirmed Smitty’s hunch of earlier in the day:
Somehow, Ritter was deliberately sowing hate and discord in the vital automotive industry, so that later he could step in and make peace and be hailed as a great man for stopping the trouble. Trouble he himself had started.
Ritter stepped into a town car, probably Weyland’s, which had been turned over to the politician along with Weyland’s home for his use while in Detroit. Josh had a car out along the curb, but a glance at the town car decided him against using that.
The rear bumper of the town car was too inviting. He got on it, dusky face blending with the night so that only teeth — when he grinned — and white eyeballs revealed his presence.
And he was not grinning, now.
The car started toward open country, and Josh took out the transmitter of his tiny radio with his right hand, while he clung to the bumper with his left.
The Avenger’s aides all knew Morse code. When they were in a position where it would have been dangerous to talk aloud, as it might have been for Josh now, they transmitted messages to each other by tapping on the transmitter instead of talking into it.
Josh tapped till he got Smitty’s attention.
“Yes?” the giant said.
Smitty, who
Josh put away the radio and clung to the bumper while the town car rolled sleekly over the highway. Several people in other cars saw the Negro hanging to the rear and turned to look. Josh didn’t like that because it might warn the man in the town car; but there was nothing Josh could do about it.
Finally, the car turned off the highway, down a small road. Josh promptly dropped his hat at the turn, hoping fervently that there wouldn’t be more turn-offs. He only had one hat.
The town car went about four miles, slowly, as if ahead of time for some appointment and killing minutes to come out right. Josh was beginning to get ridged like a washboard from the sharp bumper edge; this back road was rough.
He was glad when the car stopped. Glad for about twenty seconds.
In that time, he dropped from the bumper and scuttled for the side of the road where underbrush grew heavily. And there he felt as if an octopus had attacked him.
The octopus resolved itself into the clinging arms of about four men. One of them growled:
“Uh-huh! Company!”
Then Josh got loose.
The gangling, bony Negro didn’t look very strong, but appearances were deceptive. Josh could fight like a panther when he had the chance. And he had the chance now, for about three minutes!
His fist lashed out in the direction of the voice, and knuckles smacked home against cartilage and flesh. He swung at another head, showing only as a blotch against the night sky. The shock to his hand told of another first-rate sock.
Something hit him on the head, then, and he went to his knees. But he was still far from out. He grabbed legs, pulled them and tumbled a third man. He got this one most enthusiastically in the midriff as he was struggling to get up.
