The Avenger 16 - The Hate Master by Kenneth Robeson Read Free Book Online Page B

past ten o’clock. Till now, the evening had gone smoothly enough. The dinner had been eaten, with an accompaniment of red wine and white. The coffee and cigars had been served. Several short speeches had been made. And now it was time for Ritter’s speech of acceptance.
    The well-known public figure had never looked more impressive. He stood up, with his prematurely white hair like a white banner over his good-looking face. He started to say something, but whatever it was was never said.
    Leslie Fox, a beefy man with frosty-gray eyes, and John Ainslee, with fire in his own aged orbs, had been whispering about something for several minutes. Then the whispering had grown a little louder, with neither of them paying any attention to anyone else.
    Both of them had been getting madder and madder, if the mottled red rising in their cheeks was any true sign.
    Now, just as Ritter’s first smooth word was about to come forth, old Ainslee suddenly leaped to his feet and his fist smashed down on the table with a force to make the coffee cups jiggle in their saucers.
    “You rat!” he howled at Fox. “You double-crossing louse! You—” There followed a name like an explosion, which jerked every head there in the direction of the two men.
    Fox was on his feet, too, by now. The two glared at each other like two animals about to battle to the death.
    “Gentlemen,” pleaded Ritter. “Please—”
    One of the other men said: “What’s up, Les? Why the commotion?”
    “He should tell you what’s up!” exploded Ainslee. “Go on, tell ’em, you slug!”
    “What I want to do in my own plant is my own business,” howled Fox.
    “The hell it is! It’s the business of every one of us. We’re all in the same boat, aren’t we?”
    “What are you talking about?” rapped out Alfred Vanden.
    “You know we’re all going to get a lot of airplane business,” said Ainslee. “There’s even been talk of suspending automobile production for a while to get caught up on planes. Well, listen to this: Fox just hired eleven hundred plane mechanics at eight cents an hour above the standard scale!”
    That was a bomb in the room all right. Vanden jerked around to where Fox and Ainslee stood and caught Fox’s arm.
    “You . . . you didn’t!” he choked.
    Fox said nothing, but looked ferociously at Ainslee.
    “You cheap chiseler,” shouted another of the men. “You know we’re all going to have to have plane mechanics, and you steal a march on us by hiring a lot in advance—at excess pay! Now we’ll all have to pay that much. Where do you get off, endangering our profits like that?”
    “Gentlemen—” pleaded Ritter once more. But no one even heard him.
    “You old hyena!” roared Fox to Ainslee. “Can’t you ever keep your mouth shut? I was trying to do you a good turn. You could have hired some yourself, ahead of the rest. So do you thank me? You do not! You blab around. Why, I’ve a good notion to—”
    Fox finished with what he had a good notion to do. That was to let go with a good right hook to the older man’s firm jaw.
    Ainslee spun around twice on his way back and fell to the floor. Fox started toward him and was grabbed by a couple of the others. He struck at them, and one thing led to another—
    A sleek, polished bunch, all right—when they got into the place. When they got out, there were several black eyes, a few bloodied noses and a whole lot of bruises in places where they would show. It had been like a battle in the bleachers after an unfair decision by the umpire against the home team, or like a rotten-tomato battle against rival gangs of tough street kids.
    Certainly not like a meeting of motor magnates.
    And the hard feelings didn’t break up with the banquet. They persisted till next morning. They had full possession of old Ainslee as he sat at his desk in the administration building of the vast plant bearing his name.
    Ainslee was thinking of Fox, and his eyes flashed with a fire younger than his