Doc Savage: Glare of the Gorgon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 19) (26 page)

“Lay off!” Joe Shine snarled. “You’ll have him so he can’t talk.”

“Can’t talk, eh? I’ll make him cackle like a rooster.”

Rollo slapped the side of Monk’s face with his open palm. The force of the slap rolled the gorilla-like chemist off the table. He fell onto the floor.

Rollo stepped back and kicked at the face and the most tender portions of Monk’s stomach. Monk moaned and tried to crawl under the table. Someone seized his leg and pulled. Monk tried to hang onto a leg of the table. Rollo drove a toe against his spine and Monk’s grip went numb. Clawing feebly, he was dragged into the middle of the floor.

“Give me that bottle!” a voice ordered. “I’m gonna to cut his ears off!”

Monk suddenly recognized that voice. It was the thug with the injured hand, the one he had brought low. Evidently, he had recovered his smashed senses and sneaked up on the hairy chemist unawares. How he had gotten loose from the thorough job of trussing Monk had performed was a question.

There was a bang as the gunman brought the bottle down on the table, accompanied by the shiver of breaking glass.

Monk opened pain-curtained eyes, then squirmed feebly toward the door. He was jerked up and slammed into a chair. Three gunmen accomplished that feat of strength. The tough ran the jagged funnel of the bottleneck in front of Monk’s flat nose, then deliberately opened an ugly gash in the side of his face.

“Your ears come next!” the fellow promised gleefully.

Joe Shine stepped in then. Shoving the hoodlum back, he snapped, “Hold up, Alonzo.”

He thrust his head down and blew foul breath into Monk’s face.

“Cough up, you gorilla!” he snarled. “What’s Duke Grogan’s interest in you? How does Doc Savage tie into this?”

Monk rolled his head and ran his gaze about the cabin. One gunman was conspicuously absent, but the other sprawled in another chair, grinning malevolently.

Two newcomers were present. One was gnarled and bullet-headed, with a balloon of a chest and bowed legs. His head and hands were pale, as if they had been made out of ivory that had become dirty. He had a shock of red hair which was as stiff as piano wire and he wore a dark, pinstripe suit. One eye appeared larger than the other.

The other man was a shriveled wart of a fellow with a rat’s narrow face.

Joe Shine slapped Monk himself, and the impact of his palm splattered blood on Monk’s rust-furred chest.

“Loosen up!” he barked. “Get your chin going!”

“What—what happened?” mumbled Monk, fishing for time.

“Big Eye and Percy, here, were keeping watch at the stern,” Joe Shine chuckled. “They found Alonzo trussed up on deck, then came below and kissed you on the noggin with a blackjack.”

“Ooo!” Monk moaned. “My achin’ head!”

“Now let’s get down to brass tacks. Fill our ears.”

Monk had been considering possible answers to that query from the moment he had regained consciousness. He could tell them the truth, or he could bluff. In either case, the outcome was pretty certain to be disastrous for himself. He didn’t know enough to be worth much. And he knew that Joe Shine would not accept his story.

“What I told you before,” said Monk. “Ham knows the deal. I’m just Doc Savage’s hired muscle.”

Joe Shine frowned. “I heard you were a famous chemist.”

“That’s what I do for side money. But working for Doc, I’m mostly his muscle man.”

Which was far from the truth, but the simian chemist was speaking a language Joe Shine and his gang knew well. Many of the rodmen in the room doubled as muscle men, judging from their physical appearances.

Joe Shine rocked back on his heels, considering.

Looking over his men, he directed, “Big Eye, you go back to the doghouse and haul that mouthpiece forward. I don’t care if he’s awake or not. Get it done.”

Big Eye departed without a word.

A FEW minutes later, Big Eye stumbled back into the cabin, blinking in the glare of the light, his brick-red face registering puzzled curiosity.

“What’s eatin’ you—?” demanded Joe Shine.

“He’s gone!” Big Eye blurted.

“Gone!” Shine exploded. “Did you chill that lawyer?”

“No, of course not. But he ain’t there anymore.”

Joe Shine turned to Alonzo and demanded, “Didn’t you lock that door when you collected this stupid-looking ape?”

“Sure. I thought I did.”

“Thought! Saint Peter on the footstool! I told you to lock the door behind you. Did you?”

Alonzo the guard looked uncomfortable.

“Did you?” Joe Shine howled.

“Aw, he was out cold. He wasn’t going anywheres.”

“I’ll kill you!” Shine informed Alonzo with a calm anger that was horrible. “Only it wouldn’t do any good. You already fixed things, you iron head. Sit down there and listen to what this ape has to say.”

Joe Shine spun on Monk. The mobster’s eyes were hard and his voice had a buzzsaw quality.

“Why is Doc Savage in Chicago?”

“Doc is givin’ a big speech at the scientific exposition,” Monk bluffed boldly. “We just blew into town and queer stuff started to happen.”

“What kind of stuff?” Shine demanded.

“It started with Duke Grogan. He barged in and began throwin’ lead,” recited Monk. “I don’t know for sure, but I think Doc comin’ to town made Duke nervous. It got into the papers. Maybe Duke thought Doc was after him.” Monk shrugged elaborately. “That’s how I figured it anyway.”

Joe Shine and his hoodlums swapped dark looks.

“In that case…” murmured Big Eye, rubbing his hands together expectantly.

“Yeah,” said Joe Shine gruffly. “We got to have a croaking bee, then lam. Take him down in the hold where nobody will hear him squawk.”

Joe Shine tangled the fingers of one hand in the guard’s hair and propelled him bodily in the direction of the cabin door.

“Since you gummed up the works, it’ll be your job. Don’t get a lot of blood smeared around in the hold, either. Our fingerprints are all over this tub.”

“Don’t worry, boss,” Alonzo promised cheerfully. “I’ll take care of that.”

“Stick the corpse in a sack with a piece of chain and dump it overboard. Somebody go with him. Make sure the deed gets done right.”

“Sure, boss,” said Alonzo. “Come on, Big Eye. I’m gonna show you what happens to guys who smear fire in my eyes.”

And to the prod of gangland guns, Monk Mayfair was marched out onto the deck, and then into a companionway leading below decks.

The simian chemist feigned an even greater exhaustion than he felt and forced Alonzo and Big Eye to have to drag him through a tangle of corroded and rust-eaten metalwork.

“Geez! You’re a picture,” Alonzo chuckled. “Get some life into you so I’ll have something to kill.”

“Maybe we oughta skin him alive first,” Big Eye suggested fiercely. “I could use an ape skin rug.” The hoodlum laughed maliciously.

Too busy enjoying his ghoulish jest, Alonzo failed to look where he was going and tripped over a rusty can that stood against a bulkhead. With a startled squawk, he went down—his jaw encountering Monk’s fast-rising fist.

Alonzo literally lifted off his feet. Coming back down, he folded messily, like a boneless bag of clothing. His jaw slammed the floor, and his face went slack.

Cursing, Big Eye slammed Monk to one side, and threw his shoulder against a steel panel. It gave inward with the complaining screech from the hinges.

“The execution chamber,” laughed Big Eye. “Something like the old dukes used to have. Get in!”

Monk slid down the bulkhead and lay on the floor. He did not move. Big Eye kicked him in the stomach.

“Get in there,” he snarled. “Or I’ll kill you out here.”

On all fours, Monk crawled over the raised threshold. Big Eye threw the flashlight beam about. A swift glance about the hold compartment showed a wooden crate with an empty bottle balanced atop it. A pallet that had been laid on the floor, and covered in what looked like horse blankets.

Monk squinted at the pallet, wondering why anyone should wish to sleep in the odorous hold of the ship. The stink of foul bilge water was a stuffy clog in his wide nostrils.

“You’d better say your ‘now I lay me down to sleep’ if you got any!” Big Eye suggested callously, locking the door behind him.

“Wait a minute,” Monk groaned. “Do you want to make some money?”

“No,” snapped Big Eye. “I don’t.”

“Five thousand smackers.”

Big Eye squirted his light into Monk’s eyes.

“Do you have the roll on you?” he asked with healthy interest.

“No, but I can get it in the morning.”

Big Eye chuckled. “No. Can’t be did. Joe Shine is in a stew now because that lawyer pal of yours up and vanished. He’d croak me.”

“You’re a sucker to pass up five thousand smackers,” Monk told him.

“Listen, guy!” grated Big Eye. “Five grand doesn’t mean a thing to me, see! It ain’t even chicken feed. We’re playing for millions—control of all of Chicago. You oughta know that.”

Monk blinked. Stalling for time, he demanded, “Huh—what do you mean?”

Big Eye came closer and bored the glare from the lens of his flashlight into the homely chemist’s broad face. He swore under his breath, a puzzled oath.

“You must be a dumb cluck,” he decided.

“How come?”

“I don’t think you even got an idea what this is all about.”

“You got that right,” Monk lied. “Listen, I can tip you off to where the five grand is. You can get it easy.”

“A bird in the hand is worth a flock in the bush,” sneered Big Eye. “I know.” Thoughts of the five thousand had made Big Eye garrulous, if it had done nothing else. Nevertheless, Monk had about given up hope of bribing the fellow.

“Ha, Ha! You’re great on expressions. You ought to have seen your own puss when that blackjack kissed you.”

Unexpectedly, he kicked Monk in the stomach again. The hairy chemist fell on his back and writhed in agony that was not entirely pretended.

Big Eye rocked back the hammer of his revolver.

Monk twisted to his feet.

“At least, let me take it standing up, pal,” he groaned.

Big Eye skinned his lips off his teeth in a cruel, knowing smile. “Sure, sure I appreciate a guy with guts. Get to your feet; make it snappy.”

Monk clutched with the fingers of his right hand at the improvised table crate. He wrapped hirsute fingers around the neck of the bottle which stood there before Big Eye sensed trouble and spun.

The apish chemist hurled the bottle. It exploded to bits on Big Eyes’ temple. The fellow staggered. His gun gushed flame at the floor plates. The flashlight dropped and the lens broke, but the bulb continued to glow.

Monk leapt and kicked Big Eye’s feet from under him. As the man fell, Monk leapt into the air and came down stiffly on the back of his head. Something snapped audibly under his bare feet—the man’s neck.

Springing for the low bulkhead, Monk felt along it until he found the door by which Big Eye had intended to depart after the dirty deed was done. It was secured with a rust-eaten lever arrangement which had originally been intended to draw it sufficiently tight against a rubber batten to make it waterproof. He wrenched the steel panel open and plunged through.

A light was dancing back out in the corridor and feet were crunching debris.

Someone was approaching, perhaps drawn by the commotion.

“Need any help, Big Eye?” The query belonged to the rat-faced Percy, who had followed, perhaps out of curiosity.

Monk scooped up the revolver Big Eye had carried, then doused the wan gleam of the flashlight.

Percy appeared in the aperture of the rear bulkhead. Unable to see the sights of the automatic, Monk leveled it by guess and stroked the trigger. The flame from the muzzle seemed to leap completely across the compartment.

Percy screeched, grabbed his shoulder and staggered back the way he had come.

An instant of fumbling disclosed that the panel could be secured from either side. Monk threw the levers. He looked about, scratched his bristly head and asked himself, “What the heck do I do now?”

An answer of sorts soon came. It sounded above his head. Short, at first, and muffled. But to the apish chemist, the commotion was unmistakable.

A series of ferocious bullfiddle blasts erupted. These were the sounds of Doc Savage’s supermachine pistols in violent operation!

“I knew Doc wasn’t dead!” Monk cried exultantly.

Chapter XXVI

PISTOL PARTY

THE BULLFIDDLE ROAR was not a familiar sound as it smote the ears of Joe Shine, the gangster leader of the North Side of Chicago.

He had been leading a search of the lake freighter, seeking the missing Ham Brooks, when his senses were assaulted by the distressing racket.

Shine and one of his cohorts were poking about the cargo hold amidships. The latter was his burly driver, Rollo Wheels.

The sound came from above. It came again. In three long and short bursts.

Pounding of feet running pell-mell on deck soon followed. Cries, curses and the occasional ungodly screech punctuated the cacophony.

Joe Shine blurted out, “What’s all that racket?”

Rollo mumbled, “I don’t know. It sure don’t sound like a Tommy gun.”

Nor did it. The familiar
rat-tat-tat
stutter of a submachine gun was of a different quality. This sound was a blur of percussive reports in which it was impossible to distinguish among the individual shots.

“They say Doc Savage’s men tote guns that sound like that,” Joe Shine undertoned.

For the first time, the mob boss looked nervous. He mopped sweat off his brow.

“But they didn’t have their gats on them!” Rollo yelled. “Duke Grogan musta grabbed them.”

Joe Shine scowled blackly. “Well, somebody got hold of one of them. It sounds like a regular war up there.”

The shooting continued, and there was briefly the sound of a Tommy gun in operation. It ran out a stuttering bray of a sound. Then came a bullfiddle roar that drowned it out, after which the sub-gun went silent.

In the quiet interval that followed, nothing seemed to move.

“Do you suppose that rusty ape got loose?” Rollo mumbled.