Doc Savage: Glare of the Gorgon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 19) (27 page)

The gangster leader did not reply. He was listening hard. His hands, fumbling in his coat pocket, produced his sail needle and tacking hammer. This was obviously a nervous impulse, since these tools of sudden death would hardly avail him in a gunfight.

Came a few brief stuttering reports, then silence again.

“What do we do, Boss?” Rollo hissed nervously.

“We lay low,” returned Shine slowly. “At least, until we get the lay of the land,” he added, lest his underling think he had turned yellow.

In the gloom of the hold, they stood motionless, ears straining for every sound. But all they captured was silence. It was a very disquieting silence.

“If Doc Savage or one of his men tangled with our boys, somebody must’ve just come out on top,” muttered Shine.

Rollo nodded. “Yeah. But who’s top dog?”

Further listening did not lead to any concrete determination. Joe Shine continued waiting, his implements of murder squeezed tight in his well-manicured fists.

Above, there came the rattle of one of the cargo hatches.

Shine and his confederate retreated into a corner, and pressed their backs to a bulkhead, pulling the brims of their hats low to conceal the pale patches that constituted their faces. They were expert in this latter operation, having had to conceal their features from photographers’ flashbulbs during their rise to prominence in the Chicago underworld.

The hatch creaked open, and spectral moonlight flooded the spacious hold.

A cultured voice called down, “If anyone is down there, step out into the light.”

Rollo Wheels hissed to his boss, “Who is he kidding?”

“Ix-nay!”

The hood subsided.

An extremely white pencil line of light shot downward, and quested about the hold, disclosing piles of iron pellets.

“There does not seem to be anyone down here,” the cultured voice reported.

A metallic response came, “Close the hatch, Ham.”

The hatch came down with a great rattling clang, restoring darkness to the hold.

Joe Shine and his nervous driver looked up, saw that the hatch was sealed. They quietly congratulated themselves in the dark.

“We got away with it!” enthused Rollo.

Shine nodded. “Looks like we did. And that sounded like Doc Savage himself. Guess that means my mob is down to you and me for now.”

“If we get off this boat alive,” muttered the other.

“Don’t worry, we will. They’ll search everyplace else, and then give up on us. Just have to wait them out.”

“But how did Doc Savage get on board?”

“Never mind that. We got a lot of waiting ahead of us, and I got a lot of thinking to do.”

Silence filled the hold. The regular ticking of Joe Shine’s expensive wristwatch, along with the somewhat nasal noises made by their nervous breathing, were the only sounds.

The unrelieved darkness surrounding the hiding crooks began to prey upon their minds.

At length, Joe Shine muttered, “I’m gonna light a match.”

“Is that smart?” asked Rollo nervously.

“If anyone’s creeping up on us, I want to see for myself.”

Shine took a wooden match from a coat pocket—he carried them because he liked to smoke cigars and paper matches would not do—and, lifting one foot, rasped the sulfur head against the sole of that shoe.

The flaring light made them blink rapidly.

When his eyes became accustomed to the fitful illumination, Joe Shine looked about. He saw nothing but shifting shadows. In his visual inspection, the crime czar noticed that the polish on one shoe had become dull from tripping about the old ship. The other gleamed nicely.

Flicking a handkerchief from a breast pocket of his coat, he sat down and began to buff the tops of both shoes in turn. Under the circumstances, it seemed like a foolish thing to do, but Joe Shine took great pride in his appearance in general, and in his footgear in particular.

When he had buffed the leather uppers to a high gloss, the gang lord stood up and tossed his soiled silken handkerchief aside.

Turning to where he last had left his associate, Joe Shine requested, “Hand me that flashlight.”

But the gloomy dark gave back only silence.

“Did you hear me? I said, ‘Hand over the flashlight.’ ”

But no flashlight was offered.

The silence was suddenly unnerving. Joe Shine had pocketed his deadly sail needle and hammer, but now his fingers slipped to his pockets, ready to remove the slender weapon at a moment’s notice.

“Rollo?”

Silence. Not even the sound of breathing.

“Rollo, talk to me,” Shine whispered.

There was a single companionway leading down into the hold. Joe Shine’s dark eyes careened toward that dark void.

There was nothing to be seen, so deep was the murk.

Still, it was the only way in and out. Carefully, the gangster began creeping toward the companionway stairs that led up to the deck.

He stepped carefully, mindful of the litter of iron pellets, and using one hand to feel along a bulkhead wall to guide him.

Shine had a pretty good idea of where he was going, so when he encountered an obstacle, it caused him to freeze in his tracks.

The obstacle felt like a bulkhead, so hard was it.

Reaching up, Joe Shine encountered, not hard steel, but what felt like cloth.

“Rollo?”

But instead of the voice of his associate, a metallic voice intoned, “The shine of your shoes gave you away.”

Joe Shine jumped back like an alley cat that had encountered a rattlesnake. The sail needle leapt into his hand, and he plunged forward, driving it toward the source of the voice.

The needle was not designed for stabbing purposes, yet in a pinch it could do the job. In times past, it had.

In the dark, Joe Shine could only make a wild stab at the human obstacle before him.

The needle point struck something, but scraped along before it slid off into space.

The strange voice said, “Chain-mail vest. It will turn bullets and blades alike.”

Warm metallic fingers took hold of Joe Shine by the throat, and began squeezing. Suddenly, he was flailing helplessly, and the suffocating darkness of the hold became deeper and blacker than any darkness he had ever known.

A brilliant ray of light split the dark, illuminating the giant figure of Doc Savage standing over the conquered Joe Shine.

The ray was emanating from the free hand of lawyer Ham Brooks, who was clutching his unsheathed sword cane in the other. There was a tiny bit of crimson on the tip of the blade, where the point had broken the skin of Rollo Wheels, who lay on the floor nearby.

The blade’s narrow tip was coated in a brownish substance that was a powerful narcotic. Once it broke skin, a victim lost consciousness almost immediately.

This was what had transpired in the darkness. Ham Brooks had slipped down the companionway and found Rollo, rendering him
hors de combat.

This had prompted Joe Shine to seek escape, which brought him into the terrible hands of the Man of Bronze, who could render any foe helpless by applying his trained fingers to special nerve centers on the man’s neck.

Now Doc Savage picked up the gangster leader under one mighty arm, walked casually over to Rollo Wheels and threw him up and across the opposite shoulder. The metallic giant seemed not to exert himself, despite carrying a combined three hundred and thirty pounds.

Ham Brooks leading the way, they ascended the companionway.

“Now to find Monk,” remarked the dapper attorney.

“Monk will be upset that he missed all the fun,” commented Doc.

“If I know that ape,” rejoined Ham, “he will have had more than his share before you arrived to rescue me.”

MONK had indeed had his share of entertainment before Doc and Ham showed up to release him from his ignominious imprisonment. It showed on his homely face in the form of numerous cuts, abrasions and a shiner that was a beauty.

These souvenirs did not mollify the hairy chemist, who took one look at his elegant sparring partner and snarled, “Don’t tell me the scrappin’ is all done and over with.”

“Very well,” returned Ham. “I will not. But it is.”

Bare-chested, Monk was a sight. From the waist up, he resembled an enormous steel-wool pad that had gone to rust. His knuckles were skinned, his wide face was bruised and it looked as if one gristled ear had become a blood blister.

Doc Savage simply said, “That was good work smearing the portholes with our special luminous chalk.”

Monk grinned. “It was the best thing I could think to do.”

Doc nodded. “I was able to see the portholes while flying around the city. Thanks to the ultra-violet projectors built into the craft, coupled with the mechanical goggles we employ to pick up the invisible rays. From the air, the ship appeared to possess two goblin eyes glowing blue.”

Monk’s grin grew broader. “I take it you released Ham, and then the two of you went to town.”

Doc nodded. “First, we slipped around the ship, taking out what guards we happened upon. Then when the mêlée became too thick for stealth, Ham was forced to use his mercy pistol, which I had brought with me, along with a spare sword cane.”

The dapper lawyer holstered his supermachine pistol, and was restoring his narrow blade into the dark tube of the barrel.

“Your assistance was not necessary,” Ham remarked waspishly.

Monk made formidable fists that caused blood to seep from skinned knuckles, and began growling words that could not be understood, assuming that these utterances were in fact words. Despite his college education, the hairy chemist sometimes acted the part of a primitive caveman.

“Well,” Monk said at last, “I got in some good licks before you showed up.”

Ham sniffed, “It looks rather like you got licked yourself.”

Monk squinted one blackened eye almost shut, and the other one glared bloody murder at Ham.

“I have half a mind to lock you in this icebox and see how you like it!” he snarled.

“Half a mind,” returned Ham acidly, “is twice the number of brain cells I credit you with.”

Monk snapped back, “At least I got to work out. You look like you didn’t even muss your hair.”

Ham made a distasteful face. “I did more than my part. Which is more than I could say for you, you hapless hillock of hair.”

Doc Savage interjected, “We might want to see what Joe Shine has to say for himself.”

Monk and Ham abruptly called off their glaring and face making. They were very interested in what the crime boss had to divulge.

“You got nothing on me!” snarled Shine, after Doc Savage had brought him back to consciousness by kneading at the same nerve centers that had rendered him insensate. “I want to talk to my lawyer.”

Ham said crisply, “I will serve as your lawyer.”

“Not you! I got a mouthpiece. I pay him plenty. Fetch him.”

“I am the only lawyer you’re likely to see for some time,” remarked Ham coolly.

“I don’t like the sound of that!” snapped Shine. “Now get me my attorney.”

When no one moved, Joe Shine realized that he was in a different situation than if he had fallen into the hands of the Chicago police.

Doc Savage said, “Tell us how you came to enter this affair?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You kidnapped two of my men.”

“No, I rescued them from that no-good grifter, Duke Grogan. He kidnapped them. I got them loose. The least you could do is thank me.”

“Don’t hand us that!” Monk exploded. “You grabbed us, dragged us to this tub. You got something up your sleeve. Shake it out. We want to see it.”

Defiantly, Joe Shine shucked off his coat and rolled up both shirt sleeves, one at a time, displaying bare forearms.

“See? Nothing up my sleeves. Now cut me loose. You ain’t cops. You can’t pinch me.”

Doc produced a letter from Chicago’s Superintendent of Police and held it before Joe Shine’s shifty eyes. The gangster scanned the lines quickly, and that seemed to take a great deal of the starch out of his demeanor.

“O.K., O.K. You got some pull, after all. So what’s next?”

Doc Savage did not reply. Instead, he produced a hypodermic and a vial of some liquid.

Joe Shine was not dumb. He eyed the bronze colossus as Doc charged the needle and said, “I get it. That stuff is truth serum. You’re going to drag the truth out of me.”

“One way or another,” said Doc Savage calmly.

“Well, I’m no rat. I’m not squealing on anyone. Not even myself. Do your worst.”

Monk and Ham moved in as one, took hold of the man’s arms, and the hairy chemist wrestled Joe Shine’s forearm until he was holding it straight out.

Doc Savage applied the needle and plunged the truth serum into a pulsing vein.

Shine did not have much resistance. He literally sat down where he was standing, and his face became slack and his mouth loose and rubbery.

“This stuff is hittin’ him awful fast,” clucked Monk.

In no time at all, Joe Shine was mumbling semi-coherently as if in a drunken stupor. This behavior told Doc Savage the potent chemical had gone to work and the tough-talking gangster was ready for questions.

“How did you come to capture my men?”

In the slurred voice, Joe Shine said, “Heard you blew into town. Figured something was up. So I muscled my way into the deal.”

“For what purpose?”

“For the purpose of knocking Duke Grogan out of the picture and grabbing off a piece of his action.”

“What do you know about the death of Myer Sim?”

“Nothing.”

“What about a man named Ned Gamble?”

“Never heard of him.”

Doc asked a few more questions. Ham Brooks threw in some of his own, but the result was a great quantity of nothing. Mob leader Joe Shine seemed not to have any direct knowledge of the events in New York, never mind the confounding mystery that had brought the bronze man and his aides to Chicago.

“Dead end,” muttered Monk. “Too bad.”

Ham Brooks spoke up, “I imagine you will wish to make arrangements to ship Joe Shine and his mob off to our college.”

Doc nodded. “They are of no further use to us.”

The “college” to which the elegant barrister referred was Doc Savage’s secret institution hidden in upstate New York, the one to which the unlucky Ed Waco had been spirited away.