Читать книгу Cold Death - Kenneth Robeson - Страница 7

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AT the moment Doc Savage and Renny were speeding to the home of J. Afton Carberry, Monk awoke in a coffin-like space. His long arms and short body were folded and cramped. A hard metal wall jammed his head down upon his thick neck. His feet were drawn up.

For once, Monk was thankful his legs were shorter than his arms.

"Dag-goned if I ain't dead an' buried!" he grunted, trying to wedge himself into an easier position. "Nope, I ain't dead. My head must've been busted wide open."

Monk breathed with laboring lungs. His mighty chest heaved with the effort to extract a supply of ozone from the foul air in the confined space. Strength flowed back into his body.

"Anyway, I ain't in the graveyard yet," he muttered, "or I'd 'a' been smothered. An' by the calamities, I ain't staying here!"

Monk's body, housing the strength of half a dozen ordinary men, began to swell. He filled his lungs to capacity and his iron chest heaved. Elbows levered against the walls of his metal prison.

The maker of the trunk under the rear seat of the automobile had not designed it to withstand any such concentrated dynamite. The metal clasp and the brass tongue of the lock snapped. The curved upright lid of the underseat trunk flapped open with a bang.

Monk's landing was in keeping with his apelike contours. He hit on his feet. Low growls of warning, amazement, impinged on his hairy ears. A man uttered a low curse and hurtled toward him. Other figures converged in a rush.

THEY were in a dimly lighted concrete garage. Monk saw it was apparently in the basement of some larger building. Heavy iron doors were closed and barred. Monk lithely evaded the first rushing figure. With an incredibly fast sweep of one arm, he gripped the man's thick neck. His assailant was heavy, but Monk's iron muscles contracted with the force of an immense rubber slingshot.

His attacker was lifted from his feet. His body traveled a short arc through the air. The man's head deeply dented the metal back of the car above the flapping lid of the trunk. He collapsed to the floor without a groan. The human skull was never designed for withstanding such an impact.

A jungle bellow issued from Monk's throat.

"C'mon, you yella rats!" he growled. "Come an' get it!"

Three men, relying on strength of numbers, accepted the invitation.

Both of Monk's fists made definite, sickening contact with flesh and bone. One of his feet twisted between the third man's legs. He sprawled on top of his two companions. Others were coming at him, but Monk glimpsed one man standing back.

This man was short of body, broad of shoulders and face. His small eyes glittered piglike in rolls of eye-rimming fat. In his moon face the mouth was a small aperture. Set above a double chin that was adding a third roll of lard above his collar, the tiny mouth gave him a grotesque appearance.

Monk saw he was badly outnumbered. Leaping clear of the floor on his short legs, he projected his body between two more men. The backs of their heads cracked the floor. Another man hit Monk a dizzying blow behind the ear with some blunt weapon.

Monk staggered. He was facing the moon-faced fellow with the little rat-hole for a mouth. The man had a polished piece of metal in one hand. It was shaped like the round box for holding steel tape. From this box a slender stream of sizzling vapor shot into Monk's face.

Monk gritted his teeth against the pain. It was an ammonia gun. Blinded, scarcely able to breathe, Monk went to his hands and knees under a rush of bodies. A minute later he was firmly bound about the arms and was being propelled up a stairway.

MONK'S captors placed him in an elevator operated automatically. Eyes smarting from the burning fumes of the ammonia gun, Monk could only guess at the number of floors they ascended. Then he was led along a hallway.

One of the men swore and muttered, "Where's that button, Wheeze?"

Though he was only beginning to see dimly, Monk knew it was the moon-faced man who was called "Wheeze."

"Right under--siss--that little picture--siss--by the molding, dumbhead!" came the reply in the wheezing voice. Wheeze talked like a chronic case of asthma.

Monk could see enough now to know they were in the room of an elaborately furnished apartment. A panel in the wall swung open. It revealed a spiral stairway. The mean snout of an automatic was pushed into Monk's back.

At the top of the stairway they emerged into a vaulted room of lavishly rich fittings. The walls of the room were odd. They were covered with paintings in oil. All of these represented some of the lower forms of marine life. In spite of his ticklish position, Monk was intrigued by this unusual display of art.

"Nobody but a nut'd ever lived in this dump," he muttered.

He heard one of the men address Wheeze by another name. It was McGovern, apparently his last name.

"Soft pedal the titles, Smoke," rapped Wheeze. "Stick to the handles the chief tacked on."

By that, Monk judged the chief of this gang was not among those present.

Monk was pushed into a chair. Wheeze came and stood before him.

"So you're the big ape Doc Savage uses for some of his chemical tricks!" he stated. "Well--siss--there's one or two little tricks we want to find out. Also, mister, you're going to tell us something about Doc Savage's set-up. There are several things we need to know."

"Try an' make me!" gritted Monk.

Wheeze's little mouth puckered and his small eyes gleamed wickedly.

"I gather from all those misfit words, you imagine you're not going to talk, eh?" he sissed at Monk. "Well, we'll see. Smoke, is the convincer all set?"

The man called "Smoke" smiled genially.

"The convincer's always ready," he put forth. "Right this way."

A single wide glass door was opened at the side of the room.

MONK was pulled to his feet and propelled into the adjoining space. This was a bare, small room with enameled walls and no furnishings. The single man occupying it required no chair. He was of shining armor metal and he stood erect in the middle of the floor.

The binding cords suddenly fell from Monk's arm. But two men with automatics poked the snouts into his ribs.

"We try to avoid shedding the blood of any person," Wheeze sissed in a sanctimonious voice. "Every man's blood must be on his own head. So we--"

Monk was shoved close to the armored figure. He saw the contraption was some sort of robot. It appeared to be hollow, and large enough to admit the person of a very large man.

Monk's still-smarting eyes blinked at the robot's half-bent arms. For in the metal fingers were clutched two long-pointed knives. These were directed inward toward the robot's gleaming breast. It looked as if the metal man was thinking of taking his own life.

In one enameled wall was a black switchboard. It contained a complicated array of electrical switches, coils and other gadgets. In its center was what seemed to be the circle of an enlarged microphone.

"Everybody quiet!" ordered Wheeze. His companions instantly became silent. None even moved. "Now watch, you wise ape!"

One man stepped to the switchboard and turned a button. When he stepped back, Wheeze spoke in a low tone.

"Do your stuff, big boy," he said.

Slowly, the metal arms of the robot moved inward. The pointed knives approached two slits in the armored breast. The movement was so slow as to be almost imperceptible.

Slowly, chillingly, even though the shining figure was but cold metal, the arms continued to bend. The points of the knives disappeared into the shell-like cavity of the robot's chest. A minute, two minutes passed. Monk growled in his throat.

Both knives at last were buried to their hilts. The mechanism ceased to whirr.

"Just one little word will do it," murmured Wheeze. "One little whisper, or a sneeze--and the mike picks up the sound and starts the robot. We're going to leave you with the convincer. After I've attended to some special business, we'll come back. If you've kept that big yap of yours quiet that long, maybe you'll be about ripe to loosen up with some conversation!"

"That's what you think!" barked Monk. "You'll get nothin' outta me!"

"That'll be just too bad--for you," sissed Wheeze, softly.

THE automatics crowded Monk's spine, then his stomach, as the metal robot opened on oiled hinges. Helpless to resist, he was shoved inside. His long arms were forced into the bent hollow of the robot's arms. The torturing device was swung shut.

The speech control button on the switchboard was off while this took place. Wheeze looked up into Monk's orbs blinking through the armored eye-holes of the robot.

"Now you can talk your head off--or your heart out," grinned Wheeze. "Ready, Smoke! Everybody out! Click 'er on!"

Wheeze followed his men through the single door of glass. It closed silently. Monk could see the men outside talking, gesturing. He could not hear their voices. He was alone with the robot and his thoughts in the soundproof room.

Monk glanced over at the round disk of the big microphone. He could see the long knives inverted directly toward his heart. Many things came to Monk that he would have liked to have said.

But he took it out in thinking.