Читать книгу The Monsters: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 7
ОглавлениеTHE KILLER
Carl MacBride had never before visited a city of any consequence. So he stared with great interest as they approached the cluster of towering skyscrapers. The tremendous size of the structures caused a feeling of awe.
One building in particular reared like a great thorn of gray masonry and shining metal above the spiked tops of the other cloud-piercers. Not only was it among the tallest, but its simple, modernistic lines made it far the most impressive.
Carl MacBride made a mental note that, before he left New York City, he would go to the top of the towering, modernistic structure to have a look at the town.
It had not occurred to the big woodsman that he might have difficulty in locating Doc Savage. Up in his woods country, one had merely to walk into town and inquire for an individual and some one would be able to point him out. Every one knew everybody else.
It occurred to Carl MacBride that he had better ask where Doc Savage resided.
“How do you find anybody in this town, partner?” he asked the taxi driver.
“Look in the phone book is one way,” was the reply.
“Maybe you know the feller I want to find—his name is Doc Savage.”
The taxi driver turned to eye his fare, and almost ran off the pavement. He straightened his machine out, then pointed ahead to the skyscraper which Carl MacBride had admired.
“Everybody knows that guy. He hangs out on the eighty-sixth floor of that building.”
The fact that the driver knew the whereabouts of Doc Savage’s headquarters did not impress Carl MacBride as much as it should have. In New York, the average individual knows only his business acquaintances and immediate friends.
“You got an appointment to see Doc Savage?” asked the driver, taking advantage of the obvious amiability of his fare to ask questions.
“No. Do I need one?”
It had not occurred to the lumbering woodsman that an appointment might be necessary. In the backwoods, a business appointment was a rarity. There was time for everything.
“I don’t know Doc Savage personally,” the taxi driver said. “I’ve seen him a time or two. He’s a big shot, so you’d better get an appointment.”
“How’ll I go about doing that?”
“Phone him.”
“Stop off somewhere,” Carl MacBride commanded. “Guess I’ll call him.”
The cab pulled up in a filling station which displayed a public telephone booth sign.
A newsboy, loitering at the filling station in hopes of making a sale, ran out.
“Read the latest mystery advertisement about the coming of the monsters!” he shouted.
Curious, Carl MacBride bought a paper. The “mystery” ad was in black type in a square, white space. It read:
WARNING!
WATCH OUT FOR THE MONSTERS!
“What’s this mean?” the woodsman asked.
“Nobody knows,” replied the newsboy. “Newspapers all over the country been gettin’ them advertisements in the mail, along with money to pay for their insertion. It may be a movie stunt—to get people talkin’ about some picture that’ll come out soon.”
Carl MacBride frowned and tucked the paper in a pocket. He entered the booth and thumbed through the directory until he found Doc Savage’s name.
The telephone was a dial type. He was unfamiliar with the dial device, and had some trouble with it. Eventually, however, he got his number.
The voice which came to his ears was one so profoundly impressive that he knew instinctively that the speaker must be Doc Savage. The tones were deep, vibrant with controlled power. MacBride had never before heard a telephone receiver reproduce with such distinctness.
“I want an appointment with you, Mr. Savage,” said the woodsman. “It’s something mighty important. My name is MacBride.”
“You do not need an appointment,” Doc informed him. “Feel perfectly free to see me at any time.”
MacBride reflected that the driver had given him some bum advice.
“I’ll be right up,” he said.
“Is your business something you would care to discuss over the telephone?” Doc Savage asked.
MacBride was so impressed by the remarkable voice that he did not answer for a moment.
“I’d rather tell you in person,” he said finally.
“Very well.”
The telephone conversation terminated.
MacBride went to his cab. The machine moved toward the towering skyscraper which was Doc Savage’s headquarters.
Big Carl MacBride did not know it, but this chance pause to telephone was instrumental in prolonging his life. Caldwell had passed without observing the big woodsman in the filling station phone booth. Even now, the murderous Caldwell was hugging his death-dealing banjo, and cursing.
“I’ve lost the big lunk somewhere,” he gritted. “Well, hell! I’ll have to catch him at Doc Savage’s office, after all.”
Carl MacBride was even more impressed by the big skyscraper which housed Doc Savage’s office, when he alighted before it. Head back, mouth open, MacBride peered upward. When he entered the lobby, the magnificence of the ornate place made him feel mouselike.
His amazement at sight of the great building accounted for the big man’s failure to note a fellow with black hair and black mustache who carried a banjo and lurked in a corner of the lobby. MacBride lumbered into an elevator.
“Doc Savage’s office,” he said.
He was promptly rushed to the eighty-sixth floor. He found a door which bore, in very small bronze letters, the name:
CLARK SAVAGE, JR.
There was a button, but few persons had doorbells where Carl MacBride came from. He rapped the door with his knuckles in the good old-fashioned way.
The door opened.
The unusual voice over the telephone had partially prepared Carl MacBride for the sight of an unusual personage when he confronted Doc Savage. Even then, the bronze man was so far beyond expectations that MacBride gaped in amazement.
Doc Savage had evidently opened the door by some mechanical means. He stood, not near the panel, but some feet from it—in the middle of a great office. This was fitted with a costly inlaid table, an enormous safe, and a number of comfortable chairs.
That the bronze man possessed amazing physical strength was evident from the enormous tendons which bundled his neck and cabled his hands. He was a giant; but his proportions were symmetrical, and standing in the massively furnished office, he seemed little larger than an ordinary man.
The mighty bronze man’s eyes held Carl MacBride’s attention. They were strangely impressive, those eyes. They had the appearance of tiny pools of flake gold which eddied and whirled continuously.
The bronze of Doc Savage’s hair was somewhat darker than the bronze of his skin. He was attired in quiet business garb.
“Doc Savage?” asked Carl MacBride, although he knew he was confronting the man he sought.
“Right,” confirmed the remarkable man of bronze.
Carl MacBride took a step into the office.
An elevator door down the corridor opened. A man popped out. He had a black mustache, dark hair, and carried a banjo. He raised the banjo to the level of his eyes and gave one of the strings a forcible pluck.
There was a chunging sound—it might have been a man emitting one harsh cough. A tongue of flame leaped from an almost indistinguishable round hole in the side of the banjo.
Carl MacBride opened his mouth wide, and a crimson flood came out. His knees buckled. His hands clamped to the back of his neck, where a bullet from Caldwell’s deadly silenced gun had clubbed a hole.
He slammed face down upon the floor. MacBride felt no pain from the impact, for he was dead.
