Doc Savage: Glare of the Gorgon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 19) (37 page)

“As your attorney, I can do little about Doc Savage prior to trial.”

“You fixed the judge. Can’t you fix anything related to Doc Savage?”

“I am afraid I cannot. I doubt that the President of the United States could fix Doc Savage. The man is practically a law unto himself.”

Joe Shine’s voice became low and strange. “That’s what’s worrying me. When Doc and his boys rounded us all up, they stored us in a plane over at the airport. It didn’t look to me like they were planning on turnin’ us over to the cops.”

“What do you think they had planned?” returned Shine’s attorney.

“I don’t know. But from coast to coast, guys like me have run up against Doc Savage and vanished off the face of the earth. What do you make of that?”

The attorney was a long time in answering. Evidently, he was giving the matter considerable thought.

“Doc Savage has a reputation for avoiding the infliction of physical harm, not to mention death. It is out of the question that he intended to do away with you when your men were in his toils.”

“What if that rep is just a front?” snapped Shine. “What if that’s what his press agent puts out, but behind the scenes he’s happy to knock off guys like me?”

“It does not follow. The Doc Savage reputation is sterling. Impeccable. No, Savage had something else in mind for you.”

After absorbing this exchange, Long Tom whispered to Ham Brooks, “These two birds are getting awful close to the truth.”

“Doc said nothing about taking this counsel,” mused Ham, “but it appears that he is not exactly on the up and up either.”

Long Tom lifted his strange magnetic gun, and used his thumb to switch the safety latch into the off position.

“On the count of three, we barge in,” he whispered.

Ham Brooks unsheathed his sword-cane blade. “You take Joe Shine; allow me to dispose of this traitor to the bar.”

“Deal,” said Long Tom. They braced themselves.

While they were doing that, Joe Shine was saying, “That’s funny.”

“What is, Mr. Shine?” wondered the attorney.

“I got a funny ringin’ in my ears all of a sudden.”

“Now that you mention it, so do I. Whatever could it be?”

“Maybe it’s these new cigars I got. The smoke smells a little funny, doesn’t it?”

“Now that you mention it—”

The attorney’s voice trailed off strangely.

Joe Shine was saying, “I roll these babies myself. I got the makings in a glass jar. Yeah, I got some foul leaves….”

Joe Shine’s voice, too, trailed off. The lawyer did not respond.

THE SMELL of cigar smoke had not penetrated through the closed doors, but now Ham Brooks’ delicate nostrils began sniffing, and he thought he detected some slight aroma of tobacco. It had a charcoal quality.

Long Tom was about to throw the door open when the white-faced barrister seized him and hissed, “No! Not now!”

“Why the heck not?”

“You were not in New York when Ned Gamble was felled while smoking a cigarette. It may be dangerous to enter.”

Long Tom’s high forehead puckered like the hide on a chicken that was being plucked.

Ham reached into his coat and pulled out a small gas mask, while signaling for Long Tom to do the same.

Hastily, the puny electrical wizard followed suit. Soon, he was wearing his protective mask.

No further conversation had penetrated the door, so they did not wait any longer.

Ham threw open the doors, which slid into wall recesses, and they stepped ahead.

The drawing room was wreathed in a grayish tobacco haze; their eyes fell upon Joe Shine seated behind a fumed oak desk.

Off to one side was the man they took to be Shine’s lawyer lounged in an upholstered chair.

Neither man was moving.

Ham marched straight up to the attorney, looked him over through the smoke that was making his eyes smart, and remarked, “Jove!”

Long Tom had already reached the desk, and was pointing the magnetic gun at the center of Joe Shine’s shirt front.

The crime czar was slumped in the wooden swivel chair, his cigar in his lap, his mouth hanging open, his hollowed eyes rolled up in his head.

Long Tom bleated, “He looks dead.”

Ham had placed one hand over the other fellow’s shirt front, feeling for a heartbeat. Finding none, he picked up the man’s wrist and searched for a pulse.

“Dead!” Even muffled by the gas mask, his voice sounded horrible.

Both men noticed the smoldering cigars. They had already burned down to nubs. Stamping feet crushed the remains to powder.

Long Tom blurted, “What do we do now? No point in bundling them off to the college.”

Ham was very quick-witted. He thought fast. Almost no time elapsed between that question and his reply.

“If Dr. Rockwell’s process is sound, these two men may yet be saved. We must reach Doc Savage at once.”

Prudently, they retreated to another part of the room, found the telephone, and asked the operator to be connected to Mercy General Hospital. An administrative functionary soon came on the line.

“This is Ham Brooks. I have an urgent message for Doc Savage, who is visiting your hospital. Inform him that Joe Shine and his attorney have succumbed to the strange brain-petrifying power. If action is undertaken swiftly, they yet may be saved.”

The hospital operator promised to convey the message.

Long Tom and Ham Brooks returned to the den, where they threw open all windows in an attempt to clear out the tobacco smoke which was so strangely redolent of charcoal.

Joe Shine had four small boxes resting on the desk in front of him. In three of the boxes was black, ominous looking tobacco. In the fourth box was tobacco leaves suitable for wrappers. These last were as green as frog skins.

There were no cigars, however. Evidently, the deceased mobster rolled his own smokes.

Long Tom and Ham evacuated the dwelling to get as far away from the pernicious cigar smoke as humanly possible.

Chapter XXXVI

THE GORGON WARNS

AN AMBULANCE WAS dispatched from Mercy General Hospital to Joe Shine’s suburban residence.

At the same time, the Superintendent of Police sent a Black Maria wagon with the intention of taking the bodies to the morgue.

The two vehicles arrived at approximately the same time, but the attendants were prevented from entering by Ham Brooks and Long Tom Roberts, who declared that the place was too dangerous for entry.

Doc Savage and Monk Mayfair arrived in a taxicab only seconds behind the ambulance, and the bronze man stepped into the middle of the argument, settling it with his imposing presence and backed by the letter from the Superintendent of Police of Chicago, which caused the morgue wagon attendants to back away, wearing glum expressions.

Ham explained to Doc Savage what had happened. The bronze man listened intently, and said, “I will go ahead and retrieve the bodies alone.”

“I’ll go with you,” suggested Monk.

“Too dangerous,” insisted the bronze man. “If I do not come out shortly, it will be your task to go in after me.”

This made the face of Monk Mayfair grow slightly pale. It took a lot for him to lose his color. But the thought of Doc Savage succumbing to the brain-petrifying force did it.

Everyone remained well clear of the dwelling while Doc entered.

The ambulance internes and morgue attendants were greatly surprised to see the bronze giant emerge with one limp form slung under one arm and another thrown over his great shoulder.

Doc was wearing his gas mask. He watched as both bodies were shoved in the back of the ambulance, where the internes swiftly went to work on them.

Applying stethoscopes, they shook their heads in the negative. A pocket mirror held up to still nostrils produced no fog on the glass.

“Allow me,” requested Doc, removing his gas mask.

The internes stepped out while the bronze man climbed in, and began examining the pair.

“No outward signs of life,” he told the driver. “Take us to Mercy General at once.”

The rear door was slammed shut and the ambulance took off, its raucous bell clanging.

The Black Maria fell in behind it, like a vulture following a dying animal. As a consolation, the occupants had taken possession of Joe Shine’s still-sleeping bodyguards.

Monk, Ham and Long Tom piled into their sedan and took off in hot pursuit.

The three machines arrived at Mercy General’s underground garage in short order, and the two apparent bodies were transferred to wheeled gurneys, then taken to separate examining rooms.

Dr. Warner Rockwell was waiting for them, unblinking eyes troubled.

Doc Savage informed him, “The men were found in a smoke-filled room, and we believe their cigars were laced with the calcifying chemical.”

“You seem to think you know a lot about this,” commented Rockwell.

Doc said nothing to that. Instead, he stated, “I would like to observe your attempt to revive these men.”

“I am afraid that is out of the question, Dr. Savage. I am not yet ready to reveal my procedure to the world.”

The bronze man appeared on the verge of objecting when Dr. Rockwell cut him off with the sharp chop of one upraised hand.

“Need I remind you that, just because I revived one man, does not mean I can repeat the process successfully. Furthermore, these men may have been subjected to a greater dose of whatever overcame them than was Malcolm McLean. I can make no promises as to the outcome. Only that I will try.”

Eyes brittle, Doc Savage said, “Very well. We will await your report.”

“Thank you,” said Rockwell, following the gurney containing Joe Shine into the examining room, which was promptly shut.

Doc went to the room where the stricken attorney lay, waiting his turn.

With the permission of a police guard, Doc went through the man’s pockets, removed his wallet and read the identification found therein.

“Gale Michaels,” commented the guard. “He’s a big-time mouthpiece in this town. Shine has been using him for years. He can get anybody off the hook. Or could. He doesn’t look so active right now.”

Doc Savage removed a scalpel from an inner pocket, and suggested to the police guard, “You might wish to turn around.”

The cop laughed raucously. “I’ve been a Chicago cop for fifteen years now. I seen it all.”

“As you wish,” said Doc, inserting the scalpel into attorney Michaels’ left nostril and producing an unpleasant scraping sound as of steel encountering stone.

Evidently, the police guard had not seen it all, as he had boasted. He grew a little green around the jowls, and excused himself hastily.

Doc Savage’s examination was brief, but he was satisfied on one point: the attorney’s brain had been calcified.

Pocketing the scalpel, he took an elevator to the lobby and rejoined Monk, Ham and Long Tom.

“Do you think Dr. Rockwell can pull off another miracle?” asked Ham.

“That remains to be seen,” said Doc. “By all appearances, a poisoned cigar was back of this.”

Long Tom offered, “Before he succumbed, Joe Shine claimed that he rolled his own cigars. That means the makings will be back at his house.”

Doc said, “Long Tom, why don’t you go back there and confiscate that tobacco. It will no doubt repay examination.”

“I’ll be back in a jiffy,” said Long Tom, departing in haste.

Ham Brooks turned to hairy Monk and remarked, “Long Tom’s magnetic gun impressed me greatly.”

“Is that so?” growled Monk.

“Yes, that is so,” nodded Ham. “He clipped the two bodyguards with his hypodermic bullets, and they fell down faster than any man struck down by a mercy bullet that I ever witnessed.”

“That could be,” rumbled Monk. “But I’ve got bullets that nobody ain’t ever seen yet. What they do to a man will make your eyes pop.”

Ham gave his dark stick a supercilious twirl. “I will be very interested to see if you can outdo Long Tom in that department. But I think his magnetic gun is superlative in operation. I may take one up myself.”

Listening to this exchange, Doc Savage broke in, remarking, “There is no telling how long Dr. Rockwell’s process will take. Rather than wait, we might make good use of the time.”

“What do you propose?” questioned Ham.

“A further investigation of the coal mine in Vermilion County might be in order.”

“What do you expect to find up there?” wondered Ham.

“Last night, I spied a disturbance in the surface of a coal-slurry pond adjacent to the mine. What appeared to be a gray-faced body lay at the bottom. We might check to see if McLean is at his usual haunts, and then go up to the colliery.”

Ham looked perplexed.

“I had intended to investigate the matter further, but the presence of dangerous gasses released in the wake of the mine collapse made that impractical, not to mention dangerous,” explained Doc.

Ham fingered his chin. “Why did you not mention it at the time?”

“There was no need to alarm Miss Falcon, who is friendly with McLean.”

“So you think the body is that of Malcolm McLean!”

Doc did not reply directly, saying only, “Miss Falcon insisted that McLean was a prisoner of the Grogan gang, yet no sign of him was found. The poisonous gasses have by now dissipated. It should be safe to investigate the pond.”

They slipped out the back way in order to avoid the press, and only encountered one journalist. Interestingly enough, it was the one who first blew the whistle on them when they arrived at the Chicago airport more than twenty-four hours before, Jack Swangle by name. He wore a red press card in his hatband.

“Hey! Doc Savage! How about a morsel on the latest developments? Who do you think is gunning for Joe Shine?”

“Word travels fast,” growled Monk.

The reporter grinned broadly. “Ain’t you New York boys heard? Chicago is a beehive. Lots of bees buzz. Most of those buzzes ring telephones in this town. City editor’s telephones, if you take my meaning.”

“No comment,” said Doc Savage sharply.

Leaving Swangle to Monk and Ham, Doc raised a great corded arm and hailed a taxicab.

The homely chemist got down on all fours behind the fellow, while Ham placed the blunt end of his black stick against the man’s middle coat button.