Doc Savage - The Man Who Shook The Earth Part 1

THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH.

A Doc Savage Adventure.

by Kenneth Robeson.

Chapter I. THE FAKE NEWSPAPERMAN.

THE man looked as tough as sin. But he was crying. He whimpered. He bubbled at the mouth like a child half crazed with horror and fear. He perspired, although the night was cold.

"Hear it?" he moaned.

A rumbling was coming out of the innards of the earth. The sidewalk vibrated feebly. There was steady, hollow uproar.

"It's comin'!" the man whined. "Listen, Velvet! It's gettin' closer an' closer-"

His ears were tufts of gristle. They looked as if they had been chewed upon in the past. A groove a quarter of an inch deep slanted across his face. It explained itself. Some one had once tried to cut his throat, but he had ducked. The knife that had made the groove had sheared off the end of his nose. His nostrils were two fuzz-rimmed holes opening straight out in his face.

He gibbered: "We ain't got time to get clear before-"

Velvet hit the fellow squarely on the blubbering mouth that was bisected by the knife scar."Maybe you'll pipe down!" he snarled.

Velvet was dressed in evening clothes, but he had tied a large black handkerchief around his neck, so that it hung down and concealed his white collar and white dress-shirt front. He carried himself with the studied squareness of a man proud of his physical strength and looks.

The big man, knocked back against the building wall by the blow, dragged finger tips over his crushed mouth.

He sobbed: "Can't you hear the noise it's makin' as it comes?"

The rumble underground grew louder and louder. Metal gratings on near-by windows jingled in their sockets.

Warm, ill-smelling air gushed up through a grille in the sidewalk.

Suddenly the innards of the earth seemed to suck the uproar away. It vanished, leaving only sounds of traffic and moan of a cold wind.

"A subway train, you dope!" sneered Velvet, and tucked the black handkerchief more securely in his collar.

It was night. Enough light reached them from the corner street lamp, however, to show the expression on the big man's scarred, stupid face. It was utterly blank.

He gulped: "The subway!"

Velvet laughed harshly. "Even if you ain't been in New York before, Biff, you should have read of subways.

Oh, that's right, too. You can't read."

"Biff" rolled his eyes, and they grew sullen, ugly. Crouching there, he seemed to become as dangerous and savage as a beast. He hated to be reminded that he could not read.

"Some day I'm goin' to get fed up with you," he told Velvet fiercely.

Velvet laughed again. An animal-like ferocity had come into his tone, also. "Any time you feel lucky, cull!"

They glared at each other. It was Biff who first twitched his gaze aside.

"Never mind," he mumbled. "Let's talk about Doc Savage."

WITH a b.e.s.t.i.a.l savagery, the two had snarled at each other. Now, with the swiftness characteristic of animals, they dropped their belligerency. Shoulder to shoulder, they moved over into the gloomy lee of a parked truck.

Biff made impatient grumbling noises.

"What are we waitin' on?" he demanded. "It's on the eighty-sixth floor. Ain't that what the back-number newspaper you was readin' said?"

"That's what it said." Velvet scowled in the gloom. "Say, how do you think we're going to do this?"

"Go up and bust in and-"

"And get busted!" Velvet finished disgustedly.

Biff seemed to have recovered completely from the somewhat uncanny fear which the underground rumbling had caused. He drew a revolver from inside his clothes. The gun was so blue as to be almost invisible in the darkness. He spun the cylinder. It clicked like a clock being wound.

A rather gaudy bunch of handkerchief protruded from the breast pocket of Biff's coat. He picked this out. It proved to be tied around the hilt of a knife which had a blade more than a foot long. It was carried in a concealed holster in his coat lining. He could get it quickly by grabbing the handkerchief.

"I won't bust so easy," he said in a soft tone.Velvet shook his head slowly. His voice was not ugly now. "If you could read, you might not be so sure."

Biff replaced gun and knife. "What's readin' got to do with it?"

"The newspapers," Velvet said, "seem to think this Doc Savage is quite a guy. And I think you can rest a.s.sured that he is quite a guy. The boss didn't send us no five thousand miles to watch a second-rater."

An automobile pa.s.sed. Its headlights flashed briefly on Biff's face. Shadows on the bottom of the scar across his face gave it the aspect of a short black snake.

He growled: "I ain't afraid of any d.a.m.n man-"

"Them has been the last words of more than one cluck," Velvet a.s.sured him. "I'm running this show. You stay here, see? Stand around and think what a tough guy you are. Do anything. Just keep away from that skysc.r.a.per, and give a man with brains a chance to work."

Biff thought that over, then rumbled: "I don't like your lip!"

Velvet ignored the remark and pa.s.sed out a second dig. "Don't run when you hear the next subway train."

Biff made an ugly sound deep in his chest. "You know what I thought it was! I had reason to be scared!"

Velvet reached out and gave him a not unfriendly shove.

"Sure, big boy, I know," he said. "If I hadn't have known what it was, I'd have been more scared than you were."

The street gloom swallowed him.

THERE are two skysc.r.a.per sections in the city of New York. One is on the lower end of Manhattan Island, centering around Wall Street. The other is a few miles to the north, in the midtown district. In the latter area was a structure which was probably the finest in the city.

This building was a spike of steel and brick which jutted up nearly a hundred stories. Its exterior was smooth stone and bright metal. Its architecture was modernistic, plain, dignified. It gleamed richly in lights reflected from the Great White Way, not very many blocks distant.

The lobby of this skysc.r.a.per was impressive. The elevators which served the upper floors numbered in the scores. The lobby itself was remindful of the interior of a cathedral.

Velvet, walking across the gigantic vestibule, felt as insignificant as a fly on the floor of an ordinary room. He shrugged off the sensation and threw out his chest. At this hour of the night only a few elevators were operating. Velvet stepped into a cage as large as a living room in an ordinary home.

"Eighty-six," he said, He had, of course, removed the black handkerchief from his collar. The somber cloth had merely been in place to make himself less conspicuous while he conferred with Biff in the side street. It reposed in his pocket, however, handy for possible future use.

The elevator emptied Velvet into the eighty-sixth-floor corridor. He glanced about. The builders of the skysc.r.a.per had not scrimped on s.p.a.ce. The corridor was high, wide; luxurious carpet covered the floor. Its nap felt an inch deep when Velvet walked across it.

The man, appraising his surroundings, made a silent whistle of slight amazement.

"This Doc Savage seems to be a big shot," he told himself quietly. "He has to be, to afford to hang out here.

It's a good thing I didn't let Biff try his strong-arm stuff."

Velvet waded the carpet down the corridor. His gaze roved over door numbers. He reached the one hedesired. Somewhat blankly, he stared at the panel.

The door was very plain, and of heavy bronze. The bronze was what interested Velvet. It was the first time he had ever seen that metal look nearly as rich as gold.

In tiny letters of a bronze color, slightly darker than that of the door, there was a name: CLARK SAVAGE, JR.

That's the gentleman," said Velvet. His tone was ugly.

He looked for a bell, found none, and tried the k.n.o.b. The door was locked. He made a face, then knocked.

The door promptly sprang wide open.

Velvet leaped backward as wildly as if he had been confronted by a flame-spouting dragon.

It was an astounding personage who had opened the door. He was fully a head shorter than Velvet, but would weigh almost twice as much. His enormous, hairy hands dangled well below his knees. His eyes were tiny, and sunk in deep pits. They resembled twinkling stars set deep in gristle. Every exposed inch of his skin was covered with a crop of hair only slightly less coa.r.s.e than barbed wire. One of his ears was punctured as if for an earring, except that the perforation was about the size of a rifle-bullet hole.

The man would not have to be in a very dark alley for a spectator to mistake him for a gorilla.

"Something I can do for you, buddy?" he asked.

Velvet blinked. From that apish, ferocious-looking giant he had expected a voice that was a whooping roar.

But the homely fellow's voice was tiny and mild.

"I'm looking for Doc Savage," Said Velvet.

"He ain't here," replied the pleasantly ugly monster in the door.

VELVET considered this. He adjusted his black bow tie. "That's tough," he said. "Maybe you can help me out. What's your name?"

"They generally call me Monk," said the homely fellow.

Velvet's lip curled. "You can't blame 'em for that. You're the janitor here, aren't you, Monk?"

"Did somebody tell you?" "Monk" asked, in his small voice.

"I'm a good guesser." Velvet showed all of his white teeth in a somewhat wolfish grin. "Listen, Monk, do you want to make two hundred dollars?"

Monk snorted. "What a question to ask!"

"O.K., then," Velvet said rapidly. "Now listen: I'm a newspaper reporter. I've been trying to interview this Doc Savage, but I haven't had any luck. I can't even see him. I want you to let me stay here in the office after you lock up. In that way, I can see him. I've got to get a story for my paper, the Times-Flash."

Monk pulled thoughtfully at the ear which had the bullet hole in it. "Well, I don't know-"

"Two hundred dollars," Velvet reminded. "And I promise you-I won't tell Doc Savage how I got in."

"Five hundred," Monk said.

Velvet's face turned fierce. He gritted, "Why, you chiseler-" then thought better of it. He shrugged his neatlytailored shoulders, spread his hands. "You win," he said.

Producing a wallet, Velvet counted out a sheaf of greenbacks. "It's lucky the Times-Flash pays for this."

Monk smacked his lips loudly in satisfaction, took the bills, and pocketed them. "Thanks, mister," he said.

"I'll leave you now."

"Sure," Velvet agreed. "You don't want to be here when Doc Savage comes."

Monk squinted. His tiny eyes were almost lost in their gristle pits. "Do you know Doc Savage by sight, Mr.-er-"

"Velvet, John Velvet," said Velvet, then grimaced. He had been caught off guard a little. He had not intended to give his name. "Well, no, I'm not exactly sure that I can recognize Doc Savage."

"Good night!" Monk exclaimed. "You're about the only person here in New York who wouldn't know him by sight!"

Velvet dropped his lids to hide the sudden, ugly hardness in his eyes. "I'm a new reporter-from the West."

"You'll know Doc Savage easy enough when you see him," Monk said. "He's a great bronze giant of a figure.

In appearance alone, he's about the most remarkable man you've ever seen. His eyes will strike you, too.

They're a strange color, like pools of flake gold that are being stirred around all the time. When a man looks at 'em, something just kind of happens to him. It's hard to explain-"

"You'd better explain it some other time," Velvet said hastily. "Clear out, Monk. Savage might show up and find out you had let somebody into his office."