THE SPIDER-City of Doom

by Norvell W. Page

  The gun went off.

  Nita's head jarred sideways under the violence of that concussion. A smothered scream rose in her throat and red agony blotted out all consciousness of action or feeling or thought. She was fighting in that hell of darkness. She twisted, heaved. Through the soaring, pounding pain in her skull, she heard a woman's gasping cry. The shock of a body falling . . . silence.

  Presently, Nita heard an imperative knocking at the door. She heard herself saying calmly, "Everything is quite all right. A screen fell over. Go away, please!"

  And slowly the whirling room cleared before her eyes. She was not aware that she had ever seen the room before. She stared around her in amazement. She remembered the multiple blast of guns, remembered that Dick, beside her, had leaned far forward to seize the wheel from Ram Singh and wreck the car. There had been an explosion . . . .

  When had all that happened! It might have been no more than a moment ago. It might have been a week, a month . . . . Nita gripped her pounding temples and tried to remember. It was all so vague.

  So lifted her head and looked around again. Across the bed, blood trickling from her temple where it had struck the metal post, lay the prostrate body of the nurse. Nita did not remember hurling her there by a jiu-jitsu throw. She did have a whirling memory of a battle, of pain in her head.

  She smothered a cry. Her glance had reached beyond the hospital bed. There was the Spider!

  "Dick!" Nita whispered. "Oh, Dick!"

  She ran toward him, took his flaccid face between her palms, felt for his throat pulse. He was alive. That small swelling in his throat . . . a hypodermic needle had made that! Drugged! But why, and by whom?

  Nita whirled like a pantheress at bay, heard the knocking at the door renewed.

  "What is it?" she called quietly. "kindly go away. You are disturbing my patient! She became a little violent, that's all!"

  There was a moment of silence, and then footfalls retreating slowly. Nita stood rigid and felt the violent tremors of her muscles. Yes, there had been a battle. Apparently, she had overcome the nurse. Her own clothing was in shreds. And Dick was drugged.

  Nita's mind was working powerfully now. She remembered nothing of what had happened here in the hospital room, but the evidence was plain before her. Dick had been drugged . . . and she had been fighting, had overpowered the nurse! Therefore, Dick was in danger.

  Nita pressed her temples to still the clamoring pain inside her brain. Yes, she must get Dick out. But how? Only a moment longer did Nita hesitate, then she set efficiently to work. And as she labored, her head rapidly cleared. She stripped off the nurse's clothing and put them on herself. She draped a sheet over Wentworth, tucked a blanket about his knees and drew it up tightly under his chin. Then she slipped to the locked door, and listened.

  Moments later, she wheeled Wentworth out into the corridor. Once she was fairly away from the door of her room, locked now from the outside, she was fairly safe. She was a nurse wheeling a patient along the corridor. A floor superintendent or a doctor might challenge her, but for that, too, she had an answer. If everything else failed, there was the small automatic in the pocket of her dress!

  The elevator operator made no objection, only once glancing curiously at the relaxed form beneath the robes. There was a ramp that led down to the ambulance entrance. Nita glanced carefully about. No one was in sight. Swiftly, she eased the wheeled chair down the ramp, left it there a moment while she scouted the way ahead. There was an ambulance in the courtyard. The driver was in a waiting room off to the right, frowning over a newspaper cross-word puzzle.

  Nita did not hesitate. She stepped calmly into the room. "Driver," she said quietly, "help me get my patient into the ambulance."

  The driver got to his feet, grumbling. "That ain't my job," he said shortly. "Geez, a guy never gets no off-time around this place . . . ." He was moving toward Nita as he talked. As he stepped past her, Nita removed the gun from her pocket, ready.

  The driver stared at the limp figure in the chair, looked around. "Hey, what is this?" he said. "Where's the doc?"

  Nita shoved the gun hard against his spine. "That's a gun," she said. "Carry him to the ambulance!"

  The driver stood motionless, trembling. When Nita jabbed him with the gun, he stumbled forward. He seemed too weak to handle Wentworth's inert body, but he succeeded finally. He staggered to the ambulance, deposited Wentworth on the stretcher.

  "Now, get behind the wheel . . . and drive!" Nita snapped.

  "Yes, ma'am!"

  He started toward the driver's seat, but suddenly broke away and ran toward the hospital. He shouted wildly. "Thieves! Kidnappers!" he yelled. "Help! Police!"

  Nita gasped her exasperation. In a moment, she was behind the wheel of the ambulance herself. She stepped on the starter, whipped the car into gear and sent it bellowing toward the gateway. She cleared it before men came out of the hospital. The tires whined in a turn. She dodged a coupe loafing along the street, jammed down on the accelerator, and roared eastward toward the river.

  * * *

  Behind her, there were shouts . . . and then a dark, swift car lunged around the corner in her wake. A gun blinked its red eye of fire from around the windshield. She did not hear the bullet.

  She concentrated all her attention on driving. Dick had taught her to drive, as he had taught her many things. There were few who could equal her skill. She went around a right-angle turn accelerating. She did not brake at all. She reached the next corner before pursuit was in sight, doubled northward. She dared not use the siren . . . but she had heard no siren behind her!

  Nita caught her breath. It was not, then, the police who were chasing her. It was the Spider's underworld enemies!

  She took another corner fast, spotted the dark recessed doorway of a warehouse, whipped the ambulance into it and doused all lights.

  At the other end of her dark street, another car blared past. She caught the silhouette of men crouched forward venomously. Yes, killers from the Underworld! Two car loads . . . and how many more?

  Moments dragged past without sighting any more trailing cars, and once again Nita set the ambulance under way along the dark side street. Would it be possible to get Dick to his home, where he could have proper care and protection? How well were the criminals organized? If only she could know.

  Nita tooled across the north-south street without spotting anyone suspicious, and drove on into the next block. She was half way through it when a dark car whined into the far end of the street, coming the wrong way! Guns blasted from its windows!

  Nita crouched lower over the wheel and drove on. The killer car whipped broadside across the narrow street. Men scattered from it, their guns blasting. Nita laughed softly, and in her own ears the sound held a faint mockery, as if . . . as if the Spider were laughing! She thought of Dick, lying so helplessly in the back of the ambulance, and there was a prayer on her lips as she drove toward the ambuscade!

  She could hear the punch of bullets slamming against the metal body of the ambulance. She coaxed more power out of the engine. The ambuscading car was only a hundred feet away . . . only fifty . . . twenty-five!

  Nita stood up behind the wheel and wrenched it over. The ambulance heeled wildly, but it answered the steering gear. It humped over the curb stone. A man crouched behind a fire hydrant leaped erect with a wild yell and tried to flee. The nose of the ambulance caught him. There was a dark blur before the windshield, then he was gone. She whipped the car back into the street.

  When Nita could fling a glance into the rear-vision mirror, there was one gun still winking at her. The car was overturned. She was past that barricade!

  Into the next avenue, Nita hurled the ambulance. She had a glimpse of cars to the north and south of her, closing in. She flicked on the radio.

  She managed to whirl northward for two blocks on the next avenue, and then doubled back on her trail. Once more, she sought hiding. There was a dark, vacant lot, with a signboard. She couldn't get behind th
e board, but she parked close against it. At least, she was out of sight.

  The radio came to life; an announcer was speaking: " . . . and anarchy seems to have broken out in the Bronx and upper Manhattan. There is a big blaze sweeping through three tenement houses, and the fire is plainly of incendiary origin.

  "The firemen were hampered in reaching the locality by some of Bennington's pension marchers.

  "There is a warrant out for Bennington, but so far the police have been unable to locate him!"

  Nita shook her head dazedly, and turned to police signals. She wondered if this was part of the battle that Dick was fighting, but she could not see how fires and pension marchers could be part of a crime wave.

  Nita gasped. This explained why there was no police concentration rushing to her assistance. They must be rushing reserves into the area of the fire. That was it . . . and it must be a decoy movement. If only Dick were able . . . Nita peered toward him, but he lay as motionless as a dead man upon the cot to which she had strapped him. Nita choked down a sob as a police signal crashed in. Detective cruisers and police cars were being rushed northward. A bank vault had been blown up.

  Nita peered about her fearfully. There was a sudden burst of gunfire at the end of the street. She spotted the white top of a police radio car. But two other machines were crowding in on it. There was the heavy, fatal hammer of a sub-machine gun. Then the two cars were racing away, and the police car remained motionless in the middle of the street.

  How long could she escape the net the killer had thrown about the district? It was apparent that she could expect no help from the police, even if she dared to ask for it. Nor could she count on them to create a distraction so that she could escape. She sat up suddenly very straight in her seat. A distraction!

  She peered about her with more purpose now. She knew this neighborhood! Not two blocks away was a garage in which Dick had one of his coupes parked! She swung to the ground, and a voice whispered tightly from the shadows.

  "Don't you move!" it ordered, shakily. "Don't you dare to move an inch!"

  Nita frowned. That sounded like a young boy speaking. She turned slowly toward the voice, peered into the shadows beneath the sign board.

  "I been following you!" the boy said, more firmly. "Now you get out of here. You're not going to kidnap the Spider!"

  Nita almost laughed aloud. She could see the pale blur of the face now, the determined line of the jaw, the tumbled black hair. "Bill!" she said. "Bill Sanders, you blessed boy! I need your help! Don't you remember me? I was with Mr. Wentworth on the street that night when those thugs from the Mekookum Club tried to beat you up!"

  The boy wriggled out from under the signboard. "Geez," he said. "Geez, I thought you was that nurse. Listen, where is the Spider? How does he feel?"

  Nita said slowly, "He's unconscious, Bill. Drugged. We've got to save him, you and I. And the killers are all around us!"

  Bill said eagerly, "I could get my gang here in half an hour!"

  Nita shook her head. "There's no time for that! But the Spider has a car hidden two blocks from here. If you can get that car, and drive it here, we'll get him away between us!"

  Bill nodded his head quickly and Nita told him how to reach the car. "Drive slowly," she ordered him. "If there's any shooting, go around it. If anybody follows you, don't come here!"

  Bill ran off into the shadows without a word, and Nita climbed into the back of the ambulance where Dick lay.

  Nita bent low over Dick, and laid her smooth soft cheek against his. His breathing was deep and even, his pulse strong. But his great brain was asleep . . . and the city needed the Spider this night! Nita crooned to him like a child.

  "I'll save you, Dick," she whispered. "You've saved me so many times. Can I do any less?" But there was a sob in her throat as she straightened and set to work to do what she must do. When Bill came a few minutes later in the old, but powerful coupe, Nita had disappeared . . . . In her place stood a figure in the sinister habiliments of the Spider!

  Bill stared at her in amazement, but Nita's face was calm, her lips firmly set. "This is the plan, Bill," she said quietly. "I'll drive out of here in the ambulance and lead the killers away. When they're gone, you drive the Spider in the coupe, to some place along the river. You'll find a boat. Take him in it, and row out on the river! It's the only place I can imagine where he'll be safe now."

  "All right," Bill acknowledged grimly, "but, geez, you oughtn't to go out like that—not against them killers. They're pretty bad. You let me be the Spider and you drive him off. The won't catch me in the ambulance!"

  Nita smiled and rested her hand on Bill's shoulder. "You're a fine young man, Bill," she said, "but I can drive like a demon and I'm almost as good a shot as the Spider himself. There's a chance they won't catch me. There's a big chance! You have the big job, guarding the Spider. Here's a gun . . . . Now, let's get going!"

  At Nita's orders, they carried the Spider's limp body to the coupe, and Nita hesitated for an instant there. She leaned over and kissed his lax lips, and stood there for a moment.

  "Take good care of him, Bill," she said, "and tell him I'll see him at his home."

  Bill said, "Sure. Sure . . . . Oh, geez, let me go instead of you!"

  Nita shook her head and jumped behind the wheel of the ambulance. An instant later, the motor roared and she swept it out into the street.

  Behind her, Bill Sanders sat in the coupe beside the unconscious Spider and watched the ambulance. As it wheeled the corners, guns blasted out. A car spurted toward the ambulance. From the crouched figure in the cape, a heavy blast of gunfire answered. The charging car swerved and rocked aside. It went out of sight, and there was a crash of a wreck. Another car streaked past the corner in pursuit. The ambulance siren shrieked its hoarse defiance.

  "Oh, damn them!" Bill whispered. "Damn them! But they couldn't get her. Not her!" He said that, but he knew he did not believe it. No siren . . . . He turned the coupe toward the river, and he had trouble seeing where he went.

  The radio under the cowl rasped, " . . . wreck of ambulance on East End Avenue . . . gunfight . . . investigate . . . ."

  Bill choked on a sob and was unashamed. The radio kept squawking. Another bank raid in upper Manhattan . . . .

  Chapter Twelve

  Zero Hour

  There was a cold wind over the river. It made little icy waves slap against the side of the boat. Bill Sanders couldn't see much. He was perspiring from the effort of getting the Spider into the rowboat. His hands on the oars were stiff with cold. His back ached.

  Bill rowed and experienced a great loneliness that put a weight upon his heart. That swell dame was dead or captured. The Spider lay like a dead man. For an instant, fear sucked out his breath. Was the Spider dead?

  Bill stopped rowing and listened for the Spider's breathing. The little waves kept up their cold laughter. A tug hooted mournfully a hundred yards away, and the wash of her propeller made hissing sounds. The fog swirled slowly, coldly.

  Bill whispered, "Spider? Hey, Spider!"

  He went down on his knees and the cold bilge made his bones ache. He leaned close to the Spider. Yes, he was still breathing.

  Fumblingly, Bill took up the oars again and bent his back. He rowed slowly, steadily. The back of his neck ached. For a long while he saw nothing.

  It was an explosion that pierced his trance. Bill felt the vibration beat against him. He stopped rowing, and turned his head. He was aware now of the great blob of red against the northern sky. That was fire. But the explosion had come from somewhere on his left.

  He stared toward the profile of lower Manhattan. There was another explosion. He saw streamers of fire, fragile as sunbeams, lance out of the base of one of those solid-seeming spires. Moments later, flame broke out above the dark low line of tenements nearer the river.

  Bill straightened his stiffened back and tried to make sense out of what was happening. They had been attacking way up north on the island at first. Now they w
ere down here. Down in the financial section of Manhattan, where all the big banks were located.

  Suddenly, Bill cried out. He knew now. Those were guns. And that singing . . . those damned fool old pension marchers . . . and those explosions like at the bank.

  Bill found himself on his knees. He was calling the Spider's name over and over, shaking him, pleading with him. He took a cupped handful of water and flung it in that gaunt, sharp face.

  "Spider! Spider!"

  Suddenly, Bill Sanders caught the glitter of opened eyes, and a voice answered him thickly. He began pouring out words. He babbled about the fire and about the ambulance and the boat.

  Wentworth heard Bill's voice as from a great distance. He had been aware of many things dimly for a long time and his brain felt abnormally clear and acute. He didn't know why it was his own voice was so thick and labored. He could see the dim sky vaguely. He still could not move. But his ears absorbed eagerly the things that Bill was telling him. Nita . . . dead, or captured? The lower city ablaze. Guns. Singing . . . . "Those loony pension marchers . . . ."

  The Spider's lipless mouth became a straight and bitter line. He was helpless . . . and the city was being looted, destroyed . . . and Nita. Helpless? The faint echo of harsh laughter formed in Wentworth's throat. He had his brain, and his will! It was his will that he called on now, the will of the Master of Men!

  Perspiration sprang out on his forehead. A twitching ran through the muscles of his face. There were small spasmodic jerks of his arms and legs.

  It was terrible to watch him. His eyes stared straight up in seeming blindness. The cords made steel ridges in his throat.

  "Flask, Bill!" he cried hoarsely. "Flask . . . my pocket!"

  The rolling of his head, the jerks became more strenuous. The boat was rocking wildly now. Bill braced a hand against each gunwale, and stared. He could not stop staring. If only the Spider would stop trying.