The Sting of the Silver Manticore

by P. J. Lozito

  Wylie’s radio-echo position finding gear, all over the hull, had detected something big. And fast. Hopefully, they haven’t detected us, he thought. There was no telling if their equipment was as advanced as his own was. He studied the dials marked “N,” “S,” “E,” “W,” and “Bottom Distance.” A weird trilling sound emanated from seemingly everywhere. It was sound Wylie made unconsciously when deep in thought. He flicked on a television screen. Strong infrared searchlights recessed in the hull, penetrated the water far better than ordinary light. Photoelectric eyes picked up the images. There, a massive sub was approaching.

  The Albatross was not meant for fighting or racing. However, the control room was equipped so one person could operate her if necessary. The tanks trimmed themselves through an automatic apparatus. He could send out Chuck, Levvy and Longjohns to clandestinely attack the enemy sub while he minded things in here. Wylie tossed a switch and inky black clouds enveloped Albatross. He hoped the new four-bladed prop gave improved cavitations over the old three-bladed.

  Brent Allred was taking a chance, operating without his mask, he knew. But even if these men recognized him, he had plans to kill them. The newcomer submarine was surfacing. Already a retractable walkway with a single handrail telescoped towards the Sally Bell. Hanoi Tsin and Siam Khan watched it patiently.

  “Follow,” Hanoi Tsin called back to the “officer” in the shadows. The pair of Chinese began walking over to the ramp. Brent didn’t follow. Instead, he dropped the luggage and drew the .45, taking careful aim. He stepped out onto the gangplank.

  Just then Doc Wylie had the ballast tanks blow. The Albatross violently broke the surface of the water. Wylie, now in his diving gear, manned the periscope. Fine spider silk, harvested on the other side of the river in Hoboken, had located the bobbing hat. It might mean, literally, that the Silver Manticore was in over his head. After all, it was five minutes since his signal came. Wylie took that as a cue to act, hoping to come up under the plank hard and break it. He didn’t like killing but would make an exception for the villainy of Hanoi Tsin.

  Brent Allred was well out on that plank, too, now with Hanoi Tsin and Siam Khan. The latter seemingly too dazed to recognize his old student. All three men tumbled to the river when the Albatross cleaved the gangplank with a sudden clang. As river rushed up to meet him, Allred took and a breath and held it. He flipped himself feet first and plunged into the water.

  Men jammed the deck of the Sally Bell. Some dived in for Hanoi Tsin, but Siam Khan already had him in his grasp, swimming for the Neptune. Allred treaded the practically clean Hudson River while he adjusted his mask up around his face. It functioned underwater, too, just as Evan White had promised. He would need it now. But he had only two minutes of air in the small tank sewn into it. As Silver Manticore was concentrating on generating his tumo against the cold river water, he found himself gripped.

  “What the…?” he began.

  Levvy had materialized beside him.

  “Doc sent me to haul Hanoi Tsin outta the drink,” Levvy’s helmeted head jerked toward Wylie’s sub, high voice distorted. “Looks like they got ‘im already. Anyways, I recognized you doin’ the Aquazanies act out here.”

  “Well, radio your boss I had Hanoi Tsin in my sights,” said a furious Manticore. “Get him to torpedo that thing. And he owes me a goddam gun!”

  “Albatross ain’t armed. Don’t worry. Coast Guard‘ll catch ‘em,” came Levvy’s altered voice. “We already alerted ‘em over the gertrude.”

  They saw Hanoi Tsin was hastily brought aboard the Neptune. White-clad phony crew on the Sally Bell watched helplessly. Then, slowly, she began to pull away from the dock. It looked like the devil doctor gave an order as the door of the sub slid shut.

  Through the periscope, Wylie lip read: “The world shall hear from me again.’’ Then, an invisible beam of energy, displacing water as it went, cleanly cut the Albatross in two, hitting her broadside.

  “Blazes!” yelled Levvy, furiously paddling toward the Albatross.

  “Chuck, Doc an’ Longjohns! Dang it, just like the Normandie! C’mon…”

  The Silver Manticore turned to track the enemy sub. She had swung about, toward the Sally Bell. Maybe they don’t see us, he hoped. Even sitting ducks have more of a chance.

  ***

  On board the Neptune, Hanoi Tsin addressed Siam Khan, “You foolishly led them to us. That is forgotten now. Your attempt to save me has redeemed you in my eyes.” The devil doctor was wrapped in a blanket, stooped over. “However, in your veins flows a radioactive substance our opponents tracked you with,” claw-like hands grasped Siam Khan’s wrist and turned it, presenting a minute needle mark.

  “Soon it will leave your bloodstream. You must take yourself to the lead-lined decompression chamber and wait there,” Hanoi Tsin continued.

  “Radioactive substance? Am I to die?”

  “Quite the contrary, Dr. Lauriston Taylor survived a large dose of radiation some dozen years ago. He is well to this day,” Hanoi Tsin reached for the radio handset. “Dismantle my device before all else. Throw the parts overboard. We shall rendezvous for pickup.”

  “Marqui, the Coast Guard approaches,” blurted out the submarine captain, a turbaned, bearded Indian.

  “So they do. Thank you, Dakkar, you earn your wage.”

  Hanoi Tsin considered the new information and then pointed to the Sally Bell. Seconds later, the parting of waves indicated another invisible energy beam was shooting out from the super sub. In an ear-splitting crash, the ship was rent apart. The Neptune, no longer interested in any rendezvous, turned away.

  Trixie Wylie, too high up in the slowly circling autogiro muttered, “That’s it!”

  She did not know the sound weapon had just swung up towards her. The girl began dropping depth charges on the Neptune. The boat submerged. Coast Guard, Trixie and all the witnesses on Pier 88 could see the coning tower of the sub speed away in a southerly direction, descending deeper as she went.

  Doc Wylie treaded water, and placed an unmoving Longjohns on to a floating piece of Albatross wreckage. Chuck was swimming beside them, for once without his ever-present cane, still in his fancy duds. He had taken over piloting the sub when Doc, Levvy and Longjohns got into their underwater suits and never got to one of his own.

  “Doc, we thought you was done for sure,” exclaimed Levvy, relieved to see his friend Chuck unharmed. He just wouldn’t give the lawyer the satisfaction of seeing it. Rather, Levvy pretended to be concerned only with the health of Doc and Longjohns. Allred had shucked off the white jacket and silver mask. “Longjohns,” he began. “Is he…?”

  “This would have been wholesale slaughter if there had been a full crew,” Wylie responded grimly. “Longjohns is seriously hurt as it is.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  JACQUES LE GRANDON

  Back at the Norpen Lumber Co., Wylie, Allred, Chuck and Levvy collected in the office, hunched over a steaming hot concoction. The latter identified it as “Mama Levvy’s Guaranteed Jewish Chicken Soup,” heated on a new Chambers Model ‘B‘stove. Wylie and he maintained in the chem lab. Levvy even ladled out a generous portion for Chuck, stirred up from the bottom of a Wearever pot, with a hearty: “Choke, shyster.”

  “Save that witches’ brew for Longjohns. I quite want to get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini,” drawled the lawyer. Chuck kept a change of clothes at the warehouse, not so much in case of emergencies, but should he “feel like it.”

  Levvy considered Chuck’s suggestion, “Longjohns had enough to drink for one night. I’ll send him up some hoagies, though.”

  “You do and I’ll advise him to sue. That food from Sloppy Louie’s would just give him a relapse,” claimed Chuck, reaching for the phone.

  “Naw, I was thinkin’ a hiring out the Famous Hot Dog truck,” Levvy explained. “I’d drive it right up to the hospital; wheel him down for all his meals.”

  “You drive a lunch wagon?” called Chuck, alarmed.

&n
bsp; “He don’t share your taste for Lobster Therimoder, shyster.”

  “You plan to feed Longjohns your diet….” The lawyer broke off as he reached for the ringing phone. The call confirmed that the electrical wizard was at St. Claire’s Hospital. As Doc Wylie was a welcomed consultant there, his assistant was given top priority.

  Danny, Bako and Louise joined the group. Bako had first stopped off at Brent’s Sutton Place apartment to get a change of clothes for his boss. He bowed and reported as Allred changed: “Mr. Burberry relays from Mr. Tobias Pevsner in Hollywood, Los Angeles, a make-up ‘genius’ named Ecko Yusaki has dropped from sight.”

  “It’s that awful rounding up of Japanese-Americans,” stated Louise, her back turned so Brent Allred could dress. “Now, New York is doing the same thing to Germans and Italians born here.”

  “This was long before the internment of Nisei, Miss Louise. He is suspected of being Black Dragon.”

  “Did this Yusaki have a record,” asked Colt. “Say with your old pals in the Imperial Secret Police?”

  “No bells ring upon mention of his name, Mr. Danny. Perhaps we may ask Mr. James of this.”

  “He doesn’t use the ‘James,’ ” pointed out Colt. “He’s ‘Chris’ to his friends.”

  “Ah, Mr. Christopher, then,” suggested Bako.

  Louise Scott protested, “Oh, Bako, that’s not important right now. Doc, what happened tonight?”

  “We lost the Albatross and, more importantly, almost lost Longjohns,” he began. “The loss of life among Hanoi Tsin’s own hirelings is inconceivable. This maniac and his death-dealing sub must be stopped. Anything, Chuck?”

  Across the room, Chuck cradled his phone, “The kid Schubert, out at Coney, never saw it. Coming or going.”

  Doc looked over to Levvy.

  “Navy guy Winslow reports the Shipping Observer Unit got nuthin’ on the Geiger counters, neither, Doc. Hanoi Tsin musta put Khan in some kinda lead shielding,” he reported, finishing up on another line. “And Breezy Point never seen it.”

  “Breezy Point? Who’d you talk to there?” inquired Chuck.

  “Joe Fusco.”

  “There’s no need to get ugly, Levvy,” drawled Chuck. “I realize nature left you little choice.”

  “Aw, ‘first kill all the lawyers,’ ” responded the hirsute chemist.

  “Quoting the classics? A parrot can do that,” pointed out Chuck. “And use the newspaper lining his cage properly.”

  “Why don’t ya go back to your old job at Dewey, Cheathem and Howe? I’ll flip you like an omelet…”

  Doc stepped into the verbal jousting: “We will interview Dr. Le Grandon immediately. Also, the Englishman who has fought Hanoi Tsin for years has been located by Corrigan.”

  “Who he?” called Levvy.

  “His name is Sir Dennis. I mentioned him previously but you were busy attacking Chuck. It is imperative we arrange a meeting with him. I have called his hotel again, but missed him.”

  “Caesar’s with the State Department now,” reminded Levvy. “Mebbe he can set it up.”

  “Good thinking,” said Doc Wylie, reaching for a third phone.

  ***

  Early the next day, that odd procession wended its way from Manhattan to Harrisonville, New Jersey. It was Allred’s first time in that state and immediately he noted a difference in scent. Doc had first refrained from inviting Trixie along to New Jersey. Allred pointed out that her depth charge attack drove away Hanoi Tsin. He declared it a brave act on her part.

  “That fiend could easily have fired his sound weapon at Trixie,” he told the Wylies, sharing a car from Doc’s veritable fleet.

  Trixie noted Allred’s admiration with a smile. “Depth charges do tend to be great equalizers for girls,” she pointed out.

  Allred’s absence from the Sentry meant that Danny Colt was there pretending to be him. Miss Scott was pretty much running the show there, however. It wasn’t much longer before Allred’s reverie was broken up by the party pulling up in front of a house. Jacques Le Grandon was a slender Frenchman in his seventies, standing no more than five three with needlelike mustaches. He received his visitors in the sitting room. Dr. Le Grandon was clad in a smoking jacket, ascot, pajamas and slippers, as he had spent the last few days.

  “Richard, it is good to know les Fabulous Five are alive and well,” greeted Le Grandon, vigorously pumping Doc Wylie’s hand. “Comment va Madame Wylie?”

  “Bien, merci.”

  “Bon. But I have heards you lose your submarine last night.”

  “She can be replaced,” explained Doc. “Albatross, not the wife, I meant.”

  “And Longjohns, he is out of the immediate dangers?”

  “Recovering nicely,” responded Doc. “Will Dr. Trowbridge be joining us?”

  “Je ne sais pas! Trowbidge, he wanted to see yous but he have the sick patients.”

  “They certainly come first,” affirmed Doc.

  “Not to worries. He has briefed me all about the Templars you say figures in this case,” Le Grandon turned toward Allred. “Pardon the shoulders. So this is the new member of your team. He publish the Sentry. Bien,” He indicated that he had one folded under his arm. “Subscription,” he explained.

  “Bonjour, docteur,” returned Allred. “Er, ‘Fabulous Five’?” asked Allred, looking from Le Grandon to Wylie.

  “Enchante. Ah, it is how the radios and newspapers sometimes they call Richard and his little group.”

  “Over enthusiastically, I might add,” explained Doc. “I hope the Sentry won’t.”

  “I’ll see that it never happens,” assured Allred dryly. He had an opportunity to get his question in before things got rolling. “Dr. Le Grandon, did you ever come across a John Allred when you lived in Paris? This would have been around 1910 or ’11.”

  “A relation of yours, eh?”

  “My uncle,” replied Allred. “Missing.”

  “I was but a lad then. I don’t recall that name. I feels for what you go through, howevers. A nephew of mines, young Robert, he is also disappeared.”

  “Perhaps we can look into that for you,” offered Allred. “I have contacts everywhere.”

  “It is likes he has fallen froms the face of the planet,” Le Grandon gestured helplessly. “Certainly, I give your request-- and your offer -- some of my thinkings.”

  He turned to Trixie, “Ah, the charming Miss Wylie. C’est une jolie demoiselle,” he commented.

  “Merci,” she cooed, with a marked Canadian pronunciation. “Comment allez-vous?”

  “Bien, merci. When do you marry, chere?” He patted her hand.

  Trixie fended off the question with a smile; was that the only question old people wanted to ask her? But Le Grandon followed her eyes darting toward Allred.

  Le Grandon then introduced Dr. Trowbridge’s housekeeper, Nola, who brought coffee, tea, hot Ovaltine and freshly squeezed fruit juice, the last especially for Doc Wylie. French pastries completed the repast. Somehow she had located a boulangerie in the wilds of New Jersey.

  “I have the famed Mariage Freres teas for you, Monsieur Allred. I hear you likes the brew so much. Help yourselfs to des petis fours et du café, eh? Eat, you all too much the skinnies,” Le Grandon waved a hand. He looked over to Evan White, as if seeing him for the first time. “Laters, we two of us discuss le hot jazz, eh?”

  “‘Nola’ is my fiancée’s name,” smiled Chuck, as the domestic fussed with the food. “You even look a bit like her, but she’s got a wicked jaw.”

  “Yes, sir,” declared Nola icily, “Thank you, sir.” The less she knew of Dr. Le Grandon’s friends the better, Nola reminded herself and took her leave.

  “Dr. Le Grandon, we will need information in our investigation of Hanoi Tsin,” Doc gently reminded. “Can you tell us what precisely why he held you prisoner?”

  “Ah, oui, Richard,” Le Grandon looked up towards Doc. “His French, it is very good. He make the talk to me in her. Better even than how that little Belgian, Hecto
r Poirot speak it. I consult with hims and his ‘little grey cells’ this very week. Hector confirms me this Hanoi Tsin do the crime wave in Paris, back in ‘06. He is used to go as ‘l’Araigne.’ Out of l’armour de la patie, I asks him Hanoi Tsin if he talk to Judex in the French.”

  “That ain’t a Jewish name, is it?” bellowed Levvy.

  “Judex?” repeated Doc. “Latin for ‘judge.’”

  “I thought it might be ‘Harry Judex’,” Levvy claimed. “A code name, huh?”

  “Oui. Years ago, he fight the street apaches in Paris. Many think Hanoi Tsin and my dastardly countryman, Fantomal, kill him Judex,” stated Le Grandon gravely.

  Corrigan asked: “What name did you just say?”

  “I says ‘Fantomal,’ ” repeated the little Frenchman. “Is it means somethings to you?”

  “Nothing and everything. I’ve seen it in various Interpol reports,” admitted Corrigan.

  “Ah, oui, then you have the good reports,” responded Le Grandon, eyes wide. “He is the Lord of Terror. The Genius of Evil, even.”

  “Howlin’ calamities,” trumpeted Levvy. “You Frenchies sure got some funny names.”

  “The reals name of this master criminal he is unknown,” assured Le Grandon.

  “And Hanoi Tsin?” prompted Chuck.

  “My question it just make Hanoi Tsin smile like the cat him which ates the canaries,” Le Grandon declared, lighting another of his foul-smelling Continental cigarettes. He had certainly deserved a smoke after his ordeal.

  As Corrigan made a note to look further into this Fantomal, Le Grandon continued his tale: “Hanoi Tsin want me to join him. I tell him ‘yes.’ If I don’t joins of my own free wills, I joins anyways minus the free wills.”