by P. J. Lozito
“Perhaps they also want to be sure of getting someone else I wouldn’t bring out in broad daylight,” surmised Doc.
“I get it. If we were to raid some other location they’d get us all. Including a certain masked man who only strikes at night.”
“Chuck, you stay here and search more thoroughly. I’ll send Levvy up to help; top priority, no horsing around. Mayan only.”
“You bet, Doc. You know we think Trix is the bees’ knees.”
Doc drove the cab back to Manhattan. Burberry, stationed at the Norpen Lumber Co., patched him through on one of Longjohns’ inventions. Now Doc could reach Casey’s phone, requesting more information than his static-ridden two-wrist radio link to the cop allowed. Doc assured Casey he would be in on the action.
***
Later that night, the watchman at 175 Fifth Avenue was roused from his dozing by the frantic pounding of a disheveled blonde in a torn dress. Things you see at 3A.M.! Cripes, if I don’t do something to help this dame there’ll be hell to pay, he thought to himself.
“Thanks!” The girl fairly collapsed on the doorframe.
“What’s the problem, lady?” asked the night watchman. “Someone trying to hurt you?”
“Here, look at this,” she presented her handbag.
“Ma’am, I don’t wanna see your Lash Lure collection.”
The watchman was surprised to find a puff of gas expanding on his chest as a small glass ampoule shattered there. It was fired from a trick eyeliner tube the blonde held. She had distracted him with the bag. Doc Wylie came in as she caught the man, struggling with his weight.
“Easy, Miss Scott. I’ll take him. Cover yourself now. Here’s Bako.”
Doc peeled off his suit coat and passed it to her. Underneath it, he wore a brown multi-pocketed jumpsuit. Louise Scott pulled off the wig and draped Doc’s coat over her shoulders like a bed jacket. A cab silently rolled up opposite the entrance. She saw Bako touch the tip of his cap with a finger.
Louise dashed for the car, and then stopped: “Good luck, Doc.”
“We have no time, Miss Louise, Mr. Chuck awaits my arrival,” reminded Bako.
Doc Wylie returned his attention to the watchman who he gagged and handcuffed. If he wasn’t part of the gang his inconvenience would be made up to him. God help him if he was. He was deposited in a small, dank room that proved to be access to the service entrance.
In a darkened office lit by candles, Siam Khan considered a bound Trixie, “Do not worry about your brother getting in here, Miss Wylie. There is only one way up and my men are watching for him. His task will be getting out alive.”
“Doc can handle any of your men.”
“Not M’goyna,” smiled Siam Khan. “Not him.”
***
Meanwhile, in a now deserted subway exit at the wide end of the building, a small grappling hook encased in rubber was tossed up to the second storey. The Silver Manticore scurried up the line. He looked back over his shoulder. Old aviator training, looking everywhere served him well now as it did back then. No one was about on 22nd Street at this hour. He knew the neighborhood. This was near where he and Wylie had set up the ‘B. Jonas’ mail drop that Onie Morton operated for them. Quickly, he gained entrance to the window of a second storey stockroom. Book publisher from the looks of it, he figured. He let himself out of the office and pounded for the stairs.
***
Doc entered one of the elevators. The doors closed, and the cage began its ascent to the ninth floor. Inside, Doc looked up at the emergency exit in the ceiling. He set to work.
***
The Silver Manticore had his gas gun drawn, gum soles making not a sound as he bounced up steps. Hatha yoga kept him from breathing too strenuously. Floor eight was his target. From there, he would be one floor below the former Fuller Building’s only un-rented suite of offices.
There he entered a deserted men’s restroom. Going to the small window, he opened it and, using a trick learned in the Orient, squeezed through. The grapple and line came into play again. The masked man climbed up one storey. He found himself at the window of a women’s restroom. These alternated floors. He ignored this and walked the ledge to the next window. Before he cut his way in, he looked and he listened. Detecting no one on the other side, the Silver Manticore proceeded.
***
The doors of the elevator cage slid open on the ninth floor. In the shadows of the darkened floor, a pair of men bearing two silenced guns each waited. Stepping forward, they opened fire, gleefully sweeping the cage with muted automatic gunfire. The cage shook violently. The acrid whiff of cordite filled it. They swiveled their heads. There was nobody inside the now bullet-pocked elevator.
They didn’t see the gas grenades that flew down from the emergency escape hatch. Doc Wylie, wearing a transparent glassine gas mask fitting over his head like a hood, dropped from it. The gas mask was a thin elastic transparent material, tightened around his neck. Used with his oxygen pills, he was good for several minutes. Wylie used his fists to club both gun men, then handcuffed and gagged them, taking the equipment from yet another pocket of the jumpsuit. He left them in the elevator and toggled the switch on his watch, giving the signal to Corrigan, Bako, Miss Scott, Jericho, Chuck and Levvy, to fan out and start copying down the license plate numbers of every car in the area.
***
A heavily made-up gun moll, gaudily dressed, paced up and down the office on the ninth floor. She called out through a rear access door, “Did you get him? Did you kill Doc Wylie?”
Unawares, the Silver Manticore crept up on her. His gloved hand encircled the woman’s mouth. He jerked her head back to make sure he had her undivided attention.
“The Wylie girl, where?” he demanded.
Her eyes widened. All she saw was a nasty looking gun aimed at her head. The Silver Manticore had a reputation for thinning out the underworld’s ranks. The grip on her was none too gentlemanly. She meekly pointed up to the narrow end of the building. The Silver Manticore whirled her into one of the suite’s rooms. Before she could give an alarm, a shot from the gas gun knocked her out. He yanked the door closed. The Silver Manticore began his stalk up the hallway.
Trixie Wylie faced Siam Khan in the darkened, private office at the point of the building. He was listening for the gunmen to answer their female accomplice while watching Trixie. Siam Khan didn’t like the silence and said as much to her. The Silver Manticore crept up. Trixie’s eyes betrayed nothing as she picked the Manticore’s form out of the gloom. He signaled her give an alarm. The girl didn’t have to be told twice.
“Look out!” she bellowed.
“We have that one where I come from, sister,” but the Celestial turned, just to be sure. “Unless someone flew in on a wan-wan, no one is…”
This was cut short by an old-fashioned haymaker delivered by the Silver Manticore.
“I’m not your sister,” reminded Trixie to a crumpling Siam Khan.
The masked man could tell from the flip comment Trixie was unhurt. His knife cut through the girl’s bindings. Now he was ready to beat the living hell out of Siam Khan.
***
Doc Wylie, gas mask pocketed, did not see the third man lurking in the shadows of the unlit hall. But he heard a low growl while gathering up the killers’ guns. As Doc turned, super-machine pistol now at the ready, he was roughly seized by a pair of large, hairy hands. Doc found himself hoisted above the head of a huge man. Then he was pitched forward several feet toward the glass partition of the office reception area. Doc lost his grip on the gun. Instinctively, he scrunched his neck, close into his shoulders. Glass shattered.
Doc crashed to the floor with a thump. His jumpsuit’s chain mail lining protected him from being cut by shards. Had he not been wearing it, he would be in no state to fight back. As M’goyna, moved in for the kill, Doc charged like a fullback. M’goyna was knocked back by Doc’s attack. He followed up quickly. It would be futile to go punch for punch with this specimen. Instead, Doc applied h
is full strength to the man’s yuzheng acupressure point on the back of his head. A howl issued from the big man’s mouth. M’goyna wasn’t used to this kind of treatment. The attack drove him backward, breaking away from Doc.
Doc unleashed a standing dropkick that propelled M’goyna through the stairway. Tumbling down the stairs, M’goyna snapped off a piece of banister as he went. Doc pitched himself over what was left of it, aiming to land on his opponent.
***
The Silver Manticore let his rage go. Suddenly, he realized he had no intention of beating the life out Siam Khan in front of this woman. Instead, he turned to her, “Sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Holy cow, I’m so glad to see you, Brent,” she rushed into his arms and clasped him tightly.
“I could get used to that,” the Silver Manticore admitted.
“Me, too, handsome,” smiled the girl.
“I’ve had my eye on you from the moment we met.”
“I don’t usually go with masked men.”
“Would you change your mind if I got you out of this?”
“Do that and you’ve have a date, Mr. Allred.”
Brent? Brent Allred, publisher of The Daily Sentry? So that’s it, thought Siam Khan, playing possum. I have been a prize chump. It all made sense now. No wonder we hadn’t recognized the “Allred” photo in the Sentry. It was a look-alike, not the passage of twenty-five years that had stumped us.
Siam Khan had witnessed just enough of this touching reunion. He saw his chance to make a getaway, darting from the office. Hanoi Tsin would surely reward him with the Elixir Vitae for what he learned here tonight.
***
Doc had just finished snapping handcuffs onto the unconscious brute when he heard cursing on the floor above him. Acute hearing picked out someone pounding all of the elevator call buttons. He left M’goyna chained to the handrail and dashed up. Siam Khan turned and saw Doc Wylie. With lightning-like reflexes, he grabbed one of the discarded weapons from the floor and fired. There was only one bullet left in it and the hammer clacked on a now empty chamber. Just to be sure, he threw the gun, hard, in the manner of a hunting tomahawk, after his opponent. Though Doc was hit by the single shot, he was protected by the wondrous jumpsuit. He was knocked down by the force of the shot at close range.
Siam Khan dashed into the elevator before the sound of battle drew the Silver Manticore out, wondering why he threw away a perfectly good gun. At least he killed Doc Wylie, half the objective of this little operation; one down, one to go, as the Americans say. Now he knew that Wylie definitely had been working with the Silver Manticore. More importantly, he knew who the Silver Manticore really was.
***
“Khan’s getting away,” said Trixie in panic, breaking away from the Manticore’s embrace. “You have to stop him!”
Doc Wylie came through the door, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Trixie turned to him, “You look like you’ve been through a meat grinder.”
“You’re welcome. Trixie, you’re all right?” He grasped both her shoulders in his hands.
“Oh, Doc, yeah,” she hugged her brother. “Brent rescued me. You’ve got to get Khan.”
“I thought I rescued you,” protested Doc.
“I don’t want to go on a date with my brother,” Trixie clarified.
“What are you talking about?” queried Doc.
“I seem to have won the maiden’s hand. You’re the doctor. Make sure she’s all right,” interrupted the Silver Manticore, flinging open a window.
“Where do you think you’re going?” challenged Doc.
“I think I’m fixing Khan’s wagon,” now the Silver Manticore hooked his line to the ledge and plunged out backwards into space. Too many people now knew my secret, he mused. “For once and for all.”
“He’s going to need help,” Doc told Trixie as he rushed to the elevator bank. A door was closing. Doc was losing his ride and, with it, Siam Khan.
Doc slipped his hands into the rapidly diminishing slot the doors formed. Planting his feet, Doc’s mighty muscles strained. The crack was almost gone. But Doc Wylie had a hold. He had a hold and he could work with that. He heard the car descending. Doc pulled, face impassive. Sweat formed on his brow, but the line stopped shrinking. With a heave he forced back both doors. The cage was one floor down the shaft now. Out came a pair of heavy-duty protective gloves. Doc slipped them on and leapt for the cable.
***
Siam Khan had managed to unlock the cuffs binding his hired assassins. It was a trick Fantomal had taught him: he always carried one of those three and a half inch handcuff key somewhere upon his person. Siam Khan gave orders and found two more of their lost weapons in the elevator. He would need every ally now that M’goyna was missing and the Silver Manticore was sure to be right behind him in pursuit. They made it to the lobby of the Flatiron Building, the former Fuller Building. No watchman was in evidence, the ringleader noted.
“We’ll see if he gets paid,” Siam Khan declared to his men grimly.
The group spilled out the Fifth Avenue exit. High above, the Silver Manticore spotted his three pigeons as he rappelled down the building. He hoped they wouldn’t look up. Then a fourth figure came out after them. It looked like he wielded a piece of banister as a club. It was definitely not Doc. Where was he anyway?
***
Doc Wylie thumped to a halt on the roof of the elevator. He made his way through the emergency escape hatch and came out onto the lobby. He headed for the Broadway exit, hopping to outflank Siam Khan. Doc still had a few tricks up his shredded, brown khaki sleeve. Out of a pocket came a folded paper Doc unfurled, running, with a whip of his hand. Doing so transformed it into a trench coat. Another pocket held a cardboard fedora, good enough to pass for the real thing in the dark of night. He was now just another guy walking the street.
Around the corner, Siam Khan was slammed flat with terrific force by the body landing on him. That cushioned his landing. With the wind knocked out of his nemesis, the Silver Manticore quickly found his feet and turned his attention to the three other foemen. He spun a devastating kick to one and that one was out of it. Before Silver Manticore could draw his .45, however, he found himself clutched in a bear hug by the biggest of the lot.
“M’goyna,” the remaining man called, “It’s Silver Manticore! Lemme ventilate ‘im. Move!”
The Silver Manticore clapped his hands hard over the ears of his gigantic opponent. M’goyna staggered, almost dropped and released the masked man. All the while, the Manticore kept M’Goyna between himself and the gunman. The gunman tried desperately to get a clear shot at the masked man. Then Doc Wylie peeked from around the corner of 22nd St., attired in his paper fedora and trench coat.
At that same instant, a pair of toughs materialized from a doorway across Fifth Avenue. They headed for the commotion. Levvy, dressed up like a minion of the newly-named City Parks commissioner Lawrence Rockefeller, dashed over from nearby Madison Square Park. The leaf symbol on his shoulder resembled no known specimen. Listening carefully, he caught: “That colored surveyor still there?”
“Hey, since when do surveyors work at night, anyways?” queried the second thug.
“I dunno. Prolly no white man wants the job,” the other one answered. That wasn’t good because he turned and saw Levvy right behind. Apparently he did not recognize the famed chemist. He leveled a revolver at the ape-like figure.
“Ain’t none of your beeswax, bub.”
Levvy sauced his eyes and backed away. The pair, satisfied, continued on. As soon as they turned their backs on Levvy, he was on them in an astonishing leap. Levvy clocked one with a hammy left fist. The gunman slumped. His companion was reaching for his own weapon. Levvy, simply flung the first gunsel into the second with terrific force. Levvy picked up a fallen revolver and, with a mighty pull, bent the barrel so it pointed at the holder. He presented it to the dazed second tough.
“Try it now,” Levvy suggested.
***
Doc Wylie sprang for a pair of parked cars lining Fifth Avenue. With his rapid firing pistol making its distinctive bull fiddle roar, Doc felled the now-recovered victim of Manticore’s kick with .24 caliber “mercy bullets.” Firing sixty-six per magazine, they emerged at the rate of seven-hundred eighty-six a minute, hitting with the impact of one-hundred seventy-five pounds. But if your sister gets kidnapped, you take the bazooka, he realized, not the mercy-bullet gun.
The other gunman turned to where the firing was coming from. He got down on the sidewalk to see if feet revealed where the shooter was. Only, there were no feet to be seen. On the other side, Doc had grasped a car door handle and pulled himself parallel to the ground, effectively hiding them. He held that position until he heard the gunman question his own sanity, straightening up. Then Doc released his grip and took up firing again. He got the last gunman.
Those same bullets had no effect on the giant, who now caught the Silver Manticore with the lumber he was chained to. Siam Khan was trying to stand, he gasps and swore oaths. Blood trickled from his mouth with every labored breath. On a sign from his leader, the giant forgot the Silver Manticore and picked up Siam Khan like a baby. He ran west down 22nd Street, away from Wylie, bellowing in what sounded like Turkish every time bullets hit him.
They disappeared into a Lotus Car taxi parked halfway down the block. Of course, Doc’s mercy bullets had no effect on that, either. He hoped Siam Khan, in the heat of battle, wouldn’t realize they were non-lethal and might swerve trying to evade them. With M’goyna at the wheel, Siam Khan was firing from the backseat, making Doc and the Manticore scatter for cover that was hardly necessary. The shots went astray. Within seconds, the car was receding down Fifth Avenue.