The Sting of the Silver Manticore

by P. J. Lozito

  DANNY COLT

  Wind whipped the scent of the East River into the night air. A Liberty Cab sped across the Williamsburg Bridge, lit by evenly spaced lights. The 426 hemi gave the “Hash,” a Hudson-Nash hybrid, quite the smooth ride.

  Inside, Danny Colt wondered who he was, who he really was. Sometimes he was not so sure. Born in 1910 as Robert Allred, he was adopted by the Wynn family after his father disappeared.

  A decade ago Brent had turned the silver mask back over to Danny, claiming advancing age. Now, retired from being the Silver Manticore, Brent sat in his office at the Sentry, a spider reacting to tugs on his vast web.

  “Mr. Colt,” called Evan White from the driver’s seat. “Ever think about how come no one pretends to be you when you go out as the Silver Manticore?”

  “Why, just now,” answered a bemused Colt. “Compared to a big wheel like Brent I’m a nobody; just a working stiff running a cab company.”

  White laughed, “A schlub, like Mr. Levnitz says.”

  “Yeah, Brent surely won’t pretend to be me,” affirmed Colt.

  “Takes a lot to run the Sentry, and WXLI,” put in White. “Gets awfully tired singing his name all the day.”

  “And pretty soon he’ll add WXLI-TV.”

  “Don’t forget The Silver Manticore Magazine. Made him seem unbeatable,” pointed out White.

  “While dispensing misinformation about him. The radio program sure helped on that point,” added Colt.

  “Sure, everyone knew that show. Manticore’d cloud minds ‘cause of hypnosis he learned in the mysterious East,” White remembered with a laugh.

  “Highly unlikely,” Danny Colt grinned. “But it was better than Tex and Jinx.”

  “Silver Manticore radio program is world renown,” agreed Colt.

  “Well, them big glass 78s got shipped all over, assured White.

  “I preferred Man Behind the Gun, myself,” added Colt.

  “Guess you heard The Silver Manticore ain’t gonna be on the radio anymore.”

  “Yeah, but I heard someone wants to make it into a TV show,”conceded Colt.

  Lately, it occurred to Colt that he, too, might be too old for this life himself. He was going to have to give it up. Who would they select to be next Silver Manticore? The group’s next candidate for the mask, private eye Frank Faraday, was missing. There wasn’t much choice. Right now, Colt just wanted to spend more time with Louise and little Lenore.

  “Speaking of radio, I should be able to catch most of the ‘Big ‘D’ Jamboree’ if you’ll kindly step on it, Mr. White,” Colt said. “Ever hear that show?”

  “You’d be surprised, Mr. Colt. Lotta colored folk do like that stuff,” he pointed out. “Not me, but people I know.”

  “I remember the time Doc found me tuning it in on the shortwave. He had asked me what kind of music originates from a wrestling Sportatorium,” recalled Colt.

  “‘Hillbilly’ I hope you said,” chuckled the driver, as he set his collapsible plastic cup of black coffee back on one of the shallow indentations set in the glove compartment door. If Mr. Colt wanted speed he’d slug the java down later, “I know you haunt Miss Allen’s Hillbilly Music Center.”

  “Well, she carries records I can’t get anywhere else,” Colt offered. “Last week I found an Oak Ridge Quartet record there. I was…”

  “Got a Steve Brodie dead ahead,” declared White, interrupting Colt.

  Colt cautioned Evan White to slow. The structure was almost entirely empty. Almost, but not quite. Unknown to them, a sedan, that had been far behind the cab, and now passed them, was braking. Perhaps the pair had been too involved in conversation to note their tail. Little did they suspect that the Brooklyn mob meeting they had crashed tonight was a ploy. For after disrupting the meeting, killers were dispatched to follow the Silver Manticore.

  White had, many yards back, made out a figure contemplating the waters below. As he slowed the machine, Colt eased out. The taxi prowled along. Headlights winked off. He saw the man drop his billfold at his feet. Someone would learn the identity of the corpse.

  With a heave, the man cleared the rail into empty space. Death’s icy embrace awaited him. Instead of falling to the river, however, the man found himself pulled back to the bridge. He spilled onto the bridge with a thump.

  “Hey, what’s the big idea…?”

  Scrambling to his feet, the jumper turned to confront whoever the hell had interfered. Some Good Samaritan, who still wore a hat. Angrily, he swung at the figure. The fist was caught and corkscrewed up into his back. A leg trip took him to the bridge’s narrow pavement a second time. His arm was released. The Silver Manticore stood over him, now giving forth with his best interpretation of that eerie laugh.

  It took the jumper a moment to make out the silvery mask. Indeed, at night the silver snakeskin was hard to take for anything but flesh. He held the billfold in gloved hands.

  “Is life really that bad…Harris Vincey?” he asked theatrically, reading the wallet’s contents. Gone was the Texas-bred plain speaking.

  “I dunno. Yeah, I guess,” Vincey rubbed his arm.

  “Not much money, but you’ve an honorable discharge from service in Korea,” observed the Silver Manticore. “This is the coward’s way out. These decorations show that’s not you.”

  He handed it all back to Vincey.

  “I’m no nothing,’” said Harris Vincey. “No money, no girl, no job, no skills, nothing to live for, shacking at the Metrolite. This ain’t the same town I left when I got drafted. Everything is made outta plastic.”

  The Silver Manticore coolly appraised the man at his feet. “I have saved you, Vincey. Your life is now mine,” said the Silver Manticore. “I need people like you. Serve me and you will have all that you need. Or finish what you started. I shan’t stop you a second time.”

  “I’m no crook.”

  The Silver Manticore squatted on his heels, “That is merely a pose. I fight for justice. I work outside the limits of the law.”

  “Geez, I dunno Mr. Manticore. A second ago I was ready to end it all. Then, you…”

  At that moment, the Manticore’s ring flashed with the danger signal. He looked up. The Liberty Cab was coming closer as a car zoomed past. Shots rang out. He heard Evan White yelp: “My coffee!”

  Vincey felt himself reacting instinctively. He shoulder rolled to the cover of the taxi. The rear door of the cab flew open. Ahead, a car slowed and drifted back. A determined looking man, swarthy with a big gun emerged from it. A second followed on the other side. His gun was bigger.

  The Silver Manticore felt himself sledge-hammered to the ground. That’s all he would remember later of getting shot--that and the sudden flash. He beheld a now-bloodied Evan White.

  “If you think that’s warm coffee down your front, you’re… wrong,” gasped the Silver Manticore.

  “You, too, boss! Look!” White croaked.

  Silver Manticore saw blood on his clothing. He was hit.

  “Let’s went!” insisted White. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a .45.

  “Gimme,” shouted Vincey, grabbing the weapon. He returned fire. “Get in the back. I’ll drive!”

  Evan White scooted over the seat in some pain. The Manticore, who had already dragged himself in, pulled him down.

  If we get out of this alive, Colt swore, he would never again go out as the Silver Manticore without the bulletproof chain mail-lined vest created by the combined genius of Doc Wylie, Longjohns Roberts and Levvy Levnitz. He always thought the chain mail was too restricting. Now he knew a coffin was the ultimate in restriction.

  Vincey floored it. The taxi bolted forward with a lurch. The gunmen didn’t expect this: hired to shoot two men, now there were three. They fled back to their Studebaker. Vincey leaned out and squeezed the trigger again. Down went one surprised assailant. Then Vincey aimed the rapidly accelerating taxi at the other one. There was a smack as a body struck the cab. The sedan ahead took off.

  Vincey
caught up to it and fired at it as they neared Manhattan terminus of the bridge at breakneck pace. Brooklyn-bound drivers on the other side stopped to get a better view. The wounded driver lost control of his machine and hit a divider on Houston St. in a spectacular crash. The Liberty Cab sped on.

  “Hey, is the colored kid all right?” yelled Vincey over his shoulder, noting the blood on seat.

  “Flesh wound. And I ain’t no kid,” protested White.

  “Head to, ugh, St. Vincent’s,” instructed the Silver Manticore from the back. “Hell, I guess you are St. Vincent.”

  “The name is Vincey. If you’re going to a hospital we need a story with bona fides. And no mask.”

  “I’m working on it. Think those three are dead?”

  “Got a sharpshooter citation says yes.”

  “One that cleaned our windshield didn’t look any too healthy, either,” managed White. “This hurts, man.”

  “Felt the right rear wheel go over him,” answered Vincey.

  The Silver Manticore removed his mask, “When we get to the hospital, you take off in this cab. Go to the Norpen Lumber Company on West 34th St. and the Hudson. Got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell them I sent you. They’ll give you food, a bed, everything you need.”

  “Everything?” asked Vincey.

  “Most everything,” affirmed Colt. He handed the mask to Vincey. “Take this, too. Make sure they see it.”

  He pulled the girasol ring off his finger. He turned to White, who was drifting in and out of consciousness. Or was it he drifting in and out of consciousness?

  “We have to get our stories straight. You up to it?”

  “Yeah, boss,” he groaned. “The…bridge, it was robbery. Good?”

  “Good. They thought I had the day’s receipts.”

  “Those guys were mob hit men, not robbers. The cops ain’t stupid,” said Vincey. “Except in the funny papers.”

  “Maybe they were trying to make their hit look like a robbery. I’m a rich businessman.”

  “Well, tell me your right name, Rich Businessman,” shouted Vincey as he guided the machine into St. Vincent’s Receiving. “Hey, you still with us, pal?”

  Colt hesitated for a moment. “No, I didn’t forget. I’m Daniel Colt. This is Evan White.”

  The latter muttered, “Pleased ta meet ya, man. Boss, you gotta ditch that equipment with your stuff.”

  Colt set about removing it, cautiously. This consisted of a flat leather case strapped tightly to his chest through arm loops. It could fit both guns and his hat. Taking it off, the straps disappeared inside. One could grasp the handle, appearing to carry a briefcase. He passed that to Harris. The Liberty Cab came to a halt with a sharp protest in front of the emergency room entrance for the hospital.

  “Tumble out like we were shoved,” said Colt.

  “That’s gonna hurt,” concluded White.

  The two men fell to the pavement as the taxi shrieked into the night.

  “I think we just found your driver,” stated Danny Colt.

  “My what? Get a head wound, too?” challenged Evan White, incredulously. Hospital personnel were hurrying toward them.

  “Modern times, Mr. White, Negro can be Manticore,” Colt gritted.

  “Some…my best friends… are… Manticores…” White choked out.

  But he realized the truth: Colt was hurt, worse than he was and they couldn’t just turn the mask over to this Harris Vincey. White knew the city, he knew guns, and they had taught him that Asian fighting. After all, it was 1954. Not the damn Middle Ages. Up in Harlem, Casket Ed Jones and Crypt Keeper Johnstone were putting a dent in crime. Maybe a colored man could be the Silver Manticore. If so, White just wanted a bulletproof vest.

  ***

  Heading east and uptown, Harris Vincey just couldn’t believe it. Within minutes his aimless life had been transformed. He knew how and why these men operated, and where they were headquartered. This was looking to be more fun than the time he spent with Bill Montgomery and those madcap doctors of the medical 8055 in Korea. An agent of the Silver Manticore-- it was like finding a Liberty Head silver dollar in your piggy bank.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  HEADLINE NEWS 1954

  CAB CO. V-P, DRIVER, SHOT ON WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE!

  Silver Manticore Involved, Rushes Wounded To Hospital To Save Self

  By Mike Axelrod (Crime Reporter For the N.Y. Daily Sentry)

  NEW YORK, NY, July 15 – Liberty Cab Company Vice-President Daniel Colt and a driver for the same firm, Evan White, a Negro, were shot last night on the Williamsburg Bridge. Both men are listed in satisfactory condition at St. Vincent’s Manhattan Hospital, resting comfortably with wounds that are not life threatening.

  At approximately 2 AM last night, Mr. White was driving his boss, Mr. Colt, back from a business meeting in Brooklyn when the pair was attacked by at least three gunmen. Police have not released the names of the suspects. Special Detective Joseph Casey of the NYPD has said it is “an ongoing investigation.”

  Mr. Colt ordered Mr. White to slow down the taxicab when he spotted a man loitering at a point midway on the bridge.

  “I thought sure he was going to jump,” said Mr. Colt. “Was I in for a surprise! It turned out to be the Silver Manticore.”

  The Silver Manticore is a notorious masked criminal that has been terrorizing the City of New York since1942. This reporter had previously trailed him in San Francisco [see accompanying sidebar page 23 of this section for a detailed outline of crimes attributed to him, see also our editorial pages].

  Mr. White added, “All of a sudden-like, gats is shooting from a blue sedan that had just passed us.”

  Det. Casey maintains that the pair blundered into a crossfire a group of killers planned for their rival the Silver Manticore.

  In a bizarre twist, the Silver Manticore then commandeered the taxi to run down one gunman and shot the other two. The escaping car, driver mortally wounded, crashed at the Manhattan foot of the bridge in a terrific blaze, say witnesses.

  He then took the two wounded men to St. Vincent’s Manhattan Hospital in Greenwich Village, breaking numerous speeding violations. Pursuing police cars lost it in traffic.

  “The way I see it,” commented Det. Casey, “is that the Manticore didn’t want to be blamed for the deaths of two square John citizens. As you may know, despite his bloodthirsty rep, the Manticore only preys upon other criminals.

  “But those two were sapheads for stopping in the first place. Didn’t they know how dangerous it can be to stop a car on a bridge like that? That’s a crime stopper. Colt put his life, and the life of his driver, in danger. The driver should have his hack license pulled for listening to Colt in such a dangerous situation.”

  Informed of Det. Casey’s comments, Mr. Colt, 44, of East 54th Place, said, “They say New Yorkers are unfriendly. Well, I’m from Texas and I only did what we do in Texas. However, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a public servant like Detective Casey to make such libelous statements. I’m a prominent businessman and pay his salary with my hard-earned tax dollars. Casey will be hearing from my lawyer Charles Charalambides presently. See how he likes those donuts.”

  Mr. White, 34, of 146th St. in Harlem, is quoted as saying, “I was always taught to help people out. I’d do it again.”

  Mr. Colt is paying for the medical expenses of his employee Mr. White.

  The bullet-ridden cab was recovered hours later on West 33rd St., near the Hudson River. Authorities have impounded it as evidence of a crime. No clews as to the identity of the Silver Manticore were found at that time. Special Federal Operator James Christopher Corrigan, currently working on security for the United Nations, is also looking into the incident.

  “I think we can rule out robbery as a motive,” commented Corrigan when reached at his office in the U.N. Operator Corrigan had previously investigated the Silver Manticore before receiving a new assignment with the United Nations. The Silver Manticore is though
t to have at one time been involved with the criminal plans of Italian national Emilio Luciferro, an ally of wanted arms dealer Hanoi Tsin.

  The Liberty Cab Company is the fourth largest in the city and dates back to Depression days.

  Research assistance: Karel Kolchak.

  Photo credit: “Speed” Martin for the NY Daily Sentry

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  JOE CASEY

  The greasy smells of the the Jones Diner were acting on Special Detective Joe Casey’s stomach. Maybe he would have something to nosh on, after all. He sat in the restaurant at the corner of Lafayette and Great Jones Streets waiting for reporter Mike Axelrod. He finally gestured for a pair of donuts. Distinctive grey had advanced into Casey’s once black hair. Axelrod was late. It wasn’t like him. The clang of silverware and a hot mug of java kept Casey company meantime on this cold day.

  Mike bustled in with a stiff wind at his back a minute later. A counterman had just brought Casey a pair of powdered donuts on a plate. He scribbled a note to himself with his old, still working Reynolds Rocket to have Tess switch to Lite Diet Bread. That should offset the effects of all the junk Casey found himself eating lately. His brother, Ben the doctor, would surely agree.

  Axelrod settled in. Knowing better than to wait for service, he yelled, “Hey, draw one!”

  The tactic worked because the same waiter, bearing a steaming hot cup of black liquid, immediately appeared before the newshound.

  “Impolite to keep people waiting,” commented Casey.

  “Aw, half of a cop’s job is waiting. I had lotsa notes to gather up, Fearless. ‘Cuse it,” Axelrod said as he paused to take in the greasy scents. “This joint sure ain’t no Hamburg Heaven.”

  “Listen, it tops that new place you took me to last time.”

  “Veselka? You didn’t like their chow,” remembered the reporter.

  “Yeah, next time, make it some nice place uptown like the Beefburger,” implored the cop.

  “Over to 57th St? You want that kind of food I say we haul it to Ben’s Best, out in Queens.”