The Sting of the Silver Manticore

by P. J. Lozito

  “And don’t forget: Hanoi Tsin seems to think Silver Manticore is another immortal alchemist,” added Brent Allred, Sr. “This‘ll spook him, having just killed the Silver Manticore.”

  Brent Allred, Jr. contemplated all of this. It was his destiny and there was no time like the present, “All right, I’ll do it.”

  Furioli rubbed his jaw, “I was hopin’ you’d say somethin’ like that. We can make phony documentation up for Lee and install ‘him at your swingin’ bachelor pad. He can earn his keep heatin’ up your frozen TV dinners.”

  The younger Brent snapped his fingers, “Sure, I can pass Lee off as a valet. Like my buddy Valentine Farrow has.”

  “From Lion Books?” asked Furioli. “You know him?”

  “I’m impressed you know who he is,” said Allred, Jr.

  “Well, I’m very cultured.”

  “I don’t doubt it, Furioli.”

  “Good,” said the colonel. “Start construction on a fall-out shelter at your place, kid, except you’ll use it exclusively for Silver Manticore biz.”

  He was eager to wrap this up and arrange a date with the star reporter at the Sentry. Oh, beautiful, red headed Brenda Frazier. Furioli was finally ready to tell her his name wasn’t John St. Basil.

  “Let’s get Lee in here and tell him about his new life,” Furioli suggested. Allred, Jr. was dispatched to usher the young man in. He was given the rundown.

  Lee spoke up, “Of course, I shall join your crusade against my father. But in honor of someone whose death I caused, after this, my name shall be ‘Bako.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  DOMENIC HARPER

  District Attorney Anthony Dent regarded the Silver Manticore and Bako in their car, the Black Pegasus. Every cop in the tri-state area was after them. And he had them.

  The scent of Hai-Karate emanated pleasantly from Dent. He was neatly attired in a suit and tie despite the evening’s heat. Short black hair was undergoing the beginnings of pattern baldness.

  Dent wore thick eyeglasses, the result of an eye injury. A criminal he was once prosecuting had thrown a liquid chemical into Dent’s face in court. His vision had been feared for, but skilled physicians had managed to save Dent’s sight and reconstruct his face.

  The criminal had gotten away in the confusion created by his acid toss. He was later brought to justice by the Silver Manticore. It was one of the first successes of Brent Allred, Jr. and Lee Ying Shang as the Silver Manticore and Bako. Dent had been put in contact with Silver Manticore through Police Commissioner Joe Casey. Having a D.A. on their team would be useful.

  Casey, acting as a go-between, had used the incident as an example to illustrate his master plan. Sometimes you have to bend, if not break, the law in order to ensure justice. Dent felt indebted to the Silver Manticore.

  Now, three men, Dent, the Silver Manticore and Bako, found the cool of the car’s air conditioning to be a relief. Bako wore a chauffeur’s outfit. On his head was a peaked chauffeur’s cap. It was pulled down over his eyes, shading the mask he wore. They cruised, in no particular hurry, to West 45th St. on Dent’s instructions.

  “Why here, Tony?” asked the Silver Manticore, as they complied. “And why do you want us masked? We never wear them when we drive around.”

  “Meeting someone. No reason he should know your little secret,” answered Dent, who seemed overly pleased with himself.

  “Who?” persisted the Silver Manticore.

  Dent directed Bako to a man waiting on the corner as he checked his wristwatch, “There he is. Good timing.”

  As the car pulled up, he jumped into the back seat with Dent and the Silver Manticore.

  “Domenic Harper,” began Dent, “Meet the Silver Manticore and his, a, eh, unnamed assistant.”

  Harper was a handsome man, brown hair slightly dusted with gray, looking to be about thirty-five.

  “Tony, I don’t understand,” pleaded the Silver Manticore, looking over Harper. “What’s this all about? Why are you inviting a civilian in to my car?”

  “Your only chance to meet someone who has a lot of catching up to do,” stated the D.A. He called to Bako, “We’re heading over to 445 West 44th St.”

  “Boss?”

  “Let him play his hand out, Bako,” Silver Manticore answered doubtfully.

  Harper had his eye on the block of townhouses that lined the street.

  “Mr. Harper here used to be known as ‘Yarrow Frost.’ I thought you might like to meet him,” continued Dent.

  The Silver Manticore was momentarily stunned. It’s not every day you meet a man thawed out from an ice floe. He appraised this man differently now. Bako watched in the mirror, nodding. So, this was the father of the rock ‘n’ roll singer with political aspirations. Kids will be wild in the streets before too long.

  “Well, I’ve heard quite a bit about you, Mr. Harper,” said the Silver Manticore, offering a gloved hand. Harper turned away from his vigil long enough to return the handshake heartily. He held a small parcel.

  “Not every man ever could have survived being frozen in the North Sea,” Dent stated.

  “Well, your Col. Furioli told me about another guy this happened to.”

  “Oh?” queried Dent.

  “Luke Carpenter, a prospector, in 1900. But he seems to have gone a bit loco,” answered Harper.

  “You don’t seem off your rocker,” offered Dent. “In fact, I’d say you were perfectly normal.”

  “The stuff in my veins acted like anti-freeze,” agreed Harper. “I think that Carpenter might have suffered some oxygen starvation. How’re we for time?” Harper asked Dent.

  “Just about right,” he answered, consulting the watch again.

  “You can take comfort in knowing that one of my best men in is on trail of your old nemesis in Seattle,” said the Silver Manticore. “It’s Brent Allred, Sr.; he’s old but capable.”

  “That can wait. It’s waited this long. I’ve got something else to do right now,” said Harper. “Look, here she comes now.”

  Four sets of eyes followed Harper’s sudden shift of attention. Coming down the street was an older, gray-haired woman, still spry and attractive. She stopped before number 445. The woman let herself in, stepping down to the low set door.

  “Who is she?” voiced the Manticore.

  “Miss Ruby Bishoff,” announced Harper soberly.

  “It’s not ‘Miss’ anymore,” said Dent, adjusting thick frames. “She married Fritz Bremer in back, oh, 1947. He died of liver failure in ‘59.”

  “I warned him to take it easy with the schnitzel,” declared Harper. The group sat there watching.

  “Anxious to speak to her, are you?” asked the Silver Manticore.

  “No,” said Harper slowly. “No, I just wanted to see her. It’s too heartbreaking.”

  “For who?” Bako finally said, looking up to the mirror.

  Harper thought about that. “Me, I suppose.”

  “Is it not more heartbreaking to see her, and not go to her?” asked Bako.

  Harper blinked away a tear.

  “He’s right,” added the Silver Manticore.

  “You think so? You really think so?” he said quietly.

  Bako turned to Harper, “Do you believe she is too old for you? What year was she born, sir?”

  Tears welled up in Harper’s eyes, “1913.”

  Just one year older than my mother, thought the Silver Manticore.

  “That makes her… fifty-three. I would expect one as old as you to have some wisdom.”

  “What would you know about it?”

  “I have some similar experience that is regrettable to me.”

  Harper’s lower lip quivered.

  “Sir, I have lost one I can never regain. You should regain her while you still can. Go to her,” urged Bako.

  Domenic Harper hesitated.

  “The one I have lost is not dead, it is my father, and he is as good as dead. Worse than dead. But he is lost to me forever just the same. Go to
her,” stressed Bako.

  “Forget it, Bako. He can’t do it,” goaded the Silver Manticore.

  Bako knew that tone of voice. “Guess not, boss,” he started the car.

  “Wait,” Harper opened the car door. Dent reached forward with a clean handkerchief but the Silver Manticore stopped him with a gesture. She should see the tears. Harper sprang out of the sedan. He paused a moment.

  “I almost forgot. This is for you,” Harper thrust the parcel through the car window to the Silver Manticore. Then, he crossed the street dodging traffic to ring the bell of the townhouse he once owned. Ruby had only just gone in. She couldn’t have gotten far inside.

  The Silver Manticore unwrapped his gift. He wondered how a man thawed out of an iceberg could have anything for him beside icicles. Tissue paper tore.

  “Well, would you look at that?”

  Dent beheld ‘Part Two of ‘My Story, By the Silver Manticore’ as told to Ned Buntline.’

  “I know someone who wants to read this,” he appraised. “Hell, I want to.”

  “’The beginning and the end reach out to each other,’” intoned Bako.

  “Is that Confucius?” asked Dent.

  “Bako II” affirmed the driver.

  “Uh, think you might have an opening at the Sentry for Harper?” asked the D.A. “He needs a job.”

  “Sure, have him call my alter ego tomorrow,” nodded the Silver Manticore.

  Three men watched from across the street as the door to 445 W. 45th St. opened. They guessed Harper said “Ruby?” from the way she smiled quizzically at this young stranger who knew her name. There was a silent moment. Dent rolled down the window on his side. They could hear Harper quite clearly now.

  “I’m home, Ruby,” he said. “Do you remember me?”

  The former Ruby Bishoff didn’t know the man at first. But only seconds later that seemed to tick by slowly, there were tears of joy streaming down her face. She embraced the man she lonce oved. Domenic Harper, a man she never thought she’d see again, the man who now stood before her, happily returning her hug. Turning, Harper heard three men cheering across the street in the black car. He momentarily relaxed his embrace of Ruby and waved.

  “Who are those men?” Ruby asked.

  “Friends,” Harper grinned. “Friends I didn’t know I had.”

  Inside the car the Silver Manticore announced, “Let’s ride. There’s work to do.”

  Bako checked the mirror, “How do you know that, boss?”

  “The Silver Manticore knows.”

  THE END

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  PERSONS THIS TALE IS ABOUT

  BRENT ALLRED: Publisher/owner of San Francisco Examiner, New York Daily Sentry, former WWI aviator.

  BRENT ALLRED, JR.: The adopted son of Brent Allred. He is fated to carry on the work of the Knights Templar.

  MIKE AXELROD: Formerly a hard-drinking cop, the now-sober reporter for Brent Allred has vowed to get the goods on the Silver Manticore.

  GANI BAKO: Brent Allred’s white-jacketed Filipino houseboy/ chauffeur who he met in Hawaii.

  RUBY BISHOFF: Girlfriend and business partner of the elusive Yarrow Frost. Good with a gun.

  JOE CASEY: New York City’s most famous police detective, known for the two-way wrist radio invented by the brilliant Doc Wylie. His quote “Crime does not pay” is worth repeating.

  CHARLES NICHOLAS CHARALAMBIDES: Slender and waspy, never without his ominous, black cane. He put himself through law school working as a detective. Now Doc Wylie’s lawyer and top aide, “Chuck,” as his friends call him, enjoys a martini if it’s dry.

  NICK CHARTER: Son of Chuck Charalambides. Being a licensed private detective is a cover story. “The Axeman” is now employed exclusively by the United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves, where they designate him N-2.

  LING CHAN: A deadly gunman in San Francisco’s underworld.

  DANNY COLT: President of Liberty Cab Company. A man with a past, he has also been known as Bob Wynn. His real father, John Allred, rode the Old West, righting wrongs. He stands in for his cousin Brent Allred, providing an alibi.

  JAMES CHRISTOPHER CORRIGAN: The U.S. government’s Secret Operator X-8, of the Scientific Bureau of Investigation, accountable only to the president himself. One-time co-worker and supervisor of Brent Allred in “the Service,” he has big plans for the Silver Manticore.

  FANTOMAL: No one knows the real name or face of this French “Genius of Evil.”

  COLIN FURIOLI: W.W. II Ranger in the European Theatre of Operations, former Office of Strategic Services agent, currently attached to United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves as Chief Enforcement Agent. What does the ever-youthful, eye-patched agent know about the “ultra soldier” formula?

  COMMANDER J: Representative of “Universal Export,” former member of the Royal Navy, now liaison with the O.S.S. in Washington, D.C., and on the trail of the Elixir Vitae.

  ALEXANDER KENTOV: Renegade aviator/mercenary who sells his services to the highest bidder. He is formerly a colonel in the United States Army Air Corps.

  SIAM KHAN: Hanoi Tsin acquired his top Cabal of Seven killer when he corrupted this humble monk. He studied gung-fu with Brent Allred. The latter crash landed his plane near the Rache Curan monastery in Tibet.

  MAURICE KLAW: Psychic detective who owns a damp, musty curio shop in Wapping Old Stairs, England. Author of Psychic Angles, he theorizes that crime “goes in cycles.”

  DR. JACQUES LE GRANDON: Parisian investigator of the occult and medical doctor studying American police methods. La savate expert, a fencing master, he carries a sword cane. He is based in Harrisonville, New Jersey.

  MAXIMILIAN ESAU LEVNITZ: “Levvy,” only inches over five feet tall, and yet over two hundred and fifty pounds. His brutish exterior concealed the mind of a great chemist.

  “SPEED” MARTIN: Brent Allred’s ace news photographer, “O. Henry with a camera.” He earned his sobriquet for taste in fast cars, fast chatter, fast fists and fast women.

  WILLIAM CHARLES MILDIN: Lord Galbraith. Raised by ape-like hominids on the veldts of Gabon, Africa who named him “Okhugh,” he is friend to witch doctors there. Cousin of Doc Wylie, he has been known to help out U.N.D.E.R.

  JOHN WILLIAM ROBERTS: “Longjohns,” was the physical weakling of Doc Wylie’s group, but the world’s greatest living expert on electricity.

  LENORE SCOTT: Daughter of Louise Scott Colt and Danny Colt. Known as “Scottie,” she is Brent Allred, Jr.’s secretary and an important part of his secret organization.

  LOUISE SCOTT: Once Brent Allred’s top reporter, later his private secretary.

  LEE YING SHANG: The western-educated son of Hanoi Tsin, he is the deadliest man in the Fi-San.

  DR. HANOI TSIN: President of the Cabal of Seven and master of the Fi-San. The devil doctor has been known by many names. He jealously guards the secret of the Elixir Vitae. Hanoi Tsin seeks to return China to its former glory. The world’s foremost hypnotist, a master alchemist and medical doctor, holds degrees from many universities. Speaks all civilized languages and some barbaric ones.

  HARRIS VINCEY: Decorated Korean War veteran the Silver Manticore saved from suicide, who, in turn, he devoted his life to the man in the silver mask.

  EVAN WHITE: Known as “Jericho,” the jeweler/metal smith often pretends to be a simple cab driver. His mighty black sinews belie a keen mind.

  RICHARD HENRY WYLIE, JR.: Surgeon, scientist, explorer, criminologist. Everyone calls him “Doc.” His father raised him to be the Man of Ideas. When criminals killed Richard, Sr., Doc became the Man of Vengeance, Archenemy of Evil.

  PATRICIA WYLIE: Doc’s feisty kid sister, owner of the Park Avenue Beautician, but a sixty-year old six-shooter is her proudest possession.

 

 

 
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