"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 331 - Mark Of The Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

MARK OF THE SHADOW
by Maxwell Grant

The Shadow fights for his very life against C.Y.P.H.E.R.--a clandestine globe-strangling
network of evil.

As originally published in the Belmont Books paperback, May 1966.


Prologue: City In Battle

IT BEGAN in Santa Carla the day the mayor declared his war on crime. Organized crime was to
be stamped out in Santa Carla. Destroyed, obliterated. No city in the country had ever
accomplished this.
Santa Carla is the second largest city in the state. A beautiful city of palm trees and hibiscus,
pine trees and bougainvillea. A busy city of expanding business and of and rapid growth. The
mountains stand brown and magnificent behind the city, the incredibly blue sea washes its
beaches.
It became a battlefield.
Five men died suddenly in the streets within a few weeks.
There seemed little rhyme or reason to the killings. On victim was a known hoodlum. Another
was a known gambler of the worst reputation. But the third was a bartender with no known
criminal associations, and the fourth and fifth were solid, respected citizens.
2 MARK OF THE SHADOW
All five died within a month of the mayor's declaration of war on crime in Santa Carla. All
five were shot down on the public streets at night.
All five had been alone when they died.
None had been robbed.
In each case the police of Santa Carla could find clues, no witnesses, no clear or immediate
motive, no marks or struggle, and no hint to the identities of the killers.
But there was no mistaking the signs--it had all the marks of an old-fashioned gang war. The
citizens of Santa Carla were up in arms. And they were afraid.
They locked their doors at night.
When they had to walk the night streets of the city, they walked rapidly and looked behind
them.
They were behind the mayor, but they were worried, afraid. The eyes of the entire state, even
the nation, were on Santa Carla. The police seemed powerless to stop the deaths, or to find the
killers.
There was talk, after the fourth killing, of an outside Crime Commission. The mayor backed
his police all the way, but he admitted that the task was large.
Then there were two more deaths, killings. The city made up its mind. The crime commission
was formed.
The first of the two killings that forced Santa Carla to call in outside help was not a murder. A
man died, was killed, but it was not murder. Not to the citizens of Santa Carla, and not to the rest
of the state or nation.
At one o'clock that morning the Santa Carla Police received a telephone call. The excited
caller was the owner of a motel on the southern edge of the city. The owner's name was Max
Goleta, the motel was named the El Capitan and the area was the worst in the city.
Max Goleta and his El Capitan Motel were well known to the police. But on this night it was
Max Goleta who called the police to come to the El Capitan. The owner was alarmed.