"059 (B061) - The Living Fire Menace (1938-01) - Harold Davis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

The gangleader snorted contemptuously. "And I thought it was a tough job. How do you want 'em? Alive orЧ"
"Those six men," Petrod Yardoff said gently, "are Doc Savage and his five aids."
THERE was sudden silence in the room. Stinger's face turned the shade of paste. "Doc Savage," he muttered.
Stinger's features became sober. "Friends of mine have tried to buck that bronze devil," he said. "They've never been seen again. He's poison."
"Are you afraid?" Yardoff sneered.
The gangster looked at him with unwinking eyes. "Afraid? No," he said softly. "Just careful."
"Yet we will cut you in on a deal that's going to pay off in millions," Hoskins reminded.
Stinger took a deep breath. "Perhaps I'll try it. If I really thought you guys had anythingЧ"
"You have a bodyguard outside, haven't you?" Yardoff interrupted.
"Why, yes. But whatЧ" Stinger frankly showed his surprise.
"Call him in!"
Stinger hesitated for a moment. Something in Yardoff's face decided him. He called, "Rudolph!"
A typical gunman shuffled into the room. In one hand was a short-barreled .38. "Trouble, boss?" he croaked.
"No trouble, no trouble at all," Petrod Yardoff said. His lips split thinly as he walked forward, tall frame swaying. "We were merely talking about making a million dollars, and Stinger here seems a little reluctant. You wouldn't be, now would you?"
"What?" The other's pig eyes opened wide.
Stinger's jaw dropped. He started to shout. Yardoff was stripping a glove from one hand. The glove was of transparent rubber. It had been practically invisible.
The words never came from the gangleader's mouth.
Yardoff, still smiling, dropped his hand casually on Rudolph's shoulder.
There was a sudden sheet of fire. The bodyguard jerked; his mouth opened, but he made no sound. The gun dropped from seared hand. He was dead before he hit the floor.
The odor of burned flesh filled the room.
"The living fire!" gasped Stinger.
Stinger's features no longer were smooth and unruffled. They were drawn and taut. His fingers played nervously with the handkerchief in his sleeve.
Stinger had seen many men die. He wasn't afraid of deathЧas long as it was some one else who was checking out.
Petrod Yardoff apparently had had nothing in his hand when he had placed it on the bodyguard's shoulder. No one else in the room had made a move.
Yet the bodyguard showed every evidence of having died from a tremendous bolt of electricityЧa bolt that had covered his entire body with flame. And Petrod Yardoff, touching him, had been unharmed!
Then the gangleader saw something that had escaped his attention before. There was a thin, transparent, practically invisible rubber mask covering Yardoff's peculiar cherry-red features. His shoes were of rubber. Even the gray suit he wore was made of rubber.
Stinger had heard of the living-fire death, had heard it spoken of in awe-stricken tones in the underworld. It had been tied with whispers of a mysterious secretЧa secret worth millions.
Petrod Yardoff opened a big trunk. Then he picked up the shriveled, burned form of the bodyguard, placed it in the trunk and locked the lid.
"Was the exhibition satisfactory?" he asked.
Stinger gulped. "Y-yes," he agreed reluctantly.
"We're waiting for your answer!" the barrel-shaped Clement Hoskins reminded sharply.
"Doc Savage is s-still tough medicine," Stinger protested weakly.
Petrod Yardoff turned. Once again he started to strip a rubber glove from his hand. A merciless smile split his narrow face. He started to move forward, catlike.
"No! No!" Stinger shrilled. His hand shot for a telephone. Still breathing swiftly, he made several calls in rapid succession.
"Doc Savage is out of town," he reported at last, and there was no mistaking the relief in his voice. "The two they call Johnny and Long Tom are the only ones at his office, although I understand the other three aids are around."
"Get them," the thin man said. "They'll do to start with."
"Here are your instructions," Clement Hoskins rasped. The barrel-shaped man spoke rapidly.
Stinger nodded, the color gradually returning to his face. Then he lifted the telephone receiver again, barked quick orders when he was connected with his number.
"Johnny and Long Tom first," he concluded.
JOHNNY and Long Tom were unaware of their danger, but they were worried.
Long Tom turned away from the compact, short-wave set in one room of Doc's suite of offices, a frown smearing his forehead.
"Can't raise him," he said shortly.
The tall geologist nodded, glanced at his watch. "I know he implicitly instructed us to make no effort to interfere with his meditations until after eight o'clock at night, but I agree with you, I wish he would reply."
Long Tom rose to his feet, shrugged. Outside it was becoming dark.
"Let's go," he said shortly. "We're due to meet Monk and Ham for dinner. Perhaps they can help us dope out what this is all about."
A high-speed elevator dropped the two aids abruptly to the basement of the big building.
In the basement they moved without words to a big, closed car. A few moments later and they were out in traffic, heading rapidly downtown.
Both of Doc's men were thinking of Z-2's queer death, of the strange warning he had imparted. Long Tom drove automatically. Johnny sat hunched in the seat, eyes half closed behind his glasses.
Even had they been alert, it is doubtful that they would have known they were being followed. Traffic was heavy, and those trailing them knew their jobs.
The shadowers were in two cars. There were five in each automobile. Each of the men had a significant bulge under the left armpit. The drivers weaved in and out of traffic with the skill of cabmen.