"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 009 - The Czar of Fear" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

unhandsome.

The fellow backed to an elevator, sprang inside, and the cage sank.

RENNY AND Long Tom looked sheepishly at Doc.

"We came upon that bird listenin' outside the door!" Renny said, in a roaring voice, suggestive of an angry
lion in a cave. "We tried to grab him, but he flashed his hardware on us!"

Doc was gliding down the corridor as these words came. He reached the endmost elevator. His
sinew-wrapped hand tapped a secret button. Sliding doors whistled back.

This lift was a private one, which Doc maintained for his own use. It was fitted with special machinery,
which operated at terrific speed. The ordinary express elevators were fast, but compared to this one,
they were slow.

The floor dropped some inches below Doc's feet, so swiftly did the descent start. For fully sixty stories,
he hardly touched the floor. Then came the slow, tremendous shock of the stop. Doc's five aids, all
strong men, were usually forced to their knees when this happened.

So powerful were the bronze man's thews that he withstood the shock without apparent effort.

He flashed out into the lobby of the towering building. The cage bearing the young man with the gun had
not yet arrived.

But it came within a few moments. The young man got out, backing so as to menace the elevator
operator with his weapon.

Doc grasped the fellow's arms. Bronze fingers all but sank from view as they tightened.

An agonized wail was forced through the man's teeth. He dropped his gun. The excruciating pressure on
his arm muscles caused his fingers to distend like talons.

He tried to kick backward. But pain had rendered him as limp as a big rag. His head drooped; his eyes
glazed. He was on the verge of fainting from the torture.

Doc tucked the slack figure under an arm, entered the speed elevator, and rode back to the eighty-sixth
floor.
Aunt Nora, Alice Cash, and the others were waiting in the corridor.

Doc's prisoner was hardly able to stand. His knees buckled. Doc grasped him by an arm, not too tightly,
and held him erect.

Aunt Nora stared at the captive, popeyed.

Amazement also engulfed Alice Cash's attractive features as she gazed at the young man.

"Know him?" Doc asked quietly.

"He is Ole Slater!" Alice exclaimed. "My -- er -- the boy who likes me!"