Chapter 10
Three Blind Mice
"Who are you?" asked the gunman.
That question suggested to the bronze man that the speaker wasn't one of the gang members. And he managed to spot a distorted image of the gunman reflected on the chrome trim of Black Cat Jackson's car, and the face he saw didn't look like any of the gang members Doc had seen on the headquarters film or running from the hideout earlier.
The bronze giant answered, "That gang is holding friends of mine prisoner."
"That right?"
Doc continued, "And they're sending lookouts to each door. We'd better get a move on if we don't want to be spotted."
The gunman was silent a moment, then nudged Doc with the gun barrel. "Let's go, back up this alley."
The two scurried from the car, the gunman careful to keep out of Doc's direct sight. He used the pistol to prod the bronze man into a small pocket of space between two buildings.
The two men stood among a cluster of trash cans. The gunman asked again, "Who are you?"
Doc considered, then told the man his name.
"I've heard of you," the man said. "You're some kinda big-time powerful hombre in the papers and on the radio."
Doc remained silent.
"There's always trouble around you," the man continued. "Either it finds you or you find it, I don't much care at this particular moment. But you're liable to sart some kind of dust up I ain't innerested in seeing happen right now." The gunman asked another question. "How'd you climb up that wall? Looked like a bug running up and down them bricks."
"Bad mortar job," Doc answered. "There were enough cracks and spaces between the bricks for my fingers and toes. Not an easy climb, but I've managed harder."
"You must be part billy goat," the hidden man said.
The bronze man responded by asking a question. "Now I'd like to know who you are."
"I can't rightly tell you that," the man said. "I don't wanna hurt you none -- but you can cause me problems and I might just have to shoot you anyways to keep you out of my way. Not enough to kill you, but I'll shoot you for sure if you start acting up."
"You'd shoot me here?" Doc questioned.
"Calm as you please, ain't you? No, I'd have you mosey a ways from around here first. But I can't let you go busting in on those hardcases, neither."
"Why do you think I'd do that?" Doc asked.
"Like I said, I've heard about you. You can be a terror. I don't know how many fellers are in there, but I bet you'd tangle with 'em to help your friends."
Doc made no reply.
"But you leave those fellers alone for now," the gunman continued, "and I'll tell you that your pals won't be harmed. I won't say that they won't get hurt, 'cause I'm pretty sure they ain't real comfortable, but they won't be hurt in no serious fashion. How's that sound?"
"And what do you propose I do?" Doc prompted.
"Skeedaddle for now," came the answer. "Leave things be for about 24 hours or so."
Doc remained quiet. The fellow stood close enough behind the bronze man that Doc could have spun around to knock aside the gun and grapple with his unseen interrogator. But the man seemed to have some inside information about the gang, and Doc figured that information might prove valuable. After a few moments' pause, Doc said, "I'll leave."
"Now, I'm slipping out of here," the gunman said. "You just keep looking the other way for about ten minutes while I make my way, then you can leave, too."
"Why do you suppose I'll follow those directions?" Doc asked.
"You just will, 'cause that's the kind of feller you are."
The bronze man had no answer for that, so he waited, and a few minutes later he heard a car start up near the end of the alley and leave. When the allotted time passed, Doc slipped back to his own car without being spotted by the sentries for Gravel Voice. He turned over the engine and drove off.
Sitting within his own vehicle, Curly Wolfe watched from a block distant as Doc left the scene. Curly had been the gunman behind Doc in the alley. He had left the bronze man, climbed into his auto and driven away only to circle the block so he could make sure the big fellow actually left.
Curly followed Doc Savage for several miles until he was convinced the bronze man was not going to return to the gang's new hideout. Then Curly turned his auto in another direction. After awhile he parked in front of a Brooklyn pharmacy. Inside, he entered a phone booth at the rear of the store. After completing a call, Curly took a seat at the soda fountain counter and ordered a cup of coffee. The woman wearing the starched white apron stood at the far end of the counter afer serving Curly and kept an eye on him while drying plates -- after all, it wasn't every day that someone walked in wearing a tuxedo, cowboy hat and boots plus goggles. He looked like trouble. Besides, he didn't even take off his hat.
Twenty minutes later, a more normal-looking fellow joined Curly at the counter. At least, thought the waitress as she placed a slice of pie and cup of coffee before the new arrival, this one knows to take his hat off indoors. She resumed her vigilant post at the end of the counter.
The man who had joined Curly didn't give his companion a second look, so he must have met him earlier and already gotten accustomed to his odd wardrobe. This new fellow was portly -- he kept his coat buttoned while he sat, and the material strained across his shoulders and paunch -- and very pale. His pale blond hair was shaved down nearly to his skull, and droplets of perspiration gathered at his hairline to roll downward to hang suspended from his brows over very deep green eyes.
Curly watched his sweating companion quickly spoon two heaping bites of cherry pie into his gaping mouth before asking, "Harry, what have you found?"
Harry wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and slurped coffee before answering.
"I checked around the spots you suggested, I asked around, I snooped around piers and boatyards -- that's kinda tough, y'know, 'cause there's a war on -- and I still came up with nothing."
Curly started growling about the value of Harry's information. Harry took the opportunity to stuff more pie into his face, then made quieting motions with his hands.
"I did some other snooping," he said as he chewed. "There are plenty of warehouses that have gone empty these last few years as so much production was turned over to the war effort. So owners are willing to rent space on the cheap."
"And?" prompted Curly as Harry finished off the crust.
"I checked around water, like you said, the warehouses that had been empty. I found one that seems promising." Harry picked crumbs from his plate and poked them into his mouth. "Just rented out last month. A bit of activity going on around there. Lots of coming and going.'
"Where 'bouts is this likely location?"
Harry named a spot in the warehouse district along the Hudson River.
"Let's look 'er over," Curly said, and he urged Harry away from ordering a second slice of pie while placing money on the counter and growling about the ungodly price of city vittles.
Harry watched Curly fold his cash back into a colorful bandana and tuck the packet into his trouser pocket. "Didn't like your coffee?" the fat man asked.
"Weak and thin," Curly complained as they walked out the door. "Weren't even any grinds in it."
The two climbed into Curly's car and Harry directed him this way and that until they reached one warehouse standing among many that all had an abandoned look. The row of massive buildings sat on a pier that extended into the water.
Out of the car, Harry led Curly around to the side of the warehouse he had singled out. From a heap of tumbled rubbish, the two pulled crates and drums that they stacked stairstep-fashion up to a large window whose bottom half was partly swung open. Peering in, Harry announced, "Dark inside. Nobody home. Let's go in."
And more quickly than Curly would have imagined, Harry forced the window open wider and slithered into the building. Curly followed him up and in.
Curly was surprised to find that Harry had pulled a small flash from a pocket and turned the light upon their surroundings. Harry's coat had looked too tight to hide anything so large as a battery-powered light.
The place was mostly empty. Debris from various past tenents littered the edges of the cavernous space along the walls, as well as a number of unmarked crates stacked at intervals and shrouded under large tarpaulins. But in the middle of the warehouse floor stood an arrangement of large workbenches and oddly shaped pieces of equipment. Curly recognized a lathe, but the rest of the machinery remained a mystery to him.
"Somebody's been making something," Harry pointed out.
"You're sharp as a whip, all right," Curly muttered.
The two ranged over the space, finding more setups for metalwork and other sorts of assembling. Their search turned up no plans or other documents that revealed the nature of the work that had been done or might be ongoing here.
At the rear of the warehouse Curly and Harry encountered a floor-to-ceiling wall interrupted by a large overhead door and, beside it, a smaller man-sized door. This second proved unlocked, and the two men passed through.
The enclosure beyond the wall featured more puzzling machinery, a great array of tools, and a large motorized winch for suspending objects from the ceiling. The clearance was considerable, and clearly items of great size could be raised and lowered.
A portion of the floor sloped downward to the back of the building, forming a type of declining ramp within which water lapped from the river that lay just outside the wall. Parallel rails of metal ran from the level part of the floor, down the ramp and into the water. Another massive overhead door stood in the back wall over the ramp, while a slotted gate continued the barrier below the waterline. A lengthy loop of chain hung down from each door's rails high overhead and were snugged to cleats on the wall.
"Hey," noted Harry, "you could put a boat out from here right into the river."
"Yes sir," Curly snorted, "you're a quick study."
Another voice, quiet, calm and carrying a tone of authority, spoke from behind the two men. "Trouble's on the way, gentlemen."
Curly and Harry whirled around. Curly's eyes widened behind the lenses of his goggles. Harry shouted, "Doc Savage!"
Indeed, the man of bronze stood just within the door that the pair had used to enter this section of the warehouse, still attired in the guise of a downtrodden grape worshipper. Harry's cry echoed within the walls and reverberated in the greater section of the structure.
Then another yell followed from the larger area of the building behind the bronze man: "Doc Savage!"
Next came blasts of gunfire and the blaze of powder flash lighting the darkness as bullets slammed into the small room holding Doc, Curly and Harry. One of the shots smacked Harry's flash from his hand, leaving the group in darkness fitfully lit by the flares of powder burn.
Harry uttered a brief shriek and said, "We're trapped like three blind mice!"
Written By:
Duane Spurlock
based on notes by:
Kenneth Robeson
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