Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 327 - The Shadow Strikes

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THE SHADOW STRIKES
by Maxwell Grant
A BELMONT BOOK-- October 1964.
1
THAT NIGHT, the beachwear salesman on his way from New York to Beach City passed two
strange figures on the Cape Ambrose Highway. The salesman was driving a blue sedan and he
passed the two lurking figures just this side of Sea Gate. But the salesman saw only one of them.
Later, when he stopped for a whisky in Sea Gate to steady his shaking nerves, the people in the
Sea Gate Tavern laughed at him.
"A giant bat? In New Jersey?"
"You better let someone else drive --."
They all laughed at the salesman. He, himself, did not laugh or listen to them. He knew what
he had seen. He would not forget for a long time. On a sharp curve of the highway, for one long
instant in the glare of his headlights, he had seen the looming shape of a giant bat.
"It was ten feet tall," the salesman said. "At least. It flew across the highway. Fast, but I saw
it. It crossed the highway right in front of me. It went into the trees. I didn't see it again."
"That's powerful stuff you drink," someone said.
"Where'd you throw the bottle? I want the name of that brand," someone else said.
The salesman did not answer. He ordered a third drink and went to sit in a corner booth but
not too far from the light or the other people. He drank and waited for his hands to stop shaking.
The skeptics returned to their own drinks. Some of them still laughed about the salesman's story,
but not all of them.
There was a storm brewing in the hot August night, and when the wind blew against the
tavern windows some of the patrons at the bar looked uneasily over their shoulders.
The salesman, alone in his corner, was unaware that he had passed a second lurking figure
that night. Sea Gate is a rich resort suburb of Beach City on the New Jersey shore, and the Cape
Ambrose highway is dark, curving, and lined with trees as it approaches Sea Gate. The highway
is some half a mile in from the sea. On the beach there is mile after mile of small summer cottage
colonies. But along the highway the houses are larger, more elegant, and widely spaced on well-
tended grounds.
Less than a mile from Sea Gate, and just three miles closer to the resort town than where the
salesman had seen the apparition of the giant bat, a stone gateway stands as the entrance to the
Sea Gate Golf Club. The gateway is isolated and hidden by trees and high bushes. The closest
house is four hundred yards away on the other side of the highway. The Golf Club itself is dark
at night. The golf course spreads darkly beyond the gate, and the houses on the beach are a half a
mile away.
2
That night, the sky darkening with the approaching storm, a man stood hidden just inside the
stone gateway to the Golf Club. The salesman, his hands already shaking from what he had seen,
did not see this man. The salesman passed on to have his drinks at the Sea Gate Tavern, to calm
his nerves, and to continue to Beach City and points south where he would sell his beachwear
and soon forget that night.
The man hidden inside the gateway looked up when the blue sedan of the salesman passed,
and then looked away. It was not the car he was waiting for, and it did not interest him. He
lighted a long, foreign cigarette, and continued to wait. Each time the man lighted a fresh
cigarette the flame of his lighter revealed his face in the night.
It was a heavy, pale, Slavic face of early middle age. The man was handsome, in a dissipated
way, with dark hair and small grey eyes and a straight nose. The grey eyes were hooded, sensual,
and with more than a hint of cruelty in them. The man had lighted his sixth cigarette when he
suddenly raised his head again to listen.
Above the rising wind of the storm there was the sound of another automobile approaching.
The engine of the car was loud and unmuffled in the night. As it came around the curve of the
highway, its headlights probing the night, the loud car slowed. It was a small, stripped-down
roadster with an open hood and chromium-plated twin carburetor. The car stopped near the
waiting man. He dropped his long cigarette to the ground and stepped toward the car and its
single occupant.
"You are late again," the man said in a voice that had a definite accent. "I must teach you
better manners. I do not have much time tonight."
"You want to get out?" the occupant of the car said.
"I did not say that," the man said.
"You can't get out," the driver of the car said.
"Don't threaten me, my friend," the man said.
The man bent, then, to lean into the car through its open window. In that position, half bent
with his face not yet inside the car window, the man's eyes suddenly widened in horror. He threw
up his hands to cover his face, staggered backwards, and collapsed at the edge of the highway.
He crawled weakly in the grass for a few seconds. Then he lay still. The man was dead.
At the instant that the dead man had first staggered backward, the driver of the car had leaped
out on the other side. The driver carried a peculiar length of pipe. When the man lay still on the
grass, the driver ran to bend over him. The driver searched the pockets of the dead man-searched
quickly, taking a large roll of money and a ring of keys. Then the driver ran back to the car.
From the rear of the car the driver brought out a light beach chair and carried it into the center
of the highway. In the center of the highway the driver stopped to listen. The night was silent
except for the sound of the wind and the distant rumble of thunder as the storm grew. Swiftly,
then, the driver returned to the dead man and dragged the body to the chair in the highway. The
driver propped the body up in the chair and ran back to the car.
The car backed away around the bend. There was a roaring sound that filled the night as the
car motor was gunned. The car came racing around the curve and smashed into the body seated
in the chair. The car screeched to a halt. The killer leaped out of the car and ran back to the
sprawled body of the dead man.
Above the noise of thunder there was the sound of another car coming closer. It was a deep,
powerful motor of a car driving fast. The killer picked up the ruined beach chair, raced back to
the stripped-down hotrod, and vanished into the night around the curve in the highway. The roar
3
of the unmuffled motor faded. At almost the same instant, the powerful sound of the car
approaching from the opposite direction also ceased.
For a long moment the night was silent and still except for the wind and thunder of the
coming storm.
On the highway a pool of blood spread slowly around the body of the dead man.
The next instant the long-departed beachwear salesman would have been vindicated had he
been there. From the bushes that shrouded the gate to the Golf Club a figure glided silently out
into the highway. It was the shape of a giant bat. The batlike figure moved with amazing speed to
stand over the body in the highway. The burning, hypnotic eyes that looked down at the dead
man were not the eyes of a bat. They were the angry eyes of The Shadow.
Above the high collar of his black cloak, and below the wide brim of his black slouch hat,
The Shadow's eyes searched the highway. His ring, the rare fire opal girasol, flashed ever-
changing fire even in the dark of the deserted highway. Finding nothing on the highway, The
Shadow bent down to the body. His long fingers darted out and picked up a small, gold, heart-
shaped watch charm.
The Shadow's glowing eyes studied the small trinket. It was engraved with the initials S.A.,
and was heavily scratched. The Shadow replaced the charm where he had found it on the road
near the body. His long fingers began to search the pockets of the dead man. Then he
straightened up and listened. Voices were approaching from the direction of the nearest house.
Two people, an older man and woman, were running across the lawn of the nearest house
toward the highway. The man was ten yards ahead of the woman, shouting back to her to hurry.
As the older man emerged onto the highway near the body he stopped. His eyes widened as he
saw the shrouded black figure of The Shadow bending over the dead man. The man opened his
mouth to speak, and stopped.
The burning eyes of the mysterious crime fighter stared at the older man from under the
slouch hat. The older man blinked, brushed his hand across his eyes, and shook his head. His
brain seemed suddenly foggy, clouded as if by a thick mist. He rubbed his eyes and looked again.
There was nothing on the highway but the dead body and the pool of drying blood.
The older woman stood beside the man. The man seemed puzzled as he looked across the
highway to where the thick bushes were still moving as if someone had passed through them.
The woman touched the man's arm.
"Ezra? Why did you stop?" the woman said.
"I thought.." the man began, and stopped again. "How did you catch up to me, Mary?"
"You were just standing here waiting," the woman said. The man tried to think. He could not.
His mind, clouded by the power of The Shadow, remembered nothing but a vague sensation that
was already fading. His wife's words entered his brain, and he turned to her.
"Of course, I was waiting for you," the man said. "He's obviously dead. You call the police,
Mary. I'll stay here."
Less than an hour later the efficient Sea Gate police had come and gone and nothing remained
on the highway to show that a man had died except a small spot of dried blood. The Highway
Department would remove even that by morning. Sea Gate was an expensive resort, and blood
on the highway was not attractive to tourists.
At Sea Gate Police Headquarters Sergeant Fred Morgan assigned his men to make out their
routine reports on a hit-and-run accident, and to sort and record the effects of the victim. Morgan
took the statements of the only two witnesses personally. The sergeant was a small, dark,
efficient man.
4
"Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Bolger of Sea Gate, is that correct?" Morgan said.
"If you don't know by now, Fred Morgan, you never will," the older man said testily.
"It was one of those 'hotrods' the teenagers drive," Mrs. Mary Bolger said. "I can tell by the
sound. Those cars are a positive menace!"
The sergeant sighed with annoyance, and read from the typed statement of the Bolgers.
"You heard the motor very loud, then you heard the car come around the curve and you heard
the impact. Then the car stopped for a few seconds before you heard it roar away. You're sure it
stopped even for a second?"
"Of course we're sure!" Ezra Bolger snapped.
"And you don't recognize this watch charm?" Morgan said.
The sergeant held up the small, gold, heart-shaped charm engraved with the initials, S.A.
"No" Ezra Bolger said.
"Then presumably it belonged to the victim or the driver of the car," Morgan said.
"Or just about anyone else who drove along the highway in the last week!" Ezra Bolger said.
The sergeant disregarded that and continued to read the statement.
"You think you may have heard the car stop at the same spot perhaps three or four minutes
earlier," Morgan read. He looked at the Bolgers. "Are you sure about that?"
"I'm sure I heard some car stop there a few minutes earlier," Bolger said. "Mary doesn't agree
with me, so I could be wrong."
"And you can't really say if it was the same car?" Morgan pointed out.
"No, I suppose not," Bolger admitted. "But it had a motor that sounded a lot the same."
"Almost every teenager in town has a hotrod," Morgan said dryly. He read farther in the
statement of the Bolgers. "You recognize the victim as a Mr. Jonson who rents a cottage on the
far side of the golf course. As far as you know he's lived here off and on for about a year, and he
played loud music at night."
"Never fished, sailed, or went swimming," Ezra Bolger said. "A very peculiar man.
Unfriendly I'd call him. Just that damned loud music and driving around at night. Can't imagine
what he was doing at that place on foot. Never saw Jonson walk anywhere if he could drive--
"All right," Sergeant Morgan said. "Sign the statement and you can both go.
When the Bolgers had gone, Sergeant Morgan strolled over to the officer sorting the effects of
the dead man. Morgan looked idly down at the small pile that included a wallet, a handkerchief,
a few dollars and some loose change. What he saw made him stiffen. In the pile was a blue
plastic square with the numeral "100" in the center and, smaller, at each corner.
The officer recording the possessions was inspecting the dead man's wallet.
"Hey, Sarge," this officer said, "didn't old Bolger say the dead guy's name was Jonson?"
"That's right, it is Jonson," Morgan said. "I know him."
"Well his wallet says he's Anton Pavlic, and he lived at 146 West Seventy-fourth Street in
New York. Looks like a phony name."
Sergeant Fred Morgan seemed to consider this information. The officer holding the wallet
looked away while Morgan thought. The sergeant deftly picked up the blue plastic square and
slipped it into his pocket.
"Give it to the paper as Jonson," Morgan said as he walked away. "That's how he's known
around here."
"Okay, Sarge," the officer said, and returned to his work. As he recorded the effects of the
dead Jonson, he never noticed the missing plastic square.
5
Across the room Sergeant Fred Morgan grinned to himself. He was sure no one had seen him
pocket the blue plaque. But Morgan never saw the two piercing eyes that watched him through
the window from under a black slouch hat. He never saw the black-cloaked figure glide away
from the window and across the lawn of the resort police station to a long, black car that waited
hidden on a side street of Sea Gate.
2
"ALL RIGHT, Stanley, back to New York. And quickly." The long, black car pulled smoothly
away from the curb of the side street and was soon out of Sea Gate and driving along the Cape
Ambrose highway. In the dark back seat The Shadow removed his ring, the long black cloak, and
the soft slouch hat. Quickly and deftly the special garments were folded into amazingly small
size and hidden in their secret places within the clothes of the man who now sat in the back seat.
The man transformed was, wealthy socialite businessman Lamont Cranston, the well-known and
successful friend of Police Commissioner Weston of New York.
Cranston, his immobile face and half-closed eyes a marked contrast to The Shadow's piercing
gaze, turned to the woman sitting beside him in the back seat. His hawklike features were
impassive, and his eyes steady and quiet as he looked at the beautiful, dark-haired woman.
"You can give me the details now, Margo," Cranston said quietly.
Margo Lane, private secretary to Lamont Cranston and close friend and operative of The
Shadow, crossed her slim legs and frowned.
"I watched him all week, Lamont, just as you told me to," Margo said. "The waitress disguise
fooled him, I'm sure he did not suspect me. But he knew that the others were watching him. Do
you know who the others are yet, Lamont?"
"No, Margo," Cranston said. "The commissioner meets with the FBI man Altman in the
morning. I will be there. Perhaps one of them will know why the others were watching Pavlic."
"Early this morning," Margo continued, "I saw him sneak into the back room. I followed and
saw him use a secret door in the storeroom. The door led to an exit on Seventy-fifth street. He
obviously used it often to leave the club. I'm sure even his wife, Helga, doesn't know it is there."
"The others didn't see him leave?" Cranston asked.
"Not as far as I know, Lamont," Margo said. "As you know, I followed him to Penn Station
where he caught a train for Beach City. Then I called you. I lost his trail in Sea Gate just before
you arrived this evening. I'm sorry, Lamont."
Cranston nodded and brushed his long fingers through his greying blond hair. A man in the
prime of life, Cranston's every move showed the remarkable muscular control and great physical
strength and agility of The Shadow. He lacked only one power of The Shadow. As Cranston, the
fire was not in the deep, half-closed eyes.
The power of The Shadow's eyes, learned so long ago from the great Chen T'a Tze in the
Orient, required the secret black cloak, the black slouch hat, and the fire opal girasol ring, to
effect men's minds. The secret of the Master was of the mind, but could not be brought into play
without the special garb and the amazing gem handed down to Lamont Cranston by the Master
himself. With Chen T'a Tze dead, The Shadow was the last human to have the power. The
6
Master himself had charged Cranston to use the power wisely, and The Shadow had never
betrayed that trust.
Now, the secret crime fighter, as Lamont Cranston, reached out his hand to comfort Margo.
"It was partly my fault, Margo," Cranston said softly. "When Stanley found where he was
living as Jonson, we could have found him in time if that car had not revealed me in the
highway. I waited too long after it passed. He was dead when I found him."
"Do you think it was an accident?" Margo said.
"Perhaps," Cranston said. "I found no evidence of murder. But it would be quite a
coincidence."
"Possibly someone else-did follow him here," Margo said.
"Yes, or they could have been here waiting. It seems Stanley discovered that Pavlic had been
coming down here for a year under the name of Jonson. And, Margo, that sergeant in the police
station took something from Pavlic's effects and pocketed it. I couldn't see what it was."
"You think Pavlic and the sergeant were involved?"
"It's possible," Cranston said. "Perhaps I will find out more tomorrow. Somebody ran Pavlic
down and killed him. It could have been an accident, but I doubt it."
Cranston sat back then, his hooded eyes deep in thought as the long car drove swiftly through
the night toward New York where The Shadow hoped to learn more about the new evil he was
fighting.
In the private room of New York's exclusive Cobalt Club, Lamont Cranston locked the door and
turned to face his friend Police Commissioner Weston and the FBI agent Paul Altman. The FBI
man was not pleased with Cranston's presence.
"Just what is Mr. Cranston doing in this case, Commissioner?" Altman said bluntly. "You
know I'm working strictly under cover."
"Lamont often works for me on cases like this, not strictly police matters," Weston said.
"After all, it was Lamont who uncovered the whole matter."
"How was that, Mr. Cranston?" Altman said. "You realize there is nothing personal in my
objection. It's just that amateurs can be dangerous."
Lamont Cranston smiled to himself. His guise of an amateur crime fighter was one he had
carefully built up over the years to hide his true identity as The Shadow. He had many other
legitimate personalities that would have surprised Altman a great deal. But he said nothing of
that, and only explained his present involvement.
"Years ago in Budapest I knew Bela Kodaly well," Cranston explained, without adding that it
was as Kent Allard the famous explorer, another alter-ego of his, that he had known Kodaly. "He
was a great surgeon. When I saw in the newspaper that a man named Dr. Pauli had committed
suicide, I recognized the picture printed with the story. It was Bela Kodaly. He had changed his
face, grown a mustache, but I recognized him."
"Then we discovered two other recent suicides of men who turned out to be in disguise,"
Commissioner Weston added.
Altman nodded and looked at a file he had open before him now on the long table in the
private room. Altman picked up two photographs.
"Josef Brodski, under the alias of John Finch; and Nestor Mando, disguised as Nathan
Meyer," Altman said as he looked at the photographs. "Brodski was a Russian aircraft designer
before he vanished four years ago, and Mando was a double murderer. A Hungarian and two
Russians, two of them important men and one a wanted criminal."
7
"All three in the country illegally and in hiding under false names and identities," Weston
said. "Which is why we called the FBI in. Actually, of course, no crime has been committed
except suicide and illegal entry."
Altman sighed, closed his file, and sat back in his chair to look out the high window of the
Cobalt Club. The private room in the club had been chosen by Altman so that he would not be
seen with Weston. His work, to this point, was all secret. It had also been fruitless.
"So far, that's all I have found in total," Altman said. "The fact that the three men were all
brought into the country by Liberation Front, and that they all frequented the Club Zagreb and
knew the owner of the Zagreb, Anton Pavlic, is all that connects them. If they knew each other, it
was only under their false identities at the Club Zagreb."
"Three suicides within a few weeks, by three men from behind the Iron Curtain and in this
country illegally and in disguise is too much coincidence," Weston said. "Especially when each
of them frequented the same bar, the Club Zagreb, and only one of them even drank I"
"Much too much coincidence," Altman said.
The FBI man stood up and began to pace the rich carpet of the private room.
"We all realize the implications," Altman said as he paced. "Here are two men with skills and
minds of great importance to the whole world, but they were lost to us because they were in
hiding. Now they are lost for good. Why? The third man was so dangerous we should have been
able to stop him before he harmed anyone else, but we couldn't because we did not know he was
even in the country. Why? How did they get in, and why were two of them hiding?"
"And why did they kill themselves?" Cranston said. "How many more are there who may kill
themselves before we can find them and save them from whatever is causing their desperation?"
"If only I hadn't let Pavlic give us the slip," Altman said. "He's our only real lead. I watched
that Club Zagreb inside and out for two weeks, but he eluded me yesterday. Pavlic is our only
connection to the three men. We have to find him."
"I'm afraid that won't be possible," Commissioner Weston said. "I got the report just before I
came here. Anton Pavlic was killed by a hit-and-run driver last night at Sea Gate, New Jersey."
Altman stopped pacing. The FBI man seemed stunned. Lamont Cranston also appeared
shocked. Cranston had no intention of revealing how much more he knew of the death of Anton
Pavlic, or that Pavlic had not completely succeeded in eluding The Shadow. His foresight in
placing Margo in the Club Zagreb as a waitress had at least brought him to the scene of the
"accident," even if a little late.
"Hit-and-run?" Altman said.
"According to the report," Weston said. "They seem satisfied in Sea Gate."
"Well I'm not!" Altman snapped. "Our only real link! It's too convenient for someone. I lost
Pavlic, but perhaps the others I saw watching him didn't. That scarfaced man, for example. Have
you traced him?"
"Not yet," Weston said.
"What do we know about Liberation Front?" Cranston said. "They did bring all three men to
this country."
"Under their false identities though, Cranston," Altman said. "Their papers were in perfect
order. Short of going behind the Iron Curtain, their records check back to long before Liberation
Front found them, even their fingerprints. All three had birth records, army records, everything.
All in their false identities. Someone did a thorough job."
"Just what is Liberation Front?" Cranston asked.
8
"I can tell you that, Lamont," Weston said. "I've met their director, Count Istvan Papescu,
many times. He works for many refugee causes. Actually, Liberation Front functions as a sort of
clearing house to help refugees get out of Iron Curtain countries and into this country, or
anywhere else they want to go. The Front gives them financial aid, helps them find work and
homes, and generally smooths their start in a new life."
"They've been operating since just after World War II," Altman said. "As far as we know,
they're legitimate."
"And yet they brought in three men we know of who were hiding under false identities,"
Cranston said.
"We are checking them," Altman said. "But this looks to me more like the work of a big
international ring. I'm afraid the answer is somewhere overseas, before the men ever got into the
hands of Liberation Front."
Cranston ran his long fingers through his light hair, his heavy eyes deep in thought. The
muscles moved fluidly beneath his expansive suit, and for an instant there was a flash of The
Shadow's gaze in his eyes.
"Perhaps you are right about Liberation Front," Cranston said, "but I think the answer is
closer to home. It may be down at Sea Gate. Remember, other people have been watching Pavlic
closely. Someone is worried. Enough, possibly, to have murdered Pavlic."
Altman nodded. "At least two other groups of watchers, I'd say. And all since those suicides.
But wait a minute Commissioner, when did you say Pavlic was killed?"
"Last night about ten o'clock."
"But I was still watching the Club Zagreb this morning," Altman said, "and so were the other
men! The scarfaced man was still there, and so were the two in the raincoats. With Pavlic dead,
why are they still watching the Zagreb?"
"Could it be that they lost Pavlic too?" 'Weston said. "That they have no connection with his
death? Perhaps it was a hit-and-run accident."
"Perhaps, Commissioner," Cranston said, "but' I think not. As Altman observed, it is far too
convenient for someone. Too many people were interested in Pavlic."
"They're probably trying to throw us off by continuing to watch," Altman said. "Hoping we'll
think it means they don't know Pavlic is dead."
Lamont Cranston seemed to be studying something on the ceiling of the private room. His
hawklike features were somber as he leaned back in his chair and looked up. His half-hidden
eyes were heavy with concentration.
"It's very strange, but it almost seems that the killer did not know that Pavlic was under
observation," Cranston said. "The hit-and-run cover-up would make more sense if the killer did
not know that Pavlic was suspected of anything."
"They probably want us to think that, too," Altman said grimly. "We're up against a clever
organization, probably more than one organization, with tentacles that reach even behind the Iron
Curtain-"
"And Pavlic was our only lead," Commissioner Weston
said.
"I think he still is," Lamont Cranston said. "Pavlic was important enough, or dangerous
enough, to someone to be killed. Murder creates a weakness in any organization, it reveals a
chink in their armor they are desperate to hide. If we know who killed Pavlic, and why, we will
know what is behind the three suicides and the false identities."
Altman was pacing the floor again. Now he stopped as Cranston spoke. The FBI man nodded.
9
"Cranston is right," Altman said. "The murder of Pavlic is the key. I'll go down to Sea Gate
immediately. For the moment I prefer to stay under cover. Commissioner, can you put some
pressure on the police at Sea Gate to look a little deeper into the accident-- it might make our
killer nervous."
Weston agreed. "I'll send Detective Joe Cardona down. Sea Gate is officially part of Beach
City even though they have their local police. For major felonies the Beach City detectives have
jurisdiction."
"Cardona can be my contact man," Altman said.
"Isn't that dangerous, Altman?" Cranston said. "A real detective for a contact? Perhaps I
would be a better contact. I would be glad to go down to Sea Gate and help."
Altman considered this, and then nodded approval.
"All right, Cranston," Altman said, "but be careful, we're dealing with killers."
Lamont Cranston smiled to himself at Altman's warning. The Shadow has ways of dealing
with killers. With this logical explanation for Cranston's presence in Sea Gate provided, he
excused himself and left Altman and the Commissioner to work out their police details. At the
moment he was more interested in the Club Zagreb and the men who were still on watch despite
the death of Pavlic.
Outside the private room, Cranston strode to the nearest telephone. He chose a pay telephone
to avoid going through the Cobalt Club switchboard. When he spoke into the telephone his voice
had the grim timbre of The Shadow.
In the blue light of The Shadow's secret headquarters room, Burbank, The Shadow's contact
man, listened to the instructions of his chief.
3
WEST SEVENTY-FOURTH STREET between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues in New York is a
block of mixed pedigree. Newly renovated buildings of small but comfortable apartments stand
next to shabby rooming houses where lone men live a bare existence waiting patiently for death.
Air-conditioners jut from the windows of the better buildings, and there are double locks on
the doors of the good apartments. In the rooming houses the lone men, and the poor and
exploited Puerto Ricans, sit at open windows on an August day to find the air that never enters
their grey rooms. No doors are locked in the rooming houses, there is nothing to steal.
The area is one of many languages and many taverns and clubs. There are dim cocktail
lounges where well-dressed men sit with their highly paid career women. There are grimy
taverns where the lone men stare at their own faces in dirty mirrors. There are expensive bars
where faded women wait alone and smile when a man approaches. And there are the continental
"cafes" and clubs filled with the babble of strange words. One of these is the Club Zagreb, owned
by the dead Anton Pavlic.
The Club Zagreb is on the ground floor of a renovated building. There are apartments above
it, one of which was the home of Anton Pavlic and his wife Helga. The Zagreb backs on an open
areaway, but there is no apparent exit from the Zagreb into the areaway. From the areaway itself
there is an exit to the street through the cellar of a building on Seventy-fifth Street.
10
The Club Zagreb stands between a rooming house where shadowy people hide their faces and
come and go all night, and a building that once housed the headquarters of the 26th Julio
Organization of Fidel Castro. The same set of rooms now houses the opponents of the Cuban
leader who are waiting for their turn. The Cubans do not go into the Club Zagreb where the
patrons are mostly Europeans, refugees from many wars over many years.
This is an area where the people mind their own business. It is simpler that way, and safer.
Each person, each group, is separate and isolated. When a taxicab drove up to the Club Zagreb
and parked a half a block away, no one who passed noticed or glanced at it. The driver of the taxi
sat with his cap down over his eyes as if asleep. The meter of the taxi was running, the top light
out, until a tall, blonde woman came out of the Club Zagreb.
The taxi driver sat alert, flipped off his meter so that the top light went on to show that the
taxi was avail. able, and drove up to the blonde woman. As if distracted, I the blonde woman had
not noticed the taxi had been waiting. All she saw was an available cab. She got in and told the
driver to take her to Pennsylvania Station. The driver nodded, flipped his meter down, and drove
off.
No one who lived in the neighborhood really saw the chain of events set into motion when the
blonde woman entered the taxi.
A tall man, with a long scar on the left side of his face from his mouth to his ear, left the
shadows of a doorway across the street from the Club Zagreb. The scar-faced man ran to the curb
and waved. A long, black car pulled up the curb before the scarfaced man. The man jumped into
the car and drove off after the taxi that carried the blonde woman.
At the same moment, two men who wore raincoats with high collars and hats pulled low over
their faces, despite the heat of the morning, emerged from a building next to the Club Zagreb.
These two men hailed another passing taxi. They spoke rapidly to the driver of the taxi. This
second taxi drove off after the black car and the first taxi.
Before either the second taxi or the large black car bad gone a block, a smaller car pulled
away from the curb on Amsterdam Avenue and joined the pursuit. There were two men in this
car. Both men wore hats despite the heat. One of these men spoke into a telephone in the car.
This smaller black car was unmarked, but almost anyone in this neighborhood could have
guessed it was a New York City police car.
Finally, a pretty waitress came out of the Club Zagreb and stood on the hot sidewalk looking
after all the departed vehicles. Then she walked back into the Club Zagreb and quickly to a
telephone.
In the first taxi, the one that carried the blonde woman and that had set the whole chain in
motion, the driver talked as be drove down Columbus Avenue toward Pennsylvania Station. The
driver was a small, peppery man with dark hair beneath his cabby's cap. He chattered amiably
and volubly. The blonde woman, dressed all in black, did not seem to hear. She stared out the
window, but did not appear to see where she was. She had seen nothing of all the interest
displayed in her ride in the taxi.
The driver had missed nothing. Despite his constant chatter, he had seen the cars and other
taxi behind him from the instant they had begun their pursuit. Now, as he talked on, his eyes
were on his rearvieW mirror. He began to drive faster. Suddenly, he began to make sharp turns,
to double back down streets he had passed. Slowly, the blonde woman became aware of what the
driver was doing. She leaned forward.
"What are you doing, driver!" She said excitedly.
11
The taxi driver said nothing. He watched his rearvieW mirror and continued his fast, evasive
tactics. The woman stared out the window of the taxi.
"I told you Pennsylvania Station. This is not the way!" Still the driver said nothing, until, after
a series of particularly sharp turns and then a long, straight run down Third Avenue, he sat back
and smiled. The taxi now drove steadily down Third Avenue.
"Stop this taxi!" the woman said. "I will have you arrested I"
The driver ignored her. He made a turn into a side street off Third Avenue, and stopped. He
turned to face the woman in black. There was a small, ugly automatic in his hand.
"All right, Mrs. Pavlic, you can get out now," the driver said. "Quick! In the building there."
The woman, her eyes wide as she looked at the automatic in the driver's band, began to protest.
"Quietly," the driver said.
The woman, Helga Pavlic, got out. The driver prodded her ahead of him into the building. Inside
the door she found that she was in a deserted apartment. She began to turn to look at the driver
when a hand was clamped over ber nose. The hand held a thick gauze pad soaked with some
pungent liquid. Helga Pavlic struggled for only a second before she slumped back into the arms
of the taxi driver.
The driver pocketed his automatic, and half dragged, half carried the woman out into the street
and back into his taxi. He drove across the city, and turned up Park Avenue. He drove until he
reached a tall office building on Park Avenue in the fifties. It was an older office building. The
driver walked the woman into the building through the service entrance.
If anyone saw the driver and the woman, they only smiled to see a cab driver helping a
drunken woman.
Helga Pavlic opened her eyes. She was seated in a deep, soft chair. She blinked and touched
her head as if she expected to feel pain. She felt nothing at all. She was fully conscious in an
instant, clear-headed, without any apparent ill effects from the drug at all. The room in which she
sat was lighted with a dim blue light that seemed to come from nowhere. Helga blinked again.
Then she began to stand up, her mouth open to scream.
"Do not be afraid, Helga!"
The voice was in the room but Helga Pavlic could see no one. Her eyes searched the blue
gloom but there were only deep black shadows in the dim blue room. But the strange voice was
somehow soothing. Helga sat back in the soft chair. The unseen voice chuckled lightly.
"That is much better. How do you feel?"
"You drugged me!" Helga remembered. "That cab driver!"
"One of my helpers, Helga. I have many helpers," the eerie voice said. "The drug will have no
ill effects. It is a special substance I found in Africa, completely harmless."
"Who are you! What do you want?" Helga Pavlic said, her face turned in the dim blue room
toward where she thought the voice came from. "Why did you stop me? I have to catch a train,
my husband. ."
The mysterious voice stopped her. There was movement in the room, a stirring of the
shadows. A giant figure seemed to loom up before Helga Pavlic.
"I am The Shadow, Helga," the powerful voice said. "I am a friend or an enemy depending on
you."
摘要：

THESHADOWSTRIKESbyMaxwellGrantABELMONTBOOK--October1964.1THATNIGHT,thebeachwearsalesmanonhiswayfromNewYorktoBeachCitypassedtwostrangefiguresontheCapeAmbroseHighway.ThesalesmanwasdrivingabluesedanandhepassedthetwolurkingfiguresjustthissideofSeaGate.Butthesalesmansawonlyoneofthem.Later,whenhestoppedfo...

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