Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 147 - Rock Sinister

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ROCK SINISTER
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2003 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I
? Chapter II
? Chapter III
? Chapter IV
? Chapter V
? Chapter VI
? Chapter VII
? Chapter VIII
? Chapter IX
? Chapter X
? Chapter XI
? Chapter XII
? Chapter XIII
? Chapter XIV
Scanned and Proofed
by Tom Stephens
Chapter I
HER name was Abril Trujilla, and she hoped she acted, looked and sounded natural as she called, “Yoo
hoo! Kathy, darling, will you neglect that handsome pilot for a moment? I want to talk to you.”
“Only for a moment, dear,” said Kathy Doyle. “Are you getting air-sick, angel, I hope?”
Both girls were red-headed. And they were too pretty to be friends. Their dears, honeys and darlings
weren't really nasty—just a slight I-hope-you-fall-on-your-pretty-face note.
“I want to whisper. Do you mind?” Abril beckoned.
Abril Trujilla actually looked like an Irish colleen. Her grandfather had been named Patrick Kelly, and he
had gone to South America, to a republic we'll call Blanca Grande—Blanca Grande isn't its name, but it
must be called that—when he was a strap of a lad. He made fifty million or so pesos in the cattle business
and married a señorita. His daughter, who became Abril's mother, married Juan Trujilla, son of Blanca
Grande's other cow baron. A desirable merger. So Abril was a quarter Irish by blood, ninety-nine per
cent Irish in looks.
Kathy Doyle took the plane seat beside Abril. Kathy's name was Irish, but she wasn't. The Doyle in
Kathy's family tree had been a miser of a penny-grabbing Scotchman who had once nearly succeeded in
getting hold of all the money in Blanca Grande. “What is it, sweet?” Kathy asked.
Abril leaned forward. Her whisper was considerably less hair-raising in tone than her words. She said, “I
have located the man who is going to kill us.”
Kathy became rigid. The fear began, almost visibly, in her brain and crawled outward. “Oh, God,” she
said.
The plane was booming over the Caribbean at six thousand feet. Northbound. It was one of Pan
America's new ones, very comfortable, very large. There was a Captain, a Mate, a Stewardess, Engineer
and Radioman. And by now the Captain was very much Kathy's puppy. Kathy had been showing her
teeth to him, and the delighted Captain had made the Mate slide out of the co-pilot's seat so Kathy could
sit there and learn how it felt to fly thirty-five thousand roaring pounds of passenger seaplane.
Incidentally, the Captain was supposed to pay no attention whatever to any eye-shining by lady
passengers.
The two girls looked at each other, while terror crawled around on their nerves.
“Where is he?” Kathy asked. Her nerves had suddenly become so knotted that she had to clear her
throat to speak.
“He—” Abril paled. “Oh! The aisle! Coming this way!”
THE man was little. He had a cocky walk. The cockiness of a weasel just out of a hen coop, proud of
having cut the throats of all the hens. He was barely five feet tall.
He smiled at the two girls as he walked past. Impersonally. The smile was startling because of the size of
his teeth. His face turned to teeth.
“Ugh!” Abril gasped, when he had gone past.
“The better to eat us with, grandma,” Kathy said, pale and shaky.
Abril nodded. “Yes, his teeth. They gave him away. They're why I kept noticing him. He's following us.”
“Oh, gosh! Are you sure?”
“Certain enough to be awfully upset. Kathy, I saw him talking to another man who had been on the plane
that brought us to Rio. I began to realize then he was on our trail.”
Kathy shivered. “So they swapped bloodhounds in Rio,” she said. “They're liable to do it again.”
Abril nodded grimly. “They've got us spotted, and they have had, all along.”
Kathy said brightly, “Well, we'll give them the slip when we get to the United States.”
Abril shook her head. “I'm afraid, Doyle. I'm afraid they'll have a reception committee ready for us. I
think that's why we were delayed in Rio.”
The terror blazed up in Kathy's eyes for a moment. She was remembering what had happened in Rio.
The Rio incident had seemed innocent enough. A mixup at the airlines office, with their reservations
cancelled. The airline people had been very sorry, so very sorry, and they had done the best they could
with seats on a plane leaving the following day.
The airline people had assumed the blame for the trouble. Kathy wished now that they hadn't, because
they were just being polite—the-customer-is-never-wrong stuff—in order not to offend a personage as
important as Kathy was. Or rather, two personages as important as Kathy and Abril were.
The two girls looked at each other. They didn't like each other, but at this moment they came near to
being friends. Their common terror formed a strong elastic between them.
The little man passed. He was going back to his seat.
He flashed them his big teeth again.
It is the custom in most South American countries for the gentlemen to show appreciation of the ladies in
some noticeable fashion. Hence a big grin, a whistle, or an appropriate remark, is considered de rigeur.
Something that would get a guy's face slapped on the corner of Tenth and Main Streets in Kansas City is
considered a justified tribute to the lady's beauty. This was the case in Blanca Grande, at any rate.
The small man obviously expected them to think that was all he was doing. He could hardly pass without
acknowledging the beauty of the two red-headed señoritas. Therefore the big smile. He was merely being
inconspicuous.
Kathy felt as if he had showed her a skeleton, instead of big yellow-white teeth.
The small man went on to his seat.
“What'll we do?” Kathy gasped. “Sic Square on to him?”
“It's a pleasant thought,” Abril said. “But I don't think it would be diplomatic.”
Square was a skull-cracking gentleman who was supposed to be their bodyguard.
“I think,” Kathy said, “that we should warn him about the little man, at least.”
BLANCA GRANDE had been the center of Inca civilization a thousand years before the day of the first
Conquistador. On her mountain peaks were ponderous Inca ruins constructed of blocks of stone. The
stone blocks were extraordinarily huge and of a type of rock not to be found anywhere else in Blanca
Grande. There was a legend to the effect that the Incas had developed an extraordinary race of bull-like
men for the job of packing these stone blocks the thousand or so miles which they must have been
transported.
There was another report that Square Jones was the direct descendant of these bull-men.
Square maintained otherwise. He insisted he had been born in Paducah, Kentucky, home of good
bourbon and Irvin S. Cobb, and to have attended—and graduated from—Kentucky State University.
He claimed he could produce his college diploma. He also insisted he was in South America because he
was a gold mining engineer, and in Blanca Grande because there was less gold being mined, but with
better prospects, in Blanca Grande than anywhere else.
He had never quite got around to mining gold, though. He was too good a man with his fists and muscles.
The truth was that he had arrived in Blanca Grande as a wrestler.
Square had not been a very good wrestler. He had reached the status referred to, in carnival slang, as a
musclehead.
In Blanca Grande, he had simply transferred his wrestling talents. Instead of squeezing heads in the ring,
he squeezed them out of it.
He was a blue-eyed, black-haired young man. He looked as fierce as a bullfight bull hot on the heels of
the toreador. He was big enough to scare a tank.
He was employed by Francisco Doyle, Blanca Grande's most affluent financier. Square was Francisco
Doyle's official poker-in-the-noser.
Square listened quietly to Kathy Doyle's story about the small man, then said, “I'm a son of a gun!”
He started to get up.
“Where are you going?” Kathy asked Square.
“Fix him,” said Square.
“Oh, no, no,” Kathy said hastily. “Sit down!”
“But—”
“You,” said Kathy, “will get us tangled up in a murder, and that will mean complications. We can't have
that. This is a very important affair. We can't have any monkey wrenches falling in the works.”
“Fix him gently,” said Square hopefully.
“How do you mean, gently?”
“Fall on him,” said Square. He illustrated how he intended to stumble. “Fall on little guy. Mash him.”
“Don't be silly,” said Kathy. “You wouldn't mash him that easily.”
Square looked at her placidly. “I would if I happened to get my hands on him when I fell. I would break
his back. It would be a very simple accident.”
Kathy shuddered. “Stop such talk!”
She wasn't quite sure whether Square meant what he was saying or not. There were some remarkable
stories about Square to be picked up around Mercado, the capital city of Blanca Grande. Kathy hoped
they weren't true.
“It would be the most simple kind of an accident,” said Square hopefully.
“No.”
“I would be a complete stranger to you and this Abril babe. I would tell the police that,” Square said.
“They would be likely to believe that, since we bought your ticket,” Kathy said. “No, stop such talk.”
“What am I to do, then?” Square asked resignedly.
“Keep your eyes open.”
“Okay.”
Kathy went back to her seat.
Abril Trujilla was waiting at the seat, and she was excited. “I have an idea, dear,” she said.
“What is it, honey?” Kathy asked.
TALKING to Square had cheered Kathy somewhat. Anyway it had lifted her spirits to the point where
she was being catty to Abril again.
Getting an idea had evidently revived Abril, too, because she smiled sweetly and said, “It's a beautiful
idea. You'll love it.”
“I will?”
“Yes. You can make use of your man-eating talents.”
Kathy frowned. “Look here, sister. If you're planning for me and the little man—”
“Now, why didn't I think of that!” Abril said sweetly. “No, darling, it's the pilot.”
“The pilot?”
“The big hunk of man you've been rolling your eyes at and dragging your fingers over. The one who's
flying this airplane.”
“What about him?”
“How much,” asked Abril, “could you do with him?”
“Plenty,” said Kathy.
“I hope your confidence isn't misplaced, sugar,” Abril said. “Because how does this sound? The pilot
makes an unscheduled landing at some point. He lets one of us leave the plane there. The other one of us
flies on with Square. In other words, one of us gives the slip to this little man, and any of his friends who
may be waiting at Miami, Havana or any other point.”
Kathy bit her lower lip. She was thinking it over.
Abril said, “It's really very simple. They won't have people waiting for us where the plane isn't expected
to land. So all you have to do is have the pilot set one of us loose before we get to Miami.”
“The pilot,” said Kathy, “wouldn't do it.”
“Darling, where's you maidenly magnetism? Of course he'll do it. He has to. Go up there and wave your
eyelashes at him.”
Kathy swallowed her doubts.
“I'll try,” she agreed.
She was right. The pilot was stunned at the idea. “My God, there's regulations against that,” he told her.
“National and international regulations, to say nothing of company regulations.”
Kathy got down to business with him.
“DARLING, it's over,” Kathy reported to Abril. “We land at Key West. It's not a scheduled stop. You
get off there. I continue with Square.”
“I get off?”
“Yes, you. How far do you think I'd have gotten persuading him to stop to let me off, my dear?” Kathy
said sweetly.
Abril put a hand on her arm. “You really do all right, don't you? In your barracudaish way.”
The girls sat there for a while. They became sober. The grimness of the thing in which they were involved
took hold of their nerves. The terrible mystery that had surrounded them, and it was a mystery and it was
terrible, depressed them.
“Kathy,” Abril said, “I wish you luck. And I mean it.”
“Sure, Abril. Thanks and the same to you.”
“There's probably no danger,” Abril said hopefully.
“Don't kid yourself,” Kathy told her.
“You've got the dangerous part, I'm afraid.”
“I have Square to help me. Square is a one-man army.”
“Yes, he is.”
“Don't let anything happen to you, Abril. Charter a plane as soon as you get off in Key West. Head for
New York, but take an out-of-the-way course. So they can't catch you.”
Abril nodded. “Don't sound so worried, Kathy. We'll make it to New York.”
“All right,” Kathy told her. “Of course we will. I'll see you in Doc Savage's office in New York, then.”
“Doc Savages office. Right.” They shook hands gravely.
Chapter II
THE big plane landed in Key West harbor, and Abril Trujilla went ashore. She stood on the concrete
seawall and waved as the ship taxied away.
Kathy Doyle managed to watch the small man during most of the time the other girl was going ashore. He
didn't look particularly happy. But he did give Kathy another of his smiles as the plane took the air.
The smile made Kathy shiver. She went back and sat on the arm of Square's seat. “That's that,” she said.
“We've thrown our curve. I hope they don't catch it.”
Square smiled amiably. “How'd our little man take it?”
“He seemed slightly unhappy. But he gave me that smile again.”
“You want me to bust him one for mashing?” Square asked hopefully.
“Never mind.”
Square sighed. “You better let me fall on him,” he said. “I could tell people it was an accident.”
Kathy shook her head. “We're practically in the United States now. They don't like that kind of accident
up here.”
Square glanced up at her. “You know something?”
“Eh?”
“We been having accidents in Blanca Grande, ain't we?” he said.
There was double meaning in his words, but he meant exactly what he said. There had been an epidemic
of that kind of accident in Blanca Grande over a period of about a year.
Kathy moistened her lips uneasily. “So you've noticed it, too.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Square.”
“Yeah?”
“What do you know about those 'accidents,' as you call them?” Kathy demanded.
Square bristled. “Listen, don't you accuse me—”
“Oh, Square!” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Don't be silly. I know you haven't had a hand in such
things.” Square's shoulder felt like a box of pig iron. “What I meant is, what do you hear about the
accidents?”
“I'm glad you made it clear what you meant,” Square said dryly. He was thoughtful for a moment. “You
want to know what I've heard about the things you mention, eh? Well, I'll tell you this: I've heard it ain't
safe to hear too much.”
“Ever hear any names mentioned?”
Square glanced at her sharply. “Honey, ain't you been told the facts of life?”
“Meaning just what fact?”
Square hesitated. “The name of the fact,” he said, “is Lanza.”
“Señor Andros Lanza?”
“The word Señor,” said Square with a snort, “is Spanish for gentleman or equivalent. You insult the
word.”
“Andros Lanza, then?”
Square nodded. “That's right. And don't ask me anything more, because I don't know it.”
Square closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep. He'd said all he was going to say.
AT Miami, their little man left them. When they were going through customs, Square deliberately
sauntered over to eavesdrop on the little mans story.
“Says he's a rubber manufacturer,” Square told Kathy. “Bet he never saw a rubber tree.”
The little man strutted off to a taxicab when he was through the customs grind. But not before he had
flashed Kathy his startling toothy smile as a parting gift.
“That means,” said Kathy, “that new bloodhounds are on our trail.”
“You're probably right,” Square agreed, placidly munching a candy bar.
“Darn you!” Kathy said. “Aren't you worried?”
“Scared pink,” Square confessed. “Let's do things about this.”
“For instance?”
“Dodging,” Square said.
They dodged until they were dizzy. They rode in taxicabs, street cars, busses. They walked and they ran,
and they didn't do any of it in a straight line. They topped it off with a speedboat ride across the harbor to
Miami Beach, where they had the good luck to charter a rattletrap of a seaplane to take them as far as
Tallahassee, where they could charter a better ship.
“Maybe,” Kathy said, “the little man isn't going to be the one who kills us.”
“I wish you'd quit talking like that!” said Square uncomfortably.
“Why not? You know they're going to kill us, don't you?”
Square snorted. “Over my dead body, they're going to kill us!” he said.
“Anyway,” said Kathy, “I don't think we're followed right at the moment. So we've postponed it for a
while.”
At Tallahassee, they made a deal for a four-place cabin job which was nearly as fast as an airliner. They
headed for New York in that.
Air travel, after the novelty wears off, is the most monotonous travel there is. It was certainly no novelty
for Kathy, so she had time on her hands. Time to think.
She did her thinking mostly about Señor Andros Lanza. She knew Andy quite well. She had spent a
good deal of time sitting on his knee, permitting him to chuck her under the chin. At the time, she had
been between the ages of six months and one year.
She knew Andy Lanza quite well indeed. He was an old family friend. He had known her father, Kathy
supposed, most of his life. Andy was the current president of Blanca Grande.
Kathy frowned. Señor Andros Lanza, president, was not the Andy Lanza of old. He had changed. He
had changed from wearing tweed suits to wearing uniforms. Zippy uniforms, too. Andy used to raise
orchids, and liked to walk around looking at them. Today he liked to stand in a reviewing box and look
at his troops parading past.
Maybe that was all right. Kathy was one of those who hoped it was. The world was full of war, and the
war spirit was as catching as the measles. Maybe Andy's martial interests were all right. A lot of people
hoped so.
“Square,” Kathy said.
“Yes'm, angel?”
“Just what have you heard about Andy Lanza?” Kathy asked.
Square evidently had been thinking things over. He closed his eyes firmly.
“You forget what I said,” he ordered flatly.
WHEN the skyscrapers of Manhattan Island jumped up like a fantastic forest on the horizon, Kathy
punched Square in the ribs. It was like punching a box car. “Square, I've got another idea.”
“Good sign. Let's hear it.”
“They may know,” Kathy said, “that we're going to see a man named Doc Savage.”
Square looked alarmed.
“That,” he said, “is supposed to be a secret.”
“Secrets have the loudest voices, sometimes,” Kathy said.
“Sister, you spoke it.”
“My idea,” said Kathy, “is that a panther will go looking for its own kitten.”
“Been known to happen.”
Kathy asked Square, “Just how much do you know about this Doc Savage character?”
Square contemplated the impressive airline view of Manhattan, rapidly drawing closer. “Just chaff-chaff.
Just talk,” he said.
“What kind of talk?”
“Big, wild and woolly talk,” Square said. “The kind of stuff you don't believe because it's too
far-fetched.”
“In this case, maybe you should have believed it,” Kathy said.
Square eyed her sharply. He was skeptical. “You joshing?”
“He's a scientist. He's a mental marvel. He's a physical Samson. He's a Galahad. He helps people out of
trouble, if the trouble is interesting.”
“That,” said Square, “sounds like the stuff I've heard about this Doc Savage.”
“Exactly.”
Square sighed doubtfully. “We'll see. We'll see. What was this talk about panther cubs?”
“Doc Savage has five assistants. Five specialists who help him. We will go to one of them first, instead of
approaching Doc Savage directly.” Kathy was pleased with her idea.
“Why go in the back door when the front door's closer?” asked Square.
Kathy shivered. “The front door may have a bulldog watching it.”
“Bulldogs,” said Square, “are nice people. Don't go insulting bulldogs. Skunk is a better word.”
Kathy glanced at him sharply. “Would you still say the animal looks like Andy Lanza?”
“There ain't a thing happened to change my mind,” Square assured her grimly.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL ANDREW BLODGETT MAYFAIR was a short man with extremely wide
shoulders and long arms and face made for scaring babies. His arms were nearly long enough to enable
him to scratch his ankles without stooping, and all the exposed parts of him were covered with a furry
growth resembling rusty shingle nails. He had a wide mouth, small twinkling eyes and not more than an
inch of forehead. He was one of the world's eminent chemists.
Mayfair was likely to do anything, provided it was unexpected and struck him as interesting at the time.
Kathy Doyle liked him immediately.
This was mutual.
“Let's get off on the right foot,” Mayfair told her. “You call me Monk, so I'll know who you're talking to.
I never get called anything but that. And when I get to making passes, and get too troublesome, just
gently insert a thumb in my left eye and twist. The left one, remember.”
Kathy laughed. “You don't look like one of the world's great industrial chemists.”
“That was all an accident, I think,” Monk said.
“This is my friend, Square,” Kathy introduced.
Square didn't think too much of Monk.
This was mutual.
The two gentlemen shook hands. They were about the same height, but Square was fifty pounds or more
heavier, and Monk was considerably more homely. They proceeded to try to crush the bones in each
other's hands. Having failed in this, they separated and each put his hand in his pocket, wondering how
many bones were broken.
“We're from Blanca Grande,” Kathy told Monk Mayfair.
“I know where it is,” said Monk.
“Some people don't,” Kathy smiled. “How do you like to talk? Do you like to start right in with the meat
course?”
“As long,” Monk said, “as you don't skip the dessert course.”
“I hope you can find a dessert course in this affair,” Kathy told him. “I haven't.”
“You will do until one comes along,” Monk said gallantly. “What do you want to talk to me about?”
摘要：

ROCKSINISTERADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2003BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI?ChapterII?ChapterIII?ChapterIV?ChapterV?ChapterVI?ChapterVII?ChapterVIII?ChapterIX?ChapterX?ChapterXI?ChapterXII?ChapterXIII?ChapterXIVScannedandProofedbyTomStephensChapterIHERnamew...

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