The Red Skull

VI — Monk In Trouble

Lea Aster was an athletic young woman. The roof outside the penthouse held a screened-in tennis court. Few days passed that she and Monk did not play a few hard-fought sets of the game.

She was inflicting punishment on Buttons Zortell. She hit him on the Adam’s apple — a blow Monk had shown her with the assurance that it was one of the most painful that can be landed.

Buttons squawked in agony!

“Gimme a hand!” he bawled at his hirelings. “This heifer is gonna ruin me!”

The others rushed to his aid.

They were half-across the laboratory when the tornado hit them.

The ‘tornado’ was Monk — 260 pounds of him! He had arrived at the opportune moment.

His arms — hairy and corded and inches longer than his legs — gathered 2 men in a fond, terrible hug. He squeezed!

Both victims blared out screams of PAIN! Their agony could not have been greater had they been pinned under a locomotive!

Another man swept up a chair and swung it down atop Monk’s head.

But Monk’s bullet-of-a-skull seemed to disappear — turtle-wise — in his sloping, mountainous shoulders as he ducked. The chair shattered, fragments flying over the laboratory.

“Ye-e-o-w!” howled Monk, more from rage than pain.

He spun and hooked a foot expertly, causing the chair wielder to crash to the floor.

Monk slammed the pair in his arms atop the fellow who had fallen. All three lay in a feebly squirming pile, too stunned to care what else happened. Then Monk rushed Buttons Zortell.

Buttons saw his danger. He released Lea Aster and pawed for his six-guns. Seeing he could never get them in time, he dived for the door.

He did not make it. Monk’s furry hands snatched him up as though he were a fleeing rooster.

Buttons rained blows with his fists, kicked, and bit savagely. But he was helpless against the prodigious strength of the gorilla of a man who held him.

Monk hugged him and began putting on pressure.

“Don’t kill me!” Buttons screamed in mortal terror. “Please…”

There was no air in his chest for him to say more. His face purpled.

Aware 2 more men remained on their feet in the room. Monk whirled, never releasing the ghastly pressure on Buttons.

He stopped suddenly. A ‘blank’ look overspread his homely face.

“That’s right!” snarled a man. “Drop Buttons or we’ll let the mohairrie here have a dose of lead!”

The pair had cornered Lea Aster. One was holding a gun to her head!

Monk hesitated,on the horns of a bitter dilemma.

“Quick!” roared one of the two who held the girl.

Monk could read purpose on a human face. He saw they intended to shoot his secretary if he resisted. The features of both men were twisted with the will to slay.

Monk dropped Buttons Zortell and put up his hands.

The men closed in on him with a rush, their elated cries like the barking of mongrels.

The instant she was released, Lea Aster sprang upon Buttons Zortell! The force of her charge knocked the man to the floor. They scuffled violently until they were separated.

“Whew!” mumbled Buttons, eyeing her wryly. “I never before seen a female critter as violent as you are.”

Lea Aster kicked the man holding her! He gasped… then flung her into a corner.

Watching his secretary, Monk distinctly saw her shove something into hiding behind an apparatus cabinet.

Buttons booted the three who still lay on the floor. They weaved to their feet, still hardly able to navigate.

A man jabbed Monk with a single-action six. “What’re we gonna do with ‘big hairy’ here?”

“I’d like to poison ‘im with lead!” Buttons snarled. “But he ain’t no account to us as a corpse. We gotta take ‘im along.”

“I wish we’d picked a different one of Doc Savage’s gang!” groaned a man. “If you ask me, I think we tackled the wild steer of the lot!”

“Get goin’!” snapped Buttons.

“What about the mohairrie?”

For answer, Buttons suddenly rushed Lea Aster! He fought with the blonde young woman an instant… then succeeded in knocking her unconscious with a fist blow.

“That’ll hold her,” he grated. “And it pays her back for the whammin’ she handed me!”

Monk surged forward angrily as the blonde dropped. But 4 gun snouts gouging into his massive chest caused him to change his mind. Getting himself shot would not help his secretary.

“Drift!” Buttons ordered.

Meekly, Monk permitted himself to be led out of the building. His captors had their car parked near by. He was forced to enter and occupy the center of the rear seat.

The car rolled slowly through traffic. At this early hour, few vehicles other than delivery trucks were on the streets.

“Mind telling me what I’m headed for?” Monk asked. His voice was so peacefully mild that it seemed comical coming from one of his hairy bulk.

“Shut up or I’ll feed you this hogleg!” snarled one of the men, jamming a big six-gun into Monk’s face with a hasty motion.

Buttons Zortell bestowed a knowing on a fellow beside him, then turned to face Monk.

“It won’t hurt you to know what you’re in for,” he smirked. “We’re gonna use you to keep Doc Savage from mixin’ in our business. To put it plainer: if Savage don’t behave himself, we’re gonna scrag you!”

“How lovely,” Monk said with deceptive gentleness.

Buttons and drew back a little, remembering the terrible clutch of Monk’s furry paws. He could see Monk was not scared in the least. Which was not to his liking.

“This ain’t somethin’ to act sassy about!” he told Monk fiercely. “A gent named ‘Ben Johnson’ has a Radium mine up in the Hudson Bay country. And we’re after it! Johnson sent to Doc Savage for help. We’re dead serious about this! If Savage interferes, we’re gonna croak you. We’re gonna notify Savage of that right away!”

Monk listened to this with much interest. It was the first he had heard of a Radium mine. He considered it stupid of his captors to tell him about it in this voluntary fashion.

“Where’s it located?” he asked. “The Radium mine, I mean.”

Buttons and his helpers exchanged knowing looks.

“We ain’t sayin’, hombre.”

Monk settled back, his bulk crowding the men on either side of him. He marked the fact that the men were Westerners but did not mention it to them.

Monk’s eyes were small, twinkling stars in their pits of gristle. His bullet-of-a-head did not seem to hold room for more than a spoonful of brains.

But his appearance was deceptive. Monk had performed miracles in the field of chemical research during his career. Moreover, his wits were far from sluggish.

This was not the first time that Monk had been in a tight spot. Doc Savage and his men walked often in the shadow of deadly peril. Past experience had taught Monk it was a good thing to always have a trick up his sleeve.

Apparently greatly worried, Monk began to bite his fingernails. When he had given the fingers of one hand a thorough nibbling, he changed to the other. This nibbling continued several seconds.

In the meantime, Buttons Zortell had suddenly started feeling through his pockets. His face showed alarm. His fingers flew desperately in-and-out of his clothing.

“Them papers!” he gulped. “They’re gone!”

“What papers?” a man asked him.

“The ones that were in… “

Buttons bit off the rest. He had just made the disquieting discovery that he no longer possessed the documents taken from Bandy Stevens’s money-belt. But he did not want his prisoner to know.

Monk noted the byplay. He smiled in a small, secret way.

He remembered how his pretty secretary had made a gesture of hiding something in the laboratory.

He now felt certain Lea Aster had slipped the missing documents from Buttons’s pockets. She was a clever girl!

For several seconds, Monk kneaded his fingers together. Then — as though tired — he slouched over against the man riding on his left. Monk’s eyes were tightly closed.

He repeated the slumping procedure with the guards on his right, his eyes still pinched shut.

Both guards suddenly yelled, dropped their guns, and pawed at their eyes!

Without opening his own lids, Monk took a flying leap out of the slow-moving car! He hit the pavement running!

Opening his eyes, he dived for the handiest shelter — an alleyway. He popped into it before the first shot thundered behind him.

His captors had been taken completely by surprise!

Monk snorted gleefully as he ran.

Under his fingernails, he had carried caked deposits of several chemicals. He wore his nails long for that sole purpose. Dampened and mixed, the compounds gave off a potent form of tear gas.

“Doc himself couldn’t have done it any better!” Monk chortled as he increased his speed.

As a matter of truth, it was from Doc that Monk had copied the tear-gas trick!

Glancing upward, Monk discovered a fire-escape landing. He leaped, caught it, and hauled himself up. With an elbow, he pushed the glass out of the first window he came to. Bullets jangled noisily on the fire escape and gun sound cascaded deafeningly in the alleyway. Monk lunged through the window, escaping the deadly hail.

He found himself in a bedroom. A man came out of a bath adjoining, his face half-lathered and a heavy shaving mug in one hand. He threw the mug at the invader.

Monk ducked it easily. He made for a door. It was unlocked and let him out into a hallway that reeked cooking odors. He descended a flight of stairs, taking his time.

More shooting broke out before he reached the street. Once outside, he discovered a cop had come upon the scene. Buttons Zortell and his henchmen had fled after swapping a few bullets with the policeman. No one had been hit.

Monk lost several minutes in soothing the irate apartment dweller whose window he had smashed. He paid for the window as well as for the shaving mug which had been broken when the man threw it at him.

Hailing a taxi, he rode back to his office. He was paying the driver when Doc Savage hurried out of the building,accompanied by his 4 aides. They had just been up to the penthouse and they were uneasy.

“You guys can wipe the worry off your pans,” Monk grinned at them. “Everything is all right.”

“Everything?” Renny demanded. “Is…”

“Sure. It’s all hunky-dory. And say! I found out what was behind it. A fella named ‘Ben Johnson’ has a Radium mine up North. He wants your help, Doc. And these guys are tryin’ to keep him from gettin’ it.”

Ham laughed nastily.

“So you were dumb enough to fall for that sap story?”

Monk gave the dapper little sword-cane-carrying lawyer a look of injured innocence.

“Aw… go steal a pig!” he grunted.

Ham purpled. His fists clenched. He seemed about ready to explode inwardly!

Monk had only to mention pigs, hogs, or anything connected with pork to get Ham’s goat. This state of affairs harkened back to the World War. As a practical joke, Ham had taught Monk several very insulting French words, telling him they were the proper words to curry the favor of a French general. Monk had tried it… and landed in the guardhouse.

He had only been out a few days when Ham — then known only as Brigadier General Brooks — had been hailed up before a court-martial on a charge of stealing hams. From that day, he was called ‘Ham’. He had never been able to prove Monk had framed him. And that irked his lawyer soul!

Ham shook his sword cane at Monk.

“One of these days, I’m gonna give you a close shave with this sword. A shave right down to your bones!”

Monk snorted and gave his attention to Doc.

“Do you think they fed me a phony story, Doc?”

“They probably did,” Doc told him. “For some reason, they seem to want us to dash off for the Hudson Bay country on a wild-goose chase.”

“Then why’d they kidnap me?”

“Merely to make their story look better. They wished to impress me with their opposition to my going North, hoping that would only make my determination the firmer. They are very clever.”

“Yeah. I should’ve known they were acting too stupid when they told me about the Radium mine. I reckon they intended to hold me a few hours, then let me escape. They gimme the mine story so I’d carry it to you.”

“They’re taking great pains to get us out of the city,” Renny put in. “Why is that?”

“You’re wasting time asking Monk that,” clipped Ham, still smarting from the pig reference. “The ‘Missing Link’ wouldn’t know!”

Monk grinned from ear-to-ear.

“You don’t say! You little shyster, I’ll bet I can cast a lot of light on the mystery!”

“How?”

“The leader of the gang — ‘Buttons’, his pals called him — was carryin’ some kind of papers. My secretary snitched ‘em!”

“So what?”

“So what d’you think? My secretary has got ‘em upstairs.”

A hot, startled light came into Doc’s golden eyes! His men swapped ‘blank’ looks.

“We misunderstood you, Monk,” Doc said steadily. “When you said everything was ‘all right’, we took it to mean both you and your secretary were safe.”

Monk seemed about to choke.

“What d’you mean?”

“Lea Aster is not in your laboratory!”