“What about the mohairrie?”
“The girl? Tie a rock to her neck and throw her in the river!”
Buttons swallowed. Callous as he was, this talk of outright murder of a woman shocked him.
“You say I ain’t needed in New York any more?” he questioned nervously. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve taken care of everything from this end!” snapped the distant man masquerading under the name of ‘Nick Clipton’. “The rest of the boys have been workin’ under my orders. The thing for you to do is get back here and forget Doc Savage!”
“The trouble is he ain’t gonna forget us!” Buttons muttered.
“You think he suspects the Western angle?”
“I ain’t sure. It wouldn’t surprise me none.”
The long phone circuit rattled the distant man’s profane exclamation!
“Then maybe we’d better put Savage and his gang out of the way.”
“That won’t be easy to do.”
“Dry up. Let me think for a minute.”
Buttons could hear his own watch <ticking> noisily in the silence which followed. In the street below, cars honked. The morning Sun had already made the hotel room warm, stuffy.
“Have you still got the various devices I gave you?” asked the man in Arizona.
“All but the poison fangs for the dog and the poison that’ll kill you if you touch it. I used them two on Bandy Stevens. They were Numbers ‘1’ and ‘2’ on the list.”
“Have you got No. 3?”
“Sure.”
“Find a suitable place and use it. You can figure out the details, can’t you?”
“Yeah,” Buttons replied uneasily.
“All right. That will dispose of Doc Savage. It can’t fail.”
“Um-m!” said Buttons doubtfully. “And you want me to scrag the mohairrie, huh?”
“Exactly.”
“Listen, Boss. Supposin’ we just hold her until Doc Savage is out of the way? If somethin’ should go wrong and we didn’t get rid of ‘im, we might keep ‘im off our necks by threatenin’ to croak her.”
The distant man considered this at length.
“Do it that way then,” he agreed finally. “Keep her alive. And let’s end this talk. It has probably cost me 50 bucks already! Are you sure you can lead Doc Savage into a trap?”
“Plump positive I can!” Buttons declared. “I already got a swell scheme in mind.”
“Good. If it works, get rid of the girl and come on back to Arizona. If it don’t work, come on back anyhow but fetch the girl alive. When you get here, hole up in the Red Skull hangout.”
“Shall we come by plane?”
“Of course.”
“But Whitey’s sky chariot was burned…”
“Buy another. Steal a plane if you have to.”
“Whitey don’t know the location of the Red Skull joint.”
“You sap! You can tell ‘im where it is, can’t you? And we’ve done enough lallygaggin’! So long!”
This terminated the conversation.
Striding to an assortment of baggage at one side of the hotel room, Buttons selected a huge Gladstone. He carried this piece of luggage with him as he left the hostelry.
His men greeted him with anxious queries. “What’s the Boss say, Buttons?”
“Don’t ask so blasted many questions!” he snarled peevishly. “I’ll tell you when the time comes. We got a job ahead of us that’s gonna take some expert handlin’!”
Buttons wanted peace in which to mull over his evil plan. It would take careful preparation and execution. But the scheme was diabolical in its cleverness. Buttons began to experience a glow of satisfaction. The more he thought about it, the less possibility could he see of the plot failing.
Doc Savage and his 5 men were finally to be disposed of, Buttons felt positive.
The thought made him smirk with satisfaction.
VIII — Death Decoy
Buttons Zortell would have experienced doubts had he been sitting in on what was transpiring in Monk’s penthouse laboratory. Buttons’ long-distance telephone call to Arizona was not the only one.
Doc Savage was in touch with the editor of the leading Phoenix newspaper.
He was seeking to learn something of the individual whose name Bandy Stevens had cried out in his death throes — Nate Raff.
“Nate Raff!” repeated the editor after Doc had put his query. “Do you mean ‘Tough Nate’ Raff — president of the Mountain Desert Construction Company? He’s the only Nate Raff I know of.”
“Can you tell me something about him?” Doc requested.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. How did he get his name ‘Tough Nate’?”
“Simply because he’s plenty hard. Construction men out in this country have ‘hair on their chests’. And Nate Raff is the furriest of the lot! He’s a man-driver! And he has a sharp business head.”
“Is he honest?”
“As far as I know. The Mountain Desert Construction Company is a 3-partner concern. But Tough Nate runs it, though.”
“Who are the other partners?”
“Richard O’Melia is one. He is construction superintendent in charge of actual work. O’Melia has killed a man-or-two in his time. But he may be honest enough. He didn’t go to the Pen for any of the killings. The other partner is Ossip Keller — the brains of the lot. He handles surveys, cost estimates, and makes the detailed plans of all their jobs.”
“You seem to know a great deal about these men,” Doc suggested. “Have they been in the news recently?”
“I’ll say! They’re throwing a big power dam across the upper end of Red Skull canyon. They got a lot of publicity because they’re financing themselves. They’re building the dam — using only their own money — for the avowed purpose of keeping their employees at work. I don’t think it’s entirely generosity on their part, though. They hope to make the dam pay by selling electrical power.”
“Any scandal connected with the enterprise?”
“Not that I’ve heard. Why do you ask that?”
“Merely curious.”
“Say — what did you say your name is? I didn’t catch it.”
“Doc Savage.”
An explosive ejaculation came over the wire!
The newspaper editor demanded eagerly: “What’s up? Be a sport and give me the low-down!”
“What makes you think there is a low-down?”
“There must be! Tough Nate Raff left Phoenix last night on the regular passenger plane. He told one of our reporters he was going to New York to see you — Doc Savage!”
“That is news to me,” Doc said dryly.
Before the conversation could continue, there was some kind of a commotion in the distant newspaper office during which several voices shouted and the editor left the phone. Doc could not catch the words.
The Arizona editor suddenly returned to the phone. He was excited.
“The passenger plane in which Tough Nate Raff was riding crashed in flames in New Mexico!” he shouted. “Everybody aboard was killed! We just got the flash over the press wires!”
Half-an-hour later, Doc Savage was reading an account of the tragedy in the latest editions of the New York newspapers. The sheets had hit the streets quickly with the news.
He obtained one noteworthy bit of information. The bodies of those aboard the ill-fated airliner had been burned beyond identification.
Cause of the fire and crash was unknown as yet. A government aeronautical inspector was en route to the scene to investigate. A horse wrangler on a ranch — while engaged at his early morning task — had come upon the wreckage. The sound of a crash during the night had awakened cowboys on the ranch. But they had dismissed this as the wrangler’s pony kicking the corral bars. The sound, however, placed the hour of the disaster at about 3:00 in the morning.