Read Online Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) by Kenneth Robeson, Lester Dent, Will Murray - Free Book Online Page B

And up ahead, too.”
    “Huh?”
    “Skip it,” sniffed Hornetta. Her eyes were red and swollen. It might have resulted from exposure to the smoky ruin. But it might have been repressed emotion.
    “Where to, sugar?” the driver asked at last.
    “Do they have flophouses for ladies in distress?” Hornetta asked disconsolately.
    “I know just the place,” said the cabby.
    IT wasn’t exactly a flophouse. But it wasn’t the Ritz, either. The sign over the entrance read:
HOME FOR WANDERING WOMEN
    Hornetta paid the driver and entered. Where she obtained the funds would have earned her a night in jail. She had picked a man’s pocket on the street after he had whistled at her.
    “I need a room for the night,” she told the matronly desk clerk.
    “Spat with hubby?” asked the matron.
    “Not as big a spat as what’s coming,” Hornetta said fiercely.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Never mind. Just give me my room key.”
    “You don’t have to be snippy about it, Mrs.—”
    “Mudd.”
    “Huh?”
    “Mary Mudd. That’s my name. Mudd, with two d’s.”
    Hornetta Hale took two flights of stairs, put the key in the lock with every intention of taking a much-needed bath and sleeping as long as necessary.
    She got as far as opening the door to her room and half way across the threshold. Then she gave an uncharacteristic start.
    Three men awaited her inside. They looked at her with unmistakably stern intent.
    Hornetta Hale attempted to backpedal out of the room. She simply hadn’t the moxie left for any more pointless flight.
    A hairy hand grabbed the other side of the door knob and gave a yank.
    Hornetta, clutching the opposite knob, was pulled in with the door. She was unceremoniously precipitated onto the threadbare rug, landing on her polka-dotted backside.
    A thin blade of some sort touched her throat. It was long and vicious looking, the tip discolored with what Hornetta Hale mistook for dried blood.
    “I am tempted to run you through,” a thin voice sniffed.
    “And I ought to break you in half,” another male voice threatened.
    But nothing of either sort happened.
    Instead, Doc Savage reached down and took Hornetta by one flailing arm.
    He lifted her to her feet by main strength and planted her in a wooden chair.
    “How— What—?” she sputtered.
    Monk squinted his small eyes at her. “That taxi driver belonged to us,” he explained. “As a matter of fact, we set him prowling for you, along with other drivers.”
    “Indeed,” seconded Ham. “He had instructions to take you here if you did not give another address.”
    “Yeah. And if you did, we would have collected you there. ”
    “Either way,” finished Ham, “you were bound to become our prisoner.”
    Hornetta looked flummoxed. Biting one pale lip, she turned her angry gaze up at Doc Savage, who through it all had said nothing.
    “Stop looking at me like that, tall, dark and metallic. You make me nervous.”
    “If you had been honest with us from the start,” the bronze man said simply, “a great deal of trouble might have been averted.”
    “That’s nothing.”
    “Eh?”
    “I said that’s nothing.”
    “Explain yourself,” prompted Doc.
    “Compared to what’s coming, I mean.”
    “Exactly what is coming?” Ham asked in his best barrister manner.
    “I told you it was big,” Hornetta reminded.
    “You did.”
    “Bigger than big.”
    “Get to the point,” snapped Ham.
    “It’s so big,” said Hornetta Hale, “it could mean the end of the United States of America.”
    Doc Savage’s uncanny trilling abruptly filled the room. It had a quality of astonished skepticism. The bronze giant stifled it with difficulty.
    “Continue,” invited Ham.
    Hornetta Hale folded her sunburned arms stubbornly. “That’s it. That’s all I have to say.”
    “We have methods for making you talk,” suggested Ham Brooks.
    “Use ’em! See if I care. Pull out my fingernails. Singe my toes. Pluck me like a chicken. I ain’t talking.”
    “Leave her