The earth shaker, p.1
The Earth-Shaker, page 1
Table of Contents
Dedication
Note
CHAPTER 1 — When the Earth Shook
CHAPTER 2 — At Omega Headquarters
CHAPTER 3 — Ching
CHAPTER 4 — File Z-9
CHAPTER 5 — Scorchy Is Abducted
CHAPTER 6 — The Empty House
CHAPTER 7 — The Second Threat
CHAPTER 8 — The Earth-Shaker Strikes!
CHAPTER 9 — On the Trail
CHAPTER 10 — Mystery Mummy
CHAPTER 11 — The Mystery Deepens
CHAPTER 12 — Joey Gets in Trouble
CHAPTER 13 — Omega to the Rescue
CHAPTER 14 — From the Shadows
CHAPTER 15 — Joey Thinks Quick
CHAPTER 16 — Return from the Dead
CHAPTER 17 — Menlo Parker, Hero
CHAPTER 18 — The Earth-Shaker Vanishes
CHAPTER 19 — Omega in Peril
CHAPTER 20 — The Golden Apple
CHAPTER 21 — The Message
CHAPTER 22 — The Key to the Mystery
CHAPTER 23 — Omega Attacks!
CHAPTER 24 — The Captain Nemo Sails
CHAPTER 25 — Cavern of Mystery
CHAPTER 26 — The Earth-Shaker at Bay
CHAPTER 27 — The Belshazzar Pistol
CHAPTER 28 — The Earth-Shaker Vanishes
CHAPTER 29 — Lucifer Lives
CHAPTER 30 — Back to Normal
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE EARTH-SHAKER
Copyright © 1982 by Lin Carter.
Published by agreement with Wildside Press LLC and John Gregory Betancourt.
All rights reserved.
Edited by Dan Thompson
A Thunderchild eBook
Published by Thunderchild Publishing. Find us at https://ourworlds.net/thunderchild_cms/
First Edition: 1982
First Thunderchild eBook Edition: November 2017
Dedication
For Paul Ernst,
creator of the Avenger,
and for Captain George
and all any friends
in the Vast Whizzbang Organization.
Note
This is the fourth case that I have thus far recorded from the files of the top-secret Omega organization, and for those among my readers who may not have seen the preceding volumes (The Nemesis of Evil, Invisible Death, and The Volcano Ogre), perhaps they deserve a few words of explanation.
My agreement with Prince Zarkon is simple and to the point: I will have full access to Omega’s files, may select whichever cases consider most bookworthy, and may conduct tape-recorded interviews with individuals involved, upon which to build my narrative,
But Zarkon believes, quite rightly, that Omega functions best when as little as possible is known about it. Therefore:
All of the names of people and places and institutions in this book are fictitious. There are, for example, no persons known to me who are named Prince Zarkon, Scorchy Muldoon, Nick Naldini, etc. Neither is there a Mayor Phineas T. Bulver or a city on the eastern seaboard called Knickerbocker City.
It has amused my readers (I hope) and myself (quite certainly) to borrow names of people and places from various sources, largely from the back issues of the old crime-fighter pulp magazines which I devoured in my early teens, The sources of some of these borrowings will be obvious to many of the more initiate of my readers, and I will not spoil your fun in figuring the others out by listing them all here. However
Nita Van Sloan and the box of gold-tipped Dimitrios comes from one of the Spider novels, Wings of the Black Death.
Station WNX, the Knickerbocker City Gazette, the exclusive Cobalt Club, Miss Margo Lane and the investment broker, Rutledge Mann, come from several of the Shadow novels.
The vacant red brick house on the corner of Mountainair and Farmwell streets comes from the first of Lester Dent’s remarkable Doc Savage novels, The Man of Bronze.
The scientists Hezekiah Spafford and Barton Swift come, respectively, from Twelve Must Die, a Doctor Death novel, and from the Tom Swift books.
The Belshazzar gun, the Empire Park Hotel, and the Golden Apple nightclub come from the first and only novel (The Totem-Pole Murders) in the only issue of an extremely rare and short-lived pulp called The Angel.
Dr. Alexei Zorka and the Amsterdam Fault come from a marvelous old Bela Lugosi movie called The Phantom Creeps (Universal Pictures, 1939).
I will leave it up to you to figure out the sources of the several people Prince Zarkon meets in the Cobalt Club in Chapter 4, and of the ladies who share a table with Phoenicia Mulligan in Chapter 1.
And you shouldn’t have to be a trivia expert to realize the identity of the crippled newsboy who let Joey Weston borrow the bicycle he was taking care of for a friend.
I will save you a lot of time right now by admitting that I simply made up such names as Knickerbocker City, Mayor Bulver, Lucifer, Ching, and Fooey Mulligan. Not every name in the book was cleverly drawn from my vast, extensive reading.
Enjoy!
— Lin Carter
CHAPTER 1 — When the Earth Shook
Miss Phoenicia Mulligan snuggled back in the cozy booth and relaxed with a weary sigh of relief. A busy morning of shopping in the department stores and boutiques of the fashionable Upper East Side of Knickerbocker City with her girl friends had resulted in the heap of gaily wrapped packages to her left.
“I,” the pretty blond girl announced determinedly, “am going to have a dry martini.”
“Yes, Miss,” the hovering waiter acknowledged deferentially. “And you other ladies?”
Miss Margo Lane, the slim, dark-haired girl who sat across from “Fooey” Mulligan, decided on a daiquiri. Patricia Savage Hazzard, the striking bronze-haired young woman on Margo’s left, opted for a margarita. Nita Van Sloan, the brunette socialite seated next to Fooey, chose an old-fashioned. As for Nellie Grey, she ordered a whiskey sour. The girls lit cigarettes, flexed weary feet, discussed their new hairdos animatedly.
The meeting between these old school chums was decidedly a rare event. That was primarily because Miss Phoenicia Mulligan customarily resided in California and seldom came east to the great metropolis beside the Atlantic. Learning that Fooey Mulligan was visiting Knickerbocker City this month, Mrs. Hazzard had contacted each member of the little group, inviting them to a morning “on the town” to welcome their chum.
The day had begun with an all-around beauty treatment at Mrs. Hazzard’s famous establishment — Patricia, Incorporated — on Park Avenue. Then had followed a tour of the most exclusive stores Knickerbocker City could offer to the discerning young woman of taste and considerable lucre — from Bonwit’s and Bloomingdale’s down to the little boutiques tucked away on the side streets. Their shopping concluded, the girls had decided on Schrafft’s for a late lunch and cocktails
Phoenicia was blissfully satisfied, and sipped her drink with the relish and gusto this adventure-loving young lady applied to nearly everything in life. Mrs. Hazzard, however, looked wistful.
“What’s eating you, Pat?” demanded Fooey, tossing back her blond curls,
Margo Lane smiled slyly. “Probably, she’s finally added up how much money she could have made on our beauty treatments if they hadn’t been ‘on the house,’ ” she grinned.
Pat looked rueful. “Nonsense — I don’t even own it, anymore. Sold it when I married Rex. Still get my face done for free, of course — that was in the contract. And the right to treat my friends. No — I just wished I’d been able to get in touch with Muriel Havens and Doro Kelly, so they could’ve come along ...”
“Probably a good thing you couldn’t,” quipped Nita Van Sloan wickedly. “Or we couldn’t have all fitted into one booth. Come to think of it — we can’t, as it is! Thank Heavens Nellie is so small, or we’d have to have the waiter pull up an extra chair.”
Nellie Grey smiled calmly. The diminutive (but perfectly proportioned) young woman was well accustomed to jokes about her height. Then she sobered. “What about Carol Baldwin, Pat?”
“Couldn’t get hold of her, either,” the bronze girl sighed. “It’s a shame; we could have had a real, full-fledged gathering of the clan —”
Phoenicia Mulligan reached over and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Never you mind, Pat. It’s been just swell, seeing all of you again, as it is. And maybe I’ll stay here for a while and get to see Muriel and Doro and Carol another time ... it all depends on that big, dumb, stubborn lug —”
Margo pretended to look scandalized. “Is that any way to refer to His Royal Highness?” she asked with mock incredulity.
The girls snickered at the mutely rebellious look that appeared on the attractive features of their visiting friend. It was common knowledge that, last month in the Luzon islands, in the Pacific, Fooey Mulligan had met — and fallen rather resoundingly for — the handsome, enigmatic adventurer who called himself Zarkon, who had formerly ruled the little Balkan state of Novenia, as its Prince, before abdicating.
It was also commonly known that Prince Zarkon, although completely masculine in his tastes, had a built-in immunity where girls were concerned — even strikingly beautiful girls of the likes of Fooey Mulligan.
“Never mind, Fooey, you’ll wear him down in time,” grinned Pat. “Look at me and Rex — he didn’t think women should play any part in the lives of bus y adventurers, either. But I got into his blood, in time,”
“Oh, yeah?” Phoenicia bristled. “And what about Doc? Plenty of girls have been after his bronze hide, and he hasn’t succumbed yet!”
“Touché,” chuckled Pat, ruefully. Her famous cousin was of the same opinion as Captain Hazzard and Prince Zarkon, where women were concerned.
“Lamont and I —” began Margo.
“Richard and I —” began Nita in the same breath.
As her chums began animatedly discussing their gentleman friends, Phoenicia Mulligan found herself looking out through the front windows of the restaurant dreamily, thinking how long it had been since she had last visited Knickerbocker City. It occurred to her that if she intended to remain in the city for some time, which probably would be the case, she had better wire her bank on the Coast and arrange for the transferral of some of her funds to a banking establishment here.
This thought happened to occur to the blond girl because, directly across the street from the Schrafft’s restaurant in which she and her friends were sitting, an imposing edifice of that nature rose ponderously, its classic marble façade discreetly bearing the name of the Jefferson National Bank and Trust Company.
And just as Phoenicia Mulligan was admiring the architecture of the bank, things began to happen.
A small van had pulled up before the restaurant only a moment or two before. It was painted a dark blue, and its sides were adorned with the legend JOE’S DIAPER SERVICE. It did not then occur to the blond girl to wonder what such a delivery truck would be doing parked on a street of distinctly un-residential nature.
She was more interested in the man who sat in the driver’s seat.
He was a small, slight man of oriental race, probably Chinese. In itself, there was nothing curious about that, for the Chinese are an industrious people and are found in every imaginable business enterprise, not just in Chinese restaurants and Chinese laundries.
No — what caught Fooey Mulligan’s eye was that she could have sworn she had seen the face somewhere — and in a context dramatically more sinister than merely as a truck driver ...
In the very next moment, her attention was torn from the half- shadowed face of the small Chinese and riveted again on the bank opposite the restaurant.
For the earth — shook ...
A deep, ominous rumble began far beneath the streets of Knickerbocker City. The sound grew rapidly louder, almost as if it were coming nearer.
With an ear-splitting shriek, the plate-glass window through which Fooey was staring cracked all the way across.
On the polished tabletop, the frosted glasses began to jiggle and dance, spilling their beverages.
A tremor passed through the floor, making their booth tremble.
Voices yelled in startled outcry, in surprise and in fear. From the rear of the restaurant there came a loud crash as a waiter dropped a heavily laden tray.
Fooey’s attention was fixed, however, across the street.
A crack had widened in the asphalt wherewith the street was thickly coated. It began, apparently, in the very middle of the street, and zigzagged across to the pavement of the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, where the Jefferson National Bank and Trust stood.
While the blond girl sat frozen, staring in blank amazement, the shock wave hit the front of the bank. And it ... crumbled.
The elaborately carved marble façade simply came apart in flying shards and massive slabs. These crashed and clattered about the sagging, buckling sidewalk.
Then the two Corinthian columns which supported the now unadorned architrave began to lean and topple. One — the one to the right — fell all in one piece, as a tree falls when felled by loggers. It struck the roof of a long, sleek Supra limousine parked at the curb. The roof caved in; the windshield came apart in a spurting spray of pulverized glass.
The second column, however, came apart in four huge, round, drum-shaped segments which went rolling and bumping into the street.
In the next instant, the air shook from a long, shattering roar of sound as the building literally shook itself to pieces. The bright afternoon air became hazed with stone dust. Chips sprayed over the pavement and danced like water drops on a hot skillet.
The building caved inward, walls buckling. The shrieking hiss of escaping steam from a fractured water main ripped through the rumbling, crashing noise of the collapsing building.
Then the noise died away.
The ground no longer shook.
There arose a clamor of frightened voices, crying, screaming, imploring. People ran into the street from every direction. Cursing, perspiring freely, a blue-coated cop appeared, lustily bellowing at them to keep back.
The building (as one could see by this time, as the haze of dust settled to the ground) was almost completely demolished. Only one tottering portion of the rear wall and a stump of a side wall remained standing. All else was a crazy jumble of broken rock and shattered brick and crumpled plaster and twisted steel.
Fooey sat glued to the cracked window, still staring out upon the awful scene, motionless as if frozen.
Within the cab of the little blue delivery van, the Chinese driver, who had sat unmoving through the catastrophe, smiled a thin-lipped smile.
He clicked down the knob on his watch.
From her angle, Phoenicia Mulligan could see that it was one of those big turnip watches gamblers use at the racetrack to time the horses. What do they call them? Oh, yes, she thought dazedly, a stopwatch ...
Without so much as a sideways glance at the ruins of the bank, the driver turned on the ignition and released the clutch. Moving slowly through the shocked, murmuring mob of onlookers, the blue truck eased away from the curb and cruised off down the street, vanishing unobtrusively in the traffic.
As it went past her window, Phoenicia saw again the legend painted on its side: JOE’S DIAPER SERVICE.
Then it was gone.
The girls came out of Schrafft’s and dug into the mob, volunteering their services to the perspiring officer. Some of them had taken classes in first aid, they informed the bluecoat.
“Begorra, missus, but it’ll after bein’ a blessin’ if any o’ them poor bahstids (beggin’ yer pardon, ladies!) get outa that rubble alive, but stick aroun’ ...” he groaned, mopping his scarlet brow.
Within moments a police cruiser pulled up beside the crumpled limousine. Then another one, followed by an ambulance with lights flashing, siren shrilling. No longer needed, the girls retreated to the other side of the street. Pat paid the pale and shaking waiter; her chums gathered up their packages.
“Where’s Fooey?” murmured Pat Hazzard, peering around.
“She hailed a cab,” replied Margo, “and drove off. Somewhere on the West Side — I didn’t hear the address.”
“Hmm, that’s odd,” said Pat perplexedly. “Well, I’ll see that her stuff gets back to the hotel — d’you remember where she’s staying, Margo?”
“I do,” diminutive Nellie Grey volunteered demurely. “At the Marlborough. If you like, Pat, I’m going that way and can easily drop Fooey’s packages off on my way to Bieck Street.”
“Fine, you do that,” said Pat. Subdued by the shock of the catastrophe, the girls quietly bade each other good-bye and went off to their several destinations. Forgotten were their plans for drinks and dinner at the fashionable Club Galaxy, followed by a popular Broadway revue.
They would have been even more distressed, could they have known that the catastrophe which leveled the Jefferson National Bank and Trust was only the first link in a chain of calamities which would soon grip all of Knickerbocker City in a web of terror.
CHAPTER 2 — At Omega Headquarters
As the Yellow Cab drove Phoenicia Mulligan across town by one of the streets which meandered through the green, heavily treed acreage of Olmsted Park, the blond girl leaned back against the vinyl upholstery, trying to catch her breath and steady her racing pulse, and striving also to sort out her jumbled thoughts.
Phoenicia knew very well that — somewhere — somewhere — she had seen the face of that truck driver before. She remembered his slight build, stooped shoulders, shaven pate, and even the pair of heavily lensed eyeglasses that had masked his slant-eyed gaze.
