LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

few minutes later the armored truck stopped at an outlying precinct station. The only door in the box opened and one of the three deputies called in:

      "Come on out, Killer. This is as far as you go, this trip."

      "What th' hell is this?" Kline demanded, and peered out the door. "This ain't the Alleghany stir?"

      That was as far as he got. The deputies yanked him out of the car, manhandled him into the precinct station's alley entrance.

      Nobody except Van and the three officers knew the transfer had been made. Kline would be booked under another name and hidden in a constantly guarded cellar cell until the Phantom or Governor Young sent word to have him finish his last ride.

      The armored truck door slammed shut on Van and the car rolled off again. The Phantom forgot everything else for the next ten minutes as he concentrated on the make-up task confronting him. Before the truck reached the airport where a plane was waiting to fly Killer Kline to Mountainview, Killer Kline had to be reproduced.

      From beneath his coat Van took out a paper sack containing the make-up kit he'd got on such short notice through the influence of Governor Young.

      He set up a small pocket mirror, went to work swiftly. The Kline character had to be done entirely with the face, for Van would be stripped and re-dressed in prison clothes at the penitentiary. For the rest, he had to rely on his own ability to portray the Killer's characteristics in voice, mannerisms and action.

      Fortunately, there were no Bertillon figures or fingerprints of Killer Kline on record at Mountainview. Those records would be taken there at the stir, and a copy of them mailed to the State and Federal identification bureaus—where they would be seized and promptly destroyed. Van had insisted upon that, to protect the Phantom's identity from being discovered. Later, if he survived the Alleghany Prison affair, the records there would be burned, too.

      A moment before the truck swerved into the airport gate, a crumpled paper sack and a small pocket mirror fell from a gun slot in the steel car wall. The truck drove directly to a waiting ship, its door was opened, and Killer Kline was hurriedly transferred to the airplane.

      There had been no hitch, no error. And there was none when the plane landed at the small Mountainview flying field and was met by a prison van.

      Within thirty minutes Killer Kline was booked into Alleghany Penitentiary, without a hint of suspicion concerning his real identity, and the commitment papers were being signed by Warden Black-Jack Bluebold in person.

      The same four men who had talked to Jimmy Lance in the warden's office the night before, now confronted the Phantom in the same room.

      Ex-congressman Arnold and Dr. Maurice Jessup eyed Killer Kline in austere, watchful silence. Deputy Rowan, with three prison guards, kept the two doors into the office blocked. They were taking no chances with the notorious murderer.

      "Still think you're the toughest guy in the United States?" Bluebold demanded harshly.

      The Phantom put across his initial act with a snarl of defiance.

      "I've got part of a week to live, starting tomorrow, you big punk! If you can think up anything during that time that's too tough for me, give me a crack at it, Peanut-brain! And that goes for the rest of you bottom rate chislers."

      He swung upon them all. "Hell, there ain't a one of you smart enough to make yourself a buck outside. If it wasn't that the state paid you a salary, you'd all starve to death! Come on, let's take a squint at the death house you're so damned proud of."

      "You'll take more than a squint at it, Killer," Bluebold snapped.

      "Take him away and give him a bath, Rowan!"

      But Rowan didn't take him alone. The three uniformed guards came along, crowding Van, yet watching him with nervous respect. He'd told off Black-Jack Bluebold! Killer Kline was the toughest con they'd ever handled.

      Van shed his clothes, and took a secret satisfaction in making the muscles ripple under his skin as he moved about under the shower. These screws would think twice before they tried to maul him around. And his toughness and prowess as a hard guy would get talked about, which was what he wanted.

      He wasn't sure the Imperator had sent an envoy to the real Kline in Pittsburgh jail. But he intended to give that mystery commander of the Invisible Empire a reason for wanting him as a member, if brazen courage and insolent fearlessness would do it.

      Deputy Rowan threw him an outfit of prison clothes, drab, worn garments of faded muddy color that blended with the bleak, hopeless surroundings. Bluebold himself supervised the Bertillon and fingerprint records. Then he was herded over to the hospital.

      Van's eyes sharpened as Dr. Jessup examined him, in the presence of the warden and Rowan and Arnold. The four men seemed to take a grisly delight in observing his physical qualifications.

      "If you'd turned out to be a prizefighter or a professional wrestler, Kline," Dr. Jessup advised, "you'd have got some place in the world." He glanced at the others. "A wonderful specimen of a physique, gentlemen. It's really a shame to destroy it by electrocution."

      "Count up the number of innocent and helpless guys Kline has killed," Harry Arnold said gravely. "Kline, you can't be executed but the one time. How many men do you figure you've murdered?"

      "Who th' hell are you?" Van demanded. "Another punk screw?"

      "Mr. Arnold," Bluebold said dryly, "is the Chairman of the Board of Parole and Pardons."

      "If I added you to that list of guys I've rubbed out," Van rasped, "it would be a hell of a swell idea. Go on back to the Pardon Board and tell 'em that!"

      "You're not going to ask Mr. Arnold for any help, I take it," Dr. Jessup remarked dryly.

      "Nuts to him!" Van exploded. "I wouldn't take a pardon from none of you dopes. When I crash out of a stir, I do it my way!"

      "Let's see you beat the death house, Kline," Black-Jack Bluebold challenged grimly. "I'll be waiting to shoot you!"

      "Yeah!" Killer Kline snarled contemptuously. "You, with a gun. I can imagine! Hell, punk, I'd take it away from you and blow your damned face off with it!"

      "Upstairs with him," Bluebold ordered.

      The Phantom was ushered out of the prison physician's office into an elevator. There were no stairs, he noticed. At the fourth floor, which was the top, he was shoved out of the car into a steel-walled corridor at the end of which was a door painted a sickly green.

      Bluebold, who had come up with him, pointed to the corridor's end. "That's the last door you'll ever enter, Kline. The chair is waiting for you on the other side. It's not a long walk."

      Van did not answer. He'd put on his Killer Kline act enough, he imagined, and didn't want to overdo it. The guards shoved him into a cell, slammed shut the door which was entirely of steel bars.

      There were seven other death cells on the corridor, four on each side, but none of them were occupied. Since Joe Sholtz had gone last night, Killer Kline appeared to be the only occupant of the death house.

      But Deputy Rowan last night had mentioned a second murderer awaiting a future execution—Sam Robbins. And convicted men who entered this short corridor weren't supposed to be removed except through that fatal green door at the end, or by order of the Board of Pardons. If there'd been a pardon for Robbins, Governor Young would have mentioned it.

      Robbins wasn't in the death house now.

      Warden Bluebold and Rowan left him a few minutes later, after a whispered conference with the two guards on duty. The Phantom sat on the edge of the iron bed fastened to the wall, staring moodily through the bars at the empty cell opposite him.

      He was on his own now completely. Not even Frank Havens could reach him on short notice, without the consent of Black-Jack Bluebold.

      And suddenly Van remembered a mistake he'd made. He'd told Jerry Lannigan to visit him here, keep him informed about the hunt for the mystery plane. But Lannigan had been seen by the

Скачать книгу