Tepperman Secret Agent X

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5312-8946-1
Verlag: Ozymandias Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 487 Seiten

The pulse-pounding, heart-stopping, super awesome ace G-man himself, Secret Agent X! Collected here are the masterful tales of the daring spymaster in all his glory: CALL FROM HELL, CONSIDINE LAUGHS, THE EYES OF DURGA, THE MURDER MONSTER, NO LIVING WITNESS, PAID IN SLUGS, SATAN'S SCALPEL, TOMB OF TORTURE, TONG TORTURE, THE TERROR'S TRADE-MARK, TAKING NO CHANCES, THE SUICIDE COTERIE

Autoren/Hrsg.

Tepperman, Emile

Leseproben

CALL FROM HELL

~

THAT LOW EERIE MOAN COMING out of the darkness was driving Jerry Taylor crazy. It seemed to come from nowhere, yet he knew it was the anguished call of a woman in agony.

I’LL admit when I first heard it, my instinct was to get back in the car and step on the gas and go away from that place very fast.

In plain English, I was scared; and if any wise egg thinks he can get a belly laugh out of Jerry Taylor being scared, why, go aheadr and laugh, egg! But get the picture before you laugh.

This tourist camp was just off Highway Fourteen, which goes right spank through the middle of Towanda County. There’s the gas station alongside the road, and about, say, a hundred feet in, and surrounded by birch trees, are the cabins—twelve of them.

Now, Mr. Egg, suppose you drove up to this gas station at two A. M., and there was nobody around; and suppose just as you got out of the car to take a look- see if you could rouse somebody, you hear this weird moan that seems to come from right next to you. And you look around, and there’s no place that sound could have come from!

Would you be scared, egg, or wouldn’t you?

Well, I was scared. But I didn’t go away, for the very good reason that this was the place I’d been sent to by the sheriff of Towanda County.

So I kind of braced myself against the shivery feeling that crept up between my shoulder blades, and peered around to make sure there were no bodies lying around.

There weren’t.

There were just these two pumps. One was red, and it had a sign that said, “Hi- Test—$.18 plus tax.” The other was green, and its sign read, “Seabord Gas—$.14—plus tax.”

My car was in the narrow drive between the pumps and the comfort station in back of them. There was a big hundred and fifty watt bulb glaring over the roof of the comfort station, and it lit up a sign that was tacked to the front of the shack. The sign was newish, and it had black letters painted on a white background:

STOVER & DAUGHTER

TOURIST CAMP

GAS STATION

———

Flats Fixed

24-Hour Service

The cabins in back were all dark. Right next to the shack, about a dozen cars were parked with the lights out. I assumed they were the cars of tourists who were staying over night, and business seemed to be good for the Stovers.

I should tell you that I noticed all this when I first got out of the car. That was before I heard it.

The first thing I did when I climbed out of the car was to poke my head in the comfort station. It was empty, but there were two doors in the rear, a gent’s room and a ladies’ room. I figured that the guy in charge would be right out, and I walked around to the front of the car to see if that slow leak in the right hand tire had got any worse.

And that’s when I heard it.

It was a low moan of agony, like a person makes after he’s been, hurt bad—I mean, real bad. Only it wasn’t a “he,” because that voice was a woman’s.

Well, I can tell you that I jumped a little; the voice seemed to come out of the air right alongside of me.

My heel bumped a pail of water that stood next to the middle pump, and it clattered over and spilled. I didn’t pay any attention at all to the pail I just stood still for a minute till I got over the shivers, and then I looked around to try to trace the source of that moan.

There wasn’t any source.

I peered into the shadows of the parked cars, but I was sure it hadn’t come from that far away; the parking space was at least ten feet distant from the pumps. The tall trees on the other side of the road rustled a little in the wind, and made little soughing noises; but I knew that wasn’t what I had heard. I’d heard a woman moan in agony, and nobody could tell me different.

There was just that single moan, and then it was cut short, as if the woman had been suddenly gagged. And there was no more sound, except for the wind whispering along through the trees, and stirring up a little dust on the road.

I felt like taking out the gun from the holster that was sewed in my right hand pants pocket, but I figured what a laugh that might hand to the gas station attendant when he came out and found me flourishing a cannon for nothing. So I didn’t yank out the gun; I walked around the car, opened the door of the comfort station, and yelled in, “Hey! Anybody there?”

I waited a minute, and then stepped inside. It was a little room, and it was crowded with furniture and tools. At one side was a work bench with a little vat of water that was used for testing tubes and fixing tires. And in back were these two doors that I told you about.

I WAS getting kind of leery of this whole thing, and I figured there was something that was not all right, especially in view of the reason that had brought me here. So I unbuttoned my coat to make it easier to grab the gun, and went over to the door of the gent’s room and pulled it open.

And here was this guy, sitting on the floor, with his head popped back, and his eyes wide open, staring up. Only he didn’t see me, because he was dead. I knew he was dead, even though I didn’t see the back of his head at first I’ve seen enough stiffs to be able to tell ‘em.

His knees had been up in front of him, with his feet resting against the door, and when I opened the door his knees went down, and his feet came sliding out at me. At the same time his whole body slumped, and his head lolled forward, and I saw what had killed him—the back of his head had been smashed in. And right beside him lay a tire- iron; you know, one of those things they use to pry the tires off the rims with. One end of it was all bloody and messy. The white stuff, I figured, was brains.

This guy wore a dirty, oil-stained windbreaker, and a pair of greasy, baggy work-pants. His hair was a brownish color. He was about thirty, and looked like he might have been handsome if the grime was washed off his face.

Well, I didn’t stop there taking stock of him; that was just the impression I got in a flash. Because the next thing I did was to back away from that door, and get my back to the wall. I didn’t like to think of the bird that had socked him, coming back on the prowl for more customers.

I ran my eye over the rest of the room; everything seemed to be in order. I looked at the door of the ladies’ room and hesitated, and said to myself, “Nix, Jerry. Leave bad enough alone. If there’s another one in there, it would be too much of a strain on you.”

So I put my hand on the butt of the gun, and went out in the darkness. You can be sure I took a good look around before I stepped out; if there was a head- smasher around, I wanted to see him first. But you couldn’t set anything except where my headlights cut a swath through the trees on the other side of the comfort station from the parking lot.

I looked back toward the cabins; they were still dark. All asleep.

I took a quick step over to the car, stuck my hand in the window, and rested it on the horn. It wasn’t a musical horn—it just made a loud, strong noise. And after about four pushes, I saw a light go on in one of the cabins.

I let up on the horn then, and a minute or two later I saw a girl’s shadow passing in front of the shade of the cabin with the light, and I could see that she was putting something on over a nightgown. Then the door opened, and this girl stood framed in the doorway. I could see that her hair was a goldish yellow, reflected in the light from the cabin, and her face was small—and boy, was she pretty!

She called out in a low voice, “Isn’t the man there?” and started to come over.

And just then I had to hear that damn wailing moan once more!

It rose in a chilling scream of pain, then ended suddenly. I whirled around because that weird sound had seemed to come from the air right around me. But there wasn’t anything—only the bloody body of that dead man framed in the doorway inside the comfort station.

The girl had stopped short, one hand over her mouth, the other holding her bathrobe together. I could see that she was scared stiffer than I, and that was something. She swayed a little, then started to come toward me, and her little oval of a face was very white in the darkness.

I went in her direction, putting my gun away, because I didn’t want her to see the body of the dead man. She’d be sure to keel over if she saw it after hearing that yell.

I called out to her, “It’s all right, miss. I’m the detective from New York,” and came up close just in time to catch her as her knees started to buckle. She didn’t faint, as I expected she was going to do, but hung on to my shoulder for a minute. She had her mouth closed tight, and she was trembling.

I turned her around and said, “Let’s get back to that cabin, miss. You can tell me all about it in there. I guess you’re Wanda Stover, aren’t you?”

She nodded weakly, and allowed me to lead her back. “Yes. I’m so glad you’ve come. The local police are worse than useless; and I couldn’t have stood it here another night. I wake up a dozen...