And when they do, I’m gonna make sure they let me in on their larcenous little secrets! I just hate mysteries!
Once again the Web-slinger launched himself into the night sky. And even more than that, this particular mystery’s keeping me away from one of the more pleasant ways to spend a cold winter eve . . . namely hanging out in front of a nice cozy fireplace in the company of one Ms. Cindy Sayers, lady private eye and all around nifty person.
The costumed youth chuckled as he swept through the air. Mr. Parker, you are one lucky arachnid to have a lady like her . . . especially after a couple or three bad-news relationships that were about as successful as George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign.
But stability has at last returned to the life of our boy hero and romance is blossoming! Besides that, things couldn’t be better on other fronts. Aunt May’s in tip-top shape, still worrying about me catching cold, God bless her. Who else would call long distance from her vacation with her cousins in Arizona to remind me to wear my galoshes?
Even Jameson’s paying relatively good bucks for my photos and my graduate-school studies have been smooth sailing for the last couple of months!
Sheesh, I hope I can adjust to the sudden shock of all this good luck. I’m just not used to it!
Spidey’s deliberate search of Manhattan had brought him back to the southern tip of the island. He swung through the silence of the financial district for several minutes, but his senses alerted him to nothing. The Wall-crawler turned and headed back up north on Broadway.
As usual, Greenwich Village was as alive and busy as ever despite the two feet of snow on the sidewalks and streets, and the arctic-like temperatures that gripped the city. I don’t really think those thugs I’m looking for are going to spend their first night out of the hoosegow sightseeing along Eighth Street, do I? Naw, dudes like that’d want to go someplace where they can relax and calm their poor, shattered senses, like a bar!
Spidey turned on to Mercer Street and landed on top of the awning over the entrance to an apartment building. Seems to me they weren’t the type to frequent the bar at the Pierre, so I ought to make a flyby of some of the, ahem . . . sleazier bar districts in the city and see if any of ’em set my senses tinglin’!
I just hope nobody sees me there. What would my Aunt May say if she heard I went to those kinds of places?
The Wall-crawler fired a strand of webbing at the dark building across the narrow street and took off again. He swiftly swung by the dark, dirty waterfront across town with its dingy bars, but nothing caught his attention there. He headed back uptown along Eighth Avenue.
Between Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth streets his head began to tingle wildly.
Bingo!
Spider-Man grabbed hold of a flagpole jutting from a darkened office building and swung up on it, balancing effortlessly on the slim pole. The intense brown eyes behind the mask searched the streets below.
The door to Al’s Tavern on the corner of Thirtieth flew open and three men stumbled out on to the street, laughing drunkenly. They stood swaying in the cold night air for several minutes debating some matter in loud, unintelligible whispers. Spidey’s uncanny sixth sense gave the costumed youth another hard twinge as he watched the trio.
I get the message, spidey-sense! Those turkeys are the birds I’m looking for!
Walking unsteadily, the three men lurched to a car parked in the middle of the block. One of them tried several times to find the door lock with a key before another pushed him aside and, laughing hysterically, completed the delicate maneuver. They piled into the car and drove off.
Hooboy! Talking to those cuties is gonna be a real pleasure! I can see it now: I’ll be trying to get information from them and they’ll be telling me a traveling-salesman joke!
Spidey followed the zigzagging Oldsmobile as it roared through the streets. Well, try to look on the bright side, m’boy! Maybe they’ll be more useful swacked than sober. Maybe they’ll get careless and lead me to someone higher up in their organization . . .
And maybe sheep will learn to fly.
An hour later, the Web-slinger was beginning to believe his earlier cynicism was not entirely unfounded. Enough’s enough! These bozos have just been meandering in your basic random fashion like a bunch of lost tourists! They’re not going to be going anywhere important tonight and I can’t afford to wait! So . . .
The short, dark man named Mandez wiped his thick black mustache with the back of his hand and smacked his lips in satisfaction. “Ah, this hits the spot,” he laughed and held up a bottle of cheap whiskey.
Ryan, the muscular blond man behind the wheel of the Oldsmobile, reached for the liquor bottle. “You’ve hit yer spot enough,” he said thickly. “Lemme getta shot o’ that.”
“Jeez,” Mandez said. “I’ve never been so glad to be outta the slammer in my life! I didn’t know we was heisting government stuff. I don’t wanna get into a federal rap.” He rubbed his dark face. “Even though Jocko got his hand busted, he’s the lucky one. He got away!”
“Ain’t nothin’ ya can do about it now, Manny,” the man in the backseat said. “Who the hell thought we was gonna run inta Spider-Man? And gimme the bottle awready, fer cryin’ out loud!”
Ryan handed the bottle back. “Hell, at least we been bailed out like we was promised and they’re gettin’ us lawyers.”
Mandez hiccuped.
Thwump!
“Whazzat?” Nelson, the man sprawled in the backseat, sat up quickly, his bloodshot eyes darting about.
Ryan hunched over the wheel. “Dunno,” he whispered hoarsely. “Sounded like somethin’ landed on the roof!”
“Yeah,” Mandez nodded. He peered through the windshield. “I don’t see nothing, but I can’t tell. Don’t take any chances, Ryan. Speed up!”
The driver’s foot began to depress the accelerator, sending the speedometer rising slowly.
Kronk!
Ryan yelped in surprise as two scarlet-gloved hands crashed through the roof and slammed into his head.
And to think some people need karate!
The car swerved dangerously into the opposite lane and Spider-Man clung to the roof, staying with it. The street was clear of traffic at the moment and the car was allowed clear access to the brick wall of a building as it jumped the curb.
Spidey jumped off the car’s roof at the last instant, somersaulting to safety on the sidewalk. The heavy sedan smashed headlong into the wall, the front end crumbling like cardboard.
The Wall-crawler rushed over to the car. No sign of fire, good!
He yanked open the doors. The three thugs were staring at him from inside, shock and surprise on their faces.
“Now what the hell did you do that for?” Mandez asked, blinking.
“I was lonely.” Spidey shrugged. “I wanted somebody to talk to. I decided you would make the most fascinating conversationalists.”
“You hadda smash the car?” Ryan said miserably. “Couldn’t ya just asked us ta pull over!”
Spidey jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “C’mon, guys,” he ordered. “Step into my office where we can talk.”
Without warning, Ryan launched himself from the car, wrapping his thick arms around the Web-slinger’s waist. His momentum drove Spidey backward and the two men crashed to the ground.
Ryan swung wildly at Spider-Man, but the Web-slinger easily parried the blow and drove his fist into the crook’s stomach. Two swift chops to the neck sent the felon sprawling on the ground, out like a light.
Mandez and Nelson, meanwhile, had leaped from the car and were reaching inside their coats for their guns.
“You don’t want to do that, fellas,” Spider-Man said, rising to one knee.
They drew their pistols.
Spider-Man sprang forward, flinging himself headlong at Nelson. Before the startled thug could readjust his aim, the Wall-crawler was knocking him to the ground. Mandez swung his gun around.
The costumed youth flung himself backward, flipping up on
to his hands and kicking his foot out. His booted foot knocked away the automatic. Springing expertly to his feet, Spider-Man grabbed the small man’s arm and twisted hard.
“Yeow!” the crook cried, his gun dropping from numb fingers.
“I told you you didn’t want to do that,” Spidey said sharply. “But you do want to talk to me, don’t you?”
“Hey, I don’t have to tal . . . unnhh!” Mandez yelped in pain as Spider-Man yanked sharply on his arm.
“First let me tell you what it is you don’t want to talk about, sweetums,” the Web-slinger said. “Then you can talk about it anyway!” He gave another sudden pull on the dark man’s arm to emphasize his words. “Now then, let’s start with who you’re working for!”
“I dunno.”
“Am I to believe you don’t know who hired you?”
“We never saw ’em,” Mandez said quickly. “Our orders came over the phone.”
“How did you get in touch with them if anything went bad?”
“Hey, listen, man,” Mandez protested mildly. “We don’t work for no organization or nothing! Some dude hired us over the phone to pull off that one, job, that’s all! Jocko and me usually work freelance.”
“Jocko?”
The little man averted his eyes. He’d said too much.
“Forget it,” Spidey said. “He’s the one that got away, right? I don’t care about him right now. I’m looking for bigger fish!”
“I don’t know him. Honest!”
Spider-Man loosened his grip on the other man. “You don’t know very much, do you? Problem is, there’s a whole boatload of things I have to know!”
Mandez saw his chance. “There’s someone who might be able to tell you,” he offered quickly. “This dude in the Village’s up on all kinds of things going down.”
Spidey leaned closer to the sweating man. “Who?”
Mandez licked his lips. “Guy they call Sunshine.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I swear it,” Mandez said. “Sunshine. He hangs out at the Purple Circle on Christopher Street.”
Nodding his head slowly, Spider-Man released Mandez. “Sunshine. Purple Circle. Christopher Street. I’m sorry I asked.”
Mandez rubbed his aching shoulder. Now maybe that damned costumed creep would go away and leave them alone!
A few minutes later, Spider-Man was leaving, swinging on a strand of his indestructible webbing toward the West Village.
“Hey! What about us?” Mandez called after him.
Spidey looked over his shoulder at the three men, their arms webbed securely to their sides, dangling like Christmas ornaments from a lamp post.
“Don’t sweat it, creep,” he called back happily. “That stuff dissolves sooner or later!”
Fifteen
The huge jet helicopter streaked through the clear, blue skies over the north Pacific Ocean, practically skimming the still waters with its landing gear.
A small island lay dead ahead, a tall, tapering mountain its only noticeable feature. An oil tanker lay anchored half a mile from its shores.
The ’copter whooshed past the tanker’s bow and continued toward the island, waiting until the last moment before it gained the necessary altitude to avoid collision with the mountain. Its speed decreased as it reached the peak and began to circle the top.
Dr. Daniel Irvine glanced out the window beside the copilot’s seat where he sat. “We’re there,” he said into the heavy headset he wore. “Is our passenger ready to disembark?” He chuckled into the microphone.
In the cargo hold of the circling chopper, two orange-jump-suited technicians stood on either side of a much larger man clad in a silver protective suit. A square, silver helmet was fastened to his head and a heavy tank was attached to his back. He sat immobile on the floor, his emerald-green eyes staring blankly through the narrow view plate.
“The Hulk is ready, sir,” one of the technicians said into his mike.
“Did you hear that, Argosy?” Irvine asked.
“We read you, Transport One,” a voice crackled back from the tanker. “We are standing by.”
“All right,” the scientist said to the pilot. “Take it down!”
The helicopter dropped sharply and flew over the top of the mountain where it was throttled back into a hover. The peak was not a plateau; rather there was nothing atop the high mountain. Nothing but a gaping, black hole. The pilot deftly maneuvered the chopper over to the mouth of the hole, mere feet from the rocky wall.
“You may stand now, Hulk,” Dr. Irvine ordered gently into the mike.
The seven-foot-tall emerald giant rose obediently to his feet. One of the technicians stepped to the huge sliding doors at the side of the hold and pulled them open.
“To the door, my brutish friend.”
The Hulk stepped to the door, obeying the words that buzzed like an annoying insect in his ear.
“And out you go!”
Without hesitation, the man-brute calmly stepped from the hovering helicopter.
He landed with a thud on the steep wall of the volcano, his heavy body sending a shower of small stones clattering into the dark hole. Even after long moments, they could not be heard hitting bottom.
“I want you to climb down into the hole, Hulk,” the doctor said softly. “It will be very hot, but between the suit you wear and your supertough skin, you should be adequately protected.”
Almost mechanically, the jade Goliath began a slow, deliberate climb into the yawning pit, his hands and feet smashing out finger and toe holes as he went along.
“You are to descend until you reach the huge machine that lies down there.”
Mindlessly, the man-brute grunted, continuing his descent. But soon, he grew weary of the tedious handover-hand repetition into the pitch blackness. He pushed himself from the wall and allowed himself to drop into the bottomless pit!
The air grew hotter and hotter as the Hulk fell, heating the silver surface of his protective suit. Instinctively, the green mammoth angled his massive body, controlling his headlong plunge into the abyss.
He fell for long minutes until, at last, a red glow became visible far below. It grew larger as he came closer, until it became apparent the red glow was from the fires at the very heart of the volcano! The air around the descending man-creature was unbreathable, enough to sear even the lungs of the mighty Hulk were it not for the built-in oxygen supply he wore on his back.
The Hulk manuevered himself, drawing closer to the red-hot wall of the volcano. His fingers touched the wall, then began to sink into the rock, deeper and deeper as he applied pressure. His massive fingers gouged five deep grooves in the rock as he dug in, slowing his plunge.
He came to a stop several yards above the sloping floor at the bottom of the miles-deep pit. Even through the thick protective suit, the Hulk could feel the great heat against his emerald skin, but he paid it no mind. Directly below his dangling feet was a river of molten lava that flowed between the two shores of red-hot, glowing rock. The walls around him shimmered with the red-and-blue heat from the Earth’s bowels.
He dropped to the near-molten rock.
Mindlessly he shuffled forward, his insulated booted feet sloshing through liquid rock. The air burned around him, making it difficult to see, but still he shambled on—following orders.
He followed the downward-slanting tunnel along its course, smashing aside burning, red obstructions, wading through pools of molten ore that mostly covered his boots but sometimes came up to his waist.
Several minutes later he came to a massive pile of glowing crimson rocks that blocked his path. He did not hesitate. Slogging through the sucking lava, he charged the obstruction.
The rocks seemed to explode as the Hulk bored through them like a human wrecking ball. He skidded awkwardly to a halt on the other side, swinging his large arms to keep his balance.
And there, before the panting, sweating man-monster sat the glowing, red-hot remains of StarLab I!
A sensor b
eeped sharply on the console before Dr. Irvine in the cockpit of the circling helicopter. The sensor was connected to one strapped to the Hulk’s chest, tuned to certain insulated instruments aboard StarLab.
The beast had done it!
“Excellent, Hulk,” he cooed happily into the mike. “Now I want you to pick up the big machine.” He smiled. “Bring it out of the volcano to the boat waiting for you.”
The Hulk’s hands sank into the molten skin of the huge satellite. Almost twenty tons of half-melted machinery was lifted from the ground and shifted slowly onto the creature’s broad back. He staggered under the enormous weight, shifting the red-hot space vehicle until it was comfortably balanced.
Slowly, the Hulk started back the way he had come. His recent passage through the tunnel near the Earth’s core had left it clear of obstacles so, despite his burden, the green Goliath reached his starting point in less time than it had taken to find StarLab.
He gingerly placed the satellite on the bubbling ground. Going back up the way he had come was impossible. Two miles of sheer walls awaited him that way and, though he could make it unhindered, StarLab would have to remain behind.
His dull eyes passed over the walls of the tunnel. Steaming lava seeped from small cracks at one point, streaming into a narrow river that flowed into the passage. He drew back his gloved fist and, grunting, sent it smashing through the rock.
The red-hot substance cracked easily and more lava bubbled from the new holes. Several more blows opened a crack as tall as the man-brute and twice as wide. Suddenly, a red-hot wave of lava splashed through and broke over the Hulk. He staggered backward and tumbled quickly out of the way.
The flood of molten rock abated after several seconds, only to be replaced by a stream of bubbling hot water that turned instantly to billowing clouds of steam on contact with the rock.
The Hulk wiped the steam from his view plate with a swipe of his massive paw. The lava and water had widened the hole he had started so that it was now large enough for both the green giant and StarLab to pass through.
Marvel Novel Series 11 - The Hulk and Spider-Man - Murdermoon Page 10
