"012 (B043) - The Man Who Shook The Earth (1934-02) - Lester Dent (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

handkerchief around his neck, so that it hung down and concealed his white
collar and white dress-shirt front. He carried himself with the studied
squareness of a man proud of his physical strength and looks.
The big man, knocked back against the building wall by the blow, dragged finger
tips over his crushed mouth. He sobbed: "Can’t you hear the noise it’s makin’ as
it comes?"
The rumble underground grew louder and louder. Metal gratings on near-by windows
jingled in their sockets. Warm, ill-smelling air gushed up through a grille in
the sidewalk.
Suddenly the innards of the earth seemed to suck the uproar away. It vanished,
leaving only sounds of traffic and moan of a cold wind.
"A subway train, you dope!" sneered Velvet, and tucked the black handkerchief
more securely in his collar.
It was night. Enough light reached them from the corner street lamp, however, to
show the expression on the big man’s scarred, stupid face. It was utterly blank.
He gulped: "The subway!"
Velvet laughed harshly. "Even if you ain’t been in New York before, Biff, you
should have read of subways. Oh, that’s right, too. You can’t read."
"Biff" rolled his eyes, and they grew sullen, ugly. Crouching there, he seemed
to become as dangerous and savage as a beast. He hated to be reminded that he
could not read.
"Some day I’m goin’ to get fed up with you," he told Velvet fiercely.
Velvet laughed again. An animal-like ferocity had come into his tone, also. "Any
time you feel lucky, cull!"
They glared at each other. It was Biff who first twitched his gaze aside.
"Never mind," he mumbled. "Let’s talk about Doc Savage."

WITH a bestial savagery, the two had snarled at each other. Now, with the
swiftness characteristic of animals, they dropped their belligerency. Shoulder
to shoulder, they moved over into the gloomy lee of a parked truck.
Biff made impatient grumbling noises.
"What are we waitin’ on?" he demanded. "It’s on the eighty-sixth floor. Ain’t
that what the back-number newspaper you was readin’ said?"
"That’s what it said." Velvet scowled in the gloom. "Say, how do you think we’re
going to do this?"
"Go up and bust in and—"
"And get busted!" Velvet finished disgustedly.
Biff seemed to have recovered completely from the somewhat uncanny fear which
the underground rumbling had caused. He drew a revolver from inside his clothes.
The gun was so blue as to be almost invisible in the darkness. He spun the
cylinder. It clicked like a clock being wound.
A rather gaudy bunch of handkerchief protruded from the breast pocket of Biff’s
coat. He picked this out. It proved to be tied around the hilt of a knife which
had a blade more than a foot long. It was carried in a concealed holster in his
coat lining. He could get it quickly by grabbing the handkerchief.
"I won’t bust so easy," he said in a soft tone.
Velvet shook his head slowly. His voice was not ugly now. "If you could read,
you might not be so sure."
Biff replaced gun and knife. "What’s readin’ got to do with it?"
"The newspapers," Velvet said, "seem to think this Doc Savage is quite a guy.