The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

“Cripes!” Joe Gorgon came to his feet. “Williams is here. He knows something. He—. Damn it, Mike — he’s not going out of here a—”

I fingered my gun, of course, raised my pocket slightly too. Even thought of pulling the rod out and laying it on my knees, in a sociable way. But I didn’t. I took another sip of the wine and understood why Joe drank whisky. Not that the wine wasn’t good. It was probably great stuff, great stuff for a garden party. But you’d have to go at it wholesale to get a kick out of it.

“When thieves fall out honest men get their due,” was going strong with me — of course, fully realizing that the honest man must have his hand on a rod and a finger caressing a trigger — or he’d get a “due” that would be surprising to him.

Joe Gorgon stopped talking. Michelle’s eyelids never flickered. The good natured twist to his mouth, that might be better described as tolerance rather than a smile, never changed. But the pupils of his eyes seemed to contract, as if you looked too long at a thing in a bright light, and found it getting smaller and smaller, yet sharper, as it got smaller. His right hand went below the table, and he lifted a book and tossed it across the polished surface so that it spun slightly before it struck Joe’s outstretched hand and lay still.

Joe’s hand fell upon the book. His mean little eyes grew large as his brother’s contracted. He sort of clutched at his side when he spoke.

“For me?” he said. “Good God! you’re not giving that book to me!” And his face cleared slightly as he glanced at me. “For Williams.”

“Maybe. I hope not.” Michelle Gorgon turned his eyes on me, and I looked down at the expensively bound volume. I saw the title stamped in gold upon the cover.

“The Tanglewood Tales,” I read, “by Nathaniel Hawthorne.”

I took another sip of the wine, leaned out, and with my free left hand flipped back the pages. It was a de luxe edition, and the volume opened at once to THE GORGON’S HEAD. I grinned up at Michelle.

“For me?” I said, fingering the book.

“I hope not,” said Michelle Gorgon again. “Indeed, I hope not. But it’s not all fancy, Race, that mythical tale of Hawthorne’s. History repeats itself.”

“I want to speak to you alone.” Joe Gorgon threw off another drink, and his brother glanced disparagingly at the bottle and sipped his wine.

“Anything you have to say, Joe, can be said in front of Williams, here.”

“No, it can’t,” said Joe. And the liquor was doing him some good, for he glared back at his brother now. “This talking around corners may be good stuff with your crowd, not mine. Williams, here, is one of my kind. He wants straight talk. At least, he gives straight talk. You’re—. Yes, damn it, I’ll get it in. You’re sitting on the edge of a volcano and—. I have a message to deliver to you, alone.”

And that was my cue. I thought I knew why Joe Gorgon had visited his brother. I thought I knew the message he had to deliver. I had seen that message of mine throw Joe higher than a kite. Why not work it for a double header? Why not find what effect it would have on the Third Gorgon, the brains of the three brothers? Why not deliver that message myself? And I decided to try it. I said:

“Why argue the point out? I delivered a little message to Joe, here. He wants to pass it on to you. I’ll save you trouble and give it to you myself, Doctor.” And before Joe could horn in I shot it out, with all my flair for the dramatic, and with the memory of Joe’s contorted map when he heard it.

“Michelle Gorgon,” I said. “The Devil is Unchained.”

It worked twice on Joe. He stretched out a hand quickly and grabbed his brother’s arm. His face twisted, and his lips parted at the corners. And he watched carefully the features of his brother, Michelle; watched, I thought, for Michelle to give a single shriek, lie down and roll over.

But Michelle Gorgon still smiled with his lips. He said simply:

“How droll. What a droll message!”

“Don’t you understand?” Joe Gorgon shook his brother by the arm. “Have these years so dulled your—”

“Stop!” Michelle Gorgon shot the words through his teeth. There was an animal-like viciousness in the way his head shot forward, as he glared at his brother. “You’re trying to push a peanut wagon across this living room, just as you pushed it on Canal street twenty-three years ago. You had your stand then, Joe. You protected that stand. You enticed rival vendors up an alley and put the fear of Joe Gorgon into their hearts, and went your way and protected your corner, and sold two bags of peanuts where you had sold one before. And now, in your heart you’re still running the same peanut racket, still entertaining the same fears, still drinking the same poison. Now—” Michelle Gorgon paused. The phone rang sharply on the table beside him.

“You’ll pardon me, gentlemen.” He half bowed to me, very seriously, and to his brother with a touch of sarcasm. “I think that I am to have a message that will be of much interest to each one of us, more so than Williams’ rather em — epigrammatic reference to the devil.”