The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age--The '20s, '30s & '40s

by Otto Penzler

  “Come—” she said again, “you don’t believe it. Yes or no.”

  “Yes—” I said, “I do believe it. You can’t come the ‘kid act’ on me any longer. You can’t—”

  “You fool,” she whispered hoarsely, looking toward the door. “I never ate my heart out because I couldn’t get you—have you. I could have had you whenever I wanted you—you or any other man. But I wanted you to want me, too. Don’t you see? I didn’t want you like the others. I could always have made you—can make you love me. Because—well—look here.”

  That little body of hers was close to me. Warm breath was on my cheeks, hands pressed the back of my head. I just grinned down at her, lifted my hands slowly to take hers from about my neck—and she did it. One quick movement; one quick jerk—lips that touched mine; a breath that seemed to go deep into my body; a burning in my forehead; a quick, dizzy rush of blood— and her eyes, flaming and soft, and—. Oh, hell— it happened. Just for a second—maybe a split second—I crushed The Flame to me, held her so—then thrust her from me, flinging her half across the room. A chair turned, spun a moment, and toppled to the floor.

  CHAPTER XII

  QUEER TALK

  Had I lost my head? I don’t know. Why lie about such things? Yet—. Maybe I hadn’t been carried away by her presence—. But The Flame was beautiful; The Flame was—. Why shouldn’t a man hold a beautiful woman?

  I leaned against the wall and looked at her. She was smiling at me. What was in her mind? Here was a wonderful woman. No—something else struck me then. The line I had just pulled on her. “He travels farthest who travels alone.” And she was coming across the room to me.

  The woman! No—the woman was gone now. It was the girl, Florence Drummond. The sparkle of youth in her eyes—a softness—a realness that made me rub my hand across my glims and blink.

  “You’re right, Race. Maybe, after all—” She stopped dead, and straightened. The hall door closed. Soft, slow feet—and Doctor Michelle Gorgon was in the room.

  He ignored my presence completely—went straight to Florence, lifted both her hands in his and stared at her without a word. And The Flame looked back at him. Nothing of anger, just a straight look from clear deep eyes. No color came into her cheeks; no embarrassment to those great brown orbs.

  “So you are The Flame. The Girl with the Criminal Mind. Do you know that you are a very fortunate young lady? Very fortunate indeed. I think that I could like you a great deal. I—”

  “Doctor Gorgon,” I crossed the room, “Miss Drummond has had a very trying evening as it is. I think perhaps we will call it a night.”

  He was very tall. He turned his head slowly and looked back over his shoulder at me. For some time he regarded me fixedly with those unblinking blue eyes.

  There was nothing of anger in them—nothing even of hostility. More annoying for lack of either, I guess. He looked like a scientist studying some bug. And, damn it all—what’s more, he looked natural. Not as if he was affecting it, but as if he really meant it. As if he were trying to be—well—not polite—say, tolerant—and hide from me the fact that he regarded himself very much my superior.

  “I wonder,” he said at length, “if you know exactly who I am.”

  “Yes—” I said, “I do. And it don’t mean a thing to me. And I wonder if you know exactly who I am and—”

  “And that it will mean quite a bit to me?” I think that he smiled—at least, his lips parted. “I am afraid, Race Williams, that you mean very little to me. To my brothers—yes. Their blood is hot, and the brute strength of the beast is dominant in them. But I am very sure that in you I would find little to worry about. I am afraid I have little interest in the physical. I abhor, as I said, firearms—shrink most appallingly from violence, and physical exertion of any kind incapacitates me for days. You don’t go in for murder, you see— and where I must bow most humbly to your physical superiority, it wouldn’t really interest me personally. No—you can not mean anything to me. You—” he paused a moment, and I saw his eyes rest upon the overturned chair, move quickly from The Flame to me, and then he said, “Well— perhaps you may mean something to me, but not in the sense you believe.”

  He certainly could talk. There were no two ways about that. And what’s more, he could read what was on my mind—or, maybe, written upon my face. Anyway, I did have it in my mind to show him something of the physical that would surprise him. He looked big and strong enough not to be playing the woman.

  “Really, Williams, I am sure you do not intend to use physical violence—at least, in the presence of a lady. You—”

  “Doctor,” I told him, “you may be hot stuff with Eddie and a few other bar flies. And you may stand in with certain big men—and it may even be true what’s hinted; that you—well— that you’re the Third Gorgon that I’d always looked on as sort of an underworld myth until you stared Eddie down. But if you are the big guy behind the political racket, the judgeship scandal racket, and even the murder racket— well—drop Miss Drummond’s hands, or I’ll throw you down the stairs.”

  He didn’t get mad—which made me just a bit madder.

  “I wonder if you would,” he said slowly. “It might be interesting and—” He shook his head. “No—no, we anticipate things.” But he dropped The Flame’s hands.

  “I think you had better go, Race,” The Flame said.

  “Not me,” I told her. “I’ll wait until the Doctor decides to make an ‘out’—which will be soon, I’m sure.”

  “Don’t be a fool.” But there was more of interest in The Flame’s face than anger. “I—I won’t need you.”

  “Good God!” I didn’t like that “I kissed you and got you” look in her eyes and I let her know it. “I wasn’t thinking of you—but myself,” I told her. Which was true. And I looked at Michelle Gorgon when I got off that last crack—and wondered. Yep, here was a lad I didn’t understand, and what I don’t understand I don’t like.

  “But Doctor Gorgon has something to say to me. Something that I’d like very much to hear.” And she didn’t put those glims of hers on him like she did when she wanted to swing a lad her way. She looked him straight in the eyes—clear, interested—more than interested. Deeply anxious.

  “In his way Williams is right.” Doctor Gorgon nodded condescendingly. “We must see life—or even death—through the brain that is given us. I do not think, dear lady, that I need say more than I have already said to you. I will not say that you have been foolish, for I do not know the thoughts that that mind of yours might carry. Certainly, not what others might read there. But let us say that if you are not correcting an error, you are making a change of plans.” He walked to the table where the money The Flame had tossed there for me still laid. He ran his fingers through the bills, looked at The Flame, jerked open the drawer, and without hesitation lifted out some bills and some jewelry—held them out, so, to The Flame.

  “This is all?” he asked.

  “No—” The Flame pointed to the ring on her finger.

  “I see,” he said. “I will take it. No—just throw it there on the table. You understand, even though it all comes from the same treasury, it is better that it is returned to the—the sender. For it was his thought, you see—and I am afraid, not exactly a business one.”

  “The money on the table,” The Flame spoke very slowly, “belongs to Mr. Williams.”

  “Seven hundred dollars.” This time Michelle Gorgon’s eyebrows moved slightly. “Well— comparisons might be odious. This is yours, Mr. Williams?” He held the bills out to me.

  I was just about to knock them from his hand when The Flame spoke.

  “Surely, Race,” she said. “If later events prove unpleasant to you, you’re not planning on throwing that in my face.”

  I took the money and shoved it into my pocket. I didn’t like the present racket. I felt stupid standing there with the gun in my hand, but I was still standing there—and stupid or not stupid, I shoved that gun into my jacket pocket and still kept
my hand on it.

  Very methodically Michelle Gorgon searched through the drawer of that table, found an envelope, studied its size a moment, then put the money and the jewelry into it, added something from his own wallet and carefully sealed it. Then he crossed again to The Flame and started in with his line as he looked steadily at her and ignored me.

  “You are a very beautiful woman—that is, to any man. To me, now—if your limbs were twisted things; your face a hideous death mask, you would still be a very beautiful woman—if those eyes remained untouched. The eyes, my dear, are the peepholes to the inner beauty of the mind. I wonder if you understand me. Understand why I verbally maim your beautiful body.”

  “I think I do,” said The Flame. “I think— I do.”

  “And you do not mind?”

  “No—” she said. “I do not mind.”

  “I am not playing at the magician, then. The mystery of whose tricks are known only to himself.”

  “No—” she said. “I understand you fully.”

  I had stood enough of being made monkeys out of, and I let them know it.

  “Well—I don’t understand,” I said. “And now, Doctor, you and I are on our way. If you don’t believe in the physical, here’s your chance.”

  He turned, thrust the envelope toward me and said:

  “I wonder if you would care to return this envelope to its rightful owner.”

  “No—” said The Flame. “He’d—he’d kill him, or be killed.”

  “I think not,” said Michelle Gorgon. “But even so,” he shrugged his shoulders, “the one is a cross which I am beginning unwillingly to bear—and the other—” he looked at me hard now—and I glared back at him, “a threatening menace on the horizon. Maybe an imaginary menace,” and turning from me to The Flame— and back to me again, “perhaps a real one whom—” A pause, and suddenly, before I could get a word in, “Will you, or will you not return these—this envelope to its sender.”

  I took the envelope and shoved it carelessly into my pocket.

  “Yes—” I said, “I will. Who is the man?”

  “Eddie Gorgon.” There was a slight chuckle. The arm that I had half raised, to bring down on his shoulder was caught, and I was walking from the room with Doctor Michelle Gorgon.

  I didn’t break away. I didn’t twist my arm free and hurl him across the room. Somehow I felt silly enough. Somehow, kid like and foolish like, I wanted to carry the thing off as well as he did. Here was a lad who talked and talked, and said nothing. Or did he say a lot, and I didn’t have the wits to get it? But he never threatened—never raised his voice in anger. Treated me in rather good natured contempt—and, to myself, I wondered if we’d been alone would it have been the same. Wouldn’t I have just hauled off and cracked him one, or—? But there’s not much pride in that thought.

  And The Flame. Damn The Flame. I wondered if she knew how I felt. That was what hurt the most—that was what cut. Yep, The Flame was laughing at me. Not out loud. Not in a way you could notice even. Maybe she wasn’t even laughing at me. But that will give you an idea of the way I felt. These two seemed to have reached an understanding which I did not get, though I heard every word.

  This Third Gorgon—this wop with the white skin and the steady, unblinking eyes, the soft voice and—. Damn it, he didn’t seem like a wop—didn’t seem like anything but what he represented himself to be—a—. But that’s what I was representing him to be. Certainly he had done something to The Flame—reached some understanding with her.

  Mind you, a guy can feel stupid, silly, and what have you, and still not walk up in front of a machine gun and wait for the gunman to turn the crank.

  I let Doctor Gorgon hold his elbow crooked beneath my arm. One reason was because of The Flame. The other because he had taken my left elbow and my right hand still held the gun. Why hadn’t he grabbed at that right arm? Then I’d have some excuse to hit him one.

  CHAPTER XIII

  JUST ANOTHER WOP

  Now, in the outer hall I jerked my arm free, twisted Michelle Gorgon slightly and none too gently, and slapped my gun against his side. Maybe he wasn’t any gangster—maybe he didn’t tote a gun. But the lower city just reeked with the rumor that, if the truth were told, Doctor Michelle Gorgon had put more men on the spot, big guys, racketeers, than any gang leader that ever putrified our city. It was even rumoured that a noted jurist had dined with Michelle Gorgon at his home the night of his disappearance.

  But back to facts as I knew them and concerned me personally. Eddie Gorgon had gone out in that hall a short while before. The hall was dimly lit, but enough to see plainly our two figures walking down those stairs, and distinguish one from the other. Besides which, I hadn’t and wouldn’t search Michelle Gorgon. Oh—not that I believed all that talk about his not carting a gun—though certainly he hadn’t produced one when he entered The Flame’s apartment. But— I just couldn’t search him. That superior air of his! I’d show him I didn’t care if he carried a gun or not. If he did, and wanted to use it on me, that was his privilege.

  No, it wasn’t because of him personally, that I shoved a gun against his side. It was because of the gang he represented, ruled, through his brothers—or maybe just his brother, Joe—for Eddie could only be counted on to shoot a guy through the back at three paces.

  “You know, Williams, you are not a very trusting soul,” Michelle Gorgon said to me as we went down those stairs. “A gun in my side, now. I abhor the melodramatic—sudden death by violence except of course in the abstract.”

  I didn’t exactly get that one, so I let it ride. Later, I got the impression that by “abstract” he meant he killed his enemies without being present in person—just his mind controlling and directing the hand of the one he selected to do his murdering for him.

  My gun clamped against his side, though, was paying a few dividends. For, late as the hour was, Doctor Gorgon hummed softly as he descended the stairs, and once a lump of blackness which might have been a shadow or the lurking body of a gunman, seemed to fade back into the darkness. Of course, shadows don’t make boards creak, as they fade away. But, again, the house was old, and I wasn’t in a particularly good humor.

  When we stepped out on the pavement a Rolls Royce stood before the building. A man wrapped in a great coat swung open the car door as I caught the initials in gold stamped upon it. Another, at the wheel, brought the engine into life—though that part I guessed at, for you hardly heard it purr.

  “I’ll take you home, of course,” he told me, as I hid the gun partly under my coat as we neared the car door. “Not just courtesy, my dear Williams—not just because you were about to suggest any such procedure—but because your life is very dear to me tonight. I wouldn’t have anything happen to you while with me, or just after leaving me. You see, the police—or at least one imaginative policeman has taken quite an interest in me. It is a help, of course. It is convenient to know that, when anything unpleasant happens that might be laid to the interests of my brother, Joe, through the watchfulness of our great police system suspicion can not direct its unpleasant breath upon me.”

  I was willing to go with him, all right. And as I got into the car and sat down beside him, he said—and there was little of humor in his voice—rather, he seemed to think he was stating a great universal truth.

  “Yours is rather a silly position tonight— now. Like the man who held the lion by the tail and was both afraid to hang on and afraid to let go.” He raised the speaking tube. “Park Avenue, and home,” he said.

  Michelle Gorgon dropped the tube.

  “Do you know, Williams, that doesn’t seem quite courteous; that you should see me home instead of my seeing you? But a strange fancy struck me. I would like you to pay me a visit— like to talk with you. You wouldn’t consider it venturesome to visit me—now—at this late hour? I think that maybe I can interest you.” And as he rambled on I began to like it better— feel better toward him. I just leaned back and listened. Sometimes these lads who talk, n
o matter how clever they are, say something—say something they shouldn’t. Yet, never for a moment did I forget that Michelle Gorgon was a big man. Not one seeking power, but one who had obtained it. And even in the underworld, even in crooked politics, you don’t talk yourself to the top—or, at least, if you do—you talk yourself out again. Now—why was he dragging me along? Why did he take such an interest in me?

  And once he cut in quickly in his ramblings.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “Who could help it?” I answered, for there had been an irritable note in his voice, and I rather liked it. So, I thought, there is a way to get under that skin of his. And with that thought I felt better. Funny. I encouraged him to talk now. “Why do you want me to visit you—and why should I?”

  “Because I will interest you. As to your safety. If you were my most feared enemy, my home would be the safest spot for you in the whole city of New York. The police watch it occasionally. One policeman in particular. And I think, while I’m on the subject, I’ll tell you his name. It amuses me and helps establish my reputation, this interest in me. My life is an open book. The police see me come and go. But my mind is closed to all but myself. Silly, this following me about, watching my home. And how long do you think it would take me to stop it— have this busy-body removed from the Force? Just long enough to lift a phone and put a word in the ear of the right party. You might tell my shadow that. I believe you know him. His name is Detective Sergeant O’Rourke, an efficient officer. I should hate to see him removed from duty. You might tell him that, any day, I may grow tired of his attentions. And when that day comes, it will be too late for Sergeant O’Rourke. You see, it will be greatly to his advantage to grow tired of me before I grow tired of him.”

  “Yeah. I’ll tell him when I see him, Doctor. This is your place?”