Immortal Lycanthropes - By Hal Johnson Page 0,19
died ten thousand years ago. Now, I can’t tell you what to do, because if I knew I wouldn’t be a drunk and a gambler and a thief.”
“You’re a thief?”
“Not really—really I’m an expropriator, and a propagandist. A propagandist by the deed.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means where did you get those clothes?” She drew from the sack a cylinder about fifteen inches long and six inches in diameter, wrapped in black duct tape. “I can’t tell you what to do, but here’s something, maybe it’ll keep you busy. You can take this doomsday device and deliver it to Arthur.”
Myron took the cylinder gingerly. “What’s in here?”
They were walking again, Gloria pulling Myron along by the sleeve. “John Dillinger’s wang,” she said.
“What!”
“No, I mean, faith, I don’t know. I never open anything I’ve heard called a doomsday device.”
“I don’t know where Arthur is.”
“Well, he’s looking for you, too, so that should double your chances. And what you can do is ask the Nine Unknown Men, they always know this kind of thing.”
“I don’t know who they are, either.”
“You’re not supposed to, naturally; they’re unknown. They’re in New York City, at the corner of Fifth Street and Sixth Avenue. You should be writing this down.”
“I don’t have a pencil. Literally the only things I own in this world are these stolen clothes and a doomsday device.”
“You do have a mouth on you. Let’s hope you have a brain, too.”
“Corner of Fifth Street and Sixth Avenue.”
“Good. Now the Nine Unknown Men will ask you a riddle, and if you get it right they’ll help you, but if you get it wrong—well, you don’t want to get it wrong. Are you good at riddles?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now listen closely, because this is the most important thing I’m going to tell you. Do you remember that print in the apartment you found me in? The one you said was a painting?”
“Sure.”
“There are certain classes of people who will buy original art but can’t bring themselves to own a reproduction. It’s ‘vulgar,’ or ‘common,’ to own a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, even though of course no one could possibly afford the original Mona Lisa. So what do you think they do, Myron?”
“A reproduction?”
“I mean a poster of the Mona Lisa, not the original.”
“Yes, I know what a reproduction is,” Myron sniffed. “I just don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”
“What they do is they buy a poster of the Mona Lisa, but one that has at the bottom a notation that says what exhibit it’s from. This way they can pretend that it’s not a poster of the Mona Lisa, which is too vulgar for words, but a promotional item, like a movie poster or a concert poster. A souvenir of their trip to the Louvre. It’s a kind of trick. The people who adopted you, Myron—”
“My parents.”
“The people who adopted you. They’re upper middle class, aren’t they?”
“I don’t know. My father’s a doctor.”
“All the art in their house, I’m betting, was either an actual painting or a poster that said ‘Philadelphia Museum of Art,’ with the date, on the bottom.”
“Maybe.”
“You’ve got to understand, not everyone is like that. Not everyone refuses to hang posters up. Some people are petit bourgeois and not haut bourgeois. Not everyone is going to be from the same world you know. You’re not from the same world you know. Remember that. Ah. Up you go now.”
Myron found that Gloria was muscling him onto a bus. She slipped him a roll of twenties bound with a rubber band.
“This goes to New York,” she said. “I’ll take care of your ticket. The Nine Unknown Men, don’t forget them, either.”
“Wait, why am I giving Arthur this doomsday device? What should I do about the lion?”
“You’ve got plenty of options. Maybe you can use the doomsday device to get revenge, like Hugh Jass.”
“Hugh Glass.”
Gloria nodded appreciatively. “Well, that’s a little better.”
No one sat next to Myron. One person tried, but he threw up and had to change seats. After an hour on the bus, Myron thought to look closer at the roll of twenties. He found that only the top bill was a twenty; the other eight were singles. When he got to New York he learned that Gloria had not paid for the ticket; she had somehow persuaded the driver that some guardian of Myron’s would pay double on arrival. While the driver called the station police, Myron ran away into the cold and shadowy night.
IV. Men, Known and Unknown
New men and new methods