"The only luck I wish you is bad. Don't try to grab hold of me."
The gangster's hand slid into the front of his coat, toward that bulge
that denoted an armpit holster. Gascon sprang upon him, catching him
by the sleeve near the elbow so that he could not whip free with the
weapon. Gascon's other hand dived into his own pocket, again clutching
the big wad of chloroform-soaked cotton.
He whipped the wad at and upon the triangular face. The man tried to
writhe away but Gascon, heavier and harder-muscled than he, shoved
him against the wall, where the back of his head could be clamped and
held. Struggling, the fellow breathed deeply, again, again. His frantic
flounderings suddenly went feeble. Gascon judged the dose sufficient,
and let go his holds. The man subsided limply and Gascon, still holding
to his sleeve, dragged the right hand out of the coat. Dropping his wad
of cotton, he took up the big pistol.
"I'm afraid, Gaspipe," said a shrill, wise voice he should know better
than anyone in the world, "that that gun won't really help you a
nickel's worth."
Gascon spun around. A moment ago he had put his hand on the doorknob.
When he had turned to leap at the triangle-faced man, he had pulled
the door open. Now he could see inside a bare, officelike room, a big
sturdy desk and a figure just beyond; a figure calm and assured, but so
tiny, so grotesque.
"Come in, Gaspipe," commanded Tom-Tom, the dummy.
* * * * *
Tom-Tom did not look as Gascon had remembered him. The checked jacket
was filthy and frayed, and in the breast of it was a round black hole
the size of a fingertip. The paint had been flaked away from the
comical face, one broad ear was half broken off, the wig was tousled
and matted. And the eyes goggled no more in the clownish fashion
that had been made so famous in publicity photographs. They crouched
deep in Tom-Tom's wooden face and glowed greenly, like the eyes of a
meat-eating animal.
"You're the only man I ever expected to figure me out, Gaspipe," said
Tom-Tom. "And even you can't do much about it, can you? Put away the
gun. I've been shot at and shot at, and it does nothing but make little
holes like this."
He tapped the black rent in his jacket-front with a jointed forefinger.
"As a matter of fact, I was glad to see your notice in the agony
column. I think I'd have hunted you up, anyway. You see, we make a fine
team, Gaspipe. There are things we can still do for each other, but you
must be reasonable."
"I'm not here to let you make fun of me," said Gascon. "You're just a
little freak, brought to life by the chance power evolved by a cracked
old intelligence. Once I puzzled it out, I knew that I needn't be
afraid. You can't do anything to me."
"No?" said Tom-Tom, with what seemed a chuckle. "Let me show you
something, Gaspipe."
His wooden hand moved across the desk-top and touched a button. A
section of the wall slid back like a stage curtain, revealing an
opening the size of a closet door. The opening was fenced in with a
metal grating. Behind it stood Shannon Cole, her long black hair awry,
her face pale, her cloth-of-gold pajamas rumpled.
"Ben!" she said, in a voice that choked. "Did he get you, too?"
[Illustration: "_How about it, Gaspipe? Are you working
with me? We were a good pair once._"]
Gascon exclaimed, and turned as if to spring toward the grating. But
at the same instant, with a swiftness that was more than a cat's,
Tom-Tom also moved. He seemed to fly across his desk as though flung by
a catapult. His hard head struck Gascon's stomach, doubling him up,
and then Tom-Tom's arms whipped around Gascon's ankles, dragging them
sidewise. Down fell the ventriloquist, heavily and clumsily. The gun
flew from his hand, bouncing on the floor like a ball. Tom-Tom caught
it in mid-bounce, and lifted it with both hands.
"I won't kill you, Gaspipe," he announced, "but I'll most emphatically
shoot off your kneecap, if you try anything sudden again. Sit up. Put
your back against that wall. And listen."
"Do what he says, Ben! He means business!" Shannon Cole urged
tremulously from behind her bars.
Gascon obeyed, trying to think of a way to grapple that imp of wood and
fabric. Tom-Tom chuckled again, turned back to his desk and scrambled
lightly upon it. As before he touched the button, and Shannon was
instantly shut from sight.
"Good thing I kidnapped her," he observed. "Not only is she worth
thousands to her managers, but she brought you to me. Now we'll have a
dandy conference. Just like old times, isn't it, Gaspipe?"
Gascon sat still, eyeing the gun. He might have risked its menace,
but for the thought of Shannon behind those bars. Tom-Tom, so weirdly
strong, might fight him off even if disarmed, then turn on his captive.
The dummy that was no longer a dummy seemed to read his mind:
"No violence, Gaspipe. I tell you, it's been tried before. When the
Dilson mobsters were through laughing at the idea of my taking over,
one or two thought that Digs Dilson should be avenged. But their guns
didn't even make me blink. I killed a couple, and impressed the others.
I put into them the fear of Tom-Tom." Again the chuckle. "I'm almost
as hard to hurt as I am to fool, Gaspipe. And that's very, very hard
indeed."
"What do you want of me?" blurted Gascon, scowling.
"Now that's a question," nodded Tom-Tom. "It might be extended a
little. What do I want of life, Gaspipe? Life is here with me, but
I never asked for it. It was thrust into me, and upon me. My first
feeling was of crazy rage toward the life-giver--"
"And so you killed him?" interrupted Gascon.
"I did. And the killing gave me the answer. The only thing worth while
in life is taking life."
Tom-Tom spread his wooden hands, as though he felt that he had made a
neat point. Gascon made a quick gesture of protest, then subsided as
Tom-Tom picked up the gun again.
"You're wrong, Tom-Tom," he said earnestly.
"Am I? You're going to give me a moral lecture, are you? But men
invented morals, so as to protect their souls. I don't have a soul,
Gaspipe. I don't have to worry about protecting it. I'm not human. I'm
a _thing_." Sitting on the desk, he crossed his legs and fiddled with
the gun. "You've lived longer than I. What else, besides killing, is
worth while in life?"
"Why--enjoyment--"
The marred head waggled. "Enjoyment of what? Food? I can't eat.
Companionship? I doubt it, where a freak like me is concerned.
Possessions? But I can't use clothes or houses or money or anything
like that. They're for men, not dummies. What else, Gaspipe?"
"Why--why--" This time Gascon fell silent.
"Love, you were going to say?" The chuckle was louder, and the glowing
yellow eyes flickered aside toward the place behind the wall where
Shannon was penned up. "You're being stupid, Gaspipe. Because you know
what love is, you think others do. Gaspipe, I'll never know what love
is. I'm not made for it."
"I see you aren't," Gascon nodded solemnly. "All right, Tom-Tom.
You can find life worth living if you try for supremacy in some
line--leadership--"
"That," said Tom-Tom, "is where killing comes in. And where you come
in, too."
He laid down the gun and put the tips of his jointed fingers together,
in a pose grotesquely like that of a mild lecturer. "I've given my
case a lot of time and thought, you see. I realize that I don't fit
in--humanity hasn't ever considered making a place for me. I don't have
needs or reactions or wishes to fit those of humanity."
"Is that why you turn to criminals? Because they don't fit into normal
human ethics, either?"
"Exactly, exactly." Tom-Tom nodded above his poised hands. "And
criminals understand me, and I understand them better than you think.
But," and he sounded a little weary, "they're no good, either.
"You see, Gaspipe, they scare too easily. They die too easily. Just now
you overpowered one. They're not fit to associate with me on the terms
I dictate. If I'm going to have power, it will turn what passes for my
stomach if I have only people--people of meat and bone--under me." He
made a spitting sound, such as Gascon had often faked for him in the
days when the two were performing. "As I say, this is where you come
in."
"In heaven's name, what do you mean?"
"You're smart, Gaspipe. You made me--the one thing that has been given
artificial life. Well, you'll make other things to be animated."
"More robots?" demanded Gascon. "You want a science factory."
"I am the apex of science come true. Oh, it's practical. A couple
at first. Then ten. Then a hundred. Then enough, perhaps, to grab a
piece of the world and rule it. Don't bug out your eyes, Gaspipe. My
followers bought up the life-making machinery and other things for me.
I have lots of money--from that ransom--and I can get more."
Gascon was finding the idea not so surprising as at first, but he shook
his head over it. "I won't."
"Yes, you will. We'll be partners again. Understand?"
"If I refuse?"
Tom-Tom made no audible answer. He only turned and gazed meaningly at
the place where Shannon was shut up.