Black Mask (Vol. 7, No. 5 — April 1950), British Edition

There was the deep and throaty barking of a dog. I rattled the knob when I found the door was locked and then knocked on the glass of the door. The barks subsided into savage growls. It meant that Satan was behind the bar with Harry tonight and that Harry Wenzel was drunk. That was the only time he brought the Great Dane inside.

I’d heard about that but I hadn’t seen it. I didn’t want to see it. People who had witnessed it had been much impressed; it had made a lot of talk around that part of the country.

Harry Wenzel would bring Satan up behind the bar, leading him on a stout choke-chain around his neck. The dog would ignore anyone at the bar unless they spoke to him, then he would turn and growl and show his great white, savage teeth.

Then Harry Wenzel put on an act. He would invite comment about the brute strength and savagery of Satan. He would say the customers were crazy, why, Satan was gentle as a lamb if you knew how to handle him. He would put the dog through a series of simple tricks and end up by forcing open the animal’s powerful jaws and sticking his hand full between them, for a moment, then pulling it out, unharmed.

All the time, Satan would be looking at Harry with his close-set, red and shiny eyes full of animal hate. Anyone watching, could tell the dog hated Harry Wenzel’s guts and would love to sink his fangs into his master’s throat.

Just to make sure nobody missed the point, Harry had a strong metal ring sunk deep into the floor behind the bar. At the end of his act, he would securely fasten the other end of the choke chain to that ring. Then he’d back off just past the length of the chain, deliberately turn his back on Satan and wait. In a few moments, without so much as a warning growl, the Great Dane would hurl himself toward Harry’s back, only to be brought up short, half strangled by his own weight and the power of his leap.

That was the end of it. Harry would turn around and Satan would sprawl peacefully, for the moment, on his belly, and satisfy himself once again with merely looking his hatred at the man who had partially tamed him. Harry would serve drinks around and bask in the awe and praise of his customers and laugh at the ones who told him he was foolhardy to play games with a murderous beast like Satan.

Looking through the glass of the door, now, I saw several people at the bar. I saw Harry Wenzel coming toward the door. He was waving his big arms and saying, “Sorry! Closed for the night. Come back tomorrow. Closed. Closed!”

“Okay, Harry,” I said. “It’s me, Matty.”

Harry Wenzel’s ugly face pressed against the glass for a moment as he peered out. Then his hand flirted with the door lock and the door swung in and open. He made a mocking bow and ushered me inside.

“What’s the idea of locking me out?” I said, kidding. “You don’t want me at your party, all right. I’ll go.”

“Matty Hoyle!” he yowled delightedly. “Thought you’d forgotten about the clambake. How’s the best dam’ newspaperman in these parts?”

He wasn’t kidding. I work for the Wildivood Press, the sheet that passes for the local newspaper. But once, before I’d gotten fired, I’d worked for one of the big wire services and that made me top drawer as far as Harry Wenzel was concerned.

He grabbed me in a mock wrestling bear-hug and pulled back his head, preparatory to banging me gently against the skull with his own massive, rock-hard forehead. I twisted and lunged away from him. I wanted none of that, even in fun. I’d seen Harry Wenzel knock out a big-mouthed roisterer at the bar, one night, who’d been giving him a hard time all evening, by butting him with the forehead like that.

“I didn’t want to hurt the guy,” Harry had apologized as they threw water on the character. “But somebody had to quiet him. I didn’t want to hit him. I didn’t want to hurt him.”

That was Harry Wenzel, a gentle soul who loved his fellow man. That was what he sold, but not many people bought it. He was a fairly good guy when he was sober but there was a hoodlum streak that came out when he was drunk. Everybody was always very nice and very tender of Harry Wenzel when he was drinking.

He took my arm, his laughter subsiding and steered me toward the bar. He squeezed my arm gently and left all his fingermarks. “Door’s only locked to keep out the peasants. You know that, Matty.”

Harry had been born and raised right in this township but the local people were always peasants to him when he was crocked. He’d bummed around all over the world as a seaman on tramp steamers and he’d seen and done plenty. You wouldn’t call him a small-town guy, even though he’d been settled in these parts again for over ten years, now!