SCOOP

A Word of Warning?

The Crying of Lot 49

Chapter 3, Pg. 67

The Courier's Tragedy

...the act itself closed with Domenico, to whom the naive Niccolo started it off by spilling his secret,

Disclosing the details of your operations


trying to get in to see Duke Angelo and betray his dear friend.

RH

The Duke, of course, is in his apartment busy knocking off a piece, and the best Domenico can do is an administrative assistant who turns out to be the same Ercole who once saved the life of young Niccolo and aided his escape from Faggio.

This he presently confesses to Domenico, though only after having enticed that informer into foolishly bending over and putting his head into a curious black box, on the pretext of showing him a pronographic diorama.

Neurocam

A steel vice promptly clamps onto the failthless Domenico's head and the box muffles his cries for help. Ercole binds his hands and feet with scarlet silk cords, let's him know who it is he's run afoul of, reaches into the box with a pair of pinchers, tears out Domenico's tongue, stabs him a couple of times, pours into the box a beaker of aqua regia, enumerates a list of other goodies, including castration, that Domenico will undergo before he is allowed to die, all amid screams, tongueless attempts to pray, agnonized struggles from the victim. With the tongue impaled on his rapier Ercole runs to a burning torch set in the wall, sets the tongue aflame and waving it around like a madman conludes the act by screaming

Thy pitiless unmanning is most meet,

Thinks Ercole the zany paraclete.

Descended this malign, Unholy Ghost,

Let us begin thy frightful Pentecost.