Stuffed (24 page)

We reached the approaching party much sooner than I would have liked. I needed more time to think.

By the flashlight, I could see that the flanking men were both Asian, in military uniforms, with red stars on their hats.

I blinked.

Hard.

You’ve got to be kidding me. The Chinese military? How in hell did they get here? Well, they probably believe in the curative powers of gallbladders too. Orderlies, round up some more straitjackets.

The one counterpart looked like a common soldier, and his eyes betrayed that he was as scared as I was. The other was clearly an officer of some kind and looked calm and collected. The one in the middle wore an outdated black suit, a thin black tie, and a face like an angry toad, replete with bumps and warts. It was a woman, I think. Her black hair was shoulder length with strict bangs, but she was bulky and bosoms weren’t immediately evident, not in that light, not in that Blues Brothers’ suit.

Could she be a freak too?
TOAD WOMAN . . . Eats Flies Right Before Your Eyes . . . Genuine, Direct from the Orient!

I remembered what Pete had said when we had lunch:
All I can tell you is that there’s some guys from Korea coming to town with alligator briefcases so full of money it looks like a Brinks truck crashed into the Everglades.
Not Chinese soldiers. They were Korean.

We stopped three paces apart, and the toad set the suitcase before me. Renard stepped up to it and knelt. He set the suitcase on its side. Two snaps and it was open, displaying a full load of U.S. currency. He looked up at me and nodded in the direction of Toad Woman, who had her hand out for the box. Renard motioned for me to hand it over.

I hesitated. Yes, I had some crazy idea about using the power of the horn, the power I didn’t really believe in. But I didn’t get the chance.

The scared Korean soldier started to hum.

Toad Woman gave him a stern look and shone the flashlight on the soldier’s face, whose eyes were glassy, focused somewhere off in the middle distance.

Renard and I exchanged glances just before the soldier broke into song. Song in the voice of a little girl.

“Watch me, swingers, and let’s all strive

To do the Mambo Rumba Two-Hand Jive

Get down low, and back up high

Shimmy those hips, give it a try.”

Toad Woman looked like she’d just swallowed a bad bug. I’m sure the soldier had probably never uttered a word of English in his life, and here he was doing Belle Beverly, right out of the blue.

Drawing the suitcase of money closer to him, Renard reached out and smacked me in the leg. “Give them the horn, you idiot!”

But I wasn’t about to do anything. In my mind, I was surrounded by flaming heads of taxidermy, a flippered freak coming at me with a knife. There’s paralyzed with fear and then there’s comatose with fear. I knew Flip was nearby.

The soldier continued:

“Feel the music in your feet

The gang on the beach has the beat

Let your hands show your honey

You’re no square, on the money.”

Toad Woman swallowed her bitter beetle and grabbed the soldier by the collar. She slapped him hard, three times. A burst of Korean admonishments followed, but the soldier was still in a trance. I could only imagine that her husband—perhaps Toad Man—was kept on a pretty short leash. Or in his case, in a small terrarium.

Renard stood and grabbed the box from my hand, thrusting it toward Toad Woman.

She shoved the singing soldier aside with a sneer, snatching the box and turning a flashlight beam on the horn.

From inside his tunic, the officer pulled a slender feather and a pocket-size ultraviolet lamp, the kind you can use to check currency. Toad Woman took the feather and stroked the horn. Then she examined it under the ultraviolet lamp. The black horn glowed white.

She grunted with satisfaction.

But then the officer began to sing. And the soldier chimed in. They sang together.

“C’mon, Cats, work those mittens

These ginchy girls are all but kittens

Doin’ the Mambo Rumba Two-Hand Jive

Way out, Daddy-o, it’s a dance alive.”

Toad Woman looked not just unhappy but scared by the impromptu karaoke duet. The little blue lamp fell from her chubby hand and hit the floor. The feather wafted slowly to her feet. Eyes ping-ponging from one singing soldier to the next, she snapped the box shut and clasped it to her chest. She started to back up. There was an emergency exit behind her, and she put a hand on the door handle.

From behind me, I heard what sounded like someone spitting, and then something whizzed, a speeding bee right past my ear.

Toad Woman paused. It looked like a toothpick was sticking out of her forehead, and she reached up to pull it out. Blood trickled down her broad nose.

Those goblin statues—pygmies! The realization and shock made me inhale my gum, and I started to choke.

I could hear Renard scrambling back toward Smiler and the gang, but a series of other spitting sounds and some shouts came from behind me. I had trouble making out what was going on back there—I was gagging on my gum and bent over in an effort to dislodge it. First the gum at the restaurant, now this.

Good thing, because when I finally managed to eject the Fruit Stripe gum from my epiglottis and glanced up, Toad Woman had two more toothpicks, this time in her chest. If I’d been standing, those toxiferous toothpicks would have been in my back. The toad fell to her knees—the poison from the darts was working its magic.

Time for Garth to vamoose. The exit was right in front of me, the soldiers were in a trance, Toad Woman was out of the game, and the pygmies were probably coming after me next.

You know, of all the things in this modern world to worry about, like slipping in the tub, falling from a ladder, being attacked by a rabid squirrel, I never thought I’d have to worry about pygmies. Bring on the squirrels, any day.

Glancing back into the dark, the only thing I could make out was the statue with the white sheet closing in on me. The ghost had big, blocky, corrective shoes.

Flip.

I lunged forward, snatched the Chinese box from Toad Woman’s grasp, and shouldered open the exit. I fell down some wooden stairs but came up on my feet and ran down the dark pier.

The air was briny, mixed with the smell of creosote from the wood pilings. The stars twinkled dully behind New York’s gauzy glow, and navigation lights from boats tracked across the twinkle of Governor’s Island and Manhattan’s downtown. I always used to like the combination of these sensations. Now the bayside ambience was a trap, water ahead and on both sides, Flip and his pygmies behind me.

“Garth!”

I made out a figure before me, but the voice wasn’t immediately familiar. Jim Kim? Should I race back toward the carnival, try to get past Flip and company? Was Smiler still back there with his goons?

Skidding to a stop a few strides from the stranger, I recognized his silhouette—tall, bald, gaunt, commanding: Waldo.

“Give Waldo the horn!”

In my panic, I was gasping for breath and beyond having any discussions. The freak show just kept getting freakier.

Shirley Temple exclaimed from somewhere behind me, “Well, if it isn’t Waldo! The King of Gaff!”

I turned. Framed by the kaleidoscope of rainbow lights from the carnival, Flip emerged from the gloom, his blue eyes glowing almost as white as the horn had, his flippers flexing menacingly at his sides like a pair of antsy boa constrictors. Behind him, a knot of small potbellied figures crouched, their blowguns at the ready.

“You shall not have it, Flip,” Waldo commanded.

“Who’s going to stop me?” Flip giggled.

There was a pause, and from Waldo’s direction I heard:

Squeak-heez, squeak-heez.

Flip’s clunky shoes stopped dead in their tracks.

Squeak-heez, squeak-heez.

Waldo Van Helsing—no kill saw and crossbow, just a penguin squeaky toy to destroy the monster and his goblins. My confidence level was running somewhere between zero and zero point zero. Flip might be afraid of the squeaky toy, but I doubted the pygmies were. These people were all nuts, I had to get out of there, and I wasn’t sure Waldo would let me pass without handing over the horn. Fine. You know, that’s what I should have done. But what did he want it for, really? Perhaps I actually did have enough of a connection with the horn to know it was bad and that nobody should have it. Let’s face it, even if it was all hokum, look how much trouble it had created already.

“You son of a bitch,” Flip’s little-girl voice stammered. “That asshole Fuzzy gave that to you, didn’t he?”

Squeak-heez, squeak-heez.

I wasn’t sticking around for this encounter. I had only one direction to go, and that was toward the end of the pier. Football style, I tucked the box in my armpit and made like Walter Payton. Waldo threw his arms in the air as if to scare me back, but I zigged, I zagged, I rolled, and made it past him. Who knew all those Sundays watching football might actually have a practical application?

I admit I was feeling somewhat exhilarated as I raced down the wooden gridiron, even more so when I saw the silhouette of a boat at the end of the pier. It looked like a tugboat because only what appeared to be a control tower was visible above the pier—must be low tide. There were some small murky lights on, but otherwise it was dark. Even if nobody was aboard, at least I might be able to hide there. Launch a rubber raft. Grab a life ring and dive overboard. Radio for help. Run up the Jolly Roger and sail for Danger Island, just me and Chongo, whatever. But it held possibilities.

A tugboat? By the city’s orange glow, I could see the deck as I approached. It was very long, narrow, and the sides sloped precipitously to the water. In the center was a wide, narrow coning tower. Hey, I may not be Howard Hughes, but I’ve been subjected to a number of
Ice Station Zebra
screenings myself. I know a submarine when I see it.

That’s when I dropped the Chinese box.

Was it the shock of being confronted with a North Korean submarine docked at a Brooklyn pier that made me drop it? Don’t ask me how, but it fell from my hand onto the dark pier. I heard it snap open, and I heard the horn tumble out. I slammed on the brakes, spun, and dropped to my knees in the vicinity of where I thought the horn might be.

I felt boots on the pier, not running, but at a quick pace. The vibrations were getting stronger. My hands raced around the rough wood and crannies of the pier, splinters pricking me and the smell of creosote stinging my sinuses.

My hand brushed the box, I picked it up: empty, as I knew it would be. But I was close. I heard myself groan with frustration.

If I had a psychic connection with the thing, why couldn’t I find it?

That’s when the first boot kicked me, hard in the ribs. I didn’t know you could have the wind knocked out of you from the side, but trust me, you can. Both of my hands came up to my sternum as I rolled on my back. I could see the silhouette of two soldiers standing above me, against the orange haze of the New York night. They muttered something derisive in Korean and raised their submachine guns, but today must have been Boot Day aboard the
Sea View
because they kicked me again. I tried to roll away from them, my lungs still seized, searing pain in my sides from the beating my ribs were taking. Why hadn’t I just jumped off the side of the pier into that filthy water and made a swim for it?

I felt a lump under my face. My hand scrambled, grabbed hold of the lump.

My brain had just been feeling sorry for its miscalculations and the pain it was enduring, when I felt a familiar impulse. An overwhelming, consuming, volcanic loathing. Hatred and rage.

In my hand was the kving-kie horn, and the image of flames and glass exploding from Partridge’s windows gripped me.

I heard a shout, and the kicking stopped. I got to my hands and knees.
This time you go for the water, Garth, before they start kicking you again.
But when I glanced back to where the soldiers had been, they were gone. Their boots were still on the pier, but they were gone.

What the . . .

I looked around feverishly.
Yes, but where is Flip?
I could hear more shouting aboard the submarine, and a spotlight came on from its upper deck. Fortunately, it was focused farther down the pier. I looked back. No Waldo, no Flip, no pygmies. The path was clear, and I could see a torn fence next to the Castle Creep where I could get back into the lights and laughter of the carnival.

A loud ratcheting sounded, like a giant machine gun about to open fire. I don’t have any military training, unless you count the Weeblos, but I’ve watched enough war flicks and
Rat Patrol
to know what one sounds like. Could I somehow make it off the pier without them shooting me? It was only a matter of time before the spotlight’s sweeping beam came to rest on yours truly.

But somewhere back at the fair would be the cavalry. Had the pygmies got all of Smiler’s troop? Including the chauffeur, Pete Durban?

I eyed the water instead. No doubt a gauntlet of dirty Pampers, Optimo butts, greasy Q-tips, and used Band-Aids floated next to the pier. I was trying to get over my revulsion toward diving into that flotsam when Flip the Penguin Boy, Koreans with boots, and a giant machine gun tipped the balance in favor of immersion in briny ejecta. But my Pampers baptism wasn’t going to happen as long as that spotlight was on. It spilled enough light that I was plainly visible now to anybody on the submarine.

Two sets of boots were still sitting where the soldiers had been kicking me mid-pier. What was up with those boots, anyway? Had I made the soldiers disappear with the help of the horn? Or had Flip grabbed them? The main thing was that Flip was nowhere to be seen.

The kving-kie was still tight in my fist. I winced, and I held it out at the spotlight.

Please, if this thing works, let it be now!

I heard a pop, like the sound of a firecracker, and the light went slowly out, only a purple blotch where the bulb cooled. Excited voices shouted disappointment and anger from the submarine.