King and Mrs. Kong Read online

  “I don’t know,” said Clyde. “What do you think you saw?”

  “An illiterate native wearing a Rolex,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Clyde. “It’s all that’s left of the last group that tried to capture Kong.” He turned to the tent. “Hey, Rosepetal—shake a leg! We’re off to meet Kong.”

  Rosepetal came out of the tent and stood there, hands on hips. “You paid them,” she said accusingly.

  “So I did,” he said with a sigh. “When you’re right, you’re right.” He pulled a dollar bill out of his wallet and handed it to her. “A down payment.”

  She took it, and suddenly looked annoyed. “All I’m wearing is a g-string,” she said irritably. “Where do you think I can put it?”

  He took the bill back. “I’ll hold it for you until we see if you survive the evening. Now grab your mask and let’s go.”

  A minute later we were tromping through the bush, and five minutes after that we came to this big wooden fence that was maybe thirty feet high and built in a square that was maybe a hundred feet on a side.

  “Open up!” yelled Clyde. “It’s me!”

  “Advance and be recognized, Me,” said a heavily-accented voice.

  “Goddamn it, I’m Capturin’ Clyde, and you got ten seconds to open the gate or you can stick your own woman up there for Kong to eat or do whatever crimes against God and Nature he does to them!”

  “I will not be rushed,” said the voice. “Make it twelve seconds.”

  “Ten!” yelled Clyde.

  “Split the difference—eleven.”

  “We been arguing for more than thirty seconds!” yelled Clyde. “Now let me the hell in!”

  Finally a small door in the wall opened, and the three of us passed into the village. A middle-aged native with a pot belly and a crown studded with sea shells was standing there waiting for us.

  “Everything ready?” asked Clyde.

  “Yes,” said the man.

  “Say hello to Lucifer and Rosepetal,” said Clyde. “This here feller with the crown is Chief Mpuji.”

  “It is nice to meet you, Lucifer,” said Mpuji. He turned to Rosepetal and solemnly offered her his hand. “It was nice knowing you, Rosepetal.”

  “Let’s go,” said Clyde, starting to climb some wooden stairs leading to the top of the wall. “Time’s a-wastin’.”

  We followed him, and when we got to the top, we found ourselves facing a pair of sturdy posts maybe eight feet apart, each with a short rope attached to it.

  “Come on over, Rosepetal,” said Clyde. “This is where we’ll tie you up.”

  “Just a minute!” she replied. “Nobody said anything about tying me up!”

  “It’s just so’s he’ll think you’re totally helpless,” explained Clyde.

  “He’ll be right, damn it!” snapped Rosepetal.

  “Not to worry,” said Clyde. “I’ll be right here, kneeling down behind one of these posts and lining the critter up in my sights.”

  Before she could answer, Mpuji spoke up.

  “Your fears are groundless, Miss Rosepetal,” he said. “No one is tying you up between those two posts.”

  “Well, I’m glad someone is thinking of my safety,” said Rosepetal.

  Mpuji pointed to two posts about fifty feet down the length of the wall. “That is where you’ll be tied.” He turned to Clyde. “These posts are reserved for the village’s sacrifice.”

  “You ain’t gonna use ‘em tonight, are you?” demanded Clyde.

  “We need rain, good fishing, and less scorpions,” explained Mpuji. “If you cannot guarantee them, we’ll make a sacrifice to Kong.”

  “What the hell,” said Clyde. “It ain’t as if there’s another wall in these here parts.” He started walking to the posts Mpuji had indicated. “C’mon, Rosepetal—and put the mask on.”

  “Three years of modern dance for this!” she muttered, but she fell into step behind him.

  While Clyde was tying the ropes to her outstretched arms, a lovely young girl, every bit as naked as Rosepetal, climbed the stairs and took up the same position while Mpuji affixed the ropes to her wrists.

  “I’m gonna walk to the corner of the wall with old Betsy here,” said Clyde, patting his rifle, “and kneel down behind that support post there so as not to distract Kong. You just stand there looking naked and helpless.”

  “As opposed to what?” asked Rosepetal bitterly.

  I decided I didn’t want to be standing next to either lady, just in case Kong was a bit nearsighted, so I walked along the wall until I was halfway between them. As I came to a stop, I heard a roar that didn’t sound very river-like, and then I heard something that sounded like a ton of bricks hitting the ground, and I could feel the whole wall shake, and then I heard it again, and again, and each time I heard it, it was a little closer, and finally I saw a couple of trees go flying, and then this enormous ape broke into the clear, and it was evident that Clyde hadn’t dug his pit deep enough.

  “Shoot him now!” screamed Rosepetal.

  “That’s good!” said Clyde encouragingly. “Keep yelling and attracting his attention. If he walks up to the other girl, you’ll be in my line of fire.”

  Kong took a few more steps.

  “I want a raise!” yelled Rosepetal.

  “Good, good,” said Clyde, his rifle trained on Kong. “Move your legs and shake a little bit too.”

  “If we get out of this alive, it’s going to be a race between Kong and me to see who can kill you first!” snapped Rosepetal.

  Kong stopped about seventy feet from the wall. We could hear his breathing as he looked from one sacrifice to the other.

  “He’s making up his mind,” said Clyde. “Wiggle a little.”

  Kong threw back his head and roared. Two of my fillings fell out. Rosepetal threw back her head and screamed. I lost another filling.

  Kong took a couple of steps forward and roared again, and Rosepetal screamed again. I noticed that the girl Mpuji had trussed up wasn’t making a sound, so I told her that if she was holding herself back out of consideration for me she could go ahead and scream her head off, that I was just about out of fillings anyway.

  “Why bother?” she said in bored tones. “Kong has no interest in me.”

  “He sounds mighty interested to me,” I said. “Or at least energetic.”

  She shook her head. “This is the fifth time I have been offered for sacrifice. He never accepts me.”

  I was going to comfort her by telling her that she was a beautiful young lady and not to feel bad and I was sure Kong was going to run off with her this time, when Kong’s roar got a little louder and Rosepetal’s screaming got a little more frantic and I turned and saw that he was standing right at the wall now.

  “Shoot him!” she screamed.

  “Damned gun’s jammed,” said Clyde. “Give me a minute.”

  “I haven’t got a minute!” she yelled as Kong leaned over until his face was almost touching her, and took a couple of sniffs that were so powerful it pulled the monkey mask right off her.

  “Just stay calm,” said Clyde, working on his rifle.

  “Lucifer!” she cried. “Do something!”

  “Happy to,” I said. “Got any suggestions?”

  She started screaming again, but it was difficult to make out any of the words except for “idiot” and “con man” and “imbecile.”

  Kong sniffed her one last time—this time the g-string came flying off and shot up his nostril, and he sneezed, and suddenly Rosepetal was dripping wet, and she’d stopped cursing at Clyde and started in on Kong. He made a face that was probably like the one I made every time I had to eat raw fish on my way here from Caruso’s island, and he moved over to where the local girl was trussed up, took one sniff, and made the same face again.

  “I don’t think he wants neither of ‘em, Clyde,” I said.

  “What kind of fifty-foot-tall pree-vert are we dealing with here?” he said. Then he added, “Okay, Betsy’s working again.
Stand clear, Rosepetal.”

  “How?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know. Kind of scrunch yourself up. You’re right in the line of fire.”

  “I hate you!” she yelled.

  Kong looked at her curiously.

  “I hate you too!” she hollered.

  “Try to calm down and think peaceful, pleasant thoughts,” I said.

  “I hate all men!” she screamed.

  Kong was still staring at her, so I looked at him and said, “You got to forgive her. She’s a little overwrought, being tied up and naked and totally at your mercy.”

  Suddenly he looked at me, and it was like he’d noticed me for the very first time. He took a step over and shoved his face right up to me.

  “Of course,” I said, “if you really want her…”

  He took a great big sniff, practically pulling me off the wall.

  “Clyde!” I said kind of desperately. “I don’t hear no shots.”

  “Rosepetal’s in the way,” he said.

  “So move,” I said.

  “I don’t want to attract his attention,” said Clyde. “What if he takes exception to my presence. Let’s be reasonable, Lucifer. You ain’t got no gun.”

  At that instant I decided that Rosepetal had been too all-inclusive, that unlike her I didn’t hate all men, just one man in particular.

  A huge hand that must have measured ten feet from top to bottom, or side-to-side, or however you measure gigantic hands, reached out and grabbed me and held me up in front of his face, and suddenly I couldn’t see nothing but the whites of his teeth.

  “Clyde!” I yelled. “Rosepetal ain’t in the way no more, and if you’re ever gonna shoot, this would be a pretty good time!”

  “Now you’re in the way!” he yelled back.

  “Lucifer!” cried Rosepetal. “I think he’s smiling!”

  Suddenly a tongue the size of a Shetland pony darted out of his mouth and licked me top to bottom. I was about to tell him to stop, that I wasn’t no popsicle, when I realized that he’d never heard a sophisticated term like that and wouldn’t know what it meant.

  “Lemme go, damn it!” I yelled. “Look at all them gorgeous naked women we staked out for you!”

  He actually did look at Rosepetal and the other girl, then wrinkled his nose and made a face, and went back to smiling at me.

  “Clyde, you don’t have to kill him!” I yelled. “Just wing him a little.”

  “You got to give me some time, Lucifer,” said Clyde. “My sights are calibrated to where Rosepetal’s tied up.”

  “Just shoot!” I hollered as Kong’s tongue reached out and drenched me again. “I can’t be fifty feet from you!”

  “Yeah,” he replied, “but I can’t mark up his face. It looks like I’m gonna have to follow him to his lair and kill him there. You know how taxidermists hate a messed-up face.”

  “His or mine?” I said as Kong’s tongue practically took my nose off.

  “Oh, stop your whining, Lucifer,” said Clyde irritably. “It’s obvious he ain’t gonna kill you. Not right away, anyhow.”

  Kong tightened his grip on me, pushed his face right up to Rosepetal, and guv her the loudest, wettest raspberry on record. Well, the loudest and wettest on record until he did the same thing to the other girl about ten seconds later. Then, still hanging on to me, he turned and headed back to the jungle at the foot of the mountain.

  “Thanks a heap, Clyde!” I yelled bitterly.

  “I think I figured it out, Lucifer!” he yelled back. “Kong ain’t a he, he’s a she—or it’s a she, or…but you get the point!”

  “Suddenly you got compunctions about shooting a female?” I snapped.

  “You ain’t in no immediate danger,” said Clyde. “I think she’s in love with you.”

  I couldn’t see how being crushed to her breast for one reason rather than another was any better, but before I could tell him that we were out of earshot, and a minute later we entered the jungle.

  I kept trying to figger out how to speak to a thirty-ton gorilla what had a crush on me, and finally I cleared my throat and said, “Uh… Darling?”

  Kong held me up to her nose and sniffed.

  “Honeybunch,” I said, “I love you with a mad and undying passion, but could you maybe put me down, pretty please? I tremble at your touch, but it’s a mighty tight touch and I’m having trouble breathing.”

  Kong just stared at me, and I went through the motions of choking and dying, and finally she must have figgered out what I was trying to impart to her, because she set me down on the branch of a tree, and just sat down next to it and smiled at me again, while I tried not to notice just how toothy a smile it was.

  The branch was about twenty-five feet above the ground, and there wasn’t nothing in between except an awful lot of air, so I hugged the trunk of the tree even tighter than Kong had been hugging me, and tried to figger out what to do next.

  “So,” I said in my friendliest voice, “have you lived here long?”

  She just sat there and smiled at me.

  “Cat got your tongue?” I said. “Which reminds me: have they got any big cats, like lions or tigers, on this here island, and if so, do they maybe eat giant gorillas?”

  Kong roared, the jungle came live with terrified squawking, and two birds that were on a branch above me fainted and fell to the ground.

  “What I meant to say was gorgeous, sexy, feminine giant gorillas,” I amended.

  She reached out her hand and kind of petted me with a callused forefinger.

  “You know,” I said, shooting her what I thunk was a friendly smile, “I’d really feel a lot more secure on the ground.”

  She grabbed a weird tropical fruit off another tree and handed it to me.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, Miss Kong, ma’am,” I said. “But I’d really like to set my feet on some terra firma.”

  She picked up a breadfruit and handed it to me.

  “I appreciate that, I truly do,” I said. “But this branch is starting to creak, and besides this is more than I can eat.”

  She responded by picking up still more fruit and handing it to me. I was about to tell her that I’d lost my appetite when the branch broke under the weight of all that fruit, and I started plunging downward, which in my broad experience is the very worst direction to plunge when you start from a height of more than twenty feet.

  As it turned out I needn’t have worried overmuch, because she caught me in a huge hand, cuddled me against her cheek, and then cleaned me off with her tongue.

  “I don’t want to seem ungrateful, ma’am,” I said, “but when’s the last time you stopped in at your local barbershop for a shave?”

  A bunch of giant gorilla drool started rolling down my face and chest, and I tried to wipe it off with my forearm, which was just about as wet as the rest of me, and suddenly she saw what I was doing and held me up to her mouth, took a deep breath, and blew on me, which dried me off right quick but made me feel like I was stuck in the middle of a wind tunnel what was suffering from halitosis.

  Then she set me down on the ground and sat with her back propped up against a huge tree and grinned kind of stupidly and just watched me. I figgered she wanted me to amuse her, so I broke into a chorus of “Home on the Range” and followed it up with one of the racier stanzas of “The Ring-Dang-Do,” just in case she was one of the more liberated gorillas, and when that didn’t get no reaction from her I done a little jig I learned from some sailors in a waterfront bar in Amsterdam.

  Suddenly I heard a “Psst!” which I was sure hadn’t come from her, and I was almost as certain didn’t come from me neither, and then Rosepetal’s voice whispered, “Back up to this bush, Lucifer.”

  I done what she told me, but I did it in rhythm while still dancing the jig, since I figgered Kong was probably jealous as all get-out, me being the incredibly handsome buck that I am, and when I’d gotten right in front of the bush where Rosepetal was hiding, I whispered, “Where the hell are
Clyde and his gun?”

  “He says since you’re getting along so well with Kong, he’s going to try to bring her back alive,” answered Rosepetal. “So he’s back in camp, planning how to do it.”

  “He sent you here alone?” I asked.

  “He figures that Kong isn’t interested in another woman,” she said.

  I looked at Kong, who was maybe twenty feet high sitting down, and looked like she could juggle a trio of elephants, and I said, “What do you mean, another woman?”

  “Anyway,” said Rosepetal, “he says to just keep her amused while he gets a good night’s sleep, and he’ll think about how to capture her in the morning, after he’s had his breakfast and when he’s fresh and alert.”

  “You got a piece of paper?” I asked.

  “Lucifer, I’m stark staring naked,” she said. “I don’t even have my mask or my g-string anymore.”

  “Well, when you get to camp, I want you to find a pen and a piece of paper.”

  “All right,” she said. “What then?”

  “I want you to write Lucifer Jones’s Last Will and Testament at the top,” I said, “and then write ‘Capturin’ Clyde Calhoun’ right under that.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, and I could almost hear her frown.

  “I ain’t done,” I said. “Then I want you to cross his name out.”

  “And then what?”

  “That’s all.”

  “So much for Clyde,” she said. “Now what about—?”

  I’ll never know who she was going to ask about next, because just at that very second we heard a roar, louder than any we’d heard all night, and as I looked up the mountain I could see trees crashing and falling right and left as if something even bigger than Kong was pushing them over in a rage.

  Kong got to her feet, reached over, and lifted me up.

  “Good-bye, Lucifer,” said Rosepetal’s voice. “It was occasionally very nice knowing you.”

  And then she was gone, but the roars were getting louder and louder, and more and more trees was getting flung out of something’s path. Kong looked nervous, and then she started matching whatever it was roar for roar, and suddenly she seemed to remember that she was still holding me, and she stuck me on a branch, stared at me, and moved me to a leafier one where it was harder to see me.