Gorgo

by Carson Bingham

  As we passed the point of land on which the light hour sat, I breathed a sigh of relief. The worst of the journey was over. Now all I had to do was locate the lights of the Triton and head for them. There were no more obstacles in the way.

  Maighréad was in the open sea now, and the heavy waves knocked us about a great deal more than they had in the protection of the cove. I made out the silhouette of the Triton, and headed confidently for it. I’d been going in that direction for several minutes, when suddenly my jaw dropped open.

  “My God!” I cried. “Why, that lousy, double-crossing bastard!”

  “Whatever is the matter?” Moira asked, turning to me with deep concern.

  “The Triton!” I cried out, pointing. “It’s moving out of the harbor! It’s headed for the high seas! Joe’s seen through my scheme and he’s taking that damned monster to London without me!”

  I was so shocked all I could do was sit there and stare.

  Moira was immediately angered. “Well, then, we’ve just got to catch up to him!” she announced.

  I pushed Maighréad to her limits, and we soared over the harbor waters after the fleeing Triton. One thing to McCartin’s credit, he had good equipment. Maighéad really moved along. As we sailed, I cursed Joe Ryan enough to turn the air blue. I knew now why he’d been so cozy with me at dinner, why he’d gone along with my beach escapade. He’d guessed what I was up to, the slob!

  We did it, too. We did catch up with the Triton. I don’t know how, but the fact is, we did. And apparently nobody saw us. The Triton herself made too much noise, and possibly the deck watches were too worried about the monster to hear anything else.

  Certainly Joe had no idea of pursuit from me.

  We reached the hullplates of the Triton about 11 p.m., and I immediately cut the engine of the launch and tied up to the trailing line which was still there. I showed Moira how to steer Maighéad so she didn’t bang against the Triton’s hull.

  “Wait here,” I whispered to her, and climbed the line, scrambling hand over hand like an old-time sailor.

  It was dark on deck, and I crouched there cautiously a moment, catching my breath. There wasn’t a sound. I moved forward, then, coming out of a crouch, scanning the deck for the watch, and as I did so the whole world fell in on me, and I went down in a heap.

  I came out of it blinking and shaking my head to clear it. I found myself flat on my back in my own bunk. I stared about me, not remembering a thing. Then I saw Joe and everything slid back into focus.

  “Welcome aboard, old buddy,” said Joe, his yellow eyes gleaming.

  I lay back and stared at the deckhand. “You’re mighty rough with the belaying pin.”

  “Pistol butt,” said Joe. “You come sneaking up like that, you get treated like a sneak.”

  I glared at him. “Talking about sneaks, what particular species are you?”

  Joe shrugged. “You had to get smart and try to free the monster. You forced my hand. So I had to get a little smart and get the beast away before you could.”

  “Where the hell are we now?”

  “Heading for London and Dorkin’s Circus.”

  “Oh well,” I said. “It was a good try.”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. “If it wasn’t for that fool girl, Sam, I wouldn’t have acted the way I did. She’s the one who poisoned your mind.”

  “Uh huh,” I said.

  “It was silly of us to fight over her in the first place,” Joe continued. “And it was sillier of you to try to get back at me by dumping the beast overboard.”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Because she poisoned your mind, Sam. My God, I’d think you had more sense than that! That woman’s nothing but a common tart. She’s laid everybody on the island at least once. I even had a roll in the hay with her myself the other night on the island.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “It must be obvious to you now, after seeing her with me in the bunk. That kid is a woman of the world. She’s got what it takes, and she knows what to do with it!” Joe laughed.

  I felt miserable. He was right. When I’d seen her there on the bunk with him, it had struck me forcefully how sensual and knowledgeable she was in Joe’s arms. She must have had a lot of practice to be that expert.

  “That’s why she played me,” Joe said finally.

  I started up from the bunk, and then winced. My head throbbed with sudden pain.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean just that. Don’t you see the plot? She’s in it with her father. They want that monster for the money it’ll bring them. Hell, she never was going to release the fool thing. That was all sweet jazz to tweak you by the ear, my boy! She was in it plain and simple to rob us of our thirty thousand and dump the loot from the circus into her father’s lap.”

  I lay there staring at the ceiling. The story did have a ring of authenticity. It sounded more like the women I had known. And Moira was a woman. There was no doubt of that. I could still taste those lips, smell that hair, feel the soft silken skin of that naked breast.

  “You’re sure?” I scowled.

  “You’re damned right I’m sure. Dorkin wasn’t the only one who wanted us to go with him. There were several other shows trying to get us. McCartin was in touch with one of them, you can bet your boots. Wanted us to release the monster, so he could bring it in himself.”

  I snorted. “Maybe you’ve got something there, Joe.”

  “I’m only surprised she could pull the wool over your eyes. You must be losing your buttons. She was just a plan old lay, and you know it. Tell me the truth.” Joe’s eyes gleamed. “Did you have any trouble with her the first time you tried?”

  I turned my face to the wall.

  “Well?” Joe persisted. “If she was the sweet little innocent she pretended to be, do you think she’d bed down with you first time she had the chance?” Joe let that sink in. “Not on your tintype! No sir, Sam. She was just a little tart, and she got what she deserved!”

  I sat up instantly alert. “Where is she now?”

  Joe looked at me. “She got away.”

  “Sailed back in the launch?”

  Joe faltered. “I think so.”

  I reached out and grabbed Joe’s shoulder, wincing at the pain. “You sure?”

  Joe nodded. “I think so. I cut her loose from that line you dropped over. God damn it, who cares?” He was suddenly angry.

  I closed my eyes. “Get out of here. Let me rest. I feel sick.”

  “Okay,” Joe said, instantly sympathetic. At the door, he turned. “Oh,” he said. “We’ve got a passenger.”

  I glanced at him, puzzled.

  “Sean. He’s stowed away on board. We just found him.” Joe grinned. “Claims he wants to go to London to look for his old lady, name of Maigréad McCartin. Seems she ran away from McCartin with some freighter captain four or five years ago. He thinks she’s in London.”

  That figured.

  “Nice kid,” Joe said, and stepped through to the companionway. “Better stuff than his sister, you can bet your boots!”

  And he was gone.

  I lay there and closed my eyes. But no matter how tight I squeezed them, I couldn’t get the sight of that naked body out of my mind.

  Not Moira’s.

  Anita’s. I could see her again, lying on that unmade bed, her breasts gleaming and tanned from the Texas sunshine, her hair short-cropped and blonde, her eyes blue, her nose pug and freckled, her legs long and lovely, her mouth a crimson slash across her face. She lay there, her eyes closed, smiling, reaching her hands out to me, waiting for me to kiss her.

  Only it wasn’t me she was waiting for.

  It was Rick Dumont, an oil-well wildcatter from the western part of the state. And he lay in the alley, more dead than alive. I’d found him in the lobby below, where I’d been waiting for him to come back to her, with the bottle of whiskey he’d gone to by.

  While he lay there in his blood, gurgling throug
h his broken teeth, I’d come into their room, looking at the girl who had promised to be mine forever, the girl who had promised to marry me, the girl who wanted her children to be mine.

  I moved down over her, touching her body. In the darkened room she lay there, her eyes closed, either asleep or playing some kind of enigmatic game with her oil-well capper. I leaned down closer now, and I touched her naked breast with my hand. She squirmed delightedly.

  “Oh Rick!” she sighed. “Touch me again.”

  I did. I touched her on the other breast. She gurgled with joy. “You can open your eyes now, Anita,” I said softly.

  “Oh Rick,” she sighed, and then I saw her face freeze. She did not open her eyes. “Rick,” she said, suddenly panicky. “Rick!”

  Then she opened them, hoping against hope that I would be Rick. Hoping against hope that her ears had deceived her.

  But it wasn’t Rick, and it wasn’t her ears that had done the deceiving. It was she. Anita.

  The lousy little tramp.

  “Rick is out in the alley, Nita,” I said quietly. “I hope he’s dead because he isn’t going to be much good to you now.”

  The color drained from her face. She lay there mute and rigid. “My God, Sam. What do you mean?”

  “I kicked him where he lives,” I said casually. “And I hurt him bad right where he should be hurting.”

  “Sam,” she whispered. She tried to turn over and cover her nakedness. I flipped her back on her shoulders and buttocks. She lay there and I could see the thin veil of moisture come out on her naked skin.

  “I don’t like to be suckered, Nita, baby,” I said softly.

  “Sam!” she rasped out, fear making her eyes bulge, her mouth writhe back from her lips. “I don’t mean it, Sam! Forgive me, Sam! On my knees!”

  “Bitch!” I snarled, feeling the black poison rise in me, feeling the sweat on my palms and the burning pain in my gut.

  “Don’t hit me, Sam!”

  I grinned at her. “I wouldn’t waste my muscle on you, Nita. You’re nothing! Nothing! You hear?”

  Tears streamed out of her eyes. She sniffled. “I’ll do anything, Sam, anything!”

  I looked at her, hard and long, looked at her face for the last time. “You’ve already done it.”

  And I went out of there. She lay weeping and moaning. All she’d lost was one more man in a long string of men. Me, I had lost a lot more: my ego, my manhood, and all my illusions about women.

  I shuddered now, feeling the throb of the Triton under me as she plowed her way through the Atlantic Ocean, around Ireland, heading for the Thames River and Dorkin’s London Circus.

  I shook myself awake and staggered up the companionway topside. I hung over the taffrail and stared at the Triton’s wake. I was so outraged at my own stupidity for getting tangled up with that two-timing Moira bitch that I felt like beating my head against the deck plates.

  I heard a step behind me. It was Joe. He came over and slapped me on the back. “You’re looking better, Sam.”

  “Yeah. Feeling no pain. Thanks, old man, for bringing me to my senses.”

  “Sure,” said Joe.

  We both looked down at the water and I wondered if Joe noticed the same thing I did. There was a strange white, gleaming iridescence down there.

  “Phosphorous,” Joe murmured.

  “It’s coming from the scuppers. It isn’t in the sea.” I turned and looked at Joe. “It’s the water off the monster.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Joe said. “Must be something like human sweat, huh?”

  I shrugged. And looked at the long trail of phosphorescence behind us.

  Chapter 10

  Except for several times during the next twenty-four hours when the monster seemed restless and thrashed around on deck, rousing us all to a full-scale alert, we passed an uneventful trip from Nara to the mouth of the Thames.

  Joe and I were at the wheel, trying to come into the river, when we were interrupted by a tremendous blare of whistles and horns emanating from a group of ships bearing down on us from the river.

  In the lead was a launch, bulging with a crew of newsreel cameramen, television crews, and a dozen well-dressed people I guessed immediately were British officials of some kind.

  But the thing that really threw Joe and me was the huge banner unfurled on the yacht, showing a madman’s conception of our monster, decorated with letters of gigantic size screaming:

  DORKIN’S LONDON CIRCUS

  WELCOMES GORGO!

  THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD!

  “Who the hell is Gorgo?” I asked, still not quite sure what was going on.

  Joe shrugged. “That’s show business, Sam. I guess it’s our monster.”

  “Thought his name was Ogra,” I grumbled.

  We didn’t have much more time for chatting. The convoy of cameramen, public relations men, radio broadcasters, and newsreel men ran up to us and boarded the Triton like a swarm of hungry locusts.

  Over the babble and hubbub I saw a tall, dignified looking man with a top hat push himself forward and seek out Joe. We were standing on the ladder to the bridge, and Joe nudged me.

  “Dorkin,” he said.

  He was right. “I’m Andrew Dorkin,” the dignified man said in clipped, precise tones. They were a little too precise. Somehow I got the distinct impression that the man had Cockney origins in his background, origins which he had found it useful to cover up as much as possible in his public life.

  “Captain Ryan?” Dorkin went on. He turned to me. “Then you’d be Sam Slade.”

  We shook hands all around. Before we could say anything more, an energetic, fluttery little fellow with gray hair pushed his way in between us and advanced on Dorkin. The little fellow was carrying a hand microphone, which he was already talking into.

  “Mr. Dorkin,” the man snapped out in staccato tones, “we understand that your circus has contracted for the exhibition of this strange prehistoric creature. Perhaps you could tell our listeners some of your future plans.”

  Dorkin beamed, and gazed about him. “Plans? Well we’ve built a special tank—rushed the job through in record time, in fact—and now we hope to just sit back and watch the money roll in!”

  “I see,” the little man said. “There is a report from Dublin that the Irish government has instituted legal proceedings to recover the animal.”

  “True enough,” Dorkin admitted smoothly, “It will go through the courts, naturally, and in a year or so we’ll have a decision.” That tickled him somehow. He gave a broad smile. “Meanwhile, come and see Gorgo at Battersea Park!”

  “By the way,” the little man said. “That name Gorgo. Has it any special significance?”

  “Certainly!”

  I was glad to hear that. I glanced at Joe. He raised an eyebrow.

  “The Greek Monster,” Dorkin sailed on. “The Gorgon! What could be more horrible than a creature the mere sight of which could turn a man to stone! Been working all week on our billboards.”

  “Aha! Then you had actually seen the creature before today?”

  “Not at all!” He waved toward the banner. “But I’ve had the most accurate reports—from you gentlemen of the press, radio and television!”

  I don’t remember much more of that morning, only enough to recall it as pure hell. But it wasn’t over by a long shot. Dorkin had just given us a brief résumé of our triumphal entry into London, scheduled for the next day, when we were waylaid on the dock by a highly indignant group of gentlemen. I recognized one face. It was Professor Marius Flaherty, of the University of Dublin! Flaherty was eyeing Joe and me coldly, shaking his head. Joe was trying to pass it off lightly, but I felt like the worst kind of a heel. We had given the Dubliners the impression that we were going to give the animal to them. And now . . .

  A big heavily-built man with a stiff black mustache was chatting with Flaherty, but he broke off to approach us.

  “Who’s Dorkin?” he asked testily.

  Dorkin frowned and
moved forward. “Here, my good man. What do you want?” Dorkin glanced impatiently at his watch. “We’re in quite a hurry, you know.”

  “Indeed,” said the big man coolly, looking down his nose at Dorkin. Dorkin had the grace to flush. “I’m Professor Leroy Hendricks, of the University of London. My colleague, Professor Flaherty of the University of Dublin has flown in to London to join me in protest of the outrage! To deprive science of a creature unique in evolutionary biology! To turn it into a circus freak! It’s too much, sir! Outrageous!” Hendricks narrowed his eyes and sniffed into his Anthony Eden mustache. “Quite apart from the fact that you stole it!”

  Joe’s face turned red. “That’s a matter of opinion sir!”

  Hendricks eyed Joe coldly. “And who are you?”

  “I’m the guy who caught it.”

  “American, no doubt,” murmured Hendricks, turning once again to Dorkin.

  Dorkin was speaking smoothly. “But Professor Hendricks, when the courts decide—”

  The volatile Irishman shook his head. “But even worse at the moment, you know absolutely nothing about the animal!” Flaherty protested. “It’s extremely dangerous!”

  Joe moved forward, angling in between Flaherty and Dorkin. “We’ve handled him so far!”

  “It may even carry disease-bearing parasites or unknown bacteria. And yet you take it into the heart of a great city before any observations can be made. Before any tests—without the slightest thought of what the results might be!”

  Joe glowered. “Look, just what is it you want?”

  Hendricks towered over Joe. “I want the opportunity to make a complete study—”

  “Sure,” Joe nodded. “If it doesn’t interfere with business.”

  Dorkin insinuated himself adroitly in the middle of the group. “Gentlemen, believe me, once we have the creature installed at Battersea, you’ll be given every facility.”

  Flaherty stared at Dorkin. “You insist on taking the animal into the city?”

  “Arrangements have already been made,” Dorkin murmured, eyeing Flaherty from beneath his brows.

  Hendricks turned to Dorkin with an air of resignation. “I suppose you’ve thought of the need to give the animal a tranquilizing drug while you transport it.”