PHOTO above - cover for the 1946 pulp fiction edition
The boys run into danger on the freighter Mirandu ...
**
Brad stood motionless in the crowded saloon staring at the shocking news article. His heart was pounding and he'd lost total awareness of the hot noisy room around him.
"Hey, junior scientist." Clint butt into his thoughts as he and Jimmy appeared at his side with bottles of coke. "What's up, huh? You look like you've gone into suspended animation."
Brad turned to look at them. When the two boys saw the expression on his face, they knew something definitely was wrong.
Clint's voice rapped out, "Hey, you okay?"
Brad thrust the newspaper at him, pointing at the headline. "You won't believe it. Read this."
He took the coke Clint handed him and swigged down a long drink, tingling all over from the shock of what he'd just read.
Jimmy read the news over Clint's shoulder, his eyes widening as Clint's brows shot up in surprise. Then Clint blew out an angry breath. "Jeez! They got this Professor Hyde-Morton too. It's the same exact story, Brad. The Pacific Rim Societies, a missing scientist, the weird cry, the little dragon."
"It's the Ching Tu Tong," Jimmy gritted. "Gotta be! What the hell are these scientists after that the tong is so determined to stop them?"
Brad shook his head. "We have absolutely no fucking idea. Professor Hyde-Morton is the man Fontenay addressed his inquiry letter to. He's the big shot at the Pacific Rim Societies. And now he's been kidnapped too."
"So we're looking for three scientists now." Clint rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Cripes! It's enough to give you a headache."
Jimmy took both Brad and Clint by the arm. "We'd better get the crap outta here. Too many eyes and ears. Let's go back out to the deck."
Clint folded the newspaper and tucked it under his arm as Jimmy pulled both him and Brad toward the nearest exit. They quickly made their way up to the top deck.
Brad had begun to feel more than just a little paranoid and, as they stepped out into the throng of passengers and animals, he asked, "Jimmy, do you think somebody on the boat could be watching us?"
The boy looked for a clear spot to move on to. "Could be. The tong might be watching to see what you're gonna do. If they know you're out here looking for your dad, they might kidnap you too. And Clint."
"And you too, buster," Clint added with a half-hearted chuckle. "You're deep in this shit now yourself. Damn, it's like a matinee serial - weird goings-on in the South Seas. Missing scientists. An island lost in time. Mystery! Adventure! Excitement! Enough to drive you fuckin' batty."
This cracked Jimmy up and he guffawed loudly. "The first part of the story, the part with my Granny Sal, I'd sure like to see that on the movie screen."
"Right," Brad agreed as they moved over to a small empty space near the port side bulwark. "That'd be great. I bet Shanghai Sal was really good looking when she was young. They'd have to get a couple of the top stars to play her and Johnny Fang in a movie. Like Tyrone Power and Lana Turner. They'd sure do the job."
Jimmy hooted. "Granny would be thrilled to hear you say that. She loves Lana Turner. And she told me Johnny Fang looked a lot like Tyrone Power. But they'd have to slant his eyes to make him look Chinese."
Clint leaned against the bulwark and took a swig of his coke. "I sure wish there actually was a movie about this story. Then we could watch it and know what the hell to do next."
"Don't worry about it," Jimmy told him, looking confident and a whole lot cocky. "I know what to do. If we don't find any trace of the missing scientists in Rabaul, we'll go up to Storms End. There's a ship graveyard there on the cape because of the treacherous shoals, and the town is pretty damn wild. Pirates, thieves, men on the run from the law - every kind of riff-raff you can imagine. Lots of regular guys too - sailors, salvagers, divers, fishermen. It's a sure thing I'll know someone there and we'll get us a boat out to Palua Pae."
Brad wondered just how much experience Jimmy had with men like that. He pictured a Wild West kind of town filled with pirates and cutthroats, rough characters with toothless grins, dangling earrings, a wooden leg or two, and certainly at least one desperado with an iron hook for a hand.
A breath of hot wind stirred the air and he looked back toward Lateela Town where the sun winked at him from iron roofs amid the huddle of buildings and shacks. No doubt about it, this was a part of the world steeped in mystery and loaded with dangerous characters every which way you looked.
He glanced at the newspaper he'd taken back from Clint, then looked back to the others. "We have to be extremely careful, even here on the boat. Who knows what's gonna happen next?"
"You bet we do." Clint looked around with a scornful expression. Then he whispered, "But how do we know the enemy? Almost everybody who isn't dark or white looks Chinese, and they all look suspicious to me."
Brad nodded. "That's what I mean. It's like we can't trust anyone."
"We can't," Jimmy agreed. "Our enemies are most probably Chinese, but they can hire other Asians or whites or blacks to tail us. The tongs will take on anybody who wants to join them these days. So we've got to be alert and melt into the crowd."
Clint laughed at that. "That'd be the day." He grabbed Jimmy by his neck and pulled him closer, slipping his other arm around his shoulders. "With Brad and me being white and you a blond coffee-with-cream-colored jungle boy, I don't think we could possibly not stand out."
Brad's eyes widened as he watched Clint holding Jimmy possessively. His heartbeat quickened at the sight of it, the two of them almost in an embrace, and a sudden smile came to Jimmy's face as he looked at Clint. But then it quickly disappeared and was replaced with a scowl and the boy raised a hand and pushed Clint away with a shove.
"Speak for yourself, big shot 'Mastah Clint'," he growled, looking embarrassed. "I'm not even as dark as coffee with cream, and in this crowd you and Brad are the ones who stand out. And it's not because you're white. You two have 'Americans' written all over you like a billboard with neon lights. And that means 'money' to the people here. Everybody's gonna notice you guys way more than me."
Clint's expression was as surprised as Jimmy's had been, but it wasn't a smile. He looked offended, as if he'd expected the boy to let him keep his hands on him.
"Let's not get touchy, fellas," Brad told them, feeling himself tense up.
He knew very well that Clint was eager to get his hands all over Jimmy, and it angered him that Clint never grabbed him like that. At least not lately. He made a promise to himself that tonight, in that smelly cabin down below, he was damn sure going to do something about it.
The Mirandu had by now hoisted in her boats to get on her way. The winch clattered noisily as it pulled at the last of the anchor chain. Sailors' voices shouted out commands and others called back in response. A bell rang out and a swelling of excitement rose from the passengers as the boat thrust forward into the straits.
The boys watched the excitement. Passengers and crew hurried here and there. The livestock made fearful noises. Pigs squealed and birds screeched, and the cackling of monkeys rose above it all. Brad watched Lateela Island move away behind them and he wondered if he'd ever see the place again.
The wind had stiffened a little and there was a fair sea running, and the Mirandu met the swells like an old pro. Soon the receding shore looked like nothing more than a ragged outline, and the boys strained their eyes against the glitter of sun on water to peer near and far at the other small islands dotting the straits.
Brad threw the newspaper in a trash barrel and they began moving around the deck, acting like boys on a holiday and socializing with the other passengers. Some spoke English, so Brad was able to converse with them. Clint knew quite a bit of Pidgin from his wartime experience, and Jimmy was fluent in it - so they were able to talk to many of the native people. Jimmy spoke Chinese, Malay, and other languages, and pretty soon they were lost in the throng, enjoying themselves.
Some of the kanakas were in native costume with decorative beads and armbands, shells and feathers. A few played bamboo flutes and there were drums, bells, chimes, and singsong coming from others, all melding into a cacophony of jibber-jabber and discordant music.
There were goods and wares everywhere for sale. It seemed that everything the people had with them was up for grabs, from spears to headdresses to necklaces of shells and beads, and long colorful bird-of-paradise feathers.
And the food! They sampled dish after dish of the passengers own prepared foods for mere pennies. Brad stuck to rice and familiar-looking Chinese foods. He didn't like the looks of the seafood Clint and Jimmy were eating. Most of it looked like raw fish or octopus or eel, and he knew that the beche-de-mer they were raving about were nothing more than big worms that lived on the sea bottom.
Eew. Totally yuck. Not for him.
He noticed that Jimmy kept his distance from Clint. It seemed that he hadn't liked the way Clint handled him before, which was now causing Brad a tingle of anxiety. More than anything, he wanted to touch Jimmy too, grab him, hold him, and a whole lot more - same as Clint did. And he felt like he'd have a broken heart if Jimmy didn't want them to.
Time passed quickly as the boys enjoyed themselves and were able to forget the danger of their mission. Jimmy was right. Everyone was far more interested in the two American boys than their native companion. But they all three stood out among the others because of their youth and fresh good looks. Brad soon realized that no matter what they did or didn't do, they would be noticed, and that anyone who might be looking for them would have no trouble at all finding them.
There was no way they could escape it.
Later, a short wiry kanaka, shirtless and shoeless and dressed only in a colorful lap-lap, tried to sell Clint a cow. This potential transaction was held entirely in Pidgin and Brad and Jimmy hooted and guffawed as they witnessed it. And couldn't stop laughing for a good time afterward.
"A cow!" Brad cracked up, punching Clint in the arm when they finally walked away from the fellow. "'Dis fella heah hav'm cow marster must!' I can't wait to get back home and tell everybody that you bartered with a native in New Guinea for a cow. What the hell would you do with it?"
Clint shrugged, grinning. "I had no intention of actually buying that big fat Bessie. I just wanted to practice my Pidgin."
Jimmy chuckled. "You can talk it to me, Clint. I've been speaking it all my life."
Then the two of them shot off into a huge discussion about everything on board in that topsy-turvy language. Brad shook his head in amusement and drifted away from them, stopping by several crates of colorful chirping birds where he leaned against the port side bulwark. The Mirandu was nearing the southern shore of New Britain and the jungle-clad shoreline and high interior mountains could now be seen sparkling in the sun. Soon it would be sunset, he knew, then twilight, and then the long mysterious tropical night would begin.
He watched the island ahead as it seemed to draw closer. Brad knew it was a big island, bigger than his home state of New Jersey. He wondered if his dad and Dr. Pullman and Professor Hyde-Morton had been spirited away somewhere in the island's dangerous interior. Or had they been taken to the lost island of Palua Pae as he and his friends suspected, far into the straits off the north shore on the other side of this big island?
He couldn't help tensing up in anxiety. If only they could find his dad and the other two men. And quickly! He knew this slow pace of getting anywhere was probably going to drive him crazy.
Shaking off the troubling thoughts, Brad wandered through the crowd again in search of Clint and Jimmy. He wasn't surprised to find them right in the middle of something, and that something was a sing-sing, a native musical jamboree.
So much for keeping a low profile and not attracting attention, Brad thought with irony. Clint and Jimmy were the only two lighter-skinned people in the group of dark kanaka musicians, dancers, and singers, many of them in native costumes.
Jimmy was beating on one of several drums while others were playing bamboo flutes and ringing bells and chimes. The singers were wailing along in the native tongue while a dozen or so young men and women were performing a tribal-like line dance in front of them. Clint was right in the middle of the line, sticking out like a sore thumb, and doing his darnedest to keep in step with the others.
Brad joined in with the crowd that had formed to watch, and they clapped their hands in time to the beat and urged on the dancers with shouts and cries. Jimmy was in his glory, a mile-wide smile on his face. These were his father's people, and he was as much a part of them as he was his Caucasian and Chinese heritages. Clint was just having a ball, the touring American boy dancing it up with jungle natives as if he hadn't a care in the world.
The music of the sing-sing went on and on and, after an hour or so of energetic prancing, Clint fell out of the line and practically stumbled over to Brad.
"Whew!" He leaned heavily on Brad's shoulder and Brad thrilled at his touch. "Man, that is wild! I haven't worked out that hard since high school football practice on those sweltering August days back home."
"You're soaked through and through from sweating," Brad noted. "We'll have to hang your clothes out on the deck overnight to dry."
Clint drew in great gulps of air. "Well, at least I'll sleep like a log tonight down in that smelly tin can of a cabin. Let's go over by the rail and catch some breezes."
Brad wanted to tell him, 'You won't get much sleep if I get my way.' But he kept his mouth shut and enjoyed Clint's hand on his shoulder while he could.
They walked over to the bulwark and found an empty space. The Mirandu was heading east about a mile out from the shore. Far behind the boat in the west, pinks and violets were staining the sky from the aftermath of the sunset. Below them the sea was beginning to darken, changing from its daytime aquamarine brightness to a shade more sinister and eerie.
The sing-sing went on and on and Brad suspected it would last long into the night. About an hour later, after circling the decks a few more times, he and Clint decided to call it a night and head down below. It was about ten-thirty and the cabin was still stiflingly hot, and it smelled awful. After opening the two portholes a breeze rushed in and began to cool things off a little. They were on the starboard side to the open sea, and Brad began to consider that maybe it wouldn't be too uncomfortable a night.
Clint undressed and made himself comfortable on one of the berths. Brad took Clint's clothes outside to dry in the night breezes. Hopefully, no one would steal them. There were so many suspicious-looking people on the boat that he doubted anything was safe unless it was bolted down.
While fastening the short pants to a line outside, he glanced through one of the portholes. He'd turned the light off in the cabin and it was getting dark, but he could still see Clint curled up on the berth. This made him stop and think. It'd be so easy in the dark of night for somebody to sneak up to the cabin portholes and ...
Brad shook his head, not letting himself complete the thought. If he was going to worry about every little thing, he'd never have the balls to hit on Clint or even just get to sleep. It was bad enough it'd be uncomfortable in there. He wasn't going to make things worse by worrying about tong members spying on them or trying to hurt them.
He went resolutely back inside and shut the cabin door behind him. It had cooled off somewhat, although the smells still lingered, but it was bearable. His plan of action was pretty vague and he hesitated for a moment, wondering if it'd even be worth the effort. But then he had a surge of confidence and went over to his berth, stripped down to his underwear, and walked back by the door.
He stood there, his hands on his hips, every muscle tensed, looking at Clint curled up on his berth, listening to his easy breathing. He wanted him so badly. He wanted Clint to be holding him, kissing him, making love to him. They'd done so often in the past, before and after Clint had moved into the Cooper house. But then recently he'd grown so reluctant to touch Brad, so worried they'd be found out and be shunned and avoided by everyone. But Brad wasn't worried about that. Especially not here on this old tub of a boat thousands of miles away from home.
"Clint!" he called him. "Jeez! Hey. Come here!"
The bigger boy sat up with a jolt and looked around. "What? Where the hell are you? What's wrong?"
"I'm right here by the door," Brad whispered. "Something's not right."
Clint jumped off the berth and hurried over. "Man, what's goin' on?"
Brad could see him well enough even in the darkness, his big muscular brawn as he neared him. Clint had put on a clean pair of underwear and just seeing his near nakedness was a monster jolt of sensation to Brad. He wasn't going to punk out now.
"Here. Look!" He pointed to the wall next to the door.
Clint brushed against him as he stepped over to look and Brad lost it, all his control. He grabbed Clint from behind, spun him around and shoved him up against the wall. A second later he was right on top of him, holding Clint, pressing him against the wall, their muscular chests crushed hard together, crotches aligned and touching.
"You fucker!" Brad hissed. "What the hell's wrong with you? You haven't wanted to touch me in weeks except for last night when I got shook up because of my dad. I'm goddamn tired of acting like we're just friends. And then we get Jimmy tagging along with us for not even a day, and you can't keep your eyes off of him. Your hands too! What the hell am I, last year's news?"
He was surprised Clint didn't immediately try to push him away. He'd braced himself for it, because it often happened, but it wasn't happening now. Instead, Clint just stood there, letting Brad hold him in place.
"Why do you get so jealous, Brad? Jeezus! We're two guys. It's not like we can be lovers and go around holding hands. Not us, buddy."
"Yah right. You always say crap like that now. But what about when you took me down to Greenwich Village to see all the gays? Then you were all for it. And you would've been holding Jimmy's hand all day long if he'd let you. Or you gonna deny that?"
"Hey, I can't help looking at him. He's so ... jeez ... he's so different."
"Bullshit. It's not because he's different. It's because he's beautiful. Well, so am I. Or can't you see that anymore, huh?"
"Oh damn!" Clint wrapped his arms around Brad and pulled him tighter to him. "What do I have to do, tell you every day that I love you?"
"You love me?" Brad sunk right into him. His lips were on level with Clint's chin and he pushed himself up on his toes to get to his mouth. "Prove it. Kiss me. Man, just kiss me, at least."
Clint kissed him and their mouths locked together, tongues searching and tasting, exploring. Brad loved the heat of the embrace, the touch of skin on skin, the hard solid muscle on muscle, yet the softness and sweetness of it all and the big hands moving up and down his back and onto the cheeks of his butt.
Their mouths pulled apart, heaving in gulps of air, and Brad felt Clint's throbbing erection pressed against his own. His hands moved up the rippling muscles of Clint's back, tingling from the touch of his skin. Then his right hand moved around to Clint's front and he palmed the bulge there in his briefs.
Brad laughed. "I guess you do still like me, huh?"
"Oh jeez, what the hell can I say to make you understand? I love you! And if we lived in a different world, like maybe on Mars where it'd be okay for two guys to be lovers, then yeah, I'd be all for it. But our world isn't like that."
Brad sighed, rubbing his cheek along Clint's jawline. "Here we go with the same old story. You told me yourself that during the war all the guys were doing it with each other. You know damn right it's not all that weird or unusual."
"Yah, but most of those guys, the ones lucky enough to go home, went home to wives and girlfriends. Not to boyfriends. That's just not the way this fucking world works."
"Some of it does," Brad insisted. "We could go to college in New York. NYU, right there in the Village. We could live there. There's thousands of others like us there. You know that. You showed it all to me yourself. Back then when you wanted me. But after you got me it all seemed to fade away, huh?"
Suddenly Clint pushed out and picked Brad up and twirled him around, almost like it was effortless. He pushed Brad up against the wall like he'd just been, but raised up a couple inches, his feet off the floor.
"Get it through your head, homo boy," Clint hissed at him, "we can't keep that up! What about your mom and dad? The Hammond labs? The success we can have as scientists in the future? You want to throw all that away to be Greenwich Village gay boys? Even if your dad would accept it, you think the other scientists at the labs would still want us around? You think we'd still have a chance at a career in science if everybody suspected or knew we slept together every night and were lovers?"
Brad glared at Clint in the darkness. He hated it when Clint did this to him, talked him down from his lofty dreams of the kind of life he wished they could have together. Talked him down like he was a fool, and always made it seem so logical and right.
They couldn't be homo boys. They couldn't be queer. They couldn't be 'gay' like everybody was starting to call it now. They'd have to be just friends. Meet a couple girls in the future and get married. To the girls. Lead normal lives, have families, and hide their true feelings like so many others like them did. There'd probably never be a day that people like them could live free and be free to love each other.
"Fuck!" Brad spit out at him. "You sure know how to ruin a romantic moment. Let me go."
Clint loosened his grip and Brad slid down to the floor.
"I'm just being real, Brad. It's because I love you that I can't ruin your life. Your dad's planning to send a manned rocket to the moon. You can be the man on that rocket, the first man on the moon! You'll be a great scientist, somebody in the history books. But it'll never happen the other way, and you know it."
Brad walked away, back to his berth. Right, he knew it. And he didn't give a crap about it. As far as he was concerned, none of that other stuff mattered much. They could find a way together to make their life one worth living. But it seemed useless to bother about it any more. Clint was so dead set against it, like it'd be all his fault if Brad's life was ruined.
As he stretched out on his berth, he felt an emptiness in his heart, like it was hollow, nothing there. His dad was gone, his mom was thousands of miles away, and Clint was pushing him away more and more as the weeks went by. He'd come home from the war all hepped up and happy about their relationship. Now he was dead set on ending it, and all because it was so forbidden.
Brad lay there and listened to the monotonous churn of the engines. It had a subtle hypnotic effect, like the crashing waves of the Atlantic back home on the New Jersey coast. He tried to clear his mind of the disappointment he just experienced, and the lingering sensations from Clint's touch. He settled himself in for sleep.
But it came only in bits and pieces, fits and starts, and it seemed that he no sooner succumbed to the darkness when he was jolted awake, his eyes fixated on the murky gray of the portholes.
This went on for what seemed like hours. Brad couldn't stop obsessing over the access into the cabin that the portholes provided for danger. He tossed and he turned and he refused to look at them. But each time the darkness of sleep overtook him, he suddenly exploded to wakefulness, his gaze riveted in that direction.
He tried to think about Clint again, being held by him and kissed by him, the feel of his hard erection against his own, anything to keep his mind off the damn portholes, but it didn't work. He knew he was stressed and wound-up beyond what he could handle, and it was all coming out now in this crazy anxiety.
He was contemplating the portholes angrily now, as if it was their fault he couldn't sleep, when suddenly the one nearest to Clint darkened. Brad sat up, his mouth agape, and it was half a minute before he was fully aware that a face was peering in the room.
His heart thudded wildly as he jumped off the berth.
But the face vanished as Brad's feet touched the floor. His every nerve was alive and zinging, his legs ready to spring as he held his breath in suspense.
Then, from the murkiness outside the porthole came a hand, moving slowly into the dimness within. When Brad saw that there was a gun aimed at Clint clasped in the moving hand, he sprang with a strangled cry and with such force that he flew across the few feet of space that separated him from the porthole.
He heard himself cry out, "Clint!" as he grabbed the moving hand and cracked it hard against the porthole casing.
The gun fired, and the explosion reverberated throughout the cabin. Then the gun clattered to the floor as the owner of the hand screamed in shock and pain and withdrew his arm hastily back out to the deck.
Brad stumbled into position to look out the porthole but all he could see was a half-naked man in yellow short pants fleeing down the deck, holding his wrist and screaming out in pain.
It looked like the same man he'd chased down to the beach the night before, the man who'd left the packet containing the golden dragon on the veranda of the plantation bungalow. The man who'd laughed at him before uttering the eerie cry as he was being ferried out to the yacht.
Brad couldn't help the sneer that crossed his face now. He glared angrily at the receding figure.
The fellow wasn't laughing tonight!
That was for fucking sure!
**
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Next chapter .... SEA PIRATES! OMG! Will Brad, Clint, and Jimmy have to abandon ship?