Hemmo looked away.
“Doing what’s right doesn’t depend on the species, race, or ethnicity, Hemmo. Right is just right.”
“But the Finnish Brotherhood . . . ” Hemmo began.
“What about them? Did they have your back in Korea?”
“That’s not fair, Doogie.”
“Who said life is fair.” He reached up and put a hand squarely on Hemmo’s shoulder. “We. Have. To. Rescue. The. Mermaids,” he said, enunciating every word.
“So says a sentient sturgeon to a mind-speaking salmon that you ate?” Hemmo shook his head and wiped his face with one of his meaty paws. “This whole conversation is insane, you know that.”
But Doogie pressed. “Even then. Right is right.”
Bo Diddley broke into his refrain from “I’m a Man” and neither of them talked about it anymore.
***
THE NEXT EVENING found them in Uniontown—the part of Astoria positively run by the Finns who’d come over earlier in the century like a Viking invasion. Normally, Suomi Hall, Home of the Finnish Brotherhood, was closed to only those of Finnish descent. But once a year on Veteran’s Day, they allowed non-Finn veterans into the hall for their celebration. Although Hemmo had been inside the hall a hundred times, this was the first time Doogie, or any Japanese-American for that matter, had been in the hall, and they let him know it right at the door.
“Well, I appreciate the hospitality,” he said to the hulking Finn guarding the door.
“Just don’t touch anything that isn’t yours or we’ll have to send you back to Korea where you came from,” the Finn said.
“I’m Japanese-American, not Korean.”
“Whatever the nationality of the squinty-eyed bastard what fathered you, I don’t give a shit. You just better behave.”
Ten minutes later, after elbowing their way through the throng of perpetually dissatisfied Finns being served warm beer and eating dried salt cod, they were standing by a door guarded by an even bigger Finn than the first.
“No way, Hemmo. Orders are no one goes down there except those with appointments.”
“Come on, Peter. We just got back from the war. We need some tension release.”
Peter gave Doogie a look much like a man would a rusted broke-down jalopy. “Not him.”
Hemmo pressed. “He’s a veteran too. Without him, I never would have made it back. Come on, man. Do it for your country. Do it for me.”
Peter was Hemmo’s cousin and they’d grown up as close as brothers. He seemed to be considering it, but then shook his head. “Sorry, Hemm. No way will Garn allow his type to touch them.”
“What if I just watch?” Doogie asked, putting on his best I’m just a poor Asian who doesn’t know any better face.
That made Peter blink. “You want to watch?”
Doogie grinned sheepishly. “Sure. I mean, who wouldn’t. If I can’t actually be with them, then watching would be cool.” He tapped his head. “I could save it as a memory for later.”
Hemmo put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “Yeah, Peter. What if he watches? I’ll make sure he doesn’t touch anything.”
Peter gave his cousin a pained look, then sighed. “Damn it, Hemm. Fine. Go ahead. But if I get shit over this, you’re going to owe me.”
Hemmo patted his cousin on the back hard enough to shatter a normal person, but it barely fazed Peter. “Thanks. You’re right. I do. I owe you one.”
Peter shook his head and stepped aside. He used a metal circle of keys to open an ancient-looking partially-rusted metal door. Hinges creaked with the weight and effort.
The heady scent of water slapped Doogie in the face as he descended, the aroma dark and murky with a hint of salt. Moss and lichen slimed along the concrete walls and stairs, so he held fast to the rail as he took each careful step. Light glowed green from below. The sounds of Bob Doss’s “Don’t Be Gone Long” rode over the top of people talking. Laughter, low and deep, gurgled from the chest of someone happy.
When they reached the landing, Doogie followed Hemmo, keeping his head and eyes down, trying to seem as insouciance as he could.
A thin help-yourself-bar was affixed to the wall nearest the stairs. The moss motif continued.
Hemmo grabbed two ceramic cups and filled them with beer from a pitcher. He passed one to Doogie and sipped his own, the cup all but disappearing in the hand of the Finn. Hemmo leaned back against the bar and surveyed the room.
Doogie joined him and allowed himself to see the room for the first time.
A half-naked incredibly fat Finn glared at him from a stool on the other side of the room. The hatred poured from his eyes, but that didn’t seem to be enough for him to want to get up and do something about it. Beating up Doogie probably seemed too close to exercise.
Five other Finns, all dressed in white robes, sat in metal chairs around a mossy rock that took up the center of the room, chatting and talking amongst themselves. Several glanced their way, but then returned to their muted conversation.
But it was the other side of the room that got his attention. A large circular grate was padlocked in the middle of the wall. Water trickled from the dark mouth behind it. Probably open to the Columbia somehow, Doogie surmised. The green glow he’d noted before came from each of the two pools on either side of the grate, which seemed to be fed by high tide. Underwater lights green-lit the water, letting you see all the way to the bottom. Each pool was roughly a circle and seemed to be carved out of the rock.
The pool on the left held a man who stood, back to them, chest deep in the water, elbows resting on the pool edge.
No one stood in the pool on the left, but something stirred within it. Doogie stared at it until he finally saw the cresting of a length of tail and a shimmering of scales.
That accounted for one of the mermaids, but what of the other?
Doogie returned his gaze to the pool on the right just as the man threw his head back and groaned. A shudder shot through his body, until he was completely locked into a rigid line. Then, as if the air had been let out of him, he sagged, deflated. He stood, staring at the water for a long moment, then turned, and with both hands, levered himself out of the water. His cock fluttered, then hung, worn and getting smaller. Standing tall, he stretched his arms high above his head. He was older than Hemmo by about twenty years, but still had the muscular physique of a working longshoreman. A tattoo of a triple-masted ship covered his chest, faded and blurred from age. The word LANKMAR in big blocky letters below the ship. He glanced up, then walked straight toward them. He passed Doogie without a look, then grabbed a cup and poured beer into it.
“Hemmo,” he said, taking a long pull of beer.
“Garn,” Hemmo replied, nodding.
“You bring a pet in here?”
Hemmo glanced at Doogie. “He’s just here to watch.”
“Ahh,” Garn said, draining his cup. “One of those.”
A flash caught the corner of Doogie’s vision and he turned back to the pool Garn had just exited. Blue-tinged hands with black nails grabbed the side of the pool and a head appeared. Long black hair streaked with blue hung wet at the sides of a face the color of a noon sky. Liquid yellow eyes slanted on each side of a petite nose. She was all woman until he took in the lips. Rather than the lips of a person, the mermaid had the lips of a bottom feeding fish—a sucker or a Koi. They were pursed and rigid, making it appear as if the mermaid were in a constant state of surprise.
Doogie couldn’t help but stare. Then he understood. Garn. His cock. The mermaid. Her lips. He felt a sickness course through his body that he hadn’t experienced since Korea when he’d discovered the man renting out young underage girls to horny GIs.
The mermaid locked eyes with him. He felt his sickness wear away as another feeling began to subsume it. Despite his wishes, he felt himself harden. Thoughts of touching her skin, rubbing his hands along her scales invaded his mind. He could see himself and her, entwined.
Then her eyes broke away and th
e feeling melted.
He watched as the fat man stood, dropped his towel on the stool, and with grunting effort lowered his prodigious body into the pool, belly so large it almost hid his tiny cock.
The mermaid pushed herself away from the side of the pool and floated on her back. Water rolled off perky blue breasts, each topped with a black nipple. She floated until the man seemed ready, then, like a body sinking into the sea, she turned slightly and sunk beneath the surface. Her tail slapped the water as she turned.
Soon the fat man’s head lolled back.
And Doogie knew exactly what was happening and he didn’t want to.
Garn suddenly erupted in laughter, head back as he bellowed toward the rocky ceiling.
“Your pet has a hard-on, Hemmo. It wants to join in.” Then he laughed again, rollicking in his idea of humor.
Doogie felt his bile rise, realizing that his hard-on remained. With a shaking hand, he sat the cup on the bar and pushed away unsteadily. He spun around, getting his bearings, then ran for the stairs. He slipped twice on the moss. When he got to the top, he banged on the door until it opened. He slid through the doorway, pushed his way through the crowd, out the door and into the street, where he fell to his knees, vomit spewing into the street. He stayed there, letting his cock unharden, the sky spitting drizzle on him until Hemmo came, helped him to his feet, and they both slouched away into the Astorian evening.
***
IT WAS WELL AFTER MIDNIGHT when Doogie directed Hemmo to pull his Jon-boat to the shore. The river was almost four miles across where they were, making it more an ocean than anything else, with waves and currents eager to capsize a vessel their size. But the hundred feet closest to shore was calm and almost flat, so they’d’ taken advantage of it, putting in two miles up and rowing down. They were dressed in black watch caps, black jackets, and black pants. They’d covered their faces in wheel grease. Hemmo pulled gently at the oars, while Doogie stood in the prow of the boat, ready to jump to shore.
After they’d left Suomi Hall, they’d gone back to Doogie’s place in John Day, where Hemmo had talked him out of stealing dynamite and blowing the fucking place down. They finished a six-pack of Olympia before Doogie had the idea of conducting night reconnaissance. He wanted to see where that grate let out and if he could access it from the outside.
As they neared the shore, Doogie moved to the front, jumped out with a rope in hand, and secured the boat to an old stump.
Hemmo shipped the oars, then slipped out the front more deftly than a big guy should move.
They both knelt in the lee of the bank. To their right was the access canal that would bring the water into the Suomi Hall basement during high tide. Now it was low tide, so only a few stranded puddles remained.
“You didn’t have to come with me,” Doogie whispered, “but I’m glad you did.”
“I’m sure you would have figured out a way to get caught if I hadn’t.”
A splash sounded from somewhere nearby making both of them jump a little in their skin.
Hemmo glanced toward the sound, while Doogie began moving forward.
“It’s a fish,” Hemmo whispered.
“What I figured.”
“No, it’s really a fish.”
Doogie glanced back for a brief instance and saw Hemmo staring at the water. “I heard you, now come on.”
“But the fish is staring at me—and it’s huge.”
This gave Doogie pause. He slunk back down the embankment and crouched near Hemmo. Sure enough, an immense hog of a salmon that had to be near forty pounds sat ten feet away from them. Its rainbow colors winked in the starlight as water dripped from its back.
“What does it want?” Hemmo asked.
Doogie remembered the salmon that spoke with him and now regretted eating it. There was a majesty to the fish in their own environment that was unmistakable. If the giant sentient sturgeon was the King of the Columbia, then these salmon were certainly the Dukes and Dames.
“I think it wants to tell us something.”
“What do we do?” Hemmo asked.
“I’m not sure.” Then he remembered. “I think I have to touch it.” He glanced at Hemmo. “Hold my left hand.”
Hemmo grasped it and Doogie stepped into the cold dark water. He reached out with his right hand but was still a little short. But the salmon took the initiative and closed the space, placing its head in Doogie’s outstretched hand.
She is dying.
“Who is dying?” he said aloud.
An image formed in his mind—a mermaid, slumped in the water, limbs akimbo and adrift, face slack, eyes closed.
Doogie remembered that one of the pools had been all but empty with just a hint of mermaid.
You must save her.
“I want to—we want to. But there are too many of them . . . Finns, I mean.”
It must be tonight or she will die.
“But we can’t. We need the tide. We’re not ready. This is reconnaissance only.”
The fish backed away, but remained near them.
Doogie retrieved his hand and Hemmo pulled him back.
“It wants us to—”
“I heard it in my head,” Hemmo said, voice low and filled with awe. “It must be because I was touching you.”
“Well then, you know what it wants us to do.”
Despite the glazed look in Hemmo’s eyes, he nodded. “I don’t see how we can do it.”
“Me neither, I—”
Doogie’s mouth hung open as he stared at the shape coming at them from across the water.
Hemmo saw Doogie, followed his gaze, and his own mouth gaped open.
Surging toward them like Moby Dick was a giant white whale. Like its namesake, it seemed capable of crashing through ships, tearing apart structures, and devouring men whole. Although they couldn’t see the mouth, two glowing great blue orbs seemed to glower at them from just above the water line. This whale wore armor. Instead of the smooth skin of a whale, this aquatic monster had hard rugged squares affixed to its body. Even whiter spikes ran from the front of its head and along its back.
“Call me Ishmael,” Doogie rasped.
First it was far away, and then it was on them. The displaced water slammed into them, sending them crashing against the bank. Doogie felt himself tumble, then go under the water, pulling at him as it receded. He tried to stand, but found that he couldn’t move his legs. Looking down, he saw with horror that they were held fast by several pairs of hands. Then his world turned upside down as his feet were pulled out from under him.
His head slammed on the rocky bottom of the shore and all went black. He was vaguely aware through the white hot pain that he was being pulled underwater. His ears rang. An avalanche of spots crashed into his eyes. His legs were tugged . . . once . . . twice . . . pulling him deeper. He shook his head to clear it. And realized that he’d been holding his breath. He opened his eyes and knew why. Somehow, somewhere, he’d been pulled beneath the water and was now living in a green universe where mermaids held fast to his feet. To his front floated a sturgeon the size of a whale. A sturgeon that could only be Musma.
The monster’s long snout ended in teeth the size of K-Bars. Four whiskers moved like antennae in the water.
Doogie looked down at his feet and saw that four mermaids held his legs. As much as he thought he’d want to, he didn’t struggle. But his lungs did burn. He wasn’t sure how long he could hold his breath.
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Hemmo, struggling against the tentacles of an immense octopus. The Finn was screaming in the water, great bubbles gouting upward. His muscles popped along his arms, as he used them to try and swim upward, straining to be free. Then be breathed in the water and his eyes shot wide. For a brief instant, he stared at Doogie, panic and worry alive in the eyes, then even that melted away and what life had been in him left with the last bit of bubbles.
Doogie felt the last of his own air go. He started to struggle, but realized tha
t without the air, he hadn’t any energy. A sob sprung from deep inside him and shot free, his mouth opening, bubbles escaping. He tried not to breathe in water, he told his lungs not to do it, but they were too desperate to listen and fired a single frantic signal to his brain.
And he breathed in water.
His lungs filled with it.
His body convulsed.
And then he died.
For exactly ten seconds, then Musma reached out with one of its whiskers and grabbed him, pulling him into his mouth. Doogie lay in the darkness, his spirit aware of where he was, but only in the vaguest off-handest of ways. A moment, a day, a week, an epoch later, electricity fired through his body. His arms and legs shot rigid. A burning sensation sizzled impossibly along his wet skin, centering on his chest and neck. Then he was spit out, tumbling in the water, aware that he’d just drowned, somehow alive, and about to drown once more.
Doogie jerked his head back and forth and noted that he wasn’t held any longer by the mermaids. He could swim for safety. He needed to swim for safety. But his limbs weren’t his own yet. Another sob wrenched free and he began to—
Breathe.
He felt the rush of water through his neck and into, then out of, his lungs.
He brought a hand up and felt what could only be gills. He breathed and stared at Musma, then at Hemmo who was floating dead, nearby.
Why?
He wasn’t ready.
Doogie mentally scoffed. And I was. I never asked to be a fish.
Not a fish. Something else. Merman. Merro. Dogo. The words are those of man. You are now of the sea. You belong to the Columbia. More man words but now powerful.
But why?
Because I called and you came. We need you.
I had a life. Hemmo had a life. You’ve taken that from us.
Took nothing. Gave everything. Now go. Save her.
Doogie immediately knew whom he was to save. She had a name but it was a piscine thing and unutterable to the human tongue. He felt the urge, the press to free her. Without a second thought, he surged to the surface, grabbing Hemmo as he went. He swam fluidly, his body understanding what he could never know, the way to move that created the easiest motion. When he neared the shore, he let his feet propel him forward. When his head broke the surface, he wretched free the water that was in his lungs and breathed air as if he’d done it a hundred times.
Pop the Clutch Page 4