by Paul Malmont
The bartender gave him an appraising eye, which told Gibson that he had been pegged for an easy mark. Gibson ordered a pilsner from him and leaned against the bar. The radio was tuned to a hockey game over the CBC from Montreal: the Canadiens against the New York Rangers. He looked at his watch. Moments from now in New York, Orson would begin broadcasting this week’s episode of The Shadow. He thought how well it might go over in this crowd to ask the bartender to change stations. Maybe not so well.
“You lost?” The voice was deep and salted with New England air. He hadn’t even been served his drink and it had started.
Gibson looked at the wharf rat and his pal. The bigger man who had spoken was older and toothless, weathered like a mast of spruce. The little man next to him had several more teeth, and the cord of muscles in his neck twisted down to the top of his shoulders like huge snakes. Gibson looked quickly from one to the other, trying to figure out which was the dumb one and which was the dangerous one; these types usually ran in pairs. In this case it looked as if they were both dangerous. Their eyes glittered with a certain kind of wanton amoral lunacy. There were few crimes these men could commit and not escape from on the next boat sailing.
“In town for a funeral,” he said. He had found through his early years as a reporter in Philadelphia that the easiest way to stay out of trouble in a situation like this was to be straightforward and unpresumptuous; common ground would eventually appear.
“There ain’t no cemeteries around here,” the big one said in a thick Oyrish brogue. “What was it? A burial at sea.”
Funny, Gibson thought, from all the hair he would have pegged him as Russian. “You’re right,” he said, “the funeral wasn’t around here. But the man who died worked around here at the Providence Medical Lab. Know where that is?” The little man blinked in surprise while the other one seemed to scrutinize him more closely.
The bartender set his drink down in front of him. “Shove off, fellas,” he said. “Let the man drink to his friend in peace. It’s the Lord’s day, after all.”
The two men looked at each other and shrugged. The little one pulled down his wool cap to just above his eyebrows. “We was catching the next tide anyways,” he growled to the bartender. He put a hand on Gibson’s shoulder. Gibson could feel the power of a life spent stowing loads and hauling sheets in his grip. He looked at the hand out of the corner of his eye. It was so covered with scars and tattoos that it was impossible to tell whether any original flesh was left. He could see an ink drawing of a severed head, dripping blood from its neck. The knife that did the cranium in was stuck gratuitously from temple to temple, to indicate that beheading wasn’t enough. The man drew close and Gibson could smell the liquor on his breath. He tried to keep his breathing easy and his gaze level.
“Keep a weather eye out for the night watchman,” he growled.
“Who’s that?”
“Ask ’im,” he said and tilted his head down the bar. Gibson did not take his eyes from the man’s face to look; he’d be damned if he’d turn away from him for even an instant. Finally, the wharf rat released his shoulder, and he and his hairy Irish friend swaggered into the encroaching evening. A few moments passed and the bar wound back up to normal speed like a clock after its chimes have been struck.
Gibson motioned for the bartender to draw close. “Who’s the night watchman?”
The bartender concentrated on polishing his glass. “Ignorant sailors,” he said, moving away.
Gibson choked down a swallow of his thin beer and looked around. There was an old man sitting at the far end of the bar. Gibson met his eyes briefly. A moment later and the old man was at his side, settling onto a stool. “Want to know about the night watchman, so?” he asked. Gibson acted as if that thought had never crossed his mind before.
“I guess.”
The old man cleared his throat to indicate how dry he was. Gibson nodded at the bartender, who filled a glass from a cask of rum. Gibson watched the old man’s Adam’s apple bob up and down as he threw down the liquid. It seemed to be the part of his body that functioned the best; certainly the blossoms spreading across his nose and face spoke to certain inadequacies of the liver and kidneys and blood, not to mention spleen and gallbladder and probably stomach. His retching cough completed the picture of health.
“It’s why we all been getting off the waterfront afore the sun goes down of late, so?” Gibson wasn’t certain if a response was needed; he kept his expression open. “Eve’y night walkin’ the docks, swingin’ his lantern. They says they found something on Harmony Isle and brought it back and he’s come to find it.”
“Found what?” Gibson whispered conspiratorially.
The old man leaned in. His breath was about the worst thing Gibson had smelled since leaving Philadelphia. “A curse.”
“Was this something they brought back to the lab with them?”
The old man shrugged. He looked out toward the warehouses. Gibson tried to follow his gaze. Between the warehouses he could see the light reflecting off the surface of the inky black harbor. In the distance he could see a dock to which a long, low boat was made fast. A fog was coming in with the wind and the opposite shores were disappearing in the gloom.
“They used to have Indian sacrifices on that island, did you know that? For hundreds of years them savages would paddle out there and make sacrifices to their heathen gods. Human sacrifices. I heard of stone altars still got markings on ’em and each corner points to the four corners of the compass. The magnetic compass! Now you tell me how them redskins knew about that, I ask you.”
Gibson shrugged and the old man continued. “Four good men shipped to Harmony Isle. Went out on the Zephyr. A few nights later, the Zephyr came back, but not the crew. A few weeks after that and the night watchman begins walking up an’ down these here docks in the dead of night, scarin’ off decent souls.”
“Did the night watchman kill the crew of the Zephyr?”
“Goddammit, don’ you understand nothin’?” His voice rose. “I told you about the curse!” He emphasized the point by smacking his palm down, rattling the bottles.
“Hey!” the bartender shouted at Gibson. “Can it!”
“Look, I’m sorry,” Gibson said.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass!” exclaimed the bartender. “We like things quiet here. Now get the hell out before I beat ya!” His eyes were bulging. The old man began mewling that he had no place else to go. “Out!”
“Sure.” Gibson tossed a few bucks on the bar and backed out into the night. No one seemed inclined to follow him and the vicinity appeared as abandoned as before. He could hear the foghorns in the distance, and the lapping of the water against the pilings, and the distant clanging of channel buoys. To the south the train whistle blew. He pulled the belt on his overcoat tight and put his hat on. He took a deep breath of cool, damp, fish-scented air and looked around. The fog drew eerie coronas from the yellow street lamps, which in this part of town were still powered by gas.
The Shadow’s menacing laughter caressed his spine. He leaped around in near terror. It emanated from the bar. How about that, he thought. He had fans up here, or at least The Shadow did. It never occurred to him before to ask himself why The Shadow laughed. Gibson knew when he laughed, of course. Both in his mags and on the radio the laughter signaled the audience that The Shadow was about to strike. It was meant to drive fear into a criminal’s heart, to let the evildoer know that the weed of crime he had tended had yielded bitter fruit, to mock his feeble plans. The laughter faded into the mist but left Gibson feeling far colder than the winter night.
The train whistled again. He felt he ought to start walking toward it. But then again, that boat was just tied up out there on the dock. And no one was around. Not even the night watchman. Or any watchman, for that matter. And since he hadn’t been able to pry the location of the lab out of anybody, at least he could still investigate something. Anyway, there was almost no chance at all that a quick examination in the near dark would
yield any information. Almost.
The fog was coming in thick and fast now, and the sun had completely set. The auras around the lamps had a physically solid look to them now, as if they were pale yellow globes with candlelit centers one could harvest.
The wharf was part of a wooden boardwalk which ran behind the warehouses and connected buildings as far as he could see in either direction. Through the mist he could see dim lights of long jetties which jutted out at intervals from the boardwalk. The Zephyr was tied up at the end of its dock; the tide was low and its railings bumped against the boards. The transport boat was nearly seventy feet in length and fifteen wide at the beam. He guessed it drew about seven feet. Light waves rocked it gently.
He walked toward it, his footfalls tapping hollowly on the wood. The scents of salt foam and creosote filled his nostrils. The fog grew thicker and thicker as he drew closer.
The boat had begun its life as a fishing trawler on its way to being a runabout. Its cockpit was lofty and protected, its prow wide and high. There was plenty of room on the rear deck for cargo or for men to work. Gibson looked the boat up and down and shook his head. He clambered aboard and peered into the hold, where only gear was stowed. The deck boards creaked under his weight.
He opened the door to the cockpit and entered the small, glass-enclosed cabin. It felt great to be out of the wind for a few moments. He ran his hands through his hair, thinking he must be out of his mind. What was he doing on this boat? It was Providence, that was all. Dead writers, crazy aunts, superstitious drunks—a terrible environment for an imagination like his. All he had to do was get back home to New York where it was normal and when people went to a funeral that was the end of the story, not the beginning.
He looked at the navigation station. There was a spyglass, and a stack of charts with a compass and a protractor arranged upon it. He walked over and examined the yellowed chart at the top of the stack. It displayed the section of Long Island Sound somewhat south and west of the boat’s current position. There were endless handwritten notations on the chart, the markings of voyages undertaken, then forgotten, overwritten, crossed over with lines from other voyages. He looked up from the chart to the window and tried to imagine his chart to his voyages, his markings.
Gibson froze. Someone else was on the boardwalk.
He picked up the small telescope and put it to his eye.
“What’d you see?” Hubbard asked.
He took a bite out of the steak sandwich Chester had cooked up for him. Moments ago he hadn’t been hungry, but now it seemed he had never been so hungry in his life. He swallowed and looked at the three men.
“I saw The Shadow.”
Episode Twenty
HE COULDN’T imagine anything more beautiful than their son. Not the dawn mist rising blue on the distant Thousand Lotuses Mountain, not the eight ancient treasures in Yunguang Cave, nor the waves breaking at Golden Stone Beach.
Zhang Mei named him Shaozu, a name which meant that he brought honor to his ancestors. He had his mother’s green eyes, brilliantly aware of his surroundings even at birth, and a smile which must have come from Mei’s father, for it was neither his nor his wife’s. Only Mei could bring out the biggest, widest smile on Shaozu’s face, sometimes by tickling him, or throwing him high into the air; sometimes by merely smiling at him first.
Mei knew Xueling and his brothers thought it unseemly for him to spend so much time with the boy. Until a boy was five or six—in other words, old enough to begin to learn to ride and fight—his upbringing was best left to the one who stays at home and the women of her family. But Mei couldn’t help himself. His brothers had always had a father; they had never known what it was like to be alone in the world. At play with his son he felt as if his father was finally with him and at peace within him. Zuolin, his adopted father, seemed to understand. He too loved the new baby.
In the morning the governess would bring the slumbering boy to them and he would lie between Mei and Lu Zhi, and Mei would admire his long lashes and chubby fingers and breathe in his scent, and he would know that his son was his destiny. He wanted to grow old for his son so he would be able to offer him wisdom and comfort the many days of his life. He wanted to watch his son grow strong and confident and become a scholar, perhaps, like his mother. But not a warrior.
He waited for the baby to awaken so he could listen to Lu Zhi tell them both the legend of the time the Monkey King created a contest between the Wind God and the Sun God which neither could win (the Monkey King was so clever!) and so both had to live among men. Later, as he watched his son sleep, he would puzzle over the enigma that was his nation: how to bring it peace, how to rule it? He did not want his son to die young, even for glory. He wanted a rich and safe life for him.
He wanted the wars to end.
Episode Twenty-One
GIBSON COULD feel his blood roaring through his arteries. A breathless dread seized his chest. This was no painting or vision or story. This was neither longshoreman, nor the effects of bad beer, nor even the dismal atmosphere of Providence. As certain as he was of the fear that gnawed at his spine, he was certain that he was in the presence of his Shadow.
It was the way his Shadow coalesced out of the night, standing in the open doorway of one of the low warehouses, absorbing the dim light from the space beyond. A great black overcoat swirled around him and blended into the darkness, blurring the distinction between where the night ended and he began. His nose was neither as long nor as hawklike as Gibson had imagined it to be. But the eyes: Gibson had described the eyes perfectly—lethal, spectral, glittering. That the man was an Asian was little more than a mild surprise. For years Gibson had written that “Ying Ko” was the name the denizens of Chinatown called The Shadow when he moved among them. It had never meant anything to him before; it was merely a bit of exotic embellishment. But here on the docks of Providence The Shadow had revealed another layer of his identity to Gibson: beyond Lamont Cranston, beyond Kent Allard, he was Ying Ko. He was Chinese.
He sees me, Gibson thought, and his breath caught in his chest. Then he realized that the man was only peering into the mist and the fear which had gripped him began to ease. An instant later the shadowy figure spun around and swept smoothly into the building, his coat filling the door frame with blackness before it closed altogether.
Gibson sat down heavily in the pilot’s chair. He wanted a cigarette but he knew any light from a match might give him away. He thought about how close he’d just come to being apprehended and his hands shook. When he thought of the man’s piercing gaze, the chill set in and he could not warm himself enough to be rid of it.
The first time The Shadow had appeared to him was on the night he had left his home, his wife, and his son. He had felt as if someone were following as he walked down the street away from his house, felt eyes upon him. He had found a room in a cheap hotel near the Main Line and watched the trains go by. Despair was a yawning black pit which devoured everything he might have been able to feel. He had wondered what it would feel like to throw himself under the train wheels.
He had tried for so long to explain to his wife why he felt compelled to move to New York to be a writer, until that night when there were no more explanations. Nothing he had said had motivated her one bit; she did not want to leave Philadelphia. There hadn’t been a fight that night, like all the others; he had just nodded after her refusal and walked out. He had been so mad at her that it wasn’t until afterward that he realized he had also walked out on Robert. In his anger, he wanted his boy’s sadness to make her feel even more guilty.
Sometime during that night (and afterward he was never quite sure if it was while he was awake or sleeping) the shadows had coalesced into a human shape. He had felt the sensation of a watchful presence again, as he had walking down the street earlier. And all of a sudden there was something in the shadows, whispering promises he couldn’t quite make out. When, a week later in their office at Street & Smith in New York, Nanovic and Ralston had asked him
if he had any ideas about how to turn the host of the Detective Story Hour radio show into a book, he suddenly understood those promises and was able to say that yes, he knew what to do: he would open his story with a man on a bridge in despair and with the dark figure which emerges from the shadows to save him.
He heard the train whistle again, far away and lonely, reminding him of another train and another time. He’d had enough. It was time to stop pretending there was a story here and go home to New York. He hadn’t known Lovecraft well enough, really, to waste an entire weekend coming to his funeral, and Lovecraft certainly wouldn’t have come down for his had the roles been reversed. But being away meant he wouldn’t have time to talk with Litzka. That’s what he needed to do. Talk with her. Maybe there was time to straighten things out with Litzka. Hell, he didn’t even know what the tour schedule was. For all he knew the show was already packing up.
He knew this feeling of not wanting to go home. He had felt it before. It was the feeling that had driven him from Miami to seek out Silver Springs. It was what had kept his feet walking forward that night when he had left Charlotte. And Robert. And Philadelphia. Only now he didn’t really have a home to avoid. Sure, he had an apartment. In a hotel. He could pack that up and be on the road in a day. But where would that get him? Just to another waterfront in another town. One thing he knew was that running around Providence pretending to be a reporter again was only a waste of time. Altogether this was turning out to be a completely fruitless trip. He realized with deep satisfaction that he wanted to go home.
He stepped out of the cabin and onto the deck. Perhaps he should write a sea tale, like Joseph Conrad. He didn’t know as much about ocean-faring life as he would like; maybe this would inspire him to research the field a little more deeply. He could buy a boat. Or just take this one. Throw off the lines and head for the horizon. A warm horizon. He would call for Litzka when he arrived at Bora-Bora or Fiji and, maybe, she would come. He sighed. When he stepped off the boat, his little adventure would be over.