He shook his head as he moved down the dark, unfamiliar street. Lately, the past few weeks, he’d been continually trying to figure out exactly how he’d gotten to this point. Not here in a physical sense, but here as a state of being.
Last fall, he’d arrived in Mawitaan, the harbor city, capital of Bangalla, with money and hope. He and some friends from the army were going to start their own business. A country like Bangalla offered a lot of opportunities, the idea of setting up their own air cargo business had appealed to Ted. He couldn’t fly himself, but he was a pretty fair mechanic and also not bad at keeping books. Everything seemed like it was going to be fine.
It had all gone wrong. They found out they didn’t have anywhere near enough money. You needed money not only for the obvious expenses but for bribes and kickbacks, money to make sure you got the permits and licenses you needed. Not that everybody was corrupt and on the take, but enough were, up and down the line, to make the price tag on getting started a lot higher than they’d expected.
Even when they, finally, got going—in a limping, second rate sort of way—they kept having trouble. Accidents—a bad crash, then a fire. One of their customers brought a suit against them. It turned out that their insurance wasn’t adequate. One morning Ted woke up and found his partners had skipped, leaving him with the whole broken-down setup to handle.
He hadn’t stuck either. He ran out. He hadn’t gone home, though, hadn’t gone back to the quiet Midwest town where nothing much ever happened. Maybe it was his pride, maybe it was simply the fact that he didn’t want to listen to his father laugh at his failure. Whatever the reason, he had stayed in Bangalla, drifting from place to place, working odd jobs when In- could get them, panhandling when he couldn’t.
Somehow this kind of life never got any better.
Experience didn’t count for much; the longer he was a drifter, the worse things got. Maybe, as his father had often told him, he didn’t have the guts to fight for anything hard enough. Maybe.
There was an alley running alongside a darkened grocery store. A tiny place, back home you’d call it a Mom & Pop operation. But they must have a cash register, and they certainly had food. Besides, there was no sign of an alarm system nor any effective precautions against breaking in.
Ted eased carefully into the alley. There was a sour smell, of garbage sitting out too long, in the heat, of rotting wood. A dingy, white cat sat atop a garbage can watching him.
The back door of the store was made of wood, with a simple lock. Ted had never broken into a place before, but he knew this wouldn’t be too tough. It took him, however, almost fifteen minutes to get the lock picked. He used his pocket knife and then a twist of baling wire he found lying in the dirt of the alley.
One thing he knew, he’d been quiet. He pulled the door open silently and went into the store on his hands and knees.
The smells were better inside the place. Bread, cheese, fruit. Maybe he wouldn’t even bother about money, just take a good supply of food and get out.
He rose up, crouching a little and allowed his eyes to get used to the near-darkness in the little grocery store. Right next to him was a huge basket full of packets of dried beef. He grabbed a handful and stuffed them into his trouser pocket. And over there was some bread. Loaves piled up on the counter. He began to move toward the bread.
A light flashed on above the counter. A fat, black man sat up. He was wearing striped pajamas. “Caught you, thief,” he shouted. “Sleeping in the store every night, I knew sooner or later I’d catch a thief.” He held a pistol in his hand.
“Look,” said Ted, “I . . He could feel his heart beating up in his throat.
“You stand right there, thief,” ordered the black shopkeeper. “I get the police. They lock you up. Throw the key away.”
“I haven’t taken anything.” Ted advanced toward the man. “Listen, I’m broke and I’m hungry.”
“Lots of people hungry in this world, thief. If they all tried to rob my store I’d get no sleep at all.”
The fat man’s eyes left Ted for a moment. A door in the back of the store opened and a black woman in a robe looked in. “What’s the matter? What’s the light on for?”
Ted jumped. He went straight over the counter, catching hold of the fat man’s gun hand. There was a cot back there, with a tangle of blankets on it.
Struggling, shoving, the two men fell against the cot. The gun went off with an enormous sound.
Everything froze for a long second. Then the shopkeeper cried out, “I’m dead.” He tumbled down sideways onto the cot.
“You kill him, you kill him,” screamed the man’s wife.
“No, I. ..” Ted saw he had blood all over his hands.
He didn’t say anything else. He ran.
Ran from behind the counter. Ran across the dark shop, crashing into tins of fruit and jars of oil. Ran into the alley and away from there.
He kept running.
Finally, when he stopped to try and breathe, he saw ho was outside the town. He was on the edge of the Great Swamp.
He stood there, not knowing what to do next. The mist swirled around him.
CHAPTER 4
Peg McWorth arrived at the Mawitaan Airport the next afternoon. A slim, blond girl of twenty-five, freckled, wearing a crisp, tan pants-suit. She left the airport carrying one suitcase, a small, black briefcase and a straw purse. Inside the purse was a certified check for $2,400. It represented what Peg had been able to save over the last three years of working in New York City as a secretary and part-time model.
She’d come here to hire a man.
Which man she didn’t let know. What he had to do, this man, was take her into the Great Swamp.
“Of course,” the short Chinese said across the wide desk at her, "I’m neither Morrison nor Garfield. It is remotely possible that one of them might accept such a commission, Miss McWorth.”
Behind him, the office’s large window had Morrison Garfield, Investigators lettered on it in gilt. Overhead a hanging fan turned slowly. This was the first time Peg had seen a fan like that except in a movie.
She closed her slender hands over her straw bag. The certified check had been converted into a Mawi tann checking account and three hundred dollars in cash. “When will either of them be back?”
The Chinese shrugged. “Our trade, Miss McWorth, requires much patience and much determination. One of the senior partners may return in a day, or it may be weeks hence. I do not know.”
“And you won’t take the job?”
“It is not in my line.”
“You find people, don’t you?”
The Chinese detective gave her a slow smile. “Not when they are lost in places like the Great Swamp.” ‘You’re afraid?”
“Let us say I am concerned with my own safety,” he replied. “That swamp, Miss McWorth, is a very dangerous place.”
“Yet there are at least a dozen men living there right now.”
“Perhaps. I have heard the same rumors you have, that some of the prisoners who escaped from that train wreck last winter are hiding there.” He leaned back to watch the fan as it slowly revolved. “Rumors are not alway facts.”
“It’s a fact that somebody is using that swamp as a base for raids on the surrounding towns,” said the blond girl. “And I know my uncle is in that swamp. There was no trace of him in the wreckage. He must have gone into the Great Swamp. We know he was in the same car with a man who had lived in the swamp as a boy.”
“Bangalla, Miss McWorth, is not the United States,” said the Chinese. “They are not as careful here. Perhaps your uncle’s body was found and no one made a note of it.”
“No, I can’t accept that.”
“Why is it you are so anxious to find him?”
“We, the rest of the family and I, have been working to have his sentence reduced.” She said. “There was even a possibility of a new trial. The attorneys we retain here in Bangalla had been very encouraging. And then... . then he disappeared into
the Great Swamp.” The detective said, “Perhaps your lawyers could suggest someone to undertake this quest of yours.”
“Oh, I already talked to them before I came here to you,” said Peg. “They’re worse than you, a pair of desk-bound old relics. I suppose they’re very good in a courtroom, but of no help in this instance.”
“There are men in Mawitaan,” said the Chinese, “who are for hire as guides. You understand, men who will lead hunters into the jungle. The safari is still quite popular with the wealthy.”
“Well, I might as well try a great white hunter,” said Peg as she stood up. “I’m certainly not going to get anywhere with private investigators.”
She had no luck with the professional guides and hunters either. No one was interested, at any price, in guiding Peg McWorth into the Great Swamp to find her missing uncle.
Long after dark, the slim-blond girl returned to her hotel. After showering, and then sitting on the edge of the bed for a half hour, Peg dressed and went down to the hotel’s cocktail lounge. She would have one drink before dinner.
The lounge was a cavernous black, illuminated by dim, crimson fights. The walls were covered with rattan matting. There were spears, assagais, shields and masks hanging on the walls, and what appeared to be, in the dim light, the heads of several lions.
Peg made her way to a small, empty table and sat down. From her purse she took the fist of people she’d called on that afternoon. With a stub of yellow pencil •.lie crossed out all the names. “Now what?” she asked herself.
“Don’t tell me, I’ll tell you.” The table shook as a heavy-set man in his late thirties sat down opposite her. He wore dark glasses, a turtleneck sweater beneath his plaid sport jacket. “You’re from Des Moines, Iowa. Am I right? You have to buy me a drink if I am, and if I’m wrong I’ll . . .”
“Get up,” she said in a pleasant voice, “and get away from here.”
“It’s not Des Moines. Now that I hear you talk I can see it’s more likely Boston, Mass. Am I right?”
“If you don’t get up and go away, I’ll scream for help,” Peg told him. “Really.”
The heavy-set man smiled. “Do that and I’ll say you picked me up, honey. Now you don’t want a scene, a sweet, young lady like you. So why don’t we . . . oof!”
He was lifted straight out of his chair and several feet into the air. Then he was allowed to drop. He hit his tailbone upon landing and stood up with a groan. He scowled at the man who’d done it to him. But he didn’t say anything. He went away and was swallowed by the lounge’s darkness.
The young man standing there now was tall, weatherbeaten. He had a lean bony face and shaggy, brown hair. His eyes showed, even in this dark place, an intense light blue. “My name is Eric Haggard. I hear you’re looking for a guide.”
“Yes, are you a guide?”
“Among other things,” answered Haggard. He sat down.
The latest in a series of hijackings took place that same night.
Far from Mawitaan, on the highway which circled Tiger Lake and passed within a half mile of the Great Swamp, the big truck and trailer was rolling steadily along through the night.
The black man at the wheel was mumbling a song to himself, an old blues tune about doing ninety-nine years in prison.
His partner, a thin man with straw-colored hair, was leaning back in the passenger seat of the cab. He had his eyes half-closed and was chewing gum, slowly and thoughtfully. “Sing something else,” he suggested.
“Not singing,” said the driver.
“Whatever it is you’re doing.”
“Mumbling. Just mumbling to myself.”
“Well, mumble something less sad,” said the yellowhaired man. “We’re getting near the Great Swamp and that’s depressing enough.” He sat up, squinting out at the night. “Look, you can see the mist hanging over the place already. No matter how clear the night is, there’s always mist over that place.”
“Mist can’t hurt nobody,” said the driver. He went back to murmuring to himself.
“What they ought to do,” said his partner, ‘is get a fleet of bulldozers and plow that whole swamp under.” The black man said, “Swamp’d only swallow them up, drivers and all.”
“Well, then they... hey!”
“Hell!” the driver hit the brakes hard. They screeched, the cab of the truck shivered and the long, heavy trailer swayed far to the left.
Two huge trees were stretched across the road, blocking it entirely.
“Damn,” said the yellow-haired man as he reached for the door handle. “We been making good time, too.” “Wait,” cautioned the driver. “Sit a minute.” “Huh?”
“We got a truckload of liquor, remember? Be worth plenty to somebody to get hold of it.”
“Yeah, you’re right. And those trees couldn’t have got there by themselves.”
The black man reached across his partner, thrust a hand into the glove compartment. There was a .38 revolver there, held by two metal clamps. “Before we do anything, I better . . .”
Faces appeared at both windows of the truck cab. Faces covered by rude masks made of thatch and bark. Each masked man held a gun.
“Don’t reach for that,” said the man on the driver’s side of the truck. “Unbend and then climb on out of the truck.”
“What you figuring on?” asked the driver as he did what he’d been told to do.
“Figuring on getting us a couple dozen cases of booze, my lad.”
The two truck drivers were herded over to the side 33
of the highway. There was a huge, gnarled, dead tree growing there.
“Give us the keys to the trailer now, my lad, and you’ll save us the effort of breaking in.”
Slowly, the black man handed over the keys.
As he and his partner watched, five more men materialized out of the misty darkness. All wore the same rough masks.
Each man made two trips. In less than fifteen minutes ten cases of liquor had been carried into the swamp.
“Why doesn’t anybody come along this road?” said the yellow-haired man. “A car or something.”
“They probably dropped some kind of roadblock off behind us after we drove into the trap,” said the driver. “Most likely they got the same thing up ahead." “Pretty damned audacious.”
As five of the marauders went off with their third case each, the other two masked men moved nearer the truck drivers. “All right, lads, you can go along about your business now. We’ll leave the rest of the load for you,” said the one who did the talking. “We’ll also leave those logs on the road for you to clear away. Give you something to keep your mind off your loss.” With their guns pointed at the drivers, the masked men began backing away.
“Don’t either of you lads try to follow us.”
“I got no urge to get shot,” said the black man.
“It’s not only getting shot you’d have to worry about, my lad, it’s the swamp itself,” he said. “By the way, should your boss ask you who it was you’ve met this night, tell him it was the Swamp Rats.”
Then they were gone.
Some distance from the Great Swamp lies an area which is equally mysterious and forbidding. In the very heart of the Bangalla jungle is the sector known as the Deep Woods. Modem civilization has not been able, some say not willing, to penetrate the Deep Woods. It remains to this day an untamed and unknown place, a place of many mysteries and many secrets.
Deep within the Deep Woods is a great cave which many have heard tales of but few have seen. The jagged mouth of the cave bears a resemblance to a skull.
To one side of the vast cave is a dais on which there is a throne carved from stone. On each side of the throne a grinning skull has been carved.
The throne was occupied now by a broad-shouldered, muscular man who looked to be no older than thirty. He wore a skin-tight costume with a death’s head smiling from the buckle of his gun-belt. A black mask covered the upper portion of his face. He sat leaning forward, one elbow resting
on his knee.
“Always there is some new devilment, Phantom,”
said the tiny, grey-brown man who stood nearby. He was chunky, little more than three feet tall. He was dressed in a hemp skirt and a broad-brimmed hat of thatch. In his hand was a spear, the tip of which was dipped in poison. This was Guran, of the Bandar people. The Bandars had lived in this mysterious wood for centuries, even before the coming of the first Phantom.
The Phantom stood and left the dais, moving closer to the powerful radio set to which he and the pygmy had been listening. “Seems that way, doesn’t itl” He turned the radio off. “What have you heard of these bandits?”
“No one knows for certain who they are, Phantom,” replied Guran. “It is said they raid town and jungle alike and then disappear into the Great Swamp.” “Apparently, they’ve been operating for several months now. Has anyone tried to find their hideout?” “I think not, Phantom. At least none who lived to tell of it. The Great Swamp is a treacherous place, it tries very hard to kill all who enter.”
“It didn’t kill these bandits.”
Guran nodded his small head. “Somehow these men, who call themselves the Swamp Rats, have learned the secrets of the swamp. They seem able to move through it as they please. Perhaps there is some powerful magic at work, Phantom.”
“Not magic, knowledge,” replied the masked man. He moved nearer the entrance of the Skull Cave. “I think it’s about time the Jungle Patrol looked into this business.”
The pygmy smiled, letting out his breath in a relieved sigh. “Then, Phantom, you do not plan to enter the Great Swamp yourself?”
“Not yet, old friend,” he said and left the cave.
At dusk, a powerful, white stallion came galloping along the jungle trail. In the saddle sat the Phantom.
“We’re getting near Mawitaan,” the masked man said. “Whoa, Hero.”
The horse halted.
The Phantom swung out of the saddle, led his mount lo a nearby clearing. With a gentle pat on the animal’s side, he said, “Wait here, Hero.”
Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 11] Page 2