Chase The Rabbit: Gretch Bayonne Action Adventure Series Book #1 (6 page)

                “Good morning, Mr. Bay!” Alvon said as I sat on one of the boxes.

                “Yes, whatever, Monkey Man,” I replied, holding my head in my hands.

              “You know,” he said, “I wasn’t always a monkey trainer. I was quite the circus star in my time! And I was an actor!”

              I happened to be sitting on the very same box that I had the evening before, the one Klaus and I opened. It tipped over again with my weight, reminding me of what we’d found inside it. 

              “Whose boxes are these?” I asked, getting up from the floor. 

              “I don’t know,” Alvon replied. 

              “Well, they have flashbulbs in them,” I said. “You didn’t see who brought them onboard?”

              “No Sir,” he replied. “The boxes were here before I arrived. I only brought these crates with fruit.” 

              He went on babbling about his days as an actor in Germany while I contemplated going back up to the observation point. I figured I’d better check in with Captain Clipboard first so as not to arouse suspicion of my whereabouts.

              Just then, the two security men who frisked me during boarding entered from the passenger quarters. They were speaking German and in what seemed to be a serious conversation--about what, I had no idea. They barely looked at us but I could tell Alvon was concerned about what they were saying. A few minutes later, they were gone. 

              “What the hell was that all about?” I asked Monkey Man. 

              “They are trying to get an audience with Mr. Hearst,” he said, “just like everyone else. Apparently their efforts were failing.” 

              “To hell with Hearst!” I replied. “I want to meet Marion Davies!”

              “Well, your ambitions aren’t politically motivated,” Alvon said. “You see, those two men are from the Nazi Party, and they are campaigning.”

              “And Jean Harlow,” I said. “I want to meet Jean Harlow.”

              “I was friends with Harry Houdini,” he said. “He was my mentor.”

              “I don’t care,” I replied.

Alvon continued talking about how Houdini was the greatest magician of all time and how well he knew the man.

              “I studied under him,” Alvon explained. “We were very close. I was at his last performance. When he got sick and went to the hospital.”

              “That is fascinating, Alvon,” I lied. “But right now I need to get the hell out of here.”

              “You have a friendship, an admiration, with Bela Lugosi, do you not?” he asked.

              “Yes,” I replied. “I guess you could say that.”

              “Then you have a reference point about what I am referring to,” he answered.

              It occurred to me that I should just go into the passenger area alone and unannounced. Maybe I could find Bela and meet some Hollywood stars. Hell, I was on board the great Graf on this great historical flight across America with the most famous people in the world. What the hell was I doing sitting in the cargo area with a has-been acrobat and his monkeys? And what could they do to me anyway? I was already in prison. It was time to drive the Packard into the river.  

              I stood up and announced, “Monkey Man, thank you! I will see you later! I am going to meet Jean Harlow!”   

Chapter Five

I
took a deep breath and turned the door knob, and the damn thing was locked. I looked back at Monkey Man who was laughing at me contently.

              “So you’re going to meet Jean Harlow?” he asked.

             
There must be another way in,
I thought. 

              I climbed back up the ladder to the top side and went down the sloped hallway to the right. I’d walked the tiny, creepy tunnel the night before, but this time I noticed a small crawl space to my left.

              I crawled inside on my stomach, figuring it might lead somewhere. Then I heard muffled voices from below. I was just above one of the rooms, and there was a small, round hatch about two feet wide. There didn’t seem to be any way of opening it from the top side, so I started banging on it with my fists in hopes the people below would hear and open it. The voices stopped, so I hammered even harder.  But the silence persisted, so I backed out of the tunnel and continued down the hallway.

              There was another passage way just ten feet down, but this time, I didn’t hear any voices. On the third one, not only were there voices, but someone opened the hatch! Squeezing through, I fell to the floor accompanied by the screams of two women. I looked up stunned, and standing over me were two angels. It was Jean Harlow and Marion Davies.

“Are you all right?” Marion asked.

              “Yes,” I said. “Thank you!”             

              “Good Heavens!” Jean said as they helped me up off the floor. “Why were you up there anyway?”

              “It’s a long story,” I answered. 

              The sleeping room was surprisingly tiny, only about ten by eight feet. It wasn’t the accommodations I had expected to find on the Great Graf. And as the starlets helped me up, I thought, maybe the upper side isn’t so claustrophobic after all. 

              “I apologize,” I said. “My name is Gretch Bayonne, but everyone calls me Bay. I am a writer, and I got passage on this voyage but had to stay up above.  But one thing led to another, and I got lost up there.”

              “You are a reporter?” asked Marion.

              “Yes,” I answered. “But I am not covering this story. I am just here to get to Hollywood for another story.”

              “Oh,” Marion said. “That is strange. What story are you writing then?”

              “A missing person story,” I answered.

              “Oh, how intriguing!” Jean said. “Who is missing?”

              “Just a man,” I explained. “He is not an athlete or a star. His wife has sent me to find him and bring him back home.”

              “Are you a stowaway?” Marion asked.

              “No, well, not really,” I answered. “Karl got me onboard but I have to stay up top. He said there was no room down here.”

              “Well, this is most exciting!” Marion said. “A man falling through our ceiling!” 

“I am not sure how excited William Hearst would be about this if he found out,” I said.

              “You leave that to me!” Marion said. “It is a pleasant departure to meet a reporter who is not interested in Hollywood stars, Mr. Bay.”

              “Tell us more about this story you are working on,” Jean said. “It sounds far more interesting than the drivel these famous actors drone on about!”

              I sat on the tiny lower bunk with Marion Davies on my right and Jean Harlow on my left, and recounted the story of how I’d come to be on the most famous cross-country air trip of all time. I left nothing out, including the fact that I had fallen head over heels in love with the woman who sent me to find her lost husband. They were both teary-eyed, and within a fifteen minutes, I had two new fans. 

              Then there was a sudden rapping at the door. 

              “Yes?” Marion asked.

              “Time for breakfast, Miss Davies,” a voice called out.

              “Okay, thank you!” she said. 

              “Come back down later this afternoon,” Marion told me. “I will explain this to William, and perhaps you can join us for dinner tonight.”

              “Thank you,” I replied, climbing onto the top bunk.  “And listen, I understand Bela Lugosi is here. I am friends with him, so I would appreciate it if you told him I am here.”

              “Oh yes, he’s here!” Marion said. “I’ll let him know, but I have to talk to William first. There are a lot of people here. And since we are shooting a documentary, it’s not easy. It is almost like being on a movie set. This whole trip is scripted. But I’ll try to tell him.”

              “Thank you,” I said as I climbed back through the hole to the guts of the ship.

             
This whole trip is scripted?
I thought.
I wonder what that means?             
                                                                                                                             

I couldn’t believe what had just transpired. Not only had I met Marion Davies and the beautiful Jean Harlow, but they liked me and wanted to help me get out of the belly of the beast! They were genuinely impressed with my mission and were going to use their influence with Hearst to get me down into the passenger quarters of the ship.

              It took me a good ten minutes of laying in that tunnel to recuperate from the experience and to prepare myself to go back into the strange surroundings of being top side. 

              As I crawled out of the tunnel that had led me to Marion and Jean, it dawned on me that there must be hatches to all the sleeping quarters. And sure enough, spaced about ten feet apart, there was the same type of tunnels.

              After passing by about seven of these, I decided to climb into another one. Again, there was a hatch, and again, I could hear voices. It was hard to make out the words, but there were definitely multiple people talking. Occasionally, they would break out in distinctive laughter.
This must be the dining room,
I thought. 

I crawled my way back to the main walkway and decided to go back up to the midsection of the top side where I had slept the night before, to retrieve my bag. It was just as dark and creepy as I’d left it.

              As I pulled a bottle of bootleg whiskey from my bag to take a sip, I heard that disturbing noise again. That slow rumbling noise, like a snare drum marching from the distance. The sound seemed to come from all around, so it was difficult to distinguish where it originated. It could be coming from above or below. You just didn’t know until it was almost on top of you.

              It passed by me so fast I could barely tell what it was.  But since I’d seen it before, I knew it was a bowling ball zooming through a vertical spine of the ship right by me. 
Damn monkeys!
I thought.
I have to tell someone they are out again. 

              I made it to the cargo area just in time to witness the monkeys jumping back into the big steel cage. Alvon was there, counting them.

              “You have got to keep these monkeys locked up!” I told him. “They scared the hell out of me!”

              “I know,” Alvon replied. “My apologies.”

              “No!” I shouted. “This place is creepy enough without your monkeys running around! You let them out on purpose!” 

              “You feel cooped up in here, don’t you, Mr. Bay?” he asked.

              “Well, yes,” I said. “It is creepy, not a natural environment. And you are not helping!”

“Imagine how the monkeys must feel then,” he said. 

              “I don’t really care how they feel,” I countered. “It was your decision to bring them on this ship, not mine!”

              “Yes, you are correct, Mr. Bay,” he said. “We all make decisions, good or bad. I have a poem I would like you to read, if you will, that has a lot to do with that.”

              “I am not interested in your poetry, Alvon.” I said. 

              “But you are a writer,” he replied. “Your opinion would mean a lot to me.”

              I was in a corner. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll try to read it sometime.”

              He handed me a single page and I jammed it into my pocket.

              “And here, take these as well,” he said. He handed me two bananas. “You might want a snack sometime.”

              “Thanks, I said. “But keep the damned monkeys in the cage.” 

              As I climbed the ladder, I heard him mutter, “It is called
Seven Monkeys
, Mr. Bay.”