King Rat (23 page)

“What’s this work jazz?” asked Brough.

The King pulled out some strips of blankets. “We’re going to have to seal the door.”

“What?” Larkin said incredulously.

“Sure,” the King said. “When this begins cooking, we’re liable to have us a riot on our hands. The guys start smelling this, Chrissake, figure for yourselves. We could get torn apart. This was the only place I could figure where we could cook in private. The smell will mostly go out the window. If we seal the door good, that is. We couldn’t cook it outside, that’s for sure.”

“Larkin was right,” said Mac solemnly. “You’re a genius. I’d never have thought of it. Believe me,” he added laughing, “Americans, henceforth, are amongst my friends!”

“Thanks, Mac. Now we’d better do it.”

The King’s guest took the strips of blanket and stuffed them in the cracks around the door and covered the barred peephole in the door. When they had finished the Kong inspected their work.

“Good,” he said. “Now, what about the window?”

They looked up at the little barred section of sky, and Brough said, “Leave it open until the stew really begins to boil. Then we’ll cover it and stand it as long as we can. Then we can open it up for a while.” He looked around. “I figure it might be all right to let the perfume out sporadically. Like an Indian smoke signal.”

“Is there any wind?”

“Goddamned if I noticed. Anyone?”

“Hey Peter, give me a lift up, laddie,” said Mac. Mac was the smallest of the men, so Peter Marlowe let him stand on his shoulders. Mac peered through the bars, then licked his finger and held it out.

“Hurry up, Mac, for God’s sake — you’re no chicken, you know!” Peter Marlowe called out.

“Got to test for wind, you young bastard!” And again he licked his finger and held it out, and he looked so intent and so ridiculous that Peter Marlowe began laughing, and Larkin joined in, and they doubled up and Mac fell down six feet and grazed his leg on the concrete bed and began cursing.

“Look at my bloody leg, blast you,” Mac said, choking. It was only a little graze, but there was a trickle of blood. “I bloody near scraped the skin off the whole bloody thing.”

“Look, Peter,” groaned Larkin, holding his stomach, “Mac’s got blood. I always thought he had only latex in his veins!”

“Go to hell, you bastards, mahlu!” Mac said irascibly, then a fit of laughter caught him and he got up and grabbed Peter Marlowe and Larkin and began to sing “Ring around the roses, pocket full of posies…”

And Peter Marlowe grabbed Brough’s arm, and Brough took Tex’s, and the chain of men, hysterical with the song, wove around the stewpot and the King, seated crosslegged behind it.

Mac broke the chain. “Hail, Caesar. We who are about to eat salute thee.”

As one, they threw him the salute and collapsed in a heap.

“Get off my blasted arm, Peter!”

“You’ve got your foot in my balls, you bastard,” Larkin swore at Brough.

“Sorry, Grant. Oh Jesus! I haven’t laughed so much in years.”

“Hey, Rajah,” said Peter Marlowe, “I think we all ought to stir it once for luck.”

“Be my guest,” the King said. It did his heart good to see these guys so happy.

Solemnly they lined up and Peter Marlowe stirred the brew, which was growing hot now. Mac took the spoon and stirred and bestowed an obscene blessing upon it. Larkin, not to be outdone, began to stir, saying, “Boil, boil, boil and bubble…”

“You out of your mind?” said Brough. “Quoting Macbeth for Chrissake!”

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s unlucky. Quoting Macbeth. Like whistling in a theater dressing room.”

“It is?”

“Any fool knows that!”

“I’ll be damned. Never knew that before.” Larkin frowned.

“Anyway, you quoted it wrong,” said Brough. “It’s ‘Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble’!”

“Oh no it isn’t, Yankee. I know my Shakespeare!”

“Betcha tomorrow’s rice.”

“Watch it, Colonel,” said Mac suspiciously, knowing Larkin’s propensity for gambling. “No man’d bet that lightly.”

“I’m right, Mac,” Larkin said, but he didn’t like the smug expression on the American’s face. “What makes you so sure you’re right?”

“Is it a bet?” asked Brough.

Larkin thought a moment. He liked a gamble — but tomorrow’s rice was too high stakes. “No. I’ll lay my rice ration on the card table, but I’ll be damned if I’ll lay it on Shakespeare.”

“Pity,” Brough said. “I could’ve used an extra ration. It’s Act Four, Scene One, line ten.”

“How the hell can you be that exact?”

“Nothing to it,” Brough said. “I was majoring in the arts at USC, with a big emphasis on journalism and playwriting. I’m going to be a writer when I get out.”

Mac leaned forward and peered into the pot. “I envy you, laddie. Writing can be just about the most important job in the whole world. If it’s any good.”

“That’s a lot of nonsense, Mac,” said Peter Marlowe. “There are a million things more important.”

“That just goes to show how little you know.”

“Business is much more important,” interjected the King. “Without business, the world’d stop — and without money and a stable economy there’d be no one to buy any books.”

“To hell with business and economy,” Brough said. “They’re just material things. It’s just like Mac says.”

“Mac,” said Peter Marlowe. “What makes it so important?”

“Well, laddie, first it’s something I’ve always wanted to do and can’t. I tried many times, but I could never finish anything. That’s the hardest part — to finish. But the most important thing is that writers are the only people who can do something about this planet. A businessman can’t do anything —“

“That’s crap,” said the King. “What about Rockefeller? And Morgan and Ford and du Pont? And all the others? It’s their philanthropy that finances a helluva lot of research and libraries and hospitals and art. Why, without their dough —“

“But they made their money at someone’s expense,” Brough said crisply. “They could easily plow some of their billions back to the men who made it for them. Those bloodsuckers —“

“I suppose you’re a Democrat?” said the King heatedly.

“You betcha sweet life I am. Look at Roosevelt. Look what he’s doing for the country. He dragged it up by its bootstrings when the goddam Republicans —“

“That’s crap and you know it. Nothing to do with the Republicans. It was an economic cycle —“

“Crapdoodle on economic cycles. The Republicans —“

“Hey, you fellows,” said Larkin mildly. “No politics until after we’ve eaten, what do you say?”

“Well, all right,” Brough said grimly, “but this guy’s from Christmas.”

“Mac, why is it so important? I still don’t see.”

“Well. A writer can put down on a piece of paper an idea — or a point of view. If he’s any good he can sway people, even if it’s written on toilet paper. And he’s the only one in our modern economy who can do it — who can change the world. A businessman can’t — without substantial money. A politician can’t — without substantial position or power. A planter can’t, certainly. An accountant can’t, right, Larkin?”

“Sure.”

“But you’re talking about propaganda,” Brough said. “I don’t want to write propaganda.”

“You ever written for movies, Don?” asked the King.

“I’ve never sold anything to anyone. Guy’s not a writer until he sells something. But movies are goddam important. You know that Lenin said the movies were the most important propaganda medium ever invented?” He saw the King readying an assault. “And I’m not a Commie, you son of a bitch, just because I’m a Democrat.” He turned to Mac. “Jesus, if you read Lenin or Stalin or Trotsky you’re called a Commie.”

“Well, you gotta admit, Don,” said the King, “a lotta Democrats are pinks.”

“Since when has being pro-Russian meant that a guy’s a Communist? They are our allies, you know!”

“I’m sorry about that — in a historical way,” said Mac.

“Why?”

“We’re going to have a lot of trouble afterwards. Particularly in the Orient. Those folk were stirring up a lot of trouble, even before the war.”

“Television’s going to be the coming thing,” said Peter Marlowe, watching a thread of vapor dance the surface of the stew. “You know, I saw a demonstration from Alexandra Palace in London. Baird is sending out a program once a week.”

“I heard about television,” said Brough. “Never seen any.”

The King nodded. “I haven’t either, but that could make one hell of a business.”

“Not in the States, that’s for sure,” Brough grunted. “Think of the distances! Hell, that might be all right for one of the little countries, like England, but not a real country like the States.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Peter Marlowe, stiffening.

“I mean that if it wasn’t for us, this war’d go on forever. Why, it’s our money and our weapons and our power —“

“Listen, old man, we did all right alone — giving you buggers the time to get off your arse. It is your war just as much as ours.” Peter Marlowe glared at Brough, who glared back.

“Crap! Why the hell you Europeans can’t go and kill yourselves off like you’ve been doing for centuries and let us alone, I don’t know. We had to bail you out before —“

And in no time at all they were arguing and swearing and no one was listening and each had a very firm opinion and each opinion was right.

The King was angrily shaking his fist at Brough, who shook his fist back, and Peter Marlowe was shouting at Mac, when suddenly there was a crashing on the door.

Immediate silence.

“Wot’s all the bleedin’ row about?” a voice said.

“That you, Griffiths?”

“Who d’ja fink it was, Adolf bloody ‘itler? Yer want’a get us jailed or somefink?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Keep tha bleedin’ noise down!”

“Who’s that?” said Mac.

“Griffiths. He owns the cell.”

“What?”

“Sure. I hired it for five hours. Three bucks an hour. You don’t get nothing for nothing.”

“You hired the cell?” repeated Larkin incredulously.

“That’s right. This Griffiths is a smart businessman,” the King explained. “There are thousands of men around, right? No peace and quiet, right? Well, this Limey hires the cell out to anyone who wants to be alone. Not my idea of a sanctuary, but Griffiths does quite a business.”

“I’ll bet it wasn’t his idea,” said Brough.

“Cap’n I cannot tell a lie.” The King smiled. “I must confess the idea was mine. But Griffiths makes enough to keep him and his unit going very well.”

“How much do you make on it?”

“Just ten percent.”

“If it’s only ten percent, that’s fair,” said Brough.

“It is,” the King said. The King would never lie to Brough, not that it was any of his business what the hell he did.

Brough leaned over and stirred the stew. “Hey, you guys, it’s boiling.”

They all crowded around. Yes, it was really boiling.

“We’d better fix the window. The stuff’ll start smelling in a minute.”

They put a blanket over the barred outlet, and soon the cell was all perfume.

Mac, Larkin and Tex squatted against the wall, eyes on the stewpan. Peter Marlowe, sat on the other side of the bed, and as he was nearest, from time to time he stirred the pot.

The water simmered gently, making the delicate little beans soar crescentlike to the surface, then cascade back into the depths of the liquid. A puff of steam effervesced, bringing with it the true richness of the meatbuds. The King leaned forward and threw in a handful of native herbs, turmeric, kajang, huan, taka and cloves and garlic, and this added to the perfume.

When the stew had been bubbling ten minutes, the King put the green papaya into the pot.

“Crazy,” he said. “A feller could make a fortune after the war if he could figure a way to dehydrate papaya. Now that’d tenderize a buffalo!”

“The Malays’ve always used it,” Mac answered, but no one was really listening to him and he wasn’t listening to himself really, for the steam - rich, sweet surrounded them.

The sweat dribbled down their chests and chins and legs and arms. But they hardly noticed the sweat or the closeness. They only knew that this was not a dream, that meat was cooking — there before their eyes, and soon, very soon they would eat.

“Where’d you get it?” asked Peter Marlowe, not really caring. He just had to say something to break the suffocating spell.

“It’s Hawkins’ dog,” answered the King, not thinking about anything except my God does that smell good or does that smell good!

“Hawkins’ dog?”

“You mean Rover?”

“His dog?”

“I thought it was a small pig!”

“Hawkins’ dog?”

“Oh my word!”

“You mean that’s the hindquarters of Rover?” said Peter Marlowe, appalled.

“Sure,” the King said. Now that the secret was out he didn’t mind. “I was going to tell you afterwards, but what the hell? Now you know.”

They looked at one another aghast.

Then Peter Marlowe said, “Mother of God. Hawkins’ dog!”

“Now look,” said the King reasonably. “What’s the difference? It was certainly the cleanest-eatingest dog I’ve ever seen. Much cleaner’n any pig. Or chicken for that matter. Meat’s meat. Simple as that!”

Mac said testily, “Quite right. Nothing wrong with eating dog. The Chinese eat them all the tune. A delicacy. Yes. Certainly.”

“Yeah,” said Brough, half nauseated. “But we’re not Chinese and this’s Hawkins’ dog!”

“I feel like a cannibal,” said Peter Marlowe.

“Look,” the King said. “It’s just like Mac said. Nothing wrong with dog. Smell it, for Chrissake.”

“Smell it!” said Larkin for all of them. It was hard to talk, his saliva almost choking him. “I can’t smell anything but that stew and it’s the greatest smell I’ve ever smelled and I don’t care whether it’s Rover or not, I want to eat.” He rubbed his stomach, almost painfully. “I don’t know about you bastards, but I’m so hungry I’ve got cramps. That smell’s doing something to my metabolism that’s just not ordinary.”

“I feel sick, too. And it’s got nothing to do with the fact that the meat’s dog,” said Peter Marlowe. Then he added almost plaintively, “I just don’t want to eat Rover.” He glanced at Mac. “How are we going to face Hawkins afterwards?”