Chapter Eighteen

The crowd jammed four full blocks above Times Square and spilled over into the middle of Broadway. Traffic cops shook hopeless heads, twiddled helpless fingers and wearily motioned taxicabs into the side streets above and below. Where the crowd pressed thickest, filling not half but all the street, a sign hung high, announcing to the world in fiery letters:

KING KONG, THE EIGHTH WONDER

Beneath the sign silk hats from Park Avenue jostled derbies from the Bronx, Paris gowns rustled against $3.98 pick-me-ups, sweaters rubbed dinner coats, slanted caps from Tenth Avenue scraped tip-brims from Riverside Drive. The Social Register was there, and as representative a delegation from the underworld as ever collected anywhere except at Police Headquarters on a morning after a clean-up. Intense young women from Greenwich Village were there, and their earnest younger sisters from Columbia Heights. There were newsboys, peddlers, traveling salesmen, clerks, cashgirls, stenographers, debutantes, matrons, secretaries and Lilith-eyed maidens with no visible means of support. The whole town was there, waiting for the laggard attention of the ticket-taker and meanwhile staring up at:

KING KONG, THE EIGHTH WONDER

"What is it?" asked Tenth Avenue, from under a tilted cap.

"Some kind of a gorilla, they say," replied Park, from beneath a silk hat, tilted, too.

"Are you calling names, bright boy?" demanded Tenth Avenue, a little doubtfully.

"Hones', Kid," said a Bronx derby, "it's bigger'n an elephant. That's what I hear straight from a guy who knows the brother of a stage hand right on the inside."

"Oh yeah?" said the $3.98 pick-me-up frock, "does it do tricks or what?"

"My dear!" murmured a Paris gown. "What a rabble!"

"Did you hear that?" hissed a Riverside Drive tip-brim. "Twenty bucks for an orchestra seat; and that dame calls me a rabble."

Around back, at the stage entrance, a wise old doorman made way for Ann with an admiring attention he reserved for the best ones. A very different Ann from the Ann of Skull Mountain Island.

Ann had a Paris gown, too, of shimmering, virginal net. It reached all the way down to her silver-buckled toes. Only her white shoulders and arms were uncovered, these and her shining, honey-gold hair.

"Let's not go near the stage, Jack," she urged. "I don't like to look at him. Even if he is chained. It makes me feel the way I did that awful day on the island."

"You oughtn't to be here," Driscoll said moodily. "But Denham insisted. Said he needed us both for the publicity."

It was a different Driscoll, too. A Driscoll in a dinner jacket and more slender than on board the Wanderer. A smoothly shaved Driscoll, but still holding to the dark, youthful swagger.

"I'm glad to be here," Ann insisted, "if it helps. I don't forget all I owe Mr. Denham. Besides it is helping us, too."

"Maybe! But somehow I can't quite believe things are going to go quite so smoothly as he believes. Something is going to happen. I've got a hunch."

"A hunch! Who's got a hunch?"

Denham swung through the stage door. A very different Denham, indeed. A Denham in tail coat, silk hat and impeccable gardenia. A brisk, shrewd Denham intent upon estimating his hard-earned profits.

"Hello, Jack," said this Denham. "Hi, Ann! You're just in time. And you both look great. Holy Mackerel, Ann! I'm certainly glad we blew ourselves for that outfit of yours."

"It was terribly expensive!" Ann's eyes sparkled as she remembered how delightfully expensive it had been.

"We can afford it, sister. Ten thousand dollars in the box office. How's that for one night?"

Driscoll whistled.

"And this is just the starter. Night after night after night it's going to be just the same, only better."

Out at the stage entrance the wise old doorman was standing up against a dozen odd newcomers wearing the sort of clothes that newspapermen wear at work, which is the sort of clothes bankers, doctors, store managers and the better grade of bootleggers wear at work.

"Yes," he was agreeing placatingly, "I know you all, gentlemen. The Sun, The Herald-Tribune, The Times, The World-Telly. But how can I let you in? Especially when you've brought along a lot of hell-charging photographers? Mr. Denham hasn't given me any orders."

"Let 'em in, Joe," Denham called.

"The newspaper crowd," he explained to Ann and Driscoll. "Here for interviews with you two. And maybe I wasn't smart to break the interviews right with the opening of the show and get twice the splash."

"Have you ever been interviewed, honey?" Driscoll asked, hot and red.

"Just for a job," Ann murmured. "But this can't be worse."

"Miss Darrow, gentlemen," Denham said, waving an introductory hand. "And Mr. Driscoll, the Wanderer's heroic mate."

"Boy, oh boy!" hissed a photographer. "What a break the mate got when he rescued her!"

"I hear you had a peck of trouble, Mr. Driscoll," the Times man said.

"Don't make any mistake about that," Ann interposed. "He was all alone when he did it All the sailors with him had been killed."

"I didn't do much," Driscoll insisted, running a finger around a suddenly tight collar. "Denham's the one who got Kong. The rest of us were going backward fast, but Denham had the nerve to stand and chuck bombs."

"Don't drag me into this," Denham protested shrewdly. "Miss Darrow's the real story. If it hadn't been for her we'd never have got near Kong. He came back to the village to get her."

"Beauty!" exclaimed an inspired tabloid reporter. "Beauty and the Beast. Boy, what a headline! I'll cut me a slice of bonus for that one."

"Beauty and the Beast!" Denham repeated admiringly, and winked with satisfaction at Ann and Driscoll. "Exactly. That's your story."

"What we came up for," said a photographer impatiently, "is pictures."

"In just a little while," Denham promised. "I'm going to let you take some pictures right on the stage. After the curtain goes up and the audience can watch. The first pictures, gentlemen, ever taken of Kong for publication anywhere in the civilized world. And you may snap Miss Darrow and Driscoll standing right alongside."

"Hot-cha!" said a camera man through his nose. "This is going to be good."

"So far, yeah!" said another. "But how'll it be if this guy Lyons, of The Sun, pulls his usual stunt of crowding his camera in front of the rest of us?"

"Who, me?" cried the man called Lyons. "Why, I'm practically figuring on frenching this job. You don't have to worry about me. My boss, Bartnett, wouldn't do much with a picture like this."

"Not much more than four columns," agreed the tabloid photographer.

"Tell me this," the Sun's skeptical reporter interposed. "Are you sure that you've got your twenty-foot ape tied up good and tight?" He spoke with a Missouri drawl and teetered on his toes with the light stance of a good squash player. "I ask," he added, "because I'm wearing my best suit and I don't want to have it torn."

Denham's laughter rang with solid reassurance.

"Take a look for yourself." He motioned them to the wings of the darkened stage.

Kong was there, a king no longer. He crouched in a great steel cage under a weight of tangled chains. Chains led from his hunkering body to ring bolts in the thick steel floor. Chains held his great paws immovable and bound his broad black feet. Only his head was free. That swung mutely upon his audience. As Denham quickly explained, he had not used his throat for any speaking purpose for days, and his hands were too tightly bound to drum now upon his chest.

"Just the same," said the Sun's skeptic, "if you don't mind I'll let the more eager news gatherers go first."

"Ann!" Denham beckoned. "And you, too, Jack. I want you both out on the stage when the curtain goes up."

"Oh, no!" Ann shrank back, her face as white as her gown.

"Come along, sister," Denham urged genially. "It's all right We've knocked a lot more of the fight out of Kong since you saw him last. He's harmless."

Reluctantly, Ann joined Driscoll at the edge of the stage. Kong swung his vast head toward her. The photographers began arranging their cameras and electric flashlights.

"If I can catch that honey-girl right up alongside the ape," said a tabloid photographer, "the paper'll spread it all over P One."

"I hope the ape is really tied tight," said the Times reporter.

"Oh, sure! This Denham's taking no chances. Not with a gold mine like he's got."

Denham patted Ann's arm reassuringly.

"It won't be long," he said. "I'm going out to make a little speech. Then the curtain'll go up. You two will pose. And after that, just as soon as you've told the newspapermen a little more, you can go back to your hotel."

Ann was thankful her hotel was nine blocks away. When Driscoll engaged a room in one just across the street from the theater she had marvelled at his recklessness.

Denham edged out past the curtain with a cheerful flip of one hand. From there his voice came back to the group on the shadowed stage. The reporters and camera men waited with the scant patience of those to whom speeches are no treat. Ann drew close to Driscoll and sighed gratefully when he put an encouraging arm about her waist.

Kong's deep-set eyes watched the arm, and his chains rattled faintly.

"Ladies and gentlemen," came Denham's voice. "I am here tonight to tell you a strange story. So strange a story that no one will believe it. But, ladies and gentlemen, seeing is believing. And we - I and my associates - have brought for your eyes the living proof of our adventure; an adventure in which twelve of our party met terrible deaths."

The Sun skeptic nudged the reporter from the Times.

"That twelve isn't any Tammany count, either," he said. "It's the real thing. McLain, who covers ship news for us, slipped onto Denham's boat disguised as a columnist and got the same count from an old sailor grand-dad, an A.B. named Lumpy."

"My paper said only nine were killed," the Times man disagreed.

"The other three weren't fit to print," the Sun skeptic explained cheerfully.

"But before I tell you any more, ladies and gentlemen," Denham's voice went on outside the curtain, "I am going to let you look for yourselves. I am going to show you the greatest sight your eyes ever beheld. One who was king and the god of the world he knew, but who now comes to civilization as a captive, as an exhibit to gratify mankind's insatiable curiosity. Ladies and gentlemen! Look upon Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World."

The curtain rose and the audience surged to its feet as one. Murmurs, gasps, frightened stifled cries ran through the theater. Denham smiled the showman's smile of triumph.

On the stage Kong's head swayed and his chains began a faint but continued jingling, as though he were trembling.

"And now," said Denham reaching into the wings for Ann, "let me introduce Miss Ann Darrow, the pluckiest girl I've ever known.

"Here," he went on as the audience settled back to applaud, "is Beauty. There is the Beast. Miss Darrow, ladies and gentlemen, has lived through an experience no other woman ever dreamed of, about which I shall tell you later. She was rescued from the very grasp of Kong by the Wanderer's brave mate, Mr. John Driscoll."

Driscoll, red and reluctant, stood beside Ann, and the audience, conscious that they were gazing upon romance, murmured approval of the slim, bright-haired girl and her boyish, swaggering partner.

"Lastly," Denham went on, "before I tell you the full story of our adventure, the newspaper photographers are coming on the stage and you, the first audience to look upon Kong, will have the privilege of seeing taken the first pictures of Kong since his capture."

Kong's chains continued that faint jingling as the camera men tramped nonchalantly out before the footlights. The man called Lyons slid nimbly into a position which the tabloid reporters eyed resentfully.

Denham drew Ann close to the cage. She pleaded silently, but tried to hide her fear when he shook his head warningly. The photographers, in a whispering chorus, urged her to smile and she did her best. The flashes exploded dully inside the electric light globes and the stage was filled with a blinding glare.

Kong curled his mobile lips back from long white teeth and then, unexpectedly, he roared. For the first time in days he found his voice. As his rolling thunder re-echoed deafeningly from the ceiling and the audience started up, Driscoll's mouth tightened apprehensively. Ann stifled a cry and drew back a step so that the mate was between her and the cage. Denham, however, laughed loudly in reassurance.

"Don't be alarmed, ladies and gentlemen," he cried. "Kong's chains are of chrome steel. He'll stay where he is."

The thunder of Kong's voice fell to a distant muttering, but his chains now were jingling more loudly.

"Stand close again, Miss Darrow," the camera men urged.

The blinding glare once more filled the stage. Ann shrank away, covering her face with her hands. Driscoll looked impatiently toward Denham.

"It'll be all right now, Ann," he said. "I guess we're through."

"Wait!" Denham ordered. "One more, together."

The white glare flashed across the stage a third time. Kong opened his mouth and roared from deep in his chest. As Driscoll swung an arm protectingly around Ann the captive beast-god struggled furiously. His rage was a wild and cataclysmic emotion which surged from his inmost being.

"Holy Mackerel!" Denham whispered. "He thinks you're attacking her, Jack. Hold it! Hold it!" And he motioned excitedly to the photographers.

Kong stood up. The great body which had been held by chains to a crouch was suddenly and terribly erect. Kong's head struck the top of the cage and tore it loose. His hands, dangling broken bits of chain, began to drum upon his broad chest. One enormous foot, rattling both chain and ringbolt which an instant before had held it to the floor, pried at the scarcely resisting bars which separated him from Ann.

Panic threw the audience into a shouting, screaming tangle. By scores and hundreds they clawed one another seeking passage to the exits.

Driscoll swung Ann into his arms and broke through the startled newspapermen toward the stage door. Behind him the steel bars snapped and Kong's roar shook the theater's walls.

"My hotel!" Driscoll cried into Ann's ear. "Just across the street."

"Let me down," Ann gasped. "We'll go faster if I run."

They raced along the narrow alley which led from the stage entrance and got to the sidewalk. Across the street, at the revolving door of the hotel, Driscoll glanced back. Kong was just bursting out of the stage entrance.

"Elevator!" Driscoll cried, and raced Ann inside.

As they drew breath behind the closing elevator door Kong crashed into the hotel lobby. A hotel detective emptied a revolver into the monstrous intruder and looked incredulously at his weapon when Kong swung around in undiminished strength and crashed back to the street.