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The Shark People gasped. Despite what the Sky Priestess and the Sorcerer thought, Malink had told none of his people about the dream. But Malink was confused. He had dreamed of Vincent. “Vincent said that the pilot is coming. That he is still alive.”
“Vincent speaks only through me.”
“But—”
“No coffee or sugar for a month,” the Sky Priestess said. She pulled her scarf from her shoulders and the music began again. The Shark People watched as she walked away. There was an explosion across the runway and the Sky Priestess disappeared into the smoke.
24
Valhalla: From the Runyonese
Vincent Be
“So the squirt says to me, he says, ‘I’m Malink, chief of the Shark People,’ and he puffs up his little chest like I’m supposed to be impressed and drop down and kiss his ring, except he ain’t wearing any ring; in fact, he ain’t wearing nothing but a loincloth and a little hat made of palm leaves, so I says, ‘Honored and charmed I’m sure, Chief.’ And I gives him a grade A Hershey bar as a peace offering to assure that the kid doesn’t get any ideas about ventilating me with his spear. Although I have a roscoe handy in my flight suit, in Manhattan it is considered very bad luck indeed to shoot a kid unless he deserves it, so I am trying to take the diplomatic route.
“So the squirt chief takes the sweet and slaps a lip over a morsel and his little mug splits in a grin so big that I’m figuring I know now how his tribe gets named Shark People. And before I know it the kid yells something to his pals and they vamoose to the jungle while I watch the squirt’s spear and he keeps a peeper peeled at the Sky Priestess like any minute she’s go
“Now we are sure that Sky Priestess is not burning or blowing up, Sparky goes back in and sings Mayday on the radio until I am thinking that even Marconi is sorry he ever invented the machine (another distinguished Italian genius, if I may point out, and it would be impolite for anyone, at this juncture, to mention Mussolini, as I will have to delay the game whilst I pop him in the beezer,
thank you), and finally HQ comes back on and requests more than somewhat sternly that we cease broadcasting our position, as they will send someone as soon as they can unless the Japs find us first, in which case it has been an honor serving with us.
“Call and raise a buck.
“So the squirt asks me do I kill Japs? And I tell him that I am killing so many Japs I have to come rest on his island for a few days to give the Japs a chance to send in reinforcements for me to kill, when out of the jungle comes a whole platoon of native guys, mostly real old guys, carrying baskets of fruit and coconuts and dried fish which they are laying at my feet after doing enough bowing and chanting to fill a year of encores on Broadway.
“And the kid says, ‘You more powerful than Father Rodriquez. Japs kill him.’ From which I figure where the kid learns to speak English and why I am seeing no young guys, because it is well known that the Japs have killed any missionaries they find and have taken most of the able-bodied native guys which they do not kill off to build airstrips and boat landing ramps and other Jap military stuff.
“‘Yeah,’ I tells the kid, ‘too bad about Father Rodriquez, and all the other guys that don’t make it, but Vincent and the Sky Priestess is here now and you got nothing to worry about.’ Then I inquire as to if there are any available dolls on the island and the kid jabbers something to one of the old guys, who wobbles off and comes back about ten minutes later with a line of young native dolls who are wearing skirts on their bottom but are nothing but bounce and bosoms on the top, except for the odd garnish of flowers here and there for fragrance and color.
“I swear on my mother’s grave (should she pass away before I get home) that I am looking at more brown curves than I have seen since I fly over the Mississippi at ten Gs, and they are by no means an unpleasant sight, but as soon as I pick out one of the young dolls and give her my best Tyrone Power wink, she starts bawling like I have broken her heart and runs into the jungle followed, posthaste, by the other lovelies until the airstrip is, once again, strictly stag.
“‘What goes?’ I ask the kid. And he explains that because I am a god the dames are most frightened that I will destroy them. Then the squirt starts bawling himself, and I am begi
then needed to caulk the kid’s waterworks and generally ease his mind.
“So I sits down with the kid under the wing of the Sky Priestess and by and by along comes an old native guy with a jug of the local hooch, of which I am somewhat dubious and which tastes like matchheads mixed with dishwater but smooths out considerably after the first four or five belts, and soon the mood becomes most festive and a good time is had by all (except for Sparky, who is bending over the runway looking at everything he drinks for the second time).
“Now all of this time I am thinking that the kid is ru
“So as the evening wears on, the kid is telling me stories of how the island was made by a dame from Yap who rides on a turtle with a basketful of dirt which she dumps in the ocean, making the island, which must have been quite some basket, and she tells all the children she is having on the island (although the kid says nothing about her having an old man) that she isn’t going to give them a good reef for fishing, so they are going to be eating sharks. And although the people of all the other islands are afraid of sharks, here the sharks are afraid of the people. ‘They will be called the Shark People,’ the dame with the dirt says.
“And I says, ‘Yeah, I know that dame.’ That, in fact, I take her to the races one day and she is such good luck that I win the trifecta for five Gs. And I can see the kid is most impressed, even though he wouldn’t know a G from a G-string. So I begins to lay it on a bit
thick and by the time we have consumed all of the local bug juice and most of the fruit and fish, the kid is convinced that if I am not the Second Coming, I am at least pinch-hitting that day.
“By now I am feeling I am in serious need of female company and I mention this to the kid, who says maybe there is something he can do, as there is one doll in the village whose job it is to change the oil of the unmar-ried native guys (I am at once reminded of a costume optional dancer named Chintzy Bilouski, who performs a similar service for myself and many other unmarried male citizens in the Broadway district) and it seems that this native doll has been short of work of late, as all of the young un-married guys are either killed or taken away. And the kid says he will ap-proach this doll on my behalf if I promise that she will not burst into flames or be otherwise harmed and as long as I keep it quiet. As these are similar terms I agree to with Chintzy Bilouski (and a sawbuck cheaper, in fact), I tell the kid to lead the way, which he does. And soon we are in a big grass house by the beach, which he calls the bachelors’ house, and which is clearly intended to house many citizens, but is currently only the home of one doll, who is by no means hard on the peepers and who proceeds immedi-ately to catch up on any work she has been missing in a most enthusiastic and friendly ma