Tim Lebbon - Kong - Skull Island

Randa led the way. He was more than twice Brooks’s age, and with those years came confidence. All his confidence was born of knowledge. He knew that to walk these streets would be relatively safe this evening because he’d researched the area to ensure that was the case. He knew where he was going, because he’d taken time to discover where the man he sought hung out. He was a man who came prepared, and that had always stood him in good stead. Now, more than ever, such preparedness would make what came next the success he had always desired.

Brooks followed with a natural and unspoken acceptance of Randa’s superiority.

They turned down an alley. It was darker, quieter, and the stench of stillness hung heavy. Small shapes darted to and fro, keeping to the shadows so that it was difficult to make them out. Randa guessed they were dogs. At that size, he hoped so.

A group of Vietnamese men threw dice against a wall and exchanged cash. Their constant low-level chatter would set some people on edge, but Randa took comfort. It meant that they were immersed in their own activity and not concerned with his. As he and Brooks passed them by, a couple of them looked up and away again. He sensed no threat from them.

Further along the alley, a huge doorman blocked the entrance to the gambling den Randa was seeking.

“You sure we really need this guy?” Brooks asked, looking around as if something smelled. In truth it did, but Randa hardly noticed.

“Is your Yale degree supposed to lead us through the jungle?” Randa asked without even looking at the younger man. “Besides, my father said never judge a man on where he drinks. Only that he holds it well.”

Randa approached the big doorman and spoke to him. His Vietnamese was perfect and fluent. Yet another example of being prepared.

The doorman considered for a while, then nodded and opened the door. Randa glanced back. Brooks looked impressed, as well as uncertain about what Randa had said. He wasn’t about to offer him the information. It was good to keep these youngsters on their toes.

The gambling den’s interior was everything the exterior had advertised—dark, dingy, smoky, and filled with shouts and laughter, challenges and cheers. Dice and card games were the order of the day. A few card tables sat around the place, but there were also groups playing dice on the floor and on the bar. Any and every space seemed to be taken up with gambling men and women. Randa saw a small scattering of Westerners among the Vietnamese, just as he’d expected. Money was money, whatever colour the hand that dropped it on the pile.

Randa approached the bar, Brooks trailing behind him. A few people glanced his way, but no one seemed interested. At the bar, he shouldered his way in and nodded at the barman. Randa guessed from his bearing that this man was also the proprietor.

“Looking for Conrad,” Randa said. The barman shrugged.

Randa placed his hand on the bar with a five-dollar bill beneath it. He tapped his fingers and the barman stared right through him. Randa lifted his hand and dropped another five he’d been holding folded between his second and third fingers.

The barman grunted, then nodded towards the rear of the large, low-ceilinged room. “Pool table,” he said.

“Right.” Randa left the cash and headed deeper into the bar. At the back of the room, almost hidden in a haze of smoke and noise, was a single pool table. It was poorly lit with one bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, and surrounded with several people watching the current game.

One of them was the man Randa sought, James Conrad. Perhaps he dwelled in these sorts of places because he wanted to fade away, but there was no hiding the colour of his skin, nor his military bearing. Though slight of build and unimposing compared to some of the men around him, it was all in his eyes.

“That him?” Brooks asked, but Randa didn’t even bother answering. Of course it was him.

As if to prove the point, Conrad potted the black to win and stood, stretching his back, and placed his hand on a pile of notes on the pool table’s edge.

His opponent moved quickly. A big Vietnamese man, he slammed his hand down on top of Conrad’s and pressed in close, almost nose to nose.

“You hustle me!” he said. Randa knew seven languages, and understood what the man was saying. “This money is mine.”

Some men might have tried to talk it through. Some men would have drawn away, attempting to settle the sudden tension in the air with a measured response, perhaps some sort of mutual agreement beneficial to both parties. But those men would not have seen that this was a situation beyond saving by negotiation or grace. Even Randa could see that, in the bigger man’s stance, his menacing air, and the sudden tension in those around the table.

Conrad saw it too.

With one hand he spun the pool cue and slammed its heavy end down on the thug’s head. The man cried out and brought up both hands, but before he could press them to the pain in his scalp, Conrad had already poked him in the eye with the cue’s thick end. He staggered back, tripped over a bar stool and went down. Bottles spilled and smashed. A few people moved out of his way.

One of the thug’s friends was coming for Conrad from behind, wielding a bottle ready to smash it across his head. Without turning, Conrad swung the cue once more, holding with both hands this time to lever it back and up between his attacker’s legs. He let out an explosive, “Oomph!” as the cue slammed into his balls, dropped the bottle, folded in half. Conrad placed his boot against the man’s head and pushed. Still breathless and nursing his bruised genitals, the man rolled back and curled himself up against the wall.

Conrad barely seemed to have moved. He held the pool cue in one hand, end down, looking around the table at the other spectators. He caught Randa’s gaze only briefly, then his eyes flickered aside, still checking for danger from elsewhere. The invitation was obvious, but no one took him up on it. As Conrad reached for the dollar notes now strewn across the felt, Randa delved into his pocket and threw a rolled wad of money onto the pool table. It rolled across and nudged against Conrad’s hand.

He’s dangerous , Randa thought. He’s killed. All that is obvious. And if he doesn’t like being seen, doesn’t want to be recognised? He worried that Conrad might have another swing of that pool cue ready for him. But he had to try.

And the money had certainly grabbed the ex-soldier’s attention.

“A moment of your time?” Randa asked.

“I’m busy.”

Randa looked around the bar. The burst of violence had attracted only brief attention, and already the music was turned up again, chattering voices and the bustle of drinking and hustling flowing in to fill the silence like smoke.

“Doing what?” Brooks asked.

Conrad scooped up the money he’d won. “Spending this.”

“There’s more where that came from,” Randa said, nodding down at the rolled wad of notes. Conrad looked from Randa to Brooks and back again, then pocketed the cash.

“Okay. You’ve bought my attention. But you have to drink with me.”

“They sell decent whiskey in this place?” Randa asked.

Conrad smiled. “No.” He nodded across to a table in the corner, raised his hand to the barman, and stepped over the man still nursing his balls.

Now it’s time to buy his commitment , Randa thought. And suddenly, in the face of this gritty, grimy reality, the things he had to say sounded like a true flight of fancy.

Conrad stared at them both for a long time. He’d been right, they didn’t serve good whiskey, but that hadn’t stopped him from sinking a third of a bottle while Randa and Brooks set out their reason for being here and seeking him out. Randa ensured they kept to the scientific aspect of the expedition for now, holding back on the more outlandish Hollow Earth theories and what Senator Willis called his ‘Monster Hunting Madness.’ He was already afraid that Conrad might need only the smallest of reasons to say no. He could see that the soldier was far more complex than first sight would have people believe. Money drove him, and drink, but deeper down there was a whole lot more. Randa could not even begin to probe those depths. Not yet. But he hoped he would be given time.