Merian C. Cooper's King Kong (3 page)

Weston objected, “But in an animal picture, a bring-'em-back-alive—”

Denham overrode him: “Imagine! I work, I slave, I sweat blood to make a good picture. It plays the theaters and makes a dime. But the public says, ‘We would've liked it better if there was a woman in it.' And the reviewers say, ‘If the film had a love interest, it would have grossed twice as much!' Up to now, I've been on my own, not beholden to any studio. I've arranged the financing for every movie myself—put myself in hock to do it, often enough. There's my wife and son, in a house I've mortgaged to the hilt, waiting for me to succeed. Only now there's a depression on, and the banks won't give me a second look unless I can guarantee a big box office. For that I need—I have to have—a woman in the picture! They want a girl, by george, I'll give them a girl!”

Weston had watched Denham's growling monologue with growing impatience. He stood up and put on his hat. “Well, Denham, I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do for you.”

“You've got to. And you've got to do it in a hurry. We're sailing on the morning tide—have to be away from here by daylight.”

The declaration puzzled Weston. “What? You're not due to sail for another week! Why the rush?”

Denham glanced at Englehorn, who shrugged. Then, in the same angry growl, he muttered, “Guess it won't hurt to tell you at this stage of the game. We're carrying explosives and the insurance company's got wind of it. If we don't get away in a jump, the marshal's deputy will be on our necks, and then we'll be tied up in court for months.”

“Explosives?” Weston asked nervously.

With a wry grin, Denham reached down to the box Englehorn had set aside and retrieved one of the iron spheres. He tossed it and caught it again, making Weston tense his muscles. Denham barked a short laugh. “Relax. I know how to handle these things. I invented them. This is just to make a point. Weston, I wouldn't lie to you—I wouldn't say any girl who goes with us wouldn't be heading into danger. On an expedition like this, there'll be a little risk now and then. Maybe even more than a little. But take this from me: with a couple of these handy, nothing very serious is going to happen.”

Weston found that he had half risen from his chair. He forced himself to sit back down and asked, “What have you got there?”

“Gas bombs, old man! My own design. Or maybe I should say my improvement on an existing design. It's a formula that will knock out a row of elephants, if they get a couple of whiffs of the stuff.”

Weston stood then, shaking his head. “Denham, everything you tell me makes me like this proposition less. I'm starting to be glad I couldn't find you a girl.”

“Don't talk like the insurance company,” Denham snapped, his tone scornful. “Look, as long as men who know what they're doing handle these things—I mean men like me, the skipper, and Driscoll here—the gas bombs are as harmless as lollipops. The truth is that we'll be in more peril from plain old rain and the monsoon season than from anything we're likely to meet up with once we're on land.”

“Monsoons?” asked Weston suspiciously.

“They do happen, you know,” Denham said, carefully replacing the gas bomb in its crate. “And that's another reason I have to get under way as soon as possible. I've got just six months to get to the location and shoot the film before the monsoon season sets in. Don't look so gloomy, Weston! I could trust the
Wanderer
to get through a blow, and the skipper and Driscoll are dependable. But monsoons bring torrential rain, and rain ruins an outdoor picture. Wastes time, wastes money, and leaves a man with nothing to show for all his work. Every minute the
Wanderer
is moored here takes away from the time we should be using to get our picture.”

Weston felt half dizzy from Denham's mile-a-minute speech. He held up his hands to silence the man. “Gas bombs! Monsoons! You make me feel like an accessory to murder!” Weston picked up his hat and clapped it onto his round head. “I'm sorry, Denham, but you'll get no girl from me.”

“What?”

Weston headed for the door. “I mean it.”

“You do, huh? Well, I'll get one myself!” With a speed surprising in such a solidly built man, he jerked a coat from a hook and a hat from another and shoved past Weston. “You have a cab waiting?”

“Yes, but—”

“If you think I'm going to quit now, just because you can't find me a girl with backbone—”

Weston stepped aside as Denham yanked the door open. “Wait a second—”

But Denham hadn't even paused. “—I'm going to make the greatest picture in the world! Something no one's ever seen, never even dreamed of! They'll have to invent new adjectives when I come back. You wait!”

The door slammed in Weston's face. “My cab!” he said weakly.

Englehorn yelled, “Denham! Where are you going?”

Denham's indomitable voice floated back: “I'm going to find a girl for my picture, even if I have to kidnap one!” His footsteps faded as he hurried down the gangway.

Inside the cabin, Weston buttoned up his overcoat, staring at Englehorn and Driscoll, feeling glad that he had managed to keep out of this whole loony mess. The old watchman was right. Crazy was the word for it. “He's taken my cab,” Weston said, feeling a little foolish.

Driscoll and Englehorn both laughed. Driscoll threw up his arms. “Denham usually gets what he wants. What do you want to bet he comes back with a girl?”

“I wouldn't take the bet,” Englehorn replied calmly. “All right, all right, Mr. Weston, we'll get you home.”

“What kind of girl would be crazy enough—” Weston began, and then broke off in some embarrassment.

Driscoll clapped him on the shoulder. His white teeth flashed as he laughed again. “Hey, Denham would have the nerve to tell me to marry a girl if he decided the script called for it. Come on, Mr. Weston. I'll call you another taxi.”

2

MANHATTAN
DECEMBER 3, 1932

Carl Denham roamed Broadway, looking for a face. He jostled through the theatre-hour crowds, eyes alert, and every once in a while he swore impatiently under his breath when some young woman who'd looked promising from a distance proved commonplace as he drew near.

He concentrated on his self-imposed task. If he paused long enough, a world of worries waited to flood in on him: crushing debt, his patient wife waiting for him in their cottage upstate, his little son, Vincent. Denham shrugged off his concerns. They were nothing that a hit movie couldn't fix, and a hit movie was his—if he could find the right face.

His narrowed eyes were like camera lenses, catching countless faces among the crowd: bold faces, frightened faces, sullen faces, inviting faces, pouting faces, expectant faces, painted faces, hard faces, sordid faces, indifferent faces. Not one of them held his gaze or his interest for more than a moment's inspection.

An hour passed, and another, and the crowds thinned. “Maybe I
am
nuts,” Denham muttered to himself, feeling the cold through his heavy overcoat. He had traveled toward downtown, passing through Times Square and into the canyons of the lower avenue, leaving behind the glitter and bustle of the theatres. A whipping wind stung his cheeks and lashed snow across his eyes. Still he looked, seeing faces in doorways, faces in breadlines, in passing automobiles. None had the quality he wanted.

Restlessly Denham circled back, leaving Madison Square's benches behind. Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue, swaggering, intimate Fifty-seventh Street, and no luck. The dreary upper West Forties, and he drifted again toward Broadway, where jostling throngs now boiled out of a hundred theatres and movie palaces.

Denham was passing a shop—hardly even that, more like an overgrown booth, scarcely large enough for the bulky proprietor. Outside it on the sidewalk, stands displayed baskets of fruit, lush in the spilled yellow light from inside: oranges, grapefruit, pears, red apples. A slender girl, her back to Denham, stood looking down at the fruit, evidently trying to decide what she wanted.

It happened in an instant. The girl's slim white hand reached softly up to a basket of apples, and before she could even touch one, the proprietor erupted through the doorway, shouting in anger: “Ah-hah! So I catch you, you thief!” He seized the girl's wrist. “No, you don't run. Hey, police!”

“No!” The girl turned and tried weakly to pull away. “No, I didn't take anything! I wanted to, but I didn't. Please let me go.”

Denham's head snapped back, his eyes narrowing. He took a half step forward and felt a grin widen his mouth.

The shopkeeper kept his grip on the girl's arm, but with his free hand, he gestured broadly. “Every hour somebody steal. Me, I've had enough. Hey, police!”

Denham put his hand on the man's shoulder. “Shut up. I saw it all. The girl's telling the truth. She was starting to pull her hand away from the apples even before you came out. She wasn't going to steal anything.”

The girl turned a grateful face toward Denham. “I wasn't. Truly, I wasn't.”

Denham reached into his pocket. “Okay, then. Go ahead and call a cop if you want, friend. But you've got a witness who's dead against you. Here, take this and forget it.”

A couple of bills changed the shopkeeper's opinion at once. “Sorry. I didn't know she was with you.” He retreated into the shop, out of the cold.

Denham saw the girl totter on her feet, and in an instant he flung his arm around her shoulders. Her head lolled back, and the electric light streaming from the shop shone full on her face. Denham's eyes opened wide, and the grin spread itself across his face, ear to ear. He laughed, guided the girl to the curb, and threw up a signaling hand. “Taxi!”

A Yellow cab that was headed toward the theatre district pulled over with a squeal of brakes. Denham bustled the girl inside and climbed in beside her. “The closest restaurant, and step on it.”

*   *   *

Half an hour later, in a white-tiled diner around the corner from the sidewalk stand, he still wore his air of triumph. In the chair on the opposite side of the table from him sat the girl, behind a white barricade of empty china plates and cups. She had hardly spoken since the cab, merely murmuring her thanks, which Denham waved away. He leaned forward on his arms, staring in contentment at the girl's face.

It was a beautiful face, but more than that: she had the kind of well-molded, clearly defined features that the camera loved. Large, incredibly blue eyes, keen with intelligence, looking at him from shadowing lashes. A ripe mouth showing passion and humor. A lifted chin hinting at reserves of courage. Her skin was a delicate, transparent white, and not, Denham decided, because she was undernourished. No, her marvelous complexion went with the kind of hair formed up beneath her shabby hat, hair of pure gold. Denham shook his head. “You know, if I was poetical, which I'm not, I'd say your hair was like something spun out of sunlight.”

She smiled, meeting his gaze. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Feeling a little better now?”

“I'm a different girl. Thank you again.”

“You're welcome. It was a pleasure to watch you dig in. My name's Denham, by the way, Carl Denham.”

“Ann Darrow.”

Perfect, Denham thought. We won't even have to change it.

Ann Darrow seemed a little nervous. “You've been wonderfully kind,” she said in a soft voice.

Denham shook his head. “Don't give me too much credit. I'm not spending time and money on you just out of kindness.”

All of the humor drained from Ann's face. She lowered her chin, and her gaze became defiant.

Denham ignored that. “How'd you come to be in this fix?”

Ann blinked as if she hadn't expected that kind of question. “Bad luck, I guess. Times are hard. There must be lots of girls just like me.”

“You're wrong there,” Denham said, thinking of how he would frame that face for the screen. “Not many have your kind of looks.”

“Oh, I could get by in good clothes, I suppose.” Ann's smile came back, with a flicker of fear in it. “But when a girl gets too shabby—”

“Got any family?” Denham demanded.

Ann blinked. “An uncle … somewhere.”

“Ever do any acting?”

With a quizzical tilt of her head, as if she couldn't quite follow Denham's thoughts, Ann said, “A few turns as an extra when they were shooting pictures down at Fort Lee. Once I got a real speaking part, a dozen lines or so. But the studio closed down.”

Better and better, Denham thought. A touch of experience, but not enough to give her ideas about how she should be lighted, how she should be shot. He leaned forward, his gaze intent on her. “One more question: Are you a city gal, the kind who screams at a mouse and faints at a snake?”

Ann laughed out loud, looking as if she'd surprised herself. “No, I'm a country gal. I wouldn't pet a mouse, but I'd chase it outside. And I've killed snakes. Well, one snake, anyway.”

Denham stood up, squaring his shoulders. “Just what I wanted to hear. Well, Ann Darrow, have I got a job for you!”

Ann stood up, too, her expression cool and determined. She started to speak.

Denham cut her off: “When you're fed up and rested and all rigged out, you'll be just what I need.”

Guardedly, Ann asked, “When … when does this job start?”

Denham slapped the table. “Right now. This minute. And the first thing we've got to worry about is wardrobe. Come on. Some of the Broadway shops are open late.”

“What is this job?” Ann asked, an edge of suspicion in her voice.

With excitement rising in him, Denham replied, “It's money and adventure and fame. It's the thrill of a lifetime. And it starts with a long sea voyage that shoves off at six in the morning.”