by Lou Cameron
They did. As they rode across town in her plush, expensive coach-and-four it transpired Maureen O’Flannery was a member of the San José Bar, which helped explain her accent. She admitted to pure Irish ancestry, but her people had been in Latin America since the Potato Famine a couple of generations back. He didn’t ask why. He’d known for some time that all the starving Irish hadn’t wound up in Boston, and right now his future was more important to him than her past.
By the time they reached her place in the more fashionable part of town, he’d filled in the lovely lady lawyer on his own misadventures, leaving out some of the dirty parts. She looked a little disgusted with him, too, but let him help her down when her coachman drew up before an imposing doorway. The door opened as the three of them approached it. As they stepped inside Maureen unpinned her straw boater, handed it to the Indian-featured but well-dressed butler, and said, “We shall have refreshments in the drawing room, Iago.”
Then, as she led her two male guests into a baronial but rather spartan chamber, she told Captain Gringo, “The prosecution was kind enough to furnish me with a copy of the brief they’ve built on you, Dick. Gaston, here, has already explained the two of you are not accepted in Costa Rican social circles, so I shan’t chide you for picking up that shameless slut. I’ll admit she was rather attractive, in her own cheap flashy way.”
“You knew the deputy’s wife, Maureen?”
“Of course. Naturally I had as little to do with her as possible. Everyone but her poor old husband and you, alas, knew what she was. She was notorious for attempting to seduce all her friends’ husbands, and one imagines this became more difficult as the other wives caught on to her sluttish ways. The only surprise, to me, is that apparently she may have died of natural causes. I was sure someone would murder the silly bitch, sooner or later.”
Captain Gringo waited until he and Gaston had taken the seats she’d waved them to and perched her own trim rump on a leather chair across a low oaken table from them before he asked, “What’s this apparent stuff, Maureen? Don’t you believe I didn’t kill her?”
Their hostess kept her composure but blushed a becoming shade as she replied, “Only an autopsy could show internal injuries and there isn’t going to be any autopsy, Dick. Deputy Hurtado is a most powerful politico and of course he prefers to believe his faithful wife was somehow abducted to that disorderly hotel and murdered by a ruffian.”
“Meaning me?”
“I’m afraid so, Dick. You were the only ruffian with her when she died. So, naturally, the only way we can save you is to see that you simply never stand trial.”
A serving chica came in with a silver tray loaded with iced sangria and other goodies. As she placed it on the table between them, Captain Gringo asked Maureen how even a good lawyer lady was going to manage that. Maureen poured three Waterford tumblers of cool liquid as she replied demurely, “Naturally you shall simply have to jump bail, no?”
“You mean, run for the border and let them keep all that money you posted to get me here to your … office?”
She took a sip of sangria and explained, “This is not my office. It is, as you can see, my home. When dealing in, ah, irregular cases, I feel it best not to burden my associates with needless detail. I knew as soon as I spoke to certain friends who work for the other side, albeit at low wages, that your case was hopeless.”
“But, damn it, I’m innocent, Maureen!”
“Of course you are. Do I look like a woman who associates with murderers in her own drawing room? The point is not whether you killed that pig or not, Dick. The point is that to hush up the way she died, they prefer that she was murdered, hopefully in a successful defense of her honor. So if you went to trial, they would have to find you guilty. It’s as simple as that.”
He wasn’t sure he should light another cigar. She’d sort of wrinkled her nose when he’d lit up in her coach-and-four. So he took a sip of sangria, found it too sweet but better than nothing, and said, “I get the part about the instructions any Costa Rican jury will be sure to get from the judge, Maureen. What I don’t get is the part about my jumping bail. On you, I mean. I know for a fact nobody else I know here in town had that kind of money to spring me, right?”
He shot a glance at Gaston, who nodded soberly and said, “As of the moment, she hasn’t even asked me for a retainer, Dick. When I attempted to hire her for your defense, she said money was of no importance, as long as justice was served, hein?”
Captain Gringo nodded, turned back to the girl, and asked flatly, “Okay, tell me why you’re so good to me, Maureen. What am I supposed to do to pay you back? Up front, I’m a soldier of fortune, not a hired assassin, so if you’re mad at someone cheating on you, forget it!”
She dimpled sweetly and said, “I knew who and what you were, and that you’d been arrested for murder, even before your friend here approached me, Dick.”
“Swell. So you just peeled off all that money and handed it to them to make sure you’d never see it again? Get to the point. What am I supposed to do for you or the people you work for, once I jump bail and, needless to say, leave San José and the whole damned country in the dust forever?”
“Well, I do have a teeny-weeny little favor to ask, Dick.”
“I’m listening.”
“Have you been keeping up with the troubles in Segovia?”
“Not really. Never heard of the place. Where and what is Segovia?”
Gaston chimed in to say, “I know something of the matter, my poor illiterate youth, and, all in all, it may be best for you to stand trial for murder here in Costa Rica after all!”
Maureen frowned and said, “That’s silly. La Republica de Segovia is a small but perfectly respectable democracy to the north, between Honduras and Nicaragua.”
But Captain Gringo shushed her and said, “I prefer to listen with respect to my elders, doll face. Keep talking, Gaston. How come I’ve never seen any banana republic called Segovia on any map?”
Gaston sighed and said, “Merde alors, Segovia is not a country, it is, at best, a state of mind. As we all know, once the Spanish colonists here in Central America declared independence from Spain in the 1820s they got down to the business of bees. They have been shooting one another ever since to determine who should run things in this confused neck of the bois, hein? Honduras has insisted for some time her southern border lies along the Segovia or, as some call it, the Cocas River. Mais Nicaragua insists, with as much heat, the border should be the Rio Patuca, farther north. The result is a très considerable pie wedge of disputed territory up for the grabs. The exact dimensions are très vague because much of the area has never been mapped by anyone one should take seriously.”
Captain Gringo thought, nodded, and said, “Wait a minute. We were between the Segovia and Patuca that time we tangled with German squatters in the big Caratasca lagoon, right? Funny, I don’t remember anyone living along that stretch of the Mosquito Coast but Mosquito Indians!”
Gaston chuckled fondly and said, “Oui, and as usual you got the good-looking squaw, you handsome brute. The so-called republic our adorable hostess is talking about is farther inland, where more civilized types can dwell in comparative comfort. Behind the coastal swamps and sticky jungles one finds higher and drier ground, infested with pine savannah where it is flat, or mahogany rain forest where it is bumpy. There is a range of mountains running vaguely east and west, against the grain of the already alarming heights more inclined to run north and south. At any rate, in the high savannahs perhaps a hundred or more miles up the Segovia, Spanish settlers established themselves in the usual manner back in the days of the Spanish Empire. More recently, since neither Nicaragua nor Honduras seem to know where to draw the lines, these leftover hidalgos have declared the usual democratic republic, dedicated to keeping their plantation workers in place, hein?”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Hell, that doesn’t sound so awful. I wouldn’t call either Honduras or Nicaragua a worker’s paradise.”
> Gaston shook his head and insisted, “It gets worse, Dick. The so-called Republic of Segovia has not been recognized by either dear old Uncle Sam or dear old Victoria. So what our adorable hostess obviously has in mind is a très amusé border war with Nicaragua, Honduras, or both, hein?”
Captain Gringo turned to Maureen with one eyebrow raised. She said, “Pooh, a lot you know! Nicaragua’s in the middle of a civil war and Honduras just got over a power play that left a lot of people dead and the survivors more anxious to hold on to what they have than to invade anyone else. La Republica de Segovia’s in no danger from its larger neighbors to the north and south. They just need a new general staff. They lost all their experienced officers the other night, due to some kind of misunderstanding, and I was instructed, even before you got into your own jam, to see if I could recruit you as replacements. My instructions were to offer you the rank and pay of a brigadier general, Dick. Gaston, here, is to replace a full colonel in command of the Segovian artillery.”
The two soldiers of fortune exchanged glances. Gaston nodded and said, “Très bien, the best way to solve rivalry among one’s high command would be to import foreigners who have no relatives on either side.”
Captain Gringo said, “Never mind that part. Tell us who in the hell we’re supposed to be leading such a serious force against if it’s neither Nicaragua nor Honduras, doll!”
Maureen said, “Well, they have been having bandit trouble up there, Dick.”
“Are we really talking about bandits or a civil war, dammit?”
She sipped some more sangria and said, “They warned me you were smart and that it might be best to tell you the truth, Dick, The situation is somewhere between the two extremes you just mentioned. The landowners, great and small, are behind the legitimate government to a man. Most of the campesinos seem reasonably contented. The elected officials are no worse and probably a lot better than any you’ll find in this part of the world. The few malcontents seem to be mostly native Indians and worthless peones led by a homicidal maniac called El Viejo del Montaña.”
Captain Gringo grinned crookedly and said, “The Old Man of the Mountain? You’re right. Someone up that way has to be a maniac. Wasn’t the Old Man of the Mountain an Arab leader who gave the Crusaders a hard time? I mean, a long time back indeed?”
Maureen said, “The original Old Man of the Mountain was really Persian, I believe, and he seems to have added the word assassin to most modem languages. The one we’re talking about is a mestizo who claims to be Catholic, but in other respects he tries to live up to the title. Is it true you fought against Geronimo before your, ah, misunderstanding with the U.S. Army, Dick?”
Captain Gringo grimaced and replied, “We chased Apache more than we got to fight them. But I’m beginning to get the picture. The people you’re working for want us to whip up to Segovia, take charge of the usual bush league government forces, and root out a sort of Apache problem for them. Let’s get to the bottom line. Who are the people you’re working for, doll?”
Maureen met his eyes as she replied simply, “The established government of Segovia, of course.”
That sounded perfectly logical. So why did her big blue eyes look so shifty as she said it? He knew she was fibbing, even though a fib made no sense.
Gaston had been inhaling sangria while Maureen tried to con Captain Gringo. So he hadn’t spotted the uneasy look in her eyes, and her trained courtroom voice had betrayed nothing. The little Frenchman put his empty glass down with a satisfied smile and said, “Eh bien, I take back what I said about you standing trial here in Costa Rica, Dick. It sounds like a job of the childishness to me. And we know for a fact the local police are tougher than one’s average guerrilla leader. Mais how are we to get from here to there, M’selle Maureen? Even if you are willing to lose Dick’s bail money, the species of très fatigué police all about are surely going to object if they see him strolling for either coast, and we are all too far inland for a running gunfight, non?”
Maureen said, “It’s all been arranged for late this evening. The two of you will stay here, of course, until midnight. At that time, as the tropic moon sets, you will leave by the back alley, in a coach-sprung vehicle disguised as a delivery wagon, behind faster horses than one usually uses to haul a delivery cart, and—”
“Never mind all that,” Captain Gringo cut in, adding, “Sneaking out of town after moonset’s never been that big a problem to knockaround guys, Maureen. The part I don’t like is sneaking out at all. Costa Rica’s one of the few countries left where guys like us can hole up between more frantic adventures. I like it here. The people are friendly and the nights are cool for this far south. I don’t want to lose San José as home plate. If I skip out on a murder charge, I will. So there has to be a better way.”
She stared soberly at him and said, “There isn’t. Trust me. I’m a native Costa Rican as well as a member of the local bar, despite my name. I know the judge you’d be facing, Dick. I know he’ll pass a death sentence on you no matter what kind of defense we could hope to put up.”
Gaston sighed and said, “Sacre goddamn, she is right, Dick! They need a guy who falls, and even if you could show them a signed and witnessed suicide note by the unfortunate cheating wife they would refuse to allow you to enter it as evidence. I like it here in Costa Rica, too. But when the house is on fire, one must seriously give thought to leaping out the window, no matter if you’ve just furnished the place, hein?”
Captain Gringo found himself nodding, but he still asked Maureen if the trial they were talking about would have to be held in open court or not. She shrugged and said, “My country is well run for this part of the world, so I assume they will feel obliged to offer you the pro forma protection of the Costa Rican Constitution, which is patterned somewhat after your own, Dick. But tell me something, which perhaps I missed in reading over your dossier. Is it not true you were tried and found guilty by a U.S. Army court martial, under the admirable rules of your Americano law, as defined by your most just U.S. Constitution?”
Captain Gringo growled, “Sure, but it was a bum rap and the sons of bitches who framed me were trying to cover up for one of their own, so. …” Then he nodded again and said, “When you’re right you’re right, counselor. I’d like to catch some shut-eye before we cut out tonight, though. I hardly got any sleep last night, and sleeping in a wagon going lickety-split is never too restful.”
Maureen tinkled a silver bell on the table between them, and when the same pretty maid came in she gave orders that her guests were to be shown to the guest rooms upstairs and made as comfortable as possible. The maid nodded shyly and asked the soldiers of fortune to follow her. So they did, although Maureen didn’t.
The chica led them to adjoining rooms near the top of the staircase and asked if there was any other way she could be of service to them. Gaston leered down the front of her low-cut maid’s uniform, but before he could act like the dirty old man he was, Captain Gringo asked if she could possibly get him some solid food, explaining he’d missed lunchar as well as desayuno. She looked sort of surprised, but said she’d see what she could do.
The moment they were alone in the room Gaston had chosen, Captain Gringo said, “Take it easy on the hired help. We need the help of our hostess a lot more than you need to get laid, you old goat.”
Gaston laughed and said, “Merde alors, speak for yourself, Dick. I was not the one who got to screw a high-class species of femme fatale to death last night!”
“Aw, shut up. You give me a hard-on, flapping your lips like that. The dame was sick. I still think I could prove that, if they’d give me the chance.”
“Oui, but now it is you who seem to be talking in the très fatigué circles. I have already eaten twice today, but you are right about us having a long hard night ahead of us. So I am about to climb into that adorable four-poster across the room. Do you care to join me?”
Captain Gringo laughed, said if he ever got that desperate he’d kill himself, and went next
door to his own guest room. He was starting to feel the strain now, and the big four-poster in his room looked inviting. But first things coming first, he checked the windows, saw there were neither balconies nor vines to worry about, and peeled off his hat and jacket. He was still pissed at them for not returning his .38 and he knew he’d have to pick one up as soon as possible. Meanwhile Gaston was right next door with a loaded gun. He saw no reason to suspect Maureen of treachery. If she or the people she worked for had wanted him dead they’d have simply had to leave him in jail and the hell with it. Who’d want to bail a guy out of an almost certain execution if all they wanted was to kill him?
The pretty maid came in with another silver tray. This one was piled with tortillas and, better yet, shredded goat smothered with fried eggs and beans. She’d brought a whole pot of coffee to wash it down with as well. So he told her she was an angel and sent her on her way.
She didn’t get very far. He’d just settled down on the bed to eat the welcome snack when he heard Gaston’s muffled voice outside, asking her if anyone had ever told her she looked a lot like the Jersey Lillie. The little mestiza giggled and asked him who he was talking about. So as Captain Gringo muttered, “Dammit, Gaston!” the no longer young but still dapper little Frenchman took her into his own room to explain the big wide world outside Costa Rica to her.
By the time Captain Gringo had finished eating and placed the tray on a dresser near the door, he could tell from the sounds he heard next door that Gaston was just starting to eat, and that the maid sure liked to be eaten, judging from the nice things she was yelling at Gaston right now. The taller and younger Yank wondered whether he should do something to try to stop them, or at least get them to hold it down to a roar. The house was big, but not that big, and Maureen had to still be in it somewhere. He was sure they could hear it to the end of the block when the maid next door screamed, “Oh, por favor stop teasing me and do it right, you mean old thing!”