by Lou Cameron
Gaston shrugged and said, “You have a lot to learn about dirty tricks, my child. It seems obvious that once your propaganda worthy of the British or even Germans spreads wide enough, the other side will get their hands on some prints, hein?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So as soon as the dirty old man of the mountain sees even one he will know it has to be a fake, unless he visited British Honduras très recently. I agree he may not be brilliant or even brave. Mais surely he will be bright enough to assume he does not owe such a good likeness to a friend, hein?”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “You’re right. He’s going to say it’s government propaganda anyway. So why pussy-foot around. I’ll just nip into town and get some photo lab to do it, poco tiempo.”
“Oui, I am sure anyone with a darkroom could. But has it yet occurred to you how annoyed your ruse is going to make the other side?”
“Sure. That’s the whole point. I want the old bastard to come out and fight. I think we’re about ready for him now.”
It was after La Siesta but perhaps an hour before sundown when Captain Gringo found the photography shop he was looking for. He wanted someone good. But he naturally didn’t want the whole town knowing he hung out in darkrooms just before some very dirty pictures hit the marketplace. He’d decided to distribute the other pictures Phyl had taken of naked Indians being naughty. None of them could be related to the people around here, and the one shot of a familiar face would seem more convincing mixed with boys and girls together in more innocent or at least less disgusting poses.
The photographer he’d singled out after discreet inquiring was up a side street, and he’d have never thought to look for any place of business there. He spotted the sign at last and went down a flight of stone steps to the basement shop. They were open for business despite the hour and the deserted calle out front. But the moment he saw who was greeting him from behind the counter he had second thoughts.
To say she was gorgeous might have been overdoing it. But she wasn’t half bad. She was almost pure Spanish, and it was obvious she’d been a head turner indeed a few years ago. Her fine-boned face was still beautiful, framed by braided black hair. So who cared if she had the beginning of a cute double chin or that her cleavage might have called for a size smaller ruffled blouse? People who’d never met many southern Spanish tended to think El Greco might have been sort of color blind. But damned if she didn’t have that faintly greenish tinge to her otherwise flawless pale skin. Captain Gringo tried not to blush as he asked if this was the shop of Heman Vegas. It got even tougher when she dimpled and explained, matter of factly, that he’d come a little late. Her husband had been dead over a year, but, she said, she was sure she could be of service to him.
He smiled thinly and replied, “I’m afraid I’d better find a male photographer, señora. I’m sure you’re qualified, but, well ...”
“Your photographs or the ones you wish taken are indiscreet, señor? I do not mind, ah, artistic poses, as long as I am not required for to pose for them! Let me see what you have, eh?”
He shook his head again and said, “I’m afraid the work I want done can’t qualify as artistic. I need copies made of, well, let’s just call them pornography.”
She shot him an amused though curious look as she replied, “Oh? You do not look like the sort of hombre who goes in for that sort of thing. But you would be surprised at some of the pictures I get to develop. You would be surprised how much I need the business, too! You are not the first caballera who has hesitated to have me develop pictures of him and his, ah, sweetheart. Let me see them. For heaven’s sake, I am old enough to be your mother and my late husband enjoyed art photography, too!”
He still didn’t know. But it was getting late, and they’d told him this shop was the best in town. So he gulped and asked, “Can you fake photographs as well, señora? I have a head I want shifted to another, ah, less proper picture. I assure you it’s in the interests of national security, no matter how bad it turns out.”
“Oh? And am I to be paid for my work, or must I chalk it up to patriotism, General, ah …”
“Call me Dick. Naturally you’ll be paid, double your usual rates if you’re good at keeping military secrets.”
“In that case, call me Angelita, Deek, and let us get to work, eh? Come, my lab is in the back.”
She opened a gate in her counter and he followed her back to a windowless room that looked more like a chemistry lab until she flipped a switch and turned the overhead lighting from Edison white to ruby red. She looked even yummier in that color. It was no mystery why whorehouses went in for red light bulbs. But that didn’t seem to be her reason at the moment. She took the envelope of photos from him and spread them across her work table. He naturally couldn’t see if she was blushing or not. Her voice remained controlled as she said matter of factly, “I can see why you hesitated to show these to a strange women, Deek. Where did you take them, in the jungle?”
“I didn’t take any of them. It’s too long a story to get into. I just happened to have them, and I was wondering if you could put the head of that old goat in the big sombrero on the torso of this other dirty old man.”
She giggled and replied, “Easy, but El Viejo del Montaña is most certainly going to look silly when I do!”
He didn’t ask how she knew the bandit leader’s face on sight, since she’d probably done the newspaper work in the first place, and this was no time to correct her regarding the new nickname he’d decided on. Cabrón was not a nice word to say in mixed company, even gazing down at filthy pictures together. So he just watched silently as Angelita picked up a surgical blade and got to work. He didn’t understand why she cut the bandit’s head out roughly and placed it atop the other print at first. But he’d learned how much a guy could learn if he kept quiet and just watched. So he figured out what she was up to as she cut neatly around the bandit’s head, sombrero and all, right through both prints. When she finished, the sodomist’s head dropped out with a cut-out that fit exactly. So when Angelita cemented the results to a bristol board backing, the new head was inset in its new position with no clumsy edges or shadows to worry about. Yet the pretty skillful as well as pretty Spanish woman wasn’t satisfied. She got out a tube of gray paint and a fine-tipped brush to retouch the edges of the cut-out even better. She said, “Bueno. We must give it time for it to dry before we start making copies. What about these other droll poses, Deek?”
“I want about a hundred copies of each, as they are. I mean to put out about a hundred full sets. How long will it take you?”
“Hours. The number of prints is less important. But first I must make photo-negatives of each picture for to print your order. Come back around eight. Meanwhile I shall lock up as you leave so that nobody else will bother me. Just knock and I shall let you in. From the dark I can see out and nobody can see in, so—”
“Gotcha,” he cut in, taking out a roll of bills and peeling off some front money to keep her true to him ’til he got back. As she followed him out front, she asked who he had in mind to distribute all his dirty pictures. He laughed and said, “I’m working on that. I’m new at the game but I have a French sidekick. So we’ll work something out.”
She opened the door for him, and as he moved past her he had a sudden impulse to bend down and kiss her goodbye, but he didn’t. It was still light out and he could have been misreading those smoke signals in her big brown eyes. It hardly seemed possible every lady photographer he met would be a sex maniac, even if they did spend a lot of time alone, developing pictures more artistic than the current mores approved of.
Back at the presidio he found wagons unloading crates near the now well-guarded ammo magazine. Gaston was watching, bemused, as Captain Gringo joined him, Major Parez, and the enlisted work gang. Gaston said, “We seem to have received a shipment of machine guns. I do not recall ordering any, do you, Dick?”
Captain Gringo frowned and said, “Well, we may be able to use automatic weapons, if
we can ever get the other side to meet us in the field. But I dunno, we don’t have any trained machine gunners, aside from yours truly, and commanding officers are usually a little too busy to man machine gun nests. Who sent ’em to us?”
Parez held out the voucher sheets, looking a bit puzzled himself, and said, “Apparently that foreign cartel who’s done other favors for us in the past, my general. There is nothing here about our paying either the railroad or the lead mine for all these nice new automatic weapons. But see for yourself, they sent us a dozen Maxims, along with two dozen cases of belted .30-30 ammunition for them!”
Captain Gringo stared thoughtfully at the nearest case in the gathering dusk. Then he grimaced and said, “Shit, those aren’t real Maxims! They’re Chinese copies, made by Woodbine Arms Limited in violation of the patents. When you know the right people, what’s a little thing like a patent?”
He turned to Gaston and said, “Okay, once things calm down here, you’d better check out these mysterious presents for sabotage. I know our old pal, Hakim, makes a pretty good Chinese copy, considering his other disgusting habits. But we don’t know who we owe all this new gear to, and I’d hate like hell to find out in the field that some mother removed the firing pins or re-arming rods again.”
Gaston nodded and said, “Leave it to me. I am still très annoyed about that time in Mexico we discovered, almost too late, that the machine gun you’d been issued did not wish to fire full automatiqué. Where will you be as I grease myself to the armpits, if you don’t mind my asking, Dick?”
“I’ve got some photography simmering on a slow stove. I want to have a word with the junta about those other foreigners who seem awfully friendly for guys you just don’t get to meet, too.”
But as he turned to leave, Parez, of all people, called out, “I can tell you where Sir Basil Hakim is staying in town, my general.”
Both soldiers of fortune gave a collective gasp of dismay. Then Captain Gringo demanded, “Are you saying the guy who built the railroad for you and opened that mine for himself is Basil Hakim, a little Turk with a white spade beard?”
Parez replied, “I thought he was an Englishman, but otherwise the description fits. He has done much for our country, I assure you. Why, if it was not for Sir Basil, those guerrillas would have defeated us by now. The little produce we can still get out to market is carried by Sir Basil’s railroad and steamboat line, see?”
“I’m beginning to. You’d better write the little cocksucker’s address down for me, Major. I don’t have time to screw around and he owes me one hell of an explanation!”
Parez did.
So about thirty-five minutes later, as Sir Basil Hakim was licking a clit instead of sucking a cock in what he’d thought was the privacy of a rented and well-guarded villa near the presidential palace, he was rudely interrupted by a familiar voice growling, “All right, Basil, drop that muchacha.”
The dwarfish international tycoon did no such thing. He was flat on his back, albeit atop a pile of silken pillows, and the girl he’d been going sixty-nine with, although way too young for such grown-up games, would have been a little chubby for a man Hakim’s size to pick up, let alone drop. But as she looked up to see Captain Gringo in the doorway with a .38 trained their way, she spat out the old man’s shaft and leaped off to run and hide behind some hanging Oriental drapes against the far wall.
Sir Basil propped himself up on one withered elbow to stare reproachfully at his unexpected visitor. He said, “Oh, dear, I hope you didn’t kill too many of my people getting in, old chap.”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Just two. You’re a hard man to see and, speaking of hards, would you mind not jerking off while I’m talking to you?”
Hakim said, “It’s your own fault for breaking in uninvited. When and if you reach my age, which hardly seems likely, you’ll know better than to let a rare erection go to waste. What did you want to see me about, Dick?”
Captain Gringo was seeing more than he wanted to as the old degenerate lay back, closed his eyes, and began to stroke himself off furiously, moaning something in Arabic or maybe Turkish. The American said, “Oh, shit, that’s just disgusting.”
Then the young girl came shyly out from between the drapes across the room to join her master on the pillows as he’d ordered her. She looked about eleven or twelve and still had the decency to blush as she proceeded to finish Hakim off with her pretty little rosebud mouth, kneeling between his gray-haired legs. Hakim sighed and said, “Oh, that’s better. Would you like to enjoy the other end of her as we talk, Dick? I assure you I haven’t come in her there this evening, damn your rude entrance!”
The young girl’s entrance looked more interesting than rude as she knelt over the Merchant of Death, flushed with excitement. But Captain Gringo said, “I’ll stand, if you don’t mind. You just sent me and mine an arms shipment we’d never ordered, Hakim. How come?”
“Oh, yes, I am coming and watch those flaming teeth, you little imp! I’ll be with you in a minute, Dick. I just have to ... Oh, bother, it was hardly worth the effort. Why is it that it seems to take forever to get there as we get older and then, once we do, it hardly seems we’ve been anywhere?”
Captain Gringo leaned against the stucco door jamb, gun still trained on the now exhausted couple as he replied, “I wouldn’t know, thank God. If you want to explore the matter of senile sex any further in the future you’d better start talking sense.”
Hakim sighed, sat up, and started to dismiss the girl. But Captain Gringo said, “She’d better stay. I’ve already had to kill two of your servants getting in to have this chat with you and we wouldn’t want to make a habit of it, right?”
“True. Good help is so hard to find these days. What do you want me to tell you, Dick? You already know I’ve been supplying the local army. Where did you think all those goodies came from, Father Christmas? I’m a businessman. It’s good business to keep a government I’m doing business with in business. Don’t take my word for it. Ask anyone in the junta. I’ve loaned them money, built them a railroad, and outfitted their flaming army. I know you won’t buy this, but it was my suggestion they hire you when there was a sudden vacancy in the high command.”
“Now why in the hell would you have done that and, by the way, why did you have the original general staff knocked off, Hakim?”
“As God is my witness I had nothing to do with that, and you can easily confirm it was my idea to hire you and Gaston.”
“Do you believe in God, Hakim?”
“At my age, and after what I’ve seen of this abused planet? Of course not. But a chap has to swear by something. You know I’m not a stupid man, Dick.”
“Granted. You’re a sly old devil. So?”
“So even we diabolic chaps conduct business in a sensible way. You know that I know how good you are, even without a machine gun. Would it make any sense for me to suggest the junta hire you and Gaston, and then arm you with artillery and automatic weapons, if I was planning some mad betrayal of you or my, ah, native business associates? I wish you’d point that gun another way, old bean.”
“I like it pointed where it is and don’t put either of your slimy paws into that pile of pillows.”
“Oh, piffle. You’ve always had such a suspicious nature. Don’t you trust me to at least act intelligently, Dick?”
“No. That’s one reason I’m still alive I guess. You were about to tell me what your game is here in Segovia, weren’t you?”
Hakim said something in his own mysterious lingo to the girl. But as Captain Gringo tensed for sudden moves, he saw she was only jerking the old fart off some more. Hakim leaned back at a more comfortable angle and said, “Very well. The official story is that Woodbine Arms Limited is interested in developing the lead ore one finds hither and yon in them there hills. I assure you I’m not interested in coffee or bananas. So the locals are free to get as rich as they want, thanks to the transportation system I put in. You can check if you like. But you’ll find I allo
w them to ship freight at the going rates for tropical produce. I’m not trying to make a profit off the installations needed in any case to transport my lead ore out to be refined. The local bandits, as you know, have been a bother. So it was simply good business on my part to help them restore a bit of law and order, eh what?”
“All tins for lead ore? Who do you think you’re kidding?”
Hakim shrugged his naked shoulders and replied, “Ask the local officials if you don’t buy that, Dick. It’s an open and aboveboard mining operation. I have to pay the usual export duty on minerals. That’s one cruel Spanish custom none of the governments down this way saw fit to abolish once they got their independence. So the junta keeps a record of the tonnage I ship and lead is no mystery in any case. I do make bullets, you know.”
Captain Gringo grinned and said, “You make money, too, and if they can’t grow professional officers here, I wouldn’t bet any junta hack appointed to supervise your mining operation ever took a crash course at the Colorado School of Mines. What are you really digging, Hakim, silver chloride? Don’t answer. I hate a man who fibs and, yeah, silver ore and lead ore look a lot alike, even when you know shit about mining.”
Hakim sighed and put a hand on the girl’s wrist to make her hand move faster as he said quite calmly, considering, “I might have known you’d catch on, dammit. What do you want, a cut?”
“No. I still have to look El Presidente in the face. But don’t worry about me telling them you’ve been robbing them blind by paying the duty on lead for high-grade silver. That Spanish twenty percent is too high, anyway, and if you’ve told me one true fact tonight they’ve nothing to complain about.”
“Then we’re friends again, Dick?”
“Let’s not get sickening about it. I said I feel a bit better about you being in the game, now that I see how you’re cheating. Are you pissed at me for knocking off your hired help?”