by Lou Cameron
“No, I am telling you that I require an explanation. I am not at all afraid to kill for you. So why should I be afraid to kill you if I have reason to fear for my own life?”
“Good heavens, Lopez. You know I have no reason to have you killed, provided you put that gun away and show me how sorry you are. Until just this moment you’ve been one of my most valued agents. Why should I be planning anything more than perhaps some sex education for you?”
Lopez said, “Captain Gringo is good too. So is that little Frenchman. I do not think you wish them dead because they are no good to you, with or without their pants up. You will tell me now why you hire people for to die for you, or you will die for me before you can order the same dish for me.”
Hakim started to tell him to go to hell. But Hakim wasn’t ready to go there, himself, just yet, and a man who deals in death soon learns to read it in another’s eyes if he wants to go on living.
Hakim sat up, put his pecker away, and reached for a cigar as he said, “Oh, very well. I’d have preferred to share secrets with you as pillow talk, but since you’re so suspicious, I hired those two because I had to show good faith to people in high places.”
“Pero you once told me that anyone who places faith in your word deserves to be taken, Sir Hakim.”
Hakim struck a light, saying, “Of course. I run an international arms cartel, not a gentleman’s club. But it’s amazing how easy it is to confuse gentlemen as long as you don’t cheat openly at cards or seduce their servants. By the way, Lopez, should you ever spend a weekend with a peer, whatever you do, don’t fuck the chambermaid. Wives and daughters are fair game, but it’s considered crude to steal the silver or muck about with the servants.”
Lopez held the muzzle steady as he waited for Hakim to get his perfecto going. Then he said, “You are stalling. Perhaps I should tell you the two guns out front share my uneasiness about your casual attitude toward your own servants, Sir Basil.”
Hakim sighed and said, “That’s right, you did recruit them. Remind me never to do that again, when I’m setting up a field headquarters.”
He blew a taunting smoke cloud and continued. “As you and all too many other people know by now, I’d agreed to run guns to the losing side in the recent comic-opera affair they just held here. The winners won mostly because they were backed by the British government for reasons that escape me. One supposed Whitehall feels that it has to back one side or the other in such a strategic area. At any rate, British Intelligence got word that I was bending Her Majesty’s nose and export laws out of shape. So they not only told me to stop but, worse yet, got to some of my major shareholders in Woodbine Arms Limited.”
He blew an angrier cloud of smoke and continued. “That may have been another mistake on my part. But it’s awfully hard to be rich using only your own money, so I do have these blasted shareholders, and they do have some voting rights. So I can’t afford to ignore them completely. I have to soothe them from time to time with stupid assurances. When they heard we could be in trouble with silly old Vickie, they cabled me to for God’s sake dump the arms anywhere—on the other side of the border. I cabled back that I’d do my best. But I ask you, is there any profit in throwing away perfectly good guns and ammunition?”
“Perhaps not. But could you not simply get Crawford to take them back the way he came?”
Hakim shook his head and said, “No. Two reasons. I’ve already spent so much on transportation, it would cut my profits to zed by the time the arms were all the way back in Blighty. In the second place I naturally have another customer.”
“Pero everyone knows all rebel activity in this part of the world has come to an end, at least this year, Sir Hakim.”
The old rogue leered and said, “What everyone knows won’t hurt me. There’s always another year, and rebels grow on trees down here in Banana land. So while I assured my shareholders that I would do my best to abort the arms shipment and hired two well-known and reasonably honest men to back my assurances—”
“¡Hijo de perro!” Lopez cut in. “I see it all. It was all a ruse. But wait. For why did you have to go to so much trouble? Why could you not have simply told your business partners a lie about your business here? How would they ever know in London?”
Hakim said, “Simple. Nurse Page is a plant.”
“Madre de Dios, that big blonde who plays with your asshole is a spy?”
“Of course. Why else would I keep her around? She’s clumsy with her teeth, as well as her nails, and her cunt’s a gaping gash of cold fish. She’s been informing British Intelligence of every move I make, or every move I let her see me make. Don’t know if she reports how often I come in her, of course. At any rate, you can surely see by now that I’ve done everything in my power to abort the arms shipment as I was told, and as I swore I’d try. Is it my fault if the hired help fails and the arms somehow wind up in other hands?”
Lopez sighed and said, “I see how it has to work out in the end. What happens to the gringa after you are done with her?”
Hakim shrugged and said, “Nothing. You can have her if you like. I’d be foolish to kill an agent they planted on me since they’d know why I’d done so and suspect my motives at once. I assure you that my plan calls for no needless bloodshed. So put away that silly gun. I had no choice about those soldiers of fortune. But I assure you that I’m not a violent chap by nature. Business is business and sodomy is fun. So let me show you what you’ve been missing and ...”
But Lopez was backing out of the room, gun still trained on the Merchant of Death and the cold glint of death still shining from his hazel eyes. So Hakim kept very still until the handsome but disturbingly reptilian gunslick was long gone. Then he reached for the telephone set on his bed table.
There would be no dial tone until dial telephones were invented, of course. So it took Sir Basil some time and a lot of receiver clicks to determine if the line was dead. He smiled grimly and hung up. There was always another day, or in this case night, and it might not be prudent to stir from his bed before he was sure that the dangerous Lopez had vacated the premises.
The man who called himself Lopez already had. He moved down the dark, twisting calle as fast as he could without calling attention to himself. At the bottom of the slope he cut north to a corner bodega with the international blue-bell insignia attached to its hanging sign. He went inside and nodded to the woman behind the counter. She knew him on sight now, since he’d used her pay telephone often in the past few days. He went to the booth in the back and made a long-distance call. Lopez was, in fact, of Hispanic birth, but his accent vanished when someone picked up at the far end and he said, “K-43, here. The fat’s in the fire. I can’t go back to Hakim’s now. But I think I got the story out of him at gunpoint.”
The British Intelligence agent he was reporting to replied, “Do you think that was wise, old boy? I know time is of the essence, but you had orders not to give yourself away.”
K-43 said, “He still thinks I’m a hired gun. In this case a nervous one. By now Sir Basil must be used to scaring the liver and lights out of people. Never mind about my cover. Here’s the story.”
He filled his superior in on what he’d forced Hakim to tell him, and then he added, “By the way, he’s on to your Nurse Page, so anything she’s reported can be assumed to be a bushel of red herring.”
There was a pause. Then the other agent asked, “Whatever gave you the odd notion that that whore is working for us, K-43?”
Their man in San Salvador said, “Hakim just told me. He’s made her a plant. So he’s been feeding her fairy tales along with his unusual views on love. I don’t think she’s in any danger at the moment, but—”
“But she’s not working for us.” His superior cut in, adding in a wistful tone, “With you out of the picture we don’t have anyone in his organization close enough to matter, damn it.” K-43 frowned and said, “Blast. That does change the picture indeed. But Hakim’s about to fold his tent here in San Salvador in any ca
se. Don’t know where he means to move from here. But apparently his plan is going the way he wants it to go and—”
“And we still don’t know his plan.” The other cut in, adding, “Oh, certainly we know why he ordered those poor dupes into an ambush, and it’s safe to assume that Crawford’s taking the arms somewhere other than El Paso Ruido. But where? We’re talking about enough arms and ammo to start a perishing revolution, you know!”
“No argument about that, sir. What about El Condor? A bandit can always use guns and ammo, right?”
“Wrong. Hakim is a wholesaler, not a peddler of illegal fireworks. Little is known for sure about the misty El Condor and his hill tribe. But we do know a couple of things about him. He leads a gang, not an army, and even if he was in the habit of paying for things instead of simply helping himself to them, he’d have no need for that many guns. Hakim doesn’t run guns to backwoods bandits. He thinks big, and his new customer, whoever it is, has to have promised him something more than cash for a C.O.D. arms shipment. The rebels we just helped El Salvador nip in the bud had promised Hakim an exclusive import franchise on military hardware and mining explosives, among other things. Keep that second product in mind. Dynamite is cheaper to produce, and it’s sold in more bulk than bullets are. Woodbine Arms makes a lot of the stuff. Are you sure you can’t go back and patch things up?”
K-43 smiled thinly and said, “Not unless I want to grease my ass and bend over. I’m not that patriotic. Even if I was, I’d be taking a chance on a bullet in the back as well. I got the distinct impression that the old boy was most annoyed, and he’s as deadly as a cobra when he’s smiling at you.”
His superior sighed and said, “That tears it—for now, at least. Too bad about the Yank and the Frog. No way you could warn them at this late date, I suppose?”
K-43 shook his head and replied, “I don’t know where they are at the moment. If and when they reach El Paso Ruido, it will be too flaming late.”
His superior said, “Pity, but that’s the way the Great Game is played. What about your own arse, K-43?”
“I’m getting it out of here, with your permission, sir. I cut old Hakim’s wire before I went in to take the bull by the horns. But it won’t take them long to fix it. So by morning my life won’t be worth a rat turd anywhere in town.”
“You’d best get out of town, then. Contact me again once it’s safe.”
K-43, or Lopez, hung up and stepped out of the booth. He started for the front door. Then he thought better of it and stepped through the beaded curtain between the bodega and living quarters. As he headed for the back door via a dark room, a naked young girl sat up in bed, covering her breasts with her hands as she gasped, “Oh, señor! For why are you back here?” So Lopez told her to go back to sleep and kept going until he was out the back and into the alley, running like the devil was on his tail and hoping he wasn’t.
Back at the house he’d leased for this particular operation, Sir Basil Hakim was reading The Times in bed again as Nurse Page come in to tell him, “Someone’s cut the telephone line, sir.”
Hakim smiled up at her and said, “I felt sure you’d notice sooner or later, dear. It was Lopez. Rather a surly sort, eh what?”
She gulped and replied, “You knew?”
He said, “I make it a point to know everything. We’ll be leaving in the morning, I have no important calls to make tonight, so I saw no need to make a fuss about it.”
He cast his paper aside again. Nurse Page suppressed a grimace of distaste and began to unbutton her uniform as she asked him why on earth Lopez might have cut the phone line. Hakim said, “Oh, he was afraid I might take it badly when he quit without notice. That was my first impulse, as a matter of fact. But on reflection it’s less expensive to simply let a rat rim itself to death. More amusing too. Why are you taking off your clothes, dear? “
“Isn’t it about your usual time for an orgasm, sir?”
Hakim sighed wistfully and said, “As a matter of fact, I’m rather tired, and I fear we’d both be getting our hopes up in vain. Be a good child and just fetch me my opium kit tonight, eh what?”
She left the room. Sir Basil suppressed a roar of laughter. He was, in fact, wide-awake and too pleased with himself to muck about with a frigid spy now that he’d fed that other spy such a clever lie.
The dawn was actually cold as well as gray at the altitude of the convent. So the refugee girls were uncomfortable in the practical campesina costumes and sandals the practical nuns had made them change into before lining them up to meet Captain Gringo and Gaston. But it was obvious, even by dim light, that they were not campesinas, or even outdoor girls of the hidalgo class. There was no such animal. Society girls in England or the States were allowed to play tennis or ride to hounds. Highborn Hispanic ladies were supposed to just look pretty and ring for a servant whenever a chore more exhausting than fluttering a fan came up. All ten were attractive. But nobody could have been as lovely as they all seemed to think they were, and all but a couple of the younger ones could have lost a few pounds and still been pleasantly plump.
The Mother Superior wasn’t out in the courtyard. The formidable Sister Dolores seemed to be in charge. She yelled, and a skinny little Indian under a big straw sombrero came to join them, shivering like a pup who’d just pooped on the rug. It wasn’t clear whether he was cold or whether he was afraid that Sister Dolores was about to rub his nose in something. She didn’t. She told Captain Gringo, “This creature is called Jesus. I agree his name does not fit him. He is supposed to be a reformed smuggler. That strikes me as ridiculous as well. But if you keep an eye on him, he may get you all to El Paso Ruido without stealing the fillings from your teeth.”
Jesus protested, “I swear I have seen the light. I would not be going back into the Sierra Neblina had not Madre Superiora asked it of me. The mountains are most unpleasant, even when one has business up there in the mist and ghosts.”
Captain Gringo said, “I’m not as worried about your honesty as I am packing the gear we’ll need for such a big party, ’Sus. Can you get us any mules?”
Jesus said, “No, pero I already got seven burros. They are at my place, just up the trail. These fastidious ladies said I cannot not bring them into the convent.”
Captain Gringo nodded and called out to the lined-up women, “We may as well get this show on the road, muchachas. Pick up your packs and follow us.”
Not one of them did so. A couple didn’t even bother to look down at the provisions the nuns had provided for them. Captain Gringo asked, “What’s the matter? Are you all on a diet? You’re facing at least a week in the woods before you can get to that other mission on the far side of the sierra. If you don’t want to eat, you’ll still want blankets and mosquito netting at night, right?”
One of the more reasonable-looking beauties raised her hand and replied, “Por favor, señor, we are not accustomed for to carry our own luggage.”
He laughed and said, “We live and learn or we die young, doll face. But I’ll explain it one more time.”
He took a drag on his cigar, let it out, and said, “You can’t go back to El Salvador unless you enjoy gang rape and mass graves a lot. You can’t stay here because it’s only a question of time before the people who Want to treat you so nice come looking for you. You’ve all been promised safe passage to Spain by a church that doesn’t owe you that much. Us three guys have agreed to see you through the first leg of your journey as a favor to Madre Ana, not because anyone’s paying us for the extra work. So if any of you useless putas think we’re your servants, you’re stupid as well as useless.”
Sister Dolores gasped, and one of the women protested that she was not accustomed to taking crap off people who intended to go on living. But Captain Gringo just picked up his own pack and told her, “Those were the good old days. Your guys lost. You can follow us or you can wait here until the other side shows up to hand you some crap indeed.” He turned to the severe Sister Dolores to add, “Sorry about the rough tal
k, Sister. But somebody had to tell ’em.”
She tried not to smile as she replied, “I know. I couldn’t have put it any better were I allowed to.”
He grinned at her, then turned away to shout, “Vamanos, muchachas,” and started walking. He didn’t look back. But from the pissing and moaning he heard behind him it was safe to assume that at least some of them were tagging along.
They went out the gate and up a narrow footpath Jesus showed them. The Indian’s wife and kids had the burros ready in the little yard in front of their little shack. Now, since he saw that the refugee girls had brought their own gear that far, after all, Captain Gringo was a sport when the Indians offered to help the girls load their packs aboard the burros. Thirteen packs aboard seven pack saddles called for splitting some loads to balance, but nobody argued. It was too early to tell whether Captain Gringo’s dressing-down or the short uphill hike had left them speechless.
But the bitching began again by the time they were less than an hour on the trail, if trail was what one called the route Jesus chose through trackless forest at sometimes alarming angles. Seven halter ropes divided among thirteen sets of hands left plenty of mischief for idle hands. So a plump satin doll with copper hair and pouty lips caught up with Captain Gringo to demand a trail break, explaining that some of the girls were feeling faint. He said, “If anyone faints, they’ll be left behind. I mean to stop every hour on the hour until we’re all legged up a bit. What are you complaining about? The burros are doing all the work.”
She shook her copper curls and protested, “Pero no, I assure you that my legs have not been worked so hard since I learned to ride, señor.”
He chuckled and said, “Sidesaddle with a peon leading, no doubt. How are you called, señorita?”
She said, “My name is Consuela Perez y Zamora, and I am addressed as señora, not señorita. My husband is a full colonel in the Salvadoran Army.”