by Lou Cameron
Captain Gringo pocketed the key as he sat down, but said he’d pass on the charms of the princess right now. He said, “I hope you impressed it on her she’s not to go out unescorted, for any reason?”
Gaston sighed and replied, “I repeated it every time she gave me the chance. It is not easy to converse with a sex maniac, even when you meet one with a brain. The woman is a moron, Dick. Wait, I take that back. I don’t think even a moron would have signed the hotel register with her right name before I could stop her! Fortunately, when one pays a week in advance, in gold, room clerks read poorly without their glasses. I paid for unlimited occupancy, by the way, in case we wish to stage an all-night orgy. May I suggest we stage one and then get our adorable asses out of here before someone blows them off?”
“Forget about Manukai and her suite for now. Have you had time to contact any of your adorable rogues, Gaston?”
“But of course, and that is why I say we should back off. The game is up. When I approached Sanchez to inquire about recruiting our own little army, he told me all the really fine thugs in Puntarenas were recruited days ago by the firm of Halle und Feldmacher, as what they called, most delicately, ‘company security guards.’ Business is business, to Sanchez. So I was able to get him to sell me the vital statistics. In addition to such guards as they must have already had, out on the Guardian Bank, they just recruited a hundred and sixty-four more! Sanchez says he might be able to scrape us up a dozen at the most, and he refuses to vouch for them being true professionals. So one might assume he is speaking of juvenile delinquents or fighting drunks at best.”
Captain Gringo grimaced and reached for a smoke as he asked, “How did you make out with the arms dealer?”
Gaston reached for his own claro as he replied, “Trés half-ass. Garcia had only one Maxim and a trés rusty Browning. He tried to sell us a rusty Hotchkiss as well that did not look to me as if it would shoot worth the shit, even cleaned. Why do you suppose they designed the Hotchkiss so trés bizarre, Dick?”
“Easy. If you don’t want to pay Maxim for his basic patent, you gotta design around it. Wait till you see how the German parabolic machine-gun action is supposed to work. Browning is the only outfit honest enough to just make a deal with the Maxim brothers and the hell with it. So the one you picked up ought to do, if it’s not too fouled to put back in shape. When and where do we take delivery?”
“Garcia says he can bring them to the schooner under the cover of darkness as well as cordwood, COD, of course. But why are we discussing the tedious cleaning of used weaponry at all? Haven’t you been paying attention? The blackbirders no doubt have their own automatique weapons, with an army to man them as well. If that is not enough to dampen your enthusiasm, may I point out once more that we don’t even know which island out there we are supposed to be invading with a handful of unprofessional fighters aboard a thin-skinned schooner with not a single deck gun to call its own?”
Captain Gringo lit his claro, took a thoughtful drag on it, and said, “It gets worse. A German gunboat just dropped anchor in the harbor, and I just had a talk with our old Prussian pal, Von Linderhoff. He hinted that they mean to blow us out of the water before we ever get there, if we’re dumb enough to try!”
“Merde alors, in that case what are we doing here? Are you waiting for the Kanakas to give us our front money before we scamper back to San José?”
“That would be dishonest,” Captain Gringo said, adding, as he spotted what was coming through the hotel entrance, “Hmm, what have we here?”
Gaston muttered, “Room two-sixty-nine. The redhead wears a wedding band,” as the two non-native girls approached the desk for their key. The redhead was redheaded indeed, and her companion’s hair was so blond it was almost white. Both looked a little wilted from the heat outside, and their thin white cotton sportswear clung to them more than the designers might have intended. They’d obviously been in the tropics long enough to know better than to wear the usual corsets and unmentionables of the Gibson girl type. It usually took a white woman less than forty-eight hours to learn that down here, though. So they might or might not be old tropic hands. Whatever they were, they sure were yummy. The redhead had the bigger derriere and the blonde had the bigger tits. Captain Gringo chuckled and said, “Oh Lord, decisions, decisions.”
But Gaston growled, “I’ll take the one in the middle. The redhead is registered as a Frau Keller. The blonde signed in as one Fraulein Manheim, and they’re both from Bremerhaven. Need I say more?”
“Glug. I just came from the local offices of Halle and Feldmacher here in town. Von Linderhoff’s using it as his local front. I wonder if the dames work directly for him or just the company. Did they check in before or after you and Manukai, Gaston?”
The Frenchman smiled thinly and said, “Alas, they were residents of this hotel before we arrived. So they could hardly be following us. But they still keep sinister company, non?”
“Yeah. I wonder where they just were. There’s not a hat shop or beauty parlor open in town right now. But I can’t see even a pair of tourists just enjoying a walk around town in this heat.”
The two German girls moved out of sight, and Gaston suggested, “Forget them. Halle und Feldmacher must have some office chores that need not be concerned with us. We were discussing how to get out of this mad business gracefully, non?”
“Non. Not until I know for sure it’s hopeless. The princess can always get someone else to lay her, and the guys and gals on the schooner are no doubt better off not trying. But meanwhile, naked natives are working under the same hot sun outside, as slaves. Held on a barren, hot rock pile by an outfit that’s beginning to steam my ass. That fucking Von Linderhoff manages to look down on the rest of the human race even when he’s trying to be friendly. I wonder what it is about Prussians that makes it so easy to dislike them?”
Gaston wrinkled his nose in disgust and said, “Had you been with me during the Franco-Prussian War, you would not have to ask. But look at the bright side, Dick. No matter how much the young Kaiser wants to match the empire of his grandmother Victoria, he’ll never be able to hold it. The Boche simply can’t help acting like a trés rude species of bully. So in the end, everyone else gangs up on him. The one thing an Irishman and Englishman or a Frenchman and a Russian can agree on is that a German can be a trés disagreeable pain in the derriere. I think it may be all the sour food they eat, hein?”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Let’s not worry about Kaiser Willy’s plans for the future. Let’s get back to those German blackbirders out on the Guardian Bank. The charts we have aboard the Orotiki aren’t good for anything but ass-wiping. We need to find out what’s really out there. That Kanaka kid was picked up by honest Costa Rican fishermen. Ergo, some of the local fishermen must know more about those waters than the guys who made dots on official charts. You’re better at getting around the slums without attracting attention than I am. So see if you can find a native who knows what’s going on out there, and where. If he’s got a boat and wants to charter it for a moonlight cruise, so much the better.”
“Sacre bleu! Are you suggesting we invade a strongly held slave colony aboard a fishing lugger, you maniac?”
“Not really. But it’s generally a good idea to scout the enemy before you attack. With the princess here at the hotel and her schooner tied up waiting for her, and both no doubt under observation, nobody should pay all that much attention to a known native fishing boat as it puts out to catch squid or something. If you can find us one with a hairy-chested crew, and we take along at least the Maxim, just in case—”
“Just in case of what?” Gaston cut in, adding: “If we manage to sail discreetly close enough to pinpoint the exact island and we are not challenged by a German gunboat, we won’t need any weaponry. If we are challenged while bobbing about in a glorified rowboat, no weaponry it could carry would do us any good against even one one-fifty-five; and the last Boche gunboat I observed in these waters carried more than one big gun!”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “You must have seen the same one I just did. She’s got turrets fore and aft. But she’s not the only vessel we may run into off the Guardian Bank. Those blackbirders didn’t kidnap pearl divers with a German gunboat. And some automatic fire at the waterline ought to slow down any thin-skinned schooners or power launches we run into. Meanwhile, as long as the Orotiki’s tied up here in Puntarenas, that more serious German gunboat has to stay in port to keep an eye on her, see?”
“Eh bien, but can you say for sure they don’t have a sister ship keeping its one-fifty-five eyes on the Guardian Bank’s pearl beds, Dick?”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Nothing but death and taxes are for sure. But if you’d like an educated guess, it’s ten to one in our favor. The company just recruited civilian gun-slicks, meaning no German military out there so far. I’m not sure just what Der Kaiser has on his little pointed head about the Guardian Bank, but if Germany’s pussyfooting in on Samoa delicately, an open grab in Central American waters seems unlikely. They’re probably using the same approach us Yanks used in the Sandwich Islands, and that was so slow all the details haven’t been settled yet First you send in the missionaries, then the traders; then you get everyone dependent on you for heaven, and hardware, subvert the ruling class, and fill all the new civil-service positions with your own kind until they’re really running everything. One day you notice the quaint native rulers are just obstructing the progress of civilization, so you have to depose them for their own good and—”
“I know how it’s done,” Gaston cut in. “How did you think we French got Indo-Chine? But remember the Boche are not as delicate as the rest of us, Dick. When they decided it would be nice to civilize some East Africans, they simply shot down everyone who did not speak German and put the few survivors who learned German, fast, to work. Halle und Feldmacher could have recruited all the willing pearl divers they needed for much less than any white would work. But that does not seem to be the way Boche view free enterprise. As I keep repeating, if only you would listen, we are dealing with real suckers of cock, avec guns, and the only people we have to work with are happy-go-lucky hula dancers who may or may not know how to fight. If there is one thing I learned about the Boche in Seventy, at a place called Sedan, it is that the Boche fight as hard as they brag!”
Captain Gringo consulted his watch and said, “You’d better leave first. I’ll tail you a couple of blocks to make sure you’re not being shadowed. Then I’ll head back to the schooner and wait for you with my sweaty duds off and my hard-on, if a lady I just met back there still likes me.”
“Dick, you are being trés cruel to animals!”
“I know. The sooner you finish your chores in town, the sooner you’ll be able to join us. I’ll ask old Likelike if she has a friend for you.”
Gaston made a dreadful remark about Captain Gringo’s mother and got wearily to his feet to leave. Captain Gringo waited a few moments, yawned, and got up to head for the public toilets across the lobby. As he did so, a pair of German agents who’d been hiding in another palmy corner behind yesterday’s edition of La Prenza exchanged thoughtful glances. One said, “We had better follow the Frenchman. He can’t be going out to buy flowers in the heat of La Siesta. So we’d better find out what he’s really after, nicht wahr?”
The other spy asked, “What about the others, here in the hotel?” And the one in command said, “Ach, it’s obvious nobody else will make any interesting moves until at least three. Not even that big Yankee is dumb enough to go out in this heat when he doesn’t have to. So the little Frog must be up to something important. Come, let us follow before he can get out of sight. I certainly don’t want to have to run after him in this hellish heat!”
They both rose, as Captain Gringo watched them from the slit of the toilet door. As they ambled innocently out, the junior spy squinted and said, “There he goes, around that corner to our south. But you are all too right about the heat, and Von Linderhoff told us to keep our eye on pussy for him!”
His boss growled, “What is there for a gentleman to report about sweaty pussy behind a locked door? Let Captain Gringo worry about it. If half of what they say about him is true, he’ll still be screwing when we come back. After we find out what Verrier is up to.”
Since Gaston was out of sight, the two burly Germans made no attempt to hide their actions as they simply moved across the calle to the shade on that side and followed it to the corner Gaston had rounded.
Captain Gringo waited and did the same—once the guys tailing Gaston had peered around the corner, seen Gaston cutting around yet another, and followed.
The game went on for six or seven zigzag blocks, since Gaston was a caution when it came to ducking around corners. Each time he did, the Germans would leg it after him while Captain Gringo waited for them to round a corner so he could follow the same route. It was hot as the hinges of hell, and the narrow shady streets smelled awful as Gaston worked them all deeper into a squalid part of town where even if someone looked out an unshuttered window during the afternoon heat, they never saw anything the police could get out of them. Gaston was, in fact, in an alleyway he knew well indeed when he decided to make his move.
The Germans, of course, saw him enter it. Their mistake was in following a knockaround old guy like Gaston into any alley. The agent in the lead took a cautious peek around the corner, cheek pressed to rough stucco, and said, “It’s clear. He’s moved through the block, the skittering little cockroach. Cover me. I’m moving down to the far end, schnell! We must not let him lose us, and it’s beginning to look as if he’s trying to!”
“Be careful!” his companion warned as the leader made tracks down the narrow alley. He didn’t make it to the far end. As he passed a door niche, Gaston stepped out, knife in hand, to end his curiosity forever with a well-placed stab in the back.
The agent covering the recently living back of his comrade of course gasped “Ach!” and drew his Mauser. But before he could nail Gaston, he gasped “Ach!” again and dropped it when Captain Gringo blew his spine in two with a well-aimed round of hot lead!
Gaston had his own .38 out as Captain Gringo rounded the corner on the double, leaping over the body blocking the alley entrance. Gaston held his fire after all as the taller American joined him by the other body. The little Frenchman smiled up at him and said, “Bless you, my child. Let us get our adorable asses in gear before the trés fatigue police arrive. Must you always be so noisy?”
Captain Gringo told him to hold the thought as he dropped to one knee to pat down the handiest corpse. He took out the dead man’s passport and said, “German. It doesn’t say right out he works for German Intelligence, but one out of two ain’t bad. Which way do you suggest we run?”
Gaston said, “This way, of course,” as, suiting deeds to words, he put his gun away, reached up with both hands, and boosted himself over a garden wall. Captain Gringo did the same. So, as they heard the distant melody of police whistles, they were strolling across a pleasant pateo toward the back of a house facing the street to the east. The back door opened and a lady wearing more paint than clothing stared out warily before she recognized Gaston of old and said, “Oh, it’s you. Are you boys really that hard up? I know the front door’s locked for La Siesta, but, no shit, the girls are really pretty tired and sweaty right now:”
Gaston introduced Captain Gringo to the madam, by a ridiculous name, and said, “In that case, we may settle for a drink, querida. Since I never lie to the ones I love, I must tell you frankly we climbed over your back wall to avoid trouble.”
She said, “I heard a gunshot just now. Was that you, Gaston?”
“Mais non, on my mother’s honor I can swear I have not fired my gun all day. But someone else must have. A pair of Anglo types lie casually about in the alley out back at the moment. We did not seek to determine the cause of their unusual positions. We, like yourself, find it trés fatigue to discuss matters we know little about with La Policia,
hein?”
The madam said, “Oh shit, let’s all get inside before some nosy cop sticks his head over my back wall. Do I have your word you didn’t shoot those tourists, Gaston? Sooner or later someone’s going to ask me what I know about it, you know, and a girl like me has to stay in good with the authorities.”
Gaston drew his revolver as she led them inside, saying, “Smell my weapon if you do not believe me. I am très hurt that you even suspect me of such unseemly behavior, Conchita mia! I already swore, on my mother’s honor, I have not shot a single soul, today at least.”
The madam laughed and said, “Put that gun away, you idiot. Your mother wouldn’t have had you if she’d had any honor. But I have never caught you in a lie, so you must be either truthful or too clever a liar for La Policia to catch up with. I don’t really care one way or the other, as long as me and my girls are not involved.”
She led them into a darkened sitting room and waved them to seats as she poured drinks at a corner bar. Gaston nudged Captain Gringo and whispered, “Would you like some of that, Dick? It’s too hot to fuck, but she gives très fantastique head!”
“I heard that,” Conchita said as she turned with a tray of drinks. It didn’t seem to have upset her to be described as a great blow-job, judging from her Mona Lisa smile as she swayed over to them, the front of her thin silk kimono open for full inspection. It opened wider as she sat across from them, saying, “He’s full of shit. I don’t service the customers myself, and Gaston knows it.”
Gaston took his highball with a chuckle, saying, “True, she only fucks her friends, and she hasn’t got an enemy in the world.”