by Lou Cameron
“We’d need them,” sighed Captain Gringo, adding, “if we were going with you. There’s no way you’d smuggle anything through happy-go-lucky Costa Rican lawmen after arriving by stage with a machine gun braced out a window.” Then he turned to Gaston and said, “You know all the roughnecks in these parts, Gaston. Couldn’t you scout up a couple of tough hairpins who’d work for a hundred a day?”
“Mais oui! I could hire a platoon of rogues for that kind of money. The complication would be hiring honest rogues though. M’mselle would no doubt be safe enough going west, empty-handed. Coming back with a bag of untraceable emeralds in the rough might be another matter!”
Claudette nodded and said, “You two are the only rogues I can trust. You have to help me, Dick. My hotel’s not far. Why don’t we talk about it some more as I show you the new weapons I just bought?”
Captain Gringo hesitated. He had a pretty good idea what she wanted to show him. But even if she did trust him, he didn’t return her trust worth a damn. Gaston stood up and said, “Guard our seats and we’ll be right back, m’mselle. Come, Dick, I think I’d better have a fatherly talk with you, hein?”
The blonde remained seated at the table as the two soldiers of fortune moved out of earshot, under an archway. Gaston said, “I vote oui, Dick. What have we to lose? The last time we worked with her we made an easy thousand, non?”
“It wasn’t that easy. We damn near got killed. Do you buy her story this time, Gaston? The last time she tried to hire us, she handed us a real line of bullshit.”
“True. She may be shitting us now. But what of it? We could use the extra cash, and it makes me uneasy to have a woman wandering about San José weeping that we owe her a thousand dollars.”
“Yeah. The cops here don’t bother us because they see no reason to. But there could be limits, even to a Costa Rican lawman’s tolerance, if she bitched to them about us. But do you think she could? She’s not exactly as pure as the driven snow, either.”
Gaston shrugged and said, “Why worry about the unpredictable moods of a woman when it seems so easy to keep her happy, hein? There are no bandits in the mountains to the west. None I have heard of, at any rate. The ride to the coast by stage will be fast and reasonably comfortable. Why not go along with her droll tale and discharge our modest obligations to the attractive pest, hein? Who knows, we may even find out what she is really up to.”
Captain Gringo smiled crookedly and said, “You don’t buy that story about smuggled emeralds either, eh?”
“Mais non. It is all too complicated. Why go to the trouble of sneaking illegal gemstones through even a nice banana republic when they have a clean run north to the gem market of San Francisco, hein?”
“Maybe they want to smuggle ’em back to France?”
“I doubt that very much. Nobody pays more for jewelry than your Yankee nabobs by the Golden Gate. Europe is not only trés lousy with gems, legal and otherwise, but three times as far by sea as jolie Frisco. I hazard a guess she is still working for young Kaiser Willy. The German navy is doubtless still interested in how things are going at the Pacific end of the bogged-down Panama Canal project and—”
“Gotcha. The old shell game again. She’ll probably really pick up some rough emeralds, or something that looks like rough emeralds, and ask us to guard the hell out of ’em while she packs stolen or copied documents in the lining of another carpetbag.”
“Oui. Leave that part to me, Dick. You watch her emeralds and, if possible, distract her with amour long enough for me to steal or make a copy of our own, depending on opportunity.”
Captain Gringo looked blank and asked, “What the hell for? We don’t work for Colombia. What the hell do we care if the Germans are spying on them or not? The Kaiser seems to be a nasty little prick. But the junta running things to the south is no better.”
“Eh bien. And meanwhile nobody can figure out when and if the triple-titted canal will be built, or by whom. Der Kaiser won’t be the only prick willing to pay good money for whatever Claudette and her chums have to deliver to the German embassy here in San José, hein?”
“Jesus, you’re right! That’s why she only wants to deliver her so-called smuggled goods here to the capital, smack in the middle of the highlands!”
“Qui. If the intent was to smuggle them to France, she would have wanted us to accompany her all the way down to Limón, on the east coast. There are a few bandits haunting the lowland jungles down that way. This whole droll scheme is a snipe hunt, as you Yanks say. But, as you also say, what the hell, it’s a pretty snipe, with possible added attractions in the form of ill-gotten gains to sell to the highest bidder along Embassy Row when we get back, hein?”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “It’s starting to make sense. Sort of. There’s still a piece missing. Why is she hiring us at all if she isn’t picking up real emeralds and there aren’t any bandits along the trail?”
Gaston shrugged and said, “Perhaps she thinks there may be, non? On the other hand, since we know she is a spy, and others may know she is a spy, she may have some other spies after her, non?”
“That makes even more sense. But whose spies? The States’, Great Britain’s, France’s? Hell, for all we know, the Imperial Russian Navy may be just as interested as Germany in the Panama Canal project. How do we find out? I doubt like hell Claudette’s about to tell us!”
Gaston shrugged and replied, “What does it matter, Dick? We are soldiers of fortune. We fight for the flag of the highest bidder. Up to now, nobody but Claudette has offered us a centavo. You run along and see her guns and other charms. I shall stay here and make your apologies to Maria when and if she arrives, hein? Don’t look at me like that, Dick. Of course I won’t try to steal your girl while you set things up with Claudette in order to rob her blind!”
*
The little hotel Claudette led him to surprised Captain Gringo. He never would have picked it as a hideout. Prices in the tropics were so low that while it might have passed as second-rate in the States, down here it was the sort of dump the local cops tended to keep an eye on, with good reason. He wondered idly whether she was broke or just had a lot to learn about traveling submerged.
There were some advantages to the shabby little hotel near the plaza. A wan, wee lamp was burning in the vestibule, but there was no desk clerk or any other sign that the landlord gave a damn who came or went. The well-dressed blonde led him up a narrow flight of rickety stairs and along a dark narrow hallway to her corner room. She struck a match as they entered. Joints like this one had never heard of Thomas Alva Edison and couldn’t have afforded the new Edison bulbs if they had.
Claudette lit a candle on the washstand near the door and moved over to the shuttered windows to open the jalousies. She said, “I hid the guns under the mattress. Let’s hope they’re still there.”
They were. Captain Gringo lifted a corner of the mattress and slid out the two Winchesters. The carbines were spanking new and, when he levered open the chambers, loaded. He nodded and leaned both guns in a corner by the bed, as the blonde took a pasteboard carton from under the pillows and asked, “Are you still carrying that same .38, Dick?”
He smiled crookedly and said, “Hardly the same one. But, given my druthers, I favor a double-action .38 under the same old armpit. Why?”
She held out the carton and said, “Extra ammunition for your sidearms, if you and Gaston should need it.”
He stuffed the carton in the side pocket of his linen jacket and said, “You must really expect a lot of trouble between here and the coast, doll.”
Then he took off his sombrero and jacket and sat down on the bed to take off his boots. Claudette blinked and asked, “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dick?”
He said, “Make sure the door’s locked. What the hell do you think I’m doing? Enough of this foreplay. Take off your clothes.”
She moved to lock the barrel bolt between them and the hall, but said, “You certainly seem to take a lot for granted, Dick!
I know we, ah, used to know each other well. But I’m still a little cross with you, and—”
“Look, do you want to be friends again or don’t you?” he cut in, adding, “You were the one who asked me up here, doll face. I just stood up a nice little enchilada for you. But it’s not too late to keep my date with her, if you’ve suddenly vowed celibacy for some dumb reason.”
“You’re a beast.” She sighed, unpinning her hat and hanging it up as she snuffed out the candle. There was enough light through the open windows to follow the rest of her motions as Claudette undressed, muttering to herself that all men were alike.
He beat her into bed, not having as much to remove and having started earlier. Claudette got down to her corset, knickers, and long black stockings before she suddenly giggled and asked him, “Will you be staying the night, dear?”
He said, “I’d better not. Have to check with Gaston later at our own hotel. Why?”
“I’d better leave this corset on, then. I have a few last-minute errands, too, and it takes forever to get in and out of the silly thing.”
She moved over to the bed and slid off her black silk knickers. He saw that, sure enough, she was still really a brunette. As she got into bed with him, he took her in his arms, rolled atop her, and said, “Hi. Long time no see.”
She started to protest his matter-of-fact approach. But he kissed her to shut her up as he spread her silk-sheathed thighs and parted her pubic hair with his erection. She gasped but tongued him as he drove it into her to the roots and started pounding. He wasn’t usually this brutal with a woman. But the nice thing about looking up old bedmates was that you knew right off how they liked it best. This wasn’t the first time he’d been in Claudette. The last time she’d practically raped him!
He raised himself on braced elbows to let them both breathe as the action heated up and the damned cinch around her narrow waist began to chafe his own bare belly. The view was inspiring. Claudette had an hourglass figure even when she wasn’t trying to cut it in twain with a black band of whalebone and silk lace. In the romantic glow of the streetlamp through the nearby window, her bobbing breasts were highlighted in old gold and shaded into deep purple. Her face wasn’t bad, either, as she smiled up at him and said, “I’d forgotten how good it was with you, darling. Have you been true to me since last we met like this in Cayenne?”
He laughed down at her and replied, “About as true to you as you’ve been to me, I’d say. I like that new trick you picked up with those internal muscles, doll. But could you move your ass a bit more?”
“Oh, you’re just horrid!” she protested, raising her knees to hug his hips with her thighs as she started bouncing better but still went on milking him with her educated vaginal contractions. They both went crazy for a while, came together, as old pals tended to, then lay still in each other’s arms as they recovered their wind and lowered their guards a bit.
He was soaking silently in her when Claudette broke the contented calm by chuckling fondly and murmuring, “I’m glad you haven’t changed, Dick. I confess I’ve always been a little coy, for a dedicated sex maniac.”
“Yeah, I noticed you seemed a little prim at first this evening. How come? You must have known I’d lay you as soon as we were alone, doll.”
“I was hoping you’d still want to. But this means a change in plans. I was hoping to go right back to the plaza with you as soon as we picked up the guns and ammo. But the damage is done, and now it’s too late to catch the night stage to the coast. So would you like to try some dog-style?”
That sounded reasonable. He dismounted and let her roll over on her knees and elbows across the bed before putting it back in her, standing barefoot on the floor as he grasped one of her hip bones in each hand and proceeded to pleasure her in a less romantic but deeper way as she arched her spine to take it all.
Another advantage of dog-style, with old friends, was that it was easier to chat in this position. So as he screwed her, he asked her, conversationally, why the hell she wanted to travel at night by coach, adding, “Guys who stop coaches for a living prefer moonlight and deserted roads, doll. It’s a hell of a lot safer traveling by day. Is it?”
“Oooh, that’s too deep! Could you … ah, yes, that’s better. I thought the night coach was better because it arrives in Puntarenas about nine in the morning, while it’s still cool. It’s hotter than blazes in the lowlands at this time of the year, and we may have to wait on the docks awhile.”
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced that way, and saw they were reflected in the mirror on the far wall. It was amazing that anything that felt so good could look so vulgar. It inspired him to move his bare ass faster as he asked her, “How come we have to hang around on the docks, doll? I thought we were meeting a schooner?”
“We are. But for security reasons nobody told me its name. My contact with the emeralds knows me on sight. He’ll be disguised, of course. I’m to wait at a certain sidewalk cantina along the waterfront. That’s another reason I need a male escort and … oooh, you are male, aren’t you?”
She started moving her lamp lit rump to meet his thrusts by flexing her spine, and now, although he was hitting bottom with every stroke, she didn’t seem to mind it at all. It looked wild as hell in the mirror over there. Suddenly she bit down hard and pulled him after her by the dong as she fell limply across the bed. He could tell by her pulsations that she was enjoying a long protracted orgasm as he lay atop, and in, her. He withdrew, rolled her over on her back, and hooked an elbow under each of her knees to open her wide and finish it right for her. She rolled her blond head from side to side, moaning that he was killing her, as she bumped and ground her pubic bone against his. His feet were braced against the floor and his questing shaft was kissing her throbbing wet uterus when he exploded inside her again. She moaned, “Oh, me too! I can’t stop coming!”
But they finally did, of course. That was the trouble with the good things in life. People could work twelve hours at a stretch in a factory but the pleasures of food and fornication were all too fleeting. She said he was getting heavy. So he rolled off to let her fight for her second wind as he fumbled for a smoke, if he could remember where he’d dropped his damned shirt. He had to sit up to get at it.
Claudette sighed up at him and said, “God, you have a lovely body, Dick. How soon do you have to leave?”
“Not right now. Just looking for my fucking cigars and a match. But let me get it straight about our pickup on the coast. Do you have a particular time as well as place to meet this mysterious sailor, honey?”
“No, dear. They can see the cantina tables from aboard the schooner. But about the night coach and our time of arrival—”
“Yeah, sitting at a tin table under an afternoon sun in this neck of the woods isn’t just asking for heat stroke. It could make even a Costa Rican cop curious as hell. But look, if we catch the morning coach it’ll get us to Puntarenas around three in the afternoon. La siesta lasts till four or later in the dry season. So, while it’ll be hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement as we arrive, not a damned soul will spot us arriving. We can beeline from the coach station to a shady posada I know there, tear off a bath and some more of this to recover from the long dusty trip, and meet your smuggling buddies in the cool of evening when nobody will notice us as we stroll the waterfront, right?”
She thought and said, “That makes sense. I’m glad I looked you up again, Dick. I confess I have a lot to learn about the kind of life I’m forced to lead.”
“Don’t tell me how a nice girl like you got into this business, por favor. The last time you told me the story of your life it was all bullshit, remember?”
She laughed and said, “A girl has to have some kind of cover story, dear. But you’re right. Ships that pass in the night don’t have to send false signals.”
“As long as their gun ports are closed,” he amended, placing his unlit claro on the bed table and adding, “Can’t find a match. But the hell with it. A guy can
smoke any old time.”
He lay back down beside her and took her in his arms once more. She kissed him, tongued him, and ran her hand down to fondle his semi erection. She murmured, “Oh, the poor thing seems to be tired. Mama had better kiss it and make it well.”
That sounded friendly. So he rolled on his back and relaxed as she started kissing her way down his belly. He tried to remember if she’d done this the last time. A lot of broads had passed under the bridge since he’d first met old Claudette, and … and then her moist lips engulfed his flaccid flesh and he knew for sure they’d been interrupted in Cayenne before they’d gotten around to everything. He’d have never forgotten anyone who gave such nice face. Only one woman in ten really knew how to give French lessons right. Claudette was the tenth. She pursed her lips over her teeth to form a soft fleshy doughnut around his shaft as she inhaled it until her pert nose was tickling his balls with Eskimo kisses and his foreskin was getting stripped back and forth by the base of her tongue. He had no idea why she didn’t gag with his growing erection so deep in her throat. But if it didn’t bother her, it surely didn’t cause him any discomfort!
She knew the effect she was having on his organ grinder as she sucked it even deeper. That seemed to make her even hotter, and she made little growling noises that tingled the hell out of the exposed head in her throat. He started moving his hips as he saw she could literally take fucking that way, too. She responded by cocking one leg over his chest to settle her bare groin over his own face, expectantly.
The lamplight from outside was shining on her bare buttocks and smooth naked upper thighs, and her slit glistened wetly through her dark pubic hair. He had to think about that. Captain Gringo considered himself a good sport. But while it seemed common courtesy to return such lovely favors, Claudette wasn’t exactly a blushing virgin, and the trouble with a gal who screwed literally at the drop of a hat was that one suspected they screwed a lot. If he could have her easy, God only knew whom she’d submit to after a little effort!