by Lou Cameron
“The master didn’t say, sir.”
“Right. What’s your name, friend?”
“I have no name. I am no friend to anyone but Sir Basil. I hope you have a pleasant day, sir.”
Captain Gringo laughed and muttered, “Up yours, too,” as he turned and walked away. The villa lay on a walled-in street, away from the sea cliffs. As he strolled down the walk the American reloaded his pistol and put it away, wondering if this was another trick. Hakim was like one of those Russian dolls you opened to find another doll, and yet another, inside. He really worked at keeping you guessing. The best way to handle it might be to just give up and take the little nut at face value.
A man could go crazy trying to figure the odd pair out, and that was probably their intention. The American knew the old sideshow trick of distracting the sucker with a lot of fancy moves. He knew stage magicians hated performing before children because the kids didn’t know enough to watch the moving fingers like their wiser elders. He decided to just float with it for now and waste no more effort on doping Hakim out. He had to find Gaston Verrier and, if there was time, make sure Marie was all right. What had that crack about recent widows meant? Did they think he was having it with Marie? Did they want him to? Or were they trying to discourage the idea? He’d play that as it lay, too. He had a certain advantage with Marie. He didn’t care one way or the other.
Then he grinned in the shade of his wide-brimmed hat and muttered, “Who are we kidding? You know you’d love it. That dirty Jenny has a hold on you you have to break, and there’s nothing like nicer stuff to clean a gent’s mind.”
The road led downhill between other villas and stucco-walled gardens. The climate was too wet in Panama for the ’dobe of Mexico. Whatever they used for bricks was covered with thick pastel stuff that looked like cake icing in every shade from mint green to baby pink. The roofs of the more substantial homes were terra-cotta tiles. As he got into the less prosperous neighborhoods closer to the port, they turned to thatch or corrugated iron. Panama City wasn’t big. It clung like a glob of stranded seaweed to the shore. Some streets ran up into the brushy hills above the sea. Others steamed wetly on the tidal flats. He had no trouble finding the usual main plaza, an arcade-laced apron spread from the lap of an old Spanish cathedral.
Captain Gringo circled under the arches, trying to get the feel of the town as it came awake in the morning sun. There was a salty tang in the air, and the ends of streets leading west from the plaza ended in groves of ships’ masts. The tropic air was filled with the cries of parrots and other jungle birds. But herring gulls sporting the frosty plumage of the northern seas fought with magpies and painted hornbills for the garbage around the edges. One got the distinct impression the spoils of Panama were up for grabs to the birds of passage of the world.
Human birds of passage were to be seen on the streets even this early in the day. The ships down by the quays had brought in crews and cargo from every corner of the wide Pacific, to sweat out the bottleneck of the single railroad through the jungles to the other side. The cargo could wait in the ships or warehouses between the waterfront and railroad yards. The men were less patient. Those with money to jingle in their jeans roved the streets and back alleyways for excitement after long weeks at sea. Others, stranded for any number of reasons and broke because it was a wild, expensive town, roved the same byways for a chance at an easy score. Captain Gringo noted men of every shade and apparent origin. He saw tall, tow-headed Nordics with the cool, keen look of hungry gulls. There were small, dark Latins, as quick of wit and as opportunistic as the tropical magpies. There were West Indians, black and as ready to laugh, or steal, as any crow. Others he saw wore less obvious colors, and only a knock-around who might have noticed the wheels clicking behind their otherwise impassive eyes as they coolly watched and waited.
The native Panamanians were less like Mexicans than Captain Gringo had expected. The shy charm of the Mexican peon he’d come to know was replaced by a coiled-spring awareness in the desperately casual eyes that seemed to sweep over a stranger without noticing him. He knew the little city had led a harder life than most. Aside from the national sport of revolution, they’d been looted by pirates, bombarded by several navies, and grown up playing host to the toughest seamen from every merchant fleet on earth. Any Saturday night in Panama could see the crew of a British warship brawling with Yankee whalers. Russian seal hunters fought with Scandinavian sealers on sight. Australian wheat clipper men fought anyone and everyone on general principles. Tough, stubborn Dutchman from the East Indies traveled in pairs, drank gin like water, and didn’t like to fight with their fists. They killed.
And aside from honest merchantmen, there were the crews of the less savory ocean trades. Blackbirders from the South Seas. Chinese smugglers putting in to await winter fogs before dashing up the coast to land their forbidden, miserable cargo. And, of course, the vultures of every nationality who followed the drums of war and revolution.
A member of this species was a man Captain Gringo was looking for. Gaston Verrier was not a friend. Gaston was too practique to be the friend of any man. But like Captain Gringo, Verrier was a soldier of fortune, and had been at it longer. He knew that the dapper, deadly French Foreign Legionnaire would be in the know and probably making money on any action going. He knew Gaston would cut him in, not because they were old school chums, but because they knew the advantages of working together. In Mexico they’d been a deadly team. In Panama they’d be more than a match for any ten ordinary guns for hire.
Captain Gringo found a cantina that was open and went in. He ordered rum and took his glass to a blue tempera table where he could watch the scene outside.
A pretty but tawdry-looking puta in a flounced skirt came over and sat down. Her voice dripped honey but her eyes were tired as she murmured, “Buenos dias, marinero. ¿Como se llama?”
He answered in Spanish, saying, “Names are not important, but I’ll buy you a drink.”
The puta nodded to the surly bartender, who silently came over to place a glass of colored water in front of her and scoop up the coin on the table without comment.
Captain Gringo said, “I am looking for a man.”
“Oh, one of those, eh? I know a boy named Tico who is said to like such things. But he is most expensive. What are you, a Greek? You don’t look like a Greek.”
“That wasn’t what I had in mind. The man I’m looking for is a middle-aged Frenchman. They call him Gaston.”
“French, eh? Listen, I can suck as good as any fucking Frenchman.”
He sighed and said, “Drink your water and forget it. You don’t look like a stupid girl. Gaston hangs out here. I’ll tell him when I see him that you’re his friend.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you a cop?”
“Hey, I bought you a drink. Let’s not get insulting.”
“You’re cute. Why don’t we go up to my room for a while? Your friend won’t be here for hours. Not that I know who he is, you understand.”
He took out a bill and spread it on the table as he mused, “I know you don’t know Gaston Verrier. But, as I said, you look like a very bright girl—”
“You’re damned right I’m bright!” she cut in, adding, “Do you see the mark of la vaca on my cheek? You know you don’t. I’m a regular who knows better than to betray a confidence.”
He tore the bill in two and said, “I haven’t finished. I was saying I knew you’d never tell a stranger anything you’d been told to forget. Do you see what I just did?”
“Yes. You must be crazy. I don’t make that in a night when the fleet is in. Why are you shoving half that bill at me? You know I can’t spend half a bill.”
“You’re still not listening. I’m giving the other half to you later tonight. The bartender is listening, so you have a witness that you’ve told me nothing and done nothing for me, right?”
“That, by my very God, is true. I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
; “I think you do, but let’s not argue about it. I know you never heard of Gaston. But after I leave if anyone were to tell him I was looking for him, it would be up to him whether he wanted to be here later tonight. Right?”
The puta repeated he was crazy, but he noticed she’d tucked the mutilated bill in the top of her low-cut blouse. He drained his glass and stood up, saying, “I’ll be back around six. I’m expected elsewhere for an eight-o’clock dinner.”
“This man you keep saying I know … what would you be called in case some other crazy man comes in here asking questions?”
“He’ll know me. Just describe me to him and mention Mexico.”
“You don’t look Mexican, either. You look like a gringo.”
“That’s close enough. Remember, six o’clock.”
He went outside to continue his tour of the town. It would soon be siesta time. If he was going to make sure Marie Chambrun was all right he’d do best to call on her before the town shut down until after three. She’d be home during siesta, of course, but getting people to come to the door during the hotter part of the day could be a bother. He knew from experience how many Latin Americans spent siesta completely nude behind their shuttered windows, and it was considered rude to bother anyone at such times.
He had another angle. He hadn’t asked Sir Basil for the address, so they might not be expecting him to call. He seldom announced his near-photographic memory, and it would be interesting to follow up on the street number he’d heard Marie mention casually the night before.
He saw some boys unloading a grocery cart in front of a bodega, and he asked directions. Then he headed for Marie’s place, cutting through an alley they’d told him was a shortcut.
He would never know whether the grocery boys had fingered him or if he’d been followed from the bar. They didn’t have a conversation about it. The two thugs who caught up with him in the alley just bored in like silent wolves. One was flashing a dramatic knife. The other one had something wrapped in a rolled newspaper. Captain Gringo knew he was the muscle of the team, so he ignored the dancing knife man, lunged at the bigger one with the probable lead pipe, then crabbed sideways into a doorway as the rolled-up paper whipped through the space his Panama hat had been heading before the unexecuted cut to the side. Captain Gringo dropped to one knee with his back to the door and drew the S&W. The footpads took one look at the nickel-plated gun and began to crawfish backward, grinning like coyotes who’d just noticed a watchdog in the henhouse. Captain Gringo assumed the show was over.
He assumed wrong. The one with the knife gave a surprised gasp and buckled at the knees. He dropped the blade and fell, limp as a sock full of shit. The American knew he was dead before he hit the bricks with his face.
Nobody fell like that if there was a spark of life in even an unconscious brain.
The one with the club whirled around to run, coughed deep in his chest, and staggered into the opposite wall, where he deflated like a punctured hot-water bottle, streaking the stucco with a red stripe of blood as he slid down it.
Captain Gringo crouched in the doorway, eyes narrowed and alert for the slightest sound or movement. There wasn’t any. The sky above the surrounding wall and rooftops was an empty blue. He hadn’t heard the sounds of the shots. Yet both his attackers had obviously been gunned.
“Maxim,” he grunted. He knew the same Maxim who’d invented the belt-fed machine gun had perfected a device to silence gun shots. Together with DuPont’s new smokeless powder, it was getting easier and easier to shoot people without attracting much attention.
He called out, “All right, whose side are you on?”
There was no answer.
He hadn’t really expected any. The gunman with the silencer had had him cold, and the men who’d just died had been after his wallet. Ergo it was not only probable he was free to move on, but also a good idea. He didn’t look forward to explaining what had just happened to the local law.
Holstering the S&W, he rose, dusted off his knee, and moved through the alley at a pace too fast to be called a walk and too slow to attract attention as a run. He slowed down at the far end and stepped out on another street. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to him. He hoped he could keep it that way.
He legged it up the hill toward the address he’d memorized. At the corner he stopped and knelt as if to tie his shoe. He wore a boot rather than a shoe, but anyone following him might not know that, and it was a tried and trusty way to look back the way you’d just come without being obvious about your suspicions.
There was nobody following him—nobody he could see, that was. If his mysterious gunman was working for Sir Basil, he’d know the man he was guarding or whatever wore no shoelaces. The hairpin was good, whoever he was. Captain Gringo was sincerely glad the mystery gunslick’s orders didn’t seem to include his execution. But it made him nervous as hell.
He walked on, considering a few ploys to throw his unwanted guardian off his tail. But then he decided it would be pointless effort for them both. By now anyone working for Sir Basil knew where he was headed. If he lost them here, they’d pick him up again there.
Was he putting the French girl in danger by going on to her place? Not really. If Sir Basil’s servants had driven her home they’d had plenty of opportunity to do her dirt. The only way he was going to know they hadn’t was by seeing for himself.
He turned the corner, looking for the number, and as luck would have it, was approaching the door when a hackney coach stopped in front of it and Marie, herself, got out.
She saw him at the same time and smiled radiantly as he came up to her and tipped his hat. She said, “Oh, I have so much good news to tell you! I just came from the Palace of Justice. Sir Basil is a wizard, I believe!”
“They gave you a judgment against the defunct canal company?”
“Mais non! I got the money! A bank draft made on the Bank of England. The magistrate was most agreeable and considerate. He suggested I cash it when I return to France. It is good as gold, but of no use to any thief, since it is made out to me alone.”
“I know how bank drafts work. You’ll be leaving us soon, eh?”
“But of course, as soon as I, how you say, tie up the loose ends here in Panama.”
There was an awkward moment as they stood there in the hot sun. Then she dimpled and said, “Forgive me, I am so excited I forgot my manners. Would you like to come in for refreshment? La siesta is about to begin and, as you know, you will not be able to find anything open until three if you get hungry or thirsty.”
He protested he didn’t want to be a bother, but, as he’d hoped, she unlocked the door and ushered him inside. He saw she had a private entrance. Her doorway led up a narrow flight to the second floor. Her flat was a suite of furnished rooms in the severe but comfortable Spanish style. The front windows were already shuttered against the glare of the noonday sun. Her sitting room opened onto a balcony overlooking a cool, green patio. But as he took a seat on the leather sofa she closed the jalousies on that side, too, saying, “The trick is to shut out the heat before it gets bad. These thick walls are still cool from the night air and—”
“I know how Spanish architecture works, Marie. By the time the sun goes down the walls have soaked up heat to see you through the night.”
“But exactly. My poor Jacques admired the simple inventions of the Creoles. He always said we French were wrong to dismiss the local craftsmen as primitives. He said if he were in charge of building the canal, he would have contracted with native engineers who know how to work with the jungle rather than against it.”
“He sounds like quite a man, Marie.”
“Alas, he was, and I still miss him terribly. Please feel free to remove your jacket and, of course, you may smoke. I shall throw together some petits fours and put on the tea.”
She left the room and he heard the rattle of pots and pans through a beaded curtain as he took her at her word and removed his jacket. He folded it on a nearby chair with his hat and
decided he’d look more civilized without the shoulder holster, so he hung that over the back of the same chair. Then he lit a smoke and leaned back. It was a cool, shady place to spend la siesta. He wondered if she’d mind if he hung around that long, however. If she’d lived in the tropics long enough to have taken up the native customs, she’d probably want to bathe and nap away the hotter hours.
Marie came back in with a tray of dainty little bite-sized cakes and a pot of tea. He noticed she’d changed to a Japanese kimono. It was dark blue silk and while the light was dim, he didn’t think she had anything on under it. She really had gone native. It wasn’t that hot in here.
She poured the tea as she said something about the British custom being so civilized. Apparently her late husband had adopted any ideas about comfort as he discovered them. Captain Gringo had no idea what the French did at teatime, but he knew the folks back home in New England followed Queen Victoria’s fashions as far and including the new one of a pine tree in the house at Christmas. He said, “I guess, these days, everyone’s starting to blend national customs together. Sort of skimming the cream.”
“You like skimmed cream with your tea?”
“No. I don’t like anything in it, as a matter of fact. What I meant was that the world—the civilized world, at least—is melting together in one international style. Anglo-Americans know their French wines. Frenchmen take English high tea, and, of course, the Chinese invented tea in the first place. I like that Japanese kimono.”
“You do not think it is too bold? I could never appear in public this way, but among intimates . . .”
“I said I liked it. It looks cool and sensible.”
“It is. I will not think you are naughty if you wish to unbutton your shirt a bit more. When Jacques was alive, we used to spend la siesta in complete abandon.”
Then she looked away and gasped, “Mon Dieu! What am I saying?”
“That your Jacques made you happy and that you miss him. There’s nothing mon Dieu ’bout that. It’s perfectly natural.”