by Lou Cameron
“This isn’t my first revolution. I’ll buy some local officials being in on the fix. I understand there are two other rebel factions: one backed by the British, the other by the United States-banking interests who own half the country already. How many guns do you figure to sell them?”
“Alas, not many. We have a rather grotesque situation here. The American-backed rebels may be thought of as conservatives. They want to set up a republic not to change things, but to make things more so. The liberal party in Bogota is against El Pulpo del Norte. They think Americans and other outsiders own too much down here already. The Bogota conservatives are simply underachievers, living in some dream castle of Latin history.”
“So the fighting will be more between the rebel factions than against the far-off central government. Let’s try the British-backed faction for size, Sir Basil. You’re a British subject.”
“True, but a free-lance arms merchant. A British-dominated Panama would be rather dreary to contemplate, don’t you agree? Sunset guns, bagpipes, flag ceremonies, lawn tennis, and, of course, a war with the United States.”
“Back it up. If America might invoke the Monroe Doctrine against a British-led coup—”
“No might about it, dear boy. Your Secretary of State has already delivered an ultimatum. Washington will accept Colombian rule of Panama, for now. Washington would recognize the Balboas, if they won. Washington would wink at an American-inspired takeover. Queen Victoria has been told, in no uncertain terms, to keep her perishing paws off Panama, and with that Bismarck chap upsetting people so in Europe, the Queen’s Government is not ready for a war on this side of the brine.”
“Then what the hell is Greystoke up to?”
“He doesn’t want a revolution at all. The present Colombian clique owns the right of way for the defunct French canal. The Suez Society is Paris-based, it’s true. But guess who owns a major share of Suez stock these days?”
“Queen Victoria?”
“Close enough. De Lesseps gave a major block of stock to Said Pasha, the Wali of Egypt, when they built the original Suez Canal back in sixty-nine. They had no cash to spare for the perishing wog, eh?”
“I read how De Lesseps wheeled and dealed his way in Egypt.”
“I dare say. The British opposed the building of the Suez Canal for the same reason they’re against a Panama Canal, in the hands of anyone but themselves. Britannia can hardly rule the bloody waves with wogs, frogs, greasers, or Yanks collecting the tolls, what?”
“Maybe, but in the end, De Lesseps built the Suez Canal, for France.”
“Not quite, dear boy. You see, the Khedive of Egypt not only out-ranked the Wali, he also wanted in. So more shares were issued and between them, the Egyptians owned about fifty per cent of the so-called French company. The Egyptians, like other sprightly lads, enjoy the good life. Some British Intelligence agents saw to it they had a rollicking good time at Monte Carlo and other spas. Wine, women, and all that rot.”
Hakim chuckled and added, “Alas, all good things end, and the piper must be paid when the party is over. The Egyptian stockholders were persuaded to sell their Suez stock at a modest profit—to the Bank of England. The rest is history, seen through a glass darkly.”
“Then the goddamn Suez Society isn’t really French. It’s half British! That explains why Marie Chambrun was paid off by the Bank of England!”
“Of course, I got word to Greystoke that the girl was trying to contact the government about her widow’s mite and he saw to it Greystoke is what you Yanks call a troubleshooter. His job is to keep everything status quo.”
“But Marie said her husband’s company is bankrupt. How the hell are they ever going to build the canal if—”
“My God, you’re so bloody simplistic! The French company is not dead. It’s in receivership in the French courts after some silly mismanagement and a scandal about the death rate here in Panama. Old De Lesseps will no doubt go down in history as a great engineer, but he’s a perishing brute. Even the Egyptians were shocked the way he used slave labor digging at Suez. Here in Panama, he just tried to bull through the jungle like a dog digging for a bone.”
“Marie told me it was pretty brutal.”
“Brutality has its virtues. De Lesseps was a fool. But he’s in disgrace in France, now. Once the scandal blows over, there’ll be new engineers, who know what they are up to. A lot of the work has been done. The canal will be finished, by someone, in less than twenty years. It’s the someone all the fighting is about. England and the conservatives in Bogota want it to be the company England already owns a major share in. France would no doubt agree, once they stop screaming about whose fault it was. The Yanks, of course, want an American canal.”
“And the Balboa Brigade or native Panamanians?”
“Oh, they’ll bleed hell out of anyone who wants to pick up the pieces and start again. If you say it’s your duty as an American to help the faction backed by Wall Street, I’m really liable to vomit!”
Captain Gringo laughed and said, “I don’t owe Uncle Sam anything these days. I see your angle, now. Why didn’t you just say you wanted the Panamanians to set up their own republic so you and your cronies will be in a position to play the United States, France, and Britain off against each other?”
“Perhaps I’m devious. Will you act as go-between with Verrier et al.?”
“I’ll tell him your proposition. I don’t know if it’s safe to run into town right now.”
“Heavens, give Greystoke time to pump out his hold and cool down a bit. In the morning I’ll have a word with the police about his high-handed methods, what? No sense paying good money for police protection if we’re going to be snatched off the streets by Her Majesty’s agents.”
“Yeah, you might point out I know where they gunned down two local citizens, if they want to play rough.”
“Are you talking about those chaps who went for you in the alley? One of my lads took care of them for you.”
“Wait a minute! Greystoke said British agents shot those guys!”
“He fibbed. I sell silencers, too. Are we, ah, stuck with that blonde you brought home with you, Dick?”
“For the moment, until I figure out what to do with her. You see, she’s a stranded American girl and—”
“Good God! I don’t want to hear all that again! I do hope she’s good in bed. She’s a terrible bore in the drawing room!”
He flicked out the light and led the way back to where they’d left the girls. Jenny sat alone. Hakim chuckled and asked if the redhead had pushed her off the terrace. Jenny said, “I put her in Dick’s room. I rather hope she snores.”
Captain Gringo frowned and said, “Hey, we don’t know one another that well, Jenny.”
The redhead sniffed jealously and said, “I’ve no doubt you’ll work something out. She seemed quite impressed by your rescue. She told me she thinks she’s in love with you.”
“In what with me? Oh for God’s sake!”
Sir Basil clapped him on the back and said, “Be brave, my son. Bite the bullet and take your beating like a man. We’ll work out the gun deal over breakfast.”
Chapter Eight
Captain Gringo found Sally sitting on his bed in her chemise. The skirt and blouse were folded over a chair. Her black stockings and cotton drawers were hanging, wet, on a slat of the jalousied window. She said, “I hope you don’t think I’m used to sleeping with people I only just met. That Jenny told me there was no room with her.”
He said, “Yeah,” and took off his jacket.
Sally lowered her voice and confided, “I’ll bet she sleeps with that Sir Basil. But she wasn’t wearing a ring.”
“Sally, nobody can talk that dumb without a lot of effort.”
“That’s what my last boyfriend said. Is this a house of ill repute?”
“Not exactly. Sir Basil is a pervert and gun runner who’s out to overthrow the government. Jenny is a contortionist, I think.”
“But they’re not married,
right?”
“No, and neither are we. I could be gallant and offer to sleep on the floor, but I saw this bed first. If you want to go on playing Little Bo Peep I’ll fix you a pallet or you can sleep across the foot of the bed. I’ve had a rough day and I’m not up to any more games.”
She lowered her eyes and said, “Oh, I’ll bet you’d like to get fresh if I’d let you!”
“Sally, I don’t care either way. You’re pretty and you know it. I’m a man and you’re a woman. It’s up to you. I’ve got a lot on my mind and, no offense, you ain’t it.”
He started to strip as she watched him in the candlelight. When he peeled off his pants and turned down the sheet she looked away and said, “Heavens, you’re naked! It’s indecent to sleep naked!”
“Look, you sleep your way and I’ll sleep my way. I wish you’d light somewhere so I could blow out this candle.”
“I’m not sleepy. Besides, I’m afraid of the dark.”
“Oh boy!”
“Can’t we talk or something? It’s so early and I feel so funny and I’m sort of scared.”
He sat up on one elbow and said, “Sally, you’re going to be all right. In the morning I’ll see about a steamship passage back to the States for you.”
“Oh? I suppose you expect me to pay you with my body, right? You’re just like all the other men I’ve met, after all.”
“Listen, baby, you’re going to have a hard time getting this through your fuzzy little head, but I don’t want you! So knock it off and let’s get some sleep.”
He plumped his pillow and put his head down, hoping if he closed his eyes she’d shut up.
She didn’t. She sniffed and asked, “Not even a little tiny bit?”
“Okay, maybe a teeny-weeny bit, but let’s not cry about it.”
She got off the bed and said, “I told you I studied dancing. Would you like to see me dance, Dick?”
“Not really.”
She began to hum a fast music-hall song and he felt the floor under them vibrate as she started bouncing around, going, “Oooh, la, lala la lalla.”
He growled, “What the fuck?” and opened his eyes. Sally was doing the can-can at the foot of the bed. Everything she had under the thin chemise was bouncing in time, and her high kicks were astounding. She wore nothing under the chemise, and Sally was blond all over.
He sat up and gasped, “Knock it off! They’ll think we’re smashing furniture in here!”
But she yelled, “Wheeee!” and kicked higher with the other leg.
He rolled his own legs off the bed and rose, pleading, “For God’s sake, Sally, have you gone crazy?”
As he took a step toward her, she raised a long, shapely leg and hooked her bare heel over his collarbone. He was afraid she was going to fall right on her plump bottom, so he grabbed her by either hipbone and pulled her closer. Her eyes widened and her mouth made a little ‘O’ as their pelvic flesh made contact. He hadn’t realized it was up until he felt himself entering her wide-open lips with one of her feet on the floor and the other around his neck.
She gasped, “Good heavens!” as, since he was holding her hips firmly, she raised the other leg and let her body fall backward. He stood there, in her to the root, as she did a handstand on the rug and began to do an inverted grind with her head somewhere near his braced shins.
He didn’t know how to get her up, so he bent his knees and went to the floor to join her. They wound up with her chemise around her upper chest and their heads under the bed. She wrapped her arms around him and began to sob, “Oh, please don’t do me like the others, darling. I know I’m not very clever, but I’ll make a good woman for you.”
He kissed her to shut her up, feeling like a rat in heaven as he pounded her soft curves on the hard floor. He didn’t want to hurt her, physically, so after their first orgasm he picked her up and spread her across the bed.
She started to cry. So he comforted her, and somehow they were at it again in another crazy position. Sally couldn’t seem to make up her mind where her dancing feet belonged. It was great, but he’d never had his hair rubbed like that by a lady’s foot while he was in her. The other heel was kicking him playfully in the butt at the same time. He was forced to revise his idea that Jenny was the contortionist. Sally didn’t feel like she had bones at all. It was like making love to a beautiful sex-starved jellyfish.
Later she made him get out of bed and lay on the floor, saying there was something she’d been meaning to try. He couldn’t imagine a position they’d missed, but he didn’t want her to start pouting again. She stood over him, chemise up around her waist, and began to can-can again as he muttered, “Nuts. Absolutely nuts.”
But he had a marvelous view, and when she ended her short version with the usual falling can-can split, he couldn’t believe the results. She came down with fantastic aim. She’d have ruined him if she’d missed. She was upright across his hips, a long leg out either way, and then she used her dancer’s strength to start bouncing in a series of . .. what the hell would you call it?
He’d thought at first the tightness was occasioned by the split. Then he reached down to feel between them as he marveled, “Honey, I think I’m in the wrong hole!”
She moaned and said, “Keep playing with me like that. Any hole’s the right one when it feels so good!”
He started to feel better. Not just because he was being milked out of his mind, but because her innocent act was wearing off. She still sounded like Little Bo Peep, but he doubted if a Dodge City whore in a hundred could throw a perfect ringer with her asshole from three feet up!
Feeling less like a rat, he enjoyed Sally more as a man. They made a hell of a mess out of the bed before they wound up sleeping in a ball near the foot.
In the next-door room, Sir Basil chuckled as he closed the peephole near the head of his bed and fondled Jenny’s hair as she teased his belly button with her tongue. He said, “I thought they were going to kill each other for a time, but he seems to have satisfied her for the moment. I wonder where on earth Greystoke found her!”
Jenny removed her face from his firm, small waist but went on stroking his semi-erection as she asked, “Are you sure the blonde’s a British agent? She seems as stupid as a sheep.”
“Oh, that’s the best kind, and Greystoke has a generous budget to work with. I wonder if they planned to let them escape together or if Sally is a born opportunist. From what he said, she was perfectly willing to kick a fellow Britisher down a ladder to gain his confidence. I admire the way she works. Wide-eyed, amoral, and completely ruthless.”
Jenny kissed the little man’s astonishingly large organ and murmured, “Pooh, I think she overdoes it. What’s the point of playing the maid betrayed one minute and leaping on a man the next? If she wanted to screw, why didn’t she just say so?”
“She’s keeping him off balance, of course. Like ourselves, she knows the notorious Captain Gringo hides a sentimental streak inside that hard-boiled exterior. Between us, we must have him totally mixed up.”
“You have me mixed up, and I know you better than anyone. Why do we always have to do things so complicated? You remind me of a chess master who cheats by moving pawns when his beaten opponent isn’t looking!”
“That’s the fun way to play the Great Game. To understand me, you would have to have been born a man. A very small man and a member of a despised minority. At six I cried a lot. By the time I was nine I had the village bully sucking me off.”
The redhead purred and murmured, “I can see you started raising this from an early age, darling. Why do you keep having us tell everyone you’re an impotent queer? I’ve never met a man of any age more virile, and if there’s a bigger cock on Earth, I’d be afraid to meet it.”
He chuckled and replied, “I learned years ago the advantages of being underestimated by the Neanderthals. Despite my best intentions, I’ve become notorious as a rather dangerous man. I try to offer every opportunity for others to hold me in contempt. They know I have money, and
despite my schoolboy chatter they suspect I have a mind. My physical strengths are the ace in the hole I manage to keep hidden.”
Jenny licked his erection for lubrication and crawled her larger body atop his as she said, “Oh yeah, I want your ace in my hole.”
He lay back as the big pink woman lowered herself onto him, moaning, “Oh, my God, it feels like I’m going to split wide open. Don’t move ‘til I adjust to your size. Did you say you shoved this ramrod up some boy’s rear one time?”
“Yes. He bled and cried a bit. It was quite amusing, since he’d hit me when I was younger.”
“Brrr! You frighten me at times, Basil. Sometimes I don’t know if you’re making love to me because you like me, or because you hate the world so.”
“Don’t you enjoy it, either way? I don’t hate the whole world, dear heart. Only ninety per cent of it. How about moving a bit faster, or would you like me on top?”
“You hurt me when you get on top before I’m really warmed up. You make love so savagely. Is that why you’re not jealous when you ask me to give myself to other men?”
“Of course. Sexual jealousy is insecurity. When a man knows he’s the best there is, what do a few feeble jabs from his inferiors matter?”
Jenny closed her eyes and began to move faster as she warmed up. She didn’t think she’d better tell him Captain Gringo had really made her come. She knew the advantages of letting each partner think the other meant nothing to her, and they weren’t ready to dispose of the tall American yet.
Basil said, “Enough. I want to finish dog style.”
“Not yet. You hurt me when you go so deep.”
But he insisted, as she’d known he would. The dear little thing did have an astounding tool, and she liked to keep him proud of it. Jenny knew her life depended on pleasing the twisted little moral monster. Basil Hakim was a generous friend and employer, but he had the distressing habit of crushing those he had no use for, with less emotion than most men show when tossing away a smoked-down cigar.
As he stood behind her, thrusting skillfully but, as always, with the self-control that made his lovemaking last, he mused aloud, “I wonder if the Yankee next door sees the Knight’s Cross I’ve placed him in.”