by Lou Cameron
He ducked back inside. Gaston had tied Armida’s wrists above her head to the head rails of the brass bedstead. Her eyes were open, but she couldn’t say much with that linen gag in her mouth. But she was moving pretty good as Gaston lay atop her with his pants down, tearing off a piece.
Captain Gringo laughed incredulously and asked, “What the fuck are you doing? You sure have a grotesque sense of timing, Gaston.”
“I’ll be with you in a moment, m’sieur. I had to knock Fifi out in the middle of a blow job and I can’t run fast with an erection.” He went on raping the whore, if rape was the right term, as he added, conversationally, “What is the story outside? Ah, it’s very nice in here, and … Voila! I am satisfied, for the moment.”
“Pull your goddamn pants up and get over here. There’s no way I’d ever be able to draw while oozing through this skinny window. So you’d better go first and cover me.”
“Eh bien, but what about these two ladies we must bid adieu so post-haste? The trés fatigue police will ask them which way we went, and if we leave them in condition to talk—”
“Let ’em. Anyone can see there’s only one way out. By the time anyone opens either discreetly closed door, we’ll be a mile or more into the jungle. Come on, Gaston, move it!”
Gaston did. Since he was much smaller, he had no trouble sliding out the window and dropping to the weeds below from the second-story window.
As Gaston covered the wooden fence with his own revolver, Captain Gringo followed, grimacing as he scraped himself through the narrow space and cursing as he landed harder than a man his weight was supposed to.
But the two-story drop hadn’t sprained anything important, and, as he picked himself up, Gaston said, “Eh bien. Over the fence and into the woods, to grandmere’s house we go?”
“Don’t be silly. Didn’t you just hear me tell that whore that that was the plan?”
“Oui, I assumed it was what you wanted her to tell the police. But I am missing something here, Dick. As anyone can see, over that fence is the only way out of this narrow slot, non?”
Captain Gringo said, “No,” and braced his back against one stucco wall as he raised a boot heel to brace against the opposite wall. As he started levering himself skyward, Gaston grinned and said, “Ah, the old roof trick. Mundane, but usually effective, when the flicks expect to find you somewhere else!”
Gaston wedged his own lighter body the same way, and, while his legs had less leverage, he had less to lift, so it tended to even out. A few minutes later the two soldiers of fortune had shimmied themselves to rooftop level. Captain Gringo beat Gaston to the whorehouse roof and reached down to haul his comrade up beside him. As they crouched atop the flat roof, Gaston pointed with his chin and said, “Merde alors, we could have done it the easy way! There’s a triple-titted trap door over there by the chimney pots!”
“Yeah. We can’t stay here. The laziest cops usually pop open a door at the top of a stairway. Let’s see, now. It’s an easy jump across to the building we were just kicking the shit out of. But it’s got a tile roof. Too noisy. Follow me.”
Gaston did, as the tall American crawled the other way, keeping his ass down. The flat roof of Madam Fifi’s had a low stucco parapet, so nobody could see them from street level, but there were higher buildings in the neighborhood, and though very few people took their siesta on a rooftop under a blazing tropic sun, why take chances?
They made it to the opposite side. Captain Gringo eased his head up for a look over the parapet and said, “That’s better. Next building has a flat gravel roof, too.”
They rolled over the parapet. Gaston said, “Eh bien, if we lay low, here …”
“We bake like tortillas on the hearth till some wise-ass cop sticks his head over the edge. Keep crawling, damn it!”
They did, crossing three roofs before they came to a six-or eight-foot gap before the next building on the block. Captain Gringo said, “This must be the place. No cop’s about to jump across that gap without a hell of a good reason, and the girls should tell ’em we said something about a jungle. ”
Gaston peered over the edge and muttered, “No Frenchman in his right mind is going to try it either! That’s a three-story drop, Dick!”
“I’ll go first and catch you. No running jump. People wonder about the pitty pat of tiny feet on their bedroom ceiling. Try to land on that brick parapet over there instead of the roof itself.”
Gaston was still bitching when Captain Gringo stood up, mounted the parapet, and bent his knees for a standing broad jump that had to be right the first time.
He made it, just, and teetered for a frightening moment on the rim across the way before he managed to recover his balance and step down softly to safer footing. He cursed the heat, and that whore, as he recovered his relative calm. For he’d jumped that far, easier, in his West Point days.
He turned and motioned to Gaston. The little Frenchman couldn’t bitch out loud, for a change, so he made the sign of the cross and tried. He almost made it. His toes hit the stucco just below the top of the parapet, and he would have dropped down the slot had Captain Gringo not caught a wildly flailing arm and hauled him safely atop the roof. Gaston muttered, “I must be getting old. At the rate you are going, I doubt I’ll get much older. Have I ever told you that you are a maniac, my overactive child?”
“Many, many times. It must be the company I keep. Okay, I think that takes care of strolling cops. The next problem is finding some shade. It’s damn near high noon and we’re about fourteen degrees north of the equator.”
“True, it would be trés droll to suffer heat stroke instead of police bullets. But where do you suggest we go from here? As you see, we are near the end of the block. La siesta has started by now, and people are most surprised to see one on the streets during la siesta, even when they know your face.”
“Good thinking. There’s a shack of some kind over on the next roof. We’d better get on the far side in case some cop doesn’t buy the tale we planted and decides to have a look around up here.”
They moved quietly toward what seemed to be an improvised wooden hut someone had built on the flat roof of the last building on the block. As they approached, Captain Gringo muttered, “Swing left. There’s a trap door to the right.”
It was well that they did so. The two soldiers of fortune had just flattened out against the far side of the ramshackle structure when they heard the creak of hinges. They looked silently at each other and drew their guns in unspoken agreement. A muffled female voice called out, “Tico, why are you going up there at this hour? You will fry your brains, my son!”
A too-close-for-comfort youthful voice replied, “I have to water my pigeons, mamacita!”
“Ay que muchacho, leave those stupid birds alone and come down here this instant! Even pigeons know better than to go out in the hot sun at this time of day!”
“Si, un momento, mamacita. I just have to make sure they have water.”
The two soldiers of fortune strained their ears as, on the far side of the thin wooden wall, they heard the softer sounds of baby talk and gurgling water. The woman below called out again, adding a threat to send papacito up with a switch. Tico, if that was his name, slammed the pigeon-loft door and they heard his footsteps running for the trap door. Then it slammed and they could breathe again.
Captain Gringo grinned and said, “You were looking for some shade?”
“Oui, but in a pigeon loft?”
“Why not? I’m sure there’s room. That kid won’t come back until at least three, right?”
He led the way around the side not exposed to the street and quietly opened the door. The white pigeons all around tried to bark like dogs, but all they could manage were soft, albeit angry, coos as the two of them got inside and shut the door again. The interior of the pigeon loft was about as comfortable as a Turkish bath perfumed with bird shit, but at least they were out of the sun now.
Here and there sunlight lanced through cracks in the rough planki
ng, so they could see well enough. Gaston picked up the water olla the kid had left and helped himself to a long swig before he said, “God bless that child,” and handed it to Captain Gringo.
The tall American said, “Yeah, I was already thirsty when I smelled the chloral hydrate in my glass. Don’t light that smoke, you idiot!”
“Why not? I assure you I have no intention of setting one of these birds on fire.”
“No, but if you stink this stuffy loft up with cigar smoke, young Tico’s sure going to wonder when his pets started smoking.” He took a healthy swig of tepid water, put the olla back on its shelf, and added, “We’d better leave here about two-thirty. That kid’s eager about his hobby and might jump the gun on the official end of la siesta at three.”
Gaston hunkered down with his back braced against a post and said, “That sounds sensible. But we still have a bit of a problem, Dick. In your enthusiasm, you let that whore hear you say we were running into the jungle. Ergo, the annoying people who run this distressing country will be covering all the trails out of Puerto Cabezas long before two-thirty, non?”
“Yeah, I never liked that idea of running off to be a pirate, anyway. I outgrew ideas like that even before Tom Sawyer did.”
“I’ve heard of that new novel, though I have not read it. I agree a romp through the jungle would not be wise right now. You just pointed out that we can’t stay here, even if one enjoyed the company of dirty birds. So where do you suggest we go, Dick?”
“Beats me. You’re the guy who knows this town, Gaston.”
“Merde alors, I told you it was small enough to kick a football across! Fifi was the only old friend I knew here, and, as you just saw, she seems to have forgotten her old friends. What if we went back to the ship? We left them in a hopefully friendly mood, and the purser still owes us.”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No way. Assuming the purser’s an honest crook, old Fifi wasn’t, so they know we’re in town. The only way we could have gotten here was aboard that crippled steamer. For God’s sake, do I have to draw diagrams on the blackboard for you?”
“Mais non, the picture emerges from the mists with distressing clarity. Eh bien, we can’t go back to Fifi’s. We can’t go back to the ship. If we run for the trees, we are certain to fall into an ambush. Traveling with you is trés fatigue, Dick. We seem to be, how you say, up the creek without any paddle!”
“Look at the bright side. We’re still alive. The waterfront should be crowded this evening, and nobody can see my hair if I keep this sombrero down tight. The cops will have chased our shadows through the jungle a lot by then. Hopefully, they’ll give us credit for being slicker jungle runners than them and shouldn’t expect to see us in town tonight.”
“I give that fifty-fifty. But so what? We can mingle with the crowd until the streets are once more deserted for the night. But we don’t dare try another hotel accommodation. The country’s hovering on the brink of revolution, and with less than a dozen posadas to check out—”
“We tried a no-questions joint and it didn’t turn out so hot,” Captain Gringo cut in, adding, “If we can’t get out by land, it’ll have to be by sea.”
Gaston grimaced and said, “I already considered that. There are no other steamers in port at the moment. I told you it was an out-of-the-way port of call.”
“You did. I noticed a mess of fishing boats in the harbor as we came in last night, too. The two of us ought to be able to man a fishing ketch, and they can’t all be guarded after dark.”
Gaston shook his head in disgust and muttered, half to himself, “I really could have saved myself a trés fatigue old age if I’d just let them shoot me that time we met in Mexico. Since I have been running through life with you, I have hardly had a good night’s sleep.”
“What can I tell you? You said you wanted to be a pirate when you grew up.”
“Merde alors, grabbing a fishing ketch goes beyond mere piracy into an exercise in futility, Dick! Where in the devil do you propose we sail in our beautiful pea-green boat? We’re a good three hundred miles or more from Limón, and even if the open sea doesn’t kill us, even Costa Rica frowns on sailing in aboard a stolen vessel, non?”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Jesus, what a worry wart. We haven’t even stolen the boat yet and he’s bitching about explaining it in Limón. Can’t you see we’ll probably be shipwrecked long before we get there, pal?”
*
They left the rooftops at two-thirty, skulked in an alley for an even less interesting time, and then went to three-o’clock Mass at a nearby church Gaston remembered. Neither of them had suddenly gotten religion. Gaston pointed out that most Nicaraguan priests belonged to the Conservative party that was currently out of power.
The reward posters out on Captain Gringo had him down as a Protestant, which might have been true, back in the days when he’d thought someone might be running this mad universe. Gaston had been born a nominal Catholic, but who looked for knock-around guys in church when the cantinas were starting to open up again for the evening?
They took a back pew, put a gold coin in the collection plate when it was passed, and nobody saw fit to bother them after Mass was over and everyone but a few old women in shawls filed out.
It was cool, quiet, and they had plenty of time to plan their next moves as they waited for the sun to go down. But when it seemed safe to leave, they still hadn’t come up with anything better than Captain Gringo’s plan to swipe a fishing boat, and Gaston said he was already getting sea sick.
When they left the old church the shadows were long and lavender under a flamingo sky. It was hard to make out features in the never-never light of the gloaming, and, as they’d foreseen, the streets were crowding up as the locals made ready for the nightly paseo.
The young and single of Puerto Cabezas were out for adventure in the cool of the evening. The older poor married slobs could at least watch and get drunk. Having dozed the hot afternoon away, nobody would be turning in this side of midnight unless they got lucky with a lady who had her own room. So they couldn’t grab a boat until things settled down, and, despite the tricky light, there were limits to how well a tall blond Anglo-Saxon could blend into a crowd of darker, mostly shorter natives.
Captain Gringo knew he’d get in trouble if they hung around the main plaza during the paseo. With the women strolling the plaza one way, the men strolling the other, and one and all giving everyone a good looking-over as they passed, someone was sure to notice and, worse yet, comment on a tall gringo stranger in their tiny town.
Gaston knew a couple of cantinas along the waterfront. Gaston apparently had never passed a waterfront cantina south of the Tropic of Cancer without checking it out. Captain Gringo got in trouble in bars a lot, too. He asked if the Frenchman knew a quieter, darker place to hang out awhile.
Gaston lit a smoke as he keel hauled Puerto Cabezas through his memory. Then he nodded and said, “I have just the place. We can get something to eat there, too!”
That reminded Captain Gringo that he hadn’t eaten all day. He said, “I’m game for anything that doesn’t hurt. How far is this restaurant of yours?”
“Ah, it’s not exactly a restaurant and it’s hardly mine, Dick. There’s a trés expensive posada near the docks, catering mostly to foolishly rich foreigners. They serve a buffet in the deliciously dark lobby, as I recall. I can park you there while scouting up some transportation, now?”
Captain Gringo frowned and said, “I asked about a discreet place, not a tourist hotel, for God’s sake!”
“Eh bien, I heard you. As I said, it’s too expensive to attract the locals, or even crewmen from that steamer we just left. The beauty of my plan is that nobody is supposed to use the buffet lounge unless they are guests of the posada. Wait, I know what you are thinking. Of course one must register if one checks into the overpriced establishment. On the other hand, there is a side entrance nobody can see from the desk. How do you like it so far?”
Captain G
ringo thought as he lit his own claro. Then he nodded and said, “Right, I used to do that in fancy New York hotels when I was a cadet at the Point. If you act like a guest in the lobby, everyone assumes you’ve checked in. Better yet, since your name’s not on the register, the cops who drop by from time to time to check on mysterious new big spenders in town don’t case the joint downstairs. It’s easier to just leaf through the register at said desk. You say they have food on tap?”
“Oui. Free. The drinks in the lounge are outrageously overpriced, but nobody cares how many hors d’oeuvres one helps oneself to from the buffet, if one is not an obvious pig about it. Come, it’s down this way, as I recall.”
Gaston led the way toward the waterfront as Captain Gringo got his bearings. A shot tower in the distance told him they were at the far end of town from the shipyards to which the crippled steamer had been towed. That wasn’t saying much in a port this size, but hopefully the crewmen who knew their faces would find booze and broads closer to their ship.
The posada was a big rambling pile of wedding cake Spanish baroque, taking up most of a whole block. Gaston steered them into an alley well clear of the main entrance down the walk, saying, “The side door I told you about opens into this adorable dark cul-de-sac. Regard the lights ahead.”
Captain Gringo did. But he was more interested in what stood parked between them and the lamp-lit windows of the lounge beyond. A big black Stanley Steamer sulked quietly on its red rubber tires, staring at them owlishly with its unlit brass headlights. As they eased between the mysterious horseless carriage and the plaster wall, he noticed that the pilot light was purring like a big cat under the long hood. He said, “Jesus, what a funny place to see a Stanley Steamer. It’s parked there with a full head of steam, too.”
Gaston said, “Forget it. You drive like a maniac; besides, there is no open road from this species of fishing village to anywhere at all important.”
“I wasn’t thinking about stealing it. I was just wondering what the hell it’s doing here. Horseless carriages in a half-horse town don’t make sense. A Stanley costs a bundle, too.”