by Lou Cameron
His unenthusiastic guest was Gaston Verrier, late of the French foreign legion, or any other army that would hire him. Although taller by far than his host, Gaston was one of those small gray men people fail to notice until too late. He’d killed his first man in the slums of Paris before he started shaving, and after a long hard life was cheerfully willing to concede that he was a very dirty old man. But he still thought he was a lot nicer than his host, and, in truth, few who knew Hakim would disagree. Gaston was fully dressed in tropic linens and was not sprawled across pillows like a lazy cat at the moment. He was seated on a hassock, albeit staring a bit like a cat, himself, as he waited for the shithead in the red pajamas to say something.
Hakim yawned and said, “It was so good of you to drop by, Old Bean. I have a little business proposition that might interest you and your friend, Dick.”
Gaston grimaced and said, “I did not drop by. I was frog-marched here by two of your trés grotesque hirelings, and I am so ashamed of myself I could spit. But merde alors, how was I to expect two six-year-olds in skeleton masks to pull guns on me in that adorable alley?”
Sir Basil chuckled and said, “They weren’t children. They were midgets. I enjoy towering over my help, when I can, and you must admit my trap was rather ingenious, eh what?”
“Eh bien, I said I was too sentimental to shoot children on sight. But you and your adorable fellow dwarves kidnapped me to no purpose. I don’t have any money at the moment, and not even my dear old mother would pay ransom for my somewhat battered body, if that is your new game.”
Hakim said, “Dick’s right about you, you know. You love to talk but you never listen. I said I had a deal to offer you lads. A thousand each, up front. A thousand a week until the job is done to my satisfaction. How do you like it so far?”
Gaston snorted in disgust and said, “With anyone else, for a thousand dollars, I might drop my pants and bend over. But knowing you, it has to be something dirtier. Knowing my comrade, Dick, he will no doubt wash my mouth out with soap when he hears I have been talking to you!”
Sir Basil scratched his balls absently and said, “At the moment the notorious Captain Gringo is surrounded by secret-service agents and under surveillance by both British and German intelligence. The Germans are working with the Spanish, of course, so we don’t have to worry about them, eh what?”
Gaston didn’t answer. So Hakim knew he had his undivided attention as he nodded and added, “Naturally my own people are watching all those other people from surrounding rooftops, with scoped rifles. I don’t think anyone’s about to take our young friend without my full approval. But on the other hand, if we’re not friends anymore …”
“What’s the job, mon ami?” Gaston asked flatly.
Hakim chuckled and clapped his hands twice. Two naked girls came through a slit in the drapes carrying a moving-picture projector between them. Neither was older than eleven or twelve, but their painted faces were world-weary and their eyes were the eyes of old whores. One placed the projector on a pillow and angled it in position before crawling to the wall on her hands and knees to plug it in. Hakim noticed the bemused expression on Gaston’s face as he stared at her immature but shapely rump and asked, “Would you like some of that, Gaston?”
Gaston looked away, scowling, to see the other naked child moving drapes away from an expanse of whitewashed bare wall. Gaston said, “Eh bien, are we to have our very own cinema this evening?”
Hakim nodded and said something to the girls in a language Gaston didn’t know, and he knew lots of languages. As one of them blew out all but one candle, the other put a reel in place and flicked on the projection bulb before she began to crank the machine.
Gaston watched the improvised movie screen with interest as the flickering image of a very blond little girl sucking off a very black gentleman appeared. He grimaced and observed, “I knew it would be something dirty.”
Hakim sighed and said, “Wrong reel,” before cursing or ordering his young projectionist in that same odd tongue. The girl calmly changed reels, and this time the image was that of what looked like an old Monitor-class gunboat moving across the calm waters of some bay or inlet. Hakim said, “My people didn’t take these. They bought them from a German naval officer who finds it difficult to keep a wife and two mistresses on a lieutenant commander’s salary.”
Gaston frowned and said, “The vessel would seem to be sinking, non?” But as the image on the wall kept dropping deeper in the water, Hakim said, “It’s not sinking. It’s a submarine. Young Kaiser Willy’s stolen the American Holland boat design, improved it, and has his engineers designing around Edison’s patented storage batteries. This particular tub was running on out right copies of Edison’s patent. No doubt the Germans would have some explaining to do if the Yanks found out about it, eh what?”
Gaston waited until the submersible flickered all the way under, save for the periscope he’d assumed up until now to be a flagstaff. Then he shrugged and said, “Everyone knows Der Kaiser likes new toys. Who built that trés soggy gunboat for him, you?”
Sir Basil looked pained and replied, “As a matter of fact, my Woodbine Arms, Limited, did bid for the contract. We were underbid by a German firm I’d never heard of. I’d most certainly like to find out how they did it. We bid as low as we could, assuming, of course, that once we had the contract we’d be able to work in the usual cost overruns. But those sons of bitches from Linke-Stettin promised to build submarines for the price of tugboats, and, worse yet, as you see, they seem to be building them!”
“Ah, but of course, once they began, a few unforeseen expenses cropped up, hein?”
“No, God damn it! Linke-Stettin brought the fucking submarines to completion on time and to specs! It’s impossible to build a seagoing submarine that cheaply. But they did it, and I have to know how!”
Gaston shrugged and said, “Do not look at us, then. We are soldiers of fortune, not naval architects. Dick is trés good with a machine gun and I, in all modesty, can be formidable with artillery ordnance. It would appear you are more in the market for a pair of slide-rule types, non?”
“I have all the naval architects I need. I need you and the notorious Captain Gringo to get them within reach of that bloody underwater gunboat.”
“Merde alors, in Germany?”
Hakim laughed harshly and said, “Closer than that,” before he indicated to the naked girls that the show was over. As they put away the gear and vanished back into the drapery again, Hakim told Gaston, “Everyone who subscribes to the Hearst newspapers knows the Yanks are spoiling for a war with Spain over Cuba. Everyone who knows the Spanish navy knows a determined Irish drunk could sink it with a hod of bricks. Der Kaiser didn’t vote for Cleveland, and just signed a treaty with his chum, the king of Spain. In exchange for Spanish neutrality in any future war with France, the Germans have been beefing up the Spanish military forces with smokeless powder, armor plate from Krupp, and some submarines from Linke-Stettin. Need I say more?”
“Oui, even the troublemaking Kaiser has to know a few unproven weapons can’t help the tottering Spanish Empire at this late date. The U.S. isn’t going to hit them with drunken Irishmen. They just built a trés moderne navy of their own!”
Hakim shrugged and said, “True, but young Kaiser Willy would doubtless like to see how some untried ideas work before he uses them himself in the big war he seems to be planning. His motives are neither here nor there. The point is that the Germans delivered a sister ship to the one I just showed you on film. It was last seen by my own agents in the Spanish port of La Coruna. My engineers assured me no submarine built to the current state of the art can cross the Atlantic under its own limited power. But a few weeks ago, just after that hurricane, a Honduran patrol boat picked up a Spanish sailor adrift in a life raft near the Bahia archipelago. He was in bad shape when they found him and died a few days later. But not before he told them he’d been an engine wiper on a Spanish submarine driven on the rocks of the Bahias during the
storm. The Hondurans had a look. They failed to spot any sign of a stranded anything. So it’s on the bottom, in shallow water, somewhere off the Bahias. You know the Bahias, of course?”
Gaston made a wry face and replied, “I try to avoid them at all costs when forced to pass near. None of them are too civilized, and the Black Caribs inhabiting some of the smaller Bahias are still trés savage.”
Hakim reached under a silk cushion as he nodded and said, “That’s where you and Captain Gringo come in. I’m sending a clandestine team to locate and salvage or at least examine that Spanish vessel. If it is a submarine and not the ravings of a dying man, Woodbine Arms is in an awful mess. I know what they say about me, but I do build pretty good weaponry. I have to know how Linke-Stettin not only underbid me but built a better sub than anyone working for me can.”
He handed Gaston a perfumed envelope and added, “There’s two thousand U.S. worth of local currency in here. The arms and ammo you lads will need to act as security for my engineers will be aboard the Greek sponge schooner you’ll all be using as a front. Go back to the posada, tell your friend about the deal and give him his half, then wait for further instructions. My people will give you your .38 and dagger back as you leave.”
Gaston took the money, of course, but said, “Mais you just told me the adorable posada is surrounded by trés fatigué secret agents avec guns, non?”
Hakim shrugged again and said, “A mere detail. Let me worry about it. You just worry about convincing Captain Gringo his bread is buttered on my side, for now.”
Gaston sighed and said, “That may not be easy. Dick is not what one could call an admirer of yours, hein?”
Hakim said, “Tell him it’s his patriotic duty. I know he was treated rather unjustly by the U.S. government. But surely he can’t want the U.S. Navy steaming into a death trap in the near future. I still have a few bones to pick with you lads, too, you know. But for once we seem to be on the same side. I don’t want Spanish submarines complicating the Cuba Libre movement, either.”
Gaston grinned crookedly and replied, “Mais non, not unless Woodbine Arms gets to sell them to Spain, hein?”
Sir Basil Hakim scratched his crotch again and said calmly, “Well, business is business. But if I can convince Der Kaiser and His Most Catholic Majesty that I can build subs better, they’ll probably scrap the ones Linke-Stettin built, and, well, I doubt if even I can replace enough subs to matter in time, if the Yanks will just shake a leg.”
He yawned, clapped his hands again, and, as the two little naked girls came in to rejoin him on the pillows, added, “You’d better go now. I’m getting an erection. You have your orders. You know what will happen if you mess the mission up.”
*
Back at the posada, Captain Gringo didn’t like the idea at all. Lucita had left him alone and well sated by the time Gaston arrived to hand him a thousand and suggest he put on his pants. The tall Yank went along with Gaston at least that far. He even put the welcome funds in his money belt. But then he said, “Before you suggest it, I agree, this time, a double cross is our best bet. We don’t owe Hakim anything but a hard time, and that story has to be a lie.”
Gaston said, “True, but at the risk of sounding soft in the head, I suggest we go along with him at least until he gets us out of here!”
Captain Gringo finished dressing, blew out the lamp, and moved to the grilled window as he growled, “Shit, that story about this place being surrounded could be just a ploy to keep us here until he’s ready to send for us.”
“But what if it is not, my old and cynical?”
Captain Gringo peered out through the grille. A couple of drunks in skeleton masks were reeling down the otherwise deserted street. Another grille much like this one overlooked the same scene from across the way. Anyone staring out through it was of course as invisible to him as he hoped he was to them. He swept the roofline above it with more interest, muttering, “The trouble with Hakim is that he lies so cleverly. I don’t see shit. But that still works two ways.”
Then an evening star hanging just above the tiles across the way winked off and on again. Captain Gringo swore softly and added, “God damn it to hell, there is something pussyfooting around over there. Could be a cat, of course.”
Gaston asked, “Do you really think we should bet our adorable asses on it being a pussycat instead of a pussyfoot, avec a gun?”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “We’re better off staying forted up behind these thick walls for now. But I’m missing something here. If someone has us boxed, why haven’t they moved in before this?”
“Perhaps they don’t like noise? You have the reputation of being trés rude to people who burst in on you uninvited, non?”
“Maybe. But just a little while ago you were gone and they could have literally caught me alone with my pants down. Did Hakim say who the hell those guys are?”
“Oui, spies, not lawmen. One gathers the reason they see no need to move in is that their orders are to follow us, not shoot us, hein?”
“Okay, so why don’t we just cut out and let ’em follow us? How far can anyone tail a couple of guys through the dark streets of a town they know? Remember that cantina with the unlocked skylight over the men’s room?”
Gaston nodded but said, “The secret agents are not the only problem, Dick. He ordered us to stay put until he sends for us, and his people won’t try to follow us if they observe us crossing Hakim double with his money on us, hein?”
Captain Gringo sat on the rumpled bed and lit a smoke. Then he shrugged and said, “Well, we have a whole night ahead of us and nobody can shoot us in here without giving us at least an even chance at ’em. Tell me some more about this Bahia archipelago.”
Gaston found a bentwood chair, lit his own claro, and said, “Oh, I agree we have to desert the mission before it reaches the Bahias! The species of perversion only gave us two lousy thousand, and I would not go there for ten! The Bahias are a chain of reefs and islands great and small off the northeast coast of Honduras. Honduras owns them, on the map, but does not really govern them, since governing the Bahias is not possible. The larger Bahías are inhabited by white or mestizo wreckers and occasional fishermen, descended from pirates or fugitives from justice. The smaller islands are inhabited by Black Caribs descended from runaway slaves and unreconstructed Carib Indians. You know, of course, what Carib means in Spanish?”
“Sure, ‘cannibal.’ But none of the Caribs I’ve met so far seemed to really want to eat me. I think they were just after my shoes.”
“Oui, they’ve picked up a bit of culture since Columbus met and named them. But they are still coastal pirates who make the adorable sea rovers of the Barbary Coast look like sissies. Black Caribs are, if anything, more savage. The original tribe was simply truculent and interested in loot, or perhaps fresh meat. The runaway slaves they mixed with were bigger, given to strange African religious notions and instilled with a blind hatred for their former masters, or anyone with the same complexions.”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “They still have to be nicer guys than anyone who’d work for Hakim. He said we’d be working from a ship, right?”
“Oui, but what of it? If the vessel he wants salvaged is in water shallow enough to find, it has to be within reach of Carib sailing canoes from the Bahia shores, non? Hakim said he was sending a mere schooner. A schooner moored alone in Carib waters is just what they consider meat on the table. Unless you have some mad desire to try your shooting skills on trés dark targets paddling silently in the dark, I suggest we cross Hakim double somewhere between here and the coast. I know a house of ill repute in Limón with a, secret passage for the use of discreet married clients.”
Captain Gringo said, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We’ve got to get out of here alive first.”
Then he stiffened as they both heard a firm knock on the locked door. ‘
Captain Gringo rose, drawing his .38 from its shoulder rig as he stood out of lin
e with the thin wood panels and growled, “¿Quién es?”
A feminine voice on the far side replied in English, “Hakim sent us. Let us in.”
Gaston had risen to cover the door with his double action revolver. So Captain Gringo opened the door from the far side and two women dressed in fiesta costume came in fast, slamming the door after them. They both wore their skeleton masks pushed up on their scalps to expose their faces. In the dim light it was still tough to judge what they looked like. Captain Gringo asked, “Aren’t you girls out a little late, even for the Day of the Dead?”
The one closer to him said, “A few natives are still wandering about dressed like this, hoping their luck will change. The chaps surrounding this place no doubt took us for a pair of whores checking in. This is a public inn, you know.”
Captain Gringo nodded but said, “I get your disguises. But how often does one puta check into a posada with another, Miss, ah …?”
“Call me Vera, and this is Sarah. We didn’t just check in as two women together, of course. We came in with a couple of Hakim’s trigger men. Take off your clothes. Both of you.”
Captain Gringo laughed incredulously and asked, “Just like that? I don’t even know if you’re pretty, but even if you are, this is a mighty dumb time to play slap and tickle!”
Vera stamped her foot impatiently and threw a bundle he hadn’t noticed before past him onto the bed as she insisted, “Hurry! The other two men are just down the hall in their underwear. Naturally one is tall and the other short. I’m sure their costumes will fit you both.”
Captain Gringo caught on, laughed, and said. “Gotcha. Can we keep our own underpants on, if you have to watch?”
Vera told him to stop screwing around. So he moved to the bed, untied the loosely bound bundle, and held the clown costume up to examine. He laughed again and said, “This one’s your size, Gaston. It looks like I get to be a full skeleton and, yeah, here’s the two masks. Pretty slick.”
The two soldiers of fortune started undressing as the two women fussed at them to hurry. When they got down to their shorts and guns, Sarah grabbed their linen suits and planter’s hats to tear out of the room.