The Great Game (A Captain Gringo Western Book 10)

by Lou Cameron

  He felt a large fuzzy something turn over in his gut as he stared soberly down at the familiar but not that familiar face. He knew he was supposed to say something, so he said, “I know we’ve met before, ma’am, and I’d be a liar if I said you had the sort of face a gent forgets, but...”

  “Silly Dick,” she cut in, still smiling, “you know perfectly well you never looked at me when I sat next to you in algebra at Jefferson High. I’m Nancy Dorman. The skinny one with glasses, remember me now?”

  He ran his eyes down her barely concealed curves as he smiled crookedly and said, “Oh, yeah, Nan! I guess I didn’t recognize you without your, uh, glasses.”

  She laughed again and said, “Yes, I’m rather pleased the way I turned out, too. But I must say you still look much the same as when you were the big man on the campus. I’m down here with my husband, Dick. We’re with the U.S. Consulate. But we just got in and had to check into this odd little hotel. I’ll bet they didn’t have room for you, either, eh?”

  Wishing she’d go away, he nodded and said, “Something like that.” The last thing he wanted to meet was a lady from the U.S. State Department, with or without a husband!

  “Well,” she said, “I’d better get back to our room and put some clothes on. Would you like to come along and meet my husband, Bruce, while I dress for dinner?”

  He shook his head and said, “Later, maybe. I’ve got to get cleaned up myself and, uh, I’m meeting someone.”

  Nancy dimpled and said, “If I know you, she’s pretty. Maybe we can all get together later this evening, eh? Bruce and I are in Room 207 and, by the way, my married name is Gordon. What room are you in, Dick?”

  “Uh, gee, I never looked, Nan. I’ll try and remember the next time we run into each other, right? It’s been swell talking to you again!”

  She looked a little puzzled, perhaps a little hurt, as he tugged his hat brim again and edged around her to lock himself in the bathroom. He thought about some sensible moves as he ran the water. It was coming back to him, now. There had been a skinny little brunette next to him in that algebra class back home and, boy, she sure had filled out nicely! But if she was from the old crowd, she had to know about his misadventures out west. It had been in all the hometown papers. “Local Boy Bakes Bad” was probably the way they’d carried the story of his busting out of that army guardhouse near the border.

  He peeled and got in the tub. It felt good, but his mind wasn’t in it. Damn that Gaston, where was he? They had to get the hell out of here before Nan remembered and told her damned husband! It was amazing she hadn’t remembered right off. Could she be that blind without her glasses? No, if she hadn’t been able to see him she’d have never called him Dick. Okay, let’s say she remembered a guy named Dick from school and hadn’t connected the face with the story of his disgrace? That was it. He’d known her without remembering her last name. Few people remember the details about old school chums and he hadn’t even been that chummy with little Nan Dorman. He hadn’t remembered her name was Dorman, as far as that went. But it could pop in place any minute in Nan’s pretty little head. And she’d said her hubby was with the U.S. Government!

  Captain Gringo rose from the tub pronto, spilling water on the tiles. He patted himself dry and risked a quick shave, cutting himself twice with the razor before he forced himself to slow down. The nicks weren’t bad and he stuck toilet paper to them as he dressed again, aware, now, how much he needed a fresh shirt. Scooping up the towel from his room, he cracked the door open, saw the hall was empty, and ducked back down the hall to see if Gaston had returned. Gaston hadn’t. He swore, checked the chambers of his .38, and put the room key in his pocket after locking up. They were out the price of the rooms, but that was the nice thing about travelling light. A guy could move out fast when he had to, and right now it sure looked like they had to. Gaston would be over by the waterfront. The town was small. All he had to do was find a shadowy vantage point between the river and this fucking Flamingo and ...

  “Yoo hoo, Dick!” a feminine voice trilled as he tried to cross the lobby looking six inches tall. He managed not to grimace as he turned to see Nancy in a doorway sporting a feathered hat and a pudgy pink man in a rumpled linen suit. The man wasn’t yelling for the cops, so Nancy hadn’t made the connection yet. It didn’t seem possible, but the Shantung beige dress she was wearing now revealed more curves than the kimono had upstairs. Maybe the brighter lights accounted for it.

  Not knowing what else to do, Captain Gringo removed his hat and walked over to them. Nancy introduced him to her husband, who said, “We were just about to dine. Would you join us, Mister, ah ... ?”

  Captain Gringo said, “Marvin. Dick Marvin!” grabbing a vaguely familiar name out of midair. Nancy nodded and said, “Oh, I remember, now. You must be related to the minister at the Calvinist Church, right, Dick?”

  “I think my folks mentioned he was a distant cousin or something.”

  Nancy dimpled and squeezed her husband’s arm as she confided, “I was so embarrassed, dear. I went all through high school with Dick and I was sure I knew his last name until it came time for me to say it! Aren’t I the silly?”

  “Happens to everyone, my dear,” Bruce Gordon said smugly. “But let’s all sit down, shall we? Nancy tells me you’re with the U.S. Military, Dick.”

  Captain Gringo muttered something non-committal as he followed them into the dining room and found a seat with his back to the wall, adding something about just having a spot of tea with them before he had to leave. Gordon nodded and said, “Nan said you had a date. Forgive me if I order coffee. This is no time for Americans to be drinking tea, but everyone to his own taste, I suppose.”

  Captain Gringo said coffee would be jake with him, adding with a thin smile that the tea down here was home grown in the first place.

  Bruce Gordon laughed drily and added, “I doubt if anybody would ever take you for a damned lime juicer, anyway, Dick. You didn’t say what you were doing down here for our army.”

  Captain Gringo looked down at the silver, noted his fork had egg stuck to the tines, and said, “I’m, uh, not supposed to tell people I’m with the army these days, Bruce.”

  Gordon nodded owlishly and replied, “Oh, I get it. Military Intelligence, right? Nan said she’d heard you’d been given a scholarship to West Point after the two of you graduated from high school together.”

  His younger and far prettier wife gushed, “Oh, yes, Miss Pruett, the dean of girls told me all about it. Jefferson High was so proud of a boy from our school being chosen.” Then, as the waiter came over to take their orders, she looked puzzled and added, “Was there another boy in our class at West Point, Dick?”

  He sensed where her thoughts were taking her. He nodded quickly and said, “Yes, there was, as a matter of fact. I forget his name. We were in different classes at The Point.”

  Nancy said, “It’s coming back to me, now. He got in trouble in the army after the two of you graduated, right?”

  “I heard something about it, Nan. I don’t remember the details.”

  Her husband, Bruce, had finished ordering just in time to chime in, “I do. The chap’s name was Walker. His first name was Richard, too, by an odd coincidence.”

  Nan looked puzzled and asked, “How did you know that, dear? You didn’t go to Jefferson High with us.”

  Gordon smiled and said, “Hardly. But everyone in the diplomatic service down here had heard of Dick Walker. They call him Captain Gringo and he’s been raising pure Ned since he disgraced himself as an officer and had to leave the States.”

  Then he smiled at Captain Gringo and added, “It’s sure a small world, isn’t it, Marvin? I confess that when Nan first told me she’d met an old school chum named Dick, who used to be in the army, it gave me a bit of a turn. I knew this Dick Walker had come from Nan’s home town, of course, so.. .”

  Captain Gringo managed a hearty laugh as his stomach filled with buzzing bees. Nancy looked puzzled, blinked, and joined the laughte
r as she gasped, “Oh, Bruce, you never! Why, the Marvins are one of the oldest and most respectable families in Connecticut and, now that I think back, I do remember that awful Walker boy. His name was Richard, too. They were right about that. But they didn’t call him Dick, in school. I think they called him Richie. Isn’t that right, Dick?”

  Captain Gringo frowned and said, “I really can’t say, Nan. I hardly knew the chap.” Was she making another mistake? Had she mixed him up with another guy named Richard, or was she covering for him, and, if so, why?

  The waiter brought coffee for Captain Gringo and the first course for the Gordons. Nan dipped her spoon in her turtle soup but didn’t taste it as she nodded, thoughtfully, and said, “Yes, it’s all coming back to me, now. Richie Walker was one of those big men on campus and I never liked him. He spent all his time playing football and showing off. He wasn’t as scholarly as Dick Marvin, here. Do you remember how you helped me cram for that algebra test that time, Dick?”

  He nodded, knowing she was full of shit. He’d barely noticed the shy little brunette next to him in that class and he’d sure as hell never helped her with her homework! Her husband was looking at his soup a little pensively, now. Was she trying to make him jealous?

  Bruce Gordon tried to change the subject by bringing up the current international crisis and Captain Gringo knew Nan was either scatter-brained or a hell of a psychologist. Gordon obviously didn’t want to talk or even think about her high school days and/or any crushes she might have had on anyone in the past. Nan wasn’t mixed up. Nan knew! She might not have made the connection as they met outside her bath. But somewhere between blurting to her husband that she’d met an old school chum down the hall and here, she’d put the loose ends together and now she was helping him out, damned cleverly. But why? She didn’t owe him any loyalty. They’d never been close friends in school.

  Captain Gringo finished half his cup and said something about having to meet someone as he excused himself. Gordon nodded and said something in turn about having to get down to the U.S. Consulate, adding that they’d probably meet there, later. Captain Gringo didn’t answer that one. He smiled himself away from the table and went out to look for that fucking little Frenchman! He had to find Gaston and tell him it was time to light out for parts unknown, poco tiempo!

  But, as he walked along the odd skyway fronting on the main drag of Tucupita he began to wonder about that. Did they have to light out for parts unknown, now that at least two people connected with the local U.S. Consulate could seem ready to vouch for him as an innocent military attaché or whatever? Gordon, of course, was laboring under a sincere mistake. Nan could blow the whistle any minute she felt like it. But she didn’t seem to feel like it, and as long as she wanted to play it that way he was safer here than anywhere else he could think of! He lit another smoke and enjoyed a dry chuckle as he thought of being arrested by the local cops and demanding to see his friend, Bruce, at the U.S. Consulate! Jesus, if Nan could get him some blank passports or diplomatic visas ... but why the hell would she want to? What did Nan want? She wanted something. Everybody wanted something.

  He found himself on the veranda of a closed general store. There was no light behind him as he lounged up there, watching the barely visible figures moving all around over the bridges and catwalks. It was a good position to watch for Gaston. He knew the little Frenchman’s movements, even in semi-darkness. He took a drag of smoke and settled down to sweat Gaston out. He didn’t have any place better to go, right now.

  He heard clumping boot heels as someone came along the catwalks from the direction of the Flamingo. He turned and saw it was Bruce Gordon. The other American recognized him at the same time and said cheerfully, “Ah, so here you are. Nan thinks you’re meeting a woman, but we know better, eh?”

  “I am sort of waiting for a man,” said Captain Gringo, cautiously. “I figured as much,” nodded Gordon and said “We’ll never be able to stand the lime juicers off unless we get some help from the local greasers. How does it look, Marvin? Think the little brown monkeys will fight for their own country, or do they expect us to do it all for them?”

  “I think the Venezuelans will fight, if they get the right backing.”

  “Well, you know more about the military aspects. Frankly, I expected Washington to send more help to us down here, if they really expect us to hold the Royal Navy off. I don’t like to bluff when I play poker and, Goddamn it, we sure hold a piss-poor hand down here.”

  “Yeah, I’d like to see a few Yankee battleships standing off shore in case the Brits think we’re bluffing, too. But we might have a few aces up our sleeves. By the way, Gordon, I’d sure feel better about my mission if I had your word it was confidential between us.”

  “Oh, sure, mum’s the word, Dick. I won’t blab all over town about you being here to organize the greasers for Grover Cleveland. There could be British spies right in our hotel, right?”

  “I figured you’d spent some time at the Great Game, Bruce. That black hall porter has a Jamaican accent, now that I think about it.”

  Gordon nodded and moved on, feeling important. Captain Gringo settled down to wait some more. Then a couple of bedraggled-looking whores came along the high walkway and gave him the eye. He passed on both of them, but he saw the local paseo was starting and a man standing still during the nightly flirtation walk stood out like a sore thumb. He cursed Gaston roundly, tossed the butt of his smoke to the wet mud far below; and headed back to the hotel. Gordon hadn’t looked like he was running anywhere to call the law. There were telephones at the hotel if either of the Gordons planned to betray him. He decided he’d be as safe in his room as anywhere. So he went back to it.

  He had second thoughts about the safety of his room when he saw the slit of light under the door. Someone was inside, waiting for him. It could be Gaston, if Gaston had returned by some less obvious route. On the other hand, it could be somebody else. Anybody else.

  He eased to Gaston’s door, next to his down the hall. The key to his own room wasn’t supposed to fit and it didn’t, exactly. But they were both cheap locks and as he’d hoped, it only took a little fiddling to get Gaston’s latch to quietly open.

  He stepped into Gaston’s room, moved to the connecting door on the balls of his feet, and opened it as he drew his revolver, coming in at whomsoever at a hopefully unexpected angle of attack.

  Nancy Gordon neé Dorman sat up in bed and gasped, “Oh, you startled me!”

  She startled him, too. Nan wasn’t wearing a stitch and hadn’t bothered to pull the covers up enough to matter, her clothes and feathered hat were on a chair near the dresser. He spotted himself in the mirror above, looking sort of dumb as he stood there holding a gun on a lady. He tucked it away as he bolted the door behind him. Then he moved over to sit gingerly on the edge of the bed. Nan leaned back on one elbow, breasts pointed at him like a brace of six guns as she dimpled and asked, “Don’t you want to take your clothes off, darling?”

  He said, “Very much. I just spoke to your husband and he still thinks my name is Marvin for some reason.”

  Nan reached out, took one of his hands, and placed it on her firm but fleshier than remembered stomach as she said, bluntly, “I had to lie for an old schoolmate, didn’t I?”

  As she started to move his hand down, he said, “You did remember, huh, Nan?”

  She moved his hand between her thighs, closed them on it, and as his fingers parted the moist trembling flesh between her legs she husked, “I remember everything, Dick! My God, I had such a crush on you, all through school!” She moved his wrist, wriggling to meet the thrust of his ringers on her turgid clit as she added, “I had to do this to myself after school, you brute. You never knew how much I wanted you inside me, did you, Dick?”

  “Hell, no, I thought you were a shy little virgin, honey!”

  “I was, then, but I’m not anymore and, for God’s sake, are you still going to sit in class beside me like a big dope or are we going to make up for lost time at
last?”

  As he half rose, he said, “I’ll get the light.” But she insisted, “No. I want to watch us in the mirror over there as you make my dreams come true, Dick Walker. My God, if you only knew the positions I’ve had you in, in my secret world...”

  He pulled his hand out and popped a button shucking his duds as he grinned and said, “Let’s try ’em all, then. I’d forgotten some of the dirty thoughts I used to have about you in algebra, Nan.”

  As he rolled atop her she purred, “Oh, did you want me, too?” and then as she spread her thighs in welcome and felt him entering her, she gasped, “Oh, my, you must have! It’s even bigger and harder than I imagined and … oh, yes, darling, this is the way I dreamed it would be, only better!”

  He pounded her old-fashioned style, to get their bodies used to one another before they settled down to the orgy she obviously had planned for some time. As she came the first time she started to cry about wasted years and made him repeat that he’d wanted her, too, back when the world was younger and less complicated. He lied gallantly, for in truth he’d never even thought about making the skinny little kid in the next seat over. As he rolled her on her hands and knees he shoved it to her dog-style and said, “This is how I used to picture doing it to you when you walked ahead of me down the hall.”

  She arched her back and thrust her now fuller rump up to meet his thrusts as she crooned, “Oh, did you really, Dick? I used to put padding under my Dolly Varden, because I had such a skinny little behind, but—”

  “I used to go crazy watching your Dolly sway back and forth when you walked, Nan. I used to wonder if you wore anything under it and how it would be to catch you like this, bending over.”