by Lou Cameron
He ran that through again for hidden meaning and his lips were a little numb as he laughed, light heartedly, and said, “Well, I can give you my word I didn’t stab that poor dame, and her husband was a guy I drank with.”
Camelia said, “I know. The busboy said you knew them well. That is why I did not wish the police to question you closely, eh?”
He took her by the shoulder and moved her back to meet her eyes. She looked innocent enough, but he said, “Let’s not pussy-foot about what happened last night, Camelia. Are you suggesting I owe you more than the tip I was about to give you?”
She looked blank and said, “Oh, señor, I am paid to do the rooms. You do not have to give me anything for my services.”
“That’s unusual. What do you want, then, Camelia?”
She lowered her lashes, and her dusky face flushed becomingly as she licked her lips and said, “I do not know. I am just afraid to go out into the darkness with all sorts of things about to happen.”
“I could run you home. It’s early.”
“Si, but then I would still face the night alone. My cabana is so little and the English guns are so big.”
“That’s true. A sixteen-inch shell would make kindling out of this hotel, too. You’re as safe in one part of a small town as another when people start lobbing shells into it. I don’t think there’s a low spot in town that isn’t filled with water. We’re closer to the main drag, here, too. If they mean to bombard us at all, El Flamingo’s a likely target.”
She shuddered in his arms and sighed, “Por la flauta, I was just about to ask you if I could spend the night with you, but it does sound most dangerous, here!”
He raised an eyebrow as her words sank in. Then he grinned and said, “Dangerous in more ways than one. You’d get fired and I might get powder puffed to death if we spent the night here. Are you serious about wanting to spend the night with me, or are you one of those crazy platonic types?”
She snuggled closer, rubbing her turgid nipples against him as she said, “I am not sure what you mean. But if you take me home, you must promise not to leave me alone in the dark.”
~*~
The tall Negro that Captain Gringo had given his old suit to was unaware of the men following him as he approached a bridge over a side canal of the watery native quarter. There were few street lamps, even in the better part of town, so the tall man in the linen suit was only a paler blur in the darkness as he stopped on the bridge to light a cigarette. One of the men following him murmured, “He’s stopped to pull the old chestnut with the casual smoke while he looks back the way he just came. I told you it was Captain Gringo.”
His companion said, “I’m still not sure. The light was behind him when he ducked out the side entrance of the hotel, and if we’re wasting time tailing the wrong man—”
“Oh, shit,” his companion cut in, “how many guys that tall wander around a South American town in a European-cut Panama suit? There’s nobody else staying at the hotel who comes anywhere near matching his description. Besides, look how he’s headed into the slums at this hour. What tourist would be in this part of town, damn it?”
On the bridge, the bellhop scratched his match again and again; it refused to light. His matches were damp, like everything else in Tucupita tonight. The tall Negro shrugged and put his cigarette away to smoke it later. He took a step toward the far side and then a volley of gunshots across the canal flashed orange like a string of Christmas tree lights as the night air, and the man on the bridge, was ripped apart by roaring rifle rounds!
The ambushed bellhop in Captain Gringo’s old suit staggered back, hit the flimsy rail, and crashed through it to fall in the canal with a mighty splash as the two surprised British agents hunkered down and listened to the sounds of fading footsteps on wet planking. One of them said, “Jesus!”
The other sighed and said, “Jesus had nothing to do with it. They’ve run off, whoever they were. Let’s see if there’s a chance he’s alive.”
The two men moved forward, cautiously. Nobody else seemed at all interested in the short savage fusillade. People in that part of town tended not to get involved. The agents moved out on the bridge and looked through the gap in the rail down at the ink black water of the canal. The waves of the splash were already settling. One of them said, “He’s on the bottom. They got him good.”
“Oh, hell, what will we tell Greystoke now?”
“The truth, of course. It’s not as if we killed Captain Gringo I Our job was simply to keep an eye on him, and I’d say we did, for as long as he was around. Let’s get out of here and find a telephone. His nibs is going to want to know that one player was just dealt out of the Great Game.”
~*~
Back at the hotel, Camelia was clinging hysterically to Captain Gringo as she sobbed, “Oh, it has started! They are shooting guns outside and now we shall be killed, no?”
“No,” he said. “I heard the shots just now. Sounded like a volley of rifle fire. Couple of blocks away to the north-east. They’re obviously not shooting at us, so what the hell.”
“But, señor, my poor little cabana is over that way! I can never go home, now. Not until the war is over!”
He nodded and said, “I doubt if they’re having a war just yet; but it doesn’t make much sense to walk into a gang fight or whatever. Let’s just sit tight and see if there’s any more noise, eh?”
“Si,” Camelia said. “I think that is a good idea.” Then she stepped away from him, flicked off the light, and started to take her clothes off.
He considered saying something dumb about waiting until they got to her place. Then his breath caught as he got a better look at what was going on right here and now. There was just enough light coming over the transome for him to see the petite mestiza, stark naked by the foot of the bed, neatly folding her uniform. As she draped it over the brass bed rail and moved around to draw the covers down, she was bent over again, and nobody could be built that nicely out of flesh and blood. Camelia was a tawny bronze statue, sculpted by an inspired Greek with a hard-on. She climbed demurely into bed and pulled the covers up as high as her perky little breasts, smiling shyly at him in the semi-darkness as she asked, “Don’t you want me?”
He realized nobody but an asshole would be standing there fully dressed at a time like this. So he corrected the mistake by shucking his duds and letting them fall wherever they wanted, hanging on to the gun when he dropped the gun rig on his rumpled jacket. Camelia’s eyes widened as he climbed in bed, gun in hand. She said, “Why are you going to shoot me? I told you I was most willing, señor!”
He laughed, tucked the gun between the mattress and the headboard and took her in his arms, saying, “Relax. The last thing I want to put in you is a bullet.”
She returned his embrace and matched his foreplay by reaching for his groin as he cupped her heavily thatched lovebox in an eager palm. He felt an odd thrill at the contrast between her and the way Bubbles had felt down there that afternoon. She was even hairier than he’d expected and it would have been repellent had she not been so feminine in every other way. A dark line of fuzz ran up to her navel and the aroused nipples of her firm little breasts were surrounded by whorls of dark down. She grasped his shaft and gasped, “Oh, I don’t know, señor! I did not expect there to be so much of you!”
He said, “I think, under the circumstances señor seems a little formal. I am called Dick.” Then he parted the matted thatch with his fingers to fondle her engorged wet clit as she relaxed and sighed, “Oh, I don’t think I am afraid, after all, Deek!” as she began to stroke him, eagerly.
He rolled to mount her as she spread her slim tawny thighs to welcome him. But as he entered her she bit her lip and pleaded, “Please, be careful with that most dangerous weapon, no?”
He slowly settled into her, wondering if he was going to have his intelligence insulted by the old virgin bullshit. He was polite enough not to remind her this had been her idea, and, after it had been in her all the way, not movin
g, for a time, Camelia wrapped her arms and legs around him and said, “Oh, you are making me so happy.” So he kissed her and began to move as she returned his kiss in an oddly sweet way. It stayed sweet even when Camelia began to move her little derriere in full acceptance of his thrusts. He told himself it was probably just the contrast between a normal peasant girl and the rather raunchy way Bubbles had torn off a quickie with him, earlier. But she was making him happy, too. And he let himself fall a little in love with the first girl he’d met in this crazy country that acted human. Camelia was simple, not too bright, and hardly the sort of girl one took home to mother, but, damn it, he liked her, and if the fucking Brits invaded her country, he’d have to do something about making sure she was safe.
~*~
Sir Basil Hakim was enjoying an opium pipe as a rosy-cheeked boy puffed on his other pipe, when the phone rang by the bed. Hakim put the pipe aside and dreamily picked up the receiver as his love slave went on sucking.
Greystoke of British Intelligence snapped, “All right, you Turkish cocksucker. What have you to say for yourself?”
Hakim frowned and said, “I haven’t sucked cock since I was a lad in Istanbul. What’s made you so surly this evening, old bean?”
“You, you son-of-a-bitch! I suppose you’re going to tell me those weren’t your thugs who just killed Captain Gringo?”
Hakim’s eyes widened and he pushed his love slave away as he sat up and replied, “Dick Walker’s dead? That’s impossible! He’s supposed to be spending the night with one of my girls!”
“You have girls, too? Don’t play innocent with me, Hakim! Two of my agents just saw Walker killed in Tucupita, and I’m going to have your arse this time! Your chum, the Prince of Wales, won’t help you out of this one! I happen to know Prince Edward has been trying to patch things up with friends in Washington. You’ve dangerously misjudged His Highness, Hakim. I know he’s a playboy and a rake, but he’s a rather decent bloke under all that lard, and you’ve just messed up a very good idea I had by killing Captain Gringo.”
Hakim shook his head to clear it as he said, “As Allah is my witness, I had nothing to do with his assassination. I, too, had plans for Walker. He’s done a few odd jobs for me in the past and I’ve been trying to hire him again. For some reason, he doesn’t seem to like me. Damned if I can see why.”
“I can. I suppose you didn’t know he was a double agent, either, eh?”
“Double what? Dash it all, Greystoke, I told you I’ve worked with poor Dick a few times. I know his whole story. He was a U.S. Cavalry officer gone wrong and—”
“Bullshit,” Greystoke cut in. “He was working for the States all the time. That renegade story was his cover—but that’s neither here nor there. The point is that now I can’t make my deal with him, and when I get His Highness on the line you’re going to pay for it!”
Hakim stood up and stamped his feet, blissfully unaware of the grotesque figure he was cutting for the giggling young fag on the foot of the bed. Sir Basil was a short pudgy man with a white spade beard and an obscenely large penis, limp as a rag at the moment. He blinked away the last opium fumes and said, “Let’s stop calling one another names, Greystoke. We’re not the only players in this game. I’ll admit some of my boys tried to kidnap Captain Gringo and Gaston Verrier earlier today. He unfortunately kicked the daylights out of them before they could persuade him to come see me. I was fortunate enough to have some other bait, female, and I’ll find out in a minute why she’s not in bed with him at this moment. I give you my word as a peer of the realm that nobody working for me had anything to do with his death. So simmer down and tell me about it.”
Greystoke filled the tiny Turk in and Hakim said, “I’ve an idea who did it, now. A, ah, client I was having trouble with tried earlier to tell me that Captain Gringo intercepted some, uh, merchandise I still haven’t been paid for. I know Walker was nowhere near when whatever took place took place, if it ever did. They knew I was trying to recruit him. They must have killed him to shut him up before we could compare notes. But the fools have wasted a good man for nothing. I’m on to the bleeding sods!”
“Tell me who they are, then,” Greystoke demanded. “I have a score to settle with them, too!”
Hakim shook his head and answered, “No. You know I hardly discuss my personal dealings with British Intelligence, Greystoke. But not to worry. I’ll see they’re paid back.”
Greystoke’s tone sounded more mollified as he answered, “Oh? Your people will take care of the leader of the gang who killed Captain Gringo?”
“Well, hardly the leader. He owes me money and I expect him to be the president of Venezuela in a few years, no matter how our current crisis is resolved. But I mean to draw his fangs and teach him a jolly good lesson. Tell me about this scheme you had involving Captain Gringo.”
Greystoke snorted and said, “Surely you jest. Please don’t bother to deny you’ve been trying to take advantage of this unfortunate business between us and Yanks by dropping your own hook in troubled waters!”
“That’s true,” Hakim said. “Business is business. But I am having second thoughts about the situation down here. All in all, Washington may have had a good idea when it backed the legitimate government. None of the other factions seem to pay their flaming bills! Surely, if you thought you could trust Dick Walker, an enemy agent of some sort, you can trust me, a British subject?”
Greystoke said, “I’d trust the Kaiser, first. But dash it all, I can’t seem to convince an asshole admiral that the Yanks aren’t bluffing!”
The little arms merchant shrugged and said, “They are and they aren’t. You know, of course, I have Washington and Wall Street contacts?”
“Get to the flaming point, Hakim!”
“Very well, Grover Cleveland’s not bluffing. He’s a rather old-fashioned Presbyterian chap with a fatiguing devotion to Old Testament Justice and all that rot. He’s given to rather quixotic bursts and he can be most stubborn when he thinks he’s in the right. He ordered captured Confederate flags returned to the Southern States a few years ago despite the howls of outrage from the G.A.R. and other professional northerners. He’s killed more pork barrel bills than any president since Jackson. He doesn’t seem to care a fig for political considerations. He decides what’s right, from a rather smug and loftly plane, and then he just goes and does it.”
“Sounds like a decent chap, what?”
“It gets more fatiguing. The first time he ran for president his enemies uncovered a scandal in Cleveland’s past. Seems he once fathered a child out of wedlock. Only to be expected from a vigorous young lawyer, one imagines. At any rate, his friends advised him to issue a simple denial.”
“Naturally, a thing like that could cost a man the election.”
“It didn’t. Cleveland issued a public statement admitting his youthful folly. He added that he’d provided for the upbringing and education of his illegitimate child, who was now grown and married and not to be bothered.”
“My God, and he won!”
“Yes, a lot of Yanks seem to admire his simple views of right and wrong. The smear campaign backfired and he won by a perishing landslide. He’s been elected twice and the American people will back him.”
Greystoke thought and said, “Hmm, if what you say be true, the Yanks are not bluffing about their Monroe Doctrine after all, even though we can’t seem to locate any real forces down here.”
Hakim said, “I’m not finished. There are no important American forces near enough to Venezuela to matter. Cleveland is standing by his guns,’ but Congress won’t send any. You don’t make friends in Congress by refusing to play the patronage game and stabbing one pork barrel bill after another with a pocket veto. Cleveland’s put his honor and reputation on the line by invoking the Monroe Doctrine and issuing an ultimatum to the British Empire. His enemies in Congress want to make an ass of him by refusing to send the troops and ships to back his demands.”
“Oh, poor chap’s in a sticky wicket, the
n. He’ll simply have to back down when our task force steams up the river, eh?”
Hakim said, flatly, “He won’t. The handful of military he’s managed to post down here have orders to resist any British invasion to the last man. I imagine they will. Halls Of Montezuma and all that rot.”
“That’s madness,” Greystoke said. “Admiral Rice-Davis sings songs, too. What on earth can Cleveland have in mind by ordering those few men to certain death?”
“War,” said Sir Basil, bleakly. “Congress is mucking about with the wrong President. There’ll be no way they can avoid voting for a declaration of war, once American blood has been spilled. I imagine Cleveland had this in mind when he ordered his men down here to stand and fight.”
“But, damn it, Sir Hakim, Britain doesn’t want a war with America. Why does Cleveland want a war with us?”
“I don’t think he does, but I told you, he’s stubborn. If you chaps can keep Admiral Rice-Davis on a leash, the international tribunal may be able to settle the dispute peacefully with honor. Cleveland’s ready to negotiate. He won’t back down unilaterally. You said you had some sort of plan involving Captain Gringo, but Captain Gringo is dead. So what can I do for you?”
Greystoke hesitated again before he said, “Well, you know Dick Walker used to be jolly good at making a lot of noise and raising more hell than one would expect. I have it on good authority that the task force will start; with a probing action. Orders are to back off if it looks like the Yanks are really serious. But how serious can a handful of consulate guards seem, even if they go all out with their little pop guns? One imagines a puffed up soft headed sod-like Rice-Davis would take a bit of convincing, eh what?”
Sir Basil smiled, dangerously, and said, “I’ll get back to you. I have to wrap a few things up here in Caracas before I deal with Rice-Davis.”
Hakim pressed the cradle down and got another number as he sat again and motioned to the waiting boy. As he leaned back luxuriously and took the youth’s head in his lap again he said, dreamily, “I want El Sortilego’s head. Better yet, leave it in Cipriano Castro’s bathroom for him to find. I don’t think they understand, down here, how I do business.”