by Lou Cameron
Why would anyone with a lick of sense want to alert a couple of known professional fighting men they might be in trouble if the real intent was to hit them harder, later?
Nobody around here figured to explain the riddle to him. So he moved on. He eased up the steps to the platform. If nobody spooky-looking was in the waiting room to cover the front entrance, he’d simply have to step in through the platform entrance and pick up three train rides at the all-night ticket window inside.
He didn’t. As he made sure his own face was shadowed and peeked through the grimy glass of a platform window, he saw four guys in the waiting room—waiting for something serious, judging from the way their jackets bulged under the left armpits. All four were dressed blanco. It was too murky inside to make out for sure what probable nationality went with the North American or European duds they wore. Two were seated on opposing benches, covering the front entrance from a cross-fire position. Another sat with his back to Captain Gringo, in position to blast anyone coming in the other way, head on. The fourth, who was either in command or just nervous, was pacing back and forth inside. When he moved over to peek at the deserted street out front, Captain Gringo took off before he could consider the back platform windows.
Captain Gringo slipped out of the rail yards even more confused than he’d slipped in. Scouting the depot had just been the normal precaution that a guy living on the run had to take. He hadn’t really expected to find such an obvious ambush set up there.
“Maybe,” he told his fresh claro as he stopped in a dark doorway to light it, “the guys we just saw are after somebody else? San José is full of foreign consulates, spies, soldiers of fortune, and stuff. Is there any law saying we’re the only guys anyone could be after? Shit, we’re not even wanted by the Costa Rican cops, bless their little hearts.”
The claro had no sensible answers to offer. So he just smoked it as he made his way back to the hotel. He checked his pocket watch near the rear entrance. It was almost a quarter to three. Whatever they did, they had to get out of the hotel poco tiempo. It was probably safe enough to make a run for that other posada Gaston knew about. Latins tended to be night people, but at this hour even the streets of San José were pretty deserted.
He slipped in the back way unobserved. That had been the general idea. He moved up the stairwell, hoping by now Gaston and the princess were through screwing and that she didn’t have much luggage to worry about.
The hall carpets were lush, and the big American moved light-footed in any case. So as he rounded the corner leading to Room 207, the two guys facing said door had their backs to him.
Captain Gringo suppressed a startled gasp and drew his .38 instead as he took in the scene in one horrified glance. The intent of the two burly guys in native dress was all too obvious. One already had the lit bomb in his hand in motion as the other kicked Princess Manukai’s door in for him to throw it!
Captain Gringo moved fast for a man his size, as many a slower man had learned the hard way. But it seemed as if time were standing still and that he were hauling his gun hand and gun through air thicker than glue. He watched the bomb float in slow motion into the darkness of 207 like a bubble and then—too late, he realized sickly—the .38 in his numb right hand was firing with the maddening slowness of a steeple bell sounding the death knell.
To the men he was gunning, it seemed a lot faster, of course. Both stood dead in their tracks before they knew they were dead or had time to fall. For, in truth, Captain Gringo got off five pistol rounds that sounded more like a burst of automatic fire. Then the doorway of Room 207 lit up bright orange, and Captain Gringo was knocked on his ass by the shock wave of the explosion!
Cursing, trying not to puke, the heartsick American rolled around the corner and sprang to his feet, instinctively heading for cover while up and down the corridor people blasted awake began to shout all at once.
But before anyone could open an embarrassing door, Captain Gringo made it to his own suite and ducked inside, thanking God Gaston hadn’t thought to lock it after fixing it—and cursing God for what had just happened to Gaston and a great lay as well!
For a long, sick moment he braced his back in the dark against the door he’d just slammed shut against the whole cruel world. He knew he had a few minutes, maybe more, to think. He just couldn’t think straight at the moment. He’d lost the only friend he trusted south of the Rio Grande, and with the princess blown away as well, there was no point in running for Puntarenas, so … Okay, where was he supposed to run?
It was a good question. He wanted to take a thoughtful drag on his claro while considering the matter, saw he’d left it somewhere in his recent travels, and fished out another to light up. As he struck a match he blinked and gasped, “What the fuck?” and then flipped the light switch. Because the couple in his bed had not only messed it up a lot, fucking in it, but had either managed to kill themselves or at least knock themselves out in the process!
Captain Gringo laughed like an idiot who’d just been pardoned the night before his scheduled execution as he moved over to the bed where Gaston lay in the arms of Morpheus as well as Princess Manukai. As he bent over to shake the little Frenchman, he inhaled the rising fumes, nodded, and said, “Yeah, she said she was out of booze. But I used to have Jamaica as well as gin in here. Wake up, you sex-mad drunk. We got troubles.”
Gaston opened one bleary eye and mumbled, “Don’t hit me, Dick. I know you saw her first, but she overpowered me.”
“I believe you. That’s not the problem. Didn’t you hear all that noise just now?”
“There was noise, my jealous lover? Tell me about it in the morning.”
“Goddamn it, it is morning, and they hit sooner than we expected them to! They just gave the princess here a dandy excuse for that busted bed. They tossed a bomb in it! That’s one down and two to go. So cut the comedy and help me fort up!”
Without waiting for an answer, he moved back to the door and proceeded to reload his .38 as Gaston swung his naked feet to the floor, sat up, and rubbed his face, groaning, “Merde alors, I feel sick.”
Captain Gringo growled, “It must have been someone you ate. Heads up. I hear the pitter-patter of little feet coming our way!”
He switched off the overhead light just as someone pounded on the door authoritatively and a voice called out, “Hotel Security! Is anyone in there?”
Captain Gringo held the .38 politely out of sight as he cracked the door to reply innocently, “My pal just went to get some more liquor. We’re, ah, having a party. What’s up?”
The hotel dick, with an anxious night clerk standing behind him, said, “Oh, it is you, Señor Walker? Forgive me, we do not wish for to be officious, but we just had a terrible thing happen on this floor and wish for to make certain our other guests are all right!”
“I heard what sounded like an explosion just now,” replied Captain Gringo, trying not to sound too interested as he added, “What happened?”
The house dick made the sign of the cross and said, “In God’s truth, I wish we knew! You cannot see it from here, but just around the far corner two pobrecitos lie dead on the mg. They must have been killed by their own bomb. It is only just, no?”
“They had a bomb?”
“Si, more than one. Two others lie between them in the corridor. I have told no one to touch either until La Policia arrive. It looks as if they meant to throw all three into the suite of the poor Princess Manukai. But the first one was ‘ more powerful than they thought, and now at least the state is saved the expense of a trial!”
Captain Gringo said that sounded fair as well as logical. Then, willing to press his luck a bit for more information, he asked, “Princess, you say, señor? Is she all right?”
The house dick answered, “Si, some kind of South Sea Island royalty. You must have seen her around the hotel. A great brown woman. The bomb was most obviously intended for her as some sort of political assassination. But God smiled on us all. She was not in her suite at the time.
In fact, she seems to have left the hotel. There is no baggage in her suite. I certainly hope she’s gone for good. We don’t really want such exciting guests in this hotel. We’re never going to get all that blood out of the hall carpeting; and as for what they did to suite two-oh-seven, Madre de Dios!”
Captain Gringo nodded knowingly and reached in his pants as he said, “Some people just don’t deserve such sophisticated surroundings. They don’t understand that they’re not supposed to make noise after midnight.”
He handed out enough to make them both feel very happy as he added, “We wouldn’t have started our own quiet little party had we known the place was about to blow up and attract the attention of La Policia. But we’ll get the whores out of here as soon as my friend gets back, eh?”
The house dick and room clerk exchanged glances as well as the tip. The house dick put a finger to the side of his nose, winked, and said, “We did not hear that, Senor. If we had, I would have to chide you for being naughty. But since we did not and La Policia will be here any minute, the last thing the management wishes for to explain is wicked women whose names do not appear on the pages downstairs!”
“Look, we don’t want the girls picked up either. But won’t the cops want to question everyone on this floor?”
“For why, señor? Did not Pepe here and me just see you and your friend come in alone after the explosion?”
The night clerk cleared his throat nervously and asked the older and more cynical house dick, “What if El Señor’s friend comes in from the bodega after we have just told La Policia he is in his suite?” So the house dick snorted in disgust and said, “Estupido, he went out again for to get some medication for his nerves after learning of the attempted assassination on his floor, of course! Leave it to me. I am the one they will be talking to, no? Come, let us see to the other guests.”
He winked again at Captain Gringo and they moved on, the house dick still explaining how a good house dick kept the cops out of the hair of innocent guests. Captain Gringo closed the door, locked it, and switched on the light again.
The scene across the room hadn’t changed, save that Gaston was enjoying a healthy belt of Jamaica as Princess Manukai went on dreaming with a contented Mona Lisa smile. Captain Gringo growled, “Okay, you heard all that. So now you know more than I do! What the fuck were you two doing in my bed when they hit earlier than expected?”
Gaston replied, “Fucking, of course. Her bed was ruined even before they blew it up, and this one was closer than mine as we dashed gaily down the corridor. Have you ever dashed a six-foot-six naked woman gaily down a corridor, Dick? If you ever do, I assure you that you will feel speed is of the essence!”
“Oh great! Didn’t you even bring her kimono?”
Gaston stood up, tottered around to the other side of the bed, and—staring down at things Captain Gringo couldn’t see from his side—said, “Oui, there it is, under my hat. I scooped up as much as I could before she could drag me out the door by the dong. Have you noticed what a trés impulsive child the adorable little thing is? She seems to want what she wants when she wants it. So when I pointed out the disadvantages of an already collapsed bed and suggested mine—”
“Never mind the details,” Captain Gringo cut in, adding with a grim smile: “Sometimes it pays to be impulsive. But I sure wish you’d taken time to move her luggage as well as her ass. The hotel help just said there isn’t any in her room right now.”
“I heard. Perhaps her belongings were blown out the window? Never underestimate what a freak explosion may do, hein?”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Never underestimate the resident sneak thieves you’ll find in most hotels, either. Either way, we’re stuck with one big broad who doesn’t own a thing at the moment but a kimono at least two sizes too small for her, and we have to sneak her out of here before sunrise!”
Gaston sat down beside her again, glass in one hand, as with the other he gently raised one of her eyelids, nodded to himself, and said, “You forgot to add ‘unconscious.’ If she wasn’t so formidable, she’d be dead as well. She drinks like a species of fish, and while we are on the subject, you must have noticed she’s a rather simpleminded species of slut, hein?”
“Hey, let’s be fair, you horny old goat. We both fucked her, and she didn’t ask either of us for money. Where in the South Sea Constitution does it say a guy who lays two dames in one night is a sportsman while a dame who lays two guys is a slut?”
Gaston sighed and replied, “Eh bien, I deserved that. But my remark was more concerned with her brains than her morals. Aside from being an easy lay, our adorable princess has broken every rule in the skulduggerist’s survival manual. She has blabbed her already risky plan all over a trés tough town; and as we just observed, people we don’t even know are not at all enthused about them. There is no way on earth we could board the coast train with an almost naked giant lady without attracting attention and—”
“I forgot to tell you,” Captain Gringo cut in. “Some other guys who don’t seem to want those natives rescued have the depot staked out. So we couldn’t smuggle her aboard any train, dressed as a nun!”
“Merde alors, that tears it, then. I know you are going to say this sounds … how you say, chicken shit, but has it occurred to you that they are after her, not us, at the moment?”
Captain Gringo said, “When you’re right, you’re right. It sounds chicken shit, even coming from you, you old fart!”
Gaston finished his drink and rose again, walking around to gather up his clothing as he insisted, “Did I ever tell you how one gets to be an old fart? For one thing, one starts by not getting killed while one is a young fart! Let us consider the matter from a practique point of view instead of the passion we both feel for this sleeping beauty, Dick. We were not the ones who kidnapped her adorable pearl-diving peones. We were not the ones who advised her to go to the German consulate to make rude remarks about a German-owned company and then tell all the street people of San José what she intended to do about the grotesque situation. We just saved her life once, gratis. So she’s one life, countless orgasms, and almost all our booze ahead of us! Didn’t your mother ever tell you how wise it is to run for the lifeboats while the doomed ship was still afloat?”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “It’s the rats, not the men, who desert the sinking ship. You’re right about her being too dumb to be let out without a leash. So we can’t just leave her here. We’ll have to get her dressed and over to that other hideout, poco tiempo. We’re never going to make it after sunrise, and we’re running out of night by the minute!”
Gaston went on bitching and dressing as Captain Gringo moved to the window, looked out, and said, “Bueno, I see the roof of the shop next door comes to just under the second-story sills on this side.”
Gaston just cursed in a mixture of French, Spanish, and Arabic. So Captain Gringo only understood two-thirds of the dumb things he was supposed to be. He nodded and said, “Okay, Don Quixote was an asshole too, but this windmill says she’s willing to pay a thousand a week and screws pretty good as well.”
“Merde alors, who said anything about lasting a week in her company? We’ve known her less than twelve hours, and all sorts of people we don’t even know are out to kill us!”
Captain Gringo moved over to the bed, saying, “Like you said before, I think it’s her they’re after. Hand me that kimono.”
Gaston did, saying, “Have you considered this is all the poor child owns in the world right now? How is she supposed to pay us if someone stole her luggage, clothing, and purse, hein?”
“Will you stop trying to cross bridges we haven’t even seen yet?” the tall American replied, bending over to shake the Kanaka girl’s big brown shoulder, saying, “Rise and shine, Doll. We gotta move it down the road.”
Manukai fluttered her eyes, sighed contentedly, and purred, “Whose turn is it to make nukinuki with me?”
He grimaced, shook her harder, and insisted, “Hey, no shi
t, wake up. We have to haul ass out of here. The cold gray dawn is on its way, and judging by the noise outside, the cops are already here!”
That did it. She suddenly sat up, blinking in confusion, and asked what was going on. He explained as much as her still-befuddled mind could grasp while he helped her into her kimono, tried to fasten it more modestly over her big brown tits, and discovered it was, yeah, at least two sizes too small for her. But there was nothing anyone could do about that now. So he told Gaston, “Don’t just stand there, damn it. Hit the light switch and help me get her out the goddam window!”
Gaston did. But once they were supporting the big wobbly-legged Kanaka girl between them on the tar-paper roof next door, Gaston pointed out that dropping her over the edge into the alley seemed as rude as just tossing her out a second-story window in the first place.
Captain Gringo said, “Make for that roof hatch near the chimney, you jerk-off. There has to be a ladder or a flight of steps leading down inside the shop, right?”
Gaston helped him get the princess over to it and dropped to one knee to get out his all-purpose pocketknife, but even as he made short work of the lock, whispered, “What if someone lives over the shop?”
“Asshole, if I didn’t know this was a one-story building with no quarters in the back, we wouldn’t be doing this! But get your thirty-eight out anyway. I could be an asshole, too.”
He wasn’t. Once they’d popped the roof hatch and manhandled the big girl down the steep steps, they found themselves in the flower shop catering mostly to guests in the hotel next door; and, naturally, nobody was about to buy a bouquet at this hour. As he left Manukai in Gaston’s charge to scout the back exit, the princess helped herself to a big red rose for her long black hair, explaining with a sigh that a hibiscus blossom would really be more fashionable where she came from.
The back door and alleyway seemed clear. So the two soldiers of fortune braced the princess between them and started making tracks as she kept staggering and saying, “Wheeeee!”
