Renegade 28

by Lou Cameron

  Captain Gringo joined the laughter as he took charge of his own drink. He knew what Gaston was up to, and it seemed to be working. Conchita didn’t ask anything else about the bodies out back as she defended herself from Gaston’s outrageous remarks. Captain Gringo thought she might be getting really steamed when he noticed she was crossing her legs and covering up with her kimono. So he said, “I haven’t believed anything he’s told me about a lady since he accused his own aunt of introducing him to oral sex, Conchita. We both know he comes from a disgraceful family, but he’s just too ugly for incest.”

  Conchita laughed and said, “Oh, you’ve heard about dear old Aunt Mimi, too? He’s the only customer we’ve ever had who can make even my tougher girls blush, and I must say we get some pretty rough trade when the fishing fleet’s enjoyed a good catch!”

  Captain Gringo brightened and asked, “Do you know any fishermen who might like to make some real money sort of rough, Conchita?”

  The hard-boiled whore shrugged and said, “¿Quien sabe? What kind of rough stuff are we talking about, and more important, what’s in it for me?”

  Gaston was gently kicking Captain Gringo’s booted ankle for some reason. So the American said, “What we need with a tough crew and a fast boat is of no concern to a lady who likes to stay in good with La Policia. But what’s in it for you is a finder’s fee, of course. Ten percent of whatever we can work out with the fishermen?”

  She shook her head and said, “Not good enough. I can’t tell muchachos who trust me to just trust me! Who but a fool would even agree to meet with a stranger, not even a Costa Rican, for to risk his ass and his boat doing what, when, and with whom?”

  Captain Gringo ignored Gaston’s frantic foot as he smiled thinly and said, “Bueno, you are too wise in the ways of this wicked world to even attempt to fool, Conchita. It’s a gun-running deal. We want to run up the coast with a few cases of Krags for the Nicaraguan rebels, and the winning side’s patrol boats are on to the usual tramp steamer we’ve been using up to now. Would you spread the word we’re willing to pay well for some guys with a shallow-draft lugger and some knowledge of the reefs up that way?”

  She shrugged and said, “You’ll have to pay well indeed, if anyone who screws here is mad enough to take such a chance! I’ll spread the word, but don’t hang by your thumbs waiting for to hear from me. By the way, where are you two to be found—on the outside chance I succeed in finding you a boatload of lunatics?”

  Captain Gringo finished his drink, put it down, and stood up as he said casually, “We’ll check back with you. We were staying at another whorehouse up the slope, but we had to check out when the madam began to wonder why La Policia was strolling by so often.”

  “Madre de Dios, you expect simple fishermen to join up with you when both the Nicaraguans and our own government seem to be on to you?”

  Gaston rose too, saying in a soothing tone, “Do your best, querida. There is no great hurry. We shall drop by later in the week to see how you made out.”

  She led them to her front entrance, muttering they were both nuts, and let them out, but barred her door firmly behind them. As they strolled innocently away, Gaston asked, “What was all that shit of the bull about, Dick? Didn’t you feel it when I signaled you to shut up?”

  “Yeah, and remind me I owe you a black-and-blue ankle, too! But I’d already started before you warned me you only trusted her so far. So I had to keep talking, and as long as I was talking, I figured I may as well leave some red herrings for Von Linderhoff and the cops to sniff at.”

  Gaston frowned thoughtfully and said, “Eh bien, if the local police pick up rumors of some mysterious strangers planning to scoot up the coast towards Nicaragua, they may discount or simply be confused about leaks involving our true reasons for wishing to go fishing somewhere else. But surely Von Linderhoff would not be put off by such an obvious ruse, since he already knows we are interested in the Guardian Bank, to the west-southwest, non?”

  “How are the Germans supposed to hear anything Conchita says, unless they sure like to screw sloppy? Even if a sailor off that gunboat picks up rumors along with the clap, there’s nothing to the story I just fed her that connects us to that whorehouse. Where in the hell did you come up with a name like ‘Gonner Swensen’ for a Yank like me?”

  “I served with a big blond species of Scandinavian answering to that name in the Legion one time. He was killed at Camerone by the Juaristas. I thought it better to have you described as a Viking than a Yank, and I don’t even know whether Swensen was a Swede or Dane. Latins are even more confused by big blonds. So, should Conchita be less trustworthy than one hopes, let us hope we confused her beaucoup, hein?”

  Captain Gringo said that sounded fair. So when they came to a main cross street, still deserted because of La Siesta, they split up. Gaston went on to see if he could do some recruiting among crooks he really trusted, and Captain Gringo followed the calle over to the waterfront to go back aboard the Orotiki.

  He didn’t know if they had a word for La Siesta in Kanaka. But with the tar bubbling up between the sun-toasted planks of the schooner’s decking, the people aboard had caught on to local custom fast, and there was not a soul in sight. He thought that seemed a hell of a good idea, himself. But he had a last look around before going below.

  Out on the harbor, the German gunboat lay at anchor, broiling in the sun and probably a steel-walled brick-kiln inside as well. Even the harbor gulls were holed up for La Siesta now as the tropic sun glared down from, say, two-thirty. So Captain Gringo was more than a little surprised to see two white-clad feminine figures hurrying his way along the hot cobbles of the quay under parasols that couldn’t really be helping either the red or blond head they were attempting to shade. They were obviously making for the Orotiki. The redhead, in fact, was waving up at him now. He moved to the gangplank to see what they had in mind, aside from sunstroke.

  As they both came aboard, the blonde in the lead said, “Ach, Captain Gringo, so gut is it to find you here! Mein sister, Alfrieda here, would like a word mitt you. Only she does not Englisch speak, so I, Hilda, must for her translate, ja?”

  “Not under this hot sun,” he replied, leading them both to the hatchway leading under the quarterdeck and sliding it open for them. Inside, it was still too damned hot, but a lot cooler. He said, “I’m not sure which of these staterooms is supposed to be mine. But one of them must be. Let’s see.”

  He passed the entrance to Kuruhai’s cabin, ignoring the snores he heard coming from it, and tried the next one. Both German girls gasped, and he said, “Ooops, sorry,” as he quickly slid the vented paneling shut again for the startled couple they’d caught in the act of a so-called crime against nature. It was obviously too hot for even a Kanaka to just plain screw.

  He tried the other side of the gangway, opened up an imposing stateroom that didn’t seem to be occupied—judging from the fresh linens on the bunk—and said, “This is either mine or the boss lady’s, and she’s at the hotel, so what the hell. Come in and make yourself comfortable, girls. I’ll see if there’s anything to refresh ourselves with in this cabinet.”

  There was. He knew now it was Manukai’s layout, as he exposed some very expensive booze to view. He suggested gin and tonic, in this heat, and both his mysterious pretty visitors agreed as they flopped down on the bunk looking wilted. He didn’t think he’d better suggest they unbutton their high-collar bodices just yet. But as soon as he’d handed them their refreshments, he tossed his hat aside and removed his jacket. The redhead stared soberly at his exposed shoulder holster and said something in German to the blonde, who said, “Mein sister wants to know if it is true you are very tough, and that you will shoot anyone for money.”

  He found a stool under the liquor cabinet and hauled it out to perch on before he said, “I’m a soldier of fortune, not a hired assassin. But just who did you ladies have in mind?”

  Hilda said, “Der manager here, of Halle und Feldmacher. He ist a fiend from hell!”


  “No kidding? Funny you should mention that. You girls are not alone in your opinion. But what on earth has Halle und Feldmacher ever done to you! No offense, but you two certainly don’t look like pearl divers!”

  The blonde looked as if she was about to burst into tears as she said, “Please nicht to mock us, and if you don’t mind, your Englisch please keep zimpler. Mein sister, Die Frau Keller, a stockholder in Halle und Feldmacher ist. The shares were left to her by mein late brother-in-law, a director of the company. He died last year, they told her, of a fever caught in das South Pacific on a trading expedition. But a few months ago, a crewman who aboard his trading schooner back in Bremerhaven arrived, to tell mein sister her man had by a native been with a spear stabbed instead!”

  Captain Gringo nodded soberly and said, “That would make most widows wonder, wouldn’t it? But how come you girls came here to Central America to check the story out?”

  The two of them chatted in German a moment. Then, with the redhead up-to-date again, the blonde explained, “We went first to a place called Konakona, between Samoa and Tahiti, where mein sister’s husband lies buried in a Lutheran churchyard. Der missionary was not able to tell us all that happened. He said Alfrieda’s husband had died on a smaller island a day or more to sail away, und so, by the time they brought the body to Konakona, in a lead-foil-wrapped sea chest, he wise thought it nicht to open it. We asked the government there for help. But the government of Konakona brown laughing savages ist, und, while they were polite enough, they could not tell us just what happened to her Hansel. Aber, some of the natives able were to tell us that other company men who had with her husband been when he died were now pearling off der Guardian Bank … Ist Guardian Bank feminine or masculine in Englisch?”

  “Never mind. Call ’em die, der, or rocks. Have you girls been to the Guardian Bank?”

  The blonde shuddered and said, “Ja, and it was grässlich! So slim the poor natives were, mitt whip marks all over their brown skins! They are working them like beasts, und beating them when they don’t come to the surface mitt pearls. But even we know there can’t be a pearl in every oyster. So why hit a poor frightened boy who ist only his best trying?”

  “We heard the captive divers are being mistreated,” he cut in, going on to demand: “How did you girls get out there, and more important, how did you get safely back?”

  They consulted each other in German, probably to keep Alfrieda from wetting her pants as she tried to follow the conversation she obviously found more important than understandable. Then Hilda said, “We arrived here unannounced. So they could not stop us when we simply hired a Costa Rican yacht to sail out there. Once we there were, the company men to stop us from around looking tried. But it ist a small island, und we are more determined womens than we may appear. I don’t think we saw everything. They tried to up cover by having the natives run away when we tried to speak to them. They have them trained, I think, like dogs. By the time we decided we had better leave, the situation ugly was becoming. But the crew of our Costa Rican yacht also tough looking was, und more than one of them told the men out there what they thought of them. So we left before a fight could start. Und naturlich, we reported conditions out there at once to the German consulate here in Puntarenas!”

  “What did they say? That they’d look into it, and that meanwhile the two of you should just go on back to Bremerhaven?”

  “Ach, have you spoken to our consulate, too, Captain Gringo?”

  “Call me Dick. I don’t have to speak to consuls in banana ports. They all say the same things, and none of them really have any power. You girls are going to hate me for saying this, but he gave you good advice.”

  “But we don’t wish back to Germany to go, now that we know what ist going on in the name of Halle und Feldmacher! It ist not just that mein sister stock holds in it, or that her man died working for it. What they are doing out there is a disgrace to the name of Der Vaterland, und we are both the daughters of a Prussian Obürst!”

  He said, “Hold the thought,” as he rose and ducked out a minute. He went to the skipper’s cabin and got a pencil as well as the admiralty chart without waking Kuruhai. He brought it back to the German girls and asked, “Could you ladies pinpoint the exact island we’re talking about?”

  They had to think about that in German awhile. Then, when they had it narrowed down, they were both only somewhere near the spot Kuruhai had stabbed with his bigger finger. Hilda said, “So much alike these dots all look! From the bow of a boat ist easier. The surf a way of splashing over the smaller rocks und submerged reefs has. Also, the tin roofing of the company compound ist not hard to see from even far away. We could guide you there, we think, but all we can tell from this map is that the right island would be here, or here, about.”

  He grimaced and said, “I could use a guide, Hilda. But you don’t look like you could use a bullet in your pretty blond skull. So we’ll have to work out something safer. How do I go about contacting the crew of that first yacht you chartered? They sound like decent guys, and they must know the way even better than you if they took you out there.”

  Hilda fired full-automatic in German at the redhead, who kept nodding or shaking her head and shooting back just as fast. It was no wonder so many Germans went around acting tough. It was a hell of a language to say nice things in, judging from the way even two pretty girls seemed to gargle and snort in it. He’d read somewhere that North German was more guttural than South German or Austrian. So these otherwise attractive sisters had to come from as far north as Germany went.

  When they’d finished calling the hogs, Hilda told him, “The address we did not think to write down. We by the depot asked where we a boat could charter, und a man there sent the captain to our hotel. Perhaps if we just ask around town again—”

  He stopped her with a disgusted snort and said, “I don’t know what it is about you dames. You all seem to think the way to get away with something sneaky is to ask all over town when you want to hire a sneak! My pal, Gaston, might be able to find us a skipper who knows his way around the Guardian Bank. If he can’t, we just may have to let you tag along.”

  Hilda screamed with delight, leaped to her feet, and came over to give him a big wet kiss. Not to be left out, the redhead followed and kissed him on the rise.

  He laughed and said, “Down, girls. It’s not settled yet. The first thing we have to worry about now is getting you both ashore and under cover. If you were seen coming aboard, we want to let them think you’re still aboard while we hide you somewhere else.”

  He pried himself loose from the giggling sisters and moved over to a built-in wardrobe as Hilda said, “I do not understand. Why should anyone be the two of us harmless women watching, Dick?”

  “You have to ask, after you’ve seen and been seen at a slave camp?” He sighed as he slid open Manukai’s wardrobe. Half the dresses hanging in it were proper Victorian costumes, though big enough for both German girls to get into at once. He took a pair of flowery flowing mumus from their hangers and said, “Right. Try these on. They’re sure to drag on the floor, but that’s what pocketknives were made for, and we’ll want to cover your hair with scarves anyway.”

  Hilda still seemed confused as she translated, and Captain Gringo could follow the drift of Alfrieda’s reply enough to understand that she didn’t understand either. But apparently they were good sports. So, giggling and blushing becomingly, they proceeded to peel off their white linen. He had a better idea of why they were so embarrassed when he couldn’t help noting that neither had gone out in this heat wearing underwear. As he saw they’d both gotten their hair coloring, on their heads, from bottles, he started to ask why they couldn’t have just slipped the mumus on over their own dresses. But as they slid the smooth silk print quickly down over the twin V’s of brown pubic hair, he nodded and said, “Right, it would have been asking for heatstroke. But, Jesus, you might have warned me!”

  Hilda laughed, sort of suggestively, as she smoothed he
r new, mostly red mumu over her heroic tits and said, “Ach, so naked I still feel, und also ist almost a meter too long for me, nicht wahr?”

  The redhead in the mostly blue mumu seemed to be bitching about her own hem-length. So Captain Gringo dropped to one knee, got out his blade, and went to work. In the stuffy heat, he tried to ignore the musky odor they were both starting to give off at about the level of his nose as he knelt in front of them in turn. He muttered, “It’s a good thing it’s too hot and I already had some today.”

  “What did you say, Dick?” asked Hilda. So he answered, “Nothing. We have to move fast, while La Siesta is still working in our favor.”

  He rose to hand each a wide strip of floral silk, switching the colors for them as he said, “Okay, wrap these around your heads so not a lock of your hair shows. You’re both way the hell too white to pass for Kanaka girls up close. But maybe at a distance, if you shade your faces and bare arms with your parasols and move straight across the quay.”

  “What about our own dresses, Dick? Shall we them carry mitt uns?”

  “No. Take your purses, of course. But I may be able to recruit some vahines to stroll off and get lost wearing your familiar duds. I’m sort of playing this shell game by ear.”

  “But such a crazy game it ist!” Hilda sighed and said, “Why are we up like hula-hula girls gedressed, und what happens now?”

  He opened a built-in desk, found paper and pencil, and wrote Mamma Rosa’s address down as he said, “Now you both beeline for this posada and sit tight until we come for you. By now it’s the one place in town the other side should have given up on. They know that we knew they were watching the place when we lit out for the same hotel you two have been staying at. So Mamma Rosa’s should be the last place they’d expect any of us to go back to, see?”

  “Dick, I see nothing! Who ist this they you speak of? Why must mein sister und mich from them hide?”