by Lou Cameron
The nicest part about El Paseo was its delicacy. Most of the promenaders struck out, but even homely people got to have the fun of flirting and nobody was made to feel the fool. The ugly girl was simply not approached, although she could imagine that nice boy she’d smiled at was just shy. The guy who got turned down politely could tell himself she was a nervous virgin, too. It sure beat sidling up to an American girl on a streetcar and getting thrown off as a masher.
But Captain Gringo knew he couldn’t walk the paseo that evening. It was too risky. Even if he wasn’t spotted by the law, he’d gotten into more than one scuffle with a jealous punk that way in the past. A guy didn’t have to wink at a pretty girl to draw the attention of a jealous would-be lover if she decided to wink at him and, for some reason, dames winked at Captain Gringo a lot.
He left the barbershop and fell in behind a quartet of men headed in the direction he was going, trying to blend in with them. He stopped on the corner when he came to the strip around the presidio. The paseo had sort of started. A few eager kids were already promenading, but it was early yet. He lit a cigar to give himself an excuse for standing there as he glanced around. He spotted a sign down the way. It was an upstairs Chinese restaurant. Better yet, they had a balcony overlooking the street. He grinned and decided he wanted some pork lo mein.
He climbed the steps to find the place just opening for the evening. He told the pretty little Chinese waitress that he’d like to eat out on the balcony. She led him to a table and took his order. He ordered a pot of tea and a lot of food. He wasn’t really that hungry, but he meant to take his time eating and sipping as he watched from his vantage point. He could see he wasn’t very noticeable up here under the awning to anyone passing below. But he had a bird’s-eye view of everything down there.
As he waited in the gloaming light he stared over at the forbidding walls of the presidio. As he’d hoped, he could now see the red roof tiles of the buildings inside.
Big deal. The barracks and so forth were built around a central open square. It looked sort of like a German Kaserne layout. He knew the Germans had a lot of influence in this part of South America. Some Fritz engineer might have helped them lay the joint out once. There was no way to tell which of those buildings Gaston was in. They’d probably have him in the guardhouse. Okay, so which was the guardhouse? Probably near the main gate. That was where you’d find the provost marshal on most posts.
The girl brought his tea. He poured himself a cup as he muttered, “Wait, remember Fort Mason in Frisco? The fucking provost marshal’s office was way the hell away from the main gate!”
He sipped the tea with a frown. Guessing at it from here was no good. He had to know. And even after he knew, how in the hell was he going to get in, and, if he did get in, how the hell was he going to get out with Gaston? They wouldn’t have the little Frenchman in a guest room. If they hadn’t locked him up in something solid as hell, Gaston would have gotten out by now. The ex-legionnaire was a born escape artist.
The sky was going purple over the mountains to the east now and the walk below was filling up. The always-lit streetlamps glowed kindly on the bare shoulders of the señoritas and at this altitude the shoulders would have been covered if the señoritas hadn’t wanted them to be seen. Some of the local talent wasn’t bad, either. More blondes and redheads than usual, up here in the white Spanish country. But he reminded himself that wasn’t why he’d come here. He had two women already expecting him home early. One of them was going to be disappointed as hell.
That was something to think about, so he did so as he nibbled at the noodles the waitress placed before him in a big steaming pile. He knew he’d be safe at Vanessa’s hotel, and, while she wasn’t as young as Max, she was as good, and less demanding, in bed. On the other hand, old Vanessa couldn’t do anything about Gaston. She didn’t even know about Gaston.
Max was waiting for him, too, and Max had connections here in town. So it seemed obvious enough where he should hole up for the night. Or did it? There was something funny about Max, and it wasn’t just her mustache. The accent didn’t ring true. And why the hell had a German agent tried to pump him about the officers at her German headquarters? Wouldn’t she have known about the deal he’d made with the German military attaché just a few weeks back?
He shrugged it off and decided, “What the hell, may as well play along with her for now. She’s good in a firefight, which is more than poor old Vanessa can say.”
As he ate, watching the crowd below, Captain Gringo became aware of another customer inside. The damned waitress was leading him out on the damned balcony. Captain Gringo moved his chair slightly to get his back more to the doorway as the Chinese girl seated the other early diner. As she stepped inside, Gaston Verrier said, “Well, well, great minds do run in the same channels, my old and rare!”
Captain Gringo swiveled, astonished, and as he met the sardonic smile of the dapper little older man seated at the other table he gasped, “Gaston, you’re supposed to be over there, locked up behind those fucking walls!”
Gaston rose and moved his own chair over to join his younger friend as he said, “Mais non, au contraire, it is you they told me the new junta had locked up over there! I see we both had the same idea about watching for a main chance from this trés droll observation post, hein?”
Captain Gringo felt a slight lump in his throat as he said, “Wait a minute, you got away clean after all, and then you came back here to stick your neck out for me?”
Gaston shrugged and said, “Oui, I must be getting senile. I would not have expected you to take such a chance for me. But this is most odd, don’t you agree? I assume you got a message from me, telling you I had been captured and to save yourself, hein?”
“Just about. How did you know that?”
“That was the kind of message I received as I was about to board a tramp in Barranquilla. I got those Americans safely out, as we planned, and I was going to rejoin you in Buenaventura when some mysterious stranger dropped a note over my transom. Trés intriguing, non? As you Americans say, what le fuck is going on?”
The waitress came with Gaston’s tea, saw he’d moved over to the other table, and placed it before him sans comment. As she moved away, the little Frenchman eyed her rear view with approval and observed, “Trés formidable. It is not true what they say about Chinese women, by the way.”
Captain Gringo said, “Forget her ass. I think we’d better haul our own asses out of here, on the double.”
“But why? I have not eaten yet.”
“Screw eating. Don’t you see we’ve been set up? We both got out one jump ahead of the new takeover. So what did the bastards do? They sent us both the same message to lure us back up here where they could get their hands on us!”
Gaston said, “I insist on a full stomach before I proceed with this nonsense. I don’t know why or who, but the game is more subtle than that. Consider, my old and rare. To confuse us with false messages, somebody had to know where we both were, true?”
“Sure. But the messages must have been meant to lure us into a trap.”
“Mais non, we were already on Colombian soil when they contacted us. They could have arrested you in Buenaventura and me in Barranquilla if that was their game.”
“I can see that. So, what’s the game?”
“I have no idea. Let’s eat. I think better on a full stomach.”
*
Meanwhile, as the two bewildered adventurers had dinner near the presidio, El Arano and a pair of picked men had left the presidio to visit Max. As they moved in, Colonel Maldonado asked one of his agents, “Are you sure about those dogs?”
The agent grinned and replied, “Yes, my Colonel. As I told you, the blond slut is overconfident as to her security. She leaves her door unlocked, trusting to the viciousness of her pets and, in truth, no child in the neighborhood will go near her gate. She forgot the dogs knew her cleaning people, and I was accepted, along with Tico, here, when I simply entered with the peons. The
rest was simple. We thought to bring along some liver scraps. After we had entered a few times to search her quarters as you ordered, Tico had one of them sitting up to beg. They have become most tame, and since you are with us …”
Maldonado said, “I understand, you have done well. Isn’t it odd how one advantage often leads to another? I never thought, when I began a routine security operation against a double agent, how handy it might come in to be able to enter her house at will. But be careful, muchachos. The dogs may be friendly. The woman is armed and dangerous.”
The three men came to the spy’s entryway and the agent called Tico hissed softly. One of the big Dobermans came to the patio entrance, wagging its short tail. Tico fed it some raw liver and patted its muzzle, whispering, “This one’s the least friendly of the pair. The other must be sleeping.”
Colonel Maldonado drew his service revolver and said, “Let’s move in. You boys keep the dogs off me and I’ll cover you.”
They moved quietly across the patio, with the dog following, wagging its tail. Maldonado tried the first door he came to. It was unlocked. He opened it and stepped into the living room. He sniffed and muttered, “Jesus, it smells like somebody’s been fucking in here. Which way’s the bedroom?”
One of the agents pointed with his chin. El Arano led the way. He knew the big American had been spotted leaving, so when he heard the sounds of a woman in orgasm on the other side of the door panels he frowned, puzzled. Who the hell was the nymphomaniac entertaining now? Nobody else had come in since he’d put the house under observation. Whoever the poor bastard was, he was done for. There was no other way.
Maldonado tried the knob with his free hand. It turned. He opened the door a crack and froze, slack-jawed.
The pale blond Max lay on her back in the middle of a four-poster, arms and legs wrapped around the big jet-black dog that was rutting with her, stretched out atop her like a man as it slobbered, its muzzle against her open gasping mouth. That dog’s tail was wagging, too. He had a lot to be happy about. Maldonado gagged at the obscene spectacle as he raised the gun in his hand. The woman’s eyes were closed as she rolled her cropped head from side to side, crooning endearments to the animal in her arms as it humped excitedly. But, even in the throes of its lust, the big Doberman sensed the intrusion and growled, trying to withdraw from his mistress. Max held on tightly and pleaded, “No, Beasty-Weasty, Mommy isn’t through! Make Mommy come like a good doggy!”
And then Maldonado retched and opened fire from the doorway.
The Doberman yipped and leaped off as a bullet slammed into its ribs. Max sat up and gasped, “Oh!” as a bullet smashed into her little left breast and slammed her back against the rumpled linens. Maldonado put two more bullets into her twitching naked flesh and then as the dog came around the bed, drooling blood and snarling at him, he blew its head half off and it dropped at the foot of the bed.
He heard a shot behind him and whirled to see Tico had shot the other dog, whose friendliness to strangers had certain limits. The other agent looked into the bedroom and gasped, “¡Madre de Dios! You said she was crazy, my Colonel!”
El Arano shuddered and said, “Vamanos, muchachos. It does not matter what she was now. Let’s get out of here before that big Americano comes back.”
As they scurried out, Maldonado recovered his poise, and when he saw they had gotten in and out unobserved, save for the army lookout on the roof across the street, he felt pleased enough with himself to chuckle and muse aloud, “I wonder what Captain Gringo would have done had he caught her flagrante delicto with such an unusual rival?”
Chapter Seven
Captain Gringo stopped Gaston in front of the blonde’s entryway and said, “You’d better wait here. She’s got a couple of oversized mutts she’d better introduce you to herself.”
Gaston shrugged as he looked up at the stars and said, “I am in no hurry. I am not sure I ought to be here. Germans have made me trés nervous since 1870. They owe me a war with better odds on the French side.”
Captain Gringo eased inside, watching out for the dogs. It was just light enough to see by in the patio, and neither Doberman seemed to be out to chew his leg off, so he walked over to the house. The living room door was open. The room inside was dark. He started to strike a light, but then he saw the light from the hallway beyond and called out, “Hey, Max?” as he walked toward it.
He stopped as he spotted the Doberman dead in the hallway. He drew his gun and stepped over it. The light was coming from a room he’d never been in. He stepped over to the doorway and looked in. Then he sobbed, “Oh, no!”
Max lay dead across the bed. He didn’t have to feel her pulse. Nobody had ever looked so dead. He glanced down at the dead dog near the foot of her bed and muttered, “You tried, old boy. They caught all three of you napping, huh?”
Then he turned and hurried outside. He grabbed Gaston on the fly and as they headed down the street the Frenchman protested, “Where are we going in such a hurry, you long-legged gorilla of mine?”
The American said, “They got Max. I found her riddled like a sieve. If we don’t go somewhere, muy pronto, they’ll get us!”
Gaston started walking faster, but after they’d whipped around a couple of corners he glanced back and said, “Wait, let us not be the chickens with our heads cut off. Before we run ourselves into the ground, would it not be better to consider whether anyone is chasing us?”
“For Chrissake, Gaston, I told you the girl was a secret agent who helped me. Isn’t it obvious what happened?”
“Mais non, it is trés weird! If the executioners were after you, why did they leave after shooting the wrong person?”
Captain Gringo started to tell him he was full of it; then he frowned and said, “You’re right. I walked in like a big-ass bird with a hard-on. If the place had been staked out, we’d both be dead by now!”
“Spoken like a lad who’s beginning to use his noodle, as you Yankee Doodles say. The girl was a secret agent, a trés dangerous trade. Any number of people might have killed a German spy for any number of reasons. I know that I, for one, might have volunteered for the job, despite your grotesque views on trusting Les Bodies.”
“Hell, I never said I trusted her. I was hoping she’d help me get you out of jail.”
“Trés bien, but since I was never in jail we can forget about that part. I have no more idea than yourself about her recent demise, but I don’t see how the local government could have been in on it. From what you’ve told me of her, they already knew she worked for the Germans. Besides, gunmen with the local law in their pockets do not hit and run. They don’t have to. Don’t you see what this might mean?”
“No. Not a fucking thing about this whole deal makes any sense at all.”
Gaston slowed down and looked back to make sure they were alone on the dark street before he said, “Nobody in the Colombian government knows anything about what’s going on, so it could not have been a police trap. Even if I was wrong about that, and some species of a mad policeman went to so much trouble to lure us back here, they just, how you say, blew up a perfect chance to trap you once again.”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “I’ll buy that. So it reads two ways. Max might have been killed by an enemy of her own. She shot people a lot and spies aren’t very popular anyway. On the other hand, if it was the same people who tricked us into coming back here, they might not have had the balls to hang around if they were spies, too!”
“Ahah! Who do you think we’re dealing with—Greystoke of British Intelligence again?”
“Maybe. Up to now he’s always hired us or tried to kill us by this late in the game. Whoever it is, and whatever they want, it didn’t work. We ran into each other before either of us could be sucked deeper into this mess. So now there’s nothing to keep us here and I suggest we get the fuck out!”
Gaston laughed and said, “Lead on, MacDuff, my old and rare. We have guns and enough money to last us a month or so and, of course, we have each ot
her, you sweet young thing. But tell me, do we just keep walking, or is there some goal to this relentless march of yours?”
Captain Gringo said, “It’s early yet. It’s pretty obvious the cops aren’t out in force after us. We could leg it back to a hotel I know and hole up for the night. Then we could scout the railroad depot in the cold gray light and if the coast is clear …”
“You are losing me,” Gaston cut in, adding, “I do not like this hotel of yours. If you know where it is, who is to say who else knows about it?”
Captain Gringo started to explain the precautions he’d taken leaving the widow’s shabby little hotel in a barrio where he was unknown. Then he smiled sheepishly and said, “Yeah, I told the people there I was a German, and a German agent was tailing me to find out why. I don’t want to risk getting old Vanessa in trouble, anyway. But if they have the railroad depot staked out …”
Cutting in again, Gaston said, “The longer we give them to plan, the more certain we can be that they’ll get around to that sooner or later. You and I are both supposed to be lurking around the presidio, for some reason. We would be, if we had not met by chance. The paseo is just getting interesting back there. I, too, have a hotel room here in town. They may have both under observation. They don’t know that we know about the dead girl either, since they did not see fit to hang about there after they killed her. So, all in all, I consider a bee line for a choo choo the best possible move. Don’t you?”
Captain Gringo agreed and together they legged it across town to the railroad depot. Fortunately the main drag was well illuminated, so fortunately they both spotted the blue uniforms from a block away.
