Death in High Places (A Renegade Western Book 7)

by Lou Cameron

  “I understand. You’re both Secret Service agents. I knew you weren’t married, or even lovers. But I think you fooled everyone else. I don’t suppose I have any right to ask what the two of you were up to, huh?”

  “That’s right. You don’t. I should have my head examined for telling you as much as I have, but what the hell.”

  As they saw their hotel ahead of them she took his arm and shyly said, “Whoever you are, I think I owe you my life. Did you say that train doesn’t leave until midnight, uh, Dick?”

  He nodded and said, “Yeah, we’ve got about an hour. It’s not long enough.”

  “Heavens! Whatever did you think I had in mind, sir?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You run up and change. Pack what you absolutely can’t live without in one bag. I’ll run over to the station and buy you a ticket.”

  “Oh, I’d better give you some money.”

  “I’ve got money. You’re going to need every peso you have. Okay, here’s the entrance. Get moving. I’ll be back in a few minutes, I hope. If I’m not, go straight to the U.S. Consulate and tell them Captain Gringo sent you.”

  “Captain Gringo? What an odd name!”

  “What can I tell you? I’m an odd guy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Senator Vargas was looking very smug, considering how disappointed his parents had been in him. The Divine Rowena hadn’t even flinched when he’d removed her lace shawl and kissed her plump shoulder. He poured her a drink as she lounged on the couch in his den. He excused himself for a moment and when he came back, he said, “I took the liberty of sending the servants away. I gave them the night off. There is a fiesta at the cathedral square.”

  The big blond said, “How thoughtful of you. I thought you’d gone to put on a contraceptive.”

  Vargas blinked in astonishment as she grinned lewdly up at him. He recovered and dropped beside her, putting his arms around her as he gasped, “Oh, me 100ilomet, I was so hoping you were a sophisticated woman.”

  The Divine Rowena shoved him off as he started to paw her and said, “Don’t mess my dress, dear. If you want to fuck, let’s take off our clothes, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Just like that? You put my heart’s desire in so many words?”

  “Look, junior, if I didn’t want to go to bed with you I wouldn’t be here. Do we have to go through all this romantic garbage? Where’s the bedroom? Or would you rather do it in here?”

  “¡Madre de Dios! I have found the woman of my dreams!”

  “Yeah, yeah, let’s get on with it. I’m kind of anxious, too. All that flirty shit takes a lot out of you.”

  Vargas rose, started dragging her to the conveniently positioned bed chamber next door and reached for the light switch. Rowena said, “Leave it a little dark, lover.”

  “Ah, si, more romantic, no?”

  “You want to bullshit about it all night or are you going to take off your clothes?”

  Vargas laughed incredulously, and began to strip, bursting a few buttons in his anxiety as he said, “Forgive me, this is all so sudden.” And this time the Divine Rowena laughed. It was a cruel mocking laughs but he was too excited, or too stupid, to notice.

  He stripped down to his underwear and socks before he asked, “What about you, my treasure?”

  The Divine Rowena shrugged and said, “May as well,” as she started peeling matter of factly. Vargas grinned and sat on the bed, taking off all but his socks as the big blond moved toward him in high silk stockings, loose silk bloomers, and a combined corset and brassiere. As she loomed over him, Vargas asked, “Are we not to see you in the all-together my treasure?”

  “It’s your funeral. Why don’t you turn over on your stomach, eh?”

  “Ah, my little dove is shy, eh?”

  The Divine Rowena waited until he’d rolled over, facedown, before taking off the corset and slipping out of the bloomers. Then the big blond fell forward on top of him, clamped a pair of ham-like hands around his neck, and began to methodically strangle him, saying, “Now, you son of a bitch!”

  Vargas gasped for air that refused to come and struggled to rise from under the mass of naked flesh pressing him into the mattress. As he felt his head filling with tom-toms and shooting stars he gargled in even greater horror as he felt a huge erection between his buttocks! The Divine Rowena moved one hand down to guide-it into his rectum and Vargas managed to croak. “¡Madre de Dios, you are a man!”

  The German agent shoved it in savagely and resumed his grip on his victim’s neck as he chortled, “You just noticed, eh? I don’t usually do this, but I haven’t had any for a long time and I’m hard up as hell.”

  Vargas made no answer as the German slowly strangled him. The Divine Rowena’s doppelganger started humping, saying, “Nice. I like the way the guy’s guts go crazy when he’s dying. Feel the way your bung hole is dilating and contracting? No, I guess you can’t, you poor bastard. But take it from me, no woman ever felt this tight – except a few they told me to liquidate like this.”

  The body was still convulsing when the German reached orgasm and then, to make sure, and because he really had been feeling frustrated, he went on sodomizing the corpse until it was as limp as a rag doll and he’d come a second time in a now-flaccid opening.

  The killer withdrew, wiped himself off on a pillow case and said, “Let the cops figure this one out, junior! You leave with a big blond woman and they find you with my stuff up your ass. I’ve confused Scotland Yard and the czar’s police with that one, baby!”

  The German went into the bathroom and sponged off. Then he walked naked out to the den and got the Divine Rowena’s big handbag. There was a pair of men’s shoes and socks in it. He put them on before selecting male attire from the late Senator Vargas’s wardrobe. The shirt wouldn’t button all the way and the suit was a tight fit. But people accepted sloppy fat men on the street at night. The female disguise went in the handbag, which turned inside out to become a nondescript black leather satchel.

  The German took out a tiny derringer with very big bullets and searched the house thoroughly. The clod had told the truth about the servants. So there was no need to rush, after all.

  The German dragged the naked corpse by its heels out to the latrine pit provided at the back entrance for the servants. He removed the two-hole cover, set it aside, and rolled the limp corpse in. It hit bottom with a mighty splash. He struck a light. Most of the late Senator Vargas was now covered in semiliquid shit. But the German Secret Service prided itself on efficiency. So he found a broken flowerpot, filled it with garden soil from the pateo, and carefully sprinkled the flesh still showing until there was no visible indication that the latrine had been used in a most unusual way.

  He put the cover back in place and said, “Good night, sweet prince. That will show you not to annoy the Kaiser. The Americans are all mouth and the British have degenerated. We Germans take offenses seriously, nicht wahr?”

  Then, since he obviously had the time, he went back to straighten up a bit more. He whistled as he worked. Sooner or later they’d find the dumb bastard, but they’d go crazy trying to figure it out, and was this not a funny little prank?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Gaston wasn’t there when he got back to the hotel after seeing Theresa safely off. Gaston was either spending a nostalgic evening with the grandmother he’d mentioned or he’d been picked up. There was nothing to do but wait until he heard about it one way or the other. None of the actors had come back from the embassy party, either. Captain Gringo found a rubber plant in the lobby to sit under while he waited. There was a local newspaper on a nearby chair. He lit a smoke and picked up the paper to catch up on the latest in Bogotá. But nothing seemed to be happening in Bogotá. The paper was filled with social shit about weddings and coming-out parties. Apparently nobody who didn’t own at least ten square miles of the country ever did anything worth reporting.

  A dark well-dressed mestizo had been seated across the way, watching every passersby f
rom behind his own paper. Captain Gringo assumed he was a house detective until he stood up, folded his paper, and came over. He said, “Come with me, Captain Gringo. La Paloma wishes for to see you.”

  The American stared up poker-faced as he considered how to answer. If the guy had been a cop or enemy agent he’d have been shot coming in the door. Why screw around making up stories when you control the situation? If the guy knew who he was and about La Paloma, and didn’t want to fight about it, he was probably – repeat probably – legit.

  The American said, “Can it wait a minute? My friend isn’t back yet.”

  “Leave a message for him at the desk. We must not keep La Paloma waiting. She says to tell you that if you do not wish for to come with me right now, the deal is off.”

  Captain Gringo shrugged, put the paper aside, and said, “Let’s go,” as he got to his feet. The guide asked, “Don’t you wish for to leave your friend, Gaston Verrier, a message?”

  “No. He’ll figure out I’m not here when he doesn’t see me. You guys haven’t been at this long, have you? Leaving unnecessary messages can get you killed.”

  The mestizo sighed and said, “El Señor is most accurate. I confess I was an electrician last year at this time. I am called El Chisparo. Follow me, por favor.”

  They went outside where a one-horse surrey was waiting across the street under a pepper tree. El Chisparo untethered the horse and they got in. It seemed like a hell of a long drive, until Captain Gringo realized his guide was driving a zigzag course through the back streets of the town. He asked, “Are we trying to confuse me or them?”

  El Chisparo chuckled and said, “Them, of course. They told us you never get confused. It is not far now.”

  Captain Gringo noticed they were in a crummy part of town now. It got crummier after they passed a vast garbage dump and took a rutted dirt path through the shanty town favela you found ringing most large Latin American cities. The slums of Bogotá were no exception to the rule that tropical Hispanics tended to be night people. It was well after midnight, but ragged kids were playing in the street, guitars throbbed all around, and some fairly nice-looking whores lounged in doorways, eyeing them sullenly as they drove past.

  Streetlamps of course were not provided for la favela, so the drive ran light and dark, depending on whether a block party was going on or not. El Chisparo drove through a stretch illuminated by torchlight in a noisy backyard and reined in under the ink black shadows of a clump of pepper. He stared back the way they’d come for a time. Then he nodded and clucked the horse down a side alley. They came to a board fence, apparently the dead end of the narrow alley. The fence slid aside like a Japanese screen and they entered a dark, tree-shaded yard. Some invisible force took the reins from El Chisparo and let the horse and surrey into limbo as the mestizo took Captain Gringo’s elbow and said, “This way. Careful, it’s dark.”

  The American grunted, “No shit? I never would have noticed,” as his boot crunched on a tin can. El Chisparo led him to the rear of a house and down some cellar steps. He parted some heavy drapes and Captain Gringo found himself in a cellar with what looked like the cast of Carmen. The guys all wore Charro suits with bandoliers of ammo crisscrossing their chests and red armbands around their left sleeves. A couple wore the peaked caps of the Colombian military, with the emblems removed. They’d stacked their rifles against the plaster walls, but most had at least one pistol tucked in the sashes around their waists. Not one of them was over thirty.

  The dames in the crowd looked even younger and some of them weren’t bad if you liked dark meat. The lightest one had Indian cheekbones and big sad Spanish eyes. Like the other girls, she was dressed in the peasant blouse and gathered skirts of the peona, but she had ammo belts across her rather nice chest and a buscadero gun belt around her hips, which weren’t bad either.

  She rose from the barrel she’d been seated on and held out her hand like a man, saying, “It was good of you to come, Captain Gringo. I am La Paloma. These are my people. We are ready for to follow you anywhere.”

  He smiled and shook hands with her, saying, “Uh, swell, but let’s slow down. How much have the people we’re working for told you about my mission?”

  La Paloma shrugged and said, “Something about destroying a mine for to strike a blow for libertad. The details are unimportant to us which government property we attack. As long as it belongs to the government. Once the fighting begins, there are other bands who will rise. Like many of the others, we have only been waiting for a leader who knows how these things are done. They must have told you this is our first revolution, no?”

  “Not really, but it figures. Are you kids in contact with some central party or is this a game any number can play?”

  The girl looked blank.

  “Look, I know this is going to come as a great shock, but I’m not the Messiah, and the last time I tried to walk on water I got wet.”

  “Captain Gringo makes the joke, no? We have heard of the many battles you have won, señor. As you see, we have the guns and the spirit, but I confess we are not, how you say, tacticians? Your friends, the ones who have been funding my modest efforts, said you would show us how these things are done.”

  “Gee, that was swell of them. Let me get this straight. This so-called impending revolution is really a mess of scattered street gangs, waiting for somebody to fire the first shot?”

  La Paloma nodded, in eager innocence, and said, “Si, nobody likes the government, except for some rich people. Almost everybody in Colombia is poor. So everybody but the Ricos will wish for us to win, no?”

  He didn’t answer. He saw how the chess masters intended it to work out in the end. They didn’t care if he knocked out the CCC holdings or not: They wanted a lot of noise and street rioting. The badly outnumbered establishment would hole up or skip town while the mobs looted and burned. Every poor man knew he wanted liberty, but he tended to confuse it with license. These abused pobrecitos had a just gripe against the power elite, but they had no more idea how to run a country than that dim-witted Vargas at the embassy party. So after everybody got a lot of bile released and ran out of ammunition, cooler heads were going to start wondering why the garbage wasn’t being picked up or why the water was turned off at the tap. The mobs would live on loot for a time, but nothing lasts forever and nobody was about to deliver food and firewood to a howling mad city. Ergo, somebody, sometime, was going to have to take charge, right?

  He wondered where this pretty little kid and her young friends would be standing when the inevitable Napoleon restored order with the inevitable “whiff of grapeshot.” He wondered if they’d listen if he tried to talk them out of it. He decided they wouldn’t. There was only one thing he could do. He had to gain and keep control of these punks before he could think of saving anybody.

  He said, “Well, the first thing I have to see is that CCC whatever. Is it far from here?”

  La Paloma said, “No, my captain. It is just outside of town to the north. I think they assigned it to my band because we are closest to it.”

  “This is your area, eh?”

  “Si, not even the police come into La Paloma’s section after dark, unless they come in numbers.”

  “Okay, I need a guide to take me there. Is there some vantage point for scouting it from a distance?”

  “Si,” the mine is in a canyon surrounded by brushy hills. I will lead you there myself. When do you wish for to go?”

  “Just before dawn. I’d like to get into position under cover of darkness, give the place the once over, and figure out what has to be done. Do you kids have any explosives?”

  “Well, we have a couple of pipe bombs. Will that help?”

  “Not hardly. Without looking, I know I need a couple of cases of dynamite. What about weapons? Have you got anything that fires automatic?”

  La Paloma looked at her followers and said, “Hey, line up for to be inspected.”

  “Skip it. I know a muzzle-loader when I see it in a corner. You have
, let’s see, two, four, six, seven single-shot breech-loaders, a dozen revolvers, and you’d better leave those muzzle-loaders where they are. Do you have other people on tap, or is this it?”

  La Paloma smiled proudly and said, “I can call on almost a hundred men, once they know we are ready to start the revolution, Captain Gringo.”

  “Oh, peachy. Let’s see, it’s a little after two. The sunrise should be about four hours away. How long does it take to leg it to the mine?”

  “Less than an hour, my captain, I told you it was not far.”

  He nodded and said, “All right. Let’s break this up before somebody calls the law. I want all of you to go home and hide your dramatic stuff. La Paloma, here, will get word to you when you’re needed. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Everybody in town but the guys who think they own it seems to know trouble’s brewing, so the police will be on the prod and this would be a dumb time to make a speech about libertad. Just sit and spit and whittle until we have a plan, all right?”

  El Chisparo said, “I thought we were going to attack right away.”

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “Forget it. Attacking at once is for suicides. Look, kids, you said you wanted me to lead you, right? Okay, I’m not going to brag about a couple of other brawls like this I’ve been in, but I’m a professional. I like to get my people out alive.”

  A youth with the face of a pretty but sullen Indian girl said, “We are not afraid for to die for libertad.”

  “You’re not, huh? What’s the point of having liberty if you’re lying facedown full of bullets? The first rule you have to learn is that a good soldier doesn’t die if he can help it. He’s supposed to make the other son of a bitch die, comprende?”

  There was a murmur of laughter. Some of it sounded relieved. He knew they were starting to accept him. He said, “Okay, it’s settled. Everybody is dismissed. Try to get some rest. The next time I call on you, you’re liable to be up for a few nights. So let’s start out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”