by Lou Cameron
He held a wet sleeve out to the light and said, “Beats me. I guess the rain washed us both off when I lugged him through sopping wet leaves. Not that I’m complaining. What have you to say about those bullet holes in his chest?”
“They’re all close to the heart. You must have been aiming for it. Let me check these samples out for drugs and stimulants before we get your dear bullets back.”
She left the room and Burton said, “I noticed. Nice shooting. I could cover all five holes with my palm, but I’m not about to.”
Webster said, “I’d say they were mucking up his heart a bit, too, but I shot a lion one time in the ruddy heart. Blighter ran a good hundred yards before he dropped. Gave me a bit of a turn, too. You see, he was running toward me.”
Captain Gringo shrugged. He could have pointed out that a man is not a lion, but he didn’t want to hear any Great White Hunter tales, even if they were true.
They heard the sound of broken glass from the other room. Captain Gringo stepped over to the door to peer in. Mab was leaning against a counter, staring down at the test tube she’d dropped as if it was about to bite her. Her face was chalk white and he knew she was about to faint. So he moved swiftly to her side to steady her and asked, “What is it, doll? You’ve got plenty of those test tubes.”
Mab shuddered herself back from the black pit she’d been staring into and literally whispered, “Dick, that man in there is dead!”
“Hell, of course he’s dead. What did you find in his blood?”
She licked her lips and said, “There isn’t any blood in him. I thought at first I’d made a mistake. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Just hold on a second, Mab. What do you mean there’s no blood in him? I just watched you draw a needle full of blood from his vein.”
“It’s red because they put dye in it.”
“Somebody put red dye in that guy’s blood?”
“Damn it, you’re not listening!” Mab sobbed. Then she threw herself against his chest and added, in the voice of a small frightened child, “His veins are filled with embalming fluid. That corpse in there has been dead for God only knows how long!”
Chapter Six
Gaston waited until the two of them were alone in his infirmary room down the hall, before he put a finger alongside his nose and said, “The Irish girl is in on it.”
“Mab? How do you figure that, Gaston?”
“Cherchez la femme, my old and rare friend. She picked you up aboard the ship before we got here. Who is to say she did not slip that snake in our cabin before she encountered you on deck, discovered you were not in your bunk where you were supposed to be and—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, she didn’t try to kill me in her cabin.”
Gaston made a lewd gesture and insisted, “How do you know she didn’t intend to slit your throat in your sleep, hein?”
“We weren’t sleeping. We were … never mind. Anyway, when you were bitten by that bushmaster she saved your ass. Have you forgotten that?”
“Mais non. She might have wanted to build character with the man they sent her to get. I will admit all this just came to me while you were bringing me up to date. I don’t intend to stay here tonight in her power.”
Captain Gringo said, “That’s stupid. She’d have given you the wrong antivenom if she wanted to harm a hair on your lopsided head. What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”
Gaston frowned up at his younger friend and said flatly, “Embalming fluid. Merde alors, you are the one who needs to have his head examined, Dick! I am willing to believe you chopped a man’s head off as he was trying to kill you. I am willing to believe a well-embalmed corpse might last a month or so in this heat. I am not about to believe both stories, and since I know you don’t lie very often—”
“Back up. Are you suggesting Mab made funny-funny with her test tubes?”
Gaston looked disgusted and replied, “Suggesting? J’accuse! I agree she is nice-looking. I agree she is a nurse. But her trick was childishly simple. She just drew some blood from a freshly killed corpse, got rid of it, and voila!”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “Credit me with common sense. That’s one of the first things I thought of. So I took the hypo and drew my own sample from the guy on the table. Then I ran my own test. He was still embalmed. The blood’s been replaced by a tropic mixture, strong as hell. It’s got arsenic and camphor in it, and the book says a stiff can last a couple of months or longer before it starts to go bad.”
“The book, Dick?”
“The chemistry book from the doctor’s desk. Do I look like an undertaker? I had to read how to test for all the goodies Mab insisted were in the son of a bitch. I followed directions and got the same results.”
Gaston frowned and asked, “Do you believe everything you read?”
“Oh sure, Doctor Lloyd had a special private printing of a textbook, knowing he was going to die and that a couple of suckers were coming along to read his private library. That’s pretty wild, Gaston.”
“So is an embalmed corpse coming at one with a machete. Given a weird plot by a mad doctor or something, that is simply not possible. One must go with one’s possible fantasy, hein?” Gaston thought before he added, “I like that better than Mab being in on it. How do we know Doctor Lloyd is really dead? Have any of us seen his corpse?”
“Oh shit, we wouldn’t recognize him if we met him alive. The whole damned colony says he’s dead. That’s how we know he’s dead. Are you suggesting everyone we’ve met so far is in on some crazy plot?”
“Well, at least that is possible. Once she calmed down, did Mab finish the autopsy?”
“No, I did. I only had one question. I cut open the chest and found five bullets, right where they were supposed to be. One smack in the heart and the others close enough to stop it through hydrostatic shock. That idiotic Webster kept telling me about some lion he’d seen charging on after being shot through the heart. It got pretty tedious.”
Gaston pursed his lips and mused, “I have seen men stay on their feet for an astonishing length of time after being fatally shot, Dick. A man too excited to give a damn can last up to four minutes with a stopped heart, and four minutes is a long time in a fight.”
Captain Gringo nodded as he relived those awful moments in the jungle. He said, “I’ve considered that. I figured that had to be the answer. I expected Mab to tell me he’d been hopped up. She really threw me when she said he was dead before I ever met him.”
Gaston shrugged and said, “Very well, if we accept that, what does it mean, Dick?”
“That modern science is full of shit and we’re in big trouble, or that Mab and I were tricked.”
“I like that better. How do you think it was done?”
“If I knew that we wouldn’t be tricked, damn it! The stiff was only out of my sight for a few minutes, and Burton and his guys got to it before anybody could have possibly drained it and embalmed it.”
“How do you know they didn’t do it?”
Captain Gringo stopped and thought before he shook his head and said, “No. Even if Burton was some sort of maniac there wasn’t time. I asked Mab how long it takes. She’s worked around hospital morgues. She said it takes close to an hour to do it right, and she said they did it right. She pointed out the sewn up incisions where they’d drained and flushed his veins. The hell of it was, even I could see it had to be a while ago. The real blood on the stitching was dry and hard as plaster. I’m no doctor, but I believe her when she says that guy has been dead a while. How long is hard to say, but over two hours means I somehow tangled with a corpse. I don’t think I’ll get much sleep tonight.”
Gaston sighed and said, “Lucky girl, whoever she turns out to be. Have you checked out the local talent?”
“No, the siesta is just about over and I’m invited to tea at the governor’s. So I guess I’ll get to meet everyone important. I’d take you along, but Mab says you need more rest. It looks like you’ll have the novelty of
sleeping alone again tonight.”
Gaston chuckled and said, “Speak for yourself, Dick. I know your plans for the head nurse here. But now that I have had time to reconsider my suspicions there is one a bit darker with a tres formidable derriere and—”
“Jesus Christ, Gaston. You’re asking for a heart attack.”
“I don’t think so. She looks like she can take it. If she starts to expire I just have to pull this bell cord here, to get medical assistance for her.”
Captain Gringo laughed and said, “You’ll be gentle with her, I’m sure. Who is it, that American girl, Willie May?”
“Mais non. Even I can do better than that. If you wish, I can ring for her. Perhaps she has a friend.”
“If she has, and if I know you, you won’t need me. But for Chrissake, take it easy, Gaston. Mab says you could have a relapse.’’
“Bah, she says dead people run through the jungle waving machetes, too. I shall go with my own medical theories, and if you return to find me dead, it shall be with a beautiful smile on my face, hein?”
Captain Gringo left, shaking his head fondly. He had to admit Gaston had a point. Mab was only a nurse and he knew even less about medicine. Either of them might have missed something a doctor wouldn’t have. It was sort of convenient to have the only doctor on the island dead when stiffs got up to walk around.
He’d stolen a book from the late Doctor Lloyd since there’d been no way to ask him for it, and he hadn’t wanted to rattle Mab any further. He patted his hip pocket. The small, spooky book was still there. It was an English translation from the original French, published years ago in Haiti. It was pretty obvious why Lloyd had been reading up on Voodoo. Captain Gringo intended to bone up on the subject, too, as soon as he had the time to read it. Voodoo sounded silly, and zombies even sillier, until they started ganging up on you. He’d never meet Lloyd, and it was odd to grieve for a man he’d never met. But he sure wished he could have had a chat with the medical man before he died, or before somebody murdered him.
He’d wanted to check that out too, while he and Mab rummaged through the dead man’s office. But Mab had said the only way to test the label on Lloyd’s antivenom vials was to let a snake bite you and see if the stuff worked.
He wasn’t that curious.
So it had to stay an educated suspicion. If someone had switched labels before leaving a snake where the doctor could be bitten, it had been neat but simple. He could see a dozen ways they could have done it. But who were they? The natives? That seemed neat and simple too. But there was something wrong here. Something he’d worked out for himself as a kid when he first read about witchcraft.
Witchcraft had to be the bunk. Not just because science said so, but because it made no sense to be the classic witch or witchdoctor.
He got to expound on that idea a bit at tea, once he’d cleaned up and presented himself at the governor’s.
Tea was late that afternoon, thanks to the rain as well as all the excitement. But it was veddy veddy British and Captain Gringo found himself the only man there not wearing a tie and madras jacket.
Tea was served under an awning behind the governor’s tin mansion by colored servants who looked a bit silly as well as uncomfortable in starched white linen uniforms. He already knew most of the men that mattered, and didn’t worry about the other three or four whites introduced as junior executives of Pantropic Limited.
The women had been allowed to dress more sensibly in low-cut taffeta or prints. Governor Gage’s wife looked something like a horse when she smiled. But the honey-blonde across from him was a knockout. He was surprised and disappointed to learn she was Captain Burton’s wife, Alice. The fat old colonel and the horsey old dame were her parents. So, Burton, the son of a bitch, was their son-in-law, as well as the guy who got to sleep with Alice tonight.
It hardly seemed fair. Burton was maybe a little smarter than silly Webster and Captain Gringo supposed he was all right, but Alice had a body that set her cameo face off like she’d been designed by Louis Tiffany, for finer tastes than her flabby husband seemed to have. He tried not to picture her in Burton’s embrace. But while he could get her husband out of his picture of her going to bed, it still left her there, and it was giving him a most uncomfortable erection.
Despite not showing up with a tie, Captain Gringo had better manners than to bring up forensic medicine over tea and crumpets. But Burton, the only other American at the table, embarrassed him by asking if he’d figured out how the Voodoo Queen the natives talked about had sent that dead man at him.
Captain Gringo said, “Voodoo and witchcraft is self-contradictory, Captain Burton. But since you brought it up, has anything been done about poor Montalban and the others?”
Burton said, “Oh sure, I sent a burial detail out just before we came over to join the folks.”
Mrs. Gage looked like she was about to throw up, but she went on pouring tea. The poor thing probably didn’t know what else to do.
Her daughter, Alice, shot her husband a warning look and probably to change the subject to less grisly matters, asked, “Why do you say witchcraft is self-contradictory, Captain Walker?”
He smiled across at her, an easy task, and said, “Simple. If you were a witch, I mean a real witch with real powers, would you live in a shack in some swamp, muttering to your bats and toads? Or would you prefer Buckingham Palace?”
Her mother looked up from her pouring to say, “Perhaps witches are eccentric, dear boy. I mean, they’re said to be old crones who cackle a bit overmuch.”
Webster chimed in, “Quite so, boil and bubble and all that rot. A person would have to be rather senile to begin with, what?”
But Alice smiled and said, “I think I see what you’re getting at, Captain Walker. A person who had magic powers, real magic powers, wouldn’t have to be old and ugly. If I had magic powers the first thing I’d do would be to take off twenty pounds and give myself lavender eyes.”
Captain Gringo said, “I don’t think you have much room for improvement, ma’am. But that’s the general idea. Who’d live the way witches or witchdoctors live if they didn’t have to?”
Webster nudged Burton and said, “I say, spot of gallantry and all that, what?”
But Burton was probably used to the idea that other men found his ravishing wife attractive. He ignored Webster and said, “I can see your objections to civilized witches and warlocks, but what about the native kind? I mean, a jungle bunny might stumble over a few spells and incantations and not know enough to improve himself.”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “Nobody’s too dumb to want simple luxuries. Maybe a native witchdoctor wouldn’t want to move to London or Paris, but at the least he or she would have a decent hut and all the food they could eat for themselves and their friends. We had these Apache Devil Dancers back home when I was with the Tenth Cav. They were pretty good at ventriloquism and sleight of hand. They gave us a. lot of trouble and nobody ever figured out how some of their tricks worked. But they started losing their hold over the Apache when some smart young Christian Indians asked how come they could evoke a hundred and one Apache gods but couldn’t produce a bushel of corn or enough tobacco to go around.”
There was a polite chuckle around the tea table and Alice Burton said, “I quite agree. If this mysterious Mamma Macumba they talk about had real magic powers, she wouldn’t muck about with raids and arson. She’d simply produce a few million pounds and buy all the land she wanted!”
Captain Gringo asked, “Is Nuevo Verdugo up for sale?”
Colonel Gage said, “Good Lord, of course! Pantropic Limited would sell it gladly for enough to cover its losses to date. I mean, we’re in business to make money, eh what?”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “I can see making a profit here might be harder than you folks planned. But if you’re aiming to sell out, I don’t see what all the excitement is about.”
Gage replied, “I said we’d gladly sell off these holdings for the chance to break
even. I didn’t say anyone has made us an offer! Who’s about to buy a perishing tract of semi-jungle infested with hostile natives, with or without this Voodoo business thrown in?”
Webster said, “News of these zombie chaps has reached the marketplace. It’s a bit like trying to offer a house with rats in the walls. We can’t sell before we’ve disinfected the premises. But, of course, if we could get the rats out of the walls, we wouldn’t want to sell out.”
Mrs. Gage had a biscuit halfway to her mouth. She grimaced and put it back on her plate as she murmured to her husband, “Must we, at tea?”
Gage said, “Quite right, old girl. We were talking business, Webster. I was about to ask Captain Walker here, if he was satisfied working for Woodbine Arms Limited. I shan’t ask what Sir Basil is paying this season, but if I know him, it can’t be as much as we’re in a position to offer. How do you feel about joining us, Walker?”
Captain Gringo glanced at Burton. The other American at the table nodded and said, “It’s okay. You wouldn’t be breaking my rice bowl. I’m really an engineer. I wound up commanding the guard because of a misspent youth at a military school. I’m not really cut out to run a jungle war.”
Captain Gringo tended to agree, but he was too polite to say so. He turned back to Gage and said, “I’m flattered, Colonel. But you sure make snap judgments. We haven’t been on the island a full day.”
Gage said, “Nonsense. Sir Basil cabled your qualifications before you and Verrier got here.”
Gage turned to the others and explained, “They call him Captain Gringo in Mexico. Seems he and his friend took on the whole Diaz dictatorship one time and almost won. He tamed a tribe of wild Indians in Panama, too. Need one say more?”
Alice Burton dimpled at Captain Gringo and said, “How thrilling. You must be very brave, Captain.”
He read the smoke signals in her eyes and answered, “I’ve learned to be a little cautious about charging into disputed territory, ma’am.”
What was the matter with the silly dame? Her fucking husband was sitting right there! He’d heard the British colonial set liked to screw around, but Burton was a Yank.
