by Lou Cameron
The colonel nodded and said, “So Webster here, was just telling me. You know, of course, that they’ll try to do something about the ground you cleared this afternoon?”
“Yes sir. I’m sort of hoping they’ll burn some trees for us.”
“The more the merrier, eh what? The farm workers assure us the sugar will grow back good as new, too. How long do you think it will take you to set up that entire defense cordon?”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “About a week, at the rate we’re going. Pappa Blanco doesn’t have a week, if he values his hide.”
Burton frowned and said, “I don’t think I follow that, Walker.”
Captain Gringo saw the others didn’t either. He said, “We have the Caribs pushed back and probably having second thoughts about their Macumba man’s magic. Don’t forget he’s an off-islander, whatever his race. There are always sub-chiefs jealous of the big cheese, and lately Pappa Blanco’s magic hasn’t worked out so hot.”
Webster asked, “Oh, do you think his followers might turn on him?”
“If they don’t, I intend to. I’ve got some cabled feelers out and we’ll soon know who’s been bidding to replace Pantropic here as leaseholder.”
Colonel Gage said, “Not bloody likely! I’ve just cabled the stockholders that we have the blighters whipped!”
Burton said, “Besides that, no other sugar trust has bid on Nuevo Verdugo.”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “I know. It’s an oil company. Three of them, as a matter of fact. Two American oil trusts and a Dutch outfit. I think we can assume the Dutch are innocent. I’ve got a guy in ,the states digging into it and—”
Webster cut in to blurt, “Oil? What oil are you talking about?”
“Come on, the shit is seeping out of the ground all over the island! The two main bulges of Nuevo Verdugo are classic anticlines like the ones they’ve started drilling in Texas.”
“But we had our own geologists look for signs of petroleum, old bean.”
“Sure you did. British geologists brought up on the old textbooks. Drilling for oil is a new science and it pays to keep up to date. Those first oil fields in Penn State seem to be a fluke. No oil strikes since Drake’s well back in the fifties has ever been found in the classic rock formations of the Ohio Valley. But your geologists, who’ve never found an oil well in England, looked for the rocks and fossils the books said should be there, and when they didn’t find them, they ignored their own eyes and went home. Don’t take my word that we’re sitting on two oil domes. I told you I checked with Wall Street. Three of the biggest petroleum trusts have been secretly bidding against each other with the Crown.”
Colonel Gage looked like he was about to vomit. He gasped, “See here, damn it, we were here first!”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “You’re right. Pantropic has a ninety-nine year lease. That’s why somebody has been trying to drive you out of business before you found out there was something better than sugar you could ship from here at a tidy profit.”
Gage said, “I see it all now. But once I cable London, the board of directors will never sell out and—”
“And that will be the end of it,” cut in Captain Gringo with a nod, adding, “by now the mainland operators know the game’s up, too. My questions were discreet, but word gets around when a guy starts asking about oil wells.”
Burton said, “If I were this Pappa Blanco, I’d try to overrun this town and drive everyone off the island tonight!”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No, you wouldn’t. It wouldn’t do any good. They could butcher us all in our beds and burn Utopiaton to the ground, but Pantropic would just send in another bunch of us. The scheme called for the company abandoning its lease. Would you abandon a lease on an oil field?”
Colonel. Gage said, “By George, I’d better cable London right away!”
Captain Gringo said, “You don’t have to. I already cabled Sir Basil Hakim that I had a handle on the situation and explained the plot. He’s got stock in Pantropic, but he’ll probably buy more before he tells your board of directors and rockets the price out of sight.”
Colonel Gage said, “I know you’re trying to help, but I rather resent your high-handed way of taking charge without informing me, old chap!”
Burton snapped, “Goddamnit, you might have let us in on it before you cabled! A guy could make a killing on the exchange if he knew Pantropic’s stock was about to go up!”
Webster looked annoyed, too, as he said, “Obviously you and your friend, Gaston, have already placed your orders for a few shares, eh what?”
Captain Gringo’s smile was bitter as he answered, “No. We don’t have permanent mailing addresses. You guys still have time to get rich. The London exchange is closed for the weekend. So don’t get your shit hot. You’ve got plenty of time to wire your brokers. They’d be home in bed, right now. But—”
“By Jove, all is forgiven!” Colonel Gage laughed and said* as visions of sugarplums danced in his head. Burton was grinning like a shit-eating dog, too. Captain Gringo knew his next moves, as if he’d spelled them out in a fireworks display. Burton stood to make a killing on the stock market and leave his bitchy wife. He probably hadn’t enjoyed getting cornholed by the colonel either. It was nice to see a fellow American so happy, even if he was a fat stupid bastard.
Webster said, “I can see why you’re so optimistic, Walker. How do you imagine these sneaky oil chaps will contact their man here on Nuevo Verdugo to tell him the show is over? We control the only cable outlet.”
Captain Gringo said, “I know. It’s my guess they’ve given him a timetable, so he’ll know when it’s time to leave. That’s when we’ll nail him.”
The three of them looked blank. So he explained, “The guy can’t stay here now. If the other witch doctors don’t eat him or something, it’s only a matter of time before we find out where he’s hiding. There’s another steamer due in a couple of days. We just have to watch and see who’s anxious to leave …”
“Are you suggesting Pappa Blanco is hiding out among us here in town?” asked Webster. Captain Gringo nodded and said, “&e has to be. That girl, Prue, told me he met the other witch doctors away from the Carib camps, somewhere in the jungle. For a guy living in a tree, he also had a pretty good grip on our plans. Somebody, a worker, a guard, a harmless-looking Creole, or whatever, has been slipping back and forth. Meanwhile, I’ve got Padre Hernando, Gordo and some other people, asking questions and comparing alibis. If we don’t uncover him before the ship pulls in, he ought to be nervous enough to try and board her.”
Webster frowned and said, “You make him sound like a rather crude criminal, Walker. Have you forgotten he has, well, certain powers?”
Captain Gringo snorted and said, “Sleight of hand, you mean. Those so-called zombies were just vagrants they recruited, doped up with painkillers and strychnine, and used for cannon fodder. They probably were landed from a schooner further down the coast.”
“But that beheaded black corpse, full of embalming fluid when it attacked you …”
“Bullshit. The guy I beheaded was drugged to the stage where neither one of us knew what he was doing. Later, Pappa Blanco’s confederate at the infirmary just switched corpses on us. One dead Negro looks like any other, if you cut off his head.”
Burton gasped, “Someone on the medical staff was working for Pappa Blanco?”
“Yeah. Willie May. Sorry about that. She was the one who murdered Doctor Lloyd so we’d have no professional medical advice when they tried to spook us. Poor Mab O’Shay knew her job, so they murdered her too, and tried to hide her in Lloyd’s grave.”
Webster looked sick and asked, “Then where on earth was Doctor Lloyd when you dug the nurse up?”
“Under the earth, of course. They put Mab in his grave on top of him. When Gordo dug as-far down as her coffin, he saw no reason to dig deeper. He opened the coffin, found the wrong body, and wet his pants like he was supposed to.”
&nbs
p; Burton said, “I can’t believe poor silly Willie would do anything like that!”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Yeah, she did act pretty silly. But it has to have been her. Process of elimination. She was the only one who could have put that snake where Lloyd could step on it, after switching his antivenom labels. Gaston was sort of, well, chummy with the other colored nurses, so they have alibis.”
“But Willie May was murdered by that zombie girl, Miss Lee.”
“No she wasn’t. Prue was poisoned by Willie May, just like Mab. Then Willie May moved her body at the last minute. She was the only one who had a few moments alone with Prue’s coffin. She rolled Prue under a bed or into a closet or something. Pappa Blanco or his Carib assistants were supposed to come and carry it off. Only they delivered a bomb instead. They blew up Willie May and that other innocent nurse because Willie May was getting dangerous. She was involved with a white man and maybe talking about a bigger piece of the action. Anyway, the dead Prue’s corpse was blown up in the process, and you can figure out the rest.”
Burton said, “Jesus, we knew they played rough, but Pappa Blanco must be a real son of a bitch.”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “I’m a real son of bitch, too. People playing for high stakes don’t hire pussy cats. We’ll never know what sort of a hold he had on the late Miss Willie May. He uses people like toilet paper. But his zombies fizzled and his Caribs have found out that a Maxim beats black magic and drums at scaring people. So now I figure he’ll be out to save his own ass. I’ve wired the steamship company. Even if he somehow slips past us on the docks, they’ll let us know if he tries to book passage on the Q.T.”
Webster said, “You keep saying he, Walker. How do you know we’re not dealing with a woman?”
“You’re not dealing with the motherfucker. I am. Prue Lee said he was a man and the Caribs say he’s a man. They met him bare ass, wearing spooky paint, but he must have had a pecker. None of them wear so much as a fig leaf. He may be black. He may be brown. I’m betting on white. The big oil companies are hung up on racial superiority and they wouldn’t trust an operation this size to anyone but a company man.”
“Couldn’t some American pass himself off as a mestizo?”
“Sure he could, for a while. The Indians didn’t know what the fuck he was. But it’s a small town you’ve got here. He can’t stay hidden in the woodwork forever. Right now he’s probably sweating bullets trying to figure a way out. The trouble with islands is that you can’t just walk away.”
He took out his watch and added, “You guys know as much as I do now. I’ve got a date with a lady. So why don’t you play the stock market or something? Nothing’s going to happen tonight.”
He turned to go, but Webster said, “Not so fast, dash it all! I see how they tricked us about a lot of things, but they must have a huge gang of confederates right here in town!”
“How do you figure that, Webster? I told you how Willie May and maybe a couple of beachcombers rigged the spooky shit around the infirmary. By now the mastermind will have eliminated all his stooges who could point a finger at him. The Caribs left are back in the Stone Age, where I’d leave them for now, if I were you. They’ll eventually get used to the idea of civilization if the company shares some of the oil and sugar revenues in the form of pots and calico. Without outsiders stirring trouble, the island will go back to status quo.”
Webster said, “Willie May could have killed Lloyd, Mab and that Macumba priestess with a little help from her friends. But, dash it all, you’ve forgotten that someone dug up a whole graveyard, if we assume the zombies didn’t dig themselves out!”
“Oh shit, nobody can revive a corpse if it’s really dead. The folks buried over there were just innocent workers who died of natural causes.”
“Then where in blazes are they tonight?”
“Right where they were buried, of course. I’ll admit Pappa Blanco’s simple trick gave me a turn until I had time to think about it.”
“You know how all those corpses left their graves?”
“Sure, they never left them. Willie May’s white uniform was spotted by some Creole kids while she carried out Pappa Blanco’s instructions.”
Burton blurted, “That little skinny negress never dug up fifty graves in one night by herself, Goddamn it!”
Captain Gringo said, “I’ll take your word for how skinny she was. She didn’t dig them up. She just moved the markers. She pulled up each stake and drove it back in the soft earth a couple of yards to the side. If you dig where nobody’s been buried, you don’t find anyone there. Haven’t any of you guys ever played poker with a stranger on a train? Pappa Blanco’s not even a good stage magician. He’s just a con man with a nasty imagination.”
Webster frowned and said, “It’s all so simple, once the obvious is pointed out. But I confess he had me frightened with all that mumbo-jumbo!”
“That was the plan. Between shipping no sugar and sending wild reports about Voodoo bullshit, you guys were supposed to be recalled to London as either worthless, crazy, drunk, or all three. That was when another outfit meant to make Pantropic an offer that would pay off’ their losses here and let them forget the whole deal. I’ve really got to be going, guys. The lady is expecting
Chapter Sixteen
They jumped Captain Gringo as he was cutting through a dark alley on the way to Dama Luisa’s. There were four of them. That was a mistake. The ideal team for ganging up on a man is three. So the fourth bumped into the third as they closed in from all sides and the tall American took advantage of the confusion to fall flat and roll as he went for his gun. He rolled under two pairs of legs and a guy fell on top of him as a comrade swung his club and hit the wrong head. Captain Gringo fired, laying on his back, and that was that. The other two scrambled for cover as the gut-shot mestizo fell screaming across his unconscious comrade and Captain Gringo’s legs. The American got out from under them and braced his back against a wall to slide to his feet, gun in hand. Doors and windows were opening all around. He-walked on through the alley and met a man running the other way, who wanted to know what was up. He said, “I’m not sure. Somebody either wanted my life or my shoes back there. Would you see if you could find one of the guards? Tell him I’ll drop by the guardhouse later to question the one that’s still breathing.”
Another Creole ran up and the first one explained, “Some cabrones tried to kill our Captain Gringo! Help me deal with them.”
The American walked on. He knocked on Luisa’s door and a servant let him in. But when he was shown into the patio where Luisa sat alone, she seemed surprised to see him.
She rose from her seat by the fountain, a vision in the soft lantern light, as he said, “I got your note, but I had a little trouble getting here.”
“My note, Dick? I don’t understand. I am happy to see you, of course, but I sent no note.”
He sighed and said, “So they weren’t after my shoes.”
“Your what, Dick?”
“Never mind. Some kid ran up to me as I was on my way to the governor’s. I should have known the note was a ruse. Some guys just never learn. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
But she said, “Wait, for heaven’s sake, sit down and tell me what this is all about. I’ll ring for refreshments.”
He said, “Never mind. I just filled up on gooey pastries.” Then, as she sat on the edge of the fountain, he joined her and told her what had been going on. She waited until he was finished before she nodded and said, “So your job here is nearly over, isn’t it?”
He slipped an arm around her waist and said, “Oh, we’ll have time to finish those defenses before the steamer arrives. By the time it pulls away we ought to have Pappa Blanco in a box and, yeah, I guess that’ll mean there’s not much reason to hang around, unless …”
She didn’t try to move his hand as she said, “Please don’t, Dick. You’re just teasing us both.”
“Both, Luisa?”
“Of course. It
would be easy to fall in love with you. But then what? I’m not the sort of woman you’re used to, Dick.”
“I know. I’m trying to improve my habits.”
She laughed and he moved his hand up to cup her breast. Again, she didn’t struggle. But she said, “Please control yourself, dear. I don’t want to remember you with distaste.”
He moved his hand down to her waist and just sat there like an old friend and nodded, saying, “You’re right. I’m bigger than you, but you’re stronger than me.”
She patted the hand against her waist and said, “You’re wrong, Dick Walker. You’re a very strong man indeed. That’s why I feel so safe with you. It’s the weaklings who whimper and wrestle. I like you, Captain Gringo. So I’m going to tell you something I could only tell a friend.”
“What’s that, old pard?”
“I really want to make love to you. You’re handsome, you’re strong and you’re decent.”
“But what?”
“You know the answer, dear.”
He looked away and said, “Yeah. It wouldn’t work. You’re a lady and I’m a roving guy with a price on his head. Any guy who makes it with you will have to be a Spanish Catholic with a steady job. Can I say something, kid?”
“Of course, dear friend.”
“Whoever gets you is going to be one lucky son of a bitch.”
“Why, thank you, dear. That’s the nicest compliment I’ve ever had.”
She got to her feet, bent, and kissed him on the cheek. He knew she wanted him to leave. So he stood up too, put a hand on each of her shoulders, and started to draw her closer.
She turned her head away and he asked, “Not even a good-bye?”
She shook her copper curls and sighed, “No, dear, I told you this was hard on me, too. Please don’t make me cry.”
So he didn’t. He let go of her, turned around, and walked out of the patio and Dama Luisa’s life.
