Renegade 29

by Lou Cameron

  As the cathedral began to empty, they still faced at least an hour and a half of late afternoon sunlight with nowhere to go and a lot of people mad at them by this time.

  They already knew the local law was looking for them. By now the two whores, or, rather, their pimps, would be searching for them, either for revenge or to collect the rewards on them. For whether the girls had told them all the intimate details or not, both Dulcenia and old Anita had to be smart enough to figure they were wanted, seriously, by the authorities. And in Latin America, there was always at least a modest reward for turning outlaws in.

  It got worse. When they stopped at a newsstand to pick up some extra smokes for what had to be a long night ahead, the Prenza de Limón blared headlines at them regarding the shoot-out earlier that afternoon and, yes, the cops had “recaptured” Sanchez by filling him with lead. Sixty-two bullets, according to the paper. Sanchez had no doubt stopped counting after the first couple of rounds in the head.

  So there went the outside chance the jerk-off had made it safely home to the wife and kids and there went any chance to collect the final payment from his rebel friends. In fact, there went any chance to ever go near that part of town again. Latin rebels, like most kinds of people who spent lots of time plotting in dark cellars, tended to harbor macabre Machiavellian notions. So by now they’d be hunting for the soldiers of fortune who’d “double-crossed poor Sanchez” too!

  As they sat under the awning of a sidewalk cantina to consider their options, it was Gaston, of course, who considered the practique option of simply turning police informers, explaining, “We are not wanted here in Costa Rica for anything else. If we told the police we were forced to help them spring Sanchez, and gave them the current address of his fellow rebels, with the understanding we would only mention possible rewards if we were forced to appear in court—”

  “Forget it,” Captain Gringo cut in, adding, “Two reasons. Aside from it being a shitty way to treat people who gave us half the money up front, guys in our line of work have their reputations to consider. Who in the hell would ever hire soldiers of fortune again if word got around they were Mike Finks?”

  “True, but since the rebels are sure to spread the word in any case, why should we have the name without the game, hein? As you have often said in your droll Yankee way, Dick, one must eat one’s apple a bite at a time, and the matter before the house, at this time, is to stay alive for at least a few more hours, hein?”

  Captain Gringo sipped at his gin and tonic, then said, “There are always cool heads as well as hot heads in any gang. By now they’re expecting us to rat on them. So they’ll have moved their secret headquarters, but they’ll also be keeping an eye on it, if only to ambush the police raiding party. When nobody raids them, they may figure out what went wrong. It only took us a few hours to see Sanchez was an impulsive asshole. They have to have known him better. But I like the suggestion about staying alive for at least a few more hours. Don’t you know any other, ah, rogues, as you call them, here in Limón?” Gaston considered, then shrugged and said, “One. It is the long shot of long shots, but perhaps not as suicidal as trying to catch a train for San José with the adorable police clustered like grapes around the depot by now.”

  “Okay, who are we talking about, damn it? We have to get off the goddamn streets before one of the many bastards looking for us by now gets lucky!”

  Gaston sighed and said, “I refer to one Abdul El Gemal, who claims to be from Spanish Morocco, mais I doubt it. The Bedouins we fought in North Africa in my salad days were fiends from hell, but even fiends have some standards. One could accuse Abdul El Gemal of regularly committing incest with a camel if one didn’t know for a fact his mother died of the pox some years ago. He is what may be described as a labor contractor, hein?”

  “Our kind of labor?”

  “Mais non, I consider myself a soldier of fortune, not an outright bandit. But if anyone in Central America is planning to rob a bank or perhaps assassinate a popular archbishop, Abdul is the man to see about it. The only thing one may say in the bastard’s favor is that, so far, he has never turned anyone in to the law for money. I imagine people in the market for professional killers pay better, hein?”

  Captain Gringo grimaced and said, “Well, anything’s better than the frying pan we’re in. So which way is the fire?”

  “Down the waterfront a short but possible fatal hop. The slimy species of North African does his real business behind the front of trés quaint Arabesque clip joint serving strong black coffee and weak-willed women, both at outrageous prices. But before I lead you down the primrose path, Dick, let us understand you may not like the set-up. I am less fastidious than you by far, and I have never wanted to work for Abdul El Gemal. Oh, by the way, did I fail to mention he was a flaming homosexual as well as a murderous bucket of slime?”

  A couple of cops were sauntering up the street behind Gaston. So Captain Gringo placed some coins sedately on the tin table and said, “Let’s go. Anywhere has to be better than here, right now!”

  They got up, swung the nearest corner without incident, and moved east to the waterfront quay to stroll innocently down it, staring wistfully at the few steamers anchored out in the Limón roads. Gaston said he didn’t know the pursers on any of them.

  Gemal’s Seaside Attraction was one of those hole-in-the wall joints that didn’t advertise with a sign out front. You were supposed to know where it was. Gaston had just pointed out a dull red door beyond a chandler’s shop when the door flew open and a sailor flew out head first to land face down on the cobblestones. Someone threw his hat out after him and slammed the door shut again with a high-pitched curse. Gaston chuckled and said, “That was Boca the Bouncer. Boca must be in a good mood this evening. Our friend on the ground does not seem to be bleeding anywhere, hein?”

  As the drunk crawled away on hands and knees Captain Gringo asked, “Is this Boca a pansy, too?” and Gaston replied with a shrug, “That would be hard to say. It wears a dress. But nobody has ever tried to look under it. I told you Abdul admires tough people.”

  Gaston shoved the door open and Captain Gringo followed him into another dark murk that smelled funny. They worked their way along the stucco wall, but none of the dark figures seated at the little tables would have recognized their own mothers in the lousy light had they turned to look. It was hard enough to see the belly dancer wiggling and jiggling under a coal oil lamp in the center of the floor, clad mostly in swirling cigar smoke. But she wasn’t bad, if a man admired a little meat on his women.

  Gaston was making for an archway screened with a beaded curtain when an even more curvaceous creature as tall as Captain Gringo barred the way and started to say something nasty before she, he, or it recognized Gaston and said, “Oh, it’s you. Who’s your handsome friend, Gaston?”

  Gaston introduced them and added they had more important things to discuss with Abdul El Gemal. Boca the Bouncer goosed Captain Gringo in passing and told him not to go to strangers the next time he had a hard-on. The invitation might have seemed more inviting or more revolting if he’d been able to get a better look at Boca’s face. As they went through the beaded curtain, he muttered to his guide, “You told me this place was rough, but you still might have warned me. Don’t you know whether that big ape back there is male or female? Whatever it is, it seems to like me more than I like it!”

  Gaston said, “Boca the Bouncer has a certain reputation for uncouth behavior to maintain. Do not worry about her, and I use the term out of common courtesy. Watch the cochon you are about to meet. If he says he finds your ass adorable, he means it!”

  Gaston knocked on an oaken door solid enough for a bank vault and a prissy little Negro, stark naked and hence obviously a male—sort of—opened it a crack, recognized Gaston, and called over his skinny black shoulder in lisping Arabic. Abdul must have wanted to see them after all, for the mariposa let them in.

  Abdul El Gemal was sprawled on a pile of silk pillows in a niche across the expe
nsively carpeted room. He was obscenely fat, oily, bearded, and dressed in too-tight red silk pajamas. He was smoking a burbling Mid-Eastern hookah. It didn’t smell as if he’d charged his bubble pipe with tobacco. But for a man inhaling hashish the voluptuous North African seemed alert enough to follow the gist as Gaston gave him a hasty rundown on their recent troubles. When the little Frenchman had finished, the fat Arab nodded sagely and said, “Though Allah be more merciful, you two seem to be in a hell of a mess. But through the compassion of the One True God, you have come to the right place. Sit down. I have a proposition for you.”

  There wasn’t a stick of furniture in the place. But as the two soldiers of fortune sat on the floor they found it soft enough. There had to be at least a dozen layers of Oriental rug under them.

  Abdul snapped his fingers, and his black servant, slave, lover, or whatever crawled over to him to calmly open the fly of the red silk pajamas, haul out the large albeit limp dong of Abdul Gemal, and crouch naked between the Arab’s fat legs to start sucking, with his skinny bare black rump presented to the visiting soldiers of fortune.

  Captain Gringo grimaced and asked, “Does he have to do that right now? I thought you wanted to talk business, Gemal.”

  The labor contractor they’d come to see leaned back more comfortably and replied calmly, “Never pass up a chance to take a piss or enjoy an orgasm, my young friend. Some people can discuss business as they enjoy a luncheon together. I prefer my own creature comforts and I assure you I can add up the compound interest on a loan even smoking hashish, as I’m being, ah, smoked. Would either of you care to fuck this pretty youth as he blows me? As you can see, his ass is not occupied at the moment and I can assure you he’s as tight as a schoolboy back there.”

  Gaston nudged Captain Gringo to silence him as he told the degenerate flatly, “We would like to hear your more sensible business proposition, hein?”

  Abdul took a deep drag of hashish, told the black boy to watch those fucking teeth, and said, “As you know, the Cuba Libre Movement has been trying to chase the Spanish out of Cuba since way back in ’68. The Spanish have been holding on by making false promises, killing people who pester them about keeping them, and in general hanging on to their last profitable colony in Latin America with the old iron fist in a rather threadbare velvet glove.”

  Gaston grimaced and said, “Merde alors, if you are talking about us signing up with the Cuba Libre dreamers, forget it! I don’t know what is wrong with Cubans. Most of the Cubans I’ve met seem reasonable enough. But as rebels they simply do not have what it takes. You are most correct in saying they have been engaged in an off-again-on-again revolution of comic opera proportions for nearly twenty years. Everyone else down here seems to have had no trouble freeing themselves of the Spanish yoke with one sweet and short revolution. Obviously the Spanish Empire lacks the hair on its chest for a real free-for-all fight with serious men of action. So obviously the Cuba Libre types must be lazy idiots as well, hein?”

  Gemal moved his fat hips sensuously in time with the mariposa’s bobbing head as he replied calmly, “What you say is true. The Cuban rebels are more prone to make speeches than war, and every time they win a skirmish they allow the Spanish to ask for a truce and more pointless negotiations. But of late the situation has been changing for the better. Better, that is, for the rebel side. For one thing, after considerable back-stabbing and fighting among themselves, the Cuba Libre Party has at last agreed to a sensible leader. Tomas Estrada Palma has set up a government in exile in New York and while he still spouts the idealistic propaganda of the rebel poet, José Marti, nobody is following Marti’s grotesque battle plans this season. Palma is a hard-headed realist, with the sort of man-to-man manner that appeals to North Americans. So he has the backing of more than one Gringo congressman as well as the Hearst newspaper chain, eh?”

  Captain Gringo nodded. He still read the papers from back home, when he could get them, but said, “We’re not about to go to New York. Personal reasons.”

  Abdul El Gemal moaned softly, and told his lover, “That’s enough for now, unless one of these other gentlemen would like to be sucked off.” Then, when he noted the looks on his visitors’ faces, he chuckled fondly and added, “Go. I shall send for you the next time I am in the mood.”

  As his love-slave simpered out, Gemal told Captain Gringo, “If I had not heard of your troubles with the U.S. Army you would not be useful to me, either, Captain Gringo. Palma needs no office help in New York. He needs fighting men, real fighting men, for the all-out liberation of his homeland. A few of the usual machete swingers have risen as usual in the wilder eastern end of Cuba. The Spanish have a better than usual military governor in the form of Butcher Weyler. So the untrained and poorly armed guerrillas under Garcia are already in trouble. But if a serious force of professional soldiers, armed with the latest weapons—including the new machine gun—were to establish a beachhead near the Bay of Pigs, cutting Weyler’s army in the field off from Havana—”

  “It won’t work,” Captain Gringo cut in flatly, going on to explain, “To land a force of any size you’d need a mess of boats, and Spain has a navy, ironclad, armed with big guns that go boomp in the night.”

  Gemal yawned and said, “Yes and no. Spain not only has a fleet of ironclads, it also has a government one would not entrust with the task of rounding up stray dogs. The underachievers of the Spanish king’s Cortes have been trying to save money because His Most Catholic Majesty spends it faster than even a brutal tax system can gather it. They dare not ask the Spanish nobility to cut down on personal luxuries. So they economize where they can, and they have not bought coal for the steam boilers of the Spanish navy in years. All those big tin boats are so much puffery. On the rare occasions they have to carry out some port ceremony they are forced to burn the local furniture.”

  Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Maybe. Meanwhile, in my time, I’ve ducked more than one gunboat flying the Spanish colors. But even if we accept a Spanish navy mostly stuck in port, a landing force on the Cuban coast would still have its own seaborne logistics to worry about. Machine guns are swell, but they burn up six hundred rounds a minute. The guys in the landing force would probably want to eat once in a while, too. So no matter how much shit they carry ashore with them—and few men can lug more than sixty pounds anywhere important—what happens after the Spaniards notice the beachhead and start shooting back? Weyler’s guys have to have at least one coast artillery piece to make any thin-skinned vessels coming in with more supplies feel sort of unwelcome, right?”

  Gemal shrugged and said, “I am a labor contractor, not a general. I’m sure the Cuba Libre officers who’ll be leading you have some idea of provisioning you once you land. After all, they’ll be with you, and not even a Cuban can live by cigars alone. Perhaps they mean to live off the country as your lines advance, eh?”

  The two soldiers of fortune exchanged sober glances. Gaston said, “Merde alors, live off a country in the wake of a retreating Spanish army? They would be free to loot more freely than any liberating force who ever meant to rule over a contented populace and, aside from idealism, there is the practique fact that most of the large estates away from the few Cuban towns grow nothing but cash crops of sugar and tobacco, neither of which is as filling to an army marching on its stomach as one might desire.”

  Captain Gringo added, “Screw the food. I’m still talking about ordinance. A guerrilla action is one thing. A no bullshit war between even small armies calls for a steady supply of ammo. I can see where Butcher Weyler’s army will get theirs. They’ll be fighting in front of supply lines leading back to their own ammo dumps. We’d be forced to rely on friendly fishes, once shore fire drives our thin-skinned landing craft out of range. So haven’t you got a more sensible job lined up for us, like wrestling alligators or tasting food for a tyrant?”

  Gemal sighed and said, “As Allah is the judge of my no-doubt doomed soul, none of my other clients are in the market for men of action at the
moment. I could fix you up with a job as the bodyguard-lover of a certain dictator, if you’d like to demonstrate how well you can suck. Otherwise, I can only send you on to Progreso, or ask you to leave. I am not in the business of harboring fugitives from the local police, unless I have some use for them, and you lads say you have a rebel gang looking for you as well?”

  “Tell us about Progreso,” said Captain Gringo.

  Gemal said, “Progreso is a seaport on the coast of Yucatan. The Cuba Libre Party has made certain arrangements with the local Mexican authorities and what Mexico City does not know can’t hurt anyone, eh? Contractors like myself have been sending all the soldiers of fortune we can recruit to Progreso. At the moment they still lack the numbers there to do much more than smell the pretty women and fuck the pretty flowers Yucatan is noted for. Once enough of you old pros are there, it shall be Palma’s problem, not mine, to ferry you all to the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba.”

  “How do you intend to get us to Progreso?”

  “By banana boat, of course. I employ people who can draw passable paper money, free-hand, with a crow-quill pen. So you will board as supercargo agents of a nonexistent banana company and simply get off at Progreso when the steamer puts in there for fresh water, whether it needs any or not.”

  He yawned again, stretched, and added, “The steamer will not put in here until the morning tide, and of course my forger will need time to prepare your new identification papers. Do you have any names in particular in mind?” Captain Gringo smiled thinly and said, “Surprise us. Guys making up names for themselves tend to screw up and grab a name out of thin air the cops might have on file as a known associate.”

  The oily Arab nodded sagely, clapped his pudgy palms, and said, “They told me you were intelligent as well as somewhat muscular. I seem to be falling asleep right now for some reason. My servants will see you to your quarters and if you desire anything, do not hesitate to ask. But don’t hang about in the main room downstairs. The police drop by every once in a while to make sure my entertainers are not screwing the customers on the tables, uninvited.”