by Lou Cameron
“Oui, it’s his mother. One imagines that might add to the horror of his position, non? Think what it would feel like to be forced to stare into one’s own mother’s face as she decomposes with your cock in her.”
“I’d rather not. But if that’s justice, I’m as nuts as Zagal! How could even a madman justify the death of that poor slob’s mother? She didn’t rape anybody, did she?”
“Mais non, but she did raise a rapist murderer to manhood, non? As Inocencia explains it, they were kind enough to strangle her in front of her son before they forced him to fornicate with her corpse. As he does so, at least three or four times a day no matter how he tries not to, he must be cheered immensely by the thought that once she gets too rotten they intend to replace her with his sister’s fresher corpse. Inocencia says they started with the older, less attractive woman so he could have something to look forward to with mixed emotions. I understand the sister who comes next is young and beautiful. The guards will no doubt be amused by his reluctant lust, hein?”
Captain Gringo swore and reached in his jacket for his .38. Gaston grabbed his arm and hissed, “Mais non! Don’t you think I carry a gun anymore? That poor bastard is done for in any case. I, for one, am not at all interested in learning what sort of justice El Criado Publico would find apt for idealists who did not admire his idealism!”
Captain Gringo grimaced and said, “When you’re right you’re right. The guy’s probably totally insane by now anyway.”
“Oui; he’s starting to fuck his dead mother again. There is only one more cell we can get above via this old tunnel. Do you want to see what they do to common thieves, Dick?”
“No, thanks, I’ve seen enough to convince me these guys are sadistic lunatics. Let’s get out of here. If I’d known then what I know now, I sure could have saved lots of running around last night. Los Jurados make a mere pisspot dictatorship look like kid stuff!”
“Oui. I too was forced to fight for the wrong side last night, as I waited for my wayward child to come home. Now that I have you back in my arms, do you agree we ought to drag ass tout de suite?”
Captain Gringo waited until they were back outside and safe for the moment before he said, “We can’t cut out just yet. We have to wait for Esperanza, and Bowman and the redhead are innocent bystanders, too!”
Gaston wrinkled his nose and said, “Mais non, the redhead is a stupid little slut, Bowman is a species of idiot, and Esperanza is in no danger from Los Jurados. They need her services; besides, she and her tough crew can look after themselves should Los Jurados go crazy, hein?”
“What do you mean, should they go crazy? They’re already crazy as bedbugs, and it gets worse. With the Colombian army pulling out, the villagers will be coming back!”
“Maybe they won’t. They must know a little of what has been going on up here, from the frightened way they’ve been acting, non?”
Captain Gringo shook his head wearily and said, “They’re poor simple losers, Gaston. They’ll come back for the same reason peasants in other parts go on living in a flood plain or on the slopes of an active volcano. They just don’t have any place else to go.”
Gaston said. “They really should consider moving, this time. But you are probably right. Eh bien, what can we do about it, now that we have managed to save the dictatorship of El Criado Publico?”
Captain Gringo said flatly, “That’s easy. We’re going to have to overthrow it, of course!”
*
They couldn’t just start wrecking the joint. For one thing, the odds were lousy, and, for another, at least half the people around them might not deserve to be wrecked. The two soldiers of fortune had been recruited to serve as officers, and. it had still taken them this long to discover they were working for one or more homicidal lunatics.
Captain Gringo agreed that most of the enlisted men serving under him and Gaston would probably be shocked to learn about the grim sights they’d just seen, but warned, “We’re going to have to be careful as hell trying to separate the sheep from the goats, Gaston. Guess wrong on one teacher’s snitch and … I wonder what El Criado Publico would consider the proper punishment for plotting a counter-revolution.”
“Sacre blue! Let us hope we never find out! As the plot thickens, I can see it may call for some trés careful stirring indeed, non?”
“Yeah, we’d better just lay low like the tar baby until we figure out just what the fuck we’re plotting!”
So they didn’t tell anybody that El Criado Publico was nuts, for the time being. By later in the day the rain was coming down fire and salt and the villagers started coming in from the jungle, saving the rebel army some patrolling when they reported that the Colombian column had indeed gone for good, leaving considerable spoils behind.
When Gaston suggested sending out a detail to salvage the abandoned ordnance and any ammo the regulars might have left, El Criado Publico said not to bother, as he had all the guns he needed to hold the fort against all comers. Neither soldier of fortune argued. They knew Maldonado would be back as soon as the rain let up, but with luck they wouldn’t be here. So what the hell.
Captain Gringo did argue, gently, when El Criado Publico ordered the alcalde of the village executed for desertion in the face of the enemy. But before the argument could get serious, it developed that the alcalde had solved the problem by leaving with the Colombian army, along with half-a-dozen other village leaders who had decided on the devil they knew.
The old man agreed, grudgingly, that it made little sense to execute the dimwits who’d come back to him, although he called them patriotic subjects rather than dimwits. He settled for having the villagers get rid of the bodies scattered over the slopes to the west. He’d apparently given up the idea of cremating them in a tropic rainstorm. So in the end they at least got buried, albeit with neither military honors nor the rites of their faith. The village priest had been pretty smart, too. He’d probably be back when he read in the Panama City papers that the area was once more under Colombian control.
Late that afternoon, the redheaded Martha asked Captain Gringo to come with her. But when she led him into Jim Bowman’s room, he saw that she hadn’t meant it the way he’d hoped. Bowman was sick as a dog. Captain Gringo sat on the edge of the bed, felt his forehead, pried up an eyelid, and said, “Welcome to the club, Bowman. You’ve got yellow jack.”
The redhead gasped and said, “Oh, no! Is he going to die? Is it catching?”
Captain Gringo said, “It looks like a real dose, and nobody knows for sure how you catch it. There’s a Spanish doctor who keeps saying yellow jack’s spread by mosquitoes. Everybody else keeps telling him he’s crazy.”
“Oh, God, I’ve been bit by oodles and oodles of mosquitoes since we got here!” she sobbed, adding, “I want to go home. I don’t want to die of yellow jack!”
He said, “Take it easy. Obviously every mosquito can’t carry yellow jack or everyone would catch it down here. That’s one of the holes in that Spanish doctor’s theory.” He saw some brown pills on the bed table near the feverish man’s head and added, “Don’t give him any more quinine. It doesn’t help yellow jack and it’ll only upset his stomach worse.”
He asked the sick fellow American if he’d puked black bile yet, and when Bowman said he’d puked a bucketful that morning, but nothing black, Captain Gringo told the redhead to keep him drinking plenty of liquids whether he wanted to or not. She looked like she was ready to throw up too. So he said, “Look, I’ll see about getting him an orderly. It’s almost dinnertime. Why don’t you go freshen up? I’ll handle this.”
She said, “I’m scared! I want to go home!”
He nodded and said, “No problem. Esperanza should be here with her schooner anytime now. I’ll see you’re both put aboard and she’ll run you back to civilization, okay?”
Bowman stared up owlishly and said, “We can’t leave now! I have to help old Zagal set up his democracy, American-style! Can’t have these greasers screwing up, now that we’ve helped them
win.”
Captain Gringo looked disgusted and said, “Nobody’s won anything down here, you poor simp! The Colombians have conceded a round because they don’t like standing in the rain. The so-called democracy you and the people you work for are backing is never going to get anywhere. Los Jurados don’t know what a democracy is, and old Zagal belongs on a funny farm! When the Nombre Nada arrives, I’m putting you two lost lambs aboard her, period. I frankly don’t give a damn about your health, Bowman. But Red, here, is a good kid, and it’s gonna get rough as hell around here poco tiempo!”
Bowman started making a patriotic speech in bed. Captain Gringo rose and led the redhead out, saying he’d meet her later when dinner was served. Then he ducked in long enough to tell Bowman to shut up and that he’d be right back. He went and found a servant to deal with the sick man. Then he went to his room to wash up for dinner. As long as he was there, he took a peek through the pinhole. But Inocencia wasn’t there, with or without Gaston.
Gaston met him in the hall instead. The Frenchman said, “I just saw a beautiful sight from the walls above. La Nombre Nada has arrived. May I make a mild suggestion, Dick?”
Captain Gringo said, “I’m way ahead of you. I’ve been thinking it over and there’s no way we’re going to put these maniacs out of business without a lot of innocent bystanders getting hurt as well. Bowman’s down with yellow jack. I just told him and the redhead we’re putting them aboard Esperanza’s shooner. I think we’d better leave with them. Colombia isn’t paying us. Let them do something about this stupid situation!”
Gaston grinned and said, “I would kiss you, if I was not worried about my reputation! That’s the sweetest thing you’ve said to me all day! Shall I scamper down to tell Esperanza our plans? By the way, since you can’t possibly use both women once aboard la Nombre Nada—”
“We’ll work that out later,” Captain Gringo cut in, adding, “Right now we’d better go to dinner and act innocent. Esperanza won’t unload for a while and we’ll sort of stroll down casually, once our host is relaxed, see?”
It didn’t work. El Criado Publico looked relaxed, and seemed polite as ever, when the two soldiers of fortune joined him and his other guests at the table. Inocencia wasn’t there yet. The redhead was. Seated next to her, in the missing Bowman’s place, was Esperanza. All things considered, she didn’t seem as happy to see him as one might have expected. In fact she looked upset as hell about something.
Captain Gringo smiled pleasantly across at his old gal pal as he took his own seat. He wondered if the big Basque brunette and the sassy smaller redhead had been comparing notes about him. It hardly seemed they’d had time. He said, “I thought you usually stayed on board, Esperanza.”
She shot a wary glance at the old man seated at the head of the table and said, “So did I. I have never been marched to dinner at gunpoint before.”
Captain Gringo didn’t know how to answer that as Gaston, at his side, murmured, “Oh, merde!” So he didn’t try.
El Criado Publico smiled pleasantly and explained, “I wanted you all here this evening for to help me celebrate my great victory over the forces of evil. Where is Jurado Numero Segundo? I do not see my daughter, either. Oh, well, no matter. All the people I find amusing are here. Shall we have the soup before I tell you about the traitors in our midst?”
Captain Gringo frowned and asked him what the hell he was talking about. The rebel leader shrugged and said, “Before we dine? Very well, since you are one of the traitors under discussion. You see, I learned just this evening that you are planning to desert me. Is that the way you repay my many kindnesses, Captain Gringo?”
The tall American shot a hard look at the redhead across from him. She shook her head and said, “Honest, it wasn’t me, Dick!”
El Criado Publico purred, “La señorita speaks the truth. I see she has chosen her side unwisely, as well. If you must know, Señor Bowman was good enough to confide in the servant you were kind enough to fetch for him just a little while ago.”
Captain Gringo pasted a smile across his suddenly numb lips and said, “For Pete’s sake, boss, a man’s delirious with fever! I don’t know what he told your spy, but if you think someone’s plotting against you—”
“I do not think,” El Criado Publico cut in, smiling at the redhead as he added, “La Señorita Pendergast was here before you two traitors arrived, and, as you may have noticed, she is not intelligent enough to keep a secret. I was able to verify, with innocent questions, what you told her and Bowman, eh?”
The redhead pouted and said, “That’s not fair! When you said you wished us a pleasant voyage, how was I to know you were an old sneak?”
Zagal said, “I am perhaps, as you say, and old sneak, señorita. I am also the dictator of this republic, and a man in my position can afford to take no chances.”
Esperanza yawned elaborately and asked, “What has all this cat-and-mouse business to do with me and my crew, El Criado? Nobody told me anything about anything.”
“True, my gunrunning beauty. On the other hand, with you here as my guest, your vessel would hardly put out to sea before I wanted it to, eh?”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t you want me to go back to Limón for more guns and ammunition?”
“All in good time, señorita. The tide shall not turn before midnight. I may send Bowman, at least, back with you. I am still trying to make up my mind what to do about these other guests. Does anyone here have any suggestions? What about you, Numero Uno?”
The senior jurado present shrugged and said, “Why not just shoot the three of them, sir?”
Captain Gringo braced himself to rise and draw at the same time. But then something that certainly felt like a pistol barrel nudged the base of his skull from behind, so he froze, as hands from off stage disarmed him and Gaston at the same time.
El Criado Publico chuckled and said, “That’s better. I think it might be fitting to allow Captain Gringo to die as he has lived, by the machine gun. Gaston, on the other hand, might prefer being tied to the muzzle of a cannon. A fitting death for an old artilleryman, no? I am not yet sure what we do with beautiful but dumb redheads.”
Martha began to cry. Esperanza put an arm around her shoulders and said, “Hush. Can’t you take a joke?”
“I don’t think he’s kidding!” wailed the redhead.
They never found out. At that moment the regal Inocencia walked in, flanked by her black jaguar on one side and the jurado called Numero Segundo on the other. They were followed by a squad of other, lesser jurados. El Criado Publico frowned the length of the table at his daughter and asked, “How did you get that damned beast back? I gave orders it was to remain locked up until the emergency was over!”
Inocencia smiled back coldly and said, “Diablo and me could not wait until your emergency was over, father. There is always an emergency when you are around! I am sorry, but you have become senile as well as crazy. So it is time for to end it.”
The old man leaped to his feet, sending his chair crashing backward as he gasped. “You speak to me that way? You dare? Numero Segundo, you are closer to my wicked child. Seize her!”
The jurado drew his revolver instead, saying, “I am Numero Uno now, por favor.”
The older jurado nearer the head of the table leaped to his feet, protesting, “But I am Numero Uno!”
So the one with the gun said softly, “Not anymore,” and blew his face off.
Captain Gringo didn’t stay to see the whole show. So he couldn’t tell just who was shooting at whom as he kicked himself over backward, chair and all, and hit the floor rolling, as the room filled with noise and gunsmoke. As he tried to get his bearings, somebody put a round in one of the guys who’d disarmed him, and his purloined .38 bounced off the rug between him and the table. He said, “¡Muchas graçia!” and crawled under the table with it.
He met Esperanza and the redhead there. He said, “Great minds crawl in the same channels. Are you both okay?”
The redhead sobb
ed as she said, “Someone’s lying across my ankles and he’s all icky!” So Captain Gringo put down the gun and hauled her all the way under as Esperanza asked what the hell was going on.
He said, “Palace coup, I think. We’d better get out of here before either side wins! Stay put a second.”
He stuck his head out the side he’d been seated on, saw nothing much but a blue haze of gunsmoke, and told Esperanza, “There’s a window just past the first overturned chair you’ll hit. Get Red out while I cover you.”
The American girl protested, “I’m scared! I feel safer here!”
Esperanza swore in Basque, grabbed a fistful of Martha’s red hair, and started dragging her after her as she growled, “Jesus, you’re stupid.”
Captain Gringo rose to one knee to make sure nobody tried to stop them. A hazy figure in the swirling smoke spotted him and tried to part his blond hair with a bullet. So Captain Gringo shot the son of a bitch, whoever he was. Somewhere in the confusion, Inocencia was shouting, “Enough! Cease fire! The situation is under my complete control!” So he knew she had to be as crazy as her old man.
He called out, “Gaston?” and was answered by a pistol shot that just missed his ear in the blue haze. So he didn’t do that anymore. He saw that the girls had made it out. He took a deep breath, leaped to his feet, and dived headfirst out the open window.
He landed on one shoulder and rolled to his feet as Esperanza shouted, “This way, Dick!”
He saw the two of them moving down the veranda in the dim but thank God smokeless light and chased after them, gun in hand. Ahead, a blue-clad jurado stepped out of a doorway to bar their path. The two girls were in Captain Gringo’s line of fire. But Esperanza solved the problem by nailing him with a beautiful left hook, and when he hit the deck and tried to get up, the redhead kicked him in the head, and that was that.
Captain Gringo took the lead, found a stairway leading down, and led them down it. They bee-lined across the rain swept parade for the gate on the far side. It was dark as hell. But when they made it to the gun position out in the middle of the open expanse, he was able to make out cotton-clad figures coming the other way. So he got the girls behind the howitzer and called out, “¿Quien es?”
