Renegade 19

by Lou Cameron

  “Eh bien, perhaps there is a rich eccentric staying here. I told you they charged outrageous prices. Let us eat, for God’s sake!”

  Nobody commented when the two soldiers of fortune came in the side door and strode boldly to the bar at one end of the dimly lit lounge. The white-jacketed black barkeep served them gin and tonic, with ice, yet, and asked politely if they wanted the tabs put on their guest bills. Gaston said, calmly, that they’d better keep their room service and bar tabs separate.

  When the barkeep saw the twenty-peso gold piece on the mahogany, he seemed satisfied that they weren’t a couple of bums in off the street. They left him a nice tip from the change and eased over to a couple of chairs under a potted palm to give everyone a chance to get used to them being there. It wasn’t easy. A long buffet table ran along the nearby wall, and the smell of all that grub was pure torture to a pair of half-starved castaways.

  By tacit agreement, Gaston cased the lounge one way and Captain Gringo the other as they sat there sipping like a couple of bored rich tourists. It was just as well the light was so murky. Their planter’s sombreros were acceptable headgear in these parts, but their linen suits were a mite grimy after crawling and sweating a lot that afternoon.

  There were only a few other guests in the lounge. Nobody looked like anyone they had to worry about. A tall, skinny old guy with a horsey laugh was trying to pick up a dame he should have been ashamed to be seen in public with. She looked like a sparrow dressed up to become a schoolmarm. Captain Gringo doubted that the old gent was going to get anywhere with her, but neither seemed at all interested in him and Gaston, so he wished them well. Gaston cased a fat man reading a book with one hand as he drank himself to death with the other. Gaston murmured, “Eh bien. You stay here. I shall get us some goodies from the buffet.” He handed his glass to Captain Gringo, got up as if he’d just noticed the food, and wandered over to investigate. He kept his back to the bar as he piled two plates full of hors d’oeuvres and brought them back to base camp under the potted palm. As he handed one to Captain Gringo, the big Yank laughed and said, “I thought we weren’t supposed to be piggy. There’s enough here to feed an army!”

  “The fewer trips the better, non? Besides, like most hors d’oeuvres, it’s mostly air.”

  The assortment of pastry and cold cuts tasted good, though, and in no time they’d both cleaned their plates. Gaston suggested second helpings. Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “Wait awhile. It’s too damned empty in here. That barkeep has nothing to keep him busy. What time does the action start around here?”

  Gaston shrugged and said, “I am not sure it ever does. Any guest looking for a pickup would do better over at the paseo. That idiot trying to make time with the traveling spinster is obviously new to the tropics.”

  Captain Gringo consulted his watch and said, “It should be dark enough outside to case the waterfront now.”

  Gaston said, “You stay right where you are, you conspicuous moose. Since you won’t let me eat seriously here, I may as well wend my weary way along the quay to see if there’s a boat that is neither under guard nor in immediate danger of sinking at its moorings. I take it we desire a ketch rig, non?”

  “Yeah, a sloop’s too slow and a schooner rig’s too much for us to man. If you can find one with auxiliary power I’ll kiss you.”

  “Merde alors, if I can find a fishing boat with an engine, I can walk on water! Try to stay out of trouble until I get back, hein?”

  After Gaston left, the lounge seemed even more boring. Captain Gringo nursed his drink as long as he could without being obvious. Then he bought another and, as long as he was on his feet, helped himself to another plate of grub. But after a guy drinks, eats, and smokes for a couple of hours, potted palms get mighty uninteresting to look at, and that silly laugh from the idiot down at the far end was beginning to affect him like fingernails on a schoolroom blackboard.

  What was the matter with the dumb turd? Anyone could see the ugly little dame didn’t put out. And come to think of it, what was the matter with her? Anyone could see the guy was lusting for her drab flesh. Maybe she didn’t have anything to read upstairs?

  He checked his watch again. It couldn’t be that early. Gaston had left sometime during the last ice age and Rome had fallen while he was getting that last drink from the bar.

  A guest dressed like a Gibson Girl came in. She wore no hat, so he knew she’d come down from an upstairs room. He tried to ignore her. It wasn’t easy. She was a stunning brunette with cameo features and eyes so big he could tell they were blue, even in this dim light.

  It was safe to look her over as she stood at the bar with her back to him, of course, so he did. He liked the view from that angle, too. The waistline above; the hip-hugging whipcord skirt she wore had to be the result of a painfully tight corset. Nobody hourglassed that nicely without expensive, impractical underwear. Her outer duds were more sensible for the tropics, though. The thin khaki blouse above the whipcord skirt looked like she planned some jungle running. She obviously hadn’t already done any. Her pinned-up hair and ivory skin hadn’t spent much time down here yet. The last dame he’d had had been a blond native. He’d had to knock her out before she’d half-satisfied him. He wondered what it would be like to switch to a dark-haired white woman. He decided he’d better not try to find out.

  The tall horsey guy and the ugly little sparrow crossed his line of vision, arm in arm and obviously going somewhere in a hurry. He repressed a chuckle. It just went to show that you just couldn’t judge a cunt by its cover. He got up and moved his hat, his drink, and himself over to the corner they’d vacated. He’d noticed it was a better place to wait for Gaston. As he seated himself in one of the side-by-side leather chairs, he saw that he now had both the side door and the lobby entrance covered. He was less noticeable from the bar now. The barkeep had to crane to see into this corner, and the dame he was serving was now half-hidden by a pillar. The window to his left opened onto the alley and gave him a sneaky preview of anyone making for the side entrance. He saw the steam car still parked out there. Otherwise the alley was empty and, as it was blind, anyone coming up it would have his back to the window unless he looked in obviously.

  The brunette came back in view as she turned from the bar and walked his way with a tall highball glass. He kept his eyes polite. He could look her over some more when she sat down some place with her profile to him. She came all the way to his corner, sat down in the chair the horsey guy had vacated, and said, “I say, this is a spot of luck, Captain Gringo! We’d about given up on you still being in town!”

  He stared at her silently. Even up close, he knew he’d never seen her before. Hers was the kind of face a guy remembered, if he had any glands at all. She dimpled even prettier and continued, “It’s all right. I’m on your side. We tried to recruit you in Costa Rica, but you and your little French friend were nowhere to be found in San José. I’m Sylvia Porter, by the way.”

  “So who is Sylvia?” he asked, smiling thinly. The accent was British. But their old chum Greystoke of British Intelligence wouldn’t have been looking for them in Costa Rica. They’d just done a job for the prick up the coast, and been stiffed.

  She said, “I’m with a syndicate of treasure hunters. We’re on our way to Laguna Caratasca, just up the coast. It’s supposed to be deserted these days. Just in case it’s not, we picked up a couple of Maxim machine guns. They say you’re the best machine gunner south of Texas. True?”

  There was no sense being modest, since she already had his number. He shrugged and said, “Great minds sure run in the same channel. Gaston Verrier and I were thinking about Laguna Caratasca. We gave it up as too iffy.”

  She frowned and asked, “You already know about the pirate treasure? We thought it was our own little secret. But if it’s already on the grapevine, we may need you more than ever.” He kept a card close to his vest by not saying he didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. Instead, he asked, “How did you know I’d
be here? I didn’t know, myself, until a little while ago!” ‘

  She explained, “We heard you were in town. Half of Nicaragua seems to be looking for you, and not to hire you! Running into you here was sheer good fortune for both of us. One of our party heard you’d run into the perishing jungle. That’s where all the enthusiastic local law officers are right now, you’ll be pleased to know.”

  She looked around thoughtfully, nodded, and added, “I might have known you’d run to earth in a place like this. Very neat. I’d never think to look for such a desperado in such sedate surroundings.” Then she said, “But you can’t last long on your own. Do you want the job with us?”

  “Tell me about it.”

  She sipped her sweet rum highball and gathered her thoughts before she explained, “There are a dozen in my syndicate. All British, of course. These perishing natives would murder us for the gold if and when we find it. We have one English remittance man who says he can lead us to the lagoon. But he hasn’t been there in several years and we have conflicting stories on Laguna Caratasca. Some say there’s been nobody there since the Royal Navy cleaned it out a few years ago. Others say land pirates have moved in to replace the sea pirates who used to hunt out of there. What do you think, Captain Gringo?”

  “Call me Dick; you’re not a Mexican. I can’t tell you anything about the area. I’ve never been there. Gaston has, ten years or so out of date. I can’t see what bandits would be doing there. Who would they rob? The idea of Laguna Caratasca in the bad old days was that it was too far from the Honduran capital up in the highlands for Honduran law to care about. There are no towns there, officially. The lagoon’s over fifty miles long on the map. The map shows the larger islands. Probably leaves off a mess of little turtle keys and reefs are up for grabs.”

  “We have a map. A treasure map at that. The Royal Navy didn’t nail all the coast pirates. But, like your friend Gaston, our map is out of date. Hurricanes can play havoc with sandbars and mangrove swamps in ten or twelve years. But let’s worry about that when we get there. You did say you were coming, didn’t you?”

  He didn’t even have a hard-on. He said, “I’m thinking about it. What kind of a boat do you kiddies have? You’re talking about shallow, treacherous waters on a lee coast. Do you have auxiliary power?”

  She pointed her dimpled chin at the window beyond him and said, “We’re driving motorcars, by land. My Stanley’s right outside. The others are up the quay, near the north end of town.”

  He blinked in surprise and said, “You never drove from Costa Rica!”

  She laughed and said, “Of course not. That’s why most of our vehicles are still on the quay. We unloaded them the other day from a coastal steamer.”

  “For God’s sake, why?”

  “Don’t you see how clever it is, Dick? Anyone watching for strangers at Laguna Caratasca will have all eyes, and hopefully all guns, trained on the seaward approaches. Our guide knows a jungle trail running from here in Nicaragua to the landward side of the big lagoon. In the bad old days, the pirates used it to carry loot and supplies across the border. One assumes they had some arrangement with the Nicaraguan government of the time. Before you object about that, the Nicaraguan Conservatives were in power and cahoots with the coast pirates. The law here, now, knows next to nothing.”

  He sighed and said, “Neither do you guys, if you think you can drive horseless carriages up the Mosquito Coast a good sixty miles! I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, doll, but you don’t see many filling stations along your average jungle trail. Said trails were not hacked out with rubber tires in mind, either!”

  She said, “Pooh! We knew that when we ordered team cars instead of internal-combustion or electrics. The Stanley brothers build a very sturdy machine. There’s water everywhere, and almost anything that will burn will keep said water boiling. Our steamers have been fitted with heavy-duty lorry springs and solid rubber tires.”

  “Ouch. Okay, it might work if you drive slow, and I don’t see how anyone could drive fast through a jungle. Let’s talk about the machine guns. How much ammo would I have if push came to shove?”

  “We have a couple of cases for each gun.”

  “That’s not enough. A Maxim spits six hundred rounds a minute if you’re shooting at anyone important. If four cases of thirty-thirty will stop ’em, they ain’t all that important.”

  “Brrr! You do paint a grim picture. If I can get you more ammo, will you take the job?”

  “Where can you get a couple of thousand extra rounds, and, more important, what’s in it for Gaston and me?”

  “You mean money? Well, your share in the treasure would come to one-fourteenth, since there’d be fourteen of us, all told. Does that sound fair?”

  “Hell no! I might have known you were asking us to work on spec! What if we don’t find any treasure? Lots of old drunks sell maps, you know.”

  She sniffed and said, “I assure you we got the map from a good source, which I’m not at liberty to discuss. Try it another way. What happens if you stay here in Puerto Cabezas when we drive on?”

  “You paint grim pictures, too. Okay. Gaston’s not going to like it, but we’ll see you safely to Laguna Caratasca and maybe hang around long enough to see if you look like you know what you’re doing. If all we find up there are mosquitoes and snakes, all bets are off!”

  She held out her hand to shake on it. Her hand felt nice in his as she said, “Good. We were planning to leave tonight, after the paseo ran down and the natives were less restless. I’d better drive up the quay and see about more ammo. There’s a no-questions chandler up there who’s already sold us supplies he asked us never to mention to his current government.”

  He hung on to her hand to keep her seated as he said, “Hold it. Half the natives here think horseless carriages run on black magic, and most of them are on the street right now!”

  “Oh, you’re right. I’d better pop into a hired horse-drawn hack. Do you want to tag along, Dick?”

  “Want to. Can’t. I promised to wait here for Gaston. How do I find you guys if things get confusing?”

  “My friends are at another posada, called La Golondrina, next to the warehouse we have the other cars in. The chandler’s shop is right down the quay and … Never mind; if you have to leave here in a hurry, go to the warehouse next to La Golondrina. I’ll tell everyone to expect you.”

  She got her hand back and rose to leave before he could ask more. He had a couple of questions indeed. But if she was a police informant, she sure liked to do things the complicated way.

  He got up and went to the bar for another drink. He’d been tipping well and the black barkeep had gotten friendlier every time he served him. So Captain Gringo said, “I forgot to ask the lady I was just with her room number. You, ah, wouldn’t like to have a drink on me, would you?”

  The barkeep smiled knowingly, but said, “I can’t help you, señor. She is a stranger to me, too. She must have just checked in, like yourself.”

  The tall American nodded and took his drink back to the corner to brood a bit. But wait a minute. Sylvia’s car had been parked out in the alley when they arrived. She couldn’t have had them tailed from the whorehouse. So what was left?

  He sipped his drink as he considered. He nodded and muttered half-aloud, “Sure. They know your rep and they knew the cops were breathing down your back. She came down to this end of town and parked while she had a discreet peek at the few places a smart-ass guy on the run might duck into. How many could there be in a town this size?”

  He was a third of the way down the gin and tonic when Gaston popped in via the lobby entrance, spotted him, and came over as fast as he could walk without running. Gaston didn’t sit down. He said, “Let’s go. I think I spotted someone on my tail, just as I turned in to the front entrance!”

  Captain Gringo put the glass on an end table and got up, saying, “Side exit. I’ve got something to tell you if we make it.”

  They strolled to the door through
which they’d first entered. Captain Gringo put a casual hand on the knob and twisted. The door was locked. He looked thoughtfully at the barkeep, who seemed intent on wiping something awful off the mahogany and wasn’t looking their way. Captain Gringo growled, “Know any other neat places to hole up? I might have known they’d have a telephone out in the fucking lobby!”

  Gaston didn’t answer. He’d whipped out his gun to blast the first cop coming through the archway from the lobby!

  The uniformed intruder went down nicely, but there had to be more where he came from. Captain Gringo growled, “Shoot that barkeep!” as he picked up a potted palm, brass pot and all. He’d said it in English, so the barkeep was too slow in ducking and Gaston nailed him right over the left eye, as Captain Gringo threw the potted palm through the glass by the side of the treacherously locked door, pot and all.

  He drew his own .38 as he dived out the opening. Behind him, Gaston put another cop on the lobby rug before diving out after him. They got as far as the parked Stanley Steamer before some other prick leaned around the corner at the far end of the alley and winged a shot at them before ducking back out of sight.

  Gaston said, “Merde alors, we are boxed!”

  But Captain Gringo said, “No, we’re not. Get in that car. I’m driving, so cover me!”

  Gaston hesitated a split second, grasped the idea, and leaped up on the high seat behind the low hood. Captain Gringo jumped in beside him, released the parking brake, and opened the steam throttle. The results scared even him.

  The Stanley Steamer had its shortcomings. But he guessed nobody was going to build a faster automobile until well into the coming century. As the dry steam hit the powerful cylinders between the rear wheels, the big horseless carriage burned rubber all the way out of the alley and was doing at least fifty when it hit the street!

  ‘Turn, turn, you maniac!” wailed Gaston as they tore straight at a storefront across the way, while bewildered bullets whipped through the spaces they kept leaving. Captain Gringo swung the wheel hard over and they slid broadside, solid tires screaming and smoking until they decided which way they wanted to go. And then, as the startled cops all around the posada hurled lead and curses, they were gone in a cloud of blue rubber smoke and kerosene fumes!