by Lou Cameron
Captain Gringo said, “I don’t see what’s the hurry, Vera. If this works, this works. If it doesn’t, what’s the rush?”
Gaston added, “True. My mother always said that there was no sense in rushing to one’s execution.”
Vera said, “You lot won’t be going anywhere for some time. We have to let your doubles lead everyone surrounding this place on a wild goose chase, and the German agents are rather thick. So they’ll have to move out slowly.”
Captain Gringo sat back down on the bed in just his boots, shorts, and shoulder rig as he said, “Right. The costumed guys who checked in here with a couple of pickups shouldn’t leave in less than an hour or so, unless they want anyone watching to think they’re undersexed.”
Gaston had moved over to the window in his own underwear and gun rig. So he suddenly laughed and said, “Mon Dieu, when Hakim tells people to move they most certainly move fast! Come have a peek, Dick, this is trés amuse!”
Captain Gringo joined Gaston at the grille, with Vera trailing behind, just in time to see one tall guy in linen and a planter’s hat whip around the far corner with a short guy dressed the same. A few moments later a door across the way opened and three other guys dressed a bit more native popped out to stroll casually after the decoy Captain Gringo and Gaston.
Captain Gringo grinned and turned to ask Vera where their doubles were going. He could see her face now, and it wasn’t bad, as she replied, “Railway station. They’re to catch the night train to Puntarenas, on the west coast. Two more of our people will board the train with them to supply them with fresh costumes in the men’s room. Then all four of them, complete strangers to the agents tailing you and Gaston, will simply enjoy a quiet trip to the west coast, catch a few winks, and ride back again.”
Gaston said, “I like it. Where is your companion, the mysterious Sarah, m’mselle?”
Vera said, “In your room, next door. Covering the alley to the rear. Your own window overlooks it, you may recall.”
Gaston said, “Oui, I think I shall join her, then. I too find the sight of Boche creeping down dark alleyways trés amuse.”
Suiting actions to his words, Gaston scooped up his costume, mask, gun, and money belt to leave Captain Gringo alone with Vera.
Vera asked, “Do you imagine he’ll get fresh with poor Sarah, Captain Gringo?”
“Call me Dick. He might. How poorly Sarah feels about it depends on how she feels about distinguished older men. Is it true all you girls who work for Hakim have to apply for the job in his bed?”
She sniffed and said, “Don’t be disgusting. Sir Basil pays well, but not that well. You may as well put your new pants on, too, by the way. I’m not paid to go to bed with anyone.”
He chuckled and moved over to the bed by himself. The he rummaged through the suit-pocket contents he’d dumped on the bed for a light and relit the oil lamp on the bed table as he sat back down. Vera asked what he expected to see as she stood near the foot of the bed, hands on hips. He looked her over and said, “Not bad. I admire redheads no matter what color hair they have. But I really need some light on the subject because I have to write a note for my landlady.”
He found an envelope in the drawer of the bed table. He opened his money belt and counted out the rent he and Gaston owed and them some. He stuffed the cash into the envelope, picked up a pencil stub, and wrote on the envelope, explaining how something unexpected but profitable had just come up in El Salvador. Then he sealed the envelope, placed it by the lamp where Lucita would be sure to find it, and told Vera, “I don’t expect my landlady to go to the police about us checking out so suddenly. But if she does, my white lie will fit our heading for the west coast.”
The redhead shrugged and said, “I suppose so. But why do you have to leave any money if your landlady isn’t here?”
He smiled up at her crookedly and observed, “I see you’ve been working for that creep, Hakim, for some time. Don’t try to figure it out. Us human beings don’t understand your kind, either.”
She sniffed and said, “Thank you. Hypocrites like you make me sick, too. What time can we expect your landlady to burst in here? Nobody told us the two of you got on so well, and we were naturally expecting her to return to her own quarters down by the front door.”
He glanced sheepishly at the envelope by the bed lamp and said, “You’re a pretty good detective, Vera. I don’t know when she’ll be back. She didn’t say.”
Vera frowned thoughtfully as she ran her wide-set hazel eyes over Captain Gringo’s naked chest and shoulders. Then she said, “She’ll no doubt get back as soon as she can manage. Put on your costume. We’d better get out of here a little sooner than planned. I don’t like killing witnesses if it can be avoided.”
That sounded reasonable. So Captain Gringo slid on the black sateen costume with white bones painted down the front and back, put on the papier-mâché skeleton mask, and said, “Boo.”
Vera didn’t laugh. She pulled her own mask down over her face and turned to open the door, looking like Death dressed up flamenco. Captain Gringo filled the handy side pockets of his costume and rose to follow her, casting a last wistful glance at the rumpled sheets he’d never get to rumple again.
They went next door and rapped on Gaston’s door. They heard a girlish giggle and then Sarah said they’d be with them in a minute. Gaston didn’t say anything. His mouth was probably too busy. Vera knocked again and snapped, “Right now, God damn it!” and the girl on the other side answered, “Spoilsport!” but came out a moment later with Gaston following her, buttoning up his clown costume. As they all went down the dark back stairs together, Sarah whispered to Vera, “It’s true what they say about Frenchmen. How did you make out, Vera?”
Vera told her to shut up. As she was about to open the back door, Captain Gringo said, “Hold it. Bad move,” and the redhead snapped, “We have to get out of here, dammit!”
He said, “Sure, but we’d better do it right. Someone could still have the place staked out. If they do, they’ll be expecting those two whores and their customers to leave by the same door they came in, right?”
Vera told him to watch who he was calling a whore, but led the way along the downstairs corridor toward the front as Sarah whispered, “What do we say at the front desk?”
Gaston took her arm and answered, “Nothing, assuming you and those other gentlemen paid in advance for the temporary use of some bed linens. Who has the keys?”
Vera said she did. Captain Gringo took them from her and muttered, “Gaston’s right. Put a little wiggle in your walk and I’ll just drop the keys on the desk without stopping.”
It worked. Lucita’s night clerk was reading a magazine and barely looked up as they passed, dropping the keys on his desk. With luck, he might not even tell Lucita about two guys and two putas checking in for a quick roll in the feathers upstairs.
Out on the dimly lit street it got more complicated. As the four of them moved down the posada steps, a hansom cab pulled to a halt in front of them and Lucita, of all people, got out!
She looked a little startled, too, to see four skeleton masks staring at her. But she must have been eager to get back upstairs. So she asked if they were waiting for a cab and, when Vera said they were, politely left the cab door open for them, wished them well, and almost ran for the door.
Vera gave the driver an address and the four of them piled in. As they drove away, Gaston laughed and said, “Eh bien, it’s about time things went right for a change. I could not have planned it better with a stopwatch!”
“Utshay upshay,” muttered Captain Gringo, pointing up at the open hatch in the roof of the hansom. So as the steel-rimmed wheels rattled on, Gaston and Sarah snuggled on the jump seats facing Vera and Captain Gringo, and proceeded to feel each other up some more. Vera sniffed and turned her gaze from them to ask Captain Gringo if that had been his landlady back there. When he nodded, she sniffed again and muttered, “I might have known. A woman can always tell when another’s in heat. Wasn�
��t she a little fat for you?”
He shrugged and said, “ ‘Pleasantly plump’ might describe her more politely. What’s it to you? Have you got something skinnier lined up for me?”
She swore under her breath and said, “Not bloody likely. I’ll be only too happy once we get you to your new address and I’ll have seen the last of you!”
She must have been even more pissed off than she let on. For it was little blond Sarah, of all people, who spotted a passing street sign over Gaston’s shoulder as they passed it and murmured, “Coo, that’s odd. We’re supposed to be going the other way, aren’t we?”
Vera glanced out on her side and said, “I’m not sure where we are at the moment. One stucco wall looks much the same as any other, and I confess I haven’t been paying attention as we’ve swung a few corners. One assumes that when one gives a cabdriver an address, that’s where one is going, what?”
Captain Gringo murmured, “Gaston, start telling us a dirty story, loud. Do I have to say why?”
Gaston replied, “Mais non. Have any of you heard the one about the mother superior and the nearsighted young priest?”
Captain Gringo had, but he wasn’t listening as Gaston made it sound as if four innocent lambs were going quietly to the slaughter, sharing dirty stories and sniggers. Sarah sniggered good. Vera watched, tense and silent, as the tall American drew the .38 from under his costume and pulled his mosquito-booted feet up on the leather seat between them. He waited until the driver swung yet another corner into a darker and narrower street. Then he shot up to his full height, with his head and shoulders out the open roof hatch, and said, “Boo!” as he shoved the .38 muzzle almost up the nose of the driver perched behind the flat-topped hansom.
The driver reined in, gasping, and said, “¡Nombre de Dios, señor! For why are you pointing a gun at me?”
“I’ll ask the questions, amigo. Who are you working for?”
“Working for, señor? I work for nobody but myself, and my customers, of course. Is this a holdup, señor?”
“Not yet. Who’s laying for us at the end of the line, holdup men or someone who may have paid you more to deliver us? Take a deep breath and think before you answer. I shoot people who lie to me.”
The driver said, “I know, you have been drinking all day and now you think someone’s after you, eh? I swear on the grave of my sainted mother that I have no idea what you are talking about, señor.”
So Captain Gringo shot him, grabbed the reins with his free hand, and was out of the hatch and in the driver’s seat before the driver’s body made it to the cobbles with a dull thud.
Down in the cab, Vera shouted, “Have you gone crackers?” as Captain Gringo wheeled the cab around and whipped its horse to a run with the slack in the reins. Behind them, back the way the treacherous driver had been taking them, someone shouted. He knew it wasn’t their driver. Nobody ever shouted once he’d been shot between the eyes.
The sounds of running steel-shod hooves and steel-rimmed wheels over cobbles popped doors and windows open with monotonous regularity as Captain Gringo raced for the darker parts of San José. He swung into a narrow street with no lights at all, slowed to a walk, and drove two more blocks before he reined in and called down, “Okay, everybody out!”
He climbed down himself and proceeded to tether the reins to an old pepper tree as Gaston helped the girls out, asking, “Was this trip really necessary, Dick?”
Captain Gringo said, “It was. You know this town better than I do, Gaston. So are we lost or not?”
Gaston looked around and said, “Merde alors, I, Gaston, am never lost. What was that address again, Vera?”
Vera gave it to him, adding that both of them were obviously mad, and Gaston said, “Eh bien. Follow me, my children. It is not too far to walk, and, from the way my adorable young speed demon just acted, one gathers we had better start walking, hein?”
Captain Gringo said that was for damned sure as he took Vera’s elbow and fell in behind Gaston and Sarah. The redhead snapped, “I can see well enough, dammit,” but he said, “ We’re supposed to be a couple of gay caballeros walking our girls home from the fiesta. So shut up and look happy; dammit!”
She snuggled closer, but asked, “What was that all about back there? Do you think that driver was setting us up for a robbery or worse?”
He said, “Worse. I know you didn’t think much of Lucita, but if the game had been robbery or rape, that driver never would have brought her back to her posada safe and sound. Somebody who knew she was my landlady tailed her to the home of her employers. Then they set it up so one of their confederates would be driving the first cab out front as she left. They weren’t after Lucita. They were after Gaston and me. They probably gave the driver orders to deliver anyone who matched our description at all to whatever reception they had planned down that dark street on the wrong side of town. So don’t ever call Sarah dumb again. She may be warmer-natured that) some people I know, but she’s got good eyes, and she saved our necks back there!”
Vera sighed and said, “I’m the one who was too stupid to look where we were going. But what could have gone wrong with Sir Basil’s plan? Everyone was supposed to follow our confederates wearing your clothes!”
“Some of them may have,” he soothed, adding, “Hakim told Gaston we had more than one bunch to deal with. Some knock-around guys are smarter than others or, hell, they may have just been covering all bets. Knowing we were holed up at the posada, they may have just decided not to let anybody get away, see?”
“They sound rather ruthless, don’t you think?”
“It’s a ruthless game. What do you call the guy you work for, Santa Claus? I must say it’s getting sort of interesting, though. If there wasn’t something to that crazy story about a German-built Spanish sub, they wouldn’t be playing so rough!”
Gaston led them around a corner, through an alley black as the pit, and back to another street with better lighting albeit cinder pavement. He said, “This calle runs in line with the much nicer one you adorable creatures seem to have rented quarters on. Let me see, there should be a slit between the walls along in here somewhere—a man who sometimes finds himself far from home with a mad desire to urinate has to keep such details in mind—and, voilà, I told you I am never lost!”
The rest of them had to take that on faith as Gaston led them through a crooked, dark, and seemingly endless passage between rough stucco walls that smelled of stale piss and worse. But when he finally led them out to a paved street again, Sarah marveled, “Oh, how clever! That’s our place, over there on the far side to the left!”
Both girls started forward. But Captain Gringo stopped them and said, “Hold the thought. Is there a back entrance to that courtyard over there?”
They told him there wasn’t. So he said he guessed they’d just have to chance it as he removed his mask and held it over his cocked .38.
But nothing happened as they cut across, entered the open gateway of the court, and waited until Vera unlocked a massive oak door and led them into pitch blackness. Captain Gringo stood well clear of her, gun in hand, as she struck a match and lit a hall lamp. Then he picked it up and said, “Stay here. I’m going to toss the premises before we sit down to toast marshmallows.”
Gaston and Sarah did. But Vera insisted on following him, fussing, as she insisted that each and every room he entered, armed and dangerous, was secure. When they got to the crapper, he said, “Well, when you’re right you’re right. But you sure are a trusting soul, considering the business you’re in.”
Vera’s hazel eyes blazed as she spat back, “There you go with sarky remarks again! Sarah and I are troubleshooters for Woodbine Arms, not hired guns! You’re the one who murdered that poor driver back there!”
He said, “Touché, but he wasn’t a poor driver. He was a big fibber, and he had to go because you’d given him this address. Assuming you haven’t given it to anyone else we have to worry about, what happens now?”
She said, “You
’re to stay here until other Woodbine people come for you in the morning. Hopefully early. They’ll have tickets for you and Gaston on the morning train to Limón. It should be safe for you to move out by then.”
“In this skeleton suit?”
She laughed despite herself and said, “Naturally they’ll bring another change of costume. Shall we rejoin the others?”
He said, “May as well; I don’t need to use this crapper at the moment.” So they moved down the long narrow hall to where they’d left Gaston and Sarah. They weren’t there. They’d moved into the small front parlor and were on the settee by the fireplace. They were not toasting marshmallows.
Captain Gringo said, “Cut that out, Gaston. This place checks out okay. It’s laid out something like a New York railroad flat. Long hall to one side running front to back with the rooms lined up along it. The crapper’s at the end of the hall. Narrow ventilating slit above the sink. Nobody fatter than a cat could get in or out that way. No doors or windows save for the ones up front. So we’re forted pretty good, and Vera here says we only have to stay one night.”
Gaston felt up the giggling Sarah some more as he grinned and said, “Trés bien. In that case this little cabbage and I shall take the nearest bedroom, hein?”
Vera shook her head and said, “You’ll do no such thing. There are only two bedrooms. So the plan was for you boys to take one while we girls spent the night in the other, with the door locked!”
Sarah pouted and told Vera to speak for herself as Gaston fixed her with a sardonic smile and said, “Doesn’t that sound most perverse, m’mselle? Dick and I are good friends, as you know, but every time I suggest we go to bed together he beats me up!”
Sarah laughed and said, “I’m no bloody lezzy, either. Come on, Gaston, I’ll show you to the bedroom with the softest bed.” So the two of them rose from the settee and scampered out, hand in hand, as Captain Gringo laughed.
