The late Brian Mahonney might have been a soldier of fortune worthy of Gaston s respect, but he sure hadn’t been a good provider. The house Helena led Captain Gringo to was little more than a two-room hovel. He’d learned along the way that the girl lived alone since her mother had died a few months back. After scouting the surrounding rooftops and alleyways, he’d learned nobody was covering the place from close enough to matter. When they ducked inside, the house was dark and apparently empty. Helena lit a candle and stared in confusion at the bleak stucco walls around them. She said, “Gaston is not here.”
Captain Gringo wondered what else was new. There was a sleeping mat in an arched alcove. The only other furnishings were a crude table and chairs in the main room, and a beehive hearth and some pottery cookware in the smaller kitchen. Helena put the candle on the table and asked if he wanted some coffee before he left.
He said, “Coffee sounds fine and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Oh, don’t you intend to look for Gaston?”
He shook his head and sat down at the table, saying, “No. Gaston could be anywhere. But if he shakes those shadows, hell wind up back here. He won’t go back to our place until he’s sure he’s not being followed. If and when he gets there, I left the one word, Helena, scratched on our own kitchen table.”
The girl smiled and said, “How clever of you. Anyone but Gaston will think some vandal carved his girl’s name in the wood, if they notice it at all. Gaston, of course, will know I brought you here!”
“Right. Didn’t you say something about coffee? We might have a long wait.”
Helena flushed and stepped into the kitchen to light a little fire on her hearth and put a pot of water on to boil. Captain Gringo could watch her without moving from his seat. The girl’s peasant dress was clean but shabby. Her parents hadn’t lived too high on the hog while they were alive. He wondered what she was living on, now. They were in a slummy neighborhood and she certainly couldn’t be growing crops in her postage-stamp dooryard.
She joined him at the table, brushing a strand of blonde hair from her forehead as she said, “The water will be boiling in a few minutes. I would offer you something for to eat, but there isn’t anything.”
He said, “I noticed. When’s the last time you’ve eaten, Helena?”
She shrugged and said, “The woman I work for feeds me once a day.”
“She sounds neat. What do you do at your job, Helena?”
“Oh, I am a chica.”
“A housemaid ?”
“Si, I was fortunate enough to get a job when my mother became ill. La señora is rather demanding, but she never hits me, and, as I said, I am allowed to eat there once a day.”
“It sounds like fun. How much do they pay you, kid?”
The Hispano-Irish girl looked confused and asked, “Pay? Are you speaking of money, señor?”
“Call me Dick, Helena. I did mean money. That’s what they usually pay people with, isn’t it?”
Helena shook her head and said, “That is not the custom, here. La señora is my patrona. She has never spoken to me about money.”
He nodded, with a frown. He’d been south of the border long enough to understand the “patrocinio” racket. It accounted for a lot of the revolutions.
As if to defend her employers, Helena said, “La señora looks after me. She pays the rent on this house and allows for me to charge my firewood to her account. As I said, she feeds me and, from time to time, she gives me clothes to wear.”
“Are those rags you have on one of la señora’s cast-off dresses?”
“Oh, no, she wears fine silk and linen. I think she picked this dress up from the rag picker’s counter in the flea market. I know it is not pretty, but there are no holes in it and it covers me modestly enough.”
She stopped and stared at him uncertainly. Then she asked, “What is the matter? Why are you looking at me like that?”
He didn’t think it would be polite to tell a lady he thought she was stupid, so he shrugged and said, “I was wondering about your late father. Didn’t he leave his family anything?”
Helena sighed and said, “My father was a good man, I think, but he was, like yourself, an adventurer. Sometimes we had money. More often, we did not. My mother loved him, but I remember them discussing his ways with some heat, at times. My mother burned a candle for him when we heard he’d been shot by that Mexican firing squad, but, later, she told me she’d always known it would end that way. I think the water is boiling, now.”
She got up, dabbing at her eye as she dashed into the kitchen. When she came back with the coffeepot and some cups she’d recovered. That is, she’d recovered her poise, but her memories were still bitter. As they sat together, sipping weak and unsweetened brew, she suddenly blurted, “What makes men like my father and yourself the way they are?”
He grimaced and said, “I can’t speak for your father. I don’t seem to have much choice.”
“That can’t be true. You are obviously an educated person. For why do you wish to go around fighting people for pay? We both know that half the time you don’t get paid at all, and, very often, you get killed.”
He smiled sheepishly and said, ‘‘You’re right about the money, but we only get killed once.”
“Once is more than enough! Why can’t you get a decent job?”
He raised an eyebrow and asked, “I was too polite to ask you that same question, Helena. What the hell is a girl like you doing, scrubbing floors and washing dishes for handouts?”
“That’s not the same. I have no other skills. I know how to read and write, but my parents could not afford to educate me.”
He nodded and said, “I went to a school called West Point, once. They educated me to be a soldier. Like yourself, I only have one skill that seems to be in demand, down here.”
“Why don’t you go back to North America and see if they need you there?”
“I’d like to. I can’t. They want me, but I don’t think they need me. Let’s talk about something else. I wonder what’s keeping Gaston.”
“I, too, have been wondering. As you see, I only have one bed.”
That didn’t sound so bad, to him, but he decided to pass on the idea. She was only a green kid and anything that pretty wouldn’t be doing housework for table scraps if she hopped in bed easily. He could tell she was nervous about the subject of the mat in the alcove, so he smiled reassuringly and said, “I know I was a little fresh with you when I searched you, but I was really only worried about concealed weapons.”
She lowered her eyelids and blushed as she murmured. “No man ever touched me, there, before. I was so afraid you were going to … you know.”
“Come on, your father was a friend of Gaston’s and Gaston is a friend of mine.”
“Oh, may I think of you as an uncle, then?”
“I wish you wouldn’t. Let’s settle for big brother. What I’m trying to say is that you don’t have anything to worry about. If you’re tired, you just go to bed and I’ll be good.”
She smiled and said, “I am very tired, but I shall wait up for Gaston with you. I think I like you, after all.”
“Did you have to think about it this long, Helena?”
“Of course. You are very big and rough looking. Gaston said you were crazy, too. But I think you are just hurt, inside, some way. Do you wish to tell me how they hurt you, Dick?”
“No. You’re too big for bedtime stories. Let’s talk about the mess you’re in. Did Gaston have anything to say about finding his old comrade’s daughter living like this?”
“He said I’d grown up most nicely. We did not discuss my poverty as much. He was more worried about the men who’d been following him.”
The American grimaced and said, “He worries good. Did he give you any money?”
“For why? I did not ask him for money. What do you take me for, a beggar?”
He reached in his pocket and took out his wallet as he said, “I take you for a sweet kid who needs a keeper. Don’t you even have a boyfriend, Helena?”
She shook her head and said, “No. Nobody wishes to marry a girl who’s poor, and my mother warned me about men who pinch one at the paseo or coming home from church.”
As she spoke he counted out about fifty dollars’ worth of Costa Rican bills, knowing more would just get her in trouble, while less wouldn’t do her much good. He held the money out to her and said, “Here. Get yourself some decent clothes and stock up on groceries. Before we leave for the lowlands I’ll see if we can’t get you a decent job. There has to be someone in San Jose who’ll feed you better for busting your back.”
Helena stared wistfully at the money in his fist, but didn’t reach for it as she said, “I can’t take your money. You are a soldier of fortune, like my father. You are the one who lets people take advantage of him! I have a job and nobody is trying to kill me. Only God knows where your next meal is coming from!”
“Hey, come on. I just exchanged a fistful of Yanqui dollars at the bank this afternoon. The people we’re working for at the moment pay well.”
Helena shook her head and said, “You forget I am a soldier of fortune’s daughter. They never pay you enough and, in the end, they always betray you. I remember how it was when my father was alive. Each time he left us for some grand adventure, he promised that this time it would be different. But it seldom was. There are three kinds of men who pay strangers to fight for them. They hire mercenaries because they don’t know how to fight. They hired mercenaries because they know how but don’t want to fight, or they hire mercenaries for a cause they do not wish their own people to die for. They never hire you because they wish for you to retire wealthy, and half the time, after they have used you, they see no need to pay you.”
He started to argue, but his deal with British Intelligence was none of her business in the first place and might be dangerous knowledge for a peasant girl in the second. As he sat there, holding out the money, something clicked in his brain and he suddenly grinned and said, “Helena, I could kiss you!”
She looked wary and replied, “I don’t think I want you to. I thought you promised to behave.”
He put the money on the table and explained, “I did and I meant it. I think you just showed me the light. I could still be wrong, but it’s the first pattern I’ve come up with that makes a bit of sense.”
Before she could answer, there was a dot dash knock on the door and Helena got to her feet, saying, “That’s my father’s knock. It must be Gaston!”
He put a thoughtful hand on the gun butt under his jacket but didn’t try to stop her as she stepped over to the barred door and opened it. Gaston stepped in, growling, “Sacre God damn! I am too old for these childish games of hide-and-go-seek!” He spotted Captain Gringo and added, with a nod, “I saw the message on the table. I suppose you know that our house has been ransacked?”
The American shrugged and said, “It occurred to me that they might have that in mind. How come you didn’t wait here after you sent Helena for me?”
Gaston looked embarrassed and answered, “It only occurred to me after she’d left that the men on my tail had been acting most strange if my demise was what they’d had in mind. Why let a man spot you trailing him if you do not intend to either move in or shadow him more sensibly, hein?”
The American nodded and said, “Sure, they spooked you into ducking for cover, knowing you’d send for me, leaving the house unguarded.”
“This does not worry you, my fellow sucker?”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No. They were probably German agents. Greystoke’s people know what we have in the house.”
Gaston scowled and said, “Whoever they were, they robbed us. When I got to our place to find you gone, I found the machine gun and other supplies missing, too!”
Captain Gringo chuckled and said, “The prowlers didn’t take anything important. I hid all our stuff as it started to get dark. Kruger’s boys were probably hoping for maps and written instructions. We’re okay.”
“Who in the name of God is Kruger, and where did you cache our things? I looked all over before I dashed back here!”
“Kruger’s a helpful guy from the German consulate. I put our stuff topside.”
“Topside? It’s a one-story house with a basement but no attic! There is no topside, Dick.”
“Sure there is. I put everything on the tile roof, near the chimney.”
Gaston started to protest, then he grinned and said, “Aha! The purloined letter trick! Nobody expect to find anything hidden in plain sight, atop the tiles, in the open!”
Helena was trying to follow their exchange in English without much luck and, realizing they might sound rude, Captain Gringo switched to Spanish to explain, “We were talking about my hiding some things.”
Gaston spoke Spanish, too, as he added, “They can’t stay there after sunrise. We’d better get back there.”
Captain Gringo nodded but said, “We’ve got all night before anyone spots those boxes on the roof. How did you make out with your recruiting drive?”
Gaston shrugged and said, “I was only able to find a dozen of the old bunch, here in San Jose. Make that eleven, since Helena, here, told me what happened to poor Brian Mahonney. One, alas, does not find many adventurers in a country that does not go in for blood sports. Like ourselves, the few I found are here because of the climate and the need for a few reward posters to yellow with age.”
“Eleven will have to do, then. Where are they?”
“I told each to stay where he was and that I’d get word to them, when and if. Don’t you think we should be getting back to our supplies, Dick? It makes me nervous to think of them unguarded, hidden or not.”
Captain Gringo said, “We’re going to have to move. I’m getting tired of people dropping by unexpected, too! We can’t leave Helena here, either. She doesn’t know anything, but some son of a bitch with a nasty streak might not know that.”
Gaston shot a thoughtful look at the girl and said, “You may be right. But we can’t take her with us through the jungle.”
Helena gasped, “Jungle? I do not wish to go into any jungle!”
Captain Gringo said, “Relax. We’re not taking you with us on our mission. Just to another house, where you’ll be safe.”
Gaston looked as relieved as the girl, albeit somewhat more puzzled. He asked, “What are you talking about, Dick? Where can we hide that the other side does not know about?”
“We’re going to purloin another letter. I’ll explain it on the fly while we’re moving.”