Captain Gringo left Marie’s about five-thirty. She’d spoiled the first bath he’d taken after rising by remembering they’d left out one way he hadn’t come in her. Then they bathed again together, made love in the soapy water, and talked some more about Paris and her onion soup. He was too gallant to wonder aloud if any man could make it as far as Paris with a lady who seemed intent on making up for lost time. He assumed the late Jacques had really died of yellow jack. They couldn’t have been at it like that every siesta since they’d been married. He wouldn’t have had time to even start his fool canal.
She followed him to the door, still nude, and clung to him and his wilted linen for a long, lingering kiss as she asked, “Will I ever see you again, Dick?”
He ran his hands down over her smooth, firm buttocks and replied, “Of course. I’ll probably be tied up tonight, but I’ll try to join you for another siesta mañana.”
She giggled and said, “It was tres restful, non? You must think me a shameless hussy, but I do not care. For some reason, I find I have no shame around you.”
He told her they’d done nothing to feel ashamed about, kissed her again, and left. He left regretfully, because he knew better than Marie why she’d been so uninhibited. Despite her foolish entreaties to come with her to Paris, they were ships passing in the night and she knew it. The poor little gal would tighten up like a school-marm around any gent she knew who might meet her on the street where she really lived. He felt a little shitty about the way he’d used her. But he knew she’d used him, too. You couldn’t come with anyone without saying sweet lies, and all that bullshit about onion soup had been Marie’s way of saying she wasn’t just doing this ‘cause she needed a good fuck. She’d been brought up proper and bedded by a man who knew his way around the female form. She probably told herself fibs when she played with herself, too. A lot of dames were like that. A month from now she’d be glad he hadn’t followed her to wherever she was going. She’d no doubt tell herself he’d been a scoundrel and have her eye on some socially suitable Frenchman, the poor bastard.
He’d promised her he’d be back for second helpings, but he didn’t think he’d better. If she’d been kidding, by tonight she’d be wondering how in hell to get rid of him. If she were serious, it was best to break clean. He knew she was all right, and there was nothing he could do for her. Nothing that really mattered. Any man could service a gal, and most of them didn’t have a price on their heads. A soldier of fortune had no business dragging decent gals down with him.
He avoided the alley he’d been attacked in, so he didn’t know whether anything had been done about the two bodies or not. He didn’t think that was any of his business, either. His only real business was staying alive, these days. It had been tough enough in Mexico. But there, at least, he’d known what side everyone was on.
He went back to the bar. The blue table was still there, but the puta was gone and there was a new bartender. He saw the place was nearly empty. So he had a Cervesa and left, not sure just where he wanted to go. He had a wallet full of bills. Any number of ships tied up along the quay would take him aboard for a few bucks, if they didn’t simply rob him and dump his body in the bay. You had to be careful how you approached a strange skipper. It helped if you knew where you wanted to go.
He couldn’t go back to the States. He’d gotten used to that, and it didn’t hurt so much these days. His Spanish had improved with practice and he had nearly a thousand dollars and a loaded gun to work with. Was Panama the most sensible place for him to be? Yet how long would he last on a thousand, and where would he be safer? Sir Basil had fixed the local law for him. He might well be jumping from the pan to the fire if he lit out for parts unknown, and he was wanted in all the parts he knew of.
As he strolled under the arcade someone fell in beside him, and Captain Gringo braced for a hard-luck story from some vagrant. Then the man at his side said, “Clumsy, my old and rare. The puta was a part-time police informer.”
“I’m not surprised, Gaston. She obviously told you I was in town though, right?”
“Merde alors! Everyone in Panama knows the notorious Captain Gringo is here, plotting something most diabolic with Sir Basil Hakim. I prefer, myself, to keep the lower profile, hein?”
Gaston Verrier was a smaller, older, and more ruthless soldier of fortune. He’d come to the Western Hemisphere a generation back with the French Foreign Legion and deserted when the comic-opera empire of the French-backed Maximilian had gone under to Juarez in a brief outburst of Mexican democracy. The two of them had met as both were awaiting execution by a Mexican firing squad. Since then they’d been, if not trusted friends, at least not enemies. Captain Gringo knew Gaston would betray his mother for a reasonable cash offer, but, on the other hand, the’ Frenchman never acted like a prick just for practice. South of the border, this was saying a lot for any knock-around guy.
As they came to an alley, Gaston nudged the taller man and said, “In here. It’s safer to talk in my place, non?”
He led Captain Gringo to a rickety outside stairway and they went up to his digs. Gaston flicked on the lights in the darkly draped room and told the naked Negress on the brass bedstead to get dressed and go out for some wine. As she slipped sullenly into a cotton shift, Gaston told his guest to sit down and added, “She has a sister, if you enjoy unusual experiences.”
Captain Gringo took a seat on a bentwood chair near the one table and fished for a smoke as he said, “No, thanks. I’ve been having some unusual experiences.”
“Ah, it is true Sir Basil is perverse? I have never enjoyed men very much. It is not the unusual plumbing so much as the silly way queers act.”
“You know me better than that, Gaston. What else can you tell me about the old goat?”
Gaston waited until the Negress had left before he put a finger to the side of his nose and said, “You must learn not to speak so freely in front of women, my young friend. Bebe is a police informant, too.”
“She is? How do you know?”
“Merde, he asks me how I know. The girl says she loves me and makes la zig-zig for nothing. I ask you, is that reasonable?”
“How should I know? There’s no accounting for tastes.”
“I am not bad-looking, and a tiger in bed, but one develops the instincts for such matters. Bebe is from the French West Indies. She says it is fate that brought us together. I suspect fate works for the Colombian Military Police.”
“Then why is she staying here with you, Gaston?”
Gaston chuckled and said, “Fortunately, while Bebe is a most clumsy spy, she is formidable in the dark. If I got rid of her they would think I was impotent— or worse, that I was on to them. This way, I feed her information my friends desire the government to believe and Bebe, ah, Bebe is tres fantastique! She really has a sister, by the way. Pure ebony and moves le derriere like the saloon door on payday. One night we played the game of three in a boat and—”
“Gaston, what the hell is going on down here?”
“Bah, you spoilsport Yankees always want to talk about business. Very well. First you tell me what you are doing for Sir Basil Hakim.”
Captain Gringo told him, leaving out only the bit about his recent siesta. Gaston studied his guest with a blank expression but they knew each other well enough for the American to see he was sincerely puzzled. When he’d finished, Gaston said, “It makes no sense.”
“I agree. He’s gone out of his way to be nice to me, in his own crazy way, but, so far, he hasn’t asked me to do anything but eat his food, spend his money, and screw his mistress.”
“He needs no hired guns. They say he has a private army.”
“I noticed. I’ve got a rating as a small-arms expert.”
“Poof, Sir Basil buys machine guns direct from Maxim and Spandau. He needs no expert machine gunners. He is one himself. They say he can disassemble and put together any weapon made, blindfolded. He does this to impress clients. He also has, how you say, salesmen, who willingly demonstrate his weapons by mowing down truculent tribesmen on demand. In Africa they once bombarded a native village for the Emperor of Abyssinia, and contracted to supply His Majesty’s fully equipped artillery battalion. Oh, by the way, Hakim then made sure the Italians heard about it. They bought two artillery trains. They lost anyway, when the Emperor Menelik beat them at Dogali. Did he tell you about his submarines?”
“Sir Basil sells submarines?”
“He sells anything. Your U. S. Navy contracted for some Holland boats, but the submarines didn’t work very well. They had little trouble going down, you understand, but there was some difficulty getting them to come back up. When your Navy refused them, Sir Basil bought them for scrap. Then, because he has friends at the Sultan’s court, he gave a couple, free, to Turkey.”
“I thought you said he sold them.”
“Ah, that is the part he likes to boast about. You see, he has friends in Athens, too. So he made sure the Greeks found out the Terrible Turk had some submarines. They became most depressed by the news, so Hakim sold them a dozen old Holland boats to restore the balance.”
“I get the picture. How long did it take him to make sure the Turks knew Greece had a submarine fleet?”
“About as long as it takes to telephone through Bulgaria. The Turks bought the last of his not-very-good submarines, and not for the price of scrap. I hope they never have a war. Both fleets will surely drown.”
Captain Gringo laughed and said, “That sounds like Sir Basil, all right. So you figure he’s trying to start a brawl here to unload some weapons, right?”
“I don’t know. It may be bigger than it looks. Colombia is armed by France. They have new Lebels and quite good field guns.”
“Any machine guns?”
“Of course. French Chauchat guns. Not as reliable as the Maxim or Hotchkiss, perhaps, but the rebel factions have few arms of any kind.”
“Try it this way. Sir Basil knows there’s big money behind some of the rebel groups. Maybe they’d like to buy some hardware.”
“I’m certain they would, but again you are following a very twisted mind with straight logic. Certain American interests are backing one group. The British fish in troubled waters as usual by backing yet another. The Yanks can furnish their friends with good, cheap weapons. The British know Sir Basil sells high-priced junk. He drinks with the Crown Prince and brags about it.”
“That leaves the sincere patriots.”
“I know. They have no money.”
“Are you sure, Gaston?”
“Of course I am sure. I’m working for them. They have enough to keep me in wine, women, and cigars. I can get you a commission as a weapons officer if you don’t want Bebe’s sister. But, believe me, the Republicans don’t have the sort of money Sir Basil deals in.”
“Could he be starting his own revolution, just for the hell of it?”
“I doubt it. He tips more than most banana-republic Presidents make. He owns a town house in London, a Swiss chalet, and an island off Greece. What would he want with Panama?”
“Hell, he’s an international financier! If he were to gain control and maybe build his own canal—”
“Merde, now you are building the castles in the air. The only thing stopping England from simply taking over and completing the canal for their own Navy is your American Monroe Doctrine. If Washington won’t let Queen Victoria have Panama, do you think they’d sit still for an outside coup as raw as that? Non, the new government must be native Panamanian if Washington is to recognize it. You Yankees are so banal about the Puritan ethic.”
Captain Gringo drummed the table. Then he said, “You’ve eliminated any possible motive the old goat might have for whatever. Could he just be crazy?”
“But of course. That is how he became so rich. What are you going to do, Dick?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’d better throw in with your guys. Are they reasonably decent?”
“They are guerrillas. No better, no worse than others I’ve worked for. They have maybe a fifty-fifty chance. If you throw in with them and they win, nobody will ever be able to drag you back to the States. You’ll be at least a general.”
“Sounds good. Where do I sign up?”
“You just did. I’m in charge of recruiting officers.”
“Okay, where’s my unit and do I have a machine gun to work with?”
“We have a few. But we’re not ready to shoot them yet. Your first mission will be espionage.”
“Okay, where do I go and what do you want to know?”
“You go back to Sir Basil and see if you can find out what the devil he’s up to!”
“Damn it, Gaston! I looked you up to get out from under that crazy little guy. He scares the shit out of me.”
“I know. That seems to be a sideline of Hakim’s. From what you say, he has you in mind for something big. Play along with him and the redhead until you find out what it is. I’ll be here with my little police spy when you’re ready to report.”
Captain Gringo thought before he shrugged and said, “If he finds out what I’m up to, he’s going to be sore, and he plays rough.”
Gaston said, “So do you, if I remember correctly. Consider it this way: If you just quit, after he’s invested in you, he’s liable to play rough in any case. By spying on him for us, you’ll continue to enjoy his police protection, and he’ll pay you as much or more as we will. So you have to be better off, for now, working for two sides and drawing two salaries.”
Captain Gringo laughed and said, “I can see that, but is it ethical?”
“Merde alors! Since when is a soldier of fortune expected to be ethical? We do not fight by gentlemen’s rules, mon ami. We fight, as you say, for keeps.”