Gaston’s plan seemed simple enough, but there was one gaping hole in it that the sly little Frenchman couldn’t have known about when he contacted Dorita.
Gaston had had no way of knowing Captain Gringo had been trapped and fought his way free, although he was probably wondering what in the hell had kept them from meeting at the cantina the night before.
Captain Gringo considered sending Dorita to the paseo in his place, of course. But no matter what a total stranger told Gaston, the born survivor would suspect a trap and refuse to follow her home.
The American knew his sometimes edgy partner was already pushing his own notion of common sense by hanging around an extra day. If Gaston had been double-crossed as Tina had said, he’d have already been long gone. That meant Gaston had either contacted the rebels and things were going right, or that he’d failed to contact them at all and it was time to go. Captain Gringo liked the first possibility better. When Gaston Verrier thought it was time to go, he went. He wouldn’t be strolling around the plaza unless he felt reasonably safe there.
But Tina and the late Nogalero had known they were in town, and about the guns. They obviously hadn’t been working for the people Gaston had gone to contact. Had Nogalero really been a Nicaraguan officer, it seemed doubtful that Gaston would still be free to meet him at the plaza. Nogalero may have thought his game was clever, whatever it was, but Nogalero and one of his followers had died rather messily, and real armies get excited when real officers are killed by escaping prisoners. Ergo, Tina and her major had been fakes. The road blocks would be up and the patrols would be out if he’d really killed a field grade officer.
But there was no unusual activity on the streets of Granada as he walked from Dorita’s place to the plaza that evening. The streets were crowded, since everyone was out to stretch his or her legs after all that rain.
His own legs felt a bit wobbly after all those hours in bed with Dorita. She’d said she’d be waiting up for him, after pleading in vain to tag along. He wondered if she really wanted him to come back, or if, like himself, she’d had more than enough for a few days.
The final answer depended on Gaston. Once he contacted his sidekick and found out what in the hell was going on, there’d probably be no reason to return to Dorita’s. If he failed once more to find his partner, Dorita was in for a pleasant surprise. He’d have to go back. He had no other place to go.
“How long a honeymoon do we need?” he asked himself, as he stepped around a pushcart and saw the brighter lights of the plaza ahead.
It was a good question. Women tended to betray a man in the first twenty-four hours, if that was what they had in mind. If a gal didn’t try to roll you the first night, you were usually good for at least a week or so before she started picking at your table manners and wondering why you couldn’t get a better paying job. It took most of them a month or so before they got down to ultimatums. That was no doubt why they called it the “honeymoon.” Okay, he wouldn’t have to worry about her hinting at marriage or telling him she’d missed her period for a day or so. Nobody with any brains intended to be in Nicaragua in a day or so.
He got to a corner of the plaza and stopped to buy some black paper cigarettes from a street vendor as he sized the situation up. It was an hour after sundown and the paseo was in full swing.
Girls in every condition from beautiful to horrendous were walking slowly around the plaza in pairs, arms linked and pretending not to notice the men and boys who ran in packs and made odd noises while pretending not to see the girls.
Most of the girls were dressed as if for church, with organdy roses sewn to their hips and fringed shawls draped over at least one bare shoulder. Some few wore shoes and mantilla combs in their hair. Most were sandaled peasant girls and some were quite pretty. Captain Gringo picked out a taller mestiza with a white blossom over each ear for his frame of reference before he started to circle the plaza in the opposite direction, clockwise. The next time he spotted her coming his way, he’d know he’d passed the whole current crowd at least once.
He lowered the brim of his planter’s hat and lit a cigarette as he strolled, eyes peeled, but trying not to let it show.
The men in the paseo were a lot less interesting, but he knew they were more important, to a man trying to finish the night alive.
He passed a man in uniform, but the trooper was lounging against an arcade post, eating a taco, and only seemed to be looking at the passing girls.
Things were looking brighter. Whoever Nogalero might have been, the M.P. was either unaware of his demise, or didn’t give a damn.
Despite the many street venders, most of the regular shops were closed because it was Sunday. Apparently the less affluent merchants were more willing to risk their chances in the next world for the price of a pair of shoes in this one.
He passed the cantina where Dorita worked, week-nights. He walked along the arcade he and Tina had followed and it seemed impossible that it had only been the night before. He noticed the slot they’d “escaped” through, and as he stepped around the legs of some loafers on the church steps beyond, he decided to keep in mind any other such emergency exits that he passed.
There was a nice dark gap to his right as he passed a nice dark mulatta in a red satin dress. He knew she might not be there the next time he passed it, so he singled out a bullfight poster on a nearby wall as his landmark.
Where in the hell was Gaston? Captain Gringo had left Dorita’s well after dark instead of earlier as Gaston had suggested. Gaston hadn’t known there might be other players in the game, or that he’d killed a couple of them already. Could the Frenchman have given up this early?
Captain Gringo passed another guardsman, cop, or whatever those khaki uniforms meant. Down here the distinctions tended to blur and society was divided into those who gave orders and those who took them.
The uniformed man was strutting rather grandly past a pretty peon girl who seemed oblivious to his charm. As his eyes met those of the wary American, the guardsman winked and said, “Great minds run in the same channel, no?”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “How right you are. But you saw her first, and you’ve got a gun.”
The guardsman laughed and followed after the girl, purring, “Hey, Chica, where are you going in such a hurry? Don’t you know it’s too hot to move your ass like that?”
Captain Gringo wondered who the guardsman had thought he was. Most soldiers or cops down here tended to be sullen around gringos. Apparently it was true about the ruling junta working hand in glove with North American business firms.
He strolled on, cursing himself for not having paid more attention to Gaston’s rather pedantic lectures on current affairs in these parts. He knew, from their frolic through Panama, that Wall Street was interested in a canal across Central America. They’d been excited as hell about the project in Panama and he remembered something about an alternate route through Nicaragua. The San Juan was too shallow and rapid for oceangoing vessels, but a little dredging and maybe a lock or two would take care of that, and the two big lakes in the middle of the country formed an inland sea almost reaching the Pacific.
He had no idea where the best route through the hills to the west might lie, but there were probably a mess of American surveyors and engineers down here looking for one. He remembered Dorita had taken him for someone like that, at first.
He spotted the girl with the flowers in her hair and knew he’d passed everyone who’d been in the plaza when he’d started his paseo. The girl gave him the eye as they passed in opposite directions. He recognized the Indian girl behind her, too. Where in hell was Gaston?
He sauntered slowly, lighting another smoke, and found himself by the sidewalk cantina again. Then he slowed and put his hand to his face as if having trouble getting his black cigarette to draw properly.
Tina was leaning against a post of the arcade just ahead!
The oriental girl had changed to a slinky green satin dress with a white lace shawl thrown over her tawny bare shoulders. She looked like a streetwalker, open for business. But he knew better.
He stepped into the niche of a shop doorway and watched her sideways as he tried to figure out what her game was. Tina’s face was half turned away and he didn’t think she’d spotted him. In different clothes and a wide-brimmed hat shading his features, he was at a safe range in this doorway. He leaned against the locked door and tried to slump himself to less than six feet to the casual eye. He forced himself to lower his shielding hand. A man holding his hand constantly up to his face was noticeable.
A man in a white linen suit, who walked like an American, stopped to say something to Tina. Captain Gringo couldn’t hear their words, but he saw Tina shake her head with an annoyed expression before the man shrugged and moved on. It wasn’t hard to figure what he’d asked and, as Captain Gringo had assumed, it hadn’t been what Tina had come to the plaza for.
So what was she up to? He wasn’t about to find out from here. Captain Gringo lowered his hat brim a bit more, waited until a pair of plump peasant girls passed, headed Tina’s way, and fell in behind them.
Tina wasn’t looking his way as he drew abreast of her near the end of the arcade. He reached out, clamped thumb and fingers at the base of Tina’s neck and half lifted, half dragged, as he whipped her around the corner and into the slot between the arcaded building and the church.
Behind them, someone laughed and said, “¡Ole! ¡Muy Toro!” and then he had the “puta” out of sight between the buildings.
She sobbed, “You’re hurting me!” and he let go of her neck to grab a shoulder, spin her around, and flatten her against the rough stucco of the wall. Her eyes widened as she recognized him in the dim light lancing in from the plaza. She said, “Oh, it’s you, darling!”
He said, “Don’t give me that darling shit! You set me up, you bitch!”
“They made me do it,” she sobbed, adding, “They’re holding my poor old father and they told me that unless I worked with them...”
He shook her the way a terrier shakes a rat and snapped, “Put another record on the old Victrola, babe! Fuck your poor old father and get to the them! Who are you working for?”
“You know who Nogalero was. You talked to him before you killed him!”
“I killed a man wearing a borrowed uniform, and I’ll kill you if you keep bullshitting me! Nogalero wasn’t connected with the Nicaraguan government, you lying cunt! Look at that crowd out there, promenading around with nothing but grabbing ass on their minds! If I’d knocked off a fucking private in their army they’d be searching house to house with bayonets! I hid out all day, sweating bullets, and for what? The cops aren’t looking for me. You and your friends are! Did you really think I’d be dumb enough to go off with you again?”
She shook her head as she tried to twist away, failed, and said, “They thought you’d run for the boat. They had people watching the trail along the shore. I know you don’t believe me, but I am glad you got away. I had to trick you. They said they’d torture my father if—”
He slammed her against the wall to shut her up as he growled, “Hey, that shit about your father is for the Marines! I’m going to take the time to explain how I know you don’t have a father, this side of Shanghai, and then, if you mention him again, I’m going to punch you in the nose!”
“Please, you ‘don’t have to be so rough! What’s the matter with my having a father? Doesn’t everyone?”
“Sure. But no Chinese of your class would let a daughter live alone in a room like yours. You’ve been on your own for a while, baby. You’re too fluent in Spanish and English, and you screw too good, for a girl who lost her dear old dad less than four or five years ago.”
Despite herself, Tina laughed. She said, “You screw pretty good yourself, you bastard!”
“Thanks. Now that we’ve gotten the compliments out of the way, who are you working for?”
She said, “All right. You’re not going to believe this, either, but Nogalero was working for a New York private detective agency.”
He frowned and said, “You’re right. I’m not going to believe that. Why would anybody in New York be concerned with buying guns from a couple of bush leaguers like us?”
Before the girl could answer, Captain Gringo heard a muffled gasp behind him and as he stiffened and turned his head, a sardonic voice said, “Merde alors! Every time I look for you I find you with a woman in your arms!”
Captain Gringo grinned and said, “Gaston! I’ve been looking all over for you!”
Then he noticed the crumpled pile of white linen the little Frenchman was stepping over. It was the man Tina had been talking to a few minutes ago. Gaston said, “I too, have been looking. As I spotted you dragging this lady in here, I saw this unfortunate gentleman following. Don’t you ever look behind you when you take a lady into a dark alley?”
Captain Gringo answered, “That’s one I owe you. What did you hit him with? He doesn’t seem to be breathing.”
Gaston said, “I find it most fatiguing, at my age, to hit people. I stabbed him. We’d better get out of here. These creatures tend to hunt in packs.”
Captain Gringo shoved Tina ahead of him as he answered, “Right. This slot leads to an alley and—”
“Why are we taking the girl?” Gaston cut in, adding, “She’s not bad, but this is hardly the time to worry about your sex life!”
The American said, “We’ve already had the sex life. She owes me a post coital conversation!”
As they reached the alley, Gaston said, “She’ll only lie, and we have some traveling ahead of us. I happen to know as much as she could tell you, in any case. She and her friends are with a New York detective agency. Why don’t we just leave her here, in the same state as her late partner?”
Tina sobbed in terror. Captain Gringo laughed and said, “Give the little lady a cigar! She was telling me the truth, just as you and her partner joined us!”
Gaston shrugged and observed, “In that case, we have no further need for her. I’ll take care of it, if you insist on being sentimental.”
Tina sobbed, “Don’t let him hurt me, darling! I’ll do anything you say!”
He held her arm and growled, “Shut up and keep walking. I can’t think of anything you could do that you haven’t done already, but maybe if you’re very good I’ll think of something.”
Gaston sighed and took the lead, saying, “Let us be on our way, then. I have a boat waiting for us at the lakefront.”
Captain Gringo asked, “Where are we heading, the guns on the yacht?”
But Gaston said, “No. And, since you insist on dragging along your most talkative baggage, don’t ask.”
“Shit, she’s not going to get away, Gaston.”
“Perhaps. But, if she knows nothing, it will prove less distressing if she does.”
Captain Gringo followed, frowning, as he half led and half dragged the frightened girl. He’d learned the hard way that Gaston’s ideas of common sense didn’t always agree with his own, and it felt dicey as hell to follow the half cracked little adventurer through these dark alleyways without a clue as to where they were going or who’d be there when they arrived.
On the other hand, Gaston was right about Tina. The girl was tricky as well as treacherous. There was no way to have a calm discussion of future plans with a spy tagging along, unless, of course, he planned to kill her.
He knew she had it coming. He knew if the shoe was on the other foot that Tina wouldn’t hesitate to toss him to the sharks in the lake ahead. He knew that somewhere along the line they were going to have to get rid of Tina. But he didn’t want to discuss it with Gaston. He was tired of having the older man call him a sentimental fool, even if it was true.
The tropic moon was shining on the water as the cat-rigged whaleboat skimmed across Lake Nicaragua at , an alarming heel. Captain Gringo sat with Tina near the stepped mast, with Gaston seated on some crates between them and the impassive Indian at the tiller. The lee guard was only inches above the water, most of the time. Every third or fourth wave they cut through shipped a gallon or so of lake water. The lake was reasonably calm and the night breezes were fairly gentle, but the Indian who owned the boat had hoisted far too much canvas for a craft this size.
Gaston pointed at a dark mass looming to leeward and said, “Regardez. That is the island of Zapatero, over there. They tell me there are giant stone statues, erected by some lost tribe, in the jungles of Zapatero.”
Captain Gringo asked, “Is that where we’re headed?” and Gaston said, “Hardly. Zapatero is partly settled and there’s a government outpost there. The rebels I told you about are based on the far shore, in a rather deserted swampy area.”
Captain Gringo stared down at the water sloshing near his feet and asked, “We’re going across Lake Nicaragua, in this little tub?”
“Why not? Pablo, there, crosses it all the time. You see, the patrol boats don’t stop anything this small, as a rule. They don’t think anyone would be foolish enough to cross the lake in a whaleboat.”
Captain Gringo said, “They have a point. This fucking lake must be forty miles across and at least a hundred long. I notice we’re not crossing the short way, either.”
Gaston chuckled and said, “No. Pablo has, as you see, trended southeast, toward Zapatero. Once we’re clear of the guard stations on the island, he’ll tack due east across the open water. Relax. The night is young and we’ll reach the far shore about dawn.”
Tina said, “I’m frightened. There are sharks in this lake!”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Yeah. I’ve seen a couple of fins since we shoved off. But I’m more worried about the wind than I am the sharks. If we run into a squall out here, in this little boat. Don’t you think Pablo should shorten sail, Gaston?”
The Frenchman shrugged and said, “I asked him to, a while ago. I’m not sure he speaks enough Spanish to understand my sailing directions. But, after all, it is his boat, hein?”
Captain Gringo didn’t answer. He stared at the inky water to his left and shifted his weight to the right in an attempt to trim the boat. They were making about six knots, and as another bucket of water came over the lee guard, he said, “Tina, move up here with me. We’ve got to get some weight on the high side.”
The girl gingerly slid along the seat toward him, feet braced against the duckboards with her back against the mast. Captain Gringo put an arm around her waist and hugged her hips to his own and the heel seemed a little less suicidal, now.
But the Indian at the tiller muttered something to Gaston in bad Spanish and the Frenchman said, “If I understand him correctly, he wishes you wouldn’t move around. He says his boat sails faster on its side and, in any case, we will soon be tacking and the two of you will be underwater.”
The American said, “Tell him not to tack without warning us. If you want to be so helpful, why don’t you get off your ass and bail some of that water out?”
Gaston replied, “I already suggested it. Pablo says he never carries a bail. I believe he must be a fatalist.”
Tina shivered against Captain Gringo and asked, “May I have a cigarette?”
He said, “No. You can see a struck match for seven miles at night.”
She said, “I am cold and frightened. Can’t you hold me closer?”
He placed his hand on her upper arm, pinning the flimsy shawl more firmly to her bare shoulder, but said, “This is no time for spooning, even if there was a silvery moon and you were somebody I could trust as far as I could spit.”
She protested, “Your friend told you I wasn’t lying about the company I worked for, damn it.”
He said, “All right, you can be trusted with your head banging against a brick wall. While we’re on the subject, tell me some more about you and your friends. What in hell does an American company find so interesting about a few cases of guns and ammunition, and, come to think of it, how could anyone in New York know we were coming to Nicaragua with them? We didn’t know, ourselves, until a week or so ago.”
Tina snuggled closer and confided, “Now that you’ve killed Nogalero, the people we were working for don’t know anything about you. We were not sent here to stop you in particular. We are, or were, what you call troubleshooters. Nogalero’s job was to nip any revolutions down here in the bud. He had a free hand to embarrass the Conservatives any way he saw fit. And I swear to you, that nasty idea he had about the thermometer was not my idea. If you will remember, I liked your penis in a more functional condition.”
“Skip the romance. We’re not even friends, right now. I’ll buy your boyfriends as troubleshooters for an American outfit. Get to the reasons. Why should anyone on Wall Street care if they have a revolution down here or not?”
Gaston laughed and said, “I can tell you that, and you don’t even have to feel me up, Dick. Your compatriots in the States own this country. Revolutions are bad for business.”
Tina nodded and said, “That’s true. You see, when Nicaragua broke free of Spain, back in twenty-one, it was still part of Greater Mexico. So it had to revolt against Mexico in twenty-three, and by that time revolution had become a tradition. The Creole cliques in Granada and Leon, to the north, fought each other for control until midcentury, when your California gold rush changed things by bringing Americans into the picture.”
The Indian at the tiller suddenly tacked without warning and Captain Gringo gasped, “Jee-zuss!” as water poured over the guards into his hip pocket and threatened to swamp the boat miles from shore!
Pablo laughed as he and Tina slid up the seat to the high side. But now there was a bathtub full of lake water swishing around the duckboards and even Gaston sounded worried as he muttered, “Merde alors, you maniac! If I had wished to cross the lake in a submarine, I would have hired a submarine!”
Captain Gringo was afraid they’d only encourage the peon by bitching about his wild sailing, so he asked, “What did the gold rush in my country have to do with the revolutions in this one?”
Gaston said, “Despite the legends, getting to California by covered wagon was most fatiguing. Most of the ’49ers went by boat. Panama, as you know, offered the shortest land route across the isthmus. But the voyage south to Nicaragua was shorter, and, by ’50, Commodore Vanderbilt had a steamboat line using the rivers and lakes to carry passengers to within twelve miles of the Pacific.”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “I can see where a revolution every month or so might complicate the running of a transport company a bit.”
Gaston said, “No doubt that is why the late commodore saw fit to dabble in local matters. The Conservatives in Granada refused to cooperate with the Liberals in Leon until Wall Street interests banged a few heads together and built them a new and neutral capital at Managua. When your namesake, William Walker, tried to take over the country with hired guns in ’55, the Vanderbilt interests helped the combined Liberals and Conservatives chase him and his filibuster army out of the country.”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “That’s ancient history. I’m more confused about this Liberal versus Conservative crap.”
Gaston said, “It’s really quite simple. The American and British shipping interests, for obvious reasons, have backed and put in power a junta of Creoles from Leon. As usual, the military dictator in charge is called El Presidente. I believe his name is Zelaya.”
Tina nudged Captain Gringo for attention and elaborated, “Jose Santos Zelaya. He is most progressive and pro-American. I still don’t see why you want to fight him, Dick.”
The tall American frowned and said, “I’m not sure I want to. How about it, Gaston? What’s so great about the Conservative rebels, and why are they called conservatives if they’re in favor of a revolution?”
Gaston laughed and replied, “After three generations of fighting, Liberal and Conservative have as much meaning as Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The people we are on our way to join claim they fight for the old Nicaragua, sans outside control. They are backed by the Church and old landed families, but, in truth, they wish to be in power because they are not in power. One must learn to take the speeches of all politicos with the grain of salt, hein?”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “They used to let me vote, back home. But if it’s just a rougher way to decide elections, and there’s not a hell of a lot of difference who wins, why are we running guns to the Conservatives?”
Gaston muttered to himself before he answered, “Merde alors! We are running guns to the Conservatives because the Wall Street backed government does not wish to buy any guns from us!”
Captain Gringo grimaced and said, “I see. We sell to the highest bidder and fuck the little guys who might get killed, right?”
Gaston smiled and answered, “Ah, now you are beginning to think like a soldier of fortune again. Your concern for the local peasantry does you credit, Dick. But the little guy, as you know, is always fucked in any case. They will have their revolution with or without our guns and, all in all, fewer people are hurt in a short civil war than in a long one.”
Tina said, “You’re crazy. The Liberal Zelayan government is too strong. Your rebel friends can’t hope to win!”
But Gaston shrugged and said, “One always hopes to win, m’selle. In any case, who wins or loses is not our problem. By the time the shooting starts, my young friend and I will have our money and be well on our way to less distressing surroundings.”
Tina turned to Captain Gringo and asked, “Are you really that cold-blooded, Dick?”
Captain Gringo answered, “No. I’m a little guy. And I’m tired of getting fucked.”