They jumped Captain Gringo as he was cutting through a dark alley on the way to Dama Luisa’s. There were four of them. That was a mistake. The ideal team for ganging up on a man is three. So the fourth bumped into the third as they closed in from all sides and the tall American took advantage of the confusion to fall flat and roll as he went for his gun. He rolled under two pairs of legs and a guy fell on top of him as a comrade swung his club and hit the wrong head. Captain Gringo fired, laying on his back, and that was that. The other two scrambled for cover as the gut-shot mestizo fell screaming across his unconscious comrade and Captain Gringo’s legs. The American got out from under them and braced his back against a wall to slide to his feet, gun in hand. Doors and windows were opening all around. He-walked on through the alley and met a man running the other way, who wanted to know what was up. He said, “I’m not sure. Somebody either wanted my life or my shoes back there. Would you see if you could find one of the guards? Tell him I’ll drop by the guardhouse later to question the one that’s still breathing.”
Another Creole ran up and the first one explained, “Some cabrones tried to kill our Captain Gringo! Help me deal with them.”
The American walked on. He knocked on Luisa’s door and a servant let him in. But when he was shown into the patio where Luisa sat alone, she seemed surprised to see him.
She rose from her seat by the fountain, a vision in the soft lantern light, as he said, “I got your note, but I had a little trouble getting here.”
“My note, Dick? I don’t understand. I am happy to see you, of course, but I sent no note.”
He sighed and said, “So they weren’t after my shoes.”
“Your what, Dick?”
“Never mind. Some kid ran up to me as I was on my way to the governor’s. I should have known the note was a ruse. Some guys just never learn. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
But she said, “Wait, for heaven’s sake, sit down and tell me what this is all about. I’ll ring for refreshments.”
He said, “Never mind. I just filled up on gooey pastries.” Then, as she sat on the edge of the fountain, he joined her and told her what had been going on. She waited until he was finished before she nodded and said, “So your job here is nearly over, isn’t it?”
He slipped an arm around her waist and said, “Oh, we’ll have time to finish those defenses before the steamer arrives. By the time it pulls away we ought to have Pappa Blanco in a box and, yeah, I guess that’ll mean there’s not much reason to hang around, unless …”
She didn’t try to move his hand as she said, “Please don’t, Dick. You’re just teasing us both.”
“Both, Luisa?”
“Of course. It would be easy to fall in love with you. But then what? I’m not the sort of woman you’re used to, Dick.”
“I know. I’m trying to improve my habits.”
She laughed and he moved his hand up to cup her breast. Again, she didn’t struggle. But she said, “Please control yourself, dear. I don’t want to remember you with distaste.”
He moved his hand down to her waist and just sat there like an old friend and nodded, saying, “You’re right. I’m bigger than you, but you’re stronger than me.”
She patted the hand against her waist and said, “You’re wrong, Dick Walker. You’re a very strong man indeed. That’s why I feel so safe with you. It’s the weaklings who whimper and wrestle. I like you, Captain Gringo. So I’m going to tell you something I could only tell a friend.”
“What’s that, old pard?”
“I really want to make love to you. You’re handsome, you’re strong and you’re decent.”
“But what?”
“You know the answer, dear.”
He looked away and said, “Yeah. It wouldn’t work. You’re a lady and I’m a roving guy with a price on his head. Any guy who makes it with you will have to be a Spanish Catholic with a steady job. Can I say something, kid?”
“Of course, dear friend.”
“Whoever gets you is going to be one lucky son of a bitch.”
“Why, thank you, dear. That’s the nicest compliment I’ve ever had.”
She got to her feet, bent, and kissed him on the cheek. He knew she wanted him to leave. So he stood up too, put a hand on each of her shoulders, and started to draw her closer.
She turned her head away and he asked, “Not even a good-bye?”
She shook her copper curls and sighed, “No, dear, I told you this was hard on me, too. Please don’t make me cry.”
So he didn’t. He let go of her, turned around, and walked out of the patio and Dama Luisa’s life.
It was the least a knock around gent could do for a lady.
Morning found Captain Gringo, Gaston, Gordo, and Pedro putting along the mangrove-haunted shore in the steam launch. The American had two machine guns braced side by side in the bow. As they rounded another bend, hugging the shore, Gaston said, “Merde alors! Another empty cove. Why do you insist there has to be a schooner? Has anyone seen your thrice-accursed schooner?”
Captain Gringo said, “Quit your bitching. Those vagrants everyone thought were zombies never landed off an inter-island steamer. Pappa Blanco has been shipping in enough arms and narcotics for an army, and I have heard rumors about a schooner.”
“Bah, even if the other side has a fleet of them, what makes you think we’ll find one this morning, hein? If I were this Pappa Blanco, I would have left as soon as I saw my black magic was no longer winning.”
- Captain Gringo said, “So would I, but we’re wise asses. We’ve taken the wind out of his sails, but he had to hang around and eliminate some people to cover his tracks. I know he was still on the island last night because he sicked some spooks on me in a last ditch effort to stop me.”
“True, but the unconscious thug died without ever regaining consciousness. So you didn’t get to question him. Ergo, you have no idea who Pappa Blanco might be.”
Captain Gringo’s eyes were hard and his grin was wolfish when he said, “You’re wrong. I talked to him and threw a good scare into him by pointing out how close we were to nailing him.”
“Last night you talked to Pappa Blanco? You know who he is?”
“Yeah, it’s that fruitcake, Webster, but I can’t prove it unless’ he takes my suggestion about sudden departures.”
Gaston’s jaw dropped as he gasped, “Webster? The colonel’s silly catamite? That’s insane!”
“So’s Webster. He enjoys his work too much to be considered completely rational. He’s been the colonel’s right hand man all this time, as well as his occasional change of pace. Who else had his opportunities to run all over the fucking island like a twittering sparrow? I’ve accounted for where everyone else has been at important moments in time. So ....”
“Wait a minute. You saw the colonel sodomizing his little playmate at a time Pappa Blanco must have been planning his all-out attack!”
“No I didn’t. That was Charlie Burton getting in good with the boss by letting the boss get in him good.”
“Burton is that way too?”
“Not really. He just doesn’t like working for a living. I don’t think Burton cares who he has sex with, just so he advances his career. Some guys are like that. The point is that Webster, not the colonel or Burton, was unaccounted for that afternoon. Nobody remembers standing next to him during the Carib attack the other night. Everybody else I asked has an alibi. Jesus Christ, do you need a signed confession?”
“Only if you mean to see him go to trial, my old and rare friend, but one gathers we did not bring these machine guns to make a citizen’s arrest.”
By this time they were approaching another point of land and Gordo, at the tiller, swung wide to pass it. At that moment a sixty foot schooner tore across their bow with a bone in its teeth, sails furled and running on auxiliary power, fast!
Captain Gringo snapped, “Gaston! Take the helm!” as he dropped behind the twin guns, teeth bared. Gaston ran back, shoved the willing but inexperienced Gordo out of the way, and steered an interception course, with the bow swinging to cover the schooner.
The men aboard the schooner saw them too, and gunsmoke blossomed along the bulwarks of the faster vessel as it swung its stern to them, obviously planning to easily outdistance them.
Captain Gringo said, “Thanks, chumps,” and opened up with both machine guns, a hand on each trigger. A slug from the schooner wanged off the launch’s rail to his left. He ignored it with cold glee as he tap-danced machine gun-fire into the enemy vessel’s stern. Gaston shouted, “More elevation, Dick! You’re hitting too low for the bastards in the cockpit to feel the effects!”
“They’ll feel effects, the sons of bitches,” growled Captain Gringo as he fired another double burst into the schooner’s waterline. Another bullet whizzed past his right ear and he fired once more before he yelled, “Fall off, Gaston. There’s no sense getting shot this late in the game.”
Gaston swung the launch hard alee but marveled, “You are letting them go? Why did we come all this way if …” and then he saw what was happening, and added, “Oh, Dick, that was tres dirty!”
The schooner was sinking by the stern, of course, after having its rear end shattered by massed machine gunfire. It lay dead in the water now, white vapor gushing from its stack as sea water hit its engine. The men from the cockpit were moving forward to the one and only lifeboat. Gaston asked if he wanted to move in and dust them some more. Captain Gringo said, “No,” and reached for a bucket under the thwarts. He started chumming chicken entrails as they bobbed quietly just out of rifle range. The boy, Pedro, started to ask why he was throwing bait in the water, then a dark fin started to circle them and Pedro paled and crossed himself. Gordo said, “I think our captain must be very angry.”
The men aboard the schooner were desperately trying to launch their one remaining chance, and Captain Gringo was about to suggest moving in to smoke up the lifeboat. Then he saw what was happening aboard the other vessel and smiled. He said, “They let the fittings rust while the yacht lay hidden under wet brush. I don’t think they’re going to work it loose in time.”
He was right. The schooner was sinking faster and the men aboard gave up to run up to the bow. There were seven of them. One he recognized as Webster threw his rifle in the drink and started waving at them.
Captain Gringo said, “They want to surrender. Let’s move in within hailing range.”
The other cutthroats were tossing their guns overboard while Gaston moved the launch closer. A dozen shark fins were now circling, as the brainless appetites they were attached to searched for the source of the blood in the water that they’d followed in from all around.
Captain Gringo said, “Close enough, Gaston,” as they drew alongside the sinking schooner. Webster yelled across to them, “You win, you bastards! We give up.”
Captain Gringo smiled across the water as the schooner kept going under, gurgling in protest. Webster spotted a shark fin cutting between them and shouted, “I said you win, damn it. Take us off this thing before it sinks.”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No. Fair is fair. You tried to feed me to a boa constrictor, so—”
“You can’t be serious! This is inhuman!”
“Yeah, there’s been a lot of that going around lately.”
One of the other men with Webster yelled, “Hey, look, Webster is the one you want.” But Captain Gringo said, “I don’t want any of you. I’m feeding you to the sharks. I wish I could think up something nastier, but I don’t have as much imagination.”
Webster screamed in utter terror as something gave and the schooner started sinking faster. Captain Gringo turned and said, “Let’s get out of here, Gaston. This isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be.”
Gaston nodded and swung the tiller while Webster begged and pleaded. Captain Gringo didn’t look back as the schooner went under and the sharks moved in. He didn’t have to. You could hear the screams for a mile or more.
Captain Gringo stood smoking at the starboard rail as the ship steamed through the night. A new moon was rising and he could have seen it if he’d wanted to walk around to the port side. But what good was a rising moon over tropic waters to a guy who faced a long voyage on a slow boat, alone?
He wasn’t exactly alone. Gaston was working on a pair of touring flamenco dancers in the ship’s saloon, but they were both pigs. Gaston could and probably would wind up with both of them. He’d recovered nicely from his snake bite.
Just how he’d been bitten aboard that other ship would probably never be known. Both the British government and the much more frightening Sir Basil Hakim had chided a certain international oil trust about that sunken schooner registered in their name. They’d assured everyone that the late Pappa Blanco Webster had exceeded his instructions, and that they’d never, never do it again.
So the job was done. Sir Kakim had cabled them enough to live on for a year, they were headed for a port where nobody was after them, and why did he feel so shitty?
Maybe it was because he hadn’t pulled the chestnuts out of the fire for anyone he gave a damn about. Sir Hakim and Pantropic Limited were no better or no worse than the outfit that had been trying to take over Nuevo Verdugo. The colonel and all were safe and secure, but still pretty weird. Alice had promised not to sick peon lovers on her rivals, and since Burton had taken off with a tidy profit, she’d probably be too busy screwing to break her promise.
The employees of the company and the natives of Nuevo Verdugo would be safe too, and probably better off, now that the island’s economy was about to boom. Even the Black Caribs would come out ahead in the end.
The Brits tended to leave primitive religions alone as long as nobody got hurt, and the last gifts of baubles and blankets left on the tree line south of the new fence had been accepted, stolen or whatever. The Caribs would be won over in the end and their grandchildren would probably wind up working as dishwashers in London.
So Captain Gringo knew he should be feeling better. But he just felt drained. He didn’t want a drink, he didn’t want either of the pigs his sidekick was lining up, and he was too keyed up to go to his cabin and sleep. Maybe booze and babes were the answer. The flamenco gal with the moustache had a nice ass. But it was just as much fun, and just as pointless, to have a smoke.
He fished out a cigar, cupped his hands around a match to light it, and someone asked, “May I have a light, too?”
It was Luisa. Her eyes glowed warmly in the flickering matchlight as he held the flame to the tip of the little claro held between her moist lips. He said, “I didn’t know you smoked in public. What are you doing aboard this slow boat to nowhere?”
She took a drag, let it out, and said, “We’re not in public. We’re on a ship where nobody knows me. I thought a sea voyage would help me forget.”
“Oh? I thought everybody knew Gaston and I were leaving on this tub.”
“Everybody did, Dick. I meant I wanted to forget all the horrible happenings back in Nuevo Verdugo. You know I never wanted to forget you.”
He wanted her so bad he could taste it. But he said, “A lady could get in trouble following a wandering star, Luisa.”
She said, “I know. It hurts as much to wait for one in a sleepy little backwater, too. Where is this ship going, Dick?”
“I think it stops in Rio and
turns around. I’ll be
getting off somewhere along the way, alone. You’ve got to
understand something about me, honey.”
But she put a finger to his lips and said, “Hush, don’t explain. We don’t need explanations or false promises, do we, dear?”
He started to put his arms around her. But he saw she was frightened too, so he didn’t. The night was young and they had a long voyage on a slow boat ahead of them. There was no need to rush things. So he took a long deep drag on his cigar as he smiled down at her. It was funny how good the smoke tasted, all of a sudden.