Renegade 33

  The Home of Great Western Fiction!

  Captain Gringo — riding hard for girls and glory on the jungle trails of Costa Rica!

  It’s cherchez la femme, or ‘hunt the lady’ as Captain Gringo hits the hot tropical trails of Costa Rica in search of a seductive heiress kidnapped by forces unknown. Of course, war; like love, is never a simple affair for the Captain. Before long, the redoubtable Renegade finds himself leading a guerilla army hell-bent to liberate neighboring Nicaragua, as he battles treachery from within and savagery from without. In an even greater challenge to his famous powers of endurance, he turns up more love-starved señoritas than he bargained for; amid the slashings of machetes and the rattling roar of his ever-ready Maxim!

  RENEGADE 33: COSTA RICAN CARNAGE

  By Ramsay Thorne

  First Published in 1985 by Warner Books

  Copyright © 1985, 2018 by Lou Cameron

  First Smashwords Edition: March 2018

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Agent.

  After spending a night with Melina, Captain Gringo had to get up so he could get some sleep. As he eased his bare buttocks off the mattress, the treacherous bedsprings ratted on him. The voluptuous Melina rolled over and reached absently for him. Captain Gringo quickly gave her a hand to play with. So Melina moved it back in place aboard one of her heroic breasts with a contented sigh and proceeded to snore some more. Melina’s snoring was on the heroic side as well. That was why it was impossible to get any sleep in the same room with her. When the tawny would-be blonde wasn’t screwing like a mink, she was snoring like a buzz saw and, all in all, it had been a long night.

  Captain Gringo waited until her snores settled into a steady crosscut before he gently removed his hand from her soft warm flesh, made it this time, and padded barefooted across the morning-cold tiles to the washstand in the corner. The water was cold too. Everything in the posada but Melina felt cold and clammy in the tropic dawn, even though the sunlight glancing through the window jalousies promised that the day to come would be a scorcher. Old tropic hands like the young American renegade knew better than to skip a morning whore bath, no matter how cool a dry season day might dawn, unless they just didn’t care what the neighbors thought about their sex lives. The sleeping enchilada across the room smelled sort of yummy at the moment, but he had noticed when they’d met in the first cool shades of the previous evening that her perfume was getting a little gamy, and they’d done some sweating together indeed aboard those rumpled sheets, despite the trade winds wafting gently across their naked bodies as they got to know each other better.

  He washed his privates and under his arms. Then he gave himself a quick once-over with the clammy washrag, dried himself as dry as one could get in the prevailing humidity of the Costa Rican lowlands, and slipped into his wilted linen duds, planter’s hat and gun rig. He thought he’d better just hang on to his mosquito boots until he was out of earshot. He thought he’d made it. But as he opened the door out to the balcony, Melina stopped snoring and sighed. Captain Gringo sighed too. You couldn’t trust some dames, even when they were snoring. Melina ran a groping hand over the dent he’d left in the pillow next to hers and pouted, ‘Ah, querido, where are you? I feel so passionate!’

  He murmured, ‘Hold the thought. I’ll be right back.’

  It didn’t work. Melina opened one eye, saw him fully dressed in the doorway, and opened the other as well, to demand, ‘Where do you think you are going, you cruel thing? Is this how a gentleman treats a lady after using and abusing her? I knew you would desert me once you were weary of toying with my emotions!’

  He smiled crookedly down at her and replied, ‘Go back to sleep. How can a guy desert a dame stretched out in his own bed? We’re at my place, not yours, remember?’

  ‘Si, I think so. I am somewhat confused as to just what happened after that last gin and tonic. I recall going to bed with you, you naughty thing, but … if you are not trying for to get rid of me, where are you going, ah, was it not Ricardo?’

  ‘My friends call me Dick. I have a few morning errands to attend to. I’ll be back in a while. If you’re still here, we’ll probably act naughty some more. So go back to sleep.’ Melina sat up instead and insisted, ‘I feel naughty now. Can you not fuck me good morning at least before you have to rush off?’

  Captain Gringo was tempted, even though she’d already wrung him out like a dishrag with her warm, pulsating flesh and then kept him awake the rest of the time with her awesome snoring. She wasn’t snoring right now, and the tiger stripes of sunlight on her smooth brown flesh made her awesome curves look even more awesome. He knew by the part in her shoulder-length hair that she wasn’t really a blonde. But her exact natural shade was up for grabs because of the way she shaved or plucked her pubic hair, and the results were very nice to grab indeed. But he didn’t want to go through washing and getting dressed again so soon. So he blew her a kiss, stepped out on the second-story balcony, and took off before she could leap out of bed at him.

  He and his sidekick, Gaston, had booked rooms next to one another at the posada in the native quarter of Limón. So, to clear the long balcony pronto, Captain Gringo ducked into his pal’s digs, knowing that the dapper little Frenchman hadn’t come home from the Paseo the night before. That is, he knew it until he burst in on Gaston and two girls he should have been ashamed of sleeping with. One was black and one was more or less white. Neither could have been over sixteen, and Gaston Verrier, late of the French Foreign Legion, was probably fibbing when he admitted to being sixty or so. As Captain Gringo froze, bemused, near the foot of the brass bedstead, Gaston opened one eye to remark, calmly, ‘Eh bien, you are just in time for breakfast, my insatiable child. One assumes you wore that poor blonde out by now?’

  Captain Gringo chuckled and replied, ‘I’m not sure who wore whom out. I was hoping to kip out in here till you crawled home. I guess the three of you came in sort of quietly, eh?’

  ‘Merde alors, we could have been blowing bugles and you would not have noticed, Dick. What was that blonde screaming about, around three a.m.?’

  ‘What do dames getting laid at three a.m. usually scream about? I’m too tired to gossip about the unfair sex, Gaston. I have to find a place to catch forty winks.’

  The black girl resting her head on Gaston’s shoulder opened her eyes, fixed him with a bleary smile, and murmured, ‘Oh, nice! Are we going to have a party?’

  Gaston agreed that that sounded like a grand idea. Captain Gringo crossed the room and yanked open the hall door before anyone could yank him into yet another rumpled bed. As he did so he spied an envelope on the doorsill, and all bets were off. He bent to pick it up, muttering, ‘How the hell could we be getting mail, Gaston? I thought you told me that this posada was safe.’

  Gaston snorted and said, ‘Merde alors, of course it is safe. If it was not safe, nobody would be shoving messages under our doors. We are not currently wanted here in Costa Rica. Even if we were, I can’t see la policia communicating with us in such a civilized manner, hein?’

  Captain Gringo nodded thoughtfully and turned the officious sealed envelope over to read his own name rather than Gaston’s on the address side. When he commented on this, Gaston said, ‘Eh bien, whoever put it there mixed up our room numbers. Wo
uld you either come in or go out, Dick? I am a man of the world, as you know, but I do not wish to be seen from the hall in this delicate position.’

  Captain Gringo glanced his way, saw what he meant, and stepped out in the hall to shut the door as the now wide-awake young Negress went down on the gray, but surprisingly virile, old man.

  Captain Gringo went down the stairs, saw that the cantina on the ground floor wasn’t serving drinks yet, and sat at a corner table near an open window to open the envelope.

  The message was officious too. It told him there was a package waiting for him at the general post office across town. They had his name right. It still didn’t make much sense. The former First Lieutenant Richard Walker of the U.S. 10th Cavalry wasn’t used to getting packages or even mail since he’d fled the States one jump ahead of an Army hangman’s noose. It had to be a mistake, or perhaps a bomb. A lot of people were after him these days. He hoped his friends and relations back home in Connecticut thought he was dead. He’d been reported dead a lot in his more recent career as a soldier of fortune, and in any case, few people back home should connect the notorious Captain Gringo with that nice boy next door who’d gone off to fight Apache and never returned.

  He stuffed the notice in his pocket and lit a Havana Claro as he pondered his next move. He was still bone-tired but now wide-awake, and he knew he’d never be able to fall asleep until he solved the mystery. So he cursed, got up, and went out to trudge his weary way to the fucking post office.

  It didn’t take long. The little seaport of Limón wasn’t all that big, no matter where you might find yourself in it. His stomach was starting to growl, but he found the post office open and decided to examine the mysterious delivery while he ate breakfast.

  There were no other customers inside. The clerk on duty glanced at his notice, shrugged, and rummaged through a pile of packages to dig out the one addressed to him. It was wrapped in bright red paper. Captain Gringo noticed others in the pile as dramatic. Latins painted stucco walls all kinds of bright colors too.

  He had to sign for it. That gave him pause, since he hadn’t signed his right name for some time indeed. But on reflection, Old Gaston was right about their not being wanted in Costa Rica, and a police trap this involved made no sense in any case. The package was addressed to the posada he’d been staying at since returning to Limón, and he’d only been required to pick it up here in order to sign for its insured contents. Anyone who already knew where to find him would have no reason to lure him into a trap in the center of town. He and Gaston had chosen their more secluded current address because it was in a neighborhood where occasional gunshots didn’t attract too much attention.

  He signed, picked up the limp, bulky package, and carried it out and across the plaza to a sidewalk cantina serving food as well as drink. The waitress said he could have tortillas and beans with his cerveza or beans and tortillas with his cerveza. Just to be different, he ordered tortillas and beans and began to open the red package on the table as she went to fetch his order.

  He wouldn’t have opened it had not he been able to feel that whatever it was it was too soft and squishy to be a bomb. Before he could find out what it was, someone shoved something cold and hard against the nape of his neck and said, politely, ‘You will rise most slowly and come with us, Captain Gringo, unless you wish for to die here and now.’

  The tall American politely kept his hands on the tin table as he asked, conversationally, ‘Does that mean I get to die someplace not so public, or are you just taking your job seriously, amigo?’

  A second voice replied, in a harsher tone, ‘We are not to be referred to either as motherfuckers or your friend, Yanqui! Whether you die here or not is up to you. Whether you die after our patrón has a word with you shall be up to him!’

  ‘I guess we’d better go see your patrón, then. Do I carry this package to him or would you rather do it yourselves, muchachos?’

  ‘Leave it on the table. Get up and turn around most slowly, and do not make any more amusing remarks about us. We are serious men.’

  As he rose and turned he saw that they sure seemed to be. Both were well dressed albeit clad in the riding outfits of upland rancheros. The one holding the big Patterson Colt conversion on him reached inside Captain Gringo’s jacket to relieve him of his own .38 double-action. Then he lowered his own weapon politely and said, ‘Bueno. You will come with us in a reasonable manner or, if you so choose, die anywhere between here and where we are all now going in a civilized way, attracting as little attention as possible.’

  Captain Gringo said, ‘Lead on, Macduff.’ So the other one picked up the package as the waitress came out to ask, ‘Do you not wish this breakfast and beer, señor?’

  The one holding the package put some silver on the table as he explained politely that el señor had another morning appointment but, of course, intended to pay for his order. From the way she answered, Captain Gringo knew she’d been left a decent tip. Apparently the guy was only mad at him.

  They frog marched Captain Gringo into an alley leading away from the plaza and then marched him through some others until at last they came to an oaken gate leading into a pepper-tree-screened pateo. Just inside, they met a severe old man with hair and beard to match his freshly pressed suit, and he seemed mad at him too. He slapped Captain Gringo across the face, with a riding quirt of course, to show that he was a true aristocrat, then told his boys to keep an eye on the dog as he took the package to a pateo table, sat down, and finished opening it.

  He seemed surprised, too, when the contents proved to be several copies of last week’s Prenza de Limón. He shoved the newsprint aside to light his own cigar thoughtfully. Then he looked up at the American and said, ‘I know they say you have a droll Yanqui sense of humor, Captain Gringo. But I do not find this joke at all amusing.’

  Captain Gringo said, ‘Neither do I. Suppose you let me in on it.’

  ‘Do you deny that this package was addressed to you or that my men just saw you coming out of the post office with it?’

  ‘Not if your men saw me. I was wondering why it was wrapped in paper so easy to spot at a distance. Do you know who might have sent it to me, señor?’

  The old man looked disgusted and said, ‘You know who I am. You know I sent the ransom you demanded as well, you loathsome kidnapper! I warn you, your death will be most unpleasant if you have harmed one hair on the head of my grandchild. And if she tells me you have trifled with her honor ... well, I am still working on that. Nothing I have thought of so far could possibly be punishment enough.’

  Captain Gringo muttered, ‘Oh, boy!’ then said, ‘You guys have the wrong guy if we’re talking about a kidnapping. I’m a soldier of fortune, not a crook. What in hell gave you the idea I was in that other disgusting business?’

  The old man glanced coldly down at the crumpled red paper and newsprint. Captain Gringo said, ‘Oh, right, you sent that fake bale of dinero to buy back some kid you’re missing, and when I picked it up just now, you added two and two to get three. I don’t even know who you are. So how the hell could I have kidnapped anyone from you?’

  ‘It is no use for to lie, Captain Gringo. Nobody but us and, of course, the criminal holding my grandchild had any way of knowing I was to send that package to be picked up at the post office, and, by the way, I obeyed instructions and filled the package with real money, not old newspapers. So now we have something else to talk about, no?’

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, ‘No. You can see I never picked up the money you sent. Even I can see how someone just suckered us both. So why don’t we cut the bullshit and go after the real son of a bitch before it’s too late!’

  Nobody else seemed awake yet. So he snorted in disgust and went on to explain, ‘You were told to wrap the ransom in paper and send it to me care of the local post office. Meanwhile the sneaky bastards had already sent one, same red paper, same address, to you-know-who. They knew I’d show up first, claim the fake, and assumed all too correctly t
hat we’d be having this dumb conversation while someone picked up the ransom money in a later delivery! Jesus H. Christ, don’t you people down here have any con men? That’s one of the oldest tricks of the trade!’

  The old hidalgo studied the ash of his cigar as one of his gun slicks snarled, ‘How do we know you are not making up this fairy tale for to save your lying Yanqui head, eh?’

  Captain Gringo said, ‘You won’t, if you don’t get someone to cover that post office some more, poco tiempo! Assuming the real ransom was mailed last night, in this neighborhood, it should have been picked up by now. The reason it wasn’t there to meet me so early was that last night’s pickups are getting sorted just about now. The decoy had to have been sorted yesterday; before you chumps mailed anything, see?’

  The old man did. He snapped, ‘Hernando, get some of the others and cover the post office, now! José will stay here with me and our, ah, guest until you report back.’

  ‘What if the Yanqui is lying, Don Alberto?’

  ‘I’ll think of something. I told you to move. For why are you still standing there, Hernando?’

  ‘I am not sure of my patrón’s instructions.’

  ‘Jesus, Maria y José! You need instructions? Ask the clerk if another Ricardo Walker has picked up another package of any kind. If not, wait and follow the same game plan, you idiot! If we are indeed speaking of two packages, this young man may yet live. If we are not, we shall question him more harshly until he sees fit for to answer questions intelligently! Now go. Curse your mother’s milk!’

  Hernando went. Don Alberto grudgingly told Captain Gringo he could sit down now. The only place to sit was on the edge of a pateo fountain. But it beat standing. José still remained on his feet, the big Colt pointed at Captain Gringo as if he might be about to steal the goldfish.

  A million years went by. A chica came out with refreshments for the old man. He didn’t offer any to his prisoner or the man guarding him. But in slow grudging sentences Captain Gringo got a little more out of him.