Renegade 19 Page 2

  He said, “Not just yet. I’m waiting for someone. I don’t suppose there was any change, huh?”

  “Why do you want change, big spender? I told you you’d paid for me as well as the drinks.”

  He was too polite to point out that she couldn’t be worth half that much, and, what the hell, he’d stolen the gold pesos. The guy across the way was staring over the top of his paper, eyes opaque. He wasn’t looking at them in particular, but he didn’t seem to be missing much. Captain Gringo slid his free hand around the Mestiza’s naked waist to satisfy the stranger’s curiosity as he told her, again, “I have to stay here until my compañero finishes with your madam, querida.”

  She chuckled and said, “They’ve been alone in there long enough to do it all three ways, twice. They must be old friends. Madam Fifi seldom entertains customers herself. You say you hombres just came down from Mexico?”

  He hadn’t, but the coin he’d given her had. He said, “I won some pesos playing cards the other night. My amigo and me are from Costa Rica.”

  The whore laughed and said, “No, you’re not. If you are not a gringo, I am the Queen of England. But I understand. We get lots of your sort here. Is it not fortunate that Costa Rica is one of the few countries that has no extradition treaty with Tio Sam?”

  He felt her up, absently, as he smiled sheepishly and said, “I heard you people here were understanding, Armida. As long as we’re on the subject, who’s that hombre over there behind the newspaper, a cop?”

  She shook her bleached head slightly and said, “Not a cop. Don’t ask any more about him. He won’t ask about you. Rules of the house.”

  “I like your rules, Armida.”

  “You seem to like my ass, too. I told you it was yours for the taking, but for God’s sake let’s do it upstairs. Madam allows no shocking behavior down here in the parlor, and you have a shocking finger against my asshole. Are you trying to warm me up for Greek loving? Bueno, I am game, unless you are as big all over. Shoulders like yours can worry a girl!”

  He doubted she’d be worried by a well-hung stallion. But he raised his hand to the small of her back, anyway. He knew she was trying to get him hot. The hell of it was—he was. He’d thought when he parted company with that big dumb Yankee gal in. Nuevo Santiago that he wouldn’t want to see another snatch for at least a month. But the long slow sea voyage had done wonders for his health, and it was hard to remember his own rules while running his hands over well-stacked naked female flesh.

  He’d paid for it in his time. Any man over twenty-one who hadn’t tried at least one whore was probably a prude. But he’d never really enjoyed a whore, unless she put out for free. Gaston accused him of having a trés fatigue romantique nature. Gaston was probably right. But it sure felt dumb to bounce up and down on a dame who was doubtless thinking about something else, once you’d paid her.

  He fumbled a sip from his glass with the cigar held awkwardly in the same hand, since the other was busy. Armida took the cigar, puffed it sensually, and said, “You are going to burn your eyebrows. Would you like to see me smoke this with my pussy?”

  “Not hardly; it’s an expensive cigar. I thought you said you weren’t supposed to do anything shocking down here.”

  “Silly, I meant upstairs. Listen, if you let me have all the change from these drinks, I am yours all day. La siesta will be starting soon, and most of our customers are required to go home and reassure their wives during la siesta. I can smoke with my rectum, too. I have fantastic control of my love muscles.”

  His own love muscles were getting out of control indeed, even though he knew he was supposed to feel disgusted by this little waterfront bawd. What the hell, she was younger than he, so how many more times than he could she have changed partners, right? She apparently liked him, and it wasn’t as if he’d paid her, exactly. He knew he’d never get his change back without wrecking the joint, whether he took her brown ass in trade or not.

  Then Gaston came into the parlor, looking tired but rather pleased with himself. The little Frenchman moved his head to signal a move to the bar. Captain Gringo told Armida he’d see her around the campus and got up to join Gaston. Armida was too smart to follow.

  As the two soldiers of fortune bellied up to the bar together, Captain Gringo muttered, “It’s about time. How many times did you come in that old pig?”

  Gaston chuckled and replied, “Now, Dick, is that any way to talk about our landlady? We are, as you say, all set. Aside from being happy to see an old friend, Fifi is a member of the Conservative party.”

  Captain Gringo started to ask a dumb question. Then he remembered that the so-called Nicaraguan Liberal party had won the last revolution. The names meant nothing. The Liberals were a bunch of totalitarian militarists, and the so-called Conservatives were another, who weren’t related to them closely enough to get on the public payroll. The little people on both sides had been screwed, so why they fought for either eluded Captain Gringo, but it wasn’t his country so it wasn’t his problem.

  Gaston said, “I hope you didn’t pay for that drink. Now that Fifi and I have resumed our, ah, companionship, everything is on the house. We have a couple of cribs upstairs. Sanitary facilities should be amusing, since we share the bathroom down the hall with les girls. Fifi says she will send food up to us privately. I don’t think we should spend too much time down here among the customers, hein?”

  “When you’re right – you’re right, Gaston. But are you saying you didn’t have to give the madam anything?”

  “Merde alors. I gave her my all, and had to eat her, too! She did accept a hundred pesos, graciously, but had I not made her come, to her considerable surprise and delight—”

  “Never mind your sex life. I can see you’re fixed up, and I’m more worried about getting back to our base in Costa Rica. What did she say about a ship out of here?”

  “Merde alors, what could she say? As you see, Fifi sells booze and broads, not steamship tickets. This is a whorehouse, not a travel agency.”

  “I noticed that. Look, Gaston, not even your dicking is going to keep us here indefinitely, and you were right about it being a small dull town, outside. Let’s say we have, oh, seventy-two hours before Madam Fifi has her fill of you. Then what?”

  Gaston shrugged and answered, “I can usually keep most women satisfied a month before they start nagging me about not having a steady job and telling me I am only using them. That is why they call it the honeymoon.”

  The tall American sighed and said, “I think I must have dated their kid sisters. But whores have even shorter attention spans, Gaston. There’s no way we can stay here more than a day or so.”

  The black barkeep slid down to them. Gaston ordered two more gin and tonics and said it was on the house. The black girl said Madam Fifi hadn’t said anything about that to her. As Gaston swore and put a coin on the bar, Captain Gringo said, “See what I mean? You’d better put on your cape of invisibility and start scouting up at least a southbound fishing boat.”

  Gaston sipped his drink, grimaced at all the water in it, and replied, “Eh bien, I learned in my youth never to trust a place that waters drinks. I’ll go out after la siesta. Even us small gray cats draw a certain amount of attention when the streets are deserted. Let us take a bottle along with these glasses as we climb the stairs, hein? Fifi said she might be joining me for a siesta, and a man my age needs to keep up his strength.”

  Captain Gringo asked the black girl for a bottle of gin. When she slid it across the mahogany, he said, “Take it out of the change you forgot to give me before.”

  She frowned and asked, “Aren’t you paying Armida?”

  “For what? She’s talking to another john now, and that was a twenty-peso gold piece I gave you, doll!”

  He turned away with the bottle and Gaston before she could bitch about it. As they left, Armida shot Captain Gringo a hurt look from where she sat in another man’s lap, bare-assed.

  They went upstairs. Gaston started counting off the n
umbers as they passed the close-set doors on either side. He nodded and said, “Eh bien, here we are. This one’s mine. Yours is next door, Dick.”

  “Don’t we get keys?”

  “In a whorehouse? Surely you jest. Hopefully there are barrel bolts inside. Fifi says these cribs are not currently in use, so, hopefully, we don’t have to worry about the linen.”

  A door down the hall opened and a tipsy fat man came out, buttoning his pants. By unspoken agreement the two soldiers of fortune made themselves scarce by ducking into their respective cribs.

  Captain Gringo found his small, paneled with white-enameled pine, and already crowded as he stood in the narrow space by the bed, which took up most of the room. There was a narrow jalousied window. He opened the slats to see a blank stucco wall staring him in the face across a narrow alley. He didn’t think he could get out through such a narrow slot in any case. He left the slats open to have some light on the subject.

  He closed the door. It had once had an inside bolt, but someone had kicked the door in at one time. The brass hardware had never been replaced, and he saw nothing he could prop against the door.

  Save for the brass bedstead, the only furniture was an end table improvised from a packing crate. There were hooks on the walls and an Edison bulb hanging from the ceiling on a threadbare wire. Since it was still early, it wasn’t important whether the light worked. The idea of spending a whole night here, dark or otherwise, was too grim to contemplate. So he didn’t.

  He took off his hat and jacket and hung them up. It didn’t help much. Even with the jalousies open it was hot and stuffy. He pulled down the bed covers. The linen looked clean. He took off his gun rig and slid his hardware under the pillow. Then he sat down on the bed, wondering what the hell he was going to do for the rest of the day.

  His smoke was about gone. He snuffed out the claro in a tin tray on the end table and didn’t light another. He sipped one of the two glasses he’d brought from the bar. Where the hell was the bottle? Oh, yeah, Gaston had taken it on the way up. Gaston was like that. But once the streets were safe again, nobody could beat Gaston at moving around unobserved. Gaston didn’t sneak. He was too old a hand at invisibility to pussy-foot. Gaston took advantage of the fact that nobody seemed to notice a small middle-aged guy unless he made sudden moves. The little Frenchman’s Spanish was letter perfect and he could pass for a native in most Latin ports.

  If there was a southbound vessel with an understanding purser in Puerto Cabezas, Gaston would find it. If there wasn’t … then what? That run for the old pirate base in Honduras sounded lousy. Running in any other direction sounded worse. The last time they’d been here in Nicaragua they’d been fighting for the side that lost. The winning side had an awesome reward posted on the two of them, dead or otherwise, and Gaston’s old playmate, Madam Fifi, would sell you her own ass, for small change!

  He took off his shirt and hung it up. It felt so good that he took off his boots and pants as well. It was still too hot, but the starched linen felt cooler on his naked flesh as he reclined on the bed, draining the first glass and picking up the other.

  The door opened and Armida came in. She must have noticed what a hot day it was getting to be, too. She’d even peeled off her mesh stockings. So they were both naked as jays when she sat down on the bed and calmly took his shaft in hand.

  It was limp, of course. Captain Gringo had more delicate feelings. He grimaced and said, “That was quick, even for a pro.”

  She said, “Don’t be vulgar. Poor Pablo never goes upstairs with any of us. He just comes to drink and listen to dirty talk before going home to his mujer with renewed inspiration.”

  Captain Gringo was feeling inspired now, too. For, despite a certain distaste for his surroundings and present company, he hadn’t been getting any lately, and her strange skilled fingers on his dawning erection sure felt better than his own could have.

  Nonetheless, he said, “Hold it, Armida. Before we get into a dreadful misunderstanding, it’s only fair to warn you there’s no more gold on its way out of my pocket.”

  She held it indeed as she frowned down at him and asked, “Don’t you think I’m worth it?”

  “You would be if I made a habit of paying. I don’t mind being overcharged for booze, even when my sidekick winds up with it. But let go of my friend there while we establish some new ground rules. You see, Gaston and I are guests of Madam Fifi, not johns, and …”

  Armida half-rose, cocked a long shapely leg over him to plant one heel on the mattress, with the other on the floor, and lowered her slit to sit herself on his raging erection, saying, “I know all about that. Madam said I was to make you comfortable and … Oh, yes! That does feel most comfortable, no?”

  He hissed in pleasure, too, as she gripped hard with her internal muscles. It was obvious she’d told the truth when she’d said she could smoke a cigar with her educated pussy.

  Armida moved up and down slowly with her love muscles rippling faster. She gripped him so tightly it would have chafed them both if she’d been drier inside. He was too polite to ask if her lubrication was friendship or mineral oil. It sure felt like the real thing. She leaned forward to place her palms on his heaving chest for balance. Then she started moving her pelvis astoundingly as he grinned up at her, admiring the view. Her nipples were turgid and her breasts bobbed in rhythm with her rippling lower torso muscles as she moved in a way that an Arabian belly dancer would have envied. She was literally sucking him off with her body, and he was tempted to roll her over and finish right.

  But he knew she’d expect to be kissed if he got on top, and a guy had to draw the line somewhere. A whore showing off was the best there was, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to kiss those painted lips without assurances she’d gargled with disinfectant since the last customer!

  She moaned. “Oh, I can’t believe it! I’m going to come! You’ll ruin me for the day, you naughty thing!”

  He didn’t see why he should believe that. But as she fell weakly down against him, her nipples teasing his chest as her spasming love box went on milking his tool, he closed his eyes and ejaculated in her, hard.

  Armida giggled and said, “I felt that. I just came, too. There’s no sense going downstairs now. A working girl needs an objective attitude, and you have me hot as a blushing bride.

  It’s almost siesta time anyway. Would you like to spend the whole siesta in me, querido?”

  He answered by thrusting his stillerect shaft deeper. She laughed and said, “I can’t do it again on top. As a matter of fact, I need a drink before I do it again at all. Did you not say something about a bottle?”

  As she sat up, arching her back to raise her arms and smooth her hair, he said, “I bought the bottle. Gaston grabbed it. All I have is what’s left in that one glass.”

  She leaned forward, his shaft still in her, and her left breast kissed his lips as she stretched an arm to get the glass from the end table. She sat up again, took a sip, and asked him if he wanted to kill it.

  He said, “Can’t, in this position. Let me sit up.”

  Armida got off with an audible wet pop and rolled to a seated position by him as Captain Gringo sat up, took the glass, and started to drink from it. Then he sighed, smiled fondly at the treacherous blond bitch, and cold-cocked her with a left cross to the jaw.

  Armida’s head flew back and bounced off the pine paneling above the bed before she sprawled unconscious across it, hips on the edge of the mattress and long shapely legs spread invitingly. Captain Gringo wiped himself dry with a corner of the sheet, got to his feet, and put on his shirt and gun rig as he stared down at her pink slit wistfully and muttered, “Hell, it was just getting hot, too!”

  He didn’t have time to take her up on her unconscious offer. Having armed himself, he sat down again and hauled on his pants and cordovan mosquito boots. He’d just stood up to stomp his boots firmly in place when the door opened. He whipped out his .38, saw that it was Gaston, fully dressed, and said, “Don’t ever do that w
ithout knocking. I was just coming for you.”

  Gaston smiled thinly down at the unconscious whore and said, “I see you came for her, too. Eh bein, I’m glad you smelled the chloral hydrate in time.”

  “So am I. She must have had the knockout pill in her hair. They gave her a dose for a whole bottle, so dropping it in half a glass of gin and tonic was a little much. It would have killed me if I’d been dumb enough to drink it!”

  “Oui, but look at it this way, the reward says dead or alive. Madam Fifi certainly disappointed me, Dick. I am mortified to have gotten you into this.”

  “Let’s worry about getting out of it. Obviously the cops are waiting for la siesta and an empty cathouse before they move in. That gives us, let’s say, five minutes in case my watch is slow. What’s the story on old Fifi?”

  “The same as yours. Great minds run in the same channels, non? It was harder to smell her sleeping potion in a whole bottle of gin, but when one has been rolled as many times as I, one’s nose develops skills the mundane john may not have. Of course I knocked her out before I left her bound and gagged next door. We’d better do the same to this one before we leave, non?”

  Captain Gringo didn’t answer as Gaston picked up the end of the sheet Armida wasn’t on and proceeded to tear it into strips. The tall American was more interested in the window. He twisted his shoulders sideways and, just, managed to lean his upper body out to study the narrow slot between the buildings. By reaching out one hand, he could brace himself against the rough stucco across the alley, or air shaft, or whatever the hell it was. He decided it was just a gap left over when they’d built the joint. The ground below was covered with weeds and broken glass.

  Toward the front of the whorehouse, a whitewashed wooden wall had been erected to keep drunks from coming in there to piss. Back the other way, the slot ended in the wall of an ell built out to take full advantage of the space. There was no window facing him from either direction, Allah be praised.