Renegade 23 Read online

  “Oh, you know about my past?”

  “Did you think we hired people we didn’t know about? Please don’t tell me you were framed by the U.S. Army, Dick. Every gunslick we meet seems to have been framed for some damned thing or another, and it gets to be a bore. We know you’ve been a good boy since you escaped from that army guardhouse in the States. Can I cable the home office you’ve taken the job?”

  He said, “Maybe. Let’s talk some more about the fine print. Where’s Gaston, by the way?”

  “With Dora. I won the toss. We can talk more comfortably in the next room, and I see you’re going to take some convincing.”

  He followed her as she picked up the candle and led the way into yet another room. When he saw the four-poster and nothing else to sit on, he smiled thinly and asked, “Is your sister trying to convince Gaston, Flora?”

  She laughed and said, “I told you she lost the toss. Why don’t we get the sexual tension out of the way before I explain just what else I want you to do for us, dear?” Before he could answer, Flora slipped her dress over her head and sat on the bed to unpin her hair. He repressed a gasp of delighted surprise when he saw she wasn’t wearing another stitch, save for her long black stockings and high-button shoes. He’d been wrong about her needing whalebone underwear. Flora was built like an impossibly constructed brick shithouse. So what in the hell was he doing with his own duds on at a time like this?

  It took him only a little longer to shuck everything but his socks and hang his shoulder rig within easy reach of the bed as the statuesque brunette lay back across it. But, though he was already rising to the occasion, Captain Gringo didn’t like surprises. So he moved over to lock the door from the inside before he turned to join her. As he did so, she smiled up at him and said, “Vera told us you had amazing self-control.” Then, as she glanced down between them, she gasped and added, “Oh, my God, she might have warned me about that!”

  He said, “Flattery will get you everywhere,” as he reclined beside her, took her in his arms, and kissed her while he ran his free hand down her roller-coaster curves to warm her up a bit, first.

  When his hand got to home plate, he saw she didn’t need much foreplay. Her love maw was almost gushing. So, as she tongued him deeply, he just rolled into the saddle between her welcoming thighs and commenced to enter her.

  It wasn’t as easy as he’d expected. Despite her Junoesque hips and expectant lubrication, old Flora was built sort of tight. She seemed more than willing to help him get it in, judging from the way she opened wide and said “Ah!”, but it felt like a ten-year-old virgin had somehow managed to get inside the body of a more than full-grown woman and he was afraid that if he really shoved hard he could hurt her.

  She seemed worried about it too, and moaned, “Jesus, take it easy, handsome. I haven’t been with a man for months and … Forget what I just said. Vera was right. It only seems impossible at first.”

  He chuckled fondly as he finally got it all the way in, let her get used to it, and started moving gently. She wrapped her silk-sheathed legs around him with a contented sigh and purred, “Oh, yesss! I like tall men, don’t you?”

  “Not this way. It works better when one of us is a girl. So what’s with the other dame in Guatemala, Flora?”

  “Fuck her. Better yet, fuck me! I’ll tell you about the job later, after you do a job on me, you goof!”

  That sounded reasonable. So he started moving faster. She did, too, and though she stayed just as tight after she came ahead of him, her insides were even wetter now, so he could pound her harder without rubbing either of them raw. It seemed to be driving her nuts.

  She sobbed, “Oh, God, I’m so glad I won the toss! Poor Dora doesn’t know what she’s missing!”

  He didn’t say he doubted that. He knew there was more to Gaston than met the eye, and, from the way women pestered Gaston, once he’d shown them that dirty old men needed love and respect, too, Captain Gringo suspected old Dora was in for what old Queen Victoria regarded as crimes against nature. Captain Gringo was as depraved as the average good sport, but Gaston would eat anything, like a maniac.

  The twin sister Captain Gringo was enjoying seemed to be a maniac too, now that she’d gotten over her first shyness with him. She was moving under him amazingly as he came, hard, and let it soak in her a moment as he got his second wind. She moved so well it hardly mattered that he wasn’t. She gasped and said, “I can’t believe your stamina, darling. Most men are such quitters!”

  He repressed a grimace and didn’t answer. He could see how a dame like Flora could have a problem keeping the average guy going. Between her not bad looks, the way she moved them, and the usual tightness between her shapely hugging thighs, Flora could have made a fortune in Dodge any night the herds were in town. She was a born three-minute trick.

  He was saved from looking like a sissy to her because of reasons he didn’t think it proper to discuss with a lady. He’d been cruising up the Mosquito Coast, until this evening, with a hell of a good lay named Esperanza. So he’d started with the advantage of not being as hard up as the average guy old Flora had probably crossed sex organs with in her travels.

  He could tell she’d done so with many a man in her checkered past. Few professional whores moved half as well. But he made no value judgments about his hyperactive partner of the moment. For in his own time he’d screwed around more than the queen approved of, and, what the hell, she wasn’t charging for such nice stuff. Or was she?

  Knowing what had to be coming, besides Flora, distracted him enough to keep him moving in her at a steady lope without coming again, as he pondered on what else he and Gaston might be getting into. She seemed to take his cool, protracted lovemaking as a compliment, since she came again, or said she had. He decided he might as well join her and started pounding harder. She pleaded, “Please, Dick! I’m too sensitized to do it again. Don’t you want to hear about the job in Guatemala now?”

  He didn’t answer. He was almost there, and, Jesus, it was even better this time. She moaned that he was hurting her as she thrust her pelvis up to take it all. As he shot deep within her, she sobbed and said, “Oh, Christ, me too! You’re killing me and I love every inch of it!”

  He laughed, rolled off, and said, “Okay, let’s talk. I have a smoke in my shirt pocket, if I can remember where the hell I dropped my damned shirt.”

  As he sat up and bent over to pick up his shirt from the floor by the bed, Flora sighed and said, “God, you have a lovely body. But as I was saying, this stupid lady from Chicago is insured double indemnity against a violent death.”

  “What happens if she just catches consumption?”

  “It only costs us half as much, of course. She’s young, healthy, and our company doctors checked her lungs before we insured her. We naturally assumed we were talking about a little Miss Rich Bitch who intended to take in a few cathedrals and art museums before she came back to Chicago to settle down as a spoiled society matron. So we gave her goddamned parents good terms on her goddamned policy. It was low premium and short term. Fifty thou’ should she croak of natural causes while out of the States. Double that, should she be eaten by cannibals, murdered for her shoes in Paris, or something. I mean, how many rich American tourists die of anything while they take the usual grand lux tour, right?”

  He got a claro and some waterproof matches from his shirt, lit up, and leaned back to rejoin Flora as he asked, “Two questions. Are all bets off once she returns to the States, and what in the hell is she doing in Guatemala if she said she was going to Europe?”

  Flora snuggled closer and said, “I told you the policy was short term. No definite dates, since our underwriters assumed she’d just nip over for the summer and be back in time for the social season. Our legal eagles have studied the question of her destination. We’re stuck. She did go to Europe. She hasn’t been back to the States in over two years. The stupid little do-gooder joined the International Red Cross when she got to Geneva. Her meatpacking papa says he had
no idea his daughter was out to save the world, the lying son of a bitch. He took out a bargain double indemnity on her because he knew she might not be long for this world. When we checked further, as we should have in the first place, we found out she’s always been a tomboy who worried her folks sick. While she was still a damned teenager she tore off to Apache country to do social work among the Pueblo Indians!”

  He whistled softly and said, “You wouldn’t have her as a client right now if she’d gone out to serve tea to the noisier New Mexican tribes. But how much trouble can even a tomboy get into as a Red Cross nurse?”

  “You want it alphabetical or numerical? You know, of course, that the Guatemalan highlands are infested with bandits and active volcanoes?”

  “So’s the rest of Central America. Though most of the volcanoes I’ve met have been quiet, so far.”

  “That’s what Vera told me, bless her. But while the volcano you and Gaston met that time in Nicaragua for Lloyd’s was a sleeping giant, there’s one in Guatemala that’s a pisser. They call if Boca-Bruja. It’s up near the Mexican border and it’s just blown its top. Earthquakes, ashfall, lava flows, the works. The International Red Cross sent a medical-rescue team into the disaster area a few weeks ago, and guess who went with them?”

  “Ouch. What’s her name?”

  “Cynthia Swann, of the Chicago Swanns, the silly little bitch. We have to get her out of there before she manages to get herself killed by Boca-Bruja or that even sillier Caballero Blanco.”

  “What in the hell is Caballero Blanco? I mean, I know it means ‘White Knight,’ but—”

  “Don’t ask me why he thinks he’s a white knight,” she cut in, adding, “He’s the local rebel leader, bandit leader, or both. Whatever he is, he’s got the Guatemalan government worried. He and that damned volcano have my company worried, too. We want you to go in and get our over insured client out, Dick. What’s it going to cost us?”

  “Let’s worry about that after I decide on the job. What if this client of yours doesn’t want to come out with us? We’re soldiers of fortune, not white slavers.”

  Flora began to toy with his limp tool as he smoked the firmer claro while she explained, “They’ll all want to come out, if anyone can get into them. The last anyone heard from the team, they were low on supplies, the natives were restless, and they’d done all they could.”

  “I know the feeling. So what’s stopping the Red Cross team from just packing it in and returning to civilization on their own?”

  “They can’t. They’re cut off. The only mountain trail in or out of the disaster area isn’t there anymore. It seems to be covered with lava, a lake of boiling acid water, or both. Reports are naturally a little sketchy at the moment.”

  By this time she’d taken the matter firmly in hand and it was starting to get firm indeed as she stroked it skillfully. He said, “Hold it. Better yet, let go. It’s hard to talk sense with a hard-on, and I’m missing something here. You say you want us to go in and get them out. Then you say the only trail in or out is covered by lava and boiling acid. I’m good, honey, but I’m not that good!”

  “You’re marvelous,” she purred. As she went on playing with him, she explained, “I said the trail from the Guatemalan lowlands was cut off. I didn’t say it was the only one. Some Mexican smugglers tell us there’s another trail into the disaster area, through the Mexican border country.”

  He frowned and said, “Ouch! Not what you’re doing to my dong. I meant the country you’re talking about. Mexico makes me nervous, doll. Sometimes I think I make El Presidente Diaz nervous too. Every time I go anywhere near Mexico, his damned Rurales wind up trying to shoot my ears off!”

  “That’s why we got you the Maxim in the next room, dear. We tried to reason with El Presidente, too. But the prick won’t cooperate, and, hmm, speaking of cooperative pricks—”

  “Not just yet, dammit! You know I’m willing to screw you all night, Flora. But I’m starting to wonder about less attractive kinds of screwing. I’m missing something. The Diaz dictatorship can be rude as hell to widows and orphans, but that oily old bastard running it likes to stay in good with Uncle Sam if it doesn’t cost him anything, and I don’t see why he’d refuse to allow an American insurance company to do things the easier way. So what’s all this bullshit with machine guns and soldiers of fortune Los Rurales have orders to shoot on sight?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Dick, if this was a ruse to capture you and Gaston, we’d have just let the shore patrol from the Maine pick you up.”

  “We knew that or we wouldn’t have come to meet you. Uncle Sam’s reward on my head is bigger than the one Diaz has offered, too. But I still don’t see why you can’t just send in a plain old rescue team.”

  “Diaz won’t let us. He says he can’t be responsible for the lives of his Yanqui guests in country he doesn’t control, see?”

  “No, I don’t see. The last time I visited Mexico, old Diaz was in a lot more control than most Mexicans with any brains wanted him to be. He’s got his butchering Rurales everywhere, Flora!”

  She said, “Not in the south Sierra Madres near the Guatemalan border, dear. What there is of the country on the map is mighty rugged, and a lot of it’s not on any map. Our agents in Mexico City say El Presidente could be telling the truth for a change. No Rurales have been patrolling that far south in some time. The last bunch they sent in never came out. So you and Gaston won’t have to worry about Rurales, see?”

  “Jesus, what do we have to worry about, if it eats Rurales for breakfast? Those apes are tough!”

  “Pretty please with sugar and a new machine gun on it? We’ll have Mexican guides waiting for you, and we can promise a safe landing on a stretch of the southwest Mexican coast that another agent of ours controls better than El Presidente Diaz might suspect.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he growled, as she dropped her head in his lap to arouse him even more with her soft, moist, tightly pursed lips. He knew she couldn’t talk with her mouth so full and he didn’t feel like discussing business at a time like this. So he chuckled and said, “Hey, let’s not waste it. I want some more of the real thing, doll box!”

  She giggled and rose to her hands and knees to swivel around. She might have meant to lie down again, but he had a better idea when he saw how nice her curvaceous derriere looked by candlelight. So he swung off the bed, grabbed a hipbone with each hand as he turned to aim his weapon, and, standing in his stocking feet on the floor, pulled her on like a glove, dog-style.

  She arched her spine to take it all the way as she gasped, “Oh, yessss! It feels even deeper that way. I wonder if you’d even need a machine gun to get through the Sierra Madres, darling. I’ll bet if you just pointed that big cock at half the bandits in Mexico they’d run away screaming!”

  He laughed, but said, “I’m more worried about the ones who don’t run away. If we have to discuss business at such a weird time, what are you offering, besides this, Flora?”

  “What you’re doing to me is hardly a matter I’d want on the company books, you big goof. I was told to offer you the going soldier-of-fortune monthly fee or a flat rate, whichever you prefer. Ah, could you move a little faster?”

  He did, as he thought for a few strokes and then said, “Okay. We charge a thousand a month, each. If it takes us a whole month to get in and out, we’re probably not going to get in or out. How does a flat two thou’, one now and one if we make it, sound to you, Flora?”

  “Oooh! Just keep going in and out like that and you’ve got a deal! That feels fantastic!”

  Everything about her and the company she worked for seemed a little fantastic. But, up to now, it sure felt good. He asked her, “Will you and your sister be going with us, Flora?”

  She said, “No, damm it. Our job is finished once we get you boys over to the Pacific coast and turn you over to other company people. But if I can’t go with you, I sure am coming with you and, Jesusssss!”

  She fell off him, forward, leaving him in
mid-air, halfway to heaven. He started to drop back into position atop her, but Flora rolled to one side and said, “That’s enough for now, dear. I have to get dressed and start the ball rolling.”

  “Can’t you roll your balls after I ball you at least one more time, dammit? I was about to come, honey!”

  She laughed, jumped up, and then bent to pick up the cigar he’d dropped on the bare floor as she said, “I’ll be right back, silly. Here, smoke this or something until I send a few messages. Please don’t jerk off while I’m gone, though. I’m still hot, too.”

  He laughed, accepted the smoke like a good sport, and relit it as she quickly slipped her print dress back on and sort of pinned her hair. He said, “I still have to check with Gaston. But if your sister’s as persuasive as you are, I don’t think he’ll give us any argument. We don’t have any place better to go, now that we can’t get back to the waterfront. How do we get over to the other coast?”

  She said she’d tell him later and left him alone. He took a deep puff of smoke as he lay back across the bed, and damned if he didn’t still have a full erection. He laughed again. He knew why she’d cut him off like that. She didn’t intend to start from scratch when she came back. Yeah, she’d been around a few blocks with the other boys on the block. But was that anything to bitch about?

  He wondered how long it was going to take her. The old posada didn’t have electricity, let alone a telephone. But there was a cable office in town and she’d surely send one of her armed brownies instead of going out alone after dark, unescorted, in a little Hispanic town.

  He wondered why he was wondering. He’d had the hot-blooded Basque beauty, Esperanza, shortly after sunrise that morning. It wasn’t that long after sunset, and he’d just had strange stuff. Either of them were enough to satisfy a sensible man for at least a couple of days, and this particular day had been sort of rough.

  He snuffed out the cigar again. It was dangerous to smoke in bed when a guy felt like he’d been digging ditches. Some bruises he’d picked up in that alley fight were coming back to haunt him now, and he sure hoped old Flora wouldn’t feel insulted if she found him asleep when she got back. He wasn’t sure it was safe to doze off here and now. But where the hell else in town would it be safer?