Renegade 21 Read online

  “Screw the regular troops. Have you heard about the guerrillas? Half the idiots running around with guns in Nicaragua these days don’t know or care which side they’re supposed to be on! But let’s talk some more about your so-called natives. Are you talking about Indians or just old-fashioned peones? I don’t like fighting either, Gloria. So far, the only good guys I’ve met in these parts have been poor barefoot boys trying to survive.”

  She took another drink from her tumbler, held it out empty, and, as he rose to refill it, shouted, “You’re not listening, Dick! Nobody wants you and Gaston to fight anybody! Your job will be simply to guard the dam site. The workers you’ll be protecting are as poor and doubtless as noble as Don Quixote might wish.”

  He rejoined her, handed her the stronger drink he’d mixed, and said, “Let me help you out of that blouse. The only things you have to hide under it are sticking out anyway, so why should the rest of you be hot and sweaty?”

  She didn’t resist as he peeled her to the waist, but lowered her drink to blink owlishly at him and observe, “You must be trying to get me drunk. I’m sure the queen would never approve of this, but, God, that does feel ever so much better!”

  “Told you it would. Why don’t we slip off that heavy skirt while we’re at it, doll?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t. I’m not wearing anything under it, Dick!”

  “That’s a lie. You’re wearing shoes and socks, right?”

  She started to laugh. She couldn’t stop, even when he kissed her. So he took her now half-empty glass, set it aside, and lowered her to her back across the mattress as he went on kissing her while he unbuttoned the waistband of her skirt. She kissed back with considerable enthusiasm, but when they came up for air the blonde protested, “Stop it, you naughty thing! Are you trying to seduce me, Dick?”

  He slipped his free hand inside the loose waistband of her skirt, slid it down her bare belly to home plate, and, as he started massaging her clit, explained, “No, I think you came in here to seduce me. But what the hell, I can be a good sport if they send a really pretty dame.”

  She gasped, grabbed his wrist, and made a gesture of trying to remove his hand from her privates. But she didn’t really put her back into the effort as she sobbed, “This isn’t fair! You’re asking advantage of the heat and humidity to … Oh, God, let me get this perishing skirt out of the way so we can do it right!”

  They did. He saw she was blond all over as he stripped her to only her high-buttons and gartered silk stockings. Of course he’d had to let go his advantage long enough to slip the whipcord out of the way, so the dumb dame went through the motions of trying to cross her legs, and would have doubtless said something as dumb if he hadn’t kissed her, hard, and massaged her pale thighs open in welcome. As he rolled into the saddle she smiled up at him and said weakly, “They warned me something like this would probably happen.”

  Then, as he entered her, her eyes opened wider. So did her thighs, as she added, “Oh, I’m so happy it did!”

  They went deliciously crazy for a while as the hail beat on the tin roof above them and heat lightning commented on her hot love box when it contracted in orgasm on his thrusting shaft. The storm cooled the air a little, but not enough to keep them from getting pretty moist. When she said she was all sweaty and icky, he withdrew, rolled her over on her hands and knees, and proceeded to pound her from behind with his bare feet on the gluggy carpet, asking her if that felt better.

  She giggled, arching her back to aim her pale rump up at him as he slid in and out of her blond thatch. She said it felt ever so much cooler that way, which was a lie, because she was taking him hot and deep. He came in her, hard, and she slid off weakly to roll onto her back, holding up one hand to grasp, “Enough! I surrender, dear. But can we dry off and get out breathing back to normal before we do it again?”

  He said that sounded fair, and fumbled out a cigar and matches from his shirt before sitting beside her on the bed. The match didn’t want to light at first, but he finally got it going, lit up, and leaned on one elbow next to her, saying, “Thank you, Lord. I was expecting a much duller afternoon. Now could we just have some evening breeze, for chrissake?”

  She smiled wanly up at him and said, “I never thought it would be too hot to fuck, once I saw your lovely dong, Dick. But now that we’re back to earth again, you were about to tell me you’d take the job, weren’t you?”

  He blew a smoke ring at her breast, neatly ringing the nipple, and said, “You were going to tell me who we’d be working for, Gloria.”

  She shrugged and answered, “The company’s called Consolidated Construction, Limited. As I said, it’s an engineering firm.”

  “Okay, so who are they working for?”

  She frowned up at him in apparent confusion and replied, “What do you mean, who are they working for, dear? They’re working for themselves, of course.”

  “Honey, nobody works for themselves. You say they want to build a dam somewhere. Okay, who are they building a dam for? You don’t just send a mess of men and gear up a jungle river and pretend you’re a beaver, you know. The jungle on either side of the San Juan belongs to some damn body! Are we talking about the Nicaraguan bank or the Costa Rican bank of the San Juan, Gloria?”

  She started to fondle his sated shaft as she said, “Who cares? I think it must be on the Nicaraguan side of the border, since that’s who they bribed for permission to start work. The dam’s not to be built on the main channel of the San Juan. I think they’re damming a tributary. Some rapid little stream running down from the hills just to the north. Speaking of rapid streams, darling, why don’t you put out that silly cigar and fill my main channel some more?”

  He laughed but went on smoking as he said, “We’ve got plenty of time for that, doll box. Business before pleasure, if your outfit’s really serious about hiring a professional machine-gun team. You were about to tell me who they were building this dam for, remember?”

  She stroked him harder, and with hardening results, as she replied, “I was? Honestly, darling, I have no idea how the small print of that construction contract might read. I only work for C.C., Limited. I’m what you might call a personnel manager.”

  “You’re managing my person swell, babe. But you’re still trying to sell me a pig in a poke.”

  “Oh, poke it in me and we’ll talk about pigs later!”

  She was taking an unfair advantage of him, he knew. But since she was hot as a two-dollar pistol, two could play at the same game. He deliberately took a deep drag of smoke, blew it down across her heaving torso, and insisted, “Business is business. Before I give you the business again, let’s nail down a few lines of that fine print, doll box. I’ll take your word that you don’t know who your outfit’s working for. But since you work for them, you ought to at least know who the fuck they are, right?”

  “Oh, yes, fuck me right! It’s a London firm. You can look it up. For God’s sake, Dick you’ve hired out as a machine gunner for people who can’t read or write! What’s so bloody important about my company’s mailing address? I’ll give you one of their bloody business cards if you want to cable them about my credentials. But could we please make love again first? I’m ever so hot, now that it’s beginning to cool off a bit in here!”

  Despite what she was doing to his dong, he shook his head and said, “I hate to relight a good cigar once it’s been snubbed out in a dank ashtray. What’s your hurry, doll box? It’s still broad daylight, or it would be if that fucking storm would only let up.”

  She started playing with herself as well as him as she replied, “I can’t stay much longer. But I have to come again before I go! Let me get on top if the rest of you isn’t up to it. I see this part of you has risen for a lady like a proper little gent!”

  She jerked it to full attention and added, with a giggle, “Heavens, did I say little! Go on and smoke your old cigar, dear. I’ll just huff and puff at this end.”

  He lay back to blow smoke rings at the ceiling as Glori
a forked a silk-sheathed leg over his pelvis and settled onto his shaft with a moan of pleasure. It felt great to him, too. But as she threw her head back, eyes closed, and proceeded to play pony boy on his naked lap, Captain Gringo asked conversationally, “Where are you going from here? Back to tell on me to teacher?”

  She murmured, “Yes; I’m meeting my superiors for dinner at my own hotel. Oh, that feels so loverly! Ah, you did say you were coming with us, didn’t you, darling?”

  He grinned and said, “You keep that up and I’m coming for sure! But I have to think about the rest of the deal. I never sign a contract in the dark. I used to, but I got screwed that way a few times, and I don’t mean this kind of screwing! Maybe if I met the guys you’re fronting for. What hotel did you say you were staying at, honey?”

  She didn’t answer. With a wild, wicked laugh she slid off his erection and dropped to her knees on the carpet, spreading his thighs as she lowered her blond head to envelop his trembling love tool in her lush pursed lips. He blinked in surprise but hissed in pleasure as she started to give him a fantastic French lesson, taking it beyond her gagging point to grip the head between her tonsils, with the warm wet tip of her tongue teasing him at the root.

  He did what any man would have done, and doubtless what she wanted him to. He lay back and enjoyed it. But even as he watched the part of her strawberry-blond hair bobbing up and down, and, in the mirror beyond, saw she was fingering herself to orgasm at the same time, Captain Gringo was man of the world enough to know why she was doing it. A lady could hardly answer questions with her mouth full. Ergo, she didn’t want to tell him whom she’d be meeting at what hotel.

  But what the hell, that was fair, since he had no intention of romping through the Nicaraguan jungles with her or anybody else in the near future. He and Gaston had left with both sides in the current civil war mad at them. To top things off, they’d wiped out a gang of international gunrunners before making their graceful but somewhat noisy exit. Nobody she could be working for could possibly pay enough to make it worth his while to visit Nicaragua for a while.

  He came deep in her throat. She gulped and kept swallowing his hard-on, hard, keeping it that way as she strummed her old banjo with the wet fingers of her free hand. As he watched her in the mirror behind her, it inspired him for a rematch, despite the fact that he’d have been running low on ammo by now with a less athletic and/or attractive partner. He wanted more, but he was sated enough to think clearly, and so he couldn’t help wondering whether British intelligence or his old pal Sir Basil Hakim, of Woodbine Arms, Ltd., had sic’ed her on him. Gloria was too pretty and too skilled to be merely an enthusiastic secretary for some bush-league construction company.

  But obviously she wasn’t going to tell him, and meanwhile he was about to fire again in her pretty bobbing head, so he thought it only polite to mention it.

  She slid her lips down the full length of his erection, tightly pursed, then rose to leap aboard him right, doing a cancan-girl’s split with her long silk-sheathed legs on either side as she took him to the base of his shaft in a now impossibly tight opening.

  She fell forward, pressing her aroused nipples to his chest as he tried to move and found, since they were both almost there and she was literally milking him with her fantastic internal muscles, that he didn’t have to. They came together. It felt so good they both nearly fainted. It was quite some time before he remembered he had been smoking in this bed and weakly looked around for his cigar.

  It was burning where he’d let it fall on the sheets. Thanks to the damp, it had only burned a dime-size hole before he picked it up and tossed it out the window across her lovely naked derriere. He said, “To hell with smoking and enough of this foreplay. Let me get on top so we can do some serious fucking!”

  She laughed and rolled off him. But then she sat up and said, “I have to go now. Save me some for later, darling. I’ll try to get back before midnight, if you promise.”

  “What’s to promise? You see any other strawberry blondes around here? Let’s make it midnight for sure. By then I’ll have had time to check with Gaston and eat something to regain my strength. Drink plenty of coffee with your dinner, doll box. You won’t be getting much sleep tonight.”

  She started reaching for her clothes as she shook her head and said, “That’s not what I meant, dear. If I’m to come back and be your tootsie-wootsie, you must promise me you’ll take the other job I came to offer as well.”

  He frowned and said, “I didn’t know we were discussing prices, Gloria. Okay, it’s against my principles, but I guess you’re worth a hundred a night if you throw in another blow-job.”

  She gasped in indignation and snapped, “Are you calling me a whore, you renegade hired gunslick?”

  He smiled thinly and replied, “We don’t have to establish what we are, babe. We just have to agree on our prices! Gaston and me expect five hundred to a thousand Yankee dollars a month, depending on the risk, with expenses and fringe benefits like blond pussy thrown in.”

  She rose to her feet, tugging up her skirt and fastening it as she said, “This blond pussy has no intention of trekking into any jungle. But I’ll tell my employers your asking price.”

  She was still steamed, but managed a smile as she pinned on her hat and added, “If we have a deal, I may forgive you when I come back tonight with their counter-offer. I suppose I may have approached you in a manner that could lead a gentleman to entertain evil thoughts about a lady’s, ah, natural feelings, but …”

  Then, before she could finish, or he had to come up with a sensible reply, all hell broke loose outside.

  For a dame who looked so lady-like with clothes on, Gloria ducked pretty good. He didn’t have to tell her that was no hail on the roof they were listening to now, as he rolled out of bed, dashed to the dresser, and got his .38. She crawled under the bed as Captain Gringo rolled across it, topside, to get to the window, gun in hand, for a cautious look to see what all that gunfire outside was about.

  He saw nothing but an empty street with hailstones bouncing like popcorn on the wet brick pavement. The storm was letting up. The clouds above were thinning, but since it was late in the day the light tended to even out. Everything was the same shade of fuzzy gray. Another pistol shot echoed in the distance, and in some other unseen corner of the universe a tinny English police whistle tweeted like an enraged sparrow.

  Behind him, Gloria stuck her head out from under the bed and asked what was going on. He said, “Gunfight. But not close enough for us to worry about. Gaston said this was a tough little seaport. The storm’s letting up. Let me get some duds on and I’ll escort you wherever.”

  Again the strawberry blonde proved she was a quick-thinking little broad. She slithered out from under the bed and ran for the door, saying, “I can make it, dear. I’d better do so before the streets are crawling with perishing constabulary.”

  He said, “Hey, wait.” But she had the door open and was saying, “Wait for me by midnight. I’ll come to you at midnight, though hell should bar the way!” Then she blew him a kiss and was gone.

  He laughed and locked the door after her. Then he got dressed. Her point about cops responding in droves to those gunshots in the neighborhood had been well taken, and, aside from feeling dumb talking to cops in the altogether, he couldn’t hide his shoulder rig under his jacket unless he had his pants on as well.

  He’d just put himself together, noting that it felt better in dank linen now that it was cooling off, when he heard Gaston’s familiar knock on the door. He opened up. Gaston came in, soaking wet, to pull his own .38 and start reloading it as he muttered, “Merde alors, Greytown used to be such a civilized little village, too.”

  “Was that you I just heard smoking it up?” Captain Gringo asked as he stared down at the smaller, older, dapper little Legion deserter.

  Gaston Verrier was one of those nondescript, gray little men who tended to get lost in a crowd. When one studied him more closely, one could see why women still
found him attractive. Which was just as well, since Gaston was the original dirty old man. Despite his size, the wiry little Frenchman was a deadly fighter and a damned professional soldier of fortune, too.

  Gaston peeled off his wet jacket, reholstered his reloaded .38, and moved over to the dresser to build himself a heroic drink as he explained, “I was jumped by rogues as I was wending my weary way home to you, my child. I don’t think they could have been business associates of any of the people I contacted earlier this afternoon. Who but rank novices in the art would approach a total stranger in an alley, armed only with clubs and knives, hein?”

  Captain Gringo said, “Mix me one, too. Who was doing all the shooting I just heard, if you were jumped by a gang of bully boys without guns?”

  “Sacre bleu, I had to defend myself, non?”

  “That was all you? I counted at least a dozen rounds, Gaston.”

  “Oui. After I put all five of them on the bricks with my first improvised fusillade, I of course reloaded to finish the cochons off properly.”

  “Jesus, you just gunned five wounded guys in cold blood, Gaston?”

  “Mais non, I was trés how you say pissed off at them, my idealistic youth. I learned as a boy on the streets of Paris to be neat. Les police can be so tedious when one leaves behind a messy scene, with total strangers moaning and groaning and saying who knows what about one’s description and probably whereabouts, hein?”

  As Gaston handed the taller American his drink, Captain Gringo sighed and said, “Well, nobody can say you ain’t neat, Gaston. But for chrissake, we’re hot as hell and this is a well-policed small town.”

  “My point exactly. I shall give you the bad news first. The more-professional rogues I spoke to along the waterfront this afternoon told me none of the usual coastal traders will be putting out to sea soon. The species of insects are trés nervous about hurricane weather.”

  “I heard the same story. What’s the good news?”

  “Perhaps I spoke in haste. You may not like the deal, my old and rare picker of nits. But this afternoon as I was sipping cerveza with a lass of forty-odd summers at a discreet cantina I remembered of old, we were approached by a dealer of deals. A junior officer of the Nicaraguan army said to be winning, this season. I of course sent away my plans for the evening, since she was in truth not that good-looking and you know how women gossip.”