Macumba Killer Read online

  “For God’s sake, are we having an afternoon orgy or a business meeting?”

  “Both. We French are most practique, and Madame is already about to destroy our new relationship by fibbing to her elders.”

  Lilo sat up on one elbow to ask with a puzzled frown, “What on earth are you talking about?”

  Hilda sobbed, “I’m coming!” as Gaston reached over to fondle Lilo and say, “You must know that my friend, Dick, has been told lies by your employer in the past. We shall get nowhere unless you level with us, as the Americans say.”

  Lilo started to push his hand away, decided she liked what he was doing with his old but practiced fingers, and said, “Hilda just advised me to tell you boys the truth.”

  Gaston withdrew from Hilda, remounted Lilo, and said, “Bien. I happen to know Sir Basil likes to chat on the phone while making love to an employee, and you work for him. So let us have no more bullshit about combining business with pleasure. Ah, I feel you are finding this most pleasurable, so let us get down to business. Just what does Sir Basil have in mind this time?”

  “This is the craziest conversation I’ve ever had in my life. Sir Basil sent me to seduce Captain Gringo, and I keep getting raped before I’ve even spoken to him!”

  “I’m enjoying your visit, too. Before we come, suppose you tell me where you want Dick and me to go.”

  Lilo closed her eyes and moaned, “British Crown Colony, oh, that feels nice.”

  “Mais oui, we both have lovely bodies. Is there any particular reason for us to go to this colony of yours, or is Sir Basil just looking for more trouble?”

  Lilo moaned, and raked Gaston’s back with her nails as they shared a long shuddering climax. Hilda had been watching and pleaded, “My turn, Gaston.”

  Gaston sighed and said, “Wait, mon petite. We were discussing business before we were so rudely interrupted. What is so important about this British colony, Lilo?”

  The brunette laughed and said, “Zombies. I didn’t believe in them either, until I met you.”

  Gaston remained in place, moving gently, but frowning as he muttered, “Merde alors, I thought you were here on serious business. By zombies one assumes you mean those unfortunate walking corpses the benighted Voodoo priests claim they can raise from the grave?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. I don’t know who’s behind it, or how they do it, but whatever they are, they keep burning plantations and even machine guns can’t stop them.”

  Gaston moved more sensuously, but sounded interested as he asked, “Sir Basil, as usual, has supplied the machine guns for which these zombies refuse to lie down. I begin to see some method to Madame’s madness after all.”

  “You call me mad, you sex maniac? I was sent to persuade you and Captain Gringo to work for us. We need an expert who can either tell us why the machine guns fail to stop the zombies or, better yet, stop them.”

  Gaston rolled off Lilo to mount the anxiously pleading Hilda, but he kept right on talking to Lilo and asked, “What sort of money did Sir Basil authorize you to offer?” As Hilda started going wild in his arms, he added, “We shall save time if you get right to the point and don’t try to dicker. I suppose Sir Basil assumed you could beat Dick down on the price with your fair white body, hein?”

  “Well …”

  “You will only make him angry. One time a girl he was in love with tried to set him up for a firing squad. It has made him most cynical.”

  Hilda pleaded, “For God’s sake, are we going to screw or talk?”

  So Gaston excused himself to Lilo, and ravaged Hilda thoroughly before he snuggled between the two of them with a satisfied smile and sighed, “Now we have time for a quiet discussion. You were about to mention our fee, Lilo.”

  Lilo said, “Hakim will pay the two of you a hundred dollars a day each as ordinance consultants.”

  “Merde, you screw like a princess, but you talk about pennies like a milkmaid!”

  “Wait. I’m not finished. Hakim is doing this as a service to a customer. The customer is the Pantropic Sugar Trust. Do you know of them, Gaston?”

  “But, of course. Pantropic is a big Anglo-American company. Is it their plantations and machine guns we have under discussion?”

  “Yes, and they have money they’d rather burn than see another season’s crop go up in smoke. Hakim said to tell you it will be all right when they make you a better offer. He’s sending you in as ordinance experts. After you show Pantropic how much you know about guns, they’ll steal you from us at a higher salary, plus, of course, the usual battle bonus.”

  Gaston lay between the two German girls, feeling up both of them as he sighed, “Decisions, decisions. I wish Dick were here, right now.”

  Hilda sighed, “So do I.” Lilo was more than a little intrigued, but she said, “All in all, I think I’d rather meet him under more dignified circumstances.”

  “She’s a Von,” explained Hilda, squirming against Gaston’s left hip.

  Gaston pulled Lilo against his right side and said, “You had better allow me to handle Dick, cheri. You are tres lovely and formidable between les thighs. But I don’t think Sir Basil was very wise in sending you to deal with Captain Gringo. I’ll do the job better.”

  “My God, is he bisexual too?”

  “I hope not. The thought is rather frightening to a man my size. What I meant was that seducing Dick Walker is a waste of time. As Hilda here, found out, it can be a pleasant waste of time for all concerned, but if you think he’s going to do what you want him to just because he’s been to bed with you, you are tres wide of the mark. My young friend is inclined to become most quickly disenchanted with strangers, and I think an aristocratic nymphomaniac would only confuse him.”

  Lilo stiffened, and was about to ask Gaston how he dared to call her a nymphomaniac. But she had a better sense of humor than most Germans of her class and was as curious as most women. So she snuggled closer and said, “The two of you have me convinced that Captain Gringo is a moody borderline case. Can anyone tell me why?”

  Gaston said, “Oh, Dick is one of the sanest men I have ever met. Nine out of ten men would have been driven completely insane by the raw treatment he received from his own countrymen. To his credit, it only made him a survivor. You see, he once had everything. He was an officer in the U.S. Cavalry, stationed in the West to keep an eye upon les Apache.”

  Lilo said, “That’s in his dossier. He’s a renegade who deserted the U.S. Army to become a soldier of fortune, right?”

  “Wrong. Dick Walker was an officer and a gentleman. The U.S. Army deserted him. Through a complicated misunderstanding he was court-martialed and about to be hanged, when he broke out of the guardhouse and escaped across the border.”

  “Is that where he met you?”

  “Out. I came to Mexico with the French Legion before either of you precious things were born. But let us not dwell on the misadventures of the Emperor Maximillian; it was most banal even when he was in power. To get back to Dick Walker, we met in a Mexican jail and were slated to face a firing squad together. We agreed this sounded most fatiguing, so the rest is history.”

  “How did he get the name, Captain Gringo?”

  “What else would Mexican rebels call a big blonde, blue-eyed moose? Besides, there is a reward on Dick in the States, dead or alive, and so he does not brute his real name about if it can be avoided.”

  Gaston drew the two girls closer, luxuriating in the sensual sandwich of which he found himself a part, and observed, “My friend is homesick and most bitter about the way he has been used by fate, and the scoundrels who keep hiring us down here. Sir Basil Hakim is hardly one of Dick’s favorite people, but the more I think about his offer the more I like it. Sir Basil must be desperate to offer such an honest, uncomplicated deal. The attempted seduction and suggestions of a double cross are probably as close to honesty as he’s capable of coming. I’ll talk it over with Dick and let you know. Will you be staying here with Hilda?”

  Lilo start
ed to reply with indignation. Then she considered what it would look like if this sardonic little man were to appear at her luxury hotel. So she said, “I guess so, if Hilda doesn’t mind.”

  Hilda said, “I don’t mind. It’s your turn to get on top.”

  “For God’s sake, Hilda, haven’t you had enough for one afternoon?”

  “There’s never enough for one afternoon. Are you coming back with Dick, Gaston?”

  Gaston sighed and said, “I may not be coming back at all. There’s only a fifty-fifty chance that Dick will go for the deal, and, if he does, you know he’s strictly business.”

  Patting Lilo’s rump for attention, he added, “You’d better write down all the details before I leave, and I’d better be going soon. I was to meet Dick right after La Siesta, and I’m already late.”

  Lilo sat up and reached for her purse on the carpet by the bed while Gaston admired the view. She said, “I have all the instructions here on paper.”

  Gaston sat up and said, “Bien. I believe I left my socks somewhere around here.”

  He dressed with practiced speed and left with the written instructions before Lilo had time to adjust to his abrupt change of pace. Like most soldiers of fortune, Gaston was a shifty target.

  As soon as they were alone again, Hilda said, “Well, I didn’t think it would be so simple. Why don’t we wash up before we try a little sixty-nine?”

  Lilo sat up in bed and said, “This is all very confusing. I’m supposed to be a very high-class adventuress, and I was sent to seduce Captain Gringo.”

  “I know. But relax. Gaston is doing your job for you, and Sir Basil will be satisfied even if you never meet Captain Gringo.”

  Lilo looked wistful and said, “After hearing the two of you talk, I’ll admit I was rather looking forward to meeting him. Since you obviously know both of them at first hand—”

  “Gaston’s good, but Dick is better.” Hilda grinned, adding, “He won’t come here, knowing we’re both spies out to tempt him. I know I’m being spiteful, but in a way I’m glad. I’m one up on you, Fraulein Von. You just got to sample half the team. I’ve had them both in my box.”

  “That was a bitchy thing to say,” sighed Lilo, wondering why she felt so unsatisfied all of a sudden. Her eyes swept over the rumpled bed sheets until they locked on the big pink dildo, peeking coyly out from under a pillow. She licked her lips and asked, “You say Captain Gringo is hung like that?”

  “Better. You want to try taking the bigger shaft this time?”

  “Well, as long as I have to wait here …”

  Chapter Two

  “No, nada, never, and negative!” Captain Gringo repeated as Gaston went over it a second time. They were seated at a metal table in front of a sidewalk cantina, and the tall blonde American was attracting curious stares from the passers-by. Even in quiet repose, Dick Walker stood out in a Latin American crowd. He stood well over six feet and his whipcord and whalebone body could have been sculpted by Rodin, who’d have doubtless substituted a fig leaf for the tight linen pants and thin cotton shirt.

  Captain Gringo’s .38 was less visible than the rest of his chest, tucked as it was in a shoulder holster under the open linen jacket he wore over the shirt. He usually tried to hide his blonde hair under a straw planter’s sombrero, but nobody was looking for them at the moment. Costa Rica was one of the few countries in Latin America with a stable government, and hence a safe vacation spot for soldiers of fortune without a contract. Captain Gringo didn’t want another contract at the moment. He still had some money from their last frantic job, and a date with a very nice-looking señorita, if ever the fucking sun went down.

  Gaston lounged across the table from him, eating peanuts and drinking cerveza as he observed, “It sounds like easy money, Dick. I checked it out with the grapevine this afternoon. The colony is an island just off the coast of British Honduras, and the Pantropic Sugar Trust owns it all. You might call it a company island. Any law out there will be working for our side.”

  The tall American growled, “That’s a switch. But Sir Basil has his grubby little paws on the strings, and when he plays puppet master, people tend to get killed.”

  “True, they do not call him the merchant of death because he is a noted philanthropist. But we’ll be working for Pantropic.”

  “Meaning a Goddamned bunch of Wall Street robber-barons.’’

  “What are you, a Fabian Socialist? Only half the stockholders are American. The other stock, and most of the power, is in British hands. My sources tell me the Princes of Wales has a piece of the action and, while His Highness is perhaps a fat womanizer, he is said to be a gentleman, non?”

  “Bullshit. He’s a buddy of Sir Basil’s and that makes him a shit in my book! He may talk a little fancier, but ruthless fat men scare me.”

  Gaston nodded at the papers on the table between them, and said, “You read the offer. It seems open and above board to me. Pantropic is as ruthless as any other international company. But they have a good credit rating. I just spoke to some associates who once cleaned out some natives for Pantropic. They say they got paid, and I can vouch for them still being alive.”

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “There has to be a catch. Nobody is about to pay that kind of money for a simple job. Any half-ass pro could whip up there and train the company guards like they want us to. Why us, and why does Hakim expect them to top his offer with even more money?”

  Gaston said, “I told you they were in some kind of a flap about the native rebels. The Honduran guards keep running away from them. They seem to think the rebels have enlisted zombies and …”

  “Jesus H. Christ, Gaston! There’s no such thing as a zombie. And even if there was, what would a zombie be doing off the Mosquito Coast? I thought that zombie shit was a Haitian superstition?”

  Gaston nodded and said, “It is. We French had certain dealings with Voodoo when we owned Haiti. It was all before my time, but I have heard strange tales from older legionnaires. As to what zombies might or might not be doing off Honduras, the British imported some West Indian Blacks to Honduras a while back. It didn’t work out too well. It is one thing to work a Negro where he can’t avoid one’s lash. Given a jungle to hide out in—”

  “I know about the Maroons in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, and those Dutch slaves who ran into the bush of Surinam. Are these rebels we’re talking about Blacks?”

  “Some would seem to be. Others are the usual mestizos of the Mosquito Coast. For some reason they resent the Pantropic Sugar Trust taking over their island. Blacks and mestizos have joined forces to resist progress.”

  Captain Gringo frowned thoughtfully and said, “Maybe we should join the other side then. The rebels sound like my kind of crowd.”

  Gaston shook his head and said, “Mais non, I checked that out, too. The rebels are not your usual idealists. Before the sugar trust took over the island and started to clear it, it had a most evil reputation among the mainland peones. The people squatting in the jungle out there were known as pirates, raiders — even cannibals.”

  The tall American snorted in disbelief and said, “Oh shit, first zombies and now cannibals! Don’t tell me you buy any of that, Gaston.”

  Gaston shrugged and said, “Cannibals are not as unreasonable as zombies, when one considers the Black Caribs have never been completely cleaned out along the Mosquito Coast. As to zombies, you read the reports. How would you account for those machine gun positions being overrun by natives with machetes, Dick?”

  Professionally interested despite himself, Captain Gringo shrugged and replied, “Hell, there are easier answers than black magic. As a soldier you know the limitations of any weapon. Out in Arizona our army was confused as hell when the Apache lived through cannon fire a couple of times. It never occurred to headquarters that Indians might have sense enough to dig foxholes.”

  “These attacking natives walked right through machine gunfire, Dick.”

  “So what? The gunners were probably po
orly-trained and like most greenhorns, they thought a Maxim cuts a solid swathe through the air. A machine gun throws six hundred rounds a minute, right?”

  “If you say so. A lot of lead, at any rate.”

  “Back up, and think again. If you sweep the muzzle rapidly from side to side the bullets fan out three or four feet apart. More, if you panic and start hozing wildly. A man is only about a foot wide. Do you want me to draw you a picture?”

  Gaston mused, “Hmm, I can see how people could walk between the bullets, although I think it would make most men tres nervous. The reports say some of the zombies, or whatever, got up again after being shot.”

  “All right. A guy’s hopped up and charging. A stray round pinks him and puts him on the ground with a flesh wound. He’s in a battle frenzy, and since he’s not really hurt, he recovers to press the attack. Big deal. These rebels sound like highly-motivated fighters, or fanatics. I guarantee that none of them kept moving with a solid round in the vitals. That zombie shit was the excuse the company guards gave for punking out, period. They ran into better fighters and don’t want to admit it. People used to tell me stories about Apache being hard to kill. I found they died just like the rest of us when you shot them right.”

  He took a sip of his own cerveza before he added, “Officers and men who get whipped never admit they were whipped by ordinary men. That would make them less than ordinary and the truth hurts. Good fighters always get the reputation of being mad monsters ordinary weapons can’t stop.”

  “A machine gun is an ordinary weapon, Dick?”

  “It’s just a gun that fires faster than usual. It’s as deadly as the man using it. No more. No less. You can’t stop a man with a Krupp siege gun — if you aim it at the wrong position.”

  Gaston brightened and said, “Bien, in that case this deal is found money. We simply have to run up there and show them how to aim a machine gun properly, non?”

  “Forget it. The last time Sir Basil hired us to pull his chestnuts out of the fire he neglected to tell us they were bombs with the fuses burning.”