Death in High Places (A Renegade Western Book 7) Read online

  “I have been fighting, yes. My cover has been blown. The U.S. Consulate knows I’m here in Limón. So we don’t have much time. I’m giving you back your front money. I’ll tell you where you can pick up the guns. But the deal is off. You and your friends are going to have to manage without Gaston and me.”

  Consuela ignored the money as she stared at him in horror and gasped, “But you promised! You were paid!”

  “You’re not listening, doll. I just told you we’ve been spotted! Gaston and I just came from the U.S. Consulate. He’s packing our gear and we’re going somewhere else, muy pronto. I know you paid us to make the run with the guns. That’s why I’m giving what’s left back to you. We’re losing on the deal, but the hell. We got the guns this far. We’re letting you have the boat. What more do you want, an egg in your beer?”

  She started to cry. He put the money on the end table under the lamp and put an arm around her shoulder as he said, “Cut it out. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “Who is going to deliver the arms, now?” she sobbed, adding, “Our comrades on the island are desperate. That terrible Dutch mercenary, General Weyler, is not like the Spanish we are used for to fight with. He has been rounding up suspected patriots and putting them in something he calls a concentration camp. Jose Marti is in hiding. Gomez, Garcia, Iniguez are ready for to move, but they need guns. Antonio Maceo is being hunted in the Orientals by Weyler’s hired gunmen. What is to happen to all those brave men if you desert us, now?”

  “Damn it, I’m not deserting, I’ve been drafted, I think. You’re going to have to get somebody else to take my schooner into the Bay of Pigs. It’s no big deal. The guns are aboard and the fuel tanks are full. You must have somebody who knows where Cuba is, for Chrissake!”

  “You want more money, eh? Very well, I will try for to get you more money, Deek.”

  He shook his head. “There isn’t that much money. Can’t you get it through your pretty little head that I’m hotter than a two-dollar pistol? Hell, you’d have a better chance of running those guns than I would if I were spotted anywhere near the waterfront. I was picked up earlier tonight by the Costa Rican police. Uncle Sam pulled strings to get me released into their custody. There can’t be a half-ass spy in Limón who isn’t watching and waiting for my next move right now. So, I’ve given you the money, I’m giving you the shipment, and now I’ve got to give you the air. Maybe another time,” he added as he started to rise.

  But Consuela threw her arms around his hips and buried her head in his lap, pleading, “No, don’t go! I will do anything, anything you wish, if only you will stay and help us.”

  He was suddenly aware that his dawning erection was aimed directly into her ear as she pressed her head against his fly. He couldn’t imagine what else she might have thought it was as she snuggled closer, but he grinned as he remembered the old telephone joke. He said, “I don’t know if you want to hear me coming, but I really must be going, doll.”

  He gently tried to disentangle himself as he moved away from the bed, but she hung on like a football tackle, blubbering wetly against his fly. He muttered, “Jesus Christ, I gotta walk through a lobby and people are going to think I had an accident.”

  He bent and slid her up his front as she maintained her grip around him. Her kimono fell open as he did so. So by the time they were standing toe to toe, there was nothing but his own shirt and pants between them. He started to say something. She kissed him full on the lips, bawling like a baby. He kissed back, partly “to comfort her and partly because it felt so nice. She didn’t resist as he slid his hands inside her open kimono to brace her with a hand on each naked buttock. Still, he said, “This is cruelty to animals, but it won’t work, Consuela.”

  “Don’t you want me, Deek?”

  “That’s a foolish question for a lady to ask a man wearing thin pants, kitten. But if you’re doing this to keep me running guns to Cuba, it’s only fair to warn you, I can’t.”

  She moved her pelvis experimentally and asked huskily, “You can’t, or you won’t, me toro?”

  “Both. You’re just making this hard for both of us.”

  She moved again and purred, “Oh, so I notice. Take off your clothes, me toro. We shall talk about business later, eh?”

  “Well, it’s not going to do you any good, but if you want to be bad …” he muttered, lowering her to the bed as he fumbled for his buttons. He knew she was going to be sore as hell about this later, but a guy was only human and he’d never suspected the rather prim little aristocrat of having such a low boiling point.

  As he kicked off his pants he asked, “What about the others in your group?”

  “Let them find their own lovers. The door is locked and this is my private room, in any case.”

  He reached across her, switched off the light, and mounted her. Her feet as well as his were on the floor, her pelvis perched on the edge of the mattress. As he entered her, she gasped, “Oh, Madre de Dios!”

  “Am I hurting you?”

  “Si, divinely. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop!”

  So he didn’t. That was a funny thing about women. It was the quiet little ones like this that surprised a guy. Many a foulmouthed bar-pickup tended to go all teary and reluctant when you took them up on their teasing. The ones who really liked it tended to blush when you first met them. He supposed it was because they thought more about old-fashioned rutting than the ones who liked to talk about it in mixed company.

  He felt better, now that he could tell she was no virgin giving her all for the cause. He felt a little stupid, too. He’d been treating Consuela with kid gloves, and now that he’d found out she was an experienced woman who loved it, there wasn’t time to really enjoy her fully. She wrapped her tiny but strong limbs around him and clung to him like a limpet as he moved them farther up on the bed to do it right. It was not at all necessary for her to tell him she was having an orgasm as he got a pillow under her little rollicking rump and started to let her have it all the way. Her contractions said more to him than words could have as he hissed, “Jeeeezus!” and exploded inside her.

  She purred, “Oh, I felt that, querido! Don’t take it out.”

  He answered, “Who’d do a dumb thing like that?” as she pulsated on his momentarily sated shaft. He knew it would take any normal man at least a month to get all he wanted out of Consuela, and even when she started bitching at him about not having a steady job, it wouldn’t really be work to do this every night for – oh, maybe another month or so. He started moving again, only too aware that he had to get as much as he could in the bittersweet here and now, God damn it.

  “Let me get on top,” she said, and it seemed common courtesy to comply. He rolled over, spread-eagled, as Consuela wiped herself on the end of the sheet and said, “I am glad you insisted, querido. I don’t care if you think I am forward. You have been wanting this, like me, no?”

  He grinned and said, “That’s for sure. I guess that Castilian lisp put me off the scent. I thought you were … you know.”

  “Pooh! How did you think the queens of Spain produced heirs – by lighting a candle in church?”

  He frowned and said, “Hey, now you’re starting to talk dirty! What’s this heirs shit?”

  “Don’t worry, querido, I have no more desire than yourself to produce little gringo bastards. I am a woman of education as well as good taste.” She giggled, took his shaft between her moist lips, and added, “Ah, that does taste good. Are you shocked by, um, variety, querido?”

  As a matter of fact, when she’d said she wanted to get on top, he’d had a more missionary position in mind, but who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth? And as she got into a sixty-nine position, what he found himself looking at wasn’t bad, if you liked them blond all over. She was immaculately clean, save for a little recent honest sweat and wiped-away sexual flavoring. So as she started swallowing him alive, he did his best to return the favor, slipping two fingers in to keep her from feeling deprived as he tongued her exc
ited and somewhat oversized clit. She moved her hips from side to side in the semidarkness and moaned for more, so he put all four fingers in and started to pound her taut opening with his knuckles as she wildly moved to accept his manual abuse. He felt himself coming again and wondered if she wanted him to warn her that it was time to switch positions, or if they were going to switch at all. Then she shoved back hard and he felt his whole hand, save for the thumb, inside her as she clamped down in a series of orgasmic convulsions, and then he was exploding with a moan of his own inside her mouth, or, to be more accurate, deep in her throat.

  He removed his knuckles with a loud sucking pop and moaned, “Jesus, save some for the real thing! Where in the hell did you … never mind, I don’t think I want to know.”

  Consuela laughed and rose to switch ends as she said, “I’ll bet you thought I was a silly schoolgirl, no?”

  “Well, I didn’t take you for a cannibal! What the hell are you trying to do now?”

  “You said you wanted for to fuck, no?”

  “Yeah, but you’re clawing hell out of my … Aw, come on, you have to be kidding?”

  “You are bigger than most men,” she said judiciously as she gave up and rolled onto her back at his side. She reached for a pillow, braced it under her hips and directed, “You get on top and let me see if we can do it that way, no?”

  He rose unsteadily and positioned himself above her as she reached down between them. He said, “Listen, while we’re playing true confessions, I’ve tried this a couple of times and it sounds like fun, but it won’t—”

  And then she had enveloped his scrotum as well as his questing shaft and he gasped, “Kee-rist!”

  “You like?” she asked, as she started moving up to meet him. He didn’t answer. He honestly didn’t know. It felt wild as hell to be in balls and all, but where in hell was she taking it all? His semi-limp shaft seemed to be stubbing its toe and bending uncomfortably as he hit bottom, and her trained elastic opening felt weird as well as wonderful, gripping the base of his entire genital system. If she really clamped down hard with his poor testicles inside, it would … what?

  The crazy idea seemed more piquant than really dangerous and he felt himself responding and growing. The head was thrust almost brutally into some odd fold of the little blond’s capacious interior and he eased back. “I don’t want to ruin you. This could get dangerous, honey!”

  “Bah, you men are all alike when it comes to boasting about your silly little things. Don’t you know you can’t hurt a woman that way?”

  “If you say so, doll. Some of you sure carry on like we’re killing you, sometimes.”

  “That’s just flirting. How can you hurt any normal woman with what nature gave you for to do it with, eh? Don’t you know we’re designed to pass a baby’s head through the same places?”

  He grimaced. Her anatomy was accurate, but it sure put a damper on romance. This had all happened so fast, and he didn’t know much about Consuela, but there had to be something wrong with her plumbing. She’d started out tight enough. But as she warmed up, she could never fill whatever need she felt. She couldn’t seem to make up her mind if she was screwing him or having him!

  He moved back into a more normal position and, to his relief, she was able to* contract well enough to satisfy him that way. She moved, in fact, like she liked it no matter how they did it. But, as if to answer his unspoken question, she suddenly said, “I was raped and had a baby when I was twelve.”

  He said, “I’m sorry to hear that,” knowing it was a stupid thing to say.

  She said, “That is why I do not have for to worry about getting in trouble. The doctors said I could never have another baby now. The man who mistreated me did something bad to me inside. The baby was born dead. I can never have another. But is it not fun to try?”

  He said, “I guess so. I’m still not going to run those guns to Cuba.”

  Consuela laughed and said, “I know. But was it not most fun for me to try and change your mind? I had been making most wicked plans for to seduce you on your boat. When you said we were not going, I became most distraught, eh?”

  “That’s what you call it, huh?” he chuckled, noticing she was getting taut indeed as they got used to less acrobatic lovemaking. He said, “I can’t stay much longer. But before I go, I’ve been wondering if you’d help me out with a really unusual idea I thought up on the way over.”

  She teased her nipples back and forth across his chest as she replied, “But of course, querido. What else is there that we have not tried? Would you like for to put it in the wrong way before you leave?”

  He said, “Not just now. Maybe on the way out. You see, I need a hair job.”

  Consuela blinked and repeated, “Hair job? What is this hair job? Is she anything like a blow job?”

  “No, we’ve covered that, and I’ll never forget you. I couldn’t help noticing, as we were, uh, getting acquainted, that you sort of, well, touch up your hair.”

  She stiffened in his arms, deeply hurt; for while she obviously didn’t mind friendly gynaecology, some things are personal to any woman. Consuela countered, “Are you saying I am not really a blond?”

  “Heaven forfend! I’ve been examining your roots. But, fess up, you do touch it up just a little, right?”

  “Well, perhaps a few highlights for to even the color. It is any woman’s right for to improve on nature, no?”

  He patted her fondly and said, “Improvement is impossible. But if you have any peroxide, I’d like you to bleach my hair.”

  Consuela laughed incredulously and said, “But for why, Deek? You are already most blond!”

  “I know. But I’m a sort of dark dishwater blond and a lot of guys have a description of me. I tried looking Latin once. It was a total disaster. I was wondering if you could bleach me almost white-headed. They’ll be expecting an Anglo. I might throw them off if I show up looking like a Swede.”

  Consuela said, “That is even crazier than making love in the Greek manner. I will do it. It sounds like fun.”

  And so they went in the bathroom, she got out her ammonia and peroxide, and as he sat on the commode with his head over the sink, she bleached his hair the color of sun-faded manila rope. They both got splashed and laughed a lot and while he was waiting for the bleach to set, he bent her over the sink, lathered her derriere with soap, and abused her outrageously. She seemed sincerely sorry to see him go, after they’d come a few more times.

  Chapter Three

  Gaston was not amused. As Captain Gringo removed his hat in the rooms the Frenchman had rented them for the rest of the night, Gaston said, “Species of maniacs! What have you done to your hair, mon vieux?”

  Captain Gringo said, “I didn’t do anything to it. It was done. The Cubans are being good sports about our dropping out of this season’s revolution. I got Consuela to bleach it for me as a disguise.”

  “Merde alors! You call that a disguise? You look like a homosexual who fell into the coils of a most ordinary beautician who specializes in very inexpensive ladies of the evening!”

  “I know. She said she was afraid we were overdoing it. Anybody seeing us off, from behind a tree, is going to report me as a traffic-stopping towhead, right?”

  Gaston put a finger to his nose and said, “Ah, you had me worried. I glimpse method in your madness after all. You say farewell to the Cubans and the other Americans in that outrageous disguise. Then, before we arrive anywhere important, you become … what? Purple would be a great improvement, hein?”

  Captain Gringo said, “I’m going to have it redone back to its natural color, of course. That’s the last shade anybody ought to be expecting. I told Consuela I’m hoping to pass myself off as a Swede or something. Naturally, I’ll be traveling as an American engineer. The woods down here are full of them, with the canal and other public works either being built or surveyed.”

  Gaston nodded and said, “Bien. I shall revert to my usual nondescript vaguely Latin self. Perhaps an Italian for a ch
ange of pace. Now that we have that settled, where are we planning to go?”

  Captain Gringo blinked in surprise and said, “Hell, Colombia, eventually. We’d better pass through a few customs checks to build a cover story, but—”

  “Sacré, are you mad?” Gaston cut in. “Why on earth would we want to go to Colombia? Don’t you know that by now at least a dozen spies will have alerted Colombia to the U.S. State Department’s droll scheme?”

  Captain Gringo nodded. “I said we’d better build some cover, first. Aside from Consuela’s Cuban group gossiping about our new mystery assignment, at least one of those clowns at the consulate has to be sleeping with a spy. Colombia knows Uncle Sam is pissed off about the way she’s been trying to hold him up on his pet canal project. So they have to be keeping an eye on every known U.S. agent in these parts.”

  Gaston took out his own .38 and began to clean it nervously as he muttered, “Merde. I am surrounded by insanity. Dick, my child, we have the front money from the Americans. From this point on, the whole thing just gets trés tedious. Why do we not, as you say, take the money and run?”

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “You keep saying that. I don’t. Leaving business ethics aside, it’s a dumb idea. It’s not smart for any soldier of fortune to get the reputation he can’t be trusted. It’s even dumber to get that reputation with the U.S. State Department, down here in Banana Land.”

  “Merde! What difference does it make what they think of us back in the States? They have been trying to hang you for some time, non?”

  Captain Gringo opened a trunk to rummage for his own spare .38. “Jesus, don’t you ever pay attention? They had me, Gaston. Those guys at the consulate could have shipped me back home in irons, but it’s like the man said, they don’t owe other government agencies. They have their own job to do down here. Repeat: down here.”

  “Bien, and you agreed, and they turned you loose with money and a license to destroy property. But what could the U.S. State Department do to you in Surinam or Honduras, hein?”