Blood Runner Page 4

  Hakim said, “Watch the brush on this side. I’m going forward to cover the other side from the gap between the cars.”

  “Are we talking about banditos?”

  “As they say down here, ¿quien sabe? It’s getting dark, there’s plenty of cover, and we’re miles from any constabulary post.”

  Hakim left. Captain Gringo found himself alone with the sleeping Marie and the silent redhead, Jenny, who hadn’t said a word since he’d met her.

  The tall American smiled and said, “I think he means it. If I open up with this scattergun, I won’t have to tell you to hit the floor, will I?”

  The redhead nodded without answering. But as he rested the barrel of the Browning on the wooden window-sill, she licked her lips and asked, “Are you on the run, Richards?”

  “Come again?”

  “Let’s not screw around. You know what I am and I’ve met you before. Sometimes you’ve been shorter and uglier, but I’ve met you in a dozen mining camps and a couple of big cities. Once your name was Marcel and you hid out with me in Paris for a month. It’s something about the eyes, I think. You don’t look like you’re very interested in anything, but the eyes don’t miss a thing. He knows it, too.”

  “Who, Sir Basil? Who is he, Jenny, and what is it he’s supposed to know?”

  “Hey, don’t bullshit a lady who lives by her wits, handsome. You’re overdoing the innocent act. Every knock-around guy in this part of the world knows Basil Hakim. That’s why he was so surprised when you defied him. That part about forgiving you was bullshit, too. Basil is not the forgiving type.”

  “You mean he’d knock off a man for sitting next to him on a train?”

  “He doesn’t do it himself. He hires people. He has a dozen men up the track a ways who’d kill you if Basil said you fatigued him. That’s how he has people killed. He says they fatigue him.”

  “What is this, Jenny, a test?”

  “Test? What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been around this block before. The first time it was a cute senorita in Nuevo Laredo. She asked me if I’d save her from a brutal boyfriend and I was young. They damn near kicked the shit out of me when she told them I was after the guy.”

  Jenny nodded and said, “Yeah, you’ve been running a while. Do you want a job? I mean a job that includes a Maxim gun, Captain Gringo?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment. Then he smiled crookedly and said, “I might have known he’d have a silent partner. I was told about Old Hakim by British Intelligence. Who told you about me?”

  “You sort of stand out in a crowd, in this neck of the woods. We’d heard you were in Panama. Once a big blond moose bulled his way in on us with a riot gun the rest just fell into place.”

  “What was that crap about Hakim wanting to have me killed?”

  “Like you said, a test. There are hired guns and there are hired guns. If you’d been dumb enough, my next move would have been to hire you to kill Sir Basil. I usually say he’s holding me as his white slave and I’d do anything to be free of his lecherous embrace.”

  “Kee-rist! Has anyone ever bought that old story?”

  “You’d be surprised. You have a nice little ball of fluff, there, but I’m not bad, myself, and a few hairpins have decided to rescue me by double-crossing the boss.”

  “Don’t tell me who they were and I won’t guess where they’re buried.”

  Jenny laughed and rapped on the inner glass of the compartment with her ring. Sir Hakim came in and she said, “We’re among friends, Basil. He’s as cool as they say he is.”

  Hakim resumed his seat, gun in his lap, and said, “I see the young lady is asleep. Is she in with you, Captain Gringo?”

  “No, and let’s talk about it when she gets off. I don’t like to toss off names so casually.”

  Jenny peered thoughtfully at the French girl and said, “Right. I’d swear she’s really sleeping, but if you don’t know her—”

  Then Marie and everyone else was wide-eyed and bolt upright as Sir Basil yelled, “Zounds!” and shoved the muzzle of his Mauser out the window as he fired!

  Captain Gringo shoved the dazed and disoriented Marie away from him as he swung his Browning out the other open window and squeezed off a round at a mounted bandit right outside. The rider blew out of his wooden saddle as Sir Basil hem-stitched another, horse and all, with a burst of machine-pistol fire.

  Captain Gringo pumped another round in the chamber, but it was over as it had started. The train picked up speed with a wail of its whistle as, outside, the empty brush whipped by in the gloaming orange of a Pacific sunset.

  A confused-looking conductor came to the door and looked in, asking in Spanish if anyone had been hit. Jenny shoved Marie off her own recumbent curves and as the girls got back on the seats Sir Basil said, “We are quite safe. But we got two of them.”

  The conductor grinned and said, “I know. I saw them fall from the car behind. Is it possible all that, shooting came from two men?”

  “We bring the blessings of modern science to this benighted part of the globe. You know who I am. The gentleman with the shotgun is my young protégé, Sir Richard.”

  The conductor told them they’d be arriving in a few minutes in Panama City and left to see if any other passengers had been hurt by the terribly mistaken bandits.

  As they slowed for the outskirts of town, Sir Basil took his machine pistol apart and started putting it away, saying, “You’ll be staying with us at my villa, ah, Sir Richard. The few hotels in town are a bit grim.”

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “Thanks, but I have friends in Panama City. I’ll chance the hotels.”

  “You won’t be comfortable. I thought you were working for me, now.”

  “Hardly. I said we’d talk about it later.”

  Sir Basil shot a knowing look at the French widow and nodded, saying, “But of course. Our paths will surely cross again in such a small community. May I ask if Madame has a place to stay in the city? We have scads of room at my villa.”

  Marie dimpled prettily but said, “M’sieu is most kind, but I have engaged my own quarters in advance.”

  Further conversation died away as the train pulled into the station at the end of the line. Captain Gringo picked up Marie’s bag and his shotgun, wishing there was a less interesting way to appear on the platform, but not ready to abandon his weapon just yet. He led the way as the four of them moved to the vestibule and down the steps.

  As he was helping Marie down, something cold and hard as the steel barrel of a pistol figured to be nudged his spine, between the shoulder blades, and a friendly enough voice said, “If you move you die, Captain Gringo!”

  He froze and sighed, “shit” as Marie stared wide-eyed at the man in uniform holding a revolver to her escort’s back. Another soldier stood a few feet away, with a second gun trained on the tall American they’d obviously been waiting for.

  Sir Basil and Jenny came down and the dapper little man snapped, “What is the meaning of this, sergeant?”

  “This man is a wanted criminal, Don Hakim.”

  “Ah, you know who I am? Good. Unhand Sir Richard at once.”

  “But Don Hakim, this man is the notorious revolutionary, Captain Gringo! They wired us about him from Colon.”

  “What in the devil are you jabbering about, sergeant? This man works for me!”

  “You have hired Captain Gringo, Don Hakim?”

  “By God, I’ll hire anyone I wish to, but I’ve never heard of your asinine Captain Gringo. You’re threatening the very liver and lights of my devoted valet, Richard. I’ve had him since he was a pup.”

  “But Don Hakim, the description they sent us—”

  “Zounds, could you really be as stupid as you seem? My valet is tall and blond. What of it? My secretary, here, has red hair. Does that make her the late Queen Elizabeth of England? Or could I be Napoleon because I am shorter than either?”

  “But Don Hakim, they say he broke jail and took a Browning ri
ot gun, and he was wearing an English shirt, and—”

  “What is your full name and serial number, sergeant? You’re becoming most fatiguing and I want to be home in time for dinner. Some rather important guests, officers of your Army, will be very disappointed if we arrive late.”

  “I understand, Don Hakim. If this caballero would simply come with us to explain a few small matters—”

  “Damn your small matters. I need him to help me with my dinner jacket and studs. He has a shotgun because I gave one to him! If you ask the train crew, they’ll tell you why. We had to defend our very lives against your perishing bandits because you troopers spend your time annoying travelers instead of patrolling the country as you should.”

  Chapter Four

  As the one holding the gun on Captain Gringo hesitated, Sir Basil pointed to the other and said, “Be a good fellow and hail us a hansom cab.” Then he turned to Marie and said, “Madame will dine with us, of course. Then I’ll have my man, here, run you home in my own carriage.”

  Marie’s expression was fortunately hidden by her veil in the evening light as she didn’t answer.

  Captain Gringo felt the muzzle move away from his spine as the sergeant muttered, “I shall have to report all this to my superiors, Don Hakim. But if you assume all responsibility—”

  “Good, I see your comrade is fetching us a cab. Shall we be on our way, my young friends?”

  As Captain Gringo took Marie’s arm, she murmured, “I do so wish someone would tell me what is going on.”

  He said, “Let’s get out of here. I’ll tell you later.”

  “You know what is happening, Dick?”

  “Not really. It’s been a very confusing day. Just play along a few minutes more. I promise you’re not being kidnaped.”

  “I hope you’re right. Father Jose said you looked like you could be trusted, but I must say you are most strange. Why did you not tell me you knew Sir Basil and were working for him?”

  “I didn’t know it until just now.”

  Sir Basil had lied about having dinner guests. The four of them dined alone on a terrace overlooking the phosphorescent breakers at the base of the cliff his imposing albeit rented villa was poised on. The villa was staffed with silent, rather spooky servants the strange little man must have sent on ahead. They were dark enough to be Latin Americans, but when Sir Basil spoke to them it was in an odd, guttural language Captain Gringo had never heard before. Marie confided in a whispered aside that she thought they were either Bedouins or Greek pirates. She didn’t speak either language, so they decided the servants could be just as easily gypsies or Turks.

  The food was delicious, but, like the staff who’d prepared it, totally unfamiliar fare. The main course was some sort of meat, and the wine was pronounced a good Bordeaux by the French girl.

  Since Marie was not privy to Captain Gringo’s real identity, Sir Basil made no further reference to employment, and Jenny, as usual, was silent most of the time. The American wondered, wryly, if he’d catch Jenny moving her lips when Sir Basil spoke.

  Sir Basil made up for his companion’s silence by pattering on about the places he’d been and the things he’d done, while Captain Gringo tried to decide how much of it was bullshit.

  The trouble with clichés was that they were mostly true, which is how they got to be clichés, and occasionally wrong, which could get you confused. Captain Gringo knew that nine out of ten men who claimed to be vaguely sinister men of the world were harmless clowns. But he’d just seen this little man machine-gun a horse and rider, and British Intelligence had him down as dangerous indeed.

  It was enough to destroy one’s faith in the folk wisdom of the knock-around male. Any soldier, seaman, hobo, or cowboy would have put Sir Basil down as a flighty little dude who looked like a rug merchant and talked like a sissy Englishman. Perhaps that was one of the secrets of his success?

  In his Army days, Captain Gringo had taken a course in the questioning of enemy prisoners. They’d told him there was one kind of prisoner neither torture nor trick questioning could crack. The strong, silent type, once he broke, told all. The weak-willed, frightened man told all before you asked him. But the despair of every intelligence officer was the born bullshit artist—the man who just talked and talked and never got around to saying anything important.

  Marie kept saying she had to get to her own rented rooms, and Captain Gringo kept insisting he intended to escort her. But Sir Basil just went on talking about the chestnut trees in Paris, the one decent club in London, and a place near the Great Pyramids where they used mummy dust to season broiled lamb.

  Jenny finally spoke up to point out the reasons they should stay at least for after-dinner brandy. She said, “The powers-that-be have to tell the local police the heat is off. One of the staff has gone to fetch more suitable duds for, ah, Richard.”

  Sir Basil chuckled and observed, “I have a vast but, alas, more diminutive wardrobe. All the foreigners in Panama City seem to wear white linen suits, cut English, with a Yankee planter’s hat. One has to have mestizo features to dress like a pauper down here without drawing curious glances.”

  Marie Chambrun said, “I have the feeling the three of you are trying to keep something from me. First that odd conversation at the railway station, and now this strange talk about attention and the police.”

  Neither Sir Basil nor the redhead answered. Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “You may as well know, Marie. My name is Dick Walker. I got him a jam in the U. S. Army and had to run for my life. I made it down to Mexico and through no fault of my own, got mixed up in a revolution against the Diaz dictatorship. My side lost. I made it out one jump ahead of Los Rurales and they put out a reward on me. Just before I met you, I’d busted out of a Panamanian jail. That’s the whole story.”

  The French girl looked puzzled. Then she asked, “Is that all? Heavens, I thought you were some sort of criminal!”

  Sir Basil laughed and asked, “Madame is aware of the political realities in this part of the world?”

  Marie said, “But of course. Colombia is trying to rob me of my widow’s mite. I thought for a moment I might have fallen among thieves, but if all you people want to do is overthrow the government, count me in, as les Americains put it.”

  This time Captain Gringo joined in the laughter as Sir Basil asked, “Does Madame know how to fire a machine gun or perhaps a field piece?”

  Marie looked determined as well as pretty as she said, “One can learn, non?”

  Hakim said, “I’ll let you know if we have any openings for lovely young women. Meanwhile, I am not without influence with the government we still have, here. If Madame will permit, I shall have one of my legal staff call on her in the morning. If she will give him a full accounting of the monies she feels due her, I’m sure certain judges will see reason and Madame will no doubt return to France a modestly wealthy woman.”

  “M’sieu is most kind, but I already have a lawyer.”

  “Ah, but there are lawyers and then there are lawyers, Madame. I have no doubt the one you made arrangements with is a fine person. I have always found it better to hire crooks. When in Rome and all that rot, what?”

  “Well, the lawyer I have says we don’t have a very strong case.”

  “Of course not. Simple Justice is not only blind, she’s also not tough enough for the modern world. Consider the matter settled. After we have sipped our brandy I’ll have Madame escorted to her’ home by my servants and in the morning—”

  “Just a minute,” Captain Gringo protested. “I said I was going to see Marie safely to her door.”

  “Really, Richard, you are beginning to bore me with this meaningless gallantry. We’ve agreed it’s not safe for you to be seen on the streets until I’ve arranged some immunity for you. What’s the matter with you? Don’t you trust my servants?”

  “I don’t know them. I don’t know you that well, either.”

  “Ah, yes, I forgot to tell you it was my plan for Madame to awaken in
the hold of a tramp steamer bound for Hong Kong and a fate worse than death. Really, Richard, you are suspicious beyond common sense.”

  “I know I am. It’s one of the reasons I’m still alive. I told you I was grateful for your fast footwork at the railroad station. I said I’d consider working for you. But I’m going to take Marie home. Then I’m going to look up friends I have here in Panama City. I have to get a handle on the situation here before I commit myself to anything or anybody.”

  Sir Basil sighed and glanced at Jenny. He said, “I suppose we’ll have to convince him we can be trusted. Don’t you agree?”

  The redhead nodded and put her hand to her mouth as if covering a polite yawn.

  The red velvet wall hangings behind Captain Gringo parted and a brawny brown arm came down hard with a sandbag. There was a sickening thud, and the tall American slumped forward, spilling his brandy on the floor. The servant who’d sapped him dropped the sandbag and grabbed the unconscious man’s shoulders before he could roll off the chair and bruise himself further.

  Marie Chambrun leaped to her feet, her own brandy snifter shattering near her toes as another pair of hands materialized to immobilize her in place with gentle albeit no-nonsense firmness.

  Sir Basil said, “Please don’t be alarmed, Madame. We did it for his own good.”

  He barked a command in his own guttural language, and the servant who’d knocked Captain Gringo out picked him up and carried him from the room as the one holding Marie lowered her firmly to her seat and let go.

  Marie saw that Jenny was following the one with her unconscious escort and Marie instinctively crossed her legs as she stared in dismay at the dapper little Hakim. Sir Basil explained, “When he comes to his senses, my servants will have seen you safely home. There will be a fresh change of clothing, cut to his measure. He will be bound hand and foot and completely in our power, at first. Then we shall release him and allow him to do anything or go anywhere he pleases. If that does not convince him I am his friend, I suppose we’ll simply have to become enemies.”