Macumba Killer Read online

  Captain Gringo said, “He’d better not. Let him find his own girl.”

  “I don’t think there were any others traveling alone on the passenger list, darling.”

  That was another slip, but he didn’t comment as he took the cigar back, hoping he was wrong; Captain Gringo had an ear for accents and he knew her brogue was Ulster even though she claimed to be from the Black Irish southern counties. But what the hell, she was a great lay and he could be getting paranoid. There were plenty of Catholic rebels even in loyal Ulster, and while it seemed odd that an innocent traveling nurse had been going over the passenger list with the purser, it wasn’t proof of anything but advanced female curiosity. If Sir Basil did have another agent checking up on them he owed the old bastard a hearty thanks. Since she’d have nothing to report to her boss, if he was her boss, why not just enjoy it?

  The ship rose on another swell and dropped alarmingly as Mab stiffened in the dark and clung to him. The bunk under them tingled as if a giant dentist’s drill was boring through the hull, and she gasped, “Oh my eyebrow! What was that?”

  He patted her soothingly and said, “We just scraped bottom, I think. Things are looking up. I don’t think we could sink far enough to matter in this shoal water.”

  Privately, he was more worried than he let on. He knew the seas would pound this bucket of ‘bolts to bits in no time if they really grounded. But there was no sense in both of them sweating it out.

  His calm tone seemed to comfort her, and more to soothe her than because he really cared, he changed the subject by saying, “You must have come across some West Indians down in Panama, right?”

  “I did. There’s a mess of them working on the new canal. The poor creatures have been dying like flies, too. Some say Negroes are used to Yellow jack, but the ones I was caring for in the company infirmary died just as often as anyone else. It’s a disgusting way to die, for anyone. Its Spanish name, Vomito Negro, fits it better than the graveyard whistle of Yellow jack.”

  “I know. I’ve had it.”

  “Have you now? Well, that’s one thing you’ll never have to worry about again. Now you’d be immune, but sixty percent of them that gets it never recover. I’ve had my bout with Yellow jack, and as you see I’m still here. They say there’s no fever where we’re going, if we can only get there without drowning.”

  He passed her the smoke and said, “Let’s get back to those West Indians in Panama. Did any of them ever talk to you about zombies?”

  “Och, of course. Dreadful superstitious they was. I remember them beating Voodoo drums every time we had one dying on us.”

  She inhaled, let it out, and added, “In God’s truth, the medicine we had for Yellow jack wasn’t much better. Nobody really knows what causes the damned fever.”

  “Did any of those Voodoo guys claim they could bring a dead man back to life, Mab?”

  She thought before she said, “No. That zombie stuff is like the Hindu rope trick. Everybody knows somebody who’s seen it, but they haven’t seen it themselves.”

  “How do you feel about the notion, as a nurse?”

  “Och, I think it would be marvelous, if it worked. God knows I’ve seen enough people die before their time. But believe me, Dick, when people die they stay that way, especially in the tropics. It’s a terrible thing to see them starting to bloat before you can get them to the morgue.”

  “There’s supposed to be some kind of zombie cult in Nuevo Verdugo, where we’ll be landing in the morning. Did anyone mention it to you when you took this job?”

  Again she thought before she replied, “No, I don’t remember mention of such things. But I’d have signed on anyway. I’ve an open mind about banshees and wee people. But I’ve studied enough medicine to be sure of some things—the dead don’t ever get up again.”

  He said, “I read a library book while we were waiting to board this tub. Did you know there are statutes on the books in Haiti forbidding people to practice Voodoo.”

  “Och, there used to be laws in our books forbidding witchcraft, too. You can pass all the laws you like. You can even grant people a license to do it, for all it matters. Leaving out the theology about immortal souls, anyone who knows simple biology knows that even a living vegetable has a chemistry that makes sense. Dead muscles stiffen like hard-boiled eggs before they start to fall apart. A fresh cadaver twitches a bit as it stiffens, but that’s the end of it. You couldn’t move a limb with a decomposing muscle, even if your brain was still alive.”

  He grimaced and said, “Glugh. It sounds pretty grim.”

  “It is. I’ve been there when they have amputated a dead limb from a living body. If a man with blood poisoning has no feeling or movement in his dead tissue, how could the whole dead thing get up and walk a-round?”

  “Try it this way. One writer suggested that so-called zombies aren’t really dead, but drugged some way. As a nurse, do you think a man hopped up on some jungle joy-juice might be able to keep going with a mess of bullets in him?”

  She handed back the smoke and said, “Well, I’ve seen insane or hysterical patients do some wild things and that’s a fact. But even drugs have limitations. Enough anesthesia to block out all feeling would have you sleeping soundly on your back.”

  “What about a combination of pain killing drugs, a stimulant, and a hard sell about one’s cause?”

  “Well, you’d wind up with a very sick lad in the end, whether someone shot him or not. But I suppose someone full of opium and strychnine would look and act pretty strange.”

  Then she began to fondle him as the ship mounted another wave and she said, “Speaking of stimulation, I’m well-rested and ready when you are.”

  He moved his hips and stubbed out the smoke as she, teased him with her hand and then, to speed the process up, slid down the mattress to take him between her saucy rosebud lips. She apparently liked to inhale that way, too, and he liked it.

  But as he rose to the occasion and was about to suggest doing it right, he heard his name above the rain and wind outside. He said, “That sounds like Gaston.”

  She stopped long enough to suggest, “I thought he was supposed to get his own girl?”

  Captain Gringo sat up as once again he heard Gaston, in an oddly weak tone, call out, “Dick? Merde alors, where are you?”

  Captain Gringo said, “He sounds like he’s in trouble!” He swung his feet to the floor, went to the door, forced it open against the wind, and called back, “Here! What’s up, Gaston?”

  The small Frenchman tottered toward him in the dim light on the wildly swaying deck. He was limping and looked like he was about to fall. So the tall American stepped out into the rain and steadied him, repeating, “What’s up? What’s the matter with you?”

  Gaston said, “I seem to have been bitten by a snake.”

  “Out here in the middle of the ocean?”

  “I agree it is tres ridiculous, but I assure you I did not plan for such an event. I awoke to find it in bed with me. As we were discussing the matter it got me just above the knee.”

  The American hesitated, aware he was stark-naked clinging to a man in soaking wet pajamas. Mab had heard and said, “Bring your friend in here, Dick.” She he did.

  Mab flicked on the light, and to Captain Gringo’s relief she’d slipped into a print kimono. It was hanging open, but Gaston was in no shape to ogle. Is the light he looked like death warmed over. The two of them got him on the mattress they’d just vacated, and Mab dropped to her knees to start ripping Gaston’s pajama leg open along one seam while she asked in a professional tone, “What kind of a snake was it?”

  Gaston stared at the part in her red hair with some confusion and said, “Sacre! How should I know? The creature is in the sea with a very flat head at the moment. One does not bite Gaston lightly.”

  Then he stared owlishly up at his naked friend and asked, “Are not introductions in order, my old and rare friend?”

  Captain Gringo said, “Her name is Mab O’Shay and she’s a nurs
e.”

  “Ah, I thought she was a maniac intent on my groin. I expected to find you with a beautiful woman, but a nurse was almost too much to hope for. Don’t you ever make a false move, Dick?”

  “Never mind all that. How does it look, Mab?”

  “Like a snake bite. A big one. Can’t you remember what it looked like, Gaston?”

  The Frenchman tried to sit up, fell back weakly, and said, “It was as big a serpent as one could wish for in a nightmare. It looked something like a rattlesnake with a glandular problem, but it had no rattles.”

  Mab said, “Hold this, Dick,” as she started to rise. Captain Gringo took the ends of the rag tourniquet she’d improvised around Gaston’s thigh. The fang marks below it were dark open punctures surrounded by swollen white flesh. Mab hauled open a drawer of her steamer trunk and Captain Gringo asked her, “What difference does it make what kind of snake it was, Mab?”

  She dropped to her knees beside Gaston, spread her kit open on the sheets and replied, “It sounds like he was bitten by a bushmaster. If he was, this antivenom is the one to use.”

  Gaston asked, “What if it was not a bushmaster?”

  “You’ll probably be dead in minutes,” Mab said bleakly. Then, without further consultation, she drove her hypodermic needle into Gaston’s thigh above the tourniquet, put a rubber suction cup to the wound, and started pumping.

  Captain Gringo said, “It would bleed faster if you cut it open like the Indians do, wouldn’t it?”

  She said, “Yes, and then he’d have an even bigger entrance for infection in this climate. The Indians don’t have antivenim. I do, if I used the right antidote. You see, a bushmaster is a viperoid snake. That shot should counteract viper venom. If that’s a cobroid bite, well …”

  “Don’t you have both kinds of antivenom?”

  “Of course I do.” ‘

  “Then why not give him both?”

  “It would be quicker to put a gun to his head. The two antivenoms would fight each other, and your friend has enough of a problem as it is!”

  “Is she always so cheerful, Dick?” Gaston asked with a sigh.

  Captain Gringo pasted a smile across his own numb lips and said, “Yeah. It sounds like a bushmaster to me, too.” He almost added that they’d know for sure in a minute, but he figured Gaston knew that.

  Mab squirted her suction cup into a glass and reapplied it to Gaston’s leg while she said, “Ease up on the pressure a moment, Dick. We have to allow some circulation.”

  Captain Gringo released the tension, and Gaston blanched and muttered, “Merde!”

  “How are you feeling, Gaston?”

  “Too angry to be dying. I was too excited to consider the matter when I woke up with a serpent in my bed. Now that I have had time to reconsider, you were right. Getting bitten by a jungle snake is an unusual sea adventure, hein?”

  “It might have crawled up out of the cargo hold. Which bunk were you sleeping on?”

  “Yours, of course. It seemed obvious you had other plans, so I saw no need to recline in the top bunk with the ship rolling like this. There is a ventilator over the top bunk. But as I was not up there, it seems obvious that the snake did not drop on me from there.”

  Mab had been listening. She shuddered and said, “If someone put the bushmaster there, Dick, it seems they were aiming for you!”

  Captain Gringo wondered what else was new. He asked, “How do you know for sure it was a bushmaster?” But Mab said, “Easy. Gaston’s swelling is going down.”

  “I am well?” Gaston said and smiled.

  She said, “No. You’re going to live. But you’re going to be a very sick lad for a few days. As soon as we get to Nuevo Verdugo it’s the infirmary for you, me bucko. You’ll be lucky if you’re able to walk without a cane in two weeks at least.”

  Gaston tried again to sit up, fell back with an annoyed groan, and said, “Merde! I feel as weak as a kitten! But I must rise to strike back. When I find the cochon who threw that serpent at me, I intend to bite him back!”

  Captain Gringo said, “Relax. There’s an outside chance it was an accident, and if it wasn’t, our snake charmer must still be somewhere aboard this ship.”

  Gaston made it up on one elbow this time, and gasped, “Aux barricades! Why are you just standing there in your ridiculous nudity? When do we search the ship for my attacker?”

  Captain Gringo glanced at Mab and asked, “When do we take this tourniquet off, doll?”

  She said, “Now. The antivenim seems to be taking.”

  She dug a tumbnail into Gaston’s thigh and asked if he felt it. He said, “Out But you are feeling me up too low. I don’t suppose you would consider massaging my… never mind. When are you going after them, Dick?”

  Captain Gringo let go of the tourniquet, sat down and started getting dressed. He said, “Aside from the other passengers, there’s a good-sized crew. The bridge hands are mostly Brits. The Black Gang’s Chinese and probably doesn’t speak English or Spanish. I don’t speak Hindi, so it would be a waste of time to try and question the rest of the crew. Most of the deck watch is Lascar.”

  Gaston said, “So I noticed. But could there not be a snake charmer among those Lascars? India has a certain reputation for such nonsense.”

  Captain Gringo shrugged as he pulled his boots on and said, “I think East Indians play with cobras. That bushmaster was a West Indian critter.” He turned to Mab, who was eyeing his fly wistfully as he stood up to button it, and said, “You’re the expert on bushmasters, doll. Am I right in assuming it’s a pit viper?”

  She said, “I think so. I’m not sure what the difference between vipers is.”

  He said, “Snakes in the cobra family strike at prey they can see. Pit vipers strike at the warmth of a target in the dark. A Lascar crewman who might have handled cobras in India wouldn’t know much more than us about handling a bushmaster. If that snake was tossed in here it must have been via a bucket or basket against the door slats. You sure don’t carry one in a warm hand in the dark!”

  Gaston stared morosely at the jalousie of the closed cabin door and said, “Bah. The creature I woke up with was too big to fit through there. It was as big around as my wrist and I felt like I was arm wrestling, when I got it down and stood on its head.”

  “Was the door locked?”

  “But of course. Who sleeps in a strange place with his door unlocked?”

  Captain Gringo nodded, reached for the gun rig on the post and strapped it on, saying, “I’ll be right back.”

  He went out into the storm and made his way along the wet slanting deck to his and. Gaston’s cabin. The wind and rain were letting up, but the seas were still high and the deck was deserted. He didn’t know what he’d say to anyone he met out there in any case.

  He drew his .38, took a deep breath, and stepped inside, crabbing sideways to avoid being outlined in the doorway as he fumbled for the light switch.

  The cabin was empty, and despite Gaston’s hurried departure and the unlocked door, nobody had been at their minimal luggage. He could see where Gaston had stamped the bushmaster to death on the floorboards with his bare but tough old heel. There was a little blood on the sheets, too. But that was about it. The vent above the top bunk was screened with a solid-looking grating. There were no large gaps in the wall paneling or baseboards.

  He waited until the ship was in a trough and switched off the light, bracing himself with his free hand against a bunk post. A pale gray slit in the otherwise total blackness gave the show away. One of the wooden slats near the top of the door had been pried away. A missing slat on a tub this old meant little. But no snake had slithered six feet up a wet door and dropped in unassisted as well as uninvited.

  He locked the door as he let himself out, brows knitted in thought. He knew he hadn’t done it, Mab hadn’t done it, and it seemed pretty obvious Gaston hadn’t done it. But there were well over thirty people aboard who could have.

  He knew the watch officer would have a list
of every crewman whose duty would eliminate him from the time slot involved. But that would mean long tedious explanations and wouldn’t prove enough to matter. If one or more ship’s officers was involved it would only add to the confusion. Almost anyone aboard could have slipped away for a lousy five minutes and nobody else would remember that he had, too.

  He went back to Mab’s cabin and told them, “The snake wasn’t looking for us. It was pushed. If a crew member did it, we’ll probably never find out why. If it was a passenger, they’ll be getting off with us at Nuevo Verdugo.”

  Mab asked, “Aren’t you going to tell the captain he has a murderer aboard?”

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “That’s his problem and the least of his worries. This tub figures to sink any minute. Right now, whoever did it is holed up in the dark, waiting to hear all the noise when someone’s found dead in my bunk. It might be interesting to just watch and see who looks most surprised when the three of us walk down the gangplank alive.”

  Gaston nodded and said, “I see it as our best move, too.”

  But Mab said, “Don’t you think they’ll try again, once they know they’ve failed?”

  Captain Gringo’s eyes were grim as he replied, “I sure hope so.”

  Chapter Four

  The Crown colony of Nuevo Verdugo was a slab of British Honduras that had broken off and floated out to sea. “Crown” status meant it was run “At Her Majesty’s Pleasure” by an appointed governor general who didn’t answer to Honduras or the House of Commons in London. It was considered a royal estate, like Buckingham or Windsor. Since Her Majesty had enough housekeeping to worry about back home, she sublet her Crown colonies, and the Angle-American Pantropic Sugar Trust could just about do anything they liked with it as long as they didn’t sell it to Bulgaria, sink it like Atlantis, or, God forbid, give it back to the natives.

  The only harbor and main town was the preciously named Utopiaton, a little bit of Olde England recreated out of corrugated iron with imported Australian pines and blue-gums standing in for the yew and hearty oaks “of England around the manicured village green. The Union Jack hung listless on its white-washed staff above the sunset gun as Captain Gringo and his friends came down the gangplank of the ship tied at the quay. To his mild surprise, none of the other passengers appeared to be getting off there. He wondered if they knew something he didn’t.