Renegade 31 Page 4

  Captain Gringo grimaced, made sure the door was locked, and stripped to get in his own guest bed, alone. There was no sense trying to cover up for Gaston at this late date, and what the hell, the chica was the one who knew the house rules, not him. If she got fired she got fired. It wasn’t his problem.

  So he couldn’t help wondering, as he slipped his weary naked body between the cold linen sheets, why, of all things, he seemed to have a massive erection of his own right now.

  He pulled the covers up over the offending virile member and growled, “Knock it off, you silly little basser. Haven’t you gotten me in enough trouble in the last twenty-four hours? We’d better both get all the rest we can right now. God knows when we’ll see a bed as soft as this again and as for softer comforts, I don’t know about you, but I’m swearing off women ’til I find out if we’re going to get out of here alive!”

  Captain Gringo was sound of mind as well as body, considering the life he was forced to lead, so he usually slept the sleep of the just. But on the rare occasions he did have a nightmare, because of the life he was forced to lead they were pissers.

  Like most people enjoying a bad dream, he not only didn’t know just how he’d wound up back in bed with a dead woman but didn’t think to ask. He simply recoiled in horror and tried to push the cold clammy corpse of Ynez away as it kept trying to roll on top of him, insisting, “Wake up. Wake up. I have to go home and serve breakfast to my husband, but we have time for a morning quickie before I am embalmed.”

  “How come you’re pestering me to get laid if you died in your sleep, Ynez?”

  “I am pestering you for to get laid because I wish to get laid, of course! What is the matter with you this morning, querido? Don’t you like me anymore? Last night, at the paseo, you told me I was the most beautiful woman in the plaza, remember?”

  “Sure, but that was while you were alive, dammit! No shit, Ynez, necrophilia just ain’t my style, see?”

  “How do you know you wouldn’t like it if you’ve never tried it? Be a sport, querido. Just one more time, before they bury me, eh? Don’t try for to tell me you can’t get it up. You’re as stiff as a poker and you know you want it.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll admit you’re still sort of attractive if you’ll just let go my goddamn dong. But this isn’t gonna work, Ynez. Even if I put it in you it wouldn’t do you any good. People just don’t come anymore after they go cold and stiff, see?”

  “Oh, put it in me stiff and let me show you how hot I can still be, querido! I do not know for why you keep accusing me of being dead, but I do not feel dead to me. Do I feel dead to you?”

  He cupped a soft warm breast judiciously and felt for a pulse as he twisted his face away from her questing lips. But then, as she nibbled and tongued his ear, growing softer and warmer all over by the second, he sighed and said, “Oh, well, if you’re not really dead, what the hell are we arguing about?”

  He rolled Ynez over on her back to mount her as she smiled up at him adoringly but asked, “Oh, Dick, what are you doing to me?” So he growled, “Don’t talk dumb. It’s bad enough you scared the crap out of me just now by pretending to be dead. I’m not in the mood for any more kid games. You know what I’m in the mood for, so spread your thighs a little wider and … Hey, how the hell did you get that nightgown on all of a sudden?”

  “No, Dick, don’t!” she protested in English. Did old Ynez speak English? She never had before. But despite his confusion he still knew what he wanted, so he just pulled the skirt of her silken gown up between their pressed-together bellies and paid no attention to her own confused babble as he entered her deep and discovered to his delight that she was not only well lubricated and alive where it counted, but even hotter and tighter than he remembered. The dead or alive girl moaned in mingled protest and desire as he started to give it to her right. Then, as she sighed in surrender and wrapped her legs as well as arms around his naked body, Captain Gringo came fully awake as he started to come in her. He shook his head to clear it, blinked his eyes a couple of times as the hotel room turned back into the guest room at Maureen’s casa, and asked the lady he was laying, “Hey, what happened to old Ynez and how in the hell did we wind up like this, Maureen?”

  “Don’t stop now, you brute!” the Hispano-Irish attorney replied as she moved her excited hips under him to add, “Oh, oh, yessss! I’m almost there!”

  So he returned the compliment with some vigorous actions of his own private parts and though she beat him to orgasm, enjoyed a nice ejaculation indeed in Maureen’s quivering post climactic flesh.

  As they went limp in one another’s arms, Maureen sighed and said, “Oh, that was lovely, even if you actually did rape me, you mean thing.” She moved under him teasingly as she giggled and added, “I’ve always been afraid of being raped, you know. I had no idea it felt so much like seduction!”

  He said, “I’m not sure who raped whom just now. I was having the damndest dream and the next thing I knew it was coming true, only better. What time is it and how come I just wound up coming in you, doll?”

  She said, “It’s after ten and I just came in here to wake you up. I had no idea you’d grab me, haul me into bed with you, and ravage me like a beast!”

  “Hell, honey, you don’t feel like a beast to me. Could we get the rest of this nightgown out of the way and do it some more, more civilized? How come there’s so much light coming through the window slats if it’s after sunset, by the way?”

  She said, “There is a pateo lantern burning just over your window. But this would still be a most embarrassing position even in total darkness! Do you mean to tell me you just made love to me, not knowing, or caring, who I was?”

  “What can I tell you? Never try to wake a guy having a wet dream in a thin silk nightgown? I know who I’m in bed with now, and does it look like I’m not fond of you?”

  She giggled and replied, “As a matter of fact, you have been acting very friendly and … My God, you are still in me!”

  “You just noticed? Come on, let me help you slip that gown off the rest of the way, now that we’re getting our second wind.”

  She didn’t try to stop him as he peeled her last shreds of modesty off over her head. But once he had her stark beneath him she covered her bare breasts coyly with her hands and protested, “Oh, don’t look, Dick! I am not used to making love with the light this bright!”

  He didn’t ask how often, or with whom, she had sex in the dark. Nobody moved under a guy that good without at least a little practice. He lay closer against her, kissed the base of her throat, and asked if that was better. She sighed it was as she slid her hands from between them to flatten her naked nipples against his chest, dig her nails into his buttocks, and add that it might be even nicer if he’d move some more, goddammit.

  So he did, and by the time they enjoyed another mutual orgasm she’d gotten over her shyness enough to beg him to let her get on top. Her bare tits looked great by lantern light as they swung in time above him with the rhythm of her rollicking rump and, better yet, it took longer to explode up into her this time as she literally jerked him off with her curvaceous lamp-lit body doing all the work.

  He could see, however, she’d started out even more hard up than he had when she came atop him, fell weakly down against him, and pleaded for a chance to rest while her sweet love box pulsed wetly on his raging shaft.

  He told her not to start talking dumb again, rolled her over, and proceeded to longdong her to glory as she sobbed, “Oh, not so fast! Not so hard! Not so deep! I can’t take more right now and if you don’t take it easy I... Ay, ay, ayyyy! Pay no attention to a woman when she is coming!”

  He didn’t. He was no fool. But once he’d come in her again and had to pause for breath, Maureen sighed and said, “My god, it is no wonder women wake up dead in bed with you! Are you a lover or a sex-mad pile driver, for God’s sake?”

  “That’s a pretty shitty thing to say, even if it hadn’t been you who started this party, doll.”

/>   “I started it? Surely you jest!”

  “Not really. The last time I saw you we were both fully dressed, counselor. There was no reason for you to put on that nightgown, with nothing under it but that French perfume, if all you came in here for was to wake me up, and wasn’t it a little early for an after midnight wagon ride?”

  “I thought it best to have you wide awake, fully dressed, and perhaps fed before your transportation got here, darling.”

  He propped himself up on one elbow, smiled down at her, and ran his free hand down her naked torso as he grinned and said, “It worked. I’m wide awake as hell right now.”

  She grabbed his wrist as his fingers reached the fringes of her pubic apron and protested. “Wait, Dick. I’ll admit I’d heard stories about the notorious Captain Gringo and, well, you know how curious we girls are. But I fear the stories were all too true for a woman of my merely healthy appetites! I can’t do it again. Not right now, at least. You are just too much for me to handle!”

  He shrugged and said, “I didn’t have your hand in mind. But okay, I can take a hint. You say it’s only a little after ten?”

  She agreed as he let go of her, sat up, and swung his bare feet to the floor. But then she asked what he was doing as he started groping for his clothing on a bedside chair.

  He explained, “That wagon won’t get here before midnight. That gives me almost two hours to tidy things up a bit before I leave. I’m tired of bumming smokes off Gaston and I need another gun for sure. So how far are we from the nearest all-night mercado?”

  She sat up, her somewhat mussed and unbound black hair falling down to frame her breasts becomingly as she gasped, “Are you insane? How can you hope to safely show your face on the streets of San José now, even at night?”

  He said, “Easy. Who’s looking for it? I didn’t escape from the cops this afternoon. I’m out on bail. So I just have to say ‘buenas noches, agente,’ to any cop I meet in the marketplace. No cop in town will have orders to arrest me until after I jump bail and my hearing was set for mañana, right?”

  He scooped up his shirt and pants, then rose to move over to the wash stand in one comer. As he found a pitcher of water and proceeded to pour it in the handy bowl Maureen leaped out of bed and came over to join him without reaching for anything to wear at all. She pressed her naked body against his back and wrapped her arms around him from behind as she protested. “Dick, you can’t go out before our friends arrive to smuggle you out of town! Let me send a servant for the things you need, eh?”

  He started to sponge his crotch with a washrag a little rougher and water a little colder than he’d have liked as he shook his head and said, “I like to pick my own cigars and I’m not about to pack a gun I haven’t field-stripped before paying for it, doll. You’re the one who’s talking silly. Can’t you see a guy out on bail looks less likely to skip town if he just goes about his business in town as usual, Maureen?”

  “It’s too dangerous! They might kill you!”

  “Who, the cops? They had all day to shoot me without having to worry about witnesses, doll. Why the hell would they want to chance it in a crowded marketplace, and what excuse would they use? It’s a matter of public record I’m free on bail for the moment. So the old escape trick just wouldn’t work. Jesus, this water is cold.”

  She asked, “Does this feel warmer?” as she took his cold and clammy dong in hand to start stroking it with sensuous skill.

  He gulped and said, “Come on, I’ll never get my fly buttoned over that little monster if you don’t cut that out, Maureen!”

  She said demurely, “I don’t want you to put your pants back on just yet, darling!” as she sort of used his dawning erection as a lever to spin him around with his bare buttocks against the wash stand.

  He laughed and said, “I sure wish you’d make up your mind. Now that I’m up and whore-bathed, just hold the thought. I’ll be back well before that wagon gets here and we’ll have time for at least a fond farewell. But no shit, I really want that gun and—”

  But then his late-night shopping began to seem less important as Maureen, sliding to her naked knees to kneel before him, took his fresh-scrubbed semierection more firmly in hand, teased the head with her tongue, and proceeded to give him a French lesson he was sure she’d never learned in school.

  He told her he knew when he was licked, even if that wasn’t exactly what she was doing to him down there, and leaned back to enjoy it, which was easy until she suddenly fell back across the rug and invited him to join her there by spreading her shapely thighs as wide as they would go. So he did and, for a lady who’d just protested she couldn’t take any more across a feather bed, Maureen seemed to find the hard floor under her bounding buttocks comfortable enough.

  He found it hell on his bare knees, however. So they soon wound up back in bed and a good time was had by all until a servant rapped discreetly on the door. When Maureen asked through passion-clenched cheeks what in the hell he wanted at a time like this for God’s sake, they learned it was after moonset and the wagon had drawn up out back.

  Maureen sighed up at Captain Gringo and said, “Oh dear, we forgot to send someone to buy you tobacco and a gun, darling. Can you ever forgive me?”

  He said, “Sure. Ain’t it a bitch how time flies when you’re having fun? I guess we’d better get dressed, though. I forgot to ask, are you supposed to come with us, counselor?”

  She giggled and said, “I just did, so many times I lost count. But my orders are to stay behind and cover your retreat, darling. You’d better get your pants on, poco tiempo!”

  He did. Maureen stayed the way she was, in bed, as he ducked out, gave a yell, and heard Gaston yelling back at him from downstairs. When Captain Gringo joined him there, the Frenchman smiled crookedly at him and said, “I’ve been down here nearly an hour. You woke me up with all that grunting and groaning next door, my passionate youth. I sent the butler out back to tell them we shall join them shortly. Was I correct in my assumption?”

  Captain Gringo hesitated, shrugged, and said, “I’m still working on it. Let’s get away from here, at least.”

  Gaston asked him what he was talking about as they moved out across the backyard, through a gate, and into the alley where, sure enough, a big boxy delivery van was waiting. Captain Gringo told him they could discuss the fine print later, as he sized up their transportation. The butler was near the driver’s seat, chatting with a sleepy-looking Negro holding the reins of the team. There was nobody else around. The driver told them to get in the back and make themselves comfortable. He had his orders, knew where they were going, and needed no help in getting there.

  The two soldiers of fortune shrugged, went around to the back, and climbed over the tailgate. The driver cracked his whip and they were off at a good clip before the butler could wish them adios or they could even figure out where to sit. Gaston gasped, “Merde alors, they said to expect a fast team, but the species of idiot drives like, oui, a species of idiot, non?”

  Captain Gringo braced his back against the inside of the wagon, resting most of his weight on his haunches, and growled, “Give me a smoke but don’t get too comfortable. We may be getting off sooner than anyone expects.” Gaston reached in his jacket and took out his .38 as well as two claros, asking, “Have I missed the smoke signals of yet another très sneaky ambush, Dick?”

  Captain Gringo lit his claro, shook out the match, and said, “I’m not sure. Let’s talk about it. They sent that maid to make sure you stayed put until it was time to leave too, right?”

  “Now what sort of a remark is that to make to a Casanova like me, Dick? I may be old enough to be your proud papa, but I assure you I still know how to seduce chambermaids!”

  “So do I. But it’s usually a little tougher to get laid. No offense, but I know how long it took you to get that chica in bed and I didn’t have to try at all!”

  “Eh bien, you do seem more attractive to some women for some reason, my handsome blond beast. Did you find it of
fensive when the lady of the house refused to let her maid have all the fun?”

  “No, but I thought it was a little weird. It got weirder when she went a little beyond common courtesy to keep me in bed with her, after she’d said she’d had enough.”

  “Eh bien, women always seem to change their minds more than more rational people, Dick. Where else could a rational man have wanted to be when he had a très passionate brunette pleading for his full attention?”

  “I told her I wanted to slip out and at least re-arm myself. She sure worked hard to keep me from doing so. I’m sure she was faking it, toward the end. I went along with the gag. I’d rather have a dame screw me silly than shoot me in the back going out the door. I’m not sure she’d have gone that far. But I’m sure she had orders to make damned sure you and me wound up right where we are right now! So as soon as we come to a dark stretch with plenty of cover beside the road, I think we’d best drop off!”

  Gaston shook his head and said, “Sacre goddamn, Dick, before one leaps from the frying pan, one must know where the fire might be, hein? The girl got you out of jail. This wagon is supposed to be carrying us to safety. If we leap madly out, how do you propose to avoid standing trial for the death of that deputy’s wife? I can promise you you’ll have to, if we don’t stay aboard this rather distressing transportation, non?”

  “No. That sounds sort of silly when you study on it, too. I’m not a lawyer, but I can see a dozen ways a good lawyer could have made a better deal. I think Maureen used the scrape I was in to sell us some snake oil.”

  Gaston flicked ash over the tailgate and mused aloud. “Hmm, the proposition from the Segovian junta sounds straightforward enough to me, my suspicious youth. What else could they have in mind in hiring us? They said they’d pay us to fight more unpleasant people for them. That is what one usually hires soldiers of fortune to do. If they didn’t want us to join them in pursuit of El Viejo del Montaña, they’d have had no reason to contact us at all. I don’t recall offering to fight for either side up that way, do you?”