Aaron Elkins - Little Tiny Teeth

At the riverfront there was a small, primitive pier, and at the head of it was a wooden shanty, a jungle cantina, into which Vargas and Gideon were marched. Inside there was a plank counter, behind which were a few crooked shelves holding bottles, cans, and glasses, an ancient refrigerator with a clanking old generator, and an even more ancient woman, milky-eyed and toothless, chewing on her gums, who watched them come with no sign of interest. The Arimaguas immediately went to her, asked for and got Inca Kolas, and retreated with them to a wall, at the base of which they squatted, their shotguns propped upright between their knees. Gideon and Vargas were left standing in the middle of the room.

There were three rectangular, battered, extremely dirty tables – stains, crumbs, empty, toppled beer bottles, used glasses – with five or six old cane chairs around each. The nearer tables were unoccupied. At the farthest one sat four decidedly rough-looking men, the sole occupants of the bar other than the old lady. All of them were smoking cigarettes. Two of the three had rifles leaning up against the table at their sides. Another had a revolver in a shoulder holster, and the fourth appeared to be unarmed. The table held three brown bottles of beer, a clear, half-empty bottle of what looked like aguardiente – there was no label – a crumpled blue pack of cigarettes, and four stubby, thick-bottomed tumblers. All the place needed to look like the bandido’s hideaway to end all bandido’s hideaways were some cartridge belts slung over the chair backs.

Three of the men raised their heads to look speculatively – amusedly? – at the newcomers. The fourth didn’t turn, remaining as he sat partially facing away from them – purposely facing away, it seemed – very relaxed in his tipped-back chair, one hand loosely hanging, a cigarette between his fingers, and the other hand apparently tapping his knee under the table, slowly, appraisingly, as if he were considering the pros and cons of some difficult issue.

The boss, Gideon knew instantly.

This was confirmed when, with a tip of his head, he sent the other three to another table, taking their guns and their beers with them. They sat down, also watching. The boss man simply continued his contemplative smoking and knee tapping. He had yet to look at the newcomers, let alone acknowledge their presence.

Thirty seconds of this – of standing there filthy and parched and edgy and uncertain, waiting for who knew what – was enough to snap Vargas’s fragile self-restraint.

He stepped forward. “ Senor-”

“Shut up,” the man said offhandedly in Spanish, and now he turned fully toward them, ground out his cigarette on the tabletop, dropped the butt on the floor, and brought his hand up from under the table. In it was a lovingly polished stainless steel knife that he laid in front of him with care, aligning it so that it was at a right angle to the table’s edge. But this was no ordinary knife, this was a Rambo knife, a Crocodile Dundee knife, a foot long, with an olive-drab handle and a broad, heavy, faintly scimitar-shaped blade, saw-toothed on top, that curved upward to a vicious hooked point. Gideon had seen a knife like this before. He even knew what it was called: a Krug Assegai combat knife. It had been used in the most horrific homicide that it had ever been his misfortune on which to consult.

We’re going to be killed, he knew with sudden, cold certainty. We’ve been brought here to be murdered. Murdered and carved up, not even necessarily in that order.

The man was watching from under lowered lids to see their reaction to the weapon, and he must have loved Vargas’s. The captain’s eyes bugged out, his mouth popped open and then closed with a click as his teeth snapped together, and he took a stuttering step back.

Gideon was determined to provide no similar satisfaction. Swallowing down the seeming ball of cotton that had suddenly clogged his throat and crossing his arms to make sure his hands didn’t tremble, he said in Spanish: “We could use some water.”

“Oh, they could use some water,” the man said, grinning, and there was some low chuckling from the other table. “Sure. Why not?” He called out a command to the old woman. As with so many other people in this part of the world, his teeth were in wretched condition, some of them nothing more than yellow nubbins barely protruding from his gums.

“ Senor, I don’t know what this is about…” Vargas said pitiably, practically wringing his hands. If he’d had a forelock, he would have been tugging on it. “But I assure you, there has been a misunderstanding of some-”

“I told you once to shut up,” he was told. “I’ll deal with you later. Right now, I want to talk to the professor.”

That came as a shock to Gideon. How did he know I was a professor ? That meant he had been brought there not by pure accident, not because he’d happened to be with Vargas at the wrong time in the wrong place, but on purpose, because he was who he was. But how does he know me? What the hell was going on here?

“I am called Guapo,” the man said, speaking directly to Gideon.

Guapo. It meant handsome, but if this Guapo had ever been handsome, it had been a long time back. A fleshy, beetle-browed man, he was cut from the same cloth as Colonel Malagga: gross-featured, brutal, thuggish, with the high, thick shoulders of a bull buffalo, no neck to speak of, and small, mean, piggish eyes. A lush, silky, jet-black mustache (the only conceivable basis of the “ guapo ” nickname) drooped over the sides of his mouth, Pancho Villa style. Like the other men Gideon had seen in this settlement, he hadn’t shaved for three or four days. He wore jeans, sandals, and a dirty, white soccer jersey with Alianza Lima on the chest. The belly-ballooned front of the jersey was smeared with finger marks where he’d wiped his hands on it.

“So, you heard of me?” Guapo prompted. He had a serious drinker’s voice, husked and whispery, from deep in his throat.

“No, I never heard of you.” Gideon’s own voice, he was glad to hear, remained steady, although his breath was a little short. He was looking about him as inconspicuously as he could, with his mind working at top speed. What were the ways out? Forget the way they’d come in. There were three white men and three Indians with guns between him and the door. But in the wooden wall right behind Guapo were two large, windowless openings. Could he get by the man and his knife and through one of them before someone with a rifle could get a bead on him? No, not if he made a run for it around the table. But what if he acted with enough suddenness, at a moment of inattentiveness, launching himself right onto the tabletop, kicking or swatting Guapo over in his chair and vaulting over him through the opening… maybe even grabbing the knife on the way, if he could? But what about poor Vargas? What about The corners of Guapo’s mouth turned down. “No, he never heard of me,” he said sarcastically, and unpleasant laughter came from the three men at the other table.

“Sit down, Professor.” With his foot, Guapo kicked out one of the chairs. Gideon took it, angling it slightly and moving it back a little to give himself room for a better shot at the opening.

“I’ll go and sit over there,” Vargas offered, indicating the one unoccupied table. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“No, you’ll sit here. I want you to see what happens to him. I want you to have a real good view, so you’ll remember.”

It didn’t seem possible for Gideon’s stomach to sink any lower than it already had, but it did. Guapo didn’t intend to kill them, he intended to kill him. He noticed that Guapo’s fingers lay loosely on the knife, but he wasn’t actually holding it. If he were to move his hand or turn to look away, even for an instant…