Clint Faraday Collection C: Murder in Motion Collector's Edition (12 page)

“
Well, I
suppose that means you can take them all to the lock-up,” Clint
suggested. “The law says they don’t have to volunteer, but that not
volunteering shows they have something to hide so you can hold them
for investigation for as long as six months. I’m sure they’ll leave
a sample or two around in that amount of time.”

“
Er, can
I speak with you privately, Faraday?” Dickerson asked.

Clint went out on the verandah with him and
his wife.

“
We can’t
allow this!” he cried. “My god! This is impossible! We can’t let
these people dig around in our past! We have to have privacy. We
came here because we heard there was no place in the world where
you could have as much privacy as here!”

“
Up to a
point. Murder suspects don’t get privacy anywhere when they refuse
to cooperate.”

“
But ...
I swear, we didn’t have anything to do with any murder here!” Cathy
cried.

“
Here?
Then why go through all this crap?”

“
I guess
we don’t have a choice,” Cathy said. “No, dear. We have to do
it.

“
You see,
Mr. Faraday, we’re on the witness protection plan in the states, in
Oklahoma. We’re witnesses in a big trial about stock fraud where we
were threatened and two people were already killed by those people.
We don’t know what to do. We didn’t know how much trouble we would
get into or we wouldn’t have ever agreed to anything. I think
they’ve found us. I think we’ll all end up dead if we can’t get
away from here!”

“
Plus
these damned people will kill us in a blink!” Dickerson said. “They
hate us because we’re more, er, civilized. They’re jealous and
violent. I don’t think the people in Kansas, er, Oklahoma have
found us. It was the niggers here.”

“
If you
go to any place and act like asshole snobs you’ll be resented. The
Indios don’t hate you, they pity you. Your lives are nothing but
fear, greed and false fronts. The blacks won’t do anything other
than try to make life here so miserable you’ll leave. That’s what
happened to Flannery, the one here before you.”

“
They are
certainly
not
our kind of
people,” Cathy complained. “They have no breeding. They’re
savages!”

“
Shit!
They have a hell of a lot more breeding than any of you. They
couldn’t care less how much money you stole somewhere else. They’re
exactly what you see. You are, too. You just don’t realize that
it’s so obvious to them that you’re what they call `trailer trash’
in the states. You’ve never been anywhere and never made an honest
buck in your lives, now you pay the price.

“
I think
one or more of you killed Lesterinni and tried to make it look like
a hate killing. Either that or someone like Franconi.”

“
WHA..!!
What do you know about Franconi?!” Dickerson almost screamed.
Cathy-darlin’ looked like she’d been slapped in the puss with a
rotten fish. She said, “How do you even know about ... the name,
Franconi? He’s a cheap hood in, er, Arkansas. He was going to tell
the ... go to ... someplace. Some people.”

“
He’s a
cheap hood right here in Bocas Town at the moment. We checked on
his type first thing.”

“
He’s in
BOCAS TOWN?! Oh, god! We’re dead! All of us! He’s a professional
killer for the mob in Chicago!”

“
Make up
your mind. He’s a second-rate thug from Motown, not from Oklahoma
or Kansas or Arkansas,” Clint replied. “Why do you think this is
eighteen hundred and these are hick yokels from Podunk
investigating your little murder? These guys are more efficient
than most places in the states.

“
You can
give me a straight story or I can dig it up. It’s what I do. Each
one of you who ends up dead tells me a little more.”

Sergio came out and asked Clint if he should
arrest the lot of them for questioning or would they cooperate.
Clint replied that they weren’t legal. They were hiding from
somebody who, apparently, found them.

“
Well, I
don’t think more than eighty percent of the gringos living here are
legal. I don’t care so long as they stay out of trouble and don’t
bring this kind of thing here. I can’t protect anybody who doesn’t
even tell me what they have to be protected
from
. That’s asking far too much.

“
Clint,
you’ve always come through for the Policia Nacionál here. You’ve
donated millions of dollars, billions (Judi told him about that),
to the Indios and everybody else. We deeply respect you for being a
true caring person. I will act on your advice here.”

“
Okay.
Let it ride for now. I have to check on a thing or two. One person
in Bocas Town seems connected and may be our killer, but he may not
be.”

“
Fair
enough. If you wish to return to Bocas I will cadge a ride with
you. The investigation boat will be here for another hour or
so.”

“
We can
go in about ten minutes.” Sergio went back inside.

“
Just
like that? You have enough influence to control these people just
like that?”

“
I don’t
control anybody. I respect them, they respect me. Life’s a lot
easier for that.

“
I’ll
check on Franconi and try to get him to decide he’d like to see
Panamá City or David or something. He’d fit in certain sections
there. Maybe Colón, but he’d live maybe a day there if his
attitude’s anything at all like yours. I’ll be in touch.” He walked
inside and signaled to Sergio that he was ready to go. They headed
back to Bocas Town. Clint wanted to know a thing or two more about
Franconi. The reaction was expected to be a little shock or
something. It was far too much.

Franconi was sitting on the deck at The Reef
having a beer and chicken and rice. Clint slid in across from him.
He looked up, grinned and said, “Faraday, isn’t it?”

“
Yeah.
What’s up with that bunch of arrogant obnoxious trailer trash on
Bastimentos that’s so important you had to kill one of
them?”

He laughed. “I haven’t killed anybody. I
don’t know what’s going on with the cruds. All I’m supposed to do
is hang around to keep an eye on them. I work for a group who ... I
don’t know what it’s about, only that they have to be watched until
some kind of solution can be found to the problem, whatever it is.
If I’m to contact them or anything I’ll get orders.

“
It’s not
the kind of thing I do. I don’t like being here. I made some bad
moves when I came and got too many people against me. I acted like
this is Chicago or LA. Stupid as all hell! I
know
better!”

“
Now it’s
LA, too? I learn things.”

“
Lucerne
and Bianco are from the area. I’m not drunk or running my mouth or
anything. I was told in no uncertain terms that I was to level with
you if you got involved in it. Some people concerned have been
burned by you before.”

“
I know
who Bianco is. Lucerne?”

“
Frank
Lucerne. Another cousin or whatever they’re supposed to
be.”

“
What are
they?”

“
Besides
some used-to-be hangers on, I don’t know. I think they have
something that belongs to someone big. They’ve already gotten more
than seven million dollars from him and spend it on crap they think
is classy – like that monstrosity they built on Bastimentos. Just
supposition, but I think it’s something that gets used if certain
ones of them get dead. It’s what’s keeping them alive. Those people
don’t fool around with that shit. They put a permanent end to
it.”

“
Then
Lesterinni was just there because he didn’t have any other possible
out.”

“
I think
he was looking for a possible out for more than three years. He
doesn’t look like he did back then. He was seeing some people he
wasn’t supposed to be seeing. I know that because I was told he
went to the FBI offices on the sly twice when he thought he’d given
some people the slip.

“
He did
give one of them the slip, but there were others with the same
assignment.”

“
Probably
where the WP idea came from.”

“
They
told you they were on WP?”

“
Yeah.
From Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma.”

“
I see.
Then you know three places you needn’t bother to check. None of
them were ever in those places. Ever, ever, ever.” He
laughed.

“
Obvious,
like everything else they do.

“
Look.
Don’t kill anyone here. I’ll tag you. We don’t need anymore hits
here. Let them hit each other.”

“
Hmm. You
know something.” It was a statement that sounded like a
statement.

“
Somebody
said the wrong thing.”

He nodded. Clint said to enjoy Bocas and went
back to his place. He had something more to check.

Politicians?

“
Manny,
there’s some kind of huge connection. I think Lesterinni was going
to the FBI and had plastic surgery at their expense to use in the
WP.”

“
I can’t
get information from some people from New York, LA, Cleveland and
Detroit. It’s big,” Manny replied. “We dug into Franconi a lot
deeper. He’s a lot more professional than we thought. He’s smart
and makes it appear he’s just a runner or cheap muscle man so no
one pays him much attention.”

“
I talked
with him. He has instructions to level with me.”

“
Doniletti? I really don’t think so! Mo Jefferson or
Miklocaras? It doesn’t fit. They’re legitimate now and don’t worry
about such crap anymore. I have to see if there’s someone on the
way up who has too much to lose.”

“
Manny,
check on someone who’s been around a long time and keeps a very low
profile.”

“
You know
something, Clint? I think I want to check on people who have
dealings with the mobs, but who aren’t directly involved. Maybe
politicians or big business CEOs or whatever.”

“
With
what was going on – and probably still is today – with Bush I think
maybe that’s a very real possibility. I hadn’t considered
it.”

“
You
never thought of the mobs and the top pols together before Bush.
Not to a great extent. Local and state contracts with them for
roads or garbage or whatever. Nobody knows how that works better
than me! Now it’s right there in the White House. All Haliburton
ever was is a mob connection, in my opinion. There’s no big secret
who was their representative in the White house.

“
It
started a long time ago with the military and drug deals and such.
It’s gotten so that the entire system is rotted clear through. I
can say that one good thing about Old Pop. He made the people
around him his first consideration. He impressed on me my whole
life that we were in a position to save a lot for our people. It
was us or something one hell of a lot worse.”

“
You
might be able to unearth something with that approach. I’ll do what
digging I can from this end.”

They chatted a few minutes. When they broke
it off Clint sat back to consider things. It did have a political
stench about it in some ways. His connection was through Franconi
and that bunch on Bastimentos. If he could find who they really
were he could find who and what was behind the whole scheme.

He made a few more calls, then went back to
the computer. He first checked deeply on the major political
connections in Detroit because that was where it came from so far
as he knew. After three hours he had a lot of nothing. He sat back
to think again, then wondered: If this came from Detroit would
these people be talking about Detroit? Would they have those
addresses on their papers?

That left him with a big blank. No one in New
York or Chicago would say anything to Manny, which probably meant
they didn’t know anything. Where was any little clue to give him a
home base? None of them had dropped the name of the actual place.
They wouldn’t.

Manny’s wife had seen one of them in Carmel.
Would it be ...? He called Manny. That was one thing he was
checking from the angle of some politician or business head there.
He would have answers in about two hours and would call Clint. It
would be a large business or top politician.

Clint thought again, then had what might give
him a clue or might not. He walked into town and to the police
station to request that Sergio get some things for him. From the
property registers and from a bank. And from a lawyer if they could
find which one.

Sergio sent a man to the court to get a
demanda form, then handed it to Clint and told him to go to
Changuinola. All the registrations were there.

Clint took the water taxi to Almirante and
the bus from there to Changuinola. He presented the court demanda
to the woman at the registry and received the entire paperwork on
the Bastimentos property from the time Flannery bought it from
Shepard Robinson Puenta until today.

He went through the papers and had copies
made of six pages at his expense, $3.21. When he left the registry
he caught a quick glimpse of a person in a cab and grinned to
himself. What he wanted might actually be in those papers!

He then took the papers back to Bocas Town.
Manny called and said there was a bit of a stir in Carmel. He
didn’t know who, but knew it was someone there. Any hint and he
could locate their man. Clint said he’d call back in an hour or so
if he found anything, then told Manny what he’d done. He took the
papers to his house and studied them.