Clint Faraday Collection C: Murder in Motion Collector's Edition (27 page)

Clint took out his cellular and called Judi,
who was at the meeting. “Is Grossman fat?” he demanded.

“
Grossman? Who ... oh. Yes, but not extreme. You tend to
think he’s fatter than he is when you hear the name. Grossman. He’s
a little fat. Maybe thirty pounds overweight at five eight or so,
so it shows around the gut.

“
Just a
sec.” She talked with someone for a minute, then, “Yveth says
Grossman went out with Maxie yesterday afternoon late and they
didn’t get back until after dark. You know how Maxie is about being
on the water after dark with so many boats that don’t have running
lights.

“
Help
any?”

“
As
usual, a lot,” Clint replied. “Thanks, Jude. You’re
amazing!”

“
Yeah, I
know. By accident.”

They said their goodbyes and Clint told Doc
he wanted to talk with Maxie about something. “Put Morris somewhere
he can be protected. I won’t be surprised if there’s another
attempt on him here.”

Doc nodded and said he’d be put where no one
could get to him even if they knew where it was.

“
Make
careful note of anyone who asks about him. Anyone at
all.”

“
Doesn’t
need saying. Complete with pictures from the new videocams in the
halls and such.”

Clint went down to the docks, then back to
the trail the natives used next to the Barco Hundido. Maxie was
loading some staples for Bastimentos. Grossman had gone to Pastore,
then Popa. He got off the boat on Popa and was gone for about half
an hour. That was why it was dark when they got back.

Crap! Now there’s another suspect! Clint
would have been much happier to only have Sarah and William.

He went to the police station to discuss
matters with Sergio awhile, then back to the hospital where
everything was quiet. Then he went home to handle his e-mail and
start a Google Search for Sarah and William Morris from Middletown,
Oklahoma.

He then did a fast search on Grossman, but
didn’t have enough information to get a start. He then repeated on
Yahoo! and other search engines.

How damned stupid! He called the Swan’s Cay
desk to ask about Grossman. Solomon Samuel Grossman. He then got
the names of the two expected couples. Ellen and Francis Greenwood
and Fanny and Edward Auermond.

He did the searches on all of them. They were
normal enough types, it seemed. Sarah had been in trouble as a teen
when she tried to run another girl over with her father’s car. The
girl had taken her boyfriend. It went to PTI and was silenced.
William had been in some trouble three times for petty theft and
underage drinking plus a minor pot possession thing that didn’t go
anywhere after Sarah intervened and assured the court that it
wouldn’t happen again because it was the fault of his peers and he
wasn’t going to be around that bunch anymore. It seemed Mama was
always stepping in to keep junior out of trouble. She wasn’t going
to be of any real help to him here. She could stop prosecution of a
minor, but that would mean she accepts all the financial and legal
responsibility. That was no joke in Panamá with these kinds of
cases.

Clint sat back and wondered how he was going
to find who was the action figure and who was the schemer. This was
one sick sordid bunch of people.

Milton Goldstein came over for a beer or two
and said Clint might be in for some headaches. There were a bunch
of people coming. People who as much as worshiped money. They were
Jewish and the kind of people the decent Jews despised for what
they made everyone in the world think of Jews.

“
I know
the type,” Clint said. “I’m stuck in dealing with some of them
now.”

“
Robert’s
not so bad. It’s that damned scheming bitch and that whiny
halfassed spoiled brat of theirs. Robert, you can get through to,
but not when he’s around those two. I think he’s finally opening
his eyes about them. He was telling me night before last that he
thinks they’re the cause of all his troubles with the natives. He’s
finally listening to them and sees they weren’t putting him down or
threatening him, they were trying to stop him from making a huge
mistake.

“
He knows
the mistake’s already made and that it’s his own fault for
listening to family and socalled friends. He’s actually getting
along with two or three of the Indios out there.”

That was much the same as Clint was beginning
to believe.

Greedbags

“
Quiet
night. No one came to do anything except someone named Grossman.
All he wanted to know was if Morris was alright. I told him it was
too soon to tell. He’ll wait to do anything that way if he’s any
part of this,” Doc explained. Clint nodded.

“
He’s
part of it, but I have no idea what part. Yet.

“
Is he
anymore coherent this morning?”

“
A bit.
He’s still very confused and weak. It was ethylene glycol.
Antifreeze. Tastes like sugar so they were able to put a little in
his coffee or something. It would have eventually killed him if
they kept it up. Somebody knows how to use it to make it look like
something else if you’re not looking for a specific.”

“
I think
they wanted to make him have to go back to the states where he’d
die so they can collect insurance or something. I believe there was
a term policy in the corporation papers. I’ll look that
up.

“
Grossman
and four people who are coming today are officers in the
corporation.”

They chatted a few minutes longer, then Clint
went home and to his computer to trace insurance policies. All of
them had policies where the major players’ debts would be paid off
and the corporation would collect two million if they died of
natural causes.

So. That was probably why the injuries
weren’t immediately fatal. What they apparently didn’t know was
that he would have certainly died of those injuries if they’d
continued the poison. No insurance company would pay if it was
directly connected to a murder attempt. It would be too easy to
show that was the immediate cause, the sickness and debilitation
would be considered part of the attempt. They would very definitely
look for poison if there had been an attempt on the subjects
life!

Clint heard the flight from Panamá City
coming in so got on his motorcycle and raced to be there when the
passengers deplaned. He considered the man waiting by the door was
probably Grossman, there to meet them.

Two more people got off near the first and
waved at Grossman. Two more got off a few people later and did the
same. He went to the baggage checkout and stood talking animatedly
with the four, then got a taxi to take the bunch to the Swan’s Cay.
They checked in and went to the restaurant to ask the waiter
something, then took a table to the side.

Clint wasn’t dressed to be inconspicuous in
that restaurant so waited near the door. He could see them at an
angle through a window so moved to the side and waited about twenty
minutes until Sarah came in. She went directly to them and said
something. They got up and headed for the door.

Clint would be recognized by her, definitely,
so stayed back and out of sight. They got two taxis and headed
toward Saigon Bay, so Clint followed at a distance on the bike.
They stopped at the hospital.

Clint took out his cellular and called Doc,
who was at the morgue on one end of the hospital grounds. He said
he’d be over there in less than two minutes. He’d call the
receptionist and tell her to stall them by saying she had to check
with his doctor before she could allow visitors.

Clint saw Doc go from the morgue to the side
door of the hospital and in. He waited two minutes and went in
himself. Trina pointed to the door to Doc’s office and raised an
eyebrow. Clint rolled his eyes and barged into the office.

“
You
don’t knock when ... oh, hello, Faraday, What can I do for you?
How’re things going?”

“
I wanted
to say something to Mrs. Morris. Bob saw her come in here and
called me. I was just down the street, so here I am.”

“
No! I
don’t have anything to say to you! You kidnapped my husband from my
house and I want charges to be filed against you for that! So
there!”

“
Mr.
Faraday and Mr. Smith brought Mr. Morris here yesterday in a
condition requiring immediate action or it would have proven
fatal,” Doc declared sternly. “He explained fully what had
transpired. He was acting as agent for the Policia Nacionál and,
with what I have learned through treatment of Mr. Morris, can
arrest you here and now for criminal neglect – at best! (Clint
shook his head the least bit.) I am conducting tests on unexplained
symptoms on a man who someone tried to murder. You will not see him
until those tests are completed. If you try further to obstruct the
medical treatment of a man who was almost killed for one more
instant I will demand that Mr. Faraday, as an agent for the Policia
Nacionál, arrest the bunch of you. Immediately!

“
Is that
quite clear?”

“
Now,
let’s not push this thing out of hand,” Grossman said. “We’re
concerned because we’re business partners in a company building
some facilities on Isla Popa. We’ve invested a great deal in the
venture and want to know what he did or didn’t accomplish so that
we may recoup our funds if what we’ve learned is true.”

“
So? It’s
about money? You’re not concerned that your partner was almost
murdered?” Doc asked.

“
Of
course we’re concerned!” one woman cried. “Do you have any idea of
how much
money
is at
stake here? Do you have the least conception of how much we’ve
invested in something that might destroy that money?”

“
It’s the
money, not the patient?” Doc asked.

“
He’s a
partner in a business in which we’ve invested. We naturally
concerned with the business. We hardly know Morris, personally.
We’re not wealthy. We’ve invested our entire savings in what seemed
a very solid project. Now we may lose it all!
Of course
it’s about the money!” One of the men
said.

“
You
are?” Doc asked.

“
I’m Mr.
Greenwood and this is my wife, Mrs. Greenwood.”

“
We’re
Mr. & Mrs. Auermond.”

“
I’m Mrs.
Morris!” Sarah snapped, “As if Clint Fuckoff doesn’t know
that!”

“
That’s
MR. Fuckoff to you,” Clint fired back.

“
I’m Sol
Grossman. We’re just upset by this mess. Please excuse our apparent
rudeness (a sharp look at Sarah), but we stand to lose more than we
can really afford. You people don’t understand the importance of
security or the handling of large sums.”

“
I think
Mr. Faraday understands a tiny bit about handling funds,” Doc said.
“He donated several million dollars to help this and some other
hospitals as well as some millions for schools and
clinics.”

“
UH!
Millions
?!”
Greenwood cried. He looked like he’d just received a hard punch in
the gut. “That is, we’ve invested a bit more than a million dollars
in this project. We certainly don’t have millions to throw around
in, er, for charity or whatever.”

What Doc didn’t tell them that the millions
Clint was credited with giving was parts of deals when he caught
criminals. Though he could have claimed it, he didn’t care for more
than enough to get by. He considered people who wanted money for
the sake of money to be shallow to empty.

“
Hell!
You spent over six million on that new hospital near Puerto
Armuelles alone, didn’t you?” Doc asked, trying to hide the
laughter in his voice. The Auermonds and Grossman were sitting
there with their mouths hanging open. Sarah was about to faint.
Grossman was trying to control his expression.

“
Something like that. It was a fairly large project. It’s
not important here,” Clint replied.

“
The
Indians said you built the clinic on San Cristobal with some
Mathews person, but we thought it was only a little hut with a
doctor every week or something,” Sarah wheedled. “We had no idea!
We would have listened to you from the first if we’d known you have
practical business experience!”

“
I don’t
have business experience,” Clint said. “Let’s get back to Robert.
You can’t see him until Doc Okays it. Don’t make pests of
yourselves. He couldn’t care less about your investments. He’s
solely concerned with the patient.”

“
Well, I
suppose, if he’s getting proper care, we’ll just have to wait,”
Grossman said.

“
Mr.
Faraday, I want you to know we didn’t know you were a person of
quality or we would never have acted the way we did,” Sarah said.
“I’m afraid we haven’t met many who we could relate to here and,
just perhaps, we became too hard in our outlook. We were
suspicious, you see. Everyone seemed to be trying to get money from
us. They will steal anything not welded to the floor!”

So now Clint was a person of quality. He had
money.

He took a deep breath and suggested they all
calm down and stop over-reacting. They could wait until Doc said
they could talk with Robert. There wasn’t really anything else to
do.

A lot of, “Oh, well! Guess you’re right about
that, old sock! Hearty good fortune and all that rot, eh what? Got
to relax and go with the flow!” Clint could have puked. All of a
sudden he was the greatest guy in the world and a true friend who
was only trying to help!