Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (10 page)

“
You
don’t know who you’re foolin’ with!” he cried. “You can’t tell them
what to do! I guarantee! You don’t know what’s going
on!”

“
Really?
Tell Mikail I know a lot more than any of you could guess. People
here LIKE me – and they do NOT like you!” Clint replied icily.
“Maybe you can intimidate them for a little while, but you can’t
fight a few thousand of them. That’s what it’s coming to if you
don’t wise up! Keep your shit among yourselves. Do NOT mess with
another Indio or other friend of mine. No mas! I can get an army
down here to wipe the bunch of you out!

“
The
‘phony papers and kill the Indio for property’ is gonna stop or, so
help me god, there’s going to be a war!”

“
Uh,
Mikail? Who’s Mikail?” he whined.

“
If you
actually didn’t know you wouldn’t ask. I’ll get a couple hundred
guys here and we’ll put an end to this crap!” Will said, matching
the snarl from the punk earlier. “The Ruskie Mafia hoods are crazy,
but they ain’t stupid – I hope. If I gotta, I gotta.”

Clint saw the other hood on the corner
watching. He was far enough away that he couldn’t say definitely
Will WASN’T Marko and this one wasn’t going to get a close look.
Will would stay behind him.

“
Git!” he
ordered. “Don’t look back.”

The punk bolted.

“
I’ve got
to call Manny,” Clint said to Will. “It won’t take them an hour to
learn you aren’t Marko, but they can never be quite sure. I know
what this is about. It’s not over.”

“
Yo,
Manny! I think I have an idea what’s going on,” Clint greeted.
“It’s still about the land. They have the phony papers ready and
don’t have enough sense to see that scheme’s already failed. I’m
calling from a pay phone in Almirante. I know damned well they can
listen in on anything on my cell or home phone.”

“
That
Mexican thing? No way!”

“
If it
was the Mexican thing, I’d agree. It’s gone way east.

“
Remember
when you said there was one group you wouldn’t get involved
with?”

There was a few seconds of silence, then,
“Oh, shit! No shit?”

“
Not a
smell – if I’m right.”

“
You
backed them off before with a threat of the UN or something? Can
you stop this from what it will ... wait a minute! They’re looking
for me? Now I’m really confused. Why? Who would know I had any
connection. Why do they want that particular piece of land so
much?”

“
Mar ...
Manny, there’s something really screwed up about that land. I can’t
figure it. I’d say Elmore probably pegged it as you buying or
backing the buy so they figured what that was about. If ‘Manny’
ends up dead, regardless of who he is or who he works for, they can
use the phony papers and get the place. It’s in your name. That’s
all still there. Elmore knew too much and tended to run his mouth
so they eliminated the possibility of that becoming a
problem.

“
Manny,
there has to be something somewhere on that land – and it has to be
worth more than a couple of mil. If even the Ruskie bunch would go
after you it’s damned big!”

“
Something I heard about three years ago might just fit!”
Marko cried. “How about maybe two hundred mil in cash?

“
See, the
Ruskie mob was moving something more than that from the Colombian
cartels for washing – which is why they started it! Mexico,
Colombia and the Ruskies! It’s gotta be true!

“
Okay,
let me check. I’ll get back. You threatened them with the UN so be
seen talking to someone from there or forget a letter on a table or
whatever. Make them think you’re actually going to get someone from
the UN or World Court to check on what’s going on. I got an idea.
An hour, max!”

He hung up after a minute. Clint got a smug
look on his face and used his cell phone to call Judi. He was sure
they would be listening to both. He said he wasn’t using his home
phone because it was probably tapped and she knew about that
stuff.

They’d discussed how easy it was to intercept
cell phone calls. That would, he hoped, warn her to be careful what
she said. He told her he’d just gotten in touch with a General
Downlerner at the UN, who got him in touch with a Director K’both
of the world court. If there was one little thing more to make her,
Manny or himself suspicious that it was about the San Cristóbal
land – and it would have to be – the two organizations were going
to send in special teams to investigate. It might still be a good
idea to stay wherever she was.

“
Hmm? Got
you! So Manny and Sylvia bought a big headache?” She wasn’t slow!
She knew this was a ruse to make them back off.

“
I wish I
knew what’s so important about that place,” Clint complained. “It’s
the Ruskies more than anyone else. Everyone knows they’re crazy. If
they decided it would be a good drop-off spot they would go after
it until hell froze over. It doesn’t have to make sense if they’re
involved!”

That would, hopefully, satisfy them. They
wanted the reputation for being crazy. It made things easier for
them if people were especially afraid of them.

“
Okay!”
Marko greeted. “I’m going to Cristóbal in about an hour. I’m taking
an army with me and we’re going over that land inch by inch. You’ve
been there. You know that little quebrada that runs through the big
black rocks about halfway up the mountain?

“
That’s a
landmark. You saw how that creek and those rocks were included on
the plano? That’s because the plano was being used as a map. Your
friend sent the original set to the lawyer and the surveyors used
them to measure for the new plano when he got the title.

“
Can you
get your hands on that original?”

“
I
suppose. Rolando’s in David. He’ll put them on Aeroperlas for me. I
can pick them up, but not before tomorrow ... there’s time for him
to get them on the four o’clock from David to Panamá where they can
be sent on the six o’clock to Bocas. Put off your little search
party until early in the AM tomorrow and we’ll have them to work
from.”

“
You got
it!”

Clint called Rolando, who said he would send
the plano and legal descriptions because parts of them didn’t make
any sense, so that could be the code for the map. Rolando wasn’t
slow, either.

“
Clint!
Welcome to our little Bocas watering hole!” Sharon greeted as he
came over the pallet laid in the ditch in front of Bohmfalk’s while
the road was paved. “We met Manny and Sylvia on the plane from
Panamá. They seem nice.”

“
They’re
planning to build a place on Cristóbal,” Clint agreed. “Nice enough
– for gringos.

“
Salutations and all that rot, Bill.”

“
Yo,
Clint!” Bill returned. “I could swear I saw Manny somewhere before.
Maybe in my bar in Key West or when he was younger in
Nola.”

“
Bill,”
Clint warned seriously. “You never saw Manny anywhere under any
circumstances, Okay?”

Bill is anything but slow. He nodded and
looked serious, then nodded again. He looked up and cried, “Chris!
Need a confab about some of that shrimp you get in David!” and
waved at Clint. Sharon looked a question at him. He nodded the
least bit.

“
Wendy!
Clint will want an Abuelo and coke – unless you’re working?” Sharon
called. Wendy gave her a thumbs up, she patted Clint on the
shoulder and he said he wasn’t working at the moment. She smiled
and went to greet Chrisy and Lynne, another couple of the
“regulars” at Bohmfalk’s. Most gringos spent some time
there.

Clint wandered around greeting people a bit.
Nancy and Mike – a hell of a good singer/guitarist – came in and
went to the group at the little table near the porch corner. The
only others at the time were a couple of backpackers at another
porch table using the free internet and a lone man standing at the
rail with an Atlas beer in his hand watching the people pass.
Several of the Indios working at the new construction beside the
water taxi saw Clint and called greetings. A couple of gringos, new
to the place, came along the road and across the pallet. The man at
the rail casually glanced at them and nodded. As soon as they
passed he took a picture from his pocket for a quick look, then
lazed back against the rail.

Clint finished the rum and coke, waved at
Sharon and Bill and went to Bongos to ask Marko, who had gotten a
picture on the phone of the one on the porch, if he rang a
bell.

“
No.
Santos will check on him. Got the plano. It’s a map of some kind,
alright. Gonna go over to lay out where we want the guest house.
Probably near those rocks because the quebrado is sorta
pretty.”

Clint nodded. Dave, the author/character he’d
met, first at the Big Bamboo, then at The Plank, came from the
water taxi carrying a guitar and laptop computer, saw him and
waved. He went over to ask if the invitation to stay at his
apartment was still open.

“
Got
yourself into some shit, I hear. Go for it! I can use some
excitement right about now! Ruskies really gonna have a war
here?”

“
Not
exactly here,” Clint answered. Manny waved and got into Maxie’s
boat with four Indios with surveying equipment. They pulled out
from the dock and Dave said, “Isla San Cristóbal. Again. Surveying
crap where there’s not a thing to survey anymore. Ruskies. A couple
where the man uses a few terms Normal Joe doesn’t use. Someone
tried to kill an Indio for that land. One hell of a book,
huh?”

“
You
figure things a lot too close. This is deadly serious, Dave. That’s
not just an expression.”

Dave smirked. “What the hell! I’m seventy and
have had a great life, no real regrets. I don’t exactly have a
reputation for avoiding confrontation. I know when to be deaf,
mute, blind and stupid.”

“
The best
one to be here is that last one.”

Dave grinned and nodded. “Duh!
Chew’ngum!”

Clint went into the Refugio where Manny and
Sylvia were enjoying some of the famous Mahi-Mahi. He greeted them
and was invited to join them.

“
Clint!
The surveyors found a huge box of MONEY on our land!” Sylvia cried.
“We’ll have to get a big CRANE in there to even MOVE
it!”

This was for public consumption, of
course.

“
Money?”
Clint asked. “You mean cash?”

“
Yeah,
money.” Marko answered. “There’s at least a hundred fifty million
dollars in hundred dollar bills in a big steel box. We thought it
had to be phony, but the bank says all the ones we had tested are
good. A lot of them are old. I would say that it’s got to be drug
money or something, so we won’t get any of it.”

“
It’s on
your land, you got it honestly enough if you just found it there so
they have to show that it’s not just money some eccentric dead
billionaire hid there, particularly if it’s been there for awhile,”
Clint suggested. “Tell them you’ll split down the middle to take
care of taxes or whatever and they’ll grab the deal.”

“
I
already told them I don’t want what has to be dirty money of some
kind,” Marko replied. Clint almost laughed at the “innocent” look
on his face. The man from the porch at Bohmfalk’s was around the
potted palm and dropped his drink .“I said it would be nice to get
what I have in the place back, like a sort of gift. The T-man from
the states jumped on it, but the Panamanian government guy said
they had nothing to do with it. We got a deal – made an arrangement
where I get one million dollars and the rest goes into the
preservation and reforestation fund or something. Royally pissed
the T-man off, but he can kiss my ass. Like the Panamá guy said, it
ain – isn’t any of his concern if he can’t show something says it
is. Just because it’s US dollars don’t hold no – any weight here.
Panamá uses the dollar.”

Clint grinned and called, “Cath! A Balboa,
por favor!”

“
Who’s
the clown watching us on the porch?” Clint asked (pointing to the
palm) as Dave and Paul, a well-known musician, came in with
guitars. They waved and Dave came to say Manny was an idiot to not
take all that money they found on Cristóbal and make the government
negotiate for a percent.

“
We
already did,” Manny replied. “I got enough to pay for my crap
there. The rest of it goes into the conservation bit.”

Dave grinned and nodded. “That leaves it easy
for them to steal most of it. Really more than ten million bucks
cash?”

“
A
hundred fifty mil, cash.”

“
Ah! And
a bunch of the Ruskie mob in town! Gonna get hairy?”

“
Probably
not. It’s gone. Normal business expense. Manny sort of fell into it
and isn’t responsible for anything so there’s no point in
revenge.”

“
Gee! Now
they’ll have to steal all of it back from the government. Bummer!”
Paul called for him to make a sound check so he grinned again and
started away.

“
They
already have. Bet!”

“
No
takers,” Clint shot in.

“
That Al
character has decided to head for Rio,” Marko reported. “It won’t
do him any good. There’s nowhere the Ruskies can’t find him. They
consider him responsible for the loss. If he’d just let it lay they
could have come after the geetus in a couple of years. It was him
with the stupid schemes. Get the stuff and bargain for turning it
over with him keeping a mil or two for his trouble. Dead man
walking.”