Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (17 page)

“
I have
heard of you. You are as direct and honest as reported. I like you.
I will now be instructed to take my business elsewhere and deal
with others?”

“
That
would be advisable, but with the understanding that it applies to
Panamanians who are innocent of skulduggery, not gringos or
Europeans who should know better,” Clint replied with a grin. “It
can serve to rid us of some very low-class people here – such as
the, as you just called them, lovely Johnsons.”

“
Oh, I
won’t get rid of them for you ... but maybe I will, indirectly.
Perhaps they should return to their homeland to avoid
unpleasantness here. I certainly can make them consider that a
particularly wise choice. Deal?”

“
As my
friend said recently, ‘Whatever works.’ It could work. I think I
could like you, too. No bullshit.”

“
But you
don’t like my business,” Alex stated flatly.

“
No, but
there would be no supply if there was no demand. I’m beginning to
see what’s going on and why. As a friend who writes SF says,
repeatedly, drugs are just an escape from a given society or a
sense of hopelessness. If the society doesn’t do things to make
escape a necessity there wouldn’t be any drug problem. It’s a
combination of too many people and a sense of frustration against
governments that have descended into a huge set of personal greeds
among the leaders. Looking back at the states I can see just how
decadent they’ve become. I would like to keep the harder stuff out
of Panamá – but that’s not realistic.”

“
Is that
supposed to be deep or merely simple conversation?” Alex said with
a laugh. “I will not supply anything to Panamá because of one of
your simple realities: It is not a profitable market. There’s too
much local competition and the amounts to supply the market are not
enough to make it worth the trouble.”

“
The
local stuff is actually pretty disgusting,” Clint pointed out.
“Panamá Red was THE weed of choice in the late sixties and
seventies, now the stuff here is ... crap. Of, course, there never
was any Panamá Red. It was something from a book.”

“
Oh? You
use pot?”

“
Not to
any extent, but I tried some of the stuff sold in the parques. As I
said, it’s crap.”

“
Here
come our lovely Johnsons. Care to speak with them?”

“
We’ll
see what we can do. Maybe I can drop a few little bombs on them for
you.” They went over to the man and woman getting into the
car.

“
Just a
short word, Mr. Johnson. We have not met in person before. I am
Alex Sandia.

“
Did you
actually have the lack of sense to think this trickery would
work?”

“
Er?” Mr.
Johnson replied. “Trickery? The funds were stolen from my carrier!
He is a man I have the greatest regard for. He is totally honest.
There is no trickery!”

“
I’m
Clint Faraday. Why the unholy hell were you so stupid as to use
this ostentatious car to get away? Don’t you have any sense at
all?”

“
Er?” he
replied again. “What did..!? Samy did NOT see this car! He was
inside ... I mean, it wasn’t there! How could he say he saw it?
Preposterous!”

“
He
didn’t – and he’s not a trusted friend. You hired him off the
street. What? You think those two snotty doorman didn’t see you?
Were they supposed to be inside where they couldn’t,
too?”

“
EEP!”
Mrs. Johnson exclaimed.

“
You will
get the money, all of it, and deliver it to me immediately,” Alex
demanded. “You will then spend the rest of your lives in Panamá
wondering when you might have a serious or fatal accident. People
here fall off mountains or get trapped in a burning house or have
traffic accidents or are murdered by ladrones far too often. It
might be wise to go back to the states where you will be much safer
from retaliation by persons you have been dishonest
with.

“
The
money. Within the hour. I have to return to Colombia
shortly.”

“
WHAT..?!
You can’t threaten ME! I’ll call the police!” Mr. Johnson yelled.
Clint waved to the officer who he’d asked about the Johnsons
earlier. He started over.

“
You can
tell him about it while I’m here to say that all he did was warn
you about the dangers of doublecrossing people.”

“
One
hour,” Alex said. “Here in the parque. All of it. You get no cut
after this.”

“
Oh,
dear! We had to spend two thousand for ... oh, dear!” Mrs. Johnson
cried.

“
Okay.
You keep five thousand and get the rest here,” Alex demanded. They
agreed and drove off.

“
Well,
I’ll head back to David. Got to get to Bocas,” Clint said. “Maybe
we’ll meet again when there is no business to be conducted by
either of us. I think you’d like Bocas.”

“
You
would invite me there?” Alex asked, his eyes sparkling with
amusement.

“
Sure!
Might be useful to have a drug lord friend!” That got him a laugh
and the finger.

Down
Under

Clint Faraday saw the ambulance going out the
road to Bocas del Drago, but didn’t think much of it. After all, it
was the only road to the main island. If you went out you used it –
except by boat, of course.

He poured another cup of the coffee he’d
bought from a roadside vendor up by the big dam on the road from
David. It was from a local grower and was the best he’d found in
Panamá – and Panamá is known for producing some exceptionally fine
coffees. He always added a little chocolate to most, but this
didn’t need it.

What to do today? Fishing? Scuba diving at
one of the many reefs? Catch up on his paperwork – no. This IS the
land of tomorrow. He was only about three months late on it so was
just up to date local custom!

Walk into town to see what was happening
lately. Don Chicho’s for more coffee and some carne fritas sounded
good. Patacones. Some fried bread. Gossip – almost never negative
when you considered the local lifestyle. God! He loved this
place!

Bob Seger’s “Face the Promise” was playing on
his computer. He grinned and nodded, threw on some shorts and a tee
shirt, his flip-flops, turned off the comp and headed out. Judi was
just coming in and waved to him, then called that he would probably
get a call to go to just a bit south of Drago. Two bodies. Drowned.
No reason for anyone to drown there in four feet of water with
almost no current.

He sighed and went on toward town. Javier, a
local Indio transvestite/drag queen, waved and came to tell him his
wife just had another baby. A boy. That made one of each, which was
all he wanted.

Clint congratulated him and asked if he was
going to keep up the transvestite thing now.

“
No. Cecy
conocer esta gay, pero con dos hijos es mejor no mas transveste,”
he replied seriously.

(No. Cecy knows I’m gay, but with two
children it’s best I don’t be a drag queen.)

Clint congratulated him again and went on. It
sometimes seemed that most people here were bisexual. Javier would
probably be mostly straight now with only one or two men he was
especially fond of.

Gloria and Suzana were on their way to work.
He walked along with them for a ways, swapping a few jokes and some
gossip about the trouble Amanda was having with her husband’s
drinking. They were saddened that such a good man was addicted to
the sauce. He had almost hit her this time. It would be over if he
actually did. Her brothers would probably kill him. (They would
beat him almost to death, not actually kill him. Some could get
away with hitting a woman, but not with her family.)

He saw Flora and Don were cleaning The
Plank’s verandah as he passed. They had live music last night and
were open late so cleaned early in the morning today. The regular
crowd was at Don Chicho’s. Fernando, the local government
translator for English-speaking people greeted him warmly and asked
how things were going. These people were honestly interested in
people and things outside of themselves.

Dave, the local odd-ball author, came to
wave. He was carrying his laptop. On the way to the free air
internet at Bohmfalk’s. The place was closed this early, but Bill
left the internet connection on and had tables where patrons could
sit on the porch anytime to use it. He came over to say there were
a couple of DB’s out near Drago. Could be a hit, but didn’t really
feel like it. He went on. Clint got a large coffee and some
empanadas, foregoing the carne. He got some patacones with them and
sat on the porch to talk with Fernando and some locals. Jorge went
by and called, “Oye, Clint!” Clint replied, “Oye! Co da coin
metare!” and continued chatting. (Hi, Clint!) (Hi! Good day! –
Indio dialect.)

The police truck went by, saw Clint and
backed to ask him if he had the time to run out to a murder scene
with them. He agreed and told his friends “Hasta luego!” and got
into the truck.

*Rest translated – CD

“
Good
morning, Clint,” Basilio Flores, special criminal investigations,
greeted. “It would seem we have a bit of a problem with a couple of
dead bodies. Germans. Man and woman. Hans Graf and Gretta
Frankmeyer. There’s something fishy about their passports, but they
seem to check out pretty well. Drowned in shallow water and were
here for reef surfing, so could swim very well, actually. Doctor
Gonzales says they drowned, but not in the sea there. Something
about lung content or something.

“
It’s
getting bad, Clint. We never had murders here a couple of years
ago, now this is the second this year.”

“
It’s
about the same all over, but here you get the foreigners. The local
stuff is mostly among teens and early twenties. Violence in TV,
games, movies ... what have you. Glorified. Makes me sick to see so
much coming here.”

Basilio nodded and sighed. He said Clint
could talk to the doctor and maybe see something. The victims were
staying at the new hotel near Drago. They would go there to ask
questions after Clint learned what was to be learned at the
scene.

Clint wanted to know who else was there and
for what – and he wanted a look at those passports. Basilio was
sharp and had spotted something fishy.

The victims were in their early thirties, in
very good physical shape and were more than average goodlooking.
Very Aryan, blond, blue eyes, etc. The tiny scars from plastic
surgery were showing from the water exposure.

“
What’s
the verdict, Doctor?” Clint asked.

“
Water in
the lungs fresh. Scalp had small very close-to-time-of-death
bruises. Probably drugged or something and held underwater in a
pool until they drowned.”

“
Swimming
pool?”

“
Not much
chlorine, but with the rains the last couple of days, could have
been. I’d say not at the hotel, though. There’s always someone
around there to be sure kids don’t fall in while their parents are
asleep or drunk or whatever. Trouble is there aren’t so many pools.
All of them at hotels out here.”

Clint nodded. There weren’t many other pools,
either. Those would show in the water tests on what the doctor
extracted from the lungs. The ponds would have mud and such from
the rain wash.

Basilio said they could go to the hotel if
Clint liked.

The Caribbean’s Best Hotel was one of those
overdone things tourists paid a hundred bucks or more per night for
a twenty dollar room. The restaurant would be expensive and so-so.
The bar would be pouring cheap booze and charging high prices for
it. The staff would be downright obsequious. After all, only idiots
stayed in those places. They didn’t know any better.

Hans and Gretta (Clint thought, Hansel and
Gretel. He had an idea what it would be about – or what the two
were doing there, anyhow.)

“
Did they
have any special friends?” Clint asked Wil Lariez, the general
gofer-boy in the lobby and around the swimming pool. He was in his
thirties, but was trying to look like a twenty-year-old. Worked out
a lot. Hair a bit long and bleached. His Spanish was a bit too
perfect, but the gigolo types would come from somewhere else and
try to look local. He was naturally dark, but not the same type of
dark as the natives.

“
The
surfers. Nobody special I noticed.”

He was going to get short answers.

Wil looked expectant. Clint nodded and walked
away. Now he looked confused.

“
I want
to know a lot about the lobby bum cum pool boy there,” he said to
Basilio. “Where’s he from?”

“
We’ll
check everyone here. He said something about Panamá City, so he
could be from there. I’d say a Colombian who’s lived most of his
life there.”

“
Huh-uh!
What do you know about Hans and Gretta?”

“
We’re
doing a close trace of their passports. I think there’s already
some question. What did you see that we missed about
them?”

“
Scars,”
Clint replied. Basilio looked surprised, started to say he hadn’t
seen any scars, thought, and grinned.

“
Why the
plastic surgery? Bone structure says they were rather handsome
without it.”

Clint nodded. “Have you found anyone they
spent time with here?”

“
The
Thomases. From Australia. They said they’d been on the same flight
from Sydney to Panamá. Had been surfing in Australia. Some kind of
deal where they surf in all the better places or something. Those
two at the table by the bar.”