Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (27 page)

“
I’d make
a tiny suggestion, but it’s probably too late for that already.
Don’t go around announcing that you’re the one who started an
investigation into counterfeit money in Puerto
Armuelles.”

“
What?
Why in the world not? If you think I’m going to lose that much
you’ve got another think coming!”

“
You said
you already passed the other bills off in the same way they were
passed to you, so you are now a distributor of counterfeit bills.
You are exactly what you’re accusing others of being so get off the
high horse. You probably were passed the crap by someone who had it
passed to them the same way.

“
On the
other hand, there may be someone who has a big stash of phoney
money around here – which means you have to be shut up. This isn’t
some stupid TV show. If someone hacks you apart with a machete they
aren’t going to rinse off the fake blood and give you a check so
you can go home and watch your performance on CSI or something as
stupid. They’ll bury you in a real cemetery. I’d think you’d seen
enough TV to know you aren’t going to get in your Porsch and do a
car chase where you end up a hero. You don’t have a Porsch here and
they aren’t working from some script you get to do the final Okay
on.”

She was in a huff that reminded Clint of
Gerald. Maybe she should be married to him. She was better at the
greedy bitch bit than Sylvia would ever be. Clint said things would
probably work out, but she’d better get out of some silly fantasy
world where she was immune to danger. She did seem a little nervous
and admitted it probably wasn’t smart to go off half-cocked about
it. Clint was right that it might get dangerous. Vern kept telling
her to think before she spoke. Clint was right that she’d admitted
to several people that she was passing off money that she knew was
counterfeit. That made her an accomplice.

“
You
don’t want to get tangled in the criminal system here,” Clint
warned. “You will NOT find it in the least amusing, I
promise.”

They said their goodbyes than and Clint went
to check into the Hotel Central. His room was across the hall from
the Cartworthy’s. He had a balcony with a view of the Pacific. It
was a room that was reserved when they got there, but the
reservation cancelled just after the Cartworthys were put into the
alley room.

Pity. If they’d been more agreeable they
might have gotten the better room for less than half of what they
paid for the alley room. Why the hell didn’t that type stay in
Panamá City or on the tourist islands where they were the typical
assholes who went around the world thinking they were royalty?

Clint was getting into the local way of
thinking more and more. He certainly understood the deep resentment
most felt. There was plenty of reason for it to go around. The
Panamanians didn’t make huge generalities about people to a great
extent. They would always give a person the benefit of the doubt.
Too often, there wasn’t any doubt.

Batty Steps in it

Clint asked around the town for awhile about
local issues and such. Not much was new except that there were
getting to be far too many of the Cartworthy types anymore. The
real estate people were descending in droves and not one of them
was worth the powder to blow them to hell. It generally took the
natives about three days to learn who the worst were. They were
accepted at face value until they started the standard “screw
everyone in sight” routine, then didn’t ever find themselves
believed about anything again.

He waited until seven and went to the
restaurant in the Hotel Central. Lariez and four others were
sitting at a back table discussing things in an intense manner.
Lariez pointed at Clint and one hanger-on came to ask him to join
them. Clint said he appreciated the offer, but was waiting for a
lady friend.

Karen Johns, a popular older woman who had
been around Puerto Armuelles for several years and was popular with
the locals came in and he asked her to join him. They talked about
a lot of things, then she said he was probably there because Batty
had stepped in it with the bad boys.

“
What’s
going on?” Clint asked. “I know it’s not about that phoney money.
Not that crowd. They’d just write it off and lay low for
awhile.”

“
They’re
spending a lot of time looking at land just to the east and north
of where the refinery’s going in. Orlando says they’ve offered him
a lot of money for one section of his finca. He doesn’t want to
sell, but the pressure’s getting pretty heavy. That bunch will get
what they want, one way or another. I really don’t know what it’s
about. I do know they’re trying to get that Wallace woman to shut
up about the money, but it’s not about that. It’s probably about
who might come to investigate the money and worry about what else
they’ll find. I did hear they’ve found something on the mountain
there. I know it’s not gold or anything like that, but there’s
something.”

“
Is there
any pegmatite in the area? I know lodes around those old volcanos
will sometimes come up with emeralds or opals.”

“
Hmm.
That’s the whitish clay. I doubt it’s that because too many people
have been in and out. When Harry was alive he went around the land.
He would have found anything like that. I know he once found
something in a little cave that he thought was unusual. If I
remember he said something about platinum. Maybe it’s that. I know
whatever it was was hard and heavy.”

“
That
would definitely have been noted. Maybe it’s something in the heavy
metal groups. I’ll check it out. A lot of things that weren’t worth
much a few years ago are worth a bunch now. Dave found something
around here he mentioned.”

They chatted, had a good meal and she left.
Clint got a beer and went out on the porch. Soon Lariez came to ask
if he could speak with him. He nodded.

“
I have
heard of you. A detective? I’m Paulo Lariez, but you will already
know that. You are Clint Faraday.

“
May I
ask if I’m the object of your concern here?”

“
In a
way. You scare some of the new gringos and a few of the locals.
They don’t know why you’re so interested in the place and you come
across like a movie thug to them. You know your reputation better
than I do.”

He smirked. “But I don’t scare you.”

“
No, you
don’t scare me. I’ve been around this crap too long to worry about
it.”

“
And
Marko Boccini will put a fast end to anything that he sees as
threatening to you, no?”

Clint shrugged. “I don’t depend on others to
handle my affairs. I can take care of myself in most situations.
I’ve been around long enough to know when to back off and when I
won’t.”

“
The word
is out that nobody bothers your friends,” he replied, nodding
sagely. “The word is also out as to whom you consider your friends
– the local gringos generally not among that elite
group.”

“
Orlando
Ruiz is a friend.”

“
I hope
to avoid any trouble there, but I want his land. I’ve offered more
than it’s worth.”

“
No,
you’ve offered more than the going rate, but nowhere near what it’s
worth.”

He sighed. “Maybe we can come to an
agreement. I really don’t want anymore problems. It’s
legitimate.”

Clint shrugged again.

“
Mr.
Faraday, that’s not my money that is being circulated. Your friends
– or whatever – are playing a dangerous game because they are
dealing with amateurs who live in a fantasy world. I swear to you.
I’m not involved in that. I want to do things in my later life that
will make me gain respect and I go too far, at times. I realize
Bathner is afraid because I thought he had insulted me. I do
understand that I have to earn respect, as he put it. I think I’ve
gotten quite a bit of respect from most people. I will not bother
such as him. I also understand that WHO respects you is more
important than how many.”

“
Yeah.
Your reputation makes people fear you. People will pretend respect
for those they fear, but what they feel is more often contempt.
You’ve established that so solidly that it may prove difficult to
overcome it.”

“
Sadly
true. We pay long and very dearly for our more youthful
stupidities, but I thought money and power would bring
respect.”

“
You
still do. Otherwise you’d be doing things very differently than you
are with Orlando. Try just being straightforward about whatever it
is. You might come out ‘way ahead.”

“
Do you
know what it’s about?” Lariez asked. Clint remembered something his
eccentric writer friend had mentioned and some rocks that were very
heavy. Not far from Puerto Armuelles. Silica rocks with large
streaks of a heavy hard metal inside.

“
Oh, I’d
say zinc. It’s getting to be in demand more and more and there’s
some in the area. There might be a pretty large lode of fairly pure
ore there.”

Lariez looked surprised, then nodded. “You
never fail to amaze me. What should I do where we will all come out
ahead?”

“
I’ll
talk with Orlando. He’s a simple person and doesn’t want money or
power beyond a certain point. Just get a use agreement and pay him
a tonnage fee and agree to restore the land when it’s mined out.
We’ve taught them about ownership to a certain point and he wants
his land to always be his land. Money’s usually gone in a month,
even millions, but the land is always there. I don’t know how much
of a lode there is. I’d think enough that it won’t hurt you to do
an honest business deal for a change.”

“
We
estimate there is something between three and four million metric
tons of rich ore. What would be fair?”

“
One
dollar a ton removed and you restore the land. If it’s a compact
lode it won’t do much damage. That’s a hell of a lot cheaper than
all this bullshit where you steal the Indios’ land and get your
reputation reinforced again.”

“
Yes. It
is fairly compact. I think no more than a hectare of surface land
and it’s solid rock, so will not too much affect anything there.
The land will remain the property of your friend.

“
You are
an amazing person. I’d like to call you a friend.”

“
So long
as you don’t bother innocent people, I see no reason why not.
You’re a lot different than I expected, too.”

“
Then we
will see if your friend will agree to a mutual advantage legitimate
business – and one might even garner a bit of honest respect from
such a venture. Perhaps this will be enough over projections that I
will build a new school here for the locals.

“
If you
will speak with Orlando, my friend?”

“
I’ll do
that, amigo. Can you possibly do anything to stop the funny-money
crowd from getting in too deep here?”

“
Alas,
but that I could. Any association of any type with them would put
me into an impossible position. I will try to get the word out that
it would be an inordinately stupid thing to do anything that might
bring negative publicity to them.”

Clint nodded. They shook hands and Lariez
waved for his thugs to come along.

Clint tended to believe Lariez. He’d have to
try to do something about the counterfeit paper.

“
Clint!
That Wallace woman is in the hospital!” Anita called up from the
street under Clint’s little balcony at daybreak. “She and
Batty.”

“
What?”
he replied. He had just come out to sip his first cup of coffee.
Here, he was at least partially dressed.

“
I don’t
know. I was talking with Naldo and he said they were in
hospital.”

He waved and sighed. Why those two? Where was
Vern?

Those two because of making waves about the
phoney money.

He downed the coffee, finished dressing and
headed for the hospital. Vern was sitting in the reception room and
said he didn’t know anything yet. She was in pretty bad condition
from what he’d learned. Attacked with a knife. “You tried to tell
her that being sliced up wasn’t like the movies, that she wouldn’t
get up and wash off the fake blood.”

A nurse, Rita, came out and greeted Clint. He
asked about Sally and Batty.

“
Ella es
critical, pero probablemente no es permanente. El is no seriosa
particular.”

(She’s critical, but should be alright. He’s
not seriously hurt.)

She took him in to find Batty with a bandage
around his upper arm, who whined that he should have the sense to
have listened to Clint and not gone anywhere except with a
crowd.

“
Get out
of here! Maybe now you’ll understand that these people are nuts and
will kill you without thought!”

“
I
believe you! Lariez is dangerous and there’s nothing they’ll do
about it!”

“
It’s not
Lariez. I talked with him and he says you’re not a problem. He
knows about respect being earned. He just gets pissed when he does
things like that – at himself.”

“
Then
...?”

“
The
money.”

“
But I
haven’t said anything else about that! I DID know you were right
about it! It’s still Lariez!”

“
No. He’s
not involved in that. It’s a bunch of amateur wannabe hoods.
They’re dangerous BECAUSE they’re amateurs and think they’re like
those Jamaican movies where the hoods end up the winners. Get out
of Panamá for awhile.”