Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (79 page)

Paul
did
Aimie
and a Neil
Young medley. A man who simply introduced himself as “Steve” did a
number he wrote that sounded familiar, then another from his party
came up and did a bad rap number. He was a bit drunk and Steve
escorted him from the stage as Curtis took the mike and did a
couple of country numbers with Rob and Paul. Steve and his buddy
got into an argument and a minor brawl almost started that broke up
immediately. Four of the people at a close table grabbed them and
made it plain that such crap wasn’t going to happen there. Too many
people were passing and at close tables. Knock it the hell off or
we take you into the street and kick holy living hell out of you.
Steve snarled a few choice epithets at the jerk and stalked out of
the restaurant. Bastimento Joe went onstage to do some Bob Marley
numbers and a few of his parodies. Dave was up next, so excused
himself and went to the restroom before playing. Clint saw him step
out of the restroom and signal for him to come over. He went to
find Steve’s buddy laying on the floor.

“
Passed
out. You could see he was getting there,” Clint said.

“
He’s
dead. I don’t know from what, but I saw a lot of uppers taken with
booze in the sixties and seventies. This looks like that to me –
plus the pills.” He pointed to several black pills and a red one on
the floor by the body. “Black Beauties. I haven’t seen them since
maybe seventy eight or so. Stingers – the red one. Basically meth.
He took BB’s and meth on top of a lot of booze.”

Clint studied the scene as a man came to
stare at the scene from the door. Clint used his cellular to call
Sergio at the police. He said some idiot had mixed speed and booze
and was dead.

“
I don’t
think he ... it looks set up to me,” he finished.

Dave nodded. “Far too convenient. Pills on
the floor, obviously drunk.”

“
For him
to have those pills where they could spill out like that? Gimme a
break!”

They waited for Sergio to arrive. It seemed
Steve had left just after the brawl. This guy stayed with two local
“professional” women and another man. Clint went to their table and
asked to talk with them. He said their friend had died of an
apparent overdose in the restroom and they would need some
information.

The dead guy’s name was Donald Dressler, his
friend was Steve Malcolm and the other friend was George Benton.
Clint knew the girls, Elsa and Maribel. They all knew Don was on
speed, but thought he’d stayed off of it today because they
intended to get drunk. They’d been with four others earlier, but
Don was argumentative enough that they went their own ways. Frank
Heath, Bill Gordon, Henry Thomas and Isaac Green. They probably
were with girls of their own by now. Steve would be trying to find
them to join them.

“
I’ve
heard Steve somewhere. That song,” Clint said.

“
He wrote
it. He writes a lot of things. Some make it,” George said in a
staccato style. “He sounds a lot better when he’s sober. He doesn’t
record.”

“
Was
Dressler always a PITA or was that just tonight?”

“
Half the
time a pain, half not bad. Never very much of a social mixer. Looks
for trouble. Macho complex. I don’t know why he went to the pills.
He knew better when he was drinking.”

“
What was
the bit about tonight?”

“
The
fight? He said someone stole his number and he wouldn’t put up with
that. Steve wrote the damned song and said so. They argued. Steve
said he could look at the copyright anytime he wanted. He wrote it
before he even met the asshole.

“
Sorry. I
don’t have any sympathy for druggies. The people earlier got into
it because they’re all around music and he claims they stole his
stuff – regularly. I doubt he ever wrote anything decent on his
own. What I know he wrote was pure garbage. You saw
that!”

Clint nodded. He picked up the beer bottles
on the table and two glasses. Elsa said he was the only one who
drank Soberana and one of the rum and Cokes was his.

Sergio kept it as quiet as he could, but the
police running around the place made people drift off fairly soon.
The show died. Clint had the list of people he would talk to in the
morning.

Clint had gotten the reports from the ME.
There was speed in the Soberana bottles and in the glass. None in
any other bottles or glasses.

“
It was
George Benton or Steve Malcolm,” Sergio said. “None of the others
were there to put the stuff in his booze. The girls –
hah-ah.”

“
Too many
people too close. Too many people passing back and forth to the bar
or dance floor. It would be easy to drop the stuff when no one was
at the table. The doses were heavy. He drank at least two beers
with the stuff in them and at least one rum. Anyone at a close
table could have done it. Anyone at the bar who passed the table on
the way to the dance floor could have done it,” Clint argued.
“Serg, I doubt very much that it was Steve. He would be the first
one anyone would suspect immediately.”

“
We don’t
know the names of many of the people at the close tables. This one
could get problematical.”

“
It was
premeditated so it was someone who knew him. He didn’t talk to
anyone there that I saw, but I wasn’t paying much attention to him.
I did notice that he was throwing the drinks back as fast as he
could swallow. I have to talk to their waiter. Anyone who waited on
their table.”

“
Silvio
and Ana were the only two working the section. We can go over at
ten and talk to them.”

They chatted a bit, then went to the
restaurant where Sergio had requested the people who waited tables
and the bartender meet them. Silvio said there were always two or
three beers and an extra glass of rum on the table for each of
them. They were drinking to get drunk, but Donald was outdrinking
them two to one or more. He also had several tequila shooters
earlier. The bartender said they would come to the bar when the
waiters were busy and get drinks. Silvio said they were going to
cut them off after the fight.

“
Did you
see any of them talk to anyone else close by?”

“
The dead
one had a talk with someone at the bar when he went there for
drinks,” Naldo, the bartender, said. “Something about where some
money or other came from for him to be drinking like that when he
hadn’t paid some kind of bill. It wasn’t loud or anything. I was
getting the beers and was right there.”

“
Can you
describe the man?” Sergio asked.

“
Sort of
thin and pale, brownish hair, several gold chains, rings on three
fingers of the right hand, Omega gold watch. He was with a very
pretty Latino woman. Two of them. Not locals. I think someone said
they were Colombian.”

Clint thought for a minute. He was sure he
could find those people because he’d noted them in a casual way. He
did that automatically. The detective in him.

They went to the Swan’s Cay Hotel to
interview Steve and assorted friends. The man described by the
bartender was in the restaurant with the two women. Sergio had
sealed Donald’s room immediately when the death was reported. They
went there first. Not much was there to be seen except for more
than six thousand dollars in cash hidden in a box of envelopes.

Sergio had the desk check the names of the
man in the restaurant and his women friends. Julio Castilo from
Barranquilla, Colombia. Maria Quintin and Louisa Abandia,
companions from ditto.

Clint could figure it. Donald had handled a
drug shipment and hadn’t paid. Six or seven grand? And he was hit?
No way!

Clint had a friend in Chiriqui Grande who was
an undercover operative for Interpol. He called him and asked about
Castilo.

“
Julio or
Natchez?”

“
Julio,
but I want to know about both.”

“
Yeah.
They have a nice little coke processing plant somewhere near
Barranquilla. We haven’t been able to find it,” Manolo answered.
“Why?”

“
He
knocked over a gringo jerk here. He was overheard asking the victim
about having money to throw around drinking when he couldn’t pay
his bills. Turkey was dead of mixing speed and booze in the
restroom of a restaurant.”

“
Life and
death in the fast lane,” Manolo said sourly. “Want me to check on
the word?”

“
If
there’s anything specific. Don’t go out of your way. I don’t think
it will tell us anything we haven’t already thought of.”

They talked a little more, then Clint asked
Sergio if there was any way to get into Julio’s rooms. He shrugged,
then got an evil look on his face. He made a call. They waited
around for about half an hour. Julio and his girlfriends finally
left the table and headed for the door. A man with a dog was beside
the door as they went out. The dog sniffed the women’s purses and
barked, pawing at one. Sergio happened to be just behind them with
Clint and announced that the woman was carrying drugs in her purse.
She was under arrest. Sergio called to the desk clerk to see that
no one entered or left her room. He would send an officer to be
there in two minutes or less.

Julio started with the “I’ll have your ass
for this! I’ll sue this dump off the map!” routine, which they all
ignored. He was obviously scared of having the room searched.
Sergio stepped out and called on his walky-talky for any officer
close to come to the Swan’s Cay immediately. One was at Don
Chicho’s, across the road. He was there in half a minute and went
to stand by the door of the suite.

Sergio arrested the three of them and had the
truck come to take them to the station. The women both had small
pistols in their purses. They were on an island, so had better
sense than to try anything. No way out.

Julio had a Glock 70. None of them were
permitted. They could be held as long as Sergio liked.

When they were booked Clint and Sergio went
to the suite for a search. They found a kilo of processed cocaine,
hundreds of Black Beauties and more than fifty thousand dollars in
cash. Sergio checked the hundred dollar bills and said they had
another charge now. It was counterfeit.

“
Well,
this will be a big bust that came fast!” Sergio said. “We can mark
this one solved! Also ten other charges! This is a done
deal!”

“
I really
don’t think so.”

“
What?”

“
No
dealer would trust a speed freak. Donald was working for someone
else here. I doubt Julio knows who.”

Sergio thought a bit. “I would have come to
that conclusion fairly soon. It is not logical that an experienced
drug lord would trust such as Donald Benton.”

“
I’ll
check with the people in the party and the ones who left them
earlier. Julio brought the stuff, but I think someone else used it
on Donald Benton.”

Sergio nodded.

It was a bit after twelve thirty before the
group had recovered enough from last night’s binge to know what was
going on. Even then they looked pretty bad. Clint spent three hours
looking all of them up and talking with them. He was sure they were
out of it. They were all recently from Nashville. They were all
involved with music in one way or another. They knew Donald Benton
was a speed freak who had some control. Two of them had seen him
with an older man, heavyset with slightly long wavy light brown
hair and a bushy moustache. He smoked Cuban cigars and had a big
gold ring on his right hand. He was at the restaurant when they
came in. They didn’t remember seeing him later.

Clint wasn’t sure he’d seen him. His memory
was of someone who could have been that one at the bar when he and
Judi came in as a sort of indistinct background figure. He called
Sergio, who called the restaurant and asked Naldo if he remembered
the man.

He did. A little. Very quiet and sat at the
end of the bar. He didn’t remember when the man left. He had one or
two drinks, then was gone.

Clint went back to the police station to
compare notes with Sergio. Nothing new. Julio would take the
hardest fall, the women as accessories. They definitely knew
something, but weren’t talking.

Clint’s cell phone buzzed. It was Manolo.
“Get them?”

“
Julio
and his girlfriends, yes. Not the one behind it.”

“
They
were behind it. Julio and Nachez. Benton knew too much and had a
runny mouth when he was drunk. He ran off with four hundred grand
of their money.”

“
We have
a mystery man in the mess. I want to know who and why.”

“
What do
you know about him now?”

“
He’s
sort of what I think of as an indistinct background figure. He
isn’t noticed when he’s standing right in front of ... I
see.”

“
He’s the
best operative in certain areas I’ve ever seen. I’ve actually seen
people talk to him on the street and they couldn’t describe him
very well three minutes later. He’s, as you said, indistinct. Sort
of heavy, neutral hair, a moustache. You’d think he’d be easy to
describe.

“
You’re a
professional. How tall is he?”

Clint thought. He hadn’t noticed him in any
place to compare. “Somewhere between five seven and six two.
Somewhere between one eighty and two forty, depending on his
height. Somewhere between forty and sixty.

“
Great
lord! He’s distinctive, even to jewelry, but you can’t quite be
sure ... this is weird!”