Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (18 page)

Clint didn’t really understand it. He
accepted it.

They went silently, almost ceremoniously, to
the trail and up the mountain.

Omen

The sun was just at the horizon, a huge
blinding ball of silver light. There were clouds above and almost
to where the sun shone so brightly, but there were none right on
the horizon line. They watched as it sank below the horizon and the
sky began to glow in strange colors. It was a bluish-white that
quickly became pale pink, then more and more pink. The sky above
and to the sides of where they were standing took on very strange
aquamarine colors Clint had never seen.

Silvio shook his head and said this was not
good. Clint asked why.

“
The color gets darker and there is too
much green. There is far too much pink and it is not turning more
purple. It is turning red. That is bad. Very bad.”

“
How so?”

“
Red means blood. Much red means much
blood. It is not good! It must not be red in one minute. If it
stays pink things are normal for that. If it becomes red it is bad.
If it gets very red it is terrible.

“
I do not like the green overhead. That
is not good. It tells me there is much confusion ahead. It is not
good, though it is not terrible. It is ... uncertain.”

They watched for the minute and a bit more.
The sky stayed a darker pink, but there were a few blotches of
intense red almost overhead but toward the east and a bit south.
Silvio discussed that with the others. Clint spoke the dialect, but
didn’t join the discussion of matters he didn’t pretend to
understand. He did catch that it was the uncertainty that was
bothering them. It was because some few of the features needed
interpretation. They were portents that only long experience gave
indication of meaning.

Finally, Silvio said, “We do not know why
there is red only there. We do not know why it is only small spots
of red. Mario believes it means there is much serious trouble, but
only for a few. Jorge believes it is a few here, because there is
no red behind or ahead. It is not, most fortunately, over Cusapín.
It is to the east. There is much jungle there and very few people.
It is not something we can understand.

“
I interpret the green and blue mix of
colors over this place to mean the blood will not be here, but the
trouble will be. In any interpretation, it is bad.”

They watched the colors quickly fade to grey.
The return to the beach was more silent than the ascent had been.
Silvio refused to give an interpretation to the waiting people. He
said it was not good for someone, but perhaps the signs were not
for the people there in Cusapín at that moment. It was very bad for
people close to the east and south. It was a terrible omen for
some, but he could not guess who. He could find no direct good in
the signs. It was not directed in any way to Cusapín and the people
there. It had connections, but no one could guess what those
connections were.

A woman asked if the bad was to the gringo.
Was he the one in danger of a bad omen.

“
No. He was there with us. The signs of
bad were to the south and east, not here. It is possible the
connection here is
through
our
good friend, Clint.”

They accepted that. They were as fatalistic
about it as about most things. The woman said she could not give a
protective spell or amulet unless she knew what it was for. She
said Clint must take very careful care. She was the local
medicine/witch woman. Her opinion was greatly respected. She was
not feared in any way as in most cultures. She was sought for help
in a variety of situations. She was not known as an evil woman, but
as a good one, what would be called a white witch in the US. The
dark or evil witch was a negress on the edge of the comarca. That
one was the reason of what little magic used was used.
Counterspells.

Silvio had explained the system to Clint long
ago. Their medicine woman knew that spells worked well if those
involved believed. All that was necessary for countering most
things was a belief as strong or stronger that she could counter
the evil.

One could not counter poisons with spells.
The dark witch was known to use many poisons and hallucinogens so
they were very wary of anything from her or people who she used.
She had no real power on the comarca.

This left Clint with a lot of serious
questions. Unfortunately, they were not questions that could be
answered here. He wasn’t going to let it destroy his vacation among
the people he loved. He didn’t think there was any connection with
him. He didn’t know anyone south and east of Cusapín closer than
the mouth of the canal, and few there. Apparently, that was a great
distance farther than the signs indicated.

What was there? The coast, certainly, and
miles and miles of rain forests. It was as much as uninhabited. A
few Indios had fincas along the shore, but very few and not close
past the couple of miles with fast (relatively) access to
Cusapín.

Silvio said the trouble could be as close as
the farthest of those fincas, but he thought it was past them.

Clint knew that the omens were often based in
logical happenings that had been observed over the ages, such as
the red sky in morning one. That meant, in most places, that storms
were just at the horizon to the east, the prevailing path of storms
was from east to west, thus red sky meant heavy clouds to the east
that would move toward you. Red sky at night meant the storms were
already west of you so weren’t likely to affect you. He knew that a
flash of green at sunset meant exceptionally good luck in Florida.
It seemed the local lore was that too much green was exactly the
opposite. Science had shown that the green flash was due to the
prism effect of clouds at a certain angle with a certain
configuration. The earth is turning at a thousand miles per hour,
so the prism band passes in a flash to the observer.

Clint didn’t believe the magical properties
of omens like the natives did, but didn’t ignore them for that
reason. These people were right in far too many of their beliefs
for one reason or another. The red blotches didn’t seem to him to
have any basis, but that odd aquamarine color in the sky didn’t
make sense, either. The colors were from the overall prism effect
from the angle the sunlight reflected off the clouds. That meant
almost any primary color could show up – but aquamarine was far
from a primary color. Scientifically, the clouds were curved in an
odd way to make the effect longer than the flash to allow mixing of
two bands – but blue and green?

He would worry about it some other time if
anything happened. Tonight was to be spent with his friends and was
NOT going to be a downer!

The night was very pleasant. The group talked
and told stories until after midnight, then Clint got a very good
rest to meet the day. He was going to ride into the mountains on a
horse with a bunch of friends. Some of them would drop out on the
way to go to where they were working. A couple were going home
because they had stayed the night in Cusapín solely because he was
there. He had helped any number of them at one time or another and
was highly respected among them.

It was almost noon when he was high enough on
the mountain that his cell phone could get a signal. Ralph Goins, a
man from Manchester, England, living in Puerto Armuelles said he
had been trying to reach Clint most of yesterday and into the
night. Clint had turned his phone off in the afternoon so as not to
be bothered by these people who always wanted him to do them a
“favor” that consisted of him wasting hours on some problem that
they brought on themselves.

Sure enough! “Clint, I would really
appreciate it if you could do something to locate some people who
said they were going to that side to buy a large parcel of land
where there’s supposed to be some kind of mineral or
something.”

Everyone knew about that kind of scam and had
warned them, but they were insistent that it was a solid
investment. They were so sure that he had sold them a big parcel
just inland from Las Olivas dirt cheap, with a part being in a sort
of stock deal where he would receive five percent. He would make a
profit on the land he sold them, even though he sold it for about
half what it could bring.

“
So? What’s the problem?”

“
The, er, the check they gave me for
the land bounced. I don’t think they know their account was as much
as, uh, raided. I checked and the money was there when I took the
check, but was gone two days later, which is yesterday.”

“
What makes you think they don’t know
about it?”

“
It was, uh, more that I’m a good judge
of people, if I do say so myself. They aren’t the type to run a
scam.”

“
If you could tell the type by looking
at them or talking to them there wouldn’t be any successful scams.
I’m here in Cusapín, so can’t do anything about it
anyway.”

“
I KNOW you’re in Cusapín, Clint!
That’s where they were going!”

“
I’ll be back in town tonight and can
check to see if they ever got here. What are their
names?”

“
Ida and Harry Nesmith and Gina and
John Littleton. They’re middle-aged, but are traveling with a man
called Frederico Valdez and a woman named Guila Zacharia. Valdez is
from Argentina and Zacharia is from Brazil.”

“
And the check, of course, was drawn on
an Argentina bank?”

There was a long pause, then, “So it’s a
scam?”

“
More than ninety percent.”

“
But ... but what do they gain? I
simply won’t allow the title transfer.”

“
At which time they’ll make an
agreement to pay, because they had no IDEA the money wasn’t there!”
Clint said dryly. “They’ll then check with the bank and give you
another check that you’ll have to wait thirty more days on. It’ll
bounce higher than this one. Meanwhile, they use the fact that
you’re in business with them to work their schemes on other
gringos.”

“
I won’t take another check from them.
I’m glad you warned me. Is there anything I can do to stop
them?”

“
Uh-huh.
A
Bad checks are illegal here. Put their asses in
jail.”

“
I guess that’s my only real
recourse.”

“
You can run it back on them. Put them
in jail until you have the cash money in your hands. If they
actually have it they can get it to you by direct transfer, not a
check. If you get it they won’t have the backing to run the scheme
against anybody else. You’ll be a partner in some kind of scheme
they plan to run here. There’s no land not on the comarca between
here and Colón and not much in Colón.”

“
Then ... I don’t get it.”

“
We can root out the bunch who’re
running the schemes. If they try some crooked deal here it’s the
business of the Indigenos. They can handle the
penalties.”

There was a short pause, then, “And their
ideas of justice are somewhat different than the corrupt courts
here, eh?”

“
It would seem so. Watch your back.
I’ll be in touch when I can get to a place like this where there’s
a signal.”

They soon broke it off. Clint looked
thoughtful, then grinned. Maybe they could put the tails of a few
of that type in a crack! He was willing to try. It didn’t seem the
kind of thing the omen was about, but who knew? If they were south
and east and fairly close it could be them. The part where they
would be in serious trouble might be that they would have to face
the charges in Puerto Armuelles or charges on the comarca. Maybe
both. They might buy their way out of the charges in Puerto
Armuelles. They damned well couldn’t buy their way out of charges
on the comarca.

This might get interesting. Clint didn’t see
any way it could ruin his vacation or negatively affect his
friends.

Who?

Okay. This was a typical scam, but who was it
being run on? That the Argentinian and Brazillian were running it
Clint didn’t doubt. What he didn’t know was if the Nesmiths and
Littletons were part of it or if it was being run on them as well
as anyone else they could get involved.

He would wait awhile to see what developed.
The only way it figured was a scheme to rope more gringos into it.
Get them to invest cash, not barter of any type. That meant money
gringos – who would be damned wary of any deal that sounded too
good to be true. Those things were what they sounded like.

How would they work it? The comarca land
couldn’t be sold. A person could get permission from the ruling
council to use the land or enter it for a specific reason, but
there could be no sale. It was Indio land in general and didn’t
have any individual owners. Simply because someone had a house and
farm on the land didn’t mean they owned anything. The culture was
different. It would make it possible, even easy, to work a scam on
people who didn’t have a prayer of understanding it.

A lot of people came to Cusapín for a variety
of reasons, mostly for the clear water, beaches and surfing. Not a
lot of them had much money. Clint still didn’t see how anything
would work.

He would think about it later. All he would
do today was call Manolo, a friend/Interpol agent using a cover of
a shady maybe-drug-middleman persona. Manolo could find out about
Valdez and Zacharia as quickly as anyone.

He decided to spend the day riding into the
mountains to places no white person had ever stepped foot – well,
Dave. His weird friend was a botanist orchid specialist, who got
along with the Indios as well as Clint. He came to these places
with their blessings to do his private research and classification.
Clint saw him spend days and well into the night pouring over
pictures and matching them to scribbled notes when he returned from
the trips.