by Moulton, CD
The Old Ways
(Author’s note: This story is based on an actual happening. There is a scam that is exactly what is described that has been going on here for quite a number of years. Certain past administrations would turn their backs on it because they obtained property using the method. This is what happened, with some modifications to protect the innocent. The murder is, of course, just a vehicle used to tell the story. No such murder has taken place – as of this writing.)
“Oye’!” Ronaldo yelled as he passed by Clint as Clint came from the China (super market) on Calle 1. He waved and smiled his infectious smile.
Ronaldo Vesta was an Indigeno (Indian) from nearby Isla San Cristóbal. He and his family were close friends of Clint.
“Oye’! Motwoinyo!” Clint replied in the local Indio dialect.
“Coin, gracias, pero con pocos problemas con mi propiedad.”
(The rest is in Spanish, translated here. Clint is learning Spanish and there are some problems at times.)
“Problems with your property? I thought that group from Panamá City had pretty much closed the deal where they would buy it. You went to the trouble of getting the full title for them. What happened?”
“They want me to divide it into two or three pieces so they can buy it with two or three partners or something. I don’t have the plata for that!”
“I have a bit set by. I can lend you enough until they pay and you can pay me back. What does it entail?”
“I will have to get a new separate plano, then will have to fence the sections, but they will do some of the work and will pay the workers.”
“No!” Clint shot back sternly. “I will pay the workers so there is no question later about who they were working for.”
“But ... Clint ... amigo! That is a LOT of money!”
“A couple of thousand. You’re getting almost a million dollars for that property so can pay it back when you sell. This sounds like a thing I’ve heard about here. They get their hands on the papers – like they already have, hire people to work on the place – for them – then claim the land. That could work with the old right of possession bit, which is why I insisted you get a title. You’re pure Indio so can get a title. They’re Spanish and mestizos so they CAN’T get a title on those islands.
“Please, amigo. They aren’t above trying to steal your land. I’ll use the time to investigate them. I’ve heard some things, like they’re fronting for ... some other people who would never be welcome on Cristóbal. At all! Find out what it’ll cost and I’ll finance it.”
“Clint ... you are a true friend,” Ronaldo replied seriously. “I think an honest and good person ... I will do as you say.”
“Yo, Clint! Como esta?” Carlos Conant called as he passed in his boat. Clint was on his porch over the dock at his Saigon Bay home having coffee with his only close neighbor, Judi Lum.
“Bien!” Clint replied. “Usted?”
“Very well, thank you! Hear you’ve stuck your neck out for Ronaldo. Be careful of those Indios. They never pay back a loan. Lending them money is the same as giving them money.” Carlos was Black and the Blacks and Indios here do not like each other. Unlike in the states, Clint had found that the Blacks were the worst bigots, followed by the pure Spanish. The Indios laughed at the Blacks, mostly. They have entirely different cultures.
“Lending any Panamanian money is giving it to them – EXCEPT for the Indios – in my experience. Hell, I’ve lent you a couple of hundred over the past few months and you’ve never so much as bought me a beer. I don’t expect to get it back. I learned that the first week I was here. You do owe me favors, though.
”What do you know about that bunch of clowns at Forthingwells in Panamá?”
“THAT crowd? Colombian mafia, I hear. They’re having that Montez character and his wife front for them while they buy up a lot of places to build resorts and drug drop-off spots. They own a lot of politicians and judges and such, same as always.
“Why? Because they want that nice plot of land on Cristóbal?
“You can’t fight them. They’ll end up with the land and nothing anyone can do about it. Ronaldo will get maybe a thousand dollars to get him by, but that’s it!”
“Oh, there are ways to handle that type. I have friends ... well, acquaintances ... in the states who’ve been in the organized crime bit for centuries in Europe and in the US. THEY owe me some favors, bigtime! I can get answers fast. Maybe I’ll have to go to Panamá and have a bit of a talk with some of them.
“AFTER I make a couple of calls to the US!”
“Clint, check up on what’s really going on with this shit. Fifty-fifty you end up dead if you aren’t VERY careful. This is NOT the US!”
Clint nodded and went inside to the phone to call a number he hadn’t used in ten years or more. The person who gave him the number had died just after giving him the number. He was a very big don in the states and made it a point to let his sons know he – therefore, they – owed Clint Faraday any favor he wanted. Anytime. Anywhere.
Of course, using a favor on that scale would mean his house would become a drop-off for drugs or worse. He would never resort to calling in any of those markers. Something like information about this bunch wouldn’t be considered anything more than a simple request by a friend of the family.
“Marko? Clint Faraday here. I was a friend of your father.”
“Yo, Clint! Remember! Otherwise, you ain’t got this number. Not ten people in the world know this number. What can I do for you?”
“I just need a little info about the Colombian mob here and what they’re going to try to get a friend’s land – Oh! I’m in Panamá.”
“Gimme a number and a connection and I’ll call back in mebbe a half hour or so.”
“Forthingwells in Panamá City. Four oh four nine eight seven nine nine, area five oh seven. It’s a cell phone. Reaches me anywhere in Panamá.”
“Okay. Later.” He hung up. Clint grinned. He would get information the CIA would take a year to find in half an hour. Or so.
“Learn anything?” Judi asked as Clint went back out on the porch.
“I will.”
“Clint. It’s the Mexican and Colombian bunch with a couple of Panamanians thrown in,” Marko reported forty minutes later. “If it included the Ruskies I’d tell you flat, no matter what Pops promised, I wouldn’t touch it. These are a wad of amateurs who think they can think, but they got sense enough not to deal with the Ruskies. Do NOT get involved with the Ruskie mob. They’re looney as gooney birds. Don’t have a concept of when to stop. Act first, think later.
“I’m gonna give you a name in Panamá City. Talk with her. She’s been around. Corrupt as anyone you’ll ever meet, but with a sort of charm. Don’t trust her and no deals with her. Just ask her to tell you what she knows about that scam. Alicia G. Vargas.
“Don’t trust even people you know right in your back yard and go everywhere with a piece. You got the license. Tell your Indian friend to never go anywhere alone and do NOT go to Panamá City or Santiago – and do NOT, under any circumstances, go to Colón!
“You ain’t got a clue what’s goin’ on there, Clint. This Indian has land worth about two mil he’s selling for one and they want it for nothin’. Use my name to back them off of it. They got a real fancy mouthpiece who’s as scummy a scumbag as ever walked the Earth. You’ll think he’s a great pal – got what you call charisma – but all you get from him is a knife in the back. Name’s Alfonso Cabriez Ariel.
“Ariel’s are those cutter ants you got there that can take down a tree in a night. Sorta apt, you know?
“Call me, anything else. I want to ask a favor, but it ain’t got nothin’ to do with anything else. Personal. It’ll wait til you get this one straightened out.”
“Shit!” Clint exploded. “Ronaldo went to Panamá City last night’s bus from David! I can’t reach him unless he calls me!”
“I’ll call back. Ten minutes.” He hung up.
“I don’t like
the look on your face!” Judi cried. “Clint! What happened!”
“Nothing – I honestly and very sincerely hope!”
“Clint. We might be too late with this. I can’t find your Indian friend,” Marko said twenty minutes later. “Clint, I can find anybody, anywhere. They done what I think and you got an army to wipe those scum off the face of the Earth.
“Clint, your friend is probably dead by ... gimme a minute. Call from down there.”
Three minutes later: “Clint, your friend’s in that big hospital near Via Espania. I got muscle right there in the room. They tried to kill him – and ALMOST did, but he’s gonna be alright in a few days ... Okay. You got a flight from the airport on Bocas in thirty five minutes, but they’ll hold it for you if I say. I’ll have a guy meet you in Panamá City at the airport. Carry a piece. They’ll manage not to find it at the airport.
“Kinda excitin’, huh? Thought you left all this TV drama shit back here, but it’s followin’ you.”
“Excitement of this kind I can do without! What going on?”
“It’s an old game. Vic’ll tell you about it and he’ll be with you a lot unless you say no.
“Clint, this ain’t about the favors from Pop. It’s got personal and I got a score with a couple in that bunch. I promised they ever mess with me or my friends, I pull the roots. They messed with a friend and I just needed an excuse. You ain’t involved and you’ll never hear anything about it. The favor I want’s part of it because I don’t want any of that mierda anywhere I’m at.
“Swear! Ain’t nothin’ illegal about your part! Anything like that’s on my own head.”
“You got it!” Clint replied.
“Hotel California has you booked. You been there. Good, but not real fancy. Got a great restaurant. You like espageti con camarones and they got the best. Ciao!” He hung up.
Clint sighed deeply and grabbed his bolsa, threw in a couple of changes of clothes, got two hundred dollars from his safe and headed for the airport. He could walk it in the time. The plane was just filling up when he went to the desk for his ticket and the security force looked at him almost in awe as he went directly to the plane. They didn’t check him or his luggage.
“You this Clint character?” a man asked as Clint went from the plane to the baggage section – though he was carrying all the baggage he had. “I’m Victor Salartes. Vic. Supposed to bring you up to what’s going down here.
“You’ve got a friend in Marko and he says he hasn’t seen you since he was a brat. I envy you!
“I have a car. Hospital or hotel first?”
“Hotel and fill me in. I don’t have a clue as to what’s going down, but I’ve heard things. If it’s what it seems to be I’ll help Marko pull the roots on them!”
“It’s an old game here,” Vic answered. “Nasty.”
They went to the car, an old Dodge Dart that still ran “like a sewing machine,” as the saying goes. Slant six was a strong engine that seemed to go on forever. Clint had one in the seventies and put more than 200,000 miles on it before he sold it. So far as he knew it was still going.
Weird thoughts when he was there for the type of thing he was there for!
As they headed toward the Hotel California Vic explained what was happening. It was pretty much what Clint was afraid it was. He thought that kind of thing had ended when Noriega was ousted.
“What is happening is the old routine that cost a lot of Indios their land and their lives. A powerful politician or bunch like this one will smooze an Indio who holds a right of possession, but doesn’t have any close family other than maybe a wife and kids. No brothers or sisters to later make a claim on the land. They get a crooked lawyer and bribe ... well, like this case.
“What they’ve done is get their hands on copies of the ROP papers in the way a seller handles things here with land transfers of the type. Their crooked lawyer will get a deposit from the gang, then go out of the country for a certain time. This one went to Venezuela for a year. He screwed the gang in that he put part of the land in his own name. He’d end up dead in a very nasty way if this had gone through – or he’d have something that ensured they’d never bring it up again, ever, which is probably what’s happened.
“Anyhow! They get a phony ROP – title, in this case – made up, the Indio has an accident and they show up with the phony title and claim it was a done deal before the Indio died so they own the property. There’s no one to contest it. After all, they had their own workers there that THEY paid, as everyone in the area can attest!
“Your friend was with several people when a local looney tried to rob him. He had no money so the nutcase beat him with a pole. Even the doctor said someone seriously tried to kill him, but his friends ran him away after he kneed the crud in the balls. He has a skull fracture and a hairline-cracked jaw and was cut a bit, but not too seriously. The police, of course, can’t find anything about the hit man so he was probably a transient crazy from Colón or somewhere. Very sad.
“We found him. Seems there’s poetic justice of a sort here and someone, probably a transient from Colón, beat him to death with a pole.
“Listen, Clint, Ronaldo seems to be a very good person. He refuses to believe what’s happened is what happened. Talk to him.”
“THAT I will do! Can you be sure it’s not a coincidence?”
“You mean the socalled robbery attempt? Oh, yeah! Positive!
“See, everybody in Panamá knows Indios don’t have any money, so why would some nutcase try to rob an Indio when there were several others around who very obviously DO have money? One was even wearing a diamond watch worth several grand – and people, thieves or not – notice watches here. Watches and shoes. Gimme a break!
“Here’s the hotel. You have room three oh nine. I’ll wait in the car.”
Clint nodded and took his bolsa to the room.
“Okay. You know where I can find this Alicia person?” Clint asked upon returning to the car.
“Uh-huh. She’ll be expecting you. Seems Marko called a friend with a big mouth and accidentally mentioned you.”
Clint nodded and grinned. Vic maneuvered through traffic as only a Panamanian can. Driving in most of the country is not bad at all, but Panamá City looks like a demolition derby in progress to those not used to it. They went out to an upscale community and in through the gate to a large and rather ostentatious house with a wall with razor wire on top and electric sliding gates. A typical goon was standing inside to open the gates and gave them dirty looks. Vic sneered at him and ordered that he tell the lady, excuse the term, they had arrived. A couple of minutes later they were escorted into a room with an attractive woman in her forties and a heavy younger man were having a cocktail. They were pointedly not offered any refreshment.
“Clint Faraday, Sra. Vargas and Alfonso Ariel,” Vic said easily. “I think maybe Marko told you about them when you talked to him earlier.”
“He told me that Sra. Vargas was someone to speak with about certain matters,” Clint replied as easily. “He said Ariel is a clod of the lowest order. Seems to have an alligator mouth and a gecko ass.
“This is going to be short and to the point. If you ever try another stunt to in any way harm any friend of mine your families to the second cousin will cease to be a problem to anyone else again. Ever. That includes any suspicious circumstance, such as some street punk trying to rob an Indio while there were several others around who obviously had money – as Indios never do. Capich?”
“It seems I’m not the only one with an alligator mouth, hunh?” Ariel said, sneering. Clint grabbed the front of his fancy shirt and yanked him to his feet. “Difference being I also have an alligator ass, hijo de puta!”
Their goon grabbed for his Glock – and found Vic had one stuck in his ear before he could pull it out. Vargas smirked and laughed. Ariel looked like he would faint.
“What do you think this will accomplish?” Vargas asked, pouring a drink from the pitcher and handing it to Clint. Vic very slight
ly shook his head.
“Thanks. I don’t drink before dinner,” Clint said and she put the glass on the table with a hard look at him.
“Very well. I promise your friend will have no more problems. He WON’T have a sale for his land!”
“You never intended to buy it, anyhow, so that doesn’t matter,” Vic said. “We have someone else who wants it and who will pay cash and who will take care of people. Marko said to remind you of a conversation he had with you a little over a year ago. It seems you made an agreement. You broke that agreement with this so you can wonder when he’ll fulfill the part he promised if you tried any such stunt. Maybe you could drink that little concoction you just tried to hand to Clint?”
“It’s only a sedative,” Ariel almost screeched. “It won’t hurt anything! It was just to give us a little time to ... do something about this situation!”
“A sedative mixed with alcohol? It wouldn’t hurt anything?” Clint asked. “Maybe you can drink it?
“Come on, Vic. I think they get the message.”
“I want to know who their contacts are on Isla Colón,” Vic replied. “That can wait. Give them the time to get him – or her – away from where they can testify if we decide to get the police here onto it. Panamá City is NOT the kind of place where anyone would want to spend fifteen years in prison.”
Vic took the pistol from the goon and they headed for the door. “Hey!” the goon yelled.
“I’ll give it to the local policia,” Vic said. “You can apply to get it back – if you have a permiso for it.”
They went back to the hotel.
In the morning Clint went to breakfast in the hotel restaurant, then to the hospital. Vic came to the hospital and said he would drive Clint and Ronaldo back to Bocas. There was probably a heck of a lot less danger to them now, but it wouldn’t hurt to be sure – besides which he would like to stay on Isla Colón for a little vacation. He heard it was a lot like Key West there.