Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition

by Moulton, CD

  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.”

  “But I didn’t say ... oh. Sally was a little drunk and was running on about how she’d outsmarted them all and got her money changed. I was with her and I’d said something about it before.”

  “I wonder how clever she feels about outsmarting that bunch now! Are you booked out of the country?”

  “Yes. Ten o’clock out of David if I can get there.”

  “Get out of here and to the bus. You have time. Call the airport and tell them you’re on the way, so don’t give your ticket to anyone else. This isn’t a joke. You can’t tell your grandkids about it unless you survive to tell them.”

  “I’m going to turn everything here over to Yvon. I won’t come back for at least a year.”

  Clint nodded and watched as Rita checked him out and released him.

  “Oh! The bank changed the hundred. They didn’t even really check it.”

  Clint nodded again and went with Rita to see Sally, who was a mass of bandages around the mid-section. She was sedated. Vern was allowed in for a minute, then he and Clint went to Jola’s Restaurante for breakfast. Vern didn’t seem too upset about Sally.

  “Will you get pissed if I ask you some rather personal questions?” Clint asked.

  He grinned. “I’m bought and paid for. She wanted a toy-boy to impress her sorority girlfriends and is about the greediest one person I ever met. She has money up the ass, her family owns about half of California and Oregon and all she can talk about is getting more. She wants to own most of Panamá if she can work it. She thinks she’s above all this trash and can buy anything she wants.

  “If anything happens to her I get nothing. It’s a pretty good life in some ways, but it’s a huge mistake in others. I’m the lazy type who only wants enough to get along. I get to go all over the world this way.

  “I think I’d like to live here. Not so much here as around Bocas. I do like to surf and fish and dive and it’s damned well within my budget without her. I think what will really kill her is if I walk out from perfect gorgeous spoiled brat HER! The whole WORLD wants HER!

  “You can guess I’m a little sorry they didn’t cut her stupid damned throat!

  “Anything else?”

  Clint laughed. “That covers it.”

  They chatted about things. Vern was probably going to do exactly that. Walk out on her and live in Bocas. He was really a very likeable type.

  “Wanda” – actually Frederico Martos, a transvestite who hung around El Critico, came by and greeted Clint. He said he’d seen Vern and was most impressed.

  “You should wipe off all that excess make-up in the daytime,” Clint counseled. “You look ridiculous in street clothes with that mascara running down your face.”

  “I was busy last night. I’d like to get busy with you and your friend for a few days and nights.”

  Vern laughed. “If you’d heard the conversation we just had you’d know I think I’d prefer that to the woman I’m stuck with in there!” He pointed to the e-room door.

  “The ‘ME! ME! ME!’ bitch? I can see how life with that one would be hell. Want to go lay around the beach – or my place?”

  “If she croaks, I’ll take you up on that.”

  “Serious. She’s stupid as hell to run her mouth about the money. They WILL kill her if she doesn’t shut the fuck up.”

  “It isn’t Lariez. Who?” From Clint

  “Yeah! Everyone is shocked that you seem to be such great good friends with the MexMaf! I think that Jorge and Sergio Smith bunch. Four of them. Black family from Colón. They’re usually the ones into that kind of crap. We’ll put up with it for just so long, then they’ll get a little warning or two of their own.”

  “The frente onto them or just watching Paulo?”

  “Paulo. They don’t have a clue about anything else. You have to file a complaint with fifty of the bills and ten witnesses and they’ll send it to Panamá City, who’ll give the evidence to their committee who will report to the board, who may or may not investigate. Meanwhile, the phoney bills get lost somewhere and oh, madre de dios! Where could it be?!”

  Cling grimaced and asked who was in on it at the bank.

  “Enrico seems to have a hell of a lot of money to throw around, but I didn’t have any part of any such conversation about anything whatever with you.”

  Clint nodded and grinned. Vern said he’d better get back to the hotel. Sally wouldn’t be talking for another three hours, minimum. He had the good luck to have that time to not have to listen to her.

  “Shouldn’t you sit around the waiting room wringing your hands about the HOR-rible way your DEAR wife was treated?” Fredrico asked.

  “I suppose I SHOULD. It would be expected. I’m through doing what would be expected.”

  They all laughed at that one. Clint said it was disgusting how they were sitting around laughing and joking when she was so close to death in the hospital a couple of blocks away. They broke it up and Clint went to find Batty just leaving his office with a couple of large suitcases. He said it wouldn’t be smart to take any of the phoney money along.

  “God, no! I don’t need anything like that! Do you want it? I have about twelve hundred in there.”

  Clint started to say “No,” and thought about it. He smirked. “Yeah. Give it to me. I’ll go deposit it in the bank.”

  Batty grinned and went in to hand over twelve hundreds from his drawer. “That should light a fire or two!”

  “You just left it in the drawer?”

  “Yeah. I was hoping someone would steal it. I have insurance for eighty percent.”

  Clint saluted, Batty got on the bus five minutes later and Clint went back to the hotel to see Gerald yelling that no one in Panamá knew how to make a decent omelet.

  “Depends on who they’re making it for,” Clint told him. “You simply ain’t gonna catch on, are you?”

  “I don’t remember asking you!”

  “As loud and vulgar as you’re acting it can be assumed you meant to be addressing anyone within earshot. I guess if you’re raised in a barn you’ll tend to bray like a jackass. Do have a nice day. I’m sure you can find a hundred things to complain about before noon and that seems to be your most charming attribute.” He went to the elevator and stepped in.

  “Bloody thing’s not working – like everything e
lse in this HOLE!” Gerald announced loudly. Clint pushed the “on” button and grinned at him as the door closed. Gerald was beet red and about to have an apoplexy attack. Again.

  He spent a little time on his laptop, then went to the bank to deposit the twelve hundred in his account. He made it a point to go to Enrico’s caja. The money went into the drawer and he had a receipt.

  “Hmm. First time I ever gave a bank hundreds when they didn’t check them! Tell the Smiths I said hello – and to be very careful. Far too many people go swimming here before they find out about the rip tides and are never heard of again.” He walked out with Enrico staring at his back. Now he could expect a visit.

  He went back to the hotel and called Manny Mathews (Actually Marko Boccini, a retired major mafia don from California) to ask about the counterfeit money scam.

  “I’ll have it checked out,” Marko replied. “An hour or so. Want me to do anything about it?”

  “Manny, I don’t know what’s going on. It’s not about Lariez or these funny-money people. It’s all a little bit extreme, if you get what I’m saying. Reactions are just the least bit out of sync. ‘Way overdone. It might have something to do with the refinery.”

  “There are schemes within schemes within schemes and everybody is out to screw everybody else. I’m not involved with any of that crap anymore, but I’ll see what my contacts can find.

  “Lariez tried to get in contact last night, but my boys said I’m in Greece and won’t be available for a few days. He just wanted to let me know you were getting involved with people there he couldn’t do anything about and might need protection.

  “Don’t get into too tight a situation there until I can find what’s going on. It could be coming from Syria.”

  “Syria! That’s a new one for me!”

  “They’re unreachable there.”

  “But I’m not there. I think I can see why some things are happening and why the ones involved are the ones involved.

  “Thanks, Manny.”

  They talked about Marko’s new kid and how it was going to be raised like the Indios, not like the typical Itallian Mafia Godfather family. Marko was living on Isla San Cristóbal. No one but Clint and Judi Lum knew Manny was Marko. Marko was supposed to be living on a private island somewhere in the Mediterranean.

  He thought for a few minutes, then went to the long wharf sticking out into the Pacific. It was a beautiful spot and the views from the wharf were spectacular. Several people greeted him as he went out toward the control shed near the end. He stood chatting with a couple of his Indio friends and watched as four big blacks came strolling casually out onto the dock. He grinned at Quentin and Nino and said to keep an eye on them. They might try to start something.

  “Ladrones de Colón. Son malagentes. Esta con mucho experiencia. Hay mucho cuidado. Ellos tiene pistolas,” Nino warned.

  “Yo tambien.”

  (“Thieves from Colón. Bad people. We have experience with them. Take care. They have guns.”

  “So do I.”)

  The four came out to stand under the shed in the shade. One of them called, “Faraday! Come here!”

  “It’s the same distance from there to here as from here to there, so you can come to me if you want to talk, Smith.”

  One came over. The other three stood where they were. Nino and Quentin waved and went on out to where six or seven other Indios were fishing. They all went to the other side of the wharf to where four more were working on a small boat. Clint grinned to himself.

  “What do you think you’re doing telling Enrico you’re going to send us out into the sea and we aren’t coming back?”

  “A warning, same as with the Wallace woman and Batty. How can even such as you be that stupid? You want the CIA here looking into your piddling little projects? You want them to know about the Syrian connection? And how could those people be idiots enough to get your type involved, anyway? Nobody else stupid enough to get wrapped up in Colombian funny-money?”

  “You bulletproof? I’ll show you who’s stupid!” He pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and made a short stab at Clint – who expected it and dumped him, stamped hard on the hand with the knife, then kicked it into the Pacific.

  “You sure as hell did that!” Clint replied as the hood squealed at his mangled hand. The other three came running over, one pulling a revolver from his pocket. The pistol’s hammer caught the fabric and he almost shot himself in the leg before it came out, which gave Clint time to step toward him and shove him over backward. He rolled and jumped up, bringing the pistol up at the same time. Clint moved toward him again before he had his footing, slapped the pistol to the side where it fired into the wharf, then shoved the hood over the side of the wharf into the Pacific – about 40 feet below at low tide. Another hood charged at him and suddenly jerked and went over backward as Nino and several other Indios dropped a rope around his neck and jerked him off his feet. The last hood stood with his hands up while six Indios surrounded him.

  “Matar?” Quentin asked. (“Kill him?”)

  “No. Is solo para un lecion,” Clint replied, then turned to the three hoods. “Get your friend out of the water if he can make it to the platform. I don’t give a damn if he drowns. Get back to Colón where you belong.”

  “We’ll be back!” the one with the mangled hand said. Clint roundhoused him, knocking him off his feet and probably breaking his nose.

  “I’ll be waiting. Should be fun.”

  The Indios decided it would be fun to deliver a little lesson of their own and beat hell out of the other two. They walked off the wharf with Clint. The guard said the four told him not to go out there, no matter what he saw or heard – so he didn’t.

  “They should be more careful on this old dock. They might slip and hurt themselves on all those loose boards.”

  The guard grinned and Clint treated his Indio friends to sodas and patacones, then went back to the hotel. He still didn’t have a clue as to what was really happening, but someone wanted to stay anonymous and pull strings. Maybe this would bring him out of the shadows a bit. He wasn’t going to get to Clint Faraday with this kind of local amateur talent.

  He saw a woman he’d seen before in some real estate office just leaving the hotel with Yvon Leonardo, Batty’s girlfriend/secretary. Monica Something-or-other. Batty had mentioned her.

  Monica Standing.

  His phone buzzed and he answered. It was Marko.

  “Clint, I don’t know what’s going on there,” Marko warned. “There are several more people who I’m having checked out, not because of who they are, but because they’re some part of that particular group. This is either some silly scheme among a bunch of strange people or something very sinister.

  “So! You dumped the Smith brothers on the wharf?”

  “They’re like a lot of those Colón types. Big bad-asses to hear, but wimps, in fact. They try to scare people into thinking they’re more than second-rate punks.

  “I’ll throw some names at you. It’s like you noted, there isn’t anything about any one or two, but what are they doing here together?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Sam Downy.”

  “I’ll check on any I don’t know. Next?”

  “Frank Abel.”

  “Israeli. Greedy type, but not much known now.”

  “Monica Standing.”

  “One I’m already tracing. There are gaps. Dabbles in real estate a bit and is into financing ventures with other people’s money. Sort of a nut about alcohol. Red wine with meals on special occasions only.”

  “Just because it seems so overdone, Gerald and Sylvia Cartworthy.”

  “I saw them with that Colombian friend of yours in Panamá City at the Hotel California a week or so ago. Seemed to be regular tourists, if a bit stuffy.”

  “Carlos Vermont? The Colombian?”

  “Yes. Personable type, if just a tiny bit shady. Seemed friendly with the girlfriend of Bathner.”

  “Oh? Now I AM getting curious
! Yvon Leonardo? Is she ... she would be in a position ... and a few things don’t make sense now that did before and a couple make a strange kind of sense that didn’t before.

  “Anything about the Syrian connection?”

  “That’s something I can’t get anything other than a few hints about. Maybe someone is trying to get them involved somehow so they’ll have a place to go when it finally hits the fan.”

  “I don’t think Syria would be a personal choice. I’m REALLY interested in a couple of them. They seem to be doing everything in their power to be noticed in a very negative way here, but were normal tourists in Panamá City?”

  There was a pause, then Marko said, “The Cartworthys are the only ones who fit that. What are they doing there? They didn’t impress me as being anything more than your typical European tourists. A bit uppity, but quiet.”

  “Finding fault with everything and everyone. Loudly and publicly. Making total assholes of themselves. Overdoing expressions like people on those silly soap operas. She’s like a comic Theda Bara, at times.”

  “What’s it for? Any guesses?”

  “They want to be noticed to take notice away from someone else – or so they WON’T be noticed if they do anything in a normal way? Everywhere you go, you make a spectacle of yourself. If you don’t, no one will remember you were even there.”

  “That would be ... I think I’ll check on them very much more than I would, otherwise. Maybe they want to be so obnoxious and obvious that no one would bother, hunh?”

  “I think they’re probably very smart people, but they won’t make it as actors.”

  “You do get the weird ones! Later.”

  Clint hung up and stared at the wall a moment, then got a truly evil little smirk on his face. Everybody was pulling off some kind of act. He didn’t know what it was about, but he was going to spend a little time throwing their timing off. The trouble with working from a script is that only the better actors could ad-lib or do spontie with any hope of pulling it off. An amateur with talent could possibly do something to stay in the general script, but none of these had that kind of talent. Sally Wallace was stupid and shallow. She might be the only innocent one in the whole mess.