by Moulton, CD
Don’t think about it. People are collectively stupid and always will be. A bunch of thugs and worse would make a lot of money and the people would be that much further behind. Tourism would be hurt.
The comp dinged that he had e-mail. Probably advertisements.
Clint went in and clicked on the message. It wasn’t e-mail, it was a chat. He answered that he was available. Gossip here was as good as at the grill, usually.
“Twistedgrip17"? Who was that?
“You got audio?” came on the screen.
Clint clicked on the audio circuit. He had been paying for it for months and had never bothered to use it.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“I met you in Las Tablas about a year and a half ago. You were working on that phony gold mine scheme?”
“Phony mine?”
“It was sulfur that was supposed to be silver or something.”
“Oh. A sulfur dome that was supposed to be oil,” Clint said. “Sort of stupid. Anyone who ever read a sonic recording could tell the difference and oil isn’t found in that kind of place.”
“Whatever. I need a bit of help. Something is strange here – well, not here. In Santiago, but I came here to get away from it. You’re a detective, so maybe you can find out what the hell is going on!”
“Tell me about it,” Clint suggested.
“Oh! I’m Ed Granger. The overweight ex-boxer from Arkansas. I didn’t stop to think that you wouldn’t have the foggiest idea of who I am.
“It’s odd things that happen. I got some weird e-mails and a few letters in my box. I have a P.O. box.
“Listen. I’ll pay for a ticket and you can fly out to meet me in Santiago tonight? You can see what happened and what kinds of things come in the mail and so forth. I also had my brakes fail in my truck in the mountains. If I wasn’t such a good driver I’d be dead.
“That wouldn’t be so strange, because a lot of brakes fail in those mountains. They get damned hot coming down with a load.
“There was some kind of thing on the master. I don’t know what it did, but think it blocked the fluid or something. I don’t know how it was timed.”
That was getting interesting! “I’ll catch the four o’clock,” Clint promised.
Clint put a few things in a bag and made a curry for lunch, then met with friends to gossip awhile, then went to the airport at three. The ticket was there. He boarded at a quarter to four and was in Santiago at ten to five.
Ed Granger wasn’t overweight, except in his own mind. He was still hard-muscled and in good health at fifty two. He had a very slight paunch that he was working to lose. He had the scars and such of a boxer. His nose was a small bit slanted toward the left. His ears showed the normal damage of a heavyweight. His hair was thick and mostly black with some greying. He was affable and nervous. He was with a Panamanian girl. She was very goodlooking, in a cheap sort of way. She had a shape that was on the edge of being overdone. Granger introduced her as Toñ?a. He said he was the novio of her sister, Nilsa.
Clint wondered what Nilsa looked like.
They went to the Bocas del Toro Hotel, where a room was already paid for Clint to stay. Toña went to the almacen, then would go back to the finca. Nilsa would come to pick Ed up about six and they could go to a restaurant or whatever.
Clint put what little he’d brought in his room and he and Ed went to a trucking company that Ed owned with a couple of partners. All of them had their own trucks and drove them, plus they would hire local haulers for anything more than they could handle. They weren’t getting rich, but were comfortable. Ed liked to make long hauls. He had the eighteen wheeler rig.
He showed Clint his truck, then went into his private office and took a device from the safe there (explaining that anything not locked up disappeared). It was a simple solenoid with a battery and little comp board. Clint looked it over and noted the imprint on the circuit board.
“It’s a cell phone board. The way it works is that the number to the SIM is called and it sends a pulse to the solenoid. What was the solenoid hooked to?”Clint asked when Ed gave him the look about saying it was from a celular. He took a piece of the tape off the board and showed him the SIM card. It was a Mas Movil, so Clint carefully took the chip out and put it into one of his phones, then punched the number of his other phone. It rang and he gave Ed the number on the ID. Ed shook his head.
Ed said there wasn’t anything attached that he could find.
“It was the truck out there?”
“Yeah.”
Clint went out and looked at the spot the device had been attached, after asking the secretary, Donna, a few questions. She didn’t seem to know anything.
There was a small piece of nylon fishing line hanging from a brake line below and behind the unit. He fished it out to find a strange shaped piece of metal on the end. He shrugged.
Ed checked it, studied the hexagonal hole on one end, then slipped it down to fasten on the end bolt of a tiny valve.
“I’ll be damned! It opens the pressure end on the calibrator nut. It adjusted the pressure to zero, so the brakes didn’t work. When it came off the valve closed itself on a little spring. As long as I tried to use the brakes it made them not work. When I let it just stand for a minute the spring readjusted the release. If you hadn’t found that string we could never know what happened!”
“The string and wrench were supposed to fall off on the road. It caught on a brake line behind ... because you were moving and the wind stream blew it back and it wrapped on,” Clint said. “Clever.”
“Can we find who ... I guess not.” Ed said. “I want to know why anyone would do that!”
“It’s possible we can find that easily enough,” Clint replied. “They handled the circuit board.”
“Yeah! And you only touched the edges of the SIM card! Neat!”
Clint carefully removed the card from his phone by the edges and dumped a fine powder from a vial in his pocket onto it, then lightly blew most of the powder away, leaving what appeared to be a thumb print showing on the card. He took some Scotch Tape to lift the print.
“Now we have to find whose phone it was, though I figure it was stolen or bought for this one purpose. We might have the print of a clerk on the card.”
He slid the battery off the card and checked it, but it had been wiped.
“Now we have to learn why any of this crap is happening,” he explained. “I’ll try to trace that tomorrow morning. You can give me some background tonight.”
They went to dinner. Nilsa was much like her sister, who came with her and kept making a play for Clint, who wasn’t interested in the type. Clint met Andres Gomez, one of the partners.
After a decent meal of chicken done rotisserie style, Clint went to the finca, a two hectare plot with a nice house very close into town. He learned what little Ed could tell him.
Ed had come to Panam when he retired as a boxing coach. He was a truck driver for a time in the states and wanted to establish something to do here. He was not allowed, as non-Panamanian, to drive commercially, but there is a way around almost anything in Panamá. He was an employee of his own corporation and could drive so long as he had a Panamanian driver with him. He had hired a man with a license as a copilot and helper. On timed runs he could drive a few hours, then his copilot would drive a few. They could make a trip that took most of the night that way.
Interesting. He said Nilsa and Toña set the deal up.
“I want to see the corporation papers,” Clint demanded. “I think I see what‘s going on.”
Ed looked surprised and took a copy from the safe. He spent some time studying the contract, then said he could almost figure it.. He had to check a few things, but Ed was to be very careful. He then went back to the hotel, where he talked a few minutes with the woman running the place. She knew the Gomez family. Nilsa and Toña were sisters.
And Andres is their brother, Clint thought.
He went across the street to the popular little bar and talked
with a few people. Two Indios came in and Clint went to speak with them. He introduced himself in their dialect. That identified him as a friend. He talked awhile with them before asking if they had ever worked for the trucking company. They hadn’t, but knew some who had. They were alright. Some of the people there treated them like people, but one was an ass and the women who hung around were worse. They would like the work, but not if they had to put up with the shit.
“Yeah, that Andres person and his sisters,” Clint said. “I heard.” They agreed, but they didn’t think they were sisters. Just cousins.
Same difference, so far as Clint was concerned.
He went back to the hotel and studied the corporation papers very closely. They were fairly standard through the first four pages and on the last, but had a clause on page five stating that an insurance policy was to be kept on all partners, payable to the others in case of death and that all assets become the property of the survivors. Exactly what he expected.
He got a good night’s sleep and went out to breakfast to find the secretary, Donna, waiting there. She said she was worried about Ed and that she maybe knew something, but she was scared for her own sake if she told.
“I’ll see that no one knows it was you who tells me anything,” Clint promised.
She took a deep breath and said, “Some of my friends, indigenos, used to work for Andres when he owned another trucking company with a man called Sergio Bannister. He was Panamanian on his mother’s side and gringo on his father’s. He died in an accident where his truck went off a mountain on a dangerous curve. They don’t know why he was going so much too fast coming down the mountain.
“That is where Andres got the money and truck to go into the business here. There was a big insurance policy no one knew anything about or something.
“Well, Ed had the same thing happen, but he knows how to handle it. It did damage the truck a little, but nothing serious.
“Nilsa and Toña were on the company papers with Bannister. Now the same thing almost happens with Mr. Ed. Andres said to not say anything about anything to you because he doesn’t trust you – but he never saw you until you came to the yard. I know that because he asked who you were and what you wanted when you talked to me.”
“Thanks, Donna. I knew some of it, so you didn’t really tell me anything, except for one thing. I’ll say you don’t know anything to tell if anyone asks.
“One thing, the sisters aren’t on the corporation papers. I’ve read them.”
”It’s a different contract. They made it when Mr. Ed said he would live with Nilsa.”
“That ties up another important little detail. Thanks, Donna.”
She nodded, said thanks and left. Clint called Ed. He asked why Ed didn’t tell him there was a separate contract that put the Gomez sisters into the corporation. He said there wasn’t. He would never sign that kind of thing. He might not be particularly bright. That didn’t mean he was abjectly stupid! You did NOT let that kind of person onto a corporation because they could get a crooked lawyer and steal the whole thing from you.
At nine, Clint went to the records department and checked over the contracts registered in the corporation name. It was there, so he paid the three dollars for a certified copy and called Ed to meet him at the MacDonalds. He walked over, five blocks, and waited about twenty minutes for Ed to come in, accompanied by Nilsa.
He didn’t say anything, just tossed the contract on the table. Nilsa squealed, then tried to look innocent.
“I’m a detective. You had to guess that I’d find that as soon as I came here.”
She said it wasn’t her idea. That Andres had suggested it so she would be taken care of if there was an accident or something.
“But you knew the signature is forged, didn’t you?” Ed asked through his teeth. She didn’t answer.
“Better to talk to me now than an hour from now, I flat goddamned well guarantee you!” he snarled.
“I didn’t know anything!” she cried. “It was Andres! I didn’t know the signature wasn’t yours! He said it was!”
“Is that also true of Bannister?” Clint asked. She looked scared, then turned and ran from the place.
“I’ll be damned!” Ed said hotly. “So she was setting me up to knock me over for the company all along?”
“And the insurance policy,” Clint agreed.
“What damned insurance policy? If I get hurt or killed in the truck? That’s only fifty grand. The truck’s worth a hell of a lot more than that!
“Oh! They’d get the truck, too.”
“No. The five hundred grand life insurance policy. Double indemnity. It’s on the corporation papers.”
“So. I chase a hot piece of ass like that and go over a curve on the mountain and she gets rich,” Ed said. “God, I’m stupid sometimes!”
“There’s more than one definition to the phrase, ´dangerous curves´,” Clint pointed out.
“Okay. What do we do now? I’ve had enough experience with the law here to know we can’t prove anything with what we have. Maybe about that other guy you said they did this kind of thing to?”
“Not likely. I’ll handle it. Would your other partner have anything to do with it?”
“No. He’s a Panamanian who put up money to help me. He wasn’t going to be on anything, but I put him on it.”
“It’s a damned good thing he’s on it. When the corporation goes into his control you’re covered with having a Panamanian as a major partner. You can find any Panamanian to be your third partner when Andres has to resign for personal reasons.”
“You suggest somebody.”
Clint thought, then said, “Maybe tonight I’ll come up with two partners who might even work for the corporation. They’re Indigenos, so you get some breaks there to add to it. It’ll damned well mean you can haul stuff onto the comarcas. I’ll go speak with Andres – unless he’s already run.”
Ed nodded and said he had to go home and throw a couple of whores off his property. Clint told him to watch his back.
“And all around. I’ll go armed. I have a permit and the pistol’s in the truck.”
“Check it before you get into a spot where you have to use it.”
“THAT’s automatic.”
Clint went to the hotel, then across the street to ask who the Indios were from last night and where could he find them?
“Huh! How much did they take?” the bartender asked. “You’re a gringo. You better learn not to trust Indios.”
“They didn’t take anything from me and I’ve lived among them. I know that most of them are damned good people. They aren’t bigots, though they’re most certainly the ones with the right!”
He turned red and said they worked for the cattle brokers most of the time. Clint went to find them. They were working with heavy sacks of grain, so he waited. They came to him soon and he told them they were going to be officers in a corporation, so he had to know their names and cedula numbers.
They thought it was a great joke. Would they be Andres’ boss?
“No. He won’t be around anymore. Neither will the two puta cousins.”
They laughed, gave him the information and went back to their work, laughing about being corporate heads. They didn’t really believe him, but also thought it would be true because he was a friend, so wouldn’t lie to them – unless it was a joke. Wait and see.
Clint went to the company. Andres was in his office, reading a copy of the contract.
“It’s void. I can bring up Bannister and you’ll spend the next ten years under investigation where every least move you make will be noted. You’d be smart to sign off the corporation. I might use your own methods to see you out. I have no compunction from using the rules you made on you.”
“I’ve got everything I own in this place! I can’t just leave it!”
“You have what you got by knocking Bannister over. You never deserved a single centavo of that, anyhow.”
“That wasn’t my idea! It was Nilsa!”
“Funny. She said the same about you,” Clint said. “You have today and tomorrow. Be out of Santiago before dawn, day after tomorrow.”
He got up and left. He went back to the hotel. Toña was waiting. He sighed and asked her what she wanted – that she wasn’t going to get.
“I wanted to explain that I wasn’t part of anything. I like Ed. It was Andres.”
“He said it was you. It was all of you. Don’t be so stupid as to think you can get around me by shaking your ass. I know fifty women who outclass you.”
“How am I supposed to make a living here after this! It’s a lie!” she wailed. “Mentira, mentira, mentira!”
“Then the smart thing would be to go somewhere else,” Clint suggested. “You will definitely not be able to pull this kind of crap around here again. If you try it somewhere else I’ll see that the polica have the particulars to make it come back and slap you in the puss.”
She started to say something nasty, thought about it, then simply walked out. Clint went back inside, cleaned up and walked around town for awhile. Santiago is as different from David or Bocas as they are from Santiago.
He stayed until Andres and the sisters caught the bus for Panamá City, then headed to David for a couple of days, then on to Bocas. In Bocas, he spent as couple of days doing little or nothing.
He was getting bored. The detective business in Florida was mostly boring. Here, it held excitement. He was more involved in dangerous situations here.
He was in The Pirate having a couple of beers with friends when a girl with a truly exceptional figure came in and gave him an interested look. He remembered what he recently said to Ed about dangerous curves.