by Moulton, CD
She wanted to, but had some projects she couldn’t put on hold right now.
He packed a few things – he always traveled light – and headed for Changuinola. He’d rather take the bus, but this was too far. He got a flight to Santiago with a change at David airport from Changuinola. He managed to get there at a little after four so took a bus to Chitre. It was a little after 9:30 when he reached Chitre so he stayed the night there and went to Las Tablas on the early bus. It didn’t take long to find Willie and Roberto. They were at the hotel restaurant trying to find where Emanuel had gone. They spotted him when he walked in a demanded to know why he was there.
“Go fuck yourselves!” he said easily. “I don’t answer to you for where I go anywhere or why. Get out of my face!”
“I’m sorry!” Willie cried. “We went about that the wrong way. We’re so used to no one ever answering questions ... we’re half crazy! We can’t let that character get away!”
“Try a little tranquilidad. Just say hello and what are you here for? The fiesta? You’ll get answers. Make demands and people react to you the way they’ve always seen you. Two big bad government assholes.”
“Can we talk?” Roberto asked. “This is getting out of hand all the way around.”
Clint shrugged and went to their table to order huevos revueltos and hojaldres with lots of coffee.
“We’re not government,” Willie finally said.
“That was obvious from the first time I saw you. I just waited to see if you’d tell me what’s going on and why you’re after some pious religious nutcase.”
“We say we’re government so people will give us information.” Roberto said. “They see though us from the get-go. Why? How?”
“You don’t dress like government. That’s the states where anybody in government can wear two hundred dollar suits and expensive jewelry. Your shoes cost what a government official here makes in about a month and a half.
“What are you? CIA with a lot of stupid TV training? Watch how Hollywood portrays you and think anybody anywhere is idiot enough to swallow that crap?
“To these people that crap is more a comedy show than any picture of reality.
“Come on! An armored truck goes up a ramp and hits a helicopter, then there’s an explosion that makes Bikini look like a firecracker?”
“We’re not CIA. We do some work with them. We actually work with Interpol,” Willie replied. “I agree about the movies. Unbelievable crap!”
“You know I have my sources where I can verify that in about ten seconds?”
“We work with Interpol, not for them,” Roberto protested. “Willie takes the government man act too far. It won’t fly with you.”
“So? What’s the crap about Emanuel the Holy or whatever?”
“We’ve been trying to figure that out,” Roberto answered. “It seems that everywhere he goes people end up dead. They’re usually the worst kind of garbage, it’s true. No loss – but we want to know how he does it and gets away with it so easily. The Interpol thing is because too many of the ones who end up dead are collectors of art and so forth who have a number of items that are, shall we say, not very well certified as to their source. Too often they’re stuff stolen in Europe.
“Did you know Rincón was under suspicion of having a Rembrandt that disappeared from a Stropshire collection fifteen years ago? I’d bet a bundle that we’ll find it when we search his house. He also had a Monet, but we think he sold that one already to some Panamanian collector.
“That information was from a person who had business in his home here. She recognized the paintings.
“Emanuel the Great comes to town, Rincón has an accident ... you see what I mean? This is number six.”
“The lovely Clementine in Chiriqui Grande?”
“A Goya and a Matisse that may be authentic or may not. If it’s a copy it’s a damned good one.” Willie replied. “This is actually number seven because of that.”
“He doesn’t steal the stuff himself!” Roberto cried. “He leaves it there for us to find! What the HELL is he up to!? Why?!”
“Shhh!” Willie hissed. “You’re getting loud.”
He looked around. People were staring. He looked apologetic.
Clint took out his phone and called a friend, Manolo, who was an Interpol agent under cover as a drug supply contact. When he answered Clint said, “Rincón et al.”
“Willie and Roberto there?”
“Uh-huh.”
“They’re a trip! Living in some fantasy world. Probably legit. Found three pieces here so far. Four, if what I heard last night’s up. I’m waiting for information on another one, but won’t know until there’s an excuse to go into the house.”
“Four.”
“They follow some nut around. He finds the stuff, I think. They’re there for the rewards. Got a bundle.”
“Authorized?”
“Yes and no. Used and tolerated to whatever extent seems advisable.”
“Thanks.”
“Al la orden.”
Clint hung up and sat back. “Fair enough. I don’t think Emanuel is a killer. I just can’t see it.”
Willie nodded and said, “But seven ain’t no coincidence.”
“There is that. I’ll see what I can find. I want a couple of answers.”
He looked around the restaurant, shrugged and said, “I’ll be in contact, probably.”
He gulped down the last of his coffee and got up to go outside. He saw someone who shouldn’t be there.
Maybe those two characters weren’t the only ones following Emanuel around – but to what end? What was there about this one that Clint recognized? He looked like a normal Panamanian with a Latin parent and a gringo or European parent. There were a lot of the mix around. Why did Clint feel there was something about him that meant he shouldn’t be there? So far as he could tell, he’d never seen him before.
Clint studied him a moment before he went to where he could be seen. Even from fifty feet away the bright blue eyes stood out. This one was very good with disguises. If Clint hadn’t seen those eyes on the bus he wouldn’t have known it was the same person.
On the bus. In Chiriqui Grande. He must have been the stranger at Rio Uyama. Maybe there would be a few puzzles mixed in with a few more in this mess!
Clint wanted to find out something about that one. He didn’t have any way except to follow him to where he could get the information. He wished Judi was there. She was a genius for getting information!
Clint went to the police station to find that Rincón’s car was about half a kilometer back along the road from where he was found inside a fence that enclosed land he owned. It had a flat tire and he carried no spare. He had, apparently, been inspecting the property and had returned to his car to discover the flat. He decided to walk the distance to town to have someone go to repair the tire and had been struck by some vehicle that didn’t bother to stop, fearing trouble with the law. Possibly drinking or something. There was a fifty-fifty chance they would find the vehicle that killed him.
Clint nodded, but he doubted very much that anything would ever be found. He asked if Julio could find out anything about the mysterious stranger with the very blue eyes. Julio said he could, very easily.
Clint decided to find Emanuel if he could. He strolled around the town and mentioned him to various people. A woman who worked at the bus terminal said he was probably the one who left very early. She remembered him because he was staying so carefully out of sight of the others at the station. He took a bus to Darien.
Would that mean Clint went to Darien now? Why not? He wanted to see as much of the country as he could.
He went back to the police station. Julio said the man he asked about had bought a bus ticket to Darien. His name, on his passport, was Arnaldo Valenz from Colombia. He was a tourist visiting friends.
“Which bus?” Clint asked.
“The one that leaves in about an hour.”
So. Emanuel takes a bus in the morning and Ar
naldo takes one in the early afternoon for the same place. What was the connection? Nothing made any sense. It didn’t even seem possible.
Of course, he could have found that Emanuel took the early bus the same way Clint did.
Clint called Manolo again and asked if the name `Castile’ meant anything. He said, if it was the one between Bocas and Chiriqui Grande, there was a question about a painting. He got it legit, but they wanted to know the seller.
“Rincón,” Clint answered. Manolo said that was a suspicion. So. Now he would definitely go to Darien.
Clint saved the price of a bus ticket. He called Roberto and said their quarry was on his way to Darien. If they were going he would appreciate a ride with them. He was doing all this at his own expense.
Half an hour later they left for Darien.
Darien
They came into the lush Darien area late enough that they wouldn’t be able to find anything that night. Clint stayed in a different hotel than Willie and Roberto. It might be a good idea that people didn’t connect them. They agreed. Clint meshed with people anywhere, they never did.
“I dress and act like them. You don’t. Think about it.”
During the drive Clint found they weren’t so bad. They just lived in some silly fantasy world they’d learned, as Emanuel said, from movies, TV and bad rap garbage. Willie gave a sickly grin. Roberto laughed and said he’d change when this act didn’t work anymore. Clint resisted saying it wasn’t working now. Like Dave said to that idiot with the loud speakers in his car, “News flash! It’s not WORK-K-K-KING!”
Clint asked the girl in the bus station restaurant about Emanuel. The bus wouldn’t be there for another hour and a half or so. It stopped for half an hour twice along the way and he’d have to transfer in the last one.
The area was beautiful, but most of Panamá is. Clint could picture Dave there with his camera and troop of local Indios. He would be there half an hour and have pictures of twenty species that weren’t supposed to be found in Panamá.
He’d said the area was explored. Probably no more than five new species. Clint grinned to himself and found a good restaurant Willie and Roberto would, no doubt, be waiting there when Emanuel got off the bus. So would Clint, but he wouldn’t follow Emanuel. Those two clowns wouldn’t actually bother Emanuel. They wanted to be where he was so they could collect the bounty on the missing art. Clint was surprised that so much of it was in Panamá, but knew it was from his work with Manolo.
The bus came. Emanuel didn’t come with it. Neither did Arnaldo. Willie and Roberto were running around loudly demanding to know where Emanuel got off. No one knew anything.
Clint leaned against the side of the bus where the door boy was getting the luggage out of the compartment. Willie and Roberto were running around asking anyone who got off if they’d seen the weird preacher.
“I don’t know if they’re funny or just pathetic,” Clint said conversationally to the boy, who gave him a big grin. They’d tried to stop him for answers when he came to get the bags.
“Locos. Officiales. Fuck them!”
“They just say they’re officials. They’re mostly wannabe badasses, I think.”
“All they have to do is say, `I’m looking for a man who was supposed to be on your bus, but may have missed it or something,’ and I’d tell them he and three other people got off at Vilas Pendros. Now, fuck them!”
“Some people never learn.”
“They watch too much television. Fuck them!”
Clint saluted and went into the little restaurant. Willie and Roberto came in twenty minutes later.
“They all refuse to say anything at all!” Willie complained. “We’ll have to go back along the road the bus came and check every damned stop along the way!”
“I think I’ll go to the Vilas,” Clint sad. “He got off there.”
Roberto dropped his coffee all over his lap. Willie knocked the silverware off the table when he spun to goggle at Clint.
“When ... how did you find out!?” Roberto cried.
“When the bus stopped. I asked a woman if my nephew, the thin tired and sour-looking gringo, got off before he got here – like he was prone to do. She said he was probably one of the people who got off at the vilas.”
“But they wouldn’t tell us anything!” Willie complained.
“They wouldn’t tell some stupid TV asshole cops anything. Try just asking in a polite way what you want to know. Demand answers from these people and one thing is damned certain – you won’t be getting any. If you do, they won’t be right.”
“Jesus!” Roberto said. “All this time we could be ... where are these vilas?”
“Maybe fifteen kilometers back.”
“Want a ride?”
“No. He won’t be there.”
“He won’t?”
“I seriously doubt he would be there. He could figure you’d find where he was headed and would manage to have you here waiting for him for enough time to do whatever he wanted to do.”
“We have to check anyhow.”
“Yeah. See you around.” They left. Clint grinned and ordered another empanada and another cup of coffee.
The local bus came in just three minutes after Willie and Roberto ran to their car and almost had a head-on leaving the parking lot. Clint waited until the passengers were mostly out to walk up to Emanuel and say, “Hello!”
Emanuel grinned at him. “You figured I’d fool them into going somewhere else. I don’t know what they want, but I know they are probably dangerous. I do not think they are, shall we say, the brightest flowers in the vase.
“It is good to see you, Clint. You are following me too? Why?”
“Not you,” Clint replied. “One of the people who’re following you.”
“Dear lord! How many are following me and why are they following me?”
“As to how many, I can’t say. As to why, you lead them to other things they’re after.”
He looked serious. “I know of only those two. I have made it a game to outsmart them. I do not know why they are following me.”
Clint nodded. “What do you base your stops on?”
“Only on people and places I hear about through my correspondence. Computer, you see.”
“You don’t carry one.”
“There are cafés everywhere. Internet services, even in the jungles. The modern world.”
Clint agreed. “So. Someone is sending you to specific places for specific reasons. You’re then leading someone else, probably someone in on it, to very specific people. This sounds like a silly TV intrigue show.
“Emanuel, who’s doing this to you?”
“Doing WHAT?! I am confused.”
“Let’s go somewhere and try to figure this thing out. Make it look like you’re going to the restroom or something. Meet me later somewhere. DO NOT go to wherever you’re supposed to go here!”
He nodded and said he was going to look for a hotel or pension. He was supposed to contact someone named Marta Rosadas Javier.
Clint said to move around a bit, then jump on the bus to the vilas down the street. Flag it down near the turnoff road..
Emanuel grinned and said he liked this part where he got to outsmart someone he never even knew was there.
Clint got up, saluted, paid his tab and walked out. There was a bus to the vilas every hour. He made it a point to be on the next one. Emanuel was walking along the road just past the turnoff and flagged the bus. He came to sit next to Clint.
Clint watched the road behind. About half a mile from the town he called “Sparate!” and they got off. They were around a bend and Clint pulled Emanuel into the trees by the road. A taxi came by less than half a minute later going toward the vilas.
Clint grinned at Emanuel, who looked excited.
“We’re on the next one to Panamá City.. It’ll be about ... it’s four fifteen. It won’t be until a bit after eight. We can try to figure this out in the meantime,” Clint said. “Did you know there’s a murder o
r two everywhere you go?”
“MURDER?!?!”
“The people you contact are, so far as I can determine, art thieves and fences. You’re being used to ... what’s the matter?”
“I knew there were an inordinate amount of accidents and so forth. I didn’t know there were any murders! I was beginning to become somewhat suspicious, but nothing happened after I met you. I feel you are a good luck charm, though I do not believe in such things. That smacks to me of witchcraft.”
“Who directs you to these people?”
“It is a woman in the missionary council. Veronica Leona Messer. She is in charge of international affairs.”
“Oh? Your church is large enough to have an international council?!”
“No, no! It is an international institution who make no judgements about the church. They merely aid in placing missionaries into contact with people and places that are in great need of enlighten ... they are a purely non-denominational aid service. It is the Name Supreme International Aid Society.”
“They contacted you when you began this trip?”
“Well, yes. I had spoken with a man who aided me greatly in my quest. He recommended that I cooperate as much as possible with the service because they were known to do great work without making judgements. They are interested in aiding people in any way they can arrange.”
“Well, a minimum of three people have had accidents that weren’t accidents since I met you. In Bocas and in Las Tablas.”
“I did not know about this! I swear by all that is holy! I would never be any small part of harming anyone!” If he wasn’t one hell of an actor he was totally devastated by this news.
“Well, we can make ourselves comfortable. I want to know a bit more about this council thing. Someone’s using it for reasons diametrically opposed to its purpose.
“How do they work it? They obviously know where you’re going and who you contact.”
“No, no. They give me the name and what information they can. I have a knack for finding people. I have failed to find only four or five since my quest ... since my trip began. I speak with people in a given small area. I have some information that will make people remember something, if you understand.”