by Moulton, CD
“Just so they leave my friends and me out of it,” Clint replied. “If there’s a next time the last thing they want to do is get me or any other Ngobe involved.” Manolo said he’d heard Clint was declared a Ngobe. Congratulations! It was an honor few ever knew. Sergio called and said they found a body that might be Nando in the swamp on the flatlands. He had the ID papers of Nando on him, but the body was in bad shape. They would identify it as Nando, but this one was about three and a half inches shorter than Nando. Too bad they didn’t have any of his DNA.
“Let it lay unless it turns out to be someone who was just there when he needed a body,” Clint suggested. “If it’s someone from around here who was caught up in it through no fault of their own, make it loud and clear it wasn’t him. Those people will make sure the next one is him!”
He then went to the Golden Grill to talk with people, then did a little grocery shopping for vegetables, then went home.
His phone buzzed. It was shown from a private number.
Clint shrugged and answered. It was Armakov.
“Clint? Just wanted to let you know the latest. There was a minor revolution in a certain country that replaced a few of the more important leaders who had delusions of grandeur. The information that initiated it was things that they had hidden so deeply they thought it would never be found.
“You?”
“No. I’m through with anything to do with those.”
“Well, if you know who did it, tell them thanks from ninety percent of the people in at least three countries.” He hung up. Clint wondered. Manny?
No way! Manny wouldn’t get involved in that kind of thing. He wanted out of that crap and was staying out of it very well here. He called Manolo and bluntly asked him if his organization was behind it.
“They would be the ones with that kind of information so I imagine a few of the groups got together and solved the problem for a few months or years. They have special operatives for that kind of thing. You can bet what happened here had something to do with it. Nuclears? No way will that be forgotten or forgiven!”
“Well, Armakov said to tell whoever did it thanks from ninety percent of the people in at least three countries.”
“They did it to themselves. They tried to use you. Bad move!”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“You exposed it. That was the same thing. Those people can thank you.”
“Crap!” Clint retorted with feeling.
Clint Faraday Mysteries #12
Dead Certain
© 2011 & 2013 by C. D. Moulton
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to persons living or dead is purely coincidental
Some new people, arrogant people who were too used to giving orders instead of requests move onto Isla Bastimentos. People said there would be trouble for dead certain!
That was a too literally true statement!
Contents
Lazing Around
Phone Chat
Super Rich Bums
Mobs?
Politicians?
Private Talks
Revelations
Porno?
California
Pragmatic Solution
Finally Home
Dead Certain
Lazing Around
Clint was just lazing around the house. It was a truly beautiful day, but he didn’t really want to get involved in anything for awhile. His last case had him running all over the country never quite knowing exactly what was happening until it was almost over. He decided to go into town to chat with people in all the regular spots. He didn’t want to become involved in things, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be ignorant about local happenings.
It wouldn’t rain until mid-afternoon, probably. It was that time of year when it rained for an hour or two in the afternoon, then cleared by nightfall. He would be back before that. If not, he would stay someplace with the chatter until it was over.
He greeted a number of people on the walk into town. Quite a few greeted him. He stopped to chat with several people, then continued. It took him until a little after ten to reach the parque. The regulars were sitting at their usual table at the Golden Grill and called him over. He sat to have coffee and empanadas and to chat. The talk was mostly about how much rain there was here lately and how the old-timers remembered the year it rained for seventeen days and nights straight. The way Martinelli should concentrate more on stopping the petty thieves who were stealing the tourists’ cameras and cel phones. The way something would have to be done about the boats at night with no running lights. How rude the taxi drivers were in the town. Whatever came up.
There were some people who bought a place on Isla Bastimentos in the wrong place for white gringos, particularly ones with arrogant superior attitudes.
“The Dickersons? They aren’t really so bad,” Bob suggested. “They just are used to treating the natives like servants. They lived in India for two years, then in the Philippines for two, then the states, now here. I talked with them. They weren’t happy anyplace they’ve been for long. They always had plenty of servants and can afford them. They just let it run over into the way they treat everybody they come across. The Indios don’t let it bother them, the blacks get all het up.”
“Yeah,” Aaron added. “They picked the wrong place for their type to try to build anything. Those people won’t put up with that kind of crap. Remember what happened to those Fordyce people. They headed back to England with their tails between their legs in less than a month!”
“They chose the wrong place to build. There’s gonna be trouble with the locals out there for dead certain, I’m afraid,” Bob agreed.
“You can’t tell them anything. They know everything about everything,” Tom put in. “I tried to explain from my own experiences with the people here that they’ll never be accepted. That’s true even here in Bocas. It’s true in spades on the other islands.
“Well, they won’t listen to me, it’s their own problem.”
Clint had to bite back a remark. He didn’t like Tom at all. The ass was worse than the people he was supposedly giving the benefit of his great experience. If there was anyone at all in Bocas Town who knew everything there was to know about everything and who wouldn’t listen to a word from anyone who disagreed with him it was Tom. All the people at that table were accepted and liked by the locals except him. He was blind to that and believed everyone native to Panamá hated all gringos. He didn’t like Clint to the point he was rude because the Indios were such good friends to him. He told everyone new that they had to be careful around the Indios because they would steal everything they had the minute their back was turned. The blacks were thieves to the same extent and dangerous as well. The Indios were, at least, mild-mannered and respectful to your face.
Clint would like to smack him in the puss when he started that stupid rant. He simply was unable to recognize the fact that he was the misfit.
Clint said he’d better get back home before the rain started. Everyone said their good lucks to him – except Tom, who sat there and looked over the parque. Clint made it a point to wish each of them well by name. He acted, as almost always, like Tom wasn’t there.
Next stop was home. What to do now?
He read a book Judi Lum, his attractive nextdoor neighbor left for him. It was by Dave, his nutty musician–botanist friend. Clint had been surprised when he learned, after knowing him for three months, that he had over a hundred books published. It was a thing called Enter Merlin Tyana. The character was originally based on an Agatha Christie character, Harley Quinn, but that lasted for less than one story, then Merlin took on a mystique of his own. It was certainly no literary masterpiece, but was more readable than most of the crap on the market.
Phone Chat
The phone was buzzing when he turned it on in the morning. It was Sergio Valdez, head of the police.
“Good morning! How are things going, now that you have time to sit around and do nothing?�
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“Regular,” Clint replied. “How are things with you?”
“Not much changes in Bocas. A different crop of tourists. Different faces, but on the same complainers.
“We have some people over on Bastimentos who are in for a rough time, I’m afraid. Henry and Catherine Dickerson and assorted cousins and so forth for a week or so at the time. They aren’t going to fit and they’re on the old Flannery place. George got along with most people here and a lot of them over there, but couldn’t put up with the ones he didn’t like. They stole everything he had, broke into his house a few times, killed his dog – you know about that. He was a basic sort and not a bad person at all.
“These are the type who want to order everyone around them. I mean, by that, it’s, `Hand me that fork!’ Never a `please’ or `Thank you’ from that crowd. That woman was in the China here and Yveth and Juan were there. She just pointed to her bags and said, `Bring those to the water taxi!’ like they were serfs and she was a princess.”
“That one went over big with Yveth, I can guess,” Clint said, laughing.
“Yveth looked her right in the eye and said, `Portage is twenty five dollars per hour plus tourist tax, minimum two hours.’ She could have sh ... crapped in her panties.”
“The Flannery place. Down by that little cove half a kilometer from the town? That section isn’t where I’d want to be!”
“Or me. I see trouble ahead. They won’t put up with that attitude out there from whatever serves as friends. From gringos? I really don’t think so.”
They chatted. Clint worked with the police on a number of things. Sergio said there was something about them that had his suspicions on full tilt. He was used to one or two members of a family being arrogant egotistical snobs. These were all that way, including the cousins. That said a lot about them without wasting words.
Clint looked thoughtful, then said he’d call a friend. Maybe they were from somewhere into something that his friend would know about.
“Ah! That mafia man. Marko. He’s living in the Mediterranean and still gets that information for you.”
“Yeah. HE’s living on an island in the Med. His organization’s everywhere.
“Do you have any information about them? Where they came from?”
“Their passports say they came from New York City. I’m not good at accents and I imagine that you have a lot of them very different in a place like New York. The accents don’t fit the name. At all.”
“Oh?”
“Dickerson? And an accent that’s a lot like some of the French or Suiza.”
“It’s a name that could be Swiss or Swedish. That area,” Clint pointed out. “I’ll see what I can find. Having the US passports says maybe it’s witness protection, but they surely wouldn’t put them in a place like Bastimentos!”
“That had occurred to me. The US screws up that way all the time.”
They chatted for a few minutes more about generalities, then Clint called Marko Boccini, a mafia don who had gotten out of the business with Clint’s help and was living with his family on Isla San Cristobal as Manny Mathews. He didn’t know anything about them, but would check. It sounded like a typical WPP from the states that was so screwed up it would probably get the whole family wiped out, just by different people than they were being protected from.
Clint went to several places to chat and shop for fresh vegetables, then headed back home. He spent the afternoon in his boat, cruising around. Later, just before dusk, he went up the bay around Bastimentos and looked at the house being built on the old Flannery place. It was far too upscale for the area and as far into crass ostentation. There was a bullish and somewhat fat balding man yelling at the workers. Clint could hear from the distance when he cut the engine. He was railing about leaving something out to get rained on and did they have any least idea what that stuff cost and he would take it out of their salaries if it happened again.
The workers seemed mostly to ignore him. He was yelling mostly in English (which most of them spoke, but they would keep that from him), but there were a number of words mixed in that definitely weren’t English.
A tall woman came to ask what the yelling was about. It was giving her a headache. They would stop it right now. She was darker than the man and had a slightly different accent. That would be the one Sergio thought might be French. The man’s accent was more guttural.
Clint shook his head and started the engine. The man turned and stared at him. He acted like he didn’t even see them and headed back toward Isla Colon.
That house would be finished soon. The people were staying in the old Flannery house now. That would be a real move upward to be in the overdone mansion they were building. Flannery had built a wooden stilt house that was old and beginning to deteriorate. Those people were in for a life in hell if they didn’t wake up. As soon as the house was finished and there wasn’t any work coming from them they’d get a few lessons in human relations.
Clint was talking to Bob and Aaron at the Golden Grill table a week later. It seemed the Dickerson’s house was finished the day before and they were all moving in today, then the Flannery place was going to be torn down and a gazebo built on the little hill where it stood.
“A what? Out there? A gazebo?” Clint asked. “Sergio said they had spent some time in India, probably among the elite English. I can picture a tiki hut there, but a gazebo?”
“Complete with carved railings and lattice panels,” Bob reported. “Rukel’s bringing in the special order crap. It’s probably soft wood and won’t last two days with the termites.”
“That stuff over to Woodstock? It’s supposed to be teak. From Chiriqui.” Aaron said. “It won’t be there very long. Every one of those taxi and tour boats’ll end up with, in the vernacular, fancy teakwood appointments.”
They chatted about it for a bit, then other subjects. Clint went to the China next door to Rukel and saw the bullish man going in. He grinned to himself and went in to see if they had any anti-fouling paint in yet.
The man Gloria, the salesgirl, introduced to Clint as Henry Dickerson stood there like a statue and didn’t do more than a very short nod.
“Oh, yeah. The new asshole from Bastimentos,” Clint replied with a nod as curt as Dickerson’s. “I see the people weren’t exaggerating when they said he was an antisocial misfit SOB.
“Any of that Williams Special A-F paint come in yet?” He ignored Dickerson. He’d just wanted to see if he could recognize anything about him. Gloria said it was supposed to be shipped Friday, which meant Friday, but probably not this Friday. They laughed about it.
“How in hell...?! You think it’s funny that you can’t ever get anything on time here?” Dickerson exploded. “Maybe you trash don’t care what delays cost, but I DO! The fact you live like pigs and eat bananas and rice might have something to do with your lack of concern for the costs! I AM concerned! If you ever had a pot or window maybe you’d learn some sense about it!”
“Money? Here we go again!” Gloria said with a sly wink at Clint. “How much it costs to live here where everything’s supposed to be so cheap!
“Clint, didn’t you get more than five million dollars for that Puerto Armuelles thing?”
Everyone knew how Clint always seemed to end up with ridiculous sums by accident in his jobs. He built schools and medical clinics for the Indios and so forth with the money.
“Something like that. I let Judi handle that kind of thing. She’s good at seeing most of it isn’t stolen. I don’t give a happy damn if it is.
“I’ll drop in Friday afternoon to see if the A-F is in.”
She said her goodbyes and innocently turned to Dickerson. Clint heard him saying, “That bum has five million dollars?” as he went out. He stopped just outside the door.
“Oh, no. That’s just one thing. He has all that land on the Pacific and got more than that on several things he did. He really hates having so much and tries to find ways to make it make a difference for people.”
&nbs
p; “He’s a fool! Money is security!”
“Oh, bullshit! When the market drops or there’s a land bust, where is the security?” Gloria replied reasonably. “Your bronze screws are supposed to be on today’s truck from David. You paid extra so they’ll be here. About four.”
Clint went on, giggling to himself. He did get a lot of money, but nothing like she made it sound. Dickerson would ask a lot of questions about that bum who had a billion dollars in the bank.
He talked to the group at the Golden Grill and to some others. They could have some fun. Then he went home. He would go to Chiriqui Grande in the afternoon, then on to the comarca, then would get back home in two days. Or three. Or four.
Super Rich Bums
Clint tied to his deck and started hauling things inside. Judi waved and said she just had to talk with the mulitbillionaire philanthropist bum who lived next door. He waved back and put his things inside, then went to her place.
“ ...So! You got the five plus million for the Puerto Armuelles thing and were in a land deal out there, too. You had a hundred million or so in that. That thing in Mali where you got the two million back for the Indios sort of turned into two hundred million. We got carried away and couldn’t stop. I told Manny about it so he was there at the Lemon Grass with the family for dinner night before last. I was there with Ben and Gene – he’s someone I have to tell you about! I found someone I can really relate to!
“Anyhow, Manny said you were good at ending up with money. You probably got a billion or more from the treasure you found. He knew you started building a huge hospital in some place.
“It was comical! I thought he’d explode!
“I couldn’t resist. I said, `Oh, yeah. Everybody knows Manny spent a few hundred million bucks himself building the Isla San Cristobal place and he was in on the school and clinic there with you, wasn’t he?’ I batted my eyes and looked so innocent you could puke. Sylvia said you two built so many of those things so many places she’d lost count.