Read Clint Faraday Collection C: Murder in Motion Collector's Edition Online
Authors: CD Moulton
Tags: #adventure, #murder mystery, #detective, #intrigue, #clint faraday
They chatted awhile. Clint ordered a large
plate of hojaldres and large coffees for everyone. They seemed very
good people, not unlike the Ngobe, but different in some ways. They
were intelligent, as most of the Indigenos were.
Clint had another few things to research when
they left for work. He knew where Gordo’s house was and that the
finca all around grew crops and pastured cows in rotation of the
fields. The four were the managers of the whole finca, which was
something over 500 hectares in size. The barns and storage sheds
were behind and to one side of Gordo’s place.
Clint went back to the restaurant/inn where
he was staying for a second light breakfast and to chat with the
one couple who were staying in the rooms. They were from Germany
and came every year. They were partners in a small ranch they had
financed with an Indio family. It was doing very well for the area.
It paid for their yearly vacation and the Indio family were very
well-off by local standards. It was so very seldom things worked
out well for everyone in a deal anymore. Very sad world we live
in.
After the breakfast he asked Amoroso if he
knew the lawyer, Ysalas.
He shrugged. “He’s a lawyer. What can I
say?”
“
One of
those?”
Samuel grinned. “They’re all ‘one of those.’
It’s what a lawyer is. I don’t suppose he’s worse than the rest,
but he’s not better, either. If his lips are moving, he’s
lying.”
Clint found where his office was and strolled
around town awhile. He dropped into the office about eleven, but
the girl said he was working on a case where he must be in Panamá
City for two more days.
He ran into Besford at the hardware store and
said “Hello.” Besford was buying welding rod and plate steel. He
said he had to make a security door or everything they had there
would end up disappearing a little at the time. Clint said that was
a problem in any of the Latin American countries. The people didn’t
have very much and would take anything that wasn’t welded down –
even that, at times. Locks didn’t mean much when the more practiced
thieves were in the area, though he didn’t think many of them were
here. More in parts of Panamá City and Colon. Costa Rica was
getting bad, but Panamá was very much safer, both from violence and
theft.
Besford agreed that Costa Rica was impossible
anymore. San Juan was now as bad as Limon always had been.
They
parted. Clint grinned. So this one had spent time in Costa Rica.
Sergio could get any information they might have on him and his
friend. Shannon was supposed to have come from Costa Rica,
according to what had been said – but she did
not
come through Sixola. That most probably meant
Frontera. Sergio could check that. He probably already had. Clint
called him to find they had all been reported about in Costa Rica.
Dennis had been in some trouble when some thugs tried to rob him
and he’d put two of them in the hospital with various broken bones.
It had been determined that he was merely defending himself from
robbery and he was released.
Clint went to a little tienda on the corner
of the road into the finca where Gordo was staying. After about an
hour and a half the taxi went by toward Veraguas. The three were
together. Clint decided it might be a good time to snoop around. He
had left the car at the inn and taken a taxi to the tienda. It was
about a kilometer and a half to the house. Fifteen minutes. If he
had half an hour he could be in and look around, then go to chat
with his four friends of this morning if it looked like he may be
found there.
Treasure
Located
The place was between just livable and
semi-Okay. It wasn’t clean and there was trash in the yard. Clint
watched for a few minutes, then went to the door to knock and call
out “Buenas!” No one answered.
He could see Fredrico and Sandros working on
a fence on the far side of a shed. He managed not to be seen by
them as he went to the side of the house and into a small attached
bodega. There was a door from the bodega into the house that was
left open (if you used a little device often seen on TV detective
shows).
The inside was dark. There were heavy cloths
and flattened cardboard cartons covering the windows. There was
still enough light that he didn’t need more than the light from his
celular now and then.
They had built a steel safe with three large
padlocks holding the heavy lid down. It was tightly welded along
all seams. Clint estimated it would weigh about eighty pounds empty
and it was more than he could do to lift one corner an inch off the
floor. He didn’t find anything else except some letter from Ysalas
and a lawyer in Panamá City.
He heard the taxi coming along the rough road
and waited until it was parked in front to leave through the
bodega, climb the fence onto the finca and stroll over to the
entrance road to call out to Sandros and Fredrico. He said he
wanted to see the place and to see where Gordo lived in case he
ever needed to come there. The taxi was parked out front so he
supposed that was the place.
Sandros winked at him. He had seen him.
Fredrico said that was the place.
They chatted as the two went to the shed with
their tools and Solbiero and Tomas joined them with their own
tools. They locked everything up and went out front where a rusty
old GMC truck took them all into Veraguas.
He was at least partly right in his
assumptions. That there was something taken, probably cash and
precious metal bars, from that little reef, Shannon was killed and
the stuff was now in Veraguas at Gordo’s place.
Gordo, Besford, Dennis and Ysalas were in on
it. Minimum.
How did Shannon O’Brien fit? What was her
connection?
To learn what was really going on Clint would
have to track things from her. She was somehow the key to the whole
thing.
He stayed the night, then headed back toward
Santiago, thought a bit and went on to David. He called Sergio and
Judi to find anything they knew about O’Brien, then caught a plane
to San Jose’. That was the only place he might find information
about her. She had stayed there for two months, according to her
passport.
The bar where the Canadien met them, The Red
Lantern, had a few tourists and five or six locals. They weren’t,
any of them, the kind of people Clint would trust farther than he
could throw the bar. It was seedy, but much of San Jose’ is
anymore. He had a $2.00 beer and sipped it slowly. No one seemed
interested in him – except when he paid for the beer. Two of them
saw him change a twenty. He smirked to himself and said he was
going to walk to the hotel. Maybe he’d be back tomorrow, maybe he’d
find a place more to his liking.
He went out and turned left, toward a darker
street. He saw the two from the corner of his eye as he turned into
the street and stepped behind a croton bush. The two came looking
for him and he stepped out, acting like he’d stopped to piss. They
converged on him from either side. One pulled out a long
switchblade and said, “Dinero, gringo!’ The other said, in English,
“You pay or die!”
He stepped to the side and grabbed the arm
with the switchblade in the hand twisted it behind him until he
screamed, then chopped him in the neck. He dropped like a bag of
wet sand.Clint turned toward the other, who was starting to run
down the street. Clint was faster. He caught him and gut-punched
him. He went to his knees, retching.
“
An
answer or two, ladron, or you die here!” he snapped. The hood
gasped and sobbed.
“
Who met
with the Irish woman a week or so ago in that bar?”
The hood gasped and shook his head. Clint
grabbed him by the hair, jerked his head back and slapped him
hard.
“
I asked
a question!”
“
Two guys
from Canada! Jimmy and Chuck! Surfers or something! They met right
there and she said she saw one of them in Ontario at some place
with someone, a godfather, and wanted to talk to them about a
proposition!”
“
Before
they came?”
“
Just
Nikolo, the Russian mafia guy. She lived with him a month or so. He
was pissed as hell when she left. He said she was a thief. She took
his papers or something. Maybe his passport. He was that
pissed.”
Clint let him go and walked off. That may be
his connection. He had to find Nikolo.
He went to two other low-class places to find
what he could about Nikolo. It seemed he stayed at a private home
just above town. Nobody went there. It was dangerous. Lots of
people knew him, none claimed friendship.
Good enough! Clint went back to the hotel and
sacked out.
In the morning Clint had a decent breakfast
and headed out of town to the house described. He went to the heavy
gate and called out, getting an answer from a call box by the gate,
but under a branch. He was asked what he wanted.
“
I have
to speak with Nikolo. I’m Clint Faraday, from Bocas del Toro,
Panamá.”
“
What
does Bocas have to do with me?”
“
They got
your stash and have it hidden in another place. They killed the
O’Brien woman.”
There was a pause, then a large bullish man
came from the house with a key to open the gate.
“
Nikolo?”
Clint asked.
“
Huh-uh.
He’s in the house. You carrying?”
“
No.”
He nodded and led Clint into the house where
another man, not quite so large, greeted him and told Viktor, the
first, to bring coffee and whatever their guest desired.
“
I’ve
heard of you or you would not be inside this house. Armokov? Panamá
City?”
“
Vasily?
He’s between an acquaintance and a friend. We had some minor
business dealings and got along pretty well. I’m up-front and don’t
play games. He liked that. He said he always knew exactly where I
stand.”
“
Ah! And
you come here to announce that the fucking bitch is dead and my ...
stash, you called it ... is gone. That’s as up-front as it gets! I
can see why Vasily respects you so!
“
Talk
about somebody who is
never
up-front with
anybody
and you’ve got that backstabbing bitch dead to
rights!
“
Where is
the property?”
“
I’ll
tell you if it’ll make things easier or better in Panamá. We don’t
want anymore of this kind of thing screwing up the lives of
innocent people. If only your bunch is involved and all things will
be handled outside of Panamá I’ll tell you.
“
What’s
it about? How much cash and how much other?”
“
The cash
isn’t important. It was only included so that our people wouldn’t
have a lot of trouble moving the rest of it. It was something over
two million. There are fifteen bars of platinum, fifteen of gold
and a lot of silver. There are about three and a half kilos of
uncut emeralds and two kilos of best-grade diamonds.”
Clint figured. “Two kilo bars?”
“
Yes.”
“
Two to
three hundred million.”
“
We don’t
sell that cheap. Five. The emeralds are historic artifacts or
whatever they call them. The shipment was made to that
figure.”
“
How will
you handle it if I tell you where it is?”
“
Will it
stay there for a time?”
“
I think
definitely so. They don’t want to dump any of it on the regular
market while you’re still watching so close. They’ll spend some of
the cash. Can you trace that?”
“
Of
cou... Okay. No. You’re up-front with me, I am with you. We have no
way to follow that cash. It wasn’t enough to worry about. That was
stupid! It won’t happen again!
“
You see,
now I understand that it is something to worry about – not for
itself, but for where it can lead you. I will not give you an
answer you want to hear. I am not the only person involved –
another stupidity!
“
I will
consult with my partners, such as they are, and try to convince
them it would be better to bide our time than to rush into
something that will only cause later grief. None of us are, as you
gringos say, hurting for money.”
“
This is
just a game? A diversion?”
He laughed. “More or less. I do it for
reasons such a person as you would probably not understand.”
“
You have
no friends. You are bored with life and try to find something to
cause at least a temporary pause in that boredom.”
“
You are
amazing! I fear you are also correct. Perhaps I can find that
friend in you?
“
You see,
I know not another person I can trust without very serious
reservations. I feel I can trust you.”
“
Unless
I’m also playing a game?”
“
No. You
are not. That is a thing you would not have stated were it so. It
is not to your personality.”
“
You know
something? I think we could be friends. Vasily is a lot like you.
Is he a partner?”
“
Not in
this. He seeks adventure in various other places.”
Clint nodded. “Well, I’ll be in touch.” He
handed Nikolo a card with his e-mail and celular number. Nikolo
wrote a number on a piece of paper and said it would reach him
anytime. Don’t allow anyone to know it.
Clint glanced at it and crumpled the paper.
Nikolo raised an eyebrow.
“
It’s
memorized. If it’s not around on a piece of paper it won’t go
anywhere else.” He told him the number.