Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (15 page)

“
Oh? Is
that so? Ariel, you didn’t say you’d given anyone permission to
come here,” Clint said.

“
I did
not give them or anyone else permission.”

“
Here’s
the owner. I have the escritura. It’s in his name and with his
cedula number. There are no minor owners listed. You don’t have
permission,” Clint said sharply. “What do you want
here?”

“
We’re
going to buy the place,” a younger slick type Clint had met in
Bocas said. “We’ve met. On the isla. I’m Bill Gooden and he’s Jack
Norton. We just call the lawyer ‘licenciado’ for some reason. His
names Donaldo Something-or-other. The surveyor is Batiste
Batiste.

“
His
mother gave us permission to come survey the place.”

“
His
mother can’t give you permission,” Clint fired back sharply. “I
take it El Gordo is your lawyer. He should have warned you about
that. If you come onto this land after warning I’ll have all your
asses in the pen, capich?”

“
Let’s
not get off on an adversarial foot,” Jack pleaded. “I want to buy
the land so want a plano drawn.”

“
There’s
already a plano with the registration from nineteen eighty four
when Ariel’s father died and left him the place. The ROP was
assigned originally in nineteen thirty nine so is as solid as a
titulo. In addition, the owner supplies the plano, not the buyer –
which you aren’t, at this point.”

“
We’ll
deal with Sr. Guerra, not you!” the lawyer spat. “Who do you think
you are?!”

“
Me? I’m
just the poor ignorant gringo who has exclusive rights to sell the
place. So just who in hell do you think YOU are, Fatso?”

“
You
can’t sell land here!” the lawyer spat a bit more acidly. “You have
to be licensed! This is an outrage!”

“
Funny
thing about that is that Ariel, my very close friend, is an
indigenous person whose residence is on the comarco, so anyone he
chooses can sell it legally. The law here is comarco law, not
national law. The council approved me. Ask the jefe, Basilio
Cona.”

“
He has
said he will sell it! We have a testigo!” the lawyer said
triumphantly.

“
Most
certainly he’ll sell!” Clint replied, getting a shocked look from
Ariel. “Why the hell else would he have an agent?

“
Of
course, you might not want to meet the price. You can’t produce any
testigo that he quoted any price because he hasn’t.”

“
Er?” the
lawyer said, glancing nervously at Jack. “Well, we can negotiate a
fair price to all, I’m sure. We much prefer to deal directly with
an owner.”

“
Uh-huh.
Then you kill off his family and have the land for next to nothing.
I have a friend in the states – well, in the Mediterranean right
now – who has made it very clear what will happen to anyone who
tries that crap here. Marko Boccini. You might have heard the
name.

“
The
price is one million dollars per acre. It’s not negotiable. Take it
or leave it.”

“
This is
outrageous! I’ll bring charges!” the lawyer cried.

“
Really?
For what?” Clint asked, feigning interest.

“
My
client has gone to great expense already on the word of this man
that he will sell!”

“
If he’s
idiot enough to spend money on your promises he deserves to lose
his ass. The place is for sale. One million dollars an acre. If
you’re too stupid to determine something like that before going to
‘great expense,’ tough shit!”

The lawyer was spluttering and puffing. Clint
looked at Jack and shook his head. Jack let a grin show, then said
they’d best get back to Chiriqui Grande. “I was a fool to not check
on what he promised,” he said in English. “Seems I get burned a lot
here in Panamá. It’s the national pastime to screw the gringo.”

“
It’s
easy to stop that,” Clint said. “Get a competent lawyer who doesn’t
fool with the old schemes and scams.”

“
You’re
probably right,” Jack replied. “C’mon, guys. Let’s head out. Maybe
we can get that tract near Miramar. It’s expensive, but not THAT
expensive.”

Clint grinned at him. He grinned back. He was
trying hard to be affable. It wasn’t working. Clint did NOT like
him or the type.

“
Well,
they didn’t come back so I guess they have sense enough to know
they’re beat,” Clint said the next day about noon. “I guess we can
head back to Bocas, or I will. I really like it here.”

“
You can
stay at my house anytime for as long as you like,” Ariel replied.
“You are a very welcome guest and true friend.”

“
Thanks,
but I have business. I would like to have a little cabin here where
I could come to hide from the crap I have to put up with in Bocas
sometimes.”

“
We will
build you a house next to mine! Basilio has already said you can
come here to live. The council approves you as a desirable
person.”

“
You
can’t know how honored that makes me feel, amigo. I am tempted. I
have to go for now. I WILL return!”

He went to Justo’s boat and they headed
toward Chiriqui Grande. There was a policia boat on the beach on
Ariel’s land so they went to ask what was the problem. Clint knew
the officer on the boat, Xavier Cordrero. He had a somewhat
fatalistic view on life along with a tremendous sharp sense of
ironic humor.

“
Depends
a lot on what you call a problem,” Xavier answered. “Seems some
lawyer came out with a couple of gringos and didn’t come back. They
say he was here to help look over some land. They started back
about noon and the lawyer never came back. They said he wanted to
look at some other land and would catch a ride back with the
locals.”

“
Donaldo
Something-or-other?” Clint asked.

“
Uh-huh.
Know him?”

“
We
talked yesterday. Seems he had sold the gringos a bill of goods.
Promised to get Ariel’s land here without determining the price. It
was much too expensive for their budget so they left. They didn’t
go on the land at all and didn’t survey anything.”

“
Survey?
They didn’t have any equipment to survey anything,” Xavier said,
studying Clint carefully.

“
Oh,
crap! Did the surveyor get back?”

“
Just two
gringos according to the man on the dock. Said Donaldo wanted to
stop at a place and got off. Do you know who the engineer
is?”

“
Batiste
Batiste, if I remember,” Clint answered. Xavier nodded and said no
surveyor or any other engineer was even mentioned. The lawyer’s
wife came to the policia, not the gringos. They told him they
thought he had come back some other way. He wanted them to drop him
off.

“
Then
we’ll have to check on Batiste Batiste when we reach Chiriqui
Grande, won’t we?” Clint mused aloud. “What’s the lawyer’s sir
name?”

“
Menendez. He isn’t exactly liked in the area.”

“
All I
know is that he didn’t come home,” Serena Miranda insisted. “He was
late sometimes, but he never came home. One of those gringos that
wouldn’t listen to him and lost everything probably shot him
somewhere and we’ll never find his body! I just know
it!”

“
There
were other gringos who lost a lot of money over some land deal?”
Clint asked. “I assume it was land. He was into real
estate.”

“
Lots of
them! They never listen! They claim it’s his fault because he
didn’t stop them, but how could he? They would never
listen!”

There was something a little strange about
how she was acting. She was being defiant and aggressive to what
end? Nobody had accused her of anything.

Clint looked around. It would seem the
Menendezes lived very well. The place was ostentatious in an area
where nobody ever was. There was a very nice new car in the garage
(which nobody ever had in the area, either. No car, no garage). The
place was big and new. Menendez had made quite the little fortune
advising gringos not to do things they did anyway.

She was talking a bit louder than was
necessary and staying very close to the door. That might indicate
there was somebody inside. She was also wearing makeup, which no
one did in the area unless they worked in one of the “better”
jobs.

“
Well,
thanks. I’ll see if I can find anything,” he said, took her hand
and left.

“
Batiste?
He’s probably at his office if he isn’t out doing a job somewhere,”
the man trimming the shrubs at the other ostentatious place in town
said. “I think Donaldo Menendez was having him do a plano or
something on a big land purchase.”

“
Did a
lot of work with Menendez?” Clint asked. “It seems to pay
well.”

The man shrugged. “He does a lot of work for
a lot of people. The gringos are stupid enough to pay in advance so
he draws it out and runs up extra costs. He hangs around the
Menendez place a lot of the time when Menendez is in Panamá or
David.”

“
Got a
thing with the lovely wife? She’s not too bad if you like them a
little pudgy. Panamanians like their woman a bit larger than some
others.”

He shrugged again. Clint thanked him and
left.

Batiste wasn’t at his office. His secretary
said he had gone to do a plano on a farm near Mali. He left maybe
half an hour ago.

So. Batiste came home, Menendez didn’t – and
Batiste was having a fling with the little wife. Veddy inderesdink!
Clint thought for a minute, then decided to go back to Bocas.

“
Hi,
Bill. Sharon. Bill,” Clint greeted as he went into Bohmfalk’s. Bill
and Sharon own the place. The other Bill is a musician from England
who does shows there and at other places around Bocas and Carenero.
He looked around and said he was going to wander awhile, but would
be back.

He found Jack sitting with a local hooker at
Bongos Restaurante. He asked where Batiste and Menendez got off the
boat.

“
What?
They didn’t get back? I could swear I saw Batiste this morning in
front of his office.”

“
He got
back. Menendez didn’t. He went out with some gringos and he and
Menendez got off somewhere. He’s having an affair with the lovely
Sra. Menendez. There are some gringos who were royally pissed at
him for screwing them out of a lot of money. You figure what’s
coming next when he claims he wasn’t with you. Nobody saw him with
you except Ariel, Justo and me. Ariel and Justo ain’t about to get
involved with any gringos who were trying to steal their land. Less
than fifty-fifty I could be found before your asses are locked up
for an investigation. I spend a lot of time running around the
country lately. It was set up perfectly until I showed up, then he
took a chance. After all, he could get the lovely wife to put off
reporting him missing for a couple of days.

“
Too bad
he didn’t warn her not to get anxious so she runs right to the
police. Now he has to wait and see. At worst he claims he left
Menendez on some piece of land and came on back alone.

“
Where
was it? Maybe I can find the body and keep you out of it. You can
then go to the Pacific side to make your tourist mesa.”

He laughed. “We were planning to use the
Pacific side until he told us about the great deal he could get us
at Cusapin, which is ripe for developing. We’re going to the
Pacific side, as you call it, whether you get us out or not. I
won’t pretend to feel any loss over Menendez and Cusapin won’t
happen for years, if ever.

“
We
dropped him off at that point just before the big ship docks at
Chiriqui Grande. Just under the oil storage tanks. There’s a little
rickety dock into the mangroves there.”

Clint thanked him and went back to Bohmfalk’s
to have a few beers with his friends. Dennis was going to David in
the morning and would drop him off in Chiriqui Grande.

Clint had Quintan, an Indio friend, take him
to the little dock. He went in to find Menendez’s body laying face
down in the water. There were slick rocks there and it was
perfectly logical he had fallen, hit his head hard enough to knock
him out and drowned. Clint called Xavier and waited until he came
to tell him what he suspected.

“
Yes. I
have done some investigation and find that the Sra. has two others
on the side. It seems the Sr. Batiste has a wife and another
mistress besides her. We know exactly what happened, but can we
prove it?”

“
You want
to know the truth? He was worth half a minute of your time and they
deserve each other. You can let each of them know that you’re glad
it was so obviously a tragic accident because when married lovers
do something like that they both know about it. When the glow wears
off they have to wonder if they’re the next inconvenient person in
the other’s life – and they KNOW how that was handled
before!”

Xavier got a truly evil grin on his face.
“Yes. I will find it a relief I don’t have to warn them of the
predictable consequences tomorrow of rash actions today.

“
Well,
Clint! It’s a sad thing when careless people go into dangerous
places unprepared. Those fancy shoes are certainly predictable as
to what happens when one steps with them onto slippery wet rocks.
Why, that’s as predictable as what will happen to murderous
lovers!”