Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (40 page)

“
I
believe that! If you did you’d be as dead as Monica. I think she
knew and thought she had protection because she knew. Gordo’s in
that sinking boat. You’re in about twenty thousand leagues over
your head.”

“
How can
I get out of here and disappear? I have four million bucks and will
split it with you if you can get me away somewhere I can expect to
live for a few years to spend it.”

“
I’ll go
to Fron ... Arriba Blanca. The second packing plant. I can get you
to Baranquila from there. I have some friends on Sao Paulo where
you can disappear. One million to build a clinic on San Cristóbal.
Take it or leave it.”

“
Arriba
Blanca? They’ll be waiting there! It’s where we were working the
... so I’d never go near there ... so they WON’T look for me there!
I could get to San José from there. Why go to
Baranquila?”

“
Because,
when you disappear from here and they trace you to Arriba Blanca
they’ll have every access to San José and Limón covered in ten
seconds, maybe?”

He waited through half a minute of silence
until Batty said, “You have a deal! You want cash or transfer?”

“
Cash?
There’s that much of that funny-money still around? Direct transfer
to Manny.”

“
When do
I meet you at the banana packing plant?”

“
Go now.
Don’t use the bank there because a certain teller will report it
two seconds after you walk in the door. Stop in ... go to Frontera,
use the bank there, then walk a few hundred meters toward the
station entrance, grab a cab in the ... wait until the next bus for
Armuelles comes and get on as it’s leaving, get off past the road
to Arriba and walk back and along the road until a banana truck
comes by. Flag it down and give the driver fifty bucks to drop you
off at plant one. Tell him you’re running from a woman whose
brothers are trying to kill you to get your money. He’ll understand
that, seeing you’re a gringo. He’ll ask why Arriba Blanca and you
can say you can get into Costa Rica on the packers’ road and they
can’t get to you there. You’re going back to the states and will
never come any nearer than Panamá City again. By then I’ll be
there. I can go to David and lose anyone they have following me.
I’ll check with Manny before I go on to Arriba from
David.”

“
Got you!
It’ll be there!”

Clint sighed again, went to talk with Judi
for a few minutes, then called the airport. The plane to David
would leave in an hour and a half. He packed and headed for the
airport after calling Manny and explaining that he was going to
have one million dollars direct-deposited into his account with
BNP. The money was for a clinic on San Cristóbal.

“
I’m
almost finished building a clinic myself,” Manny replied. “Next
project is a school with good teachers for when my own kids are of
age?”

“
Done!
I’ll be in touch from David. It should be there by
then.”

He made the plane this time with a few
minutes to spare. They were in David 45 minutes later. Clint called
Manny, who said the money was there. Two million.

“
Two? Oh.
Batty said half. That’s what he put in. He doesn’t expect to be
able to spend his own two in the rest of his life. He can always
run another scam if he needs more.”

Clint went to the bus station and got the
Puerto Armuelles bus. He got off at the Arriba Blanca road and got
the local. They were about a half kilometer along the road when the
police and an ambulance were blocking the road. It seems a truck
had hit a man and woman walking along the road. A Bathner Somebody
and an Yvon Somebody. Clint had seen the truck driver in Puerto
Armuelles a few times. At El Critico.

He took Yvon with him? That was a sure way to
not make it! What a goddamned stupid asshole IDIOT!

Well, the school was funded. Batty wouldn’t
need his own two million ... probably five or six. He couldn’t get
away from the scams now. It wasn’t in his nature.

“
I don’t
know, Clint, I swear,” Paulo Lariez said to Clint that night at El
Critico. “If I knew I’d tell you that I knew, but I would not tell
you who for simple personal safety reasons. I might find a way to
let you know without my saying the name or something, but I do not
know. It is not Smednoff. That one, I’ve checked.”

Clint nodded. Paulo was there without a
bodyguard. They discussed a bit of philosophy. Paulo said it was
the most liberating time of his life. He could actually walk along
the streets alone and stop to talk with strangers with no fear. Now
the people would protect him from the type of person he used to be.
Even Obilio had become a friend. He actually had some people here
he could honestly call friends. They were.

They talked for almost an hour more. Clint
tried to pick out some information Paulo might have from his own
ideas about various odd things. Smednoff was definitely not
involved to any great extent in this mess. That didn’t mean he
didn’t know who was involved. How to get the information from
him?

Smednoff was in Boquete at the moment. That
was close enough to David. Most times he was on his private island
in the Pacific Ocean between Panamá City and Chitre.

Marko called and said that Smednoff was using
the name Pollack in Boquete. In Boquete he was told that Pollack
had left that morning for Cerro Punta. In Cerro Punta he learned
that Pollack had gone to Panamá City. He called Vito, who said he
had gone back to his private island.

Well, the scenery was beautiful for all the
bus rides! Now to find a way onto that island.

Clint decided to try a little trick only a
few detectives had ever tried to get onto the island. He called
Smednoff’s secretary, said he was Clint Faraday and that he wanted
to speak with Viktor Smednoff about a private matter.

The shocked secretary couldn’t believe it!
What detective in his right mind would want to speak with Mr.
Smednoff on a personal matter?

She called Viktor, who seemed to think it was
hilarious, so said to send him out to the island. He then had to
get directions from the secretary.

After a good lunch, he took a boat out to the
island. It was just past low tide, which meant there was a wide and
somewhat dirty beach around the three hectare island with the
mansion on the top of the low hill. He was escorted to the house by
a very large blocky man who introduced himself as Ivan.

Smednoff was a large blocky man himself, with
tons of wavy brownish/grey hair and dark hard eyes. He smoked real
Cuban cigars and drank imported real vodka made from potatoes, not
grain. He wore loud Hawaiian shorts and loose hibiscus tee shirt.
The glass-top table had reams of printed papers in stacks and the
computer had hundreds of disks spread around on each stack.

“
Just to
impress people,” Viktor explained. “I can do e-mail and like that.
Not much else. You would not be impressed. I have girls to do all
the actual work. What do you want of me? I find you refreshingly
amusing, don’t you see. I am called Viktor. You are called Clint.
No one has ever come here with no subterfuge before.”

He spoke in almost one long sentence, but in
a slightly jerky manner with a fairly strong accent. It reminded
Clint of his author friend’s super-computer that “spoke” without
paragraphs.

“
Mucho
gusto – I think. I’m trying to find out what’s going down with that
bunch who tried to run a scam with Bathner
et al
where even he came out with a huge profit. He even
donated two million for a school on Isla San Cristóbal. Too bad he
didn’t live to spend his part.

“
What is
it? For real? I know it’s not about an oil well scam. Not
really.”

“
When one
seeks a thing he sometimes will find there is something else.
Something he never expected. In this case it was never about making
more, it was about removing several billions from one place where
it was not legitimate to another place where it could be made
legitimate. The scam, as you call it, was meant to be discovered
soon and the seven or eight millions were the expenses for moving
five billions. That’s all. Then some crazy and very stupid – if
clever – people tried to steal the five billions and everything
went straight to hell in a handbasket on a greased slide. I was for
the five billions. To move. I was not for the extremely excessive
bringing in of minor and stupid people who started killing people
because that is all they ever knew from the stupid TV shows and
movies pictures. It is not any longer in my hands. I have tried to
distance myself from those people.”

“
By
eliminating the worst of them.” It was a statement. Clint wouldn’t
play games anymore than Smednoff would. Smednoff was scared by
this.

“
When one
enters a game he must know the rules by which the game is played
and must know that the rules apply for the whole game, not for only
one side. I am always surprised when stupid people fail to grasp
such an obvious fact. They knew the rules when they entered the
game. They were, as you say, with their eyes wide open.”

“
Sally
Wallace?”

“
The
woman from California. She was far more than you knew or know. I
will not say more.”

“
Vern?”

“
Simply
her property. He is very stupid, but maybe very smart. He did not
and does not know ... things. It is smart not to know. Those
things. He was trapped and found a way out. I think he is a true
patriot to the United States. I think he will become as true a
patriot to Panamá. He is a very simple person who sees all things
as black or white except morals where sex is concerned. He saw she
had to be stopped and is very glad that she was
stopped.”

“
Don’t
tell me he was behind her murder?”

“
Yes and
no. He had warned some people about her and about another place.
Some people in the United States Intelligence Service knew of her
ties and her insanity. He would do nothing to harm her unless that
became of a much higher priority. He did not like her after a year
and a half of marrying her. He found what she was. She wanted to be
a queen. She wanted control. She wanted only more and more
possessions. She drank and became a very evil person. More evil
than when she did not drink. She was a very evil person, but
because she was insane. He suspected she was insane, I believe. It
was a solution, but it leaves a very large question as to what will
become of the situation now. Her family is not what you think her
family is as she was not what you thought she was.”

Clint thought for a few seconds. “Syria? That
was for real?”

“
Yes and
no. Not directly. Syria was ... is ... being used for if something
goes wrong.”

“
But if
this was from moving funds spent on arms from the cold war, how did
Syria ... oh, Christ! What happened to those arms and what were
they?!”

“
Exactly.”

“
Oh, holy
SHIT! Which one has it? Them?”

“
Three
countries. They are involved only after because they are afraid the
substances can now be traced, which will eventuate some dangerous
and strong reactions from NATO and the USA.”

“
And
Israel?”

“
Israel
is a distraction of their own making. I have no sympathy of any
kind for your Israel. They could be annihilated by this and I would
not care except that it could contaminate too much else. You see, I
am becoming more concerned about world problems caused by a few. I
want a better world for my children and grandchildren. I have less
and less sympathy for a country that allows a George Bush and a
Cheyney to exercise such destructive control of its
affairs.”

“
Are your
methods any better?”

He shook his head. “They are made necessary.
I offer no apologies for doing what I must do.”

“
I wish I
could argue the point. Thanks. We don’t think in alien ways, one to
the other, on some things,” Clint returned, stood, offered his hand
and left.

Well! He had something to investigate now –
and it was something that he wouldn’t even have considered a day
ago.

He called Marko. “I have to know everything
there is to know about Sally Wallace’s family. Where did they get
their money? What are they up to?”

“
Wallace?
The one who was murdered?” Marko asked.

“
Uh-huh.”

There was a silence. Marko said he’d know
every time they so much as farted at a party within twenty four
hours.

He then called Vito and said he had to know
everyone Sally Wallace had said as much as two words to when she
was in Panamá City.

He called Judi Lum. She had an uncanny talent
for digging up information.

Then he headed for David, stayed what was
left of the night at the Occidental and went on to Bocas.

Life on a
Bus

More and more his life was being spent on
buses. That would have to stop. He came here to retire. Still, it
made for a far more interesting life. He was accomplishing a few
things.

Now he was tied into some crazy international
intrigue. Terrorists, he wasn’t close to being equipped to
counter.

Yet, the adrenalin rush was something he’d
always sought. Maybe he wasn’t exactly sane, himself. Here he was
trying to reform crime lords while also sympathizing with their
methods to much too far a degree.

Why did he come back to Bocas?