Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (95 page)

“
But you
knew the signature is forged, didn’t you?” Ed asked through his
teeth. She didn’t answer.

“
Better
to talk to me now than an hour from now, I flat goddamned well
guarantee you!” he snarled.

“
I didn’t
know anything!” she cried. “It was Andres! I didn’t know the
signature wasn’t yours! He said it was!”

“
Is that
also true of Bannister?” Clint asked. She looked scared, then
turned and ran from the place.

“
I’ll be
damned!” Ed said hotly. “So she was setting me up to knock me over
for the company all along?”

“
And the
insurance policy,” Clint agreed.

“
What
damned insurance policy? If I get hurt or killed in the truck?
That’s only fifty grand. The truck’s worth a hell of a lot more
than that!

“
Oh!
They’d get the truck, too.”

“
No. The
five hundred grand life insurance policy. Double indemnity. It’s on
the corporation papers.”

“
So. I
chase a hot piece of ass like that and go over a curve on the
mountain and she gets rich,” Ed said. “God, I’m stupid
sometimes!”

“
There’s
more than one definition to the phrase, ´dangerous curves´,” Clint
pointed out.

“
Okay.
What do we do now? I’ve had enough experience with the law here to
know we can’t prove anything with what we have. Maybe about that
other guy you said they did this kind of thing to?”

“
Not
likely. I’ll handle it. Would your other partner have anything to
do with it?”

“
No. He’s
a Panamanian who put up money to help me. He wasn’t going to be on
anything, but I put him on it.”

“
It’s a
damned good thing he’s on it. When the corporation goes into his
control you’re covered with having a Panamanian as a major partner.
You can find any Panamanian to be your third partner when Andres
has to resign for personal reasons.”

“
You
suggest somebody.”

Clint thought, then said, “Maybe tonight I’ll
come up with two partners who might even work for the corporation.
They’re Indigenos, so you get some breaks there to add to it. It’ll
damned well mean you can haul stuff onto the comarcas. I’ll go
speak with Andres – unless he’s already run.”

Ed nodded and said he had to go home and
throw a couple of whores off his property. Clint told him to watch
his back.

“
And all
around. I’ll go armed. I have a permit and the pistol’s in the
truck.”

“
Check it
before you get into a spot where you have to use it.”

“
THAT’s
automatic.”

Clint went to the hotel, then across the
street to ask who the Indios were from last night and where could
he find them?

“
Huh! How
much did they take?” the bartender asked. “You’re a gringo. You
better learn not to trust Indios.”

“
They
didn’t take anything from me and I’ve lived among them. I know that
most of them are damned good people. They aren’t bigots, though
they’re most certainly the ones with the right!”

He turned red and said they worked for the
cattle brokers most of the time. Clint went to find them. They were
working with heavy sacks of grain, so he waited. They came to him
soon and he told them they were going to be officers in a
corporation, so he had to know their names and cedula numbers.

They thought it was a great joke. Would they
be Andres’ boss?

“
No. He
won’t be around anymore. Neither will the two puta
cousins.”

They
laughed, gave him the information and went back to their work,
laughing about being corporate heads. They didn’t really believe
him, but also thought it would be true because he was a friend, so
wouldn’t lie to them – unless it was a joke. Wait and
see.

Clint went to the company. Andres was in his
office, reading a copy of the contract.

“
It’s
void. I can bring up Bannister and you’ll spend the next ten years
under investigation where every least move you make will be noted.
You’d be smart to sign off the corporation. I might use your own
methods to see you out. I have no compunction from using the rules
you made on you.”

“
I’ve got
everything I own in this place! I can’t just leave it!”

“
You have
what you got by knocking Bannister over. You never deserved a
single centavo of that, anyhow.”

“
That
wasn’t my idea! It was Nilsa!”

“
Funny.
She said the same about you,” Clint said. “You have today and
tomorrow. Be out of Santiago before dawn, day after
tomorrow.”

He got up and left. He went back to the
hotel. Toña was waiting. He sighed and asked her what she wanted –
that she wasn’t going to get.

“
I wanted
to explain that I wasn’t part of anything. I like Ed. It was
Andres.”

“
He said
it was you. It was all of you. Don’t be so stupid as to think you
can get around me by shaking your ass. I know fifty women who
outclass you.”

“
How am I
supposed to make a living here after this! It’s a lie!” she wailed.
“Mentira, mentira, mentira!”

“
Then the
smart thing would be to go somewhere else,” Clint suggested. “You
will definitely not be able to pull this kind of crap around here
again. If you try it somewhere else I’ll see that the polica have
the particulars to make it come back and slap you in the
puss.”

She started to say something nasty, thought
about it, then simply walked out. Clint went back inside, cleaned
up and walked around town for awhile. Santiago is as different from
David or Bocas as they are from Santiago.

He stayed until Andres and the sisters caught
the bus for Panamá City, then headed to David for a couple of days,
then on to Bocas. In Bocas, he spent as couple of days doing little
or nothing.

He was getting bored. The detective business
in Florida was mostly boring. Here, it held excitement. He was more
involved in dangerous situations here.

He was in The Pirate having a couple of beers
with friends when a girl with a truly exceptional figure came in
and gave him an interested look. He remembered what he recently
said to Ed about dangerous curves.

“
What the
hell!” he said to no one.

It was a great night.

Night Driving

Famously
Assholes

Clint Faraday, PI, Ret’d. stretched his back
and made a noise. He had been sitting at the damned comp for hours,
but was finally caught up. He checked to find it was after five, so
no fishing or anything today. He stripped and dove into the bay
from his deck, swam until his muscles and bones were back to
normal, then went inside, rinsed and dressed for town. He went to
El Ultimo Refugio (Or just Refugio’s) for a great meal, talked with
a number of the locals, listened to his nutty musician friend for
awhile, then headed toward the center of town. As he was rounding
the curve by the ferry docks a taxi came close enough to brush his
hand. He threatened to pull the asshole out of the cab and kick his
ass from one end of the street to the other if he ever came that
close again.

Night driving was about the same in Bocas as
day driving. Taxi drivers were famously assholes. They thought it
was cute to see how close they could come. If it had been more
daylight he would have given Clint a much wider berth. Clint wasn’t
known for good humor in that kind of situation.

He went on, stopping at La Iguana, but it was
too early for much there, so he went to El Toro Loco for a couple
of beers. He met some people he knew from a previous trip they made
to Bocas. They chatted awhile, Clint caught them up on the local
situation, then they split up, Clint going on to The Plank and they
going, because Clint had recommended it, to Refugio’s.

Not much at The Plank, so he went to The Rip
Tide just a bit farther along. Neil and Cathy were serving
exceptional food tonight. Clint half wished he had waited, but
there are several good restaurantes in Bocas. He was there most of
the time. He could come here tomorrow.

Neil said there was trouble brewing, because
a taxi had hit a gringo on a bicycle the night past and she was
claiming it was on purpose. She wasn’t hurt badly because she saw
it coming just in time and got partly out of the way.

Clint tended to agree that it was on purpose.
If she had time to see the taxi coming the taxi had time to avoid
hitting her. If she was trying to get aside, the taxi had to go
more toward her to have hit her at all.

Nothing would be done. She was a tourist and
would be gone in a couple of days. They would make a little noise
about it and drop it when she left. Sooner or later someone was
going to really get hurt, then there would be enough “I should have
... s” going around to make you puke.

Clint went home to bed about midnight.

In the morning Clint got up and decided to go
to Chiriqui Grande and return the following day. He took his boat
and made the trip, enjoyed the stay and returned. He went around
town, this time eating dinner at The Rip Tide and ending up at
Refugio’s, where he met a girl from France. To make a long story
short, she spent the night at his place.

The next day he went fishing with Manny and
Dave for most of the day, then went around town for awhile. Sergio,
police jefe, found him at La Iguana at about ten thirty and said a
taxi had hit a woman and she was in critical condition.

“
It had
to happen,” Clint said. “You should crack down on those
assholes.”

“
We try,
but that’s traffic’s department. There are only two traffic cops
here. They miss almost everything,” Sergio said. “The reason I felt
I should get you involved is that she was hit a couple of nights
ago, but not hurt badly. She claimed she was hit deliberately. It
looks like she was right.”

“
What
does the driver say?”

“
We don’t
know who it was. A couple of people saw it from the sidewalk toward
town and it was going away from them. They couldn’t describe it,
except to say it was a taxi like most of them you see
here.”

“
Then it
was deliberate. When can I talk to her?”

“
In the
morning.”

“
Sergio,
put a guard on her.”

“
I did. I
also made it plain that no one was to know which room she’s
in.”

Clint nodded.

“
She can
talk until she gets tired. That will be very quickly,” Dr. Avanzas
warned. “You will leave at that time until she recovers better. She
is still in dangerous condition and we do not have the more modern
facilities or equipment here. We’re hardly more than first aid and
a large percent of the staff are qualified only in a small
area.”

Clint agreed and went to her room. He sat by
the bed until she stirred and looked at him. He introduced himself
and said he wanted to know what was going on. Who, why – and
anything else she could tell him.

She didn’t know who or why and couldn’t tell
him anything except this was the third try and they were getting
better at it.

“
First
time?”

“
Panamá
City. A car came flying around a corner as I was crossing and would
have hit me dead center if I hadn’t heard it and jumped onto the
center break. He just kept going. There was no license plate on the
car is why I didn’t put it to another night driver who shouldn’t be
allowed to drive, even in the daylight.”

“
When was
that?”

“
The
night of August six. Right on the corner before the Europa
Hotel.”

“
I know
about the two here. Are you positive there were no attempts before
August six?”

“
No. I
was in town only since the evening, six o’clock, of the fifth and
hadn’t gone anywhere except the Hotel California and the restaurant
there. I walked around the one block there for a few minutes before
I went to the hotel and to bed. Nothing happened.” She yawned,
said, “sorry,” and dropped to sleep. Clint left. As soon as he was
outside he called Sergio and said he’d be there in five
minutes.

“
Sergio,
what happened in Panamá on August fifth around eight o’clock to
eleven? In the area of the Hotel California?”

He checked the sheets. “Other than ...
nothing, really. A couple of muggings, but farther down on Via
España. Some drug dealer was stabbed, but that was down closer to
the X-zone.” (The X-zone is where there are a number of X-rated
movies and porno/sex toy shops)

“
Something went down there. It had to be. She was only in
Panam a few hours and that’s the only place she went.“

”
If it
had been the fifth at the airport she might have seen something.
Some bigshot was almost assassinated or something. It was about the
time the Continental flight came in from Miami.”

“
Hmm. Why
would they single her out?” Clint wondered. “She was just there.
She didn’t note anything happening.” Sergio shrugged and said it
must be something else.

“
It’s the
only thing I have. I’m going to Panamá, I think. Get someone
pushed. I can just make the flight if I hurry. I have enough cash
that I can buy a set of clothes there if I need a
change.”

Sergio called the airport and said there was
a seat available, but Clint had to get there in seven minutes. They
wouldn’t hold the flight long. The police truck was outside. Sergio
said to get Clint to Aeroperlas in five minutes or less.