Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (2 page)

That would let Clint concentrate on the body
and what happened to him.

Clint went to Bastimentos in his boat to
check on friends there. Damage was a bit more severe. Bastimentos
didn’t have the natural protection Isla Colón had. It wasn’t
terrible. Clint was able to get a little information by asking
something in passing and waiting for an opportunity to get the next
question inserted. The recent capture of Wild Bill made that a good
bit easier because he could ask who seemed strange in that way and
who had been closer to Wild Bill. Not many on the island knew him.
They wouldn’t. Most are blacks, who he didn’t seem to get along
with well at all. The strangest ones associated with druggies and
such were Quiroz and Larienze, two who were too often around the
wrong people and the wrong places at the wrong times. Quite a
number of the people there were minor street dealers so knew
something about people who moved there from Colón (The province,
not Isla Colón) and who acted too much like assholes all the time.
Those two were living right in the middle of the area where so many
were using and dealing in drugs, probably met with known biggies in
the trade from time to time, yet claimed to not want anything to do
with the locals of the same, if less elevated, type. In short, they
were NOT liked, even a little bit.

Next was Solarte, where much the same was
going on. He learned that there was one person who had a house out
along the island a bit more than halfway with his land going from
the bay to the alley. He had docks on both sides. Strange things
seemed to be going on at night on those docks. His name was
McDonald. He was a Bahamian with a Jamaican wife.

Clint figured he had three viable candidates
for suspects.

The next wave was coming in. Clint went back
to Bocas Town as the winds were getting strong. He secured the boat
and went inside, took care of the e-mails and messages, then went
to Judi’s for dinner. Ben was there, as was Dave, their nutty
musician friend. They talked about general things. Clint didn’t
bring up his case. It might be a good idea to keep his friends out
of this one, though they could be a great help in some cases. He
didn’t like that torture bit. If it weren’t for that they would
already know all about it.

He went home after the storm began to subside
a little. Dave and Ben went to Ben’s. Dave would go on home later
or would stay with Ben. Ben said, “Oh! Thrill!”

Ben’s gay, in his mid twenties. Dave is in
his seventies and had a girlfriend from back in Florida staying
with him until she found a place in David or Boquete. They were all
close and could share jokes and jibes that wouldn’t offend. Clint
grinned when he thought of how different it was in Florida and how
phony the life and taboos there seemed here. There, if a man were
to spend a night with a gay friend he would be considered as being
gay among most people. Here, nobody cared and nobody figured it was
any of their business. The Indio saying was something like, “If you
have an itch, what difference does it make which hand you use to
scratch it?”

Clint thought of an itinerary for tomorrow
and went to bed.

Over an omelette and coffee in the morning
Clint decided to go to Solarte and Bastimentos and check on storm
damage. He was close to the Indios there and could collect a little
information the police couldn’t. He would wait until the last wave
of the storm front passed. Probably early tomorrow. The wave would
hit Bocas about four o’clock. He could handle McDonald this morning
and Quiroz and Larienze tomorrow. He may not have to worry
tomorrow.

He took his boat out and ran it for awhile to
get it hot enough to evaporate all the water that had managed to
get under the cowl, then headed to Solarte. He met several of his
Indio friends and chatted. They were always up and working by
seven. It was ten ‘til when he got there. Magali insisted he have
some hojaldras, coffee and patacones, so he sat with her and her
husband, Milcare, and their two kids. Milcare said there wasn’t
much to say about McDonald except he was a black foreigner with an
attitude that would guarantee privacy – whether he wanted it or
not.

“
If everything’s so horrible here in
Panamá, why doesn’t he return to Nassau?” Li asked. “Is there a
reason he can’t? Like they don’t like his attitude there
either?”

There wasn’t much more. Clint said he was
just checking to be sure everyone was alright and that there wasn’t
damage that couldn’t be repaired before the next wave hit in the
afternoon. The natives had weathered storms a hell of a lot worse
than this minor atmospheric disturbance. Clint said he knew it. He
just wanted to be sure his friends were OK.

He stopped at two of the other places before
coming in close to the McDonald finca. McDonald was on his dock
trying to get his boat up. It was sunk. McDonald was a bullish bald
man with a lot of gold teeth. He was just fat enough to make him
ugly as homemade sin to Clint.

“
Leave it there until tomorrow,” Clint
called. “There’s another one coming in this afternoon, then it will
clear up.”

“
I have to get the motherfucking motor
off and try to dry it out if it’s any of your goddamned
business!”

“
Well, I could offer to help you. I
could take my boat alongside and lift one side to dump some of the
water, then it would float to where you could get the motor off –
if there was a chance in hell you could handle a three hundred
pound engine by yourself.”

“
Let’s do that.”

“
Or I could treat you the way you’ve
already treated me and decide to do one of two things,” Clint
continued. “I could tell you to fuck off and enjoy watching your
shit ruin in the salt water or I could say I’d help for a hundred
bucks.”

McDonald grinned. “You, I could like. You
aren’t wimpy like these shitheads here.”

“
They aren’t wimpy. They simply treat
people with respect until they get to know them well enough to know
if they want anything to do with them. They’ve solidly decided they
don’t want anything to do with you. Push it and you’ll end up
learning how wimpy they are right quick!”

“
I could take any three of them without
working up a sweat!” he snarled.

“
Maybe before you turned into a fat
out-of-shape pig you could’ve taken one of them. They’re small
people. Right now, I’d say there isn’t one of them who couldn’t
take you down pretty fast.”

He laughed. “OK. A hundred bucks. I got money
up the ass.”

“
So do I,” Clint replied. He went
alongside the sunken 18 footer and dropped the grapple anchor under
the front, caught the molded seat underneath and lifted. It slowly
began to rise, then sluggishly dumped water over the motor in the
rear. After about three minutes about a third of the boat front was
above the water. Clint let go and stepped hard on the front. The
water leveled until the gunnel had about four inches above the
water. He dropped his bail line into it and threw a five gallon
bucket to McDonald and took one himself to throw water out. In a
few minutes it would remain afloat without any further hand
bailing. Clint let the high-flow bailer from his boat draw a lot
more of the water out. McDonald invited him to have some coffee or
booze or whatever so they left it running and went to the somewhat
overdone stilt house where Benson McDonald introduced his
ladyfriend, Shirley LeGrande. They talked awhile. Clint brought up
the drug boat and murder.

“
I’m here because of drugs coming in
through Nassau,” Benson said. “I got into trouble with a bunch at a
casino there. I had a little restaurant and beer bar and they
started trading right there. I threw them out, then the place
burned down. I caught two of them one night in a dark alley and
almost killed them. Their buddies have been after me ever
since.”

“
Not the same group, I
hope?”

“
I wouldn’t know. I doubt
it.”

Shirley seemed to be a lot more friendly.
They chatted, then Clint left. Benson had a tripod to take the
motor off and into his bodega (shed) to dry it out. Clint told him
to meet the people halfway and they would gladly go the other half.
They were NOT going three quarters of the way.

He said he didn’t want friends. He wanted to
be left alone. Clint told Shirley that they wouldn’t hold him
against her. If she wanted friends she could have them. She
nodded.

Well, McDonald was out as a suspect.

Clint visited with another Indio family. He
helped them put a couple of sheets of zinc on the roof that had
been blown off. This time it was anchored. Before, it had a couple
of heavy rocks holding it in place. The Indios noted years ago that
the zinc-plated panels would rust where the nails went through very
quickly. If the zinc wasn’t scratched through or holed it would
last for twenty years or more – so they didn’t drive nails through
it. Clint said they had kilometers of polypropylene rope, so why
not tie it down? They did that. They would have to replace the rope
about every five years. The sunlight broke it down.

The wind was picking up and it was getting
darker than Clint liked. He turned on the weather channel on his
boat and learned this last storm front had intensified and would be
a lot worse than the first two. The bay was getting pretty rough
before Clint got home. He was protected from the worst of it where
he was, but people on the Caribbean side would get hit hard this
time.

Sergio had called several times, but Clint’s
cell was on the boat while he was working and he hadn’t heard it.
He called to learn that another tortured body had been found. This
one on Isla Popa.

Assumptions

“
It would seem you were correct in
assuming that the body found between Solarte and Bastimentos was
nothing to do with the drug runner,” Sergio admitted when Clint
went to the station in the morning. “It perhaps has to do with
drugs, but who knows?

“
Have you anything new to
report?”

“
Other than that McDonald is a total
ass, but has nothing to do with it, no. I’m going calling on Quiroz
and Larienze in a bit.”

“
That’s nice. So. Who are Quiroz and
Larienze? Those unpopular people on Bastimentos?”

“
Yeah. I want to see what their stories
are.”

Sergio nodded and told what they knew about
body #2. Except that he could be a man who was around every once in
awhile they called Carlos they didn’t have anything. It was pretty
exactly the same kind of torture body #1 showed. It didn’t mean too
much in itself.

“
It means someone wants information
that they didn’t get from the first one,” Clint pointed out. Sergio
agreed. They didn’t know if whoever got the information from
#2.

Clint went to the regular places for gossip,
then took his boat to Bastimentos. Quiroz had the much easier place
to get to so he went there first. Quiroz was an arrogant snob. He
first called that his dock was a private one, so get out. Clint
called out that he could return with a police boat or he could talk
to Quiroz now. His choice.

He said to come on in, but make it damned
brief. He didn’t have time to waste with anything to do with Bocas
del Toro and its cheap tourist-trap atmosphere.

Clint said he doubted very much that Xavier
Quiroz had time for much of anything to with anyone else.

“
I’ll say what my close Indigeno
friends said about the last person I talked to about this. If you
don’t like Bocas go the hell back where you came from – or are you
in the same situation? Where he COULDN’T go back there because he
was even more unpopular where he knew people than he was here where
he made it a point not to know anyone.”

“
I resent your attitude!” Quiroz
snapped.

“
Oh? Am I supposed to care or simply
say I’m matching your own?”

“
Say what you have to say, then get
out! I’m much to busy to spend time chatting with
riff-raff!”

“
I see. A real legend in your own
mind,” Clint countered. “You want it short, so that’s how you get
it.

“
What’s your connection to the drug
shipment deterred yesterday in the bay?”

Quiroz sputtered and stared a minute, yelled
that he didn’t have anything to do with it. He wasn’t in any way
ever even suspected of having anything to do with drugs. He deeply
resented the implication.

“
Better get used to it. You place
yourself under suspicion with your attitude. Do you think we don’t
know you don’t have anything to keep you so, as you claimed, busy
you don’t have time to waste on riff-raff like me?”

He looked like he would explode. He sputtered
a bit more, then turned around and stormed toward the house,
yelling for Clint to get off his property and to stay off.

He was up to something, but it wasn’t to do
with drugs. Clint would damned well see that he was investigated
carefully. Clint suspected he was only a deluded idiot who was
being used by someone else as a distraction.

Which made it interesting. A distraction from
what?

That would have to wait.

Larienze tried to be polite, but couldn’t
pull it off. He had a very grating personality. He was another
self-absorbed type who tried to act like one of the boys, but was
condescending in almost everything he said. He didn’t have a clue
to what other people were thinking. He wouldn’t be involved. He
pictured himself as some kind of genius. He wouldn’t fall for any
line from anyone in this backwater. He kept within his regular
group of friends. He was sure he was way ahead of the game.