Clint Faraday Collection C: Murder in Motion Collector's Edition (16 page)

He was going to have to go to California.
Crap!

He had a good disguise or two. He could pull
it off. The only problem was getting to California without Napoli
knowing.

He got an idea and went to call on Judi. It
might work if he timed it right. There were places he went when he
wanted to relax or think for a day or two. He hoped he wouldn’t
have to be in the states more than that.

Judi said she’d go along with it. She could
tell them he was close by letting things slip. She was an expert at
that and at getting information from the locals they didn’t know
they gave her.

He took the bus to the comarca. Clint Faraday
got off the bus. An hour later Peter Bushnell, who had a slight
resemblance to him, but who walked and talked different, caught a
bus to Panamá City. He got off in Santiago and caught a hopper
plane to San Jose’, Costa Rica, where his flight was booked to LA
as of two weeks ago.

Manny could arrange that kind of thing.

California

Clint got off the company plane at the
private field and took a taxi to the Royal Palm Hotel. He was a bit
stooped and had a barely noticeable hitch when he walked. He kept
poking his glasses up on his nose. The expensive wig was just
off-color enough that it was noticeable, but was of excellent
quality. That hid the fact he had a thick mop of his own hair and
people would picture him as balding. His eyes were an odd green
color. He tended to look at his expensive wristwatch every two or
three minutes.

He booked in, then went to his room to rest
from the trip. He would go to a little place near Carmel later to
give a report on some medicinal plants found in Panamá (true facts.
Dave was a botanist and studied that kind of thing and had given
him a report to give to some friends in Carmel) to try to get
financing to research the truth about them. His reports were
necessarily mostly anecdotal, though there were lists of some of
the compounds found in the plants. People interested in promoting
natural medicines and cures were invited from all the nearby areas.
This was the kind of thing Napoli wouldn’t miss.

Clint arrived at the community center half an
hour before he was due to speak. He mingled with the people and
learned a few things that might help him with this project. If he
got a grant Dave would use it to augment his teaching of students
from Universidad de Panamá.

Napoli came in with a bit of an entourage to
sit near stage front and center. Clint recognized him immediately
from the photos on the net. He seemed to be an affable type. He was
definitely popular.

Clint spent two hours on the presentation,
mostly answering questions. He kept telling them that a friend did
the actual work. He just kept the records and took pictures (which
he brought along on a CD to show). Dave taught him all he knew
about the plants.

After the
meeting Napoli said he should come by his office in the suburbs
tomorrow to discuss the grant. It was important and useful work.
This was the kind of thing that those people with the resources
should finance for the good of all. He had friends in Panamá and
had heard there were several groups in the country who were doing
such research. If this Dave character he kept referring to was
doing this at his own expense and was
not
financed by some drug company that would curtail research
if some cheap and easily available cure were to be found for a
problem he would fund him all the way. That would be the agreement,
no sales or gift of his research to a greedy commercial enterprise.
If a patent could be attained for any process he developed it would
be in the name of Napoli Diversified and would be free to the
world.

He got instructions to Fallendale Heights and
went back to the hotel. He couldn’t agree with Napoli on that part
more. Clint couldn’t picture him in any sordid or perverted
situation.

The
office was impressive and understated. It was impressive
because
it was understated. As Clint
went into the receptionist’s stand Napoli was coming out of a
hallway toward the rear. He was with a slightly younger man who
resembled him. He waved to Clint and spoke intensely to the younger
man as Clint approached. The man started walking away as Clint got
to them. Napoli said, “My brother, Gino. Peter Bushnell.” Clint got
a dead fish handshake and Gino walked away.

“
Come
into my office, Peter. I only have about five minutes of work to
do, then we can discuss your friend’s project. There’s coffee and
donuts on the desk. Help yourself.”

Clint went into the plush office, which was a
comfortable-bordering-on-penthouse-suite room. He grabbed a pecan
Danish and poured a large mug of rich gourmet coffee. Napoil
returned five minutes later and sat in an armchair next to Clint.
He said the desk was for business. This was more a chat about
personal projects so would be informal.

“
I
checked on your friend in Panamá. He is a popular local character
who was once a mid-profile musician and writer. He’s still a writer
of fiction and research into orchids, has been all over the world
and is overly-loud and stubborn about the natives.

“
I mean
the Indios, not the imports.

“
He is
friends with a Taiwanese woman, a gay man, a detective, locals and
the Indios. He is considered a bit of a nutcase by many.

“
He also
does the research you spoke of and he does fund as many poor
students as his very limited funds will allow in the universities
on the condition they remain in the top percent of their classes.
All of them have done so, one becoming top student in the
university in the chosen field.

“
Many
think he is gay. He does not deny nor confirm it, saying always
that it is no one’s business who is gay or who isn’t so long as he
is not involved personally. He only goes so far as to say perhaps
he is bi to one extent or another.

“
I am
interested in that only so far as it would affect his work and only
so far as it does
not, in any way, ever
, affect children. I have known a pedophile and am
adamantly opposed to placing such people in any situation that
would involve or encourage their activities.

“
Is he
gay, which does not matter, and is there any least hint of
pedophilia?”

“
He is
probably bi. He has a ladyfriends, as he calls them, in several
places. He also is close friends with some gay people. He has a son
and grandkids in another Central American country. When it comes to
pedophilia, he believes and states very clearly that those people
should get a bullet between the eyes. It’s the only way they’ll
stop.

“
He also
often states a child is different ages in different places. In
Panamá, most thirteen year old kids know more about sex that I do.
In the states here they are children until they’re in their late
teens in some cases. He thinks, as I do, that it’s a matter where
the knowledge and experience makes the adult.

“
There’s
no way an undeveloped pre-pubescent child is not a child. In
Panamá, as a place where he knows the details of life, he says he
considers them children until about thirteen, though some places
the age of consent, the local feelings, is twelve. That’s much too
young for his or my acceptance. They just think they know what it’s
all about. They know shit!

“
He
wouldn’t consider doing anything with a girl under the legal age,
seventeen, and he doesn’t date anyone nearly that young. He dated
one who was twenty three in Bocas, but not often. He likes a woman
in her late twenties or early thirties.

“
Is this
about your brother?”

“
What
makes you think that?”

“
Mainly
because I shook his hand out there. It was a very unpleasant
experience.”

He studied Clint a moment, sighed and said he
at least had fears about such things with Gino.

“
Peter,
why haven’t anyone but a Judi Lum, a Manny Mathews, a Ben
Longstreet and Dave ever heard of you?”

“
I met
them when I was with Dave in David and, once, in Almirante. I
worked with Dave in the field and was staying in San Felix with the
Indios. They are
my
favorite
people, too. I wasn’t around the people he associates with except
when we were in town for supplies. Memory sticks and a new camera,
in my case. I used the internet in Almirante when I went through
one time and met Ben. He’s gay, a friend of Dave’s and the
others.

“
Dave and
I talked a lot in the field. We met so many different people among
the Indios. They’re a very diverse group.”

He nodded and sat back to sip coffee and
think.

“
You
state he is honest in his dealings with everyone to the extent he
alienates some of them. In what way?”

“
He
deliberately challenges people who go around spouting bullshit,
particularly about other people and always when it’s about the
Indios. He faces down bigots, though he admits that a certain
situation made a bigot of him in a limited way. He despises snobs
with attitude. That kind of thing. He says he answers to one person
in the universe. He has to meet the eyes of that person directly
when he shaves in the morning. If he can’t meet those eyes he’s a
piece of shit.

“
I agree.
I use the definition myself.”

He sat back for a moment to think again.
“I’ll give you a check for a hundred thousand dollars right now,
then more as needed, determined by Dave. If what I’ve heard is true
that will finance him for years.”

“
No.
It’ll finance things for a couple of months, but Dave’ll have
another dozen students in the universities with everything he
doesn’t need – and he needs next to nothing for himself – in
days.”

He
laughed. “That, I’ll finance!
If
he
holds to the rules as you’ve stated them. He apparently chooses
those to help well.”

“
That, he
does. He’s a bit stupid about personal things. He trusts all the
wrong people, then he digs in and becomes hardnosed with the ones
he considers worth his time. It’s how he is.”

“
It is
true that he owns a hotel and several parcels of land that are in
another’s name? That it was stolen from him because he trusted a
charismatic scam artist?”

“
Yes.
He’s never going to let that go, for which I don’t blame him. He’ll
see those crooks in jail or dead. He says that they prey on
retirees who can’t afford it.”

They chatted for a few minutes, then Clint
said he had to go. He would probably be in town another day, then
back to the field. Napoli asked if he needed anything. He said he
got by and was comfortable enough. He didn’t need much.

Clint felt as though he had met a truly good
person. Manny had been wrong about him. That didn’t mean he made
all that money through legitimate channels. He probably did that
just like Manny suggested, but it wasn’t him who got into the
crooked parts and it wasn’t him who was doing that bit in Panamá
and Bastimentos. Clint wanted a way to get rid of Napoli’s
albatross without it affecting him, personally.

Pragmatic Solution

Clint got off the plane, went to the hotel in
Santiago, cleaned up and became Clint Faraday again, then went to
have a good dinner in the place across the street. He missed the
local fare in only two days!

He decided to spend the night in Santiago so
went to the popular local bar nearby to swap stories about anything
that came up. It was a very pleasant night. He was up early for the
bus to David, stayed there a day, then went to Bocas. He hadn’t let
anyone know he was back yet so went to Judi’s place to find she was
with some friends who wanted to see the real Panamá. She was at Las
Tablas and places farther out the peninsula and was coming back via
Chitre the day after tomorrow.

He saw Dave and told about the conversation
and handed him the check. He was surprised and told Clint he was
elected to make all the speeches he was supposed to make and
wouldn’t. He would put another couple dozen people through
university with the money! He would also accept as much as Napoli
wanted to send. He agreed with Clint about getting Gino out of the
picture.

“
Your
good friends – to hear them tell it – on Bastimentos are worried
that they might not be allowed to leave. Ever.”

“
I think
I can make them ... I think maybe one of them, at least, can be
made to turn on the boss! That may be a solution! I’ll let them all
know the killer’s head’s in the noose and I can drop the trap the
minute I get confirmation from him. The boss is Gino. I’ll have to
arrange for them to get out of Panamá, but I want to know who
first. I want the others tagged and watched. I don’t like
blackmailers, regardless of who or why they do it.”

“
You use
blackmail yourself so don’t get holy on me,” Dave said,
grinning.

“
I
use
threatened
blackmail on them.”

“
There’s
a difference?”

Clint gave him the bird.

He called Manny and told him the story. He
accepted that it could well be true, that Napoli was Italian – and
they were his people. He knew what he would put up with and would
always try to protect his family from getting caught in most
things.

“
Clint,
that’s duty. If someone else gets them, that’s the way of life. If
they had reason you say it was fated to happen and move on. If they
don’t have reason they get stepped on.”