Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (20 page)

“
Manny,
did the range of that boat reach the states? Who were those ... the
policia can tell me that, I suppose. This might get interesting!
WHERE were those drugs going? See where Kent books from Panamá.
I’ll do that.

“
Manny,
there’s no way the stuff was going directly to the states or
Canada! It just doesn’t fit! How long were those ... I’ve got to
check on a thing or two. This just might get veddy
inderesdink!”

They chatted a minute, then Clint called
Ernesto to ask the range of the boat – and how long the crew were
there and where they stayed.

“
Fairly
good range, but not to the states, like you wanted to know,”
Ernesto answered. “They’d been here three days and the stuff was
NOT on the boat when it got here and was NOT on that boat
yesterday. It went to Carenero for twenty minutes yesterday
afternoon, to the marina, and tied to a boat there. Their names
were Manuel and Paulo Garcia and Raul and Donaldo Sanchez. Cubans
from Miami. They stayed at the Bahia.”

“
Thanks.
Anything else about them?”

“
How
about, they paid in Euros?”

“
Veddy
indersdink!”

Clint called Manny again. Manny’s first words
were, “Manuel and Paulo Garcia and Don and Raul Sanchez, Miami
Cubans, Bahia, Euros. Kent is booked to Curacao. Hi, Clint.”

“
Thanks.
Whose boat did they tie to yesterday at the Carenero
marina?”

“
Hmm?
Gimme a sec.”

There was a long pause, then, “Gilded
Lillypad, Frank Beaumont, Paris, there for four days, leave
tomorrow. Fifty two footer, sail and diesel. Rations for a
month.”

“
Can you
find out where they’re going to be at the end of that
month?”

“
Yeah.
Your two day limit is extended. I think I like the detective bit.
Makes you think.

“
It’s a
new delivery system. How does it work?”

“
They get
the stuff at Curacao and deliver it here somehow – Beaumont – where
it’s put on a boat and taken to somewhere where it’s put on another
boat. That boat then goes to just outside of the checkpoints near
France. The boat from here takes a leisurely route back, goes
through the checkpoints and is clean as a whistle, meets the
contact with the crap and offloads it AFTER going through all the
checkpoints. The delivery boat then goes through the checkpoints
because turning around and going somewhere else is suspicious.
THEY’RE clean by then. You get one through several checkpoints then
get another to deliver – which gets through the checkpoints after
it’s unloaded to another one that does the same. Never a suspicion
in the future. They’ve probably already made three or four dry
runs. We’re gonna put and end to one of them!”

Manny giggled. “This is sort of fun. Figuring
the run from the other end. Maybe the kids can say their papa was a
crime FIGHTER and not a syndicate don! Something to be proud
of.

“
I can’t
believe how I’m all of a sudden turning into a pillar of the
community!”

“
Sort of
makes you feel a lot better about yourself, hunh?”

“
The
truth? It really DOES! Ain’t that wild?!”

“
See the
attraction?”

“
Yup! I
do see one problem.”

“
What?”

“
They
ain’t got no shit to deliver now.”

“
Crap!”

“
Maybe we
can get them a new supply? I got contacts. Not so much, but enough
to make them think it can still work and they don’t end up running
from the ones who financed this one and, shall we say, got
defaulted on.”

“
I don’t
want to be any part of drug trade, but there, as you would say,
ain’t no other way. Go for it!”

“
Clint
Faraday? I’m Jerry Brown – and no jokes. I work for Marko. He said
to set something up where you can do a sting on some people in
Europe.” Jerry Brown was a man in his fifties, in good physical
condition and reminded Clint of Dean Martin for some
reason.

“
Something like that. What do I do?”

“
There’s
a nice yacht that’s going to France. You are invited along with
some friends. There will be nothing on the boat, but you can be
there for the end of the deal. Manny Mathews from here will go
along with his wife. Marko says the guy’s somebody he
respects.”

“
Oh? You
deal with Marko directly, I imagine,” Clint said, confused about
what Marko was doing.

“
I’ve
never met him. We had some rivals in the business back in the
states and he knew about me from his father. I wasn’t in California
much. He says it was his father who was a close friend of yours.
You saved his ass a time or two or something such. Old Joe told me
personally that anything you wanted it was the same as if he said
it himself. That extends to his kids and grandkids. No owed debt
because he could never repay what you’d done for him.”

“
I’ve
never really understood what it was I saved him from, but I did
like Joe. I like Marko. When do we sail?”

“
Whenever
you or Manny say.” Clint nodded and went to ask Judi if she’d like
a trip to France on a yacht. She would. Clint then asked Ben if he
wanted to go. He did.

That may have been a mistake – but Ben had
always been a good friend, so it should work out. They would leave
at one the following day. Manny and Sylvia were already aboard.
When Frank was where he could hear Manny said, “Maybe we can run
into the med and see Marko!

“
I guess
not. He doesn’t want anyone to know where he is.”

“
I’d
heard he was on some Greek island or something,” Frank replied. “We
can go by close and maybe see him. I’d like to meet him
face-to-face.”

“
I don’t
know which island,” Manny said.

They left on schedule. Ben was a hit with two
of the crew – which tickled Manny. Frank seemed a bit stand-offish
to Ben at first, but soon became a friend. This wasn’t the states.
It’s much more open.

The Mediterranean was a sparkling clear aqua
with a few fleecy clouds going by. The yacht pulled in to the docks
in Greece for refueling, then spent a few days touring among the
islands, theoretically hoping to see Markos or evidence of him.
After a day Manny suggested that Marko would most probably have a
GPS system aboard so he would know where the yacht was at any time.
Frank slapped his head and said all he ever overlooked was the
obvious. They headed for France when the report that the boat was
getting close came in.

The boat tied up close to another a distance
out. The other one had just come outward and was heading toward the
islands. The stop was only for about half an hour. Nothing was
obvious from the distance, but the good binoculars showed four men
in scuba gear going over the side with packages to return for
another trip. The other boat proceeded along, the delivery boat
stayed another half hour then went to the checkpoint and on in.

When the local boat came back they were close
to the checkpoint when a gunboat came alongside and directed them
to go to the checkpoint. The police were carrying a transmitter and
they heard when the people on the boat were told that a police
helicopter noted them stopped earlier, so a check was routine.

“
We
always stop for awhile before going to the islands!” a woman on the
boat cried. “This is outrageous! You know us – we’re here all the
time! This is outrageous!”

“
We have
to check if there is another craft very close,” the policeman
replied. “It will only take a moment.”

A minute later as the other police were
climbing aboard the woman said they had to be back in only twenty
more minutes for a business appointment. She would give him a
hundred Euros to let them go because the appointment was very
important.

“
This
will only take a moment, but the offer of a bribe makes me very
suspicious,” the officer replied stiffly. “For your information,
offering a policeman a bribe is felonious behavior. See it doesn’t
happen again!”

He called for the others to be most careful
in checking out that boat.

As soon as the officers were below deck the
dingy was dropped and two people got in it. They started out when
an officer aboard the gunboat announced they were in the sights of
his machine gun and would be shot if they proceeded one centimeter
more. They started the motor and headed out full throttle. The
officer laid a line of fire just ahead of them. They refused to
stop, so he shot the motor, hitting the man running it and stopping
the boat. The other sat with his head in his hands as the gunboat
came alongside and ordered them aboard. There were several large
packages stowed under the seats of the dingy.

“
So!” the
officer snapped, then called that the officers aboard the craft
being searched were to arrest everyone aboard and proceed
immediately with the boat that was now the property of France to
the police docks. The yacht went to the docks where Clint and Manny
were given complete reports that would allow them to cause the
arrests of everyone not in Panamá as well as those still in
Panamá.

Frank suggested that the Mediterranean was a
paradise. Marko would certainly not object if they spent a few days
there.

“
Paradise
is that way!” Judi declared positively, pointing to the
west.

What
If...?

Clint Faraday looked back across the forest
below at the Caribbean islands and the sea.

It was a long way to them. He was on a
mountaintop at the highest part of the range. He turned around and
looked over the clouds below at the Pacific, which was a low streak
in the couple of places he could see through breaks in the
clouds.

He was with an Indio friend who had a place
on the top of the mountain. It was a picturesque one room house
with a palm frond roof and a gravel floor.

He waved to the natives who came up with them
as they went toward the trail back down. It took four hours to walk
up to the spot, but was well worth the time and trouble. Clint had
never before been in such a magnificent place! It was at about
5,500 feet, but the view was panoramic, mountains and lush valleys
to two sides, the valleys going to the Pacific on one side, and the
valleys going to the Caribbean on the other.

It was as peaceful a place as he had ever
been, too. The Indios in the mountains were beautiful people, very
amiable and very curious. They worked for 12 to 14 hours every day
of their lives and had the sculpted muscular bodies that resulted.
Clint would have killed to have a body like the normal mountain
Indio when he was a bit younger.

When he first came to Panamá he wondered at
why things were done in certain ways. They seemed almost stupid to
a gringo from the cities of the US, but he knew there were reasons
for things that were not so obvious to anyone from another culture.
He found the Indios were among the most intelligent people he had
met before, though nothing held true for all people in any
group.

For instance, gringos took for granted that
the Indio woman was subservient to the male because the man always
walked a pace or two in front. Clint had learned that was because
in these forests and mountains the man would come upon danger
before the woman and could protect her. The women were subservient
in some things and dominant in others. It was a system that worked
well and that ended up, all things considered, very even.

The woman could be “divorced” in their
culture very easily, but the man who divorced one was usually
interested in another. The children came with the mother, so he
would end up responsible for another man’s children while another
man would end up responsible for his. That kept the “divorce” rate
at far less than the states! The Indios are open sexually, not
considering anything that adults wanted to do “wrong” or odd. That
didn’t hold with small children. They agreed with Clint in that
anything adults did together was good and fine, but anyone who
molested a child should get a bullet between the eyes. There was
very little problem with pederasts anywhere in Panamá. A man caught
molesting a little girl on Bastimentos just a year ago had
committed suicide. He hung himself – with his hands tied behind his
back.

Of course, a child was only a child until the
age of about twelve or thirteen. Most were well-versed in sexual
matters by fourteen at the latest. They knew about sex and, quite
frankly, liked it.

They went to a little stream to bathe. The
water was ice cold, but clear and pure. The soap was from an
agave-type of plant that grew there. The Indios are an
exceptionally clean people.

The sexual customs brought about a bit of
curiosity in Clint as it got darker and time to go to bed. Roberto
had one small pallet for a bed.

Clint grinned to himself and they went to
bed. Roberto wrapped around him and put the blanket over them and
they slept. Nothing more.

In the morning Clint asked, “Do you always
sleep like that with other guys?”

“
Like
what?” Roberto asked.

“
All
around each other. Don’t get me wrong, it was actually very
pleasant – and I didn’t think it would be.”

“
Well,
yes. It gets cold up here and being close is warm.”

“
Well,
that’s true – but don’t you end up screwing each other?”

“
Sometimes,” he answered matter-of-factly with a smile. “Oh!
I see. Your silly taboos. You do it, but never admit it. We do it
and think it’s natural. We aren’t gay because we like to do things
that are pleasant. I don’t look for it, but won’t refuse it
sometimes. It is, as you said, pleasant. Why should not friends
give pleasure to each other?”