Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (80 page)

“
We call
him ‘The Chamaeleon’. It’s almost a psy talent with him. You can
talk to him somewhere and meet him again a hour later and not
remember. He’s thirty one. He’ll manage to meet you a bit later at,
say, Refugio?” Manolo suggested. Clint agreed.

“
Mr.
Clint Faraday? Gordy Walsh,” The Chamaemeon introduced.

“
Clint.
Glad to meet you. Manolo has the highest praise for
you.”

“
He’s a
good man. You will wish to know my connection with the death of the
junkie last evening.

“
Purely
chance. My basic concentration was on Louisa Abandia. She merely
happened to be there when Maria passed some drugs from Julio’s
pocket into Benton’s libations. Had I known they would prove fatal
I would have stopped it.”

“
You saw
her do it?”

“
Oh,
certainly. She wasn’t very subtle. Went over twice to ask for a
light. They were all too drunk to notice anything. Abandia is much
more professional. She is able to convince even the most adroit
drug processors of her undying loyalty – which she possesses, but
only for herself. The missing money is because she took it right
under Julio’s nose. Benton was in the picture only slightly, but
was blamed.”

“
Where
did he get his money?”

“
I don’t
know. He was never the object of my attention.”

They chatted for a few minutes, then Gordy
left. Clint thought, then went to the Tropical Suites to ask Steve
Malcolm bluntly where Benton got his money.

“
In Las
Vegas. He did a stinkeroo show there and hit a jackpot on a
machine. Fifty thousand. Why?”

“
Because
someone added one and one and got thirty,” Clint answered. “Good
night!”

Deadly
Serious

“
Looks
like a storm brewing,” Sam Caldwell, a resident from the US, said
to Clint.

Clint was at (water) Taxi 25 at 6:30 AM to
greet some other gringos who were coming to visit Isla Colón and
Bocas del Toro. There were some very ominous clouds just to the
northeast in the Caribbean. Clint knew this meant little. It would
probably move southeast and maybe brush the islands with some light
rain.

“
Not
anything serious,” Clint answered. “They build in the Caribbean and
move just offshore to the southeast. It may come in at Chiriqui
Grande or east of there.”

“
East?
Wouldn’t that make them moving away from land?”

“
No.
People forget that Panamá runs west to east, not north to
south.”

Sam looked at the rising sun and shook his
head. He was looking slightly to his right. “I’ve totally lost my
sense of direction here!

“
You said
Chiriqui Grande? That’s where I’m going. I hope it doesn’t meet me
there!”

“
Two
hours or a little more. It’ll be past,” Clint said as the taxi from
Almirante swung to come to the dock. “Your boat’s loading. The red
stripe. Get on quick or you’ll miss the good seats. No chop yet, so
the center will be good. With chop you want the rear.”

“
Why?”

“
The boat
is least battered back by the motors. The front is out of the
water. The waves beat up the front and are not much in the
rear.”

“
Logical!
Thanks!” Sam got on the boat as the other unloaded. Walter and
Amanda Morton got off the taxi and greeted Clint. He said he had
rooms for them at the Bahia, but they wouldn’t check in until after
twelve, so they could leave their bags with a friend of his at
Starfleet Tours.

“
Was that
Caldwell you were talking to?” Walt asked.

“
I think
he said Caldwell. Know him?”

“
Know OF
him. Be careful. He’s bad news.”

“
Oh?”

“
He’s in
deep on some kind of land deal around Rambala, Punta Pena and Mali.
It’s a scam. ROP and they sell to gringos and Europeans, then a
year later some Indio comes to tell them to get the hell off of his
property. They don’t mention that foreigners can’t own ROP
land.”

“
That’s
true, but ROP is government land that no one can own, in that
sense. The scam is when the Indio files for a titulo. He gets the
land. You can own structures on ROP, but not the land. They wait
until you have a fancy house and get the land, then deny you access
to your fancy house.”

“
I hear
Nick Bardini got around that when he knew what they were pulling
before he bought the place. He had the front door of his house
against the easement rim and put a wooden walkway across the ditch,
then built a good fence around the whole half hectare. They got the
land, but he wouldn’t let them cross his structures to get onto it.
They paid the couple of dollars per meter for the titulo and he had
the upper hand. He bought the titulo for double the per meter cost
and now has a nice place not far from Mali that he got dirt
cheap.

“
Of
course, the fact he’s connected to the mob from the states didn’t
hurt anything!”

“
Well,
you don’t mess with the mob here. The locals are amateurs, but the
bigger ones from the states, China and Russia are able to eat them
up and spit them out. They use them.”

Walt nodded and said, “I hear Caldwell has an
issue with them that could get serious – deadly serious.”

“
That’s
really easy to turn right back on them if you know the system
here,” Nancy Gaines, a local woman who worked with land scam deals
for the police, explained. “There isn’t much that can be done after
the fact, but you can outcon the cons.”

“
Like I
did?” Clint asked, grinning.

“
What did
you do?”

“
I bought
the ROP and filed for titulo the same day. When dear old Rubio
tried to file on the ROP as a Panamanian he found it was already
titled land and he couldn’t touch it.”

“
What I’d
suggest!” she said. “You can get an ROP damned cheap, particularly
when they’re planning to use the old scam. File for your own title
and they’re fucked, not you.

“
What did
you pay for that place?”

“
Including the title process, twenty four grand.”

“
About a
third of what it’s worth. You worked against those kinds of crooks
in Florida and knew how to get around them. Good show!”

Clint’s cellular buzzed. It was Sergio
Valdez, the violent crimes chief of the Policia National.

“
Yo,
Serg! Que tal?”

“
Good
morning, Clint. I have something that might interest you – or
not.

“
You were
talking with Samuel Caldwell yesterday morning at Taxi Twenty
Five?”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
Seems
he’s run into a bit of a problem in Mali and wants you to be
contacted before he lets us get involved. His wife and daughter are
missing and he claims it’s an extortion deal.”

“
He has a
nerve to go to the police for that kind of thing! I hear he’s
running land scams there.”

“
Probably. I should tell him to fuck off?”

Clint thought, then said he’d go to Mali to
meet Caldwell and discuss some things. He told Nancy there was a
problem, then went to his place to throw a few things into a
maleta, talked with his neighbor, Judi Lum, then headed for the
water taxi and the bus to Mali.

Phase one

“
Okay,
what’s the deal?” Clint demanded of Sam Caldwell three and a half
hours later.

“
Linda
and Frances were kidnapped last night. I think they’re going to be
held for ransom!”

“
Bullshit! Tell me the truth or I head back to Bocas on the
next bus!”

“
Okay.
It’s not for that, it’s for something else. I just want them to be
alright. I want you to find them and make whatever deal you have to
make. I’ll handle it after they’re back.”

“
Depending on what it’s about, I’ll agree. If it’s about you
ripping off someone with your scams that cost some pensioner his
life savings it’s no deal. I’ll arbitrate to save your family, but
not to protect you. Clear?”

“
I heard
you’re like that. I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“
No.
You’re now in the position you’ve put a lot of others.
Enjoy!”

“
I think
I could like you. I know I can trust you. Deal! You’re now running
the show. How much for a retainer?”

“
Two
grand five. If it costs more you get billed. If it costs less you
get a refund.”

Caldwell went to a little safe set in
concrete and handed Clint $2,500 in cash. There was at least fifty
thousand in cash in that safe. Clint shoved it into his pocket and
said he’d be in touch. Go to Bocas or David and wait for a
call.

“
I want
to be here!” Caldwell cried.

“
To get
your family killed? What? You’re that stupid?”

He thought, then agreed to go to Changuinola.
He had a house there. Clint Okay’ed that.

Clint went to the restaurant by the bombas
(gas pumps) in Chiriqui Grande and sat at a table in the Bocas end.
He knew full well the abductors would have noted him meeting with
Caldwell and would have someone get in touch with him.

A sandwich and a Balboa later two Indios came
to ask him if they could talk with him. He waved for them to sit
and ordered them a meal and soda. He said Caldwell was paying for
it, so get the most expensive things on the menu if they liked.

“
I’m
David Miguel and he’s Jorge Smith,” one of them introduced. “You’re
Mr. Clint.”

“
No
‘mister,’ just Clint. What’s it about? You can get into deadly
serious trouble if you kidnap anyone. If they get hurt in any way
... please be careful.”

“
We can
talk to you. You treat us like people. The police won’t and the
lawyers won’t and the blacks won’t and the courts won’t,” Jorge
said. “We knew he would call you and not the police. Sanchez saw
you talking to him on yesterday morning and knows you will
help.

“
They
will not be hurt. They will see how we are forced to live when a
ladron steals our land and we have no way to support our
families.

“
We want
our land back! It is the only way we can support our
families!”

“
Tell me
about it. If he’s scammed you out of your land I promise you he’ll
deeply regret it and he’ll support your families very well for the
rest of your lives.”

“
He has
those blacks to file for our land and claim they were living on it
and farming on it for more than five years, then the people at
reforma agraria will not listen to us or to the people who know we
were there for generations and that we were farming the land for
our families,” David explained. “The police come and make us leave
and will not allow us to return. He can sell the land to gringos
and we have nothing.”

“
The wife
and daughter have nothing to do with it.”

“
The
hija, no. The esposa is Panamanian and has many titulos in her
name,” Jorge said. “She is worse than him.”

“
I see.
We’ll turn his scam around on him! This is what we’ll do. I warned
him that if he was scamming pensionados out of their life’s savings
I wouldn’t protect him an inch. To do that to you is even worse
because retiros will have their seguridad social even when all
their savings are gone. You’re left with nothing. We’ll see he’s
left with nothing. He’s much too young to get social security and
his wife’s Panamanian, so won’t get anything. Here’s what we’ll
do.”

“
We will
do what you say,” they both agreed.

Clint leaned closer to talk. Caldwell went by
in the fancy car his wife usually drove. He wouldn’t think the
Indios had anything to do with it because Clint was always close
with them. Caldwell would think he was being charitable and buying
them a meal. Maybe he was getting information from them.

Well, he was!

Phase two

“
You’ve
used your scam on some people you should have checked on a little
better,” Clint told Caldwell on the phone. “Those people are the
parents of some other people who operate in Panamá. They are not
amused. They grabbed your wife – who they tell me is worse than you
so far as the scams go – and daughter, who’s a pain-in-the-ass
spoiled brat, to get your full attention. These people will kill
the two of them in a pretty horrible way and take a short nap
before going out to pick up whores this evening. I don’t know what
they’ll demand. They have your family in a place you wouldn’t ever
think of. So far, they’re not hurt in any way. They just have to
live the way the people you’ve scammed are forced to live. They say
that the luxuries are gone and your daughter is a real prize,
complaining that she can’t eat that garbage and she CERTAINLY isn’t
about to sleep on that AWFUL FILTHY bed! There isn’t even a TV or
DVD player! She has the gall to demand that they buy her food she
can eat!

“
Your
wife lived not much different several times before you met her. She
has it pretty good, really, and knows it. She isn’t totally spoiled
rotten.

“
These
people don’t live like the common dirt farmers. They’re used to
luxuries. If it was natives your lovely family would learn a thing
or two about how a lot of people are forced to live
here.