Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (13 page)

“
I remember saying that, but don’t
remember why I said it,” Mike said. “It might have been ... we
weren’t apart so much in Jamaica. We only stayed there three days.
It had to be that last night when Cori went to that club with that
LeBonne guy. The one I said was a stereotypical French gigolo. You
said Cori knew how to handle the type, Mark. Remember?”

“
Emile LeBonne. I remember. I thought
it was funny. He’s about thirty and Cori’s sixteen. She can handle
that type. I guess that would be the only time it could have been
and the only one it could have been. Cori. In Jamaica. We have to
concentrate on something that happened in Jamaica, not
Haiti.

“
Claire Auber is in Haiti, but those
people move around all the time anyhow.”

“
Yeah. She might be working for
anyone,” Clint agreed. “I think maybe I’ll go to David. I want to
have a long remembrance session with Cori. She knows something
that’s deadly to her so it’s as deadly to somebody else.

“
Would the club she went to be a place
drug importers would go?”

They shrugged. Mike said he doubted it had
anything to do with drugs. It was something else.

They decided that Clint could sneak away when
it was most unlikely anyone would know. He could go around to the
other side of the next mountain and get a ride from the village
there into David. Obilio would arrange it. Obilio put the flag up
with a single black stripe down the middle. Luis would bring one
horse and would ride with Clint to where he could find the path
out. He would go most of the way and would bring the horse
back.

Clint packed a few things and headed out as
soon as Luis arrived.

Clint watched the house for awhile from
across the campo. Judi came out a few times, but Ann and Cori
stayed inside. Lila did what almost any Indigeno woman would do if
they were staying in someone’s house. She cleaned the place better
than it had ever been cleaned before. She had laundry out and went
to the market on the corned of the main road to bring back lots of
food. Judi paid for it, but stayed with Ann and Cori.

Just after dark Clint called and told Judi he
was across the campo and would stay there at Gringo Bill’s place
where he could see if anybody came around who wasn’t part of the
local population.

Judi said she had three perdidos (phone calls
where the caller hung up before you can answer, the object being
that you call back and pay for the conversation) since they left
Obilio’s. She didn’t answer, but noted they were from a private
number so she couldn’t call back if she wanted. She guessed someone
was trying to find where they were.

“
They know where you are. The bruja
said the follower spell wasn’t one of us there and we were all
there except you four. It won’t be Lila or you. It could be Ann or
Cori. I’d say Ann.”

Clint told her to answer if anyone called. He
fully expected someone to try to contact them. He said he had to
talk with Cori. It was her who they were after. They had figured
part of it. Tell her to concentrate on remembering Jamaica and
going to a club with Emile. He would call later to arrange for a
meeting. Dave had the house as secure as anyplace around. Lock all
the deadbolts before they went to bed.

After the call Clint watched the house. He
could stay in the window of Bill’s place and not sleep all night if
he felt it was necessary.

He got a call from Obilio. Antoin’s mutilated
body was found near the carretera. He was slashed up worse than
Pablo had been. “I think you should be very extra careful if that
witch woman is about. Do not let her get close enough to reach you.
It is more important for the women.”

Clint said if she showed up at the house
during the night and looked like she was trying to get in she was
going to have a heart attack. Her heart was going to be attacked by
a few ounces of brass jacketed lead.

Nothing happened that night. Clint figured
they would know he was gone from Obilio’s by now so went to the
house for breakfast. After the hojaldras, eggs and bolitas he took
Cori across to the bench at the campo and started asking about
Jamaica.

“
Well, I went with Emile – he wasn’t as
bad as Mike and Dad thought, but that’s still not a prize – to a
sort of private club where the rich and infamous go. It was so
plush it could make you puke, all artificial wood crud. The bar had
all the expensive crap and I had a Tanqueray and tonic that I
sipped for an hour or so. Emile introduced me to a lot of people.
Juan Peso from Mexico – he owns a bunch of hotels. Carlos Vermont
from Nicaragua, owns some kind of resort on the lake. Gino Spellini
from Italy who owns a big casino in Panamá City.

“
I don’t remember all of them. Fred
Something from the US and Sean Carmichael from Canada – he’s some
kind of liaison. Hermanito Ortega from Colombia. He’s government,
too. Lou Fontenac from Jamaica ... a lot of politicians from
everywhere. A German liason officer named Marks, an Israeli called
Solomon. Even some Smythe character from Merry Old. Gino Garibaldi
from Italy. Achilles Aphel-something from Greece, even. Mike
Partridge from Australia. Some woman from Guatemala and somebody
from Venezuela and somebody from Argentina and a really hot woman
from Brazil and a really fat man from Ecuador. Enrique
Something.

“
Emile was trying to impress me with
all the big-shit politicians and rich sons of bitches he knew.
Nobody stands especially out except the Smythe asshole. He kept
hitting on me. He thought I was eighteen. I told them that, but
nobody really cared except the ones from the states and Canada and
like that.

“
I mean, all the Latins will hit on
you. Sort of what’s expected. They don’t paw you like that pig. I’m
blonde, so Latins react like I’m some Playboy bunny or something.
I’m not some sexy bombshell, I’m rather ordinary.

“
I notice the fair men from everywhere
else will hit on the fiery dark exotic Latina. Some of them are so
sexy they turn me on! Those Latino guys ignore them! I guess it’s
what you’re used to. I couldn’t point to any one of them and say
there might be something there. They were just a bunch of
politicians and casino and hotel owners at a party.”

Clint thought for a minute, then nodded. “I
think I see what it is. It’s not that he or she was there, it’s
that they were there.”

“
They who?”

“
That’s what I have to find
out.”

“
You’re weird. In a kind of neat way,
but weird!”

“
Wait ‘til you meet Dave, who owns the
house you’re staying in.”

“
Judi told us about him. He’s just a
musician and a writer. They’re all weird.”

They chatted awhile. Cori was as bright and
mentally older as her younger brother.

Clint had a direction of sorts. He knew what
he had to learn.

Which ones at that party were definitely not
supposed to be at that party – and why?

How Droll!

“
Clint, I got a call from someone who
claims to only be a neutral party who wants to settle the
disagreement between the Campbells and some people on the Caribbean
Islands,” Judi said when she called Clint in the morning. Clint had
gone into David and was staying at the Pensión Costa Rica. “I told
him any deals were with you, not me and not the
Campbells.”

“
What did he say to that?”

“
That you were never concerned. It was
an accident that you and I got involved at all.”

“
And?”

“
I said that Pablo was murdered in cold
blood on the property of a friend of yours, you were shot, I was
abducted – and we aren’t involved? How droll!”

“
That sounds like you. What
next?”

“
He said he doesn’t know about any of
that. He wasn’t told. He was simply getting in touch with us
because a person involved discovered you were with the
Campbells.”

“
Yeah. Right.”

“
He’ll call you. He said for me to
arrange something and I gave him your number and said to call
you.”

“
Thanks. Take care. This is as weird as
what else has happened.”

They chatted a moment, then Clint hung up. He
could figure about how long it would take for whoever to call him.
If he really wasn’t involved on that end he would have to check it
out.

Clint was up all night. It would be very soon
if this turkey was involved. It would take several hours if he
wasn’t. If he wasn’t Clint could get some information from him.

It was three and a half hours later when the
call came. Chances were this guy wasn’t too deeply involved. He was
trying to deliver a message and to defuse the situation as he
claimed. Clint would meet him at the Alcalá restaurant at six. He
would see what was up then. He might be up all night again so he
got another three hours of sleep, then went to the Alcalá and into
the restaurant. He got a table and was there about ten minutes when
a dark bullish man came to sit across the table from him. He
introduced himself as Oscar Mittermann. Major Oscar Mittermann, if
it made a difference.

“
Not to me. What do you
want?”

“
I’ve checked on you. I know more about
you right now than you do, probably. I think we can work
together.

“
What is going on, quite frankly, is
that a bunch of people from various countries are planning some
kind of weird mutual action to consolidate military forces to
challenge the US about some operations. We can’t let that happen
and we can’t let the people know we have anything on them or their
plot.”

“
You can’t make a dent in the drug
trade with the methods you’re using. Everyone here knows how false
your wolf cries are. Ever since Ollie North your programs are a
joke.”

“
Don’t I know it! It has nothing to do
with drugs. I’ve got better ways to waste my time. These people are
planning to take control of the canal and shipping to and from most
of the South and Central American countries.”

“
Can’t happen. The canal isn’t
defendable and the US is their major market. Try again.”

Mittermann studied him a minute. Clint called
the waiter over and ordered a pork steak with all the trimmings,
then sat back. Mittermann ordered the same and grinned at
Clint.

“
It’s about ... this is going to sound
stupid ... voodoo. A group from Haiti and Jamaica are scaring the
hell out of the pols in several of these countries. They want to
run things.

“
Okay. That’s true, but they’re backed,
sponsored, by ... this sounds like crap.”

“
It is crap. Why are you doing this?
Insulting my intelligence isn’t going to get any cooperation from
me.”

Mittermann sat back and got more and more
nervous. “You know all the conspiracy theories going around, of
course. They’re more and more popular as people get more and more
frustrated with big government and big money running it. Is it any
easier to believe the truth? It’s a scheme by a bunch of bankers to
destroy the Federal Reserve and impose a currency on all the South
and Central American countries – that they control.

“
Maybe there’s a conspiracy in the
states and Europe, maybe not. I tend to think there is, frankly. I
just don’t have a clue about how to fight it. They have the
power.”

“
I could agree with dumping the Fed,”
Clint agreed. “That’s where one hell of a lot of the world’s
problems are coming from. I could agree with a currency among all
the countries in the Americas if the Fed wasn’t in control. If they
set something up like you suggest it’s the same thing here. If it’s
true I wouldn’t blink to learn that the US Fed’s behind it. We need
a universal exchange. We don’t need that bunch in control of it.
It’s the end of economic freedom for anyone.

“
I listen to a lot of the stuff. I
agree with some of it and disagree with some of it. I’m not sure
the cure isn’t worse than the disease, though.

“
I don’t give a shit about it. I can be
with the Indios and won’t be affected. When you or anyone else
brings it to them, you have me to fight.”

“
I swear to you on whatever oath you
care to impose that we didn’t know about Armand Gault and that
bunch. We knew that Claire Auber has her thumb in it up to the
elbow so we could have figured it would get out of hand. Hope she
doesn’t decide to come here. She has all the witch doctors in this
hemisphere scared shitless of her. Voodoo is involved to that
extent. Too many of the bigshits believe in that
garbage.”

“
I’ve seen a few things. Some of it
works, but I don’t believe magic is involved.”

“
They’re very able with untraceable
poisons and such.”

“
Among other things. Maybe some few of
them have some minor psy power or something. The bruja on the
comarca can sense the follower spell Auber put on one of the women.
That works.”

Mittermann stared at Clint a moment. He
didn’t know if he was serious so he said he was. He didn’t have a
clue to how it worked.

“
She knows who has the spell or that
one of them does?” Mittermann asked.

“
That one or more of them have it and
that it’s the women because all the men were with me when we talked
with her and she knew it wasn’t them.”

“
She senses electrical emanations
somehow. We have a few in the department who can do that. They’re
sensitive. There will be some kind of device involved. Those people
can get their hands on almost any of the crap.”