Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (37 page)

They went out to a good restaurant. Clint got
a disapproving look when he ordered a beer. He said the Bible
taught moderation, temperance, not abstinence. He thought about it
for a minute, said he’d never tasted beer and ordered one.

He didn’t like the taste so Clint ordered a
red wine for him. He sipped it, said it wasn’t much better, then
said it had a sort of nice aftertaste, didn’t it?

“
The good ones do. This is one to make
a meal more pleasant. The cheap ones are to get drunk. I very
seldom allow myself to get drunk.”

“
Please see to it that I practice
temperance and don’t get drunk.”

The night was rather pleasant. Emanuel wasn’t
half bad when he dropped the religious part. Before the night was
through he said maybe he was beginning to see how people saw him.
He was a royal pain in the ass, wasn’t he?

“
Not nearly as bad as some. Tonight
you’re a good companion.”

They turned in fairly early.

In the morning the phone woke him at four
forty two. It was Oscar.

“
Flaco Gorda? He was the one?” he said
when Clint answered.

“
Yeah. He ...
was
the one?”

“
He had a bit of an accident. Got drunk
and fell into an already broken plate glass window. It cut his
throat almost professionally.”

“
When? And where?”

“
About an hour ago. Near the
causeway.”

“
Will it get any publicity?”

“
I do not believe it will. He was not
that important and was not well known.”

“
Good. I have to check some things and
it might be a great help if no one knows he’s dead.”

“
I see. Someone you suspect will say
the wrong thing to show you that he knows things he can’t know
except one way.”

They talked for a minute. Clint went to check
Emanuel’s room. The causeway was far enough away that he couldn’t
very well get back in an hour. He would definitely not use a taxi
who might remember him.

He was there, sleeping. Clint said he always
forgot that most people didn’t get up when he did. He apologized
for waking him and went down to the restaurant – that wouldn’t open
before six thirty.

That gave him an idea. To get in before six
thirty you had to ring for the clerk to buzz the lock open to the
door. No one had left after two ten AM and no one had come in since
then, either.

Clint went out and to an all-night restaurant
for a fairly decent breakfast. He went back to the hotel at seven
thirty and called Emanuel, who said he was up. That was the time he
got up every morning. He came down and they went to another
restaurant. Clint had coffee and a slice of melon. Emanuel had an
omelet and orange juice. Then they went to the internet café not
far away.

“
Veronica said she was glad I got to
speak with D’Angona, and was he among those they could hope to
salvage?” Emanuel reported. “I said we do what we can. Some people
can be most difficult, but there is always hope. I think possibly
we managed to reach him enough that we may be successful in saving
him from damnation.

“
She said, if I could squeeze in the
time and it won’t be too much of an inconvenience, could I go to a
place in Bocas del Toro called Mali. Do you know it?

“
I told her it was never inconvenient
to help show the path to another lost soul.

“
I sound obsequious to myself! Great
lord!”

Clint laughed. “You want the truth? You look
actually human this morning.”

He reached to touch Clint’s hand. That said
it all.

“
Who and how? Mali?”

“
Oh. Virgil Patterson. A woman he knew
in the states, Nancy Killian Moore, recommended I contact him. She
doesn’t know why he would change his name, but he did. She has
become very worried that he had gone far astray down
here.”

“
In these dangerous savage pagan
lands,” Clint finished. Emanuel looked a bit shocked, then a slow
grin spread over his face. He gave Clint the bird, though he didn’t
quite get it right. It wasn’t a thing he’d used before.

“
You know something? I think I can be
normal ... well, what will pass as normal. All I have to do is
`loosen up,’ as they say.”

Clint agreed. “I have an errand to run while
I’m here. We can get a bus to Mali at eight. I’ll be out there so
I’ll get the tickets.”

“
I think I want to see the city through
open eyes. Eyes that aren’t clouded with preconceived ideas. I
really do like the Panamanian people. I’ll feel a little guilty.
The council is paying my way so I told Veronica that I was out of
funds and going so far was costing much more than I anticipated.
She will send me five hundred dollars by Western Union. It will be
there before three o’clock.”

Clint agreed to be back by six thirty. They
could get a good meal and make the bus. They would get to Mali
about seven thirty in the morning.

Clint went to the police station for a
report, but there wasn’t anything more. He thought a bit, then went
to the station to get tickets for Bocas del Toro. He didn’t doubt a
certain blue-eyed individual would be on that bus.

Mali

They arrived in Mali at seven thirty four.
Only Clint and Emanuel got off the bus. No one on the bus could be
the blue-eyed follower.

Clint knew how he was disguised. Three people
got off the bus in Chiriqui at the bombas. The Changuinola bus
picked up riders there. The three were surfer types and were
speaking German. They seemed to be together, but Clint noticed that
one had his bags with him inside the bus, a couple of small
backpacks. The others had their surfboards that had to be unloaded
from the compartment. The third one hung around like he was with
them, but walked across to the new Shell station while the other
two went towards the David casita. He would definitely be on the
Changuinola-David bus. Clint wondered if he would change the
disguise or figure he wasn’t noticed. Mali is small. Just a puebla.
It would be very difficult to not be noticed there. It was
something that Emanuel could use to locate Virgil quickly.

What did Virgil look like? Did Emanuel
know?

“
No. He is average and dark enough that
he could pass as a mestizo. Veronica says he has a knack for
languages so may speak very good Spanish. He will speak like a
native.”

“
How will you locate him?”

“
I will simply ask about people who are
too rich and not well-liked. There are seldom more than four or
five in a given area. I will mention Nancy Killian Moore where each
will hear the name. He will then introduce himself.”

Clint nodded. He would leave locating Virgil
to Emanuel while he went on to the next stop to wait until the
follower got off the bus there. He definitely wouldn’t get off at
the previous stop. There would be no way he wouldn’t be noticed. A
surfer might get off ... at the restaurant where the bus stopped
for ten minutes for people to use the restrooms or whatever. Clint
would be there to greet him. He wanted to know what this was about.
It wasn’t someone looking for stolen art or bounty hunting. There
was something a lot deeper than that.

He grabbed a passing taxi and headed for the
restaurant. The bus came about a quarter hour later. The surfer got
off and paid his fare while explaining that a friend was going to
pick him up there. Clint waited until he headed for the restrooms
and followed him in. He went into a booth, stayed about eight
minutes and a totally different type of person came out. The bus
had just left. No one would notice.

Clint damned well did!

The man, now looking like a native, probably
a cattle man, strolled out toward the road to hail a cab. Clint
waited and jumped aboard as it started off.

“
Hi. Clint Faraday, here with Emanuel,
as you know.”

The fellow laughed. “I thought you made me
back in David and again in Chiriqui Grande. I’m Raul Santana at the
moment.”

“
What the hell is this about? Why use
someone like Emanuel?”

“
It’s big. Really big.

“
I like the way you ran Willie and
Berto around! You had them take you to Darien – so why didn’t you
take the ride back when they ... because it wasn’t done yet. I’m
dead tired.”

He called for the taxi to stop and they got
out. He said he was paranoid about talking anywhere they might be
heard. Mali was about twenty minutes walking. They walked on.

“
Is Interpol involved?”

“
Not on my end. I’m working for a sort
of government group. Interpol couldn’t begin to afford me. They
have what we call a limited budget. I let Willie and Berto collect
on that stuff from the insurance companies. They’re comic relief to
me.

“
I did a pretty fair check on you. Did
you really get fees on the order of my own? Two mil for that land
scam in Puerto Armuelles?”

“
Well, the hospital and clinic got the
fees. I keep enough to live on – and to run all over hell and back
on things like this. I’m not hurting. Definitely.”

“
I think I’m going to retire soon. I
can’t spend ten percent of what I’ve made. I’m like you in that I
do it because somebody has to eliminate some of the worst and most
dangerous people in the world.”

“
Art thieves? Worst and most
dangerous?”

“
If that was all I wouldn’t waste my
time. I’m trying to cut a cancer out that was growing far too fast,
now it’s being excised.”

“
You going to tell me what it’s
about?”

“
Remember the nuclear crap with that
group in California?”

“
No connection. I know
that.”

“
No
direct
connection. The connection is on the
supply end. The aim is to remove a certain couple of countries from
ever again running the world through a lot of contrived incidents
and so forth. Believe it or not, they financed the original part of
this and now are paying me to try to clean up the mess they’ve made
of things.”

“
It’s getting away from them? They only
thought they were in charge?”

“
Something like that. They were going
to corner the nuclear crap and hold it over the heads of anyone who
didn’t agree to their concept of a perfect world – which consists,
of course, of them having all the power and privilege. It seems
they were able to get a group together to steal the art – and a lot
of things with more real and intrinsic value – and use it to
finance the venture. The group who hold the art have gotten
together here, Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico and made a plan to do
exactly what was planned, with one small difference.”

“
They would have the power and
privilege.”

“
Uh-huh. This one, nobody wins. I’ve
managed to stop the possible supply, now I’m eliminating the ones
who were making the plans.”

“
It seems to me you’re working for the
original planners. A, as you say, minor detail.”

“
They think so, too.

“
Clint, these people chose Panamá, to
hide. Two of them are from here and some have spent time here.
They’re concentrated here, but one is here and one is there in
three other countries. I don’t know why they aren’t mostly in their
original base country.”

“
Because, why would they be here?
There’s also that the location’s central and they have the canal
they can use to come and go without being particularly noted. It’s
a paradise country where they can go into small towns and live a
great life. The thing that catches them and sets them off from the
natives is that they’re the type they are. Those people aren’t
liked by anyone, anywhere. They don’t see it.

“
The difference here and in the more
socalled modern and highly sophisticated places is that the natives
will pity them and the city people will play them for what they can
get. They never seem to catch on that they’re really a pathetic
bunch of cruds. They think they’re impressing people with what they
have. They don’t realize they don’t have anything these people
want.

“
Don’t use Emanuel anymore,
Okay?”

“
It’s almost done. There are two more
here. Emanuel has an amazing ability for finding them. I don’t know
where he gets the information.”

“
Veronica.”

“
The one he e-mails? She can give him
enough information that he can find them in no time, yet she
doesn’t do it herself?”

“
It’s a very simple system. You get all
the modern techniques and such and get nowhere. He ... it doesn’t
matter. He has a knack. It probably wouldn’t work for
us.

“
You know perfectly damned well I can’t
give even strong circumstantial evidence to get you, don’t
you.”

“
Hm. That’s why I command such
ridiculous fees. We won’t hurt Emanuel.”

“
I wouldn’t give a damn if it was only
the guilty. What about that girl and the snakebite?”

“
That was a snakebite, believe it or
not. I only went there because people said Castile was a friend of
Rincón. She was fine when I left. She was trying to get me into
bed, probably for a fee, but I didn’t have the time. I think it
would have been fun.”

Clint thought and nodded.