by Moulton, CD
They waited awhile until Manny got a call on his cell phone. It was a report that the caller was driving in La Fortuna and a car had gone over at exactly the same spot where the car went over last night! The three people riding in the car died exactly like those others!
“Gawkers who didn’t pay attention to the sharp curves up there, I suppose,” Manny replied. “Some people will steer directly at a spot that someone else points to. My father had several accidents in Ohio doing just that.”
He rang off and swore. He didn’t want to ever have to do that kind of thing again. It might tell whoever was after him that he was, indeed, living in Bocas del Toro, Panamá. That put his family at risk.
“I’ll let it be known that I contacted Marko to tell him about the people asking about him here and that some innocent people died because of that,” Clint said. “I’ll send it to the coded site. They get that all the time. It won’t look like you’re here – but you got royally pissed when innocent people got caught in it.”
They agreed to that. Clint would go to Chiriqui Grande with some Indio friends and would go back to Bocas from there.
“I sent the message to the coded site and backdated the copy,” Clint reported. “It went out at eight twenty one thirty three according to the copy in ‘sent’ files. I’ll go to town a bit later so they can check.”
“Who’ll check?” Dave asked. “Aren’t the bunch of them dead?”
“I suppose Maddy’ll check. She did before. She knows how to get in and out and how to fiddle with the comp.”
He chatted a few minutes, then handed Obilio his phone. They may be able to tap into his calls and Judi’s – but not into every passing Indio’s! They went to Don Chicho’s and had a good tasty lunch. Benny Larson was lounging around by the palacio where he could keep an eye on Clint. Clint assumed Maddy Preston was at his house checking his comp. He gave her plenty of time to finish before he hailed a taxi to take him home.
His traps showed Maddy checking his comp. She didn’t leave any clues to show she’d been there. She was good!
An hour later Clint went over to Judi’s. She said she saw Maddy go into the house just the way Clint said she would. She felt evil, so managed to be coming out of her house when Maddy left. She was just coming from the door when Judi passed and called “Hello!” to her. Maddy said she had come to speak with Clint, but he wasn’t home. They chatted like old friends as they walked toward town. Judi said she usually took a taxi, but felt like she needed the exercise today. Maddy could hardly refuse to walk with her.
Clint went by and waved. That seemed to make Maddy nervous for some reason. Judi hid a giggle.
“Well, I guess I’ll call Manny. I told him I’d call him when I knew she’d checked things out,” Clint said. “I suppose he wants to be sure no one suspects he’s here anymore.”
He called Manny to report. Manny said he’d just found who was behind it in the states. A mobster he’d cut the drug supply from. Clint knew Manny never had any truck with drugs and would stop them if he could. He would send a very strong warning to the dealers and their higher-ups that involving innocent people in their violent schemes anywhere in the world would be reported to him. He would put an end to it. If the only way to make it work was to put an end to them, so be it. Clint didn’t think much about it until there was a report that Maddy and Benny had a boating accident. He called Manny to ask why, seeing it was settled already.
“Two innocent men died because they identified the wrong car to be hit,” Manny said.
Clint didn’t care for the method. He also knew it was the only thing those people would understand. It was what Manny was trying to stay away from.
“So now the message is as clear as it can be,” Clint said. “We have to live with what we have to live with.”
“Exactly.”
Killer Show
“It’s should be a killer show,” Dave, Clint’s weird author/musician friend said. “You know Bastimento Joe. He’ll do some Caribbean stuff, I’ll do some light rock and folk, Paul will do The Dead and Neil Young stuff, JB can do her material, Curtis and Rob ... and anyone who wants to do an open mike act. This kind of thing should be really good with the tourists. They’re sick to death of salsa and rap. If the restaurants would stick to Marco Antonio and that kind of thing we’d bomb. With what’s offered we can’t miss.”
“In the park?” Judi Lum, Clint’s neighbor asked.
“The new place by Bongos. They want to establish a live music format and have seen salsa and Latino fail. People hear it all day. They don’t want that kind of music in a restaurant.”
“We’ll be there,” Clint promised. “Start at...?”
“Seven thirty-ish.”
Clint got a kick out of seeing a seventy year old rock performer. You’d think it would be a travesty, but Dave seemed able to pull it off if he didn’t stay too long. This kind of show would let each of them perform a couple of numbers in rotation. Like a musical variety show.
He wanted to try the food there, anyhow.
The place had a decent if not large crowd when the show started. People passing could see the act and came in so the place filled to capacity in an hour. The food was good. Curtis had just finished his signature song, It’s Hotter Than a Steam Bath Down Here. He wrote it when he had the Tropical Rangers. Rob came up to do a Dead number, JB did a couple, then Dave did Bob Seger’s Night Moves. It was always popular and they called for an encore. He did an old Pink Floyd number, Free Four, then a CCR number. He begged off until later when people asked for specific numbers he did. He joined Judi and Clint at their table.
Paul did Aimie and a Neil Young medley. A man who simply introduced himself as “Steve” did a number he wrote that sounded familiar, then another from his party came up and did a bad rap number. He was a bit drunk and Steve escorted him from the stage as Curtis took the mike and did a couple of country numbers with Rob and Paul. Steve and his buddy got into an argument and a minor brawl almost started that broke up immediately. Four of the people at a close table grabbed them and made it plain that such crap wasn’t going to happen there. Too many people were passing and at close tables. Knock it the hell off or we take you into the street and kick holy living hell out of you. Steve snarled a few choice epithets at the jerk and stalked out of the restaurant. Bastimento Joe went onstage to do some Bob Marley numbers and a few of his parodies. Dave was up next, so excused himself and went to the restroom before playing. Clint saw him step out of the restroom and signal for him to come over. He went to find Steve’s buddy laying on the floor.
“Passed out. You could see he was getting there,” Clint said.
“He’s dead. I don’t know from what, but I saw a lot of uppers taken with booze in the sixties and seventies. This looks like that to me – plus the pills.” He pointed to several black pills and a red one on the floor by the body. “Black Beauties. I haven’t seen them since maybe seventy eight or so. Stingers – the red one. Basically meth. He took BB’s and meth on top of a lot of booze.”
Clint studied the scene as a man came to stare at the scene from the door. Clint used his cellular to call Sergio at the police. He said some idiot had mixed speed and booze and was dead.
“I don’t think he ... it looks set up to me,” he finished.
Dave nodded. “Far too convenient. Pills on the floor, obviously drunk.”
“For him to have those pills where they could spill out like that? Gimme a break!”
They waited for Sergio to arrive. It seemed Steve had left just after the brawl. This guy stayed with two local “professional” women and another man. Clint went to their table and asked to talk with them. He said their friend had died of an apparent overdose in the restroom and they would need some information.
The dead guy’s name was Donald Dressler, his friend was Steve Malcolm and the other friend was George Benton. Clint knew the girls, Elsa and Maribel. They all knew Don was on speed, but thought he’d stayed off of it today because they intended to get d
runk. They’d been with four others earlier, but Don was argumentative enough that they went their own ways. Frank Heath, Bill Gordon, Henry Thomas and Isaac Green. They probably were with girls of their own by now. Steve would be trying to find them to join them.
“I’ve heard Steve somewhere. That song,” Clint said.
“He wrote it. He writes a lot of things. Some make it,” George said in a staccato style. “He sounds a lot better when he’s sober. He doesn’t record.”
“Was Dressler always a PITA or was that just tonight?”
“Half the time a pain, half not bad. Never very much of a social mixer. Looks for trouble. Macho complex. I don’t know why he went to the pills. He knew better when he was drinking.”
“What was the bit about tonight?”
“The fight? He said someone stole his number and he wouldn’t put up with that. Steve wrote the damned song and said so. They argued. Steve said he could look at the copyright anytime he wanted. He wrote it before he even met the asshole.
“Sorry. I don’t have any sympathy for druggies. The people earlier got into it because they’re all around music and he claims they stole his stuff – regularly. I doubt he ever wrote anything decent on his own. What I know he wrote was pure garbage. You saw that!”
Clint nodded. He picked up the beer bottles on the table and two glasses. Elsa said he was the only one who drank Soberana and one of the rum and Cokes was his.
Sergio kept it as quiet as he could, but the police running around the place made people drift off fairly soon. The show died. Clint had the list of people he would talk to in the morning.
Clint had gotten the reports from the ME. There was speed in the Soberana bottles and in the glass. None in any other bottles or glasses.
“It was George Benton or Steve Malcolm,” Sergio said. “None of the others were there to put the stuff in his booze. The girls – hah-ah.”
“Too many people too close. Too many people passing back and forth to the bar or dance floor. It would be easy to drop the stuff when no one was at the table. The doses were heavy. He drank at least two beers with the stuff in them and at least one rum. Anyone at a close table could have done it. Anyone at the bar who passed the table on the way to the dance floor could have done it,” Clint argued. “Serg, I doubt very much that it was Steve. He would be the first one anyone would suspect immediately.”
“We don’t know the names of many of the people at the close tables. This one could get problematical.”
“It was premeditated so it was someone who knew him. He didn’t talk to anyone there that I saw, but I wasn’t paying much attention to him. I did notice that he was throwing the drinks back as fast as he could swallow. I have to talk to their waiter. Anyone who waited on their table.”
“Silvio and Ana were the only two working the section. We can go over at ten and talk to them.”
They chatted a bit, then went to the restaurant where Sergio had requested the people who waited tables and the bartender meet them. Silvio said there were always two or three beers and an extra glass of rum on the table for each of them. They were drinking to get drunk, but Donald was outdrinking them two to one or more. He also had several tequila shooters earlier. The bartender said they would come to the bar when the waiters were busy and get drinks. Silvio said they were going to cut them off after the fight.
“Did you see any of them talk to anyone else close by?”
“The dead one had a talk with someone at the bar when he went there for drinks,” Naldo, the bartender, said. “Something about where some money or other came from for him to be drinking like that when he hadn’t paid some kind of bill. It wasn’t loud or anything. I was getting the beers and was right there.”
“Can you describe the man?” Sergio asked.
“Sort of thin and pale, brownish hair, several gold chains, rings on three fingers of the right hand, Omega gold watch. He was with a very pretty Latino woman. Two of them. Not locals. I think someone said they were Colombian.”
Clint thought for a minute. He was sure he could find those people because he’d noted them in a casual way. He did that automatically. The detective in him.
They went to the Swan’s Cay Hotel to interview Steve and assorted friends. The man described by the bartender was in the restaurant with the two women. Sergio had sealed Donald’s room immediately when the death was reported. They went there first. Not much was there to be seen except for more than six thousand dollars in cash hidden in a box of envelopes.
Sergio had the desk check the names of the man in the restaurant and his women friends. Julio Castilo from Barranquilla, Colombia. Maria Quintin and Louisa Abandia, companions from ditto.
Clint could figure it. Donald had handled a drug shipment and hadn’t paid. Six or seven grand? And he was hit? No way!
Clint had a friend in Chiriqui Grande who was an undercover operative for Interpol. He called him and asked about Castilo.
“Julio or Natchez?”
“Julio, but I want to know about both.”
“Yeah. They have a nice little coke processing plant somewhere near Barranquilla. We haven’t been able to find it,” Manolo answered. “Why?”
“He knocked over a gringo jerk here. He was overheard asking the victim about having money to throw around drinking when he couldn’t pay his bills. Turkey was dead of mixing speed and booze in the restroom of a restaurant.”
“Life and death in the fast lane,” Manolo said sourly. “Want me to check on the word?”
“If there’s anything specific. Don’t go out of your way. I don’t think it will tell us anything we haven’t already thought of.”
They talked a little more, then Clint asked Sergio if there was any way to get into Julio’s rooms. He shrugged, then got an evil look on his face. He made a call. They waited around for about half an hour. Julio and his girlfriends finally left the table and headed for the door. A man with a dog was beside the door as they went out. The dog sniffed the women’s purses and barked, pawing at one. Sergio happened to be just behind them with Clint and announced that the woman was carrying drugs in her purse. She was under arrest. Sergio called to the desk clerk to see that no one entered or left her room. He would send an officer to be there in two minutes or less.
Julio started with the “I’ll have your ass for this! I’ll sue this dump off the map!” routine, which they all ignored. He was obviously scared of having the room searched. Sergio stepped out and called on his walky-talky for any officer close to come to the Swan’s Cay immediately. One was at Don Chicho’s, across the road. He was there in half a minute and went to stand by the door of the suite.
Sergio arrested the three of them and had the truck come to take them to the station. The women both had small pistols in their purses. They were on an island, so had better sense than to try anything. No way out.
Julio had a Glock 70. None of them were permitted. They could be held as long as Sergio liked.
When they were booked Clint and Sergio went to the suite for a search. They found a kilo of processed cocaine, hundreds of Black Beauties and more than fifty thousand dollars in cash. Sergio checked the hundred dollar bills and said they had another charge now. It was counterfeit.
“Well, this will be a big bust that came fast!” Sergio said. “We can mark this one solved! Also ten other charges! This is a done deal!”
“I really don’t think so.”
“What?”
“No dealer would trust a speed freak. Donald was working for someone else here. I doubt Julio knows who.”
Sergio thought a bit. “I would have come to that conclusion fairly soon. It is not logical that an experienced drug lord would trust such as Donald Benton.”
“I’ll check with the people in the party and the ones who left them earlier. Julio brought the stuff, but I think someone else used it on Donald Benton.”
Sergio nodded.
It was a bit after twelve thirty before the group had recovered enough from last night’s binge to
know what was going on. Even then they looked pretty bad. Clint spent three hours looking all of them up and talking with them. He was sure they were out of it. They were all recently from Nashville. They were all involved with music in one way or another. They knew Donald Benton was a speed freak who had some control. Two of them had seen him with an older man, heavyset with slightly long wavy light brown hair and a bushy moustache. He smoked Cuban cigars and had a big gold ring on his right hand. He was at the restaurant when they came in. They didn’t remember seeing him later.
Clint wasn’t sure he’d seen him. His memory was of someone who could have been that one at the bar when he and Judi came in as a sort of indistinct background figure. He called Sergio, who called the restaurant and asked Naldo if he remembered the man.
He did. A little. Very quiet and sat at the end of the bar. He didn’t remember when the man left. He had one or two drinks, then was gone.
Clint went back to the police station to compare notes with Sergio. Nothing new. Julio would take the hardest fall, the women as accessories. They definitely knew something, but weren’t talking.
Clint’s cell phone buzzed. It was Manolo. “Get them?”
“Julio and his girlfriends, yes. Not the one behind it.”
“They were behind it. Julio and Nachez. Benton knew too much and had a runny mouth when he was drunk. He ran off with four hundred grand of their money.”
“We have a mystery man in the mess. I want to know who and why.”
“What do you know about him now?”
“He’s sort of what I think of as an indistinct background figure. He isn’t noticed when he’s standing right in front of ... I see.”
“He’s the best operative in certain areas I’ve ever seen. I’ve actually seen people talk to him on the street and they couldn’t describe him very well three minutes later. He’s, as you said, indistinct. Sort of heavy, neutral hair, a moustache. You’d think he’d be easy to describe.
“You’re a professional. How tall is he?”
