by Moulton, CD
“We can go in about ten minutes.” Sergio went back inside.
“Just like that? You have enough influence to control these people just like that?”
“I don’t control anybody. I respect them, they respect me. Life’s a lot easier for that.
“I’ll check on Franconi and try to get him to decide he’d like to see Panamá City or David or something. He’d fit in certain sections there. Maybe Colón, but he’d live maybe a day there if his attitude’s anything at all like yours. I’ll be in touch.” He walked inside and signaled to Sergio that he was ready to go. They headed back to Bocas Town. Clint wanted to know a thing or two more about Franconi. The reaction was expected to be a little shock or something. It was far too much.
Franconi was sitting on the deck at The Reef having a beer and chicken and rice. Clint slid in across from him. He looked up, grinned and said, “Faraday, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. What’s up with that bunch of arrogant obnoxious trailer trash on Bastimentos that’s so important you had to kill one of them?”
He laughed. “I haven’t killed anybody. I don’t know what’s going on with the cruds. All I’m supposed to do is hang around to keep an eye on them. I work for a group who ... I don’t know what it’s about, only that they have to be watched until some kind of solution can be found to the problem, whatever it is. If I’m to contact them or anything I’ll get orders.
“It’s not the kind of thing I do. I don’t like being here. I made some bad moves when I came and got too many people against me. I acted like this is Chicago or LA. Stupid as all hell! I know better!”
“Now it’s LA, too? I learn things.”
“Lucerne and Bianco are from the area. I’m not drunk or running my mouth or anything. I was told in no uncertain terms that I was to level with you if you got involved in it. Some people concerned have been burned by you before.”
“I know who Bianco is. Lucerne?”
“Frank Lucerne. Another cousin or whatever they’re supposed to be.”
“What are they?”
“Besides some used-to-be hangers on, I don’t know. I think they have something that belongs to someone big. They’ve already gotten more than seven million dollars from him and spend it on crap they think is classy – like that monstrosity they built on Bastimentos. Just supposition, but I think it’s something that gets used if certain ones of them get dead. It’s what’s keeping them alive. Those people don’t fool around with that shit. They put a permanent end to it.”
“Then Lesterinni was just there because he didn’t have any other possible out.”
“I think he was looking for a possible out for more than three years. He doesn’t look like he did back then. He was seeing some people he wasn’t supposed to be seeing. I know that because I was told he went to the FBI offices on the sly twice when he thought he’d given some people the slip.
“He did give one of them the slip, but there were others with the same assignment.”
“Probably where the WP idea came from.”
“They told you they were on WP?”
“Yeah. From Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma.”
“I see. Then you know three places you needn’t bother to check. None of them were ever in those places. Ever, ever, ever.” He laughed.
“Obvious, like everything else they do.
“Look. Don’t kill anyone here. I’ll tag you. We don’t need anymore hits here. Let them hit each other.”
“Hmm. You know something.” It was a statement that sounded like a statement.
“Somebody said the wrong thing.”
He nodded. Clint said to enjoy Bocas and went back to his place. He had something more to check.
Politicians?
“Manny, there’s some kind of huge connection. I think Lesterinni was going to the FBI and had plastic surgery at their expense to use in the WP.”
“I can’t get information from some people from New York, LA, Cleveland and Detroit. It’s big,” Manny replied. “We dug into Franconi a lot deeper. He’s a lot more professional than we thought. He’s smart and makes it appear he’s just a runner or cheap muscle man so no one pays him much attention.”
“I talked with him. He has instructions to level with me.”
“Doniletti? I really don’t think so! Mo Jefferson or Miklocaras? It doesn’t fit. They’re legitimate now and don’t worry about such crap anymore. I have to see if there’s someone on the way up who has too much to lose.”
“Manny, check on someone who’s been around a long time and keeps a very low profile.”
“You know something, Clint? I think I want to check on people who have dealings with the mobs, but who aren’t directly involved. Maybe politicians or big business CEOs or whatever.”
“With what was going on – and probably still is today – with Bush I think maybe that’s a very real possibility. I hadn’t considered it.”
“You never thought of the mobs and the top pols together before Bush. Not to a great extent. Local and state contracts with them for roads or garbage or whatever. Nobody knows how that works better than me! Now it’s right there in the White House. All Haliburton ever was is a mob connection, in my opinion. There’s no big secret who was their representative in the White house.
“It started a long time ago with the military and drug deals and such. It’s gotten so that the entire system is rotted clear through. I can say that one good thing about Old Pop. He made the people around him his first consideration. He impressed on me my whole life that we were in a position to save a lot for our people. It was us or something one hell of a lot worse.”
“You might be able to unearth something with that approach. I’ll do what digging I can from this end.”
They chatted a few minutes. When they broke it off Clint sat back to consider things. It did have a political stench about it in some ways. His connection was through Franconi and that bunch on Bastimentos. If he could find who they really were he could find who and what was behind the whole scheme.
He made a few more calls, then went back to the computer. He first checked deeply on the major political connections in Detroit because that was where it came from so far as he knew. After three hours he had a lot of nothing. He sat back to think again, then wondered: If this came from Detroit would these people be talking about Detroit? Would they have those addresses on their papers?
That left him with a big blank. No one in New York or Chicago would say anything to Manny, which probably meant they didn’t know anything. Where was any little clue to give him a home base? None of them had dropped the name of the actual place. They wouldn’t.
Manny’s wife had seen one of them in Carmel. Would it be ...? He called Manny. That was one thing he was checking from the angle of some politician or business head there. He would have answers in about two hours and would call Clint. It would be a large business or top politician.
Clint thought again, then had what might give him a clue or might not. He walked into town and to the police station to request that Sergio get some things for him. From the property registers and from a bank. And from a lawyer if they could find which one.
Sergio sent a man to the court to get a demanda form, then handed it to Clint and told him to go to Changuinola. All the registrations were there.
Clint took the water taxi to Almirante and the bus from there to Changuinola. He presented the court demanda to the woman at the registry and received the entire paperwork on the Bastimentos property from the time Flannery bought it from Shepard Robinson Puenta until today.
He went through the papers and had copies made of six pages at his expense, $3.21. When he left the registry he caught a quick glimpse of a person in a cab and grinned to himself. What he wanted might actually be in those papers!
He then took the papers back to Bocas Town. Manny called and said there was a bit of a stir in Carmel. He didn’t know who, but knew it was someone there. Any hint and he could locate their man. Clint said he’d call back in an
hour or so if he found anything, then told Manny what he’d done. He took the papers to his house and studied them.
The lawyer was a local firm. The bank used was Citicorps in Panama’ and LA International Trust Reserve in the states. That, at least, made it fairly certain the main connection was there.
Clint thought for a bit, then sighed. He went to Martin, Martin, Strent and Arauz, Abogados, and talked with Lorenzo Martin. He handled the transfers and so forth and knew about the murder. He would cooperate as much as was legal. He didn’t know much past that a man had come with Dickerson with a certified check from the states that he had taken his fees from when they paid for the property. He had a copy of the check in the files, no one said anything about not showing it to the police, Clint represented the police and had a court order proving it.
It was just a cashier’s check. There wasn’t any signature or mention who it came from. It was for one million dollars. Martin had arranged for direct deposit transfer in Citicorp Bank in David with his fees taken out the moment the transfer was cleared. It’s three days wait for a certified cashier’s check from the states. The transfer cost them $3,400.
Clint wrote down the number of the check, thanked Martin and went back to the police station. Sergio couldn’t get information from any bank in LA.
Clint called Manny and gave him the number. It was less than twenty minutes later when Manny called and said the check was bought by a large company with an account there. It may be an Italian company. Napoli Diversified.
Clint went home, fixed dinner, cleaned up and went back into town. Manny called and said, “Arno Napoli has a company in LA that doesn’t seem to have a product or service on the market, yet it takes in several million per year. They pay taxes on that much. My dead ends keep running into dead ends on that company and Arno.”
They chatted a bit, then Clint rung off. He knew a lot now, but not what he needed.
Clint saw Franconi sitting in the parque talking to a girl. He went by and said, “Good evening. I see I’m your new job.”
Franconi laughed. “Yes. You have some very damned dangerous and influential people busting their asses trying to keep you from finding out who they are.”
“Tell Arno I know who he is. There’s no way to keep that much money from getting attention.”
Franconi laughed again and saluted. Clint went to the Toro Loco for a couple of cold Balboas and some mingling, then went home. He didn’t quite know where to go with this now. He had to discover what was going on with Dickerson and company. Knowing who he had something on didn’t help a lot if you didn’t know what it was.
It was time to consider different angles on this thing. Why Panamá? Why not the islands near Panamá City? That was where the ostentation wouldn’t be out of place. Why not Rio? That was the kind of place they would fit a bit better than anywhere in Panamá. Islands? There were some hundreds of them where those people would fit better, though the type wouldn’t fit well anywhere.
Was that stupid circus act for some reason? Why make yourselves unpopular to the point no one would question if you got knocked over?
Looked at that way, they didn’t come – they were sent. Somebody wanted them where they could be eliminated without a lot of comment or investigation.
Take it on: they were sent to where they could be removed, but sending them cost one hell of a lot of money. That left only one logical reason. Blackmail. They had the “insurance” with them. They probably also had it spread around with some system where it would be delivered to someone or some organization in the case where they were knocked over.
So. When whatever part Lesterinni had in it was neutralized he was eliminated as a problem here where there was the chance that, done right, it wouldn’t be investigated much.
No one could take that chance. His killer was one of them. That left that they were set up in a way they could be gotten rid of. It still didn’t add up.
Clint was going to have to meet the others. He knew the Dickersons well enough that he could say they had a degree of fear that told him they didn’t have any connection with his murder. Directly. All of them were connected.
He went to town and found Franconi at the Golden Grill. He asked for a minute and was waved into a seat. “So. Which one of them did Lesterinni?” he asked.
“You don’t think it was me?”
“Not a chance. Messy, which you’re not and unprofessional, which you’re not.”
“I think Lucerne, but it could be Herman.”
“You have a clue what it’s about? Other than the obvious. I mean what they base the blackmail on.”
He didn’t blink. He shook his head.
“They’ve gone a long time without drawing attention to themselves. This was a big blunder and I think Arno, at least, knows that.”
He nodded and replied, “There’s no ‘them’.”
Clint nodded and bought them both Balboas. They chatted for half an hour or so, then Clint headed back home. He called Manny and told him what he thought. Manny agreed.
“Oh. One other little item I’ve learned. We can stop referring to them.”
“Them who?”
“It’s ‘him’, not ‘them’.”
“Sure?”
“Pretty much.”
“Then he’s going to get the investigation he set this up to avoid.”
“I think so. I want to know what this is about. I think Panamá’s being used because there’s something here.”
“Laundering,” Manny said. “Panamá makes that scene easy with the offshores and so forth.”
“Maybe not laundering. Just the fact that he has those offshores. I wish I knew even enough to get some information as to how much – in a general sense.”
“It’ll be big.”
“I think so.”
Private Talks
He had a direction if it was the wrong one. He still had to meet the others. Frieda Herman and Frank Lucerne. That would leave Julia Bianco to complete the roster at that house. Clint got in his boat and headed out to Bastimentos. Maybe he could make one of them slip so he would know who butchered Lesterinni.
The whole bunch were on the dock arguing with the officer there. Dickerson saw Clint coming in and called that the damned cops wouldn’t let them take a trip over to David for a couple of days.
“A couple of days? You have enough luggage stacked up there to go to David for twenty years,” Clint replied. “I’ll try to clear this up so you can skip, but you won’t get far if you run. Where would you go?”
“I don’t think we have to worry about whoever killed Danny,” Frieda Herman said. “He brought it on himself. He would actually go into town by himself! These people hate us! He knew it was dangerous!”
“Nobody from Bastimentos killed him,” Clint said sourly. “I have to talk with you, all of you. Privately.”
“You ain’t talking to none of me!” Dickerson spat. “I said all I know!”
“Okay! Your choice!” Clint replied. “When you want this cleared up to where you can get off the island let me know.”
“Hey!” Dickerson yelled.
Clint waved and started his engine and dropped it into reverse.
“Wait! What the holy hell!” Dickerson wailed. “I only meant I don’t know nothing! I ain’t got nothing I can tell you!”
“Get off the attitude or you’ll be here until you die of old age – if any of you live to be old.”
“We’ll talk to you if we have to,” Catherine said defeatedly. “I can’t stay cooped up here much longer. I’m going stir crazy! All the TV has is in Spanish. There’s not even any good music or anything on the radio. I can’t stand this much longer!”
“I don’t know what you need, but I’ll give it a go,” Frank Lucerne said. “Walk around the place and talk or the boathouse?”
“I can fish off the dock here. I like to fish,” Dickerson said. “Everbody else can go away for two minutes while I tell you everything I know.”
“We all like to fi
sh,” Julia agreed. “That’s one of the main reasons we agreed, uh, why we came here.”
“We can go out in my boat and fish while we talk,” Clint suggested. “Right around the point there are some coral heads and the fishing’s really good.”
Julia didn’t say anything. She went into the boathouse and came out with a tackle box and a rod and reel. She climbed into the boat and said, “Drive on, Jeeves!”
Clint grinned and backed out. He went around the point and anchored between two colorful coral heads. They could see the mangrove and yellowtail snapper around the reef. They baited and dropped their lines.
“Which one of you offed Danny?” he asked bluntly.
“God! I wish I knew! I wish I knew why!”
“What do you have on Napoli?”
She studied him for a few seconds. “I have some pictures of him with people he definitely doesn’t want to be seen around. It could cause all kind of problems for him with another bunch. They’re digital and printed. The pictures. They’re in a place where nobody will see them as long as nobody bugs me or ... anything.”
“They found how to stop whatever Danny had. It put all of you in danger. One or more of you knocked him over.”
“Probably. It wasn’t me.” She got a bite and fought a large corvel into the boat. She asked Clint if they ate them here. They didn’t where she came from. Alabama, right above Pensacola, Florida. She grew up there until she was 17.
Clint told her how to prepare them so they were delicious. He told her to bleed them while they were alive so the oils in the blood wouldn’t ruin the meat. She took a fileting knife from he tackle box to cut off the tail like he suggested and hung it over the side.
He caught a snapper and threw it back. He said he had plenty in his freezer.
They went back to the dock. Frank Lucerne was waiting with his gear and got in the boat. Clint went to a spot not far from the first and anchored. Lucerne had much the same answers as Julia. He was from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and had gone to Hollywood to be an actor.
“I was always the type the women go for and thought that would make me a star in a week. I was an idiot! I worked in a restaurant and as a meatcutter to eat. Good thing my Pops was a butcher. I had a trade. I did get in a couple of flicks, but they were mostly just hotrods and ass. I was somebody the women flirted with. They could show off their tits and asses with me.”
