Chapter Five
A black sedan picked up Clarity the next day at Swankeye. Clarity rode inside the car of Harvey Monfort, in the backseat, with the local mafia boss seated beside her. The driver took road 27 north and they got to Moore Haven about two hours after leaving Miami. The car stopped in front of a shop which said Aerial Window Stock, your window to Florida. Following indications from Monfort, Clarity walked to the back entrance of the shop. Her task was to find out who'd given the information to Taylor on the location of Swankeye. The back of the shop had a bell. Clarity rang the bell and a guy in his twenties appeared at the door.
"Any jobs here?" Asked Clarity.
"No."
"I do video editing," said Clarity, "you do aerial footage, right?" The man nodded, noticing the nice figure of Clarity. She kept the small talk with the shop employee, commending the breadth of locations served by the footage company, and the quality of the images delivered.
"I can show you around, I suppose," he said.
The man, named Mason, let her in the shop. The footage pilot was out, filming a residential area of Hillsborough, near Tampa. The owner of the business only came once a week, to check the fuel expenses of the plane, and the locations covered during the week by the pilot. Mason showed Clarity a computer. Most of the business was done online, and clients included real estate agencies, resorts that liked to show their swimming pool and outdoor amenities, and building or construction companies, which showed contractors' progress in a site. Mason was in charge of keeping tab of the videos requested by customers, and following up on requests, by answering emails, or providing additional information on a particular location. He showed her some footage on the computer, from several magnificent mansions. Feeling thirsty, she asked him to get a drink for her at a gas station, which was across the street.
"I'll watch the shop for you," said Clarity.
Mason nodded, wanting to please Clarity and keep her interested in what he was doing for a while. He left the shop and Clarity began to search the computer for client requests in the area of Tavernier. Looking at a list of files arranged by location and date, she could see that someone named Taylor, from the Cayman Islands, had requested the footage of Swankeye home and area, a few weeks earlier. Going to the actual source file folder of the request, Clarity saw that a real estate company in Miami had requested the actual aerial footage of Swankeye on Channel Cay road, a few weeks before the request from Taylor. She closed the files and drank some iced tea, brought by Mason.
"How many pilots do you have doing aerial footage?"
"Just one."
"I bet these guys make a lot of money. They learn to fly in Lykes Palmdale airport or La Belle Muni? I noticed those two airports are around here."
"Not sure, this guy learned to fly at Aerosam Flight Academy in Sanford, then he moved out of Florida to work for someone in the Cayman Islands. He's been with us a few weeks."
"What's his name?"
"Tarrance." Clarity thanked Mason and left the shop. Crossing the street, she got back into the car of Monfort, which was waiting for her at the gas station.
"The pilot of the footage company is the former pilot of Mr. Mannen, pretty sure of that."
"I'll check on that real estate company you mention," said Monfort, "it may have been Moe who gave the information to Taylor. She owns several businesses in Miami, besides the diner."
The driver of Monfort dropped off Clarity at the pawnshop of Mannen, Gladeview Pawnshop, on 27th avenue, north west, in Miami. Monfort was informing Mannen of her findings. She had a couple of hours to fill in, before Baggio picked her up at six pm, to go back to Swankeye. Around five o'clock, a good looking girl in her twenties came into the shop, holding a large fitball in her hands.
"I'm here to pawn the fitball," said the girl.
"All right, what do you want for the fitball?" Asked Clarity.
"Me, I am getting me in exchange for the fitball. That's what Mr. Mannen told me to do when I met him at the Foxhole bar the other day." Clarity checked the back office with one of the cameras, and saw that Mannen was sitting at his desk there, getting in from another entrance in the back.
"So we get the fitball, and you get you, instead of money?"
"Yeah, I get something else, but from Mr. Mannen himself. In his office."
Her name was Peachy Jordan. Clarity led her to the office of Mannen in the back of the pawnshop. She left Peachy there, and came back to the counter. She looked at the back office camera and saw Mannen was reading a used copy of Cocoanomics. She listened in on the conversation between Mannen and his guest.
"So Peachy, you know we're going to film this? You wanna do this?" Asked Mannen.
"Yes, I don't mind that, the cameras are all right."
"All right, there are cameras everywhere in this shop, including some cameras for me, it's for our own safety." He showed her a ceiling camera showing Clarity watching them from the reception area.
"And you don't mind living in Cayman?"
"No, a bit tired of going about my fitness routines at Club Beaway in South Miami. I want a change of scenery."
"All right, good, I'll introduce you to my associate Beverly after this, she'll explain how things are when you join the group. Let's go to it. Show me that fitball and you on it. Let's get you out of those clothes."
Clarity watched Mannen unclothe, even before Peachy sat on the fitball. He was chubby, very chubby, and he had a sizeable item between his legs. Peachy did not quite describe it as a monster cock, but the words she began to use when she began to handle the item, after handling the fitball, included, 'wow, that is a lot of material, Mr. Mannen'. After the item of Mannen was ready for additional work, Peachy laid out naked on a table labeled with the tag 'Lofty secretarial duties', and Mannen grabbed her legs and one of the feet, placing his index between the foot thumb and index of the girl. Peachy was pleased to pawn her fitball in exchange for owner's time. She was getting what she wanted, a chance to live with a pawnshop owner. Baggio interrupted the reality pawnshop experience for Clarity.
"Come with me, you got to talk to someone."
Clarity turned off the camera and walked out of the shop with the driver of Buddha Talk. Baggio locked the pawnshop behind him, leaving Mannen with his guest. They drove inside Jaguar 73 to a Mclannan restaurant in the Keys. Mannen wanted to buy the fifty four locations of Mclannan's in South Florida, to get into the retail meat distribution business. Her next task was to talk with an informant of Mannen, the official mascot of Mclannan's, the burger company, Ollie Mclannan, the carrot-hair clown of the company.
Mclannan's mascot, Ollie Mclannan the clown, was keeping a low profile, in the midst of a flow of guitar-playing, gin drinking clown sightings around the world. The clown of Mclannan's did not drink or play the guitar, he played around with burger bags, and distributed a few of them for free every month, to those eating at the restaurants. Mclannan's served alcohol, so the place was open only to adults. The company had yet to make an announcement about how often the carrot-head and red-mouthed mascot, would make appearances in the fifty four locations of Mclannan's in Florida. Clarity went through the carrot-color arch at the entrance of the Florida Keys location. A silhouette was hiding behind one of the arches.
"Mr. Mclannan?" The head of a clown appeared behind the right arch, holding a bag of fries in his hand.
"You can call me Ollie. Bag of fries?"
"No, thank you, all right, I understand that you are an informant of Mr. Buddha Talk."
"I used to work at Lofty Bank. Mr. Mannen found me a job at Mclannan's, after talking to Mr. Di Laure."
"Please tell him that the franchise of Mclannan should be sold to him, capitulated is actually the term. Mr. Di Laure is a shareholder of Mclannan's, I believe." The clown threw the bag of fries to Clarity.
"Yes, Mr. Di Laure, and some other shareholders. But I can't say that, or ask him about that, I'll get fired."
Clarity took a fry from the bag and threw the bag of fries back
to the clown.
"Mr. Mannen would like to confirm the events at Milton's involving his pilot as well. He wants to know who blew the whistle on his pilot about the bonds. He lost one million dollars worth of bonds and would like to recover those."
"My wife works at Milton's, I don't. I can make a call though."
Ollie called his wife, who confirmed that Di Laure had told the authorities about his pilot and the bonds, after a man named Noddy Jay had been with Mannen's former pilot at the strip club where the pilot had spent a night, with Ollie's wife. Clarity inquired about Moe Alamy. According to Ollie, in the last few years, the old shriveled lady had placed in jail about forty five organized criminals going about their business in Florida, avoiding the 'big bar area', as Moe called prison. He wasn't sure whether Moe was a shareholder of Mclannan's. The clown only knew she had a home in the middle class area of Richmond West in Miami, that not many people had seen. She followed the clown to the restaurant, getting some food. While the waitress was serving the Ollie Burger to her, she noticed Ollie was making a call.