Bell nodded. “It was.”
“Justified, by the way,” Wilson told him. “I won’t be bringing up charges.”
“Thank you.”
“That don’t mean I want you leaving town anytime soon. There are a lot of questions that need answering.”
Bell said, “I believe I can answer one of those questions tonight.”
“And that is?”
“How did they sneak a four-foot-long machine gun into a busy hotel without anyone noticing?”
“How?”
“Two of them brought it in in pieces and assembled it in their room upstairs.”
“What two men?”
Bell didn’t answer Talbot’s question. “We need a manager to unlock their room.”
“Whose?”
“You’ll see.” Talbot stuck close to Bell and the police chief while Densmore was content to sit and let a waiter bring him another whiskey. Elizabeth and Beau had vanished on their walk. On the way out of the dining room, Bell paused to pull the shroud back from one of the dead men’s faces. Even in the chaos of the brutal assault he’d thought he’d recognized one of the shooters. Now he was certain.
On Wilson’s authority, the night duty manager led them up to the second floor just down the hallway from Bell’s room.
“Do you know the names of these guests?” Bell asked the manager when they were clustered outside the door.
“Brothers, Mr. Bell. From Mexico. They were here to work on some mosaics for the buildings of the Panama–California Exposition opening next year. I don’t recall their names.”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re aliases,” Bell said and rapped his knuckles on the door hard enough to rattle it in its frame. He shot a look to Wilson. “One of the supposed brothers is dead on the floor in the dining hall.”
“The body you looked at?”
Bell nodded. “I saw him come out of the lavatory earlier today and enter this room. The other brother is dead next to him or on the bottom of the bay.”
When no one answered the door, Bell gestured for the manager to open it. Bell pressed the button to turn on the lights. The room was a mess. The bedding had been removed from the two queen-size mattresses and left on the floor. It appeared that’s where the two men preferred to sleep. There were dozens of dirty dishes stacked on the credenza and on the nightstands. But the windows had been left open, so at least the air smelled fresh.
In one corner were wooden packing crates, ostensibly for their mosaic tile.
“It nagged at me earlier,” Bell said. “I used one of the lavatories when I arrived. The man in there before me left it a sodden mess. I remember thinking at the time that it looked like he’d never used a public washroom. Turns out I was right. He hadn’t, nor did he know enough to let room service take away the dirty dishes.”
“Rural boys not used to the city,” Wilson said.
“They weren’t Mexican artisans,” Bell concluded, “but Panamanian peasants turned anarchists sent here on a mission. This is likely the first time either man had ever stayed in a hotel.”
Bell crossed over to the wooden crates. Inside was nothing but packing hay. There were no tile cutters or mortaring tools of any kind. One of the crates, he noted, was long enough to accommodate the Lewis gun’s barrel. Bell got down on the floor to peer under the beds. He felt around their legs and came out with a wad of cotton. It was stained and smelled of cosmoline, the waxy corrosion inhibitor used to protect their weapons in tropical environments.
He gave it to Wilson. “Not a smoking gun, exactly, but close enough.”
“So, these two smuggled in the weapons,” Court Talbot stated.
“Right. The other four came to Coronado on their boat and linked up in here just before the assault.” Bell paused. He’d thought of something. “Chief, you’ll want to check with law enforcement from surrounding towns for a stolen boat. About thirty feet long, wooden rather than steel, with a big cockpit, and she was fast. They didn’t come from Panama in it, so they had to have stolen it. Could have swiped it in northern Mexico, I suppose. Anyway, once the men were together, and their getaway driver was in position at the marina, the guns were passed out and then all five raced downstairs for the ambush.”
“That’s good to know the details and all,” Court Talbot pointed out, “but does it really help? They’re dead now, and, like you said, whatever names they used to check in to the hotel are obviously aliases.”
“It raises a troubling point,” Bell told him, and made sure Chief Wilson was paying attention. “I had my agent make discreet inquiries about hotel guests earlier today. He spoke with all of them who made their reservations after the Senator’s meeting time and place became public knowledge.”
“Meaning?”
“This room was reserved before anyone could possibly know you were to brief Senator Densmore. Viboras Rojas knew about our conference in advance.”
“Wait. What?”
“How is that possible?” Wilson asked.
“I do not know,” Bell answered. “But I am damned sure going to find out.”
6
Chief Wilson allowed Bell to help him perform a thorough search of the room while the night manager went down to the front desk to retrieve the reservation and registration information. Court Talbot also returned downstairs to check on the Senator, only to find he’d retired for the night.
As Bell suspected, they found nothing of interest—no papers of any kind or any other way of identifying the assailants. The reservation had been made from a telegraph office in Acapulco, most likely when the gunmen were heading north on a tramp steamer. Another dead end.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and there will be some clues on the bodies,” Wilson said with little enthusiasm.
Bell gave him an appraising look. “Are you normally lucky?”
The chief gave a mirthless chuckle. They were professional lawmen who understood that smart criminals rarely got caught, and even if these were poorly trained guerrillas—judging
