truck was, it was crucial to our transportation.
He looked out the windshield. “There are thousands of motorcycles on the roads down here. What the hell makes this one so special?”
“It’s a black Harley with a gold fender, and the rider has a dark helmet, facemask pulled down.”
“Could be a coincidence.”
“No.”
My partner was quiet the rest of the trip, and we never lost sight of the Harley.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bobbie was at the pool bar, entertaining a man and woman who seemed to know her. They were laughing as she served them frozen drinks.
“Hey, Bobbie.”
The eighty-five-degree temperature and humidity smothered me as the frizzy-haired barmaid glanced my way, a puzzled expression on her face.
“The usual,” I said.
“Who are you?”
So much for the previous five-dollar tip and three Yuenglings I’d had earlier in the day. I thought that resort bartenders catered to the tourists and got to know everyone by their first name and their drink. Of course, I could have been wrong.
James came down from the room a couple of minutes later, winking at Bobbie. I glanced at her and she was winking back.
“Hey, James,” she shouted, “cold Yuengling draft and some pretzels, right?”
“Sure.”
Hell, he didn’t even know her name.
“Maria should be here in a couple. Let’s figure out what we want from her.” He acted as if the last twenty seconds had never happened.
“What we want, James, is the location of the Coral Belle hotel. We need to know where it was located.”
“What else?”
“That would give us a great start.” I could think of nothing else. Unless she knew the location of the gold. And that would have been impossible.
“Busy, Bobbie?” he asked her as she put down the bottle of beer and the paper basket of pretzels. James gave her that personal smile, and she melted. Bobbie. At least he knew who she was.
“With you here?” A smile plastered over her face. “Well, now I am seriously busy.”
He smiled back. She was called to the other side of the bar and he looked at me. Now James was all business.
“Skip, there are two agendas. First of all, we find those two slimeball detectives. I think they’ve got answers.”
“And second, we find the Coral Belle Hotel foundation.”
He turned and stared out at the ocean. “Man, we weren’t alive when that hurricane hit.”
“Duh.”
“Well, it was a long time ago. I mean, if you were, what, ten years old, and you were a survivor-”
“There weren’t many of them, James.”
“Yeah, but if you’d made it through the storm, well, you’d have vivid memories of that catastrophe.”
“What’s your point?”
“Kids remember the strangest things. Maybe someone saw people moving those crates with the gold in them. Maybe one of their parents was paid to help bury the wooden boxes. I mean-”
I caught her approach from the corner of my eye. My peripheral vision had kicked in, and she looked as good as she had at the restaurant.
“Hi, boys. You said you needed some advice? Some information?” Maria Sanko had even gone home to change. Tight jeans and an orange tank top. Wow!
James nodded at her. I could see the sparkle in his eyes.
He engaged me one more time, for just a few seconds.
“We need to find a survivor, Skip. That may be the answer.”
She was on her second margarita, and we were on our third beer.
“The Coral Belle. It turns out it wasn’t a hotel for the common person. There was another hotel that most people stayed at.” She nodded at James. I was simply the guy at the end of the bar.
“The Matecumbe Hotel was partially destroyed, but it was one of two buildings still standing when the storm passed through. Tourists stayed there. Traveling salesmen stayed there. Prostitutes worked out of the Matecumbe. It was not the hotel for the upper class.
“Who stayed at the Coral Belle?”
“Rich folks. People who had five hundred thousand dollars in their portfolio. A million dollars. Railroad officials who were making investments in the Keys. A couple of presidents stayed there. I believe Woodrow Wilson was reported to have visited and maybe Warren Harding. And the authors Zane Grey and Ernest Hemingway spent time at the Coral Belle.”
“Hemingway? Two presidents. Very fancy.”
She looked back at James and pushed her hair back from her face. “James, there was supposedly a ballroom with a very expensive cut-glass chandelier. And when the Vicks Chemical Corporation had a party, they’d have chefs down from Miami, and fly in Cuban dancers and musicians. Teenage hookers from Cuba were also flown in for parties at the hotel. The Coral Belle was quite a place.”
“How do you know all of this?”
Finally, she glanced at me. “My grandfather worked for the railroad in Miami the last five years it existed. He told my father some stories that were hard to believe. A lot of crazy things went on back then. By today’s standards they would be, well, by today’s standards they are still salacious.”
James pushed back his stool.
“Gonna go up to the room and get a pen and tablet. I want to write some of this down. I’ll be right back.” He wobbled a bit when he stepped off the stool, and we watched him as he walked to the outside elevator.
“So, Maria, where was the Coral Belle?”
She pointed in the direction of the business district. The business district of Islamorada being the thin strip of shops, restaurants, and bars that ran up and down the Overseas Highway.
“A mile and a half down the road. There’s a medical office on the property now. Some doctor who has a vein care center. I think he operates on varicose veins. An Indian name.” She paused. “Malhotra. I think that’s his name. He’s got half of it. The other half is an orthopedic surgeon’s office. Neal or O’Neill. Something like that. Their signs are out front.”
And there it was. That simple. Although nothing in my life is that simple. Couldn’t be. Never was. The property mentioned in the cryptic letter was one and a half miles down the road.
“This is a strange question, but was the foundation of the old hotel still intact when they built the medical office?”
She shook her pretty head. “I have no idea. I just know that that’s where the hotel was.”
She stared off into the blue ocean and I followed her gaze, watching colorful sailboats offshore with red, white, and blue canvas, two loud Jet Skis racing on the parallel, and two pelicans swooping down to capture unsuspecting fish in the clear blue water. For a couple of minutes there was a peaceful calm.
Then the thunder of a motorcycle split the afternoon and someone spit up a white cloud of dust in the parking lot as they headed toward the highway.
“Why are you so interested in the old hotel?”
“James is sort of a history buff.”
She gave me a sideways look. “James? That James? Didn’t seem to be the history type.”
