by Don Bruns
I took it from the bag.
“Check it out.” He pointed to a small sign on the wall. “Free Wi-Fi.”
“James,” the guy seemed oblivious to the facts, “they’ve vanished. These two detectives no longer exist.”
“Google Yellow Pages.”
I did.
“Now, in the search box, type in AAAce Investigations.”
I did.
“So, what did you find?”
“A site.”
“Ah, grasshopper, but not a personal website. They’ve taken that one down. But, they probably didn’t take down sites from some reviewers. Am I right? Tell me I’m right.”
“Yeah, of course. You’re always right, James.” He wasn’t. But in this case-
“Click on the one that says photos.”
I studied the options.
“How the hell did you know there would be-”
“Click it.”
I did.
“Pictures, right?”
There were. I nodded. It was a Yellow Page ad that was still posted.
“Ah, I knew it. Ego guys. What do we have in our Yellow Page ad, pard?”
“We don’t have a Yellow Page ad.”
“Do you see? No ego.” He drained his bottle, banging it on the table.
No money. That’s what it boiled down to. James had ego. Trust me. If we’d had the money, James would be front and center in all the Yellow Page ads. Oh, my friend James had ego.
“Can we print this? Get a feeling for who these guys are? I want to know it when we run into them.”
“We can print it back at the,” I hesitated as the word made both of us smile, “resort.”
We laughed out loud.
“Resort. Okay. Let’s view the enemy. Hopefully we’ll recognize them.”
They stared at us from our computer screen, names under their photographs. Two guys not much older than we were. Weezle had a stubble of beard and a Miami Vice sort of wardrobe. T-shirt, jacket, and slacks. Markim, while not black like Tubbs, was dressed like him in a suit with a tie and a very cocky look on his face. James and I didn’t even own a tie. Between us.
The body copy in the photo ad read as follows.
AAAce Investigations. We succeed where others fail.
Undercover investigations
Photo service
Surveillance
Multiple vehicle surveillance-car, truck, boat, motorcycle
Discreet video and audio work
Wiretapping where legal
“It doesn’t say where they are, James.”
“No, but we know who they are.”
I studied the faces. Two guys who had enough money to buy a Yellow Page ad. It was impressive. We didn’t have a boat. We didn’t have a-
“Skip, look at that ad again.”
“I just did. We’ve got a car. Mine. It may not be worth much, but we’ve got a car.”
“We’ve got a truck.” James nodded his head.
“But we don’t have a boat.”
“No,” James agreed, “and we don’t have a motorcycle.”
“But-”
“But, amigo, somebody ripped by us today on a motorcycle. And I’ve been thinking ever since that-”
“Yeah. That the guy on the motorcycle spattered the paint on the truck. Same thought, James.”
“Excuse me.” She came out of nowhere.
We both looked up and were surprised at the attractive woman approaching our table. She didn’t appear to be a waitress.
“What can we do for you?” Charming James.
She smiled. She beamed. An almost flirtatious look on her lovely face. “Do you own the truck outside? The white box truck with the splash of black paint on it?”
James frowned. “Yeah. What about it?”
She pulled up a chair and sat down. Maybe thirty-five, and very interesting. Very expressive eyes, dark, probably Italian, but you could never tell and-
“I’m Maria Sanko. I’m a realtor.”
We both nodded. Women inviting themselves to our table was not something that happened on a regular basis.
“I was having lunch in the other room,” she pointed to the main dining room, “and I got a text.”
I could tell from James’s puzzled look that neither of us had a clue where this was going.
“I manage a number of rental properties in the Islamorada area, and occasionally I get an emergency.”
“Okay.” I was impatient. The lady dragged the story on, just like Mary Trueblood.
“There’s a major leak at one of my apartments, and I saw your truck-”
Shit. The Smith Brothers Plumbing sign.
“We don’t … we can’t …” James was stumbling. He’d turned pale, and I was concerned he was going to trip over his tongue.
“It’s not far from here, and my tenant is really concerned. If you two could just follow me to-”
“I am sorry. What my friend is trying to tell you is that we’re on vacation.”
“Really, it won’t take long. And I’ll pay you whatever you say. I really need some help, guys.”
“No, no. We left our tools back in Miami. There is nothing we could do. The truck is empty.”
James’s color returned. “Yeah. Tools are back in Miami. We’re sorry.”
The lady gave us a suspicious look, as she probably should have.
“Okay.” She reached into her purse, pulling out a white business card. “If you are ever interested in moving down here, call me. I could use a good plumber. Not just now, but about every other day. And the guys down here, the guys who call themselves plumbers, they’re working on island time.”
“Next time, for sure. It’s just that right now, we’re not prepared.” James flashed her a shaky lady-killer smile.
She stood up and walked away.
“You didn’t want people to know we were investigators so you had the plumbing signs made.”
“Yeah?”
“We could be called Smith Brothers Hauling. We could do that. Haul stuff. Or, like I told you, you could have just gone signless. Now, we stick out like a sore thumb. I mean, a plumbing truck with no tools and no plumbers.”
“Yeah. I get your point.”
“You know, James, sometimes your answer to a problem just causes more problems.”
Little did I know how prophetic that statement would be.
CHAPTER SEVEN
James drove back to Pelican Cove, the magnetic Smith Brothers Plumbing signs now thrown in the back of the truck.
“Now we’re just a white box truck with a splash of black paint on the side.”
He was upset that our humble transportation now bore a scar. I didn’t care so much about the scar, but I was happy we weren’t plumbers any longer.
“Now no one will ask us to do them any favors.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Signs? We didn’t need no stinkin’ signs.
“Dude, I wonder how much she would have paid us.”
A question that had no answer. We had no talents in plumbing. Hell, we had no talents, period. I’m reminded of that from time to time.
“I think we could have made some serious jack, you know? She said to charge whatever we wanted. Who knows? Maybe we could have made enough on the side to get two rooms instead of one.”
Oftentimes, I couldn’t believe what came out of his mouth. “James, it makes no difference.” Sometimes I seriously think he’s clueless. “Neither of us knows the first thing about plumbing.”
“I can use a toilet plunger.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I thought of something you said back at the Turtle. Something you said about the gold and it got me thinking.”
“Yeah?”
“You said finding the gold was the most important thing.”
“I did.” But I’d agreed that if we found the missing detectives, it could mean our job was a whole lot easier.
“First of all, I still think we need to find those two detectives. Their disappearance is
way too strange.”
I nodded my head in agreement.
“But you said finding the gold was the first priority. I already told you, I think if we find these two Miami hotshots we find the gold, but-”
“But what?”
“The lady. Maria Sanko.”
“What about her? She’s got a leaky pipe and no one to help her.” It actually sounded dirty.
James chuckled. “Skip, she’s a real estate lady.”
“Yeah?”
“She knows about property and stuff.”
James was doing the same thing, dragging the story on, like I was supposed to pick up on every-
“Ah.” It hit me. “A real estate person just might know where older properties were located. Right?”
“Right, amigo. This lady might be able to tell us where the Coral Belle hotel used to be.”
Sometimes he hit a home run. Not that often, but-
“James, that’s a great idea. You’ve got her card. Let’s call her.”
He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the card. He flipped it to me as he drove north.
I dialed the number on my cell phone, worrying about how many minutes this would eat up. She answered on the second ring.
“Maria Sanko, Sanko Properties. How can I help you?”
“Miss, Mrs.-”
“Please, call me Maria.”
“Okay. Maria, this is Skip Moore. You approached my friend and me in The Green Turtle about a plumbing problem?”
“Oh, thank you for calling. You’re too late though. I found Jimmy Sheldon at home and he-”
“No, no. It’s not about that. James, my partner, well, the two of us wondered how much you know about the history of property here in Islamorada. You know, where buildings were back in the thirties? Stuff like that.”
“I’ve lived here all my life. Of course, I wasn’t around in the thirties-”
“No, ma’am, I didn’t mean to infer that you were old or-”
She laughed. “I’m older than you are, but not that old.”
If the lady was over thirty-five, I’d be very surprised.
“Well, we have some questions and wondered if you’d agree to sit down with us and maybe fill us in a little bit?”
“Sure.”
Just like that.
“Well, would there be a charge?”
“Are you thinking about coming down here? On a permanent basis?”
I could detect amusement in her voice.
“Do you mean like setting up shop here in the Keys?”
I thought James was going to run off the road.
“Sure. We’re considering it.”
I watched him mouth the words, “Are you crazy?”
“Then I’d be giving you some history of the Key in a professional sense. Giving you reasons to move your plumbing business down here.”
“Yeah. You would.”
“Plumbing is your business, right?”
Clearing my throat, I stared out the window at the collection of stucco strip malls running by the ocean. My business was selling security systems to people who didn’t have anything to secure. James’s business was being a line cook at a fast-food restaurant. We were pretenders, pure and simple. As detectives and most certainly as plumbers. What were we thinking?
“Sure. That’s our business.” I wasn’t sure what our business was anymore. And I suppose we were as well equipped to be plumbers as we were to be private investigators. What she didn’t know, couldn’t hurt us. Could it?
“Okay, where do you want to meet?”
“We’re staying at Pelican Cove Resort.”
“I know exactly where that is. Right next to Holiday Isle. And Holiday Isle has three great bars.”
Our kind of lady.
“Well, why don’t we meet at the pool bar at Pelican Cove? We can start there and see if-”
“And who knows,” she picked up the theme, “we may move the party next door later on.”
Sounded good to me.
“Half an hour?”
“I’ll be there. Skip, was it?”
“Yes, ma’am, and James is my partner.”
“Please, don’t ma’am me. It’s Maria, okay?”
“Okay, Maria.”
I hung up the phone and looked out the window, catching the sideview mirror in my peripheral vision.
“James, there’s a motorcycle back about two vehicles.”
I could feel him staring at me.
“Eyes back on the road, James.”
The last thing I wanted was to have an accident in a strange town. We had a job to do and, as bad as the 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.”