Too Much Stuff Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 peripheralvision 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