Only Make Believe by Elliott Mackle Read Free Book Online Page B

Hunter’s Point in San Francisco. Using the now-hear-this horn on the bridge, I spoke to almost a thousand unseen men, each one aware that officers like me held the power of life and death over them all. For five minutes, I felt like God. I wanted to keep talking forever.
    Carmen hadn’t stopped. “The Pearl has three kids now. Quit dancing when our USO group broke up. Lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Sends me Christmas cards. Beautiful wife and family. Works in a drug store. Must be happy.”
    “He wasn’t a …?” Phil coughed politely. “One of the boys”?
    “Who knows?” Carmen answered, standing up, dismissing the question. “He did get beat up bad once by an army sergeant. Grease monkey from the motor pool. Most girls wouldn’t have let a gorilla like that touch ’em with a ten-foot bass fiddle. But it was wartime. You did what you had to do.”
    “So do we,” I said, touched but having no more time for Earle the Pearl. “Carmen, start with dinner—since that’s when the Diva made her first appearance last night. Who was in here? Any goons or troublemakers hanging around?”
    Carmen turned toward the kitchen door. “Maybe we speak to Homer first?”
    “Sure,” I said. “Thanks, everybody.” And I followed Carmen back into the kitchen.
    Homer Meadows was drinking coffee at the staff table behind the hot line. Carmen explained what we wanted.
    “A guest got in some trouble,” I added. “We need to know who was in the hotel.”
    Homer smiled gravely. “Terrible. Yes, sah, I heard something about that. I want to help all I can.” He held up his order pad. “Table ten, Mr. and Mrs. Treadwell. They be locals. Always tip real good. Came in early, same as they always do. Table twelve, Dr. Brown and his two lovely daughters, Doctor live over on McGregor Boulevard. Them girls don’t eat enough to keep birds alive. Table four, Mrs. Nordeen Simms, room 418.”
    “She came down to the club later,” Carmen put in. “Navy widow, friend of the admiral. Sat next to Diva at the bar.”
    “I know the lady,” I said. “Bud will want to talk to her.”
    “Also at the bar, at least for a while,” Carmen said, batting his eyelashes, “Our own Betty Harris. After you left, she started making time with that dentist from Sebring.”
    “Dr. Ayers. Founding club member. Ex-navy.” I said I’d speak to Dr. Ayers later.
    “Table six,” Homer continued. “The Sottile party, suite 701 and room 202. Paid in cash, tip came out to under ten percent. Nice folks, though. Very polite, no trouble.”
    “Slim served the twins,” Carmen said. “Tim and Todd. Tim is staying with us in the hotel. Todd lives down south, Marco, I think. The twins talk to everybody, they’re both big, tall, handsome guys, Norwegians, maybe. Play golf all the time. I know they talked to the Diva.”
    “No wives?” I asked. “Girlfriends?”
    “Tim’s divorced,” Carmen said.
    “No, it’s Mr. Todd,” Homer said. “Mr. Todd’s the one was married.”
    “What’s their last name?” I asked. Nobody could remember. I wrote them down as interview candidates.
    Homer and Carmen went through another half dozen tables. All were either locals or hotel guests.
    “No obvious goons,” I finally said. “And Mrs. Simms, Dr. Ayers and the twins don’t strike me as strong arm types.”
    “Looks can be deceiving,’ Carmen said with a shake of his head. “As our poor Miss Diva do seem to have proved.”
    I looked at Homer and Carmen. “No intruders? No free-lance hookers? No punks smoking reefer in the parking lot? No complaints from guests about prowlers or noise?”
    Carmen cut me off again. “Just the one call, bossman, like Phil said. From the, ah, from Mr. DiGennaro. When he called downstairs at two a.m.”
     
     

Check-Out Time
     
    I walked down the hall to my office, picked up the secure phone, the one with a line that didn’t pass through the hotel switchboard, and dialed Nick DiGennaro’s home in Bradenton. I figured