All this late afternoon they’d talked to the clerks in several hotels where Graham might have stayed: taxi drivers, on the remote chance that they might run into someone who’d had Graham as a fare; restaurant waiters who might have served him a meal; and with ferry operators who might have taken a man matching Graham’s description out to one of the ships. All without luck.
“Will you be returning to the States in the morning?” Gallegos asked. He was polite now that he had done what he could for the gringo and had been proven correct. “I can make sure that you get a first-class seat on the Miami flight. They’re usually full.”
A waiter came to clear away their plates. McGarvey had scarcely touched his churrasco steak that had been cut into thin criollo strips, marinated, and then grilled. “Is there something wrong with your food, señor?” the young pock-faced man asked. His attitude was arrogant. He didn’t like North Americans.
McGarvey looked up out of his thoughts. “It was fine. I’m just not hungry.”
When the waiter was gone, Gallegos asked again if McGarvey would be leaving in the morning.
“We’re missing something,” McGarvey said. “Graham was in Maracaibo two days ago, and according to the whore he was coming here to meet his ship.”
“If you can believe her.”
“Graham might have lied to her, but she was telling the truth. Still it doesn’t matter. If he came to Venezuela to board a ship he could have done it just as easily from Maracaibo as here.”
“Easier,” Gallegos said. “There’re more water taxis out of Maracaibo than here.”
“Why did he come here?”
Gallegos shook his head, frustrated. “It’s a moot point. If he wasn’t here to raise a crew, and if he didn’t bring men with him, how could he expect to hijack one of our ships? One man alone could not do it.You can see that, can’t you?”
McGarvey nodded. “Maybe he wasn’t planning on hijacking a ship.”
Gallegos threw up his hands. “What are you talking about now?”
All at once it came to McGarvey. He motioned their waiter for the check. “Graham came here because he was after a specific ship. One that was being assigned a new officer, probably the captain.”
“If he stayed at a hotel his passport would have been checked.”
“He probably killed the captain, got rid of the body, and either switched photos in the passport or altered his appearance.” The waiter brought the bill and McGarvey laid down a twenty, which more than covered it and a good tip. “If a new captain was here to meet his ship, where would he stay?”
“The Internacional,” Gallegos said. “But we were there this afternoon.”
“We only talked to the desk clerk,” McGarvey said. “This time we’re going to talk to the rest of the staff, starting with the bell captain. Someone may have carried the real captain’s bags into the hotel, and Graham’s bags back out. Room service may have brought him a meal. The chambermaid cleaning his room may have seen him. Someone might have noticed something.”
The hotel was less than a block away. They drove over and parked under the canopy in front of the main entrance. “Leave it here, we’ll be just a minute,” Gallegos told the valet.
Inside, they approached the bell station where a young, good-looking man in the blue uniform of a bell captain was reading a newspaper. He looked up with interest, folded the newspaper, and put it away. “Good evening,” he said. “Are you gentlemen checking in?”
“Buenas noches,” McGarvey said. He handed the bell captain Graham’s photograph with a twenty-dollar bill. “Have you seen this man?”
Sudden understanding dawned on the bell captain’s face. “You were here this afternoon, speaking with Mr. Angarita,” he said. He pocketed the money. He looked at the photo and shook his head. “I’m sorry, this man is unfamiliar to me. But if you would care to leave the photo I can ask my staff.”
“That would be helpful,” Gallegos said.
“Do many ship’s officers stay here at the hotel?” McGarvey asked.
“Of course,” the bell captain said. “Often.”
“Any in the past two days?”
The bell captain nodded. “Sí.”
“A captain or a senior officer, maybe?” McGarvey asked. “Someone who stayed the night, and then left for his ship in the morning?”
The bell captain thought for a moment, and then nodded. “There was one.”
“But not this man,” McGarvey said. “Not even a man who might have looked like him, even faintly. Perhaps his shoulders. Maybe his eyes, or the way he walked. Or his manner: pleasant, indifferent, arrogant.”
The bell captain studied the photo again.
“Perhaps there was something different about him,” McGarvey pressed. “Maybe when he checked in he was relaxed, but when he left he was in a hurry, maybe anxious.”
“The Russian captain,” the bell captain said hesitantly. “Something was odd about him, I think.”
McGarvey kept a poker face. He shrugged. “Odd?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
“He was a GAC guest of the hotel two days ago. Stayed only the night. In the morning the Vensport ferry service took him out to his ship by helicopter.”
“Continue,” McGarvey prompted.
“I personally handle most of our VIP guests, so I took his bags up to his suite when he arrived. He tried to tip me, but Mr. Angarita who’d come up with him explained that GAC would take care of everything.”
“Is that common practice?”
“Yes, sir,” the bell captain said. “But Captain Slavin seemed a little embarrassed.”
“So?”
The bell captain looked at the photo again. “In the morning, Manuel took his bags to the helipad on the roof. He said that the captain tipped him and insisted he take it. It was odd, after his embarrassment the evening before.”
“Do you know the name of the ship?” McGarvey asked.
“No, but I can find out,” the bell captain said. He turned to his computer behind the desk and brought up the hotel folio for Slavin’s stay, which included the destination and charge for the helicopter ferry service. “It’s the Apurto Devlán,” he said, looking up. “But Captain Slavin, or whoever he is, will be back.”
“How do you know that?” Gallegos asked, in English for McGarvey’s benefit.
“He checked a large aluminum trunk with us,” the bell captain said.
“Where is it?” McGarvey demanded.
“Right here, in guest storage,” the bell captain said. He opened a door to a small room behind his bell station. Various boxes and pieces of tagged luggage were stacked on metal shelves. An aluminum trunk about the size of a footlocker sat in a corner.
“Evacuate the hotel,” McGarvey ordered.
“What—?” the bell captain sputtered.
“I wouldn’t put it past Graham to leave a little surprise for us,” McGarvey told Gallegos. “If he thought someone might be on his trail it would cover his tracks.”
Gallegos showed the bell captain his CID credentials, and said something to him in rapid-fire Spanish, but the young man backed up and shook his head.
“Get a bomb squad over here on the double,” McGarvey said. He walked back to the main entrance, where he’d spotted a fire alarm. He broke the glass with the little hinged hammer and pulled the lever. Alarms began to blare all through the hotel.
McGarvey and Gallegos stood outside under the canopy, while the police held the majority of the hotel guests and staff behind barriers half a block away. Police units, fire trucks, and ambulances were parked all over the place, their emergency lights flashing. A military bomb disposal squad had been choppered across the lake from Maracaibo within twenty minutes of Gallego’s call to the Zulia State barracks. They’d been inside for nearly a half hour, before the supervisor emerged from the lobby. His Lexan face shield was in the raised position.