Home Sweet Motel

by Chris Grabenstein

  The Sneemers were going to spend the night in jail.

  That meant Gloria and I officially had first dibs on Smilin’ Sam!

  We raced back to the Wonderland.

  “This is our chance,” I said to Gloria. “We can cut the Muffler Man open while the Sneemer brothers spend the night in jail!”

  “What cuts through fiberglass?”

  “A drill, maybe. Or a jigsaw. Grandpa has a bunch of power tools in his workshop.”

  It was nearly midnight. Most of the motel was dark, except for the neon sign out front. Its glowing No Vacancy tubes were throbbing green.

  We made our way into Grandpa’s workshop. I could hear him snore-whistle-snoring up in his sleeping loft. I quietly grabbed a cordless drill with a one-inch-wide bit, a jigsaw with a jagged blade, a hammer, and a crowbar.

  I figured one of them ought to do the job.

  We tiptoed out of the workshop and crept to the Smilin’ Sam statue. Fortunately, Mom goes to sleep every night at eleven—usually at her desk…over a pile of bills. Gloria tells me Mr. Ortega goes to bed even earlier, because he has to get up at five o’clock on a regular basis to do that morning newscast.

  Gloria crouched down and examined every inch of the giant statue’s boots and legs. “I don’t see anything that looks like a patched-over hole. This may not be where Sheila hid the jewels.”

  “It has to be!” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because this story needs a happy ending.”

  “Um, P.T., you can’t just make up stuff and have life magically turn out the way you want it to.”

  “I can try!”

  I powered on the whirring drill. It whined worse than the one at the dentist.

  “Can you also try to keep quiet?”

  “Sorry. This drill doesn’t have a silencer.”

  “Well, work fast! Start with the boots.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if Sheila ‘Boom-Boom’ Bailey was planning a grab-and-go, she wouldn’t hide them too high.”

  “Good point. I’ll drill a hole in the heel of his left boot. Once I do, I can slip in the jigsaw blade and slice out a circle of plastic big enough for us to poke a head through.”

  Fact: no kid should ever try anything this crazy at home without adult supervision—unless, of course, they have a motel to save.

  It felt like we were doing shoe repair on an overgrown action figure. The blade kept bouncing around, thumping loudly. Finally, after my sweaty shirt was coated with chunky white sawdust, I punched out a huge slab of fiberglass from the back of Smilin’ Sam’s left work boot.

  I flipped on my smartphone flashlight app and stuck my head inside. I searched the bottom first.

  “See anything?” asked Gloria, her voice sounding muffled through the quarter-inch-thick molded walls.

  “No,” I answered. My voice echoed like crazy inside the statue. “I’m going to twist around, check out his shin and stuff. When Sheila hid the jewels, she might’ve taped them to the interior walls.”

  “You think the tape would stay stuck after all these years?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure. But if I don’t find anything on the inside of this leg, I’ll drill into the other boot. If we come up empty again, we’ll grab a ladder and cut open his butt and—”

  “Oh, no you won’t, young man,” said a voice on the other side of the fiberglass that didn’t sound at all like Gloria’s.

  Because it belonged to my mother.

  I popped my head out of the boot hole.

  “Hi, Mom. Beautiful night, huh?”

  My mother was sort of scowling at me. I tried to swipe all the white speckles off my shirt. No luck. They were sweat-glued in place.

  “P.T., what exactly are you doing?”

  I held up my drill. “Digging for buried treasure!”

  “Inside Smilin’ Sam?”

  “Exactly! You see, Gloria and I have reason to suspect that a team of notorious jewel thieves stashed the loot they stole in the infamous Miami Palm Tree Hotel heist right here inside this very statue. You ever hear of the Miami Palm Tree Hotel?”

  My mother shook her head and closed her eyes—the way she does when she’s disappointed in me or something I’ve done.

  “Oh, it was quite the swinging hot spot,” I said, pouring on the razzle-dazzle. “Swanky. Sophisticated. Posh. Nobody but rich and famous people could afford to stay there. And, as you might imagine, they all wore jewelry!”

  Mom stared at me like I was an alien.

  “Anyway, the Sneemer brothers,” I said as fast as I could, “also known as Bob and Johnny Jones, and their mutual girlfriend, Sheila ‘Boom-Boom’ Bailey…”

  “ ‘Boom-Boom’?” said Mom.

  “She was Grandpa’s blond angel! Anyway, Sheila hid the diamonds and emeralds the Sneemer brothers stole from the hotel safe inside this statue. She said so in two postcards she sent to the brothers from Walt Wilkie’s Wonder World! I’ve seen the postcards!”

  “P.T.? Is this another one of your stories?”

  “No, Mom. Gloria and I just saved the motel! There’s a ginormous one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar reward for whoever finds the stolen jewelry. That’s more money than we need to pay off the balloon loan. Our troubles are over! This is the truth. I swear.”

  Mom shook her head again. “The truth? You spend so much time in your make-believe worlds I wonder if you even know what the truth is anymore.”

  Wow.

  Not at all what I was going for. I was hoping for more of a “you’re my hero” type of vibe.

  “What’s with all the drilling and hacking and sawing?” Grandpa, in his plaid bathrobe, joined us at the base of Smilin’ Sam. “Oh, no. What happened here?”

  He’d just seen the gaping hole I’d cut into the back of the boot.

  “His feet were sweaty and they needed to breathe a little?” Yes, I was trying to joke my way out of this mess. But no one was laughing. Not even me.

  “Ms. Wilkie?” said Gloria. “Mr. Wilkie? P.T. and I were following up on a very reliable tip that suggested we would, indeed, find five million dollars’ worth of jewelry—stolen from the vaults of the Miami Palm Tree Hotel in 1973—hidden here inside this large, hollow Muffler Man.”

  “Nineteen seventy-three?” said Grandpa. He dusted away the fiberglass sawdust that had showered onto the statue’s base. “Smilin’ Sam didn’t join us till 1976.”

  With the base dusted off, I could see a small plaque: “Installed 1976.”

  In other words, three years after Sheila Bailey had been a guest at Walt Wilkie’s Wonder World.

  “Hey, knock it off down there,” someone shouted from the second floor. “We’re trying to sleep!”

  “Sorry,” said Grandpa with a weak wave.

  Maybe I’d gotten everything totally wrong. Maybe Sheila had never even hidden the jewels on our property. Maybe she’d stashed them in a locker at the St. Pete bus station. Maybe she’d buried them under a stack of pancakes at the IHOP.

  Fact: that thing they say about looking before you leap? It also applies to cutting open fiberglass statuary.

  “Sam was a big part of our bicentennial celebration,” Grandpa continued, sounding wistful. “Disney World had their America on Parade celebration for the country’s two hundredth birthday. Dozens of floats. Hundreds of character performers. The whole thing lasted half an hour. Me? I had Smilin’ Sam. I put a giant Betsy Ross–style flag in his hands. Your grandmother, may she rest in peace, made him an Uncle Sam hat out of cardboard boxes. When it rained, she made him another one. Together, we painted Sam up with stars and stripes. Then we propped a battery-powered cassette deck behind him on his pedestal. It played a loop of fife-and-drum music. Very patriotic. Sometimes, at night, we lit sparklers.”

  Grandpa’s eyes were misty.

  “Millions of people watched that big bicentennial parade over at Disney World. A couple dozen took snapshots here with Sam.”

  “And,” said Mom, “we were going to
sell this statue to a used-car dealer up in New Jersey.”

  Suddenly, my mouth was super dry. “You were?”

  “Yes. Look, you guys have been a huge help, but to pay off the loan, we need to raise money every way we can. Even if it means selling off a few of our favorite things.”

  Gloria nodded. “Prudent move. Liquidate assets to stabilize cash flow and build up monetary reserves. How much were you offered for Smilin’ Sam?”

  “One thousand dollars,” said Mom with her saddest sigh yet. “Now we’ll be lucky if we get one hundred for it.”

  “That’s our big plan, kiddos,” said Grandpa. “Sell off the statues and knickknacks. Raise enough cash to pay off that balloon loan.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “So am I,” said Mom. “Good night, everybody.”

  She walked away.

  I turned to Grandpa.

  He was already shuffling back to his workshop bedroom. “Tomorrow’s another day,” he said without his usual zip. “Let’s just hope it’s better than today.”

  “I should head upstairs,” said Gloria. “My dad might be wondering where I am. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow, P.T.”

  Watching her slump away, I could tell Gloria was feeling pretty low, too.

  But here’s another fact: I felt worse than anybody.

  The next morning, I was still feeling miserable.

  Mom didn’t even talk to me when we split our grapefruit for breakfast. We both just sat there, silently squirting ourselves in the eye.

  Then things got worse.

  Somebody bopped the bell out in the lobby. Mom stood up like a zombie and trudged out of our kitchenette. She didn’t sigh or mutter anything about having to be the only grown-up at the motel. She just said, “Coming.”

  Since our unit was right off the lobby, I could hear what was going on out there, because Zombie Mom left the door open.

  “May I help you, sir?” she asked.

  “I surely hope so,” boomed a big, jolly voice. “My name is Big Irv. I am a private investigator. My friends call me B.I. the P.I.” He chuckled. “Eh, heh, heh, heh.”

  Mom didn’t chuckle back.

  “That’s nice,” she said in a monotone.

  “Ma’am, I am currently working for the Amalgamated Insurance Company down in Miami.”

  “And what brings you up to St. Petersburg?”

  “I’m looking for these two gentlemen. Stanley and Sidney Sneemer. A waitress over at the IHOP told me they might be staying here at the Wonderland.”

  I more or less leapt up from the table and dashed out to the lobby.

  “You mean Bob and Johnny Jones?” said Mom. She was looking at the photographs Big Irv had just shoved across the counter at her.

  I, on the other hand, was looking at Big Irv. His name fit. The guy was a giant. A big bear in a business suit. He was so tall it was amazing that he could reach to comb his hair.

  “You’re the guy investigating the 1973 jewel heist at the Miami Palm Tree Hotel!” I blurted out without thinking (another of my many amazing talents).

  “That’s right,” said Big Irv. “What do you know about that, little man?”

  I thought fast. Okay, I just thought. But that was a major improvement over blurting.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just, you know, what I’ve seen on TV. Is there still a one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar reward for whoever finds the missing jewels? I mean, the burglary took place over forty years ago.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Big Irv. “The insurance company is still interested in recovering the stolen goods and recouping their losses. Why do you think I’m up here looking for these two old jailbirds?”

  Mom had one eyebrow up quizzically. I think her face was trying to say, Were you actually telling me the truth last night, P.T.?

  “Wait a second,” she said to Big Irv. “The Jones brothers are jailbirds?”

  “ ‘Jones’ is just an alias they use, ma’am. Sidney and Stanley Sneemer are violent and dangerous felons. They might even be psychotic. They both kept getting extra time added to their prison terms because they didn’t play well with others while incarcerated. Then, after forty-some years, they’re both finally released—from separate prisons, mind you—for a burglary they committed way back in 1973. A burglary for which the stolen items have never been recovered. And where’s the first place they both go when they get out of jail?” He tapped the counter with his wedding ring. “Here. The Wonderland Motel on St. Pete Beach. I see this activity and I have to ask myself one question: Why?”

  “Well, we have some very nice amenities,” I offered. “For instance, there’s free doughnuts and coffee every morning.”

  “I’m sure you folks run a mighty fine motel, little man. But I have a hunch that the Sneemer brothers didn’t come here for the doughnuts or the coffee. I think way back in 1973 their lady friend, Sheila Bailey, stashed their loot somewhere here on the grounds.”

  “That’s what P.T. thought!”

  Yep. Mom sometimes blurts without thinking, too.

  “I did see the two old guys eyeballing Smilin’ Sam. I guess it’s possible Sheila Bailey could’ve stashed the loot inside one of his boots!” I said.

  Big Irv put his hands on his hips and glared at me, Frumpkes-style, but with a twinkle in his eye. “And who, exactly, is this Smilin’ Sam, little man?”

  “Smilin’ Sam is one of our oversized decorative pieces,” explained Mom. “Well, it used to be one of ours. It’s about to belong to the Roadside Americana Auction Company. They’ve found it a new home in a used-car dealer’s parking lot.”

  “Did you get a good price?” I asked Mom.

  “Better than I thought we would with the damage. Five hundred dollars.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Mom actually smiled. “I’ll take the difference out of your allowance.”

  “Um, I don’t actually get an allowance.”

  Big Irv cleared his throat. “Don’t mean to interrupt whatever it is you two are talking about…”

  “Family stuff,” I said. “But you want to talk about that other family, the Sneemer brothers, and where Sheila ‘Boom-Boom’ Bailey stashed their loot, am I right?”

  All of a sudden, I sounded like a tough guy in one of those black-and-white gangster movies Grandpa and I sometimes watch on rainy Saturday afternoons. That was why Mom was now arching her other eyebrow at me.

  “Eh, heh, heh, heh,” chuckled Big Irv. “What do you know about all that, little man?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “But you think Sheila stashed the stolen jewelry in this Smilin’ Sam statue?”

  “I didn’t actually say that.”

  Big Irv gave me his big grin. “You didn’t have to say it, little man.” He tapped his temple. “I figured it out all by myself.”

  “Yeah,” I said, letting Big Irv make his bed so he could lie in it later. “I guess you did.”

  “So tell me more.”

  “About what?” I asked. “Our other amenities? There’s salon-quality shampoo in—”

  “Smilin’ Sam!”

  “Oh. Okay. He’s a big, hollow Muffler Man statue that, once upon a time, my grandfather painted up to look like Uncle Sam for the Fourth of July.”

  “And the Sneemer brothers seemed interested in this particular piece?”

  “Yes, sir. Maybe they just like mufflers, even though he’s not actually holding one anymore. He just sort of stands there, empty-handed.”

  “Or maybe,” said Big Irv, “the two brothers know that their accomplice, Miss Sheila Bailey, hid the stolen jewels inside your hollow statue.”

  “No,” I said. “They didn’t mention anything about jewelry.”

  “Of course they didn’t,” said Big Irv with a smile that looked like a smirk. He turned to Mom. “Ma’am? I’ll write you a check for five thousand dollars—right here, right now—if you sell that Smilin’ Sam statue to me instead of the auction company. The used-car dealer can get
one of those AirDancer balloons with the floppy bodies.”

  “Oh, you really don’t want to waste your money,” said Mom.

  Time for me to hop in. “Wait a second, Mr. Irv. Do you think the bad guys hid their stolen jewelry inside our statue?”

  Big Irv pulled out a checkbook. “I don’t think I should tell you what I think, little man.”

  “But,” I said, “if you find the stolen items, you’ll give us our finder’s fee because we gave you a good lead, right? One percent of the one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar reward. That’s fifteen hundred dollars.”

  “Heh, heh, heh. Has somebody been talking with Amalgamated Insurance?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell you what, little man—I’ll give you your finder’s fee right now, before anybody actually finds anything, because Big Irv has a big heart.” He ripped out the check he’d been writing and started writing another one. “Here you go, Ms. Wilkie. Six thousand, five hundred dollars.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  “Stop thinking, ma’am. Try being smart instead.”

  Oooh.

  Mom did not like it when Big Irv (or anybody) said something like that. I could tell by how narrow and crinkly her eyes got all of a sudden.

  Then she smiled. Took the check. “Why, thank you, Mr. Irv. Smilin’ Sam is all yours.”

  “Good. I need to make a few calls, organize a truck and a crew of movers….”

  “You do that,” I said. “Drag Smilin’ Sam out of here and cut him open! He’s right behind the Putt-Putt golf course. You can’t miss him. He’s almost as tall as you.”

  The private investigator rubbed his hands together and hurried out of the office. “Thanks, folks. Pleasure doing business with you.”

  As he bustled out the lobby door, Gloria strolled in.

  “Who’s he?” she asked.

  “A big jerk,” said Mom.

  “Better known as Big Irv,” I added.

  “The private investigator working for the insurance company?” asked Gloria.

  “Yep.”

  “How come you two know so much about all of this?” asked Mom.