Orchid Blues (28 page)

The phone rang, and she snatched it from its cradle. “Hello?”

“It’s Harry.”

“What’s happening?”

“We think that Ham is registered in a hotel under the name of Owen, so I’ve got half a dozen agents phoning every hotel near the beach and checking on that name. We ought to have something by noon.”

“What am I supposed to do until noon?” she asked.

“Anything you like, just keep that scrambled cell phone handy. If you hear from Ham, find out where he is and who the target is and call me back.”

“You have no idea who the target might be?”

“None. Not one of the official schedules—governor, senators, congressmen—shows anything in the city today. I almost wish the target were the president, because that would be easier to handle in a lot of ways. I’ll call you if I hear from Ham first.” He punched out.

Well, the hell with sitting around here all morning, Holly thought. “I’m going to the beach.” She started rummaging in her bag for a swimsuit. Harry had told her to be ready to dress for anything, and she was, with a bikini. She clipped the little cell phone onto her watchband, so she’d be sure to feel it if it went off, grabbed a tote and a towel and headed for the pool, Daisy in tow.

Ham and John were having breakfast together, and John seemed a little off his feed, Ham thought. John had ordered a Bloody Mary with his breakfast, and he looked as though he needed a refill.

“So, tell me more about The Elect,” Ham said, casually, chewing on a piece of toast.

“What do you want to know?” John asked.

“The works: who are we, where are we, how many are we—anything you’d care to tell me.”

“We’re a tightly knit organization with a couple of dozen branches in nearly as many states—three here in Florida.”

“Oh? Where?”

“Well, you know Lake Winachobee, then there’s Tampa and Fort Lauderdale.”

“How many members nationwide?”

“Nearly three thousand.”

“Wow, it’s amazing that you could get so much done with so few people.”

“If you have the right three thousand, you can move the earth.”

“I guess we’re going to move it a little today, huh?”

“You are, Ham. You’re going to do it all by yourself.”

“I won’t disappoint you, John. By the way, Peck told me about the bank job in Orchid Beach.” This was a lie, but it was worth trying. “Wasn’t that a little close to home?”

“You’re damn right it was,” John said, angrily. “One of Peck’s people killed somebody, and for his trouble, he got a bullet in the brain.”

“Why did Peck let that happen?”

“Peck wouldn’t go on the job himself. That was one of the things that made me start suspecting him.”

“Well, at least you raised some money.”

“And another thing,” John said. “We had this guy planted in the bank on an entirely separate operation, and after the robbery, he panicked and ran.”

“I think I read about that in the paper. Was that the couple found in their car in the Indian River?”

“Right, and we never found the money they were stealing for us. Another job screwed up by Peck.” John looked thoughtful. “You know, with Peck out of the picture, someone is going to have to run Winachobee. Would you like the job?”

“You think I’m right for it?”

“Oh, I think you’re right for bigger things than Winachobee, but you’ve got to start somewhere.”

“Sounds good to me, John.”

“Starting today, you’re going to be learning a lot more about the organization,” John said. “And after today, you’re going to be a hero in the group.”

“Hold it right there,” Ham said. “Who knows I’m pulling the trigger today?”

“Only the board. That’s who I was referring to.”

“Do they already know who I am?”

“Yes.”

“Make sure nobody else knows.”

“I understand your concern, Ham, and I’ll do that.”

“One more thing,” Ham said.

“What’s that?”

“Who am I killing today?”

“I don’t believe it,” Harry said. “Not a single Owen in any hotel in Miami Beach?”

“There was an Elizabeth Owen in one, but that didn’t pan out. We’ve called them all,” Doug said. “They all have a search engine on their computers, so it only takes them a few seconds to find out. What are we going to do?”

Harry looked at his watch; it was nearly noon. “We’re going to hope to God we hear from Ham,” he said.

Holly was stretched languidly on a chaise by the Delano’s pool, watching the young go by, when her wrist suddenly vibrated.

She sat up and grabbed the phone. “Ham?”

“One and the same,” he drawled. “Don’t talk, listen: I’m in a hotel called the Savoy, room two-ten. I’m to start shooting in an hour or so, maybe sooner.”

“Who’s the target?” she asked.

“You’re not going to—” Ham stopped talking.

“Ham?”

Silence.

“Ham, talk to me!”

Nothing.

Holly grabbed her stuff and started running. “Come on, Daisy,” she yelled.

Sixty

HOLLY HIT THE DELANO LOBBY STILL RUNNING. People stared at her as she impatiently banged on the elevator button. She finally made it to her room, threw on a skirt and a T-shirt over her bikini, stuck her feet into her sneakers, grabbed her phone, purse, weapon, badge and Daisy and started running again, punching numbers into the cell phone. Harry’s line was busy.

Ham set the tripod up at the bedroom window, which was perpendicular to the street, rather than parallel. John watched him in silence. Ham was still breathing hard from the fright John had given him when he came unexpectedly out of the bathroom while Ham was on the phone to Holly. He had told her what he could, but not the target’s name, which he had not had time to speak.

John moved to the window. “There,” he said, pointing. “The car will slow as it turns into the drive of the Berkeley Hotel, and that’s your moment. The car will begin its turn, and the rear window will face you for that split second. That’s when you fire. You agree?”

“I agree,” Ham said. “It’s perfect, like you said. And look at the palms: no wind; dead calm. We couldn’t ask for more.”

Ham pulled the curtains nearly shut, then fixed the Barrett’s rifle to the tripod. Then he emptied all of the ammunition clips onto the bed.

“What are you doing?” John asked.

Ham got a pair of latex gloves from his bag and slipped them on. “I’m going to wipe every round, every shell casing clean of prints, then the rifle.” He gave John another pair of the surgical gloves. “Put these on and start wiping down the whole room, everything from the phone to the flusher on the john, and I mean
everything.
I am
not
going to get caught doing this, now or later.”

“Good man,” John said, pulling on the gloves. “And I guarantee you, Ham, you won’t get caught. Steps have been taken.”

“I think it’s time you started telling me about those steps,” Ham said.

“Okay, here’s how it goes: We’re ready to move, so when you fire, we don’t stay around to gloat. We go directly to the fire stairs, leaving the rifle here, but taking our personal stuff. You’re wearing your disguise, of course. A van will be waiting for us where the fire stairs end in the rear parking lot, where the restaurant garbage is collected. The van takes us straight to Opa-Locka, and we fly out of here, back to Winachobee.”

“Sounds good.” He went to the window, and as he looked out, he saw a flash from a hotel room window across the street. John’s binoculars were lying on the bed; he picked them up and trained them on the window. What he saw froze his blood.

Holly elbowed another woman out of the way and leapt into a cab. “Hotel Savoy,” she said to the driver. “You know it?”

“Sure,” said the driver laconically. “I can be there in fifteen minutes, but no dogs.”

She showed him her badge. “It’s a police dog. Stand on it; I want to be there in five.”

“Look lady,” the driver said, “I don’t care if you show me a badge. I’m not losing my license for you, and I told you, no dogs.”

“You want me to show you my gun?”

“Yeah, sure.” He chuckled.

“Daisy, get in the front seat.”

Daisy hopped lightly into the passenger seat.

“Guard.”

Daisy made a low growling noise and showed her teeth.

The man froze. “You get that dog out of my car!”

Holly got out on the driver’s side, opened his door, grabbed him by the belt and yanked him into the street. She got in, slammed the car into gear, went about ten feet and stopped. “Back seat, Daisy.” She put the car in reverse and backed up swiftly to the stunned driver, who had gotten to his feet. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “Where’s the Savoy?” she demanded. “And be quick about it.”

Ham suddenly realized that he was about to be awarded the Lee Harvey Oswald Memorial Prize. What he saw through the binoculars was another set of hotel room curtains, across the street, drawn to leave a gap of a foot like his and, like his, with the muzzle of a Barrett’s rifle just visible. And it was pointed directly at his own window.

Harry’s line was still busy. Holly had reached eighty miles an hour on the boulevard, her emergency lights flashing, one hand on the horn. Hotels were flashing by her window at an alarming rate, and in the distance, she saw a building of, perhaps, fifteen stories, and high atop it was a neon sign reading Savoy. “Yes!” she said. Then a car ahead of her stu pidly swung into her lane. She heard the crunch of metal on metal.

Ham, looking down the boulevard, saw a taxi, moving fast, swing into oncoming traffic, leaving a fender attached to another car, then swing two lanes to the right to get around a UPS truck, then move back into the left lane, horn blaring, lights flashing. A block behind it, a police car had turned on its flashers and was giving chase. Still farther down the boulevard, the street was empty. Something had stopped traffic. As the taxi made a wide turn into the Savoy, Ham looked a quarter of a mile up the empty street and saw a dozen sets of flashing lights, led by a platoon of motorcycles. In the midst of them was a long, black limousine, with flags flying from its front fenders.

“The time is now, Ham,” John said.

Ham turned and looked at him. He was standing as far away as he could get, sweating as if air conditioning had never been invented, and he was holding a 9mm semiautomatic pistol in his hand, pointed at Ham.

“You think you need a gun to get me to do this?” Ham asked.

He turned back to the window, grabbed the Bar rett’s rifle, smacked a clip home and sighted through the scope, his finger resting lightly on the trigger. This was going to make a mess; he hoped no innocent bystanders would get hurt, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about it.

Holly abandoned the taxi under the portico of the Savoy, and, with Daisy running by her side, sprinted through the lobby, ignoring the elevator and racing up the stairs, two at a time, her weapon in her hand.

“Halt, police!” A man screamed at her from somewhere behind. She ignored him and turned a corner. At the top of the stairs she began running, checking room numbers. She was at two-fifty when the cop yelled at her again.