Orchid Blues

"You miserable son of a bitch!"

"I'll let you know when I'm going to be in Miami, Harry, probably on short notice. Bye, now." Chip hung up.

Ham arrived back at Peck's house for lunch, just as the meeting in Peck's study was breaking up. Ham went to the john and washed his hands, and when he came out, John was waiting for him.

"Come with me, Ham," he said.

Ham followed him to the cellar, down a hall and into a room equipped as some sort of workshop, where a man wearing a loupe attached to his eyeglasses was working on something, bending close over a workbench.

The man looked up. "Hey, John," he said, "this our guy?"

"It is. Ham, meet Dave, the best document forger in the business. Dave also designs our private currency, which you've seen."

Ham shook the man's hand, and Dave didn't let go immediately. He peered closely at Ham's face. "Good tan," he said. "I'd have preferred to provide that, myself." Ham had no idea what the man was talking about.

"Come on, Dave, just get it done."

"Well, as I understand it, we don't have time for surgery, so I'll just have to wing it."

"I always enjoy watching this," John said.

"Let's see, graying hair, but darker eyebrows. I think I'll go for a darker mustache, but with some gray in it, and heavier eyebrows." He went to his workbench, opened a large briefcase and began rummaging in it. "Here we go," Dave said. "Stand here, under the light, Ham."

Ham moved as he was directed to.

Dave picked up an eyebrow with a pair of tweezers, painted something on the back and glued it over Ham's own right eyebrow, then he repeated the process with the left one. "Yeah, this is going to work," he said. He went back to the briefcase and came back with a mustache that matched the eyebrows. After a moment, Ham was a different man.

Ham looked at himself in a mirror. "Damn," he said. "Goodlooking guy."

"Let's try these, too," Dave said, picking up a pair of heavy, black-rimmed glasses. "You wear glasses, Ham?"

"Just for reading."

"What magnification?"

"Two."

"I can handle that," Dave said, going to a different briefcase and fishing out a pair of lenses. He removed the original lenses and snapped in the new ones. "Nice pair of bifocals," he said, putting the glasses on Ham. "Plain glass at the top, reading glasses at the bottom. How do they feel?"

"Loose," Ham said.

Dave made some adjustments, then returned the glasses to Ham.

Ham put them on and looked in the mirror. He would not have recognized himself, he thought.

"How's that, John?"

"Perfect, Dave."

"Okay, Ham, let's take a couple of pictures of you." He opened a folding screen and stood Ham in front of it. "We got a nice passport-model Polaroid camera here, makes four prints simultaneously." He took the picture, then handed Ham a shirt. "Put this on, and we'll take another."

Ham did as he was told, and his picture was taken again.

"This is all for your protection, Ham," John said. "We don't want anyone who gets a look at you to give an accurate description. We'll get you a hat, too." He began to look through a stack of hats on a table nearby.

"And a cigar is a good idea," Dave said. "Distorts the face."

"Hate'em," Ham said.

"We won't bother with that," John said, picking out a businesslike straw hat and placing it on Ham's head. "Look, his own mother wouldn't recognize him. You own a suit, Ham?"

"Yes, back at my place."

"I'll send somebody over there to pick it up for you. Let me have a key."

Ham unhooked his house key from a ring and handed it to John.

''We'll burn it after you wear it," John said. "I'll spring for a new one, though."

"I've only got one, and I was thinking of burning it, anyway," Ham said.

Everybody laughed.

54

Holly was visiting Harry's place after di

"May I have reservations, please," he said. "Hello? My name…Owen…I'd like to confirm a reservation I made recently… nights, arriving tomorrow, departing Tuesday morning. No-smoking, that's correct, and I'm on the beach side of the hotel?… floor will be fine. Yes, I understand there won't be an ocean view, but I'll be working too hard to enjoy it, anyway… see you tomorrow.'' He hung up, then he could be heard moving around the room, but he didn't speak and no one entered the room.

"Damn, Eddie, can't you do anything about that reception?"

"No, Harry, it's somewhere between here and a satellite a few hundred miles up."

Harry wrote down the name Owen. "I wonder if that's his real name," he said.

"I doubt it," Doug replied. "The guy's probably got a dozen or more aliases. I think Alton Charlesworth is as close as we're going to get without prints. Even if we ran them, we'd find a CIA hold on the record."

"You're probably right," Harry said.

Then there were two voices in the room. "Hey," Peck's voice said. "We all set on paperwork?"

"Dave's working on it now. We took the photographs, and they look great. He'll have everything ready before he goes to bed tonight. Has Ham turned in?"

"Yeah, he left a few minutes ago."

"Does he still have the jeep?"

"No, I've got it."

"Let me have the keys. I want to take a drive out to the strip and make sure the machine is ready."

"I took care of the list you gave me," Peck said.

John's voice took on a new tone. "Peck, are you carrying your cell phone?"

"Yeah, sure. I always do."

"Make any calls today?"

"No."

"Let me have it, will you?"

"Sure, here. I'd like it back tomorrow."

"I know you would, but I may need it more than you."

"Whatever you say, John." Peck sounded abashed.

"Good night."

"Good night, John."

The door could be heard to close, then a television came on.

"He's listening to the Weather Cha

"It's near a beach," Doug replied.

"Like half the hotels in Florida."

Ham woke up the following morning to find himself alone. When he had returned to the bunkhouse the night before, his companions and their luggage had gone.

"Hello!" a voice called from outside.

"Yeah, hello!" Ham called back.

A young man Ham had never seen before came into the barracks carrying a cooler. "Breakfast," he said.

"Breakfast in bed?"

"If that's where you want it," the young man replied. "It's all there, what you usually have. John said to tell you you're to stay here this morning, until he sends for you."

"Something special about Saturday mornings?" Ham asked.

"Just the gun show. But you're confined to barracks until further notice." He smiled, waved and left.

Ham opened the cooler to find hot scrambled eggs and sausage, juice and a Thermos of coffee. He ate breakfast slowly, then showered and shaved and lay back down on his bunk in his shorts. He had nothing to read, no television to watch. He was bored. Then he noticed his blue suit hanging on a hook near the door. Someone must have put it there during the night, he thought. He decided to go back to sleep.

Harry was eating breakfast when Eddie waved at him and turned up the volume on the radio. Lake Winachobee was on the air again.

"Good morning," John's voice said. "This is November one, two, three, tango foxtrot. Would you please brief me for an IFR flight from Vero Beach to Miami, Opa-Locka, departing at seven p.m. local? I'll go low, six thousand." There was a wait as John listened to the forecast. "I'll file," he said, finally. "IFR, November one, two, three, tango foxtrot; I'm a PA forty-six stroke golf, departing Vero Beach at seven p.m. local, at six thousand. My route of flight will be Palm Beach, direct; destination is Opa-Locka; time en route, one hour. I have two and one-half hours of fuel. My name is John Wills, based Vero Beach, my phone number is (561) 555-0022. The airplane is white over gray; there will be four souls aboard. Under comments, note that I'll take off VFR and pick up my clearance in the air. Thanks, goodbye." He hung up and apparently left the room.