Orchid Blues

"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," he 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 stu

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 stupidly 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 Barrett'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 i

Holly abandoned the taxi under the portico of the Savoy, and, with Daisy ru

"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 ru

"I'm on the job!" she shouted over her shoulder. "I'm a cop! Follow me!"

Ham drew a fine bead on his target. It was a perfect setup: no wind, clear air, prominent target. Steady as a rock, he took a deep breath, let out half of it and squeezed off the round. A second later, the sound of an explosion could be heard.

"Did you score?" John yelled, keeping his back hard against the wall.

Ham smiled and stepped back. "See for yourself," he said. "Don't worry, nobody's going to shoot back at us."

John reached the window, and his eyes grew large.

Across the street, a couple of hundred yards away, dead level with Ham's window, smoke and flame poured out of another hotel room, where the other Barrett's rifle had been set up. In the street, the motorcade, instead of stopping, had picked up speed and was tearing up the boulevard at a great rate of knots.

Then their attention turned to the door of the room, from which a loud noise had just erupted. John seemed frozen in place. Ham reached over and plucked the pistol from his hand, and at that moment, Holly and a uniformed Miami police officer both exploded into the room, yelling, "Freeze!"

John threw his hands into the air, and Ham turned and smiled at Holly. Then the police officer shot Ham in the chest.

61

Holly swung her pistol hard into the cop's face, before he could fire again. He fell to the floor, clutching his nose and yelling. Daisy was at his throat.

"Daisy, release!" She grabbed the cop's pistol from his hand and threw it across the room. "That man is with me!" she screamed at him, then she ran to Ham's aid.

John sprinted past her and was out the door. Daisy was still straddling the cop, baring her teeth.

Holly let him go and bent over Ham. "I'm so sorry," she said. "Can you talk?"

Ham nodded. "See if it went through," he gasped.

Holly rolled him on his side. There was an exit wound high on his right shoulder. "Yes," she said.

"Is there a lot of blood?"

"A fair amount."

"Then you go get John. He's on the way to Opa-Locka. He flies a Malibu, tail number one, two, three, tango foxtrot. If he gets to that airplane, he's gone. He could make Mexico."

"I'm going to stay with you," she said.

"Do what I tell you, girl. I'm going to be fine, trust me. It's not the first time I've been shot."

"All right, then." She kissed him on the forehead, then ran to where the cop sat on the floor, blood streaming from his nose. She snatched the radio microphone from where it was clipped to his shirt and pressed the button. "Officer needs assistance at the Savoy Hotel, room two-ten. Second man down with a gunshot wound to the chest, needs an ambulance, alert the nearest trauma center. Got that?"

"Got it," the operator replied. "Who are you?"

Holly handed the stu

"Let's go, Daisy!"