Stuart Woods - Blood Orchid

“What was that?” one of the men said.

“What?”

“I heard something, like a little bell.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Shut up and listen.” Both men were quiet for a minute.

Holly had stopped moving, afraid of making even a tiny noise. Her left hand had fallen across a trail of ants, and now they began to bite. She rubbed her arm as much as she dared to get them off.

“I swear to God I heard a little bell-like thing,” the first man said.

“Do you hear it now?” his companion asked.

“No.”

“Do you hear angels singing?”

“What?”

“If you do, it’s because I’m about to kill you if you don’t start unloading again.”

“Oh, all right, here-take this one.” The normal noises of moving the luggage resumed.

Holly began to crawl toward Daisy again, rubbing her arm against her clothes to kill the ants, who were stinging like crazy now. “Stay, Daisy,” she whispered as she crawled past the dog, putting yardage between herself and the van, moving the heavy briefcase before her.

She moved another five yards before she chanced a look over her shoulder. The van was no longer visible. She got to her knees and signaled Daisy to come. The dog trotted to her, dragging her leash, which made noise.

Holly hugged the dog, catching her breath, then took her leash in one hand, the briefcase in the other, and, in a crouch, put some more distance between herself and the van.

Finally, when she reckoned she was sixty or seventy yards away, in deep woods, she stopped. She lay the briefcase on its side and reached into her pocket for a miniature Swiss army knife she always carried.

She opened the large blade and slit the duct tape, then holding a hand over each, opened the latches. She raised the lid and looked inside.

“Good God,” she said.

Holly stared at the money. There were rows of it, bound with rubber bands, twelve across and eight down-she lifted several stacks and counted-stacked six deep, all hundred-dollar bills. She quickly counted one stack. One hundred hundred-dollar bills-ten thousand dollars. She did the math: the case held five million, seven hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

Holly sat down and took a deep breath. She had never had her hands on so much money. For a moment she entertained the thought that she was a thief, stealing from bad people who deserved it, but she shook that off. She got up and, lugging the case, began to make her way back toward the golf course, following a slightly different route, so as not to beat down a trail that might be noticed later.

When she caught sight of the golf course through the trees, she stopped and looked around. She didn’t want all that money in the house with her; she needed to hide it. She was standing in a grove of live oaks, dripping Spanish moss, none of them more than about twenty-five feet high.

She looked closely at a number of them, then chose one, hoisting the case onto a low limb and climbing up to it. She repeated the process until she was a good fifteen feet off the ground, where she found an ideal cradle for the case-two stout limbs, one growing out of the other, making a fork-at just the right angle from the trunk. She hoisted the case up and wedged it tightly between the two limbs. A hurricane wouldn’t move it, she reckoned. And nobody ever looked up.

She climbed back down the tree, brushed the woods off her clothes, collected Daisy, and started toward the guest house. She waited before crossing the road to be sure no one could see her leaving the woods, then she and Daisy ran onto the golf course again. The man mowing the green was gone; they had the expanse of green grass to themselves. Holly found a stick and spent a few minutes tossing it for Daisy, who loved to retrieve, then she started back toward the house, thinking about what to do next.

When she arrived at the house there was a car parked out front. She walked into the living room to find Ed Shine and Willard Smith waiting for her. Daisy ran over to Ed and greeted him with a nuzzle.

“Hi,” Ed said. “We just dropped by to see if you’d have dinner at the club with a bunch of us tonight.”

“Sure,” Holly said, thinking fast. “Do you mind if I invite my friend Grant to join us? I sort of had a date with him tonight.”

Ed hesitated for only a moment. “We’d be delighted to have him. Shall I pick you up at eight?”

“I’ll call Grant and get him to pick me up.”

“Go ahead,” Ed said. He didn’t move from his seat.

Holly picked up the phone, dialed nine for an outside line, then Grant’s number.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi, it’s Holly,” she said brightly. “Listen, instead of our going out tonight, how about we have dinner at Blood Orchid? Ed Shine has invited us to join him and a friend, Willard Smith.” She hoped he’d pick up on the name.

“Yeah, that sounds great.”

“Good. Pick me up at the guest cottage at seven-thirty?”

“Okay, see you then.”

Holly hung up. “All set,” she said to Ed. “Can I get you guys a drink?”

Ed stood up. “No, thanks. We’ll see you at eight, then?”

“You bet.”

“I’ll let the gate know Grant is coming.” The two men left. Holly went out to the back patio and called Grant on her cellphone, which was still chiming its low-battery news.

“Hi, it’s Grant,” the recording said. “Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.”

“It’s Holly. Will you bring the battery charger for my cellphone with you tonight? It’s on the bedside table. I have a lot to tell you; I couldn’t talk freely before.” She punched off and went back inside, suddenly tired. She fed Daisy and stretched out on the sofa for a nap.

Holly was awakened by a knock on the door, then Grant’s voice: “Hello? Anybody home?”

“Grant?” she said, sitting up. “Come in. My God, I’ve been asleep all this time. I’ve got to get dressed. Fix yourself a drink.” She went into the bedroom and quickly changed her clothes and freshened up, then returned to the living room.

Grant handed her a drink, but she refused it. “I don’t think we have time,” she said. “Let’s get going.”

As soon as they were in the car, Holly began talking, rapid-fire. “It’s money,” she said. “They’re bringing in money, just like I thought. I even stole some of it.”

“Holly…”

“Don’t talk, listen,” she said.

“Holly…”

“Grant, will you shut up? I have things to tell you.”

“No,you shut up. You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”

“Oh, all right, say it.”

“My people in Washington have been working like beavers. They got a make on the prints on the glass.”

“Whose are they?”

“They belong to two people; one is Ed Shine.”

“Yes, go on.”

“The other is Gaetano Costello,” Grant said.

“Who the hell is Gaetano Costello?”

“He was in the files-he’s a second cousin to Frank Costello.”

“Who?”

“Frank Costello was the number-one man in the mob after Charlie Luciano got deported in the late thirties. You may remember that he starred in some congressional hearings many years ago.”

“So, tell me about Gaetano.”

“He emigrated from Italy in July of 1938, at the age of thirteen, quite legally; that’s when he got printed. Pretty soon, he had acquired the mob sobriquet of Eddie Numbers, because of his facility with math and money.”

“Go on.”

“Then, two years later, we have the appearance of Edward G. Shine on the scene. Little Eddie Shine entered a New York City public high school in September of 1940, giving his age as thirteen. His parents were listed in the school records as Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Shine, and here’s the good part. Mr. and Mrs. Shine lived in the same apartment building as Mr. and Mrs. Meyer Lansky.”