Stuart Woods: Blood Orchid

Dessert was served-baked Alaska-and Holly declined, instead continuing to toy with her beef. Her head was spinning with the scale of what Ed Shine and the Pellegrinos were planning. Certainly, funding it all was no problem, not with all the cash piling up in the vaults across the golf course from where they sat.

“Well, Holly,” Ed said, “have you digested all that?” He wasn’t referring to dinner.

“Not quite, Ed, I’m still working on it.” It worried her that he was telling her all this, as if he didn’t expect her to be able to pass it on.

“Well, while you do, let me tell you a little story about myself.” He put down his napkin and turned toward Holly. “I’ve been coming to Florida for more than forty years, you know.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“No reason why you should. You may recall that I told you I didn’t have any children?”

“Yes.”

“Well, none to speak of, as they say. A little over thirty years ago, I spent a few weeks in Miami, and I had a rather passionate liaison with a young lady of Latino extraction. That union produced a child, and while I wasn’t on hand for all the usual occasions-birthdays, Christmas, and so on, I certainly kept a fatherly eye on his rearing, and the boy has turned out to be very useful to me in my business.”

A figure had appeared in the shadows of the bar, and Ed waved him over. “Enrico, come over here; there’s someone I want you to meet.” Ed turned to Holly. “He’s been dying to meet you.”

Holly turned and watched the man approach.

“Holly,” Ed said, “this is my son, Enrico.”

Trini Rodriguez, dressed in a severely cut black suit, smiled a broad smile.

This was bad. Holly saw Grant getting to his feet and offering Trini his hand. “How do you do?” he asked. Trini ignored him and continued to stare at Holly.

“Grant!” Holly said. “Have you got a weapon on you?” It was a stupid thing to say, but it caused everyone to look at Grant, while Holly dropped her napkin onto her steak knife and gathered it into her lap.

“What?” Grant replied, incredulously. “A weapon, did you say?”

“Only joking,” Holly replied.

“Why would I have a weapon?” Grant asked, as if he thought she were insane.

“Yes, Holly,” Ed said, “why would he? You seem to be very nervous, sweetheart.”

Holly turned to Ed. “I take it you’re fully informed of your son’s activities over recent days?”

“Why, of course,” Ed replied. “Enrico does only what I ask him to.” He turned to Trini. “And, Enrico, right now I’d like you to take Miss Barker back to her cottage.”

“Why?” Holly asked. She slipped the steak knife into her waistband under her jacket.

“Yes, why?” Grant echoed.

“Because my son has expressed an interest in having some time alone with Miss Barker,” Ed said.

Holly felt a wave of nausea.

“Enrico,” Ed said, “you may as well deal with Mr. Early, too,” Ed said.

Grant was on his feet, looking wary. He turned to face Trini.

Trini raised a hand containing a semiautomatic pistol and shot Grant in the chest. Grant flew backward onto the floor, knocking over his chair.

Barbara Pellegrino began screaming, and Holly got up and rushed around the table to Grant and bent over him. “Grant, Grant,” she was yelling.

Grant opened his eyes and winked at her, then closed them again. Then she realized there was no blood, just a neat hole in his shirt. She put her hand on his chest and felt the vest underneath his shirt.

Holly stood up and faced Trini, who was walking toward her, holding the weapon at his side. “You miserable son of a bitch!” she yelled at him. “You’ve killed him!”

Trini smiled and drew back his empty hand to hit her. Holly ducked, and Trini’s knees suddenly buckled as Grant reached up, grabbed his coattails, and pulled him off balance. She got ahold of his gun hand with both hands and held on for dear life. Then Grant got ahold of Trini’s belt and pulled him over on top of himself. Holly followed, falling on Trini. His gun went off.

There was a scream from behind her; the bullet had found its way to somebody, but Holly couldn’t see who. Grant was twisting Trini’s arm now, and Holly could let go with one hand. She felt for the heavy steak knife at her waist, got ahold of it and plunged it into Trini’s neck, twisting it and yanking it out the way she had been trained in the army. Blood began to spurt rhythmically from Trini’s jugular.

Grant got the gun free from him and was getting to his feet when a man with a shotgun stepped up and hit him across the back of his head with the butt of the weapon.

Where the hell had he come from? Holly wondered. He was pointing the shotgun at her now, motioning for her to drop the knife. She dropped it.

Willard Smith was sitting back in his chair, blood all over his chest, so Holly knew where the stray round had gone.

Ed Shine had run around the table and was kneeling at his son’s side. “What have you done?” he shouted at Holly.

“What he’s been doing to everybody else,” Holly said.

“Enrico,” Ed was saying, trying to stanch the flow of blood with his dinner napkin.

Trini’s eyes were fluttering, and he looked panicked, but it was clear to Holly that he was bleeding out very quickly. A moment later, he stopped moving.

Ed stood up, his hands covered with Trini’s blood. “I was fond of you,” he said to Holly. “I was going to make you a rich woman.”

“When, after Trini had finished with me? He’s been trying to kill me for some time, you know, and you’ve already said he does only what you want him to.”

Other men with shotguns were in the room now. Shine turned to one of them. “Take these two over to the admin building and put them into vault number two, the empty one, then set the security system to the emergency mode.”

Someone drew Holly’s hands behind her and she felt herself being handcuffed. Grant had begun to stir, and he was handcuffed as well. They were frogmarched out of the building and tossed into the rear of a Blood Orchid van. While one man sat in the rear seat, covering them with a shotgun, another drove rapidly toward the administration building, where a vault awaited them.

Grant shifted his body until he was lying close behind Holly, and he put his lips close to her ear. “Can you roll over and reach my cellphone?” he whispered. “It’s in my inside jacket pocket, down low. Your hands are near it now.”

Holly groped behind her and felt his belt buckle.

“To your left six inches,” Grant said.

Holly found the phone.

“Now, pry it open-it’s already turned on.”

Holly got the phone open.

“Press one and hold it down for a few seconds.”

Holly felt the keypad of the phone, located the number one, and held it down.

Grant waited a moment, then began shouting. “Now!” he yelled. “Do it now!”

“What?” Holly asked, as if he were talking to her.

“You two shut up,” the man with the shotgun said.

“Why now?” Holly asked, hoping to confuse the man.

“Now! Do it now!” Grant yelled again.

The man with the shotgun rapped him sharply on the top of the head with the barrel. “I told you to shut up.”

“Why do you want to lock us in a vault?” Grant asked the man loudly. “Why can’t you just shoot us?”

“Believe me, I’d just as soon shoot you, but the boss says to put you in the vault!” the man yelled back. “He didn’t say I couldn’t crack your skull first, though, and that’s what I’m going to do if you open your mouth again!”

The van stopped, and the driver got out and opened the rear doors. He dragged Holly and Grant to their feet, and the two men unlocked the front door and shoved them roughly into the building, then into the elevator.