Orchid Blues

53

Ham finished firing for the morning. He stowed the rifle in the rear of the jeep and was about to get in when he saw a roll of duct tape on the floor of the rear seat, and it gave him an idea.

He lay down on his back in the footwell of the driver's seat and looked under the dash. Satisfied, he tore off a strip of the duct tape, stuck the phone and the three batteries to it, and taped them to the underside of the dash, satisfied that even hard bumps wouldn't dislodge them. Feeling better, he drove back to Peck's house for lunch.

Harry knew the head of the White House Secret Service detail, so he cut some red tape and called him directly. He got a voice mail tape and left a message. Five minutes later, his phone rang. "Hello?"

"Harry, that you?*

"Chip, how are you, boy?"

"I can't complain, except they're working my ass off. I'm traveling just about all the time. Good thing I'm already divorced,"

Harry laughed.

"I heard you got the Miami job. That right?" Chip asked.

"It's right, and I'm away from home right now, too."

"Where?"

"Little town called Orchid Beach, in a rented beach house."

"Sounds like tough duty. What's up?"

"I got a question for you. Is the president going to be in Florida next Monday?"

"Why? You want to take a shot at him?"

"Doesn't everybody?"

"Well, Harry, I can tell you that the president has no official visits outside Washington planned for Monday."

"What about unofficial visits. Anything that's not on the published schedule?"

"What's this about, Harry?"

"I just need to know. It's something I'm working on."

"It sounds like something the Secret Service should be working on," Chip replied.

"Come on, Chip, you know I'd call you if I thought there was a credible threat."

"Do I?"

"Sure you do. I'm not about to get my tit caught in that wringer."

"Let me put it this way, Harry: if the president had an unofficial visit to Florida planned for Monday, I couldn't tell you about it."

"I understand, Chip, but you could tell me if he didn't have an unofficial visit planned, couldn't you?"

"That depends."

"All right, Chip, what's this going to cost me?"

"The best dinner at the best restaurant in Miami in the company of the best-looking single female FBI agent in your office, the next time I'm down there."

"Oh, so now I'm pimping for you, huh?"

"You think of it any way you like, Harry. That's my price."

"All right, done. Now answer my question."

"I will. If you'd bothered to check the White House website or read the published schedule, or even watch the evening news, then you'd know that the president is receiving the prime minister of Israel and the head of the PLO at the White House on Monday morning, and talks are scheduled for all day."

"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.