Orchids to Die For (Jim Morgan Adventure Series)

by Catherine Burr

  “No. Nothing surprises me, around here, in Washington. There’s a lot of power being tested, and a lot of old school favors needing paybacks.”

  Catherine pointed out the Washington Monument as they rode; the obelisk’s top was clear above a line of greenery, “Have you been to the top of it, Jim?”

  “No, but I’ve wrestled a CIA agent in the park below it,” and Morgan flashed back to a recent spring evening when he first met Sophie, Sophie D. Deadly Alberquist, American spy. And he began a series of quick recollections of her, right up to when he learned that she was killed. And his cell began to ring, not vibrate, to a familiar waltz.

  “Jim Morgan here.”

  “Jim? It’s John, John Alberquist. Sorry for not calling sooner, Jim. I did get your messages. How are you?”

  “I’m fine Senator. I’m on my way to Eunice’s. We just landed at the International. I had a couple of questions I want to ask you.”

  “Can they wait until this evening? We’re dining together at Eunice’s.”

  “Yes, they can wait. I’m looking forward to seeing you, John. I’ve got someone with me that I’d like you to meet. Are you bringing your wife?”

  “Unfortunately, she’s back on the farm, Jim. One of us has to make the money.” And he laughed a hearty senatorial chuckle.

  “We’ll see you this evening, John.”

  “Yes, I’m looking forward to meeting Miss Harris. We’ll talk later. Take care.” And the connection was severed.

  Morgan had a quick afterthought as he put away his cell, it was most curious that he had known Catherine’s name.

  Catherine looked at him with a strong hint of awe, “We’re in D.C. for thirty minutes and you have a Senator calling you. I’m impressed.”

  “Oh, John Alberquist, from Iowa. He’ll be at our dinner tonight. Do you know him?”

  “No, not at all. I’ve met a few Senators and a President, too. Clinton spoke at the university where I graduated. I even got to meet him. He was so sweet. But I don’t know an Alberquist. Daddy might.”

  Morgan was now impressed, but tried to one-up her boast with, “I once threw a rock at our neighborhood councilman. He was chasing us off from a vacant lot where we played stick-ball as kids.”

  “I must say, James Morgan, I can visualize that.” And they both laughed. And Catherine snuggled into his shoulder. Her thoughts were in line with his, they were both very comfortable with each other.

  Catherine remained silent. She was thinking profound thoughts, pondering what she was going to wear. She asked, “Is there a Macy’s near by?”

  Sam knew where to go. Within three minutes they were turning into a huge but inconspicuous mall with a Macy’s sign just ahead of them. Sam pulled the stretch up to the front door and Catherine hopped out.

  “I’ll only be a minute,” and she was gone before Morgan could follow.

  The two men chatted for twenty minutes in the posted NO PARKING zone. Morgan kept making furtive glances toward the doors of Macy’s while Sam did the same in his mirrors. Both men were keenly watching for different sights. Neither of them addressed their individual apprehensive vigils.

  Catherine returned in thirty-minutes flat, with two large shopping bags. Morgan met her halfway back to the limo and took up her bags. Sam was out and holding the door open for her to enter.

  “I hope you like me in basic black. It’s a Donna Ricco, straight skirt, deep V-neck, and not real flashy.”

  “Ah. Sweetie, you could have worn jeans at Eunice’s. The Senator will show up in his bib-overalls. Dinner will probably be barbequed Cajun ribs by the pool.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m ready for anything now. No matter what.”

  “We’ll treat this as a business expense. On me.”

  “How sweet of you, Jim.” Catherine reached in her bag and withdrew the receipt and handed it over, “Thank you so much. I really appreciate this.”

  Morgan scanned the Macy’s tab. He put on his poker face and placed the receipt calmly into to his jacket pocket and wondered if Eunice would okay it as a valid, all expenses paid, expense; especially the silk stay-awake wear at three-hundred dollars.

  Catherine fished around in the bags and pulled out a red box, “I bought this for you.” She opened the lid and held up a tiny swatch of black silk with a couple of strings dangling from it. “This cost more than the dress. I can’t wait to wear it for you. Do you like?”

  “Yes. I like.” And he forgot all about the one thousand three hundred dollar tab he had so graciously put in his pocket, almost. “We may have a little time to unwind when we get to the Institute, before dinner.”

  Sam pulled onto the inlaid drive and parked with the trunk at the Tudor’s grandiose entrance. Eunice and Mureatha were on the steps waiting for them. Catherine felt an excitement fill her being; she was back in her innate element of homey elegance.

  Mureatha enwrapped Morgan with her full four hundred pounds of Cajun muscle, “Welcomes back, Mister Mogins. I sure did miss your ass.” And she laughed aloud in a haa, haa that echoed clear out across the Potomac River and back before she released her maternal hold.

  Humorously, with an obvious smile in her words, Catherine interjected, “Is there something going on here that I should know about?”

  Morgan caught a glimpse of Eunice’s face from the corner of his eye. She was smiling broadly at Mureatha’s warm reception of his return. In that instant, that nano-second of obtuse vision, he saw the woman that he had fallen so deeply in love with many years ago. That sudden and unexpected heart-pang made him answer out to Catherine’s jovial remark, “Yeah, much more than meets the eye, kiddo.” And they all laughed, except a heart-sickened Eunice who was candidly surveying the well-kept body of Morgan’s latest, look-what-the-cat-dragged-in, bitch.

  Eunice did a platonic hug and, kiss-kiss with Jimbo. And then offered a handshake to her newest employee, Catherine. Visibly ignoring her, she graciously ordered Mureatha to, “Get their baggage up to the guest suite.” Then, playing stupid, “Oh, Jim? You and Catherine do want to share a room, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. We do.” Morgan placed his arm around Catherine’s shoulder and led her off to the suite right behind Mureatha and Sam who carried their entire luggage and the two Macy’s bags.

  Eunice stood in the drive and watched them enter her home. Her former lover had returned. He was her one and only love, since high school. And upon a quick reflection, she realized that those loves never counted. It was always, and forever, Jim Morgan. She felt tired, and moved toward the door telling her inner self that, it just wasn’t meant to be. And that just didn’t help, at all.

  A silver Escalade turned up the circular drive followed by an old red van. The side lettering read, “Harris Entertainment” with a subscript, “Ready to play with you 24/7” Call 202- yada, yada, yada.

  Eunice read the words again. She shook her head. What message was God sending her? She had seen many mysterious things happen around the ESP lab. And now this, just some coincidence, some omen to enlighten her, to amuse her, or... was it some cosmic sign designed to drive her crazy? She knew the answers; she was looking too deeply for a reason why. Why it wasn’t her going up to share that suite, under Morgan’s arm, instead of the cutesy, busty Catherine. And she knew, she’d have to let go, then and there.

  The Escalade’s window powered down as the mini-convoy approached her position on the driveway, “Where do you want us to park, lady?”

  “Anywhere out here is fine. Just keep the entrance open for limo drop offs.”

  “Thanks babe,” came a winked reply from a young roady assisting the classical trio. And this casual, playful flirtation made her feel feminine for one brief moment of her still culminating, lost-love depression.

  Eunice winked back. Then entered the Tudor with a skipped stair and a new smile on her pretty face. She had a party to host, and she knew she was good at what she did. For the time being, Jimbo would have to be on the back burner.

  Chapter Sixteen

&nb
sp; Margolova’s hair was still wet when she arrived at the Tehran International Airport. She was traveling light as she had left a couple of corpses in her wake and didn’t spend a whole lot of time packing. She took a briefcase filled with Euros and South African Rands, her Lugar and three 11-shot clips, her phony passport, her cell phone, and her balls. She called a Hezbollah supervisor at an airport rent-a-car kiosk. He met her at the entrance with a police entourage and was then escorted around the security checkpoints to a plane that was debarking to South America. The plane was kept at the gate until she boarded, smiling, with a dead man’s ticket clutched in her age-spotted hand, next stop, Rio.

  * * *

  Arnold Ames was given a real office at three P.M. that very Thursday afternoon. He was so excited that he began moving his personal things immediately. He even had his own key now and he showed it proudly to all the clerks up and down his cubicle aisle. A promotion to the level of GS-11 historically came with the presentation of an office key. Ames was on cloud nine.

  During his office transition, reports kept coming in. And coming in, and coming in. And then the floor cubicles emptied at five P.M. and the keyed offices were emptying rapidly by six P.M. By seven P.M. the janitor was stringing a floor buffer cord in front of room 212, the door was open and Arnold Ames was fast asleep in his plush office chair.

  Morgan sprawled out across the king sized bed. With his head resting on the palm of his hand, he noticed that his elbow had dug two inches into the Swedish-down comforter. His blue designer Jockey shorts gave him a sense of his own sexuality. He had lost fifteen pounds since he had last been on that mattress, and he knew that his muscles were beginning to show some very masculine definition. The daily workouts he had forced himself to endure were well worth the positive self-esteem extracted from his daily sweat.

  Catherine was showering; Mureatha had earlier given the grand tour of their suite, plush towels and fine scented soaps were placed strategically at her command.

  Morgan had sensed a coolness exhuming from Mureatha toward Catherine, but keep quiet. Intuitively, he knew Mureatha was a staunch ally of Eunice and Catherine’s presence was not being accepted with huge open arms. No. There was a formal friction emanating from the duty bound domestic, a friction that had made Mister Mogins slightly uneasy. Mureatha was being too formal. Morgan had been reduced to a mere guest.

  Morgan heard the shower stop. He envisioned Catherine toweling her body dry, dabbing, not rubbing like a mere mortal but like the goddess that she indeed was. He rolled on his back and laced his fingers behind his head and stretched out his legs to give her the sight of a wanting her Jim Morgan.

  Catherine entered the “Black Out” curtained room in a postage stamp, silk... Wow… Piece of erotic, take me now! Sleep wear? And she sexually flaunted her magnificent curves and super tanned flesh at the foot of the bed, and in the dim light asked, so coyly, “What do you think of this, Jim Morgan?”

  Morgan, going erect, spread his legs and answered back, “I think this may say it better than any words I might use.”

  Catherine climbed up between his legs, kneeling deep in the cool soft down, ran her index finger lightly across the bulge inside his skimpy briefs, teasing, “Oh, what’s this?”

  In the low lighting from the open bathroom door, Catherine discovered something else new to her about her man, “And what is this?” And she moved her finger to a yellow tattoo of a small butterfly on his inner, upper thigh. “That’s so cute, Jim. How could I have missed that, yesterday... And this morning?”

  And they made love. Commingling tenderly and passionately right up to the point of no return and, as if cued by a fleet of winged angels with Cupid riding the helm, they released in a unified cry of pure and unadulterated sexual ecstasy.

  Lisa, Jackie, and Tonya walked to the dinner from their on campus cottages. It was less than two blocks and a beautiful summer evening.

  Tonya thought they were going too early, and she said so, pointing out, “Morgan and Catherine are making love right now. We’re going to be way too early.”

  Jackie stopped walking. She was focusing her gifted energy toward the Tudor’s upper level, “She smiled big in an amused shock, then said, “That little... Whore. Damn. She really gets into it.”

  Lisa curtly interjected, “Stop it you guys. Let’s be professional. It’s going to be a long enough night as it is.”

  Tonya looked at Jackie, asking, “Did he really just do what I think he did?”

  Jackie said, “Oh boy.” Then added, “I can’t watch anymore.”

  “Will you two stop,” Lisa was now insistent.

  Jackie put her hands up to her cheeks, “Oh my God!”

  And the two bad girls began a giggling frenzy.

  Lisa, giving up on her chastisements, looked up at the Tudor’s windows and picked up on them, in mid-orgasm. She did an internal scream, “Damn!” Then, strode out ahead of the two gigglers, with a whole new perspective on meeting this... Morgan.

  Mureatha led the three, “Peeping Tom’s,” Lisa, Jackie, and Tonya into the cavernous lounge where the cellist was setting a calm evening mood. Sam the limo driver was moonlighting as Eunice’s private bartender.

  The girls all ordered gin and tonic. A drink that they found would deaden the incoming voices and thoughts of others and allow them selective focus on a single target. It was part of their ongoing research with ESP to help others burdened with its negative elements, and there were many. Tonya had to drink hers with three teaspoons of sugar just to get past the pungent taste. In essence, the girls were working.

  The Senator arrived in a car sent by Eunice to his home. He dressed comfortable in a light summer jacket, earthly tans, with a subtle blue print tie that enhanced his aura of political dignity. His esteemed authority would have come through even if he had worn a T-shirt and Levis. The approachable tie was a gift from Eunice on his fifty-eighth birthday only weeks earlier. Mureatha just told him, upon his arrival, “They’s in da den, John. You’s just go on in.” And he did. And he asked Sam for some twelve-year-old Scotch – on the rocks.

  Eunice entered with a commanding flair; she was a Rolls Royce in a room filled with Volkswagens. She gave movement to the fabric and life to the black pantsuit with its white under-blouse, one that peek-a-booed her upper torso, showing a seductive hint of ample cleavage that she knew would catch Morgan’s eye.

  A curt silence befell her guests as she glided across the deep pile carpeting of the oak beamed den. The musical ensemble was playing a waltz and never missed a note. The Senator stood and held forth his Glenbrook on ice, “Eunice, You look magnificent.”

  “Thank you, John. Hello everyone.” Eunice smiled and gave a nod of recognition to her girls. “Have you all met?” She scanned the room on a double take looking for Morgan and Catherine, “It looks like we’re short a couple.”

  Tonya spoke out, “They’re on the way down, right now.”

  “Thank you, Tonya.” The background waltz smoothly transitioned into the “Moonlight Sonata” and all eyes fixated toward the den’s entrance.

  Mureatha entered into their stares with a tray of assorted crackers and exotic pates. She stopped cold under the noticeable eye contact; “I knows I should have brought these in here sooner.” And she laughed.

  Jim and Catherine had stopped to admire the marble cherub that pissed into the reflecting pool in the Tudor’s grand vestibule.

  Catherine looked stunning in her straight skirted, deep V-neck dress. She wore nothing on her neck but dabs of White Linen perfume. On her left wrist, an emerald studded bangle dangled loose. She looked elegant and Morgan told her so as he embraced her and kissed the nape of her neck.

  Tonya blurted out, “They’ve stopped to kiss at the fountain.”

  Sam asked the Senator if he’d like a refill. Things were getting a little odd. Sam wanted a shot of Jack, or two, himself.

  All three women smiled at Tonya’s outburst. Eunice went to the bar and stood next to the Senator, “I love your tie,
John. It’s a great color... Matches your eyes.”

  Mureatha set the silver tray in front of the seers and left.

  Jim and Catherine, hand in hand, entered the lounge to a violin lead of “The Blue Danube.” They made it to the bar without too much scrutiny, but Lisa did, silently, point out their arrival to Jackie and Tonya who stopped munching to check out the entering lovers.

  “My God! She’s beautiful.” Exclaimed Tonya. Referring to Catherine, in a thought directed to her ESP sisters.

  Jackie, in a mental response, “Her? Look at him! Jesus, what a hunk.”

  Lisa joined in their thoughts, “Eunice has good tastes, and I’ll give her that. He’s got one hell of an aura. I see why she’s moping around now,” and with an added thought to her transferred thought, “I wonder what happened?” And all three girls reached for the same canapé.

  The Senator saw them enter and fixated on Catherine’s beauty. In her he saw his daughter, Sophie. And a lump formed in his throat. He stood, while asking Sam for a double. Then took a step past Eunice and offered his hand to Catherine, “And you, my darling, must be Catherine?”

  The Senator had read a four hundred-page file on her that very afternoon. He knew more about her then she probably knew about her own self.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you Senator.” Catherine had an odd feeling about him. He was looking at her too deep and she felt her cheeks redden.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Harris. You have an uncanny likeness to my own daughter, Sophie. She was a beautiful young woman, much like you.” It was an awkward moment for the Senator. The two women, Catherine and his daughter, as he remembered her, did indeed resemble one another.

  Alberquist broke his uncontrolled stare and took the waiting hand Morgan had extended to him, “James, I’m so glad you’re back. I was afraid that Chicago and their Democratic Machine had swallowed you whole.”