Blood Orchid

by Stuart Woods

  Holly went back into the woods. “Come on, Daisy,” she said, “we’re going to do a little spying.”

  58

  Holly walked through the woods with Daisy, keeping roughly parallel to the road, toward where she remembered the building to be. There had been two floors of administrative offices, she recalled, then the basement with vaults.

  She saw the building through the trees and brush sooner than she had expected, and she realized that she was approaching it from the rear. She began to work her way to her left, in order to circle the building and see what was happening on the front side. Noise became a factor now, and she made her way slowly through the woods, keeping Daisy on a short leash and being as quiet as possible. Soon, she could hear voices.

  There wasn’t much in the way of conversation, just grunts and a word or two here and there about work. Holly turned more to her left, lest she come upon them too quickly and be spotted.

  Finally, she moved past a corner of the building and could see what was taking place out front. Two men were unloading the van and moving the contents inside the building. This time there were no boxes, but an odd collection of old briefcases, suitcases, and trunks, all strapped shut with duct tape. Some could be carried by one man, others required a hand truck.

  The unloading was going slowly, and this was what was causing what little conversation there was, mostly complaining. Holly wanted to see inside the front doors of the building, so she continued to work her way to the north, giving the parking area a wide berth. Once she had covered some ground, she could see three cars parked in the lot, all of which had been screened from her view by the van. She could see through the open doors of the building, too.

  Not that there was much to see. The two men were loading the cases and trunks into an elevator. Then one of the men got on with them and pressed a button. The doors closed, and the lights above indicated the car was going to the basement. That left one man dealing with the remaining cargo.

  Then Holly saw something that interested her. Half a dozen cases had been unloaded from the van and were waiting to be carried inside. The one man left was struggling with a footlocker-sized trunk that seemed to be very heavy, and next to the rear of the van sat a good-sized plastic briefcase—like the others, taped shut.

  Holly turned to Daisy. “Down, Daisy,” she said, and the dog lay down. She dropped the leash on the ground and, holding up a hand, said firmly, “Stay. Stay, Daisy.”

  The dog looked at her and waited for a further signal.

  Holly turned back toward the van; five yards of woods and twenty yards of parking lot separated her from it. The man was still struggling with the footlocker—the hand truck must be in the elevator, she reckoned, and the other man would be unloading the elevator in the basement. She worked her way left, until the van was between her and the second man, then she moved as silently as she could through the brush and ran for the van.

  Reaching it, she stood beside the left rear wheel of the vehicle so her feet would be hidden from anyone on the other side who happened to look under it. She could hear the man dragging the trunk into the building. She darted her head out a foot, then back again. Through the window of the rear door, she caught a glimpse of the building’s doorway, and the man could no longer be seen.

  She got down on her knees and peeked again; he was still inside the building. Quickly, she crawled under the open van door and grabbed the briefcase. As she did, she could hear footsteps from inside the building, and they were coming toward her. The man had taken his burden inside and was returning for more. Holly flung herself and the briefcase back under the door and behind the van.

  She sat by the rear wheel, hugging the briefcase and pulling her knees up as far as they would go. She felt the van move as the man went inside for more cases. Now was her best chance. She got to her feet and ran for the woods, lugging the briefcase, which was surprisingly heavy.

  “Hey!” a man’s voice yelled.

  Holly dropped to the ground, holding out her hand, signaling Daisy to stay.

  “Hey, give me a hand with this trunk, will you?” the man called again.

  “Just a minute,” came the reply.

  “What’s the holdup?”

  “I thought I had another piece here, but I can’t find it.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t find it?” The first man’s voice was louder now; he was coming out of the building.

  “It was right here at the rear of the van, a briefcase. I know it was here.”

  Holly inched her way toward Daisy, who waited four or five yards from her. Then she heard a very unwelcome noise—an electronic chime. Her cellphone was letting her know that its battery was low. She dug into her pocket and got it free just in time for it to chime again before she could hit the off switch.

  “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.

  59

  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 righ
t 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.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “My very words when I heard about it. It appears that the mob recognized talent when they saw it, and they went to some trouble to hide little Gaetano’s light under a bushel. He graduates as Edward Shine, with honors, in June of ’forty-five, just in time to get drafted. Not surprisingly, little Eddie turns up at his physical with a perforated eardrum, making him ineligible. He applied for and was issued a passport the following year.”

  “He was already a citizen?”

  “Somehow, a birth certificate in his name appeared in the public records, stating that he was born in 1927 to Mr. and Mrs. Shine. I think we can attribute that to the fine Italian hand of Frank Costello, who owned many politicians. Little Eddie studies in Italy for a year, it’s not certain where, then returns to the U.S. and enters NYU, graduating in 1951 with a degree in accounting and business management. The following year, he builds his first office building.”

  “What a precocious boy,” Holly said.

  “From then on, he’s in the New York commercial real estate business big time, and he never seems to have any trouble getting financing.”

  “Because his mob friends are laundering their cash through his projects?”

  “Exactly.” Grant pulled into the parking lot of the Blood Orchid Club and parked. “And guess who he’s doing most of his business with.”

  “Who?”

  Then somebody opened the car door.

  60

  Ed Shine stood at the car door. “There you are,” he said, beaming. “Come inside, there are people I want you to meet.”

  Holly and Grant got out of the car and followed Ed into the club. “Are you armed?” she whispered to him.

  Grant shook his head.

  There was one large, round table set for eight by the windows overlooking the golf course.

  “I believe we’re all here,” Ed said, waving at some people at the bar. “Let’s be seated,” he called to them.

  From the shadows of the bar, two men and two women approached. Holly knew two of them.

  “Holly, I believe you’ve met Pio Pellegrino at his restaurant in Miami.”

  “Of course,” Holly said.

  “I believe you had a different name that evening,” Pio said smoothly.

  “Forgive me; a single woman alone in Miami, I was being careful.”

  “Of course.”

  “And this is Pio’s father,” Ed said, “Ignacio. We call him Iggy.”

  The old man bowed his head slightly, unsmiling.

  “And this is Iggy’s daughter, Allegra, and Pio’s wife, Barbara; we call her Babs.” Babs was thin and elaborately coiffed, with big eyes and a wide mouth. Allegra Pellegrino was a tall, solidly built woman with black hair and blacker eyes. “Everybody, this is Holly’s friend, Mr. Grant Early, who may yet be a resident at Blood Orchid. Grant, I don’t believe you’ve met Willard Smith.”

  Grant shook hands all around.

  “Please be seated,” Ed said, waving a hand at the table. “There are place cards for everyone.”

  Holly found herself seated between Ed and Pio. “What a beautiful table, Ed,” she said. “The flowers are lovely.” She glanced over at Grant, who was sea
ted between Barbara and Allegra Pellegrino. He was chatting amiably, as if this were the most normal of dinner parties.

  Holly couldn’t figure out why she was here, and she didn’t like it. Nearly everybody in the world she wanted to arrest was in this room.

  “We’re starting with beluga caviar and a Veuve Clicquot Grande Dame champagne,” Ed announced to the group, as plates were set before them.

  Holly figured there were at least four ounces of the black roe on her plate. Blinis, sour cream, and chopped onion were passed around. Holly ignored them, picked up a small spoon, and began to eat the caviar unaccompanied. The champagne was a perfect accompaniment.

  Grant seemed to be enjoying it, too.

  Holly found the atmosphere more and more oppressive. “Will you excuse me, Ed?” she said. “And could you point me to the ladies’ room?”

  “Of course, Holly,” Ed replied. “Allegra, why don’t you show Holly where the ladies’ room is?”

  Holly rose and walked toward the bar area. Allegra silently fell into step with her. Holly felt as if she were under armed guard, and maybe she was: Allegra was carrying a very large handbag.

  Holly went into the farthest stall, while Allegra washed her hands. Holly was grateful for the noise of running water, since it covered the sound of her dialing Harry Crisp’s home number on her cellphone.

  “Hi, we’re out,” Harry’s voice said. “Leave a number at the beep, and we’ll call you back.” As Holly started to speak, her phone bleeped and went dead. The battery was flat. She left the stall and washed her hands. Allegra was messing with her makeup.

  “I didn’t know Pio had a sister,” Holly said, trying to find out if the girl could speak.

  “Yeah,” Allegra replied, snapping shut her compact.

  They went back to the table, where waiters were removing the plates from the first course. Holly sat down.

  “You know,” Pio said conspiratorially, “you’re a good-looking girl. Maybe we could get together sometime?”