by Stuart Woods
“Chief, I’ve got some news, and it’s bad.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The bank has completed its audit of Franklin Morris’s loan portfolio, and it looks like he’s taken us for about $175,000.”
“How?”
“By making loans to fictitious small businesses with bogus documentation, all of them under his $25,000 limit for loan approvals.”
“Joy, I’ve got the FBI on the other line; I’ll have them get in touch with you.”
“All right, thanks, Chief.”
Holly pressed another button. “Harry, you there?”
“I’m here.”
“Southern Trust just called. They’ve audited Franklin Morris’s records and he’s embezzled $175,000 from the bank by making bogus loans. I told them I’d get you on it.”
“That’s weird,” Harry said.
“What’s weird about it? Isn’t that sort of what we suspected?”
“Yeah, but if he’s in cahoots with the Winachobee folks, who may have just stolen millions from the bank, why is he doing nickel-and-dime loan embezzlement that would have gotten him caught before he could steal very much? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“You have a point.”
“And if the Harston woman is the group’s inside person for the bank robbery, why would they need Morris in there? Certainly not for the money, and Harston could have told them all they needed to know about when the bank had a lot of cash on hand. They wouldn’t have needed Morris for that.”
“So?”
“So, maybe Morris is an independent, or working with another group with less ambition than the Winachobee folks. Maybe the bank was just unlucky enough to have two employees independently planning to steal them blind at the same time.”
“That’s a mighty big coincidence, isn’t it? Didn’t you once say to me that you didn’t believe in coincidences?”
“I must have been drunk,” Harry said. “Coincidences happen all the time. I know of one case where two pairs of guys showed up to rob the same bank at exactly the same moment. They ended up shooting it out with each other, two killed, two wounded.”
“That’s a pretty big coincidence, I guess.”
“You bet your ass it is, but coincidences happen.”
“I guess they do.”
“Well, I’d better get another investigation going into the Morris embezzlement. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay, Harry, take care.” Holly hung up, depressed.
Twenty-four
HOLLY WAS GETTING READY FOR BED WHEN THE phone rang. “Hello?”
“Hey.”
“Hey, Ham. What’s up?”
“I just got a dinner invitation.”
“Do we have to talk about your sex life again?”
“Sex wasn’t mentioned, but I’m keeping an open mind about it.”
“Ham, I’m tired. What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been invited to the Peck Rawlings home for a fried chicken dinner.”
Holly’s heart leapt. “That’s great! When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“God, what a relief! I’ve been feeling lousy for most of the day because I thought we were at a dead end.”
“Not yet, apparently.”
“What, exactly, did Rawlings say?”
“He said, ‘Ham, why don’t you come out here tomorrow night for a fried chicken dinner?’ ”
“What else?”
“Then I said, ‘Peck, I think I’d enjoy that.’ ”
“I mean, what else did Rawlings say?”
“He said, ‘Come out here about six. You turn right just as you enter Main Street, and we’re the first house on the left.’ Then he hung up.”
“I’ve got to call Harry right now. I’ll get back to you.”
“Okay.”
She hung up and dug out Harry Crisp’s home number.
“Hello?”
“Harry, it’s Holly. We’re back in business.”
“How?”
“Rawlings has invited Ham to dinner.”
“That’s great. It means they’re still interested in him, in spite of his daughter being in law enforcement.”
“Isn’t it great?”
“Maybe. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Well, they’re not inviting him out there to shoot him.”
Harry said nothing.
“Are they?”
“I shouldn’t think so. But listen, Holly, it’s important that he not do anything to arouse their suspicions on this visit. I mean, don’t hang a wire on him or anything.”
“I’ll admit, I had been thinking about doing that.”
“Just tell him to play it loose.”
“That’s what Ham does best.”
“Thanks for letting me know about this right away,” Harry said. “Now, let’s both get some sleep. Call me back when Ham reports in.”
“Okay, Harry, good night.” Holly hung up and called Ham back.
“Hey.”
“Harry’s excited, too.”
“What do you want me to do out there?”
“Eat fried chicken and listen a lot, nothing more.”
“You don’t want me to burn down the place or anything?”
“Nope. Just be Ham, or a reasonable facsimile who’s also a bigot and a crypto-Nazi.”
“I guess I can handle that, as long as they don’t give me a lie detector test.”
“They’re still feeling you out, Ham. I don’t think these people recruit all that readily; they’re very careful.”
“That’s what ol’ Peck told me at our first meeting: careful and quiet.”
“Ham, how do you feel about doing this?”
“Funny, but I’m kind of looking forward to it. I mean, you can do only so much fishing and play so much golf before you start getting a little fuzzy around the edges. You want me to take along a tape recorder or something like that?”
“Harry says no, and he’s right. Just go as you are, and play it very cool. These are suspicious people—paranoid, even—and we don’t want to do anything to worry them.”
“I get the picture.”
“Don’t swear any blood oaths just yet, either. Play a little hard to get; make them work to get you.”
“Hard to get, huh? Are we back to my sex life?”
“Come on, Ham, you were never hard to get in your life. This’ll be a new experience for you.”
Ham laughed. “It sure will be that, and I have to tell you, I’m starting to look forward to it. I’ve always loved fried chicken.”
“Okay, Ham, if you think of anything else, call me tomorrow at the station. Otherwise, just call me as soon as you’re safely out of there. I want to hear all about it.”
“Oh, you’ll be the first to know everything,” Ham said.
“Ham, just a thought: Take along a gun.”
“You want me to go armed?”
“Not exactly. Just put your nine-millimeter in the glove compartment and don’t lock it. If they get curious, it would be nice for them to find it.”
“Whatever you say, darlin’. You sleep well, now.”
“Believe me, I’m going to.”
Twenty-five
HAM DRESSED IN KHAKIS, A POLO SHIRT, AND A light sweater, the way he might if going to dinner at anybody’s house. He checked himself in the mirror, the way he had sometimes done before combat missions, to see if he looked the proper warrior. This was the first time he had been a warrior in a polo shirt.
Feeling a little buzz of anticipation—not quite nervousness—he stuffed his 9mm semiautomatic into the glove compartment of his truck and drove west toward Lake Winachobee. He followed the dirt road the way he had on his last visit, but this time he wasn’t diverted, so he drove right to the beginning of Main Street and stopped. Clapboard buildings lined each side of the street, and they might have been something out of the early twentieth century, or maybe Disneyland. There was a general store and half a dozen small-town businesses. He turn
ed right, and drove down the dirt road. The sun was just setting, and the lights had come on in the first house on the left. It was a one-story house, but new-looking, neat, with a trimmed lawn and flower beds hugging the house. There was a three-car garage and, off in the woods, some sort of metal utility building. He turned into the driveway, switched off the engine, and got out of the truck.
The front door of the house was opened immediately by Peck Rawlings, who came out to greet him. “Hey there, Ham,” he said, pumping his hand. “Glad you could make it.”
Ham shook his hand. “Thanks for asking me, Peck.”
“Come on in the house and meet some folks.” He led the way inside.
Three couples were sitting in the living room, and the men all stood up. Ham had met two of them before.
“You remember Jim and James, I guess, from the gun show.”
“Sure,” Ham said, shaking their hands.
“And this is Mack Harston,” Rawlings said, indicating a bulked-up man in a tight shirt.
“Mack, how you doing?” Ham said, shaking his hand.
Harston nodded.
“That’s his wife, Emily,” Rawlings said, pointing at a pregnant woman by the fireplace. “This is my wife, Betty, Jim’s wife, Edie, and James’s wife, Laurel,” he said, pointing out the other women.
“Are you married, Ham?” Emily Harston asked.
“My wife died many years ago,” Ham replied. “I never remarried.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Ham, can we get you a drink?” Rawlings asked.
He noticed that the other men had drinks, but not the women. “Sure, Peck. Bourbon on the rocks, if you’ve got it. Anything else, if you haven’t.”
Rawlings nodded to his wife; she went to the kitchen and returned with the drink. When she opened the door, the smell of good cooking filled the room.
Ham accepted the drink. “Better times than these,” he said, raising his glass.
“Hear, hear,” Rawlings said.
“Are you right on the lake?” Ham asked. “I couldn’t see from the front of the house.”
“Yep, it’s right out back.”
“Pretty spot,” Ham said. “Pretty little town, too. Looks like you’ve got just about everything you need out here.”
“We go to town to the supermarket and the drugstore, but that’s about it for outside shopping, except once in a while we go over to the outlet mall in Vero Beach and load up on stuff.”
“I do some shopping out there myself,” Ham said. “Everything’s cheap.”
Rawlings nodded, then there was an awkward silence, which Ham decided not to fill.
He sat back and waited for someone to say something.
“I hear you’re ex-army,” Harston said, finally.
“That’s right,” Ham said. “I retired a couple of years ago.”
“How’d you happen to choose Orchid Beach?”
“I had an old service buddy who had already retired there, and he talked me into it.”
“That the same one who died and left you the house?” Peck asked.
“That’s right.”
“Lucky break,” Harston said.
“If you don’t mind losing a friend,” Ham said. “I’d rather have had the friend.”
“Death comes to us all,” Jim said.
There was a murmur of agreement.
“And taxes,” Ham echoed.
Nobody said anything.
“What church do you go to over at Orchid?” James asked.
“I don’t go,” Ham said. “My wife was a Baptist, and I used to go sometimes with her. Me and my Maker seem to get along all right without any meetings on Sunday mornings.”
Everyone got quiet again. Ham waited them out.
“You do much shooting?”
“I do some bird hunting from time to time,” Ham said.
“Peck says you’re quite a shot with a pistol.”
“The army trained me. It’s like roller skating; you never forget how.”
“I never knew anybody who could cut a cattail,” Harston said. “Peck told us about your shot.”
“I was in an outfit in ’Nam had half a dozen guys who could do that. It helps your accuracy if you’re shooting to stay alive.”
“I guess it might,” Harston said.
It helps if you practice every day, too, Ham thought.
Mrs. Rawlings went into the kitchen again for a few minutes, while the men chatted and the women remained strangely silent, then she came back. “Dinner is served,” she said.
Ham followed the group into a large kitchen, with a dining area at one end. A large table had been set there, and it practically groaned with food. Ham took the seat offered him and waited to see if someone would ask a blessing. No one did, so he dug in with the others. “This is very fine cooking, Betty,” he said, biting into a fried chicken breast.
“Betty’s the finest cook I know,” Peck said, biting into his own chicken.
The food was Southern—corn, collard greens, black-eyed peas, cornbread and biscuits, and of course the chicken. Ham ate well, but saved a little room.
“How about some dessert?” Betty asked, as she and the other women cleared away the dishes. “We’ve got some pecan pie.”
“I’d love that, Betty,” Ham said.
“Be right back.”
“The women’ll leave us after dessert,” Rawlings said, “then we can talk.”
Ham nodded as if he understood. Nothing about this evening so far was any different from a hundred other evenings he’d spent at the home of fellow soldiers, except there had been less drinking. He hadn’t been offered a refill after his first bourbon, and iced tea had been served with dinner.
Betty returned with the pie, and when that was gone, coffee. “I’ve put a pot in your den,” she said to her husband.
“Gentlemen, why don’t we go in there and have our coffee?” Rawlings said. He led the way across the living room and into another room that had been paneled in pine and furnished with leather easy chairs.
Ham looked around him and saw the largest private collection of weapons he had ever seen outside a military arsenal. There were hunting rifles and shotguns, but the bulk of the weapons were military—assault rifles, pistols, machine guns. The Barrett’s rifle occupied a place of honor over the fireplace.
Ham gave a low whistle. “Hey, Peck, looks like you’ve been shopping at your own gun show.”
Peck gave a little smile and indicated where Ham should sit. “I like to be well armed,” he said.
Ham laughed. “That’s an understatement.”
Peck poured everybody a drink from a decanter. “On the day,” he said, “it’ll all get used.”
The other men raised their glasses. “On the day,” they said in unison.
Ham didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about, but he raised his glass, too. Then everybody sat down.
Twenty-six
PECK RAWLINGS GOT THE BALL ROLLING. “WELL, Ham, tell me something: what do you think of our current president of the United States, William Henry Lee?”
Ham said nothing, but held his nose.
Everybody smiled a little.
“I guess you’ve got some support around here for that opinion,” Rawlings said.
“I believe somebody took a shot at him during the campaign,” Ham said. “Pity he wasn’t a better shot.”
“You think his opponent was the better man, then?”
“Yes, but not much better.”
“Who would you have preferred?”
“George Wallace, maybe, but he wasn’t running, and anyway, he was a little too far to the left for my taste.”
Rawlings seemed pleased with that assessment.
“And what do you think of our present form of government?”
“I think it was a great idea that got royally screwed up along the way, especially in the twentieth century.”
“I can’t say I disa
gree with you,” Rawlings replied.
Ham sipped his brandy.
Mack Harston leaned forward in his chair. “Would you change things, if you could?”
“Sure, but what could I do?”
“Maybe more than you think.”
“I’d be interested in hearing about that,” Ham said.
“It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness,” Jim said.
“So I’ve heard, but I’d prefer a flashlight.”
“Your proficiency with various weapons might represent a flashlight,” Rawlings said, getting up and taking a manila folder from his desk. He sat down again and opened it. “Your service record says you fired Expert with everything the army gave you.”
“My service record?” Ham said, genuinely surprised. “You’ve got my service record?”
“I have,” Rawlings said.
“How in the hell did you do that?”
“Let’s just say that we’ve got friends in useful places. I get the impression from reading it that you don’t have much compunction about killing.”
“I’ve never had any compunction about killing somebody who needed it, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life on death row. They say the death penalty isn’t a deterrent, but it sure is for me.”
“That’s a smart way to think,” Rawlings said.
The phone on the desk rang, but it was picked up somewhere else in the house. A moment later, Emily Harston came to the door. “It’s okay,” she said to her husband, then she closed the door.
Ham sipped his brandy. “You planning on killing somebody, Peck?”
Rawlings smiled. “Oh, I’m just speaking hypothetically.”
“Okay.”
Suddenly Rawlings stood up, placed the file on his desk and turned to Ham. “Well, Ham, it’s been a real pleasure having you out here.” The others stood up, too.
Ham figured he’d been dismissed, so he stood up, too. “I’ve enjoyed it. Please tell Betty for me that it was a real fine dinner, and I appreciate the trouble she went to.”
“That’s what women are for, isn’t it?” Rawlings said, leading the group out of the den and toward the front door. On the front steps, he paused and offered Ham his hand.
Ham took it.
“Thanks again for coming,” he said.
“Good night,” Ham replied and walked out to his truck. He got in, started it, backed out of the driveway and drove away. When he was back on the main road, he opened the glove compartment. His pistol was still there. He drove on slowly toward Orchid Beach.