The clock reads a quarter past ten.
“Glorious,” I mutter.
I should have been out at the warehouse an hour ago.
“Mr. Orso? You awake?” Andrea pokes her head in the door. The timbre of her New England accent pierces my skull. “Oh good, you found the aspirins. Now, I’m having chef make you an omelet and some bacon. Does that sound good? If not, I can have him do some waffles. You need a good breakfast after last night. Do you want it all brought up here?”
“No, Andrea, I’m fine.”
“You sure? I don’t mind bringing it up.”
“I’ll get it in the kitchen in a bit.”
“I really don’t mind at all.”
“I need to get up, Andrea. I’ll eat in a bit.”
“I’ll make sure it’s kept warm,” she says. She starts wiping down my dresser with a dusting cloth. “I put towels out for you in the bathroom. There’s a new shampoo in there as well. Now, I want you to be honest with me when you try it out. I can always go back to the other kind. Do you want me to get your clothes together? It’s a little chilly today. That damn groundhog is a liar.”
“I’ve got it.”
“All right, Mr. Orso. If I don’t see you down there, let me know when you’re done. I wanna get on the vacuuming in here.”
“I’ll be out soon. Go already!”
“Fine, fine! I’m going already!” She doesn’t leave before she finishes dusting the dresser and correcting the tilt on the wall art next to the door.
I shower, dress, and quickly shovel an omelet into my face while surrounded by the roar of a vacuum cleaner. Once in the car, I turn off the radio and drive in blessed silence for a few minutes. The air is cold, but I roll down my window a crack anyway, allowing the fresh air to further wake me up.
It’s going to be a long day.
I park behind a strip mall, right next to the sheriff’s car, and enter a white windowless door. The hallway beyond is narrow and barely warmer than outside. I can hear the running of machinery through the closed doors lining the hallway and open the one on the left.
Seven pairs of eyes glance up at me, offer shocked expressions, and then quickly go back to their work. Consistent humming fills the room as printers spit out reams of replicated material though the sound isn’t as loud as it would usually be.
“Good morning, Mr. Orso.” An overweight, brown-haired man with a beard approaches and offers me his hand.
“Hey there, Reid. Is this all that’s left?”
“The passport machines have all been moved to the warehouse,” Reid says. “What we still have here are the genuine driver’s licenses and title papers.”
“Good. Who is running the show at the warehouse?”
“Antony is overseeing it all,” Reid says. “Not sure who he has with him.”
“Are the orders being sent there?”
“Not automatically.” Reid points over to a teenager in the corner, hunched over a computer. “Right now, we’re sending them by courier, but we should have everything automated again before the weekend. The new kid’s been working on it.”
“Make it sooner.”
“We’ll do what we can, boss.”
“I said, ‘Make it sooner.’” I stare into his eyes until he looks down.
“Yeah, sure,” Reid mumbles and then looks back up, faking a smile. “Sure, boss! We’ll have it done tomorrow.”
“Where’s Kate?”
“Front desk, last I saw her.”
I find my great aunt behind the counter of the title agency, taking applications for passports from some family planning a trip to Toronto. I wait impatiently until she’s done, and we move into the closed office behind the counter.
“Give me this month’s numbers,” I say briskly. “Just the passports.”
“Three hundred twenty-seven, last I counted. That was earlier this morning.”
“Why the drop?”
“We still have a week left in the month,” Kate says. “A lot of orders show up toward the end, mostly from Eastern Europe. I did hear the orders from Cincinnati arrived late last night, but I don’t have the counts. Antony said he was pretty happy with the numbers, but I didn’t get the details yet. It all went to the warehouse.”
“Antony said there were more licenses than expected.”
“The Georgia and Indiana ones, yes.”
“They’re cheaper.”
“Easier to fake.” Kate shrugs. “Too many changes, especially with everyone wanting the newer versions with the higher security on them.”
“They’ll have to buy the guaranteed counterfeits, then. I’m not going to put up with anyone bitching that what they paid for is only going to work for a few more months. We should probably stop taking orders for the cheap ones and push people to the others.”
“People will bitch.” Kate looks out the office window at the line forming at the counter.
“Not if they know what’s good for them. Anyone looking knows our documents are the best.”
“It does help to have all the state’s equipment working for us,” Kate says with a snort. “Is there anything else, Nate? I need to get back to the legal customers.”
“Come by tonight with all the document numbers,” I tell her. “I want a comparison going back six months.”
“It might take me a while to get that together,” she says. “I can do it, but we’re open until seven tonight, and I probably won’t make it to the house until after nine.”
“That’s fine.”
I make my way back to the car and head to the warehouse behind the lodge. When I arrive, Antony is leaning against the loading dock, smoking and flipping through his phone.
“Good news, boss,” he says when I get out of the car.
“What’s that?”
“The orders from The Natti are almost twice what we thought they
