What has happened thus far: Abner and Melvin seem to be two retired Florida Snowbirds that meet every Thursday for dinner at 4 in the afternoon. Loretta seems to be watching their every move during these weekly get-togethers – taking pictures, scribbling notes and not being inconspicuous. However, things are not always as they seem.

Once, they had exited the kitchen door of Max and Dean’s Diner, Abner rolled up his Hurrycane and started jogging north, up the alley. It is not uncommon to see old men wearing Bermuda shorts, black socks, and white patent leather shoes in Florida – but they aren’t usually running in alleys.

Just before their hasty, back-door exit, Melvin had torn off a portion of the center page of the newspaper that, earlier, Abner had inconspicuously slid across the table. It was an old-school message drop – a casual looking exchange of valuable information, hidden within a simple rolled up newspaper. Melvin shoved the crumpled scrap of newsprint into the breast pocket of his plaid sport coat, and started on a leisurely stroll down the alley toward the south, deftly took a quick cut through a stand of palmetto trees, and entered into a residential community populated by people driving golf carts and adult sized tricycles.

Both men wondered about the young woman that had been monitoring their dinner conversations for the past several weeks.

That evening, Melvin sat in his Florida room at the collapsible card table that was home to an unfinished 1000 piece jig-saw puzzle. Melvin sat at the table every night, with no intention of finishing the puzzle.  It was a prop – only serving to enhance his cover story of being a widower from Grand Rapids, seeking respite from the harsh Michigan winters. He unfurled the crumpled piece of newspaper and scanned it into, what looked to be, an out of date flip-up Tracfone. With the speed of a Presidential candidate’s private server, the hidden message was decoded, Melvin committed it to his eidetic memory, and the digital translation file was turned into ether mist as a means of foiling Russian hackers.

Melvin and Abner were, indeed, retired. During the first couple of decades after the demise of the Cold War, there was not a lot of job security in the spy business. Eventually, like a lot of former international “spooks”, Abner retired along the French Riviera and Melvin hung up his shoulder holster in Rio de Janeiro. Retirement wasn’t as exciting as being eyeball deep in intrigue, but they were both getting older, the sun was warm, the libations were plentiful, and the beaches were topless. Things could be worse.

While Melvin was decoding the instructions for their next assignment, Abner was at home in his ocean-view condo, staring into his closet at the tuxedo he wore during his last mission in Monte Carlo. Now, he and Melvin had been dragged out of retirement, ordered to live like octogenarian gulf-coast Floridians, and expected to help whip the next generation of international spies into shape. If the young lady in the dark brown Mercedes was any hint about the quality of the next class of spies, he and Melvin had their work cut out.

Larry Wilson is a mostly lifelong resident of Niles. His essays stem from experiences, compilations and recollections from friends and family. He can be reached at wflw@hotmail.com.