by Stuart Woods
TODD REACHED THE CORNER just after a green Volvo station wagon made a turn to the right, then drove away. A woman was at the wheel, but all he could see was the back of her head. He began running, but before he could close the distance between them she turned left, and he lost sight of her again. By the time he reached the next corner she had disappeared. The big problem was, he had no idea if the woman in the car was the woman at the Indian market.
LAUREN MADEIT BACK to Canyon Road, then turned onto Garcia Street and pointed the car toward home, constantly checking her mirror. Once home, she pulled into the garage and closed the door behind her. She jumped out of the car and ran into the kitchen, where Teddy was sipping a cup of tea.
“I think I got made,” she said.
“Where?”
“At the jewelry market in front of the Palace of the Governors,” she said. “When he turned his back for a moment I got out of there, but I think he spotted me. Then I lost him for about ten minutes, but he nearly caught up to me in traffic, though he couldn’t have had any idea which car I was in.”
“Do you think the Volvo is blown?” Teddy asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Describe the man.”
“Six feet, a hundred and eighty, short, sandy hair, sort of muscular, like he works out a lot.”
“Did you make eye contact?”
“Once, just for a second, then he turned around and looked at the people behind him. He may have been looking for you.”
Teddy put his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. “He’s lucky I wasn’t there,” he said.
33
Bart Cross woke up at four A.M., shaved, showered and began cleaning up the house. It took him the better part of an hour to make it presentable, then he wiped all the surfaces down with Windex to remove his fingerprints, packed his gear and threw it into the bed of the pickup.
On the front seat were three empty FedEx boxes. Using his super-sharp bowie knife he cut apart two of them and pasted them to the doors of the pickup with two-sided tape. The third box he closed and sealed, and put it back onto the front seat with a clipboard he had bought.
He locked up the place and closed and locked the garage, and by five thirty he was making his way toward Tesuque on dark roads.
He drove up the hill past Ed Eagle’s house and found a perch where he could keep an eye on the place through binoculars, then sat down among the rocks and ate a breakfast he had prepared the night before. At about six thirty he heard a car come up the road, but when he looked down the hill in the dim light he saw nothing.
VITTORIO DROPPED OFF CUPIE at his usual rock, then drove past Eagle’s house and into the rocks, where he normally parked. He was in place by the time the sun began its climb, and he knew that Eagle would appear around a quarter to eight. He pressed the button on the radio. “You okay, Cupie?”
“Yeah,” Cupie responded. “I’ve got my coffee.”
BART KNEW THAT EAGLE arrived at his offices at eight, so he figured him to leave the house fifteen minutes before that. He watched the time carefully. At twenty before eight, he got into the truck, slipped into a navy-blue Windbreaker and matching baseball cap, checked his gun and knife, and started down the hill, coasting, so they wouldn’t hear any engine noise. At precisely a quarter to eight, Bart pulled into the Eagle driveway at the exact moment when Eagle left the house. As Bart got out of the truck, carrying the empty FedEx box and the clipboard, Eagle stopped on his porch to kiss his wife goodbye.
VITTORIO’S ATTENTION was diverted for a moment as he watched a hawk circling in the sky, hunting. When he looked back at the house he was astonished to see a dark pickup truck parked in Eagle’s driveway, and a man in a Windbreaker and baseball cap getting out, as Eagle stood on his front porch, talking with Susannah. Then he saw the FedEx logo on the side of the truck and the box and clipboard the man was carrying, and he relaxed. Just an early FedEx delivery.
BART SMILED to put the two people at ease and walked toward them. “Good morning, Mr. Eagle,” he said. “FedEx delivery for you.”
Eagle turned and faced him, while his wife went back into the house and closed the door. “You’re kind of early, aren’t you?”
“Gotta get the day started,” Bart replied, handing him the clipboard. “Sign on line one, please; first delivery of the day.” He patted his pockets. “Left my pen in the truck.”
“That’s all right,” Eagle said, reaching into an inside pocket. “I’ve got one.”
Now both of Eagle’s hands were occupied, and Bart saw his chance. He whipped the bowie knife out of its scabbard stuck down his pants and swung it in a wide arc at Eagle’s throat, feeling it hit the mark and seeing the blood spurt. Eagle went down on one knee, clutching at his throat, and Bart backhanded him and knocked him to the ground, then ran for the front door.
VITTORIO COULDN’T BELIEVE what he had seen. He drew his gun and his cell phone simultaneously and dialed 911 as he made his way, running, through the rocks and down the hill.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” the operator asked.
“I need an ambulance and the police. A man has been knifed in the throat and the assailant is in his house, where his wife is.” He gave the address, closed the phone and grabbed his radio. “Cupie, Eagle is down, ambulance on the way. Get up here and be careful; single assailant in the house now!”
BART DREW HIS PISTOL and entered the house, leaving the door open behind him. He saw no one inside. “Mrs. Eagle?” he called. “I have a package for you, too. I need a signature.” He got no response. Holding the gun at his side, he made his way toward where he believed the kitchen would be. Then he heard running footsteps from the driveway outside.
“Ed,” a voice shouted. “Hold this on the wound and apply pressure.”
BART FOUND THE KITCHEN and went out the rear door as fast as he could. He made his way around the corner of the house and peeked at the front porch. Eagle was lying on his back, and whoever had been there must have gone inside. He sprinted for the pickup truck, got it started, backed out and started up the hill, away from Tesuque. In his rearview mirror he saw a fat man huffing and puffing his way up the hill, then he was around a bend and gone.
VITTORIO WENT into the house carefully, his gun drawn. He checked the kitchen, then crept into the living room, which was empty. He was headed toward where he thought the bedrooms would be when he heard the truck start outside and the crunch of tires on gravel. Shit, the guy was gone. “Mrs. Eagle?” he yelled. “Are you all right?”
Susannah Wilde Eagle stepped from a doorway, a pistol held out in front of her, and fired two rounds.
Vittorio was spun around and went down.
CUPIE STOPPED TO CHECK on Eagle, who was breathing and pressing a bloody cloth to his throat. “Hang on, Ed, an ambulance is on the way.” He walked into the house just in time to hear two gunshots. “Oh, shit,” Cupie said aloud. “I hope he hasn’t shot Susannah.”
BART DROVE AS QUICKLY as he safely could over the hill, then turned toward the north side of Santa Fe and made his way on back roads until he crossed under I-25. He traveled south, toward Albuquerque, keeping parallel with but avoiding I-25, where he knew the state patrol might already be looking for the truck. At one point, nearly to Double Eagle Airport, he stopped and pulled the FedEx signs off the truck, called the dealer from whom he had bought the truck and told him he could pick it up from the parking lot at Double Eagle and ship it to L.A., as planned. Then he called Barbara.
“Yes?”
“It’s done.”
“You’re sure he’s dead?”
“I cut his throat and left him bleeding out on his front porch.”
“What about the woman?”
“Problem there. She went back into the house. I followed her in, but turns out Eagle had two men, those P.I.s, watching the house. I got out just in time, but I heard shooting from inside. I don’t know who fired or got shot.”
“Do the P.I.s know who you are?”
“They don’t know my name, and only one of them, the Indian, has seen me.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m nearly to Double Eagle. I’ll ditch the car and be in the air in twenty minutes.”
“Call me when you’re back in town.” She hung up, and so did he.
He drove the last mile to Double Eagle, got his gear out of the truck and wiped the vehicle down with Windex, then hurried to the ramp where his airplane was parked. He’d already paid for his fuel and parking, and he wasn’t going to file a flight plan.
He got the engines started and began working through his checklist as he taxied. At the end of the runway he did a quick run-up of the engines, then announced his intentions over the airport frequency, checked for landing traffic, then taxied onto the runway and shoved the throttles forward.
Half an hour later he was at sixteen thousand five hundred feet, sucking oxygen, on his way to Burbank Airport, in the San Fernando Valley, near where he lived. He felt elated.
34
Vittorio held out a hand and yelled, “Don’t shoot, Susannah!”
“Vittorio?” she asked. “My God, have I shot you?”
“Call nine-one-one and tell them we need two ambulances instead of one,” Vittorio replied, struggling to sit up and check his wounds. He found he had taken a bullet high and to the left in his chest, and after checking his breathing and the blood flow, he figured it had missed the lung and the artery. “You have any bandages?” he asked Susannah. “Just a clean dishcloth will do.”
She ran to the kitchen and returned with a dishcloth, and he pressed it to his chest. “Where’s Ed?” she asked.
“He’s on the front porch. Cupie is with him.”
She ran for the front door.
Vittorio changed his position for comfort and heard something hit the tile floor. He looked behind him and saw a bloody, intact bullet on the floor. Thank God she had been using hardball ammunition instead of hollow-points. He calculated that unless they found internal injuries he hadn’t figured on, he would need only stitches, a dressing and a shot of ampicillin.
He felt exhausted now, having used up all his available adrenaline. “Cupie!” he yelled.
Cupie came running through the doorway. “Vittorio, you okay?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “Did she call for another ambulance?”
“I did,” Cupie said, kneeling beside him and pulling away the dishcloth so that he could check Vittorio’s wound. “Not bleeding too bad,” he said. “Just enough to keep it clean.” He checked Vittorio’s back. “Same here,” he said. “I think you got lucky. Hang on, I’ll get another dishcloth.”
Vittorio waited patiently for him to return with the cloth, which Cupie pressed to his back. Then Cupie leaned him against the wall. “Did you get a look at the guy?” he asked.
“Nah,” Cupie said. “He was already in the truck when I saw it, and I had the light-reflection problem on the window. How about you?”
“He was wearing a baseball cap, and I was looking down on him.”
“Was it Bart Cross?”
“I don’t know. He was tall enough, but that wasn’t Cross’s vehicle.”
“He could have stolen it,” Cupie said. “I hear sirens.”
“About time,” Vittorio said. “Don’t let them give me morphine. I want a clear head.”
“Whatever you say,” Cupie replied.
“How’s Eagle?”
“I don’t know,” Cupie said. “Ed is still bleeding, but holding pressure on the wound may be slowing it down. The cut looks long but shallow to me. Susannah is on the case.”
The sirens got louder, and there was the sound of tires crunching on gravel and doors slamming.
“I’ll get somebody in here,” Cupie said.
Vittorio started to speak, but a wave of nausea overcame him. He took a deep breath, then sagged to the floor and passed out.
VITTORIO WOKE UP in a hospital room with Cupie asleep in a chair next to him. He fumbled around, found the control unit for the bed and sat himself up and elevated his feet.
Cupie stirred. “You’re awake?”
“Yeah. How’s Eagle?”
“In surgery. They have a vascular specialist here, so Ed’s got some sort of shot. I’m type O, so I gave some blood. Eagle is A-positive.”
“I’m A-positive,” Vittorio said.
“You can’t spare any,” Cupie said.
“When can I get out of here?”
“What? You haven’t even talked to a doctor yet. You got some place to be?”
“I want to know if Bart Cross is still out at that guesthouse in Las Campanas.”
“I can check on that without your help,” Cupie said drily.
“Well, stop fluttering around here like an old woman and do it,” Vittorio said.
“I’m not fluttering, and you need some morphine,” Cupie said, pressing the call button.
A nurse appeared. “Can I help you?”
“This man needs morphine,” Cupie said.
“I don’t want morphine!” Vittorio said. “I told you!”
“Ignore him,” Cupie said to the nurse, and she disappeared. “You’re way too cranky,” Cupie said, “and that will get your blood pressure up and slow your recovery.”
“I thought you were going to go check on Bart Cross,” Vittorio said.
“Just as soon as I hold you down for the nurse,” Cupie replied.
WITH VITTORIO SETTLED INTO a morphine haze and Eagle still in surgery, Cupie drove out to Las Campanas, to the guesthouse where Cross had been staying. He drew his gun and hammered on the door. “Police!” he yelled. “Open up!”
That got him nowhere. He walked around the house, looking into windows. “Neat as a pin,” he said aloud to himself. “The rooster has flown the coop.”
He got into Vittorio’s car and drove back to the hospital. Vittorio was sitting up in bed, dozing lightly. He opened his eyes when Cupie walked in. “Eagle’s still alive,” he said. “That’s all I know. He’s in the ICU, and Susannah is with him.”
There was a knock on the door, and two men in suits walked in, flashing badges.
“I’m Romera; this is Reed,” the taller of the two said. “You feel up to answering some questions, Mr.”—he read a card in his hand—“Victoria?”
“It’s Vittorio,” Cupie corrected him. “No last name.”
“And who might you be?”
“Cupie Dalton. I work with him.” He jerked a thumb toward Vittorio.
“How’s Eagle?” Vittorio asked.
“Still out,” the detective replied. “Lots of tubes in him. You want to tell me what happened?”
Vittorio recited the chain of events as economically as possible.
“The guy shoot you?” Romera asked.
“No, Mrs. Eagle shot me, mistook me for the guy.”
“Jesus Christos, what a mess!” Romera said. Reed wrote it down. “Where were you, Mr. Dalton?”
“I was staked out down the hill sixty or seventy yards. The pickup didn’t pass me, must have come down the hill from up the mountain. He escaped that way, too.”
“And neither of you got a look at the guy’s face?” Romera asked.
“No,” Vittorio said quickly. “And I didn’t know him.”
“I didn’t even see him,” Cupie said. “Just the truck.”
“What kind of truck?”
“Pickup, maybe a Chevy,” Cupie replied. “I’m not good with trucks.”
“I am,” Vittorio said. “It was a Toyota. It had a FedEx logo on the door and a New Mexico plate.”
“Was he wearing a FedEx uniform?”
Vittorio shrugged, causing him pain. “Maybe. A dark Windbreaker and matching baseball cap.”
“You want to bring any charges against Mrs. Eagle for shooting you?” Romera asked.
“Of course not,” Vittorio said. “She just mistook me for the guy who cut her husband.”
“Whatever you say,” Romera replied. “She’s shot a
couple of other people in the past, you know—her ex-husband in L.A. and a woman delivering flowers to Eagle’s house here last year.”
“Yeah, and the woman was trying to kill them both.”
“You figure the ex-wife is behind this, then?”
“I do.”
“But she’s in prison in Mexico,” Romera said. “I checked.”
“If you say so,” Vittorio replied.
35
Bart Cross landed at Burbank and taxied to his T-hangar, on a quiet part of the field. He opened the hangar door with a remote control, then swung the airplane around facing away from the hangar, ran through his checklist and cut the engines. He sat for a moment in the airplane, thinking, then picked up his logbook and wrote in the flight to Albuquerque and a return the day before. That would check with the parking lot’s electronic records and give him an alibi.
He got out of the airplane, hooked up the towbar and pushed it backward into the hangar. As he was about to leave, someone he knew taxied past him to two hangars down, cut his engine and got out.
“Hey, Bart,” the man said. “How’s it hanging?”
“Not bad,” Bart replied. “Spent a few days in Santa Fe at a friend’s house.”
“That’s not bad, either.”
“Hey, Tom, if anybody should ask, you saw me put away my airplane yesterday, okay?”
“Sure, kiddo. You can do the same for me sometime.”
“Thanks, Tom.” Cross walked to the parking lot, got his car and drove home. He’d be back at work tomorrow. As he pulled into his driveway his cell phone went off. “Hello?”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Just got home from Santa Fe. The car is back where I picked it up.”
“Will you be there tonight? I want to pay you.”
“Sure thing. I’m too tired to go out.”
“Where do you live?”
He gave her the address and directions from Coldwater Canyon.
“I’ll be there late, maybe very late. I’ve got to make a stop on the way.”
“I’ll be here,” he said.
She hung up.
Bart picked up the papers on the doorstep on his way into the house but tossed them aside without reading them. He needed a nap.
