“No, and I didn’t ask. I just figured she was a dissatisfied client of Eagle’s.”
“And when did you hear from her next?”
“I didn’t hear from her again; I got busted on an old warrant the next day, and the judge gave me thirty days, half of it suspended.”
“Did you make any attempt to kill Ed Eagle?”
“No.”
“So how did Joe Big Bear get involved in this?”
“He was in at the same time I was, but I didn’t have no truck with him. Then, a few days ago, he turns up in the visitor’s room at the jail and asks for me. I sit down with him, and he says he’s going to do the job on Eagle, and he wants twelve, five for it. He says he knows I was paid twenty-five, and he wants half. In fact, he insists. He says if I don’t give him the money, he’s going to visit my wife, kill her and steal it, so I call her, and she gives him the money. She’ll tell you.”
“And that’s it?”
“Oh, yeah, he wants the cell phone number of the woman who hired me.”
“You had her cell phone number? You didn’t mention that before.”
“Yeah, she gave me the number and told me to call her when Eagle was dead.”
“What was the number?”
Fuentes gave it to him.
“So did Joe Big Bear contact her?”
“I guess so, because there was all that money in his safe. I mean, I just went there to get my twelve, five back, see? I wasn’t stealing it.”
E
AGLE, WATCHING AND LISTENING
with Martinez in the next room turned to the D.A. “Bob, I got a message this morning: she’s driving from La Paz up the Baja to Tijuana, with a private detective I hired, and she’ll cross into San Diego, probably tonight. Can you get the cops there to pick her up?”
Martinez got up. “I’ll go see Judge O’Hara for a warrant; I know what golf course he’s playing on.”
Thirty-nine
C
UPIE WAITED UNTIL HE WENT AROUND A SHARP CURVE,
separating him from the red car, then he floored the Toyota. It didn’t exactly give him whiplash, but the V-6 began to put on speed, while Cupie watched the rearview mirror. The red car was a good half mile behind him, so he had a thirty-or forty-second edge.
The road whipped back in the other direction, putting two curves between the Toyota and the red car, and then Cupie saw exactly what he wanted: a dirt road to the left, climbing a hill into a grove of piñons. He jerked the wheel and left the main road. The dirt road was little more than a track, and the Toyota did some dancing.
“What the hell is going on?” Barbara shouted from the rear seat.
“Shut up,” Cupie explained. He whipped the car to the left behind some trees and quickly got out, peering through the branches at the road below him. The red car shot by, having picked up speed. For a moment, Cupie had thought he saw Vittorio at the wheel, but he guessed his mind must be playing tricks. He turned to Barbara, who was leaning out the rear window. “Break out the sandwiches,” he said. “We’re having lunch here.”
V
ITTORIO CAME OUT
of the first curve and saw an empty road ahead. He stood on the accelerator and by the time he got around the second curve, he was doing eighty. He went around several more curves before he realized he had been snookered. He had underestimated Cupie.
He slowed to make a U-turn, but before he could execute it he saw blue lights flashing in his rearview mirror. A police car came up quickly and sat on his bumper. Behind that was the black Suburban. He pulled over, rolled down his window and placed his hands on the steering wheel.
The police car pulled in front of him and stopped, and from the passenger side emerged an officer wearing a captain’s insignia, the same cop he had seen in the rear seat of the Suburban the last time he had been stopped.
The captain strolled toward him in a leisurely fashion, then stopped, looking astonished. “Dios mío!” he said. “Are you a dead man?”
“Not quite,” Vittorio replied.
“But there was a search of the Gulf for you.”
“I slipped and fell overboard from the ferry, but a fishing boat picked me up and took me to Cabo San Lucas.”
“You are a very lucky man, señor…”
“Vittorio.”
“Yes, I remember the name.”
“What can I do for you?”
“You were driving very fast, Señor Vittorio. The speed limit on this road is one hundred kilometers per hour; that’s sixty-two miles per hour.”
“I’m very sorry,” Vittorio said. “It’s a mostly empty road, and I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Would you step out of the car, please, señor?”
Vittorio reached outside and opened the car door, so that his hands would remain in view. He wasn’t going to give this man an excuse to shoot him. “How can I help you?” he asked the cop.
“You can tell me where is the woman you and the other gringo had with you.”
Vittorio shrugged. “I expect she is in New York City,” he said. “We put her aboard an airplane in Puerto Vallarta.”
“Señor,” the captain said, “nothing happens in Puerto Vallarta that I don’t know about. No charter airplane took off from the airport that morning.”
“Well, she said she had arranged a charter, and we left her there. Perhaps…”
“Señor, you are beginning to try my patience. Open the trunk immediately.”
Vittorio got the keys from the ignition, walked to the rear of the car and opened the trunk. He kept his hand ready to draw the. 45 in the holster on his belt. The captain leaned forward to peer inside, but there was only a spare tire and Vittorio’s single piece of luggage.
The cop spun around, anger on his face and his hand on his gun.
“Where is she?”
“Captain, I give you my word, I don’t know where she is. As you can see, I am traveling alone, and I only wish to drive to Tijuana and return to my country.”
“Where is your partner, Señor Cupie?”
“I don’t know. After I fell off the ferry, I never saw him again. I expect that, since he must think I’m dead, too, he went home to Los Angeles.”
The captain seemed to cool off a bit. “Perhaps you are right, señor,” he said.
“Captain, may I ask, why are you so interested in this woman?”
“Because she is a murderer,” he replied.
Vittorio was not shocked to hear this. “And who did she murder?”
“My nephew.”
“Please accept my condolences, captain. When did this happen?”
“Some years ago. She came to Puerto Vallarta with another woman on a vacation—she used a different name, then. She met my nephew at the bar of her hotel, and they spent the remainder of the evening…entertaining each other. The following morning she checked out of the hotel, and the maid found my nephew’s body. He had been killed by a knife in his heart. Then, earlier this week, she checked into another hotel in Puerto Vallarta, and an employee there, who had formerly worked at the hotel where the murder took place, recognized her, even though she had changed her appearance.”
“Why do you suppose she would be so foolish as to return to Puerto Vallarta?”
“Because she was running from her husband,” the captain replied. “This is what your friend Mr. Cupie told me. Also, she had shot Mr. Cupie, and she had to leave Mexico City. I was not surprised to hear that this woman and your client’s wife were the same person. Perhaps you can understand why I am extremely disappointed not to have apprehended her.”
“I can certainly understand,” Vittorio said. “I would like to meet her again myself, for my own reasons.”
“Is it possible that the woman had something to do with your swim in the Gulf, señor?”
“Let’s just say that if I should encounter her again in the United States, you will have no further need of arresting her.”
The captain smiled broadly, revealing two gold teeth. “Perhaps if that should happen, señor, you might do me the courtesy of informing me of the outcome?” He handed Vittorio his card.
Vittorio pocketed the card. “I would be very pleased to do so,” he said.
The captain saluted. “Then I bid you good day and good journey,” he said.
They shook hands, and the policeman returned to his car.
Vittorio got back into the Chevrolet, wondering if the captain’s story could be true. He decided it probably was.
Forty
E
AGLE RETURNED HOME AND FOUND SUSANNAH SITTING
in the living room, reading a book.
“Hi, there,” she said. “When I woke up, you had gone.”
“Yes, I had a call from the district attorney.”
“About the man who tried to kill you?”
“No, about another man, the one who called me from the jail to warn me.”
“I don’t know about that. Why don’t you tell me the whole story?”
Eagle sat down next to her on the sofa and began at the beginning, taking her up to his killing of Joe Big Bear.
“And the man you talked to today called to warn you?”
“Yes, but I didn’t exactly talk to him; I observed his interrogation by the police from the next room, through a one-way mirror.”
“Is it over, then?”
“No, it isn’t. A detective I hired to find Barbara was supposed to send me some sheets of paper with her signature on them. They arrived today, but they were blank, and I haven’t been able to reach either of the two investigators I hired to find her. I don’t know what to think.”
“You certainly lead an interesting life, Ed Eagle.”
“Lately, it’s been a little
too
interesting.”
“What are you going to do next?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing I can do, until I hear from either Vittorio or Cupie. I’ve left messages on their voice mails.”
“Doing nothing isn’t much fun for a man like you, is it?”
Eagle smiled. “I think you’ve got a pretty good grip on me.”
“Not yet,” she said, “but stick around.”
V
ITTORIO HUNG BACK
until the police car and the black Suburban left him behind, then he made a U-turn and went in search of Cupie and Barbara. The delay had allowed him to cool off a bit and to think ahead about what he would do when he caught up with her.
He didn’t think Cupie would sit still for his shooting her, so he was going to have to wait until he had an opportunity of getting her alone, and he didn’t know how he was going to do that or what he was going to do when he did. He abandoned the search for the Toyota. Instead, he pulled into a side road and behind a cluster of billboards, where he could wait until the Toyota passed by, as it would have to eventually.
C
UPIE AND BARBARA
sat in the car, finishing the sandwiches the hotel had prepared for them, Barbara drinking from a bottle of tepid white wine. Cupie stuck to a can of soda, wanting to keep his wits about him. The pistol on his belt was handy, in case the red car turned around and came looking for them.
“Barbara,” he said, “are you ready to tell me yet why the police want you so badly?”
Barbara sighed. “Does it really matter? They want me, that’s all. I should never have gone back to Puerto Vallarta, but I thought enough time had passed.”
“Passed since what?”
“All right, one of my sisters and I were there several years ago for a few days. We met this guy in the hotel bar who was good-looking and rather sexy. After a few margaritas we started talking about a threesome, and we went upstairs to our room. He got very drunk and began to slap us both around, wanting us to perform on each other. I mean, we were sisters, for Christ’s sake!”
“What happened?” Cupie asked.
“I hit him over the head with a tequila bottle, and we were going to dump him in the hallway with his clothes, but Julia was really, really angry, and when she got angry she was dangerous. She found a switchblade knife in his pocket, and it was razor sharp.”
Cupie’s jaw dropped. “She killed him?”
“Not exactly,” Barbara said.
“Not exactly? What the hell does that mean? What did she do to him?”
“She cut his dick off and stuck it in his mouth. He was still unconscious and didn’t feel a thing, but there sure was a lot of blood. We packed up and beat it out of there.”
Cupie blanched. “Do you have any idea who this fellow was?”
“Does it matter?”
“It may matter a very great deal.”
“I don’t remember his name; I just remember that he bragged about having a brother and an uncle who were policemen.”
“Well,” Cupie said, “I think that answers pretty fully my question about why the police want you.”
“Frankly, I think it’s the traveler’s checks,” she said. “There was no way to connect me with what happened back then. I had a different name then.”
“Maybe somebody recognized you.”
“Who could recognize me?”
“Somebody who remembered you from your first visit.”
“But I stayed in a different hotel this time.”
“Workers—waiters, desk clerks, maids—move from hotel to hotel.”
“That seems pretty far-fetched to me.”
“Far-fetched doesn’t even begin to describe what’s already happened.”
She looked at her watch. “Let’s get to Tijuana; I don’t want to spend another night in this country.”
“I don’t blame you,” Cupie said, starting the car. “Neither do I. Get in the backseat.” She climbed over the front seat and lay down. He turned the car around, headed down the hill, and turned north again.
V
ITTORIO SAT UP
at attention; the Toyota had just passed his location, headed north at moderate speed. He gave Cupie another minute to gain ground, then he started the Chevy and followed, waiting for an opportunity.
Forty-one
E
AGLE TURNED OFF THE PAVEMENT OF TANO ROAD ONTO
unpaved Tano Norte, toward Susannah’s new house.
“You think they’ll ever pave this road?” she asked.
“Who knows? I thought the county would never pave Tano Road, but they did. Anyway, a lot of people in Santa Fe think dirt roads are charming.”
“Really? I think they’re dusty in summer and muddy in winter.”
“Your opinion is unassailable, but add icy to muddy. I’ve seen eight inches of snow on this road. You’re going to need snow tires.”
“And a stock of canned and frozen food, too.”