Stuart Woods - Santa Fe Edge

“I’m checking myself out of here,” Vittorio said. “I’m fine.”

“He really shouldn’t leave here,” the nurse said, “but he’s stubborn.”

“I’ve got a pocketful of pills to take,” Vittorio said, signing the document and handing it to the nurse. “Now the hospital has zero liability.”

“The doctor isn’t going to like this.”

“I don’t like it, either,” Cupie said, “but there’s no stopping this guy.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Vittorio said, starting down the hallway. They looked in on Ed Eagle, who had been moved to a room, and found him asleep. “Just as well. I don’t want to talk to him until this is over. Let’s go,” he said to Cupie, and they walked out into the parking lot. “We need to be in Los Angeles.”

“No, we don’t,” Cupie said. “We’re going to your place, and we’ll talk about L.A. tomorrow.”

“Cupie-”

“Shut up and get in the car, Vittorio.”

Vittorio got in, and Cupie drove him home.

As soon as they were there, Cupie called Centurion Studios and asked for Bart Cross.

“Long Productions,” a woman said.

“May I speak to Bart Cross, please?”

“Who is this?”

“A friend of his. He asked me to call him when I came to L.A., and I’m here.”

“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you,” the woman said. “Bart has died.”

“Died? How?”

“He was murdered last night.”

“Murdered?” Cupie asked. “Who murdered him?”

“The police don’t know yet. His cleaning lady found him this morning in his living room. He had been shot.”

“I’m shocked to hear that,” Cupie said. “Can you give me his address? I’d like to send some flowers.”

The woman gave him the address. “It’s just west of Burbank Airport,” she said, “off Coldwater Canyon.”

“Thank you very much,” Cupie said.

“May I have your name, please?”

But Cupie had already hung up.

“Barbara killed him,” Vittorio said. “She must have found out that Eagle is still alive. This means she’s in L.A. ”

“And probably at James Long’s house,” Cupie said. “I know a cop in Burbank. Let me make a call.” He put the phone on speaker and dialed the number.

“ Burbank police,” a male voice said.

“Detective Dave Santiago,” Cupie said.

“Hang on.” The phone rang.

“Detective Santiago.”

“Dave, it’s Cupie Dalton.”

“Hey, Cupie, how are you?”

“Not bad. You working the Bart Cross murder?”

“I’m not the lead, but I was out there early this morning. Did you know the guy?”

“Friend of a friend. What did you see out there?”

“He took two in the head from behind,” Santiago replied. “Looked like a pro to me.”

“When did it happen?”

“TOD was between midnight and two A.M., the M.E. says.”

“Any leads?”

“None. We’re just getting started. What’s your interest in this, Cupie?”

“Just idle curiosity,” Cupie said. “I heard the name on the news and thought I knew him.”

“Should we talk to your friend?”

“Nah, he knows nothing. He doesn’t even live in L.A. Thanks for the info, Dave. I’ll pass it on.”

“Buy me lunch one of these days.”

“Sure thing,” Cupie said, and hung up. He turned to Vittorio. “There you go.”

“It’s Barbara. She went there to pay him off-or at least Bart thought that. I bet they didn’t find any money in the house.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“She found out Eagle is alive and burned Cross to cut the trail to her.”

“Yeah, but she knows that won’t do it for us,” Cupie said. “She knows we know. That means she’ll run. She won’t be in L.A. when we get there.”

“She’ll be coming to Santa Fe,” Vittorio said.

“Maybe, but not right away. Once Eagle talks to the cops, she’ll be too hot here. Maybe she’ll just hire somebody else.”

“She’ll be very pissed off that Eagle is still alive,” Vittorio said. “I think she’ll come here pretty quick.”

“She won’t go back to the same house,” Cupie said. “She knows we know about that place.”

“What was that detective’s name who talked to us?”

“Uh, Romeo? No, Romera, or Romero.”

“I’m going to call him,” Vittorio said, picking up the phone.

“What for?”

“Eagle’s going to need a police guard while he’s in the hospital, and maybe when he gets out, too.”

“What’s wrong with us?”

“We didn’t do so hot before,” Vittorio pointed out.

“But if we call in the police, we’re not going to get a shot at Barbara.”

“If they’ve got any brains, they’ll be guarding him anyway,” Vittorio said.

“They weren’t guarding him as recently as an hour ago,” Cupie said.

Vittorio punched the speakerphone button on the phone, called the Santa Fe Police Department and asked for Detective Romera.

“Romera,” the man said.

“Detective, this is Vittorio. You talked to me yesterday at the hospital.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“I got out this morning, and there was no police guard on Ed Eagle.”

“I think the guy with the knife is long gone,” Romera said.

“You’re right about that, Detective, but the woman who hired him could still be around.”

“The ex-wife?”

“It’s gotta be.”

“You think she’ll hire another man?”

“Maybe, or maybe she’ll want to do it herself. I know her. She’s very determined.”

“You may have a point,” Romera said. “I’ll put a couple of uniforms on Eagle’s hospital room.”

“Twenty-four hours a day?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“They should get a list of nurses authorized to be in there and check everybody against the list who goes into the room.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks for calling.” Romera hung up.

“He didn’t sound too enthusiastic to me,” Cupie said.

“Maybe not, but he’s got enough street smarts to know that if Eagle gets killed in the hospital he, personally, will be left holding the bag. He’ll put the guards on.”

“I guess you’re right,” Cupie said. “So, what are we going to do?”

“Maybe we can stop her from getting as far as the hospital,” Vittorio said. “If we can find her.”

Todd Bacon sat in his hotel room, staring at his computer screen. He had reported in, told Holly Barker that her idea had worked but that he had lost Lauren Cade. She had not been pleased, and he wasn’t pleased with himself, either.

Now he was faced with new difficulties. Lauren, knowing that she had been spotted, would go to ground, and what’s more, she now knew what he looked like. He didn’t even know if it had been she in the Volvo station wagon; that was just a guess.

Nevertheless, he logged on to the Agency mainframe, accessed the New Mexico DMV records and did a search for green Volvo station wagons. They were apparently popular in the state, because the search turned up fourteen of the cars in green, none of them in Santa Fe. There was, however, one in Taos that had been registered the day he had spotted Teddy in the Grand Cherokee. That would have been the day he would have traded cars, and Teddy certainly knew enough about the Agency’s computers to hide the trade.

This was a lead so slim that it hardly qualified as a lead, but it was all he had. The Taos car was registered to a Walt Gooden. A quick call to 411 confirmed that no one by that name had a phone in Taos, nor did he, after another check, have one in Santa Fe. Well, Teddy wouldn’t have registered the car in the alias he was using, would he?

Todd continued to deduce. If Lauren had gone to ground after being spotted, would Teddy have done the same? And if so, what might cause one of them to leave wherever they were living? They weren’t going to run-they had already demonstrated that. But they could just wait him out. After all, Todd wasn’t going to spend the rest of his career on this job, no matter how important it was to Lance Cabot.