Stuart Woods - Santa Fe Edge

“Yes, she is, isn’t she? I’d like that.”

“Do you know how to get in touch with her?”

“I have her cell phone number,” Dolly replied. “I’ll call her in the morning, if you like.”

“Tomorrow night is good for me,” Todd said. “I’ll take the two of you to dinner, if you can get hold of her.”

“I’m sure she’d like to get hold of you,” Dolly laughed.

“And you as well,” Todd said.

VITTORIO AND CUPIE got back to Vittorio’s house late, after stopping for dinner on the way from Albuquerque Airport.

Vittorio found the Los Alamos section of the phone book and looked for the name “Holroyd.” There was only one listing.

“It’s on Big Bowl Road,” he said.

“Do you know it?”

“Yeah. A zillion years ago the mountain where Los Alamos is was an active volcano. One day the thing exploded, blowing the top off the mountain and sending pieces of it as far away as Kansas. The result was that a big, shallow bowl of a valley was formed where the top of the mountain used to be, and that’s where Big Bowl Road is. It’s very beautiful up there.”

“Well, tomorrow, why don’t we do some sightseeing?” Cupie suggested.

“I think that’s a good idea.”

“Is there a house number?”

“Yes, 1228. That’s part of the new federal plan to give every house in the U.S. a street address, for the emergency services, in case they have to find it. It means that the Holroyd house is twelve-point-twenty-eight miles from the nearest intersection with a main road, so it shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“Now,” Cupie said, “we have to talk about what we do if we find her.”

“Yeah,” Vittorio replied. “I guess we do.”

BARBARA HAD REACHED the Holroyds’ house in time for dinner, and their cook had done some of her best work. They feasted on venison that Hugh had shot near his house.

“There’s plenty of it up here,” he said. “All you have to do is conceal yourself, make sure you have a clear field of fire and wait. One will come along soon.”

“Hugh, how long have you two lived up here?”

“Seven years,” Holroyd said, “though we travel a lot. We also kept our place in San Francisco.”

“That’s where I live, too,” Barbara said.

“Wait a minute: Keeler. Were you married to Walter Keeler?”

“Yes, I was,” Barbara replied.

“I read about his death in that awful accident,” Hugh said. “I’m very sorry.”

“Thank you. Did you know Walter?”

“Yes. I did some business with him, supplied aluminum avionics trays for the units he manufactured. I liked him.”

“So did I,” Barbara said.

“I knew his lawyer, too-Joe Wilen?”

“Oh, yes,” Barbara said. “I knew him, too.”

“I didn’t like him as much as Walter, though. He tried to screw me on a deal once.”

“He did the same for me,” Barbara said. She told them about how Wilen and his associate had changed her husband’s will.

“Well, I hope you finally get everything that’s coming to you,” Hugh said.

“I usually do,” Barbara replied.

Ed Eagle was pushed in a wheelchair to the door of the hospital, and a cop held the car door open for him. Susannah got behind the wheel, then the cop got into the unmarked car behind them and followed them home.

Ed walked into the house and looked around. “God, but I’ve missed this place,” he said.

Susannah helped him off with his coat. “And you’ve been missed here, too.” The first couple of nights after he was hospitalized, she had slept on a cot near him, but when he was better she had gone home nights.

“Do you want to lie down?” she asked.

“No,” he replied. “I want to call the office and tell them I’m still alive.” He went into his study, called his secretary, got a few phone messages and told her he’d be back at work the following Monday.

Susannah made them lunch and sent sandwiches out to the two cops, who sat in their car, the motor running, the heater turned up.

“Do you feel safe?” Susannah asked.

“No.”

“Neither do I.”

“She’s still out there somewhere,” Eagle said. “I wonder where Vittorio and Cupie are.”

“I had a call from Cupie yesterday. He said they were making a quick trip to L.A. He didn’t say why.”

CUPIE AND VITTORIO DROVE up the winding mountain road to Los Alamos, drove through the town and out the other side.

“Next right,” Vittorio said, looking at the map. After Cupie had turned, Vittorio said, “Check the odometer for the mileage. We want to drive twelve-point-twenty-eight miles.”

They wound down the road into the broad valley, Big Bowl, and as they came up on the house number, Vittorio pointed to a large stone with the name “Holroyd” etched into it.

“Now what?” Cupie asked. “We can’t just drive down the driveway.”

“There was a dirt road forty or fifty yards up the hill,” Vittorio said. “Turn around and let’s take a look in there.”

Cupie did as he was instructed, then stopped. “I think we ought to go on foot from here,” he said. “If Barbara is at the end of this track we don’t want her to see the car.”

The two men got out of the car and began walking down the road. After a hundred yards they passed a copse of piñon trees and the view down the hill opened up. They could see the Holroyd house and what appeared to be a guesthouse.

Vittorio stopped and took a small pair of binoculars from his coat pocket. He scanned the house carefully, then handed the lenses to Cupie. “Look at the corner of the guesthouse,” he said.

Cupie got the binoculars focused, then panned from the main house to the guesthouse and stopped.

“What does that look like behind the corner of the guesthouse?” Vittorio asked.

Cupie grinned. “The rear of a tan station wagon,” he said.

“Okay,” Vittorio said. “Now we have to go talk to Ed Eagle.”

LATE IN THE DAY the phone rang, and Eagle picked it up. “Hello?”

“Mr. Eagle,” a cop said, “I’ve got Vittorio and Cupie out here, and they want to see you.”

“Send them in,” Eagle said. He hung up and walked to the front door to meet them.

“Good to see you looking well, Ed,” Cupie said.

“It’s good to feel well,” Eagle replied.

“We want to apologize again for letting that guy get at you,” Vittorio said.

“Apology unnecessary,” Eagle said. “You probably saved my life by getting an ambulance here so fast.” He took them into his study and sat them down.

“Here’s what we know so far, Ed,” Cupie said. “When Barbara got away from the jail-and we still don’t know how she did that-she was met by James Long in Acapulco and flown back to the States by a pilot who worked for Long named Bart Cross. They dropped Barbara off in Yuma. Somewhere between Yuma and Santa Fe she met some people called Holroyd, from Los Alamos.

“Barbara rented a guesthouse at Las Campanas and was apparently in Santa Fe for a few days, at least. Then she went back to L.A. and hired the pilot, Cross, to kill you. After he attacked you he went back to L.A., probably thinking you were dead. Then Barbara, having heard that you were still alive, went to his house in Burbank and shot him. We were able to get hold of some pages from his aircraft logbook that confirms some of this.

“Yesterday, we went to L.A. and watched Cross’s funeral at Forest Lawn, from a distance, and after that we followed James Long to a gas station and questioned him. He talked to us, because he’s afraid he’ll be implicated both in the attack on you and the murder of Cross.”

“The son of a bitch,” Eagle said. “And we’re actually in business with him on this film Susannah is making.”