Stuart Woods - Santa Fe Dead

“Oh, Mr. Keeler is a very upstanding citizen,” she said. “I know Mrs. Wright would be safe with him.”

“Well, I’m relieved to hear that,” Cupie said. “I’m sure she’ll give me a call when she reaches her destination. Thank you so much for your help.” He hung up.

Cupie walked back to his car and drove home. He couldn’t wait to get to his computer. Once at his desk he Googled “Walter Keeler.” His eyes widened as he read of the sale of Keeler’s company. “Two point seven bil!” he said aloud. He then went straight to the Federal Aviation Agency website, to the page for airplane registrations. He entered the name Walter Keeler and found a CitationJet III registered to him. He made a note of the tail number, then he called up a nifty little program called Flight Aware.

Flight Aware could track the progress and destination of any aircraft, airline or private; all you had to do was enter the flight number or, in this case, the tail number. Cupie did so. Seconds later, a little red airplane symbol appeared on the screen, located over the Central Valley, the farming capital of California, headed northwest. Destination: Hayward, California. “What the hell is in Hayward?” Cupie asked himself.

He got out his road atlas and found Hayward. It was a small city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, just south of Oakland. He picked up the phone and dialed.

“The Eagle Practice,” a woman’s smooth voice said.

“Ed Eagle, please. It’s Cupie Dalton calling.”

“Just a moment, Mr. Dalton.”

“Cupie?”

“Good morning, Ed.”

“News?”

“News. Our girl, as soon as she left the courthouse, drove down to a spa called El Rancho Encantado on a mountaintop overlooking Palm Springs, traveling under the name of Eleanor Wright. She checked in and there met a gentleman named Walter Keeler.”

“I know that name, I think.”

“You ought to; he just sold his electronics conglomerate and pocketed two point seven billion bucks.”

“Are they still at the spa?”

“Nope, she shipped her car back to Jimmy Long’s house and left Palm Springs Airport on Keeler’s CitationJet, bound for Hayward, California, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. What I can’t figure out, at least at the moment, is what the hell anybody would do in Hayward.”

“There’s a general aviation airport there that serves San Francisco. I land there, myself, when I’m going there on business. It’s not like a smaller airplane would want to mix it up with the heavy iron landing at San Francisco International. When did they go there?”

Cupie looked at his computer screen. “They’ll be landing in about ten minutes,” he said. “And it looks like our girl has hooked herself a big one.”

BARBARA/ELEANOR SAT IN the rear of the jet, her feet propped up on the opposite seat, reading Vanity Fair. She loved the airplane, so roomy and quiet. Up front, Walter was speaking to an air traffic controller, getting landing instructions. She could hear the conversation over the music on her headset. Maybe she would take up flying; it seemed easy enough.

The airplane touched down gently at Hayward Executive and taxied to an FBO. She knew that meant fixed-base operator, from her experience of flying with Ed Eagle. A black Mercedes drove out onto the ramp and positioned itself near the airplane’s door, its trunk open and waiting. Barbara handed Walter her small bag, containing only her makeup and toiletries and a single change of clothes, having sent everything else to L.A. in her Toyota. She would be starting from scratch, at Walter’s insistence. She liked it when men insisted.

An hour later she and Walter were enjoying a fine lunch on the terrace of their large suite at the Four Seasons.

“Have you spent much time in San Francisco?” Walter asked.

“No. I’ve been here only once, just overnight.”

“You’ll find great shopping around Union Square, which is just up the street from the hotel. I’ve kept the car for you, and the driver will take you up there and follow you around, to take the packages off your hands.”

“Walt, you think of everything.”

The doorbell rang, and Walter got up to answer it. He came back with an envelope addressed to her. “And you’ll need this,” he said, handing it to her.

“My goodness, gifts already?” she asked, tearing open the envelope.

“The gift of gifts,” Walter said.

She plucked a black card from the envelope. “Oh, my God,” she said.

“It’s the American Express Centurion card,” Walter said, “made of titanium, just so it will feel richer.”

“But we only decided to come here this morning; how did you get it so fast?”

“The Centurion service is very good. It was hand-delivered from the local AMEX office.”

She got up from the table and kissed him. “You are the sweetest man!”

“All right,” he said, “go shopping. The concierge has made a dinner reservation for us at eight, so that’s your deadline. I have some shopping of my own to do.”

“I won’t argue with you,” she said, grabbing her handbag and heading for the door.

Union Square and the streets around it were a treasure trove, waiting to be plundered, and she did not keep the shops waiting. She bought two suits and a coat from Chanel; half a dozen dresses, a raincoat and several blouses and pairs of slacks from Armani; shoes from Prada and Jimmy Choo; and lingerie, hosiery and cosmetics at a department store. She bought two alligator handbags from Lana Marx and a sweet little diamond bracelet and a gold Panthere watch from Cartier. It was exhilarating. Only days before she had been a guest of the City of Los Angeles, sharing a cell with a chubby hooker, and now she felt like the queen of San Francisco! She found a luggage shop and chose a quartet of handmade Italian cases.

She returned to the hotel at five. Walter was still out, so she called the concierge for a hair appointment in the suite. She made all the boxes and wrappings go away, hanging her new wardrobe in her closet, and had a long soak in the giant tub while she waited for the hairdresser to arrive.

Her hair was shampooed, cut, shaped and dried, and the woman also applied her light makeup. When Walter returned, it was a little past seven, and she waited until he was in the shower to dress.

Walter emerged in a well-cut blue suit and a gold necktie. He stopped short and stared at her in her new Armani dress. “Wow!” he said. “I’ve never seen anything so gorgeous!”

“Aren’t you nice,” she said, giving him a tiny peck that would not muss her newly applied lipstick. “Where are we having dinner?”

HE TOOK HER to a restaurant called Boulevard. It was large, a little noisy, in the way that wildly successful restaurants always are, and the food was delicious. They drank two bottles of wine, a chardonnay and a cabernet, both from a Napa vineyard, Far Niente. Barbara tried not to get too drunk, but everything was so delicious and the wines so heady that she nearly forgot herself.

CUPIE SAT AT his computer and trolled the Internet, breaking into hotel systems nearly at will. Cupie and computers had been friends from the day they first met. He found Walter Keeler registered in the smaller of the two presidential suites at the Four Seasons, and he tried to image what a small presidential suite must look like. He called Eagle to report in.

“Good work, Cupie. Just keep track of her-that’s all I want. If she heads toward Santa Fe I’ll start packing heat. It shouldn’t be too hard; anybody who flies his own jet isn’t going to be separated too far from his airplane.”

“Good point,” Cupie said. “I’ll check Flight Aware daily for his position.”