He dialed a number on his prepaid cell phone.
“Yes?”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Keeler.”
“Who is this?”
“You know who this is; I ran a couple of errands for you, remember?”
“The second one didn’t work out; you were ineffective.”
“What are you talking about? It was a head shot.”
“I just heard she’s alive and well, and you owe me fifty thousand dollars.”
Cato laughed. “Well, I’m gonna give you some good news and some bad news, lady. First, the good news: I’m calling from out of the country, so I won’t be around to implicate you.”
“That is good news. Now what about my fifty thousand?”
“That’s the bad news. I shot the lady in the head, as you requested. She lived; that’s your problem. More bad news: You’re going to pay me twenty-five thousand dollars every year, starting in about a week. I’ll call you and give you an address to send it to. If I don’t get it, every year and on time, my next call will be to the D.A.’s in Palo Alto and Santa Fe. And if you send somebody after me, he won’t find me. I’m a careful man.”
“You’re scum, Cato.”
“That’s what you get when you hire somebody to do your dirty work for you, lady. I’ll say goodbye… for now. Get the money together.” He hung up.
He took one more look around the stable, went through his office one last time to see if he’d forgotten anything, then he got into his truck and headed for the front gate.
ED EAGLE WAS having lunch with his friend, Joe Sams, the police chief. He had explained about the connection of Jack Cato and Grif Edwards to the two shootings in Santa Fe.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard, Ed, but Cato’s buddy, Grif Edwards, committed suicide last night.”
“I hadn’t heard, but I’ll give you odds Cato killed him.”
“Well, we don’t have any evidence of that. Why don’t you give all this to the Santa Fe cops? It’s their jurisdiction and they’ve already got warrants.”
“They already know about it, and I expect they’re on their way to L.A. to pick up Cato. They probably don’t know about Edwards’s suicide yet. If I were you, I’d want to hang on to Cato until you have enough evidence against him in the Edwards killing. And one more thing: My ex-wife very probably hired Cato to kill her husband’s lawyer, Joe Wilen, in Palo Alto.”
“We have constant surveillance on Mrs. Keeler,” Sams said.
“If you pick up Cato, he’ll implicate her in Wilen’s killing.”
“The Santa Fe police are picking him up, Ed.”
“And what are you going to do if he bolts?”
“They can track him down and bring him back.”
“They can’t bring him back from Mexico.”
“Ed, you’re getting too exercised about this.”
“Joe, if you don’t get exercised about it you’re going to be left holding the bag that Cato slipped out of. And he’s the only one who can give you Don Wells for hiring him to kill Wells’s wife and son.”
“Again, New Mexico jurisdiction.”
“But wouldn’t you rather break the case than let them do it?”
“Well, it would look good in the papers, I guess. But I’m not going to pick up a phone and order the arrest of Jack Cato right now. If Santa Fe wants him, let them come and get him.”
“Then why don’t you pull your surveillance off my ex-wife and give her a little room to operate. Maybe she’ll make a mistake.”
“That’s just the opposite of what you asked me to do a couple of weeks ago. What’s changed?”
“Hell, Joe, it’s okay with me if your people tail her, if you want to keep applying those resources, but she’s not going to make a move while you’re watching her.”
“Oh, all right, I’ll pull my people off.”
“As you wish, Joe. Like I said, it doesn’t matter to me.”
HALF AN HOUR LATER, Eagle was on the phone with Cupie Dalton. "Okay, Sams is going to pull his people back.”
"Good news, Ed.”
“I suggest that, from a distance, you watch the cops who are watching her. When they go away, then you can make your move.”
“And make it we will,” Cupie said. “You sure you want to play it this way, Ed? You can still change your mind and let the law do the work for you.”
“The law is never going to get her, Cupie. I’m sure this is the way to go.”
“Then Vittorio and I are on it,” Cupie said, and hung up.
50
ALEX REESE ARRIVED at Centurion Studios and asked to see the head of security. As he waited, a black pickup truck pulled up next to him in the outbound lane, but from his tiny economy rental car he could not see the face of the driver high above him.
The guard handed Reese a pass for his dashboard and waved him in. Reese went directly to the security office and was shown immediately into Jeff Bender’s office. The two men shook hands.
“What can I do for you, Alex?” Bender asked.
“I’m here with a warrant to arrest Jack Cato for the murder of Don Wells’s wife and stepson,” Reese said. “I thought, as a courtesy, I should see you first.”
Bender grabbed his jacket. “Let’s go,” he said. He led Reese to his golf cart, and the two men took off through the big lot at top speed, which was about 16 mph. Shortly, they arrived at the stable.
The two men got out of the cart, and Reese unholstered his Glock. They walked into the stable and found it quiet. Bender opened the door to the little office and looked around. “This looks emptier than usual.” The phone on the desk rang, and Bender picked it up. “Hello?”
“Mr. Cato?”
“Who’s calling?”
“This is studio personnel,” the woman said.
“This is Jeff Bender, studio security. Cato isn’t here; can I help?”
“No, I just wanted to get a forwarding address. Mr. Cato handed in his resignation about an hour ago, and he didn’t leave one.”
“I suggest you write to his old address and see if it gets forwarded,” Bender said. “And I’d like to know about it when you find out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bender hung up. “Jack Cato resigned from his job an hour ago,” he said.
“Oh, shit.”
Bender dialed a number. “Front gate? This is Jeff Bender. Has Jack Cato left the lot?” He listened for a moment. “What was he driving? Do you have his plate number on file? Thanks.”
He handed Cato’s license number to Reese. “Cato left the lot less than fifteen minutes ago, driving a black Chevrolet Silverado pickup.”
“Shit again. I’d better call the LAPD and ask for an APB on him.”
“They’re not going to give you an APB on an out-of-state warrant,” Bender said. “Protocol is to call your chief and have him call Chief Sams.”
“May I use the phone?” Reese said.
“Sure.”
Reese called his HQ, asked for his chief and was told he had just entered a meeting and wasn’t expected out for some time. Reese left his cell phone number and asked to be called back on an urgent basis. He hung up and turned to Bender. “Cato seems to have a fondness for Tijuana. How long would it take him to drive down there?”
“Man, it’s rush hour, and it’s rush hour in every city from here to the border, including San Diego. Who knows? If Cato is on the freeway, he’s parked, like everybody else. If he’s smart he’ll use the surface streets for a couple of hours, then, when traffic starts to thin out, get on the freeway again. When your chief calls back, ask him to call the Border Patrol and get Cato stopped when he tries to leave the U.S. Also, ask him to get that warrant on the wire right away, so that if Cato gets stopped by the highway patrol for a traffic violation they’ll detain him.”
“What do you hear from the LAPD on the Grif Edwards suicide?”
“They were here for several hours today, talking to everybody.”
“Do they suspect Cato?”
Bender shook his head. “Edwards left a note at his house, so right now they’re treating it purely as a suicide. They wouldn’t have put out an APB on Cato, if that’s what you’re thinking.”