There was a knock on the door, and two men in suits walked in, flashing badges.
“I’m Romera; this is Reed,” the taller of the two said. “You feel up to answering some questions, Mr.”-he read a card in his hand-“ Victoria?”
“It’s Vittorio,” Cupie corrected him. “No last name.”
“And who might you be?”
“Cupie Dalton. I work with him.” He jerked a thumb toward Vittorio.
“How’s Eagle?” Vittorio asked.
“Still out,” the detective replied. “Lots of tubes in him. You want to tell me what happened?”
Vittorio recited the chain of events as economically as possible.
“The guy shoot you?” Romera asked.
“No, Mrs. Eagle shot me, mistook me for the guy.”
“Jesus Christos, what a mess!” Romera said. Reed wrote it down. “Where were you, Mr. Dalton?”
“I was staked out down the hill sixty or seventy yards. The pickup didn’t pass me, must have come down the hill from up the mountain. He escaped that way, too.”
“And neither of you got a look at the guy’s face?” Romera asked.
“No,” Vittorio said quickly. “And I didn’t know him.”
“I didn’t even see him,” Cupie said. “Just the truck.”
“What kind of truck?”
“Pickup, maybe a Chevy,” Cupie replied. “I’m not good with trucks.”
“I am,” Vittorio said. “It was a Toyota. It had a FedEx logo on the door and a New Mexico plate.”
“Was he wearing a FedEx uniform?”
Vittorio shrugged, causing him pain. “Maybe. A dark Windbreaker and matching baseball cap.”
“You want to bring any charges against Mrs. Eagle for shooting you?” Romera asked.
“Of course not,” Vittorio said. “She just mistook me for the guy who cut her husband.”
“Whatever you say,” Romera replied. “She’s shot a couple of other people in the past, you know-her ex-husband in L.A. and a woman delivering flowers to Eagle’s house here last year.”
“Yeah, and the woman was trying to kill them both.”
“You figure the ex-wife is behind this, then?”
“I do.”
“But she’s in prison in Mexico,” Romera said. “I checked.”
“If you say so,” Vittorio replied.
35
Bart Cross landed at Burbank and taxied to his T-hangar, on a quiet part of the field. He opened the hangar door with a remote control, then swung the airplane around facing away from the hangar, ran through his checklist and cut the engines. He sat for a moment in the airplane, thinking, then picked up his logbook and wrote in the flight to Albuquerque and a return the day before. That would check with the parking lot’s electronic records and give him an alibi.
He got out of the airplane, hooked up the towbar and pushed it backward into the hangar. As he was about to leave, someone he knew taxied past him to two hangars down, cut his engine and got out.
“Hey, Bart,” the man said. “How’s it hanging?”
“Not bad,” Bart replied. “Spent a few days in Santa Fe at a friend’s house.”
“That’s not bad, either.”
“Hey, Tom, if anybody should ask, you saw me put away my airplane yesterday, okay?”
“Sure, kiddo. You can do the same for me sometime.”
“Thanks, Tom.” Cross walked to the parking lot, got his car and drove home. He’d be back at work tomorrow. As he pulled into his driveway his cell phone went off. “Hello?”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Just got home from Santa Fe. The car is back where I picked it up.”
“Will you be there tonight? I want to pay you.”
“Sure thing. I’m too tired to go out.”
“Where do you live?”
He gave her the address and directions from Coldwater Canyon.
“I’ll be there late, maybe very late. I’ve got to make a stop on the way.”
“I’ll be here,” he said.
She hung up.
Bart picked up the papers on the doorstep on his way into the house but tossed them aside without reading them. He needed a nap.
CUPIE GOT BACK TO the hospital and found Vittorio sound asleep in his bed. He walked back to the nurses’ station.
“Hi,” he said to the nurse. “Anything new on Mr. Eagle’s condition?”
“Still in the ICU,” she said. “He’s awake, though, and the prognosis is good.”
“Can I see him for a minute?” Cupie knew this was a favor, but he had been chatting her up for such an occasion.
The nurse looked both ways, up and down the hall. “Okay, just for a minute, Cupie. His wife just went down to the cafeteria. Third door on your left. If he’s asleep, don’t wake him.”
Cupie went down to the door marked “Intensive Care” and let himself in. There was only one patient, and he was awake. Cupie pulled up a chair. “Ed, how you doing?” he asked.
Eagle took a deep breath. “Tired,” he said.
“Don’t talk, just listen. The guy got past us. Our fault, but we know who he is. We’ll take care of it, no charge.”
Eagle nodded. “What about Barbara?”
“She’s not in town, on purpose, but we have an idea where to find her.”
Eagle nodded again.
“You want us to take care of that, too?”
Eagle closed his eyes and seemed to go to sleep. Cupie tiptoed out of the unit and walked back to Vittorio’s room. He pulled up a comfortable chair close to the bed and turned on the TV, keeping the volume low. He surfed through the channels, looking for a local news program, finally settling on an Albuquerque broadcast. He sat through a weather forecast, then the anchor came back on-screen.
“This just in from Santa Fe,” he said. “A spokesman for Saint Michael’s Hospital has announced that local attorney Ed Eagle, a trial lawyer known throughout the West, is in what doctors describe as a normal recovery after surgery for a knife wound in an assassination attempt early this morning. His prognosis is favorable. Police are still searching for the unknown assassin.”
“And they’re not going to find him,” Cupie said aloud to himself. “But we are.”
“That’s right,” Vittorio said.
Cupie turned to find Vittorio awake and looking at him. “Hey. You feeling better?”
“Much, thanks. The morphine was the right thing to do.”
“Bart Cross has cleared out of Barbara’s place and is probably back in L.A. by now.”
“I want out of here,” Vittorio said.
“Yeah, I know, pal, but you’re going to stay right where you are until your doctors pronounce you fit to walk around like a person.”
“We have a call to make. I didn’t mention Cross to the cops.”
“I noticed. Don’t worry, he’ll keep, and we know where to find him.”
“He’s not the only one we need to find.”
“I’m with you, buddy. You just relax for a few days and get strong, okay?”
But Vittorio had dozed off again.
BARBARA WENT WITH Jimmy Long to a dinner party in Beverly Hills. Before she left, she did a Google search for Ed Eagle and found a report on the AP that he was recovering in a Santa Fe hospital. When she left for the dinner party, she didn’t take any cash with her.
She enjoyed the party, and Jimmy enjoyed himself a little too much, so she drove him home in his black BMW and put him to bed. He would sleep late tomorrow, she thought.
She went to her luggage and got what she needed, then got back into the Beamer and drove up Coldwater Canyon, then down into the Valley. She followed Cross’s directions carefully and found his street. It was past one o’clock now, and she drove around the block twice to be sure there was no activity in the neighborhood. Every house on Cross’s block was dark, except his. She stopped at the top of a little hill and called his cell number.