Short Straw (13 page)

She handed him two keys. “Will you require a table for dinner?”

“Is room service available?”

“Yes, señor.”

“I think we might order in. It’s been a long day.”

“As you wish, señor. Your cottage is number twelve, the southernmost one. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you.” Cupie returned to the car. “Two bedrooms, and they have room service,” he said.

“Can I get up now?” Barbara asked.

“In a minute,” Cupie said. “It’s the last cottage.”

Vittorio drove down a short road and stopped. He and Cupie got out, and Cupie used a key to open the front door. He looked up and down the road. “Okay, Barbara, run for it.”

She got out of the car and sauntered into the cottage.

“Not bad,” Cupie said, walking in. He looked into the two bedrooms, one on either side of the living room. “This one’s yours,” he said to her. “Vittorio and I will take the room with the twin beds.”

“How disappointing for you,” she said. “I know you must have been looking forward to sleeping together.”

Twenty-eight

J
OE BIG BEAR WRUNG OUT THE MOP AND WENT OVER THE
bedroom of his trailer one more time. It had been a mess, what with bits of dried blood, flesh and brains spattered on the walls, but Joe was a stoic, and he cleaned the place thoroughly. He burned the bedding and the mattress behind the trailer and unloaded the new mattress from his pickup truck. Pretty soon, the place was neat and fresh again, ready for new action.

Action was expensive, though, requiring beer money at the very least, and he was very short of money. The cost of the mattress had reduced his net worth considerably, and he hadn’t had any work since his arrest. What he needed was an injection of cash into his life, and enough to keep him going while he rebuilt his business. When he thought of money, his mind went unerringly to Harold, the would-be hit man, sitting up there in the county jail. Joe made a mental note to go see him the following morning.

Cupie, Vittorio and Barbara sat around the table in their cottage, over the remains of a feastlike Mexican dinner, drinking tequila shooters. The atmosphere had grown convivial.

“You know,” Barbara was saying, her words only slightly slurred, “you two sons of bitches aren’t such sons of bitches after all.”

This struck Cupie and Vittorio as hilariously funny, and they collapsed in mirth, pounding the table.

“And you aren’t so bad, yourself,” Cupie said.

“Not bad at all,” Vittorio said, leering at Barbara.

“And to think, a few days ago, you were trying to kill me,” Cupie said.

Barbara rested her chin on her hand and frankly returned Vittorio’s gaze. “I never tried to kill
you,
did I?”

“Not yet,” Vittorio said, glancing at his watch. “But it’s only nine o’clock.”

Cupie looked from one to the other. “Well,” he said, placing his palms on the table and hoisting himself to his feet, “I think I’m going to turn in.” He stretched and yawned for effect.

“Good night, Cupie,” Vittorio said.

“Good night, Cupie,” Barbara echoed.

They never stopped looking at each other.

Cupie left them, stood in a shower for five minutes, put on a clean pair of pajamas and melted into his mattress. “God help both of them,” he said aloud, as he descended into unconsciousness.

E
D EAGLE LAY
on his back in bed, projecting imaginary movies starring Susannah Wilde onto the ceiling. This was some girl, he thought, and she couldn’t have come along at a better moment. She was leaving for L.A. in the morning, but she’d be back as soon as she got moved into her new apartment. He’d see if he couldn’t move up the closing on her house for a few days, to get her back even sooner.

He turned over and sought sleep, and something right out of left field popped into his mind: Pep Boys. Why the hell had he thought of that? He tried to trace the thought back to its origins and got as far as his courtroom questioning of Cartwright, in the Joe Big Bear case, but it went back farther than that. He let his mind roam free for Pep Boys references.

Then he sat bolt upright in bed, his eyes wide open. Pep Boys. It was at his first meeting with Joe at the county jail. In his account of his afternoon, on the day of the triple murder, Joe had said that, while working on Cartwright’s car, he had had to go to Pep Boys, the auto parts place, for a fan belt. At something like three-thirty in the afternoon. Eagle had been so preoccupied with Barbara’s absconding that he had forgotten about it.

Eagle placed Pep Boys in his mind: it was out on Cerrillos Road, a busy commercial thoroughfare, not far from Airport Road. Joe could have gone to Pep Boys, then to his trailer, and he could have been there in five minutes, with good traffic. Then back to Cartwright’s, and the whole thing, the triple murder, could have been accomplished in half an hour, tops.

He sank back into bed. Why the hell hadn’t he remembered that sooner? Then he thought, “What would I have done if I had thought of it sooner?” He thought about that until he finally fell asleep.

Twenty-nine

C
UPIE WOKE UP VERY EARLY, NEEDING THE BATHROOM.
That accomplished, he passed a window on the way back to bed and was struck by what he saw. Barbara and Vittorio were emerging from the Pacific Ocean, hand in hand, laughing and naked. They walked back toward the cottage and flopped down on a blanket, shielded from the view of the rest of the empty beach by a screen of palm fronds. Then Barbara rolled over on top of Vittorio.

Cupie went back to bed.

J
OE BIG BEAR
turned up at the Santa Fe County Correctional Center in time for visiting hours and asked for Harold. Soon they were seated across a table from each other.

“So?” Harold asked, looking at Joe narrowly.

“So, Harold, I think you and I are going to do some business.”

“What business? We got no business.”

“Listen to me careful, Harold,” Joe said. “First of all, I want a phone number for Mrs. Eagle.”

“You said she was in Mexico.”

“She’s coming back, Harold,” he lied.

“Why do you want her phone number?”

“Harold, I got friends in this place who would mash you into the ground for twenty bucks. Give me the number.”

Harold blinked a couple of times, then recited it from memory.

Joe wrote it down. “Now, Harold, I’m going to take over Bobby’s role in your little plan.”

“You mean you’re going to off Eagle?”

“That’s right.”

“But you said I get to keep all the money.”

“That was then, Harold; this is a whole new now.”

“You’re going to do the job?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, Harold.”

“For the same as Bobby?”

“For twelve and a half grand, Harold, up front.”

“But I already paid Bobby a thousand.”

“That’s between you and Bobby, cost of doing business.”

“I’m not giving you that kind of money up front.”

“Sure you are, Harold. Remember my friends in here? There’s that, and then there’s the fact that if you don’t get on board with this right now, I’m going to go see your old lady and take
all
the money from her, and when you get out of here, you’ll have nothing.”

Harold blinked some more.

“So here’s what you do: you go back in there and call her, and tell her to bring twelve-five to the parking lot outside, and
right now.
You got that?”

Harold thought about it.

“Time’s up, Harold. Get it done now, or by the end of the day, you’re going to be broke, and nobody who knows you is going to recognize you for a long time.”

“Okay,” Harold said, finally. “Twelve-five outside in an hour. But I want the job done before I get out of here. You got five days. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Joe replied. “Twelve-five, outside, sixty minutes,” he repeated, just to be sure Harold had it down.

Harold nodded, got up and went back through the door behind him.

Joe left the jail and drove up to Garcia Street, where there was a coffee shop he liked. He bought a double espresso and a newspaper and sat outside in the morning sun for a while, then he dialed the number Harold had given him. It rang four times before she answered.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Eagle?”

“Who’s this?”

“My name is Pepe,” he said, “and I’m calling to do you a favor.”

“Who are you, and what do you want?”

“I told you, my name is Pepe. I’m going to kill your husband for you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know the other hombre you hired to do the job, Harold? Harold went and got himself busted; he’s in jail, and he ain’t getting out any time soon.”

“What do you want?”

“This is about what
you
want, Mrs. Eagle. If you want your husband dead within four days, it will cost you twenty-five thousand dollars, cash, wired to me in Santa Fe.”

“How do I know you’re not a cop?”

“Well, I guess you don’t know, but you’re in Mexico, so the cops can’t touch you. And look at it this way, the insurance company is paying for the work, not you.” Joe was guessing that Ed Eagle had mucho insurance.

A long pause. “How can I reach you?”

“You can reach me by wiring twenty-five thousand dollars to me today. There’s no other way. If I don’t receive it within twenty-four hours, your husband will go right on living, and you will collect nothing, and I’ll remind him to change the beneficiary on the life insurance policy. I don’t think you’re going to have another opportunity to arrange this hit from Mexico before he does that.”

She was quiet for a moment. “What name do I wire it to?”

“Well, let’s make up a name,” Joe said. “Wire it to Pepe Oso Grande”—he had a driver’s license with that name on it—“care of Western Union, Santa Fe.” He spelled the name for her.

“Let me think about it,” she said.

“Think about it all you like, but if the money isn’t in Santa Fe by noon tomorrow, Ed Eagle lives, and you lose, big time. I’ll look forward to hearing from you,” Joe replied and clicked off.

Joe looked at his watch, finished his coffee and drove back to the jail. He had only a five-minute wait before the woman in the pickup turned into the parking lot. He walked over to her. “Good morning,” he said. “Harold sent me to pick up twelve thousand, five hundred dollars.”

The woman looked at him with hatred. “Harold says if you don’t do it before he gets out, he’ll find you and kill you, Joe Big Bear.”

So Harold had found out his name. “Thank you for that message,” Joe said. “Give me the money.”

She handed him a red bandanna, tied up in a bundle.

Joe peeped inside. “I’m going to count it later,” he said. “If it isn’t all there, Harold is going to get hurt today. So are you.”

She started the truck, backed out of the parking space and drove away.

Joe went back to his truck, got in and counted the money. It was all there. “Jesus,” he said aloud, “why didn’t I go into this line of work sooner?”

B
ARBARA PUT DOWN
her cell phone and turned to Vittorio. “How long are we staying here?”

“I figure one more night, just to let things cool off.”

“I have to go to a bank or a Western Union office today.”

“Are you nuts?”

“My sister has an emergency, and she needs money. Don’t argue with me, Vittorio; it has to be done.”

V
ITTORIO DROVE HER
into town, parked in front of a bank, checked the street in every direction and waved her inside. Half an hour later, she was back.

“Everything go okay?” he asked.

“Perfectly,” she said.

“Then why do you look so nervous? I never saw you look nervous before.”

“Shut up and drive,” she said.

Thirty

E
AGLE DIALED SUSANNAH’S CELL PHONE NUMBER.

“Well, hi there,” she said.

“Are you moved in yet?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she replied. “I mean, the boxes have all been dumped here; now they’re unpacking them.”

“I’m glad you’ve got help,” he said.

“I’ve got four guys here, working like beavers. If I can keep them from breaking the crystal, I’ll have this place in shape by dinnertime.”

“I wish I were there to cook for you.”

“You cook?”

“When you’re a bachelor for as long as I was, it’s a survival skill. When are you coming back? I hope you’re not waiting until the closing.”

“Well, I was going to, but once this place is livable I don’t really have anything to occupy me here, until I get some work.”

“Come here, and I’ll occupy you. In fact, I’ll see if I can’t get the closing brought forward. I know that the owner has already moved out. And I have a comfortable guest suite, and I’d be very pleased if you’d stay at my house until the closing.”

“That would be very nice. See what you can do about the closing, and I’ll go ahead and have my furniture shipped.”

“Do you have enough to fill the house?”

“No, not with splitting my things between two places.”

“I’ll give you a list of all the best shops.”

“I’m going to need a housekeeper and a secretary, too.”

“I’ll put my secretary on that right away.”

“You’re a doll, Ed Eagle.”

“I hope you’ll still think so a year from now.”

“Why a year?”

“I reckon that’s how long it will take you to find out.”

“We’ll see. I’ve gotta run. Somebody just dropped a Baccarat goblet.”

Eagle hung up feeling like a new man, but then it occurred to him that he hadn’t received the FedEx package from Vittorio. He called the Apache’s cell phone.

“Hello?”

“Vittorio? It’s Ed Eagle.”

“Good morning, Mr. Eagle.”

“Why haven’t I received the FedEx package from you?”

“I was planning to send it from the airport yesterday, but I got held up. It’ll go out today, I promise.”

“Everything all right?”

“Couldn’t be better,” Vittorio replied.

“Give my best to Cupie.”

“Will do.” He hung up.

Eagle wasn’t going to feel comfortable until he had those blank pages in hand.