by Stuart Woods
Vittorio reached over the seat, grabbed the driver and pulled him into the backseat, then took his place. “It’s one of two things,” he said to Cupie. “Either police or kidnappers.”
“Or both,” Cupie replied.
“That would be unfortunate,” Vittorio said.
“It would be right in line with our luck so far,” Cupie said. He was gaining on the black car.
Vittorio produced a pistol.
“Wait a minute,” Cupie said. “We’re not shooting at these people if they’re wearing uniforms or carrying automatic weapons.”
“Or if there are too many of them,” Vittorio said. “You can’t drive and shoot at the same time.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
BARBARA EAGLE LOOKED AHEAD of her taxi and saw a station wagon pull out into the road ahead of them and stop. “Watch it!” she shouted at her driver, who was already slamming on brakes. As they skidded to a stop, a black Suburban with dark windows stopped next to them.
“Is kidnappers!” her driver shouted. He slammed the car into park and dove for the floor.
Barbara dug into her handbag. It was the bank, she thought immediately. Somebody at the bank told them how much money she had.
As if in slow motion the rear door of the Suburban opened, and a man with a gun came out of it. He yanked open the door of her taxi, yelling something in Spanish.
Barbara shot him in the face, and for a moment, everything was quiet. Then another man came around the back of the Suburban and ran toward her open door. She waited for a heartbeat, then put two bullets into him. He fell down, then half got up and scrambled behind the Suburban. Her little .25 automatic didn’t have much stopping power.
Then another car skidded to a halt behind her taxi, and two men got out, firing, but not in her direction. She got down on the floor and waited. She had only three rounds left.
The firing continued for a moment, then there was the sound of the Suburban’s engine roaring, then receding.
“Mrs. Eagle?” a man shouted. “Barbara? Are you all right?”
CUPIE’S FIRST TWO SHOTS were fired straight through his own windshield, taking out the rear window of the Suburban, and he could see only a driver inside. Then a man clutching his gut struggled into the rear seat, screaming, and the Suburban took off. Vittorio was standing near another figure on the ground, kicking a gun away from him, yelling at Mrs. Eagle.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Eagle,” Cupie yelled. “They’re gone; don’t fire at us.”
She stuck her head out of the cab and looked at them. “You!” she said.
“And you’re damned lucky it’s us,” Vittorio said. “Give me that gun.” He yanked the little gun out of her hand and put it in his pocket, then grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her out of the cab. “Get her bag, Cupie.” He hustled her into the backseat of their taxi, while Cupie retrieved her bag, got back into the taxi and executed a U-turn.
“Where are we going?” Barbara demanded.
“Away from here and just as fast as we can,” Cupie replied, stomping on the accelerator.
Fifteen
EAGLE WOKE UP WITH A JERK AND GRABBED THE CUSTOM-built Terry Tussey .45 on the night table next to him. He had heard something outside.
The clock over the TV said 6:30 A.M. He got out of bed quickly, ran into his dressing room for some pants and shoes and grabbed his cell phone, in case he had to call the police. He went to one side of the drawn bedroom curtains and peeked outside. Nothing, nobody. He ran into the kitchen and looked out the kitchen windows. Still nobody. He went to the front door and looked out the little windows next to it. There was a man in the driveway, raking it: the groundsman, who came for two hours every day. He was early. The rake against the cobblestones was the sound Eagle had heard.
Eagle showered, with the gun close at hand, had breakfast, dressed and went to the office. Another twenty-four hours would pass before the hired killer would get out of jail, but he still watched his rearview mirror closely. He wished the Mercedes were armored.
Betty was already at her desk, munching a Danish and drinking coffee, when he arrived. She started to get up.
“Finish your breakfast,” he said, waving her down. He went into his office and read a copy of the will he had executed the day before. It still seemed satisfactory, and the original was locked in his safe, to which only he and Betty had the combination.
He worked through the morning, and around eleven, Wolf Willett called.
“Hi, you want to have lunch?”
“Let’s do it here,” Eagle replied. “We can order up from the restaurant downstairs. Twelve-thirty?”
“See you then.”
Betty buzzed him. “I’ve got your witness for Joe Big Bear on the phone; he says he’s coming home tomorrow morning.”
“Great.” Eagle picked up the phone. “Mr. Cartwright?”
“That’s me. This Mr. Eagle?”
“It is.”
“You’re coming home tomorrow? What time?”
“I’ll be there by lunchtime.”
“I want to schedule a hearing for tomorrow afternoon, so you can tell your story to the judge in the case. That all right with you?”
“Sure.”
Eagle asked him to go through his story, moment by moment, and was satisfied.
“My secretary will call and give you the time and courtroom number.”
“See you then.” The man hung up.
Eagle buzzed Betty. “Call Judge O’Hara’s clerk and ask for a hearing tomorrow after lunch. Tell him my witness will take minutes max, and maybe he’ll recess a case and listen to us. If he agrees, call Bob Martinez and let him know.”
Betty went to work.
WOLF WILLET SHOWED UP on time, and they sat at a table in the shade on Eagle’s private terrace, while a waiter from downstairs served them.
“So, how’s the search for Mrs. Eagle going?” Wolf asked.
“I’ve got two men on it; they’ll have her shortly.”
“Are you going to do anything to her?”
“Not if she’ll sign a settlement. I just want to be rid of her.” What he really wanted was her back in bed, which had always been her milieu.
Betty came out on the terrace with a cordless phone. “It’s Cupie Dalton,” she said, handing Eagle the phone.
“Cupie?”
“Right.”
“What’s happening?”
“Lots and lots,” Cupie replied. “She checked out of her hotel in Puerto Vallarta, but Vittorio and I chased her down just in time.”
“Just in time for what?”
“It went like this. When she transferred the three hundred grand from Mexico City to a local bank, somebody gave a gang of kidnappers a jingle to let them know there was cash to be had. Vittorio and I caught up with her cab just as the black hats went to work, but she hardly needed our help. She killed one of them and wounded another, then they thought better of their activity and got the hell out of there.”
“Where is she now?”
“She’s in a cab with Vittorio, half a block from the Puerto Vallarta police station. I’d be very happy to take her in there and charge her with shooting me, but she’d just buy her way out. What do you want us to do?”
“I want you to get her signature on those blank sheets of paper.”
“She’s already signed them once, in the name of Minnie Mouse, and she ain’t going to sign again. The lady is adamant.”
“Can’t Vittorio scare her into it?”
“He scared her into signing Minnie Mouse six times, but otherwise she seems immune to his charms. Short of torture or forgery, I don’t know what to do. You have any instructions?”
“Put her on the phone.”
“She’s already said she won’t talk to you.”
Eagle thought for a moment. “All right, tell her this: tell her that if she doesn’t sign, I’ll take the three hundred grand away from her and leave her to fend for herself. And tell her I know about the guy she hir
ed to kill me, and it ain’t going to happen.”
“She hired somebody to kill you?”
“Yes. Now tell her.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll hang on.”
“Let me call you back in five.”
“Okay.”
Eagle switched off the phone and put it down
“Kidnappers tried to take her,” Eagle said to Wolf.
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, apparently kidnapping is all the rage in Mexico.”
“What now?”
The phone rang before Eagle could reply, and he picked it up. “Hello?”
“It’s Cupie; we got a problem.”
Sixteen
CUPIE CLOSED HIS CELL PHONE AND WALKED BACK TO-ward the cab. He’d had to move down the block to get a good signal, and he hadn’t been watching the car while he talked to Eagle. As he approached, he could see the driver, but he couldn’t see anybody in the backseat. He stuck his head in the front passenger window. “Where’d the man and the woman go?” He asked the driver.
“I dunno, señor. The woman got out of the car and ran, and the man ran after her. Señor, could you pay me, please? I got to make a living.”
Cupie shoved some money at him, got his, Vittorio’s and Barbara’s bags out of the car and found some shade. He couldn’t see either one of them anywhere, and he wasn’t going to try and find them, what with a bum shoulder and three suitcases to take care of. He sat down on one of the bags and waited.
Vittorio came around a corner, his hat off, wiping his brow.
“What happened?”
“She ran on me,” Vittorio said. “She went into the police station, where I didn’t want to follow her, and when I finally did, she was gone; she’d run out a side door into an alley, and I wasn’t able to find her.”
“Right,” Cupie said, trying not to sound nasty. He opened his cell phone and called Eagle. “We’ve got a problem,” he said into the phone, and then he explained what happened.
Eagle was annoyed but calm. “Now what?”
“Now we track her down,” Cupie said. “We’ve got her luggage, so all she’s got are the clothes on her back and her handbag. One thing we could do, is I could file a complaint with the police for her shooting me, and we might get some help.”
“What the hell, do it,” Eagle said, “and keep in touch.”
Cupie closed the phone. “I’m going to file a complaint,” he said, picking up Barbara’s bag and handing it to Vittorio. “Hold this; I want to see what’s inside.”
Vittorio cradled the case in his arms while Cupie went through it. Underwear, clothes, shoes, no documents. “Nothing of any use,” he said. “I was hoping, maybe, for a bank book.”
“Let’s see if she’s at the bank,” Vittorio said.
“Good idea. You know which bank?”
Vittorio shook his head.
“Tell you what, you work both sides of the street, here, check all the banks, and I’ll go talk to the boys at the el copo shopo.”
Vittorio nodded.
“And take your bag and hers, will you? I can’t handle more than mine.”
Vittorio slung his own bag over his shoulder by its strap and pulled out the handle on Barbara’s suitcase, so it would roll. “I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes,” he said.
Cupie nodded and went into the police station. Using his serviceable Spanish, he asked for the captain and was immediately shown to an office behind the front desk.
“Buenos días,” the captain said. He was a plump man with the inevitable Pancho Villa moustache. “How may I help you, señor?” he said in good English.
Cupie handed the man his LAPD I.D. and his card. “I am a retired Los Angeles detective sergeant, now working as a private investigator,” he said. “My client’s wife stole money from him and left for Mexico City. When I found her there, she shot me with a small handgun.” He reached into his pocket and produced the .25 automatic he had taken from Barbara, along with its magazine. “It’s unloaded.”
The captain racked the little slide and set the gun down, satisfied. “You wish her to be arrested?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“Somewhere in Puerto Vallarta. She ran from my partner.”
The captain nodded, reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a two-sided form. He asked Cupie an interminable list of questions, laboriously entering the information in the spaces provided, then asked Cupie to sign it.
Cupie signed. “If you find her, I’ll take her off your hands,” he said. “And my client would be very grateful to you, personally.”
“How grateful, señor?”
“I might be able to persuade him to be grateful this much,” Cupie said, holding up five fingers. “Big ones.”
The captain nodded. “Where may I reach you?” Cupie gave the man his cell phone number, shook his hand and left.
Outside, Vittorio was waiting in a dusty taxi. Cupie tossed his bag into the trunk and got in.
“You think the policía will be of any use?”
“I promised him five grand,” Cupie said. “He knows the town better than I do. How about you?”
“Better than me, too.”
“I take it you had no luck at the banks.”
“Oh, I did, in the third bank I visited. She closed her account and took twenty-five grand in dollars and the rest in thousand-dollar cashier’s checks.”
“So much for Eagle’s getting his hands on the three hundred grand. He told me to tell her he’d do that, if she didn’t sign. I take it she didn’t sign?”
Vittorio tipped his hat down over his eyes and ignored the question. “She rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee and asked for a map and directions to Acapulco.”
“You think she actually went there?”
“She left a ten-thousand-dollar deposit and was told she could get a refund of her change at the firm’s Acapulco office. I don’t think the lady is the type to go somewhere else in those circumstances, do you?”
“I guess not,” Cupie said. “Driver, the airport.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“We’ll beat her there,” Cupie said, resting his head against the seat back and sighing deeply. He got out his cell phone and reported to Ed Eagle.
Seventeen
EAGLE HUNG UP THE PHONE AND TURNED TO WOLF Willett. “She got away from them in Puerto Vallarta, and she’s apparently headed for Acapulco.”
“Hitting all the high spots, huh?”
“It’s like her.”
“Well, at least she didn’t kill you.”
“Oh, she’s already planned that.”
“How do you mean?”
“She’s paid some guy twenty-five thousand dollars of my money to take me out. Fortunately, he’s in jail for another couple of weeks, but he’s hired another guy, a sort of sub-hitman, who gets out tomorrow. Client of mine overheard them talking about it in the can.”
Wolf sighed. “I’m so glad my life isn’t as interesting as yours.”
The phone rang, and Eagle picked it up. “Yes?”
“Russell Norris on the phone.”
Eagle pressed the button. “Russell?”
“Hi. I just left the bank, and we got really lucky. The balance in the Mexico City account is being wired back to the Santa Fe account from which it was sent, less a few hundred dollars for the investigator and administrative fees.”
“Russell, you’re a jewel. Take a couple of days in Mexico on me, then send me your bill.”
“Thanks, but I’ve gotta get back to my office; I’ll fax you a bill tomorrow.”
“You have my gratitude; if you ever need a reference, use my name.” Eagle hung up. “Now there’s some good news: I’m getting seven hundred and something thousand back from the Mexican bank.”
“That’s terrific. Now all you have to do is not get killed tomorrow, divorce your wife and you’re in great shape.”
Eagle looked at his watch. “I’ve
got a hearing in half an hour.”
Both men stood up and shook hands. “Call me for some golf, if you’re still alive,” Wolf said.
“I’ll do that.”
EAGLE ARRIVED in the courtroom, and the bailiff told him his client was waiting in a holding cell.
“The judge is going to take a thirty-minute recess in a few minutes, and then he’ll hear your motion,” the bailiff said.
Eagle nodded and took a seat in the front row. Bob Martinez was questioning a witness and, apparently, getting nowhere.
A man came over and sat down next to Eagle. “Mr. Eagle, I’m Tom Cartwright, your witness.”
Eagle shook his hand, got up and led the man out into the hall.
“Mr. Cartwright, I really appreciate your coming, and so does Joe Big Bear.”
“The guy did a good job on my car; it’s the least I can do for an innocent man.”
“Let me ask you some questions, now, the same ones I’m going to ask when you’re on the stand.”
“Shoot.”
Eagle took him quickly through his testimony, then sat him down on a bench in the hallway and went back into the courtroom as Martinez finished questioning his witness.
“Mr. Eagle?” the judge said.
“Ready, Judge. He took a seat at the defense table, as Joe Big Bear was led into the courtroom, wearing an orange jumpsuit.
“Mr. Martinez?” the judge said.
“Ready, your honor.”
Eagle had Big Bear sworn and took him through his testimony, establishing his story, then he called Cartwright, who was duly sworn.
“Mr. Cartwright, are you acquainted with Joe Big Bear?”
“I certainly am. He fixed my car; did a good job.”
“Did you ever know him before that day?”
“No, I got his number off a bulletin board at Pep Boys parts shop.”
The mention of Pep Boys jogged something in Eagle’s head, but he couldn’t place it, so he continued. “Mr. Cartwright, on the day in question, what time did Mr. Big Bear arrive at your house?”
“Around one-thirty.”
“And what time did he finish his work and depart?”
“Four-thirty, quarter to five.”
“Was he there for the entire time?”
“He was.”
“How do you know?”