by Stuart Woods
“Jack,” Tina said, smiling, “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, but get us out of this car!”
“Don’t worry, Tina,” he said. He shot her in the side of the neck, under the ear. Soledad began screaming, so he shot her, too, near the heart. She kept moving a little, then stopped. He felt both women for a pulse and found none.
Their handbags were lying on the ceiling next to their heads. He grabbed them both and checked the road again for traffic. Nothing. He emptied both bags on the ground next to the car and took two wads of pesos and American currency, then tossed the handbags onto the pile of things. Then he remembered that Tina wore a gold Rolex that Don Wells had given her, and he went back and took it off her wrist.
A moment later, he was driving off toward Acapulco, and he didn’t see another car until he reached the outskirts of the city. He drove into the center of town, grabbed his overnight bag, stuffed the gun and the plastic bag into it, locked the car and walked away. He found a cantina with a garden and ordered a Dos Equis, then got out his cell phone and dialed Wells.
“Yes?”
“It’s done.”
“I told you to call me late at night.”
“Sorry, I forgot.”
“What else did you forget?”
“Nothing. It went perfectly.”
“Meet me at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon at the FBO next to the main terminal at the airport. Be there early. When you see me get off the airplane and enter the building, go to the men’s room. I’ll meet you there and give you your money.”
“See you then,” Cato said and hung up. I wonder what else you’re going to give me, he thought, seeing that I’m the last loose end.
54
CUPIE AND VITTORIO were still making phone calls when there was a knock on the door of their motel room. Cupie answered the door. A tall, handsome man stood there.
“Ron! How are you? Come on in.” Cupie introduced him to Vittorio.
“I’m great, Cupie.” Gillette found a chair and settled down, looking way too good for his plain surroundings. “We all set to go?”
“We are. You have to take your girlfriend to dinner at a place called La Reserve at eight thirty. Give me her address, and a car will pick you up shortly before that.” Cupie made a note of it.
“What do I do there, just eat?”
Cupie showed him a photograph. “This woman will be having dinner there at the same time, probably alone. Her name is Eleanor Keeler, but she sometimes goes by the name of Barbara Eagle. I want you to see her, and above all, I want her to see you. Vittorio has arranged through a friend for you to be seated near her, and if possible I want you to chat her up. If that doesn’t work, follow her when she leaves and introduce yourself. You can use your real name; it won’t matter. That’s all you have to do, until tomorrow night.”
“Okay, got it.”
“Sorry, there’s also the postcard. Did you bring the photos I asked you to?”
Gillette took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Cupie.
“They came out great.”
Cupie looked at the postcard prints, selected one and handed it to Gillette. “I want you to write what I tell you to on the back of the photo.”
Gillette took a handsome fountain pen from his pocket, uncapped it and took Cupie’s dictation.
“Keep the postcard, then tonight, when you leave La Reserve, leave it in an envelope with Barbara’s name on it at the front desk. Then wait for her call.”
“What do I do tomorrow night?” Gillette asked.
“She’ll accept your invitation, so welcome her, make her comfortable, give her a drink, then tell her it’s just going to be the two of you. Fuck her, if you can; it won’t be hard. Vittorio and I will be at hand, but she won’t see us. After that, just go along with the play. That’s all there is to it.”
“And what’s the play?”
“It’s better you don’t know.” Cupie gave him a few more instructions, then sent him on his way.
JACK CATO FINISHED his cerveza, then left the cantina, looking for a hotel. He nearly threw the gun and the plastic bag into a Dumpster but thought better of it. He wasn’t out of this alive yet, and he wasn’t going to take any chances. By the weekend, he should be free and clear; he’d collect his truck from Tijuana and vanish into Mexico. He had a couple of ideas about where he might settle, and the money Wells was bringing him would move him into a better real estate bracket. He was beginning to feel good about his new country of residence.
He found a hotel and was delighted to find a whore working the bar who looked a lot like Tina López. He hadn’t had a chance to fuck her before the end, so he made up for it with the girl from the bar.
RON GILLETTE AND his girl, Lauren Knight, arrived at La Reserve on time. Eleanor Keeler wasn’t in the restaurant yet, so they had a drink at the bar and caught up.
“You’re looking gorgeous, Lauren,” Gillette said.
“You, too, Ron. What have you been up to?”
“A little picture work, a little of this and that; you know my drill.”
“I do. How long can you stay?”
“Only tonight, I’m afraid. I’ll have to leave you tomorrow afternoon.” He looked up to see Eleanor Keeler being shown to her table. “Finish your drink,” he said to Lauren. “I’m starving.”
Eleanor Keeler was sitting on the banquette at one side of the dining room, and the headwaiter seated them next to her, at a corner table. Gillette slipped the headwaiter a fifty. “Good evening,” he said to Barbara as he slipped into his seat.
“Good evening,” she said, giving him a smile. Women always gave him a smile. He ordered another round of drinks and asked for a menu, then watched as a waiter poured Barbara a glass of champagne from a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Grand Dame.
“That’s my favorite champagne,” he said to her.
“Mine, too,” she said.
“I’m Ron Gillette, and this is Lauren Knight,” he said, offering his hand.
“Eleanor Keeler,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Do you two live in La Jolla?”
“Lauren does. I’m in town on my yacht, cruising.”
“Where are you cruising?”
“Oh, back up the coast,” he said. “I’m based in L.A. most of the time.”
“Is it Gillette, as in razor blades?” she asked.
The woman didn’t waste any time, he thought. “Yes, but I sold the company after I inherited some years back. Now I’m free as a bird.” He could see her becoming more interested.
He turned back to give Lauren some attention, since he wanted to get laid that night, but from time to time, they both talked more with Ms. Keeler. She finished dinner first.
“It was such a pleasure meeting you both,” she said, shaking their hands, then she said, more pointedly, to him, “I hope I’ll see you again sometime.”
“I hope so, too,” he said.
“What was that all about?” Lauren asked. “That stuff about the yacht?”
“I didn’t want her to think I lived here,” he replied. “She might have been hurt when I didn’t call her. Excuse me a minute, I have to go to the men’s room.”
“Don’t you dare follow her,” Lauren said.
“I’m headed in the opposite direction,” he replied, and did so.
He stopped at the front desk and asked for an envelope, then he inserted the postcard into it, wrote Eleanor Keeler’s name on it, sealed it and asked that it be delivered to her room. Then he returned to the dining room and collected Lauren.
The car was waiting for them and delivered them back to her La Jolla beach house, where they spent a very pleasant night together.
Barbara was getting ready for bed when an envelope was slid under her door. She opened it, read it and smiled broadly. What a nice invitation, she thought. She called the cell number and left a voice-mail message, accepting. “And I’m looking forward to it,” she said.
55
ALEX REESE WALKED around his hot
el’s neighborhood with his cell phone in his pocket, waiting for the call. He walked all morning, had some lunch, then walked most of the afternoon. He didn’t know what else to do.
Finally, he called Captain Ferraro. “Afternoon, Captain. I’ve heard nothing from the CHP; how long should I wait?”
“I don’t know, Alex. You’d think they’d have him by now. Tell you what, give it until tomorrow morning, and if nothing happens, come on home. You can always go back for Cato. By the way, I took a call from a Lieutenant Dino Bacchetti of the NYPD. He says they’ve cracked Donald Wells’s alibi for the time of his wife’s former husband’s murder, and the case is wide open again. They’re reviewing all the work that was done in the original investigation, and he hopes they’ll have enough for an arrest.”
“I hope not,” Reese said. “I want to get my hands on Cato and get him to implicate Wells in his family’s murder before New York shows up and snatches him away.”
“You’ve got a point. Keep in touch.” The captain hung up.
Reese switched on the TV in his room and searched for something to watch that would take his mind off Jack Cato.
JACK CATO WAS at the FBO at the Acapulco airport half an hour early. He read an aviation magazine and waited nervously for Don Wells to show. He checked inside his overnight bag for the position of the gun inside.
At five minutes past three a Cessna CitationJet taxied up to the space in front of the terminal, and the door opened. A car pulled up to the airplane, and a crew member got off with some luggage and loaded it into the car. Then Don Wells stepped into the sunshine, a briefcase in his hand, and walked down the stairs and onto the tarmac. He said something to the crew member, then headed toward the FBO.
Cato got up and went into the men’s room. He kicked the stall doors open to be sure they were empty, then busied himself washing his hands. A moment later, Wells walked into the room. “Are we alone?” he asked.
Cato set his overnight bag on the counter and unzipped it. “Yes, we are.”
Wells walked over, took some paper towels from the holder and wiped water from the counter, then set his briefcase on it and snapped open the locks.
Here it comes, Cato thought. He put his hand inside the bag and gripped the pistol.
Wells opened the briefcase, removed a manila envelope and handed it to Cato.
Cato didn’t want to let go of the pistol, but he needed both hands to open the envelope. It was filled with stacks of hundred-dollar bills. He riffled through some of them to be sure they weren’t hiding newspaper, then he put the envelope in his overnight bag. For a tiny moment of panic he realized the envelope blocked his access to the pistol, but Wells closed his briefcase and stuck out his hand.
“Thanks, Jack. You lie low down here until I get in touch with you.”
“I’ll do that, Don. Thanks for the money.”
“Don’t spend it all in one place,” Wells said, then he turned and walked out of the men’s room.
Cato splashed some water on his face and dried it, then he took the gun from the bag and stuck it in his belt under his jacket, and walked back into the lobby. He turned and walked toward the sidewalk and outside, his eyes sweeping every person in sight. He felt that if he could just get into the terminal building he’d be safe.
It was a two-minute walk, and he made it unmolested, then he realized he had to go through security. He found the men’s room, waited until it was empty, then wiped the gun clean and dumped it into a stainless-steel waste basket along with the plastic bag containing the extra magazines. Then he went to the Aero México counter and checked in for the next flight to Tijuana. He had an hour and a half to wait, so he bought some magazines and made himself comfortable, but he still kept a watchful eye on other people.
Suddenly, he heard a Mr. Timmons being paged over the public-address system, and he looked around again for danger and found none.
“Mr. Timmons, please come to the Aero México desk,” a woman’s voice said again.
Cato presented himself at the desk. “I’m Mr. Timmons.”
“Oh, good, Mr. Timmons. We have an extra seat on the earlier flight to Tijuana, which leaves in ten minutes, and I wondered if you would like to have it?”
“Yes, thank you.”
She changed his ticket, gave him the gate number and said goodbye.
Things seemed to be going his way, Cato reflected, as he buckled his seat belt. He’d get back to Tijuana, put the money into the lockbox under his truck and get a good night’s sleep before heading south. There was a letter in there, too, that he wanted to burn. It no longer seemed necessary.
56
DONALD WELLS DROVE his car to his beach house, nervous about what he might find there. He turned into the drive, half expecting to find the place swarming with Mexican police, but there was only the housekeeper’s car. He let himself into the garage with the remote, removed his luggage from the trunk and walked in through the kitchen door.
“María!” he called out.
“Sí, sí,” his housekeeper called back from another room, then entered the kitchen, carrying a vacuum cleaner. “Buenos días, Señor Wells,” she said. “Did you have a good trip?” Her English was good, if heavily accented.
“Very good, María. Are the ladies here?”
“No, señor, and their beds were not slept in last night.”
“That’s odd,” Wells said, trying to sound worried. “Did you see them yesterday?”
“Yes, señor. They were lying on the beach when I came, and I changed both their beds. The linens are still fresh and unwrinkled; that’s how I know they did not sleep here.”
“Did they have a car?”
“Yes, señor, a green Honda from renting.”
“Will you unpack these bags for me, please, María? I’ll see if I can reach Tina on her cell.”
María left with the luggage, and Wells went into his study and called Tina’s cell phone, which went straight to voice mail. “Tina, it’s Don Wells. I just got into town, and María says you and Soledad didn’t sleep here last night. I’m concerned about you, so please call me at the house and let me know you’re all right.” Then he looked up the number for the police and dialed it. “Capitán Morales, please,” he said when it was answered.
“This is Morales,” the capitán said, in Spanish.
“Capitán, this is Don Wells. How are you?”
“Oh, Señor Wells, I am quite good, and you?”
“I’m fine. I just got in from Los Angeles, and I expected to find my house guests, two young women, here, but they are not in the house, and my housekeeper tells me their beds were not slept in last night. I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I am concerned about them.”
“Ah, Señor Wells, I will come out to your casa to see you about this. In about an hour?”
“I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“No, no, señor, no trouble. I will see you in one hour.”
Wells hung up, went into the kitchen and got himself a beer, some of María’s guacamole, and some chips. He took them into the study and ate them on the leather couch in front of the big TV.
Sometime later the doorbell rang, and María escorted Capitán Morales and two men in plainclothes into the study. Wells seated them and noticed that one of the men was holding an envelope.
“Now, Señor Wells,” the capitán said, “please tell me about these two young women.”
“Their names are Tina López and Soledad Rivera; they work in the wardrobe department at the movie studio where I have my offices. They have often worked on films I have produced. They both had some vacation time coming, so I let them use this house. I believe they arrived three or four days ago.”
“I see. And when did you arrive?”
“A few minutes before I spoke to you on the phone. I flew into the airport on a private aircraft, and we landed at three o’clock.”
One of the other men spoke up. “May I have the registration number of the airplane and the names of the pilot
s?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the registration number, since it is a chartered airplane. The pilot’s name is Dan Edmonds; I don’t know the copilot’s name.”
“And the name of the company you chartered from?”
“Elite Aircraft, at Burbank Airport, in Los Angeles.”
The man took all this down. “May I use a telephone in another room?”
“Of course. There’s one in the kitchen.”
The man left, and his partner resumed the questioning. “When you arrived at the airport, did you speak to anyone?”
“No, my car was waiting, and I went inside the FBO to use the men’s room while the pilots loaded my luggage into it.”
“Was there not a toilet on the airplane, señor?”
Wells smiled. “Yes, but our approach was very bumpy, not conducive to aiming well.”
The other detective came back and nodded to the capitán, who spoke up again. “Señor Wells, can you describe the two young women?”
“They are both in their late twenties or early thirties. Tina is about five feet seven inches tall and a hundred and thirty pounds; Soledad is smaller, about five-four and a hundred and thirty pounds. They are both Hispanic and speak Spanish but were born in Los Angeles, I believe.”
The capitán held out his hand, and one of the detectives put the manila envelope in it. He opened the envelope and handed Wells two photographs. “Are these the two women?”
Wells looked at the photos and let his eyes widen. “What happened to them?”
“Are they your two friends?”
“Yes, they are. What happened?”
“They were apparently driving from this house into Acapulco yesterday afternoon. They were found in their car, upside down in an arroyo, both dead.”
“That’s very upsetting,” Wells said, frowning, “an awful accident.”
“It was not an accident, Señor Wells,” the capitán said. “Their car was apparently run off the road and into the ditch; both women were shot once each, with a small-caliber handgun.”
“Good God! Why would anyone harm them?”
“Apparently to rob them, señor. Both their handbags had been removed from the car and emptied on the ground beside it. There was no money or jewelry among the belongings. Also, one of the women, the driver, showed marks on her left wrist of having worn a watch, which was missing.”