by Stuart Woods
10
CUPIE DALTON DROVE over to Venice and, lucky him, found a parking spot. He strolled along the beachfront, taking the sun, his straw porkpie hat keeping the heat off his bald spot. He caught sight of the sign for the photographer’s shop a hundred yards away, knowing from his past encounter with Barbara Eagle that the place was a hotbed of counterfeit document sales. Then he was startled to see the owner, the man he wanted to see, walk out of the shop and start down the sidewalk toward him.
Cupie stepped off the sidewalk and found a spot on a bench, his back to the foot traffic. He waited for a few moments, then hazarded a glance to his right. The photographer was walking briskly, a package under his arm. Cupie watched as he stopped at a mailbox, dropped in the package and started back toward his shop.
Cupie waited until he was certain the man had walked behind him, then he caught sight of him turning into his shop. Good.
Cupie got up, walked down the sidewalk toward the shop and had a peek through the window. The owner’s pretty teenaged daughter was the only person in view. Cupie walked in, straight past the counter, toward the rear office.
“Hey,” the girl shouted, “you can’t go back there. It’s private!”
But Cupie was already back there. He pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the surprisingly large office, filled with computers and copying machines. The owner sat behind his desk. He looked up, registered Cupie and started to get up.
“Relax, my friend,” Cupie said, taking the chair across from him. “This is going to be short and sweet.”
The man said nothing, just glared at Cupie. It was obvious that his memory of their last meeting was an unpleasant memory.
“Now, my friend,” Cupie said, in his most avuncular voice. “All I want is her new name.”
The man stared at him and said nothing.
“Come on, you and I both know that holding out on me is not going to be good for business. Tell you what: I’ll sweeten it just a little.” He reached into a pocket for a wad of bills, peeled off two hundreds and tossed them onto the desk. “For your trouble.”
Finally, the man spoke. “Five hundred.”
Cupie sighed and tossed three more C-notes onto the desk. "I know it’s not really necessary to mention this,” he said, “but if you give me a wrong name, I won’t even need to come back. You’ll be raided before you can spend the five hundred—LAPD or the Feds, take your pick.”
“The name is Eleanor Wright,” he said.
Cupie stared at him.
“And I colored her hair auburn, photographically. It was a good job, even if I do say so.”
“Did you give her the whole package: passport, driver’s license, Social Security, credit cards?”
The man nodded. “And they’ll all stand up. Now, that’s all you get for your five hundred.”
Cupie stood up. “It’s so much easier talking to me than working for a living, isn’t it?” He gave a little wave and walked out of the office. “Good day, sweetheart,” he said to the daughter as he passed.
He walked on down the sidewalk until he found a bookstore. He located the travel section and found a shelf of books on spas, settling on one that covered Southern California. He paid for his purchase, pocketed the receipt and walked back outside. He found another bench, this one overlooking the sandbox where the muscle boys played. They glistened in the sun, stretching, lifting and assuming poses. Half a dozen gay men were happy spectators.
Cupie began leafing through the spa book. “Now, I’m Eleanor Wright, formerly Barbara Eagle,” he said aloud to himself. “If I had just decamped from a courthouse while the jury in my trial was still deliberating, where would I choose to go and rehabilitate my image?” He took a highlighter from his coat pocket and began marking likely spots. His criteria were luxury, seclusion, exclusivity and easy access from greater L.A.
When he had highlighted twelve spas, he took out his cell phone and began calling them. Each time the phone was answered he asked for Mrs. Eleanor Wright. Surely Barbara would not pretend to be a single girl but rather a divorcée or widow. On the ninth phone call he hit pay dirt.
“Oh,” a woman’s voice said, “you’ve just missed her. She checked out less than half an hour ago.”
“I’m so sorry to miss her,” Cupie said. “This is her father. Did she say where she was going? Back here, to L.A.?”
“No, but I don’t think so, because she hired one of our employees to drive her car there and leave it with a friend.”
“Oh, that would be Jimmy Long,” he said.
“Why, that’s right.”
“It’s rather odd that she would suddenly send her car back but not come back herself. How was she traveling?”
“Well, she left with Mr. Walter Keeler, and I know that he had flown into Palm Springs in his own airplane. He’s from up in Silicon Valley, the electronics entrepreneur.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the gentleman,” Cupie said. “Do you think she’ll be all right in his company? I worry about my girl.”
“Oh, Mr. Keeler is a very upstanding citizen,” she said. “I know Mrs. Wright would be safe with him.”
“Well, I’m relieved to hear that,” Cupie said. “I’m sure she’ll give me a call when she reaches her destination. Thank you so much for your help.” He hung up.
Cupie walked back to his car and drove home. He couldn’t wait to get to his computer. Once at his desk he Googled “Walter Keeler.” His eyes widened as he read of the sale of Keeler’s company. “Two point seven bil!” he said aloud. He then went straight to the Federal Aviation Agency website, to the page for airplane registrations. He entered the name Walter Keeler and found a CitationJet III registered to him. He made a note of the tail number, then he called up a nifty little program called Flight Aware.
Flight Aware could track the progress and destination of any aircraft, airline or private; all you had to do was enter the flight number or, in this case, the tail number. Cupie did so. Seconds later, a little red airplane symbol appeared on the screen, located over the Central Valley, the farming capital of California, headed northwest. Destination: Hayward, California. “What the hell is in Hayward?” Cupie asked himself.
He got out his road atlas and found Hayward. It was a small city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, just south of Oakland. He picked up the phone and dialed.
“The Eagle Practice,” a woman’s smooth voice said.
“Ed Eagle, please. It’s Cupie Dalton calling.”
“Just a moment, Mr. Dalton.”
“Cupie?”
“Good morning, Ed.”
“News?”
“News. Our girl, as soon as she left the courthouse, drove down to a spa called El Rancho Encantado on a mountaintop overlooking Palm Springs, traveling under the name of Eleanor Wright. She checked in and there met a gentleman named Walter Keeler.”
“I know that name, I think.”
“You ought to; he just sold his electronics conglomerate and pocketed two point seven billion bucks.”
“Are they still at the spa?”
“Nope, she shipped her car back to Jimmy Long’s house and left Palm Springs Airport on Keeler’s CitationJet, bound for Hayward, California, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. What I can’t figure out, at least at the moment, is what the hell anybody would do in Hayward.”
“There’s a general aviation airport there that serves San Francisco. I land there, myself, when I’m going there on business. It’s not like a smaller airplane would want to mix it up with the heavy iron landing at San Francisco International. When did they go there?”
Cupie looked at his computer screen. “They’ll be landing in about ten minutes,” he said. “And it looks like our girl has hooked herself a big one.”
11
BARBARA/ELEANOR SAT IN the rear of the jet, her feet propped up on the opposite seat, reading Vanity Fair. She loved the airplane, so roomy and quiet. Up front, Walter was speaking to an air traffic controller, getting landin
g instructions. She could hear the conversation over the music on her headset. Maybe she would take up flying; it seemed easy enough.
The airplane touched down gently at Hayward Executive and taxied to an FBO. She knew that meant fixed-base operator, from her experience of flying with Ed Eagle. A black Mercedes drove out onto the ramp and positioned itself near the airplane’s door, its trunk open and waiting. Barbara handed Walter her small bag, containing only her makeup and toiletries and a single change of clothes, having sent everything else to L.A. in her Toyota. She would be starting from scratch, at Walter’s insistence. She liked it when men insisted.
An hour later she and Walter were enjoying a fine lunch on the terrace of their large suite at the Four Seasons.
“Have you spent much time in San Francisco?” Walter asked.
“No. I’ve been here only once, just overnight.”
“You’ll find great shopping around Union Square, which is just up the street from the hotel. I’ve kept the car for you, and the driver will take you up there and follow you around, to take the packages off your hands.”
“Walt, you think of everything.”
The doorbell rang, and Walter got up to answer it. He came back with an envelope addressed to her. “And you’ll need this,” he said, handing it to her.
“My goodness, gifts already?” she asked, tearing open the envelope.
“The gift of gifts,” Walter said.
She plucked a black card from the envelope. “Oh, my God,” she said.
“It’s the American Express Centurion card,” Walter said, “made of titanium, just so it will feel richer.”
“But we only decided to come here this morning; how did you get it so fast?”
“The Centurion service is very good. It was hand-delivered from the local AMEX office.”
She got up from the table and kissed him. “You are the sweetest man!”
“All right,” he said, “go shopping. The concierge has made a dinner reservation for us at eight, so that’s your deadline. I have some shopping of my own to do.”
“I won’t argue with you,” she said, grabbing her handbag and heading for the door.
Union Square and the streets around it were a treasure trove, waiting to be plundered, and she did not keep the shops waiting. She bought two suits and a coat from Chanel; half a dozen dresses, a raincoat and several blouses and pairs of slacks from Armani; shoes from Prada and Jimmy Choo; and lingerie, hosiery and cosmetics at a department store. She bought two alligator handbags from Lana Marx and a sweet little diamond bracelet and a gold Panthere watch from Cartier. It was exhilarating. Only days before she had been a guest of the City of Los Angeles, sharing a cell with a chubby hooker, and now she felt like the queen of San Francisco! She found a luggage shop and chose a quartet of handmade Italian cases.
She returned to the hotel at five. Walter was still out, so she called the concierge for a hair appointment in the suite. She made all the boxes and wrappings go away, hanging her new wardrobe in her closet, and had a long soak in the giant tub while she waited for the hairdresser to arrive.
Her hair was shampooed, cut, shaped and dried, and the woman also applied her light makeup. When Walter returned, it was a little past seven, and she waited until he was in the shower to dress.
Walter emerged in a well-cut blue suit and a gold necktie. He stopped short and stared at her in her new Armani dress. “Wow!” he said. “I’ve never seen anything so gorgeous!”
“Aren’t you nice,” she said, giving him a tiny peck that would not muss her newly applied lipstick. “Where are we having dinner?”
HE TOOK HER to a restaurant called Boulevard. It was large, a little noisy, in the way that wildly successful restaurants always are, and the food was delicious. They drank two bottles of wine, a chardonnay and a cabernet, both from a Napa vineyard, Far Niente. Barbara tried not to get too drunk, but everything was so delicious and the wines so heady that she nearly forgot herself.
CUPIE SAT AT his computer and trolled the Internet, breaking into hotel systems nearly at will. Cupie and computers had been friends from the day they first met. He found Walter Keeler registered in the smaller of the two presidential suites at the Four Seasons, and he tried to image what a small presidential suite must look like. He called Eagle to report in.
“Good work, Cupie. Just keep track of her—that’s all I want. If she heads toward Santa Fe I’ll start packing heat. It shouldn’t be too hard; anybody who flies his own jet isn’t going to be separated too far from his airplane.”
“Good point,” Cupie said. “I’ll check Flight Aware daily for his position.”
THEY MADE LOVE at bedtime, then Barbara gently woke Walter in the middle of the night and introduced him to new techniques.
“I’ve never done that before,” Walter said when they were done, panting a little.
“Sweetheart,” she said, “for as long as you know me, you will never want for any sexual technique at my disposal. For years I had an awful sex life with my late husband, and I’m going to enjoy making up for it with you.”
“Ellie,” he said sleepily, “will you marry me?”
“Oh, hush, Walter, and go to sleep.” It was working.
HE RUSHED HER through breakfast the following morning. “We have an appointment at nine o’clock sharp,” he said.
“An appointment for what?”
“You’ll see.”
The driver deposited them in front of a handsome old apartment building on a hill, and a real estate agent took them to the top floor in the elevator.
They stepped out directly into the foyer of a spacious apartment. A huge bouquet of fresh flowers sat on a table, their scent pervading the air. They moved through beautifully furnished rooms, bedrooms, a magnificent kitchen, a paneled library and a dining room that seated sixteen. Finally, they emerged onto a huge planted terrace, more of a yard, she thought. San Francisco lay at their feet, the bay sparkling, a fog bank nearly enveloping the Golden Gate Bridge, its towers peeking through.
“It’s breathtaking,” she said. “But what are we doing here?”
Walter turned to the real estate agent. “Will you excuse us for a moment?” The woman disappeared, and he turned back to Ellie. “Do you think you could be happy living here?”
“Why, of course. Who wouldn’t be happy living here?”
“Good. But I’m an old-fashioned guy; you’ll have to marry me first.”
“But Walter, we’ve known each other for only a few days. You hardly know me.”
“Let me ask you something: Do you think you know me?”
“Well . . . yes—unless you have some deep dark secret you’re hiding.”
“Nope. What you see is what you get. My feeling is that you are the same way. Am I wrong?”
She put her arms around his neck. “No, you’re not wrong.”
“I love you, Ellie. Will you marry me?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, kissing him, not worrying about her lipstick.
“I’ve arranged for a license; a judge will bring it at noon. A few friends are coming up from Palo Alto. Is there anyone you’d like to ask?”
“I have no friends in California,” she said. “Only you.”
“Then I will just have to be enough,” he said. “The judge will marry us at noon, then we’ll have a luncheon on the terrace.”
“Will the real estate agent let us do that?”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said, beckoning to the woman, who was waiting in the living room. She came out onto the terrace, and he produced a cashier’s check. “Here you are; you may close with my attorney immediately.” He handed her a card.
“The place is yours, Mr. Keeler,” she said. “And may I offer my congratulations?” She shook both their hands and left.
“All the furnishings come with it?” Ellie asked.
“It was an estate sale. The owners died in a yachting accident three months ago, and the agents had the place repainted and freshened up. It comes with tw
o servants, too, a very nice couple, who will be here shortly with the caterers.” The doorbell rang. “That will be our clothes arriving from the hotel.” He went to let them in.
Barbara/Ellie turned and took in the view again. “There is a God,” she said aloud to herself.
12
EAGLE SAT, clearing up his desk. Everybody else in the office had left for the day. The phone rang, and he picked it up. “Ed Eagle.”
“It’s Cupie.”
“What’s up?”
“They checked out of the Four Seasons this morning, but the airplane is still at Hayward Executive. I haven’t been able to find them.”
Eagle thought for a moment. Where would they go without the airplane?”
“Not another hotel; I’ve been checking reservation lists all day. Anyway, why would anybody move out of the presidential suite at the Four Seasons in favor of another hotel?”
“Maybe there was a fly in the soup. Find them.”
“Ed, if I have to leave my computer to find them, I’m going to need some help.”
“Hire anybody you need.”
“I’d like Vittorio.” Vittorio was an Apache Indian who lived near Santa Fe. Cupie had worked with him the last time they had to find Barbara, and he had testified at Barbara’s trial.
“Great, call him.”
“I think Vittorio would like it better if you called him. He can reach me at home; he has the number.”
“I’ll see if I can reach him,” Eagle said. He hung up and found Vittorio’s cell phone number.
Voice mail picked up. “You have reached the number you dialed,” Vittorio’s voice said. “Leave your name and number.”
“Vittorio, it’s Ed Eagle. I need to speak with you as soon as possible.” He left his office, home and cell numbers.
MR. AND MRS. Walter Keeler sat on their new terrace, watching the sunset and sipping martinis. Their guests for the wedding luncheon had only just left.
Eleanor Wright Keeler hadn’t much liked the three couples Walter had invited. She had played them carefully, laughing at the men’s jokes but paying particular attention to the women. They had all known Walter’s late wife, and each of them had made a point of telling her what a wonderful person she had been, by which they meant that Eleanor had better be a wonderful person, too. She concentrated on giving them absolutely no reason to hate her. She’d make friends with them later, if it became absolutely necessary.