Short Straw

by Stuart Woods

  Thirty-five

  ED EAGLE WOKE FEELING FRESH AND READY FOR THE new day. He was looking forward to work, something he had not felt since Barbara's decamping. He showered and shaved, and as he looked in the mirror he thought again about the message from the county jail that Joe Big Bear was going to kill him.

  It didn't make any more sense this morning than it had the day before. He thought of calling the police or the D.A., but what would he tell them? Joe had not told him the name of the man in jail who had been hired to kill him, and that must have been who made the phone call. And Joe was a free man only because of him, and people tended to be grateful for that kind of help.

  He had breakfast and slipped into his suit jacket, and as he was about to leave he stopped at the front door. Better to be safe. He went back to his dressing room and removed the Terry Tussy custom.45 from the safe, slipped off his belt and replaced it with the wider, thicker gun belt, then threaded the holster onto the belt. He checked the magazine and made sure there was one in the chamber, then he cocked and locked the pistol and shoved it into the custom-made Mitch Rosen holster, which held the pistol high against his rib cage, making it easier to conceal. He left by the front door, picking up the Santa Fe New Mexican and the New York Times on the doorstep, and got into his car, tossing the papers onto the next seat.

  He drove down the driveway and stopped, looking up and down the road. The pistol was digging into a rib, so he took it out of the holster and placed it on the passenger seat between the two newspapers, so it wouldn't get the leather seat oily.

  He turned right and started down the mountain, driving in a leisurely fashion, thinking about the day ahead. As he came around a bend he saw a pickup truck pulled over onto the shoulder with the hood up, and he slowed. He'd see if the driver needed help. As he did, a man waving a hand stepped from behind the pickup's raised hood. The man looked familiar.

  Then, as the man approached, Eagle belatedly recognized him. Joe Big Bear was smiling and waving with his left hand, seemingly relieved to have some help, and his right hand was behind his back. Eagle pressed the button that automatically lowered the passenger-side window, and as he did, something in the back of his mind told him he was making a mistake.

  What came next happened very quickly and yet seemed in slow motion. Big Bear leaned over and put his face in the window, then his right hand came around with something odd-looking in it. A tool, maybe? Not a tool, not the kind needed to repair a broken pickup, anyway Eagle began to operate on pure instinct.

  As the shotgun came through the window he grabbed at it as the first barrel fired, then he put a hand under the top newspaper, made contact with the pistol and, without pulling it out or aiming it began firing through the door, his hand coming up with each shot, while the shotgun fired again. The noise from the two weapons was incredible.

  Simultaneously, Joe Big Bear's face winced in surprise, as the shotgun in his hand bucked. Eagle's last two rounds went through the open window and blew Big Bear backward, as if he had been jerked by a rope, and he disappeared from view.

  Eagle sat, dazed, and tried to figure out what had happened. His windshield had a large hole in it and had crazed, ruining the view forward; there was something warm running down his neck, and he spat something out of his mouth into his hand. It was a single, double-ought buckshot the size of a garden pea and bloody. Eagle turned the rearview mirror so that he could see his reflection. There was a notch in his left earlobe and a black hole in his left cheek, and his face had flecks of black in the skin.

  He got out of the car, spat blood, and walked around the vehicle, the.45 still in his hand and held out in front of him. With his left hand he found a handkerchief in his left hip pocket and pressed it to his bleeding ear. His ears were ringing, and the sound of the car door as he closed it seemed to come from far away.

  Joe Big Bear was lying on his back, the shotgun near his right hand and his eyes open and staring blankly at the morning sky. Eagle bent over and felt Big Bear's neck where a pulse should be and felt nothing. He suddenly felt a wave of nausea and dizziness, and he vomited on the ground next to Big Bear's body. When he had stopped retching he leaned against the car and took deep breaths.

  He regained his composure after a minute or so and clawed the cell phone from its holster on his belt, speed-dialing the district attorney's direct line.

  "Martinez," a voice said.

  "Bob, it's Ed Eagle," he managed to say before he had to spit blood again.

  "Morning, Ed. You sound funny. Is anything wrong?"

  "You remember my client, Joe Big Bear?"

  "I'm afraid so."

  "He just tried to shotgun me on the road, down the hill from my house."

  "Ed, are you hurt?"

  "Only a little, but Big Bear is dead. I'd appreciate it if you'd call the sheriff for me and get him out here with a crime scene team and two ambulances, one of them for me. I don't think I can drive."

  "Ed, you're not going to bleed to death or anything before anybody can get there, are you?"

  "No, Bob, but please ask them to hurry."

  "I'll call you back in a minute. You're on your cell phone?"

  "Yes."

  Martinez hung up, and Eagle sank to the ground, sitting cross-legged and leaning against his car. His cell phone rang.

  "Yes?"

  "It's Bob. They're on their way, and so am I." He hung up.

  A SHERIFF'S CAR was there in four minutes, by Eagle's watch, and two ambulances and Bob Martinez were right behind him. Eagle insisted on walking them through what had happened before he got into the ambulance.

  "You hit him with all four shots," Martinez said, "from his right knee to his belly to his chest."

  "I wasn't even aiming," Eagle said.

  AT THE HOSPITAL a young resident did something to his earlobe and stuck a swab into the hole in Eagle's cheek, then he poured some liquid into a small cup and handed it to Eagle.

  "Mr. Eagle, I know this is going to sound like an odd treatment, but I want you to take some of this into your mouth, close your lips tightly and spit it out the hole in your cheek."

  Eagle did as he was told, and a stream of clotted blood and antiseptic shot out the hole. It would have hurt like hell, he thought, but for the local anesthetic the man had injected into his cheek.

  Then, in short order, an oral surgeon appeared and stitched up the wound inside Eagle's mouth, and a plastic surgeon was next, carefully suturing the wound in his cheek with tiny stitches.

  "I want you to keep this on your cheek for as long and as often as you can stand it," the plastic surgeon said, pressing a wrapped ice pack against his face. "It'll help prevent swelling, and you'll look more normal." He put a square of flesh-colored tape on the stitched wound.

  When the medics were done, Bob Martinez, who had watched the treatment with interest, drove him home, so that he could change his bloody clothing.

  "I had your car flat-bedded to the dealer in Albuquerque," Martinez said. "The windshield will have to be replaced, and the door fixed, and the interior will need some attention. Do you have a second car?"

  "Thanks, Bob, I've still got Barbara's Range Rover."

  "Where's Barbara?"

  "Gone, and for good. There's something I can tell you, Bob, now that Joe Big Bear is dead."

  "What's that?"

  "My witness at Big Bear's hearing, Cartwright, was wrong about something. I don't think it was deliberate, but he said that Joe had been at his house the whole time the car was being repaired. I didn't remember it until later, but at our first meeting, Joe told me he had had to leave the job to go to Pep Boys on Cerrillos for a fan belt."

  Martinez's eyebrows went up. "Ah, opportunity," he said. "That matches up nicely with motive and means."

  "Yes, it does. I think Joe did the three murders."

  "Well, I can clear that case," Martinez said as he pulled into Eagle's driveway.

  Eagle got out, thanked Martinez again, and went inside. He called Betty and said t
hat he wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be in that day, then he stripped off his bloody clothes, took another shower and got into bed. He didn't wake up until Susannah Wilde called in the late afternoon from the Centurion jet to say that she'd be landing in Santa Fe at six o'clock.

  Thirty-six

  EAGLE MET THE CENTURION GULFSTREAM IV AT THE SANTA Fe Jet Center, feeling like shit, hurting all over as if he had been beaten up. The ice had helped, but his face was still swollen, and his left eye was black.

  When the jet taxied up to the ramp, Eagle walked out to meet it as the door opened, and several people came down the airstair. Susannah was first off, followed by a rather handsome, if elderly, man.

  "Oh, Ed, what happened to you?" she asked, looking alarmed.

  "Just a little accident; nothing to worry about."

  "Ed, let me introduce Rick Barron, the chairman of Centurion Studios."

  "Ed, how are you?" the elderly man asked.

  "Very well, Mr. Barron."

  "Please call me Rick."

  "Thank you."

  "Susannah, it looks as though you don't need a lift into town," Barron said.

  "No, I'm fine, Rick. Thank you so much for the ride; it's so much easier than flying commercial to Albuquerque and driving from there."

  "Any time. We're returning Sunday evening, if you need a round trip."

  "No, I'll be staying to get my new house in order." She kissed him on the cheek, Eagle took her luggage from a flight attendant and they walked to the Range Rover.

  As soon as they were in the car, before he could even start it, she put a hand on his arm. "All right, now tell me what really happened. Did you get into a fight?"

  "In a manner of speaking," Eagle replied. "I want you to understand that incidents like this are not a normal or regular part of my life."

  "Understood. Now what happened?"

  "A man, a former client, tried to kill me with a sawed-off shotgun. Fortunately, it didn't turn out as he had planned." He explained the circumstances as fully as he could.

  "You should be at home in bed," she said.

  "I spent the day in bed, and I'm just fine, thanks."

  "I expect you could use a drink," she said. "So could I; let's get going."

  HE PUT HER THINGS in the guest room. "Do you want to change?"

  "Nope, I'm okay as I am. Where's the kitchen?"

  "This way." He led her there and poured them both a Knob Creek on the rocks.

  "Now, you sit here," she said, pushing him onto a barstool. "I'm going to cook dinner."

  "That's really not…"

  "Don't argue with me," she said, taking a swig of her drink and opening the refrigerator door. "What have we got here?"

  "There are some steaks and salad makings."

  "Got it," she said, starting the grill on the Viking range. "Dinner in half an hour."

  THE FISHING BOAT MADE IT into Cabo San Lucas well after dark. Vittorio sat on a beer cooler, a dirty blanket around his shoulders, and watched as the boat was eased into her berth, then he pressed five hundred dollars on its captain and jumped onto the dock.

  Vittorio could not swim, but he could float. He had floated for the better part of an hour, terrified of growing tired and sinking, before the fishing boat appeared and heard his shouts. They had even rescued his hat, which was floating alongside him.

  When he had gone over the side, he had been stunned by his uncontrolled impact with the water and frightened that he was under it for what seemed like minutes. He broke the surface just in time to see her turn away from the rail and walk away. He had been too out of breath even to shout, before the ferry was a hundred yards away. He had taken deep breaths, arched his back and he thanked God that the sea was flat.

  He had had time to contemplate the end of his life before it was saved by the fishermen and to plan what he was going to do to Barbara if he ever got his hands on her. Once aboard the boat he'd tried to call Ed Eagle, but his cell phone had been ruined by the salt water.

  Now, as he walked into the town, angry and damp, all he wanted was food, tequila and a bed. Then he remembered that he had the key to the Toyota. He found a cab and negotiated a price for the ride to Mazatlan. The cab ride was over an hour, and on arrival he went directly to the ferry terminal. As he had suspected, the Toyota was parked there. He retrieved his luggage from the trunk and found a hotel.

  He ordered from room service, then he rinsed the salt water out of his clothes so they would dry properly, flushed out his.45 Colt as best he could and soaked in a hot tub until the food came. A quarter of a bottle of tequila later, he fell soundly asleep, grateful to be alive.

  EAGLE AND SUSANNAH ate slowly and talked, sipping a good cabernet.

  "I feel as though I'm starting a whole new chapter in my life," she said.

  "I'm almost there, myself, and I will be as soon as I can get the divorce out of the way."

  "Is that going to be a problem with her being out of the country?"

  "Somewhere else is where I want her to be," Eagle said. "I'll have a signed agreement tomorrow morning, when I get to the office for your closing. The rest is just paperwork."

  "My divorce wasn't so easy," she said. "He wouldn't settle, so we had to go to trial. It was all over the papers, and I hated that, but in the end, he had to pay more than I'd asked for, and he had to pay in cash, so at least I'm well fixed."

  "I'm happy for you."

  "The shipping company says my furniture will be here by noon Monday."

  "Then I'm looking forward to our weekend together."

  "So am I."

  "We'll do a walk-through with the real estate agent first thing in the morning, then we'll close at my office. An associate has already prepared all the paperwork. It's a lot simpler for a cash transaction; fewer documents to sign. The seller won't be there, but his lawyer already has the signed documents. Did you bring a cashier's check for the sale price?"

  "Yep. I'm ready to close."

  "I wish all my clients were so easy to deal with."

  "Well, I'm not always easy to deal with. I'm an actress, after all."

  "You seem to have a solid sense of yourself, without the usual ego inflation of people in your business."

  "Maybe that's because I've seen so many inflated egos, and I wanted to avoid that. It's the money, really. So many of those people are being paid so much money that they come to believe that they're actually worth it. I know an actress who lives in Malibu who has a big piece of property with four houses on it, and she takes turns living in all of them."

  "Maybe there really is such a thing as too much money."

  "Live in L.A. for three months, and you'll learn how true that is."

  "I think three months might be too much for me. I spent five weeks there once, for a trial. The client put me up at the Bel-Air hotel, and after a while I began to think I was worth it."

  AFTER DINNER, she wanted to go to bed, and so did he. He kissed her good night outside the guest room, then fell into his own bed and quickly fell unconscious.

  Thirty-seven

  EAGLE WOKE THE NEXT MORNING FEELING NEARLY HUMAN.

  He showered, shaved and checked the state of his face. There was still the discolored eye, but the swelling in his face had gone down. He put antibiotic cream on his wound and applied a bandage. By the time he was dressed, he could smell bacon cooking.

  "Good morning," she said as he walked into the kitchen.

  "You really don't have to cook all our meals," he said.

  "I've got to earn my keep somehow."

  "I guess I'm going to have to take you out this evening to keep you from cooking again."

  "Don't you like my cooking?"

  "It's wonderful, but I don't like making you work."

  They sat down and ate a big breakfast, then Eagle got out the Range Rover and drove them through Tesuque and down Tano Road.

  "This route isn't as easy as it used to be," he said as he first followed a four-lane highway, then turned onto a dirt road. "They
closed the entrance to Tano Road in some sort of weird traffic rerouting, so it'll take you a little longer to get home than it once did."

  "I don't mind the drive," she said.

  He turned onto Tano Norte. "This road used to be called County Road 85, or something like that, but the writer who built your house and Stanley Marcus, of Neiman's fame, who lived right there"- he pointed out a house as they passed-"got together and had the name of the road changed and the houses numbered."

  They drove on down Tano Norte until they came to the house, where Susannah's real estate agent was waiting for them. The walkthrough went well, and Susannah made notes for minor repairs and changes she wanted done.

  "I'll recommend somebody to take care of all that," Eagle said.

  The walk-through completed, they drove to Eagle's office, where his associate had the paperwork arranged on the conference table in his suite. The seller's lawyer showed up, the papers were signed and money changed hands.

  "Congratulations," Eagle said, "you're a Santa Fe home owner."

  VITTORIO WOKE UP LATER than he had intended, had some breakfast and got dressed. He could see the Toyota in the ferry parking lot across the street, and he kept an eye on it as he dressed. His intention had been simply to go and get into the car when Cupie and Barbara did, but then he had a strange thought: Could the two of them have been in cahoots? He dismissed the idea as implausible, but he resolved to be more cautious.

  He asked the hotel to provide a rental car, to be dropped off in Tijuana, and when Cupie arrived at the Toyota with their bags he was waiting across the street in a red Chevrolet.

  CUPIE OPENED THE TRUNK and set his and Barbara's luggage inside, then he stopped. Vittorio's luggage had been there; now it was gone. He checked the lock on the Toyota; it was undisturbed; the trunk had not been broken into. He closed the trunk and looked carefully around him. What was going on here? The coast guard had reported not finding Vittorio's body. This was creepy.