HIS OFFICES WERE only a year old, atop one of the taller buildings around the Plaza, the heart of the city. Eagle strolled through the outer area, waving at his employees. “All right, everybody,” he called to them, “get to work; the boss is back.”
His secretary followed him into the office. “There’s a stack of phone messages on your desk that weren’t important enough to forward to L.A.”
“Fine, make a reservation for two at Santa Cafe at seven thirty, please.”
“Will do. There’s some correspondence, too, and a couple of briefs that you dictated before you left. Please review them.”
“Okay, okay.” He began making phone calls, apologizing for his absence. Half the people he spoke to had watched his testimony at Barbara’s trial. One of the messages was from Daniel Shea. He called the number.
“Dan? It’s Ed.”
'Hello, Ed. Congratulations on your performance in L.A.”
“A lot of good it did me; she’s free as a bird.”
“How do you feel about that, Ed?”
“Don’t you ask me those shrink questions, Dan,” Eagle said, chuckling. “I’ll feel just fine as long as Barbara is in another state.”
“Is that where she is?”
“I hope I never know.”
“Ed, we’ve never talked much about this, but you should know that Barbara, like her late sister, Julia, is an obsessive.”
“And what is her obsession?”
“You.”
“Oh, come on, Daniel. She’s out; she’ll want to stay out. She won’t want to mess with me.”
“Are you forgetting that Julia tried to set up her husband for a triple murder and then killed my brother? And damn near got away with it? Are you forgetting that Barbara hired two men to kill you? I’m telling you, it runs in the family. I never knew the third sister, but I’d be willing to bet she shared the family trait.”
'Well, I was careful in L.A. after I learned that she had escaped the courthouse.”
“Now she doesn’t have to be careful, you know. She can move right back to Santa Fe, if she wants to, and live on her divorce settlement from you.”
That settlement still rankled Eagle, but it had been worth it to get rid of her. “Yes, I suppose she could, but why would she want to?”
“Ed, do you know what an obsession is? It’s the opposite of a phobia. A phobia is an irrational fear of something: flying, water, open spaces, almost anything. An obsession is a compulsive fascination with something, either a love or a hatred of the object. You are the object, and she is not going to walk away from you.”
“By the way, Dan, I’ve been seeing a woman named Susannah Wilde, and yesterday, in L.A., she shot and killed her ex-husband, who was threatening her with a gun. She’s off the hook legally, but I’m not sure about psychologically. It’s weird; she behaves as if the shooting never happened, and I’m not sure how long she can keep that up.”
“Tell her to call me; I’ll work her in.”
“I already have. I just wanted you to know who she is when she calls.”
“Maybe you should come and see me, too, Ed.”
“Come on, Dan. You know I have no neuroses. I’m the sanest guy you know.”
“I’ll concede that, but it troubles me that you seem unable to face the Barbara problem.”
“Dan, if the Barbara problem arises again, I’ll deal with it, but I’m not going to spend my days and nights worrying about it.”
“That’s a sane approach, Ed, but a potentially dangerous one.”
“Let’s have dinner soon, okay?”
“Are you free tonight?” Daniel asked.
“Tell you what, meet Susannah and me at Santa Cafe at seven thirty.”
“I’d love to.”
“She’s going to think I’m setting her up, so don’t bring up her problem.”
“Of course not. See you at seven thirty.”
'We’ll look forward to it.” Eagle hung up and went back to the work on his desk.
7
SUSANNAH ARRIVED AT Eagle’s house and deposited her things in the master bedroom’s second dressing room. Eagle had long ago given Barbara’s clothes to the Salvation Army, and the room had been empty until Susannah had begun to leave a few things there.
They got into Eagle’s car. “A friend is joining us,” he said as he pointed the car down the mountain road.
“Who’s that?”
“His name is Daniel Shea.”
“The shrink you told me about?”
“Yes, but I’m not setting you up. He called this afternoon and suggested dinner, so I asked him to join us.”
“You’re just trying to get my head shrunk, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not, I swear. Dan’s a good guy, and you’ll like him.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He had a brother, Mark Shea, who was a psychiatrist here; he was murdered by Barbara’s sister.”
“Oh, yeah, your sister-in-law. I remember.”
“She had been dead for a year when Barbara and I married.”
“So, Dan replaced Mark in Santa Fe?”
“Pretty much. Dan was Mark’s heir. They were twins-not identical, fraternal-and Dan inherited Mark’s property in Santa Fe. Dan had had a practice in Denver, but he moved here, wrote a letter to all of Mark’s clients, saying that he was taking over the practice, and he retained most of Mark’s clients. If anything, he has been more successful than Mark was.”
“Are you one of his clients?”
“Me? I’m impervious to analysis; I have no neuroses. Dan knows this, but he keeps kidding me about getting therapy.”
“Okay, I’ll try to talk to him just like a real person, instead of a shrink.”
THEY ARRIVED AT Santa Cafe, Eagle’s favorite local restaurant, which managed to be at once cool and festive. Daniel Shea was waiting for them at the bar. He stood up and approached, his hand out.
“Hello, Ed. And this must be Susannah.” He shook her hand warmly. He was not as tall as Eagle but broader, a bear of a man.
“Why do I feel so small in this company?” Susannah asked and got a laugh.
They were seated, ordered drinks, consulted menus and ordered food.
“I must tell you,” Shea said, “I’m a fan of your work.”
“Why thank you, Dan,” Susannah said.
“I don’t go to the movies all that much, but I see everything on satellite, and I’ve watched most of your movies more than once.”
“Well, I’m settling into my character period, I think, since I’m pushing forty now. The good news is, I produce most of what I appear in, so I just cast myself in good supporting roles.”
“That’s very smart,” Shea said. “Tell me, how does one learn to produce films? It seems very complicated.”
“Well, first of all, I’ve appeared in a lot of them, and I guess it didn’t hurt to be married to a producer for some years, and I got to watch him work. He’s very good at it.”
There was a silence.
