didn't want to see.
There were four men in the place, two at a table and two at the bar. Vittorio made eye contact with each of them and didn't get so much as a lifted eyebrow.
'It appears my guy's guy isn't here yet,' he said.
The bartender placed two sweaty bottles on the bar, and Cupie gave him five bucks American. He still didn't have any pesos. They sat down.
'I don't like this place,' Cupie said. 'Where's your guy's guy?'
'Relax, we're ten minutes early.'
Cupie stuck a hand under his jacket and manipulated something.
'Take it easy, Cupie, we're not getting into any gunfights.'
Cupie leaned in close. 'There are four guys in here, and every one of them looks like he lives for a gunfight. And I'm not too sure about the bartender, either.'
'Cupie, it's just a cantina, okay?'
Cupie nursed his beer and continued to look worried.
At the stroke of the hour a man holding a longish cardboard box walked in. The box bore the legend callaway golf. He looked around for a moment, then his eye alighted on Vittorio, who was wearing his hat. He came over.
'Buenos dias, senores,' he said. 'Meester Vittorio?'
Vittorio nodded. 'What's the bill?'
'Nine hundred, senor. American.'
Vittorio handed him the money, already counted out. 'Ammunition?'
'Two boxes double-ought, one of solid projectile,' the man said. 'Bye-bye.' He turned and left.
'Let's get out of here,' Cupie whispered hoarsely.
Vittorio got up and led the way, carrying the box, while Cupie walked backward behind him, watching the four men, whose expressions never changed.
Vittorio opened the trunk, set the cardboard box inside and opened it. Keeping both weapons inside the trunk, he handed Cupie a Remington riot gun and took a stockless Ithaca for himself. Both men loaded their weapons with eight rounds, pumped one into the chamber, then loaded a ninth.
'I like the extended magazine,' Cupie said. 'Saves reloading when you're about to die.'
They picked up the remaining ammunition and got into the car, placing the shotguns on the floorboards.
'Artillery?' Barbara said from the backseat. 'Are we expecting war?'
'The worst thing that can happen is what you didn't prepare for,' Cupie explained. 'I feel better now; don't you feel better?'
'I feel like getting on an airplane,' Barbara said.
'Time to make a pass at the airport,' Vittorio said, starting the car.
They drove back up the main highway to the airport turnoff, where Vittorio pulled off the road and stopped.
'Why are we stopping?' Barbara asked.
'Please be quiet,' Vittorio replied, picking up his binoculars and training them on the airport building, half a mile away. 'Uh-oh,' he said, then handed the binoculars to Cupie.
Cupie trained them on the airport building. 'I see two cops and-oh, shit! That fucking black Suburban! Why can't we shake those sons of bitches?'
'Let's go to Tijuana,' Vittorio said. 'We'll find a place for the night and get there tomorrow.'
Twenty-six
EAGLE WALKED INTO THE INN OF THE ANASAZI TO FIND Susannah Wilde waiting for him, standing in front of a roaring fireplace in the lobby. She was wearing a cream-colored linen dress that set off her tan, a string of pearls, a cashmere sweater over her shoulders and a big smile. She offered her hand.
Eagle took it. 'The car is right outside,' he said, 'not that we need it. The restaurant is just up the street.' He put her into the passenger seat, tipped the carhop and drove the two blocks to Santa Cafe.
'I've heard of this place,' she said as they were seated.
'I'm glad to be the first to bring you here. We're blessed with good restaurants in Santa Fe, but this is my favorite.'
A waiter appeared.
'What would you like to drink?' he asked.
'I'll have a Knob Creek on the rocks, please,' Susannah said.
'A woman after my own heart. Make that two. And where did an LA. girl learn to drink hundred-proof bourbon?'
'Oh, I'm not an L.A. girl at all; I'm a Georgia girl, small town called Delano.'
'Never heard of it.'
'Neither has anybody else, but it got me my first movie role.'
'How?'
'A couple of weeks after I first arrived in L.A., I was waiting outside Neiman Marcus for my car to be brought around, and I got into a conversation with an elderly man named Richard Barron.'
'I've heard of Rick Barron,' he said. 'He's the chairman of Centurion Studios.'
'I didn't know that, at the time. We had a five-minute wait, and he asked me where I was from. I told him, and, to my astonishment, he told me he had been born in Delano, Georgia, though he left there when he was quite young. You can imagine his surprise when I told him I was from Delano, too. Our cars arrived, he gave me his card and asked me to call him. I did, and he arranged for me to meet the head of production at Centurion, who introduced me to several producers at lunch, and a week later, I had an agent and was working in my first movie.'
'Are you always so lucky?'
'Not always. I married one of the producers, and I wouldn't call that lucky.'
'Kids?'
'Nope.'
'How long have you been divorced?'
'A little over a year. How about you?'
Eagle looked at his watch. 'By five o'clock tomorrow afternoon, if I'm lucky.'
'How long separated?'
'Less than a week.'
'How do you get a divorce so quickly?'
'One: you have a signed financial settlement; two: you have a very good reason; and three: you have a good buddy who's a judge. I have all three.'
Their drinks came, and she raised her glass. 'Here's to all three,' she said.
Eagle raised his glass. 'I'll drink to that.'
'I take it you're not in a frame of mind to reconsider your marriage.'
'You are a perceptive woman.'
'It's not hard to see the anger underneath your otherwise charming demeanor.'
'That's not anger,' he said. 'It's relief. The anger came when I found out she'd stolen over a million dollars from me and gone to Mexico.'
'Compared to my settlement divorce, that's a cheap divorce,' Susannah said.
'That's not counting the other four million she tried to steal but that I was able to hang onto. And it's not costing me very much. I managed to get a lot of it back.'
'How did you do that?'
