'Only joking, Cupie. What I'd like you to do is to follow her when she leaves the hotel, and when she sits down somewhere, call me, then give her the phone.'
'Okay, I can do that. I'll go into the hotel, in case she's having dinner there.'
'Before I talk to her, I'd like to know if she's alone or with somebody.'
'Okay, I'll see what kind of information a fifty will get me.'
'Talk to you later.' Eagle hung up and turned to Wolf. 'I sent a P.I. down there, and he's found her.'
'That's some P.I.,' Wolf said.
'He's a smart guy; he's been useful in the past-on your case, as it happens. He found out that Julia and her boyfriend had gotten false passports.'
Their dinner arrived. Eagle hadn't felt hungry, but the news that Barbara had been found had improved his appetite. 'So,' he said, 'Centurion Studios bought your final cut on the movie?' Wolf had made many movies with a partner, and he'd made one from his partner's script after his death, but Eagle knew this was his first film made from his own script.
'They did, and without an argument.'
'Are you happy with it?'
'I certainly am. If it does good business, I'll be back where I was with the studio when Jack was alive.'
'Congratulations, Wolf; it's a milestone.'
'It's a great relief,' Wolf said. 'I'm already working on another script. My plan is to do a film a year, either from my own script or somebody else's.'
Eagle's cell phone vibrated again. 'Hello?'
'Would you like to speak to Mrs. Eagle?' Cupie asked.
Six
EAGLE COULDN'T BELIEVE HIS LUCK. 'You bet your ass, I'd like to speak to her.'
Cupie's voice became a little fainter; apparently he was holding out the phone to Barbara. 'Excuse me, Mrs. Eagle,' he was saying. 'Yeah, you, sweetheart. Your husband would like to speak to you.' Then Cupie sounded alarmed. 'Hey, wait a minute, lady! You don't wanna…' Then there was a single, very loud noise.
Eagle took the phone away from his ear. 'Jesus!' he said. 'She shot him!'
'Are you sure?' Wolf asked.
'That was either a gunshot or a stick of dynamite,' Eagle replied. 'It was plenty loud.' He put the phone back to his ear and listened. 'Nothing,' he said. 'The connection was broken.' He redialed Cupie's cell phone, but he was sent straight to voice mail.
'It's Eagle; call me.' He hung up. 'What the hell do I do now?' he asked.
LATER, BACK AT HOME, Eagle put the phone down. He had been trying to get hold of the Mexico City police for more than an hour, and finally he had gotten hold of a Colonel Ricardo. 'The police can't find Cupie,' he said to Wolf, who was sitting on the opposite sofa. 'They searched the area near the hotel, and they couldn't find anybody matching his description, shot or not shot. They found some blood in an alley next to the hotel, but they're not even sure it's human.'
'What else can you do?' Wolf asked.
'I've left a message for another guy I could send down there to look for him, but he hasn't returned my call. I talked with the local FBI guy, too, but he says they don't investigate shootings in Mexico, unless they involve U.S. officials, and Cupie isn't that. He's trying to get me a name in the federal police down there.'
'I hope you're not thinking of going down there yourself,' Wolf said.
'No. My experience with Mexico is limited to a single visit to Acapulco fifteen years ago, for Easter weekend, and I don't have the language. I'd be helpless.'
'It's good that you know that. I'd go with you, but I'd be helpless, too.'
Eagle's cell phone vibrated on his belt. He picked it up. 'Hello?'
'It's Cupie.' He sounded very tired.
'What happened, Cupie? I've had the Mexican cops looking for you.'
'The bitch shot me, that's what happened! I was handing her the phone, and she pulled out this little gun, maybe a.25, and got off a round.'
'Are you badly hurt?'
'I was in the process of ducking when she fired, and the bullet went right through that piece of flesh between my neck and my shoulder, you know? I bled like a stuck pig, but it wasn't too bad. I got back to my hotel and told the desk clerk I'd been robbed. He got me a doctor who, for an extra fifty, didn't see a need to call the cops. He patched me up and gave me a shot of penicillin and some Percodan. I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner.'
'That's all right. You take it easy, you hear? If you've lost a lot of blood, you'll need time for your body to replace it.'
'Aw, I didn't lose all that much; it just looked awful. People on the street ran from me until I could get a cab. You're gonna owe me for a new suit, though.'
'Bill me. Now take a day or two off before you start moving around again.'
'The first thing I'm gonna do is find me a piece. I'm not going after that lady unarmed, I'll tell you.'
'I'm astonished to think she would do that; I would have warned you, if I'd thought she'd get violent. Was she alone?'
'Yeah, she was. I was sitting in the lobby for an hour or so-the desk clerk had told me she was upstairs, alone-and she came down and left the hotel. I followed her, and she turned into an alley and turned around to face me. That's when I called you.'
'Let me know when you decide on your next move, Cupie. I take it your cell phone is still working.'
'Yeah, I'm talking on it. I'll talk to you tomorrow. I'm gonna get some sleep.'
'Good night, then.' Eagle hung up. 'He's all right,' he said to Wolf.
'That's good news.'
'Flesh wound; he's still on the job.'
Wolf stood up. 'Well, I'm going to go home and get some sleep; I've got to work tomorrow.'
'So have I,' Eagle said. 'I've got to meet with a client.'
Seven
THE FOLLOWING DAY, EAGLE VISITED THE SANTA FE County Detention Center. He parked, went through a door marked visitors, and through another marked attorneys. He gave his card and the name of his client to a guard, signed in and was shown to a small room, bisected by a table and containing three plastic chairs, two on his side of the table. He sat down, opened his briefcase, set it on the spare chair, extracted a yellow legal pad and took out a pen. Though he took few notes, the pad seemed to be expected of him by clients.
After a ten-minute wait, during which he reflected on his absent wife and the nature of her absence, a guard brought in a prisoner. He was a thickly built man of about six feet with a buzz haircut and dark, leathery skin, wearing a sour look. He was handcuffed to a chain around his waist, and Eagle could hear another chain rattle each time he took a step.
'Unhook him,' Eagle said to the guard.
'Can't. Policy.'
'Policy is that attorneys can talk to their clients without benefit of restraints.' It was his experience that prisoners were more talkative when they were not chained.
The guard unhooked the man and left the room, taking the chains with him. 'There's a buzzer on the wall if he attacks you,' he said, as the door closed.
