“Take the car back to Albuquerque first thing in the morning.”
“All right.”
“Call me tomorrow and tell me what you’ve done.”
“I was going to kill him tomorrow morning.”
“You’re not ready until you fix the car problem,” she said, then hung up.
BART WOKE UP LATER than he had planned: It was after nine. He got himself together, got out the car and headed for Albuquerque.
As he got onto I-25 he remembered that he hadn’t closed the garage door. He thought about going back and doing it, but he would be gone for only a few hours, so what the hell?
He drove to Albuquerque International and returned the station wagon to the parking lot, left the ticket under the sun visor and got a cab into town. “Is there a street with a lot of car dealerships?” he asked the driver.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Take me there.”
The driver dropped him off in front of a Toyota dealer, and Bart strolled around the used lot. He was looking for something old, anonymous, but with fairly low mileage. Instead, he stopped in front of a shiny pickup truck.
A salesman approached. “Nice one, isn’t it?”
“Not bad,” Bart said, checking the mileage.
“Driven by a woman who had a landscaping business, so it never carried anything heavier than a bag of fertilizer and a few plants. It’s not like it was used for construction.”
The key was in the ignition, and Bart started the truck. “Let’s go for a ride.” He returned after driving it three or four miles. It was perfect. “Can you ship it to L.A.?” he asked.
“Sure. Probably cost you five hundred.”
“What are you asking?”
“Ten thousand; that’s a wholesale price.”
“I’ll give you seventy-five hundred, cash.”
The man got out his cell phone. “Let me call my boss.” He got out of the truck and made the call while Bart walked around the vehicle, looking for flaws. There weren’t any, and it had new tires on it.
The salesman closed his phone. “Eight thousand is as low as he’ll go,” he said to Bart.
Bart thought about it; he had about fourteen thousand on him. “Deal,” he said.
“Let’s go into the office.”
“I’ll bring it back end of the month, and you can ship it,” he said.
“No problem. I’ll make the arrangements today, and if you pay now, all you’ll need to do is phone me and I’ll pick up the truck at the airport. You’ll be flying out, I guess.”
“That’s right,” Bart said. “You can keep a key.”
VITTORIO SLOWED AS HE neared Barbara’s little guesthouse. “The garage door is open,” he said, “and there’s no car inside.”
“Why don’t we see if we can get into the house through there?” Cupie offered.
They pulled into the driveway and got out. Vittorio led the way into the garage. “Inside door,” he said, pointing. He tried it, but it was locked.
“I can handle that,” Cupie said, taking out his wallet and removing a set of lock picks he’d made from a filed- down hacksaw blade. He had the door open in less than a minute.
Both men wiped their feet carefully, then stepped inside. It was a mess.
“The guy’s a pig,” Cupie said. “He’s only been here a couple of days, and look at it.”
They poked around the living room, where dirty plates and chicken bones had been abandoned, then went into the bedroom.
Vittorio opened a bureau drawer. “Looka here,” he said, pulling a sock onto his hand and holding up a Beretta nine-millimeter pistol. “And a silencer, too,” he said, holding up the tube. “Nice work,” he said, inspecting it. He replaced the two items and looked further. “And this,” he said, holding up a large bowie knife and removing it from its holster.
“It’s practically a sword,” Cupie said. “What is it, a foot long?”
“About a ten-inch blade,” Vittorio said. “And you could shave with it. Why would a guy travel with an ax like that?”
“Maybe he plans to use it,” Cupie said.
They made sure the place was as they’d found it, then got out.
“Where do you suppose Cross is?” Cupie asked.
“He won’t find Eagle coming or going,” Vittorio said. “He’s safe in his office at this hour.”
BART PULLED INTO his garage early in the afternoon, went inside and called Barbara.
“Yes?”
“I’m all set,” he said. “I bought a vehicle.”
“What kind?”
“An old pickup truck. I’ll ditch it when I leave.”
“When, then?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Bart replied.
“Call me when you’re done.”
32
Todd Bacon left La Fonda and stepped into the Plaza, the main square of Santa Fe. Two sides of the area contained shops and art galleries, while a third side was taken up by the old Palace of the Governors, the seventeenth-century seat of power in the city’s early days. The fourth side was of less interest to him, since it was mostly taken up by restaurants and a bank.
He began working his way through the shops on the opposite side from the Palace of the Governors. They specialized mostly in women’s clothing and art. He wandered through each shop, looking cursorily at its wares and paying particular attention to the female shoppers. They came in all shapes and sizes except one-fairly tall, slender, with noticeable breasts: Those seemed to be in short supply.
He tried the west side of the Plaza, which had more art and less clothing, but came up dry. Finally he turned his attention to the Palace of the Governors.
An Indian street market featuring silver jewelry and some pottery took up most of the broad sidewalk under a portico, and the crowd was thick around the sellers, who had spread their wares on blankets. Todd drifted through the crowd, glancing at the displays but paying more attention to the shoppers.
They seemed to be mostly tourists, sloppily dressed and carrying shopping bags. Then one woman stopped him in his tracks: She fit the physical description of Lauren Cade-five-seven, made taller by western boots that looked new; chestnut-colored hair; and a tight sweater, secured at the waist with a broad belt and a silver buckle that accentuated her breasts, which were more than ample.
She would have attracted his attention at any time, but since she was the first woman he had seen who matched what he was looking for, he had trouble keeping his eyes off her.
She locked eyes with him for a moment, then went back to looking at jewelry. He noticed that she was wearing a gold wedding band. That would have been disappointing on a personal level, but it fit a woman who was traveling with a man.
Todd had a creepy feeling that he was being watched from behind, and it occurred to him that if he was right about the woman, her companion might be nearby, and if it was Teddy Fay, he was dangerous, even in a public place.
He turned around and scanned the faces of the men present: Two of them could be Teddy, he thought, but they were both with women, so he turned back to watch the putative Lauren. She was nowhere to be seen.
