cut looks long but shallow to me. Susannah is on the case.”
The sirens got louder, and there was the sound of tires crunching on gravel and doors slamming.
“I’ll get somebody in here,” Cupie said.
Vittorio started to speak, but a wave of nausea overcame him. He took a deep breath, then sagged to the floor and passed out.
VITTORIO WOKE UP in a hospital room with Cupie asleep in a chair next to him. He fumbled around, found the control unit for the bed and sat himself up and elevated his feet.
Cupie stirred. “You’re awake?”
“Yeah. How’s Eagle?”
“In surgery. They have a vascular specialist here, so Ed’s got some sort of shot. I’m type O, so I gave some blood. Eagle is A-positive.”
“I’m A-positive,” Vittorio said.
“You can’t spare any,” Cupie said.
“When can I get out of here?”
“What? You haven’t even talked to a doctor yet. You got some place to be?”
“I want to know if Bart Cross is still out at that guesthouse in Las Campanas.”
“I can check on that without your help,” Cupie said drily.
“Well, stop fluttering around here like an old woman and do it,” Vittorio said.
“I’m not fluttering, and you need some morphine,” Cupie said, pressing the call button.
A nurse appeared. “Can I help you?”
“This man needs morphine,” Cupie said.
“I don’t want morphine!” Vittorio said. “I told you!”
“Ignore him,” Cupie said to the nurse, and she disappeared. “You’re way too cranky,” Cupie said, “and that will get your blood pressure up and slow your recovery.”
“I thought you were going to go check on Bart Cross,” Vittorio said.
“Just as soon as I hold you down for the nurse,” Cupie replied.
WITH VITTORIO SETTLED INTO a morphine haze and Eagle still in surgery, Cupie drove out to Las Campanas, to the guesthouse where Cross had been staying. He drew his gun and hammered on the door. “Police!” he yelled. “Open up!”
That got him nowhere. He walked around the house, looking into windows. “Neat as a pin,” he said aloud to himself. “The rooster has flown the coop.”
He got into Vittorio’s car and drove back to the hospital. Vittorio was sitting up in bed, dozing lightly. He opened his eyes when Cupie walked in. “Eagle’s still alive,” he said. “That’s all I know. He’s in the ICU, and Susannah is with him.”
There was a knock on the door, and two men in suits walked in, flashing badges.
“I’m Romera; this is Reed,” the taller of the two said. “You feel up to answering some questions, Mr.”-he read a card in his hand-“ Victoria?”
“It’s Vittorio,” Cupie corrected him. “No last name.”
“And who might you be?”
“Cupie Dalton. I work with him.” He jerked a thumb toward Vittorio.
“How’s Eagle?” Vittorio asked.
“Still out,” the detective replied. “Lots of tubes in him. You want to tell me what happened?”
Vittorio recited the chain of events as economically as possible.
“The guy shoot you?” Romera asked.
“No, Mrs. Eagle shot me, mistook me for the guy.”
“Jesus Christos, what a mess!” Romera said. Reed wrote it down. “Where were you, Mr. Dalton?”
“I was staked out down the hill sixty or seventy yards. The pickup didn’t pass me, must have come down the hill from up the mountain. He escaped that way, too.”
“And neither of you got a look at the guy’s face?” Romera asked.
“No,” Vittorio said quickly. “And I didn’t know him.”
“I didn’t even see him,” Cupie said. “Just the truck.”
“What kind of truck?”
“Pickup, maybe a Chevy,” Cupie replied. “I’m not good with trucks.”
“I am,” Vittorio said. “It was a Toyota. It had a FedEx logo on the door and a New Mexico plate.”
“Was he wearing a FedEx uniform?”
Vittorio shrugged, causing him pain. “Maybe. A dark Windbreaker and matching baseball cap.”
“You want to bring any charges against Mrs. Eagle for shooting you?” Romera asked.
“Of course not,” Vittorio said. “She just mistook me for the guy who cut her husband.”
“Whatever you say,” Romera replied. “She’s shot a couple of other people in the past, you know-her ex- husband in L.A. and a woman delivering flowers to Eagle’s house here last year.”
“Yeah, and the woman was trying to kill them both.”
“You figure the ex-wife is behind this, then?”
“I do.”
“But she’s in prison in Mexico,” Romera said. “I checked.”
“If you say so,” Vittorio replied.
35
Bart Cross landed at Burbank and taxied to his T-hangar, on a quiet part of the field. He opened the hangar door with a remote control, then swung the airplane around facing away from the hangar, ran through his checklist and cut the engines. He sat for a moment in the airplane, thinking, then picked up his logbook and wrote in the flight to Albuquerque and a return the day before. That would check with the parking lot’s electronic records and give him an alibi.
He got out of the airplane, hooked up the towbar and pushed it backward into the hangar. As he was about to leave, someone he knew taxied past him to two hangars down, cut his engine and got out.
“Hey, Bart,” the man said. “How’s it hanging?”
“Not bad,” Bart replied. “Spent a few days in Santa Fe at a friend’s house.”
“That’s not bad, either.”
“Hey, Tom, if anybody should ask, you saw me put away my airplane yesterday, okay?”
“Sure, kiddo. You can do the same for me sometime.”
“Thanks, Tom.” Cross walked to the parking lot, got his car and drove home. He’d be back at work tomorrow. As he pulled into his driveway his cell phone went off. “Hello?”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Just got home from Santa Fe. The car is back where I picked it up.”
“Will you be there tonight? I want to pay you.”
“Sure thing. I’m too tired to go out.”
“Where do you live?”
He gave her the address and directions from Coldwater Canyon.
“I’ll be there late, maybe very late. I’ve got to make a stop on the way.”
“I’ll be here,” he said.
She hung up.
Bart picked up the papers on the doorstep on his way into the house but tossed them aside without reading them. He needed a nap.
CUPIE GOT BACK TO the hospital and found Vittorio sound asleep in his bed. He walked back to the nurses’
