station.
“Hi,” he said to the nurse. “Anything new on Mr. Eagle’s condition?”
“Still in the ICU,” she said. “He’s awake, though, and the prognosis is good.”
“Can I see him for a minute?” Cupie knew this was a favor, but he had been chatting her up for such an occasion.
The nurse looked both ways, up and down the hall. “Okay, just for a minute, Cupie. His wife just went down to the cafeteria. Third door on your left. If he’s asleep, don’t wake him.”
Cupie went down to the door marked “Intensive Care” and let himself in. There was only one patient, and he was awake. Cupie pulled up a chair. “Ed, how you doing?” he asked.
Eagle took a deep breath. “Tired,” he said.
“Don’t talk, just listen. The guy got past us. Our fault, but we know who he is. We’ll take care of it, no charge.”
Eagle nodded. “What about Barbara?”
“She’s not in town, on purpose, but we have an idea where to find her.”
Eagle nodded again.
“You want us to take care of that, too?”
Eagle closed his eyes and seemed to go to sleep. Cupie tiptoed out of the unit and walked back to Vittorio’s room. He pulled up a comfortable chair close to the bed and turned on the TV, keeping the volume low. He surfed through the channels, looking for a local news program, finally settling on an Albuquerque broadcast. He sat through a weather forecast, then the anchor came back on-screen.
“This just in from Santa Fe,” he said. “A spokesman for Saint Michael’s Hospital has announced that local attorney Ed Eagle, a trial lawyer known throughout the West, is in what doctors describe as a normal recovery after surgery for a knife wound in an assassination attempt early this morning. His prognosis is favorable. Police are still searching for the unknown assassin.”
“And they’re not going to find him,” Cupie said aloud to himself. “But we are.”
“That’s right,” Vittorio said.
Cupie turned to find Vittorio awake and looking at him. “Hey. You feeling better?”
“Much, thanks. The morphine was the right thing to do.”
“Bart Cross has cleared out of Barbara’s place and is probably back in L.A. by now.”
“I want out of here,” Vittorio said.
“Yeah, I know, pal, but you’re going to stay right where you are until your doctors pronounce you fit to walk around like a person.”
“We have a call to make. I didn’t mention Cross to the cops.”
“I noticed. Don’t worry, he’ll keep, and we know where to find him.”
“He’s not the only one we need to find.”
“I’m with you, buddy. You just relax for a few days and get strong, okay?”
But Vittorio had dozed off again.
BARBARA WENT WITH Jimmy Long to a dinner party in Beverly Hills. Before she left, she did a Google search for Ed Eagle and found a report on the AP that he was recovering in a Santa Fe hospital. When she left for the dinner party, she didn’t take any cash with her.
She enjoyed the party, and Jimmy enjoyed himself a little too much, so she drove him home in his black BMW and put him to bed. He would sleep late tomorrow, she thought.
She went to her luggage and got what she needed, then got back into the Beamer and drove up Coldwater Canyon, then down into the Valley. She followed Cross’s directions carefully and found his street. It was past one o’clock now, and she drove around the block twice to be sure there was no activity in the neighborhood. Every house on Cross’s block was dark, except his. She stopped at the top of a little hill and called his cell number.
“Hello.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” she said. “We’ll make this quick.”
“I’ll be here.”
“Right,” she said. “Turn off the porch light.” She hung up, switched off the engine, put the car in neutral and coasted slowly downhill with her lights off, stopping in front of the house. She got out and closed the door quietly, and with a brown envelope in one hand and her other hand in her large purse, she walked to the house. The porch light was off.
She rang the doorbell and waited. Shortly, he came to the door and opened it.
“Hey, I didn’t hear you drive up. Come on in,” he said, and turned to lead her into the living room.
Barbara took the silenced pistol from her purse and shot him once in the back of the head. He crumpled and fell forward onto the floor, striking his head on the coffee table on his way down. She backed away a couple of feet to avoid splatter and shot him again in the head, then looked around.
The cell phone she had given him was on the coffee table, and she put that into her purse. She went through his pockets and took his wallet, which contained a dozen hundreds, then found his bedroom and searched it. She found a lot of other cash, her cash, in a bureau drawer and took that, then left the house, opened the car door and pushed until it started rolling, then got inside and waited until she was at the bottom of the hill before starting the car.
She stopped at a quiet place, took the batteries out of the two cell phones, wiped everything clean and dropped it all into the brown envelope. She removed the credit cards from the wallet and put that into the envelope, too. On the way home, she found a house being remodeled with a Dumpster outside and tossed the phones and the wallet into it. A few blocks later, she dropped the credit cards into a sewer, then drove to Jimmy’s, undressed and got into bed with him.
Barbara slept like a lamb.
36
Cupie went to the hospital the following morning and found Vittorio’s bed empty. He looked up and down the hall and spotted him at the nurses’ station.
He walked down to where Vittorio stood, filling out a form. He was fully dressed, and his left arm was in a sling. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“I’m checking myself out of here,” Vittorio said. “I’m fine.”
“He really shouldn’t leave here,” the nurse said, “but he’s stubborn.”
“I’ve got a pocketful of pills to take,” Vittorio said, signing the document and handing it to the nurse. “Now the hospital has zero liability.”
“The doctor isn’t going to like this.”
“I don’t like it, either,” Cupie said, “but there’s no stopping this guy.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Vittorio said, starting down the hallway. They looked in on Ed Eagle, who had been moved to a room, and found him asleep. “Just as well. I don’t want to talk to him until this is over. Let’s go,” he said to Cupie, and they walked out into the parking lot. “We need to be in Los Angeles.”
“No, we don’t,” Cupie said. “We’re going to your place, and we’ll talk about L.A. tomorrow.”
“Cupie-”
“Shut up and get in the car, Vittorio.”
Vittorio got in, and Cupie drove him home.
As soon as they were there, Cupie called Centurion Studios and asked for Bart Cross.
“Long Productions,” a woman said.
“May I speak to Bart Cross, please?”
“Who is this?”
“A friend of his. He asked me to call him when I came to L.A., and I’m here.”
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you,” the woman said. “Bart has died.”
“Died? How?”
