Santa Fe Edge

know he would be pleased to see his wishes honored.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hills.”

“I’ve asked Mr. Johns to join us, since he is the senior vice president who will oversee the day-to-day work on your account and who will be available to you twenty-four hours a day.”

“I’m pleased to hear that,” Barbara said, accepting Johns’s card.

“Would you like to go straight in to lunch?”

“Thank you, but first I’d like to do a little business.”

Hills offered her a chair and went behind his desk. Johns took a seat next to her. “What may we do for you?” Hills asked.

“You should have received a wire transfer into my account this morning,” she said.

“Yes, Mrs. Keeler, we have had a deposit of one hundred million dollars from the executor of Mr. Keeler’s estate.”

“You will be receiving a great deal more in the course of events,” Barbara said, “and we will discuss over lunch how investments are to be handled. Right now, though, I would like you to wire twenty million dollars to this brokerage account.” She handed Johns the card with the account number on it.

“Of course, Mrs. Keeler,” Hills replied. “Morton will be happy to do that at once.”

“And I would like a cashier’s check, payable to me, for twenty million dollars,” Barbara said.

Hills appeared to gulp. “Of course,” he finally managed to say. “Morton, will you attend to those two transactions immediately, then join us for lunch?”

“Certainly,” Johns said. “Mrs. Keeler, are there any other transactions you would like to make at this time?”

“Well, I wrote a check yesterday for three hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars to the Bentley people. You might see that it is paid upon presentation.”

“Of course. I’ll be back shortly.” Johns vanished, as if in a cloud of smoke.

HILLS AND BARBARA were already seated at a beautifully set table in the next room with a fabulous view of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. Hills said, “I’d like you to know that Mort Johns is the brightest and most capable man at this bank, and I do not exclude myself from comparison. He is destined to have my job when I go, and I think you will be very pleased with him.”

“I’m sure I shall be,” Barbara replied.

Johns rejoined them and handed Barbara an envelope. “Your cashier’s check for twenty million dollars and your receipt for the wire transfer to your brokerage account,” he said, then seated himself.

“Thank you, Morton,” Barbara said. “Now, let’s talk about what we’re going to do with the more than one billion dollars in cash and liquid assets that will soon be sent to the bank.”

Barbara issued instructions while the young banker made notes and two waiters served them a lunch of caviar and salmon. When they were done, Hills asked if there was anything else they could do for her.

“I’d like to make an acquisition,” Barbara said. “A business. I would be grateful if you would research its soundness and availability, and ascertain what price I should offer for it and what I might expect to pay.”

This request was received as if it were an unexpected gift.

56

Ed Eagle sat at his desk, munching on a sandwich and reading

The Wall Street Journal. His eye fell on a news story on page two that caused him to begin choking.

WIDOW OF WALTER KEELER BREAKS WILL

When avionics billionaire Walter Keeler died in a car crash, he left a will that severely restricted the inheritance of his new wife, Eleanor Keeler, to a monthly allowance of $50,000 and the lifetime use, but not ownership, of their apartment in San Francisco. The remainder of his estate went to a few charitable bequests and to support his foundation.

Earlier this week, on the testimony of his late attorney’s secretary, two pages illegally excluded from the will were restored, and the bulk of Keeler’s $l.5 billion estate reverted to his widow. Today, the newly appointed executor is to turn over to Mrs. Keeler more than $1.2 billion in liquid assets, plus her apartment and extensive other real estate holdings.

The lawyer who took it upon himself to change Walter Keeler’s will was subsequently murdered outside his home, and an associate who participated in the fraud has died of breast cancer. The secretary, who had typed the original will, had kept the original pages and, freed from the threat of retribution by her former boss, disclosed his actions to the ethics committee of the California Bar Association. She has been rewarded by Mrs. Keeler with a substantial whistle-blower’s reward.

Eagle cleared his throat with a gulp of iced tea and pressed a button on his phone. “Find Cupie Dalton and Vittorio and get them in here,” he said.

CUPIE AND VITTORIO SAT across Eagle’s desk from him and read the Journal article. “I don’t believe it,” Cupie said.

“Who could believe a story like that?” Eagle asked. “What does this mean to us?”

“I think it means,” Cupie replied, “that Barbara is going to be too busy spending her money to have time to try to kill you again.”

“Well, should she get caught at that, she certainly has a lot more to lose now than ever before,” Eagle said.

“And she has a murder charge and an extradition warrant to deal with,” Cupie said. “She’ll soon be out of our hair.”

“I’m not so sure,” Eagle said. “Now she can afford any attorney in the United States to defend her. I’ll bet she’s working on that right now.”

BARBARA WAS SITTING ON HER terrace overlooking San Francisco Bay when the maid led Raoul Estevez outside and announced him.

Barbara held out a hand and waved him to a chair. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Estevez,” she said. She found him handsome and well tailored.

“And I you, Mrs. Keeler. Ralph Waters has asked me to inform you that your husband’s estate has cleared probate, and the executor has begun to transfer cash and stock accounts to your bank.”

“That is very good news indeed,” Barbara said brightly.

“Now, Mrs. Keeler, how may I be of service to you?”

“I’ll be as concise as I can,” Barbara replied. “Two or three years ago I and my sister were on a vacation in Acapulco when we met a charming young man. In the course of events we took him into our bed, but he became violent and abusive, and in order to defend our lives, my sister grabbed a steak knife from a room-service cart and stabbed him, killing him. She also, in a rage, took it upon herself to, ah, remove a part of his genitalia.

“We managed to leave the country undetected, but the young man turned out to be related to an important captain in the Federal Police. My sister subsequently met her death in Santa Fe, and I married a man there, an attorney named Ed Eagle. Do you know him?”

“We’ve never met, but I know him by his formidable reputation,” Estevez replied. “Go on, please.”

“I left Ed, and divorce negotiations became difficult. He hired two private detectives to lure me aboard a yacht out of San Diego for a dinner cruise. Later that evening, unbeknownst to me, the yacht sailed into Mexican waters, where it was met by a police boat. I was arrested and subsequently received a brief, extremely unfair trial and was sentenced to twenty years to life in a women’s prison at Tres Cruces, east of Acapulco.

“There I was repeatedly sexually assaulted and raped, on almost a daily basis, by the warden, a Captain Pedro