Hit List

35

It was getting dark when they set down at Santa Fe, with Stone back at the controls. He cut the engines and called Ed Eagle.

“Hi, there, Stone. Have you landed?”

“We’re in, and we’ve got a rental car. Be with you in half an hour.”

“Just in time for dinner. I’ll alert the chef.” They both hung up.

Stone handed Faith some cash. “Find yourselves a hotel,” he said. “I’ll call you when we know a departure time.” He left them to button down and hangar the airplane.

Ed Eagle lived a few miles north of the city, and his driveway was marked by a huge stone eagle. Stone turned in there and he and Dino handed their luggage to Ed’s houseman.

“Come in,” Ed said, and he took them to a comfortable study with a cheerful fire burning and the scent of pinion smoke in the air. Ed poured the drinks, and they all relaxed.

“Dinner’s in about forty-five minutes,” he said. “That’s how long it takes a really big porterhouse to grill. Now what’s up? This have something to do with that hit list I’ve been reading about?”

“Everything to do with it, Ed,” Stone replied. He brought Eagle up to date on everything that had happened, while Dino checked his messages and made some calls.

“The hospital is discharging Frances Bowers tomorrow morning,” Dino said.

“Seems a little early for that, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. I think they just want her out of the hospital before anybody else dies.”

“Could be. Can you arrange protective status for her with the DA and find her a decent place with a nurse to convalesce? And ask them to give her cell phone back to her.”

Dino started phoning again. By the time they were called to dinner he had a small apartment for her on the East Side, with a spare room for her protectors. “And she’s got her phone back,” he said.

Susannah Eagle, a semiretired actress who now produced films, most of them shot in Santa Fe studios, gave the huge steak to Ed to carve, and slices were dished out. The wine was a rare California cabernet, a Screaming Eagle.

“No relation,” Ed said.

Dino’s phone went off, and he left the table for a couple of minutes, then came back. “There was a light on at Larkin’s place, but nobody there. They’ll be on it all night and through tomorrow, unless we get word of him somewhere else.”

“Then you two ought to get a decent night’s sleep,” Ed said. “Neither of you looks quite as perky as usual.”

“Well,” Stone said, “we had two murders and one attempt today. That sort of takes it out of you.”

“Especially when the attempt was on Stone,” Dino pointed out.

“The attempt was on Frances,” Stone said, “I just got in the way.”

“Somebody once said that there is no exhilaration like being shot at and missed.”

“True,” Stone replied, “but that is followed by intense exhaustion and the need for sleep. I passed out on the airplane.”

“I heard about the new machine,” Ed said. “I’ll want a look at her before you take off.”

“Better you should think of a tax-deductible reason to fly with us to New York for a few days,” Stone said.

“My tax-deductible reason is the theater,” Susannah said. “In fact, there’s a play I want to see that I might want to option.”

“There you are,” Stone said.

“I yield to her clarity of thought,” Ed replied.

Stone fell asleep to the accompaniment of a coyote’s yip and howl; he woke up to birds singing noisily. He showered and dressed and found everybody else in the middle of breakfast, and joined them. That accomplished, he and Dino set out for town.

Stone turned off Paseo de Peralta onto Canyon Road, then took a right. On the next corner was a bookstore with a coffee shop next door, where newspapers were sold.

“Where is Larkin’s house?” Dino asked, as they got out of the car.

“Don’t look at it, but it’s right up the road at my back, on the right. Do you see any cops?”

“No,” Dino said. “Thank God.”

They went into the coffee shop and bought the New York Times and espressos, then took a table at the window, with a view of the parking lot and Acequia Madre.

“What does the name mean?” Dino asked.

“Roughly, ‘the mother of all ditches.’ An acequia is a rainwater-fed ditch that becomes a stream in the rainy season; it often runs across many properties, and the landowners share the water among them. It’s managed by an association.”

“You could have stopped at ‘ditch,’” Dino said.

“But then your education would have been incomplete.”

“My education will never be complete, where you’re concerned. That’s why you talk so much. There’s a word for that.”

“Articulate?”

“I was thinking of ‘verbose.’”

“You wound me.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dino said. “Can I interrupt you long enough to point out that one of Larkin’s black-ops lackeys just walked in here and bought a newspaper?”

Stone forced himself not to look. “Is he buying coffee, too?”

“No, he paid for his paper, and now he’s walking out.”

Stone got a good look at the man’s back as he got into a black SUV. “Why would a grown man have a recruit’s haircut?” he wondered aloud.

“To make him easier to follow,” Dino said. “Come on.”

They tossed down their espressos and made for the parking lot. As they got into their car, the black SUV disappeared up Acequia Madre.

“Drive by at this speed,” Dino said. “Don’t slow down. I just want to see where the SUV parked.

Stone kept his speed up. “See anything?”

“Most of these houses have gates that are closed.”

“Probably have a remote control.”

“I didn’t see any house numbers.”

“People are careless about that,” Stone said.

“It’s one of three back there,” Dino said.

“I expect the cops know which one.”

“Let’s go back to the coffee shop parking lot.”

“Canyon Road is one way. How about a U-turn?”

“I don’t want to pass the house twice,” Dino said. “Think of something else.

Stone took a left, a right, another left on Alameda, drove back to Canyon Road and to the coffee shop. “What now?”

“I don’t know about you,” Dino said, “but I’m going to read the Times.” He unfolded the paper.