Santa Fe Edge

16

Cupie Dalton and Vittorio sat in Vittorio’s SUV down the street from the Inn of the Anasazi and waited for James Long to show. It was nearly nine A.M. when Long walked out of the hotel and into his car, a silver Lincoln Town Car that the valet had brought around.

“Well, at least he’ll be easy to follow,” Cupie said. “Let’s go, and keep well back.”

“Cupie,” Vittorio said, “I don’t have to be told how to run a tail.”

“Right.”

“You keep doing that, and I’m going to have to scalp you, as unrewarding as that would be.”

Cupie rubbed his bald head. “I like it where it is,” he said.

Long drove directly to the soundstage where Susannah Wilde’s film was being shot, parked in the parking lot and entered the building.

“He’s going to be there all day,” Vittorio said.

“Maybe not,” Cupie replied.

“So, where’s he going to go?”

“Maybe he’s going to have lunch with Barbara,” Cupie said.

“That would certainly make life easy for us, wouldn’t it?”

“Sure would,” Cupie agreed. “Vittorio…?”

“What?”

“From my brief conversation with Ed Eagle about Barbara, I got a vibe that wasn’t there when we worked for him before.”

“What kind of vibe?”

Cupie sighed. “Have you ever killed anybody?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I think that’s what Eagle is going to want done.”

“Did he say that?”

“No, I told you it was just a vibe.”

“You want to kill somebody based on a vibe?”

“Oh, no. When he wants it done he’ll say so, or find some other way to make it perfectly clear.”

“Have you ever killed anybody, Cupie?”

“Twice, both times when I was on the force, with my service revolver. Both of them were shooting at me.”

“Anybody else?”

“No. All right, I answered your question, now you answer mine.”

“Yes.”

Cupie turned and looked at Vittorio. “Yes, you’ve killed somebody?”

“I’m not going to tell you again.”

“Under what circumstances?” Cupie asked.

“Which time?”

“When you were a cop.”

“I was never a cop, Cupie.”

“All right, the first time.”

“I was fourteen, and a man who lived with us was beating up my mother.”

“And?”

“And I took him by the hair, cut his throat with my hunting knife and scalped him.”

Cupie blinked. “You actually scalped a man? How did you know how to do that?”

“Cupie, I’m an Apache. You might call it cultural memory. Anyway, I’d seen it done a couple of times on the reservation.”

“I didn’t know that sort of thing was still being done,” Cupie said.

“It isn’t, much. I said I was fourteen.”

“How about other Apaches?”

“When someone wants to make a point, I guess.”

Cupie gulped. “How about the second time?”

“I shot a man in the face with a shotgun.”

“Why?”

“He was coming at me with a knife.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Anybody else?”

“Two others.”

“Jesus, Vittorio.”

“Jesus had nothing to do with it.”

“Who were these people?”

“They were both white men. The first two were Apache.”

“Why did you do them?”

“They were both trying to kill me. The first one, I thought I might be a better knife fighter than he was. I was right.”

“And the other one?”

“That one was more complicated: I was sleeping with his wife.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, Vittorio.”

“Ex-wife, actually.”

“Okay.”

“He put out the word that he was going to kill me. I was out behind the house, putting in some fence posts, and I heard his car drive up. He yelled my name and said something uncomplimentary. The back door was open, and I heard him kick the front door open. I was unarmed at the time.”

“What did you do?”

“I stood by the back door, pressed against the wall. I figured when he’d had a look around inside he’d see the back door open and come outside. He came out slowly. The first thing I saw was the gun in his hand. I let him take another step, then I hit him in the head with a fence post.”

“That’s a pretty good-sized piece of wood, isn’t it?”

“Bigger than a baseball bat. I caught him across the forehead-he was shorter than I thought-and that did it. I didn’t have to hit him again. Then I called the sheriff.”

“Why did you do that?”

“You ever tried to get rid of a body?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“It’s harder than it sounds. If you put it in a river or lake, it comes up, eventually. If you bury it in the ground, the coyotes dig it up. If you put stones on top of the grave to prevent that, then it looks like a grave, and that makes you look guilty. I was defending my life, so I called the sheriff.”

“What happened?”

“He’d already heard reports that the guy was looking to kill me, so I didn’t have to prove that. And the guy’s gun went off when I hit him, so you could say he’d shot at me. And the fence post had his blood and brains all over it, so my story was obviously true.”

“So, you walked?”

“He didn’t even run me in, he just told me to try to stay out of situations where I might have to do that again. And I’ve tried to take his advice.”

“So, what are you going to do if Eagle asks us to off Barbara?”

“I don’t know,” Vittorio said, sounding thoughtful. “God knows she needs it.”

“Yeah,” Cupie replied, “she does.”