Santa Fe Edge

33

Bart Cross woke up at four A.M., shaved, showered and began cleaning up the house. It took him the better part of an hour to make it presentable, then he wiped all the surfaces down with Windex to remove his fingerprints, packed his gear and threw it into the bed of the pickup.

On the front seat were three empty FedEx boxes. Using his super-sharp bowie knife he cut apart two of them and pasted them to the doors of the pickup with two-sided tape. The third box he closed and sealed, and put it back onto the front seat with a clipboard he had bought.

He locked up the place and closed and locked the garage, and by five thirty he was making his way toward Tesuque on dark roads.

He drove up the hill past Ed Eagle’s house and found a perch where he could keep an eye on the place through binoculars, then sat down among the rocks and ate a breakfast he had prepared the night before. At about six thirty he heard a car come up the road, but when he looked down the hill in the dim light he saw nothing.

VITTORIO DROPPED OFF CUPIE at his usual rock, then drove past Eagle’s house and into the rocks, where he normally parked. He was in place by the time the sun began its climb, and he knew that Eagle would appear around a quarter to eight. He pressed the button on the radio. “You okay, Cupie?”

“Yeah,” Cupie responded. “I’ve got my coffee.”

BART KNEW THAT EAGLE arrived at his offices at eight, so he figured him to leave the house fifteen minutes before that. He watched the time carefully. At twenty before eight, he got into the truck, slipped into a navy-blue Windbreaker and matching baseball cap, checked his gun and knife, and started down the hill, coasting, so they wouldn’t hear any engine noise. At precisely a quarter to eight, Bart pulled into the Eagle driveway at the exact moment when Eagle left the house. As Bart got out of the truck, carrying the empty FedEx box and the clipboard, Eagle stopped on his porch to kiss his wife good-bye.

VITTORIO’S ATTENTION was diverted for a moment as he watched a hawk circling in the sky, hunting. When he looked back at the house he was astonished to see a dark pickup truck parked in Eagle’s driveway, and a man in a Windbreaker and baseball cap getting out, as Eagle stood on his front porch, talking with Susannah. Then he saw the FedEx logo on the side of the truck and the box and clipboard the man was carrying, and he relaxed. Just an early FedEx delivery.

BART SMILED to put the two people at ease and walked toward them. “Good morning, Mr. Eagle,” he said. “FedEx delivery for you.”

Eagle turned and faced him, while his wife went back into the house and closed the door. “You’re kind of early, aren’t you?”

“Gotta get the day started,” Bart replied, handing him the clipboard. “Sign on line one, please; first delivery of the day.” He patted his pockets. “Left my pen in the truck.”

“That’s all right,” Eagle said, reaching into an inside pocket. “I’ve got one.”

Now both of Eagle’s hands were occupied, and Bart saw his chance. He whipped the bowie knife out of its scabbard stuck down his pants and swung it in a wide arc at Eagle’s throat, feeling it hit the mark and seeing the blood spurt. Eagle went down on one knee, clutching at his throat, and Bart backhanded him and knocked him to the ground, then ran for the front door.

VITTORIO COULDN’T BELIEVE what he had seen. He drew his gun and his cell phone simultaneously and dialed 911 as he made his way, running, through the rocks and down the hill.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” the operator asked.

“I need an ambulance and the police. A man has been knifed in the throat and the assailant is in his house, where his wife is.” He gave the address, closed the phone and grabbed his radio. “Cupie, Eagle is down, ambulance on the way. Get up here and be careful; single assailant in the house now!”

BART DREW HIS PISTOL and entered the house, leaving the door open behind him. He saw no one inside. “Mrs. Eagle?” he called. “I have a package for you, too. I need a signature.” He got no response. Holding the gun at his side, he made his way toward where he believed the kitchen would be. Then he heard running footsteps from the driveway outside.

“Ed,” a voice shouted. “Hold this on the wound and apply pressure.”

BART FOUND THE KITCHEN and went out the rear door as fast as he could. He made his way around the corner of the house and peeked at the front porch. Eagle was lying on his back, and whoever had been there must have gone inside. He sprinted for the pickup truck, got it started, backed out and started up the hill, away from Tesuque. In his rearview mirror he saw a fat man huffing and puffing his way up the hill, then he was around a bend and gone.

VITTORIO WENT into the house carefully, his gun drawn. He checked the kitchen, then crept into the living room, which was empty. He was headed toward where he thought the bedrooms would be when he heard the truck start outside and the crunch of tires on gravel. Shit, the guy was gone. “Mrs. Eagle?” he yelled. “Are you all right?”

Susannah Wilde Eagle stepped from a doorway, a pistol held out in front of her, and fired two rounds.

Vittorio was spun around and went down.

CUPIE STOPPED TO CHECK on Eagle, who was breathing and pressing a bloody cloth to his throat. “Hang on, Ed, an ambulance is on the way.” He walked into the house just in time to hear two gunshots. “Oh, shit,” Cupie said aloud. “I hope he hasn’t shot Susannah.”

BART DROVE AS QUICKLY as he safely could over the hill, then turned toward the north side of Santa Fe and made his way on back roads until he crossed under I-25. He traveled south, toward Albuquerque, keeping parallel with but avoiding I-25, where he knew the state patrol might already be looking for the truck. At one point, nearly to Double Eagle Airport, he stopped and pulled the FedEx signs off the truck, called the dealer from whom he had bought the truck and told him he could pick it up from the parking lot at Double Eagle and ship it to L.A., as planned. Then he called Barbara.

“Yes?”

“It’s done.”

“You’re sure he’s dead?”

“I cut his throat and left him bleeding out on his front porch.”

“What about the woman?”

“Problem there. She went back into the house. I followed her in, but turns out Eagle had two men, those P.I.s, watching the house. I got out just in time, but I heard shooting from inside. I don’t know who fired or got shot.”

“Do the P.I.s know who you are?”

“They don’t know my name, and only one of them, the Indian, has seen me.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m nearly to Double Eagle. I’ll ditch the car and be in the air in twenty minutes.”

“Call me when you’re back in town.” She hung up, and so did he.

He drove the last mile to Double Eagle, got his gear out of the truck and wiped the vehicle down with Windex, then hurried to the ramp where his airplane was parked. He’d already paid for his fuel and parking, and he wasn’t going to file a flight plan.

He got the engines started and began working through his checklist as he taxied. At the end of the runway he did a quick run-up of the engines, then announced his intentions over the airport frequency, checked for landing traffic, then taxied onto the runway and shoved the throttles forward.

Half an hour later he was at sixteen thousand five hundred feet, sucking oxygen, on his way to Burbank Airport, in the San Fernando Valley, near where he lived. He felt elated.