Short Straw

Thirty-six

EAGLE MET THE CENTURION GULFSTREAM IV AT THE SANTA Fe Jet Center, feeling like shit, hurting all over as if he had been beaten up. The ice had helped, but his face was still swollen, and his left eye was black.

When the jet taxied up to the ramp, Eagle walked out to meet it as the door opened, and several people came down the airstair. Susannah was first off, followed by a rather handsome, if elderly, man.

"Oh, Ed, what happened to you?" she asked, looking alarmed.

"Just a little accident; nothing to worry about."

"Ed, let me introduce Rick Barron, the chairman of Centurion Studios."

"Ed, how are you?" the elderly man asked.

"Very well, Mr. Barron."

"Please call me Rick."

"Thank you."

"Susannah, it looks as though you don't need a lift into town," Barron said.

"No, I'm fine, Rick. Thank you so much for the ride; it's so much easier than flying commercial to Albuquerque and driving from there."

"Any time. We're returning Sunday evening, if you need a round trip."

"No, I'll be staying to get my new house in order." She kissed him on the cheek, Eagle took her luggage from a flight attendant and they walked to the Range Rover.

As soon as they were in the car, before he could even start it, she put a hand on his arm. "All right, now tell me what really happened. Did you get into a fight?"

"In a manner of speaking," Eagle replied. "I want you to understand that incidents like this are not a normal or regular part of my life."

"Understood. Now what happened?"

"A man, a former client, tried to kill me with a sawed-off shotgun. Fortunately, it didn't turn out as he had planned." He explained the circumstances as fully as he could.

"You should be at home in bed," she said.

"I spent the day in bed, and I'm just fine, thanks."

"I expect you could use a drink," she said. "So could I; let's get going."

HE PUT HER THINGS in the guest room. "Do you want to change?"

"Nope, I'm okay as I am. Where's the kitchen?"

"This way." He led her there and poured them both a Knob Creek on the rocks.

"Now, you sit here," she said, pushing him onto a barstool. "I'm going to cook dinner."

"That's really not…"

"Don't argue with me," she said, taking a swig of her drink and opening the refrigerator door. "What have we got here?"

"There are some steaks and salad makings."

"Got it," she said, starting the grill on the Viking range. "Dinner in half an hour."

THE FISHING BOAT MADE IT into Cabo San Lucas well after dark. Vittorio sat on a beer cooler, a dirty blanket around his shoulders, and watched as the boat was eased into her berth, then he pressed five hundred dollars on its captain and jumped onto the dock.

Vittorio could not swim, but he could float. He had floated for the better part of an hour, terrified of growing tired and sinking, before the fishing boat appeared and heard his shouts. They had even rescued his hat, which was floating alongside him.

When he had gone over the side, he had been stunned by his uncontrolled impact with the water and frightened that he was under it for what seemed like minutes. He broke the surface just in time to see her turn away from the rail and walk away. He had been too out of breath even to shout, before the ferry was a hundred yards away. He had taken deep breaths, arched his back and he thanked God that the sea was flat.

He had had time to contemplate the end of his life before it was saved by the fishermen and to plan what he was going to do to Barbara if he ever got his hands on her. Once aboard the boat he'd tried to call Ed Eagle, but his cell phone had been ruined by the salt water.

Now, as he walked into the town, angry and damp, all he wanted was food, tequila and a bed. Then he remembered that he had the key to the Toyota. He found a cab and negotiated a price for the ride to Mazatlan. The cab ride was over an hour, and on arrival he went directly to the ferry terminal. As he had suspected, the Toyota was parked there. He retrieved his luggage from the trunk and found a hotel.

He ordered from room service, then he rinsed the salt water out of his clothes so they would dry properly, flushed out his.45 Colt as best he could and soaked in a hot tub until the food came. A quarter of a bottle of tequila later, he fell soundly asleep, grateful to be alive.

EAGLE AND SUSANNAH ate slowly and talked, sipping a good cabernet.

"I feel as though I'm starting a whole new chapter in my life," she said.

"I'm almost there, myself, and I will be as soon as I can get the divorce out of the way."

"Is that going to be a problem with her being out of the country?"

"Somewhere else is where I want her to be," Eagle said. "I'll have a signed agreement tomorrow morning, when I get to the office for your closing. The rest is just paperwork."

"My divorce wasn't so easy," she said. "He wouldn't settle, so we had to go to trial. It was all over the papers, and I hated that, but in the end, he had to pay more than I'd asked for, and he had to pay in cash, so at least I'm well fixed."

"I'm happy for you."

"The shipping company says my furniture will be here by noon Monday."

"Then I'm looking forward to our weekend together."

"So am I."

"We'll do a walk-through with the real estate agent first thing in the morning, then we'll close at my office. An associate has already prepared all the paperwork. It's a lot simpler for a cash transaction; fewer documents to sign. The seller won't be there, but his lawyer already has the signed documents. Did you bring a cashier's check for the sale price?"

"Yep. I'm ready to close."

"I wish all my clients were so easy to deal with."

"Well, I'm not always easy to deal with. I'm an actress, after all."

"You seem to have a solid sense of yourself, without the usual ego inflation of people in your business."

"Maybe that's because I've seen so many inflated egos, and I wanted to avoid that. It's the money, really. So many of those people are being paid so much money that they come to believe that they're actually worth it. I know an actress who lives in Malibu who has a big piece of property with four houses on it, and she takes turns living in all of them."

"Maybe there really is such a thing as too much money."

"Live in L.A. for three months, and you'll learn how true that is."

"I think three months might be too much for me. I spent five weeks there once, for a trial. The client put me up at the Bel-Air hotel, and after a while I began to think I was worth it."

AFTER DINNER, she wanted to go to bed, and so did he. He kissed her good night outside the guest room, then fell into his own bed and quickly fell unconscious.