Santa Fe Edge

34

Vittorio held out a hand and yelled, “Don’t shoot, Susannah!”

“Vittorio?” she asked. “My God, have I shot you?”

“Call nine-one-one and tell them we need two ambulances instead of one,” Vittorio replied, struggling to sit up and check his wounds. He found he had taken a bullet high and to the left in his chest, and after checking his breathing and the blood flow, he figured it had missed the lung and the artery. “You have any bandages?” he asked Susannah. “Just a clean dishcloth will do.”

She ran to the kitchen and returned with a dishcloth, and he pressed it to his chest. “Where’s Ed?” she asked.

“He’s on the front porch. Cupie is with him.”

She ran for the front door.

Vittorio changed his position for comfort and heard something hit the tile floor. He looked behind him and saw a bloody, intact bullet on the floor. Thank God she had been using hardball ammunition instead of hollow-points. He calculated that unless they found internal injuries he hadn’t figured on, he would need only stitches, a dressing and a shot of ampicillin.

He felt exhausted now, having used up all his available adrenaline. “Cupie!” he yelled.

Cupie came running through the doorway. “Vittorio, you okay?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “Did she call for another ambulance?”

“I did,” Cupie said, kneeling beside him and pulling away the dishcloth so that he could check Vittorio’s wound. “Not bleeding too bad,” he said. “Just enough to keep it clean.” He checked Vittorio’s back. “Same here,” he said. “I think you got lucky. Hang on, I’ll get another dishcloth.”

Vittorio waited patiently for him to return with the cloth, which Cupie pressed to his back. Then Cupie leaned him against the wall. “Did you get a look at the guy?” he asked.

“Nah,” Cupie said. “He was already in the truck when I saw it, and I had the light-reflection problem on the window. How about you?”

“He was wearing a baseball cap, and I was looking down on him.”

“Was it Bart Cross?”

“I don’t know. He was tall enough, but that wasn’t Cross’s vehicle.”

“He could have stolen it,” Cupie said. “I hear sirens.”

“About time,” Vittorio said. “Don’t let them give me morphine. I want a clear head.”

“Whatever you say,” Cupie replied.

“How’s Eagle?”

“I don’t know,” Cupie said. “Ed is still bleeding, but holding pressure on the wound may be slowing it down. The cut looks long but shallow to me. Susannah is on the case.”

The sirens got louder, and there was the sound of tires crunching on gravel and doors slamming.

“I’ll get somebody in here,” Cupie said.

Vittorio started to speak, but a wave of nausea overcame him. He took a deep breath, then sagged to the floor and passed out.

VITTORIO WOKE UP in a hospital room with Cupie asleep in a chair next to him. He fumbled around, found the control unit for the bed and sat himself up and elevated his feet.

Cupie stirred. “You’re awake?”

“Yeah. How’s Eagle?”

“In surgery. They have a vascular specialist here, so Ed’s got some sort of shot. I’m type O, so I gave some blood. Eagle is A-positive.”

“I’m A-positive,” Vittorio said.

“You can’t spare any,” Cupie said.

“When can I get out of here?”

“What? You haven’t even talked to a doctor yet. You got some place to be?”

“I want to know if Bart Cross is still out at that guesthouse in Las Campanas.”

“I can check on that without your help,” Cupie said drily.

“Well, stop fluttering around here like an old woman and do it,” Vittorio said.

“I’m not fluttering, and you need some morphine,” Cupie said, pressing the call button.

A nurse appeared. “Can I help you?”

“This man needs morphine,” Cupie said.

“I don’t want morphine!” Vittorio said. “I told you!”

“Ignore him,” Cupie said to the nurse, and she disappeared. “You’re way too cranky,” Cupie said, “and that will get your blood pressure up and slow your recovery.”

“I thought you were going to go check on Bart Cross,” Vittorio said.

“Just as soon as I hold you down for the nurse,” Cupie replied.

WITH VITTORIO SETTLED INTO a morphine haze and Eagle still in surgery, Cupie drove out to Las Campanas, to the guesthouse where Cross had been staying. He drew his gun and hammered on the door. “Police!” he yelled. “Open up!”

That got him nowhere. He walked around the house, looking into windows. “Neat as a pin,” he said aloud to himself. “The rooster has flown the coop.”

He got into Vittorio’s car and drove back to the hospital. Vittorio was sitting up in bed, dozing lightly. He opened his eyes when Cupie walked in. “Eagle’s still alive,” he said. “That’s all I know. He’s in the ICU, and Susannah is with him.”

There was a knock on the door, and two men in suits walked in, flashing badges.

“I’m Romera; this is Reed,” the taller of the two said. “You feel up to answering some questions, Mr.”-he read a card in his hand-“ Victoria?”

“It’s Vittorio,” Cupie corrected him. “No last name.”

“And who might you be?”

“Cupie Dalton. I work with him.” He jerked a thumb toward Vittorio.

“How’s Eagle?” Vittorio asked.

“Still out,” the detective replied. “Lots of tubes in him. You want to tell me what happened?”

Vittorio recited the chain of events as economically as possible.

“The guy shoot you?” Romera asked.

“No, Mrs. Eagle shot me, mistook me for the guy.”

“Jesus Christos, what a mess!” Romera said. Reed wrote it down. “Where were you, Mr. Dalton?”

“I was staked out down the hill sixty or seventy yards. The pickup didn’t pass me, must have come down the hill from up the mountain. He escaped that way, too.”

“And neither of you got a look at the guy’s face?” Romera asked.

“No,” Vittorio said quickly. “And I didn’t know him.”

“I didn’t even see him,” Cupie said. “Just the truck.”

“What kind of truck?”

“Pickup, maybe a Chevy,” Cupie replied. “I’m not good with trucks.”

“I am,” Vittorio said. “It was a Toyota. It had a FedEx logo on the door and a New Mexico plate.”

“Was he wearing a FedEx uniform?”

Vittorio shrugged, causing him pain. “Maybe. A dark Windbreaker and matching baseball cap.”

“You want to bring any charges against Mrs. Eagle for shooting you?” Romera asked.

“Of course not,” Vittorio said. “She just mistook me for the guy who cut her husband.”

“Whatever you say,” Romera replied. “She’s shot a couple of other people in the past, you know-her ex-husband in L.A. and a woman delivering flowers to Eagle’s house here last year.”

“Yeah, and the woman was trying to kill them both.”

“You figure the ex-wife is behind this, then?”

“I do.”

“But she’s in prison in Mexico,” Romera said. “I checked.”

“If you say so,” Vittorio replied.