“It’s good you’re there. Call Cupie and go see him, will you?”

“Sure. I saw him briefly after we testified. What’s the job?”

“Cupie will brief you.”

“Come on, Ed, what are you not telling me?”

“It’s about Barbara,” Eagle said.

“Oh, shit,” Vittorio replied.

EAGLE WAS FINISHING a sandwich at his desk the following day when his secretary buzzed him. He picked up the phone. “Yes?”

“Mr. Eagle, there’s a gentleman on the phone who says he’s calling from Rome, Italy, and he says he needs to speak to you urgently. His name is Donald Wells.”

“Never heard of him.”

“You want me to get rid of him?”

Eagle sighed. “No, I’ll speak to him.” He pressed the flashing button. “This is Ed Eagle.”

“Mr. Eagle,” the man said, “my name is Don Wells.” His accent was American.

“Yes, Mr. Wells, how can I help you?” He tried to convey that he was very busy and that the man should hurry up and get to the point.

“I’m in Rome, at the Hassler Villa Medici Hotel, and I received a phone call a few minutes ago saying that my wife and son have been kidnapped.”

“Mr. Wells, I think you want the FBI, not an attorney.”

“Yes, of course, but I’m a rather well-known figure in the film industry, and I don’t want to be on record as having called the police, if this should turn out to be a hoax. These things have a way of finding their way into the press, and that would be embarrassing for my wife and me.”

“What would you like me to do, Mr. Wells?”

“I have homes in Santa Fe and in Malibu, but neither phone answers. Could you possibly go to my Santa Fe home and take a look around and call me if you find anything that might indicate that something untoward has occurred? And could you arrange to have someone in L.A. check the Malibu house?”

“Mr. Wells, it would be a lot cheaper just to call the police in Santa Fe and Malibu.”

“I’m not concerned about your fees, Mr. Eagle. I know your reputation, and I would very much appreciate it if you would handle this for me.”

Eagle took a deep breath and let it out. “All right, Mr. Wells. Please give me your Santa Fe address and tell me how to get into the house.”

“The address is 180 Tano Norte. Do you know the road?”

The place was out past Susannah’s house. “Yes, I know it. If no one answers the bell, how will I get in?”

“There’s a rack holding half a cord of firewood to the right of the front door. There’s a key under the left end of the rack.”

“How about Malibu?”

“The house is in the Malibu Colony. You know it?”

“Yes.”

“Your people should just ask for the Wells house at the gate and give the guard the password, which is Featherweight.”

“Featherweight, all right.”

“And the key is in a window box to the left of the front door.”

“And how do I reach you?”

“You can call me at the Hassler, or you can reach me on my international cell phone.” He recited the number.

“Mr. Wells, where would you expect your wife and son to be on this date?”

“I haven’t spoken to them for a couple of days, but my wife had planned to fly from L.A. to Santa Fe for a few days. She just wasn’t sure yet when she could get away.”

“And to which address should I send my bill?”

“Please send that to my business manager, whose office is in Century City.” He gave Eagle the address.

“One more thing, Mr. Wells: How would your wife and son be traveling from L.A. to Santa Fe?”

“I’m in a fractional jet program call NetJets, and we fly out of Santa Monica.”

“Have you called them?”

“Not yet; I’d like to hear your report first.”

“Can you give me a physical description of your wife and son?”

“My wife-her name is Donna-is forty-nine years old, five-seven, a hundred and forty pounds, blonde hair; my son is fourteen, about the same height as his mother, dark hair, a hundred and thirty pounds. His name is Eric. He’s autistic.”

“Is he in school somewhere?”

“No, his mother has home-tutored him, with the help of various teachers, since he was nine.”

“How functional is he?”

“He doesn’t talk much, but most people wouldn’t know he was autistic on meeting him in our home, but he becomes anxious, if he’s away from his mother or me, and then he can be difficult to deal with.”

“I’ll call you back when I know more,” Eagle said. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

Eagle hung up and called Cupie Dalton’s cell number.

“This is Dalton.”

“Cupie, this is Ed Eagle. Are you still in L.A.?”

“Vittorio and I are on the way to the airport for a flight to San Francisco.”

“I’ve got a detour for you,” Eagle said, then explained what he wanted.

“Okay, we’ll get a later flight to San Francisco.” Cupie hung up.

Eagle looked at his watch, then got his coat and hat and walked out of his office. “I have to run an errand,” he said to his secretary. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

CUPIE CLOSED HIS cell phone and turned to Vittorio, who was driving. "U-turn, pal.”

“What’s going on?”

“That was Eagle on the phone. He got a call from Rome from some guy named Wells, who says his wife and son may have been kidnapped. We have to go and check out his Malibu house for any evidence of same.”

Vittorio shrugged. “Okay.” He whipped the car around and gunned it.

“And let’s not get arrested on the way.”

“Aren’t you carrying tin?”

“Yeah, but I don’t like to use it with a cop for something as light as a speeding ticket.”

Traffic was easy for L.A., and soon they were on the Pacific Coast Highway, heading north.

“You ever been out here?” Cupie asked, as they came to the long string of cheek-by-jowl beach houses that composed most of Malibu.

“No,” Vittorio said. “With these houses jammed together like this, how does anybody get to the beach?”

“That’s the idea,” Cupie replied. “Nobody does, unless he has the keys to a house. Keeps out the riffraff. It’s a long walk from the nearest public beach to out here.”

“I thought all the beaches in California were public.”

“There’s public, and there’s public.”

They passed the turnoff for the little shopping center that passed for Downtown Malibu and soon turned off the highway into a driveway blocked by a guard shack and a bar across the drive. A uniformed guard stepped out of the shack and waited for them to come to a halt. For a moment he eyed the odd pair: a cherubic man in a seersucker suit and an Indian dressed in black. “Can I help you?” he asked.

Cupie flashed his LAPD badge, the slightly smaller version that retired cops toted. “We’re here at Mr. Don Wells’s request to inspect his property. The password is Featherweight.”

The guard went back into the shack, checked something on a clipboard and pressed the button that raised the bar. He waved them on.

Vittorio followed Cupie’s directions. “You been out to this place before?”

“A few times. These are some of the most expensive houses in the United States. Over there,” he said, pointing at a large house that backed up onto the beach. “See the sign? Wells.”

Vittorio pulled into the driveway. Cupie’s car was a gray Ford Crown Victoria, chosen because it looked like an unmarked police car, just for occasions like this. Nobody was going to call the cops, if they thought the cops were already there.

Cupie found the key in the window box. He pulled a wad of latex gloves from a coat pocket and handed a pair to Vittorio. “Don’t touch anything, even with these, unless you have to. We don’t know what we’re going to find, and if it’s bad, we want to be investigators, not suspects.”

Vittorio nodded.

Cupie unlocked the door and tapped the alarm code into the keypad. “Alarm was armed; that’s a good sign.” He led the way down a long entrance hall, more of a gallery, really, hung with a collection of abstract paintings. “Let’s stick together,” Cupie said, “and be careful.”