Relic of Time (46 page)

Some minutes later, in the bathroom, he put through a call to Dortmund after calculating the time in the east.

“Ah, Crosby. How goes the battle?”

“I'm at Don Ibanez's.”

“Has Traeger arrived?”

“He's coming here?”

“I should imagine. How is the old man?”

Don Ibanez. The question suggested that Dortmund himself was in the flush of youth. Crosby told him what Catherine had told him.

“Catherine?”

Crosby explained that he was actually in the house adjacent to the estate of Don Ibanez.

“With two ladies?” Dortmund seemed to be chuckling.

“Actually three.” He explained about Gladys Stone.

“Gladys Stone,” Dortmund repeated after a pause.

“Have you spoken to Traeger?”

“He calls in from time to time.”

“Recently?”

“Crosby, I would suggest that you go next door.”

“Good idea.” He hadn't liked Dortmund's suggestive tone when he mentioned the women staying at Jason Phelps's home.

“And Crosby . . .”

“I know. Watch my back.”

When Crosby emerged, he announced where he was going.

“I'll come with you,” Catherine said. “I want to see Clare.”

They stopped above Oakland, to stretch their legs and because Wilberforce needed to use the men's room. The area into which they had driven was brightly lit, a convenience store, the service station, several cars at the pumps. When Wilberforce returned, bouncy with relief, Craig asked Traeger if he would mind sitting up front.

“I want to catch forty winks.”

“Do you count them?”

“My dad always called a nap that.”

“A nap in Napa Valley,” Wilberforce said brightly.

When Wilberforce got them back on the road, Craig was already settled down in back. Traeger wondered if he were acting wisely with these two. The ride had begun with his apparent arrest, but as the miles rolled away, they might have been three agents on a mission.

“What exactly is your mission?” he asked Wilberforce.

“To get hold of that stolen picture and return it.”

“The agency seemed less than zealous about that.”

“Not since Grady made fools of us.”

When they got to Pinata, Craig had had his forty winks. He suggested that they pull into the motel and get organized. Some minutes later, they were seated at a corner table in the El Toro bar.

“The stolen picture has to be up there, Traeger. At the estate of Don Ibanez.”

Traeger said nothing. It was the simplest assumption. Besides, it was his own.

“You know the layout there.”

Traeger nodded.

“Who all is there?”

“Don Ibanez and his daughter, the gardener and his daughter, and Tomas the driver.”

“He wasn't at the San Francisco airport when Morgan tried to pull a double cross.”

Suggesting that Craig and Wilberforce had been. That long-term parking lot had been a crowded place on that occasion. Craig must have called in a helicopter when things went wrong and some hours later descended on Grady's hideout near Pocatello.

“You two working alone?”

Craig thought about it. “As far as we know.”

“Watch your back.”

Wilberforce laughed. “That's what Boswell always says.”

Boswell? What an original. Traeger was going to mention that Crosby could be at Don Ibanez's, too, but he let it go. After the conference at Bishop Sapienza's, where the decision had seemingly been reached that they must all head for Napa Valley to decide whether he or Arroyo was telling the truth, Crosby would very likely have headed here once he found out that Traeger had been spirited away. Surely he must know that by now. And Arroyo? This occasion, too, threatened to become a crowded one, and Traeger didn't like it.

“Here's the plan,” he said, hunching over the table.

“What'll it be, gentlemen?” The waitress.

They ordered beer and waited until it was served and the waitress was gone.

“Okay, what's the plan?”

“Jason Phelps's property was carved out of Don Ibanez's estate. From the back, there is a path leading toward the replica of the Mexico City basilica. Okay. We drive up there, pull into Phelps's driveway, go around the house and back to that path. In that way, we can find out who all is there before announcing our presence.”

Wilberforce said, “I want to see that little basilica.”

“Are you Catholic?”

“On my mother's side.”

When they had finished their beer and gone out to the car, night was falling. Before getting in, Traeger looked around. Someday he would like to come to Napa Valley just to enjoy the scenery.

For the first part of the drive, Wilberforce used just driving lights, but there was need of more light before they got to Phelps's driveway. There was a car parked by the garage. It looked like the one Crosby had showed up at the Old Curiosity Shop in.

“Let me go in first,” Traeger suggested. “We don't want to startle Crosby.”

“Crosby?”

“We were agents together. Ignatius Hannan hired him.” No need to go into all the details. “He was the big guy who came along when you took me to your car in Santa Ana.”

“What did Hannan hire him to do?”

“To get that stolen image.”

“Jeez.”

“And to find me.”

“He lost you.”

“That's why I don't want to startle him.”

“You want us to just wait here?” Craig didn't like it, and who could blame him?

“I think it's best.”

“We're not working for you, Traeger.”

“We're all after the same thing.”

Wilberforce said, “Why don't Craig and I go out back to the path you mentioned?”

Traeger thought. “Good. Take the path and go over to Don Ibanez's. Now that it's dark, the house will be lit, and you can see what if anything is going on there.”

Craig liked that even less.

“Okay. You two go around to the back. There is a study with french doors that open onto the lawn. I'll go in the front. Let's hope that Crosby remembers you two from Santa Ana.”

Craig said, “We'll go in the front; you go around back.”

Traeger would have given anything to be on his own, but if it hadn't been for Craig and Wilberforce he'd be in the pokey in Santa Ana.

“Good enough.”

They got out of the car and eased its doors shut as quietly as they could. Traeger had his backpack, which held his weapon. He watched the two others go under the overhang to the front door and then moved swiftly around the house, getting out his pistol as he went.

In the back, he went out from the house, staying clear of the light from the study which illumined the lawn. Someone was sitting at the desk in Jason Phelps's study. A little old lady. A familiar lady. Good God, it was Gladys Stone, the flirty sexagenarian from the Rough Riders headquarters. What was she doing here?

Craig and Wilberforce came into the study with another woman, not Catherine Dolan. And then Craig and Wilberforce were shaking hands with Gladys, whom they clearly knew. Traeger backed further away from the house, trying to figure out the meaning of that group in Phelps's study. His earlier hunch that Gladys had had something to do with Morgan's bloody end came back to him. During the long ride from Santa Ana, he and Craig and Wilberforce had grown too chummy.

Wilberforce opened the french doors and called into the night, “Traeger?”

He hesitated. But curiosity about Gladys got the better of him and he walked into the lighted area of the lawn. That was when Gladys pushed past Wilberforce, gripping a weapon with both hands. Before it went off, Traeger had turned and dashed for the connecting path. Gladys got off three rounds before he got to the path.

Clare's anxiety about her father had diminished considerably since his release from the hospital, but the idea had been that he would recover more quickly in the familiar setting of the hacienda. That afternoon, when she had relieved Frater Leone and sat by her father's bed, holding his hand, he had tried to talk but, as before, the sounds that emerged were not language. She patted his hand.

“I understand, I understand.”

His eyes glittered as he shook his head. He must be worried about the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. How insignificant that seemed compared to her father's illness. To distract him, she began to talk.

“Daddy, who attacked you?”

The question seemed to relax him. He turned his hand over and squeezed hers. The jumble of sounds coming from his mouth might have been an answer to her question. From the doorway, Frater Leone beckoned to her and Clare rose and went to him. He took her into the hallway.

“There are people downstairs.”

“People?”

“Catherine Dolan and the man Crosby.”

Good Lord. She considered letting George, who had actually delayed his return to Palo Alto, entertain them, but Frater Leone was clearly eager to take up his vigil by the bedside again. Clare nodded and headed for the staircase, passing the room that was Frater Leone's as she went.

Catherine seemed to be enjoying having two men to dazzle when Clare came into the living room.

“Laura called,” George told her. “She and her husband are on their way here from the airport.”

“What on earth for?”

Crosby said, “Traeger escaped. I thought he was being arrested by the state police but he was spirited away. I think he's coming here.”

“Here! My father is supposed to have absolute rest and quiet.”

It was a silly remark; Clare saw that as soon as she had made it. George came and took her arm in his. “How is he?”

“Oh, George.” She pressed against him and his arm went around her. Why oh why couldn't they be just another couple?

“Laura, the image that wasn't taken to Mexico City has to be here. Naturally, Traeger won't rest until he has it. He's bound to come here.”

Crosby stopped. There was the distant sound of gunfire. He drew a pistol from under his arm and dashed for the door.

Two men brandishing weapons came running toward him from the pathway that linked the estate with Jason Phelps's place. Crosby fired a warning shot and immediately the two disappeared, falling to the ground. Belatedly, Crosby recognized them as the men who had put Traeger into the car in Santa Ana. By that time, he, too, was on the lawn, trying to make out what the other two were doing. He had the great disadvantage of the lighted house behind him.

“Crosby?”

“Who are you?” He rolled away as he answered, not wanting to tell them where he was.

“Craig. Wilberforce and I are agents. We rescued Traeger.”

“Where is he?”

“Why don't you stand up?” said a voice behind him. Crosby looked up at a young man whose weapon hung at his side.

“Wilberforce,” he said, giving Crosby a hand and pulling him to his feet. Craig materialized out of the night. That was when Crosby saw another figure move swiftly behind the basilica.

“Are you two alone?”

“Until we find Traeger. Gladys took a shot at him.”

“Gladys?”

“She must have been active when you were.”

When Traeger burst onto Don Ibanez's lawn, he slowed and moved away from the hacienda. And the pathway. In a minute, Craig and Wilberforce came crashing along the path.

After their big reunion with Gladys and the shots that had been taken at him—three shots—he no longer felt part of the team. As soon as the two agents appeared, Will Crosby came out of the hacienda. The idiot sent up a warning shot and Craig and Wilberforce went to ground. Crosby was lucky they hadn't taken him out, but then Crosby, too, disappeared. Their voices came to Traeger; Crosby was definitely rusty. Did he think this was No Man's Land in World War I, with enemies chatting with one another from opposing trenches? A figure flitted past the lighted windows of the hacienda. Wilberforce. When he helped Crosby to his feet, Traeger took cover behind the basilica. When he looked out again, the trio had gone into the hacienda.

At sounds behind him, Traeger, too, fell to the lawn. There was a small house back there, several windows alight. The man coming toward him was Carlos.

The little man seemed to be groaning as he approached.
Santa Madre, Santa Madre.
Traeger lay as still as still, but Carlos's mind was clearly occupied. He walked within ten feet of Traeger lying on the grass and disappeared around the basilica. After a minute, Traeger followed and saw him enter the basilica. He eased the doors open after they had closed behind the gardener and went inside.