Hunter's Moon, Chuck Logan [i am reading a book TXT] 📗

322 / CHUCK LOGAN

The dispatcher nodded. “Where Jesse’s at.”

“Right.”

“I volunteer not to be in that party,” said Morris.

“Anybody cruising up north call them down, work County Road X, Y, and Highway 7. Tell them to arrest Larry Emery on sight.”

“What’s the charge?” The dispatcher was disbelieving.

“Aggravated assault on this guy,” Hakala pointed to Harry.

“Jesus, Mike, a bar fight?”

“Listen, dummy. Jerry had to cuff Emery last night!”

The dispatcher’s mouth dropped open. “You ain’t kidding.”

“Billy, I’m telling you, he’s finally flipped. Could be bad craziness.

He’s on foot, last we heard. Probably armed for bear. Jerry thinks he’s moving around the base of Nanabozho. If anybody reports a missing vehicle, jump on it. And call the fucking Highway Patrol.

Call Lake and Cook. Do it, Billy. Armed and dangerous. All that good shit. Do it now!”

Billy bent his microphone. With his other hand he picked up the phone, referred to a list of numbers taped to the desk, and started punching numbers as he spoke into the mike. “Net Call! Listen up out there…”

Harry followed Hakala to his office. Hakala scattered paper on his desk. “Goddamn. Goddamn. Knew I should have done something about the drinking. Ah, here it is. In Duluth, at the Radisson.” He handed Harry the message slip.

Harry put it in his pocket. “How bad a spot you figure you’re in?”

Hakala grinned. “Oh, I just ignored a police report that a kid was threatening the life of his future stepfather and didn’t bust him when he was caught carrying a concealed weapon. Instead I let his real father take him out and teach him to shoot a rifle. Accessory is the term that comes to mind.” Hakala waved his arms. “Hey. We’re doing it. We’ll find him. Don’t get carried away.”

“Then why all the extra cops?”

“It’s Larry. It could get out of hand. Shit, I don’t like it.

HUNTER’S MOON / 323

Coming off that basement stuff is like taking a leap of faith except it’s not faith, it’s dread. I’m bringing in an army. What if it’s just him drunk and hitting you in the nose? I’ll get laughed out of the county.”

“You weren’t talking like that twenty minutes ago.”

Hakala shuddered. “That’s it. I gotta go with my gut.” He reached in his desk drawer, took out a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, toasted Harry, and swigged. “To the public safety.”

Then he grabbed the phone, punched in a number, and raked his knuckles across the stubble on his jowls. “It’s me,” he said, “wake up our number-one son.” He put his hand over the receiver. “I don’t think Emery will go after Maston. Sounds like he isn’t thinking that far in advance. I think he’ll head for you out at the lodge. How are you at playing tethered goat?”

Hakala turned his attention back to the phone. “Mitchell, this is the guy who pays the mortgage. Rouse your young ass and go find Becky. Yeah, yeah, I know you don’t know where she is. Find her and get her to the police station. Tell you later. I know what time it is. Just do it.”

On the way to the front door two deputies looked up from a map and the one talking on the phone yelled, “You want a SWAT team?”

“Why not?” groaned Mike Hakala.

52

Tethered goat implies lion.

If he didn’t keep his mind flexed just right, he got this image of Larry Emery sitting at that kitchen table with his elbows in a puddle of Campbell’s soup, cutting Jesse’s face out of pictures, and a chill began to curl at the back of his neck.

Like something you read in seedy news shorts buried in the Met section—estranged boyfriend comes after woman and her new lover.

Later, he bounces off the blood-spattered walls blubbering “I’m sorry” to the coppers.

324 / CHUCK LOGAN

Fear worked up through the floor and puckered his asshole and cotton-mouthed him dry of spit. His blood congealed into a billion floaty bubbles of pressure-sensitive mercury and with Mount Palomar eyes he saw Larry Emery ready to pounce in every snow-dancing shadow.

The deputies Mike Hakala put around him did little to diminish his anxiety. They’d pulled their trucks off the road and now three of them squatted outside the lodge in the trees. Morris sat in the corner of the main room with firelight glimmering on the barrel of his 12-gauge and, on the ride up from town, communication with the deputy had consisted of one laconic question: “Larry do that to your face?” And Harry nodded and Morris sucked on his teeth.

Morris was a wiry man and his black sideburns trimmed crafty pointed features and he wore his shiny dark hair swept up and back with Brylcreem. Thirty years ago in high school he would have worn his shirt collar up and his jeans down to the crack of his ass. Now, as Harry sat in a bull’s-eye of light at the dining room table, Morris was stricken by speech.

“If there’s like a shot you get on the floor real quick,” said Morris.

He added a nervous “Hee hee.”

“You have a problem with arresting Emery?”

“The idea don’t bother me at all. It’s the practical doing it that could be tricky. You ever notice how quiet that man can be. How you just look up and he’s there.”

“Well, to get here he’d have to travel through the woods at night.

What are the chances of catching him out there?”

Morris snorted. “He’s a fucking Indian.”

“His mother’s got Indian blood, but he looks like he lives pretty white.”

“You take your normal soul brother like you got down in the city.

Man’s bound to have some white blood in him but nobody’d call him part white now would they. Uh-uh. Larry’s a fucking Indian and for all I know he can turn into a fucking owl and fly through the woods at night.” Morris grinned philosophically. “Don’t discount anything out of hand I always say.”

HUNTER’S MOON / 325

“Okay, he’s Indian.”

“Indians are difficult people. You know, extreme. Like that Red Feather Veteran’s bunch Larry