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

thick compost scent of jungle…

The voice went on. “Me and Randall’s sitting here killing a bottle of tequila talking about you, so we decided to call you up.”

Harry rubbed his eyes. “What?”

HUNTER’S MOON / 335

“Me and Randall…hey, you all right?”

“Yeah sure. Great.” Harry’s head swam. Hollywood. Another Randall prodigy who’d stayed on and on. Turned out the lights in the embassy in Phnom Penh and then Saigon. Fuckin’ Hollywood.

“Hear you had some bad luck hunting—”

“Uh-huh,” said Harry tonelessly.

“Still a hero, still flawed, eh? So apart from still being able to shoot, how’d you turn out? You ever get to be an artist?”

“Hack artist at a newspaper.” Unbelievable.

“I can dig it. Turned into a hack Republican lawyer myself.”

“I figured you’d be dead. Or swabbing cankers from the foreskin of some fascist chimpanzee in El Salvador.”

“Same old Harry. Say listen, Randall’s here and wants to talk to you.”

Randall came on the line. “How’s it going?” He slurred his S’s.

Wonderful. They were loaded.

“Weird. Dorothy tell you—?”

“Yeah, you’re living in a game of Clue. Old newspapers pinned to your door. Wild girl in the woods. Listen, forget that, me and trusty ole Hollywood were hunting in the computers just for the hell of it and we’ve turned up something on this Cox guy. We’re on our way to check it out. Just so happens it fits in with Hollywood’s current line of work so we’re traveling on Uncle.”

Traveling? “Where the hell are you?” asked Harry.

“Arizona. You should come on down. Catch some rays—”

“Forget it,” said Harry, rubbing his eyes. “The other guy, the sheriff, went bonkers. Looks like he was in it with his kid to kill Bud.

All these cops are chasing him all over the back forty. He’s got these cutouts of Bud…Aw, fuck it. Tell you later. And Bud’s up here with Linda Margoles getting set to hand over a million bucks to get free of a three-week marriage. Can you believe that? Soon’s they catch the sheriff I’m going home, man. I been too long at the fair.”

“Question: Why’s Bud have Linda handling his divorce?

336 / CHUCK LOGAN

Linda’s one smart lady, but the Maston family has used Deal and Noble in Saint Paul as legal council for over a hundred years.”

Harry shook his head. “This isn’t a game of three-dimensional chess like you used to play with the Vietnamese. Just a bunch of backwoods thugs pulling off a get-rich-quick scheme. And it’s my fault. Bud’s stuck paying blood money because I killed that kid.”

“You sound pretty rough.”

“Randall. I been in a fight with a deer.”

“A deer?”

“I’ll explain later…”

Cars in the driveway. Harry bolted upright. “Have fun in Arizona.

Tell a few war stories for me.” He slammed down the phone. Agitated voices, hurried footfalls up the porch. Harry rolled out of the chair, snatched up the Colt, and had his arm extended when the door opened.

Don Karson took one look at Harry’s menacing face squinting over the sights of the pistol and gasped.

Bud pushed the minister through the door and planted his hands on his hips. “For Chrissake, Harry. Put that thing down!”

55

“Look out,” Harry admonished. “There are pieces of glass on the floor.”

“What happened?” asked Bud.

“Somebody was here. They left a bottle of booze for me.

Thoughtful, huh?”

Bud’s eyes swung, watchfully. “You think it’s another setup?”

Harry shrugged. “The cops that were here split.”

“Ours too, took off with the ones hauling ass down the hill. Could be they found him already…” Bud’s voiced trailed off and he licked at an open sore where stitches had

HUNTER’S MOON / 337

been on his lower lip. “Or maybe he’s right outside.” He picked up the 12 -gauge off the table and wracked it open. A shell popped out.

He put it back in, slammed the slide back, chambered it, thumbed the safe.

The shotgun’s steel clash brought Karson to attention. His eyes darted out the windows. “Emery?”

“Who knows,” Bud said absently. Circulation had returned to the haggard face and his pupils wrenched down tight to pinholes.

“You didn’t have to say that in front of Linda,” Harry said.

Bud looked him straight in the eye. “I had to get your attention.

Didn’t I?”

Harry nodded tightly. “While you were getting my attention, they ripped the place off. Chris’s floppy was in the computer when I left.”

Karson seemed visibly shaken, but Bud waved his hand in disinterest. “Do you really think a boy’s fantasies are proof of anything?”

he said. He raked a polished wing tip through the books that littered the den carpet, then snapped the plastic latch on the disk drive of the IBM and clicked it open.

“They took other stuff,” Harry went on. “This picture of Chris posing naked. Did you know he had cherries tattooed on his left hip?”

“Cherries?”

“Yeah. And the collage in Emery’s basement…”

Bud nodded. “Hakala told me.”

“It had a picture like that, some stud with a cherry tattoo. Left hip.

They took those flicks for a reason,” said Harry.

“They?” said Bud, scrutinizing Harry. He went out on the porch and stared at the wreckage in the drive. “Same ‘they’ who tried to burn me out?”

His eyes met Harry’s. It was cold on the porch but both men sweated profusely and reeked of nerves. “This is a fucked-up place.

Why did I ever come here?” said Bud softly. His eyes wandered up.

“Good, it’s starting to snow.” They went back in.

“Karson,” Bud called out. “It’s time for show and tell.” He 338 / CHUCK LOGAN

grinned and his lips curled back too far, revealing receding gums and slivers of root above his shiny dental work. “What if Emery is out there?” he asked Harry. “Jesse made half a million cool ones when Emery put a bullet in Tip Kidwell in Duluth.”

“Should have paid more attention to that,” said Harry.

“As you pointed out, I wasn’t tracking at the time. Christ. I think I’m the one who needs a drink.” They laughed. Bad dream kind of laugh.

Karson joined them in the den and winced when Bud swept the clutter off the dining room table with a brisk arm. Scraps of ammunition