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

him when he used the phone. Jesse’s 358 / CHUCK LOGAN

purse lay on the counter leaking a maddeningly normal cosmetic blush that drifted sweet on the stink of death. Harry picked the Ray-Bans from the purse. Put them on. His fingers ruffled the airline tickets that slanted in the side pouch.

He made two calls. Wrote quickly on a notepad. Then he opened the hall closet, some drawers, until he found a pair of Cox’s jeans, jean jacket, and a shirt. A pair of cowboy boots. He rolled the pistol in his bloody clothes and stuck them, with Becky’s wind suit, long underwear, and shoes, into an AWOL bag he found in the closet.

He dressed in Cox’s clothing. Loose fit. Stylish these days. A leather travel bag lay on its side in the clutter. Harry snatched it up.

“We’ll freeze in this stuff,” Becky shivered.

“It’s warm where we’re going.”

The bloody palm print on the wall gave him a red push. “Let’s go.”

Becky pulled a knapsack from next to the trailer steps and grabbed Jesse’s travel bag, looked up, and nodded. He pulled Jay Cox’s black cap with the Snoopy emblem down over his eyes, pushed the Ray-Bans up on his swollen nose, squeezed Jesse’s car keys, and walked toward the blue Escort with the rusted-out rocker panels.

Pulling out onto the county road, Becky turned to him. “You could have got away. Thank you. That was…decent, what you did for Mom.”

Harry shook his head. “The way we are now, it was disturbing evidence.”

“No, it was decent.”

58

Going south down 61 an adrenaline backfire contained the chemical inferno in his blood until his last reserves snuffed out at Two Harbors and he forged a finely wrought hate and drove on that and the snow tapered to flurries and they spotted the high bridges of Duluth. Becky worried him; huddled, HUNTER’S MOON / 359

staring straight ahead, hugging herself in her mother’s jacket, she had not spoken one word since they left Stanley.

Harry pulled into a shopping mall. Hit the grocery and a Nutrition World. He bought a bottle of Tabasco sauce, Niacin 500 mm tablets, chewable Vitamin C, and spring water. Back in the car, he poured an ounce of Tabasco into a Styrofoam cup and knocked it back with six of the Niacin.

Becky watched curiously as he grimaced and tears came to his eyes and he muttered, “Detroit hangover cure.” He swigged from the half-gallon of water to hydrate himself.

Slapped alert by the pepper sauce, Harry consulted a map and found the turnoff for the Duluth airport. They left Jesse’s car in the lot, went into the terminal, rented a locker, and stowed Cox’s AWOL

bag. Hat pulled down, sunglasses low on his battered nose, he went to the ticket counter and bought passage on the Northwest flight he’d reserved when he called from the trailer. They had a short hop to the Cities, then connect to Denver and on to Phoenix. It left in 45 minutes.

Becky shouldered her mother’s travel bag and said she was going to the john. Harry sat in a smoking area making a circle of butts on the floor as the Niacin came on and blasted his capillaries and sandpapered his skin. The crimson rush subsided and, hopefully, it rooted some of the gunk from his veins. He chewed a dozen 1,000

mm Vitamin Cs and washed them down with the water. Checked the time.

When he’d called Dorothy from the trailer, she didn’t even pause when he told her about the killings and the time Mitch had bought them. She’d said: “Move fast, Harry. You were right from the start.

It’s a blackmail situation that got out of hand. Hop the first thing smoking to Phoenix. Randall will explain. I know it’s dicey, but Hollywood thinks there could be a federal angle and maybe he’ll be able to help. Bring the girl. Call me when you get to the airport.”

Harry dropped quarters into the pay phone and dialed the number in St. Paul. As the phone rang, he watched Becky stroll across the lobby. She’d changed into a light pair of

360 / CHUCK LOGAN

pedal pushers and a quiet silk blouse Jesse must have packed. She lowered a pair of sunglasses over her eyes. Absolutely poised, she lit a Marlboro, folded her arms, and watched an airport security man walk across the terminal.

Dorothy answered crisply and he asked, “How many laws am I breaking right now?”

“Give me the flight number and arrival time in Phoenix.” Harry did. “Somebody will meet you,” she said.

“Dorothy, the sonofabitch has been setting me up—”

“Longer than you think,” said Dorothy cryptically. “Don’t miss the plane.” She hung up.

At the boarding gate, Becky turned to him. “You try to pretend something didn’t happen. But it really did.” Her voice had aged ten years.

“We all pretend about a lot of things,” said Harry.

“This guy where we’re going, you trust him?”

“He’s like…my father.”

“Has he ever killed anybody?”

“He quit counting people when he started counting governments.”

Minnesota, with its corpses and its snow, receded below them and Harry crashed to the whisper of jet engines. They landed in a Denver snowstorm and were delayed. Waiting on their connection, Harry grabbed a few more hours sleep on a terminal bench. They ate breakfast and caught their plane and, from 10,000 feet, Harry watched Denver erect a drowsy brown tent of pollution against the Rockies. He slept all the way to Phoenix and jerked awake when the wheels lowered for landing. Becky was holding his hand.

A burly man—mid-forties, twelve-inch wrists—waited in aviator sunglasses, khaki desert pants, a Banlon body shirt, and a thin, blue nylon windbreaker with uppercase letters—DEA—stenciled on his left breast. His golden mane of curls framed classic North American features that grappled in a ceaseless tension between beast and boy.

HUNTER’S MOON / 361

His given name was Dwayne Milan and he traced his family tree back to the Alamo. He had flawless Texas manners, the kind that would smile patiently at an insult right up until he reached for an excessively calibered