Hunter's Moon by Chuck Logan (the false prince series txt) 📗

“It’s what he wants,” said Harry.

Dorothy, a former member of the working press, planned their exit. “Is there a side door?”

Hakala walked them past the garage to a service door. Dorothy checked out the approach and strode off. A few minutes later a Jeep Wrangler wheeled up to the door. Dorothy sat in the passenger seat.

“Who’s the driver?” Harry asked Randall as they went out.

“Hakala’s son. Met us at the landing strip. He’s being very helpful,”

said Randall.

“You’re outta here, Griffin. Sorry about all…this,” said Hakala.

He extended his hand. “You’ve been real cooperative.”

Harry took the hearty handshake, expecting Hakala’s hand to be oily. It was hard and dry. Hakala stepped back and Emery did one of his puma-footed moves and was right in Harry’s face.

“We’ll meet again, motherfucker,” said Emery.

Harry met the fierce, suffering eyes without flinching, but HUNTER’S MOON / 111

he had to pucker up to keep his spine from turning to ice and dropping through his sphincter.

Jerry was there, summoned by the threat in Emery’s voice. Randall was right behind him. Jerry walked Emery back into the building.

“What’s that about?” asked Randall. Harry shook his head. “Time to go,” said Randall as he opened the door of the Wrangler. Thirty yards away, a TV crew rounded the corner.

Harry caught a flash of trim calves above slipper snow boots as the chesty lady in the trench coat stepped from behind the service door.

“Sherry Rawlins, Duluth paper,” she said quickly. “How many shots? How many times was the kid hit?”

Randall elbowed the reporter aside and pushed Harry into the back-seat.

Hakala’s kid was Iron Range gut-tough in his varsity hockey jacket and scarred platinum eyebrows. He drove tight-lipped, never taking his steely eyes from his route, which avoided the front of the police station. No one spoke. Five minutes later they drove out onto a recently ploughed tarmac where a Cessna was warmed up and ready to go.

As Harry was getting out, he put his hand on the driver’s shoulder.

“Hey, where’s Becky…” he started to say. Mitch Hakala shook off the hand, averted his face, and stared into the ramparts of snow that lined the runway. Randall tugged Harry from the car.

The plane taxied into the wind, took off, and gained altitude and the dollhouses of Stanley, Minnesota, and the secrets they held, pinwheeled away and Harry looked down on a rash of blaze-orange measles sprinkled through the blank tundra.

“Wow,” said Dorothy. “What the hell did Bud get himself into?”

“It’s seriously weird up there,” said Harry, shaking his head. “His wife could bump Kathleen Turner out of Body 112 / CHUCK LOGAN

Heat. This clan of Finns runs the town. There’s this character named Cox who acts like he knows me.”

“That sheriff looks like he wants to secure your heartbeat,” said Randall.

“No shit. That’s his bastard kid I shot.”

“Jesus,” said Dorothy.

“Slow down. Let it settle,” said Randall, quieter than Dorothy.

“Don’t let the déjà vu fuck with your head.”

Harry nodded. He had carefully not allowed himself to think about that. “It was just like that all over again. Quick, you know?”

“We know,” Dorothy’s voice caught in her throat.

Harry turned away and looked out the window at the snowy hills unreeling below them.

Other hills. Layered in mist. Emerald, jade, turquoise, shamrock, moss-green till hell wouldn’t have it and ferrous red Martian dirt that stored the day’s heat like a furnace. Sweat and fear and no sleep.

Crazy damn operation. Randall’s brainchild. Trying to rescue a renegade Viet Cong leader from the North Vietnamese. Complicated by Dorothy tagging along, hot to interview the renegade. All screwed up into a confused, running fight down a jungle mountainside. Got separated. Randall and Dorothy captured. Had them digging their own graves when Harry broke from the tree line at the run with his M16 walloping his shoulder.

Defining moment of his life. He was twenty-one years old and touched with dead-on magic and he’d sprinted through a hole in the day and even now, he smiled remembering it. Every move perfect.

The bullets meant for Randall and Dorothy had sizzled around his head. Couldn’t remember exactly. A scream. A prayer. Fuck you!

You can’t have these people that I love! The three North Vietnamese executioners went down.

“You might want to get away from the paper for a while,” said Dorothy.

“What?” Harry blinked.

HUNTER’S MOON / 113

Dorothy cocked her head with a wry expression. “A newspaper’s a funny place. All these people sit around and wait for something bad to happen to somebody else out in the world. They have their filters to deal with reality. To keep it manageable. You just got turned into a story. Reporters like to write stories in newsrooms and put their byline on them like a seal of approval. They don’t like the stories walking around, talking over their shoulder. It’ll be weird.”

“I’m more worried about Bud—” Harry started to say.

“The more you help Bud, the deeper in shit you get. Leave it alone,” said Randall.

“I think you should stay at our place tonight,” said Dorothy.

Harry nodded, leaned on his duffel bag, and studied the faded Air America baggage tags looped to the grip. Same bag he’d packed in a rush when he split Detroit. Now he and his bag were on their way to Randall and Dorothy’s place again. Maybe nothing ever changed.

18

Flurries blew across Holman Field in St. Paul. The storm had merely swished its petticoats through town as it passed to the northeast. On the way to the parking lot, Randall asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Adrenaline bends,” said Harry. The corrupt taste festered in his gums and only a drink could wash it out when it got this bad.

“You need some sleep,” said Randall.

The city whirled past with the cramped aspect of a childhood home revisited as an adult. Randall took the freeway, exited on Cretin Avenue, and went south, past the College of St. Thomas.

Apple-cheeked Tommies toted bookbags. Girls in plaid skirts.

They turned onto the River Road. The homes were bigger. Larger lots.