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

The intercom rang. Shit! Linda. Food. He buzzed her in.

20

Mistake, all the lawyers in town, Bud call ing her. And he knew it was a mistake letting her come over the minute she tossed off her Marmot and he saw her in a snug beige skirt and sweater and when he saw the melting bridal veil of snowflakes scattered in her short chestnut hair and in her long eyelashes.

She grimaced at his gouged face. She did a lot of pro bono for a women’s shelter. He must look like a doorpost marked by a woman.

Beware, violent man inside.

“I look like hell, huh?” She looked great. And sensible and safe.

She had a narrow face and oval brown eyes and a slightly crooked nose that, with her long, clean neck, gave her a touch of Europe—Modigliani would have spotted her a mile away and painted her and called the portrait Loneliness.

She held up a bag. Harry smelled Chinese.

“You should eat,” she said. No kiss. First things first. If 128 / CHUCK LOGAN

you didn’t watch her close, she’d take you right over. And if he was smart, right now, he’d let her.

With quick efficient moves, she was past him and put the bag on the kitchenette counter and her alert eyes spied the toothbrush where he’d stuck it behind the toaster. She held it up and noted the bristles with concern. “God, this again?” She dropped it in the sink.

They split an order of Princess Chicken at his small kitchen table and tried to make conversation.

“You want to talk about it?” she asked finally.

“No.” He chewed and swallowed. “You talk to Bud?”

“Uh-huh. He said prepare the papers but he wants to hold off on serving them. He thinks he should go to the funeral first.”

“Idiot, the only place he’s going is a treatment center. He’s going to sit the rest of this one out.”

“The rest?” Her voice sped up.

“What else did you talk about?”

“Standard stuff. Told him to change his life insurance. He said his new wife specifically had asked not be named on the policy. Names the foundation as beneficiary. But the will…that’s a different story.

The foundation again, but if that bullet would have been six inches over, the surviving spouse could pop it open.”

“Is he aware of that?”

“Actually…” She folded her brisk demeanor and filed it away. “We spent most of the time talking about you.”

Mistake. He just knew it. She had that basic look back in her eyes: I slept with you, now you take the Boy Scout oath. Damnit. His own eyes darted. “Bud’s been drinking a lot lately. You can’t take him literally.”

“He sounded sincere about his worry for you. That you’re enjoying all this.”

Harry cleared the plates and returned with cups of coffee. Linda sat back, crossed her lean legs, and cupped her chin in her palm. A purple vein curved on the olive skin of her wrist. He remembered that the exact vein also curled over her ankle. Ankle and wrist were the same size.

HUNTER’S MOON / 129

“Are you? Enjoying this?” she asked.

Harry stood up abruptly and began to pace. “God no. That’s nuts.” He snapped his lighter and lit a cigarette in a fast reflex. Linda wrinkled her nose in disapproval.

“He’s worried you might start drinking again.” She probed. She looked softer without the precision-attired bitch makeup she wore to the law office. But she’d taken the time to put on a subtle touch of green eye shadow. “Bud thinks you have two gears, neutral and full tilt. He says you can’t handle the excitement sober.”

Harry continued to pace and had to laugh. Sonofabitch, funny wasn’t it, how trauma was a jack-in-the-box. She was trying to express concern, but the lid flies open and you get all these tangled longings and resentments. Like Jesse, you reach for the love of your fucked-up life and death pops up wearing a clown face.

He stabbed a finger at the bed across the room. “Don’t give me that about excitement. You’re the one whose pulse never gets much over ninety.”

Another thing about Linda. She had the stamina to run horizontal marathons in bed. You had to qualify because she didn’t come until after she hit the wall.

Her eyes tracked him as he paced. In a very deliberate voice, she said, “Dorothy thinks you’re going to have a rough night. I’ll stay if you’d like.”

“Mercy fuck?”

She braced at his language. “Company,” she said.

He plucked up the newspaper. “You see this? Nutty vet picks up gun first time in years and finds an excuse to shoot somebody.”

Her voice was reasonable, at first. “They’re just trying to sell newspapers. You’re not crazy, Harry.” Then it took on a weary edge.

“Jesus, God, if there’s one word that’ll never die from overuse with men, it’s bullshit! Look, the only connection you have to Vietnam is repeating a pattern of ignorance. What’s the cliché? We weren’t in Vietnam ten years, we were there one year, ten times. That’s like you

130 / CHUCK LOGAN

and being sober. You’ve been sober one year and repeated it ten times…”

She raised her chin. “That adds up to one woman a year. By the time you got to me you had the routine pretty refined.”

Her sangfroid took a hike. He liked the street fighter in her, except when her eyes hexed him with the glint of broken beer bottles. “Uh-uh, we been over this before,” he protested.

“It’s sad. You can get it up to kill somebody. No problem. But committing to a relationship…” For emphasis, she arched her index finger and let it fall flaccid.

“I don’t need this right now, Linda.”

“No, you’ve been through a lot. That’s always your excuse, isn’t it?”

He used to like the way she looked you straight in the eye. But now he turned his back on her and retreated to his bookcases where he rummaged in his box of tapes, found one, and slapped it into his tape player and pushed some buttons.

Motown, shivery as an old