A HOME FOR THE HUNTER

by Christine Rimmer

  "R-rrreow?" Buzz was waiting by the door when Jack let himself into the room.

  Jack shrugged out of his jacket. Then he bent and picked up the cat. As he idly rubbed Buzz's stubby head, he noticed that the message light on the phone was blinking.

  The call was from a lawyer friend, Del Goldwaite. "He wants you to call him back as soon as you can," Chuck said when Jack checked for the message. "He'll be at his office if it's before six. After that you should call him at his house."

  It was quarter of six, so Jack tried the law firm where Del was a partner. The receptionist put him on hold and then came back to say Del was on another line and would call him back in five minutes.

  Jack waited ten minutes and then the phone rang.

  "Roper here."

  "Jack, old buddy."

  "Del. What's the deal?"

  "It's like this. A client of mine called me. His wife's run off, cleaned out their joint bank accounts and disappeared with her hairdresser—or so the client thinks, anyway. The man is out of his mind. He has reason to believe the woman's in Mexico, and he wants to hire a man to go down there and find her. He wants the best. I said I'd do what I could and I thought of you."

  "Okay."

  "But there's a glitch."

  "Yeah?"

  "Since I couldn't reach you right away, the man's found someone else. I just got off the phone with him. I was pitching you like crazy. So now he says he'd like to talk to you before making a final decision. How soon can you get here?"

  Jack considered. The job itself didn't thrill him, doing the footwork for a jilted husband who probably had revenge on his mind.

  "Jack? You with me there?"

  "What kind of money are we talking about, Del?"

  Del told him.

  Jack whistled under his breath and then did some fast calculating. Money like that could put him back in the black. He had to get real here. He'd just given himself what amounted to an extended vacation, looking out for a woman who didn't need looking out for anymore—if she ever really had. It was past time to get back to the real world.

  "Jack? How long until you can get here?" Del was starting to sound impatient.

  "Assuming I can get a flight right away, maybe three or four hours."

  "Where are you, Jack?"

  "Northern California. About eighty miles northeast of Sacramento."

  "No." Jack knew his friend was shaking his head. "It won't work. I was thinking an hour, two, max. The man is angry. He wants action now. He won't wait, even for the best."

  "But Del—"

  "Look. Sorry. It's a no-go. But maybe in a few days, if the competition doesn't deliver. In the meantime, get back here to the city, so I can pull you out of a hat at the crucial moment. Understand?"

  Jack understood. "Yeah. I'll be back in town by tomorrow."

  "That should do it. Don't let any moss grow on it."

  "I hear you. See you then." Jack hung up.

  "R-r-reow?" Buzz, who'd made himself comfortable in an easy chair, paused in the bath he was giving himself to look up at Jack with cross-eyed curiosity.

  Jack made his decision. Whatever had kept him hanging on here wasn't going to keep him any longer. If he didn't get back soon, he'd have no business left when he returned.

  "The time has come, Buzz, my man. We're heading out."

  Buzz appeared unconcerned by the news.

  Jack suddenly felt charged with nervous energy. He began pacing up and down on the strip of carpet at the foot of the bed. He rubbed the back of his neck.

  He had to talk to Olivia, to say goodbye. And then that was it. He was out of here.

  "You're leaving," she said softly, when she opened her door and looked in his eyes.

  He nodded, tipping his collar up. It was growing colder now that night was approaching. The rain had eased off. It was a steady drizzle again. It dripped from the eaves of the porch all around him.

  She stepped back a little. He could feel the warm air from the fire behind her. It looked cozy in there. "Will you come in?"

  "No." He held out his hand. "Here."

  She took what he offered, a fifty-dollar bill.

  "I didn't forget," he said, shoving his hands back into his pockets for warmth.

  She set the bill on the little table by the door, then came outside, pulling the door shut behind her. She wrapped her arms around herself to keep warmer and huddled with her back against the door. "I didn't care about the bet." She looked away, as if collecting herself, and then she faced him again. "The money never mattered, Jack."

  "It isn't the money."

  He watched her eyes fill. They glittered like sapphires in the fading light of day. "I guess I know that." She bit the inside of her lip. He could see she was willing the tears back.

  "Olivia, I…" He didn't quite know how to continue.

  "What? Say it. What?"

  He took in a breath, which came out as mist when he spoke. "I know this is for the best."

  She looked down at her shoes. "Oh, great. That's great to hear. I'll get a lot of comfort from that—and so will you."

  He ached for her, so much that he forgot himself for a moment. He pulled his hand from his pocket and reached out. "Olivia—"

  She batted his hand away. "No."

  He stepped back, shoved his hands in his pockets again, looked down at the porch boards, over at the rain dripping from the eaves. Anywhere. Anywhere at all but at her stricken face.

  He tried to think of the right thing to say. But all that came out was, "In a few months, you'll forget all about me."

  She let out a tight little sound. He made himself look at her. Her eyes were still glittering, but with anger now, not tears.

  "You're a fool, Jack Roper. A cross-eyed tomcat has more sense than you. A scrawny old alley cat knows enough to take his chance when it comes to him."

  "I'm not Buzz, Olivia." He spoke quietly, feeling proud of how reasonable he sounded. "Buzz is a cat."

  "Right." She looked away again. "Right. Sure." And then her eyes were pinning him. "You're not a cat. You're a man. And that gives you an excuse to let what happened to you when you were just a boy ruin your chances of ever finding love."

  He felt his whole body stiffen, as something like panic stabbed through his outer calm. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Oh, yes you do." She glared at him. She was shivering from the cold. "You know. You know very well."

  "Look—"

  "No, you look. I love you. With all my heart. And I honestly believe that you love me. But I've done all I can to get you to see what we could have together. There's nothing more I can do without your meeting me halfway. I only hope you wise up and change your mind about this before I get tired of waiting for you."

  "Olivia—"

  "Goodbye, Jack."

  She turned, pushed open the door and went back inside, closing it firmly in his face.

  There was nothing more to do. Jack knew it. He returned to his room to gather up his few belongings.

  The phone rang just as he finished packing.

  Olivia, he thought, despising himself for the way his heart was suddenly racing and his chest felt tight.

  He reached over and picked up the receiver on the second ring. "Roper here."

  "So, you're leavin' town, eh?"

  Jack knew the voice. Oggie Jones. Dread curled like a small, cold snake in his stomach, though why that should be, Jack swore he didn't know.

  "Hey. You there?"

  Jack made himself speak. "I'm here. And yeah, I'm leaving town."

  "Then listen. The Hole in the Wall's closed today. But Eden's got the boys running in and out all the time, polishing bottles and checking stock. By midnight, though, the place'll be completely deserted. Meet me there then. Go in the back way. I'll leave it open for you."

  "Look, there's no reason for—"

  The old man grunted. "You're outta time, boy. You put me off until the end. And this is it. You ain't gettin' away from me without hea
rin' the things I intend to say. Midnight. Be there."

  "Listen, old man—"

  But Oggie had already hung up.

  Jack hung up his end, swearing to himself that he wasn't putting off leaving, not for anybody, and especially not for some crazy old coot like Oggie Jones.

  "Damned old fool," he muttered to himself.

  Buzz, from a nest of covers he'd made on one side of the bed, lifted his head and blinked at Jack.

  Jack saw the cat staring at him.

  "We're leaving. Now," he said.

  Buzz yawned. The animal looked way too knowing for a cat whose eyes didn't even focus right.

  "I'm not meeting that crazy old man. That's all there is to it."

  Buzz said nothing, only continued to regard his master with that irritating cockeyed stare.

  * * *

  Chapter 16

  « ^ »

  By midnight the rain had stopped.

  The back door to the Hole in the Wall was unlatched, just as the old man had promised.

  Jack went in and tugged the door shut behind him. He found himself in a dim hallway, which was lit with one meager fixture halfway down toward the main part of the tavern. Jack started walking.

  When the hall opened up into the main room and he was a few feet from the bar, he could see the light coming through the curtains to the back room. He went through the curtains and there was Oggie, in the same chair he'd been sitting in that first day, when Jack came looking for Brendan Jones. The old man was reading the local newspaper. The smoke from his cigar curled up toward the hooded fixture over his head.

  Oggie looked over the top of the paper. Jack met his eyes.

  Slowly Oggie folded the paper and dropped it beside his chair. Then, his cigar in the corner of his mouth, he put his hands over his belly and stared at Jack long and hard. Jack stared back, thinking that the old rogue looked a thousand years old, his eyes red and watery, smoke swirling around him, the light from above casting every wrinkle on his face into road map relief.

  Jack waited what seemed like forever for Oggie Jones to speak. When Oggie remained silent, Jack prompted coldly, "Okay, I'm here. Whatever it is, say it now."

  Oggie coughed, then puffed on his cigar some more. At last he suggested, "Have a seat."

  "I'll stand. Talk."

  Oggie fiddled with his suspenders. He studied the glass ashtray on the green felt cloth that covered the table. Finally he said, "I got a story to tell you."

  "A story about what?"

  "About a cardsharp named Oggie Jones." Oggie reached out and idly spun the ashtray. "And about the cardsharp's lady, Alana Dukes."

  The sound of his mother's maiden name on the old man's lips hit Jack like a freezing wind. He wanted to turn and run back out the way he had come.

  But he didn't. What point was there in that now? He'd heard just enough that he wasn't going to be able to hide from the truth anymore. He might as well hear the rest.

  "You sure you won't sit down?" The rough voice actually held a note of concern.

  Jack decided maybe the suggestion was a good one, after all. He yanked out a seat and dropped into it. "All right. I'm listening."

  Oggie moved in his chair, settling in, getting as comfortable as his old bones would allow him to be. He crossed his legs, then uncrossed them, grimacing a little with the effort.

  Jack waited, uncomplaining. He was feeling a little numb, suddenly. A little sick. And whether the old man told the story fast or slow didn't matter much, anyway.

  Oggie sat back with a long exhalation of breath. "I met Alana in Saint Louis at a little place called the Red Garter. It was after the second great war. The country was prospering."

  The old man scratched the side of his face, his black eyes narrowing. "It wasn't love. Back then, I didn't believe there was such a thing as love. But it was close to love. As close as a drifter like me had ever come to it, anyway. We respected each other, Alana and me. And we suited each other, too."

  The old man tipped his head and stared at the ceiling, pensively rubbing his chin, as if he saw the face of Alana Dukes up there in the shadows and smoke. "Ah, she was a beauty, white-blond hair and big green eyes. Kept the suckers goin', she did, smilin' and flirtin', while I raked in the winnings. We were a hell of a team." Oggie shook his head, bent forward with a grunt and stubbed out his cigar in the ashtray. Then he was looking straight ahead again, though his eyes were still decades away.

  "We lasted five years together, Alana and me. We prospered like this great land. A pair of entrepreneurs, that's how we thought of ourselves, doin' well off the extra cash in other people's pockets. Movin' West, we were. Carryin' our nest egg in one of Alana's nylon stockings.

  "But then we hit Bakersfield." The old man took a minute for the ritual of lighting a fresh cigar, spitting the end on the floor and putting the match to it, puffing until it glowed red.

  "And?" It was Jack's voice, though it sounded so ragged he hardly recognized it as his own.

  Oggie examined the red coal at the end of his new cigar. "And Alana fell in love with another man. It happened overnight. One night she was sleepin' with me, like always. And the next night she was gone. She'd met him because she loved apricots, she told me. She'd stopped at this little roadside stand—his roadside stand, it turned out, to buy some apricots. And there he was. A farmer. John Roper. A real upstandin' guy, John Roper was. He claimed he was willin' to forgive Alana's checkered past as long as she married him and put her wild life behind her for good." Oggie cleared his throat. "She came to me and told me she was leavin'."

  "What did you do?"

  "What the hell could I do? It was her life. I wished her well. We split the nest egg. Then I went out and got good and drunk and gambled my half of our savings away in one night." The gnarled hand tapped the cigar on the edge of the ashtray. Jack watched the cinders drop. "I was sulkin', see? But hell. I could see she'd found her man. I'd thought we had it good together, but after seeing the look in her eyes when she talked about Roper, I realized I didn't have a clue what good was. And eventually I had to admit to myself that things had been fadin' between the two of us for a while anyway."

  "And then?"

  Oggie's shrug said it all.

  "You left."

  "You bet. I went on my way, with nothin' in my pockets and no prospects to speak of. I came here, to North Magdalene. And I met Bathsheba." At the mention of the strange, biblical name, the old man's face changed. It seemed to glow from within. "We married within a month of our meeting, and had a son within the year."

  "Jared."

  "Yeah." The old man's eyes were on Jack. They burned right through him. "I thought," Oggie said quietly, "that Jared was my firstborn. But now—"

  It was enough. Jack's chest felt so tight he could hardly draw breath. "Look. I get the point."

  "Do you?"

  "Yeah."

  Gently Oggie said, "I didn't know you existed, son."

  Jack looked away, then made himself look into those wise eyes once more. "I understand. And it doesn't matter."

  "That ain't true."

  "Yes, it is. You didn't know about me. It wasn't your fault. It just happened."

  "Naw, it didn't. Didn't your mother ever—"

  Jack cut him off. "Look. It was like you said. She loved John Roper. She wanted to believe I was his. She swore I was his."

  "But you weren't. And John Roper knew it, too, didn't he?"

  "I think so. I don't know. And what's the point in speculating? I'm a grown man now. This is ancient history."

  "No, son. You live it now. You live it every day of your life."

  "No."

  "Yes." Oggie waved a hand. His eyes were like broken shards of black glass. He went on, his sandpaper voice growing urgent. "It is important. It's made you what you are today. When John Roper realized you weren't his blood son, he turned away from you. He was your dad, and he turned away. That's what happened, ain't it? He turned away from you and your mama. And your mama blamed yo
u, didn't she? Your mama never loved you right, either, because she couldn't forgive you for being born and losing her the man she loved. You grew up belonging nowhere, claimed by no one."

  "Stop." Jack squeezed the word out past the knot in his throat. He sucked in air. "I already said it doesn't matter."

  The old man was relentless. "Yeah, it does. A man needs to know his people—and his place. Or else he wanders. He lives outside the circle of life. He can't give himself to anything. A place. A woman. The raising of a child."

  "No."

  Oggie went on as if Jack hadn't spoken. "But now, I'm here to tell you I know you're mine. And I do claim you, son. Hell, I woulda claimed you way back then if I'da known."

  It was too much. Jack stood, shoving his chair away so violently that it hit the curtain and fell on its side behind him. "I said stop this." He leaned across the table. "Let it be, you crazy old fool."

  "No." Oggie looked up at Jack, unflinching. His rheumy gaze was so intense it raised the short hairs on the back of Jack's neck. He calmly explained, "A Jones don't never stop. And I'm a Jones. Just like you're a Jones, no matter what damn name you go by."

  "No."

  "Yeah." Oggie pushed himself painfully to his feet, his knotted knuckles white on the green tablecloth. "You're mine." He craned toward Jack so that not more than a foot of charged air separated the two of them. "I knew you were mine the minute I set my eyes on you that day you came lookin' for that lost woman of yours. Mine, Jack Roper. One of my kids. As much a part of me as Jared or Patrick, Delilah or Brendan."

  Jack hit the table with his fist and spoke through teeth so tightly clenched that they ached. "I don't even know you, old man."

  "You will, if you just let yourself."

  "No."

  "Yes."

  Jack swore, a short, dark oath. He turned. And then, kicking aside the chair that lay across his path, he shoved through the curtain and got the hell out of there.

  "Run if you want!" The old man called after him. "But you'll never get away. A man is what he is, and he never finds peace until he looks in the mirror and understands what he sees. Son! Son, you listen to me!"