High Hunt

by Eddings, David

  I picked up Clydine after her last class, and we went on back to my place. She'd told me quite emphatically that morning that she was going to spend every spare minute with me until I left for Seattle. I wasn't really about to argue with her.

  35

  I didn't see Stan until the next weekend. I'm not sure why, but I think I was avoiding him. When I called to make sure he was home, I got the distinct impression that he'd have preferred to keep it that way, but it was too late then.

  He was growing a mustache, and it made his face look dirty. Stan didn't have the kind of face you'd want to put a mustache on. And instead of one of the usual sober-colored, conservative sport shirts I'd always seen him in, he was wearing a loud checkered wool shirt — outdoorsy as all hell, and on him about as phony as a nine-dollar bill.

  "Well, Dan," he said with a nervous joviality, "how the hell have you been?" As if he hadn't seen me in ten years, for God's sake.

  "Fair, Stan. Just fair."

  We went on into his tidy little living room.

  "How's old Cal?"

  "He's coming along. His doctor's got him on a short schedule and cut him off on booze and cigarettes."

  "He gave me a damn bad scare up there, the poor bastard."

  What the hell was all this?

  He fidgeted around a little, and our conversation was pretty sketchy. I wasn't sure what this he-man role he was playing was all about, but I desperately wanted to tell him that it wasn't coming off very well.

  "Oh," he said, "I've been fixing up the den. I wanted you to see it." He led me back to the room he'd identified as the study the last time I'd been there.

  He'd redone the place in early musket ball. The rifle and his shotgun were hanging on the wall where they could collect dust, and there were hunting prints hanging all over the place. I could see copies of Field and Stream and The American Rifleman scattered around with a studied carelessness. The place looked like a goddamn movie set.

  "I'm having that buck's head mounted," he said. "How do you think it would look right there?" He pointed to a place that had obviously been left empty for the trophy.

  "Ought to be OK, Stan," I told him.

  We went back into the living room and I listened to him come on like the reincarnation of Ernest Hemingway for about a half hour or so.

  Then Monica came in and suddenly it all fell into place.

  "Did you pick up the beer like I asked you to?" he said to her, his voice cocked like a gun.

  "Yes, Stan," she said — rather meekly, I thought.

  "Why don't you open a couple for Dan and me?"

  "Of course," she said and went on back out to the kitchen.

  I watched Stan, who had never smoked, light a cigar. I wanted to tell him that he was overplaying it, but I wasn't sure how to go about it.

  I sat around for another half hour or so, listening to him swear and give Monica orders, and then I'd had a gutful of the whole thing. I made an excuse and got away from them.

  I suppose that what made the whole thing so pathetic was the fact that it was all so completely unnecessary. After her little misjudgment with McKlearey, Monica would have been pretty docile even without his big hairy-chested routine. Stan was saddling himself with the necessity of playing a role for the rest of his life. He'd get better at it as time went on. In a few years he might even get to the point where he believed it himself, but I don't think he'd ever really be comfortable with it.

  I picked up Clydine and told her about it as we drove back on across town to my place.

  "What are you going to do about it?"

  "I can't do a damn thing," I said. "I sure as hell can't tell him that McKlearey got to Monica, and that's the only way I could convince him that this act of his isn't the thing that put him in the driver's seat."

  "But if this is so unnatural for him," she objected, "he's really no better off than he was before, is he?"

  "No," I said, "he isn't. He's still in a box — it's just a different box, that's all."

  "But you ought to be able to do something," she said.

  "Hell, Rosebud," I said, "I didn't hire on as God. Last time I tried to walk on water, I got wetter than hell."

  She crossed her arms and glowered straight ahead. "I still think there's something you could do," she said. "It's just awful to think about what they'll have to go through for all the rest of their lives."

  "Well," I said in my best Hemingway manner, "don't mink about it then."

  She didn't catch the allusion, and so she was angry with me for being an insensitive clod. You can't win.

  When we got to my place, she was still steamed, so we sat around listening to records and not talking to each other. She sure could be stubborn when she wanted to be.

  Then Cal called. "Dan," he said, "I just got a call from one of the bartenders on the Avenue, and he said he just saw McKlearey."

  "No shit? I thought he'd blown town."

  "I really don't much give a damn what he does," Cal said, "but I sure as hell want to get that goddamn pistol back from him. I could write it off on the three days' pay I owe him from the car lot, but the paper has got to be straightened out."

  "Yeah," I said, "I see what you mean."

  "Are you busy right now? I tried to get hold of Jack, but he's out delivering a camper trailer."

  "What do you need?" I asked him, glancing at Clydine. She still wasn't looking at me.

  "Somebody's gonna have to run him down — somebody who knows the score. I can't get away until later, and I'm afraid he'll go back in his hole before then."

  "You want me to find him?"

  "Right. Just tell him to come by the shop. I want him to pick up all this shit of his anyway — and tell me what he wants done with his goddamn deer."

  "Which way was he going?"

  "God, I really don't know."

  "I'll just have to hunt him down then, I guess," I said.

  "Thanks a lot, Dan."

  "Sure, Cal."

  I hung up and went back to the dinky little living room.

  "Do you want to play private detective?" I asked her.

  She brooded for a minute or so, probably trying to decide whether it would be more fun to keep sulking or to find out what I was talking about. I couldn't quite make up my mind whether I wanted to give her a good solid spanking or a big kiss right on the end of her little snoot.

  "What do you have in mind?" she finally asked, not really wanting to give up the good pout she had going.

  "We've got to go find McKlearey," I told her.

  "Old Creepy-Jarhead himself?"

  "That's our man," I told her. "He's got a hot gun, and we've gotta get to him before the fuzz do or before he pulls a caper with it. Our client would find that pretty embarrassing." I lit a cigarette and squinted at her through the smoke.

  "Have you been watching television?" She laughed, unable to help it.

  "It's a big case, baby," I said, putting the Bogart accent on even more thickly. "Every shamus in town would give his eyeteeth to get a piece of the action."

  "OK, Knuckles," she said toughly, standing up and hitching up her blue jeans. "Let's go run down the subject. We gonna rub 'im out when we find 'im?"

  "Not unless we have to," I said. "You got your .38 handy?"

  She took a deep breath, cocked one eyebrow at me, and gave me a long stare over her upthrusting frontage. "I've always got my 38 handy," she said.

  "You nut," I laughed. "Let's go."

  We went out to my car and began bar hopping back down the Avenue toward town. Some of the bartenders knew McKlearey and some didn't, so it was pretty hit and miss. I still wasn't sure which way Lou was going, and I couldn't be sure if he was still on the Avenue or if he'd cut on over toward Parkland or what.

  "We'll try the Patio, and then I'll do what I should have done in the first place," I said.

  "What's that, Knucks?" she said.

  "Go back to my place and use the phone and the yellow pages."

  "Clever," she said.
"I can see how you got your rep as the best private nose in the business."

  "Eye, baby. It's private eye — not nose."

  "Whatever," she said and then laughed. I guess she'd gotten over her mad.

  Lou was at the Patio. He was sitting in a booth alone, with a pitcher of beer in front of him. His left arm was in a sling, and his hand had a professional-looking bandage on it.

  "Hey, there, Lou," I said with a heartiness I didn't really feel. "How the hell have you been?"

  He looked up at me, his eyes kind of flat, as always.

  I introduced him to Clydine, and he invited us to join him. He had that gun on him. I didn't see it, but I could almost smell it on him. I wished to hell I hadn't brought my little Bolshevik along.

  "Where in hell have you been, Lou?" I asked him after the bartender brought the pitcher I'd ordered. "Nobody's seen you since the hunt."

  Something happened back behind his flat, empty eyes. Suddenly he was all buddy-buddy, friendly as a pup.

  "Christ, man," he said, "I been in the goddamn hospital." He waved his bandaged hand at me. "I picked up a damn good case of blood poisoning in this thing."

  "No shit?" I said. "I knew it was giving you some trouble, but I never even thought about blood poisoning."

  "Hell," he said, "I had a red streak an inch wide goin' up my arm all the way to the armpit. Man, I was flat outa my head by the time I got to that VA hospital up in Seattle."

  "So that's why you took off so fast," I said, helping him along.

  "Shit, yes, man," he said. "I was about halfway outa my skull even up there — with the fever and all. I knew damn well I was gonna have to get to a doctor in a hurry."

  "Christ, Lou," I said, "you should have said something."

  "I didn't think it was that bad at first."

  Clydine was watching him closely, not saying anything. I think she was trying to fit Lou into all the things I'd told her about him.

  I passed Sloane's message on to him, and he said he'd take care of it.

  "Hell," he said, "as far as that deer goes, you guys can just go ahead and split it up. I don't care that much about venison myself."

  "I suppose we could give it to Carter," I said. "After all, he didn't get to go."

  "Hey, there's a good idea. Why don't you just give it to Carter?"

  "Tell Sloane when you drop by the shop," I told him, nailing down that point again. I wasn't sure how much it was going to take to separate Lou from that gun. "Oh, Cal says to tell you he'll let you have the pistol for what he owes you from the lot, but he's gotta get the paper on it straightened out."

  That seemed to make Lou feel even better. He got positively expansive.

  After about a half hour Clydine had to make a run to the ladies' room.

  "I bet I acted pretty fuckin' funny up there, huh?" Lou said while she was gone.

  "You weren't raving or anything," I said carefully, "but sometimes you didn't make too much sense."

  "It was the fuckin' fever," he said. "You know, from the blood poisoning. I can only remember about half of what went on up there."

  "Hell," I said, "it's lucky you were even able to walk, as sick as you were."

  "Yeah," he agreed. "I was pretty far gone, all right. I bet I said a lotta wild stuff, too, huh?"

  "Most of it was pretty garbled," I said. I was walking right on the edge and about all I had to defend myself with was a ballpoint pen.

  "Guy'll say fuckin' near anything when he's out of his head like that, won't he?"

  "Hell, man," I said, "you were having screaming nightmares, and you were talking to yourself and everything. I'm not kidding, old buddy, we thought you were cracking up."

  He laughed. "I'll bet it scared the piss outa you guys, huh?"

  "Shit! We were waiting for you to start frothing at the mouth and biting trees."

  "Yeah, I was really gone," he said. "Did I ever say anything about the Delta?" He asked it very casually — too casually.

  "Nothing that made any sense," I said. "You said something about how you used to think about snow when you were out there."

  "Yeah," he said, "I remember that — not too well, of course, but I remember it. Did I mention any names while I was out my head?"

  "I think so," I said, "but I didn't really catch them."

  Clydine came back.

  "I'm gonna blow this town," Lou said. "Winter's comin' and the rain bugs me."

  "Yeah," I said, "it can get pretty gloomy around here."

  "And I gotta work outside, too. I can't cut bein' penned up inside. I think I'll cut out for Texas or Florida or someplace. I just came back today to get my gear together."

  "Be nice down South this time of year," I agreed. "Make sure you see Sloane before you go though, huh? He's pretty worried about it."

  "Sure," he said, emptying his glass. "Hey, tell Jack I'm sorry about givin' 'im such a hard time up there, huh? Chances are I won't get a chance to see 'im before I take off."

  "Sure, Lou,"

  "I probably won't ever be comin' back up here again," he said. "That probably ain't gonna hurt some guys' feelin's."

  "Oh," I lied, "you haven't been all that bad, Lou."

  He laughed, the same harsh raspy laugh as always. "Look," he said, "I'm gonna have to take off — if I'm gonna see Sloane and all. Just forget anything I said up there, huh — about the Delta or anything, OK?"

  "What Delta?" I said.

  He grinned at me. "You're OK, Danny — too bad we didn't get to know each other better." He stood up quickly. I could see the bulge of the gun under his jacket. "I gotta run. You take care now, huh?"

  "So long, Lou," I said.

  He waved, winked at Clydine, and started out. Then he stopped and came back, his face flat again.

  "Hey," he said, "I owe you five, don't I?"

  I'd forgotten about it.

  "Here." He pulled out his billfold and fumbled awkwardly in it. He was carrying quite a wad of cash. He dropped a five on the table. "We're all square now, right?"

  "Good enough, Lou," I said.

  He poked a finger at me pistol-fashion by way of farewell, turned, and went out.

  "Wow," Clydine said in a shuddery voice, "I don't want to play cops and robbers anymore."

  "I shouldn't have brought you along," I said.

  "I wouldn't have missed it for the world," she said. "He's a real starker, isn't he?"

  "He's got all the makings," I said, picking up the five-dollar bill. I looked it over carefully.

  "What's the matter?" she said. "You think it may be counterfeit?"

  "Nobody counterfeits fives," I said.

  "What are you looking for then? Blood?"

  "I don't know," I told her. "I think he was pretty close to broke when he came out of the woods, though."

  "Maybe he went to the bank."

  "That's what worries me," I said, still looking at the bill.

  "OK, Knucks," she said, "I told you I didn't want to play cops and robbers anymore. What's on for the afternoon?"

  "Let's go to Seattle."

  "Why?"

  "I'm going to have to go house hunting."

  "Oh," she said. I don't think either of us liked the reminder that I'd be leaving soon.

  36

  On the first of October I moved to Seattle and began the tedious process of getting enrolled for classes and so forth. I'd found a little place the landlord referred to as a cottage but for which the word "shack" might have been more appropriate. Even when compared to the shabby little trailer I'd been living in, the place was tiny. The fold-down couch that made into a bed was perhaps the most uncomfortable thing I've ever slept in, but the place was close enough to the university to compensate for its other drawbacks.

  Even though Clydine and I had both been convinced that my move to Seattle would more or less terminate what some people chose to call our relationship, it didn't work out that way. I kept coming across reasons why I just had to make a quick trip to Tacoma, and I think she made seven shopping
jaunts to Seattle during my first month up there.

  I guess when you get right down to it, I got out of Tacoma just in time to miss the big messy bust-up between Jack and Marg — or maybe Jack just held off until I left town, though that was a kind of delicacy you just didn't expect from my brother.

  About ten o'clock on a drizzly Saturday morning I came down the steps of the library with a whole dreary weekend staring me in the face. The bibliographical study for Introduction to Graduate Studies that I'd assumed would take from twelve to fourteen hours had, in fact, been polished off in just a shade under forty-five minutes. I spent another half hour trying to figure out what I'd done wrong. As far as I could see, the job was complete, so I left the library feeling definitely let down and vaguely cheated somehow.

  I had absolutely nothing to do with myself, so I decided, naturally, to bag on down to Tacoma. At least down there I should be able to find somebody I knew to drink with.

  The highway was dreary, but it didn't really bother me. Without even thinking, I swung on over to Clydine's place. Who the hell was I trying to kid? There was only one reason I'd come down to Tacoma, and it sure wasn't to find somebody to drink with.

  I went up the stairs two at a time and knocked at the door.

  Her folks were there.

  "Danny," she said in surprise when she opened the door, "I thought you had to work this weekend." She was wearing a dress and her hair was done up.

  "I finished up sooner than I thought," I said.

  "Well, come on in," she said. "Meet my folks." She gave me one of those smark-alecky grimaces that conveyed a world of condescension, sophomoric superiority, and juvenile intolerance. It irritated the piss out of me for some reason, and I made a special effort to be polite to them.

  Her father was a little bald-headed guy with a nervous laugh. I think he was in the plumbing supply business, or maybe hardware. Her mother was short and plump and kind of bubbly. I think they liked me because of my haircut. Some of Clydine's friends must have looked pretty shaggy to them.

  I could see my little leftist smoldering in the corner as I talked about fishing with her father and Europe with her mother. I knew that about all I was doing was mildewing the sheets between the little nut and me and breeding a helluva family squabble which would probably start as soon as I left. I told them I had to run across town and see my brother and then left as gracefully as I could.