She bit her lip and looked away and then noticed the soot on her hand from the porch and realized she’d marked his forehead with it. She rubbed her fingers together, then dragged on the cigarette.
“Leave Jay alone. He’s in real rough shape.”
Harry nodded. “Then tell him to stay away from me.”
She took a deep breath. “This all has to stop. It’s time to be…practical. We have to talk.”
“We’re talking right now.”
She shook her head. “Someplace away from here.”
HUNTER’S MOON / 221
“About what?”
“A divorce settlement.”
“That’s for lawyers,” said Harry.
“We could meet for dinner…I know a place on sixty-one.”
“I’ll think about it,” said Harry.
“You do that. Think real hard.” She walked down the steps and got in her car. Completely exhausted by their conversation, Harry watched her drive away. His hand was up next to his temple where she’d touched him and came away faintly smudged with soot.
She called an hour later.
“The restaurant’s called the Shore Wind, just north of Gooseberry Falls. I can meet you there at eight,” she said.
“I’ll be there.”
“I’ll be alone,” she said.
“So will I.”
He spent the afternoon watching the day turn cold as bone, so damn cold that only Eskimo and Indian curses had the grit to do it justice.
He made a pot of very strong, very black, coffee.
Bud called at 6 P.M. while Harry was cleaning the rifle. Radio Free Ojibway was back on the radio, dropping out of a hole in the sky.
“What’s that in the background?” asked Bud.
“Drums.”
Bud’s voice sounded hollow over the long-distance connection.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t be there. You got me worried.”
“Look, Bud. I was having some trouble. But I’m all right now.”
“I said that very thing this morning in my group. They suggested that I stick around.”
“I saw Jesse. She wants to talk. Tonight. About a divorce settlement.”
222 / CHUCK LOGAN
“Be careful,” Bud said quickly. “Whatever you do, don’t get sucked in to trying to get her approval.”
“Anything you want me to say? Know about?”
Harry listened to Bud’s rapid breathing. “Talk to her,” Bud said tightly. “Find out what she wants.”
37
He arrived early and walked along the beach behind the restaurant and the cold gnawed down and Lake Superior clicked in the dark like a pane of glass.
Jesse arrived punctually. Her face was porcelain, bare of makeup, and she could have just emerged from an icy shower of grief. Or calculation. Wordless, he helped her off with her coat.
She wore a severe ivory silk blouse with a high buttoned neck and a long dark skirt and her hair plunged down in strict black lines against the tendons of her throat.
His suit wouldn’t do, so he’d put on one of Bud’s sweaters that he’d found in the bedroom closet. His dress shirt and tie. And his scabs. Her eyes sparked when she recognized the sweater.
The manager took her hand and expressed his condolences about Chris. They spoke intimately and Jesse noticed a few changes he’d made in the decor as he ushered them to a table by the windows overlooking the shore.
“They know you here,” said Harry.
“I did some work for them once.”
A small bar situated along one wall. “Tending bar?” he asked.
“I worked on their books.”
“So you’re not a bartender?”
“I’m good with numbers. Taxes, things like that.”
“Bud leaves things out.”
“Definitely.” Her eyes hardened. “Bud likes me in jeans and a lumberjack shirt. When I was a kid my dad taught me to HUNTER’S MOON / 223
flip flapjacks in a frying pan. Bud saw me do it once and decided that’s who I was.”
“Was he right?”
“I took tap-dancing lessons when I was a kid, too. Doesn’t make me a chorus girl.” She ordered a vodka martini. He had black coffee.
“So how do we begin, you and I?” she asked frankly, holding the martini glass in both hands.
“We already…began,” said Harry. She raised her eyebrows. “I think you tried to kill my friend for money. That you used your own kid to do it.”
“Prove it,” she said straight back.
“Never happen in Maston County.” Harry inhaled and said the rest of it. “I’m also obviously attracted to you.”
“Prove that, too,” she said.
Harry spread his hands on the linen tablecloth in what he meant to be a slow stable gesture. His fingers blundered into a water glass and nearly tipped it over.
She studied him. “Don’t get hung up on appearances. You have this knack for walking into the middle of things. You should try to catch some beginnings.” Her voice chiseled, matching her eyes. “One thing Bud knows about is appearances. He creates people and assigns them roles. He made you into the best buddy. First he gave you a lot in common, then he got you to owe him…”
She lit a Marlboro and leaned forward.
“He gets things on people to hold over them. Then he tosses in a curve and enjoys watching you scramble. And you can’t shake him.
He—” she searched for a word—“adapts. It scares me what he could do if he got into politics.”
Harry had not expected this kind of conversation. He couldn’t tell if she was testing him for weaknesses or for strengths.
“He knew,” she said.
“Knew what?”
“That we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. What we had wasn’t even ours. We’re stuck. Like two butterflies on a 224 / CHUCK LOGAN
pin.” She blew a nervous stream of smoke. “The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was marrying him.”
Harry raised an eyebrow and she jerked her lips in a nonsmile.
“And your biggest mistake was coming up here. But I did and you did and…” Her voice trailed off.
Harry took the button from his pocket and placed it on the table.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Came off my pants, that morning in the woods. Larry Emery found it.”
“He would.” She pursed her lips and turned her head and her breasts rose and fell under the silk. When she looked back, the precise finish vanished from her eyes. They clouded, rapture in one, everlasting damnation in the other.
“You’re trying
