The Hunting Wind: An Alex McKnight Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

in the eye that day, it wasn’t doing much for my mood. I was good behind the plate, I was
great
with the pitchers, especially the headcases like Randy, and I had a decent throw to second base. But I never batted over .240, mainly because I struck out swinging too much. It didn’t take long for the pitchers to find out. If they got two strikes on me, I was dead.
    I guess that says something about me. Two strikes and I’ll try too hard to protect the plate. I’ll swing at anything.
    “Well, okay, then,” Randy said after a long moment. “Here’s your chance to make up for it.”
    “Seriously,” I said. “We gotta talk about this.”
    “Hold that thought,” he said. “I gotta hit the little boys’ room before we go.” He spun off the bar stool and started singing.
“L’amour, l’amour, oui,
ya da da . . .”
    “Where’s Jackie?” I said. “I need more ice.”
    “How does it go?” Randy said, and then he started singing it again.
“L’amour, l’amour, oui, son
ah something . . . What’s the next line?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “It’s Romeo’s song,” he said. “From the opera, in French. It’s beautiful.”
    “I don’t know the words, Randy. Especially not in French.”
    “L’amour, l’amour
. . .
Oui, son ardeur
. . . Is that it?”
    “I don’t know, Randy.”
    “You try to think of it while I’m in the bathroom, Alex.”
    When he disappeared into the bathroom, Jackie finally came over with the new bag of ice.
    “What am I gonna do with him?” I said.
    “What do you mean?” Jackie said.
    “I mean, what am I gonna do? He really wants to find this girl he met in 1971. How crazy is that?”
    “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s a moot point. You know you’re gonna help him.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Because you have to,” he said. “You spend your whole life up here sitting in your cabin all by yourself. You don’t even have a television, for God’s sake. You’re so desperate for human contact, you gotta come in here every day and make
my
life miserable. If a new face comes through that door and asks you for help, you’re gonna do it, no matter what. I’ve seen it before, remember? In fact, you know what? One of these days, an alien spaceship is gonna land out there in the parking lot, and a couple of little green men are gonna come in here and ask you to help them. You know, take you back to their planet so you can help them ward off some other aliens who are trying to invade them or something. And of course you’ll just get your ass kicked again, but it doesn’t matter. Because
you’ll go.
In two minutes, you’ll be out that door and on that spaceship.”
    I just looked at him for a while, with the new bag of ice pressed against my eye. “That’s quite a story, Jackie. Little green men, eh?”
    “Yep. Right in that parking lot.”
    “And they’ll come ask
me
for help. They’ll speak English and everything.”
    “By the time they get here, yes. That’s why they haven’t landed yet. They’re still studying you. They’ve already picked you out as the biggest sap on the planet Earth. Now they have to learn everything about you before they come get you. Hell, I bet they’ll even have a case of Canadian beer in the spaceship waiting for you.”
    Randy came back out of the bathroom, still trying to sing his song. “What do you say, Alex. Are you ready to go?”
    “Randy, you better take him quick,” Jackie said. “While he’s still available.”
    As he walked away laughing, I threw the bag of ice at the back of his head.
     
    I followed Randy to the airport so he could turn in his rental car, and then he hopped in my truck for the ride over to Leon’s house.
    He was quiet for a few minutes, looking out the window at the passing trees. “There’s not a whole lot up there, is there,” he finally said.
    “Besides trees?” I said. “No, there isn’t.”
    “It’s kinda nice,” he said. “Big change from L.A.”
    “I