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

the tarot cards, and another was a skeleton in a black robe—you know, with the big blade thing he carries around to harvest souls. Anyway, Madame Valeska was sitting in the back room, with a crystal ball, I swear to God, and she read our fortunes one by one. All five of us. I was the last guy. By the time I got into see her, I was already in love. This girl, in the lobby, sitting at a little table. She had black hair. And these eyes that just . . . God, I know what this sounds like, Alex. I don’t know how to make this sound any different. But when she looked at me, it was like everything just stopped. I couldn’t even breathe. I finally asked her what her name was. She said it was Maria. And that’s it. That’s how I met her.”
    We both sat there for a long moment. The wind picked up and whistled through the deck. The cold air was making my eye hurt.
    “So what did Madame Valeska say?” I said. “What was your fortune?”
    He laughed. “I wasn’t listening too well. Although I do remember, she said some things that were pretty amazing. She knew that I was about to have the biggest test of my life.”
    “You were there with a bunch of other young baseball players,” I said. “Of course she’s going to say that.”
    “No, there was more than that. She seemed to know stuff about how I was trying to prove to my father that I could be successful doing my own thing instead of going into business with him.”
    “A son trying to impress his father. Another amazing revelation.”
    “All right, Alex. I hear ya. It’s not like I really believed in that stuff. It’s certainly not why I went back the next day.”
    “Let me guess.”
    “I left Maria a little note. Just like a high school kid. I was only twenty, remember. She was nineteen.”
    “How many times did you see her?”
    “Every day for ten days. Until I got shelled and then . . . um, sort of left the human race for a while.”
    “You had your fortune told every day for ten days?”
    “No, just a few times,” he said. “Madame Valeska would have killed me if she’d know about Maria. And her father. And God, her older brother. His name was Leopold. He saw us walking together downtown once,and he just about strangled me right there. Maria had to go over and talk to him, calm him down. She must have made him promise not to tell their parents. We always had to sneak around, you know, meet in different places. I saw her every day, even if it was only for a few minutes before a ball game.”
    “Did you have sex with her?”
    “Alex, come on.”
    “Did you?”
    “It was 1971. Everybody was having sex back then.”
    “I’ll take that as a yes.”
    “Yes,” he said. “We had sex. Although really it was only the one time. A couple other times, we sort of just—”
    “All right,” I said. “I don’t need the details. Let’s go.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “To Leon’s house,” I said as I stood up. “He’s waiting for us, isn’t he?”
    “Does that mean you’re going to help me?”
    “How can I not?” I said. “It’s such a heartwarming story.”
    “I told ya,” he said. “I know it doesn’t sound good.”
    I led the way down the stairs. “Did you say that Leon has already been working on this for you?”
    “Yeah,” he said as he caught up to me. “Actually, I had already tried a couple of those person-locator services, but all I had was an address from 1971. I don’t even know her birthday. Leon’s been looking at some stuff, says we’ll probably have to do some leg-work in Detroit. And in his condition . . .”
    “What condition?”
    “You know, from his accident. Are you telling me he’s your partner and you don’t even know about his accident?”
    “No,” I said.
    “He fell off his roof. He was trying to get the ice out of his gutters or something. I tell ya, you guys are crazy living up here.”
    “Yeah, we’re crazy,” I said. “Come on, let’s go see what he did to himself. And see if he’s got