The Hunting Wind: An Alex McKnight Mystery by Steve Hamilton Read Free Book Online

name of the librarian I spoke to at the Burton Historical Collection. She said she’d try to think of some other ways we can trace Maria. Give her myregards when you see her. And buy her some flowers or something.”
    “You got it,” Randy said. “Man, you really know what you’re doing, Leon. I’m impressed.”
    “All part of the job,” Leon said. “Just make sure you guys call me every day, let me know what’s going on.”
    Randy pulled out a roll of bills. “Let me give you some money for what you’ve done so far,” he said.
    “You don’t have to do that now,” Leon said.
    “I insist. You’ve already been working on this. You shouldn’t have to wait. A couple hundred? Five hundred?” He started ripping off twenties and throwing them on the bed.
    “Stop, already!” Leon said. But I knew he had earned that money. I wasn’t going to stop Randy from greasing him.
    “How about you, Alex?” Randy said.
    “I haven’t done anything,” I said. “And if I go down there and help you, I’m going to do it for the hell of it, you understand? You’re not paying me any money. If you were paying me, that would mean I’d have to take orders from you.”
    “I’m a great man to work for,” he said. “Just ask my ex-wife.”
    I was saved by Leon’s two kids in the doorway. Leon Junior and Melissa, nine and eight years old, respectively. They stood there looking at Randy with big eyes, until finally Leon Junior said, “Were you really a major-league baseball player?”
    “Sure was, kids,” he said. “Come on in.” A half hour later, we were all eating pizza around Leon’s bed. Eleanor and the kids, Leon in the middle, spillingpizza sauce on himself, all listening to Randy tell his story again.
    And me, not quite listening, wondering what the hell I was doing there, why I would be going down-state the next morning to help Randy find this woman, driving down like the northern wind, “the hunting wind,” as the Ojibwa call it, hunting for the lost love of his life.
    Jackie was right. I am the biggest sap on the planet.
     
    It was dark by the time we left. If Randy was cold, he didn’t show it. He was humming to himself all the way out to the truck.
    “You guys really have casinos up here?” he said. “Real casinos?”
    “The Indians do,” I said. “The Sault tribe has the Kewadin here in town, and the Bay Mills tribe has a couple out on the reservation.”
    “What do you say we stop in for a little bit?”
    “We’ve got to get up early tomorrow,” I said.
    “Come on, Alex. I’m feeling homesick here. I love driving across the desert to Vegas. I do it all the time.”
    “These casinos are nothing like Vegas,” I said.
    “One bet,” he said. “One bet for luck.”
    One bet, my ass. Two hours later, he was still ruling the crowd at the craps table. I gave up and went over to the bar for a drink. The bar they’ve got in the Kewadin looks as long as a football field. It’s supposedly one of the longest in the country. To go with the long runway at our airport, I guess.
    I sat there and nursed a scotch and water that was heavy on the water, wishing that the bar had a televisionso I could see if the Tigers were losing again. Three games into the season and they already had the look of also-rans.
    But no. No televisions in there. Nothing to remind you that there was an outside world and it was almost midnight. Just table games and slot machines, and a lot more people than you’d expect on a cold April night.
    Another hour passed. The crowd around Randy’s table got bigger. I could hear them all the way over at the bar.
    When he finally came over to me, he had a sheepish look on his face. I had a sudden flashback of seeing that look before. After all these years, even with the mustache and goatee he was sporting now, the look was the same. When he would shake off a sign and challenge a batter, if the batter ended up taking him out of the ballpark, I’d throw a new ball out to him while the