I like her. This one’s got some spunk.
The Hunter easily blocked the older woman’s swing and followed up with a solid punch to her soft stomach. With a violent exhalation, she crumpled to the floor.
The Hunter dragged the woman to a fold-up metal chair and set her down roughly, as she coughed and hacked, trying to get her breath back.
While she tried to compose herself, he pulled up a chair and sat down directly across from her.
The smell of herbs and wildflowers, stockpiled at the back of her store, flooded his senses.
He didn’t say anything at first—just stared at her. The psychic was trying to refocus her eyes, when he grabbed her chin and lifted her head so they were face to face.
“Tell me where I can find him, and I won’t do anything else to you. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, it’s going to be a very long day for you.”
To his surprise, she pulled her face away but maintained eye contact. When she spoke, her voice was low and tense, but he could tell that she wasn’t as afraid as she should have been.
“You’re not going to let me live, no matter what I tell you. I’ve known for a while that the end of my days would be coming soon. I’m prepared.”
The Hunter sneered. It didn’t take a psychic to know that she wasn’t going to make it out of this alive.
The woman coughed again, then grinned.
“I know something else, too.”
“What’s that old lady?”
One side of her mouth curled in a knowing grin.
“I know that you don’t have much time left in this life either.”
She laughed until she started coughing again. The woman was brave at least. Or stupid.
“You’re supposed to be psychic, right? What do you see when you look in my eyes?”
“Oh, that’s easy, Mr. Hunter.”
He paused for a moment, surprised that she knew the name he went by.
“That’s right,” she said. “I know who you are, although I’d heard you were already dead. What do I see when I look at you? I see a scared child. Makes me almost feel sorry for you. Children shouldn’t be blamed for the sins of their father. Then again, you have plenty of your own that belong to no one but you.”
He slapped her hard, and she spit blood on the floor.
“Tell me where Walker is.”
She coughed some more and tried to inhale, but her attempts sounded more like wheezing than anything else. Still, she lifted her gaze and looked directly into his eyes again.
“I don’t know where he is. Wouldn’t tell you if I did, but for what it’s worth, I don’t know. Now get on with it and send me on my way. That’s the least you can do for ruining my day.”
Well, shit. She’s telling the truth, boy. She don’t know a damn thing about where he is.
The Hunter slapped the woman one more time, then stood up and made his way to the front door. He locked the door, unplugged the neon sign, and turned the door placard around so it read, Closed for Now. Be Back Whenever.
He walked back to the woman and pulled out his knife. He didn’t like the old lady, but he had built up at least a little bit of respect for her. He moved in and hugged her close to him.
He felt her face close to his, but he couldn’t smell or taste any tears, and he noted that he’d rarely seen such resolve in someone about to die.
He felt her lips close to his ear.
“There’s something else I see when I look at your eyes,” she whispered. “There’s something else in there with you. Something…evil. As bad as you are, you’d be a lot better off without it. So would the rest of us.”
Still holding her close, he shoved the knife into her, up under her ribs, and straight into her heart. It was a clean kill, and when he felt her full weight fall on him, he let her sink to the floor.
He watched as her life poured out of her. Her last words to him made sense, but he didn’t need a psychic to tell him that his father was an evil son of a bitch.
I heard that boy.
“Good,” the Hunter said, “I hope you did.”
Chapter 6
AFTER ANOTHER eight hours on the road, Trent and Zana had settled nicely into the routine of taking turns driving, and alternating between silence and extended conversations.
Despite how much he loved Nirvana’s music, even he was tired of the same twelve songs after the fourth time through the CD. Instead, they relieved their boredom every half hour or so with loud scream-alongs to whatever the local radio station was dishing out.
Hours after darkness had fallen, they finally arrived in Great Falls, Montana, and located a roadside motel that was shabby enough to be affordable but well kept enough to not be too dangerous.
Trent pulled into the parking lot and noticed a small but packed bar on the other side of the road.
Zana shivered when they got out of the car.
“It’s colder than I thought it would be already.”
He looked at his breath condensing in the air in front of him.
His black suit was made of fairly heavy material, but he was feeling warmer than he should have for some reason, as if his metabolism was revved up and he was generating internal heat.
Trent pulled Zana toward him and gave her a long hug.
“Thought you were tough,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot colder where we’re going, especially with winter on the way.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Once it starts to get really cold, I’ll put that ski jacket on that you bought me at the thrift store before we left Vegas.”
Trent released her with a long kiss, then they both stretched and made their way to the front office to check in.
“That being said…after you find your answers, can we go someplace warm? Please?”
Trent laughed as he held the door open for her, and she stepped into the motel office.
“Nothing would make me happier,” he said as he followed her inside and let the door close behind him.
The front desk manager greeted them with a grin. He was a good old boy with a camouflaged baseball hat pulled down low on his head. He looked like he had been raised outdoors all his life and seemed strangely out of place behind a motel front desk.
“What can I do for you folks?” he said.
Zana slid in, under Trent’s left arm, while Trent cleared his throat.
“We’d just like a room for the night. Hope you still have something open.”
The man laughed.
“I got plenty of rooms still open. This place never fills up. Most people passing through just stay in town. I’m only working here to make some extra money so I can go up and hunt some bucks across the border.”
Trent just nodded and smiled. He didn’t have anything against hunting when it was for food, but given recent events, he wasn’t in the mood to get into a conversation about killing animals.
“Credit card okay?” Trent said.
“Sure, man. What country do you think this is?” the desk manager said with a laugh.
Trent waited while the man swiped his card.
“I just gotta do this in case you decide to bolt in the middle of the night. You know, for security’s sake.”
Trent smiled and turned his head to look out the window.
“How’s the bar over there? Are tourists welcome?”
The man looked up to the right, like he was thinking about how to answer. Most people would have deduced that he was lying, but Trent relied on people’s hands more than their eyes to detect falsehoods. Liars usually gave themselves away with unwitting hand gestures, nervous ticks, or tapping.
“It’s not so bad over there, but if you walk in dressed the way you are right now, you might call a little bit of extra attention to yourself. Unless you’re out hunting, that ain’t usually such a good thing around these parts, if you know what I mean.”
The man’s hands were rock solid. He was telling the truth.
“Thanks for the advice,” Trent said as h
e took the room key and walked out of the office with Zana.
After they unloaded the car for the night, he sat on the little chair in front of the room’s little pressboard desk, looking at Zana, who was sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Feel like getting a drink?” he said.
She rolled her eyes and started leaning to the side, like she was about to fall into the mattress.
“Wouldn’t you rather just wash up and meet me under the covers? We could tell each other bedtime stories until we pass out.”
Trent chuckled.
“That sounds perfect. But I could also use a drink. Haven’t had one in days, and besides, you know how good I am at making friends. Join me for a few, then we’ll come back here and get some rest and maybe a little bit more.”
She looked at him and raised her eyebrows.
“You gonna wear your suit?”
He furrowed his eyebrows.
“Have you ever seen me not wear my suit? Besides, I haven’t done any close up sleight of hand in a long time, and I could use the practice.”
“You can’t take a break, can you?”
Trent looked at her, but didn’t say anything. He was who he was, and Zana knew it. Luckily, he knew her well enough already to know that she was only being playful.
“I’ll go with you if you promise not to make too many new friends, okay?”
Trent smirked.
“Promise.”
Fifteen minutes later, they walked across the street, made their way to the bar, and were ordering drinks. The place was dense with smoke, and the floor smelled of stale beer and liquor.
The bartender was a large man who looked like he could just as easily have been a bouncer.
“What can I get you two?”
“The lady will have—”
Zana leaned over so she could be heard above the jukebox blaring country music and the noise of the small but boisterous crowd.
“Make it two shots of Jäger.”
The bartender nodded, almost in approval as he poured the two shots, and Trent set up a tab.
Trent had traveled with a few women in his life, but Zana was proving to be the easiest he’d ever been with. He caught himself smiling at her and let it settle into a comfortable grin.
After downing the first shot, he signaled for another and pulled out a deck of cards from a hidden compartment in the sleeve of his jacket.
The bartender eyed the cards disapprovingly as Trent almost imperceptibly scanned the bar area near the cash register. In a split second, he saw three pencils and a single pad of white paper; a fake hand grenade with the number 1 hanging from its pin; a baseball hat with a graphic of a grizzly bear from the University of Montana; a wide-mouthed bottle filled with a collection of bottle caps; and two photographs—one of the bartender and a very attractive woman at a football game, and the other, a photo of the bartender and one of his buddies. In the photograph with his buddy, there was a large banner behind them that read, Welcome Home Matty.
The bartender cleared his throat.
“No gambling allowed in here, mister.”
Trent smiled at the large man and noticed how he effortlessly puffed out his chest to assert his physical dominance.
“I’m a mentalist, Matt. Nothing I do is a gamble.”
The bartender squinted his eyes and stared at Trent.
“Do I know you?”
Trent shook his head.
“Someone tell you my name?”
Zana gently grabbed Trent’s arm, most likely concerned that he was trying to start something instead of simply having a good time.
Trent leaned toward the bar, then looked to his left and his right before speaking.
“I’ll tell you how I knew, if you buy the next round.”
At least the bartender seemed more interested than annoyed at this point, which was an improvement. Other people sitting at the bar and a few standing behind Trent started to pay attention as well.
Matt poured two more shots. Zana sipped hers, while Trent downed his second of the night.
“The spirits told me,” he said.
Matt glared at him, and the bar went quiet.
Trent glared right back.
They held each other’s gazes for a full thirty seconds before Trent broke down laughing.
“I’m just fucking with you, Matt. The guy working the front desk at the motel over there told me your name.”
The bar busted out laughing, and Matt started bellowing as well.
“You’re a pretty funny guy,” he said. “Hope you enjoyed those free shots, cause you ain’t getting any more from me tonight.”
Trent pointed to the deck of cards that sat on the bar.
“Call out the name of a card. Any card.”
“Jack of Spades,” the bartender said, with a smirk.
Trent picked up the deck and shuffled it, letting his hands shake just a little, pretending to be a little nervous. When he went to cut them, he accidentally spilled them out across the bar.
He turned to a young man next to him with a buzz cut and another baseball hat.
“I’m a little clumsy tonight,” he said to the man. “Would you mind putting those back together into a deck?”
The man looked doubtful, but he scooped the cards up, squared the deck off, and set it down on top of the bar.
“Which card did you say again?” Trent asked the bartender.
“Jack of Spades,” Matt said.
If I flip over that top card, and it’s the Jack of Spades, how about you slip my girlfriend and me just one more set of free shots?
“And if it ain’t?”
“Fifty percent tip on our tab tonight.”
The bartender laughed and flipped over the top card of the deck to reveal the Jack of Spades.
A few people clapped and slapped Trent on his back, while the bartender shook his head and poured two more shots.
“Pretty good. No more free drinks, no matter what, but what other tricks can you do?”
“I can throw a playing card so hard that it breaks an empty liquor bottle.”
The bartender scowled.
“First off—bullshit. And secondly, you ain’t breaking shit in my bar. The sound of shattering glass is bad for business. What else you got?”
Trent smiled.
“Have you ever seen someone bend a spoon with his mind before?”
Chapter 7
THERE WERE MORE laughs and several cheers from the crowd that had started to gather around Trent.
He held up his hand to ask for everyone’s patience. Then he downed his fourth shot of Jäger for the night. Trent was an experienced drinker, but the herbal booze wasn’t hitting him as hard as it should have been for some reason. Even so, he decided to slow things down, since many of the predatory men were looking at Zana like she would make a good next meal and at Trent like he wouldn’t be much of a threat if he kept drinking at his current rate.
As he pulled Zana a little closer to him, he produced one of the prepared spoons that he always carried with him.
He made a show of trying to bend it unsuccessfully, then handed it to the big bartender.
“Give it a feel, Matt. Make sure it’s a real spoon. Nothing weird about it.”
Trent saw the man’s arm’s flex, and he spoke up quickly. He had seen this before with muscular men and was prepared for it.
“Don’t push too hard on it, big guy. I want to know if it’s a regular spoon—not if you’re strong enough to break a utensil with your biceps.”
More laughter from the crowd. The bartender cracked a smile before handing it back to Trent.
“Feels real enough to me.”
Trent held the spoon loosely between his thumb and index finger and started moving his wrist back and forth so that the spoon appeared to bend like a noodle.
A short, but beefy man with a trimmed beard and a balding head bumped him on his left shoulder.
“Hey, man. Why don’t you try that shit with me. I think you an
d Matty are in this together.”
The bartender leaned across the bar, towering over the short man.
“I just met this fella tonight for the first time, Bob. Now why don’t you sit back and relax, and don’t go starting anything.”
Trent turned to his left, producing a dramatic look of confusion on his face as he peered left and right above the short man’s head. Then he suddenly looked down at the man and raised both his eyebrows in surprise.
“There you are!”
The crowd erupted in laughter, but Bob did not look amused.
Nonetheless, Trent stared directly into Bob’s eyes. He had come up against much worse than the short bully standing in front of him, and after all he’d recently been through, he couldn’t even pretend to be afraid.
Trent turned away from the red-faced man and addressed Matt once again.
“Keep looking at me, and whenever you feel like it, I want you to say the word, now.”
A split second after Trent finished his sentence, the man said, now, and the spoon immediately sagged as if its head was taking a relaxed bow.
More clapping and laughter from everyone except the short, angry man. Sensing the man’s anger, Trent turned to him and held the spoon in front of his face.
“If you buy me a drink, I’ll show you how to straighten this back out again, little boy.”
There was even more laughter as the bulldog of a man’s face turned almost purple.
The problem with guys like the one who was about to hit him was that they always seemed to think people were laughing at them, when in reality they were just having a good time.
Trent palmed the spoon into his sleeve just as Bob threw a solid punch into his abdomen.
Luckily, even the most basic fascination with mentalism involved studying Mr. Harry Houdini, himself. Harry was a master at so many things, but one of the tricks he was most famous for was his ability to take a punch in the gut from anyone, as long as he was prepared for it, of course.
Trent had known the burly man was going to take a swing at him a good fifteen seconds before he actually did, so he tensed his abdomen muscles and pushed them out so that they formed what he liked to call a Buddha belly. In reality, he was just creating a muscular sheath with some air between it and his internal organs.
The Whittier Trilogy Page 34