BURNING MOON
A Wil Hardesty Novel
Richard Barre
Copyright © 2003 by Richard Barre
First eBook Edition June 2012
All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover design by JT Lindroos
Cover photo by Ibrahim Iujaz
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Burning Moon
Acknowledgments
Other Titles from Down & Out Books
Preview from Wiley’s Lament by Lono Waiwaiole
Preview from Road Gig by Trey R. Barker
Preview from Czechmate: The Spy Who Played Jazz by Bill Moody
For Sonny (Son Van Nguyen)
Who came far to make it home
Again
It seems we meet
In the spaces
In between
—Glen Phillips
PROLOGUE
San Miguel Island, Months Earlier
Until the squall rolled over them like something out of a disaster flick, things aboard Harmony had been more or less confined to the fight. The same one that had started almost from the time they’d left the harbor: Wen’s mother, her habit of calling about a hundred times a day, then dropping by unexpectedly—so that whenever he came home, SHE was there. Which meant, of course, no lam tinh, even what little it had come down to these days.
Then there was Wen’s rag on Jimmy’s old man, Vinh. Attempting—according to Wen—to intimidate his future daughter-in-law into naming the baby when it came after Vinh’s first wife, Giang, the dead one from Vietnam. Not even Jimmy’s mother, as Wen put it.
Next issue was Jimmy’s insistence that shaving their newborn’s head was a useless, archaic tradition. Custom or no custom, nobody was going to do that to his kid; this was America. Which really went over big with mama-san, who spoke about four words of English, generally when she needed something and nobody else was around who chattered in Vietnamese.
Then there was Jimmy’s Uncle Luc.
His name, of course, sent it spinning off into the usual flaming row. Which was the way the whole thing seemed lately, Wen not missing a beat with her comeback—regular tennis match with razor blades imbedded in the balls.
That is, until the wind shut them both up with its own screaming.
Now Wen’s eyes were pullet eggs, face the pallor of her knuckles holding tight against the boat’s pitch as wave after wave slammed the hull. Jolts that fanned through vertebrae and muscle and bone like current spikes, Jimmy trying to anticipate them as he would a composite-court opponent, bend but don’t break, thinking definitely not a place you’d choose even in the best of weather, let alone this. Wind-lashed rain forcing them to shout now just to be heard.
“I SAID THIS IS NOTHING. I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING.”
Forget the mainland, Jimmy added to himself, not even lights showing, twenty-five-mile visibility down to zip in no time. Extreme but, well, bonding, too, their own little world: pumps and diesel engine humming, the interior lights glowing red and orange.
They’d be fine.
Harmony had been through worse.
He felt her eyes on him, the heat in them finally gone. As he had before all the tension between them, he winked at her and saw her expression shift, the beginnings of a smile. Trust replacing fear, at least wanting to.
What the hell, they’d ride it out.
Because that’s what you did.
In that instant the wheelhouse was bathed in white, Wen raising a hand to it, a choked-off “Oh-my-God.” And the sound: even through the wind, there was no mistaking the engines.
Everything around them seemed alien now, bled of color. The searchlight’s brilliance striking the rain and spray gave it the appearance of a beast raging to get at them.
“Jiiiimmmy…”
“I SEE it.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. If you’d—”
A wave roller-coastered them, Wen screaming with the lurch, grabbing at him, and for a moment they lost the beam. Then it found them, but from a forward angle, as if the more powerful craft were herding them, cutting off escape.
Jimmy was conscious of his sweat and, for a moment, contemplated a run, even as he knew it was suicide. At least by not running they stood a chance.
“WHO ARE THEY? WHAT TO THEY WANT?”
“They want to talk, Wen—to me. All right?”
Not that it was Wen he was angry at, not by now. It was himself, the risk he’d exposed her to, the child inside her. And like that Jimmy flashed on the ultrasound again, the heartbeat, the doctor’s telling them that it was a girl. All his senses magnified, life forever tuned to a different frequency.
Now this; despite Wen’s insistence on coming along, insisting it was a chance they needed to work things out. Great fucking work, Jimmy thought, only a genius. He wished he could take it back, the stuff with her, with them out there. But of course that was impossible; it was far too late for that.
The beam came from dead ahead now despite his running the boat as hard as he dared, near flank against the surge.
No place to run.
Nowhere to hide.
Jimmy took his hand off the wheel, brushed it against the .357 Rossi in the flap pocket of his anorak, felt the magnum’s heft even as he tried to smile reassuringly. Then he spun the wheel over and headed back toward San Miguel.
1
Santa Barbara Channel, Present
The boat was a drag netter out of Avila, crew of four, on the prowl for anything the nets would bring up. In particular, flounder, rockfish, lingcod, snapper, cabezon—halibut if they were lucky; toilets, pipe, and rusted junk if they weren’t—the weather solid gold even if the hauls so far were thin.
Roy Portis, the trawler’s skipper, took a sip of the New Orleans with chicory he’d brewed, watched the booms dip and strain with the net’s weight, the crew dozing before it got crazy. Out here was the place to be, all right—burnished swells, riffle breeze, basking sun. San Miguel broad off, larger Santa Rosa coming up, Santa Cruz off the starboard bow, their clawed topography standing out against the wall of gray.
Three dolphins rolled off the port beam.
It was a nice life when it paid, a cold bitch when it didn’t, like this year. Still, it beat stuck behind a desk where breeze was meted out by an air conditioner and what you gathered mostly was years. Easy to be philosophical on a day like this, he thought: Even the seagulls looked good—starched white gliders against a blue-glaze sky—those that weren’t folded up and picking their teeth along with the crew.
Portis gave a thought to noting that one in the journal he’d been keeping for his creative writing course, then decided he was just too comfortable to move. Besides, he’d remember—
A shudder, a hesitation…
A noticeable loss of way, even though the engines hadn’t seemed to falter.
He heard the shouts, saw what was happening, jerked back inside to lever it into neutral, then reverse. Until the bow and creak of the booms had eased.
Shit—if he’d been any slower…
“More slack, Skip. Winches are frozen.”
Portis eased off further, tried to picture what was down there. Damn near anything, of course, that came with the dragger’s lot. His luck, too, shaving a corner off the marine sanctuary, those arbitrary dotted lines the Park Service bureaucrats drew around the islands like moats around their castles.
And his options: tear the net trying to wrench loose and there went the haul, the score he needed…disable the booms, there went the season…lose both and kiss the boat good-bye. Already he was in too deep with the bank; might as well radio them to come get her if that went down. One thing was sure: The charts showed nothing to steer clear of, even as he double-checked them.
For a while he maneuvered, circling the spot in search of a release point. Slack, no slack…slack, no slack.
Come on, come on, come on. COME ON.
“I’ll go,” Bobby finally piped up. “Baby needs a new pair of shoes.”
Portis glanced again at the depth finder, squinted out on deck where Cowboy already was zipping him into the wetsuit, strapping on the tank. “Looking at a buck and a quarter, Bob, big rock or reef or something. Go easy down there.”
“Absolutamente.”
“Pry bar and knife?” he shot back. “Dive watch?”
“Guerrero’s got ‘em at the rail.”
“Air?”
Portis knew the answer, he’d checked it after last time, just wanted to see if Bobby had. It was always the basics.
“Relax, Skip, man knows the drill.” Cowboy answering for him.
“Twenty minutes, no chances,” Portis said. “You got that?”
He watched Bobby nod, was going to add that he couldn’t afford another bath and keep everybody on, even himself, but decided against it; at least for now, this was his problem. Then Bobby was settling his mask and stepping overboard, an upward thumb before disappearing in a kick of fins, a roil of bubbles.
It didn’t take long: twelve minutes by Portis’s watch before Bobby was breaking the surface. Tossing his mask and pry bar up to Guerrero and Cowboy, giving a whoop and shouting, “You ain’t gonna believe what we’re hung up on,” before they’d even pulled him back in.
2
Wil whipped the disk as far as he could and watched the dog tear after it, this black and white and caramel blur kicking up sand and, at the precise moment, leaping to snap it out of the air. Three girls about fifteen, T-shirts over their suits, applauded as the dog pranced it back, looking at them like, Average arm, fair hang-time, no wind: What’d you expect?
Light surf retreated; a line of pelicans bent to the Rincon.
On the four-lane between La Conchita and the beach, traffic sped toward Santa Barbara, the thirty-story bluff above it looking harmless in the sun. Belying, of course, the nine houses it had dropped in on a couple of winters before, county-strung tape still in place around the hazards that had once housed friends.
Progress, Wil thought: lawsuits inching through the courts while the lawyers dodged and weaved, the politicians opted out, and property values headed south.
Great work, guys, always the right thing.
By then Matt was standing over the Frisbee and looking up at him.
Wil picked it up, angled one high and inland so that at zenith it would shear off toward the surf. Except Matt had seen that one before. Braking as the Frisbee broke, he put on a burst parallel to the surf line, jumping to save the throw before it kamikazed into a breaker.
“All right, Matty.”
Faint clapping from the girls moving off toward Mussel Shoals, the little pipeline-connected petroleum island with its palm trees and white-rock skirt. Which left the beach pretty much to him and Matt, four-thirty and the families heading home for barbecue and watermelon, maybe a stop at El Mercado where Fiesta vendors already were selling tacos, tamales, and roasted corn. No charge for the aromas that had you chewing your sleeve while waiting to order.
That time of year in Santa Barbara.
Whirling skirts and stamping feet; dark eyes coying behind patterned fans; five- and six-year-olds looking like rainbow come-ons in their adult-applied makeup. Adding to the surreality: blurred nights that began and ended with tequila shooters, holding onto bar rails as the Fiesta revelry seduced like the bright shards in a kaleidoscope. Finding meaning in your tabletop that had eluded you at the start of the evening, and none whatever in the morning after. His ex-specialty.
Just ask Lisa.
Ex-specialty, ex-wife.
“Fine-looking dog…”
Wil turned, caught the man who had come up on them. Lost in reverie, he hadn’t followed Matt’s raised ears and alert-status posture. He did his own scan, saw nothing untoward: nothing you banked on.
“That’s Matt,” Wil said, seeing the dog relax at the sound of his name. “Matty’s Australian. Aren’t you, Matt?”
“Long way from home,” the man said in a familiar accent.
Vietnamese from his appearance as well: prominent cheekbones, narrow chin and wide-spaced features, late forties from eyes that looked as if they’d seen beyond the light. Five-nine and solid in the way a hiker might be rather than a lifter—a leanness that spoke of hard work and long hours.
He wore cargo pants close to the end of the line and a faded blue polo shirt, Island Seafoods over the pocket. Worn Sperry’s without socks, military-style web belt, bifocaled sunglasses he removed to hang on his placket.
Wil got a whiff of fish market.
“Sorry, I meant the breed,” he said. “Australian Shepherd. He’s actually from the Central Valley.”
The man toed off his shoes, poured sand from them, looked as if he were wondering how to address something. “Bakersfield,” he said, finally. “If I’m not incorrect.”
Wil stepped up his Defcon a notch. Figuring more was coming, he waited.
The man said, “Your neighbor said you might be here. The woman with the tomato plants?”
“So far, so good,” Wil answered.
“Sand feels good—something so simple.” And when Wil didn’t respond, “Central Valley relatives. Farmers who read the newspapers.”
Doc Whitney, country music, oil, murder new and old, betrayal, greed, blackmail. A year-plus since Leora Graybill had him come back a final time to take Matt, his pledge to her. The near-parchment hand taking his, piercing eyes momentarily undulled by pain. The feeling that always rose when thinking of his father: their time together in the land’s vastness, Valley smells rushing in through the Buick’s open windows as they raced the dawn.
Wil shook it off.
“I must speak to you,” the man was saying.
Wil waited.
The man said, “It is about my son.”
“He would be Vietnamese, too?”
Nod. “Born there. Does it matter?”
“Not so far.”
They had begun walking, Matt keeping pace, sandpipers playing tag with the waves. On the roadway, a big-rig brapped into a compression brake as a bottleneck developed.
The man said, “You fought in my country. I read it. Sean Wilson Hardesty?”
Wil looked at him. “Are you always this thorough?”
The man squinted at the horizon. “He was my only son. Now he is gone. Does that answer your question?”
“I assume you’re implying that it should.”
“I could hardly overlook the fact of your own loss. The article—”
Wil knew the one, a female journalist he’d opened up to and still kicked himself for. “That was a long time ago, Mr…”
“Tien. Vinh Tien.” Fumbling in his pockets for a card.
Wil raised a hand to it. “Both my son and the war are history, Mr. Tien, and I allow neither as leverage. Now if you’ll—”
“I meant no presumption. Sometimes my English—”
“Your English is fine. But your teachers forgot to tell you not to bullshit a bullshitter. Co
me on, Matt.” As he headed for the access tunnel, Matt glanced at the man as if having picked up on Wil’s tone.
Vinh Tien said evenly, “My son’s boat was sunk from under him. On board were his wife-to-be and unborn child—my granddaughter.” He’d stopped now, feet planted, as though facing down something only he could see. “They were murdered and no one cares. At least you know what happened to your son.”
A pelican tucked itself into dive and hit the water; seconds later it surfaced and took off.
“This has gone badly, for which I apologize,” Vinh Tien said. “I had intended to have you to my home, to dine with my wife and daughter, look at photographs of my Jimmy. In this way to see into his heart.”
A wave overwhelmed the backwash, humped up the beach.
Gulls squabbled over a windfall.
Wil stopped, looked at him. “Jimmy Tien was your son?”
Hope flared; Vinh Tien found the card and held it out, an address and phone number already written in pencil on the back.
Wil took it, scanned the front: thumb smudges, the shirt logo and a Santa Barbara address.
Vinh Tien bent to Matt and said, “You will bring your friend?”
***
From his deck, Wil watched the surf break, gold warming its edges as the sun pooled into the ocean. He stroked Matt’s fur, sipped lapsang souchong—Lisa’s least favorite tea, his stash of that totally uncontested in the divorce. As she used to put it, tar steeping in a honeypot.
So far Matt shared no such compunctions.
But then it was early in the relationship.
“You’re wondering what Vinh Tien was talking about, aren’t you,” Wil said to him.
Traffic streamed toward Ventura-L.A./Santa Barbara-San Luis, some showing headlights. The air felt cool with the onset of night. Heavy with dew.
Wil said, “See, it’s this way: Once upon a time this nice Japanese girl married a surfer without much going for him. They had a son.” Flashing on Waaatch meee, Daaad, the never-ending mantra. “Devin Kyle Hardesty…this great kid.”
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