Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (154 page)

HERE’S THE DEAL: I’M going to die.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking: We’re all gonna die one day. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. This isn’t about the great, cosmic, circle-of-life, Elton John soundtrack kind of spiel. What I’m trying to tell you is that it’s very possible, if not highly likely, that I can die right in the middle of making this sentence.

No lie.

No fabrication.

No drama for drama’s sake.

The truth: There’s a little piece of .22 caliber hollow point bullet lodged snug up against my cerebral cortex. If it should suddenly shift for any one of a thousand good reasons (the least of which being that it simply wants to), it can render me instantly paralyzed, comatose, and ultimately dead.

I’m not the type of guy a life insurance salesman likes to call first thing on a Monday morning. I’m not the kind of discerning shopper who can buy now, pay later at zero percent interest. A banker would laugh at the prospect of extending me a thirty-year mortgage much less a thirty-day note. You just can’t bank on the fact that at the end of the day, Richard “Dick” Moonlight, Captain Head Case, is still gonna be around to pay up.

I live my life according to the death that shadows me so closely I can feel its cold darkness like a constant icy breeze blowing against my spine. Death might be a pale rider, but it’s also a constant companion. We’ve grown to know one another so well that we’ve become friends, almost. Me, the living Dick Moonlight, and the very soon-to-be dead Dick Moonlight. We’re one big happy family. We should trade recipes.

Living with death has taught me something. It’s taught me that when I am finally gone, I want to leave something for my ten-year-old son, Bear. I want to leave a record of my life so he will know his real dad. We don’t get to see one another all the time since he lives in California with his mom, my ex-wife Lynn. But that doesn’t mean we are ever far from one another’s thoughts. And maybe Bear believes I will always be around for him. But I know that the opposite is far more likely. He will never know the real me should that bullet happen to change position and my world suddenly goes black—the skin, flesh and blood, all too cold.

But there’s some good news in all of this. A silver lining as it were: The uncertainty over my longevity, or lack thereof, recently brought me to one solid conclusion: I want to make a record of my life. All forty-eight years of it. And not one of those sappy home-spun videos like they dramatize in all those
Lifetime
-channel-cancer-victim movies. You know, the one where the former A-list-now-turned-B-list actor gets liver cancer just in time for his kid’s third birthday, and since he won’t live to see the fourth, he decides to make a series of advice videos the kid can enjoy for years and years long after the old man is dead. That’s not for me, and my bushy-haired kid would probably be freaked out at the idea of having his dead dad in his face all the time.

Instead I want to write my memoirs.

But I’m not writer, right?

Truth revealed, I not only possess an English Lit degree, I had every intention of becoming a novelist upon graduation. But somehow life got in the way and I became a cop. Money, love, marriage, the birth of a child, and eventually, divorce, all had something to do with putting off the dream for more than twenty years. But now that I’m not a cop and only a part-time private dick, there’s really no excuse for not putting pen to paper. Which is how I came to write
Moonlight Falls
. The first book about my fall from grace at the Albany Police Department and from my marriage to Lynn. It also details my love affair with the lovely Scarlett Montana, the wife of my former department boss, and an illegal body parts harvesting operation we all got mixed up in along with a highly lethal crew of Russian mobsters. It’s not a happy memoir or a feel-good-boy-gets-the-girl at the end, thriller. It’s more like a train wreck, watch-the-girl-walk-out-on-me-yet-again life story. But it’s an honest story nonetheless.

There’s more to the book than I’m letting on about right now, but far be it from me to be a spoiler. And for all I know, the perfect Iron Lady lit agent herself, Suzanne Bonchance, might hate it. If that happens I’ll pretty much forget about being a published author. But I’ll still continue to write the memoirs for as long as I live, be it one hour, one more day, or ten more years. And they will be meant for one set of eyes, and one set of eyes only. Those deep brown eyes that belong to my son, Bear.

#

Driving.

In the direction of pretty much the only bookstore left alive in Albany since the outbreak of e-Books. The State University
Barnes & Noble
booksellers. Maybe a bookstore is the last place I should start looking for a writer like Walls. Maybe I should simply start searching every bar in the State of New York beginning with gin mills with names that start in an A or, at the very least, the bars that grace the little town of Chatham out in the country. But that would be like searching for a needle in a stack of needles and if Walls was hanging out in a small-town bar he wouldn’t exactly be missing in action would he? It’s been a while since I read anything penned by Roger Walls. I figure if I’m going to try and find him, maybe it’d be a good idea to at least grab his most current book of fiction or maybe poetry and get inside his head a little.

As advertised, the chain bookstore is located not far down the road from the main entrance to the Albany State campus. To my surprise, the lot is packed. But I manage to squeeze Dad’s pride-and-joy black funeral hearse in between a brand new pickup truck and a beater from another era that most likely belongs to a high school or college student. It always makes me nervous having to sandwich Dad’s ride in between two other vehicles. I know the dangers of door dings and fender benders. Doesn’t matter that he’s long dead, in every physical sense of the word. That Dad is looking down upon me, keeping tabs on how I maintain his ride, there is no doubt. That he still distrusts me, there is also no doubt.

Who says books are dead? The
Barnes & Noble
is bustling with activity when I enter into its cavernous spaces. There’re lots of people browsing the half dozen tables strategically set up in front of the doors as you walk in. The tables that carry the brand new thirty-dollar hard-cover releases by the same five or six mystery authors the
New York Times
has at the top of their lists perpetually. While a dozen or so people are staring down at the books, no one seems to be buying them. Why buy a thirty-dollar hard-cover when you can get it for pocket change on your e-reader?

I head into the depths of the store until I come to the tall bookcase that houses the poetry section. I head all the way to the W’s when I spot a young woman standing up against the far wall, a book gripped in her left hand, her eyes glued to its pages.

“Pardon me,” I say, trying to get a look at the title that has her so engrossed. When it turns out to be a Roger Walls book, I know it’s my lucky day. I decide to beam some Moonlight charm. “Roger Walls, huh? I’m a big fan too.”

She raises up her head, tosses me a smile that’s filled with perfect white teeth surrounded by a healthy tan face, deep-set brown eyes, and a forehead too young and optimistic to be marred with wrinkles, all stunningly veiled in thick, light brown hair parted delicately on the left side.

“How nice for you?” she whispers, as if we’re in a library.

“I’ve read all his novels,” I say. “But not his poetry.”

She nods, lowers her book so that its spine brushes up against the portion of bare thigh that’s exposed between the hem of her cotton skirt and her black leather, knee-high boots.

“I’m an MFA student at Albany State,” she explains, shifting the thick strap on her canvass shoulder bag.

“How nice for you too. What discipline?”

“Writing. In this case, poetry.”

“Lots of jobs out there for poets these days. You should do well.” Moonlight the Witty.

She shoots me this wide-eyed look like I’m crazy. But nice crazy.

“I’m not concerned with getting a job. I’m going to be a writer. A poet and a novelist.”

“How stupid of me. I was groomed for the funeral business a long, long time ago. Which is why I became a cop.”

“You’re a cop?”

“Used to be. Now I’m a private detective, and I’m also trying my hand at some writing too.”

She nods, pursing thick red lips.

“I imagine that by the time one gets to be your age, one must have lots of stories one wants to tell.”

“With age comes wisdom. But I’m not that old, nor wise.”

She flashes me a
Pearl Drops
toothpaste grin. “You remind me of my dad.”

“Your dad’s cool and hot, huh?”

She laughs, slaps her young thigh with that book.

“I don’t know you, Mister.”

I hold out my hand. “My dad raised me better than that. Moonlight is the name. Life and death is the game.”

She reaches out tentatively with her free hand, takes hold of mine, gives it a weak shake.

“Erica Beckett,” she says, her tan face now beaming red with embarrassment. “That’s Beckett like Samuel Beckett. He’s a distant relative.”

“Nice meeting you Erica the poet who’s related to Samuel Beckett. How the hell can you miss with a name and history like that?”

“That’s what I say, Mr. Moonlight.”

“So, back to my original question: Why the interest in Roger Walls?”

She steals back her hand.

“My prof is a big Walls nut. Claims to be best friends with him actually. I’m not sure I believe him. Walls is, like, super famous. And my prof is just … well, my prof.”

“He’s not a writer?”

“Well, he is a writer. He’s even published. But he’s not famous like Roger Walls and let’s face it, writers who teach are writers who don’t make money or they wouldn’t be teaching.” Another roll of those big brown, reflective pools. “God, sometimes I think he’s in love with Roger. Or wants to be him anyway.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Another wide-eyed look that screams: “Huh?”

“I mean, if you were a guy. A guy poet. Like your Uncle Samuel.”

She laughs again, brushing back her smooth hair with her free hand. Not nervously but confidently.

“Oh, I get you now. Yeah, sure, I guess. It would be fun to be rich and famous just for making shit up. And be able to travel all the time, and party like a wild animal.”

“Don’t forget all that sex.”

“Oh, yes,” she bellows. I can practically smell the excitement and hormones just oozing off her twenty-something body. “The sex must rock.”

“What’s you prof’s name?”

“Um … Oatczuk… And no I’m not making that up.”

“Oatczuk. Well, coincidence of coincidences, my client wants me to talk with him. Thinks he might have an idea of Roger’s whereabouts.”

“Well, isn’t this your lucky day. I’m his secretary as a part of my work-study program. I’m the one who spoke with Suzanne Bonchance just a little while ago.”

“SmAlbany,” I say. “Three degrees of separation. Not six.”

“Isn’t that the truth. Serendipity is easier around these parts.”

We stand silent for a moment while I quickly browse a few of the Walls’s poetry titles.
Sex and Slander
…
Cock and Bull
…
Pink
… . I grab a copy of
Pink,
open up to the title page, observe the copyright date. It’s this year. Maybe Walls hasn’t been writing novels lately, but that doesn’t mean he’s been resting on his literary laurels. ‘Course, even I know that nobody makes money from poetry. I arbitrarily flip the pages to one of the poems located in the middle of the volume. It’s called “Solitary Confinement.”

Both hands bloody from the brutal work of murder

A blade with a jagged edge

A fully erect cock

A man stands all alone in the desert

Man severs his testicles

Bloody separation

Beautiful freedom

Quintessential Roger Walls. Angry, violent, take no prisoners. Not exactly bedtime reading for the kids either.

Closing the book, I turn it over and gaze down at an author photo that I can only assume is recent. Walls, with a full head of wavy salt and pepper hair and a thick beard to match. He’s looking directly into the camera with the dark eyes of a hungry wildebeest, and the scowl painted on his face doesn’t make it look like he’s politely inviting you to check out his poetry, but fucking daring you. Dressed in a black t-shirt under his usual ratty safari jacket I can practically smell the cigarette smoke oozing out his nostrils, the whiskey on his breath, and the pussy on his fingers.

And then a light bulb flashes on over my head. I reach into my pocket, pull out a business card.

“Erica, will you be seeing your professor anytime soon? The one who’s good buddies with Walls?”

She takes the card in her hand, glances down at it for a few moments.

“Never met a real private eye before,” she says. “Only seen one on TV. And in books.”

“You don’t lower yourself to reading detective novels, do you Erica Beckett, candidate for an MFA in writing?”

She looks over one shoulder and then the other, as if we’re surrounded by her fellow students and profs and not just books.

“Can you keep a secret, Mr. Moonlight?”

“Is the pope Polish?”

“I absolutely love mysteries. I gobble them up. I’m going to write one someday. Along with my poetry.”

A second light going off.

“I just finished my first, myself. It’s based on one of my first cases. It’s called
Moonlight Falls
. I have an agent interested.” Okay, I’m stretching it a bit. “But I’d love it if you ever wanted to take a look and give me your opinion.”

She smiles, genuinely.

“Sure. You have another one of those cards?”

I hand her one. She pulls a pen from her bag and writes down her email, hands it back to me. I glance at it and pocket it.

“Just email it to me. I’m happy to take a break from all this academic bullshit.”

“Happy to help a future
Amazon
bestseller. Say, do you think you can arrange a little come-to-Jesus between me and Oat … um … whatever his last name is?”