Not six degrees of separation. Just three.
Speaking of the biological father: He’s tall, and bears eyebrows so thick and long they curl up at the end, making him look a lot like a cartoon devil. After thirty years I picture the eyebrows having turned gray and perhaps having even grown out all the more.
The point is, if Harvey Rose still exists, he will not be hard to spot. Unless he trims his brows regularly.
And since the business address of one Harvey Rose exists in the Google business listings, there’s nothing preventing me from driving over to his office and knocking on the door. Problem is, Peter Czech has already told me that if finding his old man was as easy as going online, he wouldn’t have needed me in the first place.
Am I to assume then that the Rose I’ve just discovered at work on State Street is not Czech’s father? Maybe. But it still won’t hurt to check out the office. Pays to be thorough. Or maybe Czech’s gut instinct is all wrong and Rose is, in fact, the dead guy listed in the Albany County Hall of Records.
All things considered, Czech’s father-finding project should not be all that difficult if all I have to do is some digging around. I’ll eventually find the man if he’s alive. And I’ll find him if he’s dead. Problem is, I’ve got three Obama-masked men dressed in black who’ve threatened to kill me if I keep on looking for Czech’s biological father. Now they not only want to kill me, but they want the contents of some box Czech apparently brought to my bedside in the Albany Medical Center—a transaction he denies, and of which I have no recollection.
Go figure.
To make matters worse, my longtime girlfriend Lola is begging me not to take Czech’s job, like she too knows something I don’t.
Have I truly seen her with another man standing beside my deathbed only two days ago? If I believe Georgie, then what I witnessed could very well be an elaborate dream. But I’m not so sure it’s a dream. Lola is acting way too strange, too secretive. Like she’s indeed conducting an affair behind my back.
There’s something else gnawing at my brain, too. Maybe I have no grounds on which to base my assumption. Or maybe I’m just plain crazy, a head-case with a small piece of .22 caliber bullet inside his brain. But my built-in shit detector is sounding off again and I somehow can’t help but believe that Lola and Peter Czech know one another. And if that’s the case, then the Lola I’ve known all this time isn’t the woman she appears to be. It also means that Czech isn’t the helpless handicapped client I’ve perceived him to be, either.
It all adds up to mean that I’m being duped and have died once already in the process.
Chapter 16
My big bro shows up at my place at eight-thirty.
Time enough for us to down a couple more pain-killing beers while we discuss his little research project regarding contract births. We sit at my kitchen counter while Georgie tells me that since back in late ’70s, women—especially, “liberated” women—have been entering into contracts to carry and deliver perfectly healthy babies for couples who, for one reason or another, cannot have one. Maybe they’re infertile, too old, or too gay.
Whatever the case, the “surrogate parents,” as they came to be called, enter into a legally binding contract with the “host mother,” as she’s called, which dictates that immediately upon birth, custody of the child will revert to the surrogates. The child, it is understood, will never see his or her biological mother again. Nor will there be contact.
That sad fact alone might explain the one known photograph that exists of baby Czech along with his new Russian parents, his biological father, but not his biological mother.
“The common problem which arises down the road,” Georgie adds, “is that lots of biological mothers can’t resist the temptation…hell, the biological need…to try to get their kids back. Or at least make contact with them. Same goes for the kids wanting to see their real parents, which could be the case with your client. That is, if you’re looking for a motivation here, which I assume you are.”
“I suppose. You can’t deny hundreds of thousands of years of human genetic makeup,” I suggest. “It’s just not a natural act for a woman to willingly give up a baby she carried for nine months inside her own womb. Her own flesh and blood.”
I pull out the strange photo of baby Peter Czech, his adoptive parents, and his biological father. There’s no joy in the eyes of the new parents, and nothing but a kind of grim satisfaction in the biological dad’s expression. That’s when it hits me: “Unless the biological mother was forced into giving up her child against her will.”
“I don’t follow,” Georgie says.
“Unless someone didn’t want her having the child,” I say. “Like her husband perhaps. An angry husband or boyfriend.”
“Maybe angry because the child wasn’t his to begin with,” Georgie says, our minds working the angle together now.
I nod, pull the black and white photo close, like maybe staring at it some more will offer more clues.
“Could be that what we’re witnessing inside this photo, Georgie, is a man who really isn’t Peter’s father at all, but some guy who’s so pissed off at his wife for cheating on him, he enters into a contract with a Russian couple to raise her illegitimate child.”
“Cold,” Georgie says. “And entirely fucked up.”
“Très cold,” I agree, getting up from the counter to fetch one last cold beer.
“Richard!” Georgie barks while I’m pulling the can from the fridge.
I turn fast. Georgie only calls me Richard when he’s about to come down on me for something.
“What’s with the damn drinking?”
“I’m in pain,” I tell him. “Real. Physical. Pain.” But he sees right through my fib.
“From your war wounds? Or from something else?”
Lola and Some Young Guy embracing over my dead body.
I turn back to the fridge, open it, slide the beer back inside.
“Let’s just fucking go.”
Chapter 17
Of course, all these assumptions are just that: assumptions.
I’ve still been hired to find old Devil Brows, no matter what the circumstances are behind Czech’s adoption, and that’s what I’m going to do.
Why am I such a nosey busybody?
Why am I always looking for answers to questions that don’t really matter?
Because I want to know what and who I am dealing with. Which means parking myself outside Czech’s home for a few hours.
Moonlight the thorough.
Inside the bedroom area of the loft, I find my 9mm hanging on the bedpost by its leather shoulder holster. I strap it on outside my black turtleneck. In the drawer I find my Swiss Army knife and stuff that into the right-hand pocket of my black Levis. After I step into some lace-up combat boots, I slip on my leather jacket, button it up. For a final touch, a black wool watch cap from the Army/Navy. All I need now is a thin mustache and I’ll be David Niven in The Guns of Navarone.
Out in the hallway, Georgie and I take a quick glance at one another. We’re both dressed entirely in black denim and leather. This is hardly our first stakeout and by now we know the drill.
Besides, we both look good in black.
We don’t head immediately to Czech’s house.
At my insistence, we make a detour first via downtown Albany. State Street, to be precise. The uphill city street that Teddy Roosevelt climbed every day to the State Capital building back in the old days when the pot-bellied, mustached Rough Rider was the governor of New York State and dying of cabin fever.
Georgie drives the van slowly, the flashers going so that the crappy drivers glued to our ass end know enough to pull around us. Meanwhile we search for the number forty-five planted on one of the glass and metal entries to the old brick high-rises.
I spot forty-five, tell him to stop.
He pulls over, double parks beside a white van that has the words “Capital Cleaning Crew” printed o
n the side-panels.
“Be right back,” I say, getting out. “Cop comes, just drive around the block.”
I approach the entrance to 45 State Street. Even though it’s after business hours, the door is open. To my immediate left inside the wide-open, marble-finished vestibule is a building directory. I pull the small piece of scrap paper from my pocket, look at it.
Harvey Rose, CPA
45 State St.
Suite 12B
Albany, New York
“X marks the fucking spot,” I whisper to myself, while a two-man cleaning crew goes to work buffing the floors with big, electric-powered buffers. The Capital Cleaning Crew no doubt.
I stare up at the board, hoping the cleaning crew won’t expect the worst from a grown man dressed all in black sneaking inside a commercial building after business hours. First, I look for a name. Rose. When the name doesn’t appear, I look for the suite number. 12B. The suite number is there. But no Rose. Instead it says Dental Office.
Being a clever, tenacious, and recently-mortally-wounded private detective, I decide to make an on-the-spot investigation.
When the cleaning crew isn’t looking, I slip into the stairwell, make my way up one flight of stairs. Then I exit the stairwell and find the elevators. I take it to the twelfth floor. I make my way down a dimly lit, carpeted hall, until I come to suite 12B. The name on the door doesn’t resemble Rose’s one bit. In fact, it isn’t even an accounting firm. Like the directory indicates, the door says, Dr. Thomas Doolittle, Dentist.
Dr. Doolittle. I wonder if he works only on animals, seeing as only he can speak to them.
After a quick but exhaustive check of every office on the floor, I take the elevator back down to the first floor. When the doors open, an agitated man in a business suit holding a brown leather attaché case gets on. As I get off, I about-face.
“Excuse me, sir,” I say. “Do you work in this building?”
His eyes blink rapidly. The doors start to close, and he has no choice but to hold them open. I take a step forward, place my booted foot in front of the left door, just in case he has trouble holding it.
“Yes,” he says.
“How many years?”
He exhales. He wants to go upstairs in the worst way. He looks down at my foot in the door, up at me. “About a dozen, why? Can I help you with something?”
“I’m looking for Harvey Rose, CPA. I have a card says he works here on the twelfth floor.”
He shakes his head, purses his lips. “That agency hasn’t been around for at least five years,” he explains. “That it? I answer your question?”
Just then a young, red-headed woman enters the building, makes her way to the elevator. She’s startled to see the man holding the door open. “Brian,” she exhales, nervously, as she steps inside.
She’s dressed in a short skirt, white blouse unbuttoned enough to show some cleavage. Her jacket matches her skirt. She’s got a diamond-mounted silver band wrapped around her wedding finger. Expensive.
“Audrey,” he mumbles. “Nice to…see you.” Brian’s face turns red, like his friend’s hair. He tries to put on a good act, but he isn’t much of a faker. When I step back, I notice that Brian wears a wedding band himself. Gold. Inexpensive.
“Burning the midnight oil, Brian?” I say. I just can’t resist. Moonlight the ball-buster.
The elevator doors close before he can respond. Just as well.
As I make for the exit past the busy-at-work Capital Cleaning Crew, I’m reminded of Some Young Guy, of Lola, of my ex-wife.
I’m also reminded of how much I hate cheaters.
Chapter 18
I slip back into the van.
Georgie peers at me with those deep blue eyes. “I’m guessing we’ve reached a crucial plot-point in the mystery. Let me guess: no Rose.”
“The address is old. I’m surprised it’s listed on Google at all.”
“Maybe someone wants it on Google. You gotta feed that search engine bitch before it will tag something. And Rose’s address has apparently been tagged, even if it is a phony. I mean, I can’t be sure, Moon, but that’s the way it appears to me.”
“The only thing for certain is the pain in my side and the constant ringing in my skull.”
“Poor baby.”
“When you gonna stop picking on me?”
He throws the tranny into drive. “On the last day of never,” he says.
“Drive,” I say.
“Yes sir, sir,” he says.
Chapter 19
About a half hour later, Georgie and I are parked across the street and down a ways from Czech’s Orchard Grove crib. The place is a featureless, just-add-water, single-story ranch. It looks identical to the thousand-plus others that surround it in a quiet neighborhood that appears to have sprung up immediately after World War II. That sleepiness means it won’t be long before someone calls the cops on Georgie’s F5 Ford extended van. Which makes it all the more important that I try to catch sight of Czech sooner rather than later, see if there’s anything about him that appears to be different from the young man he portrays himself to be.
Thus far however, it doesn’t look like he’s home.
We wait another hour, with the occasional car passing us, the driver almost always slowing up to get a good look at the two men dressed in black and parked on the side of the road opposite Czech’s. For all I know, the Neighborhood Watch Committee is already on to us.
“Time to take a drive-around, Georgie,” I suggest, after a time.
“Sure about that?” He sips on coffee kept warm in his thermos.
“It’s either that or have the APD pull up on our asses.”
I recall Detective Clyne’s business card still stuffed inside my pants pocket. Should I call him, alert him to what we’re up to? Better not to open that Pandora’s box.
Georgie slips the coffee into one of the console cup holders, turns over the engine. “I hear you, Moon,” he says. “Just a quick drive around the block. Break things up.”
It’s exactly what we do.
When we get back, Czech’s house is still draped in blackness. Some of the other surrounding homes have also gone black. It’s after ten o’clock at night. I can’t be sure if people go to sleep before the eleven o’clock news in this neighborhood, or if they’re all getting a good look at us through their living room picture windows.
Flashlight.
A circle of blinding white light.
“Oh crap.” Georgie, barking under his breath.
“Be cool. And pull that rubber-band out of your hair.”
Shooting me a look.
“Just do it, G.”
He does it.
“Come close,” I insist.
“Moon—”
“Georgie, we are not going to be reported to the cops.”
He scooches closer. That’s when I grab him by the shoulders, pull him into me, run my hands through his long, shoulder-length hair, and lay a big fat kiss on him. No tongue, of course.
A tap on the driver’s side window behind Georgie.
“What the fuck!” Georgie pulls back. I think he’s going to spit in my face.
“Don’t turn around, or this is shot.”
Another rap on the glass, the flashlight lighting up the cab. I reach out around Georgie, roll down the window.
“Excuse me,” a balding middle-aged man says. “But this is a private neighborhood and we strongly discourage people from using it for illicit purposes.”
I work up my best Moonlight smile. “You mean like making out?”
“Whatever,” the man says.
“Listen, buddy, I completely understand. I live in a suburb myself across the river in Troy. But my girlfriend here is upset. She’s here visiting her parents, and we were just grabbing a minute to talk in peace. So just give us a few minutes and we’ll be on our merry way.”
The man shines the light on Georgie’s long gray hair.
“Her parents must be pretty old. What are their names? I’m sure I must know them.”
My smile dissolves. “Here’s an idea, pal. Maybe dispense with hurtful remarks, OK? My girlfriend happens to be prematurely gray, and I happen to think it’s beautiful.”
He pulls the light away. “I’m sorry,” he offers. “I didn’t mean any disrespect. And it is lovely. Who did you say her parents are?”
“I didn’t.”
“Miss?” the man pushes. “Would you mind telling me who your parents are so I can alert our friendly Neighborhood Watch Committee?”
Georgie straightens up but keeps his back to the man. “Please just leave us alone!” he screams in a voice that sounds like I’ve just grabbed hold of his nuts. Then he buries his face in his hands.
“Now look what you’ve done!” I snap.
The man backs away, rattled. “Listen,” he says, “my bad. Take the time you need. Sorry if I bothered—”
“We’ll be gone in a few minutes,” I say, then reach back around Georgie to crank the window closed.
Middle-Aged Man walks away, fading back into the night.
Georgie shoots back over to the other side of the van.
“Kiss me again,” he hisses, “and you die for real.”
Chapter 20
Night drags on.
As convincing as our boyfriend-upset-girlfriend act might have been, the time is closing in on midnight. I know it won’t be long until the real cops arrive. But then two halogen headlights break through the darkness. They belong to a four-door sedan that passes us by and pulls into Czech’s driveway.
Moonlight Rises Page 7