Blue Moonlight

by Zandri, Vincent

  He crosses stick legs, revealing bony feet protected with leather sandals, and considers my answer for a moment. Just a few feet beyond us, the crowd moves at a steady, browsing pace. Rarely does someone stop to view Abdiesus’s goods. Makes me wonder how he makes a living. But then something dawns on me.

  I reach into my pocket, shave off two fifty-euro notes, go to hand them to him. He holds up his free hand. “Not now,” he says. “There will be time for that after we have spoken.”

  I can’t help but notice the plain gold band wrapped around his wedding finger.

  “I understand,” I say. “Buyers. Are there buyers like we’ve been hearing? Are you prepared to tell me who they are?”

  “How will you utilize this knowledge, Mr. Moonlight?”

  “The flash drive contains dangerous information that could be used against my country and other free countries should it fall into the wrong hands. Last time I heard, many Iranians weren’t too fond of Americans.”

  He cocks his head. “I don’t have a particular problem with Americans, Mr. Moonlight,” he offers. “They might be loud and fat, but they spend money on my leather jackets. So how can I complain?”

  “Your president isn’t such a fan of our free market society. He also denies the Holocaust ever happened.”

  “Ahmadinejad is a cruel joke. A Nazi. A puppet of Supreme Islamic statehood. He is the Goebbels of my country. His words are air. Nothing more.”

  “Is he the one buying the flash drive?”

  He laughs as smoke billows from his nostrils and mouth. “I like you, Mr. Moonlight. You think big.”

  “Is he?”

  “It’s possible the men who want the flash drive and are willing to pay one hundred million dollars for it are working for him. Yes, indeed, it is possible.”

  I take that as a definite yes.

  He smokes the cigarette all the way down to the filter, then drops it to the street, where it rolls into the narrow linear space between the square-shaped cobbles. I half expect him to light up another, but he decides to give his lungs a rest for the moment.

  “Listen carefully,” he says. “The men you seek have been observing Mr. Clyne and Mr. Barter for days now. They have decided to reveal themselves in order to make the deal for the flash drive.”

  I feel a start in my heart. “When will this meeting you speak of take place?”

  “In two days, inside the Palazzo Vecchio. At midday when the square is at its most crowded. Do you understand?”

  I understand perfectly well. It means I have at most forty-eight hours to retrieve the flash drive or this thing is shot.

  “Who are these men? What are their names?”

  “None of those things are important, Mr. Moonlight,” he says. “What’s important is that you know they are serious investors and that they are most likely watching us right now.” Lighting up one of the three Marlboros he has left. “Now that you have the knowledge you came for, you can pay me what you wish. Then you must go.”

  I hand him the two fifty-euro bills.

  He looks up at me, the new cigarette burning between his lips. His deep steel-blue eyes scream “More.”

  I reach back into my pocket, pull out another fifty and two twenties. Hand them to him. He smiles, nods in thanks. “And…” he adds, gesturing toward the chest pocket where I store the box of Marlboros. I get the hint. I hand them over.

  He smiles.

  “May I ask you a question?” I pose.

  He nods.

  “Why are you willing to hand over this information when it must place you in considerable danger?”

  “How old would you say I am, Mr. Moonlight?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please be so bold as to venture a guess.”

  I stare into his leathery face. Into steel-blue eyes surrounded by mud-stained whites streaked with jagged broken vessels of blood red.

  “Eighty,” I guess. “Eight-five.”

  He laughs again. “I will celebrate my sixty-third spring in March of next year,” he informs.

  I feel a shot of ice-cold liquid shoot up and down my backbone. I feel the eyes of the Iranian buyers lasering into my skin and flesh. I eye the many tourists coming and going, listen to their nonstop banter coming at me in an endless variety of languages.

  “I was once a rich man,” he goes on. “I went to college and owned a leather factory in Tehran. I had a wife and three sons. This is back in the good days before the Islamist revolution and the shah was overthrown.”

  “The shah lived rich at the expense of his people,” I say. “That’s what I’ve been taught.”

  “The shah provided my country with a stable economy and the freedom to earn much money. When he was deposed, my sons joined the revolution. Today they are dead, hanged by their own people for insubordination when the day came to steal my factory, my money, my possessions, and my house in the name of Allah and the revolution.”

  I swallow something hard and bitter. “And your wife?”

  “Raped before my eyes and beheaded. When the student radicals were done, they tossed her severed head into my lap and laughed at me. A week later I agreed to speak with your CIA about my experiences and to become an extra pair of eyes and ears for them. Twenty years ago they smuggled me out and brought me here. I have never been back to Iran since that time.”

  Looking into this man’s eyes, I can see that the pain of his loss is still fresh. The death of his family did not occur a generation ago, but only moments ago.

  “Thank you,” I whisper just as a middle-aged American man wearing a fanny pack approaches the tent. Abdiesus stands, faces the chubby American.

  “You wish to purchase a leather jacket?” he asks.

  “You ain’t gonna try and rip me off, are you, Abdul?” barks the American.

  “I give you good price,” Abdiesus says. “I wish for you only happiness.”

  Our eyes meet for one more brief second, and the depth of his suffering flashes inside his. I turn and leave as the American tries to fit himself into a brown leather jacket that can’t possibly be zipped over his beer gut.

  I head back across Zannoni to Faenza.

  I’m not three steps into my stride before I feel them in back of me. Two men following me from a distance of about twenty feet. I catch their transparent reflection in a plate-glass window when I stop and pretend to stare into a storefront filled with expensive sweets. The tall, football-player-sized one from last night and a short one who might have also been a part of the threesome who nearly cost me a fingertip. Russian goons, just like the Obamas from the night before. But instead of Obama masks they’re wearing sunglasses. I’m not sure they’d fit in here with Obama masks covering their mugs.

  I start walking again, and they start following.

  They must have been tailing me when I met up with Abdiesus. If they think I know the location of the flash drive, they will follow me until I lead them to it, and then they will kill me and dump my body into the Arno. Or maybe they have somehow gotten wind of the upcoming meet between the three amigos and the Iranian buyers. I feel a cold wave flash up and down my backbone. My throat constricts and the soreness returns to my gut, like I’ve once more been kicked in the groin. If the Russians are aware of the meeting, they’ll no longer feel the need to keep me alive. They’ll kill me. They’ll torture me for fun and kill me and toss my sad carcass in the river.

  They follow, not even pretending to hide themselves, or their faces. Why bother with the Obama masks anymore? They were willing to torture me in order to get what they wanted. My throbbing pinky finger is evidence of that. My premature death nearly a year ago from a senseless beating in an Albany back alley is evidence of that. The surgical staple they plucked out of my side with a bowie knife is evidence of that. And now that it’s likely they know all about the meeting with the Iranians, they will cut to the chase and eliminate me once and for all.

  Me walking and the Russian goons following.

  We could go on like th
is all day.

  What to do…

  I run.

  I jerk a right down a narrow alley and out into the Piazza Santa Maria Novella. Behind me, I hear them screaming at one another in Russian. I hear leather soles slapping against cobblestones. I hear my heart pounding in my temples. Looking back, I see them coming. The goons sprinting after me, automatics drawn.

  It’s gonna be a shootout in Florence. The Wild West meets the Renaissance.

  I reach inside my coat, pull out my piece, thumb back the hammer.

  I stop, turn, plant a bead on the big one.

  They split up and nosedive to the pavement just as I squeeze the trigger. Twice.

  The rounds ricochet against the old cathedral, taking a group of Japanese tourists by surprise. They scream.

  I aim lower, squeeze off another round. The sidewalk at the big one’s head explodes, sending shards of concrete and stone into his face. The Walther is definitely a short-range pistol. It’s hard planting a bead at this distance, but not impossible.

  I get one off at the smaller one.

  Same thing: concrete explodes in his face, followed by shrieks and screams from the Japanese sightseers.

  Then, from out of the shadows cast by the tall church just to the side of them, a four-legged animal appears. Only this four-legged animal isn’t a wild animal. It’s a man.

  It’s Carlo, the man/dog.

  He’s growling and biting at the big Russian’s pant leg. He’s viciously going at the leg, tearing off clothing and skin. The terrified Russian yanks his leg away from the man/dog’s rabid mouth, crabs backward until free. When he manages to get to his feet, he and the short Russian sprint their way out of the plaza in the opposite direction of Carlo and me.

  Sirens.

  The police are coming.

  Carlo canters his way over to me, all grins. “You like my performance, New York?” he poses.

  “I’m in trouble.”

  “Head for the markets,” he insists. “Disappear in there. No one will find you. Go now.”

  A former marine, I know to follow orders without hesitation. Even if they’re coming from a man who walks like a dog.

  I make a mad dash for the markets, back the way I came across the Via Faenza to the Via Zannoni to the congested marketplace.

  I spot Abdiesus as I make my way past his tent. He looks at me, smiles.

  I know precisely what he’s thinking.

  Just another day for Dick Moonlight, Captain Head Case.

  I head back to the Il Ghiro safe house, or should I say un-safe house, bound up the stairs two at a time, head directly to my room without looking to see if Francesco is occupying his office. It’s only when I close the door behind me that I notice how hard my heart is beating and my injured hand is throbbing. And holy crap, have I got to pee or what?

  Engaging the deadbolt on the door, I head into the bathroom.

  I pull myself out, begin to relieve myself. If you’ve ever felt like you’re standing inside a fishbowl, then you know the feeling: like someone is not only standing behind you, but two more invisible people are standing on either side of you. Even though you’re four-walled, the sensation of eyes glaring at you is enough to make your knees tremble. If you’re trying to pee at the time, you can pretty much forget about it until you make a check on your perimeter.

  I zip up, pull my automatic.

  To the left of the toilet is a sink and above that a mirror. The bathroom is small, so the mirror reflects the scene behind me in full Panavision. I want to look into the mirror, but at the same time, I dread what I’m about to see. I do it anyway.

  The plastic shower curtain is snow white and semitranslucent. Through the curtain I make out the figure of a man. It sends my heart shooting up into my throat.

  I whip my body and the automatic around.

  “It’s face time, asshole!”

  The figure behind the curtain doesn’t move.

  Trigger finger at the ready, I reach out with a trembling hand, tear the curtain off the metal rings. The curtain falls, revealing the truth. There’s a man behind the curtain.

  A dead man.

  My Italian contact hangs from a cast-iron ceiling pipe by the neck. His own fine Tuscan leather belt serves as his noose. Eyes wide open, his blue tongue sticking out at me like he’s only pretending to be a dead guy who’s been hanged in a shower stall. But I know he’s not pretending to be dead, because dripping into the shower basin is the blood that emerges from the gash in his neck, which is located just below the leather belt.

  In my head I see the masked man with the bowie knife gripped in his hand. I see him using it on my new friend’s neck.

  I hope for Francesco’s sake it was a quick death.

  It dawns on me then that I might not be alone inside that guest room. The possibility of an enemy presence lodges itself in my throat and in my gut like a Russian hammer and sickle.

  I step out of the bathroom, turn ever so slightly to my right, and eye the closet door, then the rest of the room. There’s nothing else inside the safe house but dead Francesco and the closet’s contents, which include the possibility of people who want to kill me.

  Want. To. Kill. Me.

  I plant a bead on the closet and empty all nine rounds into it.

  When the smoke clears, I release the clip and slap home a fresh one. Even though the wooden door is a splintered relic of what it had once been, I approach with extreme caution, prejudice, and paranoia.

  I throw open what’s left of the closet door closest to me, and it simply disintegrates in my hand.

  The good news is the closet is empty.

  The bad news is the rush I begin to feel of adrenaline-laced arterial blood to my overstressed and bullet-damaged brain.

  The even badder news is that I pass out on the spot.

  There are people who will tell you that it’s impossible to dream when you pass out. Bullshit. These are the same dolts who will tell you nobody dreams in color. Again, bullshit.

  I do both.

  Just like I am now…

  In the dream I’m running down a narrow back alley of Florence. There are three men chasing me. They have guns in their hands. Automatics. They’re wearing Obama masks. They are dressed in black. They are yelling at me in Russian, so I don’t understand a word they’re saying.

  When they start shooting at me, I feel the bullets enter into my back. I feel the hard kick and the sting of the hot steel entering my flesh. I fall forward, I’m about to hit the solid rock cobbles head-on—but find myself falling through them. Falling right through stone, down into a black space until I come to a dark place surrounded by water…

  I’m all alone, sitting on this mud-covered rock, staring out into a vast nothing. Just cold ocean. But soon people start to gather. Like me they are all alone, but unlike me they all seem to be oblivious to one another. They just look lonely and forlorn, like they’ve been banished from somewhere, like heaven maybe. A great wind blows across the rock and seeps into our bones. Behind me, one of the dead, this one a woman, wails in lonely agony and begins digging in the mud. Suddenly aware of my dead presence, she starts tossing great chunks of mud at me…

  And then I fall some more.

  This time I land in a river. There are other people floating in the river. I’m having trouble keeping my head above water. I’m swallowing rancid-tasting water and sinking. But soon I come to a riverbank and someone or something pulls me out and lays me out onto the mud-covered shore along with a whole bunch of other moaning dead people. The sky is murky and thick, but it’s daytime. Flashes of lightning strike all around me and explode in thunderous quakes.

  From out of nowhere a series of massive stone wheels start rolling toward us, crushing the people along the way. Each one of the stone wheels is as big as a house, and they are headed right for me. I want to move out of the way but I can’t. I’m paralyzed and helpless. From behind me I hear a laugh. Evil, squealing laughter. When the first stone begins to roll over my feet, I feel
the bones, skin, and flesh being crushed…

  And then I fall some more.

  When the fall stops I find myself naked and on fire. There’s a monster standing over me. It’s a half-man, half-beast kind of thing with one eye in the center of its forehead. It’s holding a pitchfork and it’s prodding me with it, drawing blood each time. The stabs are agonizing, but the wounds heal themselves as fast as they are inflicted. The fire burns and tortures, but the skin remains whole and undamaged, as do my nerves. The people around me are all men, and similar beasts are torturing them. I recognize some of the men. There’s Napoleon and Hitler to my right. To my left, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Lee Harvey Oswald are sharing an anguished laugh. Not far behind them, the Islamic extremists who took down the Twin Towers with two fully fueled 747s.

  How the hell did I end up here?

  In hell.

  I’m not evil.

  I don’t kill people.

  Well, scratch that. I do kill people. I mean, I have killed people. But they were the evil ones. I didn’t want to have to kill them. It just happened.

  I look up at the beast, into its one-eyed face.

  He stabs me yet again with the pitchfork, making my chest feel like it’s being ripped open. This time, instead of pulling the pitchfork back out, the beast leaves it in there…

  When I come to, I feel a dull pain in the center of my chest.

  I roll over, land on top of my mobile phone. My hand is trembling when I thumb the speed dial for my FBI contact, Agent Crockett. As the phone rings, I try to calculate what time it is on the East Coast of the US. It’s about five in the morning. I’m going to be waking her up. But then, I’m sure the brutal murder of my Italian contact is a pretty good excuse.

  The phone connects.

  “Agent Crockett’s phone,” I hear in a man’s deep, dry voice.

  Agent Zumbo. Tell me it ain’t so…Crockett and Zump together. I picture his naked barrel stomach rubbing up against her tight little body. Shudder away the image as if it were spider crawling on my face.