Lola notices it too. She stands.
“Something’s not right,” she says, her brown eyes peeled on her half-sister.
“Dad,” Claudia says. “Those stupid-ass Russians. Could be they got in through the basement windows. Or the vent system. Or maybe the maintenance crew left a door open.”
“They know we’re here.” Then at me. “We’ve got to get out of here, Richard. Go. Now. Go.”
“Where exactly shall we go to, Lola, except out this door?”
She turns. There’s a window behind her desk. The big double-hung window is slightly cracked open already.
“Through there.” Then she says, “Kill the lights.”
She pulls back the curtains, unlatches the window.
“Georgie, you first. Richard, you’re next.”
“You go first,” I insist.
“If my father’s men find you they will kill you. But they won’t do anything to us. We’re protected by blood.”
Protected by blood.
Somehow I understand entirely. I’d do anything for my boy. Take a bullet for him.
Georgie opens the window all the way, climbs out into the darkness, inches his way down to the ground. I follow, put one leg through the open window.
“You’re right behind me, Lo, right?”
I purposely ignore Claudia.
“You’ll feel my breath on the back of your neck,” she promises.
I pull the other leg through, jump, hit the ground beside Georgie. The pain flashes through my torso. I have no choice but to swallow it.
Behind me, no Lola.
The window slams closed.
CHAPTER 34
SO THAT’S IT THEN.
Lola has no intention of coming with us.
Lola and Claudia.
Standing in the dark behind the Clinical Psychology lab building with Georgie, I know precisely why. If her father discovers we’re all together, then he’ll have no choice but to punish her. Is it possible that the punishment could be so severe that he might kill his own daughter?
Question is, why would he try and punish her?
For revealing that he’s a traitor? An enemy of the United States of America? What precisely does that mean? What does my client, Peter, have to do with it? Other than being the biological son of Lola, the biological grandson of her dad, Harvey Rose?
One thing is for certain: I have uncovered the truth behind my client Peter Czech: He’s a liar and he’s playing me, Captain Head-Case, for the fool. He’s also Lola’s biological son.
I love Lola.
I’ll say it again, I love Lola Ross (or is it Rose?), and even if she is conducting an affair on me, I’m going to protect her and defend her. Because that’s what bleeding hearts and head-cases like me do. That means getting to the bottom of just what Czech and Rose are doing, and how it constitutes their being traitors. It also will explain the importance of a certain box, and why Rose’s men are willing to kill, maim, and torture for it.
I glance over my shoulder at Georgie.
“Well old man, ready to make a run for it?”
“What the fuck,” Georgie says.
“That’s what I say, Georgie: What the fuck?!”
Together, we run away into the black night.
Away from Monkeyland.
CHAPTER 35
WE MAKE IT BACK to Georgie’s place just before the dawn. We’re safe here, or so I try and convince myself. Rose doesn’t know who Georgie is or where he lives. Neither does Czech, or Claudia. And Lola would never divulge the old pathologist’s address to her under any circumstance. At least, that’s what I’m betting on, and it’s probably a good bet. Georgie’s got no credit cards, no telephone, no forwarding address. His mother used to own the house, still owns it on paper, and she’s long dead. In terms of tangible ID, Georgie might as well be just as dead.
Since both our cells are history along with our respective arsenal of two .9 mms and the .22 revolver I strap to my ankle in case of emergencies, I call Czech via a Skype account from Georgie’s computer. But all I get when his answering machine picks up is a loud humming sound. The service won’t allow me to leave a message, as though it’s full or not working right. I try his mobile, and I get something even more unsettling: “The caller you have reached is either disconnected or out of service.”
The Peter Czech I know as a client thus far lives by his Blackberry. In a small way, the freedom of modern communications is a direct extension to legs that no longer work. For him not to be connected means that he’s paralyzed in yet another way.
I grab two beers from Georgie’s fridge and hand him one. We settle ourselves in the living room, the curtains on the windows closed, the lights off, the rising sun that filters into the room through the thin drapes casting a red-orange hew on the floor-to-ceiling stacks of vinyl record albums and posters from the 1960s, including a big one of Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon framed upside down.
I sit down hard on the end of the couch, pop three Advil I stole from Georgie’s medicine cabinet, and wash them down with a deep drink of beer.
“OK,” I say, wiping foam from my mouth with the back of my hand. “So here’s the deal. My client is not who he says he is. He’s not looking for his father. Nobody knows who his father is or cares to know. That leaves his mother, whom he most definitely knows and by all indicators, loves. That mother just happens to be my current significant other.”
“Don’t forget Claudia,” Georgie says from his perch at the window, where he’s keeping a watch on the city street outside while rolling a much needed breakfast doobie. With his now trembling hands, it isn’t the easiest of operations.
“I haven’t forgotten Claudia, the nurse who greeted me when I was resurrected just a few days ago. She just happens to be the younger sister of said sig other. Imagine the coincidence.”
Georgie lights the joint, sucks in a big lung-inflating hit. Then he exhales. The room fills with the good smell of medicinal buds. It’s as close as I come to smoking it.
“That same younger sister,” I go on, “is partially responsible for kidnapping us both, but claims to have been able to convince the Russian jerks who killed me once already to spare our lives.”
“She also zapped me a hundred times with a Conair blow dryer,” Georgie adds. “I haven’t forgotten about that shit.”
“Forget about that, Georgie. The bitch wasn’t working, remember? I believe her when she says it was either that or castration.” Taking a swallow of beer. “Lola revealed something about her father and her son being traitors together. Whatever that means.”
“Means they’re working on something highly illegal in the eyes of the good old U-S-of-A. They’re selling secrets probably to the Russians.” He licks the duck-tail end of the joint to seal it. “What the hell else could it mean, Moon?”
Something dawns on me then.
“Czech is an engineer at Knolls Atomic. Rose is your average accountant who used to work for the same feds who used to oversee the Knolls program.”
“You told me Lola described him as an entrepreneur.”
I head back over to Georgie’s laptop, take it with me back to the couch. Since there’s no way in hell the security personnel that guard the grounds of the Knoll’s atomic plant are going to grant us clearance allowing us through the gates, I decide to take the next best approach. Once again, Google.
I type in “Knolls atomic plant.”
Turns out, the secure nuclear facility maintains a flashy website, complete with the operation’s “Mission,” which is none other than providing, and I quote, “superior nuclear propulsion systems for U.S. Naval ships by designing the world's most technologically advanced, safe and reliable reactor plants and systems, supporting the operating fleet of nuclear ships and training the sailors who operate them.” End quote.
The nuke joint’s vision?
Again quoting, “…to increase our value to the Naval Reactors Program by enabling everyone to rapidly and effectively support our nucl
ear fleet. We see ourselves continuing to provide the advanced technology needed beyond the VIRGINIA class and the innovation needed to take us to the next generation of reactor design. We will do all of this in a physical and peopled environment we are proud of.” Unquote.
All this propaganda is followed up with slogans that seem lifted from right out of the old USSR Cold War Bible. Slogans like, “Teamwork . . . We Work Better Together!” And, “Loose Lips Will Sink Ships: Be a Patriot! Report all Suspicious Activities to Your Supervisor!”
The rest of the website is all about employment opportunities and military links. There are happy-at-work-in-the-nuke-lab photos of lab geeks, and full-color action shots of our Navy’s submarines diving, or crashing up through the ocean’s surface like big mechanical blue whales.
It’s all very important-looking and it’s all tantalizingly apparent that the secrets harbored behind the electrified fences of the Knolls atomic power plant might indeed be of considerable value to our old Russian friends. And apparently Rose recognized that value so clearly he was blinded by the big bad bright lights and the dollar signs which would surely follow.
I kill the link, turn back to my big brother.
“How much does your average accountant pencil pusher make per year, Georgie?”
He smokes a little more of his medicinal joint, cocks his head in thought.
“Good accountants can pull down one hundred large per year. Even working for the feds. Especially if he moonlights during tax season.”
“Good money for your basic average garden variety Joe. But not for somebody willing to do anything for all the riches in the world.”
“Even if it means selling off your only grandchild . . . Your daughter’s only child.”
“I wonder what kind of pad Rose lives in, and why he’s so difficult to locate on the public meter? Be interesting to find out.”
“We know he can afford to hire a small army of Russian tough guys to rough people up.”
“And he’s also willing to kill to protect what’s his.”
“Like that missing box for instance.”
I close the laptop lid, stand up, down the rest of my beer.
“We need to do some fieldwork, Georgie. We need the contents of that box or container or whatever the hell it is.”
“What kind of container, Moon?”
“I’m banking that we’ll know it when we see it.”
He looks at me.
“We get a hold of it, we hold all the cards.”
“We hold all the cards we have the leverage we need to find out just what Czech and Rose are up to, how they might be traitors, and the identity of the bastards who killed me in order to keep it a secret.”
“And more importantly, Moon?”
“I’m listening.”
“You get to find out how deep your girlfriend is involved in all this crap, and if she really is cheating on you.”
“Oh yeah,” I swallow. “There’s that.”
CHAPTER 36
GEORGIE’S VAN IS STILL parked out front of my building down inside the abandoned Port of Albany. But we can’t very well go back there. Place is way too hot. But his old orange Volkswagen Beetle still works. It’s in “optimum condition,” as Georgie puts it, the former hot-wire-man-turned-pathologist having rebuilt it in his spare time over a period of twenty years.
We’re driving in the orange Beetle out of the city, in the direction of Czech’s suburban house on Orchard Grove. In the early morning, with the newly risen sun hidden by cold gray clouds, the streets are about as empty as Armageddon itself.
“There’s just one thing that bothers me,” I say, after a time. “Why would Czech hire me in the first place?”
“Because you’re Lola’s boyfriend.” He says it with all the inflection of a question.
“But why get me involved? And why do it based upon a lie?”
“My guess is that Czech hired you to expose Rose for what he is. You’re a head-case, you’re convenient, and you’re a snoop.”
“You really think they’re traitors? Like the fucking Rosenbergs?”
“Yes. Claudia explicitly said that both Peter and her father were traitors.”
“Well, whatever they were doing, they were doing it together.”
Georgie tokes on his still lit joint, taps the fiery end on the tip of his callused tongue, and stores the roach into the pocket on his leather jacket. As he drives I notice that his hands are no longer shaking, his face is no longer showing signs of pain. No tight jowls, no grimaces.
“So in exposing his grandfather,” he says, “Czech most certainly will be exposing himself.”
“Doesn’t make sense does it?”
“Not yet anyway,” Georgie admits. Then suddenly, “We gotta make a pit-stop Moon.”
He twists the wheel, hard right, pulls off the main road and into an alley that leads to an aluminum overhead door that I recognize. It’s a body shop. But not your everyday, advertise in the Yellow Pages body shop. It’s an anonymous body shop with no sign mounted to the old brick wall outside making passersby aware of its presence. Not that much of anyone other than the occasional wino would be found passing by this narrow Albany alley.
Georgie gets out, leaves the Beetle running. He disappears inside the building through a sort of trick door that’s been cut out of the overhead door. I wait inside the empty alley for maybe five long minutes before that trick door opens back up again, and Georgie comes back out carrying a duffel bag.
He slips back behind the wheel of the Beetle, sets the bag between us, unzippers it. He pulls out an S&W .9mm just like the piece that once served and protected me at the APD. He hands it to me along with three fresh clips. He pulls an identical one out for himself, stuffs the barrel into his pant waist and the three clips into the interior pocket of his leather jacket. I store my weapon and clips exactly the same way.
Then, reaching into the bag once more, he pulls out two cell phones. The old-fashioned kind that flip open and have no real apps other than text messaging and picture-taking capability. He hands me one of the phones.
“Number’s taped to the back,” he informs.
I looked at it, then shove the phone into a jacket pocket separate from the clips.
Georgie reaches into the duffel bag one more time, comes back out with an honest-to-goodness stun gun.
“What’s that for?”
“That’s for me,” he smiles.
“You get all the cool toys.”
“Pays to have good friends in low places.”
He picks up the now empty bag, tosses it into the back seat of the Beetle, and we’re off to Czech’s home-sweet-home.
CHAPTER 37
WE MAKE A DRIVE-BY of the Orchard Grove home first before stopping.
Pays to be prudent.
It’s only 6:45 in the morning. More than likely, Czech is still home, getting ready for work. It’s a slightly overcast morning. Chilly. We drive past the home slow enough to notice if any lights are on, which they most definitely would be. That is of course unless the handicapped man likes to wheel himself around in the near darkness.
We come around again, and this time I ask Georgie to stop in front. I’m listening to my built-in shit detector and it’s telling me Czech isn’t home. Since the blaze orange Beetle sticks out like a blood blister on a newborn’s butt cheek, I tell my big brother to pull back around to the main road where we can access a private drive that leads through a patch of woods behind the Czech backyard.
The backyard is surrounded by an old gray privacy fence, and the privacy fence is covered with overgrown pines and untended shrubs and bushes. The idea is to pull in there, then hide the Beetle behind the growth. That is, if a big blaze orange bubble can possibly be hidden.
“What if whoever owns this here private drive calls the cops?” Georgie astutely points out. “You know, like the pesky neighborhood watch committee?”
“Risk,” I answer him. “It’s what you and me are all about.”
“Stupidity too,” Georgie says, driving back onto the main road, and taking an immediate right onto the private drive, pulling off into a patch of trees directly behind Czech’s house.
We both get out.
I feel the weight of the pistol and the clips. It’s a good kind of weight to feel. We follow the privacy-fenced perimeter until we come to the slat fence that leads into the yard. Like all identical neighborhood fences, it contains a gate that’s unlocked and incapable of being locked.
We enter the backyard through it.
The backyard is nothing special. Just a concrete patio, black wrought iron furniture, and your basic gas cooker on wheels. The patio leads to a sliding glass door that’s covered by a floor-to-ceiling curtain. There’s a step leading up to the door. Must be Czech has no trouble negotiating the step. Many disabled people bound by wheelchairs learn to negotiate some pretty formidable obstacles. Call it survival instinct.
Georgie and I look at one another and approach the slider. He already has his Swiss Army knife out and ready to jimmy the lock. But the closer we come to the door we can see that jimmying won’t be necessary. There’s a fist-sized hole in the glass, and a long spider-veined series of cracks in the rest of the glass. Obviously we aren’t the first ones to visit the Czech household that morning.
“Fix bayonets,” Georgie says, sounding a lot like his old Viet Nam grunt self.
I draw the .9mm, slide back the bolt, allow a round to enter the chamber. I thumb the safety off.
Georgie does the same.
When I give him the nod, he sticks his right hand carefully through the existing hole, grabs hold of the opener, and slowly slides the door open. Pulling back the curtain, he takes a step inside, and like Alice, disappears through the sliding glass.
CHAPTER 38
I FOLLOW CLOSE BEHIND the old platoon leader while he takes point.
The place is dark. It also smells like must and sweat. There’s the faint scent of some bacon having been cooked recently. Probably isn’t all that easy for Czech to clean the joint. Not on a daily basis.
Moonlight Rises (A Dick Moonlight Thriller) Page 11