Evan Horne [02] Death of a Tenor Man

by Bill Moody

  “I’m okay.” A beat passes. “Just not used to the love of my life cheating on me is all.”

  “Guess now you know how her husband and your wife must feel.”

  He attempts to smile at that. But apparently he can’t work up the strength. Reaching across the seat, I open the door for him. He gets in, stinking of old booze.

  I take my coffee in hand and at the same time, catch my reflection in the rearview mirror. I haven’t been sleeping so great lately, what with being single and therefore free to roam the gin mills of my choice at all hours of the night. Worse, I’ve got a bank account that is so below zero it brain freezes me even to think of it. Peering into my own brown eyes I spot a round face that needed a shave five days ago, and a head of hair so short you can see the scars crisscrossing my scalp like a road map—including the small dime-sized scar beside my right earlobe where, once upon a time, a piece of .22 caliber hollow-point bullet penetrated my skull. Standing up the collar on my leather coat with my free hand, I look away from the mirror, and begin to muse over my worn combat boots and dark, beat-up Levi’s.

  Suddenly, I smell something bad.

  “Christ, Elvis, when was the last time you showered?”

  “Been sleeping at the phone company.” Elvis’s day job consists of fixing broken computers at the local Verizon. “Ain’t got no where’s to go.” He tries to sip his coffee, but his hand is trembling too much and most of it lands on his chin. Reaching into his the side pocket on his baggy blue jeans, he withdraws a small fifth of Jack. Then, shooting me a look with his brown puppy dog eyes, “You mind?”

  “It’s your liver, Elvis.”

  I assist him with removing the coffee cup lid. Spilling some of the coffee out the window to make room, he then pours two or three shots into the cup, filling it back up. I help him once more with pressing the lid back down onto the paper cup.

  “Go ahead. Drink. Those trembling hands are making me nervous.”

  He steals a generous drink of the whiskey-laced coffee. After only a few seconds, you can feel him deflating. As for his hands, they stop shaking. Reaching around into the back seat, I grab a manila envelope and open it. I pull out the pictures I snapped yesterday afternoon across the river in Columbia County. The rural town of Kinderhook, to be precise. The town where Mr. Hill’s current illicit love is still living with her husband inside a doublewide trailer set on a two acre streamside parcel, while spending her mornings balling the mailman and her late afternoons getting it on with the present and accounted for facsimile of Elvis Presley. Fat Elvis.

  “Read ’em and weep, Elvis. She ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog anyway.”

  He sets his spiked coffee onto the dash, snatches the pics from my hand, slaps them face-down onto his lap. He lifts the first one, and with his right hand having resumed its trembling, turns it over. The photo reveals his girlfriend’s heart-shaped naked posterior. It’s pointed up in the air while she bends over in preparation for rear-entry by the mailman, whose blue uniformed pants and tighty-whitey BVDs are wrapped around his white tennis sock-covered ankles. I have to admit, it isn’t a bad live shot for an amateur photographer. The focus is perfect and I even snapped the pic as the blonde bombshell is looking over her shoulder, no doubt saying something profound to the mailman. Something like, “Do me...Do me...I can’t wait any longer.”

  The rest of the photos are simply different versions of the same shot. You seen one pic of an over-sexed thirty-something blonde taking it doggy style in her backyard from the mailman, you’ve sort of seen them all. But that doesn’t prevent Roland Hills from studying each and every single one of them like he’s looking at the most recent issue of Penthouse Magazine. You know, holding them only inches from his face, turning them one way, then the other.

  When he’s done, he slaps the pics back down onto his lap. It’s then I see he’s crying like a baby. Tears streaming down his fat cheeks, he opens his mouth wide and begins to sing at the top of his lungs, “We’re caught in a trap...I can’t walk out...Because I love you too much baby!”

  I’ll be dipped. He’s starting to make a scene. But I gotta give him credit. If I close my eyes, it really does like sound like I’m blaring the late king of rock ’n’ roll on the hearse’s old eight-track stereo system. Hills is so good, a group of blue-jeaned construction workers gather around the black hearse. They clap and cheer as soon as the crying, fake Elvis issues his last tearful note. One big guy with a brush cut even raises up his cigarette lighter, thumbing a flame.

  “You’re building your fan base, Elvis.”

  He wipes the tears from his eyes with the back of his meaty hand.

  “I don’t want new fans. I want my Betty back.”

  Betty Reddy. That’s his cheating girlfriend’s name and it’s no joke. ’Course, if you close your eyes and say it out loud, you get the full effect.

  Betty Reddy...Bet all the guys called her Betty Reddy Beaver in high school. Or maybe Betty Reddy for cock...No wonder she’s addicted to sex.

  “She wasn’t yours to begin with. Go back to your wife.”

  “Lorraine won’t have me back. She filed for divorce three days ago.”

  “Beg for forgiveness. Tell her you strayed if only to realize what you had right before your eyes. Works like a charm every time.”

  He’s quiet for a minute while sad-faced workers stroll in and out of the coffee shop. Then, “You have a girlfriend, Mr. Moonlight? Someone special in your life?”

  I shake my head, sip my coffee.

  “No,” I say, the long brunette haired vision of my now dead ex, Lola, filling my head. “Not at present.”

  “Funny you giving me advice. Man with a piece of fuckin’ bullet in his brain and no woman.” Slamming his barrel chest with his fist. “You could drop dead today. But I got my whole life to live. And I wanted to live it with Betty.”

  My eyes lock on his.

  “You have a real way with words, Elvis.” Leaning down, I gather up my pics, stuff them back into the envelope. “Don’t lose your day job.”

  He opens the door, grabs his coffee, proceeds to step on out. But I take hold of his arm. It’s skinny, bony even. Totally out of synch with the rest of his body.

  “I believe you owe me something, Elvis. An even grand, plus expenses. You can deduct the coffee if you want.”

  He turns to me, his big brown eyes blinking.

  “I’ve sort of run into a bit of problem.” His teary eyed frown turns upside down. “You see, Mr. Moonlight, since the telephone company found out about me and Betty, we both been handed our walking papers.”

  “You telling me you can’t pay me?”

  There it is again, the minus zero bank balance, the account getting colder and colder as it becomes emptier...

  “Not now anyway.” Then, perking up. “But hey, I’ve got an idea. You got any party plans in the future? Elvis and the Teddy Bears does parties, weddings, and bar mitzvahs. You’d get yourself a half price off deal.”

  “You kidding me, Elvis?”

  “Half price is at least worth one thousand.”

  And that’s when my entire blood supply spills out onto the hearse floor. I see her. Through the windshield. Walking into the coffee shop. I see her.

  I. See. Her.

  A tall woman. Her brunette hair is rich and long. Her body is taller and leaner than I remember. But not skinny. She’s wearing tight jeans, sandals, a long sleeved loose-fitting shirt with a deep V-neck, exposing the tan skin that covers her firm breasts. Two or three silver necklaces drape down from her neck, and further draw my attention to the exposed skin on her chest. Her lips are thick and red. They form a heart when she presses them together. Her nose is so perfect, it seems as though it were carved out of stone by a master artist. Covering her eyes, dark aviator sunglasses.

  Lola.

  But how can it be Lola?

  Lola died.

  I left Lola lifeless, laying on highway cement between New York City and Albany. She had breathed her last and t
he spark had exited her body. I saw it happen. I was there. I walked away from her death, and I never looked back. Not even once.

  Maybe I should have.

  “You okay, Mr. Moonlight?”

  Elvis talking, prodding me with his index finger. Like I’ve suddenly gone catatonic. And I have.

  “No. I’m not alright.” I hold out my hand. “Whiskey.”

  He hands me the bottle. I uncap it, take a deep drink, hand it back without capping it.

  He takes it in hand, then grabs the cap, screwing it back on. “Jeez, that was supposed to last me all day.”

  I want to get out of the hearse. I want to head into the store. I want to see if my eyes are deceiving me. But I can’t fucking move.

  “You want me to get you a drink of water, Moonlight?”

  I turn to Elvis.

  “Take your pictures. We’re done here.”

  “You okay with an I.O.U.?”

  “Yeah. Just go. I’ll call you if I need something.”

  The door opens and Elvis gets out. Several of the onlookers who heard him singing issue him a second round of applause. Elvis bends at the waist, bows to his new peeps. Then, straightening himself back up, he reaches into his jean pocket and proceeds to hand out business cards.

  “The King is back in town,” he barks in his best trembling imitation of Elvis’s voice. “Available for birthday parties, weddings, retirement parties, bar mitzvahs, and a whole lot more.”

  The door to the store opens again. She walks out. My heart beats in my throat, adrenalin pumping through the veins in my head. I want to get out of the car, but I’m glued to the seat. Glued because I have to either be seeing things, or my judgment is entirely off. Like I said, I’ve got a piece of .22 caliber bullet lodged in my brain. It causes me problems from time to time. Brain problems. I’m not just a head-case. I’m Captain Head-Case.

  But there she is. Lola. In the flesh.

  She briefly holds the door open for an elderly man who limps on through. Then, turning her back to me, she walks away in the opposite direction.

  My Lola walks away.

  Chapter 2

  I take a moment to catch my breath before I hyperventilate. Long enough for the morning nine to five, working-stiff rush to dissipate, leaving the coffee shop parking lot empty.

  From a distance, I watch her slip behind the wheel of a newer model, black Lexus. Watch her take a quick sip of her coffee, then set it into the center console cup holder before she starts the car, backs out. Watch her slowly make the short drive to the exit where she carefully looks both ways prior to hooking a slow left onto Broadway, in the direction of North Albany.

  Maybe I should follow her. Maybe I should get my shit together and tail her for a while. But then, what if I’m wrong? What if the woman I just saw going in and out of the coffee joint only looked like Lola? If that does indeed turn out to be the truth, then I am destined to be even more lonely and broken hearted than I already am.

  It’s only been a matter of months since I left her there, dead, on the road. What if I were to chase the woman in the aviator sunglasses down and she only turns out to be a Lola lookalike? I’ll lose the love of my life a second time. But that’s fucking whack. Is it possible I’d rather not confirm the fact that Lola lives more than I would want to reconfirm her death? Where’s the sense in that? But then, it’s Dick Moonlight here. I haven’t got the sense to come in out of the rain. That is, if it were raining in the first place.

  I start the hearse, back out of the spot. Throwing the big tranny in drive, I make it across the lot to the exit. Which leaves me with a choice. I can go left on Broadway, try and find the black Lexus, or I can turn right, head on back to my riverside loft in time for my meeting with a prospective client. A paying client.

  Peeling my right hand from off the steering wheel, I place it over my heart, like I hope to die. I’ll let my heart decide. I can feel it pounding, bleeding, through my leather coat, through my flesh and ribs. My heart is crying for Lola with every beat.

  Chase heart ache or a paycheck? Which way?

  What if the woman in the Lexus is not her?

  I punch the gas, go right.

  Chapter 3

  He’s already waiting for me as I drive up to the old, two-story brick building inside the abandoned Port of Albany. He’s a short, pudgy guy wearing an expensive suit that does little to hide his beer gut. But then, judging by the Cheshire Cat smile painted on his round, clean-shaven face, I’m not sure he gives a fuck. Resting idle behind him is a black BMW. A four-door model with a sunroof that’s opened. He’s got vanity plates. Go figure. They say BRAINRX.

  “Mr. Moonlight, I presume?” He holds out his right hand. His smile is so wide and bright, it hurts me to look at it. I look at the hand instead.

  “Dr. Schroder.”

  He’s still holding out his hand. I guess that means I have to shake it. I do it. It’s cold and wet and soft. Not like a dead fish. More like a live eel. I want to make it a quick shake, but he won’t let go. He’s still smiling, and his eyes are gleaming as they look out at me not through normal eye sockets but two narrow slits cut into the top of his nearly hairless round pumpkin head.

  I yank my hand away.

  “Jeez Louise,” he hisses, his slit covered eyes brighter and his smile wider. He takes a step back, looks me over. Up and down, too. “Bruce Willis.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve just hired Bruce Willis to be my driver. Could that be anymore apropos?”

  “That’s what I am? Your driver? You can call the local livery labor pool for that.”

  “Well, I might also require some occasional brawn to go with the driving part. Things have been...let’s just say...difficult.”

  “Your arrest.”

  He takes a step forward, shoots me a look while cocking his shoulder. His smile is still there only it’s diminished somewhat. I’ve touched a nerve.

  “Oh, but I’m soooo innocent. Sooooo wrongly accused.”

  “That so, Doctor.” It’s a question. Like I don’t believe him for shit. And why should I? I did some background checking on the apparently wealthy brain surgeon. Seems he enjoys living on the wild side. The swinger life. No one within his immediate vicinity has been immune to it. Even his now former Polish housekeeper complained about him answering the door to his North Albany mansion in the nude.

  So here’s what I else I already know about the good doctor who wants me to drive him around: The cops have revoked his license due to his third DWI in as many years. He’s fifty-three years old. Divorced, with an eighteen-year-old son. He likes to drink and party. Hence the DWIs. And, as I mentioned previously, he likes to toss his dick around, too. But then, that kind of thing tends to go with power, money, prestige, being born with a silver spoon in your mouth and up your ass. A graduate of a local country day-prep school, he also attended Yale where his dad, also a brain surgeon and founder of the family practice, was the head of his class. The son, however, did not fare as well, having flunked out on two separate occasions. Somehow Yale saw fit to reinstate him and somehow each time they did, a new pavilion, or student union, or parking lot, or sports complex would be constructed. Thank God for the old boy network.

  My Job, as it was offered by Dr. Schroder, is to drive him around for a few days, until his license is once more reinstated, which shouldn’t be that difficult for a man of his means, not to mention lawyer and judge connections. For my services I get my daily three hundred rate, plus expenses. Not bad, especially coming off a gig where I had to spend three days and nights watching a beautiful woman getting it on with the mailman. Still, easy money or no easy money, Richard “Dick” Moonlight himself isn’t that easy. Or so I like to believe. Considering this man’s profession, I intend for him to sweeten the pot before I issue the definitive “yes.” After all, the payday on my mailman/Elvis gig has officially been placed in the pending bin.

  “The police have a problem with successful citizens, Mr. Moonlight, wouldn’t you agr
ee?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Doc. About the successful part, that is.”

  “You seem to be doing well, as a self-employed investigative professional.”

  “Thought you were hiring me as a driver.”

  “I am. But like I’ve already intuited, maybe also as a bit of a bodyguard. If you get my drift.”

  A light bulb flashes off in my fragile brain.

  “You got some enemies out there, Doc? Besides the APD? That what this exercise is about?”

  He cocks his head again. And he’s still smiling. Staring at me with black eyes through those thin horizontal cracks. It’s unnerving.

  “Let’s just say I’ve made a couple of bad business decisions lately.”

  I just stare at him. Into him.

  He laughs, pats me on the back like I’m his good buddy. “Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen. Not with you around. Mr. Bruce ‘Bad Ass’ Willis.”

  I point at my head with my index finger, like I’m imitating a man holding a gun to his head.

  “And you know about my brain?”

  “Oh yes, yes I do. I’m a brain surgeon. We’re all aware of your, ummm, little problem. But why don’t you give me your personal take on it? Should I be worried?”

  “I have a piece of .22 caliber hollow-point lodged in my brain directly beside my cerebral cortex. I’ve been told it’s inoperable. I could die at any time, or fall into a coma, or simply pass out, even while driving you around. I also tend to forget things during moments of stress. That about sums it up.”

  More staring.

  “If I take your job on, Doc, would you be willing to give my head another look? Look under the hood for me? Maybe you’ll see something no else has before. A way to open me up, get at that bullet once and for all. Before it finally shifts the wrong way and kills me off.”

  He gives me that look again. Like he’s undressing me. Moonlight the creeped out.

  “I would be happy to look inside that head of yours, no charge. Do we have a deal?”

  I nod. Then, “I assume we’ll be using your ride?”