I stood there sopping wet with only the outside dockside spots to light my way. I rummaged through the few lockers that had no locks on them. By the end of my search, I found a pair of workman’s khakis, a white t-shirt and a pair of steel-toed Timberlands that fit good enough.
So far so good. I was alive; I had new clothes and a destination in mind. Hotel Wellington. . . Room 6-5-7. . .
They were coming through the machine shop doors when I spotted them. Two state troopers. One man speaking to the other in a slow whisper voice, the narrow beams of light coming from their handheld sticks bouncing off the block walls and tin lockers like twin Tinkerbells.
I pressed my back up against the lockers and held my breath. I waited until the troopers made it past the showers and stepped into the locker room. There were no windows to crawl through. The only way out would be back through the office. I would somehow have to get those two gray-uniformed troopers behind me.
I waited until they passed me by. Then I moved on toward the office, taking slow, silent steps while they searched the locker room.
I must have been halfway across the floor when I noticed that the office door leading out onto the pier was no longer padlocked. It was wide open. Somebody had to have opened it. Maybe the same man who, right then, stepped out of the shadows and pointed an old black-plated service revolver in my face.
The night watchman raised a silver whistle to his lips and started to blow. The high-pitched whistle was piercing.
He was an old man, maybe somewhere in his mid-seventies. A tall, uniformed, crooked branch of a man with scraggly gray hair, a gaunt, stubble covered face, and wide, wet eyes.
“Stop!” he spat.
The whistle hung off his neck by an old black shoelace. The pistol trembled in his right hand, too heavy for his skin and bones. Looking into his bloodshot and blistered eyes, I knew he had to be frightened out of his wits. I looked for the index finger on his right hand. Was it pressed against the pistol trigger? It was impossible to tell in the half light, even from a distance of only five or six feet.
“Hands!” he insisted. “Raise your goddamned hands!”
Slowly I raised them, shoulder height. It must have been the cue the two troopers were waiting for. They came up on me from behind. I didn’t require eyes in the back of my head to know where they stood.
One of them shouted “Down on your knees!”
I knew he could not have been more than three feet away from me. So close I could almost feel his hot breath against the back of my neck.
I hesitated for only a second or two before I started bending my knees, collapsing my body, careful to go slow, not give the old man a reason to shoot me in the face, not give the troopers a reason to shoot me in the back.
As far as they were concerned, I was already on my way back to county lockup, ready to stand trial for the Montana murders. Me, Richard Moonlight, part-time cop turned cop killer; full-time head case.
But then I was no killer, and all semblance of fair-and-squareness had skipped town the deep, dark morning Joy and Jake pulled me out of bed and ordered me to head up a smokescreen independent investigation.
I lowered my body.
“Get down!” came a voice from behind.
“Easy boys,” I said. “We’re playing on the same team, remember?”
The old man’s pistol barrel followed the tip of my nose every inch of the way down. To my right, the flashes of red, white and blue trooper cruiser lights reflected against the wall. I knew that it was just a matter of seconds until the empty cruiser attracted the attention of any trooper or cop who might have been dispatched to the immediate area. Just a matter of time until these two men and one over-the-hill night watchman turned into an entire makeshift squad.
I started lowering my hands. I didn’t stop lowering them until they were almost level with my knees and the floor. Then I leaned my body-weight onto my left arm and just like that, extended my right leg, swinging it against the old man’s legs like a battle-ax.
His feet were cut right out from under him. He dropped like a sack of rags and bones.
The revolver fell out of his hand and bounced off the floor. I rolled over onto my right side, brought the pistol up, pressed the barrel against his bald head, and cocked the hammer.
I had no choice but to do it. I’d been screwed from the start, ever since those cops had decided to check out the locker room. Christ, ever since I’d washed up on the riverbank; ever since the night watchman decided to play hero.
I got up, telling the old man to lie flat on his stomach, to not make a sound or I’d have to shoot him.
“Don’t test me,” I said. The troopers just stood there, side arms in hand I told them to toss me the guns, then remove their utility belts and toss me those too.
“Do it,” I said.
Outside, the sound of sirens was getting louder.
First they exchanged part confused, part frightened glances. Then together, the two bent down and slid their pieces over to me. Standing once more, they undid their belts and tossed them over at my feet.
I confiscated both of the officers’.38 mm Smith and Wesson automatics and stuffed one of them into my pant waist while keeping the other on the cops and the old man.
I pulled the extra clips off their utility belts and stuffed them into my pockets. Then, reaching out, I pulled each of their radios off their chests and threw them down hard onto the concrete floor, shattering their plastic casings, strewing radio parts all over the floor.
A fifty-gallon drum filled with old motor oil stood only a few feet away from me, on my left-hand side. I sidestepped over to it, tossing in the old man’s revolver along with his walkie-talkie.
Just for the sheer hell of it, I ordered the larger trooper to hand over his Kevlar vest.
“You planning on being shot?” he asked as if it were the time for jokes.
“Exactly,” I said.
He pulled it over his head, heaved it my way. I told them to go flat onto their bellies. They didn’t argue.
Pulling the cuffs from the belts, I handed them to the old man.
“Lock them up,” I said. “You lock yourself to the big one.”
The old man moved painfully slow. Or maybe it was my imagination. But in the end, he got the job done.
When they were secured, I pulled off my t-shirt and strapped on the vest. I did it while holding the piece on all three of them. Then I pulled the t-shirt back over the Kevlar. You never knew when a bulletproof vest might come in handy. Especially when the entire State of New York had a gun pointed at your head.
The sirens were so loud now they made my brain hurt. It seemed everything made my brain hurt.
Making my way to the open door, I stuck my head out, surveying south, then north.
All clear.
I stepped out into the night.
49
The chopper pilot must have spotted me exiting the warehouse office.
The Huey must have been following the route of the river when it caught me rounding the corner of the warehouse and out onto the parking lot. It wasn’t one of ours. The A.P.D. couldn’t have afforded a chopper even if they’d fired every cop on the payroll. It had to belong to the state troopers. A spotlight was mounted to its belly.
It shone a bright beacon down upon me. I had no way of escaping the big round spot. Not out in the open like that. No matter how much I tried to shake it, the circle of light followed my every step as I shot across the lot toward the city.
I pictured the gates of the Saint Agnes Cemetery located just across the road at the edge of the port lot. With the chopper still hovering overhead, I bolted across the empty road. Coming upon the stone cemetery wall, I went over the top, dropping down onto the other side. I hid myself in a thick bed of overgrown weeds and brush.
The rain started coming down hard. Lightning flashed over the mountains to the east. The thunder followed just a few seconds later. The police sirens went silent.
Down on my belly, curled
up against the old stone wall, I waited for the chopper to make another pass with its bright beacon. Then I got back up on my feet and made one more run for the wooded glade that bordered the west side of the cemetery.
Once inside the protection of the thick cover, I dove down flat on my belly again.
I was soaking wet again. Burrs and thorns dug into the flesh on my arms and legs, but I didn’t have the time to care. All I wanted to do was catch my breath and wait for the chopper to disappear. Only then would I think about my next move.
50
A half hour later, I was moving on through the woods, climbing over more chain-link and wood fences than I cared to count. It took more time than it should have, but I managed to make it back into the city’s south end without being sighted.
I was cold, wet and hungry. I estimated the time to be close to nine o’clock.
Keeping inside the shadows, I kept a steady pace down Green Street, passed a boarded up Saint Joseph’s church, passed the old movie theatre that now was used as a plumbing supply warehouse, passed the old townhouses where the nineteenth century lumber barons and steel mill owners lived. From there, I moved on through the rain along Broadway, past the old Greyhound station and on past the brightly lit, aluminum-paneled Albany Civic Center.
Soon I was climbing the desolate back side of the State Street hill in the pouring rain, cutting through the now abandoned parking garage and out to what had once been considered the rear garden entrance to the Hotel Wellington. A forgotten garden from a forgotten era that had evolved into a jungle of thick weeds, heavy vines, scattered bits of trash and shattered concrete.
I made my way into the alley and waited there under a concealing curtain of darkness and rain for as long as it took. I waited until I was certain that no cruisers were prowling the State Street side of the hotel. It was then that I slipped out of the alley and approached the boarded over front entrance to the once majestic Wellington.
Grabbing hold of the plywood that covered the old revolving door frame, I ripped one side away, allowing myself just enough room to slip inside. I wiped the water from my face and eyes and combed back my hair with open fingers. I pulled one of the automatics from my pant waist and took a quick look around at what remained of the old lobby. A circle of light that leaked in from the street lamps shined down upon an old reception counter. A long, rectangular cabinet finished at one time with what I guessed must have been cherry wood panels. Or maybe mahogany. The panels had been pulled away, exposing only a rough wood skeleton.
I took a few steps forward, tickling the trigger guard with my shooting finger as I made my way through the rest of the lobby, my feet shuffling over soot-covered black and white marbled tiles.
I came to a large center stairwell. Inside the stairwell was an old Otis elevator that made the vertical run up the entire twenty stories of the hotel all the way to the ceiling-mounted skylights. The elevator carriage had an accordion-like door that opened and closed manually. Most of the machine’s guts had been ripped out.
From the bottom of the wrap-around staircase, I looked up at the electric spotlight that leaked in through the skylights and shined down upon the naked stair treads like dull yellow tracer beams.
I climbed the stairs.
There was the cracking of the treads and the wet moldy odor from the rain that seeped in through the roof. When I made it to the sixth-floor landing, I faced a dark corridor. The automatic gripped in my right hand, I walked over empty beer cans and wine bottles, over down pillows with feather stuffing oozing out, gray-brown and clumpy, through long gashes torn in the cases. I stepped around piles of papers, over mattresses, discarded clothing and ripped up sections of carpeting.
Midway along the corridor, my eyes running over the numbers tacked to the wood doors, I heard a rustling sound. Looking down at my feet, I saw a rat sneaking its greasy black head out from under a pile of crumpled up newspaper. I jumped back when the cat-sized rodent scurried over the tops of my boots.
I moved faster then, reaching out and grabbing hold of the occasional brass doorknob along the way, turning each one, surprised to find them all locked.
Then I found Room 657.
Like all the others, it too was locked.
Taking two steps back, I raised my right leg and kicked the door in. Both hands gripping the pistol, I stepped through the open doorway. I waved the barrel from one side of the dark room to the other –crouched, taking short, rapid breaths, not caring about the smell, feeling the hot blood rushing in and out of my brain.
“Joy?” I called out, surprised at the sound of my own voice. “Nicky Joy?”
The room was thick with sweat and darkness. I couldn’t see the pistol in front of my face. I couldn’t see anything other than the streetlight that shined in through the square window behind the thin shade that covered it.
I was convinced then that Joy wasn’t coming, that he’d lied to me; that this whole thing was some kind of bizarre setup.
But then a flashlight popped on.
My throat closed in on itself, mouth dry.
I recognized Joy’s puffy red face in the severe white light. I could tell by his wide, wet eyes and shaking lips that he was afraid.
I held a bead on his face, in the very spot where he was shining a flashlight, but he didn’t seem to care.
He was crying.
“What is this?” I demanded.
But before he could answer, the bathroom door opened. Out stepped a man with a pale, pink-eyed face.
51
The wood door opened and the albino man showed himself.
He was smiling. The smile grew wider as he raised a sawed-off shotgun to chest height and fired at Joy’s head, point blank.
The whole thing could not have taken more than a half-second from start to finish so that Joy’s body had not even hit the floor before the man turned the weapon on me and pulled the trigger.
There was a quick flash of white light, like a flash fire, then the immediate force of the blast against my chest and the driving-nail feeling of buckshot piercing my left arm and the back of my head bouncing off the plaster wall behind me. Then there was the warm blood that dribbled down my arm as I slowly slid down onto the floor and lost consciousness.
The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was the white streetlight that poured in through the narrow window in the bathroom to my right. The light reflected off what was left of the medicine cabinet mirror mounted to the wall above the old porcelain sink. It also reflected Joy’s exposed chest, his split-open ribcage and the blood-encrusted void where his heart had been. There was blood all over the floor and a blue medical specimen transport box sitting out not far from where the dead Joy lay in his own fluids.
An identical specimen box sat on the floor beside me, its lid removed, exposing a translucent plastic bag that had been stuffed inside it. I was staring at it when the albino man approached me, his white face full of smiles and spattered blood. He held a scalpel in one hand and a bloodied towel in the other. He bent down over me and positioned the knife over my lower right side, exactly where my liver was located. He pressed the blade at the precise moment I raised the .38 with my good hand and jammed it against his head.
“Motherfocker,” I heard him whisper.
“This is for Scarlet,” I said before I squeezed the trigger.
I pushed his deadweight body off of me. Then I touched the small pellet wounds on my left arm with the tips of my fingers. The wounds were stinging, bleeding. For some reason, there was no paralysis to speak of in my left arm—no pins and needles that tingled the extremities.
I slid myself up along the wall. The pain shifted from the front of my skull to the back. It latched onto my spinal column like a pair of vice grips, then bolted all the way down my back to my toes. Even without the added weight of the dead albino man, my chest felt crushed, as if I’d dropped three-hundred pounds worth of Olympic weights on it.
I managed to get back up on my feet, pausing for a few beats to r
egain my balance. Using the back side of my t-shirt, I wiped the .38 clean of my prints and shoved the grip into the albino man’s left hand, his index finger wrapped around the trigger. The deception complete, I stood back for a minute, viewing the scene.
A classic murder-mutilation-suicide gone bad. . . sort of. My little hoax—such as it was—would have to do.
Was this the place where the body parts were harvested from the victims I’d signed off on? Had the albino man cut up Scarlet? If he had, why didn’t he take any of her organs?
I stared at the room, the two bodies, the blood, Joy’s split ribcage. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. I could only wonder what the Albany P.D. would make out of the whole thing. That is, if they ever thought to search this rat trap in the first place.
I stood over Joy. Aside from his missing heart, the top of his skull was gone, vaporized by the shotgun blast. Only his lower jaw was left, the loose skin on his forehead flapped over at the hairline so that it looked more like the hide of a furry animal than the skin of a human being.
I had to wonder why he slipped me that key, called me out here in the first place. Maybe this one room had served as some kind of safe- house for him. Maybe it wasn’t a place for harvesting organs at all. Maybe it was simply a place only he knew about— a place apart from his co-conspirators. Somewhere he could go to escape the heat of Cain’s and Jake’s illegal operation. He would have slipped me the key because this would have been the only safe place where we could meet in all of Albany. With the entire city on my tail, this wretched place made perfect sense. As for the kid’s motivation, maybe he wanted to turn himself in to the FBI with me by his side. Or maybe he wanted to kill me, take my organs, shut me up before my trial began for Scarlet’s murder and I spilled the beans about everybody, including himself. Or maybe he was just a confused kid who was way over his head in deep shit.
Moonlight Falls (A Dick Moonlight PI Series Book 1) Page 19