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 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.
What if the woman in the Lexus is not her?
I punch the gas, go right.
Chapter 3
He’s already waiting for me when I pull 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’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 little slits cut into the top of his nearly hairless, round, pumpkin head.
I yank my hand away.
“Jeeze 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 any more apropos?”
“That what I am? Your driver? You can call the local livery labor pool for that.”
“Plus, I might require some occasional brawn to go with the driving part. Things have been, let’s call them difficult lately.”
“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 know about the good doctor who wants me to drive him around now that 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, and 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 their 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 simply drive him around for a few days until his license is once more reinstated, which shouldn’t be all 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 work if you can get it, 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 agree?”
“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 as a bit of a bodyguard also, 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 all 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.”
“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 one 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 way before my time.”
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?”
“Indeed. Hope you like Beamers.”
“I’m used to hearses. But it will do.”
He steals a glance at Dad’s 1978 black hearse.
“Creepy ride you got there, Mr. Moonlight. But to each his own.”
“It’s paid for. And it constantly reminds me that life on this little blue planet can be fleeting.”
“How poetic, Mr. Moonlight. But you might look on the bright side of life once in a while. You look plenty healthy to me.” Placing his cold, right hand on my left arm. “I shall enjoy riding around with you for a few days . . . Bruce.”
“And I shall enjoy taking your money . . . Doc.”
Chapter 4
First, I adjust the driver’s seat to accommodate my longer legs. Then, I shoot the doc a look.
“Where to?”
He shoots me a look back, his top teeth biting down on his thin bottom lip.
“I can think of a few places, Bruce,” he says, with a wink of his eye.
Okay, I’m thick, but not that thick.
“Doc,” I say, “I’m no homophobe, but I can tell you this. I don’t do men.”
He laughs.
“Jesus, Moonlight. Learn to live a little. I’m not a fag or anything like that. I enjoy a beautiful woman like any other red-blooded man.” He cocks his shoulders. “But sometimes, a hole is a hole. Especially when it belongs to Bruce Willis.”
God, poor Bruce. I turn the key. The engi
ne comes to life, purrs.
“Too bad for you,” he adds. “Too bad for me.”
“Hope you don’t mind my saying so, Doc. But you got some real issues.”
I pull out of the abandoned port lot, with no specific destination in mind other than my bank account.
Chapter 5
We’re not riding for another ten seconds before the doctor tells me to pull into the same coffee shop where, less than an hour ago, I witnessed the would-be resurrection of my old lover, Lola Ross. But that’s crazy. Lola’s dead. The woman I saw only looked a lot like her. Because, no way Lola could be alive. Rather, no way could she still be alive and not attempt to make contact with me. I was the love of her life. Head-case or no head-case, Lola loved me more than anyone else, even when she left me for the man who, back in her high school days, had become the teenaged father to her only son. Even though we split up, I knew that she still loved me, no matter what.
Or, maybe I was wrong.
Maybe Lola really had fallen out of love with me, and, now, I just don’t want to believe the truth.
I pull into an empty spot outside the store. Schroder is sitting in back, thumbing in a text with both hands on his I-Phone. He’s got that narrow, pink-lipped, shit-eating grin going while he’s working both thumbs. I throw the automatic tranny in park, run both hands over my neatly shorn scalp.
“What you’ll have, Doc?” I say. “Or are you going in on your own?”
He continues texting until he pulls his eyes away from the screen, looks up at me.
“Oh, yes,” he says in that high-pitched, loose-bowelled, snake voice. Reaching into his trouser pocket, he comes back out with a stack of bills. He peels one off, hands it to me. It’s a twenty. “A pack of Marlboro Red cigarettes,” he says. “And a six-pack of Heineken beer. Got that, Bruce?”
“Don’t call me, Bruce,” I say, taking the twenty in hand. “Didn’t figure you for a smoker or a day drinker.”
“Oh, it’s not for me. I’m on the wagon after the last DWI. It’s for my son.”
“Your son,” I say. It’s a question.
“Oh, don’t worry. He’s a senior.” He’s back to furiously thumbing in a text. “I’m talking to the tiger right now. After you get the goods, we’ll go pick him up from school.”
I nod. Kid must go to the state college. Kind of a downfall from grace you ask me. Two generations of Yale grads and the third in line is roughing it at the local college. But the old man doesn’t seem too upset over the kid’s apparent break with tradition considering he’s ponying up for the alcohol and tobacco. Oh, well, ours is not to wonder why . . .
I get out of the car, head into the store to buy cigs and beer. At ten o’clock in the morning.
When I make my return to the car, I find that the doc is on the phone. His dark eyes are wide and bulging out of their slits. His smile is back, and he’s talking a mile a minute. The windows and sunroof are open, so I’m able to catch some of what’s being said.
“Have I ever let you good folks down? You know I’ll deliver. You know you can trust me. Tonight, nine sharp, in the parking lot of the St. Pious Church up in Loudonville. Now tell me, how are you liking America these days?”
That’s when I make like a frog in my throat, open the driver’s side door, toss the plastic bag of beer and smokes onto the passenger side seat.
“Gotta go,” the surgeon spits into the I-Phone, killing the connection.
“Got a date tonight, Doc?” I say, shutting the door, restarting the engine.
“Oh, I don’t date anymore. Not since I found the love of my life.”
“The love of your life. How good for you, Doc.”
I back out of the lot, head back towards Broadway.
“Yes, yes,” he says. “The sister-in-law of a senator and very, very sexy. She has an extremely open attitude towards the sexual act. Very modern, you might say. Met her after my first DWI.”
“How ironical,” I say.
“You have a way with words, Bruce,” he giggles. “Take a right on Broadway.”
I do it.
“Albany State campus?” I pose, my eyes connecting with his in the rearview.
“Not at all. My son is still in high school. My old country day prep school as a matter of fact. The Albany Academy.”
I glance at the beer and the smokes. Once more, I’m reminded that it’s only a little after ten in the morning. Moonlight the observant.
“Your boy have a doctor appointment?” I ask.
“Haha,” he says. “Not. He’s been suspended. Crazy kid.”
“Suspended, and you’re buying him beer?”
“Kids will be kids. Don’t you think, Bruce? Best to not make a big deal out of a little thing.”
“He got suspended for a little thing?”
“His girlfriend screamed date rape during a party I threw for the kids at the house this past weekend, and now the entire school board has their panties pulled all the way up over their heads. Can’t tell you how many times I was suspended from the same school, and look how I turned out. In my day, no meant yes.”
I make eye contact with his beady little eyes once more, and it’s all I can do to peel my gaze away from the mirror.
“You got a point, Doc,” I say, driving in the direction of the prep school. “Look how good you turned out.”
Chapter 6
I’ve driven past The Albany Academy for Boys maybe a million and one times since I’ve lived in New York’s capital city, but never really taken a good look at the place until now. Located directly across the street from a more modern all girl’s school of the same “Albany Academy” name, it’s a five-story, century old, cupola-topped, stone and brick building that looks like it was pulled right out of the pages of A Separate Peace or maybe A Catcher in the Rye. There’s an old wood and metal sign mounted to a black iron post at the school entry that reads, THE ALBANY ACADEMY, Est. 1813, which means the school is about as old as Albany itself.
I pull into the drive and follow the road until it connects with a circle that surrounds a pristine green with a tall flagpole mounted in its center. An American flag flies at half-mast on the pole. I’m trying to think of someone famous who might have died in recent days, but I can’t come up with an image or a name to go with an image. Maybe an old teacher passed away, or a maintenance worker.
“Pull up in front of the steps,” Schroder instructs.
I do it. I kill the engine while he opens the door, steps out.
“I’ll be right back, Bruce,” he says, into the open door before shutting it.
Through the passenger side window, I watch his bulbous little body bounce up the marble staircase on his way to a big, white wood door. When he opens the door and disappears inside, I decide to make myself useful. Reaching over to the glove box, I open it. There’s the standard glossy BMW driver’s manual inside. Also, a leather folder that contains his registration and proof of insurance. But it’s the thing I find behind those two items that spark my investigative interest. It’s a black Glock 36, Slim line model. Small enough to fit inside a vest or a suit jacket pocket without being noticed, but big enough to carry six 9mm rounds. Not a bad weapon for a woman to conceal in her purse or a brain surgeon who goes both ways to store in his glove-box, or inside the waistband of his tighty-whities, for that matter. I can only assume he wasn’t carrying this little lethal gem on his person when he got busted for drinking and driving the other night.
The big, school door opens up again.
I shove the pistol back inside the box, slap the lid closed, slide back over behind the wheel. I hear two sets of footsteps slapping the marble treads on their way back down the stairs. When I see them through the glass, it’s like I’m seeing double. Schroder Sr. and his much younger clone.
I can tell they’re arguing about something because, for the first time since I’ve met him, Schroder’s got this sour puss going. Through the sour puss, he’s babbling a mile a minute at the kid, but doing so under his breath. And th
e kid is smirking, rolling his own set of dark eyes around inside his own set of slits carved out of his own pumpkin head.
The kid opens the passenger side door, plops himself down inside. “You get my beer?”
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” I say.
He’s got his Albany Academy blue blazer on. I know it’s an official Albany Academy blazer because it’s got a red and black “AA” patch sewn over the left breast pocket. It’s got some condiment stains on it. Ketchup and mustard. Under that, he’s wearing a standard white cotton button-down. More stains grace the front of it. He also sports a black and red-striped rep tie. The knot hangs “Fuck You” low on his baby-fat filled chest. More stains.
I can also see that he’s chosen the image of Al Pacino in Scarface for a T-shirt. The image of the black-suited, tightly scar-faced drug kingpin firing the crap out of a black M16 is clearly visible through the light cotton fabric of the kid’s button down. The kid is clean shaven if not baby-faced, so I’m guessing he doesn’t need to shave much of anything. He’s wearing Ray-Ban “I’m looking right through you” wrap-around sunglasses and the hair that’s showing underneath his extra-wide-ghetto-brimmed New York Yankees baseball cap that still has the gold tag stuck onto the brim is blond. It’s about the only thing that separates him from his father. Maybe his mother is a blonde. Poor woman.
Schroder gets into the back. “Mr. Moonlight, please meet my son, Stephen.” He’s back to sporting that fake, carved pumpkin smile.
“Nice to meet you, Stephen,” I say without offering my hand.
“That so,” the kid says. He’s already got a cigarette between his lips and a cold beer between his legs. He reaches into the pocket of his tan khakis, pulls out a Bic lighter, fires up the smoke, draws a deep drag. Then, he thumbs open the beer, steals a long pull on it. It’s twenty after ten in the morning. A Monday. But I’m sure it’s five o’clock somewhere and heading toward Tuesday.
Moonlight Weeps: (A Dick Moonlight PI Thriller Book 8) Page 2