by Rob Brunet
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 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 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?”
“Indeed. Hope you like Beemers.”
“I’m used to hearses. But it will do.”
He steals a glance at Dad’s hearse.
“Odd ride you got there, Mr. Moonlight. But to each his own.”
“It’s paid for. And it constantly reminds me 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. I enjoy a beautiful woman like any other red blooded man.” He cocks his shoulders. “But sometime, a hole is a hole. Especially when it belongs to Bruce Willis.”
God, poor Bruce. I turn the key. The engine 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 drive 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 over at 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 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 o
r 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 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 park in an empty spot outside the store. Schroder is sitting in back, thumbing in a text with both hands on his iPhone. 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’re you having, Doc?” I say. “Or are you going in on your own?”
He continues texting, until he tears 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 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 sun roof 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. Pius 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 iPhone, 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 of 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 toward 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.
“No. My son is in high school. My old day-prep school as a matter of fact. The Albany Academy.”
I glance at the beer and the smokes. Once more I’m reminded it’s only a little after ten in the morning. Moonlight the observant.
“Your boy have a doctor appointment?” I say.
“Haha,” he says. “No. 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 in one gigantic orgy of a twist. 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 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.”
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