Moonlight Sonata

by Vincent Zandri

  “Word up is that Walls has got an evil temper. That he shot someone once.”

  Her head springs back around, her eyes once more locked onto me. She’s also smiling again, like she’s turned on by the fact Walls is not only the last of his macho kind, but he’s also a homicidal maniac.

  “It’s the truth.” She nods. “He did shoot a man who encroached on his property out in Chatham near the very rural Massachusetts border. Almost thirty years ago now. Probably around the time he visited your college. He’s always maintained that the man encroaching was threatening his life with a hunting rifle. Of course, he only bears a slight recollection of the event.”

  “Let me guess,” I say. “He was inebriated at the time.”

  “And flying high on windowpane LSD. In any event, the man he shot did not press charges in the end.”

  “After being shot?”

  “It was only a flesh wound, Mr. Moonlight. The man with the hunting rifle was clearly in the wrong by trespassing on private property.”

  “Please call me Moonlight. Or, if you prefer, Ms. Bonchance, Dick.”

  She looks at me with an iron face. Matches her iron fist.

  “Moonlight it will be,” she says. “Rather poetic, I might add. An author’s name if ever I heard one. Have you ever considered writing something, Moonlight? Your memoirs, perhaps? I could find you a ghostwriter.”

  “How interesting you should suggest that,” I say, reaching down with my right hand, setting it on my briefcase. “But before we get to that, what is it you would like me to do for Mr. Walls?”

  “I’d like you to find him for me.”

  “He go missing?”

  “Not officially.”

  “As in, the cops aren’t looking for him.” It’s a question.

  “The police have not been notified and nor will they be. Roger is no longer on probation for that shooting all those years ago, but his file is open and it would be messy and complicated for him if they were to get involved.”

  “I understand,” I say. “But how long has he been gone?”

  “About a week. He’s on one of his…how shall I say it…” Tossing up her hands.

  “Benders,” I say for her.

  “Yes, benders,” she repeats, dropping her hands into her lap. “Like I said, Mr. Walls is one of the last of the bad boy writers.”

  “He still call Chatham home?”

  “Aren’t you going to write down some notes?”

  I tap what’s left of the dime-sized scar on the side of my head with my index finger.

  “My brain might be fragile, but it’s as sharp as the razor’s edge.”

  “Yes, he maintains a home there. And an apartment in Florence, Italy. He also keeps a trailer in the Baja. An Airstream, actually.” Then shaking her head. “Forgive me. I believe he’s since sold the Baja property to a famous jazz musician.”

  She says Airstream with so much happy, dreamy, sexy recollection in her voice I’m surprised she doesn’t faint on the spot. Tells me she’s no stranger to the inside of that desert Airstream.

  “How wonderful for him,” I say. “Has the bad boy written anything as of late?”

  She winces noticeably. Like I picked up those brass knuckles and tossed them into her gut. Or lack thereof.

  “Funny you should ask that, Moonlight,” she says.

  “How funny, Ms. Bonchance?”

  “Please, call me Suzanne,” she says. “And it’s been quite a while since Mr. Walls produced a full-length novel. Ten years to be precise.”

  “Since Slasher,” I say. “That book rocked. Especially the girl-on-girl threesome scenes. Lots of violence, too.”

  “Yes, you would be his kind of audience, I dare say, Moonlight. The movie did quite well, too.”

  “Brad Pitt. How can it not do well? Walls must have made a fortune.”

  “Indeed. Problem is, that kind of money doesn’t last. Not when you possess the rather expensive habits of our Mr. Walls. One of which is divorce. He’s created a hobby out of it. You can’t imagine the child support and alimony payments he must make on a monthly basis alone.”

  “Or that he is supposed to make, anyway.”

  “Correct, Moonlight. All too often he, um, let’s say, forgets to write out his checks.”

  “Another good reason for keeping the cops out of this.”

  “Hmm, ya’ think?”

  I smile.

  She smiles.

  “So then, Ms. Bonchance, bottom line here.”

  “Bottom line, Moonlight? A working Roger Walls is a moneymaking Roger Walls. He’s also a sober Roger Walls and a responsible bill-paying Roger Walls.”

  “I see. It means you can keep up with the payments on your Porsche and your house in The Hamptons.”

  “How did you know I have a house in The Hamptons?”

  “Lucky guess.” Moonlight the Intuitive. Then, “Any idea where I might start looking for him? He got a favorite local bar?”

  “Lots of favorites. So I assume.”

  “Can you recall a specific one?”

  She shakes her head. “I never frequented those kinds of places with him. We engaged in more civilized behavior. Like dinner at the 677 Prime Steak House in downtown Albany.” Laughing. What a writer might describe as sardonically. “Correction. I ate, and he drank.”

  “Maybe there’s a joint in Chatham I can check out. Not a big town.”

  “Excellent, Moonlight. I can already see you are a master detective.”

  “Hey, you hired me. Warts and all. He have any family?”

  “Parents are dead. He’s got a sister somewhere. But not in New York. Don’t know whether she’s older or younger or even alive, for that matter.”

  “His ex-wives live around here?”

  Shaking her head again. “His present wife resides in the Albany area. Look Walls up on Wikipedia. You’ll find his list of love interests there. The newest one’s an actress. Got lucky with some minor parts in some Showtime stuff. A sprinkling of television commercials. Hot piece of eye candy, if you ask me.”

  “And Walls has a major sweet tooth, I take it. What’s her name?”

  “Sissy. Young thing. Bit of a partier. Has driven Roger to the edge more than once.”

  “She mind if I pay her a visit?”

  “I’m not sure her minding is important.”

  “Gotcha’. Anyone else you know I should check with? Friends? Drinking buddies?”

  “Roger doesn’t believe in friends. ‘No friends, no enemas’ he often preaches.” Then, raising her right hand like a brilliant thought has just flashed inside her head. “There is one man you might try. His name is Gregor Oatczuk. A writing professor at the university, with the MFA program.”

  “Sounds important. But that name. Sounds like Upchuck.” I make a face, like I feel like puking.

  “He’s as close to a friend as Roger has around here, even though Roger thinks of him as a bore. And, yup’, hell of name to be born with. He should change it.”

  “You got a number for him?”

  She leans up in her chair, picks up her phone. “I’ll call his office. Tell him you’ll be coming.”

  She dials and I wait. When someone answers, she asks for this Oatczuk character by name. When she’s told he isn’t in, she explains the situation to the person who must be his secretary. Then she hangs up.

  “He’ll call me back. When he does, I’ll send him your way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Find the writer for me. And I will pay you handsomely. Plus expenses and a nice fat bonus.”

  “With real money?”

  “And then some.”

  “Goodie. I might ask you to pay me in another way, as well.” Once more, I set my hand back down on my briefcase.

  Her eyes go wide, giving me that same up-and-down look they gave me when I first walked in.

  “Excuse me, Moonlight?”

  “Not that kind of payment
, Ms. Bonchance,” I say, pulling the briefcase up and onto my lap. “But I have a small confession to make. A moment ago, you asked me if I’ve ever written anything. Well, here’s your answer.” Opening up the flap on the leather case, I slide out the manuscript. “It’s a sort of fictional memoir. A detective story.”

  Silence fills the office. A thick weighted silence that makes my chest go tight.

  “My list is quite full, Moonlight. I’m not really taking on new projects. It’s one of the reasons I moved my office up to sleepy little Albany. I no longer have to compete in the Manhattan rat race.”

  I stand, the now empty case in one hand, the manuscript in the other.

  “Just read a few pages,” I say. “If you don’t like it, no harm done. Consider it a personal favor. I’ll be on the case of your missing writer, regardless.”

  She cocks her head, sits up straight, feet flat on the floor.

  “Ok, leave it,” she says.

  I set the manuscript on the table. It takes me by surprise when she practically dives across the desk to snatch it up. A hungry fish on a fat, juicy worm. Sitting back in her chair, she reads the cover page.

  “Moonlight Falls,” she says, with a sly grin. “Not bad, Moonlight. Nice title. Maybe you do have something here.” Setting the book back down on the table, she stands and saunters around her desk.

  “I can stay while you read it,” I say, reaching out, setting my open hand on her perfect shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze. Moonlight the Charming.

  “Not today, thank you,” she says. “I’ll start on it tonight, in bed.”

  “That’s a very nice thought.”

  “I’m sure it is. In the meantime, you have work to do.”

  I start for the door, but stop before I get two steps.

  “Oh, before I forget,” I say, turning back around. “Do you have a book with a recent picture of Walls on it?”

  She grimaces, annoyed. Like she wants me to leave already. “I just moved my office up from the city. The books don’t arrive until later in the week. Google him, or just stop at a bookstore on the way back to your office.”

  “They still have bookstores?”

  “Yes, you can still find one or two in existence. The State University Barnes & Noble on Washington Avenue, just down the road from the campus, is the best one these days. Roger will have signed editions there and, if you head there now, it’s possible Oatczuk will call me back and you can kill two birds with one stone.”

  I stand there. Silent.

  “Is there something else, Moonlight?”

  “My fee.”

  “Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”

  “Buck fifty per day plus expenses.”

  “Give your billing address to my secretary out front,” she says. But then she quickly throws up her hands. “Oh, hell. My secretary is off today. We can take care of your billing needs tomorrow. In any case, call me right away when you have some news on Roger. Day or night.”

  “Day or night?” I say opening the door. “I wouldn’t want to wake Mr. Bonchance.”

  She laughs.

  “I think, Moonlight,” she says. “Therefore I’m single.”

  “I’m a private dick, Ms. Bonchance,” I say. “Therefore I’m divorced.”

  Chapter 2

  HERE’S THE DEAL: I’M going to die.

  Okay, I know what you’re thinking: We’re all gonna’ die one day. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. This isn’t about the great cosmic, circle-of-life, Elton John soundtrack kind of spiel. What I’m trying to tell you is that it’s very possible, if not highly likely, that I could die right in the middle of making this sentence.

  I’m not the type of guy a life insurance salesman likes to call first thing on a Monday morning. I’m not the kind of discerning shopper who can buy now, pay later at zero percent interest. A banker would laugh at the prospect of extending me a thirty-year mortgage much less a thirty-day note. You just can’t bank on the fact that, at the end of the day, Richard “Dick” Moonlight, Captain Head-Case, is still gonna be around to pay up.

  I live my life according to the death that shadows me so closely. I can feel its cold darkness like a constant icy breeze blowing against my spine. Death might be a pale rider, but it’s also a constant companion. We’ve grown to know one another so well that we’ve become friends, almost. Me, the living Dick Moonlight, and the very soon-to-be dead Dick Moonlight. We’re one big happy family. We should trade recipes.

  Living with death has taught me something. It’s taught me that when I am finally gone, I want to leave something for my ten-year-old son, Bear. I want to leave a record of my life so he’ll know his real dad. We don’t get to see one another often, since he lives in California with his mom, my ex-wife, Lynn. But that doesn’t mean we’re ever far from one another’s thoughts. Maybe Bear believes I will always be around for him. But I know the opposite is far more likely. He’ll never know the real me should that bullet in my head happen to change position and my world suddenly go black—the skin, flesh and blood, all too cold.

  But there’s some good news, a silver lining, as it were. The uncertainty over my longevity, or lack thereof, recently brought me to one solid conclusion: I want to make a record of my life. All forty-eight years of it. Not one of those sappy homespun videos like they dramatize in those Lifetime-channel-cancer-victim movies. You know, the one where the former A-list-now-turned-B-list actor gets liver cancer just in time for his kid’s third birthday, and since he won’t live to see the fourth, he decides to make a series of advice videos the kid can enjoy for years and years long after the old man is dead. That’s not for me, and my bushy-haired kid would probably be freaked out at the idea of having his dead dad in his face all the time.

  Instead, I want to write my memoirs.

  But I’m not a writer, right?

  Truth revealed, I not only possess an English Lit degree, I had every intention of becoming a novelist upon graduation. But somehow life got in the way and I became a cop. Money, love, marriage, the birth of a child, and—eventually—divorce, had something to do with putting off the dream for more than twenty years. But now that I’m not a cop and only a part-time private dick, there’s really no excuse for not putting pen to paper. Which is how I came to write Moonlight Falls. The first book about my fall from grace at the Albany Police Department and my marriage to Lynn, as well as detailing my love affair with the lovely Scarlett Montana, the wife of my former department boss. There’s also the illegal body parts harvesting operation we got mixed up in, along with a highly lethal crew of Russian mobsters. It’s not a happy memoir or a feel-good-boy-gets-the-girl at the end thriller. It’s more like a train wreck, watch-the-girl-walk-out-on-me-yet-again life story. But it’s an honest story, nonetheless.

  There’s more to the book than I’m letting on about right now, but far be it from me to be a spoiler. And for all I know, the perfect Iron Lady lit agent herself, Suzanne Bonchance, might hate it. If that happens, I’ll pretty much forget about being a published author. But I’ll continue to write the memoirs for as long as I live, be it one more hour, one more day, or ten more years. And they will be meant for one set of eyes, and one set of eyes only. Those deep brown eyes that belong to my son, Bear.

  Driving.

  In the direction of pretty much the only bookstore left alive in Albany since the outbreak of eBooks. The State University Barnes & Noble. Maybe a bookstore is the last place I should start looking for a writer like Walls. Maybe I should simply start searching every bar in the State of New York, beginning with gin mills with names that start in an A or, at the very least, bars that grace the little town of Chatham out in the country. But that would be like searching for a needle in a stack of needles. If Walls was hanging out in a small-town bar, he wouldn’t exactly be missing in action, would he? It’s been a while since I read anything penned by Roger Walls. I figure if I’m going to try and find him, maybe it’d be a good idea to at least grab
his most current book of fiction or maybe poetry and get inside his head.

  As advertised, the chain bookstore is located not far down the road from the main entrance to the Albany State campus. To my surprise, the lot is packed. I manage to squeeze Dad’s pride-and-joy black funeral hearse in between a brand-new pickup truck and a beater from another era that most likely belongs to a high school or college student. It always makes me nervous having to sandwich Dad’s ride in between two other vehicles. I know the dangers of door dings and fender benders. Doesn’t matter that he’s long dead, in every physical sense of the word. Dad is looking down on me, keeping tabs on how I maintain his ride, there is no doubt of that. That he still distrusts me, there is also no doubt.

  Who says books are dead? The Barnes & Noble is bustling with activity when I enter into its cavernous spaces. There are lots of people browsing the half dozen tables strategically set up in front of the doors as you walk in: the tables that carry the brand-new thirty-dollar hard-cover releases by the same five or six mystery authors the New York Times perpetually has at the top of their lists. While a dozen or so people are staring down at the books, no one seems to be buying them. Why buy a thirty-dollar hardcover when you can get it for pocket change on your e-reader?

  I head into the depths of the store until I come to a tall bookcase that houses the poetry section. I head to the W’s as I spot a young woman standing up against the far wall, a book gripped in her left hand, her eyes glued to its pages.

  “Pardon me,” I say, trying to get a look at the title that has her so engrossed. When it turns out to be a Roger Walls book, I know it’s my lucky day. I decide to beam some Moonlight charm. “Roger Walls, huh? I’m a big fan too.”