Moonlight Sonata

by Vincent Zandri

  My laptop is sitting out on the island counter.

  I open it, enter in my security code, and allow it to boot up. When it’s up and running, I click onto the Google homepage. In the search space, I don’t type in “Roger Walls.” Instead, I listen to my gut and what comes out is, “Suzanne Bonchance.”

  Sure, Walls is my only concern at the moment. Or should be my only concern. But I’m curious about Bonchance. Why would a powerful literary agent decide to hire a head-case like myself when she could obviously afford a PI who doesn’t have a bullet lodged inside his brain, making dying on the job a real possibility? Not to mention my habit of taking the wrong turn now and again, and getting myself into a surprising amount of trouble. But then, it isn’t up to me to uncover her reasoning. Maybe she doesn’t have a reason for hiring me, other than she likes the name.

  Moonlight Private Detective Services.

  Kind of poetic, when you think about it. Slides off the lips and tongue like nectar from the poetry gods. The tonal opposite of Oatczuk.

  I click on the enter key and observe the search results on Suzanne Bonchance.

  The top entry is from the William Morris Agency. Even I’ve heard of them. Mega agents for the world’s mega bestsellers. I click onto it. Bonchance is listed as one of their top agents. The site must not be updated since I know for a fact that she is now working for herself. Working for herself in Albany, to be precise, one hundred forty miles from the ground zero of literary fortune and glory.

  I keep browsing.

  There’s a LinkedIn account and a Facebook account, which I skip over. An article from the New York Observer on Manhattan’s Top Ten Agents, of who you-guessed-it resides at the top. I click on it, and the perfect Ms. Bonchance is standing sandwiched in between punk poet Goddess, Patti Smith and Anthony Bourdain, the travel writer/cook superstar. They’re dressed to the nines and each of them is holding glasses of red wine and looking plenty drunk. But fashionably drunk. The date on the article is November 15th of last year. It’s March in the new year and Bonchance seems to have left the glitz and the limelight of Manhattan for good ol’ Albany. Doesn’t make sense. Or maybe it does. She claims to have a full list. Maybe she’s looking to kick back in our little sleepy backwater. Give her more time to read. In bed. Alone.

  I continue with the search.

  More photos of Bonchance hanging out with the rich and famous.

  I decide to click on the “News” option. An article from the New York Times appears. It’s dated December 24th. This past Christmas Eve. There’s yet another photo of the attractive agent, but it’s just a headshot. And she’s not smiling. Instead, she’s sneering at the camera, half her outstretched hand blocking the lower portion of her face, as if she were trying to block it from the paparazzi completely. I gaze at the headline.

  Power Agent Pilfers Client’s Story!

  “Bingo!” I say aloud in the loft.

  I read the article.

  It describes the uber-agent as being accused by a New York City-based writer by the name of Ian Brando of having stolen his story. According to the piece, Brando penned an urban thriller called Ninth Life. It was about a punk rocker and his girlfriend who engage in a cross-country run after a bank heist and get into a shit storm of trouble. Apparently Brando submitted the book to Bonchance, who inevitably rejected it, but then at the same time stole the story and sold it as the basis for her first personally penned screenplay, which she also called Ninth Life.

  The article goes on to say that Bonchance’s jump from agent to writer was big news since that kind of thing rarely happens. Although she refused to give in to accusations of plagiarism, she did in the end agree to settle with Brando out of court for half a million dollars in damages. From that point on, Suzanne Bonchance’s reputation as the Iron Lady in NYC turned rusty. The top agent fell hard and her competitors enjoyed kicking her while she was down.

  I sit back in my chair and think things over.

  No wonder Bonchance is so concerned about getting Walls back. If he is, at present, her only client, she’s probably desperate. Still, we have a problem now, Ms. Good Luck and me. The problem is one of trust. My dad might have been a mortician, but he taught me a thing or two about business, and one of his major rules was to always establish a trust between you and your client. Otherwise the professional relationship will always be marred by suspicion and animosity. That in mind, I pick up the phone, dial Bonchance’s number.

  “You aren’t telling me the truth,” I say when she answers.

  “Who the hell is this?” she barks.

  “You know who it is. I’m sure my number comes up on the caller ID.”

  “My assistant must be out having coffee for you to have gotten right through to me, Moonlight.”

  “Bullshit, Suzanne. Who you trying to kid? I thought she was out for the day? Fact is, you don’t have an assistant. You can’t afford one. I’m surprised you can afford the rent in that building. No wonder you hired me. I’m the cheapest PI in the city.”

  “You came highly recommended.”

  “By who? The cops? They hate me and I haven’t had enough satisfied clients for you to come up with a personal reference. And I don’t have a website.”

  “Okay, you’re cheap. Are you proud that we’ve established the obvious?”

  “You stole a book, put your name on it, and sold it to Hollywood.”

  Bonchance exhales a sigh so profound, I feel it more than hear it.

  “Tell you what, Moonlight, let’s stop and reverse the direction of this conversation.”

  “Brakes officially applied. What is it you have in mind, Good Luck?”

  “It’s almost lunch time. Why don’t you meet me at Prime for lunch in a half-hour? I’ll come clean and then you can get on with the business of finding Roger Walls. Agreed?”

  “So long as you’re paying, Fancy.”

  “Of course I’m paying.”

  “Just making sure you have room left on your Amex.”

  “See you in thirty, wise-ass.”

  She hangs up.

  I go to my closet, pick out a clean shirt for my fancy lunch with my future, not so honest, literary agent.

  Chapter 6

  “THE TRUTH, MR. MOONLIGHT, is that I do not have an assistant. Nor can I afford a secretary to answer my phones. Nor to bring me a bagel and cappuccino every morning. But make no mistake, I do have the money to pay you.”

  Bonchance is speaking to me from across a small, white cloth-covered table at Mario’s 677 Prime Steakhouse, Albany’s most expensive and trendiest eatery. The type of place that serves thirty-dollar lunch entrées with cloth napkins and where you use proper words like “nor.” The management requires you to wear a tie and a jacket when lunching in their establishment, neither of which I anticipated when choosing my usual wardrobe of black leather coat over Levis, worn-in combat boots, and a blue button-down. Un-ironed. Luckily the maître d’ proved to be a real Johnny-on-the-spot, supplying me with the necessary house tie and jacket upon my arrival. In the meantime, Suzanne is dressed in the same ravishing gray skirt and matching jacket she was wearing only a few hours earlier, when we first met. Her perfect shoulder-length hair even more perfect now that she is exposing her famous face to the general public.

  “Why didn’t you level with me from the beginning, Good Luck?” I ask, picking a thick jumbo shrimp from a stainless-steel bowl set on the middle of the table then dipping it into a pool of spicy blood-red sauce.

  “Stop calling me that,” the literary agent insists, an expression of scorn painting her face. “And be careful not to get any of the sauce on their tie or they will charge me for that, too.”

  Setting my shrimp back down, I stuff the tie into my shirt. I follow with a small sip of my Budweiser beer. I’m probably the only patron of the establishment to order a Bud. I’m surprised they even carry it. I’m definitely the only one who is drinking beer from the bottle and not a nice tall, chilled pilsner g
lass.

  “Better?” I say.

  “Much,” she says, that scornful look now replaced with a fake smile. I liked the scorn look better.

  “So, back to my question,” I say, picking the shrimp back up and drowning it in the red sauce. “Why not level with me? We need to trust one another if we’re going to work together.”

  “I didn’t feel my past was any of your business. Simple as that.”

  I take the shrimp in my mouth, bite down. Sweet, succulent, textural, the tang and heat of the horseradish-laced red sauce the perfect compliment. If only lunch were like this every day, instead of burgers, fries, and Diet Cokes.

  I proceed to tell her what I know about her past, and the book-stealing incident, while finishing my shrimp and wishing I could order another round without appearing uncouth in this highbrow establishment. Moonlight the Socially Conscious.

  “Reports were greatly exaggerated. I would never willingly compromise my reputation for a single book or a quickie sale.” Bonchance is nibbling on a toothpick-speared olive that came with her clean martini. Nibbling sexily, I might add. “I merely used the gentleman in question’s title. Something I was perfectly in my right to do, since titles can’t be copy written.”

  “Then you didn’t use any of the story.” It’s a question. “Jeez, you should have at least changed the title.”

  She bites the olive off the toothpick, and washes it down with a gulp of martini.

  “Okay, I might have borrowed certain elements of the story,” she sighs after a beat. “Look, Moonlight. I’ll level with you further. I fucked up. I used the bulk of his story and his title for my own and, in doing so, exercised a serious lack of judgment. I also ostracized myself from my colleagues, my agency, and my friends. Happy?” Her eyes filling up. “I lost almost my entire list of clients, not to mention that horrible lawsuit. For a while, it looked like my career was finished.”

  “How many clients did you lose exactly?”

  “All. Of. Them. Except…”

  “He stuck with you, didn’t he?”

  Her wet eyes light up as she steals another sip of martini.

  “Yes, Roger stayed true. God bless him.”

  “But he’s flown the coop, and without him home, healthy and writing, you just might end up having to look for a real job.”

  “Something like that. Which is why I need you to be in search of him. Not here eating shrimp and drinking that…that…swill.”

  The waiter arrives with our steaks. As he sets them in front of us, I breathe in the sizzling aroma of a great cut of meat cooked medium rare. Perfection. I cut into the meat, pop a piece into my mouth. It melts. I hardly have to chew. If that piece of bullet inside my brain shifts right now and I die, I will die a happy head-case.

  “It’s why you hired me, isn’t it?” I pose. “I come cheap. And you’re broke.”

  She cuts off a piece of steak that wouldn’t feed a church mouse, places it in her mouth.

  “It’s true, I checked up on you with the police. You don’t necessarily come highly recommended Moonlight. That much is also true. But on the other hand, you weren’t described as completely inept either. And yes, you are affordable.”

  I set my fork down, touch the scar on the side of my head. “So my former brothers and sisters in blue are the ones who revealed my past.”

  “Yes, they made me very aware of your botched suicide. We are not perfect, us humans.”

  “Much as we try,” I say. And then, changing the subject. “This lawsuit you were involved with. It’s all over? No further trouble from the plaintiff?”

  “Why are we still talking about this when it has nothing whatsoever to do with Roger? No further trouble from the plaintiff, I guess. Does that answer your query?”

  I eat another bite of steak. “Why do you say, ‘I guess’? That means you are having trouble.”

  She shrugs her shoulders. “I’ve gotten maybe a few prank calls.”

  “Would you describe those calls as threatening?”

  She sets her fork and knife onto the plate rim, picks up her drink, downs what’s left in one swift draught. Setting the now empty martini glass back down, she immediately gestures for the waiter to bring her another. I stare at my bottle of beer. I’ve barely taken a sip of the swill.

  “The man who calls me tells me that one day he will get me for what I’ve done.”

  “That’s what he says to you? Nothing else?”

  “That’s all he says.”

  “Is it the man who sued you?”

  “I have no way of knowing.”

  “How can you not know, Suzanne?”

  “We never went to trial. I settled for that ungodly amount, knowing the whole time the book probably never would have sold anyway.”

  “But you liked the story enough to steal it.”

  That scorned face again. “I borrowed it. Borrowed. Borrowed certain elements.”

  “Enough for you to be sued over plagiarism. Come on, you just admitted you stole the bulk of it.”

  “Yes, I settled to get it over with and to cauterize the bleeding. I never met Ian Brando in the flesh. Never spoke with him. I have no idea what his voice sounds like. No idea what he looks like. He could be sitting right next to us for all I know.”

  “But you know it’s got to be him who’s calling you.” Another question. Posed as a statement.

  Her new martini comes. She grabs it by the stem, takes an immediate drink.

  “Might be better to let it breathe.” I smile.

  “Eat your steak, Moonlight. And shut up.”

  “Yes ma’am. You contact the police about these phone calls?”

  “Mr. Moonlight, I do not wish to bring more attention to my previous mistake than I need to. Besides, what harm can a phone call do?”

  “He decides to finally make good on his threats, you’ll wish you’d contacted the police.”

  “Please let it go for now, and please go find Mr. Walls.”

  I nod. “Okay if I finish my steak first?”

  “And by all means, finish your beer, too. I wouldn’t want to deny a Cro-Magnon such as yourself the right to raw meat and booze.”

  “And don’t forget my manuscript.”

  She shoots me a grin while taking another sip of her martini. “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “Don’t forget sex with the woman of my choice.”

  “I never sleep with my clients.”

  “That mean you’re taking on my book?”

  “You’d trust me with it, knowing about my sordid past?” She slurs the S in sordid.

  “Yup. I believe you’re the type who never makes the same mistake twice.”

  “I’ve been married and divorced three times.”

  “But not to the same man.”

  “Naturally.”

  I dig in to more steak.

  Suzanne drinks and ignores hers.

  For dessert I will get back on the trail of Roger Walls and wallow in the knowledge that not only is Suzanne Bonchance going to represent my book, she’s going to sleep with me, too.

  Chapter 7

  SINCE I’VE STILL GOT nearly half a day to kill until I meet up with Erica and her writing professor, I decide to start at the start. That means driving over the big iron and concrete Patroon Island Bridge spanning the Hudson River into Rensselaer County then heading out toward the old town of Chatham, which lies on the hilly, rural borderlands between Massachusetts and New York State.

  The drive in Dad’s funeral hearse is scenic and peaceful. Miles and miles of the prettiest farm and wild country you ever did see. Soon a stream, known as the Kinderhook, emerges on the right side of the road. A favorite amongst the local fly fishermen. Even I’ve been known to drop a line in its swift moving, crystal clear water from time to time.

  When I come to a short metal bridge that spans the stream and connects with a narrow country road that leads into town, I pull the hearse off on
to the soft shoulder and get out. I spot a lone fly fisherman working the area under the bridge for the trout that might be hiding amongst the rocks and shadows. Walking onto the designated pedestrian pathway set along the far-right side of the bridge, I stop in its center, lean both elbows onto the railing, and poke my head over the side to look directly down at the fisherman. For a quiet moment, I watch him work his line with the skill and grace of a lion tamer and his bullwhip. I don’t want to disturb his concentration by shouting out at him, so I wait until he senses my presence and looks up.

  “Any luck?” I pose.

  “Haven’t caught anything but a chill today,” he says.

  “Maybe they haven’t stocked the stream yet. It’s early in the season.”

  The bearded man takes in some line with his right hand while holding to his fly rod with his left. “Some optimist you are. Are you gonna watch or you gonna fish?”

  “Neither. I’m working.”

  “Somebody’s got to.”

  “You from around here?”

  “That’d be about right,” he says, gearing up for another cast, cocking the nimble rod over his right shoulder.

  “You know of a man named Roger Walls?”

  He stops his cast, allows the loose line to drop onto the swift moving stream. “Kind of question is that? Anyone who lives here knows Roger. He’s famous.”

  “Well, old famous Roger seems to be missing in action these days and I’ve been hired to try and find him. Any ideas?”

  “He’s missing? What are you, a cop?”

  “A private detective. His literary agent has hired me to find him.”

  The fly fisherman smiles.

  “You really a private detective?” he asks with a smile. “Or you telling tall tales?”

  “Says so on my license.”

  “You carry a gun?”

  I open my leather coat just enough to reveal the inverted butt of my shoulder-holstered Browning .38.

  “Nice piece,” he nods. “I sometimes deer hunt with a pistol in the fall.”

  “Any idea where Roger might run off to if given the chance?”