Moonlight Sonata

by Vincent Zandri

  That someone is me.

  Here’s the deal: we can either return the body right away and I can take my chances on the APD clearing me of all charges. Or we can hold onto her for a while longer and make certain her body of evidence will in fact, prove I didn’t kill her.

  How am I going to accomplish the impossible?

  I’m not going to do it alone.

  The great-grandson of Uncle Joe Stalin is going to help me.

  Chapter 34

  I SLAP THE LAPTOP closed and race back down into the basement lab, explain my plan to Georgie.

  He looks at his watch.

  “She’s scheduled to go under the knife at three,” he says. “That gives us about four hours to pull this stunt off.”

  I make some quick calculations in my head. Forty-five minutes to Chatham. Which means there goes an hour and a half right there, giving me two and half hours to meet up with Alexander. That is, assuming he will meet up with us in the first place, and then to make it look like I wasn’t the last man to be with Sissy prior to her death. I don’t have to prove he killed her. Just that he was there. That alone should raise enough doubt in the mind of the police to let me off the hook. Considering he’s a member of the Russian mob, while I’m known around Albany as a law-abiding head-case, that should shift the focus of their investigation away from me and onto him and his band of merry Russian men.

  “The way I see it, Georgie,” I say, “if Alexander meets us on time, we can pull this off in ten minutes or less.”

  “How do you figure that?” Georgie asks.

  “Ten minutes is the average time it takes the average couple to complete the act of sexual intercourse,” I say.

  Chapter 35

  WHILE GEORGIE BAGS UP Sissy, along with a few necessary tools of the trade, I stand with Roger and Suzanne in the kitchen.

  “I thought you were going to help us get our money back, Moonlight?” Roger begs, slurring his words as he finishes off his third beer since we arrived at the townhouse an hour prior.

  “One person is already dead, Richard,” Suzanne presses, lighting yet another cigarette. “We need that money.” She’s beginning to develop some black and blue bags under her eyes. Her hands are trembling slightly. She’s been stealing from her own coke stash ever since she took on the role of dealer and now she’s experiencing the dreaded withdrawal.

  “The money isn’t going to be a problem,” I say. It’s a lie, but not entirely a lie. If I can manage to get this legal problem behind me, I will be free to look for their money. Even if in the back and front of my mind I firmly believe that it’s long gone.

  “How so?” Suzanne asks.

  “You call Alexander for an emergency meeting,” I tell her. “You explain you don’t have the money yet. But then, that’s okay, because you don’t have to pay him back now that Roger is home and sober and has written his book, as originally agreed upon. Now you want to see him face to face, so that you can personally hand him Roger’s book. You want to prove to him how excited you are to work for him. How wonderful and thrilling his story is. How handsome and courageous he comes off in it. How this whole thing has been a terrible misunderstanding.”

  “But he’ll know we’re lying since we haven’t done any research. It was supposed to be a part of the deal. Driving around Manhattan and Albany in Alexander’s big black Lincoln, listening to details about which wise guy he knifed under which bridge or which mobster’s head he decapitated in which basement.”

  Me, exhaling, once more picturing that severed head hanging out beside my dad’s large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in his basement embalming room.

  “Just tell him Roger did enough research on his own through initial interviews, emails, and the World Wide Web to come up with a very nice first draft. Stress the point by telling him that’s how Roger works. And now that the first draft is done, you desperately need Alexander to read through it as soon as possible so Roger can begin on the second draft and the two of them can begin their on-site research.”

  “I see where you’re going with this, Moonlight. If Alexander thinks we’re producing a working manuscript, then he won’t threaten us with bodily harm when we don’t give him his advance back. We’ll be honoring our original agreement even if we are way past our original deadline.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m not entirely sure I can write sixty thousand words in just a few minutes, Moonlight,” Roger chimes in, laughing and popping the top on another beer.

  I look over one shoulder and then the other. I catch sight of Georgie’s printer. There’s several reams of paper stacked underneath the table.

  “Roger, you come with me,” I say. Then to Suzanne. “In the meantime, you call Alexander and arrange the meeting. Capice?”

  She takes one last hit off her cigarette and stamps it out.

  “I’ll do my best,” she says, taking her iPhone from her jacket. “What have I got to lose but Roger’s life and my own?”

  Chapter 36

  I ONCE MORE OPEN Georgie’s laptop.

  I go to Microsoft Word, request a new document.

  A blank page comes up.

  I push out my chair and stand.

  “Would you like to do the honors, Roger?”

  The big man is hovering over the laptop.

  “You want me to sit down in front of that thing?” he says, like he’s about to be re-introduced to an old lover who jilted him a long time ago. And he is.

  “You don’t have to do much,” I say. Then I tell him exactly what to write, as if he doesn’t already get what’s going on by now.

  Slowly, almost painfully, he sits down into the chair. He sets his beer off to the side on the table. Lifting his big beefy hands he sets them on the keys and I swear I can smell the salt coming from the tears in his eyes. Tears that at present are staining his beard.

  He begins to type. Two-fingered style. One letter at a time.

  Click Clack. Click Clack.

  He picks up speed prior to fingering the enter key, which is the modern-day equivalent to slapping the metal bar on an old manual typewriter after you’ve come to the end of a line and now require a new line.

  He types some more.

  Speedy now.

  You can almost feel the heat oozing from his pores. The energy emanating from an artist who’s been caught up in a prolonged hibernation for months or years, but who’s now being reborn.

  When he’s done, he issues an exhale and does something amazing.

  He smiles.

  His face is positively beaming when he comes down on the return key once more and pens one final, third line. The line completed to his satisfaction, he gets up, opens up his arms and throws them around me.

  “I’m sorry I used your head like a toilet bowl brush,” he bellows. “You are my friend and my savior. Even if you did bang my wife.”

  He’s crushing me in his bear hug.

  “My pleasure, Roger,” I say, through constricted lungs.

  Out the corner of my eye, I look down at the screen.

  It reads:

  Russian Reign of Terror: The Story of

  Joseph Stalin’s Great-Grandson

  and Life with the Russian Mob

  by

  Alexander Stalin

  with

  Roger Walls

  Chapter 37

  THE PRINTER IS ALREADY connected to the computer via a USB cable. While I print out the title page, I grab hold of one of the stacks of paper, tear off the paper packaging. I muss the paper up, bending some of the ends to make it look like it’s been handled by big dirty fingers for a period of weeks. Then I set Roger’s title page on top of it. Retrieving two thick rubber bands from an unused ashtray filled with paper clips, pens, and pencils with the tips broken off, I wrap them around the paper stack. One horizontally and the other vertically.

  I set the “book” down onto the table. I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look like the real thing.


  Drinking the rest of his beer, Roger glances down at it. “Did I write that?” he says, his face still beaming with an all-teeth smile.

  “You know what, Roger?” I say. “You goddamned well did write that.”

  “The magic is back, Jack,” he sings.

  I turn to Suzanne, who is now standing in the living room, her iPhone in her hand.

  “Well?” I ask. “Alexander? Is he in?”

  “He’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”

  “Can the present-day Stalin be trusted, Good Luck?” I ask.

  Suzanne’s frown becomes a grin. “He’s a killer and a drug dealer, Moonlight.”

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “There’s that.”

  I go to the basement door, open it.

  “Georgie!” I shout. “Grab the girl and let’s move out!”

  Chapter 38

  WE CRAM BACK INTO Georgie’s white van. Roger takes the shotgun seat, since we’ll be driving to his house. For obvious reasons, we’ll take the scenic route over the most out-of-the-way country roads we can find. Some of the roads are unpaved.

  I sit in back with Suzanne and, for the first time, listen to Detective Miller’s messages. As I suspected, he’s asking me to surrender myself for further questioning now that they have Sissy’s body in custody at the AMC morgue. If I don’t respond to his request by three o’clock today, he’ll consider me fleeing his demand and he’ll officially issue a warrant for my arrest. He also tells me that although they haven’t gone public with any of their findings, a preliminary examination of Sissy’s body suggests foul play. Obviously that initial exam occurred before we stole the body.

  “If we find your man chowder floating around inside her, Moonlight,” he adds, “God help you.”

  Man chowder…

  I have to wonder if Albany cops require a negative IQ in order to be employed. But then, I was a cop once. I should know. Or perhaps they changed the rules since the unexpected initiation of my so-called retirement.

  Hitting the number seven on my keypad, I delete both messages and silently pray we can pull off our little plan for Sissy and Alexander Stalin, and have her back in the morgue by three o’clock.

  We enter into the town of Old Chatham, Roger leading us on a maze of narrow, gravel-covered roads that bypasses the township entirely. I’m sure he’d love nothing more than to make a pit stop at his favorite tavern, but that will have to wait.

  Time check.

  Twelve noon.

  We have at best an hour and a half to make this happen, pack Sissy back up, and get us back on the road to Albany. Arriving at the Walls’s driveway, the first thing we see is that the front wooden gates are cordoned off by yellow crime scene ribbon. It looks slightly less formidable than Roger’s “Keep Out” sign nailed to the fence post.

  Not wanting to mess with the ribbon, Georgie puts the van in park and gets out, leaving the door open. Gently he peels away the ribbon and allows it to drop to the dirt road. He then gets back into the van and maneuvers through the open gate. He stops the van once more and replaces the ribbon, like we never drove in here in the first place. Leave it to Georgie, master pathologist and detail man.

  Slowly we make our way up the drive, knowing not only will Alexander be in the house waiting for us, his goons will no doubt be eyeing us the whole way.

  “Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean they won’t see you,” Roger points out.

  “You’re preaching to the choir, Roger,” I say, feeling for the .38 holstered under my left armpit. “I’ve had a bellyful of experience with the Russian mob. We go back a long way.”

  Suzanne turns to me, sets her hand on my leg.

  “I know you do,” she says. “You wrote about them in Moonlight Falls. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Depends on who you’re talking to,” I say.

  We’re at Roger’s house and Georgie kills the engine. I hand Suzanne the fake novel while remaining out of sight in the back of the van. Georgie remains behind the wheel for now, to act as Suzanne’s official driver.

  “Go,” I say. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “What are you going to do, Moonlight?” Roger says, opening his door.

  “You’ll know what I’m doing when I do it. Just play it for real. You have the first draft of his book, and you’re delivering it to him for his approval.”

  “And what if he demands to read it on the spot?” Suzanne asks while opening her door.

  “He won’t have time,” I say. “Just go.”

  Suzanne and Roger exit the van and begin making their way to the front door. As they walk, I hear Roger say, “I hope Sissy didn’t drink the joint dry.”

  Chapter 39

  “READY, GEORGIE?” I SAY.

  “Sure you wanna’ do this, Moonlight?” he begs. “It’s creepy.”

  “I know it’s wrong,” I say, already feeling the ice-cold pangs of what it is I’m about to do. “I’m a funeral director’s son. I, of all people, know how wrong this is. But Sissy is gone now, and it’s for a good cause. Besides, look who we’re about to deal with. A Russian mobster who claims to be directly related to Uncle Joe Stalin. Stalin killed more innocent people than Hitler.”

  Georgie reaches into the glove compartment, draws out two lengths of rope, and a tube of KY jelly. He makes a swift underhanded pitch and tosses the items onto Sissy, where they settle on top of her black body bag.

  I pull out my .38, open the van door and step on out while buttoning up my leather coat.

  “You take the front door, Georgie,” I say. “And I’ll take the back. Let’s do this before she starts to smell.”

  Georgie takes out his own .9mm, thumbs off the safety, climbs out of the van and starts jogging to the front door. If anyone has had their eyes on us, there’s no doubt about our intentions now, which is why I need to move fast.

  I pop out of the van and sprint around the back of Roger’s house. I immediately spot a big wooden deck that wraps itself around the big farmhouse’s backside. I recall the back door that leads into the kitchen. I climb the stairs onto the deck, head straight for it.

  Transparency reveals the truth.

  Before I even get to the door, I can see what’s happening through the floor-to-ceiling kitchen window. Suzanne and Roger are down on their knees. Suzanne’s shirt has been ripped off, along with her bra, her pert, pale breasts exposed. The man standing directly over her is dressed entirely in black. He’s got his pants pooled down around his knees and he’s making her take him in her mouth, while he’s forcing Roger to swallow the barrel on what looks to be a chrome-plated .44 Magnum. The kind Dirty Harry used to carry. The hammer is thumbed back on the pistol. The thug’s trigger finger is tickling the trigger while Suzanne is sucking him off. If the metal gun is truly loaded with live bullets, it’s possible that trigger finger is going to retract when the fleshy gun shoots its own particular load.

  Even from where I’m standing outside the window, I can almost see the beads of sweat pouring off Roger’s brow. I can feel the agony in Suzanne’s tears. The literary duo have no choice but to kneel there and take it. Standing behind the goon I take to be Alexander are two more Russians. Both of them dressed in identical black outfits. Black jeans, black leather coats, black shoes, black sunglasses. Gripped in their hands are identical .44 Magnums, one bead apiece planted on Roger and Suzanne. If Alexander doesn’t get them, the backup squad will.

  I see Georgie enter into the picture. He’s made his way quietly from the front vestibule down the short hallway to the kitchen. No one seems to have noticed his presence yet, which is exactly the way I want it. I’ve got a choice here: I can either try to negotiate with the mobsters, or we can cut to the chase by rescuing Roger and Suzanne.

  I vie for the latter.

  I grab Georgie’s attention through the plate glass window. I raise the two fingers on my left hand to indicate the number two. Then, with the same fingers closed togethe
r, I point them in the direction of the two goons on the backup squad. He gets my meaning, flashes me a single raised finger on his free hand. I then pat my heart, meaning, “Don’t kill them. Just shoot to wound.” He nods in total understanding. Georgie and I have known one another as close as two non-biological brothers can for nearly forty years. We don’t need to speak directly to know what the other is thinking.

  My left hand held back up, I hold up three fingers.

  “One,” I mouth, dropping the first finger.

  “Two.” Dropping the second.

  “Three.”

  I hear a shot just as I burst through the door. At the same time, I fire the .38 at the legs of the backup goons. They never get a shot off, dropping on the spot, the blood from the wounds in their thighs already spurting blood. Alexander is on his back, the .44 gripped in his right hand. With one bullet, he shatters the chandelier over the kitchen table. It falls from the ceiling in a resounding crash.

  He’s screaming “Shit! Fuck! Motherfucker!” in Russian-accented English.

  I kick the other .44s out of reach of the wounded men and nearly break my big toe.

  “Drop it!” Georgie screams. “Drop the gun!”

  Instead, the Russian fires again, the bullet hitting the ceiling, plaster reigning down on his erect penis.

  Suzanne is screaming. Roger is still on his knees. He’s grabbed hold of Alexander’s stiff manhood and looks like he’s about to yank it off. His face is so red with rage I’m afraid he will.