The Moonlight

by Nicholas Guild

  Monser had been divorced when he came to Greenley, and nobody knew anything about his wife. Maybe she had been rich and had bought him off with a big settlement, because otherwise it was difficult to understand how a police captain could afford to live in such splendor.

  Spolino got into the elevator and pushed the button for the fifth floor. When the doors opened, he looked down the hall and saw Ed Monser standing across his threshold, framed by a rectangle of yellow light.

  “You want a drink, Tom?”

  “No thanks.” Spolino shook his head. “I’d probably collapse. It’s been a long day.”

  He looked around the living room, which had an expensive-looking deep green carpet and was filled with modern furniture of the leather and chrome persuasion. There were paintings on the walls—real paintings, not lithos or the stuff you bought at J.C. Penny’s—and where you might have expected a fireplace there was a massive stereo system.

  Monser was wearing a soft jacket of black silk with shiny black lapels. No kidding. He smiled a little nervously, as if afraid of having betrayed some secret.

  “One of our traffic ladies ticketed Owings’ car a block from the nursing home where Vito Carboni was whacked,” Spolino told him, holding Monser with his eyes the way he did a suspect while he laid out the evidence in the charge statement. “9:03 p.m.—that’s just about on the button. She even had a run-in with the driver. It was Charlie Brush.”

  “So?” Captain Monser, in a gesture one might have expected from Cary Grant, shrugged beneath his jacket. “What does that prove, except that Charlie Brush or his twin brother is making the rounds of the nursing homes? From what I gather, he belongs in one.”

  He smiled again, apparently very pleased with his little joke.

  “Ed, the man identified by Leo Galatina as his murderer has been tagged at the scene of another homicide.”

  “Fine—I don’t think we’ll have to worry about probable cause. Pick him up and bring him in for questioning.”

  As if he had lost interest, Spolino let his gaze turn away as he began looking around the room. The curtains on the front windows, which looked across to the North Street Church, were yellow silk and looked new. There was a little bar cart against one wall, and on the bottom shelf was an unopened bottle of Chivas Regal. He wondered what Monser was paying out to live like this and where he got the money.

  “If I thought I could do that, I wouldn’t be here,” he said at last, still studying the bottle of Chivas Regal. “I need a search warrant on Philip Owings. He’s the only lead we have to Brush.”

  “But your witness saw Brush, not Owings.”

  “Ed, he was using Owings’ car during the commission of a felony.”

  “Wait a minute, Tom—it doesn’t work that way.” Monser sat down on his brown glove-leather sofa, letting his hands fall loose between his knees. He motioned for Spolino to take the chair opposite, but Spolino ignored the invitation. “Did your witness actually see him get into the car?”

  Spolino shook his head. Quite frankly, it hadn’t occurred to him to ask. Even now it seemed irrelevant.

  “He was implying control of the vehicle when he accosted our meter maid,” he said, a little appalled by the jargon.

  “Or maybe he was trying to incriminate Owings.” Monser smiled, as if he had made another joke. “Or maybe he just wanted to be seen and remembered by a competent witness. This guy Brush sounds weird enough for that. Owings is entitled to park his car anywhere he wants, and you still have nothing to tie him in with any of these murders. What am I supposed to do, Tom, get you a warrant for every car that was parked in the area?”

  “No, just Owings’.”

  “I can’t do it, Tom. His lawyer would be all over us.”

  Spolino appeared to be considering the matter, but really there was nothing to consider—he knew he was being flim-flammed. Instead, he gave his attention to Monser’s yellow silk drapes. Alice would probably have parted with a couple of fingers from either hand for a set of drapes like that.

  “Who are you trying to protect, Ed?”

  He turned around and gave his captain the benefit of the coldest stare he had in him, because he had figured out about the drapes and the Chivas Regal and the six-figure apartment. He only knew one person with pockets deep enough for that.

  But if he felt the accusation, Monser didn’t show it.

  “I thought it was you, Tom.”

  . . . . .

  Hal Kirby was going to be awfully disappointed.

  That, honestly, was his first thought, as Spolino got into the elevator and watched the doors close on him. He felt sorry for the guy, because now he wasn’t going to get a nice commendation and another notch up on his steady climb to lieutenant.

  Still, Kirby wouldn’t want to come along now. Careers don’t get made by what was going to happen next.

  Because it never even crossed Spolino’s mind not to go right on out to the Moonlight and make his bust. This was all just too close to home to worry about legal niceties—particularly not the kind Ed Monser was cooking up. Tomorrow morning, if they wanted it, they could have his badge, but tonight he was going out there and pull in Charlie Brush by the heels.

  And if he got away with this one—and maybe even if he didn’t—he thought he might just find out what Monser was doing to get on the Family’s Christmas list. He might even bring the son-of-a-bitch down for it.

  Spolino didn’t go back to the station. There was nothing he needed at the station and he didn’t want to answer any awkward questions or recruit any volunteers. He had good people working under him, and it was better they didn’t get involved. If this went bad, he wanted it to be his alone.

  After all, it was his responsibility—at least, it felt like his responsibility. Maybe it wasn’t, but, still, it had been his grandfather who had screwed that ice pick into Charlie Brush’s ear.

  It was close to midnight when he reached the Moonlight, and there were no lights on. That might mean that Philip Owings’ was already tucked up in bed, or it might mean that Charlie Brush had taken the Lincoln out for a joyride. Or it might mean he should just watch his step.

  He parked in front of the garage and, after a moment’s thought, opened the glove compartment of his car and took out his service revolver, which was strapped into a stiff leather holster that clipped onto his belt.

  Over the years he had gotten out of the habit of carrying a gun, and that was the way he preferred it. That was why he had quit the N.Y.D.P. and had come back to Greenley, because he had gotten tired of its weight on his hip, of the necessity of constant readiness to use it. A gun makes you feel big and powerful and full of authority until you’ve used it to kill a man. Then you just feel ashamed. Spolino had killed twice. Both times he had come out of the Lethal Force hearings without a word against him—neither man had really given him the slightest choice—but a month after the second one he had handed in his badge and come home.

  Greenley wasn’t New York, he thought. A cop could go to retirement in Greenley without ever firing a round. And so it had been for fifteen years.

  But Charlie Brush wasn’t some stockbroker’s kid who had to be warned to turn down the amplifier on his electric guitar. Charlie Brush was a different matter.

  Spolino took the gun out of its holster and slipped it into his coat pocket.

  What he would have liked to do was have a look around and then crash the joint—that was what he would have done if Monser had let him have a warrant. But without a warrant he was naked. He had to go right up to the front door and ring the bell. If somebody answered, fine. If not, it was anybody’s game. He rang the doorbell and nobody answered. He tried again and waited. Silence. The windows stayed black. Officially, nobody was home.

  Maybe, maybe not.

  What the hell. Warrant or no warrant, Spolino decided to was going inside for a look.

  The front door was locked, and so was the door to the kitchen. He went around to the back and, as he passed one of the side windows,
he thought maybe out of the corner of his eye he saw a faint smear of light. If it was ever there it disappeared at once. It could have been the moon reflected off the glass. It could have been his nerves playing tricks on him.

  The door off the patio was standing slightly ajar, almost like an invitation. Spolino pushed it open and, as he stepped inside and reached for the light switch, he felt something hard touch the back of his ear.

  “Right there ’ll be fine,” someone said. Spolino didn’t recognize the voice. He didn’t say anything and he didn’t move.

  For a moment they just stood there in the darkness. It was obvious that the something hard was the muzzle of a gun. It was still pressing against his earlobe, and he had the distinct impression that the hand which held it was trembling slightly. Well, that was a relief—he couldn’t imagine Charlie Brush’s hand trembling. Whoever this one was, he didn’t seem quite sure what to do next.

  “I got him, Mr. DeLucia,” the man shouted, his gun bumping painfully against the back of Spolino’s head. “I got him.”

  A second later the light went on. The underboss of the Galatina Family was standing by an interior doorway, a small automatic in his right hand and his left around the wrist of a young woman in dirty gray trousers. It was a second or two before Spolino recognized her. Then he turned his attention to the underboss and grinned.

  “Well—Jimmy DeLucia. As I live and breathe.”

  DeLucia shot him an annoyed glance, implying that both of these might be merely temporary conditions, but his real anger seemed to be reserved for the man who was holding Spolino at gunpoint.

  “This isn’t him, Joey,” he said, his voice like the dripping of ice water. “You might have waited a minute or two.”

  The gun muzzle eased away from Spolino’s head, and he turned to have a peek at “Joey”. Joey looked ready to hand the gun over and apologize.

  “You better pat him down,” DeLucia said, as if reminding a child to put on his coat before going outside to play. But the message was really for Spolino—we’re playing for keeps, it said.

  “Maybe you better give your boss a call,” Spolino murmured, favoring DeLucia with a nod to indicate he understood which game they were playing now.

  “Maybe I better.”

  Chapter 36

  After dinner, as soon as the servants were out of the house, Sonny went upstairs to his bedroom and changed into the charcoal gray suit he had worn to Sal Grazzi’s funeral. After all, his revenge on Sal’s murderer was an event of some importance, and he wanted it to achieve the proper note of solemn dignity.

  When he came back down to the living room, his wife, who was curled up on one end of the sofa, glanced in his direction, her eyes widening just enough to note the fact that he had done something unusual, and then, when he didn’t offer to explain, allowed her attention to return to her manicure. For several minutes the only sound was the muffled rasp on the emory board against Traci’s fingernails.

  Sonny watched her with an emotion very like hatred. How dare she do her nails in his living room? Trish would never had done that, but then Trish, whatever her other limitations, had at least known how to act like a lady. But he had to acknowledge that there was a certain rough justice to the situation—this was what he got for divorcing his first wife just because her tits had begun to sag a little, he got to spend his middle years sitting around with a fake blonde he couldn’t even talk to, listening to her file her nails.

  Finally, when he couldn’t stand it anymore, he went outside.

  The lights in the swimming pool somehow made the water appear sluggish and heavy, like molten glass. A faint mist played over its surface as it evaporated into the hot summer night. Sonny plugged the telephone he was carrying into an outlet in the wall of the changing cabaña and sat down on one of the lawn chairs. He watched the pool, studying the little coils of light that played over the bottom, wishing Jimmy would hurry up and phone.

  Jimmy had mounted the Owings hit like a military operation, and he had thought of everything that would keep his Don sealed off from any dangerous appearance of involvement. The cars that were patrolling up and down Old River Road were all equipped with phones, so all Jimmy had to do was flag one down—and thus avoid using the phone at the Moonlight, which would put Sonny Galatina’s unlisted number on Owing’s monthly statement from Baby Bell. The message would be simple, in case the Justice Department was still manning their taps: either “have a nice evening” if everything had gone as planned and they would meet downtown, or “it looks like rain” if some complication meant that Jimmy would attend to things on his own and the Boss should make it an early night. Sonny could understand and even approve his underboss’s caution, but that didn’t stop him from feeling some faint resentment over being treated like the Family’s invalid aunt.

  He knew it might be hours before Jimmy called, but he wished the waiting would end. It was getting on his nerves.

  He wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting there when he began to be aware of a peculiar silence, as if the night itself had gone to sleep. Two windows on the upper story of the big house were still lit, and the pool glowed like the crater of a volcano, but everywhere else, all around the periphery, there was darkness and an eerie quiet.

  For one thing, the dogs weren’t barking. There were always two guards walking the dogs around the inside of the fence, one going clockwise and the other counterclockwise, so their paths crossed every eight or ten minutes. Every time that happened the damn dobermans—nervous, vicious brutes—would bark for a second or two, all set to tear this strange mutt’s throat out, then take a sniff at each other’s asses, and pass on. This went on all night, and after a while you got so used to the sound you didn’t even hear it anymore.

  Except when it wasn’t there.

  So what was the matter with the fucking dogs? Had they suddenly gotten smart enough to just nod, or were they all down with laryngitis?

  And then, where were the lights? The guards carried flashlights and when they went around the west side of the property you could just make out a glow through the trees, there for a second and then gone. It was another one of those things you didn’t notice until it was gone, and it was gone now. Just guessing, Sonny figured there hadn’t been a sign of life out there in maybe twenty minutes.

  He thought maybe he would have a look. He was halfway out of his chair before he thought better of it and decided to phone the gatehouse instead. They all kept in touch by walkie-talkie, and if something was wrong the guy at the gatehouse would know.

  Sonny didn’t begin to get really scared until he picked up the telephone receiver, placed it against his ear, and didn’t hear anything. Nothing—the line was dead.

  He twisted around in his seat to look at the wall outlet, just to be sure he had plugged the god-damned thing in, and then he stood up. What the hell, it wasn’t like he was cut off from the human race.

  “Angelo! Pete! Anybody, get over here!”

  He was shouting so loud he could feel the veins in his head bulging, but the sound of his voice died away and there was only silence. As if the night had swallowed up the last trace.

  There was a line of shrubbery just beside the path that led around the far side of the house. He was sure he saw something move over there.

  Slowly, each step a victory over the urge to flee, he began to move in that direction.

  His gun was in his desk drawer—why the fuck hadn’t he taken it outside with him? Because he was a business-suit Don, a phony, no kind of a bad guy at all, and he had never gotten into the habit of walking around armed. Enrico never would have found himself in this fix, stuck outside without even a cigar cutter to defend himself with.

  Near the side of the path, just where the lights from the pool died away into shadow, he found a man lying on his side in the grass, motionless, obviously dead. Sonny turned him over with the tip of his shoe. It was Angelo Mosconi, head of his bodyguard, with his eyes wide open, as if he couldn’t believe what had happened to him.
The whole front of his shirt was stained with blood, because his throat had been cut straight through. The blood was still glistening and fresh—he couldn’t have been dead more than a few minutes. The shotgun he should have been carrying was nowhere about.

  That was why no one had answered. Because they were all dead. There couldn’t be a doubt about it, they were all dead.

  Sonny broke into clumsy run. He had to get into the house, where his gun was in a drawer—where he would have a chance.

  Just as he came back around to the patio, the lights in the upper story went out. First one, and then the other. The house was dark.

  Maybe Traci had decided to go to bed, he told himself—except that Traci never went to bed until around two in the morning and, anyway, why should she turn off the light in his dressing room? Besides, Traci was afraid of the dark, and she wasn’t very conservation-minded either. Traci would leave every light in the joint burning right straight through to morning.

  It wasn’t his wife who was turning out lights.

  All at once Sonny Galatina felt himself go sick with fear. It was like a fist clenching his bowels.

  “Oh God, baby,” he whispered, “where are you?”

  Because, if there was a stranger in the house, by now Traci would have to know it. So why wasn’t she screaming her head off?

  As soon as he was inside the back door, standing there in the darkness, he became aware of the sound of his own breathing. It was rapid and harsh, as if his lungs had been scoured out. He had the terrible feeling it was loud enough to be heard all over the house, but when he tried to slow it down he found himself gasping for breath.

  He realized he was beginning to panic, so he waited there for what seemed forever but was probably no more than two or three minutes, until he felt more in control. Then he began to make his way through the house to his office.

  This was home ground, he told himself—he lived here. He could find his way around this house with his eyes shut. He tried to stay close to the walls so that the floorboards wouldn’t creak as much.