Dick Moonlight - 01 - Moonlight Falls

by Vincent Zandri

  He says, “Maybe it was her way of snatching up a little control in her life.”

  I say, “I’m not seeing the relevance the tape or tapes has to your body parts investigation.”

  Stocky agent looks me in the eye.

  He says, “Everything is relevant to everything.”

  I notice a very real boldness in his voice. Or is it righteousness?

  Still, I have to laugh. “Whoa, heavy. I guess that’s why I’m sitting here and you’re sitting there.”

  “And where is this tape today?” the agent presses.

  “I told you. I destroyed it.”

  “You destroyed it,” he says as though disbelieving. “But you said there’s nothing on it but sleeping?”

  “Sleeping is enough.”

  Stocky agent sits back in his chair, sighs.

  “Jeez,” he says. “I guess maybe, in the end, you have learned your lesson after all, Mr. Divine. You’re not the head case you make yourself out to be.”

  I cross my arms at my chest, exhale.

  Stocky agent stands.

  “That’s it,” he says, turning towards the giant mirror, running his right index finger across his neck in a slashing motion—an all-too-innocent gesture that, for the briefest of moments, transports me back to Scarlet and the first time I stepped into her bedroom to gaze upon her mutilated body.

  I ask, “So you’re not going to book me for anything?”

  “You’ve cooperated,” the agent tells me, while his partner moves away from the wall, stands beside him. “Besides, you’ve done nothing wrong. No charges are to be filed. You’re a free man, pending further questioning of course.”

  “You have no one to arrest now,” I add. “The way I learned it, someone always has to pay when it comes to murder. Especially a cop’s murder. Where’s the payoff?”

  “Believe me, Mr. Divine,” the agent says, “someone will pay. Sooner or later, justice will be served and someone will go down for this mess. The body parts op alone extends way beyond the boundaries of Stormville and Woodstock.” He rolls his eyes. “And of course, there is the inevitable hellfire.”

  Stocky agent is a God-fearing man.

  “Cain and Montana were just cogs in a much larger machine, weren’t they?”

  “Cain and Montana tapped into a lucrative market,” the agent offers. “Still in all, you took a real chance getting so close to them. They were dangerous men who risked directly connecting themselves with a mob-sponsored black market operation.”

  “I guess I’m not afraid of dying after all,” I say.

  “I imagine you can’t be as close to death as you’ve been and still be afraid of dying.”

  I find myself nodding, as if finally, someone understands. But I know he doesn’t.

  “Let me tell you something,” I say. “The closer you come to meeting your maker, the more it scares the living daylights out of you.”

  Standing, I make for the exit, but turn back around when the agent calls out my name once more.

  “Yeah?”

  “You forgot your cigarettes,” he says, holding up the pack.

  “I’m the last jerk on the earth who should be smoking. How ‘bout you keep ‘em.”

  “I quit three years ago,” stocky agent says with a grin. “But I suppose I can find the second-to-last jerk.”

  Going for the door, I get this cold feeling in my feet, a numbness in my right hand, a pressure in the center of my head. The sensations speak to me, alarm me. They tell me these F.B.I. agents will never see me alive again.

  EPILOGUE

  OUTSIDE, IT WAS RAINING again.

  I wondered if it would ever stop for more than three or four days at a time.

  Pulling the collar up on my leather jacket, I started walking towards my dad’s Mercedes. It was parked up against the curb on Broadway. From where I stood I could make out Lola in the passenger side seat. Seated beside her was my boy. I wasn’t really certain, but it looked like they were playing some sort of tickle game. She was smiling and laughing, waving her hands up and down. I couldn’t see it of course, but deep in my head I imagined their smiling faces, their laughter.

  The rain intensified.

  So much rain I was practically blinded. For a few seconds all I could make out was the blurry red and blue light that shined off the brick and concrete wall-mounted neon signs that hung over the doors and windows of the gin mills that peppered the downtown.

  More doors and signs than I could count.

  But then I saw it lying in the road, directly beside a storm sewer drain that had backed up and was overflowing in the heavy rain. A red robin lying on its side on the soaked macadam. The bird was struggling to lift its wings, its beak opening and closing helplessly, black marble eye reflecting the street light. I stood there watching the bird watch me. He was all alone in the open road, suffering, its scarlet feathers trembling, as though begging me for help.

  For just a split second I was tempted to walk into the road, pick the bird up with my bare hands, wrap it in my jacket.

  But I did nothing.

  What could I possibly do for this creature other than put it out of its misery? And somehow the thought of killing, no matter how easy, just did not seem like the right thing to do. Because all that’s born dies, one way or another. It’s just a matter of how much time you’ve got.

  There was, however, one thing I could do.

  Stepping out into the road, I reached into my pants pocket, pulled out my wallet. Unfolding it, I slipped out the razor blade that had been pulled off the t-shirt I snatched from the floor in Scarlet’s bedroom the night she killed herself. Just one of those loose razors construction people use for scraping old wallpaper. A paper-thin, super-light blade that Scarlet Montana used to kill herself with in the most brutal manner possible—a blood-soaked blade that somehow must have stuck to my t-shirt not to reappear again until last week’s laundry day when I discovered it at the bottom of the washing machine.

  I guess stranger things have happened.

  For now I held the blade in my fingertips, felt its near weightlessness. Even the rain that puddled in my palm seemed to weigh more. Until I bent down, dropped it through the sewer grate.

  All’s well that ends …

  Standing there in the downpour, I made the decision to do something else.

  Bending at the waist, I cupped my hands under the injured bird, lifted it up in the palms of my hands. I felt her feathery, wet heat against my skin, her little rapid heart beating against my fingers as I made my way back across the sidewalk, set her down onto a dry piece of awning-protected concrete.

  Making my way further up the sidewalk, I made sure not to look back.

  In the near distance, my new family awaited me inside my dad’s pride and joy Mercedes funeral coach. With a heavy heart, I moved towards them.

  Just another helpless creature, caught in the rain.

  BONUS MATERIAL

  Interview in MORE magazine.

  A NEW BOOK FOR HITCHCOCK FANS

  Vincent Zandri’s dark thriller. by Dorothy Thompson • More.com Member

  Anyone remember those old Hitchcock thrillers? My favorite was The Birds back in ’63. I never looked at another black bird the same after that.

  There’s a new book out called Moonlight Falls (R.J. Buckley Publishing) by Vincent Zandri that will just blow you away. If you are a Hitchcock fan, you’ll absolutely love this book. The setting is Albany, New York, where Richard “Dick” Moonlight, former APD detective turned private investigator/massage therapist (I kid you not), who believed he killed Scarlet Montana, his illicit lover and wife of his ex-boss Chief of Detectives Jake Montana. The dilemma is Moonlight doesn’t remember what happened. After surviving a botched suicide attempt, he lived precariously on the fence between life and death due to the remnant of a .22 caliber bullet lodged in his brain. With the little piece of lead pressing up against his cerebral cortex, he knew he couldn’t always trust himself to make the correct decisions. He also c
ouldn’t trust his short-term memory.

  When his sometimes lover, the beautiful Scarlet Montana, called him up one night, he knew he should have resisted, but the temptation was too strong. Later that same night, when Scarlet’s body was discovered, Moonlight received a call by her police chief husband to oversee a special investigation into a murder Moonlight may well have committed.

  It’s an exciting fast-paced thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed.

  Vincent Zandri is an award-winning novelist, essayist and freelance photojournalist. Besides Moonlight Falls, he also wrote and published As Catch Can (Delacorte) and was touted in two pre-publication articles by Publishers Weekly and was called “brilliant” upon its publication by The New York Post. The Boston Herald attributed it as “the most arresting first crime novel to break into print this season.”

  Other novels include Godchild (Bantam/Dell) and Permanence (NPI). Translated into several languages including Japanese and the Dutch, Zandri’s novels have also been sought out by numerous major movie producers, including Heyday Productions and DreamWorks. Moonlight Falls is his fourth novel. He is the author of the blogs, Dangerous Dispatches and Embedded in Africa for RT ( Russia Today TV) which have been syndicated and translated in several different languages throughout the world. He also writes for other global publications, including Culture 11, Globalia, Globalspec and more.

  Zandri’s nonfiction has appeared in New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, Game and Fish Magazine and others, while his essays and short fiction have been featured in many journals including Fugue, Maryland Review and Orange Coast Magazine. He holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College and is a 2010 International Thriller. Writer’s Awards panel judge. Zandri currently divides his time between New York and Europe. He is the drummer for the Albany-based punk band to Blisterz. You can visit his website at www.vincentzandri.com or his blog at www.vincentzandri.blogspot.com.

  INTERVIEW IN SEATTLE PI

  VINCENT ZANDRI, AUTHOR OF MOONLIGHT FALLS:

  By APRIL POHREN, BLOGCRITICS.ORG Tuesday, April 26, 2011

  For those not presently familiar with the name Vincent Zandri, you are in for a treat, as are those who already have a sense of this man. He is an award-winning novelist, essayist and freelance photojournalist. Zandri holds an M.F.A. in Writing, from Vermont College and is a 2010 International Thriller Writer’s Awards panel judge.

  His work has appeared in several magazines and publications throughout the world, and his novels have thrilled many readers. With such novels as Godchild, Permanence, Moonlight Falls and the soon-to-be-released The Remains, Zandri knows a thing or two about the writing business, as well as how to entertain readers and keep them at the edge of their seats.

  Zandri’s novels have been translated into several languages including Japanese and the Dutch. In addition, many of Vincent Zandri’s novels have been sought out by numerous major movie producers, including Heyday Productions and DreamWorks. Moonlight Falls is his fourth novel.

  When not writing, Vincent Zandriis the drummer for the Albany-based punk band to Blisterz, and divides his time between New York and Europe.

  First of all, could you tell us a bit about Moonlight Falls? What is the story about, who are the characters, etc.

  Moonlight Falls is basically film noir on paper. It’s about Richard “Dick” Moonlight, suicide survivor who now must cope with a small piece of .22 caliber bullet lodged in his brain. Because it’s pressed up against his cerebral cortex he has trouble making good decisions and he suffers on occasion from short-term memory loss. In times of stress he passes out. He could suffer a major stroke or die at any moment. So time means little to him. When he makes the wrong decision to sleep with his former boss’s wife, the beautiful Scarlet Montana, and she later turns up brutally murdered, he believes it’s possible he might have killed her and just can’t remember it.

  I believe I was down in Manhattan promoting As Catch Can with my then Delacorte editor, Jacob Hoye (now MTV Books), when I came across a story about a man who survived a suicide attempt and lived with a piece of bullet shrapnel still stuck in his brain. At the time I was also influenced by a self-stabbing suicide art exhibit that I caught in a Soho gallery by the infamous artist Damien Hirst. I’ve also been fascinated with a rarely spoken about story from my family history in which my paternal grandfather committed suicide by slicing his neck open with a straight razor in front of his grown children.

  What do you want readers to take away from reading Moonlight Falls?

  How long do I have to wait until the next “Moonlight” novel comes out!

  What was the most fun about writing Moonlight Falls?

  It was very hard work. But since Moonlight is incapable of making the right decision about things now and again, it’s allowed me as an author to get him into some pretty hairy situations.

  What was the hardest part about writing Moonlight Falls?

  The research about brain damage, organ harvesting, police procedure. Also, there are tense shifts throughout.

  What kind of research did you do for Moonlight Falls?

  See above. But to add, I visited hospitals, funeral parlors, police stations, morgues, prisons, swam in the Hudson River to see what that was like. Fun stuff like that.

  Could you please tell us about your writing process?

  I get up early everyday. Every week day that is. Make the coffee and start in on biting the nail. That’s Hemingway-speak for “writing.” I usually work until ten, then get some exercise in at the gym. I also run. Then I write all afternoon until 5PM when I head out for a couple of drinks or maybe some fly fishing, or rehearsal with my punk band, The Blisterz. If I’m working on a novel the first draft is completed in longhand on yellow legal pads. If it’s a piece of journalism I do it right off the keyboard.

  Do you ever put yourself within your characters?

  Sometimes, in so much as I’m my most familiar invented character. So sometimes it feels comfortable to interject some of myself into the main dude. For instance, Moonlight misses his little boy whom he lost custody of in his divorce. I’ve experienced that and it can be emotionally devastating. So being able to write about it and even publish it, is like exorcising some demons. It beats paying a shrink or a priest to do the same thing!

  Do you have any particular habits that you take part in while writing? By that I mean certain music you like to listen to, foods you like to eat, environment that helps you write better, etc.

  In general, if it’s a book, I try and maintain the same work schedule everyday. Get as much sleep as possible, including naps. I listen to a lot of Vaughn Williams when I write. Romantic and lush. On occasion some Miles or Bucky Pizzarelli, especially if I’m writing noir. But when I’m engaged in a journalism assignment, the less consistency the better. I prefer to be in some far off destination, uncomfortable, under pressure. As for foods, I try and stick to five small meals a day. It’s a weight lifter thing.

  Where do you get your ideas and inspirations?

  From other writers and journalists I know or know of. One journalist I admire is a woman named Lizette Potgeiter originally from South Africa now operating as a freelancer out of Afghanistan. We both work for RT (Russia Today TV). I wish I had half the guts she has. Other inspirations are Hemingway, Mailer, Max Frisch, Charlie Huston, JA Konrath…But mostly the inspiration is derived from within. In a word, I’m obsessed. Just ask my two ex-wives about it. They’ll be happy to tell you what a self-obsessed jerk I am!

  How did you decide you wanted to be a writer? Was there any authors or books that made you think “Wow, that’s what I want to do - craft stories of my own for others to read”?

  I think from the first moment I read Hemingway’s collection of short stories, In Our Time, I knew I was doomed so to speak. Those stories spoke to me in a way nothing else did. Not movies, not music (and I’m a musician), not religion, not philosophy. I wanted to be able to write like that. I thought it would be easy. That was 30 years ago. I’m still not able t
o write on the level that Hemingway was writing in his early 20s, but everyday I bite the nail and come a little bit closer.

  What make you take that leap from “wanting” to be a writer, as opposed to “becoming” a writer? Many talk of being a writer and dip their toes in, but it seems there is often a sort of “push” to bring one over that wall.

  My wall was family pressure. I was groomed to be a major executive in the family commercial construction business and for a while I fell into it, along with a wife, two babies, house in the burbs, country club, debt, more debt and even more debt. The middle class is a trap and a horrifying one at that. I was only 24 at the time, and miserable. I kept looking at the copy of In Our Time on the book shelf, and one day around the age of 26 or 27 I told my wife I was giving it all up to become a writer. I became a Stringer for the local newspaper, and started on some short stories that got published in journals like Negative Capability, Orange Coast Magazine, Fugue, The Maryland Review, and others. I enrolled in writing school and started doing as much traveling as I could to places like China, Turkey, France, wherever. Sold the house, the car, gave up the club, and the paid off the debts. Of course my wife divorced me, but ironically, my sons came to live with me fulltime. I beat the trap, but it was one hell of a fight and costly too. But oh so worth it.

  How do you come up with the names of your characters? It almost seems as though, as an author, you have the continuous fun of naming children!

  I like giving my characters names that mean something, even if it causes some reviewers to thumb their nose at my choices, calling them contrived or some such shit. One of my favorite authors is Max Frisch and he was a master of giving his characters names with meaning. Homo Faber is one such book. The title literally means “Man the Maker.” The main character’s name is Faber, and the girlfriend he is trying to ditch goes by the curious clingy name of Ivy. I’ve always liked the notion of a waxing and waning moon, so I thought it would be the perfect name for a character who is forever up and down in life. One bit of trivia though, the name of Moonlight’s lover, Scarlet Montana, is not made up. The real Scarlet used to work at a bank in upstate New York. She was beautiful. Scarlet, are you out there somewhere????