I SIT FOR A while thinking things out.
I start from the start, from the moment Czech first met me at my bar in his wheelchair a few days ago. Moonlight FYI: Whenever anyone hires me for something, I can’t help but wonder why? Why hire a guy with half a bullet in his brain and a penchant for forgetting things, when you can hire a perfectly normal person?
Maybe I just come cheap. Maybe that’s what it comes down to: price. These are tough times after all. Four bucks a gallon for gas, three bucks for a loaf of bread, most of a twenty dollar bill for a six pack of brew and a single pack of Marlboros. Tough times even for nuclear engineers.
I take a sip of beer, sit back, and think about all that I have to go on. First things first: I have a handicapped guy who wants me to find his long-lost biological father. I’ve got a three-decade-old photograph of said father standing beside a pair of adoptive parents named Czech who originally migrated from the then USSR, only to settle in Albany to start a new life for themselves. That new life afforded Papa Czech employment as an engineer at the Knolls nuclear power plant. It would eventually include his son’s employment as well. And as for an added connection, the son’s biological father belongs to a team of accountants who oversaw the plant on behalf of the federal government.
Not six degrees of separation. But only three.
Speaking of the biological father: He’s tall, and bears eyebrows so thick and long they curl up at the end, making him look a lot like a cartoon devil. After thirty years I picture the eyebrows having turned gray and perhaps having even grown out all the more.
The point is, if Harvey Rose still exists, he will not be hard to spot. Unless he trims his brows regularly.
And since the business address of a one Harvey Rose exists in the Google business listings, there’s nothing preventing me from driving over to his office and knocking on the door. Problem is, Peter Czech has already told me that if finding his old man was as easy as going online, he wouldn’t need me in the first place.
Am I to assume then that the Rose I’ve just discovered at work on State Street is not Czech’s father? Maybe. But it still won’t hurt to check out the office location. Pays to be thorough. Or maybe Czech’s gut instinct is all wrong and Rose is in fact the dead guy listed in the Albany County Hall of Records.
All things considered, Czech’s father-finding project should not be all that difficult if all I have to do is some digging around. I’ll eventually find the man if he’s alive. And I’ll find him if he’s dead. Problem is, I’ve got three Obama-masked men dressed in black who’ve threatened to kill me if I keep on looking for Czech’s biological father. Now they not only want to kill me, but they want the contents of some box Czech apparently brought to my bedside in the Albany Medical Center—an event for which I have no recollection.
Go figure.
To make matters worse, my longtime girlfriend Lola is begging me not to take Czech’s job, like she too knows something I don’t. Like she knows more than she’s letting on.
Have I truly seen her with another man standing beside my deathbed only two days ago? If I believe Georgie, than what I witnessed could very well be an elaborate dream. But I’m not so sure it’s a dream. Lola is acting way too strange, too secretive. Like she’s indeed conducting an affair behind my back.
There’s something else gnawing at my brain too. Maybe I have no grounds on which to base my assumption. Or maybe I’m just plain crazy. A head-case with a small piece of .22 caliber bullet inside his brain. But my built-in shit detector is sounding off again and I somehow can’t help but believe that Lola and Peter Czech know one another. And if that’s the case then the Lola I’ve known all this time isn’t the woman she appears to be. It also means that Czech isn’t the helpless handicapped client I’ve perceived him to be either. It means I’m being duped and have died once already in the process.
CHAPTER 16
THE OLD PATHOLOGIST SHOWS up to my place at eight-thirty.
Time enough for us to down a couple more pain-killing beers while we discuss his little research project regarding contract births. We sit at my kitchen counter while Georgie tells me that back in late ‘70s, it’s becoming a trend for women especially, quote “liberated women” unquote, to enter into contracts in which they deliver a perfectly healthy baby for another couple who for one reason or another, cannot have one. Maybe they’re infertile, too old, or too gay.
Whatever the case, the “surrogate parents,” as they come to be called, enter into a legally binding contract with the “host mother” as she’s called, which dictates that immediately upon birth, custody of the child will revert to the surrogates. The child, it is understood, will never see his or her biological mother again. Nor will there be contact. That sad fact alone might explain the one known photograph that exists of baby Czech along with his father and his new Russian parents.
“The common problem which arises down the road,” Georgie adds, “is that lots of biological mothers can’t resist the temptation . . . hell, the biological need . . . to try and get their kids back. Or at least make contact with them. Same goes for the kids wanting to see their real parents, which could be the case with your client. That is you’re looking for a motivation here, which I assume you are.”
“You can’t deny hundreds of thousands of years of human genetic makeup,” I suggest. “It’s just not a natural act for a woman to willingly give up a baby she carried for nine months inside her own womb. Her own flesh and blood.”
“Unless the biological mother was forced into giving up her child against her will.”
Georgie hits something on the head there.
“That is, someone didn’t want her having the child,” I say. “Like her husband perhaps. An angry husband or boyfriend.”
Our minds were working another angle now.
“Maybe angry because the child wasn’t his to begin with. Or maybe . . . just maybe . . . maybe they just couldn’t afford to have a kid in the first place.”
I nod, pull the black and white photo back out like maybe staring at it some more will offer more clues.
“Could be that what we’re witnessing inside this photo, Georgie, is a man who really isn’t Peter’s father at all, but some guy who’s so pissed off at his wife for cheating on him, he enters into a contract with a Russian couple to raise her illegitimate child. His name probably isn’t even Rose.”
“Cold,” Georgie says. “And entirely fucked up.”
“Tres cold,” I agree, getting up from the counter to fetch one last cold beer.
“Richard!” Georgie barks while I’m pulling the can from the fridge.
I turn fast. Georgie only calls me Richard when he’s about to come down on me for something.
“What’s with the damn drinking?”
“I’m in pain,” I tell him. “Real. Physical. Pain.” But he sees right through my fib.
“From your war wounds? Or from something else?”
Lola and Some Young Guy embracing over my dead body.
I turn back to the fridge, open it, slide the beer back inside.
“Let’s just fucking go,” I say.
CHAPTER 17
OF COURSE ALL THESE assumptions are just that: assumptions.
I’ve still been hired to find old devil brows no matter what the circumstances are behind Czech’s adoption, and that’s what I’m going to do.
Why am I such a nosey busybody?
Why am I always looking for answers to questions that don’t really matter?
Because I want to know what and who I am dealing with. And that also means parking myself outside Czech’s home for a few hours.
Moonlight the thorough.
Inside the bedroom area of the loft, I find my .9mm hanging on the bedpost by its leather shoulder holster. I strap it on outside my black turtleneck. In the drawer I find my Swiss Army knife and stuff that into the right-hand pocket of my black Levis. After I step into some lace-up combat boots, I slip on my leather jacket, button it up. For a last t
ouch, a black wool watch cap from the Army/Navy. All I need now is a thin mustache and I’ll be David Niven in the Guns of Navarone.
Out in the hallway, Georgie and I take a quick glance at one another. We’re both dressed entirely in black denim and leather. This is hardly our first stakeout and by now we know the drill.
Besides, we both look good in black.
We don’t head immediately to Czech’s house.
At my insistence, we make a detour first via downtown Albany. State Street, to be precise. The uphill city street that Teddy Roosevelt climbed every day to the State Capital building back in the old days when the pot-bellied, mustached Rough Rider was the Governor of New York State and dying of cabin fever.
Georgie drives the van slowly, the flashers going so that the crappy drivers glued to our tails know enough to pull around us. Meanwhile we search for the number 45 planted on one of the glass and metal entries to the old brick high-rises.
I spot 45, tell him to stop.
He pulls over, double parks beside a white van that has the words “Capital Cleaning Crew” printed on the side-panels.
“Be right back,” I say, getting out. “Cop comes, just drive around the block.”
I approach the entrance to 45 State Street. Even though it’s after business hours, the door is open. To my immediate left inside the wide open marble-finished vestibule is a building directory. I pull the small piece of scrap paper from my pocket, look at it.
Harvey Rose, CPA
45 State St.
Suite 12B
Albany, New York.
“X marks the spot,” I whisper to myself, while a two-man cleaning crew goes to work buffing the floors with big electric powered buffers. The Capital Cleaning Crew no doubt.
I stare up at the board, hoping the cleaning crew won’t expect the worst coming from a grown man dressed all in black sneaking inside a commercial building after business hours. First I look for a name. Rose. When the name doesn’t appear, I look for the suite number. 12B. The suite number is there. But no Rose. Instead it says Dental Office.
Being a clever, tenacious, and entirely mortally wounded private detective, I decide to make an on-the-spot investigation.
When the cleaning crew isn’t looking, I slip into the stairwell, make my way up one flight of stairs. Then I exit the stairwell and find the elevators. I take it to the twelfth floor. I make my way down a dimly lit, carpeted hall, until I come to suite 12B. The name on the door doesn’t resemble Rose’s one bit. In fact, it isn’t even an accounting firm. Like the directory indicates, the door says, Dr. Thomas Doolittle, Dentist.
Dr. Doolittle. I wonder if he works only on animals, seeing as only he can speak to them.
After a quick but exhaustive check on every office on the floor, I take the elevator back down to the first floor. When the doors open, a man in a business suit holding a brown leather attaché case gets on. As I get off onto the floor, I about-face.
“Excuse me, sir,” I politely pipe in. “Do you work in this building?”
His eyes blink rapidly. The doors start to close and he has no choice but to hold them open. I take a step forward, place my booted foot in front of the left door, just in case he has trouble holding it. Redundancy is everything in these matters.
“Yes,” he says, agitated.
“How many years?”
He exhales. He wants to go upstairs in the worst way. But then he looks down at my foot.
“About a dozen, why? Can I help you with something?”
“I’m looking for Harvey Rose, CPA. I have a card says he works here on the twelfth floor.”
He shakes his head, purses his lips.
“That office hasn’t been around for at least five years,” he explains. “That it? I answer your question?”
Just then a young red-headed woman enters the building, makes her way to the elevator. When she gets on, she’s startled to see the man holding the door open.
“Brian,” she exhales, nervously.
She’s dressed in a short skirt, white blouse unbuttoned enough to show some cleavage. Her jacket matches her skirt. She’s got a diamond-mounted silver band wrapped around her wedding finger. Expensive.
“Audrey,” he mumbles. “Nice to . . . see you.”
Brian’s face turns red, like his friend’s hair. He tries to put on a good act, but he isn’t much of a faker. When I step back, I notice that Brian wears a wedding band himself. Gold. Inexpensive.
“Burning the midnight oil, Brian?” I pose. I just can’t resist. Moonlight the ball-buster.
The elevator doors close before he can respond. Just as well.
As I make for the exit past the busy-at-work Capital Cleaning Crew, I’m reminded of Some Young Guy, of Lola, and even my ex-wife.
I’m also reminded of how much I hate cheaters.
CHAPTER 18
I SLIP BACK INTO the van.
Georgie peers at me with those deep blue eyes.
“I’m guessing we’ve reached a crucial plot-point in the mystery,” he poses. “No Rose.”
“The address is old. I’m surprised it’s listed on Google at all.”
“Maybe someone wants it on Google. You gotta feed that search engine bitch before it will tag something. And Rose’s address has apparently been tagged, even if it is a phony. I mean, I can’t be sure, Moon, but that’s the way it appears to me.”
“The only thing for certain is the pain in my side and the constant ringing in my skull.”
“Poor baby.”
“When you gonna stop picking on me?”
He throws the tranny into drive.
“On the last day of never,” he says.
“Drive,” I say.
“Yes sir, sir,” he says.
CHAPTER 19
About a half hour later, Georgie and I are parked across the street and down a ways from Czech’s Orchard Grove crib. The place is a featureless, just-add-water, single-story ranch. It looks identical to the thousand-plus others that surround it in a quiet neighborhood that appears to have sprung up immediately after World War Two. That sleepiness means it won’t be long before someone calls the cops on Georgie’s F5 Ford Extend Van. Which makes it all the more important that I try and catch sight of Czech sooner than later, see if there’s anything about him that appears to be different from the young man he portrays himself to be.
Thus far however, it doesn’t look like he’s home.
We wait another hour, with the occasional car passing us, the driver almost always slowing up to get a good look at the two men dressed in black and parked on the side of the road opposite Czech’s. For all I know, the Neighborhood Watch Committee is already on to us.
“Time to take a drive-around, Georgie,” I suggest, after a time.
“Sure about that?” He sips on coffee kept warm from his thermos.
“It’s either that or have the APD pull up on our asses.”
I recall Detective Clyne’s business card still stuffed inside my pants pocket. Should I call him, alert him to what we’re up to? Better not to open that Pandora’s box.
Georgie slips the coffee into one of the console cup holders, turns over the engine.
“I hear you, Moon,” he says. “Just a quick drive around the block. Break things up.”
It’s exactly what we do.
When we get back, Czech’s house is still draped in blackness. Some of the other surrounding homes have also gone black. It’s after ten o’clock at night. I can’t be sure if people go to sleep before the eleven o’clock news in this neighborhood, or they’re all getting a good look at us through their living room picture windows.
Flashlight.
A circle of blinding white light.
“Oh crap.” Georgie, barking under his breath.
“Be cool. And pull that rubber-band out of your hair.”
Shooting me a look.
“Just do it, G.”
He does it.
“Come close,” I insist.
“Moon�
�“
“Georgie, we are not going to be reported to the cops.”
He scooches closer. That’s when I grab him by the shoulders, pull him into me, run my hands through his long, shoulder-length hair, and lay a big fat kiss on him. No tongue, of course.
A tap on the driver’s side window.
“What the fuck!” Georgie pulls back. I think he’s going to spit in my face.
“Don’t turn around, or this is shot.”
Another wrap on the glass, the flashlight lighting up the cab. I reach out, roll down the window, keeping Georgie close to me. Like he’s my embarrassed girlfriend.
“Excuse me,” a balding middle-aged man says. “But this is a private neighborhood and we strongly discourage people like you from using it for illicit purposes.”
I work up my best Moonlight smile.
“You mean like kissing your upset girlfriend you mean.”
“Whatever,” the man says.
“Listen buddy, I completely understand. I live in a suburb myself across the river in Troy. But as you can see, my girlfriend here is upset. She’s here visiting her parents and this is the only place we can grab some peace. So maybe just give us a few minutes and we’ll be on our merry way.”
The man shines the light on Georgie’s long gray hair.
“Her parents must be pretty old. What are their names? I’m sure I must know them.”
My smile dissolves.
“Here’s an idea, pal. Maybe dispense with the disparaging ‘old’ people commentary. My girlfriend happens to be prematurely gray.”
He pulls the light away.
“I’m sorry,” he offers. “I didn’t mean any disrespect. Merely trying to be neighborly. Who did you say her parents are?”
“I didn’t.”
“Ma’am,” the man pushes. “Would you mind telling me who your parents are so I can alert our friendly Neighborhood Watch Committee?”
Georgie straightens up, but keeps his back to the man.
“Please just leave us alone!” he screams in a voice that sounds like I’ve just grabbed hold of his nuts. Then he buries his face in his hands.
Moonlight Rises (A Dick Moonlight Thriller) Page 7
