Georgie stops, runs his hand along the wall in search of a light switch. When he locates it, he flicks it on. Forget clean. The place has been left in a shambles. It’s been flipped, no doubt about it. Ransacked. Couch overturned, chairs tossed onto their sides, green Astroturf carpeting torn up with a blade so that whoever did this could get a look at what might be hidden underneath it.
It’s the same story in the kitchen, dining, and living rooms.
Glass shattered everywhere. Drawers and cabinets opened, bookcases pulled away from the wall, the books torn open and shredded, carpeting ripped up, holes punched though the sheetrock walls.
When we check the garage, the car is gone. And when we check the basement, the space is empty, other than about two dozen empty boxes piled up in the middle of the floor, the name Ashline Movers printed on the red tape that’s secured them. There’s a set of snow tires piled up in one corner, and some old furnace filters leaning against the boiler. Otherwise nothing.
Our .9mms at the ready, Georgie and I head back upstairs and check the bathrooms. The medicine cabinets have been tossed. No surprise there. Broken mirror and glass cover the sinks and toilets, the overhead light reflecting off of the shards like mini fun-house mirrors. All manner and type of pill bottles lie on top of the shards of glass. Staring down at the mess, I can’t imagine a big box being hidden inside something so narrow as a medicine cabinet. But then, what the hell do I know? I’m just the jerk who’s given his life once already for this project.
After we’re through with the bathrooms, we have one last room to check out. It’s located immediately off the front vestibule: Czech’s combination bedroom/office.
The bed sheets have been ripped away, the mattress ripped open in several places with a blade. Same for the box spring which has been removed and is now leaning up on its side against a far wall. A nightstand that holds a now smashed clock radio has been tipped onto its side, and the dresser drawers have all been pulled out, their contents of clothes, underwear, handkerchiefs, jewelry, Depend undergarments, and who the hell knows what else are tossed on the floor into a pile. Even Czech’s shoes have been examined. I might tell you that shoelaces have been ripped away, but the shoes are either loafers or specially made adult Velcro models.
What the hell kind of box are the Obamas looking for?
Of course, the desk hasn’t been spared a good ransacking. The drawers have been opened, their contents dumped out. Same with the rolling drawers on a giant metal filing cabinet, their files and their contents spilled everywhere. Some black and white banker’s boxes, like the kind my dad used to store the funeral parlor’s tax records in, have been yanked from the closet and dumped.
I have to wonder about the bankers boxes.
Is a banker’s box the kind of box the Obamas have been talking about?
“Think they found what they were looking for, Moon?” Georgie poses.
“The mysterious zippy or flesh box,” I say a little under my breath. “I’m listening to my built-in shit detector, Georgie, and I’m voting no. No way the flip would have been this thorough otherwise.”
“Right?!”
But something else is wrong with this scene and if I know Georgie as well as I think I do, I know he can sense it too. Together we look into one another’s eyes, and swim in the weighted silence.
Until Georgie breaks it by telling me he has a quick story he wants to share.
“There was this guy,” he begins, “went to his doctor complaining of migraine headaches. Said he got them every day. He couldn’t work, couldn’t function, couldn’t eat or drink. Guy’s life was just a total wreck. So the doc examines him, determines he’s got a rare disease. His testicles are positioned too close to his spine. They’re pressing up against his nerves causing the headaches. The only cure of course, would be total testicular extraction. Guy with the headaches was in such pain, he agreed to emergency surgery. He wakes up from the operation and never before has he felt so good. So good in fact he wants to treat himself to a custom-tailored suit upon his hospital release. So he heads to an expensive Jewish tailor. Jewish tailor gives him one looks and says, ’44 long. The guy is amazed at how knowledgeable the old tailor is. Tailor looks him over further, says, 38/14 for the shirt and 34/34 for the trousers. The guy is just positively floored at how much this old dude knows. But then the tailor says, for underwear, 36 or 38. The guy says, No way sir, I’m a 34. No, no insists the tailor, 34s are so tight they make your balls press up against your spine.”
Georgie laughs. But there’s a lesson to be learned here no doubt. Just because something appears to be broke doesn’t mean it’s actually broken.
“Take a look here, Moon,” he says, reaching into the top drawer on the file cabinet. “I’m nearly six feet and I have trouble reaching all the way into back of this thing. How the hell was Czech going to do it from a wheelchair?”
“Plus those bankers boxes up on the top shelf of the closet. He couldn’t exactly have climbed a stepladder.”
“The dishes in the kitchen cabinets, the books on the book shelf, the pills in the medicine cabinet . . . all unreachable for a guy who’s in essence not even three feet tall.”
Something hits me then.
“Georgie, follow me back downstairs.”
Together we head back down into the basement.
“These boxes,” I say. “Maybe the movers put them here way back when and Czech has just left them there.”
“Or maybe not,” Georgie says looking closer at them. “And check out the date of the move.”
I take a good look.
“April of this year,” I observe. “Czech hasn’t been living here for more than five months.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Told me he’s been here at Orchard Grove for six years. His first house.”
“Your boy is a liar,” he says.
“And possibly a traitor,” I say, heading back upstairs.
I take one more look around the kitchen. In the vestibule is a closet that we haven’t opened yet. I go to it, open the door.
“Czech is more than just a traitor and a liar,” I say.
“Explain,” Georgie pushes.
“I think he’s perfectly capable of walking,” I say, staring down at his unoccupied wheelchair.
CHAPTER 39
THERE ARE EXPLANATIONS, OF course, for how a disabled man can have boxes stored on the top shelf of his closet and files of papers in the top drawer of his filing cabinet. There are logical reasons why he’d have meds, plates, and drinking glasses stored in areas he can’t reach, just as they’re valid explanations why he might have boxes stored in an otherwise empty basement. The most obvious explanation is that Czech has someone help him from time to time. Perhaps even regular help on a daily basis. Many handicapped persons, no matter how independent minded, often depend upon the assistance of others just to get through a single routine day.
Which is exactly how I explain it to Georgie while getting back inside his Beetle. And Georgie, being a medical man by trade, couldn’t agree more.
He turns the engine over, throws the manual tranny into first.
“But how do you explain the wheelchair?” he poses.
“If he’s lying about who he is,” I answer, “then I guess he doesn’t need it. At least, he doesn’t need it in private. Or maybe he’s got more than one chair. Or it’s possible he was kidnapped without it by the same people who roughed up his house. The Russian Obamas no doubt upon orders from Grandpa Rose.”
“Which leaves us where?”
I never get a chance to answer before the bullet pierces the rear and front windshield.
CHAPTER 40
“FUCKERS WERE WATCHING US!” Georgie spits, right foot flat on the gas, the tires spitting dirt and gravel. “Kiss the rubber mats, Moon!”
I drop down as far into the well as I can, the cold gunmetal on the .9mm pressed against my right cheek. I’m not a big guy. But I’m not Yoda either, and I immediately begin to cramp u
p in the tight space.
Georgie’s right on.
They . . . the Russians . . . must have been watching us scope out Czech’s crib, hoping that we’d uncover what they apparently could not: a box filled with something important.
Georgie’s speeding down the private drive unaware of what awaits him at the end. That much I know for sure. I poke my head up enough to get a shot off and at the same time make out a big black GMC with tinted windows, a single hand exposed out the passenger-side window, a good old-fashioned silenced Uzi attached to the hand.
The Uzi spits fire and a couple of rounds take out the back windshield. I drop myself flat onto Georgie’s lap.
“Faster!” Me shouting.
“Fuck do you want me to go?!”
He starts spinning circles on the lawn at the end of the drive.
Another burst of fire and my driver’s side window explodes.
“Twenty years of tender loving care!” Georgie shouts. “Not another Beetle like this in the world except for on the Abby Road album cover.”
I can tell he’s furious.
He pushes me off, reaches for his piece.
“Fuck are you doing?!”
Another burst of rounds sink into the flat, metal VW dash.
“Enough,” Georgie exhales. Crazy old bastard stops the Beetle in the middle of the lawn, that big black soccer-mom GMC bearing down on us like one of Rommel’s Tiger Tanks. Georgie pulls back on the emergency brake, opens the door, gets out. What he does next is nothing short of miraculous and suicidal.
With only the open door to protect him, he stands his ground.
“Fuck with me, but not my ride!” he shouts, rounds pinging against the door, and churning up grass and dirt.
He then proceeds to raise his Smith & Wesson slowly, calmly, left hand clutching his right wrist, combat position. Finger pressed against the trigger, he empties the entire clip into the GMC, stopping it dead in its tracks.
When it’s over, a heavy quiet fills the air.
Off in the distance can be heard the sound of cruiser sirens. I know the sound well. I was a cop once. A good one. Before my head got scrambled. Someone must have reported the exchange of gunfire. I know it means we have to haul ass out of there. I know it means we have to do it now.
I crawl out of the Beetle, stand up. Maybe too fast. My head starts spinning. I’ve experienced that same sensation before. The world spinning at my feet, the feel of my body lifting off the ground. The feeling of utter weightlessness. Not exactly my soul leaving my body again, but more like I’m about to lose consciousness. My brain, it isn’t right. There’s a piece of .22 caliber bullet lodged inside it. It causes me to pass out in times of stress. When my brain swells just a fraction above its normal size from the blood speeding through the veins and capillaries.
I raise up my automatic to try and give Georgie some backup as he approaches the now quiet GMC on foot.
It’s the last thing I remember before passing out.
CHAPTER 41
IN THE DREAM I’M dead.
Big surprise there.
I’m floating over a mechanical bed inside a private hospital room. The room is white and brightly lit with angelic rays and bursts of brilliant sunlight. My body is laid out in the bed on its back. I have this smile on my face like I’m happy to finally get the hell out.
Standing by my side is Lola. She’s dressed in a long white gown, her long, lush dark hair draping her face like a black veil. Covering her eyes are those round Jackie O sunglasses. Tears are streaming down her face, and she’s holding tightly to my hand.
When the door opens, a second person enters the room. It’s Some Young Guy. He’s faceless again, his face not really a face, but an oval-shaped blur or a mask. He stands on the opposite side of me, looking down upon my prone, motionless body. Until he reaches out with his right hand as if offering it over to Lola. She, in turn, drops my hand and takes his hand in hers. That’s when Some Young Guy reaches into pants pocket with his free hand, pulls out a big white diamond engagement ring. He slips the ring onto Lola’s finger.
“Will you marry me?” he poses.
“I do,” she answers, her face lit up like a glowing moonbeam. “I do. I do. I do.”
Together they consummate their new vow with a long, slow kiss directly over my dead body.
When I come to, there’s a man lying on the grass beside me. Guy’s kicking up a storm, and trying to scream, but Georgie’s stuffed a rag in his mouth. The rag he uses to check the Beetle’s oil level with.
Subdued Guy is dressed in black and his ankles and wrists are bound behind his back with the same plastic portable Hefty Bag cuffs that I used to apply to drunk and rowdy perps back when I was still a cop. The guy is about average height but big. Stocky. Maybe five-nine or ten. Two hundred-twenty pounds if I have to guess. Big enough that I can’t imagine how all one-hundred-sixty pounds of skin-and-bones Georgie managed to subdue him. But when I see the old pathologist kneel down and zap the man with the stun gun, I’m no longer kept in the dark.
Georgie spots me.
“Moon! You blacked out.”
Oh yeah, I blacked out.
Cop sirens off in the distance. Getting louder by the half second.
A big guy lying beside me.
Stun guns and real guns.
Oh, yeah, a shootout. I was in a shootout. Just a minute ago. Behind a house. Peter Czech’s house. Shootout, behind the house. A black GMC with tinted windows. Russians. Russians who want something. A box.
Sirens.
The cops getting closer. Lying there on the grass, I estimate their ETD to be no more than one minute. It tells me I’ve been passed out for only a few seconds at most.
“Can you get up, Moon?”
I lift myself up, feel that familiar resettling sensation that my brain always experiences after an episode. Kind of like the weights drawing back on a doll’s eyes when you stand her upright, while your brain reboots all of its memory programs. Let me try and remember, did I save my settings before logging off? Or did my brain save my settings for me?
“What are we gonna do with him?” I pose in a groggy voice.
“He’s our leverage and our direction finder,” Georgie answers. “Help me stuff the son of a bitch into the back of the Beetle.”
“We can’t just take the GMC?”
Georgie shoots me a look.
“There’s a dead driver in there and blood and brain matter, and the freaking police are on their way. Any more questions?”
I know better than to argue with my big brother, even if this is my show.
Me being the physically bigger man, I grab hold of the goon’s shoulders, while Georgie grabs hold of his legs. Somehow we manage to stuff him into the back seat of the Beetle without bruising or cutting him up too badly.
Not!
Before we bolt the scene, Georgie grabs the thug’s Uzi, aims it directly at the windshield of the GMC, fingers off the remainder of the clip. The entire glass plate explodes, along with what’s left of the driver’s head. He then wipes the weapon of prints, and brings it back with him to the Beetle. Lifting up the still catatonic goon’s hand, Georgie presses the guy’s fingers and palm against the weapon, making sure to leave some noticeable print impressions. Then the old pathologist tosses the still smoking weapon to the ground.
Hopping back behind the wheel, Georgie revs the engine.
I barely make it into the passenger seat before the tires resume spitting grass and gravel.
CHAPTER 42
GEORGIE DOESN’T OPT FOR the easy, take-the-long-way-home, kind of smooth mobile escape. Instead he motors the Beetle through a small patch of woods located on the opposite side of the private drive. The car rocks and rolls and scrapes and pounds its way through the thick brush until we come to the other side, which amounts to some poor suburbanite’s backyard.
Georgie never pauses to contemplate going around the yard. Instead he throws the tranny into fourth gear and motors right on past the sw
ing set and the clothesline.
Who the hell still uses a clothesline?
He makes for the front yard, speeding across the manicured lawn and then jumping the curb back onto the quiet suburban street.
My head is still reeling.
I’m not feeling dizzy any more. I know the danger of passing out again is all but gone. But I also recognize something else happening inside me. It isn’t a physical sensation, so much as a transformation. A temporary loss of bearing. Like a captain piloting a rudderless boat in thick fog.
What’s just happened?
A gunfight . . . .Roger that . . . Check.
Outside Peter Czech’s house . . . Check.
Dead people inside a black GMC . . . Dead Russians . . . Check.
Russians want a box . . . Check.
Cops chasing us . . . Check and double check.
I look down at my lap, at the .9mm gripped inside it. I have no idea how it got there. I only know that it’s mine, and that it’s a good thing that I’m it holding it.
We head north on Route 9 towards the city, Georgie not speeding, but taking it easy, to not attract unwanted attention.
No more sirens.
No sign of the police behind us, beside us, or ahead of us.
Check and triple check.
“Georgie,” I say, after a time, “who exactly is the dude in the back seat again?”
“Oh shit,” he says. “You don’t remember do you? Short term memory kicking out on you.”
Short term memory. Let’s review today’s headlines, shall we?
Russians want a box . . . Roger that and check.
Gunfight in back of a house . . . Check.
Who’s house?
Shit, whose house?
Wheelchair, Blackberry in hand, thin mustache, one pint Jack and Coke . . .
Peter Czech. Czech’s house…Check.
Gun in my hand. Oh yeah. Gunfight. Check.
OK Moonlight, get your shit together.
I’m not sure how to put this delicately, but beneath my gun, my lap has grown stiff and full. I’m sporting an erection . . . a boner . . . a road boner . . . and damn if it isn’t in some painful need of relief.
Moonlight Rises (A Dick Moonlight Thriller) Page 12
