by Diane Capri
She stops, turns to me, her face lit up as if she’s about to shout out, Eureka! “That explains why he got so upset when he learned that Suzanne is going to take you on as a client. He felt he’d been passed up yet again, am I right?”
“Passed up again for an inferior, which only makes it worse. But truth be told Erica, I have no idea if Suzanne is taking me on or not.”
“Yah, cause you’re not a real writer, Moonlight,” she laughs, lightly punching me in the arm.
“What’s that, a love tap?” I pose with a wink of my right eye.
Her face turns visibly red.
“Sort of,” she says. “You’re cute. For an old man who willingly engaged in yucky sexual intercourse with Sissy Walls.”
“I’m not old and I did not engage in yucky sexual intercourse with Sissy, young lady,” I lie.
“Sure. Have it your way, Moonlight,” she says a little under her breath. “But you are still old. No debating that.”
“Not nearly as old as Walls, but just old enough to be your very big brother … Sort of.”
“Exactly how old are you?”
I tell her.
“Ha!” she barks. “You’re like a year older than my dad!”
I paint a frown on my face.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “Dad and mom started way young. I was their ‘oops baby’ when they were still in college. They chose to keep me and grow up fast.”
My frown turns upside down.
“I feel better now,” I say. “Oops.”
“They’re still together too, all these years later. That shit would never fly today. Kids are too selfish. Too into themselves and Facebook.”
“True love,” I say. “It’s Facebook-proof.”
“Yes sir,” she says. “They are my inspiration, my folks.” Pausing, allowing the cool wind swirling around the common to embrace the smooth skin on her pretty face. “So what now, Moonlight?”
“Don’t you have some poems to write? Some explaining to do to cute, long-haired Professor Oatczuk?”
“I can write one of those things in my sleep and ah, Professor Oatczuk is rumored to be quite gay.”
I find myself smiling at the revelation.
“Now I really feel sorry for all you female MFA students.”
“Don’t cry for me, Moonlight. You’re all man and I told yah I wanna get to know a real private detective. Maybe write something with a plot and everything someday.”
“And lower yourself to my standards. Remember, plot is the enemy of the literary novel.”
A beaming smile. “Which is precisely why they all put me to sleep,” she smirks. “So Mister Detective, it’s early in the evening, and getting dark fast. Where, in your expert opinion, should we start looking for Roger Walls?”
“You guys got a phone book around here?”
“I’m sure we can find one.”
“We’ll look up grilles, juke joints, gin mills, tittie joints, and watering holes. We’ll start with the A’s and drink our way through the alphabet until we find our man.”
“That sounds way too fun and way too easy.”
“You’re right. Finding him will be the easy part. Getting him to come with us won’t be.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WE START WITH THE A’s.
In particular, a bar called Aaron’s down on Bleeker Street in the west end of the city, near the single-tiered stadium where the Albany Metro Mallers semi-pro football team used to play. Every time I pass by the old stadium I can’t help but think of my dad. On any given Friday night in the early fall he might drag me and maybe the occasional date to a game under the lights. The quality of the football wasn’t as good as the real pros. Not by a long shot. But it was hard-hitting, and on occasion hard-biting, and I got to eat all the peanuts and popcorn I could stomach. I remember laughing when a punch-drunk player would hobble off the field, remove his helmet and reveal a mouth full of missing teeth. I’d laugh even harder when he’d light up a cigarette and crack open a can of beer while sitting on the bench. Dad would bring along a silver hip flask filled with brandy and let his hair down a little, so to speak. Sometimes he’d even remove his necktie. Something he could never do at the funeral home, working hours or not.
Since Roger is nowhere to be found at Aarons, we keep at it all the way through the downtown A’s, B’s, C’s and D’s. By the time we get to the F’s it’s nearing midnight, and since we’ve downed our fair share of beers in many of the establishments we’ve checked out, Erica and I are starting to feel no pain.
“Wanna call it quits?” I say as we march up Madison Avenue, the lamp-lit Washington Park on one side of the busy street and an endless lineup of four-and five-story brownstone townhouses on the other. “We maintain this pace, we’ll end up just like Roger. On a bender that could last for weeks.”
That’s when Erica does something wonderful. She doesn’t answer me with words. Instead she grabs hold of my arm, stopping me dead. It takes me by surprise. First thing that comes to mind is that she’s angry with me for something. Maybe for dragging her all over the place on this wild goose chase. Maybe for making her skip dinner. Maybe for making her writing professor look like a fool in front of her. But it turns out she isn’t mad. Turns out, she’s got something else on her mind altogether.
She presses her young, hard body close to my own, leans into me, and kisses me on the mouth. I might back away, but her mouth is too sweet, her lips too tender, her tongue too interested in playing with my own. I feel myself growing hard and I know she can feel it pressing against her sex. But standing out there in the open sidewalk, with dozens of partiers passing by in each direction, I know this is no place to get it on.
We both break for air.
“You have sugar kisses, baby,” I say.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since we were in Oatczuk’s office,” she says, her face beaming with happiness. “No … I lie … Actually I wanted to do it since the first time I saw you in the bookstore.”
“I can’t believe a beautiful talented girl like you doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“I do have a boyfriend. Well, sort of boyfriend. He’s at law school in New York.”
“When the cat’s away,” I say.
“What about you, Moonlight? Any serious love interests?”
Lola comes to mind. My true love of a half-dozen years. In my head I see her beautiful long dark hair, her deep-set brown eyes, luscious thick lips, and tan, Mediterranean skin. I can even smell her rose-petal scent. But then I see her lying on her back on a stretch of New York highway immediately after the suburban we are being transported in is rammed by a tractor trailer, and my heart sinks down to my ankles.
“I wouldn’t be kissing you if I had one. But, I do see somebody now and again. An artist and an art teacher.” In my head my thoughts shift from Lola to Aviva, my newest on-again, off-again. “She’s having trouble with the C-word.”
“Commitment. That can really kill a relationship.” Realizing what she just said, and the ease with which she said it, Erica goes wide-eyed and breaks out laughing.
“In a strange way, no truer words have been spoken,” I say. “It’s okay though. I’ve been learning to live alone now for a long time. I have a son, you know. He’s all I truly care about.”
“A boy? How old?”
“His real name is Harrison, but I call him, Bear. He’s a good-natured, bushy-haired, ten-year-old. Lives in Los Angeles with his mom. Visits frequently, but not enough.”
“I’d love to meet him someday.”
Abruptly she pulls away from me, her smile dissolving. She shifts her laser-beam focus from me to one of the many cars parked along the curb.
“What’s got you suddenly possessed?”
She turns to me.
“I almost hate to say this,” she says. “I’ve been having so much fun. But I think our search is over, Moonlight.”
She takes a few steps forward, raises up her right arm, points with an extended index finger to
a silver convertible Porsche Carrera. The parking job is so cobbed that the front driver’s side tire is resting up on the curb. A drunk driver, I’m guessing. Moonlight the deductive.
“You’re kidding?”
“That’s Roger Walls’s car,” she adds. “I’m sure of it. I remember it from when he came to the university a few months ago for his reading. A silver Porsche Carrera with the back bumper dented in.
Stepping forward, I crouch and take a good look at the rear bumper. Sure enough it’s dented in. Like Walls backed into a telephone pole when trying to escape a crowded parking lot, maybe after hitting on jealous man’s wife.
“Nice work, depute,” I say. “Guess it never occurred to me to ask his wife what kind of car he drives.”
“See,” Erica says, turning to me, grabbing hold of my right hand. “You need me, Dick Moonlight.”
“Question is, kiddo,” I say, taking my hand back, “what does a girl like you need with a head-case like me?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THERE WAS ONLY ONE bar within the immediate vicinity of the parked Porsche. It was a bar called Ralph’s. A local juke joint. Place inhabited by state university and medical students mostly looking for cheap draft beer, good hot Buffalo wings, and a game of darts. The joint took up the ground floor space of a four-story brick building set on the corner of Madison and New Scotland Avenue not far from the Albany Medical Center.
“Ralph’s,” I say. “It’s got to be Ralph’s.”
“That just seems too damned easy, boss man,” Erica says.
“Trust me, it always seems too easy. But in the end, it never is.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means, it really doesn’t matter where Roger went to hide. That’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“The point is that he might want to remain hidden. That’s where the job goes from easy to downright difficult. Especially if he wants to fight us.”
“I’m guessing we need a plan.”
“Yup.”
“Any idea what kind of plan you’d wish to implement, boss?”
“How’s this: He resists my request to escort him back home immediately, you take immediate measures to prevent physical injury to either party.”
“And what would constitute actual resistance and specifically what measures might I take?”
“He starts beating the living shit out of me, you hit him over the head with a blunt object.”
“Can I use your gun?”
“No.”
She paints a false pout on her face.
“Ready for some action, Deputy Beckett?” I pose.
She raises her right hand and salutes me.
“Ready and willing, Moonlight.”
I open up the door to Ralph’s Tavern and cautiously enter.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TEN MINUTES LATER I’M down on my knees in a filthy bathroom stall, Walls’s bear-like claw gripping the collar on my leather coat. My head is ringing from a quick pistol-whipping, my face and scalp soaking wet now that the literary genius has decided to use my head as a human toilet brush.
He yanks me up and onto my feet.
“Holy crap, Moonlight,” he barks. “You passed out on me.”
“Pistol-whipping someone in the head will tend to do that. Especially someone who’s got my head.”
“Sorry about that,” he says, making a weak attempt to straighten up the collar on my jacket for me. “I only meant to scare you, not harm you. I don’t know who to believe these days. Who to trust. How do I know you’re really working for Suzanne?”
“Trust,” I mumble. “It’s like faith. Believing in something you can’t see or feel.”
“Indeed. Well said. You’re no dummy, Moonlight. Even for a PI.”
I run my right hand over my head, do my best to ring out my cropped stand of hair. There’s a small lump on the back of my cranial cap where Walls hit me with his six-gun. At least he didn’t shoot me. It feels tender to the touch. My poor, bullet-riddled head.
“You got a license for the six-gun?” I pose.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Oh, I forgot,” I say. “You shot someone already.”
“Convicted felons rarely are granted pistol permits. But don’t worry. It’s not always loaded. It’s more for show, ʹcase somebody backs me up into a corner.”
“Aren’t you afraid of getting snagged with an unlicensed piece? It would be immediately prison time. Bullets or no bullets.”
“Never shall I be touched by the filthy hands of the man in blue. Never again, believe me, believe you.”
More silly poetry.
He opens the stall door so hard it slams against the side panel. The knocking on the dead-bolted door goes from bare-knuckle taps to outright pounding.
“Dude!” shouts the man from outside. “I’ve got to fucking go!”
Walls shifts his stocky body over to the door, unbolts it, and opens it. An overweight college-aged young man barges in. He’s a wearing a tight black T-shirt that says “COLLEGE” in big bold white letters stained with beer and chicken wing sauce. He doesn’t bother to look at us while he barrels his way to the toilet I just occupied with my face. Slamming the stall door shut, he drops trou, and slams his ass down onto the toilet. The violent noises that follow remind me of the D-Day barrage on Omaha Beach.
“We’d better get the hell out of here, Moonlight. Get us a drink. Before we pass out from asphyxiation.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” I say following him out. “You’re buying, asshole.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“WHAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT, Mr. Walls?” I ask over a bottle of cold beer paid for from out of the pile of greenbacks set out on the bar in front of the writer. “Why you running when you should be writing?”
“Who says I’m running?” Walls answers, while sipping on a toddy of vodka over ice. A double. “And what business is it of yours, private dick?”
Walls is clearly wired. Tired and wired, not unlike myself, probably due to the same Bolivian marching powder that I’ve been snorting with his … um … wife. I’ve already introduced him to Erica, but an introduction wasn’t necessary since he recalls her from the many readings and signings he’s done at the university for the MFA program. Truth be told, I was a little taken aback when he first caught sight of her, the big man stopping in his tracks and swallowing a breath. Like she was his mother come back to life and not some kid learning to write poetry. Makes me wonder why she didn’t explain the extent of her relationship with Walls in the first place. Why not just come out and tell me she knew him? But for now, I just welcome an excuse to have a couple of calming drinks while trying to get Walls to talk and make some sense out of this goose chase.
“You’re right, Mr. Walls—”
“—Roger,” he insists. “Putting a ‘Mister’ in front of my last name makes me feel all literary and snooty. Like Erica’s MFA advisor. What’s his name again, Erica?”
“Professor Oatczuk,” she reminds him, smiling that beaming smile of hers. She’s clearly getting a rise out of this whole adventure. And who can blame her?
“Ah yes,” Walls says in between sips of his toddy. “Professor Upchuck. Uptight man if I ever did meet one.”
“He claims to be your best friend.”
Walls bursts out with a belly laugh that seems to light the tavern right up. The bartender and the two kids playing darts over beers in the back stop in their tracks to grab a quick look at Walls, who has no doubt been belly laughing the afternoon and night away in the place.
“So I take it he’s not your best friend,” I add, already knowing the answer to my question.
“I’m better friends with my ex-wives, Moonlight, and they hate my guts.”
“That’s not true, Roger,” Erica chimes in. “I know how generous you are to them. Generous to a fault.”
He nods, drinks, sets the glass right back down perfectly onto its own condensate ring.
“Must cost you a pretty penny in alimony and support payments,” I say. “Which leads me back to my original question. How come you’re drinking and not writing?”
“And again, my dear Mister Moonlight, how is that any of your business?”
I drink down the rest of my beer, raise up my right hand to grab the bartender’s attention. He catches my gesture and heads to the cooler under the bar, retrieving me another one. Placing the new beer before me, I tell him to take the money for the beer from out of the same pile of pretty green.
“You’re right,” I say. “You don’t owe me any explanation. I’m getting paid to find you and now that I’ve found you, I’m just curious why a man of your talents and responsibilities wouldn’t always be putting ass to chair and fingers to keys.”
Walls works up a smile, downs his vodka and immediately calls for another one.
“You have a way with words, Moonlight.”
“Richard just wrote his first book,” Erica adds, sipping on her still full beer, her slender body cozied up to the late middle-aged writer.
The literary lion lights up like a Christmas tree.
“That so, Moonlight?” he barks, his grin turning suspicious. “You looking for me to help you with a book? That’s what this is about? That why you been chasing me down like the onset of a stroke?”
“Not at all,” I say. “Your agent has already agreed to look at it for me.”
“She did? That’s very white of her.”
“From what I hear, she can use the business. That is, it’s any good.”
“Yes, the Iron Lady has had a tough time of it lately. She’s starting over. Something poetic in that, don’t you think?”
