by Diane Capri
Time check.
Twelve noon.
We have at best an hour and a half to pull off my plan and then pack Sissy back up and get us all back on the road to Albany. Arriving at the Walls’s driveway, the first thing we see is that the front wood gates are cordoned off by yellow crime scene ribbon. It looks slightly less formidable than Roger’s “Keep Out” sign nailed to the fence post.
Not wanting to mess with the ribbon, Georgie puts the van in park and gets out, leaving the door open. Gently he peels away the ribbon and allows it to drop to the dirt road. He then gets back into the van and pulls into the open gate. He stops the van once more and replaces the ribbon, like we never drove in here in the first place. Leave it to Georgie, master pathologist and detail man.
Slowly we make our way up the drive, knowing all the time that not only will Alexander be in the house waiting for us, his goons will no doubt be eyeing us the whole way.
“Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean they won’t see you,” Roger points out.
“You’re preaching to the choir, Roger,” I say, feeling for the .38 holstered under my left armpit. “I’ve had a bellyful of experience with the Russian mob. We go back a long way.”
Suzanne turns to me, sets her hand on my leg.
“I know you do,” she says. “You wrote about them in Moonlight Falls. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Depends on who you’re talking to,” I say.
We pull up to the house and Georgie kills the engine. I hand Suzanne the fake novel while remaining out of sight in the back of the van. Georgie remains behind the wheel for now to act as Suzanne’s official driver.
“Go,” I say. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“What are you going to do, Moonlight?” Roger says, opening his door.
“You’ll know what I’m doing when I do it. Just play it for real. You have the first draft of his book and you’re delivering it to him for his approval.”
“And what if he demands to read it on the spot?” Suzanne begs while opening her door.
“He won’t have time,” I say. “Just go.”
Suzanne and Roger exit the van and begin making their way to the front door. As they walk, I hear Roger say, “I hope Sissy didn’t drink the joint dry.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“READY, GEORGIE?” I SAY.
“Sure you wanna do this, Moonlight?” he begs. “It’s creepy.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “Sissy is gone now and it’s all for a good cause. Besides, look who we’re about to be dealing with. A Russian mobster who claims to be directly related to Uncle Joe Stalin. Stalin killed more innocent people than Hitler. Only reason no one ever heard about it is because he was an ally.”
Georgie reaches into the glove compartment, pulls out two lengths of rope, and a tube of KY jelly. He makes a swift little underhanded pitch and tosses the items onto Sissy where they settle on top of her black body bag.
I pull out my .38, open the van door and step on out while zippering up my leather coat.
“You take the front door, Georgie,” I say. “And I’ll take the back. Let’s do this before she starts to smell.”
Georgie pulls out his own .9mm, thumbs off the safety, slips on out of the van and starts jogging to the front door. If anyone has had their eyes on us, there’s no doubt about our intentions now, which is why I need to move fast.
I pop out of the van and sprint around the back of the house. I immediately spot a big wood deck that wraps itself around the entirety of the big farmhouse’s backside. I recall the back door that leads into the kitchen, I climb the stairs onto the dock, head straight for it.
Transparency reveals the truth.
Before I even get to the door, I can see what’s happening through the floor-to-ceiling kitchen window. Suzanne and Roger are down on their knees. Suzanne’s shirt has been ripped off, along with her bra, her pert, pale breasts exposed. The man standing directly over her is dressed entirely in black. He’s got his pants pulled down around his knees and he’s making her take him in her mouth, while he’s forcing Roger to swallow the barrel on what looks to be a chrome-plated .44 Magnum. The kind Dirty Harry used to carry. The hammer is thumbed back on the pistol. The thug’s trigger finger is tickling the trigger while Suzanne is sucking him off. If the metal gun is truly loaded with real live bullets, it’s possible that trigger finger is going to retract when the fleshy gun shoots its own particular load.
Even from where I’m standing outside the window, I can almost see the beads of sweat pouring off of Roger’s brow. I can feel the agony in Suzanne’s tears. The literary duo have no choice but to kneel there and take it. Standing behind the goon I take to be Alexander are two more Russians. Both of them dressed in identical black outfits. Black jeans, black leather coats, black shoes, black sunglasses. Gripped in their hands are identical .44 Magnums, one bead a piece planted on Roger and Suzanne. If Alexander doesn’t get them, the backup squad will.
I see Georgie enter into the picture. He’s made his way quietly from the front vestibule down the short hallway to the kitchen. No one seems to have noticed his presence yet, which is exactly the way I want it. I’ve got a choice here: I can either try and negotiate with the mobsters, or we can cut to the chase by rescuing Roger and Suzanne.
I vie for the latter.
I grab Georgie’s attention through the plate glass window. I raise the two fingers on my left hand to indicate the number two. Then, with the same fingers closed together, I point them in the direction of the two goons on the backup squad. He gets my meaning, flashes me a single raised finger on his free hand. I then pat my heart, meaning, “Don’t kill them. Just shoot to wound.” He nods in total understanding. Georgie and I have known one another as close as two non-biological brothers can for nearly forty years. We don’t need to speak directly to know what each other is thinking.
My left hand held back up, I hold up three fingers.
“One,” I mouth, dropping the first finger.
“Two.” Dropping the second.
“Three.”
I hear a shot, just as I burst through the door. At the same time, I fire the .38 at the legs of the backup goons. They never get a shot off before they drop on the spot, the blood from the wounds in their thighs already spurting blood. Alexander is on his back, the .44 still gripped in his right hand. He gets off a shot that shatters the chandelier over the kitchen table. It falls from the ceiling in a resounding crash.
He’s screaming “Shit! Fuck! Motherfucker!” in Russian-accented English.
I kick the other .44s out of reach of the wounded men and nearly break my big toe doing it.
“Drop it!” Georgie screams. “Drop the gun!”
He fires again, the bullet hitting the ceiling, plaster reigning down on his still erect penis.
Suzanne is screaming. Roger is still on his knees. He’s grabbed hold of Alexander’s still stiff manhood and he looks like he’s about to yank it off. His face is so red with rage I’m afraid he will.
I lean down, press the barrel of my gun against Alexander’s forehead.
“Roger, let it go!” I scream. “We need him and his dick.”
He issues me this scrunched-up-brow look of confusion.
“Get his gun,” I add.
Roger does it, turning the barrel back onto the thug.
“What are you going to do to me, motherfucker?” Alexander begs, the wound in his lower shin draining blood like a bad leak. His face is pale with pain.
“We’re not going to kill you yet,” I say. “We’re going to finish what Suzanne started.”
The look of pain on his face shifts from pain to disgust.
“What kind of creepy, perversion man are you?” Alexander spits.
“It’s perverted, Alex,” Roger corrects, standing back up on his two feet. “It’s per-ver-ted. If you’re going to say it in English, say it right.”
“Alexander,” Suzanne says, pulling her black T-shirt back over her h
ead, tucking it into the waist of her jeans. “Meet my newest client. Mr. Richard ‘Dick’ Moonlight. Part time author, part time private detective, full-time hater of the Russian mob.”
CHAPTER FORTY
AFTER BINDING THE WRISTS and ankles of the two Russians I wounded with my .38, I ask Roger to stand guard over them.
“What are you doing with Alexander?” Suzanne asks.
I hand her one of the other two hand cannons the thugs brought along.
“Georgie and I are going to interrogate him inside the van,” I lie. “You help Roger.”
She seems a little apprehensive at first, like she doesn’t quite believe my story. And for good reason. As a woman who sells fiction, her built-in-shit-detector must be as good if not better than my own. She’s also read my book. Which means she’s fully aware of how much I hate Russian mobsters and now, how desperately I need to clear myself of having anything to do with Sissy’s death. But that doesn’t mean I want her to witness what Georgie and I are about to do.
Before Georgie and I proceed to carry Alexander out to the van, I make sure Roger has himself a couple of cold beers sitting out on the kitchen table and that Suzanne has a fresh pack of smokes and a mirror with some neatly cut lines laid out on it. Courtesy of Sissy Walls. God rest her soul.
“Ready Georgie,” I say, hefting a woozy Alexander to his feet, with his left arm wrapped around my shoulder.
“Don’t pass out on us, Mr. Stalin,” Georgie says, pulling a vial of Viagra from his jacket pocket. “We need to get that hammer and sickle in the mood.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
WE HAUL THE WOUNDED thug out to the van where we shove him into the back cargo space along with Sissy’s body.
“What the fuck are you doing with dead body?” he begs. “Get me away from dead body.”
While I’m standing outside the open cargo bay doors, Georgie jumps inside, sets himself onto his knees to the right of Sissy’s black-bagged body. He pulls his cell phone from the chest pocket on his jean jacket.
“Here you go, Alex,” he smiles, holding out the phone toward the wounded Russian. “Why don’t you call the police and tell them what’s happening.”
The thug coughs up a luggy, spits it in Georgie’s general direction. The pathologist might be nearing his senior years, but he’s still quick on his feet. Or, in this case, his knees. He shifts his head out of the line of fire as the thick wad of spit splats against the van’s hollow metal wall.
Sufficiently pissed off, Georgie, pulls his .9mm, presses the barrel against the goon’s forehead.
“Get undressed,” he orders.
Georgie unzips Sissy’s body all the way, revealing her pale, chalky face and mussed up red hair, along with the entirety of her naked body.
There’s a look of profound confusion mixed with pain and fear on Alexander’s clean-shaven face. His steel gray eyes are open wide, brow scrunched. His mouth has gone dry, judging from his incessant swallowing and the way his Adam’s apple bobs up and down in his throat like a turkey awaiting the axe.
Georgie tells me to hold my gun on the thug while he returns his to his shoulder holster. He then unzips his duffel bag, pulls out a bottle of Poland Spring Water, uncaps it. Hands it to the Russian.
“Hold this,” he says.
From outside the open doors, I hold the .38 on the Russian, pointblank, safety off.
Alex takes hold of the water bottle.
“Now then,” Georgie goes on, pulling the vial from his jean jacket pocket. “I want you to swallow these.” The old pathologist pours a fistful of pills into the palm of his hand. He immediately attempts to transfer the pills to the Russian’s hand. But the Russian tosses the water bottle at Georgie’s head.
“Fuck you, pig!” he screams.
Georgie turns to me. “Moon, shoot off one of his big toes.”
Without hesitation I press the barrel of the .38 against the goon’s boot tip.
“Wait! Please! Fucking wait! Stop!” he begs.
Georgie, still holding out the pills. “Well, what’s it going to be Alexander Stalin? This is one of those you-can-do-this-the-easy-way-or-the-hard-way moments.”
I push the gun against the tip of the boot so that he gets the point. He winces in pain since the foot I’m messing with belongs to the shin I’ve already put a hole through. He takes the pills from Georgie and pops them down his throat. The entire handful. Reaching around his backside, Georgie retrieves the water bottle and hands it back to him. Half the water is gone, but he swallows what’s left along with the pills.
“What is in pills?” Alexander begs as soon as he can get his air back.
“Viagra,” Georgie tells him. “You’ve just taken enough to make an elephant hard as a rock.”
As if on cue, we all shift our glance in the direction of the thug’s junk. As if it’s about to rise like a muffin inside an E-Z Bake Oven.
“You are insane, da?” he says. “That many pills will make me kiss bucket.”
“It’s ‘kick the bucket,’ Alex,” Georgie corrects. “Kick, the fucking bucket. And I don’t really care what happens to you after you give us a sample.”
“What sample?” the goon begs.
“Your sperm sample.”
“I will do no such thing.”
He’s moving now. Shifting his body as if his already too tight clothing is growing too uncomfortable for him. The pills are working.
“Yes you will,” Georgie tells him. Then Georgie tells him precisely how and where he wants that sperm sample delivered.
The goon’s face goes from pale to purple. For a split second I think he might throw up. Georgie pulls Sissy’s legs out of the body bag. She’s limber and rubber-like now that the rigor mortis stage of death has passed. He positions her legs like she is about to give birth and, reaching back into his kit, pulls out a pair of blue Latex gloves, slaps them on. Next, he produces a tube of K-Y Jelly. Squeezing a dollop out onto his finger pads, he applies the K-Y in the required area. Then, his eyes on Alex, he says. “Let’s go Romeo. Batter up.”
“Batter up. What does that fucking mean? Batter up. You mean like dick. Dick’s up.”
“It’s just a saying,” Georgie says. “Let’s go, assume the position and make it happen.”
But the goon backs away. His look of horror turns to weeping. He begins crying real tears. The tears are streaming down his cheeks.
“Please. Don’t make me do this.”
“Let me ask you something, Alex?” Georgie says. “Did you enjoy raping Suzanne? Making her suck your cock while you stuffed the barrel of that pistol into Roger’s mouth? You weren’t crying then.”
“It was all in good fun.”
“Good fun,” Georgie laughs. But nothing’s funny. “How many men and women you killed in your day, Mr. Stalin? How did you kill them? Shoot them in the head? Did you rape the women before you killed them? Did you cut their heads off? What about the boys you’ve tortured and killed? Did you cut their throats? Do it in front of their mothers?”
Alexander remains silent, knowing that Georgie isn’t exaggerating. Like me, Georgie has had his share of near-death run-ins with the Russian mob.
“I have never made anyone have sex with a dead person before,” the thug wails. “That is going against unwritten rule. Like disobeying Geneva Convention or something.”
“First time for everything,” Georgie insists, tearing off his rubber glove and once more grabbing hold of his .9, holding the barrel on the weeping Russian, thumbing back the hammer. “Do it, or die now.”
“Then you won’t have sample,” the goon exclaims.
“Oh, I can grab a sample up until five minutes after you’re deceased. Little known fact about dead men. The junk can produce sperm while the body is still warm.” Reaching back into his bag with his free hand. “Only difference is I’ll have to cut it out, which means immediate and total castration.”
Now the Russian goes from purple to red. He also stops crying, as if he’s just wept his last
tear. He sits up, wincing in pain. Then sucking in a single deep breath, he unbuckles his pants, pulls them down around his knees and rolls over on top of Sissy.
“May the good Lord forgive me,” he says, as he makes the sign of the cross, then shifts himself forward to go to work on her body.
“May the devil have mercy on your soul, Alexander,” Georgie says while I step back from the open doors and look the other way.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
IT TAKES LESS THAN five minutes for Alex to give us, and Sissy, the sample we need. He then buckles his pants back up. Georgie helps him out of the van where he proceeds to puke. When he’s finished, Georgie and I act as his crutches and lead him back into the house. Inside we find Roger and Suzanne are still holding guns on the seated, wounded Russians. Their blood has collected to form a small pool of crimson underneath the chairs.
“What do we do with my house guests, Moonlight?” Roger inquires. He’s got an open beer in his free hand. Meanwhile, Suzanne is sitting on the long leather couch, her pistol set on the cushion beside her now that the two Russians are passed out from blood loss and on their way to being dead.
Georgie and I drop Alexander to the floor. With all the Viagra he’s ingested, his erection is pup-tenting out of his pants. My guess is he’ll carry that wood for forty-eight hours or more.
“We need to call the police,” I say.
Georgie nods.
“It’s about that time, Moon. Call the cops from the car while we’re trucking Sissy back to the morgue.”
I ask Roger how he feels about involving the cops at this point.
“If it means these Russians will no longer be up my ass for one million bucks,” he says, “I’m ready. I’ll even wait here for them.”
“What will you tell them, Rog?” I ask.
“The truth,” he says, taking a drink of beer. “At least, my version of the truth. I drove back to the house and let myself in. These guys were here waiting for me. Turns out Sissy had some illegal drug dealings with them and now they wanted their money. Now that Sissy’s gone they wanted me to pay. They pulled their guns on me, but I was able to get the jump on them. I shot them in self-defense. Just like the first time around when I shot that man for trespassing.”
