by Diane Capri
“We’ve got three different caliber of bullets embedded into these Russian’s legs and into the woodwork,” Georgie points out. “How is Roger going to explain that?”
I start wracking my brain for an answer when the bullet wizzes past my right ear.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
I HIT THE FLOOR.
So does Georgie and Roger.
Suzanne slides off the couch, crawls around the back of it. Alexander crawls over to Roger, snatches the .44 Magnum from his hand, cold-cocks the author over the head with the barrel.
Another couple of rounds tear through the windows and into the floor at my feet.
Alexander raises up the gun, fires one off at Georgie. The bullet misses and takes a chunk out of the wall behind him.
Georgie rolls in my direction, pulling out his .9mm, aiming it at Alexander, and proceeds to pump three rounds into his head.
No more Alexander.
Coming from outside the now shot through windows are the sounds of boot heels on the wood desk and an ear-piercing screech. Correction. Not a screech at all, but a good old-fashioned rebel yell. Then comes the sound of the kitchen door being kicked in. In steps two men and behind them two women.
“Git yer asses down on the floor,” screams the short, chubby redneck, his bolt-action 30.06 hunting rifle gripped in both his hands.
“We’re already on the floors you morons,” Georgie yells, his right hand still gripping his .9mm.
“We got us here the Richard ‘Dick’ Moonlight,” screeches the tall, bearded one, a double-barreled shotgun aimed at the ready. “Wanted for the murder of Missus Sissy Walls.”
“Let me guess, Harlan,” I say from down on the floor, still on my stomach. “You aims to turn my hide in to the law.”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” says the woman standing behind him. “Unless, of course, we negotiate a little settlement. Out of court so to speak.” The woman giggles, like she’s having a lot of fun. The woman beside her giggles too. The giggles sound identical, since the women are identical twins.
I know one of them. But from down on the floor, I’m not entirely sure which one I know, since they are dressed in the same clothing. Tall leather boots over knee-high socks and short white, thigh-length dresses with pleasant flower prints on them. Aviator sunglasses conceal their eyes and the way they wear their clean and conditioned brown hair parted neatly over their left eye brings out the whiteness in their perfect teeth.
“Erica,” I say, “perhaps you should introduce us all to your twin sister.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“SO WHAT IS IT you girls want?” I say, knowing that if we don’t get Sissy’s body back to the morgue in less than an hour, I will not only be wanted for murder, but also body snatching.
“I don’t know,” says the one who is now obviously Erica to her twin. “What exactly do we want, Vanessa?”
“We don’t need any money,” Vanessa says. “We got lots of that now. Thanks to Roger and his booze.”
I steal a glance at the author. He’s still passed out from the pistol whipping Alexander Stalin gave him. He’s mumbling in his sleep. Something about wanting another round for everyone. He’s buying.
“You took Roger’s money,” I say. “The million the Russians put up. You must have both been present when Roger went to the train station for the payoff. One of you sits at the table with Roger and when he got up to take a leak, the other simply walked away with the bag.”
“Yeah but how did you guys even know enough to be there when the drop was supposed to go down?” Georgie poses.
That’s when something interesting happens.
Suzanne stands up from behind the couch, stuffs the barrel of the gun she’s been holding into the waist of her jeans and approaches the two girls, kissing both of them lovingly on the mouth.
“Because I told them to, Dr. Phillips.”
I feel my insides heating up. If only one of those rednecks weren’t holding a hunting rifle on me, I’d jump up and tackle all three of them.
“You told them,” I say. “Good going, Suzanne. First stealing Brando’s manuscript. Then selling drugs. Then stealing a million dollars in cash from some Russian goons. I haven’t even asked you about paying my bill.”
“Actually, Moonlight,” Suzanne says, lighting a cigarette, “the drug running came after I stole the million.”
“We stole the million,” Erica chimes in.
“Yes, we,” adds Vanessa. The both of them have these Pepsodent smiles on their faces that tells me that their little life of crime is the most fun they can have with their clothes on.
“Be serious, Moonlight,” Suzanne says. “My career wasn’t just in the crapper. It was in the sewer. Do you really think the one client I had left was going to pull me out of it? Not only is Roger Walls still suffering from a ten-year-old writer’s block, but there isn’t a publisher who will touch him even with your dick, Dick.”
“Thanks for that little comment,” I say.
Behind me, Roger mumbles in his sleep. “More shots … More shots.”
“So why did you hire me to find him?”
“Because I needed him for my newest clients. My new clients who would provide me with the homerun I need to get myself back on top.”
“The clients are standing behind you, am I right?” Moonlight the deductive.
Suzanne smokes, glances at each one of the girls.
“Just look at them, Moonlight,” she says. “Beauty, sexiness, brains, youth, and a one hell of a book idea.”
“Which is?” Georgie poses.
“A project called Seducing Roger Walls,” she says thought an exhale of blue smoke. “This wouldn’t be just a book, but it would be an entire multi-media package. An eBook that links to real video clips of the girls messing with Roger. Having sex with him, stealing his money, following him. The project would be packaged for a reality television series and even have a video game developed. It would make millions.”
“I thought you were going to make millions on the Russian project?”
Suzanne laughs.
“Oh how naïve you are, Moonlight. Those Russians weren’t going to influence anyone, even if they did manage to put a gun to some poor editor’s head. I lied to Alexander. I told him a book about Stalin’s great-grandson being a Russian mobster was a sure thing just so I could get some money out of him. I never dreamed we’d get a full million, but there you have it.”
“You had no intention of sharing it with Roger, did you?”
Suzanne goes wide-eyed.
“Wow, Moonlight, it’s amazing just how swift a private detective you really are.”
“What was all that bullshit about getting threatening phone calls from someone who wanted payback? That someone probably being Ian Brando?”
“I just did that to make the story more dramatic and to tweak your curiosity. I knew you’d go back home and Google me and see what I’d done by stealing Brando’s piece-of-crap book, and that alone would keep you in the game, keep you asking questions, keep you getting into trouble, keep you making a richer, more in depth and plot-driven story for me and the girls. You see, Moonlight, a book isn’t just a book. In the end, a book should entertain, don’t you agree?”
Vanessa pulls a phone from the chest pocket on her vest.
“Smile, Moonlight,” she says. “You’re on Candid Camera.”
Georgie rises up onto his knees.
“Get the hell back down, skinny,” Tall Redneck shouts.
“Oh fuck you, you dumb ass Okie,” Georgie says. “Go ahead and shoot.”
Short Round Redneck raises up his rifle, fires. The bullet hits the wall behind Georgie. I rise up onto my knees, take a look at Georgie’s face. It’s tight and red. I’ve known him nearly my whole life and I know when he’s scathing mad. Like now, as he raises up his .9mm while thumbing back the hammer.
“Don’t do it!” screams Short, Round Redneck as he aims for Georgie’s head.
I get
ready to spring myself in the direction of the Rednecks when a second shot rings out and a body drops.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
SHORT ROUND REDNECK’S FACE disappears a split second before his body hits the kitchen floor.
The twins drop down onto the stomachs and scream.
Suzanne pulls out her gun, aims it at me.
Why me?
I reach out, grab the .44 as a shot is fired and brushes the short hair on my head. Raising up the Magnum, I fire at Suzanne, and hit her in the chest. She’s gone before her knees even begin to buckle.
I just killed the world’s best literary agent.
That’s when the canister of tear gas plops onto the floor by my feet and explodes.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THE TEAR GAS IS followed by an entire SWAT team that plows through the busted windows and broken doors. I try and cover my eyes to prevent the gas from stinging them, but it’s a futile effort. I can hear Georgie coughing up a lung, along with Tall Bearded Redneck. The twins are still down on the ground. They’ve gone from screaming to outright weeping and wailing. They’ve become victims in their own little game of seduction. As for the two Russians duct-taped to one another, they aren’t making a sound. Maybe they’re dead.
One of the SWAT officers bends over, looks me in the eye with his oxygen-masked and clear-shielded face. “You okay, buddy?”
I nod.
He holds out his arm and points to the open door of the kitchen.
“Go!” he demands. Then at Georgie. “You too, Dr. Phillips!”
I go for the door, Georgie on my tail.
#
Outside, I cough and weep, weep and cough.
It takes a couple of minutes for the tears to stop falling and my breathing to return to some semblance of normal. When I can finally see straight, I spot Detective Miller making his way through the throngs of cop cars, EMT vans, and a couple of black armored SWAT vehicles in my direction. There’s a woman walking beside him. She’s tall, slim, wearing a windbreaker and jeans. Even with my tear-gassed eyes still stinging and somewhat blurred, I can tell she’s crying. Or has been crying anyway.
Miller directs me to a place on the lawn that isn’t in earshot of the police or anyone else, but that is in plain eyesight of the van containing Sissy’s body.
“How’d you know we’d be here?” I say after a time.
“I’m a cop, Moonlight,” he says. “Didn’t take a whole lot of deductive reasoning once we found out that Sissy was missing from the morgue.” Then turning to the woman. “And I had some help from Erica and Vanessa’s mother. Moonlight, meet Mrs. Alice Beckett.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I say. “Pardon me if I don’t shake your hand.”
“No worries,” the woman says in a soft, low voice.
“Mrs. Beckett has been aware for some time the arrangement her daughters struck up with Suzanne Bonchance for the publication of their book project. But it wasn’t until Sissy died that she uncovered the extent of the illegalities involved.”
“Ms. Beckett,” I say, my still stinging eyes planted on Georgie’s van, and the now closed back-bay doors. “Did your daughter’s kill Sissy?”
The woman starts to cry again. In her right hand, she’s holding a cloth handkerchief. As quickly as the tears fall from her eyes onto her flush cheeks, she wipes them away.
“I overheard Vanessa talking to Erica on the phone last night from the kitchen in my home. Vanessa was upset. She was crying. Sometimes shouting, sometimes whispering. But crying. She had done something. Something bad. Something she didn’t mean to do.” Beckett takes a moment to dry more of her tears. “And then she said the name, Sissy. In the same breath, my daughter said the word dead. That Sissy was dead, and it was all a big mistake.”
“Sissy didn’t OD on her own?” I say, wiping my own tear-gas produced tears from my face.
“She had … let’s call it … assistance,” Miller says.
My eyes back on Beckett.
“My Vanessa did something bad to the drugs.”
Miller takes a step forward.
“Vanessa laced the drugs with something. Heroin. She must have gotten it from Suzanne. Suzanne from the Russians. By now you’ve no doubt figured out the food chain in this thing, Moonlight.”
“Why would she do that?” I say. “Why take a chance on killing Sissy?”
“The girls were playing a game of manipulation. It was pure fun for them. Tease Roger and see what happens. Follow him, see what happens. Take him to bed, see what happens. Steal his money or, in this case, the Russian’s money. Haunt him so that he can’t write even if he tries. See what happens. Get it all on video at the same time. Write a book about it. Strut your twin tits and ass. Smile a lot. Say funny, mindless things. Make a fortune.”
“You knew about all this, Ms. Beckett?”
She nods, sniffles. “Some of it. A lot of it. Does that make me an accomplice in a murder?”
“It’s possible Sissy had an existing heart condition,” Miller adds. “Anyway, she overdosed on a drug she didn’t realize she was ingesting.”
A uniformed police officer approaches us.
“Excuse me, Detective,” he says, handing Miller an iPhone. The same iPhone Vanessa held up inside the kitchen of the Walls home and announced, “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera.” He thumbs a few commands until he comes to the application he wants. He holds the phone at an angle that allows Ms. Beckett and myself to see the screen. It’s a video. He depresses the triangular play button. It’s Sissy, lying in bed, naked. She’s snorting a line from the mirror. She’s singing and slurring her words. Some Lindsay Lohan song. Her eyes are going in and out of focus while Vanessa zooms in on them.
“Do you love your husband, Sissy?” Vanessa asks.
Sissy issues a laugh. A long drawn out, pain-filled exhale that is as far away from happiness as hell is from paradise.
“I want to die when I hear his name,” she says, grabbing hold of a beer bottle she has set on the night stand, spilling half of it before she can get it to her mouth. She’s not finished taking her drink, when the bottle falls onto her lap, spilling out in a sea of white foam. Her green eyes roll up into the back of her head and her mouth begins to froth, her body cascading into a fit of trembling.
“Oh shit! Oh shit!” Vanessa can be heard saying while she continues filming. “Shit. Fuck me. Sissy. Don’t die. Sissy don’t die.”
But it’s plain to see, that the eighth wife of Roger Walls is already gone.
Miller stops the video. “She must have filmed the whole thing,” he says. “She wanted to see what happened next instead of calling for help.” He shakes his head and pockets the phone.
Just then we see the girls being led out of the house, both of their wrists handcuffed behind their backs, their hair veiling their tear-gassed faces like funeral shawls.
Ms. Beckett begins to openly sob, while Miller begins making his way back across the side lawn to where they are being led to an awaiting police cruiser. Not knowing what else to do, I follow. When he comes to within a few feet of them, the tall, short-haired detective shoves his hands in his jacket pockets, pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He pops one between his lips and lights it with a BIC butane.
The same uniformed cop who handed Miller the iPhone opens the back cruiser door for Erica. He places his open hand on her head and pushes down on it so that she doesn’t get smacked on the door rim as she enters into the vehicle. He does the same thing for Vanessa when she slips into the car beside her twin sister.
When the girls are safely inside the car, Miller reaches out with his free hand, grabs hold of the car door in order to prevent the cop from closing it. The detective, cigarette pressed between his lips, leans his head into the car. He says something to the girls which is indiscernible to me. They respond with an answer, which is just as indiscernible. Popping his head back out, he tells the cop to take them away.
Turning to the girl’s mother, he says, “Ms. Beckett, you can follow
them in one of the other cruisers. The officer here will assist you.” He gives me a look, and together we walk back across the lawn to Georgie’s van.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
WE STAND BY THE white van in heavy silence, my eyes no longer burning or tearing. Miller reaches back into his blazer pocket, produces that same pack of smokes. Marlboro Lights. My brand it so happens. He offers me one and since my life hangs in the balance anyway, I accept it. He fires it up for me and for a few long moments, we just stand there smoking to the soundtrack of arguing cops, busy EMTs, tinny radios, ringing cell phones. Even laughter.
“Do I dare ask you what you wanted with Sissy’s body, Moonlight?” Miller speaks after a time.
“I think you know why.”
“DNA.”
“Yup.”
He smokes. Contemplatively.
“Georgie Phillips. He cleaned her out. So to speak.”
I smoke. Reflectively.
“So to speak.”
“Perhaps you replaced the sample with another. Thus the reason for bringing her on this field trip.”
“All things are possible”
“Will the DNA we find inside her match that of a living human being?”
I smoke a little more, exhale. “Do we ever really die, Detective?”
He shakes his head. “If you deliver her body back to the Albany Medical Center within the hour, I will make certain no one is the wiser. But it has to be within the hour.”
“Understood. Why you being so nice?”
He flicks the half-smoked cigarette onto the gravel drive, where it lands and smolders in the fresh oxygen.
“You’ve helped me out. Helped your fellow man out, I should say. Whether you realize it or not, Moonlight, you’ve helped bust up a Russian mob-run coke operation and did away with one of their operatives and seriously wounded two of their soldiers. It’s too bad Suzanne Bonchance had to die, but I understand you were acting in self-defense. You were a cop once. You were trained when to shoot and when not to.”
