I glance at Erica. She issues a me a confident smile that screams, don’t be shy. Tell him.
“Moonlight Falls,” I say. “Sort of autobiographical fiction. Or, if you will, Professor, detective fiction meets memoir.”
His eyes light up under those horn-rims.
“How interesting. False truths and true falses. A pioneering effort on your maiden literary voyage. How nice for you.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it literary, Mr. Oatczuk. More like a mystery novel. Something Dan Brown or Robert B. Parker might write.” Feigning a grin. “You know, a book for simpletons. Nothing Roger Walls or maybe yourself might waste your time with.” I’m blowing smoke up his ass here and he either knows it and likes it, or he’s just so used to being creamed on by his students that he’s entirely used to the praise and in fact, expects it.
He nods.
“Let me tell you something,” he says, once more gazing out the window. “The other day I had to take the train into Manhattan for a day-long conference along with some of my colleagues here at the university. Something happened that took me by complete surprise. The train was full of readers. Young, old, middle-aged. They were all reading, or so it seemed. Instead of the clatter of text messages being typed, or cell phones chiming, or video games spitting and spurting, people were reading.” He sighs as though suddenly deflated. “But then something else happened that undermined my new-found optimism.”
I glance at Erica. She catches my gaze and offers me a tight-lipped nod. It tells me she’s more than familiar with the good professor’s pontifications and ruminations.
“I can hardly wait to hear,” I say.
“I made a point of trying to find out what the people were reading,” Oatczuk goes on. “I actually physically climbed out of my seat and walked up and down the aisle gazing upon the titles of the paperback books. And in doing so, I was sorely disappointed. Because instead of seeing the names of the greats like Tolstoy, Chekhov, Shakespeare, Melville, Fitzgerald, or Faulkner, I saw only Stieg Larsson, Dan Brown, and even some new writer who used to sell insurance but wrote a romance novel in his spare time and sold a million e-books. A man who now owns a fucking villa in the Tuscan mountains and a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue in New York.” Yet another gaze out the window. “E-books. Can you imagine a world in which books are not printed on paper?”
“Some people would call that progress,” I say. “It’s a digital world. You don’t teach that in MFAschool?”
“Give us some credit here. We’re not only trying to teach tomorrow’s writers how to hone their craft, I believe we’re trying to save the written word from the people who abuse it while making millions on their bestsellers and their blockbuster movies.”
“I wouldn’t mind selling a movie.” Nor would I mind a penthouse apartment in New York. Not that I’m about to admit it to Oatczuk.
The professor bursts out laughing, like I suddenly ran behind his desk and started tickling him.
“That’s just it, Moonlight,” he exclaims, “it’s people like you . . . mere pedestrians . . . who pen a first novel and, entirely ignorant of the process, end up writing some piece of sub-par material that shoots to the top spot on the Amazon Kindle bestseller list or some such shit. Suddenly you’re being called the next Stephen King or if you will, Roger Walls. Suddenly you’re very rich and famous. And where does that leave real, serious writers like myself?”
“Teaching,” I say. “You need to teach in order to make a living.”
“Yes,” he whispers, just a hint of blood red filling his cheeks. “We teach. We have no choice but to teach young adults who have about as much chance of making a living as a writer as I do a private detective.”
“Amen to that,” I say, my eyes once more shifting to Erica as she nervously bites down on her lower lip.
I know that if I don’t begin to steer the obviously bitter Oatczuk off the literary versus genre fiction debate, we might never get to the real reason for my visit.
“Speaking of Mr. Walls,” I interject, “I understand you are great friends. As Erica here might have mentioned, he’s gone missing. I’ve been hired by his agent, Suzanne Bonchance, to find him, escort him back home, and sit him in front of his typewriter so he might make a little money for them both.”
Oatczuk peers up at me from behind his desk. He purses his lips as if he wants to say something but can’t quite put the words together yet.
“So, Oatczuk,” I press on, “any ideas on where I might start looking? Since you two are like this?” I raise up my right hand, make a gesture of togetherness by crossing the index and middle fingers.
The professor exhales. Profoundly.
“This isn’t about money, Moonlight.”
“What isn’t about money?” I know precisely what he’s getting at, but I’m giving him a hard time. Just because. Moonlight the Ball Buster.
“Writing. It’s not about money. It’s about a calling. What we have instead of religion. Or in the place of it, anyway. A song inside of us that needs to be sung.”
“Which is why you’ve chosen not to make money at it. Isn’t that right Oat . . . Czuk.”
Out the corner of my left eye, I catch Erica suppressing a laugh by pressing her fisted hand up against her lips.
The prof’s lips go tight, his eyes wide, bottom lip a quivering, trembling live wire. A little blue vein pops out on his neck under his chin. The scholarly writing professor has got himself a temper worthy of the mean streets by the looks of things, even though his wardrobe of jeans, moccasins, canvas button-down shirt screams of Vermont, cows, pot, and organic freshness.
“I’m just playing with you, Oatczuk. I know you’ve been trying to catch a big commercial deal for years now. Suzanne told me so. But things ain’t going so great, are they?”
“And what business is that of yours, Moonlight?”
“None. But it makes me happy knowing you know that I know . . . if you catch my drift, Herr Professor.” I make sure to say Herr Professor with a genuine German SS accent. It makes the vein on Oatczuk’s neck throb. Stealing another quick look at Erica, I believe it’s quite possible she’s about to pee her cotton undies. That is if she’s wearing any.
“You consider yourself a funny man, Detective Moonlight. And I suppose you have infused your charming personality into your writing?”
“Almost certainly. Which is why Suzanne tells me she’s going to sell it for a million bucks. How’s about them apples?” It’s a lie of course, but I’m really beginning to enjoy watching that vein throb to the point of bursting.
Oatczuk shoots up and out of his chair.
“You must be joking!” he spits. “Suzanne Bonchance . . . the Suzanne Bonchance . . . has decided to take on your book.” It’s a question for which he already knows the answer, but is having a hard time swallowing. He and his throbbing blue vein.
“Why’s that so hard to believe, Oat. Czuk?”
“You, my friend . . . you are merely a poseur.” He’s speaking to me through a bittersweet smile, the fingers on his hands once more combing back that lush hair. “A wannabe. I can bet your talent, or lack thereof, is not even worthy of this writing program. Still, here you are trying to push your first novel through one of the best and most accomplished literary agents this country has ever seen, and ever will see.”
“Well, now you’re hurting my feelings, Professor. Not very PC of you. I’m telling Obama.”
“I believe you are a bald-faced liar, Moonlight. Or, perhaps you did something for her to make her take your book on. It’s no secret Bonchance has experienced a rash of poor luck lately. So what is it then? Did you fuck her, Moonlight?”
Erica’s jaw drops. It’s possible mine does, too. But there isn’t a mirror around for me to confirm it.
“Professor Oatczuk,” I say in as calm a voice as I can work up, “I’m surprised at you. A man of your academic standing and respectability, issuing the f-bomb in front of a student. Tsk Tsk.”
He slowly sits b
ack down. “I truly wanted to help you, Moonlight. But I can see now that you don’t need my help. You, your book, your agent, and your attitude may now kindly fuck off all the way out of my office, my campus, and my life.”
“Oops you said it again,” I sing, mimicking a horrid song from an even more horrid pop star from the 1990s. “Sure you don’t want to give me at least something to go on that might help me find your good buddy Roger Walls? This ain’t about me, Oatczuk, and it ain’t about Bonchance, or about you. It’s about the safety and well-being of Roger Walls, New York Times, USA Today and Amazon Dot Com bestseller.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” he hisses. “Maybe you should talk to his present wife.”
“Already been there. She has no clue either.”
“And did you have sex with her, too?”
I find myself shooting a glance at Erica. She returns my glance with a look that says, Yup, you did have sex with her, didn’t you?
“Jeez, prof, you're full of angry f-bombs today. You should write a new poem. Talk about a lapse in contemporary progressive political correctness. Pretty soon you’ll be cutting your hair and joining the Tea Party.”
“Fuck you and the fat horse you rode in on. Now, please, exit these quarters.”
“With pleasure . . . Oat. Czuk.”
I turn, take hold of Erica’s hand, just like she took hold of mine earlier.
“And I’m taking the girl with me,” I add.
“I’ll see you at workshop, professor,” she says, bits of laughter spurting out between her words.
“I’d like a word with you later, Ms. Beckett,” Oatczuk says as we exit his office, closing the door behind us.
Back outside, in the common, Erica doubles over in uncontrollable laughter. When she’s done, she straightens up, wipes the tears from her eyes with the backs of her hands.
She says, “You are the first person I’ve ever seen who actually succeeded at putting Oatczuk in his place. You were positively brilliant, Moonlight. ” She laughs some more, then adds. “I’m not entirely sure why you chose to piss him off like that, and how good it’s going to be for my grades, but it was truly a sight to see. Believe me. But you still don’t have any clue on where to start looking for Roger.”
The afternoon sun and its warmth are fading fast, but the absolute relief that comes with leaving the English department behind feels really good.
“Because, Erica, I knew from the very second I met old Oatczuk that not only does he have zero clues about Roger Walls’s whereabouts, but he’s been lying about being his friend. He’s probably met him a few times at college readings and some other university-sponsored events. Maybe emailed with him a few times. It sounds impressive to his students when he talks about Roger Walls, his quote . . . ‘close friend’ . . . unquote.” Making quotations marks with my fingers. “But trust me, he’s no more buddies with Walls than I am.”
“Then why invite you in to offer his help?”
“To make himself look important. Like he’s needed. Wanted. Or maybe he’s just nosy. Shit, maybe he just wanted to show off his hair.”
Erica shoots me a quizzical look with her very young but very stunning eyes.
“It’s like this,” I go on. “Your Mr. Oatczuk, as good and important a writing professor as he seems, has been trying to break the bonds of the academic prison and become a bestselling novelist in his own right. My built-in shit detector—and it’s a finely tuned one, I might add—tells me he’s a little obsessed with Suzanne Bonchance, Walls’s agent. Oatczuk feels that if Roger can be a superstar writer than he himself could and should be a star, too. In fact, he feels entitled to the title of Mega-Superstar Writer. After all, he’s a long-haired superstar on the campus of Albany State. It’s just a matter of Suzanne giving him the break he needs; a matter of her seeing the light, as it were. Recognizing his particular brand of genius. Maybe he feels by helping out with Walls, he will somehow place himself in Bonchance’s good graces. Hell, maybe he feels she owes him a favor now, like taking on one of his books.”
We start walking in the direction of the student parking lot under the university common’s bright sodium lamplight.
“But why not just try another agent if Bonchance doesn’t want him?”
“Because he doesn’t want another agent. Even with Suzanne being in trouble, and barely hanging on to her own career, he’s obsessed with her representation, simply because she represents Roger. That’s what Oatczuk is focused on and obsessed with. Nothing else will satisfy him.”
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 disgusting acts with Sissy Walls.”
“I’m not old and I did not engage in disgusting acts 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 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 the female MFA students.”
“Don’t cry for me, Moonlight. I've got you here, now. 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 non-literary standards. Remember, plot is the enemy of the literary novel.”
A beaming smile. “Which is precisely why they 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. But why not just use Google on my smartphone?”
I roll my eyes. “What happened to the good old days?”
I’m not sure if she pulls out her smartphone from a pocket in her skirt or she’s been holding it the entire time. But suddenly there it is.
“Look up ‘Albany Area Bars.” 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 15
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. 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, 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 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 she’s angry with me for something. Maybe for dragging her around 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.
Moonlight Sonata: (A Dick Moonlight PI Thriller No. 7) Page 8
