Moonlight Weeps: (A Dick Moonlight PI Thriller Book 8) Read online

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  “(A) chilling tale of obsessive love from Thriller Award–winner Zandri (Moonlight Weeps) . . . Riveting.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “. . . Oh, what a story it is . . . Riveting . . . A terrific old school thriller.”

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  “I very highly recommend this book . . . It's a great crime drama that is full of action and intense suspense, along with some great twists . . . Vincent Zandri has become a huge name and just keeps pouring out one bestseller after another.”

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  "Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting."

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  "Tough, stylish, heartbreaking."

  —Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of Savages and Cartel.

  “A tightly crafted, smart, disturbing, elegantly crafted complex thriller . . . I dare you to start it and not keep reading.”

  —MJ Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Halo Effect and Closure

  “A classic slice of raw pulp noir . . .”

  —William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob

  MOONLIGHT WEEPS

  A Dick Moonlight PI Thriller, No.8

  Vincent Zandri

  “Sad thing is, you can still love someone and be wrong for them.”

  —Elvis Presley

  “Go ahead! I take your fucking bullets! You think you kill me with bullets? I take your fucking bullets! Go ahead!”

  —Tony Montana, Scarface

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  According to my schedule, I’m to meet Roland Hills, aka Elvis Presley, at the coffee shop in North Albany at eight in the morning. I would have met him at seven but, like the great Hound Dog man in the sky, he’s been hitting the booze a little too hard as of late. So, like a good employee, I let him sleep in a little.

  That’s me — Moonlight the teddy bear.

  Pulling into a parking lot overcrowded with pickup trucks and cars, and even an eighteen wheeler parked diagonally across the length of the lot so that people are forced to drive around it, I find Hills’ old Honda motorcycle and pull up beside it. I’m just about to get out and head inside to grab a coffee when I spot the big, black-haired, forty-something Elvis impersonator coming toward me, two identical large coffees gripped in his hands. Electronically thumbing down the passenger side window on Dad’s old 1978 hearse, I lean over the empty seat, ask him to get in.

  He stops, shoots me a bulging eyes look like he’s just seen his own ghost.

  “You want me to get inside that thing?”

  Like his 1977 Fat Elvis beer gut, his Oklahoma accent sticks out like a sore thumb in Albany, New York. It’s a cool May morning, but he’s wearing only a T-shirt with the words, “Your Momma Lied,” printed on it in big black letters. The letters expand and distort where they cover his bloated belly.

  “What’s to be afraid of? It’s not like sitting inside a hearse is gonna kill you, Elvis. Kinda works the other way around.”

  “You ain’t hung-over like I am.” His hands shake so badly the coffee is spilling out of the little sippy holes punched into the plastic lids. “I’m already near death, Moonlight.”

  “Just get in. The stuff I have to show you is better revealed in private.”

  “What stuff?”

  “The stuff you’re paying me to find out about your girlfriend.”

  He just stands there, his thick, black hair and pork chop sideburns pasted to his round face, his big gut hanging over his belt, hands shaking, coffee spilling.

  “It’s bad, ain’t it?” His south-of-the-border twang raises an octave. Like he’s about to cry. “Think I’m gonna be sick.”

  “If you’re about to be sick, Elvis, blow your chunks in the lot right now. But hand me my coffee first.”

  “I’m okay.” A beat passes. “Just not used to the love of my life cheating on me is all.”

  “Guess now you know how her husband and your wife must feel.”

  He attempts to smile at that, but apparently he can’t work up the strength. Reaching across the seat, I open the door for him. He gets in, stinking of old booze.

  I take my coffee and, at the same time, catch my reflection in the rearview mirror. I haven’t been sleeping all that great lately what with being single and, therefore, free to roam the gin mills of my choice at all hours of the night, and having a bank account that is so below zero it brain freezes me even to think of it. Peering into my own brown eyes, I spot a round face that needed a shave five days ago and a head that sports a stand of hair so short you can see the scars that crisscross my scalp like a road map, including the small dime-sized scar beside my right earlobe where, once upon a time, a piece of .22 caliber hollow-point bullet penetrated my skull. Pulling up the collar on my leather coat with my free hand, I look away from the mirror and lock my eyes on my worn combat boots and the dark Levi jeans that cover my legs.

  Suddenly, I smell something bad.

  “Christ, Elvis, when was the last time you showered?”

&n
bsp; “Been sleeping at the phone company.” Elvis’ day job consists of fixing broken computers at the local Verizon. “Ain’t got nowhere’s to go.” He tries to sip his coffee, but his hand is trembling too much, and most of it lands on his chin. Reaching into the side pocket on his baggy blue jeans, he pulls out a small fifth of Jack. Then, shooting me a look with his brown puppy dog eyes, “You mind?”

  “It’s your liver, Elvis.”

  I assist him with removing the coffee cup lid. Spilling some of the coffee out the window to make room, he then pours two or three shots into the cup, filling it back up. I help him once more with pressing the lid back down onto the paper cup.

  “Go ahead. Drink. Those trembling hands are making me nervous.”

  He steals a generous drink of the whiskey-laced coffee. After only a few seconds, you can almost feel him deflating. As for his hands, they stop shaking. Reaching into the back seat, I grab a manila envelope and open it. I pull out the pictures I snapped yesterday afternoon across the river in Columbia County. The rural town of Kinderhook, to be precise. The town where Mr. Hills’ currently illicit love is still living with her husband inside a double-wide trailer set on a two-acre streamside parcel while spending her mornings balling the mailman and her late afternoons getting it on with the present and accounted for facsimile of Elvis Presley. Fat Elvis.

  “Read ’em and weep, Elvis. She ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog anyway.”

  He sets his spiked coffee on the dash, snatches the pics from my hand, slaps them face-down onto his lap. He lifts the first one up and, with his right hand having resumed its trembling, turns it over. The photo reveals his girlfriend’s heart-shaped naked posterior. It’s pointed up in the air while she bends over in preparation for rear-entry by the mailman, whose blue uniformed pants and tighty-whitey BVDs are wrapped around his white tennis sock-covered ankles. I have to admit; it isn’t a bad live shot for an amateur photographer. The focus is perfect, and I even snapped the pic as the blonde bombshell is looking over her shoulder, no doubt saying something profound to the mailman. Something like, “Do me . . . Do me . . . I can’t wait any longer.”

  The rest of the photos are simply different versions of the same shot. You’ve seen one pic of an over-sexed thirty-something concrete blonde taking it doggy style in her backyard from the mailman, you’ve sort of seen them all. But, that doesn’t prevent Roland Hills from studying each and every single one of them like he’s looking at the most recent issue of Penthouse Magazine. You know, holding them only inches from his face, turning them one way, then the other.

  When he’s done, he slaps the pics back down onto his lap. It’s then that I see he’s crying like a baby. Tears streaming down his fat cheeks, he opens his mouth wide and begins to sing at the top of his lungs, “I’m caught in a trap . . . I can’t walk out . . . Because I love you too much baby . . .!”

  I’ll be dipped because he’s starting to make a scene. But, I gotta give him credit. If I close my eyes, it really does sound like I’m blaring the late King of Rock ’n’ Roll on the hearse’s old eight-track stereo system. Hills is so good a group of blue-jeaned construction workers gather around the black hearse. They clap and cheer as soon as crying, fake Elvis issues his last tearful note. One big guy with a brush cut even raises his cigarette lighter, thumbing a flame.

  “You’re building your fan base, Elvis.”

  He wipes the tears from his eyes with the backs of his meaty hands.

  “I don’t want new fans. I want my Betty back.”

  Betty Reddy. That’s no joke. That’s his cheating girlfriend’s name. ’Course, if you close your eyes and say it out loud, you get the full effect.

  Betty Reddy . . . Bet all the guys called her Betty Reddy Beaver in high school. Or maybe Betty Reddy for cock . . . No wonder she’s addicted to sex.

  “She wasn’t yours to begin with. Go back to your wife.”

  “Lorraine won’t have me back. She filed for divorce three days ago.”

  “Beg for forgiveness. Tell her you strayed only to realize what you had right before your eyes. Works like a charm every time.”

  He’s quiet for a minute while sad-faced workers stroll in and out of the coffee shop. Then, “You have a girlfriend, Mr. Moonlight? Someone special in your life?”

  I shake my head, sip my coffee.

  “No,” I say, the long brunette haired vision of my now dead ex, Lola, filling my head. “Not at present.”

  “Funny you giving me advice. Man with a piece of fuckin’ bullet in his brain, could die at any minute.” Slamming his barrel chest with his fist. “You could drop dead today. But I got my whole life to live. And I wanted to live it with Betty.”

  My eyes lock on his.

  “You have a real way with words, Elvis.” Leaning down, I gather my pics, stuff them back into the envelope. “Don’t lose your day job.”

  He opens the door, grabs his coffee, proceeds to step out, but I take hold of his arm. It’s skinny, bony even. Totally out of sync with the rest of his big body.

  “I believe you owe me something, Elvis. An even grand, plus expenses. You can deduct the coffee if you want.”

  He turns to me, his big brown eyes blinking.

  “I’ve sort of run into a bit of problem.” His teary-eyed frown turns upside down. “You see, Mr. Moonlight, since the telephone company found out about me and Betty, we both been handed our walking papers.”

  “You telling me you can’t pay me?”

  . . . There it is again, the minus zero bank balance, the account getting colder and colder as it becomes emptier . . .

  “Not now, anyway.” Then, perking up. “But hey, I’ve got an idea. You got any party plans in the future? Elvis and the Teddy Bears does parties, weddings, and bar mitzvahs. You’d get yourself a half price off deal.”

  “You kidding me, Elvis?”

  “Half price is at least worth one thousand.”

  And that’s when my entire blood supply spills out onto the hearse floor. I see her. Through the windshield. Walking into the coffee shop. I see her.

  I. See. Her.

  A tall woman. Her brunette hair is rich and long. Her body is long and leaner than I remember. But not skinny. She’s wearing tight jeans, sandals, a long sleeved loose-fitting shirt with a deep V-neck exposing the tan skin that covers her firm breasts. Two or three silver necklaces drape down from her neck and further draw my attention to the exposed skin on her chest. Her lips are thick and red. They form a heart when she presses them together. Her nose is so perfect it seems as though it were carved out of stone by a master artist. Covering her eyes, dark aviator sunglasses.

  Lola.

  But how can it be Lola?

  Lola died.

  I left Lola where she lay dead on the road on the highway between New York City and Albany. She had breathed her last, and the life had exited her body. I saw it happen. I was there. I walked away from her death, and I never looked back. Not even once.

  Maybe, I should have.

  “You okay, Mr. Moonlight?”

  Elvis is talking, prodding me with his index finger. Like I’ve suddenly gone catatonic. And I have.

  “No. I’m not alright.” I hold out my hand. “Whiskey.”

  He hands me the bottle. I uncap it, take a deep drink, hand it back without capping it.

  He takes it in hand, then grabs the cap, screwing it back on. “Jeeze, that was supposed to last me all day.”

  I want to get out of the hearse. I want to head into the store. I want to see if my eyes are deceiving me. But I can’t fucking move. Moonlight the catatonic.

  “You want me to get you a drink of water, Moonlight?”

  I turn to Elvis.

  “Take your pictures. We’re done here.”

  “You okay with an I.O.U.?”

  “Yeah. Just go. I’ll call you if I need something.”

  The door opens, and Elvis gets out. Several of the onlookers who heard him singing issue him a second round of applause. Elvis bends at the
waist, bows to his new peeps. Then, straightening himself back out, he reaches into his jeans pocket and proceeds to hand out business cards.

  “The King is back in town,” he barks in his best imitation trembling Elvis voice. “Available for birthday parties, weddings, retirement parties, bar mitzvahs, and a whole lot more.”

  The door to the store opens again. She walks out. My heart beats in my throat, adrenaline pumping through the veins in my head. I want to get out of the car, but I’m glued to the seat. Glued because I have to either be seeing things or my judgment is entirely off. I’ve got a piece of .22 caliber bullet lodged in my brain. It causes me problems from time to time. Brain problems. I’m not just a head-case. I’m Captain Head-Case.

  But there she is. Lola. In the flesh.

  She briefly holds the door open for an elderly man who limps through. Then, turning her back to me, she walks away in the opposite direction.

  My Lola walks away.

  Chapter 2

  I take a moment to catch my breath before I hyperventilate. Long enough for the morning nine-to-five working stiff rush to dissipate, leaving the coffee shop parking lot empty.

  From a distance, I watch her slip behind the wheel of a newer model, black Lexus. Watch her take a quick pull on her coffee, then set it into the center console cup holder before she starts the car, backs out. Watch her slowly make the short drive to the exit where she carefully looks both ways before hooking a slow left onto Broadway in the direction of North Albany.

  Maybe I should follow her. Maybe I should get my shit together and tail her for a while. But then, what if I’m wrong? What if the woman I just saw going in and out of the coffee joint only looked like Lola? If that does indeed turn out to be the truth, then I am destined to be even more lonely and broken-hearted than I already am.

  It’s only been a year since I left her there dead on the road. What if I were to chase the woman in the aviator sunglasses down and she only turns out to be a Lola lookalike? I’ll lose the love of my life a second time. But that’s fucking whack. Is it possible I’d rather not confirm that Lola lives more than I would want to reconfirm her death? Where’s the sense in that? But then, it’s Dick Moonlight here. I haven’t got the sense to come in out of the rain. That is, if it was raining in the first place.