Dog Day Moonlight Read online

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  Chase Baker and the Dutch Diamonds

  A Chase Baker Thriller Series

  Young Chase Baker and the Cross of the Last Crusade

  A Dick Moonlight PI Series

  Moonlight Falls

  Moonlight Breaks Bad

  A Dick Moonlight PI Series Short

  Moonlight Gets Served

  A Dick Moonlight PI Thriller

  Moonlight Falls: New and Lengthened Editor’s Cut Edition

  A Dick Moonlight Thriller Book 9

  Dog Day Moonlight

  (A Keeper Marconi PI Thriller Book 5

  Dressed to Kill

  A Sam Savage Sky Marshal Thriller

  Dead Heading

  Tunnel Rats

  The Empire Runaway

  The Sam Savage Sky Marshal Boxed Set

  A Vincent Zandri Hard-Boiled Short Read

  Bingo Night

  Pathological

  The Handyman

  The Handyman: The Complete Season II

  (Vincent Zandri on Writing Book)

  Pieces of Mind: Fictional Truths & Non-Fictional Lies about Writing and the Writing Life

  Standalone

  Head

  Pathological: Collected Short Reads of Sex, Lies, and Murder!

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  “Sensational . . . masterful . . . brilliant.”

  —New York Post

  “(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.”

  —Booklist “Starred Review”

  “My fear level rose with this Zandri novel like it hasn't done before. Wondering what the killer had in store for Jude and seeing the ending, well, this is one book that will be with me for a long time to come!”

  —Reviews by Molly

  “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 best seller after another.”

  —Life in Review

  “(The Innocent) is a thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion.”

  —The Times-Union (Albany)

  "The action never wanes."

  —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

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

  —Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Six Years

  "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

  Dog Day Moonlight

  (A Dick Moonlight PI Thriller Short)

  Vincent Zandri

  “I'm a fuck-up, and I'm an outcast. If you get near me you're gonna get it - you're gonna get fucked over and fucked out.”

  —Sonny, Dog Day Afternoon

  8:20 AM

  Malta, NY

  Here’s what I know: Elvis is in the building.

  Or in this case, a double-wide trailer that’s located in the Malta “River View” trailer park that takes up a good portion of rocky, good-for-nothing Mohawk Riverside property. Parked at an odd angle in front of the place is his third-hand Ford Extend van, the words Elvis Lives painted on the side panels along with a phone number, website address, and the promise, “Available for parties, weddings, and Bar Mitzvahs.”

  My knuckles are beginning to hurt, I’m pounding on the door so hard.

  A toilet flushes.

  Then, footsteps trudging along the trailer floor, the words, “Hold your god damn horses, why don’t you,” oozing through the paper thin walls.

  The door is yanked open.

  “What!” Elvis barks.

  He’s standing before me in his tighty whitey underwear, which isn’t exactly white anymore and not exactly tight either.

  I glance at my wrist watch. “Shouldn’t you be dressed and ready to go by now, Elvis? You’re scheduled for a rectal rocket in a half hour.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, his round face pale against his dyed, jet black, pork chop Elvis Presley sideburns. “I been shitting my brains out all morning.”

  He steps away from the door. I step inside and am immediately whacked with a wall of stench that belongs to whatever poison has evacuated his lower GI tract.

  “Jesus, Elvis,” I say. “Light a match.”

  He places both hands on his round, bloated, basketball-like stomach, and begins speed walking across the living room to the bathroom.

  “Here it comes again,” he says. “Lord have mercy.”

  Roland Hills, aka Fat Elvis Presley, believes he’s the return of the King himself. Or, in his words, “I’m proof Elvis never left the building, much less the good earth, in the first place.”

  Between his big gut, his skinny arms and legs, he kind of resembles an overgrown cocktail olive with four toothpicks stuck inside it. But when he’s got his white Evel Knievel bell-bottomed pants suit on, along with a pair of metal-framed sunglasses, his asphalt black hair slicked back in a ducktail doo, he’s a dead ringer for the King of Rock n’ Roll himself. But right now, running to the bathroom in his underwear and a gray wife beater, he just looks like a sorry ass case.

  The bathroom door slams.

  “You were supposed to fast all day yesterday and do the colonoscopy prep,” I say, through the door. “What happened?”

  He groans and an ungodly noise erupts from inside the bathroom.

  He says, “I did fast all day. But while the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak and worthless. I got so hungry, I ordered out for pizza with anchovies at midnight. Then I got into the beer and Jack Daniels.”

  “When did you swallow the laxatives?”

  “An hour ago.”

  He grunts and groans some more.

  “You really know how to time things right, you know that, Elvis?”

  The toilet flushes. I hear the water running in the sink for a few seconds. Then he opens the door.

  “I think that did it, Moonlight. Let’s get this dog and pony show over with before I waste away.”

  His gut is pressing against my stomach.

  “Oh yeah,” I say, “pretty soon you’ll be a skeleton.” The odor from the bathroom hits me once more. A gas chamber would be more preferable to this trailer.

  Elvis says, “I got some leftover pizza if you’re hungry.”

  “The thought of food right now makes me wanna hurl,” I say.

  “Just bein’ neighborly is all.”

  “Lysol the joint,” I say, “then meet me outside in the Jeep . . . neighbor.”

  We manage to make it to the medical surgical building located in North Albany without an accident. Barely, that is. The laxative isn’t done after all and it’s all Elvis can do to run inside, find the bathroom, and empty his colon of what’s left of his late night pizza/whiskey/beer binge. Moments later, the two of us are standing in the pre-op room, he having changed into a baby blu
e colored gown that ties in the back. His gut is so big that it presses against the fabric, leaving his ass cheeks entirely exposed. And something else along with it.

  A target.

  An honest to goodness, circular target, hand drawn in bright red Sharpie, the bullseye directly over his glory hole.

  I start to laugh. In fact, several nurses walking up and down the pre-op room can’t help but notice it, and they too begin to laugh.

  Elvis senses something’s up, and his big brown eyes go wide.

  “What are you all laughing at?” he says.

  “Ummm, Elvis,” I say, “there’s a target on your ass.”

  He shudders, like the truth isn’t suddenly coming back to him, but slapping him upside the head.

  “Show me,” he insists.

  A square mirror is set on the stainless steel counter. I grab hold of it, hand it to him. He positions it so he can see the reflection of his ass if he cocks his head far enough over his shoulder.

  “I’ll be a dumb son of a bitch,” he says. “This is precisely why a man my age does not mix beer and Jack Daniels at one in the morning on the day of his colonoscopy.”

  A petite woman comes around the corner, sneaks her head inside the drapery partition. Elvis quickly pulls the mirror back and hides it. He plants a smile on his face. She introduces herself as Katherine, the doctor who will be performing the colonoscopy.

  “Please to meet you, Doc Katherine,” Elvis says.

  “Please get yourself into the bed, Mister . . .” she hesitates.

  “You wanna say, Mr. Presley,” Elvis says. “I’m a dead ringer for Elvis 1976, 1977 era, ain’t I? The real name is Roland Hills. Should say so on the chart.”

  “If I didn’t know any better,” the short, brunette doctor says, “I would say, Elvis lives.”

  A short, pudgy man of Indian decent enters. He’s holding a syringe.

  “This man will make you more comfortable for the procedure, Mr. Hills,” Dr. Katherine says.

  The man shoots Elvis up and almost immediately his face goes from anxious and jittery to high-as-a-kite. He opens his mouth and belts out, “It’s now or never, come hold me tight. Kiss me my darling. . .”

  The entire floor of staffers stop what they’re doing to listen. When he’s finished with the first verse, the place falls eerily silent until someone claps and the staff breaks out in applause, whistles, and cheers.

  “The King is in the building, Moonlight,” Elvis says dreamily from his bed. “Long live the fucking King.”

  I’m seated in the waiting room trying to pass the time by flipping through a three-year-old National Geographic and wondering how I’m going to pay this month’s rent when the facility entry doors automatically slide open. Two gray-uniformed men walk in, each of them wearing side arms and blue baseball hats, the brims of which contain white stitch lettering that reads, ACSD, or Albany County Sheriff’s Department.

  The two men give the room the once over, then issue one another a nod of approval. They turn to go back out the door. But before stepping through the opening, the one closest to me — a stocky man with a neck the size of a tree trunk — says, “You waiting to see a doctor? Or you here to rough somebody up?” he smiles. “Just kidding about that last one.”

  “I’m the designated driver for a friend,” I say. “He’s undergoing a very delicate procedure.”

  He nods, stone-faced. I guess that means he believes me, even if he is profiling me. But then, I’m dressed in jeans, combat boots, a black T-shirt, and a worn black leather coat over that. There’s a bit of a bulge in the coat where my shoulder holstered .38 semi-automatic resides. A sheriff’s deputy ought to be trained to spot such things. In theory.

  Both men step back outside and after a few seconds, come back in.

  This time, they are escorting a woman. A very beautiful, if not stunning, woman. She’s tall with long, thick, dark hair that falls over her shoulders. The kicker, she’s dressed in the blaze orange jumper of the Albany County lockup, and she’s wearing shackles and cuffs so that it’s impossible for her to walk a full stride without her ankles slapping against fully extended chains.

  They cart her to an empty chair set directly across from mine.

  “Have a seat, Jolene,” Tree Trunk Neck says. “We’re gonna get you signed in. You want anything, like a coffee maybe?”

  “Don’t you worry your little brains about me,” she says.

  Tree Trunk Neck follows his slim bean pole of a partner to the reception window. Meantime, I can’t help but notice how her beautifully sculpted behind fills out the orange jumper perfectly as she sits. It’s as if she had it tailored to her precise measurements.

  Suddenly, the magazine I’ve been thumbing through isn’t so interesting anymore. I can’t help but size the woman up. She’s maybe thirty-five, with big brown eyes, thick lips, and perfectly manicured eyebrows. She’s got a tiny waist but her chest is ample enough and so is her heart-shaped ass. She goes to cross her long legs, but then the shackles extend to their limit and catch her.

  “Damn,” she whispers.

  “Don’t you hate that?” I say as an ice breaker.

  “Force of habit,” she replies. Offering me a smile. “You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette?” She smiles, licks her lips.

  Heart be still . . .

  I pat my pockets. Lately, I’ve been smoking again as opposed to quitting, so I know I have a pack on me somewhere. I locate it, pull it out, shake it so that a cigarette rises to the top. Leaning up from my chair, I extend my arm and offer up the cigarette. She takes it between her lips, allows it to dangle out the side of her mouth.

  “I’d ask you for a light, but . . .” She smiles that smile again.

  “Rules and regulations,” I say. “What brings you here?”

  “Polyp on my ovary,” she explains. Shaking her head, pulling the cig from her lips with her cuffed hands. “Sometimes I hate being a woman.”

  “Biology. Like we got a choice in the matter.”

  The place goes quiet for a moment while the sedated noise of the waiting room fills the space. A few seats down, a woman is waiting patiently with her little boy. He’s very young, pudgy, and sleepy, his head resting on her shoulder. There are an old black man and woman seated not far down from them.

  While Bean Pole and Tree Trunk Neck make their way back across the waiting room floor, my investigator’s instinct kicks in, and I can’t help but ask. “So what are you in for?”

  The woman perks up. “Just told you. Bad ovary.”

  “No,” I clarify. “I mean, county lock up.”

  “Nosey one are we?”

  “I’m in law enforcement,” I say. “What was it you just said? Force of habit?”

  She raises up both wrists, sets the cig back in her mouth.

  “Okay,” she says, “I’ll play along. What is it you wanna know, Mister?”

  “What’s a pretty girl like you doing dressed in a blaze orange jailbird outfit like that?”

  “That’s easy,” she says with a proud, ear to ear smile. “I blew my wife’s brains out.”

  Wife . . . She distinctly said the word wife.

  I guess she’s a lesbian. A very beautiful, lipstick wearing lesbian. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, on many levels, everything is so right with it.

  The two deputies return.

  “Where’d you get the cancer stick, Jolene?” Tree Trunk Neck says.

  He goes to snatch the cigarette out of her mouth. But she pulls her head back at the very last nanosecond.

  Tree Trunk Neck’s eyes go wide.

  Bean Poll steps in.

  “Now, Jolene,” he says, both his approach and voice far more mild-mannered than his partner’s. “You know full well we can’t allow an inmate to be smoking inside or outside this surgical facility. You’re here to have that cyst removed from your scrotum, and that’s that.”

  Scrotum . . .

  Bean Pole uses the word scrotum, suggesting a decidedly male anatomy. Jolen
e told me she killed her wife, suggesting a male who’s been married to a female. Everything is beginning to make some sense. That is, regarding the modern, LGBT and transvestite friendly world we now live in. But still, no harm in clarifying things.

  “Excuse me for interrupting,” I say. “But did you just say, scrotum? I thought the girl was in to have a cyst removed from her, ummm, uterus?”

  Tree Trunk Neck snorts. “Ain’t that wishful thinking.”

  Bean Pole grins, looks me in the eye. “That what she told you?” he asks.

  Jolene looks at me. “Wake up, Mister . . . well, whatever your name is. The she is a he who wishes to be a she. Get it?” She raises her hands again, pulls the cigarette from her mouth. “I just said the uterus thing earlier ‘cause it sounded good.”

  “You’re really a guy,” I say like a question. “Wow, you totally fooled me.”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it?” she says. Her face goes rock solid serious. “But make no mistake, I’m a castaway, an exile, a fuck up. You get it? I wasn’t born in the right skin. Now it’s time to change all that.”

  Turning to Tree Trunk Neck, she flicks the cigarette directly at his face. He instinctively flinches, and she uses the opening to lunge at his massive neck with her mouth wide open and her teeth bared.

  Blood sprays from the stocky deputy’s neck. Which tells me Jolene succeeded at tearing into his carotid. She reaches for his gun, and with lightning speed pulls it out, aims it at Bean Pole.

  Pointblank.

  He reaches for his piece. Draws.

  Jolene fires.

  Bean Pole takes one in the sternum before the barrel of his weapon can clear the holster. He drops on the spot, his chest spurting a gusher of dark arterial blood.