Moonlight Weeps: (A Dick Moonlight PI Thriller Book 8) Page 13

  “Three-fifty,” Suze says.

  “You’re kidding. I can buy a can of Maxwell House for only three.”

  “So go buy a can of Maxwell House and drink it until it’s coming out of your ears. I don’t set the prices.”

  “You only enforce them,” I say, handing her a five. “If a short coffee is a tall, is extortion the price of doing business? Maybe they should call the place Star-Mega-Bucks.”

  She takes the money, opens the drawer, makes the change. She hesitates then, holding the one-dollar bill and two quarters in her hand.

  I hold out my hand to take the change.

  She makes a head cocking gesture towards a mason jar sitting out on the counter. A pink Post-It Note stuck to the clear jar reads, “College Fund.” Someone has sketched a round, smiley face beside the two words.

  “You look a little old for college, Suze,” I say.

  “Hey, the student loans are still killing me.”

  “I get a receipt?”

  “Really? I’m busy.”

  I take a quick look around. There’s no one else in the store.

  “Forget I mentioned it,” I say, taking hold of my tall/short coffee. “I would be honored if you kept the change.”

  “Thanks so much,” she says, dropping it into the jar.

  “I’ll go grab a tall table,” I say to Jill, turning away from the counter, and heading into the seating area.

  A minute later, Jill arrives carrying her own coffee. A big coffee.

  “What size do you call that?” sipping my hot “tall” but oh-so-small, coffee.

  “Grande,” she says. “Actually, it’s a decaf mocha Frappuccino.”

  “You can say that again.”

  She starts to repeat it.

  “I take that back,” I interject.

  “It’s yummy,” she says, taking a sip. When she comes up for air, she adds, “By the way, don’t mind, Suze. She’s old, and she gets grumpy at night. Especially on a Saturday night. She used to be rich and live in the ’burbs, but her dentist husband left her for a younger woman. Now, she lives in an apartment and has to work here to make ends meet.”

  “Old? Whaddaya mean old?”

  “She’s like forty.”

  “Wow, I’m surprised she can still stand up,” I say, shaking my head. “I’ll come more often and lay down five bucks for a shot of coffee. I adore elderly people.”

  She smiles like she thinks I’m serious.

  “So what is it you wanted to see me about?” she sweetly asks.

  “You don’t already know?”

  She makes a frown, brushes back her smooth, long blonde hair.

  “Amanda and Stephen.”

  “Right on.”

  “Amanda’s Aunt Lisa told me a private detective would want to speak with me about the . . . ahhh . . . tragedy. But I wasn’t sure if I should believe her or not.”

  “After all, private eyes exist only in novels.”

  She smiles. “Of course, silly.” Then, “To be honest, Lisa is a little F’d up. She drinks a lot. Sleeps around a lot, too. I think she’s got something going with Senator Bates and Doctor Schroder.”

  “You don’t say,” I whisper. If only she knew how I chose to while away the past hour with Lisa inside my loft.

  “But it is her body,” Jill adds. “The woman can do what she pleases with it.”

  I love the youth of the world. So optimistically liberated. I take a second sip of my coffee. It’s almost gone. If my calculations are correct, a Starbucks Tall coffee costs around a buck fifty per sip.

  “You were in attendance at the Schroder party the other night?”

  “Yup. It was a wild one. Because of the legal drinking age, most parties these days don’t involve alcohol. But the Schroders always have beer and liquor, and . . .” She hesitates like she just caught herself about to admit to something she shouldn’t. She drinks some more Frappuccino. For courage. “Can you keep a secret, Moonlight?”

  “Do I look like I can keep a secret?”

  A glance at my transparent reflection in the pane glass façade reveals a scruffy face, a near-shaved head which bears the dime-sized scar from my botched suicide. Black leather coat over a brown work shirt, tight Levi 501s, and worn in combat boots that date back to my stint in the First Gulf War.

  “You look more like a dude from an old Sopranos rerun than someone who can be trusted with a secret,” Jill giggles. “But you’re awfully cute for an old guy.”

  I feel myself blush.

  “I prefer to think of myself as Scarface,” I say. “You know, like Al Pacino.”

  She makes a face like someone dumped vinegar in her Frappuccino when she wasn’t looking.

  “Gross. Stephen is like obsessed with that movie. That’s real gangster stuff. Sopranos are cooler. Or Breaking Bad.”

  “Maybe we should read more books instead of gluing ourselves to the boob high definition wall-mounted tube. So, tell me about the Schroder’s house and the secret it possesses?”

  “The Schroders always have drugs at their house,” she adds under her breath.

  “What kinds of drugs?”

  “Mostly pharmaceutical stuff. Stuff the doctor can get from the hospital.”

  “You don’t say. They wouldn’t happen to have any Oxy would they?”

  She brightens up.

  “Stephen and Amanda were soooo into their Oxy. To be more honest, Stephen was dealing it, right at school. He moved Oxy at the boy’s school and the girl’s school. It’s easy because the boys can take classes at our school and we can take classes at their school.”

  “That explains a lot. His numerous suspensions. Were he and Amanda doing Oxy that night?”

  “And some other stuff. They went up to his room to smoke, and to have sex.”

  “So they were boyfriend and girlfriend?”

  “No, not really. Amanda was just getting off a relationship, and she wanted to make her ex jealous.”

  “Her ex was there?”

  “Of course he was. But once Amanda and Stephen were upstairs, they got into a fight over something. You could hear them yelling. They say he raped her then, but I don’t believe any of that for a second. Amanda would have kicked the shit out of Stephen he was so drunk and high. My guess is they got naked. He picked up his phone and snapped pictures of her and she didn’t want him to. He was stupid and put them up on Facebook. By the time she found out about it a few hours later, she was coming down from her Oxy high, and feeling low as all hell. The shock and the shame of seeing herself exposed like that for the entire student body of both high schools to see was too much. Now the rest is, well, history, for lack of a better term.”

  I down the rest of my coffee. Make that two dollars a sip. I stand.

  “You should know, Moonlight,” she goes on, “that when you come down from Oxy, it can make you very depressed. Amanda was very up and even more down. She was a sweetheart, and we all loved her, but she was getting in too deep with a guy like Stephen and his endless Oxy supply, and we all knew it.” She tears up. “If only we could have saved her.”

  “Maybe there was no saving her.”

  She looks at her watch, stands.

  “My break’s over,” she says rather sadly.

  “You understand, Jill, that you might have to tell the police what you told me.”

  She cocks her head, nods.

  “Sure,” she sighs. “It’s okay. Lisa already told me that, so I knew what to expect.”

  I see myself making love to Lisa on my bed. My guess is that her coming to me tonight had more to do with wanting to do the right thing than just the need for sex with Dick Moonlight, as hard as that concept is to believe.

  I hold out my hand. She takes it into her gentle, bird-like hand.

  “I’ll be seeing you,” I say. Then, tossing a wave towards the counter. “So long, Suze.”

  “Come on back, big tipper,” she smiles.

  “You can bank on it,” I say, turning for the door.

&nbs
p; Chapter 44

  Back behind the wheel, I retrieve the second slip of paper Lisa gave me and find the number for Kevin Woods. I pull out my cell phone, punch in the number. I wait for a pick up. It never comes. Instead, I get Kevin’s prerecorded voice: “Yo, this is Kevin. You know what to do.”

  “Yes, Kevin,” I whisper at the phone. “I do know what the hell to do.”

  After the beep, I leave my name, the reason for my call, and the number where he can reach me, which is the same number he can plainly see on his caller ID readout. I hang up, giving the possibility of a call-back a fifty-fifty shot.

  I fire up the hearse.

  Backing out of the parking space, I put it in drive and slowly make my way to the main road. That’s when I notice a pair of headlights shining brightly in my rearview. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but there’s a difference between the casual driver who’s simply tailgating me, and someone like the jerk who is entirely up my ass right now. It’s not the high-beams he’s projecting into the hearse so that I’m forced to readjust the rear-view mirror that’s got me worked up. It’s not even the fact that the distance between his front grill and my back bumper can’t be more than six inches apart. What’s got my panties in a tizzy has far more to do with the model and make of his car. It’s an old model Cadillac like the one I saw last night in the parking lot of the St. Pious Church.

  The Russians are back.

  I turn onto the road, come almost immediately to a stop light. Hit the brakes.

  The big Russian behind the Cadillac steering wheel, Hector, slams on his breaks so hard I can make out the squeal of his heavy white sidewalls while preparing myself for the inevitable rear end collision.

  But the collision never comes.

  He revs the big eight cylinder, his big block head appearing in my side-view mirror, face wide-eyed and angry, the collar on his track suit raised high. I gaze into the adjusted rearview to try and get a look at his smaller partner, Vadim. He’s enveloped in dark shadow, but that doesn’t prevent me from noticing the pint bottle he’s stealing frequent sips from, and the lit cigarette he’s taking the occasional drag off of.

  The light goes green.

  Hector hits the horn.

  The explosion of the horn nearly sends me through the roof of the hearse.

  I drive, just tapping the gas so that I’m staying ten miles per hour under the forty-mile speed limit. That should chap Hector’s ass. The way I figure it, I have two choices. I can either pull over to the side of the road, knowing they will pull up on my ass, get out of the Caddy, approach me on foot, guns in hand, their nervous systems jacked up on Oxy, booze, and who the fuck knows what else. Or I can put the pedal to the metal on Dad’s hearse and, for now anyway, try and outrun them.

  One more glance in the side-view and another in the rearview.

  I see Hector pop a pill, swallow it with a slug off of Vadim’s pint. I also see Vadim toss what’s left of his burning cig out the window. That’s when he uses his now free hand to take hold of something else. Something long, hard, and deadly. A high caliber pistol. A .44 caliber Magnum to be precise. The same one Hector pointed at my face outside Schroder’s office and dry fired. My guess is that, this time, the hand cannon won’t dry fire.

  What were formerly two choices are now one.

  I bring my booted foot down on the gas.

  Hard.

  Chapter 45

  I’ve been chased before. Been chased by men in cars who are bent on killing me. And I’ve been chased by men in cars who merely want to scare me. Harass me. Show me who’s boss. It’s an intimidation tactic that goes back to the times of the chariots and the lands of the Pharaohs when one bad Egyptian guy driving his chariot might chase down a good Egyptian guy in his chariot, and the inevitable fire that was exchanged was not from my friends Smith & Wesson but from their slings and arrows.

  It’s possible these Russian goons aren’t trying to kill me. Not yet anyway. It’s possible they fall into the latter category of wanting to scare me. I have no doubt that Schroder called on them to do something before I blow their cover to the cops. No doubt they want to see me change my mind about investigating anything that has to do with their Oxy business partner.

  The speedometer on the hearse hits sixty as I slip my .38 from out of its shoulder holster, thumb the safety off, set it between my legs. Directly up ahead at the end of the south-bound suburban Route 9 is the entrance to Westbound Highway 90. I’m coming up on the back of a family van, its tailgate so close I can easily make out the stick figure Dad-Mom-Boy-Girl-and-Family Dog sticker attached to the glass. I swing the wheel to the left, pull out into oncoming traffic, the headlights from a car heading directly for me, blinding me.

  The driver of the van now on my right wisely hits his brakes.

  Good move, family man.

  I swerve around the van, turn the wheel sharply to the right, and pull back onto my side of the road.

  I check the rearview. Hector hasn’t been so lucky. He’s still behind the van. But as soon as the oncoming traffic is passed, he swerves back out into the opposite lane, guns the Caddy’s engine. He catches up to me, even with my foot pancaking the gas pedal. The window comes down. Vadim is staring at me, smiling. He raises up the Magnum, kisses the barrel, poises it out the window, plants a bead on my face.

  I hit the brakes just as the blast from the hand cannon lights up the late spring night like heat lightening.

  Correction: The Russians are trying to kill me.

  Hector hits the brakes, which allows me to pull around him and speed towards the highway on-ramp. I hit the ramp doing eighty, the casket end of the hearse fishtailing as I negotiate the ramp’s circular curve, toe-tapping the brakes the entire way or else risk going over the side and flipping in the process.

  In no time, the Russians are on my tail again. Vadim’s holding the gun out the window. He’s firing at will, the bullets whizzing past my open driver’s side window.

  I hit the highway and gun it, cutting off an eighteen wheeler. The driver lays on the horn, flicks his high-beams on and off. But I’m already gone. I see the Caddy slip into traffic behind the semi. For a time, it’s hidden from me as Hector tries to pull around the big truck by passing it on its right side.

  Bad idea.

  Passing a semi on the right can mean a sure death sentence if the operator decides to shift lanes and you’re caught in his blind spot. Just the thought of it makes me smile. I hit the brakes, the hearse coming to a full stop. The semi is barreling for me, coming up on me so fast in the middle lane that I know the operator has two choices. Go right or go left. I’m hugging the left lane just enough so that I’m banking on his going right.

  He does it. He goes right.

  I hit the gas. The tires burn rubber as the semi passes, horns blaring.

  As I pick up speed, I steal a glance out the passenger side mirror.

  The Russians are fucked. The semi cut them off, maybe even side-swiped them. They’re pulled off the side of the road, the Caddy having spun out so that its back end faces forward. I pull into the right lane and casually take the exit for Everett Road, which will lead me back into the heart of the city. Which is exactly what I do.

  I’m just starting to make out the bright lights of the big city when my smartphone rings.

  Chapter 46

  “This is Kevin,” he says, flatly. “You call me?”

  “Hi, Kevin,” I say, brightly, my heart still pounding, phone illegally pressed to my ear while I drive. “How are you today?”

  “It’s night, case you hadn’t noticed. And it’s none of your business how I’m doing.”

  “How old are you, Kevin?”

  “What are you, some kind of creep?”

  “Now, now, Kevin, I’m sure Amanda’s Aunt Lisa mentioned I might be calling. She gave me your phone number.”

  “Okay, what do you want to know?”

  “You presently busy, Kevin? Have I caught you in the middle of back to back SpongeBob SquarePants episod
es or something?”

  “I work for a living.”

  “Well, then, where’s a good place to meet up so we can talk, mano a mano?”

  “Mano a mano what?”

  “Mano a mano. It means hand-to-hand in Spanish, but it can also mean man to man, or in this case, man to boy.”

  “I took French in high school.”

  “That explains it.”

  “Meet me at Lanie’s Bar. You know the place?”

  “Yup, I know it. See you in ten minutes?”

  “Yeah, ten is good.”

  He hangs up.

  I make a U-turn, head back on into the ’burbs.

  Chapter 47

  I pull into Lanie’s Bar at a little after nine at night. Thus far, the Russians haven’t been able to catch up to me. I’d like to keep it that way, too. But I know that eventually they’ll find me again. Maybe the next time that happens, I’ll have Nick Miller with me, and he can see for himself what kind of dangers the new breed of Russian mobster poses to the free world. Especially my free world.

  I kill the engine and return the .38 to my shoulder holster, where it’s once more hidden behind my leather coat. I head across the lot to the exterior glass door of the neighborhood gin mill and step inside. The bar is horseshoe-shaped, and there’s a young woman bartending. She’s young and strikingly beautiful, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s wearing a black elastic tank top that shows off just enough cleavage to make the middle-aged male patrons stick around for more than just one quick beer.

  I belly up to the bar, offer her my warmest smile. She smiles back. Moonlight the irresistible.

  “Drink?” she says.

  “Budweiser bottle.”

  “Easy enough,” she says, bending over the cooler to retrieve my beer. When I’m able to peel my eyes off her exposed fleshy areas, I take a quick survey of the few patrons sitting around the bar. One old man on my right whose hands are shaking no matter how tightly he attempts to hold his beer bottle.

  To my left stands a man of sixty or more who appears to be in rock solid shape. He’s wearing a T-shirt that says MARINES in big bold black lettering across the front where his pecs fill it out. The T-shirt clings to his muscular arms. He’s drinking beer and oblivious to my presence as he obsessively stares at the ceiling-mounted television monitor behind me. When I turn to glance at the monitor, I can see he’s playing Power Ball.