Moonlight Sonata: (A Dick Moonlight PI Thriller No. 7) Page 3

  Driving.

  In the direction of pretty much the only bookstore left alive in Albany since the outbreak of eBooks. The State University Barnes & Noble. Maybe a bookstore is the last place I should start looking for a writer like Walls. Maybe I should simply start searching every bar in the State of New York, beginning with gin mills with names that start in an A or, at the very least, bars that grace the little town of Chatham out in the country. But that would be like searching for a needle in a stack of needles. If Walls was hanging out in a small-town bar, he wouldn’t exactly be missing in action, would he? It’s been a while since I read anything penned by Roger Walls. I figure if I’m going to try and find him, maybe it’d be a good idea to at least grab his most current book of fiction or maybe poetry and get inside his head.

  As advertised, the chain bookstore is located not far down the road from the main entrance to the Albany State campus. To my surprise, the lot is packed. I manage to squeeze Dad’s pride-and-joy black funeral hearse in between a brand new pickup truck and a beater from another era that most likely belongs to a high school or college student. It always makes me nervous having to sandwich Dad’s ride in between two other vehicles. I know the dangers of door dings and fender benders. Doesn’t matter that he’s long dead, in every physical sense of the word. Dad is looking down on me, keeping tabs on how I maintain his ride, there is no doubt of that. That he still distrusts me, there is also no doubt.

  Who says books are dead? The Barnes & Noble is bustling with activity when I enter into its cavernous spaces. There are lots of people browsing the half dozen tables strategically set up in front of the doors as you walk in: the tables that carry the brand new thirty-dollar hard-cover releases by the same five or six mystery authors the New York Times perpetually has at the top of their lists. While a dozen or so people are staring down at the books, no one seems to be buying them. Why buy a thirty-dollar hardcover when you can get it for pocket change on your e-reader?

  I head into the depths of the store until I come to a tall bookcase that houses the poetry section. I head to the W’s as I spot a young woman standing up against the far wall, a book gripped in her left hand, her eyes glued to its pages.

  “Pardon me,” I say, trying to get a look at the title that has her so engrossed. When it turns out to be a Roger Walls book, I know it’s my lucky day. I decide to beam some Moonlight charm. “Roger Walls, huh? I’m a big fan too.”

  She raises her head, tosses me a smile filled with perfect white teeth surrounded by a healthy tan face, deep-set brown eyes, and a forehead too young and optimistic to be marred with wrinkles, stunningly veiled in thick, light brown hair parted delicately on the left side.

  “How nice for you?” she whispers, as if we’re in a library.

  “I’ve read all his novels,” I say. “But not his poetry.”

  She nods, lowers her book so that its spine brushes up against the portion of bare thigh that’s exposed between the hem of her cotton skirt and her black leather, knee-high boots.

  “I’m an MFA student at Albany State,” she explains, shifting the thick strap on her canvas shoulder bag.

  “How nice for you, then. What discipline?”

  “Writing. In this case, poetry.”

  “Lots of jobs out there for poets these days. You should do well.” Moonlight the Witty.

  She shoots me this wide-eyed look like I’m crazy. But nice crazy.

  “I’m not concerned with getting a job. I’m going to be a writer. A poet and a novelist.”

  “How stupid of me. I was groomed for the funeral business a long, long time ago. Which is why I became a cop.”

  “You’re a cop?”

  “Used to be. Now I’m a private detective, and I’m also trying my hand at some writing.”

  She nods, pursing thick red lips.

  “I imagine that by the time one gets to be your age, one must have lots of stories one wants to tell.”

  “With age comes wisdom. But I’m not that old, nor wise.”

  She flashes me a Pearl Drops toothpaste grin. “You remind me of my dad.”

  “Your dad’s cool and hot, huh?”

  She laughs, slaps her young thigh with that book.

  “I don’t know you, Mister.”

  I hold out my hand. “My dad raised me better than that. Moonlight is the name. Life and death is the game.”

  She reaches out tentatively with her free hand, takes hold of mine, gives it a weak shake.

  “Erica Beckett,” she says, her tan face now beaming red with embarrassment. “That’s Beckett, like Samuel Beckett. He’s a distant relative.”

  “Nice meeting you Erica the poet who’s related to Samuel Beckett. How the hell can you miss with a name and history like that?”

  “That’s what I say, Mr. Moonlight.”

  “So, back to my original question: why the interest in Roger Walls?”

  She steals back her hand. “My professor is a big Walls nut. Claims to be best friends with him, actually. I’m not sure I believe him. Walls is, like, super famous. And my professor is just . . . well, my professor.”

  “He’s not a writer?”

  “Well, he is a writer. He’s even published. But he’s not famous like Roger Walls and, let’s face it, writers who teach are writers who don’t make money or they wouldn’t be teaching.” Another roll of those big brown, reflective pools. “God, sometimes I think he’s in love with Roger. Or wants to be him anyway.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Another wide-eyed look that screams: “Huh?”

  “I mean, if you were a guy. A guy poet. Like your Uncle Samuel.”

  She laughs again, brushing back her smooth hair with her free hand. Not nervously but confidently.

  “Oh, I get you now. Yeah, sure, I guess. It would be fun to be rich and famous just for making shit up. And be able to travel all the time, and party like a wild animal.”

  “Don’t forget all that sex.”

  “Oh, yes,” she bellows. I can practically smell the excitement and hormones just oozing off her twenty-something body. “The sex must rock.”

  “What’s you prof’s name?”

  “Um . . . Oatczuk. . . and, no, I’m not making that up.”

  “Oatczuk. Well, coincidence of coincidences, my client wants me to talk with him. Thinks he might have an idea of Roger’s whereabouts.”

  “Well, isn’t this your lucky day. I’m his secretary as a part of my work-study program. I’m the one who spoke with Suzanne Bonchance just a little while ago.”

  “Albany,” I say. “Three degrees of separation. Not six.”

  “Isn’t that the truth? Serendipity is easier around these parts.”

  We stand silent for a moment while I quickly browse a few of the Walls’ poetry titles. Sex and Slander . . . Cock and Bull . . . Pink . . . . I grab a copy of Pink, open up to the title page, observe the copyright date. It’s this year. Maybe Walls hasn’t been writing novels lately, but that doesn’t mean he’s been resting on his literary laurels. ‘Course, even I know nobody makes money from poetry. I arbitrarily flip the pages to one of the poems located in the middle of the volume. It’s called “Solitary Confinement.”

  Both hands bloody from the brutal work of murder

  A blade with a jagged edge

  A fully erect cock

  A man stands all alone in the desert

  Man severs his testicles

  Bloody separation

  Beautiful freedom

  Quintessential Roger Walls. Angry, violent, take no prisoners. Not exactly bedtime reading for the kids, either.

  Closing the book, I turn it over and gaze down at an author photo I can only assume is recent. Walls, with a full head of wavy salt and pepper hair and a thick beard to match. He’s looking directly into the camera with the dark eyes of a hungry wildebeest, and the scowl painted on his face doesn’t make it look like he’s politely inviting you to check out his poetry, but fucking daring you. Dressed in a black t-shirt under
his usual ratty safari jacket I can practically smell the cigarette smoke oozing out his nostrils, the whiskey on his breath, and the pussy on his fingers.

  And then a light bulb flashes on over my head. I reach into my pocket, pull out a business card.

  “Erica, will you be seeing your professor anytime soon? The one who’s good buddies with Walls?”

  She takes the card in her hand, glances down at it for a few moments.

  “Never met a real private eye before,” she says. “Only seen one on TV. And in books.”

  “You don’t lower yourself to reading detective novels, do you, Erica Beckett, candidate for an MFA in writing?”

  She looks over one shoulder and then the other, as if we’re surrounded by her fellow students and profs and not just books.

  “Can you keep a secret, Mr. Moonlight?”

  “Is the pope Polish?”

  “I absolutely love mysteries. I gobble them up. I’m going to write one someday. Along with my poetry.”

  A second light going off. “I just finished my first, myself. It’s based on one of my early cases. It’s called Moonlight Falls. I have an agent interested.” Okay, I’m stretching it a bit. “But I’d love it if you ever wanted to take a look and give me your opinion.”

  She smiles, genuinely. “Sure. You have another one of those cards?”

  I hand her one. She retrieves a pen from her bag and writes down her email, hands it back to me. I glance at it and tuck it in my pocket.

  “Just email it to me. I’m happy to take a break from all this academic bullshit.”

  “Happy to help a future Amazon bestseller. Say, do you think you can arrange a little come-to-Jesus between me and Oat . . . um . . . whatever his last name is?”

  “It’s Gregor Oatczuk. O-A-T, like Quaker Oats. Without the ‘s’ and with a ‘czuk’ tagged onto the end of it. Like woodchuck, only spelled differently. In this case, C-Z-U-K.”

  “I’d like to talk with him.”

  “Do you mind my asking what about?”

  “Our old boy Roger has gone missing and his agent has hired me to go find him and cart him back to his writing desk so he can make her some money. Or something like that. Word on the literary street is that he hasn’t penned a new novel in ten years. Or published one, anyway.”

  “Oh my, Mr. Moonlight. How positively interesting. Can I be of any help? Like I said, I love a good mystery.”

  “You can start by helping me set up a meeting with Oatczuk. The sooner, the better. Maybe even today.”

  “I’ll get in touch with him as soon as I leave here and email you right away.”

  I hold out my hand once more. She takes it and shakes it harder this time.

  “Erica Beckett, grandniece of the great Samuel Beckett, you are hereby deputized in the name of the father and the son and Richard ‘Dick’ Moonlight.”

  “Great. I’m your girl.”

  “If only it were true,” I say, shelving the book of poetry, about facing and starting toward the center of the store.

  “Oh, Mr. Moonlight,” Erica calls out.

  I stop, turn back in her direction.

  “What is it?”

  “What’s the name of your book, again?”

  “Moonlight Falls.”

  “And the detective in the story is you? Dick Moonlight?”

  “Yup, it’s a story about a private dick.”

  “I bet it’s a very long story,” she says, shooting me a wink.

  Couldn’t have said it better myself.

  Chapter 3

  DRIVING BACK TOWARD THE center of the city in the funeral hearse, I pull off the road and park in a Seven Eleven parking lot, dial Suzanne Bonchance from the cell. Since I’m calling her private mobile number, she picks up after only a couple of ringy-dingys.

  “I’m already working my first lead,” I tell her after she answers with a simple yet direct, and very French, “Bonchance!”

  “It’s not necessary for you to call me every time you make some progress, Mr. Moonlight.”

  “I’m sorry. Thought you might like to know.”

  “Agents never . . . and I repeat . . . never like to be called. We do all the calling. Not the other way around.”

  “Don’t you want to know?”

  “Know what?”

  “About my lead?”

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “I just happened to run into a very attractive young lady at the Barnes & Noble who is, at present, an MFA student at the state university and Upchuck’s private secretary. She also just happened to be cruising through some of Roger Walls’ poetry titles. In fact, she’s the woman you spoke to when you called his office earlier.”

  “Oatczuk. And yes, thank goodness for serendipity. And is this going to be a long story?”

  “Yes, thank goodness for serendipity. That’s what I said. Because it also so happens that Oatczuk just might have some idea of where we can locate our wandering writer.”

  “No shit, Moonlight!” she barks. “We’ve been over this already, which is why I made the phone call to his office in the first place.”

  “Just doing my job, Good Luck.”

  “Excuse me, Moonlight?”

  “Your last name. Bonchance . . . it means ‘good luck’ in French. Get it?”

  “Yes, it’s my name. And I prefer the French spelling and pronunciation.”

  I picture the sharply dressed brunette agent seated in her black swivel chair, rolling her eyes, while checking the cuticles on her erect fingers for any imperfections in the weekly manicure. A crack, a chip, a smudge.

  “Well, my guess is, if anyone who knows where Walls ran off to,” I say, “it will probably be him.”

  Silence. Heavy, foreboding, oozing through the connection like mustard gas.

  “Moonlight, I’m fully aware of your reputation as a ladies’ man. Promise me you won’t go near the young lady in question while working for me. If something unsavory or illicit should occur, I would also be held responsible and that is simply not acceptable in my profession. I have a stable of authors and their careers to think of.”

  “Well, the young lady I speak of is over seventeen and in fact over twenty one, and what she does with her body is her business, especially if she can’t help herself when it comes to falling under my spell. I’m sure you’re already familiar with said spell.”

  More silence. Mustard gas laced with cyanide. I tend to have that effect on women.

  “Mr. Moonlight, before we go any further, I am delighted to maintain a professional relationship with you, but only a professional relationship. And as for Professor Oatczuk, he is most definitely not Walls’ best friend. He only wishes he was.”

  “You know him personally?”

  “Tragically, I do. He’s been asking me to represent him for years. I don’t go a single year without one of his train wrecks landing in my inbox.”

  “Bad writing?”

  “His craft is excellent. It’s just that the man and his work are a positively insufferable yawn. And can you imagine me trying to sell a novel by an author named Oatczuk?”

  “He can change his name. Take on a nom de plume.”

  “Yes, but the writer must be willing to do so. Which Oatczuk most definitely is not.”

  “You talked over the possibility with him then. Must be you liked something about his work.”

  “No, I didn’t. And he’s not a writer. He’s a teacher. And you know what they say about teaching.”

  “Yeah,” I say, recalling my conversation with Erica, “he who can’t do…”

  “Exactly,” she agrees, sighing. “Now is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Moonlight?”

  My pulse picks up, just a little.

  “You haven’t um, started my, um . . .”

  “No, Moonlight. I’m not that fast. And besides, I read at night in bed. I told you that.”

  “Ah yes, I remember. Books in the place of a real man.”

  “I don’t feel I need to remind you of that aga
in.”

  “Not necessary. I read you loud and clear, Good Luck. One more thing. I’m alone for dinner tonight. I was wondering if you might like to have a quiet drink and something to eat?”

  “Are you asking me out on a date, Moonlight?”

  “Actually, I’m seeing someone. It would be purely professional.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “About what part? The dating someone or the purely professional thing?”

  “Both.”

  “Well, at least think about it. You might want to get to know the author if you’re going to represent his book.”

  A laugh. Loud enough to make me hold the phone from my ear.

  “Do you know how many writers would slice off their manhood to have a shot at me being their agent?”

  “Let me guess. A lot.”

  “Yes, a lot. More than a lot. I will let you know if I want to take you on or not.”

  “Okay, Good Luck, have it your way. But I can tell you one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m not about to cut off my Johnson for you. That’s where I draw the line.”

  “We’ll see about that, Moonlight. We’ll just have to see.”

  She hangs up.

  I feel a dull pain in my midsection, as if Suzanne Bonchance – the Iron Lady of the literary industry – has just managed to emasculate me not with a blade, but with only her words. I get out of the hearse, head into the Seven Eleven for a six-pack of beer while contemplating that very disturbing notion.

  Chapter 4

  BY THE TIME I get back to my loft inside the abandoned Port of Albany, I’ve already got an email from my new friend, Erica. Standing at the island counter in the kitchen area of the riverside brick building that once housed the offices of a shipping company, I click on the email:

  Hi again, Mr. Moonlight. I spoke to Professor Oatczuk and he said that he would have no problem if you stopped by as early as this afternoon. He had no idea Roger Walls was “missing in action,” as he put it, and he wants to help. Here’s my number: 555-2354 . . . Give me a call soon as you get this and we can go see him together if you like. ;)