Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (164 page)

I drink a little.

“So maybe that’s what this little escape is all about, Roger. Not being able to write. Writer’s block.”

He inhales, exhales, his beefy chest rising and lowering like the chest on a bull. Running his free hand down his face over his thick beard, he says, “Another brawny writer more famous than me once said, ‘When it feels like you’re typing with boxing gloves on, it’s time to get out of the house. Sometimes for weeks at a time.’”

I find myself nodding.

“Suzanne needs you,” I say, remembering what Sissy told me about her having to resort to selling cocaine in order to maintain the lifestyle to which she’s grown accustomed. But then, considering the source, maybe that was just the lie of a very angry, and even jealous young and jilted wife. The type of wife Walls seems to pathologically attract. For a brief second I think about confronting him about the cocaine issue and his wife’s accusations. But then considering the bear of a man sitting before me, and the inebriated state he’s in, and the fact that he’s already come close to deliberately killing another man who got on his nerves, I think twice about it.

I slide off my stool.

“I suppose I could ask you to come with us, Roger,” I say. “But I’m guessing you’re not going to cooperate.”

Another one of his beaming smiles.

“Got that right, Moonlight,” he says. “And I’m bigger than you. Or, stronger anyway.”

“Will you at least call Suzanne, tell her I found you?”

“So you can get paid.”

“Yup.”

“I’ll call her tomorrow. It’s late.”

I think about her lying in bed, reading my novel. Naked.

“Much appreciated,” I say.

“Sorry about the toilet dunking,” he says. “If I’d known about your … ah … cerebral condition, I might have thought twice about messing with you.”

“No harm done that hasn’t already been done.”

“Good luck with your book. And say, would you be opposed to having a drink with me sometime? Under better circumstances? You’re an interesting character. I might like to interview you further.”

“I just told you, I’m already writing about my character.”

“Hey, what’s the difference? You have your take and I’ll have mine. Besides, my book will sell better.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say. But it’s a lie. My story is my story and that’s that.

“Don’t think too hard. Or you’ll end up like me.”

“You seem to be enjoying life.”

“But underneath this joyous and adventurous exterior, Moonlight, exists a tortured and lonely artist.”

“My work is done here, tortured artist.”

I turn to Erica.

“Shall we?” I say.

I fully expect her to accompany me back to my ride, and maybe even to my loft. But the MFA student does something that makes my heart sink. She shifts her body even closer to Roger’s than it already is.

“I think I’ll hang out a little with Roger,” she says.

“Yah, we can talk poetry,” he says, tossing me a wink of his right eye.

My heart dragging on the floor behind me, I exit Ralph’s, to go home alone.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I SLIP BACK INTO Dad’s hearse.

It’s dark, cold, and black inside and out. Like my mood. Imagine me, Dick Moonlight, Captain Head-Case, getting jilted by a girl young enough to be my daughter for a famous drunken writer old enough to be my dad?

Life ain’t fair.

Before I turn over the eight-cylinder, I pull my cell phone from the interior pocket on my leather coat. The little flag that indicates the arrival of a text message appears for me on the screen. I don’t recall hearing the little chirpy chime or the gentle vibration that indicates the receipt of a text message. But that’s not an unusual circumstance for having been hanging out inside a noisy bar. I press my index finger on the flag and am surprised to see that the message is from Suzanne.

I open the message.

Sissy Walls is dead

I read it again.

Sissy Walls is dead

No matter how many times I read those four words, the message doesn’t change.

I spent the afternoon with Sissy.

I drank with Sissy.

I snorted coke with Sissy.

I had sex with Sissy.

Sissy Walls. The wife of Roger Walls. A man who just beat the crap out of me inside a rancid bathroom stall and who shot someone for trespassing on his property.

Now I’m the trespasser, and the territory I trespassed upon is dead.

Fuck me.

CHAPTER TWENTY

MY HEART PULSING IN my throat, I thumb the dialer and call Suzanne. It’s almost two in the morning, but I don’t care if she’s asleep. We need to talk. She answers after the second ring.

“What the hell happened?” I say in the place of a hello.

“Suicide,” she says, not a hint of sleepiness in her voice. “By the looks of it. Or maybe not suicide.”

“Who found her?”

“Some men who work for Roger. They called me.”

In my head, the rednecks chasing down my tail in their blue
Freebird 69
pickup. “Maybe it wasn’t a suicide attempt after all. Maybe she just overdosed.”

“Does it matter at this point? Why are you so concerned, Moonlight?”

The thought of telling her the truth about how I spent my afternoon just doesn’t seem all that appealing at the present moment. So I just decide to play the concerned client routine.

“Look-it, Suzanne, I found Roger. He’s drinking in a bar called Ralph’s on the corner of Madison and New Scotland, across from the park. Should I go tell him?”

I make out some shuffling going on in the background. Then, the distinct sound of a snort, maybe the metallic sound of a razor blade being dropped down onto a gilded mirror.

“No, no,” the agent insists while sniffling.

“Everything okay over there, Suzanne?”

“Despite the circumstances, yes.”

I fire up the engine.

“I’m coming over.”

“Now? That means I’ll have to put on my face.”

“Your face is fine the way it is. We need to talk.”

“Fine. So be it.”

I ask for her address. She gives it to me.

I hang up and pull away from the curb, picturing the cops who are no doubt scouring the Walls home as I speak. Cops looking for clues, evidence, prints.

Prints and fluids with my genetic imprint on them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE RED AND BLUE neon tubing that cuts through the darkness to spell Ralph’s Bar isn’t entirely out of view of my rearview when my cell rings. Sliding it back out of my pocket, I glance at the now lit-up screen. I can’t say I recognize the number right away, but I peg the prefix as an Albany number. Downtown Albany.

Then it comes to me. The Albany Police Department. My former employers.

I answer the phone.

“Moonlight,” I say, trying to hide the alcohol that’s no doubt swimming in my voice.

“Richard Moonlight?” the man says on the other end.

“That’s me,” I say.

“You don’t know me, but my name is Detective Nick Miller. I’m new with the Albany Police department. I was wondering if I could get you to pay me a little visit at the South Pearl Street precinct. Or I’d be happy to come to you.”

“When should I come to you and for what?” I say, knowing precisely what it’s for, a vision of the young, red-haired bride of Roger Walls lying in bed beside me flashing through my brain.

“It’s regarding the death of a woman by the name of Sissy Walls.”

The little town of Chatham comes to mind. All the way across the river and into the trees.

“Chatham is a little out of your jurisdiction isn’t it, Detective Miller?”

“That’s funny, Moonlight, I don’t recall telling you where Sissy Walls resides.”

Me. Snagged. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Now then, Moonlight, since I obviously haven’t woken you from out of a sound sleep, why don’t we get together for a little chat right now?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” I say.

He hangs up.

I slam my phone down on the empty passenger seat.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I TEXT SUZANNE, TELL her I’m going to be about fifteen minutes late when I know full well that it might be about an hour or more before I can make it to her house. Maybe two. Maybe never. I’m a former detective. I know how these things go. I also know that if these cops suspect me of fucking with Sissy’s life, I’m pretty well screwed until I can prove myself innocent. That might take a lawyer. A very expensive lawyer. But instead of getting ahead of myself, I decide to take a chill, and simply listen to what Miller’s got to say. I haven’t done anything wrong, after all.

So why should I be worried?

#

The interior of the Albany Police Department is like the inside of a mortuary and just as pleasant. I know the place like the back of my callused hands. Even the smell that hits you in the face the second you walk through the front glass doors brings you back to a time when your brothers in arms were closer to you than your wife. So close in fact, that your jealous wife felt the need to find comfort in another man who just happened to be one of those brothers in arms I just mentioned. My partner and best friend at that time.

As I walk the narrow corridor to the reception window, I have no choice but to inhale the combination disinfectant and body odor, and I begin to feel a sick queasiness in my stomach. A nausea that has little to do with all the drinking I’ve been doing or the cocaine I snorted or even the sickening smell of this concrete block and glass building. Instead, it has everything to do with a suicidal past I would rather forget. I hand my ID and .38 to the guard sergeant manning window.

She buzzes me in.

“Welcome home, Dick,” she says, not without a snort. Most of the Albany cops aren’t very happy with me since I brought down half their house some years ago when I uncovered an illegal organ harvesting operation scheme some of the head cops were running. Everyone knows that cops watch one another’s backsides even when their front-sides are up to no good.

Detective Miller is standing at the far end of the wide open booking room as I enter. He’s not necessarily a tall guy, but he is taller than my five foot nine which is nothing unusual. He’s maybe ten years younger than me but ten years older around the eyes and, no doubt, in the liver, since most detectives in Albany tend to become prolific drinkers by their tenth year on the job. Clean-shaven, dirty blond buzzed hair, and a neck-tie that’s still raised all the way up past his buttoned collar tells me he’s all spit and polish, even at two thirty in the morning.