Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (168 page)

At the mention of Sissy, Roger starts to cry again.

I look into Suzanne’s blue eyes.

“So what would you like us to do?”

“Help me find a way to convince the police that I’m not the killer. If it comes to that.”

“And how in God’s name could we arrange that for you?”

“Go to the cops and spill your whole story.”

“I told you before, Moonlight,” Roger barks. “No cops. They find out what we’ve been up to they’ll put me in prison, no possibility of parole.”

“I can’t exactly admit to selling coke and being a party to threatening the life of a Chance House editor either, now can I, Moonlight?” Suzanne says. “Not after the calamity I went through with Ian Brando.”

“And I’m not about to go to prison for a murder I didn’t commit,” I say.

That’s when Roger raises up his glass.

“A toast,” he says. “To us.
The Naked and the Dead and the Totally Fucked
.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

REACHING ACROSS THE TABLE, I grab hold of Roger’s Bloody Mary and take a big drink. I slam the glass back down. Hard, blood-red liquid spatters the table.

“Jeeze, take it easy, Moonlight,” he says. “It’s not our fault you had to go and fuck my wife.”

Guy’s got a point.

I partied and fucked his wife. I’ve been avoiding that obvious little deviation of SOP for a quite a while now and it’s time I owned up to it. In fact, if it weren’t for that little, major mistake, I might walk out of there right now with payment in hand, and later on take my chances with the Albany cops. But not me. Not Richard “Dick” Moonlight. Not Captain Head-Case. I might have a little piece of .22 caliber bullet stuck inside my brain where it’s lodged directly up against my cerebral cortex. And that bullet might help cause me to make the wrong decision from time to time. But I’m also supposed to be a private detective who is dedicated to doing the right thing. And now that I fucked Roger’s wife, and now that she’s dead, the least I can do is try and help them find out who might have done it, and while I’m at it, maybe help locate their money. Which is exactly what I offer up.

“But I don’t come cheap,” I tell Suzanne. “My fee just doubled. And if I locate the money, I’d like a bonus.”

“Such as?”

“You take on
Moonlight Falls
as my official agent. No questions asked.”

She smiles.

“I was going to do that anyway, Moonlight.”

“Congrats Moonlight,” Roger says, holding out his hand, “you just scored the best hard-core tight ass, pussy shaved agent in the business. Plus you got a blowjob and a little doggy style for a signing bonus. Jeeze, you must have some lit skills after all.”

I let the hand go ignored.

“I have a question,” Suzanne says. “With Sissy’s body no doubt in police custody, how in the world are we going to arrange preventing the police from suspecting you or Roger as the killer?”

Roger lowers his hand slowly.

“We’re going to do the impossible,” I say.

“How’s that, Moonlight?” Roger begs.

“We’re going to steal back Sissy’s body,” I say. “And then we’re going to make it look like a certain Russian mobster killed her.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

OKAY HERE’S THE TRUTH: I have about as much chance at locating that missing million bucks as I do winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. I might be wanting to do the right thing here to make up for my tryst with Sissy, but I’m also not about to head to prison. That will take enlisting these two fallen literary angels to help out with my cause. If they can help with stealing Sissy and arranging her body to appear to have been killed by someone in possession of fingerprints and DNA besides my own—especially those of a Russian thug—it might at least place a semblance of doubt in the minds of the cops as to who actually killed her. That alone would get me off the hook. And if I could do so under the pretense that I am also working on locating their money, they might be willing to help me out, even if the body we’re about to steal is Roger’s wife.

In the meantime, I decide that it might be time to place a call to my old friend and spiritual brother, Georgie Phillips, retired Albany Medical Center pathologist.

I do it.

Georgie comes on the line. I picture the long, gray-haired Vietnam vet sitting in his living room parlor, a little Hendrix going on the stereo, the vintage vinyl record spinning on the turn table while he rolls himself a fresh joint.

“Moonlight,” he says. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

I explain everything to him.

“I can get you the private viewing if we head there now,” he assures me. “This early in the morning the joint will be as quiet as a—”

“As a morgue,” I say. “Funny.”

“But this little plan of yours,” he adds. “It’ll be highly illegal.”

“Never stopped us before,” I say.

“True ʹdat, Moon,” he says. “I can expect the usual payout?”

“For your grandkid’s college education,” I say. “Absolutely.”

“I’ll pick you guys up in my van. Be ready in ten.”

“We’re ready now,” I say.

He hangs up.

That’s when my cell phone vibrates with a new text message. I thumb it open, stare down at it. It’s from Erica Beckett. I’d almost forgotten about her. To say that I’m troubled regarding the young poet’s intentions is putting it lightly. Her being a major cock tease is the least of it. Why didn’t she tell me how well she knew Roger? Why not just be open about it? And now I discover that she was present the day he lost all that money. Even if she didn’t steal it, something isn’t right here, and I intend to confront her about it the first chance I get.

I read the text.
How is Roger? I’m worried.

I thumb a text back in.
Hanging in there. How was your night?

Fun. Until we found out about Sissy.

It occurs to me that Roger didn’t have a cell phone on him, and that no one, aside from Erica and I knew where he was, much less the police. Far as I know, news about her death hasn’t yet gone out on the wire.

I thumb in another text:
Who told you she was dead?

I wait for a response. Until I get one.

I miss you cutie. Heading to bed. Long night. Long morning. ;)

How did you find out?
I text once more. But again, I get nothing in response.

I try and call, but all I get is her answering service. “Hi this is Erica … You know what to do…” Her voice screams of confidence, youth, and beauty. But I’m beginning to suspect something else.

I pocket my cell just as a white Ford extended van pulls up

My bro, Georgie Phillips, to the rescue.

CHAPTER THIRTY

INTRODUCTIONS ARE QUICKLY MADE and within a few minutes we’re piled into Georgie’s van. Suzanne rides up front while Roger and I occupy the back. Georgie is driving. He’s wearing his usual uniform of Levis straight leg jeans, cowboy boots, black all-cotton T under a ratty jean jacket he’s probably owned since high school prior to his being shipped off to Viet Nam. His long gray hair is tied back tight in a ponytail and his clean-shaven face is tanned from the sun, even though technically speaking, he’s supposed to stay out of the sun since being diagnosed with skin cancer.

On the way to the hospital, George asks for our undivided attention while he goes over the plan to steal Sissy. When he’s through, he focuses his ice-blue eyes in the rearview so that he can get a look at Roger.

“I’ve read all your books, Mr. Walls,” he says. “I was a big fan in college after ʹNam. I thought you nailed the pure, raw, male, sexual character better than Norman Mailer or Henry Miller.”

Roger looks at him and smiles.

“Thank you, Doc,” he says. “But I’m afraid there’s not a very big market anymore for what I’m doing. If there was, Sissy wouldn’t be dead, and we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Who knows?” Georgie says. “Maybe you’ll get a new book out of all this.”

“That is your pal, Moonlight, doesn’t write it first.”

Suzanne turns, shoots me a smile and a wink. Suddenly, she’s back to her old confident self.

“Maybe we can both take a shot at writing it,” I say. “But let’s hope we’re not doing it from a prison cell.”

“A prison cell might be optimistic,” Roger says. “I don’t locate that money then I just might find myself not writing anything from six feet under.”

#

We make it to the Albany Medical Center in five minutes flat. Because we need to drive around the back in order to access the morgue, we’re required to enter the campus through the delivery entrance which is manned by a guard shack. Obviously security at the AMC isn’t exactly paramount, that is judging by the overweight attendee who barely fits inside the glass booth. But that doesn’t stop Georgie from insisting that we make ourselves invisible. Without argument, Roger and I crawl into the empty back-bay, with Suzanne following on our tails.

The former pathologist stops the van outside the shack.

“Nice to see you again, Doctor Phillips,” says the overweight man behind the glass. “You coming back to work?”

“Good to see you too, Brian,” Georgie says, as he’s handed a laminated clip-on badge. “Just doing a little freelance work. Helps pay the bills.” He signs his name to a sheet of paper that’s stuck to a clipboard, then hands it back to the guard.

“Enjoy the morgue,” the guard says.

“Seems like everyone is dying to get there,” Georgie says, with a laugh.

Tapping the gas, Georgie drives into the heart of the campus, past the main hospital, then the medical college building, and past the physical plant on our left. Soon we come to a series of concrete docks, the last one of which is set beside a pair of extra wide electronic sliding double-doors. Georgie makes a three-point turn, then backs up slowly to the doors. Attaching his laminated badge to his jean jacket, he opens the door to the van, and slips on out.

“How much money you got?” he says.

“Which one of us?” I say.

“All of you?”

I shovel through my pockets, come up with three crumped up twenties, some dollar bills, and some loose coinage.

“Seventy-three and change,” I say.

“Come on,” Georgie presses. “Who’s got some real money?”

“Maybe we should have hit a cash machine on the way over,” I say.

Both Roger and Suzanne are going through their respective pockets.

“Nothing,” the literary agent says. “Not a dime.”

But then Roger raises his right hand high while lying on his side on the van’s metal pan floor. The hand is squeezing a folded stack of bills. “Five hundred plus,” he spits.

“Jesus,” I say. “Leave it to the broke bestseller.”

“That should last Roger a couple of days at the bars of his choosing,” Suzanne chimes in.

“I might have more in the other pocket,” adds Roger.

“Just slip me two hundred,” Georgie insists. “Now. Please.”

I take the money from Roger, slip out two, one hundred dollar bills and hand them to Georgie who takes them and closes the door. Then I hand the rest of the money back to Roger.

“Plenty left over,” he says, repocketing the cash into a chest pocket on his bush jacket. “We should probably stop at the liquor store on the way home. Pick up some supplies.”