Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (155 page)

“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 home to his writing desk so that 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 Gregor 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, grand niece 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 THREE

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, I might add, “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’s poetry titles. In fact, she’s the woman you spoke to when you called Oatczuk’s 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 full-masted fingers for any imperfections in the weekly manicure. A crack, a chip, a smudge.

“Well my guess is 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 kind of effect on women.

“Mr. Moonlight, before we go any further, I am delighted to maintain a professional relationship with you and only a professional relationship. And as for Professor Oatczuk, he is most definitely not Walls’s 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 inside 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.”

“Yah,” I say recalling my conversation with Erica, “he who can’t do, teaches.”

“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 again.”

“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 pull the phone from my ear.

“Do you know how many writers who 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 FOUR

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. ;)

Erica

“Go see him together,” I whisper, staring at the little green, winking smiley face posted at the end of her sentence. “Me likey.”

I pull my mobile from my thin black leather coat, dial the number she gave me, wait for a pick up.

“Mr. Moonlight?” she answers, instead of a generic “Hello.”

“You recognize my number already?”

“I put it in my list of contacts after you slipped me your card. I’m your deputy remember?”

“How could I ever forget? Where do you want to meet?”

“Do you know how to navigate the state campus? It’s just beyond the bookstore where we first met this morning.”

“Where we first met. How romantic, Ms. Beckett.”

She giggles. “So do you know the campus?”

“It’s been a while. I used to do a little partying there with friends back in my day.”

“Meet me at the front gates. Washington Avenue entrance. Two o’clock sharp.”

“How will I recognize you?”

“I’ll be the sexy hottie in the lipstick-red Porsche convertible.”

“Expensive ride. Thought you were a writing student?”

“I’m a woman who gets what she wants, Mr. Moonlight.”

“That’s funny. I’m a guy who gets what he wants.”

“We’ll see about that, old man.”

“Who you calling old?”

I’d wait for an answer. But she’s already hung up.

CHAPTER FIVE

I LOOK AT MY WATCH.

Ten-fifteen on a bright Monday morning in the early spring. I’ve already had my coffee and it’s too early for lunch and way too early for one of those cold beers that I bought. I could take Erica up on her offer of looking at my manuscript, but then my built-in shit detector tells me to back off on that notion. I once heard a well-known writer say that he never read another person’s writing in progress. Why? Because if it was good, he’d hate it because it would mean more competition. But if it was bad, he’d hate it even more for wasting his time. What all this means is that I’ll have to continue working. And since Bonchance is paying a buck-fifty an hour, I figure I’d better get started right away. Whether I like it or not. Moonlight the Barely Self-Employed.

My laptop is sitting out on the island counter.

I open it up, enter in my security code, and allow it to boot up. When it’s up and running, I click onto the Google homepage. In the search space, I don’t type in “Roger Walls.” Instead I listen to my gut and what comes out instead is, “Suzanne Bonchance.”

Sure, Walls is my only concern at the moment. Or should be my only concern. But I’m curious about Bonchance. Why would a powerful literary agent like her decide to hire a head case like myself when she could obviously afford a much better one who doesn’t have a bullet lodged inside his brain making dying on the job a real possibility? Not to mention my habit of taking the wrong turn now and again, and getting myself into more trouble than anyone bargained for. But then, it isn’t up to me to uncover her reasoning. Maybe she doesn’t have a reason for hiring me other than she likes the name.