Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (162 page)

“
Oops you said it again
,” I sing, mimicking a horrid song from an even more horrid pop star from the 1990s. “Sure you don’t want to give me at least something to go on that might help me find your good buddy Roger Walls? This ain’t about me, Oatczuk, and it ain’t about Bonchance, or about you. It’s about the safety and well-being of Roger Walls,
New York Times
,
USA Today
and
Amazon Dot Com
bestseller.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” he hisses. “Maybe you should talk to his present wife.”

“Already been there. She has no clue either.”

“And did you fuck her too?”

I find myself shooting a glance at Erica. She returns my glance with a look that says,
Yup, you did fuck her, didn’t you.

“Jeeze, prof, your full of angry f-bombs today. You should write a new poem.”

“Yes, fuck you and the fat horse you rode in on. Now, please, exit these quarters.”

“With pleasure … Oat. Czuk.”

I turn, take hold of Erica’s hand, just like she took hold of mine earlier.

“And I’m taking your student with me,” I add.

“I’ll see you at workshop professor,” she says, little bits of laughter spurting out between her words.

“I’d like a word with you later, Ms. Beckett,” Oatczuk says as we exit his office, closing the door behind us.

#

Back outside in the common, Erica doubles over in uncontrollable laughter. When she’s done, she straightens up, wipes the tears from her eyes with the backs of her hands.

She says, “You are the first person I’ve ever seen who actually succeeded at putting Oatczuk in his place. You were positively brilliant, Moonlight. “ She laughs some more, then adds. “I’m not entirely sure why you chose to piss him off like that, and how good it’s going to be for my grades, but it was truly a sight to see. Believe me. But now you still don’t have any clue on where to start looking for Roger.”

The afternoon sun and its warmth are fading fast, but the absolute relief that comes with leaving the English department behind feels really good.

“Because Erica, I knew from the very second I met old Oatczuk that not only does he have zero clue about Roger Walls’s whereabouts, but that he’s been lying about being his friend. He’s probably met him a few times at college readings and some other university-sponsored events. Maybe emailed with him a few times. Its sounds impressive to his students when he talks about Roger Walls, his quote … ‘close friend’ … unquote.” Making quotations marks with my fingers. “But trust me, he’s no more buddies with Walls than I am.”

“Then why invite you in to offer his help?”

“To make himself look important. Like he’s needed. Wanted. Or maybe he’s just nosy. Shit, maybe he just wanted to show off his hair.”

Erica shoots me a quizzical look with her very young but very stunning eyes.

“It’s like this,” I go on. “Your Mr. Oatczuk, as good and important a writing professor as he seems, has been trying to break the bonds of the academic prison and become a bestselling novelist in his own right. My built-in shit detector—and it’s a finely tuned one I might add—tells me he’s a little obsessed with Suzanne Bonchance, Walls’s agent. Oatczuk feels that if Roger can be a superstar writer than not only can he be a star too, but he is in fact
entitled
to be a mega-superstar writer. After all, he’s a long-haired superstar on the campus of Albany State. It’s just a matter of Suzanne giving him the break he needs; a matter of her seeing the light, as it were. Recognizing his particular brand of genius. Maybe he feels that by helping out with Walls, he will somehow place himself in Bonchance’s good graces. Hell, maybe he feels she owes him a favor, like taking on one of his books.”

We start walking in the direction of the parking lot under the university common’s bright sodium lamplight.

“But why not just try another agent if Bonchance doesn’t want him?”

“Because he doesn’t want another agent. Even with Suzanne being in trouble, and barely hanging on to her own career, he’s obsessed with her representation, simply because she represents Roger. That’s what Oatczuk is focused on and obsessed with. Nothing else will satisfy him.”

She stops, turns to me, her face lit up as if she’s about to shout out,
Eureka!
“That explains why he got so upset when he learned that Suzanne is going to take you on as a client. He felt he’d been passed up yet again, am I right?”

“Passed up again for an inferior, which only makes it worse. But truth be told Erica, I have no idea if Suzanne is taking me on or not.”

“Yah, cause you’re not a real writer, Moonlight,” she laughs, lightly punching me in the arm.

“What’s that, a love tap?” I pose with a wink of my right eye.

Her face turns visibly red.

“Sort of,” she says. “You’re cute. For an old man who willingly engaged in yucky sexual intercourse with Sissy Walls.”

“I’m not old and I did not engage in yucky sexual intercourse with Sissy, young lady,” I lie.

“Sure. Have it your way, Moonlight,” she says a little under her breath. “But you are still old. No debating that.”

“Not nearly as old as Walls, but just old enough to be your very big brother … Sort of.”

“Exactly how old are you?”

I tell her.

“Ha!” she barks. “You’re like a year older than my dad!”

I paint a frown on my face.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “Dad and mom started way young. I was their ‘oops baby’ when they were still in college. They chose to keep me and grow up fast.”

My frown turns upside down.

“I feel better now,” I say. “Oops.”

“They’re still together too, all these years later. That shit would never fly today. Kids are too selfish. Too into themselves and Facebook.”

“True love,” I say. “It’s Facebook-proof.”

“Yes sir,” she says. “They are my inspiration, my folks.” Pausing, allowing the cool wind swirling around the common to embrace the smooth skin on her pretty face. “So what now, Moonlight?”

“Don’t you have some poems to write? Some explaining to do to cute, long-haired Professor Oatczuk?”

“I can write one of those things in my sleep and ah, Professor Oatczuk is rumored to be quite gay.”

I find myself smiling at the revelation.

“Now I really feel sorry for all you female MFA students.”

“Don’t cry for me, Moonlight. You’re all man and I told yah I wanna get to know a real private detective. Maybe write something with a plot and everything someday.”

“And lower yourself to my standards. Remember, plot is the enemy of the literary novel.”

A beaming smile. “Which is precisely why they all put me to sleep,” she smirks. “So Mister Detective, it’s early in the evening, and getting dark fast. Where, in your expert opinion, should we start looking for Roger Walls?”

“You guys got a phone book around here?”

“I’m sure we can find one.”

“We’ll look up grilles, juke joints, gin mills, tittie joints, and watering holes. We’ll start with the
A’s
and drink our way through the alphabet until we find our man.”

“That sounds way too fun and way too easy.”

“You’re right. Finding him will be the easy part. Getting him to come with us won’t be.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WE START WITH THE
A’s
.

In particular, a bar called Aaron’s down on Bleeker Street in the west end of the city, near the single-tiered stadium where the Albany Metro Mallers semi-pro football team used to play. Every time I pass by the old stadium I can’t help but think of my dad. On any given Friday night in the early fall he might drag me and maybe the occasional date to a game under the lights. The quality of the football wasn’t as good as the real pros. Not by a long shot. But it was hard-hitting, and on occasion hard-biting, and I got to eat all the peanuts and popcorn I could stomach. I remember laughing when a punch-drunk player would hobble off the field, remove his helmet and reveal a mouth full of missing teeth. I’d laugh even harder when he’d light up a cigarette and crack open a can of beer while sitting on the bench. Dad would bring along a silver hip flask filled with brandy and let his hair down a little, so to speak. Sometimes he’d even remove his necktie. Something he could never do at the funeral home, working hours or not.

Since Roger is nowhere to be found at Aarons, we keep at it all the way through the downtown
A’s
,
B’s
,
C’s
and
D’s
. By the time we get to the
F’s
it’s nearing midnight, and since we’ve downed our fair share of beers in many of the establishments we’ve checked out, Erica and I are starting to feel no pain.

“Wanna call it quits?” I say as we march up Madison Avenue, the lamp-lit Washington Park on one side of the busy street and an endless lineup of four-and five-story brownstone townhouses on the other. “We maintain this pace, we’ll end up just like Roger. On a bender that could last for weeks.”

That’s when Erica does something wonderful. She doesn’t answer me with words. Instead she grabs hold of my arm, stopping me dead. It takes me by surprise. First thing that comes to mind is that she’s angry with me for something. Maybe for dragging her all over the place on this wild goose chase. Maybe for making her skip dinner. Maybe for making her writing professor look like a fool in front of her. But it turns out she isn’t mad. Turns out, she’s got something else on her mind altogether.

She presses her young, hard body close to my own, leans into me, and kisses me on the mouth. I might back away, but her mouth is too sweet, her lips too tender, her tongue too interested in playing with my own. I feel myself growing hard and I know she can feel it pressing against her sex. But standing out there in the open sidewalk, with dozens of partiers passing by in each direction, I know this is no place to get it on.

We both break for air.

“You have sugar kisses, baby,” I say.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since we were in Oatczuk’s office,” she says, her face beaming with happiness. “No … I lie … Actually I wanted to do it since the first time I saw you in the bookstore.”

“I can’t believe a beautiful talented girl like you doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

“I do have a boyfriend. Well, sort of boyfriend. He’s at law school in New York.”

“When the cat’s away,” I say.

“What about you, Moonlight? Any serious love interests?”

Lola comes to mind. My true love of a half-dozen years. In my head I see her beautiful long dark hair, her deep-set brown eyes, luscious thick lips, and tan, Mediterranean skin. I can even smell her rose-petal scent. But then I see her lying on her back on a stretch of New York highway immediately after the suburban we are being transported in is rammed by a tractor trailer, and my heart sinks down to my ankles.

“I wouldn’t be kissing you if I had one. But, I do see somebody now and again. An artist and an art teacher.” In my head my thoughts shift from Lola to Aviva, my newest on-again, off-again. “She’s having trouble with the
C
-word.”

“Commitment. That can really kill a relationship.” Realizing what she just said, and the ease with which she said it, Erica goes wide-eyed and breaks out laughing.

“In a strange way, no truer words have been spoken,” I say. “It’s okay though. I’ve been learning to live alone now for a long time. I have a son, you know. He’s all I truly care about.”

“A boy? How old?”

“His real name is Harrison, but I call him, Bear. He’s a good-natured, bushy-haired, ten-year-old. Lives in Los Angeles with his mom. Visits frequently, but not enough.”

“I’d love to meet him someday.”

Abruptly she pulls away from me, her smile dissolving. She shifts her laser-beam focus from me to one of the many cars parked along the curb.

“What’s got you suddenly possessed?”

She turns to me.

“I almost hate to say this,” she says. “I’ve been having so much fun. But I think our search is over, Moonlight.”

She takes a few steps forward, raises up her right arm, points with an extended index finger to a silver convertible Porsche Carrera. The parking job is so cobbed that the front driver’s side tire is resting up on the curb. A drunk driver, I’m guessing. Moonlight the deductive.

“You’re kidding?”

“That’s Roger Walls’s car,” she adds. “I’m sure of it. I remember it from when he came to the university a few months ago for his reading. A silver Porsche Carrera with the back bumper dented in.

Stepping forward, I crouch and take a good look at the rear bumper. Sure enough it’s dented in. Like Walls backed into a telephone pole when trying to escape a crowded parking lot, maybe after hitting on jealous man’s wife.

“Nice work, depute,” I say. “Guess it never occurred to me to ask his wife what kind of car he drives.”

“See,” Erica says, turning to me, grabbing hold of my right hand. “You need me, Dick Moonlight.”

“Question is, kiddo,” I say, taking my hand back, “what does a girl like you need with a head-case like me?”