Moonlight Rises (A Dick Moonlight Thriller) Read online

  PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI

  “Vincent Zandri explodes onto the scene with the debut thriller of the year. The Innocent (As Catch Can) is gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting. Don't miss it.”

  —Harlan Coben, author of Caught

  “A SATISFYING YARN.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “COMPELLING…The Innocent pulls you in with rat-a-tat prose, kinetic pacing…characters are authentic, and the punchy dialogue rings true. Zandri's staccato prose moves The Innocent at a steady, suspenseful pace.”

  —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  “EXCITING…AN ENGROSSING THRILLER…the descriptions of life behind bars will stand your hair on end.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “READERS WILL BE HELD CAPTIVE BY PROSE THAT POUNDS AS STEADILY AS AN ELEVATED PULSE.…Vincent Zandri nails readers' attention.”

  —Boston Herald

  “A SMOKING GUN OF A DEBUT NOVEL. The rough and tumble pages turn quicker than men turn on each other.”

  —The Times-Union (Albany)

  “THE STORY LINE IS NON-STOP ACTION and the flashback to Attica is eerily brilliant. If this debut is any indication of his work, readers will demand a lifetime sentence of novels by Vincent Zandri.”

  —I Love a Mystery

  “A TOUGH-MINDED, INVOLVING NOVEL…Zandri writes strong prose that rarely strains for effect, and some of his scenes…achieve a powerful hallucinatory horror.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A CLASSIC DETECTIVE TALE.”

  —The Record (Troy, N.Y.)

  “[Zandri] demonstrates an uncanny knack for exposition, introducing new characters and narrative possibilities with the confidence of an old pro…Zandri does a superb job creating interlocking puzzle pieces.”

  —San Diego Union-Tribune

  “This is a tough, stylish, heartbreaking car accident of a book: You don't want to look but you can't look away. Zandri is a terrific writer and he tells a terrific story.”

  —Don Winslow, author of The Death & Life of Bobby Z

  “SATISFYING.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Also by Vincent Zandri

  Scream Catcher

  Concrete Pearl

  The Remains

  Moonlight Falls

  The Innocent (As Catch Can)

  Godchild

  Permanence

  Pathological (A Digital Short)

  Moonlight Mafia (A Digital Short)

  True Stories (A Digital Short)

  “The eagle picks my eye

  The worm he licks my bone

  I feel so suicidal

  Just like Dylan's Mr. Jones

  Lonely wanna die

  If I ain't dead already

  Ooh girl you know the reason why.”

  —John Lennon

  PROLOGUE

  YOU’RE DEAD.

  You’re floating above a hospital bed that’s served as your final resting place for the past twenty-four hours, ever since the cops dragged your sad body from out of that back alley.

  You’re dead.

  Really stone dead this time.

  You stare down at yourself and you’re amazed at how really bad you look. Like fifty miles of chewed up road. White skin and bones, your face a scarred remnant of its former baby-cheeked charm, body-mass index off the charts for your average near-death anorexic. “All teeth” as your mortician father used to say while cringing at the site of the terminally ill and, quite possibly, his next client.

  You have to admit it: maybe those cops shouldn’t have rescued you at all. Maybe they should have just cut to the chase, left you for dead on the black, pee-soaked macadam. Because in the end . . . in the final analysis, all those tear-jerking, heroic attempts the Albany Medical Center staff made at resuscitation turned out to be all for nothing. Because now you’re dead. And there isn’t a single thing the doctors or God or Buddha can do about it.

  There is however, one bright light that shines against all that darkness:

  Your girlfriend, Lola.

  At least Lola has stood by your side through every second of your final struggle. At least Lola has been true blue. She’s stood by your deathbed-side until the bitter end, just like any one of those famous, gladly-take-a-bullet-for-my-sig-other couples that have come and gone throughout history. Like Mary and Joseph, Antony and Cleopatra, Bonnie and Clyde. Like John and freaking Yoko.

  And oh my my, if she isn’t looking choice today.

  Long, velvety dark hair that drapes narrow shoulders. Tall, sexy body. Tight white Levis over black cowboy boots. The Niconas you bought for her during a weekend getaway in N-Y-C. Black lace push-up bra under a loose, white, low-cut, V-neck T-shirt. She’s got these white-rimmed Jackie Os covering sad brown eyes. Jackie Os that were designed to hide the never-ending tears of a cursed Kennedy wife. Makes you feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy inside even if your soul has left your body to become just an unidentifiable, immeasurable mass of transformed heat energy.

  If only you could reach out, hold her one more time, tell her all those corny I’ve-seen-the-other-side-of-life things. Tell her you’re going to a wonderful place, that death really isn’t the end, that you’ll wait for her, etcetera, etcetera. You want to wipe away her tears with a single index finger, just like Patrick and Demi in Ghost.

  Lola I’m so in love with you right now, more than I ever was in life. I’m so . . .

  That is, until a strange man enters the hospital room.

  Dude’s got his back to you. But he’s about your own height, Gold’s Gym slim, wiry, no stranger to sweat-soaked workouts. And you should know. Up until this little life-ending mishap the most fun you had with your clothes on was bench pressing two-thirty-five for ten reps.

  Maybe you can’t see his face, but you sense intuitively that he could be young. Like, real young. Like not even over thirty young. He sort of dresses like you, too. He’s wearing a tight T-shirt, black leather jacket, tight blue jeans, and yeah, he’s got some brand new cowboy boots going too.

  Niconas. Black.

  Identical to the pair you own. Like he got his pair during a cozy afternoon shopping date to the mall followed by a major face sucking session in the parking lot. At least, that’s the way it had been for you not so long ago. You and Lola.

  Dude’s still got his back to you when he faces your girlfriend, comes so close to her he’s practically kissing her on the mouth, his left hand gently brushing up against her left butt cheek. Your car wreck of a body isn’t even cold yet and this jerk is about to make out with your sig other right inside the room where, by the grace of God, your soul is leaving the building. Some precious-time-to-be-alone-with-your-dearly-departed-loved-one this turned out to be.

  You get like what, one of these look-at-your-own-dead-body deals in a lifetime? And now the sig other has to go and ruin it for you.

  But then hold on a second. Take a deep breath. You’ve got an idea. What if you try and make like a skydiver and dive right back into your body? You’ve heard about those dead people who’ve come back to life just like that when they’ve appeared to be gone-baby-gone. What if you try and dive back down into your body so you can jump the hell out of that bed, put those bench presses to work, and kick Gold’s Gym’s scrawny ass for good?

  But as much as you wish re-entry, you know there ain’t no goin’ back for the dead and almost buried. There’s only the sad sight of your former girlfriend walking out of the hospital room, her brand new buffed out, Some Young Guy floating close behind and no doubt admiring her choice posterior. And damn if he didn’t even have the decency to show his face. As if he knew all the time that you were watching him.r />
  So what to do?

  Catch your breath and start over.

  This time with the basics.

  Here’s the deal: You’re dead.

  Some gang of three big-ass mofos wearing President Obama Halloween masks, and pressing handheld electronic synthesizers up against their necks to mask their voices, pulled you off the street, dragged you into a back alley, beat you with fists, boot heels, and pistol barrels, and left you to bleed out alone. They said almost nothing too you, except for the tall barrel-chested one in the middle, who spat, “You should have stayed away from Peter Czech!”

  You couldn’t figure out if the voice was foreign or not. Not with that synthesizer pressed up against his voice box. Anyway, that’s when you blacked out.

  And now that you’re dead, you can see that your girlfriend has been doing the wild thing behind your back with someone else. Name and face not known. Maybe for a short time, maybe for a long time. You have no idea. All you know is that he’s a stud man and she’s probably giving him a hummer right now inside her four-wheel, gas-guzzling Hummer in the AMC parking garage.

  But you know what? You’re no longer angry or jealous.

  Maybe that’s because of the spec of bright white light forming in front of your eyes. You begin to feel yourself moving from the ceiling towards the light through this tunnel at lightning speed. It’s like something out of the Discovery Channel. You’re moving faster than light itself. You’re not afraid of the speed, not afraid of crashing, not afraid of dying. Because what the hell, you’re already dead.

  Next comes the heavenly brakes gently applied and you find yourself standing inside the pool of light. There’s somebody walking towards you. At first the somebody looks like ET waddling through all that light. You know, just a little dark, awkward silhouette. But soon ET begins to take shape. The closer it comes at you, the more it takes on a human form. Then, just like that, the silhouette becomes a real person.

  It’s your dad.

  Holy crap, you haven’t seen your dad since he bought the farm from the big C all those years ago. And the funny thing is, he’s younger than you are now. He died at 46 years old and you just turned 48. Now you’re older than the old man and you’re standing there inside all eternity with him.

  You’re not sure what to do. You don’t know the newly-arrived-in-heaven protocol. Do you hold out your hand for him to shake? Do you take him in your arms and embrace him? You were sort of close back on earth. But you weren’t touchy feely.

  You opt for the easy way out.

  —Yo, what’s up, dad?

  The old man is dressed in the suit you buried him in under the oak tree at the Albany Rural Cemetery. Black pinstriped double-breasted, bright red rose on the lapel, hair slicked back with Dippity-Do. He looks pretty damn good for a guy been dead going on three decades.

  —Son, I’ve missed you. I’ve been able to watch the play-by-play over the years and I must say, life hasn’t been easy for you.

  Okay, now you feel red-faced embarrassed. Was it possible for the old man to see everything you’ve done? With and without clothes on?

  —You know what happened then . . . to my head?

  You find yourself touching the small button-sized scar behind your right ear, where a small frag of .22 caliber hollow-point penetrated your skull during an aborted suicide attempt that went bad. If any of that makes sense.

  —Things kind of got out of control, son. Your wife, she had an affair with your partner. Then you fell in love with a sadly married scarlet-haired beauty whom you could not have, and it nearly killed you both.

  —You disappointed in me, dad?

  —You lived. You survived for your boy. But Richard, you are a hopeless victim of love.

  The old man is smiling at you now. You can’t believe he’s really there in front of you. Alive but dead. Younger but older. But time is of the essence here, and you decide to pull off the nearest exit on this conversation and take a new route.

  —What’s it like being dead, dad?

  —You tell me.

  —No, I mean for a long time.

  —Time is a nothing here.

  —Are we in heaven?

  —You could say that. I believe I raised you to believe in that kind of thing.

  —What should I do first?

  —Nothing.

  —Nothing?

  —You do nothing because you’re not done with life.

  —Not done with life . . . I don’t get it.

  The old man’s smile melts off his face. He takes a step back, purses his lips. You pick up on the old man’s expression right away. It means the earth, or should you say heavenly space, is about to shift right out from under your feet.

  —I’m not staying, am I dad?

  —You’re not ready, kid.

  You recall the Some Young Guy your sig other was nearly tonguing inside the hospital room. You see something else too. In your dead head you see the Obama-masked mugs of those mofos who pulled you off the street, pulled you into a back alley, kicked you in the face, kicked you in the kidneys.

  But the good news is this: If you do come back alive, you might be able to take care of some unfinished business with said Obama-masked thugs. But then something else dawns on you. It dawns on you that if your dad could see you from heaven, then maybe he can help ID the bastards who further messed up your already messed up head. Masks or no masks.

  —Dad who killed me?

  —You can’t ask me questions like that, son. It’s against the rules.

  —Are they the Russians I put out of business? They had accents, I think. Or are they the on-the-take cops I exposed? Were they sent by my ex-wife to collect for back child support? Speak to me dad!

  —You have work to do, Richard.

  —What about that guy with Lola in the hospital room, dad? Some Young Guy! You must have seen him. I couldn’t get a good look at his face. At least tell me his name!

  But the old man isn’t talking anymore. Not about thugs; not about Lola’s new lover. Maybe up in heaven that’s considered cheating. He’s just back-stepping, back into the light.

  Correction: he’s not walking necessarily so much as he’s floating back into the light, his body getting smaller and smaller, his figure darker and darker. Until finally he becomes one with the light.

  That’s when something amazing happens. The light disappears. It’s replaced with that tunnel, or wormhole. You’re speeding through the wormhole so fast you feel the skin on your face peeling back away from your skull. That skin means you’re becoming human again. And because you’re human again, the lacerations on your arms begin to throb, your broken nose begins to bleed, your teeth loosen up, lips swell, your big black eye closes back up, your spleen bleeds internally, your kidneys balloon to twice their size, a big gash opens up on your right side, your temperature rises to a dangerous 103.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

  Like careening out of control down a long schoolyard slide, you’re going too fast. Until there’s no slide left and you drop flat onto your glutes, the entirety of your 175 pounds re-injected into damaged skin and bone. You suck in a breath, open your one good eye to a blinding overhead light, and abracadabra-holy-freakin’-crap, you’re alive again.

  Moonlight rises.

  CHAPTER 1

  LIFE SUCKS. THEN YOU die.

  Or, in my case, you die and then you live.

  That kinda sucks too.

  All I remember is getting the snot kicked out of me in a back alley off lower Broadway and then having this vivid dream about floating over my body, my “supposed” girlfriend cozied up with Some Young Guy right beside my deathbed. Next thing I know, I’m traveling through some time-warped worm tunnel and chatting it up with my long dead dad. I remember him telling me my time isn’t up. I remember him looking really good for a dead guy. I remember the still fresh red carnation pinned to his lapel. He was younger than me. But older too. I remember how good it felt to be dead.

  But then, like life, death is but a dream.
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  The ICU is a beehive of activity.

  Monitor alarms pulse.

  Buzzers buzz.

  Bells chime.

  Nurses frantically work intravenous lines. They shout at one another. Get in one another’s faces. Their voices aren’t exactly discernable yet. More like those weird Waa-Waa adult voices on that old Charlie Brown Christmas TV special. One of them even starts to cry, like I’m better off dead.

  Hell is other people. And I should know. I’ve been to heaven and back.

  The tall, dark-haired doctor rushes back in, begins poking and prodding me. He shines the business end of a bright penlight in my good eye, and I instinctively rear back against the one-hundred-percent acrylic, allergen-free, nylon pillow.

  The doc just about jumps out of his lime green Crocks.

  “WE GOT A LIVE ONE!!!”

  I can hear his voice plain enough. It’s enough to raise the dead.

  “How long was he gone?! Come on people . . . How?! long?! Gone?!”

  Crying Nurse steps up. She’s young, blond, and sporting considerable cleavage beneath a white blouse, and I’m at least alive enough to feel myself getting a rise out of her.

  “I’m guessing just short of five minutes, doctor,” she sniffles. “His girlfriend said goodbye to him for God sakes.”

  Here’s what I’m thinking:

  Five minutes. That’s got to be a record or something, right? Book deal kind of record? Cable television movie kind of record? Somebody call an agent.

  “Miracle of miracles,” the doc muses, shaking his head. “Never seen anything like it.”

  He leans down into my ear.

  “Can you hear me, Mr. Moonlight? If you can hear me, nod your head.”

  I take his advice, nod my head.

  “Can you talk?”

  I open my mouth, try to spit something out. But it all emerges as a stuttering crackle. Like my tongue has dried out and is now stuck to the back of my throat.