“Your son,” I say. It’s a question.

  “Oh, don’t worry. He’s a senior.” He’s back to furiously thumbing in a text. “I’m talking to the tiger right now. After you get the goods, we’ll go pick him up from school.”

  I nod. Kid must go to the state college. Kind of a downfall from grace you ask me. Two generations of Yale grads and the third in line is roughing it at the local college. But the old man doesn’t seem too upset over the kid’s apparent break with tradition considering he’s ponying up for the alcohol and tobacco. Oh, well, ours is not to wonder why . . .

  I get out of the car, head into the store to buy cigs and beer. At ten o’clock in the morning.

  When I make my return to the car, I find that the doc is on the phone. His dark eyes are wide and bulging out of their slits. His smile is back, and he’s talking a mile a minute. The windows and sunroof are open, so I’m able to catch some of what’s being said.

  “Have I ever let you good folks down? You know I’ll deliver. You know you can trust me. Tonight, nine sharp, in the parking lot of the St. Pious Church up in Loudonville. Now tell me, how are you liking America these days?”

  That’s when I make like a frog in my throat, open the driver’s side door, toss the plastic bag of beer and smokes onto the passenger side seat.

  “Gotta go,” the surgeon spits into the I-Phone, killing the connection.

  “Got a date tonight, Doc?” I say, shutting the door, restarting the engine.

  “Oh, I don’t date anymore. Not since I found the love of my life.”

  “The love of your life. How good for you, Doc.”

  I back out of the lot, head back towards Broadway.

  “Yes, yes,” he says. “The sister-in-law of a senator and very, very sexy. She has an extremely open attitude towards the sexual act. Very modern, you might say. Met her after my first DWI.”

  “How ironical,” I say.

  “You have a way with words, Bruce,” he giggles. “Take a right on Broadway.”

  I do it.

  “Albany State campus?” I pose, my eyes connecting with his in the rearview.

  “Not at all. My son is still in high school. My old country day prep school as a matter of fact. The

  Albany Academy.”

  I glance at the beer and the smokes. Once more, I’m reminded that it’s only a little after ten in the morning. Moonlight the observant.

  “Your boy have a doctor appointment?” I ask.

  “Ha-ha,” he says. “Not. He’s been suspended.

  Crazy kid.”

  “Suspended, and you’re buying him beer?”

  “Kids will be kids. Don’t you think, Bruce? Best to not make a big deal out of a little thing.”

  “He got suspended for a little thing?”

  “His girlfriend screamed date rape during a party I threw for the kids at the house this past weekend, and now the entire school board has their panties pulled all the way up over their heads. Can’t tell you how many times I was suspended from the same school, and look how I turned out. In my day, no meant yes.”

  I make eye contact with his beady little eyes once more, and it’s all I can do to peel my gaze away from

  the mirror.

  “You got a point, Doc,” I say, driving in the direction of the prep school. “Look how good you turned out.”

  Chapter 6

  I’ve driven past The Albany Academy for Boys maybe a million and one times since I’ve lived in New York’s capital city, but never really taken a good look at the place until now. Located directly across the street from a more modern all girl’s school of the same “Albany Academy” name, it’s a five-story, century old, cupola-topped, stone and brick building that looks like it was pulled right out of the pages of A Separate Peace or maybe A Catcher in the Rye. There’s an old wood and metal sign mounted to a black iron post at the school entry that reads, THE ALBANY ACADEMY, Est. 1813, which means the school is about as old as Albany itself.

  I pull into the drive and follow the road until it connects with a circle that surrounds a pristine green with a tall flagpole mounted in its center. An American flag flies at half-mast on the pole. I’m trying to think of someone famous who might have died in recent days, but I can’t come up with an image or a name to go with an image. Maybe an old teacher passed away, or a maintenance worker.

  “Pull up in front of the steps,” Schroder instructs.

  I do it. I kill the engine while he opens the door, steps out.

  “I’ll be right back, Bruce,” he says, into the open door before shutting it.

  Through the passenger side window, I watch his bulbous little body bounce up the marble staircase on his way to a big, white wood door. When he opens the door, and disappears inside, I decide to make myself useful. Reaching over to the glove box, I open it. There’s the standard glossy BMW driver’s manual inside. Also, a leather folder that contains his registration and proof of insurance. But it’s the thing I find behind those two items that spark my investigative interest. It’s a black Glock 36, Slim line model. Small enough to fit inside a vest or a suit jacket pocket without being noticed, but big enough to carry six 9mm rounds. Not a bad weapon for a woman to conceal in her purse or a brain surgeon who goes both ways to store in his glove-box, or inside the waistband of his tighty-whities, for that matter. I can only assume he wasn’t carrying this little lethal gem on his person when he got busted for drinking and driving the other night.

  The big, school door opens again.

  I shove the pistol back inside the box, slap the lid closed, slide back over behind the wheel. I hear two sets of footsteps slapping the marble treads on their way back down the stairs. When I see them through the glass, it’s like I’m seeing double. Schroder Sr. and his much younger clone.

  I can tell they’re arguing about something because, for the first time since I’ve met him, Schroder’s got this sour puss going. Through the sour puss, he’s babbling a mile a minute at the kid, but doing so under his breath. And the kid is smirking, rolling his own set of dark eyes around inside his own set of slits carved out of his own pumpkin head.

  The kid opens the passenger side door, plops himself down inside. “You get my beer?”

  “I don’t believe we’ve met,” I say.

  He’s got his Albany Academy blue blazer on. I know it’s an official Albany Academy blazer because it’s got a red and black “AA” patch sewn over the left breast pocket. It’s got some condiment stains on it. Ketchup and mustard. Under that, he’s wearing a standard white cotton button-down. More stains grace the front of it. He also sports a black and red-striped rep tie. The knot hangs “Fuck You” low on his baby-fat filled chest. More stains.

  I can also see that he’s chosen the image of Al Pacino in Scarface for a T-shirt. The image of the black-suited, tightly scar-faced drug kingpin firing the crap out of a black M16 is clearly visible through the light cotton fabric of the kid’s button down. The kid is clean shaven if not baby-faced, so I’m guessing he doesn’t need to shave much of anything. He’s wearing Ray-Ban “I’m looking right through you” wrap-around sunglasses and the hair that’s showing underneath his extra-wide -ghetto-brimmed New York Yankees baseball cap that still has the gold tag stuck onto the brim is blond. It’s about the only thing that separates him from his father. Maybe his mother is a blonde. Poor woman.

  Schroder gets into the back. “Mr. Moonlight, please meet my son, Stephen.” He’s back to sporting that fake, carved pumpkin smile.

  “Nice to meet you, Stephen,” I say without offering my hand.

  “That so,” the kid says. He’s already got a cigarette between his lips and a cold beer between his legs. He reaches into the pocket of his tan khakis, pulls out a Bic lighter, fires up the smoke, draws a deep drag. Then, he thumbs open the beer, steals a long pull on it. It’s twenty after ten in the morning. A Monday. But I’m sure it’s five o’clock somewhere and heading toward Tuesday.

  “You gonna drive or what?” the kid says.

  “Nope,” I say.

  He quick draws his left hand to the keyed ignition, as though to start the engine. But I snatch his hand while it’s still half-way there. He yanks it out of my grip.

  “Fuck you, pal,” he says. “You’re just the hired help. Now drive.”

  “Stephen, that’s a no-no,” the doc scolds from the back. But it’s like pissing into the ocean.

  “While we’re on the subject,” I add, “Nobody drinks and smokes in the car when I’m driving.”

  The kid looks taken aback. He drags on the cig and releases a blue cloud directly into my face.

  “Where’d you get this clown, Dad?” he says. “Maybe you should fire him.” Then, turning back to me, he raises up his left hand, makes like a pistol with his index and middle fingers extended and his thumb standing straight up. “You wanna fuck with me, okay?” he says in a passable Tony Scarface Montana, pig Latin accent. “You wanna play rough?” He points the faux pistol at my head. “Okay. Say hello to my leetle frien’!” He pokes my head with his pistol barrel fingers.

  His face feels like mush when I backhand it, crushing his cig and spilling his beer into his lap. The ghetto baseball cap goes crooked on his head, and the right lens on his sunglasses pops out.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” he shouts. “Nobody does that to me! Daddy! Daddy!”

  Schroder remains surprisingly calm, as if he’s been wanting to do the same thing for a long time but hasn’t been able to work up the balls.

  “Now, Stephen,” he scolds, “you can’t be nasty to people and not expect them to react appropriately. Now, let’s all get along and allow Mr. Moonlight to do his job. You can drink and smoke the afternoon away by the pool when you get home. You can invite some friends over. Okay?”

  The kid has got the window open, and he’s tossing out the crushed butt along with the now empty beer can right onto his would-be alma mater’s front circle. Stealing a glance down at his pants, I can see that the crotch is soaked. I can’t help but chuckle. Moonlight

  the merciless.

  Turning the key in the ignition, I fire the Beamer up and pull out. On my way out of the drive, I notice the America flag mounted to the tall white pole outside The Albany Academy for Girls has also been lowered to half-mast.

  I still have no idea who might have died, but whenever I think of death I’m reminded of Lola and how her absence from my life feels like a limb that’s been freshly severed by a chainsaw . . .

  . . . Scarface style.

  Chapter 7

  The kid goes silent for the drive through Albany, north to the suburbs where the doc maintains a mansion that abuts the Schuyler Meadows Country Club golf course. But then, that’s not entirely true because the kid isn’t exactly silent. Now and then he whispers something under his breath. With his eyes peering out the passenger side window and both his hands mimicking matching pistolas, he mumbles niceties like, “You fuck with me . . . You fuck with the best . . . Fucking asshole . . .” I can only wonder if the doc hears what his son is whispering or if he just chooses to ignore his spawn’s little Tony Montana identity crisis.

  When I pull into the long drive of the mammoth, yellow, wood clapboard colonial, the kid gathers up the smokes and what’s left of the six pack. It strikes me as odd that he doesn’t carry a book bag. But then, he doesn’t seem like the homework type. He opens the door, lifts himself gingerly out of the seat. Holding the plastic bag of beers and butts in one hand, he points his finger pistol at me with the other. When he points the faux pistol at my head through the open door, he brings the thumb down, whispers, “Bang.”

  “Goodbye, son,” the Doc says from the back like he’s addressing a Boy Scout merit badge winner. “Text me later.”

  The kid ignores his father. Instead, he slams the car door shut, turns and begins making his way toward the house, walking with his legs bowed, like a three-year-old carrying a load in his drawers. I hope I never have to lay eyes on the creep again.

  Once more, I ask the doc, “Where to now?” and he instructs me to drive him to his private downtown office. I’m not sure why, but it immediately strikes me as odd that a brain surgeon would keep a private office away from a hospital or medical center. All the brain experts I’ve consulted with over the years since my botched suicide — and there have been a lot of them — met me inside their hospital offices, where they had immediate access to X-ray and MRI equipment. But then, maybe Schroder prefers to meet his clients in a less clinical, less threatening environment. Whatever the case, I back out of the drive, proceed to head back in the direction I came.

  Back towards the city.

  As we pull out of his development, onto a suburban road that will lead us down to Broadway, I peer into the rearview, try and make eye contact with the pumpkin head.

  “You gonna let me in on your son’s situation?”

  I say.

  His thin-lipped smile has long since dissolved, his beady eyes no longer so glossed over with optimism. Can’t say I blame him.

  “I’m not sure I owe you an explanation, Mr. Moonlight,” he says while peering out the window at the cookie cutter suburban houses and their perfectly manicured lawns and plastic mailboxes.

  “I’m a dad, too, Doc,” I say. “My boy is younger than yours. But we’re still dealing with fathers and sons here. The difficulties, the rewards, the difficulties.”

  He hesitates for a few more beats while he weighs the benefits, or lack thereof, of confiding in me. Clearing his throat, he says, “Stephen is . . . let’s call him . . . a highly strung young man.”

  “I’ve gathered that. How come you pulled him out of school like that?”

  He continues to stare out the window for a few

  more beats.

  “I already told you. He’s been suspended. Again.”

  “That why you reward him with beer?”

  Through the rearview, I see his head turn fast, those black eyes staring into mine via the reflective glass.

  “Allow me to illuminate you, Mr. Moonlight. My son is eighteen years old and an addict. He’s done more stints in rehab for crack cocaine and X than Lindsay Lohan. He’s also done his fair share of time in juvie, too. I don’t make sure he has something like a couple of beers and a pack of cigarettes to calm him down, chances are that tonight I will find him hold up in some crack house in the Arbor Hill section of Albany. Entirely imprudent logic, I realize, but it’s the only way I can deal with him and his issues.”

  For a brief moment, I’m wondering where the smiley-faced, fuck-anything-that-walks, “Bruce Willis is my driver,” preppy, good old boy disappeared to. But now I can see the profound effect his Scarface son has on him. Kids can be great, and kids can be a burden, but problem kids can really suck.

  “Where’s his mother?” I ask.

  “She ran out five years ago, after he hit her.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “So was I.”

  I go right on Broadway and keep driving until he tells me to make a quick right onto State Street and pull over in front of his office. He grabs his briefcase and steps out of the car. Leaning his head back in, he says, “That’s it for this morning, Mr. Moonlight. I will text you when to pick me up later.”

  I nod. Then, “Doc, maybe you owe it to the kid to get him some help? Better help than he’s had in the past?”

  He shakes his head.

  “My God, Moonlight, am I under investigation by a private detective with a bullet in his brain?”

  “The curiosity part of my head still works like a charm. Don’t respond if you don’t want to.”

  He stares at me.

  “Truth is, Moonlight, at this point, Stephen is beyond professional help. It’s not like I’m giving up on him, but I am hoping he grows out of whatever it is he’s been going through.”

  “Grows out of his addictions? Out of his date raping?”

  “I’ve heard that you yourself have suffered your own share of mishaps with the more perfect sex, Moonlight, so perhaps you will not cast any stones at my troubled son.”

  “I won’t, Doc. You can count on Bruce Willis.”

  “Until later,” he says, closing the door, the heavy burden that is his son dragging ass on the pavement behind him.

  “Vaya con dios, motherfucker,” I whisper, pulling away from the curb.

  Chapter 8

  It’s the last thing I should be doing. Heading in the direction of Lola Ross’ downtown brownstone. It’s the very last thing I should be doing knowing that she’s dead and that the woman I saw walking into and out of the coffee shop this morning was not her . . . could not be her . . . but someone who looked an awful lot like her. Or maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me again. Messing with me. My eyes and my less than perfect brain.

  My damaged brain.

  I’ll say it one last time: It’s the last thing I should be doing. But then, fixation is a tricky task master. And I’m a head-case who, as much as he tries, cannot put the past behind him. Moonlight the obsessed and regressed.

  I drive Schroder’s BMW all the way up the Madison Avenue hill, past the Empire State Plaza, past the white-marbled New York State Museum, past the Governor’s Mansion, past Dove Street, and past the three-story house where Leg’s Diamond took a bullet to the head from an FBI-issued .38 caliber revolver back in the early 1930s. I cross over Lark and drive on until Washington Park is on my right-hand side, and the long row of pre-twentieth century brownstones is on my left. I pull over when I come to the one that, once upon a time, belonged to Lola.

  From across the busy, two-way avenue, I watch the entrance to the building. Watch the front door as if at any moment it will open and Lola will emerge looking fresh and beautiful, her long brunette hair catching the spring breeze while she skips down the stone steps in her short skirt and tall black leather boots to the concrete sidewalk.

  But, no one is emerging through the thick wood door. There’s no sign of life coming from the building. The shades have been pulled down on the windows. There’s a pile of old newspapers that have collected at the bottom of the door. I don’t see any signs of electric light coming from inside the home. There’s just nothing. The place has the look and feel of a mausoleum.

 

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