The moonlight falcon, p.1
The Moonlight Falcon, page 1
The Moonlight Falcon
Dick Moonlight PI, Volume 11
Vincent Zandri
Published by Vincent Zandri, 2023.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE MOONLIGHT FALCON
First edition. November 7, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 Vincent Zandri.
ISBN: 979-8215393871
Written by Vincent Zandri.
Also by Vincent Zandri
A Chase Baker Thriller
Chase Baker Box Set
The Chase Baker Trilogy:Volume II
Chase Baker and the Dutch Diamonds
Chase Baker and the Spear of Destiny
The Chase Baker Trilogy: The First Three Chase Baker Thriller Novels
Chase Baker and the Quest for the Holy Grail
Chase Baker and the Pyramid of Madness
Chase Baker and the Hunt for Nazi Gold
Chase Baker und die Jagd nach Nazi-Gold
Chase Baker and the Purple Robe of Christ
Chase Baker and the Nazi Time Machine
A Chase Baker Thriller No. 12
Chase Baker and the Lost Ark of God
A Chase Baker Thriller Series
Young Chase Baker and the Cross of the Last Crusade
A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 1
The Shroud Key
A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2
Chase Baker and the Golden Condor
A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 3
Chase Baker and the God Boy
A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 4
Chase Baker and the Lincoln Curse
A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 6
Chase Baker and the Da Vinci Divinity
A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 9
Chase Baker and the Seventh Seal
A Dick Moonlight PI Series
Moonlight Falls
Moonlight Gets Schooled
Blue Moonlight
Moonlight Breaks Bad
Murder by Moonlight
Divorce by Moonlight
Moonlight Gets Railroaded
Code Blue Moonlight
A Dick Moonlight PI Series Short
Moonlight Gets Served
Moonlight Goes Viral
Moonlight Mafia
Moonlight Detour
A Dick Moonlight PI Thriller
Moonlight Kills
Moonlight Falls: New and Lengthened Editor’s Cut Edition
The Dick Moonlight PI Box Set II
Moonlight and the Hitman
Terminal Moonlight
Moonlight Rises
A Dick Moonlight Thriller Book 9
Dog Day Moonlight
A Gripping Ava "Spike" Harrison Thriller
The Concrete Pearl
A Gripping Dick Moonlight PI Thriller Boxed Set
Dick Moonlight Collection One
A Gripping Tanya Teal Corporate War Chronicles Thriller
Primary Termination
A Jack "Keeper" Marconi PI Thriller Series
The Sins of the Sons: A Gripping Hard-Boiled Mystery Thriller with a Surprise Ending
The Innocent
Godchild
American Prison Break
The Jack Marconi P.I. Box Set
White Wedding
The Body
(A Jack Marconi PI Series)
The Guilty
The Slender Man
(A Keeper Marconi PI Thriller Book 5
Dressed to Kill
American Crime Story: A Thriller Series
American Crime Story: Book I
American Crime Story: Book II
American Crime Story: Book III
American Crime Story: Book IV
A Meta Man Time Travel Thriller
The Passion of Casey Smith
Meta Man
Meta Man: Mars 900 C
Cashless Bail
After Life
A Sam Savage Sky Marshal Thriller
Dead Heading
The Sam Savage Sky Marshal Boxed Set
Tunnel Rats
The Empire Runaway
A Short Thriller
Ghosts
Pembroke PInes
The Killer
Hit and Run
The Devil Won't Have You
The Girl in the Window
Go Get Me A Gun
The Left Hook
Autonomous
Delusional
Desperate Measures
Domestic Dispute
Living Doll
The Woman with Two Faces
The Man Who Prayed for the End of the World
Hitchhiker
Bang Bang Shoot Shoot
Memory Bank
Left Alone
The Commuter
A Short Thriller Collection
Desperate Measures: A Short Thriller Collection
A Short True Crime Thriller
I Am God
A Steele and Blood Thriller
Alligator Alcatraz
A Steve Jobz PI Thriller
The Flower Man
The Extortionist
The Plumber
I, The Judge
The Steve Jobz PI Box Set
The Blackmailer
A Steve Jobz Thriller
The Embalmer
(A Thriller)
The Scream Catcher
A Touch of Evil
Detonator
A Thriller
The Caretaker
Tarantulas at Thirty Thousand Feet
American Crime Story: The Complete Saga
Deranged Fan
The Girl Who Wasn't There
Her Darkest Secret
Paradox Lake
Max Gator: A Thriller
The Squatters
Assignment Rendition
The Ex-Con
Bullet
Love Like a Loaded Gun
Everything Burns
Love Like a Loaded Gun: Mass Market Edition
A Tony and Stan Thriller
Bingo Night
Border Crossings
A Vincent Zandri Hard-Boiled Short Read
Pathological
A Young Chase Baker Thriller
Young Chase Baker and the Well of the Souls
Dick Moonlight PI
The Moonlight Falcon
Full Moonlight
PI Jack Marconi
Arbor Hill
PULP Thrillers
Pulp 2: Three Gripping Thrillers Collected in One Box Set
The Rebecca Underhill Trilogy
The Remains
The Ashes
The Bones
(Vincent Zandri on Writing Book)
Pieces of Mind: Fictional Truths & Non-Fictional Lies about Writing and the Writing Life
Writer's Life Mindset Lecture Series
The Writer’s Life Mindset Lecture Series Number 1: The Series that Helps You become a Real Pro Writer!
Writer's Life Volume 1
The Writer's Life
Standalone
Pulp!: Two Thriller Novels and a Novella
Head
Pathological: Collected Short Reads of Sex, Lies, and Murder!
Go Get Me a Gun
Watch for more at Vincent Zandri’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Vincent Zandri
Begin your Moonlight journey today with a FREE copy of MOONLIGHT FALLS, the first novel in the Thriller and Shamus Award winning series. | Or visit WWW.VINZANDRI.COM to join Vincent’s “For your eyes only” newsletter today. | PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI
“Was he married? | “Yes, with ten thousand insurance, no children, and a wife that didn’t like him.’” | ―Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
Albany | State Street | Two Day Ago
1 | Two Days Earlier
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About The Author
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Also By Vincent Zandri
Begin your Moonlight journey today with a FREE copy of MOONLIGHT FALLS, the first novel in the Thriller and Shamus Award winning series.
Or visit WWW.VINZANDRI.COM to join Vincent’s “For your eyes only” newsletter today.
PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI
& nbsp; “SENSATIONAL . . . MASTERFUL . . . brilliant.”
—New York Post
“(A) CHILLING TALE OF obsessive love from Thriller Award–winner Zandri (Moonlight Weeps) . . . Riveting.”
—Publishers Weekly
“. . . OH, WHAT A STORY it is . . . Riveting . . . A terrific old school thriller.”
—Booklist “Starred Review”
“ZANDRI DOES A FANTASTIC job with this story. Not only does he scare the reader, but the horror
Show he presents also scares the man who is the definition of the word “tough.”
—Suspense Magazine
“I VERY HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book . . . It's a great crime drama that is full of action and intense suspense, along with some great twists . . . Vincent Zandri has become a huge name and just keeps pouring out one best seller after another.”
—Life in Review
“(THE INNOCENT) IS A thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion.”
—The Times-Union (Albany)
"THE ACTION NEVER WANES."
—Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
"GRITTY, FAST-PACED, lyrical and haunting."
—Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Six Years
"TOUGH, STYLISH, HEARTBREAKING."
—Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of Savages and Cartel.
“A TIGHTLY CRAFTED, smart, disturbing, elegantly crafted complex thriller . . . I dare you to start it and not keep reading.”
—MJ Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Halo Effect and Closure
“A CLASSIC SLICE OF raw pulp noir...”
—William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob
“ZANDRI (IS) A VETERAN wordsmith who executes quality and quantity at superlative levels.”
—Book Reporter
The Moonlight Falcon
A Dick Moonlight PI Thriller
Vincent Zandri
“Was he married?
“Yes, with ten thousand insurance, no children, and a wife that didn’t like him.’”
―Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
Albany
State Street
Two Day Ago
I’m hanging upside down. Two Mexican construction workers who are bigger than King Kong are holding me by both legs fifteen stories above the concrete sidewalk. If they drop me on my head, it will explode like a fucking pumpkin. But then, my head is all fucked up as it is between the piece of .22 caliber hollow-point lodged beside my cerebral cortex and my habit of making some real bad decisions from time to time.
But I digress.
Anyway, these fuckers are trying to kill me because my present employer is convinced his own workers are stealing from him. Oh, and by the way, I have irrefutable proof that they are (I happen to be in the possession of dozens of photos of palettes of handsaws, Sawzalls, power drills, and more being stacked in the back of several Ford F-150 pickups that have the Blaze Construction Corporation red and black logo printed on the side panels).
Problem is, these bastards are obviously into more than just stealing tools on their boss’s dime. My guess is they’re running guns, or kids, or drugs, or a combination of all three and somehow doing it using their employer as a front. It’s easy these days to run pretty much anything illegal you want now that all the Mexican workers are coming up from the border and, along with them, their friends in the MS-14 gangs and the cartels. It’s almost like the president and that New York Senator who looks like the Penguin...what’s his name...Chuckie Schumer...actually welcomes all the corruption. Fuck, maybe they’re on the payroll.
“Hey, Moonlight,” calls out one of the crew foremen.
He’s one of the aforementioned Mexicans who was escaping his country via the open border due to oppression when in fact, I’m told that he has a south-of-the-border hacienda on the beach that’s bigger than a Hilton Garden Inn.
“Hey, you, Moonlight you fucking nosy bastardo,” he repeats.
All the blood is rushing to my head, so it’s getting heavy. It takes a real effort to raise it to make eye contact with the big, thick Mexican.
“You tell Blaze that if he keeps snooping into his employee’s loyalty and work ethic,” he says, “he just might find his little stubby legs broken. You understand me?”
“Si, Carlos,” I say. “But I can’t exactly tell him that if I’m spattered all over State Street, now can I?”
“Okay, boys,” Carlos Santiago says. “Pull him back up.”
They pull me up and toss me onto the newly poured concrete floor. I try and get up, but I’m too dizzy, and judging by the stain on my crotch, I’ve pissed myself. Santiago approaches me, makes a fist, and punches me in the mouth.
For a split second, I’m knocked out. But when I come to, I taste blood in my mouth. Acting on instinct, I run my index finger over my teeth. Still all there, although the front top two teeth feel loose, and my upper lip is bleeding.
“Now you go tell Senor Blaze that unless he stops this private investigator shit,” the thickly dark-haired and mustache-bearing Santiago says, “we will report him to the IRS, the Attorney General, and worst of all, our Mayor and our black DA who just happen to love to defund the cops, promote our Sanctuary City and all it has to offer to the downtrodden and the oppressed, especially our guaranteed Democratic Machine votes. Si?”
I slowly manage to get back on my feet. My guess is I only slightly pissed myself because it’s not like I’m feeling soaked through or anything. I peer down at my jeans anyway. Just a small wet spot. I also see the tops of my black combat boots. I pat my back pocket and feel the bulge created by my wallet, then pat the area on my worn black leather coat where I store my 9mm semi-automatic. These fuckers were too stupid to strip me of it.
Running my hand over my short stand of hair and scarred scalp, I run it down my scruffy face and touch the tender fat lip.
“So, what are you waiting for, perra?” Carlos says. “Get going already, before Blaze leaves the office for the Thatcher Street tittie bar he hits up every day since his wife don’t give him no ass no more.”
Reaching into my coat, I pull out my 9mm.
“Oh, shit,” says one of the King Congs who was holding me over the wall by my feet.
He backs up a step and raises his hands in surrender.
“You never checked him for a gun, stupido?” Carlos says.
“We never thought...” stutters the second King Kong.
Aiming for the first Kong, I lower my aim, and shoot the motherfucker in the thigh.
“That’s for scaring the daylights out of me,” I say.
Then I shoot King Kong Two in his thigh.
They both drop onto the concrete pad so hard, I swear it cracks under their collective weight. I then aim the pistol at Carlos. He slowly raises his hands.
“You might get away with shooting these dumb fucks,” he says through gritted teeth. “But I assure you, Mr. Moonlight, you shoot me, my people will make sure your entire family is skinned alive.”
I begin making my way for the metal staircase that’s attached to the scaffolding.
“I don’t have any family,” I say. “But I’ll be sure to deliver your message to Senor Blaze.”
“Via con dios, dead perra,” Carlos says.
“Hasta la vista, motherfucker” I say.
1
Two Days Earlier
The Blaze Construction Corporation was located off a section of the north/south highway called Route 787. I was aware of this because I’d driven past it a million and one times when my Jeep needed repairing or an oil change. My mechanic was located not far from the big brick and glass building with an attached warehouse and a yard that housed all sorts of construction equipment like one-ton dump trucks, backhoes, construction site trailers, Lulls, a bulldozer, and even a small crane.
