Moonlight gets schooled, p.10
Moonlight Gets Schooled, page 10
“Yes, you can change the channel, Moon,” he said.
“Su casa,” I said. Then, looking at the story being broadcast, I felt my heart drop into my stomach. The scene was the Catholic Brothers Academy yet again.
“Tragedy strikes a prestigious local Catholic boy’s school twice in the same day,” said the same young female media darling who reported on Sean Sullivan’s murder that morning. “The private school’s long-time principal, Alvin McGeary, was found just moments ago inside his office, the apparent victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. No suicide note was left behind, but thus far, anonymous sources closest to him were reported as saying he was very upset by the former CBA English teacher, Virginia Gamble, naming him as one of the males she had sex with during her short tenure with the private school. We attempted to make contact with McGeary’s wife, Kristin, but she was unavailable for comment at the present time. This brings the death toll surrounding Virginia Gamble to three in just a single day.”
“They’re not counting the dead gangbangers,” I said. “They also don’t know about Solimonca’s wounded leg.”
“Solimonca is wounded?” Blood said.
“Moonlight shot him,” Virginia said.
“Holy shit, Moon,” Blood said. “No wonder you guys are afraid of surrendering yourself to the police. Miller is a straight up guy, but Solimonca’s reach knows no bounds. You’re liable to be machine gunned down on the way to the precinct.”
“That’s why we’re here,” I said. “We need a little time to figure out our next move even if Miller wants us to come in now.”
The reporter carried on. “Ironically, Mrs. Virginia Gamble has become a sort of worldwide celebrity, overnight. The Twittersphere is blowing up with posts and photos of the attractive forty-two-year-old would-be novelist. Major news outlets are already seeking interviews and asking for appearances. Even the Lifetime channel is rumored to be contemplating a movie based on Mrs. Gambles escapades. It should also be noted that prominent lawyers are lining up to take on Mrs. Gamble’s case on a pro-bono basis. What this means, of course, is that Virginia Gamble, for all her apparent sins of the flesh, is about to become very famous.”
“Unreal,” I whispered. Then, turning to Virginia. “Well, looks like you might get your book deal after all. And a fucking movie.”
I thought about my own one published novel, and how no producers even considered it for a cable TV show much less a major movie. To be honest, I was a little jealous.
“Maybe I should break more laws and then I’d get my movie,” I whispered to myself.
Virginia slowly nodded her head and crossed her arms, not like they needed crossing, but more like she was trying to comfort herself.
“Not exactly the way I planned things,” she said. “But I did what I did, not because I wanted experience…something to write about. But because I needed the escape. No, craved the escape. I thought I would go mad without an escape.”
“Listen, Mrs. Gamble,” Blood interjected, “Your next move is to surrender yourself. You’re not going to get around it. You have no control over that. But what you can control is how you surrender yourself.”
“I agree,” I said, knowing how right Blood was, as usual. “It’s come down to the how and when.”
Blood went on, “Because now, with Solimonca out for blood and with Mrs. Gamble’s newfound fame, it will be impossible to cross the street without either getting shot or mobbed by the press or both. But trust me when I tell you I will help as much as I can.”
Blood’s words filled me with both fear and encouragement, and right then, I needed all the encouragement I could get. The fear I would just have to deal with like I always did. By sucking it up and somehow, controlling it.
I turned to Virginia.
“Told you we came to the right place,” I said.
A droplet of blood dripped from the back of my right hand to the carpet.
“First things first,” Blood said. “You’re wounded, Moon. Let’s get you patched up. And Virginia, that finger needs attention. You also look like you could use something to eat and drink.”
She smiled. It wasn’t an ear-to-ear smile, but I could tell that she felt safe and comfortable around Blood. I was also impressed with her ability to put up with the pain that must have surely been coming from her right index finger, where the nail had been pulled out with a pair of common workman’s pliers. I could almost feel the finger throbbing on her behalf.
Fucking Solimonca. I will see you again, and this time I will put you down for good…
“Yes,” she said. “I could use a little sustenance.” She gazed at her wounded finger. “The pain, well that’s something I probably deserve.”
Blood picked up the remote from the coffee table and shut off the TV.
“My guess is you two don’t need any more anxiety in your life right about now,” he said. “So let’s can the news.”
“Could use a drink,” I said. “As in an alcoholic beverage.”
I glanced at Virginia.
“Make that two,” she said.
“Let’s make that three,” Blood said.
24
Blood brought us both upstairs to a spare room where he kept enough first aid supplies and medical equipment to service a U.S. Army triage unit. The room was even equipped with a stainless steel bed, steel counters, and wall-mounted cabinets that contained all sorts of medicines and emergency medical necessities.
Mounted to the ceiling was an honest-to-goodness surgical lamp. I couldn’t even begin to imagine all the wounds Blood had patched up here from sketchy characters, both good and bad, who’d rather not have to go to an honest-to-goodness hospital. When it came to the underworld that Blood lived and thrived in, anonymity was always the best course of action.
At my insistence, Blood took care of Virginia’s finger first. Throughout the process of cleaning it with soap, water, and alcohol, she didn’t once wince at the pain. Just looking at the badly swelled, blue-purple finger made my back teeth ache. I guess I never took much notice of it when she was fucking me back at the hotel. But then, I wasn’t really concentrating on her hands. Virginia might have been a beauty and dangerously alluring as all hell, but she was also tough as steel.
When it was my turn to be patched up, I removed my leather coat and T-shirt. I sat on the table and awaited the inevitable. When Blood cleaned the first wound on my left shoulder, I instinctually flinched and issued an “Ouch!”
The big man took a step back, a bloodied piece of alcohol-soaked gauze in his big hand.
“You didn’t just actually say ouch, Moon,” he said. “Not even Jobzy would say ouch.”
Of course, he was reminding me of my bespectacled and diminutive private investigator next door neighbor, Steve Jobz.
“That’s because he’d be drunk,” I said. “Speaking of which…”
“Don’t worry,” Blood said, as he pulled the wrapping off a fresh butterfly bandage, “I have a Jameson with your name on it downstairs. Just count your blessings you don’t need stitches. I ain’t got enough Novocain to kill the pain. Forgot to make a stop at the dental supply store with all them colorful leaves falling all over my front lawn.”
He applied the butterfly bandage which, thank God, didn’t hurt a bit.
“If I had to, I could apply my own stiches,” I lied.
Both Virginia and Blood burst out laughing at that one. It told me to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the time it took Blood to fix me up. Minutes later, we were down inside his big kitchen, seated at the long, marble-topped counter under the warm lamp light that came from expensive, ceiling-mounted fixtures, a clear drinking glass containing a couple of fingers of Jameson Irish Whiskey for me, and for Virginia, a vodka martini, dirty.
Blood’s kitchen would have made even some of the world’s top chefs jealous. His stove was powered with natural gas. It also housed six burners instead of the usual four. The stone was packaged in stainless steel panels as was his oversized refrigerator/freezer. The floors were granite and so were the countertops. The cabinets were expensive glass and wood.
Behind us was positioned a long glass table that could easily accommodate a twelve- person sit-down dinner. To my right-hand side was a wine fridge and beside that a shelf that contained maybe two dozen reds stored horizontally and that, taken collectively, must have cost more than my loft space down on the port. The place was like something you might see in the Hollywood Hills. When it came to the interior of Blood’s home, Arbor Hill might have been a million miles away.
I drank some whiskey. The alcohol soothed and warmed my throat and, more importantly, soothed my nerves which, by then, needed some serious comforting. Blood poured himself some of the dirty martini from the steel shaker. Before he drank a sip, he clinked glasses with Virginia. She smiled and together, while they locked eyes, drank from their respective long-stemmed glasses.
Maybe it was me, but I couldn’t help but think Blood was impressed with Virginia as much as she seemed impressed with him. I also got the feeling that if I weren’t presently the third wheel, he might already have her up in his bed. That was the power Virginia Gamble had. Her allure. It was as much a physical thing as it was an emotional pull. I guess you could call her a modern day Mata Hari. Only, as far as I could tell anyway, she wasn’t much of a spy. And despite what she did with the boys at the private Catholic school, you just couldn’t help but like her. I’m sorry, but it was the damned plain truth.
Blood set his drink down and went to the fridge where he pulled out a Tupperware container. He also pulled one of the copper pans from off a ceiling-mounted rack that hung over the counter. He set the pan on the stove, turned on the burner, and added some nuclear green, obviously imported, virgin olive oil to the pan. When a sizzling sound came from the pan and the kitchen began to take on the good smell of olive oil, he added what was already prepared in the Tupperware.
“Hope you don’t mind Italian,” Blood said. “Nothing special. Just a fresh spaghetti semplici.”
“Sounds divine,” Virginia said while sipping from her drink.
“Moon,” Blood said while stirring the spaghetti, “grab a bottle of Valpolicella from the rack if you don’t mind and open it.”
Blood was one of those guys that when he asked you to jump you immediately said, How high? That in mind, I immediately went to the rack, pulled out a bottle here and a bottle there until I found a Valpolicella. I looked at the date.
“It’s a 2011,” I said. “Is that the one you want?”
I wasn’t much of a wine man, preferring beer and whiskey myself. But I knew that the bottle had to cost upwards of a grand. Or, that was what my gut told me anyway.
“Perfecto,” Blood said. Then, looking at me over his shoulder while he cooked. “You confident you can open that without breaking the cork? Cause if you break the cork on that four-figure wine, I got a bullet with your name on it.”
A cold shiver shot down my spine.
“I’d be happy to do the honors, Blood,” Virginia said, coming to my rescue.
I handed her the bottle, more than glad to be free of the responsibility. Grabbing a wine opener from a drawer under the counter, she opened the bottle like a pro and poured three glasses, setting them out to breathe for a bit. Or so were her exact words.
“Would you mind setting out three plates, Virginia?” Blood kindly inquired.
“Not at all,” she said.
For the first time in the very short time I’d known her, Virginia Gamble seemed to be as happy as a clam. It was an amazing thing to witness. A girl on the run for crimes that were her own fault, and she was acting like not-a-care-in-the-world, happy homemaker.
She went about neatly creating three place settings on the counter as if her husband hadn’t committed suicide that morning, as if one of the boys who was her lover hadn’t been assassinated in cold blood right outside of his private school, and as if the long-time principal of that school hadn’t blown his brains out either. She didn’t even act as though she’d been tortured, drugged, and had her fingernail yanked out of her index finger.
It all seemed very strange and, well, pretty fucked up to me if you want to know the honest truth. What I couldn’t figure out is if this was par for the course for her, or if deep down inside she was weeping bucketloads but just didn’t want to deal with all those pent-up emotions quite yet. I mean, here was a woman who faced prison if convicted in a court of law, and she was about to enjoy an early supper of reheated spaghetti and expensive red wine. I mean, who the hell has an appetite at a time like this?
Maybe the problem was me. Maybe it was me who was looking for logic where there was none. How many bad guys and gals had I met in my life who could kill someone in cold blood in the morning, and hungrily order a double cheeseburger with fries for lunch? Too many to count. I drank the rest of my whiskey and helped myself to another couple of fingers.
“You go through that shit too fast, Moon,” Blood said. “You empty it, you buy me another one.”
“Why you picking on me, Blood?” I said. “You know I’m good for it.”
He shot me a very rare grin. For certain, Blood was a one-of-a-kind man, and not a day went by that I didn’t thank the lucky stars he was my friend and not my enemy.
We ate our dinner and drank the bottle of wine. I had to admit, the Valpolicella turned out to be one hell of a vintage. By then it was getting dark out which was something Blood suggested we wait for. “The cover of darkness,” he called it. I couldn’t have agreed more.
Miller had already texted me, It’s time, Moon. You waited long enough. You got to bring her in. I’m not leaving the station until you do.
We’re working on it, I texted back. Blood thinks it’s better if we wait until night.
Remember, use the back entrance, Miller wrote back. Not a lot of press back there.
Copy, I said and stored my phone in my leather coat pocket.
But here’s what I knew for sure, and I’m sure Blood knew it too: if I waited too long, Miller was going to start feeling the pressure from the DA. He’d have no choice but to come after Virginia himself and what a media spectacle that would cause. Not to mention it would invite all sorts of creeps and weirdos who’d love to get a close and up-front look at the gorgeous black widow. It might also force a shooting war with Solimonca and his men, depending on where they and their weaponry were planted around the city.
Virginia Gamble was my responsibility. Full stop. I’d been hired to look after her and when necessary, bring her in when it was relatively safe to do so, and damn it, that’s the way things were going to go.
We were back to standing in the living room while Blood went to retrieve a vehicle. Virginia was back to wearing that dour look on her face. She was also still wearing the black T-shirt that read Writer., along with a pair of jeans and sandals. Now that night had fallen, there was a distinct chill in the air.
“Do you want a sweatshirt or something, Virginia?” I asked. “I’m sure Blood has an extra one hanging around. It’s not summer out there anymore.”
She shook her head, her mood now having turned sour. “Let’s just go, Moonlight. I wanna get this over with.”
A horn honked outside the door. We both looked into one another’s eyes. For a split second, I fought the urge to kiss her and hold her. It would more than likely be my last chance to do it for a very long time. Maybe forever.
She put her hand on the doorknob and was about to twist it open.
“Hey, Virginia,” I said.
Her hand still on the knob, she turned to me. “What is it?”
I went to her, wrapped my arms around her, kissed her gently on the mouth.
“I know what you did with the boys was wrong,” I said, “in the eyes of God and the law. But I don’t know if what you did with the men in your neighborhood and at the country club was the right thing. You’re all adults after all. So who the hell am I to judge? I’ve done some horrible things myself. Killed people.”
“Whoever you killed probably deserved to die,” she said.
I nodded.
“Like those gangbangers,” I said. “The world is a better place without them. I also almost killed myself once. I’m not so sure the world would be a better place without me, but it was a cowardly move.”
She grinned sadly and gently placed her hand on my cheek.
“You’re a good soul, Moonlight,” she said. “Better than most. And God knows I’ve known a lot of men. But any woman with a heart can tell you’re hurting inside and that you’ve been hurting for a long, long time.” She slipped her hand off my face. I feared I would never feel her warmth again. “I wish I could make the pain go away for you. I truly do. But then, I can’t make my own pain go away, so how in the world could I ever help anyone else?”
So that was it then. Deep down inside, Virginia Gamble was in a lot of pain. It explained a lot. I felt myself tearing up. Something that didn’t happen a whole hell of a lot with me. The horn honked again.
“We better go,” she said, opening the door onto the cold night.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s time.”
I felt a sudden chill run up my spine. A big part of me felt like Virginia Gamble, the teacher, was a dead woman walking.
“Let’s hope the good Lord is watching out for you,” I said, softly.
It was all I could manage to say without losing my shit.
25
Blood had secured us a black SUV. It was a Chevy Suburban with tinted windows, just like the ones the Solimonca drug operation used. For all I knew, somehow Blood managed to steal one of their rides. As we approached the SUV, he got out, came around the back of the vehicle and opened up the hatch. Leaning inside, he appeared to be lifting the bed, as if it had a secret compartment.
