Free Moonlight Rises (A Dick Moonlight Thriller) by Vincent Zandri

sit in pregnant silence for a minute, until he downs the rest of his booze and I do the same.
    He gets up.
    I go to get up too.
    “Don’t bother,” he says, aiming his eyes at my side and the small blotch of blood that now stains my shirt.
    “That must smart,” he says.
    “Smart never seems to enter into my vocabulary, Clyne. No matter the connotation.”
    “Something like this happens again, you’ll call me, right?”
    “Yup.”
    “And should you happen to locate this, uh, box, you’ll pick up the phone?”
    “Most definitely.”
    “Because you never know what can be in this box . . . What importance or danger lurks inside it. So my advice to you is to stay away from it, should it show up. Simply call me, day or dark of night. I’ll take it from there.”
    “Most definitely, Detective Clyne.” I hold my right hand up, two fingers raised high in Boy Scout salute. Christ, it hurts even to hold my fingers up.
    He stands there, big and sad and lonely and draped in a tan trench coat. The look in his eyes . . . It’s like he’s staring at a corpse waiting to happen. And he is.
    Turning for the door, he lets himself out without thanking me for the drinks or saying goodbye. A true Albany cop if I ever saw one.

CHAPTER 13

    YET ANOTHER NEW SHIRT on, along with a tighter bandage, I’ve got the Dell laptop open on the kitchen island. I’ve switched to beer and an economy-sized Bud tallboy is positioned next to the computer. Easy access. Thank God for wireless internet. Allows me to multi-task.
    Planted on the barstool, I go onto Google, type the name “Peter Czech” into the search engine, press Enter. Not a damn thing comes up. Nothing about him belonging to a professional society of nuclear engineers, nothing regarding high school or college alumni. No Facebook page or Twitter account. As far as the internet and social media are concerned, Czech is anonymous. And considering he works for a facility that deals on a daily basis with classified nuclear information, maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
    I sit back, take a sip of beer.
    Even though the bleeding has stopped, the pain in my side is getting worse. I tap the bandaged wound gently with my fingers. It sends a small shockwave of sting up and down my side.
    Lidocaine officially worn off.
    I get up, find the Advils on the metal shelf mounted above the sink, pour four into my hand. Sitting back down at the counter, I swallow all four not with tap water but with a swig of beer. Pays to live dangerously.
    Next search: Harvey Rose.
    I get the website for The New York State Society for CPAs. Now there’s some excitement. I type “Harvey Rose,” into the site specific search engine. I receive only a single business address that’s located downtown on State Street. Not far from the alley where those three thugs beat the snot out of me. I write the address down on a piece of scrap paper, stuff it into my pocket. Later on after Georgie gets here, I’ll attempt to pay a visit to the Mr. Rose’s office, see if he does in fact look like the man in Czech’s black and white photo, only thirty-plus years older.
    Next item: I type in a search for the online version of the Albany County Hall of Records. When it comes up, I make a site search for “Harvey Rose.” Sure enough, just like Czech said, one Harvey Rose pops up. No information, other than his being listed as “deceased.” Under occupation it says, “Businessman.” No next-of-kin, no cemetery address, no contact information for surviving family, not even a birth or death date.
    I click off the site.
    Final item of business. Maybe there’s nothing noteworthy about Czech on the web, but I can bet my remaining days he’s located in the Google White Pages . And that’s the way it turns out. He lives in a North Albany suburb called Loudonville. Four Orchard Grove, just like he revealed during our first meeting together at my bar. It’s exactly where I will be heading that evening, soon as Georgie