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

brought to my bedside in the Albany Medical Center—an event for which I have no recollection.
    Go figure.
    To make matters worse, my longtime girlfriend Lola is begging me not to take Czech’s job, like she too knows something I don’t. Like she knows more than she’s letting on.
    Have I truly seen her with another man standing beside my deathbed only two days ago? If I believe Georgie, than what I witnessed could very well be an elaborate dream. But I’m not so sure it’s a dream. Lola is acting way too strange, too secretive. Like she’s indeed conducting an affair behind my back.
    There’s something else gnawing at my brain too. Maybe I have no grounds on which to base my assumption. Or maybe I’m just plain crazy. A head-case with a small piece of .22 caliber bullet inside his brain. But my built-in shit detector is sounding off again and I somehow can’t help but believe that Lola and Peter Czech know one another. And if that’s the case then the Lola I’ve known all this time isn’t the woman she appears to be. It also means that Czech isn’t the helpless handicapped client I’ve perceived him to be either. It means I’m being duped and have died once already in the process.

CHAPTER 16

    THE OLD PATHOLOGIST SHOWS up to my place at eight-thirty.
    Time enough for us to down a couple more pain-killing beers while we discuss his little research project regarding contract births. We sit at my kitchen counter while Georgie tells me that back in late ‘70s, it’s becoming a trend for women especially, quote “liberated women” unquote, to enter into contracts in which they deliver a perfectly healthy baby for another couple who for one reason or another, cannot have one. Maybe they’re infertile, too old, or too gay.
    Whatever the case, the “surrogate parents,” as they come to be called, enter into a legally binding contract with the “host mother” as she’s called, which dictates that immediately upon birth, custody of the child will revert to the surrogates. The child, it is understood, will never see his or her biological mother again. Nor will there be contact. That sad fact alone might explain the one known photograph that exists of baby Czech along with his father and his new Russian parents.
    “The common problem which arises down the road,” Georgie adds, “is that lots of biological mothers can’t resist the temptation . . . hell, the biological need . . . to try and get their kids back. Or at least make contact with them. Same goes for the kids wanting to see their real parents, which could be the case with your client. That is you’re looking for a motivation here, which I assume you are.”
    “You can’t deny hundreds of thousands of years of human genetic makeup,” I suggest. “It’s just not a natural act for a woman to willingly give up a baby she carried for nine months inside her own womb. Her own flesh and blood.”
    “Unless the biological mother was forced into giving up her child against her will.”
    Georgie hits something on the head there.
    “That is, someone didn’t want her having the child,” I say. “Like her husband perhaps. An angry husband or boyfriend.”
    Our minds were working another angle now.
    “Maybe angry because the child wasn’t his to begin with. Or maybe . . . just maybe . . . maybe they just couldn’t afford to have a kid in the first place.”
    I nod, pull the black and white photo back out like maybe staring at it some more will offer more clues.
    “Could be that what we’re witnessing inside this photo, Georgie, is a man who really isn’t Peter’s father at all, but some guy who’s so pissed off at his wife for cheating on him, he enters into a contract with a Russian couple to raise her illegitimate child. His name probably isn’t even Rose.”
    “Cold,” Georgie says. “And entirely fucked up.”
    “Tres cold,” I agree, getting up from the counter to fetch one last cold beer.
    “Richard!” Georgie barks while I’m