Crimes by Moonlight

Limbo by Steve Brewer

I snapped awake on a cold autopsy table.

A white-haired man with rimless eyeglasses stood over me, a scalpel in his hand, poised to slice my bare chest. I grabbed his wrist before he could break the skin.

The surprise was too much for the old man. The color drained from his face until he was as white as the smock he wore. His wide blue eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed, his arm tearing free from my grasp as he crumpled to the floor.

I sat up and looked around. The room was chilly and close, lit only by one bright lamp that dangled above my aching head. The shiny steel table had a drain built into it. Shudder.

I was naked and, except for the headache, seemed uninjured. The usual chunky, hairy body. “Semper Fi” tattoo on my forearm. Football scar on my knee.

I dropped my legs off the side of the table and my feet reached the cold concrete floor. I bent and checked the old guy’s neck for a pulse, but I could tell at a glance that he was gone. Served him right, the son of bitch. Trying to cut me open-

As I straightened up, a glimmer of light caught my eye, off to the left. I looked over my shoulder, but found nothing. Feeling unsteady, I turned all the way around, searching for the source of the light, but it stayed just past my field of vision.

A washing-up sink stood in the corner. Above it hung a round mirror, and I stepped over the dead guy to reach it. My face looked the same, flat-nosed and square-jawed and dinged from a lifetime of fist-fights. I needed a shave.

A shaft of yellow light beamed from my head, just above my left ear. What the hell? I reached up and let the light play on the palm of my hand. Where was it coming from? Gingerly, I pressed my hand against my scalp, covering the beam, feeling for its source.

That’s when I found the bullet hole.

I nearly joined the dead man on the floor. What the fuck was happening here? No blood, not much pain, but there was no doubt about the hole in my skull. I dipped a fingertip into it. A neat round hole, felt like a.38. When I pulled my finger away, yellow light poured out.

I didn’t like that. Made me feel dizzy, weak. I covered the hole with my hand. Looked in the mirror. Lifted my hand away. Light beamed from the gunshot wound. I covered it again.

“I’m light-headed,” I said to my reflection in the mirror. Neither of us laughed.

Good to hear that my voice still worked. Clearly, I had survived getting shot in the head. The light must be a hallucination or brain damage.

Maybe I was simply dreaming. With my free hand, I slapped my own cheek. I felt the impact, but it didn’t sting, didn’t burn the way it should. I did it again. Nothing changed.

I leaned toward the mirror. I seemed pale, like maybe I’d lost a lot of blood when I got shot in the head.

It dawned on me to check my own pulse. I felt my throat, then my chest. No heartbeat, no familiar thump-thump. Frantic, I took my hand away from my scalp long enough to feel my wrist. Still no pulse.

Jesus Christ. I was dead. Up walking around, feeling okay except for a headache and the weird light beaming out of my skull. But dead.

That explained the autopsy room. I looked at the coroner sprawled on the floor. He’d just been doing his job. No wonder he keeled over when the corpse’s eyes popped open. I wished he were still alive. Maybe he could explain the sunbeam pouring from my head.

I went to a white metal cabinet in the corner and opened the doors. Medical supplies. I pawed through stuff, locating gauze and adhesive tape. Light streamed out of my head while I used both hands to put together a bandage. I slapped the bandage over the hole and pressed the white tape against my bristly hair. The bandage glowed from inside. I stuck more strips of tape over it until no light seeped through. I didn’t know what that internal light was all about, but it seemed important that I not lose it all.

The windowless room was small, old, clearly not part of a hospital. Must be in a little town or a rural area, someplace where the local doc acted as coroner. But how did I get here? Had there been an ambulance? Cops? I couldn’t remember.

One thing was certain: I needed to get the hell out of here. Somebody would come looking for the coroner eventually, and I might get blamed for-

Wait a minute. What could they do to me? I was already dead. A ghost, a zombie, an angel, something. Okay, probably not an angel, not with the life I’d led. But whatever the explanation, nothing worse could happen to me. Right?

Still, I didn’t want to get caught. I didn’t know how long this situation would last. I had things to do.

I searched the room, but couldn’t find my clothes. The cops must’ve taken them as evidence, along with my wallet and my keys and whatever gun I’d been packing. Christ, I was starting from scratch.

A hat and overcoat hung on pegs next to the door. I reached for them, then stopped. It was a knee-length coat, but I couldn’t go around without pants or shoes. It was winter, I remembered that much.

The dead coroner and I were about the same size. He was a little taller, a little leaner, but close enough.

I checked the mirror to make sure my bandage wasn’t leaking light, then went to work, stripping the doctor of his clothes. The checked shirt he wore under his smock fit pretty well. The gray slacks were only a little long. Best of all, the wingtip shoes were my size. His wallet contained forty-seven dollars and a couple of credit cards. I took it-hell, he didn’t need it anymore-and I pocketed his keys. Finally, I lifted the overcoat off the peg. It was an expensive coat, dark brown wool with a nice drape. The felt hat was brown, too, what they used to call a porkpie. I faced the mirror and gave the hat brim a rakish tilt to hide the bandage above my ear. I looked like a gangster in an old movie.

I picked up the scalpel from the floor and put it in my coat pocket. I always feel a little naked without a gun on me, but a blade was better than nothing.

Then I slipped out of the clinic, into the frigid night, with one mission in mind: to find the son of a bitch who killed me.

THE coroner’s keys fit a late-model Buick. After a few blocks, I reached the main road and recognized where I was: a little upstate burg called LaPorte. Picture postcard of a place, with evergreens and little cottages and an icy river snaking through the middle. Patches of snow glowed under the streetlamps.

Gino D’Ambrozio had a clapboard cabin near here, overlooking a small lake. Never could understand why a Brooklyn boy like Gino would love a place as rustic as a summer camp. He and his pals often spent weekends there, playing cards and drinking beer without their wives ragging them.

I must’ve come up here to meet with Gino. No other reason for me to be in LaPorte. I still couldn’t recall what had happened to me, but I remembered the way to Gino’s house. I pointed the Buick north and zoomed out of town.

I was never one of Gino’s boys, though I’d dealt with him off and on over the years. Always freelance, always for decent money. I was never going to be on the inside, not with a name like Mercer. The Guidos only embrace guys whose names end in vowels. But sometimes they need a go-between.

You can’t put competing gangs in the same room without the tension getting to somebody and guns being pulled. The Guidos hate the Ivans and the Jamaicans hate the Puerto Ricans and the fucking Colombians hate everybody. But they need to do business occasionally or discuss territorial issues. Then they need a guy like me-tough, practical, unaffiliated, expendable-to occupy the middle ground and sort shit out.

Nobody owns me, but they all know they can trust me. I never talk to the cops. I keep their secrets. I’m a pro.

I’d been doing some work lately for this fat-ass vodka slurper named Dmitri Godunov. Everybody called him Good-Enough, which was a pretty apt description of his business practices, but his money was green. Had Dmitri sent me up here to see Gino? About what? I intended to find out.

A mile outside of town, I passed the Shady Rest Motor Inn. The concrete-block building formed an L around a potholed parking lot, with the office at the end nearest the road. The green VACANCY sign reflected on the office windows, but inside I could see a doe-eyed woman with dark, wavy hair.

I slowed at a twinge of memory. The woman’s face in close-up. I’d met her before. She’d moved here from the city. Dmitri bought the motel so he and his boys would have a place to stay during summit meetings, thumbing his nose at Gino, and he made her the manager.

She was connected to Dmitri’s gang in some way. Somebody’s sister. I couldn’t remember exactly. I drove on.

I didn’t have any trouble finding the turnoff to Gino’s hideaway. My headlights sliced through the frosted evergreens that grew close to the paved road. The beams reminded me of my gunshot wound. I checked the rearview, but the bandage and the hat were doing the job. No sign of my strange internal light.

Halfway to the lake, the usual black SUV was parked on the shoulder. The driver’s door opened as I approached, and one of Gino’s sentries, a muscle boy named Chuck Graziano, climbed out from behind the wheel. He held up a gloved hand to shield his eyes from my headlights. The other hand was inside his leather coat, going for a shoulder holster.

What the hell, I had a deadly weapon of my own. I was driving it.

I gunned the engine, and the Buick lunged forward. Chuck tried to jump out of the way, but he was too slow. The heavy car knocked him down, and the tires went ka-thump, like I’d gone over a speed bump. I braked and, for good measure, backed over him. Bump-thump. When I could see his flattened form in the headlights, I put the car in park and got out.

The tires had squashed his head, and it wasn’t pretty. No open-casket service for Chuckie. I dipped a hand in his jacket and came out with a heavy Colt.45 with a chrome finish. I checked the magazine, then stuck the flashy gun in my belt. I immediately felt better.

I dragged Chuck into some weeds at the side of the road, then got back in the Buick and drove to the cabin. I killed the headlights as I reached the clearing. A round moon was rising, and its liquid light rippled on the lake.

I sat in the car a few minutes, watching the house. Lights glowed in several windows, but I couldn’t see anybody moving around inside. I got out of the Buick and gently closed the door.

A thick bed of pine needles cushioned my steps. Pistol in hand, I circled the cabin, peeking in windows.

In the living room, four of Gino’s boys sat wreathed in cigar smoke, deep in concentration over their poker hands. Gino wasn’t among them. I figured I’d find him in his “study,” a small bedroom where he went to be alone. He liked to sit behind his secondhand desk, poring over his papers and counting his money.

I checked all the other windows first, then poked my head up outside of the study’s single window. Gino’s back was to me, but there was no mistaking the meaty neck or the black pompadour. Gino had the tall, thick mane of a televangelist, hair of biblical proportions.

The back door was locked, but I used the blade of the scalpel to slip the latch. I crossed the kitchen to the central hallway. The boys in the poker game roared with laughter, and I used the noise as cover as I tiptoed past their open door. I froze, listening, but they kept laughing over their cards. Idiots.

I stepped inside Gino’s study and shut the door behind me. He looked up, annoyed at the interruption, but when he saw it was me, his fleshy face went slack and his mouth gaped.

“What’s the matter, Gino? You act like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“You, you-”

“I’m what? Dead?”

He looked past my shoulder, like he’d remembered the boys in the other room. Before he could shout, I showed him the shiny gun.

“The cops said you were DOA-”

“Somebody got it wrong, Gino. I’m still kicking. And I want to know who shot me.”

“You don’t know?”

“Was it you?”

Gino arched a thick eyebrow. “You think I had you shot?”

I shrugged.

“If we’d bumped you, Mercer, you wouldn’t be walking around. My guys might fuck up some things, but they’re good at that.”

“I was in LaPorte to see you-”

“Our business was done. Nobody was more surprised than me when I got a call from Dmitri’s motel, telling me you’d bought the farm.”

“I was shot at the motel?”

Gino looked me over again, hunting for bullet holes. I still wore the doctor’s hat, so he couldn’t see the bandage.

“You don’t remember?”

I waggled the gun at him impatiently.

“Yeah, yeah, it was at the motel. That right there oughta prove I had nothing to do with it. If I wanted to get rid of you, I woulda put you at the bottom of that lake.”

What he said made sense. The Guidos don’t leave bodies for autopsies. They dump them in lakes or bury them in concrete. They’ve had lots of practice.

“Dmitri sent me to see you,” I said.

“That’s right. Some of our boys had gotten crosswise. He sent you to smooth things over.”

“And we made them smooth?”

“Far as I was concerned. You were supposed to talk to Dmitri, make sure we had a deal.”

A flash of memory: Dmitri leaning toward me across a table, sputtering about one of his boys who’d been killed in a fight. What was the name? Alexei. Just a kid.

“What about Alexei?” I asked Gino.

“What about him? He was a punk. He messed with Chuck at that night-club Dmitri owns on Coney Island. Chuck was within his rights-”

“We covered all this.”

“That’s right. You getting your memory back?”

“I remember enough.”

Gino’s eyes settled on the.45 in my hand.

“Speaking of Chuck,” he said, “isn’t that his gun?”

“That’s right.”

“So where is he?”

“He had a traffic accident. Unless you want to join him, you’d better sit quiet until I’m gone.”

“Thought you knew better than to make threats.”

“I got nothing to lose.”

I reached behind me for the doorknob. Soon as the door cracked open, I could hear the boys arguing over their cards. Clueless.

I met Gino’s eyes. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me.”

“Who would believe me?”

I eased into the hallway and closed the door behind me. Then I slipped out of the house, quiet as a ghost.

WHEN I pulled into the parking lot of the Shady Rest Motor Inn, the office looked empty. A few rooms down, one door was blocked by an X of yellow crime-scene tape. I parked in front and sat in the Buick, staring at the door. I didn’t remember staying in the room, but this was bound to be the place.

I got out of the car, ripped the tape away, and tried the doorknob. The door swung open. I felt uneasy as I reached inside and flicked on the lights.

The bed was mussed, and every surface was dusted with fingerprint powder. But what captured my attention was the large red-brown stain on the tan carpet, near the foot of the bed. Blood. My blood.

There’d been a lot of it. I carefully circled the stain, measuring it with my eyes. I must’ve bled out right here, before the ambulance arrived, before anyone tried to save me.

The wavy-haired manager appeared at the open door. She wore jeans and a lumberjack shirt, and she spoke with a strong Russian accent: “What do you think you’re doing?”

I looked up at her from under the brim of my hat. When our eyes met, she went pale. She whispered, “Nyet.” Then she fainted dead away.

Shit. I kept having that effect on people.

Careful not to step on the bloodstain, I went to the door and checked the parking lot. No sign of anyone except for the young Russian woman who lay in a heap at my feet. I got my arms under her and lifted her up.

She felt light and loose, as if she had no bones. I carried her to the bed and gently set her down. I brushed her hair away from her face. She had creamy skin, high Slavic cheekbones, and full lips. I felt drawn to her. I wanted to kiss those lips.

Her eyelids fluttered, and I backed away. Gave her a chance to look at me without going into another swoon. I closed the door in case she started screaming.

She stared at the ceiling for a second, then stiffened all over as she realized where she was. Her eyes narrowed when she saw me.

“You,” she said.

A memory sparked. Her in this same bed, naked under the sheets, smiling up at me. A name flashed in my mind. Irina. Her name was Irina.

How had we ended up in bed together? What had we meant to each other? Did she know why I was in LaPorte, what I did for a living? Did she know who the hell killed me?

I didn’t get to ask her. Cars roared up outside, screeching to a stop on the asphalt. Doors slammed. Aw, hell.

I went to the window and peeked between the heavy curtains. Gino was out there with four of his boys, crouching behind a Cadillac and the hood of a black SUV. The neon light made their faces a sickly green. Two were standard-issue goombahs, but I recognized the other two: Gino’s lifelong chum Frankie and a steroid case named Vinnie, brother of the late Chuck Graziano. Guess they found Chuck’s body and came hunting for me. That would explain all the guns.

“Get in the bathtub,” I told Irina as I pulled the.45 from my belt.

Once she was out of sight, I threw open the door and stepped into the cold night air.

“What’s up, Gino?”

“Thought we’d find you here, Mercer,” Gino shouted from behind the SUV. “This time, you’ll stay dead.”

I didn’t wait for them to start shooting. I lifted Chuck’s.45 and blasted away. One bullet clipped Gino’s shoulder and sent him spinning. Another caught Frankie in the forehead, and his skull exploded.

Bullets whined past me. Vinnie had some kind of automatic rifle, sounded like applause as it stitched a line of holes across the front of the building. A couple of bullets hit me in the chest and slammed me against the doorjamb, but it didn’t hurt at all.

I shot Vinnie in the throat, and he forgot all about his machine gun, too busy grabbing at his collar and hunting for air. One of the goombahs shrieked as he fell backward, blood spurting from his chest.

The last guy shot me again, a punch in the gut, but then he stopped, gaping at me. Bright pencils of light jutted from the bullet holes in my shirt.

The shooter freaked. He tried to run away, but I took careful aim and nailed him between the shoulder blades. He pitched forward onto the pavement.

My ears rang. Gun smoke stank up the air. As I turned to go back inside, I heard a groan from the other side of the cars.

I stalked around the vehicles and found Gino on the pavement, squirming and whimpering. I stopped right in front of him, the coroner’s wingtips an inch from his nose. Gino rolled over and looked up at my bright quills of light.

“What the fu-”

I shot him in the eye.

It was the last bullet in the.45, and I tossed the gun aside as I hurried to the motel room. I needed to plug these holes. I felt weaker by the second.

Irina stood framed in the bathroom doorway, shaking with fear.

“It’s over,” I said. “They’re all dead.”

She stared at the light streaming from my chest.

“What is that?”

“No time to explain,” I wheezed. “I need bandages-”

Dizziness overwhelmed me, and I dropped to my knees rather than fall on my face. No pain, but light poured out of the holes in my torso. I covered two of them with my hands, but it still felt as if I were slipping away. I looked up at Irina, who hadn’t moved.

“Help me.”

Her face twisted into a scowl, and she spat on the floor.

“Like you helped my brother?”

She pronounced it “brudder,” and for a second I didn’t know what she meant. Her brother?

“They left Alexei bleeding on the sidewalk,” she said. “His life draining away. But did you care? No, to you it was just business.”

Alexei. The kid Chuck killed at Coney Island.

I remembered now, her telling me her brother’s sad story. She’d wanted vengeance against the Italians. She wanted Dmitri to declare war. But I hadn’t come here for that-

“Now,” she said, “you’ve made them pay.”

I wilted. Why hadn’t I seen it sooner? Someone had been in my motel room when I was shot. Someone I trusted. I’d turned my back on her, which I never would’ve done with the Guidos or the Ivans, and she popped me behind the ear with a.38. Probably my own damn gun. Then she coolly watched me bleed to death before calling the cops.

Just like she was doing now.

I kneeled next to the bloodstain, trying to hold my light inside, but it spilled everywhere. The yellow light filled the motel room, blinding me.

I fell forward onto the same spot where I’d died once before. Right at her feet. But all I could see was light.