Alex Ames - Calendar Moonstone 01 - A Brilliant Plan by Alex Ames

word with you.” The thin man was not smiling, a shark circling its prey. His giant companion was not moving at all. “Did you already meet my associate Billy? Billy Bounce?” Had to be the mean giant’s stage name, no hit man would ever be called Billy Bounce. Without looking at me, Billy nodded once.
    “What do you want? Who are you?”
    “Let us just say that we were hired by a certain party to…   retrieve a lost item.” The thin man had the knack of pausing before the last part of a sentence. He tapped on the wheel with leather-gloved hands to make an understated emphasis. “The party is looking for…   something. We are inclined to believe that it is…   in your possession.”
    “You are wrong,” I said evenly, looking into the thin man’s eyes. “Whatever it is, look elsewhere.”
    “You will reconsider your statement in time, we are sure of that, Miss Moonstone. Time and patience are running out…   quickly.” The thin man leaned back. The interview was over. He threw the car in gear as the window started to slide up. Billy Bounce didn’t look at me; he simply took his left hand into his right, cracked some joints and audibly crunched his teeth over the sound of the Ford motor and the whining window. Or so I imagined. They vanished behind the tinted glass and drove off. When I turned around, I saw Dad standing in the doorway of the House of the Moon, looking after the Ford.
    I walked up the stairs and he stepped aside to let me in the kitchen.
    “Friends of yours?” he inquired simply, walking over to the stove.
    “Not sure. Friends of an old friend, maybe.” I was thinking of my run-in with Thomas Cornelius the night before.
    Dad opened the pot with the wild rice, stirred it to check its consistency and said, “There were bad vibes coming from that car.” He looked me in the eye, anticipating my wise crack. “And I don’t mean bad car maintenance!” Went back to the cooking. He knew me too well to probe any further.
    “I hear you, Man on the Moon.” I kissed Dad’s cheek and got myself an all-natural mint ice tea from the fridge.  

    While Dadster, the giant at the toy stove, tended to the kitchen, I walked out into the wild garden where the rest of the family was making a racket like Super Bowl. Mundy had organized a ‘Battle of the Sexes,’ Keith and Mundy vs. Sunny and Jen.  
    It turned out to be a very nice dinner, Sunny held back on her corporate raids and Dad didn’t mention the cancer of capitalism. It was like a temporary cease-fire, the usual family conflicts suppressed. Don’t mention the war. Mundy told some nice action laden journalistic stories for the kids and Mom was watching us from the wings, enjoying as much as possible the short time with a full family in her home.
    Sunny refilled the kids’ cups with soda. “By the way, I changed my name back to Moonstone,” she declared.
    “Hear, hear.” My Dad had never liked the ‘Highler’ name, never had liked Tom anyway.
    Mom clapped her hand. “Now the sun and the moon are together again, like they should be.” She leaned over to give Sunny a kiss.
    Mundy turned to me. “Callie, what about your day as a policewoman?”
    Jennifer looked up at Mundy and corrected him with the full seriousness of a kid’s absolute knowledge. “There is no such thing as a policewoman. It’s called police officers, now.” Dallas, Texas!
    “We did some interviews. Dull stuff, come to think of it. In my opinion, we got no closer to finding the murderer.”
    “How is Andrew Altward?” Dad was asking.
    “You know him?”
    “Andrew is a regular contributor to our cause,” Dad said. “We sat together on some events. Not lately though, haven’t seen him for a while.”
    “He has a very nice penthouse overlooking North Bay and Coronado.”
    Mom asked. “Did you meet any of his young girlfriends? At some of the social events, he turned up with young things at his side.”
    “No, just the maid.”
    “He got hit very