Dark Moon

Description

Set in Portland, Oregon, 1965. Mike befriends an eccentric veteran with a drinking problem, whose estranged wife has been sleeping with hoodlums and racketeers. One night the man shows up at Mike’s office asking for a ride to the US side of the Canadian border. On the way the man discloses his wife had been murdered and he was being framed. Expecting a nice quiet life and a new start with love interest Molly Bennett, Mike is shaken by the history of crime and corruption still going on in the Rose City. Mike agrees to find the woman’s killer, but the more he follows her trail the more suspects are in the picture, with too few clues. The Police Chief enlists Mike to infiltrate a famous whorehouse poker game to look into connections to the murder between the Teamsters, Big Jim Elkins, and other local hoodlums. Rick decides to put on his professor speech and infiltrate the house a day earlier than Mike. When Rick doesn’t return in twenty-four hours, Mike heads in the Victorian red light house of infamous Madam Little Rusty to find himself inside up against seven armed men, including three in police uniforms. In this episode Mike is tempted by two seductive roommates, one who attacks him sexually at gunpoint. Historical fiction based on Phil Stanford’s Portland Confidential (2004) by WestWinds Press.