Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
Whilst Boggs took the time to get over his assault, I went back to my job at Benderby’s because there was no reason not to. Benderby himself had checked several times on how I was, and I was beginning to think he called just to see my mother.
And the notion of those two together was not painting a pretty picture, knowing who he was. But we were being treated better than we had and that was a good thing, or so my mother said. She too was surprised at Benderby’s interest, but she was not writing anything into it. She had a different perception of him that most others had.
I was careful to avoid Alex, not that it was difficult because he was rarely in the warehouse office, or anywhere on the factory site most days, except for a few hours in the morning, and to close up at night. No one else seemed to miss his presence, but I was a little more suspicious as to what he was doing with the rest of his time, to the extent that once I went looking for him.
The only conclusion I’d come to, now that he had his own map, it had to have something to do with the treasure.
Getting a version of the treasure map to Alex via Nadia had been a logistical nightmare, and constantly fraught with the expectation that Alex might think he was being set up. The fact it was Nadia doing it was not lost on me and I realized later we had played right into her, and her family’s, hands in fitting the ongoing feud between the families. Nor was it lost on me the enthusiasm which she showed in carrying out the plan.
If it wasn’t for the fact both Boggs and I benefited from it, I would have had second thoughts about employing her. And Boggs was right, a girl like that could never like a boy like me. She would always be the province of the likes of Alex Benderby, and I told myself that it was going to be business only from now on.
She set up the meeting with Alex and arranged for me to be nearby to witness the transaction, though what her reason was for that I had no idea and I really didn’t want to be there. For some reason, I didn’t like the idea of Nadia getting close to Alex, but it was necessary, she decided, in order to sell the story.
She had cajoled him into believing firstly his map was the real map mainly because she had used her feminine wiles on Boogs, talking him into showing her the real map, and, then, while he was away for a few minutes, she had copied it.
Then it was a matter of keeping the map a secret because firstly it would ruin the rapport she supposedly had with Boggs should they need him again, and as far as she was aware, Vince thought he also had the real map and which Boggs said was not, and to mess with Vince would immediately make him suspicious about the authenticity of his map and that would be the last thing Alex would want.
It was a treat to see how manipulable Alex was when she was making offers she knew she’d never keep. Or at least not in front of me. I didn’t expect that I meant very much to her and watching her with Alex was much like how she handled me, so I guess we were all manipulable in her hands. She was a Cossatino, and in that regard, no end of trouble.
With Alex handled, she left him with so much promise and so little substance I was surprised he fell for it. But, there again, even in school, Alex wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. I think the notion that he could pull off the treasure hunt might just get the monkey on his back his father had put there many years before.
Then there was Nadia.
Seeing her in action put her in a different light. Whilst those midnight rendezvous at the motel may have given me a sense of false bravado, seeing her with Alex, and playing her games, I had to wonder if my feelings were just an infatuation. Did I like Nadia all that much? I guess I must a little, to be feeling angry when Alex touched her.
I had to remind myself that I could never live in her world, that her first and last instinct would always be to lie and manipulate. She was, after all, a Cossatino, and leopards, as they say, never changed their spots. She might want to escape from her family, but saying it and doing it were two entirely different things,
I doubted her father, no matter how much he liked or hated her, should ever let her go, simply because as a beautiful woman, she could do so much for the family business.
Whether she wanted to or not.
I left once he agreed, and before she did anything with him. Clearly, Alex was expecting them to work as a team, but she had declined on account of her father, who was as mad as a hatter, and might just start killing Benderby’s if he found out she was working with him.
Best to leave well alone and appear to go their separate ways.
Until the treasure was found.
I didn’t hear from Boggs for a week. I’d decided that I was going to leave him alone until he called or sent a text. Boggs and idle time were a bad mix so I knew when I next heard from him, he would have formulated a half-baked grandiose plan for us to go on our treasure hunt.
And I was busy working out how I was going to tell him he had to take a step back and watch and wait till the Benderby’s and the Cossatino’s had launched their campaigns. It wouldn’t take long. Both sons of self-made men, Alex and Vince had a lot to prove to their fathers, and there was no doubt they were going to use the lost treasure as the means of getting back into favor.
That brought a problem to the table, not immediately, but down the road, when neither would be able to find it. Their first port of call would be Boggs, the one who had supplied them with ‘faulty’ maps. It would never be their fault, that they were too stupid to realize they were being played, or, even if it was the right map, still couldn’t follow the instructions.
But even I had that problem. I’d seen quite a few variations with notations, diagrams and cryptic messages. I was not sure how they were going to fare. Perhaps he had been thinking of just that because I received a text message, asking me to come over the next morning.
Investigation of crimes doesn’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get either found or punished.
That was particularly true in my case. The murderer was incredibly careful in not leaving any evidence behind, to the extent that the police could not rule out whether it was a male or a female.
At one stage the police thought I had murdered my own wife though how I could be on a train at the time of the murder was beyond me. I had witnesses and a cast-iron alibi.
The officer in charge was Detective First Grade Gabrielle Walters. She came to me on the day after the murder seeking answers to the usual questions like, when was the last time you saw your wife, did you argue, the neighbors reckon there were heated discussions the day before.
Routine was the word she used.
Her Sargeant was a surly piece of work whose intention was to get answers or, more likely, a confession by any or all means possible. I could sense the raging violence within him. Fortunately, common sense prevailed.
Over the course of the next few weeks, once I’d been cleared of committing the crime, Gabrielle made a point of keeping me informed of the progress.
After three months the updates were more sporadic, and when, for lack of progress, it became a cold case, communication ceased.
But it was not the last I saw of Gabrielle.
The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact she was now gone, and those images lived on in the same nightmare that came to visit me every night when I closed my eyes.
For months I was barely functioning, to the extent I had all but lost my job, and quite a few friends, particularly those who were more attached to Vanessa rather than me.
They didn’t understand how it could affect me so much, and since it had not happened to them, my tart replies of ‘you wouldn’t understand’ were met with equally short retorts. Some questioned my sanity, even, for a time, so did I.
No one, it seemed, could understand what it was like, no one except Gabrielle.
She was by her own admission, damaged goods, having been the victim of a similar incident, a boyfriend who turned out to be an awfully bad boy. Her story varied only in she had been made to witness his execution. Her nightmare, in reliving that moment in time, was how she was still alive and, to this day, had no idea why she’d been spared.
It was a story she told me one night, some months after the investigation had been scaled down. I was still looking for the bottom of a bottle and an emotional mess. Perhaps it struck a resonance with her; she’d been there and managed to come out the other side.
What happened become our secret, a once-only night together that meant a great deal to me, and by mutual agreement, it was not spoken of again. It was as if she knew exactly what was required to set me on the path to recovery.
And it had.
Since then, we saw each about once a month in a cafe. I had been surprised to hear from her again shortly after that eventful night when she called to set it up, ostensibly for her to provide me with any updates on the case, but perhaps we had, after that unspoken night, formed a closer bond than either of us wanted to admit.
We generally talked for hours over wine, then dinner and coffee. It took a while for me to realize that all she had was her work, personal relationships were nigh on impossible in a job that left little or no spare time for anything else.
She’d always said that if I had any questions or problems about the case, or if there was anything that might come to me that might be relevant, even after all this time, all I had to do was call her.
I wondered if this text message was in that category. I was certain it would interest the police and I had no doubt they could trace the message’s origin, but there was that tiny degree of doubt, about whether or not I could trust her to tell me what the message meant.
I reached for the phone then put it back down again. I’d think about it and decide tomorrow.
I had heard that word workaholic twice in the same week and had I listened carefully, I would have realized the people using it were referring to me.
The problem was, I was so focused on work that it was to the exclusion of all else.
Of course, it hadn’t been my choice to get ill, but, sitting in front of the doctor, a man whom I rarely saw because I was rarely ill, I was still trying to come to terms with his explanation.
“You’ve been working too hard, forgetting to eat or sleep, and the toll it has taken has weakened your immune system to the point where that last bout of influenza nearly killed you.”
Yes. There might be some truth to that statement, because for the last three weeks I was told I was hovering between life and death, and, at one stage, there had been grave fears I was not going to make it.
No, it wasn’t COVID 19, like a good many others in the hospital, it was just simply influenza.
“I didn’t think it could happen to me,” I said lamely, now realizing it could, simply because of my own stupidity.
At least it didn’t affect anyone else, well, except perhaps my sister, Eileen, who was devastated to learn I was gravely ill, and had been called with the news I was likely to die. Sitting in the chair beside me, she was still incredibly angry with me.
“He has always been a moronic fool that never listens to anyone. Thinks he’s invincible.” The statement was delivered along with a suitable look of disdain and annoyance.
The doctor transferred his admonishing stare to me. “It’s time you started taking care of yourself. I’ll be sending a report to your company telling them that you have to take two months off work to recover. Going back to work is not an option.”
“But there is so much to do.” I could practically see the pile of folders on my desk waiting for my return.
“Then someone else will have to do it.”
“Don’t worry,” my sister said, “I’ll make sure he does as he’s told.”
…
I had been fiercely independent ever since I left hone when I was just 18. I’d had a bitter argument with my father over working in the family business, a profession I had no interest in and certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing.
It had kept me from going home after returning once, some months later, in an attempt to appease him, but only making matters worse. It had affected my mother more than my sister, but that hadn’t stopped her from trying to resolve our issues.
But it was not to be. About five years later he died of a heart attack, brought on by the same work ethic I’d inherited from him. I came home from the funeral at a bad time, the end of a relationship that I thought was the one, and at a time where heavy drinking and drugs had made me a horrible person.
In the end, my sister sent me home, and, because of my bad behaviour, my mother stopped speaking to me.
Ten years ago, my mother died, Eileen said it was from a broken heart, and it was the first time I’d returned home since my father’s death. Not much had changed, it was still the town that a lot of my generation and since wanted to leave on the belief there was something better out there.
That time, because of my bad behaviour, being inconvenienced by another funeral at a time when I had been working hard towards a promotion, this time Eileen’s daughters sent me away after seeing how much I’d distressed their mother.
I could see now how bad my history was, and it was shameful. Perhaps my first words to all of them would be to apologise, but sadly, it would be too little too late.
Yes, happy families indeed.
Going home was, Eileen said, the best place for my recovery. Away from the rat race, her oft used expression for New York, and back to the tranquillity and peaceful town where I was born, went to school, and lived half my life.
The people were not the same as those indifferent city dwellers who would happily step over your dying body without a care to help or even call for help. She had read the newspapers, seen what happens, people dying all the time, in the streets, of drug overdoses, and at the end of a knife or a gun.
She was surprised I’d lasted so long, given my alienating disposition, all of this homily delivered as I packed a few belongings for the road trip. She was however momentarily distracted by the opulence of the lot apartment, and the fact I owned it. I refused to tell her how much it cost when she asked. Twice.
But it was too remote, too sterile, and not a place to recover. And it needed the ministrations of a good cleaning lady.
No, the best place for me to recover was home and home was where we were going. After the hospital had agreed to send me home, she had made the decision I would be staying with her.
That might have held a great deal of trepidation had her husband still been there, but he wasn’t. In keeping with the Walton family tradition, marriages and relationships didn’t last, and Eileen’s was no exception.
I’d thought Will, the man she’d met at school, known all her life, and who was her soul mate, had been the one, but whatever I and Eileen may have thought, he didn’t agree.
Now, she lived in the old family home, left to both of us after out parents passing, with her two children, twin girls. I’d met them a few times, and though they projected this air of daintiness, they were pure evil.
But I guess that opinion was fuelled by the lack of understanding children or wanting to know. That notion of being a father, at any time in my life, was not something I aspired to. Besides, I was never going to find a suitable woman who would be willing to put up with me, children, or no children.
…
It was a thousand plus mile drive from New York to our hometown in Iowa. My first question had been why she would drive and not get on a plane, but that was tempered by the realisation my sister was not a rich woman.
She had borne the brunt of both our parents passing and having to manage the sale of the business and home. She hadn’t complained, but I could feel the resentment simmering beneath the surface.
I had dumped it all on her, and she was right to be resentful. It was another of my traits, inherited from my father, selfishness.
The first few hours of that drive were in silence. It was not surprising, I had said something stupid, also another thing I was prone to doing. I apologised three times before she would speak to me again.
“You’re going to have to improve your manners. The girls will not put up with your attitude or behaviour, not again.”
The girls. My worst fear was meeting them again after so long. I had no doubt they hated me, and with good reason.
They were now out of the troublesome teens and had found jobs that saw them able to spend more time at home, as well as pursue a career in their chosen fields.
“I’m surprised they agreed to let you bring me home.”
“They are not the same children as they were the last time you were here, what is it, nine, ten years ago. It was an impossible time, and you were not exactly the ideal or understanding uncle, but Itold them you were more like our father and he was a horrid man at best. They were lucky they don’t remember him. I also told them, both times you were here, that you were not yourself then, not the brother I once knew before you got those delusions that made you leave.”
“Delusions?”
“Why would anyone want to leave a beautiful place like our hometown. It has everything.”
“Except high paying jobs and be able to meet lots of diversely different people.”
“We have diversity.”
Yes, there I go again, unable to reign in the small-town resentment factor, even after all the intervening years. It was a chip on the shoulder that would need to be surgically removed, if I was ever going to get past it.
I let another half hour pass before I said, ” I’m sure your daughters are every bit as remarkable as you are, Eileen. You were always going to be a wonderful mother, whereas I don’t think I’d make any sort of father a child would want.”
I could feel rather than see the sideways glance.
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“I have the same genes my father had. I always said I was nothing like him, but if I’ve learned anything over the last 20 years, I’m exactly like him.”
“Then think about that statement. The fact you realise that is just the first step.”
That made two very large assumptions, that I knew how to change, and that I wanted to. Climbing the hill of success had robbed me of a lot of things because to succeed you had to be ruthless. And I had taken it to a whole new level.
Another hour passed, and we stopped for lunch. My phone rang, and as I went to pick it up off my car seat, Eileen got there first. I just managed to see it was the VP of Administration calling, another problem to be resolved.
“I thought I said no phones, computers, means of communicating with work. They know you’re ill and the agreed to give you time off.”
She killed the call, then threw the phone in the first rubbish bin we passed.
“No phone, no calls, no work. You keep answering, they’ll keep calling.”
A shake of the head, a look of disdain. She might yet regret volunteering to rehabilitate me.
…
We stayed overnight it a quaint hotel, it being too far to go the whole thousand plus miles in one day.
It was a wise decision because although I would profess otherwise, I was not very well. It was another wise decision to get a room where she could keep an eye on me, no doubt on the advice of the doctor, who, I suspected, had given her a fuller briefing on my condition that he gave me.
And because I wasn’t well, we delayed leaving. It gave me pause the think of what it was I wanted out of life. It would be truthful to say that until I tried to drag myself out of bed, telling myself that this was just a blip on the radar, I was treating this whole episode too lightly.
Maybe it wasn’t, but I hadn’t quite got the message yet.
When I sat down in the dining room for breakfast, suddenly, a tiredness came over me, and it finally hit home. Maybe what I was doing with my life wasn’t as important as I thought it was.
“You’re looking pale, should I be worried?”
It was about the sixth time she asked, and the concern was genuine. I guess I had to ask myself why after all those years of being a bad brother, she would really care. Maybe she understood the value of family where I didn’t and it was bothering me that after saying I was never going to be like my father, it was exactly who I was.
“Long day yesterday. Longer night. The battle will be not so much getting through this, whatever it is, But changing a lifelong mindset.”
“The first step is always the hardest, they say.”
“Have you met any of the infamous ‘they’?”
“That’s for me to know, and for you to find out.”
…
The rest of the road trip was in silence, except for the odd comment or question, until we reached the outskirts of town, and the memory kicked in.
Some things never changed, but where once I would have said that was exactly why I left the place 20 years ago, it was now what some would say was one of its endearing qualities.
There were mixed feelings, that I’d said more than once, with conviction, that I would have to die before I came back, to why had I waited so long. It was an odd reaction.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” she said.
“Did you swallow a book of idioms?”
“I can read, you know. I went to the same schools as you did.”
And got higher grades and was the smarter of the two of us. Yet she never did anything with it, that was my biggest disappointment with her. Our father had considered her place was at home, that old fashioned 1950s thinking, and whenever he had said it, she snorted in derision and told him to drag himself into the twentieth century.
He didn’t, wouldn’t or couldn’t was a question without answer but she never stopped trying.
“And never stopped interfering in my life.”
“You needed help because you didn’t know what to do. Marjorie was always the one, you know it, and she knew it. It was just you and the desire to leave that screwed everything up.”
I was wondering how long it would take to get to Marjorie. I did think of her, from time to time, but not as the one that got away. That had been on me, not her. But it was not going to go anywhere because she was the prom queen and I was the geek suffering from unrequited love, despite what Eileen thought.
“She was out of my league Eileen. You know as well as I the she and the future NBA draft pick were always going to be together.”
I could see her shaking her head.
“You never thought to ask, did you?”
I did as it happened and had picked a moment when I thought she would be alone, only it wasn’t. Sean’s friends had been waiting and I never made it. I could still remember, in nightmares that beating.
“You do understand what the word humiliation means?”
The house was in the other side of town so I got the tour of main street, and inverting else, what some might call a trip down memory lane. Even outer once family business was still there, exactly as it was before except a new coat of paint and proprietor name. Dougal. He had his own rival business but was never a threat. I guess he was a happy man when Eileen sold it to him.
Then, in the blink of an eye 8 was back home, and it was as if I had never left. The house, the street, everything was as it had been, which if one thought about, was almost impossible. Things do change, constantly. We were, we had to be in a time warp.
She pulled into the driveway, switched off the engine, leaned back in the seat and sighed. “Welcome home, Daniel.”
I closed my eyes and opened them again just in case this was a dream.
It wasn’t.
The front door opened and a tall, lanky young girl who looked unmissable like her mother when she was that age, came out, down the stoop to the car. Eileen got out and the girl hugged her.
It made me feel jealous that she had someone there to greet her in such a fashion. When I got home it was to an empty loft.
The girl looked over at me, now that I’d got out of the car too.
“Hello again.”
There was not a lot of warmth in it, and a look of wariness.
“I’m sorry to cause your family do much inconvenience.” It wasn’t what I should have said, but that’s what came out.
“It’s not. If mom thinks you should be here, then this is where you should be.”
“Your mom was always smarter than me.”
I plucked my overnight bag, as we’ll as Eileen’s suitcase, from the back of the car and shut the trunk. I saw another person come out the door and thought it was the other girl.
As twins I hadn’t been able to tell them apart previously, so I hadn’t used a name. One was Elise, the other Eliza.
The person was not the other twin.
I had gone around to give Eileen her case. It was then I recognised the woman.
“Oh, by the way, your doctor told me I should have a nurse standing by in case you had a relapse, but more to make sure you took your meds. He apparently has the same faith in you I have. None. But I got you the best. You might remember her.
I did. The frenetic increase in my heart rate was testament to that. She had always had that effect on me.
She smiled. “It’s good to see you again Daniel.”
It was the only person I would have expected from a meddlesome sister, even 20 years later.
Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?
For Henry the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself. It takes him to a small village by the sea, s place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.
Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end both acknowledge that something happened the moment they first met.
Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.
A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone. To keep him alive she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.
But can love conquer all?
It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realizes is the love of his life.
It’s a place to go and spot the movie stars, or perhaps their dogs.
It’s a place to go for long walks on idyllic spring or autumn days
It’s a place to go to look at a zoo, though I didn’t realize there was one until I made a wrong turn.
It’s a place to go for a horse and carriage ride, although it does not last that long
It’s a place to go to look at statues, fountains, architecture, and in winter, an ice skating rink
I’m sure there’s a whole lot more there that I don’t know about.
I have to say I’ve only visited in winter, and the first time there was snow, the second, none.
Both times it was cold, but this didn’t seem to deter people.
But…
We decided to go visit another part of the park, this time walking to West 67th Street before crossing Central Park West and into the park where Sheep Meadow is.
Once upon a time sheep did graze on the meadow, but these days it is designated a quiet area inspiring calm and refreshing thoughts, except for a period in the 1960s where there was more than one counter-culture protest, or love in, going on.
And, there’s the sign to say it was Sheep Meadow,
and that’s the meadow behind the sign,
Well, I don’t see any sheep, but of course, that’s not why the meadow is named or should there be any sheep on it. That greenery that can be seen, restoring for the spring, was a very expensive addition to the park.
As a matter of fact, there is nothing was on it, because signs were up to say the meadow was closed for the winter, a new and interesting variation on the ‘Don’t Walk On The Grass’ signs.
I’m sure I could climb the fence, or, maybe not. I’m a bit old to be climbing fences.
So, unable to walk on the grass, we tossed an imaginary coin, should we go towards West 110th Street, or back to West 59th Street.
West 59th Street won.
and, just in case we had any strange ideas about walking on the grass, the fence was there to deter us. Perhaps if we had more determination…
One positive aspect of the park is that you could never get lost, and the tall buildings surrounding the park are nearly always visible through the trees, more so in winter because there is no foliage, maybe less so later in the year.
There is also a lot of very large rocky type hills, or outcrops where people seem to stand on, king of the mountain style, or sit to have a picnic lunch, quickly before it freezes.
Yes, it is cold outside and seems more so in the park.
I wondered briefly if it ever got foggy, then this place would be very spooky, particularly after the sun goes down.
To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.
But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.
That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much idea of where it’s going as the reader does.
It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years. Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?
My private detective, Harry Walthenson
I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mold of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.
But, I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modeled Harry and his office on it. Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.
Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life. I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.
Then there’s the title, like
The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I image back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello
The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister. And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.
But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.
Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brother’s Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then went the way of the others.
Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.
I have high hopes of publishing it in early 2021. It even has a cover.
I waited until her surveillance disappeared from view, then considered what to do next, or whether I’d created a problem for Juliet. I had no doubt she would be informed of my intervention, so it would probably be better for me to chance upon her than the other way around and take it from there.
After watching her sip her coffee and take in the passing tourist traffic for a few minutes, I headed toward her.
And, with the right amount of surprise in my tone, I said, as I reached her and she turned to see who it was, “I recognize you, you’re Juliet, the doctor.”
She seemed genuinely shocked to see me, and immediately cast a glance over to the table where Giuseppe had been sitting, then, not seeing him, frantically looked around to see if he had moved.
“If you’re looking for a creepy-looking guy, I sent him packing. I saw him watching you, so I threatened to get the police onto him. I’m sure I could convince them he was part of a team of kidnappers.”
“You’re joking.”
She sounded horrified, which was either the result of very good acting, or she was in fact horrified that I’d tackle him.
“May I sit?” I was starting to feel a little self-conscious standing in full view of everyone.
“Of course. This is a pleasant and very unexpected surprise.”
I sat. Clearly, she was not going to say why she was really in Venice, but a few harmless questions were in order, just to see how far she would bend the truth.
A waiter came and I ordered black coffee. After he left I threw out the opening gambit. “So, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like Venice?”
Her expression changed to one of bewilderment. “How do you mean?”
“I’ve heard from so many visitors that this place is easy to get lost in, and you appear to be alone. Just over-active curiosity.”
I realized that she might be offended, whether referring to her as a ‘nice girl’ or that she might get lost.
“I could ask the same.” A frown, and brittle tone. Perhaps it was better this way, and she would have to work harder in getting us together, though insulting her, if that was what she thought it was, hadn’t been my intention.
“That’s easy, I’m living here at the present time.”
“Living here?” Brittle turned to astonishment.
“Yes, I have apartments in a few different cities, and I like to keep moving. Venice is my current choice of city.”
“Then you’re not likely to get lost.”
Yes, a little dig, probably deserved. “Not often but I have a few times in the past.” But, back to the interrogation, “here for a visit, on a cruise ship passing through, or with purpose?”
With a subtle look up and down, and a moment’s silence, I had enough time to think about what she was making of my sudden appearance, and how fortunate, or unfortunate, it might be.
Time enough to throw away the bad thoughts, and move on.
“I’m staying in a quaint hotel overlooking the Canal.”
I bit my tongue before I could say ‘I know’.
“It can be a bit busy along there at times, but you’ll be close to a few good restaurants. I can recommend a gondola ride if you get the right man. And if you want to go anywhere, take the Vaporetto, the water taxis are very expensive.”
My coffee arrived, and while I thanked the waitress, she digested the information, and its intent, that I was not going to show her around.
I also took out the phone with the gadgets and put it on the table. A few seconds later it vibrated, and rippling rings showed on the screen, a sigh there was a transmitter nearby. Her phone was not far away.
She saw the blue rings. “That’s an unusual ring tone.”
“Oh, that. Not a ringtone. A friend of mine is paranoid his wife’s tracking him, so he’s got all this stuff on his phone to track the trackers.” I looked around at the others sitting nearby. “Someone’s got a transmitting device nearby.”
“Wouldn’t a normal microphone set it off?”
She was remarkably calm for someone whose phone was setting it off. Had Larry given her a phone and not tell her of its significance. Knowing him, he probably didn’t trust her to report seeing me. And it would be better if she didn’t know, she could react to any accusation just as she was now.
“I asked him that but apparently if the phone is recording data and relaying it, it will set it off.”
She looked around also. There were at least five people nearby on their phones, some even with others sitting at the table. Smartphones literally were conversation killers.
Then she simply shrugged. “Why would you need to know if someone was relaying information?”
Good question. There was no indignation in the question, just curiosity.
“That’s my security chief, he is the sort of man who suspects everyone of something until proven innocent.”
“You need a security chief?” More surprise.
“You never know who’s lurking in the shadows, and I am worth a fair bit, so I can only travel with security. They’re out there, on the perimeter where even I can’t see them.”
“Wasn’t that what you did once, when I first met you?”
“Me? No, At that time I was running a desk and made the mistake of going into the field to follow a hunch. Always in the background, never in the line of fire. Anyway, after that, I quit and moved into software development. My family always had money and I had to do something with it, and, luckily, I backed a winner. Happily married until Violetta died recently, and now, trying to move on. How about you?”
Another chance for her to tell me the truth, or a version of it.
“A doctor until I wasn’t. I didn’t cope well with long shifts and a thankless work environment. I made a few bad choices. This is the new me, past that chapter. I thought I’d lose myself in Europe to celebrate my sobriety, and, here I am.”
My phone beeped twice, the result of an alarm I set earlier, to remind me to call Alfie.
She looked at it, and then at me.
I shrugged. “Business, even when I retired. I have to go, but maybe we’ll run into each other again.”
I stood. “Nice seeing you again.” I gave her no option to join me.
A single event driven by fate, after Ben told his wife Charlotte he would be late home one night, he left early, and by chance discovers his wife having dinner in their favourite restaurant with another man.
A single event where it could be said Ben was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Who was this man? Why was she having dinner with him?
A simple truth to explain the single event was all Ben required. Instead, Charlotte told him a lie.
A single event that forces Ben to question everything he thought he knew about his wife, and the people who are around her.
After a near-death experience and forced retirement into a world he is unfamiliar with, Ben finds himself once again drawn back into that life of lies, violence, and intrigue.
From London to a small village in Tuscany, little by little Ben discovers who the woman he married is, and the real reason why fate had brought them together.
There is nothing worse than, when lying in bed unable to get to sleep, you hear every noise in the house and out, but none worse than a dripping tap.
Its often not because someone forgot to turn the tap off, but a washer is on its last legs.
There are taps for the fallen brave, but aside from the fact that is the name of a piece of music, I think it’s also the title of a film. But taps itself is a bugle call at dusk, and also played at military funerals.
Then there’s that income stream that you can tap into, other than your next-door neighbours power supply.
But what would be far more interesting than to tap into a phone line and listen in? Despite the fact that eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves, you could learn something you didn’t want to know.
Then we can go back to the 1930s and a series of films that starred one of my favourite actors Fred Astaire, who was, of course, a tap dancer, along with Ginger Rogers.
In fact, my middle granddaughter is quite a good tap dancer.
And, lastly, was that a tap on the door, or a tap in the window?
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
Rolf Mayer had always had a dream to travel to other planets, and when he heard that the government was putting together a team of scientists with the express intention of building rockets, he gathered up his few belongings and traveled to Pennemunde to join the group being led by Werner von Braun.
At first, he had been turned away, but a chance meeting with von Braun changed his fortune.
But, when Adolf Hitler came to power, it seemed that quest to reach the other planets became a quest to build a military weapon that would devastate an enemy city. He had expressed his opposition to the project, but that was silenced when some Nazi party officials came from Berlin to give those scientists with reservations an ‘attitude readjustment’.
From then on all of the scientists knew when their allegiances lay and that there would be no time for traveling to the stars, even though, secretly, he drew on the experience and knowledge of the rockets they were building and testing to design his own rocket. One day.
Then, as if only weeks had passed, the war had been declared, and the scientists had to work harder on creating a weapon which, in its first instance became known as the V1 flying bomb. V, of course, stood for vengeance.
Later, when the enemy had bombed Pennemunde out of existence they moved to Nordhausen. This place was different, underground where it could not be bombed, but there was something rather sinister about it. Slave labor, prisoners from a local concentration camp were forced to work there, and the souls that he saw were not fit for work, or for anything else.
At Nordhausen, they worked on the V2 rockets, rockets in the true sense of the word, and it was abhorrent to him that they should be used for wholesale murder rather than their true purpose. A promotion to Haupsturnfuhere in the SS and making him responsible for the horrific crimes being committed against humanity was the last straw.
He had enough information to create his own rocket based on the success of the V2, and it was time to leave, get away from this place before it killed him too. There was only one problem, the real SS was watching, everyone and everything. They trusted no-one, not even their own fellow officers.
Mayer was one of the scientists lucky enough to get a billet to the town nearby. It was quiet enough, but he believed everyone living there knew what was going on, and worse, they knew about the concentration camp and the evil that went on inside. Worse still, he knew everyone was watching everyone else, and reporting back to the SS anything out of the ordinary, including newcomers.
One such man came into the town, dressed as Obersturnfurer with one other SS officer in a car. Everyone knew how impossible it was to get fuel, or if you had a car, a permit to use it except for essential services, or if it was requisitioned.
They were SS, so no one questioned why they were there. But that didn’t mean that whispers of their presence didn’t filter around the town. Just the very mention of the SS gave most people cold shivers.
Mayer heard about the two mysterious visitors when he arrived downstairs where he was lodging.
“They were asking about the people staying here and wanted to see their papers. I think they’re looking for someone, someone from the factory.”
“Nonsense. They’re probably here to see some of their friends up at the camp.”
With that, he dismissed the visitors from his mind and went up to his room. He unlocked the door and went in. A moment later he realized his room had been thoroughly searched, and the mess left as a warning. Had someone told the SS of his discontent. He hadn’t said as much, but attitude and body language would have told a different story.
Then the door closed behind him with a bang, and the moment a hand touched his shoulder he jumped in fright.
There’s been a man behind the door.
“I suggest you do not speak or do anything that might bring attention to us. Am I clear?”
Mayer nodded.
“Good.”
Another man, dressed in the uniform of a SS Standartenfuhrer, stepped out of the shadows in front of him holding a folder, the folder that contained his drawings and specifications for a more advanced V2 rocket,
Condemning evidence of him being a traitor to the Reich unless he could put a different spin on it. He waited to see what the Standartenfuher had to say.
“This is damning evidence of your traitorous behavior. We received information that you were stealing secrets from the Reich? For whom, Mayer? The British or the Americans?”
“I did not steal anything. I work on the plans here in my spare time, away from that place.” He realized the moment he said it, it might not be the best idea to be critical of anything, because it was always taken as a criticism of the Reich itself.
“Are you displeased with your working environment. No one else has raised such issues.”
“No, no,” he added hastily, “it was not what I meant. It’s just difficult to think clearly on problems when we’re under so much pressure.”
The Standartenfuhrer shook his head. “Enough Mayer. You are coming with us to explain yourself.”
“You need to clear this….”
“We don’t need anyone’s permission, Mayer. We walk out of here, into the car, and not a word to anyone. Any trouble I will not hesitate to shoot you. Understand?”
Mayer nodded.
This wasn’t good. Arrested by the SS. There could be only one outcome. It wouldn’t matter what he said, it would be the cells and then the firing squad. He’d heard the rumors.
The other SS officer went first, the Mayer, then the Standartenfuhrer, down the stairs and past the owner of the boarding house. The Standartenfuhrer stopped, and said, “This man’s papers, now.”
The owner stepped back into a room and came out a minute later and handed the Standartenfuhrer the document.
“No one is to be told what happened here. Not unless you want us to come back and arrest your family.”
“Yes sir,” the owner said, very scared.
The proceeded to the car, got in, Mayer in the back with the Standartenfuhrer, and they drove off. Only two people saw the whole event, and because it was by the SS, they were not going to tell anyone.
“Where are we going?” Mayer asked.
“Headquarters. You will be wise to sit, be quiet and say nothing under any circumstances.”
Headquarters was in Berlin, at least that’s where he went to be made an officer of the SS, as a Hauptsturmfuhrer to give him the necessary authority to take charge of certain aspects of the production process of the V2 rockets.
And that included work on improving the guidance system.
But, he noticed they were not going north, but south.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 