The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 27

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Chasing leads, maybe

“Who’s coming?” snapped Maury.

“Some nice men in white coats, to take you away to a dark and dank hole somewhere in this city where you may tell us what you know, or you might not survive the experience. You got one shot at the easy way, now it looks like it’s going to be the hard way.”

I had to admire her. She had gone all gung-ho on him and, frankly, it was a frightening side to her that you wouldn’t normally see, or even guess that she had.

“This is a big mistake, Jackson. I suggest you call Severin and get this straightened out very quickly.”

“I’m going to call him, eventually. After I find the USB and see what’s on it. What it is that you seem to be so desperate to get to first?”

“That’s a matter of national security.”

“I suspect it’s a matter that involves you and Severin. O’Connell was working for a man called Nobbin. He runs another department, it’s starting to sound like there are wheels within wheels, who’s part in all of this I’m yet to understand.”

“He’s after the USB too?”

“Of course. If it’s evidence against you, and or others conspiring to do God knows what, he probably needs to know so he can put a stop to it. Apparently, since no one has heard of you or your operation, I’ve been transferred to his department.”

“How do you know the information is not about him? It’s not unheard of for an agent to discovered irregularities against his commander.”

“Then let’s hope I find the USB first. And, just out of curiosity, why did you kill O’Connell. Wouldn’t it be a better idea to capture him and make sure he had the USB before you did anything irrational.”

“It wasn’t my idea.”

“That’s what most of the Nazi’s said at Nuremberg.”

There was a knock on her door.

Jan went over and opened it. It was, I thought, the wrong thing to do when we had a man as dangerous as Maury in the room.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, I could say it was the wrong thing to do, but at the time, even I didn’t think Severin would know what was happening to his attach dog.

Apparently, he did.

The door crashed open sending Jan into a fall that saw her head hit by the swinging door. Three men with guns came bursting in, followed by a fourth, Severin.

Severin took in the room with a single sweep, then glared at me. “You need to pick a side, and soon, Jackson.”

One of the other men cut the ties and helped Maury to his feet. He also glared at me as he left with the other two. “You’ll keep,” Maury muttered as he went past, then was gone.

Severin looked at Jan, now a crumpled heap on the floor.

“Don’t play with MI5. They never see the big picture. Maury doesn’t forget, Jackson, so there will be a reckoning later. I suggest you find a way of redeeming yourself in his eyes. Perhaps it would be better if you cut ties with Nobbin and disappeared for a while. This matter is too big for a newbie like you.”

I heard a groan by the door, Jan waking.

“Just keep out of the way, Jackson. And her, if she knows what’s good for her.”

He left, closing the door behind him.

I went over to Jan and checked to see what injuries she had other than to her pride. A gash on the side of the head, with a little blood. It would give her a huge headache though.

“I’ll get a wet towel,” I said, helping her into a sitting position.

She still looked groggy.

“What happened?”

“You answered the door before finding out who was on the other side.”

“Maury?”

“Gone. He must have signaled Severin somehow that he was in trouble, or they were tracking him. Either way, they got here rather quickly to rescue him.”

“My people?”

“Not here yet.”

I left her to find a towel and run water over one end.

When I came back, she was on her phone, having got up off the floor. She still looked quite shaken.

“Yes, sir.” was all I heard of the conversation before she disconnected the call.

“Did you call off the collection team?”

“They weren’t coming. They said apparently I had rung back to say it was a false alarm.”

“And they believed that?”

“Whoever called had my special code, so yes, they did.”

Call finished, she sat down in one of the chairs and pressed the wet part of the towel against her head.

“Next time you might consider looking first before opening the door,” I said, realizing that it was not the advice she would be looking for.

“It’s a mistake I won’t make again, I can assure you,” she said. “but, we haven’t lost him yet.”

“How so?”

“I slipped a tracker onto his clothes, not one he’ll easily recognize or find, and as we speak, he’s being tracked through outer London. We’ll soon know where he’s going, and perhaps second time lucky.”

She was more resourceful than I would normally give anyone credit for.

Now it was a matter of waiting. Would he lead us to the heart of Severin’s operation? Only time would tell.

Writing a book in 365 days – 224

Day 224

The line between them was theoretical and yet was still clearly obvious to anyone with eyes.

…

Jason was a good friend and a practical person. He had gone through school, achieved good academic grades, and got into the schools that he needed to achieve his lifelong ambition.

He never went outside of his comfort zone and didn’t need to. He had a guardian angel and providence on his side. His parents were predictable, his girlfriend was predictable, and his brothers and sisters were predictable.

His life was on the path.

The only thing about him that was not predictable, and the one thing I couldn’t fathom, was why he bothered to have me as a friend.

I was his absolute polar opposite.

…

“You’re wasting your time.”

It was another of those conversations over lunch, usually coffee and a cake in a café near the University, where it was more interesting to see the people who came there than those who turned up in the campus café.

I went there because Beatrice went there. I had run into her, literally on the first day, and she had made an indelible impression on me. Then, it just seemed that our paths crossed, at least once a week, sometimes twice.

“One day.”

He gave me another of those withering stares he usually saved for me when I was particularly obtuse, and I could tell he was formulating an insightful response.

“One day you will be in Uzbekistan, and she will be in Azerbaijan, and never the twain shall meet. You truly just don’t get it, do you?”

“I’m irrepressible, she said so.”

“In that one and only conversation that lasted all of ten seconds. She was being polite.”

I looked over to the table on the other side of the cafe, towards the back, by herself, every now and then looking up, towards the entrance, as if she was expecting someone to arrive. Like just then, a swish to brush the hair out of her eyes, a glance towards the door, a deep breath, then back to her studies.

It didn’t matter if I did or didn’t get it; Richie would never believe me. A year and a bit into the four-year degree cycle, I knew that the closest I would get to her was as far as I was away from her now.

We shared several lecture classes, and I had once almost sat next to her, but she had not noticed I existed. I had tried to speak to her, but something always came up: a phone call, a friend, another place to be.

“Well, I’m looking forward to going to Uzbekistan.”

He shook his head, just as his phone vibrated, an incoming message. He pulled the cell phone out of his bag and looked at it, then sighed. “Michelle is still free for Saturday night, and she is within your sphere. Mary wants to know if you’re back in the real world yet?”

Mary was Richie’s girlfriend, and Michelle was her friend, someone who was just like me, choosing people who would never give them a second look for whatever reason.

Richie knew, though, because he was practical. He had the uncanny knack of picking the partner of those he knew, with such alarming accuracy that it was scary. He hadn’t declared positively that Michelle was my perfect match, but it wouldn’t be long.

Another glance in Beatrice’s direction. I could not see what Richie could see, but perhaps that was because I was ‘blind’ to the reality.

There was a line between us, one that everyone else could see but I could not.

Of course, that didn’t mean that I could hope, one day she would notice me.

…

Everyone had a nemesis, that one person who was put on earth to make your life miserable. All through high school, that nemesis was Jacob. Doors opened when his parents pulled out their chequebook, doors that I could never pass through.

Which, in the end, I was happy about because he was going to a different university, one more prestigious, one that I could never afford. And one I didn’t have to travel to the other side of the country to attend.

But I never gave it a thought that one day, doors would close on him, that money could not make up for the fact that he was not as smart as he thought he was. Not until I saw him arrive one morning a month or so after the second year began.

His excuse? Circumstances dictated that he had to study closer to home. The truth? He had been booted out of his last university, and the one I attended was the only one that would take him.

A few days later, knowing he was looking for me, I went to the cafe and parked myself in the back, not far from where Beatrice usually sat. I could see why she was basically hidden from the front entrance, and she could see everything outside and inside.

And revelling in that thought, I looked up again to see her standing not far from me. It was a look that told me I was sitting in her seat, at her table, and she wasn’t happy.

I shrugged, got up and went to another table, not quite as anonymous, and one where just as I sat, Jacob arrived, saw me, and came straight over.

“I thought I’d find you here. Hiding away among the losers.”

“Doesn’t say much for you then.” He didn’t get the inference.

“I hear you’re struggling.”

I’m not sure how he could know that unless his father was on first-name terms with the Dean.

“I know you flunked out at your last university, and this is your last hope.”

That wiped the smirk off his face. He was going to give me one of his trademark put-downs, but noticed Beatrice instead. He had always considered himself God’s gift to women, and had a manner that reviled most whom he spoke to, but that didn’t mean he readily accepted they could not immediately fall in love with him.

It amused me that his prom date had agreed to go with him, allowed him to get her an expensive dress and accoutrements, and then left him standing at the front entrance waiting for her to never arrive. It was the best day of my life, as bad as that sounds.

“Excuse me,” he muttered as he got up and walked confidently over to her table.

I watched in utter fascination. I could, all of a sudden, see that line that Richie often spoke about.

At first, she didn’t bother to look at him, standing by her table. Waiting. Waiting for what? An invitation to sit? She would never give him, or anyone else, one.

He waited a minute, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other. Then, “Excuse me?”

She took a few seconds before lifting her head, then giving him her trademark death stare. “What did you do?”

He sucked in a breath. Annoyance. “I didn’t do anything. I thought I would introduce myself. Jacob Stawinski. Anything you want, anything you need, I’m your man.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “Yes. There is something I want.”

“Name it?”

“I want you to go away and never come back. Think you could do that for me?”

The expression on his face was priceless. For an egotist like him, that sort of rejection was poison. He didn’t look at her, he didn’t look around, he didn’t know what to do with himself, so he left, quickly, before anyone realised what had happened.

And, of course, in that short amount of time, I saw the truth of Richie’s statement. There was a line, invisible as it was, but as clear as day. That would have been me if I had tried as he had. She was simply here to learn and then go home.

I picked up my phone and dialled Richie’s number. When he answered, I said, “Tell Michelle I’ll be happy to take her to the party.

…

Searching for locations – Port Macquarie – Day 5 – Part 4

Timber town – The Steam Train

The station

It was almost an anticlimax waiting for the train to arrive, and, heralded by several whistles, it did not disappoint.

Whilst not as large as the real commuter railway engines, it didn’t matter. It arrived with three colourful carriages, and everyone was waiting to jump on board.

Just for show, the driver reversed the train through the station, then brought it back slowly so everyone could get a photo moment of the train arriving at the station.

Then, everyone was aboard, and we were off. It was a large circular track that went around the outskirts of the whole Timbertown site.

It was slow in places. The engine was pulling quite a load, and at least once it felt like it was going to stop.

But, no, we made it. Towards the end there was a large trestle bridge.

The train travels over 595 mm tracks for 2.4 km. It also travels over the longest 595 mm gauge trestle bridge in the southern hemisphere.

The locomotive, number 12271, built by John Fowler and Co, a company that found a niche building narrow gauge equipment for the cane fields, was built in 1910 and recently had its 125th birthday.

The locomotive, also known as the Green Hornet, worked most of its life at the Macknade Sugar Mill near Ingham in northern Queensland, before being sold to Timbertown.

It was restored to working order in March 2022.

Having something to say is one thing, saying it is something else

As accomplished as we can be at putting words on paper, what is it that makes it so difficult to sit in a chair with a camera on you, and say words rather than write them?

Er and um seem to crop up a lot in verbal speech.

OK, it was a simple question; “What motivates you to write?”

Damn.

My brain just turned to mush, and the words come out sounding like a drunken sailor after a night out on the town.

The written answer to the question is simple; “The idea that someone will read what I have written, and quite possibly enjoy it; that is motivation enough.”

It highlights the difficulties of the novice author.

Not only are there the constant demands of creating a ‘brand’ and building a ‘following’, there is also the need to market oneself, and the interview is one of the more effective ways of doing this.

If only I can settle the nerves.

I mean, really, it is only my granddaughter who is conducting the interview, and the questions are relatively simple.

The trouble is, I’ve never had to do it before, well, perhaps in an interview for a job, but that is less daunting. That usually sticks to a predefined format.

Here the narrative can go in any direction. There are set questions, but the interviewer, in her inimitable manner, can sometimes slide a question in out of left field.

For instance, “Your character Zoe the assassin, is she based on someone you know, or an amalgam of other characters you’ve read about or seen in movies?”

That was an interesting question, and one that has several answers, but the one most relevant was; “It was the secret alter ego of one of the women I used to work with. I asked her one day if she wasn’t doing what she was, what she would like to do. It fascinated me that other people had the desire to be something more exotic in an alter ego.”

Of course, the next question was about what I wanted to be in an alter ego.

Maybe I’ll tell you next time.

The first case of PI Walthenson – “A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers”

This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

PIWalthJones1

An excerpt from the book:

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.

His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

…

Searching for locations – Port Macquarie – Day 5 – Part 3

The timber mill

This timber mill was typical of the time, the mid to late 1800’s and into the 1900’s. It could be assembled and disassembled quite quickly and moved to where the wood was being felled.

It was run by a single portable steam engine which made it possible to have a mill near where the trees were being felled

The engine drives vertical and horizontal saw blades by a series of belts and driveshafts

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…