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 instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
Feeling a little miffed at Boggs’ dismissal, I decided to go on my own fact-finding mission.
Of course, it depended a lot on whether the Cossatino’s still hung out at the same bar, and whether I’d get a foot in the door.
I was going to talk to Nadia, or at least try to.
The Lantern Inn was about as far from the image the name threw up, it was more a place where respectable people wouldn’t be caught dead in.
And, as I recall, a few had. Seemingly respectable people anyway.
It was the place to go if you were looking for three things, not necessarily all at once, trouble, girls, and drugs. Soggy, a friend of Boggs and I, had always looked older than his age and was able to get into places like the Lantern Inn, mainly to buy us beer, and we would go down to the beach and drink it before going home.
When I found a spot to keep an eye on the place and assess whether it was safe or not to go in, now I was old enough, I saw old man Gattle, Soggy’s foster father stagger out, on his way home. It brought back memories of Joel, Soggy’s real name.
Soggy got his name because he was always falling in the water, whether it was a pool or the ocean, and one day, after too many beers, he fell in and didn’t come back up. Boggs and I almost finished up in jail for that, since we were with him, but there was no way we could rescue him as it was in a spot where there was often a rip, and he had been carried away before we could get to him.
And, the body was never recovered. I thought, at the time, he may have jumped in, because his life with foster parents was no fairy tale, and he had suffered. Of course, those foster parents were friends with the Benderby’s so they were never held to account.
It would be easy to lie in wait in a dark alley and simply hit him over the head with a four by two, but I doubt it would make me feel any better.
I watched him stagger and fall several times before I looked back at the Inn. In days past, the patrons often spilled out onto the sidewalk where there used to be tables and chairs. Now, it was just the Inn, and it didn’t look like many people were there.
Had it changed from a den of iniquity to something more respectable?
A large truck, an F350 by the look of it, stopped outside the front entrance, the passenger door opened and what looked like Nadia, or another Amazonian woman, got out. She spoke to the driver, slammed the door, and the truck left.
The light over the door shone on her face, yes, it was a woman, and yes, it was Nadia. By herself? Was that Vince who dropped her off, or Willy, her younger brother, and why didn’t they join her?
I guess I was not going to get any answers from where I was sitting.
Time to make my first foray into the place my mother always told me never to step foot in.
I wanted to be somewhere else, away from everything and everyone.
Work, family, decisions, and pressure, all came together at once, to such an extent that, finally, I just couldn’t find a reason to get out of bed.
I looked up at the ceiling, then around the loft, a space I had to fight for, and could, at first, barely afford. Then, it symbolized my success, the first of many.
Now?
If I was to think long and hard about where I was right now, I wouldn’t want to think long and hard about it.
Last night lingered in my mind. The girl I thought was the one, who broke up with me, at least not by text, but in person. It was not me, she said, but she was not ready for a serious commitment. Neither was I, but I think I wasn’t the one for her.
Work had taken precedence, as it always did, despite the constant advice from both friends and family that I should draw a line in the sand before it was too late, I didn’t listen.
The cell phone on the side table erupted with a song that Anne had put on there some time back, a reminder of something I’d lost.
Work.
I ignored it, suppressing the temptation to throw it against the wall in the hope that breaking it would somehow provide some relief.
Then I counted down the seconds to when it would ring again. Arty, my business partner, and truly a man with no life other than work, was persistent.
Sixty seconds passed.
That awful song!
I picked it up and answered, “What?”
“Where are you? Tell me you’re just running late.” No mistaking the panic in his tone. Nothing unusual. He was capable of doing it himself, just chose not to. Not today.
“Get it done, and don’t call me again until it’s settled.”
I disconnected the call and switched the phone off.
I rolled over hoping the perspective would change but it was still the same space, except for one minor detail, a painting my mother did a few years back of the house by the lake we had grown up in.
It was, and still is a sleepy little town few people visited, and the young couldn’t wait to get out of, like my brother and I. My sister, she had no big-city dreams, married the bit next door, and lived nearby.
I hadn’t seen the house, or her, since my mother’s funeral eight months before, and was always promising to go but never found the time.
I guess now was the perfect time to go home, and try to make some changes, before it was too late.
…
There were several ways of getting to Alpenville, tucked away on a small Cove, off an estuary, not far from the border, a picturesque setting with mountains on one side and the water on the other.
The first, by ferry, buy that had timing limitations, and I had to get to the ferry berth first. The second, by road, but it was an unnecessarily long and convoluted drive. The third was by floatplane, where I could go to the airport and catch a plane.
I had only done that once when an old friend of my father ran the service, a long while back. He’d obviously sold it, and the new people had turned it into a glossy tourist brochure.
It was expedient, and I knew the flight in over the water would be a sight to behold, which clinched the deal. It would also take the least amount of time.
I turned my phone back on, and it beeped constantly with missed messages. I ignored them and called the airline and lucky for me there was a seat available. But I had just on an hour to get to the airport.
Of course, everything was conspiring against me, as if fate didn’t want me to leave the city, but by a quirk of fate, I walked through the terminal office door five minutes before departure.
The girl behind the counter smiled. “Just in time,” she said, handing me a ticket and boarding pass.
She pointed to the plane, and I could see the pilot waiting. When I was about twenty yards from the plane, I recognized the pilot, just as she recognized me. Lucy Benn. Granddaughter of my father’s friend, who, it seemed, followed in her grandfather, and father’s footsteps.
“As I live and breathe, Alpenville’s prodigal son. Returning in disgrace, are we?”
Lucy had been a girlfriend, we had been engaged, I left promising to return. Promises not honored. That she would hate me was understandable. We had not parted on the best of terms, and this was the first time I’d seen her since.
“It’s nice to see you too Lucy.”
She simply shook her head, took my backpack and put it in a compartment upfront, then opened the side door to let me climb in. I would be sitting next to her the whole way, which could be uncomfortable. She got in the other side. Sorted put the seatbelts, then handed me headphones.
“Put them on. If there’s trouble, I’ll let you know.”
She went through the pre-flight checks and got clearance from the tower, and we were off.
It didn’t surprise.me.she was a pilot, though back before I left home, she had always said she was going to fly real planes. At twelve she had already been proficient at flying the small plane her father owned and operated.
She had taken me up in it once and it had been both terrifying and exhilarating.
A very few had a poker face.
Hers overall suggested contempt.
“Did you ever get to fly big planes,” I asked, picking a moment when she was distracted, looking out the side window.
She turned back. “Did you find what you were looking for in the big city?”
Answering a question with a question, it was her way of evasion she used to use when she didn’t want to answer.
“No. It might please you to know that when I woke up this morning, I realized that I have no idea what I’m doing anymore. My first thought was to come home but given your depth of feeling and the fact I can’t cry on my mother’s shoulder, I guess I made a terrible mistake.”
It was a sad story, but true. I hadn’t thought for one moment I might not be welcome, except by my sister, Suzanne, who didn’t care what anyone else thought.
She said nothing, which was probably better she didn’t.
A few minutes passed before she said, “Yes. Had to go through hoops simply because I was a girl. Showed them. Got to fly A380s, slightly bigger than this, married a pilot, the basted cheated on me, so I came home and stuck to what I know, flying these planes. They don’t let you down.”
So maybe we would not have spent the rest of our lives together like we had promised each other at graduation.
“I guess we both have our unresolved issues.”
We did.
The conversation ended there, and for the rest of the flight, there was silence, except when she checked in with the various flight controllers. I may also have nodded off for a whole venture when I was jolted away, we had just landed on the water and headed towards the pontoon.
I could see Suzanne and Cecile, her daughter, waiting on the pontoon.
As soon as I was off the plane she came over and gave me a hug.
“It’s good to see you, but you’re not going to believe what’s happened. Dad’s just been taken to the hospital, and they don’t think he’s going to last much longer.”
With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.
That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.
He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.
I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.
Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.
Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.
At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.
A yellow car stopped inches from me.
It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.
Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.
My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.
At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.
At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.
At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.
Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.
Now my imagination was playing tricks.
It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.
In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.
I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.
In a day of going over old ground and making it new again, I have revisited Zoe’s residence in Paris at the time John called, and found it empty, except for some kid who was all ‘get lost or suffer the consequences.’
Who is he? We flesh that story out, and how it relates to Zoe and those early days in the story.
Similarly, I’m not happy still with how Worthington discovers Zoe, and this is going to need some more work, and definitely a rewrite.
In fact, I might have to revisit his whole appearance in the story and make it a little less bombastic and a little more subdued seething anger.
The whole Marseilles episode is good, it’s just the end and this discovery of who is behind Zoe’s abduction that needs a little work. This is where we sow the enigmatic sees of Romanov and his purpose for wanting Zoe if it is not revenge like it is assumed.
Similarly, that whole thing with the Russian Minister and Anton needs a lot more work because there appears to be a connection between him and Romanov, but there’s not. This is just Olga leaning on her connections to get a result.
Then Zoe takes off to find Romanov, or is it those seeking revenge, it’s not quite clear, and leaves John to contemplate his future. Perhaps a piece here between them that sets the tone for the relationship over the coming months would be good, and the trigger that sets John off on a quest to find her.
His excuses at the moment are wishy-washy at best.
Phew!!! Never knew self-criticism could be so harsh!
…
Today’s writing, with Zoe languishing in a dungeon waiting for a white knight, 0 words, for a total of 8,871.
This is what we saw driving along the Coquihalla Highway in Canada, a rather infamous stretch of road featured on the Discovery Channel, and yes, we saw a number of cars and trucks off the side of the road, and not in a good way
The road was iced over in place, and driving was difficult, but on the plus side the scenery was spectacular, and it was hard not to be distracted when driving.
But, inspiration for a story? It might go something like this:
…
Arty was adamant that he knew the best where man in the business.
That might gave been true if he was in the middle of the city where there were endless tests and turns that could be used to lost chasing police vehicles.
But that didn’t apply to the open road, and one that was think with ice and snow, even if it had recently been cleared.
But that wasn’t as bad as the fact that we had got free of the city, lost the pursuing cars, changed vehicles, and got away free.
All he had to fo was follow the road.
Except Arty had a temper, and getting stuck behind an old van going ever so slowly on the road, caused him to first blast them with horn, then start doing dangerous accelations up behind them, and then attempt to overtake on a bend in the road.
That might not have been so bad if there had not been an oncoming car, but there was.
Even that might not have been so bad if the car had not been a police vehicle.
But the real kicker: Arty lost control of the car and we went sailing off the edge of the road into a ravine, landing on soft ice which after a minute started cracking and then gave way.
The last place I wanted to be was to be sinking into a freezing cold river, but there we were, all frantically trying to get out.
Fortunately, I did, but not before I was soaking wet, and almost frozen. The rest didn’t make it.
This is a story inspired by a visit to an old castle in Italy. It was, of course, written while traveling on a plane, though I’m not sure if it was from Calgary to Toronto, or New York to Vancouver.
But, there’s more to come. Those were long flights…
And sadly when I read what I’d written, off the plane and in the cold hard light of dawn, there were problems, which now in the second draft, should provide the proper start.
Another fifty or so feet along, I stopped at an overhead grill. The metal was showing on the tunnel side, but on the other, I could see bushes.
I think I knew where we were. This was where the road crossed a small bridge and headed towards the castle entrance. It was on the northeastern side of the old battlements, and going straight under the road would take us to the eastern wall.
Whether we could get out of the castle there remained to be seen.
I took a step and saw Jack stop and turn around to look back the way we had come. A moment later a beam of light came from the break in the roof of the tunnel. Perhaps the man had decided there might not be ghosts in the hole.
I heard the man’s voice travel up the tunnel. “Looks like a cavern of something.”
That something he might guess to be a tunnel.
We had to go.
I moved quickly in the opposite direction, into the dark, the sound of more rocks falling from the roof following us.
Another hundred feet or so we reached a wall, a dead end to the tunnel. It looked to me that it had been bricked in the recent past because it consisted of house bricks, not cobble stones.
The surface was wet, and there was the sound of dripping nearby.
Jack sat on the floor. Nowhere to go, for him it was time to rest.
We couldn’t go back.
I pulled out a knife and poked it into the mortar, and the blade disappeared when I pushed it. The mortar was soft.
I pushed hard on the wall midway up, and it moved. I decided it might be wiser to kick at the wall, making it easier if it collapsed.
It created a hole about a foot round. Further kicking made it bigger so that I could stoop down and climb through. Jack went first, and I followed.
It came out into a clearing surrounded by trees. Through the branches, I could see the forest on the other side of a paddock.
Jack once again stopped.
Voices.
Jackerby and one of his men.
“I’m sure there used to be a drainage tunnel somewhere here. Those men got into the tunnel yet?”
“Working on making a hole so they can jump down. No long now.”
“Go back and help them. I’ll keep an eye out here in case they find the exit.”
I heard the other man leave.
A minute passed, then two. Then Jackerby said, “I know you’re there Sam. I’m alone out here, and I’m on your side.”
I have a stab at improving this starting piece every now and then, a project that started about a year or so ago, and I find myself rewriting the start over and over because I’m not satisfied with the characterization.
It’s not so much the storyline, as it is in trying to create sympathy for the character, and not find him as dull as ditchwater. He’s improving with age. As writers, we tend to create colourful characters and shy away from those who are dull and boring, because after all, as a reader, you want to become something or someone who is far from ordinary. Well, Graham is starting out ordinary, but he will be anything but by the time I write those words ‘The End’.
I promise.
I am the master of my own destiny.
My father had drummed that into me, as well as my older brother and younger sister, over and over, until it became a mantra.
For them.
I could not say I didn’t have the same advantages afforded to them, afforded to me. I did.
But somewhere lost in the translation, someone forgot to tell me that it was only advice, not an order, and mistaking it for the latter, I struck out on my own path.
And for the next ten years, it was a long and winding path that led me to this point in time, in a small room that held nothing to tell me where I came from, or who I really was.
My parents were very wealthy with an Upper Westside Apartment in Manhattan and a holiday house in Martha’s Vineyard, my sister had a successful medical career and married a most eligible bachelor, as expected, and my brother, he was a politician.
I’d not seen any of them in at least five years, and they hadn’t called me.
You see, I was the black sheep of the family. I dropped out of college when it all became too much, and drifted. Seasonal labourer, farmhand, factory worker, add job man, and night watchman.
At least now I had a uniform, and a gun, and looked like I’d made something of myself.
It was hard to say why, just before I was about to head out of the factory to end my shift, that those thoughts about them came into my mind. They might be gone, but I guess I would never forget about them. I wondered briefly if any of them thought about me.
It was 3 a.m. and it was like standing on the exact epicentre of the South Pole. I’d just stepped from the factory warehouse into the car park.
The car was covered in snow. The weather was clear now, but I could feel more snow was coming. A white Christmas? That’s all I needed. I hoped I remembered to put the antifreeze in my radiator this time.
As I approached my car, the light went on inside an SUV parked next to my car. The door opened and what looked to be a woman was getting out of the car.
“Graham?”
It was a voice I was familiar with, though I hadn’t heard it for a long time.
I looked again and was shocked to see my ultra-successful sister, Penelope. She was leaning against the front fender, and from what I could see, didn’t look too well.
How on earth did she find me, after all the years that had passed? Perhaps that sparked my un-conciliatory question, “What do you want?”
I could see the surprise and then hurt in her expression. Perhaps I had been a little harsh. Whatever she felt, it passed, and she said, “Help.”
My help? Help with what? I was the last person who could help her, or anyone for that matter, with anything. But curiosity got the better of me. “Why?”
“I think my husband is trying to kill me.”
Then, with that said, she slid down the side of the car, and I could see, in the arc lamps lighting the car park, a trail of blood.
My first thought, she needed the help of a doctor, not a stupid brother, then a second thought, call 911, which I did, and hoped like hell they got here in time.
And, yes, there was a third thought that crossed my mind. Whether or not I would be blamed for this event.
At the end of the first book in the series, Alistair, Zoe the assassin’s handler, was killed.
As far as he was concerned, Zoe had reneged on the contract to kill a target, and for that, she had to be punished, just to let the rest of the team know they could not decide arbitrarily who or who they would not kill.
For her sins, Zoe had been captured and was about to be executed when John, the man who wanted to become her boyfriend, turned up in a luckless and unplanned rescue mission.
But as ad-hoc operations go, that one was very successful. Zoe, though badly injured aided John in a do-or-die escape.
Alistair learned to his chagrin, that a badly injured Zoe and untrained well-meaning friend trumped overconfidence.
Of course, Alistair’s death does not go unnoticed, and his mother, a renowned and very capable ex-KGB agent with connections, wanted to avenge his death. Her influence reaches as far as the upper echelons of the State’s intelligence services, and requests from her would never be ignored.
Such a request for information is made, and so starts the next book in the series.
Revenge.
Of course, nothing to do with Zoe, or John, or their relationship, runs smoothly, and once again in pursuit of the impossible, makes it his mission in life to win over the assassin-on-sabbatical.
But first, he has to find her., and sort through the lies and treachery of his best friend who is also looking for Zoe, but for entirely different reasons.
…
Todays writing, the first three chapters, 2,109 words
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 instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
Feeling a little miffed at Boggs’ dismissal, I decided to go on my own fact-finding mission.
Of course, it depended a lot on whether the Cossatino’s still hung out at the same bar, and whether I’d get a foot in the door.
I was going to talk to Nadia, or at least try to.
The Lantern Inn was about as far from the image the name threw up, it was more a place where respectable people wouldn’t be caught dead in.
And, as I recall, a few had. Seemingly respectable people anyway.
It was the place to go if you were looking for three things, not necessarily all at once, trouble, girls, and drugs. Soggy, a friend of Boggs and I, had always looked older than his age and was able to get into places like the Lantern Inn, mainly to buy us beer, and we would go down to the beach and drink it before going home.
When I found a spot to keep an eye on the place and assess whether it was safe or not to go in, now I was old enough, I saw old man Gattle, Soggy’s foster father stagger out, on his way home. It brought back memories of Joel, Soggy’s real name.
Soggy got his name because he was always falling in the water, whether it was a pool or the ocean, and one day, after too many beers, he fell in and didn’t come back up. Boggs and I almost finished up in jail for that, since we were with him, but there was no way we could rescue him as it was in a spot where there was often a rip, and he had been carried away before we could get to him.
And, the body was never recovered. I thought, at the time, he may have jumped in, because his life with foster parents was no fairy tale, and he had suffered. Of course, those foster parents were friends with the Benderby’s so they were never held to account.
It would be easy to lie in wait in a dark alley and simply hit him over the head with a four by two, but I doubt it would make me feel any better.
I watched him stagger and fall several times before I looked back at the Inn. In days past, the patrons often spilled out onto the sidewalk where there used to be tables and chairs. Now, it was just the Inn, and it didn’t look like many people were there.
Had it changed from a den of iniquity to something more respectable?
A large truck, an F350 by the look of it, stopped outside the front entrance, the passenger door opened and what looked like Nadia, or another Amazonian woman, got out. She spoke to the driver, slammed the door, and the truck left.
The light over the door shone on her face, yes, it was a woman, and yes, it was Nadia. By herself? Was that Vince who dropped her off, or Willy, her younger brother, and why didn’t they join her?
I guess I was not going to get any answers from where I was sitting.
Time to make my first foray into the place my mother always told me never to step foot in.
