On the surface, the relationship between Bill and Barry is an odd one.  I’ve thought about it, and at the moment, there’s some aspects that need to be written to provide background for what follows later.

I think I would like to make Barry one of those people who were built for soldiering, and not for civilian life, and it has to be said, he is a bit of a sloth once he becomes a civilian.

And, yet, under all of that, he’d be the first one in line to help his friends.

I just have to strike that balance so that I don’t make him too unsociable.

So, a little more about them, and Barry in particular.

…

A groan emanated from the table, and Barry moved his head slightly.

I shifted the drink in front of him, and then a hand went out and moved it back.  He lifted his head to look at me, and then lowered it again.

“I thought it was you.” A croak.

“Mate.  Not looking too good this afternoon?”

He groaned again, and then struggled to sit up, trying to smooth his hair back into place, and failing.  He rubbed his face and realized he had a week’s stubble, giving him the look of a deranged sanatorium inmate.

“Someone’s gotta try and get me off the gut rot Ogilvy calls booze.”  He nodded in Ogilvy’s direction, but typically, Ogilvy ignored him.

“You don’t have to drink it.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself.  Only it doesn’t work.”

“Perhaps you should try harder.”

He looked me over, looking for the changes since the last time he saw me, about four months ago.

“Where you been?”

“Hospital.”

“Not surprising.  Work too hard, no fun.”  He looked at the drink on the table, took it in his hand, then holding it up to the light.  Perhaps he thought it was the magic elixir that would fix him.

“Someone shot at me.  I nearly didn’t make it.  One thing it did, though.  Brought back all those memories I’d shut away.  Now I know why I did.”

“Shot at you?  Why?”

“I don’t know.  You should see the other guy.  He’s dead.”

“What other guy?”  He put the drink down, untouched.  He was beginning to look a little more alert.

I had not expected it would make much of a difference telling him about my problems, but it had.

“Take it from the top.”  Then, over towards Ogilvy, “Bring me some coffee.  Black.”

I started, a little hesitantly, not quite sure how much or little I should say.

Ogilvy came over with coffee for him and my orange juice.  He glared at me, then Barry.

“Your account is a little overdue,” Ogilvy said, standing over him.

“It’ll get paid.”

By little, I assumed it was more than Ogilvy was willing to stand.  He was kind, but kindness had its limits.

I pulled out two hundred dollar notes and gave them to him.  “Will this settle it?”

“I don’t want your money.  You should throw him in a detox center.  That would make more sense.”

“It’s only money.  If he wants to drink himself to death, who am I to argue?”

Ogilvy shrugged and took the money.  As he turned to leave, Barry said, “And take the scotch back.  I’ve had enough.”

He looked at Barry with surprise, no, I think it was more shock, but did as he was asked.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ogilvy drink the scotch himself, and another for good measure.

I picked up the story where Aitchison and I were shot in the street and related what I knew from there.  He asked only two questions, who was Jennifer, and what had happened to Ellen.  He’d absorbed the rest, and judging by his reaction, probably not understood any of it.

“You have a friend?  Does Ellen know about this friend?”

“Ellen and I are divorced.  Don’t you remember me telling you several years ago?”

“Has it been that long?”

He’d been like this off and on over the last twenty years.  It had been getting worse in the last few years, his health failing, and, at times, his memory.  I watched him pick up the coffee cup, his hand shaking so badly, he needed to hold it was two.  It took a minute or so before he could drink it, and then, his face was of a child, taking medicine.

He looked over towards the bar.  “More coffee.”  He set the cup down carefully, and then looked back at me.

“What can I do?”

“I need someone to watch my back.  I have the odd feeling I’ve got myself into a situation.  The people I work for, well, I can’t put my finger on it, but they’re probably doing something they shouldn’t.  I have some evidence, and I think they know I’ve got it, and they’ve attacked me, like I said, at least once since I got out of the hospital.”

“You want me to get this Kowalski character and beat it out of him?

I smiled at the thought.  I had no doubt if I asked him, he would do exactly that.

“Not yet.  We have to get a better case against them first.”

“So, just watch your back?”

“For the moment.  And for Jennifer.”

“But you are not sure about her.  I get the impression you think she might be involved in more ways than one.”

“Did I give that impression?”  I had no idea he would pick up on my doubts.  But he was right.  I did.

“Yes.  But it doesn’t matter.  If she is we’ll find out soon enough.”

In the space of five minutes and the arrival of the second cup of coffee, to be followed by a third, his whole manner had changed.  There was still the pained look from the hangover, but the eyes were brighter, and he had a purpose.

“Then you’re in?”

“Might as well.  It’ll be better than the last bodyguard gig I had.  Had to thump the little turd.  Smart arse needed it.”

To be honest, I didn’t expect Barry to take up the challenge.  Perhaps I’d become used to seeing him down and out, and not expecting anything else.  It was the look in his eyes that changed my opinion.  The same look I’d seen all those years ago, in the jungle.

It was another good sign when he asked for an hour to clean up so he could become inconspicuous.  I told him he could take over my place, gave him the key, gave him some money, and then told him where he could find me in an hour.

It was exactly what I needed.  The Barry of old.

…

© Charles Heath 2016-2023

…

What just happened?

…

My turn to put him under the spotlight, for a minute, then two.

“There are no optional questions here, Mr. James.”

No, but some needed careful consideration, like throwing the dead pilot under the bus.

“Roy, the pilot, was adding some hours to his fly time, probably looking for a promotion.”

“So it was not a proper sanctioned operation.”

Looking for a scapegoat higher up the food chain.

“You need the commander’s authority to go up, so it was sanctioned.”

“Then this commander could have ordered the pilot to fly into the no-fly zone.”

My thought too, but I wasn’t going to fuel his suspicions.

“For what reason, after all, it’s not called a no-fly zone just so people can write the words on a map.”

He didn’t reply. I had thought he might tell me he was the one asking the questions.

He let me stew for a few more minutes, then, “You don’t seem to know much about anything Mr. James, whereas we know a lot about you.”

The ‘you’ he was referring to wasn’t just me, but our whole operation and what we were doing, which, of course, I wasn’t privy to. Did we have a spy in our midst?

“One more time, Mr James, can you tell me what the helicopter was doing in the no-fly zone?”

It was accompanied by another of those smiles, all-knowing perhaps, or trying to make me believe he did. But the bottom line was, if he did, he was not going to tell me.

Instead, the smile turned to a scowl. “I do not believe you are as uninformed as you say you are so I suggest most strongly that you give up this appearance of innocence. I shall ask once more Mr. James, and if you are not forthcoming, the matter will be out of my hands. I assure you, you will not like the alternative.”

I was sure I wouldn’t like the alternative.

“The answer sadly will still be the same, so if you must, I’m sure I won’t be able to talk you out of it.”

He simply shook his head and left the room, leaving me to ponder what my fate would be.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

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!

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.

© Charles Heath 2019

Well, it’s been a monumental process to get to the point where I think I can start writing Chapter One.

This, of course, might not be the first chapter, it might finish up somewhere else.

If there was a plan, then this would be chapter one.  In fact, right now, I’m going to sit down and do a plan with as much as I know about where the book is heading.

One, about Bill and his introduction to the reader

Two, a phone call to interrupt the dream

Three, having to go into work – there’s a disaster going on, and he’s the only one who can fix it.

Well, not necessarily others, but this is the nineteen seventies/eighties, and women were still not looked upon or considered as being able to hold the same position as Bill – we’ve certainly come a long way in forty years.

And that, of course, is anther stream in the book, proving that woman, and one in particular is clever and given the recognition she deserves.

I’ve also got to remember that there is no internet, and there are no mobile phones and a lot of other stuff that is now regarded as commonplace and taken for granted.

We had telephone boxes, telephones on desks that connected to a switchboard, dumb terminals connected to mainframes, modems that were bulky and very very slow, and comms ran very differently to those today, and networking was a variety of technologies that mostly don’t exist anymore, like ethernet and token ring, and software like 3Com and Novell.

I know I’m going to forget sometimes because it’s going to be hard not to have the MC pull out his cellphone and call on the spot.

Anyway, here’s the first attempt…

 

A cool breeze blew briskly across meadows of tall grass, giving the impression of the ocean in a storm.  High above, clouds scudded across the sky, occasionally allowing the sun to shine through to bathe the ground in the sunshine, intensifying the richness of the greens and browns.

It was spring.  Trees were displaying new growth, and flowers were starting to show the promise of summery delight.  An occasional light shower of rain added to the delightful aromas, particularly where the grass had recently been mowed.

I was there, too, with my grandmother, the woman who had, for the most part, brought me up at her country residence.  But, as I got older, the dream changed and sometimes there were storm clouds on the horizon, or I was caught in the rain, alone and frightened, or lost in the woods in the dark.

There were other visions like these from my childhood, now a million years away somewhere in a distant past that was hard to remember or say where and when they belonged.  It was a pity some were now based on images stolen from the start of a movie seen on TV late at night as I was trying to get to sleep.  Or that the psychiatrist had said there was some trauma from my early childhood, trying to work its way out.

Like every other morning, these images came to me as I was hovering somewhere between conscious and unconscious, just before the alarm went off.  Then it did, filling the room with a shrill noise that would have woken the dead.

I cursed, and then dragged myself over to the other side of the bed where I’d put the alarm clock, and hit it, killing the shrill sound.  I’d put it there so I would have to wake up to turn it off.  And, worse, I’d forgotten to turn it off the night before because it was, technically, the first day of my holiday.

Not that I really wanted one because since Ellen left, my life consisted of work, work, and more work.  It kept my mind off being alone, and in an empty apartment except for the books, a bed, a table, and two chairs, a desk, and a well-worn lounge chair.  I’d been there for years and still hadn’t bought any new furniture or anything else for that matter.

And the last holiday I’d gone on had been organized by Ellen fifteen years ago in Italy after our two daughters had finished school and graduated almost top of their class.  We’d been happier then, but happiness was fleeting for me, and soon after the rot had set in, and it was the beginning of the end.

I remembered it only too clearly, coming home, opening a letter addressed to her, and finding proof of what I think I’d known all along.  She was having an affair, had been for quite some time.

It should not have been a surprise given what I had put her through over the years, since my discharge from the Army, and the nightmares active service had fueled, but it was and sent me spiraling to a new low.

But that was five years ago.  I came out of the fog a year after that.  Ellen was gone, the girls came to see me from time to time, and all I had left were memories.

I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.  I was on holiday.  No work, no pressure, nothing.  I could go back to my grandmother’s house and visit.  I had been promising myself I’d do that soon, even if it was now a country hotel.  From the advertising it had not changed one bit, the house and grounds intact.

Or I could throw a dart at a map and get on the next plane there, though knowing my ability with a dart, it would be in the middle of the ocean.

I could do almost anything I wanted.

 

It’s not much, just a taste.  But it’s enough for now.  I’ve made a start.  Now, all I have to do is come up with the next 100,000 words or so.

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2020

…

Was that a battle of wits?

…

I think I won the battle of wits, or whatever it was.

A few moments later he sat on the other side, pushing the chair back from the table, and me, as a deliberate act.

Distancing.

Besides adopting the speak when spoken to route, I was also adopting that age old modus operandi of not volunteering anything. If they knew anything they would have to tell me what they knew.

So, to begin with, another round of silence.

Then, after a few more minutes, s thin knowing smile, as if he knew everything I’d do before I did. Perhaps he was a psychology professor.

“What we you doing in a no fly zone?”

Well that answered at least two questions right there. We were where we were not supposed to be, and, as a stab in the dark, knowing how good the pilot was, we had deliberately strayed there.

On orders, or curiosity. No, orders.

Reason, suspected enemy or other activity in a designated area being used as cover. Had the Commander known about this and ordered a discreet incursion.

It felt more like a routine operation.

“I was not the pilot. You’d have to ask him, although that might be difficult now he’s dead.”

“The nature of you pre op briefing, then?”

“There wasn’t one, or if there was, I wasn’t included.”

“That would be a violation of regulations would it not?”

“You’d have to ask the military lawyers. I just make up the numbers, and do as I’m told.” I could add more but don’t volunteer information. Let them dig for it.

“Then why were you on board?”

He asked that question as if it was a surprise to him or someone else.

I think at that moment I realised there might be bigger fish that might get fried from this interview. There was an arrangement in place that if the pilot wanted to go up for extra hours, he had to take someone like me along, for situations like that which had happened.

This had been sanctioned by the Commander, but I don’t think it included heading out to hot spots. If this man was from our side, he might be on a witch hunt.

I looked at him in a new light.

This man was trouble of a different sort.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.

John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.

So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?

That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.

What should have been solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

He suddenly realizes his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.

The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where, in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.

All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.

…

Available on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2Xyh1ow

…

We’ve been given the introduction to who Barry McDougall is, or the man otherwise known as ‘Brainless’, and after three days of trying to get it straight, this is the first rough draft of his start in the story.

…

Barry, whose daring selfless deeds earned him the nickname Brainless because that was the only way to describe the motivation behind them, was one of the regular soldiers, and, for a long time, had been my only true friend.  His was a reputation both friends and foes alike considered awesome.  He’d been in Vietnam, and later just turned up at Davenport’s camp, reporting for duty.

Davenport was more surprised than I was at his arrival, but obviously, after checking his credentials, he was impressed because he let him stay.  And it would be true to say, if he had not, I would not be here now.

So Barry was just the sort of person I needed to help me.

That was the good news.

The bad news was Barry, at the best of times, was either on one of his ‘benders’ using drugs or alcohol, whatever was easier to get at the time, lost to everyone, or locked up in a mental institution, having admitted himself.  He had no interest in participating in life, hadn’t worked in years, and often said, in moments when he was at his lowest, that he did not care if he lived or died.  It had not always been that way, but his demons had all but taken him over, and despite the help, I tried to give him, nothing could shake him out of this lethargy.  He said once he envied me that I could not remember the dark days, and, now those memories had returned, I knew what he meant.

For a long time, I could not understand why he didn’t try harder to help himself, and I guess he humoured me by accepting the jobs I’d found him, and the help I offered.  I owed him a great deal, but that was probably the one honourable thing about him, he never expected, nor wanted, anything in return.

He tried to make a go of being a police officer and lasted several years before he resigned over an incident that didn’t reach the papers.  There was, he said, no place for heroics in modern society.  I hadn’t gotten to the bottom of it, but I heard he shot some thieves at a time when the police were trying to promote a pacifist image.

He tried a few other occupations with an equal lack of success, so now he survived on whatever money I gave him.  He lived on the street, and when he was not there, I knew he could be found in a bar, in one of the more seedier parts of the city, a ubiquitous underground bar called Jackson’s, named after a man who had a salubrious reputation that hovered between load shark and saint, and who was reputed to be buried under the storeroom floor.  The present owner, or what I assumed to be the owner, was a large, gruff, ex-prizefighter, who had the proverbial heart of gold, most of the time, and who took my money and looked after Barry without making it look like he was.

I’d called the bartender in advance, and he said he was in his usual spot, and that it was at the start of the next cycle, having just discharged himself from the hospital after a bout of pneumonia.  It was, he said, getting worse, and taking longer to recover.

It was probably only a matter of time before it took him, so perhaps this time I would have to try harder to convince him to give up his nomadic lifestyle.

When I walked in, the aroma of spilled beer, stale sweat, and vomit, mingled with the industrial-strength carbolic cleaner almost took my breath away.  In the corner, two construction workers were sitting, quietly smoking and drinking large glasses of beer.  In the other, Barry was being held up by the table, an untouched double scotch sitting in front of him.  Sitting at the bar was a woman of indeterminate age, badly made up, and thin to the point of emaciation.  I was not sure what she was drinking, or what it was she was smoking, but I could smell it from the front doorway.

The bartender, Ogilvy, no first name given, was pretending to polish glasses, standing at the end of the bar, looking at the television, and playing some daytime soap.  He didn’t look over when I came in, but I knew he didn’t miss anything.  I saw him flick a glance at Barry, and then shake his head.  I think he cared as much about Barry as I did, but could recognize the sadness within him.  As much as Ogilvy said, which wasn’t much, he too had seen service in Vietnam, and it had affected him too.

I ordered an orange juice, caught glances from the construction workers, and a steely look from the woman, and then went over to Barry’s table and sat down.  Despite the loud scraping noise when I moved the chair, or the creaking as I sat in it, Barry didn’t move.

Whilst the bar had that seedy aroma, Barry was showing the signs of having spent time on the street.  It was one of the disadvantages of having no permanent residence and though there was a shower at the bar which Ogilvy let Barry use from time to time, he obviously hadn’t for a few days.

…

Getting all of this background in shape is hard work, and having toiled long and hard, tomorrow I’ll have a go at getting Barry back.

…

© Charles Heath 2016-2021