The Cinema of My Dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 68

None of it made sense

…

I preferred the version of Martha Rodby that I met the night of the opera. Now I could also understand why Rodby spent so much time at the office.

Yes, I had met her before when I was with Violetta and she was a much more amiable person then, but that was probably because of Violetta. She had that effect on people.

Maybe she was simply angry that Rodby’s work life had impinged on her private life, but that was one of the downsides of being involved with an intelligence agent.

It was a lesson I learned and why I gave it all up for Violetta. I wanted her more than I wanted that other life, that one I once thought was exciting. Perhaps this would be the excuse he needed to retire and have a peaceful rest of his life with her.

Or not.

Rodby was staying at the same hotel I was in, and by the time I arrived back there from Rome, Cecelia and the others were about a half hour away, and Rodby was there to greet his rather dishevelled wife in the lobby.

It was not a tearful reunion.

She had barely spoken on the entire four-hour drive, and any chance of Giulietta striking up a conversation was stopped dead by an icy glare in her direction.

As for myself, I was unimpressed by her attitude, and Rodby for that matter, though the circumstances were quite odd.

I waited an hour before I could no longer hold it in.

“Quite frankly,” I said, “I find it quite astonishing that you were able to hide the fact you had a stepsister from one of the top intelligence officers and research departments in the country. He had me investigated to the point he could tell me I was related to one of the seamen on James Cook’s Endeavour. But you, nothing. How is that possible?”

I gave her one of my icy stares just for good measure.

“He chose not to. I told him if he couldn’t trust me, then it would never work.”

Love trumps common sense. Yes, I could see how that would never be in his playbook.

“I live in a world of lies and deceit. Now your dirty little secret is out, welcome to my world. It’ll never be the same, you know that.”

She didn’t answer. Perhaps she was not used to the rabble talking to her in such a manner.

“Answer one question, did Heidi have a twin?”

She looked at me very strangely. “What?”

“I thought it was a pretty straightforward question.”

“No, she did not.”

“Was she incarcerated with you?”

“No. We were both snatched off the street and separated. I’ve been held by a bunch of thugs since.”

“Were they going to ransom you?”

“No one said anything until yesterday when I was handed a paper and shoved in front of a camera.”

“Did you see any of your captors?”

“No.”

“Would you recognise them later by other means?”

“Maybe.”

“Just one more question. Do you get together with Heidi often?”

“No. I hadn’t seen her for quite a few years, she called me saying she was in London for a few days, we went out, and that’s all I remember till I woke up in a dark room. That’s it.”

The look from Juliet in the back of the car was fascinating.

I had no doubt she was putting two and two together and coming up with anything other than four.

If there was no twin, then the woman who was pretending to be the countess was the countess pretending to be a twin. Convoluted and confusing? Yes. Make any sense, no.

Has she been masquerading as a pretend twin to Dicostini so that she could have an affair, or were they always having an affair, and she was going to … No, don’t go down the rabbit hole. None of it made any sense, and as Martha Rodby said. That’s it. Enough.

An hour after he had taken his wife up to the room and got her settled, Rodby came to see me.

“What the hell happened?”

It was not the polities of tones.

“Take the win.”

“I want to know what happened? One minute I’m getting information that tells me one thing, then next something else entirely.”

“Lies and deceit. It’s the world we live in.”

“Is that what you’re going to run with?”

“It’s all I know. You ask Mrs Rodby for the details. I’m sure she knows a lot more than all of us. Just the fact the Countess was her step-sister should be ample proof that no one is ever going to get to the bottom of this affair. So, like I said, take the win.”

Of course, I could see it in his face, the man who would make the world’s best poker player. Maybe once. He’s known all along about her secret. Had he been hoping it wouldn’t come out?

I shook my head. “Go away, Rodby. I’m done for good this time. I’m going back to Venice, and spending the rest of my days waiting for the canals to clear up.”

“With Juliet?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“You ask her, her story before you do anything else.”

It was all he said.

Searching for locations: A bus tour of Philadelphia, USA

The Philadelphia Bus Tour, what we did see

To start with, we first joined this tour at stop number 6.

We had to find it first and that meant some pedestrian navigation, which took us first to the City Hall, a rather imposing structure, which we found later had a profound effect on Philadelphia sports teams.

According to the map, stop number 6 is Reading Terminal Market, Convention Centre, on 12th street on Filbert. This was where we bought the tickets and boarded the bus that had a rather interesting guide aboard.

His favorite says was “And we’re good to go.”

Soon we would discover that his commentary was more orientated towards a younger audience, not that it bothered us.

Given the time restraints, we had, this was always going to be about looking and learning.

Stop number 7

City hall, Love Park.

This we had seen on our walk from where we left the car at the Free Library, near the Swann Memorial Fountain in Logan Park, the landmark that Rebecca had remembered from her last visit to Philadelphia. Of course, then, it was not quite so frozen.

Love park, of course, was only notable to us in that it had a sculpture in place with the word Love rather stylized. Apart from that, you’d hardly know it as a park

The city hall, well, that was something else, and when we looked at it, before going on the tour, it was a rather magnificent stone edifice.

After, well the guide filled us in, tallest building, highest and largest monument on William Penn, you get the gist. 37 feet tall, when eclipsed, the Philly sports teams all suffered slumps of one kind or another, until the problem was rectified. Interesting story.

Stop number 8

18th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, or Logan Circle

This is the location of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. A place where the Pope decided to give an audience and sent the city into a spin.

The same church has very high windows for the reason in the early days there was a problem with people wanting to throw Molotov cocktails through the windows. A bit hard when they’re so high up.

Benjamin Franklin Parkway, of course, is interesting in itself as an avenue, not only for all of the flags of many nations of those who chose to live in Philadelphia. We found ours, the one for Australia

This was also the stop where we needed to get off once the tour was finished, and time to head to the car, and go home, but that’s another story.

Stop number 10

Is that the stature of the Thinker, made famous, at least for me, from the old Dobie Gillis episodes, of God knows how many years ago?

Or, maybe it’s just the Rodin Museum on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

There’s a whole story to go with that Statue and the fact it is one of many all over the world.

This one was made in France, cast in 1919 in Bronze, and is approximately 200cm x 130 cm by 140cm.

Stop number 11

Eastern State Penitentiary. NW corner of 22nd Street and Fairmont Avenue.

This had a rather interesting story attached to it and had something to do with ghosts, but I wasn’t listening properly to the guide’s monologue.

But, later research shows, the fact it was once the most famous and expensive prison in the world. Many also think it is haunted and is a favorite for visiting paranormal visitors.

Built around 1829, it was the first prison to have separate cells for prisoners. It held, at various times, the likes of Al Capone and Willie Sutt

Stop number 18

The Philadelphia Museum of art, where we stop for a few minutes and look at the steps which were immortalized in the movie Rocky, yes he ran god knows how far to end up on the top of these steps.

Sorry, but I’m not that fit that I would attempt walking up them. The view is just fine from inside the bus. Of course, they might consider cleaning the windows a little so the view was clearer, but because it’s basically Perspex and scratched so that might not be possible.

Stop number 17

Back at Logan Circle, or Square if you prefer, but on the other side, closer to the Franklin Institute. Benjamin Franklin’s name is used a lot in this city.

After that, it’s a blur, the Academy of Music, the University of the Arts, Pennsylvania Hospital, South Street, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the USS Olympia, Penn’s Landing, and past the National Liberty Museum. I’m sure somewhere in that blur was the intention of seeing the Liberty Bell, but I think I heard that it was not on show, and only a replica could be seen.

So much for the getting as an opportunity to see the real liberty bell, crack and all..

We get off and stop number 27, or Number 1, I was not quite sure.

What were we after? The definitive Philly Cheese Steak.

Searching for locations: Washington DC, USA

Washington is a city with bright shiny buildings and endless monuments, each separated by a long walk or a taxi ride if you can find one.

We might have picked the wrong day, shortly after New Year’s Day when the crowds were missing along with everything else. Or, conversely, it was probably the right time to go, when we didn’t have to battle the crowds.

Sunny but very cold, the walking warmed us up.

First stop was the Lincoln Memorial

It was built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

It is located on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument.

The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple and contains a large seated sculpture of Abraham Lincoln and inscriptions of two well-known speeches by Lincoln.

The next stop was the Washington Monument

The Washington Monument is an obelisk on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate George Washington. Construction of the monument began in 1848 and not completed until 1888. It was officially opened October 9, 1888.

We then took a taxi ride to the Jefferson Memorial

This monument is dedicated to Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of the most important of the American Founding Fathers as the main drafter and writer of the Declaration of Independence.

Construction of the building began in 1939 and was completed in 1943.

The bronze statue of Jefferson was added in 1947.

The Cinema of My Dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 67

Rescue, but why?

…

I always had a sneaking suspicion that Benito the solicitor was playing both sides of the fence. He knew the countess was never going to see a Lira, or was it a Euro of the inheritance so he devised another plan.

He of all people would know the countess had a twin so what could be harder, knowing the countess’s movements to have her kidnapped and substitute her with her twin.

He would know of Dicostini’s desire to purchase the estate, so get it in the hands of the fake countess, sell it to Dicostini and make commissions on an exponential number of transactions. When the counties had no further ruse, kill the real one, leave the fake one in place, somewhere preferably a long way away, and relax in the expensive apartment with the expensive wife.

The trouble is foolproof plans are never foolproof when fools are involved. Dicostini was a bad-tempered impatient fool, the fake countess was an impatient and understudied fool who would fool no one who mattered, and fools of kidnappers managed to pick up an extra body.

At least there was a financial payoff waiting there to correct a wrong that shouldn’t have happened, but an opportunity to make a profit. Especially when the rest of the scam went west. This was going to be the only profit he would make, or so she thought.

Roma Termini, track 15, at the peak hour when there would be a lot of foot traffic in the corridor. I got there early with Giulietta, when he called with the details, I told him her attendance was non-negotiable because I had to make sure no one stole the money. I knew it wouldn’t be a deal breaker because just as I arrived, Anthony sent me a balance sheet of Benito’s financial affairs and he was awash with debt.

A young beautiful wife was very, very expensive. Giulietta said she would never be that expensive, but I was not sure why. I said she was not young and beautiful, and she hit me, quite hard. I probably deserved that.

But it was the cue for Benito to make himself known, saying that he was acting as an agent for the real kidnappers because they knew he was the countess’s solicitor and there would be consequences if he didn’t.

There were going to be consequences one way or another.

My first question. “Where is Mrs Rodby so I can verify she is alive and well.”

He was smart. He had a cell phone and a link to a camera where she was sitting on a chair in a cell holding a piece of paper that had today’s date on it. It was like a scene from a bad movie.

“And where is this cell?”

“Nearby. I get the money and get away, and you get the address.”

“No. It doesn’t work like that. I said I needed to see her in person. You take me there, open the door, I give you the money, and then you can leave.”

There were a dozen scenarios I’m sure he worked out that I would try, all of which demanded two-way trust. He was a liar and having dealt with low lives, I’m sure he knew all of the dirty tricks in the book. I didn’t bother countering the next scenario he was offering, the same as the last just with fancier window dressing, I went for the jugular. Giulietta dialled the number of his apartment and Cecelia answered it.

I asked him to look at my feed. It was better than his. It was his wife melting down over the fact she had a silenced gun to her head, and also one of his children. Both were terrified.

“Pick one.”

“What do you mean?” He was starting to get the idea. This exchange was not going to work.

“Pick the first one to die when I count to ten and you haven’t accepted my counteroffer.”

“You haven’t told me your counteroffer.”

“True. We had to get the threats out of the way first. How about you take me to the cell, open the door, take a reasonable payout, I’ll release your family, and you can go away and talk about your failings as a husband and a father.”

He looked at the screen, at me, and then I started counting down to one. He caved at four.

Benito got a hundred thousand Euros for his trouble.

Cecelia told me she didn’t like the idea of threatening his wife and children unless they were thoroughly bad, which Mrs Benito and the children were not.

Giulietta said that if this was the depths I sank to, she didn’t think I was worth knowing, an assessment of her part I could agree with, mainly because of the distress it caused Benito.

It didn’t matter to her he was party to a kidnapping, and by proxy to a murder. I hadn’t read about a suspicious death at the Dicostini house so I wondered if Benito had it sent under the carpet.

Mrs Rodby was argumentative and belligerent when we rescued her, in her mind it was one lot of thugs replacing the other thugs until I got Rodby on the phone and he spoke to her. I was not surprised to discover he was almost in Sorrento.

It didn’t help her demeanour or attitude, so I told her she could find her own way home and left her with a burner phone with Rodby’s number outside the building where she had been locked up for weeks. It was five minutes before my phone rang and she apologised.

I almost didn’t go back.

Searching for locations: Washington DC, USA

Washington is a city with bright shiny buildings and endless monuments, each separated by a long walk or a taxi ride if you can find one.

Sunny but very cold, the walking warmed us up.

First stop was the Lincoln Memorial

It was built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

It is located on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument.

The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple and contains a large seated sculpture of Abraham Lincoln and inscriptions of two well-known speeches by Lincoln.

The next stop was the Washington Monument

We then took a taxi ride to the Jefferson Memorial

This monument is dedicated to Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of the most important of the American Founding Fathers as the main drafter and writer of the Declaration of Independence.

Construction of the building began in 1939 and was completed in 1943.

The bronze statue of Jefferson was added in 1947.

Searching for locations: New York, USA

After arriving latish from Toronto, and perhaps marginally disappointed that while in Toronto, the ice hockey didn’t go our way, we slept in.

Of course, the arrival was not without its own problems. The room we were allocated was on the 22nd floor and was quite smallish. Not a surprise, but we needed space for three, and with the fold-out bed, it was tight but livable.

Except…

We needed the internet to watch the Maple Leafs ice hockey game. We’d arrive just in time to stream it to the tv.

But…

There was no internet. It was everywhere else in the hotel except our floor.

First, I went to the front desk and they directed me to call tech support.

Second, we called tech support and they told us that the 22nd-floor router had failed and would get someone to look at it.

When?

It turns out it didn’t seem to be a priority. Maybe no one else on the floor had complained

Third, I went downstairs and discussed the lack of progress with the night duty manager, expressing disappointment with the lack of progress.

I also asked if they could not provide the full service that I would like a room rate reduction or a privilege in its place as compensation.

He said he would check it himself.

Fourth, after no further progress, we called the front desk to advise there was still no internet. This time we were asked if we wanted a room on another floor, where the internet is working. We accepted the offer.

The end result, a slightly larger, less cramped room, and the ability to watch the last third of the Maple Leaf’s game. I can’t remember if we won.

We all went to bed reasonably happy.

After all, we didn’t have to get up early to go up or down to breakfast because it was not included in the room rate, a bone of contention considering the cost.

I’ll be booking with them directly next time, at a somewhat cheaper rate, a thing I find after using a travel wholesaler to book it for me.

As always every morning while Rosemary gets ready, I go out for a walk and check out where we are.

It seems we are practically in the heart of theaterland New York. Walk one way or the other you arrive at 7th Avenue or Broadway.

Walk uptown and you reach 42nd Street and Times Square, little more than a 10-minute leisurely stroll. On the way down Broadway, you pass a number of theatres, some recognizable, some not.

Times Square is still a huge collection of giant television screens advertising everything from confectionary to TV shows on the cable networks.

A short walk along 42nd street takes you to the Avenue of the Americas and tucked away, The Rockefeller center and its winter ice rink.

A few more steps take you to 5th Avenue and the shops like Saks of Fifth Avenue, shops you could one day hope to afford to buy something.

In the opposite direction, over Broadway and crossing 8th Avenue is an entrance to Central Park. The approach is not far from what is called the Upper West Side, home to the rich and powerful.

Walk one way in the park, which we did in the afternoon, takes you towards the gift shop and back along a labyrinth of laneways to 5th Avenue. It was a cold, but pleasant, stroll looking for the rich and famous, but, discovering, they were not foolish enough to venture out into the cold.

Before going back to the room, we looked for somewhere to have dinner and ended up in Cassidy’s Irish pub. There was a dining room down the back and we were one of the first to arrive for dinner service.

The first surprise, our waitress was from New Zealand.

The second, the quality of the food.

I had a dish called Steak Lyonnaise which was, in plain words, a form of mince steak in an elongated patty. It was cooked rare as I like my steak and was perfect. It came with a baked potato.

As an entree, we had shrimp, which in our part of the world are prawns, and hot chicken wings, the sauce is hot and served on the side.

The beer wasn’t bad either. Overall given atmosphere, service, and food, it’s a nine out of ten.

It was an excellent way to end the day.

The cinema of my dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 66

It’ll never work, Giulietta Moretti

…

I knocked on Juliet’s door and before I could speak, she told me to go away. In my book that was an invitation to go in.

I closed the door behind me. She was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling.

“I thought I told you to go away.” She gave me the go-away look.

I sat in the chair beside the bed. The hotel must have thought someone would want to read in peace in their room, otherwise, I didn’t see the point. “Why is it everywhere I go these days, you’re there.”

“We’ve had this discussion.”

“I haven’t got an answer yet? My problem is that I have a suspicious mind, and generally I can see conspiracies before others. You being here has conspiracy written all over it.”

“I was not responsible for crazies like Larry or that Vittoria singling me out to cause others grief.”

“You’re the wrong place wrong time kind of girl? Or has your brother got himself into another jam?”

“No. He’s safe. And I thank you for getting him out of the mess he was in. That was my fault, and I won’t let it happen again.”

“Then how did you get involved in this mess?”

She rolled sideways to look at me. Perhaps she shouldn’t, I could see the tear tracks. She had been crying, though I’m not sure why.

“A phone call. My real name is Giulietta Moretti, and the woman who asked for me by that name sounded like one who had been ringing a great many of them. I just happen to be in a certain Italian town at a certain age, and she said she had something that might interest me. Call me dumb, but after the life I’ve had, something sounded better than nothing.”

“Changing your name no doubt improves your prospects, like an alias. Is this Giulietta Moretti a doctor also?”

“She could be, with a forged certificate, but I wasn’t going to play that card. I was working with dead people, so I didn’t think it mattered. You can’t kill dead people, Evan.”

“Unless they rise from the dead and try to kill you.”

She looked at me strangely.

“Don’t worry. Different lifetime. I like your real name by the way. It has a lovely ring to it.” And I had no idea why I said that. “Perhaps I should stop calling you Juliet. We digress. Continue.”

“I met her in Milan over coffee and she said if I could find the relative documents, I might be her missing daughter, and if I was, then I might be an heir to a Count’s estate. She said she had once worked in the residence and had a relationship with the Count, and the countess didn’t know about it. He was, she said, very discreet.”

“Of course, he was. You can imagine just how discreet he would be. A house full of pretty servant girls, for him, would be a smorgasbord. You went along with the plan?”

“Of course. I found my birth certificate and some old photos of my mother and I, who looked nothing like the woman who called me, so I took them and then asked her what her game was. When she looked at the photos, she said the woman was a friend of hers who worked at the residence, and that she had given me to her to look after, and being the bad mother she was, basically abandoned me. Well, I told her where she got off and left.

“A week later she turns up again, and tells me I am her daughter, and shows me another birth certificate and photos of her, my mother and me at the residence. It’s possible she was telling the truth, so I decided to run with it. She said that the will was going to be ratified, what is not a few days’ time and that I should wait for her call to come and stake my claim.

“The moment I did that, my life went crazy, and then you turn up and people are shooting at me. I was glad to see you again, though.”

“Is that it?”

“Basically.”

“It’s a good story.”

“It’s a true story.”

“It’s a story with elements of truth woven into another story, the story that lives between the lines. I’ll tell you what I told Francesca out there. I live in a world of lies and deceit, and smoke and mirrors. I was taught by the best not to believe anyone or anything. Or trust anyone. If you want to have any chance of seeing me again, you better be prepared to tell me the whole truth, irrespective of what you think I might think. Hell, you’re the most confusing, irritating, aggravating, person I’ve ever known.”

“That far under your skin, eh?” She smiled.

“You’re still on the top of my list. Don’t push it. You’re going to help me sort out this mess tomorrow and then you and I are going to have this out.”

“What if I say no?”

“Do you have a death wish?”

“Maybe I like dancing with the devil.”

I shook my head and stood.

“It’ll never work, Giulietta Moretti. Never.”