Tag: $amwriting

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 25

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

 

Jan hailed a taxi and had it drop us off a block from her building.  It was agreed that we would not just arrive out the front and trust to luck that everything would be fine.

I had a feeling that Nobbin would have come to the same conclusion I had, that it was possible the USB might be in the neighbor’s flat.  I’m sure Josephine hadn’t thought of that possibility.  Severin had, but I suspect he might not know of the cat.

Nor would Nobbin.

We did a circuit of the building before going in.  There were no suspicious cars, nr anyone lurking in the shadows.  If we had surveillance, it was really good, or there was none.  I preferred to think the latter option was right.  After all, neither Nobbin nor Severin knew exactly where I was.

Jan unlicked the front door and we went into the brightly lit foyer.

During the day there was a concierge sitting at the desk.  At night, it was empty.  The building manager couldn’t afford 24-hour security, beyond the bright lights, and camera in each quadrant recording the comings and goings of residents.  I’m not sure how Josephine got in, but I would have like to have the time to go through the old footage to check on O’Connell in the past, and Josephine, if she came through the front door, recently.

I glanced at the monitor, at present on screen saver mode, then followed Jan to the elevator lobby.

She pressed the button to go up, and the doors to the left-hand elevator opened.  We stepped in, she pressed the floor button, the doors closed, and we slowly went up.

It hesitated at the floor, jerked up about an inch or two, then a click signified it was level and the doors opened.

I could see her door from the elevator.  As we got closer, I could see it was open, ajar by about half an inch.  There was no tell-tale strip of light behind the opening so it could mean someone was in her flat searching by torchlight, or there was no one there.

After a minute waiting to see if there was a moving light somewhere in the flat, it remained dark.

Standing behind me, I could see she had pulled a gun out of her handbag and had it in one hand ready to use.  She could have used it any time since we first met, but she hadn’t.  

I pushed the door open slowly, and thankfully it didn’t make a creaking sound.  Wide enough to walk in, I took a few tentative steps into the first room.  There was little light, and my eyes took a while to adjust to the darkness.  

I could feel her going past me, further into the room, and with the gun raised and in two hands to steady the shot.  She took more steps, slowly towards the passage leading to her bedroom, I assumed, as it was a reverse copy of that next door, O’Connell’s.

There was no one in this part of the flat, and she had disappeared up the corridor and into her room.  Nothing there either.

“Clear,” she called out.

I stepped back to close and lock the door.  At the same time, she switched on the main room light and for a second it was almost blinding.

When my sight cleared, I could see the signs of a search, furniture tipped over, books dragged from the shelves, other items tossed on the floor, one of which was a vase, now broken into a number of pieces.

“Looks like they were in a hurry,” she said.

“Or frustrated.”  I could see clear marks of an item that had been thrown against the wall and dented the plasterwork.  The broken shards of the ornament were on the ground beneath the indentation.

I heard her sigh when she saw the broken pieces.

“Not the best way to treat a genuine Wedgewood antique.”

She disappeared into the bedroom again, and I could hear her calling the cat, Tibbles.  Interesting name for a cat.

I didn’t hear it answer back.  It was probably traumatized after the breaking and the smashing of crockery.

I had a quick look in places I thought the cat might hide, but it was not in any of them.  And, oddly enough, no traces of cat hair.  Usually, cats left fur wherever they lay down.  At least one cat I knew did that.  

She came back empty-handed. 

“I think it’s done a runner,” she said.  “He’s not in the usual place he hides, nor under the bed, or under the covers, as he sometimes does, usually when I’m trying to sleep.”

“Well, it was a good idea.  We might have to search outside.  The cat was allowed to go outside?”

“He’d escape, yes, but no.  O’Connell thought if he got out, he’d get run over.  It’s a reasonably busy road outside.”

“Better out there than in here, though.  Open windows?”

She did a quick check, but none were open.

“Did O’Connell ever come in here?”

“Once or twice, but he only dropped in if he was going away to ask if I would look after the cat, or when he came back.  Never further than the front door.”

“Knowing who is was, now, do you think he might have come in and hidden the USB in here?”

“He might, but there isn’t anywhere I could think he could put it.”

“But that doesn’t mean he didn’t.”

Both of us heard the scratching sound at the front door, not the sort made by a cat trying to get in, but by someone using a tool to unlock the door.

Someone was trying to break in.

© Charles Heath 2019-2020

Searching for locations: We’ve just arrived in Beijing International Airport, China

Instead of making a grand entrance, arriving in style and being greeted by important dignitaries, we are slinking in via an airplane, late at night. It’s hardly the entrance I’d envisaged. At 9:56 the plane touches down on the runway.  Outside the plane, it is dark and gloomy and from what I could see, it had been raining.  That could, of course, simply be condensation.

Once on the ground, everyone was frantically gathering together everything from seat pockets and sending pillows and blankets to the floor.  A few were turning their mobile phones back on, and checking for a signal, and, perhaps, looking for messages sent to them during the last 12 hours. Or perhaps they were just suffering from mobile phone deprivation.

It took 10 minutes for the plane to arrive at the gate. That’s when everyone moves into overdrive, unbuckling belts, some before the seatbelt sign goes off, and are first out of their seats and into the overhead lockers.  Most are not taking care that their luggage may have moved, but fortunately, no bags fall out onto someone’s head. The flight had been relatively turbulent free.

When as many people and bags have squeezed into that impossibly small aisle space, we wait for the door to open, and then the privileged few business and first-class passengers to depart before we can begin to leave. As we are somewhere near the middle of the plane, our wait will not be as long as it usually is.  This time we avoided being at the back of the plane.  Perhaps that privilege awaits us on the return trip.

Once off the plane, it is a matter of following the signs, some of which are not as clear as they could be.  It’s why it took another 30 odd minutes to get through immigration, but that was not necessarily without a few hiccups along the way. We got sidetracked at the fingerprint machines, which seemed to have a problem if your fingers were not straight, not in the center of the glass, and then if it was generally cranky, which ours were, continue to tell you to try again, and again, and again, and again…That took 10 to 15 minutes before we joined an incredibly long queue of other arrivals,

A glance at the time, and suddenly it’s nearly an hour from the moment we left the plane.

And…

That’s when we got to the immigration officer, and it became apparent we were going to have to do the fingerprints yet again.  Fortunately this time, it didn’t take as long.  Once that done, we collected our bags, cleared customs by putting our bags through a huge x-ray machine, and it was off to find our tour guide.


We found several tour guides with their trip-a-deal flags waiting for us to come out of the arrivals hall.  It wasn’t a difficult process in the end.  We were in the blue group.  Other people we had met on the plane were in the red group or the yellow group.  The tour guide found, or as it turned out she found us, it was simply a matter of waiting for the rest of the group, of which there were eventually 28.Gathered together we were told we would be taking the bags to one place and then ourselves to the bus in another.  A glance in the direction of the bus park, there were a lot of busses.

Here’s a thought, imagine being told your bus is the white one with blue writing on the side.

Yes, yours is, and 25 others because all of the tourist coaches are the same.  An early reminder, so that you do not get lost, or, God forbid, get on the wrong bus, for the three days in Beijing, is to get the last five numbers of the bus registration plate and commit them to memory.  It’s important.  Failing that, the guide’s name is in the front passenger window.

Also, don’t be alarmed if your baggage goes in one direction, and you go in another. In a rather peculiar set up the bags are taken to the hotel by what the guide called the baggage porter.  It is an opportunity to see how baggage handlers treat your luggage; much better than the airlines it appears.


That said, if you’re staying at the Beijing Friendship Hotel, be prepared for a long drive from the airport.  It took us nearly an hour, and bear in mind that it was very late on a Sunday night.

Climbing out of the bus after what seemed a convoluted drive through a park with buildings, we arrive at the building that will be our hotel for the next three days.  From the outside, it looks quite good, and once inside the foyer, that first impression is good.  Lots of space, marble, and glass.  If you are not already exhausted by the time you arrive, the next task is to get your room key, find your bags, get to your room, and try to get to be ready the next morning at a reasonable hour.

Sorry, that boat has sailed.

We were lucky, we were told, that our plane arrived on time, and we still arrived at the hotel at 12:52.  Imagine if the incoming plane is late.

This was taken the following morning.  It didn’t look half as bland late at night.

This is the back entrance to Building No 4 but is quite representative of the whole foyer, made completely of marble and glass.  It all looked very impressive under the artificial lights, but not so much in the cold hard light of early morning.

This the foyer of the floor our room was on.  Marble with interesting carpet designs.  Those first impressions of it being a plush hotel were slowly dissipating as we got nearer and nearer to the room.  From the elevator, it was a long, long walk.

So…Did I tell you about the bathroom in our room?

The shower and the toilet both share the same space with no divide and the shower curtain doesn’t reach to the floor.  Water pressure is phenomenal.  Having a shower floods the whole shower plus toilet area so when you go to the toilet you’re basically underwater.

Don’t leave your book or magazine on the floor or it will end up a watery mess.

And the water pressure is so hard that it could cut you in half.  Only a small turn of the tap is required to get that tingling sensation going.

It’s after 1:30 before we finally get to sleep.

As for the bed, well, that’s a whole other story.

There’s more time for TV

Being confined to home because of COVID not only gives me, and a lot of others more time to write, it also enables us to explore a few more leisure options to fill in the time.

After all, we can hardly just keep writing endlessly.

Well, perhaps some of us could.

At first I decided I would do some virtual travelling, you know, go to places I would never go in person, like South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, South America, you know the sort of places I mean, the ones where you can’t get travel insurance cover, or not without mortgaging your home.

That lasted about a day. Seeing the pyramids online was not the same as being there, getting the sand blown in your face, or the tour bus being hijacked, and you spend the next three months in a dark, hot, hell hole while the kidnappers negotiate with governments that refuse to negotiate with terrorists.

So far, I’m not filling in my time very well.

There are weeds to be pulled, lawns to be cut, shrubs and trees to be pruned, painting to be done, you know, all of those chores that you put off until tomorrow, knowing tomorrow will never come.

Don’t ask me to explain that.

So, we’re left with television.

Firstly there was a series called Yellowstone, a western in a modern setting, three series worth. Yes, we watched all of them, no, didn’t like the swearing, or Beth Dutton, Rip was channelling the Duke, and Kevin Kostner, well, his stint in Dances with Wolves stood him in good stead.

Geez though, how much trouble can one ranch attract? Indians, speculators, developers, and an international airport? To be honest, at times it spiralled out of control, but for sheer entertainment value, it was slightly better than I thought it might be. As for Jamie, how could one person be so complicated?

Then there was another series, Away. OK, this was about as far fetched as a premise could get, and the characters, as diverse, and sometimes as obtuse as any I’ve seen thrown together for over eight months. Thank god we didn’t have to suffer eight months of it.

It was good, I guess, with people being the way they are, and I’d expected in the confines of that small space for so long, they might have killed each other off one at a time, like in Lord of the Flies, but no such luck.

My favourite? The Russian. He might have been blind but he was interesting. Just would have liked a few subtitles for us non-Ghana, Chinese, Russian, Indian people.

As for White House Farm, I’m still trying to work out who killed them all, because it definitely wasn’t the daughter. It had to be the indifferent son, or at his behest. Full marks to the dogged detective, who, the last time I saw him, he was a rather improbable Hercules. Funny how your impression of a performance goes back to one you’ve seen him before.

Which is another of our viewing interests, watching a show and trying to work out where we’ve seen the actors before. Some are familiar and seem to be in everything, others rarely seen, or remembered. I hope this is not a sign of their acting talent, or more to the point, lack of it.

At the moment we are in the middle of Young Wallender. Those who may have seen Branagh in the Wallender series would remember this as being the most stultifying of series, filmed bleakly in a bleak country with bleak characters, and bleak crimes.

Fortunately, the Young Wallender series is not as bleak, but it has dark undertones. Some might call this gritty. There are four more to go so it can only get better.

Like jumping off a ten storey building, it’s so far so good…

Searching for locations: The last plane out on Friday night

Everyone knows that if you are on the last flight out on a Friday night the chances of you getting away on time are remote.

Yep.

We’re on the last flight out.

Yep.

There’s no way in hell we’re leaving on time.

But, here’s the thing.

Our incoming plane arrives 6 minutes late, so there’s every hope of getting away on time.

We are, of course, delusional.

Planes can’t fly without a crew, and part of our crew on another incoming plane, which is, yep,
delayed.

In fact, the whole arrivals board is lit up with the word “delayed” for every flight but our incoming plane and one other from Sydney.

And, no, our missing crew members are not on either.

So, it becomes a waiting game and placating messages from the gate crew first to tell us we’re waiting for crew and two more times to tell us we will be boarding soon.

The look on some faces says they’ve been through all this before.

Then, one of the gate staff, communicator in hand goes out to see if the errant crew members are coming. She waits a few minutes but it probably takes longer than that for them to finalize their duties on the incoming plane and get to our gate.

She returns to the gate counter just as an electric car comes towards us from one of the satellites.

Crew found.

Boarding starts.

We leave 35 minutes late. About the average time all the delayed planes were, well, delayed.

Ah, the joys of travelling on a Friday night

Almost nonsensical descriptions we sometimes use without thinking

I found this explanation on the internet which seems to sum up what odd phrases like ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’ mean: ‘a word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effect.’

We, as writers, are constantly reminded that we should not use these in our writing because most people might not understand their use.

But, being that unconventional, never to be told, type, I honestly think that it sometimes adds a degree of whimsy to the story.

I remember some years ago when I working with a Russian chap who’d not been in the country very long, and though he had a reasonable use of English, was not quite up with our figures of speech.

And made me realize when he kept asking me what they meant, just how many I used in everyday conversation.

Most of these figures of speech use descriptions that do not necessarily match the word being described, such as ‘I dance like I have two left feet’.

And that pretty much sums up how good I can dance.  But …

‘Like a bat out of hell’, not sure how this got into the vernacular, but it means to get the hell out of dodge quickly.  Hang on, that’s another saying, American, and the way Dodge city was in western American folklore, if you irritated a gunslinger, then best be on your way, fast.

Otherwise, yes, you guessed it, you were at the end of another saying, you would get a one-way ticket to boot hill.  In other words, the cemetery.

And while I’m digressing, again, Yul Brynner made a trip to boot hill very memorable in The Magnificent Seven.

Then,

‘Like a bull in a china shop’, describes a toddler let loose, not necessarily in a china shop, but I have seen it happen in reality and it wasn’t pretty

‘More front than Myers’, as my mother used to say, but in context, Myers is the Australian version of the English Selfridges or Harrods or Paris Galleries Lafayette.  It refers to the width of street frontage of the stores, and means that someone has the nerve to be so confronting

‘As mad as a hatter’, though not necessarily of the millinery kind, but, well, you can guess, it’s from Alice in Wonderland

‘As nutty as a fruitcake’, provided your fruitcake has nuts in it, we seemed to have coined the phrase nutty, or nuts for people who are a little, or a lot, eccentric

You can see, if you get the references, they are somewhat apt, and, yes, they sometimes creep into my stories.

 

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 24

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

 

My next call was to Severin, also a number on a card.

It rang five times before he answered.  “Yes?”

No name, but I recognized the voice.

“It’s Sam Jackson.”

“You have found the USB?”

“No.  But I did find the flat he was supposedly living in, and it’s a front.  And so clean you could eat off the floor.  Nothing there.  And nothing to indicate where his real residence is.”

“That’s a shame.”

“So is the discovery that you are less than trustworthy.  Explain why I should continue to help.  I assume Maury is your attack dog, so if you’re sending him after me, then you don’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust anyone.”

No hesitation, this was a man to be very careful around.

“That’s fine, you obviously don’t need my help.  And one more thing, if I see Maury again, you won’t.”

I disconnected the call.

“That was brave,” Jan said.

“No.  Just a test to see how desperate they are.  I’ll give it another minute before he calls back.”

It took two minutes.

“Perhaps I didn’t think through the consequences.  Let’s take a step back and reconsider the situation.”

“If you’ve got Maury trying to trace this call, then it’s going to be a series of twenty-second calls.  If I find O’Connell’s second residence or even the USB, and you continue to act in this manner you will be the last to be told.”

I hung up the phone again.  Not enough time to trace the call.

“Are you deliberately trying to piss him off?”

“Do you think it’s working?”

“Why?”

“Angry people make mistakes.  They made one huge mistake of killing O’Connell before they knew where the USB was.  I’m sure they were hoping he would have it on him.  He didn’t.”

My phone rang again.

“You forget I know where you live.”

Bold move.

“Where I used to live.  It was getting a little cramped anyway.  Call your attack dog off and give me some room to do my job.  This phone is in the bin at the end of this call, so don’t bother tracing it.  I’ve got your number.  Just hope I decide to call you again.”

Call terminated, and a minute later sim removed and tossed down a drain.

“Do you want to call anyone?” I asked.

“Not yet.  I’ve got nothing to report.”

“Your people might have an investigation going that might involve cyber currency, and O’Connell’s name might pop up.  After all, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you were living next door”

She was trying to keep a neutral expression, but it didn’t work.  She was next door for a reason, and it didn’t include looking after his cat.  In fact, I was beginning to think that cat belonged to the building, and just stayed with whoever fed it.

“Despite what you might think, it was a coincidence, because after I moved in, I did a few background checks and his was too squeaky clean.

“Meaning?”

Of course, squeaky clean meant only one possibility, he had a cover identity made, and it only went back so far.  Depending on the job, the background could be months old, or a year at the most.

“He was working undercover and didn’t exist three years ago.  So the thing is, maybe he wasn’t investigating cyber currency, maybe he was stealing it, and someone took offense.  But I never saw a computer in his flat, and you definitely need one of those if you’re a cryptocurrency trader.  All I got to talk about was the cat.”

Since it’s hardly the subject you’d talk about with a neighbor, it was not surprising their discussions were mainly of domesticity.

“Was it his cat?”

She shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I think he said he found it in the flat when he arrived, and in feeding it, it just stayed.  Cat’s don’t belong to people; you do realize that don’t you?”

“Never had one.  And I didn’t see a cat there or signs of one.”

“I was looking after him while O’Connell was away, so he’s been in my flat.”

“Only it probably got tossed about the same time as they visited his, and if the cat had any sense, he’d run.  Maury’s the sort who’d shoot the cat, just because it was there.”

“Perhaps we should go back and check.  Why the sudden interest in the cat?”

“It’s the only tangible thing he owned.  Sorry, he was attached to.”

“And you think the cat might be the clue?”

“Have you got a better idea?”

Not answering the question, was the answer.

“It might not be safe.”

“Then stay at the hotel and I’ll see you when I get back.”

She shook her head.  “No, I’m going with you.  Besides, you’ll need someone to watch your back.”

Or stab me in it if we found something.

 

© Charles Heath 2019-2020

Searching for locations: Sydney to Beijing, China – Every flight is different

Sydney to Beijing – Qantas A330-200
Boarding 11:45, everyone on board by 12:02, for a 12:10 departure. Pushing back 12:12 Take off 12:27

Lunch
Airline food is getting better but the fact they serve it up to you in a metal tray with a thick aluminum lid does nothing for the quality of the food inside.  I get what the chef is trying to do but often there is too little of one thing and too much of another and what you finish up with is slop in a tray.  Sometimes it’s edible sometimes it’s not.  Sometimes the meat is tender and other times it’s like boot leather.  As it is today. I think it’s pork, I should have had the chicken.  Or perhaps it was chicken.  I hate it when you can’t tell what it is that you’re eating. But, the drinks were good.

Rest or Sleep, maybe
It’s going to take 11 hours and 20 minutes from Sydney to Beijing, a long time to sit in a plane with nothing much to do other than crosswords, read a book or newspaper or magazine, listen to music on your own device, or the in-flight entertainment, watch a movie again by the in-flight entertainment – if it works – or try to get some sleep. I started with the crosswords but got bored quickly. I fiddled with the in-flight entertainment, looked at the movies and tv shows but none really interested me, not then at least, so I set it to the flight path. Not exactly stellar entertainment, but it’s always interesting to know where the plane is. Or is it? If we crash, what good would it do me to know it’s somewhere over the ocean, not far from Manila, or somewhere else.  It’s not as if I could phone someone up, on the way down, to let them know where we are. But, just after dinner, we still haven’t left Australia

However, by the time I’ve finished fiddling with and dismissing all of the entertainment alternatives, it’s back to the flight path and now we are…

Somewhere approaching the Sulu Sea, which I’ve never heard of before, so it looks like I’ll have to study up on my geography when I get home.

OK, Manila looks like somewhere I’ve heard of, so we have to be flying over the Philippines.  Not far left of that is Vietnam.  Neither of those places is on my travel bucket list, so I’ll just look from up here and be satisfied with that.

Working, or not
Chronic boredom is setting in by the time we are just past halfway to our destination. We are over 6 hours into the flight and there no possible way I’m going to get any sleep. I brought my Galaxy Tab loaded with a few of my novel outlines, and planning for missing chapters, thinking I might get a little thinking time in.  Plane rides, I find, are excellent for getting an opportunity to write virtually unhindered by outside interruptions, if, of course, you discount the number of times people brush past, knocking your seat, the person in front lowering the seat into your face, or people around you continually asking you to turn off your light because they’re trying to sleep. Sorry, I say, but you can suffer my pain with me.  It’s one of the joys of flying with over two hundred others in a claustrophobic environment.  Besides, aren’t the lights supposed to be slanted so only I get the rays of light?  Except, I guess when the fixed light doesn’t line up with where the airline has fixed the seat (usually so they can squash more people in).So, sorry, not sorry, take it up with the airline.

Back to work, and I put in some quality time on a part of the story that had been eluding me for a while.  I knew what I wanted to write, but not how I was going to approach it, so that blissfully quiet and intense time worked in my favor, something that would not have happened back hope. I won’t bore you with the synopsis, just suffice to say it’s finally down on paper, digitally that is, and it’s a huge step forward towards finishing it. There is, of course, the end play, the reading of the will but not before there’s a few thrusts and parry’s by some of the players, but all in all the objective was to showcase a group of people with their strengths and weaknesses pushing their characters in various directions, some at odds with what is expected of them. But enough of that.   A quick check of our position shows we’re still over water but closer to our destination, so much so, we might start the pre-landing rituals, starting with food.

Dinner
7:00 – Dinner is served, well, the lights go on and a lot of tired people try to shake the sleep, and sleeplessness, out of their systems. Then flight attendants that are far too cheerful, and must have beamed in from somewhere else, serve another interesting concoction that says what’s in it but you can’t really be sure of the ingredients.  It comes and it goes.

9:10 – We begin our descent into Beijing, you know, that moment when the engines almost stop and there’s a sickening lurch and the plane heads downward. 9:56 – We touch down on the runway, in the dark and apparently it has been raining though from inside the plane you’d never know. 10:10 – the plane arrives at the gate,  the usual few minutes to open the door, and, being closer to the front of the plane this time, it doesn’t take that long before the queue is moving.

Early or late, it doesn’t matter.  After clearing customs and immigration, we have to go in search of our tour guide, waiting for us somewhere outside the arrivals terminal.

What do they call it? A busman’s holiday?

It has any number of names, from Leave of Absence to Vacation, but it is meant to be a time where you can rest and relax.

And by the time you finally get to go away, preferably somewhere as far from home as possible, you are sure ready for it.

Those long days at the office, the decisions, the deadlines, the endless pressure of having to achieve the impossible all melt away when you walk out the door, and what a feeling it is when you tell everyone, ‘I’m off on holidays, see you when I get back.’

As anyone will tell  you, it’s not wise to travel the next day if at all possible, because you need some time to decompress before tackling what sometimes can be an arduous getting to the final destination, especially if it is at a peak holiday period, or on planes where anything and everything can go wrong very quickly.

Been there done that.

We traveled the next day, nothing went wrong, and all is fine.

Except …

As a writer and having spent the last few months finishing off my last novel, I was looking forward to some down time.  The editor has the final draft, and I’m happy.

Then, as it always does, the best laid plans of mice and men …

It all comes unstuck.

Inspiration often comes out of left field; something happens, a piece in a newspaper, an item on TV, or just lying down staring at the ceiling, when ‘bang’  it hits you.

The start of a story, a theme that you can run with.

Damn.

I’ve been away for four days now and written seven chapters and the words will not stop.

If only …

Hey, what a great title for the story.

Sorry, got to get back to work!

 

 

Using Hollywood as a source of inspiration

I’m not one for writing Western, I’ll leave the honours for that to Louis L’Amore, whose acquaintence I made when I saw How The West Was Won on the big screen, then read the book.

That led to reading a few more by Zane Grey, but it was not in the reading of the stories, but in the visual splendour of the west depicted in these films that made the actors almost secondary.

But my interest in watching Westerns had been fuelled by the fact my parents watched them on TV, though back on those days, they were in black and white, and starred John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Alan Ladd and, later on, Clint Eastwood among a great may others.

But the mainstay of my interest in the archetypal Western centred on John Wayne whose movies may have almost the same plot line, just a substitution of actors and locations.

Often it was not so much that John Wayne was in it, but the actors he surrounded himself with, like Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Walter Brennan, and Robert Mitcham, all of whom made the experience all the better.

Films like The Sons of Katie Elder, True Grit, Rio Bravo, and El Dorado.

Who can forget the vast open spaces, the dry dusty stresses lines with wooden buildings and endless walkways that substituted for footpaths. Bars in hotels, rooms overlookinf street, havens for sharpshooters, when bad guys outnumbers the good guys, and typically the sherrif who always faced insurmountable odds.

Or the attacks staged by Indians who were routinely killed, in fact there was not one film I saw where they ended up winning any battle. Only in recent years did they get a more sympathetic role, one film that comes to mind Soldier Blue, which may have painted then as savages, but a possible reason why they ended up so.

But for those without Indians, there were plenty of others whose intentions were anything but for the good of the settlers.

A lot of films ended in the classic gun fight. High Noon, 3:10 to Yuma are two, or where the story led to gun fights between good and bad in unlikely places like El Dorado or Rio Bravo.

There are countless others I could name, like Shane, or became to be called, the spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood, or last but not least, The Magnificent Seven, or Once Upon a time in the west.

All have contributed to a picture in my mind of how the American West was, fearsome men, beleaguered sheriffs, people with good intentions, and those driven by greed and power. All of this playing out in the harshest of conditions where life and death could be determined by a wrong word or a stray bullet.

And let’s not forget the role of the guns, Colt, Winchester, Remington. And Smith and Wesson, and the gunslingers of the day. Some were good, most according to the film world were bad.

So, against the lifelong interest of watching and reading about the archetypal view of the old West, shall I attempt to put pen to paper. Thank God it will be a work of fiction, because I don’t think there’s many who knew what it was really like.

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 23

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.

An unlikely ally?

 

The bar in the hotel was tucked away in a small area behind the dining room, or perhaps it was part of the dining room, I wasn’t quite sure.  There were indoor shrubs blocking the view from the front entrance, so we could feel safe enough, and less strenuous in watching the continuous comings and goings of the hotel’s guests and their friends.

For a small hotel, it was quite busy.

We were lucky it was not yet dinner time, so the restaurant was still being set up for the evening dinner service.  I had a look at one of the menus, and the Shepherd’s Pie looked good.  It was mostly hearty British staples like Bangers and Mask and Toad in the Hole.  I guess by calling sausages by their real name sausages, no one really wanted them.

Three drinks down, and looking for the restroom, it ended up an exploration of the passage that led to a rear door, one that could be used by guests, but was mostly used by smoking staff.  When I went outside, there were two housekeepers and a concierge boy talking about the couple in 506.  I hope Jan and I were not labeled an ‘interesting couple’.

“Let’s go outside and make some calls.”  She finished her drink and slid off the barstool.  

I joined her and we went out the back entrance, along an alley to the next main street, then along the busy road to an underground station.  There were two other hotels I noticed along the way, so we would not be making it easy for them if they could track us.

I called Nobbin first using the card he left under the name Wilson, leaving the phone on speaker.

“Yes.”  There was no ring on the other end of the line.

“Wilson?”

“Yes.  Who is this?”

“Sam Jackson.  You said to call you if anything happened.  I have managed to track down an address for O’Connell.  I went there and found two women, one named Josephine, who was definitely not a resident or his friend as she claimed.  Then I met another, whose name I can’t remember, but I suspect she’s not who she said she was, nor a friend.”

“Were they looking for the USB?”

“I don’t know.  One was on the floor when I arrived, and I assumed she had been rendered unconscious by someone else.  I roused her, but she had nothing conclusive to say.  I think she was one of your operatives.”

Silence, then, “Why would you say that?”

“I followed her out onto the street.”

More silence, then, “She was asked to search the flat.”

“For what?”

“Anything that would be useful in telling us what he was doing.”

“I’m sure I told you that Severin was after a USB, so I thoroughly searched O’Connell’s flat and didn’t find it, or anything else.”

“Neither did she, which is unfortunate, but not unexpected.  O’Connell must have been worried about the information he’d uncovered, enough to not be carrying it with him.”

“Well, I don’t think it was his primary residence.  Still too many price tags on the furniture.  He had somewhere else to go, and that might be where the USB is.  I’m surprised you don’t seem to know very much about him or what he was doing given he was one of your operatives.  Unless, of course, he went off-book.”

“I assure you that isn’t the case, and O’Connell’s activities were on a need to know basis.  All I can say is that he was using a Journalist cover, investigating cyber currency being used to purchase weapons.  We were scheduled to meet for a report on his progress late afternoon on the day he was killed.  Are you sure there was no one else near the alley where he was killed?”

“It was empty except for Severin and Maury.

“And you.”

“Are you implying that I took it?”

“No, but there’s a compelling case that might fit you in the frame.  Do you know who the other woman was in O’Connell’s flat?”

“No.  Like I said, she gave me a name, but I don’t think it was real.  She claimed to be his neighbor, but so did Josephine, so it’s likely she wasn’t.  Other than that, she could be anyone.  If he had another place, you might want to try and find out where it was.  I’m going to take up the search tomorrow morning.”

“Are you sure there was nothing to point you in that direction lying around in the flat?”

“The man was a neatness freak.  I doubt it.  And now he’s dead.  The only possibility I can see is that he found out what Severin and Maury are about to do, and by now they will be far more desperate to find it.  We need to get to it first, so perhaps if you have some analysts looking for something to do, see if they can find that second residence.  I’m sure you can get a hold of any CCTV there is.  You might be able to find him that way.  If you do and you get an address, let me know and I’ll go straight there.”

“Yes, of course.  Keep in touch.”

The line went dead.

“Interesting man,” Jan said, “but not a trustworthy one.  You listen to the modulation of his voice.  That’s a man who wouldn’t know the truth even if he fell over it.  And if he does find that address, you will not be the first person he calls.”

I shrugged.  “Probably not.  As for Nobbin, isn’t that the very nature of our business, to tell endless lies in order to get to the truth?”

“Remind me, one day, to tell you about pathological liars.”

© Charles Heath 2019-2020