Taking the headlines and conjuring up the plot of a novel

What do you make of this lot:

What happened at a Russian missile site? This is also tinged with nuclear fallout.

The US is consulting with allies in Asia about missile sites. Nothing more inflammatory to a country like China, with whom relations are deteriorating at a rapid rate of knots.

Investors rush to buy bonds. OK, that’s short term bonds not long term bonds, and that, of course, caused an inverted curve, or a preclusion to a recession.

Gold and silver investment is booming, and in times past, this could be a precursor to war.

China has a huge fishing fleet in the South China Sea. Why, no one knows.

China is also planning naval exercises in the same area. Are they flexing muscles or sending a warning?

They’ve also had problems in Hong Kong, but it didn’t escalate into what happened at Tiananmen Square. But, bottom line, Hong Kong is not a place to go to or stop over any more because of a constant threat of being arrested. I’m certainly never going there again, which is a shame because it was my second favorite Asian city after Singapore.

And, of course, there’s another flashpoint in Kashmir, which everyone seems to have an opinion, but that had been simmering for a long, long time, and probably will for years to come.

And as for the former world power, the UK, they have got past Brexit, or have they?

So, from a thriller writer’s perspective, it means that if Russia is rearming, the US is trying to pre-empt missile strikes from China, or anything is simmering in North Korea which currently doesn’t seem to be the case, it seems the savvier investors have a notion the world might be on the brink of war, and the US might be in the middle of it all.

The US appears:

to be in a trade war with China, or perhaps a war of words
are selling billions worth of arms to Taiwan, a red rag to a bull if there was ever one
are offering to help out in Kashmir
are sending ships to the South China sea to show the ‘flag’
are standing back and watching North Korea launch missiles
are emphatically denying there will be a recession, at least at home

Can we get a plot line out of all this?

Title: Flashpoint

Synopsis:

A leaked report on a Russian missile base suggests a recent ‘mishap’ with disarming ‘old nuclear missiles’, was more than just routine issue, and a flyover by satellite shows there are more sinister and unexplainable operations in play.

Meanwhile, the arrival of a Russian nuclear specialist and a group of Chinese scientists in North Korea is quickly followed by several missile tests a week later. Are the North Koreans, with the help of the Chinese, looking to arm their missiles with Russian nuclear warheads?

The CIA has sent two of their best operatives to find out what is really going on, one, Sam Stockton, borne of Russian parents, and who has yet to exorcise his demons from the last failed mission, and the other, Elizabeth Chen, a North Korean expert who is coming out of retirement for this particular delicate assignment.

Will they discover the truth before the world descends into a nuclear holocaust?

An excerpt from “If Only” – a work in progress

Investigation of crimes don’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get either found or punished.

That was particularly true in my case. The murderer was very careful in not leaving any evidence behind, to the extent that the police could not rules out whether it was a male or a female.

At one stage the police thought I had murdered my own wife though how I could be on a train at the time of the murder was beyond me. I had witnesses and a cast-iron alibi.

The officer in charge was Detective Inspector Gabrielle Walters. She came to me on the day after the murder seeking answers to the usual questions when was the last time you saw your wife, did you argue, the neighbors reckon there were heated discussions the day before.

Routine was the word she used.

Her Sargeant was a surly piece of work whose intention was to get answers or, more likely, a confession by any or all means possible. I could sense the raging violence within him. Fortunately, common sense prevailed.

Over the course of the next few weeks, once I’d been cleared of committing the crime, Gabrielle made a point of keeping me informed of the progress.

After three months the updates were more sporadic, and when, for lack of progress, it became a cold case, communication ceased.

But it was not the last I saw of Gabrielle.

The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact she was now gone, and those images lived on in the same nightmare that came to visit me every night when I closed my eyes.

For months I was barely functioning, to the extent I had all but lost my job, and quite a few friends, particularly those who were more attached to Vanessa rather than me.

They didn’t understand how it could affect me so much, and since it had not happened to them, my tart replies of ‘you wouldn’t understand’ were met with equally short retorts. Some questioned my sanity, even, for a time, so did I.

No one, it seemed, could understand what it was like, no one except Gabrielle.

She was by her own admission, damaged goods, having been the victim of a similar incident, a boyfriend who turned out to be a very bad boy. Her story varied only in she had been made to witness his execution. Her nightmare, in reliving that moment in time, was how she was still alive and, to this day, had no idea why she’d been spared.

It was a story she told me one night, some months after the investigation had been scaled down. I was still looking for the bottom of a bottle and an emotional mess. Perhaps it struck a resonance with her; she’d been there and managed to come out the other side.

What happened become our secret, a once-only night together that meant a great deal to me, and by mutual agreement, it was not spoken of again. It was as if she knew exactly what was required to set me on the path to recovery.

And it had.

Since then we saw each about once a month in a cafe. I had been surprised to hear from her again shortly after that eventful night when she called to set it up, ostensibly for her to provide me with any updates on the case, but perhaps we had, after that unspoken night, formed a closer bond than either of us wanted to admit.

We generally talked for hours over wine, then dinner and coffee. It took a while for me to realize that all she had was her work, personal relationships were nigh on impossible in a job that left little or no spare time for anything else.

She’d always said that if I had any questions or problems about the case, or if there was anything that might come to me that might be relevant, even after all this time, all I had to do was call her.

I wondered if this text message was in that category. I was certain it would interest the police and I had no doubt they could trace the message’s origin, but there was that tiny degree of doubt, whether or not I could trust her to tell me what the message meant.

I reached for the phone then put it back down again. I’d think about it and decide tomorrow.

“Trouble in Store” – Short stories my way: Editing (2)

The story fleshed out for the second section, discussed in Point of View

Annalisa looked at the two men facing her, a shopkeeper who, despite his protestations, was a dealer, and the other man, a customer scared shitless.

The poor bastard was not the only one scared.

It was meant to be simple, arrive at the shop just before closing, force the shopkeeper to hand over the shit, and leave.

What had happened?

The shopkeeper laughed at them and told them to get out. Simmo started ranting and waving the gun around, then all of a sudden collapsed.

There was a race for the gun which spilled out of Simmo’s hand, and she won. No more arguments, the shopkeeper was getting the stuff when the customer burst into the shop.

This was worse than any bad hair day, or getting out of the wrong side of bed day, this was, she was convinced, the last day of her life.

Her mother said she would never amount to anything, and here she was with a drug addict coming apart because she had been cut off from her money and could no longer pay for his supply, which had led them to this inevitable ending.

She heard a strange sound come from beside her and looked down. Simmo was getting worse, like he had a fever, and was moaning.

If Alphonse had thought his day was going to get any better after the delivery disaster earlier that day, he was wrong.

If he thought he could maintain his real business and his under the counter business with no one finding out, in that he was wrong too. He’s know, inevitably, some useless punk would come and do exactly what Simmo was doing.

It might have been salvageable before the customer came in the door, but now it was not. The customer had heard the words, and given him ‘the look’. A drug addict telling the cops he was a dealer, it was his word against an unreliable addict, but this local chap, he had that air of respectability the cops would listen too.

Damn.

But he had to try and salvage the situation, there was a lot of money involved, and other people depending on him. He looked at the boy, on the floor, then the girl.

“Listen to me, young lady, I have no idea what you are talking about. Please, put the gun down before someone gets hurt. Your friend needs medical help and I can call an ambulance.”

The girl switched her attention back to him. “Shut up, let me think. Shit.”

The storekeeper glanced over at the customer. He’s been in once or twice, probably lived in the neighborhood, but looked the sort who’d prefer to be anywhere but in his shop. More so now. If only he hadn’t burst in when he did. He would have the gun, called the police, and brazened his way out of trouble. Now, that remedy was off the table.

Now he had to deal with the fallout, especially if the girl started talking.

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here: https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.

I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.

Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.

Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.

At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.

Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.

My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.

At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.

At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.

At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6^th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.

I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.

Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.

In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.

I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.

Just in case.

newechocover5rs

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 1

As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.

Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.

For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1

These are the memories of our time together…

This is Chester.

Don’t be fooled by the benign expression, I’m getting the ‘your conversation better improve, and quickly’ look.

I guess it’s the talkative Tonkinese in him, tempered by the crabby Siamese part.

But …

We were talking about the state of the world, and he agrees it isn’t looking good, especially for travelers in Europe. Of course, he is averse to either of us leaving him alone for any length of time, so he would say it was unsafe and we’d better stay at home.hat

I suppose that selfish part comes from the Burmese in him.

However …

I have scratched Germany, Austria, France and England off the list for the time being and consider it’s time to see a lot more of Italy.

We’ve been there several times, to Rome, in summer, to look at the Ancient ruins (Chester was rather impressed when I showed him a picture of the Collosseum), to Florence several times, just for the ambiance, and to Venice simply because we love it.

Then, we have also spent a few days in Tuscany, in an apartment very close to the town center of Greve in Chianti.

Chester, of course, was dismissive, but, he says, if we agree to take him with us …

Inspiration, Maybe – Volume Two

50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.

They all start with –

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:

And, the story:

Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?

Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.

But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.

She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.

It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.

And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.

So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.

It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.

Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.

I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.

What surprised her was my reaction. None.

I simply asked where who, and when.

A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.

A week.

It was all the time I had left with her.

I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.

She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.

Is that all you want to know?

I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.

There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.

Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.

One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.

So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.

Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.

Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.

I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.

I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.

Then the only question left was, what do we do now?

Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.

Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.

What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.

Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.

There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.

We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.

Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.

So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.

Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.

People coming, people going.

Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.

As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.

Perhaps it was.

Coming soon. Find the above story and 49 others like it in:

An excerpt from “Strangers We’ve Become” – Coming Soon

I wandered back to my villa.

It was in darkness. I was sure I had left several lights on, especially over the door so I could see to unlock it.

I looked up and saw the globe was broken.

Instant alert.

I went to the first hiding spot for the gun, and it wasn’t there. I went to the backup and it wasn’t there either. Someone had found my carefully hidden stash of weapons and removed them.

Who?

There were four hiding spots and all were empty. Someone had removed the weapons. That could only mean one possibility.

I had a visitor, not necessarily here for a social call.

But, of course, being the well-trained agent I’d once been and not one to be caught unawares, I crossed over to my neighbor and relieved him of a weapon that, if found, would require a lot of explaining.

Suitably armed, it was time to return the surprise.

There were three entrances to the villa, the front door, the back door, and a rather strange escape hatch. One of the more interesting attractions of the villa I’d rented was its heritage. It was built in the late 1700s, by a man who was, by all accounts, a thief. It had a hidden underground room which had been in the past a vault but was now a wine cellar, and it had an escape hatch by which the man could come and go undetected, particularly if there was a mob outside the door baying for his blood.

It now gave me the means to enter the villa without my visitors being alerted, unless, of course, they were near the vicinity of the doorway inside the villa, but that possibility was unlikely. It was not where anyone could anticipate or expect a doorway to be.

The secret entrance was at the rear of the villa behind a large copse, two camouflaged wooden doors built into the ground. I move aside some of the branches that covered them and lifted one side. After I’d discovered the doors and rusty hinges, I’d oiled and cleaned them, and cleared the passageway of cobwebs and fallen rocks. It had a mildew smell, but nothing would get rid of that. I’d left torches at either end so I could see.

I closed the door after me, and went quietly down the steps, enveloped in darkness till I switched on the torch. I traversed the short passage which turned ninety degrees about halfway to the door at the other end. I carried the key to this door on the keyring, found it and opened the door. It too had been oiled and swung open soundlessly.

I stepped in the darkness and closed the door.

I was on the lower level under the kitchen, now the wine cellar, the ‘door’ doubling as a set of shelves which had very little on them, less to fall and alert anyone in the villa.

Silence, an eerie silence.

I took the steps up to the kitchen, stopping when my head was level with the floor, checking to see if anyone was waiting. There wasn’t. It seemed to me to be an unlikely spot for an ambush.

I’d already considered the possibility of someone coming after me, especially because it had been Bespalov I’d killed, and I was sure he had friends, all equally as mad as he was. Equally, I’d also considered it nigh on impossible for anyone to find out it was me who killed him because the only people who knew that were Prendergast, Alisha, a few others in the Department, and Susan.

That raised the question of who told them where I was.

If I was the man I used to be, my first suspect would be Susan. The departure this morning, and now this was too coincidental. But I was not that man.

Or was I?

I reached the start of the passageway that led from the kitchen to the front door and peered into the semi-darkness. My eyes had got used to the dark, and it was no longer an inky void. Fragments of light leaked in around the door from outside and through the edge of the window curtains where they didn’t fit properly. A bone of contention upstairs in the morning, when first light shone and invariably woke me up hours before I wanted to.

Still nothing.

I took a moment to consider how I would approach the visitor’s job. I would get a plan of the villa in my head, all entrances, where a target could be led to or attacked where there would be no escape.

Coming in the front door. If I was not expecting anything, I’d just open the door and walk-in. One shot would be all that was required.

Contract complete.

I sidled quietly up the passage staying close to the wall, edging closer to the front door. There was an alcove where the shooter could be waiting. It was an ideal spot to wait.

Crunch.

I stepped on some nutshells.

Not my nutshells.

I felt it before I heard it. The bullet with my name on it.

And how the shooter missed, from point-blank range, and hit me in the arm, I had no idea. I fired off two shots before a second shot from the shooter went wide and hit the door with a loud thwack.

I saw a red dot wavering as it honed in on me and I fell to the floor, stretching out, looking up where the origin of the light was coming and pulled the trigger three times, evenly spaced, and a second later I heard the sound of a body falling down the stairs and stopping at the bottom, not very far from me.

Two assassins.

I’d not expected that.

The assassin by the door was dead, a lucky shot on my part. The second was still breathing.

I checked the body for any weapons and found a second gun and two knives. Armed to the teeth!

I pulled off the balaclava; a man, early thirties, definitely Italian. I was expecting a Russian.

I slapped his face, waking him up. Blood was leaking from several slashes on his face when his head had hit the stairs on the way down. The awkward angle of his arms and legs told me there were broken bones, probably a lot worse internally. He was not long for this earth.

“Who employed you?”

He looked at me with dead eyes, a pursed mouth, perhaps a smile. “Not today my friend. You have made a very bad enemy.” He coughed and blood poured out of his mouth. “There will be more …”

Friends of Bespalov, no doubt.

I would have to leave. Two unexplainable bodies, I’d have a hard time explaining my way out of this mess. I dragged the two bodies into the lounge, clearing the passageway just in case someone had heard anything.

Just in case anyone was outside at the time, I sat in the dark, at the foot of the stairs, and tried to breathe normally. I was trying not to connect dots that led back to Susan, but the coincidence was worrying me.

A half-hour passed and I hadn’t moved. Deep in thought, I’d forgotten about being shot, unaware that blood was running down my arm and dripping onto the floor.

Until I heard a knock on my front door.

Two thoughts, it was either the police, alerted by the neighbors, or it was the second wave, though why would they be knocking on the door?

I stood, and immediately felt a stabbing pain in my arm. I took out a handkerchief and turned it into a makeshift tourniquet, then wrapped a kitchen towel around the wound.

If it was the police, this was going to be a difficult situation. Holding the gun behind my back, I opened the door a fraction and looked out.

No police, just Maria. I hoped she was not part of the next ‘wave’.

“You left your phone behind on the table. I thought you might be looking for it.” She held it out in front of her.

When I didn’t open the door any further, she looked at me quizzically, and then asked, “Is anything wrong?”

I was going to thank her for returning the phone, but I heard her breathe in sharply, and add, breathlessly, “You’re bleeding.”

I looked at my arm and realized it was visible through the door, and not only that, the towel was soaked in blood.

“You need to go away now.”

Should I tell her the truth? It was probably too late, and if she was any sort of law-abiding citizen she would go straight to the police.

She showed no signs of leaving, just an unnerving curiosity. “What happened?”

I ran through several explanations, but none seemed plausible. I went with the truth. “My past caught up with me.”

“You need someone to fix that before you pass out from blood loss. It doesn’t look good.”

“I can fix it. You need to leave. It is not safe to be here with me.”

The pain in my arm was not getting any better, and the blood was starting to run down my arm again as the tourniquet loosened. She was right, I needed it fixed sooner rather than later.

I opened the door and let her in. It was a mistake, a huge mistake, and I would have to deal with the consequences. Once inside, she turned on the light and saw the pool of blood just inside the door and the trail leading to the lounge. She followed the trail and turned into the lounge, turned on the light, and no doubt saw the two dead men.

I expected her to scream. She didn’t.

She gave me a good hard look, perhaps trying to see if I was dangerous. Killing people wasn’t something you looked the other way about. She would have to go to the police.

“What happened here?”

“I came home from the cafe and two men were waiting for me. I used to work for the Government, but no longer. I suspect these men were here to repay a debt. I was lucky.”

“Not so much, looking at your arm.”

She came closer and inspected it.

“Sit down.”

She found another towel and wrapped it around the wound, retightening the tourniquet to stem the bleeding.

“Do you have medical supplies?”

I nodded. “Upstairs.” I had a medical kit, and on the road, I usually made my own running repairs. Another old habit I hadn’t quite shaken off yet.

She went upstairs, rummaged, and then came back. I wondered briefly what she would think of the unmade bed though I was not sure why it might interest her.

She helped me remove my shirt, and then cleaned the wound. Fortunately, she didn’t have to remove a bullet. It was a clean wound but it would require stitches.

When she’d finished she said, “Your friend said one day this might happen.”

No prizes for guessing who that friend was, and it didn’t please me that she had involved Maria.

“Alisha?”

“She didn’t tell me her name, but I think she cares a lot about you. She said trouble has a way of finding you, gave me a phone and said to call her if something like this happened.”

“That was wrong of her to do that.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Will you call her?”

“Yes. I can’t stay here now. You should go now. Hopefully, by the time I leave in the morning, no one will ever know what happened here, especially you.”

She smiled. “As you say, I was never here.”

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here: https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.

Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.

My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.

At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.

At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6^th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.

Just in case.

newechocover5rs

“Trouble in Store” – Short stories my way: Editing (1)

First drafts are always a little messy. The words spill out onto the page, and it’s rare that any or all of them are perfect. Sometimes you get lucky, but most of the time you don’t.

That’s why there’s revision, or by the more dreaded name, editing.

Editing conjures up a lot of different images in my mind, from completely re-writing, to cutting the mss down in size. Or where you discover the main character’s name has changed from Bill to Fred after a bad night.

Usually, though, as stories progress, they go through a number of rewrites, and sometimes because of what follows. It depends on how long a period the story is written. Some of mine take days, others quite a lot longer.

This is the rewrite of the first section of the short story I’m undertaking, adding some new details:

Jack was staring down the barrel of a gun.

He had gone down to the corner shop to get a pack of cigarettes.

He had to hustle because he knew the shopkeeper, Alphonse, liked to close at 11:00 pm sharp. His momentum propelled him through the door, causing the customer warning bell to ring loudly as the door bashed into it, and before the sound had died away, he knew he was in trouble.

It took a second, perhaps three, to sum up the situation.

Young girl, about 16 or 17, scared, looking sideways at a man on the ground, then Alphonse, and then Jack. He recognized the gun, a Luger, German, relic of WW2, perhaps her father’s souvenir, now pointing at him then Alphonse, then back to him.

Jack to another second or two to consider if he could disarm her. No, the distance was too great. He put his hands out where she could see them. No sudden movements, try to remain calm, his heart rate up to the point of cardiac arrest.

Pointing with the gun, she said, “Come in, close the door, and move towards the counter.”

Everything but her hand steady as a rock. The only telltale sign of stress, the beads of perspiration on her brow. It was 40 degrees Fahrenheit in the shop.

Jack shivered, and then did as he was told. She was in the unpredictable category.

“What’s wrong with your friend?” Jack tried the friendly approach, as he took several slow steps sideways towards the counter.

The shopkeeper, Alphonse, seemed calmer than usual, or the exact opposite spoke instead, “I suspect he’s an addict, looking for a score. At the end of his tether, my guess, and came to the wrong place.”

Wrong time, wrong place, in more ways than one Jack thought, now realizing he had walked into a very dangerous situation. She didn’t look like a user. The boy on the ground, he did, and he looked like he was going through the beginnings of withdrawal.

“Simmo said you sell shit. You wanna live, ante up.” She was glaring at Alphonse.

The language, Jack thought, was not her own, she had been to a better class of school, a good girl going through a bad boy phase. Caught in a situation she was not equipped to deal with.

“Trouble in Store” – Short Stories my way: The end of the story

The stage is set for the big finale, though I’m not quite sure how ‘big’ it’s going to be.

Jack is ready to go having been given the green light by the girl with the gun. It seems collateral damage is not on the agenda for her, though he does admit to himself she is between that proverbial rock and a hard place.

The storekeeper still has a plan, shaky at best, to regain hold of the situation, once the customer is out of the shop. Nervy or not, he doesn’t think she had the capability to pull the trigger. He knows what sort of person it takes to do that, and she isn’t one of them.

The policewoman is not sure what to expect but thinks that surprise is on her side, and whatever is going on, she will be able to resolve it. She has her weapon drawn and ready to use. She had yet to shoot anyone with it

The girl is at the point of no return, that point where she had nothing left to lose. Anything she had before was gone, destroyed by the choices she’d made. No one ever handed out a manual on how you should live your life, or provide a list of people you should avoid, and her father’s prophetic words the last time they men came home with a thud, ‘your life is defined by the choices you make’.

She was not going to jail so it was going to be death or glory.

Now read on:

Jack had heard there were moments where, in a split second, your whole life flashes before your eyes. He did, and what he saw he didn’t like.

But, then, neither was he very happy about the fact he was nearly out the door before the policewoman on the other side crashed into him and sent him sprawling to the floor.

That was about the same fraction of a second he heard the gun go off, twice, or so he thought and knew he was a dead man, waiting for the bullet.

Another fraction of a second passed as the policewoman tried to unravel the mess they’d become, and at that moment in time felt the tugging at his sleeve and then, as if in slow motion, the sound of the glass door disintegrating behind him.

Annalisa was quite prepared to let the customer go.

She kept one eye on the shopkeeper and one on the customer, sidling towards the door. The gun was ready to shoot the first person who made a wrong move.

Or so she told herself. It was getting heavy in her hand, she was shaking almost uncontrollably now, and was getting more and more frightened of the consequences. She didn’t think, if she aimed, she could hit the side of a barn let alone a person standing ten feet away from her.

The customer reached the door.

At exactly the moment he put his hand 0on the door handle to open the door, another person was pushing the door, trying to make their way in.

With force.

She saw the blue cap, guess it was the police, though she hadn’t heard the siren, but also guessed the shopkeeper might have a silent alarm.

Damn.

A single shot, instantly in the direction of the door, not necessarily aimed at the two people now collapsing to the floor in a tangled mess, but at the door itself.

The impact, yet another guess, might shatter the glass and make it easier to escape.

After one more job.

The hell with Simmo. He’d dragged her down the rabbit hole far enough. Simmo knew her first name, that she had rich parents, but nothing else. Besides, he was in such bad shape she didn’t think he’d recover.

The shopkeeper had no idea who she was, it was the first time she’d been to his shop, and now, after a few weeks with Simmo, not ever her mother would recognize her.

She swiveled the gun and aimed it at the shopkeeper and pulled the trigger., One less dealer in the city was good news not bad.

She saw it hit, not exactly where, but it caused him to twist and start falling to the ground, at the same time letting out a very loud scream. Panic or anger?

She wasn’t waiting to find out.

A last glance at Simmo, now down for the count, she ran for the door, past the two on the floor, what she could now see was a policewoman with her weapon drawn, but unable to use it.

She crashed through the remainder of the glass shards put into the street and ran.

In the distance she could hear a police car coming, siren blaring. A warning if there was ever one to run harder, up the road, down an alley, out into another street, then down into the subway.

Gone.

It took fifteen seconds to disentangle herself from the customer, pushing him away, and getting to her feet, weapon aimed.

At nothing but air.

The girl had gone, and then she had the vague recollection of a shadow passing her as she was facing the other way getting to her feet.

And running out the door.

Five more valuable seconds as her brain processed this piece of information before it issued the command to go out the door and see which way she went.

Another ten seconds to get out the door, and see the police car coming from the same direction she had earlier, screeching to a halt outside the shop, a car door opening, and an officer getting out.

Margaret was guessing at the driver to drive down the road where she guessed the girl had run, managing to yell breathlessly at the office getting out, “She’s gone that way,” and pointing.

The officer relayed the message and closed the door as the car sped off.

“What happened?”

“Shots fired by a woman, more a girl, in the process of a robbery.”

She ran back inside the officer following.

The customer had moved to a corner and was standing, testing his limbs, with an expression that said he was amazed he was still alive.

“Over behind the counter. She shopkeeper. He was standing there.”

The policeman rounded the end of the counter and looked down. “He’s here. It’s not looking good.”

Margaret didn’t hear him. She was calling an ambulance.

Next: Perhaps some editing

Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance

One writer's experiences, and battles with words

Tag: $amwriting

Taking the headlines and conjuring up the plot of a novel

An excerpt from “If Only” – a work in progress

“Trouble in Store” – Short stories my way: Editing (2)

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 1

Inspiration, Maybe – Volume Two

An excerpt from “Strangers We’ve Become” – Coming Soon

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

“Trouble in Store” – Short stories my way: Editing (1)

“Trouble in Store” – Short Stories my way: The end of the story

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One writer's experiences, and battles with words

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