Tag: Author

NANOWRIMO November 2023 – Day 26

“Opposites Attract”

…

Shotgun Annie

…

There are characters that sometimes leap off the page.  I have to say at the time I was watching a Western Movie, and it had Annie Oakley in it, and the idea came that I should have a woman handy with a shotgun.

It’s not as farfetched as it seems, since a lot of women who were brought up on farms, or ranches, were good at shooting, hunting, and horse riding, though for us city-bound types it might be something of an anomaly.

Whatever I was thinking, I decided Tim needed a girlfriend who was different. Or perhaps not so different.

On the other side of the coin, I have two separate instances where friends are going through maladies, one that is not treatable, and the other requiring long and expensive treatment that will only buy a few years.

But a few years is better than the alternative, death.

In order to find out where Tim is our boy goes to meet her, fully expecting to be shot at, but devastated to discover how ill she is.

There is, of course, only one thing he can do.

…

Today’s words:  931, for a total of 47,658

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

None of it made sense

…

I preferred the version of Matha 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 and when I was with Violetta and she was a much more amiable person than them, 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 word 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 straight question.”

“No she did not.”

“Was she incarcerated with you?”

“No.  We were both snatched of 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?”

“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 thy 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.

© Charles Heath 2023

Searching for locations: The Henan Museum, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China

The Henan Museum is one of the oldest museums in China.  In June 1927, General Feng Yuxiang proposed that a museum be built, and it was completed the next year, in 1961, along with the move of the provincial capital, Henan Museum moved from Kaifeng to Zhengzhou.

It currently holds about 130,000 individual pieces, more of which are mostly cultural relics, bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and pottery and porcelain wares of the various dynasties.

Eventually, we arrive at the museum and get off the bus adjacent to a scooter track and despite the efforts of the guide, there’s no stopping them from nearly running us over.

We arrive to find the museum has been moved to a different and somewhat smaller building nearby as the existing, and rather distinctively designed, building is being renovated.

While we are waiting for the tickets to enter, we are given another view of industrial life in that there is nothing that resembles proper health and safety on worksites in this country, and the workers are basically standing on what looks to be a flimsy bamboo ladder with nothing to stop them from falling off.

The museum itself has exhibits dating back a few thousand years and consist of bronze and ceramic items.  One of the highlights was a tortoiseshell with reportedly the oldest know writing ever found.

Other than that it was a series of cooking utensils, a table, and ceramic pots, some in very good condition considering their age.

 
There were also small sculptures

an array of small figures

and a model of a settlement

20 minutes was long enough.

Searching for locations: The Henan Museum, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China

The Henan Museum is one of the oldest museums in China.  In June 1927, General Feng Yuxiang proposed that a museum be built, and it was completed the next year.  n 1961, along with the move of the provincial capital, Henan Museum moved from Kaifeng to Zhengzhou.

It currently holds about 130,000 individual pieces, more of which are mostly cultural relics, bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and pottery and porcelain wares of the various dynasties.

Eventually, we arrive at the museum and get off the bus adjacent to a scooter track and despite the efforts of the guide, there’s no stopping them from nearly running us over.

We arrive to find the museum has been moved to a different and somewhat smaller building nearby as the existing, and rather distinctively designed, building is being renovated.

While we are waiting for the tickets to enter, we are given another view of industrial life in that there is nothing that resembles proper health and safety on worksites in this country, and the workers are basically standing on what looks to be a flimsy bamboo ladder with nothing to stop them from falling off.

The museum itself has exhibits dating back a few thousand years and consist of bronze and ceramic items.  One of the highlights was a tortoiseshell with reportedly the oldest know writing ever found.

Other than that it was a series of cooking utensils, a table, and ceramic pots, some in very good condition considering their age.

 
There were also small sculptures

an array of small figures

and a model of a settlement

20 minutes was long enough.

NANOWRIMO November 2023 – Day 25

“Opposites Attract”

…

Facing the music

…

With the altercation at the bar spreading like fire through a tinder dry forest, our boy goes home to see Darcy.

Yes, she already knew what was going on, and no she’s not happy, and yes, she is overjoyed that our boy will be marrying Emily.

Talk about mercurial relatives.

Then there’s that little gathering that Darcy has arranged where he can get roasted for his sins.

And from one person in particular, Xavier, who positively hates her and all her friends.

Like our boy, he had been treated badly by the girl and her friends, and having someone who was her friend wasn’t going to improve his lot.  But he did agree to be the best man.

It was not going to be a late night.

The next morning there’s a mission, he has to go and see shotgun Annie.

Yes, you heard it right, shotgun Annie.

Tim’s staunchest female ally, but there is a problem.  Just another of many he has to get past.

…

Today’s words:  1,597, for a total of 46,727

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 her 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, see 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 hp 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 getaway, 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 layer 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.  All three 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.

© Charles Heath 2023

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 48

What story does it inspire?

…

…

This photograph represents an idyllic scene, a pool at the bottom of a waterfall, which on a fine day would be perfect.

The fact it looks to be in the middle of nowhere is neither here nor there because…

That’s where the writer’s inventiveness kicks in.

So…

How do we get there? If it’s below the waterfall, then we came up the river, which is basically how you would go anyway, it’s just the depth of the river that determines how far you can go.

We had a situation like that where the depth of the river nearly stopped us from getting far enough up the river into the mountains to discover some amazing territory.

You could also go downriver, but since this river might start up in the mountains, it might be a long way.

Why would we be there?

The boring answer, we are on holiday.

The better answer, we’re searching for gold, and so are others who are trying to get us to move on, or we’re searching for something, just insert what you want to find. I was thinking: an intrepid brother or sister who has gone missing, and the waterfall was the last place they were seen.

And, what if there’s a secret entrance behind the waterfall, that opens into an underground complex with sophisticated, very strange and never seen before equipment, that hasn’t been used in a very long time.

Somehow I like the last one best.

And, just to add a new twist, you find a human-like body in a pod, and when someone accidentally leans on a button, it comes to life. Is it human, or is it a robot?

Or, is it….?

NANOWRIMO November 2023 – Day 24

“Opposites Attract”

…

A chat with Fred

…

The search for Tim was going to be through a baptism of fire.  Our boy had to go through his friends to find him.

And Tims friends were as belligerent as Tim was.  And a friend of Tim was an enemy of our boy’s.

But, how hard can it be?

To start the quest, he gets another ride in the corporate jet and gets to work with his new PA, Guinevere.  Oh, and did she say she used to work for Tim the Ungrateful?

Water under another bridge.

We touch down in town and there’s no time like the present to visit Fred, the staunchest of Tim’s allies, and the man who would know where he is.

With a mountain to climb, our boy goes into the bar where many a fight had played out badly, the bar that is renowned for the farm hands to let off steam.

Yes, there is a fight.

But for a long time our boy has been hiding a talent his father advised him never to use.

Pity this was the time or place.

And Fred discovers, what he always suspected, they had always been allowed to win.

…

Today’s words:  1,755, for a total of 45,130

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 improve 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 it 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.”

 Shook my head and stood.

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

© Charles Heath 2023

Searching for locations: The Pagoda Forest, near Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China

The pagoda forest

After another exhausting walk, by now the heat was beginning to take its toll on everyone, we arrived at the pagoda forest.

A little history first:

The pagoda forest is located west of the Shaolin Temple and the foot of a hill.  As the largest pagoda forest in China, it covers approximately 20,000 square meters and has about 230 pagodas build from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Each pagoda is the tomb of an eminent monk from the Shaolin Temple.  Graceful and exquisite, they belong to different eras and constructed in different styles.  The first pagoda was thought to be built in 791.

It is now a world heritage site.

No, it’s not a forest with trees it’s a collection of over 200 pagodas, each a tribute to a head monk at the temple and it goes back a long time.  The tribute can have one, three, five, or a maximum of seven layers.  The ashes of the individual are buried under the base of the pagoda.

The size, height, and story of the pagoda indicate its accomplishments, prestige, merits, and virtues. Each pagoda was carved with the exact date of construction and brief inscriptions and has its own style with various shapes such as a polygonal, cylindrical, vase, conical and monolithic.

This is one of the more recently constructed pagodas

There are pagodas for eminent foreign monks also in the forest.

From there we get a ride back on the back of a large electric wagon

to the front entrance courtyard where drinks and ice creams can be bought, and a visit to the all-important happy place.

Then it’s back to the hotel.