Tag: Reading

I go missing for a day, and…

It’s like dying a literary death.

The silence is deafening.

It seems, after a lot of trial and error, trying this that and the other, I’ve discovered that you only get out of social media what you put into it.

And it means that unless you are on it 24 hours a day, every day, spruiking, or whatever it is we writers are supposed to do promoting ourselves and our work, nothing happens.

Don’t get me wrong, there are those who are raging successes, and I am happy for them.

But for us living on the fringe, and there is quite a lot of us, trying valiantly to reach the public eyes, the battle is just that, a battle.

When do you get time to write?

Is it a choice between writing, or trying to garner support and a following?

The authors who are published by the large publishers will tell you that it is the only way to become an author, where all of the marketing is done by the publisher and all they have to do is put in an appearance and pocket the royalties.

I don’t think that’s necessarily true.

But when I find that happy medium between marketing and writing, I’ll let you know.

Until then, I guess there will be more days like today, and that battle going on in your head that is telling you to give up, it’s never going to get any better.

Maybe not.

But give up? Not today, nor tomorrow.

After all, we live in a world where anything is possible.

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 28

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

 

It was rather an anti-climax to see the cat, Herman, come slinking out of the bedroom, down the passage, and then stop just at the edge of the room to look at the visitors.

He must have been hiding in her room all this time, and when he’d heard the door close, he thought it was safe to come out.

Jan saw him and held out her hand, “Come on, Herman, you’re safe now.”

He didn’t seem to agree and sat down just back of that invisible line in the sand that he wasn’t, yet going to step over.

But he did meow a few times, just to let us know he wasn’t pleased.

“Now that you’ve seen the cat, what were you thinking might be of significance?”

“I don’t know.  The fact he considered the cat his might have been significant in some way.”

Herman was back on his paws and taking tentative steps towards Jan.  Each time he stopped, he looked sideways at me, waiting.  Perhaps he thought I might attack him.  It would be the other way around.

“Doesn’t trust me, does he?”

He took a step back at the sound of my voice.

“Don’t listen to him Herman, you’re safe here with me.”

He looked at her, the same expression on his face he gave me.  Talk about the original poker face.  I doubt anyone could guess what he was thinking.  

A few more steps, then about a yard away he stopped again and sat.  He then spent the next few minutes looking at me.  Was this a test to see who blinked first?  I knew who would win that contest.  Not me.

Jan moved slightly and he jumped, and moved back several steps, looking warily at us both now.

“We’re not going to win him over, are we?”

“Maybe, maybe not.  There are a bowl and some food in the other room.  Put some in the bowl and bring it to me.”

Ah, the way to a cat’s heart is through his stomach.  I think the only thing relevant to that statement was that he was male.  I did as she asked, and handed her the bowl, and resumed my position, far enough away for him not to consider me a threat.

He watched me leave the room and return again, and I think he recognized the bowl, and that we were about to trick him into submission.

She put the bowl down next to her and patted the floor.

“It’s your favorite, Herman.”

Yes, head movements, and was he sniffing to see if he could recognize what was in the bowl?  Maybe he was hungry after being hidden away.  Would starvation overcome a fear of strangers?

A minute later we had the answer.  He was hungry and tentatively came over before smelling what was in the bowl before starting to eat.

Jan patted him.

“Works every time,” she said.

Both of us realized at the same time that Herman had a collar, slightly lost in the fur.  And she had the same idea as I did, that the collar might be significant.

She removed it as gently as she could without startling him, and then looked at it, around the outside, and then on the inside, and a sudden change of expression told me she found something.

“VS P4 L324.  What do you think that means?” she asked?

“Whatever it is, it’s a reminder that’s significant to O’Connell, or it is a message to someone if anything happened to him.  I expect that might mean it was a message to you.  You shared the cat so, clearly, he thought at some point in time you would look.”

“If he was expecting me to decipher it, then he must have seen something in me that I can’t.”

“You would work it out in time.  The point is if he hid that in plain sight, believing that if anyone came, they would take no notice of the car, then what else might he have hidden.  Does the cat have a bed?

“Not at his place, he used to sleep at the end of his bed.  But I put out an old blanket.”

How did she know the cat slept on the end of O’Connell’s bed?  I wasn’t going to ask, but if they were more than just friends, perhaps he had confided some details of what he was doing.

“In your room?”

“In the spare room where you found the food.”

I went back to the room found the blanked tossed in a corner, put there by the person who searched her flat no doubt, because I couldn’t see the cat doing it, not unless he was extremely bad-tempered and had super cat powers to move objects multiple times heavier than he was.

I picked it up and immediately had cat hair on my clothes.  Good thing then I wasn’t allergic to cats.

Then, I had a feeling someone was watching me.  I was right, Herman had come back to see what I was doing.

“Just straightening it out for you,” I said.

The death stare didn’t change.  He just stood there looking at me.  Or was he looking through me at something else, like a ghost?  It was slightly un-nerving.

I felt around the edges and suddenly, in the middle of one side, where the manufacturer’s label was, it felt like something was under it.  On closer examination, I could see the stitching had been removed for several inches in length and then crudely sewn it back together.  Inside what would be a pouch, I could feel something under the material, and with a little more twisting I thought it might be a tag.

I’d seen a pair of scissors in the kitchen and came back to get them.  Jan was busy trying to position the wet part of the towel over her head.  After I’d finished with the blanket, I would fetch her some Panadol.

I gently cut the crude stitches and then wriggled the item out.  It was a card with a number on it, 324.  That was all that was printed on the card.  Not what it was, who it belonged to, or what it represented.  I went back into the room where the cat was now sitting on her leg.

“There was a card sewn into the blanket.  It has the number 324 on it.  That would make it…”

“… a check for a post box, or safety deposit box, or a storage locker.”

Not exactly what I was going to say, but close enough.

Then she said, “It’s the same number on the collar.  L324.  Locker 324.  Somewhere defined by VS and P4.”

“Do you have a computer?”

“Not here.  Do you?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll go into the office and use one of theirs.  I assume you can do the same?”

I could, but I wasn’t quite sure what or who would be waiting for me,, now that I knew I couldn’t trust Nobbin.

“To be honest, I don’t think it’s safe for me.  It’s probably better if I don’t, not until I can find out who is who.”

Either of the two, Nobbin or Severin could be on the wrong side, maybe even both of them.  I was surprised that Severin didn’t drag me off when he came for Maury.  Perhaps I was still useful to him in the field as a second-string to finding the USB.

I helped her to stand.  

“No time like the present.  I’ll let you know what I find if anything.  Are you going to stay here?” she asked.  

“No.  Severin knows about this place and might come back.  We’re done here.  I’ll make sure the cat gets out.  I don’t think you should come back here unless you have to.”

“Then I’ll see you at the hotel.”

© Charles Heath 2020

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 52

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…

20160902_094127

This is Chester.  He’s left a current edition of a news magazine on my keyboard.

And I think it’s meant to scare me.

The title is “Your cat isn’t trying to kill you, probably”

The operative word that goes with the malicious look on his face, is probably.  In a staredown I know I’m going to lose.

If I try to read his mind, well, all that’s going to get me is a migraine headache.

Perhaps I’m missing the point.  The first few lines tell me that cats don’t have the facial muscles that dogs do, so an expressionless cat is just that, they are not giving you the proverbial death stare.

I’m sure that it’s his way of reassuring me that I’m living on borrowed time.

Or, maybe not, because there are a few more lines further down telling me that cats are predators and they kill about a billion birds every year.  That, I’m guessing, hints that once the birds run out, humans are next.

Ah, now I know that benign expression holds no malice…

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 61

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

A late picnic

…

We spoke no more of bloodlines, and instead spread out the surprises she had brought.  Cheeses, cured meats, her mother’s creation learned long ago in the mother country, and wine from their Italian winery.

As a quirk of fate, she had lined the basket with old copies of treasure maps, and after indulging in the food and wine, looked them over. 

There were six different maps, each with a different detail as to where the treasure might be buried.  One had it on the edge of the lake, a lake by the way that had now disappeared, another at the foot of the hills, identified by a cutting high above the spot.

Another was on the mountainside, after following a track alongside the non-existent lake and past several buildings, one appearing to be a church.

I knew where that church was, not almost a ruin, but it was not alongside a lake or anything that might have been a lake in the past.  Or it could have been another church, definitely a ruin and gone, in a different place.

This was the problem interpreting maps that were drawn, purportedly, in the late eighteenth century when the land would be pristine and roamed over by native Americans.  It was why some of the maps had the word Seminole on them, to identify the land, perhaps, or the people. 

While I should have been listening to the history, I didn’t, and therefore missed the fact that a lot of the Indians had died out before the pirate captain arrived with his treasure, or whatever he might have buried, if in fact, he came at all.

I was beginning to have doubts.

Of course, the Spaniards were lurking around those parts too, and they were all about treasure, especially that stolen from South America but that was centuries before.  Was the pirate captain Spanish or part Spanish perhaps?

Questions, nothing but questions.

“Those coins that were found of the coast.  Were they Spanish?”

“Good question.”

“It seems the Spaniards were here, once upon a time.  Anything is possible.”

The joke, or irony, would be that if there was a treasure, it was off a Spanish ship that ran aground in a storm off the coast, and all of the maps and rumors were true, but for a very different reason.

That brought to mind a recent discovery of coins elsewhere in Florida, and I couldn’t help thinking that Boggs had also heard about the discovery and had conjured up in his mind that the treasure his father had been seeking existed and had embarked on this odyssey.

“I’ve got a couple of metal detectors,” Nadia said.  “Maybe we should go wandering along the shoreline and see what there might be.”

“I’m sure it’s been done to death already.”

She smiled.  “I’ve got nothing better to do, have you?”

“Sleeping in.”

“You can do that when you’re dead.  Until then, there’s a treasure to be found.  I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning, about 10ish.”

Treasure!  I was beginning to hate it.

She tossed the leftovers into the basket and dragged herself off the floor when we finished up.  “I’ll let you get back to work.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 27

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

 

“Who’s coming?” snapped Maury.

“Some nice men in white coats, to take you away to a dark and dank hole somewhere in this city where you may tell us what you know, or you might not survive the experience. You got one shot at the easy way, now it looks like it’s going to be the hard way.”

I had to admire her. She had gone all gung-ho on him and, frankly, it was a frightening side to her that you wouldn’t normally see, or even guess that she had.

“This is a big mistake, Jackson. I suggest you call Severin and get this straightened out very quickly.”

“I’m going to call him, eventually. After I find the USB and see what’s on it. What it is that you seem to be so desperate to get to first?”

“That’s a matter of national security.”

“I suspect it’s a matter that involves you and Severin. O’Connell was working for a man called Nobbin. He runs another department, it’s starting to sound like there are wheels within wheels, who’s part in all of this I’m yet to understand.”

“He’s after the USB too?”

“Of course. If it’s evidence against you, and or others conspiring to do God knows what, he probably needs to know so he can put a stop to it. Apparently, since no one has heard of you or your operation, I’ve been transferred to his department.”

“How do you know the information is not about him? It’s not unheard of for an agent to discovered irregularities against his commander.”

“Then let’s hope I find the USB first. And, just out of curiosity, why did you kill O’Connell. Wouldn’t it be a better idea to capture him and make sure he had the USB before you did anything irrational.”

“It wasn’t my idea.”

“That’s what most of the Nazi’s said at Nuremberg.”

There was a knock on her door.

Jan went over and opened it. It was, I thought, the wrong thing to do when we had a man as dangerous as Maury in the room.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, I could say it was the wrong thing to do, but at the time, even I didn’t think Severin would know what was happening to his attach dog.

Apparently, he did.

The door crashed open sending Jan into a fall that saw her head hit by the swinging door. Three men with guns came bursting in, followed by a fourth, Severin.

Severin took in the room with a single sweep, then glared at me. “You need to pick a side, and soon, Jackson.”

One of the other men cut the ties and helped Maury to his feet. He also glared at me as he left with the other two. “You’ll keep,” Maury muttered as he went past, then was gone.

Severin looked at Jan, now a crumpled heap on the floor.

“Don’t play with MI5. They never see the big picture. Maury doesn’t forget, Jackson, so there will be a reckoning later. I suggest you find a way of redeeming yourself in his eyes. Perhaps it would be better if you cut ties with Nobbin and disappeared for a while. This matter is too big for a newbie like you.”

I heard a groan by the door, Jan waking.

“Just keep out of the way, Jackson. And her, if she knows what’s good for her.”

He left, closing the door behind him.

I went over to Jan and checked to see what injuries she had other than to her pride. A gash on the side of the head, with a little blood. It would give her a huge headache though.

“I’ll get a wet towel,” I said, helping her into a sitting position.

She still looked groggy.

“What happened?”

“You answered the door before finding out who was on the other side.”

“Maury?”

“Gone. He must have signaled Severin somehow that he was in trouble, or they were tracking him. Either way, they got here rather quickly to rescue him.”

“My people?”

“Not here yet.”

I left her to find a towel and run water over one end.

When I came back, she was on her phone, having got up off the floor. She still looked quite shaken.

“Yes, sir.” was all I heard of the conversation before she disconnected the call.

“Did you call off the collection team?”

“They weren’t coming. They said apparently I had rung back to say it was a false alarm.”

“And they believed that?”

“Whoever called had my special code, so yes, they did.”

Call finished, she sat down in one of the chairs and pressed the wet part of the towel against her head.

“Next time you might consider looking first before opening the door,” I said, realizing that it was not the advice she would be looking for.

“It’s a mistake I won’t make again, I can assure you,” she said. “but, we haven’t lost him yet.”

“How so?”

“I slipped a tracker onto his clothes, not one he’ll easily recognize or find, and as we speak, he’s being tracked through outer London. We’ll soon know where he’s going, and perhaps second time lucky.”

She was more resourceful than I would normally give anyone credit for.

Now it was a matter of waiting. Would he lead us to the heart of Severin’s operation? Only time would tell.

 

© Charles Heath 2020

“Trouble in Store” – Short Stories my way: Annalisa’s story

 It’s time to look at what’s been written for the unfortunate Annalisa, who had been caught up in a situation that is rapidly getting out of her control, not that she had it under control in the first place.  Perhaps it’s time to start reassessing her bad boy phase and think about a new lifestyle. 

Drugs, for her, were fun to begin with, but she can now see the effect they have on long term users, and the question will be, can she learn from this and move on?

 

Annalisa looked at the two men facing her.

Simmo, the boy on the floor, had told her that the shopkeeper would be a pushover, he was an old man who’d just hand over the drugs, rather than cause trouble for himself.

Where Simmo had discovered what the shopkeeper’s true vocation, dispensing drugs to the neighborhood addicts, she didn’t know, but it was not the first place like this they had visited.

She had always known Simmo had a problem, but he had assured her he had it under control.  Until a month ago, when he had tried something new.

It had changed him.

The breaking point came earlier that day when, seeing how sick he was, she threatened to leave.  It brought out the monster within him, and he threatened to kill her.  Not long after he had changed into a whimpering child pleading with her to stay, that he hadn’t meant anything he’d said before.

All he needed was one more ‘score’ to get his ‘shit’ together, and he would do as she asked, and find help.

She believed him.

He said he knew a place not far from the apartment, a small shop where what he needed was available, and said he had the money.

That should have been the first sign he was not telling the truth because she had been funding his habit until her parents cut off the money supply.  She suspected her father had put a private detective on to find her, had, and reported back, and rather than make a scene, just cut her off so she would have to come home or starve.  Her father was no better than Simmo.

And, as soon as they stepped into the shop, Simmo pulled out the gun,

Instead of the shopkeeper cowered like Simmo said he would, he had 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. 

That was just before the customer burst into the shop.

It had been shortly before closing time.  Simmo had said there would be no one else around.

Wrong again.

Now she had another problem to deal with, a man who was clearly as scared shitless as she was.

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.

She heard a strange sound come from beside her and looked down.  There was a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth and Simmo was making strange sounds like he was choking.

Any other time she might have been concerned, but the hard reality of it was, Simmo was never going to change.  She was only surprised at the fact it took so long for her to realize it.

As for the man standing in front of her, she was safe from the shopkeeper with him around, so he would have to stay.

“No.  Stay.”

Another glance at the shopkeeper told her she had made the right decision, his expression said it all.  Gun or no gun, the moment she was alone with him, he would kill her.

 

© Charles Heath 2018-2020

I go missing for a day, and…

It’s like dying a literary death.

The silence is deafening.

It seems, after a lot of trial and error, trying this that and the other, I’ve discovered that you only get out of social media what you put into it.

And it means that unless you are on it 24 hours a day, every day, spruiking, or whatever it is we writers are supposed to do promoting ourselves and our work, nothing happens.

Don’t get me wrong, there are those who are raging successes, and I am happy for them.

But for us living on the fringe, and there is quite a lot of us, trying valiantly to reach the public eyes, the battle is just that, a battle.

When do you get time to write?

Is it a choice between writing, or trying to garner support and a following?

The authors who are published by the large publishers will tell you that it is the only way to become an author, where all of the marketing is done by the publisher and all they have to do is put in an appearance and pocket the royalties.

I don’t think that’s necessarily true.

But when I find that happy medium between marketing and writing, I’ll let you know.

Until then, I guess there will be more days like today, and that battle going on in your head that is telling you to give up, it’s never going to get any better.

Maybe not.

But give up? Not today, nor tomorrow.

After all, we live in a world where anything is possible.

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 26

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.

Maury drops in for a search

 

I moved to the doorway and switched off the light, sending the room back into inky darkness.  Not good for the eyes, going bright light to instant dark.  We stood together behind the door as it opened inwards, Jan ready with her gun.

The door opened slowly, at the same time letting light in from the corridor, making it easier to see.

Opened fully, the visitor tentatively stepped into the room, and once the shape moved past the door, I slammed it shut and Jan lunged with the gun.  

I was not sure what result she was expecting but the person fought back, and as they turned to wrench the gun out of her hand, I let loose a punch, aiming for the head, and as hard as I could.  I head a cracking sound followed by a thump as the body hit the ground.

When I turned the light back on, there were two surprises.  The first, that I’d managed to knock someone out, and the second, Maury was back for a second look.

Why?

It didn’t matter.  He wasn’t going to be unconscious for very long.  Jan had some twine in her room, I wasn’t going to ask why, and she tied his hands and legs together, trussed almost like a turkey.

We left him on the floor when he’d fallen.  Unconscious, he was too heavy to move, or lift.

“Is this man Severin, Maury or Nobbin?” she asked.  She’d saved the questions until after he’d been neutralized, and we’d taken his gun off him.  Also, a knife.  She’d also look through his pockets to see if he carried any identification.  He didn’t, and I wouldn’t expect to find anything.  At the moment I was the same, and since I threw the phone’s sim card, I was now completely anonymous.

“Maury,” I said.

“The attack dog?”

“Not able to attack us at the moment, but yes.  I wonder why he came back?”

“We should ask him,” she said, “when he wakes up.”

We were sitting in the chairs, turned around to face Maury lying on the ground.  He had wriggled, and realizing he was tied up, tried harder to escape the bonds, and then relaxed when he realized he couldn’t.

His eyes turned to us, and it felt like a death stare.  

“This is a mistake,” he said.  “untie these ropes and I might make an exception for you.

“Why are you here?” I asked him.

“That’s none of your business.”

“But it is mine.  This is my flat, and you’re trespassing,” Jan said.

He switched his death gaze to her.

“I’m not here to cause trouble.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To ask you if your next-door neighbor left anything here with you to collect at a later date.”

No doubt with a menacing attitude, which would end in violence because Maury was not the sort to take no for an answer.

“Most people would knock on the door, and politely wait until it was answered.”

Most people.

“I was told there would be no one at home.”

“And it couldn’t wait until I returned?  I’m sorry, but you have broken into my flat and I’m going to call the police.”

He looked at me.

“That’s not a good idea.  Tell her, Jackson.”

“I don’t work for you, or Severin, anymore.  In fact, when I went back into the office, I got dragged aside and interrogated.  No one seems to know who you and Severin are.”

“That’s because our operation was on a need to know basis.  How do you think our business works?  Not by telling everyone what you’re doing.  Now untie me, and I’ll be on my way.”

“No,” Jan said.  “Not until you tell us exactly who you are and who you work for, and why you deemed it necessary to murder O’Connell.”

Maury looked at me again, and there was no mistaking the anger.

“You do understand what the Official Secrets Act means, don’t you Jackson?”

“More or less.  But it depends on who it is you speak to whether that’s relevant or not.”

Back to Jan.  

“Who are you, then?”

“As you keep pulling out of your hat, it’s on a need to know basis, and, of course, we just tell everyone what we’re doing either.  But one thing I’m sure of, we do not go around killing agents.  As far as I can tell, O’Connell was working for an agency, possibly yours but I don’t think so, and in the course of his investigation, he came across some valuable information.  Information, I’m told, you want.  What is it and why?”

“Are you serious?”

He shifted his glare back to me.

“Seriously Jackson, who is this person?”

“Someone, I fear, who is going to cause you a great deal of grief if you don’t answer her questions.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  I don’t have to tall you or anyone else the nature of my business.”

I saw her shake her head.  “I take it, that’s a no.”  She shrugged and pulled out her phone and dialed a number.  “Always the hard way with you people.”

“Sir,” she said when the call was answered.  “I’ve got a character named Maury tied up in my flat.  Breaking and entering for starters.  Yes, I’ll be here.”

She put the phone back in her bag.  “They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

All we had to do was hope that Maury didn’t have a backup.

© Charles Heath 2020

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 61

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

A late picnic

…

We spoke no more of bloodlines, and instead spread out the surprises she had brought.  Cheeses, cured meats, her mother’s creation learned long ago in the mother country, and wine from their Italian winery.

As a quirk of fate, she had lined the basket with old copies of treasure maps, and after indulging in the food and wine, looked them over. 

There were six different maps, each with a different detail as to where the treasure might be buried.  One had it on the edge of the lake, a lake by the way that had now disappeared, another at the foot of the hills, identified by a cutting high above the spot.

Another was on the mountainside, after following a track alongside the non-existent lake and past several buildings, one appearing to be a church.

I knew where that church was, not almost a ruin, but it was not alongside a lake or anything that might have been a lake in the past.  Or it could have been another church, definitely a ruin and gone, in a different place.

This was the problem interpreting maps that were drawn, purportedly, in the late eighteenth century when the land would be pristine and roamed over by native Americans.  It was why some of the maps had the word Seminole on them, to identify the land, perhaps, or the people. 

While I should have been listening to the history, I didn’t, and therefore missed the fact that a lot of the Indians had died out before the pirate captain arrived with his treasure, or whatever he might have buried, if in fact, he came at all.

I was beginning to have doubts.

Of course, the Spaniards were lurking around those parts too, and they were all about treasure, especially that stolen from South America but that was centuries before.  Was the pirate captain Spanish or part Spanish perhaps?

Questions, nothing but questions.

“Those coins that were found of the coast.  Were they Spanish?”

“Good question.”

“It seems the Spaniards were here, once upon a time.  Anything is possible.”

The joke, or irony, would be that if there was a treasure, it was off a Spanish ship that ran aground in a storm off the coast, and all of the maps and rumors were true, but for a very different reason.

That brought to mind a recent discovery of coins elsewhere in Florida, and I couldn’t help thinking that Boggs had also heard about the discovery and had conjured up in his mind that the treasure his father had been seeking existed and had embarked on this odyssey.

“I’ve got a couple of metal detectors,” Nadia said.  “Maybe we should go wandering along the shoreline and see what there might be.”

“I’m sure it’s been done to death already.”

She smiled.  “I’ve got nothing better to do, have you?”

“Sleeping in.”

“You can do that when you’re dead.  Until then, there’s a treasure to be found.  I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning, about 10ish.”

Treasure!  I was beginning to hate it.

She tossed the leftovers into the basket and dragged herself off the floor when we finished up.  “I’ll let you get back to work.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

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