Tag: Serial

Going once, going twice… – a short story

It was the small town that we had visited once, some years ago, that had enticed me back.

Those had been happier times, times when the stench of money hadn’t overtaken sensibility, and who we really were.

Not that I had changed all that much, except for the upper west side apartment, and posh car to go with it, but what had disappointed me was the change in Liz, the woman I thought once as the love of my life.

Without the trappings of wealth, she was the kindest, most thoughtful and generous person I knew, but that had changed when I became the recipient of an inheritance that beggared belief.  We both made a promise from the outset that it would not change us, but unfortunately, it did.

And that was probably the main reason why I was standing outside an old fixer-upper house on several acres overlooking the ocean.

I’d asked Liz to come, but she was having a weekend away in Las Vegas with her new friends, or as one of the ladies rather salaciously said, a what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas kind of weekend.

Charmaine had told me about the house, one that she had admired for a long time, but didn’t have the means to buy it.

Charmaine was a painter, a rather good one, and both Liz and I had met her on a weekend away upstate, and I’d bought one of her landscapes to hang in our new apartment.  Liz hated it, but I think that had more to do with the painter than the painting, and that was because Charmaine had flirted with me, and that, I had observed over time, was how she was with everyone.

She called it her sales technique.  After all, it had worked on me.

I listened to the auctioneer go through the rules of the action and then move on to a physical description of the property.  I’d been to several viewings and got a good idea of what was needed if I was to buy it.  It had good foundations and had suffered from a lack of TLC.  It was how the auctioneer summed up.

When he called for the first bid, I felt a hand slip into mine, and a glance sideways showed it to be Charmaine.  I had asked her along for support but she had something else to do, but it appeared now, she hadn’t.

“So,” she whispered next to my ear, “you were serious about this place?”

I had been dithering, not being able to make my mind up, but Liz, in the end, made the decision for me.  I’d overheard a snippet of conversation with one of her new friends, and, to be honest, I’d been surprised.

“Perhaps it was time to find a hideaway.”

“Things that bad?”

I shrugged.  “Maybe I’m writing too much into it.  At any rate, I needed an excuse to get out of town, and being here was as good as any.”

The first bid came in at 450,000.   I knew the reserved was about 700,000, and I was prepared to 850,000.  But I was hoping to spend less than that because the renovations would be about 250,000.

“We could go and have a picnic.  It’ll certainly cost less than buying this place.”

“I’m here now.”

Holding hands was just one of Charmaine’s ‘things’, and I had never written anything into what might have been called a relationship of sorts.  We were not lovers, and the conversation had never been steered in that direction, but I did find myself gravitated towards her when Liz was off doing her thing with her friends.  To be honest, I just liked the idea of a picnic and watching Charmaine paint her landscapes.

I raised the bid to 500,000.  Another from the previous bidder, 550,000.  Another at 600,000.  It seems there were three bidders for the property.  The other sixteen people attending were observers, probably locals interested in how this would help their property value.

I went 625,000 when the auctioneer changed the increment after a lack of bidding.  It was countered, moving to 650,000.  Another at 657,000, and then the first bidder went to 700,000, the reserve.

“You do realize the other bidders are friends of the owner and are there to push the price up?” Charmaine whispered in my ear.

I’d heard of it happening, but I’d not suspected it until she mentioned it.

“Going once, going twice at 700,000.”  The auctioneer looked at me.  “I’ll accept 10,000 increments.”

I nodded.  710,000.  It quickly moved to 800,000, after I bid 790,000.

The auctioneer looked at me expectantly.  “810,000, sir?”

That was more than I wanted to spend though an elbow in the ribs was the clincher, and when I declined, there was an air of disappointment.

“Going once, going twice, all done at 800,000?”  A look around the crowd confirmed we were all done, and the gavel came down.

“Looks like we’re going on a picnic,” she said.  “I’d expect a call in an hour or so.”

Two things happened that weekend, both of which surprised me.  The first, Charmaine was right, I did get a call, and finished up with a hideaway in the country, overlooking the ocean.  The second, Liz didn’t come back from Las Vegas.  She had apparently found someone new, someone more exciting, or so she said.

I guess I was disappointed but not overly concerned.  She had changed and I had not and if the truth be told, we were drifting apart.  We parted amicably, sold the apartment, and moved on, each in a different direction.

I had a new residence, and renovations to take my mind off the break-up, and when I told Charmaine, she was just said she didn’t believe we were that perfect match.  And in the light of my new status, I could now ask her to come and stay in the spare bedroom, a lot better, I said, than the one person tent she had been using, an offer she readily accepted.

Until, a year later, it became something more than that.

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

Searching for locations: Niagara Falls, Canada

We visited the falls in winter, just after Christmas when it was all but frozen.

The weather was freezing, it was snowing, and very icy to walk anywhere near the falls

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Getting photos is a matter of how much you want to risk your safety.

I know I slipped and fell a number of times on the ice just below the snowy surface in pursuit of the perfect photograph.  Alas, I don’t think I succeeded.

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The mist was generated from both the waterfall and the low cloud.  It was impossible not to get wet just watching the falls.

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Of course, unlike the braver people, you could not get me into one of the boats that headed towards the falls.  I suspect there might be icebergs and wasn’t going to tempt the fate of another Titanic, even on a lesser scale.  The water would be freezing.

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 55

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.

…

After a night with Nadia

…

Was it a revelation to discover there was a side to Nadia that I would never have suspected?  All those years of being terrified of her, and her brother, had hidden it, from me and probably a lot of others.

Perhaps she hadn’t known any better, and that time away from her parents and family had opened her eyes to another world, one where you didn’t have to be the scariest person in the room.

I was going to wait until she went to sleep, but she asked me to join her on the top of the bed and then snuggled into my back.  At first, I was terrified, of what, I was not sure, but after a while, realizing I was not going to get away at a reasonable hour, I relaxed, and overcome with tiredness, fell asleep.

When I woke, she was on the other side of the bed, changed out of her clothes and into demure pajamas.  Had she been waiting for me to wake?

“You have a contented look about you when you’re asleep,” she said.  She was facing me, awake but a certain weariness had come over her.

“My father used to call it the sleep of the just.  I never quite knew what that meant.  I try not to have dreams or nightmares.  Please tell me you haven’t lain there watching me.  That would be far too creepy.”

“Just for a bit.  I’m not used to being with a man, even if there’s nothing happening.  Which is good, by the way.  I want us to remain friends, and soon as something else starts, that’s where it all ends..”

Obviously, she had been thinking about stuff, like all girls seem to do, making a simple friendship into something a lot more complicated, and the last thing I needed was complicated.  Or Vince knocking on my door.

“I’ve got a few hours before I have to go to work, and I was going to visit a few churches.”

“Why?”

“It might help to track down the Ormiston relations and see what they’ve got to say about the treasure.”

She sat up, a more serious expression taking over.  “You think there’s more to the story.”

“What story?”

“Well, it’s obvious you know about Boggs’s grandfather and old man Ormiston, the chap who owned all the land from the mountains to the sea, at one point in time.  It’s where we bought our property at Patterson’s Reach.  It’s a dump of a place that smells because of oil shale and gas leaks.  There’s a fault line through the middle of it and makes all the land near it unsellable.  The people who negotiated the deal with Ormiston were cheated, or so it goes, so there’s no love lost between the families.”

Interesting, and probably why Patterson’s Reach was an undeveloped backwater.  No residential or commercial zoning.

“Good to know, and definitely a reason to stay away.”

“You want coffee?” She asked, changing the subject.  “I had some sent up earlier.”

Which sent an alarm bell off in my head.  What if the room service person saw me in her room?  It wouldn’t take much for him to tell her father, or worse, Vince.

“He didn’t see you if that’s what you’re thinking.”

My mother said I had an expressive face.

“We have to keep this thing, whatever we have, under wraps, otherwise Bogg’s might get upset, and at the moment he’s not very happy with me.”

“Because of me?”

“Partly, but more because I have to work, and I’m no longer at his beck and call.”

“Then you’d better get up so we can trawl the churches.  I could do with a religious refresher.  We’re Roman Catholic by the way, and my father doesn’t believe in mixed marriages.”

“I’m not converting, nor are we getting married.”

“Pity.  I reckon I’d make a good wife.”  And then she laughed.  “You should see your face.”

Right.  Sometimes it was hard to know when she was joking.  But just the same, it would never work.

I shrugged.  “You could do a little better than a warehouse clerk.”

“Sometimes it’s not what you are, but how you make a person feel, and right now, I feel happy.  But, as you say, I could do a lot better.”

Oddly, after hearing that, I felt a little disappointed.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 54

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 dark room, a dark woman, and a dark desire.

A very, very bad combination.

But in a moment where my brain must have switched off for at least ten seconds, I kissed her back, and that was a fatal mistake.

I closed my eyes and went with it.  Until one or other or both of us decided this was not the time or the place.

And then she said something that really worried me.

“I’m sorry.”

She unbolted the door, opened it and we stepped out.  Instantly the temperature dropped forty degrees.

And sanity returned.

I tried getting my mind back onto realistic matters, like leaving.  “Do you think they might be waiting, just in case there is someone here, like us?”

“Then we have to go another way.”

“There is only one way, the way we came.  It was a dead-end where the torture room is, and, apparently, where there’s a safe.”

“WE’RE not staying to find out, maybe another day.  It’s time to leave before they possibly come back. There’s a back way in here.”

I followed her out of the room, up two offices, and then into what would be the middle office.  It looked like a reception area, with dusty seats along the wall, under peeling wallpaper.  At the back there was another door, shut.  She opened it, and it led to a passage.

“The cells.”

“Like a jail?”

“Like rooms for the shoplifters awaiting their punishment.”

She stopped at a doorway and looked in.  I saw her physically shudder, before moving on.

“Bad memories?” I asked.

“It might not have happened if I’d acted my age, but you know what it’s like.  When you’re sixteen, you want to be twenty-one, and when you’re twenty-one, you want to be sixteen again.  Trouble is, you can’t get back what you’ve lost.”

I wondered briefly if that something was innocence.  Some people seemed to think I still had mine, but I wasn’t so sure.

The passage didn’t go very far before it turned right, and then to the top of another staircase.  We went down, and then to the left again.  From what I could remember, we were on the other side of the mall.

There was another door, and we went through it, and out into the mall itself.  It was the second level, near the center where the garden was, and moments later we were at the railing looking down to the ground floor.

And a faint glow of light, moving around as if it was being carried by someone moving slowly towards the pond.

And voices.

“Look, Alex, there’s no one here.  We’ve just done a circuit of this creepy place and found no one and nothing else to show there is anyone here.”

“I can feel it.

“That’s the coke you had, Alex.  Turns you paranoid.  Let’s get the hell out of here, before the guards get back.”

We moved back from the edge just in time as a stronger beam of light swept past just where we had been standing.

She had held my hand as we moved backward, and I could feel a tremor in it.

After another sweep of the beam, he said, “I swear someone’s here.”

“It’s a ghost.  There are supposed to be a few.  Ask your father.  He’s responsible for at least three of them.”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“That’s your opinion.”

“Just shut up and let’s go, before I shoot you myself, and then you can talk to your friends.”

We waited ten minutes until there was a boom, the sound of a door slamming shut.  They had left by the front entrance where there was a large, heavier door, beside the large main entrance.

“Time for us to go too, Smidge.”

Even so, she didn’t let my hand go, not until we got back to her car.

And when we were back, safely inside her room, she asked me to stay.  She said nothing on the way back.  The bravado she had shown was just that, and the last encounter, at the mall center had shaken her.

Perhaps I would stay until her nerves had settled.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 51

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.

—-

We took her car.  It wasn’t a limousine of the sort I’d seen the other Cossatino’s driving around in, but a shabby old compact that had seen better days.  Perhaps it was selected for its camouflage qualities, it fitted in with a lot of other old cars that the general population drove.

No one in this town could afford any better.  Not unless you were a Cossatino or a Benderby.  Alex, for instance, had been given a Porsche on his 18th birthday.  By comparison, I was given a new, but second hand, bicycle.

She had parked in a back street some distance from the hotel, and the several times I checked, we were not being followed.  She had noticed me looking over my shoulder a few times but hadn’t commented.  Not until we had driven several miles.

“Alex has one of his mates following me,” I said by way of an explanation.  “Alex seems to think I might lead them to the treasure, which is about as daft as it can get.”

“He’s clutching at straws.  His old man had found out what he’s doing, not that he has told him he knows, and he’s going out of his way to distract Alex.  Old man Benderby doesn’t think there is any treasure.”

“How do you know what the old man is doing?”

“Talks to my father.  They might be sworn enemies, but that doesn’t mean they don’t talk.  It amuses them to see Alex and Vince go head to head.  It’s a waste of time trying to impress their respective fathers.”

“What about you?”

“I’m not trying to impress anyone.  At the right time, I’m packing my bags and going back to Italy to live with the other branch of the family, the ones who are not interested in being master criminals.  I just want to soak up the Tuscan sun and drink wine.”

“I’m sure your father would have something to say about that.”

“He has, but I’m not interested in using my ‘wiles’ as he calls them to get men to spill their secrets.  I’ve seen what it’s done to my mother and my sisters.  I’m not a criminal.”

Not now perhaps.  But back in school, she used every asset to get what she wanted.  It won over Alex, and a few others, particularly those who did her schoolwork for her.  She had nearly every boy at school dangling on a puppet string.

I was lucky she never gave me a second look.

“Well, I’m sure you made a lot of boys happy.”

A sidelong glance told me that wasn’t the wisest of statements to make.  Despite the fact it was true, I guess it was a time she’d rather forget.

I changed the subject.  “So when you went away, I’m thinking you went over to Italy?”

“For a while.  My father thought I was getting a little too close to Alex and sent me to what he thought would be purgatory.  I loved it.  Pity I had to come back.”

We’d reached a small area behind a row of shrubs that shielded us from being seen from the mall.  Something else I’d noticed, it was a cloudy night, and off and on the moon would disappear behind a bank of scudding clouds, and then just before we arrived, the moon had completely disappeared.

When we got out of the car, the darkness closed in around us, and it took a minute or so for my eyes to adjust.  The black clothes almost made us invisible.

I watched her as she wrapped her hair up into a bun and secure it with a band.  Dragged back off her forehead, it made her look older.  It also accentuated the fact she had carefully applied makeup, an odd thing to do when about to go running around in a very dirty place.

The parking spot was a long way from where Boggs and I had last gained entry, so did she have a different entry point.

“Ready?” she asked.

“As ever.”

She took off at a quick pace and I found myself almost jogging to keep up.  She was very fit.  I was not.  We cut across another carpark, one of several surrounding the mall, this one giving some cover because originally there had been landscaping.  It was now overgrown and out of control, and we could move through it and no one could see us.

Not that there was anyone else there.

We came out of the garden, crossed a road, and into an inset where there was a door.

The rusting sign on the door said that the outside should be kept clear as it was a fire exit.

The lock, from what I could see, looked reasonably clean, unlike patches of rust on the door itself, and around the edges of the lock.

“I presume you have a key?”

She pulled a keyring out of her pocket with several keys on it, selected one, and inserted it in the lock.

Nothing.

She tried the next key.  Same result.  She tried the last key.

It turned, and the door swung open.  For a door that showed the rust it did, it moved easily and silently.

She stood to one side as I passed through, then she followed me in, closing the door behind us.  A sign on the back said the door was not to be used, except for fire emergencies, and was alarmed.  No power, no alarm.

“Don’t suppose I should ask where you got the key?”

“Best not.”  She handed me a small torch and turned hers on.  I followed suit.  There was not a lot of light in front of us.  It was, however, quite dark.

“Follow me,” she said, and we set off down a long narrow passage.

—-

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 33

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…

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This is Chester.  Our discussion about me going away is not finished.

Not by any stretch of the imagination.

I’ve been trying to make the bed, fully away of the icy stares I’m being given.  THew old age issue is still very raw, and I found him back in his bed, frumping.

You do realize, comes the plaintiff cry, that no one ever remembers to come and refresh the water and food.

News to me.  Every time we go away, he had a constant stream of people coming to see him.

Old age, I say, is making you forgetful.

And when you sent me away to your brothers, I could barely tolerate that cat of his.  Common alley cat if there ever was one.

Class distinction, I didn’t see that coming.

We’re not all just cats, you know.

Perhaps not, but over the years we’ve had a variety of different cats, but not a purebred like Chester.  I’m not sure how that came to pass, but I think I preferred the non-fussy, undisdainful, and easily pleased ‘alley cats’.

Would you like me to send you to my brother’s then?

No, I didn’t think so.  Bed made, the discussion is over.

Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 8

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 prioritising.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

An interrogation and a revelation.

 

Debriefings were like interrogations, only friendlier.  We were trained to withstand interrogation, so it would be interesting to see how I reacted.   I had no doubt what some of the questions would be.

While I had a few minutes to myself, sitting down behind a bare metal table on a hard plastic and uncomfortable chair, with a warm cup of station house coffee, to consider the briefing.

Target, male, 6 foot 3 inches, 200 pounds, Caucasian, thought to be from either Russia or Bulgaria, but nothing to define his as such.  I had wondered, at the time, what that meant.  When I saw him in the alley I knew, then, what was meant, he looked the same as you or me.

No explanation for why he was under surveillance, but we did get a warning that he might be dangerous if he suspected he was being observed.  Right about that, given team casualties.

Main objective, who he met, talked to, and where he went, every place, every detail to be noted.  The unpredictable explosion threw the whole operation into chaos.

The door opened and a woman, middle-aged, conservatively dressed, walked in, closing it behind her.  She sat in the other chair opposite me.  She brought a file, thin, and put it in front of her on the table.

“Your name is Sam Jackson?”

“Yes.”

No introductions, nothing, just a start on the questions.  No nonsense, but I could see she was very, very angry.  With me, or those who had run a failed operation?

“How long have you been with us?”

“Eight months.”

She opened the file and glanced at the piece of paper on top.  A minute passed before she closed the file again.  “Closer to nine,” she said.

I said nothing.  I wasn’t counting the days.

“How many operations have you been on?”

“Six, including this one.”

“Who assigned you to this specific operation?”

“Couldn’t say.  I got the usual request via text message to attend a briefing at the midtown office.”

“What was the designated operation name?”

“Chancellery.”

For a brief second, there was a quizzical expression on her face, then it was gone.

“Who was running this operation?”

“Director Severin.”

A full three minutes of silence passed.  I thought she was looking at me, the sort of stare that would break a lesser man, but in the end, I think she was looking right through me.  I could not read her thoughts, but if I was to guess, they would be rather dark right now.

Then she spoke.

“You should know that there was no Chancellery on the books, and we certainly do not have a Director named Severin.”

 

© Charles Heath 2019

“Return to sender” a short story

We all make mistakes, errors of judgment, stupidly or otherwise.

I’ve made a few, just like in the words of a song that rattled around in my head for a long time after.

Regrets, I’ve had a few, but there was one that, in the end, I didn’t.

But I guess it took a while to get to that point.

Sometimes it’s hard to work out why, sometimes because it’s simply time, others, well when you look back you realize that it should have happened for so many reasons, but at the time you couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

We were in a bad place.

I’d been spending too much time traveling in a job that I had begun to hate, and I could see our relationship slipping away.  It was not that neither of us cared for the other, or even stopped loving each other, it was simply the stresses of everyday life.

And it was not as if Chloe didn’t have a high-pressure job, the one she had always wanted, and the one, we agreed, nothing would get in the way if she was given the opportunity.

I was happy with that, and for her.  She was as entitled to have her dream job, as I was.  I thought, I think we both thought, and believed, that would be the foundation of a good relationship.

And it was, to begin with.

There’s a point where there is a catalyst, that action, or statement, or person, or moment in time that comes along like a wrecking ball, and sets a series of events in motion, and no one really knows where it’s going to land or it’s effect.

That event?

I came home early and saw an old friend of mine, Roger, leaving our house.  OK, not so much a big deal, except for the send-off.  Still, even then it might not be such a big deal, because I knew Chloe was a very affectionate, touchy feely sort of person.

It used to faze me, way back in the beginning, but she had said and proved, that I was the love of her life, and that others, well, she made them feel special.

I thought no more about it, of course, and I didn’t even mention it, though at the time when I did walk in the door, she seemed distracted.

And I would not have thought about it again until Roger’s wife, Melissa, called one morning, though why she would call me was a mystery, to say that she was planning to surprise Roger in Las Vegas.

OK, I was suitably surprised, thinking that she was suggesting that Chloe and I should both go and make a weekend of it.  We had done it before because Melissa was a travel agent, and sometimes got airline and hotel deals that made it affordable.

I remember saying that as far as I was aware Chloe was in Pasadena doe the week on a conference.

No, she said, Chloe was co-incidentally in Las Vegas and Roger had accidentally run into her.

Should alarm bells be going off, I wondered, when that sliver of memory of him leaving popped back into my mind?  No, it was just me, running around like a headless chook, failing to read her diary correctly.

I simply said, fine, and told her to make the arrangements.

It was going to be a surprise because I hadn’t seen Chloe for two or three weeks, time seemed to pass too quickly these days, and it would be good for the both of us to spend some time together, away from home and the stresses of our respective jobs.

…

I met Melissa at the airport.  Unlike Chloe, she was traveling light with only a carry-on bag.  I was used to moving fast and light with a bag that fitted in the overhead locker.

Sher had secured business class which was a treat because, in this day and age of economics, that perk had disappeared a while back and was only available to the senior staff.

Onto the fourth glass of champagne, she dropped her bombshell, whether deliberate or otherwise I was never sure.

“It was very nice of Chloe to find Roger a job in her company.”

Did she, I thought.  It was the first time I’d heard about it, and my expression must have given me away.

“You didn’t know.”

“Chloe never mentioned it, no.  But it is like her.”  She had also employed members of her family that, in my opinion, wouldn’t get a job anywhere else.

“Odd, don’t you think?  It’s been about a year now.  His company went broke, and all the employees were tossed out onto the street with nothing.”

A year was a long time to forget to tell someone.  “Has it.  Perhaps it just slipped her mind.  She doesn’t tell me everything that goes on, nor do I want to know unless she thinks it’s important.”

Except employing my best friend was important, and it surprised me that he hadn’t told me himself.  He was never backward in bragging about his achievements.  Odd, yes, that he hadn’t told me he’d lost his other job.

…

Melissa had found out the hotel they were staying in, how I had no idea and didn’t ask, and it was simply a matter of telling the front desk clerk their spouses had arrived, and without question, he handed over the keys.

They were staying on different floors which to me made sense.  I wasn’t expecting they would be staying together, but I had an awful feeling Melissa had.

On the floor, I went to the room and knocked on the door.

A minute later the door opened.  Chloe, still in her nightgown, and an expression which lasted a fraction of a second before it registered surprise.

“Tom!”

Any other time, I might have thought she was expecting someone else.

Then my phone buzzed, an incoming message and I looked at it.

From Melissa.  “Lobby, now.”

I looked up, thought how beautiful she still looked, and said, “Hold that thought.  I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Then I closed the door and headed for the elevators.

Once inside and going down, my brain finally registered what it had just seen.  A woman prime for sex with that lustful look she used to have when we were first married.  Yes, she had been expecting someone, only not me.

Yet, in that moment of realization, I wasn’t mad at her or angry.  She was exactly where she was because of me, and my lack of consideration.  I had several opportunities to toss in the job that was clearly causing us issues, and I didn’t.  It was inevitable we were going to end up here.

When I stepped out of the elevator, I looked for Melissa, but she was not immediately noticeable.  Then, a further scan showed she was outside, and not in a good state.  When I reached her, it was evident she had been crying, and she was angry.

“Is it what I think you’re going to say?”

She nodded.  “When he opened the door, his first words were, “Chloe you sly fox, back for seconds?  And then nearly had a heart attack when he saw me.

“I’m sorry.  But did you have an idea this might happen?”

She nodded.

It explained everything, the hints, the sadness, the trip.  Obviously, she had known about it for some time.

I gave her a hug, and she melted into my arms, and we stayed that way until I saw Roger coming out of the elevator, looking around.

“Roger’s coming,” I said.

“I don’t want to see him, much less talk to him.”

“Then I’ll head him off.  Do you want to go home?” Again she nodded.  “Then get a taxi to the airport and I’ll be along in a short time.  I’ll text you when I’m leaving.”

A quick look in Roger’s direction, she headed to the taxi rank, and just as Roger came out the door, her taxi departed, leaving him standing there.

He saw me coming towards him, and to give him credit, he didn’t run.  It would be difficult for him to know exactly how I might react.

“Tom.”

“My best friend, Roger.  I might have been able to cope if it was some random guy, but not you.”

“Look…”

If he was going to try and justify himself, or make excuses, I didn’t want to hear it.  “Now is not the time.  I’m going to take Melissa home, and I suggest you take the time to figure out how you are going to deal with her because I’m not the problem.”

He was going to reply but possibly thought twice about it.  Instead, he shrugged.  “Later then.”

I watched him go back inside.  What I should have done, then, was go back to see Chloe.  The thing is, I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want the conversation to descend into blame, or worse.  Better I just head for the airport and come to grips with what I was going to do next.

…

As expected, about five minutes after the taxi had left for the airport, Chloe called.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said.  Her tone was not confident, but a little bit hesitant.

“Sorry.  Roger came looking for Melissa, and seeing him, well, that just threw me.”

“I’m sorry I lied to you?”

“About?”

“Going to Pasadena.  I came here to end it because it made me realize what was missing between us, and I wanted it back.”

“And if Melissa hadn’t played out her worst fears that would have worked.  The world, it seems, works in mysterious ways.”

If I thought about it, I might have had suspicions, but I was not the sort of person to let them get the better of me.  And had it not been for Melissa, my ignorance would have been bliss.

“What is it telling us, then, Tom?”

“That we need to take a step back.  I know that I’m to blame as much as anything else, and although you might find it hard to believe, I don’t hate you, nor am I angry with you.  For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.  I saw the signs and I didn’t do anything about it.  We’ll talk when you come home.”

I disconnected the call.  My voice had broken, and I hadn’t realized just how much it had affected me, suddenly overcome with great sadness.

…

I didn’t go home.

On the plane back, I realized that where I lived was just a house.  It wasn’t mine, Chloe’s success had contributed most towards it, and everything else.  If I was to be objective, there really wasn’t anything of me there.

It was easy to walk away.

When Chloe came home and found me missing, she called, three times before I answered.  I had thought long and hard about what we had together, and whether or not we could get over what had happened.  Perhaps, if she hadn’t lied about where she was, perhaps if it had not been Roger, my best friend, who, by the way, was no longer my best friend, I might have considered we had a chance.

But the trust was broken, and I’d always be wondering.  She was successful, she had everything she ever wanted, and she was a grown woman who had to take responsibility for her actions.

She would always be the love of my life; it’s just I couldn’t live with her.  We spoke about divorce, but it never seemed to happen.  I think she always had the notion that we would eventually get back together.

We parted friends but never seemed to travel in the same circles.  On our twentieth wedding anniversary, she sent me a letter, perhaps thinking it was the only way she could speak to me, I had long since traded my old phone in for a new one, in another country.

I toyed with the idea of reading it, but in the end scrawled on it black capital letters, “Not known at this address, return to sender”.  It was time to move on.

…

© Charles Heath 2021

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 50

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.

…

The afternoon and evening passed quickly, once again I found myself having to sift through a pile of outstanding orders that had finished up in the too hard basket for my morning shift counterpart.

There was no use complaining because it would fall on deaf ears and going over Alex’s head would only bring a pile of unwanted scorn on my head. At least it kept me busy, so the time passed quickly.

And in the midst of rummaging around at the back of the shelving in an older part of the warehouse, I’d unearthed an old laptop computer that was probably running a very old version of Windows, or perhaps not even that. It would keep until my next shift, so I buried it where no one else would accidentally find it, and clocked off.

Once again, I wasn’t going straight home. I rang my mother earlier when I knew she would be home before dinner to tell her I would not be home until late. In the end, I had decided to tell her a version of the truth, that I’d met a girl and was in the throes of trying to get to know her. I gave her the name Bethany, not one she would know, and said as much when she asked if she might know her.

I promised I’d bring her home if I thought things were moving in the right direction. She knew my track record with girls so didn’t proverbially hold her breath.

This time, leaving the warehouse I was on full alert, looking for the check shirt man, though I was not expecting him to be wearing the same clothes. I did assume that he knew I worked for the Benderby’s, and where, so he had that advantage.

So began a game of cat and mouse.

It took about an hour to cover the same distance it usually took fifteen minutes, but when I reached the straight stretch of road into the town from the factory site, he had to show himself, and once he did, it was a simple but lengthy task timewise, to lose him. In fact, my route was so convoluted, I nearly got lost myself.

Nadia was waiting, opening the door to the room that was shrouded in darkness. Both of us were dressed in black, I had changed into dark clothes when I came home at lunchtime. Once inside she only used a small light beside the bed, and we looked rather like shadows casting even more sinister shadows.

“I assume we’re going to the mall for something other than just a guided tour?”

I’d been thinking about it off and on, and I wasn’t really interested in looking at stuff she had found poking around in the wreckage as an alternative to being bored.

“I told you, I reckon there’s a torture chamber down there somewhere. The archaeologist is not the only chap the Benderby’s have shaken down.”

“A Cossatino or two?”

“There is a rumor, but that uncle won’t say for sure, otherwise he might find himself in hot water spilling his guts to the Benderby’s. We know someone did.”

“You do realize that it makes me think there’s a morbid side to you.”

“There’s more than that if you want to find out.”

There was something about her, in those close-fitting black clothes she was wearing, accentuating curves in places where they were normally lost in some mindless creation called Haute couture. I wondered, if only for a minute or so, whether she was deliberately trying to catch my attention.

“Perhaps later. I’m not sure whether getting too close to you might be bad for my health.”

Vince was always uppermost in my mind when I was with her. Even though I was a lot older and not the skinny weakling I had been in school, I didn’t think I could take him in a fight and win. Besides, Vince was the sort who always traveled with friends. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him alone. He, like Alex, was the typical bully.

She took a step closer and I could feel the warmth emanating from her.

“You’re close to me now.”

We were standing eye to eye, and it was hard to divert my eyes.

“You can’t tell me we don’t have a little chemistry going here,” she said, smiling.

A cat who ate the canary sort of smile.

“Don’t forget you’re a Cossatino, and a bad, bad girl. I could never take you home to my mother.”

“It‘s not your mother I would be trying to impress.”

Alright, enough. My heart had skipped a beat just thinking about what I could never have. It was wrong on so many levels.

“Are we going to talk, or are we going to get moving?” A tone that broke the moment. She could also have used the name Smidge to have exactly the same effect.

She sighed.

“Let’s go then before I change my mind.”

Interesting. The room had a back door. I wondered if she knew I was being followed.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 8

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 prioritising.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

An interrogation and a revelation.

 

Debriefings were like interrogations, only friendlier.  We were trained to withstand interrogation, so it would be interesting to see how I reacted.   I had no doubt what some of the questions would be.

While I had a few minutes to myself, sitting down behind a bare metal table on a hard plastic and uncomfortable chair, with a warm cup of station house coffee, to consider the briefing.

Target, male, 6 foot 3 inches, 200 pounds, Caucasian, thought to be from either Russia or Bulgaria, but nothing to define his as such.  I had wondered, at the time, what that meant.  When I saw him in the alley I knew, then, what was meant, he looked the same as you or me.

No explanation for why he was under surveillance, but we did get a warning that he might be dangerous if he suspected he was being observed.  Right about that, given team casualties.

Main objective, who he met, talked to, and where he went, every place, every detail to be noted.  The unpredictable explosion threw the whole operation into chaos.

The door opened and a woman, middle-aged, conservatively dressed, walked in, closing it behind her.  She sat in the other chair opposite me.  She brought a file, thin, and put it in front of her on the table.

“Your name is Sam Jackson?”

“Yes.”

No introductions, nothing, just a start on the questions.  No nonsense, but I could see she was very, very angry.  With me, or those who had run a failed operation?

“How long have you been with us?”

“Eight months.”

She opened the file and glanced at the piece of paper on top.  A minute passed before she closed the file again.  “Closer to nine,” she said.

I said nothing.  I wasn’t counting the days.

“How many operations have you been on?”

“Six, including this one.”

“Who assigned you to this specific operation?”

“Couldn’t say.  I got the usual request via text message to attend a briefing at the midtown office.”

“What was the designated operation name?”

“Chancellery.”

For a brief second, there was a quizzical expression on her face, then it was gone.

“Who was running this operation?”

“Director Severin.”

A full three minutes of silence passed.  I thought she was looking at me, the sort of stare that would break a lesser man, but in the end, I think she was looking right through me.  I could not read her thoughts, but if I was to guess, they would be rather dark right now.

Then she spoke.

“You should know that there was no Chancellery on the books, and we certainly do not have a Director named Severin.”

 

© Charles Heath 2019