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Nailed On Hard Wood (a Pulp Novel).

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4.

My room was on the second floor at the end of the corridor. It had a small balcony that overlooked the terrace where we had lunch. All the rooms along this side of the house had these balconies. I was the only one out looking at the moon over the Mediterranean and wishing I was safely in my hotel room back in town. You know where you are in a hotel. There’s a kind of freedom to it. Instead I was in Valenti’s house, in the hills, on an island and I felt cooped up. Usually the moon makes me feel calm. Maybe I should have a drink. There was a self service bar in my room. Valenti thought of everything, even the brand of scotch I usually drink. I wondered how much he actually knew about me, and what he planned to do with all that information. My ex-wife might want to know things. That was a cheerful thought.

I had gotten stuck at a chess table with Mama after supper. She napped all afternoon while Valenti and I looked at his diaries. I had them in my room now, locked in the wardrobe. Mama was feeling as frisky as an octogenarian gets after a full meal. She had eaten two desserts. She wanted to play chess. So I played chess. I fancied myself a good player, winning at least as often as I lost. You could learn a lot about a person playing chess with them. I wondered what I would learn about Mama. She grunted at me and sat down at the table. She was black, which left me with white, and the opening move. I led with my king’s pawn. She stared at me, countered my move, and took out some knitting. She apparently needed a sweater urgently. I was ready to take off my jacket, it was so warm. I played a knight. Mama snorted, played another pawn, and went back to knitting.

She played chess like a battle hardened general, clucking her tongue, making huffing noises at every move I made, and never dropping a stitch on her sweater. Finally, I put her king in check. She growled at me, and I smiled back. She looked at the board, now with considerably fewer men in play. She was not above sacrificing a bishop if a pawn was more useful. I never wanted to be a bishop.

She moved her castle and my king felt less smug. I took her bishop and Mama crossed herself. It was an affront to mother church. Her queen appeared out of nowhere and the white army crumbled. I smiled and shrugged. Mama put away her knitting and laughed. She creaked up onto her feet and clapped me on the shoulder, grinning while she said something to Mitch in Italian, then she hobbled off to bed.

I decided to stick to writing Valenti’s story. The cloak and dagger stuff was giving me a headache.

“The dame always wins,” said Mitch. “When Tony’s dad died, she ran this island.”

Now it was late and Valenti wanted to get down to his boat early the next day. Why would you live on a clifftop if you wanted a boat. I decided I needed to get rich to understand the logic of that. It was on my ‘to do’ list, getting rich.

I went back into my room and poured a large whiskey from the scotch bottle. Hospitality should be accepted, I thought. I was raised to have good manners. The scotch was smooth and mellow, with a nice touch of peat. I don’t like the highland stuff. I have an aversion to loud bearded men in skirts. I prefer my scotch more earthy. I knew a Scottish girl once, from one of the islands. She had been quite earthy. I liked to stay grounded.

I woke up once in the night. The moon was setting and there was a silver glow through the room. I needed to use the plumbing. Fortunately the room had a cozy en-suite, complete with fixtures that would have been state of the art in Mussolini’s time. I decided not to flush, having heard the orchestral result earlier, and I didn’t want to fully wake up. I shut the lid instead, and stumbled back to bed.

There was someone else there. I didn’t notice right away, but when I got back into bed, I bumped up against something warm and satiny. I sleep naked because I read somewhere that it’s the way nature intended, and is the best for overall health. The body is a temple, the article said, and who was I to argue? It was Cristina and she was asleep. I could tell the first from the cut of her blonde hair, shining in the moonlight. I could tell the second from the soft sounds of her breathing. I didn’t know exactly when she had arrived, but she was tired and so was I. I decided to let her sleep. Lord knows I needed some as well.

She was a temple and I was a new convert making a pilgrimage. She was warm, welcoming, wet, and soft, and she made sweet small moaning noises. Her breast fit exactly in the palm of my hand, which is, to my mind, the very best size. I worshiped at her temple. During our communion, I found out that she tasted like lemon and mint, and her hair smelled of flowers. The offertory was a hymn that she sang on a crescendo, trembling prettily, and I ended with a feeling of benediction. I’m sure she slept better after that. I know I did. I decided that wrapping a girl around you is nicer than a blanket, but they don’t stock them at Harrod’s.

The sun rose too early for my liking, with me still wrapped around Cristina. I thought perhaps we could do morning prayer. I was mistaken. Julie came bustling into the room, already dressed in a pale green sun dress. She kissed me on the cheek and woke Cristina with a full kiss on the mouth. I reacted appropriately. Since it was going to be some time until I would fit into my trousers, I decided to get a shower. The girls were gone when I got back to the bedroom. I felt slightly forsaken by whatever god I had found and needed breakfast.

A few hours later we were all in the limousine with Damian driving us down the mountain. Julie and Cristina were up front with him. I was in the back with Valenti and Mitch.

“I forgot to tell you,” said Valenti, “this is going to be sort of the official launch of my election campaign. You slept okay?”

“Very well, thanks,” I said. I don’t think my face gave anything away. Cristina glanced back at me and smiled. “So, you’re going to announce your intention to run before the book comes out?”

“Plenty of time,” said Valenti. “This is just a preliminary. I want to get these guys used to the idea that new times call for new ways of doing things. The old families can’t keep doing the things that worked in the 1950s. I think they’ll come around, if it’s done right.”

“So we wine and dine ‘em,” said Mitch. “Show ‘em we’re all on the same side. Good for business.”

“All friendly,” I said. “So you turn the mafia into legitimate country aristocracy and the papers stop running stories that upset people at their breakfast.”

“You got it,” said Mitch. “This’ll be fun. You’ll love the boat.”

“You’ll like my seasickness,” I said. Small boats and I don’t play nicely together.

“Don’t worry,” said Valenti. “We’re not going to sail that far. We’re pulling into a slip right in town. Dinner will be on the boat, but the caterers are from the village. Best food on the island.”

The boat was a barge with a pilot’s cabin at the back. Most of the length of the boat was taken up by a long table. An awning of striped blue and white sheltered the table so people could sit in the shade. The Mediterranean sun can be hot. We sailed along the coast, the engine making confident chugging noises. Damian drove boats as well as cars, it seemed. We rounded a point and the town appeared. As soon as we docked, people started to come aboard, with Valenti greeting each one, sometimes jovially, sometimes solemnly. Everybody was on Sunday best behaviour.

There was room around the table for waiters to move quite freely, and we were all seated. Valenti was at the head of the table nearest the pilot’s cabin. I was halfway down the table, flanked by Julie and Cristina. There were lots of expensive suits and Italian leather shoes. Mitch sat on the other side of the table wearing an open white shirt and gold medallions on his chest. He rattled away in Italian and English, a constant stream of words without actually telling anyone anything. I felt like an island. The girls were occupied in conversation and I didn’t know the language. At least the food was good.

Valenti made a speech. He talked in Italian, probably telling them that he would protect their business if they cleaned up their act. He’d do wonderful things as their politician, and Cassini would be the best place in all Italy. Political speeches all run to a formula. I heard my name. Everyone looked at me at that point, so I waved. The speech went on.

“So,” said the large old man sitting next to Julie. “You write a book for Tony?”

“Yes,” I said. “I do that.”

“You donna write about me,” he said. “I not wanna be in this book.”

“Okay,” I said. He seemed happy. He shook my hand. I never spoke to him again. Julie shrugged and squeezed my leg. Valenti went on. Someone should have timed him.

A man, dressed as a waiter came aboard carrying a silver tureen. He seemed vaguely familiar, but there was something wrong. For one, we were on the cheese and wine course, not the soup. He had curly brown hair and wore thick rimmed black glasses. I imagined him in a rumpled jacket and gray trousers and I had him. It was my old pal Green, from the ferry, only he wasn’t soaking wet. He set the tureen down on the end of the table and pulled an uzzi out of it. Heopened up straight down the table. I think I saw the bullets whizzing past in front of me. Valenti’s chest opened in a flower of red as he was thrown back, collapsing over the back of his chair.

Pandemonium erupted on the boat as all the other diners surged to their feet. Green opened up again, spraying bullets right and left. I saw Mitch dive under the table. I didn’t have a lot of experience with uzzis, but it looked dangerous and I didn’t want to be a note in tomorrow’s obituary page. I grabbed the nearest flotation device and went over the side.

What I actually ended up taking with me into the water was Julie. She was unconscious, but didn’t seem to have been hit. I swam toward the back of the boat, pulling Julie with me. Above us the shooting stopped. I didn’t wait around to see what happened to Green. I figured most of the people on the boat were dead or wounded. I didn’t want to think about Cristina. I pulled Julie under one of the adjacent docks and tried to revive her.

“Oh,” she moaned. I got her up onto the sand of the beach, still under the dock, and held her. I started searching her for bullet wounds. She didn’t seem to be bleeding.

“Are you alright?” I asked her.

“I feel like someone hit my head with a brick,” she groaned. “What happened?”

“Someone decided to have some fun with a machine gun,” I said. “We took a dive off the boat. You must have banged your head.”

“Cris!” she cried. She tried to get up. I held her down.

“You can’t do anything for any of them,” I said. I felt like that stern cop in the gangster films, the one who slaps the hysterical female witness. I wondered if I should slap Julie. I decided against it. She had enough to deal with.

“Tony?” she asked, her wide dark eyes staring into mine.

“I think everyone's dead. I’m not going back to look.”

She started to cry silently. I think it would have been easier if she had sobbed loudly. The quiet tears were heartbreaking.

“I know,” I said dully. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know anything, least of all what to do next.

There were sirens and whistles approaching. The harbour front would be crawling with cops in a minute. I didn’t want to be part of a police investigation. I was sure they’d find me soon enough, but I wanted to have time to prepare for any questions.

“Come on,” I said, dragging Julie to her feet, still crying. “We have to get out of here.”

“Mama!” said Julie. “We have to find Mama. She’s all alone at the house. She’ll know what to do.”

I vetoed that suggestion. The late Tony Valenti’s house was the first place any assassin would look for survivors to mop up. Green didn’t seem bothered by the idea of eliminating witnesses. We were getting off Cassini as soon as bloody possible.

An hour and a half later, we were approaching the gate of Valenti's house. Have I mentioned yet that I’m really not good at winning an argument with a girl? We were listening for anything that might suggest that Green or some other mobster was lurking in ambush. Instead we smelled a fire. The electric gate was open, its locking mechanism cut. Julie took off down the drive at a run. I swore and ran after her.

I didn’t know what I would do when I got to the house if there were mobsters around. I didn’t even have a gun. I have heard that having a gun is the best way for someone else to use that gun to shoot you. I don’t know if that’s true, but at least I knew that if I was going to be shot, it wouldn't be with my gun. I didn’t find that comforting.

I got to the lawn to see the house was on fire. Flames, lots of flames were coming out of the upstairs windows and the bronze doors stood open. I could feel the heat halfway across the yard. Nothing could have survived in there. A professional job. Well, there went Tony’s diaries and likely any evidence of his former mafia connections. That wasn’t the most troubling thing.

Someone had erected a cross on the lawn. Cristina hung on the cross, naked, with nails through her wrists. Her legs were slightly bent, and nailed through the base of the ankles to the side of the upright. That left her legs slightly apart, exposing her lovely young body to anyone who happened along. Julie was collapsed at the base of the cross, sobbing. I was wrong. The sobbing was more heartbreaking.

I stood there and just stared. I remember thinking, “so, they really do crucify people.” Then I remembered waking up that morning with Cristina smiling at me, warm soft and happy. I didn’t feel happy at all. Something was blurring my vision, probably smoke. I took out my handkerchief and wiped the tears out of my eyes.

Cristina was very still. She wasn’t moving because she was dead. Someone had crucified her and then shot her. There was an entry wound under one of her pretty small breasts. Someone didn’t want her to be able to tell anyone anything. At least she wasn’t suffering anymore.

I wished I had pulled her over the edge with me, but I didn’t like the idea of Julie up on the cross any more than Cristina. That thought filled me with some dread. What if they, whoever they were, came back. Who were they? All the mafia dons on Cassini were killed at lunch on the boat. I suppose that’s one way to clean up organized crime, but something about it didn’t make sense. And who was Green working for? I looked around the yard, sure that an assassin was nearby.

Green was lying in the grass at the edge of the forest. He looked surprised. A hole in your forehead will do that. I went to check him. This time I was sure he was dead. He’d have to do more than just dry off for him to show up anywhere again. I searched his pockets. His wallet was gone, but he had a Walther pistol. Professionals again, I thought. Nothing to identify him, and they didn’t need his little gun, so they left it. I put the gun in my pocket with the safety on.
Then I went to collect Julie. She had stopped crying and was just sitting and staring sadly at Cristina.

“Let’s go,” I said. I picked her up and put my arm around her. Neither of us looked back. I somehow knew that Cristina’s crucifixion wouldn’t get into the papers.

We hiked back down the hill. The only person I cared about on Cassini now was on the road with me. I wondered if I could get her off the island. With Valenti dead, he wouldn’t be running for office, and he didn’t need me to write his book. I had more than enough material to write another bestseller. There was nothing holding me to the island.

“We should tell the police.” said Julie.
“I don’t know,” I said. “What do we say? We can identify who shot all those people this afternoon, and by the way, there’s a house on fire and a crucified girl up the hill, along with the body of the man who killed off all your mafia dons. I think it tends to open up more questions.”

“Don’t we want them to ask questions?” asked Julie.

“I don’t know which side the police are on. Most of the mafia were on that boat. Whoever killed them probably doesn’t want us alive either, and I don’t trust the police to keep us safe.” Those mafia guys didn’t want Valenti’s book written, or for him to do a tell-all story, but I couldn’t imagine they would commit collective suicide to stop him. Somebody else wanted them dead.

“We should get away as fast as we can. Is there a ferry tonight?” I asked.

“No. Tomorrow morning at 6:00am,” she said.

“Okay. We’ll stay at my hotel tonight, and then first thing tomorrow we’ll slip onto the ferry and back to the mainland.”

“Just don’t leave me alone tonight,” she started crying again. I held her hand and we went down the hill to the Croce della Vergine. The hotel’s name didn’t seem as quaint and folksy as it had a day ago. I kept seeing Cristina.

We slipped quietly into a side entrance, directly into the guestroom corridor – my key card still worked to open the door, so my reservation had not been cancelled. I was pretty sure nobody had seen us come in. It was after 10pm, and other guests were in bed, or having a drink in the bar. There was nobody in the hallway outside my room. I closed the safety lock. The room looked exactly as I had left it yesterday morning. My case was still on the stand. Green’s briefcase was still in the dresser drawer. I shut the curtains.

Julie came to me and I held her. Her body was trembling. I let her cry against my chest. I knew how she felt, but I was finished crying. I had a kind of cold fear in my chest. I rested my chin on her hair and let her get it out of her system. I don’t know if she wanted me to do anything else. I’m not so big a cad that I would suggest sex after what she’d been through. She pulled away after a few minutes.

“Just stay with me tonight,” she said. “And let’s take a shower. I want to wash today away, but I don’t want to be alone, even in the bathroom.”

So she washed the sweat and dirt off of me, and I shampooed her hair, and washed the dirt, soot and sweat off her. I may have washed some parts of her several times for good measure. She seemed to feel much better after that. I towelled her off, watching the bronze glints in her hair, and enjoying the pink tips of her breasts. “Come to bed,” she said. “I need you.”

“I’ll just shave,” I said, “I won’t be a minute.” It’s only polite not to leave stubble scratches on your lover.

She kissed me hard, and left the bathroom. I got out my Phillips electric and let it remove my two day old beard. I was feeling almost human, when the thought hit me.

You don’t crucify a girl if you don’t want someone to see it. They could have shot her on the boat or hidden the body. A crucifixion would be a kind of message. Who was it for? Was it for someone who would go to Valenti’s house? Who would go back? I was suddenly terrified. I ran out of the bathroom. I had to get Julie away tonight.

She wasn’t there. The safety lock on the door was open. The bed was turned down and ready, but Julie was gone.

At this point in one of my books, the hero would steel his will, spring into action, save the day, and get the girl. I had just lost the girl, my beard was only half shaved, and I was stark naked. On the plus side, I had nice clean hair, but I had to admit it didn’t look good.

(to be continued...)
 
Well, that was unexpected. I don't know where we go from here!
 
4.

My room was on the second floor at the end of the corridor. It had a small balcony that overlooked the terrace where we had lunch. All the rooms along this side of the house had these balconies. I was the only one out looking at the moon over the Mediterranean and wishing I was safely in my hotel room back in town. You know where you are in a hotel. There’s a kind of freedom to it. Instead I was in Valenti’s house, in the hills, on an island and I felt cooped up. Usually the moon makes me feel calm. Maybe I should have a drink. There was a self service bar in my room. Valenti thought of everything, even the brand of scotch I usually drink. I wondered how much he actually knew about me, and what he planned to do with all that information. My ex-wife might want to know things. That was a cheerful thought.

I had gotten stuck at a chess table with Mama after supper. She napped all afternoon while Valenti and I looked at his diaries. I had them in my room now, locked in the wardrobe. Mama was feeling as frisky as an octogenarian gets after a full meal. She had eaten two desserts. She wanted to play chess. So I played chess. I fancied myself a good player, winning at least as often as I lost. You could learn a lot about a person playing chess with them. I wondered what I would learn about Mama. She grunted at me and sat down at the table. She was black, which left me with white, and the opening move. I led with my king’s pawn. She stared at me, countered my move, and took out some knitting. She apparently needed a sweater urgently. I was ready to take off my jacket, it was so warm. I played a knight. Mama snorted, played another pawn, and went back to knitting.

She played chess like a battle hardened general, clucking her tongue, making huffing noises at every move I made, and never dropping a stitch on her sweater. Finally, I put her king in check. She growled at me, and I smiled back. She looked at the board, now with considerably fewer men in play. She was not above sacrificing a bishop if a pawn was more useful. I never wanted to be a bishop.

She moved her castle and my king felt less smug. I took her bishop and Mama crossed herself. It was an affront to mother church. Her queen appeared out of nowhere and the white army crumbled. I smiled and shrugged. Mama put away her knitting and laughed. She creaked up onto her feet and clapped me on the shoulder, grinning while she said something to Mitch in Italian, then she hobbled off to bed.

I decided to stick to writing Valenti’s story. The cloak and dagger stuff was giving me a headache.

“The dame always wins,” said Mitch. “When Tony’s dad died, she ran this island.”

Now it was late and Valenti wanted to get down to his boat early the next day. Why would you live on a clifftop if you wanted a boat. I decided I needed to get rich to understand the logic of that. It was on my ‘to do’ list, getting rich.

I went back into my room and poured a large whiskey from the scotch bottle. Hospitality should be accepted, I thought. I was raised to have good manners. The scotch was smooth and mellow, with a nice touch of peat. I don’t like the highland stuff. I have an aversion to loud bearded men in skirts. I prefer my scotch more earthy. I knew a Scottish girl once, from one of the islands. She had been quite earthy. I liked to stay grounded.

I woke up once in the night. The moon was setting and there was a silver glow through the room. I needed to use the plumbing. Fortunately the room had a cozy en-suite, complete with fixtures that would have been state of the art in Mussolini’s time. I decided not to flush, having heard the orchestral result earlier, and I didn’t want to fully wake up. I shut the lid instead, and stumbled back to bed.

There was someone else there. I didn’t notice right away, but when I got back into bed, I bumped up against something warm and satiny. I sleep naked because I read somewhere that it’s the way nature intended, and is the best for overall health. The body is a temple, the article said, and who was I to argue? It was Cristina and she was asleep. I could tell the first from the cut of her blonde hair, shining in the moonlight. I could tell the second from the soft sounds of her breathing. I didn’t know exactly when she had arrived, but she was tired and so was I. I decided to let her sleep. Lord knows I needed some as well.

She was a temple and I was a new convert making a pilgrimage. She was warm, welcoming, wet, and soft, and she made sweet small moaning noises. Her breast fit exactly in the palm of my hand, which is, to my mind, the very best size. I worshiped at her temple. During our communion, I found out that she tasted like lemon and mint, and her hair smelled of flowers. The offertory was a hymn that she sang on a crescendo, trembling prettily, and I ended with a feeling of benediction. I’m sure she slept better after that. I know I did. I decided that wrapping a girl around you is nicer than a blanket, but they don’t stock them at Harrod’s.

The sun rose too early for my liking, with me still wrapped around Cristina. I thought perhaps we could do morning prayer. I was mistaken. Julie came bustling into the room, already dressed in a pale green sun dress. She kissed me on the cheek and woke Cristina with a full kiss on the mouth. I reacted appropriately. Since it was going to be some time until I would fit into my trousers, I decided to get a shower. The girls were gone when I got back to the bedroom. I felt slightly forsaken by whatever god I had found and needed breakfast.

A few hours later we were all in the limousine with Damian driving us down the mountain. Julie and Cristina were up front with him. I was in the back with Valenti and Mitch.

“I forgot to tell you,” said Valenti, “this is going to be sort of the official launch of my election campaign. You slept okay?”

“Very well, thanks,” I said. I don’t think my face gave anything away. Cristina glanced back at me and smiled. “So, you’re going to announce your intention to run before the book comes out?”

“Plenty of time,” said Valenti. “This is just a preliminary. I want to get these guys used to the idea that new times call for new ways of doing things. The old families can’t keep doing the things that worked in the 1950s. I think they’ll come around, if it’s done right.”

“So we wine and dine ‘em,” said Mitch. “Show ‘em we’re all on the same side. Good for business.”

“All friendly,” I said. “So you turn the mafia into legitimate country aristocracy and the papers stop running stories that upset people at their breakfast.”

“You got it,” said Mitch. “This’ll be fun. You’ll love the boat.”

“You’ll like my seasickness,” I said. Small boats and I don’t play nicely together.

“Don’t worry,” said Valenti. “We’re not going to sail that far. We’re pulling into a slip right in town. Dinner will be on the boat, but the caterers are from the village. Best food on the island.”

The boat was a barge with a pilot’s cabin at the back. Most of the length of the boat was taken up by a long table. An awning of striped blue and white sheltered the table so people could sit in the shade. The Mediterranean sun can be hot. We sailed along the coast, the engine making confident chugging noises. Damian drove boats as well as cars, it seemed. We rounded a point and the town appeared. As soon as we docked, people started to come aboard, with Valenti greeting each one, sometimes jovially, sometimes solemnly. Everybody was on Sunday best behaviour.

There was room around the table for waiters to move quite freely, and we were all seated. Valenti was at the head of the table nearest the pilot’s cabin. I was halfway down the table, flanked by Julie and Cristina. There were lots of expensive suits and Italian leather shoes. Mitch sat on the other side of the table wearing an open white shirt and gold medallions on his chest. He rattled away in Italian and English, a constant stream of words without actually telling anyone anything. I felt like an island. The girls were occupied in conversation and I didn’t know the language. At least the food was good.

Valenti made a speech. He talked in Italian, probably telling them that he would protect their business if they cleaned up their act. He’d do wonderful things as their politician, and Cassini would be the best place in all Italy. Political speeches all run to a formula. I heard my name. Everyone looked at me at that point, so I waved. The speech went on.

“So,” said the large old man sitting next to Julie. “You write a book for Tony?”

“Yes,” I said. “I do that.”

“You donna write about me,” he said. “I not wanna be in this book.”

“Okay,” I said. He seemed happy. He shook my hand. I never spoke to him again. Julie shrugged and squeezed my leg. Valenti went on. Someone should have timed him.

A man, dressed as a waiter came aboard carrying a silver tureen. He seemed vaguely familiar, but there was something wrong. For one, we were on the cheese and wine course, not the soup. He had curly brown hair and wore thick rimmed black glasses. I imagined him in a rumpled jacket and gray trousers and I had him. It was my old pal Green, from the ferry, only he wasn’t soaking wet. He set the tureen down on the end of the table and pulled an uzzi out of it. Heopened up straight down the table. I think I saw the bullets whizzing past in front of me. Valenti’s chest opened in a flower of red as he was thrown back, collapsing over the back of his chair.

Pandemonium erupted on the boat as all the other diners surged to their feet. Green opened up again, spraying bullets right and left. I saw Mitch dive under the table. I didn’t have a lot of experience with uzzis, but it looked dangerous and I didn’t want to be a note in tomorrow’s obituary page. I grabbed the nearest flotation device and went over the side.

What I actually ended up taking with me into the water was Julie. She was unconscious, but didn’t seem to have been hit. I swam toward the back of the boat, pulling Julie with me. Above us the shooting stopped. I didn’t wait around to see what happened to Green. I figured most of the people on the boat were dead or wounded. I didn’t want to think about Cristina. I pulled Julie under one of the adjacent docks and tried to revive her.

“Oh,” she moaned. I got her up onto the sand of the beach, still under the dock, and held her. I started searching her for bullet wounds. She didn’t seem to be bleeding.

“Are you alright?” I asked her.

“I feel like someone hit my head with a brick,” she groaned. “What happened?”

“Someone decided to have some fun with a machine gun,” I said. “We took a dive off the boat. You must have banged your head.”

“Cris!” she cried. She tried to get up. I held her down.

“You can’t do anything for any of them,” I said. I felt like that stern cop in the gangster films, the one who slaps the hysterical female witness. I wondered if I should slap Julie. I decided against it. She had enough to deal with.

“Tony?” she asked, her wide dark eyes staring into mine.

“I think everyone's dead. I’m not going back to look.”

She started to cry silently. I think it would have been easier if she had sobbed loudly. The quiet tears were heartbreaking.

“I know,” I said dully. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know anything, least of all what to do next.

There were sirens and whistles approaching. The harbour front would be crawling with cops in a minute. I didn’t want to be part of a police investigation. I was sure they’d find me soon enough, but I wanted to have time to prepare for any questions.

“Come on,” I said, dragging Julie to her feet, still crying. “We have to get out of here.”

“Mama!” said Julie. “We have to find Mama. She’s all alone at the house. She’ll know what to do.”

I vetoed that suggestion. The late Tony Valenti’s house was the first place any assassin would look for survivors to mop up. Green didn’t seem bothered by the idea of eliminating witnesses. We were getting off Cassini as soon as bloody possible.

An hour and a half later, we were approaching the gate of Valenti's house. Have I mentioned yet that I’m really not good at winning an argument with a girl? We were listening for anything that might suggest that Green or some other mobster was lurking in ambush. Instead we smelled a fire. The electric gate was open, its locking mechanism cut. Julie took off down the drive at a run. I swore and ran after her.

I didn’t know what I would do when I got to the house if there were mobsters around. I didn’t even have a gun. I have heard that having a gun is the best way for someone else to use that gun to shoot you. I don’t know if that’s true, but at least I knew that if I was going to be shot, it wouldn't be with my gun. I didn’t find that comforting.

I got to the lawn to see the house was on fire. Flames, lots of flames were coming out of the upstairs windows and the bronze doors stood open. I could feel the heat halfway across the yard. Nothing could have survived in there. A professional job. Well, there went Tony’s diaries and likely any evidence of his former mafia connections. That wasn’t the most troubling thing.

Someone had erected a cross on the lawn. Cristina hung on the cross, naked, with nails through her wrists. Her legs were slightly bent, and nailed through the base of the ankles to the side of the upright. That left her legs slightly apart, exposing her lovely young body to anyone who happened along. Julie was collapsed at the base of the cross, sobbing. I was wrong. The sobbing was more heartbreaking.

I stood there and just stared. I remember thinking, “so, they really do crucify people.” Then I remembered waking up that morning with Cristina smiling at me, warm soft and happy. I didn’t feel happy at all. Something was blurring my vision, probably smoke. I took out my handkerchief and wiped the tears out of my eyes.

Cristina was very still. She wasn’t moving because she was dead. Someone had crucified her and then shot her. There was an entry wound under one of her pretty small breasts. Someone didn’t want her to be able to tell anyone anything. At least she wasn’t suffering anymore.

I wished I had pulled her over the edge with me, but I didn’t like the idea of Julie up on the cross any more than Cristina. That thought filled me with some dread. What if they, whoever they were, came back. Who were they? All the mafia dons on Cassini were killed at lunch on the boat. I suppose that’s one way to clean up organized crime, but something about it didn’t make sense. And who was Green working for? I looked around the yard, sure that an assassin was nearby.

Green was lying in the grass at the edge of the forest. He looked surprised. A hole in your forehead will do that. I went to check him. This time I was sure he was dead. He’d have to do more than just dry off for him to show up anywhere again. I searched his pockets. His wallet was gone, but he had a Walther pistol. Professionals again, I thought. Nothing to identify him, and they didn’t need his little gun, so they left it. I put the gun in my pocket with the safety on.
Then I went to collect Julie. She had stopped crying and was just sitting and staring sadly at Cristina.

“Let’s go,” I said. I picked her up and put my arm around her. Neither of us looked back. I somehow knew that Cristina’s crucifixion wouldn’t get into the papers.

We hiked back down the hill. The only person I cared about on Cassini now was on the road with me. I wondered if I could get her off the island. With Valenti dead, he wouldn’t be running for office, and he didn’t need me to write his book. I had more than enough material to write another bestseller. There was nothing holding me to the island.

“We should tell the police.” said Julie.
“I don’t know,” I said. “What do we say? We can identify who shot all those people this afternoon, and by the way, there’s a house on fire and a crucified girl up the hill, along with the body of the man who killed off all your mafia dons. I think it tends to open up more questions.”

“Don’t we want them to ask questions?” asked Julie.

“I don’t know which side the police are on. Most of the mafia were on that boat. Whoever killed them probably doesn’t want us alive either, and I don’t trust the police to keep us safe.” Those mafia guys didn’t want Valenti’s book written, or for him to do a tell-all story, but I couldn’t imagine they would commit collective suicide to stop him. Somebody else wanted them dead.

“We should get away as fast as we can. Is there a ferry tonight?” I asked.

“No. Tomorrow morning at 6:00am,” she said.

“Okay. We’ll stay at my hotel tonight, and then first thing tomorrow we’ll slip onto the ferry and back to the mainland.”

“Just don’t leave me alone tonight,” she started crying again. I held her hand and we went down the hill to the Croce della Vergine. The hotel’s name didn’t seem as quaint and folksy as it had a day ago. I kept seeing Cristina.

We slipped quietly into a side entrance, directly into the guestroom corridor – my key card still worked to open the door, so my reservation had not been cancelled. I was pretty sure nobody had seen us come in. It was after 10pm, and other guests were in bed, or having a drink in the bar. There was nobody in the hallway outside my room. I closed the safety lock. The room looked exactly as I had left it yesterday morning. My case was still on the stand. Green’s briefcase was still in the dresser drawer. I shut the curtains.

Julie came to me and I held her. Her body was trembling. I let her cry against my chest. I knew how she felt, but I was finished crying. I had a kind of cold fear in my chest. I rested my chin on her hair and let her get it out of her system. I don’t know if she wanted me to do anything else. I’m not so big a cad that I would suggest sex after what she’d been through. She pulled away after a few minutes.

“Just stay with me tonight,” she said. “And let’s take a shower. I want to wash today away, but I don’t want to be alone, even in the bathroom.”

So she washed the sweat and dirt off of me, and I shampooed her hair, and washed the dirt, soot and sweat off her. I may have washed some parts of her several times for good measure. She seemed to feel much better after that. I towelled her off, watching the bronze glints in her hair, and enjoying the pink tips of her breasts. “Come to bed,” she said. “I need you.”

“I’ll just shave,” I said, “I won’t be a minute.” It’s only polite not to leave stubble scratches on your lover.

She kissed me hard, and left the bathroom. I got out my Phillips electric and let it remove my two day old beard. I was feeling almost human, when the thought hit me.

You don’t crucify a girl if you don’t want someone to see it. They could have shot her on the boat or hidden the body. A crucifixion would be a kind of message. Who was it for? Was it for someone who would go to Valenti’s house? Who would go back? I was suddenly terrified. I ran out of the bathroom. I had to get Julie away tonight.

She wasn’t there. The safety lock on the door was open. The bed was turned down and ready, but Julie was gone.

At this point in one of my books, the hero would steel his will, spring into action, save the day, and get the girl. I had just lost the girl, my beard was only half shaved, and I was stark naked. On the plus side, I had nice clean hair, but I had to admit it didn’t look good.

(to be continued...)
Isn't having clean hair everything? :rolleyes:

Great writing Jolly! :p:D
 
Well, what can I say?

I had gotten stuck at a chess table with Mama after supper. She napped all afternoon while Valenti and I looked at his diaries. I had them in my room now, locked in the wardrobe. Mama was feeling as frisky as an octogenarian gets after a full meal. She had eaten two desserts. She wanted to play chess. So I played chess. I fancied myself a good player, winning at least as often as I lost. You could learn a lot about a person playing chess with them. I wondered what I would learn about Mama. She grunted at me and sat down at the table. She was black, which left me with white, and the opening move. I led with my king’s pawn. She stared at me, countered my move, and took out some knitting. She apparently needed a sweater urgently. I was ready to take off my jacket, it was so warm. I played a knight. Mama snorted, played another pawn, and went back to knitting.

She played chess like a battle hardened general, clucking her tongue, making huffing noises at every move I made, and never dropping a stitch on her sweater. Finally, I put her king in check. She growled at me, and I smiled back. She looked at the board, now with considerably fewer men in play. She was not above sacrificing a bishop if a pawn was more useful. I never wanted to be a bishop.

She moved her castle and my king felt less smug. I took her bishop and Mama crossed herself. It was an affront to mother church. Her queen appeared out of nowhere and the white army crumbled.

We start with a dramatic game of chess.... :)

She was a temple and I was a new convert making a pilgrimage. She was warm, welcoming, wet, and soft, and she made sweet small moaning noises. Her breast fit exactly in the palm of my hand, which is, to my mind, the very best size. I worshiped at her temple. During our communion, I found out that she tasted like lemon and mint, and her hair smelled of flowers. The offertory was a hymn that she sang on a crescendo, trembling prettily, and I ended with a feeling of benediction. I’m sure she slept better after that. I know I did. I decided that wrapping a girl around you is nicer than a blanket, but they don’t stock them at Harrod’s.

The sun rose too early for my liking, with me still wrapped around Cristina. I thought perhaps we could do morning prayer.

A beautiful religious experience.... :amen:

A man, dressed as a waiter came aboard carrying a silver tureen. He seemed vaguely familiar, but there was something wrong. For one, we were on the cheese and wine course, not the soup. He had curly brown hair and wore thick rimmed black glasses. I imagined him in a rumpled jacket and gray trousers and I had him. It was my old pal Green, from the ferry, only he wasn’t soaking wet. He set the tureen down on the end of the table and pulled an uzzi out of it. Heopened up straight down the table. I think I saw the bullets whizzing past in front of me. Valenti’s chest opened in a flower of red as he was thrown back, collapsing over the back of his chair.

A stunning, unexpected shock :eek:

Someone had erected a cross on the lawn. Cristina hung on the cross, naked, with nails through her wrists. Her legs were slightly bent, and nailed through the base of the ankles to the side of the upright. That left her legs slightly apart, exposing her lovely young body to anyone who happened along. Julie was collapsed at the base of the cross, sobbing. I was wrong. The sobbing was more heartbreaking.

I stood there and just stared. I remember thinking, “so, they really do crucify people.” Then I remembered waking up that morning with Cristina smiling at me, warm soft and happy. I didn’t feel happy at all. Something was blurring my vision, probably smoke. I took out my handkerchief and wiped the tears out of my eyes.

Cristina was very still. She wasn’t moving because she was dead. Someone had crucified her and then shot her. There was an entry wound under one of her pretty small breasts. Someone didn’t want her to be able to tell anyone anything. At least she wasn’t suffering anymore.

An equally unexpected crucifixion. :eek:

I ran out of the bathroom. I had to get Julie away tonight.

She wasn’t there. The safety lock on the door was open. The bed was turned down and ready, but Julie was gone.

At this point in one of my books, the hero would steel his will, spring into action, save the day, and get the girl. I had just lost the girl, my beard was only half shaved, and I was stark naked. On the plus side, I had nice clean hair, but I had to admit it didn’t look good.

(to be continued...)

And another twist at the end.

All this in one post.

Incredible, Jollyrei. What a ride! :) :clapping::clapping::clapping::clapping::clapping:
 
5.

In retrospect, I probably should have headed straight for the harbour to wait for the morning ferry off Cassini. That would have save me some trouble. But I was getting frustrated with how things weren’t working out for me. My contract to write a book was as good as if it had never existed, the person I was supposed to write for was dead, and the girl I was with last night had been murdered in a more creative way than I was prepared for. Then there was the other girl who had just disappeared. I was beginning to feel like a thwarted playboy. I bet Hugh Hefner never had these problems, back in the day.

What had happened to Julie. I had only been in the bathroom alone for 5 minutes. In that time, she had vanished. I looked around the room. There was no sign of a struggle, as they say. The floor was tile, and I wasn’t sure that the footprints in the carpet thing wasn’t just a movie trick. My namesake, the Sherlock, would likely have found a small hair from which he could solve the mystery. In my case, I didn’t have any idea who Moriarty was or whether there even was a Moriarty.

I saw a small piece of paper folded on the pillow of the bed. I suppose that counted as a clue. I picked it up and opened it. It was a note, handwritten. It said:

Dear Mr. Holmes:
I am sorry to change my mind, but I need to be alone. I go to stay with my aunt in Milano. I wish you safe travelling home. Thank you for everything.
Giulia

I stared at the note. It was short, so I suppose she could have written it in the 5 minutes I was shaving. It seemed odd that a girl who had just asked me to join her in bed would have had such a change of heart and mind so quickly. I read the note again. The syntax was all wrong. Julie spoke better English than that. I realized that I had no idea where she was from. I know she spoke Italian, but she could have been a Brit, the way she spoke English. In other words, she knew how to construct a sentence, and the note looked like the work of Google Translate. Also she signed it “Giulia”, which would be fine, except that she had always been Julie to me. I began to think that I was likely dealing with a Moriarty after all, and that Julie had been kidnapped. Considering what had happened to Cristina, I was not feeling better about this discovery.

I also didn’t like the feeling of responsibility. I liked not having any for anyone. That’s why I had come to Italy to begin with. Now there was a girl I had met only two days before, and she had been kidnapped from my hotel room, after I had told her we were safe. I bet those mafia dons all thought they were safe at lunch on the boat as well, but they were all dead now, and so was the guy who killed them. That didn’t leave me with a lot of living suspects. It did leave me with a feeling of responsibility for Julie, and a desire to find out what the hell was going on.

I got dressed and finished my shave, making sure that the Walther was loaded. I know that much about guns at least, as well as which way to point the little hole. The safety was still on. Now I needed to find out if anyone had seen Julie leave the hotel. I needed to talk to Aldo in the lobby.

The lobby was brightly lit this time of night with a few straggling guests coming back from restaurants in the town. They were cheerful and boisterous, holidaymakers out in the islands for a good time, and they were apparently having one. One young couple were all over each other, as they staggered across the lobby to the guest wing corridors. They didn’t seem to know which way to turn. I knew the feeling, and I wasn’t drunk.

Aldo was not at the front desk. I went into the bar and found him there, serving drinks. A bored looking young barmaid was polishing glasses beside him. She looked up at me as I approached the bar with a look that suggested I had just made her already dull night even worse.

“Ah, Signor Holmes,” he said cheerfully, “buono sera? You are having a good time.” I remembered his strange linguistic tic. “You will have a drink.”

“Hello,” I said. “No drink right now. I am looking for a girl.”

Aldo grinned, as he set a martini in front of another guest at the bar. “Ah,” he said conspiratorially, “you are feeling the amore? We can find you a girl? You like a someone.” I didn’t know if he was asking me or saying he knew something. I was running out of time.

“Did you see a young blonde woman leave the hotel about a half hour ago?” I asked, getting to the point. I didn’t see any reason to be subtle. Aldo already thought I was “on the pull”. I might as well add some excitement to his evening.

“Probably?” he asked, or said. It was hard to tell. “We have several blonde woman staying here now?”

“She might have been with one or two other men,” I said. “Maybe she did not want to go with them.”

“No?” he said. “I have not seen anyone like this? You have lost her.” I didn’t like the definitive tone of his question.

“So it would seem,” I said. “I want to find her.”

“I wish I could help you?” he asked. I wondered that as well. I didn’t know whose side anyone was on anymore.

I left the bar and wondered what my next step should be. Cassini isn’t a huge island, but it’s big if you’re on foot looking for one person. I rather expected that wherever she was, someone didn’t want me to find her.

“Signor,” said a small female voice. I turned to my right where the voice was. It was the bored barmaid. “I hear what you ask,” she said. “There was a woman. She was wearing only, what you say, from toilet…”

“A bathrobe?” I asked.

“Si,” she said nodding vigorously. “From the hotel. She was going with a man. He was in black. Black hair. Dark glass, like for sun. I do not see his face, but the woman is like sleeping.”

“Did you see where they went?” I asked. My voice sounded agitated.

“There is white FIAT van,” she said. “No windows. They get in. Van goes away.”

I thanked her and rushed out the front door of the hotel. She followed me.

“You want to find her?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I want to find her.” I realized it was true. Funny how people can mean something to you in so short a period of time. I seem to be prone to that. I told myself it hadn’t happened with Cristina. Maybe it was a slightly different feeling for Julie, or maybe not, but I wanted to find her and find out.

“There are bad things here,” she said. “My grandfather knows. He is in the next village to the west, Pescari. He is called Giacomo Bartoli. Look at the Bar Americano.”

“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t chase a white van on foot. They could be anywhere. I went back to my room and decided to sleep. I would try to rent a car in the morning. In the end I just lay there on the bed, still wearing my shirt and trousers. I’m a light sleeper anyway and I knew I would wake at the slightest sound of someone, which is a useless reflex when you don’t sleep in the first place.

There was an argument going on in the room next to mine. It was in some Slavic language. I thought of who might be kidnapping girls on the island when all the mafia dons were dead. Maybe they missed one. The Slavic woman next door threw something that shattered against the wall. The Slavic man protested. Someone burst into tears which sounded like a cat in a bag through the wall. I remembered Julie crying when we found Cristina. I wondered if Cristina was still there, hanging on her cross, or if the mysterious villains had taken her down.

I didn’t know what the maid’s grandfather would tell me, but it was the only lead I had. Sherlock Holmes was a fraud, I decided. I knew more about this case than he ever did in his, and I had no idea where my suspect or Julie were, never mind deciding that they had a club foot and had studied music in Vienna. Next door, the warring parties reached an armistice and had decided to pursue closer relations. There was a rhythmic creaking of the bedstead through the wall, as well as increasingly urgent affirmative noises.

I finally fell asleep and dreamed of Cristina, on her cross. She looked at me with sad accusing eyes, but never said anything. Green walked up to me and stood looking at her. “I didn’t want to do it, you know,” he said. “You’re an okay guy, Mick. But they don’t want their secrets told.”

“What secrets,” I asked. “Aren’t you dead?”

“Sure,” he said. “Dead as a doornail, but I still ain’t gonna tell you.”

I looked at Cristina. She sighed. She looked at me intently as if she was going to say something. There was a shot, and Cristina vanished. Green was holding his gun. “She can’t tell you either,” he said. I dived at him in a rage, but went right through him.

I woke up on the floor, having rolled out of bed. I wasn’t rested and the dream had shaken me, but the sun was starting to come up, which made it about 5:30am. I washed my face, put on my jacket and went to the courtyard to find some coffee.

Aldo was there, sipping an espresso and eating some sort of pastry.

“Is there somewhere that I can rent a car?” I asked.

“We only have the taxi?” he said. I was getting tired of talking to him. “Where you go.”

“I want to go to Pescari,” I said.

“No?” he asked. “Why you go there. Nothing for tourist in Pescari?”

“I need to meet a friend,” I said. “I’ll find a taxi.” I went out the front of the hotel and started walking to the town down the hill. I was considering my options when a black Mercedes limousine drove up. Damian rolled down his window.

“Get in,” he said. “You are looking for Julie? I will help.” It was the longest conversation we had ever had.

I know you’ll say it was suspicious, but I didn’t have a lot of options. I didn’t know if I could trust him, but at least he had a car, and I still had the Walther. I got in the front passenger seat.

“Let’s go to Pescari, down the coast, “ I said.

“Why Pescari?” he asked, gunning the car down the road out of town.

“Someone might know something.” I didn’t tell him anything else. “What happened to Mama?”

“I don’t know anything more than you,” he said. “I was on the boat. I left the boat to meet a friend. I heard gunfire and I ran back. Everyone was dead. You were gone. I went back to the house later and it was burned. Mama is probably dead too.”

“Did you see Cristina?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “She is probably also dead.”

Pescari turned out to be a dusty, sleepy, rundown Italian village situated on a coral beach. It had a small church, a few drab whitewashed houses, and a small jetty with some fishing boats tied up. There was a kind of cement causeway along the waterfront that had some unhappy looking shops. What was missing was people. The town looked asleep, or dead. Damian parked the car near the end of the causeway. It was clouding over which made the whole scene even more atmospheric and drab. Clint Eastwood in his spaghetti western days would have loved it.

“Wait here,” I said. I got out and walked down the causeway along the jetty, the gray sea to my left and the shops to my right. Halfway along the causeway were two rusting metal tables and four green wooden chairs. The tables flanked an open door, above which was a sign in fading paint: “Bar Americano”. Someone had tried to paint a likeness of Humphry Bogart on the wall beside the sign, but had managed something that looked almost entirely unlike Prince Philip. The bad likeness had a speech bubble that said “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

I went inside. There was nothing going on. The room had a few stained wooden tables and café chairs. There was a cracked Formica bar along the right hand wall, with a picture of Garibaldi above the counter, and a picture of Maggie Thatcher above the sink. Perhaps the proprietor thought that women should wash the dishes.

The bartender hadn’t shaved, wore a stained white tank top, and was of an indeterminate age between 45 and 70. He stared at me as if I were a particularly unwelcome addition to the décor. I thought I was at least an improvement on Maggie.

“I am looking for Signor Giacomo Bartoli,” I said loudly and distinctly. This is the international sign for “I don’t know your language but I expect you to understand me anyway.”

“American,” he said.

“English,” I said. “Giacomo Bartolli?”

“After,” he said. “4 o’clock. Drink.”

I got him to give me a whiskey. He had Jack Daniels, which I dislike, but I suppose he wanted to be Americano. The other options were Italian beer in very old bottles, and Southern Comfort. I wondered what he thought Americans were like. Jack is better than Southern Comfort. I sat down at one of the rusty tables outside and waited.

Around 4:10pm, and two more whiskeys, an old man appeared, slowly walking along the causeway. He looked tired and not particularly interested, but he forged ahead, as if against a stiff headwind. It took a while for him to get to me.

“You are Signor Bartolli?” I asked.

“Si,” he said, seemingly surprised to see anyone else.

“I met your granddaughter,” I said. His eyes lit up. He waited for me to finish expectantly. “She told me…”

A shot rang out. The old man stiffened and looked surprised. I jumped up and caught him as he fell. There was a bullet hole in the back of his jacket. A man in a black jacket and trousers and wearing dark glasses stood at the end of the causeway holding a rifle.

“Hey,” I yelled. I laid the late Mr. Bartolli on the causeway floor and struggled to find my Walther in my jacket pocket. The man in dark glasses turned and walked to a white FIAT van. I got the Walther out, and flipped off the safety. The van sputtered to life and chugged away out of the village. That’s when I noticed that Damian and the limo were missing. He hadn’t waited.

I took a shot at the van as it drove away, aiming for the tires, but I’m not a crack shot and this was an unfamiliar gun. The bullet kicked up dust behind the van and drove out of range. I jogged after it, up the coast road.

Somehow, they, whoever they were, always had the jump on me. They knew where I was or where I was going to be. I didn’t know why they didn’t just shoot me. They didn’t have any problem killing everyone around me. That meant they either wanted me alive, or thought I was too unimportant to bother them. So far, I had been totally predictable to them, it seemed.

It was futile chasing a car up the hilly road around the island, and I didn’t even know that Julie was in the van. I stopped running and stood looking back at the drab little village. The road climbed up to wind over some low hills before branching to the right to go back to the main town of Cassini, or left up the central mountain. Somewhere up there was the burned remains of Valenti’s house. Looking up, I saw the road emerge through a cut in the trees higher up the mountain.

What had happened to Damian and the limousine? Just another one of those things. It was odd though. He wasn’t in the boat when the mafia guys and Valenti all cashed in their tickets to the next world. He wasn’t around when the man in black sunglasses killed the old man. He had a very convenient habit of not being places where things were happening.

A white van appeared on the road above me. It slowed down, right where I could see it, and turned up into the trees and disappeared. At least I had a destination now. The way I saw it, whoever was in the van couldn’t know I had seen them. They would have thought I was far behind them, maybe headed back to town. I patted my pocket to make sure the Walther was there, and hiked up the road. My ex-wife always said I should get more exercise.

I wasn’t quite sure where the turnoff was. I had to approximate my location based on when I could look down and see the lower part of the road. Then I had to check across the street to find it. It turned out to be a dirt track that wound up into the trees. I tried to go as quietly as possible. I had the element of surprise on my side, I thought, but I worried about an ambush.

I took out the Walther and slipped off the safety as I crept as quickly as I could up the track. I rounded a bend, and there was the van. It stood quietly with its doors open. Nobody was around. I looked around. There were some birds singing, but otherwise I heard no sign of human activity. I decided to check out the van.

As I got to it, I noticed two things. One was a wooden cross, lying on the ground in front of the van. The second was three men coming out of the trees, one of which was my friend the man in black sunglasses. I owed him for Bartolli, but that was a bit of an academic point, when they saw me beside their van. One gave a shout as I raise my gun and fired at the sunglasses. I ran for cover of the trees, as they all pulled guns. I turned once more, trying to get better aim, and I may have frightened one of them. He grabbed his ear. Black sunglasses fired at me at the same time and I felt the bullet hit my leg. I dropped my gun and fell, I was holding my bleeding leg with one hand and trying to find my gun with the other when a shadow fell over me.

He took off his sunglasses. As I had come to suspect, it was Damian. That might explain why Julie had disappeared so quickly, if she trusted him at all. “Take the cross in,” he said to the other two. “I’ll be there shortly.” All this time, he kept his gun trained on me. The two other men picked up the cross and disappeared up the track with it.

“Where is she?” I spat. “Who are you? You’re mafia, aren’t you?”

“I cannot answer these questions,” said Damian. “I had hoped you would get tired of this and go home. Now I will have to kill you.”

He raised his gun and I looked into the black small hole pointed at my eye. He wasn’t going to do the James Bond thing where he explains the whole scheme apparently. I thought that was too bad. I would have liked to know what was going on.

There was a loud crack of a branch, that sounded like people coming through the forest. Damian spun around. I was just has happy not to be shot again. Two people emerged from the trees. I looked at the intruders. It was Mama and Mitch.

“Just stop there!” said Damian pointing his gun at Mitch. Mama wore her usual black dress, and carried a large bag over her shoulder. She was grumbling to herself as usual. I wanted to know how she wasn’t dead in the fire at Valenti’s house, how she managed to be hiking through the forest, and why Mitch wasn’t in the morgue being tested for fatal bullet wounds.

“What are you doing, Damian?” asked Mitch. “Mama said you were up to no good.”

“This is none of your business anymore,” said Damian. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“Sure thing,” said Mitch, holding his hands up. Mama sat down on a rock, muttering to herself. She started to rummage into a large bag she was carrying slung over her shoulder. She looked like she was going to start her knitting again right there.

“You okay, Micky-boy?” asked Mitch.

“Apart from being shot in the leg,” I said, “I couldn’t be better. They’ve got Julie around here somewhere.”

“Yeah,” said Mitch. “Mama said that. We’ll have to see about that. Can you walk?”

“Everybody stop talking now,” said Damian. “You all know too much already. I’m sorry.” He raised his gun to shoot Mitch.

Mama looked at me and grinned. “Good boyo,” she said. It was the first and last coherent thing she had ever said to me, and it told me nothing.

I dove for Damian’s legs. Mitch dove to the side as Damian’s gun went off shooting a spray of leaves off one of the trees. Mama calmly pulled a large old service revolver out of her bag, and shot Damian neatly between the eyes.

I have to say, I wasn’t expecting that. Of course, neither was Damian. He had a rather surprised look on his face as he toppled over.

(to be continued...)
 
Somehow I missed Wednesday's post and had to catch up! My god, Jolly, I think you have been hitting my Seagram's that gets spike in almost every rebellion!!!!

A vivid story with more twists than the lime in a Tanqueray and tonic!!!

:clapping::beer::clapping:
 
So I ended up, almost by default, in the wine trade. I learned that wine importing involves a lot of meetings, mainly with lawyers and accountants, and does not involve a lot of drinking wine. It did however introduce me to the idea that there were more exotic places where interesting things happened, beyond just the growing of grapes. It struck me that the wine I was supposed to be selling had led a more interesting life than I had.
I remember this from the opening lines.
The wine trade may look a litle boring, but it has the advantage that you are not supposed to dodge bullits all the time.

I sometimes wonder if Mickey Holmes does not long to these good old days in the wine trade now?:doh:

Looking forward to the next!:clapping:
 
That Mama, I'm really getting to like her! :)

She knows how to play chess, and she sure as hell knows which way round to point a gun!

Mickey, so far, you've been the luckiest sonofabitch on the planet, but.... will your luck hold? Will you find Julie before she ends up on a cross?

Only Jollyrei knows this, it's for us to wonder.... :cool:
 
6.

Mama looked pleased. I was just stunned. Damian fell over and didn’t move again, which is what happens when you have a bloody great hole in your head. I decided not to look at him. I valued the idea that I might be able to eat and sleep again some time. Mitch was ecstatic.

“Hey, great shot, Mama!” he said, as if he had never been worried that Damian might kill him. Mama put her gun back in her bag, as if it was just another knick-knack that she carried around along with her wallet and knitting needles. She shuffled over to where I was on the ground and looked at the wound in my leg. She said something in Italian to Mitch.

“Yeah,” said Mitch. “That’s a nasty wound, Mickey-boy. Mama says we need to do something about that.”

Mama was rummaging around in the bag again. Maybe she kept a fully equipped field hospital in there. Now that the excitement was over, I was feeling the pain from where Damian shot me rather acutely. My leg hurt like hell. Mitch took out a knife and cut open my pants leg. He whistled in that way that suggested he admired the wound, but was happy it was not his.

“Bullet went through pretty clean,” he said. “At least it didn’t hit the bone. We’ll bandage it up, but you should see a doctor.”

Mama produced a clean white linen cloth that could have been a tablecloth. Perhaps she was planning on crashing a picnic. Anyway, Mitch tore it into strips and with a lot of nonstop instruction from Mama, wrapped my leg in a reasonably effective bandage. So, at least I wouldn’t bleed to death before some of the unknown goons shot me.

“Can you walk?” asked Mitch. He grabbed me by the arm and hauled me to my feet. My leg bones might all have been in one piece, but the bullet had damaged the muscle in my leg. I wasn’t going anywhere fast, and wouldn’t be able to walk on my own without crutches. Apparently Mama had not packed any of those. She shrugged apologetically.

She rattled something off to Mitch, who seemed to want to argue, so she rattled off a bit more Italian and waved her arms this time. He got the message.

“Look, Mick,” he said. “We gotta get out of here. These guys are no fun, and they might come back to check on Damian. I gotta get Mama down to the car. Try to stay hidden here and I’ll come back for you.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said. “You got me into this whole mess, and now you’re just going to leave me here?”

“Aw Mickey,” said Mitch. “Nobody forced you to come. You just liked the money. Anyway, I’ll come back for you, but I gotta make sure Mama’s safe.”

“Make sure Mama’s safe!?” I said. “She’s probably got a howitzer in that bag.”

“Here,” said Mitch, finding my Walther and handing it to me. “You hide in the bushes over there, all quiet. If those guys come back, at least you can fight it out.” I wasn’t confident. My skill with the Walther had not been what I had hoped. I tried to channel James Bond and got a Star Wars stormtrooper. I couldn’t hit a barn if I was standing inside it.

“Hang tight,” said Mitch. Mama was already hobbling quickly along the track down the hill. She had her own agenda that did not seem to involve me anymore. I wondered how she could abandon Julie as well. Mitch jogged off after her. I was alone in a clearing in the forest with a dead driver and a small pistol.

I looked at the copse of dense bushes that Mitch had suggested as a hiding place, but I didn’t relish being stuck there if things got dodgy. Things were already dodgy enough for my liking. I didn’t really trust Mitch either. I suspected him of loyalty – loyalty to someone other than me, that is, whether that was Mama, or someone else I didn’t know.

I started crawling forward, thinking about soldiers crawling up the beaches of Normandy. Normandy would have had fewer pistachio trees and more German artillery bunkers. I had no idea where I was going, but out of the clearing sounded like a good idea. This would make one hell of a book, if I ever got out of here to write it. I started thinking of pen names. E.Z. Munney. O. R. Ganz. Harry Dyck. I decided that I could use “John Hardwood” again, as a nod to the late Mr. Green who had featured so prominently. He seemed to have liked my last book. Sure he tried to kill everyone, but a fan is a fan. Then I remembered Cristina, and decided against it.

That reminded me again that the two goons with Damian had taken a wood cross with them. I hadn’t seen Julia in the white van, but it matched the story that the barmaid had told me about how she left the hotel. I crawled a little faster, trying to stay quiet. I had no idea what I would do if I found Julie or the goons, but I was all she had by way of rescuers. Lucky Julie, I thought cynically. I kept crawling.

I was still thinking thoughts of how I would crawl into a clearing, my gun blazing hot death, kill the baddies and save the girl. Julie would be grateful, and she’d cry and kiss me. She’d nurse me back to health and we’d live happily ever after in a small flat in Naples. The bloody volcano would probably erupt, but that seemed preferable to dying on Cassini.

Still in my reverie, I almost crawled straight out into the next clearing. Fortunately, I heard the voices and took cover behind the trunk of a tree. There were three men in the clearing, standing around the cross. It was lying on the ground. One of the men had his shirt off and held a spade. He had apparently just been digging a hole and seemed to think it was adequate. At least he was gesturing to it and then got fed up in a vocally Italian way, and threw down his spade. The second man was dressed in a sweater and khaki pants. He spoke calmly but forcefully. The first man nodded and picked up the spade again. The third man was dressed in a t-shirt and black jeans. I had never seen them before. Maybe Green knew who they were, but he was dead, like Damian. I began to see a pattern.

The t-shirt and jeans held Julie by one arm. She stood quietly as if she was drugged. She didn’t try to move away, in any case. She was dressed in a candystriper smock and was barefoot. There was a cut on her ankle which was bleeding slightly. They had marched her up here barefoot from the van, I assumed. I tried to think of a plan to rescue her that wouldn’t involve me accidentally shooting her.

The man in the sweater seemed to be satisfied and the bare chested fellow dropped his spade again. He and the t-shirt opened the buttons of Julie’s smock and slipped it off her shoulders. It dropped to the ground leaving her completely naked facing away from me. She didn’t resist. When she was naked, they each took an arm and guided her stumbling to the cross. Then they turned her around and pulled her down, laying her on the cross and arranging her. I looked at her face. It was expressionless and her eyes looked glassy. She was either drugged or in shock.

Whatever it was, I decided this had gone on long enough, and I wasn’t sure I could live with myself if I just stood by and watched them do to Julie what they (I now assumed it was them) had done to Cristina. I aimed my gun at the sweater guy. “Everyone stand still,” I yelled out. “Let her go and nobody has to get hurt.”

They stopped at the sound of my voice. One of them said, “Inglese.” I moved around my tree so they could see me and my pistol pointed at them. I hoped they would just run away. I find that things don’t always work out the way I would imagine them or write them in one of my novels. They just stood there. The sweater guy looked too calm for a man staring at a gun.

“Back away from her,” I called out to them.

“Or you will do what?” asked the sweater, in accented but good English.

“I don’t want to shoot you,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “I would rather you did not.” He nodded, seemingly to someone behind me.

I tried to turn to look, thinking as I did so that the nod was the oldest distraction trick in the book. All my characters used it to great effect. This time, however, it wasn’t a ploy. Something hard hit my head and I blacked out.

I came to with someone slapping my face. I was tied to a tree, and Sweater was slapping me.

“Good morning, English,” he said. “We would not want you to miss this.” Satisfied I was awake he walked back to the centre of the clearing. Julie was still lying on the cross, watched by the other two men and now a third man, presumably the one who had hit me. It was the bartender from Pescari. What the hell was going on on this island?

Sweater gave an order, and the other three men took positions around the cross. Bartender held Julie’s legs, while Bare-chest and T-shirt each took an arm. They stretched Julie’s arms onto the crossbeam. She looked at her right arm as T-shirt got a 10 inch carpentry spike and a small 4 pound sledge hammer. She seemed to try to struggle feebly, but T-shirt had no trouble placing his spike and driving it through Julie’s small wrist.

I sat stone faced and watched them crucify her. After all, I’d only known her a few days. More than that, I couldn’t let them get any satisfaction out of my reactions. I had to let them know that I wasn’t playing their game.

“Stop! You bastards!” I yelled as I saw Julie stiffen and her mouth open in a silent scream. She jerked at each blow of the hammer. T-shirt handed the hammer to Bare-chest and he drove in a second spike. Julie was trying to thrash her body off the cross now, but Bartender held her down. Blood dripped down from Julie’s wrists onto the ground. She was struggling, but whatever drug they had given her didn’t leave her much strength. T-shirt pulled out some rope and bound her nailed wrists firmly to the crossbar.

When that was done, Bartender pulled her legs straight and dragged her down the cross. Then he and Bare-chest spread her legs, and T-shirt hammered a 2x4 piece of wood onto the cross between her legs at her crotch. I was sorry I had given the bartender a tip.

Then they positioned her feet together, left on top of her right foot, and held them down, soles flat to the wood. Julie was moaning. T-shirt brought a thick 12 inch spike, and hammered it through Julie’s feet into the wood. This time Julie let out a sobbing cry, her body shuddering. T-shirt tied her ankles to the cross.

Then the three men lifted the cross, standing behind Julie’s head, and let it fall into the hole. Julie gave gasping sobs, her mouth a rictus of pain. I saw that the 2x4 between her thighs served as a kind of seat. I didn’t know if that was to keep her alive longer, or if it was simply to stop the nails from tearing out. Either way, I was hyperventilating and sweating, tears running down my face. It was unbelievable. T-shirt and the Bartender held the cross upright in the hole, while Bare-chest filled it in with his spade, packing the earth. Satisfied, the three men stood back and admired their handiwork. Julie hung on her cross and moaned.

It was a nightmare. It had to be. I tried to make myself wake up. I only managed to discover that my head hurt from where the Bartender had hit me before, and my eyes didn’t focus well. I slumped down.

Sweater walked over to me. “So, English,” he said. “The show is over. Now we have to deal with you. It would have been better if you had left Cassini, yes?” He seemed unhappy about it. I didn’t know what he had to feel unhappy about.

“Let me go,” I said. I tried for confident and forceful. I sounded more groggy and my words slurred. “Take her down. Let me take her away.”

“A little late for that,” said Sweater producing a hypodermic. He jabbed it into my arm. The last thing I saw was Julie looking sadly into my eyes.

I regained consciousness in considerable discomfort. My arms were stretched in what seemed like an uncomfortable position and whatever I was sitting on was digging into my thighs and bits of me that are not used to that sort of chafing. I had to move and find a more comfortable position.

I opened my eyes. In front of me, the sun was setting over the Mediterranean. That was fine. What wasn’t fine, and the part that caused a bit of panic, was that I was apparently suspended on the edge of a cliff, directly above the breakwater. I wasn’t falling though because my arms were tied, slung over something. I took stock of my surroundings.

When I looked down, I could see my body. I was completely naked, sitting astride a piece of wood. That was what was causing me discomfort. I wasn’t sunburnt, at least not in those parts that don’t normally get out in the sun. That meant that either it had been cloudy all afternoon, or I had not been here that long. I gathered that I had been tied to a cross, my arms slung behind me over the crossbar and my feet tied to the sides of the upright.

That was considerate of them, I thought, tying me instead of nailing me up. Maybe they had run out of nails. I wondered what had happened finally to Julie. Had they just left her there to die alone, or had they shot her like Green had shot Cristina. I suppose I would have to stop worrying about Julie, but I liked her. I remembered her bronze hair glinting in the sunlight as we rode Valenti’s boat to the ill-fated dinner with the mafia dons. She and Cristina were just sweet carefree girls. Why did they get singled out to be crucified? Was it simply to get me to leave Cassini?

The sun was a low red disk sinking into the golden sea. I remained stoic, facing my destiny philosophically. One thing was certain. If nobody else deserved anything, Cristina and Julie deserved to have the story told, and for people to be held accountable. The pain in my shoulders was getting to be unbearable. I tried to shift and my legs cramped, slamming me back down onto my “seat”. My back ached and my chest felt like it would never get enough air. I tried to shift my arms. They moved only a little, giving me scant relief from the pain and probably a cut on one of my forearms.

I was really very thirsty, and was starting to feel a bit dizzy. I had to get off this cross and find the police. I would find out who was behind this. The “seat” dug into my private parts again. I needed a plan. The croaking noise must have been me groaning or trying to shout in pain. I tried to shift again and felt the cross shake. There was a grinding sound and a few small pebbles dropped down the cliff, making cheerful little skipping and pinging noises. I wondered how secure the cross was. As much as I hated it, I would prefer it to be stable rather than crash down onto the rocks below.

I noticed that they had left my bandage on my leg when they hung me up here. Considerate of them. At least I wasn’t going to bleed to death. Mind you, the pain in my shoulders and the cramping in my legs was getting quite bad. If it wasn’t for the infernally chafing wood “seat” I’d have difficulty breathing. If they were going to kill me, wouldn’t they have nailed me up, like they did to the girls? What if someone found me and got me down? I looked around. There was nothing nearby. No sign of roads, no town down the coast. I was on what seemed to be a remote promontory, away from the frequented parts of the island.

Why were all the mafia dons and Valenti dead? Valenti wanted to clean up the island’s image, bring in tourists, and a wonderful future of prosperity. Who did that threaten? Somebody wasn’t happy with it, but why crucify two girls? Wasn’t killing all the mafia a good enough message?

They said they wanted to convince me to leave Cassini, but did that justify crucifying two girls, and in any case, I wasn’t really able to oblige them hanging here. Maybe I had seen too much. That was the only thing that sounded at all like a James Bond story now. “You’ve seen too much, Mr. Holmes.” That was a laugh. The things I knew were so few.

I knew somebody had killed Valenti and all his old mafia buddies. I knew Cristina and Julia had both been crucified, and were both probably dead now. I knew Mama was alive. I knew there were at least four men involved, including the guy in the sweater and khakis. That was what Green and Damian had known as well, and they were both dead. That thought didn’t fill me with confidence in my own position. Still, they hadn’t shot me, so perhaps where there was life there was hope. Some more small pebbles were dislodged from the base of my cross as I shifted and tried to get more comfortable. Comfort is relative.

What I didn’t know was why. Oh, Valenti and his pals might have been killed for revenge or because of some local power struggle that he hadn’t thought important enough to tell me about. Mama might have killed Damian simply for revenge for killing her son. Mama might have shot Damian to save Mitch’s life, but why would she just run off without trying to save Julie?

I didn’t know why it made any sense to crucify Julie. I had assumed that Cristina’s crucifixion at Valenti’s house was a message to someone, but what sense did it make to crucify Julie in the middle of a forest? Who would ever get a message like that? I didn’t know why I was hanging here on a cross. If it was just because I saw the man in the sweater and his goons, they could have just shot me. Nobody was going to see me here unless they were scanning the coast with high powered binoculars. I didn’t see any boats.

What about my old friends back in Naples, Giovanni Amparo and Alberto Ficenza. Ficenza had seemed very nervous during our meeting where he set me up with Mitch. Had they set me up for this as well? That would mean Mitch was involved in me being on this cliff looking out to sea. I was willing to bet that I was facing Naples.

Mitch said once that Mama had run Cassini when her husband died while Valenti was away making bad movies. Maybe this was all her doing. It fit what I saw as her sense of humour to hang me on a cross looking out at the sunset. It would cap all the incomprehensible interactions I had had with her.

I made up my mind. I had gotten the message. They wanted me to leave, but even if they took me down now, I was wasn’t going anywhere until someone told me what was going on. I owed it to Julie and Cristina. I’d always had a problem with commitment, but this felt good to me.

I needed water. I read once that you can survive a long time without food, but almost no time without water. My leg hurt where I’d been shot. My arms and shoulders were almost as bad. I didn’t know if anyone would ever find me, or how long I could hang here. The sun boiled away under the waterline. That was quite beautiful, I have to say, the reddish light changing to purple across the waves.

“I’ll get you, you bastards!” I said.

FIN
 
6.

Mama looked pleased. I was just stunned. Damian fell over and didn’t move again, which is what happens when you have a bloody great hole in your head. I decided not to look at him. I valued the idea that I might be able to eat and sleep again some time. Mitch was ecstatic.

“Hey, great shot, Mama!” he said, as if he had never been worried that Damian might kill him. Mama put her gun back in her bag, as if it was just another knick-knack that she carried around along with her wallet and knitting needles. She shuffled over to where I was on the ground and looked at the wound in my leg. She said something in Italian to Mitch.

“Yeah,” said Mitch. “That’s a nasty wound, Mickey-boy. Mama says we need to do something about that.”

Mama was rummaging around in the bag again. Maybe she kept a fully equipped field hospital in there. Now that the excitement was over, I was feeling the pain from where Damian shot me rather acutely. My leg hurt like hell. Mitch took out a knife and cut open my pants leg. He whistled in that way that suggested he admired the wound, but was happy it was not his.

“Bullet went through pretty clean,” he said. “At least it didn’t hit the bone. We’ll bandage it up, but you should see a doctor.”

Mama produced a clean white linen cloth that could have been a tablecloth. Perhaps she was planning on crashing a picnic. Anyway, Mitch tore it into strips and with a lot of nonstop instruction from Mama, wrapped my leg in a reasonably effective bandage. So, at least I wouldn’t bleed to death before some of the unknown goons shot me.

“Can you walk?” asked Mitch. He grabbed me by the arm and hauled me to my feet. My leg bones might all have been in one piece, but the bullet had damaged the muscle in my leg. I wasn’t going anywhere fast, and wouldn’t be able to walk on my own without crutches. Apparently Mama had not packed any of those. She shrugged apologetically.

She rattled something off to Mitch, who seemed to want to argue, so she rattled off a bit more Italian and waved her arms this time. He got the message.

“Look, Mick,” he said. “We gotta get out of here. These guys are no fun, and they might come back to check on Damian. I gotta get Mama down to the car. Try to stay hidden here and I’ll come back for you.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said. “You got me into this whole mess, and now you’re just going to leave me here?”

“Aw Mickey,” said Mitch. “Nobody forced you to come. You just liked the money. Anyway, I’ll come back for you, but I gotta make sure Mama’s safe.”

“Make sure Mama’s safe!?” I said. “She’s probably got a howitzer in that bag.”

“Here,” said Mitch, finding my Walther and handing it to me. “You hide in the bushes over there, all quiet. If those guys come back, at least you can fight it out.” I wasn’t confident. My skill with the Walther had not been what I had hoped. I tried to channel James Bond and got a Star Wars stormtrooper. I couldn’t hit a barn if I was standing inside it.

“Hang tight,” said Mitch. Mama was already hobbling quickly along the track down the hill. She had her own agenda that did not seem to involve me anymore. I wondered how she could abandon Julie as well. Mitch jogged off after her. I was alone in a clearing in the forest with a dead driver and a small pistol.

I looked at the copse of dense bushes that Mitch had suggested as a hiding place, but I didn’t relish being stuck there if things got dodgy. Things were already dodgy enough for my liking. I didn’t really trust Mitch either. I suspected him of loyalty – loyalty to someone other than me, that is, whether that was Mama, or someone else I didn’t know.

I started crawling forward, thinking about soldiers crawling up the beaches of Normandy. Normandy would have had fewer pistachio trees and more German artillery bunkers. I had no idea where I was going, but out of the clearing sounded like a good idea. This would make one hell of a book, if I ever got out of here to write it. I started thinking of pen names. E.Z. Munney. O. R. Ganz. Harry Dyck. I decided that I could use “John Hardwood” again, as a nod to the late Mr. Green who had featured so prominently. He seemed to have liked my last book. Sure he tried to kill everyone, but a fan is a fan. Then I remembered Cristina, and decided against it.

That reminded me again that the two goons with Damian had taken a wood cross with them. I hadn’t seen Julia in the white van, but it matched the story that the barmaid had told me about how she left the hotel. I crawled a little faster, trying to stay quiet. I had no idea what I would do if I found Julie or the goons, but I was all she had by way of rescuers. Lucky Julie, I thought cynically. I kept crawling.

I was still thinking thoughts of how I would crawl into a clearing, my gun blazing hot death, kill the baddies and save the girl. Julie would be grateful, and she’d cry and kiss me. She’d nurse me back to health and we’d live happily ever after in a small flat in Naples. The bloody volcano would probably erupt, but that seemed preferable to dying on Cassini.

Still in my reverie, I almost crawled straight out into the next clearing. Fortunately, I heard the voices and took cover behind the trunk of a tree. There were three men in the clearing, standing around the cross. It was lying on the ground. One of the men had his shirt off and held a spade. He had apparently just been digging a hole and seemed to think it was adequate. At least he was gesturing to it and then got fed up in a vocally Italian way, and threw down his spade. The second man was dressed in a sweater and khaki pants. He spoke calmly but forcefully. The first man nodded and picked up the spade again. The third man was dressed in a t-shirt and black jeans. I had never seen them before. Maybe Green knew who they were, but he was dead, like Damian. I began to see a pattern.

The t-shirt and jeans held Julie by one arm. She stood quietly as if she was drugged. She didn’t try to move away, in any case. She was dressed in a candystriper smock and was barefoot. There was a cut on her ankle which was bleeding slightly. They had marched her up here barefoot from the van, I assumed. I tried to think of a plan to rescue her that wouldn’t involve me accidentally shooting her.

The man in the sweater seemed to be satisfied and the bare chested fellow dropped his spade again. He and the t-shirt opened the buttons of Julie’s smock and slipped it off her shoulders. It dropped to the ground leaving her completely naked facing away from me. She didn’t resist. When she was naked, they each took an arm and guided her stumbling to the cross. Then they turned her around and pulled her down, laying her on the cross and arranging her. I looked at her face. It was expressionless and her eyes looked glassy. She was either drugged or in shock.

Whatever it was, I decided this had gone on long enough, and I wasn’t sure I could live with myself if I just stood by and watched them do to Julie what they (I now assumed it was them) had done to Cristina. I aimed my gun at the sweater guy. “Everyone stand still,” I yelled out. “Let her go and nobody has to get hurt.”

They stopped at the sound of my voice. One of them said, “Inglese.” I moved around my tree so they could see me and my pistol pointed at them. I hoped they would just run away. I find that things don’t always work out the way I would imagine them or write them in one of my novels. They just stood there. The sweater guy looked too calm for a man staring at a gun.

“Back away from her,” I called out to them.

“Or you will do what?” asked the sweater, in accented but good English.

“I don’t want to shoot you,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “I would rather you did not.” He nodded, seemingly to someone behind me.

I tried to turn to look, thinking as I did so that the nod was the oldest distraction trick in the book. All my characters used it to great effect. This time, however, it wasn’t a ploy. Something hard hit my head and I blacked out.

I came to with someone slapping my face. I was tied to a tree, and Sweater was slapping me.

“Good morning, English,” he said. “We would not want you to miss this.” Satisfied I was awake he walked back to the centre of the clearing. Julie was still lying on the cross, watched by the other two men and now a third man, presumably the one who had hit me. It was the bartender from Pescari. What the hell was going on on this island?

Sweater gave an order, and the other three men took positions around the cross. Bartender held Julie’s legs, while Bare-chest and T-shirt each took an arm. They stretched Julie’s arms onto the crossbeam. She looked at her right arm as T-shirt got a 10 inch carpentry spike and a small 4 pound sledge hammer. She seemed to try to struggle feebly, but T-shirt had no trouble placing his spike and driving it through Julie’s small wrist.

I sat stone faced and watched them crucify her. After all, I’d only known her a few days. More than that, I couldn’t let them get any satisfaction out of my reactions. I had to let them know that I wasn’t playing their game.

“Stop! You bastards!” I yelled as I saw Julie stiffen and her mouth open in a silent scream. She jerked at each blow of the hammer. T-shirt handed the hammer to Bare-chest and he drove in a second spike. Julie was trying to thrash her body off the cross now, but Bartender held her down. Blood dripped down from Julie’s wrists onto the ground. She was struggling, but whatever drug they had given her didn’t leave her much strength. T-shirt pulled out some rope and bound her nailed wrists firmly to the crossbar.

When that was done, Bartender pulled her legs straight and dragged her down the cross. Then he and Bare-chest spread her legs, and T-shirt hammered a 2x4 piece of wood onto the cross between her legs at her crotch. I was sorry I had given the bartender a tip.

Then they positioned her feet together, left on top of her right foot, and held them down, soles flat to the wood. Julie was moaning. T-shirt brought a thick 12 inch spike, and hammered it through Julie’s feet into the wood. This time Julie let out a sobbing cry, her body shuddering. T-shirt tied her ankles to the cross.

Then the three men lifted the cross, standing behind Julie’s head, and let it fall into the hole. Julie gave gasping sobs, her mouth a rictus of pain. I saw that the 2x4 between her thighs served as a kind of seat. I didn’t know if that was to keep her alive longer, or if it was simply to stop the nails from tearing out. Either way, I was hyperventilating and sweating, tears running down my face. It was unbelievable. T-shirt and the Bartender held the cross upright in the hole, while Bare-chest filled it in with his spade, packing the earth. Satisfied, the three men stood back and admired their handiwork. Julie hung on her cross and moaned.

It was a nightmare. It had to be. I tried to make myself wake up. I only managed to discover that my head hurt from where the Bartender had hit me before, and my eyes didn’t focus well. I slumped down.

Sweater walked over to me. “So, English,” he said. “The show is over. Now we have to deal with you. It would have been better if you had left Cassini, yes?” He seemed unhappy about it. I didn’t know what he had to feel unhappy about.

“Let me go,” I said. I tried for confident and forceful. I sounded more groggy and my words slurred. “Take her down. Let me take her away.”

“A little late for that,” said Sweater producing a hypodermic. He jabbed it into my arm. The last thing I saw was Julie looking sadly into my eyes.

I regained consciousness in considerable discomfort. My arms were stretched in what seemed like an uncomfortable position and whatever I was sitting on was digging into my thighs and bits of me that are not used to that sort of chafing. I had to move and find a more comfortable position.

I opened my eyes. In front of me, the sun was setting over the Mediterranean. That was fine. What wasn’t fine, and the part that caused a bit of panic, was that I was apparently suspended on the edge of a cliff, directly above the breakwater. I wasn’t falling though because my arms were tied, slung over something. I took stock of my surroundings.

When I looked down, I could see my body. I was completely naked, sitting astride a piece of wood. That was what was causing me discomfort. I wasn’t sunburnt, at least not in those parts that don’t normally get out in the sun. That meant that either it had been cloudy all afternoon, or I had not been here that long. I gathered that I had been tied to a cross, my arms slung behind me over the crossbar and my feet tied to the sides of the upright.

That was considerate of them, I thought, tying me instead of nailing me up. Maybe they had run out of nails. I wondered what had happened finally to Julie. Had they just left her there to die alone, or had they shot her like Green had shot Cristina. I suppose I would have to stop worrying about Julie, but I liked her. I remembered her bronze hair glinting in the sunlight as we rode Valenti’s boat to the ill-fated dinner with the mafia dons. She and Cristina were just sweet carefree girls. Why did they get singled out to be crucified? Was it simply to get me to leave Cassini?

The sun was a low red disk sinking into the golden sea. I remained stoic, facing my destiny philosophically. One thing was certain. If nobody else deserved anything, Cristina and Julie deserved to have the story told, and for people to be held accountable. The pain in my shoulders was getting to be unbearable. I tried to shift and my legs cramped, slamming me back down onto my “seat”. My back ached and my chest felt like it would never get enough air. I tried to shift my arms. They moved only a little, giving me scant relief from the pain and probably a cut on one of my forearms.

I was really very thirsty, and was starting to feel a bit dizzy. I had to get off this cross and find the police. I would find out who was behind this. The “seat” dug into my private parts again. I needed a plan. The croaking noise must have been me groaning or trying to shout in pain. I tried to shift again and felt the cross shake. There was a grinding sound and a few small pebbles dropped down the cliff, making cheerful little skipping and pinging noises. I wondered how secure the cross was. As much as I hated it, I would prefer it to be stable rather than crash down onto the rocks below.

I noticed that they had left my bandage on my leg when they hung me up here. Considerate of them. At least I wasn’t going to bleed to death. Mind you, the pain in my shoulders and the cramping in my legs was getting quite bad. If it wasn’t for the infernally chafing wood “seat” I’d have difficulty breathing. If they were going to kill me, wouldn’t they have nailed me up, like they did to the girls? What if someone found me and got me down? I looked around. There was nothing nearby. No sign of roads, no town down the coast. I was on what seemed to be a remote promontory, away from the frequented parts of the island.

Why were all the mafia dons and Valenti dead? Valenti wanted to clean up the island’s image, bring in tourists, and a wonderful future of prosperity. Who did that threaten? Somebody wasn’t happy with it, but why crucify two girls? Wasn’t killing all the mafia a good enough message?

They said they wanted to convince me to leave Cassini, but did that justify crucifying two girls, and in any case, I wasn’t really able to oblige them hanging here. Maybe I had seen too much. That was the only thing that sounded at all like a James Bond story now. “You’ve seen too much, Mr. Holmes.” That was a laugh. The things I knew were so few.

I knew somebody had killed Valenti and all his old mafia buddies. I knew Cristina and Julia had both been crucified, and were both probably dead now. I knew Mama was alive. I knew there were at least four men involved, including the guy in the sweater and khakis. That was what Green and Damian had known as well, and they were both dead. That thought didn’t fill me with confidence in my own position. Still, they hadn’t shot me, so perhaps where there was life there was hope. Some more small pebbles were dislodged from the base of my cross as I shifted and tried to get more comfortable. Comfort is relative.

What I didn’t know was why. Oh, Valenti and his pals might have been killed for revenge or because of some local power struggle that he hadn’t thought important enough to tell me about. Mama might have killed Damian simply for revenge for killing her son. Mama might have shot Damian to save Mitch’s life, but why would she just run off without trying to save Julie?

I didn’t know why it made any sense to crucify Julie. I had assumed that Cristina’s crucifixion at Valenti’s house was a message to someone, but what sense did it make to crucify Julie in the middle of a forest? Who would ever get a message like that? I didn’t know why I was hanging here on a cross. If it was just because I saw the man in the sweater and his goons, they could have just shot me. Nobody was going to see me here unless they were scanning the coast with high powered binoculars. I didn’t see any boats.

What about my old friends back in Naples, Giovanni Amparo and Alberto Ficenza. Ficenza had seemed very nervous during our meeting where he set me up with Mitch. Had they set me up for this as well? That would mean Mitch was involved in me being on this cliff looking out to sea. I was willing to bet that I was facing Naples.

Mitch said once that Mama had run Cassini when her husband died while Valenti was away making bad movies. Maybe this was all her doing. It fit what I saw as her sense of humour to hang me on a cross looking out at the sunset. It would cap all the incomprehensible interactions I had had with her.

I made up my mind. I had gotten the message. They wanted me to leave, but even if they took me down now, I was wasn’t going anywhere until someone told me what was going on. I owed it to Julie and Cristina. I’d always had a problem with commitment, but this felt good to me.

I needed water. I read once that you can survive a long time without food, but almost no time without water. My leg hurt where I’d been shot. My arms and shoulders were almost as bad. I didn’t know if anyone would ever find me, or how long I could hang here. The sun boiled away under the waterline. That was quite beautiful, I have to say, the reddish light changing to purple across the waves.

“I’ll get you, you bastards!” I said.

FIN
Well, Pilgrim, it wasn't the ending I expected and seems like one of those newfangled Hollywood things where is it doesn't sell they let you die there but if it does you set yourself up for sequel. Personally, I'd prefer the sequel. Can't see you wasting good writing talent dyin' on that cross...

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