The Willing E-Book

Gary Smith

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Warren Steelgrave
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 202

Beschreibung

At the age of Sixty-Five, a retired Warren Steelgrave is getting bored with life. He decides that unlike his friends of his age he is not going to sit around playing golf, waiting to die. He is going to Italy to start the last chapter of his life and find adventure. Be careful what you wish for, adventure is what he finds. He falls in love with Cindy O’Brian a singer songwriter in his Italian language class in Florence Italy. Little did they realize the chain of events that would engulf them. Someone was watching, but who and why? He discovers she might not be who she appears to be, but, still decides to help her flee Italy, and the chase begins through northern Italy. Before it is over there will be two dead bodies, a secret government file, a jealous husband, fake identities, a safe house, personal betrayal as the FBI is searching for them and others want to kill them both. Does Warren Steelgrave have another card up his sleeve to save them both? This story takes the reader through the backstreets of Florence and to villages of northern Italy, and from Monte Carlo France to a small town in Kansas America. The Willing is exciting and mysterious.

Leseprobe

THE WILLING

Gary Smith

¶

All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

Copyright © 2017 by Gary Smith

Interior design by Pronoun

Distribution by Pronoun

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

Dedicated to Slim for giving me the inspiration to write.

CHAPTER ONE

I LOOKED AT THE clock on the nightstand and it was 2:00 a.m. The small studio apartment was finally cooling down and a light breeze coming through the open bedroom window felt good on my naked body. It was my first night in Florence, Italy. It was June 29th and it was hot and humid. I was nervous about my first day of school tomorrow and could not sleep. I kept running through my mind all the events of the past four years that led me here. I am now sixty-five years old and in good health. I have been athletic all my life. I still go to the gym three times a week and can bench press my body weight. I have been married three times, the last time for thirty years. I have five grown children and six grandchildren. I should be content being at home taking the grandchildren to the zoo. But it is not my nature. Deep intimate connections with people have always eluded me. I have always felt alone and an outsider even with all my children.

Five years ago for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, my wife and I went to Milan, Italy. As part of the trip, we hired a driver to see if we could find the village of Varni, the village of my grandfather’s birth. The driver did not know the village or where it might be. I said, “Let’s go to Castellamonte—I was told it is near there. We can ask around the area and, hopefully, we will get lucky.”

Near Castellamonte, there was a small sign at a crossroads with an arrow which read “Varni 3 KM.” Up into the foothills we went until we reached Varni. Varni is very small, with a population of 400. The ancient buildings with their red tile roofs are beautiful. The cobblestone streets are small and clean. Nestled into the hillside of a small forested valley, I thought we were leaving reality and driving into a postcard. We stopped at a small restaurant and entered.

The restaurant was small and very clean, and in a strange way, casual and elegant at the same time. There was a small counter to the right as we walked in and to the left was a dining room with about eight round tables, six feet in diameter, set with white linen and glassware with a view all the way to the Po Valley. Standing behind the counter was a gentleman of about fifty years of age, trim and athletic, with a look of deep suspicion on his face.

“Good afternoon. My name is Warren Steelgrave,” I said. “I am looking for the village of Cesare Sategna, my grandfather. Would you know if this is it and if any descendants of the family Sategna are still living in the area?”

The look of suspicion only deepened. He said to me, “Have a seat and I will call for someone to come and talk with you.”

I was admiring the view when I heard, “Excuse me, are these your grandparents?” I turned to see a woman of about sixty holding two framed pictures of my grandparents.

“Yes they are,” I said with a tremor in my voice.

As I stood to greet her, she set the pictures down on the table, stepped forward, put her arms around me and said, “Welcome home. We all have been waiting a long time for you. I live in your great-grandfather’s house, the house in which your grandfather was born.”

For the first time in my life, I felt a deep connection to something and someplace—I felt like I belonged here. My wife and I had been drifting apart for several years prior to our going to Italy, and on our return home the gulf between us only widened. I could not get Italy out of my mind. I had built up a very successful business, had a family and wife I loved, and roots in the community. Still, Italy beckoned like a young mistress. I started studying the language and culture and researching my Italian family tree. With Facebook and letters, I started making friends and developing relationships in Italy—more and more, my wife and I were living in separate worlds. My wife had her friends at work whom I had never met. They would have coffee together, and lunch, and talk about the problems and challenges at work. I had enrolled in college courses, studying Italian language, culture, and art. I would have coffee and lunch with young people from class and discus Dante and Bimbo and the Renaissance.

Many of my longtime friends, who had retired, spent the day reading or playing golf. They lived in the past and talked about past achievements and how things used to be. It looked and felt to me like they were just passing time waiting to die. I can remember the exact moment it happened. About six months after returning home from that first trip to Italy, I was sitting on the back deck of my house and it occurred to me that I was starting the last chapter of my life. I decided, while I still had my health and energy and enjoyed making love all night with a woman, I was going to write the last chapter myself and not coast to the end. I was already starting to become like my friends, a perfect specimen, already dead with low blood pressure. I sold my business for more money than I could ever spend in this life, retired, and started spending more time in Italy.

Thirty years is a long time to be married. You dig deep roots and if you are lucky you still have a deep respect and friendship. But I think after such a long time you may love each other but not be in love anymore. I had a very wise and good friend tell me you are only in love with someone as long as you can take something from them. I later read, think of a marriage as a box. Both people have to keep putting something in so there is something for the other to take out. My wife and I quit putting something in years ago. I never felt missed, nor did I miss her when I would take extended trips to Italy. I would come home almost hoping to find a note that she had fallen in love with someone and had left. My heart would love to know she was in love and happy with someone. She hadn’t been with me for a long time.

I had just gotten home from school and started to make a sandwich when I got the call. “Hello, Mr. Steelgrave?”

“Yes, this is Mr. Steelgrave.”

“This is the California Highway Patrol. Your wife has been in a serious car accident and has been taken to Saint Catherine’s Hospital emergency room.”

Without saying goodbye, I hung up the phone and left for the hospital. I arrived at Saint Catherine’s around 3:30. I walked into the emergency waiting room. It was very crowded and the level of pain and discomfort was everywhere. I walked up to the counter and announced to the admissions nurse, “My name is Warren Steelgrave. I was told my wife Kathy Steelgrave was in a car accident and brought here.”

“Let me check. Someone will be right out to get you.”

It was the longest five minutes of my life before a doctor in scrubs came out and took me back to a small private waiting room and asked me to sit down. “Mr. Steelgrave, I am terribly sorry. We did all we could but the injuries were just too great.”

“May I see her?” I asked.

“Yes. Someone will be out shortly and take you back.”

I was numb as I waited. Thirty years of memories flooded through my mind: the birth of the children, the craziness and fun of the early years, the hard work it took to build a life together.

“Mr. Steelgrave, would you like to come and see her now?”

I stood in a small room holding her hand and remembering how beautiful and full of life she was. I would never hear her laugh again or see the joy the grandchildren brought her.

I said, “Kathy, “I am so sorry I did not put more in the box for you and that I was not a better husband.”

After the funeral, I started removing her possessions out of the house we lived in for twenty-six years. It was as if I were giving away a little piece of her. It was awful. Up on a top shelf of her closet in a shoebox I found some love letters she kept from a man she had worked with some years before. They were too personal for me to read but what should I do with them? I was shocked to find out she had an affair or deep connection with someone and I hadn’t noticed, which says more about me than her. I came to the conclusion that because she kept them she would want them with her. I decided to burn them and distribute the ashes on her grave.

Of all her items to get rid of, her shoes were the hardest. I put off dealing with them until the very end. I do not know why they were so emotional for me to deal with and cannot explain it. Every time I would see them in the closet, it was the saddest thing for me.

Then, I heard from the children more than during the last ten years. I felt like I was in a fish bowl. One would call every day to see how I was. When I told them I was fine, I would be lectured on how it was okay to cry and I should not hold my feelings in, etc. I raised them in the hopes they would go off and live their own lives and not hang around here out of some misplaced guilt. Finally, I’d had enough and I enrolled in a school in Florence, Italy.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS 8:30 A.M. on Monday, June 30th and I was leaving for school. It was warm and would be hot today with thunderstorms and it was beginning to rain. I turned right onto Via della Rosso, left on Via dell’Agnolo past the Pizzeria, then right on Via Giuseppe Verdi, then a left on Via dell’Oriuolo. At the end of the street I could see the Cattedrale di Santa Maria. The sunlight was breaking through the clouds and shown upon Brunelleschi’s Dome as if it were lit by a spotlight. It was stunning. All I could think of were Cimabue, Gaddo, Gaddi, Giotto, and Brunelleschi, who had walked these streets so long ago, as great influencers on the Renaissance. Yes, it was the right decision to start the last chapter of my life here in the city of cultural rebirth. When I got to the Piazza de Duomo, I took a right on Via dei Servi toward the Florence School of Italian Language and Culture. It had just started raining heavily.

The class assembled on the fifth floor. It had a long conference-type table in the middle of the room for about twenty students to sit around, with a large white board on the wall at one end near the door. We were asked to introduce ourselves and say a little about where we were from, why we were taking Italian, etc. I realized I was the only American in the class. All others were from different parts of Europe and in their late teens to late twenties. All I could think of was how out of place I was.

At the end of introduction, the professor handed out a test for us to take so he could assess our level of Italian. It was then that she walked in. She was about 5′ 7″, wearing a light tan rain coat and a kind of silly blue knit cap. She gave a quick introduction. Because my attention was on the test, all I heard was that she was an American and a singer. My thought was At least I am not the only American. I was in deep thought trying to remember how to conjugate the verb avere in the imperfetto when the chair next to me pulled out.

“May I sit here?” she asked in a voice reminiscent of Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep or To Have and Have Not. I looked up as she pulled off her cap. Her long auburn hair was falling down to her shoulders and with her right hand she brushed it back over her shoulders in a move that has been practiced by women for ten thousand years. “Absolutely,” I said.

Her big brown eyes were like dark hooks of the soul, and when I looked into them I felt a connection like I have never felt. I was mentally gone into dreamland.

“Mr. Steelgrave, Mr. Steelgrave!”

“Excuse me, Professor, what did you say?”

“Are you having problems with the test? Do you have a question?”

“No, Professor, I understand the test.” I went back to finishing the test.

My God, how big a fool must I have looked! I’d never had an experience like that. It was if I had been hit in the face with a baseball bat. After class ended, I stayed and asked the professor a question on our homework assignment, then headed out the class door into the hallway and down the stairs. I reached the bottom. As I started toward the glass front door, I saw her on the sidewalk as if she were waiting for someone. I opened the door and as I started through she looked toward me and smiled. “I think she has been waiting for me,” I said to myself, and the argument started in my head. I think she made the same connection with me. Don’t be a fool. You are at least twenty-five years older than she is. I did not see a wedding ring.

CHAPTER THREE

I SMILED BACK. SHE stepped forward and said, “Excuse me, but being late, I did not get your name.”

“It’s Warren. Warren Steelgrave. Please forgive me but I was so concentrating on the test I have forgotten yours.”

“My name is Cynthia O’Brian. Everyone calls me Cindy.”

“Good to meet you, Cindy. It looks like we are the only two Americans in the class. I was headed to get a little something to eat at a pizzeria around the corner at Piazza del Duomo. Would you like to join me?”

“Okay,” she said and off we went.

We arrived at the Caffé Duomo. There were tables on a platform that extended from the sidewalk out into the street from the curb about seven feet with a canopy covering for outside dining and views of the Basilica da Santa Maria del Fiore. Inside was a large bar on the right that extended almost to the back of the Caffé. It had about fifteen tables. We went inside and the Italian waiter intuitively seated us at a small table in the back of the restaurant where we could have some privacy. The restaurant was very nice.

“Please forgive me. I was so involved with the test I really did not get any of your introduction, Cindy.”

“Well, let me see. There is not a lot to tell. I was born in a small town: Alliance, Ohio. My parents were a product of the ’60s and divorced when I was young. I have a younger sister and my dad is a carpenter. I am married, have three boys and a passion for singing, songwriting, and Italian culture.”

“Where are you staying while in Florence?” I asked.

“I am staying at the Hotel Roma, just off Via dei Solo near the Basilica di Maria Novella.”

Cindy and I spent the next two hours talking about Italy, music, our children, and much more. I had never felt so close to anyone. It was as if I had known her for years and not hours. I had a good friend who believed in past lives. He said the reason some people have trouble connecting is because, in a past life, they lost their true love and soul mate. They spend their current life searching for them and are not truly happy until they find them again. I have never believed in past lives, soul mates, true love, or love at first sight. Today, if you asked me, I would have to say maybe to all of it.

For three weeks after, we went to Caffé Duomo after class and practiced Italian for an hour or so. During weekends, we spent time visiting museums. On warm nights, we would meet at the Piazzale Michelangelo and sit on the steps enjoying the live music, watching the sunset over the city. One Saturday, we lay on a blanket on the banks of the Arno watching the teams race with their racing shells. I was sure she felt the same connection and the same way I did. It was driving me crazy. She was married, with children. I would not break up a family but where was this going? What were her thoughts? I would lie in bed at night thinking of a way to tell her how I felt, but when we would meet, she would smile and that would turn my world upside down and I would become helpless. What was it about her that made me keep my feelings hidden? The next time I see her, I have to let her know how I feel, I thought.

The next day we had coffee and just before she had to leave I said, “I have to tell you how I feel,” and with great detail I described my love for her. Then I said, “I have to know if you feel the same toward me.”

She seemed surprised and answered, “I am happily married.” I was a little embarrassed. She had gotten up to leave, but came over and gave me a tight embrace and said, “Thank you for sharing that with me; it means a lot.” I was almost back at my apartment before I started to settle down and realized she never gave me an answer. “I am happily married” is not an answer. She didn’t say, “I do not feel the same way,” or as intensely—or a hundred more ways to say, “No, I do not feel the same way.”

What did I get wrong? I had always been spot on when it came to others’ feelings and internal thoughts. I would have bet my life she had made the same connection. I started doubting myself, my ability to read tells and body language. Should I trust myself or was I being played? That night, I started reading Francesco Petrarch’s sonnets and shorter poems. Maybe she was going to be my Laura, and in his sonnets I would find an understanding of this relationship and how to cope with unrequited love.

For the next week, everything was great. We would go to the Caffé Duomo after class as usual and to dinner almost every night. We talked at length about our difficult childhoods, etc. It was becoming apparent I was the one doing most of the talking and giving up most of the information. She would never let me pick her up at her apartment. We would always meet at a restaurant or at the Piazzale Michelangelo or a museum. I once tried to buy her a Ferragamo wallet and she refused. We never held hands and never kissed. We just hugged when we parted.

But what a hug! It would send me home on a cloud. I would convince myself she felt only a deep friendship toward me and then I would receive a text—a verse from a love song or an intimate poem—and, again, I would think, There is a real connection here. One day after class, I was at the Caffé Duomo having coffee and waiting for her. I was a little depressed because there was only two weeks of school left and the thought of not seeing her every day depressed me. I was trying to think of ways I could keep the connection after returning home, when she sat down. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“What?” I replied.

“With your hand,” she said.

“Oh, this?” I said, opening my hand to reveal a 1922 silver dollar. “Whenever I am troubled about something, I rub it between my thumb and finger. It has always given me a direction to take.”

“Really? Does it work?”

“Always,” I said. “It was given to me by the father of a good friend, many years ago. We were doing a project that was almost impossible to do. You have heard the phrase ‘bitten off more than one could chew?” Well, this was one of the many times I had done just that. I had everything tied up in that project and if I missed the completion date I would lose it all and be bankrupt.

My friend, Mike, said, ‘Let me call my dad. He is retired but if anyone can come and save this project it would be him.’ We called him. He came and saved the day. I had a dinner at the end of the project for everyone who had worked on the project so I could thank them.”

I paused, remembering.

“When we were done, Mike’s dad took me alongside and gave me this coin. He said. ‘It is magical. When you are in trouble or need an answer, just rub it and it will give you the answer you need.’ As you can see, the face is almost rubbed off. The next day, I took him to the airport. As I was telling him goodbye, the last thing he said to me was, ‘If ever the giver of the coin gets it back from the one he gave it to, it means the person is in too deep for the coin to help and the original giver has to do all they can to help.’ He got on the plane and went home. I never saw him again. The idea came to me just a minute ago that I would like to give it to you as a tie between us.”

She hesitated, then took it.

CHAPTER FOUR

I LAY AWAKE IN