Bunny Elder Adventure Series: Four Complete Novels: Hollow, Vain Pursuits, Seadrift, ...and Something Blue

by J. B. Hawker

  Since nothing was stolen, Bunny and her sister dutifully gave their report to the manageress and decided to clean up the mess and try to forget about the incident.

  Bunny pushed a bureau in front of their locked door before going to bed, just to feel a bit safer.

  Each of the women tried to put the incident out of her mind and get some sleep.

  They would move on to Rome the next day and put this unpleasant experience behind them.

  For Bunny it was an interesting tidbit for her travel diary.

  She was hoping to be able to submit an article to a local travel magazine when she got back home.

  Bunny had always loved to write and kept toying with the idea of free-lancing instead of going back to office work.

  She couldn’t sponge off her sister forever.

  Too restless to sleep, she thought back on her short–lived career as a small town newspaper reporter. It had been a tumultuous time, but she had enjoyed the work.

  Max as her boss was both distracting and inspiring. He was now gone from her life, but the love of writing had stayed with her.

  Her stint as a reporter at least added substance to her skimpy resume.

  This trip should give her fodder for at least a couple of interesting travel articles and maybe even a short-story, as well.

  Bunny knew the biggest obstacle to a writing career would be her usual reticence when it came to self-promotion.

  She was not more humble than the next person, just shy about tooting her own horn, except in jest.

  Sending a pitch to a publisher would be no joking matter.

  With a huge sigh, Bunny trusted her future to the Lord’s keeping in a brief prayer, then turned on her side and finally drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Six

  …folly brings punishment to fools. Proverbs 16:22

  The bloated body of Enzio Colazzi was pulled from the waters of the Arno in Florence by a local fisherman later that week, a presumed victim of accidental drowning.

  The local newspaper issued its usual warning about the dangers of drinking too much wine when taking small boats on the river.

  With no family to mourn him, the little man with the unusual scar on his forehead was soon forgotten.

  After failing to locate their prey in Bologna, Parma and his camorristi from the Naples-based mob spent two days in Pisa searching every lodging establishment, from hostels to five-star luxury hotels, with no luck.

  The women who stole the shepherd statuette had disappeared.

  Felice was becoming frantic. His uncle would not accept failure on this mission.

  He didn’t know what had made this particular shipment important enough for his uncle to abandon semi-retirement in New York and come to oversee the transaction in person.

  The younger Parma had not been pleased to hear of his uncle’s coming.

  With Don Antonio Parma in New York, Felice was head of the family in Italy, since his own father’s death.

  With Don Antonio in Bologna, his nephew was demoted to second in command. He did not enjoy taking orders from any man, not even his feared and beloved Zio Antonio.

  Taking orders was difficult enough; accepting punishment for failure could not be tolerated. He must find those women.

  When he did, he would personally make them pay for all this trouble.

  “Zio, Antonio? It is Felice on the telefono for you. Are you awake?”

  Paola whispered to the old man as he dozed once again on the balcony.

  He seemed to crave the open sky above his head in these days.

  His eyes were closed tightly, as a spasm of pain washed over him. Opening them, he reached for the phone in his niece’s hand.

  “What news?” he spoke sharply into the mouthpiece.

  “Why are you wasting time?” he barked.

  “Why are you wasting your time and mine? We know these witches are headed for Napoli. Follow them there! Don’t spend further precious moments trying to catch them on the way. Go on to Napoli. If they are not there already, they will arrive soon. It is not only the shepherd boy they are after, babbeo! They want the whole shipment. You must stop them. Go.”

  So saying, he wearily tossed the phone to Paola, closed his eyes and murmured, “Just go.”

  

  Fuming from his uncle’s insult, he dares to address me as a simpleton! Felice directed his men to return to their cars and they all headed south to Naples.

  They would find these wretched women, these streghe. They were witches, indeed.

  Covering the 451 kilometers at an average speed of 140 KPH, flying through the tollgates on the autostrade thanks to counterfeited electronic passes, and never stopping for breaks, their cars arrived in Naples in slightly less than three hours.

  Felice’s frustration grew with every moment the women eluded him.

  He was angry, too, that two of his more impetuous soldiers had nearly created an incident in Pisa in their eagerness to please him. They had not waited to verify that they had the correct women before beginning their interrogation.

  Young Parma had managed to make the incident look like an interrupted robbery and his men had avoided discovery, but it was one more slip-up in what should have been a simple assignment.

  Perhaps his uncle had been right about these supposed tourists. They were more elusive and dangerous than they had once seemed.

  It was nearing midnight when Parma’s crew arrived in Naples, but the men were deployed immediately: two to watch the train station and the rest to begin their rounds of the lodgings.

  The hotels without twenty-four hour staff would be checked early the next day.

  In the morning, he would arrange for some of his locally-based crew to join the hunt.

  The women they sought would need to be spirits, or truly witches, to evade capture, now.

  

  What could be more glorious than to wake up to find oneself in Rome?

  Bunny lingered at the window of the room she shared with her sister, reveling in scenery she had previously only glimpsed on screen or in the pages of a book.

  It was a sunny fall day, crisp, cool and perfect for exploring the Eternal City.

  Seeing the early morning sun picking out the architectural details of the buildings and warming the ancient stonework filled Bunny with a bubbling joy.

  Winter was coming to the north of Italy now, with new snow in the mountains, but here in the south they were blessed with lingering mild weather.

  Bunny looked forward eagerly to seeing all the familiar movie locations in person, and to possibly tossing a coin or three into the Trevi Fountain.

  The Trevi is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and is considered by many to be the most beautiful in the world. Bunny didn’t put any faith in the idea that throwing a coin into the fountain would bring her back to Rome someday, but she would like to see the ornate travertine structure and the Carrera marble statues up close, especially the central figure of Ocean.

  Apparently, all those wet tourist coins were a source of income for the upkeep of the fountain, as well, so it wouldn’t be such a silly gesture, at that.

  “Hey, Taffy! Are you about through in the bathroom? I need to shower, too, you know,” she shouted through the door at her sister.

  “All done, dear,” Taffy, neatly coiffed and with her "company face" on, came into the bedroom.

  “I’ll hurry so we have time to enjoy breakfast before catching the tour bus.”

  “The Hop-on Hop-off buses come around every twenty-five minutes, so take as much time as you need, Bunny. We want to look our best for Rome.”

  “Rome will have to take me as I am. But I promise to try not to let you down, Sis,” Bunny quipped as she ducked into the bathroom.

  Later, riding atop their double-decker tour bus, swiveling their heads back and forth like spectators at a tennis match, Bunny and Taffy were in agreement about the wisdom of their decision to spring for the forty-eight hour pass. For under seventy euros, the two of them
were able to get off the bus at any of the sites, stay as long as they wanted and then catch another bus to the next venue.

  The guides were so helpful. Both the attractive young woman on the bus and the mellow recorded voice coming from their headsets provided more information than the sisters could ever hope to absorb.

  If they had come to Rome a month earlier they could have added the twenty-four hour tour boat pass, as well.

  Even without traveling the waterways, Bunny was certain she would remember her time in Rome forever.

  She doubted anything in Naples could possibly be more exciting or memorable.

  “Bunny, did you hear what those folks standing behind us outside the Coliseum were talking about? Two retired female schoolteachers from Indiana were murdered in their hotel room in Pisa recently! It seems they walked in on a burglar and the thief went berserk. He not only killed them, he tortured them first! A couple of innocent middle-aged tourists, Bunny! Just imagine; that could have been us.”

  “How horrible! Those poor women, to have such a thing happen on their vacation. And tortured, too, that’s just madness. I don’t think we have anything to worry about here, though. I am glad we got out of Pisa when we did. Even in the relative safety of a convent hotel it would be uncomfortable spending another night in that city knowing what had happened. Which hotel was it?”

  “I heard the name, but I don’t remember it. I was just relieved it wasn’t ours.”

  “Oh look, here we are at the Trevi Fountain! Grab some coins, Taffy. I’ve been looking forward to this all day. And look, I’ve even remembered my camera.”

  

  That evening Max and Tenny tied up Zeemeermin at a public marina near the old port in Naples.

  It had been a tiring day with rough seas. Max decided to have a quiet dinner in a nearby trattoria.

  He could wait until the next day to begin exploring Napoli.

  When they made port, Tenny placed a few short phone calls then hurried ashore. Something seemed to upset him.

  Max wondered idly if there was some problem with his friend’s consignment.

  Strolling along the waterfront, Max decided this would be his only cruise with Opijnen.

  Tenny had been a more congenial companion in short doses at beachfront bars than when cooped up in close quarters on an ocean voyage.

  Max really didn’t know Opijnen well.

  The two had bumped into each other fairly frequently while cruising around the Caribbean in the years when Max was enjoying early retirement.

  When they ran into each other again after Max’s recent return to the Netherlands Antilles, they were both unattached and gravitated together whenever they happened to be in the same port.

  Neither man was much of a one to share confidences, so they were comfortable with each other.

  On this trip, however, Opijnen seemed more secretive than merely taciturn.

  He was jumpy and easily upset.

  Max would be happy to sail home solo, but since it wasn’t possible, he would just try to make the best of it, knowing there would be no future trips with the man.

  Max was beginning to think that Opijnen wasn’t completely trustworthy. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something just seemed a bit off about this whole trip.

  Max had been living in a rented sailboat since returning to Bonaire and was now ready to buy a boat of his own. He was considering the purchase of a sloop similar to Zeemeermin, so working as crew on this voyage had been a kind of test drive.

  By his return to the island Max should know whether this class of boat would suit him.

  His love for the sea had not waned, but the return to full retirement was less satisfying than Max had anticipated. The right boat could be just what was missing.

  Wandering along the seafront, approaching the pretty Castel dell’Ovo fortress on Santa Lucia Boulevard, Max noticed he had reached the entrance to the renowned pizzeria, Da Ettore.

  As he glanced down the menu in the window and was considering the mouthwatering descriptions of the many pizzas and deep fried croquettes available, a laughing couple opened the door to leave, giving Max a whiff of the tantalizing aromas inside.

  He determined at once to follow his nose.

  Since Naples claims to be the birthplace of the true pizza, Max decided this was as good a place as any to see if it lived up to its reputation.

  Once seated at his table, he ordered birra and a margherita pizza, its red, white and green color combination created and named for the seventeenth century Queen Margherita of Savoy in honor of her royal colors, also the colors of the modern Italian flag.

  Max leaned back and relaxed while soaking in the sounds, sights and smells of the Italian dinner hour.

  All around him happy people chattered away, music played and delicious food was eaten with gusto.

  A fleeting image of Bunny smiling opposite him at his table shimmered in his mind, but he shook it off, impatient with his own foolishness. Even if by some miracle she were to appear here, thousands of miles from home, nothing would have changed.

  Still, he couldn’t help thinking what it might be like to share Italy with Bunny.

  Chapter Seven

  But evil men are all to be cast aside like thorns, which are not gathered with the hand. 2 Samuel 23:6

  Although this wasn’t his first assignment for organized crime, Tenny Opijnen was worried.

  A tall, wiry man with thinning reddish-gray hair and weather beaten skin, he slouched, smoking, against a piling, then tossed his cigarette butt into the oily water beneath the dock and began to pace.

  He would be happy to see the end of this trip and have his money safely in his pocket.

  The small sailing yachts of recreational cruisers like Opijnen were seldom bothered by the various coast guard forces of Central and South America as they hopped between the Caribbean islands and coastal mainland. They almost literally sailed below the radar. These boats weren’t set up for large-scale smuggling, and most of the cruisers who dabbled in black market deliveries avoided the more dangerous drugs and arms traffic.

  Although this “boutique smuggling” of special order items was no secret, the governments they traveled through tended to turn a blind eye.

  Much of it was for wealthy and influential buyers eager to avoid duties and taxes on their purchases. It seemed like a game to many of them.

  Sailing away from Italy with this cargo would be a more serious challenge than Opijnen was accustomed to.

  He hoped to maintain a low profile and not attract the attention of the reputedly lax Italian Customs officials.

  Southern Italian officials were often stereotyped as being corrupt and inefficient. He hoped the image was based, at least in part, on reality.

  Tenny was one of only a very few cruisers who occasionally took on shipments for gangsters.

  This was his biggest job to date.

  It was his first time in Italy and the first time he had been entrusted with such a large amount of cash.

  The money was well-hidden under paneling in Zeemeermin's galley, but its presence made Opijnen uneasy.

  The bundles of U.S. dollars, along with several graphic threats regarding what would happen to him if he failed to deliver the money safely, had been given to him by intimidating representatives of an eccentric and extremely wealthy anonymous buyer in Venezuela to exchange for art objects the man was purchasing for his personal and very private collection.

  This man felt electronic transfers from off-shore accounts were becoming too easy for governmental forensic accountants to trace, hence, the old-school transaction.

  Opijnen didn’t know all the details, didn’t want to, it was safer that way, but he knew enough to know this job was important to people whom he would prefer not to disappoint.

  His fee would be the largest ever.

  If he did well on this delivery he would have a choice to make. He could either use these earnings to retire from smuggling, or take advantage of his success to take
on even bigger and more important jobs in the future.

  The outcome of this trip, and the extent of his greed, would determine Tenny’s future.

  He was just beginning to reach for another cigarette to calm his nerves and blot out the fishy smell of the docks, when he saw the silhouettes of two men, one bearlike, the other tall and slim, appear at the far end of a shadowy alley opening onto the street where he stood.

  The figures exuded an aura of menace that grew ever more intense as they neared.

  Tenny held his ground and forced a smile.

  The shipment was expected to be in several bulky packages. He could see, even from a distance, these men could be carrying nothing except their obligatory concealed weapons.

  “Ciao!” he croaked, when the men were within hailing distance. Then, clearing his throat, he called out, “Hullo!” with a bit more confidence.

  Roberto thrust his battered features into Tenny’s face.

  “Where is the money?” he demanded in heavily accented English, exhaling gusts of garlicky breath that further unsettled Opijnen.

  His companion stepped forward and held out his hand, “Forgive my friend, Roberto. His English is limited. I am Lucca. I am representative of signor Parma. You are the Dutchman, yes?”

  Opijnen shook the fellow’s hand with relief. Roberto had unnerved him.

  “Yes, Tenny Opijnen. Are you here to make arrangements for the shipment?”

  “And to collect from you payment. Yes. You have the money?” Lucca spoke gently, but there was no warmth in the man’s narrow eyes.

  “Sure, but I don’t carry it with me. When you bring the cargo I‘ll be happy to hand over the payment, as was agreed. I’m eager to get back out to sea. Weather can be tricky this time of year. Where do we make the exchange? Give me directions, I’ll go get the money and meet you there.”

  Lucca hesitated a moment. Felice had instructed him not to let the Dutchman know of the problem with the icons.