The Secret Life of Damian Spinelli

by Carolyn Hennesy

  “I’ll get this,” Cassi said when I started to inquire about gettin’ a boat. He said something real low to an old man sittin’ on a bench, fixin’ a net. Without lookin’ up, the man went inside a little shack. Cassi and I followed. The man reached down behind a counter and pulled out a single key. Cassi slid two hundred euros across the counter and the man went back to fixin’ his net.

  We walked around the shack and out onto a short dock. The key unlocked a chain around a tie line; on the other end, the sorriest little motorboat I’d ever seen.

  Cassi locked her back up and headed for a bunch of trees about fifty yards away. I kept my yap shut and followed until we were hidden.

  “What gives?” I said. “Why ain’t we headin’ out to the ‘forbidden island’?”

  “Still too light,” the prince said. “We’ll be on the water for a while, but we don’t want anyone here seein’ us take off, not if we can help it. The man who got us the boat was the gardener on the island for years. Every day of every visit I ever had here, he gave me a rose to take into the house for the first woman I saw. I adored him, and he was loyal to the family. Until . . . the ‘scissors’ incident with his daughter and my uncle. I told him I was here for payback. He won’t signal my grandmother . . . but there are others here who would. We have a couple of hours; I’m for getting a little sleep.”

  I set my watch alarm and we both settled in. Two hours later, “Wind Beneath My Wings” woke us both up real sweet. The skies were darkenin’ fast; lights were comin’ on in the village. We headed for the dock, unlocked the chain, and started the motor. The moon was full, and Cassi knew the way; all’s I had to do was sit back and try not to freeze to death. Thought about those pictures of ancient Greek guys, runnin’ around in short dresses . . . in this weather? Cripes . . . and I thought I was tough.

  On the way, I asked Cassi what he thought Alexis mighta meant when she said Helena was gonna do the same thing she’d done to Alexis’s mother.

  “Gimme the story,” I said.

  “Helena’s husband, Mikos, my grandfather, had an affair with a woman named Kristin Bergman, a Swedish opera singer living in Paris. Out of that union was born Natasha Alexandra Mikkosovna Cassadine . . . also now known as Alexis . . . and her sister, Kristina Cassadine.”

  “Alexis got saddled with the name baggage, huh? Might explain a few things.”

  “Anyway, Mikos left Kristin and her girls to fend for themselves in Paris. He sent money, but he’d pretty much abandoned them, so my grandmother let it slide for years. The story goes that she would only mention Mikos’s ‘bastard-ettes,’ as she liked to call them, when she was either drunk, or Mikos wouldn’t buy her something she wanted—a piece of jewelry . . . a plane . . . a country, that sort of thing. Finally, though, one day Helena snapped. She flew to Paris and, making sure that Natasha and Kristina were both home, she invited herself into Kristin’s apartment, sat down to tea, made a little small talk, then slit Kristin’s throat right in front of both girls. Said something like, ‘Let’s hear you sing now.’ ”

  “Your grandma’s a keeper.”

  “Natasha was so traumatized by the incident, she was sent to live with relatives, her name was changed, and she basically couldn’t remember anything. She also lived on the island for a while before coming to Port Charles.”

  “She lived on the island with your grandmother?” I asked. “With ‘Hell-on-Wheels’? The Komodo Dragon-lady?”

  “For a while, yes,” Cassi answered. “But then she went to law school and started a life for herself in America.”

  “Wait a second,” I said, feelin’ all the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. “Hell-on-Wheels not only kidnapped Alexis, but she also has Alexis’s own girls, Kristina and Molly! And she’s gonna do to Alexis what she did to . . . ? In front of . . . ? How fast can this thing go? We gotta make tracks.”

  “The motor is putting out all the horsepower it’s got,” Cassi said. “If I overload it, we’ll be dead in the water.”

  “I just hope Alexis isn’t dead on the island.”

  An hour later, Cassi spotted the little lighthouse on the northern tip.

  “The palace is just above it,” he said.

  Cassi took the boat around to the eastern shore and ran it up on a decent stretch of beach. We hoofed it through some heavy undergrowth.

  “You okay?” Cassi asked, when we stopped to rest.

  “Reminds me of my days in Crimea.”

  “Come on, Jackal,” Cassi said. “You couldn’t have been in the Crimean War!”

  “Bravo, Prince Cassadine!” I said. “He gotcha!”

  Spinelli looked at me like I should have been riding a tricycle.

  “I shall say to you the very thing that I said to His Highness . . .”

  “I never said I was in the war.”

  We crawled ahead until we came to a wall. In the moonlight, I could see high buildings that musta stretched up at least two hundred feet, and way at the top I could just make out shiny rooftops.

  “Big place. The joint has a metal roof?”

  “Gold,” Cassi answered, which shut me up for a minute. “This wall is at the back of the palace grounds. That way leads to the pool and the formal French jardins. This way leads to the stables, the miniature golf course, the shooting range, and the outdoor torture garden.”

  “You’re pullin’ my leg.”

  “Complete with pillory, wheel, and iron maiden.”

  “Your grandmother’s a freakin’ nut!”

  “Those were my grandfather’s. Grandmother just keeps them around for sentimental reasons. Helena’s much more sophisticated. Poisoned lipstick, perfume—small stuff. She idolized Catherine de’ Medici.”

  “She’s a fu . . . !”

  “She’s still my grandmother.”

  I pointed to a little door in the wall directly ahead of us.

  “Where does that lead?”

  “To the cellars,” Cassi answered.

  “Okay, pal, here’s where I take over. Any special security I need to know about?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary: lasers, trip wires, cameras . . . the usual.”

  “Then we’re off to see the wizard,” I said. My skeleton key didn’t fail me, and seconds later we were inside and under the Cassadine palace. The first thing we both heard was someone singin’ way off in the distance.

  “Hang on a second. Don’t make a sound,” I said, strainin’ my ears.

  “What is it?” Cassi asked after a few seconds.

  “It ain’t a what, it’s a who,” I said. “Callas. Tosca. Act 2. ‘Vissi D’Arte, Vissi D’Amore.’ La Scala. 1953. De Sabata conductin’. The classic.”

  “You know about opera?”

  “Kate Howard gives Maxie her tickets to the Met. She drags me along. I bought a couple of recordings; been pickin’ up a few things.”

  I disabled the cameras, unsprung the wires, and shut off the lasers. I also took out two guards that Cassi had failed to mention.

  “Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain,” I said, tyin’, gaggin,’ and stashin’ ’em behind a huge tapestry. We headed, real slow, down a corridor. The place gave me the shivers; it was cold and it smelled like . . . animals . . . and bad wine. Looked like there used to be torches in the walls, but now there were only a couple of fluorescent bulbs on single wires hangin’ from the ceiling. And, every once in a while, somethin’ dripped on me.

  We came to a fork in the corridor just as Tosca was guttin’ Scarpia like a scrod fillet. I looked at Cassi, and just as he nodded to the left, we heard a scream to the right. A kid’s scream. Molly’s scream. And then, from behind a heavy wooden door, we both saw crazy flashes of light. I realized that’s where the music was comin’ from. Cassi started to run ahead, but I held him back.

  “What else is down here, chum?”

  “I might have forgotten to mention . . . the laboratory.”

  “Yeah, Highness, you forgot all right.”

  “We have to hu
rry!” Cassi said.

  “Hang on . . . hang on,” I said. “We can’t burst through the door. Helena will finish Alexis off in a trice.”

  “Trice?” I choked. “Trice? Dost thou, in sooth, wish to say ‘trice,’ verily?”

  “Something else?”

  “ ‘New York minute.’ ”

  “Great,” Spinelli agreed.

  “Hey nonny nonny!”

  “Helena will finish Alexis off in a New York minute. Your family is screwy, and how. So, if somebody built a lab, I’ll lay you odds they also wanted everyone else to get to watch the hijinks. I’ll bet it’s gotta viewin’ gallery, right?”

  “Right,” said Cassi. “This way.”

  He started up a wooden staircase straight out of Vertigo. If this thing didn’t collapse right out from under us, I told God I would start doin’ some charity work . . . or at least be nicer to people.

  We came out, real quiet, on a little ledge with a railing that overlooked . . . the lab.

  Now . . . I’ve seen some stuff. Between Saigon, Rangoon, and the Baltic, I’ve seen some stuff. Stuff that would make an average joe toss his Oreos into the nearest pail. But this was something I’d never seen . . . right out of a Hammer horror flick.

  Gizmos, geegaws, and gadgets. Beakers full of liquids boilin’, steamin’, and foamin’. Electrodes, levers, and pull switches three times the size of my head. Sparks flyin’ everywhere, currents of white heat arcin’ from one metal object to another. Helena standin’ at one end of a giant operating table, some curly-haired guy with a huge name tag that read “Larry Saltmann” standin’ right beside her, both of ’em wearin’ white lab coats and goggles. Molly and Kristina strugglin’ and screamin’ at the far end of the room . . . the crazy broad had manacled these kids to the wall. And Alexis . . . strapped like Elsa Lanchester to the table, covered in a white sheet, with only her neck and head exposed. Helena walked over to an old phonograph and delicately lifted the needle off the vinyl, just as Tosca was about to take a flying leap.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Helena said, comin’ back to the table. “We’ve stalled long enough.”

  “The operation will be very delicate,” Larry said. “And I’m not certain of its success.”

  “Don’t toy with me, Saltmann!” Helena said, smackin’ him a good one right across his puss. “I have this woman booked into Covent Garden at the end of the month and Budapest, Berlin, and Vienna after that. She has to be perfect!”

  “What . . . ?” Cassi whispered beside me.

  “I’m just sayin’ that she might not be performance ready,” Saltmann said, rubbin’ his cheek.

  “Of course she will be,” Helena said. Then she walked over to Alexis and very gently stroked her hair. “My husband said you had the greatest voice he’d ever heard. That’s why he fell in love with you. Of course, you were easy and rather cheap, but apparently you could sing like a bird. And I took it all away from you, didn’t I? One slice and poof! All gone. I’m so sorry. But look! I’m going to give it back . . . and in front of your little girls, no less. I’m going to make it all right again.”

  “Helena, you’ve got it all wrong!” Alexis began. “You’ve got me confused with my mother. I can’t sing!”

  “Well, of course you can’t. Not now. I silenced you, little bird. I cut you down, didn’t I? But now . . . this is my chance! I am going to give you your voice . . . back! Your little girls will be witness to me atoning for my . . . sin. Isn’t that right, Kristina? Natasha?”

  “I’m Natasha!” Alexis said. “It’s me, Helena. Not my mother! Me!”

  Helena looked startled for a second. I cased the joint in an instant. Two ropes on pulleys attached to the table were ready to pull it up and out of a hole in the roof. Only thing was . . . there weren’t any counterweights. Not yet. If we could just jump out far enough . . . I looked at Cassadine; he saw what I was gettin’ at and nodded.

  “Oh, you’re trying to confuse me!” Helena said. “Well, that’s just the way, isn’t it? Some people don’t appreciate when others try to help them.”

  “Helena, I can help you!” Alexis pleaded. “You’re . . . you’re not well. You think I’m my mother, and I’m not!”

  Alexis looked at Larry.

  “Help me, please! Don’t do this!”

  Larry shrugged.

  “Sorry. I got a mortgage, an ex-wife, and two kids in braces and private school. They like stuff and stuff costs money.”

  “But she’s snapped! A week ago . . . my God, she was in Port Charles! We all were. I came out of a store and saw her on the street with my girls. I tried to get them away, but she followed us. She heard me call to my oldest, Kristina, and . . . and . . . that’s when Helena lost it. She tracked us down, kept calling me by my mother’s name. Then she drugged us . . . she drugged my daughters! And now we’ve ended up here! Helena, you’re sick! You need doctors, Helena.”

  “Not smart to call the crazy lady crazy,” I whispered to myself. “Not when you’re tied to a table.”

  “I think that’s enough talking now. Time to sing,” Helena said. “All right, let’s begin.”

  Larry picked up a scalpel the size of a fish knife.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to give her any anesthetic?” he said.

  “Of couuuurse not!” Helena yowled. “I want her fully conscious of the gift that she is being given. I want her to feel her voice flowing back into her, just as she felt it flowing out so many years ago.”

  Molly and Kristina started screamin’ like banshees as Larry bent toward Alexis’s throat. Alexis’s eyes were like pie tins.

  “Helena, stop! For the love of God . . . !”

  And that’s when I jumped. I caught the first rope as Cassi flew by me and caught the second. The operating table lifted off the ground, knocking the fish knife outta Larry’s hands and, basically, upper cuttin’ him into a nice little coma. We both landed on the floor at the same time. But Helena was like a tiger. She was on the knife in a flash.

  “I’ll handle the nut-job. Go get the girls,” I said to Cassi, tyin’ off the ropes. He made a beeline for Kristina and Molly, tellin’ ’em to simmer down.

  Helena and I started circlin’ each other.

  “Alexis?” I called up, never takin’ my eyes off the crazy lady. “You okay?”

  “I’m okay!” she called back down.

  “I’ll get you down in a second, doll, just sit tight.”

  “Well, now who do we have here?” Helena said, soft and scary.

  “Fly in the ointment, nut-job.”

  “Really? Someone come to spoil my good deed?” she said, handlin’ the knife like she was a ninja.

  “I’m a finger in your pie, lady.”

  “You are?”

  “Hand in your cookie jar.”

  “I don’t think I can allow that.”

  She took a swipe at me that let me know she meant business. I ducked out of the way, but just barely. She lunged again and nicked my upper arm. This dame wasn’t gonna fall like a house of cards. I needed some distance. She dove for me again, but I saw it comin’ and caught her foot. She went flyin’ into a wall, but was up again like she was strollin’ in the park. She made a run for me, but I threw one of those electronic who-haws in front of her. It burst into flames and stopped her for a moment, then Hell-on-Wheels just walked right over it like it was a crack in the sidewalk. But it gave me time to put a table full of beakers and Bunsen burners between me and the crazy robot-lady. She cleared the table with one sweep of her arm. I skittered to the other side of the room, behind a second table of boilin’ liquids. Then I smelled smoke.

  Turns out, Helena hadn’t walked over the sparkin’ gizmo entirely unaffected.

  “I hate it when I have to kill someone,” she said, her eyes glazin’ over like they were Christmas fruitcakes. “It used to make my day. Now it’s all such a bore.”

  “Hey, nut-job?” I said.

  “Are you speaking to me?”

  “That’s right,
” I said. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “You’re on fire.”

  She looked down at the cuff of her David Hayes pantsuit. I grabbed the closest beaker and threw it low. The flames caught, and the next minute Helena was playin’ Joan of Arc to a full house. She stumbled backward, trippin’ over Larry, losin’ the knife and landin’ on her backside. Crazy but smart, she rolled around on the floor, puttin’ the flames out. Then she reached again for the fish knife, only inches away, and my foot came down right on her pretty, aristocratic, crazy-ass hand.

  “I don’t think I can allow that . . . nut-job,” I said. Then I tapped her lightly on the head with a cooled-off Bunsen burner until she went night-night.

  Cassi and I lowered Alexis, got her freed up and reunited with her girls. Then we tied Larry and Helena to the table and raised it high. Real high. And we tied off the ropes too far away for either of them to get any clever ideas.

  “Call the coppers on the mainland,” I said to Cassi.

  “Won’t do any good,” he said. “They’re all on the payroll. Our best bet is to take the Cassadine yacht and head for Turkey. We can get a safe passage home from Ephesus.”

  Cassi and I took the point as we walked out of the lab, keepin’ Alexis and the midgets behind us. We were ready for the guards. But they weren’t there. On our way up and out of the cellar, we saw a few men stationed here and there, but they just nodded and left us alone. One even tipped his cap.

  The kitchen staff helped us load the yacht with supplies, just as the sun was comin’ up. No one said diddley. I was last up the gangplank and I turned to one of the housekeepers.

  “Your . . . uh . . . employer is in the laboratory. Tied on an operatin’ table.”

  She looked at me for a long time.

  “Laboratory, sir? I have never heard of a laboratory on the island. There is much work to be done here today but, perhaps later . . . much later . . . we may go searching for this place you speak of. However, I think you must be mistaken.”

  I just laughed.

  “Whatever you say, sister.”

  We were underway, with Cassi at the helm, in less than an hour. We put into Ephesus the next evening. Kristina and Molly were kinda upset.