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2025-10-31 00:02:06
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The Vision She Hid 151
The berths inside the grotto were empty. Most of the workers and the security personnel were relocated inland after the submarine had departed.Elky and I got out of the water and slipped into the arched inner corridor. For a few minutes we listened to the waves slapping the rocks. A lost bird whirred in the dark corridor, the sudden swish of a wing moved the air around my face and disappeared. A caged small light was broken high in the ceiling. Somewhere not far off an engine screamed and roared and faded away chewed by the dark night. Suddenly everything was frozen still as if after a nuclear war. More minutes passed in intense silence. We both freaked out by the bird but kept moving farther down the corridor, soundless like two buddy tigers escaping from the zoo. A dark shape slid out in front of us and something flopped. A voice swore in Italian. The screeching of automatic on the concrete floor followed. The foul-mouthed guy got back on his feet and moved on to the next corridor.
The Vision She Hid 150
The clinic’s main office was on a quiet street, near BNP Bank, not far from the port. The sidewalk in front of it had been once tiled in limestone. The ground around the tiles sunk after the earthquake and the workers dressed in orange overalls and cloudy dust were taking them up. An unimpressed-looking Italian in a dark navy blazer was sweating supervising the guys in orange doing it. His face looked as if they had no clue how to pick up tiles, never mind putting them back. It didn’t cross his mind to lead his team by example. I slipped past them through an arched metal door of yellowish stone building and entered a vast marble and gold reception. It had traditional rugs, light magnolia walls, fancy metallic furniture with shiny bits and a photographic display showcasing the construction stages of Brindisi port.It was still early morning, and the secretary had a white unbreakable coffee cup standing on the metal surface in front of her. She was a neatly dressed fake blonde and she s
The Vision She Hid 149
Sicily in summer doesn’t sleep. It just lies there sweating and complaining about the heat.The Marconi villa sat above the shoreline like it had paid good money to look down on people. It was built from stone that cost more per square foot than most people make in a year, with walls thick enough to stop a howitzer and windows set so deep you could hide a body in the sills. Probably that was the whole pointOlive trees lined the driveway. They were silent, dignified, and not about to tell you what they’d seen. Floodlights carved hard white circles out of the darkness, and security cameras blinked their mean red eyes at nothing in particular, recording everything and understanding none of it.It wasn’t just a rich man’s house. It was a rich man’s middle finger to the concept of neighborhood.Elky and I watched it from a ridge where the weeds were dry enough to draw blood if you looked at them the wrong way. The night air was thick as French soup and twice as appetizing, I am being sarc
The Vision She Hid 148
Rick Marconi’s boat was floating the way a fat man floats after a big dinner—smug, bloated, and asking for trouble.It was too big, too white, and too loud with the kind of drunken laughter that doesn’t belong anywhere near salt water. Music thumped from somewhere below deck, that lazy pulse meant to keep the girls loose and the men stupid. The lights cut hard shapes on the water, turning the harbor into a cheap stage set. Everything about it said easy money not earned. Everything about it said target.Elky and I watched from the shadow of a piling that smelled of rotten seaweed and diesel fuel. The night air had that damp salt bite that crawls into your clothes and stays there like a bad memory. I felt calm. Not the calm you get from counting to ten or thinking happy thoughts. The calm you get when your body has already decided what it’s going to do and doesn’t need your permission.Elky checked his watch. Not because time mattered. Because men like to look busy before they do someth
The Vision She Hid 147
The café across from Nicos’s clinic had the kind of quiet that comes after somebody’s been shot dead. No chrome monster hissing steam, no jukebox trying to sell you yesterday’s joy. Just thick white cups that landed soft on scarred wood. The customers talked in undertones, like mourners who’d buried the day and were waiting for the dirt to settle.Elky sat across from me with his mitts wrapped around coffee he hadn’t touched. He looked like something the cat puked out in and the dog wouldn’t eat. His face had that look men get when sleep stops being a friend and starts being a stranger they used to know. His eyes kept jumping to the clinic’s doors—all glass and steel and discretion, the kind of joint where people go to get fixed or at least get lied to about getting fixed. It was my father’s clinic.I stirred my coffee with one of those wooden sticks that’s supposed to save the planet and watched the ripples spread. My hand was steady. Too damn steady.“You’re going to spill it,” I sa
The Vision She Hid 146
I was tired. I had never been so tired before. The life was still there, somewhere in close proximity, but it carried on beyond the cosy bubble of my all-encompassing fatigue. There was nothing else to feel or worry about. No pain, no desire, and no memories. Only the passage of time was still there. I still felt its unhurried flow, but I wasn’t a meaningful part of it any longer. I didn’t even bother to open my eyes. But I could hear the voices alright.Next to the monitor displaying a bed with a motionless woman on it, stood two people in white coats. The woman was me. One of them had a metal badge pinned to his pocket. He spoke first:‘I have to say, she is a rare case in my practice. Her body, the doctor nodded at the monitor, lives an autonomous life, almost on cellular level.’‘Can you explain what it means, doctor?’ the other person in white asked. His voice made me warm and angry at the same time.‘The methods of restoring patients like her are fairly well known. The patients
The Vision She Hid 47
The door was locked pretty well. The metal chair was screwed to the floor. It was probably possible to unscrew it, but not if your are doped and have no screw driver. It looked like a hard work even for a guy like Elky, it meant to be. I sat on the mattress feeling every spring with my bum. I had a
The Vision She Hid 46
So I managed to talk to somebody. Not much happened after that. I just fall asleep on a mattress constructed of squeaky, rough springs. But it was not the biggest problem I had. I did smoke a cigarette after talking to the guard. I remembered doing it, and I still had my marbles intact. But there w
The Vision She Hid 45
The warehouse was the kind of place that made you feel like you were walking into someone else’s bad dream. Steel ribs overhead, concrete underfoot, and the smell of diesel, smoke, and damp cardboard. Fluorescent lights flickered like they were waiting for a cue in a ghost story, and rats with doct
The Vision She Hid 44
I was scared, angry, furious actually, understandably so. But the only thing that mattered was that second shooter also missed. It could be he was getting older, or it could be he missed deliberately. One way or another, I wasn’t sure I had guts to deliver the news to Elky Jennings. Definitely not
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