Target: Tinos ak-4
Page 26
The ferry docked at Marina Grande, Capri’s main port. Old homes ran up the hillside from the harbor toward the best-known part of the Island, Capri center, a playground and shopping Mecca for the world’s rich. It was where world-class jewelers and couture fashion shops endured day-trippers from Naples and Sorrento while awaiting the evening’s bounty of strollers from the island’s world-class hotels and anchored yachts.
Andreas asked a cop in English where he could catch a cab to the Capri Palace Hotel. A minute later he was in a Fiat taxi with a stripped canopy for a roof winding its way through narrow streets up toward Capri center. At an intersection where the entrance to the town was off to the left the taxi did a counter-clockwise nearly full circle swing around a monument and headed out onto the necklace. What had seemed surreal from a distance was distinctly real up close.
The road was a narrow two-lane slab clinging to a cliff. Cars, motorcycles and the occasional bus whizzed past them coming down the mountain in the traditional devil-may-care manner of Italian driving. Andreas winced as a bus came by on a turn just a little too close for comfort. He shot a look at the taxi driver but the man seemed unconcerned, so Andreas decided to look out to sea and let the driver worry about the road. It was a good choice. There was the bay of Naples and its islands opening up to Sorrento and the Amalfi coast. Peaceful Italy.
At the top of the mountain of stone he’d seen from the ferry, the island seemed different. More relaxed. This was Anacapri. The road ran past ancient giant trees and mansions overlooking the sea. It ended at a small square by a funicular taking those who wished to an even higher level.
The driver motioned for a bellman to take Andreas’ bag and Andreas followed him through a linen-draped walkway bordering a glass-sided pool. He thought he recognized two pairs of toes dangling in the pool.
At the top of the path Andreas stopped to catch a glimpse of the sea over the treetops of the town. Ahead of him was a row of bushes setting a grassy pool area off from the rest of the hotel. He walked to a break in the bushes and looked for the owners of those toes. But the toe people saw him first, jumped up, and hurried hand in hand across the grass in his direction. Andreas lifted Tassaki the air and kissed him, and holding him in one arm, kissed Lila and hugged her with his other. He accepted the pain from his rib as worth the price.
Lila kissed him again. “I have missed you my darling. Please don’t ever again leave me alone to this sort of life.”
Andreas smiled. “I can imagine how you suffered.”
“No you can’t. Just me and a million Italian men on the hunt.”
“Where are they? I’ll shoot them all.”
“Save your bullets darling. I’m a Greek woman, I’m used to it.”
“Good thing I’m not the jealous type.”
She pressed her index finger into the middle of his chest. “Well, I am, mister, so your late nights of running around deserted Aegean island venues chasing after wild women are over!”
“So you heard, huh? Damn it, you can’t trust anyone to keep a secret these days.”
“I got the message you called when I got back from sailing with Tonino-”
“Who’s Tonino?”
Lila smiled. “I thought you weren’t jealous. He’s the owner of the hotel. You’ll really like him. Anyway, I couldn’t reach you and so I called Tassos. He told me what happened and said to tell you, ‘Yianni must have hit his head harder than we thought, he’s actually being nice to me.’”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, ‘Eleni said to thank you for everything you did for her.’” Lila put her finger back in the middle of Andreas’ chest. “Who’s Eleni?”
“Her father owns a taverna. You’ll really like her.”
“Bastard.”
“Freedom or Death.”
Lila laughed. “Choose wisely, my love. One might prove unexpectedly more painful than the other.”
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Document version: 1
Document creation date: 16.06.2012
Created using: Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
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