Jeff finds himself in Silicon Valley where he is asked to investigate claims by a gregarious Frenchman that his neural network electronic technology actually works. He meets up again with the enchanting Nancy, the FBI agent he had worked with in Atlanta where they fell in love while he was still married, and again in Washington DC Kathy puts romance back into Jeff’s life as he finds himself hounded by financially-desperate Europeans so determined to push their questionable technology―men so desperate that they will stop at nothing, even Jeff’s murder. The excitement will make the reader gasp, tragedy will make the reader cry, romance will make the reader sigh.
Chapter 21 of Silicon Gulch … Uncle Mondo won't kill Jeff!
Thursday 2:23 PM: Uncle Mondo
Gerard gave Jeff up to Uncle Mondo! Then Uncle Mondo calls him and wants a meeting! Jeff tells him that his nephews were killed, set up by the Frenchman. Uncle Mondo won't finish the job of killing Jeff!
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- Chris Lamela
Author contact: chris@chrislamela.com, 707-566-8790 PST
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Thursday
2:23 PM: Uncle Mondo
"Okay people nine tomorrow unless something else comes up, keep up
the good work!" Arnie stood turning to erase the white board.
People filed out of the room, a couple pats coming to Jeff and Nancy's
shoulders in congratulations on the meeting with Gerard.
Arnie stepped to Jeff looking over his shoulder at the folio, the top
page filled with formulas. He looked down to Jeff, "So you learned this
stuff last night in your hotel room?"
"Arnie, I am an engineer. I do math. It wasn't that big a deal."
Shaking his head, Arnie laughed, "There is no limit to the
surprises that come from you mister Jeff." He sat down looking to them, "So
you guys really think you can pull this off?"
"Mondo is the wild card, like I said. He could be meeting with
Gerard this very minute taking another million to finish the job. If that
happens all bets are off. Hopefully Tim will give us some early warning if that
happens."
Tim walked in, "Guys! Mondo contacted Gerard. He gave Jeff up."
"What do you mean gave me up?"
"He gave Mondo your phone number and told him to call you with some
excuse why you needed to meet with him. Remember that they don't know that we
know!"
"Anything else?" Jeff asked realizing his voice sounded
wobbly.
"Yes, he told Mondo to look you over to see if he wants to complete
his nephews' job and that they would pay him the million dollars if he did.
Also that they want to meet tonight. Didn't say when or where."
"That's all?"
"So far, I'll let you know if we hear anything else," Tim left
the room.
"Oh, great," Jeff flopped back in his chair.
"Look Jeff, there's no point in worrying about anything until we
hear from this guy." Nancy
Jeff brightened, "Yeah, Sierra Nevada !
That will definitely pick my spirits up!"
Five minutes later Jeff was holding an extra-tall glass of the dark ale
sipping the foam from the top, Nancy
"I thought you don't drink on duty."
"Listen, after the things I've
seen this week," she looked at her watch, "and it's only two o'clock
on Thursday for god's sake, I can drink whatever I want!"
They clinked their glasses together.
"So Jeff, how are you doing?"
Jeff looked into her open expression, her golden eyes with the tiny
flecks floating in them. He suddenly saw a distance in those eyes he had never
seen before, they were withdrawing, deliberately or accidentally, there was suddenly
a distance to her gaze at him, like she had stepped back only a few inches,
barely noticeable. This struck him because they had been the fair bright light
that always beckoned him. Even when they couldn't hold each other―when they
couldn't touch―when they couldn't speak―those bright crystals set in that beautiful
face were always there, invitations to dream with this woman. Now they were
only inches more distant, slightly aloof.
He laughed, "Wow, what a loaded question! How do you think I'm doing?"
"No, not this stuff, the
case and all. I mean you. How are you doing?"
He took a long drink of the beer. "I don't know what you're digging
at."
"Ted told me that you and he had a long talk last night. He said
that he thought you had some kind of breakthrough. About your wife."
Jeff looked away as though looking off into the distance. "Yeah, I
did. I came to realize that I don't think she and I are ever going to be
together again. I mean I kind of knew that already. But something happened in
that talk with Ted where suddenly I accepted it."
"This is good," she said sipping her glass, little specs of
salt on her upper lip.
"So you've talked with my wife. She told me."
"You talked about me?" Jeff's nightmare that two of his lovers
would get together to have a laugh fest about him―about his manhood, teasing
that he was somehow not the person he believed he was, taunts about the
foundations of his very id―all out of sight and sound from him
was suddenly circling around him in the room―a nightmare like some vaporous
stream circling slowly with a mocking smile looking down at him as Nancy faced
him.
"No, not really. We didn't talk about
you, more about your life, about your relationship with her, with me."
He coughed, beer touched his windpipe, "Wait," he held up his
hand, coughed trying to get the beer back in its right place inside him. He
took another long drink.
"You mean you talked about our
relationship?" he eyes widened.
"No, not really. We talked about how it feels to be in love with
you. She really opened up to me. She told me lots of things. Not really about you. About your relationship, why she
separated."
"Why did she?"
"She had been under your wing since she was twenty one. She was
torn between wanting to be a married mother versus wanting to be a woman. She
had never had a chance to, I don't know, establish herself as her. She fought with it for years. Then
she started feeling that you were somehow distancing yourself from her. Of
course you said my name while you were having sex with her. Boy that sure didn't help! When she added it all
together she realized that she didn't even know who you were, who she was. You had always been so
protective, so there for her all the
time, that she didn't know what her own capabilities and strengths were. It was
good, I mean, you meant well. She said you were always an attentive and
affectionate lover, a great father. She just felt lost in all that. The
marriage."
He finished his beer, signaled the skimpily-clad waitress for another. A
minute later his empty was replaced.
"I knew all this already. I think I even told this to Ted."
"So are you really ready to let her go?"
"I think so."
"You know what letting go means, right?"
He looked down at his glass afraid to say the words, but found the
courage, "Yes I know. That she will be with another man. Sex. With another
man. Falling in love with him." He gave an enormous sigh. "There, I've
said it! Wow, that feels good! It's okay if she is with another man!"
"Jeff this is really good because―"
Jeff's phone rang. "Damn, hold that thought!" he reached into
his coat, pulled his phone out pushing TALK.
"Jeff here. Yes…really….yes I know him….yes…that can be arranged,
hold on," he put his hand to the phone whispering urgently, "It's
Mondo! He wants to meet!" She quickly drank down her margarita signaling
the waitress for the check.
"Find out where he is, direct him to the Merdian," she glanced
at her watch, "It's a little after two twenty-three, tell him we'll be
there at three in the conference room. I'll call now to get it set up to record,"
she stood up strutting away signaling to the waitress.
Jeff put the phone back to his ear, "That will be fine…three o'clock…where
are you?...that's pretty close, you can make it… the Merdian on Mission boulevard off Great America Parkway
A minute later they were driving back over the freeway to the Merdian.
Jeff could feel his nervousness building. Nancy
"Don't worry, I'll be there. I am sure that he is not going to try
to make his move there."
"Make his move," he said with a smirk, "nice words for murder me."
A few minutes later they were in the meeting room opening the side door.
The same men who had been there last time recording their conversation with
Mikl and Gerard looked up giving a little wave, Nancy
They sat again in the same
chairs they had been in earlier.
"So what was that you were about to tell me back there?"
"Not now, we need to focus."
They sat silently until about ten minutes before three. They stood up.
Jeff reached for his folio, tucking it under his left arm, they walked out the
door turning toward the lobby.
A few minutes later an older short thin man walked up to them dressed in
white polyester pants with loose bell-bottoms, white patent-leather shoes, a
pink collared golf shirt with a small paunch. Jeff laughed to himself, old man golf meets disco! This was
perfectly topped off with a small gray pork-pie hat with a gold hat band, the
short rim turned up neatly all around. The man walked up to them with a
confident stride, "Jeff?" hand extended, "Mondo Apocolopsa."
Jeff shook his hand, "Nice to meet you, thanks for driving to meet
us." He stood back, "This is Nancy Wyse, a close friend," she
shook hands.
"We have a meeting room this way," Jeff pointed to the conference
rooms entrance, they walked together casually until a couple minutes later they
were inside the room standing in front of the table draped with a white cloth.
"You know what?" Jeff motioned to the table, "Let's make
this more comfortable, this table makes it feel too much like a business
meeting." He reached over pulling three chairs together into a little
circle. "There, is that better?"
Mondo nodded appreciating the courtesy.
"Come on, let's sit down," circling his fingers around the
chairs as they sat.
"So Mondo, what can we do for you?"
"I live in New Jersey
"Really? Your name is…"
"Like I said on the phone, Mondo Apocolopsa. But everyone calls me
Uncle Mondo." Jeff was amazed that he had somehow already taken to calling
him Uncle Mondo.
"So, Uncle Mondo, what can we do for you?"
"Well you see, my nephews are in a very specialized business. They
do special kinds of projects for certain kinds of people."
"What kind of specialized business?"
Jeff's hand suddenly started to feel the maypole scars on his hands from
the last twenty four hours of dancing around Mikl and Gerard, his bloodied
fingers desperately wanted him to hurry to get to the simple fact that his
special nephews had come to California to murder him.
"What kind of business? That's maybe not so important. The reason
why I made this long trip is because my nephews came out here on Tuesday, but I
haven't heard from them since Tuesday night when they called to say they got
here. I haven't heard from them since. Their mother is starting to get worried,
she asked me to come find them."
"Well Uncle Mondo," Jeff paused dreading the words that were
about to leave his mouth, he looked at Nancy
"Uh jesus, I was afraid of this. I knew they were in trouble."
"You know who they were out here to whack, right?" Jeff couldn't
believe he used gangster talk so easily.
"Yes. You, right?"
Jeff nodded.
"So what happened?"
It suddenly occurred to Jeff that they didn't think to practice this
dialog―he was totally on his own!
"They were killed."
"Who killed them?"
"The answer depends on how you look at it."
"How many ways are there to look at this?" Uncle Mondo
pondered out loud.
"Well, there are the people who did it. That would be the FBI. Then
there's the people that sent them into the trap. That would be two other
people. Do you know their names?"
Uncle Mondo bent to his right pulling out a crumpled piece of paper from
his pants pocket, unfolding it reading, "Mikl De-not and Gerard Pall-ot."
"They will tell you the names are pronounced De-no and Pal-o if you
were to ask them."
"Yeah, well by the time this is done people may be calling them something else. So how did they die,
where did they die?"
Jeff looked around the room. "Here. In this room."
Uncle Mondo looked around surprised
that the room was so neat, how could his nephews have been killed here?
"This room? Were they shot?"
"Yes."
"But this room…"
"It was fixed." Jeff dared not tell him about the dozens of
bullet holes and the torn-out door.
"So you were the intended hit. How do you know so much?"
"I know the two men you just named. I had met them several times in
the last couple days before it happened. They betrayed me because they were
afraid I was not going to do a business deal they wanted." He looked
around the room again, "Plus I was here."
"How did you not get shot?"
Jeff shook his head, "I was just lucky."
"And you promise me you had nothing to do with my nephews' deaths."
"I am just a businessman. I don't usually go around shooting people.
I was the target. How could I have anything to do with their deaths?"
Uncle Mondo sat back in his chair muttering to himself, fingers to his
chin, "Yes, you're right, how can the target be responsible for anything?"
He turned to Nancy
She shook her head truthfully, "No I wasn't. I came along to offer
support. Jeff was upset that someone wanted him killed. I have been hanging out
with him to make him feel better."
"Well I have to tell you, I wasn't sure what to expect when I came
out here. I have had only one phone call with Gerard Pall-ot, I mean Pal-o." He looked back and forth
between the faces in front of him.
He sat back thoughtfully. "You know, in my business you have to be
a good judge of character. Your life depends on it. I look at you two and I
know that you are telling me the truth." He smiled, looking intently back
and forth between their faces, peering deeply into their eyes. Both returned
his intent gaze without deflection, without a single blink. "Yes. Yes, I
can look into your eyes, I can tell." He smiled, "Yes, even more, I
trust you. Both of you. I believe you are telling me the truth."
"Thank you, it is the truth,"
Jeff responded in a soft voice.
"He was just the target," she waved toward Jeff, "how
could he have set anything up?"
"The problem here is that someone
is responsible for my nephews' deaths. So if it's not you…" his voice
trailed off in thought.
"I assure you," Nancy
Uncle Mondo stroked his chin again, "Did you know there is a
certain code in my business?" Nancy
"A
code, yeah, more like guidelines for some, especially those young hot-heads. But
for us who are old professionals we adhere to it strictly. Those guys want me
to finish the job, they offered me a million dollars, to me. But my nephews did
not complete the job. That means that god has smiled on you," waving with
his hand toward Jeff, "so I will not complete the job. I did not take the
job, it is not my job. Their
insistence that I finish the job only tells me that they are desperate men. One
thing I have learned in my sixty-six years is that desperate people do
desperate things. I do not trust desperate people. I do not like desperate
people. They are dangerous to me and they are dangerous to the community."
Jeff smiled to himself at dangerous to
the community given his nephews' former propensity to kill everything in
sight.
Jeff glanced to Nancy
"I can't say you're safe from those desperate men, but I can tell
you that you are safe from me. I do not want the job. I will not take it. God
has spared you. It is bad luck for me to take up the job. Very bad luck." Jeff knew about the superstitious Italians, he
was now seeing that Greeks are just as superstitious.
"Is there anything we can do for you?" Nancy
"You forgot to call me Uncle Mondo!"
She laughed, "Okay, is there anything you need from us Uncle Mondo?"
"Yes. I am going to go meet with these men. I can tell you already
that I don't trust them. If for any reason they contact you regarding me,"
he reached around his back pulling out his wallet extracting a business card
that he offered to Jeff, "I want you to call me."
Jeff looked down at the card smiling at the name of a dry cleaning
business.
They all stood, Uncle Mondo reached his hand to Jeff shaking warmly. He
leaned forward giving Nancy a hug, she looking down to him in surprise.
"Thank you both for having me," turning to Jeff, "also
thank you for being so honest. You are a brave man to say what you did. That
shows character. Those other men," he shook his head in a tisk-tisk frown,
"they have no character. They could learn a lot from you."
"Those two don't think they have much to learn from anyone."
"Uh, too bad. Their loss."
He started for the door ahead of them when he turned back to Nancy
"Certainly," she responded looking to Jeff with he figured out I'm FBI!
Uncle Mondo got to the door, turned around. "Listen, I can let
myself out, you two go ahead and do what you need."
He went through the door Nancy
He turned around smiling. "Now Nancy
Turning back toward the door he
smiled broadly walking away, his right hand raised in declaration.
"It's Uncle Mondo!"
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SILICON GULCH!
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