Summer Is Gone

He now lived in a whitewashed villa high on a cliff off the Northern coast of a small isle that only few knew of or talked about. A few being those who were paid for their silence as well as the steady delivery of Domaine Tempier Rosé, canned sardines, potato chips, Illy espresso, among other simple staples that brought him the flavor needed to be content.   The other few who knew his location would never give up his sanctuary for fear of his quiet retribution. 

The cliff looked daunting from afar but a forty-foot drop, a four heartbeat drop, provided the quickest way to meet those delivering supplies.  The jump was as good as an espresso shot in the morning. No bunjee or glider was needed, just a good ten pace run and vault that landed him into the deep aqua cove, just a half click’s swim from the small dock and boathouse. 

He never traveled from the villa without his tactical knife and Ruger, they were glued to his right thigh by a water-tight holster in the way that one would learn to live with a hump on their back as they age. When he had arrived just a month ago, he had taken joy in discovering the geography of the small isle, wooded in parts and devoid of wildlife. 

He had tried fishing off the dock once and gave up after thirty minutes of silence. Instead, grabbing a spear, flippers, snorkel and mask, he slipped silently into the clear blue waters. The weightlessness did wonders for his soul which was heavy from the actions of his past. He would swim around the isle once, encountering many sharks who seemed to glide by him as if he were the same. Never did he see a fish worth plucking from the silent, wet, world. Just sharks mindlessly floating or flitting schools of sardines, circling the island, for what he wondered? For his protection? For his imprisonment? It didn’t matter when you lived on an island. No one visits or escapes the isle guarded by sharks and sardines, he thought to himself. 

Supplies were dropped off weekly, Fridays. It was Thursday.  He wouldn’t go hungry without the non-existent speared fish he sought though the thought of a spit roast with plump lemons and olive oil and his last bottle of Sancerre would have to wait until the three-pound Branzino arrived the next day. Alas, a plan had begun to form with an eight-ounce petite filet wrapped in bacon, a whole potato to be sliced for pommes Anna, island thyme pressed into each disc. The 2015 Brunello, too.  

An untraceable VPN had been set up so he had access to internet, various streaming services, and email. He had three satellite phones. One in the villa and two more in different cutouts he had built around the island.  The cutouts were hidden under a removeable mat of dirt and shrub, they could be locked from within, were bomb proof, and each contained a pair of night vision goggles, a bullet proof vest, a .50-caliber Barret M82 rifle, a Heckler & Kock MP5, a few flash bangs as well as grenades, plenty of ammo for all three, and chewing tobacco; a habit he couldn’t quite kick nor did he have the desire too. He had always been suspicious of people who claimed to not have a habit or vice—they were either liars or no fun—a waste of his time. Trust. Trust was everything to him. Trust was why he was there. 

He had yet to name the isle almost as if the great stone living underneath him was more worthy than that of a spoken name. The locals in his employ had only whispered sharks in their language when referring to it.  They too had no name for it, as there seemed to exist a subtle, otherworldly aura as well as an undetectable fear in relation to the geo point. No one desired to name it, and no one dared to either. Not even him.

The sun rose at 6:30 a.m. and set at 8:40 p.m. He would wake shortly before the sunrise and brew a cup of chamomile picked fresh from the side of the villa. He would thank God for his blessings and ask for His forgiveness before climbing back into the crisp white sheets made of Egyptian cotton. At 10:00 a.m he would rise for the day, his stomach rumbling, and begin to prepare a simple chive omelette, oven crisped croissant, coupled with a glass of milk and a small French press of Illy espresso. The crock of creamed cheese on the ready.

His days consisted of exploring the island or painting large canvases or writing tales that had been and yet to be.  When it became too quiet he slipped a record into the player, Al Green or Billie Holiday, or Kaskade when the mood struck. Frank Sinatra with wine. The sound system played in every room of the villa and there was never the fear of it being too loud—just too quiet. He had armed the perimeter of the island with invisible pressure sensors so that if anything smaller or larger than his weight approached, give or take ten pounds, he would be alerted by a small ringing that played throughout the villa as well as a chip he had inserted into his left thigh. 

How long this way of living would last he did not know- the money he had saved would never run out—and for the time being he was content. A small helicopter was hidden under a removeable canopy that could be operated with his thumbprint, in the ocean a similar means for escape in the undetectable submarine that could fit two people.  He was safe from everyone, even the sharks seemed to pay him no mind as he floated by them invisible.

When he was hungry he ate lustily and when he was tired he slept. He was visited in his dreams by those he had lost by means of both time and tragedy.  And her. Sometimes she would appear, spear in hand. He always dreamt of her in the water, swimming. 

“Who’s missing a shrimp?” I rounded the corner of Butcher’s station asking out loud holding a 4-6 Tiger shrimp left lonely in the sink. 

“I’ll take it,” said Chuy who likely had ten Frutti di Mari to make that Saturday night. It was the middle of August and her daydream broke at the sight of said shrimp, 150 on the books, it looked to be a good night at Tony’s. The heat in Houston was what’s to be expected, but the summer was over, the team strong and rested, and most importantly, the business was back.

Sometimes she indulged in imagining him round the corner of the kitchen in crisp chef’s whites, his towels folded and in place around his apron. She wondered where in the world he was, who he was killing. She knew that was what he did for a living now. She killed lobsters. He killed people. How far they had come from themselves in just fifteen years. What would Tony have thought, she wondered, was she doing it right? No matter.  She was doing it and that was the point. To keep the restaurant going—but better than that, she wanted Tony’s to thrive. 

They met in their early twenties as chefs, he and her, working for the man known as Tony, who owned Tony’s, the best restaurant in Houston.  There was something special about the restaurateur, it was hard to pinpoint, but he had the ability to make one feel. He was in tune to others on a deeper wavelength, their needs, desires even, he had a sense for things before they happened.   It was a gift, Tony knew, quietly passed down through the generations of his family who hailed from Italy--Corleone, Sicily, and Naples.

Tony had liked them both though he was subtle in his display of affection.  He enjoyed running them around, holding them up by the scruff of their necks, the results were better that way.  He watched, quietly pleased as they became stronger, smarter, more prepared.  They loved him. They feared him. Everyone did. Which was why his operation was the best in town. 

An overcooked fish, a deadline not met by seconds, the details, the details, the details. They learned and it was painful but less so because they had each other and inherently knew, they had Tony, too. 

After a time, the boy had to leave.  The restaurant had shrunk around him and he had begun to feel a tightness. He sought more, of what? He didn’t know. He enlisted in the Marines and later became a Seal. Five years passed and he was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency for his intellect and ability to lead.  He operated off the books with different aliases until four years ago, he entered the private sector to create his own firm which would give him the freedom he craved and the ability to skirt red tape.  He named the firm Goldlink, his best customer, the CIA. 

When Tony died in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic he attended the funeral. He sat in the last row of the cavernous Baptist sanctuary, was the last to arrive, the first to leave—or so he had planned. And then he saw a glimpse of her.  The girl had grown into a woman.

She could have sat in the front row where it seemed those confident in Tony’s love for them earned them the proximity. Instead, she sat twelve rows back, dead center, hidden in the crowd and sitting between two longtime Tony’s staff, men she trusted.  

Within range of Lauri Vallone’s iPhone he AirDropped her a note before the service ended. He rose and slipped out the doors, stealing another glance of her as she stood mouthing the final hymn. She would have liked this one. Elvis. Her first crush. 

Lauri felt the buzz and though she shouldn’t, she opened her phone and accepted the note that read:

Sorry about your Dad. 

Talltreesshootthebreeze@gmail.com

The password is your favorite color, your birthday, my birth year.

Draft folder. Emergencies only.

A.

Lauri looked around the sanctuary but he was gone. She committed the message to memory, deleted it, and went back to faking it through How Great Thou Art. 

Meanwhile, he waited in his car to catch another glimpse of her with the mid-afternoon drizzle providing enough cover through his windshield. Finally, she emerged, the last to leave. She wore no raincoat or held an umbrella, her heels clicking her slowly towards her car in the almost empty lot. He remembered her self-carelessness—how it had driven him crazy. Hell, she didn’t even hold her arms for warmth as if she was coldness embodied—betrayed by a hint of rose now highlighting her cheeks. But he recognized the state. He, too, hadn’t felt warm since he left the restaurant a decade before. 

He had wanted to follow her then, watch her more, he wondered if she still lived in the same old one-room walk up in the dead center of rainbow village. A buzz on his phone brought him back—and the private jet waiting for him at an airstrip fifteen miles away. He was needed elsewhere. 

A year or so after Tony’s death he had heard she had returned to run the restaurant. No doubt Tony had whispered her back after she too, had left, searching for what she didn’t know. 

She had taken to swimming at the gym across from the restaurant after work, and that is when she thought of him.  Where was he swimming, she wondered.   She prayed she would see him again in the aqua blue waters, perhaps in the Mediterranean Sea.  The how had yet to reveal itself but she was content in the world in which she lived. 

He checked three email accounts daily to see if any drafts had been posted. One for his accountant. One for the woman he had made head of Goldlink. And one for Lauri Vallone. Talltreesshootthebreeze draft file had remained empty every day for the past four years. Until now.

His heart cinched at the title:

Summer is gone.

The message read: 

She didn’t come into work this morning and the police found her car at the gym. August, please come home. 

Lauri