Chapter 27 - Catch me if you can

Picture is by Mohamed Nohassi from Unsplash

In a city boasting a universe of fountains, Trevi was by far the largest. Its reputation reached around the world, calling to the visitors like the song of a slightly jaded siren. And the tourists responded, had arrived in droves, ringing the waterline.

Some of them even seemed to have plunged right in.

"Hey Dad, can I go for a swim?" Jon hopped off his bollard, his good mood restored.

Gary shifted the backpack to the front, leaned the crutches against his stomach and shrugged out of the blasted jacket. A draught fanned relief at his sodden back.

"Actually, no. That sort of thing is forbidden. The police wouldn't let you."

"Why not? They're not stopping the film crew."

Film crew? Standing on his toes was equally out of the question, so Gary just craned his neck. Sure enough, there was a man with rolled-up trousers and a camera sloshing about in the pink waters of the basin.

Pink?

He looked again.

Yes, pink. The bright, in-your-face colour of bougainvillaea that matched the smoking worn by a young man posing for a photographer on the other side of the fountain. He heard shouting and turned his head. Two men teetered on the rocks, one of them hollering instructions. A furry microphone wobbled above a lady in a skimpy swimsuit. One moment she was gesturing, the next she balled her fist at the chap on the top rock. Then, the nearest bystanders moved and blocked his vision.

Jon, however, had benefitted from the scene shift. "Oh look, there's Ike."

###

"Where?"

Jon pointed at the milling masses. "On the other side. On top of the steps." He waved his arms like a semaphore. "She hasn't seen me. I'll just dash across."

"Wait!"

Too late. Jon had already vanished into the crowd.

Cursing vehemently, Gary swung the jacket over his shoulder and peg-legged along the bollards. Ahead of him, a blond head bobbed through the few gaps that showed between the tightly packed bodies.

"Jon!"

The head pulled away from him, got hidden by a man in a dark suit.

No time to lose.

Gary threw himself at the moving, shifting, cursing obstacle, stepped on toes, struck out with his crutches as he powered through the crowd, scanning the people blocking his path. Good job, he had at least half a head on most of them, it helped with the view. Jon's head blipped into view on his left, then disappeared. He must be going down the stairs.

Gary groaned. Stairs were the last thing he needed. When he spotted the head again, it wasn't alone. A man swam along with him, slim, dark-haired, a local.

Dark suit.

A kidnapper! The Mafia!

As panic exploded in his chest, Gary forgot about his crutches, the pain in his foot and barrelled down the stairs and along the balustrade like a one-man battering ram. Protests and curses bounced off him and got pushed aside.

"Jon!" Frenzy amplified his scream, it cut into the mass of humanity milling about.

The blond head stopped. So did the man next to him.

Gary stumbled towards them, elbowing his way through the thinning crowds.

"What's up now?" Jon said, bored.

"Ah, glad you made it," the man at Jon's side said. He carried a flat leather document folder and a charming smile. "I saw what happened and stuck close to your boy. This is not a good place for kids to get lost, eh?" His voice was almost accent-free, revealing an education at either Oxford or Cambridge. "Enjoy your stay. And watch out for pick-pockets." The man sketched a wave and blended into the crowd.

One moment he was there, the next—not. Gary stood rooted to the pavement, his heartbeat hammering in his chest, doubts stuck in his gullet. He felt like an idiot.

"I can no longer see Ike," Jon said with a mulish undertone Gary knew only too well. He had committed the number one parental blunder—never look stupid in front of your offspring. But what was he supposed to do? Stand by and watch his son get taken? Unthinkable he could ever lose Jon. Not to the Mafia. Not to his father-in-law.

"I want you to stay with me. You heard what that man said. Had I known this place would be so overrun I wouldn't have come."

"Told you so."

"Yes, thanks. Just rub it in. Now, where do you think you spotted Ike?"

"I didn't just think it. I saw her. Up there." Jon made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the stairs.

Gary looked up and his gaze hit on the tall woman weaving through the crowd. She was on the level of the piazza, behind the bollards, the dog pressed to her chest like a living shield, its tongue lolling. A second later she got swallowed into a dense knot of Japanese, waving a forest of selfie-sticks and trying to dodge another group who must have got either the location or the time of year wrong and had dressed in flimsy outfits more suitable to mid-summer.

Ike emerged on the other side, like a blond goddess of the Outlet Centre she ploughed through the throngs, her companion still snuggled in her arms.

Gary never knew what happened. Or how.

One moment she was walking along with the dog, the next she jerked to the right, took one, two staggering steps towards the stone treads that connected the piazza with the fountain below. She swayed, once, twice. Then, in slow motion, she slipped off the top step, the dog catapulted from her hands like so much ballast. The roar of the crowd became the rushing of the wind, the icy voice of panic that clamoured in the back of Gary's mind, screaming he should do something, should save her.

The voice frantically pulled levers in his brain. Adrenaline zapped into his system and, for the second time today, he ran.

Clambered up the stairs to catch the stumbling woman. Beside him, Jon sprinted, taking two steps at a time, overtaking Gary, pulling ahead towards that figure, dark against a blue-flecked sky.

Too late.

Ike's balance shifted. Gravity was pulling her down.

The vision of a broken head, blood spilling. Gary shoved it aside, focussed on his heaving breath, the fire in his chest, his leg, his foot. On the treads that led him towards Ike, outlined against the scudding clouds above him. Turning, falling.

All in vain. They would never make it.

They didn't. Boris saved the day.

Like a cat, the animal twisted in mid-air and landed on four stubby paws. The next moment the dog dashed the other way, pulling on the leash wrapped around Ike's wrist. It stretched, jerked at her arm and broke her momentum. What might have been a fatal tumble, turned into a stagger down the three top steps.

She still might have crashed, had Jon not intercepted her flight path and thrown his brawny arms around her hip. Together, they landed on the stones. Hard. Jon at the bottom, Ike on his legs.

Two steps below, Gary came to a halt. "Jon?"

"Ow! Shift her, will you? She's heavy!"

His head fizzed with relief. The boy was safe. What about the woman? "Ike, are you okay?"

Her head moved, unfocused green eyes, their pupils wide, searched beyond him. "I guess. Yes. Somebody . . . I got pushed!"

Gary took his crutches into one hand and reached for her hand. Ike took it and pulled herself off his son.

Solicitous hands came from all sides, hands holding water bottles, hankies, his leather jacket and one even a disinfectant. Another hand, wrapped around the broken leash, led Boris towards them. Only now, the concerned voices, most of them Japanese, registered.

So did the young man in the pink smoking, accompanied by another young man, this one in a black smoking, who were checking Jon's limbs and shining a little light into his pupil. They had to be doctors of some sort.

"That was deliberate, do you hear? I could have broken my neck," Ike said, indignantly.

"In a minute. Let me just check up on the boy."

Instead, he caught himself staring at his wrist.

Where the watch was missing.

Do let me know if you have questions or comments on my novel. Constructive suggestions and feedback are always welcome! And thank you for reading. In doing so, you give my writing a purpose.