Path of Love: Cinque Terre, Italy

Chapter 1-3

The French Alps. Oh yeah. Once he’d figured out that he just needed to suggest a motorcycle ride along a section of the Tour de France bicycle race route, he’d been set. The French loved their bicycles and he’d certainly enjoyed the French women. Worked better than a dinner date at the Celadon or The French Laundry in Napa. Cheaper too.

This tiny bit of nowhere Italian cliffside town was so obscure that only lost souls like himself would ever come here.

Shit!

He kicked down a gear and let the engine take the load of trying to move slowly enough on the steep downgrade.

Not lost soul. Wandering soul. That sounded better. Even if it was less accurate.

Third son of a top Sonoma vineyard family. Two shithead older brothers who had always hated his guts, which was only fair, he supposed, as he’d always hated theirs. Was it his fault that he was the son of the trophy wife? Bibi had been a fun mom. As an added bonus, being young—especially compared with Father’s friends—and beautiful, she’d attracted young and beautiful friends. And their equally comely daughters.

It had been a sweet setup—until Father’s old ticker gave out at the wheel and ran the Maserati off the edge of Big Sur, taking both of his parents out of the game. So much for having the sexiest mom in all of Sonoma.

Clarence and Evangene—no wonder they were such shits with names like those—had wanted him off the property the next day. To prove the point, they’d torched Grandfather’s old Indian Chief Blackhawk that he’d spent two summers restoring himself. Then they offered—without quite being stupid enough to say it aloud, which was too bad because he’d had a recorder running—to do the same to him.

He’d liberated a couple cases of Clarence’s Private Reserve Merlot, sold them for forty grand (about a tenth of what they were worth, just to rub it in), and bought himself an Indian Chieftain Classic. He could have paid cash himself, but where was the fun in that? Compared to the old Blackhawk, the new bike had newer gear, a bigger engine, and the plus of having a double seat for the ladies to ride. (He’d had a monster Ducati crotch rocket for picking up the local ladies, but it would suck for touring.)

If it wouldn’t have gone back to them, he’d have shoved the rest of the inheritance down his brothers’ ungrateful throats. Of course, what he’d do without money was an issue he’d have thought of later rather than sooner, but choking them with it still sounded attractive.

They’d tried to cash him out, but Bibi had survived Father by a full day. Because of language in the will and his brothers’ overeager attorney, they’d filed with the court before she died. That meant that Bibi was entitled to receive a quarter share along with the three sons. (His brothers’ mom got three million to shut up and go away.) When Bibi finally succumbed, with only Ridley in attendance, her own will gave her quarter share solely to him. Half owner of the stunningly successful Claremont Family Wines. Not too shabby. Thanks, Mom.

And he’d trade it all in to sit and crack another bottle of their Signature Pinot together. How many beautiful evenings had they spent like that? She never held back in telling him how he was messing up with the girls and how to treat them better. Bibi didn’t have a coy bone in her, even if Ridley was the only one in the family to appreciate her brain as well as her looks.

His brothers wanted him gone, fine. But they’d have to pay him a half of everything for life and he’d hired a total shark of a lawyer and auditor to make sure they couldn’t hide a penny. He considered giving his half of the stock to a drug dealer or a street gang just to screw them. For now, though, he was keeping his options open.

He was getting the feel for Italian roads. They weren’t about speed—not real speed like Route 128, which was more suited to his Ducati Multistrada superbike. These had a certain flow to their winding paths. Sharp twists, hairpins so tight they practically undercut each other, though there was always an olive tree or a cluster of grapevines somehow squeezed into the gaps. No land wasted here.

Getting the feel for it, he was about to pop up a gear and let it really roll. Then he spotted a small red triangle in the road. Two weeks in the country and he’d already seen enough of those to be slamming on the brakes by instinct alone.

Good thing that it was there. Just around the next blind corner, the road was completely blocked by a tow truck. No sign of a car, just a cable disappearing downslope into the trees. Since no one was going anywhere until he was done, Ridley parked his Chieftain in the middle of the road, dropped the stand, and climbed off to go enjoy the show. The dry grass reminded him of Sonoma, but the sea was close enough here to fill the air with its saltiness. Baked by the sun, it had an unexpected richness.

An elderly man in khaki pants and a white button-down shirt stood at the edge of the road looking down the slope.

“Hey, buddy. Parlez vous anglais?”

“Je parle English,” the man replied. “In Italy you may wish to enquire: Parli inglese. It would be somewhat more appropriate.”

“Right. Sorry. Just came out of France,” not that he spoke more than a couple of French phrases—most having to do with, Want a ride on my American classic motorcycle?

They both looked down the slope as the tow truck operator climbed laboriously up the steep grade. Once he arrived, rather than starting the tow, he joined them in staring down at the small white car far below among the trees. Someone else who’d been driving on this road also parked and came over to join them in looking down at the car.

He and the old chap rattled some Italian back and forth, but neither seemed in any real hurry; just watching the day go by. The other local started another topic: soccer maybe. That went on for a while before petering out.

The car in the orchard was like that moment in James Bond’s For Your Eyes Only. The lovely Melina Havelock’s—undeniably the hottest Bond girl ever except maybe the original Honey Rider—tiny Citroen C2V plunging down through the olive grove, dodging all the bad guys in their vicious black Mercedes.

“Yours?” Ridley asked after they’d gone quiet for a bit.

“A friend’s.”

“They okay?”

The old man turned to inspect him carefully from his boots to his untrimmed hair.

Ridley knew women liked hair long enough to toy with. Bibi had given him that and other tips on cultivating the “bad boy” look when he’d gotten old enough for his interests to turn to girls. “Bad boy with money.” It took him a while, but he’d eventually gotten it down and it had worked like a magic charm. She’d also attempted to cultivate “bad boy with heart of gold” but that had never really taken. It made him sad to remember how often she’d teased him about that failure. Maybe he’d try again someday for her sake.

“Are you quite all right?” The guy narrowed his eyes as if seeing inside him.

“What do you mean? I wasn’t the one who crashed my car down into an olive grove.”

The man studied him again with those eyes of blue steel. He might be a slender man who stood a few inches shorter than his own six feet and much older, but the look suggested that he wasn’t a man to be messed with.

“Just asking if your friend was hurt.” Was it bad here to be polite and ask about a stranger?

“She is unharmed by this experience. Merely shaken.”

“Shaken, not stirred?” The guy could be an elderly James Bond like David Niven in the original Casino Royale.

The man’s baleful gaze was certainly up to Niven’s standard of making a man feel small and inconsequential.

The tow truck driver finally lost interest in a conversation he probably couldn’t understand, revved up the truck’s engine, and engaged the winch. With a loud groan, it began hauling the car up the slope.

“Do you know anything about this town?” Ridley had to shout to be heard.

Again with that Niven look.

“Got any suggestions on where I could shack up for the night?”

“Shack up?”

“Sleep. Hotel, whatever.”

“Where are you from?” The man led him aside, out of the tow driver’s way and distant enough from the truck to speak without shouting.

“Sonoma. It’s in California.”

“Some nice wines there,” the man said in the same tone one might use to say there are clouds in the sky.

Ridley was…had been…was proud of Father’s wines. He and Father had each spent more time with Marissa, the chief vintner, than his two brothers combined. Maybe he should have taken over the winery and thrown them out. Little late to think of that. But hell, even Bibi had taken an interest in the process once Ridley had started really telling her about it. Some nice wines? s**t, man! Better than a lot of your overpriced Italian ones, buddy.

“What is your name, young man?”

“Ridley Claremont III. Folks call me…Ridley.” It sounded dumb, but no one was allowed to call him Lee anymore. Not since Bibi had died, because that had been her nickname for him and it still hurt too much to hear it coming from someone else’s mouth. It was as if was suddenly someone else. Something about that amused Conrad, or at least made him thoughtful.

“Conrad Evenston.” The guy had a grip of steel even tougher than the one in his blue eyes.

The guy studied him for several long moments before answering.

“There’s a nice café, Il Cane. The Dog. You may make inquiries there. You may find it at the base of the main carruggio.”

“Carruggio? Don’t know that one.”

“It is a local Ligurian word. I believe Americans unimaginatively call it a pedestrian zone. Much of Corniglia is carruggio, not open to vehicles. Not even your conveyance.”

“Corniglia. Il Cane. The Dog. At the base of the main carruggio. How do you say ‘thanks’ in Italian?”

“Grazie.”

“Grazie then. Appreciate the tip.”

A final deafening groan from the aged tow truck and the crumpled little car heaved into view over the grassy shoulder. Like most cars on the Italian roads, it wasn’t much bigger than his bike. Right side fender and door bashed in. The front metal was a mess as well. No head-punch mark on the inside of the windshield and the airbags hadn’t been unleashed; still… Ridley glanced down the long slope.

“Rough ride.”

“Eh?” The tow truck driver asked him.

Ridley turned to Conrad to translate for him, but the man was gone. He caught just a glimpse of Conrad’s silver hair as he disappeared beneath the olive trees.