A Positive Attitude Part 1

I have always had a positive attitude in my life, it has helped me through some very low times and I have learned to roll with the punches. I have not been a very good person lately, and have been running with a few bad lads. I am, to be frank, a good get-away driver and pretty handy with a knife, if needed.

It wasn’t always so, I had been a good student and had moved on to a good job with a racing stable. I had graduated to being a track rider and then to riding in country meetings. My fall from grace was that I rode a ringer which was picked up by the stewards. They said that I must have known that I was riding a different horse and pulled my licence. Being a jockey you can assume that I was small and light. I grew up near Manchester, England, and my parents were second generation Italian so I was probably more fluent in Italian than I was in English. I had an appreciation of Italian food from home cooking and also the fact that we had a pizza shop.

The crowd I now hung with were just naughty boys, usually doing break & entry jobs in country houses and I was not looking for real work just yet. Although I was good at throwing a knife, it was mainly for fun and I had considered joining a circus. I suppose I had better introduce myself now; I am Arturo Alonzo Albanese, sometimes known as AAA. The unfortunate thing here was that my best friend was a middle European called Zack Desodiamavich, whose nickname was Salt. When we formed a team some called us A Salt and Battery but not to our faces.

We were cruising along when we started getting some interest from the local plod and it was a good thing when Zack told us that he had been contacted by a go-between about a job we could do in Italy. He said that we were wanted to rob a safe in a remote house and that the location of the safe would be supplied. It seemed like a good idea to get out of town for a while so we got hold of a couple of the other guys and got on a train to London, then on Eurostar to Paris where we stole a nice old Citroen and drove towards Italy, dumping it in Nice and picking up an old Fiat. We were to meet an agent of our customer in Rome to get our final instructions.

As it was now February it was good to be in a sunny country and able to use my Italian skills. What was odd was driving on the wrong side of the road but we made sure we were careful and got to Rome without any problems, although passing barriers at turnings saying the road was closed due to a virus was a worry. The further south we went the easier it was. We got ourselves into a cheap hostel in Rome and went to the café where we were to meet our contact. He had been sent Zacks’ picture and the meeting went well. He gave us an address south of Naples, the easiest way into the grounds, the location of the safe and even the combination as well as the description of the particular item the customer wanted us to steal. We were told that anything else was ours to keep. This sounded like an inside job where the customer was going to be a long way away at the time. He also told us the evening we were to do the deed as the owner of the house had an important meeting in Milan, every month like clockwork, on that particular weekend.

We dumped the Fiat and picked up an old Alfa. It is always better to steal older cars as they do not have GPS tracking. We drove to Naples and found an out of the way place to stay while we planned our heist. We drove out to the target house and saw, as we passed the spot where we were to enter, that we would have to park under a big tree out of sight of the main gate. Back in Naples we just relaxed before the Saturday evening of the heist. That day we bundled up all of our papers and personal items and put them in large envelopes we had brought with us. We then drove to the main railway station, paid for a locker with a combination and put all of our envelopes in it. We had paid for two weeks so there was a window if we needed to hide out before picking them up again.

Saturday evening we were all wearing dark clothing and had our jemmies with us when we drove to the house, passing once to make sure that there was no activity and then coming back with our lights off to park under the tree. The place was just outside of Salerno and had a great view towards the ocean but we didn’t stop to admire the view as we went over the wall, leaving Jim as a look-out. We had been given a route which would take us to a window which we had been told would be left off the latch. I opened it quietly while Zack and Ken kept lookout.

As I was easing my way into the house there was a shout from near the front door and some shots rang out. I dropped into the room as I saw Zack and Ken stagger back with blood erupting from their chests. Thinking quickly I rushed to the door and saw that I was near the stairway to the second floor and raced up it, thinking that I may be able to get out of a back window and back to the car. I ran down a corridor to what I thought would be a likely room, opened the door and dashed inside. I closed the door quietly and stood there panting as I heard more shots from outside.

Just then a light went on in the room and I turned to see a beautiful woman sitting up in bed with a rather large gun in her hand which was pointing at my head. “Who are you, why are you here?” she said firmly in Italian. I knew it was no time to lie so said “I am here because I was sent to rob the safe in this house, my name is Arturo Albanese.” She thought for a second before saying “If you were sent, you would have been told where the safe is”. I told her that it was supposed to be in the study, on the ground floor, and hidden behind a signed picture of Mario Lanza. She thought for a moment longer and asked “Do you want to live?” “With all my heart and soul” I said, so, as I heard shouting coming from the corridor outside, she said “Get under my bed and make yourself very small. Don’t even breathe or you will be shot.”

I dashed to her bedside and dived under it to lie as close to the wall as I could. Just then I heard a knock on her door and she called out for her visitor to come in. He said “Are you all right Francesca? Have you seen or heard anyone up here a moment ago?” She said that she had heard nothing except for some shooting outside and the reply was that a trio of ruffians thought that they could rob the Don and had now been consigned to fish feed with the next boat going out. He said that there could have been a fourth but they had now checked the whole house and he thought that they had only just opened the window when they were seen. All of my friends were dead!

He left and she told me quietly to keep silent and stay where I was. A few minutes later there was another knock on the door and when she called ‘enter’ an older male voice said “I am just checking that you are all right, my daughter. We had a little excitement there but everything is under control, now. By the way, did you get that replacement maid for Sophia yet, it doesn’t look like she will be able to come south again for a while so will be stuck up north with her family.” The woman said that she had and that the girl would probably be cowering in her room, wondering what was going on. “Don’t worry, I will tell her it was just some of the boys having fun. She knows who she is working for.”

After the man had left she told me to stay where I was and then proceeded to ask me questions about how I was recruited, how we got into the garden and which window we were told to open. After I had explained the events she allowed me to come out from under the bed and told me to sit in the chair next to her. She then said “What you have told me has me to believe that this was set up by my brother, Luigi. The window and the route through the garden was his favourite way out of the house when he wanted to go out without father knowing. I suppose you were not told who it was you were to rob?” I said we hadn’t but had been told that he would be out tonight. She then informed me that I was in the house of Don Carlione, the biggest mafia boss in the area and the reason he was home was because the meeting he normally went north for had been cancelled due to the virus.

I asked why she had hidden me and she told me that as soon as I said that I had been told where the safe was she knew she had to know more. “My father would have just dragged you out of the house where you would have been shot; somewhere they could hose the blood away. He has no time for the finer points of intrigue, his first thought is always to kill and be done with the problem.”
She then asked me if I would do anything to live and I told her that I would. She then said that she really had not got a replacement for her maid, Sophia, but that she thought I may fit the bill and that I had better be good at it or both our lives would be forfeit.

She got out of bed and put on a dressing gown and told me to come with her. We went to a door and, when she opened it and put on the light, I saw that it was a small bedroom with an open door to a closet and another to an ensuite bathroom. She said “This is where my maid sleeps. Sophia went north to visit some sick relatives and I fear she may not be coming home for a long while, yet. I think that you and she are about the same size, you being so small, and that her wardrobe will fit you. The first thing you should do, though, is have a good shower after using this lotion all over your body. Leave it on for ten minutes. When you shower, make sure you wash your hair twice, with both the shampoo and the conditioner, and by morning, I think that I will have my new maid. You will be called Adeline and you will be very good at it or we both die.

She watched, the gun hanging loosely at her side, while I undressed. She made note of the throwing knives that were strapped to my thighs and I told her that they had never been used on a living person, just on targets. She just commented that it would be easier, in future, for me to access them when I was wearing a skirt. When I was naked she helped me slather the lotion on and then I went into the shower. When I got out, all of my clothing had been taken away and a nightie had been laid across the bed. “I am leaving you the knives” she said “as I think that you will be safe with them. You need to sleep now and forget about your past, from now on you are Adeline and, over the next few days, we will make you perfect and you will live to a ripe old age. After I had dried I put on the nightie, which fitted well, and got into bed. She put the light out as she closed the door and I lay there wondering about my future. I will certainly be different but at least I had one.

Marianne G 2020