273 miles by air or by sea

Concepcion to Valparaiso

As mentioned previously, I’m working on a new novel – 6,000 Kilos. And Chapter 1 is titled El Naya. I’ve broken the chapter down into 7 sequences – and will be presenting each one – in sequence – over the next seven days.

Yesterday I presented Segment 5 – “Ninety-six Percent on a Bad Day” – which is the purity of the cocaine produced by Colombian Invisible Juan Valdez. Today, in “Concepcion to Valparaiso” our Protagonist Steve Piasecki tries to make sense of all the details he overheard from Juan Valdez as he traces the path of a container ship.

Here’s Concepcion to Valparaiso …

A door opens and the silhouette of a man enters a darkened apartment.

A light comes on.

Steve Piasecki leaves the door wide open before he starts walking down the short hallway toward the living room.

The living room, rectangular in shape, is more like an office than a living room. A gray Whitman sofa purchased at Raymour & Flanigan in Springfield sits along the long wall to the right. Steve picked it out because it’s 90 inches long. Therefore, he can stretch out and take a nap on it without folding his legs.

A coffee table sits in front of the sofa. But the sofa and coffee table are the only pieces of actual living room furniture in the room – unless you count the big-screen TV mounted high on the wall on the opposite side of the room.

To the left of the TV screen a desk butts up against the wall. A file cabinet sits to the right of the desk and a tall bookcase sits to the left of the desk. A look at the bookcase leaves little doubt about Steve’s focus ─ In Cold Blood … The Godfather … The Carpetbaggers … Born to Be Wild … Helter Skelter … Silence of the Lambs … Compulsion … God’s Pocket … Mitigating Circumstances … Rosemary’s Baby … Cape Fear … Nightmares in Pink … The Black Dahlia … Mr. Majestyk … Glitz … The Adventurers … and The Valachi Papers.

So that’s how Valparaiso to Concepcion begins. To read the whole sequence, click the link below to download the entire sequence and tread it at your leisure.

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