Close on the Heels of the Day

Richard Conte

Description

A gripping tale that takes the reader on a midnight odyssey in the erratic life of one: Hector Iorio. Encouraged by his parents to pursue a degree in Mathematics at a leading university, Hector chooses to stay his cherished ambition of making a career for himself as an artist. Embarking on his freshman year, outside forces are pulling him in numerous directions as he struggles to reconcile the fate he has chosen to accept with the life he believes is his destiny. Closest to him is a sinister group of companions from his South Philadelphia neighborhood from whom he cannot - or will not - detach himself. Next, there is Gretchen, an outcast Manhattan socialite who relentlessly urges him to break free of the social norms that confine him and to do the work that he was put on this Earth to do. Finally, there is Leah - the broken doll - an emaciated drug abuser who is prone to violent outbursts and with whom he suffers a lengthy and stormy relationship. Hector's parents believe him when he complains that it is the demands of his curriculum that prevent him from returning home for even a brief holiday visit, yet, unbeknownst to them, he is driving three hundred miles back to his old neighborhood every weekend to join with his friends and girlfriend Leah in their lifestyle of revelry and debauchery. Always caught up in the moment, the night comes quietly as the reader walks in Hector's footsteps from a stable homelife to overwhelming academic challenges, to the exotic luxury of lavish mansions and penthouse apartments, and ultimately to the buried squalor of the city. Looming in the backdrop all the while is his slow descent into psychosis as he struggles with the bitter realization that he will never be the person he had hoped to be.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 08 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781645757481
• Langue: English

Extrait

C lose on the H eels of the D ay
R ichard C onte
Austin Macauley Publishers
2021-01-08
Close on the Heels of the Day About the Author Dedication Copyright Information© Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen
About the Author
Richard Conte is a native of Philadelphia and has resided there for most of his life. He is a graduate of Drexel University and holds degrees in psychology and architecture. Aside from being a writer, he is also a painter and has studied for many years at the Fleisher Art Memorial and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His work has appeared in galleries and numerous shows.
Dedication

Dedicated to my lovely wife, Margaret M. DiGiacomo
Copyright Information ©
Copyright © Richard Conte (2021)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Ordering Information
Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Conte, Richard
Close on the Heels of the Day
ISBN 9781645757467 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781645757474 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781645757481 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020909816
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2021)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302
New York, NY 10005
USA
[e-mail]
[phone]
Chapter One
Leelee was led into the “Green Room”, that lofty accommodation being the library of Great Uncle Tobias, a place where he was accustomed to receiving his most valued clients in his declining years. The walls of this rotund room were overlain with an olive velvet wall covering, and the high vaulted ceiling was a masterpiece of carved mahogany, with Florentine cornices and curved wood paneling, the likes of which would adorn the finest mansions of New York State. The floors were laid in solid oak, not plank, but cross-cut oak blocks, roughly two inches by two inches, and set like a puzzle such that the finished surface culminated in a matrix of squares, which lay bare the rings of the trees from which they had come. This chamber, where Tobias Tock Esquire conducted his legal affairs, would have been otherwise fairly echoing if not for the wisdom of his architect, suggesting that the better part of this oak flooring be covered with a thick hand-woven rug from Egypt, and the triple sash windows be dressed with luxurious drapery of viridian velour.
The two armchairs facing the ebony desk of Uncle Tobias were cushioned with Peruvian leather and studded with abundant rows of glimmering brass tacks to hold the aniline skins in place, and it was to one of these chairs that the petite brown-eyed girl was led and seated before the austere man. Dressed in a black vicuna suit, with a gold watch chain stretching from pocket to pocket across his vest, he sat up straight in his high-back chair. Hung on the wall between the windows in the background, and gazing down over his shoulders, was the painted portrait of his only sister, one Elizabeth Tock Lushfield, an elegant woman in a Gainsborough hat and long white gloves, seated in a fan chair and bearing a faint resemblance to the image of Greta Garbo.
The young girl of twenty-one had been told that her mother’s death was instantaneous, that she had most likely blacked out seconds before the actual impact. The coroner had calculated, from the extent of damage to the car, that the vehicle had been traveling in excess of eighty miles per hour when the late model Cadillac collided with that infamous oak tree, on a treacherous stretch of Righters Mill Road. That notwithstanding, the autopsy had also pointed to the significant volume of valium and alcohol found in her bloodstream.
Tobias Tock Esquire began to read from the paper set before him:
“This is the Last Will and Testament of Misses Leah Lushfield… I, Leah Lushfield of… declare this to be my last will and testament… act free of duress… am of legal age and sound mind… appoint Mr. Tobias Tock as executor of my estate… I devise and bequeath all of my real and personal property to my daughter, LeeLee Lushfield… In testimony whereof I have set my hand and seal to this, my last will and testament.”
Leelee scarcely expected the next words to escape past her uncle’s lips:
“My dear grandniece, it disheartens me to inform you that following probate your mother’s estate will in fact be bankrupt. She would never disclose to me, or to anyone else, who your legitimate father was. Having been sent away to school at a very young age, you could never have known – or even imagined – the kind of lifestyle she led. As executor of your Grandmother Elizabeth’s will (Here, he gestured over his shoulder to the portrait above him.) it fell within my fiduciary responsibilities to caution your dear departed mother about her inheritance, her lavish spending, and the reckless liquidation of her assets, but your mother was of an impetuous nature and never one to listen.” The old man sighed, and a sense of helplessness descended upon him. “Ultimately, she was forced to relinquish title to the Penn Valley estate to her father – your grandfather and my brother-in-law, Mr. Luther Lushfield – who, now deceased, at last willed it all to his young wife, leaving you out entirely.”
Leelee’s eyes began to fill, and it was at that prudent juncture that Tobias Tock produced another document – a deed – and began further elucidation: “A year after you were born, your mother purchased this parcel of property in the city of Philadelphia. I understand that it, being located in a fairly spruce neighborhood, should be worth a tidy sum on the market today.” Contained within the same brown envelope, from which the deed had been produced, were two other items: a business card and two keys on a ring with a brass amulet bearing the initials ‘H.I.’. Tobias examined the business card. “I’m not sure if your mother had ever inhabited the property following its purchase, though I am informed that this parcel is under management by a… Keystone Real Estate Company. The agent is a Mr. Kenneth Dice. I would recommend that you contact him to discuss arrangements for a sale – should you be so inclined.”
The neighborhood where the house was located was a quiet and secluded haven tucked away in a hidden pocket of urban Philadelphia. Quigley Street at a single glance was a hodge-podge of connected facades, each flaunting its own uniqueness, the sum of which formed a narrow aisle, appearing not unlike books on library shelves. This particular December morning was a gray and misty one, with dampness that sunk into the young lady’s bones. Making her way southward along Quigley Street, she passed on either side of her, rows of brick-built houses, some with marble wainscots, some with not, some with flat double sash windows and wooden shutters, some with bay windows and drapery, some with elaborate window boxes on every floor, some with planters at the steps, some with front doors red and some with black, some with polished brass rails and some with wrought iron, some bright and some dark, some warm, and some cold. Christmas decorations brightened almost every entrance portal and, in the low set windows, electric candles remained illuminated even though the hour barely bordered on noontime. Many of the window boxes and planters spilled over with holly, swags of pine, and ribbons of red and green. Most doors were embellished with wreathes and bells and the faint melody of ‘Silent Night’ willowed in the chilly air.
At length, Leelee came upon one colonial style abode at the obscure intersection of Quigley Street and Irwin Place, that intersection being marked by an old gaslight pole. All the young girl knew of the property was what the language of the deed had imparted: that it had been purchased by her mother, Miss Leah Lushfield, in the year nineteen hundred and seventy-five. Remnants of the preserved structure suggested that, in its original form, the design had accurately represented what would have been typical of a mid-to-late-eighteenth-century urban row house. Over the years, it had undergone several modernizing alterations, the most extensive of which included the Irwin Place facade being almost completely cut away and a full height section of the two-story house being pushed back to create and enclose the resulting courtyard area on three sides. The flat surface of the courtyard had been laid with paving stone upon which stood an assortment of decorative planters containing geraniums, myrtles, and cactuses all enshrined under a white arbor now entwined with unruly vines. The shorter end walls on the ground level of the oblong house were brick with small fenestration, and the long wall stretching along Irwin Place was a rhythmic arrangement of wooden windows and clerestory, surrounding an ornate set of wood and glass double doors, which led from the courty