Love and violence are the themes in Anyone Can Play. It’s also the story of two cultures, American and Mexican. It is the story of a Mexican cartel kidnapping and murder. New England University Boston (NUB) pre-medical student Frank Nello showers after his workout and plays the piano at the Fine Arts School’s Student Lounge for a further cool down. A four-foot-high Ionic pedestal, just below the Lounge’s stage, is topped with a rectangular sign that announces, “Anyone Can Play.”
Growing up in an Italian-American family, piano lessons were mandatory. Frank plays only the same two Franz Liszt’s pieces on the Wurlitzer grand piano in the Lounge. It was here that he met Vicki Aliago, who always plays her same two Chopin nocturnes following Frank’s ending with a traditional Italian melody. Vicki is the most beautiful girl Frank has ever seen.
Only one thing has kept Frank from introducing himself to Vicki. She’s always with an older man built like a football tackle. But today is different. He’s resolved to speak to her. After the completion of Liszt’s Les Préludes, Frank joyfully always plays the lively Italian song, Santa Lucia. He slowly descends from the stairs as Vicki moves towards the three steps leading to the stage’s Wurlitzer Grand piano. Instead of smiling and passing each other as in the past two weeks, they both stop with excitement and smiles, extending their hands in greeting.
The large man immediately gets up and moves toward the two students. He’s too late. Frank and Vicki introduced themselves. The man moves between them.
Vicki, who remains smiling and still holding Frank’s hand, introduces him. “Frank, this is Lucio–my bodyguard from Mexico. She looks for approval on Lucio’s face. “Lucio, he’s pre-med at the Liberal Arts School.”
Lucio clenches his fists behind his back and emits an unintelligible grunt from a scowl toward Frank.
A simple boy-meets-girl beginning is complicated by a pending kidnapping by a vicious Mexican cartel to abduct a Mexican student from a prestigious Boston University. A cartel in Monterrey, Mexico, has been extending its predatory tentacles into the US and other countries where Mexican citizens from wealthy homes are transiently located.
The interaction between a Massachusetts family and Mexican human trafficking thugs leads to the mobilization of American Mafia members and the resolve of a US family to protect their son and his student girlfriend by unusual means. The consequences are action-packed, sometimes humorous, and always unexpected, as is typical of Peter Glassman’s terrorist thrillers.
Author Peter Glassman 