 
Gwenny June

By Richard Dorrance

Copyright 2013 Richard Dorrance

Smashwords Edition

This book was written at

The Charleston Library Society.

Thank you for downloading this free book. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied, and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

# Chapter 1 – Home Invasion

The dog growled, which doesn't happen very often. Both Roger and Gwen picked up on this and looked at each other. Roger rolled out of bed on one side, and Gwen rolled out of bed on the other, their hands going into drawers of bedside tables and coming out with guns. The dog stared at the bedroom door, which was open.

In their bare feet Roger and Gwen moved towards the door and stopped. They stood still and silent, listening. Yes, downstairs they heard a person moving. Thank you dog; steak for you later.

Gwen got a very hard look on her face, which Roger interpreted as a show-no-mercy mindset. Roger knew she would give the invader a chance. She would spend two or three seconds to evaluate the person, judge the person, and determine the level of threat. Then she would act. If Gwen determined the person was a common burglar, he or she would survive. If Gwen determined the person was something else, if he or she was a serious threat, the person would not survive. It was a simple as that. The Deneuve was in the house, and nothing was going to threaten her or Roger. Nothing. This invasion of the June home would fail.

Roger telegraphed his thoughts across the open doorway, "Stay here, let the person come up the stairs. If we go down the stairs the person has the tactical advantage." Gwen nodded. She replied, silently, "I take the invader, you protect The Deneuve." Roger nodded.

Gwen looked at the dog, telling it to go to the far side of the bed, and it obeyed. She entered the heavily carpeted hallway and moved away from the top of the stairs, towards the Heppleworth table at the end of the hallway. She crouched at the side of the table, letting it hide her. Both hands cradled her gun in a firm but relaxed grip. Roger stayed where he was, knowing his first move would be down the hallway toward the guest bedroom. They waited in these positions, Gwen's eyes glowing brightly.

From downstairs came the faint sound of a door creaking open. Then the faint sound of footsteps in the living room. Then silence. A minute passed, and a second minute, and then two more minutes. The dog was quiet and Roger was quiet and Gwen was fiercely quiet. They knew the person on the first floor was making a fateful decision, to come up the stairs, or not. Roger knew one decision meant life for the person, and the other decision could mean death. What would it be?

# Chapter 2 – Another Russian in the Kitchen

There are sixteen wide steps that connect the June's first floor with the second. Roger and Gwen counted the person's fateful progress: step one, step two, step three....Gwen took a deep breath....step four, step five....the dog remained quiet....step six....Roger crouched slightly....step seven, step eight, step nine. In three seconds Gwen covered the twenty-five feet between the Heppleworth table and the banister around the staircase. She knew the person was at a disadvantage, standing exposed on the stairs, while she was above and partially hidden by the banister. She came into a shooting stance against the wall, the Glock 40 caliber semi-automatic in both hands, over the top rail of the banister, pointing at the back of the person on the stairs. She hissed very softly, and said, "If you move a single inch I'll stop your heart from beating."

As she assumed her position and had the person covered, Roger ran down the hallway in the other direction, quietly opened the door of the guest bedroom, and entered. He crouched, most of his body protected inside the room, with only his gun arm and head exposed, looking down the hallway towards the stairs. Behind him, from inside the room, he heard Catherine Deneuve say, "Roger, does Gwen know about this?"

The person on the stairs did not move an inch. The left hand moved outwards away from the body to the left, and the right hand, holding a gun, moved away from the body to the right. Very quietly Gwen said, "Kneel down." The person complied. Gwen said, "Put the gun on the step below your feet. If you move in any way I don't like, I'll kill you." Slowly the person leaned backwards and put the gun on the step. "Stand up and come up the stairs. Roger, ok."

Roger blew a kiss to the world famous woman in the bed, closed the door, and came down the hallway quickly. He focused his Beretta nine on the chest of the person appearing at the top of the staircase, and moved so his line of fire excluded Gwen behind the banister. He stopped and waited. Gwen said, "Hands on the wall, feet back, stop thinking of attack." She nodded at Roger, who moved close to the person. With his left hand he frisked the person's entire body. The hair below the ears might belong to a man, but it was fine and silky. Any doubt evaporated when Roger's hand cupped a breast. He didn't shy away from checking her crotch, because he knew it was done in the line of duty. If Gwen found out he didn't do a thorough and professional job of frisking, she would give him hell.

Roger stepped back and nodded to his wife, who came around the banister and flipped on the hallway light. When Gwen saw it was a woman, she said to Roger, "Did you enjoy that?" Roger thought it best not to reply with anything that could be construed as enthusiasm. Gwen said, "Let's not disturb our friend. Let's take our unwanted guest downstairs." Roger headed down the stairs first, the unwanted guest second, and Gwen third, keeping her gun in shooting position. At the bottom of the stairs Roger moved out of Gwen's line of fire, and the trio moved slowly down the hallway to the kitchen, where Roger turned on the light. The sudden brightness made the two Russian blue cats, sitting on the counter near the pantry, blink.

Gwen and Roger faced the woman, and Gwen said, "Strip."

She didn't say anything, but immediately began taking off her clothes: black sweater, black tee shirt, fanny pack, clip holster, black sneakers, black cargo pants. Roger was pleased to see that her bra, panties, and socks also were black. For that matter, so was Gwen. Gwen looked at Roger and saw a silly look on his face. When he was playing with her, Gwen found this endearing, but in the present circumstances, she did not. She motioned to the woman to stop her stripping, took the outer clothes and threw them into the hallway.

Gwen looked at Roger and said, "Get her gun from the stairs, I didn't pick it up. And get the duct tape from the pantry, would you dear?" Gwen took hold of a chair and placed it facing the cabinets, away from the doors and windows. She didn't know how desperate this person might be, or to what lengths she would go to get out of the predicament she had gotten herself into. The gun stayed pointed at the woman's chest; the woman's very nice chest; Gwen had to give her that. She had screwed up badly getting caught, but she had a great body. Maybe she could use that in some way in her next job. If she ever got a next job.

Roger returned with a Walther PPS in his right hand, went into the pantry and came out with a roll of duct tape in his left. He set the gun down on the counter. Gwen looked at him. He picked up the gun, went back down the hallway, and returned a minute later without the gun. Gwen asked, "Where's your gun?" Roger stood there in the kitchen, dressed only in a tee shirt, and realized he didn't have on any pants into which he had tucked his Beretta. He looked around the kitchen and saw his gun over on the kitchen table. He went and picked it up, then said, "I'll cover her while you tape her up. Where are you going to put your gun?" Gwen realized she too was wearing nothing but a tee shirt, and didn't have any pants on into which she could tuck her Glock. She smiled at him, he smiled at her, and they both smiled at their unwanted guest. She smiled back.

Gwen threw the roll of tape to the woman. "Tape your right arm to the chair," she said. When this was done, Gwen carefully skirted around behind the chair, took the tape, peeled off a strip, and taped the woman's left arm to the chair.

Roger said, "That's going to hurt when the tape comes off."

"Who says the tape's coming off?" Gwen said.

At this moment one of the world's most famous women entered the kitchen. Catherine Deneuve walked in, looked at Roger half naked, looked at Gwen half naked, and looked at a beautiful stranger strapped into a chair, wearing only underwear. She also noticed that Gwen and Roger were holding guns. She said, "Roman Polanski created a scene like this in Repulsion. I was in it, but it didn't make the final cut. It's funny to see it recreated here, of all places, so many years later. Is this a fun deal you have going here, or a serious deal? Fun, I hope. Those were the days, for me."

Gwen said to Roger, "Watch her, but not too closely," took Catherine by the arm and gently pulled her down the hallway to the study. They sat down on the sofa, and Gwen said, "Catherine, this is a serious deal. That person is not our friend. I don't know who she is or what she wants. I am so sorry this has happened while you're here."

Catherine looked into Gwen's eyes. "My dear, I'm sorry you have a serious matter, but I know you and Roger will figure it out. I am going back upstairs to read." Issuing a twinkling smile, she said, "Do I need to take a gun with me? Let me know if you need my help." And she rose and headed up the staircase. Halfway up she turned and said to Gwen, who was walking down the hallway to the kitchen, "Gwenny dear, your derrière is to die for, and Roger, la bistouquette est très bonne, non?"

Gwen smiled and waved the Glock in Catherine's direction. She entered the kitchen and said to Roger, "Now that the two of you have had your intimate bonding time, how about getting us some pants? And get the holsters too, please, dear."

As Roger left the kitchen, Gwen pulled a second chair away from the table and over to the woman. She sat down, crossed her legs, and let her arm and the Glock dangle towards the floor. "What in God's name are we going to do with you?" was all she could say. She got up, put the gun on the counter, retrieved the woman's clothes from the hallway, and went through them. In the fanny pack she found a magazine loaded with fifteen rounds, $800 in twenty dollar bills, and a cell phone. That was it. She sat back down in the chair and waited for her pants.

Roger returned with two pair of underwear, two pair of pants, and two clip-on holsters. Gwen asked, "You couldn't have put your pants on upstairs?" He just looked at her for a moment, bewildered, and then proceeded to get dressed.

The woman said, "Don't cover up on my account. May be the last I see of any of that for some time to come, depending on what you do with me." Her accent was Russian.

# Chapter 3 – The Uninvited Guest

"Well?" said Gwen, looking at the woman.

"I love those cats," she said, looking at the pair sitting on the counter, "Russian blue cats are so smart. Did you know the same Russian family was the breeder of those cats for, like, 300 years or something? The family lived in the Czar's palaces, special treatment, all of that. All they had to do was produce really smart cats for the Czar. Cushy job. I don't think the members of that family got out a lot though. I'm not sure how THEIR breeding line worked out. There are paintings of them in Moscow, and they all look a little crazy."

Roger looked at Gwen and said, "I thought Russian spies and assassins were supposed to be like steel. Never say a word, even under torture. She likes to talk. I don't think Russia is what it used to be."

Gwen said, "Sometimes those cats make this really cool sound, 'Caooh'. Do all blues do that?"

The woman looked shocked, which both Roger and Gwen picked up on. Roger said, "I thought Russian spies and assassins were supposed to stay inscrutable, even under torture. She's like a method actor, letting it all out."

"You have THAT kind of blue cats? You have a pair of 'Caooh' blues? Jesus, they are worth like $50,000." Roger motioned to her to keep talking. "Only the Czar's immediate family ever was allowed to have 'Caooh' cats. When Lenin did his revolution thing in 1917, he tried to hunt down all the 'Caoohs' and kill them. He thought they were icons of Russian aristocracy. They were higher on the assassination list than some Romanov family members. Wow, and you've got two of them. They don't happen to be boy and girl, do they?" The woman looked hopeful.

Roger looked at Gwen and asked, "Do we know if they're fixed or not? Does Jinny or Guignard know?"

Gwen glared at Roger. Interrogators were not supposed to divulge information to the people they were interrogating. Here he had gone and given up the names of two friends. She looked at the clock, which showed 4:30am. Maybe Roger was off his game because it was the middle of the night. Still, no excuse.

The woman smiled.

"Why are you in our house?" Gwen asked, politely. Not so politely she said, "You're lucky to be alive." She remembered the sounds of someone uninvited in her house in the middle of the night, someone who was a threat to her husband and to the The Deneuve. Gwen got a hard look on her face, and this caught the woman's attention. Her breathing quickened ever so slightly.

"You're right," the woman said. "I'm supposed to not say anything if I get caught. It's just being in such a nice house, and then seeing both of you naked from the waist down, and then you telling me you have 'Caooh' cats."

She lapsed into silence, which at this point Gwen was a little thankful for.

"Why do you have a gun, and what were you going to do with it? Where you going to kill us in our beds?"

Roger gave it a try. "You're all dressed in black, like an assassin. Even your underwear is black. Are those silk?" Gwen looked at him. "You're lucky my wife didn't drop you on the stairs. Why did you take this risk? Tell us and we won't torture you very much. Our neighbors object to the screams, and we like being good neighbors, right hon?" he asked, looking at Gwen.

Gwen decided she might have to put him to bed and get Catherine down here to help deal with the situation. Before she did that, she would try some coffee on him. She could use some herself. The adrenaline rush of finding an intruder in her house at 3:45am, and coming close to killing the intruder, was beginning to wear off.

Gwen said, "Would you please make some coffee?"

"Eggs and potatoes, too?" Roger said.

"This is not a picnic. All these guns are real, you know." She looked at the kitchen counter with the Glock, the Beretta, and the Walther on it. She sensed the smell of gun oil.

While Roger fiddled with the big Italian espresso machine, Gwen stared at the woman. What a pain in the ass. Everything had been going along really well, and now this. The first two Russian couples the Junes had brought to Charleston six months ago were spending time in their beachfront houses. The Peter and Pater boys were making progress setting up their ballet academy, working with Selgey and Bart. And Jinny and Guignard were....hmm, what were they doing? They visited regularly, but never seemed to say what they were doing for a living. They would say they had gone fishing that day, or had eaten lunch at this or that restaurant, or had gone to see a movie. But they didn't talk about doing anything to make money. Oh well, not our business.

She and Roger had talked once or twice about reconstituting the caper team, and getting the next contingent of Russians out of the Saint Petersburg February deepfreeze, but nothing had come of it. They were expecting Jinny and Guignard to run out of money and come to them about getting more cash cows here to Charleston, but that hadn't happened. Gwen wondered if Jinny was generating an income he wasn't telling them about. As a couple, Jinny and Guignard seemed happy together, so butt out is what Gwen thought.

And now this. Now this woman, sitting in their kitchen in her underwear, duct taped to a chair.

# Chapter 4 – It Gets Weirder

The coffee helped. Gwen thought, at least now Roger couldn't use the, 'It was the middle of the night, what do you expect,' line when he said something dumb. He had better kick his brain into gear and figure the hell out what to do with this bitch. Cute bitch, but that was beside the point. Cute haircut, sort of coifed inwards at the bottom, short but not too short. Not the sort of thing one normally associates with an assassin. Gwen figured it was a $150 haircut, easy. Roger, on the other hand, was evaluating her underwear. He really wanted to know for sure if it was silk.

Gwen knew Roger was thinking of asking the woman if she wanted a cup of coffee, and how she wanted it. Lucky for him he didn't do that. Gwen still had her gun within reach.

Both of them knew the duct tape by this time must be getting uncomfortable. The woman hadn't said anything for a while, wonder of wonders, hadn't asked for the duct tape to be loosened, and hadn't asked for a cup of coffee with eggs and potatoes, so she was playing her part to some degree at least. You know, the assassin part.

"Did you come here to kill us?" Gwen asked again. She said this off-handedly as she poured herself a second cup. The woman squirmed a little, and so did Roger. That's quite a question to ask someone.

"Can I have a cup of coffee," the woman asked. "That smells so darn good, and I've been up all night. It's Kenyan, right? I love that smell." Roger smiled at this, which earned him a glare from Gwen.

"You can't have any coffee until you tell us if you came here to kill us."

The caffeine was working on Roger and he was feeling feisty, even if it was 5:30am. He asked Gwen, "So if she says she did come here to kill us, you're going to reward her with our $30-per-pound Kenyan coffee?" He said this with a straight face, around the corner of which peeked a smile. He loved to tease his wife once in a while.

"$30 a pound," the woman said. "You mean per kilo, right?"

"Per pound," Gwen said, with undue emphasis, taking out on the woman what she wanted to take out on Roger. Smart ass.

The conversation with, er, interrogation of, this person was going nowhere. Gwen knew instinctively that Roger was trying to tell if the woman was wearing perfume. The little runt actually was sniffing, which infuriated Gwen. Roger was saved from some serious abuse by the appearance of The Deneuve, who came into the kitchen, followed by the dog and an American mutt cat. Ever since a dustup with the Russian blues, the June's cat had refused to sit on the counter with them.

Catherine looked at the woman, sitting in her underwear, duct tapped to the chair, and then at the three guns on the counter next to the sugar bowl. She said, "No solution yet, dears? I tried to get back to sleep, but first with Roger entering my room in the middle of the night, and then seeing both of you earlier, the way you were, I couldn't." Catherine went over to the two cats sitting on the counter and touched the top of their heads, which elicited a melodious "Caooh". A few days earlier Gwen had told her the story of the appearance of the Russian blue cats, how they had belonged to the cook of the container ship on which four Russians criminals had been smuggled into the country, the criminals being partners of the Junes. Catherine loved the "Caooh" sound, and got it every time she touched the cats. Those cats know a quality human when they see one.

She helped herself to coffee, and sat down at the counter. Then she looked at the almost naked woman sitting in the chair. Tied to the chair. Catherine said to her, "You're wearing OPIUM, aren't you dear?"

The woman didn't say anything, but sat starring at The Deneuve, mesmerized.

Roger looked smug with this confirmation of what he suspected. Gwen looked disgusted, like, what assassin worth her salt wears Yves Saint Laurent perfume out on a job. Famous perfume, expensive perfume. Gwen wondered what she wore when she was trying to seduce a man, if she wore OPIUM out on a job.

When Catherine Deneuve was in the room, everything in the room that was equal to or greater than the size of an electron paid attention to her. In this case the three cats, the dog, the Russian assassin, and the Junes all stopped thinking, and just waited for her to talk. The woman in the chair seemed very relaxed despite the fact that she now had been duct taped in one position for an hour, and Gwen realized she had some toughness to her. The tape pulling on the hairs of her arms for that length of time must be uncomfortable.

Deneuve said, "If you wear OPIUM when you're sneaking around someone's house with a gun in the middle of the night, what do you wear when you're trying to get a man's attention?"

The woman said, "I don't need perfume to get a man's attention."

Catherine looked at Gwen and said, "Oh honey, I like this one, don't you?"

Gwen decided not to make the point that the woman may be an assassin, and may be in the house to kill someone, but smiled instead. She could see The Deneuve's point. Roger didn't say anything because he knew Gwen wouldn't appreciate it.

Catherine sat for a while staring at the woman. She had finished her coffee and was debating a second cup. She stared some more. The dog came over to her at the counter and put his chin on her thigh. She petted the soft head, and looked down expectantly. No "Caooh" was emitted. She smiled at the dog. When she looked up again at the woman she said, "Roger, would you make me a nice English breakfast, please, I'm hungry. Thinking always makes me hungry, and a croissant just won't supply the joie de vivre I'm going to need this morning. The English do a lot of things wrong, like the clothes they wear, but they're better thinkers than us French, and that's because they know how to make breakfast." She smiled at Roger, who automatically got up and went to the refrigerator. Eggs, potatoes, and bacon soon were in play.

While Roger was doing this, Catherine pulled her chair close to the bound woman. She looked at Gwen, who knew it meant she too should bring a chair close to the woman. They sat on either side of her, with their backs to the stove where Roger was working. The Deneuve's left arm was next to the woman's left arm, and Gwen's right arm was near the woman's right arm. They had her surrounded.

Catherine looked hard at the woman's eyes for a minute, and then reclined, her neck supported by the top of the chair back. She closed her eyes and said, "Gwen, dear, do you know what Rudyard Kipling said about writing? It is a great precept, and it applies equally well to thinking. It applies to solving problems. He said, 'drift, wait, obey'. That's what we have to do with this problem." She looked at the woman and said, "Do you Russians know Rudyard Kipling?"

The woman shook her head, No.

Catherine asked her, "Do you understand what he meant by, 'Drift, wait, obey'?"

The woman shook her head, No.

"The three of us have a problem to solve, and we're going to solve it together. Gwen is going to tell me her story about Russia, which is why you are here in Charleston, creeping around in middle of the night, carrying a gun and wearing one of my favorite perfumes. You have a really big problem, because you've threatened Gwen, and she doesn't like that. You're going to have to pay a price to her, and I'm not sure what that will be. But it will be something, that's for certain. You are the one sitting tied to a chair. Gwen has stripped you of your clothes and your dignity. Why she did not strip you of your life I don't know. If you threatened the man I love, that's what I would have done. When I know what happened in Russia to bring you here, then we will sit and drift, and we will sit and wait, and we will sit and obey. And then we will solve our problem."

She looked at Gwen. "Tell me about Russia."

# Chapter 5 – They Drift, Wait, Obey

As Roger chopped potatoes, Gwen leaned across the front of the woman and spoke softly. The OPIUM was a distraction, but she focused on what Catherine asked her to do. She told the tale of going to Saint Petersburg with Roger and a man named Little Jinny Blistov. There they met some high powered men and women, including a woman who worked at the Hermitage Museum, and colluded with them to steal art and artifacts from the museum. And they didn't just collude, they stole. They stole Grade C stuff, not from the museum itself, but from the storage warehouses. And the high powered Russian guys got the stuff into shipping containers, and got the containers onto a ship that came to Charleston, and the Junes got the stuff into a warehouse.

Catherine said, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You're the hot pair, aren't you. I knew there was something special about you when we met." The fact that The Deneuve is an atheist adds a certain weight to her exclamation. She looked over at the cats sitting on the counter near the pantry, and looked inquiringly at Gwen.

"They were on the container ship with the goods, and we have to take care of them until the ship's cook decides he wants to live in Charleston."

Catherine decided not to pursue that item, and Gwen went on, "Also on the ship with the stolen goods and the cats were four Russians: two gay former Mariinsky ballet dancers who helped us steal the stuff, Little Jinny, and his girlfriend from the Hermitage. That whole thing, until NOW," glaring at the woman in black underwear, "was going fine." The woman squirmed a little, but that could be because she had been taped to the chair she was sitting in for two hours. Gotta hand it to her though, not a single complaint.

Gwen thought that was enough information for Catherine at this point. She didn't go into anything about the other members of the Hermitage caper team, the two wealthy Russian couples who now lived part time in big houses on the Charleston beach. She sat back in the kitchen chair and continued to glare at the woman, setting her mind to form an opinion on the virtues of OPIUM as a perfume.

The question could be asked, why were the two women discussing this information IN FRONT OF THE ASSASSIN? Aren't Gwen and Catherine the interrogators? Aren't they the ones trying to break the nerve of the woman in black underwear? Why are they giving up all the information the woman presumably was sent to obtain by stealth and intimidation, and quite possibly by torturing the Junes (and anyone else she found in the house, pets included)? What kind of interrogation is this, with the smell frying potatoes and onions wafting across the kitchen?

One possible answer should be obvious: Gwen and Catherine plan to execute the woman and bury her out in the June's garden. Therefore, they don't care what the woman hears. That would be the easy solution to the problem. Give her one last good English breakfast of eggs, potatoes sautéed with onions, bacon, and as much $30-per-pound Kenyan coffee as she can drink, and then POWEE. Take the woman's Walther, blow her brains out in the kitchen sink, and then, out to the garden with her. They could get Little Jinny Blistov over here to dig the hole. He wouldn't mind the job. Probably done it before, in fact.

While this conversation was going on between the two women, Roger was preparing the food. But he was reasonably intelligent, and could do two things at once: chop potatoes and scramble eggs, and wonder what the hell the two babes were talking about, right in front of the woman in black. They were supposed to be getting information FROM the woman about who had sent her and what she was after, and here they were GIVING the woman information. But in France, just before the team had traveled to Russia for the Hermitage heist, he had met The Deneuve, and had seen her operate, and had seen his wife form a weird bond with her, and he knew they had special powers that could influence mere mortals like him. So while he wondered what they were doing over there, he had faith they would solve the problem. He went back to his chopping, and got back to wondering about the woman's underwear and her perfume. So that was OPIUM. It was killer. But then, THAT woman could wear essence of fish perfume, and be interesting.

Wait a minute. Just as Roger was about to put the double thick strips of bacon into the pan, the thought occurred to him: they're talking in front of the woman because they're going to execute her and bury her out in the garden. He turned around, and all three of them saw him looking at them very strangely, so Gwen asked, "Yes, dear?"

"You're not thinking of, of....of?"

The three women looked at each other and giggled. The woman in black shook her head. Gwen said, "No, dear, we're not going to bump her off and bury her out in the garden, don't worry." And they giggled again.

Roger breathed normally again, and went back to the bacon. He said, "Food's ready in ten minutes, so finish up over there." He wondered how the woman was going to eat with her arms tapped to the chair. Maybe he would get to sit close to her and feed her.

So Gwen and Catherine had ten minutes to figure out what to do with the woman in black undies. They had to stop fooling around and get down to business. Maybe it was that perfume that was distracting them; Gwen agreed with Roger, it was killer stuff. She would have to get some. Without saying anything to each other, Gwen and Catherine knew they had to perform, and now. Both of them slumped back so their necks rested on the chair backs, closed their eyes, and went into the creative trance, ala Rudyard Kipling.

The Russian woman didn't close her eyes. She watched the other two and wondered what was going on. She badly wanted a cup of coffee.

At the end of ten minutes, just before Roger said, "Food's ready," the two women opened their eyes, sat up in the chairs, stretched, and smiled at each other. The solution to the problem was theirs.

# Chapter 6 – Getting to The Woman's Story

Gwen got up and moved the kitchen table into a corner. She and Catherine then dragged the woman's chair to the table, and positioned it so she was on one side, with three chairs opposite her. The woman now had her back deep into the corner of the kitchen, and Gwen and Catherine pushed the table into the woman, trapping her. Roger watched this with interest. Catherine transferred dishes, silverware, and food from the counter to the table, and set four places. It now was 6:30am, almost three hours since the dog had growled in the bedroom. Gwen picked up the three guns and took them out of the kitchen.

The eggs, potatoes, and bacon were dished out, four helpings, and four cups were filled with Kenyan coffee. Catherine nodded at Gwen, who took a boning knife from a drawer, leaned over the table, and carefully cut the duct tape binding the woman's arms to the chair. She placed the knife back in the drawer, and sat down in her chair. The woman raised her arms above the table and massaged her wrists. Gwen pushed the table farther into the woman's chest.

Roger felt a little nervous. Hadn't this woman penetrated into their home in the middle of the night, armed and dressed in black, intent on perpetrating malice against them? What if she is some kind of special ops person, who can kill just by looking at you? What if she could pick the table up and throw it away, killing the three of them with two kicks and one good karate chop? What if she had special weapons in her undies? Roger had offered to check that out but Gwen had vetoed the idea. She could be armed to the teeth with high tech Russian weaponry. Roger thought he had good reason to be nervous.

After massaging her arms the woman went straight for the coffee. She downed the cup in three swallows and held it out to Roger for more. What, was he the waiter all of a sudden? Catherine and Gwen looked at him, and he went and got the pot. After filling her cup he asked, "Ah, isn't she an assassin who came here to kill us? Why is she loose? She probably can kill us just by looking at us."

Catherine sipped at her second cup, and watched the woman, who had ignored Roger's rather pointed comments and attacked the eggs with gusto. She agreed that French breakfasts were for wimps, and that a good English breakfast led to excellence in thinking. If Sartre had been eating English breakfasts instead of croissants and jam, he wouldn't have come up with all the crap he did. Existentialism, my ass. She was feeling feisty, now that she was loose and had some caffeine in her. Catherine watched the woman eat for a few moments before answering Roger's questions, forgiving the woman for stuffing too many potatoes into her mouth. The girl had had a rough morning. Rough night, for that matter.

"I don't know if she's an assassin," Roger, "or if she can kill us by looking at us. I just know she's not going to kill us now. Right, honey?" she said, watching the woman eat.

The woman nodded.

Gwen was all for this magical stuff The Deneuve did. She really believed it, because she was part of it. But that didn't mean she was going to trust her life to it, so she kept the table pressed into the woman's chest. And she wasn't eating or drinking much just yet, either. She was watched like a fucking hawk. Roger believed The Deneuve, and started stuffing eggs and bacon into his face. He too had had a hard morning. So three people ate and one person watched. Gwen had gotten over the giggles associated with the idea of killing the woman and burying her in the garden, and was vigilant again. Gwen couldn't help, though, nibbling on a strip of bacon.

The woman finished eating first, Roger second, and Catherine third. Catherine wasn't used to eating such large breakfasts, but she enjoyed it. When they were done, Roger looked at Gwen, telling her he would watch the undies, er, the woman, while Gwen ate. He put his hands on the edge of the table and applied pressure to the woman's chest while Gwen chowed down.

While his wife was eating, Roger asked Catherine if she and Gwen had done the Rudyard Kipling thing? Catherine nodded. Roger was the one who originally knew about Kipling, having learned it years ago when he first started writing romance fiction. It always worked for him, and he had taught it to Gwen. Gwen sometimes used it on the firing range. She would close her eyes, drift, and wait. When the impulse to fire came, she obeyed, and would empty a full magazine into the center of the target.

Soon Gwen was satiated and pushed her chair away from the table. It was time for the story.

Oh, no, not yet time for the story. Time to feed the cats and the dog. Roger?

Roger was happy to feed the dog, because it was his dog. And he didn't mind feeding the mutt American cat, because the cat once had caught a rat that had had the temerity to emerge out of the Charleston wharves and intrude into the June's house. But so far he had not had to feed the Russkie cats. Gwen, Guignard, Jinny and even Gale, the June's friend, would feed the blues. Roger didn't even know how or what to feed them. He supposed they ate caviar or something absurd like that. Fresh fish at the very least. He never had seen them not sitting on the counter.

He asked Gwen, "What do the hoity cats eat?"

"There's some caviar in the bottom of the fridge."

The Russian woman got Gwen's joke first, and burst out laughing. Then Catherine got it, and smiled. Then Roger got it. Slowly.

Gwen said, "The hoitys eat the same as ours. But they won't eat off the floor. Gotta put it up on the counter."

"WHAT? They've been eating on the counter the last six months?" He spooned some cat food out of a can into two small dishes, and put it on the floor under the counter on which the blues were sitting. The cats did not even look at the food in the dishes. They did not give it even a hint of a glance; they just looked at Roger. Once before he thought he had detected a smirk on their faces, but not being used to Russian cat body language, he wasn't sure. Now he was sure. Those were smirks.

The hell with them, let 'em go hungry.

Ok, now it was time for the woman's story. Jesus. Woken up in the middle of the night, Gwen on point, female assassin, guns, duct tape, black underwear, breakfast, inscrutable cats. Jesus.

# Chapter 7 – The Woman's Story

Gwen motioned to Roger to come to the table and keep pressure on the woman. She left the kitchen, and returned holding her Glock, which the woman noticed. Roger pulled the table away and the woman stood up for the first time in three and a half hours. She stretched like a, like a Russian blue cat. When the cats saw her do this, they both stretched, too, in unison. This was the first time in six months Roger ever had seen them do anything other than sit on the kitchen counter and look regal. They then assumed their standard pose, Roger thinking his mutt cat couldn't stretch like that. Roger, Gwen, and Catherine all watched the Russian woman stretch, and it was a sight to behold. She had a body that was half Olympic cross-country skier and half Estee Lauder cover girl. Jinny was gonna flip out when he saw this number. For the first time in many years Roger thought seriously about contradicting his wife, because he knew she was going to suggest, well demand, that the woman get her clothes on. Quickly he came up with a plan in which he would volunteer to get the woman's clothes, and come back saying they contained super-sophisticated high tech weapons, built into the fabric of the clothing, that couldn't be removed by anyone other than a CIA high tech weapons ordnance officer. They would have to get the story out of her in her current condition. This was just a fantasy, of course; he didn't actually voice it, much as he wanted to.

Gwen motioned with the gun that they should go into the living room. On the way, she picked up the woman outer clothes that were on the hallway floor, and brought up the rear. In the living room she threw the clothes at the women, who put them on, Roger hating to see that.

When the woman finished dressing Gwen put her on the couch and motioned to Catherine and Roger to sit in chairs, facing her. A strange sound came out of Roger's mouth, and Gwen thought it was his disappointment at seeing the woman getting dressed. It wasn't. Roger was pointing to the baby grand piano, on which sat the two blue cats. This was the first time either Gwen or Roger had seen them anywhere other than on the kitchen counter near the pantry. How did they get there? Why were they there? Roger thought, what's going on?

First he had met The Deneuve, who exhibited subtle magical powers, who then had taught them to his wife, who over the last six months had been teaching them to Slevov, one of the two wealthy Russian women who had helped the team steal the Hermitage artifacts, and who lived part time in a big Sullivan's Island beach house. Now, here was another woman who apparently had this stuff, 'cause, otherwise, why would the cats stretch like her and then follow her into the living room and sit on the piano watching her? Life was simpler before he got involved with Russians. He had more money now due to them, which was good, but his life was more complex. Never before had a woman dressed in black, wearing OPIUM perfume, sneaked into his house in the middle of the night, holding a Walther PPS. Roger was disappointed that he had not been able to determine, conclusively, that the woman's underwear was silk, as he suspected, but he sure was looking forward to the next few minutes. Here he was, sitting in a room with two, and possibly three, special women; with the two inordinately special women ready to grill the third, potentially, special woman. He sat back and waited for something unusual to happen.

Gwen handed her gun to Roger, got up, and moved the heavy coffee table close to the woman's legs so it barely touched them, effectively pinning her there, though in a gentle way. Gwen was not taking any chances, and Catherine smiled at her protégé. Gwen took her gun back and sat down, letting the gun rest casually on her thigh. There was a round in the chamber, racked into place earlier that morning, at 3:45am, and the safety was off. 'Here we go', thought Roger.

"What's your name?" asked Gwen. The woman shook her head ever so slightly, which set her hair in motion. She looked down at the table touching the front of her legs, while the sofa touched the back of her legs. No answer. Gwen waited a minute, and of course neither Catherine nor Roger said anything. Gwen was on point again, the other two covering the flanks. Gwen slowly got up and went over to the baby grand on which sat the two cats. She looked at the woman, then looked at the cats. She raised the gun and began scratching one of the cats under its chin with the sharp little pointy site on the front of the barrel. The cat said, "Caooh." Then Gwen did the same thing with the other cat. "Caooh." Gwen, just momentarily, allowed the end of the barrel to point to the head of the cat. Then she came back and sat down in the chair facing the Russian woman. Gwen had Thespian tendencies, no doubt about it, evidently having rubbed off The Deneuve and onto her. Hadn't the girls already established the fact they weren't going to kill the woman and bury her in the garden. Roger loved it when his wife played games under stressful conditions. Catherine smiled at this metaphorical pantomime. Roger really hoped Gwen wouldn't follow up her act with, "We can do this the hard way or the easy way," and he didn't think she would. Usually she was very original.

Gwen looked at Catherine and said, "We only have two options, and one of them is not viable, right?" Catherine nodded. "We're going to trust her, right?" Catherine nodded. "She's not going to come after us again, right?" Catherine nodded.

Gwen looked at Roger. "Is this ok with you, dear?"

Roger liked it when his wife played games under stress, but he wasn't too sure about this one. He looked at Catherine, who sent him a powerful, positive, penetrating vibe, which diffused within him. It was a feeling of surety. He looked over at the woman, who was looking at Catherine, staring at Catherine. Roger knew if he rationally tried to figure out what was going on, he would get nowhere, so he closed his eyes and let his mind drift. The woman. Who was she? Who sent her to the June's house? How did The Deneuve know she no longer was a threat? What was the woman going to become? Is her underwear silk or not? These ephemeral thoughts drifted through and around him, and then vanished. He was left with intuition, and he let it flow through him. It led him to trust his wife. He opened his eyes, looked at Gwen, and telegraphed his answer to her question: "Yes, ok."

Gwen got up and went to the piano. She put her gun on its top, next to the cats. They were too hoity to beg for more chin scratching, but Roger bet they wanted some. She returned to her chair and pulled the table away from the woman's legs. The woman crossed her legs and rubbed one of her shins. Roger liked that. Gwen said, "You're in with us. You understand?" She nodded. "We will give to you, and you will give to us. Understand?" The woman nodded. "Do not turn against us." The woman nodded. "Who are you? Why did you come here?"

The woman took a minute before she answered. "You know I can't tell you that. If I told you, then you would think if someone got to me, and pressured me to tell them about you, I might do that. The only thing I will say is that now I am yours." And she looked at Catherine and Roger.

Gwen asked, "Are you Russian?"

The woman laughed and said, "Of course I'm Russian. You know that. Why ask?"

Roger had a question he wanted to ask her, but he refrained.

Catherine remained impassive. She was beautiful when she was impassioned, beautiful when she was thoughtful, and beautiful when she was like this.

Gwen said, "Ok, we'll demand nothing about your past, even though you know stuff about us. You weren't too good sneaking around our house. Is there anything you can do right, other than wear perfume?" Gwen didn't mention anything about the dog growling and alerting them to her sneaking around. No use giving away all their secrets.

The woman smiled a little smile, and made a sound. It was something between a hiss and a click of the tongue and a squeak, definitely Cyrillic in origin. Instantly the two Russian blue cats jumped off the piano and leapt onto the back of the sofa. One positioned itself to the left of the woman's head, and one positioned itself to the right of the woman's head. They sat staring ahead of them at Roger, Catherine, and Gwen. Roger thought, "Jesus." Then the woman looked at the doorway to the living room, and loudly said a Russian word. She looked back at them and waited. In seven seconds they heard the sound of dog paws on the stairs, coming down from the second floor. The June's dog came into the living room, looked at Roger, and went to the woman, looking at her. The woman smiled at the dog and touched its head. Then she smiled at the others. Roger thought, "Jesus. My dog is now a Russkie."

Catherine smiled and said, "We gotta winner here, Gwen."

Roger thought, damn, first Catherine shows up with these powers, and then my wife gets them, and then Slevov, and now this one, who doesn't even have a name, and who now controls my dog. For a split second he felt inferior, but then he got a grip. He thought about all he had left now was his mutt American cat. He bet this woman couldn't get it to sit on the sofa behind her head. His cat would remain independent, as cats are meant to be. He hoped.

# Chapter 8 – Another Russian in the House

Little Jinny Blistov and his girlfriend Guignard came up the eight brick steps whose risers were covered in fig vine, to the June's front door. Guignard rang the chime. The door was opened by a beautiful woman who said, "Da?" Guignard looked at Jinny, who was looking at the woman. When Jinny looked at Guignard, she was looking at the woman. Guignard asked aloud, "Are the Junes home?" Jinny asked himself privately, 'What do we have here?'

The woman stood aside and they entered. The woman hung back to let them go ahead. Jinny hung back to let her go ahead, after she closed the door. The woman hung back; Jinny hung back. Jinny had a feeling about this person, and on principle he wasn't going to turn his back on her. No way. She got the picture, smiled at him, and went ahead to the kitchen.

In the kitchen they found Roger, Gwen, Catherine, Gale, three cats, and a dog. Good thing it was a big kitchen. Guignard was surprised to see the June's Americano cat and dog in the kitchen because after the dust up between the Russkie cats and the June's pets, the June's pets had been scarce. Now the whole family was here again. Jinny and Guignard kissed Catherine and sat down. The first thing Jinny noticed were the three handguns sitting on the counter over near the blue cats. He recognized the Glock and the Beretta, but the Walther was a stranger. He knew the Junes didn't own a Walther. He looked from the guns, to the woman, to Roger to Gwen. It now was 5:30pm, and the woman had been a resident of the household since she arrived uninvited at 3:45am, fourteen hours earlier. Everyone was sipping a glass of low alcohol German Riesling. He knew he wasn't going to let the woman get behind him, and positioned himself over near the guns, a move not lost on the woman.

The woman said, "Catherine dear, please tell the new boy I'm not going to kill him or anyone else in the room."

Jinny said, "Catherine dear, please tell the new girl I make no such promise regarding her."

Gwen said, "Down boy," just as the doorbell chimed again. The woman went to answer it, seeming to fit right into the household routine. A minute later Peter and Pater came into the kitchen, with the woman behind, Jinny saying tsk tsk at this personal security oversight on their part. Immediately they checked out the woman's legs, trying to see if she might be a ballet dancer. They needed some Russian blood and experience in their new ballet academy lineup.

Jinny, Guignard, Peter, Pater, and Gale had been to the June's house the day before to meet Catherine. Jinny previously had met her in France, and adored her. Catherine was in Charleston for four days after a few days in NYC representing the French embassy at a United Nations function. She would leave for Los Angeles in a couple of days for a meeting with Steven Spielberg, who was planning a documentary on the cultural world of Champagne. She had come for a short visit to see her special friend Gwen, and as of very early this morning, she was involved in an invasion of the June household, the mediation between the invader and the Junes, and had learned about the Hermitage heist. She was finding Charleston to be not only charming, but also interesting, for a small town. She had made Roger promise that tomorrow he would take her to the warehouse where the remaining Hermitage antiques and artifacts were stashed. Right now, though, she was surrounded by five Russians, three Americans, two Russian cats, an American cat, and an American dog, and she wondered if anyone else was coming. The doorbell chime rang.

The woman hopped to it and returned with Slevov Rodstra and Richard Adams. Add another Russian and another American to the list of those present and wondering who the very attractive woman is with a Russian accent. Another bottle of the great German white wine was opened, and Slevov and Richard were introduced to The Deneuve. They found it interesting that they were not introduced to the woman. In fact, everyone found it interesting that they were not introduced to the woman, who was sitting, sipping wine, with the June's dog's head resting on her knee. None of the new arrivals had noticed the three guns on the counter, which just goes to show you the high level of awareness that Jinny Blistov carries around with him. At this point Gwen realized two things. She had to introduce the woman, and she had to get rid of the guns. She was worried the Mayor and his wife might be the next to ring at the front door. She telegraphed the message to Jinny to stash the guns in the drawer with the good silverware, which he did unobtrusively. Now to the harder task.

What made the task hard was that the woman refused to tell them her name. She said that was part of the past, and they all had agreed not to demand of her an explanation of her past or her early morning mission. Roger thought she was being an obstinate bitch on this point, but Catherine and Gwen realized she was playing a game. This former assassin had a sense of humor and a sense of fun. So what was Gwen to do now?

Everyone in the room except Catherine, Richard, and Gale had been part of the Hermitage heist. Recently, ever since her husband had returned to Saint Petersburg for business, Helstof had been spending time with Richard, so he had become de facto a part of the group. Catherine now knew the Hermitage story, Gale had gleaned some of it because she had spent so much time getting the Russians acclimated to Charleston culture, and she was Gwen's close friend. This group had bonded into an extended family. So, Gwen decided to come clean on this new development, or at least part of it. No harm in leaving a little mystery for some of them to dwell on.

She said, "We're going to have some fun. Roger, keep the wine flowing. Gale, Slev, think about hors d'oeuvres." She looked around the room, not forgetting the Russian cats, which looked back at her, ready to join in. "We have a new friend, and we're going to play a little game. We're going to give her a new name. No one gets to eat anything until we have a name that everyone likes. And, that she likes." Gwen smiled at the woman. The woman looked down, a little shy, can you believe it? A shy, former assassin. That's Charleston's cultural influence for you. Earlier that afternoon, after a nap in the third floor guest room, the woman had showered and Gwen had given her clean clothes. The woman's black clothes were a bit sweaty, given that she had been duct taped to a chair and fiercely interrogated for three hours earlier in the day. Gwen had given her a white outfit, symbolic of her new station in life. Perhaps it was the white clothes that now added an element of shyness to her persona.

Gwen went on, "Our new friend is going to stay with us for a while. She's looking for some new friends and new adventures, and as part of that, we're going to give her a new name. Just like we did with Guignard."

Guignard was not named Guignard by her parents the day she was born in Saint Petersburg. They gave her the name Plouriva, and it was Plouriva that had been part of the Hermitage heist team. It was not until she arrived in Charleston, some six months earlier, that Gwen decided Plouriva wouldn't do as a name for her new life in South Carolina, and the team had renamed her Guignard. Everyone loved it. Now they were going to do the same thing with the assassin. The former assassin.

Jinny immediately raised his hand. "Jinny dear, you got to rename Guignard, remember. Let someone else have a try," Gwen said.

"I was going to suggest 'Assasseen', with the accent on the third syllable, but you're right, I'll hold back for a while," he said.

Guignard got a rolling pin out of a nearby drawer and mimicked conking him on the head.

Richard Adams spoke up, which surprised Gwen. He asked, "What is she going to do for a living now that she, presumably, has given up....you know?"

"Do you dance?" asked Pater.

"Until this morning I was pretty good at dancing out of the way of trouble, but now my confidence in that department is shot," she said.

"Do you like nice clothes, like to dress up?" asked Gale, the fashionista par excellence. Maybe we can get you a job as a local model."

Roger piped up, "Yeah, a lingerie model, that would work."

Catherine, generally the soul of composure and restraint, saved Gwen the trouble of sanctioning her husband by shooting a stinging, Deneuvian glare in Roger's direction.

Roger had the fortitude to say, "But Gwen said we're supposed to have some fun."

Jinny wanted to side with Roger, poor baby, but he didn't want to preclude any chance he might have of naming the new team member. He had a good one cooked up, so he remained silent.

Peter wanted to suggest the name 'Rosa Kleb', but after watching Roger get stomped for his joke, he hesitated. 'Rosa Kleb' was the ugly, female Russian security chief who had poisoned metal barbs secreted in the tips of her shoes, and she was a character in the only decent James Bond movie ever made, From Russia With Love. Peter raised his hand, and when Gwen looked at him he started to say 'Ro....', but didn't, discretion becoming the greater form of valor.

Gale said, "'Natasha' would be a great stage name for a model. With her accent, killer. I vote 'Natasha'."

Gwen looked around the room for someone to second this suggestion. When no one did, Gwen suggested that as the goal was to integrate the woman into Charleston society, a name that was not flaming Russian might work better.

Gale said, "When you're flogging lingerie, you want flaming. The more flaming the better." She sat back and looked at Roger, who offered a look of sympathy and support, but didn't speak up.

Peter had another idea, and this time he voiced it. "What about 'Lechat Noir'. That's a nice French Huguenot name, isn't it, and we know about Huguenots in Charleston. She could be one of them and join the Charleston Huguenot Society. There's all kinds of words around Charleston like 'Lechat'. 'Legare St' and 'Lestemps Park'. And it would be good for lingerie modeling, right, Gale?"

Gale said, "Very hot name, very hot."

Gwen looked kindly at him and said, "Where did this name come from? It's very interesting."

Even though Gwen said this gently, Peter could tell it was a challenge, so he became a little more inhibited. He said, "Well, because she came into your house at night, secretly, in her black underwear, silent as a cat." He looked at Gwen, and then over at his special friend Pater, who smiled at him.

The Deneuve broke out with a laugh, "Le Chat Noir", she burbled in her sexy French way, "what a nice name, and very risqué, no? Peter, you are a dear boy, very imaginative." And she laughed again.

Gwen had to ask, again gently, "Peter, who told you she came into our house? I mean, that just happened this morning, and you just arrived a little while ago." Peter didn't answer. "Peter, who told you she came into our house in her underwear, black underwear?" Peter looked over at Pater for help. Pater was even more intimidated by Gwen that Peter was, so he wasn't saying anything. Peter regressed almost into silence. He managed an, "Umm."

Naturally, Gwen looked at Jinny. She looked at Jinny for everything that happened to the group that was odd or startling or surprising or fantastic. Inside that five foot four, 200 pound concrete frame of a body, Jinny was a man of many facets. Some of the facets are dull, but some show brightly.

Jinny said, "If I thought up that name, I wouldn't give it away to Peter. I'd propose it myself. 'Lechat Noir'. That's a great name. But don't look at me for telling Peter about the babe. I didn't know she came into your house this morning wearing only black underwear. And she carried a gun?" He looked over at the woman, who remained mute.

So Gwen was faced with three yes votes on 'Lechat Noir', from Peter, Jinny, and Catherine. She had to nip this one in the bud, but first she had to ferret out who the snitch was that broadcast to the world that the woman came into their home uninvited and ended up in her underwear. Her head swiveled towards her husband.

Roger coolly poured himself another glass of Donnhoff Riesling, and sipped. Richard, Peter, Pater, and Jinny all watched this one with great interest, having withered under Gwen's gaze. Catherine, Slevov, and Guignard also watched, wondering if Roger would squirm. Gwen had said they were going to have fun, and this was fun. Not for Roger, maybe, but fun for the others. They waited.

"Does anyone else think that German Riesling is the greatest white wine on the planet? I do. Quality to cost ratio is unbelievable." That's what Roger offered in answer to his wife's unspoken question: did you tell the whole world this woman invaded our house this morning, and did you exaggerate to the point of claiming she did so in black underwear?

Gwen didn't speak now, either, she just intensified the look she was projecting to and through her husband.

He said, "Ok, I might have mentioned something along those lines to Gale when she called this afternoon." Gwen turned the psychological pressure up a notch, just with her gaze. "She wanted to know what we were doing this evening, and I said having a family meeting, and yes, she and Richard were invited."

Gwen said, "So you did thereby tell the whole world about our uninvited guest, and you did exaggerate about her underwear, is that right, dear?"

Roger actually did squirm, which brought audible snickers from Catherine, Slevov, and Guignard. "I didn't really say anything. Gale said stuff and I might have answered, that's all."

It was a long time since Gwen had seen her husband act like a wuss. She made allowance for the fact that he had been up since 3:45am, and for the fact that he had spent several hours staring at the beautiful woman, bound in a chair, sitting in her underwear in the kitchen, mixing the smell of her fabulous perfume with that of $30-a-pound Kenyan coffee. She remembered that all men are susceptible to certain forces of nature that break them down into little boys. She hated to see this happen to her husband, but what's a woman to do?

She said, "Roger, are you blaming this on Gale? Are you saying you told Gale a strange woman dressed only in black underwear, invaded our home in the middle of the night? And you told her because she made you? Is that what you're saying?"

All nine people in the room, and the two Russian cats, were smiling now, enjoying Gwen playfully putting the screws to her husband. The Americano cat and dog remained expressionless, faithful, to their master.

Gwen shifted her gaze over to Gale, and the smile disappeared from Gale's face. "What?" she said. "Yeah, I made a few calls after Roger told me the story. What do you want from me? I'm a socialite. That's what I do. A Russian woman named 'Natasha' infiltrates the Charleston home of the famous Roger and Gwen June, middle of the night, gun in hand, dressed in black Italian lingerie retailing for $200, intent unknown, world famous French actress and cultural icon there as a house guest, theft of purebred Russian blue cats worth $50,000 suspected. Of course I told people. Leave it off, Gwenny."

Gwenny enjoyed Gale's defense as much as the others, and decided to leave it off. Time to get back to the goal of naming the woman, who, by the way, was enjoying all this banter immensely, and was thinking this was the group for her, and she definitely had made the right decision in betraying her former associates.

Gwen said, "Let's get back to the name. I'm getting hungry. Somebody start thinking about dinner. So far we've had 'Assasseen' (accent on the third syllable), 'Natasha', and 'Lechat Noir' as suggestions. Two out of three weren't bad, but they ain't flying. We've got to give her a name that's going to work in Charleston. Who's next?"

Richard spoke up. "How about 'Glissy'? I named a character in one of my stories that, and she's a real pistol. It's short for glissando, which is a beautiful word that's a term from music. It means to slip gracefully from one pitch to another. The word's Italian, and her expensive underwear is Italian, right, so it works good. 'Glissy'." After all the previous semi-salacious talk, Richard really was wondering about the woman's dressing habits. Black, wow, and $200.

Gwen looked around the room. Catherine was saying, "'Glissy', 'Glissy'."

Slevov was saying, "'Glissy', 'Glissy'."

Jinny was saying, "'Glissy', 'Glissy'."

Everyone was saying, "'Glissy', 'Glissy'."

Catherine gave the French version of thumbs up. Slevov gave the Russian version, and the ballet boys and Guignard nodded. Gale said, "Not as good as 'Lechat Noir', but I can live with it."

Roger blew a kiss to his wife, and thought, 'Thank God that's over.'

Jinny was the holdout. He stood there, leaning against the drawer where he had stashed the guns, eyes closed, mouthing the word 'Glissy', over and over again. Everyone watched him. Everyone was hungry and was thinking, 'What the hell, let's eat.' It looked to everyone like Jinny had gone into some kind of catatonic trance. Guignard watched along with the others, thinking, 'What the bloody hell?' She opened the drawer and again took out the rolling pin, but this time she used it, whacking Jinny in the stomach, which was like hitting a pine tree. But Jinny got the message and opened his eyes. He looked around the room, and finally said, "'Glissy', what a beautiful name." He looked hard at the woman and thought, 'Beautiful on the outside, but who is she on the inside?'

# Chapter 9 – Events at the End of a Long and Exciting Day

The whole naming thing had not exactly been heavy lifting. For the most part, it had been what Gwen wanted it to be: fun. Still, everyone felt like a load was off now that the woman, by unanimous consent, had been anointed and appointed Glissy. No last name, of course, but why worry about details. Delegating a first name was a real accomplishment, deserving of food and drink.

Roger left off with the Riesling and got out several bottles of decent Champagne, non-vintage stuff, but good. Slev helped him with the white wine glasses. She had learned the Junes, like many wine aficionados, preferred serving Champagne in these, rather than in flutes. She preferred the old 1940s style Champagne glasses called coupes, that were wide and shallow, but she had to admit the Champagne tasted better in the white wine glasses, even if it didn't look as cool. Gale took control of the rest of the evening and shooed almost everyone out of the kitchen and into the living room. Gwen caught Jinny's eye and motioned towards the drawer with the guns in it. He understood she wanted him to take them out and lock them up. He seconded the notion. Roger worked the Champagne angle with help from Jinny (the three guns temporarily stuck in the back of his pants waistband) while Gale and Slev whipped up several large trays of munchies. In fifteen minutes all the food, wine, and people were in the living room. No one saw them in transit, but by the time everyone had found a seat, the two blue cats were sitting on the Steinway baby grand, and the Americano pets were there too. Jinny was sans guns, as on the way he had stopped in the downstairs study and locked them in the gun cabinet. He palmed the key to Gwen.

The natural order of things returned to the June world at this point, which meant The Deneuve became the center of attention. She functioned as the massive nucleus of the atom around which orbited all the small and ephemeral electrons. It had taken an eventful day to twist the order of things into an unnatural state, with the woman, aka Glissy, vying for everyone's attention. Now she was in her rightful place, orbiting around Deneuve with the other particles.

Catherine first asked Peter and Pater how their ballet academy was doing. Then she asked Slevov how her French cooking was going, and then she wanted to know about Richard's romance writing, and the fashion news from Gale, and from Guignard whether the Russian blue cats were expecting, effortlessly involving everyone in the conversation.

"Jinny dear," she said. "What do you know about Champagne?"

"It makes me feel horny," he said, looking at Guignard, who smiled in return.

Catherine burst out laughing, and said, "You have French blood in you somewhere, Jinn Jinn, and that is a very good thing. It makes me feel that way, too."

Everyone stopped their thinking. Everyone rested their emotions. Everyone nullified their internal intentions. They absorbed the fact they were sitting with Catherine Deneuve, and she was talking about sex. Sex and Champagne.

"Come over here, Jinny," she commanded. "Let's play. Roger, please pour me and Jinny another glass of this special wine." Jinny squeezed into the space on the sofa between her and Slevov, and thanked the Czars he had been to Pierre's Men's Salon earlier and had been shaved twice. There was barely a hint of shadow around the sides of his neck, below his ears. He looked at Gwen and grinned, almost like an idiot. She smiled, and was envious. Deneuve took a sip and looked Jinny in the eyes. She crossed her legs, letting her foot graze Jinny's ankle. Again her lips touched the rim of the glass, and again the liquid coated her tongue. She opened her mouth slightly, and Jinny could smell the fruity yeastiness of the wine, either from the glass or from her breath. If he had been suave, he would have sipped some himself, but he was a Russian junior league gangster, so he simply sat and absorbed the Deneuvian vibes.

Catherine put her arm on the back of the sofa, letting her hand drop to Jinny's shoulder. She touched him; she breathed on him; she sipped Champagne. He had not forgotten the touch of her foot against his ankle, and her eyes held his.

The others watched. It was as if she and Jinny were on the screen and the others were sitting in theater seats. The blue cats never had seen anything like this either, however hoity toity they thought their upbringing made them. The Russian court was regal, but it had nothing on the French. And The Deneuve was ALL of France in one beautiful package. Czar schmar. King bling. President smesident. Deneuve blew them away.

"Jinny," she said. "Now that I've had Champagne, I need something else. I need the best thing on earth, dear. Champagne is made for it, you know. It's made for woman and man. It's made to sip with great food. It's made to say thank you for special times and special thoughts and special kindnesses. You, Jinny, are special to me, and to us all. I need the best thing, Jinny. I need it. The Champagne demands it." With that soliloquy, she leaned forward and kissed Little Jinny Blistov on the mouth. She kissed him French style, right there and then on the June's sofa, in front of everyone.

Jinny closed his eyes and rode the wave. The kiss lasted three seconds, but he felt as if he had surfed a giant pipeline wave on the North Shore of Oahu for three minutes. When she leaned backwards, for him it was like coming out of the ocean wave pipe to see the sky again. He didn't want the ride to end, but he knew he couldn't stay in there any longer.

Catherine reached forward to the coffee table and picked up her wine glass. As Jinny opened his eyes and looked at her, Guignard dropped the salmon canapé she was holding on the Oriental carpet, and Peter and Pater clutched hands. Richard tore his gaze away from Catherine and rested it on Slevov. Gale, who thought she had seen it all, re-evaluated her sense of savoir faire. Roger silently, pathetically, asked God, "Why, why, Jinny?" Glissy now regretted her comment from earlier in the day when she said, "I don't need perfume to get a man's attention." She just had learned that when it comes to man\woman interaction, she still was in grade school. Jesus.

Only Gwen came through the performance intact. She was the only one in the room who saw all and understood all and who felt up to par. She acknowledged another grand lesson, arming herself with another attribute, and smiled at Roger, ready for action with him, anywhere around the world.

The dog waggled over and cleaned up the canapé, which broke the spell, and everyone relaxed into affected nonchalance. Jinny sat with a goofy look on his face, and the cats smirked at his juvenile disposition. Glissy looked around, silently asking, "Ah, what just happened?" Catherine held Jinny's hand, and asked Gwen the time. Gwen got up, sucking everyone into her own vortex. She said it was 9:30, and time for bed. Gale collected glasses, Guignard left off looking at Jinny and helped clean up. Folks moved into the hallway where Roger said some goodnights. He got his share of kisses in his role as host, but they weren't the same. Surreptitiously, he continued asking God, "Why, Jinny?"

Gwen realized there was one important item that had been left unattended, and that was, what about Glissy? Where was she going for the night? She went over to Roger and whispered in his ear. He looked at her. Oh, yeah, the woman who had entered their home at 3:45 that morning with a gun in her hand, and who now, somehow, was their friend. What to do with her?

Gwen said, "She's ok, and the future for her and us is good, but she ain't staying here tonight. No way."

At that moment Slevov walked up to them from the living room with Richard and Glissy. She smiled and said, "Glissy is coming home with us. She wants to see Sullivan's Island, and we have things to talk about." Roger looked at Gwen, who looked at her good friend Slev, and said, "Thanks."

Five minutes later everyone except Catherine was gone, and she had retired upstairs. The house was quiet. The Americano cat and dog were outside, and the blues were back on the kitchen counter near the pantry.

What a long and exciting day! Champagne forever.

# Chapter 10 – Roger Does Some Detecting

The Junes had a deal with Glissy, that she didn't have to tell them about her past. This included who she is, who she was, her job, her employers, and even what the hell she was doing in their house at 3:45am with a Walther PPS in her hand. The Junes exude flexibility of mind. At the same time, they also tend to be the, 'Don't fuck with us type.'

The deal didn't preclude the Junes from finding out about her in other ways. If the woman had a lawyer present during the deal making, the lawyer certainly would have included a provision against this in the agreement. But since Glissy had been dealing while sitting in her underwear, taped to a chair, she can be forgiven for not thinking of everything. The next day at breakfast, before Catherine came downstairs, Gwen and Roger agreed that Roger should look into the matter.

Roger was a Charleston gentleman whose primary occupation was having fun with his wife. They traveled, and they sported, and they partook of aristological events. They had been well-off before the Hermitage caper, but now they were very well-off. And they still had a climate controlled warehouse full of Russian artifacts, ready and waiting to be sold to a certain type of Russian expatriate who might want to come to Charleston to avoid those Russian winters that regularly seemed to stretch into May.

Occasionally Roger did other things, one of which was playing detective. He had done this professionally for a few years in his younger days, and sporadically since then, when some odd or interesting case or cause came his way. Not too long ago someone had tried to swindle his auntie out of some money by selling her a fake Heppleworth table, and Roger had dealt with that. The faker and swindler was none other than Little Jinny Blistov, who had graced their house the evening before. How Jinny had transformed himself from adversary to friend was in interesting story for another time. Now, though, Roger was going to employ his detecting skills to find out about Glissy.

There are two types of detectives. On the one hand are Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe. This type sits or walks, thinks about a multitude of facts, and deduces a conclusion. On the other hand we have Columbo and Spencer, who are like Jack Russell terriers, doggedly scurrying around dumpsters, trying to scare out the rats and cats that might have a clue stuck in their teeth. Roger was of the first type, of course. He left the house after lunch, dropping Gwen and Catherine at Middleton Place for a stroll around the famous gardens. He headed back downtown to The Battery, where he took his own stroll, which usually facilitates his thinking.

He walked the promenade, looking out over the harbor waters, his round, Kevin Costner style sunglasses filtering out the glare. Where had Glissy come from, and what was it that she was after in the June's home? Was she working for someone else, or herself? A Russian woman with a gun and a sense of humor, in their home, at night. Uninvited. A looker. Black Italian underwear. Expensive. Gutsy. Roger let his mind roam, trying to see the improbable as well as the likely, trying not to prejudice the analysis in a way that would lead to an erroneous conclusion. One mile along the Promenade, turn around; two miles along the Promenade, turn around; three miles, four miles.

The fourth mile did the trick. It became clear to Roger that the woman had to be associated with the Hermitage caper. But, not necessarily in the obvious way. The obvious association was as a Russian government agent, sent to hunt down those who had stolen state property. In this scenario, somehow, privately, she had learned about the Junes and their team, had tracked them to Charleston, and was intent on revenge.

Roger was like Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe in that he employed rationality and logic to an analysis, but he was better than them, because after this thinking phase, he had the capability to turn himself over to the intuition phase, something he had learned from his wife. Gwen lived her superior life based on her sense of intuition, which is a special blend of thinking and feeling. Intuition is elevated knowing.

Mile five along the promenade was intuition mile, as was mile six. At the end of that walk, and the turn around, Roger knew the woman was not a Russian government agent. He figured the Russian government would get a lot more mileage out of making the Hermitage heist public, and thereby embarrassing the American government, than just killing the perpetrators in their beds. If this was accurate, and Roger knew it was, then who was Glissy working for?

Roger figured the six mile stroll and the elimination of one likely scenario was enough work for one day, and headed home. That evening over cocktails he told Gwen his thoughts, and she concurred. She told him to keep at it. When it was her turn to talk, she told him about her walk through the gardens with The Deneuve.

Catherine had told her about her LA project. When she left Charleston she was heading there to meet with Spielberg. One of his myriad projects was to produce a short documentary film about Champagne. His wife was nuts about the stuff, so he had become nuts about the stuff. He wanted to do a small film about its history, allure, and world-wide fame, ala Ken Burns' documentary, but on a smaller scale, and he had asked Catherine to act as creative consultant. He wanted to understand the place in French culture held by the wine, and how it was part of France's heritage, and Catherine had said yes, of course. But now there was something new. There was something new in Catherine's mind that had not been there yesterday. Something new had been created in the June's living room the night before.

Gwen said, "Want to hear about it?"

Roger blinked his eyes, yes. He was interested in everything about Catherine. Not only was she beautiful, she was a special human being. She influenced everyone around her. It was something about her entire being that captivated men and women. Men are especially vulnerable, yes, but women too.

Gwen said, "She's going to tell Spielberg she wants to do a second film with him about Champagne, not a documentary. A film, with her as the actor, and him as director, not producer. About the wine and about the heritage. About Champagne and people: men, women, love, sex, fun. People drinking and loving the wine for hundreds of years. Get it?" And she smiled the smile of the knowing.

Yeah, Roger got it. Catherine was going to LA to influence Spielberg to make a film he had not conceived. Roger thought she would succeed, because she was The Deneuve, and not even Spielberg would be able to resist her.

Gwen said, "This thing with Catherine, it happened last night, in the living room. It happened when she played the game with Jinny."

"What happened?" Roger asked.

"When she did the thing with Jinny, that's when she knew she wanted to do a film about French culture, about Champagne, with Spielberg. That's when she decided she wanted a movie."

Roger said, "A Spielberg movie conceived in our living room. Unbelievable."

Roger knew the film would be made. He knew Spielberg would agree. That's the way things happen around The Deneuve.

# Chapter 11 – More Detecting

Roger was back at it early the next morning. What was Glissy's game? If she wasn't from the authorities, wanting their Hermitage artifacts back, with the hides of those who had stolen them, who or what had sent her to the June's house that night?

He sat in the kitchen, staring at the Russian blues, sipping coffee. They stared back, sipping nothing. He thought at one point he detected a knowing look on the face of one of them, but he couldn't be sure. If they could help him figure out the woman in black underwear, he wouldn't say no. When no windfall clue emanated from them, he closed his eyes and reverted to Kipling's Drift, Wait, Obey.

Where could she have learned about the heist artifacts if it wasn't from the Hermitage authorities? Where could she have learned about them here, in the States? Where? Where? They only existed in three places: the warehouse, the house on Sullivan's Island, and the house on Kiawah Island.

Roger and Gwen trusted all the Hermitage team members, and their special friends. There were no rats there. The only person who was not a team member or friend, and who knew about the warehouse, was Salvator. He was the antiques dealer from Savannah who they had hired to help inventory the artifacts. Roger went into the sunroom where Gwen and Catherine were sipping their coffee. He smiled at Catherine and then asked Gwen, "Salvator. Is he a rat? Did Glissy come for us, working for someone who learned about the stuff from Salvator?"

Gwen leaned back against the sofa cushion. So Roger thought Glissy was not working for the Russian authorities. Hmm. What an idea. If not them, then who? Gwen was glad Roger was doing something constructive. Salvator. Salvator. Was he a rat? She closed her eyes, and thought. When she opened them she looked at Roger and shook her head, No, which was good enough for Roger. Salvator was in the clear. He left the room, smiling apologetically at Catherine for the interruption.

When he had gone Catherine asked, "What is meant by this man being a rat?"

If the leak had not come from the warehouse, then it must have come from the Sullivan's Island house or the Kiawah Island house. These beautiful beach houses were owned by members of the Hermitage heist team. The Rodstras owned the Sullivan's house, and the Gromstovs owned the Kiawah house. Constantine and Slevov Rodstra, Henric and Helstof Gromstov. Two heavy hitting Russian businessmen and their wives who had been co-opted into the Hermitage caper. After the theft they had come to Charleston and bought the houses, with the intention of relaxing there on the sunny beaches while their old friends in Saint Petersburg were freezing their asses off in February. Both houses had been partially furnished from the warehouse horde of stolen artifacts: carpets, paintings, china, silver, small furniture. All heritage items previously held in trust by the Hermitage Museum for the Russian people; now held in trust by the Rodstras and Gromstovs, for their personal heritage appreciation. Roger knew that neither of the couples had compromised the integrity of the heist mission. But what about someone else, a visitor to their houses who was smart enough to smell the odor of stolen goods? Valuable stolen goods.

Roger placed this thought in front of his mind, and let his mind absorb it and change it to an intuition. It floated around and under and through his mind, and a suspicious answer appeared to the question: who in Charleston knew about Russian antiques, who could play a high stakes game over them with the Junes? The suspicion made Roger a very nervous man.

# Chapter 12 – Is It Who Roger Thinks It Is?

The vague suspicion formed in Roger's mind. Clarity was hidden by a veil. Roger went into the study, got his Beretta from the drawer, snapped the holster onto his belt to the rear of his right hip, looked piercingly at Gwen, put on his sport coat, and walked out the front door. Gwen understood the look to mean she should heighten her alertness status and carry her gun when she left the house. Catherine didn't understand what Roger's look meant, but she understood that this man and this woman could communicate telegraphically. She loved this man and this woman. She was sixty-seven years old, and was growing rather fond of being around guns. Only in America.

Roger walked down to The Battery for a thinking stroll. He had to pierce the veil. His first lap on the promenade was a mile, and then he turned around. His second lap was a mile, and then he turned around. Halfway along his third lap, the veil disintegrated, and a progression of images appeared from behind it.

The first image was of his partner, Little Jinny Blistov, standing on the fourth level outside deck of the house on Kiawah Island, five months earlier, at a housewarming party. Jinny was drinking his eighth glass of Champagne, and was steady as a rock. The second image is of the man he was talking to, the president of the Charleston Huguenot Society, who had been invited to the party by Jinny. This guy is wealthy, a history nut, and spends a lot of his time studying the history of the Huguenots who had immigrated to Charleston from Europe in the 1700s. The third image is of a man, pictured in a newspaper photo accompanying a story about him. He is Jewish, of Russian extraction, and a billionaire.

With the images forming, Roger continued his stroll. Every mile clarified the situation. It wasn't pretty, but it was very interesting. Halfway along mile four, something interrupted Roger's reverie. He was walking with head down, thinking hard, putting together the pieces of the analysis, when something made him look up. Coming towards him on the promenade which bordered the lapping waves of the harbor waters, was a fast moving crowd of four teenagers. Two were on rollerblades and two were on fat-tire, low-riding bicycles. Two were black and two were white. All had tattoos on their arms and legs, all had hats on backwards, and all had intensity on their faces.

The group closed the distance between themselves and Roger very fast. Roger grasped the situation instantly. His thinking mind shut down and his instinctive mind fired up. He knew there were no other people on the promenade near them. He recognized trouble, and his body flexed into physical awareness. He was like an ancestor from long ago, walking on a jungle path, and having something drop out of a tree, right there in front of him. He knew what was going to happen, and how it was going to happen, and he was ready. Roger was on point.

He knew the kids weren't going to slow down and go around him; they wanted to go through him. They saw an older guy in a sport coat, tan slacks with sharp creases, and black, rubber soled shoes. He was a cultural enemy, and they were going to vanquish him out of their own cultural identity. It was to be the young over the old. It was to be gunge over refinement. It was to be an all-consuming emotional experience for them.

Roger was ok with this. He liked emotionalism just fine, and he was ready to engage with it, when called upon to do so. Like now. Roger picked two targets, and ignored the other two. His spatial awareness sense was at peak performance level. There was not a thought in his body, he was all instinct. The scene of this play had twirled through his mind already, from beginning to end, and every movement of the characters was known to him. Some director had yelled, "Action."

He flexed his knees and formed his right arm into a rigid battering ram. His left arm flexed into a swaying hook. His right eye targeted the kid to the right, on roller blades, while his left eye targeted the kid to the left, on a bike. They reached him in a flash, straight on at high speed, intensity of violence in all four sets of eyes, wanting to damage a person they didn't know. The thinking that motivated the emotion was perverse. These were banshees, and Roger took them down. In a spit second, with remarkable physical reactions, Roger crashed his right forearm into the Adam's apple of the kid on the rollerblades. At the same time, his left arm clothes-lined the kid on the bike, right across the kid's face. Roger side-stepped the other two kids, who went speeding by. The kid on rollerblades went perfectly horizontal, parallel to the ground, and hit the concrete, laid out flat, with a shivering, full body concussion. The other kid was yanked off the seat of his bike, and for a second floated in midair, in the sitting position. Then he landed on the concrete, right on his coccyx. The blow traveled straight up his spine, registering in his brain, what little there was of it. He screamed. The other kid, lying flat on the ground, was gagging. Roger hoped his larynx wasn't crushed, but....

Roger turned to look at the two kids who had gotten past the massacre. He was aware that one or both might be armed with a gun. You never know, and you never take a chance. Roger's right hand was under his coat, behind his hip, gripping the stock of his Beretta. He waited, and watched. He saw two mouths hanging open, in shock. He saw the immaturity inherent in the faces. For this he was sorry. But....

The police came quickly, and the EMS showed five minutes later. The two kids were hauled away, and Roger was on his way to the police station. The first thing he did when the cops showed up was to tell them he had a concealed weapons permit, and was carrying a gun. One cop looked at the permit while the other took the gun off Roger's hip. Cops hate people who carry concealed weapons. This adds to the insecurity of their job, and Roger could understand and sympathize with their thoughts on the matter. But not enough to stop carrying.

Three hours later Roger came out of the interrogation room and saw Gwen sitting in the waiting room. Gwen watched as the desk sergeant handed Roger his gun, minus its bullets, and his permit. They left together and headed to the car in the lot. Roger slouched in the passenger seat, emotionally deflated. Gwen drove home, not asking what happened. He would tell her soon enough. Just before the altercation with the punks, he had figured out who had hired Glissy. And it was bad. Then he seriously had hurt two kids. They had gotten what they deserved, but still, it was bad. So he walked into the house feeling lousy. He needed to pet his dog.

# Chapter 13 – The Billionaire Adversary

Later that evening, after dinner, Roger told Gwen about the serious incident on The Battery. Gwen said, "I'm glad you're ok." She didn't ask for details, or try to perform a sociological analysis about why some kids develop that mindset, she just sat with her husband.

The next morning, after breakfast, Roger was himself again. He shed the one event of the day before, and focused on the other. The other event was figuring out who sent Glissy into their home, with a still unknown intent. This was Catherine's last day in Charleston. She had a redeye to LA, and a meeting with Spielberg the following day, so Gwen and Roger spent the day with her. They went out to lunch, with Catherine eating only Charleston specialties. One thing she really liked about traveling to places like Charleston was that she was not as well-known as she was in Europe. In France or Italy, when she went to a restaurant, she had to make special arrangements, so she could eat in relative peace. Most of these restaurants offered to close down to the public so she and her friends could enjoy themselves, but she rarely chose to do this. She liked people, and liked being in public places; she just asked if someone could keep the other diners from getting too close. She understood the effect she had on many people, especially men. That was her life. Here in Charleston, they had a quiet lunch.

Afterwards they walked the two blocks to the Charleston Library Society. Gwen had taken Catherine there before, and Catherine liked its ambience. She wanted to talk with Gwen and Roger about her idea for a movie about Champagne, so the three sat in the beautiful reading room. Catherine did most of the talking, and Gwen did some talking, and Roger did a lot of listening.

She said, "My character will express the ideal that elevating culture is a good thing for any society. We'll do this via a story about the Champagne region, and the winemaking culture, and the people involved. Great wine, like great food and great art, is a life elevating experience."

She said she recognized the paradox in this.

"High culture takes money to experience, and most people don't have that money. How many people have been to an opera? How many to the Louvre? How many have eaten langoustines sautéed in garlic and butter, served with a white Bordeaux? But I think great art can influence societies. Spielberg makes movies for many types of people, and has the talent to show things to many people.

"Are you liberal or conservative?" she asked. "I don't believe in a philosophy that calls for equality of results. I do believe in equality of opportunity. I don't want to live in a homogenized society, with everything dumbed down to a common denominator."

This would be her pitch to Spielberg. Champagne as romance, Champagne producers as family units, Champagne as earth and rain and sun, the wine as a symbol of the enjoyment of life. It sounded good to Roger and Gwen, and they helped Catherine refine and develop her idea. They wondered if they would be in the credits. That evening they took her to the airport, and were sorry to see her go.

Now it was time for the Junes to get down to business. Who was Glissy? And who did she work for? The next morning Roger thought of asking Gwen to take a walk with him on The Battery, but quickly remembered. It would be a while before he went back there for a stroll. So they sat in the study, and Roger went through the suspicion that had developed before the incident with the punks.

He reminded Gwen of the housewarming party on Kiawah, attended by Ashley Archdale, president of the Huguenot Society and amateur historian who knew all about Huguenots from Europe. Roger said, "Jinny invited Archdale because Jinny actually thinks people here walk around thinking of themselves as Huguenots, and he wants to meet some. Archdale is a socialite up there in the ranks with Gale. He knows all the rich and famous. He met the Gromstovs on Kiawah, and saw the antiques, and maybe figured out they were Russian antiques. And then he asks himself, how do so many Russian antiques show up at a housewarming party in Charleston?" Roger looked at Gwen, who sat listening to his train of thought. She had not yet made the leap, so Roger said one word: "Stirg."

Gwen said, "Oh, shit. Archdale told Stirg."

Stirg meant Pmirhs Stirg. He was a recluse, or wanted to be a recluse. He was not entirely successful in this, partly because of his past, and partly because of his present. His past was very high profile in several places around the world, and his present was eccentric, which occasionally produces the unwanted result of getting ones name in the local newspaper. Stirg was a lawyer, now retired from international law. This meant he specialized in how one country's laws interface with other country's laws. If a person broke the law in Japan, but was a Greek citizen who now happened to live in Zimbabwe, Stirg knew how to defend that person's interests. But that was a minor field in which Stirg had applied his knowledge, skills, and abilities. For many years, flying under most radars, he had been a Nazi hunter. He did this for two reasons: 1) after showing some significant successes early on, people started paying him large sums of money, and 2) because he was a Russian Jew whose parents had died, very young, in World War II. During the late 40s and early 50s, he had grown up hardscrabble in a small Russian port town outside Saint Petersburg. He was practically a baby then, but old enough to learn to hate Nazis. Being smart as all get out, he prospered after leaving Russia, and turned his talents towards the not mutually exclusive goals of making money, and getting back at the people who killed his parents.

His greatest achievement was confirming beyond all doubt what many people had claimed, that a lot of Nazis had gone to Argentina after the war. Many famous Nazis. And they still were there. Stirg found this expatriate community, and over many years he went on to find a number of individuals. Some were brought to justice formally and publicly, and others were brought to justice privately. Pmirhs Stirg became two fundamental things: very wealthy and very hard.

Stirg applied his talents in international law in other areas too, around the world. Despite his hardness, his various motivations, and his many successes, he was not indefatigable. Eventually he retired, with his wealth. Ten years ago he came to Charleston because of his only granddaughter, Anna, child of his only son, who died young. Anna liked to play tennis as a kid, and at age seventeen, decided she wanted to play tennis at the College of Charleston, which has a great team program. When Stirg checked out the college and the town, he learned some interesting bits of its early history. The charter for the new Carolina Colony was written by the famous English philosopher John Locke. By 1800, South Carolina had more Jews than any other state, and Charleston had more Jews than any other town in America. South Carolina was the first place in American to elect a Jew to public office, and was the birthplace of Reform Judaism in America. That was enough for Stirg, who was looking for a low profile place to retire, one that had a warm climate, and Charleston fit the bill. So he and Anna had lived in Charleston for ten years, and Anna now was twenty-seven years old.

# Chapter 14 – What Stirg Wants, Stirg Gets

Gwen always had known her husband was a man of two faces. Occasionally he acted like a dork, as he had done while interrogating Glissy in their kitchen. That was when he spent part of the interrogation time trying to ascertain whether the woman sitting in front of him in her black Italian underwear was wearing perfume or not. Gwen always was tempted to smack him when he acted this way, but usually refrained from doing so. Most of the time, though, Roger possessed a penetrating intelligence, whether it was on display or not. Gwen saw it as her duty to bring this characteristic into Roger's tangible world as much as possible. Sometimes, like now, Roger brought it to the surface on his own.

His suspicion was that billionaire Charleston lawyer Pmirhs Stirg was interested in their hoard of artifacts stolen from the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, now residing in a climate controlled warehouse just outside town. Roger also was suggesting that Stirg had sent his granddaughter on a mission to invade the June household. These suggestions are what elicited the, "Oh, shit," exclamation from Gwen. She would rather have the FBI on her ass than Stirg.

Stirg had been a Nazi hunter, after the baddest of the boys. He had gone after them, and had pinched a bunch of them. Some were extradited to Europe for trial and some had become fertilizer for Argentina's world class Malbec wine vineyards.

If Roger's thinking was right, Stirg was interested in the June team's venture to bring wealthy, shady Russians to Charleston, where the Junes and their associates would fleece them of cash, selling them beach houses, world class French wines, and mementos from the homeland in the form of genuine Russian antiques and objets d'art. Gwen said, "Let's see if I have this right. Ashley Archdale saw the antiques on Kiawah at the party, and because knew the Kiawah home owner was Russian, he figured the antiques were Russian. And he happens to know Stirg because he knows everyone of note in Charleston, and he told him that a lot of Russian antiques recently had turned up here, and maybe the news of our Hermitage heist has gotten out in certain Russian circles, and now Stirg wants some of what we have in the warehouse?"

Roger nodded and prompted her, "And...."

"And Glissy is Stirg's granddaughter Anna, and he sent her into our house to find out about us?"

Roger nodded, and motioned, "And...."

"And now we have co-opted the granddaughter of a Nazi hunting, hard as fucking nails billionaire, who at age sixty-seven still chases women around like Anthony Quinn did at that age?"

Roger nodded.

Gwen said again, "Oh, shit."

Roger nodded and said, "And...."

Uncomfortably Gwen thought, 'There's more?' She didn't make any more conceptual leaps at this point. She was stuck back there at the, "Oh, shit, Stirg is after us," concept. So she said, "What, what?"

Roger said, "You just said Stirg is sixty-seven years old, right? Who else do we know that is sixty-seven years old?"

Gwen looked at Roger like he was nuts and said, "Sometimes you are so dorky, and now you are weird. Why do you want to make this situation even worse?"

Roger said, "Maybe we can offer to introduce Stirg to Catherine if he agrees to get off our ass."

Gwen had heard dumb jokes come out of Roger's mouth before (like the one of Moses and the Fifteen Commandments) but never one so weirdly dumb as to be beyond the pale of decency. If she wasn't so bent out of shape with Roger's other idea of Stirg being behind Glissy's home invasion, she would have beaten him to a pulp, metaphorically speaking. On the other hand, sub-consciously, she was proud of Roger having sussed out the answer to the big question about Glissy. Now they had to figure out what to do.

Gwen said, "From what I know, what Stirg wants, Stirg gets."

"Yeah, that's the rumor."

# Chapter 15 – The Hermitage Caper Team Has Lunch

Despite it being 10am, Gwen was tempted to open a bottle of wine; no, make that brandy. Instead she got on the phone and called Slevov, her new best friend. Currently Slev was enjoying the early 19th century Russian oriental carpet that covered her Sullivan's Island dining room floor, which previously had been part of the Hermitage Museum collection. Until, that is, Roger, Gwen, and Slevov's husband Constantine, stole it, along with a load of other stuff. Slev was living part time on Sullivan's Island, and she was in residence now.

"What are you doing?" said Gwen.

Slevov said, "Glissy and I are reading to each other from a Pushkin collection."

Gwen didn't believe that for a second. She said, "Can you come over. We need to talk. And not about Pushkin. And don't bring Glissy, either."

Slev showed up in half an hour and kissed the Junes on each cheek. She asked, "How are the blue cats?"

Gwen said, "Fine, demonstrative as ever."

"How are you, two?"

"We're bad," said Roger.

Slevov raised an eyebrow.

"We think we know who Glissy is. We think we know who sent her into our house the other night."

Slevov raised her other eyebrow.

Gwen said, "Glissy's real name is Anna. Anna Stirg." Gwen waited to see if this meant anything to Slevov. Negative. She went on, "Anna is the granddaughter of a man named Pmirhs Stirg, and we are not among his friends. We may be among his enemies, we're not quite sure. If we are not actually enemies of his, we are at least persons of interest, and we don't want to be on his interest list. You don't want to be on his list, and you are. You and Jinny and Guignard, and Henric and Helstof, and Peter and Pater and Constantine. The whole team is on his list. Do you know what a shit list is, Slev? Well, we're on it."

Gwen's reference to the whole team means hers and Roger's heist team. Eight Russians and two Americans. Four of the Russians now live permanently in Charleston, and the other four, including Slevov, live part time in Charleston.

Roger went on and told Slev about Stirg. When he was done, Slev said, "Oh, shit." She had American slang down pretty good. "What does he want?" They shrugged.

"Don't know exactly. He's Russian. He's old school. He knows there are some Russian antiques at Helstofs and Henric's house. We don't know what he wants, but if he sent his granddaughter on a mission into our house, he wants something. You've had Glissy for a couple of days. What have you learned about her?"

Slevov sat back and got a very interesting look on her face. There was a smile in it, and some devil, and some mystery. She said, "Do you have a glass of wine?"

Gwen had been able to resist an hour earlier when she badly wanted a brandy, but now she cracked. 11am, and she was going to start drinking. Roger knew better than to quibble with these two women, so he got a bottle of Riesling from the wine cooler. When they each had a glass in hand, Gwen and Roger looked steadily at Slevov. She remained mute, sipping the grape juice. They waited, and sipped the grape juice. Slevov asked again, "How are the cats?"

Gwen didn't answer, but got a stern look on her face. "Knock it off, Slev, what's up on Sullivan's. What's going on with Glissy?"

Roger broke out into a really big smile. He put his glass down on the counter and said something to the effect of, "Ha Ha." It was a goofy, amused laugh.

Gwen looked at him. Then she looked at Slevov. She didn't like being behind the awareness eight ball, and she wasn't for long. A couple more moments of thought and she said, "No! Get out! Yes? No!" She sat back, not knowing how to react. When it became clear, she followed Roger with a big goofy smile. Damn.

Slevov didn't answer; she just keep the wine glass close to her mouth, with her head bent down slightly, eyes twitching back and forth from the glass to the floor, and away from them. After ten long seconds, she looked first at Gwen and then at Roger. Her eyes told it all. Then her subtle smile, just visible above the glass, confirmed it.

Gwen looked at Roger, and they communicated telegraphically: Slevov and Glissy, granddaughter of Nazi hunting Stirg. Fooling around together in that big house on the beach.

Gwen said, "You were supposed to be finding out about Glissy."

"I have been," she answered. "She's twenty-seven years old hot. You'd like her, I think. Very quiet, but very hot. Roger, she's too hot for you. Forget it."

Roger looked hurt, so Slevov added, "If I wasn't there, she'd be too hot for Richard, too, so don't feel bad." She looked at Gwen mischievously. "Now Gwenny, Gwenny could handle her alone, I bet." And the smiles cascaded towards Gwen.

Roger said, "What do you mean Richard? Richard who?"

For the twentieth time in the last year Gwen thought, "These Russians are full of surprises."

Gwen took a big gulp of Riesling and said, "Ok, let's hear it."

"What do you want?" Slev said. "I never said I was taking her home to interrogate her. I took her home because you weren't going to let her sleep in your house. She had to sleep somewhere, right? So...."

"Wait. You took her home, this possible assassin who entered our house with a gun in her hand. And now you mention Richard. And you imply fun and games with both. Is that the story? Are you talking three-way?"

"Umm, not exactly three-way, dear. I didn't steal Richard from Helstof."

Gwen looked at Roger, who looked back, awe-stricken. He mouthed the word four-way, and when he was done his mouth remained in the open position. Then it was his turn to say, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph."

"Slev, are you saying you installed a possible assassin, and a business partner of the same sex, and a person the business partner is having an affair with, in your bed, in the places formerly occupied by your husband?"

Slevov sniffed an aristocratic sniff and said, "Nothing so crass, my dear. We enjoyed our time together in the fourth floor guestroom. Maybe better to call it a playroom, now, eh?" She followed the sniff with a half-smile, very devastating to Roger. He was in full fantasy mode: big airy room looking out over Charleston harbor, seagulls calling, breeze blowing one direction through the open French doors, OPIUM blowing the other way from the bed, Champagne on the table, TWO babes horizontal, space between them. HIS space.

Gwen was getting tired of seeing this goofy look on his face, and it had happened more and more since getting involved with the Russians. She had to get a grip. "Ok, ok, we'll discuss the fun and games later, after we have a lot more to drink. But before that, we have to think about the other Stirg, the badass Stirg. Slev, are you serious, you got nothing out of her in two days? Nothing about who she is or what she was doing in our house?"

"My dear, we got lots out of her in the last two days, but not what you want."

Roger didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry.

Gwen had to regroup. These two were in fantasyland, and she was in Stirg_the_Nazi_hunter_is_out_to_get_us_land. She reached forward and took the wine glass out of Slevov's hand, and then took the wine glass out of Roger's hand, and set them both on the table. "Listen. We gotta figure out what Stirg wants. She had a gun, remember, a Walther. That is not a toy. It was 3:45am, remember. Middle of the night. Dressed in black. Like an assassin." She looked at the two of them, and could see they were not making the required transition to Stirg_the_Nazi_hunter_is_out_to_get_us_land.

She got up, got a cell phone, and dialed a number. "Jinny, get your ass over here now, with Guignard....I don't care if it gets stone fucking cold, you can reheat it later, get over here." End button. Dial button. "Peter," much more cordially than with Jinny, "can you and Pater come over for a glass of wine. Yes, Riesling, of course. Great, see you." End button. Dial button. "Helstof, dear, I understand you're over at Slevov's house. Can you tear yourself away and come over here? Yes, Slev's here now. We have a situation. Ah, no, better that Richard stays there. Right. Yes, we can get together with Richard later. Ah, no, not Glissy either. Yes, she can come later with Richard."

Five team members were on their way, plus Slev made six. The other two, the big, heavy hitting guys, the husbands, were back in Saint Petersburg. The team would do without them. Or rather, Gwen hoped the team would do without them. "Get up, you two, and bring the glasses. We'll fix lunch while we wait for the others. Can you two function well enough to make some sandwiches? Jesus."

By 12:30pm the entire team was at the June's house and sitting at the dining room table. Jinny was eyeing the platter of sandwiches with one eye and the bottles of Riesling in the buckets with the other. Gwen was eyeing him, knowing he was a backslider when it came to the southern manners she had taught him, especially when he had been away from her gaze and her influence for any length of time. He saw her eyeing him eyeing the food and wine, and said to himself, "Oh, shit. Manners. Miss Gwen. Ok."

Gwen let everyone eat and drink in peace. The team hadn't been together like this for several months, so she knew they needed a little bonding time, and the wine helped facilitate this enormously. Silently she transmitted to Roger two things: don't drink too much, and you have the lead on this. Do your duty. Then she went back to watching that Jinny didn't drink too much either, the souse. The bit about letting everyone eat and drink in peace didn't extend to him. She put him under her gaze.

At 1:30pm the giant Italian espresso machine in the kitchen made a series of hissing noises, and everyone had strong coffee in front of them. Roger looked at the six Russian people and the two Russian blue cats, sitting on the sideboard looking at them, and began. "We are the core team. Richard and Gale know about Glissy, but we kept them away from this meeting because they don't deserve to have their asses on the line, like ours are." This ominous prologue got the attention of everyone. "And Glissy isn't here because she's part of the problem." Roger's use of the word problem further got their attention. Peter shifted his weight in the chair. Guignard looked at Jinny. "And here's the problem. We think we know who Glissy is. Her real name is Anna Stirg, and she's the granddaughter of Pmirhs Stirg." Roger looked around for recognition of that name. None, so he went on. "The grandfather is a Russian Jewish billionaire who lives here in Charleston. He's sixty-seven years old, she's his only living relative, and he is devoted to her. They've lived in Charleston for ten years. Stirg is a very accomplished man, a very tough man, and in certain fields, a very prominent man. Before he retired, and among other endeavors, he hunted Nazis in Argentina." Roger paused. "Yeah, a Nazi hunter. And he caught his share. And he dealt with them. And now, he wants something from us."

Roger let this sink in. Gwen was happy to see that the sex fantasy generated dorkiness that had occupied him earlier was gone. He was leading. He had gotten the attention of the group.

Jinny was the first to ask a question, as usual. "Gwen and Catherine said Glissy was ok. We can trust her. Now she's our enemy?" Slev smiled at this, but said nothing.

"We don't think she's our enemy, but we don't know about her grandfather. No one has figured out what their relationship is now, because no one has asked Glissy those questions." Roger spoke the last two words with an emphasis that puzzled everyone but Gwen and Slev. "And we don't know what Stirg wants."

Helstof asked, "What's Stirg going to say when he finds out we renamed his granddaughter?"

Gwen hadn't thought of that issue. She was focused on what Stirg wants in the way of the Hermitage goods. Great, now the team has insulted the guy by replacing her given name Anna, with their name, Glissy.

Pater said, "Maybe he's not really mad at us."

Guignard said, "Maybe Glissy did this on her own, not for her grandfather. Maybe it's her that wants something."

Roger badly wanted to tell what Glissy had been getting the last few days, but he held his tongue.

Peter said, "Maybe Stirg is working for the Russian police. Maybe they told him to find out about us, and he gave the job to Anna, er, Glissy."

That was enough unpleasant suggestions on the table, and everyone sat, thinking. Jinny was thinking too, but also wanting the last sandwich that was on the platter. Roger was thinking about the Stirg problem, but also thinking about Glissy and Slevov. Peter and Pater thought their lives were going to be easier in America, and now this. Helstof was thinking about Nazis, but also about Richard and Glissy.

Mentally, Gwen ran through a bunch of scenarios at light speed, twenty of them, and came to a decision. There were too many maybes floating around. She had to kill most of these so they could home in on understanding the core problem, and there was only one way. Well, there were several ways, but only one appealed to Gwen. And that was the adventurous one. She was that type of girl. She said, "Ok, lots of important points here, and they tell us we don't know squat. What we do know is that Stirg is a dangerous man, and we can't just sit around wondering about him."

Jinny knew what was coming, and he liked it, because he was an adventurous type of guy.

Gwen said, "I don't want to sit around waiting for him to send the next person." She looked around the table. She saw basic understanding, and mostly confident faces. So she went on, "I think we go on the offensive. Two can play his game. That's what we're going to do. We're going into his house."

# Chapter 16 – Stirg's House

Little Jinny Blistov had been feeling ambivalent lately. On the one hand he was experiencing domestic bliss with Guignard, while on the other he was feeling a little bored. This was not a reflection on Guignard, it's just that, formerly, he was a criminal, scrabbling hard to make ends meet on the underside of life, and now he had funds and a girlfriend, and life was easier. When he heard Gwen say they were going to invade Stirg's house, man, he got hot. Stirg the Nazi hunter, and now they were after him. Hot damn. Leave it to Gwen to stir things up.

The obvious question in everyone's mind was, what about Glissy? Was she friend or foe? Was she in or out? Did they tell her or not?

Everyone remembered what had happened that first night in the June house: The Deneuve had co-oped Glissy into the extended family, and Gwen had participated in that. By the end of the long night extending into day, Catherine and Gwen vouched for Glissy, telling everyone she was not going to kill anyone. And everyone bought that. Now, two days later, the team learns that Slevov, Helstof, and Richard had been playing patty cake with Glissy, so presumably they felt secure in turning their backs to her, so to speak. What now?

Gwen and Roger liked to share leadership responsibilities in their relationship, trading back and forth. Roger had taken the lead the day before, and then Gwen had made the decision to go on the offensive. Normally, Gwen would back off at this point and let Roger step up, but not this time. She didn't trust Roger when it came to Glissy because that OPIUM stuff Glissy wore had turned her husband into a fool. Gwen kept command. "Slev, you and I are going to see Glissy. The rest of you can hang here or go home. Jinny, you start tactical planning. This thing with Glissy is going to be delicate, but we need to get the advantage over Stirg. We all meet back here at 8am tomorrow." Her last command was, "Roger, Beretta, all the time." He nodded.

Gwen motioned to Slev and Jinny, and they went into the study. Gwen went to a file cabinet and removed four handguns, extra magazines, and ammo: her Glock 40cal, Glissy's Walther, and two brand new Glock nines. She clipped her gun on her belt, put the Walther in her purse, handed one nine to Jinny and the other nine to Slev. "Until this is over, you carry this at all times. You wear it to buy food, you wear it to Pierre's for your manicure, you wear it when you vacuum the living room. And you wear it in bed, no matter who you're with." When Gwen said this last part, she didn't even smile, but looked Slev in the eyes with a message: from here on out, we take no chances. Over the last two months Gwen had trained Slev and Helstof in intelligent gun ownership and use. They had gone to the Forest Service range a dozen times. They knew what to do with a gun, and what not to do with it, and Slev understood that Gwen was not fooling around. She clipped on the holster under her jacket, and put the extra mag and ammo in her purse.

As they left the house Gwen yelled, "No fucking around Jinny. I want tactical, on paper, by dinnertime tonight. Roger can help."

They didn't talk much on the drive over to Sullivan's. Gwen was getting a series of bad feelings about this whole deal. She didn't have any facts from which the feelings came, but they were strong, nonetheless. She hoped she was wrong. They walked up the flight of steps to the first floor of the 10,000 square foot house on the beach, and entered through the kitchen door. They didn't stop there, but went into the living room, which was empty. They heard the clink of bottles coming from the wine tasting room, and went towards the sound, where Glissy had the door of one of the floor to ceiling storage cabinets open. She turned to them and said to Slev, "I have three choices for dinner tonight: a California pinot, a California Syrah, and a Washington State cab. I can't wait to try them."

Gwen smiled and said, "I like all three. Let's try them in a little while." She took off the white linen shirt she was wearing with the shirttail out, over a silk T, and hung it over the back of one of the tasting table stools. Glissy saw the Glock sitting just to the rear of Gwen's right hip. Slev did the same with her three season wool jacket, and Glissy saw her gun. Glissy smiled and said, "If we drink the three bottles of wine right now, maybe we can use the empties for target practice out on the beach. Have you guys done that here before?" Gwen and Slev smiled at the joke. Not bad. Then Gwen took the Walther out of her purse and put it on the table. She pushed it over to Glissy, who picked it up, thumbed the button that released the mag into her hand, which she checked and set on the table, and then racked the slide to see if there was a round in the chamber. There was not. She slapped the mag back into the gun and set it back on the table. "So, it's that time, is it?" she asked.

She picked up the bottle of Washington State cab, opened it, and poured the wine into one of the decanters that sat on a side table. She said, "That ought to be ready to drink when we finish our little talk." She sat down and looked at the other two women, serious because she could see they were serious.

Before Slev sat down she unclipped the holster from her belt and set in on the table. Gwen looked at her and said, "No Slev. From this point on, you keep the gun on you. It's good conditioning. It's not likely something is going to happen here, but you need to get into a mindset. An always ready mindset. Until we figure this thing out. Ok, dear?"

Slev clipped the holster back onto her belt and sat down.

In a very low voice, and with a soft look on her face, Gwen said, "Glissy, we know who you are. We know you're Anna Stirg. We know who your grandfather is. And we know a little about his history. We know what a lot of people know, from the papers over the years. Your grandfather makes the papers here once in a while, even though he probably doesn't want to. And we have people looking into him. They are doing internet searches, and they will turn up information." Glissy looked at them impassively.

"We have a deal with you, to not ask about your past, and you gave a good reason for saying you won't tell us that stuff. But now that we know who you are, we came to see if you want to revoke that agreement. Because we can't take a chance with your grandfather. With just the little bit we know about him, we can't take a chance. And soon we'll know more." Gwen and Slev waited for a response. Glissy didn't say anything, but gave the locking the vault gesture by simulating the turn of a key on her mouth.

"Ok," said Gwen. "Let's do it this way. We'll tell you what we know, because that's what is motivating us to take some kind of action. And we intend to take action, unless we learn there is no threat to any of us. Slev."

"We know your grandfather's name is Pmirhs Stirg, and that you and he have lived in Charleston since you were seventeen. We know he is a billionaire lawyer who tries to keep a low profile here but doesn't always succeed. It's hard to be a billionaire and keep a low profile."

Gwen said, "Your grandfather is one of three billionaires in Charleston, did you know that?" Glissy shook her head. "I'll tell you about the other two, sometime."

Slev went on, "We know you are Jewish, or at least we know your grandfather is Jewish, and that he grew up in Russia after World War II. The most important thing we know is that he spent many years hunting expatriate Nazis in Argentina, and brought them to justice, one way or another, and he was very successful at that very difficult job. And we know it was a very dangerous job. There were many people who wanted to keep the old Germans safe, and these people were committed, violent, and fanatical. They guarded and shielded with great tenacity and intensity. Lots of things happened in Argentina from the time your grandfather found this community until about ten years ago. Nazis died there, and Nazi hunters died there."

Gwen said, "Until we figure this out, we have to assume the situation is very dangerous to us, and that's our mindset and our posture. You came into our house armed. Is there anything you want to tell us?"

Glissy said, "You trust me, don't you?"

The other two women nodded yes. Gwen said, "We trust you because Catherine trusts you. I've learned special things from Catherine about reading people and understanding what makes them act the way they do. It's partially a learned thing and partially a god-given talent. She has it, and I have it. And Slev has it. And, you may have the capability to develop it. Anyway, yes, we trust you. We know you will not hurt us." Gwen nodded at the Walther within Glissy's reach. "But we don't know about your grandfather. If you will not tell us about him, we will find out for ourselves. We will not wait for him to act again."

Glissy nodded.

And that was the end of the fact-finding mission to Sullivan's Island. There was no cajoling or pressuring or threatening. The three women poured glasses of wine from the decanter and went out on the ocean side porch. They didn't speak much. They just looked over the water at the gray distance line.

# Chapter 17 – One Good Home Invasion Deserves Another

When Gwen got home and walked into the kitchen she found Jinny and Roger sitting at the counter, which was covered with paper of varying sizes and shapes. She saw maps and aerial photos and scribbles on scratch pads and computer printouts. In the center of the mess was a donut box and two coffee cups. She walked over and opened the box. Inside were two donuts, and it was a dozen box. Gwen looked at Jinny and then at Roger. Roger pantomimed a closed mouth, meaning he had not eaten any. Jinny smiled and said, "They help me think."

"You ate ten donuts?"

Jinny smiled again, and went back to looking at an aerial photo of Charleston harbor. Gwen didn't give Jinny the shit he deserved for this because she had learned that Jinny was a very good thinker. He had proven that during the Hermitage caper, and that was why Gwen had assigned him this job of tactical planning. Still, the idea of eating ten donuts made her queasy, and she wondered how he managed to eat like that and keep his five foot four, 200-pound body the way it was. The Secret Service could plant his feet in concrete in front of the White House and use him as a bollard to thwart a terrorist tank attack.

A lot of people in Charleston know where Stirg lives. He doesn't own one of the magnificent, 200 year old mansions on Meeting St., or one of the beautiful houses on The Battery. He lives in what now is a new, very nice house, sitting over the water at the end of a long concrete dock. This structure used to be an ugly, concrete cube, built by the Navy in the 1950s, and used for many years as a degaussing station. Degaussing has something to do with radar. The Navy left it fifteen years ago and gave it to the City, sat on it for ten years, not knowing what to do with it. Then, five years ago, the City put it on the market, and Stirg bought it for a million and a half. It was worth that amount because of the concrete, deep-water dock, a half-acre at the shore end of the dock, and, of course, a magnificent view of Charleston harbor. Two years later the concrete cube had been transformed into a modern, 7000 square foot, three story house. The dock was reconditioned, and a modest 2000 square foot guest house sat on the shore-end half acre.

Roger, Jinny, and Gwen looked at a high-resolution aerial orthophoto quad of the harbor. Stirg's place was clear and with enough detail to make out his dark blue BMW at the end of the dock. Gwen asked Roger if he had told Jinny the story about one of their friends meeting Stirg there. He shook his head, no.

"It took Stirg two years to remodel that place. About halfway through the construction, a friend of ours got invited to visit the site. He was friends with the contractor. While he was there getting shown around, Stirg shows up for an inspection. Stirg was friendly. Our friend says to him, 'You have an incredible site here, and the house will be great. But no place for a pool.' Stirg said, 'Don't worry. See the long dock extending out into the water past the house? When we're done, I'll bring my boat out and park it at the end. It's got a pool on it, with three meter diving board.'" Jinny smiled.

Guignard arrived and joined the planning session. Gwen said, "Today, we need tactical. The HOW to go in there. Tomorrow morning, when the rest of the team comes for breakfast, we'll discuss strategy: the WHY. Tomorrow we'll form our objectives. How are we getting in, Jinny, and who's on that team?"

He said, "First, we gotta make sure he's gonna be there on some date and at some time. That's pretty easy. Second, we do this during the day, not at night like he did. We run a big boat up to the end of his dock. He's gonna have lots of signs saying No Trespass, Keep Out, like that. And cameras. That don't matter, 'cause the boat is gonna be all women. All our women. Gwen, Slev, Guignard, Helstof. You're gonna be in bikinis. Maybe we stick some of Peter's and Pater's ballerinas in bikinis too, and use them. The more girls, the better." This was a joke, and he waited for a response. There wasn't one, so he went on, "Ok. The women act dumb about the signs and the cameras. They make a scene and wait for someone in the house to come out. They pretend one of them is sick. If Stirg has security, they will come out. If he doesn't, then he comes out." Jinny looked at the other three, who remained non-committal. "Ok. When the people come out of the house, the girls cry their friend is sick and needs the ambulance." In Russia, they still had ambulances, not EMS; ambulances like from WWII. "Security gets everyone to the house, you get inside, and you pull your pieces and stick them in people's faces. Simple. The house is like 100 yards from shore. No one will notice."

Gwen didn't jump down Jinny's throat. She waited for Guignard to do that. Guignard said, "You said we're all wearing bikinis. Where exactly do you think we're going to conceal our guns? And what's this about acting dumb?" Jinny sat back and smiled. He liked his jokes. Guignard looked at Gwen and asked, "Can I trade him in? I'll take anything you got in stock, old stuff, something from the attic, anything."

Jinny looked at Roger for some support, who sat looking at the blue cats, wondering if they had better senses of humor than Jinny. But Jinny kept smiling, not caring if the others didn't like his jokes. He liked them, and went on, "When the girls have everything under control in the house, Roger and I get out of the boat and come in. And we deal with Stirg." Jinny felt done with his tactical planning, so he reached into the box for the eleventh donut, feeling he had earned it.

Roger, Guignard, and Gwen thought about his plan while they watched him eat, Guignard wiping some powdered sugar from the corner of his mouth. She was just joking about trading him in. She loved him. Roger said, "That all sounds risky? What if someone in the house sees the commotion on the dock and calls the cops?"

Jinny swallowed and said, "Yeah, it's risky. You tell me a home invasion that's not risky. Shit, we caught his ass doing a home invasion here, didn't we? Besides, you don't just look at risk. You look at reward, too. What do we get out of this, if it goes ok? I'll tell you what. We get some serious fucking intimidation. He tried subterfuge. He tried stealth. We reply with a commando raid, six people with guns, middle of the day. Four babes showing gams. What's not to like? Screw the risk." And to emphasize his opinion he reached for the last donut.

Gwen sat back and looked at Jinny. She got up, went over to the cats sitting on the counter near the pantry, scratched first one and then the other on the tops of their heads, and got what she wanted: "Caooh!" She came back to the counter and looked at the aerial photo, which of course was just a ploy to give her a little more time to think. She looked at Roger. Then she looked at Guignard. Neither one said anything, which meant they had not thought of a serious objection. She looked over at Jinny and said, "Ok, bollard boy. You got yourself a basic plan. Now figure out the details. You've got three hours."

# Chapter 18 – Mission Prep

The next morning they fixed a boatload of eggs Benedict which they served to the team with finely julienned French fried potatoes doused in truffle oil, parmesan cheese, and sautéed arugula. Try that combo next time you want to impress a houseguest. After eating, they went to the living room. When they left the kitchen the blue cats were sitting on the counter near the pantry. When they entered the living room, the cats were sitting on the piano. How does that happen?

The extended team was here, minus Henric, Constantine, and Gale. Gwen had decided to invite Richard, the writer, in hopes that he would turn this event into a book, or at least a short story. A fiction book or story, of course. If after hearing the game plan he decided he didn't want to play, they knew he would keep quiet. They had decided not to invite Gale because they knew she could not keep quiet.

This was the strategy session, so Roger took the lead. Normally the strategy comes before the tactics, but not in this case. Gwen had decided, unilaterally, that they were going to pay Stirg a visit, so this was backfill.

Roger got out the team's usual planning tool, an easel with a large pad of flipchart paper on it, and markers. He ran down the case for the others. "We're 99% sure that Glissy's real name is Anna Stirg, and that she is the twenty-seven year old granddaughter of Nazi hunter Pmirhs Stirg, billionaire resident of Charleston. Glissy now is living with Slev, and we trust her not to hurt us because that's what The Deneuve's intuition says, backed up by Gwen's and Slev's intuition. But she won't tell us who she is, or anything about her past." Roger transcribed this into three bullet points on the flipchart. "We know a little about Stirg's history. People who have studied and documented the Nazi hunting campaign imply that Stirg has killed a number of people. We know he is Russian and Jewish, and came to Charleston so Anna could go to college here and because of Charleston's unique history of Jewish culture and tradition. We think he's very traditional minded when it comes to Russian and Jewish heritage. He tries to be a recluse but he has a temperament that gets riled and agitated easily, and occasionally he gets himself in the newspaper for doing one odd thing or another. That's about all we know, though no doubt more information is available on the Internet." Roger transcribed this into several more bullet points on the flipchart.

"We know he sent Anna into our house, armed with a Walther. We don't know what he wants, but it probably has something to do with the Hermitage stuff. Even though we have co-opted Anna, we think he's a serious threat to us; a conclusion based to a large degree on our intuitions. But we trust those intuitions. We've made the executive decision to retaliate, immediately. Anyone object to this?" No one did, but Peter and Pater, the ballet boys, looked uncomfortable. Gwen smiled at them and nodded. "Then the purpose of this meeting is to outline a strategy for our offensive. What do we want to achieve? What are our objectives?" Roger tore the top sheet off the flipchart and set in on the sideboard. On the next sheet he wrote, Mission Objectives.

As usual, Jinny spoke up first. He said, "Scare the shit out of Stirg." Gwen nodded at this suggestion, though she doubted Stirg scared easily. Roger wrote this on the list.

Helstof said, "Find out why he sent Anna here." Roger wrote this as the second objective.

Pater said, "Find out if he will donate a large sum of money to our ballet academy." Everyone looked at Pater, even the two cats, because Pater was not known for his sense of humor, goofy or otherwise. Where had this come from? Who had he been hanging out with? Peter, his significant other, giggled. And no, neither Peter nor Pater were going on the assault mission.

Gwen silently telegraphed Roger to record the suggestion on the flipchart, her not wanting to stifle Pater's newly-exhibited sense of humor.

"Anything else?" Roger asked. This was good. Missions with lots of objectives get messy really quickly. Two was a good number. Now he said, "We've all got to understand the consequences of this action. Unless we decide to kill Stirg there in his house, he's likely to come back at us, so we will have to go on high alert. Do you know what that means? It means you'll be looking over your shoulder. It means you'll be carrying guns. It means the good life is over, for a while." The four women looked impassive. Jinny snickered. Peter and Pater looked nervous. Richard looked perplexed, as only a writer can do. The cats remained inscrutable. Helstof went over to them and scratched their heads. They issued their "Caooh," which had a palliative effect on everyone.

Gwen stood up. "Gun practice today at 1pm. Everyone." She looked specifically at Peter, Pater, and Richard. They weren't going on the assault, but she wanted to start training them for whatever came afterwards. She looked at Slevov and Helstof and asked, "What about Constantine and Henric? They need to know. And they need to know you're going into action." The two women nodded. "Jinny, execute the plan as soon as possible. Tell us when we leave."

He said, "Hot damn," and the meeting broke up.

# Chapter 19 – They Stick It to Stirg

That afternoon at the gun range Gwen took Helstof and Richard aside. She looked at both of them and said, "Richard, this is not a joke. This is a dangerous man, and we don't know much about him. Our intuitions tell us to attack, and that is what we are going to do. She turned to Helstof with a very serious look. "You two talk about this now. If you decide that Richard comes, then he comes committed. And, you are responsible for him. We all will look out for him, but you are responsible."

Later that day the other team members moved into the June's house, including Peter and Pater even though they were not going on the assault. Helstof decided Richard would not go. Four Russians and the Junes would. Four women and two men, with Jinny acting as armorer. He issued a handgun to each person, and a backup to Roger, Gwen, and himself. Roger borrowed a thirty foot cruiser from a friend, and asked if it was insured. The guy said yes, and didn't ask any questions. This was an in and out operation that didn't need much equipment. They needed their guns, some nerve, and that was it. Oh, yeah, the women needed bikinis.

Forty-eight hours later, after three more sessions at the gun range, it was mission time. They boarded the boat at the Charleston marina at 3pm. Two hours before they left the house Jinny had suggested he conduct an equipment inspection. They all looked at him and asked, "What equipment?"

He said, "Well, guns and ammo." They all pulled their pieces, removed the mags and checked the loads, and showed no rounds in the chamber. Then he said, "Towels, sunglasses, sunscreen." They looked at him without laughing. Well, Pater laughed. Jinny said, "I need to inspect that the bikinis will be an effective decoy." The four women froze his ass with icy stares, and Helstof told Guignard that she could come and live with her on Kiawah whenever she felt the need.

Roger pointed the boat out into the Ashley River and headed down to the tip of the peninsula. Their travel time to Stirg's dock was ten minutes. This was it. The four women stripped down to their bikinis and put on baseball caps. Hair was let loose. A bottle of rum, plastic glasses, and a container of fruit juice came out of the carry-on bag, and were put on the deck table in plain sight. Each woman took a slug of rum, did a mouth swishy, and spit it on the side of the boat. Skin received a coat of tanning oil that glistened in the sun, which they carefully wiped from their hands. Guignard took the small plastic bottle from her carry-on that held four ounces of her blood, carefully drawn by Gwen an hour earlier in the June kitchen. Each woman wore sneakers and had a large towel at hand. Earlier, also in the June kitchen, the ends of the towels had been folded over and sewn on two sides to form a pocket. Now, on the boat, each woman stuck her gun in the pocket.

These preparations took five minutes, with Roger and Jinny looking the women over, checking details. This was Jinny's tactical plan, and they were executing it. Roger smiled at his wife, and Jinny smiled at his girlfriend, and Helstof and Slevov smiled at each other. Everyone had just the right amount of nervous energy jilting their bodies and minds. Action time. Roger and Jinny went below into the cabin. Gwen took over the boat controls just as they reached the tip of the peninsula and started the turn towards the Cooper River. Stirg's dock was three minutes away. Each woman took another swig of rum and spit it on the side of the boat that would come in contact with the dock.

As the boat cleared The Battery promenade they saw Stirg's dock, and there was no one on it. The big house sat over the water half way back the 100 yard length of the dock. Slev sat on the cushioned bench with Guignard and Helstof. Slev took the small plastic container from Guignard, and opened it. She looked at Gwen, who nodded. Slev carefully took hold of Guignard's head with her left hand and tilted it to one side. With the other hand she poured an ounce of blood into Guignard's hair, just above her ear, and smeared it around. She gave Guignard a quick kiss. Then she poured another ounce of blood just above her ear so it ran down the side of Guignard's head and neck. They watched the dock approach; contact was in a minute and a half. Slev put the mouth of the bottle against her hand and splashed a little blood there. At thirty seconds to contact she poured the remaining ounce of blood onto her towel that held her gun in one end, and smeared it around. Guignard leaned back against the side of the boat, and Slev and Helstof held her.

Gwen yelled to them, "Hold on," and deliberately brought the boat into the dock for a hard, banging landing. She cut the engine, hopped to the bow, and threw a line around a cleat. Holding her towel, she grabbed the stern line and tied that off on another cleat. As she looked up she saw a man come out of the house and start running down the fifty yards of dock towards them. He was dressed in black creased Bermuda shorts, a white golf shirt, and black sneakers without socks. He had a gun on his right hip.

Gwen went to Guignard and touched her head, getting blood on her hand. The man came to the end of the dock and yelled, "This is a private dock. You can't dock here." Gwen threw her towel over her shoulder and waved her bloody hand towards the man. "She's hurt, she's bleeding, and she needs help."

Helstof stood up and turned towards the man. "She hit her head on the table. We have to get her to a hospital. Please."

The man hesitated, looking at the three other women and Guignard. The amount of blood was convincing, dripping down her neck and matting in her hair. Slevov pretended to put pressure on the side of her head with the bloody towel. The man took in the entire scene of bikinis, the rum bottle, and the smell of alcohol. Gwen didn't wait for him to say anything. She took hold of Guignard and pulled her up from the bench and to the side of the boat. Slev helped, while Helstof got out of the boat and onto the dock, holding her towel. This convinced the man, who reached out to Gwen, and then took hold of Guignard under her shoulders. Gwen said, "Do you have a cell phone?" The man reached into his pocket and pulled one out. Gwen grabbed it in a bloody hand, opened it, and pretended to dial 911. She motioned to the man to help Guignard down the dock towards the house. Gwen went ahead of the small group and faked the call: there's been an accident, we need help, blood, please hurry. She waited five seconds and turned to group walking down the dock. "Where are we? What's the address?"

The man gave her the street address, which Gwen repeated into the phone. Then, "Please hurry, she's bleeding, she's bleeding." She dropped the blood covered phone on the dock and turned to the group, walking backwards and guiding them towards the house. The man saw the blood on the phone, and left it where it was.

Slevov pressed one end of her towel on Guignard's head, but clutched at the man with her other hand. He looked down and saw red on the front of his white shirt. The group reached the door of the house, which Gwen opened. The man entered first, Slevov and Guignard second, Gwen third, and Helstof fourth. They were in a large sunroom containing a full set of wicker furniture and a large bar. There were three sofas and a half dozen chairs. The double-glass windows were floor to ceiling, through which you could see James Island, the entire harbor, and in the distance, the flags of Fort Sumter.

Slev led Guignard to one of the beige colored sofas, and they flopped down. The man screamed, "Not on the upholstery, are you crazy? Get up." Behind the man's back Gwen deliberately knocked a lamp off a table. Crash. He turned around and looked stricken. Or, more stricken. "What happened?" he said.

Helstof said, "How do we meet the ambulance, where?"

The man looked from one woman to another, and then a man entered the sunroom. "Nev, what's happening?"

Nev said, "These women were on a boat, and one fell and hit her head. She's bleeding badly. I let them dock. We called 911."

The second man smelled the rum, the body oil, and the sweat. He looked at the four women in bikinis and sneakers, the bleeding woman, and the blood on the front of Nev's shirt. He saw the broken lamp on the floor. Before saying anything he looked carefully at Gwen. She stood looking at him, feet apart, blood on her left hand, holding the towel. Her right hand was free and easy. Stirg looked her up and down, hesitating in two places. He smiled and said, "Nev, what do we really have here? Give me your gun, and go out front and watch for the ambulance."

Gwen let this happen, the thespian in her wanting some drama. She thought it would do Stirg some good to feel a little drama, like she had felt the night Glissy came into her house. Stirg took the gun and Nev walked out of the sunroom. Stirg moved over to Guignard and looked closely at the blood on her head and neck, stared at Slev, who had her towel around her neck, and glanced at Helstof. Then he went to the bar, sat down on a stool, and let his legs swing free, a couple of inches above the floor. The gun rested on his lap. He looked at the women, then at the floor, then at the door leading to the rest of the house, then back at the gun. He said, "I hope she's not hurt too bad." After he said this he put the gun on top of the bar, and went back to swinging his legs.

The four women held their towels and their tongues, not say anything, which Stirg thought was odd. Four babes in bikinis, drinking out on a boat. Wouldn't one of them be worried about their friend, enough to talk? Babes liked to talk, especially when they've been drinking. Especially when something stressful was happening, like bloody hands, blood on someone's head. But these four weren't talking, they were looking at him. He got up from the stool and walked towards Guignard. "Maybe I better have a look at her before the ambulance comes."

Gwen wiped the sweat from her right hand and the blood from her left hand, then reached into the pocket of her towel and pulled her Glock. She racked the slide, let her gun hand hang towards the floor, and looked at Stirg. "Maybe you should sit down," she said. "We have things to talk about." She looked at Helstof and motioned towards the door. Helstof pulled her gun, dropped the towel on the floor, and went after Nev. Gwen said to Slev and Guignard, "Clean up, then get the other two." The women went behind the bar and washed up in the sink. Slev got most of the blood off Guignard, but decided she couldn't promise Nev they wouldn't get any on his upholstery. They both got out their guns, and Guignard went out the door towards the dock.

When Jinny and Roger entered the sunroom, Nev and Stirg were sitting on bar stools, Slev having collected Nev's gun from the counter. Nev, the Israeli bodyguard, looked dejected and a little mean. Jinny walked up to them and said, in Russian, "Where can I get some good Jewish food in Charleston? Everybody here does nouveau southern food, with some influence from here or there, or some ethnic twist, and I like that. But I don't know of any real Jewish food. Is there any?" Jinny had his gun in his hand, and he made sure Nev couldn't make a play for it. "Maybe you can cook some for us, eh? Gwen, you gonna kill them today? If not, maybe they can cook for us later."

Everyone looked at Jinny the joker, not really laughing, but maybe smiling a little inside. Jinny had imagination and cool.

Roger asked, "Did you check the whole house?"

Helstof nodded.

Gwen looked at Stirg, "Where would you like to talk?"

He said, "If you girls wash again, get all the blood off, we can go into the living room."

Slev said in Russian, "Girls, and asshole? Maybe we wash the blood off us and shoot you through the hands, let some blood flow out on the furniture in there, eh? Maybe we redecorate a little, change the color scheme, and add some vibrancy to the room."

Jinny smiled at this. Go Slev.

# Chapter 20 – The Discussion

The living room was really big and really nice. The décor of the sun room had been very coastal and water-oriented, but the living room had a different feel. It was old school European. There were no throw pillows with palmetto trees on them, no light blue fabrics with white trim, and no watercolor paintings of sail boats.

The paintings here were oil, with thick layers of varnish on the top that made them shine in any light. And they were realistic works, nothing abstract. The upholstery of the plush sofas was velvet in burgundy and dark green. Nothing here was done in lemon yellow. Leather chairs, of course, very soft, and Stirg liked clocks. There were four of them in the room, including a beautiful grandfather clock that dominated one wall.

When Roger and Jinny came off the boat they brought lightweight pants and shirts for the women, Jinny saying he thought this was unnecessary for the interrogation, that the continued use of the bikinis would be more effective, but he was overruled. The women put these on there in the living room. Stirg seemed to agree with Jinny, and didn't hide his disappointment. "Ladies, not on my account."

When Stirg and Nev were seated in two of the leather chairs, Jinny tied Nev's feet together with a cord he cut from a window drape. That was enough. He wasn't going anywhere. Jinny looked at Gwen about tying Stirg, but she shook her head, no. Roger did a quick search of the room for hidden weapons, looking in table drawers, the bookcases, and under the sofas and chairs. Before Stirg and Nev sat down, he checked in the cushions of the chairs. Slev and Helstof learned about security.

Roger said, "Mr. Stirg, my wife wants to know if we can call you Pmirhs? Maybe not right off the bat, but we figure by the end of the day we're all going to be pretty intimate with each other. We'll understand if you want to keep this formal, but we thought we'd ask."

He said, "Stirg, please."

"Ok. Stirg it is. Another preliminary, before the torture begins," Roger smiled at his joke, "Do you want Nev to stay? We can tape him up and put him in a closet if that would suit you better."

Stirg shook his head. Evidently Nev was family, and could hear all the dirty laundry.

Roger said, "We were minding our own business here in quaint little Charleston, and you sent an agent into our home in the middle of the night. Thank goodness we own a smart dog that told us about it, and so we were able to, ah, intercede in that agent's mission. We didn't appreciate that, which is why we're here now, in your house. Looks like our dog did a better job than Nev. We'd like to know why you did what you did."

Stirg stretched his legs out in front of the big chair and settled his butt deeper into the cushion. He thought for a while, which gave the team time to look around the beautiful room. A billionaire's digs. "Where's Anna?" he asked.

There were three schools of thought among the June team about how they would answer that question. One school advocated a no response. Foment uncertainty in Stirg, and make him uneasy. The second school held the opposite perspective: tell Stirg they had co-opted Anna and she now was on their side. Tell him she even had changed her name. The third school of thought, championed by none other than Little Jinny Blistov, said they should tell Stirg that Anna was out in the garden, and he would be with her soon if he didn't tell them what he was up to.

They had decided on the second approach, even though it was going to be hard to tell Stirg just how they had co-opted Anna, because they didn't really know themselves. When The Deneuve is around, stuff happens. Now, it was happening when Gwen was around, stuff beyond rationality. It was all about intuition. When a person with a heightened sense of intuition is part of the mix, things happen differently than normal. Anna had come over to their side because, while she sat duct taped to a chair, Catherine and Gwen had sat close to her. They talked with her, and smiled at her and looked into her eyes, and it came down to a matter of influence. Anna had decided she wanted to be with them, and maybe be like them, rather than be the way she was up to that point in time. Nothing magical really, just a powerful, gentle influence. It was going to be hard to explain this to a guy like Stirg, or at least they thought it would be.

Roger said, "Anna's ok. She's with us." He let that sink in. "We even gave the Walther back to her. After we had taken it away from her at first, of course." He let that sink in. "She's not coming back to you right away, Stirg, but who knows what the future holds."

Stirg brought his legs back close to the chair and sat up straight, his hands gripping the leather arms of the chair. "What do you mean she's with you? What does that mean?"

Roger paused in the dialogue, then said, "It means we caught her ass in our house in the middle of the fucking night, with a gun in her hand. We caught her. We took her gun away from her, and we had a little talk with her about things. Mostly my wife talked to her."

Stirg looked first at Helstof and then at Slevov, and then at Gwen. He said, "This one's your wife." He said it contemptuously, something Roger picked up on very clearly, and he didn't like it much.

"Yeah, she's the one who got behind her, when your granddaughter was creeping around our house like a rat, and nailed her ass. She's the one." Roger smiled grimly. Gwen telegraphed him to calm down, and Roger relaxed a bit, continuing. "You sent her, so you're responsible. We know something about you, and we know you're a serious man, with serious motivations. We know you've done some good things in a very serious business. So serious that it's not very likely you did all that and remained squeaky clean. You know that phrase, squeaky clean?"

Stirg ignored Roger's question and said, "Is Anna all right? Where is she?"

Roger was calm now, understanding the situation. The team had decided to tell Stirg the truth. "I told you, she's ok. She's decided to stay with us for a while. She likes us, and wants a change in her life. She'll contact you later." Roger paused. Jinny watched Nev, who couldn't do much with his feet tied together, but....Slev and Helstof watched how Stirg took the news. Roger went on, "This is about you now, not her. You need to tell us why you sent her. What do you want? We don't even know you, and you're down on us. We don't like that. We know you're a serious man, and we know your rep. We can't have you out there after us if we think you're a threat. We'll dump your ass out in the harbor past Fort Sumter if we think that." Roger said this in a way that made Gwen, Slev, and Helstof tense up. It made Jinny smile. And both Stirg and Nev picked up on their body language, the room vibrating with intensity. Nev, the Israeli bodyguard, contracted his leg muscles. Jinny shook his head at him. Roger said, "Tell us, what do you want?"

He said, "I want my granddaughter back."

Roger said, "You don't own her. She's doing what she wants. It's not about her, it's about you."

Stirg settled back in the chair, and Nev relaxed. Jinny did not. Stirg said, "You said you know something about me. How old am I?"

"You're sixty-seven."

"Yes, I am sixty-seven, and I want to live in a quiet town like Charleston, with my granddaughter nearby, whom I love." Jinny wanted to mention that Stirg had a local reputation for chasing women his granddaughter's age around town for non-grand daughterly purposes, but he held his tongue.

"I have a nice house here, and most of my past is in the past. No more running around the world looking for bad guys. You know I used to chase bad guys?"

Roger nodded slightly.

"Ok, so you know about South American. I haven't been involved in that in a long time, and I've tried to forget about that. No more courts at The Hague, no more meetings in Tel Aviv. You know what I do now? I'm like most sixty-seven year old men. I think a lot about my youth." He looked at Slev and Helstof and Gwen, and smiled, making them feel like they still were in their bikinis. "Well, maybe I am not exactly like most sixty-seven year old men." Everyone got the joke, the picture. "But I don't think about Germans anymore. I did that for twenty years. Germans, Germans, Germans. You know what I think about now? Russians. I think about the place where I grew up. That was a long time ago, but it means a lot to me now. Most people think about their youth when they get older. You never escape from or forget what you learned when you were young."

Stirg was nostalgic, but what he said was true.

Nev had been trying to loosen the cord around his ankles, which everyone saw. Still, he had to try. Helstof said, "Nevy, sit there like a good boy, or we take you out in the harbor, and your boss will have to cook his own dinner tonight. Ok?"

Stirg appreciated the humor, in a grim way. He said, "There's a lot going on in Russia now. Putin is strong, there's lots of money there, and we know the future is bright. It's a messy place, but that's ok. I don't mind messy. I don't want to live there, but I think about my country all the time." Stirg was talking now, like the team wanted. "I read articles about Russia on the internet every day, and I make a phone call there once in a while, and sometimes I take a little trip somewhere and meet with a Russian friend. That's what I'm doing in my retirement. I like Charleston. I like walking down Tradd Street. I can walk there, and the narrow street and the architecture of the old houses reminds me of growing up in Saint Petersburg."

The team could read Stirg. They knew he was doing the cobra thing, slowly swaying back and forth, ready to hit. That was ok. They were here, in his house, for one simple reason: learn what he wanted, and determine if he was a serious threat to them. Learn if he wanted to kill them. They were not going to underestimate him. He was a very serious man. They had to let him lead the discussion. Gwen and Slev knew they would get it out of him. They had time.

Stirg said, "Can I have a glass of water?"

Guignard leaned against a wall, a little blood still matted in her hair and caked on her neck. She held her gun loosely at her side, index finger running down the barrel the way Gwen had taught her. She alternated watching Stirg and Gwen. Even when Gwen was doing nothing, she was interesting to watch.

Gwen said, "Guignard, go into the kitchen and put your head under the faucet. If you splash any blood on the counter, leave it there. Helstof, go with her. When you come back, bring Mr. Stirg a glass of water. Nothing for Nev."

Roger could see his wife was in one of her serious\fun moods. She was fucking with Nev, who undoubtedly was some kind of commando guy, given to Stirg by the Israeli government for services rendered years ago. Roger wasn't sure that was such a good idea, shaking a hornet's nest so to speak, but Gwen was Gwen.

Roger didn't know Stirg, but he thought Stirg also was in sort of a serious\fun mood, like his wife. Stirg might be pissed that a group of women had invaded his home and were washing their hair in his kitchen sink, but on the other hand, it was possibly he found this amusing. Certainly it hadn't happened before. No one had gotten the drop on Stirg in many years. Roger didn't care about Stirg's feelings one way or the other. He just knew that before they left, one way or the other, they were going to find out what he wanted, and if he was a threat to them.

When Stirg had his glass of water in hand, Roger asked again, "What do you want from us? We're not leaving till we find that out, and we're not planning on sleeping here tonight. Can you do that calculation?" From out of nowhere Roger again had gotten a hard edge on him, and everyone noticed. Jinny liked what he saw. Nev didn't like it at all. The four women watched the transformation with great interest. Roger, Charleston's aristocratic man about town, had gotten a look on his face that his new friends hadn't seen before. While Stirg was getting his water, Roger was thinking about a person invading his house. Of course he had thought about it before, but now he was with the person who had ordered that. He had, post-invasion, accepted Glissy because The Deneuve and Gwen told him to. Fine. Glissy was ok. But that didn't extend to Stirg. Stirg had ordered someone carrying a gun to come into Roger's house in the middle of the night. Fuck that! Stirg was messing with his wife, and his house guest, and his dog and his cat. Stirg was messing with him. Fuck that! Hence the transformative look on his face. Roger felt his teeth grind together, his lips stuck out because his jaw had tightened. His eyes pinched together in a way that made his handsome face ugly. A stranger in his house, while he and Gwen were in bed. Roger's field of vision narrowed and his brain constricted its focus. Helstof and Jinny and Guignard and Slev and Nev disappeared. The only people in the room were Stirg and Gwen. His biochemistry changed with an adrenaline rush and his voice changed to a guttural sound. "What do you want Stirg? Tell me now, you fuck? Tell me what you were doing in my house." This was a viciously ominous threat. Roger didn't notice Nev stand up. He didn't notice three guns come up and center on Nev's chest. The only thing in his world was Stirg's mouth. The only thing he wanted was for Stirg to speak. His mind started counting: one, two, three, four....

He heard Stirg say, "What's the American going to do...."

In a flash of movement Roger launched himself from his chair, crossing the ten feet separating him from Stirg in a micro-second. His mind was consumed with one thought: Gwen, his beloved. Three seconds after the word do came out of Stirg's mouth, Roger's right hand, holding his Beretta, came down in a sweeping arc across Stirg's head. The heavy blow traveled from Stirg's left ear, across his temple, to his nose. His head snapped sideways and down, then recoiled backwards. The only sound from Stirg was a kind of crack. The only sound from Roger was a sharp exhalation of breadth, the way martial arts guys do after striking a blow. Roger crouched next to the chair, instinctively waiting to see the result of the attack. Waiting to see if another blow was necessary. It was not.

Slowly Stirg's head settled against the back of his chair. He was not unconscious, but his body automatically had gone into dormancy mode. Roger stood up and stepped back. Nev wanted to move but couldn't. His hands clenched, and Jinny said to him, "Don't try it."

Gwen said, "Mercy."

Everyone stood where they were and waited. Jinny watched Nev, but everyone else watched Stirg. Ten seconds passed, fifteen, twenty. Stirg didn't bleed. His eyes opened and he looked at the ceiling, his breathing even and regular. He opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue, which licked his bottom lip. When his tongue retracted into his mouth, he strained his neck muscles, ordering them to move his head to the upright position. At first the muscles failed, but then they performed. As his head came forward in slow motion the muscles failed to stop the forward movement of his head, and overcooked the vertical. He then consciously had to command the muscles to reverse the movement, and this time they achieved a vertical alignment. His eyes came into focus and they looked at Roger's right hand. His mind re-enacted the movement of the blow, and his eyes shut. When no sensation of pain occurred, they opened again, Stirg awake and alert. Again his head moved backwards to rest on the back of the chair, but his eyes stayed open.

Jinny stepped forward and said to Nev, "Sit down."

Gwen moved next to Roger and looked down at Stirg. She didn't say anything, but she thought, "Ok, Roger, ok."

Helstof stepped forward and took the glass from the table. She returned with it refilled with water, and a hand towel filled with ice. She put the glass down on the table, and stuck the towel in Stirg's hand, which she raised to the side of his head. He got the idea, and kept it there. She said, "He's ugly enough without a big knot on the side of his face," and went back to her position. Gwen smiled at her husband, and then pushed him away from the chair he had been sitting in. She sat down.

Everyone at-eased, including Nev, everyone except Jinny. He stayed at loose attention, acting like his turn with violence would be next. He looked over at Roger and said, "Yeah, baby."

Stirg was now fully alert and looking at Gwen. She said, "Did you hear what she said? Keep the ice on your face if you don't want a great big knot on it." He kept the icepack against the side of his head with one hand while he checked his teeth with the other. Apparently they all still were in their previous location. He contorted his mouth a few times, and then said, "So it's like that, huh. Ok."

Gwen spoke. "We didn't plan on that, but seems my husband didn't like something about your attitude. Had to be done though; you weren't taking us seriously, so we had to make an adjustment to your world view. I thought Roger was very judicious. I considered knocking out most of your teeth with the butt of my gun, but that would've created the obvious problem of you then not being able to talk, and that would've pissed us off more than we are now, and then our judiciousness would have taken a powder, and probably we would've ended up taking you and Nev on a little harbor cruise out past Fort Sumter tonight. Better this way. Now you still can talk. Take your time, Stirg. When you're ready, we'll listen to you tell us what you want from us. In the meantime, we're gonna take a look around this cool house of yours. Jinny, you stay with our hosts. Don't screw with them unless they give you reason to. If they do, the good news is that the core of this house is the Navy's concrete cube, two feet thick, so I doubt anyone will hear the shots. C'mon," and she motioned to the others. They started up the wide, marble staircase.

# Chapter 21 – Stirg's Answer

Jinny started talking, first to Stirg and then to Nev. Roger's violence had juiced him up, like the old days. "How many Germans did you catch? How many did you kill, and how many did you send back to Europe and Israel?" No answer. "How did you figure out they went to Argentina? What's Argentina like? Are there any blondes there, or are they all black-haired? Did you go to the carnival thing there every year, with the floats and the babes in bikinis?" Stirg took the ice away from his face because it was starting to freeze. He felt around his ear, and then down on his jaw, moving it back and forth. It seemed to work ok. "You're sixty-seven, I'm forty-seven. You could be my dad," Jinny said. "Maybe you and my dad were friends in Saint Petersburg. Where did you grow up, which side of the river?" Stirg had the ice back against his face, and his eyes were closed. The bell that Roger had rung in his head still echoed, and he felt a bump growing just above his ear. When he didn't answer, Jinny started in with Nev.

"So what do you do here besides bodyguard? I hope you cook and clean better than you bodyguard, because four women in bikinis just waltzed right in here on you and braced your boss. Are you gonna fire him," Jinny asked Stirg. "Is everyone in Israel a Jew? I thought all Israeli guys were supposed to be commandos, death to anyone who fucked with them. But here we are, four women, a Charleston aristocrat, and me, sitting here, asking the questions, touring your house. I don't know if Gwen is gonna let us eat dinner here, drink your wine. I hope so, 'cause this is some nice place, hanging out over the water. I guess that depends on whether your boss answers our questions right. If he don't, it's gonna be a trip out to the fort for you two. Maybe if that's the way it goes, maybe we'll come back here afterwards and fix something. Hey, if your boss does talk," and Jinny looked over at Stirg, "maybe he'll tell you to fix us dinner. What you got out there in the kitchen that's good? Can an Israeli make good shrimp and grits? Do you guys drink French wine? We do. Are there any Huguenots in Israel? You know what Huguenots are? You know any here in Charleston? 'Cause they're all over the place. Does your boss know the president of the Charleston Huguenot Society, 'cause we think that's who squealed on us?" Jinny caught a breath. "Can you catch fish off this dock? What kind, any sea bass, 'cause I love sea bass, just butter, broiled, with roasted potatoes? If things work out between us, if we don't have to kill you, think I can come over and fish off the dock. I don't have a boat yet, but maybe I'm gonna get one soon. Guignard likes to fish too, and you know, the secret to long-term relationships is lots of shared outside interests. All this stuff about inner compatibilities is crap."

They heard the others coming down the stairs, who had gone up to the fourth floor and looked out over the harbor from Stirg's bedroom. What a view. Jinny stopped talking as they trooped back into the room. "Thank god," Stirg said.

As they entered, Jinny's eyes lit up. Gwen was carrying a Brusshev 45 caliber semi-automatic in her left hand and her Glock in the right. The Brusshev is the biggest, heaviest 45 anyone's ever made, and dates from WWII. It was so heavy Gwen could hardly hold it out straight armed. She handed it to Jinny, along with a loaded magazine. "For you, Jinn Jinn. We found it next to Stirg's bed. Big fucker, isn't it?"

Jinny tucked his gun into his belt, and hefted the Russian gun. He slapped the magazine into the handle, and racked the slide. He pointed it at Stirg, and said, "Big fucker is right. Thanks. I always wanted one of these."

Stirg didn't bother to reply. He said to Gwen, "Is this asshole always this talkative, or is he just nervous, this being his first real mission after getting out of grade school?" And he spat on his $40,000 oriental carpet.

Jinny looked at Nev and said, "You're gonna have to clean that up after we leave, aren't you? Does he make you clean up after he uses the bathroom, too?"

Gwen could see where this was leading, so she cut it off. She sat down in the chair opposite Stirg, and waited. Then she said, "Helstof, would you please get some more ice?" She looked at Stirg again and said, "Before we start on the traditional torture methods, we always try leaving the person alone with Jinny and his questions. Surprising how many people crack just under that. You ready to tell us, because it's starting to get late, and we have dinner reservations. We're hoping a trip with you out to the fort won't interfere with those." Stirg didn't smile, but he did ask for a drink. Gwen nodded to Jinny, who went out to the kitchen. He returned with a highball glass and a bottle of scotch and a bottle of cognac.

Stirg said, "Cognac," and Jinny poured him a stiff one.

He took the icepack away from his jaw and drank half of what was in his glass. He sat back and tried to get comfortable, looking at Roger. "You hit me good. I'm not going to forget that." Roger looked him in the eye and nodded. He didn't say anything. Stirg took another sip of his drink, and started talking. "You people are right when you say I'm not squeaky clean. I know what that means. I'm not clean by a long-shot. Those Nazi bastards did bad things to Russia and they did bad things to Jews, so I did bad things to them. Jinny, some water, please.

"One of the things I did during those days was to put Nazis back where they belonged, at The Hague, and in Israel." He sipped some water. "But something else I did was to put things back where they belonged. All kinds of things the Nazis stole: art, documents, people's possessions, photographs....stuff. And while I was doing that I learned about art, and I learned about stolen stuff, and I learned about returning stolen stuff to people." Stirg drank what was left of the cognac and continued. "Did I steal stuff at the same time? Yes, I did. I made money; money that I still have. So I squeak, yes. I have dirt in me, dirt from stealing. It's the opposite from squeaky clean. It's squeaky from dirt getting into my machinery. Dry, gritty dirt. I'd oil the machinery sometimes by returning stuff to people, then I'd get more dirt in it, and I'd start squeaking again. I still squeak, I guess. One of best oils I've ever had is Anna. She did a lot to make me stop squeaking. But not all together. I taught her some dirty stuff too. Good, bad....good, bad....that's me."

Stirg looked around the room, at each person. He seemed to challenge everyone to claim they were all good, and had no takers. "I told you I don't want to live in Russia. I want to live here, but that doesn't mean I don't care about Russia. The older I get, the more I care about what I learned when I was young. I can't get away from it. Sixty years ago still is in me, and it comes out all the time. I'm Russian, and I love that." He motioned to Jinny for more cognac. "Jinny, I'd like some soda water to put in this one. If you untie Nev, he can get it from the kitchen." Jinny made sure Gwen had her gun ready before he left for the kitchen, and he didn't untie Nev.

"One of Nev's jobs is email. I don't do that very well, but everyone else does, so I have to use it. And we do use it. We have friends. I have lots of friends, in different places. I have friends in Saint Petersburg, and they told me something." He took a small sip of the cognac and soda. Slevov sat down because the story was coming now. "Several months ago I got an email telling me someone had stolen things from the Hermitage. I thought, how can that happen? It's a fortress, with lots of security. Well, as usual with things like this, it was an inside job. The police still are working on it over there, but evidently they're not getting very far. My friend, though, is someone I worked with for many years, and he's almost as good an investigator as I was. He's found some things out, and he hasn't told the police, because he doesn't like them. One of the things I like about Charleston is that the police here are very polite, unlike the police in Saint Petersburg. They're brutes over there. Do you know the police have been here twice? Very polite, almost like Beverly Hills cops."

Stirg gave up on the ice. He knew he would have a lump on his head for two days. "Nev, would you get me some aspirin." He looked at Roger, who remained impassive.

Helstof asked, "Where is it?" She returned and handed four aspirin to Stirg, who washed them down with a swig of his drink.

"My friend feels the same way I do about Russian culture, so he looked into the Hermitage theft, and because he's better than the police investigators, and knows other people, he learned about some shipping containers, and a ship." Stirg paused for effect. "Eventually he had a talk with a ship's captain and some crew members." Stirg realized he didn't have to fill in the blanks. His visitors got the picture. "It all came together when a person I know here in Charleston mentioned a party he went to a few months ago. He told me about some art work in the house, paintings of borzois. Told me the home owners were Russian, like me. Very nice people. I won't bore you with the details. The Kiawah house is very nice. A little small, but still nice. I considered living down there, but I'm a city person really, so I decided I wanted to be here in town."

Stirg stopped talking. He figured that was all he had to say.

And that was almost true. The team members did fill in the blanks, which was sobering. But not all of them. Gwen said, "So what do you care? Surely a little thieving is not going to bother someone like you."

"Little?" Stirg said. "Ten containers of stuff. Little?"

Jinny almost corrected him by saying, "Seven containers, not ten," but he caught himself in time.

"You're a billionaire. Where did all that money come from? What kinds of containers did you ship around the world?"

Stirg looked at Gwen, and then at the others, and began again. "I told you I am not squeaky clean. Yes, a billion dollars is a lot of money. It came from different sources over many years. Is all that money clean? No. Most of it, yes. So. That's not what we're talking about here, is it? You want to know why I'm interested in Roger and Gwen June? Ok. Because it pisses me off that some fucking Americans stole Russian stuff. That's why, pure and simple. Old Russian stuff. Old, like me. I'm getting old, and so I like old stuff."

At that moment Stirg looked old. Regardless of the fact that occasionally he still chased younger women, he was fighting the tide, and he knew it. And now the team knew it. And now they understood his motivation for hassling them. Loyalty to his country. Feelings of mortality. Nostalgia. All mixed into his personal blend of intelligence and ambition and a history of intrigue and violence. Stirg was a heavy hitter in the past, and now he was out to pasture, and didn't like it. He still had energy and he was having new feelings. Feelings about being old. Feelings about his past and his youth. The lessons of youth never are lost, and his lessons were learned in Saint Petersburg, sixty years ago. Maybe Stirg had listened to Paul Simon's song about aging. All of these things caused Stirg to go after the Hermitage team. The story, the actions, the geography, and the feelings. The nexus of these was Charleston and the Junes.

The combination of a couple of cognacs, emotions about his homeland, and thoughts of getting old acted as a stimulant on Stirg. He stood up and clenched his fists. Jinny and Gwen let Stirg stand up, but when Nev stood up, both of them pointed guns at him, and he sat back down. Then they looked at Stirg and waited for him to act. Slowly Stirg walked towards a large picture window looking out to the harbor waters. For thirty seconds he stood staring out the window, then he turned around and pointed a finger at each of the home invaders. "You stole old Russian stuff from the people. From the museum. From the city. And you got it here, to America. And now it's in people's houses here, and god knows where else. You fucking stole it. And you're gonna pay." Stirg said this loudly, vehemently.

Gwen and Roger understood what was happening, so they let loose a little on the reins they had connected to the bit in Stirg's mouth. He was emotional and venting. He was pissed. But he wasn't going to act stupidly, and neither was Nev. They waited for Stirg to say what he had to say.

But that was it. Stirg went back to his chair and sat down. Now it was Gwen's turn.

"Why did you send Anna? She's only twenty-seven. You sent her into our house, with a gun. What did you expect her to do?"

This lit the fire in Stirg again. He leaned forward in his chair and glared at Gwen. "Anna was born in Israel. But she's got Russian blood. She's been to Saint Petersburg many times. Twenty-seven's time for her to get serious about things. She's no kid. Shit, everybody in Israel knows about guns by the time they're that age. Most of you wussy little Americans are so afraid of confrontation. Well, she's not."

Stirg was emotional, so the team refrained from pointing out to him the fact that he was staring down the barrels of six guns, two of them held by wussy Americans. And he was talking about his granddaughter, who had deserted him to some extent, a situation he still had to understand and come to terms with. So they let him rant.

"I want to know about the Hermitage stuff. I want to know where it is and who has it, and what you're going to do with it. I want that stuff." He huffed a little. "And I want Anna. Where is she? You fuck with her, you're in big trouble." He sat back in his chair.

All right, so Stirg had answered the two big questions, and it was all out on the table now. The team understood him, and he understood them. Four women and two men had invaded his house in broad daylight, each armed to the teeth. He reached another point of understanding when Roger clocked him on the side of the head with his gun. The four aspirin and two cognacs had not put a dent in the pain he felt from that. And here they all were, sitting around the big, beautiful living room of Stirg's Charleston house. Now what?

# Chapter 22 – The Russians Tangle in Charleston

Quiet descended on the group. Even Jinny managed to keep his mouth shut, for once. Stirg had thrown down the gauntlet, and now everyone had to figure out what this meant. It was a hell of a situation. Typical June scenario.

Gwen got ready to take command when Slevov stood up. She handed her gun to Jinny, who was standing next to her, watching Nev. He now had four guns: his primary, his backup on his ankle, Stirg's Brusshev, and Slevov's. If he stuck any more in his belt, his pants would fall down. Over the last months Jinny had learned about and adopted some American customs. Sometimes his sources of information were a little suspect, like some of the folks at Pierre's Men's Salon. He also watched Entertainment Tonight a lot on TV, and extended the stuff he saw there to the population at large. For example, he thought all American women were waxed. So he had persuaded Guignard to adopt that practice. And he thought most American men didn't wear underwear. So he had adopted the practice. If someone did hand him a fifth gun and he stuck it in his belt, and his pants did fall down, well....

Slevov looked at Nev and said, "Do you have any vodka in the house? Any decent vodka?" Nev motioned with his head to the kitchen. Slevov looked at Helstof and said, "Would you look, and bring some glasses, too?" Helstof thought of handing her gun to Jinny, but had heard rumors of Jinny's new dressing habit, so she took it with her to the kitchen. Slevov asked Gwen to move her chair back, away from Stirg's chair, and asked Jinny to drag Nev's chair closer to Stirg. She then went to the wall of the living room, and with Guignard's help, moved a table to the center of the room, in front of Stirg and Nev. On the other side of the table she lined up five chairs. When Helstof returned with two bottles of vodka, a bunch of small glasses, and a box of crackers, she asked Roger and Gwen and Guignard and Helstof to sit down. She put herself in the center chair, opposite Stirg, and Gwen at the end, where she would have a line of fire. She put Jinny behind Stirg and Nev, standing up. She said, "Jinny, hon, you're the designated driver. I'm sorry, but someone has to forego the vodka. Someone has to be able to put a bullet in either of these guy's heads if they get cute and start something. That's you hon. We'll make it up to you later. Ok?" Jinny nodded. "Gwen, if Jinny misses, you got the second shot."

Gwen nodded and said, "If Jinny misses, I'm gonna shoot him first, then take the second shot at these two." She looked at Jinny, without smiling. He smiled back at her though. He loved Gwen when she acted tough.

Slevov had decided it was time to try something new, a Deneuvian move. She never had lacked for self-confidence, and now she had it in spades, having learned that both Catherine and Gwen felt she was, well, one of them. A Deneuvian. A person who could influence others, using special skills. With everyone in place and security assignments clear, she filled glasses with vodka, and dumped crackers onto the table. Stirg watched with great interest. Nev calculated distances and probabilities of outcomes. Gwen was thrilled that Slev had stepped up. Roger was perplexed, as usual, because he realized this was a Deneuvian moment, and he never could figure them out. He just knew that usually, people did what a Deneuvian wanted them to do. That certainly was the case with him.

Slev knocked back a shot of vodka, and followed it with a cracker. While she chewed, she waited for the others to do likewise. They did, except Nev. Looking at him, she said, "I'm going to work something out between us, Nev. At least try to. I'm not sure what it's going to be, but we need to try to come to terms here. Your side is strong, and our side is strong. If we clash, things are going to get nasty. If you try to save your boss here and now with some kind of attack, that is going to fuck up this attempt of mine at conciliation. Please don't do that. Jinny might miss, but Gwen won't. Have a drink. See what happens. Trust me." This was the first Deneuvian move, and it was a good one, because Nev was feeling desperate. He'd been humiliated, and was looking to redeem himself. Slev had sensed this, and wanted to ameliorate the threat. Nev looked at Slev, and listened to her words. She had power in her eyes, eyes that were focused on him. He knew she was fully committed to him; to his intentions, to his needs, to his feelings and thoughts. He came instantly to believe her, to see from her perspective, to feel her influence. His mind involuntarily sent messages to his body: relax, stand down, have a drink, listen to her. Continue to live. He reached for his glass. Gwen smiled inwardly. This was new to Stirg. He didn't understand, yet. The others watched him.

Slev said, "We're like people who work together in the same company, and don't like each other. None of us are going to quit our job over this and go work somewhere else, so we have to play nice and co-exist, even though we don't want to." She looked at Stirg, and he got a funny feeling. "You're a very powerful guy, Mr. Stirg. We have said we know that, and we respect that. We know you are serious. So are we. You know that now. You know that beyond any doubt." She counted to ten. "There are six of us here in your house. But our team has eight players. Two of them are elsewhere. Two more men. I know one of them very well. He's my husband. I don't feel any need to tell you our name. His name. The other guy has a name too, but it's not necessary for you to know that, either. This other guy is Helstof's husband."

Slev stopped talking and poured vodka into all the glasses. She put a cracker in her mouth, took her time chewing it, then washed it down with the drink. Jinny wanted one so badly. "That's our team. You have Nev on your team, and we know you can get others, people who are loyal to you, or mercenaries. So we have these two factions working in the Charleston company, doing different tasks, not seeing eye to eye, maybe not liking each other. What's to do? We like working in the Charleston company, Stirg, and so do you. You want us to give up our stuff, but we like it. It's part of us here. We worked hard to set up our part of the company, and we're not going to give it up, even though that's what you want us to do. We're not trying to fuck with your life here, Stirg, but you're fucking with ours. I don't see you giving up on this, but we gotta keep a lid on it. Otherwise, the company disintegrates." Slev sat back and picked up another cracker.

Stirg had had two cognacs and two vodkas, but he wasn't feeling it much. His thinking was clear. The side of his head hurt a lot, but that was manageable. It had been a while since he had drunk shots of vodka with other Russians, and he was enjoying it, regardless of Jinny standing behind him holding a Brusshev 45 cal. But the feeling of enjoyment mixed with the head pain mixed with the alcohol didn't deflect him from his thoughts and feelings of Americans stealing Russian heritage items, or of them co-opting his granddaughter. He didn't like either of those things one bit.

"I get the picture," he said. "But. Anna's my granddaughter. She's with me."

"We didn't come to your office and recruit your granddaughter. She came to us." Slevov said this, knowing that using logic as a communication tool was hopeless. Stirg was pissed on both counts, and he wasn't going to get talked out of his viewpoint by logic. She had to try, but she was focusing on intuition. "If you come after us again, we'll defend ourselves. Know that. Ask yourself if it's worth it. Anna will be back to you somehow, sometime. Those are our messages. That's why we paid you this visit. If you want to tell us more about how you see this situation, we'll listen."

Stirg thought about having another shot, but he knew he'd had enough. He was feeling many things: loss of Anna, Slev's influence, Gwen, the assault on his home, age, pride. And the pain at the side of his head. Feelings, feelings, pride, women. What a jumble. What a day. He wanted these people out of his house. He said, "You tell Anna I want to see her. And this isn't over." He got up from his chair and crossed the room to the wide staircase. He looked back at all of them, and began a slow climb to the upper levels.

The party was over. Jinny motioned to Nev to untie his legs. Everyone got up, got what few things they had brought into the house, and made their way outside to the dock, with Jinny bringing Nev along. Roger fired up the boat engines, with Nev looking down at them from the dock. The tide was out. Gwen said to Jinny, "Give him back the gun." Jinny looked surprised, but he removed the magazine and the round in the chamber from the Brusshev, and tossed it up to Nev. He and Nev stood looking at each other as the boat drew away, and Jinny waved.

# Chapter 23 - Getting on With Life

This was not the first time the Junes had an enemy living in Charleston. Jinny had started out as an enemy more than a year ago, and then had turned into a business partner and friend. Roger and Gwen knew that wasn't going to happen with Stirg. The Junes were lucky in that they were exceptionally flexible minded people and so were able to deal with this situation. This was one of many characteristics they shared, and that allowed for a long term and loving relationship.

They also were like President Clinton in their capability to compartmentalize the forces acting on their lives. Clinton had been able to have his dalliance with a young airheaded woman in the Oval Office, spread across every newspaper in the known world, and at the same time sit across the negotiating table with Vladimir Putin and tell him, "No fucking way, Puty, are we ever going to agree to that shit."

The Junes were able to live with the results of their visit to Stirg's house without letting it adversely affect their enjoyment of life. They kept their dinner reservation later that evening, they enjoyed the bottle of Vouvray they ordered with their seafood, and they enjoyed a stroll around the historic district afterwards, though of course both of them carried their guns, and both of them kept a sixth sense of awareness in a heightened state.

The team split up for a few days after the Stirg adventure because they knew Constantine and Henric were coming back to Charleston soon. The plan was to reassemble at that time and figure out a strategy to deal with Stirg. None of the team were under the delusion that Stirg was going to drop the matter that was causing him such intense moral irritation.

The next day the June's friend Gale came over for coffee late in the afternoon. Gale knew about the Hermitage caper, but was not a full-fledged team member due to a complete inability to keep her mouth shut about anything. Gale was wild in a different way than Gwen was wild. Gale loved clothes and parties and Champagne and men and sex and eating in great restaurants. Gwen loved all those things too, but Gwen also loved Chopin and reading the social novels of Richard Condon and staring at Madonnas painted by Raphael. Gale knew she couldn't keep her mouth shut about certain things, so she told Roger and Gwen not to tell her stuff, even when she told them that if they didn't tell her everything, she would tell everyone in Charleston that they were bisexual. There are many people for whom such a threat would be like manna from heaven, because it would increase the excitement in their lives, but the Junes didn't need that because their lives were quite exciting enough, thank you very much.

So Gwen did not tell Gale about their visit to Stirg the day before. Gwen had invited Gale over for coffee because Gwen wanted some social interaction that did not involve gunplay, Russians, or stealing things, so they talked about one of their usual subjects, sex. Gale asked Gwen if she had read the new book 40 Beads. It was written by a fellow Charlestonian, a woman, and was about how to keep sex alive and interesting and manageable over the haul of a long term marriage. Gwen said she didn't have that problem, that she and Roger had a system in place called love and respect, and after that the sex took care of itself. Gale said don't be so highfalutin. What was interesting about the book was the way the author so accurately characterized men, and did so in terms that had meaning to women. Gwen looked at Gale and said, "Are you telling me you don't know men are sex nuts, sex crazed, sexually addled, totally consumed with the subject?"

Gale said, "Oh God, no. I know that. We all know that. But what the book does is tell women how to deal with that, when there's a difference in appetite between the man and the woman. That's not a problem for you and me, I know, but it does happen, evidently, with some unfortunates among us, poor dears. You know, the other nine out of ten women." Gale sipped her coffee, looking either sympathetic or superior (Gwen wasn't sure). "You know what she says in the book?" Gale asked. "She says that when men in a relationship think there's no sex on the near horizon, they feel desperate, and they act like assholes, which in turn, turns the woman off from wanting sex."

Gwen said, "That's news? Hell, Egyptian women back in the Fourth Dynasty, 4000 BC., knew that."

Gale said, "Stop it. It's the way this woman says this stuff in the book. It's the directness. She says, when men are having sex regularly, they're ok. When they're not, they're pissed. When their needs are not being met, they hate you. She says this figuratively, but it still means a lot. And then she has this method thing to help couples who are in a rut. What's cool about this author though, is how she targets women and how she says her stuff. Direct, but kind." Gale looked pleased with herself, and sipped more coffee. Then she looked thoughtful, which caught Gwen's attention, and said, "You know, if this woman could figure out a way to talk the same way to men that she talks to women, she might really have something."

Gale and Gwen talked about this subject for a while, which is what Gwen needed. A little decompression time with a girlfriend, considering how she spent the day before: negotiating at gunpoint with a former Nazi hunter and an Israeli commando. The ups and downs of the June's existence. Sweet.

# Chapter 24 – What to do with Glissy?

Roger hadn't been to the artifacts warehouse in quite a while, so he called up Jinny and asked him to meet there. Roger had enjoyed Jinny's company during the Stirg excursion, and they hadn't spent much time together recently, so that's why he suggested the meeting. The climate controlled warehouse is where the Junes and their partners had stashed the artifacts they stole from the Hermitage Museum. About six months earlier they had managed to get seven large shipping containers of antiques, artwork, and other artifacts out of Russia and to Charleston, and into the warehouse. Some of these items had been sold to their partners, the Gromstovs and the Rodstras, who had purchased large houses, one on Sullivan's Island and one on Kiawah Island. The items now graced those houses, and gave the owners a feeling of having their Russian culture right here in the low country of Charleston. The partners had worked out compensation deals whereby everyone had come out ahead in terms of cash and culture.

Slevov was half of the Rodstra combo. Helstof was half of the Gromstov combo. The other halves were husbands Constantine Rodstra and Henric Gromstov. The Rodstras and the Gromstovs and the Junes made up the Hermitage caper team, along with Jinny, Guignard, Peter, and Pater. Richard Adams and Gale were Charleston associates who had not been at the Hermitage during the heist.

Peter and Pater were former Mariinsky Ballet troupe members, who, because they had participated in the heist, were now persona non grata in Russia. Upon being smuggled into Charleston via container along with the artifacts, they had started a ballet academy, which was not exactly thriving, but could be said to be picking up steam. They were a happy couple. Roger hadn't seen them in a while either, and told himself they had to have lunch together soon.

Roger and Jinny spent half a day poking around in the warehouse, checking on the condition of the items, and just generally enjoying being surrounded by beautiful, old things. The general strategy of the Hermitage caper had been to get wealthy Russians who were sick of freezing cold Februarys and Marchs and Aprils to spend time in Charleston, and to buy beachfront houses and world class French wines and old Russian furniture and artifacts from the team members, at exorbitant prices, and this strategy had worked. The Gromstovs and Rodstras were extremely wealthy, and even though they had been part of the heist team, they had paid a lot of money to the other team members who set them up with their houses and wine and Hermitage artifacts. What Roger and Jinny were looking at in the warehouse was what remained, and that was a lot of stuff.

The team, minus the Rodstras and Gromstovs, who didn't need any more money, hadn't really pursued finding and bringing other wealthy Russians to Charleston. It seemed the team members had enough money to be comfortable, and had things in the works to keep them occupied. Things like Stirg. Roger said, "When are we going to look for the next batch of Russkies to come over and buy houses and wine and some of this stuff from us? We haven't talked about that in a while."

Jinny said, "Guignard and I talk about it once a week, and we think we have to do that sometime soon. Our money is ok, but sometime we are gonna need more. And Guignard is not thrilled about me getting back to my old business, even though I kind of miss it. She wants us to go legit." Jinny said this sort of wistfully and sort of mournfully.

Roger asked, "How about Peter and Pater? I haven't talked with them in a couple of weeks?"

"They're like us. They have enough money right now, and the academy setup is going good, but it's a year away from making any money. So sometime soon they will have to get with us for more snowbirds from Russia."

Roger and Jinny left the warehouse after a while and went for a nice long lunch, including wine.

In the meantime Gwen sat at home, thinking about the name, Glissy. At this point she was ambivalent, kind of liking Anna now, which demonstrates that psychological influence can work both ways between people. Stirg had been influenced by the team members during the discussion at his house, and Gwen had been influenced by him in the matter of the woman's name. Anna. How very Russian.

Now the question was what to do with her? Should Gwen try to continue to influence Anna anymore? What was the point? What did Gwen want from Anna? And certainly more to the point, what did Anna want for herself? With this last thought Gwen knew what she had to do. "Hello, Slev, how are you?" she said into the phone. "What are you doing?"

"I'm fixing some fish we bought this morning at Shem Creek. Did Jinny ever tell you the story about his mother?"

"Which story about his mother? The one where she was stuck out in the boat for four days without food or water, and ended up rowing over to Finland?"

"No, the one where he says she was so strong she could tear the heads right off the fish she caught. She didn't have to cut them off, with a knife. I was just looking at these fish and thinking about that. I have a giant cleaver here, and I have to work to get the heads off. If Jinny isn't bullshitting us, then she was some woman."

Gwen paused, then said, "Is Anna there? I've been thinking about her. Don't you think we should talk to her?"

"She's here. Come over. We'll talk."

An hour later Gwen walked into Slev's house and sat down in the kitchen, which smelled like fish. "What are you making?"

"We're going to try an experiment his evening. Robert Parker, the wine expert, says Chateauneuf du Pape matches perfectly with delicate white fish. I love Pinot Noir with salmon, but I've never tried a red wine with something like sheepshead, which is what we bought this morning. Caught last night, off the Fort Sumter rocks. I think the wine is going to overwhelm the fish, but Parker says no, and that guy knows wine and food. Glissy's never had Chateauneuf, so at least she'll get to try that, even if it doesn't go with the fish. But Parker's hardly ever wrong, so I hope it will be great."

"Where is she?" Gwen asked.

"Upstairs."

"You want to talk alone first, or with her?"

"Let's just talk with her. We know what has to be done, right?

Gwen was happy that she and Slev saw the situation the same way, figuring they would. Gwen and Slev had a special bond. They were likes. They climbed the steps to the fourth floor because the smell of the marinating fish was a little too much to sit in the kitchen. Glissy was sitting out on the oceanside deck, reading a book. Gwen leaned over the back of the chair and gave her a kiss, then sat down.

"Hi, how are you? What are you reading?"

Glissy smiled at Gwen and then at Slev, said, "It's a book about Sullivan's Island. There's a part in it where someone tells what it was like out here in the 1930s, before air conditioning. You know what some people did? When they went to bed they would soak their sheets in water in the bathtub, wring them out, take them into their bedrooms, wrap the sheets around them, and get into bed. The water would evaporate off the sheets, and that would cool them a little. Can you imagine? God, summer must have been brutal out here, five months of hell."

Gwen said, "I have a story like that. Way back then, they had screens on the windows, but the screen material wasn't very good, and the no-seeums could get through. This drove people nuts who lived out on the barrier islands. They had to keep all the windows in the house open to get some kind of breeze through, so they would keep a squeeze bottle of kerosene on every window sill. When they went to bed, they would spray the screen in the windows with the kerosene, and that would keep the no-seeums out. For a while. The kerosene would evaporate, then someone would get out of bed and walk around the house and spray again. People loved living on the islands then, just like now, and they would put up with the heat and the bugs. We have it pretty good, now." She gazed out at the ocean. "Roger's auntie told that story one time."

Gwen sat down and looked at Glissy. Glissy put the book on the floor, and looked back at Gwen. She said, "How's my grandfather? I hope he wasn't too much of a bear. He can be like that sometimes."

"He says your name is Anna, and we should call you that. What do you think?"

"I like both names. It was pretty weird of you guys to give me a new name, but it was interesting, too. And I guess you had to since I wouldn't tell you my name is Anna. You couldn't just go around calling me 'the woman in black underwear' or 'the woman with the Walther', could you?"

Gwen and Slev didn't say anything. They didn't have to. Anna understood she had to take responsibility for her actions. After all, she had invaded the Junes home, carrying a gun. And she had gotten caught. "I think from now on you should call me Anna. I like Glissy, and it was fun for a while, but now Anna is the right name. Especially now that you've met my grandfather. He was there when my parents named me."

Gwen looked at Slev and asked, "Did you tell her we visited her grandfather?"

Slev shook her head, no.

"Did you call your grandfather?" Gwen asked.

Anna shook her head, no.

"So how did you know?"

"I just knew. I mean, that's what I would have done. Take it to the enemy. Don't sit around and wait for another attack. And do it quickly, no fucking around."

Slev looked at Gwen and said, "She's pretty smart for a twenty-something."

"Smart maybe, but it's something more than that. You weren't in our house when Anna came the first time. But Catherine was. Roger and I weren't sure what to do with her. After a couple hours in the kitchen with Anna, Catherine came downstairs. It was very early in the morning. She said she couldn't sleep after seeing Roger and I in the kitchen earlier, naked from the waist down."

Slev said, "I can understand her feelings."

"Catherine sat down with the three of us and, as usual, took charge. Remember that, Anna?"

Anna nodded. "Oh, yeah."

"Catherine talked to Anna for quite a while, and did the thing with her. The influence thing. You should've heard it, seen it. Right Anna?"

She nodded. "Oh, yeah."

"Anyway, after about an hour, we all agreed that Anna would not mess with us anymore. And she would stay with us for a while." Gwen looked to Anna for confirmation, who nodded again. "The reason we agreed to this is that Catherine's intuition thing showed us Anna has something special. Something like you, Slev. Part of that is being smart, but there's something more, so we decided to trust Anna. That's the bottom line. Even though she came into our house with a certain amount of malicious intent, we knew, after Catherine's thing, that we could trust her."

Both Gwen and Slev looked at Anna, who said, "How'd you guys get past Nev? You know who he is? He was the bodyguard of a former Israeli prime minister."

Gwen said, "Looks like they put him out to pasture at the right time, no offense intended."

"How did you get past him?"

"Four women, bikinis."

"Oh, yeah, I can see how that would work. Nev's a lot younger than my grandfather, and my grandfather still likes bikinis."

Slev said, "Nev never messed with you, did he?"

"Just once," said Anna. "Tried."

Slev and Gwen waited, looking out at the gray distance line of the ocean.

"When we moved to Charleston ten years ago my grandfather wanted two things. On the one hand he wanted to get away from his past. He wanted a quiet town, small but not too small, different than the places we had lived in before, the big cities. He wanted me to go to college and be a normal person, unlike him. I guess you know he was a Nazi hunter?"

They nodded.

"On the other hand, he wanted me to be different, not normal. He wanted me to have certain skills that other women don't have. The reason was because he had seen a lot of bad things in his life, and he wanted me to be able to take care of myself. He knew I couldn't walk around with an Israeli commando bodyguard the way he did, so he tried to help me help myself. I would go to lit class in the morning, and play tennis in the afternoon, or workout with the college sailing team, and in the evening I would learn a little hand-to-hand combat, and I learned about guns. So the normal stuff and the not normal stuff. I really love Charleston, and so does my grandfather, and I'm happy living here. I got my degree in architecture. It was a five year program, but I haven't done anything with it. I don't have that drive."

Some kids were down on the beach, and they started yelling and screaming. The three women looked over the railing and watched them. Slev said, "You want kids, Anna?"

She said, "Sometimes I think so. But that requires a serious boyfriend, and so far that hasn't happened. I like being alone a lot. I've made four trips to Russia since I finished college, and gone to a few other places. Around here I just hang out. I have a condo downtown, I run a lot, and I tutor at an elementary school one afternoon a week. Did you know you can't take a concealed weapon into hospitals or schools? But I fuck off a lot too." She smiled at Slev and said, "She's going to teach me about wine. Starting tonight with Chateau something de something."

Gwen asked, "What do you do with your grandfather?"

"Well, I tease him when he gets his name in the paper for doing something stupid, usually involving a woman. He's always saying how he wants to live a quiet retired life, but that doesn't always happen. We go out to dinner a lot, and he has parties at his house, but those are for out of town people. He doesn't have friends here in Charleston. He reads a lot, about Russia. He's very honest with me. He says he's getting older, and the older he gets the more Russia means to him. He thinks about when he was a kid there."

Slev asked, "And now you and he have something going, about Russia?"

She nodded. "He's always been two-handed with me: protective sometimes, and sometimes pushing me to be independent and self-reliant. Now, he's pissed. At you guys. And he's using this as a: 'Anna, you need to be tough and learn something here and take risks' moment. So he got me involved, and I wanted to be involved. I understand the way he thinks about this. He's very emotional, and I feel it too, though not as much. I've been to the Hermitage. It's incredible, and it had a strong effect on me. So when he wanted me to get involved, I said sure, 'Let's go.'" Slev and Gwen waited. Anna was talking, at the end they would know where they stood.

"Why did he send you into our house? Why not Nev?"

"He didn't send me. I did it myself."

Gwen said, "Oh."

"Yeah, now I know it was stupid. But I'm twenty-seven, so I'm stupid. Maybe a little less stupid now. I've learned from this. That's what I've been thinking about since I've been here. And I've met you guys, and I like that."

"What were you looking for in our house?" What were you going to do? We know we have a deal with you not to ask those questions, but maybe it would help all of us, including your grandfather, if we knew. It's him that's coming at us. We have no quarrel with him. We want to go back to our business of enjoying life."

Anna said, "What did you do at his house? What did he tell you? You really got past Nev?"

Gwen said, "Anna, four women got past Nev. Then we brought in Roger and Jinny."

"Did you hurt him? Did you hurt my grandfather?"

"We didn't hurt Nev. Well, we pretty much demolished his pride, that's true. Is he the vindictive type? But, yes, we hurt your grandfather. Not badly. He got a lump on the side of his head. We were serious, Anna. We are serious. If he comes at us again, we'll defend ourselves. You know that."

"Yeah, I know that."

"That's why if you tell us what he wants, maybe we can do something about that, short of violence. And if you talk about this with Slev and me, it will be good for you, too."

"Why," Anna asked. "How would it be good for me?"

"Let us tell you about The Deneuve. If after that you don't want to talk about this anymore, then that will be the end of it. We'll stick with our deal."

# Chapter 25 – The Next Generation

"How old are you, Slev?" Gwen said.

"I'm forty-four."

"I'm forty," said Gwen. "And Anna's twenty-seven."

"Do you know how old Catherine is? She's sixty-seven. Sixty-seven and vibrant and energetic. And influential, right, Anna? You felt it. So we have three generations here in Charleston. Three generations of women with Deneuvian powers. That's the new deal we have for you. You spend time with us as our friend, and you come out with something special. At least we think it's special. We think it's a good thing to have people like us wandering around. We're not perfect, but still good for culture. After all, we're thieves, but we do good things too."

Slev said, "We say this is an offer of a new deal. It is. But that doesn't mean the relationship would be all good for you. It would be good in a very important way. You would learn Deneuvian things. But it also may be bad for you, because we don't think you grandfather is going to back off from us. So if you stay with us, you're in the middle, and that's a rough place to be. You have to decide if you want to be in the middle, and you have to decide if the trade-off is worth it to you. You would have to accommodate your grandfather, who we know you love, and who loves you, and you would have to accommodate us." Slev looked at Anna with empathy.

"Anna, if you do this, and survive," she said with a smile, "you will turn twenty-eight and you will be a bigger person. I guarantee that."

Anna didn't say anything, but looked out at the water.

Gwen let her think for a while, and then said, "What were you going to do in our house?"

Evidently, Anna had decided to accept the new deal, which ended the terms of the old deal, not to talk. She said, "I was going to brace you and Roger. Stick a gun in your faces and ask where the artifacts are. Simple."

"What did you know about us? Didn't you think maybe we could take care of ourselves?"

"Look, I knew you guys had stolen a ton of stuff in Saint Petersburg, and gotten it to Charleston. That's very clever. No one's ever done anything like that before. But that didn't mean to me and my grandfather that we couldn't get to you here. My grandfather thinks Americans are soft. He stereotypes people. He does that with Germans, too. After he found out about you, he decided to attack. Then I did what I did."

"And you thought it would be easy to come into our house and brace us?"

"Yeah. I thought it would be easy."

"And now what do you think?"

"I think you have a smart dog."

Gwen looked at Slev. "Did you say anything about our dog to her?" she asked.

Slev said, "What did your dog do?"

Gwen said, "How did you know about the dog?"

Anna smiled and said nothing.

Gwen moved on. "And what else?"

"And you got me. You and your dog got me."

"And....?"

"And Roger, I guess."

"Oh my God, she's misanthropic," said Slev. "So why's she wear $200 black Italian underwear? And perfume, out on a job, no less?"

Gwen smiled at all this. "We know why you want to be in this with your grandfather. That's natural. We understand your feelings about him and we understand your feelings about your Russian heritage. We have those feelings too, about American heritage. And some about French heritage. That's why we love French wine. It's not just about drinking the wine, the taste of the wine, it's about the pleasure of the wine, and knowing about the culture that has produced the wine. About the French people."

Slev said, "Sometimes people do things they don't have to do and, people aren't always rational about things. My husband and I didn't have to get involved in that caper. We didn't do it for the money; we just did it. It's our lives. The Junes did it for the money, but that's not the only reason. They did it because it was a challenge, and they like challenges. Now you're involved. And your grandfather. And neither of you is doing it for the money. Life and its motivations are tricky."

Gwen said, "What else do you remember about the first night? About me and the dog?"

"I never actually saw the dog. I remember climbing the stairs, and I remember you hissing at me. That was new. It got my attention. And that was the first time anyone pointed a gun at me, and two guns was double the thrill. Then I remember seeing you and Roger standing at the top of the stairs, naked from the waist down. That was neat. I liked that. You stayed naked in the kitchen for quite some time. All that time you were taping me to the chair. And then I remember wishing I could have a really large cup of that $30-per-pound coffee. That smelled so good."

Ya'll were naked in the kitchen, the three of you?" asked Slev.

"They were half naked; I was in my underwear," said Anna. "It wouldn't have been bad, except for the duct tape pulling the hairs on my arms. And the Beretta and the Glock pointed at me."

Both Slev and Gwen did some thinking. In the space of about a week, Anna had seen the following people fully naked or half naked: Roger, Gwen, Slev, Helstof, and Richard Adams. That was a record to be proud of. Sometime when Gwen wanted to stick it to her friend Jinny, which was often, she would remind him that he wasn't in this lineup.

Gwen got back to business. "And you remember Catherine."

"God yes, it was like sitting with someone my age. She's forty years older than me, but I felt she was my friend. Within five minutes of her sitting next to me, she was my friend. It was so weird. How can someone be like a grandmother and a friend at the same time? And she was kind and stern at the same time. How can that be? And she listened and spoke at the same time. Didn't she? You were there," she said, looking at Gwen. "I felt like she was giving to me at the same time she was taking from me. She knew me first, and then asked questions. She gave and took, gave and took. I just went with the flow; she was the river, and I was the boat on the river. That was that. At the end, you asked me if I would try to hurt any of you again, and I said no. And here we are."

Slev and Gwen leaned back in their chairs and looked out to the water, relaxed. They knew Anna would accept the new deal. They knew she wanted to be in the middle, between them and her grandfather. They knew she wanted to learn the Deneuvian stuff. They knew she was special.

# Chapter 26 – The Big Boys Return

The day after the talk with Anna, and after conferring with Gwen, Slev told Anna she had to go see her grandfather, saying she had to be straight as an arrow about the whole deal. Face to face, talk, stand your ground, do what you think is right. When you're done, if you want to come back to Sullivan's and stay, you're welcome.

Later that afternoon Helstof drove up from Kiawah and picked Slev up at her house. They went to the airport where they watched a Gulfstream touchdown, shimmering through the Charleston heat. They saw an attendant open the door, saw two passengers climb down the steps, and went to the customs area to wait. The Gulfstream had flown directly to Charleston from Moscow. Thirty minutes later Helstof hugged her husband, and Slev kissed her husband. After collecting the luggage they headed back to the islands, where the Gromstovs dropped Slev and Constantine at the Sullivan's house and then headed home to Kiawah. They would see each other soon.

Constantine walked around the outside of the house, looking at the plants. He was very fond of the bougainvillea climbing the trellises to the first level. They didn't have much bougainvillea in Russia. Someday soon, he thought, whenever he returned to this house, he would be welcomed by his borzoi. He wondered why he hadn't gotten one already, thinking what's a home without a borzoi? He lugged his stuff up the stairs from the ground level to the doorway into the kitchen, where he left one suitcase at the top of the stairs and carried the other through the door. There in the kitchen he found a young woman deboning a duck. She was struggling because it was her first attempt at this culinary feat. Just as Constantine set the suitcase down on the floor, the woman succeeded in tearing the skin off the back of the duck. The woman's hands were slick with duck fat, and as the skin came loose from the carcass, unexpectedly, her arm jerked backwards and the duck skin was flung across the kitchen, where it splattered against the face of a cabinet. It stuck there, held by the stickiness of the fat on the inner side. The woman looked at it, and Constantine looked at it, and Slev, following her husband into the kitchen, looked at it. It was very weird, sticking there on the cabinet door.

Anna said, "Shit." Then she looked at Constantine and said, "Sorry." She reached for a glass of wine on the counter and picked it up. It slipped out of her duck fat covered hand and dropped to the floor. She said, "Shit." Then she looked at Slev and said, "Sorry."

Constantine looked from the woman, to the duck skin on the cabinet, to the wine puddle amidst glass shards on the floor, to his wife. He said, "I guess this is better than coming home to find a strange man in the house. Who's she?"

"This is Anna, and she's learning French cooking. We're learning together. Today's dish is duck a l'Orange. Anna, this is Constantine." Anna walked the few steps to Constantine and put her hands on his shoulders, giving him the double cheek European kiss. He found this pleasant because Anna is beautiful, but then, when she stepped away from him, they both noticed the two duck fat stains, one on each of his shirt shoulders where she had put her hands. Anna smelled nice, but the duck fat did not.

Anna said, "Shit." Then, "Oh, sorry. I usually don't swear. Sorry."

Constantine decided to get out of there, picked up the second bag from the top of the stairs, and carried both bags out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the third level. Slev helped Anna clean up. Half an hour later Constantine reentered the kitchen, showered, dressed casually, looking relaxed. Relaxed, that is, for someone carrying a Walther PPS in their hand. As he set it on the counter next to the chopping block, he said, "I found this in the living room, on the coffee table. I didn't know we owned a Walther." He looked at Slev and then at Anna.

"It's mine," said Anna. "Yesterday I showed Slev how to move the safety from one side of the handle to the other, like for a left-handed person. The way they designed it is kinda neat. I forgot to put it away."

Constantine said, "Oh," removed the magazine, and racked the slide. He was pleased to not find a round in the chamber. He slapped the mag back into the handle, and put the gun on the counter. "So how are things around here?" he asked. "Peaceful, I hope."

Anna should have left it to Slev to answer, but she was twenty-seven and still somewhat stupid, so she said, "For now."

Slev walked around the counter, picked up the gun, and took it out of the room. When she returned she said, "The duck's going in the oven and it's gonna be great. Would you like a glass of wine, dear?" He nodded and sat down on a stool, figuring whatever was coming next was going to be interesting, so he might as well be comfortable.

Slev poured a glass of wine from the bottle sitting on the table, and Constantine took a sip. Then he said, "Most people prepare duck a l'Orange with the skin on. They consider that the best part of the duck."

Anna said, "But that's where all the fat is, so I figured taking it off is healthier."

Constantine nodded. He acknowledged to himself that a healthy diet was a good thing, but he didn't want to become a fanatic, especially where classic French food is concerned. Enjoying life was important too. He remembered being twenty-seven, and stupid, so he didn't make an argument about it, even though it was his money that had paid for the duck.

Slev asked Constantine about his flight.

"Long," he said, "but not bad. I finished a lot of paperwork, and now I can relax and have some fun. How are the others? What have you been up to? Anything interesting happen while I was away?"

Anna could see that Constantine didn't know about the little incident with her grandfather, and she found it interesting Slev hadn't told him she had invaded the mansion of a billionaire former Nazi hunter, armed, as part of an assault force. In her bikini. Anna wanted to learn how married couples get along and relate to each other, how they coexist, because she figured she wanted to try it some time. So she watched this interaction carefully. After all, her grandfather was not exactly a role model as a principle in your basic male female relationship. He had captured or killed too many Nazis to qualify for that.

Slev was not one to prevaricate, and she knew this had to be done sooner or later, so she said, "Well, I can think of two things. Helstof got a borzoi, a female puppy, beautiful. Cost $3000."

Constantine said, "Wow, great, when can I go see it?"

Then Slev said, "And we met Pmirhs Stirg."

Constantine was about to take a sip of wine, but instead set his glass down on the counter. "Oh," he said, and looked Slev in the eye.

Slev knew what that look meant, though Anna didn't recognize it as anything special. Slev did the opposite of her husband, she picked her wine glass up from the counter and took a sip. She knew she had to say something immediately, before her husband said what was on his mind. "Anna is Stirg's granddaughter."

"Oh. Anna Stirg. I see."

Constantine's comment was non-committal, which was a skill Constantine had developed many years ago while learning the international computer business. Anna didn't know if Constantine knew her grandfather, or knew about her grandfather, or what, so she waited to see what he would say next.

He didn't say anything, he just sat there staring at his wine glass on the counter. What he was thinking was he wished his wife had stopped telling him things after she mentioned the borzoi. That was a good thing. Her mentioning Pmirhs Stirg was a bad thing. The fact that Stirg's granddaughter was in his house, with a gun, drinking his wine and eating his ducks, or about to eat one of his ducks, probably was a pretty bad thing. He tried hard to fathom how this scenario could be a good thing, but couldn't; that just wouldn't compute. He gave a barely perceptible sigh, picked up his wine glass, and said, "How about we go out on the deck. I want to relax. The duck will be good, and we can talk later. Maybe tomorrow. Anna, tell me about yourself."

The scene at the Rodstra house on Kiawah Island was eerily similar. Henric didn't enter the house to find a beautiful young woman flinging duck skins around the kitchen, but he did find a new resident, his borzoi puppy. The puppy designation was nominal considering it was two months old and already weighed forty pounds. When it heard the car outside the house, and then footsteps on the stairs, it set itself in motion in the study where it had been sleeping, and had achieved attack velocity by the time it reached the interior of the front door. When Henric opened the door, the pup barreled into his knees at full speed. What would have happened if he hadn't opened the door he could only guess. Borzois are not known for their intelligence.

It was a great surprise for Henric, and soon he was sitting on his deck, looking out over the water, with his dog sitting next to him. He was in heaven. That was when he asked Helstof, "How are the others? What have you been up to? Anything interesting happen while I was away?"

Helstof was more of a prevaricator than Slev. She talked first about how hard it had been to find a purebred Borzoi here in the States, and how expensive they were, and how it came from the former Russian ambassador to the US, who bred them as a hobby, etc etc.

Henric said, "I love the dog. Bravo."

Then Helstof talked for a while about how Peter's and Pater's ballet academy was doing, and then about what Jinny and Guignard were up to, not much, and then about how Richard Adams had found an agent for his new book, and the agent was flogging it to the publishing houses. She didn't tell Henric that she had been having four-ways with Richard and Anna and Slevov. Henric went on looking out at the ocean, sipping his wine, and petting the head of his new best friend.

Helstof hoped to get a few more glasses of wine under Henric's belt before she broke the big news to him, but he wasn't drinking very fast, so she decided to get it out of the way. "Something else came up, dear. Something you probably should know about." Henric looked at her inquiringly. "We met someone you might know. A Russian guy. Lives here in Charleston, coincidentally." Henric looked and waited. "Pmirhs Stirg."

Henric looked at Helstof, and then looked at her some more. Then he looked down at the dog, and then out at the ocean. Helstof saw him take a deep breath. "Pmirhs Stirg? Stirg, as in the Nazi hunter billionaire international law guy?" Helstof nodded. Henric said, "You meet him in a restaurant or something?"

"Well, no, not exactly. We met him in his house."

"He invited you to his house? A party?"

"He didn't exactly invite us to his house. We kind of paid him a visit. A bunch of us."

"A bunch of you, who"?

"Well, the team. Everyone except you and Constantine, because you were away. No, that's not right, Peter and Pater weren't there. We didn't think it was a good idea to take them. But everyone else."

"Why wasn't it a good idea to take the Ps to a party?"

"Um, it wasn't exactly a party. It was more like, a mission."

Henric didn't say anything, but continued looking at his wife.

"It was, like, we invited ourselves to his house. We had something we had to talk to him about."

Henric got up and went to the kitchen. He returned with the bottle of wine in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. He poured himself some wine, and said, "Ok, let's have it."

At which point Helstof told the whole story, about how a woman in black underwear had invaded the Junes house, how they got her, and then she became their friend. How Roger figured out she was Stirg's granddaughter, and the team had decided to act, and they paid Stirg a visit in his house.

Henric asked how they had gotten past Stirg's security, so Helstof told him about the four women in bikinis, one with blood dripping down her neck, and the boat. About Nev, the not so great bodyguard.

Henric poured himself another glass of wine. "What happened," he asked.

"We talked, and then Stirg got smartass, so Roger clocked him on the side of the head with his gun. Jinny told Nev not to try anything. Then Stirg started talking straight, and told us what his problem with us is, and we told him we would defend ourselves if he tried any shit. Gwen told him we'd deep-six his ass off the Fort Sumter rocks if he tried anything again. And that was about it. We left."

"Jesus. Stirg the Nazi hunter," was all Henric said. He picked up the bottle of vodka.

# Chapter 27 – No Rest for the Weary

Everyone hoped Stirg had gotten the message and would go away. Half the team thought that would happen, and the other half said it was a pipedream. Guess which half was right? Gwen, Slev, and Helstof realized they had to have a team meeting now that the big boys were back in town. With half the team thinking Stirg was not going away, the prudent thing to do was call a strategy session. Anna was back at the Sullivan's house, which meant she was siding with the team. Or at least meeting halfway between them and her grandfather.

Peter and Pater had leased a large vacant building next to the Charleston Music Hall on John Street. Some seventy years ago they had been a single large theater, but at some point it had been divided into two smaller theaters. Their space was about 8000 square feet on two levels. It was spacious, but needed fixing because it had been vacant for twenty-five years. Peter and Pater didn't face the hurdles that most startup arts groups did, because they had funding up the yang. They got as much as they asked for from Henric, and they got supplemental from their partners, Selgey and Bartholomew Landkirk.

One afternoon over coffee, the Ps and the Landkirks asked Henric for $100,000 to rehabilitate the old stage and the theater chairs. He replied he couldn't get it to them till the day after tomorrow, was that all right? Peter and Pater looked at each other. Well, ok. Selgey, a former principal ballerina with the New York City Ballet, was very quick on the uptake and spoke up, "Peter, remember that our $150,000 is paying for the fire code work and the dressing rooms, but we still need new lighting and sound systems, and the curtains and the lobby repairs. How much was that part, again?"

Peter followed her drift and said, "That will cost another $125,000, and the City has refused to help with that, I don't understand why. The Mayor promised."

They looked at Henric. "Ok," he said. Not bad fund raising for a coffee break.

The Ps called Gwen and told her the good news about the money and the work that would be done with it, and she was thrilled. After hanging up the phone, Gwen had an idea, and called them back. She told them the team had to get together soon, and suggested they do so at The Hall. She said it could be the first event in the new space. How about a catered, informal dinner there? On stage. Neat. The Ps said yes, of course.

Gwen made this happen a few days later. Roger filled up a cooler with red and white wines, and McCrady's Restaurant put together a nice picnic basket type dinner, cold, but definitely gourmet. Gwen's idea was to hold the business meeting first, in case there was bad news, and then move on to the fun part, the onstage dinner. She invited the extended family team, which included the Gromstovs, the Rodstras, Little Jinny and Guignard, the Ps, Gale, Richard Adams, Selgey, Bart, and Anna.

The afternoon of the meeting, Gwen invited Gale and Richard to her house for coffee. She had to do something very important. She had to sit them down and tell them of the serious nature of things that were happening, and she wondered why she and Roger were involving them in these affairs. The Junes had told Gale and Richard about the Hermitage caper; now they were inviting them to a strategy meeting. Why? The only answer Gwen came up with was, she had an intuition to do so. Simple as that. So Gwen went with it, as she usually did. Regarding Richard, it may have had something to do with the fact that he now was involved, intimately, with Slev and Helstof and Anna. But what about Gale? Intuition.

That afternoon Gwen told Gale and Richard about Stirg, who he was and what he wanted from them. She was stern with them in her description, but she could see it didn't really register with them. They just weren't used to dealing with Nazi hunters. But Gwen did impress upon them the need for confidentiality. She knew this was not part of Gale's psychological makeup, but she thought she got through to her at a level where Gwen could trust her. Gale the fashionista; Gale the mouth; Gale the hot one. Richard was a different creature. He didn't walk around armed, the way Roger and Gwen did. He was quiet and particular and level-headed. While he understood the deal here, and was interested, Gwen wondered about his limits.

After this tête-à-tête, Gwen knew she had to have another one, with Anna, before the team meeting. Anna was the lynch pin, so Gwen had to know Anna's current mental configuration and tensile strength. She called Sullivan's and got Slev. She told Slev she wanted to talk to Anna before tonight's meeting, and Slev said she would send Anna to Gwen's house right away. Gwen called Roger up from the wine cellar, and they sat in the downstairs study. Gwen said, "Anna's coming over. We need to know where she stands, now that she saw her grandfather. She needs to be part of the strategy session this evening at The Hall. Any suggestions?"

"Yeah," he said. "This shouldn't be an all or nothing commitment on her part. It's not fair to ask her side with us, against him. I'm one of the ones that thinks Stirg is going to come after us again, and we can't have that. We defend. That's the primary goal. But the secondary goal is to take Anna into the fold, because Catherine told us to. Or suggested it. She thinks Anna is special, and it would be good for Anna to be with us, and for us to be with Anna. I know you agree with Catherine. So that's good enough for me. How to do that is the tricky part. That's what we'll talk about tonight. How to do it. How to influence Anna, our way, and yet allow her to have her relationship with her grandfather, who I think still is our enemy. That's a tall order, but I think we can do it. Well, I think you can do it." He smiled at his wife, got up, and went back to looking at wine bottles in the cellar.

Anna walked into the study and said, "Hi." There had been no doorbell chimes, no sound of doors opening, no dog growling, no indication of Anna's entry into the house. Anna read Gwen's thoughts and said, "Just playing around. This is the first time back in your house since, since the big night. I hope you don't mind me coming in, not knocking." She sat down in one of the big leather chairs.

Gwen smiled at the kid's game. Pretty slick.

"You're invited to our meeting tonight, our meeting and our dinner. Slev told you that, but did she tell you the purpose of the meeting?" Anna shook her head, no. "It's to figure out how to deal with your grandfather. Constantine and Henric are back in town, and they weren't around when we had our discussion with your grandfather, at his house. So that's what we're doing tonight." She let Anna think on that for a minute. "I'm glad you came back to the Sullivan's house after your meeting with your grandfather. We're all glad of that. What happened with him? How are you? You don't have to tell me, that's your private stuff. But it may help us tonight to figure out what we are going to do. Half of us think your grandfather is going to come after us again, about the Hermitage heist, and the other half think we scared him off with our visit to his place."

Anna said, "I told him I wasn't going to act against any of you again. And I told him I loved him. I didn't talk a lot about it, or do a lot of explaining or anything. I just told him the basics. This is the first time we've had a serious disagreement. Can you believe that? I'm twenty-seven, and I've never had a real problem with him. He's really been my father, we've always gotten along, so this is weird for both of us." Anna was remarkably calm and assured. Gwen sent out vibes of psychological support, but didn't say anything. "He asked me if I still felt things about Russia, and I said, yes, of course. I said I also have new feelings about you and Catherine and Slev and Richard." Gwen smiled inwardly with the mention of Richard. "So that's the hard part for him, dealing with my new feelings, which he can't share, while dealing with his feelings for the Russian stuff. Those haven't gone away. He's getting old, and thinking more and more about his younger days, the times when his environment made him what he became. Russia, just after the war, and him a boy. To some extent, that's him now."

Gwen was thrilled at the accuracy of Anna's assessment of her grandfather and of the situation. She had it right. Her new feelings that her grandfather can't share, in conflict with his feelings that are of marginal concern to her. It now was the team's challenge to manage this situation, and that would start tonight.

# Chapter 28 – Strategy

The team arrived at The Hall at 5pm. There were thirteen people, two cats, and one dog. Guignard had brought along the Russian blues, their first time out of the house since arriving from Saint Petersburg via container ship. She said they were getting stale and needed some new sights and sounds. As she let them out of the carriers, they looked around at the large space with its high, ornate ceiling, spied the stage, jumped up, turned around, sat down in their standard regal posture, and stared at the humans. They were happy.

On the other hand, Henric had brought his borzoi pup, which in the last three days had gained five pounds, and now weighed in at forty-five. Its behavior was at the other end of the spectrum from the cats, exuberance, scampering up one aisle and down the others, all over the place. After a few minutes of this, from the back of the theater, the dog saw the cats sitting on the front of the stage. She came barreling down the center aisle towards the stage at full speed, and given the downward slope of the aisle, of course couldn't put the brakes on in time, crashing into the base of the stage just below the cats, stunned. The cats didn't even blink. They sat staring at the huge pup, with what more than one human thought were looks of utter distain. The dog shook off the shock of the crash, and ran back and forth across the front of the stage, desperately seeking a way up onto it, with the cats' heads followed metronomically. The human's heads moved the same way, amused.

The first order of human business was to introduce Henric to Anna. The men knew of Anna's invasion of the June's home, and of the counter invasion of Stirg's home by the team. Constantine and Henric found the following points of the story of particular interest:

1. Stirg's twenty-seven year old granddaughter, armed, had served as his invasion force. 2. Subsequently, the team had co-opted Anna to their side, or at least into a neutral position. How did they do that? 3. During the counter invasion, Roger had used serious physical force to emphasize the team's position to Stirg. They wondered about the last time Stirg had gotten clocked in the head and left bloody. Probably many years.

Henric was impressed when his wife introduced Anna. Someone, Jinny, of course, had described her underwear to him. Not that Jinny had been there and seen that, but word had gotten around the team. Henric wished he had been there.

The McCrady's staff arrived with the picnic style dinner, and set up the folding tables and chairs on the stage. They covered the tables with white clothes, unboxed the wine glasses and china dinnerware, stuck the flower arrangement in a vase of water, and left the food in boxes on the side tables. Roger opened four bottles of wine and poured them into decanters.

The team moved to the rear of the large stage where chairs had been arranged in a circle, and Guignard served coffee in mugs. Gwen opened the meeting by standing up in the center of the circle and pulling her Glock from its holster, hidden under and at the rear of her sky-blue silk jacket. In one smooth motion she racked the slide, pointed the gun at the ceiling, and pulled the trigger. The Blam Blam resounded through the theater, filling the space with sound. She looked around the circle with hawk eyes. Gale jumped at the sound. Peter and Pater, sitting next to each other, grabbed hands. Roger expected something like this, so he was serene. Richard Adams' mouth opened in an unnatural way, though he didn't look scared or anything. The Gromstovs, man and woman, and the Rodstras, man and woman, were impassive. Jinny smiled. He loved his Gwenny, the hottest broad he'd ever known or dreamed of. Anna stared intently, in full learning mode.

A little plaster dust drifted slowly down into the circle, Henric knowing he would foot the repair bill. "That's all I have to say," Gwen said. "Who's carrying right now? Show 'em." Roger, Jinny, Slev, Helstof, and Anna reached to different parts of their bodies and pulled out guns. Both Constantine and Henric looked surprised to see their wives armed. Surprised but pleased. Gwen said, "That's not good enough. Everyone involved in this deal needs to carry, or get out. She looked at Gale and Richard. None of the others could get out, even if they wanted to. They were in. The original team was in. Stirg knew who they were, and if he intended to pursue his vendetta, then they all were potential targets. Gwen said, "Range practice tomorrow. 7am. Be there." She nodded at Roger, holstered her weapon, and sat down.

Roger stood up, hoping all the McCrady's people had left the building before his wife fired her gun, and hoping no cop happened to be passing by outside. The shot had not disturbed the Russian blues, who sat just outside the circle, watching. The pup had fallen asleep at stage right, curled up on an old piece of curtain left over from a production of Wagner's The Ring, the previous operators of The Hall having had lofty ambitions.

"We're going to talk about this situation for half an hour or so, and as my wife illustrated, it's serious. When we left Stirg's house, he said, 'this isn't over'. I take him at his word. We need a strategy that everyone buys into and supports. The floor's open to suggestions."

Gwen immediately looked at Jinny and said, "Forget it."

Jinny looked disappointed, Guignard, his girlfriend, looked puzzled, and leaned over to him. "What's she mean?"

He whispered back, "I was going to suggest we just kill Stirg and get it over with."

"Oh. How did she know that?"

"She's got the Deneuvian stuff, you know that."

"Oh."

A couple of people looked at Anna, but she was watching the cats and appeared to be ignoring Roger and the rest of them. Constantine spoke up. "You did the right thing when you went to his house. I've never met him, but he's well known in circles I touch now and then. He's been out of the limelight in Russia for many years, though people occasionally speak of him. He helped Russian Jews, just as he helped Israelis and others. You don't do that kind of work without getting involved in violence. And when you are involved in violence a little bit, you tend to get involved in violence more. Violence can be a very effective way to achieve goals. Stirg had serious goals, and he achieved lots of them. Roger was right to hit him in his house. Gwen is right that we have to be ready for violence against us." He put his hand on his wife's shoulder.

Henric said, "Russia is different than America, just as India is different than America. In Russia we can love our country, and still steal from her. For us, that is not a non-sequitur. Many people in India still believe in the caste system. Millions and millions do. People live in gray areas about some things, and they live in black or white areas in others. Stirg lives in a black and white area when it comes to old Russian things, like those we stole. I live in a gray area there. So we have different values."

Pater said, "Stirg's rich. He can afford to be white or black about a lot of things. I'm here in this new place, and I like it. My....our, lives in Saint Petersburg were boring, and we didn't have much money or much hope for something different. Here, we have a chance to do something we like. I don't want Stirg to take that away because we stole some lamps, and he doesn't like it."

Roger looked at Peter, who nodded assent.

Gale said, "I wouldn't like it if someone came to Charleston and stole something from our museum."

Guignard looked at Jinny, and then said, "Jinny's a crook. That's what he was in the past, and that's what he was in the Hermitage caper. I don't know if he's going to be that in the future, or not. But we're together now, and I love him, and I know he doesn't want to give the stuff back, the way Stirg wants. So I say we hold on, and stick it to Stirg. Sorry Anna, but that's the way I feel." Anna offered a half smile to Guignard. Jinny offered her a full smile.

Gwen looked at Richard and said, "It's time for you to decide if you're in or out. If you're in, we'll protect you. If you're in, we need your loyalty. Right down the line."

He didn't hesitate. "I'm in. I like y'all, and I like your lifestyle. I haven't spent that much time with some of you yet, but I want to." Richard was direct and frank. "I've spent time with Helstof. We've done some writing stuff, and some reading stuff. We've talked a lot. Jinny and Roger have shown me the warehouse, and we've talked about antiques and artifacts. Roger loves that stuff, and it's rubbing off on me. The last few months have been fodder for me, and it's showing up in my writing. I like it. You don't know it, but I went to West Point, and then did my years in the military after that. I did military history, because I could write. But I didn't like the military, because I don't like people telling me what to do, and that's what the military is all about. So I bailed as soon as I could. But I did all the basic training. I know about conflict and discipline. I know about violence, at least second hand." He paused to catch his breath and his thoughts, looking at the hundred year old wood floor. "Now, through you, I've met Anna. I'm in."

None of them had expected this from Richard. In fact, all of them wondered what the hell he was doing in the group. They just figured Gwen had invited him, and that made it ok. Helstof knew more about Richard than any of the others, but she couldn't really disclose that, given the circumstances. Now they all knew something important about him, and they liked what they'd heard. They all wondered about his last statement, including Anna.

Roger thought these comments were good and that they represented all or most of the thoughts and feelings of the group. He went into consolidation mode. "The first thing I see here is a good team. We care about each other. We don't agree on all the finer points, and certainly we have differing perspectives, but I sense we're in this together; that we're committed to the good of the group. Anyone see things differently? Speak up. Gale?"

"Y' all are crazy, and a bunch of thieves, that's obvious. But the history of Charleston is full of thieving, and guess what, my family did its share. I'm like Richard, I like this group. I can stand some excitement in my life. I get that the danger is real. Screw it. I'm in."

This was the first time Gwen and Roger had ever heard Gale swear. Gale was wild in her talk and wild in her behavior, but she didn't swear. This was something new.

Roger went on, "We're not giving the stuff up to Stirg." He looked around the circle, and saw affirmative faces. "Our two options are that we go to him and see what else we can do to pacify him, or we wait for the conflict and deal with it then, on the fly. Any other ideas?" He looked at Constantine and Henric. They were almost a generation younger than Stirg, but still were the closest to his cultural perspective.

But it wasn't either of them that spoke up; it was Slev, just as Gwen knew it would be. Slev stood up and walked across the circle to Anna. She went around behind the chair and put her hands on Anna's shoulders. "It's not about the Hermitage stuff anymore. It was in the beginning, and that's what pissed Stirg off at first. And that was real enough for Anna to execute a mission to find out about it. But he underestimated Roger and Gwen, which is a sign he's getting old. He never made that mistake when he was after a German down in Argentina. It was about the artifacts and his feelings of loyalty to his country. It was about resentment that someone would steal stuff. It was him being offended. All that was knocked out of him at his house when Roger hit him. I saw fear. No one ever got to him like that, and everyone at sixty-seven is weaker than earlier in life. He said it wasn't over for him, but the artifacts stuff is over. If that was all it was, he would not come after us." She looked around at the faces. "Now it's something different. Now it's all about Anna. Now it's about the most important thing in his life. Her. It's personal. The artifacts were not really personal. He anthropomorphized them, yes, and made them about his country and his youth and his feeling of loyalty. But in the end they're just objects. Anna is not. Anna represents his youth in a personal and direct and emotional way. She is him, years ago, and we have taken her from him." Slev paused, then went on. "This happens to lots of people at some point in their lives, and it can be threatening. Stirg is that type. He was a man of action, a man of principle. He was in the trenches, and that marks you. He has led a very complex life, and now he's begun to decline. He senses this, and clings to things like chasing women, even at his age. Sorry, Anna. Now he wakes up every morning and his back hurts, and that didn't happen before. That is a very tangible and inescapable thing. He doesn't remember things the way he used to, and that's annoying. He's pissed that some Americans stole some Russian stuff. All of these things are happening in a big and dynamic mind that is starting to shrink a little bit; in a big and dynamic body that is starting to shrink. And now he gets hit with the unexpected. A capable team of people who resist him in a powerful way. No one's come at him like this in years. Women, no less. Armed. Maybe he thought he was ahead of the curve by training Anna that way. Now he finds the Junes ahead of him, behind him, with guns. The Junes." She looked at Roger and Gwen, and smiled.

"And what have they done? They've co-opted Anna. That's what is in his mind now, that's the driving force in Stirg. Anna. We're here tonight to develop a strategy to deal with him. He is coming after us and he wants to separate us from Anna. She is the lynchpin of our strategy."

Slev squeezed Anna's shoulders, and went back to her seat. The dog woke up, looked around, and wandered over into the circle. She looked around at the faces, spied Henric, and waggled over to him. She missed at her first attempt to prop her front legs up onto his lap, but got it right the second time. He patted her long, narrow head, which eased the tension that Slev's exposition had created in the group. Roger knew it was time to close out the meeting.

"Anna, what do you think? You've heard everything. Help us."

Anna said, "I love my grandfather, and he loves me. That doesn't mean he doesn't do bad things. He chases young women and doesn't treat them well. He says dumb things to old friends of his and offends them. Sometimes he wants me to be his partner, and sometimes his little girl. I can't be both; that's crazy. Sometimes Nev wants to leave him. We're not so different from most families, even with all the money. That's not such a big deal as most people think. Money doesn't get you away from personal problems. He is different from most other people because of his past. The Nazi hunting thing was really big. Some people don't like to talk about traumatic things, but my grandfather has told me about that stuff. It was crazily intense and violent. And that's in my grandfather today.

"I've heard everything you've said, and you understand the situation. All I can say is this. I want to be with you now, and I don't want to see my grandfather hurt. I don't know how to handle this, but I do know you have to protect yourselves. He might come after you. He will come after you. That's all." She looked around the circle, her face drawn. She ended by looking at the pup, and called it. It turned from Henric and waggled over to her. She needed a pet from it more than it did from her.

Meeting adjourned.

# Chapter 29 - Russian Boys Playing

When Constantine and Henric heard their wives and the rest of the team had invaded Pmirhs Stirg's home, in their bikinis, armed, and had assaulted him, both had said to themselves, "Oh, shit." That's not the same thing as being scared. They weren't scared of Stirg; they just had a healthy respect for him. Constantine and Henric didn't get where they were today by being scared of tough guys. The worlds of Russian oil and supercomputers were rough places, and both of them had come out near the top of those games.

Still, Stirg had a reputation not only in Israel, but also in Russia. He hadn't worked in Russia in many years, but he had worked with Russians in his various pursuits as a hands-on international lawyer. He was very hands-on when it came to certain things. Constantine and Henric decided to have a meeting just among themselves, as they hadn't been part of the Stirg home invasion. They met at one of their favorite places, the national forest outdoor gun range near Awendaw. Each brought two guns: their Russian gun and their practical gun. They owned the Russian guns as a matter of pride and as an homage to their homeland, and they owned their practical guns as a matter of practicality. The Russian guns were heavy and bulky, and it was hard to get ammo. The other guns were new technology: Constantine liked the Glock, same as Gwen, and Henric liked an H&K, just because it was expensive, three times the cost of the Glock. Henric could be a snob about some things.

They each brought three hundred rounds of ammo, and spent an hour and a half shooting that off. When they were done, they put the Russian guns back in their cases, and put the practical guns in the holsters on their belts. All the years they did oil and computer business around the world they rarely had carried guns. They had staff to do that. But now, after Gwen's demonstration and admonition at The Hall, they were packing pretty much all the time they were away from home. And sometimes both the Gromstovs and the Rodstras contemplated packing even when they were in their homes. They weren't scared, just cautious.

They left their stuff in the trunk of the Mercedes, and walked down the narrow dirt road through the national forest. Normally it would be unwise to leave a Mercedes parked out in the middle of nowhere, as they had, but it would take an abnormally ballsy person to break into a vehicle in the parking lot of a gun range, used by men and women who came armed to the teeth with everything from antique .22 caliber revolvers owned by their grandfathers, to Israeli .50 caliber Desert Eagles and Mach-10 semi-automatic machine guns. It was peaceful and quiet walking down the road, and they talked about the problem.

"Didn't we come to Charleston to get away from stress?" said Constantine. "I thought that was the point. That's what the Junes told us. 'Charming Charleston' was what I remember them saying. 'Charming, quaint, nice, quiet'. If I wanted this, I could have moved to a villa in Corsica and ducked French gangsters."

"I remember that. I remember them saying 'Charming Charleston'. That had a nice ring to it. I remember them talking about horse-drawn carriages. Have you done that, by the way?"

"No, not going to. Had to eat horsemeat stew once in a while when I was a kid, so, doesn't appeal."

"This Stirg thing doesn't mean Charleston isn't charming," said Henric. "A place can be charming and tense at the same time, can't it? I never really thought of things in terms of charming until I heard Gwen say that. Coming from her, it sounded really interesting. Different, you know. A different way of looking at things from what I was used to. Helstof likes that word, charming."

"Yeah, but just about everything Gwen says sounds good. It's the way she says stuff, not what she says. She's got that southern accent that makes her sound like she's ready to go to bed with you, every minute of the day. She talks about cleaning shrimp, and it's sexy. So you got to watch out for her that way. Slev calls what Gwen does, Deneuvian magic. She says it's when you're around a person, and that person is all you pay attention to. And the person can make you do stuff. I've noticed that recently about Gwen. When I'm around her, like the other night at The Hall, she's all I watch and listen to. You notice that?"

"Yeah. And, not to put too fine a point on it, and I say this respectfully, but Slev is starting that stuff too. Maybe you're too close to her, but the rest of us see it. Jinny mentioned it to me; he said it very respectfully, I want to make that clear."

Constantine mused for a while, then said, "Yeah, I've noticed something different about her. Something nice."

Henric said, "You think a guy could do Deneuvian stuff?"

Constantine stopped walking and looked at Henric. "Good question. I never thought of that." He looked up at a pine tree and watched a Red-cockaded woodpecker spiral around the trunk, looking for bugs. "How about Hitler? He could influence people."

Henric watched the woodpecker, too, thinking. Then he looked at Constantine and said, "Not the same thing." They started walking again. "What are we going to do about Stirg?"

"Do you feel tired?"

Henric stopped walking again and said, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you and I are top dogs in Saint Petersburg. Or were until recently. We both had to work hard to get there, and we had to do stuff to get there. We had lots of energy. Ambition energy. We were in fights all the time. Now we're coming to this place a lot, and Helstof and Slev like it here. They stay more than we do. We're phasing out of our work. So I'm asking if that means we're tired of the work? Of making money? Of duking it out with the competition? Are we over the hill?"

Henric didn't answer immediately, and they walked on down the road. A noise appeared ahead, and a Forest Service light green colored pickup truck came towards them. As it passed, it coated them in a thin layer of dust. They didn't seem to mind, deep in thought. They waved. "I guess I am tired of all that," Henric said. "There's other stuff to do in the world. Other people than the ones I know over there. I don't feel tired tired, like not having energy, but I'm ready for a change."

"You sure you're not tired tired?" asked Constantine.

Henric shook his head, yes.

"Well I'm not tired tired either, and I guess I'm with you on the change thing. I'm not interested in Russian business anymore. I am tired of that. I thought about skiing."

"What, cross-country skiing, like through the Siberian forest?"

"No, the fun stuff, like Switzerland."

"You're fifty-two years old. You'll break both your legs and be in the hospital for a month. If you want fun, get a girlfriend."

Constantine smiled at that but didn't say anything.

"What's this got to do with Stirg? He's the problem. You notice where we are today? At a gun range. You notice our wives are carrying guns? They didn't carry guns in Saint Petersburg, and now they're doing that in quaint, charming, genteel Charleston. You've noticed that, right?"

"He's what I'm thinking about," said Constantine. "If we're not tired tired, and we don't want to do Russian business anymore, and skiing in Switzerland is out for health reasons, and girlfriends are problematic, what are we gonna do?"

Henric walked on ten steps and stopped, looking at Constantine. "You want to fuck with Stirg? For the fun of it?" The look on his face was a mixture of inquisitiveness and wonder.

"Just a thought," said Constantine. "We gotta do something."

At this point they turned around and walked back to their car, not talking much. As they approached the turn off to the gun range parking lot, they saw three guys standing near the Mercedes. A pickup truck with wide knobby tires was there, painted a burnt orange color. The three guys carried tote bags and cardboard boxes for targets, and one had a rifle case. There were lots of tattoos. As the Russians walked up to their car, the three guys nodded.

"Nice car," one said. "How come you bought a white one?"

Constantine said, "I have a black one too. I like variety."

Henric nodded towards the pickup and said, "Nice truck. How come you bought an orange one?"

One guy turned towards it for a second, then said, "To make my wife mad. She don't like orange."

Henric thought about that, then nodded.

One of the other guys asked, "What were you boys doing down the road there. Nothing funny, I hope." He smiled a little, and his friends smiled a little. The smiling wasn't goofy or overstated, but there was a crooked edge to it.

"Bird-watching," said Constantine, who was starting to get the picture. Neither he nor Henric got the oblique reference to homosexuality, but they definitely understood that these three guys were messing with them. That sort of thing comes across very quickly, even with few words spoken. There's a universal language to it that is the same in every culture. "There's a woodpecker down the road there, looking for bugs. Black and white and red. Nice colors."

"Y'all weren't sucking on some wood down there, were ya now? Or do ya do that in the back seat of that car? Big back seat for that."

Henric and Constantine still didn't get the wood reference, but they were getting the message, in a general sense. Here they were, not far from charming Charleston, out for a mornings recreation and a little chat, and these three guys were looking for trouble. Just like a Saint Petersburg neighborhood encounter, or a Saint Petersburg dock encounter. Like a number of encounters that both Constantine and Henric had had, growing up. Just like home.

During the walk down the dirt road back to the parking lot, both Constantine and Henric had thought about the question: "You want to fuck with Stirg? For the fun of it?" Neither had reached a conclusion. It was, after all, a pointed question that deserved due deliberation. It wasn't a question to treat lightly. But it had influenced the mood of both men, and even had triggered just the very smallest amount of biological activity in them, a chemical action, something to do with adrenaline or testosterone or one of the uppity things. Both Henric and Constantine were feeling a bit edgy from the prospect of engaging with a person like Pmirhs Stirg, and here were these three guys, looking at them in a decidedly intense way.

# Chapter 30 – Local Yokels

One of the locals had a bull's testicles tattoo on the side of his neck. Both Constantine and Henric were looking at it when the guy said, "Y'all here at the range shootin?"

Henric really wanted to ask the guy what the hell that picture was on his neck, but he said, "No, we just parked here to go look for woodpeckers. We're bird-watchers."

Constantine also wanted to ask the guy about his testicles tattoo. "What is that thing on your neck," he said. The guy pointed over to the burnt orange colored pickup. On the tailgate was a stick-on poster of the rear end of a bull, showing abnormally large testicles.

The guy said, "It's bull's balls, like on my truck. That's me. Big balls," and he smiled a stupid smile.

Now Constantine and Henric understood the tattoo.

One of the other guys, the one that asked if they had been shooting at the range, said, "So you out looking for birds, huh? Not here to shoot?"

The two Russian guys nodded, no.

The third local now asked, "How much did that white car cost you?"

Henric said, "I didn't ask."

"What do you mean?"

"The guy showed me the car, and I drove it around, and I liked it, so I bought it. I felt good driving it. And it's got video screens in the back of the front seats, so the people in the back can watch movies. Like when you have kids back there, the movies stop 'em from screaming."

"Can you watch porn back there?"

Constantine looked at Henric. They didn't answer.

"Is that what you guys do, get back there and watch gay porn. You do that before or after you go looking for birds?"

Constantine again looked at Henric. They were getting the drift of the conversation pretty good by now, and Constantine was getting a small yet distinct smile on this face. This was the result of the chemicals in his bloodstream doing something, the chemicals that had been released ten minutes earlier when they had been talking about what to do with themselves, when Henric asked him if he wanted to fuck with Stirg for the fun of it. Henric felt something too. He had a few chems working that were causing a little edginess to his current world perspective.

"Did that car cost more than $50K?" The guy really wanted to know.

Henric said, "Yes."

"Did it cost more than $60K?"

"Probably."

"Did it cost more than $100K?"

Constantine decided he wanted to play with these guys, or the chemicals decided for him. He said, "Yeah, it was more than that."

The guy with the tattoo said to his friends, "My truck cost $19K. Is that fair?"

The other guys looked at the Mercedes, and then at Henric and Constantine, and shook their heads. The three of them had been holding their tote bags that contained their guns and ammo and targets and ear protection, and in unison they set them on the ground. The first guy, who had asked them if they had been shooting at the range, now said, "Maybe we oughta switch with them. They can drive the bull's balls truck, and we can drive the white car with the video screens in the back."

"Or we can drive both the truck and the white car, and these boys can go watch birds for the rest of the day."

"And the night, too. Watch owls."

The guy with the tattoo bent down, zipped open his bag, and pulled out a Smith and Wesson .357 revolver. With the other hand he took out a box of ammo and opened it. He removed six bullets, and shook them in his hand, like a better does just before throwing dice at the craps table. The metal bullets rattled in his hand. He looked at the Russians while doing this. Intimidation. The other two guys opened their bags and removed their guns, which also were not loaded. They got out ammo boxes, too. The three locals stood grinning at the two Russians, and loaded their guns. Snick, snick, snick went the bullets into the chambers.

Henric and Constantine watched this display, impassive on the outside, chems starting to boil into the bloodstream on the inside. Sluice went the epinephrine. Drip went the norepinephrine.

The boys put the ammo boxes back into their bags, stood up, and changed their stupid grins to serious looks. It was action time. Constantine and Henric also thought it was action time. Presumably, they had been watching how Roger and Gwen sometimes communicated telegraphically, because they did that now. They looked at each other, then each raised a hand, telling the three locals, "Wait a minute." They walked around the three guys towards the orange truck. Constantine went to the edge of the parking lot and picked up a rock the size of a grapefruit. Henric picked up a smaller rock. Henric went to the rear of the truck, looked back at the guy with the tattoo, and then used the point of the rock to scrap a deep gouge from one edge of the bull's balls stick-on poster to the other. Screech! He dropped the rock and looked at the guy. Constantine waited five seconds, then threw his rock through the rear window of the truck. At the tinkle of the last piece of glass hitting the interior seats of the truck, he looked back at the guy with the tattoo. The guy didn't move, and neither did his buddies. They stood with arms hanging down, guns in hands, mouths open. This was the delay Henric and Constantine needed, knowing intuitively it would be there.

Each reached to the rear of their right hip, under the shirts concealing their guns, pulled, racked the slide, assumed the shooter's stance the way Gwen had taught them, and fired. Blam, blam. Blam, blam. Blam blam. Blam blam. They each fired two double-taps, eight shots, all aimed at the local's legs. Five shots hit: each guy got one in the thigh, one guy got two in the thigh, and one guy got one in the calf. Three screams, three bodies hitting the dirt of the parking lot, three guns flying through the air.

And that was that. Henric stood up from his stance and walked forward to collect the three revolvers. Constantine picked up the three bags and the rifle case, leaving the targets where they were. Henric took the Mercedes electronic key out of his pocket and hit the trunk release button. Constantine walked to the car and threw the bags and the rifle into the trunk. Henric stood over the three moaning guys and watched them bleed. No arteries. He motioned to Constantine to cover them while he searched them for cell phones. He walked to the edge of the parking lot and threw these deep into the thick vegetation. He and Constantine stood over the three locals, looking at them and listening to them whine. Simultaneously they raised their guns into firing position, and pointed them at two of the guy's heads. They waited. Then they smiled at the guys, lowered the guns, turned and walked to the Mercedes.

They were getting ready to fuck with Stirg.

# Chapter 31 – Reporting the News

Henric dropped Constantine off at his Sullivan's Island house where they split the take, with Constantine keeping the three hand guns and Henric taking the rifle. Constantine entered the kitchen carrying his tote bag and the newly acquired tote bag. Slev and Anna were prepping for dinner: chicken stew, bistro style. The stew would simmer for eight hours.

Constantine went to an unused counter and opened the new tote bag. Out came the three guns, the boxes of ammo, and three pairs of ear protectors. Slev said, "We don't have enough guns around already? You want more? I thought you hated revolvers."

Anna went over and picked up one of the Smith and Wessons. She released the cylinder, and saw the gun was fully loaded. She snapped the cylinder back in place and hefted the gun into firing position. She aimed through the window at a shrimp boat leaving the harbor and said, "Revolvers are so boring," and set it back on the counter.

Slev looked at Constantine. He said, "I didn't go out and buy more guns. Or rather, have someone buy them for me. I didn't even ask for these. Some guys we met at the range gave them to us. Henric got a rifle out of the deal."

"What did you give them in this deal?" Slev asked.

"Um, we gave them some bullets."

Both Slev and Anna got the picture, and waited for the story.

Constantine also got the picture that he would have to tell the story. "Some guys wanted the Mercedes. They wanted to trade their car for our car, and their car had this picture of bull's testicles painted on the back, so we said no."

Anna looked at Slev, and both of them looked back at Constantine. "Anything else?" asked Anna.

"They said Henric and I were homosexuals."

Slev looked at Anna, and both of them looked back at Constantine. "And then what happened?" asked Slev.

"We told them we were bird-watchers, looking for Red-cockaded woodpeckers, which we found by the way. Red and white and black colors on them."

Anna sat down on a stool, and then Slev sat down, and then Anna said, "Bull's testicles painted on a car, gays, woodpeckers. All that happened with some strangers? That's a weird conversation." Knowing full well it was not, she asked, "Is that all?"

Constantine said, "That was all of the conversation."

Slev's hands were folded together on the counter, and at this point she put her head down on them, just momentarily. When she raised her head she said, "This is going to a bad place, isn't it?"

"Well, it certainly went to a bad place for the three guys, yeah. We, ah, shot them."

Anna said, "You shot them because they had a strange painting on their car, and they said you were gay?"

Constantine thought he would have a little fun with Anna, so he said, "No, didn't shoot them because of that. We shot them because they said bird-watching was a sissy hobby. Henric didn't like being called a sissy. So...."

Anna looked at Slev and said, "Oh, well, of course. I can understand that, can't you?"

Slev gave it a minute and then said, "He's teasing." She looked at her husband, extended her hands, palms up, and said, "Well?"

"Well, they pulled guns on us. They were dumb. They didn't know we were armed. We had to shoot them."

"And they're dead?"

"What, for calling us gay? Would I kill someone for that? No, we shot them in the legs."

"And?"

"And, we left them there."

"And, they all bled to death?"

"I don't think so, but I don't know for sure. They weren't bleeding too badly when we left. The bullets didn't get any arteries. But it did hurt. We could see that."

Slev said, "Did they get the license number of the Mercedes? Are the police going to show up here?"

Constantine pondered on that. He sat down on a stool across from the two women, near the chopping block with the dismembered chicken on it. "I hope not. I don't think so. They were pretty dumb guys. And they thought they had it all over us, from the beginning. They didn't assess the situation very accurately when they decided to mess with us. It would surprise me if they got the number; they were too busy laying on the ground, moaning and whining."

Anna asked, "What was your hit ratio? Shots fired relative to shots hitting the target?"

Slev looked at Anna. Weird. Anna certainly was an unusual young woman.

Constantine thought Anna's question was interesting, so he said, "I know we each fired four shots, 'cause I counted them. And I know all three guys went down. But we didn't check to determine the hit ratio. We just got outta there."

It was only about noon, and Slev was planning on drinking wine with dinner that evening about 8pm, but she went to the refrigerator, got out a bottle of chardonnay, and opened it. She poured three glasses, took a sip from hers, walked around the counter to her husband and said, "I'm glad you're safe."

# Chapter 32 – Anna the Beautiful

After downing the first glass of wine, Slev dialed up Gwen and reported the news. Gwen said, "Holy shit!"

She told Roger, who dialed up Jinny, and told him. Jinny said, "Holy shit. Way to go guys." He told Guignard, who said, "Holy shit."

Back on Sullivan's Island the women continued making the chicken stew. They had to get it into the pot so it could get its full eight hours of cook time. That didn't take long. Most people who love wine find it hard to drink just one glass. There's just something odd about that. So after the first glass of wine was gone, and the stew was in the pot and on the stove, the glasses got filled again, and the two and a half Russians sat around drinking. It was a beautiful day in charming Charleston.

The story, or something, had excited Anna because her tongue got loose as she got loose. "Do you guys have a doctor here yet? I know you're new to Charleston, but sooner or later everyone needs a doctor for something. I have one that's good for people my age. Maybe she would be good for you, too. I've been to her four times, and I really like her. I actually like going to her, and I like hospitals too. There's so much going on in that place. Action all over. People running around with strange instruments in their hands. I'd like to work in a hospital."

Slev got up while listening, went to a cupboard, and got a can of cashew nuts. She took off the top and went to pry off the airtight seal when Anna lunged forward with a hand and stopped her. "Don't. Cashews and chardonnay don't go together. If you eat cashews you can kiss your wine goodbye. And this is good chardonnay. Don't ruin it."

Constantine asked, "How do you know that?"

"I tried it once. I thought cashews have to go with chardonnay, because they are the same color. And I love cashews. But they don't."

Constantine had to check this out for himself, considering Anna's age, so he pulled the seal on the can and popped a small handful of nuts into his mouth, which he followed with a sip of wine. He looked at Anna and then Slev. He ate a few more nuts, and then another, larger, swallow of wine. He made a face. "She's right. Damn. Wine is gone."

Anna looked pleased, and went on, "But I don't think I should be a doctor." Slev asked why? "Because once you're a doctor, you're always a doctor. Doctors are so good, that once they start doing good things, helping people, they can't stop. They're doctors the rest of their lives."

"What's wrong with that?" Slev asked.

"Nothing, just that I don't think I can do just one thing. My feelings overwhelm my thinking. Sometimes I want to travel to the Med and feel like a Sicilian. And sometimes I want to go to Israel and work for them, like my grandfather. But then I want to feel like Duke Ellington playing piano. Sometimes I want to wear silk dresses made by someone famous, and then the next day I want to work on one of the Mars projects as a squint."

"What's a squint?" asked Constantine.

"That's a word from a TV show. It means a scientist. Like someone who looks through a microscope all day, or at a computer." Anna finished her second glass of wine, and eyed the cashews. "Right now, my thinking and my feeling are always at war, so I don't know what to do with myself. I want a third glass of wine, because it's so good, but if I do, I'll fall asleep later, and won't be able to drink wine tonight with this great chicken stew. So my mind says don't drink another glass, go eat the cashews. That's the story of my life." She looked at the two older people, and sighed. Both Constantine and Slev thought she was quite beautiful, sitting there, confused about life. She could have been their daughter. As it was, she had been in bed with Slev.

Anna poured herself another glass of wine, but didn't drink any of it. She just looked at the greenish amber colored liquid, and thought of working in the Champagne region of France as a vigneron, growing chardonnay grapes and making wine. Then she thought about America, and maybe she would be an FBI agent. She knew how to operate a gun. And she had found Constantine's story of shooting the local yokels in the legs exciting.

"Do you know Catherine had a sister who was more beautiful than her? Can you imagine that? I can't. Catherine is like the women in old Italian paintings - supernaturally beautiful. How could someone be more beautiful than her? Her sister died when she was young, but I read somewhere that she was more beautiful." Anna picked up the glass and held it up to the kitchen window, trying to look through the liquid and see the ocean. She put the glass down on the table and said, "I've been trying to figure out what Catherine thinks about me. What I should do? I wonder if her feelings and thoughts collide, like mine do? She doesn't act like she's confused." Anna reached across the counter and pulled the can of cashews to her, but she didn't eat any. "Maybe Catherine is confused, like me, but just doesn't show it. She always looks regal and kind. And beautiful, of course. If I knew she was confused, then I wouldn't worry so much about me being confused. I would just go out and do some of the things I want to do, like play piano." She looked at Slev. "You're beautiful. Are you confused?"

"No," Slev answered.

Anna looked at Constantine. "Are you confused?"

"No," he answered.

"Oh, that's good. You know, I can't decide whether to drink this delicious chardonnay and get sloshed, or eat the cashews and wait till tonight to drink more wine with the stew." She looked out the window at the gray distance line of the ocean. When she turned back she looked at Constantine and said, "Are you going to shoot my grandfather?"

Slev didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and looked at her husband. Constantine picked up his glass and took the last sip of his second glass. He was glad he hadn't had any more than that, because he was afraid of how he might answer if he had drunk more alcohol. It wasn't more than a few hours since he and Henric had been thinking of fucking with Stirg, just for the fun of it. Now he had this woman sitting near him, who just had finished saying some very interesting things. Twenty-seven years old, trying to figure out life and discussing it openly, with older people, intelligently. Here was a young person talking about Duke Ellington and Champagne and the FBI. The world was her oyster. And now she was asking him if he was going to be a big piece of sand in her oyster. Jesus. Was this woman Russian or American?

When Constantine said he wasn't confused, he spoke truthfully. But now he began to question himself. What was going on here in charming Charleston? He was hanging out with Gwen June, who kept him entranced. He had Pmirhs Stirg breathing down his neck, and his wife was changing in strange and interesting ways, with the Deneuvian stuff. And he just had shot three guys. He tried to remember if he ever shot three guys in Saint Petersburg? No. He had been present when three guys got shot, but he didn't do any of the shooting. Did all this amount to confusion? He got up from his stool and went to the window. There was the Atlantic, separating him from St. Barths Island. He looked back at Anna, and then out the window. No, this was interesting stuff, exciting, but not confusing. Thank god.

He came back and sat down on the stool. "Henric and I thought of challenging your grandfather. We're both retiring from business, but we're not tired tired, so we need something to do." He said this matter-of-factly. "We thought we would challenge him, since he challenged us. Her," he said, pointing to Slev. "And the others. Us."

Slev thought, Christ, now what?

Anna nodded, matter-of-factly.

"Henric might be disappointed if I tell him I don't want to go after your grandfather."

Anna nodded. Slev waited.

"I think your grandfather is going to come after us, so maybe we'll just wait for that. Not start something sooner. Because of you. If....when....he comes again, all bets are off. You understand that. Right?"

Anna nodded, and started talking again. "You know the difference between Saint Petersburg and Charleston? In Charleston, strangers are polite. In Saint Petersburg, people are more like New Yorkers; they don't make a lot of eye contact. How often do Charleston women, who are strangers, call you 'Hon'? That happens to me about twice a week. 'Ok, Hon', they say at the supermarket checkout line. I really love that about Charleston. If they call me that, I wonder what they call their boyfriends? What's better than 'Hon'?"

Constantine nodded, and said, "The other day I got something at a McDonalds drive-through, and when I paid, the woman called me 'Baby'. She was a black woman, and she could see me in the car, she could see I'm an old white guy, and she called me 'Baby'. She said, 'Thank you, Baby.'" He looked at Slev with a look of wonderment.

Slev said, "You went to McDonalds?"

"I think Charleston is a place where I can get un-confused," Anna said. "I can decide if I want to be an FBI agent or play piano or go to France and make wine. It's maybe a good thing that I'm not so close to my grandfather now. Maybe I have to focus. That's going to be fun. Making a decision. I haven't done that yet. Make a serious decision. The last real decision I had to make was whether to climb the stairs of the June's house that night, and I didn't get that one very right."

Slev and Constantine listened to Anna very closely. They appeared to be relaxed, but were attentive, and they could see what was going on inside her. Slev saw 'no fear', and this enthralled her. Twenty-seven, confused about big questions, but no fear about the future. Lovely.

Anna was animated, looking out the window, down at the wine glasses, at the can of cashews, and at them. Constantine saw alert eyes. Eyes like Gwen's eyes. When Gwen got hot, emotionally or intellectually, Constantine always saw a glint in her eyes, like light refracting off wine glasses sitting on a white table cloth. Maybe Anna would develop that same glint as she got older. Constantine hoped so.

Every day was a good day for Anna. If it was hot it was good, and if it was cold it was good. If it was early morning she was ready; if it was late at night she was willing. Anna wasn't hyperactive in an annoying way, just passively alert, almost all the time. Questing.

She said, "Did you ever read any books by J. P. Wodehouse? He has a character that is an English upper class guy, doesn't work, plays piano sometimes. This drives his butler nuts, who's a snob. The butler wants his boss to play classical stuff, but the guy plays pop stuff. This was just after World War II. Did you see the piano in my grandfather's house? It's beautiful. A Bosendorfer. He bought it for me because he likes to hear me play, and it's one reason I go to see him. I try to play like I think the character in the Wodehouse books would play. Cheerfully. Slow, but up tempo at the same time. Did you know that Scott Joplin said ragtime should never, ever, be played fast? One reason maybe I shouldn't be an FBI agent is I wouldn't be able to play much. Those guys run around the country all the time, doing stuff, which I know is dull sometimes, but also exciting some times. They do that job for the excitement part, but also for their country. Most of them, anyway. I suppose I could practice piano early in the morning, in the motel lounges. I'd be staying in motels all the time."

Slev and Constantine listened to all this. Anna was beautiful. A total lack of self-consciousness. Then Anna started talking about clothes, about how people in the movies made in the 40s and 50s and even 60s would dress up to go on vacation. The men wore sport jackets and ties when they were getting on ships to cross the Atlantic. The women wore dresses to go on vacation. Today, Americans dress like slobs. Russians too. All the time, slobs. Anna said she was going to start wearing more dresses. Screw what other women were doing, or not doing. Screw the devolution of dressing.

# Chapter 33 – The Lull Before the Storm

The phone rang in Gwen's purse, which sat on the stage at The Hall. Sharing the stage with the purse were Peter, Pater, Selgey, and Bart. Henric was on his way, having said he wanted to see where his money was going. Actually he just liked looking at Selgey in her warm-up duds. What a body. All four former ballet dancers were wearing warm-up duds. They didn't do any dancing, but it brought back great memories of flying through the air to sounds of Stravinsky. At the moment they were sitting cross legged in a circle in the middle of the stage talking about ten year olds. They were debating what percentage of each incoming ballet class was going to be on scholarship, meaning they were too poor to pay the exorbitant fees the other students were going to pay.

Gwen had come down to The Hall to check if Peter and Pater were packing heat, like she told them to. When she came into the theater and went to the stage, the four partners were there, talking. She kissed all of them, European style, and then stepped back to look at Peter and Pater. They weren't so fatuous as to be wearing leotards, but they were dressed in warm-up dancing duds that were pretty tight around the bods. She started by looking at Bart, who still had the Adonis like body that had adorned the stages of the Royal Ballet. She tried to move her gaze to Selgey and then to Peter and Pater, but it resolutely was stuck on Bart. She badly wanted Bart to pick her up right then and there and carry her to his castle where he would ravish her in the tower bedroom. Selgey broke out laughing at this, being the good sport she was, and being used to it.

When Gwen did tear her eyes away and reset them on Peter and Pater, she was disappointed. Not that they didn't put on a decent showing in the physical line, but she could find only one prominent bulge on each of their bodies, and there should have been two. One for their....and one for their guns. She looked them in the eyes, and they knew she was pissed. They started whining about being artists, and artists don't carry guns, and where exactly are they supposed to carry them, and the guns are heavy, and Henric was coming and he probably had three guns on him, the nut, and whine whine.

Gwen listened, and when they wound down the litany of excuses, she said two words: Pmirhs Stirg.

This was when her phone rang, so Peter and Pater were saved from further abuse. "Hello."

"Bonjour, Gwenny, comment allez vous? C'est Catherine."

"Hi, Catherine. I am fine. Where are you? Back in Paris?"

"No, dear, I am in your second greatest city, San Francisco. I am through in LA, and I came here for a few days to go to the wine country and drink the sparkling wines you make here. I want to compare them to Champagne. Um, let me rephrase that. I want to see what you are doing with your sparkling wines these days. Do you know who my guide is here? Guess, Gwenny."

"Robin Williams, he lives in San Francisco."

"I loved 'Mrs. Doubtfire.' But no, not Robin Williams. It's Ken Burns. He loves wine, and I've loved him ever since he made his Jazz series. He had a segment in that about American expatriate jazzers who couldn't earn a living in the States in the early years, so they came to Paris, where Parisians came out in droves to hear them play. I met Kenny when he was researching in Paris, and we went to Champagne and drank lots of good wine there, and now he is taking me to Napa. How are you and the others in Charleston? Give them my love. How is Anna?"

"Anna is confused, but in a good way. She wants to be too many things. Did you know she plays piano? We just learned that. What happened in LA?"

"Well, Steven and I had some good meetings, but then I had to say, No."

Gwen didn't say anything immediately. She had to process. Steven Spielberg offering to work with you in a film, and you say, No? How many people in the world would, could, do that? Gwen started counting: One....that was it. The Deneuve. That's all. In the world. Say No to Spielberg. Ok, ok, this was processing better now for Gwen, starting to make sense. Yeah, Catherine could do that. Say No. "Why did you say No to Steven Spielberg about making a film with him? You don't mind me asking, do you Catherine?"

"I said no, at first, because he wanted me to write parts of it from the French point of view, and he would write the other parts. And I told him I didn't have the time or the inclination anymore for sitting lots of hours writing. And he said he didn't either, but he would do it if I did it. I said I couldn't, and he wasn't too happy, and that was the end of that meeting. Then the next day he came to the hotel and said he would find someone else to write it, if I would be in it, and I said Yes, of course. So now he is out looking for a writer, and we are both happy, and we will start in a few months. And it will be fun. And that is what I called you about. The film. The documentary. Gwenny?"

"I'm here, Catherine."

"What do you think about Anna being in the film, with me?"

"Please repeat that, Catherine, just for the record."

"Anna. Anna. To be in the film about Champagne. I need her."

"Catherine, there are other women in the world with great bodies that can wear expensive black Italian underwear and perform. You know, real actresses. Grownups. Experienced."

"Gwenny, it's Anna. You know that. You know she's got it. I told Steven about the scene in your kitchen with her that reminded me of me in Repulsion, and he flipped out. He knows every film ever made. He said he wants Anna with me. He asked about you, too, Gwenny. I told him about you and Roger holding guns, naked from the waist down, interrogating Anna taped to a chair in her black underwear. He asked me if I had a photo of you like that. Naked from the waist down, holding a gun, 4am."

"What did you say to him, Catherine? What did you say to Spielberg when he asked you about me, Catherine, please tell me what you said."

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone call.

"I said, um, I said that you and Roger were working on a project right now, and he said that was too bad."

"What project is that, Catherine? You mean my garden project, Catherine? Planting the new vines out on the trellis? Is that the project that would keep me from being in a Spielberg film, even if it's only a documentary, starring you, about the history and culture of Champagne?"

"Gwenny, dear, it's got to be Anna. I'm old. She young. You're in the middle. It's got to be Anna. She's the next generation. This is a chance to help the next generation, and she's got it. Why else would I tell you not to call the police when she came into your house that night? Generally, that's what I do, Gwen, when someone breaks into the house I'm in, armed with a Walther. I advise calling the police in that circumstance. But I didn't that night, because both of us saw something special about her. We let her go, remember? You agreed with me. Special."

Gwen didn't answer right away, but when she did, she said, "Ok, Catherine. You're right. It's got to be Anna. When are you going to tell her?"

"I thought, Gwenny, you should do that. She needs to know right away, and I can't come back to Charleston, and it should be face to face with her. Will you do it?"

"Ok." Catherine thought Gwen could have sounded a bit more enthusiastic, but...."Great, thank you dear. Someone from Steven's office will email you some background information that you can use when you tell her. I have to go now, Gwenny, Ken is here, and we're off to taste some sparklers. You know Kenny is doing another series? He's looking for actresses. Talk to you soon. Au revoir."

Gwen got the impression she wouldn't be in Ken Burns' new series, either. Life was hard sometimes, filled with disappointment. She wondered what would happen if she had a photo made of herself, naked from the waist down, holding her Glock, and sent it to Spielberg's office. Maybe send it to the person who was going to email her information about the documentary. That person may even be Spielberg's assistant. Send the photo to her, yeah, see what happens.

Gwen looked over at the former ballet dancers. They didn't seem to be disappointed at their lot.

# Chapter 34 – Retirement Weighs Heavily

Pmirhs Stirg sat on the dock of the bay watching time go by. It was his very long and substantial private dock, stretching out into Charleston Harbor, from which in the distance he could see the six flags flying over Fort Sumter. He always liked that sight. He was a patriotic sort of person, and respected patriotism no matter what country it was directed at. The dock was part of what now was a $6 million piece of property; now that he had renovated the old Navy structure into his private residence, and fixed the dock, and built the guest house back where the dock connected to the historic district of Charleston. A lot of people would be happy sitting there, relaxing, enjoying the view, knowing they were wealthy, but Stirg was unhappy, dissatisfied, and brooding. He knew it was wrong to feel this way, that he should be content; but he wasn't. He was pissed at Roger and Gwen June.

Nev sat next to him with a fishing pole, trying to fish. He didn't know how, but he was trying. He had grown up in the desert of Israel, not on the coast. What Nev should have done was to call up Little Jinny Blistov and ask him for advice about fishing. Jinny was a short man, and so there never was much chance of him feeling vertigo due to his head being very far from the ground. He got this physical trait from his mother, who was 4 foot 11 inches tall. Jinny knew a lot about fishing because he had learned it from his mother and her side of the family. They were fishermen who would row small boats out of St. Petersburg harbor into the North Sea. They could row out there for days, eating raw fish and drinking rainwater. When there were no fish around and they got bored, they would strip naked, tie the boat's lines around their waists, jump overboard, and have swimming races while towing the boats behind. All of them were short, but very strong, no fat anywhere. His mother was so strong she could tear the heads off of fish with her bare hands.

If Nev had called Jinny and asked him to come over for a little fishing off the dock, Jinny would have been there is a minute. But Nev didn't know about Jinny's skill in this department, and probably wouldn't have called him if he did know. Nev wasn't too thrilled about the part Jinny played in the June's invasion of the Stirg home, being suckered by four women in bikinis, being tied up and forced to watch his boss be humiliated like that. Him a commando. Former commando, now possibly over the hill in that department. He wondered if he was over the hill in the bodyguard department, too. That would be bad. What else could he do to earn a living? He remembered Jinny pointing Stirg's Russian made Brusshev at him, sitting in a chair with his feet tied together. He decided for the tenth time he didn't like Jinny, or any of that Charleston crowd. Formerly Saint Petersburg crowd, now Charleston crowd. He would rather sit with no fish in his bucket than ask Jinny for help.

Stirg was brooding about Anna and the artifacts. One minute he was incensed that a couple of Americans had stolen Russian heritage items, and the next minute he was incensed that his granddaughter now was living with these Americans. He knew she was living with the Rodstras, but his mind played games, telling him she really was with the Americans. It wasn't like him to brood. Always he had been a man of action; figure out what to do, then go do it. Take risks. Here he was, sitting on his dock, watching the Sumter flags flap and snap in the wind. The day before he had tried to change his mood by walking up King Street with Nev to the College of Charleston campus. He sat under the old trees, surrounded by old brick walls, and watched the coeds, but even this didn't make him feel good. The stirrings weren't there. The stirrings certainly were there in Nev, who was going crazy, surrounded by what was nothing less than rampant, flagrant nubility. This was lots better than fishing and not catching anything. But Stirg just didn't feel well. He wanted to kill the Americans and the Russian traitors, and get the goods back. And he wanted to chase young women. His problem was that he couldn't figure out how to do either. His mind wasn't working the way it used to. He had blockage.

Somewhere under his conscious thinking he knew the problem was Anna, and not the artifacts or the Americans or the traitorous Russians, and in that same place he knew he couldn't do anything about it. It was Anna's decision to go to them. She was adult enough for him to point her on a mission, and he knew she was adult enough to decide how to live her life. But this knowledge was not at the surface of his mind. He couldn't access it at the conscious level, and was stuck with a mind playing tricks on itself, side-stepping reality. Anna had been his touchstone since retiring from active duty, first from Nazi hunting, and then from international lawyering. Now, she was moving on. He looked over at Nev, sitting on the dock and thinking he would have better luck fishing with his handgun than this stupid pole. Nev's mind wasn't what it used to be, either.

# Chapter 35 – Anna and Champagne

Late that afternoon Gwen got an email from Constance Lavoirsiere, who identified herself as Steven Spielberg's personal assistant for European affairs. It requested that Ms. Gwen June secure the services of Ms. Glissy Stirg to participate in a Spielberg Productions documentary film about the place of Champagne in French and world culture, and indicated that Ms. Catherine Deneuve had guaranteed that Ms. June would accomplish this task. Attached to the email was a brochure type document that obviously was the first draft of some promotional marketing effort. It announced that Catherine Deneuve would be acting as the central figure in a Spielberg Production documentary set in the Champagne region of France. There was no mention of Glissy Stirg, or the role she would play. A second attachment was a standard contract for employment with Spielberg Productions. The contract did not specify Glissy's responsibilities, other to say, "Services as required by the authorized representative of Spielberg Productions." It did specify that Ms. Stirg's remuneration would be based on standard actors guild rates, though it didn't describe these rates or rating scale.

Gwen could see that when Spielberg wanted something or someone, he got it, and people didn't quibble about things such as how much work and what type of work, in exchange for what compensation. That was a very nice position for him to be in, and Gwen could see the reality of it. She figured Anna wouldn't have a lot of problems with the details. How could they compare to being in France with The Deneuve, part of a Spielberg Productions film? "Let's go," is what Gwen figured Anna would say. That's certainly what she would say.

When Slev answered the phone, Gwen said, "You're not going to believe this."

"Oh, cool, I love not believing things. Usually they turn out to be true and interesting. What's up?"

"This is so amazing we need to talk face to face. It's about Anna. Is she home? Can the three of us do lunch?"

"She's home. She was down at The Hall this morning watching the rehearsal. Henric bought the boys a Steinway, and Anna was practicing Gershwin songs. What time and where for lunch?"

"McCrady's. 3 o'clock. Dress up."

When Slev and Anna walked into the restaurant the hostess took them to a large table in the rear where Gwen sat alone. On the table was a book, a few papers, and six wine buckets, each holding a chilled bottle of Champagne, and several small plates of different kinds of plain crackers. Slev was dressed in an Armani silk shift, lemon yellow with green trim at the bottom hem and at the shoulders. Anna wore a tight burgundy skirt with a Tommy Bahamas silk blouse. The blouse was chartreuse with cream floral accents. Both wore three inch heels made by Pomonisi of Milan.

The sommelier gave them two minutes to get settled, and then came to the table. Gwen introduced him as Siegfried. "Siegfried is going to give us about fifteen minutes to gossip, and is going to come back and talk to us for a few minutes about Champagne. Then we're going to start drinking Champagne, six different kinds. Aren't we, Siegfried?" He smiled and nodded. Who wouldn't want to talk about Champagne with these three stunning women? Of course his professional duties included tasting the wines, so he could fully and completely elucidate to the customers the characteristics and cultural values inherent in them. That's what Gwen had hired him to do. What joy. Six bottles for three women.

Slev said, "We're going to get drunk, aren't we? Great. When are the men coming? And which men?" Anna giggled. It had been a while since she had gotten drunk, with or without men present.

Gwen said, "We have something to talk about, and then we're going to drink some Champagne, and then we'll invite others if we feel like it. I guess you're feeling like it right now. How about you, Anna? You have a man you want to invite?"

Anna was feeling devilish even though she hadn't yet had a sip of alcohol. She said, "How about my grandfather? He likes Champagne."

Gwen and Slev smiled, but didn't answer.

Gwen held up the book: Fodor's Guide to the Champagne Region. She handed it to Anna. "You're going to need this."

Anna looked expectantly. Slev also looked at Gwen, expectantly.

"Catherine said, No, to working on Spielberg's documentary about Champagne. She made him change the project. Then she said, Yes. They're going to start in a few months." Gwen let that hang for a moment. "That's not all. Catherine wants you in it, and Spielberg said, Yes. Anna, you're going to be in a Spielberg film. That is, if you want to be."

Anna said, "That would be ok, I guess." She looked at the book, without really seeing it. Then she looked at Slev, who smiled. Being in France, with Catherine. That thought elevated Anna's mood. She had yet to process the Spielberg film thingy. Being in France, with Catherine, drinking Champagne. Her sensations quirked up a notch. Being in France, with Catherine, and Steven Spielberg, making a movie. She sat back in her chair, looked again at the book, and then looked at Gwen. "Wow," was all she said. And she shook her head.

"Do you like Champagne?" asked Slev.

"I don't know. I've had it a few times, but I can't say if I like it or not. I wasn't drinking it with anyone who actually knew anything about it. Just rich friends of my grandfather. I like most wine I've had, but not everything."

"You have to tell them if you want to be in the film with Catherine. They want to know right away. They're being pushy, but I'm sure that's life in the film industry. You need to decide by tomorrow afternoon. Catherine will be with you, and will help you. They sent a contract for you to sign." Gwen held up the paper. "We can have our lawyer look at it. It's short and simple. That's all I know." She smiled at Anna.

"Ok, I'll think about it," Anna said. She looked confidence and complacent. "It would help if I could start learning about Champagne now. Can we start drinking?"

Both Slev and Gwen leaned across the table and kissed her on the cheek. Gwen stood up, looked to the doorway of the dining room, and Siegfried appeared. The women had fun over the next two hours, and so did Siegfried. He opened all six bottles, and took three out of the chillers. He explained the difference between a house Champagne and a grower Champagne, poured the wine into glasses of different shapes to show how that affects the experience, and spoke about how Champagne was one of the great wines to drink with food, complementing so many different dishes. Some glasses they drank chilled, and some they drank almost at room temperature. Between the different wines they nibbled the plain crackers.

At the end of the first hour they were loose, and sent Siegfried packing, with thanks and a hefty tip, and settled into a growing sense of fun and female companionship. They tried to keep a focus on the mechanics of learning about Champagne, but that was hopeless, and soon they slipped away into general hedonism. Slev called Helstof and asked her to come and bring Richard Adams. It had been quite a while since the four lovers had been together. Gwen called Gale, Charleston's wild fashionista, because Champagne demanded her presence. Helstof called Guignard, who invited Jinny. Guignard wanted Jinny to learn about Champagne so he would buy more of it for her to drink.

Soon after this batch of friends arrived, Siegfried told Gwen he had to move them to the private dining, they were making too much of a racket, and the other patrons kept asking about the strange language, which was Jinny telling dirty jokes in Russian. It hadn't taken him long to get sloshed. Siegfried got a mixed case of Champagne out of the cellar and opened half the bottles. Gwen went into the kitchen and ordered munchies directly from the sous chef.

At this point Gwen realized the bill for this party was approaching $2000. In good conscience she couldn't exclude her husband, who she called, and who she always like being around when she was drinking to excess. "Roger, where are you?"

"I'm in the warehouse, checking on things."

"Can you tear yourself away? We're having a little party. Downtown. McCrady's. For Anna. Champagne. We're all getting drunk. I need a kiss."

"Be right there," Roger said. "Save me something of everything."

Gwen returned to the private dining room to find Gale in her underwear. It hadn't taken her long to get sloshed either. Gwen knew Gale and Champagne went together like gunpowder and a match; there was no long, slow burn involved. Go Galey. Gwen went to Anna and said, "Champagne is for lovers, dear. Where is yours?"

Anna was sloshed, but she pulled herself together and said, somewhat seriously, "Ever since you caught me in your house, and sat me down with Catherine, and then introduced me to Slev and the others, I've been happy. It's been exciting and interesting, and I did have that fling with Slev and Helstof and Richard." She smiled goofily at that memory. "I haven't thought much about men, about a boyfriend. I've been occupied, you know, with you and my grandfather." She sipped more of a vintage Mumms. She looked around and saw Jinny and Guignard, and Helstof and Richard. Peter and Pater had arrived, and were not yet sloshed, but they were holding hands, and on their way. "Maybe it's time. Maybe I should look for a guy. That would be nice, to have a friend." Suddenly she smiled big. "Someone to drink Champagne with."

They turned their attention back to the party, where Jinny had taken off his shirt. Guignard permitted that, but when he started on his pants, she slapped the back of his head. Whap! Then she kissed him and said in his ear, "That's for me only, big boy."

Roger arrived, saw Gale, said, "Damn." He poured himself a very large dollop in a white wine glass.

Gwen went to Helstof and whispered something in her ear. Then she went to Slev and whispered the same thing to her. Both smiled. Helstof went to Richard, and said something. He looked surprised. Then he looked serious. Then more serious. Then, happy. He understood.

Gwen pulled Gale by the bra strap over to a corner of the room, where she got a grip around Gale's waist and spoke quietly. After a minute Gale let out a shriek. "YES, YES,"

which drew everyone's attention. Gale didn't need time to figure things out. Her Champagne addled brain clicked into gear and she launched. "Everyone, here, game." And she was up on a chair. Just then Siegfried, who was quite the handsome Germanic Black Forest guy, came into the room. Gwen grabbed him by his cummerbund and said intensely, "If I let you stay, Siegfried, you're going to owe me, big-time. And I collect." He nodded, quickly and with great affirmation.

"Game for Anna, game for Anna," said Gale. "Champagne game, writer's game, underwear game." She waved her half-full flute, spilling only a little. She jumped off the chair and bounced over to Richard, who still had a serious look on his face. She put her arm around his shoulders, and put his hand on her chest just above her knockers. "Richard is going to write for us, impromptu, that's the game. He's going to write for Anna, because this party is for her, and her trip to France. This game is about underwear, because we all know about Anna and her black underwear, and we want more. We want women and Champagne and fun and writing."

Gale could take hold of a ball and run with it, Gwen had to give her that. She was rockin. "Richard is going to write something about women and Champagne. He's going to write a short piece about each woman in the room. If the group thinks it describes the woman, and likes it, that woman has to remove clothes to reveal underwear. We're gonna see what we're gonna see. Everyone, in?"

The guys immediately nodded assent, especially Jinny. Peter and Pater thought this would be fun, but on a different level, of course. Everyone looked at Richard, who was on the hot seat. Could he perform?

Gwen looked at Siegfried, and snapped her fingers. "Podium."

He was gone for thirty seconds, and returned with the podium the Rotary Club used for their monthly Thursday afternoon lunch meetings. Siegfried was quite sure the Rotary Club never had meetings like this one. Richard stood behind the podium with a pad of yellow legal paper and a pen also supplied by the sommelier, calm, focused, and without fear. He loved challenges, and he knew these were his friends. Hell, half of them were his lovers. He closed his eyes and recited Kipling's mantra: Drift, Wait, Obey. He opened his eyes and looked at Gwen. Might as well start with the leader. His eyes closed again for a full minute; his breathing slowed; his face relaxed; and he began to write.

Gwen's the glass of bubbly wine

She's a number, looking fine.

Gwen's commander, life of actions

Leader, doer, hot reactions.

On the stage, smiling always

A performer, on life's byways.

Got your back, first and last

She's a rock, she's a blast.

Champagne bubbles on her tongue

Friend of ours, she's the one.

Gale, the MC in her underwear, bounded to the podium, picked up the yellow pad, and read it aloud. She waited for the effect on the others, then gave Richard a warm kind of kiss. She said, "Nice, Richard, nice Gwenny, nice and fun, you're on a run. Did you like it, Roger?"

Roger clapped and said, "My baby." Jinny hooted. He loved it. Anna gave Gwen a kiss.

Gale looked at Richard with a big smile and said, "Slevov, next, please."

Richard took a breath and closed his eyes. Drift, wait, obey. On the yellow pad he wrote:

Russian woman, from the north

Warming here, laughs flow forth.

In sparkling bubbles, joy is hidden

Match her eyes, where love is bidden.

Romanov blood, cheekbones high

Make Carolina men, flirt and sigh.

Thoughts and feelings, meld intuition

Men get kisses, and loins fruition.

Champagne flavors, of fruit and bread

Slev's our lover, the best have said.

Jinny bounced out of his chair and planted one on Slev's mouth. Evidently Jinny likes verse, but of course he had put away his share of wine. Clapping from the others, Slev got another kiss from Gwen, and Peter and Pater got her in a sandwich hug. Richard went to the table and poured himself another glass of Taittinger '89.

"Richard, go, Richard go," Gale practically screamed. "Now Helstof, now Helstof." Siegfried was worried this was being heard in the main dining room, and that the Maître d' would appear, but what could he do. No one was going to stop this show. Richard sipped, looked around the room, stared at Helstof, and picked up his pen.

Moscow minarets, home to her

Naked nights, lovers in fur.

Helstof sips, sweet French Champagne

Worlds ignite, no kisses the same.

Southern sand, she walks the beach

Men behind her, fantasize a reach.

Late at night, she thinks alone

Thanks and thankful, as friends have grown.

Helstof makes, the day more fun

When we sight her, feel warmth of sun.

Helstof leaned over to Slev and said, "That's not the first thing he's written to me. You should read some of the sex thoughts that man has. Very erotic. I'll share some day, if he says I can. Writing's the second best thing he does."

Gale ran around the room like a wood nymph running around the stage of Sleeping Beauty. Siegfried was absolutely positive this had not happened during a Rotary Club luncheon. The door to the private dining room opened, and Selgey and Bart came in. Someone in the group had called and said, "Get down here." Peter saw them, motioned to Siegfried to pour them Champagne, and then followed Gale flouncing around the long walnut table. He added grace to her procession. Gwen took over as MC, going to stand beside Richard, saying, "Guignard is next." Richard wrote again, and Gwen read it aloud.

Jinny's woman, she loves to show it

The better half, and we all know it.

Charleston friends, gave her a name

With such a sound, new person came.

Among the wines, Champagne is best

Guignard she knows, this cultural test.

Jinny's feelings, Guignard he loves

He fits with her, like calfskin glove.

Russian here, in southern sun

All of us, as friends she's won.

With this one, Gwen was afraid Gale would take it all off. Gale was wild, kissing everyone, starting with Guignard. Richard looked relaxed, waiting for the last challenge, and Gwen knew they should get on with it. Any minute now and the Maître d' was going to pound on the door. "Hey," she yelled. "Hey. Come on. Last one. Richard's last piece. Richard, write about Anna." Everyone chanted, Anna, Anna.

Richard looked down at the yellow pad, and then looked at Anna, who had been quiet. She was sitting next to Slev, who had an arm around her. Anna was having one good time, but left the wilding to Gale. She raised a flute to Richard, and smiled at Gwen. Richard closed his eyes for this last one, focusing his attention on the feel of the pen in his hands. He rolled the pen back and forth, back and forth, feeling the ink, knowing the power, drifting, waiting to obey. Beautiful Anna.

Future holds, on her are none

Exciting goals, towards those she'll run.

Men as such, will fall to her

To one she'll say, my blood you stir.

Till that day, the field she'll play

Lucky ones, rolls in the hay.

Among her friends, she's famous for

Italian silk, against her core.

Now she's heading, on to France

Champagne there, will work its trance.

When Gwen finished reading this aloud, she picked up her glass and held it towards Anna. The question now was whether all the women present would follow Gale's lead in revealing their accoutrement. Gale had been flouncing around in her underwear for the half hour of Richard's performance, in her natural state. Or almost so. It seemed, to the others, par for Gale's course. Certainly it was not par for Siegfried's course. It was not par for McCrady's private dining room's course, and it was not par for the course of a Rotary Club Thursday noon luncheon. But it was for Gale. Selgey and Bart were in tune with Gale because they had seen a lot of visceral expressiveness in their travels around the world with ballet troupes, both on the stage, and off. Gwen, Slev, and Anna had been drinking Champagne for four hours. The others for two hours. Selgey and Bart for a few minutes, but they were feeling it. They looked at each other, and said, "Why not?" Selgey smiled, took one simple lead step forward, and in a bound, was on the walnut dining table. She landed, and instantly was en point. Bart didn't need the single step. One twitch of his muscles and he was next to her. The boy still had it. She raised one arm, which he held, and with her other hand pulled her blouse over her head. No accoutrement was in place. Gale screamed, "You living doll." Siegfried placed himself firmly in front of the dining room door and held the knob behind his back. Jinny sat down, staring at perfection. God he was glad he had met the Junes. Roger thought, 'On the one hand I have to worry about Pmirhs Stirg coming after us. On the other, I get to see Selgey Landkirk do this. It all balances out, I guess.' Gwen and Slev knew they had to do what they had to do, so they let drop their tops. Helstof followed. Gwen whispered to Anna, "Not you."

Jinny looked at Guignard, who shrugged and said to him, "Whatever you want, babe. I'm ready to party." Jinny stood up, eyed the table, and made up his mind. His girl deserved equal billing, one way or the other. He closed on her, whispered in her ear, raised his left arm in front of her to serve as a handhold, placed his right arm behind her, and said quietly, "Sit." Guignard held onto his left arm, and lowered herself onto his right arm. They balanced for a count of three, and Jinny, using muscles that looked like the hindquarters of a horse, launched her towards the table. Her flying arc mimicked Selgey's, but was higher. She landed on both feet in the space next to Selgey, at least balanced, if not with Selgey's poise and grace. Off came her V-necked cashmere pullover, which she tossed in Jinny's direction.

"Holy Jesus," said Siegfried.

That was pretty much the show. Not bad for a bunch of forty-somethings. Gale, of course, tried to drive the spectacle to further heights, but the momentum trended downwards quickly. She tried to get out into the main dining room, but Siegfried held the door closed until Gwen came to the rescue. Gwen handed Gale her dress, which got the message across. Party over. Anna had learned about Champagne.

# Chapter 36 – Stirg's Mind

Constantine and Henric missed the McCrady's Champagne bash because they were down at Hilton Head, buying a boat. A big boat. Henric had planned to buy it from Charleston Yachts, at the Charleston Marina, but they didn't have one big enough, soon enough, so he went to a broker on Hilton Head. His challenge was to buy one big enough to satisfy his ego, but small enough to fit at his dock at Kiawah. The broker helped him sort this out and sold him a Beneteau Oceanic 48. This boat was a cruiser that sported a stateroom and two guest rooms, a fully functional kitchen and bathroom, and it was painted a beautiful burgundy.

A professional crew brought it up the Inland Waterway about a month later and tied it up at the Gromstov dock. The purchase price included a week of training by two of the crew on the basics of sailboat ownership and operation, and Henric was in heaven. At the end of the week, he could drive the boat around in circles, and that was about it. The prospect of sailing it was months, if not years, away. Henric and Constantine and Jinny could take it out in the Inland Waterway and get it up into Charleston harbor and back without causing too much havoc among other boat owners, and were able to keep dings in the hull to a minimum.

The bad news was that Henric's application to the South Carolina Yacht Club was denied. Those boys didn't care how much money you had - if your great great great great great grandfather didn't fight for the South in the Civil War, you weren't gettin' in. They asked, what the hell kind of name was Gromstov, anyway?

So while Peter and Pater worked at building their ballet academy, and Jinny and Guignard did whatever it was they did, and Helstof spent time writing with Richard, and Slevov experimented with preparing French food, Henric and Constantine played with their new toy. When they stopped running into things and putting dings in the burgundy hull, they decided it was time to have a boat-warming party. They still weren't ready to take the Beneteau out into the Atlantic, but they could putter around Charleston Harbor, and they found this to be both challenging and rewarding. The more vodka or wine they drank, the more challenging and rewarding it became.

The boat-warming party coincided with the two month anniversary of the invasion of Stirg's home. That time had not been kind to Stirg, and by default had not been kind to Nev, with Stirg behaving like a Siberian bear. Nothing worked to get his mind straightened out, and in fact, everything seemed to make it more crooked. The more he thought about the Hermitage heist, the more bearish he became. The more bearish he became, the more he saw Anna's defection to the June camp as a personal failure as a guardian. The more he saw himself as a guardian failure, the more he blamed the Junes and their associates. And as he transferred responsibility from himself to the Junes, he coincidentally escalated his visions of injustice. His sense of Russia having been diminished by the theft of artifacts became magnified into a need for patriotic retribution. Stirg lost sight of the real issue, which was Anna, and focused solely on thoughts of revenge against thieves.

Nev could see his boss was becoming irrational about matters, but he went along because he too wanted to kick the June's asses, and the asses of their Russian associates. Their invasion of Stirg's home pretty well had demolished his sense of worth as a bodyguard. He remembered the four women in bikinis pulling guns on him, and he still felt humiliated. The low point, of course, was when Roger clocked Stirg in the head with the butt of his gun. That had never happened before; in all the years of Stirg chasing Nazi motherfuckers around the world, no one ever had laid a hand on him; the Israeli protection effort was that good. Until now. So Nev was up for a quotient of revenge too, though he recognized that the real problem was Anna, and not the artifacts. No matter. Nev followed Stirg towards confrontation.

And confrontation, it was. The day the June team had approached Stirg's long dock, they had been able to land at the end because Stirg's boat wasn't there, in its usual place. It was up the Cooper River, at Dentyn's Shipyard. Yeah, it wasn't at a boatyard, where most people took their recreational boats for maintenance work. It was at a shipyard. It was that big. Now it was back home at the end of the dock, serving its primary purpose of allowing Stirg to say he had a pool on his property, the pool being on the stern of the boat.

During the two months since the visitation by the June team to Stirg's house, Nev had conducted investigations. Rather, he had hired local private investigators to investigate, who had provided Nev with the addresses of the June team members, their license plate and telephone numbers, and had reported that Anna was living with the Rodstras on Sullivan's Island. He had visited the various residences at different times of the day and, posing as a UPS guy, had gotten into Peter and Pater's place, The Hall, on John Street. He even knew where Gale and Selgey and Bart lived, and they had not even participated in the invasion of Stirg's place. Money well placed can result in lots of information, and money was no object for Nev. He had what is known as a gold expense account.

The private investigators had included on their list of associated places the modest dock on Kiawah where Henric and Helstof kept their new pride and joy, the Beneteau. At this point it didn't even have a name painted on the stern because Henric and Helstof couldn't agree on one. Their bickering was good-natured, and had taken on tones of a game. Henric wanted a Russian name, and Helstof said hell no, they were living in America, give the boat an American name, a southern American name. One evening, sitting on the fourth level deck of their home, looking out at the ocean and sipping Bordeaux, she suggested Lowcountry Dream. He countered with Czar's Heaven. So you can see the divergence of perspective on the matter.

In any case, Nev knew about the boat, and Stirg told him to monitor that. Stirg had an idea brewing in the back of his somewhat addled mind, where the cancer was growing. Nev needed to get away for a day or two, so he hired a deckhand, fired up the engines of Stirg's yacht, and took it down to Kiawah, where he moored at the main marina. He kept it there for two nights, and during that time he buddied up with the marina workers. One of them asked Nev what kind of name Romanov's Revenge was, the name on Stirg's boat, and Nev said it was Russian. The marina guy said a Russian guy had a new boat on the island, a sailboat. No name on it. Nev pumped him, and learned the boat had been fueled and supplied for a short trip up the Waterway.

"You know when that trip is?" Nev asked. "Maybe my Russian boss would like to meet this Russian guy, since they both have boats."

"This coming weekend," the guy said. "Leaving Friday, coming back Sunday. Up to Charleston for a party."

An hour later Nev left the marina and drove the big boat home. He took it outside the barrier islands and came in from the Atlantic, through the Charleston jetties. Stirg came out of the house and helped to moor. He climbed onboard and asked Nev, "Well?"

Nev said, "Gromstov is bringing his boat up Friday for a party. Staying two nights."

Stirg said, "What party? Party with whom?"

Nev wondered at the properness of the English grammar. Whom? Where did Stirg get that? Whom?

Then Stirg said, "Can you find out? I want them. I want action. They deserve a lot of action, and I'm gonna give it to them."

Now Nev wondered at, gonna. Where did that come from? Gonna. How can that square with Whom? Nev said, "Ok, I'll find out."

Which he did. For a fee of $8,000, the investigators threw a team at the problem. The team consisted of one twenty-two year old computer hacker who was the daughter of a junior staff member. Within four hours she had accessed the email accounts of five June team members, and found the same email from Helstof to each of them. The email was an invitation to a boat-warming party to be held in five days, aboard the as yet unnamed craft, sailing around Charleston Harbor in the vicinity of Fort Sumter. Henric, like Stirg, loved seeing those flags. From these emails the hackette learned the email addresses of the other June associates, and confirmed that all of them had been invited to the party. In addition to the Gromstovs, there would be fifteen others on board.

The junior staff member of the investigation firm, who didn't know about the $8,000 fee, was given a performance award of $500. Out of this he gave his daughter $100, meaning she had earned $25 an hour for her work, which was pretty good money for her, she being the generally honest type who only did hacking jobs to help out her dad.

Something problematic happened in Stirg's mind when Nev told him about the sailing party five days from now, on Saturday night, out near the fort. The problem was that Stirg didn't ask Nev for a written list of people who would be onboard Henric's boat. He just assumed they were, collectively, his nemesis. If he had asked for a written list he would have noticed Anna's email address among the others, and Nev didn't think of this angle either. He was slipping.

Anna's disaffection was invisible to Stirg. He saw only a vicious stab at his homeland by a gang of Russian traitors led by a couple of American aristocrats. Paintings of borzois, velvet sofas, Kazakhstani carpets, and gold-leaf plate ware, no longer were ensconced in the great halls of the Hermitage. They now adorned hovels in America. If they had adorned Stirg's hovel, hanging out over Charleston harbor, his $6 million dollar hovel, that might have been different. But they didn't. And the fact that the artifacts had been stored in warehouses out in the boonies of the Hermitage grounds for the last 100 years didn't matter either. Not to Stirg's mind. He was offended in a very big, all-consuming way. Stirg's mind processed one thought over and over. Right the wrong. Right the wrong.

# Chapter 37 – Lead up to Confrontation

Henric, Constantine, Jinny, and Guignard left the Gromstov dock early Friday morning, aboard the, the....that boat needs a name. Aboard the boat. It was fully stocked with all the food and drink a very wealthy couple could afford. There was enough caviar to keep a Czar's retinue content for a week, and those folks could eat caviar. Henric had decided to make up for missing the McCrady's Champagne party by stocking a case each of non-vintage Krug, Billecart-Salmon rose, and Bollinger.

The trip up the inland waterway from Kiawah to Charleston was uneventful until they hit Wappoo Creek. A half mile south of the drawbridge, Constantine started telling Henric about the guest house he was thinking of adding to his Sullivan's Island property, and that he had engaged the local architectural firm of Liollio and Associates to do a concept design. Henric asked him why he needed a guest house, considering he had five bedrooms in the main house, on two stories. Constantine said, "Because the dachas outside Saint Petersburg all had guesthouses."

Henric said, "Oh, right."

The architecture firm's offices were in a building near the drawbridge they were approaching, which was what had triggered the thought of his guest house in Constantine's mind. He remembered sitting in the conference room in the architect's office, watching the drawbridge go up and down. He said to Henric, "Come down below, let me show you the drawings they've done." They left Jinny and Guignard at the helm, and went into the cabin. Constantine pulled the large format drawings from a long tote bag and spread them on the table. Henric looked at the three different sketches that included landscaping, thinking all were nice, and asked questions about the amenities.

Topside, Jinny had the wheel. The channel was narrow, with commercial development on the right bank and residential development on the left. Jinny said, "How about some Champagne? It's five o'clock in Russia."

Guignard looked at him and said, "It's ten o'clock in the morning here. No Champagne. Save it for later."

Jinny loved it when Guignard managed his moods. It showed she cared. He drew her over to him and put his arm around her, kissing her neck and then her shoulder. Guignard loved it when he did this sort of stuff. It showed he cared. The lovey dovey escalated a little, them deciding to take advantage of Constantine and Henric's absence from the cockpit. It wasn't a good time for this to happen, and wouldn't have happened with experienced boat operators. The chart on the cockpit table clearly showed the bridge ahead. The day was clear and sunny, and the channel was fairly straight. Between a glance at the chart and a steady gaze ahead, there should have been no problem. But Jinny and Guignard were not experienced, and were doing things other than piloting the boat. Jinny managed to keep one hand on the wheel, but the other hand had control of his mind, the hand exploring Guignard's derrière.

Protocol and regulations call for boats to announce their approach to drawbridges with two blasts on an air horn. Bridges are slow going up and slow going down, and they need advance notice. Jinny, or was it Guignard, failed to calculate the rate of their approach to the bridge, and failed to sound the obligatory air horn blasts. The bridge operator saw them coming, and activated the bridge raising controls, but from experience he could tell it was going to be close.

Jinny and Guignard didn't have much boat driving experience, and when they disengaged from their lovey dovey and saw the bridge three hundred yards ahead, starting to go up, they thought all was well. At two hundred yards, Jinny noticed the relatively slow rate at which the bridge was rising, and said to Guignard, "American drawbridges are slow."

She said, "They certainly are."

"Our bridges over the Neva are much faster, and they're much older than this bridge."

She said, "They certainly are." Guignard's voice betrayed a touch of concern, and Jinny's face showed a touch of concern.

At a hundred yards the bridge was only half way up. Henric was asking Constantine if the guest house would have its own wine cellar, or if the guests would have to go to the big house for a bottle of Vouvray. Constantine hadn't thought of that, and was pondering. An experienced boat operator wouldn't have gotten himself or herself into this predicament to start with, and even if they had, they simply would have throttled back on the engine control to a neutral position, or even to a slight reversal of the prop. But Henric's boat wasn't in the hands of experienced operators; it was in the hands of Little Jinny Blistov.

If Jinny had been confronted by, say, a stranger with a gun, threatening Guignard, his woman, he would have responded skillfully. He would have figured a way to distract the guy, pull his piece, and shoot the fucker through the chest. But confronted with the fact of his boat rapidly approached a very slowly rising, four lane wide steel drawbridge, he didn't respond skillfully. His pride wouldn't let him call for Henric, which probably wouldn't have helped anyway, Henric being just as inexperienced as himself, and he panicked. Instead of throttling back into neutral, he decided to turn. This was wrong. It was completely wrong. When he was halfway through the turn maneuver, with the boat now perpendicular to the channel, Jinny saw it was wrong. No way. The drawbridge operator, watching through the large window of the control pod located at the stationary end of the bridge, watched with fascination. He had sat in this little room every day for four years, and he never had seen a large sailboat approach the bridge perpendicular to the channel. This was new and exciting, because his days invariably were dull, watching thousands of cars drive over the bridge and a dozen boats drive through the bridge. This crash was going to be the high point of his tenure, and he wished it well.

At fifty yards from the bridge, Guignard reached for the throttle control and yanked in back into the neutral position. This, coupled with the ninety degree turn to starboard Jinny had executed, alerted Henric to a change in the boat's navigation, and he and Constantine came up on deck. When they had gone below, the boat was facing down the channel. Now it was facing the marshland on the channel's left bank. That's what they saw at first glance. Then they turned right, and saw the bridge only three quarters of the way up. They saw the bridge, sitting on steel supports, and they did the math.

The good news for all concerned, but especially for Henric, being the owner of the boat, was that the tide was coming in, up Wappoo Creek. The boat had been churning forward, against the tide, since leaving the dock on Kiawah. It flowed strongly, and now acted as a natural brake to the forward momentum of the boat. This was bad news for the bridge operator, who was hoping for a major, spectacular crash of this rich guy's boat. Serve him right, having all that money, and maybe the bridge would be damaged, and he would get paid time off. So when the boat came to rest against the bridge supports with a rather gentle bump, its momentum stopped, parallel to the road and perpendicular to the channel, he was disappointed.

After a minute the tide began to move the boat slowly away from the bridge supports, and Henric took the controls, putting the engine in reverse turning the wheel counterclockwise. He backed it into the center of the channel, got it pointed straight ahead, and pushed the control stick forward with just enough power to the prop to maintain his position against the tide. He looked at Jinny, who looked at Guignard, who looked at Constantine, who watched Henric, wondering what he would do.

The only people who observed this little incident, other than the four Russians and the bridge operator, were the two architects and their clients, sitting in the conference room in the office building on the shore, mesmerized by the scene. By this time the bridge was in the full up position, and Henric powered the, the....that boat needs a name, through and into the channel beyond, averting a catastrophe. Consequences for Jinny were in the making.

In a show of good faith, Henric handed the wheel back to Jinny after a few minutes, the handoff accompanied by a stern glare that said, "Don't fuck up again," and he and Constantine went below again to study the sketches. Guignard said, "It wasn't me that started the lovey dovey stuff. It was you."

"Did you like it, or not?"

Guignard ignored this and kept watch ahead. She and Jinny had not accumulated enough money to buy Henric a new boat, and she now stood at the far side of the cockpit, which hurt Jinny's feelings. Another half hour motoring down the Ashley River brought them out into Charleston harbor and past the Coast Guard station. Moored at one of the floating docks was the Coast Guard's drone Boston Whaler. This was a small outboard that had been outfitted with state of the art remote controls and cameras. Boaters were startled to see it flashing around the harbor, no operator aboard. Its driver sat in an office of the Coast Guard station, watching computer screens, hands on joysticks. The boat spent a lot of time poking around and under the container shipping terminal piers.

Five minutes after passing the Coast Guard station, Jinny and Guignard pointed out Stirg's dock and house to the others. The dock was empty. On Thursday afternoon, Nev had moved their boat from their dock over to the marina. He knew the Gromstov boat would pass by their dock as it came out the mouth of the Ashley, into the harbor. Stirg did not want them to see his boat at his dock, and thereby know what it looked like. Henric also brought his boat into the marina, where Jinny, Guignard, and Constantine got off, and Helstof got on. Friday was to be time for Henric, alone with his wife. They wanted to fish. Saturday was the boat-warming party with the gang.

# Chapter 38 – Morning of the Storm

Saturday morning everyone except Henric and Helstof met at The Hall for brunch. Catered brunch, McCrady's way. McCrady's didn't do breakfast or brunch, or catering for that matter, except for the Junes. Gwen reminded Siegfried of what he owed her when she called up Thursday and ordered the Saturday brunch. Siegfried was all about compliance with Gwen June's wishes, so thirteen people sat on the stage and ate well. When the food was gone, Gwen stood up, got everyone's attention, reached behind her back under her linen jacket, and pulled her gun. Pater put his hands over his ears. Peter got pissed because he had paid to have the high ceiling fixed where Gwen had fired two slugs through it a month earlier. Selgey and Bart didn't know Gwen carried a gun on her person, so they were surprised by the move, to say the least. Gwen didn't fire her gun, like last time, but set it on the table and said, "Ok, show 'em."

Everyone but Selgey, Bart, Gale, and Richard reached into their pants, purses, or under their coats, and pulled weapons. Eight more guns made their appearance and were set on the table, next to the remains of the fried catfish. Gwen looked around the table, and was pleased. The non-armed four looked at the nine guns, and then at each other. They thought this was a gathering of artsy types, working to open a new cultural facility devoted to ballet, in a town filled with cultural facilities and artistic entities, and here they were, associating with a bunch of cultural gangsters. Gwen was especially pleased to see that Peter and Pater were carrying, because it had taken her lots of time at the range with them, instructing them on safety and intelligence. Then she had had to break them of the habit of carrying their pieces inside the front of their pants, which they did as a joke, thinking it was a metaphor for male ballet dancers dressed in tights. Ever seen that?

The guns disappeared and the discussion turned to the academy, and Selgey stood up. "We have a new idea, and want to see what y'all think about it." Selgey had been living in Charleston only three years, but already she was saying, "Y'all." Southern language is contagious. "We want to invite retired Russian ballet dancers to come to Charleston to act as instructors in residence. In January and February, of course. They would teach the kids, and get to walk around outside without the fear of freezing solid. We are wondering," and here she looked at Constantine, "if we could buy a house somewhere, and put some of the special furniture in it, and that would be where they stay."

The idea piqued everyone's interest, especially Roger's. "What do you mean by special furniture?" he asked. This was said in a way that would give most people pause, but not Selgey. Few things gave her pause, other than artistic beauty.

"I mean the Russian stuff, like the stuff in Constantine's and Henric's houses."

The members of the group had shared a lot with Selgey and Bart and Richard, but nothing about the Hermitage caper. Not until now, evidently. Roger and Gwen looked first at Jinny. Everyone always looked at Jinny when something went askew. He shrugged his head, no. Then they looked at Peter and Pater, both of whom visibly shrank down in their chairs, the confession of the guilty.

Selgey didn't see the problem, and again looked at Constantine. He understood she was asking him to foot the bill for another house. He looked at Slevov, who said, "The ballet academy is Henric's baby. We'll talk with him later, but I like the idea, and I bet you will have some takers. We have to take care of our older artists."

The brunch party broke up, with Guignard reminding everyone to be down at the marina dock at 3pm sharp to board the boat. The four dancers and Richard stayed and talked about producing a new ballet. The New York City's ballet, Ocean's Kingdom, with Paul McCartney's score, just had premiered in New York, and the first ambitious step here would be for Richard to write a story. A Charleston story. Peter and Pater didn't quite grasp that Richard wasn't McCartney, so they were enthused. Selgey and Bart said, "Let's give it a try."

Roger and Gwen walked home, with Gwen asking, "What are we gonna do on the boat, today? Those guys can't sail yet, can they?"

Roger said, "We're going to drive around the harbor in circles for six hours, and hope we don't run into the bridge. At least the Champagne will be good."

Gale went home and went back to bed for a couple of hours. She had been up most of the night before, partying at the Hibernian Society building with a bunch of Sons of Confederate Veterans. Those guy's idea of historical significance is squirrely, but they know how to have a good time. After drinking three Southern Comfort Slammers, one of them said to her, "You wanna go home with me later, set off some cannons?"

Gale said, "You got Confederates in your attic, don't you, boy?"

He said, "Yes Ma'am, I sure do. But they don't have to join us, less you want 'em too."

"I'll pass, but don't ever stop asking, Son, don't ever stop asking."

Constantine, Slevov, and Anna went to the Charleston Library Society to look up books on Huguenots. Jinny kept talking about them, but Constantine had only seen one since coming to Charleston, the president of the Huguenot Society. Constantine wanted to know if Jinny and Roger were full of shit about there being Russian loving Huguenots all over town. The first thing they had to do was to join the library, which is a private library. Constantine handed the woman five $100 bills to buy the membership level that gave him access to the private room in the basement that had bottles of scotch hidden in the bookcases, and engraved rocks glasses on the bookshelves. The librarian never had had anyone pay in cash before, and was unused to Russian accents. She wasn't sure what to do with the bills, or with them. She got more comfortable when Slev asked her for some materials about Huguenots in Charleston. The woman knew about old Huguenots, though she had lived in Charleston for sixty years, and never actually had met a live one. She didn't mention this to her new members, though.

As they waited for the woman to get the materials for them to look at, Slev asked Anna what she knew about Huguenots, and if they still liked Russians. Anna said she had met quite a few of them, who had told her what it was like to have experienced Hugo in 1989. Slev didn't understand, and said, "What do you mean, 'Hugo in 1989?'"

Anna said, "Hugo was the worst hurricane in modern US history before Katrina. It hit Charleston dead center, destroyed thousands of houses. I've seen the videos filmed from the Coast Guard helicopters right after it hit. Everyone who's been in Charleston for a while knows about Hugo. I've never heard anyone say they're a Hugonot, but that must be what the people call themselves who were here that day."

Slev and Constantine looked at each other, trying to grasp this new perspective on the history of Huguenots in Charleston, but didn't pursue it. Anna looked good in black underwear, and could handle her Walther, but she was not a scholar.

# Chapter 39 - Confrontation on the Not So High Seas

At 3pm that afternoon, thirteen people arrived at the marina and boarded the Gromstov's boat, Henric and Helstof welcoming them with glasses of Champagne. The second thing Henric did was to open a large ice chest and pull out four sea trout and a fifteen pound sea bass. He said, "This is why I came to Charleston. You don't have to cut through the ice to go fishing, like we do in Saint Petersburg. Look at these babies. Dinner." He looked at Slev. "Can you cook these tonight, French style? It's enough for all of us, I think."

Slev had been learning French cooking from Gale, in the June's kitchen, using mostly chicken and beef. She hadn't done a lot yet with seafood, so she looked at Gale, who nodded. Slev said, "We'll cook 'em, if you clean 'em." Everyone looked at Jinny, who was done his second glass of Champagne before anyone else had finished their first.

Guignard poked him and said, "It's you, big boy. You're the one who keeps telling everyone your mother used to tear the heads off fish with her bare hands, so you're stuck with the job now."

Jinny smiled and said, "Ok. Wait till we get out into open water. I'll do it on the front deck so I can wash the blood and guts over the side." Everyone smiled weakly.

Participating in the Champagne aperitifs, by proxy, were two others: Stirg and Nev. They sat a hundred yards away on the top deck, moored at the far end of the marina, because that was the only berth big enough for their ship. Stirg watched the festivities with a grim face. Nev watched Stirg and noted the grim face, which pleased him. The grimness portended action later that day; action that would include payback for the humiliation the team had heaped on Nev that day at the house, watching Roger hit Stirg in the head with his gun. Having Jinny unload Stirg's Brusshev and throw it up to Nev standing on the dock, as the team pulled away. Payback time now, and Nev was into it. Seriously into it.

Stirg and Nev were ready to go. They would let the other boat unmoor first, and wait an hour. Charleston harbor wasn't big enough that they had to worry about finding Henric's boat. They were pretty sure Henric wouldn't take his boat out beyond the jetties, into Atlantic waters. Stirg had only a vague plan in his curdled mind: wait until dark, and attack. There were no details in the plan, and he didn't care. This was all emotion based. The idea of attack was enough to go on, and he would figure out the details later. Maybe. He had the Brusshev, and Nev had a 50. caliber Israeli Desert Eagle. That was enough.

Henric's boat left the dock at 4pm. Gwen was tempted to do another gun check to see who had dropped theirs since brunch that morning, but she let this slide. She had her Glock, and Roger had his Sig Sauer. She bet Jinny was armed, though he would be useless in an emergency if he kept drinking at the rate he was going. As soon as Slev had come aboard, Gwen had taken her and Helstof below. "Are you armed?" she asked.

Slev opened her purse and pulled out Anna's Walther.

"What's Anna got?"

Slev shook her head.

Gwen looked at Helstof, who looked back.

"Dear, where's your gun? You know the rule, until Stirg is off our backs."

Helstof went into the stateroom and came back with a Glock and an extra mag. She held it correctly and confidently. "Is that yours or Henric's?" Gwen asked.

"Henric's."

"Where is yours?"

"Home."

Gwen leaned forward and put her hands on Helstof's shoulders. She didn't say anything, just looked her in the eyes.

Henric motored the boat away from the marina, out into the Ashley River. In ten minutes they entered the harbor, with James Island on their right and the Charleston peninsula on their left. Henric, Constantine, and Jinny had put together a rough itinerary for the evening: circumnavigate Castle Pinckney, go under the massive Ravenel Bridge and back, cruise the eastern shore and enter Shem Creek, sail out to the jetties, and anchor off Fort Sumter. What an evening. Everyone hoped they could accomplish this without Henric running into any of these landmarks. Gale stood on the top deck and held onto the mast. "Where are the life-jackets, where's the rubber life-raft?" she asked. She wasn't far behind Jinny in the getting sloshed department.

Things settled down and Henric took the boat in a slow circle around the pre-Civil War era Castle Pinckney. Not long ago the State Port Authority, which controls shipping in the harbor, and had owned Castle Pinckney for many years because it was close to the shipping channel, had given the island fort to the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The first thing SCV did was to raise funds for a large flagpole, which they erected in the center of the vegetation clogged and deteriorating fort. This portended the worst. The worst happened shortly thereafter. On a Friday morning Charleston woke up to find a huge confederate battle flag flying from the pole. This was quite a statement, and all hell broke loose. The mayor, the NAACP, the Chamber of Commerce, the Charleston Tourism Bureau, the ACLU, the president of the College of Charleston, and about 100 other political and cultural entities screamed bloody murder, which was lost on the Russians. They rather liked this patriotic and aesthetic display.

After Pinckney, Henric reached across the harbor to where the USS Yorktown permanently is berthed in harbor mud, its WWII flight deck covered with fighter jets and helicopters. Constantine saluted. Then under the Ravenel Bridge, Henric managing to avoid running into the massive concrete supports engineered to take a direct hit by a quarter-mile long container ship. They drifted there for a while, at the juncture of the Wando and Cooper Rivers, then back under the bridge, and heading along the Mount Pleasant shoreline.

As they approached the mouth of Shem Creek, Henric said, "I wanna go in. Pick up some fresh shrimp to go along with the fish." Roger and Gwen looked at each other, knowing that Shem Creek was a narrow, busy, dead end waterway, lined with restaurants, boats, and docks. Was this a good idea?

The first casualty in the creek was a young woman on a paddle board. She decided to play chicken with Henric, and over she went, though she came up smiling. Then Henric sidled up to the NancyAnne, a Shem Creek based shrimp boat. Constantine asked if they could buy ten pounds, fresh. The guy said, "Fuck no, go buy in the fish shop like everyone else, and get your piece of shit sail boat away from the NancyAnne, she don't like fureners or rich folk, and if you scrape the paint, you'll pay. Unnerstand?"

The NancyAnne hadn't seen a coat of paint in twenty years. If they touched it, they might ding a hole right through the rust that was holding it together. Gwen and Roger noted that Charleston civility didn't extend over here to the suburbs. Jinny said to Henric, "You want me to educate him? Then we got all the shrimp we want, no charge." Gwen gave Jinny the stand down and button it up eye.

From that side of the narrow channel Henric bounced over to the other, narrowly missing the end of the new Town of Mount Pleasant Shem Creek Park dock, after which they split and capsized a kayaking class, with the instructor staying upright but the six students prematurely executing full underwater rolls. Henric throttled back to neutral and a slow drift, with restaurants on both sides and beer drinkers looking at this big boat sitting in the middle of a waterway too small for it. Gale waved and yelled, "Everyone aboard that's going aboard."

Roger stood next to Henric in the cockpit and asked him, "Now what? You want cocktails delivered out here?"

Henric smiled. "Jinny, fish shack over there. Get ten pounds."

Jinny was ready for some action. Enough Civil War and WWII history. It was Saturday night. He stood on the stern of the Beneteau and looked around, seeing that the woman on the paddle board had gotten up and was paddling towards him. He motioned her over. She still was smiling, not minding that they had dumped her, loose and easy, and built, in her shorts and tank top. "You help me get some shrimp, you come party with us tonight," Jinny said.

"Ok, come in, I'll go with you and bring you back."

Jinny didn't think twice, he was over the side and into the creek. He'd never even seen a paddle board before, much less operated one. As soon as he grabbed at the board, the woman went over, again. More wet smiles. She told him they had to get on the board at the same time, her standing, him sitting. They made it upright, and headed for the shack's dock, Jinny helping by paddling with his hands. As he tried to get off the board and onto the dock, there she went again. Up, smiles. Fun. Jinny went in to the fish shack, came out immediately, and said something to the woman, who shrugged no. They were back on the board, back at the side of the boat, with Roger looking down at them.

"Need money," Jinny said.

"How you gonna keep the money dry, Jinny?"

Jinny waited calmly, looking up at Roger and Henric and his girlfriend, Guignard. The paddleboard woman waited calmly too, like this happened to her every day. If Jinny wasn't mated to Guignard, he thought he could get mated with this woman. She was cool. Gwen handed Jinny a zip locked baggy with bills in it, and off they went.

When they paddled back, Jinny had twenty pounds of shrimp, him not wanting to go hungry. He threw the bag up to Roger, tried to stand up on the board, and dumped both him and the woman into the drink again. They both came up smiling, Jinny got aboard, and told her to come up. She said, "I don't like fureners or rich folk," winked at everyone, and paddled away. The woman was something.

They backed the quarter mile out of Shem Creek with no close calls. Miracle. By now it was almost seven o'clock, and they headed for the last objective before anchoring out at Fort Sumter, where they planned on cooking and eating and drinking all of the Krug, Billecart-Salmon, and Bollinger. Henric pointed the boat at the Atlantic Ocean, laying like a gray blanket beyond the Charleston jetties. They passed the tip of Sullivan's Island, where Gwen pointed out to Slev the Fort Moultrie flagpole. Gwen stood on the top deck and said to everyone, "Right out there, not far, is where we found the Hunley, the submarine that sank in 1864 after attacking a ship. Eight guys were lost, turning hand cranks in the tiny sub."

Jinny looked astern and noticed in the distance a really big cruiser coming out of the Inland Waterway behind Sullivan's Island. This boat was huge. When Gwen was done with the history lesson about the Hunley (the Russians had noticed that Charlestonians are really big on history), Jinny said, "Henric, you need a real boat like that out there, not a toy like this one. When you gonna upgrade?" Everyone turned to look at it, and saw two figures on the flying bridge. Everyone, that is, except Slev, Gale, and Anna, who were below, starting dinner preparations. The big boat moved very slowly, with just enough weigh on it to keep from drifting.

As the sailboat approached the jetties, the mood on board changed. Facing the Atlantic Ocean in a small craft has that effect on you. Out there they saw four foot waves, and those were the small ones. They gazed at the distance line marking the vast expanse of a hostile yet inviting place. The open ocean. Henric thought, 'Someday.'

It was 7pm, and high tide. Only the tops of the jetties could be seen above the relentlessly crashing waves. Henric spun the wheel to starboard and headed towards Sumter, thinking, 'Too bad the six flags come down at 5pm, when the fort closes for the day. I wish I could see them now.' His plan was to anchor in the shallow cove between the fort island and Morris Island. In that spot you hardly could see civilization, with the fort blocking the view of Charleston, the huge bridge, and Mount Pleasant. Morris Island still was wild and undeveloped. The only structures you could see from there were the Sullivan's Island Lighthouse on one side and the much older Morris Island Lighthouse on the other. Jinny would clean the fish, Slev, Gale and Anna would cook, and everyone else would drink Champagne on deck.

At 7:30 Roger and Constantine dropped anchor. They could see a container ship in the distance, heading towards the jetties. The ship, the lighthouses, and the fort were the only man-made objects in sight. Jinny carried the ice chest with the fish in it, and a cutting board, up to the bow. Folding deck chairs came out of storage lockers and were set up in the stern. Slev and Gale decided to poach the fish and shrimp together in a Provencal tomato sauce, loaded with shallots and garlic. Fifteen chairs and fifteen people maxed out Henric's boat, but they fit ok, the wine and conversation flowing. Jinny put his back to the cockpit so the others could not see him cut the heads off the fish with a knife rather than tearing them off with his hands, the way his mother used to do. He looked back at the group once, and again saw the large cruiser across the harbor, still moving slowly. Jinny thought if the boat was heading out to the jetties, it should have been through them by now. He went back to the blood and guts.

As a kid, Roger had fished this spot many times, and loved it for its feeling of remoteness. Instinctively he knew they had to watch the tide because it was a shallow anchoring. They had two hours before they had to get out of there, which he mentioned to Henric. Enough time for a great meal, and to drink the boat dry.

Soon the fish fillets went into one large pot of tomato sauce on the propane stove, while sliced potatoes and carrots simmered in the same tomato sauce in another. It would take three separate, twenty minute poachings to cook all the fish in the one pot. Anna and Slev debated the timing of the vegetable stew and fish, and how to keep the first two batches of fish hot while the last one cooked. Up on deck Henric and Constantine served caviar on soda crackers. Unlike the Russian crackers Roger and Gwen had eaten in Saint Petersburg when they met this crew during the Hermitage caper, these American crackers did not appear to be made from finely ground sawdust held together by suet. From below Anna, being the youngest of the group, asked if the caviar was from sustainable sources and harvested using an environmentally friendly method. Pater picked up one of the large tins and looked at the label. He read, "Guaranteed to be from sustainable sources, and harvested using an environmentally friendly method. The fish never felt a thing, had many babies, and lived happily ever after." Anna took the ribbing good-naturedly.

In an hour, Anna announced dinner was ready. Half the troupe went below to sit at the galley table, while the other half stayed on deck to eat at individual folding tables. Roger pulled the stoppers on four more bottles of Krug. The poached trout and sea bass was served on china plates, with the vegetable stew on the side. Roger hardly could wait to show everyone how well Champagne went with this tomato based seafood dish. Champagne is a magical wine. Roger, Gwen, Henric, Constantine, Helstof, and Jinny were on deck. Jinny looked at his plate and asked Helstof, "Where're the heads?"

"What heads?"

"The fish heads. I gave them to you. My mother always used them in her stew."

"Don't worry, we saved them for you. We have them in baggies. You can take them home and make all the fish stew you want, tomorrow."

This placated Jinny, though not Helstof, who would see that they got lost in the shuffle at the end of the night, back at the marina. Jinny had to admit this was a very tasty dish, even without the heads, and he liked the bass better than the sea trout. He figured he could do four plates of this stuff, but his problem was getting to the third and fourth plates without incurring Gwen's evil eye. He knew she wouldn't begrudge him seconds, but thirds and fourths were not part of her Emily Post training, so he would need something to distract her. He looked up from his empty plate at his empty glass, and then over Helstof's head to the water, where he became distracted from formulating a distraction. In the distance, about a quarter mile away, he saw the big cruiser, and it wasn't pointed at the jetties. It was pointed at them, and it was moving forward.

Intuition made him rise, and a remote sense of fear banished the nicely escalating Champagne buzz. The others picked up on this like Cro-magnons did, sitting around the fire, when one of them heard something moving out in the darkness. Gwen's eyes flickered into alertness, and where Gwen led, Roger followed. They, too, rose and looked across the water. The sun was getting low in the west behind them, and it glinted off the windshield of the cruiser's flying bridge, behind which they could see two figures. Now the others turned to look. Plates and glasses stayed on the table, while emotions rose in their throats.

Gwen said, "Stirg."

As soon as she said this, they heard the muffled roar of the two big Caterpillar diesels in the cruiser increase. The bow of the cruiser rose, and so did the waves on either side. It would take no more than a couple of minutes for it to close the distance on the sailboat. The ebb tide had partially swiveled Henric's boat on its anchor line, and it now presented its flank to the bow of the approaching cruiser.

For a moment everyone was stunned by the realization that Stirg was not out for an evening cruise; nor was he out to socialize with the Junes and their associates. This was an attack. Then thinking flared, orders were issued, and muscles contracted. Roger computed tidal flow, water depth, and boat drafts. Gwen's first thought was about Anna. She went to the steps that led down into the cabin, saw Anna at the stove, and said, "Anna, stay below." The tone of command alerted those below to something other than normal social order above, and they sensed trouble. Jinny climbed out of the cockpit and jumped to the upper deck, where he held onto the mast. Helstof was the first one to go for her gun, and Gwen followed her lead. Constantine and Henric remained seated, behind the cognitive eight ball.

Roger finished his computations and realized their boat would do much better in shallow water than Stirg's boat. He wondered if Stirg knew about the shallows here, and how much his boat drafted. He hoped not.

Roger said to Henric, "Start the engines."

The cockpit was jammed with tables, bottles, plates, glasses, hats, and personal bags, and Constantine cleared a path to the control panel. Gwen went down into the cabin to confirm what those eating there suspected: trouble. Slev and Guignard were in the cabin, pulling guns from their purses, while Jinny watched the commotion and listened from the top deck. He watched the approach of the cruiser and saw that Stirg had the engine throttles wide open. The sound was loud now, a roar, and the bow waves were impressive. Gwen, Guignard, and Slev reappeared in the cockpit and looked quickly at the attacking boat. Everyone on deck came to the same conclusion at the same time: Stirg was crazed and he intended to ram them. He had a clear shot at the flank of their much smaller boat.

Stirg said to Nev, "You ready, 'cause this is gonna happen?"

"I'm ready. Give it to them."

Nev picked up his Desert Eagle from the shelf above the control panel and racked the slide. Stirg kept his left hand on the wheel and his right on the dual throttles, in their full forward position. His mind repeated over and over, 'Right the wrong. Right the wrong.' Nev wanted to see all of them in the water, the babes not wearing bikinis now, the babes scared shitless, hanging onto pieces of their boat. Little pieces. He wanted to see Jinny and Roger swimming around like fish in a barrel. That's what Nev wanted. He wanted to shoot fish in a barrel. Four hundred yards to go, four minutes to impact.

Roger dove into the cabin and returned with a large kitchen knife, a few pieces of shallot clinging to the blade. "Jinny, cut the anchor line." He tossed the knife to Jinny, who caught it by the blade and scrambled to the bow, slashing the inch-thick nylon rope. Blood dripped from his hand onto the fiberglass deck. Roger picked up two tables and threw them overboard, making a path to the controls. His hand found the ignition key at the same time that Henric's did, and together they turned the key. The engines fired. Constantine threw everything else in the cockpit overboard. The six people who had been eating above deck stayed there, with Jinny near the mast. Gwen kept everyone else below, especially Anna.

In the few seconds after Roger had computed the tidal flow, water depth, and relative boat drafts, he had figured out his maneuvering tactics. His mind worked like that of a ca. 1800 British sea captain engaging a French man-of-war on the Toulon blockade: my boat position, his boat position, wind, tide, firing distance, damage objectives. His hand jammed the single throttle lever forward while he spun the wheel hard over. He had his flank to the approaching cruiser, which was bad. He had to rotate a quarter turn to present his bow to Stirg's bow.

Christ, he'd turned the wheel the wrong way. The boat started pivoting in a direction that would require a three quarter turn to get its bow pointing the right way. Roger jerked the throttle back into full reverse and spun the wheel all the way in the opposite direction. He had lost them time. Would he make it now, or would Stirg ram straight through their beam?

Gwen saw her husband's tactics and his mistake. Must be all that Champagne. She saw his correction, and realized it would take time to bring the bow around. She wasn't sure if they would make it, but she decided to act as if they would. She realized Roger wanted to present as small a target as possible to Stirg's cleaving bow. If they didn't make it, Stirg would plow through them, and it was over. The mass and momentum of the cruiser was huge. Gwen banished this thought and replaced it with an analysis of what to do if they did make the turn. Three seconds later she acted, calling to her friend.

"Jinny, get all the rope. All the big rope."

He still had the kitchen knife in his hand. At the mast, watching the drama, he saw halyards all around him leading to the top of the mast, and began slashing. As they were cut, the weight caused one end to disappear upwards where they ran through their pulleys, high on the mast and yardarm, and then fell back to the deck. In thirty seconds Jinny had a pile of thick rope at his feet, and Gwen gave him a thumbs up.

The engines of the approaching cruiser roared, and the engine of the sailboat rumbled. As the sailboat spun and the cruiser bore down, there was nothing to do now for all the players but watch. Stirg and Nev understood Roger's tactic. They wanted his flank, he wanted his bow. But Stirg had had his throttles wide open the entire attack approach, and there was no more speed for him. Neither could Roger increase the rate of his rotation. Gwen hissed at Helstof. The two women were the only ones on deck with their guns. She racked the slide on her Glock, and nodded to Helstof, who followed suit, gun pointed towards the deck, held in both hands. Anna stood on the steps to the cabin, looking out into the cockpit. She couldn't see her grandfather's boat, but she knew what was happening, and saw the women holding guns. Oh, god, no.

Thirty long seconds passed, and then Roger knew he would win; if you could call it that. He saw that Stirg would hit them head on, bow to bow, instead of on the side of their boat. They would get hit, but not cleaved in half. Now his challenge was to avoid a perfect knife edge to knife edge, bow point to bow point collision. He needed to turn his bow just slightly so the cruiser would hit a glancing blow and run down the side of their boat. Gwen saw this too, and said to her husband, "Well done."

That was all that could be done in the way of maneuvers. Gwen ducked her head under Anna's arm and yelled into the cabin, "Hold on!" When she turned back, the cruiser's bow loomed over their cockpit, and then it hit. BAM. But it hit the glancing blow that Roger wanted, not the direct cleaving blow that Stirg and Nev wanted. The sailboat violently rocked to the side, and the sound of fiberglass scrapping on fiberglass dinned their ears. Through the motion and the sound, Gwen yelled at Jinny, "Throw the rope, all the rope, into their screws, into their rudder." She picked up the sailboat's stern lines that were coiled in the corners of the cockpit and detached them from their cleats. She held these high, and motioned to Jinny how she would throw them into the foaming water at the base of the cruiser's stern as it passed by. He smiled and nodded. Leave it to Ms Gwen to think of this.

And that's what they did. She and Jinny threw a mass of rope at the stern of Stirg's boat, and watched it slip down into the boiling wake. They waited for the screeching, scrapping sounds of the colliding sides to end, and watched as a gap appeared between the sterns of the two boats. Gwen counted one, two, three, four, five six....The sounds of scrapping fiberglass were replaced by a louder, harsher, metallic grinding sound, which was music to Gwen's and Jinny's ears. It was the sound of Stirg's engine transmissions tearing themselves apart, caused by the mass of rope that had wrapped itself around both of the cruiser's props. The props stopped turning, the shafts stopped turning, but the engine kept spinning the gears in the transmission. Almost instantly the gears were turned into a pile of metal filings.

Not only were Stirg and Nev not familiar with this area of harbor shallows, sitting in the shadow of Fort Sumter, but their naval warfare tactics stank. Their momentum carried them towards the shore and shallow water. The sailboat moved in the opposite direction with the ebbing tide, towards the open harbor waters. The sound from the cruiser of metal eating itself was replaced by the sound of silence. The engines had shut down, and the rudder was locked in position by the mass of rope. Twenty seconds passed, thirty seconds passed, and then everyone on both boats heard the sound that boat operators hate above almost all others; the sound of a boat's hull scrapping on the sand and shell of the bottom. The big, heavy cruiser plowed a V into the harbor bottom three-feet deep and 100-feet long, at which point its forward momentum stopped. The forward momentum of the two men on the flying bridge did not stop, but continued rather dramatically. Stirg went completely over the windshield, landing on the deck six feet below, shoulder and hip hitting simultaneously and hard. Nev, standing in the corner of the flying bridge, also went over the windshield, but he dropped a full ten feet to a lower deck that wrapped around the side of the boat. He landed in a sitting position which violently compressed three of his lower lumbar vertebrae. Slowly he lay back, groaning loudly.

Those in the cockpit of the sailboat saw this. Gwen was glad Anna did not. Roger pulled the engine throttle lever back to the neutral position and spun the wheel hard, bringing the boat around and into a motionless position. They were safe, and relatively undamaged. Gwen motioned those below deck to come up the ladder. Anna, Selgey, Bart, Gale, Peter, Pater, Guignard, Slev, and Richard got to see what the hell had been going on for the last twenty minutes. They saw the Romanov's Revenge sitting motionless, 300 yards from the shore of Morris Island. Stirg lay on the upper deck and Nev lay on the lower deck. The only sound was that of the sailboat's idling engine. They watched. Anna watched. Slev put her hands on Anna's shoulders and held her. Minutes ticked by. Anna didn't say anything, her face expressionless. Then there was movement on the big boat. Nev reached out, grabbed the handrail, and pulled himself into a sitting position. Then he pulled himself to his feet, put his hands to his lower back, and closed his eyes. Twenty seconds later he opened his eyes and looked across the water at the sailboat. He walked forward towards the bow and saw Stirg four feet above him, lying on his side. Slowly he climbed up and knelt by him. He said something, and got a reply. He took hold of Stirg's arms and pulled him to a sitting position. More words. Then Stirg slowly turned around and looked at the sailboat. He looked and looked, and then said something to Nev. Nev stood up and got his arms under Stirg's armpits. He pulled Stirg to the standing position, and let go. Stirg stayed upright, staring across the water. So did Nev. There were no gestures on either side. Roger put the engine in gear and the sailboat turned away from the massive granite blocks surrounding the fort, out to the open harbor. The confrontation on the not so high seas was over. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

# Chapter 40 – What Now?

Slev sat next to Anna as Henric drove the boat back to the marina. Everyone was quiet, except Jinny, of course. He was enervated.

"I have to come all the way to America to get into a sea battle," he said to no one in particular. "Saint Petersburg is on the ocean. It has a river. I was a crook there, stealing stuff from all over. But I never came close to being in a sea battle."

"America has it all," said Constantine. "Russia has nukes, and computers, and art, and Siberia, but it doesn't have what America has. Things happen here that don't happen in Russia." The sea battle had made Constantine philosophical.

Pater said, "Russia has better ballet." He looked over at Selgey and Bart, apologetically. They nodded agreement.

Gale said, "America has better food, and we wear better underwear, even if it comes from Italy." The excitement of the encounter hadn't entirely dissolved the effects of the Champagne on Gale, who still was a little sloshed.

Anna didn't say anything, but she didn't look too disturbed, either. It was almost like she had expected something like this from her grandfather.

Slev said to her, "He got up. He's probably all right. He took a fall, and maybe he's hurt, but not too bad."

Anna nodded.

Richard said, "They had guns. I saw them. Thank God that didn't happen. We have a lot more guns than they do."

Anna nodded.

There wasn't a lot more conversation. Most of the team just sat in the cockpit, thinking. Jinny and Roger climbed around the boat checking for damage. The railing on one side was completely gone, and the boom had torn loose and was bent in two places. Roger lay on his stomach and looked over the side, trying to see if the fiberglass hull had been punctured anywhere. Small pieces of Stirg's boat lay on the deck.

As they approached the marina dock, a deckhand came out of the office shack to help them moor. He looked at the boat as it sidled up to the dock, and said, "Christ, what happened to you guys." Constantine gave him the evil eye, and the guy forgot all about what he had seen.

Henric and Helstof spent the night on the boat, while the rest of the crew went home, without more conversation. Gwen kissed Anna goodbye, knowing she was in good hands with Slev.

When the three of them got back to the Sullivan's house, Constantine said goodnight and went to bed. Slev kept Anna in the kitchen. She didn't want her going out on the waterside deck and seeing the area where the battle had occurred. Slev poured two small glasses of brandy, and waited for Anna to talk.

"My grandfather doesn't know what to do with himself in retirement. He goes up to the college with Nev and they hang out. He's rich. He did great things when he was younger, but now he's a little crazy. He can't relate his past to his future, so his present is a mess. He likes living here, but he misses Russia. He's still very smart, but now he's crazy, too."

Slev didn't say anything, but sipped her drink.

"Do you think he'll do this again? Do you think he'll be violent again?" Anna said.

Slev took a minute, and said, "No, I don't. It's an intuition, but I think this will be the end of this behavior for both of them. If they were younger, then I'd say, 'Yeah,' they might try something like this again, but now I don't think so. I think tonight will get it out of their systems. It's not going to make your grandfather like himself again, or solve his problems, but I doubt there will be any more violence."

Anna looked hard at Slev, and Slev looked back, empathetically. Anna drank some brandy, and Slev saw her relax in body and mind. She knew Anna would be ok.

The next day was business as usual for most of the team. The four dancers were down at The Hall, working on various parts of their project. They talked briefly about the previous night. Selgey said, "The Junes certainly are interesting people. One night I'm jumping onto the table in a fine restaurant and taking off my top, the next I'm in the crosshairs of a homicidal Russian billionaire." She looked at Bart. "I don't remember that happening very often in New York or London. Do you?"

He said, "There was the time when the light fixture came loose from the ceiling and crashed on the stage during our Midsummer Night's Dream pas de deux. That was close."

She said, "And there was the time when we arrived early for dress rehearsal to work out a difficult step, and found the two cellists and two French horn players having group sex down in the orchestra pit. That was interesting."

"Yeah, two twenty-somethings and two fifty-somethings."

"But no attempted murders, am I right about that?

He nodded.

"And neither of us ever assumed fifth ballet position on a restaurant table, right?

He nodded.

"So knowing the Junes for just a few weeks has been something of an adventure, right, dear?"

He nodded.

"Cool," she said.

Peter and Pater then told the story of how they met Little Jinny Blistov in the gay bar in Saint Petersburg. They told Selgey and Bart how Jinny made them an offer they couldn't refuse, and how that offer resulted in them living in Charleston, now working with two world-class dancers to open a ballet academy. They said the previous night was the second time they experienced violence since hooking up with the Junes.

Selgey again said, "Cool."

Meanwhile, Henric, Helstof, Jinny, and Guignard worked on the boat. They got a couple of experienced marina guys to help them assess the damage and figure out how to fix it, after which Henric decided the work should be done in Charleston rather than down at Kiawah. The marina guys asked what had happened, because early that morning on the marine radio they had heard the call for a tug to go out to Fort Sumter and pull a large private yacht off the sandbar. The tugs guys had said the yacht was damaged, one side torn up. The marina guys looked at the sailboat damage, one side torn up, and wondered.

Jinny said, "We had a party last night. Got outta hand. You should see the other guy."

Since Helstof was helping on the boat, Gale went over to Richard's to hang out, and brought a bottle of Champagne. He looked at it, said, "You didn't have enough excitement last night?"

She said, "Might as well keep the good times rollin."

He said, "I'm a writer. I'm not used to excitement."

"Well, dear, let's see what we can do about that." She popped the cork, took a long slug from the bottle and flopped on the couch. She began a kind of free association rambling about the confrontation on the not so high seas, which Richard processed and filtered through his own sensibilities. His fingers began dancing on his laptop keyboard. Gale kept drinking and Richard kept writing. After an hour, Richard joined Gale on the couch. The spontaneous writing was crap, but a horizontal interlude with Gale certainly wasn't.

Roger took the dog for a long walk and then fixed lunch in the kitchen. He watched the two Russian blue cats while he ate, and they watched him. One of them appeared to be putting on weight, but Roger didn't make the connection.

Gwen spent time in the upstairs study reading emails about The Deneuve's Champagne project. She re-read the contract Anna had signed, and thought about what the project would mean to her, making a documentary with Catherine Deneuve and Steven Spielberg, in France. Gwen again got the Wow feeling, and called Slev. "How's Anna doing?"

"She's doing really well. She understands why her grandfather did what he did. She asked if I thought he would do anything like this again, this violence, and I told her, No, I don't think so."

"Good. I don't either. He might try something else, but not like last night."

"When is Anna going to France?"

"We're waiting to hear from them. Film stuff happens when it happens. They said she has to be ready on short notice, so it could be soon. We should talk with her about it."

"Whatever you say. Gwenny?"

"Yes, dear?"

"You had your gun out when Stirg attacked. Why didn't you shoot? He deserved it."

"He did deserve it. I didn't shoot because of Anna. If I had shot, there was a good chance of damaging him and Nev, and Anna didn't deserve that. Also, because Roger had taken command of the situation, and I figured he would get us of there. Which he did."

"Yeah, he did. Life in Charleston with you is interesting, dear."

"It's there for the taking. Some people are unlucky and have short arms. They pick fruit up from the ground. Other people are luckier and have long arms, get fruit from the tree. That's our job. Picking fruit and eating it."

# Chapter 41 – France, Anna, and The Deneuve

Anna and Gwen landed in Paris a week before the film production was due to begin. The Deneuve and Spielberg had made the arrangements for this week, partly as a crash course for Anna, and partly as a promo tour. The three women were installed in a three bedroom suite at the Intercontinental Grand. Anna looked out the window at the Paris Opera House across the boulevard and thought: "They don't have one of those in Charleston."

"What's this place cost a night?" Anna asked.

"I've no idea, dear," said Catherine. "We're compted here for the week. I have to sit in the bar one night and drink Champagne with you. Let the press take pictures, which is promo for the hotel. Have you had your picture in Le Monde? Bertie's a very good photographer, and I hope they send him."

"Am I going to come out of this an alcoholic?" asked Anna.

"Possibly, dear," said Catherine, "but don't worry, the Champagne companies will supply you with all the wine your addicted little brain cells will demand. And you'll get to share that with all the men who will be hanging around you, after this. Some things demand a price, and there are worst things than a little bout of alcoholism, now and then." Her eyes twinkled the message that she was joking.

"What's the plan?" said Gwen.

"Well, the plan is to have fun before the work begins. Steven's a maniac then, no fooling around. He's squeezing this doco in between two big movies, so we're going to work very hard for two weeks or so. This week we show Anna the history of Champagne in French culture."

She picked up the phone and called her assistant, who came immediately from the room next door. Jorgee, like Anna, was twenty-seven years old, going on forty. He had been around the block. Jorgee was a cross between a decathlon athlete and a chess grandmaster, having it in both departments, and he was polite and humble, at least on the surface. He took care of Catherine. One time a paparazzi stuck his camera in The Deneuve's face. Jorgee pushed the guy up against a wall, held him there by the throat with one hand, and with the other, tore almost every piece of clothing from the guy's body. He left the guy with his shoes on, lying naked on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Other paparazzi filmed this, which was shown on French TV for the best part of a week. Many young French girls got their first looks at the male member in this clip, because it was shown all day long. Most celebrities in most countries would face legal charges for this, but not The Deneuve; not in France. The guy didn't even bother to file a charge. He knew the score.

"Jorgee, this is Gwen and this is Anna. They're my best friends. Please take care of them. What's our itinerary?" She went and stood behind Jorgee, draping her arms around his three foot wide shoulders. Jorgee started to say something, when Catherine interrupted him. "Anna, would you come here." She stood aside, and when Anna came close, she took Anna's arms and put them around Jorgee's shoulders, like hers had been. "Do you know what that is, dear?"

Anna breathed deeply and said, "The smell of paradise."

Catherine said, "Oh, I love that as a name for a cologne. PARADISE. Jorgee is wearing my cologne, made for me. THE SHIMMERER. I love that word. "Jorgee, how does THE SHIMMERER work for you, attracting women?"

"Like followers to a saint, Catherine. When I wear it I'm good. When I don't wear it, I'm a lot less good. At least that's what women think."

"Do you know what Anna's favorite perfume is?"

Jorgee turned around and looked at Anna, just a foot between them, him now having an excuse for a full visual evaluation. He'd been playing it cool, trying hard to avoid checking out both Gwen and Anna, doing pretty well at blocking the hormones from exiting the glands, keeping them out of the bloodstream and his brain.

After looking into Anna's eyes for a few seconds he turned to Catherine and said, "She's an OPIUM girl, if I've ever seen one."

Catherine turned to Gwen, said, "He's got a brain and good taste. Also very funny. And he beats up the paparazzi for me, takes no shit from them." Then to Anna, "He's right. OPIUM. I remember that from the night we met. Strapped to a chair, black undies. You turned Roger into a limp rag with those, didn't you." Then to Jorgee, "THE SHIMMERER and OPIUM, you ever put them together, dear, in any significant way?"

He said, looking at Catherine, not at Anna, "Not yet."

Catherine looked at Gwen and said, "To be young again, meshing perfumes with sweat. Well, I had my share." Looking back at Jorgee and Anna, "Good luck, you two. Now, what's our itinerary?"

"This afternoon we do Champagne and paintings. Tomorrow we have readings of Champagne in literature. Tomorrow night it's Champagne in music. Next day is Champagne in movies. After that it's ritual and symbolism." Jorgee looked for approval.

"When are we going to drink some, Jorgee? Isn't that the most important part?"

"Eighteen cases were delivered to my room yesterday. Eighteen different estates donated to the project. Is that enough for five days?"

Jorgee kept a straight face when he said this. Catherine asked Anna if she thought this was enough, also keeping a straight face.

Staying in tune Anna said, "If he's gonna drink with us, I'm not sure."

Catherine smiled and said, "What time do we meet?"

"2 o'clock."

Gwen asked, "In the lobby?"

Jorgee said, "God no. We meet her in the lobby, we'll never get out. We meet here, then go through the lobby with me leading the way, fast if we can. Car out front."

# Chapter 42- Swishing and Drinking Around Paris

They didn't make it out of the lobby. Jorgee got slowed down by the overnight case he had filled with ice and four bottles of Taittinger, rolling it behind him, dripping water across the floor, when he should have been out front, breaking the way through the lobby crowd like a Coast Guard icebreaker ship across the Great Lakes in February. The Deneuve got out in front of him, she wasn't supposed to do that he kept telling her, but it was in her nature. Jorgee never had figured out how people found out or knew when and where she was going to be, but they always seemed to, so he had resigned himself to the phenomenon. The hotel staff tried to help clear a path to the door. Gwen noticed there were no autograph seekers, no one waving pieces of paper or scarves or hats towards her to sign. The French never are gauche, and the crowd was a fifty-fifty mix of men and women. They weren't asking for anything other than to share space with The Deneuve for a few minutes, which is why she perpetually was tolerant. She loved them, and they loved her. Jorgee dealt with the paparazzi punks when they got pushy. Catherine had to kiss fourteen men and eighteen women before the crowd dispersed. In the milieu, a teenage boy put his hand on Gwen's hip and tried to kiss her. Gwen grabbed his hand, bent his wrist back in that Oriental torture hold that produces excruciating pain with almost no force exerted, and sent the kid to his knees. Jorgee saw this, and knew he would have to coach Gwen a bit on how to be a gracious world celebrity, Deneuvian style.

The car finally rolled, and Catherine asked their destination.

"We have four paintings to see, very famous, that tell us about Champagne in French art. We have Manet's Un bar aus Folies-Bergere, painted 1882, at the Musée d'Orsay. Then we have Cezanne's Chez le Pere Lathuile and Chaise, bouteille et pommes, 1906, at the Louvre. And then Theodule Ribot's Nature morte, at Christies."

Catherine looked at Jorgee in a funny way, said, "You remember what happened the last time I was in the Louvre, and you're taking me back again?"

Gwen and Anna looked at Jorgee.

"Catherine was in one of the impressionist galleries, the one with all the Renoirs. She was doing a charity show, $5,000 per ticket. She would walk around, stand in front of a painting with a beautiful woman in it, and the staff would dress her right there in the same clothes and hat and gloves, whatever, as the woman in the painting. The people who bought tickets could stand next to her, get their picture taken if they wanted. They sold 100 tickets, including two to an American and his wife. The guy was a little drunk, and said in a loud voice, 'The woman in the painting is better looking than the Deneuve broad.' Five French guys looked at him, grabbed him, and beat the shit out of him, right there in the gallery. These guys were, like, dentists and accountants. Left him lying on the floor, his wife standing there, not saying anything. Couple of women wearing three inch pumps with sharp toes kicked the guy in the gut. The whole crowd moved on to the next painting in the next gallery. Got filmed, of course, security camera. Shown on TV the next day. No charges were filed."

Catherine sat, looking demure.

The car pulled up to the Musée d'Orsay, where Jorgee unloaded the overnight case full of ice and Champagne, and the three women got out. Jorgee said to Gwen and Anna, "Chins up ladies, it's show time."

The guards love it when celebrities come to the museum because it breaks the boredom. The chief of security hates it. Jorgee blew past the ticket window without paying, the three women walking side by side, arms linked, Deneuve in the center. Some kind of silent alarm went out, because within minutes, three museum managers were escorting the group, including the curator of paintings. They stopped at some benches where two long perpendicular hallways intersected, under a giant Delacroix. Jorgee opened the case, took a bottle of Champagne out of the ice, popped the cork, and poured three glasses. The curator gave a spiel about the Delacroix while the ladies sipped. Jorgee was surprised only twenty people collected around them. Gwen was eating it up; Anna was trying to figure it out.

Then onto the Manet. For obvious reasons, Jorgee hoped neither Gwen nor Anna would ask to see Manet's giant WaterLilies. He also hoped none of the museum managers would ask them not to drink in the galleries. They should be smarter than that. So the three women drank in front of Un bar aus Folies-Bergere. The curator said, "Champagne was invented around 1700, and was used then mostly by the aristocracy. Later it was embraced by the middle class as a symbol of upward mobility, which is what Manet painted here."

Catherine tuned out the curator and whispered to Anna, "I like what Helen Gurley Brown said, 'Two warm bodies and one cold bottle of Champagne will produce something more wonderful than would happen without the Champagne.' What do you think?"

Anna said, "I haven't tried that combination yet."

Catherine poked her and looked over at Jorgee.

Anna said, "Walking through galleries hung with great paintings is like sitting and watching a good movie. A pure and condensed version of life passes before your eyes, that's so much easier and nicer than the real thing."

Gwen and Catherine looked at each other, then at Anna.

Gwen, turning to watch Jorgee wield the wine bottle while keeping the crowd at a respectful distance, said to Catherine, "I have to agree with the hung part."

"Leave it off, Gwenny, him's for her."

"Here I am, three thousand miles from my boring husband, and you're not going to let me have any fun." Gwen pretended to pout.

"I'll take a slice of your boring husband any day, and I just meant Anna gets first go. I really want to know what happens when THE SHIMMERER and OPIUM meet. It should be like this stuff," holding up her glass, "and caviar."

Jorgee knew he had to keep the entourage moving. They had two more stops today, then more Champagne education (drinking) tomorrow and the next day. The Deneuve was on the move. He packed the bottle and glasses into the overnight bag, still dripping melting ice on the museum floor, and led the way back down the long corridors and out to the car. Anna asked if they could stop somewhere, she wanted to buy a scarf. Catherine said, "Sorry dear, but you're in school today, learning, learning. No time for shopping."

Gwen said, "You're working on your Ph.D. in being one of the bold and beautiful."

Jorgee bombed the car down into the parking garage under the Louvre, ignoring signs meant for normal people. He parked in front of the staff elevator, punched in an electronic code, and herded them in. The elevator opened into the museum offices, where they were met by the Director. On a cart was a silver platter, made by Philippe Grucourt, 1721. On the platter were five Champagne flutes, blown by Stephane Derentier, 1877. Earlier that morning the Director had removed these items from exhibit cases. His staff hated when he breached protocols like this. Of course, if they had been invited to meet The Deneuve and drink Champagne with her, it probably would have been all right. The Director kissed The Deneuve, bowed to Gwen and Anna, and popped the cork on a bottle of 1996 Roederer Crystal.

Anna asked, "Do we have to go look at great art now? Can't we just sit here and drink more of this stuff? This is the greatest drink that's ever entered my mouth. Who is this Roederer person? If he's a man, is he too old for me to marry? I'll only look at paintings from now on that have Champagne bottles in them. How many of those do you have here?" She looked at Catherine and said, "How much of this stuff have you drunk over your life?"

Catherine thought for a moment, said, "I started with Krug when I was sixteen. Now I'm sixty-seven. Let's say a bottle a week average. No, better make that two a week, average. There was that period in my thirties when I was a bit of a lush. You can do the math. Just remember, dear, it's always better when mixed with a man's cologne. My motto is 'One man, two bottles'. If the man turns out to be a bore, you've still got the wine."

The Director picked up the phone and called all the curators of paintings. "How many paintings do we have with Champagne bottles in them? And where are they?"

The curators appeared out of nowhere, scribbling notes, handing them to the Director, looking at the three women and the empty bottle. Then the Director's assistant appeared with a second cold bottle, popped, poured. The Director handed a glass to Anna who said, "Thank you. And a man with a nice cologne? Can you supply him that fast?"

Gwen said, "Anna, you'll hurt Jorgee's feelings, asking for someone else like that, right in front of him."

Jorgee said, "That's ok, Ms Gwen, I'm on duty, I understand."

"Jorgee, if Anna wants a glass of bubbly in her left hand, and you in her right, be there for her, dear, all the way," said Catherine.

"I'll slog through, Ms Catherine, I'll slog through."

The Director shuffled the notes, and said, "We have eighteen paintings with Champagne bottles in them. Fragonard, three, Cezanne, one, Toulouse-Lautrec, five, Daumier, two, de Chavannes, one, Bouguereau, three, Bonat, two, Degas, one. Who would you like to see?"

Gwen piped up, "Toulouse-Lautrec. He's the best. Every one of his paintings is a world of its own. Please, can we see his Champagne bottles?"

When the group left the offices, it consisted of the three women, Jorgee, the Director, his assistant, six curators, and two security guards. By the time it had swished down the miles of corridors and entered the Lautrec gallery, it had grown to fifty people, including two incognito museum janitors, three members of the French parliament who should have been in session voting on a bill that would shorten the French work week from its current thirty-four hours to an even thirty, four Corsican Mafioso who loved Deneuve from her movie Island Without Law, the couture designer Fleur de Mal and his wife, seven school boys who made a series of covert propositions to Anna, and two Middle Eastern gentlemen who appeared to have rather odd looking torsos. The Director took the two security men by the arms, and whispered that if any American men tried to join the group in the galleries, they were to grab them, escort them to the cold storage vault, and lock them in there till The Deneuve left.

The fifty people piled into the Lautrec gallery with the Director and three women in the lead. The museum staff and the guests of honor looked at the paintings. The other forty people looked at the three women. Which were the greater works of art? The paintings, or the women?

Toulouse-Lautrec radiated from the walls like Deneuve did from the screen in Indochine. Mauve yellow swirls against emerald green fields accented with burgundy twirls. Sculptural hats and bending tables and long dresses, meshed together into scenes of café life, cottage life, theater life. Of the twelve paintings in the gallery, two had Champagne prominently displayed. In one, a beautiful woman held a bottle behind her back, while in front she held a man away from executing an amorous embrace. Lautrec conveyed that both of them would get everything they wanted. The other bottle was set in the patio garden of a vineyard estate, with pea gravel on the ground and cream colored limestone block walls around the perimeter. At a table in the center was an extended family of twenty, all ages, many kids, several grands. The focus of the painting was a boy and a girl, both about fifteen, being handed glasses of Champagne by the patriarch, their initiation into a joy of French culture.

Catherine stood in front of the painting with her arms around Anna's shoulders. She made Anna stare at the painting, whispering in her ear an interpretation of the story. The family outdoors, surrounded by vineyards, the sun warming arms and faces. The sounds of talking and laughing, people touching, the table loaded with August tomatoes, sliced with cucumbers, drowning in olive oil, vinegar, and lemon juice. Tasting the wine, feeling the carbonation on the tongue, the smell of the bready yeast sitting on a layer of stony minerals. Sensing the alcohol in the veins and the brain, making life simmer for a few hours on a hotter flame. Anna understood.

By now Catherine had had four glasses of Champagne, and was feeling lovely. She turned from Anna, motioned Jorgee over to her, and had him help her stand on a bench in the middle of the gallery. She raised both arms, holding them in a widespread V until everyone was looking at her. Her voice boomed off the gallery walls, "Today we can hold each other like the family in the picture. We want what they have, we want those feelings. We want to touch, we want to kiss, and we're going to do that." Everyone in the room listened. "Everyone here is invited to drink Champagne with us at the hotel. The Intercontinental Grand. In thirty minutes, in the lobby. Everyone here must come. We are the family tonight. We kiss. We kiss. I see you there, soon. Everyone. Everyone!"

She jumped down next to Jorgee, who said, "Oh, shit. What have you done now?"

She looked at him, "Make it happen, love. Make it happen."

He handed her over to Gwen, and went out into the hallway. In a minute he had the hotel manager on the line, telling him to go to Jorgee's room, get three cases of Champagne, and blast chill them. He told the guy The Deneuve was having a party in his lobby in half an hour. Be ready. He heard choking on the other end. No matter. The guy would do as he was told. Fifty people in the lobby, served Champagne in quality flutes, waiters, security, media.... in thirty minutes. Well, for the woman, of course.

# Chapter 43 – Spielberg and Deneuve

"I've never acted before," Anna said.

Spielberg took off his signature baseball cap which he insisted on wearing indoors almost all the time, like a class A dork, and set it on the ca. 1712 Blausette mahogany table that was in the center of the dining room that was in the center of the chateaux that was in the center of the Moet Champagne vineyard estate. The logo on the hat said, Bergman Lives. Gwen wondered if this referred to the actress or the director. Could be either, right? Then Gwen remembered that Ingmar Bergman once said Jaws was his favorite movie, which answered the question.

Spielberg said, "You don't have to worry about that. Just do what Catherine Hepburn told Jimmy Stewart to do when they did their first movie. She said, 'Don't act. Just say your lines. Leave the acting to me.' You have Catherine here with you. Just say your lines."

John Williams got up from the table, went over to the Steinway in the corner, and began playing some jazz riffs, 1920s stuff, up-tempo and danceable. "You like jazz, Anna?"

"I like it when the melody is discernible, very much. I don't like it when the improve gets too far out there. Those guys are just playing with themselves; trying to make themselves special. Like yogis try to do. If you can't do, teach. If you can't teach, become a yogi or far out jazz improve guy. Sponge offa people."

Anna said this stone sober, not a drop of bubbly flowing through her hot, sexy, smart as hell veins. It made Williams stop playing and look at her; her with her beautifully serious face. Catherine didn't follow it, but Spielberg and Gwen did. Williams laughed. Spielberg looked at Gwen, who smiled and shrugged. "She's the bomb, Steven, the bomb."

He put his hat on, again being the dork, sat back in his chair and looked at Catherine, who also smiled and said to him, "Sure you don't want her to act?"

He said to Anna, "No, I don't want you to act. You're here because Catherine says you have intuition. Special intuition. People who have that are instinctual, and make good actors. So don't try to think around here. Say your lines, follow Catherine's lead, do a little improv if the spirit moves you," smiling now, "but not too much."

Williams shifted into a Liszt-like arpeggio, trying out motifs that might fit with the documentary footage Spielberg would shoot. He was here at the start of the production, to be one of the team, get the feel of the subject matter, soak up the atmosphere and ambience of Champagne culture. The piano filled not only the dining room with sound, but the entire house. Anna was calm on the outside, excited on the inside. She also was recovering from a week of debauchery. All three women needed to dry out. The timing was right, though, with two weeks of long work days ahead. That was the production schedule. Not a lot of room for long work hours and drinking to fit together, unless you're John Wayne, maybe Dean Martin and his crowd.

After the public party in the hotel lobby that followed the visit to the Louvre, they'd had four more days of tours, events, appearances, and soirees. Four more days of drinking, smiling, laughing, learning, art. Hundreds of new friends; formerly strangers. They ate langoustines six times. Yeah, that means twice in one day, lunch and dinner. If you want to eat something great with Champagne, try langoustines in butter garlic sauce. Frenchies know wine and food combinations.

The women listened to music inspired by Champagne; they drank Champagne while listening to music; while listening to recitations of poetry; while sitting in sculpture gardens. At the end of the week, sitting in their suite, Gwen said, "Culture with Champagne is better than culture without Champagne."

Catherine said, "Life with Champagne is better than life without it."

Anna said, "I can do without the headache every morning, though."

Catherine said, "Enjoy it now, dear. The headaches get worse once you pass fifty. Hangovers are the only thing I really begrudge about getting old." She looked up at the ceiling, said, "No, not true is it? One thing's worse about getting old, a lot worse. Merde."

# Chapter 44 – In Front of the Camera

The thirteen year old girl sitting at the table was going through changes, but she still was cheerful and engaged with the rest of the family. She hadn't yet bailed out in favor of the strange and radical world of teenage culture, and still spoke civilly with her parents and siblings and houseguests. Catherine sat next to her, holding her hand while someone shifted the camera to a different position. Anna sat on her other side, looking across the table at Spielberg, who was pinching his upper lip, standing to the side of the cameraman. They were inside a big house and of course Spielberg had his hat on. His wife Kate was here in France, hanging out, and Anna thought of asking her if he wore his hat in bed. Anna thought wearing a baseball style hat inside was almost as bad as wearing it backwards. Being twenty-seven and criticizing how young guys wear their hats made her an iconoclast. She was older than her years.

Spielberg came around the table and said, "This scene is about how women of different ages sit at a big family dinner table and have fun." He smiled at the young girl. "It's about things that everyone likes, no matter how old you are, so that's what I want you to talk about."

That was the extent of the Director's direction. There was lots of food on the table, and bottles of different types of wine, and the girl's parents and brothers and sisters were standing around, but were not in the scene. Catherine knew what to do. Anna and the girl didn't have a clue, but that didn't bother them. They both loved Catherine, and liked Spielberg, who obviously has great rapport with kids. The little girl didn't mind Spielberg wearing his hat in the dining room of her house as much as Anna did, though in a vague way she wondered about it, not ever having seen a man wear a hat indoors before. Even the French women who came into the house took their hats off quickly, as did the guys who worked in the vineyards.

The cameras rolled, and so did The Deneuve. "I'm sitting with Brigitte and Anna. Brigitte, how often do you have big family dinners here?"

"Every Saturday afternoon at four o'clock. Sometimes there are only six people and sometimes there are lots more."

"Do you like the dinners?"

"Oh, yes, because people talk a lot. And they kiss a lot."

"Do people kiss you?"

"Yes. Most of the time I like it. The more people drink wine, the more they kiss me. That's ok, until they kiss me too much. I have an aunt who kisses me about twenty times every Saturday, and every time I have to wipe her lipstick off because she wears too much of it."

"Do the boys kiss you?"

"They try to. There's only two I let kiss me. The others I smack in the head."

"Do you drink wine with dinner?"

"No, I'm not allowed to. Yet. My older brother and sister do."

"Do you watch the rest of the people drink wine? What kind of wine do they drink?"

"They all drink wine. Everyone. My mother, and grandfather, everyone. They make a big deal about it. I have to watch, since I can't drink it. I have a cousin who is twenty something and gets drunk right away. He stands up every fifteen minutes and offers a toast about something. Thank God he's smart and funny."

Anna asked, "What do you know about wine?"

"I know pretty much everything, really, because it is all around here. There's red, white, and Champagne. My grand grandfather invented Champagne, and that's what my father and mother do. They make it. It's everywhere here. There's lots of bottles of it down in the caves."

"When do you think you'll be allowed to try Champagne?"

"Well, I probably won't wait for them to give it to me." She looked over to where her mother was sitting, at the far end of the room. "I'll probably go down into the caves someday and get one of the guys to open a bottle. They like me."

"Do you like the Saturday dinners here, with people drinking Champagne and talking?"

"Oh God yes. Everybody acts a little different than normal. They all like being together, goofing off. And they are funny when they get crocked. Sometimes I read a book until they've had a couple of glasses, then I start to listen. And the food that goes with the wines is really good. They talk about that a lot, what dish goes with what food. They argue. Sometimes they really argue. There's a wine called burgundy and a wine called Bordeaux, and half the people here think burgundy is better, and the other half think Bordeaux is better. The only thing they all agree on is that Champagne is the best. I've seen them open bottles of Burgundy and Bordeaux, and no one drinks them. The just drink the bubbly."

Catherine asked, "Do you know where the bubbles come from?"

Brigitte didn't answer, but looked directly at the camera. Then she looked at Spielberg, standing at the side of the camera. Then she looked at the ceiling, with its fresco painting of grape vines on it. Catherine smiled at her reassuringly, and so did Anna. She closed her eyes, then opened them. Her father had heard the question, and was watching.

"Oh, yes," she said, "from yeast thingies. The bubbles come from yeast." She waited a second, then said, "Did you know that yeast is not an animal or a plant? It's its own thingie. A very good thingie, because bubbles are what make Champagne special."

Brigitte looked away from Catherine again, looked directly at the camera, almost as if she expected it to agree with her. Then she looked at her father, who raised his arms in mock triumph. Yes, baby!

Spielberg cut the scene and came over to the table. "Beautiful," he said.

The next day, in a surprise move, he took the crew out to the vineyards surrounding the estate house. The crew had to mobilize into handheld mode, all the cameras, mikes, recorders, lights, and the rest of the gear, but they were Spielberg's crew, so they handled it. It was a surprise for the family too, but they were having fun. The Deneuve was here. Spielberg was, secondary.

It really was a surprise to the vineyard workers, who became the focus of the filming. They knew what was going on, but not that they would be actors. Spielberg headed down the rows of vines to a small group in the distance, three guys and two women, and they were pruning the vines. Each had several pairs of cutters, ranging from small scissors to big shears. Brigitte's father introduced the film crew to the workers, and then Spielberg took over. He asked them if Catherine and Anna could ask questions about growing Champagne grapes, and working on the estate. One of the guys said, "What's the pay? Do we get a percentage?"

One of the women turned a dominating stare on the guy, the other woman smacked him in the back of the head, knocking off his hat, said, "Your pay, you moron, is sitting with Catherine Deneuve. That's more than you deserve."

The guy smiled good-naturedly, picking up his hat. Evidently he got this treatment a lot.

The crew set up at the edge of the vineyard where there was enough space. Spielberg framed the group against the corner of a stone wall, with cypress trees behind, and made them take their hats off so there wouldn't be shadows across their faces. Catherine was dressed in a gold blouse, dark green skirt, and gold satin flats. A pearl the size of a small pear hung from a gold chain around her neck. She sat on the ground, took off her flats, and curled her legs under her. Anna wore a man's white shirt, trimmed in light blue, with the shirttail out. Below that she sported the sexiest pair of blue jeans anyone present ever had seen. They had been a gift from Catherine, who said when she gave them to Anna, "I haven't worn these in thirty years, but I truly loved them back then. They worked wonders for my love life." Anna kicked off her loafers, and stood barefoot in the vineyard soil, stretching and looking up at the sky.

The crew stopped working, Spielberg stopped issuing orders, and the workers stopped feeling nervous. Everyone looked at Catherine and Anna. Two generations of flaming, freezing, exquisite beauty, out in the fields. The filmies recovered first, used to being around Hollywood babes. Spielberg was used to being around Kate Capshaw, so he recovered, too. The workers kept staring, men and women. This was not normal, out in the vineyard.

Spielberg rolled the cameras. "Do you like living in the country?" asked Catherine.

Four of them nodded yes, and one of the guys said, "It's a job."

Another said, "I like being outdoors."

The woman who slapped the guy in the back of the head started talking. "It's hard work during the harvest in October. We work fourteen, sixteen hour days. The rest of the year it's nice. There's not much to do during winter. We've worked together for six or seven years. We're all from around here, except for her," pointing to the other woman, "she's from Paris, doesn't like the city. We all have relatives who work around here. Families stay and work here, and we get paid pretty well. That's why good Champagne is so expensive." They all smiled. "There's not a lot of turnover. People stay and work for a long time. There's lots of old people."

Anna asked, "You're about my age. Don't you want to go to the city? Paris?"

One of the guys said, "We go, but we come back. It can be boring here, but there's something I like. The outsides of the buildings and houses are really old, but the insides are modern. I don't believe in God, but there's something about all the old churches. It feels good, seeing them. Woody Allen said he doesn't like going to the country because there's nowhere to take a walk after dinner. But that's what I like. I take walks around the towns. Feels good."

Catherine asked the other woman, "You have kids?"

She said, "No, but when I do, this is a good place for them. Like he said, there's lots of old people around, and they like kids, and help take care of them. The estates compete with each other to sell their wine, but the families are good to each other. Mostly. People know each other, say hello. Mostly. Champagne is big business, big corporations. Marketing. But for us, it's pretty nice. Mostly." She smiled.

Anna sensed the guy who asked if he would get a percentage of the film profits was a card, so she asked him, "You got a girlfriend? You and her drink Champagne, have fun?"

"They, and I, do drink together and have fun, yes."

"You mean you have more than one girlfriend?"

"I'm an equal opportunity operation. I don't discriminate against Americans, like some French people do. A growing firm. I'm recruiting new members. You interested?"

"I'm part Russian. Spent time in Saint Petersburg. You like Russian women?"

"Da. Don't worry, we'll warm your cold feet up fast. You bring the caviar, we'll bring the Champagne."

He looked over at Catherine, opened his smartass mouth, started to ask her if she wanted to join his team. His female workmate, the one who smacked him earlier, was ready for this. He got about two words out to Catherine before he got smacked again. Hard. Catherine laughed, she was used to solicitations from young and old, male and female. She looked over at Spielberg, said, "You gonna leave that in?"

# Chapter 45 – Filming at the Louvre

The beginning of the second week of filming they left the grape growing region and went back to Paris. The crew met the first morning in the grand ballroom of the Intercontinental Grand, which Spielberg had rented for the week as their production headquarters. The production coordinator told everyone they were filming at the Louvre after lunch. Catherine, Jorgee, Anna, and Gwen looked at each other. Back there, again?

Jorgee brought the car into one of the underground parking garages, where they were met by the female chief of security. How did Jorgee know these people, and contact them? Catherine never heard him do this. Jorgee wasn't an old salt, doing this job for years and years, building up lists of contacts. He was twenty-seven.

The security woman was the same person who came to the rescue of the ugly American left groaning on the gallery floor during a previous Deneuvian visit, and she thought of the incident. After the five French guys had roughed him up, after he had experienced the sharp toes of the French women, the chief of security had taken the man and his wife to her office to check his injuries, both physical and psychological. His body wasn't hurt badly, but his pride was.

"I want to press charges. Who are those nuts? I didn't do anything. What kind of place is this? I want my money back. $5,000 for that?" He looked to his wife for support, who was as clueless as he was. She couldn't say anything, wondering what had happened. It was like a tree limb suddenly falling on your car, parked in a parking lot, crushing the roof. A force of nature, out of the blue.

"Let me get you some Perrier," the security chief said. She was absolutely calm and collected. "Maybe a glass of wine. Please relax. We can talk."

"Talk my ass. Where're the cops? Who are you?" The guy wasn't slurring his words or anything, but the alcohol from the pre-gallery walk cocktail party still was with him.

She handed him a bottle of water. "My friend, there aren't going to be any police. You're drunk. You insulted Catherine Deneuve, in public. And the charity already has cashed your check. I'm sorry for the incident, but, well, you went to a sensitive place, and, ah, the people of France spoke. Men and women. Again, I'm sorry. Can I get you a cab?"

The guy and his wife looked at the security woman like she was crazy. She smiled back, neutrally. No police? Assault. No police? Museum. Are these people crazy? Kicked in the gut by sharp-toed women. Can I get you a cab? That's it?

He whined and his wife looked flustered, but that was the end of it. The security woman listened patiently for a while, then had the couple escorted out the employee entrance and into a cab. She handed the driver a twenty Euro note and said, "Dump him in the Seine."

Now, here was Catherine again at the museum. More fun?

The security chief called the museum director, who came humming down the kilometer long hallway on a Segway. Madame Catherine, so nice to see you again. Madame June, Madame Stirg, welcome. Mr. Jorgee, welcome. Mr. Spielberg is here. His crew is here, in one of the galleries. This way, please.

He led the way through the miles of galleries, the security woman keeping the ever growing crowd at bay, being gentle, understanding French cultural sensibilities. Jorgee supplemented the museum staff for bodyguard duties, ready to stop a too eager fan from planting one on Catherine's mouth, uninvited.

Everyone cooled their heels while Spielberg and the crew set the scene. Soon it was, "Places, everyone." And the filming started.

The museum director stood in the back, watching the process, when his buzzer buzzed, and the security chief's buzzer buzzed. Situation, Gallery 44, just down the hallway. They looked at each other. Tend to the situation, or tend to Spielberg and The Deneuve? The security staff did not buzz both the director and the chief about the same matter very often, so this must be serious. Situation or Deneuve? The director was torn. He said to the security chief, "You go. I'll follow." He turned to an assistant museum director and said, "There's something wrong down the hallway. I don't know what, but something serious. I have to go."

Catherine was off camera, watching, and saw the Director leave, running. She asked the assistant museum director, who told her something serious was happening down the hall. Catherine walked over to Spielberg and took his arm. She said, "Steven, follow me. Bring the camera and the rest of the stuff." He looked at her like she was crazy. No one stopped him in the middle of filming a scene. Well, almost no one. The look on her face convinced him.

"Cut." He stood on an equipment box and said, "Camera, sound, break it down, now. Follow me. Everything on batteries."

Catherine took his arm and led him out of the gallery into the long hallway, turning right.

"Come on," she said. Turning around, "Come on Gwenny, come on Anna, we have to help," her intuition beaming at her.

They marched down to an intersection, turned again, and entered a large gallery that barely contained a loud and disturbing voice. The voice was deep enough to be a man's, but it came from a woman. She was standing in front of a large work by Picasso that he had painted in the 1930s. It showed a woman in front of a small house in a Spanish village. Two men stood next to a cart on which lay a body. The body was the woman's son, killed in the civil war fighting. The woman in the painting was staring at the body, not comprehending the reality.

The woman in the gallery was distraught. She was large and tall, wearing a brown dress, a brown cardigan sweater, a brown blouse, and brown shoes. She had pulled a bench from the center of the room over to the painting, and was standing on it, holding a box cutter in one hand. Her hair was tied into a pony tail, but a large lock had escaped the clasp, and stuck out to one side. This errant lock of hair combined with the grief on her face made her ugly, which was too bad, because she wasn't an ugly person at all. She was hurting.

Instinctively Spielberg grabbed a cameraman, pointed towards the woman, and said, "Roll." Same with a long distance mike. Point it towards her, turn it on.

"It's always the same," the woman said. Grief powered her voice, filling the gallery and leaking out into the hallway. "It's always the same. Some people send others off to a war, a stupid war, and they come home dead. They come home, but they can't live their lives like the rest of us. They're gone, and they're not coming back to us." She spread both arms out to the sides, still holding the knife. "Just like in this painting. That's us, that woman there, we get the cart with the body on it. We get to deal with that, while the ones that send the boy away sit in offices, talking. It's always the same. They don't know what they do when they send him away, and they don't know what we do when he comes back. We sit at home without him. That's what we do. We sit there without him. And the people in the offices don't know."

The security chief had worked her way through the crowd and stood near the bench. She wasn't listening to what the woman was saying; she was looking at the knife the woman was waving around. The woman looked down and saw the large credential hanging around the security chief's neck on a lanyard, and she realized this person was there to stop her.

"Get away. Get away." She waved the knife at the security chief. "The people in the offices have to know what they do. They have to know what we do when the boy comes home on a cart. Get away now. I'm going to make those people in the offices hear me. They're going to hear me when I mark this famous painting, in this famous place. They will see the mark, and they will know what it means." She feigned another slash at the security woman standing below her, then turned to the painting.

"My dear," came in a loud but beautiful voice from the group of thirty people watching the event unfold. "I love your boy. I love the boy you lost. I know about him and I know about you." The Deneuve was at the rear of the crowd when she spoke, but she raised her hand so the woman could see her. Captured by the voice, the women looked across the crowd, with her arm raised and the knife positioned to slash an arc across the painting. Deneuve took hold of Anna's hand and moved. She didn't push directly through the crowd towards the woman, but moved towards the side of the gallery and the perimeter of the crowd. She kept one arm raised and the other touching Anna. As they emerged from the crowd near the wall there was a line of sight between them and the woman standing on the bench. Catherine stopped and said, "Your boy. We love him. Everyone here loves him. We know. We see the painting. We see you and we see your boy. Stay there. We are coming to you."

The woman was mesmerized by the soft but commanding voice, and so was the crowd. The museum director and the security chief stayed still and watched. The people at the edge of the crowd moved inwards ever so slightly so there was a clear path between Catherine and the woman. Catherine gave an imperceptible tug on Anna's arm, telling her to follow, then raised both arms in the air, pointing towards the mother. Slowly she walked forward. "We're coming to you. We're coming to you, and to the painting. We're going to be with you, and look at the painting, and know about the woman in the painting, and know about you. We know about your boy. All of us here will be with you. With you and with the woman in the painting."

Catherine stood under and to one side of the woman. The security chief stood at the other. Everyone in the gallery watched, silently. Anna stood next to Catherine, utterly calm, a look of understanding on her face. Her muscles were flexed, ready for whatever came next. She would touch the woman kindly, she would follow Catherine's lead, or she would protect The Deneuve, if it came to that.

"Let me up there with you," said Catherine.

She didn't wait for an answer, but stepped up onto the bench, next to the woman. The woman still held the knife in the hand away from Catherine. Catherine kept her arms at her side, facing the woman, looking in her eyes. They stood there for several seconds, with not a sound in the gallery. Catherine turned, faced the crowd, and raised an arm. "We know the two boys. The one in the painting, and the one of this woman. We know they are gone, and care about them. We know the two women, and their loss is our loss. Those of us here, in this room, have lost these two boys. Raise your hands to this woman, now, tell her you are with her."

Every person in the room raised their hands and said, "We are with you." The director of the Louvre said it, the security chief said it, and Anna said it. The woman chose to look at Anna, where she saw the look of kindness and understanding on her face. She saw that Anna knew her, and saw that the other people knew her and knew the woman in the Picasso painting. She wasn't alone, as she had thought. She looked down at the woman with the credentials hanging around her neck, and handed her the knife. She didn't say anything to Catherine, just nodded her head and climbed down from the bench. The security chief gently took her by the arm and led her through the crowd and out of the gallery.

When the woman was gone, Catherine, standing on the bench like she was on a Broadway stage, said to everyone, "Well done. We did good. We did good." She paused, then said, "Do you know why I am here?" By now the tourists had been told by the locals who the woman standing on the bench was. "I'm here because I'm making a film about Champagne. About how it enriches our lives. I am looking at paintings that have Champagne in them, that show how this wine has been part of world culture. Just now we were part of that woman's grief, and we helped her. You helped her. So now, all of us will have some Champagne to celebrate her health, and the health of this Picasso painting. You are invited to drink with me, wherever the museum director says we should go."

Jorgee thought, 'Oh shit, here we go again, another party with a bunch of strangers, sucking up $100 bottles of juice.'

The museum director knew what to do. He got up on the bench next to Catherine and said, "My friends, Madame Catherine Deneuve and the Louvre Museum invite you to a Champagne party, in thirty minutes, in the main restaurant. Please tell the staff person at the restaurant that you are with the 'Picasso was Saved' group, and are joining the Champagne party. Thirty minutes. And thank you for your assistance. Your valuable assistance."

He kissed Catherine on the cheek, jumped off the bench, and headed down to the restaurant to tell the staff there to prepare for the party. Champagne for fifty, and load up the tables with all the food they could spare on this short notice. Jorgee thought, "Thank God, it's not our Champagne they're going to guzzle."

Spielberg motioned to the cameraman to stand down. He turned to the assistant film director and the production coordinator, said, "Holy shit. I hope we got all that. Holy shit."

The party lasted two hours, with the press adding to the havoc, cameras rolling, Catherine presiding, everyone drinking and eating. The restaurant staff ran out to the nearest wine stores and bought every case of Champagne they had in stock. The Director opened the party to everyone in the museum; everyone, that is, who could squeeze into the restaurant. Why? Because the Picasso was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million.

Late that night, back at the hotel, after Catherine had retired, Gwen and Anna sat alone, decompressing. Gwen said, "Don't ever forget what you saw today. Do you know what really happened?"

"Of course. Catherine helped that woman, and saved the Picasso. Amazing."

"Is that all?"

"She got the crowd to help. She made them part of the solution."

"And."

Anna looked at Gwen; didn't answer.

"What was the most important thing that happened there in the gallery?" Gwen asked.

"We helped the woman."

"Yes. What was the second most important thing that happened?"

"We saved the painting."

"No."

"What do you mean?"

"Catherine saving the painting was the third most important thing. Catherine teaching you was more important."

"Ummm....?"

"What did Catherine do? She acted. She followed her intuition. She helped a person in serious need. She commanded a crowd."

Anna kept looking at Gwen.

"Intuition. Half brain. Half heart. Mixed together in a special cocktail. Can't explain it. The best human force to follow. You. You have it more than most. Gotta learn to follow it. Good things happen. The best things. Smartness. Empathy. Good decisions. Special with you, Anna. Special. You learned today from her. Don't forget. Follow it. Do like her."

# Chapter 46 – Back Home

The Charleston team sat around the June's living room, with the Russian blue cats on the piano, taking it all in. One was fatter than the other.

Gale said, "So what's Spielberg going to do with the footage from the museum? Do you have a copy? Can we see it?"

Gwen said, "No, we don't have it. He said he doesn't know how he will use it, and he won't do anything with it anytime soon. He has looked at it, though, and says it's incredible. He won't do anything without the woman's permission, either. That wouldn't be right."

Guignard asked, "What did you do after that happened in the museum. Did you go back to filming the documentary?"

Gwen looked at Anna, who said, "Of course the production people wanted to get back to work, but we lost that day on the schedule, and then we lost the next day too because the French press, then the international press, went nuts over what happened. 'Deneuve Saves Woman's Life.' 'Deneuve saves Picasso.' 'Deneuve saves France $20 million.' All the next day the hotel was crammed with reporters, wanting her. They also knew Spielberg was filming in Paris, and they knew he was at the museum and at the hotel. A few of the press were interested in him and what he was doing. A few. But there was no getting out of the hotel that day, for any of us, that's for sure."

Gwen added, "The director of the museum refused to release video from the security camera, which was the right thing to do."

"After the two day delay, we went back to work, did about seven more days of filming. Long days, no fooling around. He had to have us drinking Champagne in some scenes, but they coordinated things so those were at the end of the day. Then back to work early in the morning."

Gale asked, "So when do we see it?"

Gwen said, "No idea. Could be one year, could be three. This is a Steven special project, him financing, so he has to finish all the other projects he's working on first."

She looked over at Jinny, asked, "So what have you been up to, fat boy. Been good?" The day after she met Little Jinny Blistov, more than a year earlier, she was sitting where she's sitting today. She remembered sticking him in the gut with a straight finger, thinking it would be soft. It wasn't. His gut was hard as a board. Still is. She liked to tease him about this, and knew Guignard didn't mind.

"Guignard's been working down at The Hall. They're doing well. The place is all fixed up, and they're writing music."

"Who's writing music?" Gwen asked.

Pater said, "Let Jinny tell you about his stuff. Then us."

Gwen looked back at Jinny, who said, "We've been sailing."

"You mean, around the harbor?"

"No. Outside. Out in the ocean." Jinny smiled, and Henric smiled, and Constantine acted as if he wanted to smile, but didn't.

"How'd you learn to do that?"

"You're not going to believe this," said Roger, rolling his eyes.

Jinny said, "After we got the boat fixed," meaning after the, ah, incident with Stirg, "we were out in the harbor again, and we had a little accident." He looked at Gwen, absolute neutrality on his face. No guilt, no joking, no teasing. "The College of Charleston sailing team was out in their J-22s, practicing. They're The Cougars. It was a little foggy, and we'd had a few shots."

"A few shots of what," Gwen asked.

Jinny thought it best to not answer directly. "There was an incident."

Gwen looked over at Roger for the story.

"They sliced through two of the J-22s, and put the kids in the water. The Coast Guard came out. They're lucky they haven't been deported."

Gwen looked over at Henric and Constantine. They shrugged, noncommittally. She looked at Helstof and Slevov. Slev said, "Boys will be boys."

Looking back at Jinny, Gwen asked, "So how did you guys get out of that mess?"

"Well, the Cougars are not going to have to worry about the condition of their boats for quite some time. They're getting a new fleet. Twenty-five J-33s, the new model. Fast. And the four kids that got dumped, they're crewing on the trip over to the islands, so they got no complaints."

"What trip to the islands?"

"Our trip. Us. We're going to St. Barths."

"Who's us?"

"Us, us. All of us. You, Roger, Gale, everyone who wants to go."

"When we left for France, you didn't even know how to raise a sail, much less sail across the ocean. Are you crazy?" She looked at Roger for help. He smiled.

Jinny explained. "The Cougars coach was out on the water that day, with the kids. He saw the accident. He saw Henric jump overboard with our inflatable raft, made sure the kids were all right. We got to know him during the investigation and the settlement, and he likes us." Jinny smiled. "Turns out he's a retired Olympic sailor. Now the coach. That's all he does, so he has time, and we invited him on-board. He likes good wine. Now he's our teacher, so we know how to sail. Sort of."

"Three weeks of learning, and you're ready to sail to St. Barths?"

"Not right away. We got to wait till the semester's over, so the kids can go. That's part of the deal with the college. So we got plenty of practice time till then."

Roger showed his hands to Gwen, in the gesture of, "Well...."

Gwen said, "And we thought we were the ones having an adventure."

She looked over at Peter and Pater. "So, what's up at The Hall? Who's writing music?"

Peter looked at Pater for the go-ahead to answer. Then they both looked at Selgey and Bart for the next level go-ahead. They all were a team, at this point. Peter said, "We're writing." He paused. "All three parts: the story, the music, the choreography. It's about Charleston."

Selgey took over. "The renovation of The Hall is done, thanks to Henric." She smiled at him. "We've made preliminary deals with some dancers to come from Moscow. The retired dancers we spoke of before. Four of them want to come, in a few months. We've hired an administrator to put the academy together. Also retired, from the San Francisco Ballet. She's here and working, full time. So that leaves the dancing part. We all decided," and she looked around at the academy team, "we want to be more than just a school for kids. We want to create, and doing that would be great publicity for the teaching. So, we're writing a ballet. An original."

Gale said, "Ain't that the hots. Famous people doing special stuff, here in little ole Charleston. Gwenny, you got some friends."

Gwen smiled, said, "Who's writing? Who?"

They all turned and looked at Richard, who looked down at his lap.

Bart said, "Richard has written the story. It's about how southern culture and northern culture are different. Charleston is the south, New York City is the north. It's a love story, of course. Northern girl meets southern boy, and they learn about each other."

Selgey said, "Bart and I are doing the choreography. We just started, but it's a blast. We're working every day."

Anna said, "And the music?"

Everyone looked back at Richard, who said, "I've owned a synthesizer for thirty years. Ever since The Who brought out Quadrophenia in the early 70s. One of the greatest songs ever written is on that album, Love Reign O'er Me. Had a big impact on me back then, so I learned to play the synthesizer, and I've played it ever since. For fun. Now, I guess, I'm gonna put it to another use. Write the music to go with the story." He looked around. "It's happening. Just like writing words. The music's coming. Helstof's learning to do the recording part of it. She's good with the computer." He looked over at her. Gwen looked at her and then at Henric. Henric was composed.

Gwen looked at Anna, said, "We weren't the only ones having fun, were we?"

# Chapter 47 – Grandfather and Granddaughter

The next day Anna called Jinny and asked him to meet her on The Battery. This was the place of Roger's incident with the four punks. Anna and Jinny met near the four Civil War 13-inch Seacoast mortars that pointed out over the harbor waters. Originally they were located on Fort Sumter, and pointed towards Charleston.

They did the double-cheeked kiss, and started walking. It was a beautiful day in a beautiful place. Jinny could tell Anna was in a serious mood, so he let her dictate their interaction. He knew what she needed.

"How's my grandfather?" she asked. "What happened after he attacked us? Do you know what he's doing?"

Jinny was ready for this. "We know something. He's ok. Roger tries to keep track of him. Sometimes your grandfather is at his house, and sometimes Roger doesn't know where he is. But he's ok. He even goes up to the campus once in a while, hangs out. He hasn't done anything else against us, which is good. Nev is with him."

"What happened to his boat?"

"Nothing, really. The next day he hired a tug to pull it off the sandbar. It was no big deal and the boat is over at his dock. He hasn't had it fixed yet, so you can see the scrape along the side, where he hit us."

"What do you think he's going to do next?"

Jinny didn't answer right away, and they walked the promenade for a while. Then he said, "Look, there are three options. He could get crazier and come after us again, with more violence. I hope that doesn't happen. I hope the attack out at the fort, and his failure, was a shock to him. People don't change behaviors unless some really powerful force acts on them. Maybe that was strong enough to rock him back to sanity. That's what I hope. The second option is that he gives it all up, lives with it, and is reasonably content. The third possibility is that he is halfway in between. Between crazy and reasonable. That's where he was until he went overboard, and attacked. Not crazy but not healthy. We don't know. We just don't know."

"Does he know I was on Henric's boat?"

"Yeah, he knows. He found out. Both he and Nev were stupid when they were planning the attack. They should have thought about you, but they didn't. They both were all emotions and no brains. I hope that means something to him. I hope that brings him back to normal."

Anna stopped and put her hands on the railing. She looked out towards Castle Pinckney and breathed deeply. She let the emotions come over her in a wave. Her grandfather. Her grandfather. She felt that sickness that comes over you when something bad happens in your family, something really bad. It's such a dreadful feeling. She closed her eyes and felt it all, Jinny standing motionless, looking at her. She let it happen, and then she led it away, led it through her and away from her. She opened her eyes and looked at Jinny. "Tomorrow I'll go see him."

Early in the morning she rang the buzzer on the ornate iron gate near the guest house, back at the land end of the long dock. Inside the house Nev looked at the security computer screen and saw it was Anna who had buzzed. He went into the living room and told Stirg. Stirg looked out the window for a moment, then nodded. Let her in.

When Nev opened the door and Anna entered the house, she gave him a neutral stare. She didn't know if he was good for her grandfather, or bad, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt. He had been loyal for a long time. She nodded and said, "Hello, Nev." He gestured towards the living room.

Her grandfather was standing at one of the big windows, looking out at the tiny flags flying over the fort. He didn't turn towards her when she came into the room, but he knew she was there. She walked over to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and turned him around. He was crying. The guy who had chased Nazis halfway around the world, was crying.

Anna knew then which of Jinny's three options had happened. Stirg had found out the next day that Anna was on the boat during his attack, and that had rocked his world. Anna. Thank god he had failed. Thank God Roger was better at boats than he was that night. The shock had brought him back to reality. His mind was dulled, hurt, bashed in, but it moved out of the cloud of delusion and resided in the real world again. That was good. Maybe it would heal.

Anna was a different person now than the last time she had been in this house. Both of them were different. Both had lived through powerful events, and Anna had moved into a new culture. She had left her grandfather's life and entered the orbit of Gwen and Roger June. She had lived with The Deneuve. She was different and better, understanding her gift of intuition; what it is and how to tap into it. Catherine had shown her that.

Over a period of a few years, Stirg had gone from international power stud to retired guy looking for meaning in his life. All the meaning resided in his granddaughter, and then something happened to her. She modulated from young adult to adult. She walked into a new world of special people, three of whom happened to be high level users of the tool of human intuition. Three women. And around the three women were a bunch of really interesting men. She plunged into the new world, leaving her old one. It happens.

Stirg took it really hard. The traits that made him a Nazi hunter didn't work very well in dealing with this situation. He went dark, into a place without a touchstone to reality. What he saw was this group of Russians in Charleston, surrounding his granddaughter, led by a couple of American squeakers, sitting around on sofas they'd stolen from the Hermitage Museum. Russian stuff. Czar stuff. Heritage stuff that should be in Russia. Not here.

Snap.

What a weird progression of events for Stirg. Learning of the Hermitage caper and tracking the perpetrators to his adopted town of Charleston. Wanting to avenge the theft of Russian artifacts by Americans. Pointing Anna into the June's home, and her getting caught. The presence of Catherine there, and her subtle influence over the Junes to co-op Anna into their fold. Gwen's decision to counter-invade his house. And then his crazy attack out in the harbor. An attack on his granddaughter. Thank god he and Nev were past it, and Roger was not.

Stirg took a very deep breath, and let it out. He closed his eyes for a minute, and when he opened them, he was back in the real world, with his granddaughter. His adult granddaughter. He didn't say anything, and neither did she. They both knew things were ok.

# Chapter 48 – Happy People

Anna sat at the piano on the stage at The Hall looking at Richard. He sat staring at his Roland Juno Gi synthesizer, wondering what he had gotten himself into. Writing a ballet. Jesus. When he looked up, Anna smiled, and that made things better. A lot better. Anna was the bomb.

She had asked her grandfather if he would lend her his piano because she was working on something musical, and that made him happy, so he said yes. Now the Stirg Bosendorfer sat on the stage, sending beautiful sounds throughout The Hall. Richard and she and Helstof were here every day, working on the score. Helstof had set up the computer at the edge of the stage and wired it to the synthe. Richard would play, fiddle, play some more, and after a while would nod to Helstof, who would start the computer recording. Anna would listen to his melodies and transcribe them to the piano. She did this by ear, not writing anything down in musical notation.

Also on the stage were four large white boards, five feet high and seven feet wide, on rollers. Written on the boards, in a variety of images, was Richard's story about the interplay of southern and northern cultures. The images made up a story book, similar to what directors first draw on paper and later capture in action on film. The images on the boards changed as Richard composed the music. Selgey and Bart were at The Hall every day, too, watching as Anna and Richard drew the images on the boards, and then discussed the evolution of the story. Sometimes they would lie on their backs on the stage floor, dreaming of dance movement, and sometimes they would move around the stage together, talking about the story, about positions, about interactions, and sometimes they just moved together, without thinking. Peter and Pater ran the operation at The Hall, hanging around until Richard or Anna needed something done, and they would do it. Then they would hang around some more, until Selgey or Bart needed something, and they would get it. Every hour or so they would go in the offices in the back where the academy administrator was working, and help her. They were gophers, and they loved every minute of it. Henric would stop in once a week to see how things were going, and Peter and Pater would run around and show him what his money had paid for. At first Henric kept track of the money he spent on the academy, but he gave that up. He was happy with what was happening at The Hall, and gave them a blank check.

One reason he did this was because he was very happy doing what he was doing. Sailing. The College of Charleston sailing coach took Henric, Constantine, and Jinny out twice a week, teaching them the basics. Their first run outside the jetties was up to Georgetown. Henric and Jinny got seasick. The second run outside was down to Hilton Head, where they brought the boat into the marina where Henric had bought it. On this run Constantine got sick. All three of them were in paradise, and puking never had been so rewarding.

Henric and Helstof hardly stayed at the Kiawah house, sleeping on the boat at the marina. Jinny asked if he could sleep on the boat too, but they said no. Guignard also said no.

Anna moved out of the Sullivan's Island house the day after she met her grandfather. It wasn't right to be there anymore, which Slev understood, but she missed Anna. Anna asked Peter and Pater if she could stay at The Hall. After the reconciliation with her grandfather, she could live anywhere and feel reasonably content, but she liked The Hall, and it had lots of rooms, so she set a cot up in one of them, becoming like the phantom of the opera, living and working in the same place. She became the spirit of The Hall and of the writing of the ballet.

Gwen visited The Hall one day with Jinny. It was hot, and after a while both Gwen and Jinny took off their jackets. Peter and Pater noted that neither was carrying a gun on their waistband at the rear of their hip, and looked at each other with relief. Thank God, that was over. Back to art. Gwen took them out into the seats and sat down.

She said, "How much time does Anna spend here?"

"She lives here."

"I know she's staying here, but what does she do? When you guys are not working?"

Peter looked at Pater. "Don't know."

"Does she have a boyfriend?"

"She spends her time with Richard."

"I mean, is she sleeping with anyone?"

"As far as we know, there's no lucky guy." Peter said this as a matter of form, not substance. He was being quaint.

Gwen pondered on this. The world of men was being deprived. Why?

# Chapter 49 – Stirg Thinks

Stirg hadn't had a drink in weeks. Some people, when they feel depressed, drink more. Not Stirg. One thing he had learned, all those hard years roaming around Argentina looking for fugitive Nazis, was self-discipline. He knew he had to be sharp almost all the time, and drinking interfered with that.

When he went off the deep end and tried to crash his boat into Henric's boat, he was pretty far out there. He blamed the entire June entourage both for his granddaughter's defection and for the Hermitage heist. Even during those rotten days, though, he didn't drink. Now that he and Anna were back in touch with each other, and he had regained his senses, he allowed himself a few drinks now and then. He and Nev were doing the Otis Redding thing, out at the end of the dock. He had gotten the big scrap along the side of his ship fixed, too. They were drinking spicy bloody marys, made by Nev, and Nev was happy about his boss's new state of mind, because he had missed the drinking part of life.

Nev also had regained the equilibrium he had lost the day Roger had hit Stirg on the head with his gun, which was followed by Jinny walking out of the house with his boss's gun. Humiliation can be a powerful motivator and had caused Nev to become consumed with the emotion of revenge. Both guys had gone to a galaxy far away, but now they were back, and Stirg was figuring out what to do. His spicy drink and the warm evening air were nice.

"How come you never made a pass at Anna?" Stirg said.

Nev didn't answer right away, thinking it best to tread with caution. He wasn't 100% sure his boss was all the way back from the distant galaxy he had visited. "She's your granddaughter. You're my boss. How would I do that?"

"You're older than her. Like twenty years older. You think it's ok for older guys to go out with younger women?" Stirg drained his drink.

"Yeah, it's ok, as long as she isn't your boss's granddaughter. Then it's not ok. Ok?"

Stirg said, "I don't have a boss, so I don't have to worry about that, but I've been chasing some younger women around lately, and I'm not sure that's a good thing for me anymore. Maybe I should act my age."

Nev didn't bite on this one. He sipped his drink and watched a Coast Guard inflatable boat with a 50. cal machine gun mounted on the front, zip past.

"Anna and I are ok with each other again. Thank God. She pissed me off, but I missed her bad. She's a doll. Is she a doll, or not?" he asked.

Nev was trying to enjoy his drink and the evening, and here his boss was asking him pointed questions. "She's a nice girl," he said.

Stirg thought for a minute, said, "Is she a girl, or a woman, or a doll? She's twenty-seven. I've chased twenty-somethings, so that makes her a woman. How come you called her a girl?" He looked at Nev.

Jesus Christ. Fuck off. "That's just a figure of speech, Boss. She's a nice woman. Not a doll, just a nice person. Very proper."

"What's your definition of doll? Is a doll promiscuous? Or is that a term of endearment? Or is a doll the same thing as a babe? Is babe derogatory? Is it disrespectful? Is political correctness crap, or should we all be doing it all the fucking time? You're a Jew. Is calling someone a Jew disrespectful? Can gentiles call Jews, Jews? Where does political correctness come down on that one? Where's Woody Allen when I need him?"

Nev got up and went on board the ship and mixed two more drinks. He took a long time doing it, hoping Stirg would forget the list of questions he had issued to society at large. He made Stirg's drink really strong, hoping it would curb his probes into contemporary sociology.

When he came back he said, "Anna's no longer my baby, is she? Plus, I was glad when she took the Walther and broke into the June's home to brace their asses, see if they were the ones done the Hermitage caper. I guess a grandfather wouldn't do that if the girl, woman, still was his baby. Would he?" He looked at Nev.

Nev handed Stirg the strong-ass drink and hoped he would guzzle it. Nev was trying to relax after being nuts for a few weeks himself, and get back in the groove of living the good life, working for a billionaire. He'd even gotten back into doing pushups again, try to get back into the Israeli commando thing and bodyguard thing. Get his confidence back. Wasn't easy knowing four women in bikinis had invaded his place of residence; seeing four babes sitting in his living room, his boss's living room, waving guns around. Four women, rather. Nev took a deep breath, sucked on his bloody mary. Easy does it. Don't want to fly away again, do we Nev?

"Anna says she's left that Sullivan's Island house. The Rodstras, those fucks. It's good she left. I asked her where she's living, she said someplace called The Hall. On John Street. She said she's working there, too. Livin' and working, same place. I asked her what's she's doing, she said she's working with the same bunch, the American fucks and the Russian fucks. That's where the piano went. She says she's playing the piano for them, a ballet. What do Americans know about ballet? Nothing. We know ballet."

Nev looked at Stirg's glass, saw it was half empty, hoped Stirg would drain it, calm down. Starting to sound like he was getting ready to board the spaceship again, go away. Nev was NOT getting on board again with him. Not this time. Once was enough. Otis Redding. That's who he wanted to serve. Out here, on the dock. Not up there in space. Hell with that.

"Would be nice to hear her play piano, though. She's great. Maybe some Stravinsky. That guy could do ballet stuff. Maybe we should go down to John Street, see what's happening." He sipped, not fast enough for Nev. "I can't screw up with Anna again, can I?" He looked at Nev. "Better not go down there to see her, if that crew is there. She said she'd come here anytime, so that's what I'll do, invite her here once a week, have dinner. Can you still cook? Maybe take her out to dinner. She can tell me more about what's she's doing with the music, the ballet. Tell me more about what the fucks are doing, too."

# Chapter 50 – Anna's Intuition

Helstof knew something about computers, but she wasn't a geek. So every few days she'd try something new with the music recording software, and it would go wrong. Then Richard and Anna would have to stop working and wait for Helstof to figure it out. When she couldn't figure it out, she called Gale, who called her nephew, who was a geek.

The writing was going ok. Richard had completed the story about a northern girl from New York City who meets a southern boy from Charleston. They fall in love, and all hell breaks loose. She drives around Charleston the way she does on the Van Wyck Expressway in Brooklyn, meaning like a maniac. He slumps down in his seat and prays. When he drives around SoHo, she sits in her seat, wondering if she's going to enter menopause before they get where they're going.

Selgey and Bart fly around The Hall. Not like they used to, of course, during the big time, but they still have some chops. Sometimes they waltz up and down the aisles with each other, having fun, and when they do that, everything in The Hall stops and everyone watches. Even the admin person comes out of the office. The second time the admin person saw them do this waltzing thing, she decided she could sell tickets to it. The $50 tickets would be out in the audience seats, with Selgey and Bart cruising up and down the aisles. But she also would set up chairs on the stage, and those tickets would go for $100. This admin person had been in the ballet business in San Francisco for a long time, and she never had heard of any professional outfit seating people on the stage and having the dancers out among the seats. That was a new one.

Peter and Pater had bought a video camera, and learned to use it. When Selgey and Bart would dance, which was almost every day, because they loved it, Peter or Pater would film them. Pater wanted to mount the camera up in the ceiling somewhere so it could film anywhere in the theater. The renovation that Henric had paid for included state of the art sound and video capabilities, but both Peter and Pater were afraid of going up on the catwalks above the stage. Maybe they could get Gale's nephew the geek to do that.

One morning Gwen stopped by, and it happened to be at a time when the recording system was down. Richard put on his headphones and played for himself, which left Anna with nothing to do, so she and Gwen sat on the edge of the stage.

Anna said, "Can I talk with you about something?" Gwen nodded. "I know what happened in the Louvre with Catherine. And I know what you told me was important about that. You said intuition. Most people know about intuition, or think they do. But I'm not sure what most people think is what you and Catherine and Slev think. About intuition, I mean. What is it?"

Gwen had been waiting for Anna to ask this for a long time. She said, "Intuition is not something mysterious. It like a lot of things; some people have more of it than others. You have a lot. That's why Catherine did what she did with you in France. She was training you to use what you have."

"So what is it? I know what I think it is, but I want to hear you say what you think it is."

"Let me say again, it's not something mysterious. Some people make it out to be, but it isn't. There are psychologists who do hypnotism. Most people think hypnotism is mysterious, and that comes mostly from psychologists who pretend it's something that only a few specially trained people can do. Meaning them. They earn money from doing it, so they want to make people think it's something special. It's not. It's really just a relaxation technique."

Anna was following.

"Intuition is the same kind of thing. Some people want to make themselves out to be special, so they talk about intuition as if it was special to the few. Everyone has it to some degree or other, but it's like critical thinking. You have to train yourself to be good at it. You have to increase your awareness of it so you can use it. Same with intuition. People who have it in large doses should make an effort to use it well, because it's a great tool for living a good life."

Gwen let herself down off the edge of the stage, said, "Let's walk a little.

Intuition is the best way to understand things. It's a blend of thinking and feeling. That's it, those two things together. It takes practice to do that, and understand how it works, and be aware of it when it's happening." Anna nodded. They turned at the top of the aisle, walked across the rear of the theater, then back down the other aisle towards the stage.

"The religious people have been working on their philosophies for a couple of thousand years. One god, a dozen gods, a thousand gods. Some with white beards, some with eight arms. 'Angels in the architecture,' as Paul Simon sings. People really needed all that for a long time to make sense of their feelings, their lives. Then a couple hundred years ago a few English guys and a few French guys said, 'hell no,' we need to live using our thinking, our rational minds. And they worked out their philosophies about that." Anna kept nodding, she knew what Gwen was talking about, the Enlightenment.

"Now," Gwen went on, "the biophysiologists and psychologists are learning about how the brain and nervous system work to make us conscious. They're figuring out lots of stuff about how we develop as children and why we do what we do as adults. The good things and the bad things. I'm sure they think they will learn everything and know everything, but they won't. The Enlightenment guys thought they had it figured, that thinking was the be all and end all. They were wrong. We're emotional creatures at the base of things. We're biological creatures, flesh and blood and nerves, so there's no way we can live well by relying only on thinking. The world is too complex, and we don't work that way.

"At the same time, we can't go through life 'living on nerves and feelings,' as that other great songwriter says, Joni Mitchell. We can't give in to our emotions. That would be crazy and devastating. Right?" She stopped walking and looked hard at Anna.

"So the best way right now is to learn about and use intuition. The blend of thinking and feeling. It's special. And you got it in spades." Gwen hugged Anna. "That's all. Nothing mysterious, but yes, important. Very important."

Richard let out a blast on his synthesizer as a test for Helstof, who was pretty sure she had gotten the software working again. She nodded. Richard looked out at the theater, found Anna, and motioned her up on the stage. Back to work. She smiled at Gwen, who headed for the office, checking that Peter and Pater were doing ok.

# Chapter 51 – Legs

Stirg and Nev sat in the kitchen, staring at the screen of their laptop. They were at the Mariinsky Ballet website, looking at photos of ballerinas.

Nev said, "Those are some legs."

Stirg said, "Those are more than just legs. Those are Donatello legs."

They both watched as the pages flipped by: ballerinas in the air, ballerinas doing scissor moves, ballerinas contorted into parabolic shapes, ballerinas in their tutus. Legs, legs, and more legs. Everything and everybody was beautiful beyond description.

Finally Stirg said, "Did you know about this ballet stuff? You ever go to the ballet, see these babes in person?"

"Yeah, I actually know a guy in Moscow. One of the dancers. Good guy."

"How do you know him? I got to learn about this if Anna is doing it. Composing music for ballet. On my piano. Plus, I gotta see some of these legs, in person."

Nev said, "A few years ago one of the Russian ballet groups was in Tel Aviv, putting on shows. Some Chechens kidnapped some of the dancers and tried to trade them for some Chechens in a Russian prison. Snatched 'em from the hotel they were staying at."

"What happened?"

"Russians said they would come down, handle the situation, but the Israelis said no, this was on their ground. So they sent in Mossad. I was one of the backup team, waiting if things didn't go right. But they did. First team got the dancers out. End of Chechens."

"I never heard about that?"

"Some things like that the Israelis publicize. Some things they don't."

"So how do you know one of the ballet guys?"

"Well, they were happy they didn't get blown up by the Chechens. There was kind of a party, them thanking us. I met the guy there, and we hit it off. I took him around the city during his time off."

"He have nice legs?"

"I didn't notice."

"Well, I got to learn about ballet so I can talk about it with Anna. I gotta kind of try to live in her world. Her new world. Right?"

"Yeah, that would be good. That's good thinking. Easy does it on the thinking stuff, Boss."

They looked at some more photos of legs. Stirg said, "You think you can get in touch with this ballet guy you know? Maybe I can talk to him, ask him questions."

"I'll send him an email right now."

# Chapter 52 – Stirg Steams Again

Next day Nev walked into the living room where Stirg was staring out into space. Nev looked in the same direction, but didn't see anything out there of surpassing interest, just the harbor waters with the tide coming in and going out. He wasn't sure he wanted to tell Stirg what he had to tell him, with Stirg's tenuous hold on planet Earth; his inclination to voyage outwards.

"I got an answer from the dancer guy. He asked if I'd killed any Chechens recently, and I told him I didn't know of any here in Charleston. He asked me what I'm doing here, and I told him I'm with you. Then I told him you wanted to talk to him about ballet. He said sure."

Stirg nodded, said, "Maybe I'll call him tomorrow. You got his number?"

Nev said yes. Then he decided he had to tell Stirg the next part. "Guess what? This guy knows someone who's coming to Charleston. An older dancer. Retired guy. I guess these dancer types don't last too long. They're like gymnasts; washed up by the time they hit twenty-eight. Two guy dancers and two girl dancers are coming here, and my guy knows one of them. And guess what else? The retired guy told my guy it's a sweet deal. All expenses paid, for three months. They're gonna be teachers here."

"What are they gonna teach?"

Nev looked at Stirg, thinking, what do you think they're gonna teach, soccer? He said, "Dancing. Gonna teach Americans to ballet dance. Said there's going to be a new school here, with famous dancers."

Slowly Stirg turned away from the window and looked at Nev. "New school? Here?" He sat down in one of the overstuffed leather armchairs, and looked at Nev again. "You think, Nev? You think this is what Anna's involved in? You think she's part of this school?" Stirg's voice had taken on a hoarseness to it.

Nev had more to tell, which he didn't want to do. "The retired dancer guy who's coming here told my dancer guy something else. Something about the sweet deal."

"What?"

"The guy said they're going to live in a big house together, the four retired dancers. They'll have the whole house to themselves, each have a bedroom, and the house is on the beach." Nev paused.

"What else, Nev. What else did the guy say about the sweet deal?"

"The people here that are doing this school thing, that asked these four dancers to come and teach, they told the dancers about the all expenses paid, and the salary, and the big house, but the Russians still weren't sure they wanted to come. Come all the way to a small place like Charleston and teach in a new school. So the people here said that the teaching time would be January, February, and March, and said the dancers could walk on the beach in front of their house, wear just a sweater. Said it's warm in Charleston then, not like in Moscow."

"Yeah, and...."

"And the last thing the people here said, try to persuade the dancers to come, was the house would have lots of Russian furniture in it. Real stuff. Old stuff. Would make the dancers feel like they were at home."

"They said that? Said the house would have old Russian stuff in it?"

Nev nodded. Waited. Watched Stirg get up from the chair, stand there a minute, then slowly walk towards the wide door of the living room. When he reached the door he stopped and turned around. Said, "These Charleston fucks. Gonna put old Russian stuff in a beach house, huh? Like hell they are."

# Chapter 53 – Stolen Again

Peter and Pater each spun a white board around so Richard and Anna could see the stuff written on the back. Richard and Anna sat side by side on the bench in front of the synthesizer, and Helstof was over at the edge of the stage, sitting in front of the computer that recorded everything Richard played on the synthesizer and Anna played on the piano. Richard put his arm around Anna and said, "Do you see anything we missed?"

She stared at the white boards, and motioned to Pater to turn his around again. Her eyes scanned the words and the little pictographs they used to storyboard the ballet. Pater turned the board again, and again Anna scanned the images. Then she closed her eyes, thinking about sixteen weeks of intense work. She opened them and looked at Richard.

"We're done. I think we're done."

Richard dropped his chin to his chest, feeling a combination of exhaustion and elation. Then he looked at Anna and said, "Yeah, I think we're done. Thank God."

Peter and Pater watched closely because they weren't sure what was happening. They hoped it was something good, and it was. Richard got up and went over to where they stood and said, "The first draft of the music is done." Anna got up and went over to Helstof and said the same thing. Done. Peter and Pater hugged Richard, and Helstof hugged Anna. They had written original music for a ballet.

Pater ran into the back office and told Selgey and Bart and the admin woman the news, and they ran out to the stage and went to Richard and Anna and congratulated them. What an accomplishment. Now Selgey and Bart could fully attack the choreography. They had been working on it the entire time Richard and Anna had been working on the music, following the storybooking on the white boards. And as they created the movements of the dancers, Peter and Pater had written down their descriptions, using dancer language and terms and shorthand. Locations on the stage. Positions of the dancers. Flows and changes and rhythms and gestures. Sometimes as Richard or Anna played sections of the music, Selgey or Bart would dance the choreography, and other times they would have Helstof play a recording of the music on the computer, through the theater's new sound system, and they would dance to that.

The two composers and the two choreographers knew completion of the entire first draft of the score was a major milestone in the project, and had agreed, when that was done, that they would move forward with the production. They knew they could finish the choreography and begin revising the music over the next few months, while at the same time committing themselves to the business part of the academy, the students and the production. Their business plan was to stage the production first, and use publicity from that to attract and choose the students.

Over coffee, the six artists sat with the admin woman and carefully went down the list of tasks to be done over the next few months. They came to an item the admin person had been eyeing for some time, a high dollar item. Her list said, "Purchase large beach house for visiting dancers." She knew real estate values in Charleston, so she asked, "What about this house? Where, and how much, and who's paying?"

Peter said, "Pater and I've been talking about that, and we think we should change that from beach house to 'old historic house south of Broad Street.' We think the dancers will want to be downtown, where there's some action, since they're here for three months, not years. What do you think?"

Everyone agreed. Pater said, "Ok, then, we go to Henric and ask him to give us the money, and we go to Gwen and ask her to find the place."

The next day Peter and Pater went to the June's house and told Gwen and Roger about the completion of the music. They were on their way. Gwen got on the phone and told Guignard, who got on the phone and told everyone else. When Slev heard, she immediately organized a celebratory dinner, which she and Gale would cook, and which would be at the June's house. They set the date for a week hence, and sent out the invitations. This would provide time for the admin person to get moving on new tasks, and for Henric to come up with money for the new property, and Gwen to start looking for it. Everything shifted into high gear.

Roger wasn't sure he wanted to shift into high gear, because he was enjoying being a bum. A gentleman bum, but a bum nonetheless, He hadn't done much of anything for weeks other than dink around with the hundreds of bottles of burgundy in his cellar. That's about it. Same with Jinny, who was enjoying learning to sail. He and Constantine and Henric went out two times a week with the College of Charleston coach. They had one thing on their minds: St. Barths. But Gwen kicked both of their asses, and told them she would have a new property soon, downtown. They would have to furnish it, just as they had done with the Sullivan's Island house and the Kiawah house.

So Roger scheduled a day with Jinny for them to go to the warehouse and look through the Hermitage stuff for items they would put in the new place. Gwen told Roger to do that the afternoon of Slev's dinner. She had invited the entire crew over for 3pm, to socialize before dinner. She knew everyone enjoyed sitting in the big kitchen, watching Slev and Gale cook. She also knew that if Jinny was there, he would try to open bottles of wine immediately and start drinking, and she didn't want a bunch of sloshheads around before the meal began. After the meal, sloshheads were fine. So she banished Roger and Jinny from the social hour.

Jinny picked Roger up at 2pm, and they drove over to the warehouse. Neither of them had been there in more than a month. When they pulled into the warehouse parking lot, Jinny opened the trunk and took out a cooler. Inside were two bottles of Champagne, which he showed to Roger.

"You're a bad boy, Jinny Blistov. A very bad boy." And Roger popped a cork. They sat on the edge of the loading dock, enjoying the wine and their shared sense of accomplishment at sticking it to Gwen, the partypooper. Two glasses each flowed down their throats, and the transformation began.

Roger stood up and said, "We gotta do something here or Gwen will shoot us." While Roger unlocked the wide sliding doors, Jinny put the cooler back in the trunk of the car. He climbed back up on the loading dock where Roger stood in the warehouse doorway, looking inside. Roger reached to the side of the doorway and flipped the light switch. It was empty. The warehouse was empty. No velvet sofas, no paintings of borzois, no Tiffany lamps, no Turkish carpets. What they saw was a whole lot of empty. They looked at each other, and with not even a second of hesitation, both said the same thing: STIRG.

# Chapter 54 – Gone in the Night

They left the sliding doors open because there wasn't anything inside for anyone to take, and drove back to Roger's house. As they mounted the back steps leading into the kitchen, where they heard people talking, lots of people, Jinny asked, "What are you going to tell them?"

"Me. Why do I do the telling? It was your idea to go to Russia and steal the stuff. I just helped. You tell them it's gone."

Jinny thought Roger was being childish. This was his house, he should tell his guests what they'd found. The theft. They entered the kitchen where they were greeted by thirteen people, the same people who had been on the boat when Stirg attacked off Fort Sumter. Of the fifteen people now together, eight had been directly involved in the theft of artifacts from the Hermitage. The other seven were peripherally involved, or learned about the heist after the heist team returned to Charleston.

In the June kitchen were thirteen happy people, celebrating the completion of the first draft of the ballet score, and two sad people, those who knew all the valuable artifacts had disappeared in the night. Thirteen happy faces, two stone faces. Roger and Jinny might have categorized the expression on their faces as neutral rather than stony, but to the others in the room, who symbolically had been dancing and singing, there was a difference between them like night and day. Gwen and Guignard, especially, could see that something was wrong. Gwen asked, "Is the dog ok?" Ever since the dog had alerted Roger and Gwen in the middle of the night to the presence of an invader in their home, she had held an exalted place in the June home.

"The dog's ok. She's out back," said Roger.

Gwen waited. Guignard waited. Jinny waited for Roger to tell. Roger waited for Jinny to tell. It was Anna who cut through the wimpiness of the two guys, Anna and her intuition. She said, "It's all gone, isn't it? All the stuff."

Roger looked at her, looked at Gwen, looked around the room.

"All gone. Every piece," he said.

Then Anna looked around the room at the fourteen faces. Sixteen counting the two Russian blue cats sitting on the counter near the pantry. Twenty-one if you counted the baby kittens, soon to be born in a box in the pantry. The kittens didn't understand the human conversation, but they were listening, nonetheless.

Anna said, "Good old Granddad. He's not over the hill yet."

###

Richard Dorrance lives in America's most beautiful town,

Charleston, South Carolina.

You can look at other books on his website: richarddorrance.com

