 
Gwenny June's Tommy Crown Affair

By Richard Dorrance

Copyright 2014 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 – I Can't Help It, I'm a Thief

"You what?" Roger said.

"I pinched it."

"You mean you stole it?"

"Yes, dear. That's what pinched means. To steal."

"Why?"

"Because it belonged to my family a long time ago, and I wanted it back. It looks great where it is now."

"Where is it, Gwen?"

"In the living room, over the piano."

"You stole the most famous painting in Charleston, and stuck it in our living room? In our house? Where people can see it?"

"Where else would I put it? If I want to see it, it has to be in our house."

My husband didn't say anything for a minute, which wasn't a bad thing. It meant he was trying to understand me, rather than simply figure out his own point of view on the matter, which is what most husbands do when their wives do something unexpected. Roger is good at corralling his own thoughts when I throw something at him, which happens now and then, and waiting to hear what I have to say before he offers a response. He's not like most guys who turn on their opinion formation machinery before really knowing their wife's thoughts and feelings. He's a good boy in that department, which is one reason I love him after all these years. All these years of getting into trouble with him, and sometimes, like now, without him. If I'd known I was going to steal the painting before he left on his trip, I'd have told him. Honest I would've.

He said, "Well for God's sake watch who you invite over for cocktails. Especially the Mayor. You know how he likes to play chopsticks on the Steinway with you sitting next to him."

"I promise not to invite the Mayor over while you're gone. Or anybody else who knows about art stuff. Really, wait till you see it. It's back where it belongs."

"Ok, but be careful. They're not going to let that go without an investigation, even if it's covered by insurance, which I'm sure it is. I don't want to come home to an empty house, knowing I only can visit you in the slammer once a month for an hour."

"I'll try to avoid that. But if it were to happen you'd still have the dog to keep you company."

"The fact that the dog talks to us telepathically is not the same thing as having a wife to play with after we polish off a bottle of wine with lunch."

"Why does everything with you always revolve around sex?"

"Because I'm married to a woman who, in terms of sexual attractiveness, would make Sharon Stone cry. That's why. It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. Don't try to pin my libidinous inclinations on me; I've got nothing to do with them. If I was married to Sharon Stone rather than you, I'd probably be taking a testosterone drug, and I'm only forty-four. I'm pleased that you assist me in coming by my inclinations in an honest and natural way."

"So far," I added, sticking it to him a little. My hubby.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"By the way, what are you doing with your inclinations over there in France, far away from me, the dog, and your home?"

"I'm doing what every guy does when he doesn't have a playmate. What are you doing while I'm so far away, here in the vineyards? When you're not stealing things from museums?"

"I told you one big secret today, can't tell them all."

"Wonderful. My wife either will end up in jail for twenty years or married to someone else after she gets rid of me. I do so look forward to coming home."

"Chin up, Roggy. If I do leave you for another man I promise to leave the painting here in the living room for you to enjoy, as a token of the esteem in which formerly I held you."

"Will you leave the dog, too, so I'll have someone to talk to, ensconced in my loneliness?"

"Don't get greedy, or I may take the painting, the dog, and the Steinway with me. When are you coming home, assuming I'm not in jail or living in a mansion on Lake Como with Adonis?"

"Adonis. Adonis. Oh, the Greek god."

"I'm not going to leave you for chopped liver, darling."

"That's very considerate. Is that his first name or last, as in Mr. Adonis?"

"He's like the Brazilian soccer players who are so famous in their country they only use one name. Sometimes, when we're alone, he lets me call him Donnie. But never in public. Image thing."

"I'm still on schedule here, so two more months. You can come over here and visit if you want. You know that."

"Let me see how I feel in a week or so. The excitement of the heist hasn't worn off yet, stilling buzzing on the high. I've slept on the living room sofa the last three nights just to be near it."

"Alone?"

"Yes dear, for the time being, just me and the big piece of canvas."

"I love you, Gwenny."

"I know, dear, and I love you. See you soon.

# Chapter 2 – What Made Me Steal It

While my hubby is in France writing the script for a little doco on the wines of Burgundy, I was stealing paintings from the Charleston Museum. One painting that is, not multiple. That's not such a bad thing to do, is it? One little painting that was owned by my family in the early 1800s. A girl's gotta do something when her husband's away, right? Some girls have flings, which despite my teasing is not something I do, and others, well, steal things. Or, as I rationalized it to myself, reclaimed some long lost family property. And I was a little bored without Roger, me liking the wine with lunch and the apre lunch roll in the hay as much, or more, than him. But it was seeing the painting hanging in the museum with that little card pasted on the wall next to it that said, "Formerly in the collection of Manigault Bedgewood," who was my great great great great great granddaddy, died in 1825. Bedgewood was my maiden name until Roger showed up, him being lucky as hell to meet me and have me grant him access to afternoon delights nonpareil. The Charleston Museum, being the oldest museum in the United States, founded in 1773, stole the painting from ole Manigault and made it the cornerstone of their collection of paintings. At least that's my family lore, though whether the museum staff would agree is another matter.

It was one of the first days after Roger left for France, and already I was bored. Ergo the trip to the museum. And there it was on the wall, all four feet by six feet of it, showing Manigault's wife standing next to the fireplace in full flowing white dress with a crystal goblet wine glass in her elegant hand. Seeing the card was enough to rile my sense of injustice. Whenever Roger and I visit the museum and stand looking at the painting, he says, "That's you, you know. She's you; or you're her. Same face, same body under the dress, same hands. Same wine lush of a personality," and he'd smile at me with the last part. I don't know if I love the painting because of what he says, or because the woman at the fireplace is quite beautiful, or if I love it because she represents the history of my Charleston family going way back, or if I love it because of the skill of the artist who painted it. I just know I love it, and now I can love it at home, rather than in the museum. Or, maybe, just between you and me, and not to put too fine a point on it, I love it because I stole it, and doing that was a lot of fun.

# Chapter 3 – The Investigator

The Director and Curator of the museum stood with the Mayor and the Chief of Police looking at the discolored rectangle of wall where the painting had hung since the new museum building was constructed in the 1970s. The Director said to the Mayor, "We gotta get it back."

The Mayor looked at the Chief of Police and said, "We gotta get it back."

The Chief looked at the wall and thought, 'I don't even know how they stole it, much less how I'm going to get it back.' He said, "I'm on it boss, all day and all night." He had a squad in the room taking photos and looking for fingerprints, but he knew tomorrow they'd be on a murder scene or something like that, and the Mayor would say to him then, "Gotta catch that guy, can't have murderers wandering around the tourist district knocking off visitors," and he'd say, "I'm on it boss, all day and all night."

The Mayor said to the Director, "There, he's on it," and walked out.

The Chief looked at the Director and said, "Was it insured?"

"Of course. Everything in here is insured."

"How much?"

"I'm not sure, but I think it is $2 million, something like that."

The Chief said, "The insurance company's not going to want to pay that without doing an investigation."

"You just told the Mayor you're doing an investigation."

"We are. See these people? That's the investigation. Tomorrow they're going to be investigating a murder, or something like that. And the next day another crime. That's the way it is here."

The Director said, "Are you telling me you're not going to do a full investigation, put a team on this until you catch the thief? Get back the City's most important work of art?"

"Of course not. I just told my boss I'm on this case day and night."

"Well?"

"Well, my boss has a short memory. He's a politician. Tomorrow something else will catch his attention, and he'll tell me to work on it, put the whole force on it, day and night. Then the next day....you see my point? You reading between the lines?"

The Director looked at the Chief for a moment, then at the rectangle on the wall, then at the police technicians who already were packing up, then back at the Chief, and said, "Got it." An hour later he sat in his office and called the insurance company. He had a copy of the policy in front of him, and the person on the other end of the phone call sat with her copy of the policy in front of her. She said, "It's covered for two and a half million. Anything over quarter of million, we don't rely on the local police; we do our own investigation. Anything over a million gets bumped up to the highest priority category for our investigative unit. So, we'll have somebody down there day after tomorrow. Let me see who's available right now, hold on." The Director heard the woman talk on another phone, heard her say, "Is he back from Paris yet?" Pause. "Ok, tell him not to unpack, he's going out again right away. Charleston. Painting." Pause. "I don't care if his mother's dying or his dog's dying or if he has a dentist appointment or he doesn't have any clean clothes. He's going. That's why we pay him the big percentage."

She came back on his phone and said, "You there? Ok, we got the guy who's coming down, be there day after tomorrow. He'll come to your office."

"What's his name?"

"Crown. Tommy Crown. You can tell your cops they can go chase murderers. Tommy'll find the painting."

# Chapter 4 – The Type of Girl I Am

The type of girl I am has to do with family history and genes. That is what Roger referred to when we stood looking at the painting and said I am like the girl in the painting: "She's you; or you're her." There's a family story that illustrates this transfer of behavioral traits down to me from earlier Bedgewood women, and it is recorded in the book The Buildings of Charleston by the architectural historian, Jonathan Poston. I like Jonathan because he is a great scholar, and because he dresses so perfectly retrograde. Winter or summer, one can see Jonathan walking the streets with this khaki pants perfectly pressed, and his starched-like-a-board white shirt with those cool and old fashioned creases and pleats at the shoulders and wrists, and of course the obligatory bow tie. If its ninety-five degrees in the shade and ninety percent humidity, Jonathan still will sport a white dress shirt and tie.

In his book entry describing the historic Luxembourg Hotel in Charleston, Poston tells a delicious anecdote about Elspeth and her husband, Lowndes. Lowndes was the sixth mayor of Charleston, mayoring from 1832 till 1842, and Elspeth was the daughter of Gillespie Bedgewood, governor of South Carolina from 1819 till 1824. Lowndes was wild, and Elspeth was wilder. They both had money, even when young, and they both loved horses, and they both could shoot shotguns, and they both loved to drink English gin and French bordeaux, and they both loved to make love. Now that, folks, is the recipe for fun.

Lowndes and Elspeth weren't married when they decided they would have fun together, though they ended up hitched for twenty-six years. Before they got married they had to find places where they could have the types of fun they wanted, and one of those was the hotel. When the owner of the hotel objected to them firing shotguns at pigeons while standing in the garden, they had to give up that fun. Sometimes they raced their horses down Broad Street past the hotel, him on his gelding quarter horse and her on her Arabian mare, but that ended when the City decided Broad Street deserved more that hard-packed dirt as a surface, and installed cobblestones taken from the holds of ships. The stone was loaded into the ships in England as ballast, and unloaded in the ports of Charleston and Savannah and Wilmington. Anyway, the horses couldn't run on the cobblestones, which eliminated that fun.

It should be pretty obvious what was left for Lowndes and Elspeth to do. They would ride sedately to the hotel, look wistfully at the flying pigeons as they crossed through the garden, and enter the hotel bar. There they would start with the bordeaux, and after a couple of glasses, they would graduate to gin. Lowndes wished he had trained Elspeth to like port, as he felt that was a more civilized drink than gin, but he knew what she liked and he wasn't about to mess with a formula that worked so well and provided him with so much pleasure later in the day.

After a gin or two, and after much conversation with the other bar tenants, and after lots of laughing and maybe a dance step or two, and after giving Henry the hotel owner a lot of shit for not letting them shoot out in the garden, well, Elspeth would look at Lowndes, and Lowndes would look at Elspeth, and that was that; up the stairs they would go.

Now Jonathan the architectural historian, being a true Charlestonian, would not overtly describe a romantic assignation at the Luxembourg, but he was not above alluding to it. So in his book on the buildings of Charleston he simply states that after Lowndes and Elspeth would depart, the other patrons of the hotel bar patiently would settle into a silence and wait for the inevitable. The inevitable inevitably came from above in the form of shrieks of laughter, loud thumps, and much verbal bubbling of energetic endearments. With this done, the habitués of the bar knew that all was right with the world, and they would return to their mint juleps, scotch lemonades, and discussions about the evils of northern culture.

I like this story, and soon after Roger and I were married, demanded that we become the 21st century counterparts of Elspeth and Lowndes. We agreed that riding down Broad Street on horseback probably would snarl downtown traffic, and we agreed that carrying shotguns probably would generate frowns on the part of the police. So we've been left with drinking and making love. And unlike Elspeth, I appreciate the virtues of port, so now after the obligatory two glasses of bordeaux, we graduate to the Portuguese elixir.

Oh, and there's one more little difference between Elspeth and me. She fired shotguns in the garden of the hotel and raced horses down the main drag of town, while I, umm, steal works of art. And that's the type of girl I am.

# Chapter 5 – The Type of Guy He Is

The 747 touched down at Kennedy and Tommy Crown was the first one out of the first class section. He wanted to get home and lock himself away in his apartment for a week. He wanted to sleep until nine, eat a breakfast of eggs and potatoes, instead of that vile French non-breakfast of croissants and jam, read the New York Times until noon, and then have a decent lunch with a decent bottle of French wine. How those Frenchies got is so right with wine and so wrong with breakfast he's never understood. And the British, they're the opposite; they know breakfast. Thank god us Americans get everything right. Everything. Right? Well, almost everything.

In the taxi on the drive into the city he looked at his email and saw the subject line from the office, "Call in immediately." He selected the message and hit the delete button. Screw them. He'd been in Paris for six weeks running down some guys who were duplicating and printing the labels for rare bottles of old German rieslings, and flogging the fakes on the auction markets. The labels were printed on old paper and the bottles were old; it was just the wine inside that wasn't old. These guys also had devised a way to give the wine a semblance of aged flavor, by adding a chemical called dymethyaminetestoserone, which fooled those collectors with more money than tasting expertise. These collectors were all about acquiring trophy wines for their cellars, never having the intent to actually drink the wine. But one real seventy-five year old connoisseur had, and he thought the wine tasted like the Viagra he was taking, and raised an alarm, and the auction houses that had guaranteed the provenance of the wines made a claim against the insurance company, and they sent Tommy to sort it out, which he had. Six weeks of seven days a week, dealing with the fucking French bureaucrats and cops, and now he almost was home and had no intention of reading any email from his boss that said "Call in immediately." He could hear the three security deadbolts on his apartment door clicking, one after the other, shutting out the world for an entire week. Just him and his newspaper and his wine.

Four hours later, just after finishing the second glass of an aged Hermitage, someone knocked on his door. He went to the table in the hallway, opened the center drawer, took out his gun, went back to the dining room table, and poured himself a third glass. If Sharon Stone had called through the door saying, "Tommy, I need you, now," he wouldn't have opened it. And it wasn't her voice he heard after the third knock, it was Jimmy's voice, saying, "Mr. Crown. Mr. Crown. If you're in there, I have a message from Ms. Granite. She says you gotta call her." Jimmy was the office boy with only one hand who Ms. Granite sent after Tommy when she found out Tommy couldn't ignore Jimmy the way he could ignore her, despite the fact that her management style mirrored her name. "Mr. Crown, it's Jimmy. Ms. Granite told me to tell you who it is at your door. It's me, and would you please call the office? Ms. Granite says my job depends on you calling the office right away. Ms. Granite says she has a bonus for you for the Paris job, and she'll present it to you in the office providing you're there in one hour which she says should give you time to make yourself a large cup of coffee and repack your bag, providing you've unpacked it. If you haven't unpacked your bag she says you can just bring it with you as is and just put the cleaning bill from the Charleston hotel on your company credit card." Jimmy paused, thinking what a clever woman Ms. Granite was, sending him and coaching him how to sound mournful and plaintiff through Tommy's door. He'd have to remember this when he was running the company in a couple of years. He went on, "Mr. Crown. Mr. Crown. You ever been in the offices of the State of New York Unemployment, Disability and Rehabilitation Department (SNYUDRD)? Makes the Motor Vehicle Department seem like a Silicon Valley startup, you know, with ping pong tables and cafes and surfboards lined up for the staff during break time. Mr. Crown, can't you please call in, save my ass from SNYUDRD, a fate worse than death. Please, sir." Jimmy leaned against the wall opposite Tommy's door, hoping he hadn't laid it on too thick, but confident he'd crack Tommy even if he had. He checked his Facebook account, then read an email confirming his handball reservation at the New York Athletic Club for later that afternoon. The company had a corporate membership, and Jimmy got special perks from the club staff, who he played just like he was playing Tommy.

And Tommy knew he was being played, and knew his boss had won this one, the bitch, and why hadn't he had more sense and checked into a hotel for a few days before going back to his apartment. It was the allure of that aged Hermitage, that's why. He wasn't one to cry over spilled wine, so he unlocked the three deadbolts, and a smirking Jimmy entered. Jimmy didn't say anything, though he thought, at least superficially, 'sorry, guy', sat down at the dining room table and looked at the bottle of wine and the gun. He thought, 'If he offers me a glass of the wine, should I take it, knowing I gotta play against a guy with two hands later today, at the club?' Jimmy knew any wine in Tommy's place was going to be special, but he decided he'd better not take the wine, and transferred his attention to the gun, which was an H&K forty caliber semiautomatic. He said, "You expecting trouble?"

"Any trouble that required use of the gun," Tommy said, "would have been less than what you bring, and you know that."

Jimmy said, "Charleston's a great town. The people there are polite; not like here. The women who bag your groceries call you honey, and baby, names like that. 'Can I help you out to the car with those bags, baby?' The restaurant waitresses ask, 'What you having today, hon?' You ever heard anyone here say that? You'll love it down there." He picked up the gun and hefted it, knowing he'd have trouble racking the slide if push ever came to shove. He'd have to stick with the Smith and Wesson 38 revolver he kept in his hallway table drawer. Maybe he could get H&K to make a semiauto for the disabled, be their poster boy, earn a nice fee.

Tommy said, "Why am I going to Charleston?"

"Because Ms. Granite says so, I guess."

Tommy really wanted to argue that point but he knew he couldn't, given the percentage she paid him for recovering stolen stuff and obviating the company from paying out. Seven percent, plus the expense account. For the six weeks in Paris he'd earned $70K. He asked, "What got stolen in Charleston?"

Jimmy knew Tommy only did thefts, which included forgeries. "Some painting. Famous, at least for Charleston."

"What's the coverage?"

"2.5."

Tommy did the math: $175,000. He nodded at the wine in the bottle, Jimmy nodded, No, so he poured it down the sink, put the gun in the table drawer, got his unpacked bag out of the bedroom, and said, "Let's go."

# Chapter 6 – The Accomplices

Little Jinny Blistov sat on the bench at the Steinway and wondered what it would be like to play a Rachmaninoff sonata. DA DA DA, DUM, that was Rachmaninoff, wasn't it? Gale the Mouth sat on the sofa with me, sipping a Sidecar and luxuriating in knowing what it was like to steal something; something more than a few grapes in the produce section of the supermarket. Something different from the cash she stole from people she played poker with. Gale almost always came out ahead at Texas holdum, except for those few times when the stakes weren't money, but rather were something more personal, those times when Gale lost on purpose, if you get my drift. She looked at the painting of the Bedgewood woman standing next to the fireplace, and said, "She's a knockout, like you. Looks great on that wall, but how are you going to invite people in here with that there? People do know about it, right? Famous painting, famous woman, famous Charleston family. You and Roger going to close up the social shop, live here as recluses, never see anyone again except Jinny and me? No more cocktail parties with the Mayor putting his hand on your leg, the Senator inviting you up to his cabin in the woods? Did you think of that before we stole it?"

Jinny said, "What's wrong with me and you being here, hanging out, drinking wine and Sidecars?"

"You're cute, Jinny, and a really good person to have around when someone takes out a gun and starts waving it around, but you're not the Mayor or the Senator. There's more to the good life than you, the ex-Russian gangster, and me the fashionista par excellence, can provide to them. Right?" she said, looking at me.

"If there were only two other people left in the world, Roger and I would want them to be you and Jinny," I said.

"See," said Jinny, playing DA DA DA, DUM on the keyboard, thinking that was pretty good, very cultured, that he was more than just a gun and heist guy.

I said, "Maybe you're right. Maybe I didn't really think through what I would do with it after we stole it. It took all my brainpower to figure out how to steal it, and maybe I didn't have any left over to think about what happens after. I just knew I wanted it and that it would be a challenge to get it. Which it was. And you're more than just a fashionista, you're an accomplice, and deserve some of the credit here. We did good, and we can enjoy the fruits of our labor for a while before we have to worry about being stigmatized, socially."

Gale sipped her drink and asked Jinny, "What fruit did you get out of this deal? Anything other than sitting in here, looking at this woman from two hundred years ago?"

"What fruit?" he asked.

"She just said we should enjoy the fruits of our labor, and I wondered what fruit you got, cause I didn't get any other fruit. Just this drink, which, I have to say, is really good."

Jinny wasn't looking at the painting, which he appreciated because the woman looks like me, whom he loves, but as a work of art it wasn't really to his taste. He likes Russian abstract art, like Kandinsky, the real spiritual stuff. He said, "I ate all my fruit the night we heisted it. That was fun, like eating really ripe mangos from Honduras. I'm satisfied."

"You ate fruit while we were in the museum?"

"He's speaking figuratively, hon," I said.

"Oh." She paused, then said, "So you don't have any fruit tonight. Me neither," and she looked at me.

I knew Gale was teasing, and that she'd gotten her kicks out of the operation, just like Jinny. And just like me. That was a night to remember. Then I got back to her question about what I was going to do with this scorching hot item, sitting in my living room like it had been there since it was painted. "I'll wait till Roger gets back from France in a couple of months. It can stay here until then, and then we'll decide what to do with it. If I want people over before then, I can keep 'em in the kitchen, informal."

"What about the cops?"

Jinny said, "What cops?"

"The cops that are investigating the theft. Didn't you read the paper this morning?"

Jinny had lived in Charleston for four years, since moving from Saint Petersburg after the heist he'd done there with me and Roger, and he still read the Saint Petersburg Times, not the Charleston paper. He said, "Who cares? Did you leave some clues behind? Any diamond earrings with your fingerprints on them, or your cell phone? Any stuff like that? Did you, Gwen? So who cares about the cops."

I didn't care about the cops either, having experienced their inefficiency my whole life, but something Roger had said on the phone stuck with me, and I said, "I'm not worried about the cops, but there is one thing."

Jinny looked at me, and Gale said, "What?"

"The insurance company. Roger said they wouldn't pay out till they did an investigation." My friends looked at each other, and then Gale went to mix herself another drink and Jinny went back to composing the notes that follow DA DA DA, DUM, both of them thinking, 'I'm not going to worry about some paper pusher from an insurance company.'

I stared at my ancestor and wondered.

# Chapter 7 – Tommy and Gwenny

The Curator of the museum stopped into the museum cafe for a cup of coffee on his way to the Director's office where they were to meet the insurance company guy at 1pm. Ahead of him in line at the cashier was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in the flesh, who was talking with a short squat guy whose beard wrapped around the sides of his neck under his ears. In front of him was another babe, dressed like she was heading to the runway of a Stella McCartney spring fashion show in Milan. They paid for their food and went to a table, and he paid for his coffee and forced himself to tear his eyes away from the two women. His inclination was to pretend he was a visitor and sit at a table so he could look at them, but the Director was waiting for this guy who had flown in from New York.

They sat in the Director's office, talking about the silver exhibition they were putting together, until the secretary knocked on the door and said their guest was here. The Director said to him, "Welcome to Charleston, and thanks for coming down so quickly."

Tommy said, "I've never been here before but I've heard great things, and hope I get to see a little before I close the case. Maybe I can stay a few days after that."

The definitiveness of Tommy's statement was not lost on the museum boys, who, on the one hand thought, 'Hey, great, maybe we'll get it back' and on the other hand thought, 'New York bravado BS.' While the Director eased into the talk with Charlestonian politeness, the Curator studied the guy and ended up with a single impression: Steve McQueen. Same sandy hair, blue eyes, and presence. The Curator loves cars and movies, and thought the greatest chase scene in film history was McQueen in the '68 Mustang GT 390, tearing around the hills of San Francisco in Bullitt.

The Director said, "We've put together an information package for you, everything we know about the painting, and a report about what we know of the theft, which is zero. We have no idea how they did it, and neither do the cops. Or at least they're not sharing anything with us." The Curator opened a folder and took out an 8 by 10 glossy photo of the painting hanging on the museum wall, which he looked at and then handed to Tommy.

Tommy said, "You counting on the police to find this?"

The Director said, "They were here the day we discovered the theft, took a lot of photos and did the whole fingerprint thing. The Chief was here with the Mayor."

Tommy again looked at the photo and then back at the Director and said, "If they're like other city cops I've worked with they're more interested in murders and rapes than art. Maybe yours are different. But you haven't heard back from them, right?"

While the Director nodded, something nagged at the Curator's mind, something about the photograph. He said, "Can I see that?" He stared at the face of the Bedgewood woman who lived two hundred years ago, knowing he had looked at it a hundred times, every time he had walked through the gallery in which the painting hung, because the woman was so beautiful and so beautifully painted. What was it now that bothered him?

Tommy quickly looked through the folder and then said, "Can I get a cup of coffee, then see the gallery?"

"I can have coffee brought here or we can walk through the gallery on the way to the cafe."

"Let's walk. I'm still stiff from sitting on the plane this morning."

As they left the office and walked through the galleries, Tommy asked about the security system, which he checked out even as the Director described it. It was all standard components: cameras, motion-detectors, electric sensors on the doors and windows. Nothing fancy. As they stood in front of the discolored rectangle on the wall, the Curator again looked at the photo and then handed it to Tommy, who said, "Nice looking woman. Who was she? When did she live?"

"Gwendolyn Bedgewood. Daughter of the governor. The painting was done early 1800s, so two hundred years ago. Very famous South Carolina family, and there's still some of them around Charleston now."

"I just want to get a quick feel for the place today. Thanks for the folder of information; I'll read through it tonight, and be back tomorrow morning. We can go over the security system and the building then, and I'll get whatever information the police have turned up later. Can we go to the cafe now, and then I'll go to the hotel and check in? And one more thing, do you have a set of architectural drawings of the museum? I'd like to take them with me and look at them later with the stuff in the folder." The Director looked at the Curator, who nodded and left to get the drawings. In the cafe the Director asked Tommy what he wanted in his coffee, went through the line, and then went to the table where Tommy sat. He pushed the paper cup across the table and then took the top off of his. He expected Tommy to do the same, but Tommy wasn't looking at the coffee, he was staring at something behind the Director, and that something was me. Gale and Jinny had their backs to Tommy, and the Director had his back to me, but Tommy and I looked right at each other, him seeing the woman in the painting, and me seeing Steve McQueen.

I thought, 'What do we have here?'

# Chapter 8 – Bored

What were we doing back in the museum three days after the theft? Gale, me, and Jinny. We were doing what a lot of criminals do, revisiting the scene of the crime. It's all in the thrill, and the visit ended with an unexpected thrill for me, seeing a doppelganger of Steve McQueen, Mr. Stud in my book. The Curator wasn't the only one who loved the chase scene in Bullitt.

None of the three of us work, like normal people. Roger and I are not wealthy, but we're well off. Roger can do things like go to France for three months and work on a documentary about wine, drink up the subject of the film. Gale is not wealthy either, but always seems to have enough money to live the life she loves, which is dressing up, even when she's not going out of her condo, chasing GQ guys around town, and hanging out with me and Jinny. As noted, Gale occasionally supplements her other income by fleecing guys who think they can play Texas holdum better than her. Uh uh. And Jinny, born on the docks of Saint Petersburg to a fishing woman mother who could tear the heads off the fish she caught, not having to bother using a knife, was a real crook, not a dilettante like me, and a very successful one, at that. He didn't flash his money around, but he always picks up his share of the checks when we eat at expensive restaurants, always brings a bottle of really good wine when we invite him over for dinner, and lives in a beach house on Sullivan's Island near Fort Moultrie. Jinny specializes in forging nineteenth century antique furniture, which is how we met him four years ago when Roger's wealthy auntie bought a fake Hepplewhite table, and Roger traced it to Jinny and threatened to blow Jinny's head off if he didn't give back all the money, which he did. Most guys would have held a grudge about that, but not Jinny, who saw in Roger, and then in me, opportunities galore, and we have not disappointed him. Nor has he disappointed us, starting with him acting as inside man when the three of us went to his hometown in Russia and stole a bunch of stuff from the back warehouses of The Hermitage Museum, some pieces of which grace both of our houses here in Charleston. We haven't given any of that stuff to Gale, who brings the subject up from time to time, acting like we owe her, just for her being herself, wild child that she is.

Anyway, the painting of the Bedgewood babe was having a stronger effect on us than we expected, not sure why, with me continuing to sleep on the living room sofa, and first Gale asking if she could sleep in the living room too, and then Jinny asking, which was weird, like they wanted a slumber party or something. I asked Jinny if he'd ever had a slumber party in Russia, and he said, every night of the three years he was in the army, all sixty of his troop slumbering shoulder to shoulder in the barracks, in the snow, on the sands of Afghanistan. I said no to them sleeping in the living room, and instead suggested we go back to the museum and see if we could get a mini thrill redux, vicarious but still something. The reality is that we all were bored without Roger around, and suffering a comedown after the big event of the heist.

When we got home from the museum I led them into the living room, searched Netflix for Bullitt, told Jinny to open a bottle of California pinot noir and told Gale to get some snacks to match with it from the kitchen. When Steve McQueen first showed on the screen I hit the pause button and said, "He's dead, but his double was in the museum cafe today."

Gale screamed, "I was in the same room as Steve McQueen's double, and you didn't tell me? You BITCH." Gale can get dramatic when it comes to possible physical liaisons with sexy guys.

I said, "That's why I didn't tell you, because you would've made a scene, and Jinny would have had to pick you up under his arm and carry you out kicking and screaming. And, you would've ruined it for me."

"For you? What would you do with him? You don't fool around. You love Roger. I'M NOT MARRIED. I'M THE ONE WHO FOOLS AROUND. WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?"

Jinny filled his glass and said, "Down girl. Drink your wine." He looked at me and said, "She's right. You don't fool around. So what do you mean by saying she would've ruined it for you? Ruined what?"

I hit the button on the remote and McQueen launched into action. I said, "I don't know, but I have a feeling about that guy."

# Chapter 9 – That Guy

Tommy checked into a room at the Charleston Place Hotel and tried to take a nap, but it didn't work. He ordered dinner from room service and then spread all the stuff he'd gotten from the museum out on the bed. After eating he poured himself a drink from the minibar and tried to relax, but something bothered him. He knew part of it was jetlag from the Paris trip and then the flight down to Charleston, but there was something else mixed into his psyche too. He studied the architectural drawings of the museum, hoping that would make him sleepy, and saw it was protected by standard physical security measures: armored glass on doors and windows, ventilation shafts blocked, and an exterior skin of structural metals and concrete masonry. From the materials in the thick folder the Curator had given him he saw the electronic security measures also were standard: motion detectors, intrusion alarms on doors and windows, and video cameras. All this reported back to a museum computer that then reported to a security company. There were no guards, inside or out, and no direct monitoring of the electronic devices at the museum's computer. If an alarm or motion sensor went off, the security company would log onto the museum's computer, determine the problem, and call the police.

He knew he would have to go over all this again, discuss it with the museum staff, and do a close physical inventory of all the physical and electronic components of the systems, but tonight he was whipped. The systems seemed adequate, so he was intrigued that there were no signs of forced entry – no signs of the intrusion except the absence of the painting. Clearly this pointed to an inside job, and that was what he would start searching for tomorrow.

He swept the stuff off the bed, fixed another drink, and lay down, badly needing to unwind. The architectural plans faded away, along with the notebooks and manuals for the electronics. The Paris job was long gone, as were thoughts of his apartment, his wine collection, and his newspapers. Something remained. Something new. Something nice. Something intriguing. As the booze eased his mind and body, the something appeared. It was the woman in the museum cafe, sitting with two others, looking at him across the room, neutrally but pointedly. He opened his eyes and focused on the ceiling, where he saw two visions, like two projections side by side on a movie screen. One showed the face of the woman in the cafe, and the other showed the face of the woman in the painting. Doppelgangers of beauty.

# Chapter 10 - How'd They Do It?

"Where are you?" I asked.

"At Domaine Romanee-Conti. In the garden out back of the house. Where we sat when we were here together."

"Did they give you some wine? The good stuff?"

Roger said, "All their stuff is the good stuff, you know that. Their cheapest bottle is $1500. And yes, they gave us a tasting. Great, as usual."

"Did they give you a bottle to take away? To bring home to me?"

"No dear. That they didn't do."

"Did you drink it with a beautiful woman?"

"No dear. You aren't here, are you? I drank the one small glass with the cameraman and the director, who aren't beautiful women."

"What are you doing now?"

"We're done for the day, and the guys went back to the hotel, and now I am talking with my wife, wanting to know if she's still living at home with the dog or living in the state pen with some, uh, girlfriends?"

"Still here, with Gale and Jinny and the pooch. I'm still sleeping on the sofa, and Gale and Jinny asked if they could sleep in the living room too, with the painting, but I said no slumber parties allowed, at least not without you."

"Been talking with any cops? Any of them in the living room, hanging out, asking questions?"

"No dear. No one's been asking questions, and no cocktail parties with the Mayor, just me in my lonesomeness."

"I'm glad no one with a badge has been asking questions. But I have one. Can your husband ask a question?"

"Yes dear, as long as it's not about Adonis. That's a little personal, and besides, he has strict rules about that. All those god guys are subject to a lot of rules, which I have to say, crimps their style sometimes."

"Gwenny, how did you steal the painting? The Charleston Museum is not the Metropolitan in New York, but it's not a little gallery, either."

"It wasn't that hard. It wasn't like the caper at the Hermitage. You did good that night, dear, remember?"

"I remember being scared shitless and thinking what it was going to be like spending the rest of my life in a Russian gulag. I'll always remember that, yes. Thank god Jinny was there and got us out alive and with the goods."

I said, "Well, this was exciting, very, and I'm happy to say not scary like in Saint Petersburg. But it was the same deal: Jinny got us in and out of the Hermitage with his inside stuff, and he got us in and out of the museum here, too. With the painting. And it didn't take a lot of planning like the Hermitage either. I told him what I wanted to do, and three days later he said we were ready. Voila."

"So how'd you do it?"

"The place has all the standard structural and electronic stuff, but nothing fancy. Like you said, it's not the Met. We just turned off all the electronic stuff for half an hour, picked the lock on one door, went it, got out, turned the stuff back on. The only tricky part came at home while we were carrying the painting up the back steps and into the house. Richard was awake at 3am and heard us, came out on his back porch and saw Jinny carrying the thing through the back door. Asked what we were doing."

"What was he doing up at 3am?"

"The usual. Working on a book about us. Said as he gets older he's not sleeping as well."

"What's he writing about us this time? We haven't done anything in a while. Well, not until now."

"I told him if he would tell me what he's writing about us, I'd tell him what we doing carrying a large painting into our house at 3am. He said no, he'd find out from the dog for free, not have to tell us till the book's published."

"The dog is a squeal, you know that. Tells him everything."

"Yeah, but the pooch also tells us when someone comes into our house in the middle of the night with a gun, the way Anna did that time, so it's a trade-off. I say we keep him."

Roger said, "How exactly did you turn off the alarms with no one knowing, and then turn them on again? Alarms aren't supposed to work that way. And you mean the motion-detectors and cameras, too? All that stuff they have in there?"

"Yes, all of it. It's all tied together in one software system on their computer. We just went into that computer and turned it off."

"Who's we? You're not a hacker, and neither is Jinny, and Gale can work her cell phone and that's about it."

"It was the same thing as at the Hermitage. Not Jinny, but a friend of Jinny's. When Jinny worked there he cleaned toilets, but he was a very smart toilet cleaner, as we know, and one time he noticed some guys casing the joint, and watched them, and told the head of security, who watched them, and they tried a smash and grab of some Faberge eggs, and the security guy caught them without damaging the eggs, and he was a hero, and since then he'd owed Jinny one. And Jinny called in the marker for me."

"What's the rest of the story? How's the guy do it?"

"Look, the Hermitage is like the Met; super security in the museums, armed guards, satellites looking down and all that. We got what we got during our heist there because it was third-rate stuff out in the warehouses. And I bet after that, the security out there went way up. But in the museums the electronics are incredible, and this Russian security guy is the one who knows all that stuff, and Jinny told him we wanted to get into the Charleston Museum, and this guy sat in his office in the Hermitage and hacked into our museum, and told Jinny it was easy, like grade-school stuff. That night Jinny sent him a text message, the guy turned everything off, including the alarms that are supposed to alert the security monitoring company that someone has hacked the system, the guy said that was a joke, and we went in and up the stairs to the area of the silver collections which is where the painting was hanging on the wall, and Jinny picked it up like it was nothing even though the frame must weigh two hundred pounds, and I stopped Gale from pinching some of the silver, and we loaded it into a rental van and got outta there after relocking the door. Then Jinny sent the guy another text, and he turned it back on. That was it. Now it's here, and I love it. When are you coming home? Adonis is all talk and no walk. I miss you."

"So now we owe Jinny big time. Or you do."

"Gale and I own Jinny, and you know it. You're just envious that you can't do to him what we can."

Roger didn't answer that one because he knew it was true. He said, "What about Richard? Did he call the cops, tell them his neighbors were doing strange things in the middle of the night?"

"He loves us, and he knows he might get another book out of it when the dog squeals and tells him the story. So no cops from him."

"What about the insurance company? Any stories in the newspaper about them getting involved?"

"Not that I've seen, but then I'm not sure the museum is going to publicize that."

"Anything else of interest back there?"

I thought, 'That's all the excitement I need right now,' but then said, "Well, one thing, definitely not as interesting as stealing paintings, but remember the car chase in Bullitt? The Mustang vs. the Charger?"

"The best."

"I saw a guy the other day that looks just like Steve McQueen. He was in the museum cafe when we went back. I almost wrote my phone number on a napkin and gave it to him as we left."

"Gwenny, you went back to the museum after the heist?"

"Umm, yes."

"Are you planning on stealing anything else from there?"

"Not seriously, but we did go upstairs and look at George Gershwin's piano, the one he composed Porgy and Bess on while he was here in Charleston in 1934. If I had that in the living room I'd get rid of the Steinway."

"Don't press your luck. I really don't want to talk with you over an intercom and look at you through a plate glass window, you in an orange jail jumpsuit."

"Yes, dear."

"And don't go trying to steal a '68 Mustang 390 GT, either, ok?"

"It was the guy driving that turned me on, dear, not the car."

"Bye Gwenny."

# Chapter 11 – The Painting

Tommy slept fitfully his first night in Charleston, his biorhythms still screwed up by the jetlag and his psyche disturbed by visions of the babe doppelgangers. The next morning he opened shop in a small office the museum Director gave him, and asked the Curator for a complete list of staff who had worked at the museum during the last ten years, along with their personnel files.

The Curator said, "You think this was an inside job? No way."

"That's what all managers think of their operation, but it happens all the time. How else did they get in and out of here, and not leave a trace? They had to know a lot about this place."

The Curator was shocked, but he could see the logic. How did they get in here without setting off the alarms? The security system had cost the museum $150,000. He still didn't see how it could be a staff member, because they have to use a personal swipe card to set or disarm the system in the mornings and evenings. Tommy said, "I'm going to have to interview everyone, starting tomorrow. Today I'll do a physical survey of the whole place, every nook and corner, inside and out. Can you help with that?"

The Curator nodded and thought, 'This is exciting, especially if it really was someone who works here, or worked here in the past. Who?' Museums are not exactly beds of hot-blooded people, living the wild life of the criminal. The art world as a whole is different: plenty of criminals out there, forging, stealing, buying, selling. But not museum staff who as a whole are more similar to librarians in the level of their risk-taking behaviors. He went away for half an hour and returned with a box that held the files Tommy wanted.

Tommy said, "Ready for the inspection?" And for the next seven hours they went into every gallery, every office, the boiler room, the labs, up on the roof, into the janitor's closets, into the vaults and storerooms, and tramped through the bushes and garden plots outside the building. Everywhere, at the end of which Tommy knew the same thing as when he started, which was that it was an inside job. There hadn't been a break-in, there had been a walk-in and a walkout. Simple, and not so simple, and the not so simple was figuring out which staff member had masterminded the theft and hired the accomplices. Obviously more than one person was involved, considering the size and weight of the painting. The simple part would come when he had identified the thief, and that was to crack him or her, museum staff as aforesaid not being hardened criminals but more like sponges, you just squeeze a little and everything comes out.

He spent the following day reading through the manuals of the computer security system in the morning and the personnel files in the afternoon. While eating lunch with the Curator he asked, "How much did you spend on the computer setup? The hardware and the software?"

"Umm, not really my field, but I remember it being brought up in a couple of staff meetings, and I think it was between $100,000 and $200,000. Seemed like a lot to me."

Tommy nodded and thought, 'Not a great system, but not a bad one either. Should have done the job.' He said, "No system is foolproof, and they do better protecting against break-ins than they do with inside jobs. Break-ins are hard to stop in advance or during the heist, but not that hard to solve afterwards."

"What do you look for in an inside job? How do you solve that?"

"What you don't have to figure out is opportunity, because that's what an inside job is all about. The opportunity is there most of the time. So what you look for is motivation, same as for most crimes. Why did the person want to steal the painting? In the art world it's usually not money, because it's hard to sell famous works for a profit, unless it's to a private individual who wants it only for personal gratification. Museum people do what they do because they like the stuff they work with every day, and sometimes they decide they want a real piece of the action."

"You really think it was someone who works here?"

"Or worked here in the past, since the security system was installed, which was seven years ago," said Tommy.

"Could be anybody."

"Could be."

"And you're going to figure out who?"

"I am."

The Curator looked at the blue eyes looking at him, and was glad it wasn't him that did the job. Cool blue eyes and no smile showing. What Tommy didn't say was, 'There's more than one kind of inside job.'

# Chapter 12 – Gale and Jinny

Gale asked Jinny, "Do you pay income taxes?"

Jinny looked up at Gale, even though he had shoes on and she was barefoot. Jinny looks up to almost all women, but that doesn't bother him. He is self-confidence personified, a condition that had been solidified a year earlier when a woman named Monique had taken a shine to him. Monique is French and is George Clooney's personal assistant, living with Big George in whatever mansion he happens to be spending his time. Her favorite is the place on Lake Como, in Italy, but she knows beggars shouldn't be choosers. She and her boss had stayed in Charleston a few months, working with Roger and Gwen on a production that was part film and part play. Jinny's role in the production was to act as bodyguard for the famous actor, protecting him from rabid fans, an Iranian assassination team whose mission was kill one of the production team members, and Gale herself, who was obsessed with getting Big George tied to her bedposts, after which she wanted to drain every bodily fluid from him, again and again. Monique is a five foot ten bombshell with a physique that would instill in many Sports Illustrated swimsuit models a massive inferiority complex, and why she latched onto Jinny during her stay in Charleston was a mystery to the other team members, as much as they respect and love him. Even before then, Jinny liked who he was, but afterwards he felt the world was his oyster where women are concerned. Gale was different for some reason, like the sister he'd never had. Well, he did have a sister, but she got drafted into the Russian anti-terrorist services and sent to the Chechnya border areas right after she strangled a fellow student on the playground who had made fun of her mustache. While Jinny was duly proud of her being the youngest ever so adopted into that apparatchik service, this happening when she was fourteen, he never had found her company to be supportive and comforting, sisterly, in a word, the way he did with Gale.

He said, "What? Taxes?"

"Yeah, income taxes that pay for our cruise missiles and other stuff we're world famous for. Ya know, America the Beautiful."

"Um, no, no taxes from me. I'm a pacifist." This coming from the guy who caught the Iranian assassins trying to fuckup Gwen's production, took them down the street to the park, stuck a gun in their faces, stripped 'em naked, and made 'em run around in front of all the College of Charleston coeds that sunbath in the park, getting their weekly doses of solar radiation poisoning. "Do you?"

"Naw, not anymore. I used to when I was younger and did modeling jobs, stuff like that, but now my money comes from the June's capers and poker, and that money's different."

"How? Money's money. If you get it, being a patriotic American, aren't you supposed to help pay for the missiles?"

Gale never had thought of it that way, did so now, found the proposition uninteresting, and asked, "How much money you got?"

Jinny didn't mind the question at all, and said, "I think I got about two million. Around there."

"You bring any of that with you when you came to the States?"

He shook his head. "Some guys in Saint Petersburg stuck me in the hold of an Aeroflot cargo plane headed for Pittsburg. No heat. I still was in my prison clothes. Not only did they give me no money, I didn't even have underwear on." He paused. "If that isn't a tribute to the greatness of America, I don't know what is. Now I live on the beach and hang out with people like you and Monique. How much money do you have?"

Gale hadn't figured he might ask her the same question she asked him, and wasn't quite as liberal minded and open to inquiry about the subject as he was, her having grown up in the historic district of Charleston as opposed to the stinking docks of the Russian port city. She figured fair is fair, not really thinking of Jinny as a brother in the same way he thought of her as a sister, or at least quasi sister, but viewed him more from her perspective of a genteel and good-hearted dominatrix, and answered, "I don't keep a lot in the bank. It seems to go out as fast as it comes in, but I always have enough to do what I like to do. Where do you keep your money?"

"At the house."

"You keep two million dollars at your house? What if the house catches fire?"

"I been here four years. If the money burns up and I don't go with it, I always can get some more." Jinny was an easy come, easy go sort of guy.

"You shouldn't tell people you keep a lot of money in your house. Someone might steal it. Since I helped you and Gwen steal the painting, got a taste of that, maybe I'll come over some day and take your money. Go to Tahiti."

"You never stole anything before? How old are you?" said Jinny.

"I've never stolen anything like that before, or in that way. I steal all the time from the guys I play poker with, the nitwits."

"Hey, you need some money, all you gotta do is ask."

"I've never had to do that before. Guys seem to want to give it to me, and I don't want to hurt their feelings, so I say yes. I'm good, but thanks."

"So what are we going to do now for fun? Is Gwen going to steal something else, need our help?"

"I doubt she'll do that again before Roger gets back from France. She's having her fun looking at herself in the painting. Very narcissistic, seems to me, weird, but whatever. I don't know what to do for fun right now, but walking on the beach here is ok."

Jinny said, "You want to go to Pierre's with me?"

"Why would I want to go to there with you, watch you get your second shave of the day? That's like watching lumberjacks cut down spruce trees with chainsaws. It's called Pierre's Men's Salon for a reason. It's for men."

"Monique used to go with me. Drink wine and watch. It's a very chi chi place, lots of things go on in there behind the scenes."

"I don't think I want to know."

"But I'd like to watch you at your toilette. Grooming and stuff."

"That's different. I'm a babe. Everything about us is attractive, desirable. Guys are good for one thing; other than that you're a bunch of simian brutes."

"Please? Come to Pierre's. We got nothing else to do. You can get a wax job from Pierina."

"Ok."

# Chapter 13 – Tommy Sees the Light

The day after he studied the computer manuals and the personnel files Tommy called Ms. Granite in New York and told her he needed two support staff in Charleston for a few days each: a computer security system specialist and an art historian. She understood and told him she'd have them down there pronto.

They arrived late the next afternoon, and the following morning Tommy put them to work, the computer guy first. The directions were simple: do a forensics on the museum's system for the day of the heist and see if there was anything fishy. Tommy knew there had to be. So the geek sat in the same chair at the security computer for the next eighteen hours straight, using the men's room occasionally and having food brought up to him from the cafe. He was motivated by an unsmiling Ms. Granite who told him if he found what Tommy thought was there (really there, not planting something himself, which she had no doubt this guy could do), he'd earn $10K, and if he didn't he could go back to flogging computers at Office Depot. Tommy told the museum staff not to talk to the guy because a computer geek in action has powers of concentration second only to chess masters.

After psychologically attaching the guy to the system by issuing the forensic challenge, Tommy took the art historian to the small museum library where they sat with the Curator. Tommy handed the woman a photo of the Bedgewood painting and said, "I want to know everything about this painting: the artist, the social setting at the time it was painted, and most importantly, the woman. Who she was, why the artist painted her, her family. He looked at the historian and said, "Can you do genealogy stuff?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Do you know how to do family research? Figure out family lines and ancestors?"

"Sure. That's a basic part of art history, and besides that I've done it for my own family. It's fun."

"Ok, good. Do that for this Bedgewood woman in the picture. Thanks, and let me or him know if you need anything."

Tommy and the Curator left the library and went down to the cafe for coffee, where the Curator said, "What's up with the genealogy stuff? You said it was an inside job, someone who works here now or did in the past."

"That's one kind of inside job, the most common type, so I have to look at that very carefully. But there are other types too, where it's not an employee, but someone who knows something about the place, or can figure out an important chink in the armor, and then use that information. Sometimes it's someone who has a special skill that fits with a certain type of crime at a certain place and time. That type of job is a lot harder to solve than the employee one, and I have a feeling that's what we may be looking at here."

The Curator said, "You operate on feelings? I thought investigators used scientific deduction, cold rationality."

"That's the Sherlock Holmes thing, and it's part of it. But there's also the cop's hunch thing. You've heard of that a lot too, and it's also important. The investigator sees something, and it triggers a hunch."

"Something did that to you, huh? What was it?"

Tommy didn't answer, but stared off into space, in his mind's eye seeing the images of the beautiful blond doppelgangers, twins living two hundred years apart.

# Chapter 14 – The Focus Narrows

Eighteen hours after he sat down at the museum's security computer the geek sent his mother an email telling her he'd be home the next day and they'd be able to get the refrigerator fixed and have regular milk for their coffee instead of the canned stuff. He didn't tell her he'd be bringing home $10K, knowing if he did she'd find a way to get hold of it, and he wanted to spend some of it, maybe all of it, on new computer games like "The Devils of Narnia" and "Spartan Goddess of Lore" and "Ozzy Osborne's Wizards".

It took him ten minutes to be able to stand up straight after he pried himself out of his chair, those eighteen hours having done a number on his vertebrae. He went to the printer, collected his report, and found Tommy in his office. He said, "You're not going to believe this."

Tommy looked at the report, set it on the desk, and said, "I take it you found something. Gimme the short version; I'll read the details later."

"Ok, this is really cool. The system they got here is pretty good, but the guy who cracked it is better. A lot better. He's as good as it gets. Not only did he turn the whole thing off, which would have been enough to let the crooks get in, but then he turned it back on. The guy has a sense of humor."

Tommy assumed this was geek humor and didn't try to plumb its depths. "What else?"

"That ain't all. After he turned it back on, nice guy that he is, not wanting to let anyone else come in and steal somethin', then he took the time to cover his tracks. Wipe out all traces of what he'd done. Thing of beauty."

Tommy assumed this was geek aesthetics and didn't try to plumb its depths. Patiently he said, "What else?"

"You ain't gonna believe where this guy is. Or was when he did it."

Tommy said, "You can tell where he was? Can you tell who he is?"

The geek had to stand up again and stretch, his back and legs trying to regress into the double right angle shape it had assumed during the eighteen hour cyber hunt. Proudly he said, "Yeah, I can tell you where he was, and I can tell you the IP address of his computer." Less proudly, thinking Tommy was being unfair, didn't he know how hard this shit is, said, "Sorry, can't give you a person's name, but I can give you an approximate location. The last page of the report is a Google Earth image of that. Check it out."

Tommy picked up the report and turned to the last page, on which he saw a satellite image of several square blocks of large buildings in a city. Really large buildings surrounded by wide streets. He looked at the geek and said, "Where's this?"

"Russia. Saint Petersburg. The fucking Hermitage Museum. Huge. Ten square blocks."

"The guy that turned off the computer here, was there?"

The geek nodded and said, "That's what I mean when I say I can't tell the exact location. Must be a thousand computers in that place. What I know is the guy is great. An artist."

Tommy looked at the image and then at the guy standing across from him with the odd senses of humor and aesthetics, and then back at the image. Jesus. All the way from Russia. What's the connection from there to here, quaint little Charleston, South Carolina? He picked up his cell, speed dialed his boss and told her to pay the geek, who thought, 'Back to mom and the games', and left.

Same time next day the art historian came into his office and dropped her report on his desk, Tommy thinking, 'Where does Granite get these people,' but then remembered he was one of them too, a pawn in her hands, high performing, a geek in his own right. Investigator geek. Can someone who looks like Steve McQueen be a geek? Are there any handsome geeks out there, can that be part of the geek profile? He said, "Wha'ed you find?"

She said, "The art part was straight forward. The artist was French, married an American woman from a family that owned a bunch of plantations here. He came over, spent the rest of his life here doing portraits for rich people. He was formally trained in Paris and was a very good artist. This painting is beautiful. You think you're going to get it back?"

"Definitely," said Tommy, in a way that made the woman believe him.

She went on, "The genealogy was easy...." and then stopped, thinking, 'I shouldn't have said that, I should have said the genealogy was really hard, that way I might get paid more, pretend I've been slaving away here.'

Tommy saw what was going on, said, "Don't worry, sounds like you earned your full fee," smiled at her.

"Great, thanks. The genealogy was all there, available in some books in this library and then online. The woman in the painting is Gwendolyn Bedgewood, and she was married to Manigault Bedgewood, who was rich until he died in 1825. It probably was painted in the living room of one of his houses here, not sure which one because he had a big house here in town on East Bay Street that burned down in the great fire of 1863, and also had plantation houses outside town. She was a big time socialite, and had three guys fight duels over her, not even with her husband, but with other guys, so I guess she was a hot number that got under some skins. It was fun reading about her, and it's too bad there aren't some wild women like her around today. That would make things more interesting."

Tommy liked this woman and thought it was too bad she had to live vicariously through her art history. He motioned for her to go on.

"The Bedgewood family is alive and well, even though a bunch of them were killed in the Civil War, and I don't have to tell you what side they were on. And some of ole Manigault's money survived the historic tribulations and made it down through the years. There still are Bedgewoods in Charleston, the whole tree with marriages and births and deaths is in the report."

Tommy looked at the report and found the section with the lines and arrows and names in tiny font that composed the family tree. He picked up his cell, dialed the Granite lady, and told her to pay the woman. Ms. Granite said, "That's twenty-thousand I just paid out. When you gonna give me the name of the thief?"

"Sooner or later."

She said, "Make it sooner," and hung up, all peaches and cream.

Tommy looked at the art historian and asked, "Am I going to be able to find the Bedgewoods that are alive now, in the report? Can I understand all those lines and arrows and things?"

She picked up the report, turned to the genealogy section, and said, "It's easy to follow. Here at the bottom of the tree is today, and it looks like....umm....looks like there are thirteen descendants still alive. For example, there's a woman that married a guy named Roger June about twenty years ago; she's one of the thirteen. You should be able to understand how it's laid out, no problem."

Tommy said, "So, like, for example, this woman alive today has the family genes? Down from Gwendolyn Bedgewood?" The woman nodded. "What's her name?"

Well, her maiden name was Gwen Bedgewood. Now it's Gwen June."

Tommy nodded.

# Chapter 15 – More Clues

The next day was Saturday and he was at the museum at 8am. He spent five hours carefully reading the two reports, the one about the hack job and the other about the painting. Then he went back to the hotel and took a three hour nap, which finally dissolved the last traces of jetlag, moving from Europe to New York to Charleston. He took the day off on Sunday and spent part of it exploring the southern phenomenon of shrimp and grits. He tried three different versions at three different restaurants, and despite what he'd read in the New York Times about the virtues inherent in the renaissance in southern cooking, he doubted the dish ever would gain traction in the Big Apple. As far as he could see it just was a bowl of nondescript mush.

He also put a moratorium on thinking about the case, which he was able to do given his skill at mental compartmentalization. What he did allow to manifest was a sense of intuition about the case, which is something different from thinking. He attempted to ameliorate the effects of the third bowl of mush by taking a long walk along The Battery, and let the special blend of thinking and feeling that was intuition come to the front. The technical reports fed his intuition, as did his conversations with museum staff, and the days he'd spent wandering the galleries and back rooms of the museum. His sub-conscience processed the sources, and the result oozed into his body and conscious mind. By late in the day he knew what he wanted to do, and he had a semblance of an idea how to do it. He knew he would need help from the Curator to organize and implement it. That evening he finally relaxed, eating a late dinner and watching an old Cary Grant movie on the tube. A deep-seated sense of excitement didn't prevent him from sleeping well.

On Monday morning he called the Curator into his office. He liked this guy, who had written a book titled Dueling in Charleston: Violence Refined in the Holy City. He had bought a copy in the Museum gift shop, but hadn't yet read it. He decided he had to take someone into his confidence, and the Curator was the only candidate. He said, "The reports are done. One about the computer system and one about the painting and the woman in it. I read them on Saturday, and both are very interesting."

The Curator said, "Do we get to see them?

"Yeah, but not just yet. Soon." He paused. "Ya know that hunch thing I mentioned to you last week? I have one, and I need your help. But for the time being, it's confidential, and that means you don't tell anyone."

"What about my boss? What if he asks me what I'm doing?"

"Don't worry about him, I'll square things, tell him you're working for me for a while."

"And he'll accept that?"

"If he wants his painting back."

"So, what's the hunch?"

"Let's go get a cup of coffee."

When they were seated in the cafe, Tommy answered. "Last week there was a woman in here. She was with a guy and another woman, the other woman dressed like a banshee, very cool and very beautiful. The woman I'm interested in also is very beautiful, and....I think she stole the painting." He watched the Curator and sipped his coffee.

"A woman stole the painting, and then came back in here, sat with friends? Who is she? How do you know she did it? Is she someone who works here, or used to?"

"I don't know she did it; I said I had a hunch. But I'm pretty sure it was her because my intuition rarely is wrong, and it's bonging loudly about her. If I'm right, her name is Gwen June, and she lives in Charleston."

The Curator said, "Why? What makes you think it was her?"

"It's pretty simple. First, she looks exactly like Gwendolyn Bedgewood, the woman in the painting; not just a little bit, exactly." He let that sink in, then said, "And second, she's a direct descendant of Gwendolyn, right down the line."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I have the genealogy. It's part of the art history report."

"This woman looks like Gwendolyn Bedgewood, and she's in the same family, and you saw her here?" Tommy nodded. The Curator sat back in his chair, looked at Tommy, and then closed his eyes. When he opened them he said, "And her name now is June, but it used to be Bedgewood?" Again Tommy nodded, and again the Curator closed his eyes. When he opened them this time he said, "Holy shit. I think I know something about her. Gwen June."

"What?"

"There's a guy in town, a writer named Richard something. Richard Westlake. Has a middle initial in his name, E I think. Richard E. Westlake. And he's written a few books, made the best seller list. Very funny writer. I've read them. I have them. And I've heard a rumor he gets his ideas for his books from a couple of locals."

"What do you mean he gets ideas from them? You mean he talks to them and they give him the ideas?"

"No. Not like that. I mean, the rumor is, these people, this couple, do things, and then Westlake writes up what they do as fiction. But, it's not fiction, some of it is real. The basic stories of the books are real."

Tommy said, "Stuff from real life that is fictionalized?"

"That's not the interesting part." Now it was the Curator's turn to pause. "The people that he writes about, according to the local rumor....are the Junes. Roger and Gwen June."

Tommy thought about that, and said, "Interesting in some way maybe, but how is it interesting to us? To me?"

"The stories are kind of wild, and usually they're about some crime, or quasi crime. Westlake calls them caper novels. And sometimes the caper is about art stuff. Wait. Now that I think about it, they're always about art stuff, in one way or another."

"Do you think the rumor's true, that the books are about the Junes?"

"No idea. Just a rumor."

"What are the names of the books? You have them? Can I borrow them? How many are there?"

"There's like, four or five. I can't remember all the titles, but I remember a couple: The Ayatollah's Money and The Kidnapping of Paul McCartney. I think one is something about an opera. No, ballet. I can bring them in tomorrow."

Tommy said, "So by caper, you mean they're crime novels?"

"No. They're about people stealing stuff, but they're comedies, not hardcore crimes. Cool crimes by cool people, written with a big dose of humor. That's what capers are."

"You think stealing your painting was a cool crime?"

"Uh, umm, depends. Not really, but maybe." The Curator squirmed, wondering where the investigator was going with this. He he put his foot in something?

"What's it depend on?" said Tommy.

"Well, I've seen Gwen June a couple of times, and now that you mention it, she does look like Gwendolyn Bedgewood, and she is a knockout, and....umm, if it was her that stole the painting, then, well, maybe that would constitute cool. And a caper. That would be something, wouldn't it? Her stealing something connected to her family, her ancestors."

"The art history report says it was owned by Gwendolyn's husband, Manigault Bedgewood. Said it came into your collection when he died, way back, early 1800s."

"Yeah, it did. I remember that part of its history. And, and, now you think Gwen June wanted it back, back in her family, and she pinched it?"

"I think maybe, and I think I'll know after I read one or two of these books that maybe were written about her, her and her husband. Can you go get them now? It's important."

The Curator got them, and Tommy finished reading one about noon the next day, and finished reading another one after lunch the following day, them not being exactly littrature, and while sitting in the hotel bar later on sipping a cognac and soda, he said to himself, 'It's you, Gwenny June. It's you.'

# Chapter 16 – The Setup

The museum Director said, "You want to hold a press conference and serve champagne at it? Here, in the middle of the gallery?" Tommy nodded while the Curator smiled. This was going to be good. "Why?"

"I have a hunch about the painting, and this is what I need to do to see if there's anything there or not. See if it's got legs."

"What's this hunch? You know who did it?"

"I can't tell you right now. It's just a hunch, so I don't want to put it out there to you yet. I need some time to play with it and I need you to set up this press thing. After it I'll know more."

"Why champagne? Normally that's not part of a press conference; at least not here in Charleston."

"Because it's not a normal press conference. It's not about informing the public about something through the media. It's about something else."

"What? What else? What's going on here? I'm the Director, I need to know."

Tommy didn't blink at this. He'd just spent a month joisting with the French Surete and the Board of Trustees of the Louvre and investigators from Lloyds of London; he could handle this executive. "I'll be able to tell you more after we do this. Don't worry about the expense, send the bill to us. I just need you to do the coordination. It's gotta be soon. How about tomorrow? Tomorrow at 5pm, when the museum closes."

The Director looked at the Curator, back at Tommy, then back at the Curator. He didn't say anything, just waved his arm and left. The Curator said, "I think that means go ahead. I can do this. What do you want me to say is the purpose of the press conference? What is the purpose?"

"The purpose is for me to meet Gwen June, here. It's gotta be here. What you say to the media is that we've solved the case of the stolen painting, but we need the help of the public in getting it back and finding the perpetrator."

"That's not exactly true, is it? Have you solved the case?"

"Yes."

"You have?"

"Yes."

"And."

"And now I have to prove it and get the painting back and put the criminal in prison."

"And that person is Gwen June?"

"And her husband, presumably, because, if the Westlake books really are about them, he was part of those capers. And any friends of theirs. She couldn't carry the painting out of here by herself, so she had to have accomplices."

"You really think it was her? Them?"

"I do."

"You really want to put a beautiful woman in the slammer?"

"That's my job. Don't you want your painting back?"

"Yes, of course. It's just, well...."

"Well, what?"

"You saw her. In the cafe. I've seen her a couple times, at gigs around town. She's...."

"I know."

The Curator was seriously conflicted. He was supposed to want the painting back, but at what cost to the town? The loss of her to the community....jail....orange jump suit....no jewelry....jesus. "So at the press conference we say, what?"

"Me. Don't worry, I'll do the talking. Just get the release out to the media and set up the place with the wine. And make it good champagne, ok. She'll know good from bad, and I don't want to get off on the wrong foot with her. Real glasses, too, not plastic."

"You gonna date her or arrest her?"

Tommy smiled, and the Curator could see his mind drift away for a minute. When it returned, Tommy said, "We're going to play a little. Then, when the evidence lines up, I'm going to drop the hammer on her."

The Curator remembered the stories and how things happened in the Westlake books, and thought, 'When the prey becomes the hunter, when the hunter becomes the prey.'

# Chapter 17 – It's Him

Gale dialed up Jinny and told him to pick her up, they were going over to Gwen's. He said, "I can't."

"What's her name?"

"I wish. But I still think of Monique."

"Jinny, you got to get over her. She's been gone four months, and besides, she was Big George's squeeze."

"His assistant."

"Yeah, and we know what she assisted him with."

"Galey, crudity doesn't become you."

"You're the gangster. Gangsters aren't crude? Exactly how refined are baseball bats and 45 caliber bullets?"

"Former gangster. Now cultural impresario."

"Something's up, you gotta come get me."

"I said I'm busy. You can drive, can't you, or did you get your license revoked again for speeding. You gotta get rid of that Ferrari."

"It's not about me, it's about the painting."

Jinny said, "What painting?"

"Jesus, Jinny, are you alzheimeristic already? The fucking painting we stole from the museum. The thing we got nothing out of other than a thrill."

"There you go with the crudity again. Stop it. Ok, that painting. What about it?"

"Have you stolen any other paintings? You leave me and Gwen out of something?"

"What about the painting, Gale?"

"The museum's having a press conference tomorrow afternoon about it. Five o'clock."

"So?"

"So they're announcing they've solved the case. The case of the theft. Get it? Us?"

"How do you know?"

"They put out a press release saying they're having a press conference. And that's what it's about. Us."

"How'd you find out?"

Gale said, "I get a news feed from the City's Office of Cultural Affairs. It came on that."

"Can I get that? I'm cultured, ain't I?"

"JINNY, they're saying they know who stole the painting. We gotta go see Gwen. NOW."

"Ok, see you in five."

Jinny parked his BMW on Church Street and they walked up to the June's house. Gale started up the brick steps when Jinny took her arm and pulled her down the driveway and over to the wood steps up to the back porch. At the top he took a small case from his pocket, extracted two small tools, and picked the deadbolt on the door. He said, "I gotta keep in practice." They went through the pantry and entered the kitchen, where they found me sitting at the counter pointing my Glock 40 cal at them. Jinny said, "You carry that thing inside your house? Who you think's coming after you?"

I said, "Ya never know. What's up?" I looked at Gale and said, "He's been here four years, and you haven't taught him that in Charleston, we ring the chimes when we want to come inside someone's house?"

Gale said, "He said he has to keep his lock-picking skills in practice. I don't know why; it's not like he has to go out and steal money all the time. You know he has two mill stashed in his house?"

I looked at Jinny and said, "You keep two million dollars in cash in your house." I didn't ask where he got it. "What's up that you had to break and enter my house?"

Gale took out her phone, brought up an email, and handed the phone to me. I read the press release announcing the press conference and said, "Jesus. I guess Roger's going to find out what he wanted to know."

"What's that?"

"How I look in prison orange."

Jinny looked at Gale and said, "Don't worry. You'll look good in it. You look good in anything."

I said, "I guess we'd better go. If they really do know, it won't matter, and if they're just beating the bushes, that won't matter either."

Gale said, "It says they're serving champagne, so at least we'll get a drink before they arrest us. You don't think when they say champagne they really mean crappy sparkling wine from New Mexico, do you?"

"I've never been to a press conference where they're going to serve booze, so I couldn't say."

Jinny said, "What do you mean about beating the bushes?"

I said, "It may be some kind of trick, trying to flush us out. I don't know. We'll go and see."

Jinny said, "What about the painting? Maybe we should move it."

I hadn't thought of that, and said, "Where? It looks so good where it is, and if they know it was us, it won't matter."

Gale said, "You're too close to this thing. You're not thinking clearly. Jinny's right, we gotta get it out of here, at least for a while. How about next door?"

"Richard's?"

"Why not? He likes us."

I said, "I'm not sure he likes us enough to hide stolen goods."

"Why not ask? He can always claim we held a gun to his head. Like that one on the counter. Can say we told him we'd accuse him of plagiarism in his books if he calls the cops. Nothing worse than that for a writer."

Jinny said, "Yeah there is: boring writing is worse."

I looked at him and said, "How 'bout knocking on his door, ask him if we can store something in his house while we have the living room walls painted."

Ten minutes later Jinny came back. "He said if we mean the painting we stole from the museum, the answer is yes, if we give him an exclusive on the story, whichever way it turns out."

Gale said, "What's that mean?"

"He gets to write a book about us stealing the most famous painting in Charleston and getting away with it, or gets to write a book about us stealing the painting, getting caught by a smart insurance company investigator, and spending ten years in the slammer. He's good either way."

I said, "Let's leave it where it is for right now. There's something weird about it I can't place yet. We can take it next door if somebody comes snooping around." To Gale, "Would you do me a favor? Get on the computer and see if anybody in Charleston, or nearby, has a '68 Mustang 390 GT, and if they'd be willing to rent it out for a day or two?"

She looked at me, and said, "What are you cooking up? We're on the verge of going to jail, and you're setting something up? A game? What is it?" She stood looking at me, and then she got it. "Oh, wait, yes, oh you're so bad. Oh Gwen, yes, let's do it."

"Do what?"

"It's something to do with the guy you saw at the museum, the guy that looks like Steve McQueen. You think he's still around?" I nodded. "You think he's part of the heist, involved?" I nodded. "How?"

"I think he's from the insurance company."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't know, I just think he is. While you're hunting for the car, I'll call down there and find out."

I called the museum office and said, "I'm from the AP, and need information about the press conference tomorrow. What time is it?"

The person on the other end said, "5pm."

"Are the Charleston Police leading it? Are they making the announcement they have solved the case?"

"No ma'am. The police are not running the conference. We are, or rather, someone working for the museum is. The insurance company. It's their press conference."

I said, "The AP is very interested in this. Who is leading the show tomorrow? Do you have a name?"

"Yeah, the guy's name is Crown. Tommy Crown. The director and chief curator of the museum will be there with him. 5pm."

"I think I've heard of this guy before, on another story I did a couple of years ago. What's he look like?"

"He looks like that actor that died a few years ago. Made a great World War II movie about a German prison camp. Jumped a motorcycle over some fences trying to break out."

"The Great Escape. Steve McQueen."

"That's it. This guy looks like him."

"Ok, thanks."

I went into the study where Gale sat at the computer, and said, "I was right. It's him. He's from the insurance company, and he's running the press conference tomorrow."

She said, "Is that good or bad?

"I don't know, but I might as well have some fun before the cell door slams shut."

# Chapter 18 – They Meet

The first people to show up at the press conference, an hour early, were the cops, in the form of the Chief. A few minutes later the Mayor showed, both of them barging into the Director's office, stepping on each other's, "What's going on? Why didn't you tell us you solved the case? This makes us look like goof-offs, blah blah blah."

The Director said, "You know as much as I do. Stop yelling. I don't like it either, but the insurance company said they won't pay if we don't cooperate with their guy. I want either the painting back or the two and a half million, and that's why I'm doing what the guy says. He wants a press conference with champagne, and he's paying for it, that's ok with me." He paused, looking at the Chief of Police, said, "You haven't, by the way, solved the case, have you?"

The Mayor looked at the Chief, who said, "Not yet. Been working on the flag thing."

"The what?" said the Mayor.

"You know what. You told me to get on it, day and night, and that's what I'm doing. Me and the boys."

The Director said, "What flag thing?"

The Mayor and the Chief looked at each other like the Director had been on Mars for the last week. The Mayor answered, "Some idiots are running Confederate battle flags up all the flagpoles around town, middle of the night. We take down ten, the next morning there's ten more up, flappin in the wind. Gonna make CNN soon if it keeps up. The boys gotta stop it. All hands to the pumps."

The Director said, "Ergo, why the insurance guy gets his way. It's almost time, let's go up to the gallery and see what he's going to say. We can get a glass of bubbly; I need one."

Both the Chief and the Mayor thought, 'So do I. God damn flags.'

They went upstairs and walked down the long hallway at the end of which is the large glass case in which is displayed Gershwin's piano. Past that is the silver collections gallery, outside of which were two long folding tables that held a hundred glass champagne flutes and ten bottles of champagne in ice buckets. The Curator stood behind the table with two of his staff, ready to pour. Tommy was inside the gallery, sitting on a chair at the base of the wall where the Bedgewood painting, until very recently, had hung. He was going over his notes when the Mayor, Chief, and Director came in, flutes in their hands.

The Director said, "The Mayor and the Chief want to know how you solved the case, and why you didn't tell them."

Tommy didn't stand up, but stayed seated and stretched his legs out towards the illustrious trio. "How's the champagne? I haven't tried it yet, but I told them to buy good stuff. And I can use a drink."

The Mayor said, "It's good, it's good. Now, how'd you do it? Where's the painting? You gonna hang it back up there?"

The Director was hanging on Tommy's answer, because, quite frankly, he had been hoping the painting was long gone, and he was going to get a check for two and a half mill that he was going to use to enlarge his office and put in new leather furniture, among other pet projects, maybe change the menu in the cafe, more seafood.

Tommy was ready for these guys and said, "I've been here six days, plus Sunday, which I took off, spent most of the day in church, and I know who stole it. I don't have it yet, but I will. I'm not sure how soon, but you'll get it back. We're going to meet the thief tonight, in a few minutes. It may take me a while to convince," and here he almost said, "her," but caught himself and said, "the person to give it back. But I will."

The Director looked at the Chief who looked at the Mayor, all of whom then looked at Tommy, still sitting in the chair with his legs stretched out. The Chief said, "You're going to introduce me to the thief? And I'm going to arrest him? Now?"

"I said we're going to meet the person. By that I mean the person's going to be here, but I'm not going to introduce the person, nor are you going to arrest the person. That comes later, and the reason is that I don't yet have the proof I need to prosecute. And I don't have the painting. That will come later, also. The investigation began when I arrived, and tonight is the start of the chase. The painting will be back soon." Before the three VIPs could start squawking, the media began coming into the gallery, talking to each other, asking if they ever had been to a crime press conference where someone was serving Verve Clicquot Yellow Label champagne.

The dialogue changed from the VIPs assaulting Tommy to the media and press assaulting the VIPs, which let Tommy relax for a few moments, watch the crowd file in, and scan for his target, who he was certain would attend. By 5:10pm the gallery was full, most of the flutes had been filled and placed in hand, and Tommy stood on a riser under the rectangle of faded paint on the wall, flanked by the three bigwigs. He clapped his hands for attention, then a second time, and the crowd quieted. He said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for coming this evening. This press conference will be very short, and afterwards I invite you to partake of another glass of champagne." He paused and looked around, relaxed, enjoying himself, hoping this scheme would work. "I want to thank the Director of the museum, the Mayor, and the Chief of the Charleston Police Department for their support. I represent the firm that underwrites the insurance for the museum, including the provisions for theft of objects. As you can see from the space behind me, we have had a theft, and the parties involved are taking that very seriously. It is the City of Charleston that will suffer the most if the painting is not found and returned. The painting was insured for two and a half million dollars, which is an indication of its value to the museum and the community." Tommy again paused, used the moment to continue his scan of the crowd, and recognized Gale and Jinny standing against the back wall of the gallery, as the two people who had been sitting with me in the cafe.

"The purpose of this conference is to provide a status report of the company's investigation to this point. Thus far we have completed an analysis of the facility's security system, and compiled a history of the painting. I cannot at this time provide you with copies of those, but I can say both have informed the investigation in very significant ways. The combined information in the reports strongly points to the identity of those who stole the artwork, and we believe the thieves and the painting still are in Charleston. It is my hope, my opinion, that the perpetrators will be caught and painting returned here, once again to grace the walls of this gallery."

Jinny leaned against Gale and said, "What's a perpetrator?"

"You, you idiot. You're the perp, us," she whispered.

Tommy went on, "That is all the information we have to share at this time. Let me simply emphasize the positive nature of the investigation. I know you will have questions, some of which I will be able to answer and some of which I will not. I cannot provide much in the way of details tonight, but as progress is made, and it surely will be made, we will issue other press releases in a timely manner. Thank you for coming, and again, please help yourselves to refreshments in the hallway."

Normally at this point the media would pepper the host of a press conference with a deluge of questions, but most of them now, strangely, seemed drawn back into the hallway and the tables on which sat the squat bottles with yellow labels. Three quarters of the crowd refilled their glasses and talked about what Tommy had said, while a few of the more serious ones did cluster around Tommy and asked him questions, most of which, apologetically, he refused to answer.

Gale and Jinny floated into the hallway, got refills, and came back into the gallery, where they looked at the fabulous silver collections in the plexiglass cases. Gale said, "See that teapot? I love it, and I'd have had it in my dining room now, but Gwen wouldn't let me take it. I don't see why she can steal stuff and I can't."

Jinny knew better than to answer, and circled around the small group who surrounded the the lone figure of Tommy \- the Director, Mayor, and Chief all having left to get their own refills before the good stuff ran out. After ten minutes the last reporter scribbled a last note and headed for the tables in the hallway, leaving Tommy, Jinny, and Gale alone in the gallery. Tommy had been watching them watch him, and knew something was up. It looked to him like his scheme to flush out the thieves was working, and his excitement built. But, where was I, who he knew was the star of the occasion? He sat down on the chair against the wall, and waited.

Gale played coy for a couple of minutes, ignoring him and talking to Jinny about the silver, but then looked over at him and smiled. Tommy thought, 'God Almighty, I'll take that smile to decorate my living room, over the two mill painting, any day.'

Gale walked over to him followed by Jinny and said, accentuating her Charleston accent to devastating effect, "Good evening. Too bad about the painting. Such a loss."

Tommy smiled back at her, also to devastating effect, Gale being as easily influenced by handsome men as men are by her, and said, "Temporary loss. My name is Tommy Crown."

"This is Mr. Blistov, and I'm Gale. Do you work all the time, Mr. Crown? Twenty-four seven? Charleston can be a fun town when you have the right....friend."

Jinny knew there was no time for this stuff, having seen Gale work this ploy, successfully, a lot, and stepped in, not exactly displaying Charleston style and gentility, saying to her, "Knock it off. We got work to do here." He looked at Tommy and said, "We got a friend downstairs, wants to meet you. She's the shy type and didn't want to come up here with all these....reporters." Jinny almost said, '....with all these cops,' but managed to squelch that. "She's interested in the painting, just like you are. Funny thing." And Jinny smiled.

Tommy smiled back, then looked at Gale, wishing she'd kept going on the seduction thing, it was working, as it did on all who came under her influence, and said, "I've seen you before, I think. In the cafe, downstairs, maybe a week ago, right after I got here."

Jinny said, "That so? Maybe, 'cause we're aficionados, come here a lot, look at silver and stuff. But, hey, can you come downstairs?"

"Absolutely," Tommy said, and wondered what was coming next.

The media gluttons, never a crowd to turn down free food or drink, were draining the last bottles of Veuve, with the Curator still behind the tables. Jinny led the way down the long staircase to the entry foyer, Gale having linked arms with Tommy, showing both southern hospitality and her omnipresent horny streak, and out the main entry doors to the bluestone plaza. Parked in the middle of the plaza, surrounded on two sides by raised planting beds of flowers and on a third side by a flagpole, was a screaming yellow 1968 Mustang 390 GT, with the engine running and the exhaust issuing a restrained version of the burbling growl that fans of Bullitt know and love so well. Tommy stopped, looked, and listened; then looked at Gale and Jinny; then back at the car. This he had not expected. He said, "Umm, your friend is....?"

Jinny nodded.

"Your friend is?"

"Ms. June."

"The car? Mustang. Movie?"

Gale nodded.

Tommy's head slowly bent sideways as he processed the scene, as if looking at it at a forty-five degree angle was going to make it more believable. JeSuS, the car was beautiful; cooler looking than the dark green one McQueen drove in the movie. And the sound, in the quiet of the plaza evening....badASS. He straightened his head, took a breath, walked to the passenger side window, which was down, and looked in.

I said, "Get in Tommy. Let's drive."

# Chapter 19 - The Ride

I took it easy leaving the plaza for three reasons: I'd already dinged the museum by stealing their iconic painting, and thought leaving rubber tracks on their plaza bluestone would add insult to injury; I hoped Tommy enjoyed driving fast but couldn't assume that just because he looks like Steve McQueen, and didn't want to scare him, right out of the blocks; and because I'd only driven this beast of a car for half an hour and didn't have a feel for it yet under high performance conditions. I didn't want to scare myself, either. Gale had found it right here in town, and had negotiated a short term lease with its owner at the rate of $1000 a day. I wondered what Roger would think of this arrangement, but stopped myself quickly by quoting to myself, 'while the cat's away.' Gale had gone with me to the guy's house to pick it up, at which point I paid him for five days, in cash, in advance, and on the way home she had looked at the back seat and said, "Better than my Ferrari."

I took it easy getting out of the historic district and then up East Bay Street for a mile, but when we hit the elevated ramp that led onto the three mile long Ravenel Bridge over the Cooper and Wando Rivers, I punched the throttle. There's something exciting about accelerating uphill. By the time we merged with the four lanes of the bridge we were doing seventy and by the time we reached the apex of the bridge we hit ninety. I took my right hand off the wood wheel and pointed out to the harbor, saying, "See the flags flying over Fort Sumter?" When he looked away to where I was pointing, I looked at his face, and he seemed relaxed, enjoying the ride. I had figured as much.

As we crested the bridge, I took my foot off the gas, the sound of the 390 changed from a rocketing thrust to a burbling growl, and changed again halfway down the slope as I downshifted to third to scrub off more of the ninety mph. As we tooled at a sedate forty mph between the Ravenel Bridge and the causeway leading to the Ben Sawyer Bridge and Sullivan's Island, my only comment was, "Urban sprawl." Tommy hadn't said a word, another mark of character, him knowing when silence is golden.

About this time back at the museum Gale slipped away from the crowd still at the champagne tables which included the Mayor and the Chief, draining every last drop of the Veuve, went back into the gallery, thinking everyone was at the party and no one was watching the security cameras, and tried to pry the plexiglass case off the exhibit pedestal on which sat the silver teapot she wanted to grace her dining room table, but found it screwed down. She said, "Shit," which really wasn't taught at the Savannah finishing school to which she'd been sent for a year, but which you can put down to the combination of five glasses of champagne and a sense of frustration at being thwarted in her second attempt at stealing something of significance.

The Ben Sawyer Bridge sits halfway out the three mile long causeway over to Sullivan's Island, and by the time we hit it I had goosed the speedo up to eighty. This velocity created enough momentum to briefly overcome gravity at the crest of the bridge and leave us airborne for thirty feet before hitting asphalt on the downslope. I didn't turn my head to look at Tommy, having some small concern regarding the possibility of a vehicle coming toward us from the opposite direction, but I didn't have the sense he even blinked. In my peripheral vision I noticed his legs were crossed and his hands lay palms up in his lap, neither of which I construed as signs of discomfort, much less the terror your average guy would feel, given the circumstances. So far, so good.

As we pulled up to the stop sign at the end of the causeway I asked, "You ever been to Fort Moultrie?"

He shook his head and said, "So far I've been to my hotel room and the museum. I lied to the museum director and the mayor, telling them I spent last Sunday at church, but really I still was at the hotel."

"What were you doing on Sunday?"

"I was trying to take it easy and get away from investigating thefts for a day. I just spent two months in Paris doing that, hardly a day off, and then when I got back to New York my boss caught me and sent me down here, doing the same thing."

"You catch the person you were after in Paris?"

"People. A gang."

"Well? You catch 'em?"

"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it adversely may affect our relationship."

"We have a relationship?"

"Anytime you voluntarily go airborne in a car with a person, you're in a relationship."

The brick fort built in 1810 appeared on our left, and I parked in a spot in front of Cannon Row. Both of us were sorry to hear the sound of silence as I switched off the Mustang's engine, but we figured we'd get used to it. It was 7pm and the fort had been locked up for two hours, so I led the way over to Battery Jasper, a monolithic concrete gun emplacement built in 1899, much later than the fort. It too was locked up, but I said, "I know how to get in, and the view from up on top is great." We walked half way down the front face of the structure until we hit a row of steel plate doors that covered ventilation shafts. I lifted one of them up and then out, and it swung open on squeaking hinges. "My family had a summer cottage over here, and we used to play around here before the Park Service took it over and opened it up to the public." I climbed through the opening, walked down a corridor, and then up a flight of concrete steps that opened to a gun platform on top of the battery. In front of us was Charleston harbor and its mouth out to the Atlantic.

I pointed out to Fort Sumter and said, "See how any ship coming in from the ocean to attack the city had to pass between the two forts?" He nodded, and we walked to the end of the battery near the fort.

Below us was the small parking area and the car. He said, "Nice ride. That was fun." He paused, then said, "How often do you pick up guys in a hot car and bring 'em out here?"

I looked at him, then out at the harbor, and said, "Not often. Not ever, really. You were going to pick me up sooner or later; I just thought I'd cut to the chase, figuratively and literally. I like car chases. We don't have hills like in San Francisco, so that was the best I could do."

"You don't pick guys up because you're married. Roger's his name, I think."

"How do you know about him?"

"I know a lot about your family, from way back up to the present. You happily married?"

I turned and looked at him and said, "Yes, I am."

Now he looked out at the harbor, and then said, "So this was a business pickup? Not a fun pickup?"

I took a deep breath and said, "I've never cheated on my husband. He's in France for two months and, like you said, you and I have business together. I see no reason not to have a little fun along with the business. I can think and feel strongly without slipping into infidelity."

"What about my thoughts and feelings? And what about when the business ends? What if that's not fun? Most business deals are about both parties getting something of benefit. But sometimes one party gets all the good and the other gets the bad."

I said, "Maybe you can think and feel strongly too, without slipping into carnality. It's been done. And playing the game isn't always about the end result. All the sports people say 'winning is everything.' That's wrong. That's not sportsmanship. It's about how you play the game that counts." He stood listening to me; really listening to me, I could tell, so I finished with, "And Tommy, before you decide to play the game with me, you need to imagine a future in which it doesn't turn out as you've been thinking it will. Can you experience losing and still love the sportsmanship of the game? Now's the time to ask yourself that."

He looked at me for a moment and then turned and walked ten feet away, looking out at the Lighthouse in the far distance. Without turning back to me he said, "I've never had anyone say anything like that to me before, but I think the answer is, yes. I know I want to find out if I can." He paused, then said, "Can I drive the yellow beast back to town?"

# Chapter 20 - The Game Begins

The next day I called Gale and said, "Renegotiate the deal for the Mustang. Longer-term."

She said, "You're keeping the car? What's longer-term mean?"

"I don't know. Say seven weeks. Get a price for seven weeks. Beat him down."

"If I remember correctly, it was a week ago that you told me and Jinny that Roger was going to be in France for two more months. That makes for an interesting coincidence. You have a Jag in the driveway; why do you want a muscle car? Once in a while that's fun, but....Oh, Gwen, what have you done? You haven't?....Wait, I'm calling Jinny on another line....Shit, I'm me, but you're you....You don't....I do.....But you don't....Oh shit....Wait...."

"GALE, knock it off. Just call the guy and see what he wants for a few more weeks of rental. I like it and want to drive it a little more, that's all. Stop exaggerating. Stop projecting onto me."

"Ok, but I'm calling Jinny before I call the guy. We gotta talk this over. This is wild."

I hung up, and from Gale's lead I echoed a rhetorical question to myself, 'Gwen, what have you done?' Being disinclined to question decisions I've made, I left it in rhetorical form and moved on to practical matters like, 'What's my next move?' I sat on my bed in the living room and stared at Gwendolyn Manigault, hanging on the wall and looking unconcerned about her plight. I said, "Hey girl, what would you do if you got yourself in this position?" Just then the dog walked into the room, looked at me and then at the painting. He stared at the painting for a minute, sat down, looked at me and said, "Ok, let's have it. This sounds serious."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Ole Gwendy up on the wall knows what you're up to but she said I had to get it from you; she's not squealing. So, let's have it."

"If that's not the pot calling the kettle black. Talk about a squealer. Everything Roger and I do, you tell that writer next door, and he blabs it all over the New York Times best-seller list. Why should I tell you?"

"Two reasons: one, I'll find out anyhow, you can't hide from me, and two, you owe me, big time, and always will. So, give."

I didn't like being ganged up on by the girl on the wall and him, but I had to admit he was right. I did owe him. Roger and I owe him from the time the woman got past our home security system in the middle of the night, and I guess we always will. The dog heard her downstairs and woke us up, 3am, and we managed to get the drop on her as she came up the stairs, armed with a Walther PPK. What was really bad about that situation was we had a special friend staying with us, the French actress and cultural icon, Catherine Deneuve. And here was a home invasion. That whole thing had worked out pretty well, what with the woman, Anna, coming over to our side in a battle with her grandfather, guy named Stirg, and becoming friends with us. That part was good, but the writer snoop next door found out, through the dog of course, and wrote a book about the whole deal which he titled after me, Gwenny June, and having your name all over the place for a few weeks wasn't such a good part, but what can you do? So anyway the dog holds this ace over us, and plays it regularly, and we can't stay mad at Richard the snoop next door because he got his foot in the door with Anna, who not only is our good friend but also a bombshell of a woman, so we have to put up with the dog owning us at home and the neighbor writing books about us. He writes and markets them as if they are fiction, and he disguises us, sometimes, and nothing really bad has happened yet, but we do have a reputation in some circles.

That's the story about why we owe the dog, and now I suppose you want to know about how the dog talks to us. Well, YOU don't have anything over us, so I'm not telling, other than to say, yes, we communicate with him, though it's not talking. It's telepathy, and that's all I'm saying. What is new, very new and interesting, and which I'm going to have to tell Roger about, put in a call to him in France, is that now the woman in the painting, apparently, is communicating with the dog.

"Is that right?" I asked the dog. Are you and Gwendolyn Manigault talking?"

"Did you hear anything?" he said (telepathically).

"You know what I mean. Are you communicating with her?"

"You tell me what's going on with the guy not named Roger, and maybe I'll tell you about Gwendolyn. Deal?"

"What do you mean, maybe?"

"That's the deal. Take it or leave it."

I was tempted to go into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of wine but it was only ten o'clock in the morning, so I rearranged the blankets on the sofa instead and said, "Deal." The dog lay down and crossed one front leg over the other. I went on, "You remember the movie Bullitt? There's a guy in town that looks just like Steve McQueen, and I'm curious about him and want to see if he acts like Steve McQueen does in his movies. That's all."

The dog said, "You like an actor in an old movie, and that's reason to cheat on your husband? You bring that guy around here and I'll tear him limb from limb. Protect the sanctity of this home." The dog barely could keep his eyes open as he said this.

"I'm not cheating on Roger, and I told the guy that straight out. Told him I could have a little fun without backing into infidelity if he could do the same without backing into carnality. And he said, Yes."

"And you believed him? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? No guy not a eunuch is going to maintain a posture devoid of carnality if he's around you much. Like five minutes. Get real."

I sensed a compliment in this somewhere but didn't dwell on it because I also sensed a grain of truth. Maybe I did need to get real, but decided to avoid that for right now, and continued, "There's more to it than a little vicarious attraction. The guy's also the investigator for the insurance company associated with the painting. The pinching of the painting. He's working in the museum right now."

This got the dog's eyes fully open and his paws uncrossed. "You telling me you're fooling around with a guy that's trying to catch you and put you in jail? Is that what you're telling me?" I nodded. He looked at the painting for a minute, then back at me. "You've done some wild shit in your day, like stealing stuff from the Hermitage Museum and invading Stirg's house in your bikini with your gun hidden in a towel, but this is, is....stupid. There were good reasons for all the other stuff, but this....? Have you lost your mind? Do I need to get on the phone and call Roger and tell him to come and get you out of the nuthouse, which is where you're heading?"

"You can't dial the phone and your telepathic powers can't reach across the Atlantic to France."

"Where there's a will there's a way. I'll get Gale to do it, or Jinny."

"Since when do you communicate with either of them?"

"Until now I haven't had to, because until now I haven't shared a home with a nutcase."

"I don't think you can communicate with them."

"If I can communicate with a women who lived two hundred years ago and now resides in an oil painting on the freaking wall, I can communicate with them."

"You've alluded to the ability to do that but you haven't demonstrated it yet. I'm waiting."

The dog said, "I wanna hear more about this McQueen guy first. What's his name and what's his claim to fame?"

"His name is Tommy Crown, and he has the same sandy hair and blue eyes as Steve McQueen. Same look. Mr. Stud."

"And that's enough to compel you to cheat on Roger?"

"Stop with that, ok. I haven't done anything. We took a ride over to Sullivan's, and that's all."

"So far."

"I just have a feeling about him and want to play a little. And I think he can hold up his end of the bargain."

"And if he can't? If he cracks under the pressure and makes a move, what then? You gonna crack too?"

"No."

"Uh huh."

"Ok, I've told you about him. Now you tell me about Gwendolyn. Wha'd she say to you? Can you really talk with her?"

He got up, turned away from me and walked towards the living room door. He stopped and looked at the painting, nodded, then shook his head, and walked out.

"You rat," I yelled after him.

# Chapter 21 – My Friends

Gale tooled over the Ben Sawyer Bridge fast in her Ferrari, but not as fast as I did in the 390 GT, Gale keeping her tires connected to the asphalt. She pulled into Jinny's driveway, got out, didn't knock on the door but barged in and climbed the stairs to the kitchen elevated ten feet above beach level in case another hurricane blasts through like Hugo did in 1989. That one wiped out hundreds of homes on the island and many more throughout the Charleston area. Jinny sat at the counter eating shrimp and grits from three bowls, in front of which were six wine glasses filled with reds and whites. He didn't even blink when she came in and said to him, "What in god's name are you doing? Where's your gun? I could have been someone coming in to steal your two million in cash."

He chewed more, then took a sip from one of the glasses and closed his eyes. When he opened them he reached into a drawer in the counter and pulled out a Beretta nine millimeter, setting it next to one of the six wine bottles also sitting on the counter. He said, "I knew it was you."

"How'd you know it was me?"

"Perfume. The Shimmerer. That's what you've been wearing lately. Great stuff."

"You smelled my perfume before I got into the kitchen?" He nodded and spooned more grits into his mouth, followed by a sip from a different glass. "What are you doing?"

"Taste-testing. I'm writing an article for Southern Living Magazine about the best wines to go with shrimp and grits. So far the winner is a French vouvray, but I've got a lot more wines to go through."

Gale wondered how many people performed research for a culinary article with a Beretta at hand, but let the thought go because she had more important things to talk about, namely my impending infidelity to my husband, and their close friend, Roger. It was inconceivable to Gale to be interested in a man and not plan on ravishing him morning, noon, and night for an extended period of time. Sometimes a very extended period of time. She said, "We gotta talk." He motioned her to continue, then added more S&G to his mouth, this time from a different bowl. "Gwen's going to have an affair with this Tommy Crown guy." Jinny stopped chewing. "She's gonna cheat on Roger." He swallowed. "We gotta stop her. You, me, if we were married, no problem. But her, them. Can't happen. No way. We can't let that happen."

Jinny sat back in his chair and looked at Gale. Then he leaned forward and drained all the wine left in each of the six glasses in front of him, after which he said, "So, you want me to remove this guy from the equation? This Tommy guy?"

"What do you mean, remove?"

"Remove, remove. Eighty-six him from the scene. Save Gwen from herself. Ain't that what friends are for?"

"You mean tell him to get out of town, go back to New York?"

Jinny thought a moment, then said, "That's not what I had in mind, but I guess I can try that first." Just as it was inconceivable to Gale to have a platonic relationship with a handsome guy, it was inconceivable to Little Jinny Blistov to not think first of eliminating, permanently, a person who in some significant way was causing trouble in his life or the life of anyone he cares about. And he cares about Roger and me.

"And what if he says no to leaving?" asked Gale.

"Then out to the rocks off Fort Sumter with him. Last trip I made out there, the body showed up off the coast of Spain a month later."

Gale never was sure when Jinny was kidding and when he wasn't. She said, "Let's leave that on the table for later. We gotta try to talk her out of this, first. She wants me to keep the car for a while, the Mustang, like she's gonna drive this guy around in it, or he's gonna drive her around. And you know what happens when you drive around fast in a hot car with someone you got the hots for."

Jinny wasn't sure what Gale meant by this, him not having use of a lot of hot cars while growing up on the docks of Saint Petersburg, or later during his teenage years in the Russian army. During his childhood his mother rowed a boat out into the North Sea to fish for mackerel, and that boat was the fastest vehicle in his experience until he started riding around in a World War II era armored personnel carrier after he joined the army. He said, "If you wanna talk with her, let's go, but I think it would be easier to talk to the guy. He's no problem to deal with. Gwen, she don't scare."

Gale sat down on a stool and looked at the wine bottles, and then over to the three pots on the stove. "You made three different versions of S&G?" Jinny nodded. "They good?" He nodded again. "The wine good? Six different types?" He nodded. "So that's like, eighteen different combinations, right? You trying all of them, see which one is best?" He nodded. "That sounds like a lot of combinations. You need any help with this article thing?" He nodded. "Do I get joint authorship and a cut of the fee?"

"Yeah," he said, "long as you do your share of the research."

Gale's resolve to challenge me on her course of action appeared to be weakening as she said, "Dish me up the S&G, big fella, and don't be stingy with the wine." Jinny smiled.

# Chapter 22 – Our First Date

If somebody had told me I was acting stupidly by getting involved with Tommy Crown, I'd have told them to take a hike, as I'm a confident person. But it was the dog that had said this, and that's different. He's special. I sat looking at the painting, wondering if he really could communicate with Gwendolyn or if he was playing games with me, trying to seem more special than in reality he is. This line of thought went nowhere, so I shook myself out from it and looked at the clock, hoping it was wine time. We're liberal in that regard in this house, meaning Roger and me, but eleven am is a little too liberal. I made the bed on the sofa, gave Gwendolyn a smile as I left the living room, gave the dog a dirty look as I left the house, climbed into the Mustang and fired it up. Ten minutes later I parked it on the street near the museum, having decided that parking it on the plaza between the flower beds and the flagpole again would be in poor taste.

First I went into the gallery where the museum thieves who had stolen the painting from my great great great great granddaddy Manigault until recently had kept it, and was pleased to see the faded rectangle of paint on the wall. Let them suffer with that disgrace through eternity. Then I looked at the silver tea service in the exhibit case and wondered if I had been wrong in not letting Gale pinch it that night. It would look great on her dining room sideboard. I decided to talk that over with her soon, and if she was up for it, offer to pay another nighttime visit to this place. Gotta keep Gale happy. Then I went and looked at the Gershwin piano, trying to imagine George sitting at it in his underwear over on Folly Beach in the dead of summer, no air conditioning, sweating up a storm. How could he compose something so great under those conditions?

By this time it was noon, and I wondered if they sold those small bottles of wine in the museum cafe. They did, but I could see it was rotgut, so I bought a salad, sat down, and proceeded to pour five thousand calories of blue cheese dressing on it, triple my allotment of calories for an entire day. A few pieces of lettuce and carrots floated in the bowl like seaweed out in the ocean. What was going on here? Wanting to drink in the morning; calling the dog a rat; this mess on the table in front of me? I said, 'Get a grip, girl,' tossed the salad in the trash, debated again buying three or four of the little bottles and downing them consecutively, one after another, walked out of the cafe and went to the Curator's office.

"Hi," I said.

He got up from his desk where he was working on a brace of dueling pistols made in Italy in 1799, came around to the front of the office and said, "Ms. June. Hello. How can I help you?"

I didn't know this guy, but he knew me. I said, "Have we met? You know me?"

He blushed, looked down at the carpet, then back at me, said, "Well, not exactly. Sort of. I know of you. A lot of people in Charleston know of you." And he blushed again.

"Which book do you know me from? Or think you know me from?"

"Umm....all of them. I'm a fan. My favorite is The Lost Ballet. I love ballet, and the way you guys got Pete Townshend to play the Stravinsky score on synthesizer, that was great. Really great. I went to two performances."

Now he was flushing, not blushing. There's a difference. I said, "What makes you think I had anything to do with that story? Those are novels, you know. Fiction."

He stopped flushing, looked at me straight, and said, "Yeah, right."

"You think those books are good?"

"Great books. I love caper novels. And to have a series set right here in Charleston, that makes them special. We know all the places, and everyone who lives here thinks it's America's most beautiful town. And the stories are fun, and he mixes in all those cultural references. What's not to like?"

"You think that guy is a good writer?"

"Westlake? Richard E. Westlake? Yeah, he's good. Fun."

This visit to the museum was going from bad to worse. The temptation of the little bottles, that fat girl salad, and now a plug for Richard the snoop, my neighbor, Anna's sometime boyfriend and the blabbermouth who writes about Roger's and my going-ons. Sherlock Holmes hated that about Watson, and we hate it about Richard. Now I had a rat of a dog and a rat of a neighbor. I didn't like that 'Yeah, right,' comment; that was telling. And the fact that I'm standing in this guy's office and letting him get to me also is telling. I haven't told myself to get a grip once in the last five years, and here I'm saying it twice in one day. 'Get a grip, girl.' I said, "Tommy Crown around?"

The Curator had gotten a grip on himself, was done with the blushing and flushing, and looked me in the eye, a glint there of the mischievous. Now it was my turn to blush, which I haven't done since I was ten. What is going on? He said, "Maybe. He's working on the theft of the painting. The Bedgewood painting. The painting of the wife, which now that I mention it...." He stopped talking and changed to inferring, inference, which was quite an effective tactic, the little rat. Now another one, another rat, I am turning cynical about the human and canine races.

I got it together, stepped close to him, and turned it on. "Where is he? I want to see him."

It felt good to see him blubber a little, jelly in the knees, the quivering lower lip, hear him say, "Yes Ma'am, I'll call him, right now." Which he did.

"Tell him I'll meet him in the gallery."

I went into the gallery, removed the small sign from a hundred and fifty year old Duncan Phyfe chair that said Please do not sit, and sat down. I was being a real pill today. Ten minutes later Tommy came into the gallery, walked up to me and said, "You break that chair, it's going to cost you. We insure it for $150K." And he smiled at me the way McQueen did to Tuesday Weld in The Cincinnati Kid. This was the first good thing that had happened to me all day, and I felt like myself again.

I stood up, put the sign back on the chair, looked at him and said, "Do you play chess?"

# Chapter 23 – The Saviors Plot to Save Me From Myself

The sound of pots and pans clashing and banging in the kitchen woke Gale at 6am. Her mouth was stuck shut and she found herself lying on the springs of Jinny's sofa, the cushions having been knocked onto the floor during the night. She looked down and saw she still had her shirt on, but her jeans were nowhere in sight. This not being the first time awakening to find herself in this condition, she wasn't shocked or disturbed. Well, except for her mouth. She went into the kitchen to ask Jinny what the hell had happened.

He said, "Whadja say, girl?"

"Ummgrittsezzz....jeans?"

"They're out front. You threw them off the top balcony last night."

"Ummsezzzlattakurr....do that?"

"There were some guys jogging on the beach that caught your eye. What's the matter with your mouth?"

"Ummtricklebombgatt....stuck."

Jinny came around the counter island, put his arm around her waist, took her to the sink, turned on the faucet, and stuck her head under it. A minute later he heard her say, "Stop it, you're drowning me." He let her up, grabbed a kitchen towel, handed it to her, and went back to his cooking. She dried her face, wrapped the towel around her head, and sat down on a stool. "What the hell happened?"

With his back to her Jinny said, "You can't hold your liquor like you used to. Gettin' old."

Gale looked at the bottles on a counter across the kitchen and said, "How much wine did we drink?"

Jinny walked to the counter, counted the bottles, said, "Six."

"The two of us drank six bottles of wine, and you say I can't hold my liquor?"

"Hey, I'm not the one walking around in my underpants with my mouth stuck shut."

"It's 6am for god's sake. What are you doing?"

"I decided none of the eighteen combinations of shrimp and grits and wine measured up to Southern Living Magazine's high standards, so I'm starting over."

Gale said, "You're going to cook more S&Gs and try it with more wines? Now?"

"I was hoping you were gonna help me. You wanted joint authorship and half the fee, but I can see you aren't up to it. Besides, I got nothing better to do today."

Gale didn't respond to this but fixed herself a cup of coffee, then another one, at which point she said, "Yes, you do."

"Do what?"

"Have something better to do today."

"What's that?"

"What do you think? Our best friend is going down the tubes. We gotta save her from herself."

"Why is that our job? Maybe she wants to cheat on Roger. Everybody else does that. Why not her?"

Gale picked up her coffee cup and threw it at Jinny's head, him ducking easily, ducking again when the saucer followed. Then she was around the island and at him, picking up a copper-bottomed saucepan on the way and trying to clobber him in the face with it. He picked her up around the waist with one arm like she was a roll of paper towels, took the pan away from her with his other hand, and settled in, letting her beat on his head and face, the blows having an effect similar to drops of a light spring rain. When she stopped he smiled at her and said, "I take your point. How 'bout we head over to her house, see what's going on?"

Gale retrieved her jeans from the shrubbery under the upper-story porch balcony, went back into the kitchen, fixed herself three English muffins with butter and English marmalade, took them out to the driveway and fired up the 500 horsepower Ferrari engine. Jinny climbed into the passenger side with his five English muffins with butter and English marmalade, and they headed back to town. Fifteen minutes later they knocked on the June's back door, Jinny not feeling the need to practice his lock picking skills so early in the morning. From inside they heard an aristocratic bark. Gale said, "Open up, it's us." Another bark. Gale looked at her watch, then looked at Jinny and said, "It's 7:30am, and she's not here. We're too late. Shit. And it's your fault. If you hadn't been playing house with your shrimp and grits and wine, we could have come over here last night and saved her. This is on your head, you big lummox."

Jinny was going to defend himself when something strange happened. Both of them heard somebody say something, but it wasn't really a sound in their ears. It was something odd. Standing at the back door Jinny looked at Gale and Gale looked at Jinny. They both heard, "I got some special talents, but one of them isn't turning door knobs. If you want to talk this over, come inside."

Gale said, "Did you hear that?" Jinny nodded. "Who's talking?" looking down the steps from the porch, then over at Richard Westlake's back porch next door, then back at Jinny.

"I am. Inside."

"Gwen, are you in there? Is that guy with you? Are you playing games? Did Roger come back early from France?"

"She ain't here and neither is the Crown guy. Not yet, anyway. Just us chickens. Come in, I can't open the door."

Jinny opened the screen door and then the inner door, and they both went into the pantry that opened into the kitchen, where they found the dog sitting and looking at them. Even though it was a big kitchen it didn't take them long to scan it and find no one. No person, and both of their gazes came back to the dog. His mouth didn't move but they heard, "I'm only half the show. The other half's in the living room. Come on." He turned and walked out of the kitchen.

Gale said to Jinny, "This ever happen to you before?"

He said, "Supposedly in the old days when Stalin ran the country they would send people to the gulags for like, thirty years, and some of them would hear voices after a while, but it's never happened to me."

"You think this is a sign maybe I shouldn't drink so much in one sitting? Can too much alcohol make you hear things?"

"Three bottles of wine isn't that much," said Jinny, "so I don't think so. C'mon, let's see what's up." When they entered the living room they found the dog lying beneath the painting with his front legs crossed.

They looked at the blankets and pillows on the sofa and Jinny said, "You think her and Crown been....you know, over there?"

Gale didn't say anything but an answer came, "Not yet. But it may not be far off, and that's what we gotta talk about."

They turned away from the sofa and looked at the dog who said, "Have a seat, but not on the sofa." They looked at the pair of antique French Fauteuils armchairs near the Steinway and sat down. The dog went on, "Look, you guys got work to do, so we gotta get over this hump you're feeling right now, ok? It took the Junes a few days, but you don't have that luxury, so here's the deal. I come from a long line of canines that can do this telepathy thing. Family lore says it was a genetic mutation back around 1310, but who knows. We're just like you guys in that we tend to exaggerate things. Anyway, we only do it when we co-habit with superior humans, like Gwen and Roger. If Roger was here, or Gwen wasn't going off the deep end, I'da never brought you two on board, but it's an emergency, so now you know."

Gale said, "You can talk?"

"Did I say talk? Do you see my lips moving? I said telepathy. Jinny, help me out here."

Jinny looked at Gale and said, "We don't have to use words with him. Just think something and shoot it over, he'll understand."

The dog said, "Thank you."

Gale said to Jinny, "Does that mean we can do telepathy stuff between us, don't have to talk? I've wondered about Gwen and Roger; they always seem to be on the same wavelength, always seem to understand each other so well."

The dog said, "Hey, hey babe, focus here, huh. What you guys do with each other, figure that out later. The four of us are here to work. We gotta figure out a strategy, save Gwen's ass."

Jinny projected to the dog, "Four?"

"You got half the story so far, me doing the telepathy thing. There's more. You ready?"

"Ready for what?" said Gale, still verbalizing, not yet in the telepathizing groove. "What's more than a talking dog?"

The dog projected to Jinny, "Maybe you better mix her a drink, keep her glued down for this next part."

Jinny projected back, "She's still hung over from last night. I don't think more booze is in her best interest right now. Better wait till lunchtime."

"You know best," and with that the dog looked up at the painting and said, "Your turn, hon. Go gentle."

A mellifluous sensation ensconced in a deeply southern Charleston accent entered their minds, "How y'all doing this morning? I'm Gwendolyn, pleased very finely to meet you."

Gale looked at the painting, then at Jinny, then at the dog, then again at the painting, then back to Jinny, to whom she projected telepathically, finally gaining traction on this new skill, "I need a drink. Make me a drink, Jinny. Bourbon, no ice. The June's have some very good bourbon in that cabinet over there. Get out a bottle and pour a lot in one of those engraved glasses, and hand it to me. Now, Jinny."

Jinny did as he was told, then sat back down in the embroidered Fautueils chair. Gale took a pull on the drink, closed her eyes, opened them, and said to everyone present, "Ok, I'm good now."

Gwendolyn said, "Jinny darlin', would you make me one of those? It is early in the day, but what the heck, meeting new friends always is a cause for a celebration, leastways where I come from." And she giggled.

The dog said, "Knock it off, Gwendy, stop playin' around with the I'm really human stuff. We got work to do. You're spiritual, and be thankful you got that much left after two hundred years. Most folks are in the black zone, and that's it."

Jinny asked, "You call her Gwendy?"

"Yeah. Now I got a Gwenny and a Gwendy; gotta keep 'em straight somehow. They're like twins, thinking and acting the same. Well, thinking the same; the one not really acting much, just wanting to. Still, even without being able to act, she's a pistol."

Gwendy said, "Thanks for the compliment, dear."

Jinny, being more adaptable to situations than Gale, said, "So what's this work we gotta do? Have to do with Gwen gettin' ready to cheat on Roger?"

The dog said, "Yeah, course, that's the gig. Gwendy and I have a difference of opinion on the matter, but since we can't exactly get out of here and do anything about it, we gotta bring you two into it. Dig?"

Gale polished off the bourbon and nodded, feeling better. So did Jinny.

The dog went on, "I don't think Gwenny's going to do it. I got faith in her and Roger staying on the straight and narrow. I mean, what's up with him right now? We're worrying about her, but he's over in France, alone, no one looking over his shoulder. You know what French women are like, right? Wild. Wild and beautiful, all of 'em, so he's surrounded by temptation every minute of the day. But I still got faith in him, and Gwenny too." He paused. "She doesn't, though," nodding at the painting.

Jinny said, "You're a dog. What do you know about French women?"

He sniffed and said, "Telepathy ain't my only unusual trait."

Gale looked at Gwendy, said, "Why do you think Gwenny's going to cheat?"

"Cause that's what I'd do if I was in her situation. You seen this guy, Crown? Double of Steve McQueen, star of The Great Escape, Bullitt, The Getaway. The Cincinnati Kid. Mr. Cool, Mr. Blue Eyes, great voice. The guy's like a black hole of sexuality – any woman comes within his orbit gets sucked in." Gwendy looked at Gale and said, "You're not chopped liver, darling. You got game, yourself. You telling me you wouldn't cheat with this guy?"

Gale handed her glass to Jinny, motioned to the liquor cabinet, then said, "Me? Me, I'da had that guy in the back seat of that Mustang right there in the plaza of the museum that first night. No show driving over to Sullivan's Island. I'da taken five years off his life-force right then and there. But....we're not talking about me. Or you. We're talking about Gwenny June, and she's a good girl; worth saving. I don't know which of you is right, I just know we can't take a chance. We gotta get on her case. Agreed?"

Jinny handed her another glass of $100 a bottle Kentucky bourbon, having poured himself one too. He said, "I'm down."

The dog said, "For Roger's sake, we gotta act."

Gwendy said, "I hate to spoil her fun, but for the good of the Bedgewood reputation, I agree.

Gale said, "All for one, one for all," and knocked back her drink.

# Chapter 24 – Introducing My Special Friends

"I play," he said, answering my question about chess.

"You have a board?" I said.

"No, I don't pack a board when I go to investigate insurance thefts. I didn't even unpack my bag between the last job and this job. You have one?"

I shook my head, No.

"You plan on playing chess when you came here to find me today?"

"No," I said.

"You impulsive?"

"On occasion."

"Like now?"

"It's not the occasion, it's the situation."

"And what situation is that? Am I part of the situation?"

"You are."

"Is this a business situation or a fun situation?"

"It's not a business situation, unless you make it that way," I said.

"You want it to be that way?"

"No."

"You consider chess to be fun?"

"With the right opponent."

"You do other things for fun?"

"I do, commensurate with the situation."

"And as I understand it, based on our conversation the other night in the moonlight standing on top of the historic gun battery looking out over Charleston harbor after a breathtaking ride in a hot car during which at one point we lost contact with the asphalt, our situation is platonic in nature because you love your husband?"

I nodded.

He said, "And you want to engage in this relationship with me because you think you can do it, and you trust me at my word that I can do it, and you think it's going to be worth all the trials and tribulations inherent in these two promises to not go anti-platonic?"

"I do."

"How do you know I'm not a weak minded, caddish, philandering, semi-psychopathic goon with a below average sense of morality and a predilection and talent for insinuating myself into the lives of unsuspecting women and taking advantage of them monetarily and physically?"

I played this statement back to myself and smiled, then said, "First, you try any of that stuff and I'll put a bullet through each of your goolies. Second, I'm not worried about the applicability of your self-description because I know you're not that type of guy."

"How do you know? We've just met. Psychopaths don't advertise themselves. Even just semi-psychopaths. Most of the time you can't tell them from the neighbor down the street. So how do you know?"

"Intuition."

"It's that good?"

"It's the best. No, second best."

"Who's the best? Who's got the best intuition?"

"Catherine Deneuve."

"The actress?"

I nodded.

"You know her?" he asked.

I nodded.

"You know the icon of French culture well enough to understand her sense of intuition?"

"I learned it from her. We're friends. Special friends."

He didn't say anything immediately, but stood looking at me. Then he said, "You got any other special friends?"

I debated my answer. Did I believe myself when I thought, 'I trust this guy with the sandy hair and blue eyes and great voice?' He waited patiently until I said, "Yes, I have a couple other special friends. I have a dog I talk to."

"So? Lots of people talk to their dogs. Very therapeutic."

"This dog talks back."

If he had laughed at me I might've abandoned the whole project right then, but he didn't. He looked at me seriously for quite a while and then said, "Any others? You have Catherine Deneuve, and a very special dog, and....?"

I decided if I was in this for a penny I was in for a pound, and said, "I have a friend named Gwendolyn."

Now his look got more serious, his face draining of its interior humor. He said, "Gwendolyn Bedgewood?"

I said, "I call her Gwendy. She's not like other girls. Not like other friends. Different, but special."

"Can I meet her?"

I turned around and walked away from him, saying over my shoulder, "Let's go play chess. I know where we can get a board. Unless you're scared."

# Chapter 25 – The Setup

I led the way out of the museum and across Meeting Street to Marion Square. I asked Tommy if he thought Bobby Fischer ever really saw the Martians he claimed to have seen, and Tommy replied he didn't care about that as long as Fischer kept kicking the Russian grandmaster's asses, that was what was important. Then I asked him if he'd seen much of Charleston, and he said no, but he'd tried our shrimp and grits a few times and hadn't yet developed a taste for it. We walked over the corner of the park where the local chess guys play on concrete tables, some of them playing for hours every day and pretty good.

I walked up to a table with two guys playing, both dressed in old clothes, not very nice, and said, "How you guys doing today?"

They looked up at me, did a double take, changed their response from 'buzz off' to, "We doin' fine this morning, ma'am, how you doin'?"

"We're doin' fine, too. Hey, listen, I got a friend here wants to play a little chess, him and me. You boys want to sell me your board?"

"How much?"

"$100."

One of them looked over at Tommy, sizing him up, said, "He a Yankee? He look like it."

I said, "'Fraid so."

The other guy said, "You gonna kick his ass if we give you the board?"

"That's what I'm planning. How you know I'm not Yankee."

"Honey, you got the Charleston voice, better than an angel's."

Nice boys, so I took $200 out of my purse and handed it to them, collecting the board and the pieces in the box and handing it to Tommy. As we walked away Tommy said, "Everyone down here still think in terms of Yankees?"

"Only the best of 'em," I joked.

"We going to play here in the park?"

"Ah, I was thinking maybe we go back to the museum. Seems appropriate."

He stopped walking and looked at me, said, "Appropriate in what way?"

"Get you used to losing."

"You mean....?"

"You're job there. First at chess, then...."

"You like being cryptic."

"I like a lot of things. Winning's one of them. Sportsmanship is another, as I said before. I like a fun challenge. Today, this."

"You want to play in the museum? I'm supposed to be working there you know, not fooling around with a blond woman at lunchtime."

"But you don't work for them, right? And, you can consider this working, after a fashion. Me and you, spending time together, scene of the crime." He stopped walking again, this time in the middle of Meeting Street, almost getting clobbered by a horse-drawn carriage. I grabbed him by the elbow.

We got to the curb and he said, "You like to fool around, don't you?"

"I do. Under the right stimulus."

"Is it happening now?"

"So far, so good, but the test is inside, with the board. Can't you play hooky a little, from your job, such as it is?"

"I can. I also can say losing's not something I enjoy, even when done under the umbrella of sportsmanship, which is something I can appreciate, the more so when it's the other person losing."

We entered the museum and stood next to the one of a kind bronze Revolutionary War cannon in the foyer. I turned to him and said, "You want me to lose?"

"The chess match, yes."

"And the other?"

"The other, what?"

I didn't answer, but led the way upstairs to the Curator's office. We went in and I looked down at him, sitting at his desk, again playing with the dueling pistols, said "You ever want someone to test fire those, I'm your girl."

The Curator said, "You know about guns, don't you?"

"I do. And how do you know about that?"

"The books."

"Oh," I said. Fucking neighbor the writer's books. It was a tossup as to who, which, was the bigger rat, him or the dog. The Curator smiled, and I went on, "We want to play chess. Little game. Can we?"

"Why ask me?"

"We want to play here?"

"Here, where?"

"In the gallery."

He looked over at Tommy, silently asking what was up. Tommy remained mute. He looked back at me and said, "That's not something we normally do; I can't remember anyone ever playing chess in one of our galleries. Which gallery were you thinking of?"

"The Bedgewood gallery."

Again he looked at Tommy, almost like Tommy was his boss or something, or someone who would field this unusual request and take him off the hook. "The Bedgewood gallery? That's, ah, not the real name."

"But you know what I mean," I said, turning on the Deneuvian juice, streaming it at him, anxious to get going with Tommy, the action. The sit down action; our first date. Our first platonic date.

"You mean where the painting hung? Formerly? The one with the woman in it? You want to play chess there?"

I didn't say anything or change my stance in front of him or nod; just pounded him with vibes, get out of the way, give me what I want, it's the right thing to do, do it, c'mon, now. He didn't move either, sat looking at me, then said, "You....you....you look like her."

"Do I?" I said.

"Ms. June, your maiden name was Bedgewood, wasn't it?"

"Was it?"

"Had to be." Looking at Tommy he said, "Right?" Tommy nodded. "Your name is Gwen, and her name was Gwendolyn, right?" I still didn't move or say anything, but opened the Deneuvian faucet all the way, spraying him with the special stuff, him being like a car going through a carwash, blasted, coming out different than when it went in. He tried to look at Tommy, get an answer to his question about our names, me and her, but he couldn't turn his head. If he had been able to turn his head he would have seen Tommy smiling, watching the Deneuvian thing for the first time, different from the ride in the Mustang out to Sullivan's going airborne, maybe for the first time getting a hint what it was going to be like sitting across the chess board from me. The Curator said, "Ok."

"Do you have a little table we can set up in there? Card table?"

He was able to move now, standing up, but still not able to look at Tommy, just at me. Said, "Faberge table. 1834. Only known one. Don't scratch it, ok?"

I nodded, and we left his office, Tommy and I going to the gallery and him going to get the table from inside the plexiglass exhibit space. It was a small table he was able to carry himself, setting it near the wall under the rectangle of faded paint. He brought over two Chippendale chairs from which he removed the Please Don't Sit signs, set them opposite each other, and then stood back, like a waiter waiting for a decision on whether the wine was good to pour. We sat down and Tommy set the box with the board and pieces on the table. He said, "You want something to drink?"

I looked at the Curator and said, "Cappuccino, double strong, nutmeg on top, please." Tommy nodded, held up two fingers.

The curator started to say, automatically, that no food or drinks were allowed in the galleries, but I looked at him, and he stopped. He stopped, turned away, headed for the cafe.

I sat down, Tommy sat down, and we looked at each other. I said, "We're off." He smiled.

# Chapter 26 – Chess Sex

We'd hardly had time to set up the board, make our first moves, and finish our cappuccinos before one of the other staff squealed to the Director, who came storming into the gallery. He looked at us, at the Curator, then at the Faberge table, then back at the Curator, and then back at us. "What the hell is this?"

I could have frozen his ass with a stare but decided I'd let Tommy handle the dork. I needed to decide on the Sicilian Defense or the Stonewall Attack. Tommy didn't even look up at the guy, just said, "It may not look like it, but I'm working on the case."

"What?"

"I'm working on the case. The painting. Don't worry about anything." And he moved his second pawn, which showed me his opening gambit. Ok, so it's the Sicilian for me.

"How are you working on the painting theft?" The Director looked at the Curator and said, "You let them do this?" Looked back at us, recognizing the table, screamed, "The Faberge! The Faberge. Are you crazy? Do you know what you're doing?"

Still not looking up at him Tommy said, "The only known Faberge piece in existence. Insured by us for twelve million. Very nice table. We'll be careful of it."

I looked up from the board and said, "This table is worth twelve million?" and he nodded, not looking up from the board. I thought, 'If I'da know that, I would've pinched it along with the painting.'

The Director sputtered more, at us and at the Curator, poor baby, caught in the line of fire, not fair to him, not his fault, Churchill would have cracked under the wave of Deneuvian vibes I had sent his way. The Director told us to stop, stop, get up and out, what the hell did we think we were doing; which got annoying quickly. I kept quiet, head down, finally Tommy looked up, sighed, stood up and took the Director by the elbow, walked him over behind the case that held the silver service Gale coveted, said a few words to him, came back and sat down, not looking at me but back at the board. The color of the Director's face was lighter than when he was sputtering, and his hands and arms had ceased their gesticulations. He stood looking at us, then looked daggers at the Curator, and then walked out of the gallery.

Now Tommy looked away from the table and said to the Curator, "Don't worry, you're cool. Thanks."

"What'd you say to the ole boy?" now making my second move, committing to the Sicilian.

"Just told him again I was working on the case."

"What else?"

"I mentioned his policy was up for its annual review soon; if he didn't want to see his premium double, he might want to let me do my job the way I see fit."

"That all?"

"Mentioned you were friends with the Curator. Told him you are involved in the case. Said you might take offense if he gave the Curator any shit about letting us play here."

"That was nice of you, to protect him."

"He didn't deserve to get into trouble over us; over our little date here. He didn't have much volition about that, did he? Not after what you did to him."

"Me? What'd I do?"

Tommy didn't answer or even look up from the board, knowing I was fishing for a compliment. I went back to studying the chess pieces, letting one part of my mind work out the next move while another part thought about what Tommy had said to the Director. A minute later I moved my third piece, a rook, then said, "Tommy, am I involved in the case?"

He looked up at me and smiled. "Was Noah involved in the flood?"

# Chapter 27 – Spectator Sport

Gale asked the dog, "It's 8:30am. Where is she?"

"With him."

"Was she with him last night?"

"No, thank god. She was here. Left early."

"What are they doing together this time of day?"

The dog looked at Gwendy, said, "You tell 'em."

"They're playing chess. At least that's what she said they were going to do. Personally I think she's gone to accommodate him. That's what I'd have done."

Jinny said, "What do you mean accommodate him?"

Gale said, "The guy morning thing, you dimwit."

"What morning thing?"

Gale looked at Gwendy, then back at Jinny and said, "You're a guy. You know what morning thing. The libido thing. Guys feel it in the morning." She looked back at Gwendy, said, "He's from Russia. Not sure about those boys."

Jinny said, "Oh, that. Got ya."

The dog said, "She's a morning person, that's when her brain works best. She said she's going to play chess with him, and I think that's what they're doing."

Gale asked, "Where?"

"At the museum."

Gale said, "That's weird. You sure?" The dog nodded, and she looked at Jinny. "We better go check on her. We pretty much gotta keep tabs on her while she's in this zone. Let's go."

They were the first people through the doors when the museum opened at nine, and Gale asked the woman at the information desk if there were people playing chess here today. She said yeah, it was something special, up in the Bedgewood gallery. They went up there, past the case with the Gershwin piano it in, past the silver exhibit, and found me and Tommy sitting at the table under the rectangle on the wall. Tommy looked up, then looked back down at the board, not saying anything. I looked up, said, "Good morning. Don't mind him, he's a little grumpy. We've only been playing forty-five minutes and I've got him on the ropes already."

Now he looked at Gale and Jinny and said, "She's never heard of 'rope a dope'."

Jinny said, "What's that?"

"That's what Muhammad Ali used to do to the guys he fought in the ring. He'd lean against the ropes and play like he was defenseless, let them whale away on his arms for a few rounds, tire themselves out, them thinking they were winning. Then he'd come alive off the ropes and beat their heads in."

I said, "What are you two doing here? How'd you find us?"

Jinny said, "Gwendy told us. We're here to make sure you're not accommodating him."

Both of us looked at Gale, who said, "Don't listen to him. They do things different in Russia. We're just here to watch the chess."

Tommy looked at me and said, "You got nosy friends."

I smiled and said, "Nosy but good. They're watching out for me, making sure you're not taking advantage of me."

"Yeah," he said, "and who's watching out for me? I'm the one in the lion's den, here."

I smiled at him, said, "Gale, you look out for him. Jinny, you look out for me. That'll make it fair. And Gale, that means look out for his needs, not yours."

Gale said, "Yes, boss."

Jinny said, "That table looks old. Looks like ones we had in the Hermitage."

I said, "It's the Faberge. These guys insure it for twelve million."

Jinny looked at Tommy, then back at me, said, "That little thing is worth twelve million dollars, and it was here, and we didn't...." Gale THWAPPED him on the back of the head with her hand, shutting him up, him of loose lips persuasion.

"Thank you," I said.

Tommy processed this, then went back to his rope a dope tactic. At this point a small group of visitors came into the gallery, walked around for a minute and then gravitated to the chess match, the women mysteriously drawn by Tommy and the men by me (and Gale). Both the men and the women stayed away from Jinny, the little Russian fireplug, and one of them asked another about the faded rectangle of paint on the wall. Jinny didn't mind getting thwapped by Gale any more than he minded earlier when she tried to hit him in the face with the copper-bottomed saucepan at home; he loved Gale; and now he mouthed right off again, saying, "That's where the famous painting used to hang, the most famous painting in all of Charleston, before some people stole it a week ago."

The visitor said, "Why would anyone want to do that? Steal something from a museum, something that belongs here, belongs to everyone?"

Gale THWAPPED Jinny again, knowing he would have answered, "Ask her," and would have pointed at me.

Again I said, "Thank you."

Tommy stopped rope a doping with his knight and looked first at the visitor and then at me, saying, "That's a very good question, don't you think? Why would anyone want to steal a painting from here? Something that didn't belong to them?" He sat back in his Chippendale, hearing it crack a little, and smiled.

I picked up a rook and took one of Tommy's pawns, removing it from the board, then sat back in my Chippendale, this one not creaking too much, looked at the woman who had asked the question, and said, "You have family, Ma'am? Close family?"

"Oh my, yes."

"Your family go back, ancestors and all?"

"Yes. We're from Boston. Go back to the Revolution."

"Yankees from way back, yes Ma'am, that's nice. Feels good having those roots, doesn't it? Knowing your people?"

"It does. It makes a person feel solid, grounded, sense of place and sense of time. You're right."

"Nice having things from the past, too. From your family, handed down the generations, to children. Sense of history. You have anything old from your family?"

The woman held up her hand and said, "I do. This was my great great great grandmother's ring, and I never take it off."

"I know the feeling," I said. "Having something from the past makes you feel like you knew the person from way back. Makes you feel your roots, like you're still in touch with the person and the time period, doesn't it? Makes you feel like you have connections, and that's a good feeling isn't it? Comforting."

As the woman nodded, Gale gave Jinny a look, warning him not to ask the woman if she was able to talk with her great great great grandmother, the way they talk with Gwendy. Jinny wanted to ask the woman, but he obeyed Gale.

I went on, "How would you feel if someone took your ring and stuck it in a case in a museum, up in Boston; made you go there to look at it?"

"Why, why would anyone do that? It's mine. I wouldn't like that at all. Would you?"

"No, Ma'am, I understand, I wouldn't like it if someone did that to me, either."

The woman looked at her ring and said, "But if that did happen somehow, if they did take my ring and put it in a museum, I'd just have to live with that. If they did that to you, you'd just have to live with it too, right?"

I looked at Tommy as I answered, "Ma'am, down here in Carolina, in Charleston, sometimes we do things a little different. Boston is Boston, and New York is New York, and Saint Petersburg is Saint Petersburg, but here, well...."

The woman's husband said, "You started the Civil War, didn't you?"

"Yes, Sir, that we did. Articles of Secession. First shot of the war at Fort Sumter. Siege of Charleston. First combat submarine in world history. We had some right ornery boys down here back then."

The woman said, "My, you did, didn't you? And now, someone has stolen this painting."

I looked at Tommy when I said, "Traditions die hard in these parts, Ma'am."

# Chapter 28 – Chess Circus

Jinny took Gale's arm and led her over to the silver exhibit, asking, "You still want that thing?"

She practically drooled on the carpet, which he took to mean, Yes. He said, "Well I want that table. Twelve million. That'd look nice in my house. Maybe I call up my friend in Saint Petersburg again, ask him to turn the security system off again for a few minutes."

Gale nodded, but said, "I'd do it, but not without Gwen, and in case you haven't noticed, she's occupied right how with Tommy the stud."

"I noticed. She hardly even knew we were there." He paused, looking at the beautiful silver service, then at Gale. "Hey, I got an idea. How 'bout we give them some real attention?"

Gale said, "Like what?"

Again he took her arm, and this time walked her downstairs, to the cafe, which was full of visitors. When they got there he winked and said in a loud voice, "May I have your attention, please. We have a special event in the museum today. Two grandmaster chess champions are playing upstairs in one of the galleries, and they are playing on a one of a kind, twelve million dollar antique table. If you'd like to see this, please go now."

People looked at each other and seemed to say, why not, and when they finished their coffees they left and went upstairs. Gale said, "You're a bad boy, Jinny Blistov."

In the movement of people leaving the cafe, Jinny grabbed four of the little rotgut wine bottles from the counter, stuck them in his pockets, and walked out with the other visitors. They stopped near the Gershwin piano and each drank two of the bottles, Jinny trying to leave them on top of the plexiglass case but Gale saying, we steal in Charleston but we don't litter, and made him put them back in his pockets. When they got to the gallery they found fifty people surrounding the small antique table with the two players facing each other across it. Gale saw I had lost a bishop, a rook, and four pawns, while Tommy had lost a rook, both knights, and three pawns. Gale didn't know playing the game of chess from guys playing with her chest, but things looked about equal to her. Both of us were slumped back in our Chippendales with our legs splayed out towards each other. I was wearing a tight skirt, burgundy with yellow trim at the hem and on the side pockets, and four inch golden silk pumps. Tommy wore a pair of slim fit blue jeans, no socks, and a pair of $600 Pomoni tassel loafers. The twenty-five women in the crowd watched Tommy and the twenty-five men in the crowd watched me. Both of us seemed oblivious to the crowd, knowing it was crunch time in the match, each seeing a line of attack on the other's king.

I moved first, sensing a winning gambit. Slowly I leaned forward, took hold of the attack piece, lifted it from the board, looked at Tommy, set it down on a new square and let it go, committing myself. Just as slowly, I leaned back in my chair. Immediately Tommy leaned forward, sensing danger, staring at the new position and not at me. After a minute he seemed to relax, leaned back, and then looked at me, almost with a smile creeping onto his face. This was a look I didn't like, and now I sensed danger from his next move.

We were not using clocks to regulate our moves, and Tommy took a lot of time now, staring at the pieces on the board. The longer he took the more worried I became. What had I missed? My eyes moved from the board to Tommy's face, then back to the board and back to his face. I closed my eyes, stopped thinking, and let intuition flow into my mind. It came as bidden, and performed. Thirty seconds later I opened my eyes and did what I had to do. First I lifted my right leg and put my foot, ensconced in the beautiful golden pump, on the front edge of the seat of Tommy's Chippendale, just outside his thigh. He looked down and saw it, and so did all fifty people in the crowd.

And all fifty people, including Gale and Jinny, recognized it for what it was. The twenty-five women smiled simultaneously, nodded at each other and whispered, 'Go Girl.' The twenty-five men shook their heads, half of them whispering, "Holy shit" and the others whispering, "Now THAT'S a dirty trick."

I left my foot there for a minute, then lowered it to the floor, brought both legs under me, stood up slowly, and stretched. The Faberge was low, just barely high enough for us to get our legs under it, and when I stood up, the hem of my skirt was above the level of the table. As I stretched with my arms over my head, the hem rose higher, and so did Tommy's gaze, coming off the board and onto my legs. The women in the crowd smirked and nodded, whispering to each other, "He's toast," and the men cringing, whispering to each other, "He's toast." Gale whispered to Jinny, "He's toast," and he nodded.

I sat down and calmly looked at the board. Tommy looked at my face, tempted to say something but holding back, trying to get his focus back on the board and his move. He knew he had two options for the move, each appearing not only good but devastating, each also hinting at an unrecognized danger he couldn't place, with consequences he couldn't envision. Swimming in front of his eyes, alternating with his chess pieces were first the image of my pump and then my upper thigh; his knight and my pump; his rook and my thigh; his queen and my thigh; his bishop and my elegant foot. He shook his head, ambivalent about the images, wanting them and not wanting them, everyone in the crowd, male and female, knowing the gesture was futile. He was toast.

Tommy cracked under the pressure, reaching out and taking hold of a piece, moving it to another square, setting it down.

Most of the people in the crowd were not chess players and didn't understand, rationally, what Tommy had achieved with the move, but intuitively they knew it was wrong. They started dispersing, moving away from us, the women high-fiving, the men muttering "Cheater" under their breaths. I didn't bother saying 'Checkmate.' Instead I said, "Where do you want to go for lunch?"

Tommy looked at me and said, "Two can play that game."

# Chapter 29 – ZZ Top Boys

As we left the gallery Tommy said he'd pick me up for a late lunch tomorrow afternoon, that today he had to get back to his job of catching crooks. He may have been sulking a little after his beating, but I don't think so. We separated at the top of the stairs down to the ground floor, him going back to his office, and I had the impression he wanted to kiss me goodbye. Whether it would have been a platonic kiss on the cheek or one of another kind I'll never know, but I had a feeling of the same kind myself. The chess match had been fun.

Halfway down the stairs I heard someone call my name, and looked up to see Gale and Jinny hanging over the second floor railing. "Come back up. We want to show you something."

They met me at the top of the stairs, Jinny shaking his head, Gale with a high five. "What do you want me to see?"

They led me back into the gallery, from which the Curator already had removed the Faberge, and over to the silver exhibit. Gale said, "We want to come back again. In the night. I want this and Jinny wants the table."

"You guys are bored, aren't you?"

"Neither one of us is in the throes of a salacious romance, adultery and endless imminent doom, like you, so, yes, we're bored. Roger's not here to keep things interesting, though god knows what he's doing over there with all those French women draped around him."

I looked at Gale and then Jinny, and said, "You're pulling out all the stops, aren't you. First congratulations on the match, then unfounded accusations followed by a guilt trip followed by dissy inferences that Roger is fooling around. All those in three little sentences. Very efficient. Oh, and not forgetting a proposal for another heist operation here. Quite a little bundle."

"Well?" said Gale.

"Well what? No, I'm not cheating, I'm not up for more pinching, and Roger's not fooling around."

Jinny said, "How do you know?"

I grabbed Gale by the arm and dragged her towards the stairs, saying, "I offered to buy Tommy lunch and he said, No. So how 'bout I buy you two lunch and try to keep you out of trouble?"

Gale said, "If he'd said, Yes, would you have had wine with lunch?"

"Maybe."

"And then after lunch, with the wine working, what then?"

"Then I don't know. I'm not planning all this stuff out, I'm just winging it, having a little fun. Kind of how you live your entire life, my dear."

"I'm different. I'm Gale, a fashionista. He's Jinny, a gangster. You're Gwen June, wife of Roger June, Charleston aristocrats. You don't do stuff like we do. Right?" she said, looking at Jinny for support.

By this time we were out in the parking lot standing next to the Mustang. Jinny said, "You implying I cheat on my significant other?" looking at Gale, a smile lurking in the vicinity of his mouth.

"We don't have significant others, so we can do what we want in the sex department."

"But if I did, you saying I'd cheat on her?"

"Umm...."

I saved Gale from herself by opening the door of the 360 and pushing her into the back seat. I fired up the engine, which I had to admit was not as impressive as the 500 horses of her Ferrari, but still was satisfyingly loud. I headed up Meeting Street and turned onto the entrance ramp of I-26, powering through the merge and into the fast lane. In twenty seconds we were doing eighty and Jinny was smiling. From the backseat came, "You're pissed he didn't go to lunch, aren't you?"

I ignored her, and then ignored the car I cut in front of which gave me an angry horn blast, and then ignored the cars and trucks I passed on their right having swerved over to the far right lane, scaring a guy in a semi. We covered a mile in forty-five seconds and I pulled off at an exit and onto a cross road that led towards the old navy base. After a few minutes on this I pulled into the parking lot of a bar with a big red sign mounted on the roof that said CONFEDERATE NATION. As Gale got out of the back seat and saw the sign I heard her say to Jinny, "She's pissed."

I led the way inside and instinctively went to a booth against the far wall, not knowing what kind of crowd this place drew, but wanting to keep whomever the crowd consisted of in view at all times. The waitress came over and looked at us, never before, apparently, having seen four inch golden silk pumps on any of her customers. She had a large button on one of her boobs that said DCV, with a battle flag under it. Blabbermouth Gale asked, "What's DCV stand for?"

"Daughters of Confederate Veterans, and proud of it."

Gale said, "I've heard of Sons of Confederate Veterans before, but not Daughters."

"We's the better half. And meaner, too."

That shut the fashionista up, and I ordered a pitcher of Bud. When the waitress had left Gale said, "When was the last time you drank Budweiser?"

"This is the first."

She looked at Jinny, who was exchanging glances with a woman sitting in another booth with three guys all of whom looked like the two guys from ZZ Top: beards down to their navels, shades, tattoos; he said, "She is really pissed." She looked at me and said, "You gonna order pork rinds, really get into it? Ribs, eat 'em with your hands, get sauce all over your face? Then switch to tequila?"

"I'm thinking about it."

The waitress brought the pitcher and three glasses, all of which had spots on them. Jinny poured, waited for the head to subside, and drained the glass. We waited for his verdict, which was, "They wouldn't serve this in one of Stalin's gulags."

I poured a glass for myself and sipped, having left all epicurean discrimination at the door. I admitted to myself I was pissed, even if just a little.

Gale said, "If you're not contemplating going to bed with this guy, how come you're pissed?"

"I didn't say I'm pissed."

She looked at Jinny, trying some telepathy, saying to him, "Yeah, right."

He said, "You're pissed, which is why we're here. Last time we were in a place like this we were looking for the morons from Idaho that'd kidnapped her," nodding at Gale.

"I'm not pissed," I lied.

Now he projected back to Gale, "Not only is she thinking of fooling around with that guy, but she's taken up lying to us. She ever lie to you before?"

Gale said, "No," getting into the groove of silent communication, doing it selectively, leaving me out. "She brought us here cause she wants to distract herself from him rejecting her, not going to lunch with her."

"How's this place going to distract her?"

"She's gonna get into it with someone here, maybe the waitress. Maybe some biker that comes in." Gale projected, "Gwen June's gonna pick a fight in a dive bar just because some guy said no to lunch? Wake up, Jinny. It's not just some guy. This may be the first time she's ever contemplated cheating on Roger. This whole thing is new to her. Us, we do this shit all the time, but not her. She's out of her element; doesn't know how to go about it. We get rejected....well, you do. So she's desperate; hence this place. We gotta do something."

Jinny poured another glass of horsepiss, thought for a minute, communicated with his new telepathy partner, "I'm confused. Are we supposed to help her by preventing her from cheating, or help her by showing her how it's done, us being experts....well, you." Jinny could dish it out as well as take it with good humor.

During this exclusionary interlude I too had poured a second glass of horsepiss, and while gagging it down was sizing up opportunities to create a diversion from my pissiness. Jinny had stopped looking at the babe across the room sitting with the ZZ Toppers, and I had started. This was the only game in town, there not being any morons from Idaho present. Jinny's mention of them referred to the time a couple of years earlier when I, we, were involved in not one but two simultaneous kidnappings. Paul McCartney had been kidnapped while walking down a Charleston street after dinner with his daughter, Stella, by a rich local woman who wanted to be richer. And Gale had been kidnapped by some neo-nazi morons from Idaho who really wanted to kidnap Anna, our friend, in order to get revenge against her grandfather, and had snatched Gale, hoping to trade her for Anna. It all got complicated for a while, but Roger and I worked it out for the best. During the complications we had had a couple of, several actually, interactions with the morons that some people might consider violent, or at least quasi-violent, involving guns being waved around in people's faces, though only minimal shooting, and some of these interactions had taken place in a dive bar up on the interstate outside of town known to local law enforcement as a trouble spot. Remembering all this, and looking around me now I noticed a similarity in ambience to this other place, though this place appeared devoid of any neo-nazis. The only slightly unsavory characters available were the three ZZ guys, so I devoted my attention to them.

I slid out of the booth, walked across the room to where they sat, and stood looking at each of them in turn, ignoring the woman.

Gale forgot about telepathy and said, "Oh, shit. Now what's she up to? You got your gun?"

Jinny nodded. "I thought we came here to save her from the Crown guy. Now we gotta save her from those guys. I thought it was going to be boring with Roger gone, but first we steal something from a museum and now we're going to tangle with some gray beards. It's never dull around her," he said smiling.

I reached down to their table, picked up a bowl of pork rinds and a bowl of peanuts, and walked back to our booth, not saying anything to them. As I sat down, I noticed Jinny pull his Beretta out from under his jacket at the rear of his right hip and hold it under the table.

Gale looked at me and said, "You still pretending you aren't pissed at Tommy? Jesus, girl, most people they get turned down for lunch, they don't go looking for trouble at CONFEDERATE NATION, messing with dudes look like that. I'm supposed to be the wild one, doing dumb stuff in the name of love, or at least, lust; you're supposed to be the together one, judiciousness personified." Gale was interrupted by the screech of metal legs on the concrete floor as the ZZers pushed the table away from them, got up, and walked across the room.

As they stood looking down at us Gale smiled up at them and said, "She's not herself today. Got rejected for a lunch date. Anyone ever say you look like the ZZ Top guys?"

The one on the left said, "We are the ZZ Top guys."

"But there's only two of them."

"This here's our brother. Lives in Charleston."

"How come he's not in your band?" said Gale.

"The guy on the left looked past the guy in the center to the guy on the right, said, "Should we tell 'em?"

The guy on the right looked past the guy in the center, said, "Why not? We just gonna kill 'em afterwards anyway."

The guy on the left looked at the guy in the center, said, "Sorry, dude," and then said to us, "He can't rock."

Gale said, "You mean he can't rock and roll? Can't play like you guys do?"

All three of them nodded, the one in the center not appearing to feel bad about the situation.

"Wow, bummer. But what do you mean, your brother? The ZZ Top guys aren't related."

The guy on the left looked at the guy in the center and then the guy on the right, and said, "Should we tell 'em?"

The guy in the center said, "Might as well send 'em to their graves knowing what no one else does."

The guy on the right said, "Actually, we are related. Just pretended at the start we weren't. We bros."

"No shit," said Gale. "And now here's your other brother, or so you say."

The three guys looked at each other, then the guy in the center said, "We shave off all this hair hanging down, you see. Bros."

"Cool. Nice to meet you. I love 'Sharp Dressed Man.' Great song. I'm a fashionista myself."

The guy in the center, the non-rocker, said, "So we noticed. Wanna go home with us?"

"So even though you're not a rocker, you're still a sex maniac?"

"Oh, yeah. Double these guys."

I said, "So what's with the 'we're going to kill them thing'?"

The guy on the left said, "Just jokin' around."

"That's good," I said.

"How come?"

I looked at Jinny and nodded. Under the table Jinny racked the slide on his Beretta, the harsh metallic sound echoing off the mirror behind the bar.

The guy on the right asked the guy on the left, "That what I think it is?"

The guy on the left bending down and looking under the table found himself staring down the barrel of Jinny's gun. He stood up and said, "Yup." Then he looked at me and said, "That ain't nothing, though."

The guy in the center said, "What's more interesting than having a gun pointed at you under a table?"

"Pump."

"What?"

"Silk pump. Four incher. Yellow gold. Leg. Great leg."

The other two guys bent and looked under the table, ignoring Jinny's gun. When they straightened up the guy in the center said, "Four. Four great legs."

"So, maybe, you'll consider not killing us? Gale said.

They nodded, Yes, in unison.

I said, "So you don't mind I took your pork rinds and peanuts?"

The nodded, No, in unison.

I said, "You boys wanna sit down, have a beer with us?"

Two of them nodded, Yes, in unison, the third one saying, "Maybe you get your friend to put away his gun?"

I nodded, Yes.

They dragged chairs over, bringing the woman with them, who'd watched this whole thing from afar and had been eyeing Jinny, ordered three pitchers of beer and more pork rind and peanuts, and sat down.

Gale looked at me and said, "You feeling better now?"

I nodded, then looked at the boys and said, "A little later, maybe you sing us an a cappella version of 'Got Me Under Pressure'?"

The non-rockin' brother said, "You put that pump up on the table here with your foot in it, that's what we'll be feelin'."

I smiled.

# Chapter 30 – The Wine Drinking Challenge

The next day at 3pm I picked up Tommy the rat at the museum and we headed south out of town. Meeting the ZZ boys and getting a special, and drunken, recital of 'Got Me Under Pressure' and 'Sharp Dressed Man' had been great fun and had alleviated some of my pissiness, but not all. Some vinegar remained, having a new source in addition to Tommy, and that was the fact that I had driven home from CONFEDERATE NATION alone. Yes, Gale had decided to hang out with the boys, most particularly the non-rockin' brother, while Jinny had gotten chummy with the woman, who turned out to be their sister, also a non-rocker but still wild by any standard, and very funny. So there you had a fashionista of the highest order, someone who wore couture clothing to Home Depot, rubbing shoulders with a long haired, long bearded guy who was one big tattoo, and Little Jinny Blistov putting the moves on a babe ten inches taller than him, her with her own set of tats that included a rendition across her knockers of the back seat of a '57 Chevy Bel Air. Despite courteous invitations by both of the rockin' brothers to join them, separately or together, in a little rub and tickle, I had driven home garnering only one speeding ticket on the way down the interstate.

I had resisted the temptation to keep drinking Budweiser when I got home, mostly because in all the years I have been married to Roger and lived with him on Church Street, never has a can of that stuff slipped past our guard and graced the interior of our refrigerator. Or should I say desecrated. The dog wanted to talk and asked me what I'd been up to, but I told him to screw off, went upstairs, had a bath, and went to bed, not bothering to imagine what he was saying about me downstairs in the living room. The next morning I was civil to him but not chatty, thought about calling Roger, but didn't, thought about walking over to a bar on King Street and ordering a cold Bud, but didn't, thought about going for a jog along The Battery, but didn't, thought about calling Jinny and Gale and asking them if they had been eaten alive by their new friends, but didn't, and thought about not letting the dog out into the back yard, let him suffer, but did. I'm not going to tell you what I did do, that being embarrassing.

On the other side of the Ashley River Tommy and I turned south to Kiawah Island, and I started to decompress on the windy rural road shrouded in moss hanging from oak trees. Tommy had kept quiet since leaving the museum, sensing my tinges of insanity, sensing that he had the upper hand in the relationship department but not feeling a need to exercise that moral strength, which I appreciated. I couldn't open up the Mustang like on the road to Sullivan's, but driving still felt good, and I let my negativity slip away behind with the 390's exhaust. When finally I turned and smiled at him, he asked, "Where we going, hon?"

"The Sanctuary."

"What's that?"

"Hotel. Fancy place on the beach, nice restaurant."

"You're taking me to a hotel? You change your mind about the platonic thing?"

"When we parted last time you said you couldn't go to lunch because you had to get back to catching crooks. That your idea of an endearment that would cause me to change my mind on the subject?"

He didn't spit back at me, but said, "Sounds nice. A walk on the beach sounds nice."

We went through the security gate just over the bridge onto the island, telling the guard we were going to the hotel, and in a few more minutes pulled up to the entrance where an older valet guy opened the door for me. When he saw Tommy get out the other side, he did a double-take, looking first at him and then at the car, then back at him, and finally at me, with a questioning look on his face.

I said, "Not the real thing, unfortunately, but close. Just like the car isn't the real thing, but close. You like the dark green one or this yellow one better?"

"The yellow; this is a bomb." Again he looked at Tommy and said, "You sure that ain't him?"

"I'm married, not to him, and I love my husband. But if that was the real guy, with the real car, him driving, I'd crack like a walnut. Wouldn't be here talking with you. Bottle of champagne from the bar, then upstairs."

He smiled.

"We're going to be a couple hours. You wanna take it for a spin, go ahead," I said, and handed him the keys. Entering the lobby, guests are faced with a high wall of glass that constitutes the far wall, on the other side of which is the beach and the ocean. There aren't any palm trees blowing in the wind, and the sand isn't pearl white or black, but still it's an impressive view. I took Tommy on a tour, walking around the lobby, through the bar and one of the art galleries, and then outside on the beach side to the landscaped patio and boardwalk over the dunes. We strolled around for a few minutes outside, but I was anxious to get down to business so I led us inside and up the wide staircase to the spacious dining room.

Some people are the boutique type, who like small, quaint inns, and restaurants made out of people's homes with small little dining nooks. But that's not me; I like hotels and restaurants in the grand European tradition, with big lobbies and large rooms and lots of people coming and and going and eating, all dressed to the Ts. The Sanctuary didn't match up with the great hotels of Europe but it did a respectable job for the Carolina coast. It was about 4pm when I led the way into the dining room and we looked around, hearing faint noises coming from the kitchen but not seeing anyone. I picked a table dead center in the room, motioned to Tommy to sit down, and went through a swinging door where I ran into a waiter folding napkins.

"Hi," I said. "Can we get some wine and a little something to eat? I know we're early but we're hungry and we need a drink." He looked at me and said, "The dining room opens at six," and went back to his napkins. If he'd said that to me yesterday, at the height of my pissiness, I might've let him have it, but I was mellower today, and decided to move up the chain of command. So I forayed farther into the employee area where I ran into the Maître d', still in his street clothes, and repeated my request. He looked around, like who are you, and then repeated that the dining room opens at six pm. This took the edge off my mellowness, or should I say put an edge back on my pissy persona, but I didn't let the fur fly. I just wanted to get back to the business of sitting across the table from Tommy Crown and getting sloshed.

I ignored this guy and went into the kitchen where preparations were in full swing by the entire staff, including the chef. Normally, after running into two obstacles, I would've adjusted my approach, adapted to the circumstances, employed tact and maybe a little gentle subterfuge, but in my current state of mind, read squirrely, I confronted my next opponent. "Good afternoon," I said, with a voice tinged with belligerence. "I know we're early and you're trying to get things ready for tonight, but can we get a few appetizers and a bottle of champagne to wash them down?"

I knew I really was off my game when the chef brandished a knife at me and said, "Get the hell out of my kitchen. You can eat when I'm ready to serve dinner. Out!" I was glad Tommy wasn't around to see me get chewed out like this, and I realized I needed to lose the attitude or I wasn't going to get what normally I am able to get, which normally pretty much is everything I want. What is it about Tommy Crown that is making me crazy?

I waved to the chef and retraced my steps to the dining room where I saw Tommy patiently sitting at the table alone. I walked over to the window, looked out at the ocean, closed my eyes, and said to myself, 'Do the Deneuvian. Do the Deneuvian.' I felt a calmness wash over me that bathed me in a self-confidence I hadn't felt in several days. Turning around I walked across the dining room, smiled at Tommy, went down the staircase to the Manager's Office, and walked in. He looked up at me from his computer, and I showered him with the special force of feminine personality I had learned from Catherine Deneuve, first in Paris, and later when she came to visit me and Roger in Charleston. This was the juice that, when it came from her, brought very big boys to their knees, quivering like jelly. I had the Grade B version, which is nothing to sneeze at, and I turned it on now.

Five minutes later I was seated at the table with Tommy, much more myself than my pissy alter ego, looking at the wine list the Maître d' had given me while Tommy looked at the appetizer section of the dinner menu the chef had handed to him, with the napkin folding waiter standing bye. All four of the hotel's gentlemen appeared complacent and content, waiting for orders, which was more like it. I said to Tommy, "I'm going to order us some wine. Can you ask the chef and Maître d' for suggestions of food to go with?" He nodded, amused at the whole scene, and waited. All the boys waited.

With my finger on the wine list I started with the Champagne section, moved to the German section, then to the French section, and finally to the California section. I looked at the waiter and said, "We'll start with a bottle of the 2002 Roederer Crystal, served in white wine glasses, not flutes. Then a bottle of the '98 Donnhoff Niederhauser Hermannshohle Riesling Auslese 'Goldkapsel', not too cool. Then a bottle of 2007 Saint Prefert "Collection Charles Giraud" Chateauneuf du Pape, and we'll end, maybe, with a bottle of the '01 Screaming Eagle cab." I looked at the Maître d' and then the waiter, drenching them in the force, and said, "I want them all decanted immediately, including the champagne." They nodded, and I looked at Tommy, who had his finger on the dinner menu.

"Tuna sashimi with the champagne. Crab cakes with the German white, no sauce or sides, just the crab. The roast chicken with the first red, double orders of the potatoes in cassolet." He paused and said to me, "That's the dish of layers of potatoes, butter, garlic, and duck fat. Unbelievable with the chicken and the Chateauneuf." Then back to the chef, "What would you suggest for the last course with the cabernet sauvignon?" I saw Tommy was being diplomatic, asking the chef for his opinion, knowing he'd get special attention if he did that.

The chef immediately pointed to the bottom of the menu and said, "You have enough meat. I make a wonderful dish of fresh roasted vegetables served in a red espagnole sauce. It will be great with that wine."

I smiled at Tommy and stood up, first touching the waiter on the shoulder, then offering my hand to the Maître d', and then kissing the chef on the cheek. I said, "Thank you all, you're wonderful." They turned and went back into the kitchen, leaving us with the hotel manager.

With a hint of trepidation he said, "May I know your name? It is a pleasure to have you here this afternoon, both of you."

"June. Gwenny June."

He said, "And this is a special occasion, is it not?"

Looking first at Tommy and then back at him I said, "It is. He is Tommy Crown, and this is the start of my Tommy Crown Affair."

# Chapter 31 – Sloshed at The Sanctuary

Neither of us drank any of the champagne after the waiter poured the first glass, knowing it was better after some of the bubbles had bubbled off and a little of the chill had dissipated into the air of the dining room. When we did sip it was delicious. Ten minutes later we paired it with the tuna, and I said, "Perfect match. Well done."

Tommy said, "You like champagne. What is special about it for you?"

"I like it for two reasons, one practical and one cultural. It's a wine that not only is great alone as a cocktail, but is incredibly versatile with food. It goes so well with so many different types of food and so many occasions. Something about the bubbles that makes it a fit with strong foods and delicate foods, red and white, meat and vegetable, sweet and savory. God, it's good with this tuna."

"And the cultural thing?"

"You know, England conquered half the world in the 17th and 18th centuries, and Italian art spread through Europe during and after the Renaissance, and Germany was everywhere in the 19th and 20th centuries; but France; French culture; is the stealth culture. It's seeped throughout Europe and around the world over the last 500 years because so much of it over time has achieved the level of classicism, and that goes for its wines. French wine isn't necessarily the best, it just seems to be the best. It's clothed in fabric that so many people in so many places find beautiful and worthwhile. And champagne is the epitome of French wine; hence the cultural value."

He said, "You look good with golden bubbles in front of your face."

I sighed and said, "I'm feeling better now with a glass of this in me, and a little food, and the prospects of what's coming our way. I've been a priss the last couple of days." Most guys would've asked what I meant by that; try to get me to reveal feelings, or a weakness. He didn't; just sat looking at me calmly, sipping a little, neutral. I went on, "Another reason I like champagne is because she likes champagne."

"Deneuve?"

"You have a good memory," I said.

"Tell me about her."

"Roger and I were in France a few years ago working on a wine project." I didn't mention the project was associated, indirectly, with the heist we pulled off at the Hermitage Museum in Russia. "It turns out Catherine is godmother to a boy whose life Roger saved one time. And we were introduced to her, and she went with us on a wine buying trip around Burgundy and Bordeaux, and we became friends." The waiter came to the table and poured us second glasses. "A year after that she visited us here because she was on her way to Los Angeles to meet with Steven about a documentary on the culture of champagne."

"Steven, who?"

"Spielberg."

"Oh."

"And she met Anna here, and she got Anna in the film, and I spent some time in Champagne with them while they were filming, and I learned a lot about French culture and about this wine." As noted above, I didn't mention that Catherine met Anna the morning after the night Anna snuck into our house with a gun in her hand, us being saved by our somewhat special dog with his somewhat special talent (talents, according to him though as yet not demonstrated to us, i.e., his mention of knowing something about French women, which was weird, right?). "Why do you like champagne?"

Tommy hesitated, then said, simply, "Conducive to sex. I like what Helen Gurley Brown said about it: 'Two warm bodies and one cold bottle of Champagne will produce something more wonderful than would happen without the Champagne.'"

I smiled and said, "I like what Grahame Green had to say about it and men: 'Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.' Does that happen to you? Do you expand? Get reckless?"

"Maybe, but that's for others to judge. I can say without qualification that it's never induced me to launch a car airborne before."

"Pity; try it sometime."

"I'm also not the one who's ordered four bottles of wine for two people."

"But you will help me drink them, won't you?"

"To the last drop."

The waiter came to the table and asked if we were ready for the second course. I nodded and said to Tommy, "You like German riesling, just a tinge of sweetness that is offset with acidity? My favorite white wine, after champagne. I'm glad you picked the crab cakes. Gonna be great."

He said, "I took a boat trip up the Rheine River one time, and it's amazing to see how steep the slopes are, covered in vineyards, all the grapes going to make riesling. Yes, I love it too. It's the only grape I know that never makes a bad bottle."

The waiter brought the decanter and the platter of crab cakes, and they worked perfectly together. After a small glass of the wine and two small cakes I said, "You ever listen to the album Paul McCartney recorded live here in Charleston?" He shook his head, No. "He spent time here, writing new songs, then performed them with Renee Fleming."

"The opera singer?"

I nodded, Yes. "They were incredible together. You should get the CD. I have extra copies, can give you one. Their singing is great, and the melodies of the songs are great, but it's the lyrics that mean a lot to me. You know what they're about?"

Tommy eyed another crab cake and the bottle of riesling, but knew he had chicken coming with a kind of potato dish he loves. "Tell me," he said.

"The entire piece of music is a rock opera, something like forty songs, and the theme that runs through most of them is what it takes for a man and a woman to have a great long-term relationship. Some of the songs are about what makes for success and a few are about what makes for failure. And I think he's right."

Tommy was about to take his last bite of crab cake but stopped the fork lift to his mouth halfway up, and looked at me. Setting the fork down on the plate, he picked up his wine glass and took the smallest sip. Watching this, almost mesmerized seeing the glass at his mouth, I noticed he has the same slightly protruding upper lip Steve McQueen had. He sipped slowly, slowly, and I had to restrain myself from leaning across the table, pulling down on the arm that held the glass, and biting his mouth. I said to myself, 'Jesus girl, you haven't even had half the wine yet.' He said, "Is McCartney an inner or an outer person when it comes to relationships?"

It took a lot to get me to refocus from his upper lip to his words, but his question did the trick, because it shocked me. I said, "You asking what I think you're asking?"

"I don't know, Gwen. I have my ideas about what makes for success or failure in a relationship, and if McCartney has the same ideas, then I really want to hear these songs. Especially since I love Renee Fleming's singing. What a voice."

"You tell me your ideas and I'll tell you if they're similar to Paul's."

"You're on a first name basis with Paul McCartney?"

I didn't nod or say Yes, not wanting to show off, but said, "The performances of his rock opera were in a theater here I own. Small place. And we had some involvement with him and his daughter, Stella."

I left it at that, not mentioning anything about the kidnapping, but he said, "You were involved in that? The kidnapping of Paul McCartney? Three years ago?" Again I didn't nod Yes or answer, and he went on, "Ok, so, let's see, the inner and outer thing. The inner person and the outer person, what's the difference?" He got some time to think while the waiter removed the plates and the almost but not quite empty bottle of riesling, him asking if we were ready for the chicken and garlicky potatoes. I looked at Tommy and he said, "Bring it on." The waiter went to the kitchen and Tommy went on, "It's simple, really, and important. I can get it in before he comes back with the food. Most people, especially women, are inner people. They view the world as if qualities and characteristics are inside people. They think people start their lives inside, and then move outside themselves and act on the world. These types of people are the ones who say things like, 'You can be anything you want to be' or 'Your life is up to you.' Dumb stuff like that. And they are the ones who ask, when thinking of engaging with another person in an intimate relationship, 'Is he honest? Sincere? A man of integrity? A good communicator?' They think that is how you should evaluate the potential for having a successful relationship with someone. They think in terms of inner qualities."

By this time I'd gotten my focus off his upper lip and onto his words, which are both compelling and wonderfully familiar, because the ideas in his words are the same as the ideas in the songs Paul McCartney had written for his rock opera when he was kidnapped and locked in a massive concrete World War II era bunker over on Sullivan's Island, three years earlier. I won't digress into that story other than to say it was a wild ride. But back to Tommy, who was saying, "I don't think that's a good way to look at things. I'm an outer person, and think all that stuff about inner qualities is a bunch of crap." He paused, looking at the door to the kitchen to see if the waiter was coming, then back at me to see how I was receiving his opinions.

I said, "Keep going, Paul."

"It's nothing complicated. I just think that relationships lie outside the two people, in the activities they do, or don't do, together. The inner people have to make things deep and complex; we outer people want to make things simpler. When two people like, really like, to do the same things together, out in the world, they have a better chance of staying together, contentedly, than those who don't. When they do the same things together again and again, week after week, year after year, they're going to like each other over the long haul."

"Like what?" I asked. "What kinds of things, activities?"

"Just stuff. Hiking, doing church things, traveling, barbecuing in the back yard, going to football games, playing bridge, reading in bed at night, digging in the garden and watching things grow over the summer. Simple stuff. And what's maybe more important is when people don't have that. When one person wants to go out on the town and the other wants to watch TV. When that happens a lot, sayonara, they're doomed."

Tommy smiled at the waiter who placed the decanter of Rhone wine on the table and followed that with the platter of roasted chicken and the small dishes of shaved potatoes in butter garlic, and duck fat. He poured the wine and looked at me, clearly wanting to try the chicken. I said, "You really like duck fat, don't you?"

He laughed and said, "I do love that dish, especially with this wine."

"Ok, you can eat. You pass the test. I agree with you on the inner outer thing, and so does McCartney. That's the point he made in the rock opera he wrote here, that's the theme."

He said, "So you're an outer person?"

"I am."

"And the inner stuff?"

"Crap."

"You and Roger have a lot of things you like doing together?"

"We do."

"He steal things, too?"

I smiled, and plunged into the duck fat, feeling great.

# Chapter 32 – The Rest of the Evening

God, those potatoes are great with roast chicken and Chateauneuf du Pape. What a combo. That decanter went back to the kitchen empty, and we decided we needed a break before the last course with the $800 bottle of California cabernet. I got up and went into the kitchen where I sprayed the chef with more Deneuvian charm, this stuff champagne and riesling infused, asking him if we could have just a little break before his roast vegetables in espagnole sauce. He asked how long, and I said twenty minutes. Of course he said, Yes, I was back in good form now, all pissiness gone, him proverbial putty in the hands, the other cooks and dishwashers watching him transform from king of the kastle, dictator of the domain, pryor of the provence, to marshmallow of the manor. I smiled and waved to everyone, went back to the dining room and took Tommy's hand, leading him down the staircase and outside to the patio fronting on the beach. I linked arms with him and we walked down the boardwalk to its end out over the dunes, the walking feeling good after almost two hours in the dining room. We gave our voices and brains a rest too, relaxing all our parts and gathering energy for the final push with the food and wine.

Twenty minutes later we were seated back in the dining room, and the waiter brought the final decanter. I said to him, "Do me a favor, would you, hon? Go down to the valet and tell him that under no circumstances is he to give me the keys to the Mustang tonight. No matter what I do or say, he's not to let me or him," nodding at Tommy, "drive." I paused. "After you bring the food, hon."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Tommy looked at me, I said, "I don't drive after two drinks."

"We've had more than two drinks?"

"Three bottles is more than two drinks, I think, and we have one more bottle to go. That one right there," I said, pointing at the decanter, really ready to taste the Screaming Eagle. I love Screaming Eagle.

Tommy said, "I understand, but it's too bad. I really was looking forward to seeing you drive tonight."

"Better this way."

The waiter brought the platter and set it down in front of us, then served each a helping, and poured the first glass of California juice. I was ready to take my first sip when Tommy said, "Ah, what exactly is this way?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you said 'better this way', meaning not driving home, so there has to be another way, right, and I'm asking what that way is."

"I still don't get you," a little irritation creeping in, me badly wanting to hear the scream of the eagle.

"Gwen, we're getting sloshed together in a hotel. A luxury hotel on the beach, the sound of waves, the smell of salt air, palms trees swaying in the wind. And, may I remind you of the rules; your rules. The platonic thing. The thing harking back to the old Greek guy who came up with that horrible idea in the first place, the rotter. That guy has spoiled more people's fun than Hitler. So given those conditions, exactly what is the better way we now face?"

I looked at the veggies in espagnole sauce that smelled so good, and looked at the dark rich wine in the huge Riedel glass that called my lips, and said, "You trying to spoil my fun here with this last fantastic pairing of food and wine?"

"Just curious. Just wondering where I'm going to stable my wild horses tonight. No problem."

"You saying you got wild horses going, Tommy, that being a metaphor for libidinous inclinations?"

"I'm human, honey, and you are you, and you've been flinging all that Deneuvian stuff around at everybody, and some of it attached itself to me, and now there are consequences in the form of metaphorical horses, and they gotta go somewhere. Law of nature."

This guy is a lotta fun, I thought, but didn't answer him, the lure of the veggies and wine taking command. He followed my lead here, which was to enjoy them without talking. The chef came out and we said everything was great, and thank you, and he said anytime, doesn't matter if the dining room is open or not. When he left, half the wine in the decanter was gone, as were the food plates. We both sat back and looked at each other. Finally I said, "How're the horses? It's my understanding those types of male horses are susceptible to the effects of alcohol. Sometimes the effect is to make them wilder, and sometimes the effect is to calm them down."

He stared at his glass for a minute, then put it up to his ear, said, "Screaming great wine." He sipped, set the glass on the white tablecloth and said, "You turned the keys to the car over to the valet. I turned the reins to the horses over to Plato. He's sitting on my shoulder, very strong presence, making sure I stay a good boy."

I said, "We have a weird thing going here, don't we? The inner outer talk was very interesting. The eating and drinking thing, too. Now what, with Plato hanging out with us, a third wheel?"

"It's your thing, Gwenny. I'm just along for the ride."

I picked up my purse, took out my cell, and dialed Gale. "Hey babe. How you doin'?"

"We're bored. Wanna steal more stuff from the museum. The silver and the table."

"Yeah, well, more on that later. Can you come and pick us up?"

"Who's we?"

"Who ya think?"

"Where?"

"The Sanctuary."

"You're at a hotel with Steve McQueen?"

"He's not Steve McQueen. Not quite. Almost."

"Why do you need a ride home?"

"We're sloshed."

"You're at a luxury hotel on the beach, sloshed, nine o'clock at night, and you want to come home? That's a new one."

"We're not alone."

"Oh yeah, who's with you?"

"Plato."

"Who? This now a three-way? It's getting worse."

"Gale, who was it hooked up with ZZ Top the other day? You able to find what you were looking for under that long beard? It have a tattoo on it, like everything else on the guy?" I looked over at Tommy who seemed interested in the half of the conversation he could hear.

"ZZ Top is the name of the band, not his name. And he was nice. Sang me to sleep with a nice little Texas lullaby."

"You coming, Gale? Is Jinny with you? He survive the female member of the family?"

I heard her say something away from the phone, then, "Yeah, we'll be there, twenty minutes, pick up the pieces of your shattered marriage, your truncated relationship, your torn covenant of love." I was glad Tommy couldn't hear, might've made him lose all that great food we'd had.

I punched the off button and said, "Our ride home's coming in twenty minutes. Is that enough time to ditch Plato and get a room?"

He smiled, took my arm, and led us out to chairs on the ocean side patio. After a minute he asked me, "What art do you like the most? What type?"

I knew the answer to that right away and said, "Music. That's what I love the most. Songs like Paul McCartney's, singing like Renee Fleming's."

"Art takes different forms, doesn't it? Some forms are ephemeral, like the great wine we just drank. And performances of music. You go hear it, and then it's gone." I wondered where he was going with this, but was all ears. He took a deep breath and sagged back in his chair, relaxing, then went on, "But some forms are solid. Once they are created, they stay in the same form. Like a chair. A perfectly made, perfectly crafted chair. A work of art." Now I knew where he was going. What a mind. Even through all that wine he was thinking, questing.

I said, "Or like a painting, maybe. Solid, always there after it's made, not transitory. Always able to be enjoyed, treasured, valued."

"Yeah, like a painting. You like paintings, Gwen?"

"I do, Tommy Crown. I do. My favorite type of art after music."

He nodded and smiled, not at me, but to himself, it seemed. A benevolent smile, kind. And that was the end of our conversation that night; a great evening. Ten minutes later we heard the door through the wall of glass open and Gale say, "Here are the lovebirds, perpetrators of lust and longing, blackeners of soulful promises, destroyers of dreams of purity."

Jinny stood next to us and said, "Thank god we're here. She was talking like that the whole way down here. Didn't understand a word of it. How you guys?"

"We're good. Thanks for coming," I said.

"What ya been doing here?" Jinny asked innocently, not thinking like Gale thinks.

"Eating and drinking. Talking." He nodded, smiled, transparent, not like Gale the devious one. "Jinny, are you an outer person or an inner person?"

He didn't hesitate but answered, "Outer."

I looked at Gale and said, "How about you? You an inner or outer person?"

She said, "Outer."

I looked at Tommy and he smiled, saying, "You got smart friends."

# Chapter 33 – Back at Work

For obvious reasons Tommy didn't want to go into work the next day. Not entirely obvious? First, hangover, and a good one. Second, who wants to work the day after having a lot of fun? Third, work meant crook hunting, and he was falling in love with the prime suspect. Fourth, I had told him I communicate with my dog, telepathically, which is both unusual and interesting. Right? More interesting than crook hunting, at least for most people. Stacked against all that were two reasons to get back to work, the first being the fee he would earn when he found the crook, i.e., the woman he was falling in love with, and second, this same person, i.e., the love interest, had alluded to a connection with Gwendolyn Bedgewood, the star of the stolen painting.

It was ten am and Tommy still was in his hotel room, working on a third cup of coffee and trying sort out these motivational factors when his cell phone rang. The caller ID said 'Office,' which was another motivational factor, albeit in this case a negative one. He faced the music and answered, hearing the stone-like voice of Ms. Granite. "Crown! What's up?"

"Good morning to you, too," he said.

"I offered 'good mornings' to people here in the office four hours ago. We've put in half a day's work. I know people in the south move slowly, but you're a New Yorker, a barracuda, stridently aggressive, killer instinct. As least you were, had. What's up?"

"I'm making progress. I have two reports to send you."

"What reports?"

"One is the history of the painting; the artist, the provenance, genealogy, that stuff. The other is about the security system breech. I'll send them up."

"I'm not paying you to play art historian or to play around on ancestry.com. That's not what you get the seven percent for. You get paid to find the painting so I don't have to pay them the two point five. Tell me the painting's going to be back on their wall. Soon."

"Yes, boss."

"Don't go deferential on me. It doesn't become you. Something's up down there, I can tell. What?" Through Tommy's mind ran: telepathy with a dog, airborne Steve McQueen Mustangs, inner and outer people, doppelganger women. He didn't say anything. "Ok, Crown. Just remember the motto on my wall up here: Manos de Piedra. Let me hear from you. Soon."

Tommy wondered if Gwen ever had employed that motto to motivate her employees: Hands of Stone. He doubted it. But the call did motivate him to get up and get out, and he found himself walking not towards the museum but towards the promenade at The Battery. He picked up his walking pace, trying to drive the blood through his body and evaporate the alcohol lodged therein. He felt better after two miles and his brain starting working. He needed to sort out the motivators and decide which one to follow today. He walked past a nice yellow car parked next to the promenade, which made him think of the Mustang and the high speed ride over to Sullivan's. A few minutes later he passed a Jag X-Type, also parked along the road, which made him think about money, which made him think about his conversation with the woman with hands of stone back in New York, which made him think about seven percent of two point five million dollars. If he wanted to put that in his pocket he had to find the painting. If he didn't find the painting, not only would he not earn enough to buy the Jag, he very well might be out of a job, given the veiled threats expressed earlier by his boss. Opposed to these motivators were memories of the chess match and dinner at The Sanctuary, to say nothing of allusions to talking dogs and communication with ancestors from the past.

You can feel Tommy's quandary.

Another half mile of walking brought to the surface of his mind the entire issue of the little white-bearded Plato perched on his shoulder, incessantly reminding him of the deal he had made with me. Why had he done that? I was a ten in all departments, and the deal precluded consummation in one of them. And that department wasn't a minor one; it wasn't shipping and receiving; it wasn't the cafeteria; it was way up at the top floor of the organization, right? A VIP of a department. It had a corner office with its own bathroom and wet bar. Was he really going to be able to sit across the chessboard, across the dining room table, knowing there was going to be zilch in the sex department?

An hour of high speed walking had ameliorated the hangover, but the entangled quandary remained, pounding inside his head. On one side was money and Plato; on the other, the presence of a Deneuvian woman, the first of his experience. Stalemate. But he had to do something. He stopped walking and looked across the harbor at the flags snapping in the wind over Fort Sumter. He relaxed and cleared his mind, letting the opposing forces drift away in the breeze. A minute later they were replaced by an image of a beautiful woman in a floor length old-fashioned dress. Gwendolyn Bedgewood. This was something he could do that was connected to both sides of his quandary, hunt for the painting. Finding it meant a payoff, for sure, and it also might mean plumbing the depths of a Charleston secret. Can I, Gwenny June, really talk with my dog and my doppelganger ancestor?

# Chapter 34 – Two Girls Through the Ages

Tommy wasn't the only one nursing a hangover and thinking about the painting. At the same time he was talking with the Hands of Stone woman, I was talking, or listening, to Gale and Jinny blabber on about stealing the silver and the table from the museum. Now they were trying out the Gershwin piano tactic, telling me if I agreed to another heist each of us could get the object of their desire: Gale the silver service for her dining room table, Jinny the Faberge table to sell for a fortune, and me the piano that would replace the Steinway over which hung the object that had started this culture of thievery.

I pulled the covers over my head and tried to sink deeper into the sofa cushions. Gale sat on the floor in her underwear, propped up against the wall under the painting with a blanket covering her lower half, while Jinny reclined on the floor under the Steinway, also under a blanket but fully clothed underneath. At midnight, after making up his army style bed, he had started to disrobe, an act both Gale and I had vetoed immediately. Gale stripping down was one thing, him doing so was another.

We had dropped Tommy off at his hotel about ten o'clock, and then parked in front of my house on Church Street a few minutes later. I was partially coherent and said goodnight and thanks, when Gale said, nothing doing, they were coming in, they didn't trust us, meaning Tommy and me, it was only a few minutes' walk between my house and the hotel, and we weren't fit to make rational and moral decisions, either of us. I told them to fuck off, politely I think, but it was useless, and soon there we were, them finally getting their slumber party.

Now things were worse, with them chipper and feeling good, talkative and cheerful, and my head pounding like a set of tympani drums. Even the dog was cheerful, lying next to Gale on his back in that undignified way some male dogs have. I said, "Jinny. How do you say 'hair of dog' in Russian?"

"Vodka."

Gale saw an opportunity to pile it on me, and said, "This is the price you pay for fooling around with that guy. You deserve it. You don't drink four bottles of wine when you go out with Roger, do you? No. But you get in that stupid muscle car and you go mad, act like a fool. And by the way, who's going back there to Kiawah to get the car? Us? No way. You deserve to walk back there and get it, that's penance, right Jinn Jinn?"

Jinny was trying to figure out an excuse to join me in some hair of the dog, him knowing I don't normally serve vodka in my house at nine in the morning, but the prospect bringing back memories of his formative years growing up on the docks of Saint Petersburg. He said, "Easy does it girl, give her a break. She's not used to living on the wild side, like us."

She said, "You give her an inch, she'll take a mile, just like most people. Pretty soon she'll be hosting cocaine orgies here instead of cultural soirees. We gotta be strict with her, clamp down now, 'fore it gets worse." She rubbed the dog's stomach and said, "What do you think? You vote with me or Jinny? Strictness or laxity?"

"I wanna know what 'hair of the dog' is?" the dog said. "Never heard that one, but it sounds interesting."

Gale said, "You never heard that one because, up until now, she," practically spitting the word she in my direction, "wasn't in the habit of getting sloshed with men not named Roger in the swankiness of a luxury seaside hotel, coming home comatose and waking up a veritable basket case." I had to give her the basket case part, but I really wasn't comatose when we got home, at least I don't think I was. I didn't bother to defend myself, but kept my head under the covers, hoping everyone would talk in a lower and less pejorative tone.

And my prayers were answered when I heard a dulcet voice say, "Gale dear, she doesn't have our experience with these things. We are women of the world, able to cope with the accouterment of our sophisticated life-styles, able to measure out and tolerate the doses of excitement and extenuation that accompany a life lived fully. Dear, she has not these special capabilities, and therefore we must act with a certain amount of charity and restraint, even when the challenge is great and the object of our worthy intent is so, so, childlike."

The dog rolled over onto his stomach, crossed his front legs, and said, "Ok, here we go."

Jinny looked at Gale and said, "Should I get out the bourbon again?"

Gale looked up at the painting and said, "She's got a cracking hangover. You sure this is the time to drop the bomb on her?"

The voice answered, "Yes dears, has to happen sooner or later, and remember, we are like twins, despite the breadth of time that has passed between our corporeal existences. I know her well, mind and body, and I think now is as good a time as any. Right Gwenny?"

I wasn't as shocked as you might think, though my headache ratcheted up a notch. I pulled the blanket down from my head and looked around the room. Jinny had gotten up from under the piano and was getting the $100 bottle of bourbon out from the liquor cabinet. It wasn't as good as vodka to him, but it was better than nothing. Gale was standing up in her bra and panties, blanket in hand, watching where Jinny was going with the bottle so she could get her share, not caring that five minutes earlier she was castigating me for my drinking habits. The dog was trying to decide if it was worth getting up and coming over to the sofa where he would have a better view of what was coming, able to see both me and Gwendy.

I decided to medicate myself first, not remembering the last time I'd made use of hair of the dog, but it seeming to be reasonable under these unusual circumstances, before I answered my twin. "Bring me a glass of that, please, Jinny." He got five rocks glasses from the cabinet and set them on the coffee table next to me, then splashed two fingers of the bourbon in each one. Gale dropped her blanket and came over, her attire not disturbing Jinny's equanimity, at least not outwardly. She and I looked at the glasses, and then we heard a giggle from the wall.

"If that's an example of Russian humor, you're all right with me, Jinn Jinn." Another giggle. "I never met any Russians, just a bunch of French Huguenots, who were ok, and the Englishmen, really boring. Manigault was English." She said this last bit using an inflexion that unmistakably was derogatory, which likely had something to do with her reputation.

At this point Gale got Jinny's joke and issued her own giggle, linking her arm in his and raising her glass to the painting. "Here's to our new friend, may she add fun and excitement to our clan and our times," and knocked back her drink.

Gwendy said, "My, you are a bold lot, drinking your breakfast; just like old times, for me. Well almost, given that back then I actually could drink, and we always drank champagne and not bourbon. Still, the sentiment's the same. Bravo. Galey, please, have mine, I can see you're ready. Go girl." She looked out from the painting at the dog.

Who said, "Ok, I get it. Go ahead, Jinny, have mine. But please, someone tell me about the hair of the dog thing, that's driving me crazy."

Gale said, "It's what she's doing," holding her second glass of bourbon out towards me. "She and that male nymphomaniac she was with last night got crocked good, and now she's battling a hangover, and she's hoping a little slosh of this medicine will take the edge off."

The dog nodded a thanks, then said, "And what's your excuse for drinking at this time of day?" him giving her a little shit.

I said, "Thank you," and took a sip.

The dog wasn't done with Gale, saying, "And would you mind getting dressed. It's very distracting for us," nodding at Jinny.

Jinny said, "The more of this I drink, the more distracting it's gonna get," which elicited another giggle from Gwendy.

She said, "Those were the days. The more champagne we drank, the more clothes we took off. It always was, and I assume still is, an inverse relationship." She looked first at Gale and then at Jinny, said smiling, "You two ever....?"

The dog spoke up, "Ok, ok, knock it off. It ain't so funny for me, as I ain't got any prospects in here, so let's get back to business, shall we? We're here to get Gwenny and Gwendy acquainted in a way they haven't been before. The three of you did the deed by heisting her out of the museum and bringing her here, and now we gotta figure out what that means." He paused. "The first question is, how much did you pay for her, and where did you get the money from? I heard she was insured for a bundle."

I took another sip, and motioned to Jinny for a refill. That is smooth stuff, even at nine am.

Gale laughed and said, "Pay? Her? Us? No way, and what's more, we're going back again, for more."

I looked at Jinny, who rolled his eyes, both of us amused at Gale simultaneously appropriating the persona of Al Capone and claiming we were planning another heist.

The dog said, "You stole her? You stole her from the museum? Jesus, and what happens to me if they catch you? Take her back? Who am I gonna talk to?"

I said, "Your master is coming back. He hasn't moved to France."

"Oh. Him. I forgot."

"I'll tell him you said so."

Then he looked up at the painting and said, "Were you in on this from the beginning? You sanction the move? Weren't they treating you right in there? I mean, you were the center of attention, right? The most famous painting in Charleston, all those people coming around every day and staring at you, asking who you are, wondering about your history? Or did these goons take you away from your home and friends, the other art works, just to satisfy their own selfish desires."

Gale, Jinny, and I looked at each other. Goons?

"Oh, phui," said Gwendy. "They're not goons. And I'm glad I'm here. Being the center of attention isn't all it's cooked up to be. For one thing, you always have to act proper and be polite. That's the price you pay for being an icon of Charlestonian culture. I never could let my hair down in there, be the real me. And there were precious few parties in that place, let me tell you; lights out at five pm, every day. And then there was Sunday and Monday, nobody. Borrrring. Here, I'm looking forward to full social life again. Right, Gwenny? Right, Gale? Right, Jinny?"

Gale and Jinny together said, "I'll drink to that."

"So you knew they were planning on stealing you?" the dog asked.

"Well, they didn't tell me in so many words. But they kept coming around and looking at me, and I recognized Gwenny right away, and I could tell something was up. She and some guy have visited me a few times in the past, and I had a suspicion about her. Then when the three of them came around a bunch of times recently, checking me out, I kinda knew."

The dog said, "Well, this isn't the first heist for this crew." He looked at me and said, "How come you didn't tell me you were gonna do this?"

I finished off my second drink and sat up, feeling a lot better. The medicine was working. I said, "You got a big mouth, that's why."

He sniffed at this but maintained his role of master of ceremony. "Ok, so now we all know the story, where does that leave us? Are we all one big happy family?"

Gale resumed her attack, saying, "That depends on her. While the cat's away the mice will play, and I've never seen her so mousy. Have you?" looking at Jinny. Jinny maintained neutrality towards the issue, his second bourbon having alerted his remote regions that there was a blonde bombshell of a fashionista drinking with him and talking to him, standing in her Versace underwear, his normal viewpoint of 'she's my little sister' wearing thin right now. The mixture of booze and morning testosterone was undeniable.

Gwendy said, "Tell, tell."

Gale said, "She met this geek that's trying to find you and take you back to the museum, and she's been driving around town at high speeds with him, taking him to romantic places and eating and drinking with him, and it's only because of us watching out for her," pointing at Jinny, who she caught looking at her ass, "that she hasn't committed a REALLY BIG MISTAKE."

I was enjoying Gale's rant and seriously debating a third glass of bourbon (what was happening to me?), and said, "Geek? Gale, who was it who said she would've dragged Tommy into the back seat of the Mustang and drained all the life-force out of him?"

"Stop trying to divert the focus away from your behavior. What Jinny and I do is entirely different from what you do. Or should do."

Gwendy looked at Jinny who now was working on his third drink, and said, "Gale, honey, maybe you should wrap that blanket around you, make it easier for Jinn Jinn to participate in this family get-together without blowing a gasket. It looks like his temperature is rising to a point that maybe, umm, he might want to, umm, take some action that, umm, maybe he doesn't really want to do. Get my drift?"

Gale looked at her, then at me, then at the dog, and then at Jinny, figuring this out; then said, "Well, ok," wrapped the blanket around her and sat down next to me on the sofa. We saw Jinny's temperature drop down below the red zone, and he sat down on the piano bench.

He said, "Thanks."

Gwendy took it up again saying, "So tell me about these two men in your life, hon. Sounds like fun."

I wasn't in the habit of accounting for my actions to others, except Roger, of course, but I figured I owed it to her given the fact that I had, er, relocated her, transitioned her, so to speak, from one life to another. "I'm happily married to Roger June who happens to be out of town for a couple of months, working on a project in France. He's due back in a month or so, and you'll get to meet him then. I told him you're here."

She said, "Did you tell him that I, you know, that I'm more than meets the eye?"

"No. But he knows about the dog. They talk."

"So when he comes back this won't be a big shock for him?"

"No. He's a great guy. He'll like you and you'll like him."

Still on point Gale said, "That presupposes you're still here, and not in Tahiti with what's his name."

Gwendy asked, "What is his name, dear, and what's he like?"

"His name is Tommy Crown, and he's nice."

She looked at Gale and said, "What's he look like?"

"Steve McQueen. Looks just like Steve McQueen. Stud-muffin deluxe."

"And Steve McQueen is who?"

"He's the guy that did those two great movies, Bullitt, and one where he stole the money, twice."

Gwendy said, "I must have missed those. Anyway, so you're having an affair with this Tommy Crown while Roger is away. Nice. Tell, tell. It's been so long since I've had anyone to talk to about stuff like this."

"I'm not having an affair. We're just spending a little time together, having a little fun. We play chess, have lunch, that's all. It's boring when Roger's gone."

"Let me get this straight. You're hanging out with a handsome man who is trying to get the goods on you for stealing me, who is trying to put you in jail, and you're not even getting any good sex in return for taking that huge risk?"

"Pinched. We pinched you from the museum. We don't use the word steal in Charleston."

"Answer the question, dear. The part about the sex, or supposed lack of same."

"The answer is yes, or no, whatever; it's a platonic relationship, pure and simple."

Gwendy looked at Gale, "What's a platonic relationship?"

"It's where a guy and a girl badly want to have sex but for some strange reason they deny themselves."

Gwendy said, "You're shittin' me."

Gale said, "Don't look at me. I've never had one and don't intend to. The point is she shouldn't be foolin' around with this guy in the first place."

Jinny and I took in this entertaining dialogue, both working on our third drinks, it now being ten thirty am and almost cocktail hour.

Gwendy got a look on her face and said, "Gale, do I detect a smidgen of jealousy in you, dearie? What would happen if Gwenny, shall we say, saw the error of her ways, and stopped her crazy behavior of hanging out with someone who wants to put her in jail? Would it occur to you to, shall we say, make yourself available to this Mr. Crown, the stud-muffin deluxe?"

Gale blushed a little and said, "It's conceivable. Just barely."

With this admission there was a lull in the action. Then Gwendy looked at the three of us and said, "I sure do wish I could have one of those bourbons. Damn those look good. But I know that's not in the cards for me now. I'll have to be satisfied with living vicariously through you all, and that's better than being in the black zone, for sure. So, Gwenny, let's sum this up. These are your close friends who are trying to protect you from yourself. Your husband is away, and you're having one of these platonic relationships with a guy Gale is drooling over. Jinny looks at Gale like a little sister except when he mixes booze with his morning dose of testosterone. And you have a dog that has the same talent as I do. Lastly, I may or may not be a permanent member of the family, depending on how good this Crown guy is at his job of catching crooks, namely the three of you. Is that about it?" I nodded. She had painted quite a picture, and I wondered what Roger would think if he'd heard her summation. "Ok, then, it sounds good to me, except the Plato thing. That sounds ridiculous, but who am I to judge. For now, I'm just glad to be out of the museum and here, with friends."

I wondered what I was going to do with myself for the rest of the day, sloshed at mid-morning, and facing another hangover in the near future. The dog had been quiet, but now got up and looked around. He headed for the living room door and I said, "Where you going?"

He looked back and said, "Next door, to see the writer. I thought you bought the painting. I didn't know you pinched it. Wait'll I tell him. Another book there, for sure."

As he left I yelled again, "You rat."

# Chapter 35 – Knock on the Door

It didn't take Tommy long to get our address. He called the Curator (who wanted to ask Tommy why he wasn't in his office at the museum), who called his uncle, who called his lawyer, who called the clerk in the county records office, who looked up the name Roger June, and there was our address on Church Street just five blocks north of The Battery. It was eleven thirty when Tommy mounted the eleven steps up to my front door, the riser of each step covered in hundred year old fig vine, and rang the chimes. People in Charleston don't have doorbells, we have chimes.

When they rang inside, Gale, having finished her third bourbon and succumbing to her inherent wild streak, got off the sofa, dropped the blanket, and headed to the door. Tommy was ready to say something like 'good morning' to whoever opened the door, but when he saw Gale standing there, he couldn't, for obvious reasons. Like I said, she's a bombshell of a babe. When she saw who it was ringing the chimes, she said, "Any other man right now, I'd say 'Take me,' but you, get lost," and slammed the door in his face.

She came back into the living room and Jinny said, "Who was that?"

"Nobody we wanna know," and eyed the now almost empty bourbon bottle.

The chimes rang again, and I motioned to Jinny to check it out. This time Tommy was able to verbalize a 'good morning,' and Jinny said, "Hey, how ya doing?" Jinny was about the friendliest Russian gangster you'll ever want to meet, except when someone was messing with Gale, his 'like a little sister' except when he was mixing booze and the morning urge and she was walking around in her Versace lingerie.

Tommy said, "Is Gwen in?"

"Yeah, she's here; not exactly up and around, but she's here." Tommy looked at his watch, which said eleven thirty, then back at Jinny, who said, "She's been having a rough morning, but that's ok, c'mon in." And he stepped back from the door, invitingly. Tommy was two steps into the foyer when the bell rang in Jinny's head and he grabbed Tommy's arm and said, "Oh, whoa, wait a second, sorry, um, I gotta check with her first," and he unceremoniously pushed Tommy out the door, who got it slammed in his face a second time. Tommy stood on the stoop thinking, 'I thought Charlestonians were supposed to be polite. This is more like Brooklyn.'

Jinny came back into the living room and also looked at the almost empty bottle, then looked at me and said, "It's the crook catcher. Wants to see you."

Before I could say anything Gwendy said, "Bring him in. Bring him in. I wanna meet this stud-muffin deluxe, even though consummation ain't in the cards. I can fantasize."

I said, "Yeah, that would be real smart. Bring him in, and you'd be on your way back to center stage in the museum and we'd be on our way to the hoosegow."

She said, "Really, dear? You can't control him? I remember the days, any man came within my orbit, he was mine. Like putty, like a puppet. Hop, dance, up, down, whatever I wanted. Skills seem to have eroded going down through the generations." And she sniffed.

I ignored the diss and said, "How'd he find us here?"

Gale said, "Seems he's a better investigator than lover. Probably stinks in that department, so you're not missing anything."

Gale was getting on my nerves, so I said, "But you wouldn't say No to him, would you, hon?"

"If it meant saving your bacon, I'd suffer through it. Then I'd tell you the guy was pathetic, and maybe that would be enough to keep you pure. Le'me go see him again," and she headed for the living room door.

"Gale. No. We can't let him in here to see her," meaning Gwendy. "I'll go."

I got up, kept a blanket around me, adorned like Gale underneath, and went to the door. When I opened it, his mouth opened to say hello, and so did my heart. Three bourbons under my belt, under the waistline of my panties, I should say, and I was his. Well, almost. "Hey, stranger," I said. "How's the head this morning?"

He smiled. "Better now than earlier, that's for sure. A long walk helped with the hangover. How 'bout you?"

"Um, I was going to go to the gym, work out, work it off, but then Gale and Jinny stuck their noses into the act, and things went downhill from there," I lied.

"So I see. Do I smell hair of the dog?"

"How'd you know?"

"Gale smells like bourbon, Jinny smells like bourbon, and you smell like bourbon."

"Oh."

"You going to offer me one? Otherwise I might be inclined to go back to work," he said, the great smile still happening.

"You mean the investigator thing?" He nodded, so I said, "Come on in."

In the hallway we heard voices, more than two, coming from the living room. I steered him away from there and into the kitchen, made him sit at the counter and said, "Le'me get dressed, then I'll get you a drink." I went through the hall and into the living room and said to Jinny and Gale, "Go keep him company while I get dressed. Don't let him out of the kitchen." I looked up at Gwendy and said, "You keep quiet." I started to leave, then turned around and looked at Gale in her blanket, and said, "Get dressed first. You'll tear him apart looking like that. Don't let her in the kitchen till she's decent," looking at Jinny, who nodded, thinking Gale getting dressed would be better for him, too, just barely cognizant of his oath of 'little sister' in-violability.

I went upstairs and pulled on jeans and a while cashmere sweater, the booze telling me to forget the underwear, my own little Plato AWOL, absent without leave, me not being sure if that was good or bad. Downstairs I found Jinny rummaging in the refrigerator, which seemed like a good thing to do, and Gale rummaging in the kitchen liquor cabinet, which also seemed like a good thing to do but probably wasn't, given the circumstances. I asked Tommy, "What do you want to drink?"

"Can you make a stinger?"

I looked at the clock on the wall, which now showed noon, and said, "It's noon. We don't drink stingers before noon here in Charleston, but after noon they're fine. Up or on the rocks?"

"Up, please."

Gale said, "Mine too."

I didn't think it was a good idea to let her have anything else, didn't know if I could control her, but how could I say No, me getting ready to mix one for myself, clearly under the Tommy Crown spell. He had a lot of catching up to do. I said to Gale, "How 'bout we let Jinny fix us eggs and potatoes, then we have a stinger afterwards?"

She said, "Wimp."

I stood at the side counter over the liquor cabinet, one of our liquor cabinets, in my bare feet and mixed him the drink. God, did it look good, that caramel color, and already sweating the glass. I set it in front of him and turned to Jinny saying, "How about a big platter of scrambled eggs and home fries? Soak up the bourbon."

"On their way," he said.

I sat at the counter opposite the sandy haired boy and lusted after him. Gale had stopped taking bottles out of the cabinet when we decided on stingers, and now stood next to Jinny, leaning with her back against the counter, staring daggers at me and Tommy. Even under the best of circumstances she probably would have dominated the conversation, and now she had a bunch of bourbon in her. She had managed to get into a pair of slacks and top, but somehow had managed to not fasten the hook at the front of the slacks, and Tommy hardly could get his eyes off of there between sips of his stinger. Who could blame him? Gale started in, "Fancy meeting you here, center of the infidel universe."

Tommy raised his eyes up to her face, said, "The what?"

"The infidel universe, you heard me."

"This is the place of the non-believers?" He looked at me, who shrugged.

"Whad'ya mean, non-believers? I said it's the place of infidelity. Cheaters. Husband cheaters. Right, Jinny?"

Jinny keep his face pointed at the frying pan and said, "Give 'em a break, babe. They ain't done nothin'."

"Yet," she spat out.

"How many drinks she had this morning?" he asked.

"Three. Same as Jinny and me." I smiled and said, "You have some catching up to do."

"I enjoyed last night. It was a beautiful place, and great food, and really good wine. Thanks for making that happen."

Gale interjected, "Bet you weren't happy to see me, were you? Me and Jinn Jinn. Spoil your party. Saved her ass."

"Well, to tell you the truth, I was a little ambivalent, but today I can say, yes, I am glad you two showed up. My Plato was hanging out at the agora when he should have been on duty, and you guys showed up just in the nick of time," he said, smiling at me. Then he said to me, "How about your Plato? Was he where he should have been?"

"Umm, let's just say that I went to have a word with him this morning, and couldn't find him. Still AWOL."

"So," he said, "It's good that Gale and Jinny are around, subbing for the missing Ps, especially since, somehow somewhy, we're drinking again. You do this often, bourbon and stingers in the morning?" And with a flourish he finished his first one.

"Me, no. Not very often. Only on special occasions. Now them," I said nodding towards the stove, "they're two of the wild bunch."

Gale dialed her antagonism down a notch and said, "The only time I drink in the morning is when the morning started out as the evening before and the usual demarcation between the two got blurred. That hasn't happened since I met that guy from the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and he told me he had ancestors in his attic that like to shoot off cannons at dawn, and if we hung out together for a while he'd show me."

"And?" Tommy asked.

For the first time Gale issued him a smile and said, "Hell, there were cannons at midnight, and cannons at 3am, and then, yes, some really big cannons at dawn. That boy had what it took, I gotta say."

"And what was fueling all the cannons through the night?" I asked.

"Charleston Light Dragoon Punch, and lots of it. That boy said his family used to make it going way back, before the 'Late Unpleasantness'."

"The what?" Tommy asked.

I said, "That's what some of us call the War Between the States."

He said, "Oh. And what we from higher latitudes call the Civil War?"

Gale said, "Best to not use that name around here."

I could see she was lightening up about the same time Jinny turned away from the stove with one frying pan full of potatoes, onions and bell peppers, and another holding a dozen lightly scrambled eggs. Gale set four plates on the table and we fell to. All of us sensed we needed to eat rather than drink, and we did that silently. We were working on seconds when we heard a faint voice from the other side of the house. "Gwenny. Gwenny." Gale, Jinny, and I froze, fork halfway to our mouths, first looking out the kitchen door and then at each other, Gale and I panic stricken, Jinny his usual complacent self. We mobilized and got the forks to their destination, eyes on our plates. Tommy looked at each of us in turn, then continued his eating. A few moments later, faintly, "Gale. Jinn Jinn."

We knew we couldn't fake it a second time, and simultaneously Gale said, "Is that Roger, home early?" Jinny said, "It's Westlake, from next door." And I said, "It's the plumber. Fix the toilet."

How Tommy kept a neutral expression on his face, I'll never know, but he did, and helped himself to more eggs, eating three forkfuls, biding his time, and then saying, "That was a women's voice, wasn't it?"

Again simultaneously Gale and I said, "Woman? Really? Better go see," and we got up and left the kitchen. Tommy looked inquiringly at Jinny, who said, "You ready for another stinger, or you want more potatoes?" His Russian heritage thick in his veins, Jinny couldn't conceive of anyone ever getting enough potatoes. Tommy pushed his plate away from him and signaled for another drink. As Jinny stood at the far counter and mixed the cognac and white cream de menthe, Tommy stared at the kitchen doorway.

In the living room we stood in front of the painting and said together, "Are you crazy? You want to go back to the museum? Want us to go to jail?"

Gwendy's smile exuded mischief, and she said, "Oh, poo. That boy isn't going to turn us in. Bring him in here, I'll have him around my little finger for he can say 'Where's the bedroom?'"

Gale and I looked at each other, and Gale said, "Hon, I'm sure in your day that would have been true, but you don't exactly have all your attributes up and running in the same way now. He can't smell your perfume, and you can't let your dress ride up your leg a little, and you can't lean towards him and gesticulate with your mouth the way she can," nodding at me. "You really want to take that risk? How long's it been since you seduced a guy, anyway?"

"None of your beeswax," she said. "Just because neither of YOU two have the goods to nail him, doesn't mean I couldn't. Bring him in and we'll see," her voice rising in volume.

I thought, 'Jesus, she's crazy. And I don't want to go to jail.' I looked around and saw a blanket still on the sofa, grabbed it, and threw it around the painting like people do with their birdcages when they want their birds to shut up and go to sleep. We stood back and waited. After fifteen seconds, faintly from under the blanket we heard, "Ok, I get the picture (pun). I'll be quiet. But I got one last question: how come, Galey, the button of your pants is undone, showing the top of those little pink panties, and how come, Gwenny, you got no underwear on? You telling me you use those tricks and you still can't get this guy under control?" She paused, and then, "Weak."

We waited again, thankfully hearing nothing more from the birdcage, and went back into the kitchen, where simultaneously we said, "It was the plumber."

Tommy looked at Jinny who maintained his noncommittal stance, took a large sip of his second stinger, and said, "You have female plumbers in Charleston? We don't have any of those up in New York City."

Gale, at the counter mixing her next drink, said, "Here in the south we believe in diversity and equality; always have, always will. Plumbers with boobs ain't the half of it." She tried her drink, shook her head, went on, "You know how plumbers are famous for crouching on the floor, the back of their shirts riding up and their pants riding down?" I thought, 'Oh my God' and Jinny smiled. "Well, down here we decided we could turn that from being a really bad thing to a social grace, if we just got some women to turn to plumbing. Which we did; problem solved." And she took another hit from her glass.

Tommy drained his second drink and said, "The more I drink the more I'm able to appreciate southern humor and values. Gale, I think I get it." And he raised his glass and said, "Gimme one more blast, Jinny, and I'll be ready to sing "Dixie" with y'all."

# Chapter 36 - Next Door

This wasn't the only weird conversation going on in the neighborhood. The dog wasn't kidding when he said he was going next door to squeal to the book guy, Westlake. When he climbed the steps to Westlake's back porch, he was sorely tempted to yell through the door something like, "Yo, you of vicarious living, lemme in, I got a good one for ya," but he controlled his ego and barked instead. Westlake was the only one outside of the June family, the extended family that included Jinny and Gale, and now Gwendy, the newcomer, who the dog conversed with. So far. Every day it was a challenge to keep his special talent hidden from the world at large, but that had been the code of his ancestors for generations. Keep the goods hidden; use only with the most trusted of the lower species; maintain a low profile. And most importantly, choose mates wisely so as to pass the genes forward with the greatest chance of advancing the probability of one day assuming superiority over the now ascendant humans. Our day will come.

The dog wasn't sure why he had exposed his secret to the writer other than the possibility that he felt sorry for any creature that lived such a boring life, sitting alone for all those thousands of hours, staring at the blank pieces of paper, desperately struggling to create engaging stories out of thin air and express them in a way that would entice complete strangers to read and embrace them. All that solitary work that ends up being consumed by people the writer never will meet and that results in a pittance of monetary remuneration, if anything. What a pathetic figure. The dog had decided the guy needed not only a friend, but an associate, the guy not being particularly gifted in the creativity department. Hell, hadn't he, the dog, been the one that had come up with the plots for most of Westlake's books? And the guy was nice in his limited sort of way. It was good now and then to get away from the dynamism of the Junes and have a conversation that was, shall we say, not too deep.

"Woof, woof," he said from the porch. "Stop playing with yourself in there and lemme in. I got something for ya."

The door opened, and then the screen door, the guy looking down and smiling, thinking, 'Thank god. Drought's over. Maybe I can make something of this, get something going, get that agent bitch off my back.' He said, "C'mon in. I have some leftover meatloaf." In the kitchen the guy said, "You want to eat first or spill the beans first?"

From this the dog sensed Westlake was desperate for a storyline, so he said, "We can talk first, this is a good one. Then maybe the meatloaf. No, wait a second, let me ask a question first so I know if I have something to look forward to or not." The guy gestured with his hands to go on, and the dog asked, "You put ketchup on your meatloaf before you cook it? I really don't like ketchup on it. Ketchup is not a noble condiment."

The guy said, "No, I don't care for ketchup, either."

The dog raised his paw for a high five and said, "Ok, stick it in the oven on low, and while it warms up I'll tell you what I got." He laid down on the floor and waited while the guy did the thing with the food, poured himself a glass of wine from an open bottle in the refrigerator, and sat down at the table. The dog said, "It's ten o'clock in the morning, and you're drinking wine?"

"I've been depressed lately. Just a little pick me up."

"Writing slack?"

"Umm, yeah. Not much happening in that department."

The dog looked at the guy thinking, 'Too bad,' but not able to refrain from asking, "That wine from this morning or last night?"

"Last night."

"You drink wine that's been open all night? All that air sapping everything that's good right out of the bottle?"

"You know stuff about wine?"

"You'd be surprised what I know."

The writer accepted that and said, "So, what's happening next door while Roger's away? Anything juicy? I doubt it because I know she doesn't fool around. Which, I have to say, is too bad."

The dog looked at this poor sap, trying not to comment, but failing, and saying, "You think you could handle Gwenny June if she did fool around? You? A writer, for god's sake. No offense."

"Well, umm, on a good day, maybe. A little. A little thing with her, maybe; say, lunch."

"You think that's what it means to handle a hot babe? Take her to lunch?" The guy didn't answer, just took another sip of the flat wine that hadn't started out the night before at a very high level and now was at a level lower than Welch's grape juice. The dog thought, 'Enough, no reason to pile it on; he's really an ok guy; no Roger June, but a nice neighbor, and when he gets in the groove he can write a decent story.' He said, "Forget that kind of fantasy stuff, making it with her, stick with your writing fantasy stuff, cause I got goods I think you can make something out of."

The curves of Westlake's face toned up a notch and changed from the downward smiley thing to the upward smiley thing. The dog went on, "I didn't think she had it in her to pinch something without Roger around to help, but she did. Her and the other two. Get this: they went into the Charleston Museum in the middle of the night and came home with a painting. A big, important painting, and it's hanging in the living room right now. How's that for a story line?"

The smiley curve on Westlake's face transitioned back from upwards to downwards, and he picked up his glass of low rent grape juice. After taking a slug, stimulated by disappointment with the dog's revelation, he said, "I know."

The dog sat up and said, "You know? You know they heisted a famous work of art and had the balls, er, the guts, to bring it home and stick it in their, her, our living room?" The guy nodded. "And you can't make a book out of that? How'd you know?"

"I saw them bring it home."

"It was the middle of the night. That's when thieves work. What were you doing up?"

"When I can't write I can't sleep. The only thing I can do is drink; ergo the wine at ten am."

The dog thought, 'This boy is in bad shape.' He said, "Ok, but that's not the whole story. There's more." The guy didn't move, or even take another sip, remained expressionless. The dog went on, "Hey, wakeup. Anybody out there? Yo!" The guy raised his glass but still didn't react, didn't say anything. "It's not just a painting. It's a painting of an old Bedgewood babe. You know Gwenny's maiden name was Bedgewood?"

"No."

"Well, it was, and this woman in the painting is one of her ancestors from way back, like two hundred years."

"That's nice. Painting of an ancestor in your living room. So?"

The dog thought, 'I oughta slap this guy,' but he said, "Listen, I'm not the only non-conformist in the household. Was, but not now. Now there's another one."

"Who?"

Jesus, this guy is dense. Needs to get out and get laid or something. "Figure it out, for Christ sake. What have I just been telling you?" Westlake shook his head. "Her. The Bedgewood babe in the painting. Special. Like me. Different. Get it?"

Westlake sat back in his chair, put the glass of grape juice on the table, and closed his eyes for fifteen seconds. During this time the dog lay down, crossed his front legs over each other, and thought, 'If he doesn't get it now there's nothing else I can do.' When the guy opened his eyes, the smiley thing on his face again transitioned, this time from a downward curve to the upwards one. He smiled at the dog, drained his glass, went to the oven from which he took the slightly warmed meatloaf without ketchup on the top, cut a big slab, put it on a plate, and put the plate on the floor. He waved at the plate and said, "You earned it," went over to the small desk in the corner on which sat a computer, turned it on, launched the word processor, and started typing.

The dog waddled over to the plate, thinking, 'What I gotta go through for a decent meal. Sometimes he's pathetic. I give him gold, I hope he makes something of it.' He wolfed down what was on the plate, thought, 'Loaf's not bad though.'

# Chapter 37 – The Morning Party Continues

While the dog was squealing to the writer, saving the guy's career and reputation, the Tommy Crown Affair continued at my place. By now it was early afternoon, us decadents had finished huge plates of eggs and potatoes, Jinny had mixed Tommy his third blast of a stinger, a fourth drink for Gale and me, and a fifth one for himself. Tommy's thoughts roved from the explanation about the woman plumber to a prediction of how bad a hangover he would have later in the evening to the excitement of being near me (his Plato notwithstanding) to his not yet abandoned hope of finding the stolen (pinched) painting and collecting a fee large enough to buy the coveted Jag. The third stinger kicked in and he decided to stir things up. He said, "The plumber done yet? Like I said, we don't have any girl plumbers up in New York, and I'd like to see what a southern one looks like."

Pouring booze into Jinny was like pouring it into a marble statue: no effect. I can hold my liquor with the best of them and didn't bite on Tommy's gambit. Gale, on the other hand, was Gale, and she took it hook line and sinker, also being ready to rumble. Gale is ready twenty four seven. She said, "You asking to take a peek at the rear of her pants? That it? That what New Yorkers do, go around harassing innocent workers, doing their job, trying to earn a living?"

Tommy smiled, knowing she was engaging with him playfully, knew more was coming, didn't say anything. Looked at me and Jinny.

Gale went on, "Down here we live with propriety and decorum, specially where women are concerned. Besides, you don't need to bother that poor girl, and you certainly don't need to bother little Gwenny here, you know, the one married to a guy named Roger, in whose seat you happen to be sitting right now." As Gale said this, unconsciously her right hand began to fiddle with the button on her slacks, the one that inadvertently had been left undone earlier that morning after I had beseeched her to get dressed. Looking at Jinny she said, "Maybe you should go check on the girl, see how she's doing with the toilet, and see that this dork doesn't try to mess with her." Her tone was coy and petulant with a hint of seductiveness; in other words, fun and sexy.

Tommy said, "No offense intended. I'm getting the hang of this southern manners thing, very interesting. Of course, you can't expect me to abandon who I am, either. Us New Yorkers are proud of our heritage and traditions, too."

"You mean like a Brooklyn accent? You proud of that? Sitting here, listening to me and her speak, and you can say you like the one from Brooklyn?"

"You got me there. If I had the choice of listening to the harkening of female angels, or listening to the two of you give me shit, I'd take you Charleston girls in a second."

Jinny had been enjoying the banter almost as much as the second stinger he had poured into himself on top of the three bourbons. He now spoke up saying, "I'd rather listen to you two too, much more than a babe from Brooklyn, no matter how tough she is, knowing the mob really is run by women, behind the scenes of course, but I'd really rather have a Saint Petersburg woman whisper things in my ear. That is the pinnacle, the zenith, the apex of female loveliness and seduction. Nothing like it."

I said, "You trying to tell us sounds coming from the mouth of a Slavic woman, words spoken in a Slavic language, meanings whose etiology originated on the Steppes of Russia, can compete with the sibilance of a southern, female, accent?"

Jinny started to defend his position when Gale said, "We got carriage horses that make sounds more romantic than Russian women. We love you Jinny, but get real."

Even with five drinks in him Jinny was a very smart boy, and now he sprung the trap he had laid for us. He said, "What about Anna?"

Tommy asked, intrigued, "Who's Anna?"

"Anna is Anna Stirg, a close friend of ours, grand-daughter of a sometimes nemesis, currently making a movie in Italy with Steven Soderbergh, Oceans Fourteen. And she's Russian."

Tommy said, "Jinny seems to be saying she's attractive." He looked at Jinny and said, "That right?"

Jinny nodded and said "Smoking hot." He looked at me and said, "So, maybe a Russian woman can compete with you southern belles in the accent department?"

I looked at Gale and she looked back at me, forlorn. I said to Jinny, "You got us on that one. Nice play."

He smiled and said, "Y'all are one drink behind me, and that's not fair. Everyone up for one more, catch up?" It was 2pm and the day was shot, so I nodded, Yes, and Gale and Tommy followed suit. While we watched Jinny mix a pitcher of stingers this time, not messing around, Tommy deviously tried to get back to the plumber thing, sensing there was something interesting there, saying, 'can I use the bathroom.'

This caught me by surprise, the conversation having distracted me from the earlier incident of Gwendy blabbing away, calling from the living room, "Gwenny. Gwenny. Gale. Jinn Jinn," while we sat in the kitchen. I had forgotten about her, but the blue eyed boy here hadn't, and now the little stinker had me, us, because how do you refuse to let a guest use the bathroom, and how do you follow someone to the bathroom? You can't. And of course the bathroom is out there off the downstairs hallway, and so is the living room, and inside the living room there is a blanket hanging from something that is hanging on the wall, which is unusual in most homes, right? Shit. Now under most circumstances I would have been able to hide such a concern from a guest, but under the influence of morning bourbon and afternoon stingers, I couldn't, didn't. I looked at Gale, who looked panic stricken, which made me wonder if I looked panic stricken like her, which increased the level of panic I was feeling, which then was transferred to my face, ad infinitum. Somehow Jinny remained composed, probably a result of his teenage years spent under pressure in the Russian army.

Tommy continued looking at me, waiting for an answer. I gave Gale one last imploring look, but she was frozen, so I shook off my fear and got it together. I said, "Wait here. I'll go check and see if she's done working on the toilet," and got up.

Tommy said, "This big house and you only have one bathroom?"

I didn't answer him but said to Jinny, "Pour the drinks, love, I'll be right back," hoping he understood what I really meant was 'don't let this guy out of the kitchen.' I practically ran out of the kitchen, hoping Tommy was trying a trick and didn't really have to go badly, crossed the hallway and went into the living room. I carefully took the blanket off the painting and looked at Gwendy, whose mouth was pursed and ready to say something, so I immediately put my finger to my lips and said, "Shush." She obeyed, but glared at me, practically leaning out of the painting into the third dimension. I said, "Keep quiet or you'll spoil everything. He's still in there, and he wants to use the bathroom. We can't let him see you or it's all over for all of us."

She closed her mouth but looked daggers at me. Maybe it was this intimate pressure, our faces only a foot or two apart, but I had a brainstorm, quietly saying, "Listen, pretend you're a plumber. Say everything is fixed and you'll send me the bill."

Her evil eye changed to a questioning look, and she said, quietly, thank heavens, "What's a plumber?"

"Someone that fixes toilets."

"What's a toilet?"

Jeeze, here I'm dealing with this stuff, not only under pressure of being found out by an insurance company investigator who wants to send me to prison, but also sloshed from boozing it for the last four or five hours. 'What's a toilet?' How do you answer that? I came through and said, "A commode, you know."

"A commode was a piece of ornate furniture we had in our living room, dear."

I tried again, "A water closet." She shook her head. "A privy." Nothing. "A loo." Nada. "A bog, that's very French, maybe Huguenot." No. 'Crap,' I thought, what's the early 1800s name for a toilet in the southern United States. OH, I said, "The shitter."

Jeeze again, finally, she nodded Yes, said quietly, "Ok, dear, I understand, though I still don't think that boy's going to turn us in." Then in a louder voice said, "Yes, ma'am, all done, shitter's fixed, just don't try and get rid of the rats that way anymore. That one was really big. I'll send you a bill." She paused, then added, "And honey, if you're going out, maybe pop a couple mints, cover up that early day bourbon breath."

Now it was my turn to look daggers at her, and I grabbed the blanket and threw it over the painting. I went into the hallway and opened the front door, saying to the street, "Thanks very much. Watch the steps," closed the door and went back into the kitchen, where I said, "She's done, but had an emergency call and had to leave. Sorry I couldn't introduce you," looking at Tommy, who smiled in return. I rested a minute, then had to face the next hurdle of how to let him go into the hallway to the bathroom but keep him from looking into the living room, which I knew he wanted to do. I looked at Gale and Jinny, but they were sucking down their second and third stingers respectively, fifth and six drinks of the day, and were no help at all. I could take Tommy into the hallway and show him the bathroom, but I couldn't stand there waiting for him to come out, like a parent toilet training a child.

Just then there was a bark at the back kitchen door, which broke the tension. I opened the door and the dog came in, words on his lips, ready on the one paw to say something negative about the writer's pathetic state of mind, and on the other paw about his decent meatloaf. But he saw Tommy sitting at the counter, shut his trap, and sat down, looking from Tommy to me to Gale to Jinny and back at Tommy, badly wanting to say, 'So this is him, huh, the home-wrecker,' but his training kicked in and he kept mute. I detected the hint of a snarl on his mouth and hoped he didn't go for Tommy's leg.

Tommy sat looking at the dog, temporarily forgetting his bathroom ploy to check the rest of the downstairs for the mystery voice which he was convinced didn't come from any female plumber who if she crouched on the floor and her shirt road up and her pants road down wouldn't thereby offend the viewer the way male plumbers do. Then he looked at me and said, "Is this him, the wonder dog?" Looked back at the dog, then back at me. "Doesn't look special."

Now the dog looked at me and said, telepathically, hiding it from Tommy, "You told him? This bozo? This lout trying to get into your pants while your husband's away on business? You told him the family secret? Are you crazy?" He stood up on all fours, the snarl growing more pronounced across his face, which got Gale's and Jinny's attention. He went on, "I told you I was gonna protect you from yourself, and protect my master while he's away, earning money to buy you things. And that was BEFORE you told him my family secret, so now I got double reason to tear his leg off, bury it out in the back yard." And a growl emanated from within the snarling canine face.

Gale and Jinny were no help at all, soused by now, standing there just listening to the one sided conversation, not cognizant of the snarl and the threat to remove one of Tommy's legs from his person, and I wasn't any better, having used up what little brains I had left at this point in the binging session on dealing with the plumber thing. We just watched as the dog took a step towards Tommy, Tommy set his drink on the table, and then leaned towards the dog. I thought maybe Tommy was trying to intimidate the dog with an intense look on his face, but he wasn't, because the look on his face was the opposite of intense and intimidating; it was composed, respectful, and, and....friendly.

The dog stopped his advance, the snarl reduced itself by fifty percent, he looked up at me, back at Tommy, and sat down. Then he looked at me again and said, "You teach him to do that?"

"Do what?"

"Talk like that."

"He said something?" I asked.

"You didn't hear it?" He looked at Gale and said, "You hear it?" She shook her head No. The dog looked at Jinny, who also shook his head. "You telling me this guy can communicate in a way you guys can't?"

We looked at each other, then back at the dog, shrugging but thinking, 'This Crown boy is full of surprises.' I said, "What'd he say?"

The dog said, "He said you and him were just friends; platonic friends; and he wasn't trying to get in your pants. Said that would be a good thing, but he made a deal with you and would try to keep it. Said no reason for me to tear his leg off, take it out back."

"He said all that in like, three seconds?"

The dog nodded, said, "He's pretty good at this telepathy thing, for a beginner. Got a nice voice too, don't you think?"

I nodded and said, "And you know what a platonic relationship is?" He nodded. "Do dogs have platonic relationships?"

"Hell no, are you crazy. What a dumb idea."

I said, "The guy that thought that up is considered to have been pretty smart."

"By your standards, maybe."

I let that line of conversation drop and looked at Tommy, who now was sitting back in his chair and sipping his stinger. "How'd you do that?" I asked.

"Intuition. Just followed it, out of desperate self-preservation, him being about ready to clamp onto my shinbone, which I like the way it is now, attached to my body. Something came to me and I did it. Got lucky, I guess. Pretty cool, though."

"Can you do the telepathy thing with us, me and Gale and Jinny?"

Tommy looked at the dog for guidance, who said, "How 'bout for right now we keep this just between ourselves. Maybe later we'll let them into the game."

Tommy nodded at the dog and said to me, "No. Just me and him. You, I still gotta do the regular thing. That all right?"

I said to the dog, "Can he understand me when I do this with you?" The dog shook his head, No. "Ok. Listen, I got an idea how to get us out of the mess with Gwendy. He's still sniffing around for her out in the living room, I can tell. He didn't buy the plumber thing."

"What plumber thing?" asked the dog.

"Never mind, tell you later. Right now we gotta get him out of here without giving him a chance to see the painting."

"What'd you let him in here for in the first place?"

"Under normal conditions I wouldn't have."

"What are the abnormal conditions prevailing today under which you did let him in?"

"The three bourbons before lunch condition."

"And that being on top of the four bottles of wine for two people condition that existed last night?"

I nodded.

"Doing that with Roger's one thing, babe. This guy, he's a stranger. What's up with all this?"

"Driving the Mustang 390 GT in Bullitt. Riding the Norton motorcycle all over the hills in The Great Escape. Driving the dune buggy through the water out in The Hamptons. The sandy hair, the blue eyes, and he plays chess really well. Didn't get scared when I took the car airborne over the Ben Sawyer Bridge."

"Ok, ok. And standing up against all that sissy stuff is a little Plato, sitting on each of your shoulders, trying desperately to keep your flaming libidos in check. Is that right?" I nodded. "And what happens when one or the other Plato has to go to the john? Steps out for a smoke? Nods off, given as I am to understand they are somewhat elderly? What happens then? You let him throw you down on the ground and ravish you then and there, wherever and whenever that happens to be?"

I said, "More like I throw him down on the ground and do the ravishing."

The dog couldn't respond to this information, and instead looked at Gale and Jinny, who were emptying the pitcher of ice cold stingers. To them he said, yelled, actually, "What about you two? You're supposed to be the guardians of her virtue, her royal highness treading on very thin ice here, what with her Plato guy somewhat suspect in the performance of his duties."

Gale looked down at him and said, verbally, "Huh?"

The dog lay down full length and crossed his paws, his head pounding with the effort to understand human foibles. No wonder they are so inferior. Platonic relationships, for christ sake. Right. He closed his eyes and assessed the whole scene. One, everyone's judgment impaired by alcohol. Two, another human who knew his secret and could communicate dog style. Three, Gwen and Tommy in ravishment mode. Four, Tommy is sniffing around for the painting, which would be disastrous. Five, the writer next door may or may not have the capability to use the gold he had provided him to spin the cloth of a new book, the guy currently harboring a pathetic state of human mind. Jesus. He opened his eyes, watching me stare at Tommy, Tommy stare at me, watching Gale and Jinny moving from the 'little sister big brother' relationship to one of carnal knowledge. He really wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep, or in lieu of that go back next door and woof for another slab of meatloaf, but he was a dog of duty, and he gathered himself now.

He stood up and said to Tommy, "Yo, stud-muffin, tear yourself away for a minute. I got something to show you out back."

Tommy got up, went to the back door, opened it, held it for the dog to go out, followed the dog out to the porch, at which point the dog did an about face and zoomed back into the kitchen through the door which was swinging slowly shut on its hydraulic closer. He nosed the inner door closed with a slam, reared up on his hind legs, and managed to swivel the deadbolt latch to the locked position. He turned to look at me and said, "You couldn't figure that out?"

We heard the screen door open, and Tommy started pounding on the inner door, trying the knob, pounding some more. The dog said, "Ignore him. He's shitfaced like the rest of y'all, he'll give up and go home. You," looking at me, Gale, and Jinny, "into the living room." And he started nipping at our legs like herding dogs do with sheep, moving us through the kitchen door, across the hallway, and into the living room.

I went to the sofa, Jinny went to the piano stool, and Gale sat on the floor under the painting, leaning up against the wall. The dog lay down in the center of the room, looked up at the blanket covering the painting, and said, "The old birdcage trick, huh. I bet she hates that. Gale, wake her up."

Gale, whose front pants button was open again like it had a mind of its own, wanting freedom from constraint, could hardly stand up. I looked at the grandfather clock that said five in the afternoon. God, what a day, and on top of the night before. Gale finally got the blanket off the painting, and we heard, "Is he still here? Is he coming in? What time is it? What happened? You two make it together? You four make it together? Separately, or a foursome? What's with the blanket? They never did that in the museum. They turned off all the lights, but they never covered us up. What'd I do to deserve that? Tell me what happened. I'm part of this family and I have a right to know. Was he as good as you hoped, Gwenny? Tell, tell. In the kitchen or upstairs?"

She stopped ranting and looked out at the room, where she saw Jinny passed out on the bench, fully clothed, Gale in her underwear again, able to divest herself of her clothes even when unconscious, passed out leaning against the wall under the painting, and me passed out on the sofa, all the lights in the room on and the clock ticking.

None of us heard it, but she yelled, "You rats."

# Chapter 38 – Roger Calls Home

I heard a loud bonging sound which I figured was a part of my brain banging against the inside of my skull, swollen up from all the abuse I had subjected it to over the last two days. I lay there wondering if it would go away if I sat up, or get worse. Automatically I had started counting the bongs, and when the count got to twelve the bonging stopped, which seamed funny to me, so I decided to investigate further. I sat up and opened my eyes, seeing the light from the streetlamp outside my living room window. Inside the window it was dark, but I could see around the room, and even could see the grandfather clock, which showed midnight. Knowing the bonging came from the clock and not inside my head made me feel better and even a little adventurous, so I got up with the blanket and walked through the doorway, not wanting even to look at the wall on which hung the painting for fear of hearing Gwendy give me shit. I assume she has to sleep sometime and I hoped that time was now.

I heard noises in the kitchen, where I found Gale, Jinny, and Tommy sitting at the counter drinking beer and eating pizza. I almost went back to the living room, thinking a ranting monologue by Gwendy would be preferable to dealing with this group. Gale was in her underwear, Tommy had a large band aid on his ear, and Jinny was in the same clothes he'd been in for the last day and a half. He got up, went to the fridge, got out a bottle of beer, opened it, got a glass from the cabinet and filled it with the beer, looked at me and said, "You got your choice of pepperoni or veggie special."

Every synapse in my brain fired out its electron all of which coalesced into the thought, 'Go check into a rehab center, or at the very least a hotel, do not hang out with these people any longer. Get out while you still can,' but....the glass of beer on the counter looked so good....and the pizza smelled so good....and Tommy's eyes still were blue and his hair still was that curly sandy gold color....and I hadn't eaten since the eggs and potatoes earlier in the day....and I hadn't had a drink in over eight hours....and we've been having so much fun, that....I sat down....though unlike Gale I kept the blanket around me.

I shoved half a slice of the veggie into my mouth and followed that with a slug of beer, after which I asked, "Where's the dog?"

Gale had an entire pizza box in front of her like it was her own, and a cloth napkin wrapped around her neck which I thought odd since she didn't have on any shirt that needed protecting, just her bra, and a slice in one hand and a glass in the other, looking almost like she was going to start juggling them. She looked at me and said, "He's next door with Richard. When we unlocked the door and let him back in," nodding at Tommy, "the dog said he couldn't be held responsible for you anymore. Said he could see the new boy was taking his place, and he thought he'd still be welcome over there next door."

Jinny said, "I think he just used that as an excuse to go for another slab of meatloaf, but I could be wrong."

I finished the first slice and the first glass, then asked, "Why'd you let him back in?" looking at Tommy who had folded his slice of pepperoni in half the long ways, the way New Yorkers do.

Jinny said, "When I got up to come in and get something to eat, I looked out the back door and saw him lying down at the bottom of the steps, out cold."

"You ok?" I asked Tommy.

He said, "Yeah. Got conked on the ear but it's not too bad. You guys should come up to New York sometime. I'll show you some real pizza."

I reached across the table, dragged the box away from Gale and took out another slice. With my mouth full I said, "Why are we drinking again, in the middle of the night? We don't normally drink bourbon in the morning and we don't as a rule drink late at night, so why are we doing it now? We are approaching a forty-eight hour bender, and I can't remember the last time I, we, did that."

Jinny looked at Gale, who returned the stare, then they both looked at me, and then they both looked at Tommy. Now it was Gale's turn to talk with her mouth full, saying, "It's him," nodding at Tommy. I looked at Jinny who nodded confirmation. Then I looked at Tommy.

He swallowed before answering, a true gentleman, and said, "I disagree. I think it's you. You're the cause." And he folded another slice.

I was saved from formulating a defense by the ringing of my cell phone. "Hello."

"Hi Hon. I know it's late. You up?"

"I'm up. What time is over there?"

"Early morning, about seven. I miss you."

"And I miss you."

Jinny looked at Gale, said, "It's Roger."

"Roger, who?" she replied, keeping a straight face, downing more beer. Gale doesn't even like beer. Tommy Crown was disrupting all our lives; hell, the dog had moved next door to live with a boring writer, of all people. Gale went on, stirring the pot like she always does, saying to me, "Tell Roger about the dog. Tell him HIS dog, his faithful companion, his friend of special talents, has been driven away. Driven away from his home and his family. Driven to go over to the neighbor's house who, on a good day, can offer him meatloaf, and that's about all in the way of cultural amenities."

Jinny got into it saying, "No, tell him what we're doing, and tell him Gale's sitting on his stool in his kitchen in her underwear. Tell him she's drinking HIS beer, floozing around his house."

Now Gale again, "No, no, tell him who else is here. Go on, tell him. It's one am in the morning, tell him who's here with us, drinking his beer." And she grinned at me with a truly evil grin.

Tommy put his hand to his ear, which I now could see was swollen, but he didn't seem uneasy. I said into the phone, "I'm not alone. I got friends over. We're drinking beer and eating pizza, which comes on the heels of drinking bourbon and stingers and eating potatoes and eggs, which followed wine and roasted chicken down at The Sanctuary."

Roger said, "All that in the last week? You're having fun."

"Last two days, hon."

"Oh. Who're your friends?"

"The usual suspects, Gale and Jinny."

Gale pointed vigorously at Tommy, mouthing, 'Say him, say him.'

"How's the dog?" asked Roger.

"He's next door at Richard's."

"What's he doing over there?"

"The usual."

"You mean squealing? About what?"

"The...." and I caught myself before saying, 'the painting.' "The meatloaf. He likes it more than what I've been feeding him."

"Huh?"

"Got someone else here, too. The guy from the insurance company." At this, Tommy looked up and smiled at me. What a smile, even with that ear that looked like it had been slugged by a Mike Tyson left hook. I didn't hear anything on the other end, so I said, "You still there? We still connected?" I hadn't put the phone on speaker.

"I'm here. I'm here. I'm just adjusting to the reality of you sitting in proximity to both a stolen, er sorry, pinched work of art and someone trying to find said object and the person or persons responsible for pinching it and hold them responsible for that action. Hold on."

I said, "What are you doing?"

"I'm asking the waiter if I can get a shot of cognac to go with my espresso and croissant."

I looked across the table and said, "It's seven am over there, and he's asking the waiter for a drink, just like us. I told you he still is part of the team."

Looking at Jinny, Gale said, "Yeah, but he's not drinking to have fun. He's drinking because he's coming to terms with the realization that his wife has gone batty."

Tommy looked at Jinny and asked, "That the hubby? Roger?" Jinny nodded. "He the jealous type?"

Gale answered for Jinny, not missing an opportunity, saying, "He carries a gun around a lot, right, Jinny?"

"Yeah, but that's not for boyfriends, that's for guys like Stirg. And the morons from Idaho."

"Still, he carries, and if he were to become jealous, he's be ready for action."

Jinny looked at Tommy and said, "He does carry, but don't sweat it, he's a good guy. And right now he's in France, so you got time to clear out."

Tommy compared Gale's viewpoint to Jinny's, decided they were a wash, and went back to listening to me talk on the phone. "Gale's in her underwear because we've had a lot going on lately, the dog's pouting, you know how he gets when you're away, and Jinny's his usual." I paused to listen. "Wine, bourbon, stingers, and beer is unusual yes, but you gotta mix it up now and then. You want a wife stuck in her ways? Stale? Humdrum? Static?" Pause to listen. "Yes, earlier in the evening the thought of rehab did cross my mind, but now that I've had a beer or two I'm feeling better, more secure in myself." Pause to listen. "I don't think I should discuss that right now, but I can say she's ok, and leave it at that." Pause to listen. "We did kick him out earlier, the dog did, but he fell down the back steps. Jinny found him down there and let him back in." Pause. "Conked his head, but he's ok. Feeling better now that he's had a beer." Listen. "Yeah, he did the wine, bourbon, and stingers thing with us." Pause. "Not yet, but I'm looking forward to it if he tries." Listen. "Yes, dear, I'm joking." Pause. "Yes, I still love you." Listen. "Yes I'll go next door and tell him we want him back." Pause. "Yes I'll tell Gale and Jinny to hang around." Listen. "It bothers him in the morning when he has the testosterone dump, but he's handling it now fine, strictly 'little sister' mode." Pause. "She's the usual pain in the ass, but I still love her. She's got the hots for him too, but is pretending she hates him and wants him to leave." Listen. "Yes, I have the hots for him. You've seen me when we watch Bullitt and the one with Faye Dunaway. I can't help it." Pause. "Yes he's sitting right here. It's fun to watch him fold his pizza and eat it; not like we do here." Listen. "Fourth beer I think." Pause. "Maybe. Depends how much beer I drink, how much control I lose. A girl's gotta live." Listen. "How are you going to work on the documentary if you show up at the winery sloshed?" Pause. "I told you, I'll keep them here to chaperon. Besides, they have nowhere to go. Who'd want a squat Russian gangster and an overthehill fashionista who can't keep her clothes on." Listen. "Me? Who's chaperoning you over there, surrounded by French women with their French sense of laissez-faire morality?" Pause. Long pause. Then, "We're not letting him near her." Listen. "I know that follows drinking beer. That's when the dog tricked him out the back door, when he asked to use it. We figured he went out in the garden." Pause. "I don't know where, I wasn't watching." Pause. "Ok, ok, I'll have Jinny take him out and show him where the tomato patch is so he doesn't go there. Lemme ask you this, where do you think the dog goes when he's out there?" Listen. "He doesn't always sneak next door to go; I've seen him in our yard." Pause. "Well then he's lying to you." Listen. "I plan on being right here when you get back, not in the slammer." Pause. "Ok, don't drink too much, ok, you're not on vacation like us, you gotta finish the film, and I'll give them your love." Listen. "No, dear, not him. Ok, bye, love you." I hit the end button, set the phone on the table, didn't look at anybody but poured another glass of beer, grabbed another, my fourth, yikes, slice of veggie, and waited for criticism. A girl's gotta live, but she's also gotta pay a price for doing so.

I chewed and swallowed, sipped and swallowed, waiting. The boys kept quiet, the dog wasn't around to hiss at me, and even Gale seemed resigned to the status quo. They'd heard the conversation with the hubby, so what could they say? Some of it was veiled, but most of it was out in the open.

Finally Tommy opened his mouth and issued the inevitable, "Can I use the bathroom?" Now Jinny and Gale looked up and at each other and then at me.

I didn't hesitate but said, "You heard Roger."

Gale said, "Actually we didn't hear Roger, but we are capable of inferring what he said, and you can't make him go out in the garden like the dog."

Jinny said, "That's what we did a lot in the army."

Tommy looked at me, smiling, and I looked back at him smiling, and Gale said to Jinny, "She just got off the phone with her beloved, and now she's making lovey dovey with this putz."

Jinny asked, "What's a putz?"

Gale realized maybe she'd gone too far, and didn't answer, so Tommy said, "It means penis. It's Yiddish." He didn't look offended. "You live in New York, you learn some Yiddish."

I looked at her and said, "Where'd you learn Yiddish slang?"

"Just like him, you have a Jewish boyfriend, you learn Yiddish slang."

Now Tommy struck back, asking, "Any nationality or cultural entity of a boyfriend you haven't had?"

Likewise Gale wasn't offended and said, "I'm like the United Nations; I've hosted them all. Call me Secretary General."

Tommy stood up and said, "I still gotta go," and made a motion towards the door to the hallway.

I said, "Whoa, cowboy. Stay with me."

He stopped and said, "You're the one who served me three beers."

"I could have Jinny throw you down the stairs again, or, how 'bout I introduce you my my neighbor."

"The writer? The guy who's written some books about some Charleston people that have a habit of getting into trouble?"

I smiled at him and nodded, but said, "Maybe they get into trouble, but so far they've always gotten themselves out of it, too."

"The dog over there?" I nodded, Yes. "This guy have a bathroom he's not embarrassed to share with a guest?" I nodded again. "They coming?" he said, nodding at Jinny and Gale.

"If they want to, and if she's willing to put her clothes on."

Tommy went to the back door, opened it, and turned back to me. "Someday, Gwenny, I'd like to see the rest of your house."

"Someday, you might," I said.

Gale stood up, removed the napkin from around her neck, looked at Tommy and said, "You putz."

# Chapter 39 – The Writer

Gale managed to get her clothes on, Jinny picked up the leftover pizza, and we headed down the back steps. As we went through the opening in the 150 year old brick wall that separates our properties Tommy said, "It's 2am, we've been drinking, and we're going to visit your neighbor?"

"He's a writer so he leads a dull life, and likes hanging out with us. And his girlfriend's out of the country, so he's bored."

We climbed the steps to Richard's back porch and knocked. As he opened the door, from inside we heard, "If it's the putz, don't let him in." Apparently the dog had resumed his antagonistic attitude towards Tommy.

Jinny handed the pizza box to Richard, while Gale said, "We came over so the putz can take a leak."

Richard said, "Come again?"

The dog said, "What's wrong with the garden, sarcasm dripping from each canine tooth."

Tommy said, "Can I use your bathroom? Other than the kitchen, Gwenny's house is on lockdown, and we've been drinking beer."

"Out there and to the left."

While Tommy was gone Richard said, "I take it this is the investigator? You're drinking beer with someone whose mission is to put you in jail, and you invite him into your house, where you've stashed the valuable work of art you stole?" He looked at the dog and said, "I see what you mean; she's lost it big time."

"Pinched," I said. "Not stole."

Tommy came back into the kitchen and said, "Thanks, and nice to meet you. I'm Tommy Crown."

"Westlake. Richard. Nice to meet you."

I said to Richard, "Have some pizza."

He looked in the box, then looked at the dog and said, "It's veggie special. You want some?"

The dog said, "Gross. Where's the pepperoni?"

We sat around his kitchen table while Richard ate, each of us thinking the same thing: why had someone introduced this neighbor into the world of the telepathizing dog, and why had someone introduced the putz into that world? It hadn't been too long ago that that world was inhabited only by me and Roger. That was the long-standing code of the dog's ancestors, the need to know basis. Now, Gale and Jinny were in, which is not too big a stretch, them being full blown Junies, but why expand to these other two? And, of course, we now have the wild card hand, the straight flush of hands, Gwendy Bedgewood, gumming up the works. A little more expressiveness on her part and I just might end up in an orange jump suit for a few years. The dog had initiated Richard a few years ago because the dog had to have someone to talk to about our capers. Roger and I didn't like talking about them a lot; we're doers, not talkers. So the dog had to have someone to tell, and he started squealing to the writer, with predictable consequences, a string of books about us, thinly veiled. Strike one for the dog.

Then the dog had initiated Gale and Jinny in an effort to foil my designs on a platonic relationship with Tommy, them being friends of little faith in my will power, and the dog not constitutionally able to get out of the house and chaperone me and Tommy around town in the Mustang. Strike two for the dog. Now, in my kitchen, the putz also had been initiated by the dog (after first being alerted by me down at The Sanctuary). This string of events occurred to all of us at the same time, even Richard chomping away on the pizza, and we looked at the dog lying on the floor in front of the dishwasher.

Right after this crossed my mind I also realized I had used the word putz several times to describe my sandy haired blue eyed boy, and I thought, 'Is that a nice way to refer to Tommy? How had that insinuated itself into my mental and verbal lexicon? Why was the dog using it? What's the dog know of Yiddish slang? Charleston girls sit at the top of the heap of all southern women, the epitome of courtesy and decorum, so what's one of them doing using a word like that?' Maybe I better had consider rehab. Maybe a stint in the slammer would be good for me, get me back to my true self.

Anyway, everyone was waiting for the dog to take charge, the three of us being worthless sloshheads, and Richard, given his vocation, being inherently worthless; the dog to take charge and tell us what to do next, and, especially, figure out what to do with the p....Tommy, him now playing in the esoteric folds of canine telepathy.

While Richard ate, Jinny and Gale started looking around the kitchen for booze, didn't matter what kind, anything to keep the flames lit. I stared at the dog, waiting for action, but either he had turned sullen because there wasn't any meat pizza for him or he was just plain tired, it being 2am and him not having alcohol to serve as a temporary stimulant before modulating into a depressant. I watched his eyes droop closed and his head droop down until his chin rested on his crossed front legs. Richard finished the last slice of veggie special, moved the box from the table to the counter, washed his hands at the sink, and said, "I've started a new book, which always is very exciting. This one, especially."

Gale had found Richard's stash of vintage port in a cabinet, and without asking, busied herself with extracting the cork and pouring everyone (not the dog, who liked port even less than veggie pizza) a glass. Tommy said, "You're going to drink port on top of stingers and beer?"

Gale said, "Port is the king of wine, the ultimate finisher, and it's got brandy in it so it's not too far away from the stingers in composition. And I've got a feeling about two things: first is that the end of the binge is near, I think we're at the cracking point, and second, that Richard's going to spring something interesting on us that matches with port's regality."

We looked at Richard who said, "How'd you know? I think it's going to be interesting, and y'all may too." He paused, then went on, "The book is about the painting. The stolen painting. The one he's looking into," nodding at Tommy.

At this the dog opened one eye, said, "Oh, shit," and closed it again.

Gale said, "Wait a second. Books about stolen art aren't uncommon, a lot of people have written about that, but don't they wait until the crime is solved, so they can tell the whole story?"

I cringed at her use of the word crime. Roger and I commit heists, not crimes, just like we pinch things; we don't steal them.

Now Tommy spoke up, "Most of the time, yes, but not all the time. Sometimes people write about famous thefts that never have been solved, like the job at the Gardner Museum in Boston. $500 million dollars' worth of stuff and still missing."

Jinny said, "That ever happen to you? Someone write a book about you investigating an art theft?"

"Not a book, but a few magazine articles. Me solving the cases. I try to keep a low profile."

"Any articles about you not solving a case?"

Tommy looked at me and said, "Hasn't happened, yet."

Jinny said, "The article or the not solving?"

"Both. Or neither, however you want to look at it."

Gale didn't care either way but asked Richard, "How are you going to write a book about the painting that was stolen here, when no one knows anything about it? It just happened."

He said, "Who says no one knows about it?"

"But it hasn't been solved?"

"Who says it hasn't been solved?"

This got Tommy's attention big time, him thinking he was the only one who had solved the case. Partially solved it. It also got the dog's attention, it taking a lot when he goes into slumber mode, who opened both eyes this time, uncrossed his legs, and said to Richard, "You really want to go where you're going now? You got nothing better to do with your time?"

"Not really. What's better than writing caper novels?"

The dog said, "Ok, let's get it out in the open so we can start damage control. What's the game?"

Richard sipped on his port, Gale fiddled with the snap on her pants, feeling constrained, Jinny started thinking of places he could move the painting where no one would find it AND where Gwendy wouldn't go off the deep end, thinking she'd find a U Store It locker unacceptable, and wasn't sure he, we, could afford to rent a suite at the Charleston Place Hotel for her, at four bills a night, for the long term, and I started to see what Anna, a physical and intellectual bombshell of a woman, saw in this writer guy. I sat back to listen. Somehow Tommy restrained himself from asking the questions that were on all of our tongues: who's solved the case, who stole it, where is it, what's going to happen next?

Richard responded to the dog and said, "Look, I'm not trying to be mysterious here, but I have sources, unusual sources that I trust, and that I think incrementally will provide me with information over the next few weeks about this deal, and that information will allow me to write the book serially, up to and including the ending."

I said, "That's pretty mysterious. What's it mean?"

"Ok, think of it this way: it's like a game of chess. A series of moves are made, and at some point a great player can see the endgame. He or she can deduce the conclusion from the moves that have been made, and from this he or she can make the remaining moves that lead to the end. Same with me here. Moves have been made, and more will be made over the next few weeks, and I will become aware of them and write them as chapters in the book, and will publish them serially in a suitable forum."

Jinny asked, "How will you become aware of the next moves?"

"Umm, I think I'll keep that secret for now. But, that's not all; that's not the whole game I want to play."

Tommy said, "There's more?"

"I'm going to start with the last chapter. The end. I'm going to write that first, and publish it in a place where I can't change it, but where no one can read it until the entire game is over. And I'm going to publicize this as a contest, a challenge, where people can challenge me to write the course of the heist (thank you, Richard, for your word choice, I appreciate that) leading up to the ending. If I don't get it right, I pay those who have challenged me. If I do get it right, they pay me. I'm looking to gambol a little, making the whole thing interesting."

There wasn't a lot of discussion after that. Maybe it was the 3am hour, maybe all the booze had destroyed most of our brain cells, maybe we really couldn't fathom Richard's scheme, or maybe all of us were afraid of the outcome. Finally the dog earned his keep, getting up and nosing each of us with his muzzle, not nipping at us like before, but moving us towards the back door and home. Back through the brick wall we went, and when we were in my back yard again he separated me from the others. "You," he said, "upstairs. Alone." He turned back to Gale, Jinny, and Tommy, saying, "Go home. Get outta here. Stop causing trouble. No sleepovers here tonight. Enough's enough."

No one contested the order, and they disappeared around the corner of the house and down the driveway to Church Street. I dragged myself up the stairs and into the house, where I said, "You expect that from Richard? You see it coming?"

The dog shook his head and said, "Came from outta the blue. Didn't know he had it in him."

"Anna knows. Guess that's why she likes him."

"Yeah, I see that now; she was way ahead of us. Now he pulled this one, I didn't think things could get any crazier."

"Goodnight," I said. "It's been an interesting couple of days."

"For you maybe. The meatloaf was the high point for me."

# Chapter 40 - Back at Work

Tommy made it to the museum the next day at noon, crawling into his make-shift office and trying to hide behind the computer, which is where the Curator found him. He looked at Tommy and said, "Jesus, what happened? You contract malaria or something?"

Tommy looked up at him and said, "These women you got down here; hard to keep up with. What's happening around here?"

"Not much. Just the Mayor's been here, Chief of Police, and the Director's been on the phone twice with your boss, what's her name?"

Oh, shit, Manos de Piedra. That's all he needed. Tommy wondered if he should tell the Curator that he had a competitor in the catch the crook business, Richard, who said he was going to write about the hunt and publish it on some forum. And, run a gambling thing with people betting on the ending. God, there went his fee and his English racing green with beige interior Jag. Tommy decided he had to call his boss, but he'd let the world hear about Richard's competition in the natural course of events, whenever that hits the fan. He waved the Curator away, picked up his phone, and hit speed dial #1.

"Where the hell have you been?" she yelled into the phone. "You know how long we have till we have to cut them a check? Not fucking long, that's how long. And cutting that check means I'm not cutting the other kind of check, the one with your name on it. And after you don't get the check, I start telling people you're washed up in the investigation department, and then I fire you, and then no one will hire you, and then you stop buying the fancy wines, and all hope of owning the Jag goes down the terlet along with your rep. CROWN, what are you up to down there?"

Tommy was amazed at how well his cell phone speakers conveyed Ms. Granite's rancor; those IPhone engineers really had done a great job, enabling every syllable of her words to slam first into his ear and then directly into his still wobbly and painfully raw brain. He issued a pitiful defense, knowing it was useless to go up against her. "I've been running down leads. Jesus, I've only been gone two days. Whad'ya want from me?"

"What I want from you is to hear you tell me you know where the painting is and that you're going to recover it, and soon. What I want is to get emails and phone calls from you so's I know you're not spending your time eating shrimp and grits and drinking mint juleps all day. Something's got into you, and it ain't good. Do I have to come down there and kick your ass?"

"I know where the painting is, I just can't prove it yet. This is gonna work out. Just give me some time. And stop exaggerating about when you have to write them a check. I know we have a couple of months from the time of the theft."

"MONTHS. Months. You think I'm going to pay your expense account down there for months. You know how much you cost me in Paris? A lot, that's how much. You need to produce, Tommy, or Manos de Piedra are gonna make a mark on that Steve McQueen face of yours. Hear me?" Click came through the phone speaker.

Tommy set the phone on the desk and wondered what it would be like to retire. Retire to quaint, warm Charleston, where everyone was friendly and courteous and no one was named Ms. Granite. Charleston, where the dogs talk and the writers are tricky little self-serving bastards who find ways to make other people's lives difficult. He got up and went downstairs to the cafe where he ordered a coffee and sandwich, and thought about Richard's scheme. Richard'd said he would write the last chapter first, telling the end of the story of the heist (for some reason Tommy had stopped thinking in terms of stealing), and would post that chapter somewhere he couldn't change it, and then bet with people on its accuracy. He was confident about this, which meant he was sure he knew how it would end which meant he had some pretty good idea about what had happened to the painting. Did he actually know who had pinched it (Tommy actually cognated the word pinch, which never had entered his mind or lexicon before because it didn't exist anywhere in the entirety of New York City)? Did Richard really know where it was now? He acted like he did, and the only way he could know those things was through the weird goings-on at Church Street.

Tommy finished the sandwich and coffee and felt better, though he was disturbed to find his eyes straying over to the food counter and resting on the selection of little wine bottles there for sale, rotgut wine, but booze nonetheless. This pointed back to recent events. He'd never been on a forty-eight hour bender in his life. He liked to drink, but nothing like that. And it had been fun. And what about Gale, sitting around in her lingerie, her rating a ten on a scale of one to ten, and him and Jinny thinking, cool, but not much more, just living with it, friendly like. Then there was the whole dog thing; he wasn't going to think about that, at least until he was completely recovered from this hangover, other than that it seemed natural in some weird way.

He left the cafe and walked upstairs to the gallery, pausing to look at the beautiful silver service in the case, before he went and stood in front of the wall on which the painting had hung. He thought about me, the woman with whom he'd boozed for two days but who wouldn't let him out of my kitchen, not even to take a leak after serving him three beers on top of a bunch of stingers; the rest of the house off limits. And that pest of a neighbor, practically saying he knew where the painting was, how could that happen? Tommy looked at the faded rectangle of paint on the wall and said aloud, "Where are you, Gwendolyn? You've changed your address, and I wonder if now it's on Church Street?"

# Chapter 41 – The Pickup

For the next three days Tommy played with himself, I played with myself, Jinny and Gale played with themselves, the dog did whatever it is dogs do, and Gwendy ranted and raved, mostly to herself, in the living room. The only person who was behaving constructively was the pest writer, who was implementing his scheme to create a gambling competition that focused on his new book. It only took him a day to write the last chapter, in which all facets of the heisting pinching of the famous painting were resolved. When he had that in the can he set to figuring out the public competition, which was something he never had done before. He never had been a gambler, but he decided it might be interesting and he could use the extra money, though he had no idea how much that might be. Maybe he'd make a coupla hundred bucks, keep himself and the dog in meatloaf for a few months.

One the morning of the fourth day of separation from my temp beloved, temporary until my true beloved returned from the vineyards of Burgundy, presumably unsullied by French women, I couldn't stand it any longer, hopped into the Mustang, drove it up Meeting Street to the museum, hopped the curb, and parked in the plaza between the entryway and the flower beds. I looked at my watch, which said eleven am, hoped Tommy was at work, even knowing that work consisted of trying to catch me and send me up the river, and proceeded to hammer the accelerator pedal, again and again revving the 390's engine up to and past the tachometer red line, sending shock waves of thundering exhaust out the tailpipes, which I deliberately had pointed towards the museum offices. BAROOMM, POUUNDD, GROWWWLKABOOMM !

In three minutes the security guard was outside watching me, in five minutes the Curator was here, and in six minutes the Director was here, ordering the security guard to draw his service revolver and shoot me through the windshield. The rentacop ignored him, but did cautiously approach the driver's side door. He leaned in and said, "What's up lady?"

I rocked the car with another massive engine rev, threw out a Deneuvian stab of command that penetrated the cop's mind, and said, "If Tommy Crown's inside, tell him I want to see him."

Given cop mentality and training, normally the guy would have come back at me, hard, maybe grabbing the keys, turning off the engine, opening the door and dragging me out, if he happened to be the aggressive type of cop. But he didn't, and instead turned around and headed into the museum to find this Crown guy. The Director yelled at him, and again got ignored, thought of approaching the car and doing something himself, short of shooting me, but chickened out and shouted at the Curator, "Do something, for god's sake."

The Curator recognized me and the Mustang and thought, 'I hope this turns into something good,' and sat down on the low wall of a planter to watch. The security guy found Tommy in his office, I won't mention what he was doing there, bored though, thinking alternately of the Jag, the dog, the painting, Gale in her underwear, the fucking writer pest, and, of course, mostly about me. The guard said, "You know anyone drives a '68 Mustang GT 390, yellow, hot inside and out?"

Tommy stopped what he was doing, looked to heaven even though he's an atheist, and said aloud, "Thank God." To the guard he said, "Where?"

"Outside. Parked on the plaza. Redlining it."

"What's she wearing?"

"Didn't notice. When I looked in the window, she did something. Next thing I know, here I am, looking for you."

Tommy nodded and said, "Don't worry, it'll wear off. Not many guys get to experience that."

"What is it?"

"It's....it's....it's.... just something."

"Felt like I was hit by a Taser, but in a good way."

Tommy said, "Thanks," ran down the hallway past the Gershwin piano, down the stairs, and out the doors through which he saw the yellow bomb. He stopped dead, but glanced over to the flower planter on which the Curator was standing, jumping up and down, watching me. I had the transmission in forward, the brakes locked up with my left foot, my right foot planted hard on the accelerator, and the steering wheel turned all the way to the left. The result was the Mustang doing donuts on the bluestone plaza, the tires emitting clouds of smoke and leaving swatches of black rubber on the paving. Around and around I spun, right hand on the wheel, left arm dangling casually out the window. On the third pass I saw Tommy through the smoke and stopped the antics, smiled at him, saying, "Wanna go for a spin?"

# Chapter 42 – At The Hall

He was in the car in a flash and the car was out of the plaza in a flash and he said, "Where we going?" and I said, "To The Hall," and he said, "I don't have an overnight bag with me," and I said, "You won't need one," and he said, "I've missed you," I said, "That's why I'm here," and he said "I've been bored stiff," and I said, "If only I wasn't married," and he said, "So your Plato's on duty?" and I said, "I tried to shake him but no luck," and he said, "How's Gwendolyn?" and I said, "How would I know?" and he said, "Is there booze at The Hall?" and I said, "I can have it catered in," and he said, "How far we going in this bomb?" and as I abruptly jerked the wheel over hard and turned into an alley and at the end jammed on the brakes and cut the engine I said, "We're here."

Tommy sat back in the bucket seat and said, "You had some fun back there at the museum, didn't you?" I nodded. "You made a mess of their bluestone." I smiled. "They're going to want you to pay to have that cleaned, you know."

As I opened my door I said, "They're going to have to catch me first."

As I led the way up the stage door steps and ran my card through the card reader, he said, "You like to play, don't you Gwenny?"

Holding the door open and looking down at him I said, "I love to play, Tommy Crown, I love to play." Inside I went to the rear of the stage, opened the panel, and turned on the lights, the air conditioner, and the sound system. I took him by the arm and led him towards the front of the stage where after staring out at the theater seats I turned to him and said, "I've had some great times here over the last three years. Pretty wild."

He said, "What is this place? What did you do here?"

"This is The Hall. I own it. 800 seats, built in 1921. Three years ago we produced a ballet here, the world premiere of a ballet score written in 1914 and lost until we found it and produced it. And a year ago we did a rock opera. You might have heard about it."

Immediately he said, "No shit. That was you, with McCartney? I heard about it the way most people heard about it, all over the world. I was in South America, and I heard about it."

"What were you doing there?"

"Looking for people."

"Why?"

"They stole something."

"You find them?" He nodded. "And they're where now?" He didn't answer, didn't smile, just looked at me. I smiled at him and said, "Here's the plan. We watch a video of one of the performances of the ballet on the big screen over there. It was an hour and forty minutes, but I have an abbreviated version, about an hour. Then we get some coffee and I call up Gale and Jinny, tell them to come down, maybe call Richard if you're not too pissed at him about his scheme, and we watch the video of the rock opera. After that I have McCrady's restaurant cater in a late lunch and we eat it here on the stage."

"Will they bring wine?" I nodded. "Sounds great," he said.

So I went to the control booth out into the seats, fooled with the gizmo that lowered the huge flat screen from high up over the rear of the stage, turned on the computer, launched the ballet video, and motioned him to come down from the stage to the seventh row, where we sat down. As the credits rolled I told him about the production. Some friends of ours had found the musical score by Igor Stravinsky in the hidden compartment of a small antique desk. I didn't mention that the desk was a piece of a large collection of third rate artifacts we'd stolen from warehouses of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, and smuggled back to Charleston. I didn't mention this because Tommy already knew I was of the pinching persuasion and I didn't think I needed to advertise the fact. The we who had stolen the stuff, pinched the stuff, included Jinny and Roger and the friends who got the desk out of the deal, and a few other associates.

Stravinsky had written the music in 1914 and hidden the score in the desk, thinking he would come back for it, but his return to Saint Petersburg from Switzerland where he was living was interrupted by the start of World War I, and the score had remained lost for almost a hundred years. My husband and I had decided to produce the world premier mainly because two of our associates in the heist happened to be Russian billionaires who thought the production would be a good use of their funds, and had written us a blank check. Would you say no if you were presented with that opportunity?

Roger, my hubby boy, more handsome even than Tommy, which is saying a lot, had managed to coerce the great rock musician Pete Townshend of The Who fame, to come to Charleston, transcribe the ballet score from orchestra to synthesizer, and to play the music for the six performances, a one man tour de force of composition and instrumentation. We also happened to be friends with two dancers living in Charleston, the woman retired from the New York City Ballet and the guy retired from the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, retired and married and looking for a challenge, which we presented to them when we asked them to choreograph the show. I tried not to name drop to Tommy, figuring that was enough to impress him, but somehow I let slip that Mikhail Baryshnikov and Catherine Deneuve also were involved. I realized that later, when we looked at the opera video, I would mention the people involved in that production, and I didn't want Tommy to think I was, umm, laying it on. It had been a long time since I had watched the shows and I just wanted to enjoy them with him.

The credits faded, the lights dimmed, the camera showed Townshend alone in the orchestra pit at the massive bank of synthesizers, and then moved to the stage and the entrance of the thirty members of the ballet corps, dressed in costumes Gale had helped design. After Townshend started the Overture we didn't speak again for an hour except at the part where the choreography called for the principle male dancer to jump OVER six of the shorter corps ballerinas, who stood upright. Like everyone during the performances, Tommy said, "My God!" Some of the younger people in the audiences had said, "Holy shit!"

The Stravinsky composition was beautiful, blending elements and motifs both classical and modern, and the synthesized sound was stunning, played by a musical genius. I have to admit that when it was over I was engulfed in a feeling of pride at having been part of the production. I got up and went back to the booth where I turned on the theater lights and filed the video back into the computer. As I led us back onto the stage I said, "You hungry? Thirsty? You recovered yet from your hangover?"

He smiled and said, "Took two days, but I'm ready for another glass of wine or two. That was great. Thanks. What a show. I wish I'd been here to see a live performance instead of chasing cr...." He stopped himself from saying, "....chasing crooks in South America."

I didn't mind. We understood each other. I went to a wing, wheeled two large upholstered chairs out to center stage, took out my cell, and called McCrady's. The manager was glad to hear from me, our team being a regular customer of his catering during the six month production cycle of both the ballet and the opera. He knew what I liked and told me he'd have lunch to The Hall in two hours. I told him enough for five knowing he'd send enough for ten. Then I called Gale. "Yo, hon, long time no kibitz. How ya doing?"

She started in where she'd left off, ranting, though not as badly as Gwendy, "The question isn't about me, is it? I've been corrupted; I'm corrupt, incorrigible, low rent. The question is about you. How are you? Have you been corrupted by that blackguard? Do you now inhabit the ranks of the corrupt, with me and Jinny? Have you told Roger he's coming home to no one but a nosey dog with limited conversational skills, and certainly no love-making skills? Have you graduated downwards into the hovels that grace the districts inhabited by those low renters, like me? God, I wish Jinny had taken that blue-eyed monster and dumped him off the rocks past Fort Sumter the day he set foot in our town."

Jesus, poor Gale. I said, "Honey, how long has it been since you've had sex? Can't you up call up the Sons of Confederate Veterans guy, ask him to set off some cannons again? Pour you a few glasses of Charleston Light Dragoon Punch, assuage your irritation?"

"None of your beeswax. This ain't about me. Where are you?"

"At The Hall."

"You're with the rat, aren't you?"

"Yes. I'm with the sandy haired rat. We just watched the ballet video."

"What else you been doing, and don't try to deny it? I can smell it through the phone."

I ignored her and said, "I called to invite you to lunch, and then to watch the McCartney video. McCrady's is sending over baskets."

"There gonna be wine?"

"Yes, dear."

"Ok, I'm in. Who else?"

"I'm going to call Jinny and Richard."

"What about the dog?"

"You can stop at the house and pick him up if you want."

"What about Gwendy?"

"Very funny."

"Can I bring the Sons of Confederates guy?"

"If you think it appropriate."

"I take your point, maybe not a good idea. I'll save the cannon fire for later, when we're alone. But I bet he'd be interested in performing at The Hall sometime, up on stage."

"Yes, dear, I'll arrange that sometime. Get Jinny and the dog, and we'll see you soon. When you get here will you be nice to Tommy?"

"Tell McCrady's they better not put any large knives in the food baskets, lest they want one returned with blood on it."

# Chapter 43 – The Opera

Tommy and I sat on the stage and talked about chess while we waited for the crew to show up. He told me he had a friend he played with a lot in Bryant Park, behind the main branch of the New York Public Library, who used all sorts of tricks to try to break his concentration, especially when he was winning.

"They work?" I asked.

"Sometimes."

"I'd like to me him, learn them."

"Her."

"Oh." Then I told him about the giant borzoi dog that used to tear around the theater, running up and down the aisles chasing imaginary rabbits and Siberian wolves. The dog is owned by the rich Russian couple that financed the ballet production, and the dog was how they discovered the lost musical score.

"How'd that happen?" Tommy asked.

"They live in a huge beach house on Sullivan's Island, and the dog gets to run loose on the beach because the owners can pay the fines no matter how much they add up to over time, but one day they had been gone all day and the dog was cooped up, started running around the house, slipped on the polished wood floor and did a header into the side of an old desk; busted a hole in it. Borzois are lovable but not too smart. When the owners came home, they found the secret compartment in the desk, and that's where Stravinsky had hidden the score when he left Saint Petersburg in 1914. He didn't return to Russia for fifty years, and by that time the desk was in the Hermitage."

"How'd these friends of yours get the desk?"

I was saved from having to fabricate an answer to that when we heard the rear door open, and Gale, Jinny, and the rat from next door came onto the stage, along with the dog. I really have to stop thinking of Richard as a rat, because he is Anna's boyfriend, and Anna is one of our crew and best friends, even though we met her at three o'clock in the morning, creeping up the stairs of our house with a Walther PPK in her hand. Long story. The dog acted differently from the wild borzoi, going to the front of the stage, sitting down and looking out at us in the seats. Gale followed him, also looked at us, and said, "Wha'dya know, they managed to get their clothes back on," turned around and went back to talk with Jinny.

The dog said, "I don't think she's as pissed at you as she seems; she's just putting up a front. The whole way over here she talked about that movie where the handsome rich guy steals the money, twice. You think we can rent it some time?"

Tommy said, "What movie's that?"

"It has a dumb title, I can't remember, but Gale thinks it's pretty cool."

I yelled up to the stage for them to come down to the seats, went back to the booth and loaded the video of the rock opera. It started with Paul introducing his backup band: David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) on guitar, Christine McVie (Fleetwood Mac) on organ and backup vocals, Alicia Keys (solo) on piano and backup vocals, and last but not least, Ringo Starr on drums. They broke right into a lovely version of a new song, "Hosanna." Then McCartney introduced the woman who had been locked up with him for eight weeks while he wrote all the new songs for the opera, and who he now was in love with, Renee Fleming, the greatest female singer, of any genre, on the planet.

As we watched the show I told Tommy I'd tell him the story over lunch of how the two of them got locked up together. The dog was as enthralled by the show as much as us, and had demanded that we put one of the seats down for him to climb up on, he didn't want to watch from the floor. I showed a shortened version of this production too, about an hour. When it was over Tommy looked at me and said, "Now I know I'd rather have been here for one of the performances rather doing what I was doing in South America." I smiled, and he asked, "You have any other productions like this lined up?" I shook my head, No, and he said, "So what have you been doing for excitement lately if you're not doing the impresario thing?"

I said, "I see you learned some tricks from your chess playing friend up in New York."

He smiled and started to say something, but we heard pounding on the stage door and knew it was the McCrady's boys. They trooped in, knowing the routine, got the folding tables and rolling chairs from the wings, laid out the table cloths and vase of flowers and plates and wine glass and platters of cold cuts and salads. The boss opened three bottles of wine and poured them into decanters: a Spanish rioja, and Washington State cabernet, and an Argentinian malbec. I thanked him and his crew and walked them out to their truck.

Back inside the others were sitting around the tables with Jinny pouring the wines and Gale dishing out the food; they'd had a lot of practice doing that during the two productions. Tommy started to offer a toast to the good life, us holding up our glasses, when the dog interrupted. "Hey, wait a second. You forget someone?"

Richard said, "Oh, shit, sorry." He set down his wine glass, got up and went to the backpack he'd brought with him, took out a covered plastic bowl and brought it to the table, opened it, picked out a slab of meatloaf with a serving fork, put it on one of McCrady's china plates, and set it on the floor in front of the dog.

When the dog said, "That's better, but where's the garnish?" we again picked up our wine glasses for the toast.

Tommy toasted, "Two great shows, and may there be a third."

Gale the Mouth mouthed off, as usual, unable to control the link between her mind and her mouth: "How's she going to produce more shows if you throw her into the slammer?"

The dog stopped scarfing up the meatloaf and Tommy, Jinny, Richard, and I all halted the trajectory of our wine glasses towards our mouths, instead starring at Gale, the big mouthed fashionista.

Cool as ever, Tommy replied, "Who said I'm trying to throw her in jail? We're just having a little fun together."

Gale hadn't had a single drink today and already she was in protective mode. "Wait'll Roger gets home. Then the real fun will start."

I looked at Jinny as if it was his responsibility to keep a lid on her about this stuff, him being the big brother, most of the time, excepting under those conditions described earlier. He said to Tommy, "She's just lookin' out for Gwen. She doesn't mean it, and Roger's not the jealous type because he doesn't have to worry about that. At least I don't think he does." Looking at Gale he said, "Girly, give it a rest. Enjoy the lunch and the wine. When you get home later, give that Confederate guy a call, have some fun yourself."

Instead of giving it a rest she geared it up a notch, though I detected mischief rather than malice. "Like hell he doesn't. Roger gets back he's gonna kick those blue eyes all the way back to New York. Then the South shall reign again in the June household." And she knocked back her glass of malbec.

Tommy also saw the lack of malice and played the duck, letting Gale's warning slide off his back into the water. He said, "What else happened during the McCartney production, other than him and Renee Fleming hooking up?"

Now Jinny lit up, him having been involved in the non-artistic aspects of the production. He said, "Not much else happened, other than the shit with the fucking butler kidnapper asshole and his boss the bitch with the rod up her ass; and of course the morons from Idaho." He looked at Gale and said, "We ain't seen them around here since then, have we?" Gale shook her head, No.

Tommy asked, "What's the story about the butler and her boss? I didn't know butlers still existed except on PBS shows."

I looked at Richard, the rat writer, and said, "Why don't you tell him. You made a big thing about it." I didn't disparage the dog for having squealed the story to Richard, because unlike us, he, the dog, hadn't politely interrupted his eating to continue the discussion, but was working on the meatloaf like a hyena at a carcass.

Richard put down his fork and said, "I had a great time writing that book. Half of it was about Paul and his daughter and Anna being kidnapped by the butler and the straight walking woman, and the other half was about Jinny hunting down these three neo-nazis from Idaho who had kidnapped Gale and hassled me and were making a nuisance of themselves. They ended up scrubbing the grime off the outside of a synagogue with toothbrushes for a couple of weeks, guarded by a blind guy and his German shepherd ninja attack dog." He took a sip of his Washington State cabernet, and went on, "The butler guy and his boss weren't badass like the morons, but they were pretty weird, in an interesting way, and they got what they wanted."

Tommy was ready to ask what it was they got when the dog swallowed the last hunk of meat, looked up at the table and said, "What a minute, wait a minute. What's this about a German shepherd? I never heard this part. No one ever told me about him."

Jinny said, "It wasn't a him. It was a her dog. Shalome was her name, ninety pounds of muscle and jaws like lobster claws. Grabbed one of the morons by the crotch one time, the guy froze like a statue."

Tommy said, "And....?"

"He did the right thing, not moving, not even breathing. If he had so much as twitched, he'd a bin eunuchized. No one'd ever called him a putz again, not that many of his friends up in Idaho know much Yiddish. Shalome just held him there for two minutes, then the blind guy gave her the command to stand down. The moron lost a pound of sweat each of those two minutes."

Barely had Jinny gotten out these last words than the dog swiped his paw at the plate on the floor, sending it off the stage and crashing to the floor below. "What?" he shouted. "A her shep, and you guys didn't tell me? Kept that to yourselves? What kinda friends are you?"

I looked at Jinny and said, "You didn't tell him about Shalome?"

Jinny said, "Umm, I hadn't been initiated into the world of dog telepathy back them. Neither had Gale, so don't blame us."

The dog looked at me and I said, "Sorry. We had a lot going on. Sorry."

Which brought up another point, if the dog hadn't squealed to Richard about Shalome, who had? I looked at Richard, accusingly, and said, "Who told you about her? About the morons cleaning the synagogue with toothbrushes?"

Richard waited a few seconds, debating, then did the twisting of the fingers in front of the lips thing symbolizing locking the vault. Jinny, quick as a whip, said, "If it wasn't any of us, it must have been...."

Oh, damn, now I had a rat of a husband. First the dog, then the neighbor, now my hubby. Can't anyone around here keep a secret?

The dog said, "You gotta be careful about sheps, they can be twitchy, but man, do they know how to have fun. You like it physical, they know physical."

We looked at him, thinking about the last comment, then moved on with Tommy asking, "What about the other kidnappers? What was it they got?"

Richard said, "They weren't malevolent kidnappers like the morons, they were more like benevolent kidnappers. The butler had a gun which he waved around at first, but then Anna made a deal with him."

Tommy said, "Which was?"

"Which was if he stopped waving it around in her face she wouldn't take it away from him and stick it up his ass."

Tommy looked at Jinny for explication. "Not only is Anna a babe, but a very tough Russian broad. She was being gentle when she told him that."

Richard went on, "The benevolent kidnappers wanted two things: money of course, Paul being worth multi-millions, but the woman wanted something....unusual, at least in terms of a kidnapping demand. She told Paul she was going to lock him up in an old World War II concrete bunker on Sullivan's Island next to her house, and he had to write the world's greatest rock opera."

Tommy said, "And that's what I just saw?"

We all nodded, acting like it happened every day.

"And you wrote that in a book?"

Knowing how I feel about his chickenshit books, Richard didn't brag or even answer, but sipped on his cab.

At this point we gave up on the talking and attacked the McCrady's food, except the dog who'd eaten his in the blink of an eye, and now went out in the alley to do whatever they do out there, still pissed at us for not introducing him to Shalome, and I can't say I blame him. That was an oversight. When we'd finished eating and Jinny had filled our glasses with rioja, we sat looking at each other. Finally Tommy said, "So what's it take to get involved in one of these productions? How's that happen?"

We shot-gunned him. Jinny said, "To be considered for the team generally the candidate would not have designs on consigning any of the other team members to prison."

Gale erupted, "To be considered for membership on the team, generally speaking, the candidate would not constantly be trying to get into the pants of any of the other team members who are happily married to another team member, like you are, you rotter!"

I looked at him and said, "To be considered a candidate a person couldn't very well be a resident of any state or municipality geographically located above the Mason-Dixon Line, and especially not in that faraway and foreign country known as New York City." And I smiled. "You ready to give that up?"

Tommy smiled back and said, "Ya never know."

# Chapter 44 – Time With Gwendy

It was hard giving it a rest for a day, especially with the dog giving me shit the entire time for not setting him up with the babe shepherd, but I felt I owed Gwendy some quality time. The next morning I called Tommy at the museum and asked him if he was up for a road trip the next day.

"Where to?"

"Jekyll Island. South of here three hours."

"What's there?"

"Not much."

"This an overnighter, or down and back?"

"Over. Two nights."

"Where?"

"Historic hotel on the island called The Jekyll Island Club."

"What are we going to do there?"

"Nothing."

"Ok. Can I drive the Mustang?"

"No."

"Sounds exciting. Can we leave today?"

"No, I have to see someone. Spend some time with someone I've been neglecting?"

"Anyone I've met, anyone I know?"

"Not yet."

"Ok, what time you going to pick me up?"

"Nine. We'll be down there for lunch. Great dining room. Robert Redford filmed a scene from a movie he directed in there."

"See you, Gwenny."

"See you, Tommy."

I hung up, poured myself a second cup of coffee and went into the living room, saying to myself, 'Here we go.' I set the coffee on the table in front of the sofa, opened the curtains, and went over to the painting. The second the blanket was off, Gwendy screamed at me, "Jesus H. Christ, I was smothering in there. Two days. Two days, where you been? This how you treat a guest, a family member? I was shagging the Charleston gents up and down Broad Street before you were a gleam in my great great great great grandson's eye. You got no respect for your elders? That custom been lost to your ge....ge....ge....generation? And what's this about a road trip to Jekyll Island? We used to go down there, hunt ducks. With that idiot that's trying to put us in jail? Well you, put me back on the museum wall, which is worse than jail, all those tourists gawking all day long, listening to those horrible Philadelphia and Boston accents. Maine, those are the worse, can hardly understand what those frigid New Englanders are saying."

I stood in front of the painting looking at her, which was like looking in a mirror, and said, "Now he's an idiot? Two days ago you were dying to meet him." She seemed to calm down, so I went back to the sofa. "Sorry we didn't come in to see you yesterday."

"That's ok. I guess I'm just not yet used to the new surroundings; it was so exciting to be here with you and the gang the first couple of days. I know you're not going to be able to be with me every day. I'll get used to it. Well?"

"Well what?"

"Well did you screw his brains out yet? Where? Great?"

"No."

"You telling me you're still doing the Plato thing?"

"Platonic, not Plato. Plato was a guy; platonic is an ideal."

She shrilled at that, a sardonic laugh, said, "How's that going, giving up the real for the ideal? Fun? Satisfying? Make you quiver and feel alive? HEAR me, alive! You got something not all of us have. Use it, girl, fore you get to be like me, stuck in this 2D thing, bounded by a frame. Better than the black zone but no bowl of cherries."

I sipped on the coffee, thought about what she'd said, replied, "It's about as exciting as a no sex life can be. We play chess, take fast drives, eat great food and drink great wine, hang out with friends, talk about stuff. It's exciting just being across the table from him."

"He ever play footsie under the table? I used to do that with the boys a lot, get 'em steamed up."

"Yes, he does."

"You get steamed up, hon?"

"Yeah, I do, impossible not to."

"And?"

"And we sit there together under pressure for a while, and then we open the valves and the pressure dissipates."

"And you like that?"

"No, but....I love Roger."

"I tell ya Roger's getting his chain yanked by those French babes. They know how to do it, how to play the game. You think he can stand up to that stuff, to them?"

"Yeah, he can. He's the best."

A snorting sound came from the painting, but she left it off and said, "Ok, so what do we do today? Where's Gale and Jinny? Where's the canine? Even he's better company than the museum people."

"You knew Elspeth and Lowndes, didn't you? Tell me about that, what you used to do together."

"Oh, god, they were some of my best friends, absolutely wild, both of them. She was my cousin, her father Gillespie was my father's brother. We grew up together and spent most of our lives together. Even after Lowndes became mayor he still was wild, riding a huge quarter horse around town, running people out of the way, shooting a shotgun in the middle of the street just for the fun of it. We used to hang out at the Luxembourg Hotel, drink and eat and have a great time."

"I've read stories about them at the hotel, before they were married. You know them then?"

"Oh yes. And the stories are all true. Someone like you, doing the platonic thing, I don't think you'd appreciate some of them."

"Gwendy, I'm not a prude. Tell me. Did you use to....?"

"You bet. Lowndes was something, and Elspeth and I loved the girly thing, made for double the fun. But it wasn't just that, it was the drinking and the wilding and the fun and the living. Our lives were not boring. Manigault, now he was boring; but not me and my friends. We knew how to wind it up."

"So you admit there's more to life than sex? That other things can be worthwhile, things allowed under Plato's ideal?"

"Gwenny, I look at things like this: the appetizer can be good, and the meat course can be great, and the side dishes can be interesting, and the wine can be divine, but if you don't top it off with dessert, well then, the meal wasn't complete. Capice?"

"Where'd you get that from, capice? That's Italian."

"Antonio. Ship's captain. We sailed over to the Frenchie island of St. Barths once. That guy knew how to ride the waves."

"Manigault let you go alone to the Caribbean with an Italian sailor?"

"I told him I was going to shop for a new housemaid, I wanted a French one."

"You mean a slave?"

"Yes, of course."

"Hon, that's frowned on nowadays, you know that?"

"So I've gathered from conversations I've heard in the gallery. All I can say is that we're all products of our times."

I decided not to pursue a moral debate and said, "So you can at least conceive of a platonic relationship?"

"That's not what Antonio and I had, I can tell you that. But yes, I can conceive of it, sort of like I can conceive of someone someday going to the moon."

"We've done that, hon. Been there, done that."

"No shit?"

"Where'd you get that saying from?"

"God, sorry, dreadful saying, dreadful language, picked it up from the crowd in the gallery, it's all gone downhill since my time. Sorry."

"What about clothes?"

"Don't get me started. We knew how to dress back then. You like this dress I'm wearing? Came direct from Paris; and this was just everyday stuff. Now y'all look like a bunch of slobs, especially those horrible shoes everyone wears."

"You mean sneakers? Reeboks?"

"We wouldn't have made our pigs wear them."

"On that I agree. What about t-shirts with things written on them?"

"Those tops without buttons? Short sleeves, men and women both?" I nodded. "Wouldn't have disgraced our slaves by making them wear those."

I got up from the sofa with my cup and saucer and headed for the kitchen, saying as I passed her, "I'm getting another cup. You want some?"

"Very funny."

I came back and we talked for another couple of hours, her telling me about the early nineteenth century and me telling her about the early twenty-first. After I told her about the recent productions at The Hall, her laughing at the story of Shalome and the moron neo-nazi, she said, "So, you're not a total bore after all, are you my dear. You do appear to have some of the Bedgewood genes in you."

"We have our days, me and Roger."

"And tomorrow, dear, with the Tommy guy from up north, the investigator who's trying to hang me back on the gallery wall, shut me up again. What are you and him going to do down at Jekyll Island? Hunt ducks?"

"We're gonna hunt for something; I'm not sure what. This whole thing is a big experiment."

"Good luck, dear, and remember about the dessert."

# Chapter 45 – A Short Stop on the Way to Jekyll Island

We were an hour out of town on the back road down to Jekyll when Tommy spotted a hand-painted sign that said Peach Cider. Evidently they don't have fruit up in New York City, because he went nuts, demanding that I turn around, saying he'd never heard of peach cider before, and then saying, of course, The Peach State, and me having to tell him that ain't us, we're The Palmetto State, and him asking what kind of animal that is. I thought the place looked like a dump, but knowing I'm a bit of a snob and him so badly wanting to try the cider, I did a uey and turned into a drive at the side of the shack.

We went in and saw a counter on which sat a half dozen gallon jugs of dirty brown liquid that had stained labels saying 'Lord Jesus's Own Peach Cider Heavenly Nectar.' I looked at Tommy and said, "You buy it, you drink it."

He hefted one of the jugs and shook it, looking at the small brown particles swirling in the muddy liquid. He didn't have the nerve to say it, but I'm sure he was thinking, 'I hope those are pieces of peach skin and not pieces of bugs.' We heard a noise from the back of the shack and the proprietor appeared, all 300 pounds of her. She took the cigarette out of her mouth, looked at Tommy, and said, "You drink all that Lord Jesus Nectar, you be sweeter than you already are, if'n that's possible. Yessir, sweet on the inside match sweet on the out."

I said to him, "If that doesn't sell you, you are a hard case."

Again he looked at the brown stuff floating in the jug but he knew he couldn't back out now, and he pulled out his wallet, asking how much. She hesitated a second, then said, "Honey, for you, twenty-five dollars."

He handed her the cash, and as we walked out of the store he said, "No more stops, ok. I can't afford them."

We turned the corner of the shack and found three guys standing and looking at the yellow bomb. One was close to the 300 pounds of his mama, inside, while one was six four tall and half that weight, and third guy was half way in between. I wasn't sure if they knew it or not, but all three wore black steel-toed boots, black jeans, and white t-shirts, and all were smoking the same brand of cigarettes, which matched the brand of the Lord Jesus Nectar hustler back inside. The skinny one looked at me and said, "Your boyfriend's got a nice car here. Real nice."

I said, "It's not his car, it's mine."

The fat guy looked at the skinny guy, who thought for a moment and then said, "I don't believe her. That's too much car for a bitch." And they both looked at the third guy.

He pondered on the situation and, finally, offered, "Naw, it could be her car cause yellow is a pussy color for a car like this. Should be black."

I looked at Tommy and said, "You're the one wanted to stop here, but that's ok because there's good and bad about this."

"What's the good part?" he asked.

"You get to see the real South Carolina, or at least another piece of it, Charleston being something of an anomaly in the state."

The guys looked at each other, trying between the three of them to generate enough IQ to parse the meaning of the word anomaly.

They came up empty, so Tommy asked, "And the bad part?"

"I don't know exactly what form it's going to take," I said, "but sure as shit it's coming up fast."

The fat boy said, "Where you Charlestonians going?"

I wouldn't've answered but Tommy said, "Jekyll Island."

The third guy, more non-descript than the other two, said, "That's gonna be a long walk for you two. Long walk."

Tommy looked at me and said, "I see what you mean."

Now the fat guy said, "Hand 'em over."

"Hand what over?" I asked, knowing what he meant.

"Keys, bitch. Keys to the pussy car."

I looked at Tommy and said, "You have rude boys like this up your way?"

"A few."

I looked at my watch and said to Tommy, "We better get moving or we'll miss lunch. The dining room closes at 2pm, and this stop has cost us time." Then I looked first at the skinny guy and then at the fat guy and then at the guy halfway in between, and said, "We're going to enjoy Jesus's Nectar, I'm sure, and thanks, but now we got to go, ok guys?"

"You can go, but the car stays," said the fat boy.

Tommy looked from one to the other to the other and said, "You heard the lady; we're going. Nice to have met ya."

Now the three guys looked from one to the other to the other, and then the skinny guy held up his hand in a 'hold on' gesture. He walked around the corner of the shack, went inside, came out a minute later holding a claw hammer in one hand, a length of pipe that looked like it had been part of a water heater in the other, and a length of two by four wood under an arm. He kept the hammer, handed the piece of wood to the non-descript guy, and the pipe to the fat man.

I looked at Tommy and said, "Do those look at all like dangerous weapons to you? You think they could hurt in a significant way if applied to the right place on a person's body? You feel these last gestures in any way constitute a threat to your well-being, maybe even to your life?"

He said, "If applied properly and with even a modicum of efficiency, I think those really could hurt a person. And from the looks on their faces, ugly ugly looks, I feel certain they mean to do us bodily harm, their body language and posture screaming threat and malice."

"You fear for your life, Tommy, your very existence, all your future hopes and dreams passing before your eyes?"

"Yes, ma'am, I do, there they go, whizzing by, one by one." He paused and looked at me, said, "How about you?"

I shook my head, No, but said, "That's ok, because under the laws of the great State of South Carolina a person can use deadly force if he or she sees another person whose life is threatened, and we just have fully and clearly established the fact that you are scared."

He said, "I didn't say I was scared, I said I feared for my well-being. That's different."

The skinny guy asked the fat guy, "What the fuck are they talking about?"

Tommy had the jug of paint thinner in his hand and I had my purse in mine. I said to the boys, "Ok, I tried to be nice, but now here's how this plays out. Any of you idiots ever thought about what happens when a 40 caliber hollow-point slug shatters a thigh bone?" And I looked at each guy in turn.

The fat guy looked at the skinny guy and asked, "You ever thought about that?"

He shook his head, No, and looked at the third guy, who also shook his head, No. The fat guy said to me, "I guess not."

I said, "You want to think about it now?"

In unison they said, "Fuck no."

"Fine by me," I said. "Now the question is, on which of you am I going to demonstrate that phenomenon?"

The fat guy said, "What are you talking about, bitch? Give us the keys."

I looked at him and said, "That's the third time you called me a bitch, and normally with me, three strikes and you're out. But, I can see you have something of a disability, carrying all that fat around with you, so I'm giving you pass on this. It'll be one of your friends gets the demo."

"What demo?"

"This demo," and I reached in my purse with my right hand, pulled my Glock, dropped the purse on the ground, racked the slide with my left hand, assumed the shooters stance with both hands on the gun, left foot slightly forward of the right, weight slightly forward, aimed, and fired a single slug into the center of the right thigh of the non-descript idiot. BLAM.

It was a surprisingly short scream that truncated when he landed in the dirt on his back, at which point the blubbering and whining began. I looked at Tommy and said, "I think we can go now."

He looked at me, and then the guy, and back at me, and said, "We're just going to leave him?"

"The big arteries are on the inside of the thigh. The bone is right in the center. He's not going to walk very well after this, but he's not going to bleed to death." I handed him the purse and said, "You drive. I need to watch these two; they're dumb enough to try to jump into the car after us."

He took the keys out of the purse and said, "You. Dumb enough to jump in the car after you." He fired up the 390 horses, turned the car around so it pointed out at the road, and opened the passenger door for me. I started to get in, then saw the jug of cider on the floor. I picked it up, walked back to the idiots, and said, "If he says the pain is too much to bear, that he can't stand it, have him drink this shit; I'm sure it'll put him out of his misery," and set it on the ground. I backed to the car, got it, and Tommy gunned it out onto the road.

He said, "That's a lot to go through just to find an excuse to let me drive. But, thanks. I've been waiting for this."

# Chapter 46 - Playing Games

Tommy was all hipped to try to drive like the real Tommy Crown, but I kept distracting him with mind games I call The Sets of Five. These sets are as follows: your five favorite movies; your five favorite rock bands; five geniuses of pop music; five handsomest men and five most beautiful women; and five favorite writers. I have more sets of five but this was all we could handle before we hit Jekyll. We alternated with our lists. The first set was favorite movies.

Me: You've Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, written and directed by the great Nora Ephron.

Him: Oceans Twelve, starring those twelve guys, what an incredible soundtrack.

Me: Leatherheads, starring Big George Clooney, and Renee Zellweger in her best performance.

Him: Oh Brother Where Art Thou, again with Big George, love that bluegrass singing.

Me: Modern Times, the sheer genius of Charlie Chaplin.

Him: My Fair Lady, songs by the immortal Lerner and Lowe, Tommy saying his favorite was "Why Can a Woman Be More Like a Man", me not knowing if he was joking or actually a chauvinist, me granting him that the lyrics are very humorous.

Me: Pat and Mike, me having to throw in something with America's greatest actress, Katherine Hepburn, not agreeing with all those film historians who place that mantel on Betty Davis, me not being able to stand her weird eyes.

Him: Tootsie, saying Dustin Hoffman wasn't bad but he wanted to go to bed with Jessica Lange, even if she had the brat in the movie.

Me: Manhattan, directed by Woody, this causing Tommy practically to drive off the road considering how many times I'd dissed New York to him, me saying it was the Gershwin music that made the movie great.

Him: Forrest Gump, 'run, Forrest, run!'

While Tommy tried to handle the Mustang I wrote this set down on a pad of paper, and after studying it, said, "Not bad."

He said, "Maybe someday we can watch all ten movies in bed together," which I didn't reply to verbally, but to which I did reply in silent fantasy mode, "Do we have to get out of bed between movies?"

Next came the set of five greatest pop bands. Tommy asked if that included single artists, and I said yes, but remember that the next set was five greatest musical geniuses of pop.

Me: The Who, my boys all the way.

Him: Pink Floyd, their lyrics sometimes juvenile, but that goes with the territory of pop.

Me: Neil Young with Crazyhorse, may seem weird coming from an aristocrat like me but I like raw, and Neil is at the top of that list.

Him: The Beach Boys, unique sound and so many songs, prolific.

Me: One of the Motown bands, doesn't matter which one, let's say Marvin Gay.

Him: U2, me, upon hearing that, thinking seriously of bailing out of this relationship, such as it is, platonic, me hating everything about U2 except The Edge's guitar playing, which I gotta allow is great, but really, his beany cap, so hideous, the lead guy, those stupid yellow glasses, I decided not to verbalize my opinion, instead gritting my teeth.

Me: Jethro Tull, especially "Stand Up", great song composition.

Him: Emmy Lou Harris, single artist, not because I think she's a super singer or songwriter, but she has the greatest smile on a woman I've ever seen.

Me: You are such a soft touch. Ok, Blind Faith, the one album super group, but what an album.

Him: Buffalo Springfield. You wanna talk sweet singing, you talk them. How come neither of us voted for The Stones?

I wrote down this set for posterity just as we crossed the line into Georgia, and Tommy said, "If I stop up here to take a leak can I keep driving afterwards?"

I looked at him and said, "You want to keep driving a car that looks like this, a yellow bomb, that now is associated with a shooting in another state, the cops from both states may be looking for it, me now having a second reason for being sent up the river, us no longer having to walk around with our Platos on our shoulders because of you being in the men's wing of the pen and me in the women's?"

He pulled off, cut the engine, and said, "What's the first reason for you getting sent up?"

I didn't answer but got out and stretched, him not pushing it, going inside, me letting him keep the keys. When we were rolling again I said, "Next set is geniuses of pop, and I don't use that term lightly. I'm not sure I can come up with five. Been a while since I played this game with Roger."

"Who?"

Me: Top of the list, top of the charts for me is the guy we got to come to Charleston and do the Stravinsky ballet, transpose the music from orchestra to synthesizer, and perform it live, Pete Townshend.

Him: McCartney. It's clear now he was the heart of The Beatles. Still writing great songs today.

Me: Jimi. Not a nice person, but Hendrix was way out there with his guitar playing, out there where angels fear to tread.

Him: Paul Simon. What a repertoire of songs. Won the Library of Congress Award.

Me: Can I vote for McCartney too? No? Ok then, Bob Dylan. I don't own an album by him, and maybe he's a little boring, but how many lyrics has the man written in his life? Millions. There's something there, songs, and more songs.

Him: Roger Waters and David Gilmour. I don't know which wrote the stuff, but there is genius somewhere around those two.

We were on an open stretch of Rt. 17, winding through the swamplands of the low country, no one is sight, I'd a bin highballing it, I checked the speedo which said 60. I looked at him and said, "You sure your name is Tommy Crown?"

He said, "You're the one said half the state cops from South Carolina and Georgia are looking for us."

"You think a little speeding ticket is going to matter, them looking for us for shooting a guy?"

"Us? Us? You see me pulling a gun, blasting away?"

"You ever heard of an accomplice?"

"What I've heard of is innocent dupe. A man being taken advantage of by a nefarious lover. That'll be my defense."

"I'll dispute the lover part, make you look like a bigger dupe. Guy that didn't get nothing out of the deal, 'cept trouble."

He punched the pedal and said, "Can we get back to the mind games?"

"Ok. Next set is five handsomest men and five most beautiful women."

"Is this segregated by opposite gender or can I offer up guys too, and you offer up babes too?"

"You feel comfortable talking about guys? Not worried about me being worried about you?"

"Bet my list is better than yours."

Me: Numero uno is Gary Cooper. Classic.

Him: I'll see your classic handsome with a classic beauty, also numero uno, Catherine Deneuve.

I said, "You keep hanging out with me, maybe you'll meet her."

"I keep hanging out with you, I'll get arrested for something I didn't do and sent away until my libido is nothing but a faint memory, or Roger will shoot me, or I tell the wrong person I know a talking dog and they have me committed, or...."

Me: Next stud isn't a complete entity, just a voice. Sean Connery. If I could have sex with a voice, it'd be him. It.

Him: The longer I hang out with you the weirder life becomes: maiming guys for life by shooting them, discussions with canines, little philosophers running things, stealing community held works of art, and now this. No sex with me, but sex with a guy's voice. And not even an American guy, but a guy from Scotland. Never mind, my next most beautiful woman is the great Garbo. What a mouth. You know I named a cat after her once?

Me: I ignored the comment about stealing something and offered my next entry of the set, my hubby Roger.

Him: You like to rub it in, don't you. Next for me is a French actress from the 70s, Marie France Pisier. What a mouth.

Me: You said that once already, I get the picture. Ok, how about Raylan Givens. (Who?) Sorry, that's his character's name in the show. I mean Timothy Oliphant. Only guy I'd screw that has a goatee.

Him: Grace Kelly. Kissing Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. Wish that was me.

Me: Last choice, umm, Steve somebody, can't remember his last name, got his headed handed to him by Edward G. Robinson in a movie about poker, but what a head.

Him: Irene Dunne. What a vixen.

Tommy said, "That's a big bridge ahead."

"We're going over it. On the other side is the causeway to Jekyll. C'mon, let's finish the game, we're almost there. Writers set."

Me: Elmore Leonard. Guy that wrote the short story about Raylan Givens.

"I didn't vote for this set. What if I said I don't know any writers?" he said.

"I was getting ready to stuff my Plato in the glove box and leave him there for the next two days, but if you don't read books, he's staying with me. We're not talking Littrature here, just books for entertainment."

Him: Ok, a playwright, Neil Simon, so funny. Remember this line from The Goodbye Girl:

Richard Dreyfus and Marsha Mason start off hating each other, then start to like each other, and they're out shopping together, both broke, and Mason says how about spaghetti for dinner, and Dreyfus says great, and you can't have spaghetti without a little wine, so they go into a shop:

Dreyfus: "I'd like a bottle of your best cheap chianti, please."

Clerk: "I have a nice one here, actually from Italy."

Dreyfus: "How much?"

Clerk: "$5.99."

Dreyfus: "You got anything from Kansas?"

Me: Very funny, and I'll see your playwright and raise you one, also very funny as I mentioned before, Nora Ephron.

Him: I really have to come up with another writer if I want you without your Plato? Ok, how about Frank Herbert. He wrote a great sci fi story that Kevin Costner stole and made into a great movie called Waterworld.

Me: I have to put this guy out there because he's one of my favorites, but it's weird. He's got the same last name as Richard. Westlake. This guy is Donald E. Westlake. About the funniest writer out there. Love him.

Him: I got a guy, E. M. Forster.

"I thought we said no Littrature?"

"I've never actually read anything by him. Books, I mean. I just read an essay once that means a lot to me. Sort of a philosophy of life. "What I Believe". Says there are three great human qualities: tolerance, good temper, sympathy. Talks about unquenchable lights of a little aristocracy, meaning people with a certain type of courage. Can I count him even if I haven't read any of his books?"

"Ok. I like his qualities thing."

Me: Rex Stout. Best crime writer there is. If Archie Goodwin were a real guy I'd divorce Roger and marry him.

Him: Are we there yet? I don't have many more in the can. How about Jonathan Gash. He's an English guy with a main character called Lovejoy. No first name. Or maybe that's his first name and he doesn't have a last name, I can't remember. Anyway, he's a divvy, which means he has a sixth sense about art and antiques, which are genuine and which are fake. He's a little shady, so you'd like him.

Me: Ok, my last one, how about a woman. I know, Martha Grimes. She's American but pretends she's English and sets her books over there. Very funny. Writes like a man, why I like her.

Him: This is tiring. Ok, last one for me is John D. MacDonald. His character is Travis McGee, cool guy.

I finished writing down this set as we came over the causeway bridge. At the top we got a view of the barrier island, and down below to the left, of the Queen Anne steeple of the hotel. I always love seeing that because it means we're there. Tommy pulled up under the portico and killed the engine. The valet came to the car window, looked at Tommy, stood back and looked at the car, then said, "I thought you died of cancer."

He looked at me, and I said, "Skip it. We're here."

He said, "That game coming down was fun. Keep the lists; maybe we'll play again."

I said, "The fun's just beginning."

# Chapter 47 - At the Hotel

As we entered the lobby I checked the time and saw it was 1:50pm, so I said let's skip the check in, the dining room closes in ten minutes and I'm hungry.

Tommy said, "Shooting people give you an appetite?"

Afterwards we sat on the huge wraparound porch, looking out at the river that separated the island from the mainland. Tommy had wanted to order wine with lunch but I convinced him to wait for cocktails at sunset, telling him Sidecars were a tradition with me. Most guys would've harped on the shooting thing, but he didn't; just the one innocuous and humorous comment. It was interesting sitting there with someone other than Roger, relaxing and planning the next day and a half, which would be different than a stay with Roger because sex was in the mix with him, and so far my Plato was on duty and awake. What do you do for that period of time with a person you're massively attracted to but can't touch?

It was three o'clock when I said, "How about we check in, go for a long walk, and resume our vigil here at five with Sidecars?"

He said, "How many Sidecars we going to drink?"

"As many as it takes to knock our Platos off their perches."

"And with them out cold?"

"Then the character test begins."

"You like to play dangerous games, don't you?"

"Sometimes, but only when the other person is equal to it."

"The guy back there, the one half-way between the skinny guy and the fat guy, was he equal to it?"

"He had a large piece of pipe in his hand, about equal in mass to the lump of iron inside his skull."

"You could have given him the keys."

"I could have. You think they might have asked for something else after that?"

He knew what I meant, and said, "You could have pulled on them then?"

"I could've. But the goal of stealing a car is different than the goal of sex, even if it's rape sex, which I've never understood how that could be satisfying. They would've had more motivation for the sex goal, I think, and with that would come a stronger inclination to violence, and dealing with that would require a higher level of resistance, which would mean a deadly response. At least in my book."

"All that, we'll never know."

"That's part of the paradox of life; we make a choice, and there's no way to know about the other choices."

"Kind of like what we're doing. Making choices, not knowing what the other ways would be."

"Just like it, Tommy."

"When we check in we're going to have a choice to make, aren't we?"

"We are. And it's not going to be just my choice. This isn't the girl deciding yes or no. Not one person deciding for the two of them. That's for others; that's not for us. We're different than the others, Tommy." He looked out at the river, two pelicans floating there, heads tucked under wings, asleep. "I shot the guy. Others wouldn't have. They'd have waited for the guys to act first." I paused. "I've done other things too, things most people haven't done and won't do. You know something about that; at least I think you do. And you're here with me."

"I do, and I am." He looked at me and said, "I do have one important question though, maybe you won't want to answer; too personal." I nodded. "How come you only shot the one guy?"

# Chapter 48 – First Evening

The valet had brought in our luggage and set it behind the registration desk, at which we now stood. I pointed to the brochure on the desk and said, "They have what they call The Presidential Suite and The Vice Presidential Suite. The Presidential Suite is the place in the Queen Anne tower we saw from the top of the bridge."

The clerk waited while we made our choice. Tommy said, "If you can answer a question correctly, you get the Pres and I'll take the Vice Pres. If you answer wrong, I get the Pres." I smiled while the clerk looked puzzled.

"Deal," I said.

"You mentioned paradox. That happens to me regularly. I see two things, two important things that appear to be equally valid, two choices both of which seem to be right, but they are opposites and can't both be right or best. How do you choose? How do you decide?"

I said, "That's two questions, which invalidates your challenge. I win." I said to the clerk, "I get the bigger suite," looked back at Tommy who was smiling, looked back at the clerk and said, "Just joking. Hold on," looked back at Tommy, said, "Not many things as important as those two questions. Paradox is a bitch, and it's all over the place. But, I think I have the right answer; the only one I've come up with."

"And?" he said.

"Intuition. It's the only way. You can't reason out paradox, and people who let emotions dictate their decisions are idiots. So I use the thing that combines both. Intuition. Doesn't always work right, but most of the time it does."

Tommy looked at me for a moment, then looked at the clerk and said, "I get the VP."

The bellhop escorted us up to the suites, which had their doors next to each other. He positioned the cart with the luggage between the doors, looked at us and said, "You the ones came in the Bullitt car?"

Tommy said, "How'd you know that?"

"Valet. Told everyone about the car and you."

Tommy nodded at me and said, "He say anything about her?"

"Oh yeah."

"What'd he say?"

"You really want me to say that, in front of her?"

"It was a nice thing, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Well then?"

"He said, he said, one time with her, you know, and he'd spend the rest of his life working in the slums of Calcutta, helping the poor."

"Kolkata," I said.

"What?"

"The call it Kolkata now."

"Oh."

I said, "And did the valet have anything to say about him?" nodding at Tommy.

"Yeah."

"What?"

"You sure you want me to tell that in front of him?"

"Was it nice?"

"Not exactly."

I looked at Tommy, who said, "Go on."

"He said he didn't think you could handle her," nodding at me.

Tommy looked at me and smiled, then said, "He may be right. That's what we're here to find out."

We stood looking at each other, the bellhop getting nervous, us oblivious to him, him finally saying, "You guys really staying in both suites? Really? One for you and one for the luggage?"

Simultaneously we said, "I wish."

# Chapter 49 – History Lesson

Tommy had his on the rocks and I had mine straight up. God, was it good: cognac, orange liqueur, and lemon juice. The citrus clanged against the ice and the orange sweetened the melody just a little and the cognac banged the bass drum, all coming together in your mouth like a piano, violin and cello trio does to the ears.

We'd managed to go through different doors into different suites, much to the amazement of the bellboy, Tommy with his bags and me with mine. I didn't see him and he didn't see me, but we each stood in our rooms and looked at the bed, just about crying. We snapped out of it, at least I did, washed up, me spending extra time removing the GSR, or trying to, in case the idiots actually had called the cops and squealed on us, which I doubted. GSR, that's gunshot residue for those of you who don't watch TV crime shows. Of course the hospital would report the injury, but again I doubted the boys would give up any information. Maybe that was wishful thinking, but something told me we were in the clear. My rationalization was helped by the knowledge that Roger and I had a really good lawyer; have to, some of the stuff we get involved in. The stuff was all over my clothes too, so washing really wasn't doing much good. Who'd think one little bullet would cause so much potential trouble?

I brushed this off and met Tommy down in the lobby and we headed outside for a walk around the beautiful grounds. He asked, "You wash all the stuff off of you?"

"Tried."

"You going to burn your clothes later?"

"Very funny." Now he was harping on the shooting, but I realized I was taking it lightly, my intuition in play. We walked down near the river and I explained the history of the place, that it was a winter playground of the super-rich who lived up north a hundred and twenty-five years ago. People like J. P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, William Vanderbilt. They would bring their entire family down for January and February, hunting and playing aristocratic games. They built the hotel structure first as a clubhouse and apartments, but soon they started building private homes around the clubhouse, each trying to out due the others. We walked past Crane Cottage, and I asked him if the name rang a bell. It didn't, so I said Crane made his millions making urinals and toilets that filled the schools and hospitals of America for the last half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.

"That's this place's claim to fame? Urinals and toilets?"

"By all accounts Mr. Crane was a very cultured man, Mr. Smarty. Ok, how about this? The first transcontinental telephone call was made in 1915 from here because the president of AT&T was a member of the club. The call went from here to Washington DC, where President Woodrow Wilson joined, then to New York City where Alexander Graham Bell connected, and then out to San Francisco." Tommy said, that's better. I went on, "I got more. Some guys met here and talked money, big money, finance and stuff, and they agreed we needed an institution to oversee some of this high level financial stuff, and they made some preliminary decisions and policies that became the Federal Reserve."

Tommy said, "Is it cocktail time yet?" Evidently he's not impressed with world finance.

"See out in the river? Vanderbilt anchored his yacht there, and died onboard one night."

"They sew him up in a sheet and do the burial at sea bit? Is he still out there in the pluff mud?"

"You're not much for history stuff, are you?"

"You're the one said we're gonna drink enough Sidecars to render your Plato unconscious and unable to perform his chaperoning duties. That's what I'm interested in right now. History is fine in its place, which isn't here and now."

"What about your Plato?"

"My guy's not exactly in the same league as your guy. He got banished from the Agora for throwing loaded dice."

"That's not what you told me before. You said you can do the platonic thing because you have a strong guy helping you out, watching your behavior, ringing your bell when you get outta line."

"He sleeps a lot, wasn't listening when I said that. You steal things. I lie."

# Chapter 50 – Sidecars on the Porch

So like I said, there we were on the porch drinking Sidecars. During the walk around the grounds we'd talked history, or I had, and ethics, he had, and now we were talking art. He said abstract art was great because it was spiritual, and I said abstract art wasn't great because there's no such thing as spirits. I said I like some abstract art because looking at it makes me feel good, but that comes from aesthetics, not spirits. I said only representational art is great because only it can carry stories and meaning about real life, which ain't spiritual, real life is stuff like economics and politics and environmentalism. Those are the things that great art speaks to.

He said, "You telling me Pollock isn't spiritual?"

"You telling me Pollock tells stories that people can understand rationally? Or do people look at his stuff, get an interesting feeling, and then aggrandize it to make themselves seem special; better than others?"

"I'm saying people say they feel spiritual."

"That's like saying you saw an alien spaceship, or a ghost. What's it do to make the world a better place?"

"Let me ask you this: how many people would believe you if you told them your dog talks to you? Huh? Who's Smarty now?"

"But you heard him."

"The point is, maybe you just haven't been with the right people yet. Maybe some of them have seen an alien spaceship or a ghost." Such a superior look on his face. "And how about music? What's representational there? You telling me Beethoven isn't great art?"

His face, now so repugnant; he had me there. Plus Gwendy in the painting. Maybe I had better rethink my position on abstract art. To distract him from my philosophical dilemma and to get his face back to its normal libido enhancing handsomeness I said, "How about each drink we switch. This one I drink on the rocks and you drink yours straight up?"

He was such a pushover, acquiescing right away, also happy to get back to less intellectual things, back to his hopes of my Plato taking a dive and him upgrading from the VP suite to the Presidential. The porch faced west and the sun was going down beyond the slowly rolling river. As the top of the solar disk dipped below the horizon, the last of the second Sidecars dipped below our throats. I heard a sound come from him, looked, realized it was him smacking his lips like the dog did when he'd finished the plate of meatloaf. He said, "That was one of the best cocktails I've ever had." I thought, 'That's good reason to smack your lips like a dog?' but I didn't say anything because his face was back to being Steve McQueenish, in spades, and no one's perfect.

He turned to look at me, first one side then the other, I knew he was trying to see if my P was still on duty or if I'd given him the brush off. From my face he knew I hadn't, at least not yet, got up and went inside to the bar, got us two more, me back to straight up and him rocks. He said, "What's this about Robert Redford and this place?"

Legend of Bagger Vance. Good movie about golf, about Bobby Jones and an unknown that challenges him. Redford directed, and did a scene in the dining room here. He didn't like the color of the walls and made the hotel paint them, and then of course they had to re-upholster all the chairs and hang new drapes to go with the new color, cost them a fortune. When you're Robert Redford you get to do that stuff. Some people criticized the movie because Will Smith was a caddie, said it stereotyped him, but I think that's a bunch of shit."

Tommy said, "That's the first time I've heard you swear."

"Coupla stiff drinks, I lose all control."

"That's encouraging."

"The pressure's on you, boy, you and your oath. I've got it relatively easy."

"You still have your gun in your purse?" I nodded. "So the Georgia state police arrive, drive around the parking lot and see the yellow bomb, come up here looking for us, what are you going to do? Hand 'em your purse with the weapon in it?"

I took a long pull of the elixir and said, "Try to sweet talk them."

"You think that'll work?"

"No."

"Well?"

I looked him in the eye and said, "Roger and I have a motto we live by: you wanna play, you gotta pay. You should know that by now."

"You mean you're ready to go to jail?"

Now we were getting down to it. I said, "We're very judicious in our risk-taking, but we know there are no guarantees. So far, so good."

"You think you have this shooting thing figured out?" I nodded, Yes. "That the first person you've shot?" I nodded, No. He paused now, hiding a little in the growing darkness on the porch, the lights of the dining room visible down the long side of the hotel, looking inviting, the dining room with the Robert Redford walls. The details of his face were hidden when he said, "You have the other thing figured out?"

"What other thing, Tommy?"

"Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn Bedgewood. That thing."

"Yes."

"You know what I mean?"

"Yes."

"How're you figuring it?"

"You."

"What about me?"

Now I paused, judging the commitment, exercising the judiciousness I just had mentioned, taking a sip, knowing my intuition about it was right. "You're not going back to New York."

"What?" he said. I didn't say anything. "What do you mean?" I didn't say anything. "I live in New York." I didn't say anything. He sat on the edge of his chair, facing me; I faced straight ahead to the river and the departed sun. "Gwenny, say something."

"I'm hungry. Take me into Robert's room and buy me a steak."

# Chapter 51 - Chess Again

Later that night we went through different doors, Tommy saying great day, Gwen, even with the gunfire. The next morning we again walked the grounds, getting some exercise, me laying more history on him, and him seeming to like it, then salads for lunch, no wine, pity, and then he challenged me to a game of chess, outside on the porch. He was setting up the pieces when my phone buzzed, and I saw it was Gale. I looked at Tommy, looked at the board, looked at the caller ID, thought about not sleeping with Tommy last night, didn't want to answer the phone, wanted to sleep with Tommy, thought about my opening gambit, told the P he could have the day off but he said nothing doing, felt the phone buzz again in my hand, decided on the Queen's opening since we were sitting under a Queen Anne style tower at the corner of the hotel, didn't want to talk to Gale but answered anyway, stupid. "Hello."

"Where are you? We've been looking all over for you."

"Good morning, Gale. Did they teach you salutations like that at the Savannah Finishing School for Young Southern Belles?"

"Cut the crap, Gwenny. The dog said you weren't home last night, and we want to know where you are."

"You know the difference between a mother and a friend? A mother sticks her nose in where it isn't wanted, and gets away with it. A friend doesn't."

She came back at me, steaming, "You know the difference between purity and contamination? Between white and black? Between good and evil?"

"You haven't called the Confederate guy, have you? What are you waiting for? He's got the cannons, ready and primed. What's up with you?"

"What's up with me is you, that's what. You and your insanity. Where are you and what are you two doing?"

"Playing chess."

"Right. I've heard it called a lot of things, but not chess."

"Gale, put Jinny on. Is he there?"

"Hi Gwen," he said. "How ya doin'?"

"I'm fine. Can't you keep her off me for even a few days?"

"She's pretty wound up. Doesn't exactly condone your present behavior pattern."

"So I gather. Is this about me or about her? You know how she gets when she isn't getting any."

"A little of both, I think. Plus Roger. She misses him."

"So do I, but I'm making do."

"Yes, Gwen, you are. Hope you're having fun. Where are you?"

"Jekyll, at The Club."

"How long you going to be away? The dog is getting in fights with the neighborhood cats and Gwendy is turning morose."

"I'll be back tomorrow."

"What'll I do with her till then?"

"Gale or Gwendy?"

"Both."

"Take Gale over to the Confederate guy's place, ring the chimes, when he opens the door throw her inside."

"Ok. How about the other one?"

"Her I don't know. You can't exactly take her out on the town, or ply her with chocolates."

"She keeps saying how she thought things were going to be better here than at the museum, but maybe she misses some of that crowd. Some of the other artwork. She'd been there a long time, remember. Must've made a lot of friends."

"Why don't you go in and steal another painting, bring it back to keep her company?"

"If I steal anything it's going to be that table. I want it bad. Listen, it would be easier if you come home, spend some time with her."

"I'll be home for lunch tomorrow. Tell her that. And get Gwen over to the guy's house, please."

"Will do. See you tomorrow."

I turned the phone off and looked first at the sandy hair and then at the eyes, blue on blue. He said, "They miss you at home?"

"Both of them like you, it's just that we have a loyalty thing going, friendship, and that includes Roger. We've had a lot of adventures together; a weird but good love."

He said, "McCartney wrote a beautiful song about friendship called 'Riding to Vanity Fair'. How hard it is to find. You have good friends, Gwenny, I said that before. Don't lose 'em."

"Right now I'd like to shoot them....oh, maybe I shouldn't say that, under the circumstances. Listen, you ready to get your ass kicked here on the board? We gotta do something to pass the time."

"Chess your number one choice of things to do, here at the historic hotel; away from everything and everyone?"

"Everyone except the little philosophers, mine and yours."

"Talk about wanting to shoot someone."

# Chapter 52 - Home

The next morning the same valet brought the yellow horse around to the portico where we waited with our bags. He got out, looked at both of us and said, "My father's a shrink. I can give you his email if you want."

Tommy said, "What for?"

"You guys got stuff to work out. Maybe he can help." I motioned to him for more. "You," he said, looking me up and down, "him," looking at Tommy, "you come down here in that," nodding at the bomb, "smelling like GPR, check into the Presidential Suite and the VP Suite, don't use the connecting door....you got issues. Serious issues. My dad's really good, expensive, but I think you guys can afford him."

I said, "How do you know we didn't use the connecting door?"

"Please. You, super babe, and you," looking at Tommy, "guy who looks like Steve McQueen, Mustang 390 GT, one of you recently firing a gun....whole staff's been watching you two."

Tommy said, "That includes in our rooms, after hours?"

"Night staff has to do something to stay awake."

Tommy looked at me and said, "Back home you have Gale and Jinny on your ass. On the way down you stirred up the idiots. Here, the hotel staff. Is there anywhere you don't cause a commotion?"

"You're still mad about losing the match yesterday."

"You cheated."

"I do anything your girlfriend up in New York doesn't do?"

"I thought she was good at it, but you...."

"All's fair in love and war, hon," I said.

"How'd you lose the Civil War, knowing tricks like that?"

"You mean the 'Late Unpleasantness'? They didn't let the women fight. We'd a torn you boys up."

The valet listened to this, said, "Here's my dad's email. You really gotta get past your issues, cause I bet you two could have all kinds of fun together," and he handed Tommy a card.

On the way back Tommy asked if we were going to stop in and see how the boys were doing, and that he'd paid the twenty-five dollars for the bug juice cider, still wanted to try it. I said, "Now look who's trying to cause trouble." We only played two sets of the mind game, which were favorite songs and favorite singers.

Me: "Hey Jude." Gotta start strong, try to intimidate Tommy a little, challenge him.

Him: "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," now that's some harmony singing.

Me: "Summertime" written in Charleston in 1935, best rendition is by The Zombies with Rod Argent playing electric piano.

Him: "When the Levy Breaks," absolutely the heaviest song in the history of rock n roll.

Me: "All Along the Watchtower," with that one we get both Jimi Hendrix singing and Bob Dylan writing.

Him: "Golden Lady," by Stevie Wonder, what a melody.

Me: "Good Vibrations," by the boys from California.

Him: '"Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay," wastin' time.

Me: "Love Reign Over Me," the greatest pop song ever written by my boy Pete.

Him: "Layla," dueling guitars and great singing.

I stayed on the interstate most of the way home so as to avoid the place that sells 'Lord Jesus's Own Peach Cider Heavenly Nectar.' Tommy said I was afraid of the two remaining boys still in good working order, and I said I was afraid of contracting typhoid from the bug juice he had gotten shafted for by the big mama to the tune of twenty-five dollars. I went on to say that if he had drunk any of that stuff there was no way I would have kissed him down at Jekyll, and he asked what else was holding up the show since he hadn't drunk the cider, and I said a good thing is worth waiting for, and he said he wasn't getting any younger, he wasn't going to look like that guy forever and some other guy named Roger was due home is a couple of weeks, and I said friendship is a great thing, and he said so is sex, and I replied let's get back to the mind game of favorite singers. And he sighed.

Me: Roy Orbison, now him I'd go to bed with based just on his voice, screw little Plato.

Him: Joni Mitchell, absolutely pure voice, can do without her politics though.

Me: Diana Ross, a black chick that didn't resort to histrionics to be different, didn't have to she is so naturally great.

Him: Elton John, so strong and correct, got the pipes.

Me: Willie Nelson, love him singing Christmas carols.

Him: Dusty Springfield, all soul singing, you don't have to say you love me.

Me: Ok getting down to the greatest singers of all time, here's my female, Renee Fleming.

Him: John Fogarty, his rendition of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" was the song that locked me into rock n roll.

Me: The greatest pop singer ever, man or woman, Ray Charles, makes me wanna move to Georgia.

Him: This babe is pure and powerful, though I can do without the flakiness, Stevie Nicks.

Tommy looked at his watch, said, "We'll be home by noon. What are you doing for lunch? And that game is fun."

"Wish we could do lunch with wine, but I can't. I have a commitment. Besides," I said rubbing it in, "don't you have to go back to work? Isn't that why you're here in America's most beautiful town?"

"Don't remind me."

I said, "They pay you a lot for what you do?" He nodded. "That's a good reason for getting back to work then, earn that fee."

"There's more to life than money."

"How's your life now?"

"Ambivalent."

"What's that mean?"

"It means some of it I like and some of it I don't particularly care for."

"Such as?"

'I like hanging out with you. I even like Gale and Jinny even though they beat up on me. Gale does at any rate."

"And I like hanging out with you. What don't you like?"

"I don't like the two little rats whose names start with P. Even my weak one. If I knew where to get some hemlock I'd slip both the little bastards a mickey."

Knowing the answer, I asked, "Anything else you don't like?"

He looked at me and said, "Maybe," but that was all. He didn't say he didn't like working to put me in jail. What he did say was, "Who's your lunch date with?"

"I didn't say it was a lunch date, I said I have a commitment. And it's with someone who's lonely."

"Gale? Jinny?"

"I have more than two friends, you know."

"Made any new friends recently?"

"I didn't say it was with a friend. Don't you listen?"

He said, "Relative then? Lonely relative?"

"Maybe. I have a lot of relatives in town. My family goes way back around here."

He didn't push it anymore, didn't have to. I put Renee Fleming's "Dark Hope" in the CD player, and we listened to it the rest of the way into town. I pulled under the portico of his hotel, killed the 390, and we sat looking at each other until I said, "I enjoyed everything. How 'bout you?"

He nodded and said, "That boy didn't enjoy our company too much."

I said, "He wanted to play; he had to pay."

He got out and I pulled the lever for the trunk. He came back to the passenger side window and looked in at me, god those eyes of his, I wanted to unfasten my seatbelt and follow him in. We just smiled at each other, doing it with vibes rather than words, until he said, "Say hello to her for me."

"Who?"

"Gwendolyn."

"I will."

# Chapter 53 – Dealing With Dingos

When Tommy entered his hotel room he found a someone there, a woman with one of the ugliest Brooklyn accents ever created, more evidence that God doesn't exist because no one in his or her right mind ever would foist that on the world. Ms. Granite said, "I came down here to give you one more chance to find the painting. I got here day before yesterday and the people in the museum said they hadn't seen you in days. Now I haven't seen you in two days. What the hell are you doing? You owe me everything you put on your expense account for the last week."

The implied threat that he would lose his job didn't bother him, and neither did the ding about the expense account. What bothered him was the change of listening to me with my Charleston accent to listening to her with her accent. This was like biting into a lemon. The other thing that bothered him was seeing the bed unmade, and him knowing the housekeeper had made it before he left for Jekyll. It was evident that the boss was trying to save on her expense account by not getting her own room, and that idea frightened him more than seeing me pull my Glock.

I didn't have a much better welcome home than he did, climbing the steps to the back porch and entering the kitchen to find Gale, Jinny, and the dog sitting around the table, looking like they were ready to dismember me and put the parts in the freezer. Gale and the dog, anyway, Jinny there babysitting them. Gale didn't say anything, which was remarkable, but pantomimed sniffing the air around me, searching for any leftover scents of Tommy Crown. The dog got up on all fours, ran his nose up my left leg and down the right, stopping at the V, then said, "She's clean," and lay down again near Jinny's feet.

Now Gale said, "I don't believe it. Two nights with him down at Jekyll, no way she's clean. No one has that fortitude."

The dog said, "She's clean, trust me."

Gale looked at Jinny and said, "Could you go away to an island hotel with her and not play patty cake?"

He said, "I can't go two days without patty cake even if I'm alone, much less than with her. And neither can you, so don't get high and mighty."

"I'm not getting high and mighty, I'm saying no way I could go away with that guy and not fool around, and I don't think she can either."

I said, "Thanks for the vote of confidence, why are you in my house, don't you have anything better to do, why didn't you take her to the Confederate guy's house (looking at Jinny), and how's Gwendy?"

The dog said again, "She's up and down. When she talks about you being down at Jekyll with Crown, she's kind of happy, thinking about her own time down there and resigning herself to living vicariously through you. She realizes the real thing's not in the cards for her. But, she also realizes you're not going to be around her all the time, and Gale and Jinny don't live here, and even though I'm special as far as dogs go, I'm not exactly what she was hoping for in terms of human contact, and, well, we think she's starting to miss her old crowd at the museum. They'd been together for a lot of years, and even though they have limited mobility and interactive capabilities, they know each other and care about each other, and really get along. We think this may be a case of her thinking the grass is greener on the other side, and now she realizes maybe it isn't." He looked at Gale and Jinny and said, "Right?" They looked at me and nodded, Yes.

I said, "Jesus," and sat down at the table with them. I thought about it for a minute and said, "Are you trying to make me feel guilty?"

Gale said, "About hooking up with the home wrecker, yes. About pinching the painting, no."

"I didn't know she was special when I pinched her."

"None of us did," said Jinny. He looked at the dog and said, "Did you know there are other types of special people out there?"

"She not a person. But yes, we know about the other types."

I said, "You mean there are other specials in addition to dogs and people in paintings?" He didn't answer. "So what do we do now? If it's true she misses her friends, I feel terrible."

The dog said, "Now you know how we feel when you take our puppies away, give 'em to neighbors, sell 'em for profit."

I said, "Sorry, but let's not digress from the problem at hand. I guess we'd better go in and talk with her."

Gale said, "Not us, you."

I was tempted to mix myself a stinger before I went into the living room, but refrained, the guilt seeping in. She had a neutral look on her face as I sat down on the piano bench, eschewing the comfort of the sofa, starting penance. She said, "Was it great? Was he great? Was the dessert all I hoped it would be?" but without her usual exuberance.

Here was another flavor of guilt being heaped upon me, Gale laying it on for being tempted by the dessert, Gwendy laying it on for not being tempted by it. It was clear Jinny was the only true friend among my associates, though I had to grant Tommy special dispensation for his entirely gentlemanly conduct. His P was better than Tommy had let on. I said, "We had a nice trip." I didn't tell her about relegating the boy to using a cane for the rest of his life. "How are you?"

"Things here are ok. Gale and Jinny stopped by, but she talked about the silver service in the museum and he talked about the table. Made me feel a little homesick. The dog slept on the floor underneath me, which was comforting, but when I started talking about the old days at the Luxembourg Hotel, he fell asleep. He sleeps almost as much as I do, which is too much these days. I'm feeling a little tired, actually, hon."

I decided to be straight with her, and said, "Are you feeling tired because of your age, or because you're bored?"

"Maybe a little of both, though being bored at the museum didn't make me feel tired, like here. The visitors with the same old questions and comments are boring, but the other residents, the other specials, we talk about the past and listen to each other, sometimes someone remembers a good story or a good joke. It's not the Luxembourg of 1840, but it was ok. I can't expect too much out of life now, that's not realistic."

God, now the floodgates opened and I was swamped by guilt. I went and stood in front of her and said, "I didn't know there were specials other than our dog. I didn't know you are special, and that others in the museum are too. I didn't know. You should have told me the night we went in to get you."

Now she brightened and beamed a smile, saying, "God, that was exciting. The first theft in the history of the museum, and it being the oldest museum in the country. All of us wondered who you were after, and most of us hoped they were the target. Such a surprise, and we reacted emotionally and didn't think of the consequences. We just saw a chance for a change after so long a time, and maybe a rejuvenation of some sort. And then you can to me, and when Jinny picked me up it was like getting on a roller coaster, and wheeeeeee, away we went and out into the night and driving through the streets of Charleston I had seen in years, feeling the wind in my hair again, smelling the carriage horses and the harbor; and then the sight of the back of your house, I remember it from when I was young, walking down the alley there, and up the stairs and inside, Wow."

"You were in the back of a panel truck, how did you feel the wind in your hair on the way home?"

"So I exaggerate. It's what old people do. I could imagine it. And then Jinny hanging me on the wall in here, such a beautiful room, and I could sense the history and the people and the parties and the intrigues. It was all so exhilarating."

"And now?"

"Now reality has set in. I've been here for seven weeks, and we've had some good times, the four of us, but it hasn't exactly been a parade. Not a single party. I haven't met the current Mayor, no Confederate boys mixing up Charleston Light Dragoon Punch and shooting out in street, no debutante balls or l'affaire d'amoreuse. And you've been away for a few days and I should have known that was going to happen, your house is not a museum with the residents there twenty-four seven three sixty-five. And you alone, or partially alone, Roger being away for so long." She sighed and tried to smile, but her heart wasn't in it. She looked at me and said with a tinge of spirit, "When's Roger get home?"

"In a week."

"What then, hon? What about the Crown boy? Roger going to kill him?" she said, almost with a ray of hope attached to the question. I guess life in the early nineteenth century south was rough and tumble.

I doubted Roger would kill Tommy, but then if someone would have told me I would shatter the thigh bone of a redneck moron on the drive down to Jekyll, I would have doubted that too. I sat down again on the bench and looked at her. "I don't think Roger's going to kill him," I said, detecting a hint of disappointment in her face, "but when he gets back, things will pick up in the socialization department. Roger likes a good party."

She said, "Now who's exaggerating? I'm damaged goods, I know that. How are you going to have people in here, with me lording over the room? You going to invite the Mayor and his wife? The Senator? The Gov? Shit, the only person you can invite is that writer guy from next door, and he is BORING."

"Don't swear, it doesn't become you."

"Sorry. I'm feeling a little out of sorts. Pardon me."

"You're right. That's why I haven't had any parties. No guests."

"Why'd you do it? Steal me?"

"I pinched you, dear; didn't steal you. And it was because Roger was gone, and I was bored, and I wanted you back in the family, and I figured Roger would think of a way to keep you around when he got back, he's the intellectual in the family."

"And what are you, dear?"

"I'm the Bedgewood in the family, and you know what that means."

"I do dear, and let's be proud of it. It's like you said to Tommy, if they'd have let women fight in the 'Late Unpleasantness', we'd have kicked those sorry Yankee asses all the way back to Philadelphia."

I stared at her, then asked, "How did you know I said that to him? I said that down at Jekyll."

"We have cloud function, dearie, just like you do with your computer things. Just that ours is organic, natural, so to speak."

I didn't need this weirdness on top of my guilt. I said to myself, 'Simplify, simplify, Roger will be home soon, then we can worry about this new cloud thing, keep your eye on the ball here.' I said, "I think it's time to cut a deal here."

"With Tommy?" she said. I nodded, Yes. "Whatever you think is right, dear. You're in charge."

"You wanna meet him?"

"Oh god, yes. Bring him in, let me feast my eyes if not my hands."

I waved to her and smiled, feeling a little weight slough off my shoulders. I went back into the kitchen where Gale said, "So what's the verdict?"

"She wants to meet Tommy."

"What?" she screamed, "you want to let that little fucker that's trying to put us in jail, see her? Meet her? Are you crazy?"

I looked at Jinny and said, "She didn't visit the Confederate guy, did she? Didn't you try to take her?"

"She wouldn't go. Said she wasn't going to have any sex while you still were in limbo."

"How about you do the job on her yourself? She's over the edge."

"Sis? No way, sorry."

I refrained from looking at the dog.

I said, "Roger's due home in a week. We gotta figure this out before then. Tommy's coming over."

Gale looked at Jinny and said, "The fur's gonna fly soon."

# Chapter 54 – Ms. Granite

Back in the hotel room Ms. Granite sat on the edge of the unmade bed, Tommy not sitting there with her, but on a chair near the door. She still was ranting about the expense account, and Tommy still was tasting the sour sibilance of her Brooklyn heritage, which never before had bothered him. She paid his fees and he could live with the rest of her. But now....

"Well," she said, "what are you going to do? Your personal life is your own, you can play with monkeys at night for all I care, but on my time you have ta produce, and you ain't doin' that now." Tommy's mind did not wander over into the territory of Ms. Granite's personal life, him planning on asking for a new room as soon as this interrogation was over. He was pondering the meaning behind the monkey reference when his phone dinged the reception of a text message. It said, "Come over to the house asap. Someone wants to meet you. G and G."

He smiled, thought for a moment and said to stone lady, "Here's the deal. The museum will get their painting back in the next five days."

"And?" she said.

"And it's going to cost you double the usual fee."

"That's fourteen percent of $2.5 mill. Are you crazy?"

"That's the deal. You don't pay, the painting's gone."

"That sounds like a threat. Sounds like you're involved in this as more than an investigator. Almost sounds like you've gone over to the other side. Sounds, Tommy, almost like extortion."

"So you only get two trips to Hawaii this year instead of three. Your rep's still good. You make it up on the next policies."

She sat looking at him now, the quality of her face matching that of her voice. Finally she said, "Why, Tommy? Why now?"

"Two reasons. I've met some new friends, and I like the way they play."

"And?"

"You messed up my bed."

# Chapter 55 – The Meeting

Tommy climbed the front steps of the house on Church Street, rang the chimes, and waited with anticipation. Gale opened the door, gave him the evil eye, said, "You ain't out of the woods yet, you Yankee scum," and slammed the door in his face. After sitting with Ms. Granite, Tommy thought Gale exuded gentility, and waited.

The door opened again, this time Gale screaming obscenities at Jinny, who held her, struggling, under one arm like a mother does a beloved infant having a temper tantrum. "How ya doin'," he said to Tommy. "C'mon in. We're waitin' for ya." He led the way into the living room, Gale telling him his mother kept whole troops of Russian soldiers warm at night during the Second World War, him telling her that's the fighting spirit that drove the hordes of German storm-troopers back out of Mother Russia; her saying his mother was a Slavic peasant, him saying yeah, but she didn't need a knife to cut the heads off the fish she caught, tore 'em off with her bare hands.

Tommy listened to this and started having second thoughts about his new friends. He was giving up his job for this?

That train of thought evaporated when he entered the living room, saw me and Richard sitting on the sofa, and the dog lying on the carpet under the painting. Yes, there it was, the stolen, er pinched, work of art. And there she was, Gwendolyn Bedgewood, now dressed in a new outfit, a shimmering emerald green affair with gold lace at the collar, cuffs, and placket. When I asked her how she did that she answered, "It's in the cloud," which still didn't mean much to me, but again I told myself not to get distracted by things like that right now.

He stood in front of the painting, looking it over, smiling because of the $350K he was going to get and the Jag he was going to buy with it, when Gwendy said to the others, "Isn't someone going to introduce us. This boy's giving me the once-over, and he's got me at a disadvantage."

Gale's feet still weren't touching the floor, she still was wriggling under Jinny's arm, and she said, "Put me down, you big Russian ape. If I introduce the scumbag to her maybe he'll stop sniffing around after Gwen." Jinny set her down and she said, "This is Gwendolyn Bedgewood, 1805 to 1859. Gwendy, this is the Yankee from New York, Tommy 'The Homewrecker' Crown."

Gwendy looked at Tommy for a minute, then said to Gale, "Did you have to mention my death date, dearie?"

"Oh, sorry."

"That's ok, I'm still kicking, after a manner. Pleased to meet you, Sir. I've heard a lot about you." Now it was her that gave him the once-over. She looked at me and said, "I had no idea they made 'em like this up north. You sure he isn't from Savannah?"

I said, "You heard him talk. That sound like Savannah?"

She said, "To think, all those years I dismissed them out of hand. What was I thinking?"

Now Gale launched again, "You were thinking of honor, integrity, politeness, and the capability to hold your liquor. The code of the south. In other words, everything this shitheel from New Yawk ain't."

The dog said, "Gale, can it, you're getting on my nerves, and we got stuff to work out around here. Roger gets home in a week, and we need to avoid bloodshed."

Everyone looked at him, he sat stone faced for a moment, then said, "Just kidding. But we do have important work to do, right?"

I nodded and said, "We do. But before we tackle that, we need to get to know each other a little, first. Sit down," motioning to Tommy, Gale, and Jinny. Jinny sat on the piano bench, his usual perch, while Tommy and Gale sat on the French Fauteuils armchairs. I went on, looking from Tommy to Gwendy, "I'm glad you've met, because I know you've wanted to meet each other for a few weeks now. Gwendy, you know what Tommy's been after, and Tommy you know what she's been after."

Gale said, "Yeah, she's been after his ass, just like you."

The dog said, "C'mon, hon, like you're not interested. If it's got three legs, you're interested."

"I'm interested if he's got two out of four. Gotta have at least two out of four."

"Two out of four, what?" asked Jinny.

"Southern qualities: honor, integrity, politeness, and can hold his booze."

Gwendy said, "Only two, dear? In my day we thought in terms of three. Three out of the four."

"Entropy," said the dog.

"What's entropy?" Richard asked, him being a novelist and not well educated about science.

"It's the tendency of the natural world to devolve from a state of order to disorder. So in the case of humans, mating standards have slipped from three of the criteria to two. And in the bigger scheme of things, species superiority has devolved from canine to human."

Jinny looked at the dog and said, "Are you saying dogs were over people, back in time?"

"Oh, yeah. You think a prehensile thumb and bi-pedalism are advances, but they don't do much for you when you're chasing a rabbit. And then there's the really important point."

"What's that?"

The dog looked around the room, deliberating, then said, "I'm not sure we should discuss that in mixed company."

Gale and I looked at Gwendy, then at the dog, and I motioned him to continue, this sounding interesting.

Now he looked at Jinny and Tommy and Richard, smirking, and motioned them over to the far corner of the living room near the floor to ceiling bookcases. The three guys bent down to his level, we heard a whisper, and they broke out into a combination of chuckling and laughter. They came back, sat down, looked at the floor, hiding smiles.

I said, "Well?" This kicked them into a fit of laughter, acting like school boys talking about seeing some underwear on a girl on a swing at recess. The meaning of their collusion in the corner was not lost on the three of us. I said, "So you four morons think inventing that is the mark of canine superiority?"

More laughter. I motioned Gale over to the painting, and now they heard us whispering. After a minute Gale and I returned to our seats, and Gwendy said, "That was a tactical error, guys. You know the reality of the world. You know we control everything about sex; well, at least these two do. You know we rule. And now you've made a mistake in that department for which you will pay, later."

Richard said, "Huh? How? You're not our partners. You have no control over us."

Gale said, "Specials aren't the only ones who are connected to each other through a cloud. We'll be in touch with your partners, and you will pay."

The four guys looked at each other, and the dog said, "Shit."

The other three looked at the dog and said, "Way to go. Thanks a lot."

In a calm and settling voice Gwendy said to Tommy, "I've been wanting to meet you because Gwenny likes you, finds something special about you, and she's me, today. She's how I can feel, if you'll pardon the expression, more alive. But at the same time I'm a little scared of you because you want to put me back into the museum."

Tommy squirmed a little in his hundred and fifty year old chair, and said, "It was nothing personal. That was my job. And that was before I met him," nodding at the dog, "and found out about specials. And before I met her," nodding at me. "And now I've met you, and you're special, and so, so, I'm confused. But I don't think you have to be afraid of me anymore."

Gale, still alert for any chink in Tommy's armor into which she could stick a stick, said, "What do you mean, 'Was your job'?'"

Tommy looked at me and asked, "Is it too early for stingers?" I nodded, Yes, and he went on, "My boss is here. She came down from New York to check on what I've been doing, and she's not happy, gave me a lot of shit. So...."

"So, what?" said Gale. "Oh, god, don't tell me you quit?" He nodded, Yes, and she jumped up from her chair, started screaming, "No you don't, you rat, you're not staying around here. Roger's going to tear you limb from limb. One week, that's the time you have left before you go and join her world," nodding at Gwendy, "only I doubt they'll let you in, you not having enough of the southern qualities for acceptance, only the good drinker one, and your smarmy good looks are not going to get you very far in that world where touch is hard to come by, and with people slamming doors in your face when they hear that hideous accent of yours, and...."

At this point Jinny got up, crossed to where she was looming over Tommy in his chair, grabbed her and took her back to the piano bench where he sat her on his lap and clapped a paw over her mouth. She sat there wriggling, which most guys would pay a lot of money to experience, her being Gale, but Jinny was immune, this not being a combination of his morning testosterone dump coupled with alcohol.

A look of relief washed over Gwendy's face, and she said, "Oh lovely, now we all can be friends."

I didn't need to ask what Tommy meant when he said, 'That was my job.' I knew.

He went on, talking to Gwendy, "So lots has changed since I've been here, and I'm not going to do anything you don't want." He looked over at Gale and said, "And I'm not trying to do anything with her," nodding at me, "that she doesn't want, and I know she loves Roger."

This caused Gale to stop wriggling on Jinny's lap and biting his hand, which didn't result in him removing his hand from her mouth, said hand being made of material tougher than cowhide, though not tough enough to tear the heads off fish, like his mother. She elbowed him in his stomach, which was like hitting a pine tree, but which nonetheless caused him to let her climb off his lap like a kid who'd been playing with her father. She slowly walked across the room, bent down, and planted a salacious kiss on Tommy's mouth that rocked his world.

The dog looked at Jinny and Richard and said, "The move developed by my ancestors thousands of years ago when we were ascendant ain't far off for those two, if I'm not mistaken. And he lay down under the painting, thinking of his own somewhat spartan love life.

I looked from one friend to another, and rested my head on the back of the sofa, thinking, 'Ain't life wonderful, and Roger gets home soon.' I looked at my watch which showed three pm, and said, "So we're all friends again. We still have some serious work to do, but I think we can have cocktails and still get it done. Ok?"

Everyone said, "Thank god. Ok."

# Chapter 56 – The Deal

We left Tommy and Gwendy alone and went into the kitchen to make some munchies to go with the cocktails. Richard conferred with the dog as to his preferences, which, surprise surprise, amounted to meatloaf with no tomato sauce on it, while Gale sat at the table and dialed her phone. That left me to produce the food and Jinny to fix the drinks. While we worked we listened to Gale's conversation:

Gale: "Hey, it's me."

Other: ....

Gale: "Whaddo you mean, who?"

Other: ....

Gale: "Yes, Cannon Girl. Me."

Other: ....

Gale: "I've been out of circulation. Taking care of a sick friend," sticking her tongue out at me.

Other: ....

Gale: "Yes, I've been a good girl, which is why I'm calling you."

Other: ....

Gale: "No, it's been a bad thing; a very bad thing."

Other: ....

Gale: "Yes, it is an example of life's paradox, that being good is bad; you're not so dumb for a Confederate sympathizer."

Other: ....

Gale: "Yes, that's a compliment."

Other: ....

Gale: "What else would I be calling you for? I'm not interested in a history lesson. You have two things I like: the best recipe for Charleston Light Infantry Dragoon Punch I've ever tasted, and...."

Other: ....

Gale: "You're so smart. When?"

Other: ....

Gale: "You gotta load them? You don't keep them loaded all the time?"

Other: ....

Gale: "So what if they go off unexpectedly?"

Other: ....

Gale: "Ok, I see, that would be messy.

Other: ....

Gale: "No I don't want the little 3 inch diameter Mountain Howitzer that shoots half a mile. I want the biggest fucking cannon you got. The 10 inch Rodman that can throw a 200 pound ball from Charleston to Savannah."

Other: ....

Gale: "How long does it take?"

Other: ....

Gale: "No I'm not talking this weekend, I'm talking tonight. I can go off duty helping my friend. If you can't load up by then, I'll find someone else."

The dog and Richard were getting ready to leave to get the meatloaf from next door, that not being a staple of the June household but something more in tune with the taste of a scribe, and the dog said, "She's bluffing. She doesn't have a backup."

Other: ....

Gale: "That's ok. Half a charge is better than nothing. I'll be over about nine, and I want the punch cold and the cannonfire hot. See ya, big boy. Hope your neighbors don't mind a high-pitched rendition of 'Dixie' around dawn."

Other: ....

Gale: Giggles, and hangs up.

I looked at Jinny and said, "Thank god."

While I made up an antipasto, a plate of paties, and some French bread and cold cuts, Jinny rolled a small cart out of the pantry and into the center of the room. Onto this he placed a wine bucket filled with ice and water, two bottles of Moutard rose champagne, white wine glasses, a bottle of Remy Martin cognac, a bottle of white creme de menthe, a second bucket of ice, a sterling silver shaker, and seven long-stem coupe glasses. Gale saw them and counted on her fingers: me, Gwen, Tommy, Richard, Jinny....oh yeah, Gwendy and the dog. She said to Jinny, "You're right, symbolism among friends and specials is important. He shook his head, Yes. I loaded the food plates onto the lower shelf of the cart and we rolled into the living room, where we found Tommy sitting in one of the antique armchairs he had placed directly in front of the painting.

I said, "You two look comfy."

Gwendy said, "We've been talking about our futures. Both of us have gone through big changes recently, and we're figuring out what comes next."

Jinny said, "Gale did the same thing in the kitchen."

Richard, who'd come into the living room after leaving the dog and the meatloaf together in the kitchen, said, "What's next for her?"

"She's going over the Confederate guy's house tonight, make some Tchaikovsky-like music together."

"What's that?"

"Great Russian composer," said Jinny, the former Russian gangster, "you know, the '1812 Overture', the piece with the cannon fire in it."

Richard looked at Gale, said, "I don't know exactly what it is, but I think there's a whole book lurking in you. I'll have to think about that."

Gwendy looked at the cart and said, "Two bottles of champagne. Rose. What are the rest of you drinking," and broke out in that warm southern laughter that makes New Englanders, those fortunate enough to hear it, rethink the value of their gnarly heritage.

I said, "We've gotten Gale back in tune with her true self, so it seems we have only one more serious task to do today, and you two started on it. How about we finish that up, and then we can hit the food and drink?" I looked at Gwendy and asked, "You have stingers in your time?"

She looked at the other bottles on the cart and said, "Cognac and white creme de menthe? Oh, yeah, but we called that a 'Southern Charm' rather than a stinger. I must have drunk a thousand of them, and seeing the mixings for that makes me wanna jump right out of this painting. I'll enjoy your imbibition almost as much as you will."

I sat on the sofa and asked, "So what have you decided about your futures?"

Tommy looked up at Gwendy and said, "She wants to go home."

Just then the dog walked in, smelling like you know what, and said, "Home? I thought this was her home. This is the home of the current Bedgewood. Her," flinging a nod at me, his ears flapping.

"That's just it," she said. "This is the home of the current Bedgewood; but I'm the past Bedgewood, and my presence here cramps her style. I've been here seven weeks, and not one party. No visits by the Mayor or the Senator, no garden parties with Dragoon Punch or Southern Charms, no soirees with a diva playing the Steinway."

I said, "That might have something to do with Roger not being here."

She said, "Thank you dear, but we know the reality. And it's not just that. I miss my friends at the museum. When you get to be my age, you come to appreciate the steady and the known. It may be boring, but we care about each other a lot, and after all, we have something in common, don't we?"

The dog stopped licking the remains of the meatloaf from his lips, and the rest of us looked up at Gwendy with sympathy. Jinny said, "So what's that mean?"

Tommy said, "It means I have to take her back."

Gale, Jinny, and I looked at each other, did the telepathy thing that excluded Tommy and Richard but not the dog, and came to an understanding. I said, "No it doesn't." Tommy looked at me, puzzled, so I said, "We pinched her. We'll take her back."

He said, "How? And why take the risk?"

"We have our reasons."

Gale and Jinny remained silent, and Richard figured someone would tell him what was going on at some point, or else we wouldn't have invited him for cocktails. Finally the dog spoke up: "Gwen, stop fooling around. Tell him. We all know the story now."

I said, "What is the story?"

The dog said, "Jesus, do I have to do all the heavy lifting around here? Do I get stingers? Champagne? Antipasto and paties? No, I get meatloaf."

Richard said, "I thought you liked my meatloaf?"

"I do. I'm just busting your balls. Ok, here's the story. Tommy's one of us now. He's a Junie. So now you gotta treat him like one. And we know he quit his job with Ms. Granite, and we know he's staying here in Charleston, having seen the light regarding its cultural superiority over New York." Everyone looked at Tommy, who maintained a neutral look on his face. "And since he's a Junie, you gotta let him into this caper. He's gotta be part of taking Gwendy home."

We kept looking at Tommy until he said, "You going to use the same trick to get her in that you used to get her out?"

I looked at Jinny, who nodded. I said, "Yes."

Tommy said, "This I gotta see."

The dog went on, "And that's not all." He looked at Gale and said, "You may wanna cancel your date with the Confederate guy."

"Why would I want to do that?" she said. "I've been parched for seven weeks, defending Gwen's honor against the second coming of northern aggression. Now that the threat has been mitigated, I need to satiate the craving, get back to being the real me."

"You know why."

Jinny said, "He's right, Gale. Cancel."

We all looked first at her and then at Tommy, and then we saw something none of us ever had seen. We saw Gale blush. Gale the warrior fashionista; Gale the Charleston empress and temptress; Gale the Kama Sutra seductress. She looked at Tommy and said, "You want me to cancel?"

He nodded, Yes.

# Chapter 57 - The Next Production

We were ready to start on the food and champagne but I thought now we needed to do one more piece of business, so I said to Jinny, "Can you call up your friend? Ask about tomorrow night?"

He took out his cell, punched in a long number, waited, and said, "Zdrast-vwee-tye." He waited again, then said, "Da, da." Waited again, and then launched into a full conversation. After a minute he turned to me and said, "The first time was because he owed me. Now he says I'm gonna owe him."

I said, "What am I, your mother?"

He smiled and went back to talking with the guy in the Hermitage Museum, who, hopefully, was talking on a secure line. Another couple of minutes and he hung up, saying, "He wants to come here next March when it's still minus ten degrees in Saint Petersburg. Said the deal includes me setting him up with an American babe." He looked at Gale and said, "How about you?"

She looked at Tommy and said, "I'm taken."

I said, "So it's set for tomorrow night?" He nodded. I looked at Gwendy and said, "That work for you, hon?" She nodded. "Then let's break out the champagne," which we did. When the two bottles were gone, along with the antipasto and paties, Gwendy said, "I enjoyed that almost as much as y'all. Now, I have one more request."

Tommy said, "What? Anything."

"I want to be in a movie. Like Vivien Leigh."

The dog said, "Now this ought to be interesting."

"I don't know how, but that's what I want. Me and the other specials in the museum. You're creative. You did The Lost Ballet with Pete Townshend and the rock opera with McCartney. You can figure something out; I know you can."

My mouth was full of cold cuts and Jinny was holding the bottle of cognac, ready to pour into the shaker. Gale and Tommy were doing telepathy, shielded from the rest of us, planning their first night together. Richard was eating and drinking, but feeling left out, which I sensed. I turned to him and said, "You ever written a screenplay?"

"A what?" he said.

"A movie. Have you ever written a movie script?"

"No."

"Well, can you? You heard her."

He sat there like a dimwit; I couldn't tell if he was thinking about it or not. I wondered what type of person would marry a writer. Finally the dog said, helping him out, "He can do it. Anyone who can make meatloaf that good can write a screenplay." He looked at Richard and said, "You get stuck, I'll help you out."

Richard mobilized by getting his cumbersome ass off the sofa, and started pacing the living room. He motioned to Jinny to mix the first batch of stingers, went around the piano a few times, looked up at Gwendy hanging on the wall, watching him, ate a handful of olives from the antipasto plate, took the coupe glass Jinny handed him and knocked back the ice-cold stinger, shook his head, looked at me, and said, "Yes, I can do it."

I wasn't sure I believed him, so I looked at Gwendy and said, "What do you think?"

She paused, closed her eyes, looked at him, closed her eyes again, then looked at me and said, "He can do it. I'm good."

I thought, 'Thank god, now I can have a stinger,' when Jinny said, "Whoa, that's not the end. Who's going to produce the movie?"

Tommy said, "Who's going to finance the movie?"

Goddamn it. More problems. I really wanted that stinger so I said, impetuously, "I'll produce it. Roger and me. I don't know who will finance it."

Gwendy said, "Thank you, dear."

Jinny stood there shaking the shaker, full of ice, cognac, and creme de menthe, not very graceful but getting the job done, and said, "I'll finance it."

Gale said, "It's gonna take more than your two million."

He said, "I got a plan."

# Chapter 58 - She Goes Home

The next night at 2am Gwendy took a last look around the living room and said, "I'm ready." We all smiled at her, blew kisses, and Jinny covered the painting with a silk blanket. He lifted the two hundred pounds of frame, canvas, and spirit off the wall like it was a newspaper, carried it through the kitchen, onto the back porch, down the steps, and into the back of the step van. The writer said he was scared, so we left him home, but the five of us climbed into the front and headed up Meeting Street to the museum. We drove around for a while, casing the joint until 2:45, when Jinny dialed the same long number and said, 'Go' in Russian. He stayed on the line for five minutes, when the person on the other end said something to him. He punched the end button and gave us a thumbs up. I backed the van up to the same door we had used last time, and we got out.

Tommy said, "That's it? Your guy in Russia can do it that fast? Just a phone call from Jinny?"

"What do you know about our guy Russia?" I asked."

"My momma's boy from Brooklyn says he's good. Very good. Says the guy's an artist. Showed me a photo of him sitting in his office in the Hermitage, playing 'Let's Conquer Crimea' on his computer. Photo was taken by one of our satellites, looking in his window."

I said, "So your guy's pretty good too?"

"You can be good at something and still have a Brooklyn accent."

"You like to play games, don't you, Tommy Crown?"

He smiled, but as we were breaking and entering, I cut off the conversation and we went in. Up the stairs, down the long hall past the Gershwin piano in its case, past the silver service in its case, and into the gallery. The lights came on and the cheers erupted from the walls and the plexiglass exhibit cases, and we heard the first bars of a rousing rendition of 'For She's a Jolly Good Fellow'. Gale removed the blanket and Jinny hung her back in her old place, finally covering the rectangle of discolored paint. There she was, now dressed in glowing, aristocratic burgundy trimmed in silver at the the collar and wrists, her blond hair gleaming in the UV lights shining down from tracks on the ceiling. "For she's a jolly good fellow, for she's a jolly good fellow,' and then the ending, and clapping, and all the specials laughing and telling her, "Welcome back, we missed you so." The room was drenched in good cheer.

We watched all this, knowing this was the right move, happy for her and them, surprised by just how many specials existed in this gallery, all types and sizes and colors. Finally Tommy said to me, "This is great, but maybe we should quiet things down a little and turn off the lights. Someone may see or hear us from outside. I don't want to end up in the slammer on my first venture into the dark side."

I said, "You got a taste of Gale last night, and you don't want to miss out on more of her."

"That too," he said.

I stepped to the center of the gallery and raised my arms in a dihedral. "Specials," I said in not too loud a voice. "She's back, and we're going to miss her. But this is where she belongs, and now that we see all of her friends and how much they care for her, we know this is her home." A crescendo of clapping started, and Tommy looked around for the SWAT team. I motioned for quiet with my arms, and went on, "We have two things to discuss with you, one a proposal, and one a request." All the entities quieted down, and those with eyes looked at us with curiosity. We assumed those without eyes and ears had some way to understand us. I said, "First, Gwendy has asked us to make a movie, with her and all of you in it, and we have agreed. We don't know what form that will take, but we've done a couple of important productions recently, a ballet and a rock opera, and we think we can come up with something interesting. We want to make sure that sits well with you."

Something strange happened then, it was like we were transported into a hive of bees. We sensed a lot of buzzing and bizzing, though we weren't sure if it was something we heard with our ears or were aware of in some other way. Tommy asked, "What's that? What's going on?"

I didn't know any more than he did, but I said, "Cloud communication."

I didn't know what that meant, I just said it. In a minute it stopped, thank goodness, somewhat annoying, and Gwendy said, "Gwenny, hon, they're all in. We'd be honored to star in your production." She looked around at her friends and beamed.

"Ok, good. Now the second thing is a request. We learned something with Gwendy, that we can't come in here and appropriate....er....borrow....er....pinch, things....er....people....er....you specials. We need to ask first. So we have a request." We looked around and felt the tension, the anticipation, emanating from the walls and the cases. "We'd like to offer three of you the chance for a vacation. A change of scene, just like Gwendy had. Well, almost like her. We'd like to offer two temporary vacations, and one permanent. The buzzing started again, buzz buzz bizz bizz. Jinny put his hands over his ears even though he wasn't sure he was hearing the noise. It only lasted fifteen seconds, and then Gwendy said, "Who dear? Who do you want to take on vacation?"

I looked at Gale, who said, "It would be my pleasure to offer the sterling silver coffee service in the case over there a temporary vacation in my home. I love her and think I, we," looking at Tommy, "could provide her with an interesting experience. We can tell she loves the social scene, and that's what we can offer at our place." Gale beamed first at Tommy, then at Gwendy, and then at the silver pieces at the far end of the gallery.

Buzz buzz bizz bizz, and then from the case came, "We're an us, hon, not just a her. And we'd be delighted to spend some time with you and Tommy. An honor."

Gale took Tommy by the hand and led him over to the case where the new friends got to know each other a little. I said, "The second request is by me. I would love to have the Gershwin piano come to visit at my house." Buzz buzz bizz bizz. "My husband and I always have loved their music, and knowing "Summertime" was composed on the piano, here in Charleston, that's always made him special. We have a Steinway who we know wouldn't mind sharing space in our living room."

Buzz buzz bizz bizz, and then from outside the gallery and down the hall came something, words or a feeling or intuition or something, something communicative, "I'm a her, dear, and I'd love to visit with you and Roger. Do you play?" I thought, 'Yes,' and she said, "Wonderful. I look forward to some parties and soirees and concerts. It's been long time."

We were two for two, so I nodded at Jinny and he stepped forward. "I'm the one with the request for a permanent vacation. A relocation, really." Buzz buzz bizz bizz. "One of your esteemed members, fellows, was born in my country, many years ago. In my hometown of Saint Petersburg."

The almost imperceptible buzzing ratcheted up, and we heard, or sensed, "It's the Faberge. He wants the Faberge."

Jinny understood, and went on, "Yes, I am requesting the honor of relocating the Faberge table back to his birthplace, Saint Petersburg."

The cloud buzzed and bizzed, and then quieted down, leaving one voice, or sensation. "I am the Faberge table, Jinny, and your request brings me both great joy and great sadness. As much as I have loved Charleston, for many years I have longed to see Russia again. Home is where the heart is. This possibility is an unexpected and astounding event, and my answer is yes. I want to go home. But with that said, I know I will leave my friends and family here, with a heavy heart. I know we will stay in touch through the cloud."

Now all of us put our hands over our ears, and Tommy again started worrying that someone outside the museum would hear, or sense, what was going on inside and call the cops. Gwendy picked up on this and gave the order to quiet down, which all obeyed. She said, "Ok, these deals are done, and it's getting late and I know you need to get out of here. But one thing, can Jinny, or the table, give us an explanation of his birth. I always have thought of Gustav Faberge as a jeweler."

Jinny deferred to the table, who buzzed, "My creator was only twenty when he made me in 1834. Yes, he went on to great fame and fortune as a jeweler, along with his son Peter, with the family reaching its apotheosis in Peter's creation of the eggs. But Gustav's father was a cabinet maker, and he started Gustav in the same trade when he was fifteen. After birthing me, however, he was presented with an opportunity to apprentice to a well-known Saint Petersburg jeweler, and the rest is history."

"Gotcha," said Gwendy, though not sure that amounted to the table being insured for twelve million when she only was insured for two point five, but she didn't buzz that thought aloud.

I looked at my watch that said 4:30am, and motioned to Gwendy to wrap it up. She did, buzzing to her friends the show was over, and somehow the lights went off. Gale said, "Now what?"

I looked at Jinny and said, "Now what?"

He said, "Now we get out of here. You get the silver," looking at Gale, "and you get the table," looking at Tommy, "and I'll get the piano."

Gale looked at him and said, "You're going to pick up a piano and carry it out? My hero." She looked at Tommy and said, "Can you pick up a piano?" He shook his head, No. She said, "Good thing you got other talents," and smiled at him.

And that's what happened. Jinny squatted with his back to the flat side of the upright piano, got his hands under the bottom edge, and simply stood up. Voila, out he marched, out Gale marched with the service, out marched Tommy carefully carrying the only known Faberge table in the world, and I brought up the rear.

# Chapter 59 - My Hubby Comes Home

The dog went nuts, barking like a fiend, which startled them in the living room, considering they'd only heard him talking, or rather sensed his telepathy, for the last eight weeks. It's a wonder he still knows how to bark. Gale said, "That must be them. Don't be nervous, he's not going to kill you."

She and Tommy and Jinny and Richard were in the living room, desperately waiting for me and Roger to get back from the airport so they could pour the cabernet that was sitting in the decanter on the coffee table. Bark bark bark came from the kitchen, then hearing the back door open, and voices. Three voices, the dog doing the barking for show but now switching to telepathizing to welcome home his master. None of us has figured out if the telepathy is a sound or an internal sensation a la the buzzing and bizzing of the Special's cloud. Again Gale told Tommy not to be nervous, which of course made him nervous.

We entered the living room where Roger found Jinny sitting on the piano stool, grinning at him, Richard on one of the French chairs, looking cowardly but studious, as usual, Gale and a guy on the sofa, her draped around him languorously and protectively, an upright piano against the wall near the Steinway grand, and a new coffee service on the sideboard, shining like a cluster of comets that had grouped together for warmth and become enmeshed in the gravitational field of the sideboard. He smiled at each of them, especially Jinny, whose acquaintance he had made while pointing a gun at him and saying, "My name is Roger June; you stole from my auntie; prepare to die," him saying that because he liked the movie The Princess Bride so much. Then he looked around the room at the walls, finally saying to me, "So where is it?"

"Where's what?" I deadpanned.

He looked at Jinny and said, "Was she lying to me all this time, making it up, pretending she was doing exciting stuff and wasn't bored without me?"

"Lying about what?" depanned Jinny.

Roger smiled again and turned from Jinny to Tommy, who untangled himself from Gale and stood up. He walked over and said, "I'm Roger. Nice to meet you. You the investigator?"

Tommy said, "Tommy Crown. I was."

Gale grabbed the back of his shirt, pulled him down on the sofa, and said, "He was the investigator, but we broke him of that shit. Now he's a Junie." She kissed his ear wetly like only she can do, then stood up herself, crouched, and leaped over the decanter sitting on the coffee table and into Roger's arms, who caught her like a champ.

He said, "I see you've been busy while I was away," and then he got a wet one right on the mouth. When she finished he looked at Tommy and said, "You wanna trade for a while?" He set her down, looked at the decanter, picked it up and smelled the wine, said, "Screaming Eagle, 1996. That cost me $1200. Who broke into my wine cellar?"

I took the decanter out of his hand, picked up a glass and poured some cab into it, handed it to him and said, "Whose wine cellar, stranger?"

He said, "At least you saved some of it for me. How many bottles y'all drink without me?" He looked at Richard, smiled and said, "You embarrass us in any new books?"

Richard said, "You still think they're about you? You and your boring wife? Why would I waste time on that?" and he smiled back at Roger.

Gale said, "He's going to try something new. Not another novel."

"What?"

"A screenplay. For a movie."

"What's the movie about?"

She looked at me and said, "You wanna tell him?"

"Later," I said. "Let's get a couple glasses of wine into him first, makes him easier to handle."

Jinny poured for the rest of us, each getting our $200's worth of wine, which was fabulous. The dog said, "What about me?"

I looked at Roger and said, "He's been working on his sense of humor while you were away."

We sat down and I could see him start to relax. A sixth of a bottle isn't much wine, and our $200's worth was gone quickly. He said, "No painting, but we have a new silver service, antique table, and piano. Not many people have two pianos in their living room, one being a concert grand and the other looking suspiciously like the one George Gershwin wrote 'Summertime' on." He didn't look at me, but stared at his empty glass.

Gale said, "The silver service is mine. I just haven't had time to get it over to my house."

Roger looked at Jinny and said, "The piano yours? You going to take it over to your house soon? It just resting here a while?"

"The piano's Gwen's. The table is mine," he said.

"The table have a story? Anything to do with the egg guy?"

Jinny said, "You remember it from the museum?" Roger nodded, and Jinny said, "It's the one and only."

"And now it's here, in my living room? The one and only Faberge table?" Jinny nodded. "How much is it worth?"

Jinny said, "Don't know, but I aim to find out."

Roger looked at Gale and said, "Your new silver. It come from the museum too?" She nodded. He looked at the dog and said, "I left you in charge. I go away for a few weeks, my wife pinches a famous painting, which now has disappeared, and I come home to find three stolen objects in my living room worth about ten million dollars. And," looking at Tommy and then back at the dog, "a former insurance investigator is sitting here, drinking my very expensive wine. You got anything to say for yourself?"

He said, "Don't blame me. I didn't marry Gwenny June, you did. All I got outta this was some lousy meatloaf. If it wasn't for me, things would be a lot worse. I kept a lid on it the best I could."

He looked at Jinny and said, "I think we need to bypass the second bottle of wine and move right onto the Sidecars. How about you mix up a batch?" Jinny nodded and went to the liquor cabinet. Roger said, "Jinny, make it a large batch, ok?" Jinny nodded, not really needing to be told that.

He turned to me and asked, "What's the plan, darling?"

"You've got a month to yourself. You can work on the film, play with me, play down in your wine cellar, drink yourself into a stupor, take the dog for long walks and teach him some manners, whatever you want."

He said, "I like the play with you option the best." I smiled at him, my hubby, back in my arms. "Then what? After a month of sensational love-making?"

"Then we start the next production."

"What production?"

"We're going to make a movie."

He didn't blink, like most guys would've, but said, "First a ballet with Townshend, then a rock opera with McCartney, then a movie with Soderberg and Clooney, and now another movie?"

Tommy looked at Gale and said, "You didn't tell me about a movie with Steven Soderberg and George Clooney."

She said, "I forgot."

I said, "That's the plan. Unless you have something better to do?"

Roger said, "What's the movie about?"

"The Specials. In the museum. Gwendy and her friends."

He thought about that, deferred the obvious question, asked, "How we paying for it?"

I looked at Jinny, who said, "Table."

Roger looked at him, then at the Faberge table, and said, "You're going to sell the table and use the money to finance the movie?"

Jinny nodded and said to all of us, "I told you I had a plan."

Roger said, "How are you going to sell one of the most famous antiques in the world? Now one of the most famous STOLEN antiques in the world?"

"Rich guy in Saint Petersburg. North Sea oil. Buddy of Putin. They won't ask any questions, not about getting back something Russian. Not about a Faberge thing."

Roger nodding, accepting all of this as normal for his household. He said, "Why a month from now? Why not start right away?"

'That's my baby,' I thought. I said, "We have to wait a month for the screenplay. Then we can start."

Everyone looked at Richard, who impatiently was waiting for the Sidecars, which Jinny had finished mixing and was pouring into coupe glasses. He sensed the stares and looked up. Gale said, "You got a month to write the screenplay. That's it. Better not drink too much tonight. You gotta be fresh tomorrow, get started."

Now it registered with Richard, who said, "A month? Screenplay? A month? No way."

He looked around at each of us, which was like looking down the barrel of a bunch of twelve-gauge shotguns. He said, "Oh shit."

The dog took pity and said, "I told you, if you get stuck, I'll help. We can do it." Richard slugged back his drink and held his glass out to Jinny for a refill.

We all sipped our drinks, except the dog who went into the kitchen and sloshed up some water from his bowl. I looked at my hubby and said, "You glad to be back with the family?"

He said, "God, am I."

Epilogue

You thought I forgot about that minor plot line, didn't you? Yeah, you did; admit it.

But not 'mind like a steel trap' Dorrance. Not me, never happen. And now that I have disabused you of that notion, now you're trying to hang something else on me, thinking, not only did the lame brain forget a plot line, forget to tie it up at the end of the book, now he's taking the easy way out with this chintzy epilogue trick. Instead of going back into the manuscript and doing another revision like a real writer would do, a man of honor, finding the right place and producing another chapter that would tie it up with dignity, he doing this thing; this chintzy thing.

Well, that's not true either. I had this planned all along. The epilogue has a long and distinguished pedigree in littrature, and it is a right and proper vehicle for this situation. So there!

The plot line in question has to do with Westlake who, I have to admit, is a bit of a lame brain, but I can't have all the characters be like Donny. You remember him, right? Adonis, Gwen's boyfriend. Anyway, here's what happened with Westlake.

Richard woke up the next morning to find two things in his bedroom: a smashing headache inside his skull, and the dog sitting next to his bed, staring at him. He said, "What time is it?"

The dog looked at his watch and said, "Seven am. Rise and shine."

"Are you crazy? Get out of here. Come back at noon," and he pulled the covers over his head.

The dog thought, 'A true friend's work is never done,' took hold of the covers with his teeth, and pulled them off the pathetic human being. What he saw wasn't a pretty sight. Even at his best the writer wasn't much to look at, and now....yuck. He brought his herding skills to the front, nip nip, and soon the guy was sitting at the kitchen counter, downing a morning cocktail of aspirin and coffee. He said, "I need a little hair of the dog mixed in here."

The dog said, "No way. You got work to do."

"What work? I'm retired."

"You know what work. The screenplay. We got thirty days, and the clock is ticking. It's not like you've done this a dozen times, know what you're doing."

"Leave me alone. I'll start tomorrow."

"Gwen sent me over here, said you're starting today, and that's that. Get your ass in gear, or the next one won't be a little nip."

"You'd actually bite me?"

"I'd actually do what Gwen told me to do."

Richard said, "She better be careful about pushing me around. I got plenty on her."

"Stop with the stupid bravado. You couldn't go up against her with the 82nd Airborne at your back."

He knew that was a fact, and said, "Let me finish this," taking another handful of aspirin and another slug of coffee.

The dog collapsed into a modified sphinx formation after his exertions and said, "So how much did you make off the bet?"

"What bet?"

"The bet that you could guess how the story ended, and you could write the last chapter of the book first, and put it on the internet, and challenge people to bet you wouldn't get it right. How much did you make?"

"Oh, that. It's not over yet. It's still going on. They're still betting online, and it's doing pretty good."

"So how much you make so far? Or how much you lose so far, more like it."

"No, I got it right. I knew Gwenny would return the painting to the museum, and that's what I wrote in the last chapter. So I'm winning all the bets."

"How many are there? Bets."

"Last time I looked, quite a few. Some people really got into it."

"How much did they bet?"

"Mostly small amounts, but a few bigger ones."

"So how much you make?"

"About forty."

"That all? Forty bucks?"

"Forty thousand."

That made the dog uncross his front legs, sit up, and look at the writer with more respect. Given his writing skills, who'da thought he could pull this off. After a minute, during which Richard poured himself another cup of coffee, the dog said, "That oughta keep us in loaf for a while."

###

Richard Dorrance lives in America's most beautiful town,

Charleston, South Carolina.

You can look at other books on his website: richarddorrance.com
