It had been a month since the special luncheon out at Fort Sumter, and both Stirg and Nev were bored. With Anna out of the country, Stirg had lost his reason for behaving like a simple citizen. He spoke to her regularly by phone, and kept asking when she was coming home, but her answers were vague: the film was taking longer than scheduled, she was getting other acting offers, she didn’t know when she was coming home. And what could he do about it? Nothing. So he concentrated on what the fucks were doing with their production. That’s what he and Nev talked about every day. During the month since Gwen told him they weren’t ending their production, he had come to think of the Stravinsky score, the ballet, as his ballet. He hardly knew what was involved in a world-class production, yet that was how he viewed things. Not Russia’s ballet, but his ballet. Nev wasn’t quite so squirrelly, but he was looking for redemption. Commando and bodyguard redemption.
Roger and Gwen hadn’t forgotten about Stirg, and they talked about him a couple of times a week, but what could they do? And they had lots of work to do, of a type neither of them ever had done. This was one of the great challenges of their lives, so they were preoccupied.
Stirg, Nev, and Otis all hung out on the dock, waiting. Which was fine with Otis, as that is his raison d'être. It wasn’t so fine with the other two, who still had the old stirrings that motivate men of action. They wanted revenge, justice, and redemption. Stirg wasn’t the slightest bit interested in fishing, but he let Nev play with his pole out on the dock in the same way that owners of retrievers let their dogs keep tennis balls in their mouths until they disintegrate from the slobber. One day he joked with Nev, saying, “What have you been doing with all the fish you been catching out there? I sure haven’t eaten any. You know I like fish, salt cod especially.” Stirg had eaten a lot of salt cod when he was a poor kid, growing up in Saint Petersburg. He had yet to make the transition to the modern day penchant for fresh fish.
Nev’s feelings were hurt by the joke, but he had the wherewithal to play the game with his boss. “I been donating everything I catch to the kid’s orphanage here. Pretty much been supplying all the lunches for the whole place. They send a small boat to the dock every other day, and I fill it up with non-mercury containing fish. They said they’re going to give me a humanitarian award soon. I figured you can afford to buy all the fish you want. ”
Stirg let the game lapse. He really wasn’t in the mood. He was in another mood, and said, “When’s it going to happen? I’m tired of waiting. When are you going to steal the ballet?”
“Soon, boss. Gonna happen soon. Just another week. Hang in there. I’ll go to the store, see if anyone here in Charleston has any salt cod.”