It was 9pm, and Nev was on his way to the airport to pick up his boss. He was pissed because he was going to miss a great movie on TV, The Hunt for Red October. He wasn’t Russian, like his boss, he was Israeli, but he loved the way Sean Connery played the Russian sub commander in the movie. Who knew that a thick Scottish accent could be tweaked to sound like a thick Russian accent? Nev had been living alone in the mansion hanging out over Charleston harbor for the last two weeks, while Stirg was in France, trying to find out which movie his granddaughter was in, and where it was shooting. She had told him she was in the movie, and that it was in France, but hadn’t given him any details. It had been a long time since he went on a trip, and he decided he might as well go find her.
Which he had. She was in Paris, and they had had lunch twice, but her shooting schedule was full and the work was exhausting. Anna really didn’t want him there, which is why she hadn’t told him the details. Still, she was glad to see him, and then glad to see him go. Now he was back in Charleston, and Nev hoped he wasn’t still crazy, the way he had been six months earlier, when he and the Junes had gotten into it. That had been a serious affair.
“How was France? How is Anna?”
Stirg got into the Rolls and settled into the deep leather seat. He said, “Anna’s good. She gets better looking every year, and that’s saying something. Did you know that Greta Garbo wasn’t that hot when she was a teenager, when she was young? Something changed in her mid-twenties, and she became the most beautiful woman the world has ever known. Anna’s not going to get up there, but she is something to look at.”
Nev never knew what to say when his boss started talking about Anna. One time Stirg had asked Nev why he never had made a pass at her, and Nev knew dangerous territory when he saw it. He had answered, “Because she’s a nice girl, and she’s your granddaughter, and you’re my boss. And because I’m not crazy.” Then Stirg had asked him if Anna was a girl or a woman or a babe. Nev saw landmines all around that question, and saw a need to go fix them both fresh bloody marys, thus not having to answer.
Stirg said, “She was very busy. I only got to see her twice, both times for lunch. But that was ok. That was enough. I just wanted to make sure we still are friends.”
Anna had sided with the Junes when they and her grandfather had gotten crossways over the Hermitage heist. Stirg had been royally pissed at them for stealing Russian heritage items, and smuggling them to Charleston. One evening, the entire June team was out in Charleston harbor on Henric’s boat, eating fresh fish and drinking champagne. Stirg had gone crazy, and attacked them out on the water, using his huge power cruiser as a battering ram. Roger had outmaneuvered Stirg and saved their asses. Anna had been on board Henric’s boat with Stirg not knowing that before the attack. So for a while, he and Anna had been at odds, but now they were reconciled. That’s why Stirg went all the way to France, and what he meant when he said he wanted to make sure they still were friends.
Stirg said, “What have the fucks been up to while I was away?” Nev knew he meant the Junes and the Gromstovs and the rest of the Hermitage heist team.
“Don’t really know, Boss. Haven’t been keeping track of them. Been busy.”
“Busy doing what?”
“Taking care of the place. Lots of work to keep up a house like yours.”
Stirg’s place was big. It was situated halfway out the length of a massive concrete dock that extended 100 yards into Charleston harbor, off the tip of the peninsula. He looked at Nev, sitting behind the wheel of the Rolls. “You been doing the Otis thing, haven’t you?” By this he meant the Otis Redding thing, sittin’ on the dock of the bay, watchin’ the tide roll away.
“Working, Boss, working almost all the time. No time for Otis.”
“Well, I’m back. I want you to find out what the fucks are up to. I wanna know.”