Stella said, “What did he mean ‘he’s the one that’s going to end up in the harbor’?”
The others shrugged. Scotilly said, “A simple little one person kidnapping, that’s all we wanted. Paul would write a few songs, we’d do a show, pick up the ransom check, everyone would go home. Us, we’d go find a new home, a nice place to keep all that McCartney money. And now, look at what we got. How many people involved now, Jools?”
“We got us five, and the three idiots in black, and Richard, and the Junes, and a bunch of the June’s friends, like that woman who talks all the time, the mouth, and the Stirg guy, her grandfather,” pointing at Anna, “and the grandfather’s bodyguard the Israeli guy. So, that’s like twenty or something.”
“And now we have two kidnapping instead of one.”
“We have two successful kidnappings, and one attempted but failed kidnapping, the idiots on King Street. So they made amends for that failure.”
“When they call tomorrow, they’re going to demand that we give them Anna. That’s what they wanted the first time. Right?” The other nodded. “And since she’s part of the June’s group, I guess we better call and tell them.”
Jools said, “We don’t have the June’s number. It’s unlisted. We always call Richard, and he calls them.”
Anna said, “I know the number. Gimme the phone.”
“You know that’s not the way we do it. Can’t let you give them some secret signal about where you are. Tell us the number, let Scotilly do the talking.”
Scotilly said, “You talk, Jools. I gotta keep up my image of the head chopping Taliban lady.”
Stella said, “Lady. I like that, a head chopping lady.”
Anna told him the number, and Jools dialed.
“Hello.”
“Gwenny, dear, Jools here. How are you?”
“I told you not to call me Gwenny, you prissy English prick.”
“So sorry, Ms. June. But when all this is over, I do hope we can be friends.”
“What do you want?”
“There’s been a development.”
“Did the head-chopper cut off her own thumb accidentally, waving her sword around?”
Anna laughed, Scotilly glared.
“Actually, it’s something serious. There’s been a kidnapping.”
“You mean another kidnapping? Since you committed the first kidnapping.”
“Well, yes, technically speaking, there’s been another kidnapping. Those three guys in black clothes have snatched Richard.”
“Who is there with you?”
“Sir McCartney, Ms. McCartney, and Ms. Stirg.”
“Anna, is he bullshitting? Has Richard been kidnapped?
“It’s the truth, Gwen. We just talked with them, and we talked with Richard.”
“Standby.”
Gwen took the phone into the study where Roger was reading a Donald E. Westlake novel. He said, “I love Dortmunder. What a great character. Westlake is so funny.”
“It’s Anna and Jools on the phone. We have something that’s not so funny. The NNs have snatched Richard.”
Roger put down the book and said, “When? What do they want?”
“I don’t know. What do they want, Jools?”
“They didn’t tell us. Said they would call tomorrow.”
Roger said, “I didn’t think this could get any crazier.”
Gwen said, “Tell us where you are, Jools. We’ll come over tomorrow when they call, work out a plan.”
“Now, Gwenny. Ms. June. No tricks. When they call, we’ll let you know what they want. In the meantime, we need to keep working on the opera. Paul has the central concept ready, and maybe we can fill you in on that tomorrow. You need to know. Are you making progress on the pre-production?”
“What we’re making progress on is tracking you down. You hear a knock on your door, Jools, it’s going to be us. Make sure the head-chopper knows that, ok?”
“My, my, such vehemence in such a lovely voice. Ta, Gwenny.”
Gwen looked at her husband and said, “I guess we better let the others know of this complication. How’d the NNs find Richard? How’d they know about him?”
“I don’t know, but now we have two teams of kidnappers to find. And these guys aren’t like Jools. They may be dangerous.” He looked wistfully at his book. No time for reading, now.
Chapter 33 – The World’s Greatest Singer
Anna and Paul sat together on the piano bench, listening to the powerful sound of the Steinway. What a difference an hour with a tuner had made. Paul would play a song, or part of a song, and then Anna would improvise some jazz riffs, and then Paul would play again. There’s nothing like the tone of a Steinway grand. While they played, Stella hung her fabric rejects on the walls of the studio. Like Paul, she found that nails wouldn’t go into the concrete, and switched to duct tape, which looked uglier than sin, but it worked. By the time she'd worked around the room, the sounds of the piano had mellowed.
Paul left Anna to the piano and went to the Roland Fantom G8 synthesizer. He powered it on, tuned a few dials, flipped a few toggle switches to create a clavichord sound, and played The Band’s song Stage Fright, singing like Richard Manuel. After twenty bars and three stanzas, he keep playing the melody, but said, “I love The Band. So did George. He thought they were the best musicians in the world. I think Richard Manuel had one of the most expressive voices I’ve ever heard. I’m sorry he’s gone. I loved hearing him sing,”
See the man with the stage fright,
Just standin' up there to give it all his might.
And he got caught in the spotlight,
But when we get to the end,
He wants to start all over again.
“I’ve been thinking about something else, too, not just the central concept of the opera, the relationships thing. I said we need a couple more great singers, people much better than me. I can sing parts of the songs, but we need someone that can carry a hall without amplification. We need a truly great singer, a woman. I know what the songs are going to be about, in general, the main concept and maybe a theme or two, but I don’t know the songs yet. They will come over the next month, one by one. I do know, or I feel, that most of the stories in the songs are going to be told from the female point of view. So, we need a great female voice to sing them. And I think I know who.” He stopped playing and looked at his daughter and Anna.
Stella said, “Who?”
“Renee Fleming.”
Anna said, “The opera star? The classical opera star?” He nodded. She looked at Stella and said, “You know her?”
“I know the name, but no, I don’t know her music.”
Paul said, “I watched a documentary a year ago about opera. They interviewed Sir George Solti, the conductor. He was eighty years old at the time, and had been one of the heavyweights of classical music for sixty years, and he said that over his whole career, Renee Fleming was one of the two greatest voices he’d ever heard. The other was some Italian singer. It made a real impression on me, and I went out and bought some CDs of hers. You know what? She’s made a couple of pop CDs, one is jazzy and one is pure pop. You ever heard them?” The two women shook their heads, no. “The pop CD is titled Dark Hope, and I love it. Really love it. You know, the greatest male pop singer of all time is Ray Charles. He’s the best. Dark Hope makes Renee Fleming the greatest female pop singer of all time. She is unbelievable; so effortlessly pure in voice. She sounds like aged bordeaux tastes.”
Anna said, “I guess we gotta have Jools get us those CDs. I want to hear her.”
Paul played a few more stanzas of Stage Fright, again singing mournfully like Richard Manuel. “Anna, Stella, we have to do more than that. We have to get her to sing for us. Sing our opera. Sing my songs, here in Charleston. She’s the best, and she’ll make our show the best, the greatest. Can you two do that? Can you get her?”
A
nna and Stella looked at each other. How were they going to get one of the worlds most popular and in-demand classical opera singers, to sing a rock opera, in two months. She must be booked years in advance. Stella said, “How are we going to do that? How are we going to get her to agree to work with us on short notice? She might do it, based on your name; who you are. Maybe. But in two months. Christ, we’re locked in a concrete bunker with no windows, no internet, not even a phone.”
He stopped playing and asked, “How did the Junes get Pete Townshend to do the ballet? To transcribe the Stravinsky music, and then play the entire score for the eight performances? How did they do that? They didn’t know him. He didn’t owe them a huge favor. But they got him. And he’s the greatest rock n roll song writer in the world. Well, after me.”
Stella looked at Anna and said, “How did they do that? Get him?”
Anna thought for a moment, and said, “Nothing’s impossible for Gwenny June.”
Chapter 34 – Resurrecting The Hall
Roger parked the car on Charlotte Street and they walked the three blocks to The Hall. They hadn’t been in the place for two weeks, and they had planned on not being there for several months, at least They had planned on a long vacation on St. Barths, eating seafood and drinking French wines from the Loire Valley, relaxing after working seven days a week for months on end producing the Stravinsky ballet. Here they were, unlocking the doors at the rear of the theater, turning on the lights, thinking about the next production. And about the three kidnappings. It was bad enough having one of their team snatched, along with Paul and Stella McCartney; now another of their friends was in trouble. As they walked down the center aisle towards the stage, their thoughts flowed along the same track: “Should we retire and take it easy? Should we assiduously avoid getting involved in thefts and capers and producing artistic performances? Should we be like other people?” Simultaneously they stopped walking and looked at each other.
Telegraphically, Roger said, “But we are retired. We don’t have regular jobs.”
Telegraphically, Gwen answered, “We are? How come we just worked every day for eight months on the ballet?”
“That’s not work.”
“It’s not? What was it?”
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t work. It was….”
“Do you want to be like other people, not get involved in caper stuff?”
“No. But things do get squirrelly sometimes, like now. I don’t mind doing another production, but we got two friends kidnapped, one by a group of nuts. We should be over on the island right now, drinking wine with lunch.”
Gwen ended the wordless conversation by saying, “And then, what do you think might have happened after that lunch?”
Roger jumped onto the stage, looked down at her, and sang,
Into the bedroom with you my darling,
Into the sack with you.
Under the covers with you my dear,
Rolling like thunder with you.
That’s our afternoon together my Gwenny,
That’s my proposal to you my dear.
He tried to sing it like Elton John because he knew Gwen loved his songs, but, well, it was the thought that counted. She raised her hand to him and he pulled her up on the stage, where she gave him a kiss. Then she went to the back of the stage and turned on the remainder of the lights and the air conditioner. Roger rolled a few chairs out from the wings, along with the computer on its rolling table.
Gwen flopped into one of the chairs and started dialing numbers: Slev, Jinny, Stirg. Roger dialed up McGradys Restaurant and ordered lunch for eight. McGradys knew what the Junes liked, having catered dozens of lunches and casual dinners at The Hall over the days of the ballet production. In turn, Gwen told her friends (she included Stirg and Nev on this list just as a matter of form) they had to come down to The Hall, there had been a development. They all arrived about the same time as the McGradys delivery, and the food was set up on folding tables. Gwen said, “Let’s eat. Then the news.”
Slev, Constantine, Jinny, and Guignard had not been involved in the ballet production. Stirg and Nev had. Twice Stirg had sent Nev to The Hall to steal the Stravinsky score so that the world premiere of the ballet could be done in Saint Petersburg rather than Charleston. One attempt had been a strong arm affair, with Nev showing up one morning, waving a gun around, and the other had been surreptitious, with Nev hacking into the computer. The first attempt had failed, the second had been successful. The point is that Stirg and Nev were no strangers to the June’s place of work. Here they were now, friends of sorts, breaking bread together, with a common goal. McCradys had brought wine, as usual, but no one was in the mood. After eating, Guignard served coffee, and Gwen said, “We asked you to come to tell you there’s been another kidnapping. The NNs grabbed Richard earlier today. They said they have demands, and are going to tell us what they are tomorrow.”
Slev said, “Does Anna know?”
“Yes. Jools used Anna’s phone to call Richard, and the NNs answered. Then Jools called us. So we have to wait until tomorrow to hear their demands. It doesn’t matter what they are. We know it’s going to be money and something to do with you,” nodding towards Stirg.
He said, “Yeah, money and revenge against me.”
Gwen said, “So we have to revise our strategy. We have to hunt two groups of kidnappers. And while we’re doing that, the NNs will be hunting for Anna to get to Stirg. And while they’re doing that, Jools and the crazy lady will be making Paul write songs, which he will send to us so we can do the production.” Everyone looked at everyone around the circle of chairs. Gwen said to her husband, “You want to stay on the production team, or move to the hunter team? We don’t have much to produce yet, and now we have to hunt two preys instead of one.”
Roger thought for a few seconds and said, “Yeah, maybe I should go hunting. Maybe we should divide up into two teams.”
Again everyone looked around the circle, understanding this meant there would be one team with Nev and someone else. Who? Both Roger and Jinny had been part of the invasion of Stirg’s mansion. It had been Nev’s job to prevent such invasions, so they had made Nev look bad. Constantine had been on the sailboat the evening Stirg and Nev had decided to try to turn it into a hundred small pieces, floating out in the harbor waters, so he didn’t exactly view Nev in a brotherly way. The looking around continued. Gwen cut through that immediately, saying, “Roger, you and Jinny look for Jools and the woman. Constantine, you and Nev look for the NNs. As soon as they call tomorrow and tell us what they want for Richard’s return, the hunt begins.
Chapter 35 – What to Do?
During the time the Junes were working on the Stravinsky ballet, Richard had been hanging out with Anna in France. She was acting in the movie, Stella was doing the costumes, and he was doing script rewrites. It was the second time Anna had worked with Spielberg, the first being in a documentary with Catherine Deneuve, about champagne. It was the first time working in movies for Stella and Richard. At the same time, Richard was falling more and more in love with Anna, even though they worked long hours, and Anna was falling for him. This definitely was the most fun Richard ever had had in his entire life. With the movie over, he and Anna had returned to Charleston with plans to live together and get back to work on their own musical score for a ballet. Unless, of course, Anna decided she liked any of the offers she was getting, based on being a Spielberg girl. Richard was worried about that, but what could he do? He was lucky Anna was level headed, and not crazy about fame and fortune. So far, so good. That was, until a few days ago, when she was kidnapped. And now he had been kidnapped, and was sitting in the cab of the Ram pickup truck with no air conditioning, squashed between two smelly and stupid neo-nazi idiots. How fortunes turn, from good to bad in the blink of an eye.
“I don’t think we can keep this guy in the motel suites,” said the BMIBC. “He might start
screaming.”
The MSMIBC said, “I like the suites though. Nicest place I’ve ever stayed at. Nicer than the camper shell on my truck at home. If we can’t go back there, where’re we gonna go?”
They sat and thought awhile, with Richard thinking about Anna being kidnapped by some other people. He had heard about things happening to those who hung around with the Junes, but he thought maybe you had to take the bad with the good. The NSSMIBC said, “Why’d we snatch this guy?”
“So he’d tell us where the bitch is. She’s his girlfriend.” said the MSMIBC.
The BMIBC dug his knuckles into Richard’s ribs and said, “You know where she is?”
He shook his head, no. “She’s been kidnapped. I don’t know where she is.”
“You know who her kidnappers are? Where they are?”
“You know who they are, you met ‘em on King Street. I didn’t. I’ve just talked with them on the phone. The woman kidnapper sounds crazy.”
The three other guys lapsed into silence, not seeming to mind the shoulder to shoulder contact. What good was it kidnapping this guy if he didn’t know where the girl was? It hadn’t really occurred to any of them that kidnapping was a federal felony offense, with a relatively severe penalty attached to it. Like, twenty years in jail. The NSSMIBC said, “Why don’t we offer to swap him for her?”
“Why would they do that?” said the MSMIBC. “To do that, you have to offer them more than they have to offer you, like a two-fer. We would give them two people they wanted, and they would give us the girl. Then they might be interested.”
“Two-fer? Who’s the other person? Now we gotta go out and snatch someone else?”
Everyone looked at the NSSMIBC, and lapsed into silence. After a few minutes of listening to the MSMIBC suck his teeth, the BMIBC started up the big Dodge engine and pulled out into traffic. He headed back into Charleston, down the peninsula and into the historic district. First he cruised past Stirg’s mansion, sitting regally out over the water. Then he drove down Church Street past the June’s old brick house. He didn’t stop, but keep going till he hit The Battery, then past Stirg’s house again in the opposite direction, and finally back out of the district and onto the expressway. The NSSMIBC said, “What’s up, boss?”
The Kidnapping of Paul McCartney Page 14
