The Lost Ballet

by Richard Dorrance

  Chapter 11 – Nev Spies

  Towards the end of the first day of listening to the bugged conversations at The Hall, Nev figured out he needed to take notes, because he couldn’t really understand what the fucks were talking about. He wrote down confidential, Stravinsky, costumes, and world-class. When it was time to fix Stirg’s dinner, Nev shut down the communications software the hackett had set up for him to use, hoping he could remember how to open the connection tomorrow. This eavesdropping was boring work. He was a commando and bodyguard, not a peeper.

  At dinner he asked Stirg if he knew about Stravinsky. Stirg said, “Of course. Great Russian composer. Wore big ugly glasses. Had a long face. Wrote some nice music and some weird music. Famous guy.”

  “Well, I heard the fucks mention him today. I didn’t know who he was. They also talked about making costumes for something. Maybe they’re going to have a costume party and play Stravinsky music. One of the Russian guys talked about his knee, and how he couldn’t dance like he wants to. Maybe this party they’re going to have will be a dance party.”

  Stirg said, “Keep listening. Why are they talking about confidential stuff? That’s got to mean they’re up to something. Tell me if they say anything about going back to Saint Petersburg. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Gromstov is loaded. I wanna know what he’s up to; what he’s spending his money on. Keep listening.”

  Nev nodded.

  Stirg said, “Someday soon we need to go to the warehouse again, see what kinda stuff is there.”

  “You decided if you’re gonna give that stuff back to the Hermitage? Ship it all back to Russia?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t wanna deal with that now. As long as they don’t have the stuff, I’m happy. Just let it sit, for now. I want to see if there’s anything in the warehouse that would look good here. I want a painting of a borzoi, or a big still life of some dead rabbits hanging from a hook. Something like that. Something that reminds me of home.”

  “Boss, that was pretty slick, how we stole all that stuff from them. All gone in the night, out of their warehouse, and into ours. Every little rug, every china pot, every table. That was slick. That stuck it to them.”

  Stirg grunted. It may have been slick, but it was nothing compared to the things he had pulled off during his Nazi hunting years. Now, those were ops. After dinner Nev looked at the Wikipedia article on Stravinsky. Russian composer, lived for a long time in America, wrote music for ballet. Oh, that Stravinsky. Nev had heard of him. When Anna told her grandfather she was working on music with the fucks, she said it was ballet stuff. He and Stirg had looked at websites of ballet outfits. Those women had some legs. Beautiful. Three quarters of their bodies were below their waist and one quarter above. Weird, but nice. That was where Nev had seen the name Stravinsky. So, maybe that was what the fucks were talking about. Not a dance party with costumes, but a ballet party with costumes. What was that? Nev figured he better get back to listening to the bug.

  The next day he heard the following conversation:

  The admin woman said, “I just checked the account. I’ve never looked at an account that had three million dollars in it. The money just showed up. Yesterday, zero. Today, three million. In San Fran we had accounts with a couple hundred thousand in them, but only the Board had authority to spend that. And the money went out as fast as it came it. Who, by the way, has authority to spend this money?”

  Gwen said, “You and me. That’s it. Not even Henric can spend out of this account, and it’s his money.”

  “I’ve only worked for you for three months, and you’re giving me authority over an account with that much money in it?”

  Peter said, “Don’t mess with Gwen. See that mark up in the ceiling?” pointing to a patch in the plaster up above the racks of stage lights. “That where I had a handy-man fix a hole. Know what made the hole?” He paused for effect. “She took out her gun, fired two rounds through the ceiling. Blam Blam. Scared the shit out of me. Don’t mess with her.” Both Peter and Pater remembered that demonstration.

  The woman said, “Ok.” Then she said, “I have the digital file of the score. The shop scanned it yesterday.” From her purse she took out a flash drive.

  Gwen said, “Where’s the score?”

  “In my office, safe and sound.”

  “Good. When I leave today I’ll take it to the bank and put it in our safe deposit box. We need several copies of the digital file. Copy one to this computer, and put a copy on your computer in your office. Then give me the flash drive, and I’ll copy it to our computer at home. Then we put the flash drive in the box at the bank. Did you make sure the person at the scanning shop didn’t make and keep a copy?”

  “I watched her like a hawk. No copy.”

  “Thank god the score will be safe, the only copy in existence, and now we have working copies on the computer. Selgey and Bart can print pages if they need to, but make sure they shred them when they’re done. They can keep getting the story from the notes on the score, and putting it up on the white boards. I’ll talk to them later about the choreography.”

  Helstof said, “What about the music angle? What about the English guy, Townshend? Has Roger made contact yet?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. I’ll check tonight at home. Roger has to get on that.”

  The woman said, “What about a production schedule? That’s important. If we do that, and it’s realistic, it will keep us on track and will be a motivator to get tasks done.”

  Nev still didn’t know what was going on, but he found the story about Gwen shooting a hole in the ceiling of the theater interesting. He wished he could have seen that. This Gwen babe was no ordinary woman, as he had seen first-hand on more than one occasion. He wrote a few notes, but they didn’t add up to what the fucks were doing. It was something big, because of the three million dollars. That wasn’t huge for Stirg, but it was nothing to sneeze at, either.

  The dancers were out in the aisles, trying out some movements. Roger was, where was Roger? Why wasn’t he here, helping get this show on the road? Gwen called the four dancers up to the stage, and commandeered one of the white boards that didn’t yet have story pictograms on it. She had seven out of the nine team members here, and wanted to do a first draft of the production schedule.

  She said, “One way to do this, the way we’re going to try first, is to work backwards. I want to pick the date of the premiere, and then see if we can accomplish all the required tasks by then.” She picked up a calendar and scotch taped it to the corner of the whiteboard. “One year from today is Saturday, March 1st. That is the height of the cultural season in most American and European cities. What do you say we set up a little competition with the heavy hitters, and open the performances then? It’s ambitious, but what the heck. No guts, no glory.”

  Bart said, “Ambitious is fine. I’m feeling ambitious, and I think you all are too. The problem is the dancers. Who’s going to do this? Not us,” looking at Selgey and the Ps. “We’re over the hill. We said world-class, and that means world-class dancers. Even good dancers are committed far in advance, two to three years. And they have contracts, some of which are exclusive. No dancing for anyone else. So one year from now, how can that work?”

  Gwen said, “Back at you. You figure it out. Let’s see if it’s possible. You have connections. And, we have one really big arrow in our quiver. Money. We can offer a hefty payday for those who want to come here and do this.”

  The dancers didn’t say anything, which was half good because they didn’t say Gwen was crazy, couldn’t be done. They sat there, meditating.

  Gwen said, “Look, we have the same problem with Townshend. What’s it going to take to get him here to Charleston, sitting on this stage, working on the music? And then performing it on synthe, live, for the performances? He’s a wealthy guy. I’m betting it’s going to take two things:
Henric’s money, and the challenge of out-doing Paul McCartney. Roger was brilliant to see that possibility. Remember, Townshend was onstage with McCartney at the recent 911 anniversary benefit concert. Those guys have known each other for forty years. Townshend did rock opera. McCartney just did the Ocean’s Kingdom ballet score, in New York. If we put together the right incentives, Townshend might bite. We have to do the same thing with some great dancers.” She looked at Selgey and Bart, then at the Ps. “Maybe we can get some Russian dancers.” She looked at the woman. “Can we steal some from The San Francisco Ballet? I don’t know, but that’s the goal. Anything goes. Blank check,” she said, smiling at Helstof. “Premiere, one year from today. Townshend doing the Stravinsky score on synthe, you guys doing some great choreography, excellent dancers on stage. Let’s get to work.”

  Nev got most of this down on paper. He didn’t follow some of it, like who the Townshend guy was, but he got a lot. He got enough to understand that the fucks had this one-of-a-kind Stravinsky music in their computer, and were going to make a ballet production using world-class dancers. The music was going to be played on something called a synthe, not by an orchestra, and the date of the show was one year from today. And money was no object. That was important.

  He took his notes outside, walked down to the end of the dock, where he sat down, a la Otis, and thought things through. Earlier the fucks had stolen stuff from the Hermitage Museum warehouses. Stirg had stolen these artifacts from them, but some of the artifacts were in the Gromstov’s house on Kiawah Island. They had found this music in a desk there, this one of a kind Stravinsky score. And now they were going to do a ballet thing based on the score, world-class, one year from today. Let’s see. Stravinsky is a famous Russian, and the fucks have his music, the only one of its kind in the world. Russian music. Famous Russian. Stolen from Russia. Now in Charleston. Americans plotting with Russians to use this music stolen from the Motherland; use it in America, to make art, and make themselves famous.

  Oh, god, no, please, no more craziness. That’s what Nev thought, sitting out on the dock. This was going to be World War III, all over again, only here in Charleston. Nice, quaint, charming Charleston. Nev thought, if I wanted crazy in my life, I’d still be an Israeli commando. What I want is to be like my man, Otis.

  When Stirg found out the Junes had another piece of Russian heritage, famous Russian heritage, and were going to produce it here, for the first time ever, and that it was going to be modernist and not classical, he was going to go berserk. Nev could kiss Otis good bye.