Chapter 76 – The Attempt
The private investigative firm had made good money performing tasks for Nev, thanks to the computer expertise of the sixteen-year-old hackett and the questionable ethics of her father (asking her to do that stuff). Unfortunately for the firm, they didn’t make a lot of money from the Junes; one day’s worth of fees, and that was it. At 1am the night after Roger hired the firm, Roger’s cell phone rang on his bedside table. It was an agent of the firm, reporting that Mr. Nev just had left the mansion, situated halfway out a long dock stretching into Charleston harbor, and he was tailing him. Roger told him to call again in five minutes and report if Mr. Nev was heading towards the June’s house. He got the call, and the answer was yes. Roger thanked the agent and told him to break off the tail.
Nev was not happy with the assignment that caused him to leave his house at 1am, but it was what he was paid to do. Most of the time since moving to Charleston with Stirg, almost all of the time, he had been able to get in quality time out on the dock with Otis. That was the life. Now he had to do some real commando bodyguard work, and it felt onerous. On top of that, the previous few times he had tangled with the Junes, he had come out on the short side of things. There was the time when Stirg went nuts out in the harbor. And there was the time recently when Roger had taken away his gun, right there on the stage of The Hall, which had been embarrassing, to say the least. Nev hoped this assignment would end better.
It didn’t. The very day Roger told The Whosey he was to stay at the June’s house until the show was over, Nev had staked out The Hall late in the day. His plan was to follow The Whosey back to his hotel and kidnap him that evening. Stash him until opening night, which would be a disaster for the Junes. Instead, he ended up tailing the Junes home, with The Whosey in tow. Damn! He knew Stirg would order him to invade the June’s home and snatch the musician from there. In the old days, a mission like that would lie right within Nev’s comfort zone. Would excite him, in fact. But now, with all the time spent with Otis, all that corrupting influence, the prospect of a home invasion was less than palatable. Nev’s palate had become tuned to grilling fresh seafood out on the barbie, sipping minerally wines from Sancerre, and watching old Cary Grant movies on DVD. Now this.
The Junes lived less than a mile from Stirg’s place, and he walked back. When he reached the house he walked past it, turned around and walked past it again, then did it a third time. He didn’t have a very positive feeling about this, not like he had when Mossad went after the Chechens in Tel Aviv. Everyone involved in that mission was fully confident of a good outcome. Nev didn’t feel that now, which proved to be an accurate intuition. He went around to the rear of the house, the garden area, looked up the eight steps to the porch, and saw Roger sitting there in an antique rocking chair, with his cat on his lap and his Beretta in his hand. The cat stared down at Nev, unafraid. So did Roger.
“Evening, Nev.” Nev didn’t reply, being consumed with hatred for his boss for sending him on this stupid vendetta. Or, maybe more accurately, consumed with self-loathing for having said yes to his boss, will do, home invasion of the June’s place, no problem. “You know where Gwen is right now, Nev?” Nev looked behind him, figuring she was sitting in a lawn chair hidden at the rear of the garden, and now was pointing her Glock in his direction. “She’s upstairs, in bed, with our dog on the floor next to her. You know who’s not next to her? Me. I’m here with you, middle of the night, instead of sleeping next to the woman I love. The woman you were going to fuck around with. So that makes me a little discontent tonight, Nev.” Nev wouldn’t have known that, looking up at Roger, rocking slowing, the cat purring. “If you’re packing, Nev, please take it out and set it on the ground.” Nev complied. “You’re going to be our guest for a couple days, till after opening night. Don’t worry, you’ll be comfortable. Well, as comfortable as we can make it, handcuffed to the refrigerator. C’mon up.”
Half an hour later Roger slid into bed next to his wife. She opened her eyes and said, “How’d it go?”
“Fine. He was right on schedule.”
“Where is he?”
“In the kitchen, handcuffed to the refrigerator.”
“You left an Israeli commando in our kitchen?”
“Former commando, now a stalwart convert to the sect of Otisism.”
“If you say so, dear.” Gwen took her Glock out of the bedside drawer, slipped it under her pillow, and went back to sleep.
The Lost Ballet Page 76
