The Ayatollah's Money

by Richard Dorrance

  Chapter 35 – Jinny and Gale

  Little Jinny Blistov, as described, was one of the toughest Grade B Russian gangsters you’ll ever want to meet. He grew up in Saint Petersburg, where he was successful at crime until he picked the wrong victim one time, a Grade A gangster, who found him out and instead of killing him, got him thrown into a gulag for two years after which he was tossed into the hold of an Aeroflot cargo transport headed for Pittsburg, the big time gangster deciding exile to Pittsburg was worse than death. After spending his first winter there, trying to break into the crime scene, Jinny agreed, looked at a map and some Chamber of Commerce brochures, and took the bus to Charleston, where, according to the brochures, you could walk on the beach in February wearing only a sweater. The brochures also said Charleston was founded in part by French Huguenots, which sounded romantic to Jinny, who knew from his high school history lessons that one of his favorite czars was buddies with a French Huguenot king. The czar had sent a kennel of borzoi hunting dogs to the king, and the king had sent back a kennel of frou frou poodles, all of which had died from the cold that first Russian winter. Jinny didn’t have any Huguenot blood, but there was something about it he liked, and he thought he’d try to meet some in Charleston, see what they were like.

  Once a criminal always a criminal, and it wasn’t long after he arrived in Charleston that he hired a cabinet maker in western North Carolina to make a fake Hepplewhite end table, which he sold to an antique store on King Street, who sold the table at a hefty profit to Roger’s dear old very wealthy auntie. A year later a friend pointed out to her it was a fake, and she told Roger, who was pissed, and who tracked Jinny down, stuck a gun in his face, and told him it was time for restitution. Somehow, after all that enmity, Jinny and Roger had become friends, and from that point on Jinny was in on most of the June capers.

  While Jinny was relatively new to the June’s stable of friends, Gale the Mouth had grown up in Charleston with Roger and Gwen, and had been in their circle her whole life. The Junes were aristocratic by nature, while Gale was a street-fighter, wild, gutsy, wild, loved a good game of poker if the stakes were high enough, and wild. The poker stakes didn’t have to be in the form of cash, she fancied a lot of commodities, and wasn’t above putting her ass on the line, literally speaking, if there was something she found especially dear. Gale talked big, talked incessantly, talked wild, and talked hot, all depending on the capabilities of her listeners to appreciate the content. Hers was the only ass in town that a few of the guys she and Gwen had grown up with thought was superior to Gwen’s, and she learned early on it was shown to maximum affect when swathed in beautiful clothes of couture quality. That type of clothing is not cheap; hence Gale’s propensity for gambling and getting involved in the June’s shady capers. She had to pay for them somehow, and unlike Roger and Gwen, she didn’t have wealth in the family. Somehow she always had what it took to stay at the top of Charleston’s heap of fashionistas.

  Jinny and Gale weren’t a thing in terms of being a couple, Jinny being five foot four and composed of two hundred pounds of granite like flesh, Gale being five ten and sporting natural accoutrements that would make Catherine Deneuve, in her heyday, get out of the business. Jinny had a beard that crept around the sides of his neck behind his ears, and required shaving twice a day at Pierre’s Men's Salon, while Gale had blond hair, baby fine and silky, that she hooked behind her ears with the express purpose of framing that place at the rear of her neck to which she directed any guy to who was lucky enough to have earned the privilege of going to bed with her. Despite these physical disparities, they were great friends, teasing each other mercilessly, drinking to excess with a certain regularity, sharing psychological intimacies, and being there when the other one needed it. Woe to any guy who messed with Gale uninvited if Jinny heard about it; that was instant death, or at least one step just this side of it.

  The day after Laleh told Gwen, Roger, and Shimmey the main idea of the movie, Gwen made lunch reservations at McCrady’s Restaurant, and invited Jinny and Gale to join them. That group of six composed the core team, and Jinny and Gale were initiated into the new production. Jinny asked, “Who’s George Clooney?”

  Gale said, “Who’s George Clooney? You moron, he’s king of the hunk studs for people of my generation, which is the best generation. He’s the guy who wore farmers bib overalls in Brother Where Art Thou and made them sexy. He’s the guy that masterminded the heist in Oceans Twelve, the best movie of its kind ever made. He’s the guy that tamed Renee Zellweger in Leatherheads, who, if she stopped making stupid movies, could be the greatest actress of her generation. Good god, do I have to teach you everything? How to dress, how to not chew with your mouth open, how to smell the $300 bottle of burgundy before you guzzle it like cherry soda? Where were you born again, moron?”

  “In a warehouse on the Saint Petersburg docks. My mom went back to driving the forklift the next day, just like the Cambodian women who work in the rice paddies.”

  Gale said, “They go back to work that afternoon, so your mom wasn’t so tough. And that’s no excuse for not knowing about burgundy.” Gale was such a snob.

  “I know about vodka. Got my first shot in my mother’s milk. Yum.”

  It had taken Laleh a while to get used to Gale’s and Jinny’s repartee and to understand they liked each other, kind of a brother sister thing. While they ate lunch Laleh explained to them her ideas for the production. Jinny didn’t understand all of it, but did get the basic idea of making a movie in The Hall, and he looked at Gwen, who telepathized her approval of the project. That was all he needed; he was in up to his eyeballs. Whatever Gwen wanted, Gwen got. He asked, “What am I going to do?”

  Gwen and Roger looked at Laleh, who didn’t have a clue. Gwen said, “You’re Clooney’s bodyguard. Keep Gale from molesting him morning, noon, and night.”

  Gale said, “That leaves the afternoon. I can do a lot of damage, or good, depending on how you look at it, in the space of an afternoon, and when Jinny needs a break, I’ll take good care of George’s body.” Laleh was amazed at how much Gale thought about sex.

  Jinny said to Gale, “When you’re not molesting him, what’s your role in the production?”

  Laleh didn’t have a clue about that either, so Gwen said, “She’s the gopher. Gets everyone coffee in the morning, champagne after the molestation respite, burgundy in the evening to wind down with. She doesn’t need any training in any of that, especially the molestation part.”

  Gale took that as a compliment, but then said, “Wait a minute. Who’s the babe in the movie? Who’s George’s squeeze? Who plays the woman that stole the money, and who George protects from the assassins?” She looked around, incredulously. “ME. That’s me. I’m that babe. George saves me and we live sexually ever after.”

  Roger said, “You’re blond. You look like a Swedish masseuse. The woman is from the Middle East.”

  “So I dye my hair and act pissed off at all the men I’m around. I can do it.”

  Gale’s goofiness served to focus the team on that important question: who was going to play the woman? Everyone looked at Laleh, who said, “Not our problem. If we get Clooney and Soderberg, they have the juice to get a good actress. Don’t they?”

  Gwen said, “Yes, they do. I agree. Not our problem.”

  Jinny said, “I don’t think Gale should dye her hair.” Jinny likes blonds and he really likes Gale the way she is. His little sister. Then he looked at Laleh and said, “What about you? You got the looks. Can you act?” Jinny didn’t always exhibit a lot of tact, and often followed Lord Nelson’s advice, the English sea captain, which was, never mind maneuvers, always go straight at ‘em.

  Laleh said, “I don’t have any experience with running away from assassins and being rescued, so I don’t think I fit the bill.”

  An omnipotent observer might reply to that, “Just wait.”