Chapter 5 – They Drift, Wait, Obey
As Roger chopped potatoes, Gwen leaned across the front of the woman and spoke softly. The OPIUM was a distraction, but she focused on what Catherine asked her to do. She told the tale of going to Saint Petersburg with Roger and a man named Little Jinny Blistov. There they met some high powered men and women, including a woman who worked at the Hermitage Museum, and colluded with them to steal art and artifacts from the museum. And they didn’t just collude, they stole. They stole Grade C stuff, not from the museum itself, but from the storage warehouses. And the high powered Russian guys got the stuff into shipping containers, and got the containers onto a ship that came to Charleston, and the Junes got the stuff into a warehouse.
Catherine said, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You’re the hot pair, aren’t you. I knew there was something special about you when we met.” The fact that The Deneuve is an atheist adds a certain weight to her exclamation. She looked over at the cats sitting on the counter near the pantry, and looked inquiringly at Gwen.
“They were on the container ship with the goods, and we have to take care of them until the ship’s cook decides he wants to live in Charleston.”
Catherine decided not to pursue that item, and Gwen went on, “Also on the ship with the stolen goods and the cats were four Russians: two gay former Mariinsky ballet dancers who helped us steal the stuff, Little Jinny, and his girlfriend from the Hermitage. That whole thing, until NOW,” glaring at the woman in black underwear, “was going fine.” The woman squirmed a little, but that could be because she had been taped to the chair she was sitting in for two hours. Gotta hand it to her though, not a single complaint.
Gwen thought that was enough information for Catherine at this point. She didn’t go into anything about the other members of the Hermitage caper team, the two wealthy Russian couples who now lived part time in big houses on the Charleston beach. She sat back in the kitchen chair and continued to glare at the woman, setting her mind to form an opinion on the virtues of OPIUM as a perfume.
The question could be asked, why were the two women discussing this information IN FRONT OF THE ASSASSIN? Aren’t Gwen and Catherine the interrogators? Aren’t they the ones trying to break the nerve of the woman in black underwear? Why are they giving up all the information the woman presumably was sent to obtain by stealth and intimidation, and quite possibly by torturing the Junes (and anyone else she found in the house, pets included)? What kind of interrogation is this, with the smell frying potatoes and onions wafting across the kitchen?
One possible answer should be obvious: Gwen and Catherine plan to execute the woman and bury her out in the June’s garden. Therefore, they don’t care what the woman hears. That would be the easy solution to the problem. Give her one last good English breakfast of eggs, potatoes sautéed with onions, bacon, and as much $30-per-pound Kenyan coffee as she can drink, and then POWEE. Take the woman’s Walther, blow her brains out in the kitchen sink, and then, out to the garden with her. They could get Little Jinny Blistov over here to dig the hole. He wouldn’t mind the job. Probably done it before, in fact.
While this conversation was going on between the two women, Roger was preparing the food. But he was reasonably intelligent, and could do two things at once: chop potatoes and scramble eggs, and wonder what the hell the two babes were talking about, right in front of the woman in black. They were supposed to be getting information FROM the woman about who had sent her and what she was after, and here they were GIVING the woman information. But in France, just before the team had traveled to Russia for the Hermitage heist, he had met The Deneuve, and had seen her operate, and had seen his wife form a weird bond with her, and he knew they had special powers that could influence mere mortals like him. So while he wondered what they were doing over there, he had faith they would solve the problem. He went back to his chopping, and got back to wondering about the woman’s underwear and her perfume. So that was OPIUM. It was killer. But then, THAT woman could wear essence of fish perfume, and be interesting.
Wait a minute. Just as Roger was about to put the double thick strips of bacon into the pan, the thought occurred to him: they’re talking in front of the woman because they’re going to execute her and bury her out in the garden. He turned around, and all three of them saw him looking at them very strangely, so Gwen asked, “Yes, dear?”
“You’re not thinking of, of….of?”
The three women looked at each other and giggled. The woman in black shook her head. Gwen said, “No, dear, we’re not going to bump her off and bury her out in the garden, don’t worry.” And they giggled again.
Roger breathed normally again, and went back to the bacon. He said, “Food’s ready in ten minutes, so finish up over there.” He wondered how the woman was going to eat with her arms tapped to the chair. Maybe he would get to sit close to her and feed her.
So Gwen and Catherine had ten minutes to figure out what to do with the woman in black undies. They had to stop fooling around and get down to business. Maybe it was that perfume that was distracting them; Gwen agreed with Roger, it was killer stuff. She would have to get some. Without saying anything to each other, Gwen and Catherine knew they had to perform, and now. Both of them slumped back so their necks rested on the chair backs, closed their eyes, and went into the creative trance, ala Rudyard Kipling.
The Russian woman didn’t close her eyes. She watched the other two and wondered what was going on. She badly wanted a cup of coffee.
At the end of ten minutes, just before Roger said, “Food’s ready,” the two women opened their eyes, sat up in the chairs, stretched, and smiled at each other. The solution to the problem was theirs.
Gwenny June Page 4
