Chapter 25 – All the Details
The next afternoon Jinny met the Junes at their hotel and told them they were going out for an early dinner. He took them to a not-so-nice restaurant. In fact, it really shouldn’t have billed itself as a restaurant. It was a dive. But it was the type of place that served food at fair prices, and so was popular with the locals. It had been serving the same food in the same place for twenty-some years, which is why Jinny knew about it. Jinny didn’t know if Roger would like it, but he was willing to bet that Gwen would like it, because she was a little bit less stuck up than Roger, in Jinny’s humble opinion. They went late in the afternoon because Jinny knew there would be few other people eating at that time of day, and they could talk.
Basically the place served potatoes some twenty-five different ways. It served them in tomato sauce, in beef sauce, in cream sauce, in garlic sauce, and in a hot Hungarian goulash type sauce. They served potatoes boiled, deep fried, sautéed, and roasted. However you wanted your potatoes, you could get them your way at this place. They even served raw potatoes, cut into different shapes: discs, julienne, cubes, and little round things the size of olives. These were warmed slightly in a microwave, but not cooked. Then they were doused in a blend of salt, pepper, and vinegar. They were not served with vodka, as you might expect, but rather with a heavy Czech beer. There were quite a few Russians who liked this combination, but Jinny wasn’t one of them. He thought it was a dish for peasants, and he had his history correct. He did not suggest this dish to Roger, and he definitely did not suggest it to Gwen, remembering her reaction to the boiled potatoes he had served her the very first time she and Roger came to his second house on the marsh side of Sullivan’s Island.
He told them the best dish was the one in which they sautéed the julienne cut potatoes in corn oil with tomatoes, red pepper sauce, and garlic. Gwen asked him if the people of the great republic of Russia ever had heard of olive oil. He said they had heard of it, but they had no olive trees growing on the steppes of Siberia, so it wasn’t seen much in Saint Petersburg. On the other hand, they were able to grow some corn, though the fully-grown plants might be considered seriously anemic by anyone from Iowa. He said the stalks rarely got more than four feet tall. Still, they produced enough ears of corn to satisfy most demands for potatoes sautéed in corn oil.
Gwen thought, if this antiques and wine gig didn’t work out (and they didn’t get caught), maybe she could make a killing importing Greek olive oil into northern Russia.
Jinny finished his food and his glass of beer in about ninety seconds, taking the risk of censure and abuse from Gwen. While Roger and Gwen ate at a more sedate pace, he told them the details of the plan as he had learned them from Plouriva earlier that day while nursing his hangover. Jinny told them how the warehouses were constructed in 1891, with the floors above ground. Then he asked if they knew the movie The Great Escape? Gwen knew the movie because she knew every movie Steve McQueen ever made. She thought he was major stud material, especially in Bullet and in The Thomas Crown Affair. She really liked that movie, and had thought of herself in the role played by Faye Dunaway. Once, after she’d had a couple of glasses of wine, she actually thought she could have done it better than Dunaway. We all have our fantasies, don’t we? Roger knew The Great Escape too, and he liked William Holden, though not for romantic reasons.
Jinny described how they would steal the Hermitage grade C goods the same way the Allied prisoners had planned their escape….through the floors and out of the compound in one big swipe-aroo. He stopped talking and looked for their reaction. Roger, with a tone like dry ice, asked if the end result was going to be the same as in the movie, referring to the fact that in the movie most of the prisoners were killed or captured, including Steve McQueen. Gwen also looked at Jinny with a not exactly neutral expression. Jinny brushed this off, and said of course the end result would not be the same, don’t worry. The Junes were not really worried, because they knew they were not going to be part of the on-site heist team. They would be sitting in their room at the Corinthia, waiting for word of success. If no word came, that would mean failure, and they would be on the next flight out of the country. Safe and sound. Anyway, they got the idea of the warehouse setup and method of theft.
Plouriva had taken Jinny’s idea of using the space under the warehouses ala “the great escape”, and refined it. She figured once Roger told them the types of objects they should go after, it would be relatively easy to get them through the floors and into the crawlspaces. The problem was what to do with them then. It was here that Plouriva earned her worth. In the same way Plouriva was proud of Jinny’s mental achievement, he now was proud of her mental achievement.
Plouriva told Jinny that in several of the huge workrooms in the main museum building were very large wooden crates. She had seen them come into the complex two weeks before, loaded onto six large flatbed trailers. These crates held artifacts from the University of Vladivostok Art Museum that were part of a new, temporary exhibition at the Hermitage called Treasures of the Russian East. She wasn’t sure what kinds of stuff this was, just that the crates were big, and that they had come the 6000 miles from Vladivostok by train and then by flatbed truck. She had been told months ago by the big boss of the big house that they were to be stored for the year-long term of the exhibition somewhere out in her territory, meaning out in the maintenance yards of the complex. He hadn’t asked her to store them, he had told her to do it. When she told him she didn’t have any space, he told her to make some space.
The people who worked inside the museum buildings were very hoity-toity, and thought the people who worked outside the buildings were a bunch of yahoos. And the people who worked outside the buildings thought the people who worked inside the buildings were a bunch of pansie-ass art snobs. So it goes everywhere. The crates were due to be emptied of art objects and moved out of the main building in about a week. They would be loaded back on the flatbed trucks and hauled to wherever Plouriva wanted them stored. At this point Jinny looked at Roger and Gwen to see if they grasped the basics of the plan. They did, sort of. Obviously the goods from the warehouses would be transferred to the crates. The Junes waited for the details.
The details were relatively simple. Most plans should be relatively simple, because complex plans have a way of getting fucked up. Just look at the Vietnam and Iraq and Afghan war efforts. Plouriva would arrange first for the flatbed trucks to leave the museum late in the day. Then she would arrange for the lead truck to break down near the warehouses, requiring them to stay there until a repair could be arranged the next day. That night was their window of opportunity. The goods would be lowered through the warehouse floors, and carried to the crates. Each item would be wrapped in moving company type quilts to protect it, and hopefully they would arrive in Charleston in good condition. No plan is perfect, Jinny continued, saying the next day the truck would be repaired, and the crates would be on their way out of the Hermitage compound.
Gwen waited a long, respectful minute before asking, “On their way to where?”
Jinny got up from the table, went to the counter, ordered himself another plate of corn oil and garlic sautéed potatoes, and another Czech beer, and brought them back to the table. He proceeded to demolish these in another minute and a half, saying to hell with everything Gwen had taught him about manners and propriety at table. He finished chewing, and wiped his mouth, before he answered. He said they would be taken to a safe place. Roger and Gwen could see the writing on this wall immediately. Roger let Gwen do the talking. She said, “You haven’t figured out how to get the stuff out of the country yet, have you Jinny?”
Jinny didn’t answer right away, so Gwen went into her motherly role, saying that Little Jinny and Plouriva had done very well so far, and she was proud of them, and they deserved some ice cream. But before she would give them the ice cream they had to finish their job and get the stuff onto
a ship or plane or train or something, and get it the fuck to Charleston. She said this quietly and with a smile on her face, but with fire in her eye.
Jinny got the message. More figuring to do, not yet done, back to the apartment and back to work with Plouriva.
Aristocratic Thieves Page 25
