The Lost Ballet

  Chapter 23 – An Invitation to Lunch

  Stirg and Nev sat on a bench at White Point Gardens, watching the promenaders on The Battery. Nev was thinking that maybe his boss, at age sixty-seven, was getting soft, because he hadn’t yelled at him for coming home from his visit to The Hall empty handed. The ten pages of the Stravinsky score Nev had gotten didn’t really count for much. Stirg wanted to see that 100-year-old Russian paper with all the squiggles on it, sitting right on his kitchen table. He wanted Old Igor, right in his house. Stirg had looked more exasperated than angry when Nev told him that the original score now was in a bank vault. Nev had reported the status of the historic document but he hadn’t reported that he had returned home minus his gun. He wondered if Stirg might hire some big-time safecracker to try to rob the bank. He knew there are lots of bank robbers out there, practicing their trade, but he didn’t think very many people actually broke into bank vaults anymore. Do they?

  Stirg said, “What’s your idea? Three days ago you said ‘gimme another chance, I got an idea’. What is it?”

  “I ain’t got it figured out yet. It’s a stealth approach, not a frontal commando one like I tried last time. That didn’t work so well. I’m talking with some people about this next try. Gimme another day or two.”

  They watched one of the horse-drawn carriages plod past, with the driver providing ludicrously inaccurate commentary on the bombardment of Fort Sumter, towards which he pointed in the distance. He was telling the tourists that some drunken Yankee soldiers at Fort Sumter had fired the first shot of the Civil War at a group of southern gentlewomen, who happened to be drinking sweet tea and walking their bird dogs, right here, on the Charleston Battery. Right here, the driver reiterated. One dog was killed, and three of the ladies had their hats blown off. That pissed their husbands off, and they had returned fire at the fort the next day, which was the start of the war.

  Stirg and Nev believed the guy, and thought, damn, those old Charleston boys were a touchy lot. So that’s where these June people get their orneriness from. Stirg said, “I got an idea, myself. How bout we invite all the fucks to lunch. Try to reason with them. Tell them it ain’t right to steal stuff. Ask them nice to give us the music thing.”

  Now Nev knew his boss was getting soft. Ask them for it? Nicely? He said, “Yeah, boss, good idea.” He wondered if Stirg ever had asked any of the Nazis he found down in Argentina if, maybe, they would consider going back to The Hague to stand trial for war crimes. Wondered if he ever had asked them to come back to Tel Aviv with him, answer a few questions. “Where we gonna have this lunch? Them and us. Our place?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Not our place.” Stirg stared out at the tiny flags flying over the fort, snapping in the breeze. “How about one of their historic places? Some place famous to Charleston and South Carolina. Some place with lots of art and antiques in it; stuff that is important to these people. Stuff from their past. You see where I’m going with this?”

  Nev could see. Not bad, from the old boy. Make the fucks feel guilty about stealing all the stuff from the Hermitage, and now doing this ballet production using Igor’s music. Guilt can be a powerful force. Nev didn’t think it would work, but it would be an interesting lunch time event. “Where’s someplace really famous, lots of neat historic stuff lying around?”

  Stirg looked out across the water at the flags flying. The one big flagpole surrounded by the five small flag poles. He pointed out at Sumter, and said, “How about out there? At the fort? That’s a famous place. Maybe we can rent the place for a couple of hours. Have lunch catered.” He looked at Nev, said, “Find out.”