Chapter 16 – Stirg’s House
Little Jinny Blistov had been feeling ambivalent lately. On the one hand he was experiencing domestic bliss with Guignard, while on the other he was feeling a little bored. This was not a reflection on Guignard, it’s just that, formerly, he was a criminal, scrabbling hard to make ends meet on the underside of life, and now he had funds and a girlfriend, and life was easier. When he heard Gwen say they were going to invade Stirg’s house, man, he got hot. Stirg the Nazi hunter, and now they were after him. Hot damn. Leave it to Gwen to stir things up.
The obvious question in everyone’s mind was, what about Glissy? Was she friend or foe? Was she in or out? Did they tell her or not?
Everyone remembered what had happened that first night in the June house: The Deneuve had co-oped Glissy into the extended family, and Gwen had participated in that. By the end of the long night extending into day, Catherine and Gwen vouched for Glissy, telling everyone she was not going to kill anyone. And everyone bought that. Now, two days later, the team learns that Slevov, Helstof, and Richard had been playing patty cake with Glissy, so presumably they felt secure in turning their backs to her, so to speak. What now?
Gwen and Roger liked to share leadership responsibilities in their relationship, trading back and forth. Roger had taken the lead the day before, and then Gwen had made the decision to go on the offensive. Normally, Gwen would back off at this point and let Roger step up, but not this time. She didn’t trust Roger when it came to Glissy because that OPIUM stuff Glissy wore had turned her husband into a fool. Gwen kept command. “Slev, you and I are going to see Glissy. The rest of you can hang here or go home. Jinny, you start tactical planning. This thing with Glissy is going to be delicate, but we need to get the advantage over Stirg. We all meet back here at 8am tomorrow.” Her last command was, “Roger, Beretta, all the time.” He nodded.
Gwen motioned to Slev and Jinny, and they went into the study. Gwen went to a file cabinet and removed four handguns, extra magazines, and ammo: her Glock 40cal, Glissy’s Walther, and two brand new Glock nines. She clipped her gun on her belt, put the Walther in her purse, handed one nine to Jinny and the other nine to Slev. “Until this is over, you carry this at all times. You wear it to buy food, you wear it to Pierre’s for your manicure, you wear it when you vacuum the living room. And you wear it in bed, no matter who you’re with.” When Gwen said this last part, she didn’t even smile, but looked Slev in the eyes with a message: from here on out, we take no chances. Over the last two months Gwen had trained Slev and Helstof in intelligent gun ownership and use. They had gone to the Forest Service range a dozen times. They knew what to do with a gun, and what not to do with it, and Slev understood that Gwen was not fooling around. She clipped on the holster under her jacket, and put the extra mag and ammo in her purse.
As they left the house Gwen yelled, “No fucking around Jinny. I want tactical, on paper, by dinnertime tonight. Roger can help.”
They didn’t talk much on the drive over to Sullivan’s. Gwen was getting a series of bad feelings about this whole deal. She didn’t have any facts from which the feelings came, but they were strong, nonetheless. She hoped she was wrong. They walked up the flight of steps to the first floor of the 10,000 square foot house on the beach, and entered through the kitchen door. They didn’t stop there, but went into the living room, which was empty. They heard the clink of bottles coming from the wine tasting room, and went towards the sound, where Glissy had the door of one of the floor to ceiling storage cabinets open. She turned to them and said to Slev, “I have three choices for dinner tonight: a California pinot, a California Syrah, and a Washington State cab. I can’t wait to try them.”
Gwen smiled and said, “I like all three. Let’s try them in a little while.” She took off the white linen shirt she was wearing with the shirttail out, over a silk T, and hung it over the back of one of the tasting table stools. Glissy saw the Glock sitting just to the rear of Gwen’s right hip. Slev did the same with her three season wool jacket, and Glissy saw her gun. Glissy smiled and said, “If we drink the three bottles of wine right now, maybe we can use the empties for target practice out on the beach. Have you guys done that here before?” Gwen and Slev smiled at the joke. Not bad. Then Gwen took the Walther out of her purse and put it on the table. She pushed it over to Glissy, who picked it up, thumbed the button that released the mag into her hand, which she checked and set on the table, and then racked the slide to see if there was a round in the chamber. There was not. She slapped the mag back into the gun and set it back on the table. “So, it’s that time, is it?" she asked.
She picked up the bottle of Washington State cab, opened it, and poured the wine into one of the decanters that sat on a side table. She said, “That ought to be ready to drink when we finish our little talk.” She sat down and looked at the other two women, serious because she could see they were serious.
Before Slev sat down she unclipped the holster from her belt and set in on the table. Gwen looked at her and said, “No Slev. From this point on, you keep the gun on you. It’s good conditioning. It’s not likely something is going to happen here, but you need to get into a mindset. An always ready mindset. Until we figure this thing out. Ok, dear?”
Slev clipped the holster back onto her belt and sat down.
In a very low voice, and with a soft look on her face, Gwen said, “Glissy, we know who you are. We know you’re Anna Stirg. We know who your grandfather is. And we know a little about his history. We know what a lot of people know, from the papers over the years. Your grandfather makes the papers here once in a while, even though he probably doesn’t want to. And we have people looking into him. They are doing internet searches, and they will turn up information.” Glissy looked at them impassively.
“We have a deal with you, to not ask about your past, and you gave a good reason for saying you won’t tell us that stuff. But now that we know who you are, we came to see if you want to revoke that agreement. Because we can’t take a chance with your grandfather. With just the little bit we know about him, we can’t take a chance. And soon we’ll know more.” Gwen and Slev waited for a response. Glissy didn’t say anything, but gave the locking the vault gesture by simulating the turn of a key on her mouth.
“Ok,” said Gwen. “Let’s do it this way. We’ll tell you what we know, because that’s what is motivating us to take some kind of action. And we intend to take action, unless we learn there is no threat to any of us. Slev.”
“We know your grandfather’s name is Pmirhs Stirg, and that you and he have lived in Charleston since you were seventeen. We know he is a billionaire lawyer who tries to keep a low profile here but doesn’t always succeed. It’s hard to be a billionaire and keep a low profile.”
Gwen said, “Your grandfather is one of three billionaires in Charleston, did you know that?” Glissy shook her head. “I’ll tell you about the other two, sometime.”
Slev went on, “We know you are Jewish, or at least we know your grandfather is Jewish, and that he grew up in Russia after World War II. The most important thing we know is that he spent many years hunting expatriate Nazis in Argentina, and brought them to justice, one way or another, and he was very successful at that very difficult job. And we know it was a very dangerous job. There were many people who wanted to keep the old Germans safe, and these people were committed, violent, and fanatical. They guarded and shielded with great tenacity and intensity. Lots of things happened in Argentina from the time your grandfather found this community until about ten years ago. Nazis died there, and Nazi hunters died there.”
Gwen said, “Until we figure this out, we have to assume the situation is very dangerous to us, and that’s our mindset and our posture. You came into our house armed. Is there anything you want to tell us?”
Glissy said, “You trust me, don’t you?”
The other two women nodded yes. Gwen sa
id, “We trust you because Catherine trusts you. I’ve learned special things from Catherine about reading people and understanding what makes them act the way they do. It’s partially a learned thing and partially a god-given talent. She has it, and I have it. And Slev has it. And, you may have the capability to develop it. Anyway, yes, we trust you. We know you will not hurt us.” Gwen nodded at the Walther within Glissy’s reach. “But we don’t know about your grandfather. If you will not tell us about him, we will find out for ourselves. We will not wait for him to act again.”
Glissy nodded.
And that was the end of the fact-finding mission to Sullivan’s Island. There was no cajoling or pressuring or threatening. The three women poured glasses of wine from the decanter and went out on the ocean side porch. They didn’t speak much. They just looked over the water at the gray distance line.