Chapter 21 – Stirg’s Answer
Jinny started talking, first to Stirg and then to Nev. Roger’s violence had juiced him up, like the old days. “How many Germans did you catch? How many did you kill, and how many did you send back to Europe and Israel?” No answer. “How did you figure out they went to Argentina? What’s Argentina like? Are there any blondes there, or are they all black-haired? Did you go to the carnival thing there every year, with the floats and the babes in bikinis?” Stirg took the ice away from his face because it was starting to freeze. He felt around his ear, and then down on his jaw, moving it back and forth. It seemed to work ok. “You’re sixty-seven, I’m forty-seven. You could be my dad,” Jinny said. “Maybe you and my dad were friends in Saint Petersburg. Where did you grow up, which side of the river?” Stirg had the ice back against his face, and his eyes were closed. The bell that Roger had rung in his head still echoed, and he felt a bump growing just above his ear. When he didn’t answer, Jinny started in with Nev.
“So what do you do here besides bodyguard? I hope you cook and clean better than you bodyguard, because four women in bikinis just waltzed right in here on you and braced your boss. Are you gonna fire him,” Jinny asked Stirg. “Is everyone in Israel a Jew? I thought all Israeli guys were supposed to be commandos, death to anyone who fucked with them. But here we are, four women, a Charleston aristocrat, and me, sitting here, asking the questions, touring your house. I don’t know if Gwen is gonna let us eat dinner here, drink your wine. I hope so, ‘cause this is some nice place, hanging out over the water. I guess that depends on whether your boss answers our questions right. If he don’t, it’s gonna be a trip out to the fort for you two. Maybe if that’s the way it goes, maybe we’ll come back here afterwards and fix something. Hey, if your boss does talk,” and Jinny looked over at Stirg, “maybe he’ll tell you to fix us dinner. What you got out there in the kitchen that’s good? Can an Israeli make good shrimp and grits? Do you guys drink French wine? We do. Are there any Huguenots in Israel? You know what Huguenots are? You know any here in Charleston? ‘Cause they’re all over the place. Does your boss know the president of the Charleston Huguenot Society, ‘cause we think that’s who squealed on us?” Jinny caught a breath. “Can you catch fish off this dock? What kind, any sea bass, ‘cause I love sea bass, just butter, broiled, with roasted potatoes? If things work out between us, if we don’t have to kill you, think I can come over and fish off the dock. I don’t have a boat yet, but maybe I’m gonna get one soon. Guignard likes to fish too, and you know, the secret to long-term relationships is lots of shared outside interests. All this stuff about inner compatibilities is crap.”
They heard the others coming down the stairs, who had gone up to the fourth floor and looked out over the harbor from Stirg’s bedroom. What a view. Jinny stopped talking as they trooped back into the room. “Thank god,” Stirg said.
As they entered, Jinny’s eyes lit up. Gwen was carrying a Brusshev 45 caliber semi-automatic in her left hand and her Glock in the right. The Brusshev is the biggest, heaviest 45 anyone’s ever made, and dates from WWII. It was so heavy Gwen could hardly hold it out straight armed. She handed it to Jinny, along with a loaded magazine. “For you, Jinn Jinn. We found it next to Stirg’s bed. Big fucker, isn’t it?”
Jinny tucked his gun into his belt, and hefted the Russian gun. He slapped the magazine into the handle, and racked the slide. He pointed it at Stirg, and said, “Big fucker is right. Thanks. I always wanted one of these.”
Stirg didn’t bother to reply. He said to Gwen, “Is this asshole always this talkative, or is he just nervous, this being his first real mission after getting out of grade school?” And he spat on his $40,000 oriental carpet.
Jinny looked at Nev and said, “You’re gonna have to clean that up after we leave, aren’t you? Does he make you clean up after he uses the bathroom, too?”
Gwen could see where this was leading, so she cut it off. She sat down in the chair opposite Stirg, and waited. Then she said, “Helstof, would you please get some more ice?” She looked at Stirg again and said, “Before we start on the traditional torture methods, we always try leaving the person alone with Jinny and his questions. Surprising how many people crack just under that. You ready to tell us, because it’s starting to get late, and we have dinner reservations. We’re hoping a trip with you out to the fort won’t interfere with those.” Stirg didn’t smile, but he did ask for a drink. Gwen nodded to Jinny, who went out to the kitchen. He returned with a highball glass and a bottle of scotch and a bottle of cognac.
Stirg said, “Cognac,” and Jinny poured him a stiff one.
He took the icepack away from his jaw and drank half of what was in his glass. He sat back and tried to get comfortable, looking at Roger. “You hit me good. I’m not going to forget that.” Roger looked him in the eye and nodded. He didn’t say anything. Stirg took another sip of his drink, and started talking. “You people are right when you say I’m not squeaky clean. I know what that means. I’m not clean by a long-shot. Those Nazi bastards did bad things to Russia and they did bad things to Jews, so I did bad things to them. Jinny, some water, please.
“One of the things I did during those days was to put Nazis back where they belonged, at The Hague, and in Israel.” He sipped some water. “But something else I did was to put things back where they belonged. All kinds of things the Nazis stole: art, documents, people’s possessions, photographs….stuff. And while I was doing that I learned about art, and I learned about stolen stuff, and I learned about returning stolen stuff to people.” Stirg drank what was left of the cognac and continued. “Did I steal stuff at the same time? Yes, I did. I made money; money that I still have. So I squeak, yes. I have dirt in me, dirt from stealing. It’s the opposite from squeaky clean. It’s squeaky from dirt getting into my machinery. Dry, gritty dirt. I’d oil the machinery sometimes by returning stuff to people, then I’d get more dirt in it, and I’d start squeaking again. I still squeak, I guess. One of best oils I’ve ever had is Anna. She did a lot to make me stop squeaking. But not all together. I taught her some dirty stuff too. Good, bad….good, bad….that’s me.”
Stirg looked around the room, at each person. He seemed to challenge everyone to claim they were all good, and had no takers. “I told you I don’t want to live in Russia. I want to live here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about Russia. The older I get, the more I care about what I learned when I was young. I can’t get away from it. Sixty years ago still is in me, and it comes out all the time. I’m Russian, and I love that.” He motioned to Jinny for more cognac. “Jinny, I’d like some soda water to put in this one. If you untie Nev, he can get it from the kitchen.” Jinny made sure Gwen had her gun ready before he left for the kitchen, and he didn’t untie Nev.
“One of Nev’s jobs is email. I don’t do that very well, but everyone else does, so I have to use it. And we do use it. We have friends. I have lots of friends, in different places. I have friends in Saint Petersburg, and they told me something.” He took a small sip of the cognac and soda. Slevov sat down because the story was coming now. “Several months ago I got an email telling me someone had stolen things from the Hermitage. I thought, how can that happen? It’s a fortress, with lots of security. Well, as usual with things like this, it was an inside job. The police still are working on it over there, but evidently they’re not getting very far. My friend, though, is someone I worked with for many years, and he’s almost as good an investigator as I was. He’s found some things out, and he hasn’t told the police, because he doesn’t like them. One of the things I like about Charleston is that the police here are very polite, unlike the police in Saint Petersburg. They’re brutes over there. Do you know the police have been here twice? Very polite, almost like Beverly Hills cops.”
Stirg gave up on the ice. He knew he would have a lump on his head for two
days. “Nev, would you get me some aspirin.” He looked at Roger, who remained impassive.
Helstof asked, “Where is it?” She returned and handed four aspirin to Stirg, who washed them down with a swig of his drink.
“My friend feels the same way I do about Russian culture, so he looked into the Hermitage theft, and because he’s better than the police investigators, and knows other people, he learned about some shipping containers, and a ship.” Stirg paused for effect. “Eventually he had a talk with a ship’s captain and some crew members.” Stirg realized he didn’t have to fill in the blanks. His visitors got the picture. “It all came together when a person I know here in Charleston mentioned a party he went to a few months ago. He told me about some art work in the house, paintings of borzois. Told me the home owners were Russian, like me. Very nice people. I won’t bore you with the details. The Kiawah house is very nice. A little small, but still nice. I considered living down there, but I’m a city person really, so I decided I wanted to be here in town.”
Stirg stopped talking. He figured that was all he had to say.
And that was almost true. The team members did fill in the blanks, which was sobering. But not all of them. Gwen said, “So what do you care? Surely a little thieving is not going to bother someone like you.”
“Little?” Stirg said. “Ten containers of stuff. Little?”
Jinny almost corrected him by saying, “Seven containers, not ten,” but he caught himself in time.
“You’re a billionaire. Where did all that money come from? What kinds of containers did you ship around the world?”
Stirg looked at Gwen, and then at the others, and began again. “I told you I am not squeaky clean. Yes, a billion dollars is a lot of money. It came from different sources over many years. Is all that money clean? No. Most of it, yes. So. That’s not what we’re talking about here, is it? You want to know why I’m interested in Roger and Gwen June? Ok. Because it pisses me off that some fucking Americans stole Russian stuff. That’s why, pure and simple. Old Russian stuff. Old, like me. I’m getting old, and so I like old stuff.”
At that moment Stirg looked old. Regardless of the fact that occasionally he still chased younger women, he was fighting the tide, and he knew it. And now the team knew it. And now they understood his motivation for hassling them. Loyalty to his country. Feelings of mortality. Nostalgia. All mixed into his personal blend of intelligence and ambition and a history of intrigue and violence. Stirg was a heavy hitter in the past, and now he was out to pasture, and didn’t like it. He still had energy and he was having new feelings. Feelings about being old. Feelings about his past and his youth. The lessons of youth never are lost, and his lessons were learned in Saint Petersburg, sixty years ago. Maybe Stirg had listened to Paul Simon’s song about aging. All of these things caused Stirg to go after the Hermitage team. The story, the actions, the geography, and the feelings. The nexus of these was Charleston and the Junes.
The combination of a couple of cognacs, emotions about his homeland, and thoughts of getting old acted as a stimulant on Stirg. He stood up and clenched his fists. Jinny and Gwen let Stirg stand up, but when Nev stood up, both of them pointed guns at him, and he sat back down. Then they looked at Stirg and waited for him to act. Slowly Stirg walked towards a large picture window looking out to the harbor waters. For thirty seconds he stood staring out the window, then he turned around and pointed a finger at each of the home invaders. “You stole old Russian stuff from the people. From the museum. From the city. And you got it here, to America. And now it’s in people’s houses here, and god knows where else. You fucking stole it. And you’re gonna pay.” Stirg said this loudly, vehemently.
Gwen and Roger understood what was happening, so they let loose a little on the reins they had connected to the bit in Stirg’s mouth. He was emotional and venting. He was pissed. But he wasn’t going to act stupidly, and neither was Nev. They waited for Stirg to say what he had to say.
But that was it. Stirg went back to his chair and sat down. Now it was Gwen’s turn.
“Why did you send Anna? She’s only twenty-seven. You sent her into our house, with a gun. What did you expect her to do?”
This lit the fire in Stirg again. He leaned forward in his chair and glared at Gwen. “Anna was born in Israel. But she’s got Russian blood. She’s been to Saint Petersburg many times. Twenty-seven’s time for her to get serious about things. She’s no kid. Shit, everybody in Israel knows about guns by the time they’re that age. Most of you wussy little Americans are so afraid of confrontation. Well, she’s not.”
Stirg was emotional, so the team refrained from pointing out to him the fact that he was staring down the barrels of six guns, two of them held by wussy Americans. And he was talking about his granddaughter, who had deserted him to some extent, a situation he still had to understand and come to terms with. So they let him rant.
“I want to know about the Hermitage stuff. I want to know where it is and who has it, and what you’re going to do with it. I want that stuff.” He huffed a little. “And I want Anna. Where is she? You fuck with her, you’re in big trouble.” He sat back in his chair.
All right, so Stirg had answered the two big questions, and it was all out on the table now. The team understood him, and he understood them. Four women and two men had invaded his house in broad daylight, each armed to the teeth. He reached another point of understanding when Roger clocked him on the side of the head with his gun. The four aspirin and two cognacs had not put a dent in the pain he felt from that. And here they all were, sitting around the big, beautiful living room of Stirg’s Charleston house. Now what?