Chapter 22 – Laleh Settles In
Roger and Gwen had a bet about whether Laleh would make it back to their house that night, or not. After hearing from Gwen about the little get-together on the balcony overlooking the harbor, he bet no, and she bet yes. Roger knew he was going to lose the bet, because Gwen never was wrong about these kinds of things, but he enjoyed wagering now and then, just for the fun of it. The stakes were high, though: the loser had to prepare dinner every night for a week. And nothing out of a can or the freezer, either.
They were in bed at eleven, him reading a Donald E. Westlake novel and her reading a Lawrence Block novel (they had similar taste in writers, like most everything else, including wine), when the dog stood up and pointed to the bedroom door. They looked at each other because this was the behavior the dog exhibited the night four years earlier when the Russian woman wearing black underwear and OPIUM perfume and carrying a handgun had invaded their home at 3am. They watched the dog, each ready to open the drawer in the night table next to them and extract their own gun. Waiting, waiting, watching. And then the tail started waving, and they relaxed. The dog took off down the stairs, and was waiting when Laleh unlocked the door and entered. She said, “Do you need a walk?” The dog was tempted to lie to her and tell her yes, he hadn’t been walked all day, but the reality was that Roger had taken him out at 10pm, and he wasn’t a liar, at least not normally, and tonight was normal, so he told her, no. Laleh headed up the stairs to the third floor guestroom, and the dog went back to his place at the foot of the Junes bed.
Gwen said, “I’ll have pasta pomodoro tomorrow, and crab cakes the next night. You can choose the wines.”
The next night, after dinner, Laleh decided she wanted to find out why Gwen had guns in the house, locked up in the bottom drawer of the Chippendale highboy in the downstairs study. The Junes had a study on each floor, complete with large antique desk, writing table, sofa, and bookshelves. She wasn’t sure what they studied, but they certainly were prepared whenever the need arose. She offered Gwen a large glass of port from the cut glass decanter on one of the shelves, thinking it would loosen Gwen’s tongue. She was right. What she had discovered about herself, starting with all the meals with wine in London, was that she could hold her liquor, even though drinking was an entirely new behavior for her. Some natural physiology thing. She poured herself a glass of port, and set about her delicate task, employing all her tact and guile. She talked about Shimmey, and poured Gwen another glass of port. Then she talked about Iranian architecture, which she wished she had studied formally, but had been forced to read about late at night under the covers with a flashlight. And then she talked about her new food love, shrimp and grits. After three glasses of port on top of the Chateauneuf du Pape they’d had with the dinner Roger had fixed, she figured Gwen was sloshed and the time was right. She said, “What’s with all the guns?”
Laleh wasn’t the only female in the house who could hold her liquor. Gwen was pleasantly buzzed, but it would take a little more than she’d had to get her to the sloshed department. She looked at Laleh, amused, and decided she might as well divulge a little of the June’s history. “When Roger got out of college he got a job with the National Park Service out west. He went to training and became a Ranger, a law enforcement ranger. He liked working out there for a while, a few years, but that outfit was quasi-military in its roots, and he doesn’t much like authority, then or now. Ask him sometime to tell you the story of John F. Kennedy at the Ahwanne Hotel.”
Laleh said, “Who’s John F. Kennedy?”
This was one of the weirdest things anyone ever had said to Gwen, but she let it pass. “After he quit and came home to Charleston, we met and got married. He’d made a few connections in other law enforcement outfits, and he started getting a few jobs as a private investigator. We didn’t need the money, but he liked doing those jobs now and then, and it turns out that cops and private investigators rub shoulders with criminals, and Roger made a few buddies from that crowd, and he made a few enemies from that crowd. In both cases, he got more work and got more, shall we call them, opportunities.”
Laleh didn’t understand what Gwen meant by opportunities, but she didn’t want to interrupt the story with a question.
“Sometimes he was on the side of the law, and sometimes he was on the other side. The times he got involved in the other side was when the job involved art or antiques. Roger likes both of those, and, let’s just say that not all of the things we have in this house today were bought and paid for in shops.”
Laleh was kind of following this, but it was hazy. Gwen seemed to be saying that Roger is a crook, which hardly seems possible, given what Laleh had experienced to date.
“It was during those days that Roger started carrying a gun, after which one day we were eating lunch in a restaurant and a guy who didn’t count Roger among his friends walked in and tried to shoot Roger. He missed. Roger didn’t. After that, Roger gave me two choices: he would stop doing the detective work and the other stuff, or he would teach me to safely and intelligently use a gun. The second choice seemed more interesting than the first, and ever since, I’ve had a couple of them around the house.” Gwen took a sip of port, and smiled at Laleh.
“How long ago was that? When you got your first gun?”
“About ten years.”
“And you still carry one around?”
“Oh yes. It gives me a warm feeling of security.”
“You mean Roger still does the detective jobs and the other jobs?”
Gwen didn’t answer verbally, but her body language said, “Umm, yeah.”
“And you get involved in these jobs?”
“Umm, I never mean too. Really. But somehow I do. I don’t understand how, but it happens.”
“And you like it?”
“Umm, yeah.”
Laleh poured them each a fourth glass of port, and thought, am I gonna have a hangover tomorrow. “What kind of people are these that you get involved with?”
Gwen thought that was a very interesting question, and ran down a list from the last five years. “One day five years ago a guy went to North Carolina and hired a cabinet maker to make a fake Hepplewhite table. You ever seen a Hepplewhite table?”
Laleh said, no.
“Beautiful. And this fake one was nice. He brought it back here and sold it to a shop on King Street. Roger’s auntie bought it, and then we discovered it was a fake. Roger didn’t like someone taking advantage of his auntie, who was a dear old soul, and he tracked the table back to North Carolina, and then to the guy who ordered it made, a Russian guy named Little Jinny Blistov. Then Roger tracked Jinny to where he was living here, and suggested that he give all the money his auntie had paid for the table, back to her.”
“And the guy did that? Gave it back?”
“Roger persuaded him.”
“How?”
“Went into the guy’s house and pointed a gun at his face. Simple.”
“What happened then? With the Russian guy?”
Gwen thought about that for a minute, and then said, “It’s a strange story. After a while, we became friends with Jinny, and then we went to Russia with him.”
“And?”
“And we borrowed some stuff from a museum in Saint Petersburg. Jinny knew some people who worked there, and they helped us.”
Laleh was having a difficult time decoding all the innuendos Gwen was employing to explain things. Part was due to her knowing English as a second language, and part was due to the port. “You borrowed stuff from a Russian museum? And did what with it?”
“Well, we sold some of it, and some things we have here, in our house. Really nice things. We like antiques. And Jinny has some of it.”
Laleh decided she would figure out this particular story tomorrow morning while she was getting over the hangover. “How about another one? Another reason you have guns around here.”
“L
ast night, when you came home, the dog heard you coming down the street and got up in our room and pointed at the door. We weren’t sure if this was a good pointing or a bad pointing. He figured out it was you before you unlocked the door and came in, and he told us it was ok. But three years ago, he pointed at the door, and it wasn’t ok. Someone came into the house, and it wasn’t a friend, like you. It was a Russian woman who picked the lock on the back door, and tried to come upstairs.”
“What happened?”
“Well, the dog gave us plenty of notice, and when she came up, we were ready for her. Good thing, because she had a gun.”
“What was she going to do?”
“She wasn’t sure. She wanted to intrude into our lives. She had lots of guts, but she didn’t really think things out ahead of time. She was only twenty-seven.”
“And?”
“And now we’re friends with her, too. She’s in France making a movie.”
“What did you do after you caught her?”
“It took a while, but she ended up working with us on the Stravinsky ballet production.”
“Oh.”
Laleh sipped her port and thought about these two stories. Two Russians with guns, became friends, followed by adventure. She decided she had the energy for one more story before she slid off the couch into a sloshed puddle on the Turkish carpet. “What about the Stirg guy? Was he involved with you and guns?”
“He’s a very interesting person. Late sixties, retired, super-wealthy. Also Russian, though he left there at a young age and went to Israel, where he got involved in chasing ex-Nazis in South America for Mossad. You know who they are?”
“Oh yeah. In Iran, we know Mossad.”
“After that he became some kind of international lawyer. I mean a lawyer who specializes in international law, which is where he made most of his money. And then he retired to Charleston. He was involved in the ballet, though not like Anna, who was on our side and worked for us.”
“Whose side was he on?”
“He was on his side. He was the leader of the group that wanted to do the Stravinsky ballet in Saint Petersburg, rather than here. It turned into a competition to produce it, and the competition had some sticky moments.”
“You mean like sticky gun moments?”
“Yes. Next time we’re at The Hall, look up at the ceiling over the stage, and you’ll see where the old lathe and plaster was patched. Someone fired a couple of shots through the ceiling.”
“Stirg? He came into the theater and shot up your ceiling?”
“Not him, actually. Me.”
Laleh said, “Oh.” Her head was spinning double time from all the booze and then the stories. She felt herself slipping towards the carpet. Gwen wasn’t looking at her, just sipping, looking off into space, remembering these incidents, sitting straight on the sofa, no slipping anywhere. She looked like she looked at the breakfast table in the morning, drinking coffee. Laleh rallied and said, “So that’s why you have guns in the house.”
Now Gwen looked at her and said, “Someday I’ll tell you about the neo-Nazis who came down here from Idaho. That’s why I have guns in the house.”