Aristocratic Thieves

  Chapter 4 – From Conflict to Partnership

  Soon after college Roger had spent a few years in law enforcement, so he had experienced some odd things. Maybe not as odd as going into partnership with a Russian quasi-mobster, but still odd. He didn’t like people telling him what to do, so he didn’t last long as a law enforcement officer, but he did learn a few things, and it was an interesting job. At one time he worked as a ranger for the National Park Service at Yosemite National Park, doing rescue operations, handling drunks in the campgrounds, and going after druggies growing pot out in the woods.

  President Kennedy came to Yosemite for a PR op one time, and took over the entire Ahwahnee Lodge for two days, with an entourage of a hundred people. There were plenty of Secret Service guys around, but the Park Service had to provide supplemental protection. Roger was assigned the crappiest detail, sitting in a hotel stairwell from midnight to eight am, two nights in a row. The Secret Service guys told him not to leave his post for any reason, not for one single minute, not even to piss. They gave him a wide-mouth plastic bottle, and said, “Use this.”

  The second night, around 1am, Roger heard the stairwell door open on the level below him and heard footsteps on the stairs coming up. He stood and waited. The first head to appear was that of a Secret Service agent he had seen around. The second head to appear was that of an attractive blond woman. The third head to appear was Kennedy’s, and the fourth head he saw was that of another Secret Service agent. These four people paraded past him in rapid succession. Neither of the agents even looked at him, nor did the woman. Kennedy did look at him for a split second, during which he gave Roger a slight grin. That was it; an event gone down into the spiral of history.

  That was the oddest thing that had happened in Roger’s life until meeting Jinny Blistov in the restaurant. Now he had this guy sitting with him, a guy he had braced in the living room of the guy’s house, a guy he had threatened with a gun, a guy he had sent to jail, and a guy who Roger knew was a very tough minded individual. Now this guy wanted to be his partner. Roger never had had a partner other than Gwen. He didn’t really know what it meant to have a business partner, other than that you had to split the money two ways, and maybe the partner would try to tell him what to do. Ergo the lack of such a setup so far. Roger had a wife, and she was his great lover and his special friend, and that was all he really knew or cared about. He didn’t do guy things very often.

  Roger’s lawyer is a woman whose first name’s Collier, and she’s a looker. If Roger didn’t have Gwen, he might have asked Collier out to dinner. She had saved his ass once in court in another episode involving a gun, which Roger thought was a lot of houey about nothing. Roger wondered if Collier counted as a partner.

  Another person who might be a partner was Roger’s doctor. She also had done him a great favor by removing a bullet fragment from the back of his eye. It wasn’t much as bullets go, just a small piece of a slug, but still, he owed her big-time. She too was a looker, so he didn’t mind going to her for his twice-a-year eye checkup. When she asked him how his vision was, he always replied that when he was looking at her, his vision was just fine, and she didn’t seem to mind this stupid joke a bit. He always asked her if she would give him his annual routine health checkup while he was there, and she always told him she was a surgeon, and couldn’t do that. She didn’t mind one dumb joke, but she never smiled at this second one. She didn’t act offended either, so he kept trying it. Roger wondered if this constituted a partnership.

  Anyway, Blistov was sitting at their table, and Roger had to deal with his partnership proposition, hoping he’d get out of there without further unpleasant incident and with the Russian getting stuck for the $800 wine tab. After all, Jinny had offered to pay. He sipped, and Gwen sipped while looking at Jinny, trying to send an invisible message to the guy, saying no way José on this partnership thingy. She kept her purse in her lap, not returning it to the floor as it had been before Blistov appeared.

  Roger focused on the wine and waited for the proposition, thinking in good conscience he couldn’t refuse it before he heard it. He put his hand on the back of Gwen’s chair, symbolically requesting assistance in this matter, knowing she would be there for him. Blistov starting talking.