Aristocratic Thieves Read online

  Chapter 3 – Sitting Down with Jinny

  Roger’s extra sensory feelers tapped into his wife’s mood and returned to base with the message that his wife was not going to shoot Blistov, then and there. In fact, Roger felt his wife was in a good mood despite holding the three counts against Blistov, and was toying with the guy, so he relaxed a bit.

  Gwen continued looking at Blistov for a count of five, and Blistov looked back. He was amazed because now he knew that not only was this woman heeled, but that she had an elevated sense of humor and a presence of command, to boot. He liked her.

  Blistov waited another few moments before he formed both of his hands into the symbol of a gun, raised them to his face, blew on his out-stretched index fingers, and simulated stuffing them into holsters, one on each side of his waist, cowboy style. Then he grinned.

  So what they all now knew was that Roger was tough, and Gwen was tough, and Little Jinny was tough…and they all had senses of humor.

  Jinny said, “If you let me join you, I’ll buy the wine.”

  Roger looked at Gwen, who shrugged. Roger looked back at the Russian, looked down at the gun in his lap, looked up at the ceiling, looked at the wine menu, thought about the offer to buy the Bordeaux, and nodded assent. Gwen sat down, while the Russian looked behind him and grabbed a vacant chair from the next table without asking permission of the five people sitting there. Gwen was surprised he looked normal and not like a five year old sitting at the adult table, deciding maybe she’d not been wholly fair in her appraisal of his physical stature.

  Now that the tension had abated somewhat, Gwen and Roger had to do something with their guns. Gwen’s went back in her purse, but her purse stayed in her lap. Roger returned his beneath his suit coat, remembering there now was a round in the chamber.

  Roger’s attention shifted to the prospect of a Russian criminal choosing which Bordeaux they were to drink. Gwen’s attention shifted to the prospect of drinking Bordeaux in close proximity to someone she hated on three bona fide accounts (his shoes, his relationship with her husband, and his manner of addressing her) and one half-way bona fide account (his height). Blistov picked up the wine menu, scanned the page Roger had been reading, turned in his chair towards the waiter station, and yelled across the room, “A bottle of the ’89 Latour and a bottle of the ’90 Latour. Decant both.”

  Roger was stunned, and at this point Gwen didn’t quite know what to think about this whole deal. She had come expecting a quiet romantic dinner of langoustines and wine with her love, and now she was sitting with a guy who had cleaned toilets in the Hermitage for five years. Lucky for her she was the mentally flexible type.

  They didn’t talk, they didn’t look at the other diners who were staring at them, they didn’t look at the waiter who was preparing the wine at the station. They just looked at each other. Jinny smiled and looked, Roger eased his face and looked, Gwen kept hold of her purse with the gun in it and looked. The wine came in decanters and they looked at all $800 of it. Blistov tasted and approved, the waiter poured, and they sipped. They still didn’t talk. They sipped some more.

  Finally Roger smiled at his wife and said, “It was the ’89 we had in London, but I like this ’90 even better. A little more concentrated.”

  The waiter came with dinner menus, but Blistov gave him the evil eye and waved him away. They all sipped again. Blistov leaned back in his chair, looked at Gwen, then looked at Roger and said, “I have a proposition for you. I want to be your partner.”