Gwenny June

By Richard Dorrance

Gwenny and Roger June make a friend and an enemy. The friend is a beautiful young Russian woman they catch in their house at 3am, armed with a gun. The enemy is her grandfather, a billionaire former Nazi hunter. Gwenny June is the best there is, at everything, and the game is on again in America's most beautiful town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Dorrance
• Release date: Dec 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311343710

Richard Dorrance

Richard Dorrance lives next door to Gwenny and Roger June in America's most beautiful town, Charleston, South Carolina. Four days after moving into his house on Church St., Richard heard gunfire on the other side of the 200 year old brick wall that separates his historic property from the June's. Being of stout heart, he stood on a chair and looked over the wall, where he saw Gwenny sitting on a wooden milk crate, holding a gun and looking at the wall along the back line of her property, where Richard could see small craters in the wall and brick chips on the ground underneath. The appearance of his head above the wall caught Gwen's eye, and she looked at him with a dazzling smile.She said, "Hey. Sorry about the noise, but I just had to sight this new baby in. Looks like it pulls a hair to the left." She got up, went over to the wall, and offered him a handshake.Richard never had had the inclination to kiss a woman's hand, old-fashioned style, but he did now. He would discover that Gwen made a lot of men feel and think things they never had before. He controlled himself, shook her hand regular style, and asked, "Don't the police mind you firing a gun in the back yard?"She said, "They do, or used to, but after they come to check it out they seem to leave satisfied. I don't do it very often. We like a quiet neighborhood."That was a few years ago, and since then Richard and the Junes have become good friends. So good, in fact, that Richard started writing books about them and the capers they get involved in. You can read excerpts from these books on Richard's website.Before meeting the Junes and being stimulated to record their multifarious lives in a series of comedy cum caper novels, Richard worked for many years as an historical preservationist for the National Park Service. He now finds living vicariously through his neighbors exploits to be much more interesting. He also really likes the June's dog, who communicates with him telepathically. Occasionally, as Richard works on a book, the Junes try to hide something from him about one of their capers, but the dog always squeals and tells the whole story.email: [e-mail]

Book preview

Chapter 1 – Home Invasion

The dog growled, which doesn’t happen very often. Both Roger and Gwen picked up on this and looked at each other. Roger rolled out of bed on one side, and Gwen rolled out of bed on the other, their hands going into drawers of bedside tables and coming out with guns. The dog stared at the bedroom door, which was open.

In their bare feet Roger and Gwen moved towards the door and stopped. They stood still and silent, listening. Yes, downstairs they heard a person moving. Thank you dog; steak for you later.

Gwen got a very hard look on her face, which Roger interpreted as a show-no-mercy mindset. Roger knew she would give the invader a chance. She would spend two or three seconds to evaluate the person, judge the person, and determine the level of threat. Then she would act. If Gwen determined the person was a common burglar, he or she would survive. If Gwen determined the person was something else, if he or she was a serious threat, the person would not survive. It was a simple as that. The Deneuve was in the house, and nothing was going to threaten her or Roger. Nothing. This invasion of the June home would fail.

Roger telegraphed his thoughts across the open doorway, Stay here, let the person come up the stairs. If we go down the stairs the person has the tactical advantage. Gwen nodded. She replied, silently, I take the invader, you protect The Deneuve. Roger nodded.

Gwen looked at the dog, telling it to go to the far side of the bed, and it obeyed. She entered the heavily carpeted hallway and moved away from the top of the stairs, towards the Heppleworth table at the end of the hallway. She crouched at the side of the table, letting it hide her. Both hands cradled her gun in a firm but relaxed grip. Roger stayed where he was, knowing his first move would be down the hallway toward the guest bedroom. They waited in these positions, Gwen’s eyes glowing brightly.

From downstairs came the faint sound of a door creaking open. Then the faint sound of footsteps in the living room. Then silence. A minute passed, and a second minute, and then two more minutes. The dog was quiet and Roger was quiet and Gwen was fiercely quiet. They knew the person on the first floor was making a fateful decision, to come up the stairs, or not. Roger knew one decision meant life for the person, and the other decision could mean death. What would it be?

Chapter 2 – Another Russian in the Kitchen

There are sixteen wide steps that connect the June’s first floor with the second. Roger and Gwen counted the person’s fateful progress: step one, step two, step three….Gwen took a deep breath….step four, step five….the dog remained quiet….step six….Roger crouched slightly….step seven, step eight, step nine. In three seconds Gwen covered the twenty-five feet between the Heppleworth table and the banister around the staircase. She knew the person was at a disadvantage, standing exposed on the stairs, while she was above and partially hidden by the banister. She came into a shooting stance against the wall, the Glock 40 caliber semi-automatic in both hands, over the top rail of the banister, pointing at the back of the person on the stairs. She hissed very softly, and said, If you move a single inch I’ll stop your heart from beating.

As she assumed her position and had the person covered, Roger ran down the hallway in the other direction, quietly opened the door of the guest bedroom, and entered. He crouched, most of his body protected inside the room, with only his gun arm and head exposed, looking down the hallway towards the stairs. Behind him, from inside the room, he heard Catherine Deneuve say, Roger, does Gwen know about this?

The person on the stairs did not move an inch. The left hand moved outwards away from the body to the left, and the right hand, holding a gun, moved away from the body to the right. Very quietly Gwen said, Kneel down. The person complied. Gwen said, Put the gun on the step below your feet. If you move in any way I don’t like, I’ll kill you. Slowly the person leaned backwards and put the gun on the step. Stand up and come up the stairs. Roger, ok.

Roger blew a kiss to the world famous woman in the bed, closed the door, and came down the hallway quickly. He focused his Beretta nine on the chest of the person appearing at the top of the staircase, and moved so his line of fire excluded Gwen behind the banister. He stopped and waited. Gwen said, Hands on the wall, feet back, stop thinking of attack. She nodded at Roger, who moved close to the person. With his left hand he frisked the person’s entire body. The hair below the ears might belong to a man, but it was fine and silky. Any doubt evaporated when Roger’s hand cupped a breast. He didn’t shy away from checking her crotch, because he knew it was done in the line of duty. If Gwen found out he didn’t do a thorough and professional job of frisking, she would give him hell.

Roger stepped back and nodded to his wife, who came around the banister and flipped on the hallway light. When Gwen saw it was a woman, she said to Roger, Did you enjoy that? Roger thought it best not to reply with anything that could be construed as enthusiasm. Gwen said, Let’s not disturb our friend. Let’s take our unwanted guest downstairs. Roger headed down the stairs first, the unwanted guest second, and Gwen third, keeping her gun in shooting position. At the bottom of the stairs Roger moved out of Gwen’s line of fire, and the trio moved slowly down the hallway to the kitchen, where Roger turned on the light. The sudden brightness made the two Russian blue cats, sitting on the counter near the pantry, blink.

Gwen and Roger faced the woman, and Gwen said, Strip.

She didn’t say anything, but immediately began taking off her clothes: black sweater, black tee shirt, fanny pack, clip holster, black sneakers, black cargo pants. Roger was pleased to see that her bra, panties, and socks also were black. For that matter, so was Gwen. Gwen looked at Roger and saw a silly look on his face. When he was playing with her, Gwen found this endearing, but in the present circumstances, she did not. She motioned to the woman to stop her stripping, took the outer clothes and threw them into the hallway.

Gwen looked at Roger and said, Get her gun from the stairs, I didn’t pick it up. And get the duct tape from the pantry, would you dear? Gwen took hold of a chair and placed it facing the cabinets, away from the doors and windows. She didn’t know how desperate this person might be, or to what lengths she would go to get out of the predicament she had gotten herself into. The gun stayed pointed at the woman’s chest; the woman’s very nice chest; Gwen had to give her that. She had screwed up badly getting caught, but she had a great body. Maybe she could use that in some way in her next job. If she ever got a next job.

Roger returned with a Walther PPS in his right hand, went into the pantry and came out with a roll of duct tape in his left. He set the gun down on the counter. Gwen looked at him. He picked up the gun, went back down the hallway, and returned a minute later without the gun. Gwen asked, Where’s your gun? Roger stood there in the kitchen, dressed only in a tee shirt, and realized he didn’t have on any pants into which he had tucked his Beretta. He looked around the kitchen and saw his gun over on the kitchen table. He went and picked it up, then said, I’ll cover her while you tape her up. Where are you going to put your gun? Gwen realized she too was wearing nothing but a tee shirt, and didn’t have any pants on into which she could tuck her Glock. She smiled at him, he smiled at her, and they both smiled at their unwanted guest. She smiled back.

Gwen threw the roll of tape to the woman. Tape your right arm to the chair, she said. When this was done, Gwen carefully skirted around behind the chair, took the tape, peeled off a strip, and taped the woman’s left arm to the chair.

Roger said, That’s going to hurt when the tape comes off.

Who says the tape’s coming off? Gwen said.

At this moment one of the world’s most famous women entered the kitchen. Catherine Deneuve walked in, looked at Roger half naked, looked at Gwen half naked, and looked at a beautiful stranger strapped into a chair, wearing only underwear. She also noticed that Gwen and Roger were holding guns. She said, Roman Polanski created a scene like this in Repulsion. I was in it, but it didn’t make the final cut. It’s funny to see it recreated here, of all places, so many years later. Is this a fun deal you have going here, or a serious deal? Fun, I hope. Those were the days, for me.

Gwen said to Roger, Watch her, but not too closely, took Catherine by the arm and gently pulled her down the hallway to the study. They sat down on the sofa, and Gwen said, Catherine, this is a serious deal. That person is not our friend. I don’t know who she is or what she wants. I am so sorry this has happened while you’re here.

Catherine looked into Gwen’s eyes. My dear, I’m sorry you have a serious matter, but I know you and Roger will figure it out. I am going back upstairs to read. Issuing a twinkling smile, she said, Do I need to take a gun with me? Let me know if you need my help. And she rose and headed up the staircase. Halfway up she turned and said to Gwen, who was walking down the hallway to the kitchen, Gwenny dear, your derrière is to die for, and Roger, la bistouquette est très bonne, non?

Gwen smiled and waved the Glock in Catherine’s direction. She entered the kitchen and said to Roger, Now that the two of you have had your intimate bonding time, how about getting us some pants? And get the holsters too, please, dear.

As Roger left the kitchen, Gwen pulled a second chair away from the table and over to the woman. She sat down, crossed her legs, and let her arm and the Glock dangle towards the floor. What in God’s name are we going to do with you? was all she could say. She got up, put the gun on the counter, retrieved the woman’s clothes from the hallway, and went through them. In the fanny pack she found a magazine loaded with fifteen rounds, $800 in twenty dollar bills, and a cell phone. That was it. She sat back down in the chair and waited for her pants.

Roger returned with two pair of underwear, two pair of pants, and two clip-on holsters. Gwen asked, You couldn’t have put your pants on upstairs? He just looked at her for a moment, bewildered, and then proceeded to get dressed.

The woman said, Don’t cover up on my account. May be the last I see of any of that for some time to come, depending on what you do with me. Her accent was Russian.

Chapter 3 – The Uninvited Guest

Well? said Gwen, looking at the woman.

I love those cats, she said, looking at the pair sitting on the counter, Russian blue cats are so smart. Did you know the same Russian family was the breeder of those cats for, like, 300 years or something? The family lived in the Czar’s palaces, special treatment, all of that. All they had to do was produce really smart cats for the Czar. Cushy job. I don’t think the members of that family got out a lot though. I’m not sure how THEIR breeding line worked out. There are paintings of them in Moscow, and they all look a little crazy.

Roger looked at Gwen and said, I thought Russian spies and assassins were supposed to be like steel. Never say a word, even under torture. She likes to talk. I don’t think Russia is what it used to be.

Gwen said, Sometimes those cats make this really cool sound, ‘Caooh’. Do all blues do that?

The woman looked shocked, which both Roger and Gwen picked up on. Roger said, I thought Russian spies and assassins were supposed to stay inscrutable, even under torture. She’s like a method actor, letting it all out.

You have THAT kind of blue cats? You have a pair of ‘Caooh’ blues? Jesus, they are worth like $50,000. Roger motioned to her to keep talking. Only the Czar’s immediate family ever was allowed to have ‘Caooh’ cats. When Lenin did his revolution thing in 1917, he tried to hunt down all the ‘Caoohs’ and kill them. He thought they were icons of Russian aristocracy. They were higher on the assassination list than some Romanov family members. Wow, and you’ve got two of them. They don’t happen to be boy and girl, do they? The woman looked hopeful.

Roger looked at Gwen and asked, Do we know if they’re fixed or not? Does Jinny or Guignard know?

Gwen glared at Roger. Interrogators were not supposed to divulge information to the people they were interrogating. Here he had gone and given up the names of two friends. She looked at the clock, which showed 4:30am. Maybe Roger was off his game because it was the middle of the night. Still, no excuse.

The woman smiled.

Why are you in our house? Gwen asked, politely. Not so politely she said, You’re lucky to be alive. She remembered the sounds of someone uninvited in her house in the middle of the night, someone who was a threat to her husband and to the The Deneuve. Gwen got a hard look on her face, and this caught the woman’s attention. Her breathing quickened ever so slightly.

You’re right, the woman said. I’m supposed to not say anything if I get caught. It’s just being in such a nice house, and then seeing both of you naked from the waist down, and then you telling me you have ‘Caooh’ cats.

She lapsed into silence, which at this point Gwen was a little thankful for.

Why do you have a gun, and what were you going to do with it? Where you going to kill us in our beds?

Roger gave it a try. You’re all dressed in black, like an assassin. Even your underwear is black. Are those silk? Gwen looked at him. You’re lucky my wife didn’t drop you on the stairs. Why did you take this risk? Tell us and we won’t torture you very much. Our neighbors object to the screams, and we like being good neighbors, right hon? he asked, looking at Gwen.

Gwen decided she might have to put him to bed and get Catherine down here to help deal with the situation. Before she did that, she would try some coffee on him. She could use some herself. The adrenaline rush of finding an intruder in her house at 3:45am, and coming close to killing the intruder, was beginning to wear off.

Gwen said, Would you please make some coffee?

Eggs and potatoes, too? Roger said.

This is not a picnic. All these guns are real, you know. She looked at the kitchen counter with the Glock, the Beretta, and the Walther on it. She sensed the smell of gun oil.

While Roger fiddled with the big Italian espresso machine, Gwen stared at the woman. What a pain in the ass. Everything had been going along really well, and now this. The first two Russian couples the Junes had brought to Charleston six months ago were spending time in their beachfront houses. The Peter and Pater boys were making progress setting up their ballet academy, working with Selgey and Bart. And Jinny and Guignard were….hmm, what were they doing? They visited regularly, but never seemed to say what they were doing for a living. They would say they had gone fishing that day, or had eaten lunch at this or that restaurant, or had gone to see a movie. But they didn’t talk about doing anything to make money. Oh well, not our business.

She and Roger had talked once or twice about reconstituting the caper team, and getting the next contingent of Russians out of the Saint Petersburg February deepfreeze, but nothing had come of it. They were expecting Jinny and Guignard to run out of money and come to them about getting more cash cows here to Charleston, but that hadn’t happened. Gwen wondered if Jinny was generating an income he wasn’t telling them about. As a couple, Jinny and Guignard seemed happy together, so butt out is what Gwen thought.

And now this. Now this woman, sitting in their kitchen in her underwear, duct taped to a chair.

Chapter 4 – It Gets Weirder

The coffee helped. Gwen thought, at least now Roger couldn’t use the, ‘It was the middle of the night, what do you expect,’ line when he said something dumb. He had better kick his brain into gear and figure the hell out what to do with this bitch. Cute bitch, but that was beside the point. Cute haircut, sort of coifed inwards at the bottom, short but not too short. Not the sort of thing one normally associates with an assassin. Gwen figured it was a $150 haircut, easy. Roger, on the other hand, was evaluating her underwear. He really wanted to know for sure if it was silk.

Gwen knew Roger was thinking of asking the woman if she wanted a cup of coffee, and how she wanted it. Lucky for him he didn’t do that. Gwen still had her gun within reach.

Both of them knew the duct tape by this time must be getting uncomfortable. The woman hadn’t said anything for a while, wonder of wonders, hadn’t asked for the duct tape to be loosened, and hadn’t asked for a cup of coffee with eggs and potatoes, so she was playing her part to some degree at least. You know, the assassin part.

Did you come here to kill us? Gwen asked again. She said this off-handedly as she poured herself a second cup. The woman squirmed a little, and so did Roger. That’s quite a question to ask someone.

Can I have a cup of coffee, the woman asked. That smells so darn good, and I’ve been up all night. It’s Kenyan, right? I love that smell. Roger smiled at this, which earned him a glare from Gwen.

You can’t have any coffee until you tell us if you came here to kill us.

The caffeine was working on Roger and he was feeling feisty, even if it was 5:30am. He asked Gwen, So if she says she did come here to kill us, you’re going to reward her with our $30-per-pound Kenyan coffee? He said this with a straight face, around the corner of which peeked a smile. He loved to tease his wife once in a while.

$30 a pound, the woman said. You mean per kilo, right?

Per pound, Gwen said, with undue emphasis, taking out on the woman what she wanted to take out on Roger. Smart ass.

The conversation with, er, interrogation of, this person was going nowhere. Gwen knew instinctively that Roger was trying to tell if the woman was wearing perfume. The little runt actually was sniffing, which infuriated Gwen. Roger was saved from some serious abuse by the appearance of The Deneuve, who came into the kitchen, followed by the dog and an American mutt cat. Ever since a dustup with the Russian blues, the June’s cat had refused to sit on the counter with them.

Catherine looked at the woman, sitting in her underwear, duct tapped to the chair, and then at the three guns on the counter next to the sugar bowl. She said, No solution yet, dears? I tried to get back to sleep, but first with Roger entering my room in the middle of the night, and then seeing both of you earlier, the way you were, I couldn’t. Catherine went over to the two cats sitting on the counter and touched the top of their heads, which elicited a melodious Caooh. A few days earlier Gwen had told her the story of the appearance of the Russian blue cats, how they had belonged to the cook of the container ship on which four Russians criminals had been smuggled into the country, the criminals being partners of the Junes. Catherine loved the Caooh sound, and got it every time she touched the cats. Those cats know a quality human when they see one.

She helped herself to coffee, and sat down at the counter. Then she looked at the almost naked woman sitting in the chair. Tied to the chair. Catherine said to her, You’re wearing OPIUM, aren’t you dear?

The woman didn’t say anything, but sat starring at The Deneuve, mesmerized.

Roger looked smug with this confirmation of what he suspected. Gwen looked disgusted, like, what assassin worth her salt wears Yves Saint Laurent perfume out on a job. Famous perfume, expensive perfume. Gwen wondered what she wore when she was trying to seduce a man, if she wore OPIUM out on a job.

When Catherine Deneuve was in the room, everything in the room that was equal to or greater than the size of an electron paid attention to her. In this case the three cats, the dog, the Russian assassin, and the Junes all stopped thinking, and just waited for her to talk. The woman in the chair seemed very relaxed despite the fact that she now had been duct taped in one position for an hour, and Gwen realized she had some toughness to her. The tape pulling on the hairs of her arms for that length of time must be uncomfortable.

Deneuve said, If you wear OPIUM when you’re sneaking around someone’s house with a gun in the middle of the night, what do you wear when you’re trying to get a man’s attention?

The woman said, I don’t need perfume to get a man’s attention.

Catherine looked at Gwen and said, Oh honey, I like this one, don’t you?

Gwen decided not to make the point that the woman may be an assassin, and may be in the house to kill someone, but smiled instead. She could see The Deneuve’s point. Roger didn’t say anything because he knew Gwen wouldn’t appreciate it.

Catherine sat for a while staring at the woman. She had finished her coffee and was debating a second cup. She stared some more. The dog came over to her at the counter and put his chin on her thigh. She petted the soft head, and looked down expectantly. No Caooh was emitted. She smiled at the dog. When she looked up again at the woman she said, Roger, would you make me a nice English breakfast, please, I’m hungry. Thinking always makes me hungry, and a croissant just won’t supply the joie de vivre I’m going to need this morning. The English do a lot of things wrong, like the clothes they wear, but they’re better thinkers than us French, and that’s because they know how to make breakfast. She smiled at Roger, who automatically got up and went to the refrigerator. Eggs, potatoes, and bacon soon were in play.

While Roger was doing this, Catherine pulled her chair close to the bound woman. She looked at Gwen, who knew it meant she too should bring a chair close to the woman. They sat on either side of her, with their backs to the stove where Roger was working. The Deneuve’s left arm was next to the woman’s left arm, and Gwen’s right arm was near the woman’s right arm. They had her surrounded.

Catherine looked hard at the woman’s eyes for a minute, and then reclined, her neck supported by the top of the chair back. She closed her eyes and said, Gwen, dear, do you know what Rudyard Kipling said about writing? It is a great precept, and it applies equally well to thinking. It applies to solving problems. He said, ‘drift, wait, obey’. That’s what we have to do with this problem. She looked at the woman and said, Do you Russians know Rudyard Kipling?

The woman shook her head, No.

Catherine asked her, Do you understand what he meant by, ‘Drift, wait, obey’?

The woman shook her head, No.

"The three of us have a problem to solve, and we’re going to solve it together. Gwen is going to tell me her story about Russia, which is why you are here in Charleston, creeping around in middle of the night, carrying a gun and wearing one of my favorite perfumes. You have a really big problem, because you’ve threatened Gwen, and she doesn’t like that. You’re going to have to pay a price to her, and I’m not sure what that will be. But it will be something, that’s for certain. You are the one sitting tied to a chair. Gwen has stripped you of your clothes and your dignity. Why she did not strip you of your life I don’t know. If you threatened the man I love, that’s what I would have done. When I know what happened in Russia to bring you here, then we will sit and drift, and we will sit and wait, and we will sit and obey. And then