Mike considered the answer and then caught Katrina’s eye. The little minx would have the answer he was looking for he was sure.
“Katrina, how do you get the boys to notice you?” Mike asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Sway your hips?” Katrina replied, grinning. “Look them in the eye? Pout your lips? Drop one shoulder? Put your hand on their arm? Then they’ll carry your water and you don’t have to.”
“Minx,” Greznya said with a smile.
“Katrina, however, is right,” Mike said, seriously. “We want the distributors to notice us. We will build some displays for the booth that have the ‘look’ of the valley of the Keldara, we will have bright signs and we will have pictures of pretty girls. Oh, and we will have pretty girls giving out free tastes of our beer. Some of you will go to the convention and serve beer, smiling all the time. But before that we have to make things to give out that have pictures and information about our beer. And for that we’ll need pictures,” Mike finished, holding up the camera.
“Of pretty girls?” Katrina asked. “Then just take them of me.”
“Quiet, you,” Mike growled. “I will. But first I want pictures of all the girls. Girls with beer is a good thing for sales. So line up and smile.”
It took more than that. The Keldara women were trained almost from birth that they shouldn’t use their looks as a weapon. And they were very camera shy at first. But after Mike got a couple of good photos, and was able to show them to the girls using his laptop, they got into the spirit of the shoot.
The best image was towards the end of the shoot, when he had all the girls line up with their buckets in one hand and the other wrapped around the shoulder of the girl next to them. Most of them were holding a bottle in their off-hand and he’d managed to get a decent expression on every face. The boys, thankfully, were more interested in the shoot than they were in food for the time being and didn’t so much as grumble about their lunch being held up.
When the food and beer had finally been served Mike discreetly grabbed Katrina and pulled her aside.
“When you get back to the house, have them call me,” Mike said. “I’d like to get some shots of you later today. But have your mother call me and set it up.”
“Very well, Kildar,” Katrina said, batting her eyelashes at him. “But I can go now. There is less to carry back than we carry to the field.”
“Okay, but we’re going to go by the brewery and pick up a chaperone,” Mike said. “I know just the one to use.”
“Hello, Mother Lenka,” Mike said as he ducked his head in the still-under-construction brewery. “Could I have a moment of your time?”
“There is something you need to know about sex, Kildar?” Mother Lenka cackled. “Or is it brewing?”
“I need a chaperone, actually,” Mike said, leading her out into the sunshine. “I’m going to take some photos of Katrina for the brochures for the brewery. But I’m sure as hell not going to go off alone with her.”
“And you think that I’m a chaperone?” Mother Lenka said then started laughing so hard she choked. “Oh, Kildar, you tell such good ones!”
“You’re just the chaperone I need, old crone,” Mike said, grinning and leading her over to the Expedition. “You’re an older, married female. Wholly respectable… sort of.”
“Not even close,” Mother Lenka said, still gasping for breath. “They will assume that you just needed coaching with the young one!”
“No, they won’t and you know it,” Mike said. “But when I ask her to do some of the things I’ll need her to do for the shots, you won’t so much as bat an eye. Could you imagine if I asked her to suck the foam off the top of an open beer bottle in front of, say, Mother Kulcyanov?”
“She wouldn’t even know what you were trying to suggest,” Mother Lenka said, giving him a toothless grin. “But I understand. Assuredly I will chaperone you, young man. And if you need any suggestions…”
“I’m sure we’ll do fine,” Mike said. “But I do need to pick up some supplies.”
He’d spotted the location while checking out the Keldara doing patrolling ops. It was a quiet little dell, with a small waterfall surrounded by trees. There was a wide grassy area that at the moment was filled with late spring wild flowers and the light was just about right.
He parked the Expedition on a narrow dirt logging road and led the two up to the dell then went back to the SUV for his equipment and the bucket of beer he’d appropriated from the brewery.
“Okay, Katrina,” Mike said, handing the girl a bottle of beer and positioning her by the waterfall. “What I want you to do is think of just how wonderful Keldara beer is and when you look at the camera I want you to look at it as if it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.”
“Make love to the camera,” Mother Lenka said, somewhat sadly. “That was what I was told when I would model. Think of the camera as your lover.”
“I didn’t know you modeled,” Mike said, glancing over at her as he considered the light and made some manual adjustments to the Nikon.
“I’ve done many things you would not think I had, young one,” Mother Lenka said, then laughed again. “And many that even you would not believe!”
“Mother Lenka is my role model,” Katrina said, holding up the beer bottle and giving the camera a smouldery look. “Like this?”
“That’s a start,” Mike said. “Work it, babe.”
Chapter Eight
Mike hit the answer button on his phone and threw the estimates for the convention booth costs on the desk. He hadn’t realized it would be that much. Just getting electric run was a minimum of two hours at $175 per hour. Thank God he didn’t need internet connection! At least the photo shoot had worked out well. He had some killer shots that had been worked into three different brochures and a poster of Katrina that was sure to be a big hit. But the more he looked at the rest of his plans, the more he realized he was going to need some pull in D.C…
“Go.”
“Kildar, there is a call from the United States,” one of the Keldara women said over the speaker phone. “An officer in the State Department.”
“Put it through,” Mike replied, picking up the handset. Speak of the devil…
“Mr. Jenkins?” a cultured voice said a moment later.
“The same,” Mike growled. The only thing worse in the U.S. government than IRS agents, in his opinion, were the Northeastern Liberal brahmins that ran the State Department. And this guy sounded like a classic case.
“Mr. Jenkins, my name is Wilson Hargreave Thornton, I am a desk officer for the Moldava section in the State Department.”
“I don’t suppose that’s located in Minot, North Dakota, is it?” Mike asked. Moldava was the poorest country in Europe, with no major exports except blonde hookers. It was hardly the France desk.
“No, Mr. Jenkins,” the man said, laughing dryly and quite falsely. “The Moldava desk is hardly Siberia. It has had some serious action of late. And it’s about that that I wish to talk to you. I was asked to do a favor for a senior member of the legislative branch. However, I’ve exhausted my sources in this matter. When I so informed him he, quite out of the blue, asked if I knew you and if I would contact you for him. I will say you’re a hard man to find.”
“I like it that way,” Mike said.
“So I understand,” the man said, chuckling again. He had the dry chuckle of a person who had had their sense of humor surgically removed but tried to act as if it was still intact. “I would like to ask you to come to Washington for a few days and meet with the member I was referring to. He needs someone with your… background.”