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“Ah so that’s your angle? Cowling!” The man announced. “Okay then we have no dealings together. I’ll just make my way out quietly, and disappear altogether-forget we ever met…although that should be much more difficult for me seeing as you ladies are a double dose for sore eyes.”
“Stay where you are!” Gladys barked, “Put your hands up where I can see them. We are turning you over to the police for breaking and entering; even if you are intensely attractive and strangely funny.”
The man stopped in his tracks, and in one deft move, whipped a pistol out of his inner coat pocket, pointing it straight at Gloria. Gloria felt the same thing. It was different from what she felt for Viktor. This guy had more layers than an onion, a new side of him revealed with every meeting with an ease and cleverness that seemed as effortless to him as breathing. A woman liked a little mystery, but Gloria wondered if there was anything real about him. She remembered the story her father used to tell them as children of the magician who changed so many times to so many things that he forgot his true form.
She was quite unmoved by his gun, five meters from her rounded chests. “Put the gun away; you are not going to shoot me.” She said boldly.
“Oh!” he said sarcastically. “Are you sure about that? I’m a pretty good shot, and forgive me, but you two are large ladies, really hard to miss.”
“Yeah I’m sure; you love both of us, depending on who you are. Not one of your transformations can change that small constant, and part of your coming here was to pay tribute to your assumed loss. This is the first time you have us both in the same room and you are running away, not because our interests don’t cross, but because you don’t want to make a choice. Making a choice between us will mean choosing your real self and sticking with it-rather than playing sorcerer-you don’t want to grow up!”
“You too Gladys; let’s talk instead-see if we can learn something new.”
“Let him go first.” Gladys said; the ice in her voice, unmistakable. “I don’t trust him-how did I miss him by the way? At the party I mean”
The man placed his gun by his side, then into his inner pocket. “Call me Cyril, and that was rather nicely played MS Patton.” He said extending his hand towards Gloria who shook it. “Gloria, and this is-“
“Gladys-still with the pistol; I thought we had made peace however shaky.”
Gladys put her pistol into her bag which she had been holding her side all this while. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“It’s good to know you are still alive by the way. Your death would have been such a terrible waste.”
“Thanks it was just a misunderstanding actually. So why are you after Viktor?” Gloria said, heading straight to the crux of the matter.
“He is in possession of something, and the owners want it back. Short and simple.”
“This won’t have anything to do with Valgloria’s teardrop would it?” Gloria asked calmly. She was seated on the swivel chair now, while the others sat on the clients seats on the other end of the office desk.
“Well, you seem to know everything, don’t you?” Cyril remarked with a smile across his face. “I’m impressed!”
“Actually it was Gladys who did all the research; I was asleep; Ether.”
“Oh! Nasty stuff that.”
“Hmmh, no kidding.” Said Gloria; nodding, and swiveling at the same time, as well as appreciating the absence of the squeak.
“Reports say this diamond was stolen from the Museum in Moscow, but the puzzling thing comes with the slightest research into its origins. It belonged to the Valgloria line of counts and countesses; a tangible sign of their rank and standing. Such things are not just given away nor easily taken back once handed over.” Gladys said, tapping into her research. “It was a coup for the cultural society over there when they acquired it.”
“We think Viktor has it, and may be thinking of putting it on display here or maybe even selling it to Crystallyne-it would certainly make for a business booster auctioning it off to the highest bidder. How can you steal something that you gave away in the first place only to give it away again? It does not make sense. Is he running some sort of scam which he is trying to pull off here in the U.S.?” Gladys continued.
