by Riley Moreno
“You know for some reason I expected a bigger outfit” she began the minute Gloria settled back in her chair. It was clear Mrs. Ludmilla Cowling was used to speaking her mind, “Not that it poses a problem; the services I require, need a smaller, more compact, mode d’operation.”
“Mrs. Cowling I can assure you about the absolute confidentiality of our services.” Gloria said with the best salesman smile she could afford. Mumbo-jumbo aside, now that this sweet old lady was in, she was not going to let her leave until they had her signature-it was do or die time.
“Well yes, I certainly hope so. The Dillinger guys seem a little too big.” Mrs. Cowling said, straight-backed against the chair she was in. “I think my husband may be up to some fishy business and I would like to know for sure.”
Gloria, not surprised at all by the request, kept a straight but compassionate case. “Mrs. Cowling I want you to understand the possible outcome of such a job before sanctioning it-”
“Oh money is not a problem. I’ll pay whatever you want.” Mrs. Cowling said cutting her off.
“I’m grateful Mrs. Cowling.” Gloria continued patiently, hating herself for being punctilious and secretly hoping that the following advice was ignored, “but I hope you are prepared for the results of any such investigation; you will have to steel your mind. I mean I’m not saying your husband is up to anything-don’t misunderstand please-“
“That bastard is up to something- I just know it!” Mrs. Cowling announced, slamming her fist on her lap. Her previously pale, hard-set jaw was flushed red for a moment, “Thirty-five years of my life! And this is how he treats me?!”
“How far are you sure that he is playing around? Has he been acting strangely lately? Maybe you got another woman’s perfume on his clothes- or you saw a condom in his wallet when you were cleaning up….”
“Cleaning up?! Gosh no! I don’t clean up-never have, never will. He has been keeping late nights and been skipping meals lately which he never does. We are old school; always shared everything together. So forgive me if I feel suspicious if he shows up, after breaking a routine spanning several decades, looking as excited as a fourteen-year-old who has just had his first kiss on the porch with the girl he liked! He never keeps secrets from me, and I am too timid to ask-or maybe too scared of the answer.”
“Could it be work?” Gloria persisted for ethics sake.
“Do you want the job or not?! Can I trust you to do it?!”
Mrs. Cowling’s footsteps were still audible clicking down the hallway when Gladys stepped in gingerly into the office to find Gloria with her forehead against the desk.
“What? She signed us up; why are you curled up like a mole in a rain storm?” she demanded.
“Well, funny as this might sound, I am worried because she signed up.” Gloria said without raising her head from the desk.
“What are you crazy? Why would you be worried?”
Gloria looked up, “Well maybe because she already has her husband tried and judged and basically wants me to come up with enough evidence to support his execution. The problem with that kind of client is that if you don’t come up with want they want to see, then they make a fuss and that is the last thing our firm needs right now, especially from somebody who has the ear of the clients that we want. What if the husband is really innocent?”
“Don’t worry if he is innocent we’ll prove that too; detailed proof of his whereabouts for a week should suffice, I hope. Besides if a woman says a man is getting a little on the side, then the chances are high that he is; women’s intuition-we just know these things.”
Gloria’s brows came together in a speculative frown; unconvinced. They could not dwell on it for long however, the phone was soon ringing, pushing life further on.
By 5pm, their entire week was loaded with appointments, some of whom called on referrals from people who had possessed Patton and Patton complimentary cards. “Remind me to send Uncle Bill a bottle of wine during the weekend; that party idea was genius!” Gloria remarked as they locked up. “In the meantime, i better go freshen up. According to his schedule given, Mrs. Cowling’s husband should be of work in about two hours.”
Chapter 4
Gloria lay in wait, camera ready, at the other end of the road that passed across the glass windows and sliding doors of the headquarters of Crystallyne; a precious stone retailer with offices all over the Eastern United States. More and more shops were popping up across the country like weeds, making it one of the fastest growing franchises in the country; several girls had found their best friends in the glass displays of Crystallyne who retailed everything from Diamonds to Amethysts-precious metals as well. According to newspaper reports, Ryan Cowling, the founder, and CEO of Crystallyne was a real rags to riches story, growing a run-down jewelry store he had won in a card game to the empire the world knew today. His wife Ludmilla had a slightly altered version of events:
He knocked me up in my sophomore year at college. My father, in a bid to make the best of an otherwise disreputable situation-this was in the seventies you see? In order to make good of the situation my father, who owned a bank, set him up in the jewelry business, and had to mentor him because he did not know squat back then. So you see the necessity for the utmost secrecy in all this?
Gloria had her car, a plain Toyota coupe, parked in a corner not touched by the street lights, and she sat a bit more alert in her seat, taking a few pictures with her high definition camera as Mr. Ryan Cowling came forth and waited for his chauffeur to open the door. Gloria understood where Mrs. Ludmilla Cowling was coming from: business for Crystallyne was greatly bolstered by the image of the all American family man; his family was happy, his wife was happy, he was happy and you could be happy too; crystalline sold happiness. Gloria took a happy picture of Mr. Cowling getting into his limousine. If he was guilty of funny business, and word got out, the consequences could mean a very drastic change of lifestyle for the Cowlings.
Gloria stayed a healthy distance away from the limousine, keeping two cars between her car and the limousine. Gloria was a stickler for climate change, and did not drive often; the busy homecoming traffic was a bit dense, and her brow was twisted in concentration as she tried to keep up with the constant changes around her. The limousine ahead of her, kept a steady pace, and glided smoothly along with the ebb and flow of the traffic. Had they kept a straight path, they would have eventually left the city center, joining a continuously thinning stream of traffic that would lead to the suburbs, and eventually to the more affluent parts of the city. Taking that route would mean that Gloria could tail the limousine to its rightful destination, meaning she could hit the sack early. The limousine stopped at a T-junction for red light before swerving to the left a minute later. Gloria followed, looking at the road leading to the suburbs wistfully. About a hundred meters from the T-Junction, the limousine came to a halt, and so did Gloria.
She watched her subject get out of the limousine to sprint furtively under the overhanging balcony that led to the foyer of the hotel. She barely had time to react, but she was out of her car two seconds later. Her camera was tucked into the dark overcoat she had brought against the cold, and she kept her head down when she passed the limousine as she dashed into the hotel, reducing her speed as she entered the plush subdued atmosphere of the lobby. There was a well-kept display of plants somewhere around the middle of the lobby which stretched backwards for a few meters, and created a pseudo-demarcation. Gloria was just in time to see Mr. Cowling negotiating a corner at the right end of the demarcation, on his way to the restaurant situated on the ground floor. Gloria could see him talking to a waiter at a corner table, partly hidden from view; ideal for a private meet. She checked her watched and noted the time-8:45pm, before taking an inconspicuous seat that offered a side view of the table. She spotted the waiter going back to that table with not one, but two drinks. Could there possibly be someone else seated at the table but hidden from view? She wondered.
A guest seated at a table doing
nothing was as inconspicuous as a unicorn in the back garden at summer time so she signaled for the waiter and ordered a drink. Keeping a tab for her client; if she was going to spy on someone, she might as well do it in style she thought, sipping her drink, and appreciating the slow soothing effect on her disposition. Life at the office had been so slow recently that she had almost forgotten just how stressful a full work day had been. She was too far to hear anything, but she could see that Mr. Cowling was engaged in a heated discussion, closing the debate as to whether there was a second party at the table.
Gloria was a beautiful woman, and to the casual onlooker, independent, as she beckoned for another drink. She was never going to be at the table for long without attracting some interest: in short order, as she checked her watch to keep tabs on the length of the meeting she had heretofore being observing, she was aware of a forced cough, the theatrical type used to grab attention that has been clichéd by the movies.
Gloria looked up into a smiling face that looked vaguely familiar. It took her a second to realize that it was the flushed faced man who had chased her across the party, and inadvertently led her into the corridor with the modern art display. His cheeks were still red but he looked a lot less flushed and a lot better looking than she remembered. The wonders of sobriety she thought flippantly.
“Hello good madam, but I couldn’t help noticing you seated by yourself.” He began, pausing afterwards, anticipating an invitation which Gloria offered.
“That is a rather strange way to ask for an invitation to sit.” Gloria remarked. “I am glad for the company though. I thought men were more aggressive these days.”
“Well I doubt it was as strange as a woman who was shy of male company-not in this day and age anyway. After raising hell and high water for the right to free sex, one would at least expect a woman to take the opportunity.” He retorted coolly, collecting a drink he had ordered earlier from a waiter.
“Here is to bygone eras then” Gloria said, raising her glass in toast.
Both of them, past the carefree point that exist just after you have had more than one glass, took big sips.
“You look different; assured.” The flushed face man remarked, “Almost like your sister, your twin.”
Gloria kept her face calm, although it was not entirely due to the drink that her face sparkled, “I could say the same thing about you, why you seem now to possess the personality to have steam-rolled that crowd to get to Gladys, no problem at all.”
“I guess we were both fish out of water then that day.”
“Hmmmh” Gloria mumbled sneaking a glance at the table she was watching.
Silence ensued for a few seconds, and then she observed Mr. Cowling get up and make to leave. Her interest peaked; she was most interested in seeing who the as of yet unseen partner was.
“Tell me, pray tell, what sort of woman feels at home watching two men having a drink?” The flushed face man asked as the blood drained from Gloria’s face at the sight of Viktor emerging from the other side of the table. “A detective perhaps, maybe even, if I may venture such a wild guess, a spy.”
Gloria was not sure what had her mind racing more: the unexpected turn up of Viktor (who still made her heart summersault with his perfect profile) or the discerning statement of the man seated next to her. Did he work for any of them? He seemed too distinguished today to be working for anybody, but that could just be an effect of his being sober. Was he spying on them as well? If that were the case, for whom?
Her eyes followed both men as they headed into an empty elevator; apparently the meeting was not over yet. It seemed a shame to waste a drink so she downed hers in one gulp before standing up to head for the elevator. She hoped to catch the number of their floor on the electronic panel display before it got lost in transit, but before leaving, she forked out her card and slipped it across the table.
“Call me!” she said, and she was off, not registering the look of intense interest that lay in the eyes of her former drinking buddy.
Chapter 5
Gloria sprinted across the floor, arriving just in time to see 12 switch to 4. There was another elevator by the side, and she stepped back as it opened up, spilling its assorted occupants onto the lobby. Gloria stepped inside, signaling for the thirteenth floor. Two minutes later, she got off the by then half full elevator, and made her way for the stairs. She had no idea what was going on but it would seem a bit obvious if she just appeared on the twelfth floor out of the blue; Ryan Cowling might not recognize her, but Viktor would.
She moved briskly, her feet barely making a sound on the soft carpeting of the floor as she headed for the seldom used stairs. She stopped just short of the bottom of the stairs, out of the light, but close enough to see that the corridor was deserted. Twenty minutes later, she saw the two men exit the room located at the farthest corner of the floor. They punched the button in wait for the elevator, prompting Gloria to tip-toe discretely across the short expanse of the floor that led to the next flight of stairs.
She was just short of heaving by the time she emerged upon the ground floor, but she was in time to see the two men emerge from the elevator with a nonchalance that belied all the time they had just spent with each other. Gloria hid on the side of the plant display and toyed with her phone to avoid being seen. She saw both men go out the door heading in opposite directions. She lingered for a few more seconds before dashing to the door to see the back of the limousine as it sped back towards the T-junction, and away towards the suburbs. There was no sight of Viktor, and she assumed she had missed his departure.
A few minutes later she was on the elevator, headed for the twelfth floor. While she was not ruling it out, twenty minutes seemed a little short for a gay liaison; something else was probably afoot. She strolled casually towards the door at the farthest end of the corridor on the twelfth floor. Realizing that it used the traditional lock and key rather than the swipe, she took out a hair pin from her coat and got to work. Her fingers were made extra skillful by urgency; keys were not exchanged at the desk so the room was still taken, which also pointed to the fact that maybe the key to this whole puzzle might still be in the room. It also meant that Viktor or Ryan Cowling could be coming back any moment-Oliver Twist anyone?
The door swung silently inwards after the click, and Gloria stepped into the dark room. She was still fumbling for the lights when strong arms grabbed her from behind. Coupled to being very strong, they were skilled looping under her armpits, and around her arms, keeping her hands uselessly in place far away from the one hand that clasped her mouth firmly so that she could not scream. She could feel a cloth pressed harshly against her nose and mouth, and from it, ruthlessly invading her cavities, she could get the strong, dense scent of ether. She struggled to break free but it was no use; a minute later, even the lights from the corridor outside vanished as everything went black; the last two things on her mind were self-reproach for not reporting back to her sister to keep her abreast of recent developments, and a distant, long forgotten memory from a high school chemistry class several years ago where the teacher warned that ether kills.
Viktor pulled into the path that led to the underground garage beneath his mansion, the rumble of the Ferrari’s engine reverberating off the walls and carrying far into the night. The house was dark, but he moved with haste negotiating the corners and perusing the halls of the great house with ease. He burst through the door of one of the numerous guestrooms, he happened upon the figure of Gloria motionless on the huge double bed. The room was dark except for the bedside lamp that created a small sphere of light that rested on Gloria’s dark skin like a halo. The pale ageing form of Sergei stood at the foot of the bed, in the darkness, like a hawk.
“When I realized who she was, I lay her here in anticipation of your arrival sir.” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Viktor’s heart was racing, and he almost feared approaching the bed as he took slow steps into the room, “Is she dead?” his volume akin to his butl
er’s
“Not even death could look this beautiful sir; she is asleep. Ether.”
Viktor, relief coursing through his veins, and now by the double bed could see the subtle, almost timid breathing. Her plus size, rounded chest barely moving against the black blouse that she wore. Sergei had already relieved her of the overcoat, and it now lay neatly over a chair that occupied a corner of the room along with its table.
“How long will she be like this?” Viktor asked.
“A few hours.”
“Leave us.” Viktor ordered. Sergei disappeared soundlessly without a word, leaving Viktor at her bedside. He sat gently at the foot of the bed, not daring to touch her.
A minute later, Viktor was pulled out of his reverie by the sudden vibration of a phone. Quickly turning around, he realized it was coming from her a pocket in her overcoat. He spilled the contents of the overcoat on the table. The caller was a Gladys-the name meant nothing to him, and he let it ring. The last thing he wanted was for anybody to trace Gloria to his residence while she was still in her condition; the publicity was not welcome. On the table, along with the phone, were a tiny notepad, a camera, a tiny purse, and a bunch of hair pins. He still did not know what she had been doing in the hotel room, but a quick perusal of the contents of the purse and notepad revealed a photo of Ryan Cowling, and a detailed log of his movements from his office, after he had closed for the day shortly after 7 pm that evening, right up to their meeting at Hotel Rouge. Viktor who was a stickler for time could see that the notes ended about the same time that he and Viktor had headed for the twelfth floor.
He turned to look at the figure in the bed; so innocent she seemed, bathed in the lamplight. But Viktor was also aware that looks, more often than not, could be very misleading. A prudent mind would have wondered what she had been doing apart from the crowd a few days ago at the party. Had she been looking for something? Why had she followed Ryan Cowling, the jeweler? But most importantly, were the two events related? Or just a coincidence? He asked himself. Viktor was not up for prudence however, he was just relieved she had not died. She could easily have been mistaken for a burglar and dealt with accordingly.