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Gregg was telling himself that it was all part of the plan to part Victoria Leon from some, well most, of her wealth but, he supposed, if he was honest there might be a bit more to it than that. There wasn’t any real reason why the Mayor would have anything on file about Ms Leon but the opportunity to get to grips with Dorothea Reynolds was just too great a temptation. From where he sat outside City Hall, the only light still burning was in the Mayor’s office. The effects of the spliff he was enjoying seemed even more intense than usual. Since the first time that he had inhaled the curious herb he had found in the old basket from the antique shop each subsequent joint had given him better, more intense, more mmmmm, highs. Somehow it was as though his body had tuned into to the effects of the drug as a result of his find. It didn’t matter if it was good stuff or the cheapest dog ends of seeds and stalks, it was as though the drug’s effects belonged to him. He was used to the hallucinations now; coruscating balls of light, the strange spiralling clouds of smoke, the presence of his guides, Strange and Mandrake. They were like good friends, steering him towards the solutions to his problems. He looked up at the light from the mayor’s office, the drug seemed to magnify the light until it shone like a beacon calling him. He walked towards the building in answer to it.
The dazzling power of the ruby let him pass the night porter and up into the building. As he approached Dorothea’s office he could hear the sounds of two women arguing.
“I really don’t care. This needs to be done tonight!” Dorothea’s voice was obviously tense.
“But Ms Reynold’s I’m supposed to be meeting someone later. I should have left an hour ago.” The other woman, evidently the Mayor’s secretary, was trying hard not to lose her temper.
“Well you’re late already so it won’t matter. I need these papers before you go.”
Gregg felt almost obliged to interrupt the two of them in order to prevent them coming to blows. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said.
The two women span around, startled, to see Gregg’s twinkling ruby shining darkly at them. They fell at once under its spell, gazing deep into the gem as it turned in Gregg’s hand.
Gregg was pleased to see that the ruby was as effective as ever. “I’d like you to raise your hands please. You’re being threatened with a gun. A masked man has it pressed hard against your belly,” Gregg said quietly to the mayor’s secretary. “And you too, mayor. Feel the chill of the pistol’s steel barrel against you. Stare into your attacker’s masked face, his cold dark eyes.”
As Gregg conjured the image intended to keep the Mayor and her secretary motionless while he searched the office, he suddenly became aware that his suggestions were not in the least unwelcome.
“Mmm,” the Mayor said, parting her lips slightly as she raised her arms obediently. Her jacket fell open as her hands reached her shoulders. Gregg could clearly see that her nipples were rigidly erect beneath her blouse. It was as much as Gregg could do to keep his mind on his mission. “Kinky Mrs Mayor,” Gregg thought to himself as he left the two women standing under the imagined threat of the gunmen. He made his way to the filing cabinet and quickly rifled through it. The mayor might be a bitch of a boss, Gregg thought, but at least it makes things easy for me. The files were well organised and it took him no time to find the police investigation records into the mystery robberies and the theft from Ms Leon. It was obvious from the files that the police had very little idea of who was responsible and what was more the memos on file made it clear that there were plenty of people that were annoyed about the interference of Jungle Jane as well. With all that going on, Gregg didn’t reckon that he had much to worry about.
Having dealt with the work, Gregg turned to thoughts of pleasure. The mayor and her secretary were still standing where Gregg had left them. The secretary’s look of fear told Gregg that for her, the illusion of the masked gunman was as real as ever. The mayor’s moist lipped muttering told him the same thing. Taking advantage of the situation, Gregg took the opportunity to explore the contents of the mayor’s blouse, unbuttoning the silk shirt to reveal her well rounded breasts, held in check by a well boned brassiere. “They shouldn’t be restrained like that; they should be free,” Gregg thought, taking pity on the two fleshy globes. A pair of scissors from the secretary’s desk let him snip through the mayor’s bra between the two cups as she stood there, motionless and unresisting. The mayor moaned quietly as her breasts fell free. Gregg grinned, looking with pleasure at the well rounded breasts and the dark aureoles that surrounded her stiff nipples. Mischievously, Gregg reached behind the mayor’s back to unfasten her skirt. It fell around her ankles, giving Gregg a view of the mayor’s stockings and tightly cut silk panties. He leant forward to whisper in the mayor’s ear. “That gun,” he said. “The masked man has slid it down so the barrel is pressing against your crotch. It’s right up against you, practically fucking you.”
“Ahh,” the mayor responded, much to Gregg’s amusement, standing on tip toe, in response to the imagined intrusive barrel.
Gregg turned to the secretary. It was clear that she was having much the worse time. She was wide-eyed in near panic as she stood biting her lip; the masked gunman, in her mind’s eye, pressing his weapon against her. Gregg cut his way into her underwear too but found himself a little disappointed after the mayor’s ample charms. The mayor’s secretary was much younger and slimmer but Dorothea’s mature body had more to appeal to Gregg’s tastes. In the end, Gregg decided that he had amused himself sufficiently and that there was little more to be learned from the mayor’s files. He told the two women that they would be held at gunpoint for another 30 minutes and then slipped away.
He was enjoying another spliff in the park across from City Hall when the thirty minutes ran out. The arrival of the police cars with their flashing, pulsing, beacons contributed a psychedelic light show to Gregg’s amused observation of the results of his exercise. As he listened to the sirens and leant back on the park bench, dreamily absorbing the colours of the lights he found himself toying with the pack of playing cards he kept in his pocket to practice with. Too much light, he thought to himself. It was as he tossed one card lazily from his right hand to his left that he thought for no reason he could explain, why can’t I make you disappear?
The card obligingly vanished.
Gregg more than a little confused by the combination of light, sirens, hashish and circumstance, looked down at the floor looking for it. It was nowhere to be seen. “Ridiculous! Where’s it gone?” he muttered, getting down on his hands and knees and peering under the bench. He remembered the disappearing trick that he’d managed at the top of the snake charmer’s rope in the museum. It was then that he’d first asked himself where things go when they disappear. That had been intentional though. Surely you couldn’t have something vanish just by tossing it up in the air.
He did it again with another card with the same result, increasing his confusion. Where had it gone?
Shaking his head, he got to his feet, uncertain of what to make of the latest discovery of his powers. He went to put the rest of the cards back in his pocket, only to find the two that had disappeared. Maybe that’s it, he thought, that’s where things go when they disappear. They go where they ought to be or they go where you want them to be. It was all very odd. And now he just felt hungry.
***** ****** ****** ******
Three blocks away, in a corner of the City Zoo, Jungle Jane looked up at the sound of police sirens. The zoo was closed for the night but that hadn’t prevented Jane from climbing in to find a little quiet for a think. For a moment she thought she had been discovered but then realised that the cars weren’t stopping anywhere near her. She was sitting opposite the Orang-Utang cage, staring at the ginger furred primate within. She often found it more helpful to talk to apes when she needed to think. At least they heard her out. The Orang-Utang didn’t seem very engaged in the conversation, though. He was more interested in picking something from his fur, but Jungle Jane didn’t mind.
“So, it looks like this Gillstrom is involved in some way. Or maybe it’s the Connor woman. The trouble is I can’t see how they could be doing what they are doing and every time we try to spring a trap it just seems like they tip toe out of it. I can’t even work out how I ended up tied up in the hotel.”
“Oook,” the Orang responded sympathetically.
****** ****** ******
“Do I know you from somewhere?” The owner of the harbourside junk shop peered at Gregg as he, in his turn, rummaged through a collection of vaguely eastern looking artefacts in search of stage props for his act.
Gregg didn’t much like being recognised, there was always the worry that someone would remember him being somewhere that he wasn’t supposed to have been. There wasn’t any point denying it, though; that just seem to encourage people to speculate all the more. “Maybe,” he said, non-commitally.
“Oh, yes. I remember. You’re that magician, bought that hamper off me. Any use was it?”
“Sort of,” Gregg replied. He certainly didn’t feel able to share the fact that it had changed his life in the way that it had. “Have you anything similar? I’m always keen to find stuff that might look good on stage.”
The man thought for a minute, tugging on a strand of hair from his sideburns as he stared into space at a point vaguely over Gregg’s shoulder. Gregg found it unsettling. “I dunno. Nothing quite like that. Got some other magic props though. Nice cabinet over there, usual sort of thing, mirrored panels, hatch at the back. Make a nice high spot for an act with a bit of patter.”
I really need a disappearing cabinet, Gregg thought to himself, when I can make things disappear for real. On the other hand, he considered, it might come in very useful. If I can really make things disappear what better way to stop people discovering it than by doing it with something that everyone knows is a trick. He grinned, amused by the idea of a classic piece of magical misdirection. “I might be interested” he said to the shop’s owner. “Let’s have a look at it.”
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