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It was hard for Gregg to come to terms with the fact that he had succeeded in his intentions, even though the emerald now sat in a small padded box in his room. His cock still craved the satisfaction of the women he had encountered as if only congress with Sally or Sharon would complete the act.
The reports of the robbery only gave him passing amusement. On the local TV news the news readers were claiming that the witnesses could hardly remember anything but that they were agreed that the robbery had been carried out by a strange eastern figure, more than six foot tall and dark skinned. Gregg at five feet six and with his sandy, freckled complexion, couldn’t understand how they were possibly referring to him. He wanted to stand up on the top of his apartment block and yell, “It’s me you fools, me!”
****** ***** ****** *****
Maxine Connor was feeling smug. Of course, she had derived a certain glee from Aaron Rodwell’s fury at the robbery and the subsequent criticism he had received over the security arrangements but now she felt she was on the trail of an answer to the question of how the Heron emerald had been stolen.
Her smugness at Rodwell’s discomfort hadn’t lasted long though. The same day she was called into his office and fired. “You’re the curator,” Rodwell had said. “The trustees are looking for a scapegoat and it certainly isn’t going to be me. You should have made better security arrangements. I’m sorry, Maxine, you’ll have to go.”
Maxine thought of a dozen clever things to say after she left his office in stunned silence but it was too late. All she could do, she thought, would be to find the real culprit and, since she was not so naive as to imagine that would get her job back, and get her revenge on Rodwell for his treatment of her.
The answer to the first question, she was certain, had something to do with another incident, one at the college library.
Nothing had been made public about the actual circumstances of the museum robbery. The guard and poor Sharon had remembered almost nothing about what had happened, beyond their descriptions of their assailant but Maxine had been there when they had found the guard, half stripped of her uniform, and she had seen how confused Sharon had been about the whole incident. She was also interested by the fact that it was only the Heron jewel that had been taken. There were plenty of other artefacts every bit as valuable in the museum and the thief would have had free run of the place after dealing with the two girls but it was all untouched.
There were no real details either about the library incident and the only reason that she knew anything about it was because she occasionally met up with some of the girls from the library for a coffee or lunch. It all had something to do with Maria Barber. Normally Maria was a studious girl, more interested in cataloguing some of the early editions that the library held than dealing with those that came to use the library, but there was something strange, almost abstracted, about her of late. The others had all been convinced that she had a boyfriend. Maria had denied it in a flustered way. Maxine thought it had something to do with the disappearance of the library’s copy of Heron’s book. The library had only discovered that it was missing when Maxine had tried to arrange for it to be loaned to the museum for the exhibition. Maria and the other assistants had had some uncomfortable discussions with the Chief Librarian and Maria had seemed very upset about it all. She had confided in Maxine that there was one afternoon where she really couldn’t remember what had happened during her shift. It was then that Maxine realised she had seen a ginger haired, freckle faced, lad emerging from the library on that afternoon, and that he had been the same student that she had collided with at the museum.
****** ****** ****** ******
Gregg had at least found one way to capitalise on his new found gifts. If he couldn’t get credit for his robbery be could at least reinvigorate his magic career, even if Samantha Wallace was still proving resistant to his efforts to entice her back as his assistant. (Gregg had been disappointed to discover that his hypnotic powers seemed useless when it came to telephone calls.)
He’d come up with the idea of busking a few tricks in the big square outside the college’s main building as a way of at least getting a bit of an audience that he might translate into something more ambitious. He’d found that since his experiences with the Swami’s hashish or whatever it was, he had a surprising ability to read hidden cards. His skill at the trick that had finally caused Samantha to throw in the towel was now such that he was able to astonish the group of students standing around his pitch at the side of the main steps.
“There’s no one here that’ll sit down to a game of poker with you,” one of them called with a grin, giving Gregg a considerable sense of satisfaction.
“If you think that was good perhaps I can further astound you with this,” Gregg said producing a small clay pot. “Does anyone have a neck tie?”
One of the girls in the audience, pulled the tie from her boyfriend’s neck saying, “Here try this,” as she tossed it to him.
“Thank you,” said Gregg coiling it up in the pot. “Now watch closely.” He took a tin whistle and blew a few notes over the pot. The audience fell silent as the tie stretched itself skywards. Gregg looked nonchalant as the audience tried to see how the trick was done, peering upwards to see if there were wires or if the tie was somehow being pulled up in some way from above. A buzz of puzzled astonishment ran around the crowd but there was more to come as the tie appeared to climb up itself forming into a ball of cloth before vanishing in a puff of smoke.
“Hey, that was my tie!” called the girl’s boyfriend over the startled hush of the rest of the crowd.
“Do not worry, sir,” said Gregg. He clicked his fingers and the tie reappeared in his hand to the applause of the crowd. Gregg handed it back to the amusement of the girl and her boyfriend and calls of “How did you do that?”
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not difficult,” Gregg said with a smile. “It’s just magic. But that’s all for now.”
Another round of applause followed his wave to the crowd and Gregg started to pack his things back into the case he had brought with him as the crowd started to disperse, all of them discussing how he might have done the final trick.
“That’s very impressive,” a husky, female voice said.
Gregg looked up to see a very attractive thirty-something woman talking to him.
“You’ve got a remarkable gift.”
Gregg looked at her, thinking to himself that she had some remarkable gifts too. She was smartly dressed in a well cut suit that made the most of her figure and a skirt that made it clear her legs were shapely too. He could feel the sexual lust that had driven his encounters with Sharon and the others rising up to take over in a way that he thought was risky here in the middle of the college square. “It’s just magic,” he said disarmingly, “that’s what magicians do.”
“Mmm,” the woman said in a way that seemed to echo his own arousal. She ran her tongue across her lips, shining them in a way that no lip gloss ever could. “Well, I’m impressed,” she said holding out her hand. “Maxine Connor,”
Gregg shook it carefully, making every effort to control the desire to drag her towards him, to wrench off her jacket and to throw her to the ground in the square, with her skirt up around her waist, there and then. “Ah, well, pleased to meet you,” he said, with a hoarse cough “Gregg Gilstrom. Look, I’m sorry but I’ve got to go.”And he did. He had a lecture but apart from that his cock was already rigid in his trousers and there was no telling what would happen if he stayed where he was. “Nice to, err, meet you.” He scuttled off.
Maxine was disappointed at the way he dashed away but she knew now that this was the person she had seen in the museum and by the library and that somehow he was linked to the disappearance of the Heron jewel and the book. There was more than that though. Somehow in his presence her goals had changed. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to find the person who had stolen the emerald, now she wanted to use its power, his power, to revenge herself on Rodwell and the rest of the fools that she had to deal with every day. She would find out how to get in touch with this magician.
****** ****** ****** *****
“Oh, Maxine, you know I’m not supposed to give out that sort of information.” Sylvia Armitage was feeling uncomfortable, partly because she was being put in a difficult spot and partly because she really hadn’t expected Maxine to be the sort of girl that would get a crush on one of the students.
“Oh come on, Sylvie, what harm can it do. I only want to give him a call. He’s ever so cute but you know what some of these students are, they need a girl to chase them sometimes.”
Sylvia relented, she didn’t know why, but she felt she really ought to help Maxine out. “Well, don’t ever tell anyone I told you.” She scribbled down an address and a telephone number. “You owe me one after this.”
“Any time you want an introduction to any of our old fossils, just call,” Maxine responded jokily as she picked up Sylvia’s note. “Thanks, ever so.”
Maxine didn’t like misleading Sylvia but she didn’t want to tell anyone about her real theories until she had given herself the chance to find out a bit more. Besides there was something very arousing about this strange, freckled faced young man; there were other With Gregg’s address and mobile number she felt she was making progress.
© Freddie Clegg 2010
Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission. All characters and events fictitious.
Email: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
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