Montaro Caine A Novel

19





“MR. VOEKLE WILL BE RIGHT WITH YOU, MISS,” ROLAND GABLER’S slim, gray-haired butler told Cordiss Krinkle before he withdrew down a side hallway.

Cordiss stood in the entrance hall of Gabler’s Park Avenue apartment. She had never been in the presence of so much wealth. The marble floor under her feet was buffed to a polish so high that it threw back reflections of Gabler’s beautiful antique furnishings—elegant French tables, ornate benches, magnificent tapestries, paintings Cordiss had seen only in books. Cordiss felt awestruck and out of place until she remembered something she’d read in a recent copy of Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine. “Things are always as they should be when money has been wisely spent.” At one point in his life, Gabler’s circumstances had been as modest as Cordiss’s own, she reminded herself, and there was no reason to think that she couldn’t get as far as he had gotten.

“Good afternoon, Miss Krinkle.”

Cordiss stopped admiring the artwork and turned to see a broad-faced, well-dressed man moving aggressively toward her. “I’m Jerome Voekle, an associate of Mr. Gabler’s.” They shook hands. “Would you please follow me?”

As Cordiss followed Voekle through the formal, reserved beauty of the sprawling apartment, she felt ready; she had done her homework. She knew that in the highly competitive world of rare-art collecting, Roland Gabler was a star, a Grand Marshal in the inner circle referred to as The Ten. He was a longtime survivor of this game in which the coolest head, the steadiest hand, and the strongest nerves nearly always prevailed. And yet he had begun his professional life working in a hardware store.

But Gabler’s presence was so strong that it seemed to vacuum up Cordiss’s attention the moment she laid eyes on him. Jerome Voekle stepped to one side of the door as they entered. “Miss Krinkle, sir,” he told his employer flatly, cueing Cordiss across the room toward Gabler, who stood on the far side of his study, between the fireplace and an oblong seventeenth-century oak table. He was taller and bulkier than she had imagined he would be, with the broad, high chest of a weightlifter. His thick gray hair was conservatively trimmed, and his piercing green eyes were set deep in a lined but still handsome face.

Cordiss was fully aware that Gabler’s green eyes had already locked on to her and were scanning her attire, her stride, her posture, and, above all, her face as if he were examining a rare object that he wasn’t yet sure he would purchase. She assumed he was a good reader of faces. And she was not unmindful of the cold eyes of Jerome Voekle on her back. In her brain, she heard Victor’s voice coaching her: Stay within yourself, don’t move too fast. Show your strength. And always hang on to your cool. Make him think you piss ice water.

“Miss Krinkle?”

“Mr. Gabler.”

They pumped hands. “Welcome,” he said, motioning for her to be seated.

“Thank you.” She sat herself at the desk directly across from him.

In her six years of working at the Mozelle Women’s Health Center, Cordiss had learned to pinpoint apprehension, fear, joy, relief, anxiety, or exhilaration in the eyes of the patients who passed her on their way into and out of Dr. Mozelle’s office. But Roland Gabler’s eyes told her nothing at all.

Hold his gaze no matter what, Victor’s voice coached her.

Gabler drew a chair close to the desk and sat, crossing his legs while his eyes continued to bore into her. She stared back as if this were a contest, then decided that she should let him win the first round. “What a beautiful apartment,” she offered.

“I’m glad you like it,” Gabler responded, then fell back into silence. He seemed to be waiting for her to explain why she was there.

“You’ve seen the photographs of the object?” Cordiss asked.

“Yes, I have,” responded Gabler.

“And the documents as well?”

“Yes. So, let’s get right to it. Questions will come later.”

Jerome Voekle laid before Gabler the photographs and papers Cordiss had sent him earlier. Voekle also placed on the table instruments of the trade for examining small items—magnifiers, light-scopes, jewelers’ loupes, and the like. Then Voekle maneuvered a chair into a position that allowed him to sit at his employer’s left elbow. Both men’s eyes fixed on Cordiss as she withdrew from her shoulder bag a clear plastic pill container, unscrewed its top, and tilted the container to a careful angle. The coin slid gently onto the tabletop. Cordiss glanced up at the two men, hoping for a reaction; even the slightest flutter could tell her something. But their faces remained unchanged.

Voekle carefully clamped the coin between the arms of a jeweler’s caliper and raised it to Roland Gabler’s eye level, while Gabler wedged a loupe in place around his eye. Taking the caliper from his assistant’s hand, Gabler examined the coin for a long time, referring occasionally to the photographs and documents on the desk. The Xerox copy that Cordiss had made of Montaro Caine’s twenty-six-year-old report to Dr. Chasman commanded more of his attention than did Dr. Mozelle’s notes on the coin’s history. Gradually, Gabler’s concentration deepened until he appeared to be submerged in a private world in which only the collector inside him could dwell.

Cordiss found herself speculating about the workings of such a mind. The chance to examine the coin had to be fascinating—if not historic—to someone consumed with possessing the sufficiently rare, the distinctively artistic, the aesthetically priceless, or, as in the case of the coin, the outrageously unique. “If this guy’s got an ego, and what man doesn’t, we’ll definitely do a deal,” Victor had told her.

Gabler continued to murmur softly to Voekle in abrupt phrases that apparently were not meant for Cordiss’s cocked ear.

Voekle’s notebook flew open as if on reflex, and the assistant began scribbling. Cordiss listened hard, but most of what Gabler seemed to be saying consisted of technical terms or trade references she didn’t understand. She suspected that he was purposely making his comments obtuse to stump her. She let her eyes roam about the study, startled by the variety of objects elegantly mounted in tall, glass showcases—pre-Colombian clay figures, Egyptian artifacts, African carvings, Native American masks, Chinese pottery, Fabergé eggs, ancient daggers, and other unusual items whose shapes, sizes, and colors offered no clues as to what they might be. God! What a treasure this place is, she thought.

On a shelf, all by itself, in a showcase near the fireplace, sat a human skull glistening in a white beam of light. Cordiss tried to imagine whether the skull had belonged to a woman or a child. A beheaded queen maybe, or a young prince, or perhaps a Biblical figure from the time of Christ. One thing for sure, she thought. To wind up on a shelf in Roland Gabler’s study, whoever it was had to have lived a spectacular life and likely died an unnatural death.

As she continued to survey the scene, Cordiss recognized several pieces from descriptions she had read in articles about Gabler. She searched the shelves in vain for the seventeenth-century Hungarian music box for which, according to an article in American Art Collector, he was reputed to have paid more than ten million dollars. Nor could she find any sign of the legendary rainbow pearl whose existence was strongly hinted at in the book The World of the Private Art Collectors, which she and Victor had recently devoured. Rumor had it that the pearl, the only one of its kind ever found, had been discovered in the South Seas by a native diver who had plunged to a seemingly impossible depth in order to avoid sharks. Although no one knowledgeable in the trade publicly admitted to having seen it, there was general agreement that the pearl did exist in someone’s private collection, and there was very little doubt in anyone’s mind that that someone was Roland Gabler. Of all Cordiss had read about Gabler’s collection, the pearl intrigued her most. And surely, the coin was more extraordinary than a pearl, she thought.

Jerome Voekle chuckled in response to a comment made by Gabler, and Cordiss’s attention swung back to focus on her host.

Gabler lowered the coin to the desk, then released it from the caliper. It bounced harmlessly and quivered to stillness while he removed the loupe from his eye. Then he looked up at Cordiss. Instinctively, she tried to sit taller; she threw her head back and engaged his expressionless stare.

“Is it six years that you have worked for the doctor?” Gabler asked.

“Yes, thereabouts,” she responded.

Without moving his eyes from Cordiss, he extended his left arm toward Voekle. The assistant pulled several pages from the folder on the table and laid them in Gabler’s hand. As Gabler stared unblinkingly at Cordiss, he waved the pages in her face.

“Your background, Miss Krinkle,” he began in a mocking monotone. “Nowhere in it do we find anything that remotely suggests that you are in any way qualified to engage in an undertaking such as the one you have suggested to us. Your proposal is preposterous, young lady, if I may be blunt. You are obviously not the true owner of this … object. Your credentials? May I ask where they are? Or do you think credentials are not necessary for transactions such as the one you propose? Well, let me inform you, they are. Therefore, we find no basis for any discussion along the lines you have suggested.”

For a moment, Cordiss wondered why Gabler was speaking as if an active tape recorder were hidden somewhere in the room. Then, a flash of intuition told her that Gabler was taking a necessary and understandable precaution. “If we are wrong, and this biographical material we have here”—he shook the pages in his hand—“is incorrect or incomplete, you will have the opportunity to set us straight. Let me ask you some questions about your background, if you don’t mind.”

With a nod, Cordiss indicated that he should proceed.

Gabler fired a barrage of questions, most of which concerned the biographical material he held in his hand, which described Cordiss’s place of birth, family history, educational background, employment history, credit rating, and personal ambitions. She assumed that he was making sure she was who she said she was, though Cordiss noticed that he also managed to slip in a few inquiries about Dr. Mozelle, his practice, Anna Hilburn, Mrs. Mozelle, and, finally, the child mentioned in Dr. Mozelle’s notes.

“And the baby in this bizarre tale in whose hand this thing”—he pointed scornfully at the coin lying on the desk—“is supposed to have been found, where is he or she now?”

“Around,” said Cordiss, trying to sound vague yet tantalizing. By then, she knew that Gabler, no matter how harshly he was speaking to her, was hooked. His assistant’s behavior had given his boss away—Voekle had glanced at her while taking notes, then back at his notes, then seconds later, back at Gabler. Not once did he look at the coin. Cordiss figured that Voekle was trying not to bring undue attention to the object, and was making an extreme effort to appear so disinterested.

After Gabler seemed satisfied that the answers Cordiss gave matched the facts contained in the personal history he had been consulting, a smile of disdain creased the corners of his lips.

“Now, would you mind telling me exactly how you came to be in possession of this item?” he asked, his elbow on his right knee and his chin resting on his fist.

Cordiss smiled, leaned back in her seat, and said with a twinkle in her eye, “Exactly how I came upon it would take a very long time. All that should really matter is the fact that I have it.”

“Well,” Gabler said, “however you acquired it, I can tell you right now that there’s no way in hell anyone in his right mind would purchase it without the rightful owner signing a bill of sale. That is, assuming it has any value at all.”

Taking her cue from what she thought was the first crack in his façade, Cordiss offered a carefully worded suggestion that it would be easy enough for her to forge Dr. Mozelle’s signature. She felt sure that this was precisely what the art dealer was implying. But in words not so carefully chosen, Gabler berated her for making such an outrageous suggestion. Never in his professional dealings had there been a signature that could not be authenticated, he said. “So you see, young lady,” he added, “since you obviously have no chance of delivering the signature of a legitimate owner, along with his consent for you to act as his representative, we have nothing to discuss.”

A long pause followed. Anna Hilburn, Cordiss thought. Gabler would definitely be less reluctant if she could present him with documents that identified Anna as the legitimate owner. How simple it would be to get Anna’s signature on a document without her knowing what she was signing. In the clinic, Anna always seemed to be signing dozens of papers while barely even looking at them. But Cordiss’s thoughts were interrupted when Gabler abruptly called the meeting to an end. “Now I have another appointment, Miss Krinkle. Jerome will show you out,” he announced.

Cordiss picked up the coin from the table, then secured it in the pill container before returning it to her shoulder bag.

“May I come see you again on this matter?” she asked Gabler.

“I don’t see why—unless, of course, you come with the proper documents with the signature of the rightful owner, and permission in writing from that person declaring you as that person’s representative. I hope I have made my position clear. Good day, Miss Krinkle.”

“Good day, Mr. Gabler,” she said.

Voeckle said a polite good-bye in the foyer, and as she moved toward the elevator, Cordiss listened for the front door to click closed behind her. When no click came, she knew that he was still standing there with cold eyes on her back. Not until she had entered the elevator did she hear the door click shut.

Cordiss emerged exhilarated from the exquisite Park Avenue building into the sunshine. Neither the oppressive summer heat nor the dreadful humidity could dull the heady, tingling sensation of a new excitement laced with danger. Cordiss had gotten her first whiff of the power game; she liked it, and she now knew she had an instinct for it.

That evening, Victor returned from Kansas City with the second coin in his possession, along with the remaining $1,500 from the juice loan he had taken out, plus a hard-earned lesson on the dangers of underestimating wise old black women—before Victor could take the seat the elderly midwife and her sister had offered him in their kitchen, the shrewd sister had raised the price to $15,000, then ultimately settled on $13,500. As for Cordiss, she had little difficulty in getting Anna Hilburn to sign her name to yet another document.

A week later, Cordiss called Jerome Voekle to inform him that she was ready for a second meeting with Gabler. At first he seemed reluctant. But after she told him that she had the requisite documents and signature, a meeting was arranged. During that second meeting, Cordiss introduced the idea of the possible existence of a second coin. She divulged very little beyond what she deemed to be the one piece of information necessary to further whet his appetite. “Other dealers,” whom Cordiss said she would not name, were interested in the coin he had seen, but Gabler was the only dealer so far who knew about the second coin.

Cordiss told Gabler that this “companion piece” had come into the world in the hand of a child born to a different family some twenty-six years earlier—just as had happened with the birth of the girl at about the same time. And someone who had participated in that delivery had kept the object. She had the requisite documents from that person as well. Cordiss wanted to tempt Gabler, but she and Victor had already agreed that they would not sell both coins to the same buyer—when there was competition, prices would surely rise.

Gabler betrayed no reaction, yet as he sat, he recalled every facet of Dr. Mozelle’s notes, every element the doctor had focused on in his search for such a second coin. In a moment of uncharacteristic sentiment, Gabler allowed himself to wonder about the babies. What would they look like now at twenty-six? Were they still alive? Were they destined to meet? Or had they already met? He wondered just how much of this whole incredible story about the coins was truth and how much was fiction.

Interrupting his thoughts, Cordiss tried to press upon Gabler her belief that the person who purchased the first coin would have a better chance of obtaining the second. At this suggestion, a tiny smile appeared on Gabler’s face. He felt amused by this upstart’s attempt to manipulate him, yet he also felt an unlikely bubble of admiration for the spunky novice seated before him, green as an apple, still miles from being a true con artist. She certainly had the flair and maybe the talent, and she reminded him a bit of what he had been like as a teenager worlds away back in Nebraska.

“So,” Cordiss began, her voice even. “Are you prepared to make an offer on the object I showed you?”

“How much do you want for it?”

That response had come more quickly than Cordiss had expected. “Twelve million,” she said. Cordiss and Victor had based their asking price on the ten million Gabler had reputedly paid for the Hungarian music box. The coin, in their view, was considerably more exciting than a music box.

Gabler didn’t bat an eye. She hadn’t expected him to.

“Another coin, eh?” Gabler muttered softly. “That makes two. Well, in my business there is a saying: Two of anything has only half the value of one of a kind. What guarantees can you make that there are not three of a kind, or four?”

“There are only two,” Cordiss assured him. “Dr. Mozelle has searched for twenty-five years, without any results. You’ve read his notes. You’ve seen the photographs, and you’re familiar with his theories about a second coin.”

“Yes, I’ve read the notes, I’m familiar with his theories, all of them; but the fact is, he didn’t find it after all these years, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Yet you tell me it exists. If he hasn’t found it, and if, in fact, it does exist, who did find it? And where is it at present?”

“I’m not at liberty to tell you that right now.”

“At any rate, twelve million is out of the question,” said Gabler. “You’ve been seeing too many movies, my dear. If that is your last word—then, good-bye.” He challenged her with a stare. She challenged back; her nerves were steady. He waited. She continued to sit. Not a hair moved that he could see. “On the other hand,” he said. “I will be prepared to tell you how much I will pay after I’ve had a chance to consider everything carefully. Say a week from today. Would that be reasonable?”

“I don’t know,” said Cordiss crisply. “For me, it might be. But I may have other commitments to honor. I’ll call you back this afternoon, after I’ve consulted with my partner.”

Later that afternoon, Cordiss and Victor argued about the wisdom of allowing Gabler the week to make up his mind. Victor was against it, but Cordiss said they would be showing weakness if they did not agree to the delay.

“Maybe give ’em two days, or three. We don’t have that much time to play with,” said Victor.

“He’s looking to test our strength,” Cordiss said.

“He’s looking to f*ck us,” said Victor.

“We’re so close, honey, let’s play it out. I told you, he wants it bad.”

In the end, Cordiss prevailed. She and Victor wound up making love before she phoned Jerome Voekle to tell him the week’s delay would be acceptable.

Still, during the course of the week that Gabler bought himself to try to learn more about Cordiss and the alleged second coin, Gabler learned nothing more of substance. The week came and went leaving him no alternative but to enter an offer for the first coin without knowing the whereabouts of the second, if it existed, or, more important, who among his competitors might already have it or be preparing to buy it. Gabler offered Cordiss $750,000 for the coin, and after prolonged negotiation, a deal was struck calling for two million dollars to be delivered to Cordiss in an account in Europe.

Shortly thereafter, Cordiss Krinkle quit her job. She was burned out, she claimed. “I need a break from this town. Too hard on my nerves; I need to find a quiet place and clear my head. Maybe I’ll look around in California,” she told Anna Hilburn. “You’ve been great to work with. And, of course, I’ll stay until the doctor finds someone he feels comfortable with,” she added with bogus conviction.

As soon as they learned that the deposit into their new account had been confirmed, Cordiss and Victor left for Europe. In the quaint municipality of Liechtenstein, they checked in to an elegant room at the Schatzmann Hotel, an easy drive from the private bank where Cordiss had scheduled an appointment for the following day. They ate their first European meal—grilled monkfish and white asparagus accompanied by a chilled Grüner Veltliner white wine—in the hotel’s dining room, seated by a window that looked out onto the Eastern Alps.

The following morning, Cordiss entered a bank that closely resembled the graciously understated lobby of a Manhattan brown-stone. There were no tellers, no cages, and no lines. Only two other customers were in evidence.

“Good morning, Miss Krinkle,” said a middle-aged man with gray hair and a prominent gray mustache as he approached Cordiss. “Welcome. My name is Peter Fourneaux.” The man led her to his desk and handed her a folder. “Here are the documents we need you to sign. This is a necessary procedure that allows us to provide you with the privacy of a numbered account.”

Cordiss liked the sense of importance she felt during her meeting with Mr. Fourneaux. Money surely has a language of its own, she thought, and she appreciated the fact that she was learning how to speak it.

For a full week, she and Victor slept late, made love, strolled hand in hand along the trails of the Ruggeller Riet national park and along the Rhine River. They sipped cappuccino in romantic backstreet bistros, toured the castles of Liechtenstein and the municipality’s Kunstmuseum, and attended an open-air performance of Fidelio. In short, they submerged themselves in a weeklong binge on European culture and continental food, most of which, according to Victor, failed to live up to the food that was readily available in Hell’s Kitchen. But these were far from the most important items on Victor and Cordiss’s agenda; those were Switzerland, Kritzman Fritzbrauner, and the next seven-figure transaction they hoped to make. They wanted another target, and they had chosen Fritzbrauner from the lofty Ten to be the next dealer they contacted. Their decision was based less on the obvious influence and power his ten-billion-dollar conglomerate generated than on the crude psychological profile that emerged from their extensive research, which suggested a man whose tastes tilted toward the mysterious.

The young couple settled comfortably in a suite at the Geneva Hilton, which became their headquarters for what turned out to be ten frustrating days of fruitless effort. Each day’s attempt at arranging a meeting with Fritzbrauner, or any of his representatives, ended in disappointment. On the morning of the eleventh day, however, Cordiss received a call from a man named Anatole Ziffren, who invited her to lunch.

The luncheon at Le Cygne, a restaurant with an arresting view of the Alps, set in motion a series of stressful events that included interrogations, probes, background checks, legal threats, and psychological intimidation. But though Cordiss felt she had handled herself well under the stress, she was not granted an audience with Fritzbrauner. After she faced Herman Freich, and later Colette Beekman, she realized that they were probably as close as she would ever get to Fritzbrauner.

Throughout her meetings with Freich and Beekman, during which she allowed them to examine her Xerox copies of the documents pertaining to the first coin, and, finally, the second coin itself, Cordiss did not mention the asking price for the object. Then, toward the end of the third meeting, held again at Le Cygne, she introduced the subject without warning.

“The price, you understand, is ten million dollars,” she announced.

An impatient frown clouded Freich’s face. “It’s premature to discuss money,” he stated. Then he softened slightly and asked if she would consider releasing the coin for the period of time necessary so that he could have it examined by someone whose scientific expertise they were willing to trust. Cordiss, taking his request to mean that her price was not out of the question, agreed.

During the time that Herman Freich busied himself with consulting such individuals as Johann Flugle, Michael Chasman, and Gertz Welbocht, Cordiss received no communication from any of Fritzbrauner’s people. Not a word. Victor and Cordiss fought the urge to call Freich’s office. During that time, they flew to Atlanta where they had dinner with Whitney and Franklyn Walker to discuss the possibility of working together on a plan involving health care clinics in Africa. Then, after securing the Walkers’ unwitting cooperation, they arranged for a secluded, off-the-grid dwelling in Spain where they could keep close watch on the young couple until their child was born, a coin or coins appeared, and Gabler and hopefully Fritzbrauner would bid against each other for them. But as the days wore on, uneasiness pervaded Cordiss’s and Victor’s moods. They grew increasingly tense, each unable to shed the gnawing fear that the decision of allowing Freich to take the coin with him had been imprudent.

But then a call arrived from Anatole Ziffren. “Mr. Freich is away on business,” he told Cordiss. “But he has asked me to relay this message. In four days you will be advised of our intentions as to whether or not we wish to discuss your proposal further. Someone will call you at eight p.m. on Thursday.”

“Four more days of not knowing which way they’re gonna come down will drive me up a f*cking wall,” Victor said. “Let’s go somewhere. Do something. Anything. Get our minds off it.”

Cordiss, who now felt herself to be an expert in the ways of the wealthy, suggested a few days in Paris. There, they checked in to the Tremont Hotel, which had been recommended by the concierge at the Geneva Hilton, whereupon they lunged headlong into a love affair with the City of Lights and all that they could now afford in it. Enchantment scooped the couple into her net by the end of their first evening on the town; and, after two days of roaming around like smitten teenagers, Cordiss called Freich’s office in Geneva to say that they would remain in Paris and await his call there on Thursday at the appointed time.

On the Thursday in question, as the late afternoon folded gradually into night, Victor was walking back from the Arc de Triomphe for the third time in an hour as he tried to keep his anxiety within manageable range. Meanwhile, Cordiss paced their hotel suite, considering and reconsidering the lucky chain of events and coincidences that had brought her to this moment. These thoughts were interrupted at precisely eight o’clock by the sound of a telephone.

Cordiss jumped. Both hands flew to her mouth as the phone splintered the silence. She stared down at the phone, momentarily paralyzed.

The phone continued to ring.

She inhaled deeply, crossed the fingers of her left hand for luck, then snatched the receiver from its cradle with her right. “Hello?”

“Miss Krinkle?” a male voice asked.

“Yes,” Cordiss answered, recognizing the voice. “How are you, Mr. Freich?”

“Very well, thank you. Are you enjoying your stay in Paris?” Freich inquired with little apparent interest in her answer.

“Yes, very much,” she replied, biting the nail on the pinkie of the hand that held the phone.

“Miss Krinkle?”

“Yes, Mr. Freich?”

“Could you return to Geneva tomorrow?”

Cordiss gasped. Her head swirled a little. “Of course,” she managed shakily.

“At the Union Bank of Switzerland at one p.m.?”

Oh my God, she thought. Oh my God. But all she said was “One p.m., yes.”

“Ask for Mr. Helmont Zurber. There will be a few questions we need to address. Once that is done, we hope to be able to conclude our transaction.”

Cordiss felt her whole body flush with excitement. A light-headed feeling flowed over her. She reached for a pen with a trembling hand and instantly tightened her grip on it to steady herself. “Mr. Helmont Zurber,” she repeated with as much calm as she could muster, jotting down the name.

“You are booked out of Orly, eleven a.m., Swiss International Flight 86,” said Freich. “A car will meet you, drop you by your hotel so you can freshen up if you would like, and then bring you to the bank. Have a pleasant trip, Miss Krinkle.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fr—.” Then, the phone went dead. He had hung up before she could thank him. Gingerly, she replaced the receiver. She gazed curiously at her shaking hand, then raised it to the level of her face and showed it to the reflection in the mirror. Cordiss and her image smiled broadly at each other. Then she lifted her other trembling hand and snapped both hands into clenched fists. Cordiss spun from the mirror, then strode once more around the suite. This time, her thoughts were audible. “It’s gonna happen, son of a bitch, I knew it! I knew it! Way to go! Way to go!” She jabbed the air with her clenched fists for punctuation. Just then, her thoughts were interrupted by the click of a key in the door lock. The door burst open and Victor hurtled in. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Cordiss standing in the center of the room wearing a radiant smile.

Victor’s eyes brightened. “Yes? Yes? Yes?”

“Yes, baby. Yes, yes, yes,” she gushed.

Cordiss opened her arms wide. Victor rushed over, swept her off her feet, and twirled her around in a victory dance while Cordiss laughed and laughed.