"The problem," the girl with the gun explained helpfully, "is that our boss just doesn't like you."
Iphigenia shot the lady thug an angry look before turning her caustic glare back upon said boss, the veiled woman in red. Maybe it wasn't dignified, but the captured sleuth still shimmied and wriggled as she fought desperately against the rope bindings keeping her captive.
"Yeah, see, the thing here is that you keep sticking your nose where it don't belong, Detective Diakos," the girl gunsel's loutish companion said. "I mean, it didn't have to end this way. We gave you plenty of warnings to back off, but you ignored every one of them. And for what?" He shrugged. "The Iskander Fragments won't benefit you at all. I really don't know why you didn't just give up."
It's called professionalism! Iffy thought to herself furiously. She had taken on the job, and she meant to see it through to the end.
It just looked like the end was a lot closer than she had thought.
"Well," the female minion sighed. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, am I right?"
Her thuggish comrade smirked. "And what you've won, detective, is an all-expenses-paid cruise into Retention Pond 77-K! With your very own compartment!"
The lady crook guffawed. "Too bad it'll be a very short trip!"
Iffy yearned to give her a good jab right in the kisser to shut her up, but as things stood, it looked like she wasn't going to be doing much of anything to anyone. She narrowed her eyes at the veiled lady, still standing there silent all this time.
"Grmph!" Iffy gurgled incoherently at her through her heavily-gagged mouth.
The woman in red simply looked back at her coolly, exhaling a long string of silvery cigarette smoke.
"Oh, you had your chance," the male minion said. "Too late to beg for mercy now! Besides, if we had our way, we would've just put a round or two through your head. Pow!" He shot at her with a finger gun.
"Yeah, but our boss here, you know, she's a traditionalist. She rocks it old-school. So it's gonna be into the drink with ya!" the female enforcer said merrily.
"Indeed!" her comrade concurred. "Time to...put a lid on this caper, don't you think?"
"Oh, I should say so, Chauncey! Let's go ahead and push this wreck--"
"The car, or our dear friend Detective Dillweed here?"
"Ha! Let's close things up and get her on her way. They see her rollin', we hatin'!"
The two mooks giggled at their inane wit as they manhandled Iffy effortlessly and firmly stuffed her into the capacious rear of the old car. They smiled down at her.
"I guess you could say that she's just..."
"Wait for it!"
"...junk in the trunk now!"
"Oh, very nice, Esmerelda!"
The girl gangster leaned in and patted the frantically writhing shamus on her cheek. "And thanks again for giving me your blazer and blouse! They're just my size!"
With that, the lid slammed shut, and the last thing Iphigenia saw was the woman in red looking down at her impassively.
Iffy felt the car begin to slowly roll down the incline and toward the drop-off into the lake.
It couldn't end this way!
And it wouldn’t end this way.
She was a professional, and she’d taken on the job. And she wasn’t done with it.
She would see this one through yet.