The Hinky Velvet Chair

by Jennifer Stevenson

He said nothing, and she looked into his eyes, big and black and full of soul. He said gently, “I wish you could know what is in their minds when they look at you. If you could know what they want from you before you open your thighs to them.”

  His sincerity punched her over the heart. She swallowed. “Must you be so coarse?”

  “Their thoughts are not so well-looking as their faces.”

  She said, “You’ve been in all the dirty little corners of my mind. I’m in no position to criticize.”

  Horns honked behind them. He removed his hand and faced forward. “Ah. Well. I’m different.”

  “That you are.”

  Chapter Five

  Pink smog blanketed the air over Lake Shore Drive again. Jewel had Randy in the Tercel with her.

  Scoping him from the corner of her eye, she admitted he looked hot. And rich. Too rich for a city employee, really. How did he do that? Two weeks ago he’d owned two tee-shirts and a pair of jeans, which he had to keep washing because she absolutely refused to wait on him. In honor of this case, he wore the dark blue Blass suit he’d charged using a fake social security number, and the collarless black silk shirt Clay stole from Field’s for him the night they sneaked in and she had to have sex with Randy in the home furnishings department.

  She felt like a frump in navy polyester. There was no help for that, either.

  A lighted cigarette fell out of the sky onto her windshield. Moodily, she flicked on her wipers. Even the pigeons thought her car looked like an ashtray.

  “What are we looking for?” Randy said.

  “Buzz. Remember him? He sold you a genie in a bottle.”

  “The djinn merchant, yes. A boy with spots.”

  “Yup. Only he’s selling ‘potions’ now. Ed gave me a chance to shut him down before he throws the case over to the cops. Keep an eye peeled. Goddam potions,” she muttered.

  “Do not profane. It puts off the marks.”

  “You know, don’t you, that card sharping is not a job skill.” Her hair was blowing around, already half-out of its ponytail and sticking to her forehead. Randy’s hair was black as a crow’s wing and kind of shaggy. In that suit and collarless shirt, he looked like a hot Euro-bum. “You need a haircut.”

  “I had thought of letting it grow. I saw a musician on television whose queue I admired.”

  “His what?”

  “Tied back,” he said, trying to hold his hair in a ponytail. “Still too short,” he grumbled.

  “It’s a mess.”

  “I was unaware that my personal appearance is subject to your whim.”

  She played her trump card. “If you’re working with me, you need to look more like an investigator.”

  He turned toward her, his eyes glowing, and she almost rear-ended a bus. “I shall be an investigator?”

  “You’ll be my assistant.” Chee, give him a finger and he took an arm. “C’mon. We’ll hit the Salon on the Mile.”

  Randy cried, “There! I see him!” and pointed.

  “Who?”

  “Your potion merchant!”

  “Buzz? Where?” She was spang in the middle of the intersection of Ohio Street and Michigan Avenue. Gunning the Tercel, she peeled past fifty-seven honking cars trying to sneak left turns through the red light.

  Buzz straddled his bike on the sidewalk, his backpack over his shoulder. The kid was so scrawny. He was selling something to a tourist. Didn’t he eat? Her heart pinched.

  She squealed to the curb at a hydrant and threw the flashers on. “Wait here.”

  She let Buzz finish his deal with the tourist before coming up and laying a hand on his handlebar. “Dude, long time no see.”

  Buzz’s richly pimpled face broke into a smile. “Hey, Officer Jewel.” He threw his leg over the seat and she ducked to keep from getting brained by his size-twelve sneaker.

  “What’s in the backpack today?”

  Buzz’s smile weakened. “Would you believe lunch?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s my homework?”

  “I would think I’d died and gone to heaven if you were in school right now. Somehow I doubt it.”

  He shrugged. “No harm a guy trying, right?” He pushed at the bike. He was like Clay’s good twin. The broke, hungry, needy, teenage runaway version.

  She gripped the handlebar. “What’s in the backpack?”

  With a sigh, he showed her a little bottle the size of a Tabasco bottle, with a fancy-schmantzy label.

  She grabbed it. “‘Imparts radiance to the aura and enhances the powers of the second chakra.’ What the f-fruit.”

  “You should try it. My customers love it.”

  “Famous last words.” Hell, Ed was right. This could get him in real trouble. “Where’d you get this and what’s in it?”

  He said, “It makes people feel good about themselves.”

  “So it’s a drug.”

  “It’s a potion,” he corrected. “It’s, like, in beta testing. Before we put it on the market big time.”

  Jewel groaned. “That does it.” She snatched for the backpack strap.

  But Buzz was too quick for her. Off he zinged, pedaling fast.

  She sighed, put the potion in her purse, and got in the car.

  “Why trouble yourself with him?” Randy said. “Ed can turn the matter over to the authorities.”

  “I am the authorities. Sometimes you can be such a lord.” Jewel paused the Tercel beside a handful of tourists taking pictures of each other lighting cigarettes and holding them up for pigeons to grab. She leaned out the car window. “That’s against the law!”

  One kid wearing a baseball cap backwards looked at her with his mouth agape. “Why?”

  “It’s a fire hazard,” she said with a straight face, and drove on.

  “He’s only a street urchin,” Randy said. “You lie — you claim that vermin do not smoke — but you allow Buzz to run tame, though your employer commands otherwise.”

  “They’re not smoking. They use the tobacco for nesting material. The cops would put Buzz in jail, which would make a real criminal out of him.”

  “I repeat, why do you care?”

  She sagged against the seat. “Why do I wear myself out, rescuing you from the consequences of your lordly temper?”

  “Ah. So Buzz is one of your strays.”

  “Look, he’s only, like, sixteen. He ran away from something bad. He’s clean…ish. He’s making zero dollars, and he’s so skinny it hurts to look at him. But he’s working. He’s not taking drugs or dealing drugs. Conventional ones anyway. In fact, he’s a good example of what you could be. If you didn’t have me, but you did have a work ethic and street smarts.”

  “I am aware how obliged I am to your generosity.”

  Now she’d done it. Insulted his lordship’s ego. “Let’s get your hair cut.”

  o0o

  Clay found Griffy in the kitchen, “helping” the cook.

  “Miss Griffin, I can take care of this,” the cook said.

  “Oh,” Griffy said, looking flustered. “Let me — those pans go in the top — all right, I’ll—”

  Clay disentangled her and led her out to the front hall. “You shouldn’t help the staff.”

  Griffy collapsed onto a settee. “They live here now! They’ve been here two days, ever since Virgil brought that woman home. I think he hired them to spy on me. That butler, Mellish, he watches me. I’m a nervous wreck!” A tear leaked out the corner of her eye. “Virgil’s put me in a separate bedroom. He’s getting rid of me. But first he’s going to torment me until I lose my mind. I should have gone to college,” she mourned. “I’m too old to strip.”

  “Naw. He’s salting the mine — uh, dressing the place up so the golddigger will think he’s worth seducing. It’s a scam, I’m positive.” Clay sat beside her and held her hands. “Listen, I wasn’t going to tell you this.”

  “Because I can’t keep a secret,” she said with resentment.

  “Because you have enough to worry abo
ut,” he said, though she was right. How did Virgil expect Griffy, of all people, to cope with the web of lies he wove around a con? “The thing is, I need you to do something for me. You were right, he’s out of control, and I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you before, and I really wish you hadn’t complained to the department,” he said, his soothing tone slipping.

  “But Clay, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “I guess this will teach me, huh?” He won a smile from her, and moved on to his forlorn hope. “So I’ve got two people from my division coming in to help out. Can you do me a huge favor? Don’t talk to them about me?” He kept his face pleasant, but inside he was squinching his eyes shut and crossing his fingers.

  “Oh, no.” She shook her finger at him. “Not you, too! What is it with you and your father? Secrets, secrets! You know I’m no good at remembering what’s a secret and what isn’t.”

  “Well, it was pretty clever of you to use the Consumer Services hot line to get me here.”

  She dimpled. “But that’s your job, isn’t it? Stopping con artists from stealing from people?”

  “We don’t chase off golddiggers.”

  “But that’s stealing too!”

  Clay gave up.

  o0o

  Lunch with the golddigger was a revelation. Sovay Sacheverell was one of those women who flaunted. She was gorgeous and classy and hard-as-nails, down to the English accent. Jewelry, skin, youth, class, clothes, she flaunted them. And she never stopped talking.

  “Griffy, this mousse is marvelous, your cook must give me the receipt.” Yes, she said “receipt.” “As I was saying, the Venus Machine disappeared in the eighteen-fifties during a house party of the Company of the Apostles — I don’t know if you know of their secret society? — At the home of the Viscount of Urgyff, who was a cousin of the head of the Anglican Church. It turned up thirty years later in Prague.” Sovay laughed a rippling silvery laugh. “Collectors can be such fiends, don’t you agree, Virgil?”

  Clay’s ears hurt. He simpered at Sovay, which she seemed to take as her due, but her real audience was Virgil.

  Virgil ate it up. In a sickeningly phony, feeble-old-man voice he said, “That’s quite a story, quite a story. I remember hearing old Simonson, or was it that Pharsee collector, what was his name, ben Haroun? al Harim? I’m sure it was one of those, yes, he talked about a similar thing happening in nineteen fifty-eight, or maybe it was fifty-seven, hm. Hm. I’d have to look it up. Anyway it was most amusing and instructive, what he had to say about the behavior of collectors, indeed it was. Coffee,” he said to the butler. The butler poured coffee. Virgil sipped. “Mmm. Tigers! That’s what he collected. Knew I’d remember it.”

  Rigorous training provided by the doddering fool across the table kept Clay from rolling his eyes.

  Sovay leaned toward Clay and put her elbows on the tablecloth. “And your area of expertise is so fascinating, Mr. Dawes. I had no idea there was a branch of psychical research called sexualis imaginarium.”

  The look Clay shot his parent would have killed if he’d had the safety off. “Not many people do.” He lowered his voice. “Everyone talks about sex, but when it comes to the nitty gritty of psychic phenomena in the bedroom, they’re afraid to explore.”

  Sovay leaned forward even farther. Her breasts made Griffy’s look like prunes. Yes, I see them, they’re spectacular.

  “But how many of us experience such a thing?” She touched her chest, as if nobody had noticed it.

  “Everyone,” Clay stated. “Every single one of us goes through extradimensional space during the sex act.”

  Sovay sucked in a deep breath. “That sounds dangerous!”

  “It is. That’s why so many people prefer mystery novels,” he said, looking deep into her eyes. “Or playing cards.”

  Virgil clapped his hands. “Cards! I want poker!” he cried as if he, too, preferred cards to sex in extradimensional space. “Griffy, get the table ready.”

  “I — I need to go to the kitchen,” Griffy said, and Clay saw that her feelings were hurt.

  “We can play three-handed,” Clay suggested.

  Virgil doddered. “Of course! Do you know milking-stool poker? Three handed. Sudden death. Good way to lose a lot of money,” he said with a senile chortle. He patted Sovay on the hand. “You can trim the pants off me, young lady.”

  Sovay laughed. “I can try!”

  Griffy blundered away from the table.

  Clay was heartened to find that Virgil didn’t object to skinning his golddigger at milking-stool poker. He followed Virgil’s signals. Between them they took six hundred dollars off the lovely Sovay.

  She only laughed and paid up on the spot.

  Cash, he noted. Hm. Wonder which room she’s in.

  Chapter Six

  To Jewel’s relief, Randy submitted beautifully to the haircut. He didn’t even make remarks about the sexual orientation of the hairdresser. Jewel sat for a trim.

  “Pretty quiet in here, Leo,” she said. For a Michigan Avenue salon, it had a lot of empty chairs.

  “Business sucks,” Leo said, concentrating on Randy’s head. “Ever since Bruce let that kid in here, we’re in the toilet.”

  Jewel got goose bumps. “Bad stylist?”

  “Bad peddlar. Came by a month ago selling love potions,” Leo said, giving her a heart attack, “and since then we see fewer regulars every week. Bruce claims there’s no connection.”

  Bruce, snipping away at Jewel’s hair, murmured, “I don’t see the connection.”

  But Jewel saw. Buzz was at it again.

  Leo said, “I ran into one of my regulars at the chocolate counter at Neiman’s yesterday. She’s missed three appointments. Her hair and nails were a mess. Know what she told me? ‘I like myself the way I am.’ Did you ever? I said, ‘Darling, it’s not about who you are, it’s about what you look like to other people,’ and do you know what she said? ‘If I love me, they’ll love me.’” He shook his head. “This was a nice haircut once,” he said to Randy. “I’ve never seen a cut like this.”

  Bruce glanced over at Randy. “Where did you have it done?”

  “London,” Randy said, watching the scissors flash in the mirror.

  “Figures,” Leo said.

  Jewel wondered how Buzz could be singlehandedly undermining the beauty industry in the most expensive neighborhood in Chicago. When she caught up with him again, she would ask him.

  An hour later she parked the Tercel a block from the Thompson residence on Marine Drive, which acted as a frontage road for Lake Shore Drive. “You don’t say anything. You don’t talk about the department. You stay out of my way.”

  Randy nodded. Too excited to argue, she guessed. Poor guy. I guess I haven’t been respecting his personhood. He looked seriously hot in that Blass suit. It was too nice a suit for a city worker. Alas, he didn’t own anything else appropriate, so they were stuck with it.

  She felt seriously hot, too, but that was because her pantsuit was plastic.

  Wow, the Thompson place was one of those limestone landmark mansions with a lake view. Marble front steps. Woof.

  She led Randy up the steps. He knocked.

  An actual butler answered the door. Jewel blinked. Randy cleared his throat and she sent him a shut up look.

  “I’m Senior Investigator Jewel Heiss with the Chicago Department of Consumer Services. I want to see Mr. Virgil Thompson. In private. Official business.”

  The butler shut the door in their faces.

  “You should have permitted me,” Randy said. He knocked again, pushing Jewel to one side.

  The butler opened the door.

  Randy said in his most languid tone, “Lord Pontarsais to see Mr. Thompson.” He flicked his fingers and a card appeared.

  Jewel stared. When did he get a visiting card?

  The butler examined the card, bowed again, and stepped back. “If you would step this way, milord.” He parked them in a front room with dead animal heads on the walls and disappeared.
/>
  “You have any more of those cards?”

  Randy handed her one. Randolph Llew Carstairs Athelbury Darner, third Earl Pontarsais, it read in tight, loopy script. Clay must have bought him the cards.

  “You realize there may be an Earl Pontarsais alive right this minute.”

  Randy favored her with a look of pitying hauteur. “I’ll fight him for it.”

  “I don’t think,” she whispered, “they still do trial by combat in Wales.”

  The door opened. “In here? Thank you, Mellish. Ah, hello, good afternoon, I’m Virgil Thompson.” Thompson was an old guy with a bald head like a turtle’s, about three inches shorter than Jewel. “Lord Pontarsais.” Thompson shook hands with Randy. “Marvelous. And your lovely, lovely lady friend?” He took her hand and gazed up at her as if she were Mount Rushmore.

  She gave Thompson a businesslike smile and repeated her credentials. “We’re sorry to disturb your privacy, sir.”

  “Not at all, not at all.” Thompson appealed to her in a fossilized way. There was a gleam in his turtle eye, as if he might at any moment say Yowza or Hotcha, cutie-pie. “And how may I serve the lovely hand of the law?”

  “Sir, I’m sorry to inform you that a known criminal was observed entering your home yesterday.”

  “You terrify me,” Thompson said, looking unterrified. “Is this man a burglar?”

  “No, sir, he’s a con man. He calls himself Clay Dawes. Perhaps he insinuated himself into your house as a guest. He’s a very smooth talker. We’ve had him under observation for weeks. When we realized he was in your home, we felt it was time to reveal our presence. In confidence, sir, if you feel you can keep the secret.”

  Turtlehead Thompson blinked at her. “Oh, I can keep a secret. With confidence. Yes, he came by yesterday posing as an aficionado of old machines. I have a remarkable collection, you know. It happens that a friend has brought me a valuable antique for repair and appraisal. Of course he’s after that.”

  “Perhaps. It wouldn’t do for us to make assumptions about his motives yet.” Now to see if she could talk her way into the house. Jewel shot Randy a warning look.

  “Ye-e-es, I quite see.” Thompson’s pale blue eyes got bright. “My goodness, how exciting! I feel as if I were in a film about master thieves.” He turned a mischievous smile on Jewel. “As I see it, you two must become my guests, as well.” He tapped his lips with a skeletal finger. “But not as fraud investigators.”