The Hinky Velvet Chair

by Jennifer Stevenson

  “Any ill effects?” Virgil ushered her to a lab stool by his workbench.

  Her ears buzzed. “I’m telling you, that thing’s a fake.”

  “Check the settings,” Clay said, and Virgil went to fiddle with the Venus machine. Randy leaned on the bench beside her, sleek and dangerous, like a Doberman pinscher guarding a baby carriage. Virgil called out numbers and Clay wrote them down.

  Sovay didn’t say a word. She stared at Jewel with loathing.

  Jewel ignored her. She could have told her the men were hoping she would fall on her ass again.

  She felt itchy. One of those low, slow, tingly itches.

  Everybody drank coffee while Clay and Virgil conferred.

  “—Calibrated too high, or else we’re seeing a placebo effect of extreme magnitude,” Clay said.

  “Shouldn’t think so,” Virgil said. “Still, I’d like to measure the green tones in her aura. I have a Kirlian camera here somewhere.” He blinked around the collection room.

  Clay said, “In fact, you and I and Lord Darner could spend the morning recalibrating. If we can get rid of the women for a few hours,” he added in bald English. Jewel’s jaw dropped in amazement. “Why don’t you ladies hit a spa tomorrow? When you get back, we’ll be ready to take a Kirlian shot of Julia’s aura.”

  “I have an account at Giorgio lo Gigolo,” Griffy said.

  “There’s that new place up in the Hancock Tower,” Clay said even more brazenly. “I hear they do colorimetry. Newfangled aura reading,” he explained to Jewel. “Get a second opinion.”

  Somebody had better explain to this dope how to conduct a fraud investigation before he dug a hole they couldn’t climb out of. “You,” she said, “are babbling.”

  Griffy said, “No, I’ve heard of them. They tell fortunes. And you get a massage!” She turned to Jewel. “We’ll all go. My treat.” After a pause she said to Sovay, “You’ll come, won’t you?” with what Jewel considered heroic niceness.

  “Of course.” Sovay inclined her head as if she were doing Griffy a favor.

  Griffy looked cheerful.

  The pressure of all the suspicious looks flying between Virgil, Clay, and Sovay was giving Jewel a headache. “I’m going to bed,” she announced.

  “I’ll take her downstairs,” Clay said.

  Randy glared. “There is no need for you to trouble.”

  “Clay will take me downstairs,” Jewel told Randy. “Go flooze with your English flirty.” Besides, she needed a chance to remind Clay exactly who was senior partner on this gig.

  Randy turned his shoulder and offered Sovay coffee-sugar.

  “Hunk of drunk,” Jewel muttered as Clay held the collection room door for her. “Bunco hunk of attitude.”

  “That coffee was awful weak, wasn’t it?” Clay said, supporting her down the marble staircase to the second floor.

  “I’m not a cripple,” she grumbled. They were out of earshot now. “Listen, buster. You do not, not,” she drew breath, “commingle cases!”

  “You’re tiddly, officer.” As he opened a bedroom door, he twinkled at her, and she felt an urge.

  “What I mean is, we’re working on two cases but we mustn’t mix them together.” She flumped down on the bed.

  “More efficient, I would think.” He helped her off with her shoes. Then he squeezed her right foot in both hands.

  “Oh my God.” She groaned. “What were you thinking, initiating contact with Thompson? You could get us into deep shit here!”

  He twisted gently, sending good feelings all up her leg and into her hoopla. “Better?” he said.

  “Don’t stop that. I’m serious.” It was hard to act serious when she was so, so loaded, and his touch was so good. “You could screw this case royally. If we do get evidence, it might be ruled in — mmMMoh — inadmissable because you tangled the cases.”

  “It’s only a spa day with the girls. I thought you would like a chance to scope the joint.”

  “Well, stop thinking. Oh, and another thing.” She had to pause because he’d switched feet and was now working his thumbs into the arch of her left foot, bringing muted ecstasy. “What the hell and a half have you been telling Griffy about me? I admit she could get secrets out of a stone with that face, but I would think you could keep a secret.” I must be sobering up. I couldn’t have said that ten minutes ago.

  “She is innocent,” Clay said with a solemn face. “You believe that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Somehow Jewel was on her back on the bed. She felt grand.

  “Good.” He pulled off her polyester pants. “Tell Griffy to buy you some clothes while you’re on the Magnificent Mile.”

  “Nina will bring over some of my weekend clothes.” Something to make Randy look at me, not at Sovay.

  “Good, because these things are dreadful.”

  She got up on her elbows and found him kneeling between her thighs. “Hey.”

  He kissed her and pushed. She fell on her back. “Hey yourself.” He tossed her pants away. “I propose a detente. You’re right, we’re outclassed here. We need to pull together.”

  The ceiling swam over her. He continued working the polyester off her unresisting body. She had that old familiar feeling, the feeling that she was making a colossal fool of herself and would regret it in something like twelve hours.

  Although not right now.

  This isn’t so bad, she thought, repeating a mantra from sluttier days. I like him. Which was true. Working with Clay for two weeks hadn’t inspired her with confidence in his honesty or his urge to follow orders, but she liked other things about him. He was kind, patient, and more polite than her average fellow investigator, though that might be because she’d dated and dumped most of them. But she had to keep her mouth shut around him. Clay couldn’t be trusted with secrets.

  “Why is it,” she said aloud, “that a confidence man betrays your confidence?”

  “How much did you drink?” he said to her left ear as he groped behind her back. He grunted. “Lift up, I can’t get this bra undone.”

  She giggled. Randy never had trouble getting her naked.

  “I remember doing you,” she accused. “You’re normal.”

  Clay licked the hollow of her throat. A frisson shot down her side into her buttock. She yelped.

  “That’s good, is it?” he panted. “Ah.”

  The bra strap snapped open and her breasts, always uncomfortable in traction, eased apart against his naked chest. When did his chest get naked?

  He threw the bra over his shoulder. “I hate these things.”

  She said, “I do, too, but they keep me out of trouble.”

  He lifted himself in a push-up over her. The heat of his body between her thighs was distracting. “Trouble?” he said, twinkling. “You? Hard to believe, Officer Teflon.”

  “True. There’s a reason I dress like this. It keeps my coworkers happy.”

  He squinted at her breasts. “Naw.”

  “Okay, it keeps the men from thinking lustful thoughts about me. Look like that if you want, but I couldn’t keep a partner. I mean, I tried. Ed set me up with every guy in the department.” The more she talked, the more everything sounded like sex. “I mean, Ed made me their partner.” In a small voice she confessed, “I did them all. It didn’t help.”

  “This partner thing is important to you.”

  “I need a partner. I can’t do any important work without one. This is my first big case in forever.”

  Clay seemed thoughtful. She lay on her back, watching his face change, relaxing into the idea of normal sex with a normal guy, feeling unbelievably grateful to him. “Thanks for picking me and not that Sovay bitch.”

  He glanced down at her body, lifting himself higher into a one-handed push-up as he looked. Her skin heated as if he were licking her.

  She smiled.

  He sighed. “Officer, this is killing me, but I think we stop now.” And he rolled off her.

  “What?”

  He flipped the c
overlet over her bare body.

  “Hey!” she said. She sat up. “That’s not funny!”

  He knelt on the bed, pushed her back down, and slowly, slowly snuggled against her, keeping the coverlet between them.

  “You’re right, it’s not funny.” His face was so close, she could smell both wine and whisky on his breath. His eyes glazed over. His hand pressed down on the coverlet over her breast, making her roll hungrily toward him.

  Then his face changed. “Oh, brother.”

  He slid away again. She smiled while he took off his pants and shoes.

  Then he put on a pair of pajamas.

  Her smile faded.

  He lifted the sheets and got into bed. Now there were lots of layers between them. From arm’s length away he reached over and brushed a lock of her hair off her forehead.

  Jewel watched with speechless resentment.

  “The thing is, officer, I like working with you. I don’t want that to blow up in our faces because I took advantage of you when you were drunk.”

  “I’ve screwed men on dumber excuses,” she blurted.

  “And lost your partner every time. Ain’t gonna happen. Not tonight.” He looked at her so tenderly that lust climbed into her chest and twisted into something else.

  To her horror, she felt her eyes prickle. “Do you want a punch in the nose?” Unwelcome feeling was rising in her throat.

  “Might take my mind off my johnson.” She laughed, and he said, “If it’s any comfort to you, you are hotter tonight than I have ever seen you.”

  Her breath caught. Her throat went hard. “Con man.”

  Eye to eye with her, he said, “Jump me tomorrow and find out if I’m lying.”

  He put his hand out and closed her eyes, and she turned over so he wouldn’t see her face crumple.

  o0o

  Clay got up and turned the light out, then lay back down under the covers beside her. Close one. His fingertips were wet where he’d touched her eyelids. He wondered until daylight what he wanted.

  Chapter Eight

  Jewel’s head hurt. She skulked in the alley behind Virgil’s house, leaning her burning face against the cold brick garden wall, until Nina drove up in the Beamer with a suitcase. Nina tried to give her a hard time about the soot all over her bedroom, but Jewel stonewalled her, promising girl talk later.

  Then she snuck back up to Clay’s room.

  Twenty minutes later she came downstairs, dressed, showered, still hung over. Griffy sat at one end of the big table. All the men were waiting on Sovay at the other end.

  When Jewel came in, all the men turned toward her.

  “Julia! Would you care for coffee?” Virgil said.

  “Can I get you some ham?” Clay said.

  “Orange juice or cranberry, Miss?” Mellish said, holding her chair for her and leaning very close.

  “Where were you last night?” Randy demanded.

  Sovay scowled. She was lovely, even while scowling.

  “Coffee,” Jewel grunted, avoiding Randy’s sizzling-hot eye.

  The butler poured coffee into her cup.

  Griffy said, “How are you feeling this morning, Julia?”

  Jewel cut her eyes to Clay. “Uh.” He looked smug. She remembered scolding him for unprofessional behavior. That would have been while he was trying to unhook her bra. She swallowed coffee around a lump.

  “Yes,” Virgil said, “how are you feeling this morning?” He smiled at her with understanding. “Any ill effects?”

  Besides the damage to my work relationship? “I think it was the Scotch,” she said huskily. Her skull was splitting straight down the center of her forehead.

  “Now might be a good time to take those Kirlian photographs of your aura,” Virgil said.

  “I’d like an aspirin,” she confessed.

  “A spa day will make you feel wonderful,” Griffy said. She looked at Jewel with a mixture of sadness and envy. “We have a nine-thirty sauna, then a treatment, lunch, and another treatment. You have time for those photographs if you hurry.”

  Jewel’s eyes felt like coarsely-sanded golf balls. “Let’s hurry,” she croaked.

  o0o

  An hour later she felt great. Not just less painful but wonderful. In fact she felt fabulous.

  Virgil had taken her back upstairs to what she couldn’t help thinking of as his laboratory, where he took her picture with a device that made her teeth buzz. Much newage was spoken, especially about her green tones, whatever the fuck those were.

  Randy was in a huff, which she could understand but was in no mood to encourage. After all, she had no proof he hadn’t spent the night elsewhere, too. She refused to meet his eye.

  With all the men frisking around Jewel, Sovay was huffy too.

  So far, her day was a net win.

  She swaggered into the John Hancock Tower. Every man in the lobby turned to look at her. The snake Sovay trailed behind her, shoved in front of her, or strode beside her, expensive heels clicking, but nobody cared. It was Jewel they saw.

  She should work undercover more often.

  Now that she was masquerading as Lord Darner’s hired debunker, Jewel had on some of her pre-Randy, pre-Clay, pre-six-months-of-celibacy slutwear, such as today’s tight little red silk tee with the bunch in front that made her tits look bigger than God, and a pair of jeans that mostly fit.

  None of the guys in the lobby seemed to have any complaints.

  And she loved it.

  “The elevator to ninety is up the escalator,” Griffy said, consulting a building map.

  Jewel didn’t want to hide in an elevator yet. “Let’s get coffee.” She sashayed to the lobby Starbucks, revelling in the feeling that she could have any man she saw.

  She hadn’t felt like this since college. In the order line, three guys in window-washer coveralls turned around and stared at her, their jaws dropping. A paunchy tourist festooned with cameras gawked in her direction. His wife hustled their children away, looking miffed. The shoeshine guy whistled at her.

  “Boy, that Venus Machine sure works,” Griffy said.

  “It must,” Jewel said. “Yesterday I felt frumpy. Today—!”

  “Today you’re only half frumpy,” Sovay said. She bent and rubbed a speck off the toe of her shoe, and her breasts almost fell out of her dress.

  Jewel noticed that nobody else was looking, and smiled to herself.

  “But how can it work?” Griffy said. “I don’t understand!”

  “It must have been intimidating to grow up with an intelligent brother,” Sovay said. “For a slow child.”

  Jewel stepped between them. “It’s just the power of suggestion,” she said to Griffy, wondering if that was true.

  Through Starbucks’ window she caught the eye of two men in suits, smoking outside the building. They were looking in at her. They sucked on identical huge phallic cigars and their palms were flat against the window and maybe she only imagined she saw a string of drool hanging off the side of one guy’s jaw.

  The lime-green-haired boy with big round spectacles taking coffee orders began to ask her, “How can I help—” and the words died in his throat.

  “Double shot grande latte no foam cream to go,” she said with a smile that made the barristo reel.

  I could get used to this.

  Chapter Nine

  At the spa, Alex, their Beauty Guide, a youth of ethereal good looks and iffy sexual orientation, spoke of ayurvedic practices, turbinado sugar scrubs, and hydrating shirodhara massage techniques. They could be rubbed, scrubbed or packed with alarming products such as Amazon Basin bat oil, Potowatomi mineral baths, and soothing fluid marine flora reductions.

  Griffy and Sovay took it all in solemnly.

  Jewel thought Alex looked familiar. Had she ever dated him? Since she hadn’t made a practice of chasing gay guys, maybe not.

  She also found a stack of pamphlets entitled Magic is Afoot! by Dr. G.K. Kauz, illustrated with a cartoon of a wizard waving a wand. She pocketed one, her
blood running cold.

  “I thought this was a psychic spa,” she said. “Don’t you have anything for my soul?”

  Alex spread his arms angelically. “Mademoiselle, of course we won’t neglect your soul. We have many methods for spiritual cleansing and development, via active or passive energy flow.”

  She decided to push. “I need my aura tones checked. I’ve been told they’re too green.”

  Alex looked at her with new interest. “Some practitioners rely on the naked eye, which is biased. Using our director’s patented psychespectrometer, our colorimetricians measure every shade in your aura up to five hundred twelve precise tones, each with unique significance and treatment indications.”

  Patented. Jewel made a mental note. That’s a provable claim of material fact. She said, “Can you treat my aura, too?”

  “But of course.”

  “If it’s broken or stained or something?”

  He raised his chin with such saintliness that his perfect skin glowed. “Stains and breaks are mended every day,” he uttered. “We make the process as pleasant as possible.”

  And that was almost a claim to practice medicine.

  Sovay said, “I’ll have the Hot Stone Relaxing Regimen and, to follow, the Lymph Drainage Facilitating Bastinado with Spring Salix Matsudana Twigs.”

  Jewel shot her a curious look. She’d once dated a guy who was into whippings.

  “I need to relax,” Griffy said, stating the obvious.

  “Then may I suggest to Madame our Ultimate Triumph of Soul Mare Tranquilium, a two hundred minute experience with facial, mineral bath, massage, and seven-layer sea vegetable wrap. Madame did say she would be using Diner’s Club?”

  “My treat,” Griffy said, waving at the other two, and glowed under Alex’s look of startled respect.

  “Perhaps you wish to make your nutrition selections now, rather than waiting for the midday sustaining ritual? The spa tends to fill up with office workers at lunch,” he translated.

  Jewel decided on a Rhodochrosite Crystal Chakra Cleanse with a massage and a marine flora reduction wrap, and after lunch an aura reading on the Institute’s patented psychespectrometer. This would leave her, she calculated, forty minutes for loose snooping, while Griffy finished her Ultimate Triumph.