They were led to a locker room, lovingly undressed by small elderly women wearing kimonos, and laid out in a sauna. This was depressing. Sovay looked even better naked than clothed.
“In fact,” Jewel remarked later to Griffy as they took their massages, “if you play the who’s-what-bitch game, I look like an overweight golden lab and she looks like an afghan hound.”
Griffy moaned under her masseuse’s hands. “Who’s what bitch?”
“Everyone’s a bitch. Except you. The question is, what kind.” Jewel felt her back start to loosen up.
“Oh, you are not overweight.”
“See? You’re not a bitch.”
“Well, I think you look majestic. You’re so tall and strong-looking. And your hair is beautiful. It just falls, like a blonde river. And you have nicer eyes than she has. I think brown eyes are kind of sneaky. Blue eyes are honest,” Griffy said, in the teeth of the evidence under her own roof.
“Maybe you’re an Irish setter, but blonde,” Jewel said.
The door opened, and Jewel’s masseuse gasped. “Excuse me, this room is private!”
At the door, the barristo from Starbucks peeked in. His lime green hair seemed to stick straight up when he saw Jewel. “I brought you another latte.”
Jewel stammered, “Uh — thuh — thanks.”
He set the latte cup on the massage table by her nose. “You need anything, call downstairs.” He smiled a trembly smile.
Griffy’s masseuse flapped her hands at him. “Go, go!”
“Uh, here’s a discount card!” He shoved it through the crack as the door shut on him.
Jewel looked at the latte cup. It had hearts drawn all around the top in green magic marker. She laughed.
“What the heck was that?”
“It’s the Venus machine,” Griffy said. “Venus was the goddess of love, wasn’t she? She probably blessed the machine, and the machine blessed you.”
“I don’t think it’s love on his mind,” Jewel said. She felt pretty good. It didn’t suck being a love goddess. “Just the power of suggestion.”
The door opened. Her masseuse made a noise like an offended chicken. Jewel recognized the man peeping in as Griffy’s chauffeur. “I’m Mike,” he said, taking off his cap and looking at her as if she had just invented ice cream.
Jewel waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “And? Nice to see you, Mike, but we’re busy in here.”
“Um, did you leave a scarf in the car?” He held up a tan plaid wool muffler.
Wool? In July? Jewel kept a straight face. “No, Mike, I didn’t, but thank you for asking. Griffy, is that your scarf?”
He did a double-take at the next table and looked embarrassed. “Oops.” He backed up.
“Mike!” Griffy said in a scandalized voice.
“Sorry!” He left. The masseuse banged the door shut.
Griffy said, “Well!”
Jewel laughed again, her belly shaking her whole body. “Don’t even start with me. Did I leave a scarf in the car. What next!” The masseuse squished her shoulders. She relaxed. “Still, I don’t see how the power of suggestion made those guys follow me ninety floors upstairs.”
“You don’t think it’s kind of wonderful?” Griffy said. “Virgil said that Venus is related to the navel chakra. Maybe the Venus Machine did something to your navel. Does your navel feel funny?”
“No, but my head feels like it’s gonna come off at the roots,” Jewel said, grunting under the masseuse’s powerful hands.
Her masseuse now began slapping her thighs.
“Ow! Hey! Knock it off!” Jewel twisted her neck to send a frown behind her. “If I want a spanking I’ll go to a club.”
The masseuse bowed. Then she laid something piping hot on the base of Jewel’s spine.
Jewel jerked upright. The hot thing rolled onto the floor.
“I think I’m full up on new things. No. Please, no.”
The masseuse protested in Ubangi or Ukrainian or something.
Jewel was firm. “I’m done. I want a shower. Shower? Water?” She mimed a showerhead. “Shh-shhhh-flflflfl-shhh?”
The masseuse yanked a hose down off a ceiling-bungee.
Jewel tried to take it from her. “I’ll do it myself.”
Griffy said, “You have to go back to the locker room for a shower. Haven’t you ever been to a spa?”
Clambering off the table, Jewel wrapped her terrycloth robe around her. “I think this one time will do me.”
o0o
Jewel sneaked back to the locker room, showered off the oil, and donned a fresh puffy white terry robe. High time she started acting like an investigator. Her phone had eight messages, all from Ed. She went out into the elevator lobby to call him back.
“’S’amatter with you,” he groused, “I been calling all day.”
“I’m undercover, boss, remember?” The lobby floor was cold under her bare feet. She huddled into a corner and turned her terry-robed back to avoid the eyes of disembarking elevator passengers.
“You done anything about that nutcase in the psychic salon?”
“I’m there now.”
“Hurry up. They’re holding election press conferences any day. Get something on him, fraud, code violation, somethin’ looneytunes. Feelin’ up the customers, I don’t give a damn.”
“Fifth floor leaning on you?” Jewel said sympathetically.
“Commissioner. Seems to think his job’s on the line.”
“So I guess if I screw up we get a new boss.”
“You wish. I’m Shakman exempt, they can’t fire me for political reasons. But the whole friggin’ city could go to hell in a hanky. You gotta think big picture.”
Someone male came out of the spa behind her. “Hi, Jewel!”
She stiffened. Who knows me here?
“Ed,” she said, hunching lower over the phone. “Check out a patent for me. For a ‘psychespectrometer,’ whatever that is, and I have no clue how you spell it.”
Ed grunted. “And you think I do?”
“The patent’s in the name of the spa guy.”
“Gustavus Ka-flim-flam-a-ram-a Kauz?”
“That’s him,” she said.
“Oh, you’re on the phone,” said the voice behind her. Oh God, what if it’s someone I dated?
Ed said, “The Fifth Floor has a file on Kauz. You want it?”
“Dear God, yes.” She stuck her finger in her free ear. “Talk to you tonight or tomorrow.”
“Speed it up,” Ed said, and rang off.
She stood holding the dead phone to her ear. “Uh-huh,” she said to the dead phone. “Okay. Uh-huh.”
The guy behind her said, “Some other time I guess.”
In that moment she recognized the voice as Buzz’s and turned to see him disappear behind closing elevator doors. She noticed two more things: His backpack was bulging, and he looked furtive, as if he too had decided not to be recognized.
It’s a potion. I’m, like, beta testing it.
Beta testing for a spa, maybe?
Hot dog, she thought, tapping her phone in her palm. I’ve been undercover one day and I’ve already detected something.
Two suited guys holding huge, phallic cigars came out of the second elevator and spotted her. “It’s her!”
“There she is! Hey, foxy lady!”
They stuck their cigars in their faces and reached for her with both hands.
In the nick of time, someone opened the spa door.
Jewel swept past them into the spa, barefoot, with her nose in the air.
The guy holding the spa door for her was Griffy’s chauffeur.
In the waiting room, latte-boy looked up and smiled.
Feeling hunted, Jewel pretended she didn’t see them. Jeez. Now I’m starting to worry about my green tones.
“There you are!” Alex fluted. “Are we ready for our chakra cleanse? By the way.” He leaned closer to her. “My partner still talks about you. You look better than ever!”
“Thanks,” Jewel said pallidly. Not for the first time, she wished she’d kept a little black book during her slut years. It could have helped her place these guys. “Uh, tell him hi.”
Her chakra cleanse began alongside Griffy’s treatment. They were bathed on adjoining massage tables with the bungee-showerheads, which Jewel instantly coveted. Then they were laid on their backs, schmeared in fragrant green muck, and wrapped like mummies in what seemed to be huge sheets of sushi-wrap.
“Seaweed?”
“Dehydrated marine flora,” Jewel’s attendant corrected. “Let that soak in.” She turned the lights down and dialed up the Muzak. “I’ll leave the door ajar in case you need something.” She left.
“How about a quart margarita and a straw?” Jewel muttered.
Griffy giggled. “I can’t move my lips.”
“I can’t move anything. What’s this you’re having again?”
“Some kind of ultimate soul tranquilizer.”
“Man, I should have asked for that. My nose itches.”
They lay there companionably, listening to drony-moany music with tinkles. Jewel could see out the sliver of open door, across the hall, into the waiting room. A familiar-looking, dark-clad shoulder was visible. The chauffeur maybe? His back was to the doorway.
“You do this kind of thing often?” she said.
“Mm-hm,” Griffy said. “Usually I go to Giorgio lo Gigolo.”
“It would drive me scatty. I guess I bore easily.”
“Oh, but you have such interesting work!”
What was her cover? Randy’s flimflam debunker. “Lord Darner’s not up on American culture. Not that he’ll admit it.”
“Men are so fragile. Inside, I mean,” Griffy said. This didn’t sound much like Virgil, but Jewel didn’t say so. “They’re easily fooled by appearances.”
“Huh,” Jewel said, thinking of Sovay.
“And yet here we are, improving our appearance for them! That Venus Machine really works. Maybe I should try it.”
“I didn’t need it. A switch to turn guys off, maybe, yeah.”
Griffy gave a sad laugh. “Well, I’d like to try it.”
Jewel said, “Girlfriend, have you ever thought that you are a fabulous woman, and Virgil is lucky to have someone like you to love him? You don’t need to change. He does.”
“Maybe.” Griffy said forlornly. “But men don’t change. Do you like Clay? I think he likes you. Of course, he won’t change, either.”
Great, everybody knew she had slept in Clay's bed last night.
Jewel admitted, “He’s nice enough after the weirdos I’ve dated. Like the guy who ties you up, and the guy who wants to play pretend-stalker, and—” Whoa, dial back the girl talk. “I had way too much fun in college,” she finished.
“College!” Griffy sighed. “Clay must be a breath of fresh air.”
Ah-hah! Clay must have blown their cover to Griffy. Jewel supposed that made sense, since Griffy had filed the complaint to the city. She wished Clay would wait for instructions before doing stuff like that. “So far, yes,” she admitted. “He’s been attentive and generous and patient and nonjudgmental.”
There was a smile in Griffy’s voice. “Love is wonderful.”
Jewel bridled. “Has Clay told you he’s in love with me?”
“Clay doesn’t tell anyone anything. He talks a lot and he seems to be telling you stuff, but when you think about it later, you didn’t learn anything. Have you noticed that?”
“Hell, yes.” Something was odd about this conversation. Griffy seemed to assume that Jewel and Clay knew each other well. She’d sounded like that yesterday, too. As if Clay had blabbed to her. But why would he do that?
“He’s like his father that way. I gave up trying to figure Virgil out years ago.”
“His father?” Jewel put the clues together. “Clay is — he isn’t Virgil’s son?” she blurted. “That sneaky, lying weasel—”
“Oops,” Griffy said in a small voice.
Jewel lied, “I guessed anyway.” But her head was exploding. No wonder Clay wanted to handle this case on his own!
Never in a million years would she have guessed. She would kill Clay. So this was how Griffy knew all about Clay’s job, and Jewel being his partner. She felt like a fool.
If Virgil was his father, then Clay had known it when they took the case. And since he went to Virgil’s house before Jewel and Randy got there, he must have lied to Virgil about them somehow. But how? What lies did he tell? And why?
On the other hand, if Virgil knew who Clay was, what the heck was he up to, pretending they were investigating Clay?
Complex, too complex!
“So you complained to the city?” Jewel said.
“Clay was annoyed with me about that. He said the city can’t stop Sovay from taking Virgil from me.”
“He’s right.” Although we may bust her for the Venus Machine scam, if we can figure out the scam part. “I can’t believe Clay didn’t tell me that he told you about us. Doesn’t that bother you? To be lied to and shut out?”
“I don’t know,” Griffy said. “Should it? Maybe I’m not that interested in something a person doesn’t want me to know. I pretty much take people as they come. It’s not very complicated, but then I’m not very smart,” she said humbly.
“You’re plenty smart, Griffy. At least you’re not screwing two men at once,” Jewel blurted.
“Two? Oh, of course. You’re with Lord Darner.”
Jewel groaned. The girl-talking mouth got away that time. “Now I’m wondering if I should tell you.”
“No teasing! Lord Darner is your other partner?”
“Clay told you way too much.”
“Oh, no, I figured out who you were right away. So you — you work with both of them?”
“Randy is my siamese twin. My bodyguard. He’s glued to me for life.”
Griffy gasped. “You’re married?”
“No, that’s what’s so unfair about it.” Relationships, ugh.
“Uh, Jewel, I don’t think Clay is the marrying kind,” Griffy said.
“I don’t want to marry Clay!” she burst out. “I don’t want to marry Randy either. What would be the point? He already haunts my pussy!”
Griffy snorted. “For real?”
Jewel yearned to pour it all into a female ear. “I spoke figuratively.”
“How does that work, then?”
“You want the long version or the short version?”
“I want to hear the part you want to tell me,” Griffy said, which brought Jewel up with a start. I so suck at undercover.
She frowned. The mummy-wrap around her forehead crinkled.
“He lives with me. He sleeps with me. Whenever he’s in a bed with me, he, like, disappears into my — I don’t even know if this is true — but it feels like he’s inside my mind and my body at the same time. It weirds me out. What’s sick is, I love that. But the weirdest thing is I’m getting used to it. It’s like, you reach out in the night, and you feel that warm lump under the covers, and you think, ‘He’s still here!’ And it feels good, it feels safe, because he hasn’t left you.”
Griffy said softly, “Sometimes I wonder if Virgil is going to leave me.”
Jewel pulled herself together. “Virgil? He’s a hundred and one!”
“I wonder. He’s had a lot of girlfriends, you know. He won’t marry. He was married a long time ago to Clay’s mother and it was awful. She took him for everything, I’m guessing.”
“Well, he’s not gonna leave you. He wouldn’t dare.”
“Why wouldn’t he dare leave me?” Griffy sounded terribly vulnerable.
Jewel felt guilty for trying to comfort her. What if she was wrong? “Because he’ll never get a deal this good. You’re gorgeous, you’re the kindest thing in nature, and you love him. You love his kid. Why on earth would he leave that?”
“I guess I know all that. But I feel dumb around him.”
“I bet he loves that, too.”
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“Gosh.” Jewel could almost hear the light bulb click on for Griffy. “I bet you’re right! Tell me about Randy.”
All Jewel’s grievances came up in her throat. “Have you ever had a boyfriend who had to get laid, all night, every single night? Whether you were drunk or asleep, or had the flu, or you’re just mad at him? No matter how you feel when you go to bed, there he is with his permanent erection.”
“Been there,” Griffy said, yawning. “That was Virgil, once.” She gave a sleepy sigh.
“And this is the part that sucks. He can always make me come. Every single time. It’s like an obsession with him.”
Griffy laughed. “Oh, now I’m playing my violin for you.”
“I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“Well, think about it. If I’m drunk, if I pass out, if I’m just asleep? He can—” Keep Randy’s secret, Jewel. “I don’t even know what he does to me when I’m asleep. It’s like he gets inside my dreams. I have horny dreams until I’m creaming. And then, wham!”
“He must love sex.”
“I wonder. Sometimes I don’t know if he’s loving it or not. At first I thought so. But we’ve been inseparable, twenty-four-seven, for weeks. I know him better now. I think he’s afraid to miss a chance.” Because of the curse. The sting in the curse’s tail came back to her at that. You must love her, Randall, his magician-mistress had written.
He never missed a chance to make her come. But did he love her?
Hell, did she want him to love her?
This is why I don’t do relationships. “All I know is, it’s driving me out of my mind.”
“I’ve known guys like that,” Griffy said wistfully. “Only they weren’t desperate to make me enjoy it.”
“He may be holding onto the kennel door,” Jewel mused.
“What kennel door?”
“My grandparents hated dogs, which was odd, since we had a farm. They made my dogs stay in a kennel at night. Not one of those dogs liked going into his kennel at bedtime. And yet, if a dog got in trouble, he’d run for his kennel and curl up inside.”
Griffy sounded fuddled. “So Randy—”
“Sees my pussy as his kennel.” Over Griffy’s laughter, she said, “He could be sick of sex by now — you would think so — I bet I would be, in his shoes. But if we ever have a fight he, like, uh, runs away, and then I don’t see him again until I go to bed. And there he is, like a bad, horny penny.”
The Hinky Velvet Chair Page 7