The Hinky Velvet Chair

by Jennifer Stevenson

  “Okay, bye!” The team romped away in Fred’s wake.

  One minute later, Mellish appeared at her elbow. “Miss?” He held out a beach coverup and a pair of giant sunglasses. “Miss Griffy thought you might want these.”

  “Oh, thank God!” Avoiding his eye, Jewel wrapped herself up like Jackie O. She felt sweaty, but the parade behind her dispersed.

  They made it to the beach. Among thousands, she felt less conspicuous.

  The summer sun hung low in the sky. The beach crowd was in a festive mood, watching the water kites. Dogs peed, children wailed and threw sand at one another, and humanity sweated in their flip-flops and shorts and tank tops. Pink thunderheads lay far out on the horizon over the lake, making a nice backdrop for the kites. A stiff north breeze cooled the sand and filled the sails of boats on the choppy gray-blue water.

  “We need to talk,” Clay said, drawing her away from the party. “I’ll buy you a Mexican ice cream bar.”

  “We do. And I never say no to ice cream.” She followed him up the battered concrete walk to where the pushcart stood. “But what about our cover?” she said around a rice-pudding-flavored paleta.

  “Between you passing out in my room and Sovay catching us in her room, I don’t think anybody’s surprised,” Clay said around a mango-flavored paleta.

  “That’s true, I guess,” she said. “I’m so tired of this Venus Machine crap, I could scream. Remind me to stop jumping at undercover cases.”

  “We have to get back to the house and look at those background checks.”

  “And find Randy.” She licked her finger. “But when?”

  “In another hour it’ll get dark enough for fireworks.”

  She nodded. “We’ll sneak away then.”

  “You don’t look happy,” her partner said with concern.

  “I’m having a panic attack. I can’t breathe, worrying about Randy. Plus I think I screwed up big time.”

  “Getting drunk and sleeping with me?” He was such a guy.

  “No,” she said, nettled. “But I called that woman I met through Buzz — you would have been there, only you were screwing around instead of working with your partner, remember? She got her friends together, and they worship Kauz’s little pink socks, and if they ever meet him they’ll give him a jillion dollars to further his research. They fucking love that potion.”

  “They loved it before. You didn’t do that.”

  “No, but I brought them all together and that gave them the idea to, like, organize. If they find Kauz, we’re toast. I may have single-handedly doubled his campaign fund.”

  “Don’t worry about it yet.” He leaned closer. “Notice anything about the fair Sovay?”

  “Besides the teeny bikini?” she grumped.

  “She’s not being such a bitch.”

  Flash a bikini on a guy and his brain vanishes. “Sorry,” Jewel said, not sorry. “I look at her, all I can see is five-nine-worth of bitch. Plus she probably stole the Venus Machine.”

  “No, she didn’t. She bought it in an estate sale in France two months ago. I traced the sale. No, I mean, she’s not talking trash on Griffy so much. Or on you.”

  Jewel eyed Sovay, sashaying beside Virgil like rented arm candy. “Her body language sure is chatty.”

  “Pay attention,” he said sharply, and she looked at him in surprise. Clay was never ruffled.

  “You okay, buddy?”

  “I am not okay. Virgil is showing his teeth. He hates this birthday party. Griffy won’t back down, and this Sovay woman is a menace, and heaven knows how Virgil will lash out if his stupid plan turns sour.” He hesitated.

  “What else?” Jewel mentally filed ‘Virgil’s stupid plan.’

  “Listen,” he said, and met her eye. “You won’t like this, but the bed we, uh, found in Sovay’s room? That’s not the bed that was in there before.”

  She squinted. “What? Before when?”

  “Somebody switched the bed from that room after Randy vanished and before we got in there. Virgil must have done it.”

  “Why?” She scowled. “Plus, he couldn’t. He’s seventy.”

  “He has servants. Nobody else knows why the bed matters.”

  Jewel stared blindly at acres of sunburned skin. “He knows Randy was in that bed?” She turned on her partner with razor eyes. “How does he know?”

  Clay flinched. “I had to tell him.”

  “Why? Because he’s your father?”

  “He knows I work with you.” Clay held up his hands. “Hey, take it easy. Flirt. We’re undercover.” He slid an arm around her rigid back. “I told him about my job weeks ago.”

  “Randy and — and beds and things is not your job.” She stumbled across the sand. “Oh. You mean your old job?” As in, con artist. She said with horror, “Do you think he wants to run another sex-therapy scam, like you did?”

  “I doubt it. In spite of all the newage in that house, Virgil’s a skeptic. I think he took it to mess with me.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Clay looked unhappy. “I don’t either. But you don’t see it coming, when it’s Virgil.”

  “We have to find that bed,” Jewel said, cold with fear for Randy in Virgil’s clutches.

  “First find the anklet. That should be a big help.”

  “Yeah.” A nasty suspicion hit her and she narrowed her eyes. “When did you know that bed wasn’t the right bed?”

  Clay hesitated. “There’s more. Kauz and the block party. He’s talked Virgil into setting up the Venus Machine and his spectrometer in the alley, where he can give free shots to people at the party. If that doesn’t scare you, it should.”

  Holy crap. Jewel imagined a whole neighborhood going through what she was suffering. “I’m scared, I’m scared.”

  “Then you’ll love this part. Kauz has called in the society reporters to cover the party.”

  “Shit!” This was bad news.

  “Lower your voice and flirt. The butler is watching us.” That bothered her too. Randy suspected the butler. She wished Clay had let her see those background checks.

  “This is not good. The Fifth Floor will notice. Ed will convulse.”

  Clay leaned over and licked the corner of her mouth. She drew back in shock.

  “Ice cream face,” he explained. “Can’t help myself, it’s the Venus Machine effect. Flirt with me, partner.” He nuzzled her ear. “So why the big worry? Kauz wouldn’t declare his candidacy to a bunch of society reporters, would he?”

  She leaned her forehead against his. “He’s building a media presence. The Gold Coast is a fancy neighborhood. The party will be full of somebodies. He’ll get them giggly over the Venus Machine and take pictures of their damned auras, and then he’ll be in the news. Two things we can’t afford.”

  “Two things?”

  “Kauz in the media, and magic in the media.” She thought. With media present, Kauz would be dangerous, but he’d be vulnerable. “Huh. Maybe this can work to our advantage.” Clay patted her butt. She twitched away. “Boy, you are grabby.”

  He grinned like a dope. “I’m drunk on your green aura.”

  They horsed around, following Virgil’s party. Mellish and the chauffeur unrolled a huge grass rug on the sand. Then they set up a folding table. Then the beach chairs. The chauffeur faded back and Mellish unpacked the picnic baskets: candlesticks, wine, cloth napkins, fancy plastic stemware, gold-rimmed plastic plates. Everything was genteel except the noise level.

  At long last, Kauz cut loose and ranted, and Jewel no longer wondered if the case was as serious as the Fifth Floor feared.

  “With your help, I will usher in new era of harmony!” he exclaimed into Virgil’s ear. “Harmony between magic and science! This fool in office now, he would brush the mighty power of enchantment under the rug. He stands against progress! But he is wrong! Every citizen has a right to magic!”

  “How’s your campaign fund doing?” Virgil said.

  Kauz’s eyes gleamed. “I can always use
more support.”

  “I wondered if you wanted to buy the Venus Machine from me.”

  Jewel and Clay whipped their heads around.

  “But it belongs to Miss Sovay,” Kauz said, licking his lips. “I offer to buy it from her already.”

  “She’s selling it to me.” Virgil snaked an arm around Sovay, who looked smug as an Egyptian cat. “I couldn’t let her give it away.”

  Jewel met Clay’s eyes. You called that one.

  Griffy looked pale. “Will you have red wine or white?” she said to Sovay, as if Virgil were her brother.

  From the circle of Virgil’s arm, Sovay hesitated. “White, please. Thank you.”

  So Clay was right about something else. Hate Radio Sovay seemed to be off the air.

  Virgil passed the glass, wrapping his fingers around the bitch’s hand as he did so.

  “Excuse me,” Clay muttered to Jewel. “Don’t take this personally.” He hitched his chair next to Griffy’s. A moment later Griffy giggled and swatted his hand off from her knee.

  Virgil sent a dark look at Clay. “Fickle pup.” He hitched his chair next to Jewel’s. “How’s the investigation going? You got anything on that criminal yet?”

  It took Jewel a minute to remember all the games they were playing. But why bother? Virgil knows who Clay is. “We almost have him where we want him, sir.”

  The cuddly old turtle expression left his face as he watched Clay flirt with Griffy. “Put him behind bars,” he commanded. “As soon as possible.”

  He moved his chair back to Sovay’s side just as Clay tenderly wiped Griffy’s mouth with a napkin. Then Virgil ‘accidentally’ dropped a chicken leg into Sovay’s lap.

  Kauz leaped forward to brush off Sovay’s beach robe with his napkin. Griffy noticed and her smile turned sad.

  I need a scorecard for these meals, Jewel thought.

  She looked out at the lake, where a man flew suspended under an oblong parachute striped bright orange and blue, being towed through the sky by a motorboat. “Randy would love that. He’s a flying nut.”

  Kauz looked up from dabbing at Sovay’s lap. “Does he make you be flying?”

  What kind of question was that? “I’m afraid of heights.”

  “The power of air! But you, Miss Julia, you are the power of fire. Air is your friend.” Kauz waved theatrically. “The demons of air obey those of fire.”

  She flinched. “Demons?” The man with the blue-and-orange sail came to rest neatly on the back of his tow-boat.

  Kauz hitched his chair closer to hers. “All the world is made up of four kinds of demons — air, water, fire, earth. Trillions upon trillions of them.” He smirked and dug her with his elbow. “So much more magical than to call them atoms and molecules. Although the English refer to fairies as atomies.”

  “Demons,” Jewel muttered, thinking of her AWOL incubus.

  “Someday every man, woman, and child in Chicago will have dominion over these demons!” Kauz proclaimed.

  What a bad idea.

  “Speaking of the English—” Kauz said.

  “Think I’ll go look at the parasail,” Jewel said.

  “I’ll come too,” Griffy said.

  Virgil waved royally. Jewel and Griffy walked down to the breakwater where the parasail was being moored.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  How it happened, Jewel couldn’t say. The parasail guy talked as she looked out at the endless water and the pinkening sky. She thought of Randy falling, falling through clouds, how much she’d loved having huge white wings, and how she was sick of being afraid of heights.

  “Well, I think you should go for it,” Griffy said.

  So there she was, all harnessed up, standing on the back end of the boat, and thanking Griffy, whose credit card had appeared at the moment when she might have chickened out.

  Then the motorboat started up and second thoughts became impossible. She held onto the cables as instructed, and the boat moved slowly forward. The sail filled. The seat came up under her butt. Once out on the choppy waves, the boat sped up.

  The parasail lifted her off her feet, into the air.

  She hung on for dear life as the boat towed her into the sky. The seat felt secure. Up here, she smelled cocoa butter, beer, burning charcoal, and the overpoweringly fresh lake smell. She looked down, her heart in her mouth. The lake didn’t scare her. If she fell, she knew she could swim like an otter.

  Then the boat turned, swinging her around like a stick on a string. Jewel shrieked. They sped up, racing the wind south along the beach again. The lake rushed by and the human figures below looked up. Her heart filled. Far out on the lake, white sails leaned into the wind, the way she leaned.

  Full of the hugeness of the sky, Jewel turned her face toward the sun and blessed herself.

  Would Randy like this? Or would it be too real for him?

  She leaned hard and the parasail dipped slightly. She didn’t have control, but she wasn’t helpless.

  She leaned. The parasail dipped again. The world swung around.

  She leaned really hard, and caused a swoop that made her shriek.

  It was fun.

  Somewhere under the fun, the amazement, and the raw whip of the wind cold and hot on her skin, Jewel felt fear, but it was a different kind of fear. Not fear of losing control, but a fear like galloping bareback across a meadowful of thistles, knowing the dangers but knowing she had the horsemanship to stay on. A fun fear.

  The boat turned again, slower this time.

  Under her she saw a floating mattress and, lying on her back, a chubby woman, a hat shading her face. The floating woman tipped back the hat and smiled with peaceful benediction. Jewel smiled back.

  As the boat slowed, the motor winched Jewel in, like a fisherman reeling in a fish, and she came down and stepped gracefully onto the launch deck.

  “Okay?” said the grinning boatman.

  “God, that was fun! That was great!”

  As their boat chugged up, Griffy bounced with excitement on the breakwater. “I want to try!” She waved her credit card.

  The instructor glanced at Jewel, but the glow in Griffy’s face drew him back. The Venus Machine effect, Jewel thought. We both have it, but it comes naturally to Griffy.

  While the instructor took Griffy’s credit card, Griffy handed her little purse to Jewel. “Can you do me a huge favor? These are Virgil’s birthday invitations. I need them delivered tonight.” She didn’t look at Jewel but at the blue-and-orange-striped sail. “I’d rather he didn’t see me deliver them. They’re addressed. It’s the one block, both sides of the alley.”

  “If you’re doing this because of Sovay—”

  “I want to.”

  “But if he doesn’t want a birthday party—”

  Griffy stroked the edge of the parasail. “I want to fly.”

  Jewel gave up.

  The instructor started his training spiel for Griffy. She was so comfortable being looked at. I don’t think it’s being undercover I like. I like the idea that nobody knows who I am.

  The woman with the peaceful smile paddled her mattress up to the sand and beached herself serenely amid the children and dogs. Jewel felt calm. It seemed for once as if her bare feet touched the ground by choice, not because she was some ground-bound land mammal.

  She should sneak off and deliver Griffy’s invitations. And look at those reports Clay had brought. Retreating up the beach, Jewel glanced over her shoulder.

  On the sandy slope, Virgil’s picnic sat like a tea party at a riot, Virgil pouring wine for Sovay, Kauz looking at something through field glasses, and Clay biting his lip, staring in the same direction without field glasses.

  Virgil looked up. He tapped Kauz on the shoulder and Kauz handed over the field glasses.

  Jewel looked where they were looking.

  On the breakwater, Griffy was getting harnessed to the parasail. Her excitement lit all the faces nearby. She looked younger at this distance, or maybe it was the Venus Machine effect. S
he seemed like a little kid, full of bounce and glory.

  Jewel couldn’t help but smile.

  Then she walked back up the beach toward Virgil’s house.

  In the pedestrian tunnel under Lake Shore Drive, Jewel met the woman with the sparkling brooch again. The sun slanted through the city buildings and poured pink fire down the tunnel onto the brooch. The brooch said ‘Beulah’ in script.

  It was the Neiman’s customer who smelled bad!

  “You’re the girl who flew,” Beulah said. She didn’t smell bad now. Of course, she’d recently been in the lake.

  “That’s me.”

  “Even from below I could see you’re a convert,” Beulah said.

  “A convert to what?”

  She smiled like a saint. “To self love.”

  Jewel pulled her coverup tighter around herself. “That’s a religion?”

  “I can tell you’ve tasted the potion. There’s no mistaking your—” She broke off, wavering the edge of her hand in the air. “I can’t explain how you look so — so —”

  “Green. There’s too much green in my aura.”

  Beulah conceded the point with a graceful turn of her wrist. “Whenever I see the prophet, I buy every bottle he has.”

  The prophet. That would be Buzz. “You drink them all?” It would explain why Beulah seemed crazy.

  “Oh, no. Once is enough. I share them with women who still wander in the night of self-hatred. I’ve seen so many turn from the path of self-destruction to love, light, and joy.”

  Good grief, Kauz wasn’t making potions. He was manufacturing a cult, and he hadn’t even met his cultists yet.

  Beulah said in a thrilling voice, “They no longer torment their bodies, their skins, their dead proteins.”

  “Dead—?”

  She indicated the rat’s nest on her scalp. Self Love hair was not a selling point.

  Jewel got a fiendish idea. “You like to talk about your, uh, Self Love experience, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes!” Beulah frowned for the first time. “I wish I could interest the media. They’re all blinded by the regimens of self-hatred. Since I stopped wearing makeup, no one sees me. Not that they saw me when I wore it,” she said, descending from her Self Love cloud.