The Hinky Bearskin Rug

by Jennifer Stevenson

  She would have to pay Onika Tannyhill another visit.

  He misread her thoughtful look. “Don’t play dumb. I know exactly who and what you are.”

  “Yeah, but which case?” she blurted.

  Steven opened his mouth. No sound came out. He scowled.

  She nodded. “Work on that and get back to me.”

  Heart pounding unpleasantly, she walked away from her desk.

  Time she touched base with her new best friend, Maida Sacker.

  But Maida’s office door was closed. Jewel peered through the window beside the door. Tonia from the proposal center was in there, in tears, while Maida snarled visibly.

  Jewel was fed up with how these people talked to the help.

  She walked in.

  “Mind if I join you?” She plopped down in the chair beside Tonia. Tonia’s eyes rolled, as if Jewel was a two-hundred-pound bumblebee.

  “I’m in a meeting,” Maida said.

  “Just pretend I’m not here.”

  “Was there something you wanted?”

  “Yeah, I was wondering if you could tell me exactly why your daughter left the firm and how long she worked for Steven Tannyhill before he did something inappropriate to her.”

  Tonia gasped.

  Maida turned white. “You can go now,” she told Tonia.

  Tonia scuttled out.

  Maida got up, slammed her office door, returned to her desk, and leaned forward. “What,” she hissed. No more.

  “What does this have to do with my case? I don’t know. I come here looking into something hinky and inappropriate happening at BB.” Once again she spotted someone peeping through the window into Maida’s office. Jewel ignored them. “And I find a smorgasbord of options. It seems to go back a long way. Like, before Lena was born.”

  “My daughter has nothing to do with your case.”

  “Was she assigned to Steven right away, as I was? Does he get all the fresh meat?”

  Maida curled her lip. “You are hideous.”

  “You are unmarried, and the father of your child is or was your boss. He was also Steven’s boss. I hear great things about old John Baysdorter. A real gentleman. He paid for your daughter’s education, didn’t he?”

  Maida folded her lips shut. Her eyes were fierce.

  “In fact it might be simpler if I have a conversation with Lena myself—”

  “Don’t keep saying her name! Lena is dead!” Maida lifted her face and raised her voice. “I have no daughter!”

  “Really,” said a new voice.

  Jewel felt a draft on the back of her neck. She turned.

  A young woman stood in the doorway, a tall, cool brunette in a black anorak, black stockings, black miniskirt, black boots. Big steel cross. Lots of raccoon mascara. Very goth-art-student. “I told you before that you would have to take a stand.” Her cultured voice had a threat in it.

  She looked familiar.

  “I can’t,” Maida choked out.

  “You mean you won’t.”

  Jewel swivelled in her seat to stare at her. Goth Girl sounded familiar.

  “You never learn, do you?”

  Maida didn’t answer.

  The girl looked searchingly at Jewel. Then she walked out.

  Jewel wasted thirty precious seconds watching the color come and go in Maida’s face. Then she got it. The missing Lena!

  She dashed out of Maida’s office.

  But the goth girl had gone.

  Whoa. What was that? Jewel figured she wouldn’t get anything out of Maida.

  She went back to her desk.

  Steven stayed in his lair all day. The only time he opened his door it was to admit Tonia. He shut the door in Jewel’s face and Jewel opened it immediately, ostentatiously propping the door open with a shoe from her bottom desk drawer, which was full of shoes.

  She went back to her keyboard, feeling unsettled. Now that she wasn’t engaged in battle with him, she had time to wonder why Steven had gone looking for naked pictures of her on the Internet. I mean, what, do I have ‘girl most likely to have dated extreme jerks’ tattooed on my forehead? He sure was proud of finding them, too. He seemed to think she’d curl up die.

  It gave her a nasty feeling to know he was looking for dirt.

  Not like the dirt on me is hard to find. She’d been a busy girl, back before Randy.

  Tonia came out alone, shutting the door. She brought the shoe to Jewel. “I think you’re amazing,” she whispered. There were still tearstains on her face, but she seemed composed.

  “Hey, whose shoe is this?”

  Tonia looked at it. “That’s Lena’s.”

  “After how long?” Jewel whispered skeptically. “The drawer’s full of them!”

  “Nobody will touch them. It’s been almost two years.”

  The old “two years” song again. I have got to get the story on this. “Oh, another question. This company buys pastry for the break room from Hoby’s, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s our best employee benefit.”

  “Do you get the same pastry in for meetings? Like, did what’s-her-name order it for Mike’s rollout meeting that turned into an orgy?”

  Tonia blinked. “Yeah, like extra. Huge piles of it. Why?” She leaned closer and hissed, “You think Steven put Ex on the pastry?”

  Jewel lifted her shoulders.

  “Boy.” Tonia’s eyes widened. “I hope you get him for it.”

  Jewel stuck her thumb in the air and winked. “Thanks for the intel. Keep me posted, Agent Ninety-Nine.”

  Tonia giggled and went away.

  Hm. Hm and hm. What was Maida up to? And were the girls right? Was it simply a street aphrodisiac? It couldn’t be. Not with the girls turning into dogs, and Mike and Precious on the ceiling.

  She could ask Randy if he thought the pastry was hinky.

  Oh, except Randy was in a bearskin rug, doing porn stars.

  Her stomach twisted, along with something in her chest.

  With superhuman effort, she put that out of her mind.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jewel wasted the afternoon sticking mailing labels on envelopes, bored to screaming point. Nobody else came up to dish. She knew she should be trying to think through the chain-o’-hinkyness: the porn, the poppet, the portable pocket zone, the publishing company, the cow plops. Mmm, Hoby’s. She went to the break room and found some Hoby’s cinnamon twists and brought them back to her desk to nibble.

  Instead her brain was a squirrel cage: Randy in bed with porn stars, Steven trolling the Internet for dirt about her, Maida trying to sneak her out of proximity to Steven, Onika proudly showing off her women’s porn, the slow stroke of skin on skin on that bearskin rug, Wilma dancing on stacks of magazines, that goth girl confronting Maida, Clay showing her that movie and trying to take advantage of her. She almost wished she’d let him. In spite of last night’s bout with the vibrator, she felt ready to explode.

  She wondered how the porn stars were getting along with Randy’s special effects, and then she wished she hadn’t, because that forced her think what she’d been avoiding thinking: Randy’s diary. And a world of guilt.

  Holy Moses. The most she’d known of Randy before she read his “porn” diary was two things: He was a wow in bed and a spoiled brat on his feet. She had never really wondered what went on in his head.

  That made her flush with shame. I use him. Did he think she was as bad as those johns back in 1811? Because it had never occurred to her to wonder if he was having fun. God, she felt horrible. He’d once said to her, I cannot afford to be angry with you. And she had actually said to him, Can we just have sex and go to sleep?

  She was a horrible person. Horrible.

  C’mon, he loves it.

  Part of him, probably, sure. And part hated being a slave. And part — apparently he had more parts than she’d noticed — a part new to her thought deep thoughts about it all, and was actually, like, a responsible grownup or something.

  And that diary. Failure wi
ll live with me the rest of eternity, I think... I will slip into the nearest bed... and serve out more shameful centuries until some angel comes to set me free.

  It made her feel soft and hard at the same time. That diary was more words than Randy had ever spoken to her, in three months of joined-at-the-hip contact.

  Some angel I am.

  At four-thirty, she realized she was still emotional and horny, mentally replaying Randy’s Greatest Hits in Bed.

  Thoroughly annoyed with herself, she phoned Britney’s cell. “I need margarita therapy, stat.”

  “I’m on it,” Britney said. “But it’s pouring rain.”

  “I’ll pay for your cab. I need to talk to somebody normal.”

  “Thanks, I think. How was the porn company?” Britney said avidly. “Is anybody listening?”

  “Probably.” Jewel glanced at the clock on her desk. “Ten minutes, in the Bennigan’s on North Michigan.”

  “Deal.”

  In the bar downstairs from Baysdorter Boncil, Jewel ordered two pitchers of margaritas and watched rain bucket down on Michigan Avenue outside. The margaritas arrived when Britney did. “Keep ’em coming,” Jewel said.

  “Yikes,” Britney murmured, putting her dripping umbrella under her bar stool. “Extra limes?” she said to the waitress.

  Jewel growled, “I’m walking home. Plus I’ve had the week from hell.”

  “Do tell,” Britney said cozily. She wrapped her lips around the straw in her margarita, and Jewel noticed for the first time that her friend would make an acceptable porn star.

  Jewel described the porn factory from top to bottom. Britney made suitable noises. Jewel began to feel semi-human. I may be a slut but at least I’m not a whore.

  “The thing is, the guy porn didn’t bother me.” Much. “It was the girl porn that made me nuts.”

  “Good nuts or bad nuts?”

  Jewel pursed her lips. “Itchy. Antsy.” She admitted, “Okay, it was kind of hot.”

  “Huh.” A grain of salt clung to Britney’s pretty upper lip. She licked it off thoughtfully. “And you say it was less skanky than guy porn.”

  “Yeah. Like, the actors were having real sex but they were pretending to be in love. Really twisted my head.” Jewel’s right temple felt soft and achy. “I should stop drinking.”

  Britney poured her another. “Don’t stop now. Tell me about the women.”

  “They’re perfect,” Jewel said gloomily. She looked around her at the bar, packed full as it could hold of secretaries and admin assistants, who weren’t chopped liver, either. In her frumpy navy polyester, she felt like a sea lioness among otters. “Oh, probably you could look at them on the street and not even notice them. But once they’re naked? Boy.”

  “Are they skinny? I heard they’re skinny in real life.”

  Jewel tried to be fair. “Well, it’s movies. They say the camera adds ten pounds.” She thought of those naked pictures that Steven had been so glad to find, and how fat she looked in them, the one time she’d had the courage to look. Steven’s cracks were getting to her, delayed reaction. She added hollowly, “I think more like twenty pounds. In person, the skinny looks really odd with those beachball boobs.”

  “I heard they’ve all had work done.”

  “That Velvita Fromage wasn’t. Didn’t. Hadn’t.” Now Jewel was sure that the girl in last night’s movie was the one on the bearskin rug. “She looked normal, boobwise. It was freaky.”

  Britney emptied the first pitcher into her glass and reached for the second. “You’re not making sense, Jules.”

  “They’re whores,” Jewel blurted. “They do it for money.”

  “I do it for money sometimes,” Britney said, shocking her. “Like that time my car caught fire and burned up because a pigeon dropped a butt on it when I was filling the tank from a can out on Mannheim Road? I was flat broke. Sayers offered me money and I took it.”

  “Sayers?”

  “He was really sweet. It was right after he came back from psych leave.”

  Jewel tried to smooth the shock out of her face. Since Britney first joined the department, they’d made a pact to accept each other’s sex lives. No wigging out, no judgments.

  Brit must have sensed her shock. “So, what’s your point? If they’ve had work done, that means they’re whores, and that’s bad? Or is it that they look better than you, and you think you couldn’t get paid for it if you tried?” She sounded cranky.

  Jewel realized it was time for damage control. She opened her mouth to soothe, then stopped.

  Over by the door stood the goth girl from Maida’s office.

  She was looking at Jewel.

  She walked straight up to where they sat.

  “You must be Jewel. Randy sent me.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Hey, Cinderella,” Jewel said, as the tequila finally fired a few synapses. “I think I have a drawerful of your shoes.”

  The newcomer nodded. “Lena Sacker.”

  “Jewel Heiss.” Then Jewel’s eyes caught up with her ears.

  Holy crow, that’s the girl from the bearskin rug. Lena. Velvita Fromage. She’s Onika’s assistant.

  And doing Randy.

  Lena put her hand out. Jewel stared at it stupidly. “Velvita Fromage is my porn name.”

  She’s doing Randy on that bearskin rug.

  When Jewel didn’t shake, Brit said, “Wow! Put her here! Are you really in movies? I’m Britney.”

  Lena shook hands coolly with Britney.

  Jewel blinked. I’m being a bitch. “I’m sorry. Hi. Uh, thanks for finding me.” She offered her hand, meeting Lena’s eyes with a painfully fake apologetic smile. “I’m a recovering moron.”

  Lena gave Jewel a limp, three-fingered handshake.

  “Margarita?” Britney said.

  “Thanks.” Lena slid up onto a stool.

  Britney waved to the waitress for another glass. “And some curly cheese fries. And one of those deep fried onion blossoms.”

  “How did you recognize me?” Jewel said. It was harder to hate Velvita now that she had a real name and a mother.

  “Randy showed me your picture.”

  “He doesn’t have a picture of me.”

  Lena eyed her. “He can make one.”

  Randy could show her every dimple of Jewel’s cellulite if he wanted. Jewel covered her face for a moment.

  “This is the guy who’s been living with you?” Britney said. “He’s some kind of sex demon,” she explained to Lena.

  “So I gathered.” Perched on the stool, Lena crossed her legs as if gravity had never been invented. The black miniskirt rode up her thighs, revealing that the black tights were in fact stockings on lacy black garters. Lena caught Jewel looking and raised her eyebrows.

  Rub it in. Those legs have been wrapped around my boyfriend. And, argh, she’d just thought the B-word!

  “We have other things in common,” Lena said, smiling. “If you’re not too much of a moron to discuss them.”

  Jewel realized Lena was trying to be polite in the face of Jewel’s attitude problem.

  She also remembered why she needed to talk to Cinder-Lena. “Steven Tannyhill.”

  “That’s him,” Lena said. The waitress put a salt-rimmed glass in front of her.

  “This is your boss upstairs?” Britney said.

  Lena poured herself a margarita. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

  It occurred to Jewel that just because she and Lena both hated Steven Tannyhill, it didn’t mean Lena was trustworthy. But she was three margaritas down. Her grrl-radar said the porn star was okay. And Randy had trusted her to fetch Jewel, hadn’t he?

  “Well. I was about to tell Britney that Steven is acting bizarre. He seems to think he’s God, or at least the big cheese of Baysdorter Boncil.”

  “That’s Steven,” Lena murmured.

  “But, well, get this. He knows I’m undercover in there. Maybe Maida told him. He seems to have her under his thumb.” Lena scowled. Jewel said, �
��I can’t believe he grasps the risks. I could sue BB for a skillion frillion dollars for what he’s said to me. It’s like he thinks he’s got the drop on me, and he’s absurdly pissed because I’m not rolling over.”

  “He’s a compulsive risk-taker,” Lena said.

  “Yeah, but talking about clothespins on my nipples? How dumb is that?”

  Britney’s breath hissed in. “I’ll hold him down so you can kick him.”

  Jewel noticed Lena didn’t address Maida being under Steven’s thumb. “Today’s little gem?” she said to Britney. “He found those naked pictures of me on the Internet and threatened to send the URL to my boss if I don’t ‘kill the case.’”

  “The pictures with the clothespins?” Britney said.

  Jewel said darkly, “It’s a friggin’ shame I’m not a lawsuit kind of girl.”

  Lena said, “If you don’t like it, why don’t you have them taken down?”

  “How the heck do I do that?” Jewel grumbled.

  “There’s a website you go to. I log in four times a month.”

  “But you’re a porn star.”

  “And, duh, my image is for sale. That means no one can give it away. For example, some fool got into the shoot one day about six months ago, pretending to be an electrician, and took a lot of candids. We took him to the cleaners.” Lena bit a lime wedge in half and chewed. “You didn’t know you could do that?”

  Britney looked at Jewel with concern. “I thought you liked having those pictures up.”

  Jewel shook her head.

  “Well, shit!” Britney said. “And here I thought—”

  “Skip it.” Jewel felt like an idiot. Why hadn’t it occurred to her she could have those pictures taken down?

  Turns out even a porn star can get protection from that crap. This is exactly what the Department of Consumer Services is for, and I’m acting like a poster child for the poor dumb helpless consumer who doesn’t even know it’s there.

  Lena looked at Britney. Jewel felt annoyed at the degree of intimacy she detected between them.

  “I thought she was tougher than that,” Lena said, over Jewel’s head.

  “That’s just an act,” Britney said.