The Hinky Bearskin Rug

by Jennifer Stevenson

  “Yike!”

  Someone dashed past the office window, too close and fast for Jewel to identify her, but it was definitely someone female with a beach tan.

  Someone else female passed the window, followed by someone who was probably male, although, with that paunch, who knew.

  “Oh. My. God. And the OED assistant commissioner due any second! Where the hell is Ed?”

  “Uh—” Clay pointed downward, and Jewel crammed herself against the crinkling venetian blind to look at the staff room floor. Under the conference table, a familiar pair of hairy ankles stuck out, tangled with a pair of brown legs ending in sensible pumps.

  Jewel seized Clay by the arms. “Listen. You have to get out there and stop them. I’ll go down and head off Bing Neebly.”

  Clay’s eyes were glazed. “Do I hafta?”

  “Clay! Snap out of it! Bing Neebly is downstairs and he’ll be here in about thirty seconds. I’m gonna try to head him off. You’ve got ten minutes. Get this place cleaned up before he walks in, or the whole department is toast!”

  With that she jerked open Ed’s office door and bolted through the staff room, trying not to look right or left. This was not easy. Discarded clothes and shoes lay everywhere. She tripped over two naked people lying in the aisle by the coffee station, bumped against two more who were putting a stapler to unauthorized use, and ducked as someone swooped naked overhead, cackling, nearly braining her with his roller skates.

  Then she escaped the staff room and hurtled down the stairs.

  o0o

  She needn’t have rushed. Bing Neebly still stood outside the Kraft. She opened her navy polyester pantsuit jacket a little wider, tugged down the matching shell as low as it would stretch, and tucked it into the matching stretch pants. Then she stepped outside.

  He was flicking his still-smoldering cigarette butt down the steps where pigeons milled at his feet. Quick as thought, Jewel whipped out her cell phone and took three pictures.

  Bing Neebly turned. And, by golly, he was the fat guy from the bar last night! Steven’s co-conspirator!

  “Hey, you didn’t just take my picture, did you?”

  Jewel threw her head back and uttered a squealing giggle. “Isn’t it a scream? Da mayor would shit if he saw!” She slapped Bing on the arm. “How are ya, buddy? I haven’t seen you since that night at the Doral, what, two years ago?”

  Her cleavage shone like snow in the late morning sunlight. God, I’m subtle.

  “You’re gonna delete those pictures, aren’t you?” Bing seemed really bent about them.

  She put her phone back in her pocket. “Nah-ah-ah. First you have to have a beer with me. You look great!” She beamed. “I hear you got promoted.”

  Bing blinked, but he started to smile. “Assistant Commissioner this year.”

  “How cool is that? Wow, you’re becoming Mr. Big Shot!” she gushed, channelling Britney. She tee-heed and let her breast touch his arm. “Let’s go get a beer.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  She could make a beer last twenty minutes, easy. God help poor Clay. On this pious thought she towed Bing to Dick’s Last Resort, which was dead empty at this hour.

  “Just one pitcher,” she told the waitress. “I’m cutting back. Gosh, was I snockered that night at the Doral!” She laughed hilariously. “How come I haven’t seen you?” She slapped Bing playfully on the arm.

  The pitcher came. Jewel tossed a ten to the waitress and Bing brightened. He sucked down the first glass in one swallow and refilled it. Apparently free beer cheered him up, but he wasn’t chatty. He seemed to have something on his mind.

  Those pictures, I bet.

  Jewel pretended not to notice. She chattered happily about their last meeting, pretended she remembered what he’d been wearing, and claimed he’d lost weight since then. Bing drank four beers in six minutes. Jewel asked if he still liked oysters.

  “They’re okay.” He eyed her cleavage cautiously.

  This was tougher going than she’d expected. Why the hell was Bing hanging with her if he didn’t want to be here?

  Duh. Steven sent him!

  Double-duh. Steven had spotted her on that first day in Maida’s office. That night he’d looked up those nasty Internet pix. And the next day he called Bing and sicced him on the department. What do you bet?

  And now she also knew where Steven got a list of all the properties on the Circle Line. Where else but from an AC at OED?

  She signalled for another pitcher. He swallowed and emptied the first pitcher into his glass, looking mellow.

  “See much of Steven Tannyhill these days?” she remarked.

  Bing foofed beer all over his hand.

  Jewel leaped forward to mop it up with her napkin, making sure not to obscure his view of her chest. “That bum,” she complained. “One night, and he dumps me for two years. Now he’s all, ‘why are you stalking me?’”

  That got Bing’s attention. The whites of his eyes showed.

  “I’m like, dude, I don’t stalk last year’s one night stands. I got ’em coming out my ying yang. But does he believe me?”

  Bing heaved a visible sigh of relief. The dope. “Say, you ought to delete those pictures off your phone,” he said, apparently convinced by now that she was harmless.

  “Sure, okay.” She got out the phone and squinted at it, as if she was too drunk to read the numbers. “It’s one of these buttons here.” She put the phone down to look across the pitcher at Bing. “You know, Steven’s kind of a putz,” she said confidentially. “I know he’s your friend and everything, but.” She winked. “Where did you meet him anyway?” She went back to playing with the phone.

  “Uh, fundraiser for the governor, three years ago.”

  “At Navy Pier ballroom,” she said, nodding five times.

  “Right.”

  “Steven’s a poop to women. Of course he is a hunk,” she said, pressing buttons on the phone. “Darn, that’s not it.”

  “Here, let me,” Bing said, reaching for it, and she snatched it out of his reach.

  “Nobody touches my phone. I bet you don’t realize it, but I’m almost a cop-op!” She hiccupped. “That one got away. Where was I?” With another squint at the phone, she said, “Oh, yeah, Steven’s mojo. I dunno how impressive it is, really. Do you see much of him? Is he always after blondes?”

  “Uh, sometimes. Are you sure you know how to do that?” Bing persisted. “You seem, uh, kind of tight.”

  “Where else do you go besides Bennigan’s on Michigan? Have you guys been to Friar’s Pub since they remodeled?” She turned a completely sober, sharp eye on Bing.

  He said, “No.” His eyelids were sweating. When she kept up her “cop” stare, he blurted, “Mostly we go to Corbett’s on North Wacker or Little Corporal on East Wacker.”

  “Huh.” She turned back to her phone. “Make sure you try the Little Corporal’s fresh doughnuts.”

  With a little hip action, she could make her breasts wiggle while sitting in a chair. And while she was wiggling and jiggling, she managed to email the pigeon pictures to herself.

  “Oh, okay, here! Watch this!” She turned the phone to show him his rotund self, flicking the butt. Her camera was so fast, it actually caught the butt in mid-air, then falling among pigeons milling hopefully at Bing’s feet, then the scrum as they fought for possession. “This button here—” She pointed to it. “Now I press it—” She pressed the button. “And the evidence goes away forever. Bye-bye, picture!”

  Bing seemed to relax. “You’re not snooty like Steven’s other girls.”

  “That’s ’cause I’m a not Steven’s girl.” She faked another hiccup. “Shit, what time is it? I gotta be in the office.”

  On the street, she did a little dance. I did it! I conned somebody! Plus now we have provable evidence of his opportunity to meet Steven and pass along the Circle Line lists. Clay would be so proud!

  Bing, now probably convinced she was drunk and crackers, said, “I can’t believe you got tight on
two beers.”

  “I am not tight, I’m high on Hoby’s pastry. That stuff makes a girl loose as a goose, did you know that?” She shimmied.

  “Really?”

  “Hell, yes.” She started to sing, doing a wave with both arms. “I LO-OO-OO-OO-OVE Hoby’s PAAAAAstry!”

  She led him back to the Kraft and dragged his lard butt on a totally uneventful tour around the building. Per Ed’s instructions, the halls and rooms thronged with investigators, all apparently trying to find room for boxes of whatever. Everywhere was crowded except for the DCS staff room. There they found Merntice, sourly washing a wall with a sponge, and some guy nailing plywood over a broken window. No other sign remained of the orgy.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lena had kind of hoped Onika would never find out about last night. Fat chance. Friday morning, bright and early, Onika was unwinding in her office and Lena was tidying up and Onika said, “So you brought company to the building.”

  Harry, the night security guy, must have blabbed.

  Lena sent her a guilty look. “Just showing some people around.” She put the ice bucket on Onika’s desk, dropped an ice cube in a clean glass, and measured rum and coke into the glass.

  “That DCS guy who was here the other day? He wants a job.”

  Onika blinked. “Doing what?”

  “He wants to be in Hot Pink movies.”

  Onika leaned forward, put her elbows on the desk, and put the end of her cigarette holder between her lips. “Does he, now. Well, that’s interesting. Maybe he’s a plant.”

  “A what?”

  “Maybe,” Onika said, dragging on her cigarette, “that DCS woman sent him here to spy.”

  “I doubt it,” Lena said guiltily. “I think he’s just gotten sucked into the place, same as I did.”

  “I suppose he’s waiting for an interview right now.”

  “Harry tells you everything.”

  “Everybody tells me everything. That’s how I stay a step ahead.”

  So Lena phoned down to the lobby and told Randy to come up.

  He walked in looking like he owned the place, his too-long black hair like a mane around his face and his jeans fitting nicely.

  “Onika, this is Randy. He’d like to work at Hot Pink.”

  Lena shot a glance at him.

  He stood very straight and stiff, like a butler or something. “I’m very pleased to meet you.” He sounded so English.

  “Is that so?” Onika fitted another cigarette into her silver holder with the diamonds on it and squinted at Randy. They exchanged names and handshakes, and Lena went to the door.

  “If you’re his reference, you can stay,” Onika said.

  Obediently Lena came back in.

  “You got a green card?”

  Lena had coached him on this part.

  “I shall have one within the week.”

  Lena could tell Onika was impressed with his accent. “Well, Randy, are you comfortable taking your clothes off in front of people?”

  Randy bent his head and looked at Onika and Lena felt the room heat up. He started unbuttoning his shirt. Onika watched him with her cigarette holder halfway to her lips. Randy folded the shirt neatly and laid it on the corner of Onika’s desk. Then he unbuttoned his fly — he wore those old 501s — and stepped out of his jeans. No undershorts. Lena swallowed. She hadn’t even noticed him take off his loafers. He folded the jeans and laid them on top of the shirt with a chink of loose change.

  A lot of guys looked smaller naked, but not Randy. He was built like one of those old Greek gods, with a big deep chest and bulky shoulders and serious thighs, like Ahnold’s, and an meaty, muscular butt. And of course he was hung like nobody’s business.

  While they watched, his cock slowly rose and saluted.

  Onika wasn’t to know that all of this, nice as it was, didn’t hold a candle to his real qualifications. If Lena had her way, nobody would ever know except her.

  “Well,” Onika said in a squeaky voice. “That’s certainly useful.” She cleared her throat, sipped her drink, and said, “Let me ask you this, Randy. How long do you think it would take you to make a woman come?”

  His eyebrows went up. “That would depend on the woman.”

  “How about Lena here?”

  He looked at Lena, and darned if she didn’t feel a blush creeping up her neck.

  “Do you object to this question?” he said to Lena. Right then she knew that there really was such a thing as a gentleman.

  She smiled. “Nope.”

  Randy said to Onika, “In recent years I have never required more than ten minutes. Conditions vary.” He exchanged a glance with Lena and said no more.

  So we’re not telling Onika about the magic part. Good.

  “Lena, you know him. How’s his manners?”

  Meaning, his manners in bed. “First rate.”

  “Clean?”

  “I’ll vouch for him,” Lena said, mentally crossing her fingers and hoping it was true. Could a sex demon get STDs? She had no idea.

  Onika sent her a shrewd look. To Randy she said, “We’ll try you for one scene. That’s two days shooting. Show up at six a.m. for makeup call. We’ll draw blood then, and if you test clean you’re eligible to work with somebody besides Lena. Shooting lasts anywhere from eight to fourteen hours, depending if we have to wait on wood. Will we?”

  Lena had prepared Randy for this question, too.

  “I anticipate no difficulties in that realm,” Randy said, his smile quietly confident, and Onika turned toward Lena and raised her eyebrows.

  Lena nodded.

  “Dandy. Okay, you’re in.”

  “Uh, Onika, can he possibly get a little advance for the first scene? He’s kind of broke.”

  Onika watched Randy get dressed with visible regret. “Hell, I’ll spot him fifty just for the strip.” Lena noticed Randy’s lips tighten, but when Onika pulled out her purse and handed him a bill, he took it. She smiled over her cigarette holder. “Congratulations, Randy. You’re gonna be a porn star.”

  o0o

  Jewel met Clay at her place for pizza. She felt whipped, but satisfied with her day. “Well?” she said, throwing her purse on the pile of mail on the front hall table. “How’d it go?”

  “How’d what go?” Clay was reading a Lou Malnati’s menu.

  “The orgy at the department, dummy. I guess your experiment proved you right. How did you break it up?”

  He looked odd, sort of thoughtful and blank and twitchy. “Don’t ever, ever ask me to do that again.”

  Her eyes danced. “You realize I’ll ask Britney tomorrow and she’ll dish.”

  “Then she’ll dish,” he said. “No guy should be asked to walk into a roomful of naked, willing women and make them stop.”

  “It was your idea to fill them full of aphrodisiac pastry.”

  He shuddered. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

  That made her smile. “Did you do any work this afternoon? I sure earned my paycheck. Wait til you hear.”

  Clay drank beer and turned over the pizza menu. “You first.”

  She told him how she’d handled Bing Neebly, and what she’d learned. “Now we have a provable link between the two of them.”

  “And this is good because?” He handed her the pizza menu. “Sausage, ham, and pineapple for me.”

  “Euw! Pepperoni, sausage, and anchovies for me. It’s good because Bing must have got those lists for Steven. We have to prove they met at a time when Bing had an opportunity to leak the sensitive info. What did you get?”

  Clay smiled for the first time. “On the CTA Circle Line project, out of approximately eight hundred properties the city has bought to demolish to make way for the “L” tracks, twenty-one properties changed hands within eight months before the city bought them.”

  “Holy crap. That’s a lot of money.” Jewel took his beer off the coffee table and swigged. “Coincidence?”

  “I doubt it. It’s almost eighteen million dollars.” H
e paused while she phoned for the pizza. When she’d hung up he added, “Here’s another little surprise. Follow the money back far enough, almost all of those sales went to or through the same blind real estate trust.”

  She slumped onto the sofa, pressing the cold beer to her forehead. “Shoot. We’ll never crack one of those.”

  “Ahem.”

  She glanced up. Clay managed to look modest and smug at the same time. “You cracked it? How?”

  “Not only that, but the physical side of the trust is managed by Baysdorter Boncil,” he said, skating over the “how” part, she noticed.

  “Wow.” No wonder Steven was the blue-eyed boy of BB, harassment or no harassment. She thought of something. “Is Baysdorter Boncil bonded with the city?”

  “Yup.”

  “As what? You almost have to have WBE or MBE certification to do that much city business on a single project these days.”

  “What’s WBE?”

  “Women’s Business Enterprise. Or Minority Business Enterprise, MBE. C’mere and rub my feet and I’ll pay for the pizza.”

  “Baysdorter Boncil is certified WBE,” Clay said, coming to sit on the coffee table across from her end of the couch.

  She frowned. “You’re kidding. Upper management is all men. Who in hell’s name are they certified under?”

  Clay picked up her left foot and started rubbing. “Some woman named Sacker.”

  Jewel’s mouth dropped open. “Holy frozen shit dipped in chocolate.”

  “You know her?”

  Her head fell back on the sofa. “She’s the office manager at BB. Mistress to old John Baysdorter — listen to me, I’m calling him ‘old John’ just like everybody over there. But she sure as hell is not the owner.” She smiled unpleasantly. “Well, well, well. I can see I owe Ms. Sacker another visit. Y’know, for someone in as much deep doodoo as she is, she sure hasn’t opened her heart to me yet.”

  “She will. Everyone does.”

  Everyone but you, she thought.

  Clay’s hands were a miracle on her sore tendons. Jewel moaned. “Oooh. You’re killing me. I was freakin’ brilliant today. I figured out that Steven arranged for Bing Neebly to visit the Kraft.” She relaxed on the sofa and slowly tipped over, groaning like a dog, as Clay massaged her feet.