The Hinky Bearskin Rug

by Jennifer Stevenson

  She sighed. “All right, send Precious over with your red silk boxers and I’ll autograph them. I really do have things to do here today,” she added with an apologetic smile.

  Slowly his face reassembled into a puzzled frown. “How do you know I wear red silk boxers?”

  Lena said, deadpan, “There are no secrets here, Mike.”

  He turned and drifted away, his stride lengthening and getting more decisive the farther he got.

  Lena giggled to herself. Then she whisked into Steven’s office, locked herself in, and swiftly trolled through his hard drive. He hadn’t changed his password, the fool. She soon found what she needed.

  At two, Sharisse showed up, tapping on Steven’s office door. “Hey. You got here.”

  Lena let her in. “Shut it and lock it, will you? I’m almost done.”

  Sharisse hugged her hard. “I’m scared for you.”

  “Don’t be. I have extreme protection. Did you talk to the girls?”

  “All but Precious, and she’ll never cooperate. She totally believes Mike will make her a corporate star.”

  “Dumbell.”

  Sharisse smiled grimly. “So they’re on board. It doesn’t hurt that that EEOC agent was here for three days. That put some guts into them.” Sharisse hesitated. “Your mom seems on edge.”

  “She should be. She’s as bad as Precious.”

  Sharisse said drily, “The difference being she was with the head of the firm for twenty-three years.”

  Lena drew a deep breath. Her mother’s loyalties were, thankfully, not part of the plan either way. She resisted the urge to call Onika at the hospital. If I can’t do this on my own—

  Instead she said, “You’d better get out of here before Steven comes back and starts hammering on the door.”

  “He’s getting worse,” Sharisse said. “He’s crazy. I mean, he was inappropriate before, but lately — the language he uses to the employees — and the way he talks to Maida!”

  “Oh, really?” Lena said with sinister meaning. She was surprised how angry that made her. “How does he talk to her?”

  “It’s like he’s baiting her. Used to be, it seemed like she would snarl back, but not any more. He’s out of control.”

  That’s Onika’s fault. Her and her crazy plan to push Steven over the edge. Great plan. Except somebody else wound up paying for it.

  “I have a plan.” Lena patted Sharisse’s hand. “You know what I need from you.”

  Sharisse said, “Go get ’im.” She jerked her thumb up.

  Lena smiled.

  The deeper she got into Steven’s locked files, the wider she grinned. She copied all the files she wanted, compressed them, and emailed them to Jewel.

  Her cell phone rang as she was finishing the last of the mail. Lutheran General Hospital. Onika’s doctor? Oh, no!

  “Everything going okay?” came Onika’s gravelly voice.

  “Ohmigod, you scared me to death. Are you okay? Did the new test results come back?” Her hands were busy deleting the evidence of her work from the email system.

  “I’ve got mono. I’ll have to stop kissing Harry.”

  “You’re kidding.” Relief flooded Lena. “Four MRIs and a CAT scan plus bloodwork and exploratory surgery to find out you have mono?”

  “Joke. It’s lung pre-cancer, but they got it early enough. How’s the op?”

  “I just got our files. Now waiting for the grenade to go off.” Lena glanced through the venetian blinds on the narrow floor-to-ceiling window beside Steven’s office door. “I’m locked in Steven’s office at the moment.”

  Onika chuckled weakly. “We’ll nail him. You, me, and Miss Thing from Consumer Services.” She coughed. “They treating you okay there?”

  “No.” Lena flushed. She hadn’t visited her old friends since she joined Artistic, and now she was realizing how smart she’d been. “They’re freaking. They can’t get past the porn thing.”

  “Sorry, honey. I did warn you when you started, it changes your life.”

  “It does indeed.”

  “Did your mom warm up yet?”

  “No.” Lena’s tone did not invite comment.

  “Hm. Well, remember what I said. Steven’s been going up the pole. He’ll probably top out on you today. If he does—”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Do you have the ikon?—No, not now. I said, No!—Sorry. The nurse keeps coming in with a fistful of horse pills. I’d be meaner, only he’s got a cute butt. Where was I?”

  “I have the ikon.”

  “If he gets violent, if he bats it out of your hand or something, you still know what it looks like.”

  “Of course. I’ve been at Artistic for two whole years! Onika, take your meds and get some sleep.”

  “I’ll lie here on my bed of pain, fretting, until I hear from you.”

  “Great. Something else for me to worry about.”

  “Phone me when it’s over.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Clay talked Jewel into spending the morning in his suite at The Drake. Working. Definitely not having sex. Jewel hadn’t referred to the hinky thing again. She was so darned tough, he couldn’t tell if she was hiding butterflies or if she’d simply put it out of her mind. He wouldn’t be surprised either way.

  He’d been pretty good at not thinking about that, himself.

  Clay felt he was dancing on a volcano-lip. While Jewel went over the Othmar file on her laptop, he counted his blessings. Randy was still out of the picture. Good. She was still acting friendly to Clay. Another plus.

  At this point he ran out of blessings and counted his liabilities.

  One. He had one big fat naked major liability.

  I am not fat!

  Clay’s breath clutched up, as it did every time Wilma spoke when he wasn’t expecting it. Especially with Jewel present. He had to be so careful of what he said out loud and what he thought.

  If Jewel ever, ever figured out that he’d been harboring this succubus, this sex demoness—

  I am not a sex demoness! I am a goddess!

  —This pain in the behind the whole time, if she realized that Clay had let her blame herself for their last evening together going hinky—

  “You want some tea? I’ll call room service,” he offered, to shut up the racket in his head.

  Jewel’s laptop dinged. “Check it out. Lena-slash-Velvita just sent me twenty-two meg of data she snitched off Steven Tannyhill’s computer at BB.”

  Clay frowned absently. “What’s she doing over there?”

  “Beats me. She said she had a plan to make Steven miserable, but I never dreamed she would, like, cooperate with our — wow. Look at this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Bring me that list of properties for the Circle Line.”

  Clay got up and brought it to her. “Oh.” Looking over her shoulder, he recognized Mrs. Othmar’s address. “This is off Tannyhill’s computer?”

  “The motherlode. Properties. Secret land trusts. How he shuffled the properties between the trusts and then sold to the city, so we wouldn’t catch on. All his bank accounts. All Bing Neebly’s. Escrow accounts. Wire transfers.” Her eyes got big. “We’ve got him. We’ve got them both.”

  “Yeah, but you stole the proof. You can’t use it as evidence. Lena doesn’t have a warrant to be snooping in Steven’s computer, does she?”

  “Technically, she could be called ‘an informant.’ When an informant snitches evidence, it’s kind of a gray area.” Jewel started printing files. “But I realized just now that we won’t need admissible evidence, because it won’t get into court. I have a strong hunch I know how the Chief Attorney will want to handle this.”

  “Bully.” Clay felt no triumph. He didn’t give a darn about the case. He’d had three — no, four shots so far at getting closer to Jewel. And he’d blown them all. He would bet a nickel she was pining for His Hinkyness and his magic mojo at this very moment.

  Someday she’ll love sex with you just
as much, I promise, Wilma said in his head.

  Silently, he told Wilma, You mean sex with us. You know, she used to like sex with me alone just fine.

  Not enough, Wilma pointed out. You said so yourself.

  Not enough to walk away from Randy.

  Clay swallowed. It was a hard thing to admit to himself, but he didn’t want to win like this.

  Like how? Wilma said, eavesdropping on his thoughts. By dragging her down to your level?

  By getting somebody else to open her up for me. There was a forlorn little girl inside Jewel he longed to comfort.

  You would have to be a sex demon to reach those parts of her, Wilma said.

  Thanks for zero comfort, he thought.

  Or a goddess, Wilma said.

  I don’t want your help with it!

  Wilma sounded exasperated. Or you could quit lying to her.

  I don’t lie to her! Much.

  You don’t tell her how you feel.

  That’s when it hit him.

  He got up and went into the bathroom, shut and locked the door, and sat down on the toilet seat cover, rubbing his forehead.

  You wanted to have with her what she has with Randy. Wilma was still lecturing. You’re getting it. We can get even deeper into her, if you’ll let me—

  I can’t. I can’t let you. And now I can’t do it without you, either, he thought, because I can’t get rid of you. Horror filled him.

  He groaned aloud, “What have I done?”

  Well, that’s not very nice! Wilma was clearly offended.

  Jewel tapped on the bathroom door. “You done in there?”

  Clay raised his voice. “Uh, I think I may have a touch of the flu. Why, do you need the bathroom?”

  “Never mind. I have to run out and get a newspaper. You want anything?”

  “I’ll be fine. I just need a little time here,” he called through the door. See what you’re doing to me? I can’t talk to her when I have to, because I’m talking to you.

  “Come to think of it, I’ll better hit the Swiftymart for a thumb drive,” Jewel said through the door.

  “Okay,” Clay called.

  Her footsteps moved away. He cracked the bathroom door open. Twenty seconds later he heard the suite door close.

  He stood and stared into the bathroom mirror, feeling a hot spot like a red hot poker poking his heart. “What’s the matter with me?”

  It’s probably just — Wilma began in his head.

  “Can you show yourself? I have to see you. It’s too hard for me to talk to something hidden in my head.”

  I can show you a picture in your head, she offered, and suddenly she was there, a faintly see-through version of herself between him and the mirror, her sweet young face hopeful and worried.

  “That’s even creepier.”

  She frowned, and her image vanished.

  He sat down on the edge of the tub. “Show yourself, please?”

  She oozed out of his chest, about eighteen inches high, standing on nothing, stark naked.

  Clay shut his eyes. “Clothes, please.”

  Well! I hope you realize that it’s not smart to insult a sex goddess.

  He opened his eyes and found her dressed in a cut-out steel bustier, with shin greaves and spiky gloves and a horned helmet, like a porn Valkyrie. She looked annoyed.

  He put out his hands. “Look, I’m sorry, I don’t want to insult you. Okay, you’re a goddess. I’m confused.”

  Don’t waste that stuff on me, Wilma snapped.

  Now he realized that, though she was standing astride thin air, she was actually, really, still inside his body. Inside his head. She knew how he really felt.

  He couldn’t hide anything from Wilma.

  His self-control fled.

  “I feel like a rat!” he burst out. “Jewel is this rock. She’s straight and clean and decent. Normally. Normally she would never turn her back on somebody in Randy’s position, no matter what her relations with him were like. I only wanted a fair shot at her!”

  There was nothing fair about taking a sex goddess on board and letting her fool around in Jewel’s carefully guarded mind. Nothing decent about making her think she’d become tainted with Randy’s magic. He groaned and ground at his temples with the heels of his hands.

  You could just tell her the truth.

  He raised his head. “What, that I’m possessed by the — the spirit of the Artistic Publishing Company? That I want her for keeps, and it’ll be just the cozy three of us until I can figure out how to get you out of me?”

  It’s not that big a deal.

  “You don’t get it. This is her job. She’d have to, I don’t know, condemn me, or have Randy take me out to the hinky dump. Maybe you and the Tannyhill guy had a cozy thing going over at the Artistic where people are used to you, but I have a job, and my job is the same as Jewel’s job, and it’s all about keeping stuff like you covered up. She hates that part. She’s too honest for the work. I have to be here to help her with it.” He stopped ranting because he’d run out of breath.

  You don’t like me, Wilma said, her lower lip drooping.

  He closed his eyes and heaved a long sigh. “I like you. You’re adorable. But I’m not cut out to be a goddess’s whatever—”

  Avatar. You’re my worldly manifestation.

  “I’m a walking pocket zone. If I can’t shift you, I’m screwed, and Randy knows it. He’s known all along.” The pit of his stomach turned over. He slumped. “I’m screwed.”

  Wilma looked concerned at last. That’s not as good as fucked, is it?

  “I was so eager to get the jump on him and his sex demon mojo.” Clay shook his head. “No wonder he hasn’t said anything to Jewel. He doesn’t have to. I’ve lost her. Plus, now I’m as cursed as he is.” He laughed a hacking laugh. “He’s probably been sitting in that bed at Velvita’s, laughing his rear off, just waiting for me to realize all this.”

  Wilma frowned. Why should you lose her?

  “Once she knows about you, it’s over for me. It’s over anyway,” he admitted bleakly.

  You are so negative! How do you expect to keep a hard-on like that? Wilma said in a scolding, motherly tone.

  “Look, amazing as it seems, I do not need sexual help from you.”

  She sniffed. That’s not the song you were singing before.

  “Never mind. I’ve got you twenty-four-seven now, exactly the way Jewel’s got Randy.”

  Wilma put her hands on her tiny armored hips. I don’t understand this. Bill Tannyhill and I had sixty glorious years, and he loved being my avatar. He had lots of girlfriends and none of them minded me.

  “Bill Tannyhill was divorced, and apparently a sexual omnivore. I don’t want a girlfriend. I want a wife.” The sound of his own voice saying it gave Clay a shiver. He’d made it to thirty without getting stuck. And, now that he was stuck good and tight, the girl was out of reach.

  Jewel would be back from the store any minute now.

  A totally unfamiliar urge gripped him, an urge to be honest and decent and do the right thing, whatever it cost.

  He hauled out his cell phone. “Did you get back to my suite yet?” he said when Jewel picked up.

  “No. Why? Where did you go? Where the hell are you?” she demanded from the phone. He could hear her voice faintly through the bathroom door, too.

  “I got tied up. Listen,” he said around a lump in his throat the size of a golf ball. “Do me a favor.”

  “When you get your ass back here. I’ve been on the phone with Ed. He’s scheduled a debriefing with the Chief Attorney late this afternoon.”

  “I’ll be there,” Clay said. I hope. He stood up to improve reception. “When you get back to the suite, go in the bedroom closet and find the chinos I was wearing yesterday. They’re hanging up.”

  “I need you here at The Drake now and I need you at that meeting later.”

  “Humor me. There should be a letter in the pocket. It’s addressed to you.”

  “To me? Clay
, what the—”

  “Just look for it, will you? I don’t have a lot of nerve left, and I’m using it all up on this phone call.”

  “Are you running out on me?” she said with discovery and anger and disappointment and I-knew-it in her voice.

  Clay, Wilma said, I think I hear someone calling me.

  His courage failed. “Read the letter and get back to me.” He thumbed the phone off, feeling like he had triggered a bomb. “Well, that tears it,” he said over the ringing in his ears. “Just when I’d got rid of Randy, too.”

  Clay, this is important! If someone calls me, I have to answer!

  He felt dizzy and unsettled and far away from his feet. He sat down on the toilet lid, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. A feeling of outrageous well-being made his head swim.

  “It’s over.”

  This didn’t feel so bad. Maybe doing the decent thing carried unadvertised benefits.

  As he thought that, he felt a sexual rush so strong that it rippled over him like a dip in an acid bath, from the soles of the feet up.

  He looked at his unwelcome visitor, still perched on the edge of the tub in her Porn Valkyrie costume. “Is that you doing that?”

  Wilma’s tiny eyes grew round. I have to go now.

  Out in the suite, he heard his bedroom door open and close.

  The bathroom spun around him. The rush reached his scalp and popped, with a musical note that he heard in his head, not in his ears, like a soap bubble with a song inside it.

  Without warning, he passed out.

  o0o

  The buzzer came again and Lena nearly jumped out of her skin. Taking a deep breath, she answered.

  Sharisse whispered, “Steven’s here. He’s screaming at your mom in her office.”

  Lena set her teeth. “I wish she would scream back.”

  “Geri from PR looked through the window and said your mom looked like she was ready to blow. I’ve never seen her do that.”

  “And you won’t,” Lena said. “Thanks for telling me.” She hung up, feeling her anger fizz.

  I don’t have to go out there. She could leave and call Jewel and Jewel would come and bust Steven. Onika’s plan was stupid. What was the point in getting him to crack up? He’d been wacko for weeks. Onika was just being vindictive.