The Hinky Velvet Chair (3 page)

He blinked.

She stretched out a hand. “Don’t you get it? We can’t let
magic take over our lives!” Actually, she loved how magic was taking over her
sex life. She just wished her sex life didn’t interfere with her sleep.

He said, “How does their hair grow in hate? Or love?”

Beating against his colossal ignorance made her tireder.

“Look, I’m going to sleep now. I can’t catch you up on last
century’s cultural revolution.”

He reached for her hand. “After we—”

She slid off the bed. “Oh, no. No, not ‘after we.’ ‘We’ every
night. And in the daytime on weekends. And whenever you—”
Whenever you disappear on me.
But she was too whipped to go there. “Just
— just no.” Her treacherous bimbolimbo twanged, but she walked away. “I’m
sleeping on the couch. Alone.”

“Wait! Jewel!” Real panic was in his voice.

She turned at the door. “No.”

“No!” he yelled like an echo, his hands reaching for her.

While she watched, he vanished.

“Well, that takes care of that.” She felt defeated, which
was totally unfair.

She could get all the sleep she wanted now. As long as she
didn’t go back to bed.

She staggered out to the living room couch, crawled under
her ugly yellow hand-crocheted afghan, and fell asleep before her head hit the
cushion.

Twelve fabulous, dreamless hours later, her cell phone rang.

“It’s me,” Clay said, insufferably cheery. “I’m on my way to
the Thompson place.”

She sat up. “What? No! You can’t go in alone!”

“I thought you were going to the spa with Randy.”

“You
wanted me to
go to the spa. What you’re going to do is wait for me, and we’ll do this
together.” She rubbed her head. She felt great. She should sleep on the couch
more often. “What time is it?” Her phone said 10:30. “Dear God, did I sleep.”

“You needed it. So I’ve thought up the coolest cover story.
Two layers. You’ll love it.”

“You can’t just move into a millionaire’s house,” she
objected.

“Bet?”

“No bet,” she snapped. “Meet me at Wolfy Shekel’s in an hour
and a half. We’ll have breakfast and discuss our approach.”

Jewel hung up, stretched until every vertebra popped, and put
on her swimsuit and shorts, detouring past the bed.

o0o

Five minutes later, Clay was in the mansion on Marine Drive,
face to face with his father for the second time in a month. Almost a record.

“It’s an honor to have you under my roof,” Virgil said at his
most urbane. “But why?”

Clay ground his teeth. This was even harder than he’d
expected it to be. “Maybe I’m here to see Griffy.”

Virgil raised his eyebrows. “She’s at home, I believe.”

The service elevator opened and a burly bald guy in a black
suit pushed a room service cart into the collection room.

“What’s with the help?” Clay said, mystified.

His father shushed him. “Thank you, Mellish, we’ll manage.
Ms. Griffin will come upstairs to pour.”

Clay waited until the elevator closed behind Mellish. “But you
hate servants.” He realized that Virgil must be involved in another scam. He
wouldn’t lay on hot and cold running help if he only wanted to replace Griffy.
Sovay might be just a mark.

At this moment Griffy peeked around the door. She squealed, “Clay,
honey! You came after all!”

Clay gathered her up for a big hug. “Mm-mm! You sexy thing!”
When his lips were near her ear he whispered, “What are you up to?”

Griffy squeezed him back. She pushed him away to give him a
smile. She was thinner than he remembered, in full showgirl war paint, and her
blonde hair was cut in a new bob, but she had dark circles under her eyes. “You’ll
stay until the birthday party?”

“There is no birthday party,” Virgil stated.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said in an odd tone. “The block party.
I just can’t help thinking of it as your birthday party.”

That was weird. Virgil had just laid down the law and Griffy
sort of skated over it, instead of knuckling under.

“I have a houseguest,” Virgil said.
That would be the golddigger.
“If you stay, I’ll need you to take another name.”

Clay let go of Griffy. “She knows my name?” What was Virgil
up to? And, darnit, he had just revealed that he already knew the houseguest
was a she. How did Virgil do this to him?

“No, no. Dawes will do,” Virgil amended. “But you’re not my
son. You don’t know me, you don’t know Griffy.”

To Clay’s amazement, Griffy made a protest in her throat.

Virgil rounded on her with a
What?
look in his eye.

Griffy said nothing.

Clay got goose bumps.

Virgil said, “You can stay Clay Dawes, but you’re not my
son, you’re, hm, what? A shill, a fool, a bumbling worshipper of new age
theories, a woo-woo wonder, a clown.” Clay felt every word like a punch in the
gut. “I happen to have a use for someone like that right now.”

“I want him here for the birthday party,” Griffy said.

Virgil inclined his head. “You can stay five days. I’ll be
through with you by then.” It wasn’t clear from his gesture or his glance
whether he was talking to Clay or Griffy.

Griffy stumbled out, looking pale.

When she had gone, Clay blurted, “Why are you torturing her?
That woman has put up with you for eighteen years! You don’t have to marry her
or anything. But if you plan to dump her, wouldn’t it be decent to pay her off
and pack her off?”

Virgil started fiddling at his workbench. “Got a job going.
Oh, and for the next five days, she’s my sister.”

“What?!”
Clay
already knew this, and it infuriated him.

“You can remind her. I have to keep correcting her tells.
She’s like a sheet of glass.”

Clay exploded. “I can’t believe you’re running a con in your
own house!”

“Job came to me,” Virgil said, peering through a loupe.

“Griffy deserves better than this!”

“She gets what she’s earned.”

“If this is just a job, you owe her an explanation!”
I’ve got to stop shouting.
How did Virgil
do this to him? Anytime he wanted, bam, he could destroy Clay’s hard-won Buddha
calm.

Virgil aimed the loupe at him. “The last time you got
foolish over her, you stomped out of my house and didn’t come back for three
years.”

His chest got tight. “You asked me to come back.”

Virgil held still. “All right, I asked you to come back.” He
took the loupe out of his eye. “So is this another fit of gallantry?”

“I won’t abandon Griffy, and neither should you.” Why
couldn’t he tell the old man off?

Because last time he went off on Virgil, he’d had to leave
the house at age seventeen and support himself through college. Virgil had
cancelled his credit cards, appropriated his bank accounts, and sent a
repossessor after his car. Clay considered he’d got off lucky.

“So you’ve come to keep the old man honest?” Virgil showed
his teeth. “Then I guess you had better stay, if you want to protect her
interests.” He stuck the loupe in his eye and turned back to his tinkering. “You’ve
gone sentimental, boy.”

Without thinking it through, Clay lashed out. “I’m here on
business.”

“Good. Maybe you’ll finally make some money.”

“It’s not a con. I’m done with that. I told you a week ago,
I’m an investigator with the Department of Consumer Services.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Clay hardened his voice. “The department received a
complaint against a Sovay Sacheverell. My partners will be showing up today. I
expect you to cooperate.” Wow, he sounded like Jewel, facing down a crook and
laying down the law.

Virgil turned toward him with amusement and disbelief in his
face. “Why should I bother helping you?”

“Because your new girlfriend is a black widow?”

“Blah. You can’t even make an arrest. You’re here because
Griffy boo-hooed on your shoulder and ‘you want to see justice done,’” Virgil
said meanly. “Like last time, when you thundered at me to ‘do the right thing.’
That was about Griffy, too.”

“If you think you can con a murderer, you’re playing with
fire. Worse, you’re playing with Griffy’s life. What if she decides to get rid
of Griffy first, to clear her path to you?”

“Murderers make excellent marks. They don’t dare scream when
you take ’em,” Virgil said.

Clay noted that he hadn’t responded to that last question.
Griffy still meant something to the old man. But what? “You have to cooperate
with our investigation.”

“Who complained?”

Clay stood tongue-tied, caught off-guard again.

Virgil waved a hand. “I don’t need you and your flat-footed
friends clumping around in a delicate job.”

He’s not willing to
talk about Griffy.
In a sick way, that was a sign of hope.

Virgil changed the subject. “Speaking of explanations owed,
that explanation you gave me for losing my brass bed sucked sour owl stool.
What really happened? I suppose you fell for some girl and gave her all the
money.”

“I still have my money. You got yours.”

“I don’t have my bed,” Virgil said. He looked up again and
Clay felt paralyzed, facing those snaky eyes.

“The bed got crushed. It was, uh, special.”

“What was so special about it?”

And Clay told him. He hadn’t intended to. Randy’s story just
fluttered out of him on its own. “—Because his mistress turned him into an
incubus, and he spent two hundred years giving orgasms to women,” he finished.
A sinking feeling gripped Clay. Virgil could get him to betray himself or
anyone else. “The bed got crushed. The guy’s magical. He gets stuck in beds and
my partner, uh, gets him out.” It sounded so dumb when he said it out loud.

His father snorted. “And you believe this fairy story.”

“It’s true.”

“You take the cake. There’s a master con man in this story
somewhere, but I’m not looking at him.” Virgil turned away as if the sight of
Clay made him sick. “Get out of here. I’m sure Griffy will be glad to talk to
you.”

Sweating, Clay got out.

Now to get Jewel organized.

He found a corner on the back stairs and phoned her. “Did
you order breakfast?”

“I’m at the beach.”

“Whoa, what happened to the case?”

“I’ll be in Wolfy Shekel’s in half an hour. Where are you?”

“So you’ll bring Randy?”

“No, I will not bring Randy.” She sounded guarded.

“Why isn’t Randy coming?”

“We had a fight. As a matter of fact, he’s stuck in my bed
back at my apartment.”

“In your bed? Like when he was stuck in that brass bed for
two hundred years? And you left him there? That wasn’t nice.”

She went off like a bomb. “Darnit, I needed the sleep! You said
so, yourself!”

“I didn’t say you should trap him. I can’t believe you did
that. He must be freaking out, the poor schmuck.”

“Since when do you care if I’m nice to Randy?”

“I don’t. But we’re gonna need him.”

“Randy is not a city employee.”

“Three cases at once? This will be tough. He might be the
cover you need. He seems to know more about the Venus Machine than you do. Plus
the mind-reading-while-boning-the-suspect thing. He’s a person, Jewel. Treat
him like one.”

In a small voice she said, “He might not be stuck. He’s done
this before. Disappeared on me and then turned up, running around loose in my
apartment. Buying stuff on my Amazon account.” Now she sounded worried.

Clay tsked. “You can’t ignore his humanity.”

“I guess you’re right. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

Jewel had been ready to head home when Clay called, but, at
the thought of excavating Randy from bed, she took her shorts off again and
plunged into the lake for another ten minutes.

Her shoulder cut through the waves against the slap and
heave of the surf. Around her, gulls bobbed, tossed and struggling with motion,
but she slid like a sea lion, moving with the water, never against it, thrilled
by the incalculable power of the lake and yet comfortable in its arms.

Then she turned onto her back, resting. The water was
bracing-cold, the sky pale blue. Far overhead, a white egret oared its way
slowly along the lakefront on a five-foot wingspan. What was that like? To fly
fearlessly?

She tried to imagine it. Suppose the water was air. Pretend
the waves were wind.

She filled her lungs and dove.

No, this was nothing like flying. The waves churned sand off
the bottom and scoured her skin. Floating water weed hung down, wobbling with
the surf, defying gravity. A pair of pinky-orange gull feet scrabbled below the
surface. She eeled forward and popped up beside the bird. It made a gutteral
noise of surprise and burst into flight. Jewel laughed.

At length her hands and feet went numb. She gave up and let
the water push her ashore.

On the bike ride home, she remembered Clay chiding her.
That wasn’t nice.
Why did he care?
Trying not to feel guilty, she bumped the bike up the steps of the Corncob
Building.