The Hinky Velvet Chair (8 page)

Sovay didn’t say a word. She stared at Jewel with loathing.

Jewel ignored her. She could have told her the men were
hoping she would fall on her ass again.

She felt itchy. One of those low, slow, tingly itches.

Everybody drank coffee while Clay and Virgil conferred.

“—Calibrated too high, or else we’re seeing a placebo effect
of extreme magnitude,” Clay said.

“Shouldn’t think so,” Virgil said. “Still, I’d like to
measure the green tones in her aura. I have a Kirlian camera here somewhere.”
He blinked around the collection room.

Clay said, “In fact, you and I and Lord Darner could spend
the morning recalibrating. If we can get rid of the women for a few hours,” he
added in bald English. Jewel’s jaw dropped in amazement. “Why don’t you ladies
hit a spa tomorrow? When you get back, we’ll be ready to take a Kirlian shot of
Julia’s aura.”

“I have an account at Giorgio lo Gigolo,” Griffy said.

“There’s that new place up in the Hancock Tower,” Clay said
even more brazenly. “I hear they do colorimetry. Newfangled aura reading,” he
explained to Jewel. “Get a second opinion.”

Somebody had better explain to this dope how to conduct a
fraud investigation before he dug a hole they couldn’t climb out of. “You,” she
said, “are babbling.”

Griffy said, “No, I’ve heard of them. They tell fortunes.
And you get a massage!” She turned to Jewel. “We’ll all go. My treat.” After a
pause she said to Sovay, “You’ll come, won’t you?” with what Jewel considered
heroic niceness.

“Of course.” Sovay inclined her head as if she were doing
Griffy a favor.

Griffy looked cheerful.

The pressure of all the suspicious looks flying between
Virgil, Clay, and Sovay was giving Jewel a headache. “I’m going to bed,” she
announced.

“I’ll take her downstairs,” Clay said.

Randy glared. “There is no need for you to trouble.”

“Clay will take me downstairs,” Jewel told Randy. “Go flooze
with your English flirty.” Besides, she needed a chance to remind Clay exactly
who was senior partner on this gig.

Randy turned his shoulder and offered Sovay coffee-sugar.

“Hunk of drunk,” Jewel muttered as Clay held the collection
room door for her. “Bunco hunk of attitude.”

“That coffee was awful weak, wasn’t it?” Clay said,
supporting her down the marble staircase to the second floor.

“I’m not a cripple,” she grumbled. They were out of earshot
now. “Listen, buster. You do not,
not,”
she drew breath, “commingle cases!”

“You’re tiddly, officer.” As he opened a bedroom door, he
twinkled at her, and she felt an urge.

“What I mean is, we’re working on two cases but we mustn’t
mix them together.” She flumped down on the bed.

“More efficient, I would think.” He helped her off with her
shoes. Then he squeezed her right foot in both hands.

“Oh my God.” She groaned. “What were you thinking,
initiating contact with Thompson? You could get us into deep shit here!”

He twisted gently, sending good feelings all up her leg and
into her hoopla. “Better?” he said.

“Don’t stop that. I’m serious.” It was hard to act serious
when she was so, so loaded, and his touch was so good. “You could screw this
case royally. If we do get evidence, it might be ruled in — mmMMoh — inadmissable
because you tangled the cases.”

“It’s only a spa day with the girls. I thought you would
like a chance to scope the joint.”

“Well, stop thinking. Oh, and another thing.” She had to
pause because he’d switched feet and was now working his thumbs into the arch
of her left foot, bringing muted ecstasy. “What the hell and a half have you
been telling Griffy about me? I admit she could get secrets out of a stone with
that face, but I would think
you
could keep a secret.”
I must be sobering
up. I couldn’t have said that ten minutes ago.

“She is innocent,” Clay said with a solemn face. “You
believe that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Somehow Jewel was on her back on the bed. She felt
grand.

“Good.” He pulled off her polyester pants. “Tell Griffy to
buy you some clothes while you’re on the Magnificent Mile.”

“Nina will bring over some of my weekend clothes.”
Something to make Randy look at me, not at
Sovay.

“Good, because these things are dreadful.”

She got up on her elbows and found him kneeling between her
thighs. “Hey.”

He kissed her and pushed. She fell on her back. “Hey
yourself.” He tossed her pants away. “I propose a detente. You’re right, we’re
outclassed here. We need to pull together.”

The ceiling swam over her. He continued working the
polyester off her unresisting body. She had that old familiar feeling, the
feeling that she was making a colossal fool of herself and would regret it in
something like twelve hours.

Although not right now.

This isn’t so bad,
she thought, repeating a mantra from sluttier days.
I like him.
Which was true. Working with Clay for two weeks hadn’t
inspired her with confidence in his honesty or his urge to follow orders, but
she liked other things about him. He was kind, patient, and more polite than
her average fellow investigator, though that might be because she’d dated and
dumped most of them. But she had to keep her mouth shut around him. Clay
couldn’t be trusted with secrets.

“Why is it,” she said aloud, “that a confidence man betrays
your confidence?”

“How much did you drink?” he said to her left ear as he
groped behind her back. He grunted. “Lift up, I can’t get this bra undone.”

She giggled. Randy never had trouble getting her naked.

“I remember doing you,” she accused. “You’re normal.”

Clay licked the hollow of her throat. A frisson shot down
her side into her buttock. She yelped.

“That’s good, is it?” he panted. “Ah.”

The bra strap snapped open and her breasts, always
uncomfortable in traction, eased apart against his naked chest. When did his
chest get naked?

He threw the bra over his shoulder. “I hate these things.”

She said, “I do, too, but they keep me out of trouble.”

He lifted himself in a push-up over her. The heat of
his body between her thighs was distracting. “Trouble?” he said, twinkling. “You?
Hard to believe, Officer Teflon.”

“True. There’s a reason I dress like this. It keeps my coworkers
happy.”

He squinted at her breasts. “Naw.”

“Okay, it keeps the men from thinking lustful thoughts about
me. Look like that if you want, but I couldn’t keep a partner. I mean, I tried.
Ed set me up with every guy in the department.” The more she talked, the more
everything sounded like sex. “I mean, Ed made me their partner.” In a small
voice she confessed, “I did them all. It didn’t help.”

“This partner thing is important to you.”

“I need a partner. I can’t do any important work without
one. This is my first big case in forever.”

Clay seemed thoughtful. She lay on her back, watching his
face change, relaxing into the idea of normal sex with a normal guy, feeling
unbelievably grateful to him. “Thanks for picking me and not that Sovay bitch.”

He glanced down at her body, lifting himself higher into a
one-handed push-up as he looked. Her skin heated as if he were licking her.

She smiled.

He sighed. “Officer, this is killing me, but I think we stop
now.” And he rolled off her.

“What?”

He flipped the coverlet over her bare body.

“Hey!” she said. She sat up. “That’s not funny!”

He knelt on the bed, pushed her back down, and slowly,
slowly snuggled against her, keeping the coverlet between them.

“You’re right, it’s not funny.” His face was so close, she
could smell both wine and whisky on his breath. His eyes glazed over. His hand
pressed down on the coverlet over her breast, making her roll hungrily toward
him.

Then his face changed. “Oh, brother.”

He slid away again. She smiled while he took off his pants
and shoes.

Then he put on a pair of pajamas.

Her smile faded.

He lifted the sheets and got into bed. Now there were lots
of layers between them. From arm’s length away he reached over and brushed a
lock of her hair off her forehead.

Jewel watched with speechless resentment.

“The thing is, officer, I like working with you. I don’t
want that to blow up in our faces because I took advantage of you when you were
drunk.”

“I’ve screwed men on dumber excuses,” she blurted.

“And lost your partner every time. Ain’t gonna happen. Not
tonight.” He looked at her so tenderly that lust climbed into her chest and
twisted into something else.

To her horror, she felt her eyes prickle. “Do you want a
punch in the nose?” Unwelcome feeling was rising in her throat.

“Might take my mind off my johnson.” She laughed, and he
said, “If it’s any comfort to you, you are hotter tonight than I have ever seen
you.”

Her breath caught. Her throat went hard. “Con man.”

Eye to eye with her, he said, “Jump me tomorrow and find out
if I’m lying.”

He put his hand out and closed her eyes, and she turned over
so he wouldn’t see her face crumple.

o0o

Clay got up and turned the light out, then lay back down
under the covers beside her.
Close one.
His fingertips were wet where he’d touched her eyelids. He wondered until
daylight what he wanted.

Jewel’s head hurt. She skulked in the alley behind Virgil’s
house, leaning her burning face against the cold brick garden wall, until Nina
drove up in the Beamer with a suitcase. Nina tried to give her a hard time
about the soot all over her bedroom, but Jewel stonewalled her, promising girl
talk later.

Then she snuck back up to Clay’s room.

Twenty minutes later she came downstairs, dressed, showered,
still hung over. Griffy sat at one end of the big table. All the men were
waiting on Sovay at the other end.

When Jewel came in, all the men turned toward her.

“Julia! Would you care for coffee?” Virgil said.

“Can I get you some ham?” Clay said.

“Orange juice or cranberry, Miss?” Mellish said, holding her
chair for her and leaning very close.

“Where were you last night?” Randy demanded.

Sovay scowled. She was lovely, even while scowling.

“Coffee,” Jewel grunted, avoiding Randy’s sizzling-hot eye.

The butler poured coffee into her cup.

Griffy said, “How are you feeling this morning, Julia?”

Jewel cut her eyes to Clay. “Uh.” He looked smug. She
remembered scolding him for unprofessional behavior. That would have been while
he was trying to unhook her bra. She swallowed coffee around a lump.

“Yes,” Virgil said, “how are you feeling this morning?” He
smiled at her with understanding. “Any ill effects?”

Besides the damage to
my work relationship?
“I think it was the Scotch,” she said huskily. Her
skull was splitting straight down the center of her forehead.

“Now might be a good time to take those Kirlian photographs
of your aura,” Virgil said.

“I’d like an aspirin,” she confessed.

“A spa day will make you feel wonderful,” Griffy said. She
looked at Jewel with a mixture of sadness and envy. “We have a nine-thirty sauna,
then a treatment, lunch, and another treatment. You have time for those
photographs if you hurry.”

Jewel’s eyes felt like coarsely-sanded golf balls. “Let’s
hurry,” she croaked.

o0o

An hour later she felt great. Not just less painful but
wonderful. In fact she felt fabulous.

Virgil had taken her back upstairs to what she couldn’t help
thinking of as his laboratory, where he took her picture with a device that
made her teeth buzz. Much newage was spoken, especially about her green tones,
whatever the fuck those were.

Randy was in a huff, which she could understand but was in
no mood to encourage. After all, she had no proof he hadn’t spent the night
elsewhere, too. She refused to meet his eye.

With all the men frisking around Jewel, Sovay was huffy too.

So far, her day was a net win.

She swaggered into the John Hancock Tower. Every man in the
lobby turned to look at her. The snake Sovay trailed behind her, shoved in
front of her, or strode beside her, expensive heels clicking, but nobody cared.
It was Jewel they saw.

She should work undercover more often.

Now that she was masquerading as Lord Darner’s hired
debunker, Jewel had on some of her pre-Randy, pre-Clay,
pre-six-months-of-celibacy slutwear, such as today’s tight little red silk tee
with the bunch in front that made her tits look bigger than God, and a pair of
jeans that mostly fit.

None of the guys in the lobby seemed to have any complaints.

And she loved it.

“The elevator to ninety is up the escalator,” Griffy said,
consulting a building map.