The Hinky Bearskin Rug (29 page)

“Jewel?” he
said more softly.

She swallowed.
“I’m sorry if I’m intruding.”

“Jewel,” he
said more gently. “Should we not give this a chance to work?”

“You and
Velvita?”

“You and Clay.”

She couldn’t
breathe. “I’m with Clay because you don’t need me any more.” She waited for him
to say,
I’ll always need you.
He
didn’t. He said nothing. Her chest squeezed tighter as she pressed the phone to
her ear, listening to silence.

Okay, time for
the hard question.

“Did you—”
There was no nice way to ask. Through buzzing in her ears she said, “Did you
give me a hinky STD?”

“What is an
STD?”

She said
through her teeth, “A sexually transmitted disease.”

“Should you
not be asking Clay that question?”

Her eyes
flared. “Why?” she demanded. “Did he tell you he had something?”

“Surely Clay
would tell you before he would tell me,” he said smoothly. That female voice
murmured, and, away from the phone, he said, “Thank you.”

In rage and
pain, Jewel snarled, “At least Clay will talk to me!” Which she knew was a lie.
I’m acting like such a girl!

“Will he?”
Randy said noncommittally.

“Don’t duck
the question!”

But Randy said
nothing.

Oh, hell, more antler-clashing.
Her heart hammered in her ears. “Well?”

Silence.

“Stop putting
me in the middle like this!” she cried. Her breath caught on a sob. “You’re
making me crazy!”

He groaned. “It’s
folly to try to talk through these infernal machines.”

“You’re
the one who won’t even talk to me!”
she yelled. “I’m freaking out here! If you were in trouble,
I’d
give a shit, but when I call you
with a problem, where are you?”

But he didn’t
answer.

The phone made
a
thwap
noise in her ear.

She heard
footsteps, and then a woman’s voice. Velvita.

“Hello? Is
that Jewel?” Velvita sounded upset. “Oh my God. He warned me this would happen.
Oh, no!”

“What would
happen?” Jewel said, but she knew.

“You have to
get over here. His clothes are on the floor, empty. I think he — he must have
disappeared into my bed.”

Jewel’s cup
overflowed. “Oh, did he? Into
your
bed? Well, you’d better make sure you get your eight hours.” Her self-control
shattered. Her voice rose. “In fact, I suggest you plan for twelve, because
he’s gonna keep you busy for at least four
hours
every single night!
For the
rest of
your life!”

She slapped
the phone down on the table and burst into tears.

Tuesday, Clay came to Jewel’s apartment to walk her to
work and found with relief that she was no longer hysterical.

Instead she
knifed him with an apology. “Listen, I’m sorry about the other night. I totally
lost it. It’s not your fault if I’m—” She didn’t finish the sentence.

“Sh, sh, it’s
okay.” He was terrified she would ask him a direct question. Then he might
blurt out a confession, and she’d kill him.

She seemed to
sense his awkwardness. She made him coffee and left him with a cloud of guilt.

While she was
in the shower, her apartment phone rang. Clay picked it up.

“Jewel? Lena.”
Lena was whispering.

“No, this is
Clay Dawes.”

“Tell her I’m
in.”

“I’ll tell her
you’re in,” Clay said obediently. Girl secrets.

“I’d rather
talk to you anyway.”

“Really.
That’s nice of you.”

“You have to
talk to her. Make her see reason. I don’t believe she can read that letter and
not melt. Randy’s a nice guy and all that, and way hot in bed, but I don’t need
to have sex all day
and
all night,
know what I mean? She doesn’t really mean to condemn him to slavery in my bed
for the rest of whatever, does she?”

“Randy’s in
your bed?”

“She didn’t
tell you? It happened when they were on the phone last night. Just make her
read the letter. She’ll do the right thing if she reads it.”

“Wait, wait,
what letter?”

“I dropped it
off last night. The guard put it in her mailbox. Make her read it. I know she’s
a decent person.”

Clay made
soothing noises until he was pretty sure Lena wouldn’t call back. Then he hung
up.

“Clay? Who’s
on the phone?” Jewel, in the bathroom.

“Phone
solicitor,” he called back.

What letter?

Clay went to
the hall for Jewel’s keys and raced downstairs to the mail room. In five
seconds he had found Randy’s letter. Hand-addressed envelope, in a script so
flowing and perfect that it looked like junk mail from an underwear company,
except for Randy’s full name and title on the return address. There was a stamp
on it, but it hadn’t been cancelled.

He couldn’t
believe his luck.

Trousering it,
he ran back upstairs and sat on the couch just as Jewel came out of the back
hallway, dragging a brush through her wet hair.

He decided to
take a risk. “Velvita called, too. You didn’t mention that Randy got stuck in
her bed.”

“Nope.”

“None of my
business?”

“That’s right.”
She tied her hair back in a ponytail. “I didn’t think you would care. Do you
care?”

“I thought the
curse was broken. I really did,” he said, feeling guilty, which hardly ever
happened to him, and now it was for something that wasn’t even his fault.

It isn’t,
Wilma said in his head.
But don’t worry.

Soberly Jewel
said, “There’s nothing you can do. I’m beginning to think there’s nothing
either of us can do.”

You know you never had a chance with
Jewel until she and Randy both thought his curse was broken,
Wilma said.

Shut up!
he thought. This was such a pain,
trying to talk to someone he couldn’t see, without moving his lips.

“But it’s not
broken!” he said aloud. Darnit, was he supposed to say that to Jewel or to
Wilma? “The curse, I mean.”

Don’t
worry. She won’t go back to him. She’ll stay with you now.

Jewel looked
him in the eye. “I’m not going off to climb into bed with Randy.”

“But you
always save him,” he said numbly, like a dope.

“Not this
time.” Jewel’s chin trembled. When he didn’t speak, she said, “Put your arms
around me?”

He did. She
put her arms around him, too, slowly and gently, and he lay his cheek against
her hair, feeling unsettled.

He wanted to
say,
But you’re the good guy, Jewel. I’m
the bum who would just as soon let Randy rot.

Well, shoot.

If he had to
drag her down to his level to win her, that was the way it had to be.

o0o

Maida’s
long-lost daughter walked into the office for the second time in a week.

Maida stood
frozen at her desk. “What are you doing here?”

Lena closed
the door and sat down. She looked so adult in a black suit and skirt, with her
hair in a french twist, that Maida felt a pang.

“Hel-lo,” Lena
pronounced in a sing-song voice. “I’m the temp the agency sent to work with
Steven Tannyhill.”

Oh, no, not this.
“You’re messing around with that Heiss
woman. Don’t. She’s a bungler.”

“I’m not.”

I can’t protect her when Steven is like
this!
“What are you up
to?”

“You know, I
think I won’t tell you. Last time I came to you for help, you blew me off.
Onika Tannyhill has been a better mother to me than you have, and she made me a
porn queen.”

Maida bit her
lip. “She should be ashamed.”

“You mean I
should be ashamed?
She
doesn’t force
me to put up with sexual advances from men I don’t like,” her daughter said,
sounding like a snippy teenager.

Inside, Maida
groaned, but she didn’t soften her face. If only she had come home instead of
to the office! “Steven won’t bother you again.”

“You’re
dreaming. He bothers me every time we meet. I see him at the Artistic Building
pretty frequently, you know. He especially likes to watch us shooting movies.
Don’t worry, he’s never recognized Velvita Fromage as Lena Sacker.”

Lena’s hair
was confined demurely at the base of her neck. Her white blouse was crisp, with
a soft white silk tie under her chin. She looked fresh, sweet, intelligent.

A memory
flashed through Maida’s mind of that face painted like a whore’s in the one
movie she’d had the stomach to look at. She shut her eyes.

“Go home. Go
back to that woman, or go home. Don’t let him find you here.”

“Sorry, Mom,”
Lena said in a hard voice. “I’ll only need to stay a day or two.”

Maida’s eyes
flew open. “What are you plotting?”

Lena leaned
forward and began to unbutton her blouse.

Her mother
shrank back in her chair. “Dear God, what—”

Lena pulled
her blouse open, and Maida saw the black box and the wire taped to her skin.

Comprehension
flooded Maida.

Lena nodded. “That’s
right. So stay out of the way, unless you want to go on record as siding with
the bad guys.” She stood lithely and left, buttoning her blouse as she went.

Maida put her
elbow on the desk and shaded her eyes with her hand. “What am I going to do?”
she said to her empty office.

There was no
question what she should do. If that Heiss woman had told the truth —

Maida slapped
open the file Jewel Heiss had brought. It was all here. State filings, county
filings, a thick stack of documents for WBE qualification, all signed by
herself. Even bank statements for a trust fund in her name. The most recent
deposit was only a month old.

She felt sick.
And very, very angry.

o0o

The Baysdorter
Boncil office had not changed much since Lena last sat at this desk. Mike’s
girl, Precious, was the first to recognize her. She drifted by with a distant
smile on her lips, glanced oh-so-casually at Lena, scoping her clothes, her
shoes, her hair, and at last her face. Lena waited gleefully.

Precious met
her eyes and nearly fell off her strappy fuck-me shoes. A quick recover, and
she sent Lena a bug-eyed look, then hurried away without speaking.

Spread the word, Precious.

Lena breathed
deeply. She wasn’t meek little Lena Sacker any more. She had Velvita-power.

The next one
to come by was Geri from PR. Geri bent over the front of Velvita’s carrel,
looking both ways before she hissed, “Lena! I heard you were doing it with porn
stars!”

Lena drew
back. “Excuse me?” I haven’t seen her in two years and this is the first thing
out of her mouth? Who could have spread the word?

“Is it true
that John Holmes has a twelve-inch thing?”

Lena smiled
sweetly. “Is it true you frenched Anna from Accounting?”

Geri
stiffened. “Slut,” she snapped, and hustled off.

Mike Redpune
was next — Radio Precious seemed to be broadcasting. He walked toward her so
slowly that she had time to blank her computer screen and get out her steel
nail file. He still moussed the front of his hair like a cell phone accessory
salesman at Best Buy. She ignored him. He came to a stop with a little swagger
and stood there, his hands buried in his pants pockets, smirking. After about a
minute she looked up.

“Mr. Tannyhill
is still out, Mike.”

“Just coming
by to say hi.”

She looked up.
This couldn’t be good.

He leaned over
the carrel and whispered, “I love your work.”

“Do you. You
realize it’s made for women.”

Mike wiggled
his eyebrows. “I, uh, still think it’s great.”

Ah-hah. Mike
and Precious must have been watching Hot Pink porn together. That’s how she’d
been found out.

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.”