The Hinky Velvet Chair (14 page)

Holy crap, she was reading his mind!

Griffy was showing off her rings to Randy. “Virgil gave me
that one for my birthday.” She wore a tailored white silk dress, higher-cut but
classier than the showstopper displaying Sovay’s frontal assets. Her chin was
up and her eyes sparkled.

Sovay craned her neck. “Nice. For your fortieth?”

Griffy looked her straight in the eye. “My forty-third.”

Randy caressed Griffy’s palm and turned it over to examine
the ring. “Diamonds signify permanence. Rubies mean passion.”

Griffy giggled.

Kauz told Jewel. “Men talk themselves out of much wisdom and
into much foolishness.”

“I agree,” Jewel said. “When people believe in magic, they
get nothing but trouble.”
I’m back in
character, whew.

“That is because magic and science haff diverged.” Kauz put
his forefingers together and drew a ‘Y’ in the air. “A scientist has from magic
nothing to fear, and much to learn.”

Jewel sent a look at Clay, trying to beam the message,
Get
him talking.

Clay seemed to catch on. “I’ve always said so.”

“Why’s that?” Jewel said to Kauz. “I’d think a real
scientist wouldn’t bother with magic. That’s the definition of magic, isn’t it?
It’s not true, so it’s not science.”

Kauz swelled. “On the contrary, the terms
ars magia
and
scientia
were once interchangeably used. Distinction was created in
early eighteenth century by magicians — scientists — who didn’t vant to burn
for witchcraft.”

“Burning!” Sovay shuddered. “So uncivilized!”

He gestured at Randy. “Your English Lord Bacon says this,
that magic intervenes in God’s work, but science is the work of man upon
nature.”

“I thought Bacon wrote Shakespeare,” Clay said.

“Is other Bacon, much later. This Bacon is a great thinker,
great divider of hairs,” Kauz said, forking up prime rib.

Clay said, “So the witch hunters come sniffing around your
magician and he says, ‘Back off, man, I’m a scientist?’”

“Is all context.” Kauz waved his fork. “Before big heresy
crackdown, your old-time magician wants to wooo nature, to looove nature, to
maaarry her. Highly suspicious to witch hunters.”

“Suspicious is right,” Jewel muttered.

“New Baconian scientist says, God gave Nature to Man for his
uses”—Kauz dug his fork into the air at every word—”to
own
her, to
plow
her, to
enslave
her. So is modern technology
born.”

Every woman at the table stiffened.

Virgil let out a crack of laughter.

Kauz smiled. “But of course that is also how a great deal of
evil is born, for woman as well as for nature. You ladies glare at me! Come, a
man who runs a spa respects both nature and woman. My life work is to defeat
the patriarchal mechanisms that subject women.”

“With beauty treatments,” Jewel said with scorn.

“With treatments that convince every woman she is a beauty.
For so she is,” Kauz said forcefully. “Every woman.” He gestured at Jewel, then
at Griffy. “Behold the successful application of science to this, the
correct
problem — how the woman sees
herself.”

In other words, I’m
cheating you for your own good.
“Using science,” Jewel said.

“Even so. As did Katterfelto, my hero.”

“Using magic, too?” she said with challenge.

He swivelled to face her. “By whatever means necessary.”

They made eye contact, and she had a flash of the good
doctor sticking a needle into her arm, drawing out a big vialful of her blood,
and gloating over it.

Eeeuw!
That was a
nine-point-oh on her ick-o-meter.

He meant business. He could talk himself into trouble and
charm his way out of it. And he was nuts enough to take this cockamamie
philosophy to the media and spread it all over a vulnerable city, a city
already struggling to cope with an assault on reality that might take it down.

“The power of suggestion,” Virgil said, breaking the
silence, “must be very important in your business.”

“Natürlich.
A man
is seen as powerful if he has money. A woman, if she is beautiful. Money, this
is a tangible thing, but beauty is an illusion, an idea, a mood, a whim. I can
give a woman power by suggesting that she is beautiful.”

“There are money illusionists, too,” Clay remarked, glancing
around the table.

You’re all crooks and
con men.
Jewel felt a cold rage building. “If I were a cynical person, I’d
say you’re getting rich on your customer’s fears. The older a woman gets, the
more vulnerable she is to being fooled by a lot of razzle dazzle.”

Kauz shook his head. “My older customers are wiser, not more
foolish. They know how old they are. They know quite well that beauty is an
illusion. Merely, I must convince them. I teach them to use the power of
suggestion to project the illusion of beauty,
und
lo, the illusion becomes reality. They become powerful women
again. They use their power more wisely than when they were young and easily
duped.”

“That’s corkscrew logic if I ever heard it.” And yet it made
a goofy sort of sense. Con artist sense.

“Primitive tribesmen,” Virgil said, “use something similar.”

“Sympathetic magic,” Clay said. “Well-known phenomenon.”

Yeah, you two are out
of the same workshop.
“Bunch of baloney,” Jewel harrumphed.

Griffy was looking puzzled and distressed. “But the Venus
Machine works. You didn’t do anything to Julia to — to convince her,” she
protested.

Jewel’s heart bled for her. The magic of her transformation
was being exposed, and might crumble at any moment.

“No, she duped herself,” Sovay murmured to Virgil, eying
Jewel. Jewel saw Randy flash her a brief, ugly look.

Griffy’s voice rose. “So is the Venus Machine real or isn’t
it? It worked for both Julia and me, but it worked different.”

Randy smiled at her. “That is because you are different
women. It’s like the fairy tale about roses and jewels.”

“Ooh, do tell us a fairy tale,” Sovay cooed.

Virgil clapped his hands. “I love fairy tales!”

Randy looked from Jewel to Griffy to Sovay. “There once were
three sisters, two sweet and one sour. The first sister went to the well for
water and met an old woman, who asked her to draw water for her. The first
sister drew her water and spoke courteously to her, and in return the old woman
bespelled her. When she returned home, every word she spoke became a rose.”

Randy leaned forward. “The second sister went for water, met
the old woman, gave her courtesy, and drew her water. When she returned home,
every word she spoke became a ruby.”

Randy smiled and narrowed his eyes. “The third sister hunted
down the old woman, and cried, ‘Bespell me as you did my sisters, and do it
now!’ The old woman said, ‘You are not so sweet as your sisters.’ The third
sister hit her with a stick, and the old woman said, ‘Go home, for you are
bespelled.’”

Randy paused to look around the table. “From that day
forward, with every cruelty the third sister uttered, a live toad or a snake
jumped out of her mouth.”

Griffy gasped. “That’s mean!”

Virgil said, “It’s not nice, but it works.”

“It is justice,” remarked Kauz.

“Real justice is a lot slower,” Jewel said darkly.

“And so often it misses the mark,” Sovay said.

Hearing the word ‘mark’ in Sovay’s silky voice made Jewel
flinch.
I’ve got con artists on the
brain.

This whole table was a minefield.

Pleading tiredness, Jewel escaped the post-prandial poker
game. Randy followed her upstairs. Uh-oh.

“What was with the roses and jewels?” she said. “Should I
have gotten something subtle out of that?”

“She is insolent to you,” he said coolly. “That is not
permitted.” That made Jewel blink. “I pointed the moral.”

“You’re sweet,” was all Jewel could say. “But I thought you
were trying to get into her pants.”

“That, too. Then I can read her mind.”

“I
know
that. But
I thought you were going to, like, stay in character here.”

“Perhaps my character would seduce Sovay. If she means to
seduce Mr. Thompson, she’s foolish to flutter toward me.”

“So you’re egging her on?” Jewel said, her voice rising.

“Surely you do not object if she turns from Mr. Thompson to
me,” he drawled. The madder she felt, the cooler he sounded. “Mr. Thompson may
take offense. This would harm her schemes.”

“I — uh.” Jewel wanted to strangle Sovay for being mean to
Griffy. It had completely escaped her mind that Sovay was out to take Virgil
for money, too.

“In addition, the suspect may make a misstep. Or I may
seduce her and bare her thoughts.”

“And you don’t feel that’s kind of slutty?” Jewel blurted.

“No.” He seemed pleased to get a rise out of her. “Why?”

She couldn’t think of one single reason why she could
object. Unless she was jealous, which was absurd. “What else?”

He took off his shoes. “Something’s amiss with the butler.”

“Mellish? He’s a bit thick-necked. I think he pretends to be
stupid sometimes.”

“No, that’s customary. In fact, he is the one servant I’ve
observed here who seems to know his work.”

“Griffy explained that. He’s new.” She remembered that
unbidden fantasy of doing the butler doggy-style among the wineglasses. “What’s
the matter with the butler?”

“I don’t know. In my own century, I could say. I’ve not
known servants here. Perhaps I mistake. I will consult Clay.”

“That reminds me, guess what? Virgil is Clay’s father.”

Randy stripped off his shirt. “So I suspected.”

Jewel’s jaw dropped. “Oh, you did not.”

“There is subtle scorn in Virgil’s manner toward Clay. Of course
Griffy is his paramour, soon to be cast off, and Clay resents the change,
perhaps out of sentimentality, perhaps because the new mistress is not under
his influence.” Randy’s very correct undershirt came off next. At the sight of
his naked torso Jewel forgot what she was going to say. “One cannot but observe
that Ms. Sacheverell will be an improvement.”

Jewel’s gaze moved to his face. “What?”

Randy shrugged those beautiful naked shoulders. “She’s
younger, better bred, more discreet. She deals well with servants, unlike the
lowborn paramour. She’s better spoken, though she is not English and
counterfeits an English accent.”

Jewel gasped. “You’re such a snob!”

“She also has a brain. She partakes of his interests
intelligently. At his age this becomes more important, perhaps, than it was
when he acquired Griffy.”

Jewel snarled, “Doesn’t ‘bitch’ count for anything?”

“And she comes with money of her own.”

“So she’s a good tradeup,” Jewel said with sarcasm.

“Precisely.”

Steamed, she slipped out of her black cocktail dress and
hung it up. “Well, try this on your well-bred pianola, asshole. Sovay’s also
after his money.”

“Of course. Any bargain with Virgil must be a mercenary
arrangement.”

“The hell it is!” Jewel protested. “Griffy loves that old
turtle! She told me at the spa she’s been with him for eighteen years. Nobody
could have stood him that long without affection.”

“That also is manifest,” Randy said unpleasantly, “from your
conversation with him.”

Oh, now her sex demon was jealous of Turtlehead Thompson! “He’s
a mean old geezer in some ways, but I like him.” She smiled. “He reminds me of
somebody I used to date.”

“‘Date,’” he sneered. “This is your
politesse
for ‘someone you were used to fornicate with.’” He raised
his brows. “Have you fornicated with a septuagenarian before?”

“I won’t discuss my sex life with you!”

“But you discuss it with everyone else. With the cast-off
mistress, for example.” He looked dark with anger.

“She isn’t cast-off yet.” But Jewel knew that sooner or
later she’d have to face Randy over what she’d told Griffy about him at the
spa. “Look, I’m sorry you overheard that stuff. But women talk. Don’t follow me
around and you won’t get your feelings hurt.”

“I have a stake in your behavior.”

“You have a stake in my paycheck. You have a stake in my
willingness to rescue you from random beds. But you bought and paid for the
grief you got today.”

“You, also, have earned your sufferings — if sufferings they
were,” Randy said snottily.

“I was getting to that.” Jewel lost her cool. “Anytime you get
in a snit, you take it out on me by zapping into some public reclinery and
forcing me to make a spectacle of myself.” She threw her shoes clattering into
a corner. “After all that noble talk, ‘Simply forget where I have gone,’ you
fix it so I
have
to let you out of
your self-imposed prison! I was a
mummy!”

He waved his arms. “I didn’t know that would happen!”