The Hinky Velvet Chair (16 page)

“Do it now. I’d-a given it to the Health Department, but you
got a soft spot for the little shit.”

She didn’t bother trying to defend Buzz. “Believe me, I’m on
it.” She snapped the phone shut. She needed Clay. Bring him with her on a Buzz
hunt and she could discuss things with him at the same time.

But when she got back to the breakfast room, Clay and his
father were nowhere to be found.

“Where’s Virgil? And where’s Clay?” Jewel sent Sovay a nasty
look.
Shouldn’t you be sucking up to the
meal ticket?

“Experiments are in train in the collection room,” Randy
said loftily, “to compare psychespectrometric readings with Kirlian
photographs. Mr. Thompson and Dr. Kauz are there.”

“And you’re not?” Randy seemed to be blowing off his cover,
too.

“I have been telling Miss Sacheverell about the family ghost
at Llew’s Howe. Mr. Dawes,” he said with distaste, “went shopping with Miss Griffin.”

Jewel rolled her eyes. “Okay. Well,
Lord Darner,
I’ve got a lead on that, uh, street practitioner we
were talking to the other day. We should go find him. Right now.”

Randy stared at her. For a moment she saw him in a plaid,
earflappy cap with a curvy pipe in his mouth.

Is that what he’s
thinking?
That was the trouble with magic, you never knew how the darned
stuff was supposed to work.
Or is it what
he wants?
Jewel licked her lips. “You can play detective again.”

He almost leaped out of his chair. “Very well.” Randy bowed
over Sovay’s hand. “Another day, dear lady.”

Sovay smiled up at him. “Any time, my lord,” she said in a
throaty voice. She turned the smile on Jewel, where it soured, and her lips
made the word
cow
but nothing came
out.

Jewel said, “Let’s go.”

Behind them, as they left the breakfast room, Jewel heard
Sovay gagging into a napkin.

Taking this joke a
little far, aren’t you, bitch?

In the car Jewel said, “So you want to play Sherlock Holmes?
I thought he was after your time.”

“I want what?”

“I saw what you were thinking just now. Had me stumped for a
minute, but I figured it out. You want to play investigator.”

He flushed. “You cannot know what I am thinking.”

“I can.” The light changed. “Remember that argument we had
the other morning? You didn’t like me flirting with guys. You said, ‘I wish you
could see what’s in their minds before you open your thighs to them.’”

“That stung, did it?” There was a smile in his voice.

“Well, ever since my second ride in the Venus Machine, every
time I make eye contact with a guy, I see what he wants.”

“Indeed.” Randy sounded pleased. “I did not realize the
Venus Machine dispensed justice as well as beauty.”

“Neither did I. But what you didn’t think about is that I
can see what
you
want.”

Silence from Radio Randy.

She risked a peek at him. He sat still, staring out the
windshield. Then he faced her, and their eyes met, and she had a mental image
of him in his lord costume, bowing to her.

Horns blared. She looked ahead in time to jam on the brakes
and avoid broadsiding a taxi.

Important safety tip.
Don’t make eye contact with Randy when you’re driving.

She mimed,
Sorry,
sorry,
to the cabbie as she turned past him, and he glared at her. She got
a disturbing image of the cabbie jabbing her in the eye with something long and
sharp and she almost swerved into a Mini crammed with tourists.

Don’t make eye contact
with ANYONE!

“What are we investigating today?” Randy said.

“It’s Buzz. We find him, take his stash off him, and find
out what he’s been doing — who he sold it to, stuff like that. Get a statement
from him. With luck, we can get him free of prosecution, if he’ll sing.”

“Sing?”

“Testify against Kauz. Depends how dangerous the doctor’s
little potion turns out. Which reminds me.” She rummaged in her purse and the
Tercel swerved.

Randy took the purse from her. “I will find the potion.”

“Later.” She gnawed her lip. “I wish I could send you to the
lab with it. Clay could do it if he wasn’t being a moron.”

“He wants to save his faux stepmother from being abandoned.
Why not send me to the lab?”

She pulled the Tercel over to the curb. “I want to, I really
do,” she said from the heart. “But what if you, like, zap into some bed
somewhere? As much as it drives me crazy having you glued to my side
twenty-four-seven, I can’t risk that.”

“Don’t dissemble. You want my mojo,” he said in his precise
English voice, and she choked on a laugh, partly because of the accent and
partly because he looked so conflicted.

She put her hand over his. “Even if I knew it would be the
last time ever, Randy, I couldn’t leave you stuck. You said that the other
morning, too. Like, why don’t I leave you stuck somewhere if I’m sick of you. I
won’t do that.”

He looked long into her eyes, and all she could think of was
him looking into her eyes.

“I mean it,” she said. A picture of a cell phone popped into
her head and she added, “No, I don’t think a cell phone is a good idea.” His
eyes widened and he jerked his face away. “Like I said, you always pull a
zapper when we’re having an argument. If we have a fight over the phone, I
can’t afford to search every bed in Chicago. Look at me.”

He stared out his side window instead.

She muttered, “Now you know how I feel when you’re in my
head, when we’re in demonspace, when I’m dreaming.”

“I see.” He pulled his hand out of hers.

She felt sorry for him, and a little hurt. “People get real
used to their privacy. You’ve had, what, two hundred years of it? That’s a long
time to be alone in your head.”

She thought of the tracer anklet. He would never be in a
better frame of mind to agree to it.

“Um, I have an idea. Instead of the cell phone. Or even plus
the cell phone. You’re right, you ought to have one.”

He looked back with caution and hope in his eyes.

“There’s this device, I mentioned it before. It’s um, a
magic anklet. It can tell me where you are. So say you’re out somewhere buying
groceries or at work,”
there
was a
golden idea, Randy working and bringing in some money, “and you get in trouble?
The anklet tells me. I can find out where you parted company with it. I assume
it wouldn’t stay stuck to your ankle in demonspace. It should fall off like
your clothes do.”

He looked intrigued. “I see.”

“And then I would have a strong idea where, geographically,
you’ve wound up stuck.”

“That could work,” he said. He put his hand over hers and
curled his long fingers into her palm. Their eyes met again. She forgot to
wonder what he was thinking. His long upper lip twitched, as if he had
stiffened it against trembling. “Thank you. That would be — that would be
wonderful.”

Parolees all over the country cursed that anklet, and here
he was thanking her for it.

Damn, I’m good.

Then she realized how much he must hate being her siamese
twin. He was her slave. And he didn’t like it.

She squeezed his hand remorsefully. “You’re a good guy,
Randy.”

“I will remind you that you said so.” He smiled. “On the
occasion of our next disagreement.”

He looked so grateful that something twisted in her chest,
and she pulled her hand free. “Time to kick some Buzz butt.”

Jewel turned down Michigan Avenue, remembering how Buzz
favored the Magnificent Mile, and had the luck to see his bicycle propped
against a planter by Water Tower Place.

“Groovy,” she groaned, imagining Buzz in a mall, where he
could do maximum damage. Plus, she didn’t relish the notion of seeing a jillion
male mall-goers’s fantasies about her.

She parked in a short-term zone next to the old water tower
on Chestnut, grabbed sunglasses out of her glove box, and slapped her Official
Business tag on the windshield. A harness bull strolled over. She flipped open
her badge.

“Hot pursuit, officer. Oh, hi, Petey.” She donned her
sunglasses.
One date, four years ago.
If he remembered, she didn’t want to know.

“Hey, Jewel. Heard you were out of circulation. This the
guy?” Officer Petey looked Randy over with approval.

“One of them,” Randy said.

“No time for chitchat, Petey, gotta uphold the law, bye!”
She attached herself to Randy’s wrist. “Shut up about my personal business,”
she said out of the side of her mouth.

On the up escalator in Water Tower Place, he said, “I
believe I am your personal business. Have I not the right to free speech in the
United States of America?”

Brother, did he catch on fast. “You’re not a citizen.”

In that moment she saw Buzz on the balcony, with no store
entrances or escalator exits for twenty yards in either direction.

“There he is! See him? He’s with that woman.”

“I see him.” Randy was all business.

“Don’t look straight at him. When we get up there, you break
left and I’ll go right. Don’t move fast. Make sure he’s bottled up in that
cul-de-sac. He’ll run away from me, so I’ll keep facing forward. Even if he
sees me, maybe he’ll think I don’t see him. And Randy—” She lifted her
sunglasses so she could looked him in the eye. “Try not to hurt anyone or break
anything. You are not covered by department liability insurance. We don’t want
to arrest him, just talk to him. Dig?”

“I apprehend your meaning,” he said. On the wide-screen TV
in her mind, she saw a muddy field with a dozen beagles baying, running after a
rusty streak.

“Yeah, right, whatever. No bloodshed.”

They split at the top of the escalator, Randy walking fast,
looking taut and alive and happy. Damn. She needed to get him a job. One where
his ignorance of American laws and customs wouldn’t get him fired on day one.
She turned to the right and saw that Buzz was still engaged with his customer,
a rather mussed-looking older shopper who talked with her hands. Buzz glanced
over the shopper’s shoulder, saw Jewel, and bolted in the other direction, straight
into Randy’s arms.

Of course that couldn’t be enough. Buzz struggled and socked
Randy, who was a head and a half taller, and Randy grabbed his shoulders and
shook him like a terrier shaking a rat until the backpack slid down his arms
and little bottles rained out of it. Buzz slipped on a bottle and fell to the
floor, bringing Randy down on top of him. While they grappled there, Buzz’s
customer dropped all her shopping bags, ran up, and started kicking Randy in
the head with her two-hundred-dollar sneaker.

Jewel flipped open her badge and shoved it in the face of
Buzz’s protector. “Consumer Services, ma’am, please step away.”

His customer jumped back as if she’d been bitten. “Are you a
police officer? Young man!” She bent and whapped at Randy. “Stop him,” she said
to Jewel. “He’s hurting my friend!”

“You’ll be sorry you kicked my partner,” Jewel said. Randy
was now sitting on Buzz’s head, a thing she’d only read about in books. Seemed
to work, though. The backpack and its contents were scattered all over. “Randy,
that’s enough.”

“I’ll
be sorry?”
The shopper bristled. “Why? Are you trying to arrest me? My husband is an
attorney!”

“No, my partner’s English and he’ll make you apologize.”

Jewel bent and picked up all the little bottles and put them
back in the backpack. Even the ones Randy had fallen on were too small and hard
to smash, thank goodness.

Randy got up off Buzz, keeping his hand on the scruff of the
kid’s neck. His eyes sparkled.

Maybe he can play
football.

Huffily, Buzz brushed himself off. One of his zits had
popped open when Randy had rubbed his face against the floor, but otherwise he
seemed damage-free. “That’s mine,” he said, looking at the backpack.

“And you’ll get it back when I can find a bag for the
contents,” Jewel said. “Buzz, you know darned well your peddlar’s license
doesn’t cover consumables. You need a Health Department certificate for that.”

“My husband can help him get one,” said the loyal shopper.

Jewel said, “I could help him get one myself, if I trusted
him not to stock up on white lightning and snake oil. Please, ma’am. We’re just
going to talk to him. Alone.”

But the shopper wouldn’t take a hint. “You were hurting him,”
she said fiercely to Randy.

“Your concern does you great credit, Madam,” Randy said with
a bow. He flicked mall scuzz off his sleeve and looked down at the shopper with
a bored-lord look.

The shopper blinked and simpered. “Did I hurt your head?”

Randy smiled. “It was only moderately painful. Think nothing
of it.”

“I’m so sorry,” the shopper said.

“Bingo,” Jewel said. “I don’t know how he does it. Now, if
you don’t mind?”