The Hinky Velvet Chair (22 page)

“That’s true, I guess,” she said. “I’m so tired of this
Venus Machine crap, I could scream. Remind me to stop jumping at undercover
cases.”

“We have to get back to the house and look at those
background checks.”

“And find Randy.” She licked her finger. “But when?”

“In another hour it’ll get dark enough for fireworks.”

She nodded. “We’ll sneak away then.”

“You don’t look happy,” her partner said with concern.

“I’m having a panic attack. I can’t breathe, worrying about
Randy. Plus I think I screwed up big time.”

“Getting drunk and sleeping with me?” He was such a guy.

“No,” she said, nettled. “But I called that woman I met
through Buzz —
you
would have been there, only you were screwing around
instead of working with your partner, remember? She got her friends together,
and they worship Kauz’s little pink socks, and if they ever meet him they’ll
give him a jillion dollars to further his research. They fucking love that
potion.”

“They loved it before. You didn’t do that.”

“No, but I brought them all together and that gave them the
idea to, like,
organize.
If they find
Kauz, we’re toast. I may have single-handedly doubled his campaign fund.”

“Don’t worry about it yet.” He leaned closer. “Notice
anything about the fair Sovay?”

“Besides the teeny bikini?” she grumped.

“She’s not being such a bitch.”

Flash a bikini on a
guy and his brain vanishes.
“Sorry,” Jewel said, not sorry. “I look at her,
all I can see is five-nine-worth of bitch. Plus she probably stole the Venus
Machine.”

“No, she didn’t. She bought it in an estate sale in France two
months ago. I traced the sale. No, I mean, she’s not talking trash on Griffy so
much. Or on you.”

Jewel eyed Sovay, sashaying beside Virgil like rented arm
candy. “Her body language sure is chatty.”

“Pay attention,” he said sharply, and she looked at him in
surprise. Clay was never ruffled.

“You okay, buddy?”

“I am not okay. Virgil is showing his teeth. He hates this
birthday party. Griffy won’t back down, and this Sovay woman is a menace, and
heaven knows how Virgil will lash out if his stupid plan turns sour.” He
hesitated.

“What else?” Jewel mentally filed ‘Virgil’s stupid plan.’

“Listen,” he said, and met her eye. “You won’t like this,
but the bed we, uh, found in Sovay’s room? That’s not the bed that was in there
before.”

She squinted. “What? Before when?”

“Somebody switched the bed from that room after Randy
vanished and before we got in there. Virgil must have done it.”

“Why?” She scowled. “Plus, he couldn’t. He’s seventy.”

“He has servants. Nobody else knows why the bed matters.”

Jewel stared blindly at acres of sunburned skin. “He knows
Randy was in that bed?” She turned on her partner with razor eyes. “
How
does he know?”

Clay flinched. “I had to tell him.”

“Why? Because he’s your father?”

“He knows I work with you.” Clay held up his hands. “Hey, take
it easy. Flirt. We’re undercover.” He slid an arm around her rigid back. “I
told him about my job weeks ago.”

“Randy and — and beds and things is not your job.” She
stumbled across the sand. “Oh. You mean your old job?”
As in, con artist.
She said with horror, “Do you think he wants to
run another sex-therapy scam, like you did?”

“I doubt it. In spite of all the newage in that house,
Virgil’s a skeptic. I think he took it to mess with me.”

“I don’t get it.”

Clay looked unhappy. “I don’t either. But you don’t see it
coming, when it’s Virgil.”

“We have to find that bed,” Jewel said, cold with fear for
Randy in Virgil’s clutches.

“First find the anklet. That should be a big help.”

“Yeah.” A nasty suspicion hit her and she narrowed her eyes.
“When did you know that bed wasn’t the right bed?”

Clay hesitated. “There’s more. Kauz and the block party.
He’s talked Virgil into setting up the Venus Machine and his spectrometer in
the alley, where he can give free shots to people at the party. If that doesn’t
scare you, it should.”

Holy crap.
Jewel
imagined a whole neighborhood going through what she was suffering. “I’m
scared, I’m scared.”

“Then you’ll love this part. Kauz has called in the society
reporters to cover the party.”

“Shit!” This was bad news.

“Lower your voice and flirt. The butler is watching us.”
That bothered her too. Randy suspected the butler. She wished Clay had let her
see those background checks.

“This is not good. The Fifth Floor will notice. Ed will
convulse.”

Clay leaned over and licked the corner of her mouth. She
drew back in shock.

“Ice cream face,” he explained. “Can’t help myself, it’s the
Venus Machine effect. Flirt with me, partner.” He nuzzled her ear. “So why the
big worry? Kauz wouldn’t declare his candidacy to a bunch of society reporters,
would he?”

She leaned her forehead against his. “He’s building a media
presence. The Gold Coast is a fancy neighborhood. The party will be full of
somebodies. He’ll get them giggly over the Venus Machine and take pictures of
their damned auras, and then he’ll be in the news. Two things we can’t afford.”

“Two things?”

“Kauz in the media, and magic in the media.” She thought.
With media present, Kauz would be dangerous, but he’d be vulnerable. “Huh.
Maybe this can work to our advantage.” Clay patted her butt. She twitched away.
“Boy, you are grabby.”

He grinned like a dope. “I’m drunk on your green aura.”

They horsed around, following Virgil’s party. Mellish and
the chauffeur unrolled a huge grass rug on the sand. Then they set up a folding
table. Then the beach chairs. The chauffeur faded back and Mellish unpacked the
picnic baskets: candlesticks, wine, cloth napkins, fancy plastic stemware,
gold-rimmed plastic plates. Everything was genteel except the noise level.

At long last, Kauz cut loose and ranted, and Jewel no longer
wondered if the case was as serious as the Fifth Floor feared.

“With your help, I will usher in new era of harmony!” he
exclaimed into Virgil’s ear. “Harmony between magic and science! This fool in
office now, he would brush the mighty power of enchantment under the rug. He
stands against progress! But he is wrong! Every citizen has a right to magic!”

“How’s your campaign fund doing?” Virgil said.

Kauz’s eyes gleamed. “I can always use more support.”

“I wondered if you wanted to buy the Venus Machine from me.”

Jewel and Clay whipped their heads around.

“But it belongs to Miss Sovay,” Kauz said, licking his lips.
“I offer to buy it from her already.”

“She’s selling it to me.” Virgil snaked an arm around Sovay,
who looked smug as an Egyptian cat. “I couldn’t let her
give
it away.”

Jewel met Clay’s eyes.
You
called that one.

Griffy looked pale. “Will you have red wine or white?” she
said to Sovay, as if Virgil were her brother.

From the circle of Virgil’s arm, Sovay hesitated. “White,
please. Thank you.”

So Clay was right about something else. Hate Radio Sovay
seemed to be off the air.

Virgil passed the glass, wrapping his fingers around the
bitch’s hand as he did so.

“Excuse me,” Clay muttered to Jewel. “Don’t take this
personally.” He hitched his chair next to Griffy’s. A moment later Griffy
giggled and swatted his hand off from her knee.

Virgil sent a dark look at Clay. “Fickle pup.” He hitched
his chair next to Jewel’s. “How’s the investigation going? You got anything on
that criminal yet?”

It took Jewel a minute to remember all the games they were
playing.
But why bother? Virgil knows who
Clay is.
“We almost have him where we want him, sir.”

The cuddly old turtle expression left his face as he watched
Clay flirt with Griffy. “Put him behind bars,” he commanded. “As soon as
possible.”

He moved his chair back to Sovay’s side just as Clay
tenderly wiped Griffy’s mouth with a napkin. Then Virgil ‘accidentally’ dropped
a chicken leg into Sovay’s lap.

Kauz leaped forward to brush off Sovay’s beach robe with his
napkin. Griffy noticed and her smile turned sad.

I need a scorecard for
these meals,
Jewel thought.

She looked out at the lake, where a man flew suspended under
an oblong parachute striped bright orange and blue, being towed through the sky
by a motorboat. “Randy would love that. He’s a flying nut.”

Kauz looked up from dabbing at Sovay’s lap. “Does he make
you be flying?”

What kind of question was that? “I’m afraid of heights.”

“The power of air! But you, Miss Julia,
you
are the
power of fire. Air is your friend.” Kauz waved theatrically. “The demons of air
obey those of fire.”

She flinched. “Demons?” The man with the
blue-and-orange sail came to rest neatly on the back of his tow-boat.

Kauz hitched his chair closer to hers. “All the world is
made up of four kinds of demons — air, water, fire, earth. Trillions upon
trillions of them.” He smirked and dug her with his elbow. “So much more
magical than to call them atoms and molecules. Although the English refer to
fairies as atomies.”

“Demons,” Jewel muttered, thinking of her AWOL incubus.

“Someday every man, woman, and child in Chicago will have
dominion over these demons!” Kauz proclaimed.

What a bad idea.

“Speaking of the English—” Kauz said.

“Think I’ll go look at the parasail,” Jewel said.

“I’ll come too,” Griffy said.

Virgil waved royally. Jewel and Griffy walked down to the
breakwater where the parasail was being moored.

How it happened, Jewel couldn’t say. The parasail guy talked
as she looked out at the endless water and the pinkening sky. She thought of
Randy falling, falling through clouds, how much she’d loved having huge white
wings, and how she was sick of being afraid of heights.

“Well, I think you should go for it,” Griffy said.

So there she was, all harnessed up, standing on the back end
of the boat, and thanking Griffy, whose credit card had appeared at the moment
when she might have chickened out.

Then the motorboat started up and second thoughts became
impossible. She held onto the cables as instructed, and the boat moved slowly
forward. The sail filled. The seat came up under her butt. Once out on the
choppy waves, the boat sped up.

The parasail lifted her off her feet, into the air.

She hung on for dear life as the boat towed her into the
sky. The seat felt secure. Up here, she smelled cocoa butter, beer, burning
charcoal, and the overpoweringly fresh lake smell. She looked down, her heart
in her mouth. The lake didn’t scare her. If she fell, she knew she could swim
like an otter.

Then the boat turned, swinging her around like a stick on a
string. Jewel shrieked. They sped up, racing the wind south along the beach
again. The lake rushed by and the human figures below looked up. Her heart
filled. Far out on the lake, white sails leaned into the wind, the way she
leaned.

Full of the hugeness of the sky, Jewel turned her face
toward the sun and blessed herself.

Would Randy like this?
Or would it be too real for him?

She leaned hard and the parasail dipped slightly. She didn’t
have control, but she wasn’t helpless.

She leaned. The parasail dipped again. The world swung
around.

She leaned really hard, and caused a swoop that made her
shriek.

It was fun.

Somewhere under the fun, the amazement, and the raw whip of
the wind cold and hot on her skin, Jewel felt fear, but it was a different kind
of fear. Not fear of losing control, but a fear like galloping bareback across
a meadowful of thistles, knowing the dangers but knowing she had the
horsemanship to stay on. A fun fear.

The boat turned again, slower this time.

Under her she saw a floating mattress and, lying on her
back, a chubby woman, a hat shading her face. The floating woman tipped back
the hat and smiled with peaceful benediction. Jewel smiled back.

As the boat slowed, the motor winched Jewel in, like a
fisherman reeling in a fish, and she came down and stepped gracefully onto the
launch deck.

“Okay?” said the grinning boatman.

“God, that was fun! That was
great!”

As their boat chugged up, Griffy bounced with excitement on
the breakwater. “I want to try!” She waved her credit card.

The instructor glanced at Jewel, but the glow in Griffy’s
face drew him back.
The Venus Machine
effect,
Jewel thought.
We both have
it, but it comes naturally to Griffy.

While the instructor took Griffy’s credit card, Griffy
handed her little purse to Jewel. “Can you do me a huge favor? These are
Virgil’s birthday invitations. I need them delivered tonight.” She didn’t look
at Jewel but at the blue-and-orange-striped sail. “I’d rather he didn’t see me
deliver them. They’re addressed. It’s the one block, both sides of the alley.”