The Hinky Velvet Chair

by Jennifer Stevenson

  “Well,” he said, raising his eyebrows ruefully, “you are no person I would have met in the ordinary course of life.”

  “I’m no what?” Her apologetic mood skidded.

  He pursed his lips. The orange crushed-velvet coat and ruffles looked right on him. “We are of different degrees.”

  “We are what?” Jewel was getting the impression he was insulting her. “Do you mean you’re a lord and I’m—”

  “Common. Well, solid yeoman stock,” he amended. In his eyes, she saw a picture of herself in a peasant blouse with a yoke over her shoulders and two pails hanging from it. She was curtseying to Randy-in-lord-costume.

  A milkmaid! I’m a milkmaid next to His High Lordyness!

  “Perhaps the lesser landed gentry. I understand your family were farmers who worked their land.”

  She gasped. “And this is how much lower than a lord?”

  He lifted a hand, as if to smooth over the insult. “This is scarcely the moment for a lecture on the order of precedence. You would never have been a servant. But we could not have met, let us say, at a ball, as equals in polite society.”

  “I suppose I would be too low for you to fuck!” she exploded. “I would hope I’m higher than those whores you skanked around with, or, wait, was that after your mistress shitcanned you for being lousy in bed?”

  “Whatever a gentleman chooses to do, if he does it with good ton, cannot but be acceptable,” he said stiffly.

  “Say that in American. You’re in America now. Without a green card, may I add.”

  He looked tight and snooty and lordy and offended. I have to start treating him like an adult. He’s a hundred and ninety-eight years older than I am. He didn’t have the tools to be her roommate in her poky little apartment. It was up to her to set rules and make it work. If she could just keep him from getting emotional! I suck at emotional.

  She relaxed. “Let’s make peace. I want to live on good terms with you.”

  “I said that first,” he huffed.

  “That’s how peace negotiations start. We pick a goal together. Is it a good goal?”

  After a moment, he nodded. He started to speak, but the door to the collection room opened just then, and Clay called them back in.

  Virgil stood holding a voltmeter in his hand, touching the probe to the Venus Machine and grunting.

  Griffy was opening a beer bottle. Jewel took it from her and sucked down half in one ice-cold swallow.

  Clay led her to the Venus Machine. “Voilà!”

  Jewel scowled. “Voilà what?”

  He beamed. “It’s fixed. Took some doing, but once I worked out what the ratios should have been on the lateral receptors, everything snapped into place.”

  She drank more beer. “Hm. No, alcohol doesn’t help. What are you talking about?”

  “We set it up wrong. God knows what Kauz did to those poor people at the party. If you still have discomfort from your last go on this machine, I think we can normalize that.”

  She looked in his eyes and saw herself, smiling. “This won’t electrocute my heinie like it did last time, will it?”

  “Checking that now,” Virgil said, looking very technical with his voltmeter and his frown.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like Clay to check it, too,” Jewel said. Virgil looked at her. “Since you messed up last time.”

  Virgil snorted, but he handed over the voltmeter.

  “They’re going to cure Sovay, too,” Griffy offered. “As soon as we know this works on you.”

  Jewel sent her a You’re too nice to live look. “Sovay’s in the kitchen, getting snockered.”

  Griffy raised her voice. “You hear, Virgil? You’re to cure Sovay. She doesn’t deserve what happened to her.”

  “What does this do again?” Jewel said.

  “Well,” Clay said, “the symptoms of arousal resemble the symptoms of a heightened sympathetic nervous system.”

  “So it’s kind of based on real medical principles,” she said, blinking.

  “Oh, Katterfelto didn’t know squat about real medicine, but he knew plenty about the medieval invisible body, and he applied the work of Renaissance thinkers toward a unified field theory.”

  Griffy cleared her throat. “I think she just wants to know how it works.”

  “Quite so, quite so,” Clay said quickly. “Anyway, making it simple and leaving out all the theory,” he made a face at Griffy, “a woman is more attractive when she’s aroused. Her senses are heightened, her circulation system runs at a higher level — that means pink cheeks, bright eyes, a little heaving-bosom action. She’s excited by what she sees and hears, and that makes her interesting, mating-wise. She’s prepared for mounting, if you want to be biological about it.”

  Griffy frowned. “I think that’s too biological.”

  Jewel rolled her eyes. “I am a farm girl.” She remembered Randy’s crack about solid yeoman stock and scowled at his lordship. “But this is all newage.”

  “I think it’s a wishing machine,” Griffy said.

  Clay shrugged. “I only know the three-hundred-year-old theories. If it screws up, who you gonna blame, the theory or your body? If I were you, I wouldn’t blame my body.” He put down the gadgetry, held out his arms, and twiddled. “C’mere.”

  Cautiously Jewel walked forward.

  He took her face in his hands and kissed her, a long, deep, firm kiss that left her cross-eyed.

  “What was that about?” she said groggily.

  “I wanted to do that one more time, before I turn you back into chopped liver.”

  She slapped him, loud but not hard.

  He kissed her again, even longer.

  Griffy started laughing. Virgil whistled. Randy sniffed.

  Clay stepped back and flourished a hand toward the green velvet chair. “Will you take a seat?”

  They didn’t strap her in this time.

  Just as Clay was about to throw the switch, Virgil stopped him and they debated for what seemed like eternity. Clay argued that they had to keep the voltage low and not stimulate any secondary chakras, whatever the fuck that meant.

  A wishing machine.

  Jewel wondered if she could get what she wished for if she imagined it. And that was? God, who ever knows what they want?

  She knew she was was sick of seeing men’s thoughts. Sick of guys trying to hump her leg.

  Before she could think further, Clay said, “Ready?” and the big lever went clunk.

  She didn’t feel a thing.

  Clay said, “How was that?”

  “Allow me.” Randy stalked up to Jewel in his orange crushed-velvet and ruffles. “Stand up.”

  She stood.

  “Look into my eyes.”

  She looked.

  No weird pictures. Definitely no picture of herself curtseying to him in milkmaid costume.

  “I value you,” he said in a low voice.

  “I know you do. I almost wish you didn’t,” she blurted.

  A funny look crossed his face. He backed away and put his hands in his coat pockets. “She’s cured,” he announced to Clay.

  She wondered what he had been thinking about her just then because, obviously, if she had been able to see it, she would have killed him. So it was a good thing she couldn’t.

  “My brain hurts.”

  Clay patted her. “Never mind. The important thing is, you’re cured.”

  Griffy said, “But what do we do with the Venus Machine? Sovay sold it to Dr. Kauz, but—”

  “He’s in jail,” Clay said. “The cops may want it—”

  “I’m keeping it,” Virgil said flatly. “And the psychespectrometer. I was thought we had a deal, but she got annoyed with me after last night and sold it to the fruitcake.”

  “Hey!” Jewel said feebly, thinking she ought to be acting more like law enforcement in this situation.

  “What will you tell Sovay?” Clay said.

  “It all got stolen out of the garage,” Virgil said.

&n
bsp; “That’s true,” Clay said.

  For once Jewel didn’t feel like arguing. She felt cold and limp, like leftover noodles. “Can I go to bed now?”

  “Not yet,” Griffy said. “The pantry is full of FBI.”

  “Oh, shit, right,” Jewel said, and everyone else groaned.

  Virgil felt behind himself for the workbench stool and sat down with a bump, looking gray.

  At that moment the service elevator opened. The cook came in in her bathrobe. “Sorry to intrude, Mr. Thompson, but I thought you should know. It’s about Mellish.”

  Everyone froze.

  “Well?” Virgil said harshly.

  “He’s gone, sir. And he took Miss Sacheverell away with him.” The cook frowned. “He said to tell you he works for the FBI, and he charged her with murdering her last five husbands. He said he found the poison she used on them in your closet.”

  Closet! Jewel made a noise. That’s what Mellish found!

  “I guess I can’t cure her after all,” Virgil said, not sounding sorry.

  “Don’t be mean,” Griffy said.

  Virgil said evilly, “Don’t waste your pity on her. If she’s killed five husbands, she deserves a few toads. If she uses her looks, she could get off scot free. Provided she can keep her mouth shut.”

  “Toads?” Clay said.

  The cook said to Virgil, “Sir, I hope you won’t be angry with me, but I didn’t think it my place to interfere—”

  “No, no.” Virgil waved that away. “It’s fine.”

  “Tell me,” Jewel said to the cook. “Did Miss Sacheverell, well, use any bad language to Mellish as she left?”

  “Oh my, yes, how she cursed. Toads and snakes. Snakes is new,” the cook said, sounding impressed.

  “Toads and snakes?” Clay said to Jewel. “What toads and snakes?”

  “Weren’t you a little surprised by the toads?” Jewel asked the cook.

  “Well,” the cook said, “I’ve been cooking them all week, but I didn’t know where they came from, if that’s what you mean.”

  Jewel smiled. I love Chicago. Nothing fazes us.

  Randy made a face.

  Clay raised his hands heavenward. “What toads and snakes?”

  Virgil said, “Tastes like chicken.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Next day, Jewel sat at her workstation, trying to write a report without saying, They’re all criminals but we got the ones who counted. Ed called her into his office.

  “I’m not done yet.” She closed his door behind her.

  “Screw the written report. I wanna know what happened.”

  She drew a deep breath. “Well, you were right about Kauz’s spa. He was beta testing a potion through a retailer. He hoped to get people addicted to it so he could control them.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I didn’t hear him say this myself, but he told a witness.”

  “Will the witness testify?”

  “If we can get him for making the potion.”

  “So? Subpoena her ass.”

  “Well, turns out the potion wasn’t addictive. Nobody ever wanted more than one dose. It made them, uh, eccentric.”

  Ed’s forehead wrinkled. “What the fuck? You got a sample?”

  “Well, no. I took the last supply off his retailer—”

  Ed nodded. “Buzz.”

  “— But it, uh, got destroyed.”

  “Shit.” Ed brightened. “But you put an anklet on him.”

  “Had to take it off. It was illegal. But Kauz got busted.”

  “So he’s put away.”

  “Overnight, for disturbing the peace. But his spa is closed, and his reputation is in shreds since the news footage.”

  “Footage?” Ed said dangerously. “Anything hinky?”

  Jewel swallowed. “A little. The perp — our other perp — started spitting live toads and snakes on camera. Mostly it was just, like, socialites getting naked in a Marine Drive garden.”

  “Holy Jesus. The Fifth Floor must be shitting bricks.”

  “The snake-spitter-lady blamed Kauz.”

  Ed looked relieved. “That’s good.”

  “And the eccentrics told the press how wonderful he is.”

  “Lemme get this straight. I send you after a magician—”

  “More of a mad scientist.”

  “— Mad scientist and his pusher, and he gets a slap on the wrist, and you lose your samples of the drug, and you had the pusher on a tracer and then you let him go. Don’t tell me the pusher ain’t that homeless kid because fuck that.” Jewel opened her mouth and shut it. “Plus we got a broad who spits toads on TV, and the mad scientist gets a testimonial.”

  “From crackpots, Ed. The whole block party was vomiting.”

  “Block party? A whole block? How many people saw this?”

  “Probably the toads and snakes made them gag,” she added conscientiously. “But the people in the orgy missed everything.”

  Ed looked like his head hurt. “What about your other perp? This is the golddigger with the hinky machine?”

  “Turns out she’s a serial black widow. The FBI got her.”

  Ed seemed to weigh this. Then something outside his office caught his eye. “What’s that guy doing here?”

  Jewel looked through the venetian blinds. Randy and Clay sat at a workstation. “Basic computer training. He worked well with us on this—”

  “He what?”

  “And Clay felt he could be more helpful with some skills—”

  “He’s not a city employee!”

  “It was a three-investigator job.”

  Ed turned color and jabbed a finger at her. “Look, missy.” He stuck his head out his door. “Get in here, you two.”

  The boys trooped in, looking innocent.

  Ed announced, “I got youse all here at once so’s there can’t be no misunderstandings. You,” he pointed at Jewel, “are the senior partner on this team. You,” he pointed at Clay, “are the junior partner. You,” he pointed at Randy, “do not belong in this office at any time. Capisce?”

  “He’s my stealth teammate,” Jewel said quickly. “We work well together.”

  “Fuck that. Tell me you work well with golden boy here.”

  “Clay was great. Full of initiative and ideas.” She didn’t look at Clay. “And Randy was a huge help. He wrestled Buzz to the floor at Water Tower Place.” Ed looked pained. “He also sweet-talked this socialite until she quit threatening to sue—”

  “I don’t wanna hear this.”

  “And then he was, uh, in the suspect’s bedroom and—”

  Both Ed’s hands were in the air. “I don’t wanna hear this.”

  “And he protected our cover by clobbering the butler for me — well, he turned out to be FBI—”

  Ed clapped his hands over his ears. “La la la la la, I ain’t listenin’ to you!”

  “I mean it, Ed!” she protested. “He has skills we need.”

  Randy raised his eyebrows to Clay.

  “Oh, say, can you see!” Ed bawled.

  Clay put a hand on her arm. “Not so much detail, partner. Stick to the big picture.”

  Ed stopped singing and took his hands off his ears.

  Clay said, “Sir, we did the job. We shut down Kauz’s spa and ruined his mayoral campaign before it could start. We got rid of the hinky machine complaint. Buzz is out of the picture.”

  Ed glowered. “For the next ten minutes.”

  Clay put one hand on Jewel’s shoulder and one on Randy’s. “As for Randy, we need him. He’s good. You’re not paying him. You don’t know who he is. You’ll never know what he does. The existence and activities of this division are classifired anyway. To use your own phrase, sir, don’t fix it if it ain’t broke.”

  For a long minute Ed breathed tensely through his nose. Then he turned his back. He told the ceiling, “I don’t know nothin’. I don’t see nothin’.”

  Clay gestured. Randy opened the door, and Clay hustled the thr
ee of them out of Ed’s office.

  Packing her briefcase, Jewel said bitterly, “Thanks a lot. How come he listens to you and he sings ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ at me?”

  “Because I’m a better liar,” Clay said. “A skill you need to hone.”

  “I do not lie to my boss!”

  Clay looked at her pityingly. “No wonder you’re stuck in the Hinky Division.”

  “So explain this, smarty-pants,” she said, nettled. “Was that thing magic or wasn’t it? I mean, it did all kinds of things. And,” she warned Clay, “skip the chakras and potentiometers and shit, because I don’t believe a word of it.”

  Clay raised his eyebrows to Randy. “Over to you, Lord Credibility.”

  “It used the power of suggestion,” Randy said.

  “Griffy called it a wishing machine,” Jewel said. “But then you told that fairy tale, and Sovay started spitting toads and snakes.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Clay turn to Randy and mouth, What toads and snakes? She ignored them.

  “What I can’t figure is, did you suggest that and it went into her, like, subconscious mind, and she did the magic to herself? Did she punish herself for talking mean? That doesn’t make sense. She killed all those husbands. Why should she care about talking mean?”

  Randy looked at Clay. “Everybody’s got a sticking point,” Clay said. “Look at Virgil. Sucks at blackmail, won’t do it.”

  “He didn’t suck that bad,” she said darkly. “But Sovay?”

  “The power of suggestion?” Randy said again. “Griffy’s primary weapon of defense was her sweetness—”

  “I’m glad you admit it!” Jewel put in.

  “— So when I criticized Sovay for shrewishness, she may have acknowledged the fault, if only in her heart. The Venus Machine did the rest. Or she did.”

  Jewel considered this. “I don’t know what’s scarier, the idea that the machine did it to her, or that she could do it to herself just because you suggested it. I mean, you don’t have magic powers — outside of bed — right?”