The Hinky Velvet Chair (18 page)

Randy had him by the arms in the next moment. Too late.

Jewel stared into the garbage truck.

A keen investigator would be, like, sorting through all the
pooper-scooper bags and spilled pop cans to find one intact potion bottle.

Euw.

“I still have a sample from yesterday,” she said feebly.

Buzz looked crestfallen, then brightened. “Yeah, but your
fingerprints are smearing mine.”

“Smarty-pants.” She put him in the back seat with Randy,
drove to within a block of Virgil’s place, then turned up the alley behind it.

Clay was lurking by the garbage cans, holding a cardboard
box and looking pained.

Jewel parked, shielded from the house’s view by Virgil’s
back garden wall. “Lemme see the package.”

The office had included instructions, which she read while
Randy took Buzz’s bike off the car. No tracking unit. A note from the office
read,
Still adjusting tracker to track
two anklets. Sending tomorrow.
The anklets didn’t look like much, plain
black rubbery bands, each with a little box on it.

“Okay, Buzz, c’mere.”

Buzz approached cautiously, Randy herding him like a
sheepdog. When he saw the anklet, he tried to bolt. Randy caught him and pushed
his face to the alley wall.

“No, no, nonono!” Buzz beat the wall with his fists.

“Oh, hush. Shut up! Buzz, shut up and listen!”

He turned his head against the bricks and rolled one eye
toward Jewel. “I’m a free citizen. You can’t do this to me.”

“You’re about to go to jail for selling a dangerous drug
without a license. Work with me.” She laid her hand on his shoulder. “Buddy,
this is what I keep warning you,” she said in a softer voice. “This is why I
want you to go to high school like a normal kid. Join society. You mess around
on the fringe, you get in trouble. You’re a very creative person and I admire
that, but this is a stupid way to live.”

“I like the fringe. Society doesn’t like me.”

She sighed. “Hold him.” While Randy tightened his grip, she
clipped the anklet around Buzz’s ankle. All the fight went out of the kid. When
she stood up she said, “I’ll take it off when this case is over. That means, if
we need you to testify, you are still wearing it.”

Buzz tried to bolt past her, pushing her aside. Clay caught
him by the tee-shirt collar. He made the kid face Jewel again.

“No judge is gonna believe nothin’ a homeless person says,”
Buzz growled. “Not if he’s wearing a illegal tracer anklet.”

Jewel smiled a tight smile. “You’re so sharp, you’ll cut
yourself. It stays. Now, what’s your cell number?”

He looked sulky, but he gave her the number, which she
tested then and there with her own phone. His phone rang in his pocket.

“Good boy. I’ll call you when I need you. Give him his
backpack, Randy.”

Buzz grabbed the backpack, sent her one embittered glance,
threw his leg over the bike, and pedaled off.

“Go inside, Randy. I have to talk to Clay. No, wait a
minute, come here.”

Clay and Randy exchanged glances.

“Bossy,” Clay said.

“She does her duty,” Randy said.

“Knock it off,” she pleaded, and showed Randy the anklet. “This
is what I was talking about. It has a teeny GPS device in it that’s always
talking to the tracking unit. Which reminds me, you do need a cell phone. That
way, if you’re out and about somewhere, say you’re late coming home, and the
unit stops moving for a long time, the tracker knows. I can call you. If you’re
still connected to the anklet, you can tell me where you are, and that’ll tie
in with the signal. If you don’t answer, I’ll know it’s time to go look for
you, and I’ll have a good idea where.”

Randy eyed the anklet with mistrust. “Buzz recognized it.”

“He watches more TV than you do.” She bent and locked it
around Randy’s ankle.

“But why should he object?”

Straightening, she sighed. “He’s a free spirit. He’s a
runaway, probably from some horrible home we know nothing about. He’s under-age
and he knows he could be sent back to his family if he gets in trouble with the
law.”

“You didn’t threaten him with his family.”

“I’m not a total asshole.” Jewel leafed through the manual
provided by the office. “Battery good for five years. That’s what I figured.”

“I still don’t understand why—” Randy’s voice rose.

Clay blew the gaff wide open. “They put it on paroled
convicts who can’t be trusted to stay put.”

Randy took this big. “What!”

Jewel looked up from the manual to see him swelling and
glaring, headed for full snit.

She stepped as close to him as she could get without rubbing
her breasts against him. “Easy. We discussed this, remember? We’ll both be glad
you have it someday.”

“I’m branded a criminal! Even street urchins will know!”

She kept her voice calm. “Four hours ago, you wanted it.”

“I am not a criminal! I may have no name, no employment, and
no past, but you cannot
chain
me like
a transportee!” He reached down and wrenched at the anklet. “I’ll cut it off!”

“Not with conventional weapons,” Clay said. “That’s
wire-reinforced. Try pulling your sock up over it.”

Randy let go of his ankle and stood, panting and glaring at
Jewel. “You know I am ignorant of the tools necessary to free myself. You take
advantage of me.”

“And you take advantage of me. Think of it as a flawed
partnership. We’re trying to work this out, okay?” she said when he still
looked steamed. “Give it a chance?”

With a brief scowl at Clay, Randy flung away, strode through
the back gate of the Thompson mansion, and slammed it behind him.

Jewel rubbed her temple. “That went well, I thought.”

“Touchy.”

“And you were so helpful.” Jewel fixed Clay with a cold eye.
“Clay
Thompson,”
she said as he sidled toward the gate.
“Come back here. With partners like this I don’t need enemies. I can send you
back to the office.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I can get you fired.”

“Bet?” He smiled his kissy-face con artist smile.

“Okay, I can whine and whimper to Ed and pull a Sayers,
freak out, go on psych leave. Then see if Ed’ll make you
anybody
else’s partner. What the fuck are you doing?” she burst
out. “Is this whole case just a scam you’re running so you can keep an eye on
Griffy’s crumbling relationship?”

Clay looked over his shoulder at the house. “Let’s
take a walk.” She let him lead her around the corner onto Marine Drive. “First
of all, I didn’t know Griffy would call the department. She’s usually not so
creative or independent.”

“Oh, that’s insulting. I thought you cared about her!”

Clay walked, staring straight ahead. “I care about her a
lot. She’s been more of a mother to me than any other girlfriend Virgil’s had.”
They crossed Marine Drive and walked down a ramp into a pedestrian tunnel under
Lake Shore Drive. The tunnel was crowded with people headed for the beach. “If
I had to, I would involve the whole department,” he admitted, his voice hollow
in the tunnel. “But I couldn’t see how we could help, and I told her that. So
Griffy phoned in the complaint over my head.”

Jewel lengthened her stride to keep up. “Why didn’t you tell
me all this when Ed gave us the case?”

He was silent. They emerged from the tunnel into sunlight
and into the park.

Jewel pulled him around to face her. “This isn’t a game.
This is my job. And it’s the law. You’re using it like a personal club you can
bring down on people you don’t like.”

“You’re being a little—”

“Sovay? Tell me you don’t want to bust her.”

He looked at her with no expression. “I can’t tell you that.”
But she had a flash of Clay throttling Sovay until her tongue stuck out.

Jewel blinked. “Well, I’d love to bust her. Only, being an
officer of the law, I have to put that aside and look at the facts. The
fact
is, she may be putting moves on
your father, but she hasn’t yet tried to defraud anybody. I have reservations
about Virgil and Herr Doktor Professor Gustavus Katterfelto Kauz, but Sovay, I
fear, has done nothing but be a bitch. Unless,” Jewel added, “she stole the
Venus Machine from somebody.”

Clay shook his head. “Sorry, no.”

“You know this.”

“Uh, a couple of files came with the anklets.”

“And you were going to tell me when?”

He put his palms out. “You were in such a hurry with the
anklets, I thought you’d rather deal with higher priorities.” The relaxed,
nasal whine was back in his voice, and she knew he’d recovered his balance.

“That reminds me, what have you done with the background
checks
you
did on these people? Ed
says he doesn’t have them.”

“Didn’t you find those?” Clay in an innocent voice.

“Look me in the eye.”
He
didn’t know about the latest wrinkle from the Venus Machine.

He met her look with his blandest boy-next-door face.

She said, “Are you worried that there’s a warrant
outstanding against Virgil?”

“No.”

Looking deep into his baby blues, she could think of nothing
but holding his hand. Then she realized he was holding her hand. He lifted it
to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

“Jewel, I want Griffy to have what she wants.”

“Is that all you want?” She searched his face. Again, she
got a picture of a picket fence and a golden retriever on a lawn.

This new Venus Machine wrinkle was worthless. Like every
other kind of magic she’d been forced to deal with.

“That’s all,” Clay said. “Oh, I also want to keep my job.”

She pulled her hand free. “Then you’ll remember who your
senior partner is. You stick around for when I need you. And you’ll cough up
those files, including the ones that came today, as soon as we get back to the
house.”

“Absolutely.” He was back in control.

“And take this sample to the lab for me?” She rummaged in
her purse. “Dammit, I had it here a minute ago.” Then she remembered Buzz
shoving her, trying to escape, and sighed.

“Can’t find it?”

“He must have sneaked it out of my purse. That kid has way
too many survival skills.”

“I could chase after him.”

She groaned in frustration. “It’s gone now. Sold or thrown
in a dumpster.”

Clay patted her shoulder. “What else can I do for you,
partner?”

“You can get Randy a fake identity so I don’t have to shit
bricks every time he goes out in public.”

Clay kissed her knuckles again. “For you, anything.”

She threw up her hands and turned back toward Virgil’s
house. “Groovy. Get that sex demon to quit pouting, and we’ve almost got a
team.”

Jewel sent Clay up to his room for the files and went in
search of Randy.

She found a maid in the card room, vacuuming. No Randy.

She found Griffy in the kitchen with Mellish and the cook
and a woman from a catering firm. No Randy.

She found Kauz in the collection room, taking pictures of
things with his psychespectrometer. No Randy.

No Sovay, either, which put a sour taste in her mouth.

She even tried her own room, where “Lord Darner” might be
sulking, lying in wait for her. Nope.

She did find Virgil standing in front of the bedroom door
across the hall from hers, his knuckle raised to knock, and his ear cocked.

“Virgil, have you seen Lord Darner?”

“Lord Darner? Why, no, I haven’t.” There was the faintest
tremor in Virgil’s hand, and he smiled senilely. “I’ve been looking for Ms.
Sacheverell, myself. This is her room.”

Just then Jewel heard a rhythmic thump-and-squeak from
inside Sovay’s room.
Randy and the snake!
She felt herself blush. “Okay, guess I’ll, uh, go to my room,” she said loudly.
The thumping stopped. Heat rose up her back, burning all the way to her ears.
She blundered through her bedroom door across the hall.

On a second thought, she closed the door, then opened it a
fraction and laid her ear against the gap.

Knock knock knock.
“Sovay, my dear? Are you in there?”
Knock
knock knock.
Man, this guy had no tact. Or else he hoped to catch them at
it. Virgil wasn’t deaf, and he wasn’t gaga.

Knock knock knock.
“Sovay? We’re almost ready for lunch. I’ve come to take you down.”

Now there was a double entendre, if you chose to hear it.

Jewel heard a door open and Sovay’s muffled voice. “Sorry,
darling, I was napping.”
I’ll bet,
Jewel thought.

“Shall I come in?”

“No!” A rather artificial giggle followed this heart cry.

“I could help zip you up,” Virgil chortled. Peeking, Jewel
saw him start to push his way into Sovay’s bedroom.

Sovay’s hands appeared, shoving him back out into the hall.

Jewel ducked inside her room.

Sovay’s door slammed. “Be right with you, darling!”

“Of course, of course. You look charming in that negligee,
my dear.”