The Hinky Velvet Chair Read online

  The Hinky Velvet Chair

  Hinky Chicago Book Two

  Jennifer Stevenson

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Book View Café Edition

  September 10, 2013

  ISBN: 978 1 61138 287 7

  Copyright © 2013 Jennifer Stevenson

  Dedication

  For Rich, my sweet love

  Chapter One

  Jewel Heiss squinched her eyes shut. She was so tired that her hair hurt. Her clothes stank of gasoline. She and her partner Clay Dawes had spent a satisfying day measuring gas, writing tickets to stations whose pumps filled shy, and sitting in traffic. Only one part of her body was in a good mood, and she was even tired of that.

  Late Monday afternoon, the staff room at the Chicago Department of Consumer Services was empty. They were the first team back in the office. Jewel drooped. Clay looked fresh as ever, in an annoyingly laid-back way.

  “I’m gonna become a nun,” she muttered.

  “That would be a waste.” Clay put whitener and coffee in her mug and black coffee in his. “Take tomorrow off. Get some sleep.”

  She sighed. Sleep sounded so good. “I can’t.”

  “Why not? I’ll babysit Randy,” he suggested. “We can do gas stations.”

  Randy was her sex demon. Her source of fantasies-come-true. Some nights, it was so good, she wanted to die in his arms. Some days, she never wanted to set eyes on him again. Once an English earl, Randy had possessed a brass bed for two centuries, after his mistress complained that he was a lousy lover and put a curse on him: Satisfy one hundred women.

  The curse was only kind-of broken.

  He sure knew his way around a bed, though.

  “You need a break from each other,” Clay suggested.

  That was way true. Today she’d left Randy in her apartment, messing with the computer, but he was still waiting for her to come home…and get naked. “There’s a catch, right?”

  “Well, we might go shopping.”

  “You don’t shop. You shoplift.” Clay was a mostly reformed con artist. “But it’s a lovely idea all the same.” Clay had been using the possessed brass bed to sell fake sex therapy when Jewel met him. He wouldn’t be reformed now if she hadn’t ruined his scam by scoring Randy’s hundredth notch in the bedpost.

  Now Randy was celebrating his freedom in her apartment, in her bed, with Jewel. Over and over and over.

  The boss, Ed Neccio, waddled into the staff room, his hands full of files. “You two get in here.” He went into his office and drew the blinds shut. “I’ve got an important case for you. Siddown. Heiss, you look whipped. Don’t your partner let you sleep?” He leered perfunctorily and passed across a thick file. “This is totally stop secret hush hush on the QT confidential, like nobody never knows nothin’ about it, okay?”

  Clay mouthed, Stop secret? at Jewel.

  “That means no blabbing to my wife, Heiss,” the boss said. “You two are chummy, but I’m telling you this is classifired. You talk in class, you get fired. Capisce?”

  She muttered, “Yeah, yeah.”

  Ed aimed his bushy eyebrows at her. “The Fifth Floor’s got an interest in this one.”

  Jewel groaned. She lifted the cover of the file with a fingernail. “Looks like this one’s stale.” She recognized signatures from three different divisions of the department. “Gee, I get to bat cleanup for Digby and Britney?”

  “To hell with them,” Ed said, slapping the file shut. “This is the important stuff. Number one, it’s fraud. I dunno how or where. That’s your job to find out. Guy runs a psychic spa thingy, you get fortune-telling with your facial and shit. Got a million ways to service customers, each one shadier than the other. Every team we send in there, he gets to them somehow.”

  “You try Building Codes and Safety?”

  “They went in first. Clean as a Pekinese’s asshole. His permits are in order,” Ed admitted. “But the guy’s a crackpot. Calls himself a magician. Thinks the city handles the hinky shit all wrong. Wants to start a new era of peace an’ magic an’ age of aquarium moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter lyin’ with Mars. He’s running for Mayor,” Ed returned to coherence.

  “Oh,” Jewel said. “Has it hit the press yet?”

  “No. That’s why this is a rush job.”

  “Shit,” she echoed. “I get it.”

  “Fabulous,” Clay said. “What do you get?”

  Ed waved a dismissive hand. “Explain it where I don’t hafta listen. Couple more things.” He tossed down another file. “Consumer complaint. Woman claims her brother is getting rushed by a golddigger trying to sell him a magical machine.”

  “Should be open-and-shut,” Jewel said. “Find out what her claims are, make a ruling.”

  “He’s a millionaire. You gotta at least pretend to use kid gloves.”

  “No problem,” Clay murmured, leaning over her shoulder.

  Jewel thought, Clay and a millionaire. Scary combination.

  “No problem,” Ed muttered, as if thinking the same thing.

  Clay peered closer at the file and stiffened.

  Then Ed took her breath away. “So, listen, you two. On both these cases….” He hesitated. “I guess I gotta authorize you going in undercover.”

  Jewel choked on a gasp of ecstasy. She sat up.

  “Don’t get excited. You’re still no Alias bitch. Uh, woman. Person.” Ed appealed to Clay. “Keep her outta trouble? Fill in the gaps in her expertise.” He rose. “Now, scram.”

  They stood.

  “One more thing. Know that punk kid you’re always protecting? He’s selling something again, some kinda consumable. If you give a shit, take it away from him before the Department of Health busts him for not having a pushcart license.”

  “Sure, okay, fine,” she muttered. Inside she was wooting. Undercover! Jewel was sick of inspecting gas stations.

  In the empty staff room, Clay flicked the top folder away from her. “Okay, let’s split these up. You take the political case and I’ll deal with this little golddigger thing.”

  “Forget it.” She pulled a chair close to him. “Listen. While nobody’s in here but us.”

  He sat. “The Fifth Floor?”

  She nodded. “The thing is, it doesn’t matter who runs against da mayor, we know he’ll win. But it’s the campaign fuss. The media circus.” She lowered her voice. “This guy’s platform is totally against Policy.”

  They exchanged glances. The Fifth Floor had a lot of policies, but only one with a capital Pol. The Hinky Policy, the reason for their tiny division’s existence.

  “Yeah, yeah, we don’t see magic, we pretend it’s normal, and we cope,” Clay said.

  Jewel winced. If she had to define hinky, she wouldn’t use the word magic. That was kind of the whole point of the Policy and the Division. You just knew hinky when you saw it.

  “Don’t say that word.”

  “So?” Clay opened the skinny file. “Why’s he dangerous?”

  “He can screw up the city. Suppose the nut goes on TV with something hinky? What if he starts giving the public advice about how to deal with the hinky stuff? Other cities are getting sick, but Chicago is da city dat woiks. We work hard at that.”

  “Other cities.” Clay looked up from the file he was reading. “Brussels.”

  “Brussels is actually doing okay,” she said. “But—”

  She met Clay’s eyes.

  They both said, “Pittsburgh.”

  “First thing is to figure out why these other teams flopped. Oh, hi, Britney,” she said in a louder voice as her friend came into the staff room and slumped into a chair. “Run some background on the parties concerned, if you’re so excited about the golddigger case. I’ll t
alk to Britney about this spa.”

  o0o

  Clay took the file to a workstation. His heart was racing. He hid behind his computer screen, opened the file, and glared at the names burning on the single page inside.

  A Ms. Ernestine Griffin (42) had phoned in a complaint against one Sovay Sacheverell (30?), whom she accused of trying to sell a magical antique to Ms. Griffin’s brother— her brother?— one Virgil Thompson (70). Blah, blah, blah, she told me all this on the phone.

  Between every printed word, a dozen had been handwritten and scratched out. That was Griffy. Never could tell a story in a straight line. Clay leaned his head on the screen and breathed softly. This is what I get for refusing to help her. I can’t believe she called this in over my head.

  He glanced at Jewel. She was deep in a girl-type powwow with Britney, the Blonde To End All Blondes.

  He turned back to the file and the computer.

  A quick background check on Griffy, as he’d expected, yielded a pinup poster for her first and only Atlantic City revue. It was probably on the web because of the famous movie star standing next to her in the chorus line. A bimbo of Griffy’s vintage didn’t leave a big paper trail, not when she’d scored so young.

  The Sacheverell woman next. Vassar degree but no social mentions. Hm. He tried the last name, then the first. A Sovay Claire once played on a high school soccer team in south Florida. He traced Sovay Claire for a while and found a head shot at a Vegas talent agency. Zowie. Major brunette. He printed it off. If she wasn’t the right Sovay, she’d draw Jewel off the scent.

  But there wasn’t much else.

  Fishy, that Vassar thing. Long way from south Florida to Vassar. He tried a few different spellings of Sovay, and hit the jackpot with Sauvée. Society wedding, the same major brunette in white next to a millionaire. Society wedding, the same brunette again, with a different millionaire. Clay got a bad feeling. He narrowed his search to five spellings of Sovay and the word ‘wedding.’

  Five different mentions.

  He googled the bridegrooms and, on a hunch, asked for ‘obituary.’

  Dead. Every one.

  Oh, Virgil.

  Okay then.

  Drawing a deep breath, he googled Virgil Thompson.

  Here we go. Author of numerous essays on fake Shrouds of Turin. The articles went back twenty years, which startled Clay.

  Member of the Amateur Mechanical Engineers Society of Great Britain. Lots of old-timey engravings of whiskered guys showing off Rube-Goldberg-like apparati. With every picture he found the note, ‘From the collection of Virgil Thompson.’

  Breathing deep again, Clay opened AFIS, the fingerprint tracking system.

  Nothing.

  Clay searched under AKA Virgil Athabascan, Virgil Marconi, Virgil Dante, Dante Virgil, Inaeas O. Virgilius. He scratched his head and came up with nine more aliases.

  Nothing.

  Well, he hadn’t expected to find anything. His old man was good.

  With care, he wiped the record of his search off the system.

  Good grief. How was he going to finesse this one?

  Chapter Two

  Britney put her head close to Jewel’s. “Tell me about your new partner.” They both glanced at Clay, who seemed to be deep into his computer.

  “He’s weird,” Jewel whispered. “You know how every guy I work with hits on me?”

  Britney grunted. “I can’t believe that one isn’t after poontang. Those eyes. You look so pooped, I figured you two—”

  “It’s not that.” Jewel sent Clay another suspicious look. “I think he wants to know me better.”

  Britney gasped. “You mean he doesn’t want sex?”

  “He probably would if I said yes. But I think he wants to get under my skin.”

  “Don’t they all. Honestly!” Britney sounded exasperated. “Where have all the brainless horndogs gone? Now Digby wants to get all, like, serious. After three weeks! ‘What makes you tick, Britney?’ Like I want to bare my soul ’cause we’ve done it. What if I just want to get laid?”

  “Exactly!” Thank God for Britney, who made sense.

  At this point Randy himself sauntered into the staff room with a garment bag over his muscular shoulder. Tall and dark, with hot black eyes that could see through women, he really didn’t need to be magical, too.

  Before she could chew Randy out, Clay beckoned him over, and soon their heads were together. They were getting along better these days, Jewel noted. Thank goodness.

  The staff room was filling up with investigators dumping their day’s paperwork. Jewel took the thick psychic-spa file to the copy room.

  When she got back to the staff room, Clay had moved to the conference table. He had playing cards in his hands and he was surrounded by investigators. He seemed to be teaching a class.

  “So now Randy signals to me what he’s holding. Don’t look at me, Randy, look at somebody else. Good. So you’ve got two aces and a king?”

  “Queen,” Lolly said, looking at Randy’s cards over his shoulder.

  “That’s the other eyebrow. Okay, good. Wait two beats, then look at me.” Clay turned his head. “Now I’m looking away so I can signal my hand. What have I got? Not you, Randy. Someone else tell me.”

  “Uh, three hearts?” Sayers blurted.

  “Very good, Sayers. But what’s wrong with that interpretation? Three hearts is a bridge term. What card is high? I’ll give the signal one more time,” Clay said.

  “Lemme try,” said Finbow the monosyllabic.

  It was miraculous. A dozen contentious, competitive, bad-mannered investigators reduced to a schoolroom.

  “No cards in the staff room!” Ed bellowed from his office door, and everybody got up fast.

  “You were supposed to stay with the car,” Jewel told Randy.

  “I grew bored with the automobile.” Randy sat in Jewel’s chair, looking smug. “Did we earn anything?” he said to Clay. Clay slapped some money in front of him and he pounced on it.

  “Would you mind not corrupting this man?” she said.

  Clay was looking in his wallet. “Honey, you have no idea how corrupt this guy is. He must have been born with a deck in his hand.”

  “Very nearly,” Randy said, stuffing money in his pocket.

  “If you’ve been teaching him—”

  Clay’s voice dropped. “Okay, here’s how I think we should handle this. You chase after the street vendor.”

  “Now, wait a minute—”

  “Then you two check out the spa while I go to Thompson’s and wriggle into the woodwork. You and Randy show up after I’m in.”

  “Randy is not on this team,” she stated. Randy looked up with a wary expression. “How about the background check?” Her tired heart was dancing. Undercover!

  Clay tossed some printouts on the desk. “Complainant is a former Jersey showgirl. Her brother, the millionaire, collects antiques, crackpot stuff. Newage.” He pronounced the word to rhyme with “sewage.”

  She smiled. “Real or fake antiques?”

  “The machines are fakes. The golddigger looks like the real thing,” Clay said. He tapped a picture. “And she’s got the right bait for her mark. This one here is a well-known piece. It’s been in several private collections over the last century. Keeps disappearing.”

  Jewel took the picture. “What is it?” She turned it upside down. “Is this a chair in the middle?”

  “The chair is Hepplewhite. A valuable antique itself. This unit here,” he pointed to a chunky box covered with dials and Frankenstein switches, “is the CPU, if you will. The tubes and wires probably do something like convey mystic vibrations to the subject. The straps, I’m guessing, keep him from flying out of there like a scalded cat when the current comes up his rear end.”

  Yowch. “Did they even have electricity back then?”

  “Sure. Remember my brass bed? The one you wrecked for me? Many devices of that vintage favored the juice.”

  Randy took the picture from Jewel.
“Graham’s Celestial Bed was electrical. Built in 1778 to treat impotence in men.”

  Randy would know. It happened only about five years before he was born.

  “So this guy collects swindling machines? Kinky.”

  Clay shrugged. “The chair sits in the middle of the Katterfelto Miracle Venereal Attraction Accelerator Apparatus, otherwise known as the Venus Machine. Supposedly it makes you irresistible to the opposite sex.”

  “What’s it worth?” she said, studying the picture.

  “Maybe half a million dollars. If it’s stolen, we can bust this golddigger tomorrow. Won’t even have to infiltrate.”

  “Not so fast,” she said. “Check the stolen property angle, Mr. Underworld Connections. If this is the real thing, then who owned it before her, and did they part with it voluntarily? If not, she’s holding stolen goods. If it’s still in somebody else’s possession, we’ve got her on counterfeiting antiques.”

  Randy pricked up his ears. “We are investigating a lady?”

  “That’s no lady,” Clay said, tossing Randy another picture.

  “You are not investigating anyone,” Jewel told Randy. “You’re my driver.”

  “But you don’t let me drive.” Randy took the picture.

  “Hey, he could sleep with her, read her mind, and tell us all her secrets,” Clay suggested. “Save time. Is that the new suit?” He indicated the garment bag Randy had draped over Jewel’s chair. “How’s it look?”

  “I made them replace the buttons,” Randy said.

  Distracted, Jewel squinted. “How did you pay for it? Oh, no. You didn’t use my credit card again, did you?”

  “I have my own credit card, now. The shop offered me one.”

  Uh-oh. “What did you use for a job reference?”

  He drew himself up to his full height. “They didn’t ask.”

  She slapped her head with one hand.

  “And a social security number?” Clay said, sounding amused.

  Randy waved that away. “I made one up. Why? Is it important?”

  Jewel slapped her head with both hands. “Argh!”

  “Is this the suspect?” Randy picked up the Sovay picture.