The Hinky Velvet Chair (33 page)

Jewel watched and waited.

No horns sprouted from Sovay’s forehead. No steam came out
of her ears.

Disappointed, Jewel led her into the house.

The caterers had gone. The servants were in bed. In her
deserted kitchen, Griffy sat at the window, too tired to take off her mask,
watching lights flash and listening to the crowd roar in the alley. That
high-pitched whirring noise still came from the air duct. Virgil would yell at
her for not calling for repairs. She wished she had the guts to tell him
another thing or two.

Then Mellish came staggering into the kitchen from the back
stairs, nursing his jaw. He saw her and stood up tall.

He looked a lot less like a butler and more scary.

“Is your partner around?” He felt his jaw again. “He packs a
wallop. Look, I’m sorry I didn’t identify myself earlier, but this case has
been a long time closing.” Then he pulled out his wallet and showed Griffy a
shiny badge that said FBI.

Her heart leaped into her throat.

“Years,” Mellish said, fishing in the freezer. He pulled out
a bag of frozen corn and laid it against his jaw. “Ow. We had our perp ID’ed
early, but getting solid evidence has been a bitch and a half. We’re not asking
you to put your case on hold. I’m almost ready to make my bust. Tomorrow maybe.
Tonight if I get lucky. Work with me, okay?”

Griffy swallowed and nodded, her feathers trembling.
Virgil! They’ve come for you!
Her heart
started thumping.

Mellish turned the frozen corn bag over and pressed it against
his face again. “Mind if I have a drink?”

“I’ll get it,” she whispered. “Sit.”

He took a stool by the counter and shut his eyes, leaning
against the frozen corn.

She walked behind him, silently took a heavy
aluminum saucepan off the overhead rack and, with all her strength, swung it
against the back of his head.

He went down like a rock. Blood ran onto the tile.

“Oh God. Ohmigod, ohmigod,” she whispered. Voices sounded
near the back door. Terror lent her speed. She wrapped a dishtowel around his
head, rubberbanded it in place, grabbed his hands, and dragged him around the
corner into the pantry.

“Please, please, I hope I haven’t killed him,” she prayed
under her breath. “No! I hope he’s dead and he can’t get Virgil. But please, I
hope I haven’t killed him.”

His long legs stuck out of the pantry. After a struggle, he
folded, and she was able to shut the door.

She went back to the kitchen, cold with panic.

There was blood all over the floor.

She snatched up a roll of paper towels, ran the whole thing
under the tap, and knelt, wiping furiously, tearing off three wet towels at a
time, trying to keep it off her dress and the trailing feathers at the bottom
of her mask. When the blood was gone she stuffed the gory evidence into the
kitchen garbage can.

“— Maybe you’ll feel better with a glass of milk in you,”
Julia said, coming in from the garden. She still wore her mask, and she was
half-carrying Sovay.

“Maybe I’ll feel better with a Scotch in me,” Sovay mumbled.

“Hey,” Julia said, propping Sovay against a tall kitchen
stool. “You’re talking. But no snakes or toads. Why is that?”

Sovay sighed. “They come out if I say something bad.” Her
makeup had run, her hair was in her face, and her slinky white dress had
smudges all over it. She still looked lovely.

Griffy pulled off her own mask and threw it on the counter. “I’ll
get you some Scotch.” She fetched a glass and some ice, too. Sovay might be an
awful person, but she looked like she needed a drink. Griffy needed a drink
herself. “How do you mean, say something bad?”

Julia found the Scotch.

Sovay watched her pour and sighed. “Don’t be stingy. I’m
hoping to get really, really, really—” She looked beaten. “Really drunk.”

Griffy said, “How bad does it have to be?”

Sovay took a long drink and set the glass down. “I don’t
know. I experimented with that for a day or two. If I kept quiet, it was all
right. Then that
bloody
machine did
something else to me and I can’t seem to shut up.”

Julia said, “You used it the first night I did, didn’t you?”

Sovay nodded, sucking down another long drink. “It’s been
hell.” She looked at Griffy with dull eyes. “I hope you’re happy with him. The
old bastard.”

She hiccupped and a small toad jumped out of her mouth and
landed on the countertop. Griffy stifled a giggle.

Sovay said listlessly, “There you are. Something bad. And I
should bloody-well like to know who’s the judge of what bad is, and how the
hell they can be watching me.”

“I expect you’re your own judge,” Julia said.

“I’m
the judge?”
Sovay said.

“The power of suggestion made you connect the fairy story
with — with whatever you’ve been up to. Nobody else could have done that.”

Boy, Julia sounded smart. Griffy wondered if she was right.

“Fuck,” Sovay said. “Figures.”

“Don’t swear,” Julia said and, when Sovay gave her a puzzled
look, she added, “It puts off the marks.”

Something chirped.

They all looked at the toad on the counter. It blinked. Its
throat throbbed, and a high, musical trilling came out.

“The fan belt!” Griffy exclaimed. She looked from the toad
to Sovay in wonder. Then she remembered Mellish in the pantry. “Um, Julia, can
I talk to you for a moment?”

She led Julia around the corner and opened the pantry door a
crack. Mellish lay on his face. He hadn’t moved. Blood soaked the towel
rubber-banded around his head.

Griffy felt terrible. “Ohmigod, he’s dead all right.”

“What the—” Julia bent over him. “I can’t see anything.
This mask is driving me crazy.”

She reached up to take it off and Griffy stopped her. “Better
not,” Griffy whispered. “What if he isn’t dead?” Then he would arrest Virgil.

“What happened?”

“He’s FBI. He’s after Virgil. I killed him.”

“Not good.” Julia stood up and looked down at the remains of
Griffy’s butler. “Does he know you hit him?”

“I was wearing my mask.”

Julia said, “The one on the counter in there? Groovy.
Because it’s my mask.”

Griffy looked at her with horror. “Then whose mask are you
wearing?”

“Sovay’s. I noticed that outside. So we’re okay there.”

Mellish groaned. Griffy’s insides did a complicated jump
between relief and dread. He got up on one elbow, craning his neck to look up
at Julia.

Julia took a can of silver polish off the shelf and whacked
him on the forehead.

Mellish collapsed.

Calmly, she yanked the cord off the waffle iron and tied his
hands together behind his back. Griffy watched, heart in mouth, while she tied
his ankles with the rice-cooker cord.

They went out and shut the pantry door.

Julia turned the key in the lock.

“Is he dead now?” Griffy whispered.

“Naw. FBI guys have cast-iron heads.”

Back in the kitchen, Sovay was almost comatose over the
Scotch bottle. Julia laid the mask she’d been wearing on the counter next to
the mask Griffy had discarded. She looked at the two masks. “Excellent. Let’s
go give our news to Virgil.”

And with that she picked up the mask Griffy had been wearing
and carried it out into the garden.

Griffy hurried after, grateful to have somebody smart in
charge. “I wonder who has my mask.”

“Green, right?” Julia said. “Sovay left it behind the
dumpster. Do you want it back?

“Thank you, no.”

Outside, the party was over. The garden was a disaster area,
cake and ice cream everywhere, potted plants overturned, and articles of
intimate clothing soggy underfoot. The alley gate hung open. There was no light
in the garage.

“What happened with those TV people?” Griffy said.

“You don’t want to know. But don’t expect Kauz at breakfast.
If Lord Darner hasn’t got lost again—” She stuck her head out the alley gate
and came back, looking displeased.
“Now
where are they?”

Griffy went into the garage and turned on the light. She gasped.
“The Venus Machine! It’s gone!”

“Halle-fucking-luia. Maybe it got stolen. Or else the cops
took it for evidence against Kauz.” Julia seemed cheerful, in spite of having
just bashed an FBI agent in the head with a can of silver polish.

“No,” Griffy said. “If I know Virgil, I know where it is.”

o0o

“I have the tape,” Virgil snarled half-heartedly, standing
on the second floor landing.

Clay was thrilled to be able to say, “No, you don’t. Jewel
found it when she got Randy out of the bed. I took it to the basement and
burned it.”

The longer he looked at Virgil, the more he realized he had
won. Strange feeling. It was amazing how different Clay’s perspective was after
being in bed with Jewel two nights out of three. He took another step up toward
the old man.

“Dad, I never wanted to be in the game.” Virgil looked at
him warily, and he added, “I know you feel betrayed because I took this job,
but I’m not that good a con man.” For once, Virgil didn’t comment. “I want to
do something I’m good at.”

“Seducing women,” Virgil with a weak sneer. He looked old
and shell-shocked.

“Selectively, yeah.”

“She won’t have you. She’s all wrapped up in the teabag.”

“Lord Pontarsais and I,” Clay said, “have an understanding.”

“Patsy,” Virgil snapped. “She’ll dump you.”

“Not if she doesn’t know she’s got me.”

Virgil looked pained. “Boy, did I teach you nothing? You
don’t hand me a weapon like that and expect me not to use it.”

Clay smiled warmly at him. “You won’t use it.”

“And why not?”

“Because you love me. Because you want me to be happy.”

The old man’s face closed up. Then he said, shamefaced, “I
suppose I must.”

Clay flushed. As displays of affection went, that was strong
language for Virgil.

Virgil started up the stairs again, still tottering but with
his spine straight.

Clay caught up with him. “She’ll come after you.”

“She tell you that?” Virgil said, looking at the floor, but
Clay saw the skin on his dome go pink.

“No, but I know Griffy. She doesn’t give up.”

Virgil took the last four stairs two-at-a-time. With his
hand on the collection room door, he met Clay’s eyes. “I may be in jail this
time tomorrow.”

He might have been saying,
Fuck you, son,
or
I wonder if
it’ll rain.

Clay blurted, “Anything you want, you got it. I know a good
lawyer.”

The claw on the collection room doorknob relaxed. “It isn’t
that bad yet.”

Clay nodded. “Keep me posted.”

o0o

In the collection room, the Venus Machine was in pieces.
Clay and Virgil got to work, reassembling it. Randy stood by, handing them
tools and parts.

“I don’t see what’s so urgent,” Virgil grumbled. “I can put
this together any time.”

“We have to fix, uh, Julia,” Clay said and, for a miracle,
his father didn’t argue.

Then Jewel and Griffy marched out of the service elevator.

Clay flinched at the sight of all that determined womanhood.

“Virgil, we have a problem,” Griffy said crisply.

His father looked taken aback. “Griffy, this may not be a
good time—” Clay savored the moment.

“The butler is with the FBI,” she stated. “I hit him over
the head and so did Julia and then Julia tied him up. He’s in the pantry.”

Virgil seemed to be struggling to change gears.

Clay said, “Did he see you?”

“I was wearing a mask,” Griffy said, “but I think he thought
I was Julia.”

“We could try to pin it on Sovay,” Clay suggested.

“Already done,” Jewel said, and exchanged a look with Clay
that warmed him down to his toes.

Virgil’s head was shaking but he didn’t seem to realize it. “This
is it, then,” he muttered. “They must have something, or they wouldn’t be here.”

Clay shot him an incredulous glance.

The old man took a deep breath. Then he approached Griffy
and took both her hands. “Sweetheart, give us a chance. Please. I’ve been — I’ve
made mistakes, but I can—”

“I’ve decided that I want you, Virgil, but I don’t
need
you.
I have to tell you that.”

He turned her so that his back was to everyone else.
Clay heard him say in a low voice, “I’m saying that I love you. I want you to
stay with me.”

Her voice wobbled. “I always wanted that. But I want to be
me, too.”

“Who else would you be?” Virgil said, sounding puzzled.

She lifted her chin. “You get to be whoever you want to be
with everyone else. But you’re always you to me. I can only be me. I’m not your
sister. I’m me. If that’s not enough—”

Clay’s father’s voice cracked. “Griffy — oh Griffy, you are
enough. I’m a bad hand at showing my feelings. I’m sorry. I love you.”