The Hinky Velvet Chair (37 page)

“No, he won’t. He’ll end up in a bed somewhere,” Clay said,
which didn’t reassure her at all.

“I shall be on my guard,” Randy said, his smile gone now.
Randy had once been an English lord — pedigree, gold, estates, and all — and
then he was turned into a sex demon by a mistress who thought he needed basic
nooky training, and then, two hundred years later, he’d turned up in Jewel’s
life. Gorgeous, arrogant, now brilliant in bed, dirt broke, and unemployable in
the twenty-first century.

Clay had turned up in her life at the same time. It was a
testimony to his con-man skills that he was now her partner and not behind
bars. Jewel never worried about Clay.

But the competition thing worried her.

It was barely seven o’clock, but the complainant had a
funeral to go to that morning, and she’d insisted on speaking to an
investigator. Jewel led the team up to the house, a solid red brick two-story
bungalow with beautiful stained glass windows in front, and knocked on door.

“Best behavior,” Jewel said sternly. The door opened. She
said, “Mrs. Othmar?”

A tough-looking old battle-ax in a long black cocktail dress
looked her up and down. “I am.”

“I’m Senior Investigator Heiss with the Chicago Department
of Consumer Services. We’re responding to a complaint you made through your
alderman.”

Mrs. Othmar said stuffily, “I made no complaint.”

Oookay.
Jewel
backed a step and checked the house number over the door. “Pardon me, ma’am,
but it came down to us from the mayor himself. We take your concerns seriously.”

Mrs. Othmar seemed about to shut the door in their faces and
then she didn’t. “Come in.”

She led Jewel’s team into a dim, cool living room full of
antiques. She thawed when she got a load of Randy’s dark blue Armani. “Please
sit down.”

Jewel took a deep breath. “According to our report, you told
your alderman that a man from the Department of Inspectional Services came to
your door two days ago and asked to see your smoke detectors and electrical
boxes. He found something unusual in your basement—”

“There’s nothing down there,” Mrs. Othmar snapped, and Jewel
thought,
Uh-huh. Not any more.

“And when he found it, he told you he would condemn your
property if you did not remediate within ten days. He also said that
remediation probably wouldn’t work.”

“He said it would cost ninety thousand dollars!” Mrs. Othmar
said indignantly. “That’s ridiculous! Even asbestos remediation doesn’t cost
that much.”

Patiently Jewel resumed, “Then he suggested that since you
couldn’t afford remediation and it wouldn’t work anyway, you should sell your
property to a man he knew who buys such houses and remediates them on the
gamble.”

“Search my house,” Mrs. Othmar said in a shrill voice. “You
won’t find anything.”

Randy had a faraway expression. Clay tapped his knee and
raised his eyebrows. Randy shook his head.

Jewel said, “That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Othmar. We’ll
take your word for it.”

That made Mrs. Othmar blink.

My sex demon is a
walking hinky detector. He would know if there was anything on the premises.

“Do you happen to recall the man’s name? The man who visited
your home? Or the name of the man he said would buy it?”

Mrs. Othmar was still blinking. “I think Joseph? Samuel?
Something biblical. It was on a patch on his windbreaker. The windbreaker was
blue,” she added helpfully.

“Did he show you any identification?”

“Naturally. I insisted.” More blinks. “But unfortunately I
don’t recall—”

“How about the guy who buys hinky — who buys houses?”

“He gave me a card for that man. I’ve been looking for it.”

Jewel’s hopes collapsed. “If you find it, will you phone me?
I’d like to see it.” Mrs. Othmar still seemed upset. “Do you happen to know if
he visited any other homes on your block?”

“I asked around,” Mrs. Othmar said. “He hadn’t. That’s why I
complained to my alderman. It was as if he chose me to bilk.” She was plenty mad
about that. “He must have expected a fool.”

“Well, he knows better now,” Jewel said.

That pleased her. “Of course I complained immediately.”

It took twenty more minutes to get out of there.

On the way to the car Jewel said, “She got rid of the pocket
zone
after
she complained and
before
we got here.”

“Ten four,” Randy said.

She socked him on the arm. “I’m cutting off your television
privileges until you can drive sanely.” She got them onto Lake Shore Drive. A
faint haze of pink smog hung over the Drive, promising a doozy of a morning
traffic jam.

“What
is
a pocket
zone, anyway?” Clay said. “Other than something the city can condemn your house
for.”

“A pocket zone is a little patch of unreality. A — a hinky
spot.” She still found it hard to say the word
magic.

“How big a spot?”

“Depends. They say Pittsburgh started with a pocket zone on
a single seat on a commuter train. They don’t know if some guy died there, or
if a teenager had her baby there, or what. It spread through the train, and
they think somehow the train spread it across the city. Pocket zones formed in
places along the rail lines and the expressways. Nobody knows for sure, and the
people who know the most are behind the yellow-striped barricades.”

“That makes it kind of tricky to gather information, doesn’t
it?” Clay drawled.

“Don’t get me started on how the feds ‘fix’ things.”

“So the city will condemn a place with a pocket zone on it?”

“First I’ve heard about it. Inspectional Services should
have reported it directly to me.” She frowned out the windshield at two
teenagers in Grant Park who were holding up lighters and giggling, trying to
coax a pigeon to bring a cigarette butt close enough to light it. “But if it’s
hinky, it stays hinky, doesn’t it? Randy? You didn’t feel anything on her
premises?”

He shook his head.

“So somebody has figured out how to, what? Fake a pocket
zone? Let’s report to Ed. I need coffee.”

They were stopped dead at the light at Jackson Boulevard.

“I thought I was to drive,” Randy whined. “How may I acquire
a license without practice?”

“Oooh, all right.” Out of misguided pity, she switched seats
with him. While she made notes on her clipboard, she overheard snatches of
conversation from the front seat.

“Darn, she’s moody. You didn’t stork her, did you?” Clay
said to Randy. “Go straight here. You can get off at Randolph.”

“Give her a slip on the shoulder? No.”

“You’re awfully positive.”

“A sex demon knows these things. I see every part of her.”

“Too much information. Turn right here. Wait, wait! Wait for
the light!” The car jerked to a stop. “Now you can go.” The car jerked forward.
“Wait for this guy to turn.” The car jerked to a stop again. Clay called from
the front seat, “Stay calm back there! We’re just building a little
right-of-way awareness!”

Jewel shut the file, laid it on the car seat beside her, and
covered her eyes.

She wasn’t calm. She was jonesing for coffee, tired, hungry,
annoyed, afraid for her life, and, under all of that, horny. Maybe it was
because she was sitting in a car with two men she’d had sex with recently. Clay
claimed he didn’t want to mess up their work partnership by sleeping with her,
but he’d had two shots at it on their last undercover case. He wasn’t bad,
either. And he never, ever stopped competing with Randy.

Randy, of course, did her with mind-blowing magical
sex-demon tricks every single night.

For some reason, dating two guys was exhausting her. Since
she’d hit the city she’d dated uncountable men, bedded and dumped them. When
that got scary she stopped, and, just when the pressure had built to the
internal combustion point, she’d found Randy and rescued him from sexual
slavery to a brass bed. And now he was
her
sex slave. Though Jewel might as well be his slave, since he lived with her,
worked with her, and haunted her dreams.

Add a manipulative sneakypants for a partner. Put them all
in a car. Clamp the lid on and shake—

The car bounced heavily. She bit her tongue. “Ow!”

“My apologies!” Randy called.

“Be careful!”

The car hit a pot hole. Jewel almost swallowed her tongue.

“My apologies!”

o0o

I owe thanks to many people for their help with this book.
In almost chronological order: Rich Bynum, a writer’s dream husband; Nalo
Hopkinson, for The Connection; Pam & Bar Man Mordecai, Larissa Lai, and
Hiromi Goto, for being there from the start; Beata Hayton, for The Other
Connection; “Mr. Balantine” for invaluable insider info; MJ Carlson for
straight dope; Betsy Mitchell, editor and major saint; Ysabeau Wilce, for
brainstorming and lifesaving; Simone Elkeles and Amey Larmore, for synopsis
genius; Officer Sue Heneghan, Chief Greg Shields, and Ed Myer, for advice on
tracer anklets; Arrit McPherson, for advice on parasailing; Cat Eldridge, for
encouragement and support above & beyond all my desserts; Leah Cutter for
cover design, Julie Griffin for the smoking pigeon, Sherwood Smith for
copyedits, and Julianne Lee for ebook formatting; and my wonderful readers,
Jackie Wallis, John & Pam Nikitow, Theodore & Sylvia Halkin, Pam
Telfer, Marianne Frye, Mindy “She’s So” Fine, Yvonna Yirka, Kate Early, Nnedi
Okorafor-Mbachu, Kari Hayes, Bev Long, Martha Whitehead, Marilyn Weigel, and
the ladies of Chicago-North RWA.

o0o

To the heroes of the Chicago Department of Consumer
Services, who make the city a better place to live, in so many ways.

o0o

All Rights Reserved,
including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

This book is a work
of fiction. All characters, locations, and events portrayed in this book are
fictional or used in an imaginary manner to entertain, and any resemblance to
any real people, situations, or incidents is purely coincidental.

www.bookviewcafe.com

The Hinky Velvet Chair

Hinky Chicago Book Two

Jennifer Stevenson

Book View Café Edition September 10, 2013
ISBN: 978 1 61138 287 7
Copyright © 2013 Jennifer Stevenson

First published: 2008

Cover design by Leah Cutter
www.KnottedRoadPress.com
Smoking Pigeon image by Julie Griffin

Production team:
Copyeditor, Sherwood Smith
Formatter, Julianne Lee

www.bookviewcafe.com

Jennifer Stevenson loves dark chocolate, Chicago, and crows, and she would never buy cigarettes for pigeons. She thinks up new uses for old sex demons for money and lives in the Chicago area with her husband and two cats.

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