Free The Hinky Velvet Chair by Jennifer Stevenson Page B

a discount card!” He shoved it through the crack
as the door shut on him.
    Jewel looked at the latte cup. It had hearts drawn all
around the top in green magic marker. She laughed.
    “What the heck was that?”
    “It’s the Venus machine,” Griffy said. “Venus was the
goddess of love, wasn’t she? She probably blessed the machine, and the machine
blessed you.”
    “I don’t think it’s love on his mind,” Jewel said. She felt
pretty good. It didn’t suck being a love goddess. “Just the power of
suggestion.”
    The door opened. Her masseuse made a noise like an offended
chicken. Jewel recognized the man peeping in as Griffy’s chauffeur. “I’m Mike,”
he said, taking off his cap and looking at her as if she had just invented ice
cream.
    Jewel waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “And? Nice to
see you, Mike, but we’re busy in here.”
    “Um, did you leave a scarf in the car?” He held up a tan
plaid wool muffler.
    Wool? In July? Jewel kept a straight face. “No, Mike, I didn’t, but thank you for asking.
Griffy, is that your scarf?”
    He did a double-take at the next table and looked
embarrassed. “Oops.” He backed up.
    “Mike!” Griffy said in a scandalized voice.
    “Sorry!” He left. The masseuse banged the door shut.
    Griffy said, “Well!”
    Jewel laughed again, her belly shaking her whole body. “Don’t
even start with me. Did I leave a scarf in the car. What next!” The masseuse
squished her shoulders. She relaxed. “Still, I don’t see how the power of
suggestion made those guys follow me ninety floors upstairs.”
    “You don’t think it’s kind of wonderful?” Griffy said. “Virgil
said that Venus is related to the navel chakra. Maybe the Venus Machine did
something to your navel. Does your navel feel funny?”
    “No, but my head feels like it’s gonna come off at the
roots,” Jewel said, grunting under the masseuse’s powerful hands.
    Her masseuse now began slapping her thighs.
    “Ow! Hey! Knock it
off!” Jewel twisted her neck to send a frown behind her. “If I want a spanking
I’ll go to a club.”
    The masseuse bowed. Then she laid something piping hot on
the base of Jewel’s spine.
    Jewel jerked upright. The hot thing rolled onto the floor.
    “I think I’m full up on new things. No. Please, no.”
    The masseuse protested in Ubangi or Ukrainian or something.
    Jewel was firm. “I’m done. I want a shower. Shower? Water?”
She mimed a showerhead. “Shh-shhhh-flflflfl-shhh?”
    The masseuse yanked a hose down off a ceiling-bungee.
    Jewel tried to take it from her. “I’ll do it myself.”
    Griffy said, “You have to go back to the locker room for a
shower. Haven’t you ever been to a spa?”
    Clambering off the table, Jewel wrapped her terrycloth robe
around her. “I think this one time will do me.”
    o0o
    Jewel sneaked back to the locker room, showered off the oil,
and donned a fresh puffy white terry robe. High time she started acting like an
investigator. Her phone had eight messages, all from Ed. She went out into the
elevator lobby to call him back.
    “’S’amatter with you,” he groused, “I been calling all day.”
    “I’m undercover, boss, remember?” The lobby floor was cold
under her bare feet. She huddled into a corner and turned her terry-robed back
to avoid the eyes of disembarking elevator passengers.
    “You done anything about that nutcase in the psychic salon?”
    “I’m there now.”
    “Hurry up. They’re holding election press conferences any
day. Get something on him, fraud, code violation, somethin’ looneytunes.
Feelin’ up the customers, I don’t give a damn.”
    “Fifth floor leaning on you?” Jewel said sympathetically.
    “Commissioner. Seems to think his job’s on the line.”
    “So I guess if I screw up we get a new boss.”
    “You wish. I’m Shakman exempt, they can’t fire me for
political reasons. But the whole friggin’ city could go to hell in a hanky. You
gotta think big