“I hate this tankini,” Jewel groused to Clay. She tugged at the bottom. It didn’t budge. Her frontispiece felt like a battering ram: high, tight, hard, and huge. She felt like she could play football in this swimsuit. She could plow snow. “I don’t want to go out in public like this.”
Clay crinkled his eyes at her. “You’re adorable.”
The house party had gathered in the vestibule. Virgil was taking his guests to the beach for a picnic supper, and to view the kite show and the fireworks to follow. She didn’t want to go. Randy was presumably still somewhere back in the house. Her cavorting with Clay hadn’t flushed him, and that filled her with worry.
Everyone wondered where Lord Darner was. Jewel made an excuse about a ghost hunter in Skokie who’d called in a hot tip.
“I told him it was impolite to leave in the middle of his visit, but he’s such an enthusiast.”
She wanted to get her hands around Lord Darner’s throat and squeeze, but first she had to get over these recurring panic attacks from wondering where the heck his bed could be.
“Well, we can’t wait for him!” Virgil said gaily.
Sovay looked fabulous, swanking in her teeny weeny red bikini and transparent beach robe.
Yet Griffy, though older and softer, got even more wolf whistles for her trim blue one-piece. She smiled and waved, looking thrilled with her celebrity and comfortable with it.
Virgil and Kauz walked behind the women, presumably enjoying the view.
They entered the pedestrian tunnel under Lake Shore. Jewel felt like a Viking in her tankini. She drew whistles, hoots, and animal noises. They follow you like dogs, Randy had said. Too proud to cringe, she held her head high and avoided men’s eyes, praying that nobody she knew—
“Jules! Baby!” came a shout behind her. “Where ya been?!”
She grabbed Clay’s arm and squeezed it.
“Hey! Hey, Jules!” A volleyball team clogged the end of the pedestrian tunnel. Their leader, a sunburned hunk Jewel remembered from some years ago, frolicked up to her. “It’s me, Fred, from the Katz Beer Tournament? Whoa, baby, you look hot!”
“Fred, this is Clay, my partner.”
Fred’s face fell. “You’re kidding. You’re out of circulation? Oh, man!”
Clay was a picture of huffy possessiveness. “Yeah, she is.”
“Oh, man! Bummer! Man, nobody’ll believe this.” Fred turned to his teammates, who clustered around as if hoping Jewel’s touch could cure them of scrofula. He bellowed, “She’s out of circulation!” His voice echoed down the tunnel.
A chorus of groans greeted this announcement.
Griffy beckoned to Mellish, trailing the party with Mike the chauffeur and a load of picnic gear. Mellish put his load down and went back to the house.
“Jules, I still have a lock of your pube hair.”
“Hey, Jules, is your number the same?”
“Yeah, if you ever dump this guy, like, call me!”
Sovay’s lip curled. Jewel burned with humiliation. Clay put his arm around her and said, “Guys, can we clear the tunnel?”
“Okay, bye!” The team romped away in Fred’s wake.
One minute later, Mellish appeared at her elbow. “Miss?” He held out a beach coverup and a pair of giant sunglasses. “Miss Griffy thought you might want these.”
“Oh, thank God!” Avoiding his eye, Jewel wrapped herself up like Jackie O. She felt sweaty, but the parade behind her dispersed.
They made it to the beach. Among thousands, she felt less conspicuous.
The summer sun hung low in the sky. The beach crowd was in a festive mood, watching the water kites. Dogs peed, children wailed and threw sand at one another, and humanity sweated in their flip-flops and shorts and tank tops. Pink thunderheads lay far out on the horizon over the lake, making a nice backdrop for the kites. A stiff north breeze cooled the sand and filled the sails of boats on the choppy gray-blue water.
“We need to talk,” Clay said, drawing her away from the party. “I’ll buy you a Mexican ice cream bar.”
“We do. And I never say no to ice cream.” She followed him up the battered concrete walk to where the pushcart stood. “But what about our cover?” she said around a rice-pudding-flavored paleta.
“Between you passing out in my room and Sovay catching us in her room, I don’t think anybody’s surprised,” Clay said around a mango-flavored paleta.
“That’s true, I guess,” she said. “I’m so tired of this Venus Machine crap, I could scream. Remind me to stop jumping at undercover cases.”
“We have to get back to the house and look at those background checks.”
“And find Randy.” She licked her finger. “But when?”
“In another hour it’ll get dark enough for fireworks.”
She nodded. “We’ll sneak away then.”
“You don’t look happy,” her partner said with concern.
“I’m having a panic attack. I can’t breathe, worrying about Randy. Plus I think I screwed up big time.”
“Getting drunk and sleeping with me?” He was such a guy.
“No,” she said, nettled. “But I called that woman I met through Buzz — you would have been there, only you were screwing around instead of working with your partner, remember? She got her friends together, and they worship Kauz’s little pink socks, and if they ever meet him they’ll give him a jillion dollars to further his research. They fucking love that potion.”
“They loved it before. You didn’t do that.”
“No, but I brought them all together and that gave them the idea to, like, organize. If they find Kauz, we’re toast. I may have single-handedly doubled his campaign fund.”
“Don’t worry about it yet.” He leaned closer. “Notice anything about the fair Sovay?”
“Besides the teeny bikini?” she grumped.
“She’s not being such a bitch.”
Flash a bikini on a guy and his brain vanishes. “Sorry,” Jewel said, not sorry. “I look at her, all I can see is five-nine-worth of bitch. Plus she probably stole the Venus Machine.”
“No, she didn’t. She bought it in an estate sale in France two months ago. I traced the sale. No, I mean, she’s not talking trash on Griffy so much. Or on you.”
Jewel eyed Sovay, sashaying beside Virgil like rented arm candy. “Her body language sure is chatty.”
“Pay attention,” he said sharply, and she looked at him in surprise. Clay was never ruffled.
“You okay, buddy?”
“I am not okay. Virgil is showing his teeth. He hates this birthday party. Griffy won’t back down, and this Sovay woman is a menace, and heaven knows how Virgil will lash out if his stupid plan turns sour.” He hesitated.
“What else?” Jewel mentally filed ‘Virgil’s stupid plan.’
“Listen,” he said, and met her eye. “You won’t like this, but the bed we, uh, found in Sovay’s room? That’s not the bed that was in there before.”
She squinted. “What? Before when?”
“Somebody switched the bed from that room after Randy vanished and before we got in there. Virgil must have done it.”
“Why?” She scowled. “Plus, he couldn’t. He’s seventy.”
“He has servants. Nobody else knows why the bed matters.”
Jewel stared blindly at acres of sunburned skin. “He knows Randy was in that bed?” She turned on her partner with razor eyes. “How does he know?”
Clay flinched. “I had to tell him.”
“Why? Because he’s your father?”
“He knows I work with you.” Clay held up his hands. “Hey, take it easy. Flirt. We’re undercover.” He slid an arm around her rigid back. “I told him about my job weeks ago.”
“Randy and — and beds and things is not your job.” She stumbled across the sand. “Oh. You mean your old job?” As in, con artist. She said with horror, “Do you think he wants to run another sex-therapy scam, like you did?”
“I doubt it. In spite of all the newage in that house, Virgil’s a skeptic. I think he took it to mess with me.”
“I don’t get it.”
Clay looked unhappy. “I don’t either. But you don’t see it coming, when it’s Virgil.”
“We have to find that bed,” Jewel said, cold with fear for Randy in Virgil’s clutches.
“First find the anklet. That should be a big help.”
“Yeah.” A nasty suspicion hit her and she narrowed her eyes. “When did you know that bed wasn’t the right bed?”
Clay hesitated. “There’s more. Kauz and the block party. He’s talked Virgil into setting up the Venus Machine and his spectrometer in the alley, where he can give free shots to people at the party. If that doesn’t scare you, it should.”
Holy crap. Jewel imagined a whole neighborhood going through what she was suffering. “I’m scared, I’m scared.”
“Then you’ll love this part. Kauz has called in the society reporters to cover the party.”
“Shit!” This was bad news.
“Lower your voice and flirt. The butler is watching us.” That bothered her too. Randy suspected the butler. She wished Clay had let her see those background checks.
“This is not good. The Fifth Floor will notice. Ed will convulse.”
Clay leaned over and licked the corner of her mouth. She drew back in shock.
“Ice cream face,” he explained. “Can’t help myself, it’s the Venus Machine effect. Flirt with me, partner.” He nuzzled her ear. “So why the big worry? Kauz wouldn’t declare his candidacy to a bunch of society reporters, would he?”
She leaned her forehead against his. “He’s building a media presence. The Gold Coast is a fancy neighborhood. The party will be full of somebodies. He’ll get them giggly over the Venus Machine and take pictures of their damned auras, and then he’ll be in the news. Two things we can’t afford.”
“Two things?”
“Kauz in the media, and magic in the media.” She thought. With media present, Kauz would be dangerous, but he’d be vulnerable. “Huh. Maybe this can work to our advantage.” Clay patted her butt. She twitched away. “Boy, you are grabby.”
He grinned like a dope. “I’m drunk on your green aura.”
They horsed around, following Virgil’s party. Mellish and the chauffeur unrolled a huge grass rug on the sand. Then they set up a folding table. Then the beach chairs. The chauffeur faded back and Mellish unpacked the picnic baskets: candlesticks, wine, cloth napkins, fancy plastic stemware, gold-rimmed plastic plates. Everything was genteel except the noise level.
At long last, Kauz cut loose and ranted, and Jewel no longer wondered if the case was as serious as the Fifth Floor feared.
“With your help, I will usher in new era of harmony!” he exclaimed into Virgil’s ear. “Harmony between magic and science! This fool in office now, he would brush the mighty power of enchantment under the rug. He stands against progress! But he is wrong! Every citizen has a right to magic!”
“How’s your campaign fund doing?” Virgil said.
Kauz’s eyes gleamed. “I can always use more support.”
“I wondered if you wanted to buy the Venus Machine from me.”
Jewel and Clay whipped their heads around.
“But it belongs to Miss Sovay,” Kauz said, licking his lips. “I offer to buy it from her already.”
“She’s selling it to me.” Virgil snaked an arm around Sovay, who looked smug as an Egyptian cat. “I couldn’t let her give it away.”
Jewel met Clay’s eyes. You called that one.
Griffy looked pale. “Will you have red wine or white?” she said to Sovay, as if Virgil were her brother.
From the circle of Virgil’s arm, Sovay hesitated. “White, please. Thank you.”
So Clay was right about something else. Hate Radio Sovay seemed to be off the air.
Virgil passed the glass, wrapping his fingers around the bitch’s hand as he did so.
“Excuse me,” Clay muttered to Jewel. “Don’t take this personally.” He hitched his chair next to Griffy’s. A moment later Griffy giggled and swatted his hand off from her knee.
Virgil sent a dark look at Clay. “Fickle pup.” He hitched his chair next to Jewel’s. “How’s the investigation going? You got anything on that criminal yet?”
It took Jewel a minute to remember all the games they were playing. But why bother? Virgil knows who Clay is. “We almost have him where we want him, sir.”
The cuddly old turtle expression left his face as he watched Clay flirt with Griffy. “Put him behind bars,” he commanded. “As soon as possible.”
He moved his chair back to Sovay’s side just as Clay tenderly wiped Griffy’s mouth with a napkin. Then Virgil ‘accidentally’ dropped a chicken leg into Sovay’s lap.
Kauz leaped forward to brush off Sovay’s beach robe with his napkin. Griffy noticed and her smile turned sad.
I need a scorecard for these meals, Jewel thought.
She looked out at the lake, where a man flew suspended under an oblong parachute striped bright orange and blue, being towed through the sky by a motorboat. “Randy would love that. He’s a flying nut.”
Kauz looked up from dabbing at Sovay’s lap. “Does he make you be flying?”
What kind of question was that? “I’m afraid of heights.”
“The power of air! But you, Miss Julia, you are the power of fire. Air is your friend.” Kauz waved theatrically. “The demons of air obey those of fire.”
She flinched. “Demons?” The man with the blue-and-orange sail came to rest neatly on the back of his tow-boat.
Kauz hitched his chair closer to hers. “All the world is made up of four kinds of demons — air, water, fire, earth. Trillions upon trillions of them.” He smirked and dug her with his elbow. “So much more magical than to call them atoms and molecules. Although the English refer to fairies as atomies.”
“Demons,” Jewel muttered, thinking of her AWOL incubus.
“Someday every man, woman, and child in Chicago will have dominion over these demons!” Kauz proclaimed.
What a bad idea.
“Speaking of the English—” Kauz said.
“Think I’ll go look at the parasail,” Jewel said.
“I’ll come too,” Griffy said.
Virgil waved royally. Jewel and Griffy walked down to the breakwater where the parasail was being moored.