Tuesday, Clay came to Jewel’s apartment to walk her to work and found with relief that she was no longer hysterical.
Instead she knifed him with an apology. “Listen, I’m sorry about the other night. I totally lost it. It’s not your fault if I’m—” She didn’t finish the sentence.
“Sh, sh, it’s okay.” He was terrified she would ask him a direct question. Then he might blurt out a confession, and she’d kill him.
She seemed to sense his awkwardness. She made him coffee and left him with a cloud of guilt.
While she was in the shower, her apartment phone rang. Clay picked it up.
“Jewel? Lena.” Lena was whispering.
“No, this is Clay Dawes.”
“Tell her I’m in.”
“I’ll tell her you’re in,” Clay said obediently. Girl secrets.
“I’d rather talk to you anyway.”
“Really. That’s nice of you.”
“You have to talk to her. Make her see reason. I don’t believe she can read that letter and not melt. Randy’s a nice guy and all that, and way hot in bed, but I don’t need to have sex all day and all night, know what I mean? She doesn’t really mean to condemn him to slavery in my bed for the rest of whatever, does she?”
“Randy’s in your bed?”
“She didn’t tell you? It happened when they were on the phone last night. Just make her read the letter. She’ll do the right thing if she reads it.”
“Wait, wait, what letter?”
“I dropped it off last night. The guard put it in her mailbox. Make her read it. I know she’s a decent person.”
Clay made soothing noises until he was pretty sure Lena wouldn’t call back. Then he hung up.
“Clay? Who’s on the phone?” Jewel, in the bathroom.
“Phone solicitor,” he called back.
What letter?
Clay went to the hall for Jewel’s keys and raced downstairs to the mail room. In five seconds he had found Randy’s letter. Hand-addressed envelope, in a script so flowing and perfect that it looked like junk mail from an underwear company, except for Randy’s full name and title on the return address. There was a stamp on it, but it hadn’t been cancelled.
He couldn’t believe his luck.
Trousering it, he ran back upstairs and sat on the couch just as Jewel came out of the back hallway, dragging a brush through her wet hair.
He decided to take a risk. “Velvita called, too. You didn’t mention that Randy got stuck in her bed.”
“Nope.”
“None of my business?”
“That’s right.” She tied her hair back in a ponytail. “I didn’t think you would care. Do you care?”
“I thought the curse was broken. I really did,” he said, feeling guilty, which hardly ever happened to him, and now it was for something that wasn’t even his fault.
It isn’t, Wilma said in his head. But don’t worry.
Soberly Jewel said, “There’s nothing you can do. I’m beginning to think there’s nothing either of us can do.”
You know you never had a chance with Jewel until she and Randy both thought his curse was broken, Wilma said.
Shut up! he thought. This was such a pain, trying to talk to someone he couldn’t see, without moving his lips.
“But it’s not broken!” he said aloud. Darnit, was he supposed to say that to Jewel or to Wilma? “The curse, I mean.”
Don’t worry. She won’t go back to him. She’ll stay with you now.
Jewel looked him in the eye. “I’m not going off to climb into bed with Randy.”
“But you always save him,” he said numbly, like a dope.
“Not this time.” Jewel’s chin trembled. When he didn’t speak, she said, “Put your arms around me?”
He did. She put her arms around him, too, slowly and gently, and he lay his cheek against her hair, feeling unsettled.
He wanted to say, But you’re the good guy, Jewel. I’m the bum who would just as soon let Randy rot.
Well, shoot.
If he had to drag her down to his level to win her, that was the way it had to be.
o0o
Maida’s long-lost daughter walked into the office for the second time in a week.
Maida stood frozen at her desk. “What are you doing here?”
Lena closed the door and sat down. She looked so adult in a black suit and skirt, with her hair in a french twist, that Maida felt a pang.
“Hel-lo,” Lena pronounced in a sing-song voice. “I’m the temp the agency sent to work with Steven Tannyhill.”
Oh, no, not this. “You’re messing around with that Heiss woman. Don’t. She’s a bungler.”
“I’m not.”
I can’t protect her when Steven is like this! “What are you up to?”
“You know, I think I won’t tell you. Last time I came to you for help, you blew me off. Onika Tannyhill has been a better mother to me than you have, and she made me a porn queen.”
Maida bit her lip. “She should be ashamed.”
“You mean I should be ashamed? She doesn’t force me to put up with sexual advances from men I don’t like,” her daughter said, sounding like a snippy teenager.
Inside, Maida groaned, but she didn’t soften her face. If only she had come home instead of to the office! “Steven won’t bother you again.”
“You’re dreaming. He bothers me every time we meet. I see him at the Artistic Building pretty frequently, you know. He especially likes to watch us shooting movies. Don’t worry, he’s never recognized Velvita Fromage as Lena Sacker.”
Lena’s hair was confined demurely at the base of her neck. Her white blouse was crisp, with a soft white silk tie under her chin. She looked fresh, sweet, intelligent.
A memory flashed through Maida’s mind of that face painted like a whore’s in the one movie she’d had the stomach to look at. She shut her eyes.
“Go home. Go back to that woman, or go home. Don’t let him find you here.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Lena said in a hard voice. “I’ll only need to stay a day or two.”
Maida’s eyes flew open. “What are you plotting?”
Lena leaned forward and began to unbutton her blouse.
Her mother shrank back in her chair. “Dear God, what—”
Lena pulled her blouse open, and Maida saw the black box and the wire taped to her skin.
Comprehension flooded Maida.
Lena nodded. “That’s right. So stay out of the way, unless you want to go on record as siding with the bad guys.” She stood lithely and left, buttoning her blouse as she went.
Maida put her elbow on the desk and shaded her eyes with her hand. “What am I going to do?” she said to her empty office.
There was no question what she should do. If that Heiss woman had told the truth —
Maida slapped open the file Jewel Heiss had brought. It was all here. State filings, county filings, a thick stack of documents for WBE qualification, all signed by herself. Even bank statements for a trust fund in her name. The most recent deposit was only a month old.
She felt sick. And very, very angry.
o0o
The Baysdorter Boncil office had not changed much since Lena last sat at this desk. Mike’s girl, Precious, was the first to recognize her. She drifted by with a distant smile on her lips, glanced oh-so-casually at Lena, scoping her clothes, her shoes, her hair, and at last her face. Lena waited gleefully.
Precious met her eyes and nearly fell off her strappy fuck-me shoes. A quick recover, and she sent Lena a bug-eyed look, then hurried away without speaking.
Spread the word, Precious.
Lena breathed deeply. She wasn’t meek little Lena Sacker any more. She had Velvita-power.
The next one to come by was Geri from PR. Geri bent over the front of Velvita’s carrel, looking both ways before she hissed, “Lena! I heard you were doing it with porn stars!”
Lena drew back. “Excuse me?” I haven’t seen her in two years and this is the first thing out of her mouth? Who could have spread the word?
“Is it true that John Holmes has a twelve-inch thing?”
Lena smiled sweetly. “Is it true you frenched Anna from Accounting?”
Geri stiffened. “Slut,” she snapped, and hustled off.
Mike Redpune was next — Radio Precious seemed to be broadcasting. He walked toward her so slowly that she had time to blank her computer screen and get out her steel nail file. He still moussed the front of his hair like a cell phone accessory salesman at Best Buy. She ignored him. He came to a stop with a little swagger and stood there, his hands buried in his pants pockets, smirking. After about a minute she looked up.
“Mr. Tannyhill is still out, Mike.”
“Just coming by to say hi.”
She looked up. This couldn’t be good.
He leaned over the carrel and whispered, “I love your work.”
“Do you. You realize it’s made for women.”
Mike wiggled his eyebrows. “I, uh, still think it’s great.”
Ah-hah. Mike and Precious must have been watching Hot Pink porn together. That’s how she’d been found out.
She sighed. “All right, send Precious over with your red silk boxers and I’ll autograph them. I really do have things to do here today,” she added with an apologetic smile.
Slowly his face reassembled into a puzzled frown. “How do you know I wear red silk boxers?”
Lena said, deadpan, “There are no secrets here, Mike.”
He turned and drifted away, his stride lengthening and getting more decisive the farther he got.
Lena giggled to herself. Then she whisked into Steven’s office, locked herself in, and swiftly trolled through his hard drive. He hadn’t changed his password, the fool. She soon found what she needed.
At two, Sharisse showed up, tapping on Steven’s office door. “Hey. You got here.”
Lena let her in. “Shut it and lock it, will you? I’m almost done.”
Sharisse hugged her hard. “I’m scared for you.”
“Don’t be. I have extreme protection. Did you talk to the girls?”
“All but Precious, and she’ll never cooperate. She totally believes Mike will make her a corporate star.”
“Dumbell.”
Sharisse smiled grimly. “So they’re on board. It doesn’t hurt that that EEOC agent was here for three days. That put some guts into them.” Sharisse hesitated. “Your mom seems on edge.”
“She should be. She’s as bad as Precious.”
Sharisse said drily, “The difference being she was with the head of the firm for twenty-three years.”
Lena drew a deep breath. Her mother’s loyalties were, thankfully, not part of the plan either way. She resisted the urge to call Onika at the hospital. If I can’t do this on my own—
Instead she said, “You’d better get out of here before Steven comes back and starts hammering on the door.”
“He’s getting worse,” Sharisse said. “He’s crazy. I mean, he was inappropriate before, but lately — the language he uses to the employees — and the way he talks to Maida!”
“Oh, really?” Lena said with sinister meaning. She was surprised how angry that made her. “How does he talk to her?”
“It’s like he’s baiting her. Used to be, it seemed like she would snarl back, but not any more. He’s out of control.”
That’s Onika’s fault. Her and her crazy plan to push Steven over the edge. Great plan. Except somebody else wound up paying for it.
“I have a plan.” Lena patted Sharisse’s hand. “You know what I need from you.”
Sharisse said, “Go get ’im.” She jerked her thumb up.
Lena smiled.
The deeper she got into Steven’s locked files, the wider she grinned. She copied all the files she wanted, compressed them, and emailed them to Jewel.
Her cell phone rang as she was finishing the last of the mail. Lutheran General Hospital. Onika’s doctor? Oh, no!
“Everything going okay?” came Onika’s gravelly voice.
“Ohmigod, you scared me to death. Are you okay? Did the new test results come back?” Her hands were busy deleting the evidence of her work from the email system.
“I’ve got mono. I’ll have to stop kissing Harry.”
“You’re kidding.” Relief flooded Lena. “Four MRIs and a CAT scan plus bloodwork and exploratory surgery to find out you have mono?”
“Joke. It’s lung pre-cancer, but they got it early enough. How’s the op?”
“I just got our files. Now waiting for the grenade to go off.” Lena glanced through the venetian blinds on the narrow floor-to-ceiling window beside Steven’s office door. “I’m locked in Steven’s office at the moment.”
Onika chuckled weakly. “We’ll nail him. You, me, and Miss Thing from Consumer Services.” She coughed. “They treating you okay there?”
“No.” Lena flushed. She hadn’t visited her old friends since she joined Artistic, and now she was realizing how smart she’d been. “They’re freaking. They can’t get past the porn thing.”
“Sorry, honey. I did warn you when you started, it changes your life.”
“It does indeed.”
“Did your mom warm up yet?”
“No.” Lena’s tone did not invite comment.
“Hm. Well, remember what I said. Steven’s been going up the pole. He’ll probably top out on you today. If he does—”
“I know, I know.”
“Do you have the ikon?—No, not now. I said, No!—Sorry. The nurse keeps coming in with a fistful of horse pills. I’d be meaner, only he’s got a cute butt. Where was I?”
“I have the ikon.”
“If he gets violent, if he bats it out of your hand or something, you still know what it looks like.”
“Of course. I’ve been at Artistic for two whole years! Onika, take your meds and get some sleep.”
“I’ll lie here on my bed of pain, fretting, until I hear from you.”
“Great. Something else for me to worry about.”
“Phone me when it’s over.”