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there?”
    “Nope,” Geri
said.
    “It must be
killing him he missed it,” Sharisse said.
    “Huh,” Tonia
said. “I think he did it. Whatever it was. Viagra, Ecstasy, Spanish Fly,
whatever.”
    “Oh, I do,
too,” Geri said. “It was Steven. He’s been smug ever since, which just shows
you. Zip-lipped, but smug.”
    “Then what
happened?” Jewel said.
    “I walked in,”
Sharisse said, “late, because I’d been notarizing and filing some stuff at
court for Mr. Boncil, and when I saw all the bare skin I just shut the door and
walked back to my desk and sat there, shaking.”
    “I heard there
was something hinky about the whole scene,” Jewel said. Here we go. Mentally she crossed her fingers.
    “Other than
Mike Redpune banging Precious against the ceiling like it was a king-size bed?”
Geri said tartly. “And bringing the ceiling tiles down? And Mike chanting, ‘Bitch,
bitch, fuck me, bitch,’ revolting pig that he is? And two of the girls turning
into dogs and humping?” She looked at her fingernails. “Anna sprouted two extra
tongues.”
    Jewel realized
her mouth was hanging open. She shut it.
    “Then Maida
walked in and gasped, and it felt like she sucked all the air out of the room
at once. Mike and Precious fell off the ceiling. Maida almost passed out. She,
like, staggered and leaned on the table and one of the girls who was an actual
real bitch bit her on the hand. Hugh Boncil looked up from sitting on
Diane-from-Marketing’s face—I’m sorry, Sharisse, but that’s what he was doing —
and he said, ‘Close the door, Maida,’ and Maida screamed, and the bitches
turned back to normal. And Maida left.”
    “Good grief,”
Sharisse said faintly.
    “What about
you and Anna?” Tonia said, her nose shiny with sweat.
    Geri fluttered
a hand. “Oh, that. That was days ago. I think it was just the heat of the
moment, know what I mean?”
    “So who called
it in?” Jewel said. See who knows.
    “Maida, of
course,” Sharisse said. “Everybody knows that. Steven’s hit on every girl she
hires for him, and when he has no girl of his own he hits on the rest of us.
He’s gotten, like, totally out of control. She wants you to scare him straight.”
    “Fat chance,”
Tonia said.
    “Bloated,”
Geri agreed.
    “Shit,” Tonia
said, and Sharisse looked at her in shock. “It’s twelve-thirty.”
    That broke up
the sangria party.

Chapter Nine

    Jewel bailed
on BB for the afternoon to pursue the clue Clay had found in O’Connor’s
apartment. The boys brought her Tercel to the curb on Michigan Avenue. Jewel
moved Randy to the back seat so she could sit in front. “Clay, you drive. I’m
still high from lunch.”
    “You smell
like a party,” Clay remarked.
    “Sangria with
the girls. I was pumping informants.” She rubbed her head against the head
rest, yawning. “I didn’t tell you to bring him,” she muttered.
    “He wouldn’t
stay home,” Clay muttered back.
    Jewel groaned
aloud. “You two clowns behave, hear?”
    “Naturally,”
Randy said from the back seat.
    “Naturally,”
Clay said.
    “Where’s our
paperwork?”
    Randy handed a
file over the seat back.
    Clay said, “Ed
says the majority stockholder died about two years ago, and the new owner
hasn’t re-registered the place as Adult Use.”
    “What does
adult use signify?” Randy said.
    “It means,”
Jewel said, “that unless they’re grandfathered in, they have to go through
Revenue and Zoning to register as an Adult Use business. And even if they’re
grandfathered in, we have to establish that they haven’t been out of business
for any interval since the original registration. Plus, if they’ve diversified,
i.e., if they have any dependent divisions, those have to register separately.”
    “Gibberish,”
Clay said.
    “It’s
perfectly clear to me,” Randy said. “Even in this republican state, one’s
grandfather is important.”
    “Right. Except
Cook County is solid Democrat,” Jewel said.
    “So they
register