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drive down the
spiralling exit of the parking ramp at the same time. “So how many women have
you had? Not counting your other ninety-nine satisfied customers.”
    He ignored that. “It is said, Vulpus est index anima. Yet men’s souls do not always reveal
themselves in their faces.”
    “I thought you flunked out of lord school.” She pulled out
of the Corncob Building onto Dearborn and aimed the Tercel north.
    He was silent until they got to a stoplight. Then he put his
hand over hers on the gearshift. “Jewel.”
    “What?”
    He said nothing, and she looked into his eyes, big and black
and full of soul. He said gently, “I wish you could know what is in their minds
when they look at you. If you could know what they want from you before you
open your thighs to them.”
    His sincerity punched her over the heart. She swallowed. “Must
you be so coarse?”
    “Their thoughts are not so well-looking as their faces.”
    She said, “You’ve been in all the dirty little corners of my
mind. I’m in no position to criticize.”
    Horns honked behind them. He removed his hand and faced
forward. “Ah. Well. I’m different.”
    “That you are.”

Chapter Five

    Pink smog blanketed the air over Lake Shore Drive again.
Jewel had Randy in the Tercel with her.
    Scoping him from the corner of her eye, she admitted he
looked hot. And rich. Too rich for a city employee, really. How did he do that? Two weeks ago he’d owned two
tee-shirts and a pair of jeans, which he had to keep washing because she
absolutely refused to wait on him. In honor of this case, he wore the dark blue
Blass suit he’d charged using a fake social security number, and the collarless
black silk shirt Clay stole from Field’s for him the night they sneaked in and
she had to have sex with Randy in the home furnishings department.
    She felt like a frump in navy polyester. There was no help
for that, either.
    A lighted cigarette fell out of the sky onto her windshield.
Moodily, she flicked on her wipers. Even the pigeons thought her car looked
like an ashtray.
    “What are we looking for?” Randy said.
    “Buzz. Remember him? He sold you a genie in a bottle.”
    “The djinn merchant, yes. A boy with spots.”
    “Yup. Only he’s selling ‘potions’ now. Ed gave me a chance
to shut him down before he throws the case over to the cops. Keep an eye
peeled. Goddam potions,” she muttered.
    “Do not profane. It puts off the marks.”
    “You know, don’t you, that card sharping is not a job skill.”
Her hair was blowing around, already half-out of its ponytail and sticking to
her forehead. Randy’s hair was black as a crow’s wing and kind of shaggy. In
that suit and collarless shirt, he looked like a hot Euro-bum. “You need a
haircut.”
    “I had thought of letting it grow. I saw a musician on
television whose queue I admired.”
    “His what?”
    “Tied back,” he said, trying to hold his hair in a ponytail.
“Still too short,” he grumbled.
    “It’s a mess.”
    “I was unaware that my personal appearance is subject to
your whim.”
    She played her trump card. “If you’re working with me, you
need to look more like an investigator.”
    He turned toward her, his eyes glowing, and she almost
rear-ended a bus. “I shall be an investigator?”
    “You’ll be my assistant.” Chee, give him a finger and he
took an arm. “C’mon. We’ll hit the Salon on the Mile.”
    Randy cried, “There! I see him!” and pointed.
    “Who?”
    “Your potion merchant!”
    “Buzz? Where?” She was spang in the middle of the
intersection of Ohio Street and Michigan Avenue. Gunning the Tercel, she peeled
past fifty-seven honking cars trying to sneak left turns through the red light.
    Buzz straddled his bike on the sidewalk, his backpack over
his shoulder. The kid was so scrawny. He was selling something to a tourist.
Didn’t he eat? Her heart pinched.
    She squealed to the curb at a hydrant and threw the flashers
on. “Wait here.”
    She let Buzz finish