“How is it that you still manage to look like an arrogant prick, even while attempting to be polite?” Fee said.
“It’s a gift, darling. Join me for a drink in my study.”
“Why? Is that where you sup from the hollowed-out skulls of your enemies?” She still followed me down the hall to our left.
“No, they tend to leak. I keep them mounted on my wall instead,” I said, opening the door and sweeping my hand to invite her in. With a disdainful sniff, she entered.
“You garish,pretentiousbastard!” Fee gasped. “Did youstealthat Renoir?”
I stifled a chuckle. I should be catching up on business - both legitimate and not - that I’ve missed over the last four days.There were contracts to sign, meetings to be held, and most likely people to kill.
But a drink with Fee sounded far more enjoyable.
Chapter Thirteen
In which Fee and Alec discuss literature and interior design.
Fee…
During the times I had worked undercover as a corporate security consultant, I’d been in more than a few houses - they never felt like homes - that had been designed to show off the gluttonous tastes of their owners, as well as offering security against the righteous, angry mobs that, hopefully, would one day break down their doors and string the inhabitants up by their ankles.
An entire, early 20th-century ski resort in the Harz mountains - a gorgeous spot with blue white peaks, where red deer and black storks had once lived - turned into a single-family dwelling for three people, one of whom was away at Uni most of the year.
A block in the outskirts of Harbin that looked like a series of small restaurants and family businesses, which were a front for a fortress that could repel an army.The people who had owned those places had been forced out by the tinned fish magnate who now lived there with his twenty Pomeranians.
A mansion that rested serenely on the ocean off the coast of Dubai. Most of it was underwater and it was really quite modest compared to some of the others. Too bad it meant no one else could visit the beach it floated near.
Davies’ Temple of Excess was a different manner of thing entirely. Clearly counting on his armed minions and high-techmonitoring he had eschewed hiding as a form of security and instead did everything up to rolling out a carpet that said, “Come in and rob me. I owneverything.”
Including at the moment me, my family, and soon, Noreen, whose arrival I looked forward to even more than Da did. She was going to eat one of his tapestries and shit it out all over everything else he owned.
Still, his taste wasn’t bad. The study was wood and elegant, with a marble fireplace, and antique furniture that reflected a love of comfort as much as price. In addition to a Renoir that should have been in a museum where it could be seen by all, there were a few other bits of art here and there, though that is the kind of thing I have never developed an eye for. Most of it seemed to be from West Africa and India.
The English love their bits and bobs of art, especially if they stole it from another culture entirely.
The whole place made me itch.
“I’m trying to decide if I should send some of my men to pick up your mother for her safety. It's unclear how far any of this is going to go.”
“If you get Ma into this place you are going to have to dig her out with dynamite and a backhoe.”
“So not everyone in your family is allergic to the finer things in life.”
“Not finer. The farm is fine. The wetlands you are burning up so people can watch TikTok are fine. Ma likes expensive things, most of which are a waste.”
That said, his study was lined with books, which were fine indeed. I knew a bit about them and was impressed with their interesting variety that ranged from matching leather-bound sets that had probably been in his family for over a century down to a stack of ragged, spine-broken paperbacks,mostly mysteries, sitting on the tea table next to a large, brown leather sofa.
On the top of the stack was a copy ofThe Monkey Wrench Gang.
Mycopy ofThe Monkey Wrench Gang.I recognized it by the Irn Bru stain on the top of the pages from when I’d spilled on it the third time I reread it when I was fourteen.
“You thieving shit,” I growled at him, snatching up my book, flipping through the pages. “At least you didn’t deface it with penis drawings and spit.”
“‘One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork,’” he quoted, smirking at me, sauntering to his drinks cart. Probably his favorite daily walk. “I happen to be a fan, from some years back.”
“The hell you are,” I admit to being so offended by the idea I sat down hard, or as hard as the cushiony sofa would allow.
“You aren’t the first tree hugger I’ve wanted to -” he stopped, not sure where to go with that, then went on. “There was a girl at the Ares Academy who was obsessed with the Sonoran desert.” He opened a crystal decanter and the smoky, then sweet smell of an Islay single malt wafted out as he poured us each two fingers.
