Divided in Death (In Death #18)(55)

11

Roarke and Feeney stood contemplating a mixed-metal figure in the garden of the house in Queens.

"What do you think it is?" Feeney asked at length.

"I think it's female. It may be partially reptilian. It may be partially arachnid. It seems to have been built out of copper and brass and steel. Bits of iron and perhaps tin."

"Why?"

"Well, that's a question, isn't it? I imagine it's symbolic of how woman can be as sly as a snake, as cruel as a spider or some such bullshit. I believe it's unflattering to the female sex, and know it's ugly."

"I got that part, the ugly part." Feeney scratched his chin, then took out his bag of candied almonds. After dipping a hand in, he held it out for Roarke.

So they munched nuts and studied the sculpture.

"And people pay large bucks for this shit?" Feeney asked.

"They do. Indeed they do."

"I don't get that. Of course I don't know nothing about art."

"Hmm." Roarke circled the piece. "Sometimes it speaks to them on an emotional level, or an intellectual one. Whatever. That's when the piece has found the appropriate home. Other times, more often than not, the money's spent simply because the buyer feels it should speak to him, and is too idiotic or proud or afraid to admit the thing he's just paid for speaks to no one because it's, essentially, an insulting piece of crap."

Feeney pursed his lips, nodded. "I like pictures, the kind that look like what they're supposed to be. A building, a tree, a bowl of f**king fruit. Looks to me like my grandson could've put this together."

"Strangely enough, I believe it takes considerable skill and talent and vision, however odd, to create something like this."

"You say so." Feeney shrugged, but was far from convinced.

"Canny way to conceal observation devices, if that's what it's about."

"Dallas thinks so."

"And she generally knows what she's about." Roarke opened the remote scanner he and Feeney had configured. "You want to run this, or shall I?"

"Your tool." Feeney cleared his throat. "Yeah, she knows what she's about, like you said. A little nervy right now."

"Is she?"

"Hit the jammer on that thing for a minute."

Roarke lifted a brow, but complied. "Are we about to have a private conversation?"

"Yeah." And Feeney didn't relish it. "I said Dallas was a little nervy right now. About what you might do."

Roarke continued to set the gauges on the scanner. "About what?"

"About the file on her father, about what the HSO pus buckets let happen to her back in Dallas."

Roarke looked over now and saw Feeney's face was tight. Rage, he thought, and embarrassment. "She spoke to you?"

"She circled around it some. She doesn't know how much I know about it. Doesn't want to. It's not something I want to talk to her about either, if it comes to that. Since she feels the same, I didn't have to say that you'd told me."

"The two of you amaze me," Roarke replied. "You're aware of what happened to her, and with her instincts she'd know you are. But the two of you can't say the words to each other. You can't say them, though you're her father, more than that son of Satan ever was."

Feeney hunched his shoulders and stared at the mixed media ugliness of a squat toadlike creature several feet away. "Maybe that's why, and it's not the point. If she's worried enough about you going after some ass**le spook, then she's plenty worried. You're not fixing anything if you twist her up."

Roarke set the scanner to analyze the dimensions, weight, and chemical contents of the sculpture. "I don't hear you saying I'm wrong to go after him. That he, or his superiors, don't deserve to pay for standing back while a child was raped, beaten, and brutalized."

"No, I'm not going to say it." Feeney folded his mouth firm, then met Roarke's eyes. "First, it'd be a f**king lie, the sort that'd burn my tongue clean off because there's part of me that'd like to give you a hand with it."

Feeney stuffed the bag back in his sagging pocket, then kicked the base of the sculpture. The gesture was so like Eve, Roarke felt a smile tug at his mouth.

"And second?"

"Second, you wouldn't give a good goddamn about the right or wrong of it. But you give one about Dallas. You give one about how she feels, about what she needs from you." His color came up as he spoke, staining his cheeks with embarrassment. "I don't want to get into that whole thing. Makes me feel like an ass**le. But I'm saying you should think, you should think long and hard about what it'd do to her before you do anything."

"I am. And I will."

"Okay. Then let's just move on."

Though he was both touched and amused, Roarke nodded. "Moving on, then." He disengaged the jammer, then studied the readout from the scan. "I'm getting the expected metals, solvents, finishes, and sealants. That's using the strongest setting corporations and facilities would use in high-risk or sensitive areas."

"Bump it up. Let's see what it'll do with the bells and whistles we added."

"Best move aside," Roarke warned. "The beam may not be friendly to cloth and flesh."