HardScape by Justin Scott

business? Or are you a painter?”
    â€œI’m not a painter.”
    â€œThis looks like a painter’s studio,” I said.
    â€œI play when I get time. No—to answer your question—I work closely with Jack. I know about business.”
    â€œSo I’m not talking to a babe in the woods.”
    She still didn’t flirt, but she did smile. “That depends on whose woods.”
    â€œWe’re just talking—just us—but you ought to know that the lowest number you allow to be mentioned in a conversation with your realtor is very likely the number he’ll bring you in the end.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œI wouldn’t take a penny under three million. And I’d fight like hell for three-five.”
    â€œEven in this climate?”
    â€œEspecially in this climate. You’ll get some sharpy out here figuring to pin you to the wall—but he’ll have the bucks, and if his wife gets a load of this place he’ll pay you three-five or she’ll stop sleeping with the louse.”
    Mrs. Long laughed. “I get it. Thanks. Come on, we’ll have that drink.”
    We got down to the kitchen and she said, “Any objections to champagne?”
    â€œNone.” I smiled back, thinking I couldn’t imagine a lovelier end of the day, or beginning of the evening.
    She filled a silver icebucket and dunked the bottle. Then she got a pair of flutes and said, “Grab that, if you don’t mind. We’ve got a great place to drink it.” She led me down a hall through a massive oak door to the foot of a narrow spiral stair that led up into the turret.
    I smelled gunsmoke.
    I said, “Your husband been shooting deer again?”
    â€œNo, he set up some targets last weekend. Deer size and shape but only paper.”
    It smelled more recent, to me.
    I followed her pretty bottom up the stairs, flirting with a fantasy that she had broken up with her boyfriend after Trooper Moody and the burglar people left, sent him back to New York, and now felt the need of being consoled. This fantasy worked best when I ignored the fact that they had been playing hide and seek at the Newbury Cookout four hours ago.
    Up and up we went, round and round, our footsteps on the metal steps echoing off the stone walls. Higher and higher, until right under the conical roof we came to a little round platform just big enough for a couple of small chairs and a table for our glasses. I put the bucket on the floor and sat down when she did.
    â€œWould you open it?” she asked.
    I peeled the foil and the muzzle, freed the cork with a modest pop, and filled our glasses. She touched hers to mine and met my eye. Her expression was clear, open and content. “Isn’t this great?” she asked, and I knew in that moment that she was simply happy to have me as a guest in her house.
    Directly in front of us was an opening wider than the bowmen’s windows. Through it we could see for miles, a view like a Dutch or Hudson River School landscape, hills and trees and meadows, all in the fading light of a September evening.
    That part of me that won’t let things be asked, “How could you sell it?”
    She drank deep, and I regretted asking, because quite suddenly she was not content. The idiot she had treated so hospitably had just reminded her of a conflict tearing her life apart. At least that’s how I interpreted the pain that shadowed her eyes. She looked down, stared into her glass, and said, “Everything’s a tradeoff.”
    It occurred to me that the Longs might have gone broke. The Castle wouldn’t be the first great house to mask its owners’ private desperation. But knowing more about her than I had any right to, I figured she was more likely considering leaving the husband, and the money, for the boyfriend.
    I wanted to warn her that her husband knew. The question was what loyalty—or discretion, at least—did I owe Alex Rose. I