advantage.”
“I daresay that’s a rather bleak view of the world,” a woman says, whether it’s the same woman as before he’s not sure.
“Madam, I have no view of the world,” Harris pronounces, reusing Feeney’s line of indignity while hoisting a fresh glass of champagne, the taste for which he’s now fully acquired—like the crabapples he and Everett once hurled at each other on their woodlot. “And what can be more bleak than nothing?” he says.
The woman wonders aloud who invited him as a hand brushes his lapel.
“Everything all right?” Feeney says.
“Where were you?” Harris replies, his voice ragged, not his own. “You know I hate dining alone. A vile con man approached me and I had to send him packing.”
“Poor baby,” Feeney says. “But I found our Rockefeller. In a cloud of cigar smoke on the balcony.”
“What took you so long?”
“I was arranging a chat between you two later this evening. Following the entertainment.”
“Oh, I’m sure you enjoyed that,” Harris says. “And get me some more of this champagne, will you? I’ve acquired a taste for it.”
“I doubt that’s a good idea,” Feeney says, pressing a glass into Harris’s hand, in which he’s disappointed to discover seltzer.
“Then escort me to the men’s room,” Harris says amid a sudden wave of nausea brought on by the lingering taste of clams. “That’s an order.” Harris rises from his chair, dragging Feeney behind him, roughly bumping guests as they go. In the stall of the water closet, the nausea dissipates and Harris finds that alcohol has dampened his anxieties concerning their discovery, so he seeks out his describer’s lips and presses them to his own. Feeney tastes of cucumber and tea and cedar shavings.
“I won’t be in any shape to meet Rockefeller later,” Harris declares while washing up at the basin following their intimacies. “So I’m going to proposition him now.”
“Harris, you need to quit this idiocy. Or you and your childish behaviour will derail everything.”
“That wasn’t a request, Liam. And I can still manage quite capably without you,” Harris says, fumbling around until he exits the lavatory, brushing his open hand along the hotel’s velvet walls for both direction and balance. He can hear Feeney trailing at his heels, quietly urging him to reconsider. In the dining area, Harris commands a waiter to escort him to the balcony.
“Mr. Rockefeller,” Harris bellows affably when the cool, cigar-tinged night air touches his face.
“Mr. Greenwood! There you are,” says a warm and resonant voice with an East Coast accent that reminds Harris of his years at Yale. They shake hands, and while Rockefeller’s hand is soft and uncallused, he counters Harris’s strong squeeze with an equally strong one of his own.
“We were just discussing the deal you’ve cut with those yellow howler monkeys,” Rockefeller says, with the slight slur of a man standing on the doorstep of inebriation but yet to step inside. As he speaks, Rockefeller pats Harris on the back of his jacket.
“I sell wood to anyone,” Harris declares with a grin. “Regardless of their zoological heritage.”
“Well said, well said.” Rockefeller pats him again, this time on the neck, as if he were a trusted retriever, and Harris nearly bats the hand away. “But respectfully, Mr. Greenwood, we’re of the opinion that we ought not be aiding these Japs. They’ve invaded Manchuria. And rumours are circulating back at the Capitol that the United States is next.”
“You’ve ceased all your Japanese oil shipments, then, I presume?” Harris says, pausing to let the barb sink deeper, then smiling to mitigate it. “They need a railroad, Mr. Rockefeller. And I’m providing them the lumber to construct one. What they do with it isn’t my concern. I’ve already cut half of the sleepers, and all I need is a bit more acreage to supply the remainder.”
“I already know this, Mr. Greenwood. And as I informed your agent, I will lease you cutting rights, nothing more. Though this time around it seems like there could be some competition from your colleague, Mr. MacMillan. Of course, I will gladly accept bids from you both.”
“That won’t do,” Harris says. “I’m seeking full title.”
“Mr. Greenwood, it seems to me that this charming nation of yours is just one gigantic set of woods. So why don’t you muster up some initiative and go and purchase some other portion of it?”
Ever since his boyhood days of haggling over the price of firewood by the side of McLaren Road, Harris has felt most himself during a negotiation. So he drains his glass and directs