The Wyr-mink beamed. “Atta girl, now we’re talking. Let’s get down to some serious shopping. You and me, honey. I’ll help you look like a queen!”
“Stanford,” she said, regarding the little man. “Do you get paid on commission or on an hourly basis?”
His nostrils pinched and he shook his head. “Oh, I don’t do commission, honey. Unh-unh.”
She turned to Rune. “Got any cash I can borrow right now?” He dug out his wallet and handed her a hundred-dollar bill. “Can I have the card back too?” He raised a tawny eyebrow and handed her the Centurion card.
She turned to Stanford and gave him the cash and the card. “I want two things, please. First, I want you to take the cash and buy me a pair of size seven New Balance running shoes, and bring them back here with the change. After you do that, I want you to take the card and stock up every food bank in New York.”
The little man paled. “Every food bank? In the city or in the state?”
Her mouth dropped open. “I didn’t think of that. Let’s do every one in the state. How soon can you be back with the shoes?”
“I’ll have them to you this afternoon,” Stanford said. His face had turned glum.
“Thank you.” She looked at Rune, tongue between her teeth. “He did say I get anything I want.”
The gryphon grinned. “He sure did, didn’t he?”
They stood as Stanford slunk away, and the two gryphons took her on a tour of the Tower as promised. They had relaxed enough to chat, which made everything more endurable. She got a feel for the general layout quickly enough.
The penthouse floor housed Dragos’s private quarters. The painting that had snagged her attention the night before was indeed a Chagall, and it sat across the hall from a Kandinsky. Aside from the bedroom suite they occupied last night, there were two other bedroom suites, one of which was draped in heavy construction plastic, undergoing repairs that were being done under the close supervision of security guards. The penthouse kitchen looked like something out of a professional cooking magazine. It was next to a dining room that could seat twelve large Wyr in comfort. There was an extensive library with two skylights, battered, comfortable leather furniture and over twenty thousand volumes on a wide variety of subjects. The library also had a glass case that housed the older, more fragile books.
The living room area was like their bedroom suite, with one wall comprising floor-to-ceiling windows interspersed with French doors. It had two fifty-inch plasma televisions at either end of the room, several sitting areas with sofas and chairs and a bar that was comparable in size to the one at Elfie’s. Only sentinels and selected kitchen, security and domestic staff had access to the penthouse floor.
The next floor down held the large communal areas for key personnel, like the executive dining room, the teleconference room, the gym and training area, Dragos’s personal offices and a large meeting hall. Below that were quarters for the sentinels and certain executives and Court officials and guests from other Elder demesnes.
Then the rest of the Tower was taken up by business offices—international corporate affairs, domestic, Wyrkind and Elder Races. Two floors were devoted to law offices. An entire law firm worked for Cuelebre Enterprises on anything from international corporate law to Elder-human relations, and matters that arose between the Elder communities such as the imposed Elven trade sanctions on the Wyrkind demesne. The law firm litigated matters in front of an Elder tribunal, which was composed of representatives from the seven demesnes, rather like the human United Nations, that heard and settled legal disputes.
The richness, the extravagance of the Tower, with goldveined Turkish marble flooring, gleaming frosted glass lights and polished brass fixtures, was a massive architectural proclamation of Cuelebre’s money and power. She thought of the Forbidden City, Versailles, temples to Egyptian gods. Not quite as tall as the 102-story Empire State Building, this building was no less a palace in a city that worshipped the god of commerce.
In the center of the Tower’s ground-floor lobby stood a third-century sculpture that rose over the heads of the pedestrians. An intact sister to the damaged Winged Victory of Samothrace housed at the Louvre, the sculpture depicted a beautiful, powerful goddess with a stern face. She was draped in flowing robes, with her great wings swept high into the air behind her. She held a sword in one hand, while the other cupped her mouth as she called a battle cry to unseen troops. The statue was from ancient Greece, but the inscription in the modern pedestal was Latin, and very simple.
REGNARE.
To reign.