..
I don't know how much time had passed.
A figure approached Brian, yawning, "Morning, Brian. You're looking at that painting again?"
Brian jolted back to consciousness.
He looked up and saw it was old Hardenn.
That Hardenn was exuding a woman's scent today, too. His lecherous spirit never changed.
He nodded, "The recent cases haven't been very challenging, so I let Green and the others handle them for practice. I'm bored, so I thought I'd study some paintings and get a feel for the artistic atmosphere."
"Studying art, that's great!"
Old Hardenn quite agreed,
"Brian, let me tell you, art is all about one word, expensive!
My neighbor's daughter used to work part-time at a hotel, earning just a few hundred dollars a night, and I heard that's after some gold medal test driver appraised her.
That test driver seems to have quit the trade.
Without regular driving reports, her price kept falling.
