And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer & Douglas Adams

Author:Eoin Colfer & Douglas Adams [Colfer, Eoin & Adams, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780141042138
Google: c4NwtNiOR3YC
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Hyperion
Published: 2010-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

Hillman Hunter

Hillman Hunter was more than just a stereotypical Irishman, he was a stereotype Paddy from a bygone era, as imagined by an ex-patriot Celt with emerald-tinted spectacles and a head full of whiskey and nostalgia. Atop Hillman’s head sat a nest of curly red hair, his face was scattershot with brass penny freckles, his bow-legged walk suggested a youth spent in the saddle of a thoroughbred, and a gold crucifix nestled in the V of his open collar. With regards to diddle-ee-aye Irishness, Hillman Hunter was the whole bag of potatoes. When Hillman walked into a room, it took real effort not to greet him with a hearty begorrah, thank God for the soft day and enquire after the health of U2. Even his voice conformed to expectations, and why wouldn’t it, since Hillman had based his accent on that of Barry Fitzgerald, a twentieth-century Irish actor who was old when television was young. The rest of the hackneyed package was equally studied. Hillman had been dying his hair since it turned grey at age eighteen. He’d also become quite the wielder of curling tongs and his fair complexion was freckled by long hours under the sun bed.

And the motive for all this subterfuge? Simple. Something his Nano had told him a long time ago.

‘People buy comfort,’ she had said, slitting a pig’s throat with a corn sickle. ‘If you make them comfortable, then they will buy whatever you are selling.’

The combination of wisdom and arterial blood spray was irresistible and Hillman never forgot his grandmother’s lesson.

Make people comfortable then sell them whatever you like.

So the young Hillman transformed himself into the beloved actor and set about selling expensive stuff to rich folk. He hawked cars and yachts, before graduating to horses and overseas property. He was a natural. Gifted. People loved his oldy-worldy spiel and were charmed by his gifts of miniature diamond-encrusted shillelaghs. By the age of forty, Hillman was a millionaire on commission alone. By fifty, he was halfway to being a billionaire and was commuting between residences in a Jaguar and walking around his estate with the help of two bio-hybrid hips that were better than the old ones and would call the manufacturer themselves if they broke.

There was more money to be had, Hillman realized, if a sharp person could figure a way to round up all the rich folk in one place and keep them shelling out for stuff on a daily basis. But how to achieve this? The answer came to him in a flash of TV news headlines. Times were hard and the short-staffed Sisters of Occasional Succour were being forced to auction off one of the church’s properties; specifically, the island of Innisfree.

Hillman got so excited that his left hip put in a call to Japan.

Innisfree. The island inspiration for Nano’s all-time favourite movie: The Quiet Man. The celluloid home of his own personality template. Fate was dropping him a wink, destiny was slipping him a brown bag, providence was beating him over the head with the hint hammer.

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