“You expect me to swallow that hypocritical bullshit?” Remi pointed at Hilo. “The clans in Janloon collect tribute. Why shouldn’t I do the same in Resville?”
“Tribute!” Sana exclaimed with indignation. “Do you think you’re a Fist? Have you sworn oaths to a clan? Will you help a tributary business owner by accepting his son into a martial school, or extending him a loan to expand his store, or paying him if a typhoon hits his house? No, you think the way the Crews think—only taking and never giving. That’s not how we’ll ever succeed in this country.”
Remi sat back in his chair and spread his arms arrogantly, indicating his expensive clothes and the trio of tough-looking young bodyguards standing behind him. “Then I guess we have different definitions of success.”
Remi’s men laughed. They clapped their boss on the shoulder and one of them stuck his tongue out at the room like a hyena, showing off his jade studs. Anden was astonished. Even in Espenia, he’d never seen Green Bones act so improperly in front of senior warriors, much less the Pillar. Sammy and Tod tensed as a warning murmur began to rise from the other men along the walls. Hilo remained motionless.
Cory stood up and spread his hands in a placating gesture to the room. “Take it easy, everyone. Nothing is going to change overnight. We all know the situation in Resville is different from Port Massy.” He spoke amenably, a peacemaker seeking a middle ground. Anden stifled a grimace at the weakness of it, the un-Green-Bonelike retreat. “Look, Jon, if you have no interest in being involved in the association, that’s fine,” Cory said. “But we’re asking you, for your own good as well as ours, to think ahead. Start taking steps to pull out of the riskiest businesses and activities. If you need any legal counsel about how to go legitimate—”
Remi rose from his seat, hands on the table. “I don’t need your help, crumb. I don’t answer to any community association, and I sure as fuck don’t take orders from No Peak.” He turned his head to the Pillar. There were not many men who could match Kaul Hilo’s stare, but Jon Remi was one of them. “How many people have you killed or ordered to be killed, but you’re telling me I’ve got to behave? Your clan’s got office towers and vaults of money and a whole fucking island full of jade, but you’ve got the gall to tell me and my boys not to eat. You sponsor people to come here from Janloon, clan stooges who take up college spots and jobs and who send the money they make back to Kekon, but you want those of us who’ve clawed tooth and nail for our fair share in this country to walk away from our hard-won livelihoods and let the Crews come back in and snap it all up.” Remi’s nostrils flared, and his crudely handsome features darkened with dangerous resentment. “You agreed that I could have Resville. So long as I kept your enemies out, you’d leave me to run things my way. Well I’ve done what you asked, and now you’re stepping on me? You old country kecks think you’re better than the rest of us? No. You owe me, Kaul.”
Anden was sitting close enough to Hilo to feel his cousin’s jade aura ripple and sharpen like the end of a whip. The Pillar said, in a soft voice, “I owe you nothing. You’re not a tributary clan, you’re not a Lantern Man, you’re not even a friend, because a friend wouldn’t speak in such a way, even in disagreement. We had an arrangement. It made you a rich and powerful man. It’s only out of respect for our past alliance that I’m not going to take offense at the things you’ve said. I came to pay my respects to Dauk Losun—let the gods recognize him—and to support his family and successors. I brought none of my Fists or Fingers with me. Look around the room. It’s your fellow Green Bones that are asking you to change in a way that may be hard at first, but that everyone agrees will be better in the long run.”
Remi stood to his full height. The tattoo of the black skull with the snakes coming out of its eye sockets seemed to stretch its deathly grin as he swung his pale sport jacket off the back of his chair and over his shoulder. “I don’t give a shit about the tiny chance of jade being legalized, or No Peak’s investments. I respected Dauk while he was alive, but we’ve got our own territories now and our own ways of handling things. I don’t have a problem with anyone in this room so long as we mind our own businesses and leave each other to eat well. Do whatever you want in Port Massy, but I’ll run Resville my own way.”
The Bad Keck jerked his head to his men, and the Snakeheads walked out of the meeting. No one spoke or tried to stop them as they shouldered past the other Green Bones in the room, smirking beneath their sunglasses as they exited the house. An uncomfortable silence hung in their wake.