Anden nodded. “And what did you tell them?”
“I said I’d think about it.” Remi’s thick lips curved. “I wanted to hear the competing offer.”
“You have far better reasons to side with No Peak than the Mountain.”
“I’m keen to hear them, crumb, but not now. You’re a guest from Janloon, so let me show you a good time. I wouldn’t want anyone to say that a representative of the No Peak clan left Resville without enjoying what the city has to offer.” Remi stood. “Meet me at the Blue Olive tonight. Say you’re with me, and they’ll let you upstairs. That way I can buy you a drink, before you try to buy my loyalty.”
_______
“This man, Remi,” Anden said to Hilo over the phone. “He seems green enough on the outside, but he was born in Espenia and I don’t have a good feeling about him. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t respect anything and doesn’t answer to anyone. I wouldn’t want him working for the Mountain as our enemy, but even as an ally, I wouldn’t say we can trust him.”
“Can he do what we want him to?” Hilo asked. “That’s as far as we need to trust him.”
“How much are we willing to give him, Hilo-jen?” Anden looked at the clock on the hotel room table. “It has to be better than whatever the Mountain is offering. Would you grant him the same status as a tributary like the Jo Sun clan?” Anden made a face that the Pillar could not see. It seemed ludicrous to give a young Keko-Espenian gang leader like Jon Remi the same consideration as the Pillar of a minor Green Bone clan, but then again, Resville was a bigger city than anything the Jo Sun clan controlled.
There was also the possibility that if Remi decided to side with the Mountain, or had already done so and was deceiving Anden with this meeting, he might not walk out of the Blue Olive nightclub at all.
“Andy,” Hilo said, “I can’t say exactly without having met this man in person. I’d be there myself if I could be, but then the Mountain would know right away what we’re doing. Figure out what he wants and give him no more than that. Don’t let him get above his place or show disrespect, but make this happen for us. It’s important. You’ve talked to Shae so you already know the numbers. I trust you, Andy.”
_______
Anden did not have anything appropriate to wear to the Blue Olive; he’d packed for a work trip and not a Resville nightclub. He bought an overpriced resort-wear T-shirt from the hotel gift shop and wore it with black jeans and his suit jacket and formal shoes. He wouldn’t be allowed to carry any weapons into the club, but for a long moment, he sat on the edge of the hotel bed and fingered the band of jade stones he wore only when treating patients. If something went wrong, if Remi was luring him into a trap on behalf of the Mountain, having his jade abilities might mean the difference between life and death.
Anden shut his jade into the room’s safe. His instincts told him that if Jon Remi meant to harm him, he would already have done so. And if he started carrying his jade whenever he felt there might be danger, he might as well abandon his one ironclad personal rule and start wearing jade constantly. In no time at all, he would be back to being a Green Bone warrior of the clan, forced to kill or be killed.
He arrived at the Blue Olive to discover that he had overdressed, or rather, dressed incorrectly for the venue. A crush of half-naked bodies filled the dance floor, which throbbed with a mix of Espenian and Tomascian club music and red strobe lights. Two dancers of indeterminate gender gyrated in raised cages in the center of the crowd. Black vinyl stools surrounded the mirrored bar. As Anden passed, searching for the staircase, an older man in a fishnet top grabbed his ass. At first, Anden was too surprised to react. Then he did so without thinking, seizing the man’s wrist, twisting it into a painful lock and slamming it against the bar top. The man screamed a curse over the loud music, but Anden was already regretting causing a scene. He let go and pushed past the people nearby, losing himself in the club’s dark confines before the injured man or anyone else could pursue him. The staircase upstairs was barred with a velvet rope and two bouncers, who let Anden through when he said he was there to see Jon Remi.
He found Remi in the company of two trans women in identical red miniskirts who were both laughing at some joke he’d made. Two surly Kekonese men, who Anden assumed to be Remi’s subordinates or bodyguards, loitered nearby, appearing bored. They looked Anden over as he approached, but at a word from their boss they let him pass. Remi smacked the women on their rears and told them to leave, as he had business to discuss. They did so with pouty faces, giving Anden coy looks as they left. Anden sat down across from Remi, who sat up and turned serious and solicitous.