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They got out of the car and walked to the front of the mansion. The guards stopped them and patted them down for weapons. Tar looked affronted at this indignity, but when Hilo spread his arms and submitted without objection, his Pillarman did the same. The coats paid them only cursory attention, but they glared at Rohn Toro with hateful unease, putting hands on their guns and keeping some distance from him. Hilo noticed it, and it improved his estimation of both Rohn and Dauk. He didn’t think of Dauk as a real Pillar any more than the mayor of Janloon would consider the headman of Opia village to be an equal in rank, but it was a sign of the older man’s competence that he had the friendship and loyalty of a deputy who was so obviously feared.

One of the coats led them inside. Crystal chandeliers hung from the mansion’s ceiling and ornately carved furniture rested on rich rugs illuminated by the early morning light that filtered through leaded windows. The air had the musty smell common to wealthy, old buildings. They walked into a room with a heavy oak conference table in the center and oil paintings of famous Port Massy tycoons decorating the walls. On one side of the table sat five men and one woman. Half a dozen coats acting as bodyguards for their respective Bosses were positioned near the walls or doors, standing in a relaxed manner but with their hands resting on their hips or in their pockets in such a way that their pistols were visible, watching the new entrants but also each other. The Kekonese were the last to arrive. This had obviously been by design; the Crew Bosses were bringing in Dauk the way a council of kings would receive a foreign emissary. Hilo waited for Dauk Losun to sit down in one of the empty chairs at the table before taking the seat next to him.

* * *

Blaise “the Bull” Kromner had been born into a childhood of poverty, and though he was now well fed and vain, his enemies would be unwise to forget that he had worked his way up through the Port Massy underworld with absolute ruthlessness and cunning, eliminating many rivals along the way. True to his moniker, Kromner was a beefy man with a heavily fleshed face and a reddish complexion. His features were crude, as if a sculptor had formed them in a hurry, pressing in two shallow thumb dents for eyes and attaching a rough lump of clay for a nose. In contrast to his natural ugliness, Kromner was impeccably dressed. His tailored pinstripe suit and vest fit his broad frame perfectly. The mustache over his broad lips was trimmed and his thick brown hair was neatly combed. He wore a gold watch with a crystal face and a red silk tie. The Bull controlled the gambling and prostitution south of the Camres and a substantial amount of the drug trade. Only the cartels from Tomascio in West Spenda that held sway on narcotics elsewhere in the country competed with him. Kromner was the most famous Crew Boss in the country and liked to be photographed by the newspapers when he appeared at expensive clubs, attended the theater, and dined at the finest restaurants. He was well insulated by layers in his organization, and although his word was law in the Southside Crew, he left much of the day-to-day operations to his trusted foremen.

Kromner was seated in the center chair at the table; to his leftmost side was a short, stocky man known as Joren Gasson. “Jo Boy” ran the Baker Street Crew that controlled the more affluent northeast of Port Massy, primarily Jons Island, and he was dominant in horse racing and bookkeeping. Gasson was a round-faced man with a shrewd, squinty expression, and he was known for being stingy and private, maintaining a low profile and rarely appearing in public. He had the most policemen, politicians, and judges on his payroll, and so all the other Crews frequently went to him and paid him for his influence in society. The use of Thorick Mansion was on account of his connections.

On the right side of the table was a matronly woman with a white scarf around her throat and a cap that sat atop very curly hair. Anga Slatter looked like someone’s rich but shrewish aunt, but she was the de facto acting Boss of the Wormingwood Crew ever since her husband, Rickart “Sharp Ricky” Slatter had been sent to jail on charges of money laundering. It was said that she acted in Ricky’s stead in all things and communicated his decisions after visiting and consulting with him in prison. The Wormingwood Crew controlled the northwest of the city and its inner suburbs. All the other Bosses in the country had lost respect for Sharp Ricky for being so stupid as to get caught on minor charges, and for having no better system of management than to let his wife run the business. Accordingly, they paid Anga Slatter little heed.

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