Tar and Doun carried the box outside. The two men in the field had finished digging and were leaning on their shovels, resting. When they saw the Pillar coming out of the building, they set down their tools and hurried to help Tar and Doun balance the box and lower it into the hole in the earth. Filling in the two-meter-deep grave took an hour, with all five men taking turns with the shovels while the others rested. At last, there was only a patch of fresh soil to mark where the box was buried, and poking up from the ground, a barely visible stiff plastic air tube.
Without his regular dose of shine, an addict would normally begin to feel the effects of jade overexposure within twenty-four hours. With jade trapped inside an adrenaline-overloaded body, it was sure to happen much faster than that. The Itches would set in shortly thereafter.
They collected the camping lantern and tools from the empty farmhouse. It was entirely silent out here in the country. The night sky was clear and filled with stars. None of the pollution or noise from Janloon reached them, and there were no other dwellings in sight. The nearest town, Opia, was thirty kilometers away on winding, mountainous roads. As they walked back to the cars, Hilo made a point of personally thanking the three Nails (that was what Tar called his people now, to differentiate them from Kehn’s Fingers) for spending what would’ve been a nice evening diligently carrying out such an unpleasant task. All of them—Doun, Tyin, and Yonu—assured the Pillar that it was simply their duty to the memory of Kaul Lan, and they were only sorry that it had taken them so long to find the thief and dispense the clan’s justice.
Hilo said to Tar, “You made sure the bartender who phoned in the tip was rewarded?”
“Of course,” Tar said.
Between handling this and whispering the name of Koben Ento, Tar had been working hard lately. With the clan’s expansion into Espenia, Hilo had some ideas for how to use Tar’s small team in the future, but now was not the time to broach them. He put a hand on his Pillarman’s back. “I know that sometimes I’m impatient or short-tempered with you, but only because you’re my closest brother now, and I trust you with things I wouldn’t trust to anyone else,” Hilo said. “I’m glad I can count on you, Tar. I don’t say it often enough.”
It was the early hours of the morning by the time Hilo arrived back home. He closed the front door quietly behind him as he entered without turning on any of the lights, so as not to disturb Wen and the baby, only two weeks old, a girl of course. In the kitchen, he draped his jacket over the back of a chair and washed his hands in the sink. He was tired, but also hungry and thirsty, so he poured himself a glass of water and took two oranges from the fruit bowl and a bag of peanuts to the table. The Pillar sat in the dark, peeling and eating the oranges and cracking the peanut shells. He was rarely alone, so he relished the moment of peace and did not hurry to go to bed.
Hilo took Lan’s jade from his pocket, set it on the table, and looked at it.
A stir in his Perception told him that someone else was awake in the house. He sensed Niko’s approach before he heard the boy’s feet padding hesitantly down the stairs and stopping at the entrance to the kitchen. The blinds were open over the patio door and the moon’s glow mingled with the courtyard lights so it was just bright enough for Hilo to see his nephew’s face, creased with sleepiness and mild concern. “Uncle?” he said. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“I got home late and didn’t want to wake you.” Hilo held out his arms and the boy came to him, climbing into his lap and laying his head against his uncle’s chest. Even though Niko and Ru knew each other as brothers and called Wen their mother, Hilo always insisted that Niko call him uncle so that he’d never forget who his real father was. Hilo smoothed the boy’s hair and whispered, “Stand up, I want to show you something.” He set the three-year-old (almost four now, Hilo reminded himself) down on his feet and said, “Do you want to know where I was tonight, why I got home so late I couldn’t tuck you into bed? I was searching for something, something that’s been lost for a while, and I finally found it.” He picked up the cuffs and the necklace of jade and let the boy admire and touch them. Some limited jade exposure at this young age was not harmful; indeed, it was beneficial for a child to have a basic foundation of jade tolerance before Academy age. “This was your father’s jade, Niko,” Hilo said. “It belonged to him when he was Pillar of the clan. One day, when you’re a Green Bone, it’ll belong to you. I’ll keep it safe for you until then.”
Niko yawned. “I’ll have to grow a lot bigger first.”
“A lot bigger,” Hilo agreed. He picked the child up and carried him back up the stairs.
CHAPTER 44
The Man in the Middle
Willum “Skinny” Reams stood on a private boat dock under the shadow of the Iron Eye Bridge. It was a cloudy, starless spring night and the dark was almost absolute, save for the lights that illuminated the six-lane freeway that ran overhead, carrying a constant stream of traffic across the Camres River, the rush of the tires above louder than the steady lapping of the water below.
Four of Reams’s coats waited for the shipment along with him. The twins, Coop and Bairn Breuer, stood next to the car that had been pulled up to the pier. Pats Rudy and Carson Sunter kept watch, hands resting on the butts of their pistols. It was not the first time Reams and his men had taken possession of a contraband shipment ferried up the river. The Camres was one of the longest and busiest commercial waterways in the world; for centuries it had been called the Silver Run, but it was also less flatteringly referred to as the Vice Canal, on account of the quantity of drugs and guns that made their way into the city of Port Massy from further upstream. This sort of event was routine for Reams, but he was uneasy tonight because of the nature of the goods. Willum Reams was a smart and ruthless foreman, well respected in the Port Massy underworld, but he was cautious by nature. Unlike his Boss, he didn’t live lavishly and draw attention to himself; he dressed conservatively and drove a perfectly ordinary and reliable Brock sedan. He was a rich man, but he kept his money carefully stashed away and he ran all his jobs with a clear eye for the numbers. Boss Kromner valued him because he never forgot the first and most important job of a foreman, which was to make money for the Crew.
Reams disagreed with his Boss about getting into the jade business. There was money to be made, no question: The Southside Crew already had buyers lined up for the jade that the kecks were selling to them. Rich collectors, other Crews, private militia, mercenaries, and security contractors, even that cult in the north led by that religious nut claiming to be the reincarnation of the Seer—it seemed everyone wanted to get their hands on the green rocks. The stuff had been around for thousands of years, but people were acting as if it were newly discovered. Reams didn’t trust in the wisdom of the crowd. Most people were stupid, and in his opinion, jade was too risky. It would bring down too much heat; the government thought of gambling and drugs as moral failings that destroyed the user but weren’t a threat to the real power in the country, which were the Trade Societies. Jade, however, could strengthen armed and dangerous organizations that would pose a real threat to law enforcement and those in authority. Because you couldn’t have jade without shine, there was bound to be a crackdown on the drug trade as well, which would jeopardize the Crew’s most traditionally lucrative business.