Page 99 of Nothing More

He went to check.

Twenty-One

Tenny wasn’t in the business of giving compliments to people, nor even of acknowledging someone’s strong points in his own mind, but he could admit – to himself – that Katsuya Rydell was, on first impression, a capable-seeming sort. Quiet, composed, styled grungy cool-guy chic enough that he wouldn’t stick out anywhere seedy, nor would he send anyone into pearl-clutching paroxysms in a middle-class neighborhood.

He lost a point, though, for personal reasons.

They met up at a shabby coffeeshop-cum-deli slinging sandwiches that looked life-changing behind a fly-specked counter. He was standing back, watching paper-hatted men slap deli meats and olives on bread for the long line of customers when they arrived, sipping coffee. His gaze slid over subtly, and he nodded in response to Tenny’s initial nod of greeting, eyes sharp beneath the bill of his hat.

He stuck out a hand. “Dan?”

“Yeah.” He was playing American this time, and Southern at that. Points to Kat for remembering the fake name.

Kat’s gaze shifted to Reese, as he shook Tenny’s hand. “And Boone?”

Tenny resisted a grin. “That’s him.” Reese had given him a flat look when he’d explained their code names earlier.

“You have to stop doing this,” he’d said.

“But it’s sofun. No one ever gets them.”

One of Kat’s brows lifted under his hat bill, now. “He doesn’t talk for himself?”

Oh no, mate. Don’t insult the spouse. He pulled his hand back and smiled with all his teeth showing, a trait he and Fox shared, and which Eden had declared “terrifying.” “He does when he needs to.”Leave it, his tone said.

But Kat frowned at Reese. “What we’re doing tonight, the places we’re going – discretion is important.”

Tenny slung an arm around his shoulders – felt him stiffen, prepared to shove him – and leaned in close, still smiling, to whisper, “He goes where I go, sowatch it.”

Kat held his gaze, refusing to back off, but nodded. “Fair enough.”

Things had smoothed after that, but it had put Tenny’s back up, something Reese noticed and shook his head over.

Nerves alight, primed for a spot of trouble, some toothy, dirty work, Tenny let Kat lead them six blocks over to a delightfully rundown, poorly-lit pub.

The walls were red, where there weren’t badly-patched holes, the wood dark, the air – past an initial front room full of shifty drinkers peering over their shoulders from the mirror-backed bar – boiling with illegal smoke. A spread of tables, men sitting hunched toward one another, hushed conversations in a dozen languages. Soccer on the TVs, unwatched, and a pair of barmaids who looked like they slung more than drinks, if asked.

Kat leaned over the bar to speak to one of them, the words lost in the din of competing languages around them, and then flicked his fingers at them to follow as he set off deeper into the bar.

A third, smaller room, with even worse lighting, and a bar that was simply a long table heaped with bottles and glasses along one wall, was full of the guttural murmurs of only one language: Russian.

Anticipation sparked along his nerve-endings, felt like hunger on the back of his tongue.

A little careful asking-around found them in a cramped corner booth with high, privacy-facilitating sides with the searched-for Nikolai. He was a handsome, if nervy-looking kid – and definitely a kid at that; Tenny judged him twenty-one or two at most, with a bit of puppy fat lurking beneath the dark stubble on his jaw, and a smoothness of skin that he was working on aging with the cigarettes he chain-smoked throughout their interview. He’d been coached, obviously, on how to recruit potential members and allies without incriminating himself; his gaze shifted constantly to the room at large, quick flicks back and forth, wetting his lips, shifting on the hard wooden booth.

“I dunno, I dunno,” he said, his accent thin in the way of someone who’d come to the country at a young age, and picked up English fast and forceful. Another drag, an ash, a glance. “I’m not sure I can help you. I sell antiques.”

Tenny put on a lazy,come onsmile. “Aw, man, don’t gimme that. We all sell something. I’m talking aboutbuyingthings.”

They went back and forth, Tenny chumming it up, Kat being the cautionary voice of reason that pulled him back from overstepping. They worked well together, Tenny could admit – again, only to himself. The give and take, the bright and the quiet. Kat knew the city, knew these haunts, knew the bratva in a way that Tenny didn’t.

But the final caution came from Reese, who tapped his thigh beneath the table.

Kat said something to Nikolai, drawing his attention, and gave Tenny the chance to scan the room.

A trio of men had entered, leather jackets, flashy jewelry, expensive haircuts, and bold stances. If Nikolai was bratva, he was low-level. This crew here were upper-crust. They could afford to be obvious about their vocation in public.

Tenny felt a bristling up the back of his neck, and played stupid, as he watched the three newcomers glance around lazily, and then do a double-take at their table.