CHAPTER

4

The Pillarman Abroad

Maik Tar liked to have things to do that kept him busy, even if that meant being sent halfway around the world and finding himself on a boat in Whitting Bay in the middle of an Espenian winter. Having specific tasks to focus on—securing a fake passport and paperwork, collecting information, talking to the right people, planning, getting the boat and equipment—kept him from drinking too much and falling into terrible moods. And then, at the end of all the preparation: the surge of anticipation and adrenaline, the sharp tang of violent satisfaction. Hilo-jen trusted him above anyone else, gave him work that was difficult and brutal because no one else would be as tenacious, effective, and discreet. This knowledge was a light for Tar even in the darkest of moments.

Tar had been told that during the busy summer months in Port Massy, tour boats and private watercraft crowded the harbor and went up and down the Camres River, but this late in the evening in the off-season, there were no other vessels on the water. Tar stamped his feet and blew into his cupped hands, cursing the ridiculous cold as he watched the dim outline of the pier recede into the distance. When he could barely see the shore, Tar shouted out to Sammy in the cockpit. “We’re far enough out now. Cut the engine.”

The motorboat bobbed gently in the dark. Tar went below deck, ducking his head and holding on to the handrail. The cabin was lit with two orange overhead lights and the floor covered with black plastic sheeting and drop cloths. In the center of the room, a man was tied into an aluminum deck chair. The first time Tar had laid eyes on Willum “Skinny” Reams, he’d been wearing a charcoal-gray suit and brimmed felt hat, sitting next to Boss Kromner in Thorick Mansion. Now he was shirtless, goosepimples raising the fine dark hairs of his chest, his face bruised where he’d been knocked about and gagged during transit. His shoes and socks had been removed and his bare toes were curled against the cold.

“How’s it going down here?” Tar asked.

Kuno was kneeling next to a large metal washtub, stirring quick-dry concrete mix with a small shovel. He sat back on his haunches and wiped a gloved hand over his brow. “This stuff will take longer to dry with it being so cold out,” he said.

“There’s a space heater in the closet over there. We can plug it in.” Tar went himself to take it out and set it up. The night would go faster with more hands to help, but he’d brought only Sammy and Kuno with him. The fewer people the better, as he didn’t know or trust these Kekonese-Espenian Green Bones as much as his own men in Janloon. He would’ve preferred to have Doun or Tyin with him, but it had been troublesome enough to set up one false identity, and for the sake of minimizing risk and maintaining good relations with Dauk Losunyin, the local Pillar, Kaul Hilo had not wanted it to appear as if No Peak was overextending its authority in Port Massy.

Reams looked around the boat room with cold rage and a complete lack of surprise. “You keck bastards.”

Tar stood in front of the man and looked down at him. “Why you end up here? Do you know?” he asked in Espenian. Tar did not speak the language well, but this was not his first trip to the country. He’d accompanied the Pillar on his initial visit here, over three years ago. Since then, he’d returned a few times on behalf of No Peak, to train the local Green Bones and do some work for the clan. He’d learned enough to get by. He didn’t need to talk much.

Skinny Reams opened his hands, which were bound at the wrists to the arms of the chair. “I’ve put my share of men in the river,” he admitted somberly. “God knows there’s no shortage of people who’d say I deserve to end up there myself.” He regarded Tar with disgust. “Didn’t think you kecks would be the ones to do it, though. You’re sore about Rohn Toro, but you couldn’t have pulled this off yourself.”

“Rohn Toro is a reason, yes,” Tar said. Sammy and Kuno had been among Rohn’s friends and protégés in the Keko-Espenian Green Bone community; they’d witnessed years of brutal harassment by the Crews against the Kekonese neighborhood in Southtrap, and had been the first to arrive on the scene of Rohn’s murder. That was why they were here, with Dauk Losun’s approval, to exact justice. However, Reams was correct: As the new Boss of the Southside Crew, he was too careful and too well guarded for anyone, even Green Bones, to have snatched him unawares without inside help. “You spennies, though, you are all the same,” Tar said. “Can’t be trusted, not even by each other.”

Kuno turned around from where he was still stirring concrete. He pointed the tip of the hand shovel at the prisoner. “Your fellow Bosses, they’re not too sad to see you go, Skinny,” he said in fluent Espenian. “Jo Boy Gasson and the Slatters all figure you helped put Kromner in prison in the first place, and after the police heat you brought down on everyone from murdering Rohn and nearly killing two Kekonese nationals, they would just as soon be rid of you and make peace with us.”

“Shortsighted fuckers. Turning on a fellow crewboy like that, when it’s you ungodly kecks and your poisonous rocks that need to be wiped off the face of the earth.” He spat on the floor of the boat. The toes of his bare feet were white with cold. “Get on with it then.”

Tar shook his head. “You killed Rohn Toro. And made enemies of your own people. But that is not all. Not why I am here.” Tar took off his coat and set it aside. It was getting warmer in the boat now. He rolled up his sleeves and drew the talon knife from the sheath at his waist. “You strangled my sister nearly to death. Now she can’t walk or talk right. You don’t know who she is, or who I am, do you? Doesn’t matter. All you should know is this is personal from the No Peak clan.”

Skinny Reams had been a crewboy all his adult life and was considered by everyone in the Port Massy underworld to be as tough as they got, but Tar could Perceive the animal fear swelling in him as his eyes traveled up from the edge of the hooked blade to the Green Bone’s face, to the stamp of madness there.

“Kuno, go up to the deck with Sammy,” Tar said, speaking in Kekonese now. “I’ll call you back down when I need you.”

The younger Green Bone hesitated. “Maik-jen,” he said uncertainly, licking his dry lips. “Dauk Losun said we should be quick and careful, the way Rohn-jen always…”

Tar turned his head with a sharp jerk, and the wild light in his dilated pupils along with the knife in his hand convinced the other man to obey without objection. Kuno laid the shovel down, took off his work gloves, and threw a wet drop cloth over the metal tub to prevent the concrete from drying. He took the steps up to the deck of the boat quickly, with only one apprehensive glance backward.

Tar turned back to the man in the chair. He was no longer Willum Reams, he was no longer anybody, just another enemy of the clan, one snaking head of a many-headed beast. The clan had numerous enemies and sometimes they blurred together in Tar’s mind, because in the end they all had one terrible thing in common, and so in a way they were all the same. They should not be able to hurt and kill powerful Green Bones. Men who were better than them, men like Maik Kehn. But they did, and they had, and they might again. They were responsible for the hollowness that followed Tar everywhere now that he knew he would never see or speak to his brother again. So when the man in the chair began to scream, Tar felt as if he were hearing his own cries, drawing out his own feelings.