Karasu, dolled up in a suave black suit for the meeting, had sunglasses tight over his bloodshot eyes. He'd forgone his usual violet contact lenses to help the ache in his head, unaccustomed to early mornings. He had an inkling the man wanted him off his guard, though, so he stubbornly refused to soften. Mistakes were deadly, in this profession. He couldn't afford to make them.
He rarely used, himself, preferring it as a method of control over his toys. He had a cage in his office for those sweet little prostitutes—men and boys—who tried to cross him. How often had he welded the door shut and watched one waste away, sans food or water? It had happened so many times it was almost boring, by this point. Other times the sluts were purposefully held and addicted to drugs, until they'd fuck him like that was their purpose in life, fuck him for the next shot, into their cock, their tongue, their eye if they'd transgressed. No dealer in the world would sell to one of his without his okay.
With his height, he parted the crowds, people turning to look at him, drawn by his high cheekbones and thin lips, pale skin and long blue-black hair braided behind his head. He got a few gringo comments, one bicha, but he let them slide with nothing but a sneer and some hissed response in the same language.
The early morning was bright relief on the buildings, everything sharper and harder in the direct light. Nights were seductive, bathing everything in weird mats of glowing streetlamps and their shadows, hiding flaws, making even the filth and vice of a city like Rio de Janeiro beautiful; mornings were ugly. In the morning there was nothing magical about the piled trash, the film of grime over the concrete.
He reached the appropriate intersection—broad daylight, poor visibility, a part of the city that wasn't run by a cartel Karasu was close too—and found his eyes scanning the building's tops, looking for light off a scope. His confident, fearless steps brought him to the appropriate café, with bright potted flowers, flame orange, lumped outside. Youko Kurama was easy enough to pick out, plucking at his pastry, enjoying a mug of black coffee that would undoubtedly keep him up all night, knowing the Brazilian form of the drink.
Youko Kurama, the thief and forger. From his line of work, Karasu wasn't sure what to expect, beyond that it was clear he was a professional. Well, so was Karasu, for that matter, but Karasu found himself appreciating the lean grace and confident anima of the man he walked straight toward, after scouting for the possibility of a set-up, of something about to go terribly wrong.
They would attract attention, maybe unwanted, but for now, no one seemed intent on murder.
Karasu weaved between the shoppers and leaned a palm against the latticework metal top of the table, painted white, and cocked his pointed chin, offering the second steady hand to shake. It was a pianist's hand, long-fingered and fine-boned as a bird's. "Youko Kurama, I presume," he purred in his sibilant Japanese, an arrogant grin lifting his peaked face and baring his hooked canines. He appreciated the sight of the Youko, face to face: the man was devilishly attractive, handsome and full-lipped.
Sakyo had been specific in what he wanted from and to do to this client. Karasu was going to enjoy betraying this one.
Youko Kurama raised his palms, but didn't offer a hand to shake. Karasu cursed his own hangover; of course the man wouldn't. A forger's livelihood depended on no one having his fingerprints in a database. The man would likely take the cup and plate with him when he left.
"Please sit," Kurama said with a toothy grin.
Karasu cocked an elegant eyebrow and then took back his hand to casually pull out the chair, acquiescing, sprawling a bit as he sat, all long legs.
Kurama took a sip of his coffee, eyes sweeping over the tired crowds heading to work. "I'm after product. Sakyo said you are, without a doubt, his product expert."
"An expert I am," Karasu affirmed, smooth, not undeserved pride in his voice. "In a few respects, actually." He was also Sakyo's resident bomber and bomb expert, able to do some very specific forms of demolition, but Youko didn't need to know that.
"What products were you intending to break in on?" Karasu said, tweaking up his suit coat's cuffs—it was abysmally hot—and examining his abnormally sharp nails, bored. The man was pretty but his blank insinuations tiring. "Gravel, quartz," he added, purposefully using words in Japanese that weren't associated with the drugs, but rather descriptors that would cue Youko in. Gravel, or crack. Quartz or meth.
"I can give you a foothold in either, if you're good enough, or oregano, or another smaller racket. It's a question of who you know in this business, as I'm sure you're aware." Karasu leaned back, eyes lidded behind the smooth carapace of the sunglasses. "And what you know. I am a good resource." His gaze sharpened, a mocking smile crossing his face. He was aware the man likely intended to use him as a stepping stone, a beginning point. Sakyo wanted the potential new competitor out of the market or under Mama Toguro's cautious watch. It left Karasu in a rather tight crossfire. "You're very confident," he added flatly. He raised his eyebrows at Youko, insinuations on his face. Karasu was a being of mania, movement, an expressive, garrulous man. He settled back and laced his hands over his chest, appearing at ease. Even his resting point was animated, however.
"A separate racket entirely," Youko Kurama purred, seeming almost bored by the exchange. The two sussed each other out. "How nice it would be if my clients that came to me for their fake bags and stolen rings could get their oxycodone fix, too. You are a good resource," he added, maybe agreeing, maybe musing. "Let's not mince words. It's painfully early and you look like you could use a few more hours of sleep," he said. "How many more dates should I take you on before we can meet your suppliers? I need two small planes coming back with me before I'll be satisfied."
Not happy not even pleased just satisfied.
Karasu sighed, tired of the wordplay, looking out over the morning strollers avoiding his eyes and seeming to radiate his own fatigue, shoppers and people lethargically heading to work. He let Youko look at him. He was a fit, vain, handsome man and he liked when they looked.
"Coke and oxy I can do. I know just the racket." He knew a few that would have been perfect fits. Youko wouldn't meet them, of course, nor ever hear their name, if Sakyo had a say. He was putting a smaller calling card in his hand, less direct investment for Youko and more a foothold. But even that wouldn't check out by the time Karasu was done with him.
Karasu turned back and met his gaze. He smiled at him, a cold, empty smile, hard and arrogant, until he revealed the gums, like a monkey's grin, intended to show off those interlocking rows of teeth. "Let's say two more dates, but only because I like you." He did, too: he liked everyone he intended to kill. If he didn't, they were already dead: he killed them quickly, no fuss, no mess.
He rather hoped he'd get to toy with this one before he died. The chimp's smile, all threat, smoothed out, and Karasu stood. "I won't shake your hand," he told him lazily. Instead, he reached over and plucked up Youko's coffee by the rim, took a casual sip, and placed it back before him. The china clinked against the filigreed metal of the table.
He reached in his pocket and slid out a fat wad of reals. He tossed the banknotes on the table. "For a tip," he explained shortly, and left whistling. His fingers circled in the gunpowder he kept in his pockets, the source of his power. Nerves on alert for a bullet in his back.
That one sip might be enough to impede a nap in the hotel room. But he'd wanted to touch something of Youko's, invade that pristine palace the forger had put up. He liked to pick, personally. He enjoyed annoying people who thought they had power over him: it had gotten him into some messy situations with the Toguros.
It was with effort the song he twittered wasn't a funeral march. He knew he couldn't have gotten away with that.
A fat wad of bills left on Youko's table was by no means a tip—not for Youko and not for the waiters—but he let Karasu leave in silence. His face had turned to stone and stayed that way. No expression one way or the other would pass him. Not until Karasu was long gone. You never gave a man like that what he wanted.
Once Karasu was safely out of earshot, the forger called over a young man. In messy Portuguese, he asked the boy if he saw the wad of bills—if he wanted some of that money. The boy agreed, head jerking up and down like a broken doll's. The fox laughed, and handed him the cellphone. Be very polite, he told the young boy, This man is rude but he shouldn't kill you over a kindness like you're doing him. If you chase after that tall man with his long hair—and you give him his phone back—I'll pay you a half of this stack.
The boy took off like a shot, half skipping and half running, before he managed to catch up to Karasu's long legs.
Mister! Mister wait! The man with silver hair gave this to me, for you! His hands held the phone, waving it like a prize. The young man stayed only long enough to force the phone back to Karasu—he could tell just by looking that the crow was not someone he wanted to be anywhere near.
Just as quick as he had run off, he had run back, panting and frantic and hands outstretched for their payday.
Kurama smiled, a small and doting thing, before paying the young man and leaving the rest of it for the waiter.
He didn't need to see Karasu's reaction—because he knew it.