Jool gestured for me to follow with her large, bulbous head, and I obliged, walking slowly behind her through the silken red curtain and down a long grey hallway. It was industrial, the quaint decor of the bar substituted for desaturated duracrete walls marred with stains of water and rust, harshly lit by iridescent strip lights glaring down from above.

The corridor was barely wide enough for Jool's sluglike frame to fit down and I wondered how she'd turn around if she needed to, but asking felt like handing her a blaster to shoot me with later. The hubbub of conversation in the bar faded away as I trailed behind her slow movements and she led me into her office.

Plants choked the room, with thin skeletal stalks spiking through long flame-shaped leaves. Taller cypress and orchids tickled the ceiling. Brushing leaves away from my face I saw a clearing in the middle of this veritable miniature forest. A divan sat in the void, with a hoverchair idling nearby. A gentle breeze blew from a rotating fan on the ceiling, and a large window on the far wall looked over the dark cityscape outside.

Rain rolling down the window made it feel like I was looking into a massive, distorted fishtank. Airspeeders became fish moving in long shoals, acting as one. It was eerily serene.

Jool sidled onto the divan with a grace that belied her girthy bulk, and waved her hand idly in the direction of the hoverchair. I sat on it. It was as comfortable as sitting on a cloud. Hoverchairs were one of those unnecessary luxuries in life, but I wasn't going to complain. Her divan didn't hover, the decadence of this chair was purely for the comfort of her guests. Not out of generosity, of course, but because people were more loose lipped when they were relaxed.

"You've got some new plants." I said, looking around at the orchids.

Her voice was dryer than a beggar in a desert worlds noonday sun as she said: "I had them imported from Felucia."

I sipped my ice-cold fizziglug and gave Jool a stare equally as cool over the rim of my glass. "Nysillin orchids, aren't they?"

"I didn't know you had an interest in gardening, Maarloch." A faint smile pulled at the corners of her mouth wryly .

"I'm not," I said. I didn't even have a garden. "But neither do you."

Jool let out a deep, breathy laugh. "What do you know about nysillin orchids?"

"They stink and don't match the lighting."

She smirked.

I narrowed my eyes and said: "I also know that when ground down into a paste they make an effective healing salve. Not as good as bacta, of course, but given the limited supply of that lately the value of nysillin is higher than a skyhook" It was my turn to smirk. "And, when the bacta supply inevitably returns and the price of nysillin crashes back down, it can be processed into a very potent, very illicit spice, which is why nysillin production is highly regulated in both the Empire and the New Republic."

"Nothing gets past you, sweets patogga," Her round eyes narrowed, her voice taking on a thick, accusatory tone. "What are you gonna do? Report me?"

We held each other's gaze with stoic, tense stares. We'd done this dance before.

Both of us had good sabaac faces, but neither of us could keep a straight face for long this time. Smiles crept upon our lips before erupting into mirthful laughter.

"I know you didn't come here just to discuss the finer points of horticulture," She chuckled, "What do you need?"

"Opun McGrrrr. Also goes by the name Heater. Know him?"

"I've heard of him."

"I need to track him down. Blackmail case."

Jool raised a hand and clicked her stubby fingers. There was a rustle in the leaves to the right of her, and a rectangular, squat droid rolled out from between them on thin treads, looking almost like a miniature version of the building we were in.

"Bring up the file on Opun McGrrrr,"

The old IN-4 information droid whirred and buzzed before a hologram flickered to life before it, a ghostly visage that bathed the middle of the room in a spectral blue light like a glowing lake in a meadow of greenery.

McGrrrr was a portly man with an ugly face as round as a planet and as pockmarked as an asteroid, sweating under a mop of unkempt brown-grey hair and decorated with unkempt stubble. Even in the holo I could see a sheen to his skin that made clear it was covered in a mix of grease, sweat and more grease, like a walking oil slick. I could practically smell him, the stench of spilled drinks and bad decisions. He had small, beady eyes, half buried under the weight of his own face and stubborn set jowls that were slowly losing a long battle with gravity. His shoulders were clad in a sleeveless fur vest; a shaggy, matted beast that looked like it had once belonged to something that died angry, its colour somewhere between deep space and the bottom of a dirty glass. The fur made him look broader than he was, though he was plenty broad to begin with.

"So that's my man?" I asked,

"That's right"

"Ugly sort, isn't he?"

"I don't mind." Jool licked her lips, scrutinising the image of the spectral man with a suggestive intensity. Like many Hutts, Jool had a penchant for humanoids and a sexual appetite that would make a Zeltron blush. I wasn't sure if a Zeltron could blush through their rich magenta skin, but I supposed they could.

"What do you know about him?"

"He's the son of Hethra McGrrrr, founder of the Black Hole Pirates." The Black Hole Pirates were a vicious band of raiders, one of the largest pirate gangs in the galaxy at their peak. They were the scourge of the Ison Corridor from the Clone Wars to the Battle of Hoth, and they never had the same leader for long, spending as much time fighting themselves as they did others.

"After his family were unwillingly retired from the pirating business," Jool continued, "He used his share of the plunder to buy a hotel on Bespin. By all accounts he's a bit of a smooth got ambitious and wanted to muscle in on Jabba's spice operations in the sector, so tried to steal one of Jabba's droids."

"He thought he could outplay Jabba?"

"I said he was ambitious, I didn't say he was smart. Probably thought he could talk his way out of it. By all accounts he's a bit of a smooth talker. Jabba saw it coming a parsec off, staged a bloody takeover of the business and made McGrrrr work for him."

"The Holiday Towers Massacre? I heard about that. Nasty business."

"That's an understatement pateesa. Jabba fed McGrrrr's wife to the rancor and made him watch."

I leaned back in my chair and let out a long, slow breath. "Jeez. All that over a droid?"

"Stars hath no fury like a Hutt scorned." Jool smiled.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side"

Jool smile widened, and she let out a deep, throaty laugh before continuing: "Jabba had him start up and run a luxury cruise business, catering for high end clients that couldn't be seen associating with a Hutt. When Jabba took the big sleep, Heater skipped system and disappeared."

"I assume that's not the last you heard of him?"

"I wouldn't be much of an information broker if it was. He popped back up here on Nar Shaddaa a couple of years back, on the payroll of Reelo Baruk."

"I know that name," I said, staring intensely at the holo. "He's the Rodian that runs most of New Vertica, right?"

"The very same." Reelo Baruk was another of the gangsters that had dragged themselves into a position of power after Jabba's death.

"What's Baruk got him doing?"

"He greases palms at the docks, keeps Baruk's freighters moving. After what Heater tried to pull with Jabba, I reckon Baruk's got him on a short leash. Smooth talking only gets you so far."

"Interesting. Smuggling, theft, piracy. Small scale blackmail is a bit outside his wheelhouse."

"Maybe he's expanding his horizons."

"Maybe." I said. "Criminals who've got a silver tongue don't normally need to resort to blackmail to get someone to do something."

Jool shrugged. Or rather she gave the Hutt equivalent of a shrug, turning her palms skywards and raising her stubby arms slightly. Hutt anatomy meant their shoulders were mostly hidden under rolls of fat, so a subtle shoulder movement was almost invisible.

"Thanks for the info Jool," I said, rising to my feet. "We'll do this again sometime."

"What about payment? I'm not running a karking charity here."

I took one last swig of my drink and set the glass down on top of the squat droid. "Stick it on my tab."

Jool laughed a deep belly laugh that would have reverberated around the room were it not for the plants softening the noise. "You know Maarloch, one day I'm going to cash in that tab of yours, and you're going to owe me some big favours."

I winked at her and turned towards the door. "I'm counting on it pateesa."