Time to Pick Up Our Players (5)
Fion tilted his head, chewing over my words for a while as he exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke.
There was interest in his eyes, blended strangely with something I couldn't quite name.
“Mm~ the more I hear, the more fun this idea sounds. Charming men selling their feelings to ladies who are structurally guaranteed to have money to burn, showing off their talents, drinks flowing alongside… it's a genuinely entertaining concept, I'll give you that.”
The corner of his mouth curled upward as he looked at me.
“But I'm not quite convinced, you see? I can't tell if I'm nodding along because the business structure is actually logical, or because our young boss here is just that good at running his mouth.”
A brief silence followed Louis's remark.
I kept my composed smile in place and gave a casual shrug.
“Well… you can attach all the justification you want to anything. But at the end of the day, a business proves itself with results. And the only reason I'm recruiting you, Fion, is because I have confidence in delivering those results.”
Fion narrowed his eyes at my answer for a moment, then burst out with a snort of laughter.
“'Confidence' is the one word every con artist in the world uses. So here's the thing…”
He put the cigarette back between his lips and lit it. In the moonlight, the glint of his gun barrel and the ember of the cigarette made an oddly fitting pair.
“I'd like to see just how accurate those eyes of yours are.”
“My eyes…?”
“That's right. Businessman or mafioso, in the end I believe what matters is a sharp eye for reading people. Without it, you go under. So I want to test whether I can trust what you're telling me.”
Fion exhaled a long plume of smoke and grinned slyly.
“Now that we're at it, shall we head to a bar?”
“We just drank ourselves sick a moment ago. Again?”
“Really? If you hate it that much, I'll gladly send you somewhere else first.”
Fion raised his revolver again and aimed it at me.
Hmm. Somehow I gathered that "somewhere else" meant the great beyond.
Which left me with exactly one option……
Before heading back to the bar, there seemed to be one crucial matter I needed to settle first.
So I opened my mouth slowly.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
“Hm? I *am* planning to shoot if you refuse my offer.”
“No—I mean, are you buying the drinks?”
At that, Fion threw his head back and laughed as if he'd just had some great revelation.
“Yes, I will. You've made me laugh a lot, so consider this your reward.”
***
We ended up following Fion into a shabby bar near the harbor.
The moment the door swung open, the sour smell of liquor and a roar of raucous laughter spilled out all at once.
Fion plopped down at a corner table in the back like he owned the place and waved a waiter over with a flick of his hand.
“Three of your finest. And bring plenty of glasses.”
Louis was glaring holes into Fion as he ordered. Since there was no telling what that man might pull, he clearly wasn't letting his guard down for a second.
Fion, on the other hand, sat with his legs elegantly crossed, utterly at ease—a completely different creature from the one in that alleyway, as if causing trouble were the last thing on his mind.
Once he'd finished ordering, he leaned his head toward me.
“Now then, young boss. I said I wanted to see those eyes of yours, didn't I?”
“Specifically, what would you like me to do?”
“Simple. Pick out the guest in this bar with the highest status. Obviously, excluding yourself.”
Louis scoffed at Fion's challenge.
“With all due respect, what noble would ever set foot in a dive like this?”
“Which is exactly what makes it fun. Besides, you never know how the world will turn, do you?”
I mulled over the exchange between Louis and Fion as I slowly surveyed the interior of the bar.
Men clinked their mugs and laughed boisterously; a few couples drank together, radiating an unmistakably pink-hued atmosphere.
On the surface, everyone looked more or less the same—but narrow your eyes just slightly, and the differences emerged.
My gaze came to a natural stop on one particular pair.
Both were dressed plainly and speaking in low tones, but the ring on the woman's finger gleamed faintly in the light.
And stranger still was the man seated beside her. His glass sat nearly untouched, and even in the middle of conversation, he kept sweeping his eyes across the room, scanning for anything out of place.
I set my glass down slowly and spoke.
“My answer would be the lady at the table over there, by the window.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The humble clothes are a simple sleight of hand. That ring she's wearing is both a valuable and proof of status. Even from this distance, you can tell it's engraved with fine detail, can't you?”
It was a token announcing which noble house she belonged to—and insurance against unexpected situations.
After all, few people dared lay hands on the child of a noble family.
“The man sitting beside her, on the other hand, is her personal guard knight.”
You only have to watch him fidget with his glass and *pretend* to drink to know it. That glass's purpose was never the liquor.
His eye discipline, too, was almost too flawless—and that worked against him.
“Even mid-conversation, he keeps checking his surroundings, and when his eyes met mine for a moment, he shifted his gaze away without a flicker of hesitation. That's a habit beaten into you by the profession. He also keeps his back ramrod straight and his hands positioned where he could reach a weapon at any instant. Louis does the same thing all the time.”
“Well… it is a chronic ailment of knights, I'll admit.”
“But there's one thing that doesn't add up.”
“What doesn't?”
I nodded at Louis's question and continued.
“Any ordinary guard knight would stand behind her or sit at a separate table in a place like this—it's practically the rule. Even granting that he sat beside her to avoid drawing attention, he's sitting far too close.”
What's more, the man's gaze lingered on the woman far longer than it did on the room around them.
It wasn't the watchful look of someone guarding his liege… it was closer to a look of affection.
And the woman, for her part, tilted her head at his words, and their fingertips brushed past each other more than once.
In plain terms—
“My read is that those two aren't simply mistress and retainer. They're carrying on a secret affair. The mere fact that a noble lady came to a bar like this late at night with her guard knight already hints at something beyond a master-servant relationship.”
“Ha… here I am, trudging around with a young master who got kicked out of his own house, and *those* two are living in a flower garden? I suddenly feel like reporting their relationship to somebody.”
With a note of agreement, I turned back to Fion.
“So—did I get it right?”
In response, Fion raised his glass, smiled a feline smile, and shook his head.
“Beats me?”
“…I'm sorry?”
“It would be rather strange, wouldn't it, for a mafioso to know the identity of every single patron in a bar? What I mean is, the correct answer never mattered in the first place. I simply wanted to see how persuasive the words coming out of your mouth would be.”
Fion went on with a sly grin.
“Living the life I have, I've learned that in the end, a silver tongue matters more than a sharp eye. Right answer or wrong answer—if you can make the other person believe it, doesn't that make it the truth?”
I couldn't help letting out a small laugh at that.
“And what matters more than a silver tongue? Money, in the end. Money never betrays you.”
“Agreed.”
Fion set his glass down with a clack and looked me dead in the eye.
“So let's ask it straight. If I join your business, how do you plan to split the profits?”
“Fifty to the players, fifty to the business. No exceptions—straight down the middle. Of course, I intend to skim a little extra to the top two performers.”
“……Half and half, and then you'd give out *more* on top of that?”
The corner of Fion's mouth twitched—then he began laughing out loud.
“Hahaha! Young boss, your jokes are going too far. What does that leave for the business?”
At his question, I shook my head with an easy smile.
“The venue, the drinks, the clientele… granted, it's the business that provides all of that. But in the end, it's the players' passion that opens the customers' wallets. I simply choose to value that highly. So everyone wins.”
“……The way I see it, an obscene amount of money would make sure no player ever leaves the business. And the performance bonuses on top would stoke competition and drive among the players.”
“Hearing it laid out like that, our boss sounds like an absolutely sinister man. Not that any of it's wrong.”
For some reason, Louis and Fion looked at each other across the table. Then, as if some unspoken understanding had passed between them, they both nodded at the same time.
“It's like… the longer you listen to our young boss talk, the more your head just starts nodding on its own.”
“Right? People who've been won over that way are hardly one or two—including me. And now it seems Fion has joined their ranks.”
At Louis's words, Fion gave a roll of his shoulders.
Then he lifted his glass again and tilted it toward me.
“All right, young boss. No need for any further pointless suspicion. What matters to me in the end is whether you can deliver fun and profit into my hands. And by that measure—consider me convinced.”
“Oh? Then you're accepting my offer?”
“I am. I'm joining your business. I intend to wring every last coin out of your customers, so look forward to it.”
Our glasses met with a clear, bright chime.
There had been any number of major incidents along the way, but in the end, it was a happy ending.
Which meant only one player candidate remained……
But before that, there was something I wanted to ask Fion.
“By the way, what will Vertigo think about all this?”
“Me working at your establishment? Don't worry yourself over that. If anything, they might find it fascinating. Persuading me and putting me to work as a host—that alone would be a rather entertaining affair from Vertigo's perspective.”
“Is that so.”
“Well… but you know, the way I see it, there's a different part of this that *should* worry you.”
“?”
The haze of drink carried me past it at the time, but I would come to understand the meaning of Fion's words a little later.
And it had everything to do with Vertigo, the syndicate he belonged to—and the many mafia organizations of Velos besides.
***
A warehouse somewhere in the port of Velos.
Someone pushed open the door of the warehouse where the executives of the mafia syndicate Vertigo had gathered, and a man dressed in deepest black slipped smoothly inside.
The boss of Vertigo addressed the man in black.
“Fion. You cleaned up after yourself, I trust?”
At the boss's question, Fion smiled. It was a remarkably innocent smile.
“Haha, Boss? Anyone overhearing you would think I enjoy killing people.”
“Don't you?”
“Of course not. This time I actually shared a few friendly drinks with them.”
At the words that spilled from Fion's mouth, the executives set down their bottles and began to murmur.
“Eh? Seriously? You managed to drink with someone on a *first* meeting? You, of all people?”
“Now that's suspicious. You usually show no mercy to anyone who rubs you the wrong way.”
Fion waved a hand with a playful laugh.
“Which brings me to the person I just met. He's a fascinating man. Fascinating enough that something quite interesting is bound to happen before long.”
“…Something interesting?”
“Mm. As in, a great storm might just sweep through the polished, placid streets of Velos. The young boss I met today didn't seem like a mere merchant—he seemed like the kind of man who'd shake the whole board itself.”
“Interesting… If you're willing to go that far, there really must be something to him.”
Fion nodded.
“Once word spreads, the other syndicates will take an interest in him too. In that light, Vertigo's rather lucky, wouldn't you say? I was chosen as his first business partner, after all.”
“Wait, you've gone into *partnership* with him? Just out of curiosity—what kind of work is it? Contract killing? Blackmail?”
When one executive tossed the question out as a joke, Fion snorted, drew out a cigarette, and lit it.
“No, nothing so crude. A far more refined trade—one where the money flows far more freely.”
“So what is it?”
“Mm? The empire's first women-only salon. I'll be working there as a host, selling my charm to the ladies and wringing out their money.”
“……?”
In an instant, the warehouse fell into a silence so dead it might as well have been frozen.
As if nobody had the faintest idea where to even begin objecting.