Host Club on the Pleasure Planet (On the Pleasure Planet)

SIX

Oz was slicing fruit for the evening’s feature cocktails—some off-planet exotic specials designed to pull in folks who wouldn’t otherwise visit a host club—when the back door slammed open, bringing with it a gust of wind and rain. Slowly, he twisted his head and found Benedict in the doorway, illuminated by a flash of lightning.

Oz regarded him—fur matted, plastered to his skin by the downpour, eyes wide and wild, and (most surprisingly of all) Farq, unconscious, bloodied, dangling over his shoulder.

Oz swallowed and tried to steady his grip on his knife. “Sir?”

Benedict stalked in—or tried to, staggering instead under Farq’s weight. He unslung the alien, letting him crumple to the floor in a giant heap, then kicked the door shut and rushed Oz, grabbing him by the lapels of his uniform. Oz resisted the urge to turn into liquid and slither down one of the drains.

“What do you know about Vito Frolone?” Benedict demanded, and Oz’s stomach soured. He shoved Benedict back; to his surprise, the felid released him, stumbling away a pace or two.

“What about Vito?” he asked, slowly setting the knife aside and wiping his hands on a convenient towel. He glanced around, grabbed another one, then approached his boss cautiously.

Benedict’s expression relaxed a little, and he took the towel almost reverently. He mopped his face without so much as a thank you , then dropped the sopping mess back into Oz’s waiting hand.

“He showed up at my aunt’s—my office and demanded payment.”

Oz’s brow crunched. “Payment?”

Benedict nodded. “He said I had six weeks to come up with it.”

Oz shook his head. “La Chef didn’t deal with Vito. Bad blood between them, something that happened years ago …”

Whatever had happened between the two of them, it had been when Oz was still a child. He barely remembered Vito, barely remembered the hushed whispers and the way the mobster would skulk around the alley outside The Pub.

Thing was, he supposed, he did remember those nights, he did remember hushed conversations between La Chef and Vito and his goons, all code that he hadn’t understood at the time.

He looked quizzically at Benedict, who mirrored his expression. “You think maybe she just cut ties and didn’t pay him whatever she owed?” he asked the felid.

Benedict blinked, like the suggestion shocked him. “My aunt would never,” he spat.

Oz started to laugh, then swallowed the sound when he realized the felid was serious. “Seems like you don’t know her that well,” he muttered, which earned him an affronted huff from the cat-like alien. Oz lifted a hand, waving it. “La Chef was involved in a lot of shady stuff, sir.”

Benedict’s spine stiffened. Oz plowed on. “You have to know that restaurants are often fronts for mob operations.”

Benedict stilled, the color draining out of his skin. “Mob?” His voice was weak, an echo of itself.

Oh boy , Oz thought, leaning on the bar to steady himself. How did a guy this naive end up taking over for a criminal mastermind like La Chef? Not that a helluva lot of what she was doing was technically illegal on Kateria—the planet was a haven for drug runners and slavers, arms dealers and brothel mothers alike. But when things left Kateria, they often got caught up in the web of the law. Like runaway slaves or drug imports to other planets or what have you.

Which meant that La Chef didn’t always hang her laundry out to dry, so to speak. A lot of it was kept behind closed doors at places like Saveur and The Pub and Gastronomique.

He looked at Benedict again. “Vito has his hands in a lot of stuff,” he informed his boss, choosing his words carefully. He didn’t want to alarm Benedict again, but he needed the felid to understand exactly what was going on here. “I can’t say for sure what he started with, whether it was drugs or weapons or slaves?—”

“Stop,” Benedict bit out. He’d curled his hands into fists.

Oz considered him, then said, “You need to hear it. You need to know.”

Benedict’s brow crunched, but his form slackened slightly and he hung his head. “Yes,” he agreed.

“La Chef was in it up to her eyeballs,” Oz pronounced, and Benedict rubbed at his temples.

“My aunt was a criminal,” he murmured.

Oz hesitated. “I’m sorry,” he said finally.

Benedict lifted his glowing gaze from the ground and squinted at him. “What are you sorry for?” he inquired. “You’re the one she kept as a sl—as … If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me.”

Oz couldn’t help the flutter of his heartbeat. Someone apologize to him? For La Chef making him unfree, making him a slave ?

It wasn’t a thought he’d ever entertained.

Benedict sighed and looked away. “I know I shouldn’t ask this, but … I need your help.”

Oz cocked his head. “My help?” He pushed away from the bar. “Why?”

He was just a bartender. A slave. A Vetruvian. Nobody had ever thought he was particularly helpful. No one had ever needed him before. La Chef had made it very clear that he was entirely expendable. If he died or got sick or was crippled, she could replace him quick as look at him.

Yet here was her nephew, her heir, saying that he needed Oz, of all people.

Benedict shook his head. “You’re the only person I know here—well, other than Farq. And you’ve been helpful, and you clearly know about my aunt’s dealings?—”

“I know jack shit,” Oz interrupted. Benedict had the wrong idea. La Chef had never told him anything. He wasn’t important enough or smart enough or—well—anything enough to warrant being on the inside track. Anything he knew, he’d gleaned from gossip and other employees.

Benedict looked startled by this revelation. “You said you knew suppliers?—”

Oz almost sighed. He barely kept his exasperation in check, saying, “Yeah, for here. I figured I could help get that information together. Not because I know anything.”

“Oh.”

They fell silent for a second or two. Then Farq groaned, and they both glanced at him.

When their gazes met again, Benedict said, “Could you help me?”

Oz was pretty sure he was going to faint. He wanted to berate the felid, to tell him that he was being stupid—Oz was a Vetruvian, useless and good for nothing and not terribly smart—but the felid said, “I still don’t really know anyone else, and you’re the only person who’s been helpful.” He jerked his head toward Farq. “He doesn’t know anything, and he refuses to help me search the office.”

Oz waited a second, then said, slowly, “Farq can’t read.”

“Oh!” Benedict’s face turned a funny purple color. “I had no idea.”

Oz nodded. He himself could, only because he’d taught himself by reading the menus and TV displays in The Pub. Farq, as far as he knew, had never applied himself that way.

Benedict had his hand pressed to his mouth, looking worriedly at Farq, and Oz melted a little bit.

Benedict wasn’t La Chef, he reminded himself furiously. In fact, looking at him, hearing him talk about Oz and Farq and everyone else as people, he was pretty sure Benedict was about as far from his late aunt as he could possibly be.

Oz didn’t know why that made his heart swell. Benedict was still running a criminal empire, he told himself sternly. The felid had benefited from La Chef’s activities for years—from her money. Even if he was oblivious, La Chef had been doing wrong for years and he’d been benefiting from it.

Still, when Benedict turned that strange, glowing gaze of his on him, Oz could only sigh and say, “Yeah, I’ll help.”

The smile that lit up Benedict’s face was worth it. Oz only hoped it would be enough to justify all the work he’d just signed himself up for.