Dealing with Bankers

[Jay Carpenter]

Andreu Kojima

A private coach stopped before the steps of the building outside.  It was adorned in a simple color scheme with a coat of arms representing the Bank's sigil was painted on the doors and boot. Although the pair of horses pulling such a lavish expense were rented, the driver and footman were full time employees.  The latter sprung quickly from his seat and pulled out the steps by which the occupant inside might avoid the gutter of slush shoved along the curb.  The man in question did just that, though he leaped from the steps and nimbly avoided splashing muck upon his trousers.  He clapped the footman on the shoulder and explained his anticipation for a short working day, thusly expecting the reverse ride home in a few hours.  Hopefully in time for a warm afternoon brandy, a change of clothes, and arrive uptown for an Arts Endowment gala, at which the generous Kojima family was meant to contribute a healthy gift.  Which really was a healthy adventure. The arts were a heritage which ought to remain pristine in such dark days as these.

Andreu Kojima was the first stare of fashion and poise.  He flashed pearly smiles at those lucky enough to gain his attention.  He waved across the lobby floor to clerks and tellers whom sat a little straighter at their desks afterward, as though they'd been rewarded a handsome prize.  The air was a little sweeter with this man's presence, the chandelier sparkled a bit brighter, and the room exhaled a tense breath it hadn't known it'd been holding.  He was met by his own assistant on the far side of the lobby, another of similar demeanor and skill as the man which aided Zakar.  Though these two greeted one another as men long-parted.  There was clapping of shoulders, shaking of hands, and the inquiry of one another's loved ones.  These two were friends as sure as they were employees.  Though the jesting was kept at a minimum, the assistant complimented what was obviously a fresh haircut, debonair waves, and the close shave of a professional hand, but the evidence of recent fisticuffs was not overlooked.  Though it was taken lightly.  Andreu laughed and sent the man to fetch the messages and other work backlogged in the last month's absence.

If there was anything that drew his concern, it was not apparent.  At least, not until he had that brief moment of solitude when he was left to the company of his own turbid thoughts.  Like Zakar before him, he surveyed the room, idly twisting an emerald ring about one finger, until he used the excuse of doffing his outer coat to more closely memorize the stones about this lifesized gameboard he played.  

Most of the patrons in sight were representatives of various accounts.  The wealthiest of classes do not deign to visit such institutions but only in the rarest of circumstances.  There were business owners, accountants, investors and brokers.  The clerks swept from client to client efficiently.  Scribes drew up contracts.  A straight-laced notary moved from call to call.  Then there was the enchanting figure in white.  An angel in the storm.

He considered her.  Sitting there, elegant and poised as a dove.  As he bowed his head in reverent greeting, a demonic grin nearly touched his lips and the reborn Andreu fell behind the curtains of his private office moments later.  She'd won his attention, unsurprisingly, and perhaps, fatally.  Who can really be trusted?  Was his assistant the face of evil itself?  Biding his time until the quiet whisper in the dark foretold bloody end?  A city of stalkers and cut-throats clamboring for power, the glint of steel all within striking distance.  The corpses of their victims strung up for artistic display, much as did also the garland of a charming winter decor.  

In his absence from sight, messages and communications were carried.  Spiced wine was warmed and two chalices brought to his desk.  The very same clerk which bid the Accepted to wait returned to her, bearing news that their Operations Officer hoped to persuade her decision to leave.  Which required, of course, a conversation.  Invited to be shared over a glass of their best wine, shipped from the vineyards of Tear and aged to aromatic perfection.  Such was the scents of hospitality that greeted Nythadri upon arriving in Andreu's opulent office.  The decor was clad in dark paneling, and plush curtains let in a showbank of sparkling light.  His desk was as orderly as possible, but the long-term absence was apparent in the ledgers awaiting his attention, stacked in reverse chronological order on a sideboard.  

He stood when Nythadri entered, dry and unruffled by the morning's weather.  The whites of his eyes glistened with mirth, but they were all the whiter by the crimson of color bruising one.  Harsher and fiercer than the equivalent adorning his brother's eyesocket.  Jai suspected otherwise, but Dru had held back when he countered the Asha'man, fist for fist in the falling snow.  The danger driving, calculating every possible reason why a forged blade of the Dragon held himself back if he truly thought himself in danger.  Jai had to have known, on some level, just as Dru was likewise aware, of the sheer volume of insanity of which they faced.  Though where Jai foolishly repelled the demons, Andreu nestled happily in their midst.  He was as tall as his siblings, but Andreu was the middle born.  No dignified gray touched his hair, thank the Light, and he was graced with the good looks shared among the three, but the social rules which imprisoned Zakar, and Jai to some extent, were no bars for Andreu.  

He rounded the desk and greeted the Accepted hand to hand and offered her the aforementioned drink.
"Forgive the clutter of my office, good Lady," he began upon returning to his chair. "Nearly two-months of work has piled up with strange speed.  For which," he smiled fondly, gesturing around him, "I thank you most wholeheartedly for the excuse to procrastinate.  If you would do me the favor of a long and meaningful conversation, I might salvage the entire day and leave for tonight's Gala without having tarnished a single finger with ink."  He displayed his hands playfully, emerald ring glinting in the sunlight.  As described, no ink stained his nails.  A feat even Zakar could not claim, and Jai could care less about.  The scrapes and cuts on his hands were apparent though.  If the image of a trustworthy banker was at stake, Andreu was oblivious to its effect.

He swiped the second chalice, immediately placing the goblet to his lips amid a self-amused smile.  
"Now," he began after dabbing the moisture from his lips with a crimson pocket square.  "Which neck among my esteemed competitors should I have slit?  I assure you, whatever oath he swore for stealing your worthy business is empty as his soul." Andreu held Nythadri's gaze, tied down as inescapable as the men he left in the snow the night before.  But it broke soon, a hearty laugh replaced the tension of what was surely only jest.  Surely.  A charisma like Andreu could not have the menace to harm a single innocent creature.  Innocent being the integral denotation.

Chalice aside, he laced his fingers together and lounged into the tufted leather chair behind the sprawling desk.  Ready to talk brass-tacks, so to say.  
"Ten percent reduction in our fees, Accepted.  With your account--" he flipped her ledger open and turned to the first page.  Incidentally, it was the only page to have any records.  Her account had been open mere weeks, after all.  The date at the top, signatures, and initials which followed were obvious.  Zakar's approval scrawled the top right corner.  "--ten percent amounts to quite the sum."  He tapped the bottom line, indicating the current balance, one brow risen with expectation.