JLA Watchtower (Archive)

 Ostensibly, Okoze was a top notch Japanese Restaurant.
Kick-ass sushi, primo sake, and the ambiance was nice too. On the inside, it was crooked. Years ago the local Yakuza had turned the place into a watering hole and (in theory) a neutral ground for the various factions of the criminal element in town to gather in relative safety.

It didn’t stop there either. If you knew where to look you could see a bent cop or two and maybe a bought judge in the crowd. Not just anyone could make it in however. Okoze was technically a private dinning club. You had to be a member or a guest. It’s where the criminal elite liked to showcase their affluence. Slick suits, flashy jewelry and in general a pronounced display of power and or wealth was the theme.

Cameron mostly liked it for the food. Not saying that it wasn’t a great place to pick up information and make connections, but holy crap was the food awesome. He did however dress that part.

The suit he wore was custom tailored to fit from cuts of cool blue and white silk of varying shades. Given the frost white of his hair and the ice blue of his skin, the unusual colors looked great on him. The Rolex on his wrist, the tie pin at his breast and the cufflinks on sleeves were each tastefully accented with high quality diamonds. Maybe he was playing into the cliché, but he really did like the ‘ice’ of gemstones.

Several stacks of large bills, crisp and bound in their bank bands were piled up in the middle of the table. The most recent job had been good to Icicle and the client had paid as promised. No muss, no fuss, no last minute double dealing. It had been a lucrative week.

Despite the blasé acceptance of the underworld element in the establishment, the presence of a an actual metahuman criminal (or ‘Supervillan’ as Cam preferred to call himself) still raised eyebrows. Cam loved it. He knew it was a little shallow, but he liked the ‘big fish among minnows’ celebrity status. It was an idle luxury. Now and then, real business came his way but most of them were just content to sneak glances at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. The expressions of wonder and a little bit of jealousy were fun and flattered his ego. The braver and more influential ones sometimes invited him for a drink or conversation. They would make small talk about current events, share a joke, talk shop and maybe drop a rumor or two. Mostly it was simply a way of demonstrating their own cosmopolitan sensibility and status to the others by hanging out with Icicle, but Cam was fine with that. It was an arrangement of mutual benefit.

Now and then however, real business came his way and the setting was perfect for that kind of things. Tonight had not proven to be such a night, but Cam wasn’t impatient. His companion for the evening, Nicole, was a dark haired young little thing that had an accent he still couldn’t place. She was an ambitious day trader that secretly belonged to that unofficial and taboo sub-culture of Supervillain groupies that got a thrill out of being in the company of ‘dangerous’ and ‘famous’ men or women. Tigress and he had encountered her a year ago and sometimes one or both of them would give the girl a call to invite her to be the arm candy for the evening. It was an interesting arrangement.

“Yoshiko, can I get a refill?” Icicle called out to the pretty waitress.
To his companion for the evening, “You honey? Need anything?”

A slightly intoxicated titter bubbles up from the lass and she shakes her head. Some folks can’t hold their sake.