Dee set the sheet of paper down in the middle of Simon Greer's desk and smoothed it once with the side of her hand, the way she smoothed a wrinkle out of a mat cover, and said she would do it on four conditions and not on three, and not on four with one of them softened later when nobody was looking.
Simon had been ready to talk about money. She could see it in the way he had arranged himself for the meeting, the good pen laid across a fresh pad, the contract folder already open at a page with a yellow tab on it, a bottle of water set out for her as if she were a guest in the building she cleaned every night of the week. He had sent the message through Jenna Park, because Jenna was the only person at Copperline Athletic Club he was sure Dee would not send away, and Jenna had brought the message at dawn with two coffees and the decency to look uncomfortable about it.
Now Simon read the paper. He read it twice. The second time his mouth moved a little.
"Read them out," Dee said. "So we're both hearing the same list."
"Dee," Simon said.
"Read them out, Simon."
He sighed and put his glasses on, though she was fairly sure he had read every word perfectly well without them. "One. Full medical examinations for both competitors, by a doctor who does not work for the club, paid for by the club, results shared with both corners and with the referee, and the bout does not happen if either examination says it should not." He looked up. "That's standard, more or less."
"Then it won't trouble you to have it written."
"Two. Sam Whitaker referees. Nobody else. The tap rules are read aloud in the room before we begin, word for word as written here: a tap, a verbal submission, or a corner stopping it ends the bout at once, the hold is released at once, and there is no argument about it afterwards from anybody, including commentators, including you." He paused. "Including me is doing some work in that sentence."
"It is."
"Three. No humiliation marketing. My name and picture are not used with a mop, a bucket, a broom, or the word janitor as a joke. Blake's name and picture are not used with the word coward, fluke, fraud, or old. The club promotes a sanctioned rematch between two adult competitors, both medically cleared, under a referee. If your people cannot sell a bout without making one of us into a cartoon, then they can sell somebody else's bout." Simon took his glasses off again. "You know what his manager is going to say about three."
"I have some idea," Dee said. "He can say it to you. You're the one who wants this."
"Four," Simon read, and this time he slowed down on his own, without being told. "The club's fee and my purse, after the agreed and listed expenses, go to the Copperline beginners' scholarship fund, earmarked for members moving from the youth programme into the adult beginners' classes who cannot afford the fees, and administered by a named trustee who is not me and not you. And before the bout takes place, the club completes a written review of pay and contracts for its cleaning staff, with the review shared with the cleaning staff themselves, and acts on any rate found below the rate the club pays for equivalent night work elsewhere in San Tomas."
The office went quiet. Through the wall came the ordinary morning sounds of the club waking up, a bag being worked in steady rhythm, somebody dropping a weight pin, the front desk phone ringing and being answered in Jenna's bright, professional voice, the voice she used for people who had not yet decided whether Copperline was worth their money.
"You wrote this yourself," Simon said.
"Carla helped me with the spelling of earmarked."
"Your daughter the nurse helped you write a bout contract."