Baccano! - Volume 1 - Chapter 2

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NIGHT

The color of night had already come right down to the line between the sky and the ocean, and stars had begun to show through here and there. It was as though Manhattan’s blue-crystal sky had shattered and darkness had come to the city in its place. But as if to drive away that darkness, colorful lights bloomed up from the ground, radiating from the main streets outward. Reflecting off the red bricks that colored the buildings, the lights summoned a crowd that was different from the town’s daytime bustle.

New York’s unprecedented Great Depression. Its spirit might have taken a hit, but the city wasn’t dead yet.

As if they’d been waiting impatiently for night to arrive, New York’s 32,000 speakeasies woke up and began to stir.

Manhattan swallowed up people’s desires, and was on the verge of revealing another face.

Alveare (“the Beehive”), one of the handful of nightclubs run by the Martillo Family, was located between Little Italy and Chinatown. Outwardly, as its name suggested, it was a specialty shop that sold honey. However, if you went back behind the register and through a sturdy door fitted with a peephole, you’d find yourself in a speakeasy, where those who’d chosen to duck the eyes of the law gathered. Both men and women came here in search of liquor. Sometimes even children visited. It was a watering hole set up in the space between the law and the town.

In New York at the time, disguised speakeasies like this one stood cheek by jowl with one another. These loopholes in the law were found everywhere—one in the back of a tailor’s shop, another in the basement of a drugstore, and even inside churches and funeral parlors.

Alveare was another sanctuary built inside one of these loopholes.

Even further underground, there was a spacious hall. Ordinarily, it was a forbidden room that no one was allowed to approach, but today about a dozen men were gathered there. Even with that many people, silence and an atmosphere of tension enveloped the room.

The electric lights were off, and the only source of light was a single flame: that of a lamp, in the center of a round table.

“Firo Prochainezo.”

Quietly, the silence was broken. The enormous table took up half of the already crowded room, and men were stationed around its edge at equal intervals. Only the man who had spoken was seated; the rest stood.

The owner of the voice was Molsa Martillo, current head, or caposocietà, of the Martillo Family. He was a man of over fifty, who impressed with a dignity befitting his age and a fine physique that belied his years.

He was flanked on either side by two upper-level executives: Kanshichirou Yaguruma, a Japanese man who held the position of elder, or primo voto, and Ronny Schiatto, the secretary, or chiamatore. Maiza, the contaiuolo, stood next to Ronny, two places away from Molsa.

Although he hadn’t ended up in the role of elder because he was elderly, Yaguruma was well past sixty and, at a glance, gave the impression of being the proprietor of a Chinatown herbal medicine shop.

Meanwhile, Ronny was still young, with distinctive, almond-shaped eyes that gave him a fox-like air.

Although the roots of the Camorra were in Italy, Molsa wasn’t particular about nationality. As a result, their membership included an assortment of races.

Firo, who stood directly in front of Molsa, responded with a tense voice:

“…Yes, capo masto. I’m here.”

“…Can you answer the questions I am about to ask you without falsehood or deceit?”

“I can.”

After a silence of several seconds, the “dialogue” began.

“Do you wish to become a camorrista?”

“Yes.”

“The Camorra is an organization that was born inside a jail in Italy, our distant homeland. If you cross this line, prison may someday rob you of your freedom. The flame of your life might also be snuffed out in a fight that seems unfair. Do you understand these things?”

“I do.”

“Your right foot is in prison. Your left foot is in your coffin. Even then, do you wish to keep your eyes fixed on your own path, and to at times grasp honor with your right hand?”

“I do.”

“If necessary, can you use your left hand to take your own life for our sake?”

“…Yes.”

“Firo Prochainezo. If your father killed one of our comrades, could you kill your father and avenge your comrade?”

That question demanded a brief silence.

Firo didn’t know his father’s face. He’d been born and raised in a slum in Hell’s Kitchen, where Italian immigrants tended to gather. His father had been Italian, and his mother had been American with English ancestors. Apparently, when his father had been in Naples, Italy, he’d been a member of the Camorra. There had been a war between organizations over there, and when his had lost the fight, they’d come to America.

Just about the time Firo came into the world, Firo’s father had died of tuberculosis.

He’d grown up not knowing his father, and before he reached his tenth birthday, his mother had died as well.

Again, it had been tuberculosis. His mother had been kept isolated from everyone around her, and her death had seemed to be a very lonely one.

For a few years after that, he’d done anything and everything to stay alive. He hadn’t had the leeway to distinguish between good deeds and bad ones. He’d been drifting around New York when he’d tried to steal a wallet from Yaguruma, the syndicates’s primo voto. The moment he’d tried to stick his hand into the elderly Asian’s jacket, Firo’s vision had somersaulted. He’d been thrown by Yaguruma hundreds of times since then, but that first time had been the most memorable.

That was when Firo had become involved with the Family. To him, the members who passed in and out of Alveare really were like family.

He’d never given much thought to where he belonged.

But Firo liked these guys.

That was all it was, but to him, it was enough.

“…Yes. If the one who was killed truly was our comrade, I would bury my blade in the heart of a relative.”

“I see. …Listen, Firo. The path you are about to start down is…a spiral… Yes, something like a huge spiral staircase.”

This wasn’t a question. He spoke slowly, in the sort of tone he would have used to give advice to his own child.

“Our world is like a spiral staircase: Once you take that first step, you’re in, and after that, the only way to go is down. Some go down cautiously, holding the railing, and others fall spectacularly down the center of the spiral. Some may descend through that hole elegantly, with a parachute, and be showered with praise, while others will have their parachute strings summarily cut. We’re petty beings who continue to descend that staircase, nothing more. What waits for us at the very bottom is the end of our lives. Either we fall from the staircase to be dashed to the ground and die; or we descend normally, walking until we’re exhausted and then die; or we die satisfied, as if we’re going to sleep. The fact that you die at the end is the same in every world, but most people die on mountaintops, or…well, someplace close to heaven, although I don’t know whether or not it exists. However, for us, there is no going up. Capone may look as if he’s going up, but even he’s only descending gracefully, in the midst of applause, just like one of the president’s parades… Yet still, in the end, he’s going down just the same.”

At this point, he paused. Drawing a deep breath, he said:

“When a guy shines as bright as Capone…people outside the spiral staircase, people living normal lives, can see him. However, most are never noticed. The only thing people think is that there’s something buzzing around on a staircase that goes down into the bowels of the earth.”

Molsa’s eyes opened wide, and he gazed intently into Firo’s.

“Firo Prochainezo. I’ll ask you one more time. It’s not too late for you to turn back. Even if you’ve done wrong before, if it’s nothing too serious, you’ll be able to head for the ‘up’ staircase. You may be shut up in the big house for several years, but you can make a fresh start from there. However, if you cross this line, there’s no turning back. Until now, others have used you, but when you become a camorrista, you’ll be someone who uses others. You’ll turn some of the gears—only a few, mind—of the underworld. Once that happens, you can’t go back. If you try to turn back, the fellas who are descending the staircase with you will drag you down and throw you into the well at its center. Frankly, I think you could do just fine on the straight and narrow, too. You’ve got the ability for it. Firo Prochainezo. Do you intend to step onto this staircase, even so?”

Molsa’s speech ended there. Once again, silence descended upon the room.

The lamp’s flame flickered wildly.

How much courage must it have taken Firo to utter his next words… To respond to Molsa?

“…Yes. I’m prepared.”

As he finished speaking, sweat ran down his back like a waterfall, and salty drops fell from his clenched fists.

“…I see… In that case, show us your resolve.”

Firo took a step forward.

He drew his own knife…and stuck it into the tabletop. There were a dozen or so scars around it, probably left over from former rituals.

A handgun sat a short ways in front of the upright knife. Firo picked it up and aimed it at Molsa. Then he turned the muzzle toward his own heart.

When he’d finished this sequence of actions, Firo walked around the edge of the table, gun in hand. He passed half the men as he did so, and all of them kept intense eyes fixed on him.

When he reached Molsa’s side, Firo knelt reverentially. Carefully, he changed his grip on the weapon, quietly holding it out to his leader.

The caposocietà took it wordlessly. Then he raised a hand and signaled Ronny, the secretary.

Ronny nodded silently, then crossed to a shelf in a corner of the room. He brought two bottles and a single glass over to Firo.

One bottle was filled with wine, and a liquid poison swirled in the other.

Molsa poured wine into the glass until it was half full, then filled it the rest of the way with poison.

Without a word, he held the poisoned glass out to Firo.

Firo took it without hesitation and slowly brought it to his lips.

When they touched the rim of the faintly shining glass—

—Molsa snatched the drink from Firo’s hand and dashed it to the floor. Red liquid and glass shards splashed at their feet.

This process had demonstrated Firo’s loyalty and courage. In leaving his knife, he’d shown a courage that didn’t depend on weapons alone. In turning the gun from Molsa to himself, he’d shown a willingness to choose his own death over shooting his caposocietà. In bringing poison to his lips, he’d shown devotion, agreeing to accept even death if that was what his leader ordered. The content and significance of these Camorra promotion rituals differed from group to group. In the Martillo Family, after this sequence of actions, the final “ritual” was conducted.

“Capo… Please test my duty,” Firo said.

Molsa nodded quietly, and then:

“Yaguruma, you stand witness. Maiza, you test Firo’s duty.”

He gave his two subordinates their orders.

Behind the round table, there was a relatively large, open space. When Firo and the two executives moved to it, Ronny brought over three knives. One was the knife Firo had stabbed into the round table a little while earlier, and it was handed to him just as it was.

The remaining two knives were gripped in the hands of the executives, one each.

The two of them, Firo and Maiza, were about to fight a duel, right there.

One of the differences between the Camorra and the Mafia was that, while the Mafia preferred guns, the Camorra used knife skills as a way to measure their honor. The more skilled with a knife someone was, the more respect his comrades had for him.

Conversely, for the Camorra, you could say that being able to use a knife was a duty.

As a result, a test of knife skills was incorporated as one of the rituals, and although it wasn’t clear whether it meant the same thing among them, many other Camorra groups—both in Naples and in New York—included such a duel in their rituals.

The duel was said to be over when one of the combatants wounded his opponent’s arm. If Firo lost to Maiza, he’d fight again, going up against one of the other executives. If he lost against three opponents in a row, he’d hone his skills with a knife, and the ritual duel would be conducted again at a later date. Of course, until that time, he couldn’t be promoted to executive.

“…I trust there’s no ill feeling between you two? If one of you stabs his opponent in the chest, I’ll kill the one who did it then and there. Is that clear?”

Yaguruma spoke dispassionately. Although he’d emigrated from Japan, he’d lived in this country for over thirty years, so there was nothing odd about the way he spoke.

Firo and Maiza shrugged out of their jackets and hung them over the backs of nearby chairs. The two of them were in shirtsleeves, and in the dark room, the two patches of white stood out sharply.

“Not going to take your shirts off? …Well, I know it’s cold, but not only will they get cut, they’ll get bloody. …You don’t care? All right. In that case… Begin.”

Yaguruma took a step back, and Maiza and Firo faced each other.

Firo wasn’t sure how to start. Come to think of it, this was the first time he’d seen Maiza with a knife. People called him a coward behind his back, but since he was an exec, he had to have at least some skills with a knife, right?

Even so, Firo was sure he wouldn’t lose. If his opponent had been Yaguruma, he would have been far less confident, but he was positive he could win against Maiza, no question.

That naïve thought was shattered in an instant.

Leaning forward slightly, the tall man in front of him began to advance. His steps were slow.

Abruptly, Maiza’s arm stretched out. It really did look as if his arm had gotten longer.

“………!”

Firo jumped back immediately, only to have Maiza claim the spot where he’d been standing a moment before.

Fast…!

Directly after Maiza had stepped forward slowly, he’d then sped up drastically. That was what had given Firo the illusion that Maiza’s body had stretched.

Maiza gave a slightly disappointed smile. Then he closed the distance again, unleashing a series of attacks with his knife.

The way it moved changed from attack to attack. Just when Firo had seen several arcing attacks in a row, in the next instant, a sharp, direct thrust would bear down on him. Firo also struck, undaunted, but every strike was deflected by beautifully spare motions. Then another attack would be launched in the opening he’d left.

He was tough. The way Maiza handled his blade showed his skills to be first-rate among the people Firo knew. If he’d been watching from the sidelines, he probably would have involuntarily marveled at it, but he didn’t have the time right now to be impressed.

However, Firo also had the best knife skills of the associates, and he continued to evade Maiza’s serial attacks by a hair.

Firo’s strength lay in his sharp eyes and the breadth of their vision. The knife’s pathway wasn’t the only thing his eyes picked up on: He had a detailed grasp of the movement of Maiza’s shoulders, his gaze, and his footwork, which he used to make split-second decisions about what his own moves should be.

The job he did for the syndicate involved being on the alert for cheating at a gambling den, and it would have trained his kinetic vision and broadened his visual field whether he wanted it to or not. In addition, when he had free days, he’d studied martial arts with Yaguruma and knife handling with Ronny and Molsa, so he was skilled at making snap decisions in combat.

Even so, Maiza was driving him to the wall.

Firo’s eyes picked up the state of the room behind Maiza. Given the position of the walls beyond him, it was clear that Firo would be forced into a corner very soon. If his back hit the wall even once, Maiza would probably get him. In which case—

Firo took a gamble. He voluntarily leaped backward, slamming his back into the wall. Maiza closed in. Firo swiftly went into a crouch…then kicked off the wall, charging at Maiza. For an instant, the other man looked confused—Or Firo thought he had, but he couldn’t afford to double-check things like that. He took aim and thrust his knife at his opponent.

If he aimed for the arm, his own arm would likely have been sliced first. And so—

Maiza’s arm suddenly stopped.

The tip of Firo’s blade jammed into the guard of Maiza’s knife. The two weapons overlapped each other perfectly. But the blade of Firo’s knife seemed to be just a bit longer: Maiza’s blade hadn’t reached Firo’s guard.

A cross-counter with knives. The strange sight didn’t even last a second.

Maiza hastily withdrew his knife, but as if synchronizing his movements to Maiza’s, Firo shoved his own knife farther in.

The unexpected force threw Maiza off-balance.

This time, aiming for that instant, Firo yanked his knife back. Soundlessly, the blade slipped free of Maiza’s guard. Then, as Maiza staggered, it slashed his left arm.

The close combat, which had lasted several minutes, came to a truly abrupt end.

The sleeve of Maiza’s shirt split, and red blood seeped from the tear.

“…That’s the match, gentlemen.”

Maiza beamed, holding his red-stained arm high.

After a moment’s silence, the basement room erupted with cheers.

Up until then, the executives had observed the ritual with wooden expressions, but from the way they looked now, you would have thought their favorite ball player had hit a homer. Everyone was praising Firo, all at once.

“Yahoo! That was incredible, Firo!”

One of the executives put an arm around Firo’s shoulders.

“I can’t believe you managed to land one on Maiza!”

Apparently all the executives had known about Maiza’s skills. Come to think of it, he’d never heard the executives say anything nasty about Maiza behind his back. Now that Firo had recovered enough composure to be able to calmly consider such nuance, sweat began trickling down his face.

“No…I was…startled, too.”

“Congratulations, Firo.”

All the strength seemed to have drained from Firo, and Maiza hugged him, as if to keep him on his feet. Then, as though they were following his lead, the other executives embraced Firo, one after another.

As he slapped Firo on the back, Yaguruma sent him a rare compliment.

“You sure have grown. I’ve served as witness for many years, and you’re the first exec candidate who’s ever beaten Maiza!”

Finally, Molsa hugged Firo, thumping him on the back.

“I won’t say another word. You’re a fine camorrista, Firo.”

Then Molsa picked up the gun that had been used in the earlier ritual:

“I now fire a salute, to celebrate the birth of our new executive!”

Aiming at the ceiling, he pulled the trigger. The bullet punched through the wooden ceiling, heading upstairs. These shots were probably always fired at the same place: There were several old bullet scars in that area.

With that, the entire ritual was over, and a new camorrista had been born.

Possibly from happiness, the camorrista in question kept looking around at everything.

“…Huh?”

Then he noticed.

The red stain that had been on Maiza’s arm had vanished completely.

Just as he was wondering what that meant—

There was a heavy thud, as if something had fallen over on the other side of the ceiling. Then a woman’s scream rang out.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! Isaac’s been killed!”

A little while earlier.

Isaac and Miria were walking along, looking just as they had before, when the streetlamps began to light up.

“Well. I wonder if Ennis got those four turned in to the police.”

“I hope she managed to make a clean getaway afterward!”

She’d called herself a criminal, so apparently they were worried she might have been caught by the police.

“Say, what do you suppose Ennis even did?”

“She probably ran away from home, don’t you think?!”

They had no way of knowing she’d thought they were runaways.

“Hmm… Yes, that could be it. Still… She was seriously tough!”

“Really tough!”

“I wonder if that was the rumored ‘Oriental Baritsu.’”

“What’s Baritsu?”

“Heh-heh-heh! It’s an Eastern martial art used by Holmes, the hero of those popular British novels. I hear it’s actually an abbreviation of ‘Barton-style jujitsu’!”

“Wow, Isaac, you know everything!”

“Heh-heh-heh, had you observed instead of merely seen, you would have known the meaning of Baritsu, my dear Miria.”

Apparently he was a fan of detective novels. That said, it’s doubtful that even observing would have clarified the meaning of Baritsu. For one thing, there hadn’t been anything to see.

“Still, tough girls are really swell, aren’t they…”

“Yes, like Tomoe Gozen!”

Why did these two have such an abundance of bizarre knowledge, and no other kind?

“By the way, Isaac! Where are we going next?”

“Right. About that…” Isaac dropped his voice to a whisper and began to explain. “Even if we’re stealing money from the Mafia, if we take it from a group that’s too big, we’ll have lots of guys chasing us, and that’ll be rough. For that reason, the plan is to target a small outfit that isn’t affiliated with anybody! According to the information I hunted up earlier, the groups that fit the bill in this area are the Martillo Family and the Gandor Family.”

“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.”

“And so, for now, I thought we’d head to the Martillo Family’s hideout, since it’s closer. We’ll use today to just case the joint.”

“Case the joint! Okay!”

When they went to the address they’d gotten from the information broker, they found a shop with a sign in the shape of a beehive.

The brown sign had ALVEARE written on it in white paint, but Isaac didn’t know Italian, so he didn’t realize that the word meant “beehive.”

“Ah, this is it, this is the place.”

“Yes, this is it!”

When they opened the door, their noses were greeted by a strong, sweet smell.

Inside, the store was crowded with rows of honey of all kinds. They’d thought the sweet smell might have been leaking from the jars, but apparently the culprit was the honey simmering on a stove behind the register.

“C’mon in.”

The woman who was stirring the pot on the stove spoke to them.

“We’ll be closing soon, so if you’re looking for something, speak up quick.”

She seemed brusque, but Isaac and Miria didn’t particularly mind. They looked around the shop.

There was a hallway back behind the register with a sturdy-looking door at the end of it.

“Erm, we’d like to go through that door.”

“We want to go in!”

In response to this, the proprietress gave them a cold glare.

“…Haven’t seen you ’round here before.”

“Don’t worry about it!”

“Don’t!”

The proprietress took another good look at the pair. A tuxedo, no necktie, and a black dress. In their hands, they held something that appeared to be a helmet from some foreign country and a weird mask.

No matter how you looked at them, they didn’t seem to be police investigators, and she’d never heard of a woman participating in a sting operation before.

Arriving at that conclusion, the proprietress wordlessly started down the hall.

“C’mon, then.”

She knocked several times on the tightly closed door. For just a moment, light showed through the peephole.

There was a brief pause, and then they heard a heavy click from behind the door. Probably a padlock being released.

The door swung open, and brilliant light flooded out.

“Whoa…”

“Amazing…”

The interior looked like something out of a musical. The light of a chandelier illuminated the milk-white walls, turning them a gold reminiscent of honey. The room seemed more spacious than the building had from the outside, and it held nearly ten tables covered with white cloths. The exterior of the adjacent buildings had looked separate, but apparently several of them were connected on the inside.

There was a small platform at the back, probably so that local canaries could show off their voices. The concentration of lightbulbs was higher in that area.

“Ah, customers! Welcome, come in!”

From the back, a voice addressed them in slightly accented English.

A Chinese girl with pretty black hair came running up to Isaac and Miria. She was wearing an eye-catching cheongsam sewn from red fabric and embroidered with gold thread. The slim lines of her body showed up clearly, and her appearance was bound to attract male glances. However, occasional glimpses of something childlike showed in her gestures and the way she spoke, and it seemed more fitting to call her the darling of the establishment than its Madonna.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I’m afraid we’ve been reserved by group today, so I’ll need to seat you two in corner. Okay?”

When she mentioned it and they looked around, the place really was quite empty. Aside from them, the only customers were a few old geezers and, for some reason, a child. Other than that, there was a group of about three men at the back, and that was all.

Without waiting for their response, the Chinese girl showed them to a small table in the corner.

Isaac and Miria followed her without complaint. Since they were only here to case the joint, they didn’t particularly care where they were seated.

“Uh… For now, bring us your cheapest liquor, would you?”

“Would you!”

“Yes, yes! Just one moment, please.”

After their exotic waitress had gone, the pair began chatting confidentially in whispers.

(“All right, listen: We’re looking for places where money might collect.”)

(“Like a safe?”)

(“Right. From what I heard, the syndicate’s office is here somewhere. That means there’s probably a safe here, too.”)

(“Okay!”)

Silently, the two stood up and began casually prowling around the establishment. They couldn’t have looked more suspicious if they’d tried, but at the moment, the only staff member was the Chinese girl, and she didn’t seem to have noticed what they were doing.

“Now then, where to start looking… Nn?”

Isaac’s ears had caught something that sounded like cheering voices.

“What’s that…?”

He strained his ears, searching for the source of the noise, and found that there were barrels lined up in the corner of the room, by their table.

Isaac went over to the barrels and peeked through the gaps between them.

At first, it didn’t look as if there was anything in the space, but the cheers were definitely coming from there.

“…Nn?”

His eyes fell to a patch of floor in the shadow of the barrels. There were several small holes drilled in it.

“What’s this?”

Isaac wrestled a barrel out of the way and stood there, looking down at the holes in the floor.

A faint light seeped through them. Apparently they opened into an underground room.

…And the cheers were definitely coming from those holes.

“Aha… The office is in the basement, then?”

In that case, where’s the entrance? As he began to look around, he heard the Chinese girl scream.

“Aaah! Sir! Not there! Very dangerous! Get away, hurry!”

At her voice, all the customers in the place turned to look at Isaac. Miria also hurried over with an inquisitive expression on her face.

“Huh…? What on earth is dangerous abou—?”

Bang.

He heard a dry sound from the basement. Then a light shock ran through the toe of his shoe.

“Wha…?”

When he looked, the tip of his shoe had been gouged slightly. His actual toes seemed unscathed, but wisps of smoke were rising from the brutal scar in his leather shoe.

Moving stiffly, Isaac looked up at the ceiling.

There was a small hole in it that looked brand-new.

“Huh…? Did I just get…shot?”

Isaac said nothing more. He collapsed with a thud, right on the spot.

Miria, who’d seen the whole thing from start to finish, screwed up her face and screamed.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! Isaac’s been killed!”

“A toast! To the birth of a new camorrista!”

Molsa took the lead, and everyone in the place drained their glasses at once.

Having completed the ritual, the executives had gathered around their newest member and held a feast in his honor. Today, they were the only members present at Alveare. The associates and apprentices had been sent out to their jobs at other establishments, and it was just executives and extremely close interested parties… Or at any rate, that should have been the case.

“I tell you what, I really thought I was dead.”

“Thought so!”

It just so happened, two strange outsiders were present at the feast. The tuxedo and the dress didn’t seem that out of place on an occasion like this one. For some reason, they were seated at the same table as Firo, the guest of honor.

When the group had rushed upstairs, they’d found Isaac with his eyes rolled back in his head and Miria, who was sobbing “Murderrrr!” Then Maiza and Firo had exclaimed “Ah!” and the rest had assumed they knew the pair…and so it had gone. There was also the fact that, had things happened a bit differently, the bullet might have struck and killed one of them, so none of the executives had any objection to treating them to liquor.

“…Who’d have thought the couple from the hat shop would be here…?”

“Coincidences do seem to happen, don’t they.”

Firo and Maiza looked at each other, exchanging wry smiles. …Although, if they’d known about the other coincidences that surrounded them, they probably wouldn’t have been able to smile or anything even remotely like it.

“I’m terribly sorry about that, fella. I had no idea that barrel had been moved…”

Molsa bowed deeply.

“Huh? Oh, uh, no, no, it’s fine, don’t worry about it! It’s just the toe of my shoe. It’ll heal up fine if I lick it!”

“…No, it probably won’t.”

Possibly because he hadn’t had someone older—much less someone with Molsa’s dignity—apologize to him before, Isaac seemed a bit flustered. As for Miria, she’d eagerly begun to sample the dishes that had been brought out.

Seina, the proprietress, and Lia Lin-Shan, the waitress, had personally prepared almost all the food they carried out. Many of the offerings were surprisingly elaborate for a speakeasy, and the content varied widely and mixed all sorts of styles, from Italian pasta dishes to highly seasoned Chinese sautés made with lots of oil.

In addition to electric lights, a number of fuel-burning lamps hung on the walls of the establishment, and the pale flames made the food look even tastier.

One dish that particularly stood out was the duck placed in the center of each table. These had been fried whole in oil, then stewed in honey—the house specialty—and then fried again.

When Miria touched one with her knife, there was a light, exquisite crackle, and the juices flowed out from the break in the skin.

“Ooh, this is delicious!”

On hearing Miria’s cry, Lia looked pleased. The two women smiled like children, and it naturally brightened the mood at the tables.

Just then, the executives Randy and Pezzo came up.

“Say, Firo. That liquor we just had… Is it gone already?”

“Yeah, we only bought a little.”

“Huh. It was pretty stiff stuff. I like liquor like that.”

“We were supposed to go around to different places and stock up, but there was a fire along the way. I went over to check it out, and we sort of ran out of time…”

Firo didn’t mention that he’d been wandering around looking for a girl. It was true that he’d gone to rubberneck at the fire, so he hadn’t lied, per se.

Abruptly, Randy’s and Pezzo’s expressions changed.

“? What is it, guys?”

“Uh…nah… Nothin’. Right, Pezzo?”

“D-don’t look at me!”

“?”

As the two of them stood there, tense smiles on their faces, Seina—who’d brought in some more food—smacked their heads with the flat of her hand.

“Honestly! What are you good-for-nothings jawing about?! If you want liquor that badly, drink ours! And you, Firo, you’re just as bad. Going all the way to some other place to buy liquor for your own party!”

Seina gave him a mild glare, and Firo ducked his head slightly.

“Well, uh… Miz Seina… All the liquor here has honey mixed in, you know? This sort of thing doesn’t happen every day, so I wanted to drink something a little more…adult.”

“Ha! You still look like a kid to me.”

With a dramatic shake of her head, she went to bring in more food.

All the liquor at this establishment, even the wine and beer, had honey in it, and it was terribly sweet. Although there were regular customers who came for its unique flavor and the two women’s home cooking, it couldn’t be denied that the speakeasy got fewer customers than other places.

There were two main reasons that, even then, Alveare was able to do business on this scale: the fact that it was run directly by the Martillos and didn’t need to pay protection money, and the fact that it didn’t pay off the police and Prohibition enforcers, or prosecutors and government bureaus.

Edward, who was in charge of the district, accepted no bribes whatsoever, and he didn’t cave to pressure from his superiors, either. In other words, slipping him cash would have been pointless. That said, they were good at spotting stings, and so far they’d managed to get by without any arrests.

At ordinary establishments, these expenses added up to five hundred dollars a month. One of the perks of being a speakeasy was the ability to make money while ducking the liquor tax, but in the end, the taxes they’d paid before Prohibition had been cheaper.

In that sense, the more than thirty thousand speakeasies in this city were trapped in a strange spiral of their own.

Because of the Great Depression, the amount spent on liquor had dropped drastically, and the spiral staircase was rocking wildly. In the midst of that situation, being excluded from the spiral made this place one of the lucky ones.

In this fortunate speakeasy, the jovial outlaws’ revel continued.

“You’re really something, though, Firo. To think you’d beat Maiza like that…”

“No, it was a fluke. Besides…if they’d let us strike at anything other than arms, I’d be dead.”

“Mm-hmm, you certainly would! I’m going to keep right on putting you through the mill, so you’d better be ready for it!”

“Agh…”

“If it had been me… Let’s see. First I would’ve taken his arm and thrown him over my shoulder…”

“Except that isn’t a knife skill.”

“…Nn? The pepper’s gone…”

“By the way, you know that big ol’ round table in the basement? How’d they get that down there?”

“Hey, somebody grab me the pepper.”

“Hmm? Firo, didn’t we buy four bottles of high-grade liquor?”

“…No, just two.”

“Ah, Miria, I want some of that duck, too.”

“Sure! Here, say ‘Aaaaah!’ ”

“…Whoa, that’s tasty. But it pales in comparison to your beauty, Miria.”

“Man, what’re you doing comparing looks to food?”

“Yaaay! Isaac complimented me!”

“Wow, do I want to slug these guys right now.”

“Heeeey. Pepper. Anybody.”

“Hmm. You could also catch him off guard and hit him with a flying knee kick.”

“Yes, only that isn’t a knife skill either.”

“I tell you what, this country’s much too cold to us Japanese and Chinese. The immigration laws, for one. Treating Asians as scoundrels so blatantly is just…”

“Yaguruma, you’re jumping topics all over the place… Are you drunk already?”

“Huh…? Don’t you have any pepper at your table either?”

“From what I hear, when they built this building, they put it in before they hung the ceiling.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“The table! What you just asked me about, Pezzo!”

“Oh, Randy. Randy.”

“What, Maiza?”

“Aren’t you going to do that trick today? You know… The one with the burning glove.”

Splutt.

“Waugh, Randy and Pezzo just spit across the table!”

“Nasty!”

“Suh, sorry, sorry. …We don’t really feel like doing that one today…”

“Hey, Ronny. Where’s the pepper?”

“Boss, come on, just make do without pepper.”

It was impossible to tell who was talking to whom anymore. It was a chaotic mealtime scene, and Firo was enjoying himself enormously.

Ever since he was born, he hadn’t smiled much. The people who’d lived around him in the slums hadn’t smiled much, either. …Or rather, they hadn’t had enough leeway to smile.

From the time he was a kid, he’d dreamed of smiling cheerfully like the Italians who showed up in movies and books. Right now, that dream had come true.

He made a wish: Let this time last forever.

He knew it was a dumb wish.

Still, he felt really lucky just to be able to make a dumb wish like that one.

One side of the spiral staircase was brightly lit.

Naturally, everything on the other side was shrouded in darkness.

Three men walked through the darkness in the spaces between the hustle and bustle of the city.

The jazz hall had its CLOSED sign hung out. Ordinarily, it would have been busy even at this hour, but since its three managers were all gone this evening, it had shut down for the night.

When they opened the door, there was a lone man inside.

“Oh, sorry. We’re closed toni—”

One of the three men swept a hand past the man’s neck.

“Nn…ah… , , !”

For a brief moment, air leaked from the man’s throat. The next instant, red spurted out.

The man with the knife promptly used the door to shield himself from his victim’s geyser of blood.

When the flow began to subside, Dallas Genoard silently kicked the man over; he’d tried to cling to his killer. The crimson puddle that was forming around his upper body kept growing.

“…Downstairs. First, find out where they put that crate, got it? Then…pepper everything. Just make sure you don’t hit the box.”

There was a knife with a bloody blade in Dallas’s hand.

The two men behind him held new-model machine guns inside their coats.

“Hey… Who’re you?”

When they went downstairs, they found four members of the Gandor Family waiting there. They seemed to have been playing poker: All four were sitting at the table in the center.

Dallas answered, his face expressionless.

“Well… We forgot something here this afternoon, see. When we asked upstairs, he told us to go ask the guys inside…”

“Forgot something…? Oh, you mean that crate?”

The man glanced at a sturdy-looking safe. The crate was sitting on top of it.

“Yeah… That’s it, that box.”

“Sorry, fellas, but we dunno if it’s really yours. Wait until tomorrow when Luck’s back, wouldja?”

When he’d gotten that far, one of the other members muttered:

“Hey… Mike should know about that crate, too.”

Mike was probably the man upstairs with the slit throat.

The corners of Dallas’s lips curved nastily. He raised a hand, giving a signal.

The two behind him, who were smiling in the same way, produced the organ grinders from under their coats.

They were Thompson submachine guns, which gangs had affectionately dubbed “tommy guns.”

A raid. It couldn’t be… On a small outfit like this? That hesitation created a second’s delay.

“So long, nameless underlings.”

“…You bastards! What did you do to Mike?!”

Before the Gandor men’s hands could reach their hips, the tommy muzzles spat fire.

One after another, the Chicago typewriters punched several dozen holes into their bodies.

The massacre lasted only a few seconds. The roar that echoed through the basement room was more than enough to destroy three human bodies, the table, the radio, and the vases on the shelf.

“Ha, ha, ha… Ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa…ha-ha… What, that’s it? You go around calling people scum, and that’s all you’ve got…? That’s real nice. Nice and hilarious.”

As Dallas laughed maniacally, a red hole opened up in his forehead.

“…Huh…?”

Those several dozen bullets hadn’t quite been enough to kill the fourth man. He’d survived by using the other three as shields, and now, on his knees, the man struck back at his attackers with bullets. By the time he’d emptied his gun, one of the attackers had died instantly from a hole in his forehead, and he seemed to have nailed the other two in their guts: They were curled up, hugging their Thompsons.

The survivor picked up the gun of one of the comrades who’d served as his shield and emptied that one into them, too, without a pause. When he saw he’d blown away parts of the skulls of the remaining two as well, he drew a deep breath.

“What the hell was that…?”

The friends he’d been playing poker with just a few moments ago lay on the ground in front of him. One of them had had his fingers blown off. Even if he’d survived, he’d never have been able to play cards again.

“What the hell was that?! Damn it!”

As he screamed, he threw the gun he’d picked up at the corpses of the attackers.

After breathing deeply for a while, he stood, slowly. His knees were quaking, and he couldn’t walk well.

“…The phone… For now…I’ve got to tell Luck…”

The telephone hung on the wall on the attackers’ side of the room, so it hadn’t taken damage from the machine guns.

“I’m pretty sure…Luck and the others are…uh…”

A hand had come down on his shoulder.

“…………”

Terror enveloped him from head to toe.

“……Mike…?”

When he turned, fearfully, a knife was jammed into his forehead.

“…That hurt, fella.”

Kicking the man who’d already fallen to the floor, Dallas spoke cheerfully.

“We really are immortal. That’s awesome… I’m really moved… Yeah, really truly moved!”

The wound in his forehead had closed completely. Not a drop of blood remained to stain his clothes.

“Now, that’s a problem…”

“Yep, a problem!”

“They were real nice people…”

“Yes, really nice!”

Isaac and Miria were wandering aimlessly through the nighttime streets. They’d partied until their bellies were full, then said their good-byes and left… But not only had everyone in the place been sad to see them go, they’d even said, “Go on, have yourselves a souvenir,” and given them a jar of honey.

“I bet it would be a bad thing to take money from people that nice.”

“We’d be absolute fiends!”

And so, the pair had gone to scope out their other target, the Gandor Family, but…

“Ah, it must be that building.”

“Yes, that building!”

“It sure is quiet, though…”

As they watched from a distance, there was movement at the entrance.

Three men appeared from inside the building.

Hastily, Isaac and Miria hid themselves, then watched from the shadows.

The light from the streetlamps was unreliable, and they couldn’t make out the men’s faces. However, they could tell they were carrying a box of some sort as if it was important. They seemed to be standing around at the entrance and talking, and at this point they showed no sign of going anywhere.

“Aha… I bet I know what that is. It’s the syndicate’s black money.”

“Is it? Why are they taking it out? The group hasn’t sworn allegiance to anyone else, right?”

“It’s probably the other thing—bribes for the cops or something. What else would they carry out in the middle of the night, with three guys, real careful-like? It has to be money, doesn’t it?”

“I see. Isaac, you really are a genius!”

“Aren’t I? …In that case, there’s just one thing for us to do. We’ll take it now.”

“Why?”

“They’re transporting the cash today, you know. If we try to steal it tomorrow, the safe will be empty.”

“I get it! Isaac, you’re so smart!”

Quietly, the wheel of fortune began to roll down the spiral.

“Listen, if we take this back…you think they’ll actually give us money?”

“We’ve just got to believe ’em.”

“Yeah, but Dallas… You saw how easily they killed Scott. Once they get what they want from us, won’t they just ice us, too?”

“Forget about Scott. …Don’t worry. Those guys want this liquor. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“In that case, we’ll just hold a gun to it. We’ll tell ’em they won’t get it until after we get our money.”

“I see.”

They didn’t know that threat would fail to work on just one person: the all-important Szilard.

As the three men started off, a black shadow blocked their way. It was a tall man who wore a weird mask on his face. The strangest thing of all was that, on his head, he wore some kind of headgear with knife-like objects stuck to its front in a V.

“…Who’re you…?”

It was only natural that, even though he now had an indestructible body, Dallas looked taken aback at the sight.

“…For now, allow me to introduce myself as Professor Moriarty! Yes, I am Moriarty! …For unspecified reasons, I have returned alive from the depths of Reichenbach Falls.”

Apparently he really was a fan of the works of Conan Doyle. That said, Moriarty hadn’t spoken like that, and he certainly hadn’t worn anything as eccentric as that mask and helmet.

“Erm… As proof, this is honey I bought from Holmes, who kept bees.”

He took out the jar filled with yellow honey. It was the honey he’d been given as a souvenir a short while earlier.

“…Are you messing with us?”

“No-go? …Uh, all right, let’s say Jack the Ripper.”

“Cut the crap!”

“You sure are a tough crowd… Who would you prefer, then? Uncle Tom’s evil master? Or would you rather have the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz? …Except I’m male, so…”

Both were popular musicals on Broadway. Since he knew so much about odd things like this, it was possible Isaac had been born into a fairly good family.

“Shaddup! We don’t have time to screw around with loonies!”

They drew their knives, intending to threaten the stranger with them. Right then, the attention of all three hatchet men was completely monopolized by the newcomer in front of them.

“What about with me, then?”

A voice spoke up from behind. Quickly, the men turned.

The instant they did, something was thrown at them.

“Waugh!”

When they hastily turned back the other way, Isaac hit them with the exact same thing.

“My eeeeeeyes…hah…ga-gah…gaaah…koff…”

They’d been showered with a powdered mixture of pepper and lime. It had only been a fist-sized amount, but that was enough to do considerable damage to the eyes and lungs of three people. Parenthetically, because the pair had “borrowed” it from the dinner tables earlier, the amount of pepper had increased by quite a bit.

The coughing fit that ensued caused them to have rather a lot of trouble breathing. Although they’d gained indestructible bodies, they hadn’t been liberated from pain.

Unable to stand it, they drew deep breaths in spite of themselves. As a result, they again inhaled the powder that still hung in the air. They’d fallen into a barren cycle.

Dallas’s group didn’t even have the wherewithal to draw their weapons. All they could do was cover their mouths and throats and roll around.

Advantage won, Isaac and Miria grabbed the wooden crate and absconded.

In the end, neither group ever realized that the other party was the one they’d met earlier in the day.

Ennis ran. She was bewildered.

Szilard had given her an order: “In the unlikely event that those three drink the liquor, kill them.”

She’d been watching from a spot in the shadows about fifty yards away from the Gandor hideout, in the opposite direction from Isaac and Miria, but…

First their way had been barred by a tall shadow, and then, when a smaller shadow had circled around behind them, they were caught in a pincer attack. The next instant, Dallas and the others had abruptly seemed to be overcome by pain. The two shadows stole the crate from Dallas’s group, then bolted for the main street without a second’s pause.

“What’s going on…?”

Should she chase after the two who’d stolen the crate, or should she help Dallas’s group? Ennis hesitated for a moment, but, thinking that Dallas’s group wouldn’t die in any case, she decided to follow the crate.

She leaped over Dallas and the others, who were thrashing around on the ground, and made for the main street herself.

When she left the alley and looked around, although light still streamed from windows here and there, there were only a handful of people on the street. She didn’t see any that were walking together as a couple.

Ennis looked this way and that two or three times, then broke into a run again, heading for the nearest alley. There was a bit too much distance between anything else and the street she’d just left. If the pair was abnormally fast, or if they’d ducked into a nearby shop, she’d be out of luck, but she felt fairly safe as far as the latter was concerned: She couldn’t see any sign of a door having opened and closed.

Making a series of similar decisions, she ran from alley to alley.

Several minutes later, in the corner of a certain one, she found something strange.

They’d been tossed on a garbage heap, but they looked new—and expensive—for unwanted articles.

From the shape they were in, it hadn’t been that long since they’d been thrown away.

“A helmet and…a mask?”

A tuxedo jacket had been shrugged off and discarded beside them.

They were all far too familiar to Ennis. Come to think of it, the difference in the pair’s heights had been familiar as well.

“It can’t be…”

For a little while, Ennis was stunned by the conclusion she’d reached.

At that point, she temporarily broke off her pursuit.

“What in…? What the, what the, what the hell is this?!”

Berga raged at the destruction that spread out before him.