Baccano! - Volume 14 - Chapter Pr2

The Man Known as Huey Laforet

December 1931 Somewhere in New York

“How does it feel to be both a bastard and an idiot?”

The space was a claustrophobic one, surrounded by sturdy stone walls and an iron door.

One institutional table sat in its center, flanked by two chairs.

These were the only furnishings in the room, and it definitely counted as “bleak.”

As one of the two men in the room complained with characteristic coarse language, the other opened his eyes, still sitting in the chair in which he’d been placed.

“…Wasn’t the interrogation supposed to take place after we reached the New York Department of Justice?”

The room created a mute pressure that might have crushed the spirits of a timid individual if they so much as stepped inside. And yet, even after half a day here, the man spoke in a perfectly calm voice.

Meanwhile, the overbearing man who’d barged in to join him shook his head.

“The Department of Justice is only interested in the terrorist activity. The inquiry I’m about to conduct isn’t going into any records except the one in my mind. Whether I fabricate anything is entirely up to me, and how many years you spend in a dark jail cell after this depends on how straight you are with me here. Keep that in mind and start singing.”

“You haven’t changed, Victor… You’re as verbose as ever. Intentional fabrications aside, I doubt your brain is capable of accurately remembering what I say in the first place.”

“……! …Oh, no you don’t. If you think you can get intel out of me by pushing my buttons, think again.”

Victor’s face flashed through a dizzying series of expressions before he finally settled for haughtily pushing his glasses back into place.

“Provocation was not my intent; far from it. I merely thought back over what I know of you and offered an objective opinion—”

“Anyway!”

Raising his voice to drown out the other man, Victor dropped heavily into the other chair.

“Lemme ask you again: How do you feel, Mr. Terrorist? Not only did your plan get the kibosh before it happened, but that was quite an arrest.”

“I suppose a terrorist would be expected to reply that this is the worst that could happen, but as Huey Laforet the individual, I don’t feel anything of the sort.”

“I see. In that case, I’ll make sure wherever you end up after this is the worst experience you’ve ever had.”

In response to Victor’s taunt, Huey sank into thought. Then, after a short silence, he gave his answer.

“I’m not so sure. To date, my worst memory is of the time my mother sacrificed her life to clear her name after being accused of witchcraft—which led to similar accusations and executions for many people I loved. Following that, it’s the memory of being unable to save my wife’s life back in my hometown.”

“…Hey.”

“And yet you claim the ability to leave me with a memory more painful than those. It’s an interesting proposition in its own right. What exactly did you have in mind? Could you share the specifics? And as for whether that despair will prove greater than the loneliness of the thousands of years in my future, only time will tell…”

“…”

Huey’s words completely silenced Victor.

Victor Talbot.

He was a member of the Bureau of Investigation—the federal organization that would later be known as the FBI—and he worked as the vice director of an extraordinarily unique section.

The man who sat in front of him was a terrorist who had purchased a large number of weapons and seemed to have been plotting some sort of destructive act.

Huey Laforet.

He was a criminal who led an armed group known as the Lemures, and it was rumored that he had several other hand-raised organizations.

The two men faced each other from completely opposite positions, but they had one important characteristic in common.

A characteristic that fell outside the scope of natural law, and it wasn’t something an observer could detect with a casual glance.

Immortality.

This word, most often found in fairy tales and Grecian myth, was a simple descriptor of what these two possessed.

The men were fellow alchemists who had been on board the same ship in 1711.

On that ship, they had summoned a demon and obtained the elixir of immortality. If they had told others about this, most people would have assumed they were hearing one of the thousand and one tales told to the king of the desert.

In truth, they had indeed survived to the present year of 1930. That long span of time had changed their respective positions into completely different things.

After the silence had gone on for a little longer, Victor sighed deeply… And then, finally, he spoke to his comrade.

“…What is it with you and Elmer anyway? Is everybody from Lotto Valentino a little cracked? You talk about your worst memories as if you’re reading a history book…and Elmer actually smiles when he does it!”

The place, Lotto Valentino, and that name, Elmer, had come up abruptly. However, when he heard the latter, Huey’s expression turned human for the first time.

Up till then, he’d had a faint, doll-like smile pasted on his face, but now it shifted into a distinct smirk that, while subtle, felt faintly human.

“Well, Elmer is crazy, you know.”

“What, and you’re not?”

“It’s true; Elmer is a lunatic, and his apparent normalcy makes him all the more troublesome. Everybody mistakes his lunacy for goodwill. They don’t notice the horror in the hand he extends to them.”

“Ha! So, what, you were only pretending to be buddies with him?” Victor mocked, but Huey seemed mystified.

“Why would you think that? Elmer was and is my best friend…although it’s too embarrassing to say these things to him directly.”

“You sure don’t look embarrassed. You’re telling me you’re friends with a nutcase?”

“Yes, and that’s exactly why. I doubt I could end our relationship even if I wanted to, however. His warped convictions are the one thing that will never change, no matter how the world changes. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that they’ll never be mended… To me, his nature may be what the North Star is to a man out on the ocean.”

The terrorist responded evasively, shaking his head as if to say the conversation was over.

Victor seemed to have gotten the message. He clicked his tongue lightly, then waded into the main subject.

“So what exactly were you trying to pull, baiting those humans with the power of immortality? Poor kids, they don’t know that you get sick of living for eternity inside of a hundred years. I might understand if you were trying to start a new religion, but you stockpiled weapons… Were you playing Crusaders or something?”

“Putting it that way is an insult to the Crusaders. Besides, you don’t need to ask; you already know what I wanted to do. You and I are far from friends, but I believe we understand each other fairly well.”

“An experiment, huh?” Muttering irritably, Victor pulled out some documents and slapped them down on the table. “These turned up at your place. You recognize them, I’m sure.”

“Well, well. These are…”

The documents that had been laid out in front of Huey included several photographs, blueprints for a variety of things, and written explanations of how they functioned.

“See, I figured this evidence would tell me about your plans, so I went through it all with a fine-tooth comb… What the hell is this stuff? Flying battleships? Boats with huge wheels? Bird-powered airplanes? Talking clocks? Dolls? You’re going to tell me, right now, what kind of code you’ve got buried in these bullshit blueprints.”

“Code? There’s nothing of the sort. These are exactly what they seem. They are the products of our venerable forerunners when it comes to invention, despite their being born after us. Every article was designed in the nineteenth century, and several have been created already. You must have seen talking clocks yourself, Victor.”

“… Nobody cares about that! Why did you have blueprints for that at your place, then? Huh?!” Victor yelled, his face beet red.

In response, Huey gave a mechanical smile and answered impassively.

“It’s a hobby. None of these ever would have occurred to me. Appreciating unique ideas like these is a modest pastime of mine. People themselves may not interest me, but the ideas they create are fascinating… I suppose you could call it a flaw of my personality.”

Huey’s lips curved in a faint smile. Even as he sensed something eerie in the man, Victor let his words go in one ear and out the other, then tried to pin down their essence.

“Well, la-di-da; good for you. I shouldn’t expect anything from you. Still, some of those blueprints look pretty dangerous. Take this portable flamethrower here; using one of those in real life would get ugly.”

“Oh, that’s one I drafted myself… I made a prototype for it the other day.”

“…What?”

“I may have designed it due to some sort of emotional trauma regarding the burnings during the witch hunts. Perhaps it’s an inversion of my hatred.”

“What are you talking about? You made that? There was nothing like that anywh—”

“I assumed that was what you were here to ask about.”

The remaining composure drained from Victor’s expression.

As he opened his mouth to ask another question—

—the door to the interrogation room opened, and a man who seemed to be Victor’s subordinate ran in.

“Edward? What’s up?”

“Well, sir…”

Shooting a glance at Huey, the young agent leaned in close to Victor’s ear and gave a terse report.

Victor’s temples tensed, and he plastered a strained smile across his face in an attempt to keep his cool.

He was trembling faintly. Observing him with interest, Huey impassively asked him, “What’s the matter, Victor? Is there some sort of problem?”

“…I can’t believe you, you damn bastard.”

“Beg pardon?”

The terrorist’s mechanical smile seemed deliberately inflammatory at this point. The Bureau of Investigation executive smiled back, his face tight, and explained to the criminal what had happened in something close to a snarl.

“They tell me your favorite flunkies took hostage a transcontinental express, the Flying Pussyfoot…and they’re demanding your release.”

“Oh my.”

“Don’t give me that! No, I get it. I thought you were way too relaxed. This was your game, huh? You finally decided to pull ordinary citizens into it. Don’t you think you’re selling us short, pal?”

“I didn’t order this. They must have taken action independently because they wanted me returned.”

“What the hell difference does it make?! You’re the one who put that damn group together! When you create an organization, you’re responsible for it, and when the leader’s a skunk who thinks of the humans below them as guinea pigs…”

Ignoring Victor, who kept rattling on, Huey let his thoughts drift to the Lemures’ rampage, which he’d half anticipated.

Well, given what I know of Goose, I suppose this was inevitable.

Now, then… What move will you make, Chané?

The state isn’t likely to acquiesce just because you have hostages.

You aren’t an immortal.

Will you cling to your loyalty until the police take your life…?

Will you act separately from Goose and the others…?

Will you give up on me and walk a different path?

…Or maybe this will play out in a way I haven’t even dreamed of.

You are my daughter, Chané, but sometimes you act in ways I can’t anticipate.

As his thoughts went to his distant child, Huey laughed silently.

You really are the ultimate test subject.