Durarara!! - Volume 9 - Chapter Pr2

In a Dark Place 1

“How do you feel, Mr. Info Dealer?”

The place looked like a bar. But the open shelving for liquor display was empty, and the wallpaper was peeling here and there. It wasn’t in any state for business.

“Or do you prefer that I call you by your full name, Izaya Orihara?”

The voice in the darkened room belonged to a young woman.

She looked to be in her midtwenties. She was dressed like an employee at a high-end boutique, her makeup light and her pixie cut just a tiny bit permed.

Despite her mature looks, her tone of voice was on the young side. There was no response.

Sitting in a number of rusted bar chairs around her were darkened figures.

The significant majority of them were female, but some of the shapes were burly and male. If the lights had been on and the place were clean, the scene might look like hostesses, waiters, and their bodyguards.

But it was the person sitting in the center of the establishment that totally ruled that possibility out.

The man sat in a tasteful steel-frame chair. His outfit looked black in the gloom, but it was impossible to make out the design without more light. Still, whether the lights were on or off made no difference to him.

His head was totally covered by a heavy burlap sack, the kind used to ship coffee beans, hiding his face and hair from view. The sound of his breathing was audible, but he didn’t respond to the woman’s question. His hands were tied behind his back, and without being able to see, he wasn’t in any state to get to his feet.

“Ah, you can’t talk back. I guess that makes sense—you took a lot of heavy blows on the way here. Oh, did you break all his teeth?” the pixie-cut woman asked, turning around in her identical chair to the figures behind her.

“We didn’t break him down,” one of the nearby women offered curtly. “It’d be a waste since he’s so good-looking.”

“Ah, fine then. That leaves us with more fun ahead anyway,” the ringleader replied. Her voice was as youthful as a teenager’s, leaving her real age hard to discern in the darkness.

Turning back around, the domineering, short-haired woman gave no explanation to the man in the hood as to the nature of her group.

“So, Mr. Info Dealer, do you understand why it is that you’re here now?” she asked him once more, and again there was no answer. The only sound was heavy breathing through the fabric. He might not have even been conscious.

“I’ll give you a hint. My nickname…is Earthworm. Does that ring a bell?”

At the mention of that nickname—more of an insult, really—the sack over his head slowly rose.

“Ha-ha! He reacted! Oh man, this is great! He’s like a puppet or something!” the woman named Earthworm cackled, like one of the weirdos in high school teasing a younger student, and prodded the burlap sack where his forehead would be. “I’m going to give you a piece of advice, Izaya Orihara.”

“…”

He remained silent, so she continued, “You might be a big-shot info broker or whatever, but I think you’ve been standing out a bit too much, don’t you?”

“…”

“We learned that there was some freak out there sniffing around after us, so we looked into it, and what did we find? You. You’re a real funny guy, aren’t you? About as funny as playing old maid with a deck of fifty-two old maids, from what I hear,” Earthworm went on, an analogy that did not make much sense.

The man in the burlap sack breathed, nothing more.

“Now, an info broker’s one of those guys who goes around talking to red-light ladies, cops, the errand runners for the really scary men, and the barkers trying to drum up business for their brothels…and then sells the things those folks know to others for a little side money, right?”

“…”

“Yet, that’s your main business, you proudly call yourself by the title, and you’re famous for it. Wouldn’t that make you the worst kind of info dealer?” She giggled. “I mean, the guys who sell secrets to the police and the scary men have to hide their identities, or they’re really in trouble, right? Otherwise, they get arrested or lose a joint off their finger. Or get fed to the fishes in Tokyo Bay, am I right? Huh?”

It was as if she were telling a lurid fairy tale to a child. “Now, I’m going to give you a piece of advice: People who want to stand out like you do are the people least suited to this line of work. Have you learned that lesson now?”

“…”

“Are you listening to me? Okay, forget the hint. I’ll just tell you the answer. Those scary men at the Awakusu-kai paid you to snoop around after us, didn’t they?”

Earthworm rolled her wrist around, drawing a circle on the forehead of the silent man through the burlap. His head rolled with it, loose and unresisting, as though he were totally drained.

“Then again, I’m not sure if my ‘advice’ is going to help you very much.”

“…”

“You won’t ever be able to do this job again, will you?”

Her youthful exuberance at the chance to be cruel clashed with her age.

Who were these women?

And what in the world was happening in this abandoned bar?

That story began a few days earlier, when the info broker Izaya Orihara received a work order from the Awakusu-kai.