CHAPTER 10
The pitiful victim drowns in drugs and drags in the accomplice
The time was two days previously.
The rain had begun pouring down—and Elmer was just about to meet Mark on the bridge.
On his boss’s orders, Lester, the young reporter, was on his way to interview the gang of juvenile delinquents on the city streets.
When the sudden rain began, Lester began to run through the dark alley, cursing under his breath.
It’s quite a ways to the spot where those punks hang out… And even if I go, with this rain, there’s no telling whether they’ll be there.
He turned into a narrow alley. His surroundings grew more deserted, and as he approached the next corner, he spotted a lone figure.
And then—realizing it was an old acquaintance, he slowed down and called to her.
“Lisha…”
From how she was dressed, it was obvious she was a prostitute. As she turned toward Lester, her eyes were vacant, and there were big, dark circles under them. After a rather long pause, she broke into an exhausted smile.
“Oh…? My… If it isn’t Lester… Fancy meeting you here of all places. Heh-heh.”
She was still in her late twenties. That was what Lester’s memory told him, at least.
Still, despite the youth of her features, her dark circles, her pale complexion, and her lifeless expression made her look ten or even twenty years older than she actually was.
“…You still haven’t cut out the dope?”
“Oh, no, if anything, it’s the other way ’round—the opposite, I mean. You know, for about six months now, you see, um… The Runoratas stopped coming by, all of a sudden. Gustavo’s men, they…you know, they used to keep lots of the good stuff on the market, but then, uh, it all went away… And so… Well, you see, don’t you…? I found other…uh, dope, and I’d…been making do with that… But you know, uh, the other drugs don’t work that well, and my health ain’t the best, so I don’t… You see? So I’d like to cut out dope now.”
“Yeah, I get it. I don’t think quitting will help you at this point. See you around.”
Coming to the conclusion that she’d just about gone past the point of no return, Lester decided this was a waste of time and turned to go.
Suddenly, Lisha grabbed his arm.
“Look, I don’t have time to deal with a gowed-up dame like you—”
But then he broke off.
The woman was holding an ice pick. Lester stiffened, feeling sweat beading and pouring down his back.
“L-Lisha?! Y-you…” Lester hastily jumped back, and Lisha giggled.
“Oh, c’mon, what’s the matter? Why so startled…hmm? Did you think I was Ice Pick Thompson?”
“……”
“Ice picks are, uh…selling well right now, you know. To the younger crowd. Not very respectful, but there’s a bit of an ice pick fad…you see.”
Wearing a sickly smile, Lisha toyed with the ice pick. The sight of a seductive woman playing with the deadly spike might have come off as provocative, but Lester had better things to worry about.
“…Quit with the lousy jokes.”
“Heh-heh-heh. Are you worried? Are you pretending you haven’t noticed? …You must know what all the victims had in common. You think you might be next? Does it scare you? Are you scared…?”
“I said knock it off!” Snatching the ice pick from the woman’s hand, Lester snapped at her.
As she looked at the young journalist, Lisha’s now-focused eyes warped—and she laughed.
“Heh-heh…heh-heh-heh… But that’s so strange. You, scared of an ice pick.”
“……”
“Way back when, I heard you enjoyed using one of those yourself.”
“…Enough.”
Lester was drenched with cold sweat, and a twisted emotion began bubbling up in his heart.
He clearly didn’t want her to go on, but Lisha didn’t notice. She kept talking cheerfully, ever so cheerfully, in her charming, unhinged voice.
“Everyone else said so. When you tortured and killed Paula, too. You heated the ice pick until it glowed red, and you seemed to be having loads of fun with it.”
“Enough!”
Lester felt something twisting violently in the deepest pit of his stomach.
Every muscle in his body was tense.
His very being was trying to deny Lisha’s words—and his own past.
But Lisha kept going.
“Oh, it’s fine, really. Nobody’s listening… Not many walk through a back alley like this when it’s raining. They’re all scared of Ice Pick Thompson…all of them.”
“……”
“Funny, isn’t it…? Scared of such a, you know, an adorable child… Isn’t it funny?”
“…?”
This time, the violent tension was in his spine.
“…What?” Lester murmured.
As the woman responded, her eyes were fixed on some other place.
“It isn’t as if any of them…have to be afraid, you know… You people are the only ones Mark’s going to kill.”
“Mark…?”
For a moment, he couldn’t understand what the woman was saying.
Desperately, he searched the connections in his mind for the name “Mark.”
Then he remembered the Wilmens boy.
“You can’t mean…Paula’s son…?” he asked.
The woman answered him, her eyes hollow. Her rain-soaked dress seemed even more sensual.
“Yes, that’s right. Him, you know, he looks just like Paula… Around the eyes and such, you know. You know what I mean, don’t you? He knew me as one of Paula’s work friends, before you killed her, so, um, sometimes I crept over quietly and cooked for him and things.”
“…Hey. Nobody told me about that.”
“My… My, my, my, you do say some funny things… I mean, if I’d told you, you would have been against it, wouldn’t you?” The woman giggled.
Her speech was intelligible, but from her total lack of tact, it appeared her mind was very nearly broken.
Without even thinking about what might happen to her—Lisha kept speaking.
She still seemed cheerful, even amused.
“The thing is, you know… Paula left that boy quite a bit of money. If I did… If I did kind things for him, he’d give me money, so… You see, I was using that money to buy more dope, but… That boy, I swear… He started telling me to quit the drugs. Like a little grown-up. After that, he wouldn’t give me any more money, so I—I told him…”
“……”
“I said, ‘If you give me money, I’ll tell you a secret you want to know.’”
“Hey… You didn’t…” Lester’s face paled.
Tilting her face toward the rainy sky, Lisha delivered the coup de grâce.
“I told him I’d tell him about the people who killed his mother!”
Lester felt something else inside him ready to snap—
—but even he didn’t know where it was this time.
“And so, you see, I’d like, um, you know, to borrow from you—you too. Some money. If you like, I can pay you back with my body…all right? No, no, don’t misunderstand. This time—this time I swear it’s not for dope… It’s so I can stop… I need money, then I’ll go to a doctor, see? I’ll cut out the drugs, this time—this time, I’ll fly just as high as can be…see? All the way to heaven, so just, money…I want you to loan me money… Okay?”
Lisha didn’t understand the gravity of what she’d said.
Whatever was in her mind was something Lester could never see.
She didn’t have a thought for her own life anymore.
“…If you want to fly so badly, I’ll give you a push.”
Her reward came to her directly, in the form of violence.
“All the way to heaven.”
The ice pick sank into the woman’s neck, although her drug abuse had dulled all sensation for her—
And no sooner had he pulled it out than he struck again.
Over and over
and over and over and over
and over and over and over and over and over
and over and over and over
and over and over and over and over and over
and over and over
and over and over and over and over
and over and over and over and over and overandoverandoverandover andoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandskash skash skash skash skash skash skash skashskashskashskashskashskashskashskashskashskashskashskashskashskashgash gashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgashgash gash gash gash gash gash
The noise of the rain impartially canceled out that slight, inorganic sound of destruction.
The sky didn’t even look at the atrocious situation on the ground. It just went on raining indifferently.
The blood and the smell of death were all washed away, simply and equally, by the rain.
Only one thing remained: the huge grin on the face of the twisted murderer.
At first, Lester had stabbed her with the ice pick out of fury, but at the sound of the groans that escaped the woman’s lungs, memories of his past had come trickling back.
As he watched the light fade from her eyes, he remembered the ecstasy he’s experienced before.
Lester understood that what he was doing was patently abnormal—but he just laughed.
After the woman’s body was covered with blood and riddled with holes…
…he dipped the ice pick in a puddle, using his own clothes to wipe away the blood and fingerprints. Then, as if nothing had happened, he walked to the mouth of the alley and tossed it into the bed of a passing truck.
His heart was calm.
With no hesitation whatsoever, still wearing clothes splashed with his victim’s blood, Lester took Lisha’s fallen, bloodied corpse into his arms and screamed.
“Help! Somebody, come here, quickly! A doctor, call a doctor!”
After intentionally making sure she was dead, the man screamed words that were a transparent but realistic act.
In that moment, the reporter who feared death met a killer.
More accurately…
The young reporter, who had been a trusted confidant of a member of Szilard Quates’s inner circle, was reunited with the bloodthirsty murderer he’d locked away inside himself.
And then a day or so passed.
The basement of the jazz hall Coraggioso
It had been a few hours since he’d ordered the hit from Smith.
Thinking that the man might have finished the job by now, Lester was quietly sitting in a chair.
This office was also the headquarters of the Gandor Family. Surrounded by the tough-looking men—Lester just waited calmly.
Paula and Lisha. What a pair of dumb broads.
I just… I just don’t want to die, that’s all. Why would they get in my way?
Paula, too… She should’ve given it to me… After old Barnes gave her the failed liquor to hang on to, she should’ve shared.
As he reflected, Lester sighed.
I can’t believe she hadn’t helped herself to any of it.
It’s not like she owed anything to Szilard or Barnes at that point.
Why did she let the chance to become immortal pass her by? I just can’t understand it.
As he was mulling over it all, the door at the back of the office opened, and a man stuck his head out.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Lester.”
“No, no, I was late. I wanted to be here sooner, but it took me a while to lose the cop who was keeping an eye on me.”
“Thanks for that… You always have useful information for us, and we’re really hoping to hang on to this friendship of ours.”
“No, I’m constantly in your debt, Mr. Casetti.”
“Call me Nico.”
The other man in this friendly conversation was a Gandor Family executive who was renowned as one of their best fighters.
Nicola Casetti, aka Nico.
When they’d gone to the mattresses with the Runorata Family at the end of the previous year, he’d taken on ten men with light machine guns and lived. Not only that, but he’d also managed to haul one of the enemies back to the office.
“We tried sounding out the cops independently,” Nico said quietly, his eyes sharp. “Seems like they think the guy who killed number five, the woman, may not be the same fella.”
“……”
“The previous four were stabbed from below first… But this last one was stabbed in the neck, from above.”
The emotions in his voice were difficult to read. The man was extremely intimidating, but Lester hid how he felt and played it cool.
“That’s probably true.”
“…What?”
“There are multiple culprits.”
“What do you mean?” The other man latched on to the statement. Internally, Lester gave a sly grin—and began to speak.
He gave him the scenario he’d cooked up earlier today, based on the information he’d gained in the past several days.
“The culprit is a hitman named Laz Smith. He hired a group of kids with nothing better to do, and he’s been making them kill off people with connections to the Gandor Family… In my estimation, anyway.”
“Laz Smith…?”
“Yeah. He’s a tall man who wears a long coat, even in the summer.”
“Why would a hitman like him go after us?”
“No idea. Maybe he’s got some kinda vendetta.”
Lester remembered what he’d asked the Runorata Family for:
Set me up with a hitman I can use, then get rid of. As long as they can snuff out a kid, I don’t care.
All he wanted was for the guy to buy him some time—but he’d stumbled onto an unexpected payoff.
A peculiar saloon girl poked her head out from behind Nico.
“Laz Smith is the guy from before, amigo. Berga punched him out and put him in the hospital!” she said, unwittingly helping Lester.
“…That’s the one, then.” Speaking heavily, Nico quietly got to his feet.
“Are you going somewhere, Nico?”
“Relax. The bosses are out right now. I won’t do anything dumb.” As he calmly got ready to leave, Nico’s eyes were startlingly sharp. “I’m just gonna hear what he has to say.”
“Oooh, what’s this? If there’s gonna be trouble, I’m going, too, amigo!” she chirped, failing to notice the tension.
Nico’s face was expressionless as he murmured, “…Suit yourself.”
With an out-of-place saloon girl and a few comrades behind him, Nico quietly climbed the stairs. Just before he left, he called to Tick over in a corner of the room.
“Get your scissors as dirty as possible.
“Make sure cutting into this guy hurts as bad as possible.”
“…What’s gotten into Casetti?”
“Oh. Just between us—that doll who got killed, Lisha… Nico’s had the hots for her for a while. And I think it was mutual. Then he gave her an ultimatum; said if she didn’t get clean, he was never gonna see her again… And I think she was trying. Can’t believe someone snuffed her out before she could…”
“Huh…”
Lester gazed toward the stairs; Nico had already vanished. He smiled inwardly.
Was it delight that things were going just as he’d planned? Had he imagined Smith and the others getting carved up by Tick’s scissors? Or had that conversation reminded him of killing Lisha?
Lester kept on laughing silently, although none of it showed on his face.
On and on, on and on.
It was as if the roars of laughter only he could hear were resonating with the rain falling beyond the window…
When Smith opened the door and stepped outside, he ran smack into a young guy in blue.
“Huh? Smith? What’re you doing here?”
“…What about you people? Why are you here?”
Graham, Elmer, and Shaft had looked up Mark’s address at the newspaper and come here to see him, but—instead, they found a man they’d parted from just a few hours earlier. The trio’s eyes widened at the sudden reunion, and they seemed mystified.
“Uh, well, we had a little business with a guy named Mark who lives here…,” Shaft explained, speaking for the group—but Smith gave a little sigh and shook his head, his expression cold.
“Poor timing, then… He’s dead.”
“Huh?”
“Mark Wilmens—is the boy I killed just a minute ago.”
He confessed it far too easily.
As the other three looked at one another, Smith coldly went on.
“I’m on my way to meet my client now. Tag along if you want.”
The rain was still pouring down.
The sound echoed powerfully through the streets of New York like a requiem for the killers.
The endless rain hid those killers in darkness—
—perhaps preparing to rinse away the river of blood about to be shed.
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