Baccano! - Volume 16 - Chapter 11

FINAL CHAPTER

The smile junkie strides cheerfully between the killers

The next morning The Daily Days newspaper The president’s office

“So…? How did it all pan out?”

The conversation was taking place in a newspaper office, and the reporters and editors were making the usual racket downstairs.

A mountain of documents, a towering symbol of their trade, spoke in a voice with an age that was difficult to determine.

More accurately, the voice belonged to the president of the Daily Days, who was seated behind the mound of paper burying the desk in the center of the room.

One part of the room was a disaster, as if bundles of paper had fallen and accumulated instead of snow, but the opposite side was extremely neat. One could imagine that the edge of that desk was bounded by a few extra years of time as well as space.

The voice of the president—the leader of the information brokers and to whom this room belonged—was tranquil in a way that didn’t match his title, but the other men in the room listening were rather tense.

“He’s right! If you were in danger, why didn’t you report it right away?”

The individual who’d spoken—Elean—was a black man with a lot of energy and usually wore Chinese garb. Several of the staff members who were seated around him turned expressionless eyes on a middle-aged man who stood in the corner.

Meanwhile, the man himself scratched his cheek lightly, averting his eyes as if unsure.

“Hmm… I’m extremely perplexed as to how I should report it.”

“What do you mean, Carl?” Elean frowned.

Briefly glancing at Elean, Carl sighed and began to go over what happened.

“I think the president knows already, but this affair has two or three layers of ‘confidential information.’”

“…!”

The other men in the room gulped. Ignoring them, the voice spoke from behind the documents, as tranquil as ever.

“I see… Well, I did anticipate that. I suppose it means our city still bears the scars of Szilard Quates’s influence?”

Szilard Quates.

At the name, several of the staff members frowned and glanced at one another.

“Whoa, wait, what’s Szilard got to do with this? Wasn’t the top-secret information about the Gandors?”

“You answered your own question, Elean.” Quietly lifting his head, Carl began to explain about the incident’s background. “Szilard comes into it because the Gandors are involved.”

Supplementing that intriguing remark, the entity behind the documents spoke with a hint of wry amusement.

“The victims were all connected to the Gandor Family. However, that connection was a superficial one.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were originally connected to one another. They each approached the Gandor Family separately, searching for something very specific.”

As the president offered a circuitous explanation, several of the information brokers put the pieces together into an answer on their own.

Watching his colleagues out of the corner of his eye, Carl picked up where the president had left off.

“See, Szilard’s old hounds knew about the liquor of immortality—but they could only follow the trail so far.”

Two years previously…

Szilard Quates, an alchemist, had been pursuing a perfected elixir of immortality. Soon after its completion, it had abruptly vanished, along with the alchemist himself and his assistant, Ennis.

The men had been left with one piece of information. Just one.

The liquor of immortality had been stolen.

The last place they knew it had been was the Gandor Family hideout.

The old men working directly under Szilard were already under observation by the Bureau of Investigation. Their minions, though, knew only two facts:

One was that the liquor of immortality had disappeared at the Gandors’ place.

The other was the whereabouts of the failed liquor that had been used in experiments.

Several men and women who’d been in touch with one another independently had each made contact with the Gandor Family separately.

At the same time, there was a search for Paula Wilmens, who had been a protégé of Barnes since her childhood.

There were rumors that she was a daughter Barnes had had with a mistress when he was already getting on in years, but there was no one who could confirm that now.

After all, Paula herself was no longer alive.

“Szilard had given Barnes some of the failed liquor to use in experiments, and Barnes had put Paula in charge of keeping it safe. In addition, the old men probably didn’t truly trust their comrade Barnes. They knew that Paula had removed several bottles of the unfinished formula from that warehouse—the one that eventually burned down—to keep as a backup supply.”

Carl sighed with resignation, and a bespectacled information broker with a sprinkling of white in his hair continued the story.

“And so she was killed. Whether she revealed where it was or not… Personally, I would have snatched her son, locked him up somewhere, and used him as a hostage.”

The man gave a sinister chuckle. Beside him, Nicholas, the copy editor of the English edition, shook his head.

“I bet they were playing it safe. If her son went missing as well, they wouldn’t have been able to pass it off as a drug-related incident. They must have decided that slowly infiltrating the Gandors would be a better bet.”

Carl nodded in agreement, and the president smoothly added on to the proposal from behind the documents.

“Very true… It would have been one thing to kidnap her young son first and use him as a bargaining chip, but kidnapping the boy later could have drawn attention. After all, for a drug-related punishment—it’s a gruesome picture, but I suspect they would have killed her child in front of her first, then killed Paula.”

“But then her son went on a crusade for vengeance… A story like this is hard to swallow. Wasn’t there any other way…?” Elean seemed despondent.

Lowering his eyes, Carl answered bitterly. “He could have chosen not to take revenge, but… Going to the police wouldn’t have done any good. The whole incident was faked, and even a police officer and a reporter were in on it. I can’t imagine they’d reopen the investigation now on the testimony of a dope-addled woman.”

For just a moment, no one said anything.

Then, the silence was broken by a voice that was as tranquil as ever.

“Carl. I think it’s about time I asked you the key question.”

“…Yes, sir.”

“What happened to that boy—Mark Wilmens, aka Ice Pick Thompson—and Lester the reporter, the last individual on his list?” Carl fell silent, an indefinable expression on his face. Then, he heaved an even deeper sigh. “Ironically…Mark Wilmens died. He was killed by a nameless hitman. I don’t even know who he is.”

As the information broker delivered his report, he refused to look up, and his voice was full of frustration.

“And that pathetic, cowardly journalist gets off scot-free. Absolutely scot-free.

“The story’s as ironic as they come.”

And now—let’s roll back time to the very middle of the crazy ruckus.

Twelve hours earlier In the basement of the jazz hall Coraggioso

“Yes… I understand.”

Still holding the telephone receiver, the mafioso turned to the young reporter.

“Hey, it’s Nico. He says the kids aren’t at the abandoned factory or any of the usual haunts. Any idea where else they might be, chief?”

Lester narrowed his eyes, mentally reopening the plan for this affair.

So they cleared out, huh? Is that a good thing or not?

“…Well, let’s see.”

It’s a little early, but I’ll get rid of that hitman first.

“I initially thought he was suspicious because he’d contacted me for information several times recently.”

“Hold it, you didn’t say anything about that.”

“I didn’t have time to mention it. Oh, don’t worry; I didn’t send him any information about the Gandors. I’m not that stupid.”

He spoke with considerable confidence, and for a moment, the man holding the receiver frowned—but then prompted him to go on. Intel came first.

“Anyway, he was acting pretty odd. I did a little digging on my own…and I found out this gang of delinquents has had some infighting lately. I suspect one of the boys who’s been carrying out the actual crimes may be bumped off soon… In any case, he seems to have contacted several reporters like myself, and…when he does, the location has always been the same.”

Hiding a rather sinister smile, Lester quietly named the place.

“It’s an abandoned building that’s slated for demolition, right near Grand Central Station. Do you know the one?”

Meanwhile On an avenue in New York

“Hey, you said you killed that Mark kid… What’s that about, Smith?”

“Exactly what I said. Someone ordered a hit, so I killed him.”

“In that apartment?”

“Yeah. Disposing of his corpse in there took a while.”

The hitman smiled quietly at the young guy in the coveralls, whose wrench dangled limply.

Out on the avenue, the rain was falling steadily.

Ordinarily, even this late on a rainy night, there would have been a few people out and about. After the Ice Pick Thompson incidents, though, the street was completely deserted.

The rain was still coming down, and Graham, Shaft, and Elmer followed Smith under a relatively large umbrella.

When they’d walked for a while, Shaft leaned close to Graham’s ear and murmured:

“This is bad, Mr. Graham.”

“What is?”

“What do you mean ‘what’?! It means we’re connected to a hit, you know? Right now! This very minute!”

“Well, that’s true,” Graham answered simply, and Shaft exhaled, pressing his fingers to his temples.

“Is that all you have to say…?”

“Back when Ladd was with us, we were connected to hits all the time, remember?”

“Yes, and I was over the moon when it stopped. Would you try to appreciate how I feel about this?”

“All right, I will!” Graham dropped a rain-wet hand onto Shaft’s shoulder and said, with eyes full of pity, “…You must be going through a lot now. So, uh, don’t die, I guess.”

And that was all.

“Okay, let’s get going!”

“Why am I part of his gang anyway?” Shaft pressed his free hand to his head.

This time, Elmer put a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you worried about something? If you don’t know what to do, then smile! You know how in rock-paper-scissors, you can wait a hair to see what your opponent will do and then shoot? Doesn’t matter how sad or mad you are, if you start smiling after, you can cancel it out! Smiles are magic, you know. Even after a whole life of misfortune, if someone is able to smile happily for those last few seconds, even just the time it takes the executioner’s blade to fall, then their whole life was a blessing.”

“Yeah, if that was possible, life would be a cakewalk.”

“Cakewalk or not, it’s still worth doing.” The man nodded, brimming over with confidence.

Shaft’s gaze slid away, as if he was averting his eyes from something unsettling. “…Elmer,” he muttered. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this so soon after we’ve just met, but…right now, I’m actually a little jealous of your endless well of optimism.”

“Ha-ha. No need to be jealous.” Elmer laughed a little self-consciously, and as he went on, his expression didn’t change. “All you have to do is sell your soul. Smiles come first, both for you and others.”

“Do you have any idea how creepy that sounds?”

Elmer had blurted out that eerie comment with that same grin. Coming from an ordinary person, the remark could have been taken as nothing more than a bad joke, but—Shaft just couldn’t seem to see it that way.

After all, he’d just been dragged into a murder incident—and he was still wearing that same old smile.

After they walked through the rain for a bit longer, when they were fairly close to Grand Central Station, they saw a building that had no lights on. Smith stopped for a moment, looking at Graham’s group.

“…My client is in that building, yet I’m here talking to myself. Nothing more.”

“?”

“I didn’t tell you to come with me or anything of the sort. I’m going into that building on my own. And so, if you choose to follow me, I’m not responsible for anyone you see in there, or for any inclination you may have to tail my client. Got it?”

That was all Smith said before he started toward the building. As he was leaving, though, Elmer—who hadn’t pressed him for any information at all until then—called after him.

“Did you really kill that boy, Smith?”

“Yes, I did.”

“A kid that young?”

“That’s right. I can kill anybody—man, woman, or child. After all, only someone insane would become a hitman. And once the bounds of common sense are released, there’s no limit to how cruel you can be. Ahh, when I remember the moment I blew him away with my shotgun, I can recall the satisfaction of a job well done.” Smith’s answer was not exactly direct, but he was wearing a supremely heartless smile.

However, Elmer whispered something in his ear.

“ ,  .”

“…What?”

“ ,  .”

The sound of the rain covered the words, and Graham and Shaft didn’t catch what was said.

Smith frowned a little. Then he gave an uncomfortable smile, as if to write off whatever Elmer had told him, and shook his head.

He started toward the building. As they watched the hitman’s receding back, the other three exchanged looks.

“…Let me tell you a sad, sad story…”

Smacking his wrench, Graham quietly mulled over what had just happened. “What do you think Smith wants from us, saying what he did? If he took the time to say it, I assume he wants us to do something. I dunno what it is, though. If we can’t figure it out, will we wind up causing trouble for Smith, as well as ourselves? Damn, I’m already a threat to the world. Am I gonna start causing trouble for Smith now, too? If this keeps up, I may even end up a thorn in Ladd’s side without even meaning to. What do you think, Shaft? Do you think I can turn over a new leaf now and become a hero?”

“No, uh…Smith and Ladd are the ones causing trouble for us. Actually, I was pretty scared Smith was about to silence us for good…!”

“If he was going to shut us up, he wouldn’t have told us he’d killed the kid in the first place,” Graham replied, balancing his wrench on his head. It was impossible to tell whether he was nervous about this.

Shaft groaned, on the verge of a breakdown. “…! Well, yeah, that’s true, but. It’s true. But.”

“You’re such a worrywart, Shaft. Keep that up, and you’ll go bald like Placido.”

“Enough.”

Any more time talking to Graham would be time wasted, Shaft decided, so he walked over to Elmer. The third member of the group was still holding his small umbrella.

“By the way, Elmer,” Shaft said dubiously, “what did you say to Smith there at the end?”

Even now, Elmer showed absolutely no sign of concern.

Oh, this guy’s an odd duck, too. Shaft was certain of that, but he was still curious about what Elmer had said. In fact, that was why he wanted to know.

“Oh, that’s simple. I…”

Just as Elmer was about to answer—

—a metallic screech tore through the rain and echoed across the avenue, followed by muffled gunshots.

Less than a minute earlier Inside the abandoned building

As Smith entered the building to give his follow-up report, possibly because of the weather, he felt a vague chill despite the summer heat.

Mark Wilmens, the boy who was Ice Pick Thompson.

I want you to show me definite proof he’s dead, his client had requested.

Going out of his way to meet a hitman twice—what a strange thing to ask.

He’d suspected it might be some sort of trap, but if the cops were here for a sting, the reporter would go down, too.

From the way his client had spoken, Smith had concluded he was unusually afraid the boy would survive, and as a result, he’d decided to cooperate.

For someone who made a living on the wrong side of the law, it was an unbelievably careless move, and just a few seconds later, he would learn as much the hard way.

It happened in the moment when he reached the depths of the building, glimpsed gaudy fabric out of the corner of his eye…

…and realized the clothing belonged to the individual he’d resolved to kill just a few hours earlier.

Maria… Maria Barcelito!

She was a dark-skinned girl wielding Japanese swords. They’d worked together on a job before, just once.

Even before he saw her smile, Smith’s eyes caught the naked blade she’d drawn.

The next moment, a metallic noise split the frigid air, sharp and cold.

Smith felt fearful sweat break out under his collar.

“You got me…dammit.”

Smith had stopped his opponent’s katana with the shotgun he’d taken out of his coat. He ground his teeth audibly, then cursed his own carelessness.

Who’d have thought there’d be another hitman waiting here, instead of the cops?

The girl peered at Smith’s reaction over her blade, laughing with glee.

“Ah-ha-ha! Long time no see, huh, amigo?! I heard you’d been in a hospital somewhere! Congrats on being discharged!”

“…Thanks.”

With strength far beyond what one would expect from a young woman, Maria pushed the katana toward him, gun and all.

“Too bad, though! You would’ve been a lot happier if you’d died in there, too!”

“Shut up!” Kicking the girl away from him, Smith leaped backward.

He took another gun out of his coat and tried to draw a bead on Maria’s arm—but it was too late.

She’d closed the distance.

Even after separating her from him, the next thing he knew, she was right in his face.

“Ghk…!”

He squeezed the trigger, but Maria’s hawklike eyes picked up the angle of the muzzle and the movements in Smith’s arm perfectly, and she leaned away just before he fired.

Slipping under the bullet, Maria leaped sideways—and took a rapid slash at Smith’s long coat.

“Gahk!”

The shock that struck his abdomen was greater than he’d anticipated, but it didn’t have the unique pain of a slash wound.

The dozens of guns he’d stowed inside his coat had stopped Maria’s katana.

“…Tch! So I still can’t cut iron, huh? That’s too bad, amigo.”

“You little… You scratched my guns!”

Maria had instantly recovered her balance; Smith was still staggering.

While they exchanged remarks that didn’t quite make sense, the pair had put a distance of about five yards between them.

“Fine, amigo. My technique is wasted on you, but I’ll be good and get serious!”

With that, Maria drew the second sword she wore at her waist.

One who fought with two swords, another who fought with two guns. They made for an odd pair indeed as they faced off against each other. They may have worked together once, but now they were enemies through and through.

“So would you rather I stabbed you, or cut off your head, or split it like a melon? I’ll let you choose, amigo!”

“If I were in your position, I’d rather give you the works.”

“Don’t get greedy, amigo! Besides, you’re weaker than me! Last time, Berga knocked you down in no time flat, remember? I didn’t lose back then!” She was obviously taunting him, and it was the first childish thing she’d done this entire time.

“Claire Stanfield was toying with you.”

“I could beat him now! Besides, that doesn’t mean I can’t beat you, amigo.”

Maria’s reaction was as girlish as before—but Smith knew.

No matter how she presented herself, she could kill people with startling ease.

And even though she had brought two katana to a gunfight, he knew it wouldn’t be a handicap for her at all.

Yet Smith’s expression was calm, and he lowered both his guns.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said.

“?”

“I’m…weaker than you.”

“? What’s the matter, amigo? Begging for your life?” Maria asked, confused.

Smith spoke quietly, his weapons still lowered. “When the Gandors took me out, while I was lying in that hospital bed…I thought over some things.”

He returned the pistol in his right hand to his coat, then took out another shotgun to match the one in his left hand.

“I thought about how some things are so far beyond the bounds of reason that they can never be explained.”

With a rather self-deprecating smile—Smith dexterously stripped off his coat and tossed it aside.

“Since then, I’ve managed to face the world with a bit more humility.”

His arms passed through the sleeves, shotguns and all, and a heavy noise reverberated behind him.

Smith, who’d shucked off over sixty pounds of equipment, cracked his neck.

“And I hold greater respect for society, God, and insanity.”

“What are you saying, amigo? Are you sure about this? That coat was your armor, and you just took it off.”

As Maria watched, mystified, Smith took his hat off as well.

Now in a white dress shirt and black trousers, he was very lightly equipped. However, the odd holster belt he wore over his shirt still held several guns.

“I’ll be grateful to this world, in which I still have a plan, lunatic that I am.”

“I don’t think this speech is as impressive as you think it is, amigo.” The comment could have been a natural reaction or an attempt to provoke him.

Smith only grinned at her slyly—

“I’ll be grateful to you, too, amigo-woman.”

“Why?”

“Yes, on this momentous day when I resumed my work as a hitman… Oh!”

His eyes went wide, and he just—jumped.

“Whatever goddammit how dare you try to deep-six my reputation you snot-nosed ankle-biter just die already!”

Even faster than the seething words could reach her, he pushed forward, forward, forward.

It was a reckless move: He was armed with shotguns, and yet he was closing the distance between himself and his opponent.

But as surprising as the maneuver was, Maria simply swept her right-hand katana to intercept him.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Sorry about that! This is fun; you’re even dumber than I thought, amigo!” Maria shouted, but she moved faster than her words did.

By the time she had finished speaking, the crossed barrels of the shotguns had blocked her attack with a loud metallic crash.

Despite that, Maria smoothly used the katana in her other hand for a follow-up attack.

A moment before her blade reached him, Smith twisted.

The crossed guns spun like a windmill, and one of the barrels came to bear on the center of Maria’s torso. In the space of a blink, he’d pulled the trigger.

But Maria had bent backward, spinning to face the other direction and kicking the shotgun up.

One would have expected a trademark bang and a spray of bullets—but for some reason, it misfired.

The only sound was a pleasant click, and Maria took that as her cue to launch herself off the floor again.

Smith had already let go of the shotguns, though, and replaced them with pistols that had been attached to his gun belt.

As before, he had one in each hand. He didn’t take aim; he simply shot in his opponent’s general direction.

The girl avoided the burst by getting right up close for a thrust.

It was a close shave.

The butt of Smith’s gun stopped the katana, whether by coincidence or design.

The impact propelled them apart, and they put some distance between themselves again.

The jolt had made Smith fumble both his guns, and he reached around to the back of his waist holster and grabbed new weapons, while Maria dropped into a crouch a short distance away and stayed there.

Whoever was foolish enough to move first would be at a disadvantage.

The natural differences between guns and katana vanished, and the two struck a magnificent balance against each other in both distance and posture.

For a moment, they froze. Then, before long, they both began to smile.

“I’m surprised. You’re pretty tough, amigo.”

“…Same here. When I saw how easily Claire dispatched you, I thought you were just a small-timer.”

The tension was so high it was about to snap, and both combatants were constantly running the calculations.

It was a tinderbox. The scales would tip easily, depending on who chose to make the first move.

That was how it should have been, at least.

After only a few seconds, the scales were abruptly kicked over.

Chak, kachak—the telltale sound of guns being cocked.

When Smith shifted his focus slightly, he saw several men standing in a row, blocking the entrance to the building.

They were very obviously gangsters. Each one was holding a Thompson or sawed-off shotgun, and the muzzles were all trained on him.

There were a few seconds of silence.

“…Where the hell did this come from?” Smith broke the silence, frowning, and Maria glared at the men with vague disappointment.

“Hey! You can’t do that, amigo! I’m the one playing with this guy!” she complained.

The man who responded was especially intimidating, even among the gangsters. “From what I saw, it didn’t look like playing was the word.”

“But, Nico!”

“Try to understand, miss. You’re technically a member of the Family. I can’t let you get scarred up while the bosses are away.”

“Tch…”

Most likely deciding the man wasn’t going to compromise, Maria sheathed her katana without a fuss.

Meanwhile, Smith wasn’t able to lift a finger with all the firepower focused on him.

The hitman wouldn’t be getting out of this, it seemed. Quietly, the gangster looked up and murmured, his face expressionless.

“You’re Laz Smith, aren’t you?”

“I suppose I should be glad to find that a fellow I’ve never met before would know my name. Or should a hitman consider it an embarrassment to have his identity discovered?”

As Smith bluffed, Nico snorted.

“Frankly, you surprised me, too. Never woulda believed you’d manage to cross guns with Maria. ’Specially when you’re an idiot who’d fight katana with guns in the first place. I heard Berga laid you out with one attack, but apparently you were just up against the wrong guy.”

Nico was currently unarmed, and he took a cigarette out of his jacket and lit it as he went on.

“I’m Nicola, from the Gandor Family. Now, I know the maggots in your brain are drowning in all that rain outside, but you think you can piece together why we’re here?”

“No idea. The Gandor Family bosses don’t need to fear petty hitmen, do they?”

“Playing dumb, huh?” Nico’s eyes narrowed, and the gravity in his voice grew slightly heavier. “What if I called you…Ice Pick Thompson? Does that grease the gears a little?”

“……”

When Smith heard that name, his eyes widened in shock.

Nico seemed to take the other man’s response as confirmation. Still expressionless, he issued an order to several of the men behind him.

“…Take him away.”

“Wait.”

“Tick can tell me everything you have to say after he’s done with you.”

Still perfectly calm, Nico turned away, as if he couldn’t stand to even look at Smith for one second longer—

—but then he realized he could make out two splotches of color in that direction.

The colors were behind his men, who still had their guns on Smith. The first one was blue, in the shape of a human figure, and the second was a whirling silver.

When he realized it was a young man, tension ran through Nico’s whole body.

Graham.

He was a dangerous character, a delinquent who’d tangled with the Gandor Family more than once and was still alive to talk about it.

“Let me take this sad, sad story…and end it!”

The young man’s wrench stopped spinning, and he shouted over at them animatedly.

“What are you people planning to do with Smith?!”

The voice of the intruder came out of nowhere.

The first one to react was Smith himself.

“…Kid Graham, you moron! I told you to do whatever you wanted, remember?!”

“Well, yeah. So I came here. What’s the story, Smith?”

“This situation is extremely precarious, but…I was hoping someone could tell me.”

“Ghk… So you’re telling me to understand something even the people involved don’t understand? Is this a trap? Is Earth harassing its hated enemy again? Or is it the sun? Is this the sun’s doing?”

As Graham shouted his nonsense, Nico frowned slightly and asked him a question.

“You again, hmm…? Your boys and ours really haven’t hit it off.”

“Wha—? If it ain’t ol’ Nico! I wondered who it was gonna be!”

They seemed to know each other; their faces darkened as they spoke to each other.

“Why are you here?”

“Why do I exist? That’s a pretty philosophical question. I’m still able to live here, so does that mean the world has allowed me to stay? …But I’m its enemy. Why…? Damn, is it showing compassion for its enemies? Damn that sun… He’s a real class act.”

“…Let me rephrase that. How do you know Mr. Itchy Triggerman here?”

Maria had been watching their exchange from the sidelines, and the second question seemed to puzzle her.

“What do you mean, ‘how’? That reporter guy just told us about it, amigo. Isn’t he the killer? Or one of ’em?”

“I’ve gone toe to toe with this kid several times. He ain’t a killer.”

“Really? What a letdown, amigo.”

Ignoring Maria, who looked extremely bored, Graham asked a quiet question.

“And? Why are you tussling with the Gandors, chief? Didn’t you quit with that after you got slugged in the face?”

“Seems like you really don’t know.”

For some reason, Graham didn’t seem at all worried, and Nico sighed.

“This fella is Ice Pick Thompson.”

At those words, Graham blinked for a while, stunned. Then he cocked his head like a confused squirrel. “What are you sayin’? Ice Pick Thompson is…” Then, remembering that Elmer had told him Mark’s true identity was a secret, he spun his wrench and rephrased himself. “Ice Pick Thompson is…who?”

“He just told you it’s that Smith guy, amigo,” Maria said, rolling her eyes.

“Nah, nah, nah. There’s no way.”

Graham laughed.

“I mean, Smith’s a hitman, but he’s never killed a soul.”

Silence fell again.

Everyone looked rather uncomfortable, and their eyes automatically turned toward Smith.

Smith himself breathed deeply, as if he’d made up his mind about something…

…and then he stated himself simply.

“I am Ice Pick Thompson. That’s a fact.”

“Chief?”

Graham’s eyes had gone wide with surprise, while Nico’s narrowed further.

“Well, well… So you admit it?”

“Yeah. I’ve stabbed four men to death. Haven’t gotten the fifth one yet, though.”

“Smith, are you okay? Did you hit your head or something?!”

“…?”

Smith’s unusual confession had confused Graham further, while Nico stopped moving and took another look at the hitman.

Under their gazes, Smith smiled quietly. His reply was calm.

“It’s true. That wasn’t a job… It was revenge.”

The basement of the jazz hall Coraggioso

“All right… Excuse me. I’ll head back to my company for now. We may be getting some new information soon.”

As Lester slowly got to his feet, the Gandor man stood up as well.

“I see. Thanks in advance for your help, Mr. Journalist.”

“No, no, none of that. You scratch my back, I scratch yours, remember?”

“True. Be careful. It’s still raining.”

“Yeah, you can say that again.”

Lester spoke with a smile, but inwardly, he was wearing a grin of a different sort.

All right. It’s not likely, but…that hitman may give them my name.

I’ve got an excuse ready, but for now, I need to get to the little brat’s place. I just may end up finding the stuff this time.

It was an impossibly slim hope, but Lester currently wasn’t able to make that call.

Inside him, there were a multitude of “deaths.”

The memories of the times he’d killed with his own hands.

The deadly game he was conducting indirectly.

He was finding happiness just imagining the results, and it was strengthening his own attachment to life…

The young murderer started toward the stairs and the exit, wearing his journalist smile.

The moment he started up the stairs—

“Huh? What’s the matter? Did you forgeeet something?”

—from elsewhere in the room, he heard Tick’s laid-back voice.

What’s going on?

When he turned around, Tick was looking in his direction, but a little above him.

Up the stairs.

Had that saloon girl come back?

On that thought, he glanced up the stairs, and at the same moment, all the men in the basement sucked in their breath.

When Lester looked up, what he saw was—

—a small figure leaping down toward him, holding an ice pick.

The next instant, Lester felt a shock, and he tumbled down the stairs.

But he didn’t feel the pain of the hits all over his body.

The unbearably sharp pain in his shoulder had paralyzed the rest of his nerves.

“Gaaaaaaaahk?! Yii— Yeeaaaaaaaugh?!”

Lester couldn’t process what had happened to him; all he could do was roll around in agony.

“Hey, stop him!”

“What’re you trying to pull, kid?!”

“You okay, Mr. Reporter?”

“You idiot, don’t call a doctor!”

“Ohhh. It’s all riiight. Getting stabbed there won’t kill him right awaaaay.”

“We got bigger problems here, Tick!”

“What’re you doing, kid?!”

The cacophony in the basement came to him very clearly.

Lester squeezed his blurry eyes shut, forcing all the liquid away, then looked toward the stairs, trying to figure out what had happened to him.

And there he saw—

—the boy who’d appeared near the bottom of the stairs.

“I finally found you.”

Holding a rusty ice pick that was wet with fresh blood—the boy looked down at Lester with an impassive, soulless expression.

“You weren’t at your apartment or the paper…so this was about the only other place I could think of.”

One hour previously Mark’s apartment

A click echoed behind him, bringing Mark back to himself in an instant.

When he turned around, the man who’d said he’d come to kill him sighed. He was holding a shotgun and had just squeezed the trigger.

“Well, damn. Come to think of it, shotguns can be very dangerous, so I forgot I’d taken the bullets out. That was one hell of a blunder.”

“…?”

The man’s remark had sounded inexplicably contrived, and Mark looked at him dubiously.

“What are you…trying to do…? Why haven’t you killed me?”

“Just listen. As of now, you are dead.”

The next moment, the man made a strange offer, less to the boy than to the killer.

“I’ll give you a future, if you’ll give me your past.”

“…What?”

“I’m a hitman, but I don’t have much of a reputation. I don’t have any history of killing, or any anecdotes detailing my madness. So I was thinking. The true identity of the mysterious killer, Ice Pick Thompson… Don’t you think that would make for a truly, fantastically insane hitman?”

“Huh?”

The young killer had absolutely no idea what the man was saying.

Mark no longer knew how he should react to this, and for a little while, he stayed frozen where he was. Until—

“…I’m saying I’ll spare you, so let me claim your murders.”

“Yeah, I got that… Why?”

“I just told you why. It’ll give me a reputation.”

“……”

The boy still didn’t understand, and he cocked his head in a crooked way.

Smith sighed in resignation, then lowered his voice, as if he was wary of his surroundings. “Look, I don’t want to kill a kid. Just shut up and do what I say, okay?” he said guiltily.

Mark’s eyes went round. “You’re a hitman, aren’t you? What about your client?”

“Listen, boy. Anyone who becomes a hitman has always been hopelessly mired in lunacy.”

“…So?”

The boy kept on asking questions, eyeing Smith as if he’d never seen anything so peculiar.

Smith spread his arms wide, chuckled—and made a declaration with no shame, and nothing to gain for anyone but himself.

“It’s the client’s fault for trusting a lunatic in the first place.”

In the basement of the jazz hall Coraggioso

Let’s return to the jazz hall basement again.

“Y…you…! You’re Paula’s…! How the hell…?! Owww…!”

The confidence he’d had at his power over others’ lives was gone. Right now, he felt death coming for him in the pain of his own stabbed shoulder, and he choked and shrieked more than most people would in his shoes.

As a matter of fact, it wasn’t a fatal wound, but Lester had never felt pain like this before, and he was completely convinced he was dying.

“Owww, owwwwww! You stupid kid, y-you fucking brat! That bastard! What the hell was he doing?! K-kill him—what are you thinking?! Shoot him, now! H-he… He’s going to kill me! Dammit! Aaaaaagh!”

Lester writhed and screamed at the nearby mafiosi in an unsightly way.

The gangsters themselves thought he was an embarrassment, but they still reached into their jackets, keeping a wary eye on the boy who stood on the stairs.

They didn’t shoot him dead on the spot, but several of their comrades had been killed here a few years earlier, so they weren’t about to get careless.

The boy was holding something wrapped in a paper bag in his left hand, and of course his other hand had the ice pick. Other than that, he didn’t seem to be carrying anything else suspicious.

“What’s the matter? It’s not saaafe to walk around with that, you knooow?” Tick asked, completely free of tension.

Mark smiled a little. “I’m sorry. I won’t cause trouble for the rest of you,” he murmured, and that was all.

“I may not have all the details, but you’re already causing us trouble in spades, kid.”

One of the mafiosi quietly took out his gun, never taking his eyes off the boy, and pointed the business end at him.

“What’s in that sack? Take it out slowly, and I mean slowly, so we can see it.”

He apparently suspected it was a bomb or a gun.

To Lester, though, who was terrified he was about to be killed, this was far too naïve and passive.

He staggered to his feet and lunged at the arm of the man who’d just drawn his gun.

“Gimme that, you goddamn—!”

“Wha—?!”

The man flinched at Lester’s strength, which was beyond what he’d anticipated, and Lester snatched his loaded gun away.

Before the surrounding mafiosi could take him to task for it…

Before the boy could reach into the sack…

Before even Lester himself understood what he was doing…

Without a moment’s hesitation, he’d squeezed the trigger, and a bullet sank into human flesh.

However, the one who’d taken that bullet wasn’t the young boy.

It was the back of an abrupt visitor who’d jumped down from the top of the stairs to shield him.

“You…”

Mark had been knocked down by the sudden impact, and he was completely confused.

He was staring at the face of the immortal monster he’d been running from.

“Hi there, you okay? That was a close one, huh?”

Elmer was wearing a relieved smile, but blood from his stomach was trickling from his lips, and more blood was coming from his back.

“A close one… For you! That’s just…”

After he said it, the boy remembered exactly what sort of being the man was.

“…Guess it doesn’t hurt?”

“No, it hurts like crazy. Also, maybe check your right hand.”

“Huh…?”

When he checked, he saw that the ice pick in his right hand was embedded into Elmer’s thigh. It must have happened when they fell.

“Augh! I-I’m sorry!”

“Oh, no, no worries—it was my fault.”

And then—as if nothing had happened, the young man pulled out the ice pick and stood up easily. Even with a bullet in his back, he was smiling.

Lester and the mafia men gulped at the eerie sight, but—

—the scene that played out afterward was even more unsettling.

As if it were defying time and gravity, the blood from Elmer’s back and leg crawled back up to his wounds. It moved as if each drop had a will of its own, returning to the places from which it had come.

As they watched the squirming, writhing red procession, the mafiosi looked at one another, exchanging anxious whispers:

(“Hey, this is…”)

(“Yeah, it’s like the bosses…”)

(“Hey, who is this guy?”)

Lester had also frozen, and his stolen gun was quickly reclaimed by its rightful owner. It wasn’t even clear whether Lester had noticed. For a moment, he forgot the pain in his shoulder, and one word fell from his trembling lips.

“I…immortal…?”

The monster had appeared out of nowhere and taken over the scene.

He didn’t even check to make sure his wounds had fully closed. He just smiled, cheerfully and sincerely.

“Ah, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to disturb you. It sort of… Oh, are you okay? Really?”

Once again, Elmer tried to make sure Mark was all right, but the boy brusquely shook his hand off.

“Stop it!” Mark snapped. He refused to look at Elmer, his voice choked with tears. “Why… Why are you—?! You show up out of nowhere… This isn’t even your problem… I’m trying to die, and you… Why… Why are you trying to save somebody like me?!”

“For fun.”

Elmer gave a startlingly simple answer, and Mark shot him a ferocious glare.

“Don’t give me that shit! You… You shouldn’t help me! I’m not worth it!”

“You don’t get to decide whether you’re worth it—you must know that, right? What a funny thing to say.”

Elmer looked genuinely mystified, and Mark shook his head, shouting at him.

“Shut up! I… He was innocent, but I…” As the confession almost left his mouth, Mark realized he was more flustered than he’d imagined.

How stupid am I? This guy doesn’t know my past or who I really am.

My past…or what I’ve done…

That thought almost plunged him into self-loathing again, but—

“Oh, right, right! About that!” The moment he heard the word innocent, Elmer clapped his hands in realization. “‘Lester’ must be him over there, right? Oh yeah, he really does! I see, I see. Everything is coming together now.”

“Huh…?”

“What…?”

Mark, who didn’t follow the change of subject, and Lester, who was suddenly hearing his own name, spoke at the exact same time.

Smiling, Elmer took one step down the stairs, then gave Lester a long look, examining him from head to toe.

“Yeah, you’re right. Even his clothes are from the same manufacturer.”

“Uh… What? What…about…me…? Ow!” Remembering the pain in his shoulder, Lester groaned.

“Are you okay? Well, you won’t die from that, so don’t worry about it,” Elmer told him, then spun to face the other direction and turned a breezy smile on Mark. “Now I’m positive!”

“A-about what…?”

Elmer was completely failing to read the room, and Mark unwittingly went along with his conversation, nearly forgetting his own reason for coming here.

The immortal monster grinned with even greater amusement—and then he said it.

“I know why you stabbed me the other day!”

“…Huh?”

“It was raining cats and dogs, after all. We have similar features, we’re about the same height, and the clothes he’s wearing are just like the ones I had on a little while ago! In a downpour like that, no wonder you thought I was Lester and stabbed me!”

Inside the abandoned building beside Grand Central Station

“In my quest for revenge on Paula’s killers, I’ve been looking for the last one.”

“……”

After Smith’s long, long soliloquy ended, Nico and the others frowned and fell silent.

Graham and Maria had stopped listening partway through, wandered away, and started betting on whether it was possible to cut a wrench with a Japanese katana.

Graham seemed to have realized Smith had cribbed his story from Mark, while Maria hadn’t been interested in the first place.

“Well? Any other questions?”

“I see… You’re right; Carl told me what the men who’d been killed had in common.”

“Did he?”

“He said the victims might have had a particular reason for connecting with the Gandor Family.” For a little while, he seemed to mull over the information—but then Nico quietly shook his head and, with eyes that were as sharp as ever, passed judgment on Smith. “But it doesn’t matter why you did it. It’s a fact that you killed Gandor men, and I can’t just let you off the hook for that. First, Tick can determine whether that story you told me is true.”

He must have sensed there was a lie somewhere in the tale. Smith had said Paula was like an older sister to him, but there really hadn’t been any love or grief apparent in those words.

For now, Nico was about to signal his men to confiscate the concealed guns in the other man’s coat.

But then, with a whistling noise, something cut through the air, and a mighty crash echoed through the building.

Graham’s wrench had passed between Smith and Nico’s group and buried itself in the wall beside them.

“…Itching for trouble again today, Graham?” Nico asked, irritated.

Graham spun around and around, grinning with delight, putting himself between them and Smith.

“Sorry, but I owe Smith for letting me take his guns apart. I can’t just hand him over to you. After all, I’m already the enemy of the world. Being the enemy of the Gandors won’t bother me one bit.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised… What if he’s Ice Pick Thompson, the way he was talking? Will you still take his side?”

“I’ve been sworn brothers with a murderer for a long time. And he’s a total bastard who kills people for fun.”

Graham’s reply sounded like nothing more than a joke, and the mafiosi began to shift their aim toward him, but then—

“I see… Lower your guns, men.”

“Nico?! But…”

“This guy already fired his roscoes in here earlier. The area’s gonna be crawling with cops trying to find where the shots came from. We don’t need to help them out.”

“So then it’s my turn, huh, amigo?!”

Maria had apparently tuned back in; she came running over, eyes shining.

Smiling without humor, Nico shook his head, then took a step forward to challenge Smith himself.

Smith looked at the other man, then lowered his guns temporarily.

“…Kid Graham, is that Nico fellow tough?” Smith asked Graham.

“I’ve fought him a few times.”

“And how’d it go?”

Graham yanked his wrench out of the wall, flashed a thumbs-up, and winked. “One win, six losses!”

“Truly bleak odds.”

“Against a machine gun, though, he ain’t so tough. When they filled him with lead before, he almost died. If you count me in, we’ll have a three-way deadlock!”

“It sounds as if you’re trying to say he could win against a machine gun. Hell, if he’s still alive and kicking after an encounter with one, he’s a force to be reckoned with.”

Smiling in amazement, Smith nodded quietly.

“Still… To a lunatic like me, that sounds like a decent gamble.” Watching Maria, who’d ignored Nico’s attempt to stop her and was beginning to draw her katana, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

Graham was also grinning, but then a sudden question occurred to him.

“I wanna ask you something, in case we die,” he said over his shoulder.

“What?”

“Elmer said something to you a minute ago, right? What did he say?”

“Oh, that was…”

“Your name’s Smith, right? You’re, uh— What’s the best way to put this? You’re a good guy.”

“—What?”

“I can always tell when people are faking their smiles. A minute ago, when you said you’d killed Mark and smiled—that one was fake, wasn’t it? I bet either you didn’t kill him, or you’re sad that you did it.”

“…”

“Either way, you’re a good guy. I just wanted to let you know.”

Remembering that conversation, Smith looked down and smiled thinly.

“I’m a good guy, am I? That fellow’s pretty insane, too.”

“What was that?”

“…If we survive, I’ll tell you.”

The threads of tension in the abandoned building all snapped taut.

Although Nico had stopped them, his men were poised to draw and fire at any moment.

Someone was going to die—

“ ……!”

Nico had sharpened his senses, and his ears picked up on a change outside.

“……”

“What’s the matter, Nico?” one of his subordinates asked.

When Nico quietly replied, there was no longer any tension in his voice. “We’re pulling out, men.”

“Huh? What do you mean, amigo?”

“Nico?”

Nico had relaxed his stance, and all the other Gandors with him looked completely bewildered—but when they followed his gaze toward the door of the abandoned building, they understood.

Shaft was there, leaning against the wall, panting for breath—

—and behind him, the ne’er-do-wells appeared one after another, until there was a crowd of about twenty of them.

“Aaah… For crying out loud! Getting everybody together at this hour— That was not easy, Mr. Graham!”

There was no telling how much running around he’d done, but Shaft’s face was so exhausted he looked ready to drop. Even then, he said what he needed to say clearly.

“I also called up the Millionaires’ Row crew, so they’ll be here soon.”

Shaft flashed a thumbs-up and a weak smile, and Graham’s mind was completely boggled.

“Hey, whoa, you called in too many. Are you actually planning to take on the world? …Damn, were you the real enemy of the world all along? What now? Can I actually stop you if you go off the rails, Shaft…? What the heck are you planning to do with all these people? Don’t do anything rash; you’ll make your friends and family cry! And I’ll cry first!”

“I called them in so we could gang up and thrash you for waltzing into a fight with the Gandors, Mr. Graham… Wait, uh, huh?”

Seeing Nico walking toward him, Shaft instinctively stepped out of the way.

Maria called after Nico, sounding bored.

“Aw, we’re not doing this? I really wouldn’t mind cutting up all these people, amigo.”

“With numbers like that, it’s not a fight or an inquiry anymore. It’s a war.”

“You and I could win easy, though.”

“I told you already. If it was just me, that’d be one thing, but the bosses haven’t given me the right to risk you—and I don’t have the authority to massacre these kids without permission.”

At the sharpness in the man’s voice, the town delinquents tensed up.

Still, not a single one took to his heels. Perhaps Graham’s presence made them feel safer.

Nico seemed to be on his way out of the building, but just before he left, he paused and turned to face Smith, who’d bent over to pick up his hat.

“Let me ask you one last question.”

“…What?”

“Even if the business about you being Ice Pick Thompson is applesauce…”

“……”

Dammit. What, it’s obvious?

Smith inwardly clicked his tongue, and the expression on his face was very mixed.

“The one who killed Lisha…,” Nico calmly went on. “It really wasn’t you?”

“Yeah. I swear by my lunacy, and what little normal brain I have left: If nothing else, that is true.”

“In that case—who did kill her?”

“Well, it was the last target of my revenge. Naturally.”

Smith smiled in a self-deprecating way, then gave the name of the young reporter Mark had told him.

And when Nico heard that name—

In the basement of the jazz hall Coraggioso

“Well, to tell you the truth, I’m looking for an old man named Szilard. Along the way, I’ve been checking into this and that, and I heard this guy Lester might have had a connection to him, so I wanted to track him down. Then, when I was hanging around in the rain behind that paper’s office—not the Daily Days—I got stabbed out of nowhere. Gave me a start, let me tell you, and then as soon as the kid got a good look at me, he suddenly seemed shocked and said, ‘No… It’s not him?’ Then he ran off.”

Elmer’s monologue was outlining what had happened, but it wasn’t clear whether the people around him were listening. They just stared at him, looking stunned. The only active listener was Tick, the torture specialist, but it was hard to tell how much of the story he actually understood.

“After that, I went around looking for him, and when I found him, there he was, about to jump off a bridge and kill himself. It was my turn to be shocked that time. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha.”

Suddenly, he stopped laughing and whispered in Mark’s ear.

“By the way, is it bad if the people here find out you’re Ice Pick Thompson? If it is, I’ll skate around that somehow.”

“…No, it doesn’t really matter anymore.”

It was possible the boy hadn’t completely absorbed the situation. He quietly shook his head, looking exhausted, and nearly sank to his knees on the spot, but—

—when he heard Lester’s voice, a switch flipped in his mind again.

“Y-you!” Lester was shouting. “You’re immortal?! J-ju…just like Master Szilard!”

“Mm-hmm, that’s right. You really do know old Szilard.”

“P-please, I’ll do anything, anything you say! Anything, sir! I’ll do absolutely anything, you’ll see! P-please, just give it to me—give me the liquor of immortality, too…!”

Lester was on his knees, hands clasped in desperate supplication, even something akin to prayer.

The moment Mark heard it—

—a black vortex began churning in his heart.

Lester’s actions disgusted him, and in less than a second, his loathing turned to pure hatred.

“…That much? You want this that much?” Mark asked with fury in his voice.

“…What?”

When Lester looked his way—the boy had just taken a small bottle out of the paper parcel he was holding.

At first, Lester didn’t know what it was…

…but then, when he saw the colored liquid rippling in the bottle, his brain began screaming all at once.

“It can’t be! Don’t tell me that’s—?!”

“When Mom was alive…she buried this bottle in Dad’s grave. I wondered why she’d do a thing like that. This really is…what you people were looking for, isn’t it?”

“I knew it! It actually is the failed liquor, then?! Mark—Mark, my dear boy… Give me, give that to me. It should have belonged to all of us equally.”

“Is that why you killed my mother?”

“…! N-no! It’s her fault, Paula’s fault! You saw that man’s wounds heal up just now, didn’t you?! We can do it, too; we can escape death! It’s the dream of mankind! You can’t just hoard it for yourself!”

“The dream…of mankind?”

Lester’s scream was approaching incoherence, but the boy’s response was a calm murmur—in inverse proportion to the hatred in his heart, which was rising to levels he never thought possible.

“So petty… You’re saying you killed my mom over a lousy dream?” Mark slowly lifted his head and quietly raised the bottle.

“H-hey! Wait! What are you going to do?! I-if you want money, I’ll give you as much as you want! Just wait—”

“I didn’t bring this here so I could drink it, or to give it to you.”

Mark’s arm stopped at its highest point. His expression was complicated, a blend of sorrowful and murderous—

—and in the next moment, that expression vanished entirely, replaced by the mask of a cold-blooded killer.

“I brought it so I could smash it in front of you.”

“Stop it, you dirty son of a whooooooooore!”

With the speed and wild abandon of an animal, Lester launched himself off the floor.

Mark didn’t let that opportunity escape him. This was exactly what he’d expected.

Before anyone could stop him—as Lester leaped at him, he thrust out his right hand to counter him.

Of course, that hand still held the ice pick.

The attack struck true, but it still wasn’t enough to kill Lester’s drive toward immortality.

Even as the spike sank into Lester’s throat, he clutched at Mark’s clothes and scrabbled for the end of his left arm like a man scaling a sheer cliff.

Mark yanked his weapon out of the man’s throat, then stabbed him in the chest, the torso, and the legs, over and over.

Even that didn’t stop Lester’s charge. In just a few seconds, before Mark had time to shatter it, he wrenched the small bottle from him, then kicked the boy away.

There were multiple growing bloodstains on Lester’s clothes, and blood spurted from his throat in time with his pulse. Kicking Mark down had brought him to the floor as well, but he was beyond paying attention to his own condition.

In this moment, his world was empty of everything, even himself. All that was there was his prize, the failed liquor of immortality, floating by itself in space.

It wouldn’t let him escape old age, but at least the failed liquor would heal any other damage he took.

With a monstrous expression, Lester clawed the cork out of the bottle with his fingernails. The mafia men frowned, watching him.

“That wouldn’t be the liquor of immortality, would it?”

As Elmer watched the man on the floor open the bottle, the smile vanished from his face.

“Um. Because if it is, I wouldn’t drink it now…”

Elmer made a perfunctory attempt to stop him, but Lester knocked his hands away—“Out of my way!”—and chugged the contents of the bottle without coming up for air.

He swallowed with as much force as he could, washing down both the elixir and the blood filling his throat.

Ha, ha-ha, I did it! I drank it!

Overcome with emotion, Lester tried to shout the words, but—

“Bah, va-ba, dibbi…drugghi…ib…?”

—air whistled from his throat, and he wasn’t able to properly convert it into speech.

“…? Ah…gahk…”

As his mind grew calmer, Lester finally experienced the vicious pain that was still racking his body.

“AAaaaaaAaaaaah! VaaAAAaaahaaaaAH!”

The bleeding in his throat had stopped.

However—although no more blood flowed out, for some reason, his wounds weren’t healing. Not only that, but the blood he’d lost wasn’t returning to his body the way it had gone back to Elmer’s a few moments ago.

Lester writhed on the floor in confusion.

Looking down at him, Elmer gave a sigh that sounded a little sad and shook his head. “I told you drinking it was a bad idea, remember?”

“Gwah…! GaaaaaAAH! …?!”

“The elixir of immortality only makes you immortal. It doesn’t heal wounds.”

Even as the man screamed, his throat and abdomen riddled with deep holes, Elmer was calm.

He was so calm, in fact, that Mark and the watching mafiosi were unsettled by it.

“Same with certain diseases: It stops them from progressing further, but it won’t cure them. If you’re sick or injured when you drink it, the liquor recognizes the state your body is in right then as the state it should revert to.”

“…!”

“Well, it looks like it starts to get a little more flexible after several years, but healing wounds like yours… That’s probably going to take an astronomical amount of time. I think you’ve got a better chance of something breaking in your mind until you can’t feel it anymore.”

It wasn’t clear how much of Elmer’s long speech had gotten through to Lester. The pain was enough to make someone black out, but he wasn’t even allowed to lose consciousness from blood loss. He just kept screaming.

What did Mark think as he watched his mother’s killer? He stood there, his face expressionless. Elmer spoke to him in a whisper.

“Are you satisfied now? Or can you still not stand to have him survive, even if he’s like that?”

“…How did you know I was here?” Mark murmured, although he didn’t answer the question, and the look on his face didn’t change.

“Know isn’t really the word… This kid named Shaft asked me to help him get all his friends together, and while I was busy with that, I saw you walking in the rain. You looked dead serious. Then Shaft told me I should go after you and he’d manage with everything at the building, so I took him up on it and followed you… After a little while, you went in here, and chaos broke out,” Elmer explained matter-of-factly. “It’s scary what can happen by coincidence, but it’s fun in its own way.” He smiled. “I really was planning to go into that abandoned building, but I sure am glad I listened to Shaft. If you were slightly older and a girl, he might have been Cupid. Oh well.”

“Abandoned building…?”

Elmer had told him the truth, adding a few casual jokes, but Mark didn’t know about Graham’s situation, so he didn’t really understand the substance of what was said.

The same was true of the surrounding mafia men.

“Hey, you two… Don’t move.”

“I dunno what’s your beef with this reporter, but we can’t just let a brat with an ice pick walk… Not to mention the immortal fella over there. You’re gonna stay here until the bosses get back.”

Bewildered as they were, they slowly closed in on Mark and Elmer.

However—several sets of footsteps echoed from upstairs, and the tension rose again.

“N-Nico!”

Nico, Maria, and the rest were back.

“…What’s going on here?”

Seeing a boy holding a bloody ice pick, Nico quietly narrowed his eyes, but when he spotted Lester groaning on the ground, he exhaled in realization.

“Mark… Are you Mark Wilmens?”

“…? How do you know that name?”

“Lisha talked about you a lot. She said she had a sort of little brother, someone she was taking care of. Well, that he was taking care of her.”

“She did…?”

Startled, the boy’s expression turned childlike again, and Nico quietly rephrased his question.

“So what about it? Are you Mark?”

“Mark was… Mark Wilmens was just killed by a hitman. He’s dead.” The boy lowered his eyes, intimidated, but he didn’t run. “I’m…the killer…Ice Pick Thomp—”

“Yeah, you don’t have to finish that sentence.”

“…?”

“Ice Pick Thompson, huh…? I just had a chat with him.”

Smiling faintly, Nico advanced to the middle of the room. One of the Family’s men went over to him and filled him in on what had happened in a whisper.

For a little while, Nico listened quietly. Then he looked down at Lester and muttered, “Huh… So he’s like the bosses now, eh?”

As Lester thrashed around, Nico’s foot stomped down hard on his left hand.

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

With a dull noise, the bones in his fingers snapped, and a wheezy scream leaked out of the holes in his throat.

As Nico watched, though, the grotesquely twisted fingers began to revert to their former shape.

“Tick.”

“Yeees?” Tick responded to his name, scissors snicking.

Nico’s expression was cold as ice. “You can take today off after all,” he quietly said.

“Huh?”

Tick looked puzzled, and the executive fighter’s voice held a variety of suppressed emotions as he went on.

“I’ll take care of this guy…personally.”

“You will, Nico?”

“Yeah. If nothing I do can kill him—then even an amateur like me can relax…and have a real party with this. You follow?”

Elmer, who’d overheard that conversation, sighed quietly. Then he kneeled beside Lester, who was groaning in pain, and murmured to him with a soft smile.

“Listen, I’ve thought of one way you can be happy.”

“…? —? —??”

“If dying now would make you happier… If you’d be able to die smiling this way…then I could eat you with my hand, right now… Only if it would let you die happy, though.”

Elmer’s words must have made him realize what was about to happen to him.

Lester shook his head, as though rejecting something—

—and a wordless scream whistled from the holes the ice pick had put in his throat.

“I see… That’s too bad.”

Elmer sounded a little sad. Then he promptly smiled again and nodded reassuringly.

“In that case, when you change your mind several years from now…I’ll come back again.

“Maybe I’ll have found a way to get rid of your pain by then, and the wounds of the people you hurt may have healed.”