Baccano! - Volume 18 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 There’s No Tomorrow for the Kids

Turning back the clock to the rookies’ lecture…

Nader Schasschule was a former member of the Lemures, Huey Laforet’s personally trained organization, and he’d been trusted with a decent position at a young age.

However, right before the Flying Pussyfoot incident, he’d tried to sell the group out. He’d planned to rub out Goose Perkins, who’d been their leader since Huey’s arrest; take the remainder of the organization; and sign on as a subsidiary of the Russo Family.

Someone had snitched on him, though, and his plot had come to nothing. As a traitor, he’d had his right hand cut off, then been blown up with the Lemures’ discarded hideout, disappearing under the rubble with the other executed turncoats—or so it had seemed.

Nader had managed to live through the explosion—barely—by using the corpses of several of his comrades to shield himself. That said, he’d sustained injuries he never could have survived on his own. A passing doctor had happened to see the explosion and had saved him. It was practically a miracle.

After that, he’d cut a deal with Victor’s men, who were on the Lemures’ trail, and received a clean slate in return.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

Nader had disappeared, saying he was going back to the country to farm his father’s corn fields.

A few days later, he’d been back at the then-Bureau of Investigation.

He’d told them that someone was trying to kill him. He wanted them to protect him, even if that meant putting him in jail.

“So we were feeling merciful and decided to protect the guy, so we ended up giving him room and board in prison for three whole years, on our own dime? Yeah, come to think of it, I did get a report about something like that. Okay, I see. So that was Nader, huh?”

Finally seeming to have remembered the information clearly, Victor shrugged. “We’d been babysitting him for three years, so we talked him around and shooed him out… Is that how it went? Right, okay.”

Bill handed him another report. “Uh… The fact that he and Ladd were released at the same time seems to have been a complete coincidence.”

Victor read it in silence for a little while before saying, “Well, enough about Nader or Cider or whatever that zero’s name is.” With a deep sigh to say the man was no longer on his radar, he switched gears and steered the conversation back to the group he’d tagged with the number seven. “So this gang of delinquents in New York—there’s one major thing that sets them apart from the crowd.”

“What do you mean?” one of the new guys asked, dubious.

While it was true that they’d been involved in quite a few incidents, they didn’t seem to be backed by an organization, and they also didn’t appear to be Huey Laforet’s guinea pigs.

“Right now, we’re just keeping an eye on them, so we haven’t messed with them…but the doll who goes around with them is a problem.” Sounding irritated, Victor stuck a photo onto the blackboard.

They’d already seen this photo in the materials, but when they looked at it again, the newbies—particularly the younger men—gulped.

Even in a photo taken from a distance, the girl was beautiful. Her lustrous raven hair and vivid yellow-gold eyes matched the features of Huey Laforet, the man behind all the incidents.

Chané Laforet.

She was Huey’s daughter. As a long-time member of the Lemures, she’d conducted maneuvers that seemed far too dynamic for a young girl.

It had been four years since the Flying Pussyfoot incident.

The girl who’d cut people down without turning a hair had grown up. The idea of just how terrifying she might have become had concerned the agents, but the remark that she was going around with a group of delinquents filled their minds with questions.

“There was nothing about her in the materials we were given beforehand…”

“Actually, how did you manage to take that photo?”

As the newbies peppered him with questions, Victor adjusted his glasses. “We thought she might be connected with another of Huey’s outfits, so we let her walk. Except we ended up just leaving her on the loose, and then Huey busted out of jail! What the hell is that, huh?! Are we idiots?!”

Bill cut in. “Mm… Frankly, you’ve lived for three centuries, sir. I think the patience that allowed her to go free for three years was very typical of someone such as yourself. As an aside, that photo’s a reprint developed from the negative of a photo the delinquents took to celebrate something or other.”

Turning his back on Bill, who’d covered for him rather sarcastically, Victor quietly looked up at the ceiling.

“A reprint, huh…? This is a good time to be alive. Back when they first invented photos, that sort of thing couldn’t be done. Thanks to a great Talbot, creator of the Talbot process—you know, the ‘negative-positive’ thing—William Henry Fox Talbot, we’re able to share the same photo like this. Be grateful to the name of Talbot, men.”

“Uh… Your last names are the same by sheer coincidence. You aren’t related or anything, right, sir?” Bill remarked.

Stubbornly ignoring him, Victor turned the conversation back to Chané. “Huey Laforet doesn’t think of this girl as his kid. At most, she’s an irreplaceable tool for his experiments. If he needs her for the one that he’s planning to run, he’s bound to come pick her up. If he doesn’t need her, he probably won’t even stop in to see her.” Victor smacked a hand onto the blackboard. “However, from her perspective, it’s a very different story. To Chané Laforet, Huey is everything. She practically worships him.”

They hadn’t collected much intel on her in advance, but an analysis of what they did have suggested they could safely consider her a marked fanatic. It actually made the fact that she hadn’t tried to save Huey more of a mystery—but they assumed she hadn’t been able to pinpoint where in Alcatraz he was being kept, thus rendering her unable to take action.

“Still… With an information source like Sham and Hilton, there’s no way she wouldn’t have known. Does this mean Huey’s subordinates aren’t a monolith?”

“Also, there’s one thing that concerns me,” Donald said, abruptly joining the conversation.

“What is it?”

Donald pointed to part of Chané’s photograph. He was indicating a man’s arm, which was slung over her shoulders. “This man who’s next to Chané with his arm around her. He contacts her every now and then, but we don’t know who he is.”

“Does he have ties to Huey?”

“No clue. When Chané does stuff in town on her own, away from that group of delinquents, this fella’s with her most of the time. We’ve checked into him, but we can’t find a thing. The delinquents call him Felix, but we don’t know whether that’s his real name or not. I’ve had men tail him several times, and he always loses them. It’s not clear where he lives.”

“…I’d love to say ‘Lousy incompetents,’ but, Donald, I know your men aren’t dumb. Meaning this guy’s definitely a pro at something.” After thinking a little, Victor murmured to himself. “In terms of Felixes in New York…there’s Felix the Handyman, but…”

Edward responded to that abrupt word. “You know him?”

“Nah, that ain’t him. I made contact with a ‘Handyman’ who was rumored to be active in New York once, someone who’d help out with anything from hits to midnight disappearing acts…but the one I met was a dame. The name’s an alias.”

“I see…”

“Well, they probably just happened to have the same name. Sorry. I took us off track.” Victor looked back at Chané’s photo, scrutinizing the face of the man next to her. The guy was wearing a dauntless smile. “Can’t say his mug is particularly striking. He doesn’t really look like a mafioso, but… He could be a courier or something. We’ll have to check into his link to Chané.”

“Erm… Aren’t they lovers?” Bill said the first thing the photo brought to mind.

Victor snorted. “You think this woman would have a lover?! To her, everything but her old man is dirt on her shoes! It only looks like that at first glance because she’s using the guy as camouflage for something. Actually, if this… Uh, what color’s his hair?”

It was a black-and-white photo, so he couldn’t be sure about the color.

Donald, who’d seen the man from a distance, filled him in. “It’s a rather eye-catching red.”

“I see. If this redheaded bastard is Chané’s fella, I’ll jump off the headquarters building and give you a personal demonstration of how immortals regenerate.”

As Victor continued to dig himself deeper, Bill sighed and rolled his eyes. “Uh… I really don’t think you should be making careless promises. Hmm… If outsiders saw you, we’d have trouble, so treat these fellas to a round of liquor or something instead, all right?”

“Sure, I’ll give ’em all a top-class La Tâche from Romanée-Conti.”

Victor sneered, but then his expression abruptly reverted to normal. “Don’t go falsifying intel just because you want to drink top-drawer wine, people.”

Victor was laid-back enough to ease the tension in the room with jokes.

In the end, he didn’t notice a crucial detail.

It was a grainy, black-and-white photograph, so that observation would have been nigh on impossible to make—but at the time the photo was taken, with the man’s arm around her, Chané had been blushing faintly.

The next day New York Millionaires’ Row

Even in Manhattan, the high-class residential neighborhood attracted nothing but winners. It was fairly close to Central Park, and the environment was particularly fine. As a brisk wind blew down the street of luxury mansions, a whimpering shriek that completely ignored the ambiance echoed from one of them.

“Ugggh! …Hic… N-no, listen, I’m telling you guys, you can’t drink this!”

The source of the shriek was Jacuzzi Splot.

His teary wail was met by the coarse voices of delinquents, which didn’t suit the street of mansions any better.

“Why not?”

“Yeah, he’s right! It was a present and everything!”

“Miss Eve gave it to us!”

“Hya-haah!”

“Hya-haw!”

Amid the storm of criticism, the young man with the tattooed face cradled the box of wine to his chest as if it were a baby.

About three years and two months earlier, a strange incident had occurred aboard the Flying Pussyfoot. This young guy had been a central figure in that affair; maneuvering between the black-suited terrorists and white-suited murderers who’d swarmed all over the train, he’d pulled off a dramatic train robbery.

However, his tears were no act. He was genuinely frightened by his friends’ yells.

It had started ten minutes earlier. Eve Genoard, the head of the family who owned the second residence where their group was lodging, had told them, “A wealthy Italian who’s been a family friend since my grandfather’s time has given me several bottles of fine wine.” She’d passed three of those bottles along to Jacuzzi’s group.

Jon had brought out a corkscrew, planning to break into a bottle immediately, but Jacuzzi had said “W-wait a second!” before snatching the box away and hunkering down in a corner of the room. “Let’s not drink this right this minute, okay?”

The delinquents had been looking forward to tasting this “fine wine,” whatever that was. Jacuzzi’s suggestion had earned him a barrage of criticism—and in just a few seconds, their young leader had started to cry.

“Okay, okay, just calm down, Jacuzzi. The rest of you, too. Cool it. All right?” said Jon, who used to be a bartender. At least for the moment, the delinquents stopped yelling.

“And? Why shouldn’t we drink it? Are you planning to hang onto it until we eat?”

“Huh? N-no, um…”

“Then what’s the deal?”

When Jon pressed him, Jacuzzi responded timidly.

“Umm… I thought I’d find someone who’d pay a lot of money for it.”

At that remark, the angry yells were loud enough to echo off the walls.

“Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh?!”

“Hey, whoa, I guess something’s finally gone wrong with my ears!”

“From the way Jacuzzi said that, it almost sounded like he was gonna sell that booze!”

“Nah, couldn’t be!”

“There’s just no way!”

“It’s a present from someone who’s taking care of us…and he’s gonna sell it?”

“Whoa, c’mon, we obviously didn’t hear him right. Does our Jacuzzi look like a moneygrubbing ingrate?”

“If he really said that, I’d be sooo disappointed!”

“Yeah, we’d have to give up on him.”

“It looks like we’ve been overestimating Jacuzzi.”

“What’s this, what’s this? Jacuzzi, you’ve been silent for forty-three seconds already.”

“Hya-haah.”

“Hya-haw.”

As all his friends condemned him, Jacuzzi trembled for a little while. “I—I—I know that! I know! I know better than anyone how lousy I aaaam! Ngh…hic…”

Jacuzzi managed the neat trick of getting mad at himself while crying, which temporarily shut the delinquents up. They were aware that, if he went one step beyond this state, Jacuzzi would end up what they called rage-crying.

When Jacuzzi’s back was against the wall, even though he kept crying, he sometimes did things that were completely insane. The last time they’d seen him rage-cry, Jacuzzi had grabbed a tommy gun and filled the Russo Family gambling dens with lead, wailing the entire time.

That was why they’d had to make tracks out of Chicago and begin new lives in New York.

“…All right, we get it, just calm down, Jacuzzi.”

“We went a little overboard there, too. You ain’t the worst, Jacuzzi. You’re just about as low as it gets, that’s all.”

“That’s not much different.”

“Shut yer trap!”

“Hya-haah!”

“Hyaaa.”

A little exasperated by his friends—who hadn’t genuinely changed their tune, even though they were nervous now—Jon sighed again and turned to Jacuzzi. “Never mind. Quit crying, Jacuzzi. Tell us what’s going on, from the top.”

Jon kept his cool because he understood that Jacuzzi wasn’t the type to sell presents from other people out of personal greed. The other delinquents had to know that, too. They’d probably just given in to their desires to drink the wine and pick on Jacuzzi.

Jacuzzi slowly said something important, although he was still hiccupping. “The thing is…hic…the money, our money, it’s…hic… It’s all gone.”

The money was gone.

Due to its very simplicity, that extremely point-blank sentence promptly sent a stir through the delinquents.

Jon’s face clouded over, and he pressed Jacuzzi further. “Gone? Did you use it on something?”

“N-no! There’s a recession, so…hic…the people in town, they don’t have…jobs…and so, the odd jobs we picked up earlier just aren’t coming in anymore…”

As he spoke, his voice gradually grew quieter. Finally, when even his sobs were subdued, Jacuzzi averted his face from his friends and hit them with the bottom line.

“…So it looks like…we aren’t going to be able to make our payment to the Martillos…this month…hic!”

In a bedroom on the mansion’s second floor

Although there were multiple guest rooms, the women of the group used this one as their bedroom. Nice, the room’s main tenant, was relaxing on a bed. She could hear the yelling and crying from downstairs, but she decided to ignore them.

Just then, there was a knock at the door, and a moment later, Nick came in. “Miz Nice, I dunno why, but they’re making Jacuzzi cry again downstairs.”

“Yes, it does sound that way.”

“He was making some sort of fuss about money…”

Nick, puzzled, was taking the story with a grain of salt. Nice gave him a faint, wry smile. “I imagine it’s about not being able to make our payment to the Martillo Family.”

“Huh?! Wha—?! That’s bad news, ain’t it?!”

Their gang of delinquents was basically freeloading off Eve Genoard’s family.

Jon and Fang were paid for the housekeeping they did, but naturally, it wasn’t possible to keep a large number of delinquents fed on an income like that. Several people had been picking up side jobs and earning pocket money, but they’d done this on turf belonging to the Martillo and Gandor Families without permission, which had ended up getting them marked by both outfits. After various twists and turns, in the end, it had been decided that they’d make regular payments to the Martillo Family.

“The recession has significantly curtailed our income recently. After all, since Prohibition ended and the speakeasies started to operate openly, even underworld businesses have begun to really feel the Depression.”

“They’re getting hit hard, too, huh… What’ll we do, Miz Nice? If we end up stiffing them, who knows what that freaky magician will do to us?”

The “freaky magician” was Ronny Schiatto, a Martillo Family executive. Ever since a certain incident earlier in the year, the delinquent group’s image of him had been We don’t know what the hell is up with him, but he’s a magician and really scary. Fortunately, everything had worked out that time, but if they ended up not being able to make their payment, there was no telling what might happen to them.

The situation really was terribly dangerous, but Nice didn’t look all that worried. “It’s all right. If it comes to that, I’ll do something about it.”

“What kind of something?”

“It will hurt, but I’m prepared to sell myself off, piece by piece.”

It was a shocking declaration, and Nick hastily tried to dissuade her. “Whaaat?! You can’t do that! Anything but that, Miz Nice! If you’re going ’cause you want to, that’s one thing, but if you do that sort of work with a gang, they’ll get their hooks into you and trap you…”

“What are you talking about, Nick?”

“Huh?”

Nick frowned, and Nice cocked her head, perplexed. “I only meant I’d sell them the bombs I have on hand.”

“Huh?! B-but you said ‘sell myself off, piece by piece’…”

“My bombs are part of me. Or maybe they’re more like my children!”

“Please don’t blow up your kids!”

Nick had retorted on momentum, but even as he spoke, something struck him as odd. “Uh… Miz Nice? You’ve got a bomb that’s enough to cure our money troubles? …Where?”

He knew Nice always had explosives of some sort on her person, but those would probably only go for a song. A nasty feeling raced up his spine, but Nick asked the question anyway.

Hey, whoa, come to think of it, the closet in here is pretty big… Miz Nice isn’t the type to buy a ton of clothes for herself.

N-no… It couldn’t be, right?

Nick glared at the closet, breaking out in a cold sweat. Ignoring him, Nice got up from the bed, her eye shining—and yanked the sheets and the thin pad from the mattress.

“Yaaaaugh?!”

Nick screamed and backed up all the way to the wall.

The space under the bed was jammed with a cornucopia of bombs.

“Wha…? A-a-are you outta your mind, Miz Nice?!”

Nice looked away sadly. She sounded just a little apologetic. “…I’m sorry, Nick. You’re correct that storing gunpowder this way damages it, but…even so…the temptation to sleep on top of them was irresistible!”

“Uh, the storage method ain’t the problem! The problem is where you’re storing it!!” Managing to hang onto his wits, Nick protested. “C’mon, I was scared enough as it was, and you just made it worse! I just assumed you had ’em in the closet!”

“Chaini’s, Melody’s, Chané’s, and Rail’s clothes are in there as well, so that wouldn’t work. Besides, closets are for storing clothes, you know, not bombs.”

“Yes, I know that!” Nick snapped, clinging desperately to common sense. “Listen, if a fire broke out, you’d be blown to bits instantly! You would, Miz Nice! You’d be the first to go!”

“I would…be blown to bits…by these little ones…?” As she visualized the scene and faced the idea of her own death, Nice looked down, her cheeks flushing a little.

“Why are you blushing?! That ain’t right, Miz Nice!”

As a rule, Nice Holystone was a sensible person. It was, of course, relative to the others in their group, but she was generally the one who scolded her friends when they got out of control. She also got through to Jacuzzi when he was confused.

However, she also possessed one of the least commonsense aspects of the entire group.

Bombs: tools capable of absolute destruction.

Nice was a dyed-in-the-wool bomb fiend who took pleasure in the shock wave, the flash, and the roar of bombs, and in the smell of burning gunpowder. When it came to bombs, and only then, her mental screws had a tendency to come loose. Nick had watched her for long years—although not as long as Jacuzzi had, since he’d been her childhood friend—and he’d thought he was very familiar with that tendency of hers. And yet when he actually saw the mountain of bombs—unsurprisingly, he couldn’t keep his cool.

“You seriously still have all this…? Does Jacuzzi know?”

“If I told him about them, he’d sprint right out of the mansion, don’t you think?”

“I feel like doing that myself.” Nick had finally calmed down.

As Nice put the mattress back in place, she asked a question of her own. “By the way, what was the matter? Didn’t you need something? I really can’t imagine you’d come up here just to tell me Jacuzzi was crying.”

“Huh? Oh yeah! Yeah, that’s right! Right, Miz Nice! Stop Jack, wouldja?!”

“Jack? What’s wrong?”

Jack was an older member of the group, one Nice had known about as long as she’d known Nick. What on earth was he attempting to do? Before she could ask, Nick yelled the answer.

“That bastard’s planning to die!”

A few minutes later In another room of the Genoard mansion

“Don’t you stop me. I’m serious here.”

A punching bag stuffed with rags hung from the ceiling.

In Japan, where such bags are more likely to be filled with sand than rags, they’re known as sandbags. As Jack spoke to the friends who stood behind him, he was slugging this one rhythmically.

“You mean to do this no matter what, Jack?” Nice’s voice was grave.

Jack responded without even looking at her. “Yeah. I won’t rest until I’ve laid that Ladd Russo asshole out with my own two hands.”

Ladd Russo and the gang of delinquents had a little history between them.

Of course, Jacuzzi’s group and the Russo Family had been enemies before, so you could say the conflict had always been there, but new trouble had broken out from the Flying Pussyfoot incident.

When Jack had been taken hostage by the group of people in black suits, Ladd Russo had worked him over on a whim and had left him so badly injured he’d almost died. Luckily, since a doctor had happened to be on the train with them, he’d survived, but if he hadn’t received medical help, he might not have made it. Jacuzzi had declared they’d “make Ladd pay for it,” cementing their hostile relationship.

Strangely, though, Ladd and the other white suits had vanished from the train. They’d suspected the group had been wiped out by the Rail Tracer, who was rumored to have been on board. From there, though, the story got even more complicated.

“Yeah, but Graham said he’d mediate for us…,” Nick said.

Graham Specter was Ladd’s sworn younger brother. He’d taken a shine to Jacuzzi’s group after a certain incident and had been looking out for them ever since. From what he said, Ladd Russo had gotten arrested before. His prison term was up today, and Graham and the woman to whom Ladd was engaged had gone to get him. They were probably meeting up in New Jersey right about now.

Graham knew about the feud between the Russo Family and Jacuzzi’s gang, and so he’d offered to be their mediator: “Okay, got it, I’ll introduce you to Ladd as my pals. It’ll be fine. Ladd never kills somebody once he’s decided you’re his pal… Probably. It hasn’t happened so far anyway!”

However, Jack still wasn’t satisfied with that arrangement. “So what if he’s Graham’s sworn brother? That changes nothing!” he yelled. “Listen, not a day goes by when I forget I almost bit the big back then!”

“I understand how you feel, Jack. To be honest, even if Graham mediates for us, I’m not eager to form a connection to that Ladd fellow.”

“Then why are you trying to stop me?”

“As I’m telling you, I don’t want to have a connection to him, friendly or hostile.”

Her argument was so sound there was no way to respond to it. Jack pressed a fist against the punching bag. “…In that case, I can’t cause trouble for you or Jacuzzi, Nice. Nick and I will do it.”

“Why are you dragging me into this?!”

“Tch…! You were there, too. How come you got off without a scratch?”

“What, you’re jealous?!” Nick screamed.

Jack flashed him an amused grin. “Kidding. I’ll do it myself.”

“Oh, you were just fooling, huh…? No, wait! C’mon, Jack, tell me getting revenge on Ladd was a joke, too! Listen, there’s no way you can beat that crazy bastard. Right?”

As a matter of fact—although, granted, he had been hit first—Jack hadn’t been able to touch Ladd. Frankly, as an amateur, he didn’t think even training constantly for a few years would have guaranteed him a win. On top of that, he’d only started slugging that punching bag a few days ago, when he’d heard Ladd Russo’s sentence was up.

“It’s not about whether I can win or not. That guy shredded my pride! If I don’t step up here, I’ll never be able to throw another punch!”

“If you want to pretend you’re as cool as a boxer, that’s fine, but c’mon: ‘I went to rob a train, then got clobbered by a passing murderer, so I’m taking my revenge…’ That’s just pathetic.”

“Sh-shaddup!”

Jack had always been ready to fight at the drop of a hat, and this was definitely like him. Still, they couldn’t let this situation slide.

“Nick, call Jacuzzi, Donny, Jon, and Fang, please.”

“Huh? Yes’m.” Nick headed out of the room.

As he watched him go, Jack frowned. “H-hey, what gives? You better not be planning to sit on me and tie me up.”

“If I were, Jacuzzi would be useless, so I wouldn’t have called him,” Nice casually replied, although it was a mean thing to say. She sighed, then went on slowly. “They’re the others who were on the train with us. I’d like to call Chané as well, but I imagine her history with Ladd would complicate things.”

Nice was remembering the violent death match she’d seen between Chané and Ladd Russo on the roof of the train. She hadn’t asked Chané what had happened between them. However, she’d noticed the other woman had been acting strange ever since Ladd Russo’s name had come up a few days ago.

It isn’t just Jack. I’ll have to talk with Chané later, too.

…Before Graham and the others bring Ladd here.

Even as she internally planned her next steps, Nice went on talking to Jack. “Listen to me. As I told you, we’re all in the same boat regarding that train robbery. We may not be on the train anymore, but that part hasn’t changed.”

Jack said nothing.

“That being the case, if you insist on taking revenge, we’ll assist you. It’s quite likely that he’ll kill all of us instead. No doubt it will end Graham and Jacuzzi’s hard-earned friendship as well.”

“N-no, like I said, don’t bother about me…” Jack faltered, averting his eyes.

Interrupting him, Nice spoke firmly. “You know we can’t leave you to do this alone. Not me, not the rest…and certainly not Jacuzzi.”

“Ugh…” Jacuzzi’s face rose in his mind, and Jack looked down guiltily.

“No matter how reluctant he is at first, in the end, Jacuzzi will help you with your revenge. Even if it means showing ingratitude toward Graham. Even if it endangers his own life.”

“…So what are we gonna do, then?”

“We’ll talk it over together. Those of us who were on the train will discuss what to do next.”

“…That’s dirty, Miz Nice. If you tell me that, I’ve got no choice but to back down.”

Gently swearing under his breath, Jack thumped a fist into the punching bag.

A bomb had appeared in Nice’s hand at some point during the conversation, and she toyed with it while she smiled kindly at Jack. “It’s all right, Jack. If this Ladd fellow decides to squander Graham’s mediation and picks a fight with us…then I’ll strike before you do.”

There were two basic factors behind Nice’s smile. One was the resolution to get her hands dirty for her friends’ sake. The other was simply a bomb fiend’s thrill at having the opportunity to blow something up.

Jack was well aware of this, and he gave a wry smile. “That ain’t actually all right.”

Noticing the urge to kill had faded from his face, Nice felt relieved. Now, she thought, as long as we talk it over with Jacuzzi and everyone else, there won’t be any problems.

But when Nick returned to the room, he brought a new problem with him. “Miz Nice, it sounds like Jacuzzi left with Rail and some other people.”

“He left? Where did he go?”

Jacuzzi had been bawling just a few moments ago. Where on earth could he have gone?

“Well, the thing is, Isaac and Miria apparently stopped by.” Nick’s expression was a mixture of confusion and discomfort. “They said they were going to see some guy named Molsa to get work, but…that name kinda rings a bell for me. Who’s Molsa again?”

When she heard that name, Nice flinched, froze up, and dropped the bomb she was holding.

“Whoa!!” Jack caught the bomb a second before it could hit the ground.

“I think…,” Nice said, breaking out in a cold sweat.

“That’s probably…the boss…of the Martillo Family.”

A few minutes earlier The front hall of the Genoard residence

“Hello, hello! Jacuzzi! How’ve you been? And why do you look like you’re about to cry?”

“Yes, crocodile tears! Crying uncle!”

The pair who had come in through the front door were benefactors to Jacuzzi’s group.

“By the way, Miria, why are the crocodile and the uncle crying?”

“Maybe they were family who found each other again…”

“I see! So the uncle and the crocodile are father and son, hmm?! I hear, in the mysterious lands of the Far East, ugly ducklings give birth to swans… That means it wouldn’t be strange for the crocodile and uncle to be related. It’s great that they got back together!” Satisfied by his own explanation, Isaac nodded away. Then he turned to Jacuzzi, who was looking haggard. “So who’d you get back together with, Jacuzzi?”

“Huh? I—I haven’t really, not yet… Tomorrow, technically, there’s somebody I’m planning to meet again, but…”

Jacuzzi wasn’t good with Ladd Russo, either. If they met him and Jack said he was going to get his revenge, he’d end up having to help Jack, so if possible, he wanted to get by without running into Ladd.

Nnngh… And I said something crazy about how I was absolutely going to make him pay someday…

Wh-what’ll I do if he remembers?

The anxiety built up, and Jacuzzi almost burst into tears again.

Isaac and Miria peeked at his face and nodded emphatically.

“You’re so glad you’ll get to see this person again that you’re crying. I’m real happy for you.”

“Yes, we’ll all have to celebrate!”

“Right, let’s raise the roof!”

“Mm-hmm, money makes the world go round! Money rolling!”

The pair cheerfully made remarks that were completely oblivious to Jacuzzi’s actual state.

“I think you might mean ‘money laundering’… A-anyway, Isaac, Miria, I’m sorry! We don’t have that kind of money anymore.”

Jacuzzi was getting worried that if this kept up, they might actually throw a party, so he bluntly disclosed the state of their finances.

“What, no money? Well, that’s perfect! We’re broke, too!”

“Yes, we match!”

“There’s nothing good about that…” Rather envious of how few worries the pair ever seemed to have, Jacuzzi heaved a big sigh. “Man, what’ll we do…? As things stand, that payment to the Martillo Family really isn’t going to…”

He’d muttered the words to himself, but they didn’t get past Isaac. He glanced at Jacuzzi.

“The Martillos? What’s this, Jacuzzi? Did you borrow money from the Martillos?”

“Huh? Oh, n-no, well, something like that.”

Jacuzzi didn’t want to involve these two in the matter of their regular payments, so he tried to gloss it over.

Isaac smiled at him. “I see. We were planning to ask you if you had any jobs for us, but I guess we’re in the same bind…”

“Yes, we’re underemployed! The New Deal!”

“Mr. New Deal’s got it rough, too, huh!”

It wasn’t clear whether they actually understood what the New Deal meant. Miria and Isaac pondered the matter soberly for a second, but then their faces lit up, and they grabbed Jacuzzi’s arms. “Well then, let’s go!”

“Huh? G-go where?”

As they pulled him along, Jacuzzi looked blank. Isaac filled him in, sounding terribly confident.

“We know this restaurant owner named Molsa! He belongs to the Martillos, too, so we’ll ask him to wait a while on that loan!”

“Yes, and he might just give you a job!”

“Hey, in that case, do you think he’ll have work for us, too?”

“Yaaay, we’ll be rich!”

As Isaac and Miria arbitrarily dragged both him and the conversation along, Jacuzzi thought, What?! He’s with the Martillos? C-come to think of it, Isaac and Miria seemed to know that Ronny guy…

“B-but, Isaac. If you do that, won’t it cause trouble for you? Even if we’re acquaintances, if you take somebody like me over there and start asking about money, they’ll get mad at you…”

Jacuzzi’s worry was perfectly natural. Isaac and Miria exchanged looks, then cocked their heads, seeming puzzled.

“Why? If you and your pals do some work, Molsa will get his money back, so he’ll be happy, too.”

“Yes, happy money! A money ending!”

Isaac genuinely seemed to have no cares at all, while what Miria was saying didn’t even make sense.

“B-but…” Jacuzzi was still hesitant.

A child’s high-pitched voice cut in. “Hey, Jacuzzi, why not? You’ll finally get a chance to talk to them.”

When they looked over, they saw a kid who seemed to be about ten years old.

Countless suture scars ran all over their body like railroad tracks, from their face to the tips of their toes. People who were seeing them for the first time would probably get the mistaken impression that someone had tried to draw a picture of some sort, using their body as a canvas.

The owner of this peculiar exterior—who looked like a boy at first glance but was actually a girl—had spoken to Jacuzzi, sounding innocent. Possibly because her eyes were expressionless, the way the sutures pulled up the corners of her lips made it look like she was smiling.

“Rail? Y-yeah… Maybe that’s true, but…”

“Except I’d be nervous if it was just you, Jacuzzi, so I’ll go along.”

Without revealing a fragment of what she really felt, Rail trotted after Jacuzzi.

One of the delinquents spoke up. “Hey, whoa. If you’re going, Rail, let’s call Miz Nice and we’ll all go…”

But Rail shook her head.

“If we all went, they’d have their guard up. If a kid like me is with him, they might be nice, you know? As long as they don’t mind a kid who’s all scarred up. Ha-ha!”

Twenty minutes later In a private room at Alveare

“He… H-he— H-h-h-h-h-h-h…h-hello, it’s good to meet you, s-s-s-sir… Eeep…agh…” Jacuzzi was very close to hyperventilating.

The man he was facing spoke to him calmly. “…You okay, kid?”

“Y— Y-y-yessir!”

Jacuzzi was trembling violently. In contrast, the man on the opposite side of the round table at the back of the room was fully composed. His self-possessed bearing made it clear that he was the master of this room and the king of the building. He was probably around fifty or sixty years old, and there was a faint sprinkling of white in his carefully combed hair.

The man nodded, then turned his attention to Isaac and Miria, who sat beside the quaking Jacuzzi. “So, Isaac. It sounds like you’ve got something formal to discuss here, but who’s this kid?”

“Well, he’s a friend of ours. His name’s Jacuzzi. The thing is, Jacuzzi’s borrowed money from somebody in the Martillo Family, but he can’t pay it back.”

“Yes, he’s short on cash! Vanishing gold!”

“So he’d like you to point him toward work of some sort! And while you’re at it, point us toward some, too!”

It was an extremely simple explanation.

Even though it was what Jacuzzi had told them a little while ago, the facts didn’t quite match what he’d just heard, and his tattooed face turned paler than it ever had before.

“Oho… Money, hmm?”

Lacing his fingers together and resting his hands on the table, the middle-aged man spoke in a grave voice. “Well, let me introduce myself first. I’m Molsa Martillo.”

Hearing that name sent another shudder down Jacuzzi’s spine.

Th-that’s right. I remember. I remember now! Molsa… That’s the name of the M-Martillo Family’s boss! H-how do Isaac and Miria know somebody this important?!

I—I’m gonna die, aren’t I?

R-Rail said she’d wait outside…

H-help meee! Somebody, anybody, save me!

He felt as if he might faint at any moment, but he scraped together what little spirit he had and held on, responding in a voice so faint it was barely audible. “I’m J-Jacuzzi…Splot.”

“I see. It’s a pleasure, Jacuzzi. Firo, a member of my family, owes a great deal to Isaac and Miria. Any friend of theirs is a friend of the Martillo Family.”

“Uh-huh…”

He owes them…? I wonder what they did.

Jacuzzi was mystified, but Molsa’s voice pulled him back to reality.

“That said, I don’t think much of borrowing an amount you can’t pay back. Who in this family loaned it to you?”

His voice was mild, but it held a weight that seemed to bear down on the whole room.

Just then—the man who was standing behind Molsa spoke. He was the individual who was responsible for half of Jacuzzi’s nerves: Ronny Schiatto.

“Excuse me, capo masto. Technically, it was me.”

“You, Ronny?”

“This kid’s the leader of a group of delinquents who were active on our territory. The year before last, I settled the matter by requiring them to make regular payments to us, but with the Depression… I believe their income is down, and it’s become difficult to pay.”

At this accurate, impassive description of their situation, Jacuzzi hung his head apologetically.

“I see. And that’s why you’re looking for work, is it?” Molsa asked him.

Ronny lowered his head in apology. “I’m terribly sorry. I should have handled this matter, but I’ve forced you to get your hands dirty with it.”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! He’s sorry?! That scary Ronny guy said he was sorry!

I—I—I—I knew it! Molsa really is a terrifying person!

“Don’t talk like that, Ronny. What’s dirty is the work we do. I’ve gotten to talk with one of the town’s young people; I’ll consider it a valuable experience.”

“If you’re sure, sir.”

Ronny took a step back. Ignoring him, Molsa spoke to Jacuzzi again. “Now, then. That said, protection money isn’t the sort of thing we can just casually compromise on…as I’m sure you’re aware, Jacuzzi Splot.”

“Eeep?! Y-yessir!”

“So what do you intend to do? Which member of your group is going to compensate us, and how?”

“I am.” Simply, far too simply, the young man whose eyes had been filled with tears until just then interrupted Molsa. “All the responsibility is mine. So I’ll make up for all of it, so please…don’t lay a finger on…a-anyone else… I-if possible, I’d rather not die…but…”

The last half of his sentence grew teary again. However, for just a moment, Molsa had picked up on the intense resolution in Jacuzzi’s eyes. “Hmm…”

A slight change came over the boss’s expression, and he studied Jacuzzi’s face as if it intrigued him.

As they watched the two men converse, Isaac and Miria were whispering together.

“This sounds like a pretty complicated conversation, Miria.”

“Yes, I bet it’s about politics!”

Molsa, who’d picked up on their exchange, grinned from ear to ear. “Yes, it certainly is,” he said with some amusement. “Jacuzzi may become a politician someday.”

“Huh?!”

The conversation had taken an unexpected turn, and Jacuzzi spoke up, startled. As his eyes darted around in confusion, Isaac and Miria complimented him.

“Whoa, that’s really something! Jacuzzi’s got a lot of friends, so he might get to be president.”

“Yes, Abraham Lincoln! James Garfield! William McKinley!”

“N-no, I couldn’t, I could never…ha-ha…”

Jacuzzi’s lips softened into a smile; the tension had eased, and he kind of liked the sound of that.

“…All those presidents were assassinated.”

At that comment from Ronny, Jacuzzi’s face went pale, and he started trembling again.

Nonetheless, Molsa had taken kindly to Jacuzzi. “Never mind that. You’re paying us protection money, so we’ve got a duty to protect your group. That’s true even now, regardless of major financial woes.”

“Huh? Th-then…”

“I’ll give you jobs. If you do them well, you’ll be able to earn enough to cover half a year’s worth of payments.”

“D-do you mean it, sir?! Thank you very much!”

After he’d hastily expressed his gratitude, Jacuzzi suddenly got nervous.

W-wait. What sort of gang-related job would bring in that much?

D-don’t tell me… Messengers who aren’t expected to come back…? Corpse disposal…? Assassination?!

The more he thought about it, the more dangerous his ideas grew.

Picking up on his unease, Molsa laughed.

“Relax, kid. When all’s said and done, I’m still Camorra. I won’t make anyone who’s not part of my family do anything reckless… Well, the jobs may be reckless in another sense of the word, but…”

“What are you planning to have them do, sir?” Ronny asked.

Molsa grinned in a way that made him look young. “You-know-what is happening next week.”

“…I see. You’ll have them help with that?”

Although he’d only been told “you-know-what,” Ronny nodded as if he was completely satisfied.

“????????” Jacuzzi didn’t know what was going on, and his gaze wandered uneasily around the room.

Ever impassive, Ronny asked him a question. “Jacuzzi Splot, do you know the rules of poker?”

“Huh? Um, well…I play it with the other guys sometimes, so…”

“Any experience with roulette? Craps? Blackjack? What about the slots?”

“Huh? No… Almost none… Casinos are scary, so I…”

“Hmm… Well, never mind. How is your luck? Good?”

“I think it’s lousy. Oh, but…I’m lucky about getting away with stuff…I guess.”

“Do you have tuxedos and dresses? Enough for your entire group, if possible.”

“I-if we had that, we would have sold them for cash…”

“Hmm… In that case, I’ll provide some for you—tailored.”

The man kept asking him rapid-fire questions, and Jacuzzi answered as best he could. When the questions and answers had gone on for a little while, after some hesitation, Ronny nodded to Molsa.

“Well, it should be all right,” Ronny said. “After all, the fact that they aren’t members of our family is excellent.”

“True, but they’re the sort of jobs that have to be done by people we can trust.”

“But you do trust them, don’t you, sir?”

“Well, I trust this kid. They say you can tell the quality of a group by its leader.”

Jacuzzi wasn’t able to follow the conversation; he just listened to them quietly. However, eventually, as if he couldn’t take it anymore, he asked a timid question. “U-um… So what is it we’ll need to do?”

“Oh, it’s easy.”

Molsa’s answer was extremely simple.

“Gamble.”

A few minutes earlier At the counter inside Alveare

Alveare had originally been a speakeasy that served bootleg honey liquor. Even now that Prohibition had ended and they’d hung their sign out front, their basic concept hadn’t changed. In this unique space, the sweet scent of honey had permeated the wooden tables and the floor. The pale light of the incandescent bulbs made the honey in the food shine golden, so that the spacious room resembled the treasure chamber of a pirate ship. Once in a while, the aroma’s cloying intensity made a customer get unpleasantly drunk, but most people savored that smell as if it were one of the restaurant’s dishes.

In that saccharine space, there was a young woman who left a sharp impression. Her name was Ennis.

She’d just finished helping them unload groceries in the back and was taking a break at the restaurant’s counter. She was wearing a black men’s suit, which was an uncommon fashion for women in America at the time. It went well with her androgynous beauty, however, and the people around her certainly weren’t put off by it.

There were almost no regular customers near her, most likely due to the tacit understanding that the seats close to the counter were reserved for Martillo Family associates. However, Ennis was currently feeling a little bewildered; she’d noticed an unfamiliar child watching her.

The child, who seemed to be about Czeslaw Meyer’s age, had taken the seat next to hers and had a face and hands marked with striking suture scars, but even including those, their features were balanced and even.

A boy… No, a girl?

At first, that was the only question on Ennis’s mind, but the child watched her so intently that she soon became concerned in a different way. She’d originally thought it was because her clothes were unusual, but when Ennis stole a glance, she noticed the child’s gaze seemed to be focused more on Ennis herself than on her clothes.

No one at the counter seats appeared to be the child’s guardian. She couldn’t imagine they had ties to the Martillo Family, either.

Those eyes kept boring holes into her, and Ennis didn’t know what to do. For a little while, she drank her herbal tea with some bewilderment.

“Miss, is your name Ennis?” a young voice abruptly asked.

“Huh…? Yes, it is, but…who are you?”

When Ennis turned, perplexed, she found herself looking right into the child’s eyes.

They didn’t answer her question and instead examined Ennis’s face closely, giving her a taunting smile. “Hmm… You’re not what I expected.”

“?” Ennis didn’t understand.

“I thought you’d be burlier, like old Szilard! Ah-ha-ha!”

“…!” She gasped.

Szilard.

The moment she heard that name, Ennis’s spine froze. Apprehension rushed over her like a wave.

If this child was somehow connected to Szilard Quates, why come here? For what purpose?

She imagined a worst-case scenario in which the child would consume her and braced herself, preparing to leap out of her chair at any moment.

Even as she stiffened, the child laughed and spoke to her softly. “Oh, c’mon. Don’t get so upset with me. I’m a homunculus, just like you.”

The words were so quiet that only Ennis could hear them, but they sent another shock through her.

“…!”

“That said, unlike you, I’m—we’re—failures… Ha-ha!”

“You’re…”

“I heard you were with some group called the Martillo Family, but I had no idea we’d run into each other here. Oh, I’m Rail. Nice to meet you and all that.”

A current of tension ran between them.

The surrounding customers hadn’t registered the strained mood, and the restaurant was as lively as ever. As a matter of fact, even the new customer who came in didn’t spare a glance for Ennis or Rail.

“Excuse me.”

The moment the customer spoke to Seina, the proprietress who stood behind the counter, it was Rail’s turn to stiffen.

“I heard you could talk to people from the Martillo Family here.”

Rail’s face had gone blank. Thinking this was odd, Ennis also glanced toward the speaker.

The voice belonged to a child who seemed to be a year or two older than Rail.

Just as Ennis was trying to get a better look at the newcomer, Rail brusquely turned away, as if Ennis didn’t matter anymore.

“Hey… Why are you here, hmm?” Rail asked.

The new visitor looked over, blinked a few times, then curtly replied, “…Oh. Rail.”

Rail ground their teeth together in frustration, moments away from venting—but when the next man walked in, they stopped dead.

Rail wasn’t the only one. The man who’d entered had put the restaurant’s lively atmosphere to rest as well.

“Nice. Yeah, very nice!” His voice resonated throughout the establishment. “This place is terrific! Fantastically marvelous and auspicious!”

At the sight of the theatrical man, Rail completely froze.

“What’s good about it? Well, the aroma of honey! It’s Nature’s supreme sweetness! Is everyone in here grateful to the honeybees? Let’s see, yes, I’ll thank them now!”

The man’s teeth had all been replaced with sharp canines that resembled dolphin teeth, and the parts of his eyes that should have been white were completely red. His clearly abnormal appearance made every person in the restaurant tense, with the exception of the child who’d come in just before him.

Ennis remembered the man’s face—and she stiffened as well.

That’s… Last year, he’s the one who…!

Recalling the incident at Mist Wall and suspecting that he might harm the people in Alveare, she quickly stood up. However, before she could break into a run, someone spoke from below her eye level, stopping her in her tracks.

“Chris…” A variety of emotions mingled in their voice to the point where it sounded almost dull-witted. “Christopher…”

The laid-back attitude the child had taken with Ennis was gone without a trace. The moment Rail saw the man’s face, the change was obvious.

Large, unmistakable tears welled up in Rail’s eyes.

At the sight of those genuine tears, Ennis was so bewildered she couldn’t do a thing.

Meanwhile In a private room

“Gamble…? Huh? What do you…mean…?”

In response to Jacuzzi’s uneasy question, Molsa smiled.

“Ah, well, if you want details, just ask… Hmm. Who should I get to explain this?” After thinking it over for a bit, Molsa gave him a man’s name. “There’s a fella named Firo Prochainezo. He’s a little older than you are.”

“Uh, uh-huh…”

During the Mist Wall incident, Jacuzzi and Firo had both been in the restaurant on the top floor. However, it wasn’t as if they’d introduced themselves or had a conversation, and Jacuzzi had apparently forgotten him entirely.

Come to think of it…haven’t Isaac and Miria mentioned a “Firo” quite a lot?

He vaguely remembered that they had, but before he had time to ask them about it, Molsa went on. “He’s going to take part in a gambling get-together that’s being held in a certain location real soon. He’ll be running a section of it. Long story short, I’d like your group to give him a hand.”

“…Give him a hand?”

Was he asking them to be dealers? Jacuzzi couldn’t even shuffle a deck of cards properly, so there was no way he’d ever manage that. B-besides…what if somebody loses and starts yelling about clip joints and gets violent…? Visualizing himself getting throttled by a man about as big as Donny, Jacuzzi felt his entire body turn pale.

“There’s nothing to be scared of. All you need—well, all your group needs to do is have fun gambling. Of course, the casino’s illegal, so you’ll be at risk if the cops raid it, but still.”

“……”

This makes even less sense now.

Why would having fun gambling count as a job?

At any rate, he thought, he’d need to hear about this in more detail before he accepted the offer and went forward with it. Jacuzzi was about to ask Molsa another question before he met this Firo guy, but—

He was interrupted by a knock.

“’Scuse us.”

“Excuse us, capo masto. There’s something we need to tell you.”

Two men entered the room. One was fat, the other abnormally thin.

“What is it?” their boss asked mildly.

“Well…,” said the thin man. “We just got a coupla weird customers. They say they’re mafiosi who got run off by their family. They want to sign on under us.”

“Become our subordinates? A little outfit like this?” Molsa frowned.

Although the Martillo Family was a small syndicate, it scraped by and defended its own turf without the protection of a larger organization, which was an uncommon practice. If someone wanted to sign on under their small outfit, either they felt a deep obligation to the Martillo Family, or they were ambitious types who planned to infiltrate the syndicate and take over their territory from the inside.

“What syndicate are they from and where? What brought them to New York?” Molsa asked.

If they’d been chased away from their earlier home due to a hostile relationship with a large syndicate, they’d have to be very careful. After all, taking them on as subordinates would mean picking up their obligations and grudges as well.

“No… They’re kinda odd… One says he’s the boss of the Russo Family.”

“R-Russo?!” Jacuzzi screamed.

The boss of the Russo Family, Placido Russo, was the man who’d put a bounty on Jacuzzi’s group.

His syndicate had also killed several of Jacuzzi’s friends.

Caught between the impulse to take to his heels and another impulse bubbling up beneath the first to settle the score here, Jacuzzi felt his heart struggling not to be crushed.

Molsa couldn’t know about the connection between Jacuzzi’s group and the Russo Family, but Jacuzzi’s scream and the expression that followed it must have shown the older man that there was history there.

“Relax. I won’t let them do anything.” Molsa sent Ronny a brief glance.

Understanding everything from that silent look, Ronny responded deferentially. “Understood, sir.”

Molsa issued orders to the thin and fat men, who were family executives. “Show our guests in. I’ll let them bring one guard, but take their weapons and hold on to them outside the room.”

“Yessir! Oh, uh, well, in terms of numbers, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“?” Molsa paused.

“It’s only the boss and one guard.”

After that, Isaac and Miria said, “It sounds like you’ve got other guests, so we’ll wait outside!” and took their leave, but Jacuzzi stayed where he was. He’d decided it would be better to meet them here in the room than run into them in the corridor.

However, even though he’d nearly prepared to die, when Jacuzzi saw the “Russo Family boss” who stepped into the room a minute later, his eyes went round with shock. The boss was so far from what anyone had expected that even Molsa was a little startled.

“Huh? …What? I think I’ve seen you somewhere…”

Jacuzzi had seen the child about two months before, but the vivid memories of what had happened before and after that got in the way, and the details escaped him.

Ignoring Jacuzzi, the child bowed respectfully to Molsa, who was seated near the back of the room.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Mr. Martillo. I know my visit is a breach of etiquette.”

The boy who stood in front of the door was very attractive and clearly still in his early teens.

“My name is Ricardo Russo. I’m in charge of the Russo Family.”

Ricardo spoke in a way that didn’t match his years, gazing at Molsa with straightforward eyes.

“…I see. My apologies. You threw me for a second there, but from the way you talk and the look in your eyes, I can tell this isn’t your idea of a joke.” After a slight pause, Molsa apologized briefly, then checked on something. “The Russo Family… I remember. It was in the news at the end of last year; I heard about it on the radio… I seem to recall that the current boss was a Mr. Placido Russo, though.”

At the end of the previous year, wanted for a variety of crimes, Placido had vanished from Chicago. As if they’d been waiting for him to disappear, the surrounding syndicates had swarmed his rights and interests like sharks. Rumor had it that the Russos had lost all their territory in just a few weeks.

This was what had provoked Molsa’s question, but Ricardo answered without hesitation. “My grandfather abandoned all his responsibilities and evaporated. He probably isn’t among the living at this point. Even if he were, it wouldn’t be possible for him to act as the family’s head. My parents also passed away a few years ago, so I am the direct successor.”

After impassively explaining his own position, Ricardo lowered his eyes slightly and went on in a rather self-deprecating way. “That said, the Russo Family would have to officially admit it, and the family itself has collapsed…”

“I see… I never met them directly, but I’ll pray that your relatives rest in peace.”

“…Thank you very much. Although the family has lost its shape, I am looking for a way to earn our keep for the sake of the handful of remaining members. I am also doing so in the knowledge that asking is a disgrace. Please understand that.”

“That’s very frank of you. Why did you come to us, though? If you’re looking for work, you’d do better to try the Runorata Family.”

Even when confronted with this natural question, Ricardo didn’t hesitate.

“A big syndicate would grind us to dust, and that would be the end of it. However, while the Martillo Family is a small outfit, you’ve maintained your independence in New York. I hope to find the keys to rebuilding the Russo Family here.”

“…You really are frank. Essentially, you plan to earn your keep and steal our know-how, but you don’t intend to become members of our family?”

“Yes, as I said. You’re welcome to treat us like any of your local juvenile delinquents. If you decide that the restoration of our family has become a problem… Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Ricardo spoke in a way that sounded mature beyond his years, like he was a philosopher. Molsa couldn’t help feeling sad about that.

“What an age we’re living in, when young people like you have that look in your eyes. If you’re going to be picking up work from us, we can’t have you accepting death that easily.”

Half of Molsa’s remark was an admonition to Ricardo, who no longer seemed like a child at all—but the other half was an indication that he was willing to give the group work.

Ricardo nodded quietly and spoke slowly. “To be honest, I was prepared to be mocked the moment you saw me. If you thought this was a joke, then that would be that. Mr. Martillo, you’ve been kind enough to speak with me as an equal. That alone would be enough to make me grateful for our encounter.”

“You give me too much credit. When you get to be my age, you stop being able to tell kids and adults apart, that’s all. You’re sure you’re all right with us, though? The Gandors aren’t much different. Keith Gandor’s a wise man. I guarantee he won’t look down on you because you’re a child.”

As a matter of fact, since the Camorra weren’t what they were used to, Molsa thought the group would probably have an easier time under the Gandor Family, a fellow mafia outfit. That was why he’d checked with Ricardo, but the boy shook his head.

“…There’s actually one more reason I chose your organization.”

“Oh?”

“I only found this out the other day myself, but…my bodyguard says he has a friend in the Martillo Family.”

As Ricardo spoke, he shot a glance behind him. Following his gaze, Molsa and Jacuzzi shifted their attention to the shape outside the door.

“Huh…?” Jacuzzi blurted out. He had a clear memory of the man who was smiling in the shadows of the corridor.

The man had red eyes and teeth like an orca. His clothes were the sort a nobleman might have worn in another century, and the combination made him look like an actual vampire.

He’d encountered this man in various places—the top floor of Mist Wall in New York, a restaurant in a corner of Chicago, the top of the Nebula building—and he could sum up his impression of him in a single word: dangerous.

“Hello, hello. I’m Christopher, Ricardo’s good friend and subordinate.”

“I didn’t say you could talk.” Ricardo shot him a cold glare and then apologized to Molsa. “I’m sorry. As you can see from his appearance, this man has no common sense, but I guarantee his utility in a fight.”

“I see. When I caught a glimpse of him in the shadows outside the door, I thought I’d finally seen a ghost, at my age. That would have been concerning… Well, if he’s human, that’s a relief,” Molsa joked, shrugging. Then he looked at Christopher, who truly was strange, and asked him a brief question. “So who’s your friend?”

At that, with a smile one could have called innocent, Christopher cheerfully gave him a name. “Firo. Firo Prochainezo. He’s a great friend, and a great benefactor. He taught me how to get along with Nature and also about human common sense!”

Huh? Firo? Jacuzzi thought. Firo… The guy I’m about to go meet?

The sudden mention of the name again confused him even further.

This enigmatic part-time job, where he was supposed to gamble.

The appearance of the Russo Family.

The fact that this Ricardo kid had become the family’s boss somewhere along the way.

Christopher’s entrance.

Thinking back over the various things that had happened in this brief interval, Jacuzzi started to shake so hard his teeth chattered.

Huh? That’s weird.

When he’d stepped into this room, had he accidentally wandered into some sort of dream world? Of course, if it was a dream, it was definitely a nightmare.

All I wanted was to see if they’d do anything about the money, but I…

Was the act of earning money always so full of trouble?

Breaking into a cold sweat, he tried to organize the things he knew, but he couldn’t make a single one of them fall in line.

Unaware of Jacuzzi’s mental state, Molsa impassively moved the conversation forward. “Oho… Firo, huh? He knows more people than you’d figure.”

The man who led the Martillo Family stroked his chin, seeming amused. Then, with a youthful smile, he addressed Ricardo and Christopher. “Perfect timing, though. In that case, I’ll have you give Firo a hand as well.”

Agh, agh, agh, agh, agh!

Wait just a minute. We’ll be working with that Christopher guy? I—I mean, he…he shot people dead at the top of that building…

Oh, but he’d mellowed out in that restaurant in Chicago.

If I could talk it over with Tim…

A variety of information spun around in Jacuzzi’s mind.

The sense that he was being dragged into deep trouble kept getting stronger. He considered simply bolting the second he got outside.

“Ronny,” Molsa said.

“Yes?”

“Once we’re done here, take Jacuzzi and these guys over to Firo’s casino.”

“Understood, sir.” Ronny nodded, then glanced his way and smiled. When he saw that, Jacuzzi had no choice but to steel himself.

He was about to hurl himself headlong into trouble again.

The gamble had already begun.