Baccano! - Volume 20 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 Bunny Hasty & Bunny Tasty

“If they’re living in a palace during a recession, you know they’re doing something at least a little crooked to get their money.”

Pamela’s thoughts on Cazze’s family weren’t entirely the self-centered delusion of a two-bit villain.

She’d gotten one thing very wrong, though: a little didn’t begin to cover it.

The Runorata Family had amassed its fortune by doing “crooked things” openly, on a massive scale. That was the truth.

They were one of the largest, most powerful syndicates on the East Coast. Their greatest asset wasn’t money or muscle, but an individual named Bartolo Runorata.

Some of the organization’s most brilliantly insane individuals were there to protect him. They were Bartolo’s personal guards, a group that got ahead in a different way from the executives.

They weren’t expected to repel active attackers. The only thing anyone cared about was how effectively they could take a bullet for their boss.

They were members of the Runorata Family who didn’t want success and had no interest in climbing the ladder. They simply idolized Bartolo. Instead of squandering their lives, they were capable of throwing them away rationally, at the best possible time.

Bartolo’s personal guard was made up of people like these.

Because he understood this, he placed the utmost trust in them—and used them up completely.

He knew that, as far as they were concerned, this was the greatest compliment he could pay them.

Although being able to take a bullet for their boss was the biggest requirement, that didn’t mean they had no other skills. Some of them could double as outstanding assault troops or assassins.

The twins who were riding through the night on motorbikes were two of these shields who could fight back.

Late night Upstate New York Near the forest

“Well now, what should we do, I?”

“Good question, Me.”

Straddling identical bikes, the peculiar young men were calling each other I and Me.

They’d stopped in the woods along the road that led to the designated bungalow and were lying low. The conversation between them didn’t mean much.

“We’re almost at the handoff site, I.”

“It’s just up this road, Me.”

“Shall we go?”

“Let’s watch and wait a little longer, Me. If we rush it and they take the young master hostage, we’ll have even more trouble to deal with.”

Although the subject they were discussing was tense—they were smiling.

“By the way, I, how much cash do I have?”

“Oh, right. Hang on a sec, Me.”

After exchanging looks, they both checked the contents of their wallets.

“Just looked, Me. There’s twenty bucks, tops.”

“Indeed, I. This wallet has a whole twelve dollars even.”

“So that’s thirty-two bucks between the two of us, huh?”

“That’s a problem.”

Sighing, the two shook their heads in unison.

“What did the criminal demand?”

“They said to give as much as we could.”

“Will they settle for thirty-two dollars?”

“They’d better.”

The two chuckled quietly together. Gradually, an unpleasant light came into their eyes.

“And if they don’t?”

“Then we go on the hunt.”

“What will we do if something happens to the young master, I?”

“Well, obviously, we’ll kill ’em all.”

Get Cazze back. That is all. What should you do with the kidnappers? I don’t care. That’s up to you.

Those were their orders from their great and beloved boss.

Ordinarily, their only opportunity to show their loyalty would have been to take a bullet for him and die—but now they’d been assigned a mission besides security work.

They’d originally been something like button men for the syndicate, but due to their recklessness, they’d been pulled from the front lines for targeting people they didn’t have to.

Guarding the boss had been their pride and joy. However, now that they’d received another order, delight of a different kind was welling up inside them.

They were dyed-in-the-wool battle addicts, and they’d been waiting eagerly for a chance to make the most of the skills they’d cultivated.

At the same time, they were also angry.

They wanted to strike back at the arrogant kidnappers who’d had the nerve to snatch Cazze, the future of their beloved Family.

Experiencing this anger and delight simultaneously, they quietly scanned their surroundings.

They traveled slowly through the deep forest, staying back far enough that they couldn’t be seen from the road. Then, suddenly, they heard an engine.

A few seconds later, a truck raced down the road, past the forest where they were hiding. Its tires had been designed for off-road use, and the man in the driver’s seat wore a strange military uniform that wasn’t from any country they knew.

When they saw his clothes, the twins looked at each other, then nodded.

At the exact same moment, they gunned their bikes’ engines and burst out onto the road, chasing the truck.

The member of the Lemures headed back to the camp was beyond rattled.

He’d been sure the cops weren’t tailing him. Even if he had somehow picked up a shadow, he’d been confident that he’d lost it completely.

…So who were these two bikers who’d appeared out of nowhere?

They couldn’t just be kids on a joyride, or they wouldn’t have come out of the woods.

The bikes looked like military models, and they were clearly following him on purpose.

The man had no idea what was happening. His mind went to the equipment on the passenger seat. What do I do? I can’t let them follow me back to the base. Even if we all tried to get rid of them, if they got away, we’d be done for.

Should I get rid of them at the bungalows at Point K?

Just as his thoughts turned to the huts that lay up ahead, he caught a glimpse of something strange out of the corner of his eye. In the rearview mirror, the two bikes got so close they seemed to overlap, then fused into one.

“—?!”

Hastily, he focused on the rearview mirror, but there really was only one bike reflected in it.

“That’s insane!!” Without thinking, he cried out, and as he looked around, he realized something.

The bikes’ apparent fusion had been an optical illusion, generated on purpose.

One bike was running parallel with the truck, its headlight extinguished—and its rider had taken advantage of his confusion to get a good look at him and the vehicle’s interior.

Without hesitating, the man grabbed the handgun from the passenger seat, opened the window, and fired.

However—the bike actually pulled closer to the truck. Neatly slipping past the bullet, the rider put out a hand. “Bingo! We knew you weren’t just a kidnapper!”

A kidnapper?! What is he talking ababababaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

“DaaAAaaaGaaaah!”

The driver was screaming before he could even ask the question.

The biker had caught the wrist of his gun hand and violently twisted it up.

“Agaaah! Ah, gah, whaaaa?! GaaaAAAaah!”

The first scream was one of pain.

“Aaaah! …AAAAaaaaWAAaah!”

The one that followed it was of fear.

His hands had left the wheel completely for a few seconds, and now the trees were right in his face.

The crash echoed loudly through the silence that dominated the night.

Ten minutes later Near Bungalow Number 7

“…He’s late.”

“Yes, he really should have been passing us right about now.”

The Lemures who’d been ordered to scout out the bungalows exchanged dubious looks.

Despite the winter cold, the pair had been observing Bungalow Number 1, which had been noisy the entire time. However, the negotiator’s failure to appear was making them uneasy for reasons that had nothing to do with the bungalow.

They’d been watching from the shadows of Number 7 for several hours now, but the boys and girls inside hadn’t done anything that seemed to warrant much caution.

The fact that there was a third truck now concerned them, but the only bungalows with lights on were 1 and 3. The rest were still vacant.

They should probably assume that a group of young people had swarmed in and was camping in the bungalows without permission.

If the negotiation team simply drove by, there wouldn’t be a problem.

…Or so they’d thought, but the negotiator hadn’t shown up.

“…Did something happen?”

“What should we do? Should we report in to Comrade Sarges?”

They were conversing urgently. Meanwhile, the contrasting clamor from Bungalow Number 1 grew even louder, until the raucous voices reached all the way to their hiding spot.

“Dammit… Easygoing bunch, aren’t they,” one of the Lemures spat.

But there was something they hadn’t noticed.

As the voices grew louder, he was almost fully awake in Bungalow Number 7.

Then a few minutes later:

“…Something has to be wrong. I’ll go back for now; you stay here.”

“Right.”

The first man turned back to the wall of Number 7…

Creak…

…and registered a soft sound.

The door was swinging slightly in the breeze.

Huh…? I’m pretty sure that was closed…just a minute ago.

When they’d first arrived, they’d looked in through the windows, but all they’d seen was darkness.

Their first and greatest mistake had been not actually going inside to check. They’d avoided it because they hadn’t wanted the group in the bungalow to hear the door open and close.

And even if they had gone in, it was very likely that the tragedy would only have happened sooner.

What…? What’s that smell?

A faint, pungent odor they hadn’t noticed before hung in the air.

Was something inside Bungalow Number 7?

A sudden tension ran through him, and he turned back to his companion.

The other man seemed to have noticed the smell, too; he frowned, confused. “…What stinks?”

“That’s what I want to know. Maybe some travel rations went bad in there?”

Trying to guess at the source of the odor, they thought about what they’d seen when they looked in the window.

There hadn’t been anything inside.

All they remembered was pitch-black darkness.

Unfortunately, they were wrong.

When they’d peeked into the room, they’d mistaken him for a pile of blankets.

If they’d strained their eyes or shone their lights in carefully, they would have noticed that the texture was wrong for blankets and that it was moving slightly.

He was enormous, though, and they’d only been able to see him as a mound of blankets.

They hadn’t registered the massive amount of food piled up behind him, either—

—and as a result, they’d allowed him to get this close.

“That smell… I think it’s getting stronger.”

“No, this…is different from the other one…”

By the time they realized it was the smell of an animal, it was too late.

He had already left Bungalow Number 7—and was watching the Lemures from the brush right next to them.

The two uniformed men gulped, then quietly looked around the area.

They tried anyway.

But they didn’t see him.

He was so big that, for a moment, their brains couldn’t register him as a living creature.

However, that illusion didn’t last long.

“…Hmm?”

“…Huh?”

Realizing that something was off, the two looked toward the brush on reflex.

This time, they saw it.

In the brush, something inhuman had risen to its feet.

Even when they realized what it was, the two of them couldn’t will themselves to move.

It can’t be.

That should never have been in a place like this. That common knowledge threw off their decision-making abilities.

That said, although they were low-ranking members, they were still Lemures.

They stayed frozen for only two seconds.

However—with that horrifying sight in front of them, those two seconds were fatal.

And so his time arrived.

An enormous grizzly bear who stood over nine feet tall, he threw his massive body at the two men in military uniforms.

The men’s screams ripped through the night, drowning out the clamor from Bungalow Number 1.

That signaled the start of the great, crazy ruckus in the woods.