Baccano! - Volume 20 - Chapter Pr1

PROLOGUES

Prologue 1 The Rabbit Hutch

1931 The outskirts of Newark

The local kids thought of him as a prince in the mansion deep in the forest…

It was both a compliment and stinging sarcasm. The boy was the direct descendant of someone powerful, and in another world, he actually would have been called a prince.

However, this “someone powerful” was the type who never left the shadows.

Only one thing inconvenienced the boy: the rule that restricted his world.

Whatever he wanted, he could have.

His grandfather was a firm believer in good manners, and he could be strict. On the other hand, the boy’s parents were soft on him; they’d buy him anything he asked for, provided it was something ordinary people could acquire.

And yet the boy was never satisfied.

He could have been content with this close-range “freedom” and become outrageously spoiled—yet he had just one selfish wish. This desire occupied his thoughts to such a degree that he had none to spare for being spoiled.

He wanted to venture outside the walls by himself.

He didn’t mind if it was only for a few hundred yards.

He wanted to wander freely around outside the house on his own. That was all he asked for, but he was not allowed. Despite his pleas, the boy was always a bird in a cage.

He wasn’t a prisoner. His parents loved him quite well enough, and that was why he wasn’t allowed to be alone. He was surrounded by a throng of people, but his desire for solitude left him lonely.

No one noticed his growing melancholy, not even him.

His parents were well aware that the matter was probably weighing on his mind, and yet they never left him alone.

…Why?

Fundamentally, it was because he was the direct descendant of someone powerful.

Carzelio Runorata, nicknamed Cazze.

The name the boy had been given also determined his status.

The Runorata Family was a mafia syndicate based out of Newark. Led by Bartolo Runorata, the enormous organization had well over a thousand members. That authority was very real, but it was never exercised in the full light of day.

The name “Runorata” marked its bearers as part of that authority.

When future generations looked back on this time, many of them would call it the era of Prohibition.

People had wanted that particular law for various reasons. Some groups considered alcohol a vice, while others wanted a check on Germany, a nation of brewers. Noble ideals and shrewd politics tangled together in complicated ways, and for a brief moment in history, the country became a “dry society.”

However, the results were deeper social vice and a giant power that began to feed on it and gain strength.

Up until then, alcohol had been a common indulgence, but the shackles of the Prohibition Act turned it into a treasure. Alcohol became as valuable as jewels. The phrase fine, forbidden drink took on a literal sense.

Even those who’d never tasted liquor before were caught up in this guilty pleasure amid the enormous social current, and they began crowding into speakeasies along with the lushes.

Ironically, although part of the law’s intent had been to reduce crimes committed by drunks, it ended up criminalizing once-innocent citizens.

On top of that, the Great Depression had struck America a harsh blow, and the constant anxiety turned more and more people to alcohol.

That said, while the lights of the speakeasies shone, “heroes” with the power to repel the Great Depression were growing in their shadows. The general public tended to lump them together as “the mafia.” These gangsters didn’t just slip through the law’s net; they openly tore right through it, amassing great power through the sale of bootleg liquor.

Essentially, the government’s Prohibition Act became a convenient hotbed that helped these enemies of the law make rapid social advances.

They used their power violently, chivalrously, eloquently.

Fostered by the chains of Prohibition, these forces strode through the underbelly of society.

The “family” into which the boy had been born—the Runorata Family—held part of this power.

The enormous organization had expanded its influence across the American East in the blink of an eye, putting down roots with the help of the Prohibition Act. The boy had only just turned nine, but even he vaguely understood that he belonged to the peculiar world known as the mafia.

Still, Cazze couldn’t have cared less.

He wasn’t sent to school. Instead, he had knowledge drummed into him by private tutors.

…And yet, whenever a large party was held at his house, all the locals attended, and it became the sort of gala that was discussed in books and on the radio.

Cazze met other children there, but they only greeted him because their parents told them to, and they treated him as something fundamentally different from themselves.

As a matter of fact, as far as the local kids were concerned, Cazze was a prince. He didn’t go to school, but it wasn’t because he was poor. When they talked to him, he spoke more clearly than they did, and he knew twice as much. In the children’s minds, if he wasn’t a “prince,” nobody was.

Ordinarily, they were told they mustn’t go near the Runorata Family’s enormous mansion.

At the parties, their own parents all paid their respects to its residents.

A castle in the forest. A child more refined than anyone they’d ever seen at school.

He was like a character from a fairy tale. Some kids called him a prince out of jealousy, and others did it because they idolized him.

Either way, though, they never saw the boy before the next party, and if they tried to go to him, their parents stopped them in no uncertain terms. Gradually, they even forgot what the so-called prince looked like.

After several years of this, the craving in Cazze’s heart was growing stronger by the day.

Thanks to his private education, he knew a little more than other children his age, and he was a bit more mature—but he wasn’t yet ten years old. He was too young to put his discontent into eloquent words. All he knew was that he wanted to go outside.

The magnificent mansion had a fountain in its expansive gardens, and all sorts of people lived there with Cazze and his family. Bartolo Runorata, his grandfather, lived with them, and so did his children and their families—but there was no one Cazze’s age.

His mother was Bartolo’s oldest daughter, and Cazze’s cousins were still too young to really talk to. He took care of them and played with them, but they were nothing like the sort of friends he wanted.

Besides, not even having a friend around would have changed the fact that he couldn’t go outside.

When he went for a walk, someone always went along to guard him.

If he looked around, he could see multiple guards around him, all at a distance. This made walks rather uncomfortable, and the claustrophobic sense of being watched every waking moment squeezed his young mind like a vise.

And then—he snapped.

December 30, 1931 Noon Somewhere in New Jersey

“Ghk…ah… Hff…”

A small figure ran, panting for breath.

Cazze’s fine clothes were already a little grubby here and there. He dove into the bushes and clapped his hands over his mouth, forcing himself to breathe quietly.

“Was he there?” “No.” “He’s not over here, either.”

“Where did he go?!” “Don’t tell me the Gandors—”

“No, it sounds like he left by himself.” “What for?!”

“That’s nuts!” “First things first: We need to report this to the boss…”

The distant clamor gradually came closer, passed right by the boy’s hiding place, and was gone.

About ten minutes earlier, Cazze had dangled over the window a rope ladder he’d secretly constructed, escaping in broad daylight.

Carefully, he made his way through the bushes, moving slowly as he held his breath. The voices came back. He stiffened again.

“Goddammit.” “Send out the cars.”

“Get the word out.” “Hold it.”

“We can’t afford to let this commotion spread.”

“It’s too fuckin’ late for that! The situation’s already ugly, both for the boy and for us!”

“Nothing from the boss yet?” “Hurry! We have to find him, no matter what.”

“Even if he did run away, whatever you do, don’t let any other outfits hear about it…”

The voices were searching for him desperately. Cazze felt guilty, but his resolve was unshaken.

Out.

I’m getting out.

Scanning his surroundings carefully, he crept through the bushes, gradually putting distance between himself and the mansion.

Ba-dump—

His heart leaped.

I’m free, free, free!

He screamed the word in his mind, over and over.

No matter how grand it was, a mansion he couldn’t leave might as well have been a rabbit hutch.

Just once would be enough, the boy prayed.

It was the world’s most luxurious rabbit hutch. He might starve and die outside it, but he didn’t think about that. He didn’t have the time or the spare energy to think.

He’d taken walks down this path many times before, and he was delighted by how different both it and the surroundings looked now.

That said, he’d barely registered the landscape those other times. He’d been focused on the people around him, so of course the view seemed new. Cazze was still a kid, though, and he didn’t have it in him to think that far. He just let the novelty of the experience intoxicate him.

The boy turned to check behind him, made sure none of the mansion’s men were in sight—

—and then took off down a deer track through the woods, running as hard as he could.

Run, run, run.

Runrunrunrunrunrun, he yelled to himself silently.

He wasn’t thinking about what might come next.

If a truck passes, I’ll hide in the back and go far away. The boy only had a vague plan as he kept on running through the forest.

He wasn’t thinking about whether he’d be able to come back.

He was still focused on what lay ahead.

Believing that something magnificent was waiting for him on the bright road beyond the trees, the boy ran and ran and ran.

And when he emerged from the woods, he found something perfect: A small truck with a canvas back was stopped on the side of the road.

The boy glanced over his shoulder, making sure that the mansion’s people still hadn’t spotted him.

With a whispered “Sorry,” he climbed into the bed of the truck.

When it came down to it, the boy genuinely didn’t understand the position he held.

He didn’t know what sort of value the world would place on him—or how much danger he would be in as a result.

Given that he was Bartolo Runorata’s grandson, it wasn’t a stretch to assume that Cazze would be responsible for that enormous family in a few decades. As a matter of fact, he was the strongest candidate in his generation.

Even disregarding that, Bartolo’s relatives would be extremely enticing bargaining chips to his enemies.

Oblivious to the fact that his head was worth so much…

…filled with hope, the boy fled the too-large rabbit hutch imprisoning him—and escaped into the outside world.