Baccano! - Volume 22 - Chapter 29.1

Linking Chapter I Can’t Help but Think There’s Something to It

Ra’s LanceThe basement restaurant

And so the second night of the casino party rolled around.

“Mgh, Niiiice… Do we really have to go? We do, don’t we…?”

“Jacuzzi… Saying that at the hideout or the building’s entrance would be one thing, but saying it in here is weird.”

Jacuzzi was standing in the door of the casino hall, his eyes filling with tears.

Their group would have drawn too much attention if they all showed up at once, so Nick and the others were entering the building in twos and threes.

A big guy like Donny would be spotted right away. However, since everyone was wearing similar tuxedos and evening gowns, it wasn’t possible to tell who else belonged to their group without taking a close look at their faces.

After the previous day, Jacuzzi had nearly collapsed from nervous strain, and he’d slept until evening. Nice tried to encourage him. “You were lucky you slept so late today. I hear there was a bear in Central Park at noon, and even the police were in an uproar.”

“A-a bear?!”

“If you’d gotten up early and gone for a walk, you might have gotten caught up in all that. So you see? Luck is on your side. Keep that up and win at the casino, too.”

Nice usually spoke a bit more casually around Jacuzzi, but she was currently wearing an evening gown and feeling rather like a rich young lady.

Jacuzzi thought, Nice sure is pretty, but he didn’t have the courage to tell her. He kept slipping further into pessimism. “That bear… Do you think they caught it? Or did they kill it…? What if they shot it dead, and now it hates humans and wants to come back to haunt us? I don’t know how to fight a ghost bear if it attacks us…”

It sounded like a joke, but Jacuzzi was getting jumpy, as if he genuinely thought there might be a spectral beast around.

Gazing at him fondly, Nice took his hand and began to lead him around the room. “Come on. Today is going to be mostly about watching and waiting again, but let’s play the part of high rollers as best we can, shall we?”

“Agh, agh-agh, wait, Niiice!”

Behind the pair, a scowling shadow was watching them. “A-ain’t that…? They told me they didn’t have any dough, so what’re they doing here?! Were they here yesterday, too?!”

Fearful of the Gandors, Dallas Genoard had snuck in, disguising himself with a false beard.

“Dammit… What are they trying to pull? If they’re making enough rhino to play at a place like this, then as their landlord, I’ll have to go collect…”

He wanted to grill them right this minute, but if he got careless and drew too much attention, the Gandors might spot him. Keeping his irritation to himself, Dallas decided to slowly circle the casino and case it for a table he’d definitely be able to win at.

Granted, there was no such thing as a table anyone could definitely win at…

Melvi Dormentaire was in a bad mood.

His pride was everything to him, and Claire Stanfield’s declaration that he was Firo’s inferior had become a thorn that kept needling him with unbearable humiliation.

He liked to flatter himself that he was a chosen one.

His pride was supported by the Dormentaires, and it had given him confidence. It hadn’t been long before it had sublimated Melvi into an “exceptional being,” as advertised.

As a matter of fact, excluding a handful of individuals, Melvi considered the people around him to be mere pawns, there to be used.

He thought of “abnormal” people such as other immortals and Claire as exceptions, but even then, he assumed he’d be the one to control them in the end.

Both Huey’s hand on his head and the warning from Claire had been utterly humiliating, and the first thing had actually frightened him.

However, even after admitting that, he still believed he could ultimately surpass them.

Szilard Quates had been a genius who’d once tried to acquire the whole world for himself.

By rights, his knowledge should have gone to Melvi.

Even Melvi understood that what he lacked most was experience.

That was why he wanted the “experience” Szilard Quates had accumulated more than anything.

Szilard had wanted youth, while Melvi wanted experience. If one could have fused their two spirits, Sham-like, everything would have been perfect.

Yet Szilard no longer existed.

All that remained of him was his vast knowledge, and that was inside the skull of a two-bit thug named Firo.

Feeling an intense urge to kill Firo, who was somewhere in this same casino, Melvi maintained his sociable facade and kept an eye on his “marks.”

Just one more day of kissing up to this trash.

What part of this is a gamble? What part of it is testing your luck? People like you lost the bet the moment you were born.

Possibly it was because his body had been based on the Avaro family head, but he’d always had a tendency to look down on others. Right now, though, Melvi was trying to rid himself of his fear of Firo and the humiliation Claire had dealt him by doubling down on this conviction.

They all look the same.

Melvi shrugged internally, keeping an “agreeable young dealer” expression plastered across his face. He was running a perfectly ordinary poker table.

There was nothing ordinary about Melvi’s skills, though.

Put briefly, he was cheating.

He cut the cards in a way that seemed natural, but in fact, he was cleverly controlling where they went. He’d made his table look like an easy place to win at first glance, and then he had been relieving customers who could place large bets of all their money.

The oblivious gamblers kept coming. As he watched their shifting emotions, Melvi felt a sadistic sense of superiority. It was hilarious, the way they talked about good luck and moaned about bad luck, never knowing it was all by design.

Behind his breezy smile, Melvi wore a smirk. He basked in the feelings of someone who was playing God—but then the current changed.

“Hey there. Remember me?”

Someone had taken a seat at his table.

“You’re… Ah. Yes.”

He didn’t remember his face, but that prosthetic left hand was familiar. It was a feature he’d shared with that character on the watch list, Ladd Russo.

He’d seen this man in passing at Firo Prochainezo’s casino and used him to harass Firo. To Melvi, the man was no more than a pebble he’d picked up to throw at his enemy.

What was someone like that doing here?

Inwardly, Melvi felt dubious. The man’s flesh-and-blood hand toyed with several orange chips, the most expensive denomination. “I did win on the slots, thanks to you.” His smile held clear hostility, and there was a glare in his superficially warm eyes. “I came to repay you, see?”

Something’s off. Is this really that timid fellow? Melvi felt a flash of suspicion, but he didn’t let it show in his expression. Well, that’s fine. I don’t know what he’s planning, but if he intends to give me money, I’ll take it. I can cheat, but I’m not letting scum like this get away with doing it to me.

Even after seeing those expensive orange chips, he held the man in contempt.

The man wasn’t an immortal, and he wasn’t anyone particularly unique. He was probably just a pathetic individual whose only talent was getting dragged into things.

Unaware of what was going through Melvi’s head, the man with the prosthetic hand gazed out over the area run by the Runoratas. “I see… All sorts of poker, blackjack, baccarat, and roulette, huh…? What, no slots?”

“Bringing them in would have been too difficult. Go ahead—play at any table you’d like.”

“Yeah… I’ll take my time and do that.”

Carlotta, who had been watching as a guest, had seen this exchange play out. Later on, while she and the twin guards were having lunch together, she told them about it.

“Yes, Melvi was underestimating his opponent.

“He wasn’t completely careless, though… Just so you’re aware. For the sake of his honor.

“After all, thirty minutes later, he’d become a complete laughingstock.”

Thirty minutes later

“Things are really noisy over there… It isn’t the ghost bear, is it?” Jacuzzi turned pale.

As Nice tugged him along, she looked a little exasperated. “Those are cheers, Jacuzzi. Not screams. It sounds like they’re coming from the Runorata Family’s area.”

“Eep?! Th-the Runoratas?! I’m scared, Nice—let’s not go!”

Jacuzzi’s eyes were teary, but when he realized he was being dragged toward a couple of familiar faces, he felt just a little relieved.

“Hey, Jacuzzi! You’re here, too, eh?!”

“Yes, and Nice!”

Isaac and Miria called to them cheerfully, and Nice took the opportunity to ask the question that was on her mind. “That’s quite a racket over here. What’s happening?” She tried to see through the cheering crowd, but it was too dense.

Excited, Isaac and Miria explained.

“Do you know Nader?! He’s Ladd’s friend, and he’s proxy gambling for Miss Genoard!”

“He just won reeeally big. He made fifty thousand dollars!”

“Fifty thou…” Just hearing that amount almost made Jacuzzi pass out.

Even if the recession had lowered values, in this era, fifty thousand dollars was a huge fortune.

During Prohibition, the salary of a special agent was between fifty and one hundred dollars a week, so this was clearly far too large a sum to win in a single night of gambling.

That said, some claimed Al Capone had made between ten million and thirty million dollars a year at the height of his career. Compared with that, this was chump change.

So which was it? A vast fortune or chump change?

One look at the face of the man at the center of the crowd made the answer clear.

Melvi Dormentaire was stunned, as if time had stopped.

The man who’d built a mountain of chips in front of him raised his prosthetic hand high, acknowledging the applause from the crowd.

At this point in time, there was no way for Nice, Jacuzzi, or most of the crowd to know what had gone down at that table.

However, even before the details got out—the name of a gambler raced through the casino party, leaping from one guest to another.

Nader Schasschule.

This was where the legend of the hero who pulled the Genoard family back from the brink of ruin began.

Several hours laterThe Beriam residence

“Something unusual has happened.

“I’m told a man made off with quite a tidy sum in a solid winning streak at the Runorata Family’s table. The family took a significant loss, and he’s now being watched from several quarters,” said Senator Manfred Beriam.

From his seat on the sofa, Spike laughed cheerfully. “How ’bout that! So we’ve got ourselves a daredevil, huh? If that was just good luck, when you think about what’s bound to happen later, it was more like bad luck. Hell, the biggest bad luck of his life… If I dusted that guy, do you s’pose they’d let me keep the money?”

He leered, but what Beriam said next wiped the smile right off his face. “Nader Schasschule. That’s the name of the man who won that checkered luck.”

“’Scuse me?”

“It sounds as if he was once active in the Lemures with you.”

“…Huh?”

No, no, no, wait, hold up.

Is Mr. Beriam talking in his sleep or something?

“Nah, that can’t be right. I mean, he got…”

“He’s alive. That’s all that matters. I hadn’t mentioned it, but he’s the man who informed us of the Lemures’ detailed plans.”

“……”

The guy was alive.

That was astounding enough on its own, but it wasn’t all. The man was currently the center of attention at that casino party as well.

Beriam spoke in a matter-of-fact way. “The timing’s too good. I can’t help but think there’s something to it. Find out who’s backing him, what he’s after, everything. If this was set up by someone whose interests don’t align with ours, we may need to consider eliminating him.”

Spike shook his head slowly, stunned. “That’s just…nuts.”

As he sat there in shock, his ears picked up a distant gunshot.

It was his own apprentice, out on the firing range. Right now, though, it sounded much farther away to him than it usually did.

Sonia, who was honing her sniping skills as usual, didn’t know yet.

She had no idea that the childhood friend she believed was a hero was currently very close, in more ways than one.

Or that he’d become a con man who’d falsely assumed the title of “hero” and was trying to con the whole world.