Baccano! - Volume 4 - Chapter 10

GANDOR FAMILY

January 5, 1932

Kachak.

Quietly, Keith hung the receiver back up on the wall. Then he pulled on his coat and began getting ready to leave. He was headed home for the first time in about a week, and there was a faint suggestion of a good mood about him.

“How’s Kate?” Berga asked. “Doing good?”

At the teasing, which was delivered with a grin, Keith gave a small nod and left the room.

Keith talks a lot, as long as he’s on the phone…

Whether or not he knew what Berga was thinking, Keith was as reticent as ever… Or maybe he just didn’t want to take the time to say anything.

In the Gandor Family office, their daily routine had resumed, and in the midst of it, only Luck looked gloomy. He was leaning back into the sofa.

“No drive…”

True, when they’d been working to isolate Gustavo, he’d said they wouldn’t turn away anyone who joined them.

He’d said it… But.

“Don’t do that, amigo! You can’t use scissors to cook!”

“Aww… But it tastes really good. By the way, what does amigo mean?”

“It means ‘friend.’”

“Yay! I’ve never had a girl call me her friend before!”

In the office’s kitchen, Tick and the Mexican girl were having a carefree conversation.

It was the first time anyone from Mexico had ever come to the office, and his men kept asking him questions, looking dubious.

“Um, Mr. Luck. That doll. What’s…?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But…”

“Even if it bothers you, pretend you don’t care, please.”

“…Yessir.”

The men reluctantly withdrew. Watching them out of the corner of his eye, Luck sighed again.

Keith’s at fault here, too. We already have Tick; we don’t need anyone else that odd. And besides, she cut my arm off.

Well, that wasn’t terrible. If he thought of it in terms of having gained another skilled member, he could probably put up with it.

Claire had also grumbled, “I got way more exercise on the train…” and wandered off somewhere. He’d probably gone looking for the person he was planning to marry. As always, the guy was self-centered.

However, the most self-centered, most apathetic person anywhere… That was definitely Luck himself.

Gazing up into space, Luck Gandor recalled what had happened after the incident.

“Miss! Ohh, miss! I’m terribly sorry! You ended up in such a perilous situation, and all through my sheer incompetence!”

Eve hadn’t even been given time to apologize before apologies were heaped on her.

“Benjamin, Samantha, I…I—”

Smacking her very lightly on the head, Samantha smiled at her. “You thinkin’ you done wrong, don’tcha? Then it’s all gravy.”

As Eve was leaving, Luck, who’d woken up, approached her.

“Oh…” She was at a loss for words. This was the man who’d said such self-centered things and had been about to do such selfish deeds, and yet he’d saved her, even so. Her brother’s enemy.

If she’d fired the gun as she’d intended, she would probably never have been able to see Benjamin and Samantha again. This man had saved her again and again in that room, and in the end, she hadn’t been able to thank him even once.

Because in her heart, she wanted to rescue Dallas.

What expression could she possibly wear when she addressed a man like that?

But then he spoke to her, handing her a scrap of paper.

“When you think my pain is gone, pull him up or do anything you like. I leave that decision to you.”

That was all the young man with the vulpine eyes said before he turned to go.

The scrap of paper had a detailed map, with a mark over a spot in the river.

“Um! Mr. Luck!”

Thrusting a palm out toward Eve, he cut her off.

“Don’t say anything, please. Abuse or thanks, it will only irritate me.”

Then he left. As she watched him go, Eve quietly hugged the paper to her heart.

If his brothers found out he’d said a thing like that, they’d send him to sleep with the fishes.

More importantly, what excuse could he give his dead comrades?

Firo would probably say, If they’re dead, who says you need to excuse yourself to them at all? without a blush. On that point, he was far more hard-boiled than Luck.

That wouldn’t do, though. It was a common belief that anyone who ended up in this business was prepared to die. However, reality wasn’t like the books or the movies: Nobody wanted to die. When it came to that, they were no different from ordinary humans.

If there was any difference at all, it was just one thing: They were villains. That was all.

That’s right. We are villains.

He certainly hadn’t forgiven Dallas and the others, and Eve hadn’t softened his heart.

What he’d done had been nothing more than one of the calculations he was so good at.

In the end, it isn’t possible. Even if they know their location, they won’t be able to pull them up.

They’d sunk Dallas’s group in a particularly deep spot in the nearby river. If they dredged the riverbed with a crane, they might manage somehow, but as an individual, Eve probably didn’t have the power to make that happen.

All he’d done was give the girl a token consolation. As long as he told her the place, she probably wouldn’t approach him and the others again. She also wouldn’t have any reason to hold a pointless grudge. Regardless, Dallas and the other ruffians would no doubt continue to suffer.

Everything went according to plan. There’s nothing to feel gloomy about.

Even as he thought this, Luck couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that he’d lost his drive.

If he’d never intended to let her save Dallas, he could simply have given her a map with a false location. Even if it was only a slight chance, why had he given her any chance to save that man and his cronies? The mere question of why he hadn’t lied to Eve kept nagging at his heart.

As Claire had said, maybe he wasn’t cut out for this business. Still, his hands were far too dirty to let him quit this late. Besides, protecting this territory was both their mission and their duty. And more than anything, they felt a sort of family pride in the business.

Conversely, that was all it was.

That might have been the whole of the world that had been given to him.

Maybe…

Luck remembered the girl’s face, before and after she’d confronted Gustavo. His eyes couldn’t look the way hers had anymore. Her gaze had been filled with a certain determination, a willingness to sacrifice herself for the world she believed in.

Maybe I was jealous. Jealous of the fierce, violent emotions that filled that child. That’s something I’ll probably never have again.

…Because I doubt I’ll ever be able to “prepare to die” again. Never, not for all eternity.

With these thoughts on his mind, Luck decided to quietly lose himself in reading.