Baccano! - Volume 4 - Chapter 12

BEGG

August 2002 Somewhere in New Jersey

“Begg.”

Maiza called the man’s name for the first time in several decades, but there was no response. Begg only stayed where he was, curled up in the corner of a room in a certain hospital. He was muttering something to himself, and he showed no interest in anything else.

“They say that’s how he’s been for decades… I hear he’s been like that ever since Mr. Bartolo Runorata died of old age, about thirty years back. Do you know him? He was, uh, a famous mafia don in these parts.”

“I knew of him, yes.”

Bartolo Runorata. Maiza had never met him personally, but he was famous among people in his profession. He had been Begg’s boss, and the one person Begg had trusted, aside from his old companions.

The last time Maiza had seen Begg, Bartolo had still ruled his syndicate.

He didn’t know what had happened, but after a certain point, Begg had completely lost his spirit. He’d simply gone on compounding drugs in accordance with Bartolo’s instructions, with an expression that made him look as if he had no hope left.

His loyalty to his master had seemed to be his one refuge, and Maiza had worried about what would happen to him after Bartolo died, but…

“Begg. Do you remember me?”

He spoke to him again, but Begg didn’t even look his way.

The nurse was watching Maiza as if he interested him greatly, but Maiza asked him a question without seeming to care.

“How are his hospital expenses being dealt with?”

“Government-run charity. Well, we’ve gotten real generous donations from the acting head of the Genoard family for generations. We’re guaranteed the minimum necessary environment for drug treatment and the like.”

“Is that right…?”

Without asking anything else in particular, his eyes returned to the man in the room.

“And anyway, he’s like that all the time. No matter what we do, he doesn’t respond… By the way, how do you know this patient?”

“He’s an old friend.”

“……”

The nurse didn’t say anything. This man, who only seemed to be thirty or so, had called himself a friend of a man who’d survived for decades without eating. They’d been warned by the FBI not to interfere with this patient. Who on earth was this guy?

The question had been bothering the nurse for ages, but he didn’t ask it.

Even when Maiza entered the room, Begg showed no reaction.

“These days, there are drugs in circulation that are far more impressive than what you made. Drugs that bring people happiness, and drugs that bring them misfortune.”

Remembering that earlier time, Maiza sat down beside Begg.

“There are substances in urban back alleys whose effects and side effects are dozens of times greater than those of the narcotics you compounded. It’s incredible how many people use those substances in the full knowledge that nearly eighty percent of them will die… Humans truly are beings beyond imagining.”

He went on to speak to him about a variety of other things, but no light appeared in the man’s eyes.

“Begg…”

Slowly, Maiza lifted his right hand, then placed it on Begg’s forehead.

If he was just going to spend eternity wandering in darkness this way, wouldn’t it be better to—?

The moment that doubt reared its head, he caught a familiar name in the man’s mutterings.

“…Czes, over there…ship’s hold…see…take a look…on this ship…to America…”

When he heard those fragmented words, Maiza quietly lowered his right hand.

Right now, Begg had returned to a time when he was happy. It was a conversation from when he and a child who’d been on the ship with him had gone exploring.

“I’ll come again.”

As Maiza quietly made to leave, Begg murmured in a voice that was suddenly clear:

“Maiza, thank you…for…not…eating…me.”

The nurse looked up, startled, but Begg did nothing else.

As if I could possibly get angry…

Pulling his hat low on his head, Maiza left the hospital.

“How was he?”

Outside, a boy who looked about ten years old had waited for him.

“He’s all right. He seems a little tired, but he’ll recover someday.”

As he spoke, Maiza got behind the wheel of a passenger car.

“Someday, for sure…”

Without saying anything else, Maiza let the boy into the car, then drove away.

For the first time in decades, they were headed back to New York.