Baccano! - Volume 6 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER 0

OIL DRUM

September 1933The Hudson RiverRiverside construction site

Manhattan lay between two enormous rivers.

The East River flowed along the neighborhood’s east side, and this river, the Hudson, was on its west side.

This vast giant of a river was a symbol of New York, and currently, an impressive number of construction machines were lined up along a section of it. They seemed to be doing maintenance work on the riverbank, and massive dredging equipment had been assembled in various places.

A lone girl stood there, on the bank of the Hudson.

Under a mouse-gray sky thinly blanketed with clouds, Eve Genoard’s heart raced with anticipation and unease.

The gray sky went well with the slightly timeworn construction equipment. The girl’s pure-white clothes did not. She was watching the riverside construction as if eagerly hoping for something.

It was clear that she was a member of the upper class, not just from her clothes but simply from the way she stood. As if to prove this, a concerned voice hailed her from behind.

“Miss! Too much salt air may damage your constitution.”

The old butler who stood behind the girl, his mistress, made a worried suggestion. However, the girl only shook her head quietly, and she didn’t move from that spot.

“I’m sorry, Benjamin… I want to wait here a little longer, just a little longer.”

At Eve’s words, without pressing his point, the butler took a step back. Then, staying right where he was, standing out in the sea wind, he continued to watch his mistress’s back.

To the city government, this construction was merely part of its administrative work. However, to Eve, it was incredibly important: The fate of a family member depended on it.

Her older brother, who had been made immortal, was alive at the bottom of this river, drowning perpetually.

It sounded like total nonsense, but the girl was standing here because she believed it.

News of her brother, who she’d been told was dead. By getting pulled into a certain incident, the girl had arrived at a certain truth, and ever since, she’d lived with her eyes fixed on that truth.

It had already been a year and a half since she’d learned where her brother had been submerged. To the girl, this had seemed like an eternity, but when you considered the fact that she’d gotten them to perform riverbank maintenance that hadn’t originally been scheduled, it certainly hadn’t been too long.

Dredging this riverbed was an impossible task for one person, even if that person was wealthy.

For that reason, she’d supported the riverside construction plan—which the city had already had in the works—by providing funding. She’d quietly concealed her “self-centered request”—her brother’s rescue—within the pretext of that civic work.

As a condition of her provision of funds, she’d earnestly entreated them to clean the riverbed and thoroughly dredge all sunken objects. She’d laid the groundwork in various other ways as well, and as the result of all that cumulative work, this day had arrived.

Of course, it was possible that the oil drum her brother was in had been washed down the river and was now far out at sea.

However, if there was even the slightest chance of saving her brother, the girl wanted to pin everything on that small hope.

Dreaming only of the moment when she’d see her brother again, the girl continued quietly watching the construction work.

And then: On the third day of the large-scale dredging that preceded the construction, a workman ran up to the girl.

“Uh, a-are you M-M-Miss Genoard?”

He must have been running with all his might. He was out of breath as he asked the question, and Eve nodded, feeling her own pulse quicken.

“W-well, uh, y’see. Just like they told us to, we— Oil drum, the oil drum…!”

The man’s haste wasn’t just because he was startled. He seemed to have seen something terrifying.

“Oh, d-did you find it?!”

“N-no, y-y-y-y’see, i-in the oil drum, there, there was a…a luh-l-l-l-live hu-hu-u-u…a live…hu—h-h-human!”

He must have been incredibly disturbed. His words were jumbled, but Eve was familiar with the circumstances, and she instantly understood what the man was trying to say.

After she’d managed—with great effort—to get the location of the site out of the quaking workman, she broke into a run, heading straight for it, ignoring her butler when he tried to stop her.

Dallas, Dallas!

An immortal body. Eve had seen what that meant with her own eyes.

He’d spent several years on the bottom of the river. She couldn’t even imagine what sort of horrible state he might be in. However—she knew. The man from the mafia had told her everything, and if she believed what he’d said, at the very least, her brother’s body wouldn’t be damaged.

No, no matter how tragically he was changed, even if he was only bones and rotting flesh, as long as he was alive, then—

Praying, the girl ran into the warehouse where the dredged-up objects were being temporarily stored.

However…

The sight that met her there was completely unlike what she had imagined.

“What…?”

What Eve saw were the figures of several workmen, sprawled on the warehouse floor…

…and three oil drums sitting in the middle of it.

The junk, rubble, and stone that had been pulled up so far was piled into an enormous heap at the back of the warehouse. In the area right in front of it, human bodies lay around like garbage.

“How awful…”

It was a startling, terrible sight, and Eve ran to the nearest workman and shook him slowly, trying to wake him. Although she did think it might not be a good idea to move him, she didn’t see any obvious external injuries, so she tried shaking him gently—but there was no response. He seemed to be breathing, but he was out cold.

The other workmen seemed to be merely unconscious as well, and apparently their lives weren’t in danger.

“What in the world could have…?”

Carefully laying the workman back down, she slowly walked over to the oil drums in the center of the warehouse.

Is Dallas…in there?

Gulping involuntarily, she examined them from a distance. One of the oil drums was lying on its side, and she didn’t see anything resembling a human figure inside it. For some reason, a book, chess pieces, and joker cards had spilled out of the drum’s opening, along with lots of rocks.

Even as she quailed a bit at the eerie, incomprehensible sight, Eve moved forward, gazing at the containers intently.

Gradually, the interiors of the standing drums came into view, and she caught a glimpse of what looked like human hair.

“Ughk…”

As she took another step closer, she began to hear something that sounded like groaning from inside the drum.

“Ah! Dallas?!”

At the sound of that voice, Eve dashed toward the container. Not caring that her hands and clothes were getting dirty, she clung to the lip of the drum and looked inside.

There was a man in that drum, a big guy who was curled up with his knees bent.

His hair was smeared with algae and mud, and his clothes were mostly in tatters, rotting away. However, his body wasn’t decaying, and it didn’t even seem waterlogged. He groaned every so often, and when he did, dirty water dribbled from his mouth and nose.

Even though she’d heard about it, the fact that a human could be alive in that condition was startling. If she hadn’t known the circumstances, she probably wouldn’t have believed that he’d just been pulled up from the riverbed.

His face was smeared with mud, but she could see it clearly.

After examining the features of the man in the oil drum, Eve murmured, looking mystified:

“It…isn’t Dallas?”

She’d been told that two of her brother’s friends and accomplices had been sent to the bottom of the river along with him.

This was probably one of her brother’s companions.

There were three oil drums in the warehouse. The numbers matched up. However…

The fact that one of them was already empty…

Hastily, Eve looked into the remaining oil drum. There was a man curled up inside that one as well—and he wasn’t her brother, either.

“But… No…”

Unable to keep the shock out of her expression, Eve looked back at the tipped-over oil drum.

Maybe the workmen had pulled him out already, and he was lying on the floor with them?

On that thought, she looked around without even bothering to calm her rapid breathing—but the shapes on the floor were all workmen, and she didn’t see anyone who looked like her brother.

“Miss! Wh-what is all this?”

The old butler had come running after her, and on seeing the awful sight inside the warehouse, he cried out.

Just as his shout echoed in the warehouse, part of the mountain of rubble in the back shifted, clattering.

“Eh?! Dallas?!”

Without thinking, Eve ran toward the spot. She circled around behind iron beams and automobile parts, and there, in the shadows, she saw a huddled, trembling figure.

However—it wasn’t her brother. It was a young workman who’d been helping with the dredging.

“Yeeee!”

On seeing Eve, the man gave a short scream, but as he realized that the figure in front of him was a perfectly ordinary girl, his trembling gradually slowed.

“Calm down, please… Are you all right? What on earth happened here?”

The man was silent for a short while, his mouth flapping uselessly, but as Eve tended to him, he began to regain his composure. Little by little, he told her what had happened in the warehouse.

“O-o-one of my buddies ran off to go call you, and, and right after that…a, a, a weird bunch showed up and dragged somebody out of one of those drums… The guys who tried to stop them all got f-f-flattened before you could blink! Wh-what was that?! O-one of ’em was a woman. I-it was just like magic; sh-she drew something from her back, s-s-some sorta long stick, and, and then…it, it turned into this spear-thing, and she used the butt end and just j-j-j-jabbed everybody with it…”

After that point, he’d been hiding and shaking, so he didn’t know what had happened.

Eve and the butler listened to the man’s story in silence. Before long, possibly because they’d heard the noise, people who’d been working at other sites started to gather, and the inside of the warehouse instantly got noisier.

After she’d quietly left the warehouse, the girl murmured sadly to the butler, who was walking behind her.

“Why…? Just when I thought I’d be able to see my brother…”

“Miss…”

“…Still, I haven’t given up. I don’t know who kidnapped Dallas, but at the very least, I know that he really is alive now!”

It was painfully clear that she was doing her very best to seem strong.

However, the old butler didn’t point this out. Instead, in the most cheerful voice he could manage, he said, “That’s quite true, miss!” and bowed.

Nodding firmly in agreement, Eve took her next step toward her goal, continuing the search for her vanished brother. She had almost no clues regarding the mysterious group that had taken him. It was clear that further difficulties lay ahead.

However, her footsteps were very determined, and they didn’t betray the slightest hint of regret or hesitation.

“But…why on earth would they take Dallas? Who besides me and the Gandors would have known about him…?”

The water.

The water’s coming.

So fast.

It happened so fast.

On a dark night, they threw me into the river, and water gushed in over the rim of the can they’d shut me in.

When I thought, Cold, the drum was already more than half-full.

By the time I thought Help me, there was nothing but water all around me.

Water.

It was water.

Water ruled my whole world, and no matter how I fought, it drove more and more air out of my lungs and stomach and throat and mouth.

Water got in through my nose. Even now, I remember exactly what that tasted like.

I couldn’t stop shaking. Even though it got in through my nose, I tasted it.

It tasted like salt and mud, all mixed together. That was over real fast, though.

That taste, a taste I felt with my nose and eyes and throat, changed to the taste of my own blood.

The second that taste hit my lungs, I coughed like nobody’s business. I was trying to get the water out of my lungs, and I chased the air out with it. Then more and more water got inside me.

It hurt.

It hurts was all I could think. And while I was, the next pain came along.

It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt hurt it hurt hurt hurt it hurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurt hurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurt hurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurt hurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurt hurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurt hurthurthurthurthurthurthurthurt—

After that, everything went black.

When pain builds up, it crushes you, and all your senses go dark.

It’s not quite like sleeping or passing out. You can tell everything’s pitch-black just fine.

On top of that, pain pressed down on me from head to toe—

I wonder how long it was before I finally blacked out.

Dammit. Aaaah, dammit.

Why do I remember stuff like that so clearly?

I don’t need memories of how bad it hurt.

How come I can remember it this calmly? What the hell!

I wish I could at least forget all of it.

Every time I remember, the hurt and the pain and the fear all rise up inside me again, clear as crystal.

I’m not gonna remember that anymore. Damned if I will.

Something else. Think of something else.

Yeah, what I need to be thinking about right now is—

Where the hell am I?

“They say the oil drum was invented by a woman. Did you know that?”

A voice reached my brain.

Who’s that? I dunno that voice.

“Nellie Bly. That’s a song, too, so maybe you know it. She was quite a lady; she took a shot at Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days and made it in seventy-two. Real impressive.”

I scanned the room, looking for the guy.

I was lying on a bed, apparently. I saw a ratty-looking lamp hanging from a drab wood ceiling.

There was nothing in the room. No dresser, no mirror. Just a chair, a table, and a bed. It felt like they’d put in the bare minimum of furniture. I doubted I’d find anything worth any dough here.

“And you got packed into one of the cans that woman designed and spent years soaking in it. Whether you feel honored, or whether you hold a misguided grudge against that woman and curse her instead, is entirely up to you.”

Damn, this greaseball is saying some irritating stuff. Who the hell is he?

Found ’im. And would you look at that: He’s just sitting there in that chair, bold as brass. Has flipped it around and is straddling it, arms folded on the back as he watches me.

The fella’s wearing specs and a black cloth wrapped around his head. It looks like his head’s shaved under that cloth. He’s got some sort of flashy tattoo over the white skin on his temples and the back of his head. Freak. He’s glaring at me through those glasses. What’re you, a dead fish?

“I bet you looked pretty dumb, though. Choking and glubbing away down there on that dirty riverbed, not even able to die.”

What the hell is with this guy?! Argh, my body’s still not moving right. I want to slug that moron right this minute. Dammit.

“Keep your shirt on. I saved you, you know? I don’t think I deserve that vengeful glare you’re giving me.”

He saved me? What, from the riverbed…? Come to think of it, seriously, where am I? You mean this ain’t heaven?

Did I… Did I actually get rescued? I don’t have to drown anymore?

No, hold it, calm down. Finding out whether I’m really a free man can wait until after I figure out who this loser is.

For starters, if I get out of here— Maybe I’ll stop by and see my old man. It’s been a while. Maybe he and my brother both croaked in an accident or something and I’ve got an inheritance waiting. All they have to leave are the property and the house, but… Well, that’s fine. Then I’ll pick up a souvenir for Eve, and—

No. There’s something else I gotta do first.

Revenge.

I’m gonna massacre all the mugs who made a fool of me.

The idiot Gandor brothers who dumped me in the river.

That old fart Szilard who worked me like a cart horse.

The bitch who trashed my rep, Ennis or whatever her name was.

The driver of the car that knocked me flying— No, I remember. I remember.

The ones in the car that rammed me were the cake eater I thrashed the day before and the skirt who was with him.

And more than anything, the punk who’s the whole reason I—I!—ended up like this.

Firo. Firo Prochainezo.

Oh, good.

I’m so very, very glad I didn’t forget that name. That’s one punk I’m never gonna forgive.

I coulda sworn I offed him—but since the Gandors were alive, I’d probably better assume that punk’s alive, too. Dammit, I thought I plugged him in the head… Did I miss or something?

Well, whatever. Either way. I’m absolutely gonna slaughter all the people I just remembered.

That’s right: I’m immortal. If I work this right, I can kill ’em all with plenty to spare. With the immortal ones, Szilard and Ennis, I’ll stuff ’em in oil drums and give ’em a taste of what I went through.

Let’s see. First I’ll take that cake eater and the broad, and—

“I don’t know what you’re thinking about in this particular situation, but…”

What, huh? This is just getting good; butt out.

“Don’t you have anything to ask me? Or are you still half-asleep?”

Eeeeh, shut up. I ain’t got no questions for a low-watt like you.

That’s right. Where am I, and who is this moron?

He saved me? Don’t gimme that crap.

I don’t remember getting saved by nobody. This freak’s a real joker.

“Dallas Genoard. Twenty-two. A two-bit thug with no real distinguishing features, although he was champion at the town billiards meet once, huh? Man, talk about doing stuff that doesn’t suit you.”

All right. Die.

Whatever, just die. Who the hell are you, huh?

Dammit, my mouth won’t open. I can’t cuss this guy out.

“Don’t glower like that. You’re scaring me so bad I just might wet myself… Here I went to all that trouble to save you, and you don’t look grateful at all. Tch. Maybe I should’ve brought the other two instead.”

The other two? Who’s that? …Oh, come to think of it, they put somebody down there with me, huh? What were their names again?

Well, that doesn’t matter.

What’s important now is figuring out how I’m going to coldcock this loser and get out of this ho-hum, flat-broke room. Argh, my body’s not moving…

“Oh, that’s right. We doped you, so I doubt you can move yet. Don’t push it.”

I’ll kill ’im. I’m gonna kill ’im.

“I told you, quit glaring. Listen, this is business. I’m bringing you a money-making opportunity.”

Make money?

I decided to listen to a little of what the bald guy had to say.

“Well, the deal’s real simple. If you help us, you’ll get more than fair pay for it.”

Oho. Money, huh? Money’s good.

I don’t like that ‘more than fair pay’ crap, though. Gimme hard numbers, you cruddy gink.

“And if you refuse this deal, there’s another oil drum and a trip to the river waiting.”

…Yeah, this idiot really is an idiot. Does he think he can scare me like that?

Sure, okay, I’ll pretend to listen to him for now, and then once I’ve got the money, I’ll make tracks.

“Not for you. For your little sister, Eve Genoard.”

 .

  ?

  !

“Ha-ha! What a face! See, when I was reading up on you, I was worried. I didn’t think a hostage would work on scum like you! But look at that! You abandon your friends like they’re nothing, but the moment your sister comes up, just look at your face. Yeah, that’s real good. That glare you’re giving me is far, far more real than the earlier one. That’s not just hate. That’s real anger, mixed with the fear of losing something.”

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

What the hell?! What the hell, you bastard?! Eve’s got nothing to do with this!

Dammit! Why am I this worked up?! Whatever happens to Eve, it shouldn’t matter to me! I decided it wouldn’t when I left home!

…Yeah, okay, I admit it. I’ll admit it, damn you!

My sister, Eve, she’s important to me! I don’t want you to kill her!

But since I’m admitting that, you know what it means, right, scumbag?! Lay one finger on Eve, and your name goes straight to the top of my hit list! I, I, I will absolutely murder you! Even if I forget about everybody else on my hit list— Hell, even if I have to team up with those guys, I will absolutely, positively slaughter you!

“Family ties, huh? Lucky. Frankly, if you’ve got something like that, I’m jealous.”

Who the hell cares?!

“Oh, right, I guess I should introduce our group. Hey, Adele! Go get everybody, would you?”

When the freak yelled, a door in the corner of the room opened, and several mugs and skirts came in. What are these losers? They all look like small-timers, every last one of ’em.

One especially meek-looking chick who seemed younger than me murmured, acting so nervous it ticked me off.

“U-um… Tim, are you sure he’s going to be all right? That’s a very fierce glare…”

“Don’t worry, Adele. He’s glaring because the hostage thing is working.”

So the freak’s name is Tim, huh? Got it. I’ll remember that. I’ll kill you.

“Oh, yeah: Relax. It’s not like we have your kid sister locked up or something.”

……

“If you sell us out, or if you refuse to help us…Adele here will go straight over and kill your sister.”

This slow-looking frail? Are you screwing with me? What do you think I am?

When I glared at her, the Adele girl actually said, “I’m looking forward to working with you,” and bobbed her head at me. What’s with her? Is she a freak, too?

Dammit, what are these people, anyway?

What the hell do you want with me?! What did I do, huh?!

No, forget about me. The way I live, I’ve gotten myself on lots of people’s bad lists. That’s a fact. So what? I’ll send it all right back at ’em.

But listen… Listen: What did Eve ever do?!

Dammit, damn you, I am absolutely gonna slaughter you people! I’ll kill you, and it’s gonna hurt bad! I’ll make you regret this, and I’ll kill you! When that happens, it’s gonna be way too late for crying and begging, you morons!

“All right, let’s start the introductions. I’m Tim. I’m in charge of these guys, sort of their leader.”

I don’t care what your name is. Nobody cares, low-watt.

“Wha…the…hell…are…you…scumbags?”

I finally managed to say something. It took so much work to wring the question out that my throat felt like it was on fire, but Tim, that lousy bastard, answered it with sickening ease.

“We’re Larva.”

“We serve Mr. Huey Laforet—and we’re a band of psychotic weirdos.”