Baccano! - Volume 6 - Chapter Pr

Prologue Eight Years Ago Big Brother

Snip-snip-snick, snick, snip.

The scissors danced in the boy’s hands.

As if they’d gone mad.

As if they’d gone mad.

September 1925 Somewhere in New York

“I may be a child, but…I’m not here to play around, you know.”

“No, no, no, I know. I’m wellllll aware of that, sir!”

On a fall afternoon that still held drowsy heat…

Voices that were in stark contrast to each other echoed in a rather small shop.

A large cash register sat on the counter, which was stained in places. The texture of its wood made it seem weighty, but it was badly scarred, and it looked patently cheap.

Two people were facing each other across that counter.

“Well, getting right to the point…we’d like you to pay what you owe.”

The boy with almond-shaped eyes spoke his words in a way that was indistinguishable from an adult’s.

“Now, now, now. Nownownownownow! Young master! That’s not really, erm, you know… If we talk about your family’s business in my storefront, I’ll have a much harder time getting that money back to you!”

The middle-aged man, who was acting so subservient it seemed artificial, had to be at least three times the boy’s age. His face was twisted obsequiously. He wore a waistcoat that gave no sense of the season, and he was dripping with cold sweat.

Conversely, the youngster was dressed for the wrong season: Although it was only the very beginning of autumn, he was wearing a trench coat, and he had a gray fedora pulled down low on his forehead.

The man’s smile seemed to be pleading for mercy, but the boy ignored it, speaking impassively.

“How can you be unable to pay a mere $2,025.50? Especially when it’s been twenty-three days, fourteen hours, thirty-four minutes, and nineteen seconds since the date we agreed on… If your shop’s clocks are accurate, that is.”

Having said that much without a pause, the kid fell silent, sharp eyes fixed on the middle-aged man.

The man hung his head, looking uncomfortable. Only the sounds of the clocks echoed around them.

Tick-tock Tick-tock 

Tick tock tick tick-tock tick-t-t-tock-tick-tock-tick-tick-tock 

The clocks’ pendulums formed a strident, multilayered ensemble.

The dim space was lined with various clocks of all sizes, and it was clear at a glance that the shop’s owner was a clock maker by trade.

Although the clocks were lined up so closely that they seemed to jostle each other, there wasn’t much variety.

Brown, utilitarian wall clocks, the sort that were seen in every home. No matter which clock you looked at, it wasn’t possible to list any further characteristics. If one had had to say, the only difference was whether the clocks were large or small.

In this shop filled with nothing but wall clocks, the boy—Luck Gandor—moved the conversation along to the next stage.

“…From your attitude, it’s blindingly obvious that you don’t have the money. Well? What do you intend to do?”

He understood, but he didn’t sympathize.

Pinned by a gaze that was charged with that message, the clock maker felt a shudder run down his spine.

The man was completely overawed by the kid in front of him, and his forced smile grew drawn and tense. He was dripping with cold sweat.

“Ha…ha-ha… Well, uh, you see…”

“For now…”

Ignoring the owner’s attempt at an excuse, Luck coolly began making his “offer”:

“Two thousand dollars is two months’ salary for a mere bank clerk. If you sold this shop, I imagine you’d have that much with change to spare. You could sell off the clocks as well, but it’s because they don’t sell that you can’t pay back your loan, correct? In that case, if we assume that the clocks are worthless and calculate the price of the land only…”

“W-w-w-wait just a minute, please, young master!”

“I wish you’d stop that ‘young master’ business.”

Luck narrowed his eyes crossly, and the clock maker shook his head, speaking all in a rush.

“N-no, terribly sorry about that, young ma—Mr. Gandor! But just, just wait, wait a minute! This shop is connected to my house, so if I sell the shop, I’ll be homeless!”

“Tell me—I’m genuinely curious. Do you really think an excuse like that will work, after you borrowed money from people like us? You citizens call us the mafia; do you imagine we sympathize when our debtors end up on the streets?”

Looking sincerely mystified, Luck, the youngest Gandor Family executive, leaned in very close to the proprietor of the clock shop.

There wasn’t a trace of childlike innocence in the boy’s eyes. The only thing in them was sharp, transparent coldness.

The Gandor Family.

It was a small outfit that claimed a very, very limited tract of Manhattan as its turf. Although its territory and number of members were nothing remarkable, in all other aspects, it radiated an atmosphere that did credit to the name “mafia,” and it was respected by the neighboring organizations.

The syndicate was run by Luck’s two older brothers, Keith and Berga. Since Luck was still young, he acted as the syndicate’s lowest executive.

Although he was young, he’d already been through many bloody fights, and there was no hesitation in his eyes. If the proprietor said anything that seemed to make light of his organization, he would immediately bring terror upon him.

The boy was steeped in the underworld, and the man unconsciously drew back from him, but even then, his tongue kept moving.

“N-no, no, that’s not… Uh, I mean, I’m certainly not implying that you’re heartless, you understand! I just… I’m just saying I have no intention of trying to use naïve sentiments like that to make you wait for your money!”

And then—the shopkeeper said something Luck hadn’t anticipated.

“A-and so, I’ll make up the shortage by paying, ahem, ‘physically’!”

“…?”

For a moment, Luck couldn’t understand what the other man was trying to say. He blinked, slowly.

The man must have picked up on his question from that gesture, because he hastily waved his hands.

“Oh! No! Don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying I’ll take up streetwalking at my age or anything. You know what I mean: I hear you’re looking for people right now, Mr. Gandor!”

“…We certainly haven’t sunk so low that we’d want you as a member.”

The words were rude in the extreme, but the proprietor made no attempt to argue.

“Perish the thought! An old wreck like me! I know I’m worth nothing! So, you see, the one I’d like to sell is my son!”

“Excuse me?”

At the shopkeeper’s words, for the first time, Luck’s expression changed. He looked stunned, as if he truly couldn’t understand what the other man was saying. Realizing how dumb he currently looked, he promptly compressed his lips into a thin line.

However, the owner didn’t see the change in the boy’s expression. He turned and bellowed toward the back of the shop.

“—Tick! Tiiiick!”

Hearing the man call a name that sounded quite a bit like his own, Luck shifted his gaze to the shadows in the depths of the shop.

Then he noticed it.

From the back of a hall that was lined with nothing but clocks, he heard another noise, mixed into the sound of the pendulums.

Snick…

Snick…

It was the sound of polished metal surfaces sliding smoothly against each other. A sound that was somehow pleasant.

Luck realized what the noise was right away.

At the same time, he couldn’t fathom why he was hearing it in a clock shop.

It was like the sound of a blade being sharpened, but crisper than that, and as it came closer…

From around the corner at the very back of the hall, a small silver mass appeared.

“Whaaat? Dad—”

The boy who’d appeared around the corner was holding two pairs of scissors.

It was nothing special: He gripped dressmaker’s shears in each hand, and he was opening and closing them rhythmically, snipping and snicking away—that was all.

That was the whole of his first impression of the boy.

However, in the shadows, where the light in the shop didn’t reach, only the shears in the boy’s hands gleamed, and he was struck by the illusion that the boy’s fingers and body were being controlled by those scissors.

In fact, Luck’s gaze was riveted not on the boy—who was two or three years younger than himself—but on the movement of the silver blades he held.

“Huh? A customer?”

In contrast to the sharpness of the scissors, his tone was easygoing. It seemed to melt into the air.

The boy’s voice brought Luck back to himself, and he took another look at his face.

His build was lanky, and it was hard to tell whether he was strong just by looking at him. He was wearing a good-natured expression, smiling away, with his threadlike eyes squinched up into caret marks.

Apart from that, he had no particular distinguishing features. The only thing that would draw attention to him was the shears he held in his hands.

In a word, the boy gave off the impression that the scissors were his true form, and his body was a sort of bonus.

“Um, hello.”

The kid’s slightly drawn-out words made him seem younger than he looked. At the same time, the contrast with those shears gave him a rather eerie air.

“Erm… Shopkeeper?”

“Ah, Mr. Gandor! This here’s my son Tick! He’s got nimble fingers, and he’s clever with all sorts of things; I’m positive he’ll be useful to you. So, do you think you could take him as collateral?!”

“What sort of nonsense are you sp…?”

Ordinarily, Luck might have bellowed at him: Are you trying to make a fool of me?! However, he didn’t do that this time.

This was partly because the shopkeeper’s words had been so ludicrous that they’d flustered him, but more than that, the boy—Tick—interested him.

More accurately, what interested him were the scissors in Tick’s hands.

Forcefully interpreting Luck’s hesitation as consent, the shopkeeper rattled on, his face cheerful.

“Now, now, now! You know how it is! Didn’t you say as much when I borrowed that money?! ‘If it comes down to it,’ you said, ‘you’ll pay us back even if you have to sell your own family’!”

“That was only a figure of speech—”

“In any case! For now, just try using him, even if it’s only for a day! You see? If you decide he won’t do, well, I’m a man myself, and I’ll sell off this shop and the land and pay you back in full!”

“…That may have been naïve of me…”

As Luck went through the clock shop door, he muttered to himself with slumped shoulders. His tone held none of the maturity that had been there a moment before; he was speaking in a way that matched his age.

The sky was cloudy, and it looked as if it could rain at any minute. The street outside the shop was a broad one, and at the end of it, the Manhattan Bridge’s suspension towers loomed majestically. It was a comparatively new bridge, completed in the early 1900s, but its meticulous overall workmanship made it seem as if it had an imposing history.

The debt-ridden clock shop was on a broad avenue that led to that bridge, which had become a tourist draw. There was no problem with the location. On the contrary, one could say that the shop had been far too blessed. Luck decided that if a place like that had fallen so low it had to borrow money from the mob, either the man had very little talent for business or he’d had no luck.

For that very reason, he knew just how much this land was worth. He’d intended to put a little more pressure on him, then make him sell the lot, but—

“…By the way, why do you always carry scissors?”

“I like ’em.”

“I…I see.”

Why had this happened? Watching the boy who’d come outside with him out of the corner of his eye, Luck gave another big sigh.

“Ooooh, what’s the matter, Mr. Luck? Not feeling so good?”

The source of the drawling voice was Tick’s endlessly artless, smiling face.

As he watched Tick, whose eyes were more cheerful than necessary, Luck heaved an even bigger sigh.

No matter how I look at him, he really doesn’t seem useful.

The fact that he still had those shears in both hands was creepy, but aside from that, the boy was nothing extraordinary. His eyes seemed good-natured, but they betrayed no particular intelligence, and Luck didn’t think he’d be all that strong. Probably only about as strong as Luck was.

That was how he’d analyzed his first impression of the kid.

“Erm… Tick, wasn’t it?”

“Yeees.”

“Tick…do you understand the position you’re in?”

Tick was still smiling brightly, so Luck asked him just to make sure.

“Um, Dad’s in debt…and so he sold me to pay off that debt. To youuu, Mr. Luck.”

“…As long as you know, that’s fine.”

As far as words went, he seemed to understand, but did he truly know what it meant, deep down? Luck wasn’t so sure, but he began to walk, anyway, heading back toward his hideout.

At any rate, if this boy isn’t useful, that clock shop owner is finished. We’ll make him sell the shop, and we’ll get our money for sure.

He really didn’t think he’d be good for anything, and he could have just threatened the man there and made him sell the store, but—

Luck had been terribly intrigued by this human being. The shears were part of it, but the man’s sales pitch—“If it involves his fingers, the boy can do even the trickiest things neatly!”—had piqued his interest as well.

“Listen to me, Tick. If we decide that you will only burden the syndicate, we’ll put a demand letter on you and lob you right back at the shop.”

“Yeees. I’ll do my beeest.”

The reply was still easygoing, and as Luck responded, he was just a little irritated.

“Do you really get it? Helping out with our business has nothing to do with how clever you are. I’m asking if you’re prepared to get involved with dirty work.”

Carried along by momentum, Luck continued with a rather spiteful question:

“For example—if I told you to kill someone, could you kill them?”

He spoke indifferently, and his voice was cold. He’d expected the other boy to recoil, but…

“Yeees. If you say to do something, Mr. Luck, I’lllll do it.”

Tick answered without hesitation, then snipped the air with both pairs of shears.

“……”

What’s going on here? Is he soft in the head after all?

Mouth half-open, Luck started to tell him something…but in the end, he shifted his gaze to the small crowd without saying anything.

Possibly because they were expecting rain, there wasn’t much foot traffic. The only things that hurried past were horse-drawn carts transporting cargo.

When a cart crossed in front of him, Luck realized there were two figures standing on the other side.

The pair consisted of an abnormally thin man and, in contrast, a man who was round and pudgy.

Luck knew those faces.

They were members of the Martillo Family, a small organization that had turf in the same neighborhood.

“What’s this, huh? If it ain’t the little Gandor kid.”

Spotting Luck, the skinny man—Randy—spoke to him, sneering.

“Runnin’ around collecting debts for your big brothers?”

The fat man, Pezzo, also spoke, following his buddy’s lead.

“Yes, that’s right… We appreciate all your hard work.”

Luck was younger than the pair, and they were clearly not taking him seriously, but he didn’t protest.

Why? Because, even though he was still a child, he was an active member of his organization. He understood that it seemed strange, and he hadn’t picked up on any unnecessary contempt in Randy’s and Pezzo’s attitudes.

He passed the pair and kept walking, making for his own destination, but—

“Hmm? It looks like those men have business at our place, toooo.”

Tick had turned around, and at the sound of his voice, Luck stopped walking and looked back.

And right then—the pair from the Martillo Family kicked in the clock shop door.

There was a terrific noise, and then Randy and Pezzo roared in threatening voices.

“Hey, hey, hey, clock makerrr! You’re gonna cough up all our money today!”

“Yeah, you’re gonna pay back that twelve-thousand-dollar debt you racked up at our gambling hall if you have to sell this place to do it!”

They were intentionally yelling loudly enough for the people around them to hear, and when he heard what they said, Luck’s eyes went wider than those of anybody else on the avenue.

“Wha…?!”

He’d cried out in spite of himself, and he hastily clapped a hand over his mouth.

Twelve thousand dollars?! That’s nearly six times what he owes us!

The man had foisted this scissors-boy onto him, and yet he owed an even larger debt to another syndicate.

Was it possible that he’d somehow managed to scrape together enough to pay the others back? However, he hadn’t had enough money to pay Luck back as well, and so he’d tricked him by pawning off this boy on him…

The shopkeeper’s plan rose in his mind. Luck did an about-face then and there, starting back to show that smarmy shopkeeper exactly what his syndicate was made of, but—

“It’s noooo good.”

As if he’d read Luck’s mind, a drawling voice spoke from behind him.

“Dad’s aaall washed up.”

“…?”

“He never did have the money to pay anybody back. It isn’t just thooose people. He owes money to lots and looots of other people, about eight of them. So much money that, even if he sold the shop, he’d never, ever, eeever be able to pay it all back.”

Tick spoke matter-of-factly about the corner his own family had been driven into. He was still smiling.

At some point, the two of them had stopped moving, and they stood facing each other on the edge of the avenue.

“And sooo, I’m sure Dad’s all washed up. All the people who are going to come after this, all of them, they’re going to try to torment Dad, and hit him, and kill him, I think. And so, and so—”

At that point, Tick snicked his scissors, then went on. His expression hadn’t changed in the slightest.

“I think Dad’s planning to run toniiight.”

Although Luck had been listening silently, he inhaled quietly and spoke to Tick, looking mystified.

“…Run? And leave you here? You’re family.”

“Well, I have a little brother.”

The response didn’t mesh. As Luck wondered what he was talking about, Tick continued.

“His name is Tock, but he’s not like me. He’s really, reeeally smart. He’s an incredible genius, and he’s good at eeeverything he does. They say he’s a prodigy, and he’s much, muuuch more useful than an adult. So as long as he has Tock, Dad thinks things will work out somehow.”

“……”

“I hold them back, aaand they don’t need another mouth to feed, so he was planning on getting rid of me, anyway. That’s why he told me to go with youuu, Mr. Luck. To keep people from chasing him for a little while.”

Luck realized something. The boy in front of him had a far better understanding of his position than he’d thought.

“…How can you smile when you know that much? A father who’d throw you away is one thing, but do you hate your little brother as well?”

“Nooooo, I love both my dad and my brother. Why would you think that?”

“Why? …No, that doesn’t matter. Now that I know what your father’s planning, I can’t just stand by and do nothing.”

With that, Luck started back toward the clock shop again.

However— Abruptly, Tick’s slim arm caught his hand.

With a dry, metallic click, the pair of shears he’d been holding all this time fell to the ground.

“…What?”

“You haven’t done it yet, right?”

“What haven’t I done?”

“You haven’t figured out what I’m worth yet, right, Mr. Luck? You haven’t seen whether I’m enough to settle the debt yet, right? But you said, Mr. Luck. You said you’d watch me all day today. You promised my dad. You promised you’d see if I could work well enough to make up for the money he borrowed, remember?”

The smile in Tick’s voice faded slightly, and a little worry crept in to take its place.

Even then, his squinty eyes didn’t stop beaming.

This kid… Apparently, he isn’t just a fool.

From those words, Luck understood that Tick wasn’t merely an easygoing boy.

He understands the position he’s in perfectly—and he’s already steeled himself for it.

“If it turns out that we can’t use you, and the clock maker runs out on us…we’ll make you take responsibility for that debt.”

The young Gandor Family executive felt even more intrigued by this boy. Out of respect for his resolve, instead of heading for the clock shop, he turned around again.

“…I guess I really am naïve…”

With a self-deprecating smile, Luck made for his own hideout, taking the scissors-boy with him. This time, he didn’t look back at the clock shop. Instead, he headed straight for the place he needed to return to.

And from start to finish, the boy who was being sold for the equivalent of a mere month’s salary kept moving the fingers that held those shears.

The metal that twined around his long, delicate fingers snipped and snicked in time with the motion.

Cheerfully, happily, he played the scissors as if they were instruments.

Privately, as Luck watched the boy, he pitied his future.

He probably wouldn’t be able to become a member of the family. He was far too kind to be a denizen of the underworld.

Imagining what the boy’s life would probably be like, Luck asked him a question:

“But— Are you sure you’re all right with this? You’ll be parting with the family you’re trying to protect, and you left without really saying good-bye.”

“Protecting them? I’m not doing anything that impressive. It’s nothing impressive, so I’m preeetty sure I don’t have any regrets. Besides…the bonds between people aren’t thaaat easy to cut. They’re shapeless, like air, so even if you try to cut ’em, you can’t…”

The boy was still smiling that easygoing smile, and it almost made Luck smile right along with him.

However—

“But you knooow, people’s bodies are pretty easy to cut up. ’Cos they do have shapes. My scissors break ’em real, reeeal easy. That makes me sad, and it’s fun, too.”

Tick gave a dopey, innocent smile, and Luck felt a chill race down his spine.

At the time, he didn’t understand what those words meant, but he found out soon enough.

The boy snipped with the scissors in his hands, and the sound of scraping metal echoed in the avenue.

The noise didn’t melt into the hubbub of the city. It ran far, far away, down the gloomy afternoon street.

It might have been hinting at the boy’s future.

Eight years later The basement of the Gandor Family office

“Thaaat’s why I check.”

Murmuring those words, Tick beamed at the man in front of him.

The man’s response was—

“AaaaAAaaaAAaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaah !”

A scream.

A scream like tearing cloth echoed around a small room with rough gray walls.

Smiling, Tick continued to relate his past to the man, who had begun to spasm. However, most of it was drowned out by the screams.

In an underground room, where no help could reach them, he slid his scissors through the flesh of a man whose name he didn’t even know.

The flesh split without a sound, and red appeared through the gaps.

“People’s heaaarts, people’s tiiies, those shapeless ‘booonds’ between ’em… I check to see just how much ‘pain’ they can taaake. I want to see it, and it’s fuuun… So many, many, maaany people… I’m aaalways testing it.”

With a smile that held a hint of sadness, Tick snicked his scissors closed.

“But people are straaange, you know? Some won’t sell out their obligations for aaany kind of pain, and others start blabbing away before anything hurts at aaall. Youuu’re the type that doesn’t sell out, aren’t you? That’s amazing. I really respect that.”

In the next instant, still smiling, he slid the blades…and the man’s skin split again.

He’d made the cut neatly parallel to the previous one, barely a millimeter away, transforming the man’s wound into something crueler.

“GaaaaaAAaAAAAAAaaaaaaAaaaAAAAaaah!”

As the man’s scream climbed an octave, the only door in the room opened, and Luck Gandor, a young man with eyes as sharp as knives, entered.

“Tick… Go ahead and take a break.”

“Yeeees, sir.”

Replying artlessly, Tick closed his snips with a click and left the room.

After he’d watched Tick’s back disappear through the door, Luck turned toward the center of the room again and spoke to the man who lay there, covered in blood.

“…Now, then. The length of his break will depend to a great extent on your answer.”

The man might not have had the energy to scream anymore; a wheezing sound issued from his throat, and as he forced his voice out, his teeth chattered.

“Suh… Spuh… Spare me, please, I-I-I-I’ll tell you anything! Ju—j-j-j-just keep that freak with the scissors away f-f-f-f-fro—aaaAAAaaaaAAAAAaah!”

The man hadn’t managed to put the last half into words, but what he was trying to say was painfully clear.

Sighing, Luck cracked his neck, deciding to wait for the man to calm down—but abruptly, the man screamed.

“GyaaaaaAAAAaaaaah!”

“?”

When he turned around, following the man’s gaze, there was Tick, leaning in through the door so that only his upper body was in the room.

“Oh, Tick. What is it?”

“Um… Mr. Luck? If you don’t get a doctor to treat that man soooon…he might die.”

The smile had temporarily disappeared from the young man’s squinty-eyed face, and he was gazing at the wounded man with genuine worry.

“Yes, yes, Tick, I understand. I’ll take care of the rest. Go have a snack or something upstairs, if you would.”

“Yaaaaay, that’s great to heeear.”

At that point, Tick’s smile returned, and he started up the staircase outside the room, humming.

His figure disappeared up the steps, a pair of scissors in each hand. After Luck had confirmed this, he smiled, speaking to the bloody man who was writhing on the floor as if he were making small talk.

“You’re fortunate that Tick is a kind person.”

As he spoke, Luck kicked the man’s wound, hard.

A mass of air was expelled from the man’s lungs, and his entire back spasmed violently.

“Unfortunately, I am not kind.”

Tick really was a kindhearted man.

His character was singularly unsuited to the mafia, and he seemed to be innocence personified.

That said— He had one talent.

A talent for wounding people. For causing them pain.

Was that talent based in his innocence, or was it, as some said, the scissors’ curse?

His fame as the Gandor Family’s torture fiend began to spread barely a year after he’d been sold to the outfit.

Snip, snick snickety snick snip

Every time the boy snicked his scissors, as if in accompaniment, screams rose.

Even so, the boy kept smiling.

And with that innocent smile still on his face, he—

Snip-snip-snick, snick, snip.

In the boy’s hands, the scissors danced.

As if they’d gone mad.

As if they’d gone mad.