Baccano! - Volume 7 - Chapter SS2

DIGRESSION, OR PROLOGUE TO WHAT’S NEXT II

MONEY-GRUBBER

“…Who’s there?”

In a spacious study illuminated only by lamplight, a man murmured, seemingly to himself.

As if in response to his voice, a shape that had been shadowed until then stepped out into the light.

“You are about to die, so there’s no need for you to know.”

The slender shadow—Chi—muttered impassively, then took another step toward the man, his target.

“A…a hitman… Who hired you?”

The man asked his question in a stifled voice. Chi answered it with silence.

Multiple iron claws gleamed on both his hands, and his gaze was already fixed on his target’s throat.

“W-wait, look, I’ll pay twice—no, three times as much as your client! So…”

“Many people have tried that line. With my impulsive partner, it might be different, but soft soap like that doesn’t work on me. That is all.”

As Chi spoke, he shook his head, as if pitying the man who was clinging to life.

“Th-that’s madness… Are you telling me you don’t need money?!”

Startled, the man rose from his chair, and Chi accelerated all at once, closing the distance between them.

“Hmph… Money-grubber.”

Chi raised his arm slightly, preparing to slit the man’s throat as he passed.

However, just then—

“I see. That’s a shame.”

The man’s voice and face turned as merciless as ice.

“?!”

—Impact.

When Chi was just half a step from his target, hot pain assailed his shoulder, as though something in it had burst.

“Gahk…!”

As he bent backward, he noticed an abnormality in the room.

A small hole had been drilled in the window behind the man, and cracks ran out from its edges like a spider web.

…Sniper?!

As Chi bore up under the pain and tried to regain his balance, a pitch-black shadow fell over him.

“Wha…?!”

Before he could see who the figure was, its hand grabbed his arm.

He immediately tried to shake it off, but the hand stuck to him as firmly as a magnet, and on top of that…

My…my strength is…?

Even though it was his arm that was trapped, his legs felt weak.

Still not understanding what had happened, Chi lost his balance and was pinned to the floor.

He’d fallen on his back, and he felt something light touch his neck.

There had been a sword-shaped letter opener on the man’s desk. Its tip was now resting on Chi’s throat—and the sole of the black shadow’s shoe was lightly pressing down on its hilt to keep it from falling over.

He was putting the perfect amount of weight behind it, and the tip of the letter opener wasn’t hurting Chi.

Nevertheless, if the shadow pressed down even a little, that dull sharpness would run right through his throat. Chi knew this, and his movements had been sealed completely.

More than the fear of death, he’d been awed by the overwhelming aura of intimidation the shadow radiated as it stepped on him through that letter opener.

After a moment’s silence, the man—Senator Manfred Beriam—spoke quietly.

“Right… Don’t kill him, Felix.”

“That’s ‘former,’ Mr. Beriam,” the shadow answered languidly. “I sold that name to somebody else, ages ago. I know I told you that.”

“Then hurry up and get a new name for yourself.”

“I’m someone neither God nor the government will forgive. Being nameless is good enough.”

“It’s inconvenient for me, though.”

Just then, there was a light rap at the window.

Beriam looked over at it. A man was standing there, holding a rifle with an abnormally long barrel.

He wore a long coat, and his eyes were covered with a black cloth. The cloth had a pattern that looked like gun sights drawn on it, and there were raw scars on the skin around it.

“How was that, hmm? I did a good job again, didn’t I?”

“…Good enough. Nice work, Spike.”

“Heh-heh, well, you know… Convert that appreciation into cash, please.”

The sniper, who seemed to be blind, had a disagreeable smile on his lips.

Ignoring the words of the gunman he’d employed, Beriam let his eyes fall to Chi, who lay on the floor.

“What do you think? I wouldn’t call it almighty, but if you have money, there are certain things you can do. Employ men like these as your own ‘strength,’ for example.”

Chi accepted those words in silence, quietly awaiting his fate.

However, Beriam didn’t attempt to exercise any sort of winner’s privileges on Chi. He just kept talking.

“…Hong Chi-Mei. A member of Lamia, hmm?”

“?!”

Shuddering at the realization that his identity was known, Chi stared at the man in front of him.

Senator Beriam. He’d been at Mist Wall that day, and so he’d assumed the other man probably wasn’t just a senator, but the man’s access to information made Chi turn astonished eyes on him again.

“I don’t know whether you’re here on orders from Huey or if it was in your secondary line of work as a hitman. However…tell this to Huey, your creator.”

His eyes were endlessly cold, to the point where it seemed as if they’d freeze the surrounding air.

“This nation—it isn’t a playground for monsters like you.”

In the study, after the former Felix and Spike had taken Chi away…

“I can’t imagine Huey would send his underlings after me individually. Homer, the New York branch manager, is a possibility. He’s a truly spineless man…”

Beriam leaned back in his leather-upholstered chair, gazing at the ceiling and murmuring to himself.

“Huey Laforet… Victor Talbot…”

He was talking to himself, but the words were spoken with definite listeners in mind.

“How much money did you gain from selling your souls to a demon? What authority did you acquire? You can’t have gotten anything… You gained nothing. You merely discarded ‘death.’”

When he’d muttered that much, there was a knock at the door to his study.

“Father, may I come in?”

“Oh, Mary. What’s the matter? It’s the middle of the night.”

The door opened quietly, and a girl whose face was still quite young peeked in.

“I heard a very loud noise a minute ago… I thought something might have happened to you.”

“Ha-ha, it’s fine, Mary. Some books fell off the shelf, that’s all.”

On hearing that, the girl smiled, relieved that her father was safe. She didn’t seem to notice Chi’s blood on the black carpet. Feeling reassured, the girl ran to her father.

Catching his only daughter in a gentle embrace, Beriam thought to himself:

Money-grubber, hmm? Yes, I’ll accept that name.

But I’ll show you, Huey Laforet.

Money and power. They’re vulgar, dirty-sounding words, but even so… These two strengths won’t yield to one such as you, who’s thrown away his humanity.

After all, these are the most symbolic strengths we’ve built in society.

Yes, I’ll show you. You people, who have discarded your humanity upon feeling its limits.

I’ll show you the power we humans have—

The strength of mere humans, who have no choice but to accept death as our destiny.

Reaffirming his resolution, Beriam hugged Mary’s shoulders tenderly.

As if to protect his beloved daughter from the madness that was to come…

Quietly.

Quietly…

Baccano! 1934 →