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Baccano! - Volume 8 - Chapter 3




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CHAPTER 3: FRONT

 

LET’S RELISH LIFE IN THE HOOSEGOW

Alcatraz Federal PenitentiaryBroadwayNight

“Hey. Hey, neighbor.”

The whisper came to him from the next cell over, through the thin wall.

Since there was nothing else to do, Firo had been lying in bed when a voice he’d never heard before called to him.

“Say, this afternoon…you came to the island with me, right?”

The voice wasn’t reaching him directly through the wall. By coincidence, when Firo had lain down on the bed, his neighbor seemed to have gotten as close as possible to the wall, put his face up near the iron bars, and spoken to him from there.

Even under these circumstances, talking wasn’t allowed, but when there were no guards nearby, conversing in whispers didn’t cause problems. The guards did come by frequently, but the corridor echoed like crazy, so if one was approaching, they’d know right away. If they temporarily broke off their conversation and got into their beds, they could throw them off the track to a certain extent.

The guy on the side with the bed was the inked-up Asian guy.

“Yeah… Maybe I did.”

There was what the deputy warden’s assistant had told him when he’d arrived, too.

Since he didn’t know who this guy really was, he couldn’t afford to tell him any more than necessary.

On that thought, Firo decided to listen carefully to what he said.

“They called you into another room. What happened, huh?”

“…They asked me all sorts of stuff about the fellas I left outside. Apparently, they got it into their skulls that I’m mafia. I just told them some random things and got through it.”

“Huh… What did you do that landed you in here?”

“Hmm? Oh… I hit a guy a little too hard.”

Being unable to see the other person put more pressure on the conversation than Firo had expected. Talking on the telephone wouldn’t have given him trouble, but his interlocutor was right here.

On top of that, this was the first time they’d spoken.

The guy on the other side of that wall was a criminal dangerous enough to get thrown into this prison. What expression was he wearing as he listened? Firo was technically from that side of things as well, but in a situation like this, even he felt pretty tense.

At Firo’s answer, the tattooed one gave a wheezing laugh.

“Not that, buddy. Not that.”

“?”

“I meant afterward. If you don’t do something after that, they don’t transfer you in here.”

Oh, right.

Nobody got sent straight from their trial to this jail. Special cases like Firo and Huey were extremely rare exceptions.

Hmm? I wonder what Isaac did, then…

Even as he thought about that, Firo responded to the question from the other side of the wall.

“Oh… I hit a guard a little too hard, too.”

“……”

“What? You don’t believe me? I don’t look like I’d do that?”

He’d meant to just duck the question, but maybe he’d been a little too careless…

Well, if he says, “With that kiddie face of yours?”—I’ll knock him flat tomorrow.

Firo was thinking stuff like that when the Asian gave a sly laugh.

“Ohhh! I see, yeah, sure, I see, I see. Huh. You’re just like me, then.”

“…You too?”

“Yeah. In my case, there was this guard who was bossy as hell, so I did a little number on his throat. ‘Chomp.’”

“Chomp”?

Firo visualized what that sound effect meant, and a quiet shiver traveled down his spine.

“Heh-heh! Do you know about odori-gui? That’s what they call it when you eat critters that are still moving. The second I latched on, he flinched, and I felt it in my tongue and teeth… It was a little salty, too, sent this indescribable thrill through my mouth!”

“All right, okay. That’s enough. Stop.”

“Well… Even when I remember it now, it’s just… The sensation of ripping into him! The overflowing taste of iron! That flavor spiced with the guard’s screams and the pain of the saps thrashing my head… Delicious! It tasted so good, I thought my brain was gonna melt!”

The man ignored the attempt to shut him down and kept rambling. He sounded thoroughly happy, so Firo hit him with his honest thoughts:

“You’re nuts.”

“You think? Appetite is human instinct, you know? I’m just obeying the will of Nature.”

No sooner had the man finished talking than, on the other side of the wall, a light clicking noise started up. The eerie performance echoed in Firo’s ears: Click, click, click, click, click, click.

This guy’s creepy. Are they all fangs or something? …Oh.

When he visualized all the man’s teeth as the fangs of a ferocious animal, Firo remembered someone completely different.

That man’s teeth had all been pointed, like a dolphin’s. Along with his deep-red eyes, those teeth had branded his monstrous appearance into Firo’s brain.

Compared to him, this guy’s way better, I guess… Or, well, maybe not…

For now, if he was going to suss out his new neighbor, shrinking the distance between them to a certain extent would probably be the best move.

Making the call, Firo quietly asked his name through the bars.

“What’s your name?”

“Huh? Ah… Right, these guards just use numbers, and they never say our names. Well, let’s see… For now, call me Dragon, after my arms. It’s actually Ryuujirou, but you’re American, and you’d have a hard time with that one, yeah?”

“Okay, Dragon. My name’s—”

Just as he was wondering whether he should give him a random alias, Firo remembered that he and the other immortals physically weren’t able to introduce themselves by false names—and as if striking an additional blow, Dragon cut him off.

“I know. Firo, right? That dim-looking fella was yelling it.”

“……”

“The guards ended up hauling him off somewhere. How do you know him? Were you together at the jail before this one?”

“…Uh, well, it’s…sort of a long story.”

Firo was racking his brain for a way to explain, and getting nowhere, when—

—suddenly, a distinctive sound echoed in his ears.

It was a sound he’d really rather not hear—but one with which he was far too familiar.

“Gunshots…?”

“Huh? …Yeah.”

A string of the dry sounds rang out, and Firo frowned, feeling an inexplicable eeriness, but…

…from the next cell over, the sticky voice went on, its tone unchanged.

“Maybe somebody tried to crush out and got shot… Or maybe your dumb pal did something even dumber and got himself drilled. Hee-hee!”

“Oh, the rifles? That happens every night. If you let it get to you, you’ll go nuts.”

“Is that right? What was that anyway?”

It was breakfast time, the next day.

Firo was sitting across from Ladd, and the first thing he’d done was ask about the gunshots from the night before.

However, Ladd didn’t seem particularly surprised. As he answered Firo’s question, he waggled the spoon he held in his right hand.

“It’s the guards training. So that they’ll be able to pick off attackers or cons without getting confused, even on a dark night.”

“Oh, I see… Wait, attackers?”

“Well, yeah. There are tons of big-shot gangsters on this island. Several dozen gang members in boats, coming to take ’em back… It could happen, right?”

“Scary stuff.”

Firo gave him a quick reply, trying to get off the subject, but Ladd paused the hand he’d been eating with and kept talking.

“Yeah, the guards on this rock are great, really great.”

“…? What’s great about them?”

“These guys are prepared. They know they could die anytime.”

A ferocious, carnivorous smile came, the same one he’d shown at dinner the night before.

Exhaling aggressively, Ladd began—calmly, as far as his words went—to state an opinion.

“What I mean is, when they work, they’re braced to kill escaping convicts, and at the same time, they’re fully aware that they could get killed themselves. I’m drawn to folks like that. I even feel a camaraderie with ’em. Just like with you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, when I first saw you here in the mess hall, you were glaring every which way. I could see it in your eyes; you had no clue when somebody might bump you off. You looked like you thought everybody but you was the enemy.”

“I—I did?”

Did I let it show in my face that much?

If so, had he put other inmates—or Huey, who might be watching from somewhere—on their guard?

As Firo’s uneasiness grew, Ladd kept murmuring, as if he was talking to himself.

“On the other hand, I hate soft types… I hate, hate, hate the ones who live with easygoing mugs, like they’re never gonna die. Can’t stand ’em. D’you feel me?”

“…I getcha.”

“So I teach those softies. I show ’em just how thin the tightrope they’re walking through life really is, and I carve that knowledge into their bodies, their hearts, and their lives. It’s fun. Although that’s what landed me in here.”

“Ah…”

I see. So this guy’s a hitman or something, huh? He does seem a little like Claire.

Just as he was remembering the face of a hatchet man in New York who was his childhood pal…

…the one who’d been sitting next to him finished his breakfast, rubbed his lean belly, and added his two cents to their conversation.

“Ahhhhh! Boy, did I ever eat! Thanks for the feast indeed! Oh, Firo, you can get seconds as often as you want here. Isn’t that incredible? I did think the work pay was low; I guess they sink the difference into food costs!”

Isaac made that declaration with a smile that was no different from what it had been outside prison, and Firo sighed, smiling wryly.

He’s pretty chipper for a guy who spent yesterday in solitary…

“Hey, were you okay last night?”

“Hmm? Oh, they bawled me out, put me in leg irons, and locked me up again, but I’m used to that by now!”

“Used to it…?”

Firo frowned, and Ladd, who was across from them, laughed and broke in.

“That fella talks loud or does dumb, weird things, like yesterday, so he gets carted off to the Dungeon regularly. Well, he only does little stuff, so he’s always back after a night… Normal guys would settle down after getting sent to those cells even once, though.”

Even as Firo felt convinced by Ladd’s explanation, another question welled up, and he asked it.

“You’ve been in, too?”

“The most I’ve been in for is ten days. That place is awful. It’s pitch-black in there—no light bulb. You lose all sense of time. Every now and then, they don’t bring meals, so I didn’t know ten days had passed until they let me out and I asked another guy. It’s underground, so you can’t hear those gunshots we were talking about… That actually makes it harder. Your legs are chained up, you’re in the dark, and there’s no sound. Just imagine it. You’d be sick of it inside a minute… I heard about this afterward, but a guy who was in for about two weeks at around the same time as me went cuckoo and got put in the island’s hospital. He still ain’t back.”

Coming from a guy who’d actually been through that, the words carried weight. When he heard them, Firo swallowed hard and looked at the seat next to him, bewildered.

“Isaac…even if it was just for a night, I’m impressed you lasted through that.”

“Huh? Ah… You think so? One night’s not so bad, is it?”

“No, I think that was really something.”

“Really? A fairy dropped by yesterday, so I wasn’t even bored.”

“……”

A fairy.

At the abrupt appearance of that word, there was a short silence. Then Firo shook his head, looking exhausted. “…There you go, talking bushwa again.”

“No, it’s true, I tell you! There was a little girl’s voice, and we talked for quite a while!”

“Isaac… You poor guy. Now that you can’t see Miria, you’ve finally gone around the bend…”

“No, no… Being unable to see Miria is the loneliest thing in the world, but…I really did hear a voice! It was there, in the darkness, asking about you! I’m positive it was Tinker Bell.”

“C’mon, fella, gimme a break.” At the idea that he’d been dragged into Isaac’s delusions, Firo sighed, looking troubled, but—

“Let’s see… Something about, how did I know that new guy, and did I drink the liquor, too. All the questions that Tinker Bell asked were funny.”

“…?!”

The moment he heard Isaac’s words, Firo’s entire body froze up.

“Did you drink the liquor, too?”

As Isaac had said, to someone who knew nothing, it would probably have passed for something funny.

However, to Firo, the question held important significance.

Was that…the liquor of immortality?

At the same time, it vividly showed that the “fairy” actually existed. Isaac didn’t know about the liquor of immortality, and he couldn’t think of any reason he’d tell such a strange lie.

Does this have something to do with Huey…?

It worried him, but Ladd—a stranger—was here, and it would seem odd if he latched on to the topic.

Deciding to watch for a chance to get the details out of him later, Firo determined to push Isaac away for now, the way he usually did.

“Yeah, yeah, all right, okay.”

“Hey, you don’t believe me!! Things happen to fellas who don’t believe in fairies!”

“Things? …What things?”

“Huh?!”

Isaac had spoken vigorously, but when Firo responded with a question, he glared up at the ceiling, thinking hard.

“Well… Things. You know… I wonder what does happen. Hey, Firo, what do you think?”

“Like I’d know!”

Firo shut him down, but Ladd, who was sitting in front of him, joined the conversation in his place.

“Well, they end up happy, don’t they? After all, these are fairies we’re talking about.”

“Oh, I see! You’re right! Ah, well then. You’ll be fine, Firo!”

“Pipe down!”

“Eat quietly.”

The guard’s voice rang out, and instantly, the dining hall was silent.

To avoid standing out, Firo looked down, pretending to spoon up soup from his empty bowl, and spoke to Ladd in a voice that was even quieter than before.

“What you said before, about those people you hated… Did you mean guys like him? The ones who don’t give the slightest thought to the risks they run?”

Firo shot a glance at Isaac as he asked the question, and Ladd grinned as he answered.


“Nah. I’ve been watching that guy for several weeks now, and frankly, with a brain like his, that whole issue’s moot. He doesn’t even irritate me.”

On seeing that Ladd held no particular dislike for the man, Firo responded, feeling vaguely relieved.

“…Well, that’s true.”

“What’s this, what’s this? What about my brain?” Isaac asked quietly, lowering his voice to a whisper.

Giving the wryest smile he could muster, Firo tapped Isaac’s head with his spoon.

“It sounds like your brain managed to squeak by without ticking off Ladd over there.”

“Huh? What’s that about? …Um. I get it! In other words, you didn’t get mad at me! Thanks, pal! You’re a good guy!”

Isaac said something that was way off base, but—thinking that if he was satisfied, then that was fine—neither Firo nor Ladd bothered to correct him.

Mealtimes weren’t all that long, but even so, they had enough leeway to make small talk.

“Oho… So you fellas live in New York, huh?”

“Yeah, well.”

“I’ve been all over America! It’s more as if I live in America than in New York!”

On hearing the toponym New York from Isaac, Ladd began to wax nostalgic.

“The city, huh…? I’ve got a sworn little brother over there. He’s a weird fella who doesn’t feel right unless he’s constantly breaking stuff. He was always swinging around a wrench the size of my arm, and lot of the time, he’d take a car apart while he was talking to you. By the time I was done whaling on the driver, he’d have the car completely dismantled.”

“That doesn’t sound safe. Hmm…?”

“What’s the matter, Firo? Aha. Ennis can drive, so you’re afraid she could get worked over by this fella! Don’t you worry—he’s a good guy!”

“I’m not thinking that! …No, Ladd. Does that fella maybe wear a blue coverall? One that’s a whole lot bluer than our work clothes?”

Possibly because he’d visualized what Firo had described, Isaac smacked his hands together lightly and leaned forward.

“Ah! I think I’ve seen that man with Miria! He talked with Jacuzzi once in a while, too!”

“Hey now, hey, hey, hey, what, what, what’s this? You people know that kiddo? Graham, the wild child?”

“Yeah… Although recently, I heard he messed with the Runorata Family’s turf, and now they’re after him.”

At Firo’s words, Ladd briefly glanced into empty space and thought.

Then, his face turning a little serious, he muttered, “I see… Well, when I get outta here, maybe I’ll go give him a hand. My fiancée’s waiting for me in New York, too…”

On hearing that, Firo turned appalled eyes on Ladd and reproached him.

“Your fiancée…? You’ve got somebody like that, and you still got yourself sent here? What were you thinking?”

“I told you already. I’ve got a goal.”

 

 

 

 

“? Oh, the one for when you get out… Is it meeting up with your girl? That’s good.”

“My goal is meeting up with Miria!”

Apparently having remembered Miria’s face, Isaac made a declaration that completely failed to read the room, and his voice, which was louder than he’d tried for, caught the ear of a nearby guard.

“Fellas, you were told to eat quietly…”

As the stern-faced guard came closer, Firo and Isaac hastily looked down.

However, the next moment—

—an incident occurred.

“Don’t screw with me, you runty bastard!”

The sound of scattering metal dishes rang out, and an abrupt din enveloped the dining hall.

When all the convicts and guards in the cafeteria turned to look that way, they saw a struggling white man hanging high in the air.

The man was kicking and flailing roughly two yards above the ground. There was a dark, scarred-up hand on his throat, and its enormous owner was keeping his prey suspended so steadily that he might as well have been a coatrack.

“Eep! EeEEEeee! Eeee…!”

The smaller one was screaming desperately and fighting to free himself from the massive hand, but it had a firm grip on his throat, and even when he hit and scratched at it, it didn’t budge.

“Those guys…”

When Firo saw the scene, he remembered the pair’s faces immediately.

Like Dragon, both the white man and the black man had come to the island with him.

The big black man’s scarred face twisted into a grin, and he looked up at the white man he was holding in the air with his right hand, hitting him with violent words.

“You were grumbling about me on that boat yesterday, right, ya bastard? You looked at me and snorted just now, too. Is my scratched-up face that funny? Huh?”

“I—I—I—I didn’t do a— Gah-gah-gah-gah-gah-aaaAAaah! Aah!” the white man cried.

Ignoring his victim, who seemed to be in pain, the man put more force into the hand that was clutching his neck.

“Hey, Gig. Knock it off.”

Some of the other black men who were sitting nearby tried to talk their newcomer down, but Gig didn’t listen. Instead, he kept compressing the white man’s windpipe and carotids with one hand.

“What are you doing?!”

“Stop!”

The guards were on the scene almost immediately, and the sense of tension they brought with them was completely different from when they’d hauled Isaac off yesterday. What would happen to that big man, here in the dining hall, with all eyes trained on him? At this point, there was nothing Firo and the others could do but watch.

That was what Firo assumed, but—

“Ah… Perfect timing. Just perfect. Ain’t that right, Firo?”

“Huh?”

—watching the figure slowly get up from the chair across from him, Firo sounded skeptical.

“‘Perfect’ is actually a real fuzzy concept, ain’t it? What strikes a guy as ‘best’ changes all the time. The shape he’s in, the weather, his mood, the special pals around him, the hated enemies he’s squaring off with, the weak guys he should kill, the tough guys he should kiss up to—although, he’ll kill ’em all in the end anyway. As my circumstances push me this way and that, I think that the best, the absolute best ‘perfect’ is something truly valuable, and so even if I risk my life over it, I’ll have no regrets.”

Ladd had turned abruptly eloquent, and when he saw his face, Firo was beset with a nebulous uneasiness.

“Okay then, I’ll be right back.”

“Hey, wait. Where are you going…?”

“Someplace good. The only thing I see in front of me is my path. On it, there are guys I need to kill, like that red monster and Huey Laforet.”

“Hue… What?!”

“Huey Laforet” was the last name he’d expected to hear.

Wearing a ferocious smile, Ladd turned his eyes on the black man who was at the heart of the trouble.

He cracked his neck once. Then, as if he was genuinely enjoying himself, he said something very odd.

“I got a little curious about the fairy that guy over there was talking about. All this is perfect for giving my mood a shot in the arm, and for getting into the Dungeon.”

However, as Ladd walked away, his attention wasn’t on his tablemates any longer.

“I tell you what, this is ab-so-lute-ly…brilliant.”

Instead, all that was left were the dregs of a sharp murderous intent—the sort that froze anyone it focused upon.

“Freeze!”

“Settle down!”

Holding billy clubs, the guards surrounded the scarred black man.

Behind the gun ports in the walls, there was the sound of hasty, running footsteps.

Some of the convicts in the mess hall were watching the ruckus play out, while others were gazing up at the small holes in the ceiling.

The holes were there so that gas could be pumped in when riots broke out. It was actually tear gas, but the rumor that circulated among the prisoners said the gas would be lethal.

“Heeey, we are settled. Both of us, this guy and me.”

No sooner had he said this than Gig squeezed the still-struggling man’s neck even harder.

“G’on, they said settle down.”

“…Ah…gkh…”

The white man had completely stopped breathing, and his face was turning a deep purplish red.

Faced with a situation in which it was anyone’s guess which would happen first, suffocation or a broken neck, the guards braced to jump the two men at once, but just then—

—a moment sooner, a shape slipped in the middle of the group.

The guards saw the shadow out of the corners of their eyes, and the smile of a man who’d found his prey branded itself into their retinas.

However, it definitely wasn’t the smile of a hunter.

At this point, it wasn’t even the carnivore’s smile that Firo had seen before.

It wasn’t delight.

It wasn’t instinct, either.

He’d completely warped it, voluntarily—

It was the smile of a cold-blooded murderer.

“Hey, pal.”

“Hunh…?”

When the cheerful voice spoke to him abruptly, Gig looked down and to the side, sounding suspicious.

There was a man who was about a head shorter than he was, and just as Gig was about to register his face—

—an impact ran through his stomach, and he heard something inside him creak.

“ ?! ?! ?!”

He’d been prepared to take blows from the guards’ saps.

He’d thought that, compared to the pain he’d experienced up until now, pain on that level wouldn’t bother him much.

However, the impact that had assaulted Gig’s side, at the base of his ribs, was beyond any blow he’d ever felt.

In spite of himself, he let go of the white man he’d been holding in his right hand and curled in on himself reflexively.

His side was still numb, and he felt something hot seeping out, right next to his stomach.

He’d been shot by a guard’s rifle.

For a moment, he was caught by that illusion. He was still surrounded by a crowd of people, though, and he’d assumed they wouldn’t shoot him. His expectations had been roundly betrayed.

But what had assaulted him hadn’t been a rifle bullet.

Right in front of Gig’s agonized face, an amused voice spoke.

“Now we’re the same height.”

The voice was cheerfulness itself, and it was speaking as if its owner had just reunited with an old friend.

“You’re a lot easier to hit now.”

As Gig raised his eyes, he saw the man’s limp, dangling left arm. It had misshapen fingers formed out of rough iron, and it was just a shade better than Captain Hook’s false hand in Peter Pan.

Finally attempting to see the mystery man’s face, Gig looked up, fighting the pain, and saw—

—a torso that was in the process of twisting dramatically and the back of a man’s head.

“Actually, to take it further, this is that: You’re massively, tremendously, truly, supremely, absolutely, ludicrously…”

“Uh………”

“Easy to hit.”

His torso, which had twisted as far as it could go, rebounded like a spring, and before Gig could register the other man’s face, a heavy right hand sank into his nose.

“ ”

At the moment of impact, he’d already lost consciousness. Gig’s oversize body spun 180 degrees and flew—then, pulling in one of the guards and a table, slammed into the floor in grand style.

A roar echoed.

The mess hall went silent.

In the next moment, the glossy black tubes that were visible through the gun ports were pointed at Ladd, several more guards came running in to provide backup, and the dining hall went into a complete lockdown.

“You again…?”

The guard who’d spoken was wearing a stern expression, and Ladd shrugged as he responded:

“My, my. What’s this, what’s this, what’s this? What’s the gloomy mug for? What I just did was legit self-defense, see? As a matter of fact, I think you should gimme a letter of appreciation and cut my remaining time by half a year.”

Ladd had abruptly started talking nonsense, and the guards looked at one another, then edged closer, tightening the perimeter. Something had probably happened in the past: Nobody tried to just walk up to him and pin him down. The guards treated Ladd, a lone convict, as carefully as they would have if he’d had a gun.

The skinny white man was slumped in front of Ladd, shaking hard. Pointing at him, Ladd calmly said his piece.

“See, that big lug tried to throw this little guy at me and kill me. I got scared and hit him first. If I’d been a second later, I’d have been dead.”

“…You think anybody’s going to buy that excuse?”

“Hell no! I don’t believe this prison’s accommodating enough to let an excuse like that get through, and as a matter of fact, last time I tried it, you chained me up hand and foot without even listening and sent me to the Dungeon. That’s right! That’s exactly why! I trust you fellas! You put your lives on the line and do your jobs seriously, and because you do—I can hold back this feeling that’s welling up inside me, and hold it, and hold it…and focus it on one single guy.”

Ladd spoke with a frank smile. The guards glared at him, but Ladd didn’t let it bother him; he turned his gaze to Firo and Isaac, who were watching from a distance.

“See ya, New Yorkers. Let’s meet up again, if we’re all alive.”

As he watched them march Ladd away, Isaac murmured, sounding impressed: “I see… So that big man was trying to kill Ladd?! That was a close one— Humff, mrgle.”

“Quiet.”

Isaac had been about to express his admiration of Ladd’s opinion, and Firo covered his mouth with a hand. He was gazing tensely at the face of the man who’d been chatting with them just a moment ago.

What the hell is that guy…?

He’d reacted to Isaac’s fairy story and headed to the scene. At that point, he’d already been nuts enough, but those moves, combined with a punch so forceful it was impossible to believe he’d hit with a bare hand, made Firo realize, belatedly, that the man he was looking at wasn’t just any jailbird—

And, belatedly again, he remembered exactly where he was.

Alcatraz.

When, among groups of vicious criminals who’d snapped, individuals went past “snapped” to “crazy,” this prison was where they all ended up. As he recalled the situation he’d been placed in, and thought about the future, Firo broke out in a cold, stealthy sweat.

“Hey, Isaac… Seriously, why did you come to this rock?”

Firo thought the thief was an idiot, but he’d decided that he wasn’t crazy. He watched the man’s face, asking his question as if he found the whole concept strange in the deepest depths of his heart.

Isaac looked back at him, clearly wondering why he’d ask a question like that this very moment. However, he didn’t seem to have any doubts beyond that, and he spoke about his circumstances easily.

“Huh? They just told me, ‘We can’t put you in a regular prison, so go to Alcatraz, and in exchange, we’ll make your term shorter.’ They said I’m only in for fifty days!”

“What’s with that nutty prison term? Who told you that stuff?”

“Uh, some big shot named Victor set it up.”

Firo had half expected that answer, and it triggered a memory of an irritating, bespectacled face.

So was Isaac insurance or a lure or something in case I didn’t get nervous when Ennis’s name came up?

If Firo hadn’t complied when they’d come for him the first time, or if any other uncertain elements had come into the picture, Victor might have been planning on using Isaac as a hostage to lure out Ennis, then using her as a hostage to control Firo.

Having reasoned out the agents’ objectives, Firo clenched his fists tightly, an intensely bitter expression on his face. Blood dripped from the gaps between his fingers, but it ran up his legs immediately, slipping back into his fists as though nothing had happened.

That damned agent…



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