Baccano! - Volume 8 - Chapter Pr2

PROLOGUE II

BRUISER

In the basement of a certain tavernPrivate room

You want to know about a con who got sent from my prison to Alcatraz?

Oh, I see. Yeah, you can’t talk about that stuff openly, that’s for sure.

…Still. I was a rank-and-file guard, and I only just quit. We called ’em by numbers; I don’t remember much about any of those guys. Well, anybody who’d get shipped to Alcatraz would have made more of an impression on—

Huh? Number 302010?

……!

……

Ha…ha-ha…

Ah… Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Him! Yeah, him I remember perfectly. The number was an easy one, but more importantly, uh, I guess I just… I mean, there’s no way I could forget that guy.

I know his real name, too. I got curious, see.

Ladd… Ladd Russo, I think it was.

They said he was a nephew of Placido Russo, the don of the Russo Family in Chicago.

It was murder or robbery or something like that… Apparently, they nabbed him on several counts, but I don’t know any of the details. To prison guards, they’re all just animals we’re calling prisoners, and we’re supposed to call them by their numbers, equally. Maybe the perp’s real violent, or maybe he’s just a thief, or maybe he’s a gangland kingpin, but in the cooler, they’re all nothing but numbers…officially anyway.

What is it actually like? I dunno. It probably depends on the jail and the prison officers, and I can’t just go around talking about that stuff.

That’s not what you want to hear, though, right?

Number 302010… That Ladd fella. Isn’t he what you’re asking about?

Yeah… You’re thinking I’m a weirdly cheerful, shallow guy, aren’t you?

When I was a guard, I tried to be a capable type. The serious, quiet guy who put wordless pressure on prisoners. But, see, the thing is, y’know, we’re talking about him now, after all, and that really makes me want to completely distance myself from who I was back then. See? You get me, right?

Back when he first got to the prison, I kinda threw my weight around when I did his physical exam, too. To teach ’im, “You people are criminals now—ditch your pride; you’re underdogs; you’re here to apologize and keep on apologizing for the trouble you caused us and the general public with your lousy Mickey Mouse crimes, see.”

Ah, no, the other guards don’t take it that far. I mean, shattering the other guy’s pride is an important job, but…

Me in particular, I was especially, uh, well… I pushed my luck a bit.

No matter how famous a criminal they’d been on the outside, in here, I outranked them. When you think about that, you know, of course you wanna act big. I mean, there were swarms of hoods right there, and I could sneer at them without worrying about a thing.

Well, see, that’s why.

I said so a little bit ago: I’m acting all casual-like because I want to get as far as possible from the me I was back then.

You don’t understand what I’m getting at?

…Well, uh, yeah. I’ll get to that later. Later.

So, about Ladd.

The guy was weird in all sorts of ways.

When he was first admitted to prison, he looked incredibly chipper.

I figured he was some big shot with a lawyer and planning to get himself released right away, or maybe he’d started something with some other mafia on the outside and had come here to get away.

Well, it’s a decent place to run and hide. If your enemies are powerful, though, they’ll just get a hitman into prison. The guys in question may be able to tell, but there’s no way for us to pick ’em out from the rest.

But you know, when I asked the other guards, they said he wasn’t anything like that. Plus, all sorts of stuff about him smelled fishy. I hear he caused a bit of trouble on a train…and then the whole thing…was totally covered up, or so I hear.

Nah, I dunno. I don’t know anything about that situation. It’s like there was some sort of pressure from the country itself… That kind of stuff didn’t make it around to me, and he didn’t talk about any of the details.

Yeah, he was a quiet guy.

He had the look of a lively fellow, but he didn’t say much of anything that didn’t need to be said. Sometimes we gave him permission to make phone calls to the outside, but he didn’t talk about anything particularly hinky.

He did his prison work quietly and well, and I guess he was what you’d call a model prisoner.

He’d injured his arm real bad somehow, and it was always wrapped in bandages… Well, long story short, it was a prosthetic. We checked it over carefully, thinking he might have some tool in there that he could use to break out, but there was nothing. It was just a prosthetic, and the joints didn’t even move that well. Only, it was attached directly to his arm or to the bone… Yeah, I’d never heard of a prosthetic like that, either, but from what the rumors said, his bones were stripped bare even though they were still attached, and they’d used ’em just like that. My pals who did his physical thought it was real spooky.

I thought bacteria and stuff might get in there and give the live parts gangrene, but he was surprisingly peppy.

He didn’t cause any trouble. He just spent his days as a convict. He actually did hard labor voluntarily; he really was a model prisoner. We couldn’t have him using a screw off his prosthetic arm to pick a lock, so we watched him like a bunch of hawks.

He didn’t do anything that stood out, though. Time just passed by; nothing happened.

—Until that one day.

He suddenly changed—well, he showed his true colors—a few months back.

It was just about the time Alcatraz switched over from being a military prison to being a regular one.

I think you probably know already, but, well, here’s the thing.

That place ain’t normal.

You can’t commit a crime and go straight to Alcatraz, for one. It just doesn’t happen.

Inmates from ordinary jails get sent to the island afterward.

It’s a West Coast paradise, famous for housing the worst troublemakers from all the other prisons.

Well, at the prison I used to work at, the most dangerous guy by a long shot was this fella named Gustavo.

You know the Runorata Family, right? They’re one of the bigger outfits in this area.

Gustavo used to be one of their executives. Apparently, he caused some kind of trouble that led to getting his elbows checked by the cops.

He had this seriously nasty scar at the base of his throat. Ordinarily, you’d figure a wound like that would’ve put him six feet under. Just like with Ladd, though, it didn’t even look like it had made him any weaker.

The guy was a real mad bull. When a guard lobbed some stupid taunt at him, he ripped his handcuffs apart, just like that.

“…Whoops, these sorta fell to pieces on me. That ain’t safe. Get me some new ones, wouldja?” he said without a care in the world.

The guard couldn’t do a thing, and the big lug just leered at him.

Of course, he caused problems in stir, lots of ’em, and we had our hands full with him.

None of the other prisoners could beat him in a fight, plus they were scared of him, so they didn’t even try to rat him out to the guards on the sly. He acted like he was king of that place.

But then, this one day…

The guy went on a rampage in the mess hall. The fight started over some stupid thing, like how the guy in front of him had laughed at him or something.

We took our billy clubs and surrounded them, and as you’d figure, they calmed right down. Well, there were officers waiting outside the gun ports behind him with rifles at the ready. They pretty much had to.

I let ’em have it.

I started feeling kinda sadistic, and, well, it felt good, and I told ’em, all condescending-like:

“Do you fellas want to get dumped into Alcatraz? They don’t even have books or newspapers on that rock, so if anybody feels like going loony you just keep right on getting your exercise this way.”

That’s what I said.

Well, Gustavo probably knew the rumors about that place. Several of the other guys clammed up, too, like they’d gotten cold feet.

Yeah, frankly, I was feeling real good right about then.

It was tops. So fantastic I might have gotten the wrong idea and thought the world was mine.

That’s when it happened.

“Alcatraz…?”

One guy walked up to me.

Right. It was Ladd.

“What would a fella have to do to get sent to this Alcatraz place?”

To be honest, I was a little surprised. This was a model prisoner, a guy who didn’t usually talk at all, and I hadn’t thought he’d speak to a guard armed with a sap in a situation like that.

They don’t encourage conversation between prisoners and guards. Some jails actually ban it. I answered, though. Ladd didn’t look like he knew what sort of place Alcatraz was, and I thought it’d be a good chance to hit the other guys who weren’t in the know with a good, solid threat.

So I told him. I took the stuff about how horrific Alcatraz was, all the rumors that had gotten worse over time, and I padded it even more.

He’d gotten real quiet, and when I saw that, I started feeling great…

“Well, we’re planning on recommending the worst troublemaker in this prison for that place. A chicken like you should just keep your head down and stick to being a model prisoner,” I told him.

And then…

And then, see… Uh… Well…

He smiled.

Grinned at me just like that. Like he was really and truly happy.

What’s with this guy? When I saw that smile, I got hit with this sudden uneasy feeling.

He wasn’t even looking at me anymore. He turned around without a word, went straight back to his own seat, and started eating again, like the trouble with Gustavo and the other guys hadn’t even happened.

Right then, I felt it in my gut… This real nasty hunch. It was just, how should I put it…? Just a bad feeling. There’s really no other way to describe it. It was like that feeling you get when you’re up on a high bridge, and you look down at the valley floor and you think, Hey, I wonder what it would be like if this bridge suddenly vanished and I fell from up here? And then you imagine it, and your whole body sort of shrinks up. It was just like that moment.

But I wasn’t up on a high bridge or on top of a building. It was just the inside of a prison. Plus, he was a prisoner. I was a guard. There shouldn’t have been anything in there to scare me, but…

In that moment…when I saw him smile, I really did feel fear.

That night, that terror jumped me in physical form.

I heard there was more trouble in the dining hall, and when I went to take a look…

What do you think I saw?

…Dinner.

He was eating dinner.

That Ladd guy was eating dinner, from his own plate, right at the scheduled time.

The sight scared the living bejeebers out of me.

What was scary about it?

Well, because… Because.

Because he was eating dinner.

Ladd was all by himself, surrounded by dozens of groaning prisoners laid out on the floor!

In the hall that led to the prisoners’ cells, the jailbirds who weren’t out cold were trembling, packed into the entrance.

The guards who’d been watching were staring at Ladd as if a guy like him couldn’t exist, and nobody was moving a muscle.

“Hey! What happened?!” I yelled. At my fellow guards, I mean.

It’s pathetic, but I sort of didn’t want to talk to Ladd directly. It was just too creepy somehow… The way he was sitting there, silently eating his dinner in the middle of a situation like that, was too eerie for words.

Guards who’d heard the ruckus and come running, the way I had, were already standing in the gun ports up at the top of the dining hall, rifles at the ready…but the morons were all just looking at one another. After all, there was nobody to shoot.

If you thought about it normally, there’d been a big fight among prisoners, and the group that had done the thrashing had made tracks back to their own cells and were cooking up alibis right about now. Ladd had come along later, decided to stay out of the mess, and was calmly eating his dinner… Yeah, I wanted that to be what had happened.

Except, since they’d managed to flatten a group of several dozen guys, you’d think the other group would have been a big one, too. From the atmosphere, it really didn’t seem like they’d all managed to take one another out, either…

……

Yeah, I know. I know what you’re trying to say.

That’s what I thought, too, the second I saw it.

I figured Ladd, who was eating his dinner without a care in the world, had shellacked the circle of hoods all by himself.

As a matter of fact, when you looked at him…you couldn’t think anything else.

I told myself over and over, That ain’t possible, but what I was seeing just wouldn’t let me acknowledge it. It wasn’t just what I was looking at then. The smile the guy had shown me that afternoon made me imagine something that shouldn’t even have been doable: him, massacring the other prisoners all by himself.

And then—a scene that backed up that idea played out right in front of me.

All of a sudden, a big shape sprang up from among the downed prisoners.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! You little shit!”

I didn’t even have to check. Nobody but Gustavo was that big.

Big and fast and tough.

And that charge! There’s nothing I can say about it; it was beautiful.

The guy’s just like a bear, I thought.

He grabbed a nearby table and picked it up one-handed.

Can you believe that?!

A table, pal! A table!

Swinging a chair around one-handed is enough to make you a monster, and he just grabbed a long table that sat four to a side and brandished it like it was a piece of lumber!

“I’ll crushyaaaaargh!”

With a bellow whose pronunciation had gone screwy, he brought the table down on Ladd, who’d just finished drinking the last of his soup.

That would splatter Ladd’s brain and end him. Then the guards with guns would give a warning, and if the guy listened, we’d surround him and thrash him with our saps. If he ignored them, they’d fill him with daylight—The End.

…According to the manual, that was how things should have played out, but no matter what I did, I just couldn’t see it happening.

And well, it definitely didn’t.

There was this weird, messy crunch. Gustavo’s table had splintered and snapped like a pencil. Busted right in two in the blink of an eye, like somebody had ripped it apart.

But, see…Ladd wasn’t there anymore.

In between Gustavo’s burly body and the table he’d brought down…he’d literally gotten right up in his face. That attack had seemed more liable to kill somebody than a lead bullet, but he’d slipped through it, wearing the same smile he’d worn that afternoon!

And then…he smiled.

What did you say? He was already smiling earlier? Well, yeah, but…

I mean… He smiled even wider.

Ladd had just appeared out of the blue, right in front of him, and Gustavo froze, like he was flustered.

Ladd had a perfect opportunity—but he didn’t slug him.

He just shrugged, turned both of his hands palm up, and spoke to us.

“That makes this justified self-defense, yeah?”

And after that, well… To be blunt, it was over in an instant.

He must have thought the guy was making a monkey out of him. Gustavo’s veins popped out even farther, and he raised his other hand, and in that instant—Ladd’s fist sank into his solar plexus…

And he decked him across the room.

The guy was big. He had to weigh more than twice what Ladd did, but he slugged this guy in the stomach and sort of…punched right on through, like he was pushing him.

He rose up into the air, like he was floating. Gustavo did.

Then he flew backward several yards, and when he hit the ground, he coughed up blood and stopped moving.

The guy stopped moving.

A bear of a fella like that… Sure, he’d already gone down once at that point, but…this was just one punch.

I figured he’d slugged him with that iron prosthetic of his. If he had, we would’ve confiscated that hand on the double.

But… But dammit…

He’d slugged Gustavo not with the prosthetic but with his flesh-and-blood right hand. Of course, now that I’m thinking about it, there’s no way he could’ve punched that well with a prosthetic; it woulda dislocated his shoulder.

Yeah… And then…

As I stood there, stunned, he slowly walked up to me, and he said:

“Life is long.”

That’s what he said. You’d have thought he was talking to a good friend he’d spent years with.

I was actually real close to yelling “Stop!” and raising my sap. If I’d had a gun, I might have had it out by then. Yeah—even though the guy was just walking toward me.

“Life is long, ain’t it! You think so, too, don’t you, Mr. Guard-Man?”

He was all worked up, but I had no idea what he meant.

I did wonder, What’s this guy talking about? but more than that, I was just scared out of my skull. What’s the word…? If instinct exists, I think the fear I felt then was my instincts, sounding a warning.

Run, they were saying. Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun.

“I’ve seen tons and tons of guards before now, but…in this pen, you’re the one who’s furthest from dying.”

He spoke slowly, and his words sort of crept up on me.

As that voice slid into my ears, an alarm bell in my head clanged away.

Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun—do it, or you’re gonna die! it told me.

The guards around me looked like they were waiting for me to give him some sort of warning. Dammit, I obviously couldn’t handle that right now! And, you, the fellas with guns, just shoot! —Right then, that’s what I thought, but, well, he was only talking to me, after all. If they’d shot him for that, we would’ve gotten an earful about human rights later.

Only, after thinking it over real well…I think it would’ve been better if somebody actually had shot him dead back then.

…Uh, keep that bit off the record for me.

Let’s see, where was I…? Oh right. He got up close to me, and he started “analyzing” me right out loud.

“Don’t get me wrong; I don’t mean your life is actually long… It’s about spirit. Deep down, you are hilariously oblivious to death. I bet this is what you’re thinking, yeah?—‘In this jail, I’m part of the ruling class. You could say the prisoners’ lives are in my hands. I’m safe. I’ll never die.’ The other guards are all obviously braced for the worst. They think, ‘The prisoners could revolt and kill us at any time,’ but you’re awfully carefree, fella. You deserve a medal for that!”

There was no hostility there. There wasn’t, but dammit… I still picked up on his intent to kill.

Back then, there was murder in the air. I definitely felt it.

“See, Mr. Guard-Man, my hobby—is teaching guys like that a lesson.”

He’s gonna kill me. This guy is gonna kill me. That feeling dominated my entire body, but even so, I couldn’t do a thing, not one thing! The fear! Froze! My feet!

I was completely petrified—and he spoke to me, smiling.

He said this to me, bold as brass, right to me—right in my ears!

“I show ’em that death…is a whole lot closer than they think…”

…Haah. Sorry—I shouldn’t have lost it like that.

When I remember that stuff, even now, I just can’t stop shaking.

From an outsider’s perspective, what he said was just a hood’s threats. Only, when you heard it from him… How do I put this? It was real… Yeah. It felt real.

It was like he wasn’t saying it to threaten me. It was just something he thought, plain and simple, like a little kid…

Huh? What happened then?

Well, they stuck Ladd in solitary after that, of course. It was more of a punishment cell than solitary: Except for a john and the door, there was nothing in it. Not even a bed. It did have a light, so it was nicer than the ones at some other prisons, but even so, a week in one of those was bound to knock the stuffing out of you.

They put Ladd in there for ten days.

But see, while he was in there, I quit my guard job.

I was pretty much running… Normally, they don’t let guards quit that easy, but I was already half-sick, and I made them let me go.

I wanted to bolt before Ladd got out of solitary, no matter what.

…Him? In the end, I hear they did decide to send him to Alcatraz. You know Al Capone, right? They put him in just about that early. I think he’s probably one of the old-timers there… I mean, it’s still only been a few months, but anyway.

I dunno how much more time he has to serve. If he’s not in for murder, he might be out again in a year or two…!

And so, y-y’know…

I’m scared.

Say, do I—I… D-do I look a little frightened to you?

Do I look like I—I know that I’ll d-d-die?

I—I—I, I feel l-like he’s, aaaah, aaaaaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaiiiee, heee’s—he’s coming! Coming! C-coming!

C’mon, answer the question!

I am! I am afraid, like I should be, right?!

My eyes look scared, like I could die tomorrow! Or even right now! Right?!

If they don’t, he’ll come. He’s coming. Even in my dreams, that vicious grin crushes my right eye! And my left! Dammit! My legs, too! My arms! My body! My brain! Even when there’s nothing left, he won’t let me off; he’ll keep crushing something about me, even though there’s nothing left of me—what the hell is he crushing?! Forgive me; I’m scared. I swear, dying is scary… I’m scared, okay, I’m scared—but even if I scream and scream and scream, I can’t get that guy’s voice and eyes out of my hea  AaaaaaAAAh! AAaaaaah! Aaaaah! AAAAAAAaaaaaaAaaaAaaaa-aaaaAa-aaaaah! Aaaah! Aaaah! AaaaAAAaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaah! AAAAAAAAAAH! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…!

…I’m calm. Yeah, I’m okay.

A drink—gimme a drink.

Booze, c’mon, booze, boozeboozeboozebooze…booze… Too much drinking’s bad for my health? It ain’t that easy, genius. Something like liquor could never…

……

No, I might die, huh? I mean, I will die, won’t I?

Okay, you’re right. Dying is scary. I’m scared of dying, scared, scared… Right? C-c’mon; I am, right? Say it…