1932 Drug & The Dominos

by Ryohgo Narita

  Saying something that sounded as though he might be talking to himself, the president telephoned the Gandors’ office.

  “Now then, in the meantime, I’d like all of you to evacuate underground through the sewers. They’re connected to the basement of police headquarters, so if it comes down to it, you can run there.”

  Just before his phone call to Luck went through, he issued a special order to Nicholas and Elean.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d take materials with you when you evacuate. The Daily Days does not suspend publication. We’ll be printing the usual number of copies tomorrow, so act with that in mind, please.”

  “We did it!”

  “Yes, it’s done!”

  By the time the sun had begun to dip slightly toward the west, a geometric design had appeared on the floor of Alveare.

  When Isaac finished setting up the last domino, everyone in the place cheered and applauded.

  “Shh! Wait a minute!”

  “Wait a minute!”

  Putting their index fingers to their lips, the two checked the surrounding cheers.

  “You ain’t seen…”

  “…nothin’ yet!”

  In the midst of a hush, Isaac and Miria put their hands together, one on top of the other, and—

  —slowly pushed the first domino over.

  Gustavo’s vicious kick broke the double doors down.

  The hinges popped off, and the reinforced glass smashed on the floor of the newspaper offices.

  Opening fire right away would only make the cops get there faster. First they’d go in with a few men, take the man at the desk—or the guy who’d helped his subordinates, Nicholas—hostage, then barricade themselves in the reception room and open their attack from two fronts, inside and out. That was the strategy Gustavo had come up with, but…

  The plan had gone wrong right at the start: The ordinary entrance was locked, and they hadn’t been able to get inside the usual way.

  “Move.”

  Shoving his bewildered men aside, Gustavo stood in front of the doors.

  Then, without breaking into a run, he broke down the heavy doors, hinges and all, with a front kick.

  According to the report, all the employees, both reporters and editorial staff, had guns. Gustavo immediately ducked behind the pillar beside the door, but there was no response from inside.

  Several men charged in with weapons at the ready, but as before, nothing happened.

  There wasn’t a sound from the editorial department. Documents were still strewn over the desks, just as they’d been before. Only…the people were gone.

  “…They split?”

  He called out the guy who’d been standing guard, grabbed his collar, and hauled him in close.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I-I—I don’t know! It doesn’t look like anybody slipped out the back, and nobody left through the front!”

  “Nobody?”

  He released the man’s collar and considered the riddle.

  “You’re telling me none of the journos went outside?”

  That was actually weirder. The door had been locked, too; it was almost as if they’d known they were coming—or, no, they’d probably predicted that. In that case, had they made a run for it?

  “…Turn the second and third floors inside out, too. If nobody’s there, we’ll torch this place, then head for the Gandors’ office.”

  Biting off the end of a cigar, he gave orders to his men as he struck a match.

  They probably did run. From what I heard, they sounded like fighters, but I guess they’re smarter than I thought… Not that I’ll let ’em go, though.

  “Grab anything that looks like it might get us their addresses. We’ll torture ’em all later.”

  Cracking the knuckles on both hands, Gustavo headed up to the second floor himself.

  Right about then, one guard had been posted outside the newspaper’s front entrance, and there was another at the back door. The guard at the back entrance was watching the area as if he was bored when the hitman in the long coat spoke to him.

  “Your boss ain’t playing with a full deck.”

  The Mexican girl and the drunk had gone inside with the others, but this man was waiting outside on his own.

  “Maybe this place is on the edge of Chinatown, but even so. He’s planning to blaze away with guns right in the middle of town, in broad daylight? Seriously?”

  “That’s the kind of guy he is. Forget that—you sure you shouldn’t be inside?”

  “Not like this. If the cops showed up and nabbed us, I’d never be able to talk my way out of it.”

  With that, he showed him just a little of the inside of his long coat. When the guard saw its contents, he gulped. Close to ten handguns and rifles were hanging inside, and that was only what he could see.

  “This coat alone weighs sixty pounds. Frankly, I want to just hurry and ice Vino and go home. If I get the job done in three minutes, I’ll be able to make tracks before the cops get here.”

  “You’re short a few marbles yourself.”

  “If there’s any sane guy in this business, I’d like to see ’im.”

  Just then, they noticed several shapes approaching the back door.

  “Good work.”

  The Handyman spoke indifferently and, threatening Roy and Eve with a handgun, made to go through the door.

  “Ain’t that right? Huh, Felix? We always had a few screws loose. Ain’t that the truth? Our heads are always full of crazy, and we do this job because we just can’t get enough of it. Right?”

  The Handyman spat out his response to Long Coat. “I wouldn’t talk about sane or crazy too much if I were you.”

  “Hunh?”

  “It’s just…lame.”

  For a moment, the guy in the trench coat looked stunned, but after he’d watched the Handyman go, he started to follow him into the building.

  “Huh? You’re going in after all?” asked the guard.

  “I’m not that great a shot. Since that’s so, when it comes to bullets, I always fight with quantity.”

  Taking a handgun out of his coat, he gave an ominous smile. His veins were bulging.

  “So, see, if we start a firefight here, and I blow that poser away, I can just say it was a stray bullet. Ha-ha-ha.”

  The man’s eyes held a ferocious hatred, and all the guard could do was watch him go. After the door closed, he muttered just one thing into the alley:

  “Sane, crazy, who cares? All I know for sure is, they’re idiots and morons, every last one.”

  “What’s this, what’s this, what’s this?”

  Having evacuated through the basement, Elean was keeping an eye on things from the roof of a nearby building—until something he’d seen through his binoculars made his eyes go wide.

  “…We may have a bit of a situation on our hands.”

  Turning to Benjamin and the others standing behind him, he broke out in a cold sweat as he said:

  “They’re taking Miss Eve and somebody else into the building.”

  At those words, the butler gave a mute scream. Samantha snatched the binoculars away and looked for herself. “He i’n’t jiving! It’s Missy Eve and some young feller!”

  “L-let me see those.” Edith grabbed the binoculars away. Through their lenses, she recognized some familiar clothes. “Roy!”

  By the time any of them tried to stop her, it was too late: Edith had dashed off toward the stairs she’d just climbed up.

  “Oh, how pretty…”

  As she watched the falling dominos, Ennis’s voice floated up involuntarily.

  The dominos were colored on one side, and as the carpet of tiles fell, their hues changed magnificently.

  “Transforming dominos, huh?” Firo muttered. “It’s kind of a kick to see the colors change all at once like that.”

  They hadn’t found anyone on the second floor either, and before they knew it, Gustavo and his men had all gathered in a big room on the third flo
or.

  It seemed to be a storeroom of sorts; several desks and chairs were clustered haphazardly in a corner.

  “Dammit! So they did run, huh?”

  As Gustavo muttered in irritation, he heard the door shut behind him.

  When he and the others turned to look, a fox-eyed man was standing there. He spoke, revealing a pair of empty hands—

  “Excellent work, gentlemen.”

  When they saw him, confusion appeared on several faces.

  “Who the hell’re you?” Gustavo demanded.

  At those words, it was the fox-eyed man’s turn to look startled. “Good lord. You don’t even know the faces of the people you’re picking a fight with! …To think we had an incompetent like you riding our tail. That’s really pitiful.”

  “What?”

  Before Gustavo could get mad, the meaning of the words unsettled him.

  His men were staring, eyes round, and he shot them a look that asked, Who is this guy?

  And then he knew.

  “Th-that’s not possible! You’re dead! B-back then, in front of that used bookstore— Your throat got—”

  “Cut, yes. Yes, it did. Well, that doesn’t matter; I came to talk to you today. All three of us came to you, together, personally. I hope we can expect a sincere answer from you, Mr. Gustavo.”

  With those words as the signal, two more shapes appeared in the room. Both had materialized before the others were aware of it, one from the shadow of the curtains, the other from the darkness by the mountain of piled-up desks… Although it was possible they’d been there the whole time.

  “You… I’m pretty sure this ain’t it, but are you the Gandor brothers?” With a look as if he were seeing aliens, Gustavo took his shotgun out of his coat. “And whaddaya mean, you came to talk?”

  “Well, it’s quite straightforward, really. At this point, Mr. Gustavo, you don’t matter.” Ignoring the big man, Luck addressed the dozen or so people behind him: “It’s a simple offer. Would you come over to our side? That’s all.”

  Those outrageous words left everyone in the room, except for the Gandors, speechless.

  “Just answer yes or no. That’s easy, isn’t it?”

  Regaining their composure little by little, the men started to snicker.

  “Are you an idiot? Like that would ever—”

  Interrupting Gustavo’s laugh, Luck spoke again.

  “We’ve come to an agreement with Mr. Bartolo.”

  This time, all eyes focused on Luck.

  “What…are you talking about?”

  “Mr. Gustavo, it sounds as though you’ve done quite a number of things when your boss wasn’t looking.”

  “……”

  “Little things. You know. When you dealt drugs on our turf, you created two layers of middlemen and took protection money from both, without reporting it to Mr. Bartolo.”

  Using this system, first he’d sell to his pet dealers at the wholesale prices he’d reported to Bartolo. Then, instead of putting the drugs directly on the market, he’d have them distributed to dealers in the lower tier, and at that point the retail prices doubled. Then Gustavo would quietly absorb a good percentage of the profit.

  On being informed of that fact, Gustavo and the handful of his men who’d been aware of it began to look agitated. When they saw this, the people around them started to mutter.

  “Settle down! He ain’t got proof! This guy’s just bluffing!”

  “We’re getting the proof now, as we speak.”

  “What?”

  “We were waiting for all your forces to assemble here. In the meantime, our men are taking control of your drug dens. It’s a suppression maneuver.”

  The mutter grew louder. As if launching an additional blow, Luck delivered the coup de grâce. He’d been intentionally spreading rumors around town for the past several days in preparation for this moment.

  “Anyone who sides with us here will be free to go afterward. If you’d like to join our outfit, we’ll welcome you, and Mr. Bartolo says that no subordinates who return to his organization will be punished, either. On the other hand, if you stay and become our enemies—”

  Luck paused for a moment, smiling thinly and narrowing his already vulpine eyes.

  “—all such persons will immediately become targets for Vino.”

  The muttering stopped, and the men looked at one another. They were clearly torn.

  Seeing this, Gustavo, his face expressionless, grabbed a nearby underling and hauled him up.

  “What are you hesitating for?”

  “Yeee…!”

  Lifting the man by the head with one hand, he slammed his face into the floor.

  There was a very unpleasant noise. Even an amateur could have seen that the bones of his face were broken.

  “Your options are kill all the witnesses today, or die by my hand right now. Ain’t that right?”

  “Violent, violent… Your men will hate you, you know.”

  Not looking the least bit disturbed by that taunt, Gustavo kept the people around him pinned with his gaze alone.

  “Well, for now, we’ll kill you three here.”

  Even as he spoke, he took a step toward Luck.

  “This after I told you we’d come to talk? We haven’t even drawn our guns.”

  “Because if you used a gun, you’d bring the cops down on us. That goes for both of us.”

  “True.”

  “In other words, the first guy to draw his piece loses.”

  “I suppose those would be the rules, yes.”

  Laughing self-deprecatingly, Gustavo spoke with a brisk smile:

  “I lose.”

  A roar. A tremendous impact split the room, and a red spray of blood drifted in front of Gustavo.

  Luck’s head had been blown off, and his unbalanced body slammed into the wall.

  “You fellas are next. Draw. I’ll give you that much time.”

  Saying a line that felt a bit dated, he turned the shotgun’s muzzle on Keith.

  Berga, his face expressionless, walked over to Luck’s body and looked down at the surface of his little brother’s neck, as if he was waiting for something.

  “Hunh. Taking your time saying good-bye?”

  Gustavo snorted and began to walk toward Keith, but at the sound of the trembling voice of one of his men, he stopped.

  “Mr. Gustavo, w-wait—”

  “What, you want me to kill you first that bad?”

  “No! Look! Look!”

  The voice sounded as if it was at its wits’ end, and turning back, he saw quite a sight.

  The situation was incredibly abnormal.

  He was arrested by a strange sensation, as though he were watching the film A Trip to the Moon.

  Without a sound, it had begun to gather where Luck’s head should have been.

  Like prey being carried back to an anthill, bright-red fragments of flesh, white bone, and whitish-pink brain were coming together. Muscle and bone took shape, and teeth and eyes settled into place within them, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

  “What…the…?” Gustavo felt his throat rapidly going dry. Desperately, he tried to swallow down saliva, but his throat only squeezed tight.

  “Hey. Wake up.” Luck’s head had completely regained its former shape, and Berga gently poked it with his toe.

  “Nn…” As if he’d been asleep, Luck stretched hugely.

  Berga and Keith watched him as though this was perfectly normal.

  “I thought so. My instincts really are getting dull. To think I couldn’t even avoid a thing like that…”

  Getting up as though nothing had happened, Luck turned to his speechless audience and began to persuade them again.

  “All right. What are you going to do? Will you join us, or would you rather die here?”

  A movie monster made real had completely stolen the souls of Gustavo’s underlings.

  However, only Gustavo’s men had been rendered mentally incapable of fighting.

  A
golden shadow leaped from the group and passed by Luck, and in its wake, a silver streak swept through his arm.

  “Gkh…”

  The sleeve of Luck’s suit slipped off, and a red line ran across his arm.

  He hastily grabbed the arm with his other one and held it in place; if he’d been a moment later, it would have fallen to the floor.

  As she watched the red line rapidly disappear, the Mexican girl whistled.

  “That’s an interesting body you’ve got there, amigo!”

  He’d had no time to avoid that attack. If she came at him again, he still wasn’t sure he’d be able to parry it.

  Even as he narrowed his eyes at the unexpected ambush, Luck managed to keep calm and speak:

  “If you want to be friends, miss, why not join our side?”

  At those words, the girl gave a brilliant smile and shook her head.

  “No can do, amigo. If I did that, I might not get to meet Vino! If I keep slicing you up here, though, I’ll meet him for sure, right?”

  So that was what this was. It made sense to Luck.

  He’d been expecting Gustavo to call in some outside help, but he hadn’t thought there were any contract killers like this, aside from Claire.

  When he took a closer look, one other person seemed relatively calm: a man with a small liquor bottle near the back of the group… Although, technically, he might just have been drunk.

  As if to strike an additional blow, someone else came in through the door.

  “Sorry to interrupt when you’re busy.”

  A whiskered man with glasses entered, bringing a man and woman with him.

  The woman was still young enough to call a girl; the guy was pretty young, too, and he looked unhealthy. Luck and Keith didn’t recognize either of them.

  A man wearing a long coat followed them in. His eyes were filled with hate, and for some reason, his gaze was fixed on the bearded man.

  “Here you go: Eve Genoard and Roy Maddock.”

  Gustavo felt certain that the appearance of the Handyman had turned the tables for him, and composure returned to his face.