1932 Drug & The Dominos

by Ryohgo Narita

  Here was the hitman said to be the strongest of them all, denying the art of the trade. Yet neither the old man nor the Mexican girl could find a retort for those unfair statements.

  “You get drunk on your own useless preaching, but you don’t believe in anybody. Sure, I’ll fight you. If you think I’m wrong, prove your pride or whatever it is with your strength. I’ll show you that scum is always just plain scum—”

  The taunt abruptly broke off.

  A single handgun, black and gleaming, had been set against the back of Vino’s head.

  Feeling the muzzle through his hair, Vino murmured, without seeming particularly flustered:

  “Keith.”

  From behind him, his sworn brother answered that murmur.

  “Don’t scoff at how folks live.”

  The words Keith spoke made the most dangerous hitman close his eyes softly, and he sighed.

  “These guys and you guys are fundamentally different, you know…”

  “No different.” Even as he chose the fewest words possible, Keith didn’t give his hitman room to argue back. “They’re hoods…just like us.”

  Seeming not to care that someone had a gun on him, Vino scratched his head lightly and turned around. As he looked into Keith’s eyes, none of the deadly light from a moment ago was visible in the reflection of his own.

  “All right. I’m sorry. I forgot you’re a stickler for that dumb pride stuff, too.”

  Contrary to his words, Vino’s—Claire’s—tone didn’t hold the slightest contempt.

  Abruptly, the intent to kill ignited in Keith’s eyes, and he slipped past Claire.

  There was a dull noise, and behind him, Claire sensed something fall over.

  When he turned around, without any unease or doubt, he saw exactly what he’d expected to see.

  The old man had crept up behind Claire and Keith while they were distracted, and Keith’s powerful kick had slammed him to the floor. Then, as if to finish him off, he stomped on him, right over his liver.

  A low groan leaked out of the man’s throat, and he stopped moving.

  “Hey, be nice to old people.”

  Claire was laughing as he spoke. Expressionless, Keith muttered:

  “……Enemies are enemies.”

  On hearing that answer, Claire grinned, satisfied.

  “I dunno about the other two, but you may be cut out for the mafia after all.”

  “And? What’ll you do, kid?”

  Berga, who’d been watching, spoke to the Mexican girl, who’d retrieved her katana. “……Too cool.”

  “Hunh?”

  One of Berga’s eyebrows lowered in a scowl. The Mexican girl answered his question with a question, although her eyes were still on Keith:

  “Say, amigo. That promise the fox-eyed guy was talking about… Is that offer still good?”

  What should I do? I lost Roy…

  When the man with whiskers and glasses had told her to hide, Eve had gone down to the first floor and hidden in the reception room, but when she turned around, Roy wasn’t there. Had he gone outside ahead of her, or had she left him behind?

  She was reluctant to go out to look for him now. The gunshots from the third floor echoed all the way down where she was, and it felt as if she’d wandered into a talkie about a war.

  She couldn’t run, though. Roy had gotten pulled into this because she’d selfishly insisted on seeing the Gandors. She couldn’t just hide here all by herself.

  I have to find him.

  When Eve was about to cautiously open the reception room door, a figure appeared in its window.

  She thought it was Roy at first, but it was much too large.

  Sensing danger, she backed away, and in that instant, the door was kicked in with a bang.

  “Eeeeeeeeek!”

  With a piercing scream, Eve sank to the floor, right where she was.

  The heavy door had slammed into the spot where she’d been standing a moment ago. The frosted glass that was set into the door had broken into large shards and scattered, and the doorknob had come apart into pieces that bounced and rolled across the floor.

  “Pipe down, little girl.”

  Although the door certainly hadn’t been small, the man who came in bent down to go through it.

  The light had vanished from Gustavo’s eyes, and his imposing presence felt inhuman.

  “Here I thought things had gotten real simple, and now they’re complicated again.”

  He shook his head dramatically, creeping closer, little by little, to where Eve sat on the floor.

  “Should I say it’s nice to meet you, maybe? A little Genoard girl, thinking she could set me up… You really pushed your luck, didn’t you?”

  Eve didn’t know what he was talking about. Who in the world was this man?

  All she managed to understand was that the look in his eyes wasn’t right as he fixated hideous hatred on her.

  “What did I ever do to you, huh? You got a chance to live normally. Why’d you have to throw your life away on something this pointless?”

  The man held a shotgun in his hands, and slowly, he turned the muzzle toward Eve’s face.

  “Don’t tell me you’re a monster, too?”

  Her body froze with terror. She wanted to run, but her legs wouldn’t move.

  Seeing this, Gustavo smiled as if he was relieved.

  “I guess not. That’s good to hear.”

  He could have just blown her head off right there, but simply killing her wouldn’t be enough.

  I’ll kill her in front of the Gandors. Either way, I’m gonna have to kill ’em all now. There’s no way in hell I’m running or dying. I’ll slaughter everyone who helped set me up. Those worthless underlings, that bastard Begg, and even Don Bartolo.

  Intending to crush the bones in her legs so she couldn’t run off, Gustavo raised his foot high.

  “This is for the speakeasy.”

  The voice and the impact hit him at the same time.

  A dull shock ran through the back of Gustavo’s head, and his huge body lurched violently.

  Since he’d had one foot raised, he hadn’t been able to brace himself immediately.

  “The gambling den.”

  A second impact ran through the side of his head. It felt as if he was being struck with some sort of sharp object. The sensation was more hot than painful, like being hit directly with a blazing iron bar.

  Dropping the shotgun, he put his right hand to the wound. There was a fierce pain and the skin-crawling sensation of touching raw meat with his fingers.

  “The betting parlor.”

  He turned back toward the voice, trying to land a blow on its owner.

  However, the weapon slipped past his fist and bore down on him in a counterstrike.

  It was one of the editorial department’s wooden chairs.

  Its corner hit him in the face, and Gustavo felt his cheekbone break.

  His torso began to keel over backward, but he managed to stay on his feet, using only the strength in his legs.

  While he was in that position, the corner of the chair came down on his face again.

  “Nicola’s wound.”

  Once he’d fallen on his ass, Luck hit him with an insurance strike.

  Holding the chair’s legs with both hands, he raised it all the way up over his back.

  Then he brought it down full force, without holding back the slightest bit, onto Gustavo’s face—although the man seemed as if he might already be unconscious.

  “And that’s for my blown-off head.”

  All Eve could do in response to this sudden turn of events was avert her eyes.

  The fox-eyed man who’d appeared from behind Gustavo was mercilessly rearranging the giant’s face.

  When Gustavo had gone completely still, the man finally noticed her. Seeming a little troubled, he looked away. But then, in the next instant, he held a hand out to Eve.

  “It looked as if he was going to kill you; I couldn’t help myself.
It was justified defense.”

  The man smiled pleasantly, but Eve truly couldn’t bring herself to thank him.

  “Ah, erm, please don’t be so frightened.” Luck watched the girl in front of him with worried eyes. “Well, this is a problem. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He’d put out a hand, intending to help her up, but she didn’t seem at all willing to take it.

  If she’d been a passing stranger, he could simply have left her, but there was a reason he couldn’t do that:

  “You’re a guest of my sister-in-law Kate, aren’t you? I’m, uh, her younger brother-in-law. Luck Gandor.”

  At those words, he saw the girl stop trembling.

  Oh, good. Hearing Kate’s name seems to have put her mind at ease.

  That was what Luck thought, but the emotion in the girl’s eyes wasn’t relief by any means.

  “Um… Are you Mr. Gandor, the…leader of the mafia professionals?”

  “‘Mafia professionals’? That’s, erm… And leader isn’t technically… Well, I suppose it’s something like that.”

  “Please! There’s something I really…really and truly need to ask you!”

  Steeling herself, the girl asked Luck a question that cut straight to the heart of the matter:

  “My brother—is my brother Dallas alive?”

  When Luck heard the particulars of the situation from Eve, memories of the past rose in his mind.

  Dallas. Who’d have thought he’d hear that name here…

  The girl had come all this way, to a place this dangerous, just to find that man, her brother. She’d known what a risk she was taking and had braced herself accordingly; that was probably why the fear had gone out of her face. That fact alone vividly illustrated the strength of her resolve.

  Luck sensed that inept lies and evasions probably wouldn’t work on her. Even if they did, she’d spend her whole life searching for her brother at random.

  Luck, who had also steeled himself, turned intense eyes on the girl and began to tell her a few of the facts.

  “Whether you believe me or not, this won’t be easy for you to hear, but…your brother is no longer an ordinary human.”

  He told her that, one year ago, after being caught up in a certain incident, her older brother had gained an imperfect immortality that had rendered him unable to die of anything except old age; he’d gone on to use that body to kill four of Luck’s comrades.

  And that afterward…as a forced atonement, they’d sunk him and his friends to the bottom of the river, still alive.

  At first, Eve hadn’t been able to believe the part about immortal bodies, but when Luck cut his finger with a knife and she watched it regenerate, she was forced to admit that it was true.

  Complicated emotions passed through her heart. Joy that her brother was alive. And at the thought that he was suffering even now, something like hatred for the man in front of her welled up inside her. However, it was probably true that her brother had killed his friends. Eve knew better than anyone that that was the sort of man he was. Even though she’d known, she hadn’t been able to do anything, and she knew part of the blame for the consequences lay with her. However, even if she understood that, there was nothing she could do about her feelings.

  “Why— Why? Why must my brother keep suffering like that? Couldn’t you just have the police pass judgment on his crimes? And you still, even so… Hasn’t it been long enough? Please, my brother and his friends—please forgive them. At least give them the right to be judged by the law. I’m begging you, please!”

  The girl in front of him was on the verge of hysteria. Luck looked down, holding absolutely still.

  In a sense, what she said was right. He knew that. However, just as Eve was giving priority to her feelings, Luck had simply followed his as well. During that incident, the one who’d felt the fiercest rage among the three brothers had been Luck himself.

  “I doubt you could understand our world, so I’ll tell you about what I feel, nothing more… That wouldn’t be enough to quench my anger. Not even if, in the future, they go to trial and are punished by the law. It won’t bring my dead comrades back. I did this because I can’t forgive them. That’s all it is. If you hate me, you’re welcome to do so. Hate me all you like. Just as it won’t bring your brother back, the dead won’t return, either. My pain won’t disappear.”

  Luck was speaking calmly, but his emotions were on the verge of exploding. Even after all this time, his anger over the murder of his friends hadn’t abated. However, he understood what she’d said as well. It wouldn’t have been odd for an ordinary mafioso to silence her on the spot.

  Maybe this was part of what Claire meant when he said Luck wasn’t suited for the mafia.

  “But that’s…that’s just selfish! I don’t understand your world or your feelings. If this eases the pain in your heart, then what am I supposed to do with mine?! I only—I only want you to give my brother back!”

  Her anger was justified. Luck took her words in, quietly.

  “Please! You can hurt me instead, as much as you want, so please, please…”

  On hearing those words, Luck hardened his expression, and his tone grew a little more forceful.

  “I’ll thank you not to think that someone like you would be enough to calm my anger… Forget him. If you want to stab me or shoot me, be my guest; I’ll take it. However, let your grudge end with me. If you attempt to strike anyone else—”

  Luck swallowed the rest of the sentence. What am I saying?

  As if to demonstrate that the discussion was over, Luck shook his head and began to stand up.

  “If this anger subsides, years from now…then, perhaps…”

  The words didn’t seem to satisfy Eve, but there was probably no help for that. He’d decided to accept it and wrap things up, when—

  “!”

  Abruptly, Eve’s eyes widened in shock.

  By the time he registered the shadow standing behind him, it was too late: The reception room sofa came down on Luck’s head.

  Gustavo, his face covered with blood, was wielding a sofa that was as long as he was tall.

  He’d picked up the enormous sofa, which must have weighed two hundred pounds, as if it were a thin futon. One attack from it was duller than a blow from the wooden chair, but in exchange, the impact was massive.

  For a moment, Luck’s consciousness dimmed, and Gustavo swept his enormous weapon at him sideways.

  The tremendous mass was being swung around at the same speed with which Luck had swung the wooden chair. As he took the direct attack, his body rose into the air, then flew to the side.

  “Gagh…!”

  Luck slammed into the wall, back first, dominated by the impact.

  Somehow managing to get up, staggering on wobbly legs, he looked in Gustavo’s direction.

  The bloodied man was glaring at Luck with glittering eyes that held nothing but the intent to kill.

  “Play me for a sucker… Every last one of you, playing me for a fucking suckerrrrrrr!” Hurling the sofa to the floor, he gave a roar that sounded like a scream.

  Then, abruptly, he smiled and began to speak in broken tones—“I’ll twist your head off and mash it and fry it in oil and lock it in a safe and throw it in the ocean, over and over and over.”

  “It looks like he’s snapped… Dammit, Berga’s usually the one who handles this type.” A trickle of sweat ran down Luck’s face, and he took a handgun out of his jacket. “I guess it won’t be possible to settle this peacefully.”

  Shaking his head, he aimed at the charging giant and pulled the trigger.

  A series of gunshots rang out, and six holes opened in Gustavo’s body. All of them were right on target, from his chest to his stomach, and his death should have been assured.

  …But Gustavo’s feet kept moving.

  “Not gonna work not gonna work not gonna work not gonna work! Small fry like you, little shit-fish like you, you don’t even get to exist when I’m around! Bullets that ain’
t there don’t work on meeeeeAAAaaah!”

  “That’s insane!”

  A fist sank into Luck’s stomach. As he crumpled to the floor, a kick with enough force to destroy a door slammed into his face.

  Luck’s head was dashed against the floor, and Gustavo’s enormous foot stomped down on his body, again and again.

  “ScramscramscramscramscramaaAAAAaaaah!”

  With an inhuman holler, he brought his foot down on Luck’s ribs, crushing them to pieces.

  When he saw that Luck had stopped moving, his eyes finally turned to Eve.

  Eve’s legs had gone weak with terror again, and Gustavo gave her a brutal smile.

  “You, too, little girl. I’ll feed you to the fishes in Newark Bay, just like I did with your daddy and your brother.”

  For a moment, Eve couldn’t understand what the man had said.

  “What’s with that look, huh? Didn’t you know? Ain’t that why you tried to set me up, because you knew?”

  Seeing the blood drain from the girl’s face, Gustavo realized that apparently, that was the truth.

  “Hah! If you don’t know, then lemme fill you in. Your daddy and the rest started jawing about how they were gonna stop refining drugs, so I dusted them with my own two hands! I killed your folks before I drowned ’em, but I’ll turn you into fish bait slowly, while you’re still alive, and drop you into the bay bit by bit.”

  Gustavo smiled evilly. Gradually, Eve made sense of his words. Then, when she fully understood what he meant, her heart went pure white.

  In the instant when all sorts of things seemed about to burst inside her, a voice spoke. It was weak but steady.

  “Quit saying pointless things, please.”

  Behind Gustavo, Luck’s ribs had finished regenerating, and he got up.

  He didn’t seem to have completely recovered yet; his breathing was rough, and simply standing looked as if it hurt him. “Someone who considers himself a member of society’s underbelly, bragging about murder to an honest citizen? You couldn’t be more dead to shame, could you? That’s why both Bartolo and your men abandoned you.”

  “You rotten little punk…!”

  As if the words had enraged him, Gustavo ran at Luck with tremendous force, hauling him up by the shirtfront until he was close to the ceiling.