1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local

by Ryohgo Narita

  They opened the door, but there really was nobody there. Only the cutting winter air, which seemed to seep into their bodies.

  The cold cooled his head, and Isaac remembered that one of the voices he’d just heard had mentioned a name that bothered him.

  “…Making a monkey of the great Ladd Russo…”

  “…The great Ladd Russo…”

  “…Ladd Russo…”

  “Russo…?”

  He knew that name.

  Isaac and Miria were robbers. Just that morning, they’d stolen a large amount of money from mafia couriers…

  “Miria, that money we got today. Which mafia did it belong to again?”

  “The Russo Family!”

  His bad feeling had been right on the mark.

  Then the screws in Isaac’s head guided him to an entirely wrong conclusion.

  “I see… That group of white suits must be after us!”

  “Eeeeeek! Pursuers!”

  Miria shivered so dramatically that it seemed as if she really had to be faking it. Isaac hugged her shoulders tightly, nodding firmly.

  “It’s all right. We’ll make a clean getaway. Both from those white suits and from the Rail Tracer!”

  “That’s another good reason to find Jacuzzi and the conductor as quickly as possible!”

  “Well, it won’t be long now. There’re almost no people past this point…”

  Abruptly, Isaac had a thought.

  It was true: There were almost no people past this point.

  In that case, the one who had fallen victim to Ladd’s rifle was

  “Waaaaaugh! Jacuzzi! Stay with me! It’s just a flesh wound!”

  “Your wound is going to be just fine!”

  Yelling unconfirmed information, the pair dashed to the entrance to the freight room in the center of the corridor.

  However.

  “Huh? There’s nobody here.”

  “Yes, it’s deserted!”

  There wasn’t a single person in the room. No one living, no one injured, not even a corpse.

  “That’s strange. From the way they were talking, it sounded as though somebody had been shot dead in here.”

  “Yes, like someone had brought up some sort of deal, and they’d turned them down and killed them!”

  Radiating question marks, the two investigated the room, but they didn’t find a single tiny bloodstain.

  Under the circumstances, their unease grew.

  There was definitely something that was neither a black suit nor a white suit lurking on this train.

  As that fancy grew closer to certainty, they moved faster in their search for Jacuzzi.

  Meanwhile, Jacuzzi was in the completely opposite direction from Isaac and Miria. He’d made his way through the second-class carriages and had reached the area just before the dining car.

  They stopped at the front of the carriage for a moment, and Nice went out onto the connecting platform to reconnoiter.

  Partway there, she found the corpse of a white suit, but she didn’t pause for very long.

  It had been slashed across the back with a sharp blade, so she’d determined it was probably the work of the black suits.

  True, both the black suits and Ladd’s group were dangerous, but the most terrifying thing was the Rail Tracer—the “something” that lurked on the train.

  “What do things look like in the dining car?”

  “Not good. There are two guards, and they both have machine guns at the ready. I don’t mean they’re holding them; they’re ready to fire.”

  After going to peek in through the window, Nice delivered her report. Jacuzzi considered.

  “Does it look as though all the people who were in the dining car earlier are still there?”

  “Well…”

  Nice hesitated for a moment; then she made up her mind and spoke.

  “I’m not sure about the people who were sitting at the tables, but everyone who was at the counter is gone.”

  “Huh? Wh-what do you mean?”

  From what Nice had seen, Isaac, Miria, Czes, and the Beriams—who had all been at the counter—were gone. They might have been in her blind spot, but it was a fact that none of them was at the counter anymore.

  “They might have been taken off somewhere…”

  Jacuzzi’s expression had clouded. Nick asked him a simple question:

  “Are those guys friends of yours? Well, that’s fine, but… I mean, hey, they might just have made them sit down at a table, y’know?”

  Nice objected to that idea. Since she was talking to Nick, even under these circumstances, she meticulously parsed out casual speech and polite speech to the appropriate listener; Nick received the latter.

  “Although the Beriams are one thing, that wouldn’t be possible with Mr. Isaac and Miss Miria. True, my eyesight is poor, but—”

  Adjusting her glasses, she spoke firmly.

  “—I could never mistake Mr. Isaac’s flamboyant gunman outfit or Miss Miria’s bright-red dress for anything else.”

  What the heck? Nick made a face, and Donny nodded emphatically.

  “Aah, they’re really people that weird?”

  Just then, Jacuzzi and the others heard a small moan.

  For a moment, they tensed, but apparently the moan had come from Donny’s shoulder.

  “Jack!”

  Maybe the blood on his face had begun to dry; there was a small crackling noise as Jack slowly began to speak.

  “…Donny, you bonehead… We just…ran into…those guys, remember?”

  Apparently, his mind and sight had recovered slightly by that point; he remembered the exchange between Donny and Isaac.

  “What do you mean? Donny? You met them a little bit ago?”

  “Aah.”

  As he desperately focused the memories that slept in his head, a clear vision of a little while ago rose in Donny’s mind.

  “Mrrgh, right, yeah, good guys, couple. Met when Jacuzzi and rest were on roof. Man, gunman. Woman, red clothes. Thought me Rail Tracer.”

  “Ah! That’s Isaac and Miria! It’s them for sure! A-and? Where did they go?”

  “Ngh, looking for friend. Save from Rail Tracer. Said they going to conductors’ room.”

  On hearing this, Jacuzzi felt the blood drain from his face.

  To save me? Through this deathtrap of a train?

  What a thing to happen. What was that business about how he was going to save everyone, how he was going to beat both the black suits and the monster? He’d talked tough, and yet, in the end, he was putting friends he’d just met in terrible danger.

  Not only that—not only that! If they’d gone to the conductors’ room while his group had been up on the roof, it meant they must have run into Ladd and his friends.

  “Aah, no worry, Jacuzzi. I told watch out for white suits. They okay, probably.”

  “I told you, ‘probably’ isn’t good enough! This is awful… I’ve got to go back, now!”

  Deciding to dash through those dangerous cars yet again, Jacuzzi issued orders to Nice and the others.

  “Nice and Nick, you go over the roof and see what things are like on the other side of the dining car. Whatever you do, don’t get reckless and do something crazy! Donny, you come with me—no; first take Jack and—”

  “Rrgh, ngh… Don’t worry about me… Just toss me into one of the passenger compartments… That’ll be easier on me, too.”

  It hurt, but under the circumstances, they had no choice but to accept Jack’s request.

  “—All right. Then, Nice, I’m going. I’ll come back, I promise, so don’t you guys push yourselves, either!”

  Jacuzzi and Nice exchanged a brief kiss, and then he turned back toward the rear cars with Donny.

  As he watched them go, Nick casually ribbed the girl beside him:

  “Hubba-hubba, Miz Nice.”

  “……That was the first time.”

  “Huh?”

  Watching Nick—who had a seriously weird expressi
on on his face—out of the corner of her eye, Nice went out onto the connecting platform and began to climb up to the roof.

  Chasing after her, Nick pressed the issue in a whisper.

  “The first time? But you and Jacuzzi have been going steady for ten years, right? And you haven’t kissed once? Man, Jacuzzi, being a coward’s one thing, but there are limits. And you, too, Miz Nice…”

  He called Nice “Miz Nice,” but didn’t show any particular respect for his boss, Jacuzzi. Ignoring the grumbling Nick, Nice stood up on the roof.

  The wind pressure was nearly suffocating. At some point, the train had left the woods, and a barren wasteland spread under the moonlight. The landscape reflected the moon’s light faintly, exerting a subtle allure all its own.

  There were no obstacles up ahead, at any rate, but it would be bad if they staggered on curves and ended up stamping loudly.

  Just to be on the safe side, Nice and Nick decided to crawl over the roof of the dining car.

  A first-class room at the very front. Into this room, where Mrs. Beriam was being held captive, her daughter was thrown, with her hands tied behind her back.

  “Mary!”

  The lady gave a cry that was almost a scream. Goose smiled at her, patronizingly.

  “Ha-ha. Does that set your mind at ease? We’ve rescued your daughter from those detestable white suits.”

  Mrs. Beriam glared at him with steady eyes. Not seeming particularly concerned, Goose pragmatically informed her of their future plans.

  “All right. Tomorrow morning, this train will cross a bridge. If a signal rocket goes up from that bridge, for the time being, you two will be saved. Only for the time being, however.”

  “……?”

  “There are negotiations, you see. We can’t negotiate from the train, so I have subordinates negotiating with your husband.”

  Clasping his hands behind him, he eyed the mother and daughter appraisingly.

  “If your husband proves uncooperative, in order to demonstrate that our actions are no mere threat, understand that we will be leaving your daughter’s corpse on the rails.”

  “No…!”

  “Do refrain from telling us to kill you instead. There’s no particular reason, but it’s a nuisance, so let me state in advance that the answer is no. In addition, note that your daughter will also be killed if we notice attempted police interference on the tracks. Thank you for your cooperation. Just so you are aware, she will be shot, so prepare yourself.”

  Having said all he had to say, Goose left the room. Mrs. Beriam didn’t hurl abuse at his back. His attitude had been enough to show her that it would be pointless, and she knew that if she did something ill-advised, the lives of the other passengers would be in danger.

  Seeing her, Chané, who was in the corner of the room, quietly looked away.

  With eyes that seemed to be grieving over something, or possibly contemptuous, she gazed steadily into space.

  Jacuzzi and Donny got Jack settled in a nearby second-class passenger compartment, then ran off toward the rear of the train.

  Left behind, Jack turned his throbbing face to the ceiling and breathed deeply. He’d said he’d be fine, but his face felt as if it could burst at any minute. His swollen eyelids were pressing down on his tender eyeballs, and they hurt, too.

  Aah, I might actually die like this.

  It wasn’t his life flashing before his eyes, but his brain had begun to project memories from his past onto the ceiling.

  One old memory from his childhood was the image of the time he’d buried his parents, who’d died of malnutrition, under the floor of their room. Among the poor, who couldn’t even afford graves, this was something everyone did as a matter of course. There were probably thousands and thousands of their mortal remains under the floors of the tumbledown tenements that served as immigrant dens.

  After that, he’d teamed up with Nick, one of the neighborhood brats, and they’d gotten up to all sorts of trouble.

  It’s weird for me to be saying this, but we were such lousy jerks that just looking at us would make you want to beat us to death… If the me from now met the me from back then, I wonder what I’d do with him. Would I beat him to death, or would I quietly hug that brat close and sob like an idiot?

  What was it, about half a year ago now? When we met Jacuzzi in Chicago, at first I thought he was just a lame, sniveling punk. He was blabbing about making liquor and attracting people, and I thought if it all went well, I could be the boss and make my own mafia outfit. Man, was I an idiot.

  At this point, Jack hadn’t noticed it, but on the top bunk of the bunk bed in the corner of the room, a gray shadow had sat up.

  Still, when it came right down to it, that guy was the smartest of all of us, and he never abandoned us lousy morons. What a good-natured idiot.

  All he does is whimper, and yet in the end, he always worries about us more than himself. He’s the type who’s never gonna be happy as long as he lives, and that’s a fact. And now we can’t leave that idiot alone, so we’ll probably never be happy, either.

  Aah, am I seriously gonna die here? Those jerks Jon and Fang bringing in information nobody asked ’em for… And it’s not even gold bars or stacks of bills, either; wanting something dangerous like that is just… No, I guess it’s Miz Nice the serial bomber who wants it. Jacuzzi’s going out of his way to steal those new explosives because he’s worried about the citizens of New York City, guys he’s never even met. Man, all of us, even me… We’re all hopeless idiots, dammit.

  Then the memories that had been projected onto the ceiling abruptly vanished.

  Jack’s swollen eyelids had cut his field of vision down by half. All his eyes had shown him was the ceiling, and then a big gray mass had leaped into view.

  The mass seemed to be shaped like a human. He was dressed oddly, like a magician, and except for a small patch of skin color that was visible on his face, he was completely swathed in gray cloth.

  Strangely, Jack felt no fear. Moving his aching jaw, he asked the magician a question:

  “…Oh. Are you Death? That Grim Reaper fella? Hold it, I’m still fine, I can still go, I’m not through yet… I’m just gonna rest a little, and then I’ve gotta go save Jacuzzi and the others. One half of that team’s a crybaby and the other half’s an idiot, so if I’m not there, it’s not gonna go well. So listen, Death, I’m gonna go save him, so Jacuzzi’s not gonna die. Don’t you dare take him by mistake… How d’ya like…them apples…?”

  Saying this, Jack smiled quietly.

  The man with a face like a corpse, a pale face decorated with bright-red blood, had definitely smiled.

  On seeing that smile, the man he’d called Death also smiled softly.

  “I see, young man. You want to live, do you?”

  So saying, the gray man opened the bag he’d set down beside him.

  “It’s good to think you’d like to live while you’re still young. To be honest, I envy you.”

  Someone was watching them quietly.

  “It” was pressed to the outside of the window, and in the moonlight, its shape was…

  Red. An ominous figure, dyed a deep, dark red.

  It was like a bottle in the shape of a human, filled with crimson wine.

  Nice and Nick had made it across the dining car roof and had carefully crossed to the next car via the connecting platform.

  It wasn’t a distance they couldn’t have jumped, but they were worried they’d end up making a ruckus up top, so they’d descended to go to the next car.

  The smoke from the locomotive’s smokestack was beginning to obscure the moonlight, and the color of the darkness was deepening.

  When their hands touched the roof, they turned black with soot. Even so, they crawled on through the darkness.

  How much time had passed? For a little while now, they’d been able to see a slight split in the blackness.

  It was the coupling. Light was probably seeping out through the window below.

&
nbsp; At that point, Nice stiffened midmotion.

  Wrong. Something was wrong.

  The feeling that something was off swept over her, ranting and raving inside her mind. Something was wrong; something was dangerous.

  Trying to discover the true form of that feeling, she adjusted her glasses, straining her left eye.

  “M-Miz Nice…”

  Nick’s eyes were sharp, and apparently, he’d spotted the feeling’s true shape first.

  A cross wind blew, temporarily clearing away the smoke above the car.

  Then they realized the identity of the trouble.

  Beyond the light that filtered through. At the tail end of the car, just in front of them.

  She was standing there.

  Her hand held a naked knife, and her eyes seemed to have absorbed all the darkness around her.

  A murderous doll in a black dress.

  As she stood in the midst of the soot and smoke, Chané’s figure merged exquisitely with the surrounding darkness, to the point where it seemed to exude a kind of beauty.

  “…That isn’t good.”

  A trickle of cold sweat rolled down Nice’s cheek, but the blustering wind whisked the drops away.

  She could probably take one of the bombs out of her shirt. However, it was very likely that she’d be stabbed by that knife before she could light it. As the woman stood quietly in the darkness, her figure showed them, with terrible clarity, that she was not an amateur at combat.

  Nice had seen the woman with the orchestra, but if she hadn’t, it wouldn’t have been at all odd for her to mistake her for the Rail Tracer.

  That was how vivid Chané’s presence was as she stood on top of the train.

  The pressure she exerted on them was so great that they clung to the hope that she might bump into something and fall off.

  However, unfortunately, the rails were running through wasteland, and there were no tree branches or tunnel entrances to be found.

  Could they forge some sort of opportunity? When, thinking this, Nice looked at their adversary, she realized that the woman’s gaze wasn’t directed at her.

  Behind her… At Nick, maybe?

  No, that wasn’t it. She was looking even farther back.