The Rolling Bootlegs

by Ryohgo Narita

  “Still, tough girls are really swell, aren’t they…”

  “Yes, like Tomoe Gozen!”

  Why did these two have such an abundance of bizarre knowledge, and no other kind?

  “By the way, Isaac! Where are we going next?”

  “Right. About that…” Isaac dropped his voice to a whisper and began to explain. “Even if we’re stealing money from the Mafia, if we take it from a group that’s too big, we’ll have lots of guys chasing us, and that’ll be rough. For that reason, the plan is to target a small outfit that isn’t affiliated with anybody! According to the information I hunted up earlier, the groups that fit the bill in this area are the Martillo Family and the Gandor Family.”

  “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.”

  “And so, for now, I thought we’d head to the Martillo Family’s hideout, since it’s closer. We’ll use today to just case the joint.”

  “Case the joint! Okay!”

  When they went to the address they’d gotten from the information broker, they found a shop with a sign in the shape of a beehive.

  The brown sign had ALVEARE written on it in white paint, but Isaac didn’t know Italian, so he didn’t realize that the word meant “beehive.”

  “Ah, this is it, this is the place.”

  “Yes, this is it!”

  When they opened the door, their noses were greeted by a strong, sweet smell.

  Inside, the store was crowded with rows of honey of all kinds. They’d thought the sweet smell might have been leaking from the jars, but apparently the culprit was the honey simmering on a stove behind the register.

  “C’mon in.”

  The woman who was stirring the pot on the stove spoke to them.

  “We’ll be closing soon, so if you’re looking for something, speak up quick.”

  She seemed brusque, but Isaac and Miria didn’t particularly mind. They looked around the shop.

  There was a hallway back behind the register with a sturdy-looking door at the end of it.

  “Erm, we’d like to go through that door.”

  “We want to go in!”

  In response to this, the proprietress gave them a cold glare.

  “…Haven’t seen you ’round here before.”

  “Don’t worry about it!”

  “Don’t!”

  The proprietress took another good look at the pair. A tuxedo, no necktie, and a black dress. In their hands, they held something that appeared to be a helmet from some foreign country and a weird mask.

  No matter how you looked at them, they didn’t seem to be police investigators, and she’d never heard of a woman participating in a sting operation before.

  Arriving at that conclusion, the proprietress wordlessly started down the hall.

  “C’mon, then.”

  She knocked several times on the tightly closed door. For just a moment, light showed through the peephole.

  There was a brief pause, and then they heard a heavy click from behind the door. Probably a padlock being released.

  The door swung open, and brilliant light flooded out.

  “Whoa…”

  “Amazing…”

  The interior looked like something out of a musical. The light of a chandelier illuminated the milk-white walls, turning them a gold reminiscent of honey. The room seemed more spacious than the building had from the outside, and it held nearly ten tables covered with white cloths. The exterior of the adjacent buildings had looked separate, but apparently several of them were connected on the inside.

  There was a small platform at the back, probably so that local canaries could show off their voices. The concentration of lightbulbs was higher in that area.

  “Ah, customers! Welcome, come in!”

  From the back, a voice addressed them in slightly accented English.

  A Chinese girl with pretty black hair came running up to Isaac and Miria. She was wearing an eye-catching cheongsam sewn from red fabric and embroidered with gold thread. The slim lines of her body showed up clearly, and her appearance was bound to attract male glances. However, occasional glimpses of something childlike showed in her gestures and the way she spoke, and it seemed more fitting to call her the darling of the establishment than its Madonna.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry! I’m afraid we’ve been reserved by group today, so I’ll need to seat you two in corner. Okay?”

  When she mentioned it and they looked around, the place really was quite empty. Aside from them, the only customers were a few old geezers and, for some reason, a child. Other than that, there was a group of about three men at the back, and that was all.

  Without waiting for their response, the Chinese girl showed them to a small table in the corner.

  Isaac and Miria followed her without complaint. Since they were only here to case the joint, they didn’t particularly care where they were seated.

  “Uh… For now, bring us your cheapest liquor, would you?”

  “Would you!”

  “Yes, yes! Just one moment, please.”

  After their exotic waitress had gone, the pair began chatting confidentially in whispers.

  (“All right, listen: We’re looking for places where money might collect.”)

  (“Like a safe?”)

  (“Right. From what I heard, the syndicate’s office is here somewhere. That means there’s probably a safe here, too.”)

  (“Okay!”)

  Silently, the two stood up and began casually prowling around the establishment. They couldn’t have looked more suspicious if they’d tried, but at the moment, the only staff member was the Chinese girl, and she didn’t seem to have noticed what they were doing.

  “Now then, where to start looking… Nn?”

  Isaac’s ears had caught something that sounded like cheering voices.

  “What’s that…?”

  He strained his ears, searching for the source of the noise, and found that there were barrels lined up in the corner of the room, by their table.

  Isaac went over to the barrels and peeked through the gaps between them.

  At first, it didn’t look as if there was anything in the space, but the cheers were definitely coming from there.

  “…Nn?”

  His eyes fell to a patch of floor in the shadow of the barrels. There were several small holes drilled in it.

  “What’s this?”

  Isaac wrestled a barrel out of the way and stood there, looking down at the holes in the floor.

  A faint light seeped through them. Apparently they opened into an underground room.

  …And the cheers were definitely coming from those holes.

  “Aha… The office is in the basement, then?”

  In that case, where’s the entrance? As he began to look around, he heard the Chinese girl scream.

  “Aaah! Sir! Not there! Very dangerous! Get away, hurry!”

  At her voice, all the customers in the place turned to look at Isaac. Miria also hurried over with an inquisitive expression on her face.

  “Huh…? What on earth is dangerous abou—?”

  Bang.

  He heard a dry sound from the basement. Then a light shock ran through the toe of his shoe.

  “Wha…?”

  When he looked, the tip of his shoe had been gouged slightly. His actual toes seemed unscathed, but wisps of smoke were rising from the brutal scar in his leather shoe.

  Moving stiffly, Isaac looked up at the ceiling.

  There was a small hole in it that looked brand-new.

  “Huh…? Did I just get…shot?”

  Isaac said nothing more. He collapsed with a thud, right on the spot.

  Miria, who’d seen the whole thing from start to finish, screwed up her face and screamed.

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! Isaac’s been killed!”

  “A toast! To the birth of a new camorrista!”

  Molsa took the lead, and everyone in the place drained their glasses at once.

  Having completed the ritual, the executives had gathered around the
ir newest member and held a feast in his honor. Today, they were the only members present at Alveare. The associates and apprentices had been sent out to their jobs at other establishments, and it was just executives and extremely close interested parties… Or at any rate, that should have been the case.

  “I tell you what, I really thought I was dead.”

  “Thought so!”

  It just so happened, two strange outsiders were present at the feast. The tuxedo and the dress didn’t seem that out of place on an occasion like this one. For some reason, they were seated at the same table as Firo, the guest of honor.

  When the group had rushed upstairs, they’d found Isaac with his eyes rolled back in his head and Miria, who was sobbing “Murderrrr!” Then Maiza and Firo had exclaimed “Ah!” and the rest had assumed they knew the pair…and so it had gone. There was also the fact that, had things happened a bit differently, the bullet might have struck and killed one of them, so none of the executives had any objection to treating them to liquor.

  “…Who’d have thought the couple from the hat shop would be here…?”

  “Coincidences do seem to happen, don’t they.”

  Firo and Maiza looked at each other, exchanging wry smiles. …Although, if they’d known about the other coincidences that surrounded them, they probably wouldn’t have been able to smile or anything even remotely like it.

  “I’m terribly sorry about that, fella. I had no idea that barrel had been moved…”

  Molsa bowed deeply.

  “Huh? Oh, uh, no, no, it’s fine, don’t worry about it! It’s just the toe of my shoe. It’ll heal up fine if I lick it!”

  “…No, it probably won’t.”

  Possibly because he hadn’t had someone older—much less someone with Molsa’s dignity—apologize to him before, Isaac seemed a bit flustered. As for Miria, she’d eagerly begun to sample the dishes that had been brought out.

  Seina, the proprietress, and Lia Lin-Shan, the waitress, had personally prepared almost all the food they carried out. Many of the offerings were surprisingly elaborate for a speakeasy, and the content varied widely and mixed all sorts of styles, from Italian pasta dishes to highly seasoned Chinese sautés made with lots of oil.

  In addition to electric lights, a number of fuel-burning lamps hung on the walls of the establishment, and the pale flames made the food look even tastier.

  One dish that particularly stood out was the duck placed in the center of each table. These had been fried whole in oil, then stewed in honey—the house specialty—and then fried again.

  When Miria touched one with her knife, there was a light, exquisite crackle, and the juices flowed out from the break in the skin.

  “Ooh, this is delicious!”

  On hearing Miria’s cry, Lia looked pleased. The two women smiled like children, and it naturally brightened the mood at the tables.

  Just then, the executives Randy and Pezzo came up.

  “Say, Firo. That liquor we just had… Is it gone already?”

  “Yeah, we only bought a little.”

  “Huh. It was pretty stiff stuff. I like liquor like that.”

  “We were supposed to go around to different places and stock up, but there was a fire along the way. I went over to check it out, and we sort of ran out of time…”

  Firo didn’t mention that he’d been wandering around looking for a girl. It was true that he’d gone to rubberneck at the fire, so he hadn’t lied, per se.

  Abruptly, Randy’s and Pezzo’s expressions changed.

  “? What is it, guys?”

  “Uh…nah… Nothin’. Right, Pezzo?”

  “D-don’t look at me!”

  “?”

  As the two of them stood there, tense smiles on their faces, Seina—who’d brought in some more food—smacked their heads with the flat of her hand.

  “Honestly! What are you good-for-nothings jawing about?! If you want liquor that badly, drink ours! And you, Firo, you’re just as bad. Going all the way to some other place to buy liquor for your own party!”

  Seina gave him a mild glare, and Firo ducked his head slightly.

  “Well, uh… Miz Seina… All the liquor here has honey mixed in, you know? This sort of thing doesn’t happen every day, so I wanted to drink something a little more…adult.”

  “Ha! You still look like a kid to me.”

  With a dramatic shake of her head, she went to bring in more food.

  All the liquor at this establishment, even the wine and beer, had honey in it, and it was terribly sweet. Although there were regular customers who came for its unique flavor and the two women’s home cooking, it couldn’t be denied that the speakeasy got fewer customers than other places.

  There were two main reasons that, even then, Alveare was able to do business on this scale: the fact that it was run directly by the Martillos and didn’t need to pay protection money, and the fact that it didn’t pay off the police and Prohibition enforcers, or prosecutors and government bureaus.

  Edward, who was in charge of the district, accepted no bribes whatsoever, and he didn’t cave to pressure from his superiors, either. In other words, slipping him cash would have been pointless. That said, they were good at spotting stings, and so far they’d managed to get by without any arrests.

  At ordinary establishments, these expenses added up to five hundred dollars a month. One of the perks of being a speakeasy was the ability to make money while ducking the liquor tax, but in the end, the taxes they’d paid before Prohibition had been cheaper.

  In that sense, the more than thirty thousand speakeasies in this city were trapped in a strange spiral of their own.

  Because of the Great Depression, the amount spent on liquor had dropped drastically, and the spiral staircase was rocking wildly. In the midst of that situation, being excluded from the spiral made this place one of the lucky ones.

  In this fortunate speakeasy, the jovial outlaws’ revel continued.

  “You’re really something, though, Firo. To think you’d beat Maiza like that…”

  “No, it was a fluke. Besides…if they’d let us strike at anything other than arms, I’d be dead.”

  “Mm-hmm, you certainly would! I’m going to keep right on putting you through the mill, so you’d better be ready for it!”

  “Agh…”

  “If it had been me… Let’s see. First I would’ve taken his arm and thrown him over my shoulder…”

  “Except that isn’t a knife skill.”

  “…Nn? The pepper’s gone…”

  “By the way, you know that big ol’ round table in the basement? How’d they get that down there?”

  “Hey, somebody grab me the pepper.”

  “Hmm? Firo, didn’t we buy four bottles of high-grade liquor?”

  “…No, just two.”

  “Ah, Miria, I want some of that duck, too.”

  “Sure! Here, say ‘Aaaaah!’”

  “…Whoa, that’s tasty. But it pales in comparison to your beauty, Miria.”

  “Man, what’re you doing comparing looks to food?”

  “Yaaay! Isaac complimented me!”

  “Wow, do I want to slug these guys right now.”

  “Heeeey. Pepper. Anybody.”

  “Hmm. You could also catch him off guard and hit him with a flying knee kick.”

  “Yes, only that isn’t a knife skill either.”

  “I tell you what, this country’s much too cold to us Japanese and Chinese. The immigration laws, for one. Treating Asians as scoundrels so blatantly is just…”

  “Yaguruma, you’re jumping topics all over the place… Are you drunk already?”

  “Huh…? Don’t you have any pepper at your table either?”

  “From what I hear, when they built this building, they put it in before they hung the ceiling.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “The table! What you just asked me about, Pezzo!”

  “Oh, Randy. Randy.”

  “What, Maiza?”
>
  “Aren’t you going to do that trick today? You know… The one with the burning glove.”

  Splutt.

  “Waugh, Randy and Pezzo just spit across the table!”

  “Nasty!”

  “Suh, sorry, sorry. …We don’t really feel like doing that one today…”

  “Hey, Ronny. Where’s the pepper?”

  “Boss, come on, just make do without pepper.”

  It was impossible to tell who was talking to whom anymore. It was a chaotic mealtime scene, and Firo was enjoying himself enormously.

  Ever since he was born, he hadn’t smiled much. The people who’d lived around him in the slums hadn’t smiled much, either. …Or rather, they hadn’t had enough leeway to smile.

  From the time he was a kid, he’d dreamed of smiling cheerfully like the Italians who showed up in movies and books. Right now, that dream had come true.

  He made a wish: Let this time last forever.

  He knew it was a dumb wish.

  Still, he felt really lucky just to be able to make a dumb wish like that one.

  One side of the spiral staircase was brightly lit.

  Naturally, everything on the other side was shrouded in darkness.

  Three men walked through the darkness in the spaces between the hustle and bustle of the city.

  The jazz hall had its CLOSED sign hung out. Ordinarily, it would have been busy even at this hour, but since its three managers were all gone this evening, it had shut down for the night.

  When they opened the door, there was a lone man inside.

  “Oh, sorry. We’re closed toni—”

  One of the three men swept a hand past the man’s neck.

  “Nn…ah…, , !”

  For a brief moment, air leaked from the man’s throat. The next instant, red spurted out.

  The man with the knife promptly used the door to shield himself from his victim’s geyser of blood.

  When the flow began to subside, Dallas Genoard silently kicked the man over; he’d tried to cling to his killer. The crimson puddle that was forming around his upper body kept growing.

  “…Downstairs. First, find out where they put that crate, got it? Then…pepper everything. Just make sure you don’t hit the box.”

  There was a knife with a bloody blade in Dallas’s hand.