1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local (14 page)

Of the three freight cars, the orchestra was using the foremost one, which meant that the treasure Jacuzzi and the others were after was in either the second or third car.

Nice and Donny had waited for Jack in the second car, but no matter how long they waited, he hadn’t come back.

Then, when they’d gone to see what was up, Jack had come out of the freight room with his hands tied behind his back. Not only that, but a man in black carrying a machine gun had appeared behind him.

“Jack and the other man came toward us, so first we hid in the shadows of the room, but then Jack got tossed into the second freight room.”

“Oh, but, and then, two more guys with machine guns came out into the hall. Then a white man and woman came. They got caught. Last, Nick came running. Got caught. That all. The end.”

“D-d-don’t end it! What happened then?! Are Jack and Nick okay?!”

“Calm down.” Nice sighed. “Right now, one of the three men is guarding the hostages. Since they’re guarding them, it means they’re not dead, so I think they’re probably both okay.”

Apparently, at first they’d thought Jacuzzi might have been caught as well. They’d kept an eye on things for a short while after that, but when they realized that the black suits showed no sign of moving, they’d decided to check the conductors’ room first.

“—And so, when we got to the conductors’ room, we found this horrible scene. What happened? I know you didn’t do it, Jacuzzi, so relax.”

“Wah, thank you, b-b-but-but it’s terrible: It’s Rail Tracer, the Rail Tracer came! We have to get out of here fast or we’ll be erased, too, so let’s save Nick and Jack somehow and then run—”

Just then, from far away, they heard the sound of a machine gun.

“They’re firing…?”

Behind Nice’s glasses, her single eye warped slightly.

“Wh-wh-what was that? What was that gunfire? What did they shoot? Did somebody die? C’mon, tell me!”

The roar had seemed to split the air. What did it mean? Various guesses were born inside Jacuzzi’s head, then rapidly boiled down to a conclusion.

“Waah, wah,
hic
… Niiice, Donnyyy…”

They had to run. They had to escape from this train as soon as possible. His brain had a solid grasp of this fact. However, at the same time, his heart had begun to settle on a different conclusion.

Fang’s and Jon’s faces rose in Jacuzzi’s mind. They were followed by the faces of Isaac and Miria, Czes and the Beriams, and the faces of people he’d merely passed by in the dining car. Then the corpses of the conductors that lay in front of him rose in his mind, overlapping with the scene before his eyes.

Before he knew it, he’d swallowed the answer “run away,” and other words had surfaced.

“Let’s run the group in black and the Rail Tracer off this train…
Hic
. Huh? Wh-what did I just say? No, no, we really need to get away, but, but
”

They were a gang of hopeless delinquents; they’d made and sold liquor, and even if the other guys had been mafia, they’d been people, and they’d killed them. Then and there, they’d become inexcusable villains. And he was the cause of everything.

However, all along, Jacuzzi had only done what he thought was right. He’d thought the law that banned liquor was wrong, and he’d hated the way the mafia used it to rake in money and kill. In consequence, he’d tried to sell cheap, good-tasting liquor on his own. That was all. And yet.

Before he realized it, ne’er-do-wells had collected around him, and he’d become their boss.

Their friends had been killed, and they’d fought the Russo Family tooth and nail. And yesterday, although killing them hadn’t been Jacuzzi’s original intention, as a result, they’d avenged their friends.

Now Jacuzzi was on this train. He was here to steal a certain something from its cargo. It was something Nice had wanted, and if they just threw away the contents, it would be safe to sell it. Most important, they couldn’t let “that thing” arrive in New York.

If “it” reached New York, it was likely that lots of people would die. He’d hated the idea of knowing that and doing nothing about it. It made him a terrible hypocrite. Even Jacuzzi knew that. Still, it felt as though, if he didn’t do it, his existence would lose all value, and it scared him.

And now, he was on the brink of pulling his friends into yet another hypocritical act.

I want to save the passengers.
For the leader of an organization—someone who needed to make his comrades’ lives top priority—not to mention the leader of a gang of robbers, this was a naïve, foolish thought, the sort of idea he must never have.

However, Nice and Donny would probably smile and agree to it. He knew this. He knew it and was planning to use their personalities. It was so hypocritical it made even him feel nauseated, but even so, he didn’t care.

I broke the law and killed people. I’m a bad guy. All I’ve done, this whole time, is try to stick to my path. At this point, what does a little hypocrisy matter?

He was finished with his excuse. There was no chance anyone else would accept one that convenient; Jacuzzi knew this better than anyone. Still, he made the excuse to himself. The logic couldn’t have been more selfish, but he didn’t care.

After all, in the end, he was nothing but a bad guy.

After a short silence, he made a declaration. How much courage had he focused into this one moment in order to put his resolution—the sort of resolution that so-called allies of justice could probably have said without even thinking—into words? As usual, Jacuzzi’s eyes were brimming over with tears. Even so, the fear had completely disappeared from his gaze.

“Let’s get rid of them, by ourselves. The black suits—and the Rail Tracer.”

The doubt had vanished from Jacuzzi’s face. The light had disappeared from his sharp gaze, and in combination with it, the tattoo on his face looked even better.

After confirming that Nice and Donny had smiled and nodded in agreement, Jacuzzi left the blood-dyed room behind him.

His tattooed face wore a devil’s expression, while the tears he cried were hotter than anyone’s.

Mary was unable to stir from the janitor’s closet.

It had been quite a while now, but Czes showed no sign of coming back.

Could he have been captured?

In the darkness, her unease grew and grew, and tears rolled down the girl’s cheeks.

After another short while, she heard footsteps approaching in the corridor. Could it be Czes, or maybe Isaac and Miria, or maybe
?

In an attempt to hear the footsteps better, she tried to put her ear closer to the wall. Just then, part of her body touched a mop, and it fell.

Tunk.
The sound was small, but it carried well.

Mary thought her heart might explode. That was how clear and loud her heartbeat had become.

Please don’t let them have heard that…

The girl’s wish was in vain: The footsteps stopped.

After a short silence, she heard the door to the bathroom open. They probably weren’t sure exactly where the noise had come from. At that point, the possibility that the footsteps belonged to Czes disappeared.

Her terror swelled; her tears spilled over; she wanted to scream and run right this minute.

Swallowing down all these thoughts, the girl concentrated on holding her breath. Picturing her mother’s face, she desperately waited for time to pass.

However, time yielded a cruel result.

The footsteps she’d begun to hear from in front of the bathroom slowly approached, then stopped in front of the door to the janitor’s closet.

There was no way to lock the door from the inside. One light tug on the knob, and the bulwark that protected her would be lost.

Still, the door hadn’t opened yet. It was still okay, still okay, and besides, it might be Mr. Isaac, or Mr. Jacuzzi, or Mama—of course it might be Mama! It must be; Mama, Mama had come, Mama, Mama, Mama…

In the girl’s mind, the person in front of the door right now was her mother. Hope simmered within despair, and at this point, her mother’s figure was the only one in her world.

Slowly, the door began to open.

Mama!

She wanted to scream the word and leap out, but she couldn’t.

The hand that had appeared through the crack in the door belonged to a man. What she saw after that big hand was a sleeve as white as snow.

The world with her mother that she’d created began to crumble. The sound of its collapse turned into the girl’s scream.

However, her mouth was covered by the hand of the man in the white suit.

“Foooound you.”

With a nasty smile, the man opened the door all the way. His eyes drooped at the outside corners.

“You mustn’t scream, hee-hee. Sorry ’bout this, Ladd, but it’s okay if I take the girl, ain’t it?”

Mary struggled with all her might, but the man in the white suit was built tougher than an ordinary adult. She knew it wasn’t any good, but even so, she kept fighting.

“Quit fighting, hya-hya! I’m gonna throw you out the window before Ladd finds us.”

He tried to drag her out of the closet.

“Unlike Ladd, all
I
like is torturing weaklings to death. Hee-hee-hee……hee?”

Abruptly, the man’s laugh cut out. He stopped moving for a few moments, and then the strength that had been focused on Mary suddenly weakened. When, with a desperate effort, she shoved him away, the man simply fell over backward.

His body had fallen faceup, and centered on that body, a red puddle began to spread across the corridor.

Not understanding what had happened, Mary slowly raised her eyes from the man’s corpse.

There was a woman standing there.

“Eeek—”

On seeing her, Mary gave a small scream.

The woman wore a black dress, and in her hand she held a knife that dripped with blood.

However, that wasn’t what had frightened Mary. She’d been gripped with a fathomless terror at the sight of the woman’s eyes.

Mary had seen the eyes of the woman in the black dress—Chané—right from the front. The color of those fantastically dark, deep, pure eyes.

When she saw those eyes, Mary found herself completely unable to believe that this person was human.

Ironically, a name that was completely off target leaped from Mary’s lips. At this point, she must truly have thought Chané was “that.”

“The……The Rail Tracer…”