1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local (20 page)

Nice hadn’t told the entire truth here. For one thing, she hadn’t let on that Jacuzzi existed. For another, she hadn’t mentioned the content of the cargo they were after. Possibly Goose thought they were simply aiming for the cargo of this high-class train in general, because he hadn’t pressed her further.

In fact, Jacuzzi’s group was after just one type of cargo. Not only that, it was an article stowed in a hidden space in the freight room.

If Goose learned what its contents were, he would probably try to obtain it. She didn’t know what their objectives were, but if they got their hands on that, their power would increase dramatically.

Above all else, she wanted to avoid that, no matter what.

For the moment, Nice breathed a sigh of relief. Then she murmured to Nick, who lay beside her:

“My apologies. If I’d only explained the situation to you properly…”

“Nah, Miz Nice, don’t worry about it.”

Forcing a smile, Nick scraped together some bravado, trying to encourage his esteemed friend.

“Either way, nobody’s dumb enough to think we’re on the up-and-up after seeing how you look.”

“That is absolutely no consolation whatsoever…”

Recalling her own appearance, Nice was dismally convinced. As she sank into mild self-loathing, she began thinking of ways to get out of this situation.

Just then, the door opened again.

Goose, who wore a complicated expression, asked Nice and Nick a certain question:

“A moment ago, you said, ‘On the way back from the conductors’ room, we saw a corpse in the freight room.’”

This was a fact, and the two nodded earnestly.

“Was there anything abnormal in the conductors’ room?”

A doubt had occurred to Goose. He had a comrade in the conductors’ room, the informer. According to their plan, the man was supposed to have killed the other conductor. Why hadn’t he disposed of this woman when she visited the conductors’ room?

At that point, Nice remembered.
Oh.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t told him about what she’d seen in the conductors’ room.

“Yes, there was something that convinced us of the existence of the Rail Tracer.”

“Just tell me the facts. Briefly.”

“There were two corpses in a sea of blood. One conductor had been shot dead, and the other had been mauled to death. That is all we saw.”

On hearing Nice’s answer, yet another doubt crossed Goose’s mind.

Just a moment ago, the time when the conductor should have sent the sign that all was well to the engine room had come and gone. …And yet the train hadn’t stopped. Why? As far as he knew, they hadn’t occupied the engine room yet.

Goose put his head out the window, looking in the direction the train was traveling.

The locomotive, from which light was faintly visible, was attached to the front of the train, and the smoke that streamed from its smokestack showed no sign of weakening.

“What’s the meaning of this?”

Goose quickly left the room, put together a unit of five of his men, and ordered them to go check on the conductors’ room.

If what the woman said was true, who had killed his comrade in the conductors’ room?

Then the tragedy in the freight room, which he’d heard over the wireless, crossed his mind.

Nick’s description of the freight room echoed in his ears:

“In the freight room! One of your pals was lying in there with his bottom half chewed off! It’s a monster, a red monster—the Rail Tracer did it!”

Even as Goose mentally repeated
Impossible
over and over, a fear of the Rail Tracer was gradually beginning to eat away at him.

Like this train, that terror was slowly but surely eroding his heart.

“I see! I’ve got it! Right now, the inside of this train is
The Records of the Three Kingdoms
!”

“The greatest three-way relationship in Asia!”

In the last freight room, Jacuzzi and the others had summarized the situation on the train, and once he’d gotten a rough grasp of events, Isaac had abruptly yelled.

“‘The Records of the’…what?”

Jacuzzi hadn’t heard the term before, and he looked bewildered.

“Oh,
The Records of the Three Kingdoms
is a famous part of Chinese history! It’s a story about how amazing samurai split the country into thirds and glared at each other! Um, ‘Cao Cao’ and ‘Liu Bei’ and ‘Yuan Shao,’ I think they were!”

“They get compared to a snake, a slug, and a frog a lot!”

As they related nonsensical Far Eastern trivia, Isaac and Miria gradually grew more and more excited.

“Right now, on this ‘tray’—the train—the black suits and white suits and the Rail Tracer are all glaring at each other, right? And so, Jacuzzi! You just have to break down that balance and flip the whole thing over, tray and all!”

“Then you take over the whoooole train! You’ll be the king! The lord! His Majesty the emperor! The tyrant!”

“Uh—huh?”

At this abrupt development, Jacuzzi’s eyes went wide. True, he’d intended to deal with the black suits and the Rail Tracer, but he’d never thought of calling it “taking over the train.”

“B-but…could I do something like that?”

“Don’t worry! Even in
The Records of the Three Kingdoms
, there’s an amazing guy at the end who united Asia that way!”

“Yes, the champion!”

“So, Jacuzzi! You become ‘Yoshitsune’!”

“Yes, Minamoto!”

“Y-Yoshitsune?”

“Yeah, Yoshitsune! He’s a fantastic guy who crossed from Japan to China, defeated the three kingdoms, and founded a country called Genghis Khan!”

“That’s
amazing
!”

Isaac’s Asian history was a very mixed bag of historical fact, fiction, and different time periods, but its energy began to ignite an intense light in Jacuzzi’s heart.

“Do you think…I could…be somebody that amazing?”

The guy with the tattooed face murmured quietly. Looking him straight in the eye, Isaac nodded firmly.

“Sure you can! You’ve beat us dozens of times, Jacuzzi, and you’re the defending champ!”

“Isaac’s really amazing! Since you beat him, you’re
amazingly
amazing, Jacuzzi!”

The pair pressed him even harder, on momentum, but Jacuzzi still shook his head.

Why is it that, when I’m talking to these guys, I can blab away about things I shouldn’t ever say to anybody?

Jacuzzi nodded slightly, then confessed who he really was to the pair.

“I do plan to save the passengers and get rid of the black suits, but… I’m not such a great person. I broke the rules and made liquor, and just yesterday
I killed five people.”

At those words, Donny, who’d stayed silent until now, spoke up in protest:

“
Mrrg
, no,
we
killed, not Jacuzzi. Besides, they killed friends.”

“It’s the same thing. If I hadn’t done something uncalled for, nobody would have had to die, not our friends nor the guys from the mafia.”

On hearing that, Isaac grabbed Jacuzzi’s shirtfront and hauled him over. He put his face up close to Jacuzzi’s, whose eyes had gone round, and shouted.

At first, Jacuzzi assumed he was going to get hit for saying pitiful stuff, and he shrank back, but Isaac’s face wore a smile that was bursting with confidence.

“Hey, don’t worry about stuff like that! So what?! Cao Cao and Yoshitsune killed lots of people, tens of thousands, hundreds of millions, trillions and trillions of ’em! Even so, if the people around them say they’re good guys, then that’s what they are! In other words, see, good guys or bad guys, it all depends on the feel of the situation, the mood! That settles everything!”

“Yes, it’s the mood!”

As if a crazy theory like that exists?!
Jacuzzi’s head thought this, but his heart had already been caught by the pair’s mood.

“So you see, Jacuzzi! We’re saying you’re a good guy! Don’t miss that wave! Even if people object, ignore ’em! You just have to pull ’em right into this current with you!”

“Hold your head high, and when you get to the end, believe in yourself! But listen, listen, if you want to create a wave like that, you need at least one of the people around you to think you’re a good guy! Then, see, Jacuzzi, that’ll mean you did a good thing! We know! So we’ll make that wave for you!”

On seeing these two, who were smiling carefree smiles, Jacuzzi felt his own fingers, his hands, his arms, his whole body, tremble. A current of emotion surged up inside him. Was it fear, or…?

“Thank you.”

Words of gratitude slipped from Jacuzzi’s lips.

There might have been something else he should have said, but he couldn’t get any other words to come out.

Ordinarily, Jacuzzi might have said the word
sorry
, but he felt as if saying it now would be an insult, both to these two and to himself.

“But if I’m going to be someone that amazing, who in the world are you two?”

Slightly bewildered, Isaac and Miria responded to Jacuzzi’s question.

“We don’t really get it either, but the old guy who told us about
The Records of the Three Kingdoms
told us…”

“Listen, listen, it was, ‘Become the southeast wind, you two’!”

“The southeast wind…? But that’s not a person.”

“Well, you’re right. They say it’s a wind that carries happiness and despair and all sorts of things, all together!”

“So we’ll do our best and bring happiness to this train!”

At Miria’s words, Isaac nodded emphatically.

“I see. That’s a great idea, Miria. All right, then, let’s huff and puff and blow the Rail Tracer and the Russo gang away!”

“Faster than this train! Far, far away!”

Laughing happily, the two started to leave the room.

“W-wait! Where are you going?”

Hastily, Jacuzzi moved to stop them. When Isaac and Miria spoke, their faces were brimming over with confidence.

“Where? To find the Rail Tracer.”

“Yes, we’ll ask him to leave this train and go home! If he won’t, we’ll get rid of him! If we can’t, we’ll run away and hide somewhere! If dawn breaks while he’s looking for us, I bet it’ll be too bright for the monster, and he’ll go back home!”

“Aah, monster, probably strong. You get killed. I’d stop, if I you.”

As you’d expect, even Donny looked worried. However, Isaac and Miria answered confidently:

“It’ll be fine. I’ll fill the Rail Tracer full of lead with my hundred guns!”

“Isaac, you’re so cool!”

Isaac slapped the holsters he wore all over his body. However, none of them held a single gun.

“A hundred guns? But you’re completely unarmed…”

As Jacuzzi pointed this out, eyes round, Isaac nodded once:
Mm.

“That’s very true. I hadn’t noticed that,” he said, letting himself be persuaded easily.

However, his feet were still pointed toward the exit, and he didn’t turn back. Gazing up into empty space, with a significant look on his face, Isaac murmured:

“It’s all right. As a great gunman once said, long ago—”

Looking into Jacuzzi’s eyes, he nodded firmly, intently, and said:

“—‘There’s a gun in everyone’s heart.’”

“How hard-boiled!”

“No gunman ever said that!”

“Really? All right, then I’ll become the first great gunman!”

“That’s amazing, Isaac! Just like Billy the Kid!”

Watching the appalled Jacuzzi out of the corners of their eyes, Isaac and Miria quietly opened the freight room door.

“Seriously, don’t worry! If things get ugly, we’ll run! While we’ve got the Rail Tracer’s attention, you save the Beriams from the black suits, Jacuzzi!”

“We’ll be fine! Running and hiding are our best talents!”

Looking at their confident smiles, he began to feel as if there really wasn’t anything to worry about. He also understood that, apparently, it was no use trying to stop these two.

And so Jacuzzi decided to see them off with a smile.

“Please don’t die, okay? Promise me.”

“Yeah, we won’t die, we promise! If we break that promise, we’ll sign in blood or cut our throats or anything you want!”

“You guys, too, Jacuzzi! You mustn’t die, okay?!”

With that, the pair walked off toward the conductors’ room to look for the Rail Tracer.