1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local (25 page)

However, the sliding door only shook dully, and it wouldn’t open.

They tried several times to release the door. As they did so, all the subordinates piled up at the back of the car.

“Hey, hurry and open it.”

“Hold on a minute. The door’s stuck…”

Click.

At that sound, the black suits froze. The noise had sounded quite a lot like a hammer being cocked.

Ka-chak.

The next thing they heard was the sort of sound a leveled machine gun made.

Click
Ka-click
Taka
Clack
Chak
Click

     Cha-chick
Tikki
Taka
Click
Clackka

     Clack
Tak

Click Click Tikatik
Ka-chak
Ka-click
Chak
Takka
Ka-chak

Ka-chak
Click
Tikka
Ka-chak
Tik-a-chak
Tikki Clackka
Ka-click Takka
Ka-chak

Sound summoned sound, and they began to guess what was happening behind them.

If they’d turned around when they heard that first click and strafed with their machine guns, they would have won.

However, because there had been no resistance from the passengers until now, they’d gotten careless. What had clinched it was that, compared to Goose and Spike, they were overwhelmingly short on experience.

Even if they pointed their guns behind them now, no doubt it would be far too late. All the black suits could do was turn their heads, slowly, to look back.

“If you’d throw your guns down before you turn around, it would really help us out.”

Jon’s voice rang out coldly.

“They’re all amateurs, see. The only thing we taught them was how to pull the trigger. If you turn around holding guns, some coward’s going to shoot for sure.”

The black suits gave up, lowered their guns, and began to place them on the floor. They had no experience, and on top of that, they didn’t have even half of Chané’s faith in the organization.

This time, slowly, they did turn around, and saw the same dining car passengers who’d been there a moment before.

Just one thing was different: Every one of the passengers was armed with a gun, and they were pointing the barrels at them with fear in their eyes.

In ironic tones, Jon and Fang spoke to the men:

“Letting the train you hijacked get hijacked out from under you? That’s pretty sad. Complete with your hostages and weapons, yet.”

“That’s no good, guys. You’ve got to take responsibility and watch your hostages all the way to the end, you know?”

A moment ago, Jacuzzi had captured one of the black suits and gotten a certain amount of information out of him. One of the things he’d heard had been that their plan included a siege strategy that would use the train as a fortress.

That meant they must have brought quite a lot of extra weapons, didn’t it? Jacuzzi’s guess had been right on the money: The freight room had held a veritable mountain of spare guns and ammunition.

Then, a little while ago, Jacuzzi had captured the dining car and asked the hostages for their help. Parenthetically, only Jon’s and Fang’s guns had been loaded with live rounds.

Even so, as a result, Jacuzzi had won the bet.

As Jon tied up the black suits with a torn-up tablecloth, he was mildly pensive.

They’ve always said people tend to develop trust relationships with criminals they spend a lot of time with, but… Man, Jacuzzi… He hijacked even that trust.

When he’d tied all of them up, he asked Fang a question:

“What was it they called this in the Far East?”

“The thing that gunman said at the counter? Nah, I’d never heard of it, but…”

The two of them fell silent for a little while, then slowly recalled Isaac’s words.

“Uh, ‘Maybe you did, but—’”

“‘—I ate
you
.’”

Jacuzzi had finally been cornered.

Right now, he was at the very last coupling. Should he get down, or should he cross to the last car up top?

If he went down, though, the other guy would go down into the car, too. He could wait until the man got onto his car and then make his move, but if the range of the flamethrower was longer then the car, there was no point. Even if the other man never got onto this carriage, the flames could burn up everything in it.

Besides, if he got down and tried to hide, the man might burn the entire car along with him.

That’s not even funny. Nice and the guys are in the freight room…

If he was going to get burned either way, he might as well just do all he could.

Jacuzzi drew a deep breath, then turned to face Goose.

“The fool. Has he grown desperate?”

Giving a small, satisfied smile with bloodshot eyes, Goose slowly closed the distance between himself and Jacuzzi.

First, he’d burn this man to death. After that, he’d burn up the woman with the eye patch and the others. The woman in the coveralls and the white suits and the hostages: He’d use these flames and burn them all to ash.

I am a bit concerned about fuel, though. We may have increased the capacity, but a full-power blast only lasts a bit over ten seconds. I have extra fuel on hand as well, but I’m rather uneasy.

Just to be on the safe side, he closed down the firing valve slightly. It would shorten the distance by half, but the fuel would probably last longer.

Carrying a load that weighed more than sixty pounds on his back, Goose decided to close the distance between himself and the tattooed man until he was certain he could incinerate him.

Little by little, the man was closing in. He’d gotten onto the roof of the first freight car.

He’d be within firing range soon. Taking a gamble, Jacuzzi took out the bomb Nice had given him.

The weird thing on that guy’s back has to be filled with fuel. If I manage to ignite that…

However, at this point, he came face-to-face with his own stupidity.

I don’t have anything to light it with!

It was hopeless. So what if he did have a bomb? If he couldn’t light it, it was completely useless.

Well, no, there was fire around. The other man would probably give him tons of it for free, but it was likely that he’d either just burn to death, or that the explosive would catch directly and blow his arm off. The end result would probably be both of the above.

If this was how things stood, maybe he should just jump off the train. He might still have a chance that way.

However, Nice and the passengers would die for sure.

Stuck with no way out, Jacuzzi began to consider charging his opponent.

Ahh, would somebody who’s fighting this guy show up? White suits or the Rail Tracer, I don’t care which. If possible, it would be great if they’d take each other out…

Keeping this desire to rely on others clamped down inside him, Jacuzzi resolved to make a suicide run at his opponent.

In that instant, saviors arrived.

People he hadn’t asked for appeared from a place he’d never even imagined.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
!”

Suddenly, a nerve-shattering scream rang out. It came from below the train, at the side, right where Goose was standing.

“What’s that?”

Foolishly, in an attempt to discover the source of the voice, he went closer to its point of origin.

Was it hubris, because he had an ultimate weapon? Was it carelessness, because he was sure of his victory? Or was it his policy to investigate such abnormalities as a rule?

If only he hadn’t approached the voice, he would have avoided disaster, and yet…

Leveling the flamethrower’s nozzle, Goose carefully looked over toward the ground, and in that instant

They came swinging up from underneath.

“WAAAaaaaaAAAaaAAAUUuugh!”

The instant Goose peered over, the scream abruptly got closer and louder. Then, suddenly, from behind Goose, a huge mass appeared.

A thick rope stretched from the side of the train. A big lump was clinging to the end of it, flying through space in a motion like an upside-down clock pendulum. It looked like an enormous yo-yo.

Jacuzzi, who was watching from a short distance away, picked up on the identity of the lump at the end of the taut rope.

It was the figure of a gunman, holding something in his arms, and a woman in a red dress, hanging onto his legs.

“I… Isaac?!”

At the sight of the sudden intruders, Jacuzzi’s eyes went round.

“Why?! What are you doing here?!”

The next instant, a gust of wind reached Jacuzzi.

In order to bring him victory, the southeast wind had indeed blown.

“AAAAAAaaaAAAaaaAAaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

In the blink of an eye, the scream faded away on the other side of the train. Moving at a low-angle trajectory, like the winter sun, that gigantic human yo-yo had sketched a neat arc over the top of the train.

Goose’s body had been located just inside that angled orbit. As Isaac and Miria fell down the opposite side of the train from him, the thick rope that stretched behind them scooped Goose’s feet out from under him.

“What?!”

A powerful shock ran through Goose’s Achilles tendon. The string of the enormous yo-yo had caught on his legs, and the black-suited figure took a magnificent tumble.

His back slammed into the roof. His spine was forcibly compressed, molding to the shape of the tank.

More than that, Goose was terrified that the impact might have broken the tank. However, it didn’t seem as though fuel was leaking, and he couldn’t hear the sound of escaping hydrogen gas. Apparently, it had come through unscathed.

“Damn it, what was that?”

Slowly, Goose got to his feet, then began walking toward the tattooed man again. The lump that had been at the end of the rope bothered him, but he’d burn that tattooed child first. Although it wasn’t easy to jump with a sixty-pound weight on his back, if he took a bit of a run-up, he’d manage to leap across the coupling somehow.

So doing, Goose finally reached the last carriage, where the tattooed young man was waiting.

“All right, tattooed man. Are you prepared?—Though I suppose I should at least ask your name.”

“No way.”

When he’d closed the distance to half a car length, they spoke to each other for the first time.

“Oho? And why is that?”

“I’m planning to throw you off this train, and if you survive— You’ll probably try to find me and take revenge. …So I’m not going to tell you my name. I don’t want you figuring out my address.”

Jacuzzi tried to keep an extremely cool head as he responded, but when he saw the other man’s bloodshot eyes, no matter what he did, his answer came out distorted.

On hearing his opponent’s words, Goose felt slightly deflated. He hadn’t expected to get an answer that was this childish, and street-smart to boot.

Was this really the same guy who had fired that machine gun barrage a little while ago?

“I see. That’s a shame. Are you prepared to die?”

“If possible, I really don’t want to.”

“Appeal rejected.”

As he spoke, Goose studied his opponent’s face.

I don’t think I could ever get to like that face. He looks ready to burst into tears at any moment, yet his eyes seem somehow reasonable. …Still, if I burn him up here, it will all be over.