1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local (5 page)

Ridiculous. That’s a bluff. It’s nothing but nonsense.
That was what Placido wanted to think, but at this point, he finally realized something: He hadn’t told Ladd a thing about the current mess. And more than that, how did Ladd know he’d quibbled with Luciano’s reforms?

Something else occurred to him then. Up until now, the Russo Family had often had to clean up after the kills Ladd had carried out without permission.

However, now that he thought about it, they had all been just within the limits. The number of people Ladd had killed, the places and the circumstances, were all just inside the boundary of what the Family could handle completely.

Then, the moment their ability to deal with the aftermath had evaporated, he did this. It meant, in other words, that Ladd had always intentionally reveled in the pleasures of murder. He hadn’t been pushed into action by impulses; he’d been quite cool and calculating.

There had been nothing deliberate about the kidnapping plan from a moment ago. However, at this point, Placido finally managed to understand Ladd’s character.

It wasn’t that the guy couldn’t plan. He just
didn’t
.

He was the type of man who always came to action from nothing more than rough ideas, then forced those actions to succeed through on-the-spot calculations made in response to each individual moment.

In fact, he seemed to have put out antennae all through his immediate area and had been actively gathering information.

The result had been today’s breakaway. In a word, if he stayed with the organization, he wouldn’t be able to relax and enjoy killing. With that determined, he’d summarily abandoned Placido’s outfit.

“It’s too bad, Uncle. A long time back, even in a sitch like this one, you might’ve been able to recover, but…”

On his way out, Ladd spoke:

“When I had that rifle on you, you didn’t strike back, see. You just screamed. I’d say that disqualifies you as a mafia boss, yeah?”

Fixing him with a look that was completely different from what it had been a moment ago, Placido stopped his retreating nephew.

“W-wait. What happened to the guards?”

“Nn? Oh. Relax. We didn’t kill ’em. I said they were good, didn’t I? They were ready to die guarding you. Remember what else I said? ‘It’s boring to kill guys like that.’ They’re just taking a little nap. They’ve got a few broken bones, but whatever.”

Then he added one final, uncalled-for sentence:

“Lucky you, huh, Uncle? Your sweet lil’ grandkid was away at school.”

At those words, rage welled up once more, and Placido’s face turned bright red again.

“Just get out,
now
! If you’re not planning to come back anyway, why did you come here in the first place?!”

“Aaah! Right, I forgot!”

For the first time, anxiety came into Ladd’s expression. He directed a brazen question at his uncle, whose fists were shaking.

“Listen, Uncle, that white suit of yours. Could you give me that, to commemorate my marriage to Lua over there? Although I dunno when we’re getting married.”

Naturally dumbfounded by this, Placido forgot his anger and spoke:

“That’s right: Why are you people all in white?”

This dumb question received a dumb answer. The answer was also more than enough to provoke a strong feeling of revulsion in anyone who heard it.

“We’re on our way to kill several dozen people in a narrow train, see? If we’re in white
the blood will show up better, and it’ll look cool.”

“Yeah this, this! The size is perfect. Ain’t that great!”

Inside a black double-decker bus that was his personal property, Ladd had dressed himself in formal attire for the coming feast.

As she watched him out of the corner of her eye, Lua asked him a question, sounding puzzled:

“Why didn’t you kill that man?”

“Hmm?”

“Normally, you would have killed him, Ladd.”

She was talking about Placido, apparently.

“Mm. That’s true,” he answered easily, humming.

“Why not?”

“You’re supposed to let yourself get nice and hungry before a feast, right?”

The sociable murderer responded without a moment’s hesitation. Lua lowered her eyes, murmuring quietly:

“You’re the worst, Ladd.”

“And you like guys who are the worst, don’tcha?”

Without giving an audible answer to that question, Lua nodded silently.

Not bothering to confirm this, Ladd declared the opening of the “feast” to the dozen or so snow-white individuals who were packed into the bus.

“All right, let’s go. We’ll admire those poor passengers like livestock, we’ll despise ’em like maggots, and with love and hatred, we’ll crush ’em real, real carefully. Ha-ha, ha-ha-ha!”

The bus sped away.

Toward their last stop and their point of departure: Chicago’s Union Station.

Ladd’s party, uniformly and brilliantly clad in white.

The white group elegantly descended the lobby staircase, which later would be made famous by the baby carriage scene in
The Untouchables
.

From the shadow of a column, a man and woman gazed at their abnormally white costumes.

“Wow, Miria, look at that! It looks like lots of people in white are going to be on the same train we’re taking!”

“Pure white for sure!”

“I wonder if they’re going to get married on the train.”

“Uh-huh, a happy wedding!”

“We are affiliated with the Chicago Paysage Philharmonic. As the orchestra’s instruments are delicate, we request that they be handled with particular care, even in the freight room.”

Beside the freight car, a group clad in black tuxedos and dresses was delivering an explanation to a station clerk.

“As a precaution, we will place an orchestra member in the freight car. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“Huh? I’m terribly sorry, but that isn’t a decision I can make on my own…”

The clerk was at a loss. The man who was negotiating took out a single permit.

“We received permission from the company in advance. If you’d like, you may conduct rigorous physical searches in New York, but…”

“Oh, no, if you’ve got permission, there won’t be any problem, sir.”

After exchanging a few more words, the orchestra loaded large crates and parcels one after another. Upon confirming that the contents of the large crates were timpani and horns, the luggage checks also ended safely.

If it hadn’t been just before departure, and they’d checked the freight more carefully, or if the clerk had been slightly more competent, they might have noticed.

That the packing material meant to cushion the instruments against impacts included large amounts of ammunition. That all sorts of weapons were hidden beneath false bottoms. That the permit from the company was an outright forgery.

However, even if they’d been suspected, it wouldn’t have been a problem. They had many other alternate methods ready.

That was how the Lemures, disguised as an orchestra, managed to carry a vast amount of equipment right onto the train.

“Look, Miria! It’s a symphony, an orchestra! Mozart! Paul Dukas!”

“Yes, Beethoven!”

Seeing the black suits loading their instruments in front of a freight car, Isaac’s and Miria’s spirits soared much higher than was really necessary.

In contrast, one man was looking terribly worried as he watched the proceedings.

“Wh-what’ll we do, what’ll we do? It sounds like they’re putting a guard in the freight room…”

Had their plan fallen through already? Jacuzzi, his face tearful, pleaded with Nice.

“It’s fine. It looks as though the cargo we’re after is in another compartment.”

“B-but…”

“Ruh, relax. I do…something, about guard.”

Donny thumped his chest enthusiastically, and Jacuzzi gave a shriek:

“Nuh-nuh-no, no,
no, no
, NO! If you do something about them, they’ll
die
, Donny!”

“It’s fine, leave to me. Probably.”

“‘Probably’ is not good enough!”

As Jacuzzi panicked more than was really necessary, a light impact ran through his back.

When he gave a small scream and turned around, he saw a boy of about ten who was staggering a bit.

The boy regained his balance almost immediately, looked straight at Jacuzzi’s face with its large tattoo, and—

“I-I’m sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going, and I just…”

—apologized, bowing his head slightly.

“Oh, sure, it’s fine. It’s okay. It’s my fault; I shouldn’t have been in the middle of the road like this. What about you? Are you okay?”

The young man with the tattoo gave a kind smile, and the kid smiled back at him happily.

“Uh-huh! Thank you, mister!”

With that, he bowed one more time, then ran off toward the entrance to the second-class passenger compartments.

“Aww, how cute! Say, listen, did you see that kid? He was just like Jacuzzi when he was little!”

“Stop, you’re making me blush.”

“You’re still cute now, though, Jacuzzi.”

“Eh-heh-heh… Seriously, quit.”

As Jacuzzi looked down, embarrassed, Donny got in an uncalled-for verbal jab.

“Aah, Jacuzzi. She say you cute at your age, even though you guy. She making fun of you, right?”

Once again looking as if he was about to burst into tears, Jacuzzi boarded the train, heading for their third-class compartment with his companions.

At the same time, Ladd’s white-clad group boarded a second-class carriage, taking only hand luggage.

“All righty! Second-class compartments are great, yeah? Not at the bottom, not at the top; it’s a really half-assed place, and I love it! It’s like, gray bats swinging in space, see?”

That said, the second-class carriages on this luxury train were fairly posh in their own right, and on an ordinary train, they would easily have passed as first-class cars.

“I wonder what sort of rich fat cats ride first class in a place like this? Ah, I guess one’s that orchestra of black suits, huh… It’s pretty nifty how they contrast with our duds. I wonder who else is in there; did anybody see?”

One of Ladd’s friends responded:

“I saw a mother and daughter get on a minute ago.”

“Nn? You mean a lady and a girl? That don’t necessarily mean they’re mother and daughter.”

“No, I recognized their faces.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Possibly out of interest, Ladd stopped and waited for his subordinate to speak.

“I saw them in the papers. I’m pretty sure they were Senator Beriam’s wife and daughter.”

Senator Beriam. He was a powerful senator who was involved with the anticrime measures that had accompanied the Depression, and who was often mentioned in newspapers and on the radio these days.

Ladd seemed to like that answer enormously: His face twisted into a happy grin.

“Oho. The senator’s, hmm? I bet they’re really enjoying life. Riding in their first-class compartment… I bet they think they’re gonna have a real safe trip.”

His eyes were like those of a dog confronted with a feast, and his lips warped further and further.

“Sounds like we’ve got our first victims all picked out for us, huh?”

Just then, the door at the front of the car rattled open. Ladd’s group was standing in the middle of the corridor, and they involuntarily looked that way.

The person standing there was swathed from head to toe in gray cloth.

He wore a gray coat over gray clothes, had a gray cloth wrapped around his head, and a thick muffler covered the lower part of his face, hiding it. His eyes were in the shadow of the cloth, and it wasn’t possible to discern their attitude from the front.

Closing the door quietly with hands encased in thin gloves, he walked right past Ladd and the others, who watched him suspiciously.

After the man had exited into the next car, one of Ladd’s men spoke, an expression of relief on his face:

“What the hell was
that
, huh?”

“It looked like the kinda magician that shows up in operas and stuff.”

Completely ignoring their own clothes, they whispered together about the man, whose costume had been far too eerie.

In the midst of this, only Ladd’s heart danced with onrushing expectations and unease for the journey.

“Interesting, man oh man is this
interesting
. An orchestra, a senator’s family, and a magician? Great, that’s great—it’s variation like that that makes fun
fun
. In the end, the source is the same, but there’s nothing wrong with having several kinds of sauce, yeah?”

However, Ladd hadn’t caught on yet.

To the fact that there were all sorts of other people on this train with him as well.

Or the fact that those sauces included strong poison.

The Lemures—disguised as an orchestra—had split into groups of ten, with one group each boarding first, second, and third class. Each had been given a wireless radio to hide among their luggage; they would use these to stay in close contact with one another. They were articles created by using unique technology to further modify what was currently the smallest type of wireless.

Their objective was to retake the person who had made those modifications: their great leader, Huey Laforet.

If it was for that, they didn’t begrudge their own lives, or the lives of other people.

“Comrade Goose. We’ve confirmed that Senator Beriam’s wife and daughter are on board.”

“I see.”

As they confirmed reports from their subordinates, Goose and Chané were headed to their own post in a first-class compartment.

Then, just when they’d checked the coupling that linked the freight car with the passenger cars, they realized there was a woman on its other side. She was still young and wore women’s trousers and a top reminiscent of a coverall. On seeing her, Goose’s first impression was—

That’s a functional costume. It’s similar to Chané’s everyday wear.

—a very pedestrian one.

Just then, abruptly, his eyes met hers.

As if nothing had happened, the woman moved away from the coupling and disappeared into the shadow of the train.

“That woman…”

On seeing her eyes across the coupling, Goose had realized that the woman was not an honest citizen. Shoplifting or pickpocketing, or possibly murder. It had only been for a moment, so he couldn’t be sure, but it had seemed as though she’d had the eyes of someone who’d been through a scene of carnage in connection with some crime.

Beside him, Chané seemed to have noticed the same thing: She was staring after the woman with narrowed eyes.

Goose investigated the coupling carefully to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with. As a result, he managed to confirm that it had not been.

“Just my imagination, hmm? All for the best, if so…”

At that, Goose also left the scene as though nothing had happened.

Even after that, Chané continued to watch the area around the train. Then, suddenly, a voice addressed her from behind.

“Miss, we’ll be departing soon… Did you drop something?”

When she turned, the
Flying Pussyfoot
’s original conductor uniform, whose basic color was white, seemed to jump out at her. A white conductor’s uniform, exempted from railway corporation regulations in order to show this train’s uniqueness. The young man who wore it was gazing at Chané, looking concerned.

Silently, Chané shook her head. Then, walking quickly, she disappeared into the passenger compartment.

“She was really pretty. Thinking there’s someone like her on board makes me suddenly eager to get to work.”

Once he’d made sure that Chané had entered the carriage, the young conductor flung his arms up and stretched hugely.

“All right: I guess we’re off. Nothing wrong with the train today, either.”

Saying something that ran completely counter to the actual situation, the easygoing conductor headed for the last train car...

…with no knowledge of the fate that lay in store for this train just up ahead.

And then the departure bell rang out.