The Rolling Bootlegs (10 page)

A gigantic shoe was shoved into it.

Berga had suddenly jumped up onto the table and kicked Jorgi’s face the way a kid would kick a ball.

“…Don’t you make my brothers any sadder.”

Eyebrows drawn together in a scowl, he looked down at the degenerate who lay on the floor. The lightbulb that hung right beside Berga’s head was swinging violently.

Several of Jorgi’s teeth had left his mouth, and the whites of his eyes showed under slightly opened eyelids. Apparently, the attack had knocked him out cold.

Seeing this, several of the men who’d been watching the poker
match began to move. They picked up Jorgi’s body and stuffed it into a gunnysack. Then two of them lifted the sack…and climbed the stairs to the ground floor.

After this, the gunnysack would be driven outside the city and taken to a place with a view of the ocean.

Jorgi was only unconscious now, but he would probably never wake up again.

The man who knew his fate quietly stirred the vocal chords he almost never used.

“……Damn fool…”

The only ones who heard Keith’s soft murmur were his two younger brothers.

A few minutes after the gunnysack had made its exit, a member who’d been in the jazz hall came down.

“Luck… Dallas’s group says they want to see you.”

Dallas? Who was that? Several names and faces flickered through Luck’s mind.

Then he recalled the faces of the punks who’d been playfully tearing up the neighborhood.

“That’s fine. Confiscate their ‘toys’ beforehand, if you would.”

After a short while, a weary-looking group of four entered.

On seeing them, Luck got the vague feeling that these clowns had just lost a fight. That made it pretty easy to guess why they were here.

And on the whole, his guess proved correct.

“
So, this Firo punk: Could you do something about…?”

“No, gentlemen.”

Luck spoke firmly before they’d finished their story. The other men seemed to be about his age, but apparently he’d decided to respond politely anyway.

“What obligation do we have to help you get your revenge?”

“Well… No… I mean… Some guy from somewhere else is doing whatever he wants around here!”

“You aren’t members of our syndicate. As such, there’s no need
for you to worry about our ‘business.’ That said, if the people who
contribute
to us were to come to us about the matter, we’d spare no pains in addressing the issue…”

This was a fact. In general, small outfits like theirs were built on the trust (or, in some cases, the fear) of the citizens who paid them protection money.

“…Hey, we drop money at your speakos, too.”

“And in exchange, you’re given liquor, correct? I would think that makes us even.”

“Then let’s do it this way, Mr. Luck. If you help us out, we’ll pledge allegiance to your syndicate. That’s a pretty good deal, isn’t it?”

All the strength nearly drained out of Luck’s body. How could they possibly overestimate themselves this much? Not only that, but right after they’d been thrashed by one guy!

Deciding there was no point in continuing the discussion, Luck made up his mind to disclose everything honestly.

“Listen, Dallas… Didn’t you ever wonder why we never contacted you? You can’t have imagined we’d turned a blind eye to your arrogant behavior because we were afraid of you, can you? Frankly, we didn’t invite you to join our syndicate because you didn’t seem as if you’d be the slightest bit of use to us. If we ever end up in a gunfight with the police, I suppose we could use you as shields, but we’d rather not pay human shields a weekly salary. And we didn’t interfere with you…”

He paused.

“…in order to keep the eyes of the police elsewhere. While you play at being bandits, they take less trouble investigating us.”

He hadn’t been thinking anything of the sort, but it was probably better to say at least that much. If they took these jokers in as members, they’d only be marked more firmly by the police, and Dallas’s crew was certain to get in the way.

When he looked, all four men were watching him, red-faced. He didn’t think they were foolish enough to make trouble inside a Mafia hideout, but he couldn’t afford to be careless.

“…Hey… You sure spout off enough. What do you actually know about us, huh?”

“At the very least, I know one lone boy who seemed obviously younger than you beat you like rugs. Since you just told me so yourselves, I doubt there’s any mistake.”

“Why you little—!”

Dallas, the leader, made no attempt to stop his angry companion. They probably meant to show off their courage and skills, but that method was effective only when the minimum of courtesy was observed.

“Fugwahah!”

The one who’d made the first move fell to the floor with a loud
crash
. When he glanced over, Berga was standing beside him, fist clenched.

“Berga.”

“Luck… What’s with these mannerless scumbags?”

After a little thought, the youngest brother answered:

“I don’t know them.”

“I see. You don’t know ’em, huh? Then they’re trespassing, right?”

“I was very nearly killed.”

“You were, huh? Then this is legitimate self-defense.”

Confronted with Berga cracking his knuckles, the remaining three men were paralyzed for an instant.

“There’s an idea, Dallas. If you manage to beat Berga, we’ll acknowledge your skills.”

Berga was in a bad mood, and unlike Firo, he wasn’t about to stop beating them once they were down. His long, thick leg stomped on the face of the man who’d fallen first, over and over.

Three minutes later… Four men who were even more tired—or rather, torn up—than they had been when they arrived were making tracks retreating from the office.

After the four had been run out of the basement, Luck discovered something they’d left behind.

“What’s this crate…? Liquor?”

There were two liquor bottles inside the crate. Had they belonged to the men who’d just left? If so, they could throw them away or drink them with impunity, but if they were wrong, it would be a serious matter.

I’ll ask whose they are when everyone’s here tomorrow.

Luck set the crate on top of the safe, then began busily preparing to go out with his brothers.

Quietly, the spiral of destiny turned.

When I wake, the great man himself is standing before me.

Master Szilard. My lord, and the one for whom I have the highest regard.

I look around, and my surroundings strike me as familiar. That’s right: This is the members’ meeting place…near Grand Central.

“Ennis… Why didn’t you kill him?”

He doesn’t look at me. He seems to be reprimanding the female chauffeur, who is near the entrance.

“Sir. I thought we could do that after we found out what happened.”

The elderly members are lined up behind Master Szilard. Every face seems despairing. Although they are grown men, some are crying. Others are glaring at me with hatred in their eyes. The emotions, both despair and hatred, seem to gain in ferocity in proportion to their ages.

Oh, I see. They’re grieving over the fact that I failed to protect the finished product. A politician who seems unlikely to last another year is actually bawling.

“Hmph… Enough sophistry. You can kill strangers with no hesitation, but the moment it’s someone you know even slightly, you balk. ‘Find out’…?”

Master Szilard’s hand is approaching my face.

Oh. Then I
am
going to be killed.

However, there’s no help for that. After all, I was unable to carry out my mission.

To think that I let even the last hope—those two bottles of finished product—be stolen, and by ne’er-do-wells like those. I must consider myself honored simply to be executed by Master Szilard himself.

“All we need to do to find out…is this.”

Master Szilard sets his palm on my head.

Immediately, “it” is snatched away from within me. If asked what “it” is, the only answer I can give is “everything.” I can feel all the blood in my body gathering in my head. It isn’t only blood, though. I can feel my muscles shriveling and drying up, starting at my toes. I feel the desiccated flesh crumbling, being drawn into my body. Ah, my legs are gone already.

My memories… I can feel my memories being siphoned away. …Oh… Come to think of it, everything I am will become part of Master Szilard. In a way, does that not mean I
will
gain eternal life?
But why was it I wanted eternal life?

Oh, I’ve disappeared up to my stomach. Hurry, I have to hurry and remember. But why is my stomach gone? Oh, the man in front of me is Master Szilard. That’s right, Master Szilard is punishing me. But why am I being punished, I wonder… OH, THAT’S RIGHT, I WASN’T ABLE TO CARRY OUT MY MISSION. BUT WHAT MISSION WAS IT? I CAN’T REMEMBER NOW. THAT’S RIGHT, THERE WAS SOMETHING I HAD TO REMEMBER.

OH, OF COURSE. I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER EVERYTHING.

I WANTED ETERNAL LIFE BECAUSE I THOUGHT…

…I COULD BECOME A HERO, LIKE THE ONES IN MYTHS AND LEGENDS…

…AND PROTECT THIS LAND.

NO, THAT’S WRONG, IT WASN’T THE LAND.

MOMMY. IT WAS TO SAVE MOMMY. FROM THAT GUY, THE ONE WHO HIT HER EVERY DAY.

WHO WAS THAT GUY? I CAN’T REMEMBER. I REMEMBER HE DIED IN AN ACCIDENT.

HE DIED IN AN ACCIDENT. WITH MOMMY.

WHAT’S A MOMMY? I CAN’T REMEMBER.

WHAT IS REMEMBERING?

AH…

AH…

…

It was a grotesque sight.

The moment Szilard placed his hand on Barnes’s head, Barnes began to shrivel up.

No, the expression
shrivel up
wasn’t the right one. In the areas
from which the moisture seemed to have disappeared, the flesh crumbled, and the pulverized flesh was absorbed into the remaining surface… In a word:

He was eaten by Szilard’s right hand.

That was the perfect way to describe it.

Starting at the tips of his toes, Barnes’s body was erased from this world.

In the end, his head—the last remaining thing—broke apart, crumbled, and disappeared into Szilard’s right hand as if it had been sucked into a vacuum cleaner.

The faces of all the old men in the room were pale. There was no longer any crying to be heard. If they took one step out of this room… These men had substantial rank and honor, but right now they were no more than a group of old men dominated by the horror that had occurred before their eyes.

“All right, gentlemen.”

The one to break that silence was the author of that horror, Szilard himself.

“I’ve read his memories, and until the very end… Yes, even as I killed him, he held me in high regard and pledged loyalty to me. …Truly magnificent! I encourage you gentlemen to follow his example!”

The end result was a pile of clothes on the floor, complete with shoes.

The line sounded like a very unfunny joke, but he’d said it in all seriousness, and of course no one was laughing.

“…And rejoice: He appears to have managed to save two bottles of finished product from the fire.”

After a moment’s pause, a commotion rose among the old men. The room that had been enveloped in terror and despair was about to take an abrupt turn into joy.

“Although it seems they were stolen.”

That joy faded instantly.

“Well, I know where they were stolen, and the faces of the ones who took them. If we’re lucky, we should be able to reclaim them.”

Once again, a commotion went up from the group of old men.
To them, letting this chance slip through their fingers meant being forced to accept death. To Szilard, who was already ageless, it meant only that the completion of the elixir would be delayed, but to those who were hounded by old age and had already grown elderly, it truly was a matter of life and death.

In front of the group of old men with glittering, hungry eyes, Szilard was thinking of other things.

Even if the finished product has been created, there’s no sense in giving it to these good-for-nothings. For one with a heart as loyal as Barnes’s, I would have considered it, but in the end, he died, too. …Well, I did kill him myself, but still.