The Rolling Bootlegs (2 page)

He rolled out all sorts of other information, but none of it really clicked for me. I’d never even run into a gang in Japan before. The fact that there was a camorrista or a mafioso—either way, a guy who lived on the dark side of society—right here in front of me just didn’t feel real.

“That’s only natural. Even among the people of New York, I’d say less than 1 percent have ever encountered the Mafia. The same holds true for people who’ve been directly harmed by them, of course. I’m a rather forward person, and I sometimes introduce myself to people like you. That said, I’m sure the number of people I’ve spoken to is only a small fraction of that 1 percent.”

…Seriously. It was enough to make me feel like crying over my own luck.

At the time, though, I’d already been drawn in by the guy’s conversational skills. I’m not sure how to put it. I’d started feeling as if I was talking to somebody I’d known for years. …This even though, at that point, neither of us knew the other’s name.

“Well… There are probably more, actually, but those who’ve felt the presence of the Mafia almost never speak of it, you see.”

I’d heard of that in movies and things. It was something like omertà, “the code of silence,” where people pretended they hadn’t seen crimes for fear of retaliation.

But in that case… What was this guy doing talking about his organization to someone he’d just met?

“Ha-ha. It simply means that, other organizations aside, ours isn’t that strict. We aren’t involved in anything that outrageous, either. …In any case, members of the Sicilian Mafia won’t even speak of the fact that they belong to the Mafia, but the Camorra—and the American Mafia, actually, years back—tend to introduce themselves as such. The bosses sometimes respond to interviews for magazines and things personally.”

Meaning you’re show-offs? When I asked, there was a moment’s silence, and then he burst out laughing.

After he’d laughed for a while, the man gazed at me as if I really interested him, and he began speaking again.

“…You’ve got guts. To think you’d say something like that directly to a camorrista… Aren’t you afraid?”

No.

“Is it possible you think I’m not really a gangster?”

No. Even if you were lying, I don’t see why you’d need to go out of your way to pretend to be Camorra.

“You’re an odd one. When I heard about you from Paul, I assumed you were a stereotypical Japanese pigeon.”

Mind your own business. And besides, if you’re that fluent in Japanese, you should talk about people who are older than you properly; use
-san
. “Paul
-san
,” like that. Even if America doesn’t have much of a seniority system, they do address their elders with at least bare-bones courtesy. …Or that’s what the guidebook said, anyway.

At that moment, I had no idea that casual comment would be the switch that sent the gears of my life off course.

After a silence longer than the one before it, the man chuckled and murmured something.

“Coincidences are truly…fascinating. Aren’t they?”

What was he talking about? As I sat there, bewildered, the man gave a smile that seemed almost boyish. It was a smile that gave him the appearance of having found a new toy, or maybe as if he was about to pull some kind of prank, and he had it turned on me.

Then, after looking as though he wasn’t sure whether or not to say anything, he lowered his voice and informed me:

“Paul is younger than I am.”

Oh. ……Huh? Wait a second, what did you just say? No matter how you looked at that police officer, I’m pretty sure he was past middle age. …Did his face just come across as old or something?

“Well, about that… Returning to what we were speaking of earlier: It’s probably been about a hundred people over the past sixty years or so. People I’ve introduced myself to as Camorra, I mean. That doesn’t include people who knew already or police officers, but… In any event, unless things like this happen, I have no opportunities to get acquainted with upstanding tourists. Ha-ha.”

I thought I’d heard wrong. Sixty years. The young guy in front
of me was… I’m bad at telling white people’s ages based on their appearances, but he didn’t look as if he was even halfway to sixty.

As I watched him steadily, puzzled, the man adjusted his glasses and said, sounding a bit embarrassed:

“The thing is, you see, I suppose you’d call me immortal. I don’t die.”

Ah-ha. So this is one of those American jokes.

“Oh, you don’t believe me. No, it’s true: You can cut me or burn me, but I won’t die.”

I hear American jokes are notorious for going on for a while.

I gave him some sort of perfunctory response, and, still smiling, the guy—

—drew a knife from an inner pocket and stabbed his own hand.

For a second, I didn’t know what had happened. Red blood began dribbling from the hand with the knife stuck in it. I was dumbfounded, but the man just laughed.

“It’s fine. …Look.”

Slowly, he extracted the knife. I expected blood to come spurting out, but the bleeding had stopped completely.

Not only that, but I saw something unbelievable.

The blood that had dripped onto the table…started to squirm, as if having a life of its own…and seeped back into the man’s open wound, as though returning to its host. When all the blood had vanished, the wound itself disappeared. There wasn’t a single stain left on the table.

If I’d been watching this on some kind of screen, I’d have been able to call it a cheesy special effect and laugh it off. However, unfortunately, it had happened right in front of me.

Both the way the liquid moved, defying gravity, and the way the wound closed in the blink of an eye had been so corny I thought CGI might actually look better. That only made it creepier.

I thought I might have been the only one in the place—no, in the world—who’d witnessed this abnormality. Here, in this restaurant with its slightly upscale atmosphere, a guy had just scrambled the laws of physics.

…And yet not one of the customers or employees was even looking our way.

After giving it a little thought, I spoke to…whatever it was…in front of me.

Are you going to kill me? I asked.

At that, the man looked a bit surprised. Then he smiled again.

“That’s a reaction I haven’t seen before. Up until now, when I showed this to people, some of them brandished crucifixes at me, and some whipped out guns and started firing… The police hauled away the latter, of course. Poor devils; I’m afraid that was mean of me. Come to think of it, there were some who ran the second they saw the knife.”

Well, duh.

“Why did you think I’d kill you?”

Because I thought you were a monster, I answered honestly. Then I apologized for treating him like a monster, and at the same time, I told him that, whether it was real or a trick, he should stop scaring people like that.

“…You really are a rare breed. No one’s ever stayed this calm before.”

Unfeeling
would probably have been a more accurate assessment than
calm
. I hear this from people all the time, but apparently the shock of almost getting eaten by a brown bear once in Hokkaido had numbed my sense of fear. I’ve been told I should become a war photographer, but I don’t have the know-how to get across a battlefield, so I’d die for sure. I didn’t want to die, so I’d stayed a wildlife photographer.

When I told him this, the man looked me in the eye, steadily. He seemed entertained.

“You’re quite a fascinating person. …Listen, since you’re here, would you be interested in hearing me talk about old times? The story of how I acquired this power of immortality, and the curious tales surrounding it… It would be a good way to pass the time.”

That did sound like an intriguing story…but was it all right for me to hear it? After all, we’d just met.

“It doesn’t matter. Even if you told others about it, I doubt they’d believe you.”

I told him, firmly, that it had better not be anything religious. There was somebody immortal right in front of me, and I’m not sure why I was so calm. Looking back, I think I was a complete moron.

“Ah, don’t worry. It’s nothing to do with anything like that. It really is just a simple way to kill time. …Although I suppose a demon does make an appearance in this story.”

The man who’d called himself a Camorra
contaiuolo
, a man who was apparently immortal, ordered our food from the waitress, and then slowly began to relate his “legend.”

“All right. Then I’ll begin… It’s the tale of a man who drank the demon’s liquor and gained immortality. That miserable man’s lonely, lonely yarn. The stage is Prohibition-era New York. It’s a story of the peculiar destiny surrounding the sudden appearance of the ‘liquor of immortality,’ and of the spiral of people who found themselves drawn into it…”

1711     The Atlantic Ocean          The
Advena Avis

Alchemy.

Believed to have originated in ancient Egypt, it was an academic discipline, a skill, and at the same time, a culture.

Having sprung from Egyptian arts, it came to Western Europe via the Arab world during the Renaissance and deeply permeated the society there, fusing with Greek philosophy and—via Hermetic thought—religious concepts as it did so.

It sometimes sought, as its name in certain languages suggests, to transmute base metals into gold; at other times, it attempted to create artificial life divorced from the hand of God, and in the end, it pursued eternal life. …No, even that couldn’t be called the end: There was no end to the heights sought by the alchemists. They devoted themselves to daily study, endeavoring to make the impossible possible; if they managed it, the impossible would
be
possible. Their ultimate goal would fade and grow dull. They seemed likely to vanish into their own knowledge and desires, or possibly their sense of mission, as they pursued further impossibilities.

In early modern times, as alchemists were hampered by those around them and occasionally targeted by envious looks—a mundane whirl of small minds misunderstanding great ones—they continued to pursue various skills and to meet with failure. However, their
actions were not in vain. They made a variety of contributions to modern science, beginning with the alchemist Newton’s discovery of universal gravitation. Alchemy was by no means a system of pseudoscience.

Still, from time to time, there were some who attempted to fuse it with fields apart from science. With magic and thaumaturgy.

Generally, alchemy and magic tend to be considered synonymous, but the two are completely different. Among alchemists, there was a tendency to discount magic and prayers, viewing them as unscientific things that relied upon external forces. However, some of them actively dabbled in these fields.

After all, if their existence were confirmed, even magic and demons would become possible. They would be no more than tools to break open the next impossibility.

The ship was enveloped in the dark of night.

In that darkness…all they heard was a voice.

The alchemists had left their homeland and were bound for the New World.

Onboard the ship, at long last, they had successfully summoned a demon.

“So you call me a demon, do you? Well, I suppose that will do. …But have any of you ever seen God or an angel? I’d imagine the word
evil
has meaning only when there’s an object for comparison. Well, never mind. It’s been 103 years since anyone took the trouble to summon me. If you’d been three years earlier, it would have made for a nicer number… Well, never mind. Ah, ‘Well, never mind’ is an idiomatic quirk of mine. Just ignore it. Although I suppose it’s odd to call it an ‘idiomatic quirk’ when I’m communicating directly with your minds. Well, never mind.”

In accordance with the oath by which it was bound, this unusually loquacious demon promised to bestow knowledge on the alchemist who had directly summoned him.

“I want to know everything regarding immortality,” the alchemist said.

“In other words… You’re hinting you’d like me to make you immortal? Well, never mind.”

On the deck of the ship, in the center of the group of alchemists, there was a vessel filled with liquid.

“If you drink that, you will become immortal. Decide what to do next on your own. I’m immortal myself, but impressions vary widely. …Wait, wait, calm down and listen to this next bit. I’m a generous soul. There’s enough of that elixir for everyone here. Share it. Don’t fight. …All right: if you tire of immortality and wish to die…”

The demon proceeded to teach them a method by which immortals could die.

“Go find someone else who drank the elixir. If someone asks you to, lay your right hand on their head and think, ‘I want to eat.’ You just have to think it forcefully. The one who wished to die will be absorbed into your right hand, and their life will end.
Eating
means you’ll inherit all the other person’s knowledge. That means the last of you will accumulate the knowledge of all thirty. If that last one tires of living, summon me again. When you do, I’ll ‘eat’ you. That means I make out well: I’ll gain the knowledge of thirty people… By the way, just so you’re aware…there is a risk. Once you drink that elixir, you’ll be unable to give a false name. That limitation will be set on your spirits. If you’re passingly giving your name to an ordinary human, you won’t have any trouble, but among immortals, you’ll only be able to use your real name, and your body will refuse to allow you to establish a false identity in society. …If it weren’t for that, you see, you’d never be able to find one another.”

The alchemists thought for a little while. Then they divided the elixir among themselves and drank it. The elixir tasted like liquor.

“Oh, that’s right… I promised to teach you everything, didn’t I? I’m not sure what ‘everything’ should consist of, but for now, I’ll tell you how to prepare more of the elixir. Mind you, I’m not telling everyone here. Only this man, the one who summoned me. If you want to know, ask him later.”

With that, the invisible demon gave the alchemist who’d summoned
him “knowledge.” The man was still young, and he didn’t understand what had happened. He only knew that knowledge he hadn’t possessed before had been planted in his memory.

The demon’s voice went silent.

The man who had obtained the knowledge thought about it for a night.

His younger brother was with him on the ship, and he began telling his sibling the secret of the elixir of immortality. When he’d related about half of it, he had a sudden epiphany.

The next day, he made a statement:

“…I’ve decided to seal this knowledge forever.”

Voices of protest rose from among the alchemists, but his mind was made up.

And that night, it happened.

The man who’d acquired the knowledge was cautious. In the middle of the night, he felt someone’s presence, and when he opened his eyes… One of his companions stood in his cabin.

This companion’s hand rested on the head of the alchemist’s younger brother, who slept in the opposite bed…

In an instant, the man was fully awake, but it was too late: Like magic, everything his brother was disappeared into the right arm of their companion—or rather, the one who, up until that moment, had been a companion.

“…I didn’t think they’d start this soon,” the demon, who was watching from the darkness somewhere, murmured to himself. “Allowing that I did set them off, after a fashion… That’s the human race for you. Greedy things. Granted, this is entertaining to watch as well, but…”

The being they’d called a demon continued. It sounded a little lonely.

“…I did think that this time, perhaps…”

The demon’s voice was gone. Only darkness that gave the illusion of being infinite remained.

And time passed.