1932 Drug & The Dominos Page 13

  “You’re sure about that?”

  Gustavo, his face expressionless, was confirming a report from one of his men.

  “Yes, it was the same bag, no question. When we got up close, it had the scratches we used to mark it, in the exact same spots.”

  “I see.”

  Saying nothing more, Gustavo leaned back in his chair and drew a deep breath.

  Last night, after Roy had started to act, one of his subordinates had checked out the house he’d been watching, just in case. Then, a short while after Roy had made his move, an Asian and a white guy had visited the house. He’d seen that they had the black bag, so he’d stayed there and watched for a while.

  After that, a group led by a fat black woman had appeared from the gate, and the woman had been carrying a familiar black bag in her right hand.

  The group’s destination had been even stranger.

  He’d followed them and had ended up…at the information brokerage, the Daily Days newspaper.

  Since then, they hadn’t left the building.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  The house Roy had been watching was the Genoard family’s second residence.

  Then he’d made contact with the Genoards’ daughter, Eve. Not only that, but since he’d been watching the place, it had been inevitable, not a coincidence.

  Roy was after the Genoards’ daughter. If there was a possibility, it was that the girl knew about the Genoards’ shadow business, and he was planning to use that in an attempt to cut a deal with them.

  …But Roy shouldn’t have known about the Genoards. He really couldn’t imagine that a mere dope-addicted punk would know something like that.

  Technically, the trail should have gone cold, but when he thought of what had happened afterward, all the pieces fell into place.

  The woman who’d come out of the Genoard house had taken the black bag to the info dealers’.

  Then, after making contact, Eve and Roy had headed for the Gandors’ hideout.

  Wouldja look at that. It’s simple. It’s real damn simple.

  Gustavo picked up a marble ashtray, held it in both hands, and twisted it to pieces.

  Crushing the shards of granite that crumbled off the broken edges in his fist, Gustavo murmured softly, his expression calm:

  “Gandors, information broker, Roy, Genoards.”

  He was a fighter, and as his eyes returned to what they’d been in his prime, he slowly got up from his chair.

  “So they were all in cahoots, huh?”

  “And? Are they here? The freelance hatchet men.”

  “Y-yessir. They’re all in the same room.”

  Cringing, one of Gustavo’s subordinates answered him. The man was clearly different from who he’d been yesterday; he had an air about him similar to when he clawed his way up to become a Runorata executive under his own steam. If anyone ticked him off now, they’d probably get their neck broken on the spot.

  “The same room? Are people who’d let the other guys see their faces gonna be any good in a fight?”

  “I think it means they’re just that confident. Our fellas are in there, too, to make sure they don’t take each other out.”

  “I see.”

  Without any particularly strong feelings, he threw open the door to the room.

  “Hello!” called a friendly female voice. “You must be the boss, huh, amigo?!”

  “……”

  No sooner had the door opened than Gustavo heard a young woman’s lively welcome.

  A smiling brown-skinned woman was resting her elbows on the table in the center of the room. The word artless suited that smile very well, and she might actually have been under twenty. She seemed to be Mexican, and she was dressed in the sort of outfit mariachi bands wore in her home country. At her hips, she wore two small Japanese katana, although there was no telling how she’d gotten them into the hotel.

  Beside the woman, a man holding a whiskey bottle slumped in a chair. He was drinking his whiskey straight from the bottle, never stopping to pour it into a glass. In contrast with the woman, his face was dour, and his age clearly wasn’t under fifty.

  “……”

  Opposite the old man stood a young guy. His hands were empty. He was wearing an abnormally long coat, and sharp eyes peered out from under the hat he’d pulled down low on his head.

  Aside from them, there were no other new people; all the rest of the faces were his subordinates’ familiar ones.

  Gustavo grabbed the neck of the underling next to him and hauled him up close to the ceiling, using just one arm.

  “I told you to get me hitmen, didn’t I? Why the hell would you scout buskers in Central Park? If you’ve got the air to make excuses, lemme hear ’em.”

  “Mugaw, gwaaah, thass, th-th-there aren’t a-a-a-any decent, s-s-solo, f-f-fffreelance hit—! Men ar-r-r-round these d-d-d-days!”

  “Don’t give me excuses.”

  “—Aaaaaaaah!”

  Just then, the girl who’d been sitting on the other side of the table made a move.

  From what he saw out of the corner of his eye, it looked as though she’d disappeared.

  By the time Gustavo glanced over that way, a silver, stick-shaped object had flashed out from under the table. The Mexican girl had ducked underneath it, drawing her long blade as she went.

  On seeing its tip, which had stopped just before it hit the base of his throat, Gustavo narrowed his eyes slightly.

  “No fighting, ’kay, amigo? If we’re tough, you’ve got nothing to complain about. Right? Amigo?”

  “Does your family usually turn their swords on amigos?”

  With a calm, sarcastic mutter, Gustavo dropped his subordinate onto the floor.

  “That’s not what that was, amigo. My buddy Murasámia moved all on its own. The kid just doesn’t know how to behave!”

  “Murasámia” must have been the name of the katana. Sheathing the sword, she smacked its scabbard lightly.

  “…As a person, you’re excruciating, but you do seem to have skills.”

  “Was that a compliment? Thanks, amigo!”

  “At the very least, I have no intention whatsoever of being your friend. Never call me that again.”

  The girl’s movements had been superhuman, but the others didn’t seem particularly impressed.

  “Hunh. I guess it’s safe to assume they’ve got some guts.”

  “N-no, there’s one more on the way.”

  The subordinate, who’d been coughing for a while, finally managed to regain his voice and inform Gustavo that someone hadn’t arrived yet.

  “Who is it? I don’t need any small fry.”

  Just as the man was about to tell him the name, the door to the room opened, and a drab man with very thick glasses appeared. His face looked as if it could have been young, but the whiskers around his mouth made it impossible to tell his age. Without showing the slightest confusion at the atmosphere in the place, the man spoke, his bland voice echoing in the room.

  “I’m flattered you went to the trouble of calling me, but…”

  The bearded, bespectacled man looked at Gustavo’s subordinate and ducked his head in a bow.

  “I’ve got a previous engagement, so I can’t take a hit contract.”

  Confronted with this abrupt conversation, no one in the room seemed able to process the situation.

  “W-wait, please! Mr. Felix!”

  Felix. The instant they heard that name, the atmosphere in the room changed dramatically.

  The hitmen’s eyes went round, and a stir ran through Gustavo’s subordinates. The old man with the whiskey bottle hadn’t even looked over at the earlier commotion, but the moment he heard that name, he capped his bottle.

  Gustavo scowled openly, freezing right where he was.

  Felix? “Handyman” Felix, the one people said was equal to Vino or even better? He’d heard he lived somewhere in Manhattan; they’d managed to contact him?

  “Once the job I’m signed up for
is over, I can do anything you want, but I really can’t double-book, you know. If you had any other kind of job, I could take that. Anything from kidnapping to helping you move.”

  On that note, the man turned to leave, but Gustavo called to his back, imperiously.

  “Wait. Don’t you want to try fighting Vino? If you kill him, that’ll prove which of you was stronger, once and for all, right?”

  “I’m not interested. ‘The strongest’… I’m not a kid. That title doesn’t make me happy.”

  “Then you don’t feel like going toe to toe with him?”

  “The only people I kill without a contract are the ones who try to kill me. May I go?”

  So no matter how I struggle, it’s useless, huh? That was what he thought, but then he remembered the words the other man had said a minute ago, and he decided to ask one more question.

  “Hold up, just a minute. You said you did kidnappings, too. Could I hire you for one of those, right now?”

  The man with the whiskers and glasses thought for a little while, then turned back to face him.

  “That’d be fine.”

  “I’ll pay any amount you want. I need to know if you can nab a couple, a guy and a girl, from Hell’s Kitchen without letting fellas from the other territories catch on. Guys from other syndicates are keeping an eye on things, and we can’t make a move ourselves.”

  The guy called a handyman responded without even asking for details:

  “Let’s talk rates.”

  After the Handyman had left, Gustavo issued instructions to the assembled group.

  “All right, we’ve got about twenty people here. I want our hatchet professionals to stay out of things until Vino shows up. Even if he doesn’t turn up at the place we’re raiding today, if we put the screws on the Gandor men, we’ll find out where he is. If he’s skipped out on us, you’ll get to write that you’re tougher than Vino on your résumés. On the other hand, if you want to run, go ahead… Of course, you’re getting all your pay after the job, and we might shoot you in the back.”

  Apparently, from the way he’d loaded the word professionals with sarcasm, Gustavo didn’t completely trust the others.

  Moving swiftly on, he distributed orders to his own subordinates.

  “…So. They’ve done a real number on us, and that’s a fact. But it ends now.”

  Shutting his shotgun into its instrument case, Gustavo slammed a hand down onto the desk.

  “We’re settling this today. The first blood we’re gonna spill belongs to the rotten journos at the Daily Days, the guys who bias all their reports in the Gandors’ favor. Pour their blood into their rotary presses and make tomorrow’s morning edition a flashy, all-red one! Every last copy!”

  As the intimidating group walked down the corridor, one man stood in their path.

  “Where…are…you…go…ing?”

  Begg was watching them suspiciously. Gustavo warped his mouth into a smile, spitting out the words:

  “Just you try and stop us.”

  He saw Begg’s eyebrows come together slightly, and for the first time, he felt he’d gotten the advantage over the man.

  Of course, to Gustavo, something like that was trivial now.

  “Yes, I understand… Right. Yes, we’ll be able to move immediately as well.”

  In the basement of the jazz hall, Luck was taking a phone call.

  “Ah? A girl about fifteen years old? No, she hasn’t been here.”

  Luck hung up the phone, then turned to Keith and Berga. He was frowning slightly. “The plan has been moved up a day. It sounds as though they’re about to launch an attack on the Daily Days.”

  “Hah! Bring it on! That just means they’ll run outta life a day sooner!”

  “………”

  “Good grief. If everything had gone well, we wouldn’t have needed to go to the mattresses, and it would all have been over tomorrow.” Luck looked tired, but his mouth suddenly twisted as if he was happy, and he laughed a little. “Well, you know. The matter of the drugs aside, there’s the betting parlor, the gambling den, the speakeasy, Nicola’s wound, and the pain from my slit throat. Let’s make sure they compensate us properly for those.”

  Stowing handguns and knives in their jackets, the three pulled on thin coats.

  Finally, Luck picked up the receiver one more time, placed a call, said only, “Medical exam starting at two o’clock,” then hung up.

  “All right, Tick,” he continued a moment later, “keep an eye on things for us here, if you would. When Claire comes back, tell him, ‘The party’s starting at the Daily Days newspaper offices.’”

  “Yessir. Be careful, okaaay?”

  Waving at Tick, who watched them go while looking concerned, the three Gandor brothers climbed the office stairs.

  “Geez, though, where’d Claire get off to?” Berga asked.

  “There’s no help for that,” Luck sighed. “We told him this was happening tomorrow, and he isn’t the type to stand by just because he’s been told to.”

  “……”

  “Well, if Claire doesn’t come…we’ll just have to work harder.”

  I think the pain in my heart has subsided just a little.

  Having finished helping with the washing-up after lunch, Eve was now sitting with Roy in a room at Keith’s house.

  “What are you gonna do next?”

  In answer to Roy’s question, Eve simply shook her head. The look in her eyes said, I don’t know.

  “I set aside the hysterics and thought about it all night, and it doesn’t look like there’s much you can do here. Since we know that, you should probably go back home. I mean, yeah, I brought you here, but you can see Miz Kate anytime you want now, y’know? So, really, for now, just go home.”

  Maybe he’s right. When I look at Kate, I can’t believe that Keith’s a very bad person. Maybe the people at the information brokerage made a mistake. In that case— In that case, Dallas might still be alive.

  That meant she couldn’t cause any more trouble for everyone else. It might be better to go back to Benjamin and Samantha.

  “Right. You can tell ’em I dragged you over here. I’m skipping town anyway, so it’s not like tacking on a kidnapping charge is going to do much damage.”

  “I really couldn’t do that.”

  That’s right. I’ll hurry home. I’ll go back to Benjamin and Samantha for now, and then we can come visit Kate, have her take us to meet Keith, and hear his side of the story…

  And then we’ll go look for Dallas.

  Forming that resolution, she stood up, intending to go tell Kate.

  However, just then, the door burst open to reveal a man they didn’t know.

  “Uh, you’re Miss Eve and Mr. Roy, correct?”

  Slowly, the man walked up to the bewildered pair.

  “I need you to come with me.”

  “H-hey, who’re you? Miz Kate… What did you do to Miz Kate?!”

  Ignoring Roy’s words, the man closed the distance in the blink of an eye and sank a sharp punch into his solar plexus.

  “Beg pardon. I’m in a hurry.”

  “Gahk…”

  “Roy!”

  Hastily, Eve tried to run to him, and the man—the Handyman—gave her a little smile.

  “You ran over here, not away. I’m impressed. Good girl.”

  After seeing that reaction, he jabbed a revolver into Roy’s unconscious back.

  “It’s great when hostages work. Relax; I didn’t hurt Kate. It looks like she went out to do some shopping, that’s all.”

  Making Eve get up slowly, the man slung Roy over his shoulder and walked out of the room, as bold as brass.

  “So I’m to take you to the Daily Days, hmm? I guess we should hurry.”

  At the offices of the Daily Days newspaper, the site of the final showdown, various forces were converging:

  The usual editorial department din had vanished, and everyone carried out their work in silence.

  All sorts of peopl
e had gathered in the president’s office: several newspaper executives; Benjamin’s group, who’d spent the night at the newspaper; Edith, who’d returned after searching for Roy until morning with no success; and the president, sitting on the other side of the documents. Rather than being guests of honor, all were involved in the incident.

  When they’d finished summarizing the affair, Benjamin had taken a swing at Henry. Jon and Fang had desperately held him back, and while they were doing that, Henry had gotten decked by Samantha.

  After that heartwarming incident, a slightly troublesome bit of information came in.

  “Well, we’ve received word from our mole, and it sounds as though Gustavo’s men are going to raid this place at two o’clock today. That’s one hour from now.”

  As the president spoke, his voice sounded mildly troubled. However, Nicholas seemed entertained in his response.

  “Will we be counterattacking?”

  “About that… I’ve decided to leave that to the Gandors this time.”

  The answer left Nicholas vaguely disappointed.

  “It was a request from Keith, you see. In principle, we should protect our neutral position and wipe them out personally, but this time, this information brokerage itself has become part of the incident.”

  In contrast to Nicholas, the president’s voice grew cheerful and lively.

  “Since we’re directly involved, we’ve no choice but to view the affair subjectively. In that case, let’s throw ourselves into the course of action we think is right. As an aside, my current, personal opinion is—”

  After a slight pause, the president stated, clear and proud:

  “—I want to rid this town of Gustavo’s irritating mug… What about the rest of you?”

  No one argued. Benjamin quietly muttered, “These people are insane,” but that was all.

  “Just as the incident last year revolved around the liquor, we—in other words, these offices—are the focus of the current incident. If the conditions are all in place—or no, rather, precisely because they are all in place—Gustavo and the others are on their way here. All the information has accumulated. Now we simply have to wait for this drift of information to tangle and crumble away. Until that happens, I intend to do everything I can.”