The Rolling Bootlegs (8 page)

The boy’s tone was oddly mature, and the men exchanged suspicious looks.

Their leader baited him, crossly.

“…Hey, punk, listen up. Didn’t your ma teach you to be polite to your elders? Or was she too busy standing on street corners at night to let you suck on her dugs?”

He tossed off a vulgar joke, but his eyes weren’t smiling.

It was the second time today someone had called Firo out on his manners. At that thought, he gave a small sigh, fed up. A cop was one thing, but getting etiquette lectures from
these
guys…

“…I may not be twenty yet, but what about you? The way you talk and act, you really don’t seem any older than me.”

The men went quiet. Seems he’d gotten their goat, but he didn’t care.

“…You’re not from around here, are you, loser.”

“I’m a New Yorker, same as you. Firo, a Martillo Family associate.”

He gave a casual self-introduction, paying them minimal courtesy.

“Martillo? Never heard of ’em… What about you guys?”

The boss’s cronies shook their heads, mocking smiles on their faces.

“…Huhn! Must be a pretty dinky group… Or, what, is it some schoolyard gang?”

“…I think we’re about the same size as the Gandors, the fellas you work under.”

He’d thought he was turning their taunt around on them, but even though it was true, it didn’t appear to have riled them up.

“Huh? Who’re we under, again?”

Weren’t they connected with the Gandors? If not, they were swaggering an awful lot… Processing this, Firo waited for them to make the next move.

“Don’t go lumping us in with those two-bit posers. We don’t answer to nobody. Teaming up the way you guys do just proves you’re weak, get it? Just look—even though we’ve been throwing our weight around here, the Gandors ain’t complained even once!”

Ah, so that was how it was. Firo had the gist now.

These guys really were just thugs, in the truest sense of the word. It wasn’t that they hadn’t joined an outfit. At their level, no one even paid attention to them.

“I see. Never mind, then. Get lost.”

At Firo’s tone, the toughs’ smirks vanished.

“……Say what?”

“I said you’re free to go. I had something I wanted to ask you, but it doesn’t look like you’ll tell me, in which case it’ll be a lot easier to
look around on my own. Matter of fact, I’m pretty annoyed I wasted any time on you at all, but I’ll let you go without decking you, so beat it. Do I really have to spell it all out for you?”

He told them off, all in a breath.

As Firo turned to walk away, one of the men quickly slipped up behind him.

“You little punk! You think you’re some kinda big shot?!”

He grabbed Firo’s collar, hauling him in.

The boy heaved a small sigh. Then, as if that sigh had been a signal, he went on the offensive.

Swiftly, his left hand went for his assailant’s throat. The man had grabbed his collar with his right hand and was unable to react quickly enough to stop it.

Hand at the thug’s neck, Firo plunged his index and middle fingers into the base of his throat, just below his Adam’s apple.

“
!!”

A mute scream went up. The tough released Firo’s collar and clapped both hands to his throat, collapsing to his knees.

“That’s what you just did to that old guy, remember?”

“You sonuva—!”

Another man came swinging at Firo from the side.

He dodged, twisting his upper body lightly, then trapped his opponent’s outstretched left arm. At that, the thug hastily tried hitting him with his free hand. However, his stance was unstable, and he couldn’t put much force into the blow. Firo grabbed that arm as well.

Both of his arms trapped, the would-be brawler struggled in an attempt to extricate himself from the situation, considered unleashing a kick…but it was too late.

In an instant, still holding the man’s arms, Firo had turned away from him. His arms were crossed at the elbows and stretched over Firo’s left shoulder.

Then, adjusting his center of gravity as he moved, Firo leaned forward, fast. He thought he heard the elbows crossed on his shoulder creak. Unable to stand the pain in his arms, the tough had forgotten to resist his opponent’s move in spite of himself.

Feet off the ground, his equilibrium somersaulted.

In the next instant, a shock ran through his back… Or rather, through his whole body. A numbness seemed to wash over him. The sensation gradually turned into a gnawing pain.

“Whoa… So that’s what happens. I’m kinda impressed.”

Firo—the one who’d done the throwing—looked more startled than his victim, who only writhed in pain. It was a move he’d learned from a Japanese man in his syndicate, and he’d never managed to throw anyone that well before.

“Gakh…aaah…”

Looking at their companions, who were emitting short groans, the two remaining thugs swallowed hard. They should have gone at him all at once, four on one, but they seemed to have underestimated the boy and found themselves idling by the old man.

This kid was bad news. The ringleader was just beginning to register the true skills of the boy in front of him.

Meanwhile, his buddy already had his knife out and was pointing the tip of its blade at Firo.

“…Aww… You drew? Seriously?”

His expression looked troubled, but inside, Firo was as composed as ever.

Moving casually, he closed the gap between himself and the two-bit muggers, raising both hands:

“C’mon, now. There’s no need to bring shivs into a fight like this, is there?”

“Shaddup! It’s way too late to go all diplomati—”

Midsentence, a shock ran through his knife hand. Firo had nailed it with an unerring toe kick. Involuntarily, the man dropped the knife. The metal bounced a bit when it struck the pavement, and Firo kicked it out of reach.

“Uh…”

By reflex, the attacker’s eyes followed the blade.

From the lower edge of his field of vision, something closed in on him.

By the time he realized that “something” was Firo’s fist, it was too
late. He took a powerful blow below the nose, a kick to the stomach, and ended up rolling around on the ground.

“And? What’ll it be?” Firo asked, turning to face the leader.

The man’s hand was still inside his jacket.

“From now on, save the kiddie games for school.”

Firo returned the insult he’d received a few moments earlier. But it was unclear whether or not the man left standing had been listening as he walked over to the crony who’d grabbed Firo’s shirt at the outset and been laid out. That man had since gotten up, but was still rubbing his throbbing throat. After exchanging two or three words, they each booked it to one of their fallen crew, lent them a shoulder, and hauled them to their feet.

With a final, hate-filled glare at Firo, the men took off running.

That left just Firo and the unconscious old coot.

“Hey, Gramps! Gramps! …You all right?”

At the sensation of a hand smacking his cheek, Barnes came to.

He sat up hastily. There was no pain. The internal bleeding and broken bones seemed to have fully “recovered.”

In front of him, he saw the face of a lad who looked younger than the earlier group. The youth seemed to be bending down, watching him. And
Barnes still held the crate.

On confirming that fact, Barnes sighed in relief. Then he shot a suspicious glance at Firo.

Had this boy saved him? He couldn’t imagine that the young man had run that gang off all by himself, but at any rate, the crate was safe. Barnes was worried about its contents, but when he opened it a crack and looked, the bottles were fine as well, their contents safely inside.

“It’s more important than you? Whatever’s in that box?” Firo asked, sounding highly interested.

At that, Barnes immediately closed the lid and shouted, hugging the crate to him more tightly than before:

“S-silence! It’s nothing to do with scoundrels like you! Are you
after this liquor as well?! If it’s money you want, I’ll give you as much as you ask for, so begone!”

“…Hey. That’s a fine thing to say to the guy who saved your life… I think I get how the other guys felt.”

He grimaced as he spoke, but he didn’t seem to be all that upset.

“By the way, Gramps. Did you see a lady wearing a lightweight black suit?”

Barnes was momentarily confused by the abrupt and incomprehensible question. A woman in a suit! All that came to mind was some theater somewhere… But when his imagination had taken him that far, he realized it
did
remind him of someone.

Master Szilard’s chauffeur…

Barnes had spoken with Ennis several times, in order to contact their employer. She was the only being beside Szilard who could kill him.

“No… No idea.”

“I see… Never mind, then. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

After those few words, Firo hurried on, all interest in the old man forgotten.

As Barnes watched him go, he wondered: Why was the young man looking for Master Szilard’s chauffeur? The thought distracted him, and that distraction kept him from noticing something important: Why hadn’t Firo been all that upset by the way he’d spoken to him?

If Barnes had only caught on, the destinies of Firo and the others might have changed dramatically (his own not withstanding).

Unfortunately, Barnes never did catch on.

Quietly, the tracks of destiny began to spiral.

And now, Barnes was walking through the alleys alone.

If he’d kept to the main streets, he would have attracted fewer troublemakers, but he didn’t have time to take the long way around. He had to make his way to the building where the great man waited as quickly as possible. Once eternity was his, he’d promptly have that group of ruffians meet with a lethal accident.

Or rather,
will
I obtain eternity, in the end? While it was an accident, I was only able to protect two bottles of the finished product. As punishment, I may be killed by Master Szilard. No, in all probability, I will be killed. There’s no help for that, though. After all, I was unable to fulfill the mission his exalted personage entrusted to me.

However, just perhaps

That desperate hope was all that kept Barnes’s feet moving.

He didn’t have to think about anything anymore. He simply had to reach his goal.

But heartless destiny had taken the form of a human hand, and it was closing in on Barnes’s back.

It grabbed his collar from behind, yanking him backward.

He was spun around roughly, and a voice loaded with anger sounded in front of his face.

“You alone, old fart?”

Standing there was the group of four he’d intended to have meet with a fatal accident.

“You must really want us to drink that liquor for you.”

With both arms and legs broken, unconscious from the pain, Barnes was thrown away in a garbage dump.

When Ennis found him, his bones still hadn’t completely regenerated.