1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local

by Ryohgo Narita

  “I-it’s okay, Mr. Isaac! I’ll hurry and go ask! J-just leave it to me!”

  He was probably doing his level best to set everyone at ease, but when said with tear-filled eyes, it had the opposite effect.

  That said, besides him, the only ones who believed the Rail Tracer story were Isaac, Miria, and Mary.

  Weaving his way between tables, Jacuzzi ran toward the rear of the train. Nice got up from her seat at the counter, intending to go after him.

  “Um, please excuse him! He isn’t a bad person! He’s just a little cowardly…”

  As Nice defended her friend and broke into a run, Mrs. Beriam smiled softly.

  “Yes, I know. I think Jacuzzi is kinder than anyone else.”

  Mrs. Beriam had noticed: Jacuzzi truly believed in the Rail Tracer, and he was seriously frightened. Even so, under the circumstances, he’d never once blamed Isaac.

  Isaac and Miria had picked up on this, too.

  “Say, Miria. Jacuzzi’s a really swell guy, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, really and truly!”

  “We’ll have to let him win later, too!”

  “Yes, we will!”

  “Later on, then, I’ll apologize to him with everything I’ve got! Twice or so!”

  “Then I’ll apologize once, too!”

  At that point, smiling, Isaac made a declaration:

  “I see! In that case, Jacuzzi wins three times!”

  “He’s the champion!”

  “Aah, what’s wrong, Jacuzzi? Why you panic?”

  Right outside the dining car, he’d run into Donny and the others, who were just on their way in. The two friends Nice had chosen and brought along were behind the big, swarthy man.

  “Oh, uh, it’s terrible! This train might disappear, so I’m going to see the conductor!”

  “Aah?”

  Saying something incomprehensible, Jacuzzi took off, heading for the back of the train.

  A moment later, Nice came running up.

  “Ah, excellent timing. Jacuzzi’s gone to the conductor’s room; I’m on my way to bring him back, and I’ll check on the freight room while I’m at it. Donny and Jack, you come with me. Nick, you take care of the dining car!”

  Even as they exchanged glances over her words, Donny and the man she’d called Jack ran after Nice.

  Meanwhile, the man called Nick had drastically misunderstood.

  “What was that, Miz Nice…? What am I supposed to do with the dining car?”

  Nice had meant Keep an eye on people, but Nick was used to robberies, and unfortunately, he came to an entirely different conclusion.

  “Oh. In other words, I bet she wants me to make sure the guys in the dining car stay quiet during the ‘job’… Yeah, that’s gotta be it. Well, sure. We can’t have them spotting us, kicking up a fuss and stopping the train.”

  While he was thinking, a guy in a white suit went into the dining car. Even as he hesitated, the number of people in the dining car might continue to grow.

  On that simple thought, Nick took out his trusty knife.

  Then, carefully, he began walking forward.

  Toward the target he’d been given: the dining car.

  “Weeeeell now, well now, well now, well now? Our show’s about to begin! And their show’s about to end!”

  In a second-class compartment, Ladd was hugging a pillow and rolling around on the floor.

  “Whoops! It’s the time we settled on already! Man, this is fun, man, am I happy! I’m so worked up I bet I won’t sleep tonight!”

  The man rolled around and around and around and around the small passenger compartment. The others watched him, Lua with a cold expression, his other friends cackling with laughter.

  “…If you’re looking forward to it so much, you should have gone yourself…,” Lua muttered in a scarcely audible voice, to which Ladd was quick to reply:

  “Weeeeell, there wasn’t any help for it, was there? We drew lots, and I lost! Aah, dammit, that rat Vicky, I’m jealous, jealous, jealous!”

  Ladd’s group’s first act had been to gain control over the passengers gathered in the dining car. They’d drawn lots to determine who would go, and as a result, the man named Vicky had been handed a gun.

  “Aaah, man oh man. There is no God in this world. I bet Vicky himself killed him a while back!”

  As he grumbled, Ladd began to do a headstand in his suit. Lua murmured again, quietly:

  “…You could go check on him, you know…”

  “That’s it!”

  Springing up from his upside-down position, he smacked Lua’s cheeks lightly and frolicked around.

  “You’re right! I can just go look! I’m an idiot! I don’t have to wait around in the room! Since I lost the draw, I thought I’d just have to sit on my hands here! Great, I’ll get right over there, then.”

  After yowling some terribly self-centered things, Ladd leaped right out into the corridor…

  …where he crashed into somebody.

  “Whoa, watch where you’re going, you little bra—”

  As he was on the point of bawling him out, Ladd stopped.

  “Aaaaah, aah, I-I-I’m sorry! Excuse me! The train’s in trouble! S-s-so, um, I have to hurry and get to the conductors’ room…um… A-a-a-anyway, I’m sorry!”

  The young man dashed off toward the rear of the train.

  “That guy… Wasn’t that…?”

  There was no way he could have mistaken that tattoo on his face. It was the kid from the wanted poster his uncle had handed around a few days earlier.

  “Hmm? What’s that about? Hey! Lua!”

  Sticking his head into the passenger compartment, he recruited his beloved for a small job.

  “Could you take somebody and go see what’s up in the conductors’ room for a sec? If a kid with a tattooed face is in there, grab him for me.”

  Lua nodded silently, then took one of their companions and started for the rear of the train.

  “Mm, is this getting interesting? I hope it gets more interesting. Actually, I need to make it interesting.”

  Lips curving up happily, he headed for the dining car, not taking a single gun. On the way, he passed a woman with an eye patch and glasses and a big man who was over six feet tall. They were running, with tense expressions on their faces, and they swiftly passed Lua and her companion, who were just strolling along.

  “What’s this? Something pretty interesting is going down on this train, huh? That trouble the tattooed kid was talking about… I wonder what that was… Man, this ain’t good. I’m getting way too worked up here. If I don’t cut loose soon, I’m gonna explode.”

  He walked slowly, slowly, humming as he went.

  Toward the dining car, where a horrific show was sure to have begun.

  “Comrade Goose, all preparations are complete. The Beriams are in the dining car.”

  In the first-class compartment where the black suits were gathered, Goose took a report from a subordinate in the middle of the room. At present, only three members each were left in second class, third class, and the freight room; all the rest were assembled here.

  “Time, is it? All right. According to plan, split up into teams of three and begin your work. I will be waiting here. Report in every hour without fail. Those who do not will be presumed dead.”

  His expression was completely closed, and he continued to issue orders mechanically, to the point where one wondered whether the muscles in his mouth were the only ones he was using.

  “The appointed time is here. At this point, the ‘conductor’ should be making his move. Now, no matter what happens in the rear cars, the train will not stop. Spike, use the wireless and relay this to the units in the second- and third-class rooms as well. First, gain control over all passengers and all cars. The final touch will be the locomotive. At the very least, gain total control before the cars are switched.”

  By law, steam engines were forbidden to travel in the area around Pennsylvania Station in New York. This made it neces
sary for steam locomotives to have the cars they drew recombined with an electric locomotive. That coordination point was where they would claim Huey, and the time limit for the lives of half the hostages. They’d need to leave the other half alive, to use during their flight.

  “All right. We will now commence Master Huey’s rescue.”

  At their leader’s order, the black-suited orchestra clicked their heels on the floor. The result was a truly warped, beautiful performance that echoed sharply in the first-class compartment.

  “This is a ritual. A ritual to bring Master Huey back to us once more. This train is an altar, its passengers mere sacrifices. Do not forget that.”

  Goose, expressionless from beginning to end, commenced the Lemures’ march.

  “Let pandemonium begin. At this point in time, neither justice nor evil exist. All power is here. Once we have saved Master Huey, that power will be transformed into justice. That is the purpose of this fight. Let us swallow all the mundane passengers, the train, and the country, into ourselves.”

  Then the black suits became black shadows, scattering to every car on the train.

  Multiple shadows, wearing the violence known as machine guns. Three of these directed their feet toward one car.

  Cheerful talk sounded in that car, and light that was brighter than the rest filtered from it. The black shadows ran, bent on turning that light the color of blood. The dining car, which held Mrs. Beriam, the maneuver’s greatest target. Its door was already right in front of the shadows.

  Vicky was in a great mood.

  “Fill this dining car with screams.” He’d never dreamed that such an important, pinnacle role would come to him.

  Vicky, dressed in white, quietly thanked his own good luck.

  To congratulate myself, maybe I’ll kill somebody first, as an example. Should I take that weird Western-wannabe couple, or the kiddies next to them, or the hot tomato by them…? Whoops, mustn’t do that, that mom and kid are the ones Ladd likes, aren’t they… But I could probably at least shoot the daughter dead a little, right? I’ll just kill her a little, just a tiny little bit; she won’t die from being a smidgen killed—

  Basking in lunatic delusions, the gent looked around the train car. Several people glanced at his pure white outfit, but compared to Isaac and Miria, its impact probably wasn’t that great. They turned their eyes back to their dinners as though nothing had happened.

  Speaking of weirdos, he didn’t see the magician from a little while back. He was probably in a third-class compartment.

  There was just one person who made him uneasy. A woman in coveralls by the window.

  That ain’t no amateur.

  The woman was acutely alert, and when he turned his eyes slightly in her direction, the wariness in her eyes grew noticeably stronger. She was casually observing not only Vicky, who’d just entered the dining car, but everyone else around her as well. The instant their eyes met, Vicky was run through by the sharp light deep in her eyes.

  Who the hell is this broad? She’s bein’ supercautious about something.

  At first, it bothered him, but apparently it wasn’t anything to do with his group.

  Well, like it or not, she’s about to get pulled into this.

  Without letting it worry him particularly, as if he’d lost interest, he crossed to the center of the dining car.

  All right, then. Shall we get this thing started?

  Soundlessly, Vicky slipped the handgun from his jacket.

  “Right, let’s go.”

  Guns at the ready, the men in black flung the door open.

  “Okay! Let’s do this!”

  Drawing his piece from inside his jacket, Nick flung open the dining car’s door.

  Inside the dining car, three yells went up.

  Each voice carried well, and the words reached everyone in the car.

  The men in black tuxedos, who’d come in through the forward door, yelled:

  “Everyone on the ground!”

  In their hands, they brandished machine guns.

  The man in white, who’d been in the center of the dining car, shouted:

  “Everybody reach for the sky!”

  In his right hand, he held a shiny, copper-colored handgun.

  The man in ragged clothes, who’d come in through the rear door, called:

  “Hey, hey, hey! Nobody move!”

  In his hand, he held a single fruit knife.

  One of the passengers, dripping with cold sweat, muttered:

  “Wha…What do you want us to do…?”

  Surprisingly, the ones who were quickest to react to the situation were Isaac and Miria.

  The pair made the two children beside them duck and cover, and then

  —they dropped to the floor, stuck both their hands up, and froze, motionless.

  As Ladd sauntered down the corridor, he heard gunfire from the direction of the dining car.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, he’s going at it, he’s shooting, he’s really into this…”

  Heart leaping, he headed for the dining car, skipping as he went.

  However, he stopped in his tracks after a second.

  Following the single fire, there had come what sounded like several dozen shots in a row.

  “Hmm? Machine guns?”

  For a moment, his expression went tense. But, in the next instant, he’d recovered his smile and returned to frolicking. His skips were slightly lighter than they had been before.

  “Well, that’s its own kind of interesting, ain’t it?”

  When he reached the carriage before the dining car, a young guy who looked like a thug came running toward him from the other end of the corridor.

  He was glancing back at the dining car again and again, and he dashed past Ladd without even looking at him.

  “What the hell?! Nobody said a thing about this, Miz Nice!”

  Screaming something along those lines, the thug ran off.

  “Hot damn, hotdamnhotdamnhotdamn, what’s up, what’s shakin’ in the dining car?! Is he killing? Getting killed? Either way, it’s seriously ‘whoa’ and ‘hold the phone’ and damn this is exciting, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey…”

  Ladd was unable to hold still, and before he knew it, he’d broken into a run.

  As he got closer to the dining car, he started to hear crying and screams from inside. What lay behind this door, heaven or hell?

  When he threw open the sliding door of the entrance, he was pierced by looks from a majority of the people inside. As they gazed at Ladd, some of their eyes were pleading, others seemed to cling to hope, while still others simply despaired.

  In the center of the dining car, Vicky lay facedown. His back, which should have been white, was dyed bright red with his own blood.

  On the opposite side of the car were three men with machine guns. He could tell from their clothes that they were part of the orchestra.

  One of the men seemed to have taken a bullet from Vicky: He was crouched down, holding his bleeding shoulder. The remaining two were brandishing their grim trench sweepers, threatening the sobbing passengers to make sure nobody made a break for it.

  However, the glares of the gang of three were focused solely on the man in white who’d suddenly appeared.

  Apparently, as far as Ladd was concerned, the situation had turned out to be hell.

  And yet, he kept smiling.

  “Eh, no help for that.”

  He strode right into the middle of the car.

  “I’ll just remodel a bit, make it into heaven.”

  Muttering softly, he raised both hands high.

  “Hang on a sec, hold it! I dunno what’s going on, but as you can see, I’m not packing anything! I’m not your enemy, so just calm down!”

  Naturally, the black suits didn’t relax their guard. From his clothes, he had to be a friend of the guy who was dead in the center of the car. That was exactly what gave Ladd a chance at success.

  One of the black suits approached, keeping his gun muzzle trained o
n him.

  “You… No; who are you people?”

  “Hey now, we’re suspicious characters, but we’re not your enemies.”

  Just then, another of the men approached Ladd as well. They probably meant for one to keep the gun on him while the other restrained him.

  The only one left at the end of the car was the wounded one. Even as he held his shoulder, he kept the gun in his free hand trained on the passengers, with a glare.

  The instant the two approaching black suits fell into a single-file line, Ladd raised his voice in protest again.

  “Look, I told you, I’m not your enemy!”

  By the time the words were out of his mouth, he’d kicked the black suit’s gun up so that the muzzle pointed at the ceiling.

  “Wha…?”

  The front kick had caught the man completely by surprise, and he hadn’t even had time to pull the trigger. Ladd had also raised his hands, and so he gripped the center of the gun barrel lightly, then pushed it over hard—forward, from Ladd’s perspective—so that it pointed back over his adversary’s shoulder.

  It was pointing behind the panicking black suit, toward the other one.

  Of course the man in Ladd’s grip had struggled, but in the blink of an eye, the gun barrel had been pushed to point behind him. The thin part of the barrel bit deeply into his shoulder.

  Leaving one hand on the gun barrel, Ladd grabbed the butt of the weapon. Using the black suit’s shoulder as the fulcrum, he yanked the gun sharply toward him.

  “What?!”

  The force made the black suit’s finger slip off the trigger. Ladd’s finger, from the hand that had been holding the gun barrel, slid into its place.

  A roar.

  The upside-down gun spat out a huge amount of lead.

  That lead pierced the body of the rear black suit: his jaw, his lungs, his heart, but mostly his head. The man, his upper body transformed into a fountain of blood, twisted sideways and crumpled to the ground. At the same time, the volume of the screams that echoed in the car swelled.