Ch.132Request Log #013 – Dealers’ Day (5)

Discussing payment didn’t take long. Gambler Arnold explained to The Morrígan on my behalf just how valuable it was that I had brought him in.

For me it was a matter of money, but for him it was a matter of worth. He wanted to prove his value to The Morrígan. He wanted to establish himself in the new organization. It was both a demonstration of worth and loyalty.

Thanks to that, my payment increased, which worked out well for me. Afterward, I left as naturally as I had arrived. The Morrígan, smiling as usual, only gave a brief farewell without trying to keep me.

“I’ll call you if I have another job, detective. No one would mind if you stayed to watch Selkie swim, but you’re leaving so quickly.”

My job was done, and I had handled all the mediation. The goblins didn’t know my face. I was craving a drink since I hadn’t been able to have alcohol for several days while working on this job. I had plenty of reasons to leave.

The desire to see Selkie’s happy face wasn’t strong enough to override those reasons. Selkie was quite beautiful, but still not my type. She was petite like a fairy, perhaps a bit too much so.

Since the Godmother wouldn’t be calling me for dinner today, I returned home. The house that the kobold had fixed with magic wasn’t much different from before it burned down, but a subtle smell of ash remained.

That was the kobold’s theory. He claimed that if people don’t remember there was a fire, they’ll cause another one. Even magic couldn’t completely remove the smell of ash that had permeated the house, but he used that excuse to deceive his customers. It seemed like he had come to believe his own excuse.

I hung up the suit I had tailored in Little Eire. I would only need to wear it for important occasions, and it would be better to wear a different suit when visiting Godmother Noll. I didn’t want to appear aligned with anyone.

After changing into comfortable clothes that I usually wore for work, I put on my suspenders with the holster attached. Though the suit was nice, this holster felt more reliable.

Nevertheless, I had no work, so I was about to turn on the radio when the telephone bell interrupted even that brief moment of rest. I picked up the receiver and heard a familiar voice. It was the reporter.

“Ah, Mr. Michael! Were you sleeping in too? I called twice this morning but you didn’t answer.”

I was in Little Eire in the morning, and at lunch I killed a goblin. Not by myself, though. Resisting the urge to make such a sarcastic remark, I gave a suitable answer.

“I was in the middle of work. What’s the matter?”

The reporter cleared her throat briefly. With a very confident tone, as if about to boast, she said:

“Well, I’ve finished moving and started going back to work! It’s still hard to get up in the morning without Paulina waking me, and I haven’t created a name that’s neither Rose Clichy nor Rose Leafman, but I thought it might be nice if I could borrow Ysil’s surname. But you said it yourself, detective—it’s something I have to do myself. So I’m going to create one myself!”

She surely called with some purpose, but the conversation naturally drifted to strange places. The reason wasn’t complicated. She needed someone to acknowledge her independence.

Rose Clichy used to be surrounded by many people. More precisely, she used to have many people around her.

She had her lawyer and she used to have her family. Now that money was tight for hiring a lawyer and she had cut ties with her family, she had lost both.

Seeing how she called to pour out her words like this, she was at least following my advice not to look for someone to depend on. She wasn’t telling anyone else, so she was telling me on the other end of the phone line.

The reporter, seemingly realizing she had been talking only about herself, cleared her throat again.

“Anyway! Buy me dinner! You promised when we had dinner at my place with Paulina’s cooking, remember?”

It wasn’t that she lacked money for dinner. If that were the case, she wouldn’t be on the phone at home at this hour. She wasn’t looking for repayment either. The dinner talk was almost just a formality.

That left only one possibility. The reporter seemed to be getting back to work. It seemed she had something she wanted to hear from one of the few sources she had left.

“I’m just a nobody detective sitting in this cheap apartment, waiting endlessly for clients to fill my pockets. I don’t know what you want to hear, but wouldn’t it be better to persuade another source?”

That was probably the most honest thing I’d said in about a month. This time, I just happened to succeed with a big job.

Instead of answering, the reporter’s laughter traveled through the phone line. If nothing else, her laugh was that of an innocent woman. Until now, her mind had been as innocent as her laugh, but that might have improved by now.

“It’s nice that I don’t need to explain things in a complicated way to you, Michael. But don’t you know a little bit already? I mean, I heard that Italian mafia and Irish gangs aren’t getting along well right now. You know at least one of them quite well, don’t you? So if you know something, please help me! People are getting quite anxious.”

Her information is late. Instead of conflict, they chose cooperation and joined hands… No, maybe the information isn’t late. That just happened yesterday. It made sense that she only knew this much.

It was a proper decision to make her an ally, and using a familiar source instead of awkwardly probing around wasn’t a stupid choice. It would have been better if she hadn’t asked me to buy dinner.

“Alright, it can’t hurt. Choose the restaurant yourself. Elves are notoriously picky eaters.”

“Then…”

The reporter listed the names of elf restaurants in the city. I thought she would only have been to expensive places, but the names she mentioned were surprisingly ordinary restaurants.

I chose one of them. I thought this would be enough to end the conversation, but something strange occurred to me. The reporter had clearly said that people were anxious.

That meant information had leaked from somewhere, and even though the Nolls and half-bloods weren’t trying to hide what had happened, it was strange that information had already reached the reporter.

It seems the detective’s responsibility wasn’t over yet. Sighing, I decided to continue the conversation a bit longer.

“By the way, who told you? It’s a bit odd that such stories are already reaching your ears.”

Confidence returned to the reporter’s voice. She spoke as if she had a secret weapon that I didn’t know about.

“I’ve gained some new sources too. A friend introduced by my editor-in-chief, someone who can snoop around without raising suspicion, and they bring me good rumors.”

The editor-in-chief made the introduction, huh. Managing sources was the job of field reporters, not editors. Yet if he could introduce someone to the reporter, it must be a personal connection.

Given that the reporter called this person a friend, they must be around her age. I had seen a human around the reporter’s age at that house.

Additionally, someone who could snoop around without raising suspicion… A flapper immersed in romance, desire, and pleasure could peek into any organization’s bar without anyone caring.

Since someone naturally came to mind, I spoke up, preparing myself for the reporter’s surprised voice and fuss.

“Carmen Thayer won’t have a long lifeline either.”

The reporter responded naturally at first, then her words became choppy as if she felt a chill. I could almost see her eyes widening.

“Ah, haha… Honestly, I did warn her it was dangerous… Wait, what? No, um… How did you know?”

There was no need to lie. The reporter could easily find out by asking her editor-in-chief.

“Last time, the editor-in-chief invited me to dinner to express his gratitude. I ate at his house, but I had a drink with that woman at Arachne. Well, more than one drink.”

The reporter sighed with relief, as if she had imagined I was secretly watching her on Ysil’s request.

“Oh, right… I was the one who gave the Husband Detective Agency card to the editor-in-chief… Anyway, shall we meet at the restaurant? Or should we meet earlier so you can give me information first, then enjoy dinner comfortably?”

I checked my watch. It wasn’t even two o’clock yet. It would be better to meet earlier than to talk over dinner.

I could prepare as if spending time with Levi. The reporter was somewhat like Levi’s department after all. I answered with the feeling of enjoying a vacation right after finishing work.

“Come to the park near 5th Avenue. I’ll make a reservation at the restaurant, and it would be more comfortable for both of us if you do your interview or whatever first, then we go.”

Since I was going to meet an elf, I immediately put a cigarette in my mouth. I wouldn’t be able to smoke even one after meeting her, so I needed to smoke now. I gathered mana and lit a flame the size of half a fingernail at my fingertip.

“Okay! I’ll be standing at the main entrance of the park, so don’t get lost!”

After hanging up, I made a reservation at the restaurant and got up. Though it was June, I put on a light coat. Not because the weather was chilly. The suspender holster was less noticeable than a pocket holster.

After stubbing out the nearly finished cigarette in the ashtray, I put a new one in my mouth and lit it again. I just needed to avoid smoking once I got in the car. After taking a puff, I tapped the ash into the ashtray and left home.

I got in the car. It didn’t take long to reach the park. I took the same route I had taken when I went to take the article from the reporter, and now I was going to meet her. Funny how things work out.

The day was quite nice. The sunlight was warm, just like when I killed the drug-dealing goblin three hours ago. Or rather, it was warm as if it didn’t know that I had disposed of a goblin three hours ago and come here.

The reporter was, of course, at the main entrance of the park. As if her forgetfulness was taking a break, she immediately recognized my car and waved. Instead of waving back, I got out of the car and walked toward her.

She wore a long skirt that reached her ankles, a shirt with a camera strap across it, and held a notebook in her hand. She looked like she was advertising that she was a reporter.

She greeted me with a smile, but her expression wrinkled as if her sensitive elf nose had caught the smell of cigarettes. She spoke as if grumbling.

“Ugh… You really do all the unhealthy things… Anyway, no one would think we’re talking about the mafia in a place like this… Let’s go!”

We entered the park and sat on a bench where, despite the sparse crowd, there were one or two people enjoying naps on the nearby grass thanks to the warm sunlight. The reporter’s eyes sparkled as she held her notebook.

I had to carefully measure what to tell her and what not to tell. Fortunately, that was something I was good at.

“As far as I know… the Italian mafia and Irish gangs aren’t on bad terms right now. The real problem is the goblin gang. The scattered ones have united as a goblin gang coalition and are provoking both organizations. If those guys just disappeared, things would probably quiet down… Ah, that last part is my personal opinion, so don’t worry about it.”

The reporter began writing down what I said in her notebook. If she was a decent reporter, she wouldn’t just take my words at face value for her article.

After writing it down, she looked up and smiled like a child playing a prank.

“You said you didn’t know anything, but it’s coming out so smoothly? I’ll have to check about the goblins, but is there really no possibility of conflict between the Irish gangs and the Nolls?”

“None at all. At least not within a month. If there were going to be trouble, the Godmother would have hired me, but unfortunately, I didn’t work with the Godmother. I just did some proper detective work for once.”

Hearing my answer, the reporter covered her mouth and giggled for a moment before bursting into laughter. She must have had some strange fantasy.

“I was thinking of you sitting in an armchair doing deduction, and it was just… so awkward. It felt like imagining myself with a cigar in my mouth.”

After that, more jokes with no particular intent were exchanged, and until the working day gradually passed, only moderate laughter and giggles filled the surroundings.

Just after five o’clock, I headed to the restaurant with her. It seems this was also the restaurant where she first entertained a source not introduced by her family.

The food wasn’t bad. The reporter only ate soup filled with clams, but she seemed satisfied. An elf whose appetite was satisfied with one piece of bread and a bowl of soup smiled pleasantly.

She stared at my face for a while, then tilted her head. She asked playfully.

“So, you did try to kill me before, right? I don’t think I’m confusing people because of my forgetfulness…”

“Yes, once.”

I felt no particular guilt. Work is work. I would have given the same answer if the goblin I killed earlier today had risen from the grave and walked up to me, so there was nothing more to say to the living reporter.

“Usually, if someone has dinner with a person who tried to kill them, it would be a terrible thing or they’re being threatened, but I don’t know why I’m here. And it’s also nice to have someone to talk to at dinner time, which is unusual for me these days. I don’t like saying this, but… let’s just enjoy it?”

The reporter shrugged as if she couldn’t help it. Then, she naturally changed the subject.

“If we’re just enjoying ourselves, do you think there are any new movies in theaters, Mr. Michael? I mean… there’s no one at home when I go back now. No Paulina, and as for family to call… you know?”

People who live alone develop a chronic loneliness. It’s like a thorn stuck in the foot. It’s fine when walking in a direction that doesn’t press on the thorn, but when something touches it, the pain surges.

I could understand, but it was also quite a foolish thing to say, so I mocked her.

“Do you need to hire someone just to have dinner with them? You called me out easily enough with the excuse of an interview. Your former lawyer is an ogre half-blood who would pile up a mountain of food and wait for you if you called and said ‘I miss your cooking.’ Why are you so anxious?”

The reporter seemed to take after her father. They were people who didn’t know how to apply the brakes after pulling the acceleration lever.

Charles Clichy’s Elf Future Association raced forward until they became Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn, and the elf who proudly became independent raced past self-reliance to loneliness.

The reporter, failing to come up with a logical response, blushed to the tips of her pointed ears and didn’t know what to do. She seemed to realize how foolish she sounded.

She changed the subject. More accurately, she tried to change the subject. She didn’t stray far from the original topic.

“How do you practice what to say and when to say it?”

I could be a bit kinder to the reporter… but I decided not to be. This evening was unusually enjoyable for me too, and I had no intention of letting it pass dully.

“No, not at all.”

Around the time I said that, the setting sun began to mix with red. The operators’ day was ending, and it was just becoming a pleasant evening. That evening was unusually long.