Ch.148The Fourth Entanglement – Elegy for the Vigilantes (9)

The reporter’s only consolation was that the detective wouldn’t make a move unless the situation progressed further.

A person who becomes thoroughly passive when there’s no work. Perhaps the detective wasn’t being sarcastic when he said people would be surprised at how gentle he could be when not working.

Still, thanks to that personality, the situation remained in the reporter’s hands. The reporter decided to face her family’s crimes once more and opened the ledger. Once again, her father’s shadow loomed dark and heavy.

“Mr. Willem, would you look at this with me? I’m… not particularly skilled at reviewing documents. I usually need someone’s help to find anything worthwhile…”

At those words, the elderly detective approached and picked up the documents. It was a meticulously maintained ledger. One could discern the personality of whoever kept it—despite its age, the leather showed almost no signs of deterioration.

Even the ink on pages dated decades ago hadn’t smudged at all, and the handwriting from the first entry to the last was nearly identical. It must have been written by someone consistent.

Yet also thorough and meticulous. Amounts were recorded down to the cent. Even after bribes to police officers increased to the point where anything under a dollar became meaningless.

The amounts were by no means small. If the money had been saved, it could have purchased not just an apartment but perhaps a decent three-story house in New York’s suburbs for thirty thousand dollars.

If police officers who took this much money tried to become vigilantes, Willem would have whispered “excuse me” and struggled not to laugh. Or perhaps this is why they became obsessed with justice.

He had always thought only those who considered themselves dirty would obsess over cleanliness. Willem had caught such criminals before. It was quite depressing work, though not as methodical as this.

Willem swallowed the urge to smoke. Wanting to smoke meant wanting to leave this place. He didn’t want to leave.

“This is more than enough to call him a corrupt officer. I don’t know how you plan to convince him, but if this police officer is really that murderer…”

Willem paused, choosing his words. He could tell her to be careful or not to worry. But as a detective, he needed to deliver a monologue at times like this. It was a detective’s responsibility.

“It would be serious trouble. Even if he brings vigilantes here, there are two detectives who fulfill their responsibilities. I’m not sure if that detective has such a sense of responsibility, but once you’ve hired him and promised payment, a detective becomes a knight of this modern 20th century. You remember what you saw on the train. If they come, we’ll shoot them all dead.”

The detective sneered in disbelief. It gave him chills to meet someone so completely opposite to himself.

“Do you always speak so boldly? I mean… saying things that sound like ‘I’m a cultured middle-class person with broad perspectives.'”

Willem placed his hand on the chest of his neatly pressed suit. It was quite an arrogant gesture, partly meant to tease, but primarily a sign of honesty.

“I am indeed cultured and appreciate the finer things, but I’m not middle class—I’m upper class. Not because I own a three-story house, but because I can converse with ladies for hours.”

The reporter watched the detective being verbally outmaneuvered for the first time. She briefly thought she understood why both detectives used frivolous talk to collect themselves, and she giggled.

“From the way you talk, you must be French.”

The reporter briefly wondered if the detective might actually be enjoying this conversation. At least from her perspective, he was the first person who could properly counter the detective’s sarcasm.

“Ah, I’m Dutch. I possess all the virtues of the French plus the hardiness of seafaring people.”

A brief reason to smile can ease one’s mind. The reporter burst into a small laugh at the exchange. Someone who could confidently fluster the detective with such remarks seemed worth keeping around.

After watching the detective’s disgusted expression for a moment, the reporter finally spoke.

“I trust both of you, so I’m not worried… but Mr. Willem, could you occasionally knock that man’s pride down a notch like you just did? He’s flawless, his work is perfect. Honestly, he can be irritating to look at sometimes. We need to bring him down to our level occasionally!”

While this was sincere, the detective didn’t get angry during such frivolous conversations. He didn’t have that dry look in his eyes. He wore a naturally human expression.

Watching Willem’s confident expression, the reporter picked up the telephone. Instead of calling Leonard’s office as usual, she dialed the number of the temporary investigation headquarters.

The call connected almost immediately, before it could ring more than a few times. Someone must have answered right away, surprised that a phone that shouldn’t ring was ringing. Only silence came from the other end.

Rose decided to confront the situation head-on again. This was the only approach she had learned. Many situations ended if the reporter didn’t charge in headfirst.

“Uncle Leonard, it’s Rose. I knew you’d be there.”

Leonard Price felt something almost like a shiver. The child who had inspired him had now found where he was and called him. He didn’t use a harsh voice with Rose.

“Amazing, simply amazing. How did you find this place, Rose? Knowing this place obviously means… Well, tell me yourself. Go on, yes, go on.”

“I know what you’re doing, Uncle. That’s why I called.”

Leonard felt another sensation close to ecstasy. His task was truly a calling. Believing that people who had done the right thing could understand each other, he said:

“Ah, truly… I could almost cry, Rose. Do you remember the bullet that shot Charles? In that single moment of pulling the trigger, all the orcs and ogres living in this city… everyone who had been threatened by the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn could find peace. You guided me back then. Receiving a call from someone like you… it makes me so happy I could cry.”

Rose had prepared many things to say, but the madman’s ramblings left her speechless. It was the moment she realized how differently Leonard had interpreted the same experience they had shared.

Leonard felt this silence as a test. It felt like a silence testing whether he was truly doing righteous work, so he continued:

“It won’t end with the people listed in the ledger I got from the mistress of Pandemonium. That’s just the beginning. Eventually, we’ll clean out all the traitors and hypocrites of this city, along with the whores and pimps. They won’t amount to even a handful. When the corruption they create disappears, won’t this city become a cleaner place? I can hardly contain my excitement about shooting them down like fox hunting, Rose…”

Yet the person who gave Leonard the ledger was also a pimp from Pandemonium. The police position that helped Leonard hunt those in the ledger was obtained with Charles’s help.

Leonard was even enjoying this activity. That was different from the detective. He could have stopped, but people like him didn’t know how to stop. Rose finally spoke:

“The mistress of Pandemonium who gave you the ledger…”

“Of course I’ll start with her. She agreed to it the moment she handed over the ledger to me. Still, I should express my gratitude. She gave this city a chance to become clean. Indeed, people seem to have both merits and flaws coexisting, Rose. Didn’t you feel that about Charles too?”

The reporter felt nauseated. He had discovered the same things she had but in such a different way, had seen the same things but reached such different conclusions. This fact felt painfully obvious.

She didn’t think about running away. Retreating from such feelings would only lead to an inescapable wall of frustration. She had experienced enough of that with Giuseppina. She gritted her teeth.

“If you’re so confident, wouldn’t it be better to admit what you did yourself instead of framing a corrupt police officer and escaping?”

Leonard briefly doubted the voice coming through the telephone line. Hadn’t that bullet pierced through Charles’s head? Rose’s voice rang in his ears, but her words didn’t register.

“Well, of course I will. But the time hasn’t come yet, so I’m just hiding it for now. They’re hypocrites who’ll have to be killed eventually anyway, aren’t they? If they can be put to good use while being disposed of, surely they’ll feel atonement too. Yes, indeed they will.”

Rose wasn’t someone who easily gave up on people. But not giving up didn’t mean not stopping them. Rather, trying to stop them until the very end was what it meant not to give up.

“I think I understand why you made such a choice. You were a traitor too, weren’t you? A police officer who took money from Charles Clichy, and even after coming to New York, you were still under my father’s control.”

“That’s…”

A momentarily confused voice followed, but then it returned sounding as if he was now ready to accept that fact. This much he could acknowledge.

“I must admit it. Yes. You know how terrible that time was, so now I’m trying to change, aren’t I?”

“You can’t escape by saying it was a terrible time, Uncle Leonard. It was terrible, you say? Having wealth, generating money without working, receiving respect and admiration from everyone—that was terrible? Father wasn’t someone who ordered you around. Rather, he granted your every request just in case, like he did for me.”

Rose felt like she was chewing poison. She wished her tongue would go numb, but the words didn’t stop. She continued to charge headfirst into the wall of “terribleness” that Leonard had put up.

She didn’t know if it was right or wrong. She couldn’t tell. Even so, it was better than sitting idle. Gritting her teeth, she continued:

“Did you only realize how terrible it feels to be a traitor after being deceived twice by Inspector Jonathan? Or why else…”

This was something Leonard Price couldn’t accept. Since starting his vigilante work, he had been able to push away everything unwanted and hold only the righteous image he desired, but now that stopped.

Inspector Leonard now had to accept what he didn’t want to accept. No, he didn’t need to. He was a man with a calling. He was a killer. He was doing the right thing. He was a serial killer.

He was confused. To him, Inspector Jonathan’s face looked exactly like a mirror. He was asked what difference there was between betraying for the mafia and betraying for Charles. He didn’t listen. He asked himself.

Rose willingly offered him a bridge. She whispered as if he could still come back. There was still a way back. He could escape from this absurd plan to purify the city.

Leonard didn’t want to go back. He didn’t want to return to being a traitor, a powerless man who couldn’t make a single proper decision in his life. Then there was only one thing to do.

“No, Rose. What I felt was that I should have shot that bastard Jonathan Pace long ago. And yes, the time working for Charles was terrible! Enough, enough! Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything. We could just move past it by saying it happened. Why do you insist on going through every detail?”

Rose felt the telephone becoming too heavy. It seemed impossible to resist gravity. But she raised her hand, held the phone to her ear, and continued:

“Because no one went through those details, criminals who should have been caught by law are becoming pitiful, unfortunate victims who were shot for no reason. And you, who are like an uncle to me, are becoming someone who enjoys murder and plans killings. I don’t like that.”

Three seconds of silence followed. Leonard remembered Rose’s address. Rose knew that much too.

“What are you thinking about right now? Is it that this work is wrong? Or is it my home address? Are you going to come to my apartment? With those reliable police officers of yours?”

Rose was also precious to Leonard. She was like a daughter who had given him direction many times when he was lost. But was such a person more precious than himself? Not quite.

He cried. He seemed almost hysterical. It hurt like cutting off a finger. Yet he could see the end of the tunnel.

The vigilante work made him healthy. It gave him an exhilarating feeling that cleared away his madness. It allowed him to show his wife a confident face instead of one trembling with anxiety.

This work had also broadened his perspective. It restored his passion. It helped him find everything human that he had lost. Such work couldn’t be wrong. Such work had to be right.

Even if it wasn’t right, he didn’t want to give it up. This was his calling. There was no need to doubt that following one’s calling brings happiness.

“Well, Rose, you figured it out too quickly. If you had said such things after the operation was finished and the investigation concluded, I might have listened to you. Then I could have stopped the vigilante work and returned to my normal life. But not now. I can’t give up everything just for some atonement, can I, Rose? Hmm?”

It didn’t take long for Rose to realize that giving him more chances and trying harder would be meaningless. Nevertheless, regret mixed into her voice.

“Just a moment ago, you said corrupt police officers would gladly atone and accept their punishment…”

It was sad like when she pulled the trigger on her father, but now she wasn’t as weak as she was then. Rose gritted her teeth and said:

“So that’s the role you’ve chosen for yourself. Then I must fulfill my role too. The role of someone who fixes problems.”

The inquisitor no longer made excuses. He simply spoke calmly to this woman who willingly interfered with his work and beliefs.

“Someone who can’t do anything alone claims to be a problem solver… you seem to be trying to make me laugh, Rose.”

Rose sneered. She used the detective’s language.

“That’s why I never do anything alone. Isn’t that enough?”

She now felt she knew what the inquisitor would say next. So she continued using the detective’s language. She shook him by anticipating one step ahead, then struck.

“See you soon. Don’t say the same thing. I’ll send people first. While I have people watching, I’ll write an article or something. Don’t think you can do anything if you come during that time. This time, this person who can’t do anything alone hasn’t hired just one person. Goodbye, Uncle Leonard. See you later, Mr. Inquisitor.”

So she ended up beside the Rat-Catcher after all. The detective clicked his tongue. Sometimes sorrow was too heavy for people to bear.