Ch.249Request Log #020 – Murder Machine (6)

“Yeah, sounds good. I’ll provide protection, but don’t get cocky, Isaac. Your brother died? Your desire for revenge is admirable. But would it harm the Family? No, it wouldn’t.”

The boss’s purpose was simple: to easily devour this man’s territory—the man standing before him in a posture of punishment. He had tried to take our share from our deal and claim it as his own.

I’m taking away his chance for warning, and from the other, his chance for revenge. It’s not taking so much that they’d fight to the death. Just cutting a pound of flesh without drawing blood.

Prosperity is generally achieved by bosses like him. Giuseppina would follow the Godmother to her death even if she lost her authority, and there were those who would die unable to overcome the confusion, but bosses like this always choose the right side.

While we both kept our mouths shut, the branch boss who had swallowed the shipyard district with his bare mouth let out a cackling laugh. He extended his hand to me first.

“When a piece of meat walks right into my mouth while avoiding you, Leone, I should compensate you too. We’ve been burned by that Carmen bitch quite a bit… Well, she’s not stupid. If she’s going to leave New York completely, I won’t stop her. I’ll tell this guy not to touch her… but that’s all I can do.”

He meant he couldn’t protect her thoroughly enough to prevent revenge from someone whose mind was set on it. I couldn’t help but laugh at his words.

“So in the end, you’re not guaranteeing anything except a few days of safety. That seems like a laughable guarantee. What, are you upset that the bar where Carmen sings is in Little Eire?”

“Quite? That girl said we all look the same, so we’re boring. I should have shot her dead then. Anyway, when she disappears, that goat-hoofed bitch will be pretty upset, right? Ah, I like seeing nasty women get angry. It whets my appetite. The Godmother says you’re a beast too, but doesn’t meat tempt you? Hm?”

It was something only bosses obsessed over. I should have collected trophies from the ogre veterans I killed. I grabbed the neck of the boss who was approaching as if to rest his chin on my shoulder.

His snout was close enough that the tip of his nose might touch my body, but there was no unpleasant smell of flesh. Now understanding the meaning of his question, I smirked.

“Tired of being treated the same as creatures that live by instinct? You don’t seem to smell of rotting meat.”

“I’m more interested in business than beast-like behavior. We can’t live as we were born, Leone. Are there other bosses who said they like your perception? I hope it wasn’t Giuseppina.”

This female boss was incompatible with Giuseppina. So I smiled again and told her. There was a boss who had said exactly the same thing when we first met.

“Yes, it was Giuseppina. There are a few more things that happened to Giuseppina. Like her subordinate bosses getting shot dead, or…”

I applied pressure to the neck I was holding. The boss grabbed my wrist, surprised by the sudden strength. Though startled enough to extend her claws, she didn’t scratch my wrist.

After releasing my grip, I pushed once and raised both hands to show I had no intention to harm. I could do this much with this boss. She was trying to know me, and this was an act of revealing.

While her subordinates and the gang leader watched nervously, wondering if I was crossing a line, only this branch boss didn’t have such eyes. She burst into laughter. Not a cackle.

“Ah, this bastard… Yes, I can clearly see why Giuseppina likes you. I can see why the Godmother likes you too. Usually my taste differs from those two, and it still does… Do you have a business card?”

She rested her snout on my shoulder to say the next words, not wanting her subordinates to hear. This time I didn’t push her away.

“I think I might need it for something important. Do you know how many connections drop away when you step out of this scene for a moment? When I got caught by plainclothes cops and didn’t show my face for a while, everyone tried to clean up my share of meat like hyenas. I don’t think what happened once won’t happen again. Ah, if you need some crumbs, I can give you some.”

She was saying she could hire me directly without going through the Godmother or the Family. It was a dangerous statement, but also sincere. After hearing all that, with the hyena head still resting on my shoulder, I answered.

“Can’t you handle it like you did last time? You don’t seem like the gambling type. Besides, I always earn enough to squander, and I don’t need more than that.”

“I’m not doing that, Leone. A hyena forming an alliance with a lion is a business investment. And… you’re a sports expert who fed The Morrígan, yet you say that?”

She seems to have a reason for disliking Giuseppina so much. This boss was an opportunist. An opportunist who not only seizes opportunities when they come but prepares them in advance—such a person would be good to have as a friend.

I placed my business card in her hand as she leaned against me. Only then did she move away from me, smiling slyly. She neatly tucked my card into her inner pocket. She spoke as if making a final request.

“Yes, yes. I like it. But don’t kill Isaac, Leone. Let’s be rational, okay? We’re civilized people who can resolve things through dialogue. Ah, tell Carmen she has a week. During that time, I’ll keep our Isaac on a leash, but after that, I’ll let him loose.”

She treated the gang leader like a dog, then patted his shoulder reassuringly and smiled at me. She seemed to be returning the favor of my business card.

“Leone, you stick to just one week too. Either fight a life-or-death battle, or quietly forget each other. Doesn’t that align with the commission you received?”

The fact that she returned the favor was more meaningful than the content of the favor itself. The fact that she gave a response that didn’t sound like empty flattery, even though I hadn’t asked for it, meant her words were sincere.

If she sincerely wanted to find someone to take her side regardless of the Godmother… is the boss Godmother at her end? No, not yet. If that were the case, she wouldn’t have whispered so her subordinates couldn’t hear.

Rather, the Godmother and the bosses are probably awaiting their prime. She’s just trying to secure allies before anyone doubts the Godmother’s authority. The night streets will be peaceful.

It’s funny to say they’re peaceful because of the mafia. “Peaceful” was an incorrect expression. “Quiet” would be a better word for that place. “Ominously quiet” would be excellent.

“If bosses try to dig into your background… or if guys with oil stains on their faces like shipyard workers investigate, our deal is off. I don’t think you’d consider the breaking of this small deal important.”

The branch boss smirked. She approached me with a cigarette in her mouth. I put a cigarette in my mouth as well. The boss took out a thick, high-quality match that would be suitable for a cigar, and I gathered mana at my fingertips to light a flame.

We each took a puff and exhaled. We were smoking different cigarettes. Hers was thicker than mine but had a much fainter smell. Bosses have a good sense of smell, so it can’t be helped.

But what mattered was that we were close enough to light each other’s cigarettes. The branch boss finally answered.

“It’s an important issue if the first item on the first page of each other’s ledger becomes ‘negotiation breakdown.’ Well, I’m off, Leone! See you next time. Know that there will be quite a few bosses who will call you as their companion to dinner with the Godmother.”

With those words, she discreetly passed a business card into my hand. It was a card with the name of Salvatrice Lucania, president of Lucania Textile Raw Materials Trading Company.

If it could be called intimacy, I was quite friendly with Giuseppina. The dealer brought directly from Italy by the Godmother had given me a knife as a gift, and it seemed I had also gained the favor of this branch boss.

It was as much wanted as unwanted, and as much unwanted as wanted. It would certainly be useful, but not particularly desirable. That was about it. We parted ways like that. Only the smell of cigarettes remained in the warehouse by the dock.

I can sleep after making my report. Sighing, I headed straight to where Carmen would be staying. There was no one following me. I returned to Carmen’s apartment.

The concept of a luxury apartment was as amusing to me as the word Rose Leafman instead of Rose Clichy. Living in a cheap house would be much more human-like than living in a luxury apartment.

I rang the doorbell. Carmen’s hurried footsteps sounded as if she was running, then after a male voice was heard inside, the door opened. Standing at the door was not Carmen but Quinlan. John is too common a name.

I clicked my tongue once and pushed his chest to make him go inside. His infatuation with Carmen seemed no different from any other guy’s.

“If you don’t want to explain why you hired someone to play hero for you, at least think about safety first.”

After confirming there were no prying eyes at the bottom of the stairs, I closed the door. Reports should be made after taking off one’s hat. I entered with my hat removed. There were two glasses on the living room table, but they contained water.

If they had been drinking drugged alcohol to kill their anxiety, I would have overturned it. Since that wasn’t the case, I decided to report properly and then spoke.

“You’re safe. Those gang guys were trying to commission the Italian bosses… but I’ve handled that somehow, so you can leave safely. They guaranteed safety for a week, and after that, they said they’d try to stop him but wouldn’t hold him as tightly as during the first week. Since Carmen works at a bar run by Irish gangs, she’ll be safe while working.”

“At night, that thug might come looking. Then we’d need to leave quickly, but I suppose that…”

He seemed about to say it was up to Carmen, when Carmen herself walked in casually holding a magazine. It was something she had bought long ago. At least she hadn’t gone out to buy magazines at a time like this.

“Carmen is already looking forward to Pennsylvania, so it’s fine, Mr. Michael. Carmen isn’t stupid enough to waste the week her friend earned for her, right?”

There seems to be some sincerity. Either toward this man or toward Pennsylvania, which she had chosen as her escape destination. She could also just be an empty-headed woman attracted to the very concept of life on the run.

Either way, it was a satisfactory answer for now. Carmen would leave New York. It was a battleground that didn’t suit her anyway. The only thing fitting for New York was that she was leaving because of her own sins.

Carmen is experiencing her karma. Having to leave the city she loved is the consequence she faced. For a life half-immersed in selfish desires, the wanderlust is a fitting karma.

Then what will return to a life that sacrificed people? I wasn’t afraid of hell or anything like that. I had already been there. At least it was a hell where there were plenty of people to cry with me. It was somewhat livable.

Could I endure if things got worse than this? Until two years ago, I had put a gun in my mouth on memorial days. I loved life too much to pull the trigger. Nothing had changed since the Argonne Forest.

No, that’s not true. Things had changed. At least when I faced Sol Invictus, fought with him, and recalled the time before the Great War while seeing Sarah in a vision… things had improved a bit.

The very fact that something was improving was what I couldn’t accept. I wasn’t afraid of many things, but I was afraid of the fact that I was improving. My hands would tremble if I admitted it.

Clarifying my relationship with Sarah and meeting Bunyan’s mother to tell her about his heroism and his end—that was improvement. But Bunyan remains fixed on me. He couldn’t improve.

I had been holding onto a problem with no answer for too long. Had I been holding it too long in front of clients, or had I been embracing it too long at the veterans’ hall? This too is a problem with no answer.

I’ve been thinking about other things for too long. Let me dwell on my problems during my personal time. The silence wasn’t long. Just about five seconds. It might have been longer, but not fifteen seconds.

I naturally said something that fit the flow of conversation. Acting naturally was a skill necessary for survival rather than just a talent.

“If that’s what you’re saying to reassure this man, that would be perfect. Tell me when you’re leaving. I’ll take you to the train station. What’s wrong with playing it safe?”

“Nothing, nothing at all. But I’ll probably leave around the last day of the promised week. It’s sudden, isn’t it? Well, it was sudden when two ex-boyfriends came looking for me too, but Carmen managed to resolve that somehow, so I’ll be fine this time too. There’s still some time, and according to my friend, I’ll be safe, so I need to look around a bit more. That should be okay, right?”

I decided to say something that would displease Quinlan. I offered a fairly courteous attitude like coffee served to a client with no demands, but one doesn’t get cursed for not offering coffee to a guest.

“As long as you don’t try to go to the Brooklyn docks and somehow persuade that gang leader. And don’t stick your head in a boss’s mouth.”

Quinlan looked displeased but didn’t speak bluntly, so it should be fine. Now it was time to discuss important matters. If someone’s life is important, then the money that can control that life is also important.

It was a city where nothing couldn’t be bought with money, so I decided to do it that way. I spoke to Quinlan, who looked as if he had stones in his stomach. I used a dry tone. There was no need to be greedy.

“Let’s move on to the matter of payment. The job ends when the detective gets paid, right? I’m someone who could gladly follow you to Pennsylvania and charge you for the train tickets, the gasoline used for driving, and the money spent finding you two, so I hope you’re not thinking of skipping out on payment.”

People fear realizing that someone who was on their side could switch sides just as much as they feel relieved when someone who tried to kill them becomes their ally.

I may have mocked that branch boss, but I might also have been someone who could sell through fear. I continued speaking.

“The job turned out bigger than expected. I didn’t expect to run into Italian bosses either. I bought safety from the bosses. I need to receive at least two hundred dollars. To blow a horn in Eden, so to speak.”

The price of Arnold’s life that I received from him was exactly three hundred dollars. That was the price for ensuring survival from a gang, but they are not as valuable as Arnold. Quinlan nodded with difficulty.

They will feel at ease after paying. They will feel that the job is done. It’s not completely over. What happens with his life with Carmen is up to him. It’s not something a contractor should interfere with.