Ch.273The Eighth Entanglement – Law, Order, and Capriccio (2)

The detective calmly admitted his involvement in this matter. Rose knew there was nothing she could do with just that information.

She wasn’t someone who spoke without evidence, and the detective only revealed they were looking in the same direction without explaining how, why, or through whom he was involved.

So what can I do? Rose briefly looked down at the camera in her hands. It only contained evidence of the demon factory owner’s weakness. It couldn’t be used to save the people who would soon be dealt with.

Wait, just a moment. Rose put the brakes on her thoughts that were heading into a downward spiral. If the union leader deserved what was coming to him, and if the lynch mob deserved what was coming to them, then there was one more thing that was deserved.

With a slightly brightened expression, she asked the detective who was about to hang up. Perhaps the bar she would visit tonight to gather information wouldn’t be one frequented by workers.

“Well, I don’t know whether you’ve taken on this job or not…”

She made it clear she wasn’t trying to interfere. These were people who had broken the simple rule that you get what you give. What she had thought unfair was that one person was getting away.

“If you are working on this, isn’t there one more person who isn’t getting his neck tightened by his own choice? The demon factory owner. The one who recruited the union leader as his dog, who runs a company union filled with hired thugs. He made a decision too. To seize whatever opportunity came his way.”

“And?”

The detective spoke with slightly renewed interest. For him, the factory owner’s fate wasn’t important at all. His client hadn’t mentioned the factory owner. So he hadn’t worked on it.

“I’m going to seize this opportunity too, whatever it may be. There’s an opportunity in my camera. You wouldn’t interfere with that much, would you?”

“Whatever happens to that factory owner is none of my business. Are you going to get him to subscribe to Golden Age Press?”

Rose smiled back at the detective’s leisurely taunt about looking forward to the next issue. The distance between them easily widened and narrowed.

“I’d appreciate that! Even though we’re selling quite well these days, we’re still a small newspaper. If you subscribe… do we give something in return? If you’re really interested, I’ll look into it and get back to you!”

She spoke as if her head was filled with flowers before giggling, clearly teasing. The detective smiled back. Fortunately, their conversation didn’t end dryly.

It was time to say goodbye. It seemed better to develop the photos, including backup copies, and start drafting the article. After that, she planned to visit Bar Dis. There was someone she needed to meet there.

“Well… I’ll go write my article now. I’m not creating an escape route for you, am I? Michael doesn’t really need my help anyway.”

I’m not exposing the factory owner to help him escape, Rose declared cleanly. It was because the owner deserved to be exposed.

The factory owner wasn’t simply immoral. Demons might treat morality as a subtle suggestion, but they held something like a faith in efficiency.

He was inefficient. Even demons would say he seized an opportunity by corrupting the union leader through improper means, but not when he tried to boast about it as if it were naturally his achievement.

Without properly completing the recruitment, or without giving the union leader enough trust to stand on his side, he acted like a child trying to show off a perfect test score while still holding the leash.

People would despise the immorality, and the head of the semi-divine party, who was practically the leader of demons, would not tolerate stupidity. That’s why she was doing this.

The detective responded with his usual composure. If they weren’t going to interfere with each other’s work, there was no reason to be sharp. Uncharacteristically, he even added a few words of encouragement.

“It’s like asking, ‘I’m holding a garbage bag, can I throw this in too?’ Just asking. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not one to fill bags to the risky point anyway. And you helped catch Congressman Edward Collins. You caught Charles Clichy with your own hands, which made it easy for me to escape. You know how to do that much.”

Seems like there’s another trivial reason for my self-esteem to plummet. Even though her mindset had become stronger and she’d learned to use the temperament inherited from Charles Clichy well, she was still a person with ordinary mood swings.

The detective didn’t bother to deduce anything, knowing the reporter would soon explain her reasons. Rose also understood why the detective had added a few words of encouragement.

It was obvious why this was happening. It was because she had thought of the detective several times while talking about Christmas stories, thinking he wouldn’t be available. Rose had kept silent for too long.

It was obvious why this was happening. She must be silent again because she had nothing to say about herself and was embarrassed. The detective made an uncharacteristic misjudgment.

Michael searched for words to change the atmosphere and chose what he could say most comfortably.

Rose said what she would have postponed until tomorrow if not for now.

They spoke almost simultaneously. Only one word collided before they both cut short their sentences, but what they were trying to say was almost identical.

“Ah, um, well…”

“When words like this come up…”

Though Rose considered closing her mouth again since her courage was forced, the detective didn’t let that happen. It was thanks to his uncharacteristic misjudgment.

“You go first. It was just something trivial to change the mood anyway.”

The detective’s somewhat dry tone made Rose hesitate, but having been told to speak first, she had no choice but to dive in headfirst as she always did.

“Well, um! Besides Paulina, you’re the person I’ve known longest among those still around me. But, there’s a reporter in our politics department, Robert Merrick, who knows that I nearly cut ties with the Clichy family while covering the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn. So, he invited me to have a nice Christmas dinner together…”

Ah, rather than speaking like this, maybe I should have said, “Give me about four hours and I’ll put it in the evening paper for you.” Rose wasn’t good at speaking without organizing her thoughts. She rambled.

She hasn’t had a drop of alcohol, yet she’s speaking more confusingly than a drunk Yehoel. The detective sighed once. He could reasonably figure out what she was trying to say, so he waited.

This silence wasn’t uncomfortable for either of them. Even Rose, who had been forcing out words, could pause briefly to collect her thoughts. Only then did she speak properly.

“Anyway, even though it’s not as long as with Paulina, I’ve known Michael for quite a while. Actually, the only people I could ask to go to a place like this with me are Michael, Paulina, Carmen, and Willem. Willem would probably tell me to go with Michael, and Carmen has disappeared… you know?”

Living well in Pennsylvania, I suppose. The detective laughed quietly. After that, Quinlan had only called the detective twice to check in, but never to request finding Carmen.

That was good enough, considering it was Carmen. Realizing that only the location and number of people differed from what he had intended to say, the detective spoke comfortably.

“I don’t mind stopping by that reporter gentleman’s house before going to Two Face. I’ve always spent Christmas at Two Face anyway. Even before Two Face became Sarah’s Two Face.”

Another fragment of the past. It was regrettable that Rose couldn’t see the Christmas celebrations of the seventeen-year-old Mickey that Sarah remembered—energetic, trying to prove himself to others, and following what was cool.

Still, Rose could be satisfied just seeing the twenty-four-year-old detective raising his glass. She had felt that way since the day he had stopped her from spewing hatred at her father.

Rose felt like her knees might give way from relief. It felt like the ghosts of the past had come close enough to touch. And in her typical fashion, she answered with a smile.

“Oh, then, I’ll tell Paulina too! Oh, were you close with Paulina? Well, both Paulina and Michael are big eaters! Even if you were close, it’s better to let her know, right?”

They weren’t particularly close, but they did share the same secret. Both had worked with Charles Clichy while hiding that fact from Rose Clichy.

Even apart from that, they were similar. Their methods of handling matters were similar, and in terms of knowing how to evade the law, they might not be very different. Both had professions that people found distasteful.

“We don’t need to be similar, but we do have unnecessarily many things in common. Don’t get too excited. There are still three weeks left. We need to deal with this job first. The mood suddenly changed.”

I wanted to change the mood, but not this much. The detective laughed briefly. Only then did Rose Leafman’s ears turn red.

She knew why she was twice as embarrassed about how much she had just rambled compared to how much she had rambled when asking to spend Christmas together, but she decided to swallow her words.

“Right… Anyway, that’s good! I should finish the article cleanly first. When there’s something that needs to be printed, leaving the page blank is also a lie!”

She seems quite enthusiastic. The detective hung up without much lingering. He checked his automatic pistol properly, not the revolver he had carried while pretending to be a hired thug, and also checked if the silencer’s interior was worn.

The plan was for the demon boss to have the union leader and the union cleaned up by hired thugs, but if the thugs weren’t that professional, they often failed to handle everything. Then he would have to do it himself.

A shotgun might be better than a pistol. Workers who spent all day looking at “No Firearms” signs knew very well what would happen if someone threw a single spark into their workspace.

Normally, they would avoid doing such things to prevent violent suppression, but if the factory owner was going to unleash thugs anyway, they might willingly throw in a spark.

Then it would become chaotic. Black smoke would fill the air. When moving around in there, a silencer wouldn’t be necessary. A 20-gauge shotgun always left natural wounds.

The detective also picked up a pipe similar to the one used at the Smith Chemical Factory he had visited that morning, brought from a warehouse by the dock.

Double strength and double vigor left deeper wounds. If he wanted to make it look like they died from being beaten by thugs during a strike, it was important to have tools that could make natural wounds.

Since his abilities were always ready, once he gathered the tools, preparations for next Monday were practically complete. The only thing that went wrong was that the report call was ten minutes late because of the reporter.

The client was probably curled up in bed, trembling, after hiring the detective. The connection rang for a long time. But eventually, the call was answered.

“Michael Husband from the Husband Detective Agency. Are you the client?”

There was no answer. Judging by the trembling breath heard over the phone line, someone was there. The fact that the detective had called meant the job was progressing, so they might be trying to run away.

To handle contradictions, one had to know how to bear them. The detective was quite a good contradiction in that sense. In the sense that he disappeared when the job was done.

“I don’t have a habit of blabbing about plans to third parties, so please confirm if you’re the client first. I don’t understand why you feel so guilty about this matter. You haven’t done anything stupid. Not yet.”

“We haven’t done anything else, but we haven’t helped either… That’s right. It feels like we could have done more, like it’s our fault. But, well, yes. I made the request.”

He spoke as if making a confession. The detective clicked his tongue twice at his repetitive tone, silencing the client, and told him about the preparations that had ended without the client having to pay a cancellation fee.

“Those guys are cheap anyway. Stand tall. I’ll tear everything down completely, so just worry about what to plant in the new soil, farmer sir. Anyway, preparations are complete. I stirred up some discord, and with that Computing Federation business card I showed you, I told the union I’d support their strike. There’s no need to send people from the Computing Federation. They even believed me when I said it would be done secretly.”

He knew it would prick at the client’s sense of guilt, but this was the most reliable method. When cleaning up a backyard that’s been neglected for a year, what matters isn’t the lives of the moles but leaving a neatly arranged lawn.

“Then, on Monday…”

“Those guys will start a strike thinking they have support from the Computing Federation, and the demon factory owner will naturally try to suppress it using hired thugs. They know well what happens without support. And I’ve also shattered the thin trust between the union leader and the factory owner. The factory owner there might not be smart, but he is cunning. What do you think will happen when a strike breaks out?”

“He’ll think someone who betrayed once might betray again. I don’t know exactly how you stirred up discord… but anyway, even the union leader… He’ll try to do something.”

From the detective’s perspective, the client was the biggest uncertainty. He sighed and pressed on, noting how the client couldn’t even say “deal with” and instead said “somehow.”

“You can keep crying until Monday if you want. But don’t call those union guys and tell them the promise to support the strike on Monday is a lie. I can finish the job cleanly as long as my client doesn’t interfere with the work. I swear. Not all the factory workers deserve to die. Spend the weekend making a new list. How about that?”

“Good, good. I’ll do that. I swear. So… please, not too many deaths, no, no. You’re just giving them a push, right?”

He regained some of his senses at the suggestion that he had more to do than be consumed by guilt. He’s a good person, teeth-chatteringly good. That’s why he was still a risk factor.

“What happens to people who fall after being pushed is beyond your control, so you can’t ask for that… It was me who asked you to get rid of the free riders, whether by pushing them or whatever. Just, from now on, we’ll have to be more proactive. So we don’t have to hire someone like you. Try to find new people to entrust the union to. That, that’s good. Good. Thank you.”

Well, he says that, but it’s usually one of two things. Either they get used to secretly hiring detectives, or they comfort themselves by saying that contradictions are inevitable in reality, not just in theory. The latter was more common.