Ch.30Request Log #005 – Proci’s Concerns (5)

“Since Giuseppina sent me, don’t make this bigger than it needs to be and come out. Things have already gotten quite big.”

I drew my gun from my coat. Barking dogs don’t bite, but excited dogs often leave teeth marks on their master’s arm without realizing it, then become flustered.

He probably believed he could escape this time, and being caught like this when he was so close to escaping was certainly enough to infuriate him. I needed to be careful.

“My sister already sent people after me? So, that, damn it… Move aside! If you don’t want to see a hole in this guy’s head!”

Looks like he’s trying to start a hostage situation. The headless driver stepped aside, and the male nolchi, who was quite large like Giuseppina, emerged with a mixed-blood man whose beard had grown ridiculously.

The mixed-blood man didn’t seem like he had planned to escape with the nolchi. The Irish half-blood was still wearing indoor slippers. Not the attire of someone planning to escape.

Though he had a gun pressed against the man’s head, he didn’t look like he could actually pull the trigger. His hand holding the gun was so tense that I could see him clenching and unclenching it repeatedly.

Fortunately, I was used to situations like this. What did he hope to accomplish with a hostage? He couldn’t escape with a hostage, and killing one was like signing a consent form to have lead embedded in his own head.

“Move! You headless freak, move too! Can fairies survive with ventilation holes in their heads?”

Threatening to put a hole in the head of a fairy who could live even with its neck removed was… quite an empty threat.

I took a step forward. Ignoring the nolchi’s shouting, I drew my gun and aimed it at the head of the half-house elf hostage. The nolchi was visibly shocked.

“Shoot. If you don’t shoot, I will. Do you think anything will change if some half-blood whose name I don’t even know dies?”

He stepped back while holding the fragile half-blood. I stepped closer, still aiming the silencer at the elderly half-blood’s head. The nolchi’s panicked voice rang out.

“What the… are you crazy? After bringing an Irish mob executive here, you’re going to do it yourself…?”

I cut him off. My strategy was the same this time. Shake him up, then strike. Taking control of the conversation was the most basic way to shake someone.

“The one who’s not in his right mind is you. Do you think the old man whose neck you’re holding is some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card? Get a grip. If that half-blood dies, you’re the one who’ll get a bullet in your head.”

He tried to step back again, but now he was leaning against the windowsill. I moved half a step closer and pressed the gun barrel against the old man’s head again.

“Let’s handle this cleanly without hassle for both of us. I don’t want to go to Giuseppina and explain in detail why I had to kill you, and you probably don’t want to choose between dying here at the hands of a detective your sister hired or by that headless driver. But, our situations are different. Do you know why?”

He shook his head, unable to properly aim his gun at the hostage’s head anymore. I explained the reason.

“Whether you walk out of here or get carried out like baggage isn’t up to you, but whether I make excuses to Giuseppina about why I had to kill you or spend more time persuading you here is up to me.”

“Still, after shooting me, convincing my sister…”

“What would you say next if I said I could? ‘Go ahead, kill me’ while offering your head to the gun barrel? Shut up and put the gun down.”

He knew better than anyone that putting on a brave front in this situation would only invite death. In truth, he would die even if I brought him back alive.

After all, someone who had worked for the Italian mafia, which he hated, had threatened a member of a rival organization and even staged a hostage situation. Killing this nolchi would be the easiest way to resolve the matter.

Still, that was for after the job was done. My job was simply to bring Giuseppina’s brother to her and to make sure there was no unnecessary conflict between organizations in the process.

I was only responsible for the process. The results and endings were for those who hired detectives expecting their problems to be quietly resolved.

Giuseppina’s brother lowered his gun from the head of the old man he had taken hostage. When I held out my hand, he even placed his gun in it, becoming quite docile.

Yet, as if feeling some sort of resentment, he growled while baring his weak teeth.

“I really thought I could escape that disgusting business this time…”

Disgusting business, huh? Does he mean threatening someone relaxing at home in pajamas and indoor slippers at gunpoint, keeping them locked up for days, and forcing them to use magic?

Or perhaps he means working for violent drug dealers while receiving a steady paycheck. Either way, both were equally disgusting, so there wasn’t much point in distinguishing between them.

I put on my gloves. It would be better to give him a few blows here, if only to show the headless driver.

Fortunately, species covered in fur like nolchi don’t easily show bruises. I approached Giuseppina’s brother, who looked relieved, and drove my fist upward into his stomach.

“Disgusting business? Do you think I haven’t seen guys like you a few times in my detective work? You think your situation is the only tragedy, and you justify doing whatever it takes for your poor self. Isn’t that right?”

It was almost for show. Gangsters, whether fairies or nolchi, were obsessed with revenge. They preferred seeing someone get beaten up before their eyes rather than promises of proper punishment.

That was usually the case. The headless driver approached and gently grabbed my wrist. The head in his hand, wearing a fedora, spoke again in a deep voice.

“I don’t want that. You know.”

It seems he can see death or something. There was a hint of compassion in his deep voice, as if telling me not to beat someone who was going to die anyway. I nodded briefly.

“Thanks to you, I’ll consider this finished. Come with me. My job is to take you to Giuseppina. And, notary, can I get your casino’s contact information? Giuseppina will need to contact you.”

He placed the head he was holding on the table momentarily, then wrote down a phone number and handed it to me. In the middle of the long rectangle was a circle… Ah, yes. I think there was a phone in the middle of the table where the fairies were having their meeting. It was probably to indicate what kind of phone it was, rather than a symbol.

“Tell your client. We won’t let this slide either. She knows what needs to be done. You do too, and so do I. And that nolchi, and the nolchi here now.”

“Yes, everyone knows. But the nolchi here doesn’t seem to know.”

“It’s better if he doesn’t know.”

If he knew he was going to die anyway, he wouldn’t be this docile. He became compliant because he naively believed he would be fine since he lowered his gun after being threatened.

I led out the nolchi who didn’t know what awaited him. Gancan, the headless driver, knelt before the elderly half-blood who had been held hostage by Giuseppina’s brother and listened to his story.

He sympathized, spoke soothingly, and promised compensation. Unlike the irritable and emotional hoofed fairy or the Selkie who alternated between madness and sanity, he was rational.

I couldn’t tell what kind of fairy he was, but he must deal with something very common in modern times. The dark man picked up his head again and stood up.

“I’ll return to the meeting to report. Goodbye.”

He returned in the car that had brought me, and I headed to Giuseppina’s restaurant in the car that this hyena had used to find the house. We didn’t say goodbye.

It was late enough that dawn would break soon. Calling out fairies for meetings and investigations at this hour, and then capturing and bringing back Giuseppina’s brother… it all felt like a fantasy. It was real, but it felt half-transparent somehow. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and focused on driving back.

Giuseppina’s restaurant still had its lights on. Was she so obsessed with family love that she wouldn’t rest until she found her brother, or was she preparing interviews to find an accountant? I didn’t answer.

Arriving at the front door of the restaurant, I dragged Giuseppina’s brother, whom I had seated in the back like angels taking away a criminal, into the restaurant.

Again, the male nolchi guarding near the door opened his eyes wide, but I ignored him and threw Giuseppina’s brother into the restaurant. She growled unpleasantly loudly.

“What are you doing, detective? I believe I asked you to bring my brother to me. I don’t recall asking you to throw him like baggage.”

In response, I took the gun that Giuseppina’s brother had used to threaten the half-blood and tossed it in front of Giuseppina. Looking straight at her as she growled as if she didn’t know what kind of gun it was, I said:

“If this nolchi had tried to escape in a more sensible way, I would have treated him like your brother. You know about those Irish guys and their fairy or whatever half-bloods, right, Giuseppina?”

“Of course I know, so just tell me the reason. If you’ve harmed my brother carelessly…”

“This bastard threatened one of them. He threatened an old half-blood man, some house elf or whatever, and had him create a secret room with magic in the house where he was hiding. He probably planned to hide there until you gave up looking for him, but unfortunately, the mana smell gave him away. And when he was discovered, he even staged a hostage situation with a gun.”

Giuseppina was still growling, but now she was growling at her brother, not at me. She approached. She kicked her brother as he tried to get up from the floor.

She didn’t say much. Knowing that silence would be heavier than any words, she ignored the nolchi who had collapsed on the floor, clutching his stomach and whimpering, and approached me.

“I heard you went to Little Eire. What happened?”

“I went straight to where those Irish mafia guys were having their drinking party, explained the situation, and got some help.”

It was quite abbreviated but true. Considering I received help from Gancan twice, I had at least proven myself to be someone who could be talked to and negotiated with.

“They didn’t have much choice but to help anyway. If they had an informant among them, it would be wiser to just deal with the informant and be done with it…”

“If they weren’t the ones who leaked information, they wouldn’t want kids dying for non-existent reasons. So, he was hiding with the help of an informant?”

Come to think of it, the informant issue had been left unresolved for a long time. Was there really an informant? Looking at what happened, it would make sense if there had never been an informant in the first place.

I approached Giuseppina’s brother, who was whimpering on the floor, and stomped on his left side with my shoe.

“Why don’t you ask your brother directly? In my opinion, there probably was no informant to begin with. Your brother probably set it up in advance to divert your attention. If someone who always got caught suddenly disappeared, you would be suspicious, but if he disappeared with the help of an informant from another organization, you wouldn’t be suspicious.”

Of course, Giuseppina’s brother had forgotten that nolchi weren’t that meticulous. The nolchi had never even looked for what might be beside the bed.

Giuseppina sighed. Looking down at her brother with an expression like she’d been stabbed in the back, she said:

“So, until you searched my brother’s house yourself, we couldn’t even find him. Damn coincidence… Sigh, so. What do you think? Are the Irish guys the victims?”

“Anyone can see they’re the victims. One of their members was captured by the Italian mafia executive’s brother and forced into labor.”

For gangsters, nothing was more important than justification. They had merely placed a fancy shell called “mafia” over their essential nature as thugs, adorned with suits and luxury bought with money from selling bootleg liquor. If that justification disappeared, even that fancy shell would vanish, leaving only the ugly bare face of a thug.

I took out the note I had received from my pocket and handed it to her. She would know what the phone number was for. She exhaled a deep sigh from the depths of her chest.

Giuseppina’s brother now seemed to be catching on to how the situation was unfolding. Realizing he had become the tail that would be cut off, he tried to approach Giuseppina with all his fur standing on end.

“Hold him, detective. He’s still my brother. Until I report to the higher-ups and decide on his treatment with the Irish guys.”

“I went with one of their executives to catch your brother. They seemed to have already decided what demands to make.”

Giuseppina’s sigh only deepened. At least I could be glad that it was something I didn’t have to be involved in anymore.

For now, I held Giuseppina’s brother as she asked. I could have stepped on him to keep him from moving, but instead, I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, lifted him up, and sat him in a chair at a nearby table.

Giuseppina, who had been staring at that sight as if to clear her thoughts, approached me as if to finish the job first. She had looked like a queen when I brought the landlord’s granddaughter, but now she looked like an ordinary modern person who didn’t know what to do under pressure.

Do truly special people exist in this world? Probably not. There are only those who believe they are special and those who don’t.

“Well, at least… you brought my brother here. Since it was really related to the Irish mafia but you came back in one piece, you probably didn’t clash with them either. Damn it. Alright, if you ever need help, feel free to call. As long as you’re not trying to start a full-scale resistance, I can lend you some muscle.”

That’s if she handles this situation well, but with an easily disposable tail in the current situation, she’ll navigate through it fine.

Today, the detective’s work ends here. If I had started work in the morning, I could have finished leisurely and ended the day with a drink, but since I started late today, the job ended when the bars were closing.

So I returned home and took out a whiskey bottle from my office desk drawer for the first time in a while. It was from before Prohibition, and its proper aging made it just right for ending the day.

Today’s drinking would be limited to one glass of whiskey. It wasn’t a memorial drink for Giuseppina’s brother. That guy deserved to die.