Ch.40Ch.4 – The Perfect Human Image (6)

# April 26, 1929, 8:32 AM

Southern Cathedral, Pollard City

Bread with cheese, onions, and tomatoes, accompanied by soup. No meat. Yet Father Matteo seems quite cheerful.

“Thanks to our guest, I’ve enjoyed a good meal. Thank you.”

The priest wiped his mouth with a napkin and smiled.

“Antonio Salvatore’s funeral mass will be held this morning. Since Mr. Salvatore has no family, only close colleagues will likely attend. Giovanni Savio and Joe Torio will certainly be there.”

Giovanni Savio. A name I hadn’t heard before. The priest explained that he was the “father” of the “White Hand.”

He added that Salvatore’s head and body would be interred in the northern family cemetery after the mass.

After finishing, the priest hesitated and glanced around.

Only then did I realize he had been trying to ease my tension with light conversation before broaching heavier topics.

“You know enough about Sister Abassina, don’t you?”

“Know enough.” An ambiguous phrase. So I nodded ambiguously in response. The priest seemed to find this sufficient.

“She’s currently in her room doing penance. Praying. I don’t know what happened between you two. Still, I’m glad she hasn’t fallen prey to certain kinds of temptation.”

I asked if he meant bloodsucking. The priest seemed slightly startled by my directness but soon nodded. I asked what would happen if she were to drink blood.

“Have you ever gambled?”

I replied no to this somewhat unexpected question. The priest smiled kindly.

“I mentioned I was once a doorman in an entertainment district, didn’t I? There was a gambling hall there too.

After seeing all sorts of people, I began to recognize patterns.

The type who finds it hardest to quit gambling isn’t the person who never wins, but the one who’s tasted a big jackpot once.”

The priest’s mouth was gentle, but he was somehow frowning. I wondered briefly if he might be speaking from personal experience.

“Once you’ve tasted that pleasure, you carry the memory for life. Sister Abassina is currently overcoming that kind of trial.

Blood gives her the strength to live, but in excess, it leads to sin and corruption.

Just as light and salt are necessary for life but fatal in overwhelming amounts, so blood is to her.

In fact, it wasn’t long ago that she began to convince herself to accept consecrated wine as ‘the blood of the Lord.'”

I asked why she would voluntarily subject herself to such austerity.

“Because she still wants to be human.

That’s why she wears a nun’s habit, and why the Vatican accepted her and her kind into the Black and White Rose Order.

A beast with exceedingly ‘human’ concerns. Peculiar, isn’t it?

Eyesight. Strength. The powers of a blood elder, the pride of nobility. She sets all these aside.”

The priest pressed his shaggy-haired hand against his brow.

“However, I’m not sure if her approach is correct. She ‘denies’ a part of herself.

What is denied and suppressed sometimes manifests in unexpected ways. But desires cannot be pushed down, trampled, and crumpled away.

Recently, she has begun to taste blood again.

For a justifiable and noble reason—to read people’s memories through blood to help those in trouble.

Understandable, but ultimately just satisfying desire in a misguided way.”

I asked what should be done then, and whether the priest, as her spiritual guide, couldn’t provide appropriate guidance. The priest laughed aloud, his nostrils flaring.

“I’ve told her many times to accept, understand, and cherish herself, but she doesn’t seem to hear.

It can only be superficial advice. But the Bible says something similar.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

In other words, how you treat others reveals how you treat yourself.

What worries me is that she loathes herself. It creates a vicious cycle.

Resisting desire, then succumbing, ultimately believing ‘I was this kind of beast all along.’

That’s not humility. It’s just self-flagellation, remaining in sad satisfaction.”

The sound of car engines approached. Brakes squealing, doors opening and closing. Quite a few vehicles. The priest rose from his seat.

“Our guests have arrived.”

* * * * *

The same day, 9:50 AM

Southern Cathedral, Pollard City

The mass attendees were mostly elderly.

Joe Torio had been crying from the moment I first saw him. A bull-like wailing that would make even a hitman uncomfortable.

A white-haired old man in a wheelchair was also sobbing—judging by the white gloves on both hands, he must be “the father,” Giovanni Savio.

A bus stopped, and children from the slums disembarked in a line, each draped in white cloth like capes and holding small candles.

Only close associates and children could participate in the mass.

Young men with bulges at their suit sides scattered around the cathedral entrance and courtyard, likely carrying loaded pistols.

I wasn’t permitted entry either, so I sat on a bench in the courtyard to wait.

Across from the cathedral, I could see a familiar caramel-colored fedora and Henry Payne’s stern face.

The rumbling sound of a powerful engine approached from down the road.

Like thunder rolling through storm clouds, like the hoofbeats of war horses. Then a coupe I’d never seen before entered the cathedral courtyard.

Its streamlined body was black on top and red below. It resembled an orca racing through the sea with bloody flesh still dripping from its mouth.

A Duesenberg Model J, the most coveted and expensive car anyone could desire.

The person who stepped out was a voluptuous young woman in formal attire.

Under a black fedora worn at a rakish angle, her red hair whipped like the mane of a wild horse.

Her slightly tanned face was sharp, her eyes keen, and her mouth full of twisted mischief.

Even the typically constraining men’s suit couldn’t hide her curves. If anything, it accentuated them.

Her legs were remarkably long, with hips at the height of an average man’s waist.

But what caught my attention were her hands. Her right hand was bare, but her left wore a white glove.

This must be Aurora Savio, the eldest daughter of the Savio family.

Aurora asked something of her bodyguard, who pointed at me. Her reddish-black eyes burned like coal.

Opening the coupe door, Aurora approached me carrying a document envelope.

“Crayfield’s assistant?”

I confirmed that I was. She looked me up and down, then raised one corner of her mouth.

“I thought you seemed to fit in well with our old folks, and now I see why. You like books too, don’t you? You look like a model student.”

I asked about this non sequitur.

“You didn’t know? Uncle Torio loves books. He memorizes them daily even though he doesn’t understand a word. Haven’t you noticed his English is awkward?”

A mafioso right-hand man who loves books. That’s a first.

On the other hand, I wondered why he would make such an effort.

Perhaps it wasn’t unrelated to his hitman’s excellent English pronunciation.

“Our uncle. He wants to become American. A-mer-i-can.”

When pronouncing “A,” she pulled the corners of her mouth wide; for “mer,” her pursed lips jutted forward. The beauty mark below the left side of her full lips was distinct.

“Isn’t it funny? After spending nearly a lifetime as a left hand speaking fluent Italian, now that he’s become the right hand, he wants to be ‘civilized.'”

I replied that if that was his choice, I would respect it.

Aurora’s lips twitched, but her bodyguard whispered something in her ear.

She glared at him angrily, then took out a lipstick from her pocket and applied it.

After smacking her lips a couple of times, she kissed the corner of the envelope.

All while keeping her gaze fixed on me, never blinking once.

Only then did she hand over the envelope. The lipstick mark on the corner was vivid.

“See you around.”

The coupe left the cathedral in an instant. I tore open the envelope and examined its contents.

It was filled with typewritten reports, copies of police reports, newspaper clippings, and more.

The fact that the mafia had compiled this information overnight made me wonder just how far the White Hand’s reach extended, but I decided to focus only on the task at hand.

The first item concerned the cargo containing the coffin. The explanation was lengthy, but the conclusion was that both the sender and recipient addresses were fake.

Yet the cargo was delivered for a simple reason: the fee had been paid.

The second item was about Herbert West.

A graduate of Miskatonic Medical School, he had been notorious as an eccentric during his undergraduate years.

Particularly noteworthy was his conflict with his advisor, the renowned medical school dean Allan Halsey.

Halsey was known to have died treating the deadly Spanish flu epidemic, but days later was arrested for devouring a child in a mindless state and confined to a mental institution.

West served as a military doctor in World War I and returned alive. He eventually settled near Boston but soon disappeared.

Though skilled as a physician, the places where he stayed commonly reported bestial screams, signs of something escaping from graves, and humans exhibiting symptoms similar to rabies.

The fact that such distinctively unusual incidents occurred only around him led to an investigation, but it was closed after West’s disappearance.

Strangely, people associated with Dr. West began to disappear one by one.

Simultaneously, those showing rabies-like symptoms escaped from mental institutions in Boston and Arkham. Judging by the destroyed walls and floors, someone had deliberately facilitated their escape.

Dr. Halsey also disappeared around the same time.

The last person connected to him to disappear was a college classmate and roommate who claimed to have served with him during the war. The final escape was three years ago.

He couldn’t remember his own name or identity, but recalled Herbert West’s activities with remarkable accuracy. Cross-verification confirmed most of it as factual.

Zealous reporters sought out Miskatonic Medical School alumni and professors to investigate “Herbert’s friend,” but they refused to testify about West.

They acknowledged that he had a close friend but refused to confirm whether the man in the mental institution was that “friend.”

“West was too radical.

He argued that death was no different from a machine losing power, and could be overcome with appropriate electrical stimulation and chemical injections.

It was an extremely functionalist view, at a time when even doctors seriously believed in the existence of the soul.

West claimed there was no such thing as a soul and worked hard to prove his theory correct.

With a dull friend who, though intellectually brilliant, lacked the wisdom a human should possess.”

This testimony was extracted only after persistent questioning.

The mass ended. The children with candles came out first, followed by those carrying the coffin, then the White Hand family.

Joe Torio’s hitman slipped away from the group. He started to say something but frowned upon seeing the envelope.

“Did the young lady deliver this personally?”

I confirmed she had. The hitman gritted his teeth. He returned to his group, spoke with Torio, then came back.

“He says I’m to accompany you today.”

I asked why, but he stubbornly kept his mouth shut and sat on a bench diagonally across from us.

The buses, hearse, and black sedans all disappeared at once. The cathedral grew quiet again, making the light footsteps that followed relatively distinct. It was Abassina.

“Good morning.”

Abassina, with the blindfold cloth tied around her left arm like an armband, sat down beside me on the bench.

On such a bright day, it would be difficult for her silver-gray eyes to read, so I read the contents aloud to her.

After pondering for a while, Abassina finally spoke.

“That’s all fine. But…”

Abassina held up the envelope. The red lipstick mark was vivid.

“Who is this woman?”

I told her about Aurora Savio’s impulsive behavior and that the hitman who had heard about the situation was sitting on the bench across from us, watching.

The playfulness disappeared from Abassina’s face. She told me that last night, red-haired Omeli gang members had been whispering at the bar.

They said tensions between the old and new factions of the White Hand mafia were serious.

Normally, the middle layer of members in their 30s and 40s would hold things together, but most had died in the recent war.

Too many responsibilities had fallen on young members, while many benefits still went to the older generation.

Without the father’s strong charisma, the White Hand would have already split.

Joe Torio represented the established interests. The older members had shared life and death with the father since he came to America from Italy.

Meanwhile, the discontented younger members rallied around Aurora Savio.

Giovanni had three children: the eldest son died on Pollard Island, Aurora was next in line, and the youngest, disliking the Savio family, became a soldier.

Thus, Aurora was currently the only heir to Giovanni’s position.

Antonio Salvatore, though clearly a villain, was beloved by all members of the organization.

He was cheerful, energetic, approachable, and knew how to win the affection of everyone from the elderly to children.

His horrific death was not only a matter of prestige for the entire White Hand but also marked the end of the delicate generational balance that had barely been maintained.

“Aurora sending this message should be seen as a relatively friendly gesture, right?”

Abassina carefully folded the envelope with the lipstick mark, hiding it in the fold.

“She probably knows that you, me, and Torio are working together. Hmm. No, no. This makes things complicated. Let’s focus on the simple issue. The cargo. What we need to find is ultimately the cargo, not the mafia power structure, right?”

The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. A coffin with fake sender and recipient. A wax figure that broke out of that coffin and harmed people. A truck that appeared after receiving a call from the wax figure. The rational inference is that the wax figure’s network extends at least from Pollard Island to Kingsport.

“Hey. Beast.”

Abassina, resting her head on her knees, whispered.

“What if… a shipment with completely wrong addresses gets delivered? It wouldn’t reach the right place, would it? So… where do all those shipments go?”

Even as she spoke, Abassina hugged her knees tighter, as if embarrassed.

“Is this too foolish a theory? Hmm. I don’t know. Hey, you! Come over here!”

Abassina waved cheerfully. The ferret-like hitman approached.

“You called, Sister?”

“Have you ever thought about where all lost mail goes?”

Abassina surely didn’t expect an answer. Perhaps she just wanted to tease the man watching us. But then:

“To the Dead Letter Office, of course.”

The ferret-like man replied as if stating the obvious, causing Abassina and me to look at each other. If anything, the man seemed confused by our reaction.

“It’s even in that Herman Melville novel you people love so much.

The master who was ignored in life but reappraised after death.

Bartleby the scrivener originally worked there, and that’s why he lost his mind.

Reading all the world’s tragic stories would drive anyone mad. Hey, what’s wrong?”

I jumped up and ran to the telephone at the annex entrance.

Regular mail would be stamped “addressee unknown” and kept at the post office for a certain period.

But what about misdirected cargo? No one would want such shipments piling up in their warehouse.

It would go to a communal storage facility.

The wrong addresses on the cargo weren’t mistakes.

It was a scheme to gather them in a warehouse for undeliverable freight!