Ch.49Ch.5 – The Dead City Dreams and Waits (4)

A bruised and battered police officer pins the suspect to the ground after a struggle, twists his arms behind his back, and handcuffs him.

Though his eyes blaze with killing intent, his mouth recites the familiar speech beginning with “You have the right to remain silent…”

This is the Miranda warning, a staple in any police-themed work.

The practice of police politely explaining “rights” to suspects began after 1966, following the Miranda ruling.

Of course, the right to refuse self-incriminating testimony and the right to legal counsel existed before then.

But prior to the Miranda ruling, failing to inform suspects of these rights didn’t invalidate arrests or trials.

In other words, the recognition that even criminals deserve certain legal protections, and the establishment of concrete methods to safeguard those rights, is a relatively recent development.

But now it’s 1929. Not exactly 1929, of course. We’re not time travelers, after all.

The creators of this world selectively chose aspects of the historical 1929 that suited their tastes and made them reality.

Naturally, laws and norms exist in this world too. But like in reality, the laws here don’t turn residents into automatons.

Even in reality, Prohibition was eventually repealed. Ironically, some of its most vocal opponents had initially been among its strongest supporters.

Sometimes certain laws produce results worse than having no law at all. This often happens when people forget that laws are the product of promises and agreements between people.

When law becomes a tool to control people. When it functions like a yoke for dispensing punishment.

When the saying “a bad law is still a law” is uttered without hesitation, and when laws are treated as if they can never be changed or improved once established, such things happen.

But one can’t blame such ignorance. If people have never experienced changing laws through their own power. If there’s no belief or system that flawed rules can be changed,

If distrust of the law itself becomes widespread because people are driven to discrimination and injustice by none other than the law, then the law remains ingrained only as a tool of domination.

Those are exactly the kind of people we’re going to meet.

Those who made their own laws because the world’s laws failed to protect them.

Those who created their own society because society couldn’t embrace them.

Those whose very existence became cancerous. Those who once grew up normally but became twisted. Those for whom it’s impossible to distinguish between healthy cells and twisted ones.

If we were talking about a person, we would call this cancer. Yet society commands us to call even these people human. Calling them cancerous is discrimination, they say, and only fosters conflict.

It’s sad and funny at the same time. You can think freely, but don’t speak your thoughts aloud. That’s as far as the law can go.

It can silence someone’s mouth, but it cannot force their thoughts. That’s the law.

And as for Catherine Scully, she wields a bigger and stronger rod than anyone here. She didn’t come to this island unprepared.

In some ways, she knows more about these cancerous entities than I do, or Crayfield, or James.

It’s her specialty, after all. Which also means she knows what’s needed to communicate with them.

So much so that…

“Low, vile, without a shred of dignity…”

Even Crayfield was left shaking his head.

“Isn’t the fear of not knowing when you’ll be hit worse than actually being hit?”

“Agent, we call that irritating, not frightening. I suppose you grew up as a model student and never got hit. So now we’re going to stir up a hornet’s nest?”

“There are no hornets. There’s honey, though. It’s one of the White Hand’s intermediate logistics points. According to what we know.”

Crayfield turned the corner into an alley. A half-crushed garbage can with its contents spilling out welcomed us.

It was a street with few people and poor maintenance—perfect for hiding. Crayfield turned off the engine. As if that were a signal, we each checked our weapons.

“Cover your mouth with this.”

Agent Scully handed James a handkerchief.

“If we’re going to disguise ourselves, shouldn’t we do it properly? That would help protect our client too, wouldn’t it, Mr. Crayfield?”

“I’ve noticed before how smart you are. I pray bullets will admire your shining intellect and swerve away, just like neighborhood thugs do for clever schoolgirls.”

“Even clever schoolgirls know loneliness.”

Despite their bickering, they worked well together. Scully readied her pistol to open the door while Crayfield pressed against the wall beside it, prepared to check the corners.

1929. 5. 10. PM 12:02

Truman Street, Pollard City

H & S Warehouse

They’d brought James a pistol from the office. Though he had no experience in urban warfare, his posture was steady, befitting a trained soldier. I kept watch on the alley.

Just as I heard voices, the door opened. A man with a long mustache wearing a green shirt came out carrying a wooden box.

Catherine Scully pressed her gun to his temple.

“Put down the box and turn around. That’s right. Now go inside. If you try anything suspicious, you won’t be eating lunch today.”

The man grumbled a bit but turned around.

Inside the warehouse, four men were playing cards. They jumped to their feet when they saw us, but it was already too late.

Soon, the four mafiosi and their workers were face down on the floor, groaning, while the sweaty green-shirted man hurriedly made a phone call.

Twenty minutes later, a familiar woman appeared. Predictably furious. Her white glove on her left hand was distinct, and her confident stride unchanged.

“If you wanted to see me, you could have just asked, darling? I could have unbuttoned the top two buttons for you.”

Aurora Savio entered the warehouse with her palms open. Of course, while she might not be carrying a gun, heavily armed White Hand members were surely surrounding the warehouse outside.

Despite Catherine Scully’s cold gun barrel and the eyes behind it, she said:

“Lots of women here. Crayfield’s assistant. I wonder where I rank among them? Are any of the others as long-legged as me?”

She wouldn’t take her eyes off me. Well, even in that moment, Aurora showed no weakness.

It’s an excellent tactic to attack the one who seems most vulnerable when facing multiple opponents.

Of course, her defiance now came from uncontrollable aggression rather than careful strategy.

“Some people don’t listen when you talk to them. Aurora Savio. Just like you.”

Catherine Scully gestured slightly with her gun. A signal to sit down. Aurora moved toward the chair with a smirk.

Of course, she didn’t forget to kick the men who were displaying such shameful behavior.

“Sorry. Organization discipline is a mess these days. Even these idiots get to sit at the table. Should have buried them with Joe Torio.”

“Oh, Aurora.”

Scully smiled pityingly.

“Let’s be accurate. You were the one who buried him.”

“Shut up, you bitch. Unless you want to see someone go crazy.”

“Fascinating, Aurora. I’m surprised you still have enough sanity left to lose.”

Aurora crossed her arms and legs.

“Call me ‘Aurora’ one more time, pretty girl, and I’ll put a hole in your face.”

“Well. Your brother’s interview records—”

“You fucking bitch!”

Aurora stood up. Scully’s pistol spat fire. The door opened and men with machine guns entered.

I, Crayfield, and James all aimed in different directions. But Scully and Aurora only glared at each other. As if they were the only two people in the world.

“Don’t. Touch. My. Brother.”

Plop, plop.

Aurora’s long hair below her left ear scattered on the floor. The bullet had grazed her earlobe by a hair’s breadth. And Scully hadn’t missed by accident.

“Sit down, Aurora. And send your trash out.”

Scully’s pistol still smelled of gunpowder.

“The Federal Bureau of Security can throw you into Alcatraz Island, where there are no women, even now.

You could cry and beg for a year, and you still wouldn’t cross the shower room threshold.

Instead, many small, soft, meaty faucets would wash every inch of you, especially places you never wanted washed.

So listen to me, Aurora Savio. This is your last chance to wash yourself with a metal showerhead.”

Aurora tilted her head back with a “ha.” Her chest heaved with each ragged breath, but she had no choice.

With a nod from her, her subordinates quietly left the warehouse. Aurora’s control over her organization seemed impressively strong.

“What do you want?”

Aurora growled. There was a slight whistling mixed in.

“Use it.”

“What?”

“Use your inhaler.”

“You…”

Aurora carefully searched her pocket. She pulled out an asthma inhaler. Scully waited patiently.

“You. You’ll never die peacefully.”

Pure hostility filled Aurora’s eyes.

“I hear that often. Let’s skip the pleasantries. Mostin Street, why did you do it?”

“I’m sure the high-and-mighty Chief Chase explained it to you. A turf war.”

“Ah. A turf war for Mostin Street, which can’t even pay proper tribute to Red-Haired O’Malley? That’s a convincing story.”

Aurora closed her eyes. She also kept her mouth shut. Only her large chest, not hidden even by her suit, heaved violently.

“Let me make you an offer.”

“Forget it.”

“It’s an offer you absolutely cannot refuse.”

Scully’s voice lowered.

“Your brother. I can have him sent abroad. A military attaché position in the Old World. A guaranteed future as an officer.

There’s another package too. One code word in your brother’s file is all it takes.

Then military counterintelligence agents will take your brother to a basement where he won’t even get water. On suspicion of espionage.

Which do you prefer?”

“The latter.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Scully sighed quietly.

“So. Tell me. Why did you do it?”

The words from Aurora’s mouth were completely unexpected.

“Father.”

“Giovanni Savio?”

“I know my father’s name, you whore. Not like you with countless fathers! Fuck. Yes. Father. But not just him. The White Hand has been wiping the asses of Pollard’s powerful families.

Sometimes there was gold mixed in with the shit, but my father personally licked Isaiah Black’s asshole clean.

They were all the same. Joe Torio and the other old men. All of them.

No better than male prostitutes, old roosters who wet their pants before reaching the toilet.”

Aurora ground her teeth.

“It was a test. A test. Mayor Arthur Black knows we’ve changed. So he gave the order. Told us to clean house.

Father had to show he was still loyal to the Black family. So we did it.

Yes, you’re right. That street is like a dried-up vegetable. Nothing to eat, nothing to salvage.

We just had to burn the building the mayor pointed out and shoot everyone who came out.”

“What about the missing people? Why did the mayor target that building?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. You could strip me naked and shake me, and you wouldn’t find a speck of Mostin Street dust on me.

Ha. But since there’s someone I like here, I’ll give you a service time.”

For some reason, Aurora pointed at me.

“The vigilantes blocked the opposite alley. And they put the fleeing Irish in sacks. Then took them somewhere.”

Click.

The clock struck 2.

“Vigilantes? Are you sure?”

Aurora hesitated for the first time.

“I told you. I wasn’t there. My men only caught glimpses.”

“Name those men.”

“Hey, don’t cross the line! You know enough about organizational culture!”

“You people have ‘culture’?”

“Think whatever you want, you fucking bitch.”

Finally, Aurora turned her head away.

“I can’t tell you that much. Even if you brought my brother here and made him stand, I couldn’t tell you that.”

Scully nodded. She understood that Aurora’s only trust lay with her subordinates, and if she betrayed even that, she would truly have nothing left.

So Scully didn’t push further. Instead, she offered an exit.

“Have you seen this photo before?”

Aurora turned her head again, likely to escape the pressure. A natural evasive action.

“What is this? It’s disgusting.”

That expression of disgust could never be faked.

There are things that instinctively repulse us even at first sight, perhaps manifestations of something carried in our unconscious since the days humans lived in caves.

Something alien and repulsive. Even I could read it, and Scully certainly couldn’t miss it.

Aurora knows nothing about the Cthulhu statue.

“Alright. Alright. Thank you for your cooperation, Aurora Savio.”

When we opened the back door, sure enough, mafiosi were aiming their guns at us. But since Aurora had walked closer to us, they didn’t act rashly.

When Aurora waved her hand again, her subordinates lowered their guns. Of course, we didn’t.

“Hey. Crayfield’s assistant.”

Aurora’s voice was languid.

“When you meet a beautiful woman, bring flowers instead of guns. And leave your tactless friends behind. Coming before mealtime isn’t polite either. And I like my steak medium.”

I gave no particular answer. With a “hmph,” Aurora thrust out her chest and slammed the door shut. Nothing unusual happened until we reached the car. Not even when Crayfield started the engine.

“Mr. James. I hope that was helpful.”

Scully’s voice was refreshing.

“It was helpful. So, it seems the vigilantes did kidnap people. I’ll look into this.”

James’s voice was full of determination.

“Good. Let’s each investigate from our positions. Mr. Crayfield? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You have quite a way with words.”

There was no sarcasm in Crayfield’s tone.

“Surprised by a few jokes?”

“I thought you were a bookworm schoolgirl. Where did you learn to talk like that? Books?”

Scully answered matter-of-factly, without a trace of humor.

“Never heard Washington-style jokes? Drop me off over there. They have good sandwiches.

Good work, Crayfield, James, and assistant. Aurora seems very interested in you. I wonder why?

No, no. That’s enough mystery for today. See you later, everyone.”

“This is maddening.”

Crayfield pressed the accelerator after dropping off Scully.