1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local (10 page)

“Wha…?”

The front kick had caught the man completely by surprise, and he hadn’t even had time to pull the trigger. Ladd had also raised his hands, and so he gripped the center of the gun barrel lightly, then pushed it over hard—forward, from Ladd’s perspective—so that it pointed back over his adversary’s shoulder.

It was pointing behind the panicking black suit, toward the other one.

Of course the man in Ladd’s grip had struggled, but in the blink of an eye, the gun barrel had been pushed to point behind him. The thin part of the barrel bit deeply into his shoulder.

Leaving one hand on the gun barrel, Ladd grabbed the butt of the weapon. Using the black suit’s shoulder as the fulcrum, he yanked the gun sharply toward him.

“What?!”

The force made the black suit’s finger slip off the trigger. Ladd’s finger, from the hand that had been holding the gun barrel, slid into its place.

A roar.

The upside-down gun spat out a huge amount of lead.

That lead pierced the body of the rear black suit: his jaw, his lungs, his heart, but mostly his head. The man, his upper body transformed into a fountain of blood, twisted sideways and crumpled to the ground. At the same time, the volume of the screams that echoed in the car swelled.

“Why you—!”

From the back, the previously wounded man trained his gun on them, but his remaining comrade blocked the shot. Not only that, but Ladd had grabbed the man’s collar with his left hand and hauled him up—his feet now rose slightly off the floor. With a strength that was impossible to imagine from his slender frame, Ladd was suffusing the man’s face with blood.

The black suit fought, kicking and struggling, but he didn’t know any effective techniques for combat this close. He tried to gouge Ladd’s eyes with his free hand, but Ladd anticipated the move and bit a chunk out of his hand.

As he spat out blood and flesh, Ladd called to the wounded black suit at the back of the car.

“Well, what’ll you do? Run for it? Shoot me through your friend? Kill yourself? Yack for a bit? Have some tea? Grab some food? How’s business? No way it’s good, huh? Well, what’re you gonna do? Reorganize? Run for office? Wage war? Kill each other? Are you scared? Sad? Or are you mad?”

He rattled off a string of pointless questions, then cackled to himself. Abruptly cutting off that laugh, he poked a gun out of the shadow of the man he was using as a shield.

“Answer at least one of ’em, why! Don’t! You!”

In lieu of an answer, the wounded black suit turned his back on them both.

The man dashed out of the dining car. Ladd didn’t follow him. Instead, he dropped his shield onto the floor.

“Well, this got pretty interesting. It’s getting pretty damn interesting…”

The lone remaining black suit coughed hard several times, then glared at Ladd and called out triumphantly:

“You fool! To think you’d let my comrade escape! I don’t know who you people are, but don’t think you can make enemies of us and survive!”

“Y’know, the mafia fellas I killed said stuff like that before they bit it, too. Not that it matters.”

Without seeming particularly interested, Ladd tossed the machine gun onto the floor. The passengers who were near where it fell gave small shrieks.

“Idiot!”

Seeing this, the black suit suddenly stood up. Grabbing the knife he’d had hidden in his boot, he swung it in a powerful horizontal slash.

According to the black suit’s prediction, the blade should have slashed the white suit’s throat, but

“Wh…What?”

Ladd’s head wasn’t there anymore.

The moment he thought he glimpsed hair at the bottom of his field of vision, it was already too late: A heavy impact ran through his guts.

“Booby prize.”

The pain came to him dully, and an urge to vomit welled up inside him.

Smirking, Ladd had rammed an uppercut into the man’s side. In contrast to his grinning face, the black suit was moaning and dripping with greasy sweat.

“Y-you damn… Boxi…”

As he fell forward, a loosely clenched fist flew up at him from below.

“
Nghaa!
”

“Nn? No worries. It’s fine. I’m tons weaker than Pete Herman.”

As the man fell backward, Ladd grabbed the hem of his clothes and hauled him back up.

“I don’t have the strength or techniques of Jack Johnson or Jack Dempsey, either.”

Left hook. Followed by a weird, unnatural noise:
gatch
.

“I wonder… Is the name Jack lucky for boxers or something? Huh?”

Several blows were paid out, one-sidedly.

“I said ‘Herman’ and ‘Dempsey’ all casual-like, but do you know boxers’ names? Of course you know; all Americans know.”

Punch.

“If you say you don’t know or something, I’ll never forgive you.”

Punch.

“I’ll never forgive you.”

Yet another punch.

“I’ll never”—
punch
—“ever”—
punch
—“forgive you.”—
punch
—“Well”—
punch
—“it’s not like”—
punch
—“I’ll forgive”—
punch
—“you”—
punch
—“even if”—
punch
—“you know, though.”

Taking an uppercut at the end of a complete joker’s rush, the man lurched backward again. At that rate, he should have been down long before now, but Ladd had intentionally kept hitting his opponent in ways that kept him from falling.

Now his head crashed back into the wall.

The door was right beside him. In the midst of the repeated strikes, the black suit had been driven all the way to the end of the car.

“Oh, you finally dropped the knife, huh? Man, I was so terribly, terribly scared that I hit you too much by accident.”

The knife had been dropped way back at the very first attack, but Ladd spoke shamelessly, with a patently fake attitude.

“
Aah
…”

“Whoa. You’re still conscious? I guess I really don’t have any punch strength. That’s a hell of a shock, yeah? What’re you gonna do about it?”

Ladd grabbed the black suit’s collar with both hands and shoved his back right up against the wall.

“Well, I was sure you wouldn’t shoot me dead on the spot. You wanted to know what us white suits were up to, right? Hmm? That’s why you came up close to me, right? To catch me.”

Then he pulled the black suit to him and hugged him hard.

“
Thank you
, seriously, thank you! Thank you for doing just what I thought you would.”

Rubbing his cheek against the black suit’s head, he yelled out words of gratitude; his eyes looked set to tear up any second.

“You’re real good guys! What did I tell you? I’m not your enemy! As long as there’s love—enemy or friend, it don’t matter! Aah, I’m on your side, and I love you, all of you, from the bottom of my heart!
But die.”

He slammed the black suit up against the wall again.

Even though there was blood dribbling from his victim’s mouth and nose, and the whites of his eyes were showing, he was still conscious.

“You…fool… Making ene…mies of us—
bwuh
!”

A clenched fist hit him right under the nose. He felt something break, under the skin; probably a front tooth.

“What’s this ‘us’ business you keep rattling on about? It’s kinda snobby and annoying and irritating, and I’ll slaughter you.”

“As if feebleminded…fools like you…could block…Master Huey’s…path…”

A fist flew at the black suit’s right eye. And at his left eye. The whites of his eyes had already been showing, and those eyes would probably never be able to register light again. That said, in order to know for sure, he’d have to live through this.

Ladd’s expression abruptly grew quiet, and he whispered in the black suit’s ear.

“I dunno who that Huey fella is, or who you really are, and frankly, I don’t give a rip.”

In combination with that statement, he slammed a fist into the stomach of the black suit, whose consciousness was nearly gone.

“But there are several things I know for sure. One is, everyone in the black-suit orchestra on this train is an enemy, and they’ve got about a gazillion crazy guns.”

Ladd’s fists struck home rhythmically. As his tone grew stronger, the force behind his fists grew as well. The fists also shifted their target from stomach to chest, and from chest to face.

“And most of all! I bet you’re thinking this, right now! ‘We’ve got all these awesome weapons, and there’s no one on this train who can defy us. We’re the toughest. In other words, we’re safe!’”

As the white suit’s voice reverberated in the car, the curtain quietly came down on the black suit’s consciousness, and on his life.

Whether he’d noticed this or not, Ladd’s fists didn’t stop.

“I bet that’ll be fun! That’s gonna be real fun! Killing guys like that! Dragging out their guts! Squishing ’em and grinding ’em down until they look like sausage meat!”

The squishing noise was coming from Ladd’s fists. His punches had gotten stronger and stronger, and by this point, he’d crushed all the bones in the man’s face.

As he was showered by sprays of blood, Ladd’s face truly shone. It was the face of a man who’d accomplished something. To a normal person, it would have looked like nothing more than the crazed smile of a murderer, and in fact that was exactly what it was.

When Ladd turned, looking invigorated, everyone in the car averted their eyes at once. He had figured they would all just run, but when Ladd glanced at the exit on the opposite side of the car, he understood.

A group of white suits was camped there. They had guns aimed and ready and were eyeing the passengers.

“Hey, Ladd, what the hell’s going on here?”

“We heard somethin’ that sounded like machine guns, so we came to check up. Fill us in, Ladd.”

They were easygoing voices that didn’t match the situation. Waving a hand at them, Ladd sauntered down the middle of the car. As he passed by the counter, he spotted a lady who was lying down, covering the children with her body. He spoke to her.

“Missus Beriam?”

Fixing Ladd with a strong gaze, the lady nodded slowly.

Warping his mouth and eyes in a dangerous smile, Ladd delivered a leisurely announcement:

“Lucky you: Your turn’s been pushed back. We’ll finish off the whole orchestra first, and then you’re next. Well, I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Without forgetting to pick up the guns that the black suits and Vicky had dropped, he rejoined his friends.

“Let’s go, fellas.”

“Whaddaya mean, ‘Let’s go’? What are we gonna do about these guys?” one of his friends asked, pointing at the passengers in the dining car.

“Leave ’em. Forget that. You’re not gonna believe how awesome this is. Just c’mon back to the room.”

“Yeah, sure, but Ladd, your hands. They okay?”

Ladd’s hands were dripping with blood. The passengers had assumed it was his victim’s blood, but the flesh on Ladd’s fists had split in places. After he’d paid out that many blows without taping his hands, this was a perfectly natural result. On the contrary, it was practically a miracle that he hadn’t taken more damage.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I dislocated a few joints, but nothing’s broken. And hey, I’m still good to go. From the feel of it, I could beat another five guys to death.”

“Just give up and tape ’em already.”

With an attitude as though nothing had happened, without bothering to wipe off the dripping gore, Ladd’s group quietly disappeared from the dining car.

Then silence filled the car. Even the crying voices had stopped dead. In this tense space, only two idiotic voices echoed quietly.

“Say, Miria, how long do we have to stay like this? I’ve been hearing gunshots and scary people’s voices from up there for a while now, and it’s, uh, kinda nervous-making.”

“Yes, it’s a horror show!”

“Besides, you know, this is a pretty tough position to hold.”

“Yes, frankly, it hurts!”