1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local (8 page)

“Aah! Mister, again…! I’m really sorry!”

When he turned around, coughing, there was the boy he’d met before boarding. The one thing that was different from earlier was that he had a girl about his age beside him.

“Oh, no, it’s okay, it’s fine, I’m completely fine. What about you two? Are you all right?”

The boy nodded, smiling just the way he had earlier.

The girl hid behind the boy, gazing timidly at Jacuzzi’s tattoo and Nice’s rough eye patch.

“Ah-ha-ha. If you’re okay, everything’s fine. Is that girl your little sister?
Hhrk
…”

His throat still hurt a little, but Jacuzzi forced a smile. Possibly because he’d noticed this, the boy apologized one more time—“I’m sorry”—and then answered Jacuzzi’s question.

“Uh-uh, she isn’t. She’s my friend. I just met her; we’re in the same room!”

The girl also nodded at his words, silently. Her eyes were still fixed on Jacuzzi’s tattoo. Apparently, to an ordinary kid, Jacuzzi looked a bit scary.

Just then, a woman appeared behind the children.

“Excuse me. I’m afraid my daughter’s been rude to you. I do beg your pardon.”

She was probably around thirty years old. The clothes the lady wore were expensive without seeming pretentious. Her well-bred speech didn’t hold a shred of diffidence or contempt. It only soaked quietly into Jacuzzi and the others’ hearts.

Calling her daughter’s name, the lady scolded her mildly:

“Mary, you mustn’t look at others’ faces as if they frighten you.”

“Th-that’s telling it like it is…”

Because the words had been spoken in a voice like that, Jacuzzi couldn’t get mad or cry; all he could do was smile wryly.

“Oh! I beg your pardon; how could I…”

“Oh, no, I, uh, I’m the one who should apologize!”

“Why?”

Failing to hear Jon’s reasonable verbal jab, Jacuzzi once again plunged straight into crybaby mode.

“Miria, they’re both apologizing. What happens in a case like this?”

“A referee call!”

“I see. So the result of the match depends on us!”

“It’s a huge responsibility!”

Isaac and Miria were also saying irresponsible things.

Fed up with watching this, Nice changed the subject, intending to throw them a rope:

“Are you traveling as a family?”

Showing no fear of Nice’s eye patch, the lady answered; her expression was mild.

“Yes, my daughter and I are on our way to meet my husband. We’re sharing a room with this boy, and we thought we’d go have dinner together, but all the seats seem to be taken.”

At that point, a question suddenly struck Nice, and she asked it:

“Is the little boy by himself?”

“Yes, he’s—oh, good gracious. I haven’t asked his name yet.”

Hearing this, the boy gave his name, a bit bashfully.

“My name is Czeslaw Meyer—”

Speaking that hard-to-pronounce name, the boy paused for a moment, then continued:

“—Please call me Czes. I’m on my way to New York to see my family.”

Next, the lady and the girl paid their respects as well.

“I’m Natalie Beriam, and this is my daughter… Go on, Mary.”

Prompted by her mother, the girl timidly stepped forward.

“I’m Mary Beriam.”

She kept glancing at Jacuzzi’s and Nice’s faces from time to time; they really did seem to bother her. She didn’t seem very interested in the Western gunman right beside them.

After that, as the circumstances seemed to call for it, Jacuzzi, Isaac, and the rest also introduced themselves, and the perimeter of the banquet widened to include a bit more of the car.

“Czes, you bumped into Jacuzzi’s back a little earlier, too, didn’t you?”

Patting Czes’s head, Nice smiled cheerfully with her one eye.

“Mister, I’m really sorry.”

“No, really, it’s fine. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

As he spoke with Czes, Jacuzzi gained quite a lot of mental leeway… Although it was pitiful that he couldn’t manage that sort of leeway with anyone who wasn’t a child.

At that point, abruptly, Isaac and Miria spoke loudly:

“That’s right. If you’d done something bad, the Rail Tracer would have eaten you already!”

“Chomp! Just like that!”

“—That’s how my old man used to threaten me, anyway.”

“It frightened you, didn’t it!”

“Huh? The R-Rail Tracer? Wh-what’s that?”

Maybe because he’d instinctively sensed that it was something scary, Jacuzzi’s expression and tone abruptly changed to those of fear.

“What, you don’t know about it, Jacuzzi? You see, the Rail Tracer is…”

“…And so, if you tell this story on a train…it comes to that train, too.
The Rail Tracer!”

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeek!”

At Isaac’s story, Miria gave a fake-sounding scream.

“~~~~~~!”

Meanwhile, Jacuzzi gave a wordless shriek, while the rest of the group wore expressions that seemed to say,
Yeah, that’s a pretty common story
.

“Th-th-th-that’s awful! We’re gonna disappear! Wh-wh-what do we do?!”

As if advising Jacuzzi—who was actually scared—Isaac slowly began to tell the end of the story.

“Relax, Jacuzzi. There’s just one way to keep the Rail Tracer from coming!”

“Yes, only one!”

On hearing this, Jacuzzi’s face lit up.

“R-r-really? T-t-tell me what it is! Hurry! Hurry,
hurry
, hurryyy!”

“Sure thing! Listen, in order to be saved, you… Uh, in order to be saved— Hmm. In order to be saved, see…”

Dark clouds began to gather over Jacuzzi’s hope.

“In order to be saved… What was it you had to do, Miria?”

“Who knows? I’d never heard that story before, either!”

You mean you chimed in like that when you didn’t know the story?
Nice and the others quipped silently.

Of course, for Jacuzzi, this was no time for smart remarks.

“N-n-n-noooo! Th-th-th-th-this is terrible! I-i-if you don’t hurry up and remember, then—! If you don’t, we’ll all die, we’ll disappear!”

Jacuzzi was trembling in earnest, and his teeth were chattering loudly. In contrast, Jon the bartender muttered in a very calm tone:

“I’ve heard that story before.”

“R-r-r-really? What do we do?! What do we need to do?!”

“Nah, I forget what you’re supposed to do, too.”

“Whaaaaat?! Don’t
do
this to me, Jon!”

“Now, hang on. Calm down, Mr. Customer. I heard it from the conductor on this train, so just ask him. There are two of them on board; the young one’s the one to ask.”

No sooner had he heard those words than Jacuzzi clambered down from his chair and took off.

When he’d gone a little distance, Jacuzzi turned around, forced his lips to curve, and yelled to Isaac and the others.

“I-it’s okay, Mr. Isaac! I’ll hurry and go ask! J-just leave it to me!”

He was probably doing his level best to set everyone at ease, but when said with tear-filled eyes, it had the opposite effect.

That said, besides him, the only ones who believed the Rail Tracer story were Isaac, Miria, and Mary.

Weaving his way between tables, Jacuzzi ran toward the rear of the train. Nice got up from her seat at the counter, intending to go after him.

“Um, please excuse him! He isn’t a bad person! He’s just a little cowardly…”

As Nice defended her friend and broke into a run, Mrs. Beriam smiled softly.

“Yes, I know. I think Jacuzzi is kinder than anyone else.”

Mrs. Beriam had noticed: Jacuzzi truly believed in the Rail Tracer, and he was seriously frightened. Even so, under the circumstances, he’d never once blamed Isaac.

Isaac and Miria had picked up on this, too.

“Say, Miria. Jacuzzi’s a really swell guy, isn’t he?”

“Yes, really and truly!”

“We’ll have to let him win later, too!”

“Yes, we will!”

“Later on, then, I’ll apologize to him with everything I’ve got! Twice or so!”

“Then I’ll apologize once, too!”

At that point, smiling, Isaac made a declaration:

“I see! In that case, Jacuzzi wins three times!”

“He’s the champion!”

“Aah, what’s wrong, Jacuzzi? Why you panic?”

Right outside the dining car, he’d run into Donny and the others, who were just on their way in. The two friends Nice had chosen and brought along were behind the big, swarthy man.

“Oh, uh, it’s terrible! This train might disappear, so I’m going to see the conductor!”

“Aah?”

Saying something incomprehensible, Jacuzzi took off, heading for the back of the train.

A moment later, Nice came running up.

“Ah, excellent timing. Jacuzzi’s gone to the conductor’s room; I’m on my way to bring him back, and I’ll check on the freight room while I’m at it. Donny and Jack, you come with me. Nick, you take care of the dining car!”

Even as they exchanged glances over her words, Donny and the man she’d called Jack ran after Nice.

Meanwhile, the man called Nick had drastically misunderstood.

“What was that, Miz Nice…? What am I supposed to do with the dining car?”

Nice had meant
Keep an eye on people
, but Nick was used to robberies, and unfortunately, he came to an entirely different conclusion.

“Oh. In other words, I bet she wants me to make sure the guys in the dining car stay quiet during the ‘job’… Yeah, that’s gotta be it. Well, sure. We can’t have them spotting us, kicking up a fuss and stopping the train.”

While he was thinking, a guy in a white suit went into the dining car. Even as he hesitated, the number of people in the dining car might continue to grow.

On that simple thought, Nick took out his trusty knife.

Then, carefully, he began walking forward.

Toward the target he’d been given: the dining car.

“Weeeeell now, well now, well now, well now? Our show’s about to begin! And their show’s about to end!”

In a second-class compartment, Ladd was hugging a pillow and rolling around on the floor.

“Whoops! It’s the time we settled on already!
Man
, this is fun,
man
, am I happy! I’m so worked up I bet I won’t sleep tonight!”

The man rolled around and around and around and around the small passenger compartment. The others watched him, Lua with a cold expression, his other friends cackling with laughter.

“…If you’re looking forward to it so much, you should have gone yourself…,” Lua muttered in a scarcely audible voice, to which Ladd was quick to reply:

“Weeeeell, there wasn’t any help for it, was there? We drew lots, and I lost! Aah, dammit, that rat Vicky, I’m jealous, jealous,
jealous
!”

Ladd’s group’s first act had been to gain control over the passengers gathered in the dining car. They’d drawn lots to determine who would go, and as a result, the man named Vicky had been handed a gun.

“Aaah, man oh man. There is no God in this world. I bet Vicky himself killed him a while back!”

As he grumbled, Ladd began to do a headstand in his suit. Lua murmured again, quietly:

“…You could go check on him, you know…”

“That’s
it
!”

Springing up from his upside-down position, he smacked Lua’s cheeks lightly and frolicked around.

“You’re right! I can just go look! I’m an idiot! I don’t have to wait around in the room! Since I lost the draw, I thought I’d just have to sit on my hands here! Great, I’ll get right over there, then.”

After yowling some terribly self-centered things, Ladd leaped right out into the corridor…

…where he crashed into somebody.

“Whoa, watch where you’re going, you little bra—”

As he was on the point of bawling him out, Ladd stopped.

“Aaaaah, aah, I-I-I’m sorry! Excuse me! The train’s in trouble! S-s-so, um, I have to hurry and get to the conductors’ room…um… A-a-a-anyway, I’m sorry!”

The young man dashed off toward the rear of the train.

“That guy… Wasn’t that…?”

There was no way he could have mistaken that tattoo on his face. It was the kid from the wanted poster his uncle had handed around a few days earlier.

“Hmm? What’s that about? Hey! Lua!”

Sticking his head into the passenger compartment, he recruited his beloved for a small job.

“Could you take somebody and go see what’s up in the conductors’ room for a sec? If a kid with a tattooed face is in there, grab him for me.”

Lua nodded silently, then took one of their companions and started for the rear of the train.

“Mm, is this getting interesting? I hope it gets more interesting. Actually, I need to
make
it interesting.”

Lips curving up happily, he headed for the dining car, not taking a single gun. On the way, he passed a woman with an eye patch and glasses and a big man who was over six feet tall. They were running, with tense expressions on their faces, and they swiftly passed Lua and her companion, who were just strolling along.

“What’s this? Something pretty interesting is going down on this train, huh? That trouble the tattooed kid was talking about… I wonder what that was… Man, this ain’t good. I’m getting way too worked up here. If I don’t cut loose soon, I’m gonna explode.”

He walked slowly, slowly, humming as he went.

Toward the dining car, where a horrific show was sure to have begun.

“Comrade Goose, all preparations are complete. The Beriams are in the dining car.”

In the first-class compartment where the black suits were gathered, Goose took a report from a subordinate in the middle of the room. At present, only three members each were left in second class, third class, and the freight room; all the rest were assembled here.

“Time, is it? All right. According to plan, split up into teams of three and begin your work. I will be waiting here. Report in every hour without fail. Those who do not will be presumed dead.”

His expression was completely closed, and he continued to issue orders mechanically, to the point where one wondered whether the muscles in his mouth were the only ones he was using.

“The appointed time is here. At this point, the ‘conductor’ should be making his move. Now, no matter what happens in the rear cars, the train will not stop. Spike, use the wireless and relay this to the units in the second- and third-class rooms as well. First, gain control over all passengers and all cars. The final touch will be the locomotive. At the very least, gain total control before the cars are switched.”

By law, steam engines were forbidden to travel in the area around Pennsylvania Station in New York. This made it necessary for steam locomotives to have the cars they drew recombined with an electric locomotive. That coordination point was where they would claim Huey, and the time limit for the lives of half the hostages. They’d need to leave the other half alive, to use during their flight.

“All right. We will now commence Master Huey’s rescue.”