Scene XV: Things that Blow Up in the Night
"LibertE, EgalitE FraternitE"
[Liberty, Equality, Fraternity]
The boy slid like a shadow across the darkened pavement of the alley, silent like the onset of night, his movements catlike and sure. The air was quiet with the quiet of deep night, still and heavy and dead, with fitful gusts of wind skittering dead leaves across the broken pavement. The boy slipped into the shadow of a tall building, crouching low just beneath one boarded up window, feet moving swiftly and surely through the broken shards of glass that littered the area just beside where aging brick met the rings of a chain link fence. He stopped. Waited.
Someone coughed.
That was enough for the boy, and he moved back the way he had come, back through the alleyway, through the inky blackness, avoiding the wells of light that pooled at the foot of lone streetlamps jutting out from the shadows of crumbling buildings. The long unlit end of the fuse in his hand was cold to his fingers, and he palmed it from hand to hand, staring up at the sky.
He had arrived at the outskirts of Milan four nights ago, with a pack on his back and a few coins in his pocket, but he hadn't been worried. Cash was useless here. The people who had what he needed wouldn't take just any money, because it was a dangerous business that they were in, and a wrong glance could mean death. He knew that better than anyone, and so he had bided his time, waiting invisibly in the alleys smelling of rotting sewage and under the neon signs of bars as the evening had dwindled and turned into night, and he had seen what he wanted.
The man was heavily built, his neck as thick as both of the boy's forearms together, but that meant nothing to the boy. He had followed the man inside the bar, stood in the thick smoke cloud that obscured the air like poison, as the man had ordered some cloudy yellow drink and sat, sipping, staring into space. Then he had moved softly, unheard under the grating, pulsing music, and tapped the man on the shoulder.
The man turned.
"I need something from you, sir," the boy had said, in English, half-bowing politely, as if he was not facing a grizzled drunk but instead had been ushered into the presence of a king.
The scarred mouth twisted in a faint sneer. "How much you pay?" The broken English was uttered with a heavy Italian accent, but the boy understood him well enough. Wordlessly, he untucked his shirt, drew back the heavy material from his stomach.
There were two black rings around his waist, obvious tattoos, thin rings but still visible in the murky air of the bar. The man's eyes widened and the boy pulled up the shirt further to reveal a third ring, this one red, a dragon's shape, like the other two rings, wrapped around his stomach, curving around to his back.
"What you want?" the man demanded, obviously shaken.
"Come with me," he said, "and I'll show you."
The man looked at him warily, but the boy stared steadily at him, unmoving, and finally he rose, towering at his full height above the boy. "Show," he ordered.
The boy made his way effortlessly back through the smoke and the crowd, emerging outside into the cool night, moonless with the cold pricking of stars the only light besides the harsh street lighting. A dog howled somewhere far away. It was getting colder.
"If you trick me," the man said from behind him, his voice rough and threatening, "I kill you."
The boy smiled.
"Would you?"
There was an uncertain silence behind him, and the boy spun around in a combat crouch. The big man was taken by surprise and he stumbled backwards, hand grasping for the gun that all inhabitants of this realm carried under their clothes.
"I'm not here to lie to you," the boy said, and shifted fluidly out of the crouch, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pouch. The man's eyes widened as the boy pulled at the pouch's strings, lithe fingers moving quickly and efficiently, pouring a little bit of the pouch's contents into the palm of his left hand. The powder glittered like snow.
"It's pure," the boy said. "All of it. How much can I get?"
The man was still watching the powder warily, unbelievingly, eyes going to the boy's face in wonder. "How you get?" he demanded, one hand still resting awkwardly on the gun under his jacket.
"I have my contacts," the boy said. "The nature of which you do not need to know."
"You-" the man pressed, harshly. "How old? How you get? How many you have?"
The boy closed his hand over the powder, holding the fist upside down, ready to scatter it over the ground. "If you don't want it-"
"Stop! Wait." The big clumsy fingers were groping again, this time at his right side, taking out a bit of scrap paper and a broken pencil. Scribbling. "Here. Go here."
The boy siphoned the powder back into the pouch and took the paper. "Thank you." He turned to leave.
"You liar! You no give me what you bring!"
The boy stopped in his tracks. "When I know you're not lying," he said, "I'll give you what you want."
"You no come back?"
There was a short pause and then the boy reached into his boot, drew out a small, slender pistol. "If I don't come back," he said, "You're free to keep this."
The man reached out to the offered weapon, clearly not convinced that this was not an elaborate game. "I keep?"
"Only if I don't come back," the boy said clearly. "If I return...It's still mine."
The man's eyes gleamed at him once from the darkness, and then a hand suddenly snatched the gun and then there was silence. The boy stared at the spot where his contact had been, then shrugged, looked down at the paper in his hands. There was an address scribbled there, an address and a name.
The gun was an old one, highly prized, and very rare. It would be a shame to lose it, but he had other bargaining tools, and he could easily take it back even if the man decided to keep it. Though he'd done his research well before he had decided to take the chance. The Italian Mafia was still as closed as it had been to outsiders, but no one would dare question the authority of a member of the Japanese yakuza to get exactly what he wanted, in any country.
He rubbed at his stomach where the tattoos were, hidden back under his clothes. It was not an official designation, the tattoos, considering that he was not even Japanese, and they had been gotten long ago, when he was still a child. But they meant that he could be trusted, and that was a valuable asset, especially since the World Nation had begun to truly turn its attention to the various organized crime groups throughout the world since the war had ended.
The boy didn't know what to think of the World Nation's current pet project, and he preferred not to think about it, if possible. He did know that it would not succeed. Where old groups died, new groups would be born, whether they called themselves the yakuza or the Mafia or the Tong or the Shionji Cartel or any other name. The name was not important. And after a while, the World Nation would give up.
He fingered the piece of paper in his pocket and resumed walking, glancing at faded street signs, picking his way steadily south. A few blocks later, the streets widened slightly and a few cars passed him by, their blinding headlights raking their way over his vision, but he didn't look up, didn't stop, kept walking.
Another few blocks and the streets abruptly shifted back to the narrow maze that he had just exited, except here the buildings were closer together, a little more well-maintained. Laundry still hung outside some rusted fire escapes, and there were lights in the broken windows. A residential neighborhood?
The address was of a street he was not familiar with, but the street names seemed to be following a regular pattern, and it was not long until he hit the street he was looking for. There were no streetlamps at all lighting the dark pavement, and as he stared into the blackness, he felt the prickle on the back of his neck that signaled he was being watched.
He straightened but did not turn.
"I'm looking for Gietti," he said. "Where can I find him?"
A whisper of sound. "I am Gietti," the voice said, low, deep, with only a trace of accent. "Who are you?"
"Yakuza."
"What brings the yakuza to my door?"
"Nothing," the boy said calmly. "I do not represent my clan. I am here on private affairs."
The voice did not respond, perhaps studying him, perhaps doubting that he was telling the truth. The boy waited. He had told the truth, as far as the man would ever know. It didn't matter that he no longer belonged to the yakuza, that he no longer belonged to the clan. The tattoos on his stomach spoke louder than any words ever could, and he would be believed.
Apparently, the man came to the same conclusion. "What do you want?" he said.
"Goods," the boy said calmly.
"Those are not easily bought," Gietti returned. "How much are you willing to pay?"
Again, he reached down, pulled out the pouch. There was a intake of breath, and he was undoing the tie of the pouch when a hand reached out of the blackness, clamped down over his wrist.
"Come with me."
The boy shrugged, stuffed the pouch back into his pocket, and followed the dark shadow of the man's back down the black street. The stones were uneven under his feet, and he almost stumbled and fell several times, but kept his eyes on his mysterious leader's back, knowing that to lose this man in the darkness of the street was to risk certain death. The Mafia did not appreciate strangers wandering its territory alone, no matter who they were.
The shadow stopped and there was a snick of a lock and the creaking of an open door. He followed the footsteps through the door, fumbling blindly up a flight of stairs, heard the opening of another door.
There was a sizzling sound as a match was struck, and as the light flared he found himself in a small, square room. He didn't know what he had expected this Gietti to look like, but the thin, hook-nosed, tanned man in front of him was definitely not what he might have pictured in his mind's eye.
"Proof," Gietti said, and the boy again untucked his shirt, revealing the tattoos. Gietti stared hard at them for a moment, then nodded once. He was in.
He stood quietly as the man crossed to the other side of the room, carefully unlocked a cupboard, took out several packets and laid them carefully in a metal box. Closed the box and looked up.
"If you drop this, it will kill you."
"I know," said the boy. "Is it pure?"
"Mostly." Gietti said. "It will do the job. What you do with it isn't my problem."
"I know," said the boy again. He waited until Gietti had crossed back, holding out the box to him, then took the pouch out of his pocket. Box and pouch changed hands, the tanned Mafia member suddenly gazing at the boy uncertainly.
"Do I...know you?"
The boy had turned to leave, business complete, but a ghost of a smile crossed his lips.
"You might."
"Wait-"
But the boy was already opening the door.
"There's a flashlight on the table to your left," Gietti said. "Killing yourself by falling down the stairs in the dark carrying nitroglycerin isn't a good way to go."
"Thank you," the boy said simply. He hadn't looked back.
He had gotten his pistol back from the burly man with little argument. He had been ready for a brawl, though he really hadn't wanted to fight, but surprisingly, the man gave him back his weapon with little argument, grabbing the pouch of cocaine eagerly and taking off. The boy didn't watch him go. As long as he got what he wanted, he did not care.
There was an anti-Gundam faction in one of the outlying cities in France which had caught his attention first, but he hadn't been sure what to do about it. He was not angry. People had the right to express their feelings, and he understood that on a purely intellectual basis, if nothing else, because he had never needed to let his feelings take control. It was something that fascinated him, and he watched the activities of the cell group for a few days, watching as they traded information back and forth, watched as they deliberated on their course of action.
They were confused. All of them were, he decided, not just this particular group, because it was no concrete enemy they were fighting, but something that couldn't be named, five enigmas who embodied ideals rather than facts. If that had not been the case, if they had planned a set course of action, he would have had to retaliate. But as it was, he simply sat and waited.
It was not that he wanted vengeance. It was because he had once been a soldier and a warrior and it was an eye for an eye. The old code was burned into his blood too strongly, and they needed to know that they were not fighting any simple enemy. They hadn't hurt his friends yet, so he would not hurt them. But it was something that had to be done.
A warning.
Then he had heard about the faction in Italy, heard that they were going into action. They were an American group, he learned, that had relocated to Italy and had connections with the Italian and American Mafia. He hadn't been too worried until the French group had gotten word about possible action, as they called it. Tempers and excitement ran high. Something was going to happen. The killers, as the resistance cells termed the military, were going to pay.
He had made it his mission to ensure that nothing would happen. At least, nothing that they were expecting. They had ties to the Mafia, but so did he, and he would use them.
The fuse in his hand was ice-cold to the touch and he stood there for a split second longer, then bent down and drew out the lighter from the front pocket of his coat. Lit it and watched the flame waver in the rising wind, then touched it to the fuse end.
The blue flames ate their way along the line, hungry, ravenous. He dropped the lighter back into his pocket, feeling as he did so the hard, flat, surface of the other object that was stored there. He pulled it out, not looking up as the flames licked at the broken wood of the trash heaps along the road and as those burst into flames as well, not watching the fire as it raced down the line into the blackness. The book's surface was tattered with age and the letters on the cover stood out sharply silver in the crimson flickering light.
Les Misérables.
The boy smiled, a gentle smile, as he bent down and placed the volume at his feet. They would find it, and he would let them make of it what they would, but it should be sufficient enough to let them know that they were being watched.
He heard the frantic running of feet and straightened quickly, fading into the darkness. Shouts of "Fire! Fire!" echoed through the night air and he closed his eyes, imagining the controls in his mind. Grasped those imaginary weapons controls, moved his hand into position, and squeezed the trigger.
"You're dead," he said softly.
The wind was cool on his cheeks, and the heat of the flames was warm on his skin, and as the first explosions began, the boy turned his back on the fire and began to walk.
Link to information on the Italian Mafia.
Link to information on the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia.
Link to information on Nitroglycerin, the chemical compound used in explosives such as dynamite.
END SAINAN NO KEKKA ACT VII
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Act VII Part III | Act VIII Part I | Back to Sainan no Kekka