Pamela wasn’t lying.
She and the others were employed at Senator Beriam’s mansion as cleaning ladies, but what Beriam really wanted was Sonia’s skill as a sniper. The girl was practically a gun herself. He’d put her under the instruction of a man called Spike, and he intended to make her shoot something on the final day of the casino party—in other words, the following day.
The identity of that “something” hadn’t been settled yet.
Beriam was probably planning to judge who among the mafia was in his way within the next day or two.
Pamela didn’t want Sonia to kill anybody. She knew it was a selfish thing to think, given that she’d roped the girl into wandering around committing robberies. She knew that, but it was a line she didn’t want to cross.
If it came down to it, she’d grab her friend and run.
To get the money to do that, Pamela had used her particular skills on the first day of the casino party to win chips.
If this guy saw what I was doing, though, I’ve gotten rusty.
“If I’m planning to really turn over a new leaf, my final job will be to head into that trouble, lift any valuables, and make myself scarce. The getaway will probably burn through most of it, but still.”
“This ‘trouble’ has something to do with the casino party, right?”
“…” Nader was a crook, but he wasn’t dumb. She’d gleaned that much from hearing his life story.
Would it be better to give him some basic information about her situation? Otherwise, he might get suspicious and stick his oar in.
Pamela hesitated. Nader watched her face.
For a little while, silence fell between the two of them. Rail, who’d been listening to their conversation as if it was somebody else’s problem, was the one who ended up pulling the conversation in another direction.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hey. You keep calling yourself a ‘small-time crook’ and ‘scum’ and running yourself down, but I think selling the Lemures out was pretty impressive, mister.”
“Huh?”
“If you’re looking at Huey’s subordinates who were still basically human, you had some of his best running that team. You had Huey’s right-hand man, Goose; Chané the fanatic; and Spike, a crack sniper… Although I do hear there were signs of trouble. If you’d actually pulled off that betrayal, now that might have made you a hero.”
Rail snickered, but instead of Nader, Pamela responded. She’d been caught completely off guard.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Spike…a crack sniper?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“? You know him, Miss Pamela?”
“How do you—? Actually, Nader, when you were talking about selling them out—you said something about doing it in parallel with a plot to take a train hostage. Do you remember when exactly that was?”
“Huh? Well, that’s the day I almost died, so yeah. It was 1931, the end of the year… Hey, never mind that. You know that bastard Spike?”
“……!”
Inside Pamela’s mind, pieces were rapidly clicking into place.
Spike’s terrible injuries when they’d found him lying beside the railroad tracks on New Year’s Eve, 1931.
The destruction of a group of terrorists called the Lemures.
And “Spike, the crack sniper” that Rail had just mentioned.
There was no telling why this kid knew so much about the inner workings of a terrorist group, but from Nader’s reaction, that had been accurate.
Was the guy we saved a terrorist who attacked a train?
Why is somebody like that working for Senator Beriam?
Even as the pieces came together, new questions came to take their place.
But before she could figure out the answers, Nader rose from his chair, staring at her desperately. “You know Spike?! You said something about Sonia and rifles; did you mean—? Is he somewhere near her?!”
“…”
Nader took her silence as a yes.
“Dammit! I’d heard all those black suits died! It wasn’t just Chané and Upham?! That bastard lived, too?!”
“Guessing you didn’t get along…”
“Of course we didn’t! I know I got no right to say this as the one who sold them out, but that guy will believe in whatever you want if there’s money involved! He was the one who was the most on board with my betrayal, but he was secretly weighing me against Goose!”
Nader seemed to be remembering what had happened. For a moment, anger flared in his eyes, but it was promptly replaced by anxiety.
“Look, did Spike get something on Sonia?! Is he threatening her? Who’s he working under now? Is he still with the Lemures?!” he asked.
Pamela was frustrated with herself for letting him see she was flustered, but she gave up on the idea of hiding their situation from him.
Even so, if she was going to talk about it, she had to steel herself.
She knew it was going to make Nader lose all hope.
Pamela might have been a crook, but this man was Sonia’s old friend. She wasn’t callous enough to tear his heart open just because he was a stranger to her.
“…Spike hasn’t harmed Sonia. Actually, they’re pretty friendly. He’s basically her sniping instructor.”
“Hey… Wait just a minute. ‘Sniping’?”
“Sonia hasn’t shot anybody yet. That may not be true after tomorrow, though. Depending on how things look at the casino party then, it sounds like our employer might make her shoot something…or maybe somebody.”
“So who’s this employer?! Is it Huey Laforet?! The Runorata Family? If it’s a much smaller outfit, I might be able to shut this down! It’s not a sure thing, but I’ve got connections!”
Remembering Ladd, Nader grilled Pamela about her employer’s identity, but the answer he got was far beyond anything he’d imagined.
“He’s a senator.”
“Huh?”
“Senator Manfred Beriam. You know him, right?”
“W-well, of course…”
Nader had originally been a member of the Lemures. When he’d tried to sell them out, he’d been scheduled to attack the train as one of the black suits and take a politician’s family hostage. That politician had been none other than Senator Manfred Beriam.
“Hold the phone… When I told the cops about them, that name came up quite a bit, too… No, that can’t be right. Spike was supposed to take that guy’s family hostage, so… Huh?”
“Spike would flip for money, wouldn’t he? That’s what you said.”
“…!”
The shock had left Nader bewildered—but Pamela hit him with cold, hard facts.