“Haah, haah, haah… Th… Th-th-th-that was scary.”
“Really scary…”
Running as if fleeing the hat shop, the notable pair reached a nearby alley.
“Blast it… That old man must be a real tough guy. Just one glare, and he had me… Uh… Well, no, I wasn’t afraid, but…um… He made me run… No… Ran me off…???”
“Made you withdraw.”
“Yes, that’s it… To think he made me withdraw with just one glare… Of course, you know—if we’d fought, I could have beaten him, but you see, well, he was strong, too, and I thought it would be terrible if you’d happened to get hurt, Miria.”
“Really?” Miria asked, sounding happy.
“Yes, really! In the year since we began our tour of larceny, we’ve robbed eighty-seven places, from San Francisco to New Jersey, and in all that time, have I ever put you in danger?”
“About eighty-seven times.”
“…………”
“…………”
“There, you see?! It’s not even a hundred yet!”
“You’re right! That’s amazing!”
Her cry sounded as if she was moved from the bottom of her heart. If they were like this, it was likely there’d been many times when they hadn’t even recognized the danger they were in.
“That’s right! We’ll do our last big job here in New York, and then we’ll retire to Miami and take life easy. Once that happens, the word danger will have nothing to do with us!”
“Nothing at all!”
“Let’s buy a big house. We’ll put in a pool, and we’ll spend all day swimming in it, from morning to night.”
“It’ll be cold at night.”
“Not to worry. If we install about ten stoves, the pool will warm up.”
“Ten of them! Amazing, amazing—even the king of the Arabs doesn’t use that many!”
True, desert nights do get chilly, but… There was a marked stupidity about that comment.
“Then we’ll run a railway through the garden, and we’ll take the train from the house to the gate every day.”
“Wow! …But we’ll spend a fortune on tickets that way.”
“This is true. All right, then let’s not have a railway.”
“Still, that’s amazing. Are we really going to be that rich?”
“Absolutely. If I’m with you, Miria, I could even become president! That’s the king of America—the king. Yes, I could become the king, the queen, or even the joker!”
“Queen” would have been physically impossible.
“I don’t really get it, but that’s amazing!”
Before they knew it, the pair had been overcome with emotion, and they began to hum jazz music. The alley was their stage, and they took each other’s hands, beginning to dance. The two lovers were lost in a dream
—and then they got hit by a car.
✦ ✦ ✦
“—Are they dead?”
An old man’s voice came from the backseat of the car.
“No… We weren’t going fast. Oh, they’re moving. They probably just lost their balance and fell.”
The voice that returned from the driver’s seat belonged to a young woman.
“In that case, hurry up and go.”
“Yes, sir.”
The car sped up and drove away as if nothing had happened. Finally, once it had exited the alley and turned onto the broad street, the passenger picked up the conversation again:
“…Be careful. Why did you hit them?”
“I’m very sorry, sir. I meant to avoid them, but they suddenly started dancing right in the middle of the road… I didn’t brake in time.”
The man was silent for a little while. Then he remembered that the woman driving had never told a senseless lie before.
“…They started dancing?”
“Yes. The man was wearing a tuxedo, and the woman wore a black dress, so… I think they were probably rehearsing for a play.”
“Broadway’s rather far from here.”
“Also… The man was holding hats and…a Japanese helmet in his right hand.”
As one might expect, the man’s eyebrows furrowed.
“…I don’t understand young people these days…”
There was no response from the driver’s seat.
“Hmph… That said, I haven’t been able to comprehend what young people are thinking for a very long time.”
He slowly closed his eyes, continuing to talk to himself.
“Yes… Not for two hundred years or so… Not since that stripling lost his mind. That’s when I stopped trusting anyone younger than myself.”
“…Compared to you, Master Szilard, everyone in the world is younger.”
The voice from the driver’s seat reached his ears. It had interrupted his monologue, but he responded without sounding particularly annoyed.
“Of course. And so I trust no one.”
Those words were the last. Silence enveloped the interior of the car.
✦ ✦ ✦
The large black automobile the woman was driving stopped in front of a building to the south of Grand Central Station.
A glance around the area revealed the Empire State Building, which was scheduled for completion the following year. Even now, still under construction, it looked down over the city with an air of august dignity.
The female chauffeur got out of the car first, then opened the door to the backseat. The car was a rarity for the time: There was plenty of room in the back.
Szilard Quates got out crossly, then screwed up his already wrinkled face even further. The late autumn sun, which was visible through the canyons between the buildings, clearly illuminated his face.
“…It’s bright.”
The female chauffeur immediately opened a parasol. They covered the paltry five yards from the car to the building’s entrance in their patch of improvised shade.
When they reached the door, the chauffeur used her free hand to insert a key. While they waited in silence for the door to open, Szilard didn’t look at his chauffeur even once.
Inside the building, there was nothing. The rooms had been partitioned, but that was all. The building didn’t seem the slightest bit lived-in. However, you couldn’t simply call it abandoned, either. There wasn’t a single piece of rubbish on the floor, and the walls and electric lightbulbs seemed new, as if the interior construction work had been completed just the day before.
Szilard crossed to an area beside an ascending staircase, then struck the floor several times with his heel.
After a few seconds, the lightbulb that hung on the staircase lit up. When he saw it, he kicked the floor with his heel again, adding one more kick this time.
A short distance in front of him, the floor rose up, and an elderly man’s head peeked out.
“Well, if it isn’t Master Quates! It’s been a very long time, sir!”
“Only twenty years. That’s not so long.”