Lucky Dog 1 translations 12 Giulio route 03 best

Part 3: Daivan

Chapter 12

No Good Men

Gian: S-So then, that thing you thought was suspicious and confiscated…  What about it…?

Giulio gives a light gasp before his expression returns to his usual.  He scans the surroundings once again before continuing.

Giulio: I hid it by the riverside canal.  …This way.

With only those words, Giulio sets off.  He raises his hand just barely towards the dusk traffic, which’s started getting congested, and catches a yellow cab.

We slide in.

     

Inside the taxi, Giulio’s still like a dog told “stay”…  No, not quite.  He’s like a hunting dog on the point, his body tense and every muscle immobile.

…I see.  That thing he’s concerned about’s not something he can just talk about…

     

We hop off on a street lined with worn warehouses and dilapidated brick-built structures.  It’s a grimy street, without signal lights or even any street lamps.

Giulio: This way.

There’s no one near us, but Giulio still says this in a low, suppressed voice before he quickly sets off.

Huh…  So this is what the city is like towards the sea, south of the district St. Rita’s Church’s in…

We walk down the damp road, empty even of homeless and drunks, when Giulio suddenly takes a turn down an alley between two warehouses…  No, it’s just a really long, narrow lot between the two.

…We arrive at a filthy open space that looks like a garbage dump.

Gian: Huh…?

Down the lengthy space, empty save for the whirlwinds of dirt and trash, there’s footsteps as well as some kind of trench…  Two of them…  Are these tire tracks?

The space suddenly opens up and before me lays the canal, bringing in water from the ocean.  The place’s dim and gray, saturated with seawater gone foul and smoke coughed up by the ships and the stink of rust.

Sitting on an embarkment facing the trash-clogged mud-colored sea…

Right there in front of me’s parked a wagon, big and black.  Huh?  This car…?

Gian: …?  …What?!  Ain’t this a cop’s car…?

Giulio: I captured and brought it here.  There were no witnesses.

The word “POLICE” practically jumps off the side of the car in enormous white font…

Gian: Wh-Why…?  Why’re you taking on cops at a time like—?!

Suddenly, I realize and cut off my words.  Giulio, who’s been watching me, gives a small nod.

Giulio: I had been planning on reporting them … when I noticed Signor Gian’s … voice…

     

In my head, I hear my blood start boiling like an amazing hand just came to me in a game.  Like I suddenly found myself the run good with a made hand.  Like the inside of my mouth is so dry my tongue’s sticking to the roof.

…Are these the fake cops…?  The ones who killed the Sisters…?!

I peek into the half-open window of the driver’s seat, and … whoa.  Yep.  The corpses lying down at the bottom of the passenger’s side are wearing uniforms.

Gian: You snuffed them…?

Giulio: There are two more … in the back.

I peek  into the back window on the driver’s side of the van big enough to be a paddy wagon.  Inside … I see two police-looking figures kneeling and sprawled over the floor.

Gian: These … aren’t patrols from Daivan, are they?

Giulio: …None of them are carrying identification.  In addition … here.

Giulio points towards a corner of the ink-black vehicle.  …Now that he mentions it, it is a bit weird.  It only has the letters for “POLICE,” without anything about whose or where’s…

…!!  Under the black paint job, there’s clearly words that were painted over…  Ro…ck…  …PD…?!

“Rockwell PD”…  The Rockwell police?!

Gian: What…?!  Don’t tell me they’re…?!

Rockwell…  That’s the city that’s GD’s HQ.  Why’s the cops from there…?

Giulio: They are out of their jurisdiction … nor do they have any identification or badge.  I had intended to turn them to Bernardo, but … what shall we do, Signor Gian?

“What shall we do?”  I don’t have to ask about what.

Originally, such valuable prisoners as these should be sent over to HQ so they can undergo a down-and-straight interrogation, but … the blood boiling in my head still hasn’t simmered down.

I throw open the wagon door and see…

Police 1: …Ugh … ngh…!

Police 2: Ah…!  Eee…!!

The two police are handcuffed from behind and slathered in blood.  The back’s … filled with a machinegun and bouquets of grenades.

My vision goes dark from the sheer rage.  I wanna just fucking take that stupid machinegun and mince ‘em up like burger meat…!

But…  …They might be key prisoners…  We can take them back like this … and have them spill the crap they did in the city, and who the mastermind behind this all is…

Gian: Ah…

…Then I catch sight of … something lying in the corner.  I don’t know what it is at first.

…It’s the remnants of a nun’s habit.  Cloth, stained red with blood.

Without saying a word, without breathing a breath, I drag out one of the cops from the back.

Police 1: Guah!!  Guh…  F-Fucking …!!

The man, red with blood beneath his coat, groans with pain and curses something on and on in English.

Giulio: The tendon in their ankles were cut.

Gian: He spill anything?

Giulio silently shakes his head.  Or rather, he probably hasn’t even interrogated them yet.  …Suddenly, I…

Gian: You did good, Giulio.

Giulio: Eh…?

Gian: You were alone, but you didn’t rip ‘em up.  What’s this?  Looks like you can actually hold back.

Giulio: A-Ah…  That is…  I…

The situation totally doesn’t match his words and actions as Giulio blushes like a kid head-over-heels and ducks his head in.

I revert to English from Italian…

     

Thump.

Police 1: Guah!!

Gian: Hey, you.  You got anything to say?

Police 1: …Gh!  …Fucking dog!!

Splatter.

The man spits.  The bloody glob stains my shoe.  A bolt flashes through Giulio’s face and eyes, tightening for an instant.

I have Giulio stand down…

I pick up a grenade and the machinegun lying in the trunk.  …Blackmarket goods from the American army, huh…  I’ve seen how you use these things more times than I’d like in comics.

I also drag the other officer out of the back trunk.  Then I go back to Mr. Trigger-Happy-Expectorator and stuff the grenade down his front pocket.

Police 1: B-Bastard…!!  The fuck are you doing…?!  You blow that here, you’re also goin—

I pull up the man who’s got his Achilles’ heel snipped in addition to the handcuffs … and thread my thumb through the ring on the greande pin and pull.

     

Crash.

I shove him into the filthy canal, watch him crash, breaking the water surface.  Froth leaps into the air, and in an instant, the man’s body vanishes beneath the mud-colored water … before, struggling furiously, he floats back up to the surface.

Police 2: E-Ee!!  …C-Chris…!!

With machinegun in hand, I look down at him.  …No matter how you scream from here, no one’s going to hear your voice over the wind and the ruckus from the port no matter how sharp their hearing.

Police 1: B-Bugh…!  H-He…lp…!  G-Gaburgh…!

     

I fire into the water, splashes pounding into the surface, until the machinegun runs out of bullets.  The fake cop’s body sinks…

Giulio: Signor Gian…

Giulio’s hand pulls at me and I back away a few steps.  Then, our eyes, narrowed at the fumes of the river, and the other cop’s eyes, frozen wide in terror see…

     

Inside the canal, the grenade’s fuse burns to an end.  A column of dark, dark red sewage and bubbles rises from the surface as a muffled explosion rocks through the turbid water … before disappearing.

Police 2: A-Ah!  Uwaah…!!

I’m done with the machinegun, so I toss it into the waterway … before turning to the remaining officer and ask,

Gian: Are you a cop from Rockwell?

     

After the man’d been hauled back into the back trunk, the man starts sobbing like he’d been brought back home to where his dear ol’ mum was waiting.  He shuddered the whole time, apologizing and pleading for his life over and over again.

Police 2: …Ah, ah!  I’m sorry…  I’m sorry…!  It’s all true!  I’m not lying…!

The things he’d said through his bawling…  Half of it’s just as we’d predicted.  The other half was a flagrant parade flouting this stupid farce called reality.

It sounds like the GD are in quite the pickle.  Mostly because of me and Giulio destroying too much of their manpower, they can’t launch an actual real attack.

Instead, they decided to launch attacks on the city … to rock our CR:5’s framework by killing ordinary citizens and infecting Daivan with fear and anxiety…

Launching grenades into the city, letting their typewriters fly free, torturing the Sisters before killing them…  One of the groups doing the rotten shit is these fellas here.

They’re no fake cops… They’re authentic tried and true officers.  Or they were.  The reason for the past tense is because they were once part of the Rockwell force before falling low…

They’re former cops who, in the depression, couldn’t just play conmen or rip off some small change from the speakeasies any more, so they decided to moonlight on the GD’s offer and came on over to Daivan.

It’s not like I thought the police were “Allies of Justice!” or something, but … even a mobster like me’s feeling nauseous.  To think, humans can get this shitty in the snap of a finger…

Gian: The one who gave you these orders and the cash – the GD executive.  What’s his name?

Police 2: Ee…!  U-Um … I’m sorry…  I don’t know anything!  Really…!  No one knows who the top figures in the gangs are…!

Giulio and I go silent and look at each other.  Just from this, the man twitches like he was put on the chair…

Just then, suddenly … Giulio’s narrowed eyes shift and he says,

Giulio: Signor Gian.  If these men have not met any of the executives, then … where do they receive their orders?

When I hear the doubtful question, something in my throat tightens…  I bounce the question straight back to the cop in English.

Police 2: We made our base … at a motel up north … and every morning, a call comes in … telling us where to blow up…

Gian: A call?!

Police 2: Y-Yes…!  It’s always some old man’s voice over the phone…

…The phone, again.  But … it’s not like we know where the phone’s calling from…

…Suddenly, Bernardo’s bitter face floats up to the forefront of my mind.

Gian: What’s the name of the motel?

The police spills the name.  It’s some motel called Las Vegas Girl by Route 126, the kind you take girls over for a one-night stand.  I engrave the name into my brain.

Gian: Got it.  As for you…

My hand on the back door to the car, I say,

Gian: Fucking rotten son of a bitch you may be, but you spilled like a good boy.  …Like I promised, I’ll let you go, but later, since right now we’re gonna lay low for a while.

Police 2: A-Ah…!  I’m sorry!  I’m really sorry!

Gian: Plus, you go out right now, you’ll just get whacked by the GD thugs.  Once things quiet down a bit, you can take the cash we prepare and fly on down to Mexico or somewhere.

Gian: Ten grand’s good for a nice long vacation, don’t you think?  …Don’t come back too soon now.  They’ll track you down.

Police 2: A-Ah…!  Yes!!  Thank y—

I slam the door shut…

…and lock the handcuffs – its key still in its lock – over the door handles so he can’t open it up from the inside.

Gian: …Let’s contact Bernardo and have him retrieve him.  Good job there, Giulio.

Giulio: …I-It was nothing.  More importantly … thank goodness … I had made it in time…

Gian: Stole my lines right there.  Speaking of which … Giulio, how’d you know these were the fakes?

Giulio: Their car…  Even though it was a police car, it obeyed the traffic lights.  The Daivan police never do this.

Giulio: I thought it was strange … and so I followed them and captured them.

Gian: Eccellente.

We turn our backs to the police car behind and leave.  We walk out of the trash-filled lot and into one of the main streets and continue walking towards a road where the public phones might still be working.

As we move, one of Giulio’s well-sculpted brows draws up a millimeter and, looking at me, he asks,

Giulio: Um, Signor Gian … why did you make such a bluff earlier…?  That you would give him money and let him escape.

Gian: Oh, that?

I breathe into the gum I’d been chewing and inflate up a bubble … before spitting the thing, still tasting of blood, out and respond,

Gian: If we’re gonna shove him off a cliff … then the higher the better, right?

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