Lucky Dog 1 translations 12 Giulio route 04 best

Part 3: Daivan

Chapter 12

Meet the Hideout

Gian: …Hey.  Sorry ‘bout that, Bernardo.  Ran out of buffalos right in the middle there.  There’s no place to get any change around here!

Bernardo: I’ll give you more coins next time.  About what you said earlier…  The police car is on the right shore of the Boston Canal, in an alley between warehouses, correct?  Understood.  I’ll have our boat unit retrieve it.

The boat unit – it’s a special elite force directly controlled by Luchino that trades moonshine whisky on the down low with the boats in the port.

Gian: …Sorry, the blood just rushed to my head.  One of ‘em’s crayfish bait now.

Bernardo: There’s no problem this time, considering who we’re dealing with…  Also, the name the police the officer said.  It’s the Las Vegas Girl, right?

Gian: Yeah.  No way I can forget a refined name as that.  …He said they’re getting calls from the evil mastermind there.  Thought you might know something about it, being you.

Bernardo: If the phone company still has record of it…  If it’s automatic then our prospects are rather dim.  Don’t put too much hope in me.  I’m not even done looking into the number you gave me the other day…

Gian: That’s something you can look into?

Bernardo: I have a friend in the telephone company.  He has a bad habit of finding baccarat irresistible.

Gian: I see.  Sorry for dumping all this on you.  Also … about what I said to you earlier.  Is Counselor Cavalli already there?

Bernardo: Yes.  He’s been fretting the whole time, waiting for you, saying that he has an incredibly bad feeling about all this.

Gian: Way to make light of my grand resolve, Gramps.  …Oh, shit, I’m outta change.

…The few nickels in hand are all gone.  It doesn’t look like the old pops at the stand back there’s likely to exchange me any more…  Shit, I’ll do it in another district.

When I click my tongue, suddenly, Giulio’s hand grabs the arm to the hand I’d been fiddling with.

Giulio: U-Um … Signor Gian … my hideout … is near here.  If you would like … please, feel free … to use the telephone there.

Oh?  What luck!  Thank you God!  …Eh, why’s Giulio looking so restless…?

Gian: …Thanks a bunch, Giulio!  Bernardo, I’ll call you back later!

Bernardo: Wait, Gian!  What did you mean by what you said at the church, that you’d be Boss…?!  Hello?!

The nickel runs out.  I set the receiver down.  Before me, Giulio’s looking away from me, head ducked down.

Gian: …Um, your hideout.  You said it’s near here?

Giulio: Y-Yes.  That is…  My apologies.  It is small … and messy…

Gian: Sounds like a place to relax.

…’Maybe that was tactless,’ I think as I sense embarrassment from Giulio’s face or eyes…

His boyish eyes close … and when they open, they’re like a foxhound on a hunt again as Giulio strides off.

Giulio: Oh…

Gian: What’s wrong?  You lose the key or something?

Giulio: No.  My apologies…!  The room…  There may be … no food there…

Giulio says it like a confession that’d put him on death’s row.  The two of us stand there, unmoving amidst a flow of indifferent bypassers around us, for about three seconds…

Gian: I completely forgot my stomach’s empty.  Mm, perfect timing, then!  Let’s go shopping at that supermarket there.

Giulio: Eh…?  Sho…pping…?

I clap Giulio’s still-stiff back and head towards the small but tidy supermarket.  Inside the store…

…Giulio’s head swivels back and forth, eyes sparkling like “Holy shit, I’ve never seen something like this before!!” so I ultimately ended up just buying my favorites.

     

Giulio: It is this way.

After going down one of the inside streets and twisting round and round like a stray tom, we enter an apartment that’s really a completely ordinary apartment complex.  It’s small but tidy – probably hasn’t even been around for ten years…

…No matter how I look at it, it seems like the kind of apartment a respectable young couple or maybe a rich student or perhaps a businessman would live in.  It doesn’t look anything like a Mafioso hideout.

Gian: I see.  This is camouflage in its own way, huh?

As I’m admiring my surroundings, Giulio takes me down a spotless hallway and, at a corner room on the second floor, he slides the key into the lock and opens the door.

Inside’s an unexpectedly cozy single bedroom apartment.  The bed’s in the back of the room, and there’s the door to the bathroom, and there’s also a couch and tiny kitchen inside.

Giulio: …M-My apologies…  It is cramped … and messy…

Gian: If you call this cramped, then my roost’s a rabbit pen.

I set down the two paper bags I’d been toting from the supermarket on a table by the kitchen.

Whew, that was close.  Just a bit more and they would’ve gotten too wet and broke.

My hand’s still numb from the huge loads of ice cream and the dry ice I’d gotten to keep them cold.

Giulio: There is … a telephone here.

Oh, right, right.  I’ve gotta give Bernardo…

Gian: My bad.  You can charge the call to CR:5’s tab.

I plop myself down on the couch and open up the memo with the number…  Giulio instantly turns from faithful man’s best friend to a puppy tossed at the side of the road, tail and ears droopy, and sits down on the bed.

Receiver in hand, I…

…Hmmm.  Where should I start with Bernardo?  What we need to do to stop the GD’s attacks…  The things I can do as the CR:5 Capo…

Gian: Mm…

After all, the call’d cut off earlier.  …Oh.  Crap.  Shit, Grampa Cavalli’s there waiting, too.

What should I talk about first?  It’s great that I’ve got more intel from the rotten cops Giulio’d caught, but I still haven’t sorted it out yet…

Giulio: …

Giulio’s still sitting motionless…

Oh right.  Talking to others sorts out your thoughts … sometimes.  Besides, with my plan, either we’re both alive or we’re both goners.

Giulio: U-Um … is there something…?

Gian: Oh, no.  Maybe … kinda.  …Or rather…

Gian: Giulio, what’re you getting so antsy for?  This is your room, here!  Your hideout!

Giulio: My apologies…  I just … cannot believe it … that Signor Gian is here in this room…

Gian: What?

Giulio: No one but my subordinates has entered here before…  Yet Signor Gian has entered this room…  That is why … I am … very happy.

Giulio saying he’s happy…  Isn’t that super-duper rare?  No … the first time ever…?

Giulio: I am … strange in the head…  And, even after I did … such a … thing to Signor Gian, you … would stay … with me…

Gian: …I!  Tooold!  You!  I’ve made a biiiig wall in my brain and fenced everything that happened off!  So, no more bringing it up in conversations.

Giulio: Yes … I will … not bring it up either.

…Crap, I should’ve just said “Forget it!”  If I did, and we’re talking about Giulio here, he probably really would take an eraser to his brain and delete it all out…

And then, I notice … Giulio’s staring at me again.  When I notice, his gaze suddenly flees like a rabbit.

Gian: What is it?

Giulio: My apo…logies…  I … am just … so happy…

Gian: Happy?  But just a little while ago, we were rooming in the same hotel room.

Giulio: This place is more calming than the hotel…

Gian: Eh … you think so?  It’s true this’s a great room, but there’s no room service or guards here.

Giulio: Because … there are other people at the hotel…

Huh.  Does that mean…

Gian: …Giulio, do you … not trust Bernardo and Luchino?

Giulio: That is … not the problem.  I just … wanted … to be … with Signor Gian.  I have always … wanted to be with you … alone…

Whoaaa…  How should I respond at a time like this?  …It’s not a bad feeling, but…

Gian: Hmm.  How to put this?  …Right.  Giulio!  You … wanna come with me?

I repeat the words I’d said in that blood-splattered back alley.  The same words.  Giulio’s eyes look down in embarrassment before…

Giulio: …Yes.  I will … follow you.

…they become hard as a sharpened knife as his tightly pinched lips give me a straight reply.  …In its own way, it’s kinda embarrassing.

Gian: I’ve been waiting for those words.  Without them … if you’re not by me, Giulio … my resolve, my plan, all of it’d be for nothing.

Giulio: Plan…?

Gian: Yup.

With the Giulio in his faithful dog setting staring at me closely, I take the different parts of the plan lying here and there in my brain one by one and lay them out.

Gian: To beat the GD, we’ve gotta completely smash their manpower before we can finish things.  Neither of us’ve got the troops to completely wipe the other out.

Gian: Basically, we’ve gotta make them go for unconditional surrender.

Gian: But, since our first strike took out too many of their troops, they won’t come at us in a real fight, which is why they’re doing all this shit in Daivan…

Giulio: …Yes.

Faithful dog Giulio keeps his eyes tight on me and listens to what I’m saying silently.  …Somehow … I feel that phonograph in the ads, the one the dog’s peering into.

Gian: Which is why we’re gonna drag them out in a fight, even if we’ve gotta force them out…!  I’ve got a card I’d bet every cent we’ve got on.

Gian: If we could win this in one go, I’ve got just the thing to turn it all around … or should.  Which is why, Giulio, I need you.

Giulio: Yes…  Signor Gian … do you mean … to put yourself…?

Gian: That’s right.  The trump’s me.  In that poker the kiddies play, I’m the Joker.  So long as you draw it, you’re pretty much guaranteed a win.

Gian: Which is why the rules’re in for a tiny change.  …Tomorrow, I’m gonna get installed formally as the CR:5 Capo.  I’m gonna declare my oath at the ritual tomorrow.

I bounce the idea that’d bubbled forth in my mind at St. Rita’s Abbey for the first time to someone else … to Giulio.  For a second, Giulio’s eyes are elsewhere … before they focus back on me.

Giulio: Signor Gian … will become a formal Capo…

Gian: I’m taking the chance while the Old Man’s out missing, though.  The purpose isn’t for me to stand over everyone on top, but…

Giulio: If you, as the Capo, are killed, then they will win…  You intend to draw all of the GD’s forces out in an all-out attack, correct…?  With yourself as the target.

Gian: Whoahoho!  When someone else says it, I feel the chill.  …That’s right.  That’s why you’ve gotta be there.

Gian: After all, if I’m snuffed out, then it’s our loss.  Which is why … sorry, Giulio.  Things’ll get pretty bad, but … can I ask this of you?

Giulio: …

With a rustle, Giulio looks down.  Stays silent.  Oh … no good…?  I guess so…  Playing bodyguard is riskier than doing hits.  Guess it’s a no-go…

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