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Hello, New York! – Part 05

Smoking her pipe, Victorique cast him a sidelong glance. Moments later, she resumed irritably.

“Kujou, let’s suppose for a moment that you’re keeping an important secret from me.”

“What? I’m not, though,” Kazuya replied, perplexed.

Victorique continued, “You secretly snatched one of the twenty cupcakes you bought on your way home!”

“I would never do something like that!”

“Just listen, pumpkin-head!”

“I-I’m sorry? I don’t understand why you’re upset, though. Victorique? I apologize every single day even when I haven’t done anything wrong, so I’d like you to reciprocate all of them one day.”

Ignoring Kazuya’s comment, Victorique abruptly waved her pipe in frustration. “And furthermore, let’s say the one you sneakily stole like a dimwitted piglet was the blue rose cupcake. Incidentally, that happens to be my favorite flavor.”

“Really? You should’ve told me earlier. I’ll buy more next time.”

“I wouldn’t trust you with such important information.”

“Why not? That’s just weird!”

“Anyway! Due to guilt, you subconsciously start avoiding blue. You turn away from curtains of the same color and sit in different places than usual. But you’re not aware of why you’re behaving like that. It’s all happening in the realm of the subconscious. I would surmise the same thing happened in the mind of the guy next door.”

“The guy next door? So is the well-liked guy actually the culprit? I guess the male jurors’ instincts turned out to be correct.”

“No!” Victorique shook her head, her silver hair undulating and shimmering like a band of light in the night sky. The potpourri on the floor glowed dimly.

Shifting uncomfortably, Victorique said, “The man next door probably heard a ‘sad sound’ around 11 o’clock.”

“A sad sound?”

“I’m talking about the sound of someone banging away on a typewriter!” Victorique pursed her cherry lips, astonished that he still didn’t understand. “The victim typed his suicide note, didn’t he? He must have typed it more violently than usual. Tack, tack, tack. And then, thirty minutes later, he handed it over to the receptionist he admired. The actual time he used the gun was undoubtedly between noon, when everyone was away, and 1 o’clock. So nobody heard the gunshot.”

“Wait a minute. What did the guy next door hear at 11 o’clock, then?”

“The sound of typing, likely. Now the question is: why did he make such a foolish mistake? You’ve already mentioned the reason yourself. He comes from a poor household and was raised by his typist sister.”

“Uh, right…”

“It’s only my speculation from here on, but it’s likely the correct answer.” Victorique put down her pipe. “Kujou, favors are a wonderful thing, but they leave the receiver with both the feeling of gratitude and indebtedness. Especially for someone with a kind heart. While he’s grateful to his sister, perhaps he also feels bad for her giving up her youth and happiness. His kindness towards women is likely him projecting his sympathy for his sister onto them. For him, the sound of typing is a ‘sad sound.’ An unusually loud noise came from the next room. And when he later learned that the man in the next room had committed suicide, in his mind, that ‘sad sound’ was replaced by another ‘sad sound,’ namely a gunshot. Hence, his testimony that he heard what sounded like a gunshot.”

“Ah…”

“When the two sounds switched in his mind, he might have imagined shooting himself with an imaginary gun.”

“Hmm…”

“Well, it’s sentimental nonsense, though.” Victorique’s face appeared emotionless at first glance. Then, she lowered her gaze and, in a voice as hoarse as an old woman’s, added, “Kujou, people all hide intense emotions in their subconscious, and sometimes, they surface unexpectedly. We can deduce that strange misunderstandings might actually have such underlying causes.” She puffed on her golden pipe. “For the man next door, the sound of typing was both a ‘sad sound’ and the ‘sound of love’ from his sister.” She then fell into deep contemplation.

Kazuya blinked in surprise. “I-I see. I should discuss your theory with the editor or tell the police. Anyway… wait, why are you giving me such a sinister look? Um, I really have to go.”

Victorique’s cheeks puffed up even more. Her green eyes glinted with hatred as she glared at him.

“I solved it in an instant, and now I’m bored again. Kujou, you rascal, you penguin!”

“Penguin?! Why you…” Kazuya suddenly grinned eerily. “Actually, if you’re that bored, I have a great solution.”

“Hmm? What is it?”

Victorique leaned forward, and Kazuya brought his face closer.

“You go to the office right now. To the Gray Wolf Detective Agency.”

“…I don’t want to.” Victorique turned her face petulantly.

“Hey!” Kazuya persistently chased after her, spinning the chair. “If you stay here all day, spinning around in that chair, you’ll just get dizzy, and nothing interesting will happen. So just listen to me, go to the office, wait for clients, collect the fixed investigation fee…”

“But Kujou…”

“What is it?”

“I really don’t want to go…”

“…Why not?” Kazuya tilted his head in concern.

Victorique looked away. “New York is currently going through its greatest transition period,” she said in a barely audible voice. “It’s a melting pot of races and histories, where the daytime Puritan world clashes with the nighttime underworld like two giant galaxies. So we must not draw attention. It’s too dangerous! The never-ending gang wars, the incoming presidential election, stock trading, the establishment of the FBI, the rise of Hollywood as a new and ominous world of fiction. And, once again… gangs! Gangs! Gangs! In this era of immigrants, in this melting pot, during this time when New York is at its most dangerous, we new generation of immigrants… No, of course, I’m not afraid. It’s just that, logically speaking…”

Kazuya drapped Victorique in a soft frilled coat with a deep red fur collar, and she fell silent. She lifted her head slowly. Kazuya’s gentle and carefree smile was up close. Victorique knitted her perfectly-shaped eyebrows awkwardly.

At that moment, a silver bell shaped like a rhinoceros, shining above the round window encircled by bookshelves, tinkled softly.

“Coming!” Kazuya said as he opened the window to peer below.

The caretaker leaned out from the first-floor window, holding the string attached to the bell. The winter wind tousled her short red hair.

“It’s a phone call for you. From your sister in Greenwich Village!”

“From Ruri? What’s going on?”

“She wants you to come over right away! It’s urgent! She sounded flustered.”

“O-Okay!”

“Oh, and also, this month’s rent. Don’t be late!”

“…Okay.” Kazuya closed the window.

Straightening his back, he mumbled to himself, “All right, first I’ll stop by Ruri’s house, then drop Victorique off at the detective agency, and head back to the office.”

He pursed his lips as if to emphasize the need to be firm, especially since it was just him and Victorique. Meanwhile, Victorique, puffing on her golden pipe, watched Kazuya quietly.

“I see. Man does not live by bread alone, huh?” She let out a sigh. “This new life comes with a heap of mundane tasks. I suppose this is the chaos of the new world,” Victorique grouched.

Reluctantly, she got up from the spinning chair.

---

On a bright winter morning, an old bicycle zipped through the monochrome Jewish quarter. Men wearing traditional black-and-white attires, with long curled sideburns. Women in black coats with hair tied up in buns.

At a café terrace, a group of neighborhood grandmothers savored snow-white Jewish-style cream cheese cake, chatting as they casually observed the bicycle whizzing by—initially surprised but now accustomed to the sight.

Pedaling the bike was a young man of East Asian descent. His lips were pursed tight, and his jet-black hair bounced in the wind.

Behind him rode a petite but strikingly beautiful young lady, exquisitely crafted like a doll, so lovely that onlookers might drop their belongings at the sight of her. Her silver hair danced in the northerly wind, freezing the surroundings like the Winter Queen. Her deep emerald green eyes were as cold as ice. Her fluffy coat and black and red velvet dress, trimmed with frills and laces, billowed in the wind like an unfurled banner.

At a stall near the Brooklyn Bridge, they bought double servings of red currant and winter strawberry ice cream.

As Kazuya pedaled across the bridge, Victorique licked her ice cream nonchalantly.

Pedal. Pedal.

Still pedaling.

He continued to pedal away.

The weather was fine, the sunlight beautiful, and despite the cold wind, the cloudless sky was a clear blue.

After crossing the bridge, they made their way toward the bustling heart of Manhattan, passing through the bewitching Chinatown and colorful Little Italy.

As they neared the upscale residential area of Greenwich Village, characterized by magnificent Art Deco-style buildings embellished with dental molding and gold trim, they passed by a sleek black Cadillac resembling an armored vehicle.

Bringing to mind a car from a fictional realm, it was marked with an emblem in the colors of the Italian flag—red and green—a symbol of the Italian Mafia, which dominated the nights of New York City. Carrying a formidable figure, likely the nighttime kingpin Garbo Boss, it was flanked by box-shaped cars for his entourage both ahead and behind.

Turning a corner, they encountered a tall, elegant middle-aged man seemingly unable to control his legs, prancing and dancing as if compelled by the unseen force of some red shoes. Donning a black silk hat and holding a fine red cane, he had a long goatee and sharp eyes. Was he performing some inexplicable, mysterious dance?

Surprised, Kazuya yielded the way.

Looking over his shouder, he murmured, “This city sure has some peculiar characters, huh? Hey, Victorique?”

A passing businessman stopped to stare at Kazuya’s face, slightly bewildered by the sight of him conversing with a dreamlike beauty wrapped in frills and laces.

Kazuya parked the bicycle in a corner of Greenwich Village.

“What could Ruri’s urgent matter be?” Kazuya pondered aloud.

Victorique snorted, wearing a look that said she knew what was going on.

Then, they ascended the steps of a splendid building with a lion statue until they came upon a grand door with a brass knocker in the shape of a lion.

Victorique, standing on tiptoes in her enameled high-heels, knocked at the door. Kazuya did the same.