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Synopsis[]
In September 1925, the Gandor Family's youngest executive Luck Gandor visits one of the Family's debtors – a clockmaker – with the intention of collecting the $2025.50 the debtor owes the family. In lieu of money he does not have, the clockmaker offers to hand over his stepson Tick Jefferson to the family as collateral.
Despite his skepticism, Luck agrees to give Tick a trial period and leaves the clockmaker's shop with Tick in tow. He is surprised to find that Tick is aware of just what his stepfather is done, and further taken aback when Tick expresses his willingness to murder another human being should Luck order him to do so.
Randy and Pezzo, two Martillo Family executives, arrive on the street in a horse-drawn carriage and briefly tease Luck before heading over to the same clockmaker shop Luck and Tick had left minutes before. Luck overhears them demand that the clockmaker pay them the $12,000, and is outraged at the thought that the clockmaker might have swindled the Gandors. However, Tick stops him from heading back to confront the clockmaker; he explains that his stepfather owes money to multiple people and does not have the money to pay back any of them. Tick then shares his suspicion that his stepfather will attempt to run away come evening with Tock, Tick's younger brother.
Luck is further incensed at this, but Tick reminds him that he did promise to the clockmaker to try out Tick for a day and see if he could prove useful. When Luck asks him if he is really all right with leaving the very people he is protecting, Tick says that the bonds between people are not easily cut - whereas the people themselves are. He finds this fun and sad in different measures.
Eight years later, Tick recounts the aforementioned meeting to his latest torture subject in order to explain why he cuts people: he cuts people in order to test their invisible bonds, to see how much pain they are willing to endure before their bonds to other people break. He believes that the man he is torturing is the sort of person who will not sell his allies out, something which Tick genuinely respects.
Luck interrupts the torture session and tells Tick to go take a break upstairs. As soon as Tick leaves, the tortured man wheezes that he will tell Luck anything in order to avoid more torture . Mere seconds later, Tick returns out of genuine worry to warn Luck that the man might die if he is not medically treated, and retreats back upstairs at Luck's command.
Once Luck is sure that Tick is gone, he remarks to the torture victim that while Tick is a kind man. With a vicious kick to the man's major wound, Luck adds that he is not.
Trivia[]
Characters in Order of Appearance[]
- The Clockmaker
- Luck Gandor
- Tick Jefferson
- Randy and Pezzo
Quotes[]
“People’s heaaarts, people’s tiiies, those shapeless ‘booonds’ between ’em… I check to see just how much ‘pain’ they can taaake. I want to see it, and it’s fuuun… So many, many, maaany people… I’m aaalways testing it.” - Tick Jefferson
Narita, Ryohgo. Baccano!, Vol. 6 (light novel): 1933 <First> The Slash -Cloudy to Rainy- (Kindle Locations 258-260). Yen Press. Kindle Edition.