Baccano!/Recap/1934 Alice in Jails Street/Episode Prologue Six
At an abandoned factory in Chicago, Graham Specter goes on a long-winded lament that he once used to work in this factory, before the management took an interest in bootlegging alcohol and Graham reported them. Alas, he found no excitement in taking apart something so formless as human greed.
As he continues his rant, Graham tosses a piece of machinery into the air and swings a monkey wrench around wildly. The machinery parts fall out of the air and onto the ground in pristine, reusable condition, until all of them have fallen to the ground. Graham snatches the last piece out of the air and begins tossing the monkey wrench into the air in euphoria.
Shaft, one of Graham's underlings, applauds sarcastically and asks Graham if he could catch the wrench with his head next time, and promises to attend his funeral if that happens. Graham gets excited at being made fun of, and wonders if he's actually a masochist. Shaft counters that if anything, it's Graham's followers who are the masochists, and gives him a message: Placido Russo wants to talk to him immediately. That was thirty minutes ago.
Graham asks why he wasn't informed of this thirty minutes ago, and Shaft answers that it was because he didn't look like he wanted to be interrupted. Graham accepts the answer.
Shaft has another thing to say: he's sick of listening to Graham tell that car factory story over and over again. Graham laughs and tries to strangle Shaft with the monkey wrench. Everyone knows this would be attempted murder, but nobody tries to stop Graham because they know Graham never kills anyone.
Chicago, Russo Manor.
Ever since the incident several years ago with the pair of eccentric robbers, things have been going downhill for the Russo Family. It was later that same day that they lost their spy in the terrorist organization "Lemures", several of their men were killed by local delinquents, and their greatest hitman and assassin, Ladd Russo, left the Family in what was practically an act of betrayal.
At the time, Placido Russo had pretended that everything was going to be all right, and that the loss of Ladd was just his abandoning an irresponsible Wild Card. However, this didn't last a single year--because of Ladd's absence, other organizations began applying pressure on the Russo Family.
The final nail in the coffin was the incident when the men sent to do business with the Chinese Mafia were massacred. The Chinese Mafia took care of the bodies, but they used this incident as leverage to squeeze out everything they could from the Russo Family. By this point even Family members had begun whispering about Placido Russo's powerlessness.
Graham enters the room. Placido calls him out for tardiness and wonders if Graham's done something stupid again like what happened when he first arrived in Chicago. Graham denies it, and claims that the robbery he committed on the train to Chicago was just settling an old score.
Placido gives Graham his mission: capture a member of a certain group--alive. He calls in three people to explain the situation to Graham. One of the men has a distinctive scar on his face. He introduces himself as Klik, who is in charge of the younger members of the Russo Family.
Klik and Graham don't get along very well, but Placido gets them back on track. Klik takes out the Wanted Poster of the Lamia members, and warns Graham that if he is caught, he should not even mention the Russo name.
Once Graham leaves, Klik is alone with Placido. Klik wonders if Graham can be trusted, and Placido says that Graham's loyalty lies with Ladd, not the Russo Family. Placido then says that they're sending Graham out to collect information on Lamia for the people that he's working for.
Klik wonders if Placido is going to give Graham's gang the Elixir, but Placido considers them throwaways not worth wasting the Elixir on. He then asks Klik how it feels to have died and come back to life. Klik touches his own throat, which he had slit on Chi's claws earlier that day, and replies that it wasn't too pleasant.
Placido stabs his own had with a pair of scissors, and remarks that he's becoming fond of the sensation of his body healing itself. The blood flows back and the wound disappears.
After Klik leaves, Placido recalls how Ladd once scared and humiliated him, and thinks to himself that now Ladd can't kill him even if he tried, and there's nothing he can do about it. Placido starts Laughing Mad.
After he leaves the room, Klik is greeted by the others. They remind him that Ladd's due to be released from Alcatraz pretty soon, and wonder if he'll be coming back to the Russo Family. Klik dismisses such notions and smiles with confidence. He tells the others that it doesn't matter what Ladd tries, as Placido has a way to influence him--they have the perfect hostage.
Deep within the Russo Manor, a child brings soup to a woman behind locked doors. The room is quite luxurious, but the windows are barred like a prison cell.
The woman is Lua Klein, patiently surviving, waiting for Ladd to leave Alcatraz and finally kill her.