1932 Drug & The Dominos/Prologue

Begg
Somewhere in New York City in early December 1931, Maiza Avaro and Begg Garrott meet in circumstances not unfamiliar to either of them, but—as Maiza reminds him—circumstances they will not have again. As this is the last time he can meet Begg "like this" he urges Begg to give him an answer for his own good, and Begg slowly but surely agrees to cease distributing drugs on Martillo Family territory.

Maiza thanks him, sincerely relieved that they will not have to be enemies. Although pleased, there is a bittersweetness to him when he then asks—as a friend, and not a Martillo executive—if Begg will stop distributing drugs in town, but Begg refuses outright; he became an alchemist to overcome his limits as an apothecary, and he believes he is on the verge of fulfilling his two hundred year-old dream: to create something that will make people happy.

Begg argues that all he wants to do is give people their own, best worlds, and the means for them to live in such a state permanently—if he can do that, then they will be able to die smiling. Maiza points out that allowing humans to live out their lives within drug-induced delusions would lead to the destruction of the human race, but Begg says that would only be the first stage; he plans to eventually design a drug that allows people to live in a waking dream, ensuring that they will be happy in their hearts as they conduct their business.

Maiza's reply that this would still "exhaust their souls" is met with amusement from Begg, who asks if he of all people believes in something as unscientific as souls—but he falls silent when Maiza reminds him how they were granted immortality from a 'demon'. Then, looking cross, he insists he simply wants to pursue pleasure as per human instinct. Maiza notes that one can abuse pleasure which has overstepped such instincts, and turns to leave.

Begg thanks Maiza for not devouring him, but Maiza warns him against doing so again—next time, it will only make him angry. Once Maiza is gone, Begg uses a syringe to inject himself with a drug far more potent than anything on the open market; even so, Begg cannot feel its effects due to the extremely high tolerance his body has built up over the past two centuries. Whether it is 'meaningless' or not, he intends to seek for others the pleasure he can no longer feel on his own.

Gandor Family
Around noontime, Luck Gandor of the Gandor Family pays a visit to a used bookstore in a Manhattan alley and opines that the world is in a "tumultuous state." He supposes that the recession has hurt the proprietor's business, but the proprietor humbly insists that the Gandors' support has already done enough. Luck offers further Gandor assistance should the proprietor need it, making the point that the Family would not 'stoop' to asking him for protection money, but the proprietor balks at the idea nonetheless.

Luck drops the matter, and, rather than agree that the Family's situation is as smooth as the proprietor presumes it is, says that they have a few troubles of their own. That someone has been distributing drugs on their territory, something the Gandors have forbidden, is one such source of shame. He thinks of how his brothers Berga and Keith feel on the matter, and how just the other day they received proof of the trade when the drug in circulation had been delivered to them.

Forcing his dark feelings on the matter down, he picks up a worn screenplay and opens his wallet to pay for the booklet. At the moment both his hands are occupied, someone behind him groans; he turns around, his throat his slit, and he collapses to the ground. The perpetrator—a man unmistakably high on some drug—babbles that he has to kill the shopkeeper for witnessing the murder, and prepares to do so with the same, bloodless knife he used on Luck.

Luck, alive once more, bashes the corner of a hardcover into the man's temple with enough force that the man falls over. Then, as he shreds the cover of a red magazine, he remarks to the shopkeeper that he just had a 'close shave'; had he not 'instinctively used the magazine as a shield', he would be dead. The shopkeeper, in his shock, is still stuck on the fact that he saw blood, so Luck sprinkles the shredded cover around them, insists the shopkeeper mistook the red cover for blood, and hands the man a thick stack of bills as 'compensation' for the ruined product.

The shopkeeper initially protests that he cannot accept such a sum—enough to feed him for a month—but at Luck emphasizing that the book was the only thing cut today, takes the hint and nods. Luck, satisfied, walks away with his assailant over his shoulder and affirms that the world is a dangerous place indeed.

The Wealthy
When the elderly patriarch of the Genoard Family passes away in October 1930, the Genoard household is thrown into confusion for the next several days. The patriarch's granddaughter, fifteen-year-old Eve Genoard, is saddened by her grandfather's death—and filled with unease when her older brother Dallas returns from New York to their New Jersey mansion upon hearing the news. She had never liked him as a person, and had not missed his lack of grief over their grandfather's passing; in fact, he seemed to be filled with a dark, ominous intent.

Aware of the fortune her grandfather is leaving behind, and aware her brother desires it, she fears that future tragedy is inevitable and harbors anger at her own cowardice. When her uneasiness boils over, she prays to God for a miracle. Late that night, she wakes up at a noise to find two white people in Native American attire have opened her bedroom door, both carrying large sacks over their shoulders. Though they are clearly burglars, they request that she allow them to hide for a little while and asks if she is a Genoard.

Eve's earlier unease returns, but becomes bewilderment when they exclaim that she no longer needs to worry—by stealing the Family's money, they are stealing the Family's source of unhappiness. Without anything to fight over, her family will be happy once more. Reaching the selfish conclusion that they are making her wish come true, Eve gratefully and naively decides they must be messengers from God and kneels before them.

While the couple wonder why someone would worship them, they feel that they ought to do something in return and settle on performing a Butterfly Dance they learned from Hopi children, which they do on the spot. Eve earnestly watches them until they are interrupted by a servant knocking on the door with news of thieves and asking if she is all right; worried, she turns to issue a warning, but finds them nowhere in sight. Though she fantasizes that the couple have returned to the heavens, they are in fact clinging to the tree outside her window.

Dallas visits Eve in her bedroom the next day, visibly tired and irritated, but smiles upon seeing his sister's face. Though his smile is small, it is a genuine, big-brother type of smile she has not seen in several years, and it is with that smile that he asks if she wants him to teach her billiards. Beaming, and on the verge of tears, she nods.

Eve spends the next year living happily just as the burglars said she would. That happiness comes to an end in December 1931, when her father Raymond and eldest brother Jeffrey travel to Manhattan for business and return as horribly mangled corpses. The police tell her that their bodies were found in a car submerged in Newark bay, but cannot confirm yet whether it was an accident or murder before leaving. She is further informed that Dallas has gone missing, making her the only Genoard left.

All of the family's servants save for Benjamin and Samantha resign, and their factory's directors prepare to take over the family 'business'. Though Eve is still paid a token guarantee, her only true remaining assets are the mansion and land. Clinging to the hope that Dallas is still alive, she heads to Manhattan to search for him with Benjamin and Samantha accompanying her.

Dope Addict
Roy Maddock is in the middle of a drug trip at an institutional room when his girlfriend Edith discovers him and pulls him back to reality. She berates him for yet again breaking his promise to go clean and demands an explanation, but he dismisses her concerns and shows her a packet of white powder he has recently acquired: a new drug in circulation that is so new as to not be illegal yet. He further implies she is being hypocritical considering she waits tables at a Gandor speakeasy.

Edith flinches, but Roy mercilessly calls her out for not going to the Gandors despite knowing he is 'hooked' on drugs: not only are the Gandors anti-drug, the new drug he has gotten his hands on is the same substance that the Runorata Family, the Gandors' enemy, has been spreading around; if Edith were to go to the Gandors, she would surely be punished and earn Roy a death sentence.

Roy finally hushes when he realizes Edith is tearing up, and she says she simply does not want him to die; this is not about what happens to her. However, she is at the end of her rope—if she has to watch him break like this, he should go die, and she leaves after slamming the door behind her.

Self-awareness hits Roy too late; as he breaks down sobbing, full of remorse, a man and woman sobering up in the corner discuss the matter. The woman thinks Edith should break off the relationship, but the man disagrees and says Edith was wrong; Roy is going to die soon, and thus might have a better chance at surviving if Edith did go to the police. He continues that any claims of the drug being safe physically are Runorata lies, and that from what he has seen, Roy is someone who has abnormally extreme reactions to drugs.

Roy leaves the room intending to apologize to Edith and once again intending to quit drugs for good, but he has no idea how to face her. Since he already spent all of his money on an alleged new kind of upper, he decides to take it as once last hit; though he vaguely remembers having a similar thought process the last time he made such a promise to Edith, he is sure he will make this time the last time for sure. After consuming the new drug, he is filled with confidence and the idea he can do anything.

When he first regains some sense of mind, he finds himself in his apartment with no memory of how he reached there. Freezing, nauseous, and suffering from a pounding headache, he loses himself in paranoid hallucinations which take him seven hours to shake for good. His desire to apologize to Edith is what carries him through the last surge of terror and into calmness, and it is with full sobriety that he realizes he is sitting naked on a vomit-smeared floor.

Once washed and dressed, Roy enters his living room in a good mood—once again sure he will keep his promise to Edith this time—but puzzled as to why he hurts all over. Abruptly, he notices an bulging black leather satchel lying under his table; it is both unfamiliar and familiar, and some of his earlier fear returns at the thought he might be better off not recognizing it.

Nevertheless, he opens the bag to see if its contents will jog his memories. They do, and his heart stops; the bag is filled with packets of white powder, the very same Runorata drug he had just been high on.

Runorata Family
In a mansion on the outskirts of Newark, Gustavo Bagetta and his men report to Don Bartolo Runorata that a currently-at-large thief rammed a stolen truck into the Runoratas' transport vehicle and stole all of the new drug. Bartolo reminds Gustavo that he left him in charge of Manhattan, asks if he is incompetent if he considers something this 'insignificant' to be 'bad news', and leaves without further ado to visit his grandchild.

Gustavo warns his men that the Runoratas may become a laughingstock if the thief distributes the drugs for 'peanuts—as they are worth 600,000 on the market—and orders them to do whatever it takes to reclaim the product, including murdering the junkie thief if necessary. Though Bartolo had called the situation 'insignificant', the fact that their attacker was a 'kid' high on the very drugs they sold is an enormous blunder and embarrassment of the lowest order.

Begg objects that he wants the thief captured alive; if it proves true that the thief did something that reckless while high on his own drug, he wants at minimum to hear the thief's story, and may want to use him as a test subject. Gustavo says that he is being rather demanding considering the Runoratas gave him a 'terrific refinery', but Begg scoffs that they only took over a cocaine factory that the Genoards were already running.

After remarking that throwing the Genoard head into Newark Bay was violence beyond Bartolo's violence, Begg reminds Gustavo that his cooperation comes with the condition that they do not interfere with the Martillos, and thus departs. Gustavo orders his men to crush all obstacles and weaklings as they set down Runorata roots in Manhattan.

Adaptation Differences
Select sections of this chapter are adapted by the 2007 anime adaptation, to varying degrees of accuracy.

Luck's murder attempt: While this event does take place in a bookshop in Episode 01, the method and participants are different. Luck's throat is not slit nor is he outside when the attack happens; instead, he is gunned down while in the shop via a Runorata hit-and-run. Firo Prochainezo is present and gunned down as well, and captures one of the Runoratas on Luck's behalf.
 * Firo's conversation with Luck is itself inspired by Firo's casino conversation with Berga in Local: The Man Who Wouldn't Cry, but this too is different: where Firo complained about Berga risking dragging the Martillos into the Gandors' feud with the Runoratas, he offers Luck his assistance in the anime.

Gustavo and Bartolo: Gustavo meets with Bartolo in Episode 01 much as he does here, but it is not to discuss Roy. Rather, he updates Bartolo on the ongoing feud and says that an expected shipment of explosives should ensure victory against the Gandors. Bartolo orders him to search for Dallas in the meantime, whom he claims contacted the Runoratas with proof Gustavo murdered Raymond and Jeffrey.
 * Bartolo is lying, as Dallas has been underwater for the past year. The anime, having cut Roy's storyline, replaced him and the stolen drugs with Dallas as the Runoratas' target.

October 1930: Episode 08's flashback to this event contains certain notable differences. In the anime, Eve encounters Isaac and Miria when they have just arrived—thus, before their burglary rather than after they have committed it. The anime changes the details of their attire, excludes their dance, and has them leave by rope rather than tree. Furthermore, the anime has Dallas learn of the burglary after the billiards' offer and storm off, thus changing the mood of the scene.

Trivia

 * While some sections of this chapter are adapted in the anime, those with Begg and Roy are not along with the rest of their plot-line.
 * This chapter marks the first, albeit indirect, mention of Bartolo's grandchild Carzelio Runorata. Carzelio's official debut in the main series takes place fourteen volumes later in the eighteenth volume.
 * The bookshop proprietor in this chapter makes a return appearance in the sixteenth volume.