Shit. It was true.
“No, it’s okay. We’ll come back later.”
He turned away and motioned for Paul to join him, the whole time his hand in his jacket pocket, fingers wrapped around the butt of Paul’s gun.
They got back outside without incident, and Darwin looked for a taxi. At first, he was surprised the guy hadn’t tried anything yet. But then he thought of Big John and how he’d looked after the car accident. This kind of man understood what it took to take down someone like Big John. For him to do it in handcuffs would intimidate them to no end.
He hailed a cab with all the confidence of a man in complete control. He knew Paul wouldn’t run. Bullets were faster and, as far as Paul knew, Darwin had two guns on him.
When the taxi pulled up, Darwin stood on one side and ordered Paul in first. Then he bent down to watch as Paul shut his door.
“Lock it,” Darwin said.
Paul did.
Then Darwin slid in beside him.
“Where to?” the cab driver asked.
Out of the driver’s line of sight, Darwin withdrew Paul’s gun and rested it on his lap, pointed at Paul.
“Tell him where to go.”
Paul looked down at the gun and then up at the driver.
“Take us to Via Roma in the Eur Zone.”
The driver nodded and they started off.
Rome’s allure tempted Darwin to look out the window and take it all in, but he couldn’t. The afternoon was waning, the sun dropping and his wife was a prisoner because of him. The man sitting next to him was supposed to deliver Darwin to the Fuccini boss, but Darwin was coming to surprise them instead.
The man beside him was dangerous.
But Paul thought Darwin was the dangerous one.
I’d do good to remember that and act the part,
he thought.
He tilted his head a little and stared at Paul like he was angry again.
This is crazy. I’m not a mobster. I can’t do this. How am I supposed to scare these guys?
Paul stared out the window. He kept his hands on his lap and waited until the cab ride was over.
The driver eased up a building at least five stories high. It appeared pretty modern for Rome, with glass windows and an art deco front.
“That’s thirty-eight euros,” the driver said.
Darwin pulled two twenty euro bills out of his inner jacket pocket and handed them forward.
“Get out,” he told Paul.
They exited in unison. The cab drove away from the curb and Darwin got off the street before he got hit. Cars raced up and down Via Roma without any regard for safety. A horn blared and then another. He almost turned to see what was happening, but refrained so he could keep his eyes on Paul.
“Okay, we made it this far. Now, where is the boss?”
Paul turned to the glass building. “Up there. Top floor.”
“What office or room number will I find my wife?”
“First off, I have no idea where, exactly, your wife is. I’ve been at Termini all day watching for you. Second, there is no room number. The Fuccini family own the building and the boss’s office takes up the whole floor. But it won’t be easy getting in.”
Darwin cocked his head to the side. “Why’s that?”
The sun had dropped behind the buildings in its final descent. Tension in Darwin’s stomach caused him to consider abandoning this until tomorrow. He couldn’t operate out at night, in the dark. Paul’s face was cast in the golden light, making him look like he was smiling.
“Because, whenever the boss is up there, extra security detail is called in and the elevators are put on service. That means no one can get up there without using the stairs, which are guarded.”
Darwin stood on the cement sidewalk and listened to Paul tell him that they’d come all this way for nothing. Paul had acted scared and compliant. Now he looked smug, and he talked with attitude. What had happened? How had his attitude shifted?
“What do you propose I do?”
Paul laughed. “You didn’t think I was going up with you, did you?”
“Actually, you are.”
“Yeah right. Fuccini would kill me if I went up there and let you walk right in.”
“I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
Darwin’s stomach dropped further as the sun did. It would be dark soon. He couldn’t be out in the dark. He knew his fear was irrational, but it wasn’t a choice. It was just that way.
Paul wasn’t making sense either. Back at Termini Station, he’d been intimidated. Now he talked like he had it all going on.
“So kill me,” Paul said. He opened his jacket at the chest area and said, “Shoot me right here. Come on.”
The guy’s crazy. Darwin couldn’t shoot him. He didn’t even know how to use the gun.
Before Darwin could react, Paul was on him. It was a mad rush, he was hit with a blind sucker punch. Then another.
Darwin was falling, trying to keep his balance, his arms pinwheeling. He instinctively knew that if he fell, he wouldn’t be getting back up.
Paul threw all his weight on him in that second.
Darwin landed on his back, the wind rushing from his lungs, Paul tossing punch after punch, in the stomach, the side and a couple in the arms.
Then it was over as fast as it started. Paul got up, breathing fast and hard.
“You fucking idiot. You thought you had the jump on
me
?” he screamed.
Darwin wiped blood from the edge of his mouth. He reached for the gun in his jacket, but it was gone.
“That’s right. Got my gun back.” He turned the gun sideways. “See this here. That’s called a safety. You can’t fire the gun without the safety turned off.” He looked down at Darwin, who lay there collecting his breath, as the lights slowly dimmed on Rome. “The whole time you thought you had me. You couldn’t even fire a gun. Actually, have you ever fired a weapon?”
Paul searched Darwin’s face for an answer. Then he laughed and slapped a knee. “You haven’t, have you? Holy shit, are you ever a fucking amateur. And the boss has everyone afraid of you. Damn, is he going to be happy when I deliver you.”
Paul leaned down and grabbed Darwin’s jacket pocket where he’d stashed the pencil. He ripped it out and looked at it dumbfounded.
“A pencil. A
fucking pencil
. Lead poisoning? Are you fucking kidding me? This is royal. This, I gotta tell the boys.” He looked down at Darwin. “Get up. Get on your feet.”
Darwin had no idea what to do. The sun continued its descent. A mafia hit man stood in front of him. A hit man with a gun and not afraid to use it.
And the sun is going down
, Darwin reminded himself.
His reality shifted for real. Maybe he was going crazy after all. If they had Rosina and they were going to kill him, then what was the point of living? What was it all for?
“I said, get up.” Paul stepped closer and kicked Darwin in the stomach.
The blow knocked the wind out of him. He curled around and got on his hands and knees. He thought about his stepmother. He thought about all the times he sat in that dark room and got poked. He thought about blood, and Big John’s face came to him, neck split open, blood on his face, his shoulder, his arm.
Darwin got up slowly. Paul was talking about how he could never have taken Darwin prisoner and got him to the Fuccini building so easily. It was much better to go as a willing captor. He thanked Darwin for the pleasure of delivering himself.
Then a streetlight turned on overhead. The day had fallen victim to night and its ever present darkness. Darwin shook as the darkness gripped him. He felt blind, he felt lost, but most of all he felt anger that he could be in this position. That he was the weak one again.
“Move,” Paul ordered with a flourish of the gun.
Darwin wiped the rest of the blood from the edge of his mouth, used both hands to straighten out his jacket, took a deep breath, and said, “No. Fuck you.” Then he spat out a red gob that landed on Paul’s lapel.
“Ohhh, you are so dead for that,” Paul seethed.
“Uh, uh, uh,” Darwin said, wagging his finger back and forth. “Temper, temper.”
Paul lunged, but this time Darwin was ready. He braced his legs and shoved with everything he had. The two men connected at the chest, arms grappling for a hold. Darwin lifted his leg up and kneed Paul between the legs.
Paul yelped and instantly lost his footing. Darwin redoubled his efforts, pushing Paul as he shouted out in triumph. Off the curb and out into the street. A horn blared. A car swerved, and still Darwin pushed.
Paul’s resistance gave out and he started to fall. Darwin shoved one last time and turned around to jump out of the way.
Too many cars were coming. He made a choice and leap-frogged the trunk of a car. He cleared the road and hit the sidewalk, his breath coming in waves.
He looked for Paul, expecting to see a raised weapon.
Paul hadn’t been so lucky. He sat on the road, his legs useless and broken. A car screeched to a halt after it had run over his thighs. More cars were coming. They were going too fast.
A BMW tried to slow, but waited too long. Paul screamed and then the bumper connected with his face, almost knocking his head clean off.
What remained of Paul’s face was driven into the cement of the road. Blood squirted out like a stepped-on ketchup package.
For the first time since he’d started this, he wondered if he’d throw up.
Everyone’s attention was on the accident. Darwin had to get out of there. He had to become unseen. There could be no witnesses connecting him to this. How the Fuccini family knew that Darwin had run away from Big John’s van earlier, he had no idea. That meant all the cops on Fuccini’s payroll would be looking for him. Adding Paul’s death to the list meant Darwin would never be able to leave Italy again. They’d have him tied up in court for years, and his Canadian Embassy had no teeth.
Fuck, the
Canadian
government
has no teeth. They’re all asshole wimps, except for Rob Ford, but he only runs Toronto.
Darwin limped away, trying to act as normal as he could, considering the injuries Paul had just bestowed on him.
He chastised himself for not grabbing Paul’s gun. Now what was he going to do? He had no weapon. No way to get into a heavily guarded building and a dead man outside the front of that building.
Wait, maybe that could play into things a bit.
He walked around the edge of the Fuccini office tower and looked back to the road. The traffic had all but stopped. People milled around and others ran out of the front of the building where they held Rosina.
Perfect. Just as I thought. Members of the Fuccini security detail are investigating what happened.
The dark closed in. Another man was dead. The stakes had risen. There was no going back now. It was Fuccini or him.
Fuccini won’t even see me coming.
Chapter 7
Rosina jumped as her door was smashed open.
“Get up. Now!”
She had just been trying to relax, staying calm, thinking about how Darwin was probably on his way and how an undercover cop was in the building already. She told herself over and over,
Everything’s going to be all right, everything’s going to be all right
. But no matter how much faith and hope she had, nor how much willpower, when that door banged open, her heart rate spiked along with her breathing.
It was all starting up again.
“Let’s go,” the man said.
He was one of the guards from earlier. She stepped into the hallway and followed him on legs that didn’t wobble as much as before. She’d eaten the entire meal they’d offered her, and it had buoyed her system, offering electrolytes to her blood to replace those lost from her terrifying water experience.
The man led her past the office where she had met the boss and into an adjoining room.
As soon as she entered it, she gasped and brought her hands up to her mouth, stifling a scream. Everything in her soul shouted at her to run.
The room was some kind of torture chamber. A medieval stockade sat in one corner. A table with at least fifty metal tools and gadgets ran along one wall. This room didn’t have a dropped ceiling. Chains hung from the metal rafters above.
On her right was a square unit on wheels that appeared to be an electrical generator of some kind. She started to step backwards. She could feel it in the air. A kind of tension, thickened by the pain these instruments caused.
Someone bumped into her from behind.
“Leaving so fast?”
She turned to look into the empty eyes of the Harvester of Sorrow.
“Stay, join us, watch the show.”