Mafia Trilogy 03 - The Scythe Read online

  Scythe filled the doorway, his broad shoulders almost touching the door frame on each side. One hand held his crotch and the other, the gun.

  “I like the fight you have in you,” Scythe said.

  Darwin looked around for a weapon. Nothing was close but the canning jars. He reached above his head and snatched one off the shelf.

  Peaches.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Scythe asked. “Feed me to death?”

  Darwin tossed the jar high in the air. It landed on the cement floor between him and the door where Scythe stood. He grabbed another, then another, and lobbed them at Scythe. Each one broke, spreading peaches across the floor.

  “Stop,” Scythe yelled. He raised the gun, but his hand shook. “Stop it.”

  Darwin got on his knees and reached to a higher shelf.

  Jams.

  He threw them harder at the doorway, closer to Scythe’s feet.

  The gun fired. Darwin ducked. It fired again. A jar shattered beside Darwin’s head.

  Holy shit.

  He threw a smaller jar of pickles right at Scythe. It hit the doorframe beside him and shattered, spewing green pickles and pickle juice all over Scythe’s chest and face.

  Scythe fired his gun one more time and then dropped it. The last bullet broke one of the shelf supports an inch above Darwin’s face. A dozen jars dropped, a couple of them hitting Darwin, the rest falling harmlessly beside him, except two jars that broke when they hit the wall. They covered Darwin’s chest and stomach in foodstuffs.

  He dropped to his butt. Peach juice and chunks of red jam filled the room with an intense strawberry smell.

  Scythe had retreated from the door, retching around the corner.

  Then Darwin remembered what Yuri had said about The Scythe.

  Half the time he ends up in the hospital on an IV if he eats the wrong thing. Scy worked himself up so much about food that he can’t even be near it much anymore. He juices.

  He’d had a stomach injury. That’s why he wasn’t at the restaurant that day.

  Still in socks and underwear, Darwin got to his feet. He couldn’t believe a body could be so wracked with pain. His back screamed, his face ached and he was afraid to look at the damage to his hands after all the abuse he’d rained down on them, even though his vision was clearing.

  On the verge of exhaustion, his stamina was all but gone. But he had no choice. Fall asleep here and never wake up, or get out of the house and sleep away from this mad world.

  In his sock feet, he tried to step around the shards of glass, but picked a couple up on the way to the door. All he could smell was the jam dripping off this chest and belly. Peaches clung to his white underwear, making the blood stains look like an abstract collage of colors that had been painted on him.

  Scythe was on the floor near the stairs, passed out, vomit covering his chin and neck, clumps of it resting on his chest. It was a liquid green mess.

  Darwin leaned against the wall. His legs threatened to not support him.

  I have to get out of here.

  He picked up the gun and hobbled over to Scythe. On his way past the wire grid he realized that soaking his jeans in the toilet had helped him fry the man to the grid. It was one thing to be electrocuted—but quite something else to be electrocuted with sopping wet denim wrapped around your neck.

  After checking the safety on the weapon, Darwin aimed it at Scythe’s forehead from one foot away.

  Then he pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. He pulled again. Nothing.

  That’s why Scythe dropped it.

  There was no energy left in him to search for more bullets. If he didn’t leave now, he would pass out.

  The stairs were like walking up the side of a mountain. He collected himself at the top, breathed in deep and waited for his heartbeat to calm.

  He pushed the door open and stepped into the hallway. Both ways, the house was empty.

  Darwin put one foot in front of the other and walked to the front door of the house, leaving bloody footsteps behind him from the glass wounds. Chunks of peaches and jams slipped off his body and mixed with the blood.

  He opened the door and the sun hit his skin, warming him. He walked outside and started across the grass.

  Yuri’s house was on the end of a cul de sac with no other houses on either side. It was like he bought the whole block and then just had his house built there.

  Someone yelled behind him. Darwin turned on his heels and almost lost his balance. He couldn’t take anymore.

  Behind Yuri’s house was an expanse of green.

  A golf course.

  The man who had yelled slapped another’s hand in the air and dropped his driver in the bag on the back of a golf cart.

  The other man stepped up to the tee, took two practice swings, and then tried to murder the ball. He cursed and slammed his club into the ground at his feet.

  Darwin started toward them. He raised a hand and tried to shout.

  The men dropped into their cart and sped off.

  Darwin made it to the edge of the golf course grounds and started for the tee box. He stumbled halfway there, fell to his hands, and dropped to his knees. He couldn’t walk any farther, so he crawled. With each lift of his knee, and each bit he crawled, he expected to pass out.

  The tee box marker came into view below him.

  He stopped, fell to his side and rolled onto his back. The sun warmed his thighs, his stomach, his face. The scent of the wet peach and jam covering his body filled the air. He breathed it in and thought about Rosina.

  A golf cart engine revved from somewhere to his left.

  “Hey! You okay?” a man shouted.

  Darwin didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to talk.

  “Hey?” the man asked, louder.

  Sleep felt wonderful. The idea of going under for a couple of days was what Darwin needed.

  The voices were closer. His eyes were closed but he could feel two men standing over him, their shadows crossing his eyelids.

  “Yeah, hello? Emergency services?” A pause. “Ambulance.” Another pause. “There’s a guy passed out in his underwear on the golf course, covered in some kind of fruit paste. He’s bleeding from multiple places and he’s been beat up pretty bad. What? Yeah, in his underwear.”

  One of the men leaned in close. “Hey, you awake?”

  “No, ma’am. He’s not responding. Hurry.”

  Darwin lowered himself under the veil of unconsciousness.

  Chapter 8

  Darwin opened his eyes and tried to bring his hands up to rub them. Bandages covered his right forearm, wrists, and knuckles. He blinked to clear his eyes.

  Another hospital room.

  “How was your sleep?”

  A man in a white lab coat stepped up to his bed.

  “Where am I?”

  “In a hospital in Barrie about an hour north of Toronto. Do you know how you got here?”

  Darwin rested his head on the pillow. No cop sat in the corner, no guard at the door. That meant the doctor didn’t know who he was and no one on the outside knew where he was. It also meant the Mafia had lost him.

  But if he knew Yuri, it wouldn’t be long before they found out.

  “I have no idea … about anything.”

  “You were found in your underwear on a golf course off of highway 93. Do you recall anything that happened?”

  Darwin looked up at the ceiling tiles and waited. Then he turned to the doctor and stared through him.

  “Doc, I’m scared. What’s my name? I can’t remember who I am.”

  The doctor frowned as he pushed his glasses up his nose. He looked down at a clipboard in his hand.

  “Can you remember anything, like who did this to you?”

  Darwin turned to look at the window in the room. Sunshine poured in.

  How long have I slept?

  “What happened …” Darwin mumbled. He forced a tear and looked back at the doctor. “What happened to me?�
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  “You’re pretty beat up. Damaged kidneys, bruises all over your body. In half a dozen different places, you’ve been cut by glass. We had to pull a few of the pieces out when you got here. I’m surprised your cheek bones didn’t break. Whatever hit you actually bruised the bone.”

  You should see the other guy. Knocked him out cold with food.

  The doctor flipped a paper on the clipboard. “It looked like a bullet grazed your lower leg, but I couldn’t be sure. At least whoever beat you got some of it back. Your hands were a mess, but we’ve cleaned most of it up. Someone actually bit your knuckles. You had teeth marks in the open wounds.”

  “Oh, man. Why can’t I remember anything?”

  “You were found in your underwear covered in jams and the smell of peaches and other fruit and you say you can’t remember any of it?” The doctor stared at him, a look of disbelief on his face. “Very strange. But that’s not the worst of it.”

  Darwin rolled his tongue around his mouth and found all his teeth were still intact.

  “You had stitches in the back of your head from some kind of wound that looks to be about two-weeks old. Any idea what that’s from?”

  Darwin shrugged and pain accompanied it. Shit. “Maybe, that’s why I can’t remember anything. Maybe I had a brain injury.”

  “Maybe,” the doctor said. “We should know who you are soon enough, though.”

  Shit, shit. “Good. Did I have any ID on me?”

  “No, just underwear and socks.”

  “Then how can you help me remember who I am?”

  “We took your prints and photo and sent it in this morning. We would have done it yesterday when you got in, but the emergency department was full. There was a large bus accident out on the highway. Two tour buses collided right outside of here. We had fifty people show up in emerg twenty minutes after you rolled in. We cleaned you up and left you to sleep.” The doctor moved to the door.

  “How long before they get back to you with who I am? I mean, what if I have a wife, kids. They could be worried about me.”

  From the doctor’s expression, he clearly wasn’t buying it. “I’ll hear back from them later this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ve got rounds to do. If you think of anything, buzz the nurse. She’ll page me. When I know more, I’ll come back and see you.”

  Darwin nodded.

  The doctor stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. He didn’t lock it. Darwin was free to go.

  Yeah, if I can walk.

  He tried to get up, but lay back down as pain shot through his abdomen.

  “Fuck, didn’t they give me any Demerol or morphine?”

  He tried again, gritting his teeth against the pain. Once he was sitting on the side of the bed, his head spun. He closed his eyes and waited for it to go away. He slid off the bed and touched his feet down gingerly, in case he was stepping onto wounds from the glass.

  He couldn’t believe how lucky he had been. He was no longer the pudgy Canadian boy the Mafia first encountered on that side road out by the abandoned airplane hangar so long ago. He was a man now. His innocence had been torn from him and the void was filled with determination and anger. He was pissed off with what they had done to him and his wife, and he was determined to hunt them down until this nightmare was over.

  Nothing would stop him now. Bolstered by his escape from the glass prison in Yuri’s basement, he realized that nothing could stop him.

  Yuri was in Florida because he thought Arkady was down there. That meant that Darwin needed to get down to Florida as soon as he could.

  Maybe he could locate Carson Dodge and enlist him to use his resources to help find the Russians.

  But first he needed to get out of this hospital. Then he would figure a way to get to Florida.

  He walked across the floor, favoring the pain a little. It wasn’t too bad once he got up and walking about.

  In the closet he found a pair of track pants and a T-shirt.

  They probably grabbed it out of lost and found.

  The pants were a little tight but they fit okay.

  Shoes? They have to have shoes.

  He couldn’t find any.

  He used the bathroom, splashed water on his face and wet his hair, styling it a little. The bruises on his cheeks were dark purple and made his cheeks puff up like a twisted clown’s idea of macabre makeup.

  Disguise wouldn’t work. Nothing he could do would cover the condition his face was in. He turned slightly and saw the stitches at the back of his head had been removed.

  Thanks, Doc.

  He moved to the door, trying to walk as normal as he could. It felt good to be out, to be free.

  Maybe when this was all over and he and Rosina were living in Italy or Greece, he would write his memoirs.

  This kind of stuff never happens to anybody, he thought. It’s stranger than fiction.

  Dressed in blue track pants and a white T-shirt with nothing on his feet—they must have discarded his ruined socks—Darwin opened the door and walked out into the corridor as if he had just been here visiting someone. Although the bruises and bandages that covered his hands could give him away.

  No one tried to stop him as he headed down the hall. He went through a door that led to the stairwell, descended a floor and walked down that corridor.

  At each room, he slowed enough to look inside. Finally, he found what he was looking for, and it was far enough from the nurse’s station that no one would see him enter.

  He stepped in fast and stayed as quiet as he could. The room had two beds with only one occupied, a man who snored softly in his sleep.

  He walked around the old man and picked up the shoes he had spied from the hallway. Black dress shoes.

  Why the hell do you have dress shoes in the hospital?

  Maybe he came in with them on.

  Darwin checked the size. They were perfect. He slipped them on, tied them up and tested the fit. Satisfied, he walked by the old man and almost got to the door when he noticed the old man was watching him.

  “Hi,” Darwin said. He stopped, smiled and waved. “I’m the night janitor. Had last night off because I was attacked in a back alley.” He gestured at his face. “Anyway, thought I forgot something in here. Sorry to wake you.”

  The man smiled and Darwin slipped into the hallway.

  Now he walked with more purpose. His feet felt better with the protection of the shoes.

  At the elevator, he pressed the down button. It came a few seconds later. No one tried to stop him but he knew it was only a matter of time.

  On the ground floor he walked out toward the front, passed the gift shop on the left and kept walking. Then he stepped out into the sun and started down the sidewalk.

  The air was clean and warm, the afternoon sun heating Barrie up.

  He had no money, no ID, and no idea how he was going to get to Florida.

  But he had his freedom and he had hope.

  And no one knew where he was.

  Darwin walked on, not missing a step.

  “I’m coming, Rosina. Hang in there.”

  Chapter 9

  Darwin walked south toward the lake, then headed west through downtown Barrie until he located the soup kitchen. With his bruised face and bandages, wearing track pants and a T-shirt, he was exactly what they would expect to walk in and ask for food.

  He paused at the open door. The tables were half empty. Disheveled men in various states of dress were eating. They all had facial hair and smelled so bad he could barely detect the scent of the soup.

  He walked past the tables to the counter. No one bothered to ask him if he qualified for the free offerings. The young volunteer behind the counter looked Darwin up and down, grabbed a bowl, filled it with soup and handed it to him.

  Darwin reached for a spoon. Beside the utensil container sat a pad and pen where someone had been writing a list of supplies. A few inches from the pad sat an iPhone.


  As Darwin grabbed a spoon, the male volunteer turned to his associate in the back and raised his eyebrows, no doubt at Darwin’s appearance.

  While the man’s attention was diverted, Darwin grabbed the phone as well as the spoon and turned away. He slipped it into the pocket of the track pants and sat at the table closest to the door where he ate as fast as he could before the owner of the cell phone discovered it missing.