by Jonas Saul
“Why tell me? How does this get my wife back?”
“I’m killing time. We don’t open the front door until I am sure you weren’t followed and the blood has been cleaned up behind me. Also, I’m telling you this so you understand that it was the American government, along with the Canadians that allowed us Russians to come here and flourish. I want you to know that the people you pay taxes to did this to you and your wife.”
“Interesting rationale.”
“In the Russian prison system, the authorities beat you before they interrogate you. They put dirt in a sock and whack your kidneys until you urinate blood for days. Once a man has done time on the Arctic Circle, what can the spineless North American legal system do to us? The Russian Mafia now operates in more than fifty nations. We’re smart, we’re organized and we don’t care what the fuck happens.” He gulped the rest of his vodka down and slammed his glass on the tabletop again.
The effects of the little vodka Darwin had were seeping into his consciousness.
“You see what I’m saying to you?” Yuri asked.
“This isn’t a job interview.”
Yuri frowned. “What?”
“You gave me an impressive résumé, but I’m not hiring. I work alone.”
“What are you talking about?”
A man stepped up to Yuri and whispered in his ear. Yuri nodded.
“Stand up, Darwin.”
“Where are we going?”
Yuri got up stepped away from the table. “Am I going to have to always ask you things twice?”
“This is my second time. Where are we going?”
Yuri waved his arm. “Get him to his feet. I’m tired of talking to him.”
Two men moved behind Darwin and grabbed his arms to lift him up. The other man was mopping the floor where Miklos had once been.
Before Darwin knew what they were doing, his arms were wrenched behind him and some kind of twist ties were wrapped around his wrists.
“Hey, what the …”
He was shoved down onto the table, his face almost connecting with the plate and leftover pasta. An odd thought struck him about how he thought the Italians were the ones who ate pasta and not the Russians.
A black cloth hood came down over his head.
“I can’t fucking see,” he shouted.
“You won’t have to see where we’re going,” Yuri said.
It was dark and he wasn’t panicking. This was the first time since he could remember that the darkness didn’t cause him to become violently angry. It scared him, too, because that anger was what saved his life in the past.
They pulled him up to a standing position.
“Are you going to be quiet while we walk you out the back door?” Yuri asked.
“I don’t have ESP.”
“ESP?”
“Fuck, for a top Russian gangster, you’re not that bright, are you? It means, I can’t tell the future—”
Something hit him in the back of the head so hard, before his eyes rolled back, he was already out.
Chapter 5
When Darwin woke, the hood was gone and his hands were free. The sun shone through a window high on the wall.
He was in a basement of a house, as far as he could tell. Vents hummed, pumping air into the room. The room’s walls were made of glass or a thick plastic. A toilet sat in one corner.
He lifted up onto his elbow and examined his wrists. Small chafe marks were left behind from the twist ties. The back of his head was sore, but at least whatever hit him missed where the stitches were.
He rolled off the small mattress—a padded mat—and planted his feet on the floor. His head throbbed, but not as bad as when he first woke in the hospital.
The four walls of the square prison appeared to be the same length. A small vent the length of an average ruler was situated in the top corner of the wall above his mattress. There was no door.
This is fucked.
He got up and walked the length of the closest wall, running his hand along its surface. Then the next wall. No indents or hinges where a door could be found were evident.
On the other side of the glass, the room appeared to be a normal basement. A set of stairs led up and out of the darkness. The only light came from the small rectangular window at the top of the far wall of the house, on the other side of his glass prison.
A wave of lightheadedness hit him, and he walked back to the mattress and sat down. After a moment, he lay down.
A door opened in the other room. Light spilled down the staircase. Someone descended the steps. A large man in a suit that was two sizes too small stopped at the bottom.
“Good morning,” he said, the voice metallic through the walls. Somehow the room amplified the speaker’s voice from the outside. “How are you feeling?”
Darwin stayed quiet. He wasn’t in the mood for chatting with the pain throbbing in his head.
The man walked away and disappeared behind a wall. When he returned, he had a white sock in his hand. He stopped on the other side of the glass and peered in at Darwin.
The light in the basement increased as the door opened again. This time, two men came down the steps. After a moment, all three stood outside the glass wall staring in at Darwin as if he was a caged animal in a zoo.
The first man pushed a button and the wall in front of them began sliding sideways.
So there’s the door.
The big guy eased out of his jacket and stepped inside the glass cell. The two men pulled large guns and cocked them.
“What’s this?” Darwin asked.
“Your first day.”
“Like in high school? Initiation?”
“Sort of. Get up.”
Darwin hesitated, but then realized that this was a man whose patience shouldn’t be tried. He rolled off the padded mat and stood.
“Turn around. Face the glass.”
“Why?”
The two guns rose in unison.
“I get it,” Darwin said. “Yuri kidnapped me, brought me all the way here to use me as bait for Arkady and now you’re just going to shoot me. Is that it? Your orders are to walk down and kill The Blade?”
“No. Our orders are to teach you what life is about.”
“And you’re an authority on that?”
“In this house, I am. These men have orders to shoot to wound if you try to fight back. Now turn around or prepare for your first bullet.”
Darwin met the gaze of all three men. Then he slowly turned around and waited.
He couldn’t believe how painful the first blow was. The sock felt like it was filled with coal as it came down again and again on each side of his spine. He yelled out like a house cat being tortured and dropped to the floor as his knees caved under the pain. On the ground, writhing, he received a couple of more hits and then it stopped.
When they were done, the three men retreated and slid the glass wall back into place, leaving Darwin alone, face down on the cold floor. His heart raced, lungs expanding and contracting. He was afraid to move in case something was broken.
Then he had a sudden urge to urinate. He waited, tried to calm his breathing, and held his bladder in check. He would go when his heart rate calmed down and his breathing was more under control.
What the fuck was that all about?
He had to get away from these people. Their world was one of continual violence and death. Since his involvement began, all he wanted was to be left alone. Any violence he perpetrated against the Mafia was in self defense. But they wouldn’t let that go. They just kept coming. When that glass door opened again, he would have to do whatever he could to get out. There had to be a way.
He pushed up slowly with his hands and tried to get high enough off the mattress to stand. The pain flared when he moved, but if he didn’t soon, his bladder would release on the bed and he’d be stuck sleeping in it for however long he was in here.
He gritted his teeth and made it to a standing position. Then he pivoted and faced the toilet
. Four slow steps later, he undid his jeans and urinated. As he suspected, it was a bright red.
“Shit.”
When finished, he zipped up and made it back to the bed where he lay down on his stomach.
The door opened at the top of the stairs. He didn’t bother to look at who was coming this time. If they were coming to beat him again, there was nothing he could do about it.
After a moment, Yuri’s metallic voice entered the glass cell.
“How does that feel?”
“Lovely.”
“You have no idea how many beatings I endured at the hands of someone who had power and control over me. I thought since we’ll be working together you would need to get to know me more intimately.”
“Okay, you’ve achieved that. I know enough now. You’re a sick man. Thanks. It fucking hurts.”
“That’s the point, Darwin. Only the strong survive, though, as your name suggests.”
Darwin moaned. All his life people made remarks about his name.
“I want you to suffer while we wait for Arkady and Rosina to surface.”
Darwin moved his head enough to look at Yuri who stood up against the glass by the part that was the door. He wore a different suit than when they met at the restaurant.
“Why would you need me to suffer?” Darwin asked. “What’s the point other than a perverse pleasure?”
“There’s an old Russian proverb that goes, revenge is the sweetest form of passion. I want you to hate the people who put you in this position.”
“You put me here. I hate you.”
“You have so much to learn. Arkady has orchestrated this since the Fuccini meeting at the abandoned airplane hangar. He had Gambino attack it. Then he went after Gambino with promises of territory. His trickery knows no bounds. He even tricked me. That I can’t allow. But of all people, he has ruined you. He has taken your innocent life away and now, as far as we can tell, he has Rosina. I want you to hate him with everything in your soul. Once you get to that place, I won’t be anything to you except a means to an end. I will cease to be your enemy. Instead, I will be an ally, someone you can use to get to Arkady. On that day, we can work together.”
“Okay, that makes sense. I get it. I’m there.”
“Where?”
“I’m with you. Now let me out and we’ll have vodka together and discuss this further upstairs. Once we find out where he is, we’ll go together and kill him.”
Yuri chuckled. “Under other circumstances, I could really get to like you.”
“I’m serious. There’s no need to make me more revengeful. I’m good.” He turned more to face Yuri who was shaking his head.
“No, I don’t think so. I have broken many men in my life. When you break, I will be able to tell by the look in your eyes. It takes weeks, sometimes months, but you will break, Darwin. I assure you of that. In the meantime, I will have my men beat you every day until then. When you are on your knees begging me to stop it and kill you, then I will have you where I want you.”
“Oh shit, you’re serious.”
“Absolutely.”
“What about dinner?”
“Excuse me.”
“You’re going to feed me, right? I mean, beat me, hold me prisoner, but you have to feed me. You can’t take me out like this and expect me to give it up without a meal first.”
“You’re always trying to be humorous. I like that.” Yuri waved a finger back and forth. “No, I don’t think you need any food. You’re better to me in a weakened state. You have water in the toilet. You will get a small bowl of soup once every four days or so, if I remember to do it, of course.”
Darwin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re joking, right?”
“No, I’m not. And because of your attitude and disrespectful mouth, you just forfeited your first meal.” Yuri looked at his watch. “Today’s the eighth. That means I will bring you a little to eat on the sixteenth of the month.” He met Darwin’s gaze. “Maybe.”
“You’re fucked,” was all Darwin could think to say. He realized he was talking to himself.
“See, it’s already working. I can feel the hate oozing off you.” He turned away. “Goodbye, Darwin. I leave in an hour for Florida to look for Arkady. When I get back, we’ll have dinner together.”
Yuri walked toward the stairs.
“Why are you doing this?” Darwin asked.
“I told you. Start hating Arkady.”
“I already do.”
At the stairs, Yuri paused. “Not enough.”
“You don’t have to do this. I can work with you. We’ll end this together.”
“Darwin,” Yuri turned to look at him. “I enjoy torturing people. Think of it as a pastime for me. One of the two true teachers in this world is suffering, pain. Only through real suffering can you learn life’s lessons.”
“What’s the other one?” Darwin wanted to keep him talking. “You said there were two.”
“Think about it. You might get it on your own.” He turned away.
“How long do you plan on leaving me down here? You know the FBI will be looking for me. I walked out of that hospital without telling anyone.”
Yuri started up the steps.
“How long?” Darwin shouted.
“As long as it takes. At least three to four months. We have to let Arkady feel that the heat is off him. He needs to get comfortable again so he’ll make a mistake.” Yuri’s feet were all that Darwin could see now. “Even after I find him, I will wait, I will have patience, then I will take him out and the Italians and the Triads will be there to witness the execution.”
The door opened and Yuri stepped away.
“Isn’t revenge sweet?” he yelled down and slammed the door.
Chapter 6
The sun dropped and the basement descended into absolute darkness. Darwin slept fitfully, dreaming of Rosina and what could’ve been.
He stayed on his stomach to avoid adding pressure to his aching back and he peed in the dark, listening to the urine hit the water for aim, knowing it was still red.
Being in a glass prison cell was confining, but Darwin felt strangely liberated. All night long, in the absolute darkness, he didn’t feel a single twinge of phobia. Nothing of his old habits surfaced. Just three weeks ago he would’ve banged on the glass until his hands were bloody stumps and probably lost his mind with rage.
When light seeped through the basement window in the morning, he paced the small room, his mind racing through options on how to get out of this situation.
There was really nothing he could do. For the first time since this nightmare began, he felt truly paralyzed. The man with the dirt-filled sock was huge, more than double Darwin’s size. The next time he came to visit Darwin, it would be to add more pain into his day.
It was survival of the fittest after all.
With two hired gunmen brought in to back the big guy up, there was no hope.
What about Rosina? If Arkady had her, what were the odds she was still alive?
“Is this what it’s all come down to? My wife dying at the hands of a ruthless gangster and me being beaten to within an inch of my life to teach me what? How to die?”
He stopped pacing and stared through the glass walls. The basement was empty. There was nothing on the floors, nothing stashed in the corners, nothing suspended from the bridging in the ceiling. It wasn’t a normal basement filled with scattered furniture or junk.
On the far wall, there was a door that looked like it would lead to a wine cellar or a cold room. He had nothing he could use as a weapon inside the cell. The mattress was a very thin piece of foam without springs. The toilet had no seat and no working back. It was simply a porcelain circle with a button on the backside by the pipe that flushed the water. It reminded him of toilets he’d seen in Italy.
No tools, no weapons, no hope.
“What the fuck am I going to do?” he asked himself in frustration.
No one answered. He watched the sun ris
e by the brightness in the basement and guessed the hours as they passed. All he had was time to think, which wasn’t going too well.
If he knew Rosina was dead, what would he have to live for? To always be hunted by Mafia animals? To never be left alone?
