Mafia Trilogy 03 - The Scythe

by Jonas Saul

  The door opened and John stepped back inside the room.

  “He’s on the phone. As soon as his call is done, he said I could cover him for a bathroom break.”

  “Okay.”

  “That gives me a chance to tell you about a case we had five years ago.” He paused, cleared his throat. “A stupid man, who didn’t realize what he was doing, threatened Yuri in front of his soldiers once.”

  “And.”

  “They grabbed his wife at home and poured sulfuric acid on her face, burning her eyes out. The twenty-four-year old model’s face turned to a wrinkled, burned up glob. As far as I know she committed suicide a year later after plastic surgery failed to allow her to go out in public again.”

  “Brutal. Horrible. How is it men like Yuri aren’t in prison or dead?”

  “That’s not all.”

  “What?”

  “Part of the man was found in a field in Hamilton and the other parts were found in his car’s trunk.”

  “You mean they dismembered him?”

  John’s face hardened. “Not exactly.”

  “Then what?” Darwin stopped bouncing and sat in the chair.

  “About thirty pounds of flesh was cut off the man while he was still alive. Before that, a blowtorch was applied to his face and his genitals. After burning his cock and balls off, they shoved them inside his burned mouth. He was suspended to the side of a barn with wire where he was blinded by the blow torch and tortured for several days before they finally shot him fifty times. All that because he threatened Yuri.” John leaned against the door, a hand on his stomach. “This is what they do.”

  “Then maybe I should walk into the restaurant and kill him. He deserves to die.”

  “Sure, but then you spend the rest of your life in prison.”

  “Might be better than spending the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.”

  “You won’t survive prison. The Mafia has the prison system sewn up. You get inside for offing Yuri and you’ll be knifed within the first week.”

  “Thanks for being so bleak. You’re a pal.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Coming,” John said. To Darwin, he said, “Are you sure?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  John slipped out the door. A moment later, Darwin heard John’s knock.

  He opened the door.

  “You’ve got maybe four or five minutes. Staircase is over there.” John pointed to the exit sign.

  Darwin walked by him, hit the stairs and made it to the main floor without encountering anyone. He opened the stairwell door slowly and stepped out. The hallway was empty, the gift shop already closed. He walked toward the exit sign where the emergency doors led outside.

  Once outside, he fluffed his hair up and kept his head down as he walked, and sometimes limped, south on University Avenue toward Queen Street.

  He was quickly lost in downtown Toronto’s evening foot traffic, but one thing kept nagging at him.

  Why would John, an RCMP officer, carry brass knuckles on him? Could that be part of their police inventory, like handcuffs?

  Something told Darwin it wasn’t.

  Chapter 4

  Darwin passed Yonge Street and continued along Queen, moving slower, his right leg cramping. He leaned against a building to rest. Then he hobbled over to a bus stop and sat on the bench, leaning his shoulder against the Plexiglas shelter.

  The night air was almost still, a soft breeze rustling the leaves of the small city-planted trees. A horn honked somewhere. Someone who had too much to drink hollered in the distance to his left. A tire squealed.

  The sounds of the city.

  He breathed slowly and focused on what he needed to do.

  “I have no fucking idea,” he said to himself.

  There really was nothing he could do. How could he walk into the Russian Mafia’s restaurant and take his wife, their guest, out with him? How many men would be guarding Yuri? How many men would be outside watching the door for law enforcement types? This was hopeless and useless.

  But this was all he had. Rosina was all he had. Knowing she would be in the restaurant, half a block from him, he had no choice. Nothing could keep him from walking through that door.

  God had kept him in one piece so far. He only needed this one more play.

  He collected himself and got up. As he shuffled down the sidewalk, a young couple passed him, laughing. He longed for moments like that with Rosina. It had been a while since they shared a laugh together. Rome a few months ago? The safe house in Florida?

  He remembered their wedding day and yearned to hold her like he did that night.

  A wave of anger coursed through him and caused goose bumps to rise on his arms. Ever since their honeymoon, the Italian Mafia and now the Russian Mafia had been trying to kill them. He had been forced to kill people to stay alive. The things he’d seen would never leave him. He was scarred for life, as was Rosina.

  “No more,” he said as the restaurant came into view.

  The front window was lit up with bright lights from the inside and a neon open sign shone in the top right corner of the window. No one milled about the front door. He’d expected a Russian Mafia type in an expensive suit standing guard.

  He studied the area. Three people walked east along Queen Street and one man walked toward him on his side of the street. Other than that, the walking traffic here had died down and Darwin didn’t see anyone else within a city block.

  Cars drove by, but nothing looked out of the ordinary.

  If John’s source was accurate, which Darwin was willing to bet he was, Yuri would have no reason to expect Darwin to show up. Which probably meant Yuri would treat tonight like any other night, not expecting trouble.

  As John said, what could the cops do? The restaurant was probably legit. The guests inside would order food, eat, and leave. Everything looked as normal as it should be, but Darwin wouldn’t become complacent.

  Yuri had to expect trouble if he was harboring Rosina Kostas. She was supposed to be in Florida, tucked away in a safe house, but that safe house was recently attacked and a federal agent was killed and another shot.

  Darwin stopped across the street from the restaurant.

  Wouldn’t the cops want to talk to Rosina? Get a statement of what happened in Florida?

  Why would John say there was nothing the authorities could do?

  Unless Rosina wasn’t here and this was all a ruse.

  Could John have sold me to the Russians?

  Doubt stopped him. He reached back and touched the brass knuckles in his pocket for reassurance. It had been almost two weeks since he’d had to fight. He couldn’t keep risking his life. It made him think of the stitches in his scalp which started to itch.

  Won’t they be pissed that I walked out of the hospital?

  He smiled as he slipped the brass knuckles on his right hand. It felt good, bolstering his resolve.

  He was ready.

  He stepped out of the shadows. Two Toronto police officers walked along Queen Street toward Yonge. They would pass the Russian restaurant before Darwin got there.

  He waited.

  They got closer. To his surprise, they stopped, opened the door of the restaurant and walked inside The Russian Quartet.

  “Thank you, God. That’s perfect.”

  No one would touch him with cops inside the joint.

  He waited for vehicles to pass and hobbled across the road, his legs feeling much better. He just hoped he wasn’t too early and Yuri wasn’t there yet. One of Yuri’s men might recognize Darwin. Would Yuri show up with Rosina if that happened? Probably not.

  What does Yuri Pavel look like anyway? He chastised himself for not asking John such a simple question.

  He made it to the window and stopped to peek in past the small white curtain on the inside. The place looked like any other restaurant. A waiter served an older couple halfway down by the end of the bar. Darwin counted ten people, plus the two cops and the
waiter. Couples occupied three tables. Three other tables had single men ranging in age from early twenties to fifties. The one in his fifties faced the front of the restaurant reading a newspaper. The bartender was talking to the police officers. They laughed. It looked like one of the cops told a joke.

  Near the back was a small stage with speakers and a small drum set arranged in the middle for the performers.

  Rosina was nowhere in sight.

  She could be in the bathroom, but he doubted it. If Yuri was the man sitting alone reading the newspaper—he actually looked Russian—it was clear he hadn’t come with any sort of security.

  Everyone had a plate of food. The waiter walked through a door that appeared to lead into the kitchen. Everything looked absolutely normal, although Darwin had no idea what a traditional Russian restaurant was supposed to look like.

  He checked to see if anyone approached on the sidewalk. It was empty but for two men on the other side of the street walking away from him.

  Back in the restaurant, one of the cops had disappeared.

  Darwin decided to go in, walk toward the back and take a seat in the corner. He would order something small and wait. And watch.

  If John’s source was correct, Yuri Pavel would enter the restaurant at any time with Rosina, and Darwin would make his move.

  Whatever that is.

  The door chimed as Darwin entered the restaurant. The bartender looked his way and nodded, then turned back to the cop.

  Darwin wondered if the cops were looking for him. Would John have told anyone where he was heading?

  Too late now.

  He moved through the tables, past the bar and the cop, making sure the brass knuckles remained hidden behind him, and kept moving toward the back. One of the couples looked up at him as he passed, but no one’s eyes lingered.

  The Russian-looking-newspaper-reading old man didn’t stop reading.

  At the back, he sat facing the front of the restaurant.

  Before the waiter could come to his table, the other cop exited the bathroom, met his partner at the bar and together they headed for the front door.

  Good, they’re not here for me.

  At the front, the men moved apart. One of them turned off the sign and pulled down thick black shades over the window.

  What the hell is this?

  Everyone in the restaurant got up and walked toward the front.

  What the fuck is going on?

  He broke into a full-body sweat.

  The couple closest to his table had left their plates piled high, beverages full.

  Adrenaline flooded his system. His stomach dropped and his hands shook. He clenched his already sweaty palm tighter on the brass knuckles.

  The only person still sitting was the old Russian man, his back to Darwin. The fork clinked against the plate and he continued to eat.

  When the shades were pulled down on all the windows, one of the cops locked the front door.

  Darwin couldn’t make it past the dozen people congregated near the front if he ran. He hadn’t seen Rosina yet. He didn’t come here expecting this.

  How much of this was planned? Did John Cavendish call ahead? That sneaky feeling that John sold him out crept up again.

  “It’s a Darwinian world out there, isn’t it?”

  The old man set his fork down. Darwin couldn’t tell what the man was eating. The man, who Darwin assumed was Yuri, dabbed at his face with a napkin.

  “Come, sit with me. It’ll be easier to talk that way.”

  The crowd at the front dispersed. Most of them walked through the doors that Darwin assumed led into the kitchen. The two Toronto cops moved behind the bar where they began to take their shirts off. Both of them dressed in black turtlenecks.

  They’re not cops …

  “Darwin. Don’t make me ask you again.”

  He looked at the back of the man’s head. He had picked his fork up and was now digging into his food again.

  Paralysis kept Darwin rooted to the chair. He didn’t want to move until he saw Rosina. He had no idea what to do now.

  One of the fake cops walked out from behind the bar. As he did, he pulled a hairpiece off his head and smiled at Darwin. His sleeves were rolled up, displaying an array of tattoos. Darwin recognized him instantly.

  Miklos.

  The man who attacked Darwin after Darwin had knocked one of Arkady’s soldiers that day in the warehouse.

  Miklos was Arkady’s crazy bare-knuckle fighter. Where was Arkady, then? He had to be close.

  Miklos approached. “Nice to see you again, Darwin.” He cleared his throat. “Yuri never asks twice for anyone. That is going to cost you.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “We didn’t get to finish what we started in the warehouse.”

  Darwin stood and bumped the small table aside with his thigh. It moved a foot and then settled. Miklos stepped even closer, crowding Darwin. He was imposing, exuding violence. Miklos craned his neck sideways, cracked it, flexed his fingers, cracking his knuckles too. Then he hopped from his left foot to right and back again.

  Before Miklos could take the first punch, Darwin swung his arm up and connected with Miklos’ cheek, the brass knuckles slamming home on solid bone.

  The violence oozing off Miklos dropped by half as his skin split and squirted blood. He stepped back and touched his cheek, his eyes wide in surprise. Darwin took the moment to advance and hit him again.

  Miklos lost his balance and fell backwards over a table. Darwin pounced, punching him over and over, letting all the pent-up rage out.

  Arms grabbed Darwin from behind and lifted him off. He struggled but they held firm. At least three men secured him and lifted him to his feet.

  Miklos stayed still on the floor, his face a bloody mess of flesh and ruined bone. Darwin caught a glimpse before he was hauled away and thrust toward Yuri’s table. The brass knuckles were ripped from his bloody hand as the men walked him around Yuri and then turned him to face the man.

  Yuri raised his face, still chewing. He set his newspaper on the table by his plate and gestured with his fork at the empty chair. The men pushed Darwin down and let go.

  Darwin adjusted himself, righted his shirt and settled into the chair. The three men moved behind the bar. The people who Darwin had thought were patrons had all disappeared except for the three men behind the bar.

  Yuri looked back at his plate of pasta and dug in as if Darwin and him were old pals catching up over a bite.

  Darwin rubbed his knuckles. Everything was intact. He touched the stitches in his head and was happy to discover they hadn’t popped.

  “We have business to discuss,” Yuri said.

  Darwin shook his head. “No. We don’t.”

  Yuri put his fork down, dabbed at his mouth with a white napkin and leaned back in his chair. He roamed his eyes over Darwin, checking out his shoulders, his arms, and then finally, he met his eyes.

  “I was expecting something a little different.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  Yuri’s mouth twitched. It looked like he wanted to smile but decided against it.

  “You’ve created quite a name for yourself.”

  “How much did you pay Officer Cavendish to sell me out like this? Tell me, how much am I worth?”

  “That’s none of your concern. But what is of great fucking importance to you is Rosina.”

  Darwin whacked the table with his fists. “Where is she?”

  The men behind the bar jumped out and approached. Yuri waved them off.

  “If you want to see Rosina alive, you’re going to remain calm and listen. Can you do that? Or would you like to die now?”

  Darwin didn’t respond. He removed his hands from the table and placed them at his sides.

  “Good.” Yuri moved his plate, setting it on the newspaper. “I have a proposition for you, but first we talk.”

  “What kind of proposition?”

  Yuri brought up his index finger. “First we talk.” He lowered hi
s head and raised his eyebrows. “Understand?”

  “Talk fast.”

  The men moved back behind the bar.

  “You have somewhere to go?”

  “I haven’t killed anyone in a few weeks. I’m getting the itch.”