by Jonas Saul
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 s
tashed 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 rise 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?
It broke his heart to think of Rosina dead, but he needed to rationalize his reality. If she was alive, then Darwin getting beaten, starved and deprived of freedom for months, only to be used as bait for Arkady, was not helping her.
The only way to get back to her was to not be down here in this prison.
But how could he get out?
What worked for him in the past was going crazy. For some reason when someone lost their mind and became unpredictable, people became wary or they did something rash.
The risk of serious injury or even death rose. But without trying something insane, staying behind, rotting in Yuri’s personal gulag was going to kill him. He was better off dying on day one with a chance at freedom than enduring months of slowing dying and no chance of freedom.
Also, he was at the strongest he would be right now, before they starved him and beat him further. His escape attempt had to be the next time anyone opened the glass door. Anytime after that, he would be weaker and sorer.
Now that he had the time arranged, he needed to figure out the method.
“I’ve got the will,” he said out loud. “All I need is the how.”
It took him over an hour to figure out the how, and even then it was a slippery proposition, but he had nothing else to work with.
All he had to do was wait for someone to open the glass door.
The sun peaked, then headed farther west. After a time, it dipped. The light in the basement dimmed. Then it was black again.
Yuri said he was heading to Florida last night. He didn’t leave me alone in the house, did he?
He used his hands to feel along the wall to the toilet. Once there, he knelt down and lowered his head. After cupping water, he drank. Then drank more.
Once his thirst was sated, he stood and urinated.
Could there be something I can do with the toilet?
He thought about breaking the toilet off its mounts, but there were four large bolts at the back secured tighter than his fingers could undo.
After urinating, he flushed the toilet.
Maybe he could flush the toilet continuously. Or plug it with his shirt and fill the room with water.
What would happen if he was unsuccessful? His mattress would be soaked and his shirt would stink. Yuri would be pissed and probably kill him as soon as light another cigar.
But it was worth a try.
Maybe the water would short out the electrical in the house, thereby releasing the magnetized glass door to his prison.
Worst case scenario was he caused Yuri’s home to be damaged before Yuri killed him. Best case, he escaped while everyone was away for a week.
There hadn’t been a single noise from anywhere in the house all day.
He removed his shirt and balled it up. After feeling his way to the bottom of the toilet, he jammed the shirt in the small hole and placed his thumb on the flush button.
One more drink from the non-contaminated water and he was ready to go. Maybe only fresh water would pour over the rim, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
He pushed the button. The water rushing into the bowl had nowhere to go. He waited, then flushed again.
The bowl filled and seeped over the edge.
He flushed again.
Then the unexpected happened. Due to the increased weight of the water and the force of the pump on the inside of the toilet bowl, his shirt got sucked through the hole and disappeared.
He heard it suck and pop through. Using his fingers to feel the level, the water was leaving the inside of the toilet bowl rapidly.
Only a little had made it over the edge where he sat on the floor.
“For fuck’s sake.”
He got up and slid out of his jeans. In his socks and Uomo underwear from Italy, Darwin balled his jeans up and jammed them in the bottom of the toilet.
“I’m coming for you, baby,” he said to Rosina. “We’ve been through worse.”
He got down and flushed the toilet, feeling the bowl fill. He flushed again. Then again.
Soon, water filled the floor around him. He flushed and flushed. After every three or four flushes, he felt the jeans to make sure they weren’t moving. Then he flushed again and again.
Renewed power coursed through him. Tears rolled over his eyes. Energy filled his muscles. He was escaping. He felt it and drank it in. Whatever happened after this, he was leaving the basement of the Russian Mafia, whether he was walking out on his own power or in a body bag.
Any other option was too depressing.
It would seem he was flushing for hours before the water collected to a couple of inches on his underwear where he sat against the glass wall by the toilet.
He flushed one more time and then felt his way to the door.
As far as he could tell in the dark, the water seeped under the door and through cracks around the base.
He slapped the glass. “Damn.”
It would take days to fill the prison, weeks to fill the basement. Water needed to get as high as the electrical panel. Usually basements had drains for water-heater leaks or laundry rooms. Even if the water started to fill the basement, it would simply drain out.
Nothing he had done was working. He’d lost his shirt and his jeans were soaked.
The toilet stopped after his last flush.
The silence was intense after spending over an hour constantly flushing the toilet.
“Rosina, I’m sorry.”
He had nothing else to go on, nothing else to do. No one was here and all he had was the toilet to keep him company. The sound of hunger pains twisted his stomach.
He felt his way along the wall to the toilet and sat down beside it.
He flushed it.
“So that’s how you feel, eh?”
The toilet answered with gurgling noises.
“Do you think I can survive this?”
He flushed.
“That does not sound promising.”
He flushed.
“Will Arkady die soon?”
He flushed.
“Now we’re talking. Thank you. How about Yuri? Is he coming up for execution?”
The toilet responded with a luxurious flush.
“Will everyone who wants to kill Rosina and me die?”
The toilet flushed twice.
“I like talking to you because you have all the right answers.”
The flushing continued, the toilet not willing to offer more than that.
Water pooled around him.
Darwin fell asleep on the floor, lost in despair, blood from his wounded kidneys coloring his underwear as he contemplated what death would feel like.
Chapter 7
Darwin woke with an ache in his neck. His back cried out where he was whacked with the sock the day before and his head throbbed.
Why the hell did I sleep on the cement floor in my underwear?
Last night came back to him in a rush. He looked around in the dim sunlight coming through the basement window. A lot of the water had moved to lower parts of the uneven floor and pooled there. His underwear and
socks were damp.
He got to his feet and stretched, moaning as his tight muscles protested. He needed to urinate but didn’t want to use the full toilet as it was still jammed up with his jeans. He walked over to the door and pissed on it, yawning.
When he was done, he stopped and listened. The house was silent.
