Violet Darger (Book 4): Bad Blood

by Vargus, L. T.

  The room was nearly empty, furnished only with a couple of chairs — the ones the two men now sat in — and a TV that rested on a built-in desk opposite the seats.

  The TV flickered blue light on the floor, images of game shows flashing on the screen. At first, Jaworski wondered why this empty factory would have power, but he figured they’d probably be doing some demo on this lot soon, and the construction crews could use access to power, depending on the specifics.

  And of course, the mafia was probably lining their pockets with any major construction deal going down around here. Rocco’s crew remained deeply tied to that, industry-wide. They might as well use the building for the other side of the family business until then, right? Any evidence would get reduced to rubble in a few days. Razed to the ground and paved over.

  Marasco had been tasked with watching Jaworski — “babysitting the Polack,” he’d called it when he whined about getting stuck with the chore. The others left on some unknown errand, Rocco included.

  Jaworski felt relief in a physical sense — the immediate threat had been thwarted. Rocco broke his drill bit and left the premises. He would be back at some point, armed and ready to do more damage, but Jaworski could at least breathe in the meantime, his chest no longer shuddering involuntarily as jolts of pain wracked his body.

  Sorrow sapped any joy out of that relief, however, a heaviness settling over his heart. A pall shrouded his world, thicker and darker than the death hood had been.

  Urszula. He needed to get word to her, to tell her to leave town, to disappear for a while. He thought he could make that happen, if everything went just right. But they could never be together after this. He’d have to sacrifice that dream once and for all, sacrifice everything.

  Blood pulsed out of the hole in his knee. Drizzled down his leg. The joint had gone hot. Fevered. Pressure built there as well. Already swelling, he figured.

  His head hurt just as bad as the knee, that image flaring again in his imagination — patches of cranium exposed where Rocco had ripped his scalp and hair away.

  But even through the pain, some muted version of triumph persisted in Jaworski’s chest, a flutter near his heart. They’d left him alive, injured but capable. He still had a chance. So long as there was breath in his lungs, he still had a chance.

  For now, though, he would rest.

  He didn’t think he would sleep — didn’t think he could — but he wanted Marasco to believe he was out. Let him get bored, get restless. With luck, he might be able to use the fool’s impatience to his advantage later.

  He let his head loll down onto his chest. Closed his eyes. Drifted as far away from here as his paranoia would let him.

  * * *

  After what felt like a long, long time, Jaworski lifted his head. Opened his eyelids to slits.

  The blue light still shimmered on the floor before the TV screen, the only light in the room. Marasco flipped through channels, but it was that weird part of the morning when nothing good was on. Unbearable daytime talk shows. Reruns of subpar sitcoms. They only picked up eight channels with the little rabbit ears, anyway, so he cycled through snippets of the same few things them over and over, sighing heavily now and then.

  That probably meant the restlessness was building as anticipated. Good.

  Jaworski assessed the damage to his knee now that some time had passed. Pretty bad. The words “bored out” sprang to mind when he stared into that hole next to his kneecap, an open wound about the size of a fifty cent piece. A sliver of white — the edge of the patella, he thought — protruded from the top of the opening. Rounded bone, bright white like it’d been bleached.

  And the rest of the joint was all hot now. Bloated and strange and tinted red.

  The blood still oozed out, too, though thankfully it had slowed. The perimeter of the wound seemed to be scabbing over, going gummy and drying a little.

  His scalp, on the other hand, killed worse than before. Sharp pain. Opened up. He couldn’t see it, so he could only picture the damage based on the pain — disgusting open wounds, angry red patches, perhaps mottled with pink.

  The blood trailed down from those as well. He could feel it on his temple and cheeks, slowly going dry. Jesus, he probably looked like something out of a horror movie.

  “I have to shit,” Jaworski said, his voice so raspy it sounded more like croaked syllables than words.

  He cleared his throat and tried again.

  “I have to shit.”

  Marasco stared at him now, a thin smile quirking his lips.

  “Good for you,” the mobster said.

  Jaworski exhaled through his nose, a loud puff of air exiting him.

  “Can you wheel me to the bathroom?”

  Marasco’s smile broadened, two rows of little teeth and big gums laid bare.

  “Sorry. Not gonna happen, Polack.”

  “I’m cuffed, and I have a fucking snake hole in my knee. About three inches of a drill bit still lodged in there.”

  “So?”

  “I can’t run. I can barely walk, probably.”

  “Uh-huh. So what? Why should I care?”

  “So you want me to shit my pants?”

  “Hey, knock yourself out, pal. Only takes one Polack to shit his pants. Pretty sure about that one.”

  Jaworski took a breath.

  “If I shit myself, you’re the one sitting here smelling it for however long. I’m guessing a few hours? You probably don’t care about that. I’ll probably just pass out again, so I guess I don’t care that much, either.”

  Marasco’s grin morphed into a sneer. He closed his eyes.

  “Christ on a fucking cracker.”

  The anger didn’t drain from his face as he stood.

  “I guess let’s go to the fuckin’ ladies room. Piece of shit.”

  He pushed the wheelie chair across the office. Stopped just shy of the bathroom door where he knelt and unshackled Jaworski’s ankles. Now he drew his weapon from his belt — a Desert Eagle that looked gigantic at the end of his withered arm.

  He ticked the weapon toward the bathroom door.

  “Gotta walk the rest of the way. On your own. I’m… I mean, this is as far as my help goes, OK? I’m not changing any fucking diapers.”

  Jaworski stood, leaning a palm against the wall for balance. The bad knee throbbed upon being straightened — pain firing like rockets that shot all through his lower half.

  Again, the world darkened. His jaw clenched. His chest sucked in a big breath, ribcage fluttering at the apex.

  After a few breaths, he limped into the little bathroom.

  Clear juice squished out of the hole in his knee. It looked like grease cooking out of a hamburger patty on the skillet in more ways than one.

  He lifted the lid of the toilet, making sure to be noisy about cracking it into the tank, that little porcelain thunk echoing off the concrete walls.

  Marasco closed the door behind him to just a crack.

  “How can I sit on the toilet with my arms behind me?” Jaworski asked.

  Marasco snorted.

  “That’s for you to figure out, smart guy. I ain’t helping you wipe neither, so don’t even ask. You got me?”

  Jaworski waited a moment. Heard Marasco pad back to his chair in front of the TV, muttering to himself.

  As soon as he was alone, Jaworski leaned against the sink and slid his legs through the cuffs to get them in front. It killed to get the bad leg through, made his whole body flail involuntarily, every muscle in his abdomen arcing, another spinal reflex. He panted, practically hyperventilating from the pain, and the darkness closed tighter around him this time, turned everything black and white, threatened to pull him under.

  He balanced himself again, this time on the sink. Waited for the color to leech back into the world before he risked moving again. Fresh sweat sheened all over his body.

  But he got it. Hands in front now. Better. He stretched his arms and shoulders, which were stiff from all that time locked behind h
im in one position. Sore as hell.

  Now he needed a way out or a weapon. A plan of attack.

  He scanned the room. Didn’t see much. It was a standard office bathroom — one toilet and a sink. Cinder blocks formed the outer wall, a small glass block window set up near the ceiling, cemented in place — no hope of escape there.

  He checked the lid of the toilet, could possibly bludgeon someone with that, but it was already cracked in half. He might be able to get one good swing out of it at very close range, but in a gunfight, it wasn’t ideal.

  He looked inside the tank in hopes of finding a brick in there. The toilet was bigger and older, and he knew cheap people sometimes used bricks to lower the flush volume.

  Nope. Just rust-colored water.

  Shit.

  He could rip the towel dispenser off the wall. It was small and flimsy-looking but better than nothing.

  And then he saw it.

  A broken spot on the outer wall. Cracks running a zig-zag pattern down from the corner of the glass block window. Loose cinder blocks there, some partially jutting out.

  He wedged his fingers into one of the openings, tried to grip the thing. It was awkward with his hands still cuffed together, and the hole in his knee didn’t help his ability to balance any, either.

  He worked the block back and forth. Sliding it out an inch at a time. Concrete grating against concrete. Little gritty sounds that reminded him of video game sound effects.

  And hatred clenched like a fist in Jaworski’s gut as he worked. Ultraviolent fantasies projected movies on the inside of the curved front of his skull like it was an Imax screen.

  Blood. Guts. Blunt force trauma. All of it smeared on that screen in his head.

  And lower than that, in his subconscious where the murky feelings lurched and spit, where shapeless things roiled in the darkest places, where a red tide surged and throbbed and flooded him.

  A rage that blinded. Waves of hatred. Liquid fire poured into his brainpan, sloshing all around.

  His mouth hung open. Breath hot on the back of his front teeth. Heaving in and out.

  Now the block fought back. Caught on something. Harder to wiggle back and forth.

  “Everything all right in there?” Marasco called from just beyond the door.

  Jaworski froze for a second before he answered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, hurry up. Christ.”

  Jaworski held his breath until his jailkeeper’s footsteps trailed away again.

  Now he yanked the cinder block with more force. Ready to finish this.

  The concrete rectangle plucked out of the wall, the blocks around it sagging and shifting just a little.

  He tested its weight in his hands. Flexing his arms at the elbow. Heavy, but yeah, he could handle this.

  And now electricity thrummed through his core, throbbed in his arms and legs, prickled on his skin. Cold current that ordered him to kill, seemed to propel him forward without thought, without choice. What happened now was automatic. Instinct. Akin to a reflex or muscle memory, even if those were impossible here.

  He slid out the door. Soundless even on one foot.

  His eyes locked onto the back of Marasco’s head some nine paces off. And that rounded dome covered in dark hair was everything in this moment. The only thing.

  He moved that way. Everything in slow motion. Lifting the block over his head as he closed the last gap.

  And he felt the moisture collecting on his brow, in his armpits, along the stretch of skin where his neck and back met. Felt that cold current coursing just behind his eyes. Felt those shapeless things thrash in his subconscious, aching now to express themselves, to express their strength in the real world, to paint their picture on a canvas of flesh and blood.

  Jaworski planted on his bad knee for just one second, thrust his whole body into the downward stroke. Hips and abdominals exploding in a violent thrust. Arms flung with abandon.

  Marasco turned a beat too late.

  The cinder block bashed straight down on the top of his skull as though attempting to pound his spine into the chair like a nail.

  And Jaworski felt the crunch. A crumpling of broken bone. Something giving in his skull straight away.

  Marasco twisted as he fell, landing on his back. Eyes staring up at nothing. Chest still heaving for now.

  And little mews came out of his mouth. Wet little kitten sounds. The sounds Joey Crampton made after the hammer cracked his head open. He was dying, broken, suffering, and Jaworski loved it. He fucking loved it. He lived for this. These violent moments when his power was real. The only time it ever was.

  He sank to his knees, endured that blinding beat of the pain in his leg that swelled up to almost knock him out.

  And he bashed Marasco’s head in with the block.

  Smashed his face until everything from the forehead down was flat and purpled with bruises. Unrecognizable.

  And Jaworski glowed inside and out. Exultant in the violence. All of his pain numbed for this moment. Body tingling instead. Almost a religious experience.

  Five brutal strokes. Pounding slaps. Wet and heavy.

  When he finished, he hunched over the body, chest heaving, mind blank.

  The features were mostly gone now. Shrouded in purple folds. Blood spritzed out of what must be the nose in three pulses and then stopped.

  Good.

  Good.

  One down. Three to go.

  But he had one loose end to tie up first, didn’t he?

  Chapter 56

  It was almost evening by the time Darger left the riverside crime scene where they’d discovered Huettemann’s car. The day had been warm, and the lot was dusty. She felt crusty with dried sweat and dirt and was looking forward to washing off the grime of the last two days.

  She pulled into the motel lot and climbed out of the car gingerly, careful not to put too much weight on her ankle. Luck was right, it wasn’t broken. It had felt significantly better that morning, but after standing around on it for most of the day, it was aching again.

  She limped down the sidewalk to her room, slid the key into the lock. As she closed the door behind her, the room went pitch black, even though it was still light outside.

  The drapes were closed. This thought filled her with unease.

  It was a moment before she realized why.

  The drapes had been open this morning when she awoke. And she’d left in such a hurry, she definitely hadn’t shut them.

  Her heart fluttered until she considered that housekeeping might have closed them for some reason.

  But there was something else. A smell. Something sour in addition to the mothball scent she’d come to expect.

  Her hand flailed at the wall in search of the light switch while she pondered these things in the dark. Just as her fingers brushed the switch plate and flicked on the light, she sensed movement behind her.

  Before she could whirl around, a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt clamped over her mouth.

  “Don’t scream.”

  She’d never heard his voice before, but she didn’t need to turn to know it was him. Jaworski.

  His voice was deep and gravelly, but somehow not harsh. He smelled like ammonia.

  His hand slid around to the holster strapped to her hip and removed her sidearm.

  He pushed her toward the bed, not ungently.

  “Sit.”

  She sat.

  When she finally got a look at him, she almost gasped. He was not in good shape. One of his eyes was swollen half-shut, and it looked like his nose was freshly broken. There were two bald patches on the side of his head, and the scalp was bleeding. A ragged hole in his pant leg was crusted with dried blood.

  She almost felt a twinge of sympathy for him. Almost. But he was a hired killer. Cold. Mechanical. She supposed you could say that at least he didn’t enjoy it the way a serial killer did, but he must enjoy some part of it, to make this his chosen profession. Whether it was the money or the power, she didn’
t think it mattered all that much. He killed — perhaps not for lust or sport — but he killed all the same.

  All the while, her mind raced to figure out what she might be able to use as a weapon. He wasn’t actually pointing the gun at her. She might be able to take him by surprise and get her weapon back.

  He seemed to read her thoughts then.

  “You can stop trying to find a way out. I’m not here to hurt you. I need your help.”

  She raised an eyebrow. So she was a hostage, was that it?

  “OK. How can I help?”

  “I have information. In exchange for protection.”

  Her heart started beating a little faster. It wasn’t fear now. It was excitement.

  “What kind of information?”

  “I think you know.”

  She tried to play it off like she only half-cared.

  “How do I know this isn’t some kind of trick? The federal prosecutor will want to know what you’re bringing to the table before he offers you a deal.”

  Jaworski seemed to literally chew on this for a moment, his mouth moving like he was sucking on a piece of hard candy.

  “Where’s your phone?”

  “My what?” Darger said, trying to sound innocent.

  “Don’t play stupid. I know you got a cell phone. Give it here.”

  A giant upturned palm stretched out toward her. She removed her phone from her pocket and gave it to him.

  She imagined him crushing it into a fine powder in one of his Hulk-sized fists. Instead, he jabbed his finger at the screen a few times, then handed it back to her. He’d brought up a map of Detroit and marked four spots around the city.

  “What’s this?”

  “The location of five bodies.”

  “I only see four dots.”

  “There are two at the Clayton Street dump site.”

  “Did you—”

  He shook his head.

  “No. And I ain’t saying any more until I have a deal. In writing. When I have that, I’ll tell you who did the murders and how.”

  “They’ll want more than that.”

  “I know that,” he grumbled. “I’m just showing you that I mean business.”

  Darger crossed her arms. “They’re going to want Vinny Battaglia.”