by Jonas Saul
He turned around and looked at the toy section. Some of the items were so big, they looked humanly impossible to enter into someone.
“You need any help?”
Suddenly the clerk stood beside him. Darwin jumped a little.
“No, just looking.”
The clerk nodded and turned away.
“Wait. I gotta question. Do people actually use that thing there?”
“What, the Rambone?” the clerk asked, and looked back at Darwin. “Oh yeah. It’s one of our better sellers.”
“Wow. I’d assume after using it, the user would have to go in for surgery.”
“Not really,” the clerk replied, smiling.
The door chimed as the customer left the store. Darwin was alone with the clerk.
“There’s one more thing.”
“What’s that?” the clerk asked.
Darwin looked him up and down. He wore beige khakis and a brown T-shirt. His hair was unkempt and he smelled like he hadn’t showered in a few days.
The guy didn’t look like a fighter. Darwin would ask his questions, get the answers he needed and leave.
“I want to speak to the Fuccini boss.”
The clerk frowned. “Fuccini who? I don’t think anyone named Fuccini works here.”
“No, not someone who works here. The Fuccini family boss. I know this store is used as a contact point. Get him on the phone or send out a note. Do whatever it is you guys do, but get me in touch with him. Now.”
The clerk put his hands in the air and stepped back. “Okay weirdo, that’s enough. You can leave now. I don’t know anyone named Fuccini and I have no idea what you’re talking about when you say contact point.”
Darwin grabbed him with his right arm and tried to pull him back. The guy spun with lightning speed, both hands wrapped onto Darwin’s forearm. He lifted up, spun again in a circle, throwing his hands above his head without letting go of Darwin.
With his arm twisted like a windmill, Darwin had to bend and roll with it. Before he registered what was happening, Darwin was off his feet and flipping in the air. He landed hard on his back, the clerk still holding his arm.
The clerk’s foot came down onto Darwin’s chest and applied pressure.
“Are you that fucking stupid? Holy shit. You really are just some silly kid who got mixed in over your head. Boy, do I feel sorry for you.”
Darwin tried to twist away, but the clerk spun his arm to point where he thought it would break.
“Don’t try me. I’ll break your fucking arm.”
“What are you talking about?” Darwin asked. “You know me? You were expecting me?”
“After what you did at the hangar and then how crazy you were in Rome, everyone has heard of you. They hired me to sit here and see if you’d pop up. I had to serve all these asshole customers while I waited for you. I couldn’t believe my luck when you walked in.”
Darwin grunted from the pain. “You knew it was me?”
“I already called them. They’re on their way. A whole team of them. You actually got them scared. I looked at you and thought, this dude. No way. But they see you as some kind of killing machine. Cool, huh?”
“Yeah, real cool. Listen, ahh, could you lighten up on the arm a bit. It may break.”
“What, like this?”
The clerk released his arm, but both hands hovered an inch from Darwin’s arm. It was evident the guy wanted a fight. He wanted a challenge. He thought Darwin would try to yank his arm away, so it surprised the clerk when Darwin spun on the tiled floor and kicked the clerk’s feet out from under him in a classic foot-sweep move.
The guy was a serious pro. Even on the way down to the floor, he already had his arm coming out to attack Darwin when he landed.
As Darwin had thrown his foot out, he had reached into his pocket.
He aimed it just as the clerk hit the ground and attempted to elbow Darwin for his efforts.
Darwin shot a stream of bear spray, quite potent in the space of one foot from the container. The vile liquid entered the clerk’s mouth, nostrils and eyes as Darwin moved it around.
Darwin kept his eyes open only to a thin slit and held his breath while he sprayed.
The clerk tried to bring up his hands to ward off the attack, but ended up only swiping at his face and trying to roll away.
Finally, he stopped and rolled away himself.
He walked behind the counter, grabbed the phone and hit redial while the clerk still writhed on the floor, screaming about how it hurt so bad.
“Get me some water! Help me! Get it out!”
Darwin pressed the phone to his ear.
“Hello?” someone said.
“Fuccini?”
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“Darwin Kostas.”
He heard the gasp even over the clerk’s wailing.
“I’m coming for you. However many men you’ve sent to this beautiful emporium won’t be enough. Double it. Unless you want to make a trade.”
“I’m listening.”
“Me for my father.”
“I figured you’d understand my needs one day. My men will be there in five minutes. Go with them and we’ll release your father.”
“No. It’ll be done on my terms.” Darwin pulled the phone away from his ear and checked the number. It was local. He committed it to memory, recited it twice and put the phone back to his ear. “I will call you at this number in two hours. Answer the phone, and I will tell you what to do. Then I will surrender myself to you. Do we have a deal?”
The clerk wailed on. He’d made it to his feet, eyes rushing water, his face, beet red. He used the wall to find his way to the back of the store where Darwin figured there was a washroom.
“I don’t have much choice if you won’t go with my men. It is obvious that getting you to do anything will be a chore, so we have a deal. But if you don’t call me, I will rip apart your father with my saw, and I will do it personally, and then I’ll come—”
“There’s no need for your petty threats, you pissant. I know what you’ll do. Just answer the fucking phone when I call. Don’t disappoint me, Fuccini, or I might start to get really angry.”
Darwin hung up, walked past the crying clerk near the back of the store, and then out. He turned the car on, flicked on the satellite radio until he found Iron Maiden. As Bruce Dickinson sang about how many minutes they had until midnight, Darwin waited. He saw Fuccini’s men pull up and run into the adult store, then he pulled away.
He had the perfect spot to do the exchange. Fuccini would be pissed.
He also had a surprise for him.
No one would see it coming.
Chapter 16
Darwin drove to the abandoned hangar, parked a kilometer away and sat in the BMW as the sun began its drop behind the horizon. He had his bear spray, a new flashlight and a new portable cell phone. As soon he had picked the phone up at the Rogers store, he programmed Fuccini’s number in it and then Isabella’s phone number.
Those would be the only two numbers he’d need.
He laid his head back on the seat while he waited. Ten minutes remained before he would call Fuccini.
On the heavy metal satellite radio station, Stone Sour’s lead singer, Corey Taylor, screamed about being reborn.
How appropriate, he thought.
Deep breathing, controlled thoughts and a prayer were all he had. Rosina was out there somewhere with the FBI, men he couldn’t trust anymore. His father was in peril and many people would probably die in the next few hours.
All because of Vincenzo. All because of vendettas, revenge and a mistakenly placed example of honor. How did doing the right thing get so fucked up? Why did humans have to kill each other in order to survive?
He steeled himself to get ready, make the call. It had to be done.
His father was old, frail. Darwin knew his dad would die for his son. But it wouldn’t end there. Eventually Fuccini would catch up with him and Rosina. A month from then, a year, f
ive years. Fuccini wouldn’t stop. This was the only way. And if Darwin died, it was better than living with that threat over his head for another day.
Tonight, either Fuccini or Darwin would die.
He flipped off the radio and dialed Fuccini.
“Where?”
“The old abandoned airplane hangar in Buttonville. Bring my father. Don’t be too long, and you, personally, had better be here. I will not be giving myself up to a bunch of amateurs. I’m not a fan of the dark and the sun is setting, so hurry.”
Before Darwin hung up he could tell how much coming to the hangar upset Fuccini by his tell-tale gasp. The death of his son took place on the hangar’s soil. It would prove to be quite unsettling for Fuccini to visit the area.
But it was appropriate for two reasons. The shit all started here and it was the site of the Hangar Peace Accord. After tonight, there would be peace.
Darwin grabbed everything he needed, got out of the car, shut the door quietly and stepped away, but not before turning on the flashlight. He dropped the cell phone in his back pocket and the bear spray in the other pocket.
The walk to the hangar would take no time at all, but he wanted to walk the perimeter, walk down the road on the other side a little ways and see what was around in case he needed to escape fast.
He heard motorcycles in the distance.
Good. Right on time.
He smiled to himself as everything seemed to be coming together.
#
“How come it took me two hours of losing control, running through the neighborhood and knocking on people’s doors to get you to listen to me?”
“Rosina, you have done great harm here. That was a good safe house. We’ll have to sell it now. People will talk. You’ve cost the bureau a great deal of money.”
She looked out the car window as the exit for Newmarket raced by. They were on their way to Brampton so she could be with her parents.
Alfred had gotten a call with news, but said he had to wait exactly two hours before he’d hear more. Then, almost on the dot, his phone rang when they were already on the highway.
Apparently, the agents had felt that putting them together and pooling their resources on trying to track Darwin would be better than having Rosina an hour away in Barrie.
“Alfred, I appreciate how kind you’ve been. Trust me when I say that. But understand something else. I could fucking care less how much money I cost the bureau. The Federal Bureau of Investigation professionals have cost me a husband, a life. I’ve had my honeymoon ruined by the Fuccini family and now Darwin is out there, alone, because of the FBI fuck-up, and now the sun is setting. So let’s agree to disagree and just get me to my parents house.”
“Fine,” Alfred said, staring straight ahead.
She couldn’t wait to talk to her mother since she had actually seen Darwin. He’d been hard to pick out, she’d said, with what he’d worn.
My Darwin, she thought. Always fucking around.
An amateur at disguises, a man who just wants to read books, watch movies and eat nice dinners at fine restaurants. A writer. A Canadian white boy who loves Bob & Doug McKenzie and hockey, touts back bacon and cannot get enough of saying ‘eh’. Her husband. Her man. Lost out there, alone, trying to stay alive.
She would do anything for him as he had demonstrated the same to her. But she couldn’t help if she sat around a fancy house in Barrie, cut off from what was happening in Toronto.
She had to get back and she made a point of explaining that, albeit in a rash way, but effective nonetheless.
When she looked up and saw the sign for the 407 west, which would take them to Brampton, she was surprised to see Alfred merge, heading for the 407 east.
“Alfred, you’re going the wrong way.”
He ignored her. He didn’t say anything or even look at her in the mirror.
“Alfred, turn onto the west, not east. Brampton’s the other way. Alfred!”
The car missed the exit. They were now turning along the ramp that would take them east toward Scarborough and Pickering.
“Alfred!”
A Plexiglass window started to rise between the front and back seats. She reached out and grabbed the top of it, but no amount of force would stop its ascent.
“Alfred!” she screamed.
Rosina pulled her fingers out in time just as the dividing window hit the ceiling.
Both back doors audibly snapped into the locked position. She watched as Alfred reached forward and turned on the radio. Through the Plexiglass divider, she could barely hear Berlioz performing his Symphonie Fantastique.
“Alfred!” she shouted, banging on the Plexiglass. “Where are you taking me?”
He didn’t respond. She knew, wherever it was, it wouldn’t be good.
The hope she felt on the altar, days ago, for a life with Darwin, had many holes in it.
Her hope disintegrated and fell apart as the man in the front seat drove her to a meeting with fate that she’d rather take a pass on.
Chapter 17
Darwin had scoured the entire property as much as he could. More Harleys had arrived, but Richard H had all of them park well off the property and had everyone ferried in.
It had taken too long, but the job was done, according to Richard.
“We’re ready. My men know what to do. You better come through on your end.”
Darwin knew a threat when he heard one. He seemed to be getting so many lately that even thinly veiled ones were easy to detect. They didn’t have the effect on him they once had.
“Richard. I will write the book. I will promote it. I will make sure people know what I wrote about your bike club in my previous novel was fictitious and that this novel is the real thing, the real deal. We’re cool.”
Darwin held the flashlight at his face, aimed off a little so it didn’t bother his eyes.
“Biker gangs aren’t all about violence, extortion and drugs like the media portray us,” Richard said.
He stood there swinging a chain in his hand. He had a metal baseball bat leaning against the hangar wall behind him.
Yeah, right. Nothing violent about you.
“What you wrote in that other book caused a couple of our guys to leave the club. We got a reputation to keep.”
“I know,” Darwin said. “And I’m going to fix the damage I did. That’s why I called you. I just need you, as an extension of good faith, to help me with my problem here.”
“The only reason I agreed to do this was so that you could see, firsthand, how we handle problems like that Fucconi fellow.”
“Fuccini.”
“Whatever. Listen, is it true what happened in Rome?”
Darwin turned to him and lifted one eyebrow. “You know about Rome?”
“It was in the Toronto papers. Is that how you got that bandage on your arm?”
Darwin turned the flashlight on his arm. “Yeah.”
“Bastards. They actually took your woman and were going to torture her? Animals. You got a problem with a guy, you take him and make him eat dirt. You don’t fuck with the guy’s woman. Well, unless she’s hot. Then you fuck her, not fuck her up.”
Twisted logic, asshole.
He swung the chain around and wrapped it over his knuckles.
“You ready for what’s going to happen?” Darwin asked.
“Yeah, a couple guys in suits kidnapped your dad. We’re gonna get you and your dad to safety and then hurt them real bad. That’s it, right?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
Richard tilted his head back, his beard riding high on his thick chest.
“These guys in suits may have guns. They may shoot to kill.”
Richard nodded. “We got this. We’ve all been shot at before. But I gotta warn you, they start shooting to kill, my boys won’t leave them alive when this is done. You okay with that?”
“You have no idea.”
“No, what I mean is, are you gonna publish that? �
��Cause, you can’t really put murder in that book. It would fuck with our reputation again.”
“I know, I know. I got it. Everything in the book will go past you first. I won’t publish a thing without you approving it.”
