by Jonas Saul
Darwin rolled his tongue around his mouth and found all his teeth were still intact.
“You had stitches in the back of your head from some kind of wound that looks to be about two-weeks old. Any idea what that’s from?”
Darwin shrugged and pain accompanied it. Shit. “Maybe, that’s why I can’t remember anything. Maybe I had a brain injury.”
“Maybe,” the doctor said. “We should know who you are soon enough, though.”
Shit, shit. “Good. Did I have any ID on me?”
“No, just underwear and socks.”
“Then how can you help me remember who I am?”
“We took your prints and photo and sent it in this morning. We would have done it yesterday when you got in, but the emergency department was full. There was a large bus accident out on the highway. Two tour buses collided right outside of here. We had fifty people show up in emerg twenty minutes after you rolled in. We cleaned you up and left you to sleep.” The doctor moved to the door.
“How long before they get back to you with who I am? I mean, what if I have a wife, kids. They could be worried about me.”
From the doctor’s expression, he clearly wasn’t buying it. “I’ll hear back from them later this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve got rounds to do. If you think of anything, buzz the nurse. She’ll page me. When I know more, I’ll come back and see you.”
Darwin nodded.
The doctor stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. He didn’t lock it. Darwin was free to go.
Yeah, if I can walk.
He tried to get up, but lay back down as pain shot through his abdomen.
“Fuck, didn’t they give me any Demerol or morphine?”
He tried again, gritting his teeth against the pain. Once he was sitting on the side of the bed, his head spun. He closed his eyes and waited for it to go away. He slid off the bed and touched his feet down gingerly, in case he was stepping onto wounds from the glass.
He couldn’t believe how lucky he had been. He was no longer the pudgy Canadian boy the Mafia first encountered on that side road out by the abandoned airplane hangar so long ago. He was a man now. His innocence had been torn from him and the void was filled with determination and anger. He was pissed off with what they had done to him and his wife, and he was determined to hunt them down until this nightmare was over.
Nothing would stop him now. Bolstered by his escape from the glass prison in Yuri’s basement, he realized that nothing could stop him.
Yuri was in Florida because he thought Arkady was down there. That meant that Darwin needed to get down to Florida as soon as he could.
Maybe he could locate Carson Dodge and enlist him to use his resources to help find the Russians.
But first he needed to get out of this hospital. Then he would figure a way to get to Florida.
He walked across the floor, favoring the pain a little. It wasn’t too bad once he got up and walking about.
In the closet he found a pair of track pants and a T-shirt.
They probably grabbed it out of lost and found.
The pants were a little tight but they fit okay.
Shoes? They have to have shoes.
He couldn’t find any.
He used the bathroom, splashed water on his face and wet his hair, styling it a little. The bruises on his cheeks were dark purple and made his cheeks puff up like a twisted clown’s idea of macabre makeup.
Disguise wouldn’t work. Nothing he could do would cover the condition his face was in. He turned slightly and saw the stitches at the back of his head had been removed.
Thanks, Doc.
He moved to the door, trying to walk as normal as he could. It felt good to be out, to be free.
Maybe when this was all over and he and Rosina were living in Italy or Greece, he would write his memoirs.
This kind of stuff never happens to anybody, he thought. It’s stranger than fiction.
Dressed in blue track pants and a white T-shirt with nothing on his feet—they must have discarded his ruined socks—Darwin opened the door and walked out into the corridor as if he had just been here visiting someone. Although the bruises and bandages that covered his hands could give him away.
No one tried to stop him as he headed down the hall. He went through a door that led to the stairwell, descended a floor and walked down that corridor.
At each room, he slowed enough to look inside. Finally, he found what he was looking for, and it was far enough from the nurse’s station that no one would see him enter.
He stepped in fast and stayed as quiet as he could. The room had two beds with only one occupied, a man who snored softly in his sleep.
He walked around the old man and picked up the shoes he had spied from the hallway. Black dress shoes.
Why the hell do you have dress shoes in the hospital?
Maybe he came in with them on.
Darwin checked the size. They were perfect. He slipped them on, tied them up and tested the fit. Satisfied, he walked by the old man and almost got to the door when he noticed the old man was watching him.
“Hi,” Darwin said. He stopped, smiled and waved. “I’m the night janitor. Had last night off because I was attacked in a back alley.” He gestured at his face. “Anyway, thought I forgot something in here. Sorry to wake you.”
The man smiled and Darwin slipped into the hallway.
Now he walked with more purpose. His feet felt better with the protection of the shoes.
At the elevator, he pressed the down button. It came a few seconds later. No one tried to stop him but he knew it was only a matter of time.
On the ground floor he walked out toward the front, passed the gift shop on the left and kept walking. Then he stepped out into the sun and started down the sidewalk.
The air was clean and warm, the afternoon sun heating Barrie up.
He had no money, no ID, and no idea how he was going to get to Florida.
But he had his freedom and he had hope.
And no one knew where he was.
Darwin walked on, not missing a step.
“I’m coming, Rosina. Hang in there.”
Chapter 9
Darwin walked south toward the lake, then headed west through downtown Barrie until he located the soup kitchen. With his bruised face and bandages, wearing track pants and a T-shirt, he was exactly what they would expect to walk in and ask for food.
He paused at the open door. The tables were half empty. Disheveled men in various states of dress were eating. They all had facial hair and smelled so bad he could barely detect the scent of the soup.
He walked past the tables to the counter. No one bothered to ask him if he qualified for the free offerings. The young volunteer behind the counter looked Darwin up and down, grabbed a bowl, filled it with soup and handed it to him.
Darwin reached for a spoon. Beside the utensil container sat a pad and pen where someone had been writing a list of supplies. A few inches from the pad sat an iPhone.
As Darwin grabbed a spoon, the male volunteer turned to his associate in the back and raised his eyebrows, no doubt at Darwin’s appearance.
While the man’s attention was diverted, Darwin grabbed the phone as well as the spoon and turned away. He slipped it into the pocket of the track pants and sat at the table closest to the door where he ate as fast as he could before the owner of the cell phone discovered it missing.
A man wearing a long blanket draped over his shoulders got up from his table and shuffled toward the door. As he got close to Darwin, the cell phone in Darwin’s pocket rang. On the second ring, the female volunteer from the back ran up to the counter where the pad of paper still sat.
“Where’s my phone?” she asked out loud.
It rang again.
Darwin stood and fell in behind the man in the blanket.
“Hey!” the girl shouted.
Then Darwin was outside. The man turned left,
Darwin right. At the corner the ringing stopped. He ran half a block and ducked behind a wall. He waited, then edged out, crossed the street and started north.
He pulled the phone out and called information, asking for the Jacksonville Bureau of the FBI.
Once he was connected, he asked to speak to Carson Dodge.
It wasn’t so long ago that Darwin had saved Carson’s life in front of Gambino’s sprawling mansion in Florida, an exploit that involved a World War Two German tank and a gun armed with rubber bullets.
Carson Dodge owed Darwin.
Actually, you owe me your life.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the receptionist said. “But Special Agent Dodge is unavailable at this time. Can I direct your call to someone else?”
“My name is Darwin Kostas. Locate Carson, whether he’s in the hospital or not, I don’t care. I will call back in ten minutes from this number. I have left the hospital in Toronto. The feds are looking for me. I will only talk to Carson. Only Carson can bring me in. Make it happen. You’ve got ten minutes.”
Darwin clicked off. He kept walking north toward the highway. He had no immediate plan and no idea what to do next. Without his passport, how would he ever get back into the States? Hitchhike? Stowaway on a ship crossing Lake Ontario into New York?
The phone rang in his hand. Local number. He ignored it.
At the next corner he checked the time on the phone. It had been at least eight minutes. The owner of the cell phone could easily call their service provider and have the phone shut down at any second. He couldn’t risk that so he called the FBI back a few minutes early.
The same woman answered.
“Darwin Kostas calling for Carson Dodge.”
“Please hold.”
There was a moment of silence. Darwin waited at a streetlight with a couple of teenagers. The light changed and he crossed amid the constant stares at his bruised cheeks.
“Carson here. Who’s calling?”
“Darwin.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fuck you.”
“Darwin’s dead. He died in an explosion in Toronto.”
“Wrong.”
“Even if he made it out of that building, he’d be scarred and all fucked up, skin grafted a thousand times. But that doesn’t matter because Darwin is dead. My own Bureau told me that and I was the lead on his case.”
“I’m scarred all right.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Prove it,” Carson said. “Make me believe I’m talking to Darwin.”
“I saved your life at Gambino’s.”
“Anybody involved in the case would know that. Don’t tell me facts. Tell me something only I would know.”
“You’re an asshole. I’m sure you know that.”
“If Darwin is alive, he’s a ghost come to haunt me. Prove you’re him or I hang up.”
“How?”
“Text me a picture of you.”
“To what number?”
Carson gave him a cell number.
“Hold on while I take the pic and send it.”
Darwin pulled the phone away and took a picture of himself, then hit the share button and, once in iMessage, typed in the phone number he’d memorized from Carson. After hitting send, he brought the phone back to his ear.
“Got it?”
“Hold on a sec.”
Darwin waited.
“Holy shit.” There was another pause. “What happened to you?”
“Too much.”
“Where are you? They said you died.” Almost to himself, he added, “Why would they lie to me?”
“I’m in Canada.”
“Can you be more specific? That’s the second largest country in the world.”
“First we talk.”
“About what?”
“How are you doing?” Darwin asked. “They told me you were in a hospital after getting shot.”
“Idiots who attacked us shot me in the eye I don’t use, adding to its ability to never be used.”
“You okay, though?”
“Yeah, got a bullet in the hand that’s missing a thumb, making that hand even less useful. It was like they wanted to maim me lightly by shooting me where I already had a deficiency.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah, weird.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Do you know anything about Rosina? Like where is she?”
“The last I heard, she was with Arkady—”
“I heard that, too. And Yuri Pavel is on his way to locate Arkady.”
“Yuri? You know about Yuri Pavel? How?”
“I just spent the last couple of days as his honored guest in his basement. A man he calls The Scythe kept me company, as evidenced by my face.”
“Holy shit. What the hell kind of trouble did you get yourself into?” He gulped. “Are you sure it was The Scythe?”
“That’s what they called him. Why?”
“The Scythe was rumored to be dead after a gun battle a few years back. Gut shot something awful. No one has seen him since.”
“Must be the same guy. He has food issues now. He’d be dead if his gun had held one more bullet.”
“How the hell did you get away from Pavel and Scythe? That’s impossible. When men met the Scythe, they only left in pieces.”
“It was food.”
“Food?”
“Yeah, Scy can’t handle food now—some kind of phobia after being gut shot. They found me covered in peaches, strawberry jam and pickles on a golf course near Barrie. That’s how I got away.”
“You call him Scy? You guys that close?”
“Look, Carson, I need to be picked up. Get someone you trust and have them pick me up. Bring me in. I need clothes and food. Then we’ll go get Rosina together wherever she is.”
“Where will you be?”
“I’m in Barrie, Ontario, just north of Toronto.”
“Okay. The best bet is to get to a helipad at the main hospital. I’ll have a chopper come pick you up.”
“Wow, you’ve got some clout.”
“Just be there. But I won’t be taking you to Florida.”
Someone shouted behind Darwin. He turned and saw the iPhone owner from the soup kitchen following him with two friends.
“Hey, you,” the girl shouted. “I want my phone back or I will call the police.”
They were far enough away that Darwin had time to finish the call.
“Why not Florida?”
“Because our sources confirmed yesterday morning that Arkady is hiding in Toronto and he has Rosina there.”
“Bullshit. Yuri had his own people on the streets trying to find Arkady. He told me a couple of days ago that he was heading to Florida to find Arkady himself.”
“Yuri never crossed the border. I’ve been following the case from down here. Yuri is in Toronto. Apparently there’s a huge sit-down happening in two days between Yuri, the Italians and the Triads. Arkady will be somewhere in the shadows and Rosina won’t be far behind.”
“Why would Rosina be there?”
The girl and her friends were getting closer. Darwin walked away from them.
“Only Yuri knows you’re alive and he’s keeping those cards close to his chest. The rest of them think Rosina is the last of the Kostas troubles and want her present as an offering of peace.”
“You mean a sacrifice.”
“The authorities in Canada have every intention of stopping that.”
“No, I have every intention of stopping that. Look, Carson, I gotta go.” Darwin ran as the girl and her friends were only twenty feet away now. “Pick me up at the helipad. When are you coming?”
“I was leaving the hospital today but I don’t know when I can get away. I’ll see what I can do from down here.”
“Have your guys take me in and brief me. Will that work?”
“Done.”