by Jonas Saul
He eyed the man and squeezed the trigger twice. Then he squeezed again and again. The girl in the store screamed behind him. On the last bullet, the man fell like he tripped over something.
Darwin started after him, walking. Running earlier in the underground parking lot of the hotel had hurt like a bitch. He had felt it when he’d settled into the car. Only now was it subsiding. He couldn’t risk injuring himself further.
He recognized the man from when he entered Yuri’s restaurant. The defiant fake cop.
Darwin leveled the empty gun and made sure the tip was pointed at the man’s crotch.
“You wanna lose your dick?” he asked.
“What? No!”
Blood trickled out of small wound on the man’s ankle. From that distance Darwin was surprised he’d hit him at all.
“Tell me where the meeting is taking place tomorrow.”
“Fuck you. I tell you that and I’m dead.”
“You don’t tell me that and you’re dead.”
“Then kill me, because I will not snitch. Ya nechevo ne znayu!”
“What does that mean? Speak English.”
“It means I don’t know anything. I’m not a stukatch, a snitch.”
At the girl’s voice, he turned to check that she wasn’t going to shoot him or club him over the head. The weapon she held was a cell phone. She was calling the police.
Having to run from the police all the time is starting to piss me off.
“You will sing when I get finished with you,” Darwin said.
“Fuck you.” He spit at Darwin.
Darwin wiped the glob off his cheek. Then he tossed the empty gun away and brought out both scythes in a smooth motion.
The woman screamed for Darwin to stop.
The man pushed with his one good foot, trying to edge away from Darwin like a stuck worm, but it was no good.
Darwin sliced down by the bullet wound and then again on the man’s other leg.
He howled and rolled onto his stomach to avoid the blades.
This was a high-traffic area of North York and he couldn’t afford Joe Public wandering back here wanting to be a hero. The back parking lot was still empty except for the Russian store clerk standing ten feet away, phone in hand, crying and shouting for Darwin to stop.
He brought his attention back to the man on the ground.
“You’re losing a lot of blood,” Darwin shouted to be heard over the clerk and the man’s own wailing. “Tell me what I want to know and I walk away. They will never know it was you. Don’t you think they will kill me when I show up at the meeting?”
“I will never tell you,” he shouted as he rolled over onto his back again.
Darwin brought a scythe up close to his face and held it there.
“Last chance. I’m done fucking around with you lot.”
The crazy man spit again. The store clerk screamed.
Darwin sliced through the man’s cheek, gouging the scythe across and out at the edge where his upper and lower lip connected, giving him half a Glasgow smile. For a brief moment, before the blood started to flow, Darwin got a peek of the side of the man’s dirty teeth. His stomach tumbled and almost let go, but he steeled his resolve and got ready to cut again if he needed to.
“Where are they meeting?” he shouted.
“You’re too late,” the store clerk yelled beside him, her face a mask of tears, her nose running. “You’re too late.”
The man wrapped the side of his face with both hands as blood poured out and around Darwin’s knee.
“Why am I too late? The meeting is planned for tomorrow.”
The clerk shook her head.
“Tell me what you know or this guy gets cut again.”
“Don’t,” the man under Darwin tried to say. “Don’t tell him nothing.”
Darwin smacked him. “Shut up. She’s trying to save your life.” Then he turned to the clerk who now hopped from one foot to the other. “Just please don’t hurt him anymore.”
“Fine. Tell me about the meeting.”
“It’s set for today,” she said. “They’re about to meet right now.”
Could Agent Williams have the wrong intel? Didn’t he say he got the information from the RCMP?
“Why did they move the meeting up?” Darwin asked.
“They moved it up because of you.”
“What? Me? Why?”
“We don’t get told everything.”
“Shut up!” the man below Darwin shouted. The corner of his mouth flapped when he talked, challenging Darwin’s stomach to stay calm.
“I’m The Scythe and I’m pissed. Don’t interrupt us again.”
“You’re not The Scythe,” the man said.
The girl’s eyes widened. She looked at the blades in Darwin’s hands and then at his face.
“It’s true …” she stammered.
“Tell me where the meeting is being held, or this man dies.” Darwin placed one of the scythes against the man’s neck and applied pressure, but not enough to cut.
“They’re meeting at the golf course,” the clerk said.
“What golf course? You’re full of shit.”
“It doesn’t matter.” The man adjusted his hands, trying to keep the blood in his face. “You’re too late.”
“It’s a sunny day in July,” Darwin said. “Any golf course in this area would be filled with golfers. How could they have a private meeting with that much attention? Stop lying and tell me where Yuri is.”
Darwin was beginning to hate the sound of police sirens. Every time he was dealing with something, they showed up and tried to thwart him. The sirens squealed in the distance, creeping closer.
“Tell me the truth,” he said to the clerk. “What golf course?”
“They are having the meeting at High Hills Golf Club in the convention center. It’s a private facility, any time, day or night.”
“You’re not shitting me?”
“No, seriously,” she said. “Just don’t cut him anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the man said. “You show up, the lookouts will see you a mile away. You’ll be dead on the first tee box.” He spit blood. “There’ll be eighteen holes all right—eighteen holes in your face.”
A cop car rounded the corner in front of the complex, announcing its arrival with a long squeal of its tires.
“If you’re lying,” he said to the clerk, “I will come back and burn this complex to the fucking ground with you tied up inside.”
“I’m not lying,” she pleaded. “Just go. Leave us.”
“Goodbye, asshole,” Darwin said. He moved to get up but slipped on the blood. The scythe wasn’t more than a foot away from the man’s throat when he fell back, the scythe dropping to where it was a moment before. Only this time it cut into the Russian’s neck as Darwin’s weight fell back on it. He couldn’t stop its downward angle until he caught his balance, but it was too late. The scythe rested on the man’s spine.
“Damn that’s sharp,” Darwin said.
The clerk went hysterical, screaming and running for the back of the store.
“The world is a better place without scum. Sorry, though, I was actually going to walk away. It’s all fun and games until someone loses a neck.”
Darwin got up and moved away, jumping behind a dumpster. Just as he suspected, the police car came around the end of the corner of strip mall and raced toward the back of the building. The cop parked right in front of the garbage bin, got out and ran to the dead Russian.
Behind Darwin was an eight-foot fence. Too high to climb without being seen.
The cop was radioing in for backup from his lapel radio. The Russian girl from the adult store came out the back door and motioned for him.
“He was just here a minute ago,” she yelled at the cop, a Kleenex in hand.
“We’ll get him, ma’am. He can’t be far. I have backup en route.”
Darwin felt trapped. He couldn’t move and staying here meant they would discover
him shortly.
The girl went back in the store. The cop knelt by the body.
Darwin waited until the cop talked into his lapel mic again. It was his only chance, otherwise, he would have to hurt a cop to escape and he wasn’t about to spend time in prison for hurting a cop, too. Any jury would sympathize with him about the Russian Mafia, but not a cop.
The tinny sound of someone talking to the cop was loud enough for Darwin to hear a man say he was three minutes out.
Darwin jumped from behind the garbage bin, stayed hunched over and ran around the back of the idling cruiser. How far could he run if he didn’t have a car? How would he get up Highway 50 and make it to High Hills Golf Club with a hole in his side if he didn’t have a car?
The decision took no time at all. He jumped inside the cruiser just as another siren could be heard in the distance. Without shutting the door, he dropped it into reverse, hit the gas and drove backwards as fast as he could, trying to get as much distance from the cop as he could before the cop decided to use his sidearm.
With his eyes barely over the seat watching where he was going, he was pretty shielded when the first bullet that hit the windshield.
Then another hit.
Darwin spun the wheel hard and almost got tossed out the open door. He held the steering wheel tight to stay inside, tearing at the wound on his abdomen.
He screamed and waited for the car to stop spinning. When it did he was aimed at the street, the passenger side facing the cop who stood with both hands on his gun, legs wide.
Darwin dropped the car into drive and hit the gas as a bullet entered the passenger window in the back seat. Then he was past the building and free of the cop.
The radio in the car picked up non-stop chatter. He heard something about a stolen police car, but then he was on Finch Avenue and heading toward Highway 400.
Have I completely lost my mind? This is so out of control.
He searched the dash until he found the button for the lights and siren. It was challenging to see through the windshield as the cop’s bullets had caused two holes and concentric lines throughout.
He slowed at red lights, but otherwise kept his speed up to eighty miles an hour or more until he hit the highway heading north that would take him to the golf course. He knew exactly where it was. He’d golfed there many times.
The sun beat down on his side of the car, warming his arm. Air rushed in through the holes in the windshield with a high-pitched whistle that could be heard over the rushing air coming through the broken back window.
He swerved around slower moving vehicles, making good time with hell on his tail.
He never felt so free.
Chapter 18
He couldn’t pull up in a police cruiser and expect everyone to lay down their arms and send Rosina out. The FBI was sure the meeting was taking place tomorrow. There was no backup and no one knew where he was. He felt lost with no idea how to get in, get Rosina, and get out alive.
But he kept driving because there was nothing else he could do.
The bullet wound was bleeding again. It seeped through his new hoodie, darkening the front with a small stain. A minor amount, but it still concerned him.
After turning off Highway 400, he drove along a concession road to get to Highway 50, which would put him on the outskirts of the High Hills Golf Course property.
He cut the siren and the lights and slowed to the speed limit. The wind and whistle inside the car dimmed with the speed but the police radio kept up its chatter. As far as he could tell, they had no idea where their stolen police car was. He had also picked up that the domestic disturbance at the adult store on Finch had led to one deceased male, Caucasian.
Didn’t mean to do that. Being in the Russian Mafia wasn’t a good career move.
He slowed the cruiser and pulled off the road a few hundred meters from the fence line of the course. A long driveway led down to a farmhouse. He started down it a little ways, then pulled in between two trees and drove the cop car off the lane and into the brush as far as he could go.
He turned the car off and popped the trunk. When he got out, all he could hear was the cooling of the car. No noises came from the house. In the distance, he heard the sound of a golf cart somewhere. This area was far enough from the city to be almost silent.
He walked around to the trunk and looked inside. A case of water sat on the left beside a small box of protein bars.
“Wow, this guy was prepared.”
Darwin grabbed a protein bar, ripped it open and took a large bite. He opened the water and drank two bottles while eating the bars. For what he was about to do, he would need the energy.
In the middle of the trunk sat a long metal gun box. Darwin could only surmise what was in the box but it was locked.
He searched the car for keys for the gun box, but couldn’t find them anywhere.
They must be still on the cop.
He ate another bar and shoved two more into his pockets, plus a bottle of water.
Then he walked away from the car. He still had both scythes on him and one gun from the Russians, even though it was empty. It would have to do.
He walked through the brush to the driveway of the farmhouse, then followed it to the road. A couple of cars passed him as he headed to the side of the golf course, but no one paid him any attention.
At the fence, he tossed the last protein bar wrapper away and jumped over. He pushed through the thick shrubs and came out slowly on the other side. He didn’t want to be seen by any golfers who were close by.
The green of one of the holes backed onto the wooded area he hid behind. It had to be a par five. He couldn’t even see where the golfers would tee off from.
He had to wait until a golfer came along. He only hoped it was soon. For Rosina’s sake.
It took just over five minutes before he saw his first party of four. They took their shots, hopped in golf carts and drove closer. Then they shot again from the edge of the green and got ready to putt.
It was a foursome, playing slow because the twosome behind them was already waiting to play for the green.
All four men were discussing something that happened last weekend. Darwin tuned them out, stayed low in the bush, and waited for the twosome.
He checked his wound. It had stopped bleeding again.
He lay down slowly so as not to break a twig or make any noise, trying to find a more comfortable position to wait in. The foursome was still putting, which started to work on his nerves.
What could they be doing to Rosina? Where was she right now and was she even alive still?
Then he thought about the intel the FBI had. What if the meeting really is set for tomorrow and the girl lied to him? If that was the case, then Darwin was shit out of luck. He was about to storm a golf course pro shop and convention center with his limited weapons to find an empty building and probably end up in jail.
He smiled. I’m lying out flat on a golf course again, just like a few days ago when they found me after escaping Yuri’s house of madmen.
Except this time it would be Darwin who was going to do the terrorizing.
He was clear on what he had decided. The only way out of this was to kill as many of them as he could. The justice system didn’t stop guys like this. They killed without regard, and so it was the only way to deal with them.
He knew this was a lost cause, but as long as he was breathing, there was nothing left for him to do. They had killed the old Darwin and Rosina when they hunted them down in Rome so long ago.
The foursome finished up. Two of them high-fived each other as they walked to their cart.
They forgot to put the flag back in. One of the twosome standing a hundred yards back from the green waiting to hit up yelled at them.
The heaviest of the four turned and saw the flag on the green, ran over and plunked it back in place.
“Sorry,” he yelled and waved.
One of the twosome took a couple of practice swings and then stepped up to
his ball.
The green was at a lower elevation. He misjudged the shot. The ball hit the green near the back, bounced once and then shot into the bush, landing ten feet in front of Darwin.
Perfect. It couldn’t get any better.
When the twosome got up to the green, the man who shot into the bush, grabbed his putter and an extra ball, and headed toward Darwin.