by Saul, Jonas
“If it’s the bodies you’re worried about, don’t be. I own the funeral home across the street. Not sure if you would’ve seen the sign on the way in.”
“Markville Family Funeral Home. Yeah, saw it.”
“Good observation skills. I use that to get rid of all the bodies that I seem to be disposing of lately. Our private cemetery has so many burials it’s getting out of hand.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“You know, I’m not all bad. I’m a businessman. What we’re doing here is just business.”
Darwin nodded.
“I also have a collection of some of the most sought after World War II memorabilia. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t,” Darwin said. Why is he telling me all this if he’s going to kill us anyway?
“In a warehouse, just over there.” He pointed in the distance. “You can barely see the lights from here. I collect war machines and have them rebuilt as close to the original as I can. You wouldn’t believe it. I have a Japanese Zero, fully intact and able to fly. I have an American Hellcat and a P-51D Mustang that can also fly. I take them out to air shows once or twice a year. One of my favorites is the German Stuka I snagged off a dealer a decade ago. The wings on the Stuka are very cool. Too bad we don’t have the time to show you.”
One of the older women in her fifties standing on the checkerboard with no shirt on had edged off the board as Gambino had talked. At that moment, she turned and ran for the perimeter fence. Even though it was too high, she ran anyway, no doubt in search of a gate or some other way out.
Four guns roared at the same time. The woman’s back exploded in red and she was temporarily lifted off her feet, flying forward in a grotesque ballet routine. She hit the grass hard and bounced once before coming to a stop.
“Wow, that was exciting,” Gambino said. “We get a runner every so often during one of our games.” He turned to the group of men on his left. “Grab another pine box for her and bury her tonight across the street in our private cemetery.”
The men nodded and moved away.
Darwin felt his bowels loosen and his insides adjust. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take. Sure, he’d killed before, but that was life or death and in the moment of extreme anger. This was different. Sitting in a chair, staring at his wife mere feet away, and having numerous guns pointed at them as others were shot, with nothing they could do about it, was a form of torture.
Gambino turned to him. “Now, what was I saying? Oh yeah, my collection. The highlight is an authentic German Panther World War II tank. It still works great. I had it rebuilt and had new treads made and even armed it. Did you know that four, and sometimes five men operated inside those things? I always see myself being under attack by a rival family. I run for my tank and use it to repel the attack just as the Nazis did in World War II. I mean, I’d lose the house, but it’s insured. Pretty good, huh?”
Darwin nodded. It seemed that was all he could do. Gambino was putting on a show. Darwin could see how powerful and rich he was and how escape would prove futile. He could see that him and his wife weren’t just cornered; they were done. If Gambino didn’t have a change of heart, they wouldn’t see the outside of this mansion’s walls again. The only thing the mobster couldn’t take from him was hope, and he had that in abundance.
There has to be a way, he kept repeating to himself.
“But I have a buyer for the tank,” Gambino continued. “They’re coming by this week to pick it up.” Gambino looked down at his fingers and picked something out from under a nail. “I’m going to miss my panther. Maybe one day I’ll get another one.”
The players still stood on their required squares. The armed men stood around where needed, weapons at the ready. Rosina sat, hands shaking, and waited for her spoonful of cinnamon.
A door opened behind them. Darwin wanted to turn to see who approached them, but the gun on his temple forbid it.
“Ahh, here we are,” Gambino said. “The cinnamon.”
A man came into Darwin’s view carrying a small bottle of cinnamon and a tablespoon. He moved to Rosina and sat beside her.
“Rosina.” Gambino leaned on the front of his chair. “All that’s got to happen is, you take one spoonful of the cinnamon and swallow it. When you’ve done that, we’ll be able to move on. There will be no water. Are we clear?”
Rosina nodded.
“Okay, but I should warn you. Cinnamon, when taken like this, can feel a little spicy—even hot. So be prepared.”
Why is he sounding kind? Why warn her?
“Are you ready?” Gambino asked.
“Yes,” Rosina said.
Gambino nodded, and the man beside Rosina cracked open the safety seal on the bottle and poured cinnamon out onto the spoon. He handed the spoon to her, recapped the bottle and stepped away.
Something’s wrong. Do they know something about cinnamon that we don’t?
“Wait,” Darwin shouted. “Stop. Is there something you’re not telling us?”
Gambino looked at him sideways. “You are too late to ask for a reprieve. You should have taken your turn. There are consequences. The only other option is death. Take your pick.”
“Darwin, I’ll do it. Everything’s fine. It’s only a little cinnamon. Even if things go bad, I’ll swallow it and it’ll be over.”
Darwin could see her strength and loved her for it. But he could also see her nerves as the hand holding the spoon shook.
He nodded, fear enveloping his whole nervous system.
Rosina lifted the spoon. Her eyes locked with Darwin’s. In his eyes, he tried to convey his love for her and that he wouldn’t stop until they were far from this place.
She put the spoon in her mouth, cleared the cinnamon off it and handed the empty spoon to the man who had brought it out.
The entire back terrace and pool area fell silent. Everyone watched.
Rosina’s cheeks were puffed out like she was blowing up a balloon. Her eyes widened a little as Darwin could see her throat working to take on the cinnamon.
“This is great,” Gambino said. “I’ve always wanted to see what happens to someone who tries this.”
He sounds like a kid now.
Rosina’s eyes turned to distress. She looked like she was about to panic.
“Water,” Darwin said. “She needs water.”
“I said no water. Swallow it dry.”
Rosina coughed inside her mouth and then it appeared she couldn’t hold it in and opened her mouth to cough. A cloud of airborne cinnamon spewed out as she coughed again and again.
“That’s called dragon breath,” Gambino said. “I expected that.”
Rosina hacked and tried to catch her breath. Nothing seemed to be working. Dark clumps of wet cinnamon hung from the inside of her lips. Her face turned a deeper red as she leaned over, holding her stomach.
“I can’t sit and watch this,” Darwin said as he moved to get up.
Rough arms wrapped around his shoulders, the hands coming together behind his neck in a full-nelson maneuver, limiting his ability to move.
“Come on, give her water,” he shouted, his anger rising.
“Never. That wasn’t the deal. One spoonful of cinnamon, unaided.”
Rosina was coughing so badly now that Darwin wondered if she’d start to bleed internally soon.
What the fuck is in cinnamon that could make someone react like this?
Rosina fell to one knee. Darwin felt useless as he sat, half suspended by someone’s arms behind him, paralyzing any chance he had to go to his wife and offer comfort.
She started to crawl along the cement-tiled deck, coughing and gagging, droplets of brown cinnamon falling out of her mouth.
As she leaned up to get some air, her stomach let go. She vomited down her chin, onto her shirt and down the front of her pants.
As horrible and humiliating as that was, Darwin only hoped it dislodged whatever blockage was causing her to gag.
Gambino clapped h
is hands when she vomited and he started shouting ‘olè’ like a matador. In that moment, Darwin knew either he or Gambino would be dead soon, because he couldn’t live knowing Gambino was alive, terrorizing people.
Darwin cried as his wife crawled. He cried because he was powerless to save her and because it was his fault she was here in the first place. He struggled against the hands that held him, his vision clouding as his tears flowed untended.
As Rosina crawled on the cement floor, searching for an elusive breath, Gambino laughed. Many of his men laughed along with him. Darwin felt a violent anger deep down inside his soul. A desire so deep and dark that had been suppressed far too long. It oozed over him as his wife struggled.
The desire to kill without remorse. A desire to embrace hatred in his core. A desire to live up to the moniker, the Blade. Darwin realized he could do unspeakable things to Gambino and then go out for tacos and ice cream after.
He struggled again, almost loosening the hands behind his neck. Another man stepped in and drove a fist into Darwin’s stomach, punching the air out of his lungs. He gasped and struggled to breathe, stars forming in his vision.
After a few breaths, he saw what Rosina was crawling towards.
The pool.
When the guards realized it, they were too late. Or they hesitated too long due to the vomit covering her top.
Did you throw up on yourself on purpose? Smart girl.
Rosina hopped like a frog would, landing in the pool head first.
For a second, Darwin worried about her as breathing had proven difficult moments before entering the water. How was she expected to have enough air to be under water? Was she going to drown in front of him?
After what felt like way too long, Rosina surfaced and gasped. She coughed even harder and gasped again. Most of the cinnamon had washed away from her mouth area. Her shirt was cleaner, but still stained from the stomach acids. Her face had gotten some color back. To his relief, she was coming around. She just needed water and since no one offered a glass, she choose a little chlorine in her water—a life-saving move.
“Get her out of there and take her to one of the rooms to rest,” Gambino said. “Have the maid clean her up and clean up the vomit.” He clapped his hands.
The man holding him in a full-nelson released his grip and stepped back. Darwin spun toward Gambino and glared at him.
Gambino slowed his clapping until he stopped, both hands held together in the air.
“I see on your face that you would like to kill me,” he said.
Darwin’s gaze didn’t waver.
“There are a lot of people in your position. I make enemies easy. Friends prove more difficult to make.” He waved his arms wide. “But that’s what these men are for. To control the desires of my enemies.”
Darwin measured the distance and knew he could have his hands around Gambino’s throat before bullets stopped his heart.
If only they would pull a knife on me.
“Wasn’t that a show?” Gambino asked. “Didn’t you know that cinnamon doesn’t dissolve in water? It sounds easy to swallow a spoonful, but it isn’t. As soon as it’s in your throat it causes gagging—you want to regurgitate. It sucks all the moisture out of your mouth and clumps up. The risks are choking and an uncontrollable cough. I’ve even heard of people being hospitalized. One girl had a collapsed lung doing this same thing at home. It’s all over YouTube. I’ve just never seen it live before. Very cool,” he said, shaking his head. “Very cool.”
Armed men standing around him nodded and smiled. Two of them echoed his words about how cool it was.
Darwin waited. There would be a moment. Gambino would die.
“Now,” Gambino said. “Shall we continue our game?”
“No.”
“No? I’m afraid that’s not an option.”
“I will not play God. I will not indulge you with your sick and twisted game.”
“Okay. Fair enough. Johnson, Mackering,” he pointed at two beefy guards. “Line everyone up to go back to their prison cells.”
The guards stepped in and started putting everyone in a line near the back of the checkerboard where it met the grass.
“If that’s how you want it, you and I will move on to the next phase of our evening.”
“Which is?”
“You’ll see. Everyone, back to your posts. The game is over.”
What the hell?
The men surrounding Darwin stepped away from him. He sat by himself, the closest guard a few feet away and moving farther.
Gambino got up and started walking toward his house.
The Hernandez family and the Asians were being lined up.
Armed men formed a row opposite them.
Darwin understood what they were doing but it was too late for him to do anything. He felt a horror like nothing he’d ever felt before. Something changed on the inside. His will to kill intensified.
The six armed men brought their weapons down, aimed and released a torrent of bullets. Darwin fell out of his chair as the Hernandez family was wiped out. Every single human being in the line got hit. Only two stayed on their feet, bullet holes in their abdomens, gasping at the reality of what had become their end.
Darwin saw faces chewed up by the stream of weapon fire. He saw more blood in that ten seconds then he’d expect to see out of a dozen stuck pigs hanging upside down.
The remaining two men fell to their knees in unison in a twisted performance straight out of a Rob Zombie outtake, their faces adorned with the reality of death, their bodies the evidence.
Then they fell to the grass, one after the other, as dead as the rest of the fourteen people.
Darwin lost his fight with his stomach, vomiting in a spray that almost hit the shiny black shoes of the guard eight feet away.
“You wanted the game over,” Gambino barked from the door of his home. “It’s over. You ruined the fun tonight, Darwin Kostas. You also lost the game by forfeiting. Which means you don’t get your freedom.” He turned to face the guards. “Kill Darwin. Shoot him down like the fucking swine that he is.”
Darwin lunged from the chair, almost toppling it over. With each step he got toward Gambino, he felt it a victory. He knew his face was contorted. He knew and felt a certain kind of insanity. Yet there was a power to it, a liberating rush that propelled his feet.
He was still seven feet from Gambino when a hired thug stepped between the two of them, aimed his weapon and fired.
Darwin saw the recoil of the weapon before he shut his eyes. He felt the impact. It hit him in the center of the forehead less than an inch above his eyes, snapping his head back.
He didn’t get a chance to feel the second bullet as it hit him in the chest, a little left of center.
Chapter 8
The airport was too busy for the early evening. The hustle and bustle of travelers irritated Carson as he tried to get around people on his way to the arrivals screen.
He probably shouldn’t be carrying his unregistered gun in the airport, and he forgot the flight number Greg Stinsen was supposed to be on. All he remembered was the time.
He looked at the little digital clock on the arrivals screen and saw that whatever plane Greg was coming in on, it would’ve landed ten minutes ago.
“Shit,” he said as he pounded a fist into his open palm.
He caught a woman holding a child in her arms watching him, an expression of irritation on her face.
“What’s your fucking problem?” he asked.
Her face changed to disgust and she moved away.
Fucking bitch. You have no idea what my fellow colleagues and I do every day to keep you safe and we don’t get a thank you. All I get is dirty looks. Well, fuck you.
On the board, he noticed that international flights all deplaned and entered the airport in certain gates and domestic flights did the same. The three domestics were all coming in through gates D and E.
He ran off in search of gates D and E.
A small
kiosk sat near the gates, offering everything from books, newspapers, and gum, to toothbrushes, tiny reading lights, and travel pillows. He grabbed a Red Bull, paid and stood back by the gates to watch for Greg.
He’d seen Greg a couple times at the office over the past few months as Darwin and Rosina were processed and set up in their new home. Greg always reminded him of a goody two-shoes. Either that or he had an unusual love for the Kostas because everything had to be just right. He overlooked their setup down to every last detail.