by Saul, Jonas
He used his right knee to plug the hole and lifted his shirt up. Once he got the bottom up to his neck, he heaved it over his head and pulled his arms out. Next, he reached above his head and brought the ends of the sleeves together, tying them in the tightest knot he could. Then he secured the bottom of the T-shirt to seal it over his head.
The fabric laid across his face, causing an even more claustrophobic feeling.
Man, am I happy I’m not claustrophobic. That would suck right now.
He pulled the shirt away from his nose and breathed in. Air traveled through the fabric with ease. He grabbed a hand full of dirt and dropped it onto the shirt in front of his mouth, testing its integrity. Not a single drop came through.
Perfect.
He released his knee from the plugged hole. As dirt dropped into the pine box, he used his hands to shovel it to the back and used his feet to push it into the far corners. He did this for what felt like an exhausting thirty minutes until he plugged the hole with his knee again to catch his breath.
When he’d researched phobias to get answers on why he couldn’t look at a knife like everyone else and why he needed to drive with the interior light on at night, he remembered seeing there was a phobia for being buried alive called, taphophobia.
“Fuck, am I glad I don’t have that one either.”
He collected his breath, counted to three and began displacing dirt again, thinking of the day he married Rosina in Rome. She was so beautiful. The church had been magnificent, and the people who witnessed the wedding were awesome. Everyone involved made them feel welcomed and cherished. He remembered thinking how happy he’d been to elope—to take Rosina to Rome and marry the woman of his dreams.
He dug upwards and moved the dirt as far from himself as possible. Soon the bottom of the coffin was getting so full that his legs were becoming stiff from the exertion and the inability to move freely.
It was almost time to attempt to stand. He began the arduous task of bringing the dirt up to and above his head. The work grew harder as his arms stiffened. He wondered how much dirt he’d moved. Would it be enough? Was the earth loose enough to push through and try to stand?
He would have to work fast when he broke the piece of wood in the lid out of the way. Dirt would fill the coffin fast. He would need to be ready and stand with determination, using his hands to pull dirt down below himself, constantly making a path for the top. Air would be an issue, but if he stayed where he was, air would be an issue soon enough.
Dirt now filled the box almost up to his waist. It sat packed to his triceps and up around his T-shirt-covered face to the top of the coffin above his head, leaving him enough room for his face to remain exposed to the little air left.
Now or never.
He grabbed the board where the hole was and pulled downward.
Nothing happened.
He pulled again, harder, but it didn’t budge.
“What the fuck?”
With both hands, he yanked on the wood, but nothing moved or broke off.
Oh man, I’m done. I’m fucking done.
In the dark, he felt his air waning. He gasped and tried to breathe in deeper. Small amounts of dirt trickled around his right knee. He rested his weary hands at his sides and waited for the nausea to go away. Throwing up in his T-shirt-covered face would be the end.
A wave of anger rolled over him. How could people like Gambino exist? What he did to the Hernandez family was unspeakable.
Making me die a slow death because I love my wife and want to protect her makes no sense. You’re a warped human being, Frankie Gambino.
He felt his anger, allowed it freedom and drew power from it. The darkness closed in again.
He raised his right knee as fast as he could and slammed it into the opening it had plugged only moments before.
Wood cracked and split.
Hope filled his sluggish brain. He did it again and again, feeling the dirt coming in around his leg.
He grabbed the broken wood and pulled a piece toward him. With the aid of the weight of the earth, the wood gave and broke in.
At the last second, Darwin breathed in a deep breath and struggled up, digging with his hands at a mad rate. He pushed with his feet and scrambled like a mole, making a path where one hadn’t been moments before.
In seconds, he was up on his knees and sitting outside the pine box, which came up to his waist. Dirt rested on his shoulders like the weight Atlas once carried.
He pulled his shirt away from his mouth and nose as far as it would go and breathed out. He breathed in again and coughed. Minute amounts of dust filled the small space. He knew the air inside his shirt limited him to mere minutes at best.
The small twigs or rocks scattered throughout the dirt, scratched him all over. He reached above his head and dug deep, pulling the dirt down and around him to fill the now half-empty coffin. He pushed hard with his legs and forced his body to stand. Using his thighs harder than they’d ever worked, Darwin pushed up and dug, breathing as little as he could.
Finally, standing in a referee touchdown pose, arms raised above his head, still buried in dirt, his right hand broke the surface first. He felt emptiness and wondered for a crazy second if he’d hit some kind of air pocket, but realized that his hand had dug up past the surface.
Pain wracked his body. He paused and breathed inside the shirt-mask as he did a mental inventory of the pain. His forehead wound ached the most. Second were his hands. He was sure he’d lost at least two fingernails as he had dug frantically. Scrapes and cuts littered his body. His shirt still sat above his head, the sleeves still tied, but below his neck, he was exposed. The nerdy shorts he wore only came to just above his knees. Below that, his shins were also cut and scraped.
Dizziness set in.
Air. I need air. I’m almost out.
He dug, but soon realized that he didn’t have anywhere to displace the dirt. Both hands broke the surface and started to toss dirt left and right, but it wasn’t quick enough.
His head remained buried approximately a foot below the surface of the earth, which might as well be quicksand. The dirt was so heavy around him that none of his body parts could move too well. His shoulders ached from the strain to the point where they felt like they’d been pulled out of their sockets.
He hadn’t lost his will now that he’d gotten so close. It was his strength he’d lost.
In the time that he stopped to catch his breath, there wasn’t any air left.
I need to break … the surface. Air … or die …
He struggled, his eyes closed, focused on the ground above him, but it was no use.
It wasn’t going to happen. Gambino would get his wish. And when they came in the morning and saw his hands sticking out, they would know he was a fighter.
In his oxygen-deprived brain, one last conscious thought hit him. The sides of the coffin were wood. They were strong and now supported by dirt on either side.
He opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness. He allowed it in. All the years of hating the dark. All the rage he felt when confronted with a phobia. He called upon that dark place inside him and used every ounce of strength he had left to lift his right leg onto the right side of the coffin wall. Dirt shuffled and moved as most of it was relatively looser down there, having been recently relocated.
Once his right foot was centered on the edge of the coffin wall, he placed his left foot on the opposite wall. He felt like an open-legged frog about to do some kind of funky dance.
He brought his hands back under the surface of the earth, placing them right above his head. Then he counted to three and pushed with his legs, with all the anger he could muster.
He used his hands to dig at the fastest rate they could.
With the added height of the coffin’s walls, Darwin’s head burst through the topsoil and into open air.
The dirt came to his chin. He quickly grabbed the T-shirt and ripped it off his head, breathing in the sweet air. He breathed in so fast,
he became dizzy as the glorious oxygen filled his lungs.
He didn’t move for at least ten minutes until he got his breathing back under control. He stood under the ground, buried to his neck in dirt, surrounded by headstones, and breathed.
His thoughts cleared. His muscles felt less fatigued. After a moment he began to dig himself out. Piece by piece, he picked dirt up and tossed it away. Then more dirt.
The whole time he chanted his wife’s name under his breath.
To get halfway out of the hole, he figured it had taken an hour. He kept digging. He wanted to go after Gambino before the sun came up.
He had a plan. One that he knew would work. Gambino would never expect it.
“I’m coming for you, Gambino. I’m back from the dead and I’m fucking pissed.”
Chapter 12
Carson and Greg stood in the headlights of Carson’s car. They sipped two large coffees as they watched Bob Freska’s body be removed from the hood of his car.
“I want this kid, Darwin,” Carson said. “He’ll have to answer for what he’s done.”
Greg stepped back and sat on the hood of Carson’s car. He took another sip of his coffee. “What makes you certain this is Darwin’s handiwork?”
Carson glared at him. “I read the kid’s file. I know him.”
Greg shook his head. “No, you don’t.”
Carson set his coffee down on the hood and dropped his arms to his side. “You’ve got some nerve.”
“I know Darwin better than any agent at the Bureau. I helped him with the Vincenzo fiasco. I was in Rome with him at the end and I was there for the Toronto attacks. That’s where I got these scars.” He pointed at his arms. “We were in an accident on Toronto’s main highway. So, I know Darwin better than anybody and especially better than someone who read his file.”
“Is this a competition?”
“Clearly it is for you.”
Carson studied him for a minute in the light of the headlights, Greg’s face slightly lit from the backwash.
“What about that cop who got killed in Rome? The report said time of death was estimated within an hour of the Harvester of Sorrow’s time of death. This nonviolent little boy can waltz into the Fuccini building, kill all the Fuccini hit men and the Harvester, but he can’t save a cop. Something’s fishy.”
“Maybe he got there too late.”
“What about the security cameras showing him leaving the airport in Rome and walking into one of Fuccini’s vans?”
“What about it?”
Carson stepped back and took a longer look at Greg. “Are you fooled by all this too?”
“I have no idea what you’re referring to. The Fuccinis hunted him. They followed Darwin to Rome because he accidentally killed Vincenzo and the Fuccinis wanted revenge.”
“I don’t buy that the Vincenzo thing was purely accidental. Fuccini wouldn’t travel the globe looking to kill one man. Too stupid and too risky.”
“He did though. Maybe that’s why he’s dead.”
“I still think Darwin is connected somehow and it’s above my pay grade to get all the answers. But that doesn’t matter anymore. When you kill feds in my jurisdiction, you go down for it.”
“We still don’t know if he killed feds or if he was acting in self-defense. As far as Bob here goes, anyone could’ve done this. What I’m trying to figure out is who would target Darwin now that Fuccini is dead.”
“None of that matters to me,” Carson said as he picked up his coffee cup. “I’m not the jury or the judge. My job is to arrest people and let the courts figure it out. I hope he gets a good lawyer and if he’s innocent, he’ll go free, but I don’t think that’ll happen. Too much dirt on this guy’s hands for him to be clean. Sorry, I’m not buying it.”
Freska’s body had been removed from the car. Men stood around the vehicle with small brushes, examining it under floodlights. Carson saw Rudy talking to the coroner and waved him over.
“Have they found anything?” Carson asked.
“Nothing whatsoever. His wallet and badge are missing. The car looks clean. This was a professional hit. If Darwin did this, he’s getting tips from Gambino.”
“Everything points to Darwin. He was the last person seen with Bob at the motel.”
Greg pushed off the car and walked around Carson. “What was that about Gambino? Why use that name?”
“Gambino has a vacation home in the area,” Rudy said. “Lately he’s been spending a lot of time down here as his family does their business in Toronto. It keeps him isolated to be this far south.”
Greg looked really pissed. He kicked his foot into the gravel and stepped away, slamming a fist into the palm of his other hand.
“What got into him?” Rudy asked.
“Who knows? He’s been a dick ever since I picked him up at the airport.”
Greg turned back to face them from five feet away. “Are you two clowns saying that Gambino, as in Frankie Gambino, reputed Canadian mob boss, has a residence in this area?”
Carson put up a hand. “Watch how you’re talking. You can’t come down here to collect your boy and trash-talk us. I’m not a fucking clown.”
“Just answer the fucking question. Does Gambino have a local residence?”
Rudy stepped forward. “Yeah. It’s about a ten-minute drive from here.”
Greg tossed his coffee cup into the brush on his right and headed for the car. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” Carson asked.
Greg got to the passenger side door and opened it. He stood holding the door. “You serious?”
“Yeah, we can’t just barge into Gambino’s residence. Too much security. We can’t assume just because he has a vacation home in the area that he has anything to do with what’s happening today.”
“You do know the famous shootout at the abandoned hangar in Toronto was reportedly orchestrated by the Gambino Family?”
Carson nodded. “I’ve heard that.”
“They missed Vincenzo that night. Darwin killed him by accident. Fuccini went after Darwin and he paid the ultimate price for that. Wouldn’t you think Gambino wants to know who Darwin is and who he works for? That’s how these assholes think. Fuck, you even think Darwin isn’t on the up and up.”
Greg dropped into the car.
Carson turned to Rudy. “Did he just call us assholes too?”
Rudy shrugged. “Not sure, but probably not.”
“Hey,” Greg shouted. “Whose bright idea was it to set up a safe house for a Mafia killer like Darwin only a short drive from Gambino’s vacation home? There are hundreds of places the Kostas could’ve gone. Wait, don’t tell me. Nick Johnson and Lee Michaels, right?”
Carson nodded. Maybe Greg is on to something.
Greg waved at Bob Freska’s car. “Gambino did this. It’s a message. Darwin doesn’t do this kind of shit. The mob does. Gambino’s too stupid to know we’ll see through it. Bob picked up the Kostas at the Sleep On Inn, and he delivered them to Gambino. Then Frankie did this to make it look like Darwin’s work.” Greg slapped the roof of the car. “Come on. Let’s go pick up Darwin and his wife before they’re killed. If Gambino has them, they’re either already dead or will be shortly.”
Chapter 13
Darwin lifted one leg out of the hole, followed by the other, thoroughly exhausted by the effort. He lay on his back and stared at the stars, thanking them for being lucky and thanking God.
He waited until he got his breathing under control and his body had a short rest. Rosina was still Gambino’s prisoner, and every second counted. He hoped he would make it back in time.
He got to his feet, slipped his T-shirt on, and stumbled away from the unmarked grave.
How could someone do that to another human being?
He rubbed the dirt off his face as best as he could and walked toward the road.
What he had done in the past haunted him. Nightmares were a regular visitor in the night. He had killed people. He’d done it out of a
nger, but it was always in self-defense. If only he could be left alone, he wouldn’t have to kill, but they kept coming. They came with an unjust belief or notion of who he was or what he had done. They thought he was part of a Mafia group or family. They thought he had ties to organized crime. They even thought he was a hired assassin. But they were all wrong. He was a kind man who only wanted to be left alone to enjoy his new marriage and possibly have kids one day.
Today was the day he would kill again, so the people after him would stop their pursuit. Once Gambino was gone, Darwin couldn’t think of another family boss that even knew his name.