Darwin's Nightmare (18 page)

I had my useless left arm resting on the desk. Underneath I held the Glock, safety off, in my lap. My palm was sweating against the grip, but there was no way I was going to wipe it off. I just gripped harder.

“Morning,” I said. I got no response at all. “The stuff is behind you in the pillowcase.”

The little one looked behind him at the pillowcase, and I understood the situation. The little one was the help; he looked at the bag because he was the one who was going to carry it. Ivan never looked. The stuff didn't interest him — I did. Ivan was here to kill me.

I made my play right away. “The bag has most of the data your boss wanted back.”

The short one looked at me, blinked, looked again at the bag, and then to me once more. I brought the pistol up easy. The little one took a step back and moved his arm to his jacket.

“Put your hand down,” I said with no menace in my voice. “I gave your boss back most of the stuff. Some I kept as insurance, a gesture of good faith. I gave some of the disks to . . . a friend, a friend I see every day. The disks I took are in an envelope addressed to a cop I know not to be dirty. If any of this deal comes back to bite me in the ass the disks will be passed on, and that clean cop will earn a huge medal taking down your whole organization.”

“That wasn't what you were told to do!” The smaller Russian sounded petulant.

“I don't take direction well. I went as far as I was prepared to. Now I'm done. We're done.”

“You were told what it would take to be done. This is not it.” The little one was still petulant.

“This is how it works,” I said. “There are no set rules in our game.”

Ivan moved for the first time. He surprised me by turning away and picking up the bag. It wasn't his job to carry anything; the bag was a message. Ivan lifted the bag with the arm I shot, and opened the door with the other. The smaller man turned and left without being told. Ivan was
the true heavy, the one in charge. He turned to me before leaving. “No rules in game,” he said, and chuckled. His laugh was terrible. It was in the back of his throat, and it had the destructive sound of waves crashing on rocks. “Soon we be only game in town.”

He left without closing the door behind him. I waited for ten minutes with my gun pointed at the open door. When my forearm started to ache, I got up and shut the door. I stumbled to the desk using any object I could to stay upright, and passed out at my desk face down with my gun still in my hand. My face had the idiot's grin of a survivor.

I woke several hours later. The angle of the sun through the window told me it was midday, and the clock confirmed it. My mouth was dry, but my body was clammy. The bullet wound had given me a fever, and I had sweated through my shirt. I got up from the desk and tried to stretch. My bad arm barely made it ten inches from my body. I scrounged for another energy drink, finally finding one in the pile of things I brought with me from Steve's. I popped the top and ignored the spray of warm liquid that went all over my hand. The drink was too sweet, and it had almost a medicinal taste as it went down my throat. When the can was empty I rubbed my hands over my face, feeling the stubble, as I staggered to the window. I used my reflection to confirm my suspicions. I looked like hammered shit.

“Damn,” was all I said to myself.

There was no question, I had one priority now. I had to get the bullet out of my arm, and I had to do it quietly. I had to avoid any off-the-books doctors that had any relation to
anyone I knew. That meant I had to avoid doctors who dealt with people. I knew a veterinarian. She worked on horses out in the country. She was also a drunk. For enough cash to keep her drowning she would work on almost anyone. I came across her while I was chasing Donny O'Donnell, an Irish gangster and local psycho who had been raping women in Corktown for years. Corktown was in the southeast part of downtown; it was a historic Irish neighbourhood, and much of the Irish blood had never drained out. The whole neighbourhood was terrified of O'Donnell and his crew, so he went unchecked, growing more brazen with each attack. For his last attack, he happened to choose a woman who lived about a block outside his neighbourhood, and who had been a waitress for a catering company owned indirectly by Paolo Donati. Word of the assault got back to him, and with it came tales of the nightmare of the small Irish neighbourhood. I was given the task of bringing the neighbourhood terror to Paolo. I worked my way through O'Donnell's small world and came, first-hand, into contact with his legacy. I met men and women whose lives had been obliterated by a big sick fish in a small pond. I finally managed to catch up with him and put a bullet in his gut, but he vanished on me. There was no trace of him in the city. The horror stories I learned searching for the bastard kept me on his trail. After a few days, I found out that he was convalescing in the country. Exactly where was hard to find; I only knew he was with a vet out in the boonies. At first, I thought he was hiding with a war buddy, but he was too young to have been in any conflict that I could recall. O'Donnell was never a soldier; he was too much of an animal. That was when it hit me — animals go to a vet all their own. After a day of grinding through the crew O'Donnell left behind, I was pointed in the right direction — Flamboro.

I went out to Flamboro Downs racetrack and planted myself there for a few days. I played the part of a degenerate gambler looking for inside information. I asked about the animals' health, diet, and where they were tended to. Each day I checked out vets and names I overheard, and the next day I was back asking more questions. I finally caught a break when an old horse broke its front legs a mile out of eighth place.

“That one is off to Maggie's,” I heard a man say.

I found out that the owner was broke, and Maggie was a disgraced, unlicensed vet who fixed horses passably or put them down cheap. A little more digging got me an address and a life story the locals seemed to revel in. Maggie lost a kid, then a husband, hit the bottle, and then lost everything else, including her licence.

I found her place that night, and her Irish patient left with me, without a word, while she was sleeping. I made sure he stayed in good health — for a while. Now, years later, with the Irish gang gone, she was the only doctor I knew who was completely off the grid to the people I was involved with.

I kept money in a few different places around the city. Some of it in banks — more in safe spots where people would never think to look for it. It wasn't the most secure idea, but it was accessible at all times. Now was one of those times. I would pull what I needed for the vet on my way out of the city. I moved to the closet and used my good arm to free a bag and a change of clothes. I put the clothes in the bag along with some food for the drive. I didn't put in any identification or items that would give me a name. I wanted to be in and out, fast and anonymous. Packing brought with it a bit of dizziness, so I sat at my desk and waited for it to pass. I passed out again face down at the desk.

The sound of the door splintering off its hinges brought me awake. The frosted pane cracked and the door swung open, slamming against the wall. The door ricocheted back slower, one corner dragging on the floor. I was startled straight up from my sleep. I reached my closest arm towards the Glock still on the desk, forgetting that it was useless. The shooting pain my stupidity caused cost me seconds I needed. I moved my right arm and got my hand on the gun just as I heard, “Don't do it, Wilson.”

The two men in front of me were middle-aged Italians. They had short dark hair, crooked noses, and scar tissue around their eyes. They were not handsome men. Their misaligned features were augmented with layers of fat that hung on cheeks studded with blackheads. They were brothers of the same ugly mother.

“Hand off the gun. Get up now.”

I didn't move. I was still groggy and a bit out of it. My brain was telling me something I couldn't process. I blinked hard, and the speaker, the ugly guy on the left holding a snub-nosed revolver, spoke again.

“Hand off the gun. Get up now.”

My brain snapped into focus. These were the Scazzaro brothers — Johnny and Pat. They were mid-level muscle, and they were probably here because Julian couldn't be. I looked at Johnny and played through my mind everything he had told me. While I was thinking, he again told me to get up. He never said he would kill me, and he didn't even threaten to hurt me. He wanted me up so I could go somewhere.

“I know you're supposed to take me somewhere, not shoot me, Johnny. Put the gun down.”

He didn't move. The gun wasn't pointed at me directly, but that could change quickly. I shifted in my seat, moving my body forward so the 9 mm still holstered at my back
was away from the chair. I put a little agitation into my voice: “I'm serious. It makes me nervous when you point those things at me. What are you afraid of? I don't even have my gun in my hand, you caught me sleeping. If you're not going to kill me, and I'm not armed, at least point the gun at the floor.”

The two brothers exchanged looks, but their guns never moved. I pushed harder. “If you're so fucking scared I'll give you my piece. Here!” With one motion I used my good arm and both feet to shove the desk over. The Glock hit the floor along with the overturned desk. Both men looked at the gun on the floor; they never noticed my hand moving behind my back, or it coming back with a pistol. When their eyes left the floor and found mine, it took five seconds for them to read my grin and move their eyes down from it to the gun in my right hand. The room didn't fill with noise, and bullets didn't rip me apart.

My gun was pointed at Johnny. He was the talker, so I put him down as the one in charge. “Where am I supposed to be going?”

The two exchanged glances out of their peripheral vision, unsure of the direction the discussion had taken.

“Boss wants to see you now,” Johnny said.

“But he doesn't want me dead.”

Johnny waited a second then spoke. “He said you crossed a line and he wanted your ass in front of him.”

“Why send you two? Why not Julian?”

Pat sneered. “You know why,” he said.

“No, I don't. Tell me,” I said.

“Somebody hit Julian with a car. He says it was you. Boss wants to know what you got to say.”

“You two are up to date on your gossip,” I said. “Here's how we'll do this. You two are going to leave, and I'll go to the restaurant on my own.”

“No. You're gonna come with us now. Like the boss said.” Johnny's whiny voice let me know that he didn't like the sound of my idea. The gun in my hand meant things weren't going to go the way he planned.

“I'm going myself. Two shit button men aren't taking me anywhere. You want to see if you can make it otherwise, go ahead.” The silence that followed told me they didn't. “I'll be along shortly, now fuck off.”

Pat looked at Johnny for ten seconds, the two of them having a fraternal argument inside their heads. They both knew they were supposed to bring me in, not kill me, and the two of them weren't high enough on the food chain to make any executive decisions. They moved to the door, covering each other.

“We'll be waiting to follow you over, so don't get any ideas,” was the only goodbye I got.

After they left, I ate everything I could hold down. I drank a Red Bull with a handful of Tylenol, changing it up from Advil. I picked up the Glock from the floor beside the desk and tucked it into the front of my pants with my right arm, making sure I could draw it without wincing. Once I got it right, I practised walking across the floor. I tried to hide any awkward movement, but I moved like I was in a jacket that was too small. It wasn't ideal, but it was the best I could do. Before walking out the door I rummaged in the garbage for an old newspaper. I knelt and used the floor and my one good arm to crease the paper in half. I nestled the
SIG
I showed to the Scazzaro brothers into the paper, folded it, and put it under my left arm.

The broken office door closed when I left, but it didn't hold. I left it as it was — I didn't have time to worry about it. Johnny and Pat weren't waiting for me in the hall or in the stairwell. No one was waiting outside, either, but a
minute after I pulled the Volvo away from the building I picked up an obvious tail. The two Scazzaro brothers were behind me in a black
SUV
. Their worked-over faces appeared closer than they really were in the side mirrors. Pat was in the passenger seat talking on a cell phone. They weren't taking any chances getting me back. They would guide me in, and any hiccups would bring backup — quick. Traffic was light, and I only hit a few red lights. At each one I caught sight of a second black
SUV
farther back. I thought it was the person on the other end of Pat's cell phone — I found out later I was wrong.

As I drove, I glanced at the newspaper hiding the gun. It was an offensive, stupid idea, but it was necessary. A gun in plain sight should get me in the restaurant without frisking, provided I used the right attitude. I double-parked beside the cars lined outside the doors. The four guards out front weren't talking about sports, food, or women this time. They were looking at me like wolves eyeing a lone fawn.

I put the newspaper on my lap and took five deep breaths before I reached across my body and opened the door. I stood and tucked the paper under my bad arm, feeling the reassuring weight of the gun. There was no pain as long as I kept my left hand in my pocket.

“Move the car.”

I ignored the order and started around the front bumper of the car.

“Hey, asshole, we ain't valets. Move the car.”

As I passed the final corner of the bumper my right hand moved inside the paper under my left arm. The dampness of my fingers caused a small bit of friction on the newsprint. The four guards tensed when they saw my hand move. Each man's right arm moved a second behind mine.