Alfred came up and knocked on her door an hour later. She lay spread-eagle on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
“They’re gone,” he said through the door.
She didn’t answer him. She lay there, happy as hell that her parents were okay, but missing Darwin so much it hurt.
“Rosina, can we talk?”
“What do you want?”
“Can I open the door?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry. I agree, the FBI looks like a bunch of bumbling fools here. Remember, though, it’s not me. I just came on duty. I, personally, didn’t do this stupid stuff. So if you need someone to talk to… I’m here.”
She waited a moment. “You can open the door.”
The knob turned and he opened the door. “You doing okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I have news. It’s not good, but it’s not bad either.”
“What is it? Just tell me.”
“We have visual confirmation that Darwin is alive and well.”
She turned her head and looked at him sideways. “Where is he? Are you bringing him here?”
“Not exactly. He met with your mother at a Starbucks in Mississauga.”
“Darwin went to a Starbucks? He must be on the run for sure,” she said and smiled, attempting humor.
Alfred frowned.
“Never mind. Go on.”
“He met with your mother, and she gave him the keys to her car. He left in her BMW when my colleagues tried to talk to him.”
“So now he’s running from the FBI. You guys must be really scary. Or do you think it’s because he’s figured it all out and doesn’t trust the very people we’re supposed to trust?”
Alfred dropped his head a little and looked at the carpet. “I guess we deserve that.”
“Damn right. Now, tell your colleagues to get the real bad guys and stop worrying about my husband.”
Alfred stepped out and clicked her door shut.
Rosina rolled into a ball and prayed it would all end soon.
#
When Greg interviewed him over and over and took his statement the night Vincenzo was run down, Darwin never revealed the adult store connection. He couldn’t allow Rosina to know he would ever visit a place like that.
It wasn’t a bad thing. Many good people shopped in stores like that. He was sure of it. He was a good person. He shopped there.
It was more about her preconceived notions of what an adult store represented. Pornography, smut, low-lifes, and sexual deviants. Sure, in some of the trashier places, there could be an element of that. But in the nicer ones, it was a real store with real products for men and women and loving couples.
Darwin believed it was something Rosina would accept better in years to come, but so far, in their relationship, anything too deviant had been taboo. He was fine with that. Their sex life was great. He just couldn’t bring himself to tell her where he bought the mint tree bottle yet.
But after this mess was cleared up and behind them, he’d have to tell her. She was his wife now and that meant honesty. Full disclosure. There could be no other way to live.
He pulled into the store’s access ramp and parked in the middle of the lot, leaving the car idling, checking in all four directions to see if anyone watched.
Five minutes later, satisfied he hadn’t been followed and no one spied on him, Darwin turned the car off and got out.
He locked the door and leaned against the side of the car, taking in the area. He couldn’t make any mistakes. If this was a mobster hangout, he could very easily walk in and be killed. He had to be sure. He had to careful.
This was end-game stuff.
He was tired of running. He couldn’t live like this all his life. There was no way. Rosina needed a calmer existence. He needed a calmer existence. He couldn’t produce another novel if the stress level remained this high. These people and their sick, pathetic code of ethics weren’t just fucking with his life and his wife, they were fucking with his livelihood too.
That meant if he was on the run for the next few years under the threat of death, he wouldn’t be able to write well, thereby not able to provide for his wife.
Then he thought of Salman Rushdie and his book, The Satanic Verses.
“Oh shit, he did it, didn’t he,” Darwin said to himself. If Salman could run from the Ayatollah in Iran, with millions in bounty for his head, and live to publish again, then Darwin could run from a few mafia boys.
But still, this had to end. No justifications, no figuring things out and making deals. Nothing but a complete cease of all pursuit. The only way Darwin would achieve that was to kill the man who sent out the order.
The adult store was the only contact Darwin had.
He pushed off from the car and crossed the parking lot. The clouds had come in completely now, blocking out the early afternoon sun, a dim grayness cast on everything.
Darwin was only walking, but his breath increased as his blood pressure spiked. It was time again. He could feel the violence in the air.
He rolled his shoulders and bent a little to loosen up his muscles. After the accident last night, even though he didn’t feel like he got banged up too bad, his muscles cramped in strange spots.
A quick check in his jacket pocket told him his weapon was still there and at the ready.
The store’s door opened. A man walked out, a black bag in his hand. He looked at Darwin and sheepishly looked away.
What do you have there? A toy for the wife? Embarrassed much?
Ready to finish this, Darwin hit the door and entered the adult store.
It looked just as he remembered it. Movies on all the walls by the door. Further in, the adult toys and then the lubrications and massage oils. Near the counter sat the Kama Sutra section with bottles of mint tree.
The clerk was on the phone, whispering away and smiling like he was talking to his girlfriend. One customer stood in the far corner, surveying movie box covers. He nodded at the scruffy looking clerk and tried to control his stomach. He hadn’t eaten all day, only a couple Tim Horton’s coffees.
They had more mint tree than the last time he’d been here, but that wasn’t what he was here for this time.
What do I do with myself in a store like this while I wait for the customer to leave? Shit.
He turned around and looked at the toy section. Some of the items were so big, they looked humanly impossible to enter into someone.
“You need any help?”
Suddenly the clerk stood beside him. Darwin jumped a little.
“No, just looking.”
The clerk nodded and turned away.
“Wait. I gotta question. Do people actually use that thing there?”
“What, the Rambone?” the clerk asked, and looked back at Darwin. “Oh yeah. It’s one of our better sellers.”
“Wow. I’d assume after using it, the user would have to go in for surgery.”
“Not really,” the clerk replied, smiling.
The door chimed as the customer left the store. Darwin was alone with the clerk.
“There’s one more thing.”
“What’s that?” the clerk asked.
Darwin looked him up and down. He wore beige khakis and a brown T-shirt. His hair was unkempt and he smelled like he hadn’t showered in a few days.
The guy didn’t look like a fighter. Darwin would ask his questions, get the answers he needed and leave.
“I want to speak to the Fuccini boss.”
The clerk frowned. “Fuccini who? I don’t think anyone named Fuccini works here.”
“No, not someone who works here. The Fuccini family boss. I know this store is used as a contact point. Get him on the phone or send out a note. Do whatever it is you guys do, but get me in touch with him. Now.”
The clerk put his hands in the air and stepped back. “Okay weirdo, that’s enough. You can leave now. I don’t know anyone named Fuccini and I have no idea what you’re talking about when you say contact point.”
Darwin grabbed him with his right arm and tried to pull him back. The guy spun with lightning speed, both hands wrapped onto Darwin’s forearm. He lifted up, spun again in a circle, throwing his hands above his head without letting go of Darwin.
With his arm twisted like a windmill, Darwin had to bend and roll with it. Before he registered what was happening, Darwin was off his feet and flipping in the air. He landed hard on his back, the clerk still holding his arm.
The clerk’s foot came down onto Darwin’s chest and applied pressure.
“Are you that fucking stupid? Holy shit. You really are just some silly kid who got mixed in over your head. Boy, do I feel sorry for you.”
Darwin tried to twist away, but the clerk spun his arm to point where he thought it would break.
“Don’t try me. I’ll break your fucking arm.”
“What are you talking about?” Darwin asked. “You know me? You were expecting me?”
“After what you did at the hangar and then how crazy you were in Rome, everyone has heard of you. They hired me to sit here and see if you’d pop up. I had to serve all these asshole customers while I waited for you. I couldn’t believe my luck when you walked in.”
Darwin grunted from the pain. “You knew it was me?”
“I already called them. They’re on their way. A whole team of them. You actually got them scared. I looked at you and thought, this dude. No way. But they see you as some kind of killing machine. Cool, huh?”
“Yeah, real cool. Listen, ahh, could you lighten up on the arm a bit. It may break.”
“What, like this?”
The clerk released his arm, but both hands hovered an inch from Darwin’s arm. It was evident the guy wanted a fight. He wanted a challenge. He thought Darwin would try to yank his arm away, so it surprised the clerk when Darwin spun on the tiled floor and kicked the clerk’s feet out from under him in a classic foot-sweep move.
The guy was a serious pro. Even on the way down to the floor, he already had his arm coming out to attack Darwin when he landed.
As Darwin had thrown his foot out, he had reached into his pocket.
He aimed it just as the clerk hit the ground and attempted to elbow Darwin for his efforts.
Darwin shot a stream of bear spray, quite potent in the space of one foot from the container. The vile liquid entered the clerk’s mouth, nostrils and eyes as Darwin moved it around.
Darwin kept his eyes open only to a thin slit and held his breath while he sprayed.
The clerk tried to bring up his hands to ward off the attack, but ended up only swiping at his face and trying to roll away.
Finally, he stopped and rolled away himself.
He walked behind the counter, grabbed the phone and hit redial while the clerk still writhed on the floor, screaming about how it hurt so bad.
“Get me some water! Help me! Get it out!”
Darwin pressed the phone to his ear.
“Hello?” someone said.
“Fuccini?”
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“Darwin Kostas.”
He heard the gasp even over the clerk’s wailing.
“I’m coming for you. However many men you’ve sent to this beautiful emporium won’t be enough. Double it. Unless you want to make a trade.”
“I’m listening.”
“Me for my father.”
“I figured you’d understand my needs one day. My men will be there in five minutes. Go with them and we’ll release your father.”
“No. It’ll be done on my terms.” Darwin pulled the phone away from his ear and checked the number. It was local. He committed it to memory, recited it twice and put the phone back to his ear. “I will call you at this number in two hours. Answer the phone, and I will tell you what to do. Then I will surrender myself to you. Do we have a deal?”
The clerk wailed on. He’d made it to his feet, eyes rushing water, his face, beet red. He used the wall to find his way to the back of the store where Darwin figured there was a washroom.
“I don’t have much choice if you won’t go with my men. It is obvious that getting you to do anything will be a chore, so we have a deal. But if you don’t call me, I will rip apart your father with my saw, and I will do it personally, and then I’ll come-”
“There’s no need for your petty threats, you pissant. I know what you’ll do. Just answer the fucking phone when I call. Don’t disappoint me, Fuccini, or I might start to get really angry.”
Darwin hung up, walked past the crying clerk near the back of the store, and then out. He turned the car on, flicked on the satellite radio until he found Iron Maiden. As Bruce Dickinson sang about how many minutes they had until midnight, Darwin waited. He saw Fuccini’s men pull up and run into the adult store, then he pulled away.
He had the perfect spot to do the exchange. Fuccini would be pissed.
He also had a surprise for him.
No one would see it coming.