Darwin's Nightmare (20 page)

Paolo laughed at the idea and told me what I needed to know. “The door is heavy — all the doors here are. The locks are solid and expensive. Believe me. The door, it opens out.”

“Describe the alley,” I said. “The length and the width.”

“It's brick on both sides; maybe ten feet wide. The whole alley is about a hundred feet long. There ain't a back way out — it's bricked off to the right. At the other end there's a side street that exits out to the main roads.”

“That's not everything,” I said. “Where does the trash go?”

“There's a Dumpster,” Paolo said in a sort of “oh yeah” tone.

“Where is the Dumpster? Left or right?” I waited for the answer; it was fifty-fifty. Life or death.

“It's on the left.”

The left, that one direction was my only hope. It was the fifty I wanted. I could work my way out of the alley using the Dumpster as cover. It wasn't ideal but it was better than the alternative.

I moved past Paolo's gunmen to the kitchen door. It was maroon, the colour of the walls, and it swung silently back and forth. Beside it was a row of five light switches set in a dingy brass plate. I eyed the coat-check room one last time before I moved through the door.

The kitchen was small and silver. The counters were clean, and the air was warm with dishwasher steam; the room was ready for the restaurant staff to start work in a few hours. The refrigerators hummed low, creating a background soundtrack.

The back door was just as it was described: heavy black metal with large, expensive locks. I took one final look
around before I slowly started turning the deadbolts one after another. Each click got me closer and closer to outside. Each click brought more anticipation. On the final click, I stepped back from the door and took two deep breaths. I eased the door open a crack. Outside, in the crack of space that opened, I saw only darkness. I thought back and remembered the sun on my shoulders as I came in. I pushed the door open another two inches and still saw no light. The electric illumination of the kitchen lights revealed a dull, rust-speckled green outside the door. I tried to push the door open further but it wouldn't budge. It was the Dumpster; it had been moved right up to the door. I put the gun under the armpit of my bad arm and tried to shoulder the door open but the Dumpster wouldn't move. I gave up on the door and picked up my gun again. There was no one outside anymore. We were all locked in. It was then that I heard the shots.

There were three in all, and all of them came from a big, big gun. I remembered the echoed shots I had heard from outside and knew that everyone was inside the building now, and they were not going to stay in the coat-check area long.

I looked around the kitchen for another way out but I was stuck. There were no windows, and no other doors. I would have to go back the way I came. I moved to the swinging door. There had been no noise after the last three shots I heard. I doubted anyone could take Paolo, Tony, and Joey with three shots, but I had been wrong before.

The men in the coatroom had seen me cross the room. They knew where I was and they weren't going to let me live. I had to get out of the building, through Paolo and the Russians. I turned off all of the lights, making the kitchen black except for the light leaking in through the spaces in the door.

“Paolo,” I yelled through the kitchen door. “Call for backup.”

I could hear hushed mumbling, but nothing I could make sense of until someone yelled, “There he is, Tony. There, shoot him!” Three shots sounded, the first two close together, the last a second behind. One loud shot echoed back, and there was silence again. I waited three seconds then moved my arm out to the grimy light switch beside the kitchen door. I clicked every switch down with the flat of my palm. The room went dark instantaneously. The kitchen and the dining room were both black.

I slipped out the swinging door into the dining room. I kept low, stepped out beside the door using my shoulder to ease it quietly closed behind me. Once it was closed, I put my back against the wall just below the light switches. I couldn't turn them on again with my battered arm; it wouldn't extend anywhere near shoulder height, and if I used the other arm I wouldn't be able to shoot. I took a few breaths and began to slide my back up the wall. I felt the switches touch my back and I flattened closer to the wall. I waited for what felt like minutes until I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. One man can move silently, but more than one usually makes enough noise to be heard — especially in the dark. Five switches shifted up with a click under my back, and the lights immediately resumed their electric glow. Paolo was on the floor, shot in the stomach. The amount of blood told me that the bullet had not grazed him, but Paolo was alive with a gun in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Tony and Joey were dead. Their guns lay between them on the floor. At the top of the stairs stood Ivan and his huge gun. Behind him were three men dressed in black holding compact automatic weapons.

Ivan had his gun pointed down at Paolo's wounded
body. His eyes and those of the men he was with were on me and the gun I was pointing at them.

“Feels like we've been here before, Ivan. You think you're going to do better the second time around?”

Ivan turned his head to me; his shoulders stayed square to Paolo. “We are here to win the game,” he said.

“So this is checkmate. You take the king, and the board is yours?”

“The board belongs to us already. We are just making it permanent.”

“The fuck you are, you commie bastards!” Paolo was alive on the floor, and he was making sure everyone knew it.

“Paolo,” I said. “Did you make the call like I told you?”

“I'm gonna fucking piss on your graves, you motherless fucks.”

“Paolo,” I snapped. “Did you make the call?”

He didn't answer for a second that lasted minutes. “Yeah,” he said. “I made the call. I couldn't say much, but I got the message across.”

I couldn't be sure, because I wasn't looking in his direction, but it sounded like Paolo was smiling. “This looks like a stalemate, Ivan. There aren't any moves left. A new game is going to start soon.”

Ivan said nothing to me. He spoke out to his men — in Russian.

“Don't do that,” I said. “Keep it English.”

Ivan didn't listen. He fired off more Russian in his thick, deep voice.

“Don't do that, Ivan.” My voice was cold and serious.

Ivan stopped speaking, but it didn't sound abrupt. It sounded more like the end of a sentence — the end of a complete thought. He had issued a command to three men with guns, and I had no idea what he had said.

I couldn't read Ivan, so I focused on the three behind him, and the light switches against my back. One of the three was sweating heavily and looking at me out of the corner of his eye. He noticed my face and his eyes locked onto me as my mouth pulled tight into a grin. His eyes widened, and he looked to the other Russians. I dug my back into the light switches and shot the sweatiest gunman in the neck. Ivan's gun roared to life as I dragged my back across the switches. The room went dark for half a second, then Paolo fired his gun. The other two unnamed Russians returned fire at Paolo, then at the spot where I had been standing only seconds before. The bullets missed me, ripping into the wall at chest height. I was on the floor, sideways on my good shoulder, using the floor to steady my arm. The Russian henchmen were betrayed by their muzzle flashes. I saw their faces in the strobe light of automatic gunfire. I aimed at the man on the right and pulled the trigger. I quickly adjusted and shot left, where the second flashes had been moments before. I rolled forward from the wall toward the tables. I grunted as I hit my shoulder, but I kept moving. Automatic gunfire bit into the wall from across the room. I could only see under the tables so I had no idea where the shooter was. More shots rang out from my left. Paolo fired four bullets in quick succession, but their thunder was deafened by the metallic click of an empty gun that followed. The shots created two things in the darkness, a scream ahead of me, and a glimpse of a pair of shoes four feet in front of Paolo. I shot from the floor six times above where I had seen the shoes in the muzzle flash.

The dark reeked of cordite, and my ears rang a far-off, high-pitched note. I managed to stand using the barrel of my gun to prop me up. I walked sideways until my crippled arm hit the wall. I hissed a sharp intake of breath, and then moved backward along the wall until I was massaged by five little plastic fingers. I used my shoulder to edge the switches up one by one. The first three lit up the rear of the restaurant; the final two lit above me and Paolo.

He was lying on the floor, leaking blood but still breathing. Ivan sat less than ten feet away. I had hit him in the shoulder and chest. The other four shots must have gone wild in the dark. In his hand, limp at his side, he still held his huge gun — another Colt Python. Paolo's eyes went wide when he saw Ivan sitting up with his gun still in his hand.

“Wilson, he's still got a gun. Wilson? Shoot him! Wilson, shoot!”

His screaming seemed to drive Ivan on. The Russian was working at raising his gun. It moved inches off the
ground, then nosedived. It rose again, a few inches higher, using the bounce off the ground for momentum.

“Wilson.” Paolo was pleading. “
Figlio
, please . . . shoot him.”

Ivan's gun was four inches off the floor, and shaking as I moved toward Paolo. I had to laugh. “King of the jungle.”

I looked at Ivan working so hard to get his gun six more inches into the air. I looked at him and said something I knew he would never understand. “You're dinosaurs, both of you. Too busy to notice the meteor.”

Ivan might have been puzzled, but it was only for a second. The bullet made everything clear. Paolo grunted his appreciation and slumped to the floor. “Good job,
figlio
. Now pass me the phone.”

I looked at Paolo and felt my finger hot on the trigger. I thought about killing him and ending my problems. But then I'd still have to deal with the Russians, and the rest of Paolo's crew once Julian told them I was finally open season.

“Are you and me even? For the disks, for Julian, for Tommy, for everything?”

Paolo eyed the gun in my hand and nodded. “Yes, yes, all is forgiven,
figlio
. Now give me the phone.” The look in my eyes told him he would have to do better. “Fuck, after what happened today, I'm going to have more work than ever for you.”

I looked around at the carnage in the restaurant. My eyes took in all of the bodies on the floor, and all the holes in the walls. I finally rested my gaze on Ivan, who was no less terrifying in death. His gun remained in his hand as though his body was still fighting even after it was left without a soul. I thought about how many times I had shot the huge man in the last few days and almost laughed. This was what Paolo offered. What his work would bring.

“I don't want more work. I know what you are, and I know what you think of me. I'm going to disappear. Don't look for me. Stay in your jungle and deal with the Russians.”

I eased my finger off the trigger and walked away from Paolo. Behind me I heard a whimper from the top of the food chain, then a sob as he reached for his phone.