The Mafia Trilogy (35 page)

“But who would want to kidnap Darwin and his wife? And if Freska was to exact justice on them, why not just kill them here and leave?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll find out. I want everyone on the lookout for Bob Freska and they’re to report directly to me when they find him. Detain him if you have to, but find him. We have a two-hour window. Find him, Rudy. I’m very serious.”

Before Carson heard a reply, he walked out of the motel office, got in his car and raced away, headed to the airport.

Chapter 7

Gambino brought Rosina closer. He had her sit ten feet in front of Darwin. Five guards surrounded Darwin, with one pointing his weapon at Darwin’s temple.

“Now, Darwin. This is how it’s going to work. If you move more than one foot, I will have my guard use his weapon to behead you. Clear?”

Darwin nodded.

“Good. The first consequence will be a simple one. All I’m asking is that Rosina swallow one spoonful of cinnamon. That can’t be that bad, now can it?”

Rosina nodded. “I’ll do it.”

“Will it just be cinnamon?” Darwin asked. “You’re not going to add anything?”

“What, you don’t trust me?”

“No.”

“Fair enough. I’ll have a spoon and a spice-rack-sized bottle of cinnamon delivered to us with its seal still on. Will that work?”

Darwin nodded.

Gambino motioned with his hand. “Get it for me,” he said to one of the guards.

The people on the checkerboard were offered water. Two guards walked among them with a jug. Everyone averted their eyes from the old man’s dead body not five feet from them.

The cop who brought them here sat off to the side now, a cigarette between his lips. Gambino stared at the back of the cop’s head. Then he looked at a nearby guard and tilted his head toward the cop.

The guard moved soundlessly behind the cop, lowered his weapon and pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening.

The cigarette shot out of the cop’s mouth and landed in the pool. The cop’s head bounced back and forth on his shoulders a couple of times and then he bent over and died, his head between his knees as if he was in a safety position on a plane.

Gambino turned to Darwin. “He was careless. The FBI have been investigating him for a few years as I understand it. They were very close to apprehending him, which would mean he would talk because he was a spineless snake. I can’t have that.” He glanced at the shooter. “Take his body and tie it to the front of his car. Leave it a mile away from the motel where he picked these two up and scrawl on the windshield, ‘Death to all cops.’ Got it?”

The guard nodded. “Consider it done.” Other men came in to help. After a moment, the cop’s body was gone and a woman in an apron showed up with a bucket of water to start wiping the blood up.

The five men watching Darwin took turns holding their weapons at his temple as fatigue would slowly set in.

Gambino turned to him. “Having fun yet?”

“No, not yet. That comes later when you’re dead.”

“Whoa,” Gambino said, turning in his seat. “I like you. Big words for a man in this sort of trouble. Maybe there is something to the rumors we heard about you.”

Gambino’s cell phone rang. He picked it up and hit a button. “Speak.” He waited and then said, “It’s done. He’ll be a mile away from the motel soon … okay, got it … I did my part, you do yours.”

He snapped the phone shut. “While we wait for the cinnamon, we should talk a little. I checked out what your name means. Kostas is Greek and it means constant and steadfast. Usually the Greeks use it as a first name, but who cares, right? I’d say that about describes you, doesn’t it? Constant and steadfast.”

Darwin didn’t move or reply. He just stared at the psychopathic mobster sitting on his fancy chair like he owned the world.

“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 his 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.