Jonas Saul - The Kill

Travelers ran this way and that way without a single care in the world. At least not the kind he had. They moved to and fro, without fear of death, except for the people who feared flying, which he was glad wasn’t one of his phobias.

He had no idea what his next move was. All he knew, at that moment, was he needed to get Rosina away from the shit that he’d started. Now, with her safe and on her way to Greece, it was time to confront the men who were trying to kill him.

Calling the police was out of the question. What could they do? Protection? Some of the police were on the Fuccini payroll. That’s probably how they knew about the meeting in the hangar. The same hangar Darwin happened upon late that night while looking for a group therapy session.

No, the police wouldn’t do. He had to solve this on his own. Maybe an apology would suffice? Or maybe doing something for the family? Would that make things right?

He’d be willing to steal from someone, maybe pick a few pockets. Anything would be better than being hunted and tracked, or even killed.

Dejected about his options, Darwin made his way through the throng of travelers feeling a certain sadness. He already missed his wife and it had only been twenty minutes. And the idea that he’d been deceitful to her so early in their marriage made him feel about one inch tall. He loved Rosina with everything he had, but he just couldn’t bring himself to include her in his problem. More specifically, this problem. He started it and he would finish it.

Darwin hit the doors that led outside and decided to take the bus back to Termini Station and hang around there until they caught up with him. They had located the hotel, so they’ll not have a lot of trouble finding him at the station.

He didn’t get ten paces before two men walked up and grabbed both his arms.

“Don’t protest. Don’t say a word. Come with us or you die here.”

The man on his right opened his jacket a little and showed him the butt of a gun.

“No problem,” Darwin said. “I was hoping to find you guys. I want you to take me to your boss. We need to talk.”

They hustled him to a waiting van. The side door sat open.

“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll take you to our boss, but I don’t think he’ll be talking much.”

In unison, both brutes shoved Darwin inside the van so hard that he slid along the floor and slammed into the wall on the other side.

Rosina had made it through security and was searching everyone’s face. Darwin was nowhere in sight.

Could he have left the airport? If so, where would he have gone?

She started for the doors that would take her to the bus she and Darwin had taken to the airport not an hour before.

That was when she saw him through the airport’s glass windows. Two men, one on either side of Darwin, appeared to force him along.

She ran for the large revolving doors, but was too late. The men threw her husband inside a van, slammed the side door shut and hopped in.

By the time she got outside, the van raced away, oblivious to her screams.

Rosina stood there in the departures section where families hugged and cried as they said goodbye to their loved ones.

She cried for another reason altogether. She should call the police, but what would she tell them? Her husband had deserted her. He left the airport with two other men in a van. Of course it was forceful, but she didn’t have a plate number. He wouldn’t be a missing person yet. There was nothing they would do. She was on her own.

After a few minutes, she collected herself, righted the backpack on her shoulders and walked toward the bus back to the Hotel Luigi by Termini Station. Darwin would know where to find her. She would never leave her husband. She wouldn’t abandon him in his time of need.

She didn’t recognize the men and she didn’t know what they wanted. She had nowhere to turn and nowhere to start.

All she could think of was the police. It was time to bring them in. She would show them the note and get them involved.

She had to do something.

“Hey, there’s no reason to be so rough,” Darwin said, his hands bound with tight-fitting metal cuffs.

One of the men had jumped in the driver’s seat and now the van barreled out of the airport. The biggest one of the two made Darwin think of a man he’d seen on TV years ago, Andre the Giant. His hands looked like meat hooks. He’d flipped Darwin around and slapped handcuffs on him. Then he’d righted Darwin and shoved him back down.

“Shut up,” the giant grunted.

“Whatever you say, Andre,” Darwin said, his temper flaring.

He came to them. He could’ve gotten on that plane. He could’ve been miles away by now, but he came to clear things up and they were acting like he was a common thug.

The giant didn’t respond to the reference to the old wrestler’s name. All he did was look forward and stare out the windshield as they entered the highway, heading back into Rome.

“You know Andre the Giant?” Darwin asked.

The large man turned around. “Hey, kid, you got some balls. Shut your fucking mouth. This ride ain’t a social one.”

“Take it easy. Just take it easy. I came to you guys, remember. Show some respect. I could’ve stayed on that flight.”

Now I have regrets. I should’ve gone to Greece. Now Rosina is pissed and I’m going who-knows-where.

Andre kept staring forward, not baited into conversation.

The van was a normal utility unit with metal walls, two doors at the back and two seats in the front. Large pieces of plywood had been laid down on the bed of the van.

There were broken, splintered parts. Dark stains circled those areas. He leaned in closer. The wood smelled horrible.

“What the hell is that smell?” he muttered.

Andre spun around fast, dropped to one knee and brought his meat-hook hand across Darwin’s face.

The smack was so fast, he only had time to shut his eyes. He fell to the plywood and rolled to the back door, banging into it with his knees.

Instantly his face lit up. The pins and needles, flaring pain and heat, all worked to remind him what the consequences were for speaking when he wasn’t supposed to.

It also pissed him off.

Ever since he was a kid, something else he blamed on his stepmother, he hated pain. He would react in anger. Nothing fired him up more than pain.

A thought flashed through his mind while he lay at the back of the van, scrunched up against the pain: Will Andre attack again?

He was in this now, to the end. They aimed to kill him. It was the mafia, after all, and he had killed one of their men. Accident or not, a ‘made’ man was dead because Darwin was behind the wheel that night.

He knew this on some level last week, but he wasn’t ready to acknowledge it. Not with Rosina around, anyway.

But now it was him and them. Fitting how twenty-five hundred years ago, prisoners fought to the death in Rome, and now he got to experience the same pleasures, first hand.

With nothing left to lose, Darwin said, “It was an accident.”

He rolled over and looked up at Andre.

“What? What did you say? You’re joking right? This is a fucking joke? After a bitch slap like that and you want to risk talking?”

“I’m just saying, it was an accident. I didn’t try to kill anybody.”

Darwin braced himself. At any second Andre would come. Darwin felt real fear and he had no idea what he would do. All he knew was that he had to do something. He wasn’t cattle. He wasn’t going to sit idle while they delivered him to slaughter.

No fucking way. What kind of man would I be for Rosina if I willingly walked into my execution?

“Tell your theories about it being an accident to the boss,” the driver said.