Free Mafia Trilogy 03 - The Scythe by Jonas Saul Page A

back. The sun warmed his thighs, his stomach, his face. The scent of the wet peach and jam covering his body filled the air. He breathed it in and thought about Rosina.
     
    A golf cart engine revved from somewhere to his left.
     
    “Hey! You okay?” a man shouted.
     
    Darwin didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to talk.
     
    “Hey?” the man asked, louder.
     
    Sleep felt wonderful. The idea of going under for a couple of days was what Darwin needed.
     
    The voices were closer. His eyes were closed but he could feel two men standing over him, their shadows crossing his eyelids.
     
    “Yeah, hello? Emergency services?” A pause. “Ambulance.” Another pause. “There’s a guy passed out in his underwear on the golf course, covered in some kind of fruit paste. He’s bleeding from multiple places and he’s been beat up pretty bad. What? Yeah, in his underwear.”
     
    One of the men leaned in close. “Hey, you awake?”
     
    “No, ma’am. He’s not responding. Hurry.”
     
    Darwin lowered himself under the veil of unconsciousness.
     

Chapter 8

    Darwin opened his eyes and tried to bring his hands up to rub them. Bandages covered his right forearm, wrists, and knuckles. He blinked to clear his eyes.
     
    Another hospital room.
     
    “How was your sleep?”
     
    A man in a white lab coat stepped up to his bed.
     
    “Where am I?”
     
    “In a hospital in Barrie about an hour north of Toronto. Do you know how you got here?”
     
    Darwin rested his head on the pillow. No cop sat in the corner, no guard at the door. That meant the doctor didn’t know who he was and no one on the outside knew where he was. It also meant the Mafia had lost him.
     
    But if he knew Yuri, it wouldn’t be long before they found out.
     
    “I have no idea … about anything.”
     
    “You were found in your underwear on a golf course off of highway 93. Do you recall anything that happened?”
     
    Darwin looked up at the ceiling tiles and waited. Then he turned to the doctor and stared through him.
     
    “Doc, I’m scared. What’s my name? I can’t remember who I am.”
     
    The doctor frowned as he pushed his glasses up his nose. He looked down at a clipboard in his hand.
     
    “Can you remember anything, like who did this to you?”
     
    Darwin turned to look at the window in the room. Sunshine poured in.
     
    How long have I slept?
     
    “What happened …” Darwin mumbled. He forced a tear and looked back at the doctor. “What happened to me?”
     
    “You’re pretty beat up. Damaged kidneys, bruises all over your body. In half a dozen different places, you’ve been cut by glass. We had to pull a few of the pieces out when you got here. I’m surprised your cheek bones didn’t break. Whatever hit you actually bruised the bone.”
     
    You should see the other guy. Knocked him out cold with food.
     
    The doctor flipped a paper on the clipboard. “It looked like a bullet grazed your lower leg, but I couldn’t be sure. At least whoever beat you got some of it back. Your hands were a mess, but we’ve cleaned most of it up. Someone actually bit your knuckles. You had teeth marks in the open wounds.”
     
    “Oh, man. Why can’t I remember anything?”
     
    “You were found in your underwear covered in jams and the smell of peaches and other fruit and you say you can’t remember any of it?” The doctor stared at him, a look of disbelief on his face. “Very strange. But that’s not the worst of it.”
     
    Darwin rolled his tongue around his mouth and found all his teeth were still intact.
     
    “You had stitches in the back of your head from some kind of wound that looks to be about two-weeks old. Any idea what that’s from?”
     
    Darwin shrugged and pain accompanied it. Shit. “Maybe, that’s why I can’t remember anything. Maybe I had a brain injury.”
     
    “Maybe,” the doctor said. “We should know who you are soon enough, though.”
     
    Shit, shit. “Good. Did I have any ID on