He began to rotate his bottle on the counter, but he let his eyes rest on the mirror up above. "You get pain in your limbs, usually the legs. Small dots on your skin, reddish blue. And then..." He lifted his left hand, miming a roller coaster creaking slowly up to a peak, and then dropped it sharply down over the imaginary peak. "Swelling in the gums, bleeding in the gums, you might lose teeth. Joint pain because your body is bleeding into them. You have trouble breathing. Newly healed wounds turn red and swell, and new and unhealed wounds don't heal. Your skin turns into the peaches at the grocery store--so easy to bruise." He pressed two fingers of his left hand against his inner arm. "That would leave you with two little finger-print bruises."
Sparrow shrugged. "And then, because it's the end of the world, you'll get jaundice, the edema will start in in a bad sort of way, and your heart will fall apart." Okay, not... quite literally, but to Sparrow it might as well have. "Your eyes go dry, so does your mouth. You could get a fever. You'll get neuropathy, it's like when your feet fall asleep? Nerve problems."
He tapped the counter with his two fingers. "Foods with Vitamin C in them include lemons, oranges, tomato, bell pepper, strawberries, spinach, paprika, carrots, animal liver, oysters, an animal's central nervous system. Any kind of meat from an animal that makes their own vitamin C. A dog will do, if you can catch one."
Not that he recommended dog meat in any of its forms.
"No junkies. No more fighting that wasn't necessary." He flipped his hand over to let her see the scar embedded in his palm. "Latin American cartels are ugly, nasty things. They're not like the Mafia; the loyalty in Italy is familial. The loyalty in Latin America is constantly shifting, unless you can stay on top of it. When a cartel takes a prisoner, there's no cushy cell and waiting for their people to negotiate their release. They use them for target practise, or they pit them against other prisoners. You fight for your life." He traced the line with the fingers of his other hand. "I stopped that. Keep a human on a leash too long and he starts thinking of rising up and taking your job."
He arched an eyebrow. "I'm a sociopath in a society without rules. I'm thriving. So long as I go without getting scurvy, I'm having the time of my life. What about you?"