Red Right Hand

by Chris Holm

  “Look, Cameron,” he corrected himself, “I appreciate the effort. But you don’t know me, and you couldn’t begin to understand the shit I’ve been through. You’ve got no idea why I’m here or what I’ve lost.”

  “I’ve also got no idea how you’re still upright. Just take the coffee, okay?”

  Hendricks picked up the coffee and took a sip. It was lukewarm and tasted of plastic. He made a face and set it back down. Then he raised the brimming shot glass in Cameron’s direction.

  “Cheers,” he said. But before he brought the drink to his lips, she shook her head and stormed away.

  He watched her round the corner at the far end of the bar and disappear from sight. Seconds later, he heard the kitchen’s swinging double doors bang open. Once they’d clacked shut behind her, leaving Hendricks certain she couldn’t return without him hearing, he dumped the shot into the potted ficus tree beside him.

  He’d been coming to the Salty Dog—a quaint, clapboard-sided seafood joint overlooking Long Island’s Port Jefferson Harbor—for three weeks, always parking his ass on the same stool from noon to closing. In that time, the ficus had been outdrinking him three to one. He was amazed he hadn’t killed the thing by now. Every once in a while, he made a show of spilling a shot across the bar, in part to establish himself as a sloppy drunk, and in part to explain the smell this corner had taken on. It must’ve worked, because no one in the place had said five words to him until today, when the new girl decided to take pity on him—and even she’d been here a week before she gathered the nerve.

  Hendricks figured she was just some overzealous undergrad, bright-eyed and idealistic, who’d yet to learn that the broken people of the world rarely wanted to be fixed. And although he was plenty broken, it was a life of violence—not booze—that was to blame.

  The shot disposed of, the waitress gone, Hendricks watched the anchored sailboats bob like seabirds on the bay. He was happy for the momentary quiet. It didn’t last.

  A shadow fell across the restaurant’s storefront. Hendricks swiveled in his stool and saw a black Range Rover roll to a stop at the curb. A spray-tanned side of beef in wraparound sunglasses climbed out of the backseat. Then he pushed open the Salty Dog’s front door and stepped inside.

  He wore a polo shirt two sizes too small for him and a pair of garish madras shorts. Canvas loafers, each the size of a rowboat, encased his feet. If his getup was intended to help him blend in with the yacht-club set, it fell well short of that goal. His nose was misshapen; his ears were cauliflowered. There was no doubt in Hendricks’s mind that he was hired muscle.

  The man took off his sunglasses and looked around the restaurant. Hendricks feigned indifference, swaying drunkenly atop his stool and idly spinning his empty shot glass on the bar like a top. The man eyed Hendricks in his frayed khaki shorts, rumpled button-down, and sweat-stained Titleist ball cap and apparently dismissed him. Hendricks looked like half the drunks in every ritzy-zip-code bar from here to Hilton Head.

  The man flipped the sign in the front window to CLOSED, shut the curtains, and took up a position by the door. Another guy of the same make and model entered and headed toward the kitchen without a word. Along the way, he rapped on the restroom doors and checked inside. When he entered the kitchen, Hendricks heard the chef’s surprised tone quickly give way to friendly recognition. They conversed a moment—Hendricks couldn’t make out the exact words, but by the sound of it, the chef was introducing him to the new girl—and then he returned to the dining room and gave his buddy a nod.

  The man beside the door parted the curtain slightly and gestured to someone outside. The door swung open once more. Hendricks half expected another spray-tanned goon, but instead in walked a handsome thirty-something man in a linen shirt, seersucker shorts, and leather flip-flops. His complexion had a Mediterranean cast, and his high cheekbones, tousled hair, and cultivated stubble made him look as if he’d stepped out of a men’s magazine. Once the door closed behind him, the Range Rover pulled away.

  “Good afternoon,” he said to Hendricks. “My name is Nick Pappas.”

  “James Dalton,” Hendricks lied. “But my friends call me Jimmy.” He’d taken the name from Patrick Swayze’s character in Road House as a nod to an old friend. Hendricks never used to put much effort into coming up with aliases, but his buddy—and former partner in crime—Lester had always taken great pride in it. Every one of ’em was an in-joke, a reference.

  Lester had been murdered almost a year ago. Keeping the tradition going was one way Hendricks chose to honor him. Waiting in this upscale tourist trap for Pappas was another.

  “And what should I call you,” Pappas asked, “James or Jimmy?”

  “The jury’s still out on that,” Hendricks said. “After all, we just met. But I’ve got to hand it to you, Nick, you make one hell of an entrance.”

  Nick laughed. “Not everywhere, I’m afraid. Here I can afford to, because I own the place.”

  Hendricks knew that, strictly speaking, that wasn’t true. On paper, the Salty Dog was one of many restaurants owned by a company called Aegeus Unlimited, which had a PO box in Delaware, a bank account in the Caymans, and a board composed entirely of people who’d died before they reached majority—at least, if the Social Security numbers on the articles of incorporation were to be believed. But then, there were loads of reasons the head of the Pappas crime family might like to keep his name off the paperwork.

  Hendricks looked from Pappas to his goons and back. “I gotta ask—am I in some kind of trouble? ’Cause if your waitress wanted to cut me off, all she had to do was say so—she didn’t have to bring you all this way.”

  Pappas smiled, showing teeth of gleaming white. “Not at all. My arrival here has nothing whatsoever to do with you. The fact is, James—and, understand, I’m not saying this to brag—I’m a very wealthy man, with business interests around the globe. Hotels. Restaurants. Construction. Waste management. As such, my schedule can be quite demanding. From time to time, I need a break—a few hours spent consuming good food and drink in good company. It affords me the opportunity to decompress. Today is one of those days.”

  “You always close down the place when you come in?”

  “I do. I find it discourages unwanted interruptions.”

  Unwanted interruptions was a funny way of saying People trying to kill me, Hendricks thought.

  Even among criminals, Nick Pappas was legendarily paranoid. Hendricks supposed he would have been too if his family were as fucked up as Nick’s was. Until recently, the Pappas crime family was small potatoes—ignored by the larger New York outfits because their business interests were limited to Astoria’s Greek community—but their reputation for infighting was positively Shakespearean.

  Nick’s uncle Theo had assumed control of the family business eleven years ago after Nick’s grandfather took a tumble down the stairs of his Crescent Street town house and broke his neck. It was Theo who discovered the body and called it in.

  A year later, Nick’s father, Spiro, took over when Theo was found facedown in his morning yogurt, a bullet in his head. Though there were six people in the house at the time—family members all—and to a one, they claimed to’ve neither seen nor heard a thing.

  Spiro had ruled until three years ago, when a hit-and-run left him in a persistent vegetative state. Nick and his five siblings spent months after his so-called accident jockeying for control of the family. By the time Nick claimed the throne, one of his brothers was dead, and his little sister had fled to points unknown.

  Hendricks imagined Pappas family holidays were pretty tense.

  Jealousy aside, Nick’s remaining siblings had little to complain about; they’d profited mightily with him at the helm. His business acumen had expanded their empire exponentially and elevated the Pappas clan from small-time crooks to major players on the national scene.

  Pappas’s meteoric rise didn’t go unnoticed by New York’s other crime families. Some threatened war, but most saw him as a kindre
d spirit, which was how he’d wound up the youngest voting member in the history of the Council.

  The Council was a group of representatives from each of the major criminal outfits operating in the United States. Though their organizations were often rivals, Council members convened whenever their respective organizations’ interests aligned.

  Killing Hendricks was one such interest.

  Hendricks’s business model was…unconventional. When someone was marked for death, Hendricks would make sure that person’s would-be killer wound up in the ground instead—so long as the intended victim paid up, that is. Ten times the price on the client’s head was his going rate. Always up front, nonnegotiable.

  His buddy Lester, with whom he’d served in Afghanistan, was the operation’s tech guy. He ID’d the clients and gathered intel on their targets. Hendricks handled the wetwork. For a while, business was booming. Then the Council caught wise and sent a hitman to hit him back. The man they sent—Alexander Engelmann—was tenacious, sadistic, and hard to kill. Hendricks managed to do it, barely, but not before the bastard tortured Lester to death. Ever since, Hendricks had dedicated every waking moment to determining who, exactly, was on the Council so he could take them down.

  But without Lester’s computer chops to rely on, Hendricks was forced to resort to old-fashioned detective work, and leads were scarce. Council members ran tight ships. Their street-level employees were largely kept in the dark, and those in their inner circles knew better than to run their mouths. Those who did usually wound up dead.

  Thankfully, Pappas’s crew was new to this and not as disciplined as they should be. Thirty-six hours into a meth bender, one of his lieutenants blabbed to a call girl he was sweet on. Hendricks had saved that call girl’s life once—she and her first pimp didn’t part on the best of terms, so he’d paid a guy five hundred bucks to take her out—which meant she was more than happy to pass along what she had learned.

  “I guess this is my cue to leave,” Hendricks said to Pappas, knowing damn well that it wasn’t. He’d been watching Pappas for months, trying to figure out how to get close to him. Pappas never went anywhere without his personal security detail. He had several properties he split his time among—a penthouse in midtown Manhattan, the family home in Astoria, freestanding houses in Guilford and Oyster Bay—none of which had his name on the paperwork, and each of which had its own dedicated security staff. He varied his daily routine to avoid ambushes. He wasn’t married. He had no children. His girlfriends were under constant lock and key.

  But a few times a month, he liked to pop into one of his restaurants for a lavish meal.

  Even then, though, Pappas was careful. He showed up at odd hours and never called ahead. When he arrived, he locked the doors behind him and picked up the tab for everyone already inside. Hendricks had figured the best way to get close to Pappas was to be inside one of his restaurants when he got there—and soft-pedaling his interest in staying would get him closer still.

  “Not at all!” Pappas said. “Have you eaten?”

  Hendricks feigned confusion at Pappas’s interest. “I haven’t,” he said.

  “Then I insist you stay. We’re having one of everything sent out. Would you care for a drink while we wait?”

  “I wouldn’t turn one down.”

  “Excellent. What’s your poison?”

  “Whatever gets the job done. Today I’m drinking whiskey.”

  “Milos,” Pappas said, “do me a favor and fetch our new friend James a drink.”

  One of Pappas’s men ducked behind the bar, reached up, and grabbed an unopened bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue from the top shelf. The pistol he wore at the small of his back showed as he did. When he cracked the seal and poured Hendricks three fingers—a hundred bucks’ worth at most establishments—Hendricks licked his lips with exaggerated anticipation.

  “Please,” Hendricks said to Pappas, “call me Jimmy.”

  Pappas beamed. His men smiled too and appeared as at ease as hired goons could ever be while on the job. That was good, helpful.

  They wouldn’t look so happy when the night was through.

  3.

  SPECIAL AGENT CHARLIE Thompson hovered awkwardly on the threshold of her parents’ kitchen. The dangly earrings her mother had gotten her for Christmas tugged uncomfortably at her ears. Pots bubbled on the stove. The air was warm and humid and redolent with spice.

  “There must be something I can do to help,” she said.

  “Don’t be silly,” her mother replied. “Kate and I have this well in hand. Why don’t you go bring your father a beer?”

  Thompson’s face creased with worry as she watched Kathryn O’Brien mangle the onion she was trying to dice. “You sure you’re up to this?”

  O’Brien cocked an eyebrow at Thompson and smiled. “You heard your mother,” she said. “Beat it!”

  Thompson shrugged and grabbed two cans of Narragansett from the fridge. Then she headed out to the garage.

  The overhead door was open, the cars, as ever, in the driveway. A workbench took up half the narrow space, and tools hung from pegboards above it. Thompson’s father crouched over a partially disassembled lawn mower, his hands blackened by grease.

  Thompson popped the top on both beers and handed one to him without a word. Foam gathered on his mustache when he drank.

  “You gotta work on this right now, Pop?”

  “Is there something else I oughta be doing? Ain’t like your mother wants me in the kitchen.”

  “Join the club—she just threw me out too. Asked Kate to stay, though.”

  “You don’t look pleased.”

  “A little leery, is all.”

  “Why?” he snapped. “You think your mother’s gonna say something inappropriate and embarrass you?”

  “No,” Thompson said carefully, “I’m worried Kate’s gonna take off a finger. Her knife skills leave a bit to be desired.”

  “Oh.” He looked chastened. “I’m sure your mother will watch out for her.”

  Thompson’s parents were Catholic. When she came out, they’d been as supportive of her as their faith allowed—but she’d never brought a woman home before. She’d been worried how her parents would react to O’Brien ever since they got serious last fall. It’s why she’d postponed the meet-the-parents trip three times already. It’s why she’d nearly canceled when the alarm went off this morning and then twice more on the drive from DC to Hartford.

  She sipped her beer and watched her father tinker with the lawn mower. “You talk to Jess lately?” she asked.

  Jess was Thompson’s baby sister. Four years out of college and trying to make it as an artist, whatever that meant. Near as Thompson could tell, it mostly meant couch surfing, binge drinking, and emotional breakdowns.

  “Not since she and the new guy—Tree? River?”

  “Leaf.”

  “Leaf. Right. Not since they left for Costa Rica. You?”

  “I Facebook-messaged her the other day. She said she’d be back in time to see us this weekend. Guess she was mistaken.”

  “You know Jess,” he said gruffly. “Never been so good with schedules.” He removed the hex nut from the mounting bolts and yanked the mower’s carburetor free. Fuel puddled on the floor. “Son of a whore!”

  “Something bothering you, Pop?”

  “Yeah—I forgot to clamp the goddamn fuel line.” He rectified the error and pushed the mess around with a rag.

  “Seriously, what’s wrong?” It wasn’t like him to lose his temper. “Is this about me and Kate?”

  Her father wiped his hands off on his pants. “It’s not my place to say.”

  “Pop, I’m asking. What is it?”

  “She’s your goddamn boss, Charlie, that’s what!”

  Ah. There it was. She should have known.

  Thompson’s dad was a captain with the Hartford PD. A real nose-to-the-grindstone kind of guy. He’d joined the force straight out of high school. Climbed the ranks from lowly beat cop to head of precinc
t. To him, chain of command was sacrosanct.

  “What’re you saying? You think your daughter’s fucking her way to the top?”

  “I’m not saying it, but you’re a fool if you think others aren’t.”

  “Let them talk. I honestly don’t give a shit.”

  “No? You should. Some of them hold your career in their hands. And speaking of, you ever stop to think what happens when the two of you break up? She holds all the cards, Charlie. Odds are, you’ll wind up pushing paper in some shitty basement office in East Bumfuck.”

  “That’s not gonna happen, Pop.”

  “Yeah? How the hell do you know?”

  “Because, goddamn it, Kate and I are getting married! So whatever you really think of her—of me—you could at least pretend to get on board.”

  She hadn’t meant to snap. Hadn’t meant to tell him that way.

  And she certainly hadn’t meant for Kate to overhear.

  O’Brien stood in the doorway to the garage, one hand still on the knob. It was clear by the look on her face that she’d been there awhile.

  Thompson struggled for words. A blotchy flush crawled up her father’s neck.

  “Kate, I—”

  “Later,” O’Brien said. “I just got a call from HQ. Something’s happened in San Francisco. We have to go.”

  4.

  JAKE RESTON FORCED himself onto his hands and knees. His vision was blurry, his thoughts a muddle. He couldn’t hear a thing over the ringing in his ears.

  He struggled to recall where he was, and why. The back of his neck was hot and tight, like he’d been out in the sun too long. Ditto the portions of his arms and legs his T-shirt and shorts failed to cover. When he was nineteen, he’d spent his summer break from college laying pavement with a road crew. Shoveling hot-mix asphalt for ten-hour stretches in the August heat, fumes rising off the molten sludge, proved a recipe for heat exhaustion, and despite his best efforts to stay hydrated, it had leveled Jake more than once. This felt similar, which led Jake to wonder if heat exhaustion was what had caused him to collapse today—but oddly, given his apparent sunburn, it wasn’t all that warm outside.