by Jon F. Merz
He nodded, his eyes grave. “Who the fuck are these guys?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve got a feeling they’re going to tell us real soon.” I stood up and looked at Pappas. “He’s as good as I can get him for the time being. But he needs a doctor. Bad. If you don’t want him dying here, then tell us what you want.”
Papas threw a chair back from one of the unoccupied tables and slumped into it, resting the pistol he carried on his huge belly. He looked around, seemingly enjoying the fact that everyone was completely focused on him. “What do I want? What do I want?” He stroked his chin and feigned deep thought. “That is the always elusive question for mankind, is it not? For what one man wants, another may eschew. And vice versa.”
“You don’t strike me as a philosopher,” I said.
“And you, my friend, don’t strike me as a doctor. So how do you come to know how to treat gunshot wounds?”
“I’ve been around some pretty awful places in my life.”
“In what capacity?”
I smirked. “You see the bar we’re in? It’s not exactly the sort of place saints go to hang out.” I glanced at Jimmy. “No offense, Jimmy.”
“So you’re not a saint,” said Pappas. “Thanks so much for providing me with a vague and therefore useless answer to my question.” He leveled the pistol on me. “Perhaps I should just shoot you now and be done with it?”
I held my hands up. “Now why would you go and do a thing like that? Especially since I can probably help you.”
Papas lowered the gun. “Help me? What on earth makes you think I require your assistance?”
“You’re here for a reason,” I said. “So something must be missing otherwise you wouldn’t have stayed. Part of your team not here when they were supposed to be?”
Papas frowned. “I have enough men.”
“For what?”
Papas said nothing and then broke into a wide grin. “Ah ha! I see what you did there. Very good. Very good indeed, my friend. You nearly got me.” His grin spilled down into his multiple chins and I winced. He looked like Jabba The Hut melting in the sun.
“If you let me help you, perhaps we could get Jimmy here a doctor?”
“I don’t want your help,” said Pappas. “Any moment now, I will have everything I require from this disgusting establishment.”
“Which is what?”
Papas spread his arms. “A convenient place to conduct business.”
He didn’t appear to be carrying anything of size. So I disregarded the possibility of weapons or some type of explosives. That just didn’t seem to jibe with the image of the man before me. Yeah, I was assuming things, but sometimes that’s all you have to go on.
But what he did have sat quietly nearby. In fact, the girl hadn’t moved or even reacted when Pappas shot Jimmy Bats. I stared at her and saw that her eyes seemed glassy. She hadn’t even flinched during the gunshot.
She was drugged.
I nodded in her direction. “What’d you use to keep her quiet?”
Papas cocked his head and stared at me. “What did you say you did for work, my friend?”
“I didn’t.”
“So consider yourself queried,” said Pappas. “Soldier? Law man?”
“I was a soldier,” I said. “Once. A long time ago.”
“And you still have the eye for it,” said Pappas. “I can see that now. Did you see combat?”
“Too much of it,” I said. “The girl. She what you’re selling?”
Papas smiled. “Are you interested in acquiring her if I am?”
“Better she come with me than with whomever you’re planning to give her to.”
Papas put a hand over his heart. “I would never presume to give her away. Never! She is worth far too much to ever consider gifting. No, my friend, she will bring in a very steep price. And I will finally recoup my investment into her…education.”
“Education.” I shook my head. “She have any say in this matter?”
Papas sighed. “I have found, especially with women, that some things are best left for them not to be involved in. They do tend to get so whiny and garrulous about such things. Business is best when it is done and completed without unnecessarily complicating things.”
“Like the girl’s freedom,” I said.
“Like the girl’s freedom,” agreed Pappas. “It is irrelevant anyway. She has already been sold. We are here awaiting the buyer and the transfer of funds. Then we shall leave you all to continue your miserable excuse for a Christmas.”
Jimmy Bats coughed and spat a wad of blood out of his mouth. “You know who owns this bar, asshole? You know how dead you are when he finds out what you did here tonight?”
Papas shook his head. “Does it appear that I am even remotely concerned about that possibility? Do I strike you as that type of fellow who would care what a small time gangster would think? I am here right now, where is he? I will tell you: he is home with his family or his lover or his kids. He is doing anything other than being here. So to answer your question: not only do I not know who owns this bar, but I also do not care. Fuck him. Fuck his bar.”
Jimmy coughed again. “He’ll hunt you down for this.”
“Then he will need to spend a rather exorbitant amount of money to find us because we’re not from around here. Is he willing to do that? Is he willing to spend the money to find us and then confront us on ground that he is not familiar with? I highly doubt he is. No, friend, I think he will likely chalk this up as an unfortunate occurrence and write it off as the cost of doing business. Because that’s all it is. That is all it will ever be.”
Papas clearly didn’t know Billy Dinkins that well. I sure as hell would not have wanted to be on his bad side. But I didn’t much have to worry about that. I came here to drink, not engage in human trafficking.
“What time does your buyer arrive?” I asked.
“Why?”
I gestured to Jimmy. “This guys needs a doctor. The longer we wait, the more likely it is that he dies.”
Papas sighed. “Tragically, one cannot rush business. I’m afraid his death might well be an unfortunate side effect of me finalizing my transaction this evening.”
“Why here?”
“Why not here? It was convenient; it was open; and it looks like a dive. Precisely the sort of place that the local authorities might be inclined to bypass. We can come in, get a drink and do our business, and then leave. And everything would have gone smoothly if your friend there hadn’t decided that we looked out of place for his establishment.” Pappas sighed again. “Is it not unfortunate the vision hindsight gives us? In retrospect, I’m sure he would have left us alone rather than take a bullet to his gut. But that is the consequence of action. We are always accountable to it.”
“Including you,” I said. “The actions you’ve taken here tonight have their own consequences.”
Papas nodded. “Indeed they do. But I am not expecting to meet those consequences for quite some time. Many years, in fact. And by then, I shall have lived enough that I am comfortable meeting them.”
“Unless someone decides to mess up your timeline,” I said.
“Those that do will pay the price for it,” said Pappas. “I have little mercy for those who disrupt my destiny.”
I glanced at Jimmy. “How you doing?”
“Like I got stomach fucked by a steel girder,” said Jimmy. “Bleeding seems to have slowed, though. Probably clotting up around the wound.”
“We get you to the hospital, you know they’re gonna have to open that up again.”
“Oh, thanks for the image, pal,” Jimmy shook his head. “Your bedside manner sucks.”
“I’ve been told,” I said. I looked back at Pappas. “How old is the girl?”
“Does it matter?”
I shrugged. “Passing the time. May as well converse.”
“She is thirteen. And she has not yet bled for the first time. A late bloomer as it were.” Pappas smiled. “Her youth and virg
inity will bring me a handsome amount of money.”
“She local?”
Papas eyed me. “That does not concern you. All you need worry about is your friend and whether he lives or dies based on when my buyer gets here.”
“Reason I ask is if she is, then she’s probably got people looking for her. Maybe even right now. Wouldn’t it suck if your party happened to get crashed by the cops?”
“No one is looking for her,” said Pappas. “She is a little lost lamb who wandered away from home and into my warm embrace.”
“I’ll bet.” The girl still had the dazed expression on her face. Whatever they’d used on her, it must have been pretty strong. “She know what you intend to do with her? What sort of life she’s in for?”
Papas chuckled. “Even I do not now know what sort of life is in store for her. To worry about that would be to subject myself to the sort of stress I simply don’t need. I run a business, after all. And just as the drug store does not ask what you intend to do with the things you purchase there, neither do I ask my buyers to describe what their future actions will be with what I supply them. If I did, my business would soon be worth nothing.”
“But you know what she can expect,” I said. “You know she’ll be raped. Possibly tortured. Used up until she’s good for absolutely nothing but being someone’s fuck toy. She’ll be subjected to the sort of life that no one ever should be.”
“And what would you do with her?” asked Pappas.
“Free her. She’s got family somewhere. Possibly they’re worried sick about her. What harm could it do? She’s a child, after all. And it’s Christmas. Shouldn’t she be able to enjoy that innocence for a little while longer before life shows up with its rude awakenings?”
“You’re a sentimental fool,” said Pappas. “It’s that sort of softness that lets men like me rule the world.”
I frowned. “I’ve found one of the biggest problems with people is that they all have the tendency to equate a soft heart with a lack of resolve. Or an inability to stand up for what is right. Even an unwillingness to commit violence if that’s what it takes to right a wrong. They look, but they don’t truly see. They assume - like you’re assuming right now - that because I have a soft spot for children and want to save them from harm, that I’m some sort of weak man who could never be cruel. Or harsh. Or vindictive.”
“Are you saying that you are?”
I stared at Pappas. “I’m saying it’s a mistake to push a man to violence when that is what he has spent his entire life perfecting.”
The bar fell silent and I could feel the heat coming at me from Pappas. His eyes bore into me and I simply stared right back through him. He had the gun out still, yes, but I was betting I could draw faster and gun him down before he got a second round off.
I desperately wanted to shoot him right then, but I held back. Not because the timing was bad, but even while Jimmy was bleeding and in need of medical help, I wanted to know who the other players were in this venture. The buyer. Who was that scumbag? If I was going to roll this thing up - and I most definitely was - then I wanted the entire group dead, not just the seller. The purchaser was just as bad, in my opinion.
And they all needed to die.
The pistol I was wearing behind my right hip was a Colt 1911 in .45. It had the stopping power I wanted, and while I sometimes carried a smaller profile pistol, I was glad I had the .45 tonight. I just had to make sure that I didn’t push Pappas too far too soon that he tried to shoot me. I needed all the players here in the bar before I took action.
“Lawson.”
I turned. Jimmy Bats waved me over. I glanced at Pappas and he nodded so I went and squatted next to Jimmy.
“Yeah?”
“You know this won’t stand. Billy gets wind of this - doesn’t matter if we all buy it or not - he’s gonna track this guy down and strip his skin off in layers just to prolong the agony. I know him. Know what he’s done in the past. Fucks like this guy Pappas become bad stories told to dissuade other scumbags from ever trying this sort of shit.”
“Billy ain’t here right now, friend,” I said. “Just us.”
Jimmy looked in my eyes. “We gotta hang on until they leave. We can’t die. Not us. Not now.”
“I’m working on it,” I started to stand up but Jimmy grabbed my hand and pulled me close.
“I know you ain’t a cop, Lawson. I don’t know what the hell you are. But I know you’re a man who knows how to end things if he needs to.”
I grinned. “Is it that obvious?”
“Not unless you’re accustomed to violence like I am,” said Jimmy. “I can spot it. Just like I spotted these fuckers. Got that vibe, you know what I’m talking about?”
“Yeah.”
“Wish I’d left the bat behind and simply taken the shotgun out from behind the bar.” He eyed me hard. “You know what I mean?”
“That’s definitely much more persuasive than a bat,” I said. “Might have been a smarter choice given the situation we’re in right now.”
Jimmy nodded. “The night is still young. We can always make up for the mistakes we’ve made in the past. All it takes is a willingness to take the hard step toward repairing the damage.”
“That first step, though. It can be a real bitch.”
“Yeah,” said Jimmy. “But if you don’t take it, then what’s the point of going on with living? The hard stuff is how we define ourselves.”
“If you two are quite through discussing things over there,” said Pappas then. “I’d very much like it if you separated yourselves.”
Jimmy chuckled. “Sure, lemme just go for a quick jog. Asshole.”
Papas leveled the gun on him. “Unless you want me to put another hole in you, you’ll be far healthier if you shut your mouth.”
Jimmy held up a bloody hand and put it to his lips. Pappas lowered the pistol and nodded at me. “That goes for you as well.”
I stood back up and pointed at the bar. “You mind if I get a drink for him?”
Papas said nothing for a moment and then finally acquiesced. “Make sure I can see what you’re doing, otherwise I won’t hesitate to kill you and everyone else in this establishment.”
“I don’t doubt it.” I moved around the bar and it dawned on me that I’d never actually been on this side before. In all my years, I’d never stood behind a bar. Always in front of it. Well, after all, that was where the fun happened. I looked around and found the two glasses Jimmy and I had used. I pulled the Bombay Sapphire over and poured a measure over some ice and then topped it off with tonic water. The tray of limes was still in the fridge and as I looked down for it, I spotted the Mossberg 12 gauge on a rack underneath the bar.
I could have taken it right then, but I was betting that Pappas was watching me like a hawk. As long as I knew where it was, I could bring it into play later on.
I squeezed a few limes into the drink and brought one around to Jimmy. He eyed me and then took it, drank, and sputtered.
“Jesus, you’ve got a heavy hand.”
I raised the other glass and drank it down. “Well, better heavy than light.”
Jimmy pointed at his gut. “Pretty sure this is the worst idea in the world given my present condition.”
Papas came over. “Didn’t I tell you to separate yourselves?” He pointed at me and then a table in the corner. “You, go over there.”
“Can I take my drink?”
“Take it.” Pappas pointed at Jimmy. “And you. Shut up. Or die. I don’t much care which one you choose. Just shut up and stay out of my hair.”
“Wouldn’t want to get in it,” said Jimmy. “It’s way too greasy.”
Pappas leveled the gun on him and for a moment, I thought Jimmy had pushed it too far. But then Pappas merely grinned. “No, it’s better to watch you slowly die from that first wound than give you an easy way out. I’ve seen men die from abdominal gun shot wounds, and eventually, it gets much worse than it is right now. Your punishment will be forthcomin
g. Trust me.”
I sat at the table with my back to the wall. It gave me a perfect view of the room. When this went down, I’d know exactly who to take out first.
Pappas looked at his watch and snapped at one of his henchmen in Greek demanding to know where the buyer was. The henchman shrugged and Pappas waved him off.
I shifted my position slightly so my right hand was across the back of the chair hanging down toward my right hip. It left me slumped to my left side but it would also allow me to inch the material of my sweater up so that when I went for the pistol draw, the action was smoother. I kept my drink in my left hand and took a couple shallow draws to cover the position.
From my vantage point, I had a clear shot at Pappas first, then his henchman to the right of him. Finally, I’d take the guy by the door keeping a look out. He’d be the last to react to the action at this point. This could all change as soon as the buyer entered, however. The situation was fluid, but as long as I had an immediate action plan, I could always adjust on the fly as the variables presented themselves.
The guy on the door grunted at Pappas. “He’s here.”
The door opened and I saw a portly dude of about thirty come waddling in. He wore a Bruins cap on his head and a leather jacket that barely looked like it did squat to warm him. I wasn’t sure what sort of fashion statement he was going for, but I settled on “blue collar shitbag.” He clapped his hands, took off his leather gloves and shook Pappas’ hand.
“Pappas, right? Nice to meet you. I’m Duane.”
Papas looked at the outstretched hand before him and frowned. “You are late. You’re also not my buyer.”
Duane nodded. “Yeah, sorry about that. Weather’s a bitch tonight. Roads are hard driving. Nearly took a car out a street over from here. Sucks.”
“And?”
“And I know I’m not your buyer. But I work for him. He wants me to check out the merchandise and then I’ll give him the all clear. If she’s not up to snuff, then the deal is off.”