Red Right Hand (4 page)

S
O HE SAYS,
‘Nicky, I'd like to introduce you to my uncle.' And I reply, ‘Your uncle? Thank Christ—I thought that was your mother!'”

The table erupted with laughter. One of Pappas's henchmen, Milos, slammed his palm down on the dark-stained wood so hard, their plates jumped. The other, Dimitris, just chuckled and shook his head. The two of them looked so alike that, for a time, Hendricks couldn't tell them apart. Eventually, though, he was able to keep them straight, partly because Milos was by far the more gregarious of the two, his wide eyes dopey and inattentive while Dimitris's were sly and watchful, and partly because Dimitris had an ugly scar that snaked around his right biceps and disappeared into his shirtsleeve. Hendricks had seen his share of scars like that during his black ops days. It was a shrapnel wound—which meant Dimitris was ex-military.

They'd been sitting here for nearly two hours, the table littered with picked-over plates of steamed mussels and fried calamari, grilled shrimp and baked stuffed lobster—even the remnants of a salt-crusted sea bass, roasted whole and filleted at the table by the chef. Bottles littered the table too. Ouzo for Dimitris—Barbayanni, a brand that Hendricks had never heard of before today. Cruzan Rum for Milos, who drank it straight—wincing every time—once his compatriots teased him for cutting it with Diet Coke. Johnnie Walker Blue for Hendricks. A bottle of an unpronounceable Greek red wine for Pappas.

Pappas's goons seemed to have no compunction about getting drunk so long as Hendricks was too—in fact, their boss encouraged them—but Pappas chose to nurse his wine. He was shrewd and watchful even among friends, a trait Hendricks might've admired if he didn't despise everything about the man.

“Another drink, Mr. Dalton?”

“I told you, Nick—please call me Jimmy. And I'm not even done with the last one yet!”

Pappas flashed Hendricks an impish grin. “Then I suggest you rectify that presently.”

Hendricks smiled back. “Hey, who am I to argue? You're the boss.”

He blinked hard, reached clumsily for his drink, and knocked it over. Amber liquid spilled across the table. Hendricks frowned and blotted at it with a cloth napkin.

“On second thought,” he slurred, “I think I may've hit my limit.”

The chef—a scraggly tattooed guy named Noah who turned out to be a genius in the kitchen—came over to the table bearing a platter piled high with cheeses, fruit, and local honeycomb. He and Cameron were the only two working—Pappas had instructed Noah to give the rest of the dinner-shift staff the night off, and he'd slipped Cameron and the chef a thousand bucks apiece for their trouble.

“Noah!” shouted Milos. “Sit and have a drink with us.” Milos's cheeks were flushed. His forehead gleamed with sweat. His smile was broad and guileless.

Noah looked uncertainly at Pappas, who gestured toward an empty chair. “By all means, Noah—join us.”

Noah sat down. Milos sloshed some rum into a dirty glass for him and poured another for himself. Dimitris poured a fresh drink too. The three men clinked and drank.

Milos slammed his empty glass on the table and stood, teetering slightly. “Dimitris,” he said, clapping Noah on the back, “pour this man another round. I gotta see a horse about a piss.”

“Yeah,” said Hendricks, rising unsteadily to his feet and staggering after Milos. “What he said.”

Hendricks had been waiting all afternoon for the right time to make his move. He wasn't carrying any weapons because he'd had no way of knowing whether Pappas's goons would pat him down when they arrived. That made taking on two armed thugs at once a risky proposition—riskier still if Pappas was also carrying. Plus, he wanted to keep the waitress and the chef out of the line of fire, if possible.

Once they rounded the corner to the restroom, Hendricks put on speed so that he and Milos reached the door at the same time. With Milos zigzagging drunkenly down the hall, it wasn't hard for Hendricks to catch up. After a moment's stop-start awkwardness, Hendricks pushed open the door and gestured for Milos to go first.

“Thanks, pal,” the big man said, his eyes glassy, that goofy smile still pasted on his face.

As Milos stepped across the threshold, Hendricks tripped him with an outstretched foot. Milos pitched forward. Hendricks followed him into the restroom, grabbed the back of Milos's head as he went down, and slammed it into the sink. The porcelain cracked. Milos shuddered involuntarily, and then his limbs went loose. He was out before he hit the floor, head dented, blood oozing across the tiles.

Hendricks emptied Milos's pockets. Found a wallet. A cell phone. Half a pack of gum. A tiny ball of plastic wrap knotted at one end and filled with white powder, likely cocaine. He ground his heel into the phone until it broke and left the rest of Milos's pocket litter beside it. Then he relieved Milos of his pistol, a compact semiautomatic .22 rimfire he wore at the small of his back.

Shit. He should've figured. It seemed like big guys always carried little firearms. Hendricks thought it was because they put too much faith in their own strength, or maybe they believed that they looked bigger by comparison. Whatever the reason, it meant he'd be taking on Dimitris with a glorified cap gun.

At least it was loaded to capacity. A round in the chamber. Nine more in the magazine. He thumbed the safety off. Opened the restroom door a hair and listened. Milos had gone down so hard, Hendricks worried someone might've heard, but the merriment in the dining room continued unabated.

He slipped into the hall, eased the door closed behind him, and pushed through the swinging double doors to the kitchen. Cameron was standing at a stainless-steel prep station scarfing down a hodgepodge plate of leftovers.

“What are you…” she began. Her eyes widened when she saw the gun. Hendricks put a finger to his lips, and she fell silent. Then he gestured with his barrel toward the walk-in.

“But—”

“No buts. Go.”

When she reached the walk-in door, he jerked it open and gestured for her to get inside.

“And if I don't?”

“You really want to find out?”

She glanced toward the kitchen door and the dining room beyond it. “I could scream.”

“You could—but you seem like a bright kid, so I'm betting you won't.”

She eyed him for a moment and then stepped inside. “All the way,” he said. She sighed and headed for the back. “Good. Now sit.”

“Why?”

So I can close the door without you rushing it,
he thought. “Because I said so,” he said.

She reluctantly complied, sitting down atop a stack of produce boxes. Her breath plumed. Gooseflesh sprung up on her bare arms.

“For what it's worth,” he said as he swung the door shut, “this is for your own good.”

She said something in reply, but her voice was barely audible, blunted by the walk-in's insulated walls.

Hendricks wedged a wooden spoon into the hole intended for a padlock and strode with purpose into the dining room, no longer bothering to feign drunkenness. For a moment, the three men at the table paid him little mind. But that changed when he shot Dimitris in the face.

It was nothing personal. A head shot was simply the quickest way to put a target down. Or, at least, it
would
have been if Hendricks had had a real gun to work with instead of this rinky-dink .22.

Dimitris took the shot just below his left eye, but it didn't penetrate his cheekbone; it just deflected off it and furrowed his flesh from cheek to ear. There was a crash of plates and glass as Pappas upended the table and took shelter behind it. The chef, Noah, scurried after him.

Hendricks had hoped Dimitris would go down, but instead he growled in pain and rage and then charged. Hendricks fired again as Dimitris closed the gap. Caught him in the left biceps. But Dimitris just kept coming.

Hendricks tried to sidestep Dimitris, but there was a lot of him to sidestep. Dimitris swiped at Hendricks with one meaty fist. Hendricks blocked it with an outward sweep of his left forearm, his elbow a right angle. Dimitris countered with a vicious uppercut. The punch caught Hendricks in the jaw. His head snapped back. His knees buckled.

As Hendricks toppled, Dimitris went for his piece. Hendricks fired off a wild shot as he fell. It struck Dimitris in the side, but he still didn't go down.

Hendricks landed on his back. The wind rushed out of him. Dimitris raised his weapon, a .22, just like his buddy's. Hendricks put three rounds into his chest. Dimitris lost his grip on his gun at the impact, and it sailed across the room. He took a halting step toward Hendricks, and then finally collapsed, falling forward so that his weight pinned Hendricks to the floor.

A crack of gunfire, and Dimitris's corpse bucked as if electrocuted. Another, and a floorboard three inches from Hendricks's head kicked up splinters. Pappas was firing at him blindly around the table.

Hendricks rolled, heaving Dimitris's body off him and using it for cover. Pappas hit his dead henchman in the leg, the back, the neck—none of the shots, thankfully, a through-and-through. Hendricks waited for a lull in the shooting, and then he put two rounds through the table Pappas hid behind. A .22 might not have much stopping power, but its slender rounds could sure as hell punch through a half an inch of lacquered wood. Pappas screamed, and his gun clattered to the floor.

Hendricks climbed to his feet and circled the table, the .22 held ready. When he came even with the table's edge, he saw Pappas frantically applying pressure to a wound in his thigh. Noah sat wide-eyed and trembling beside him, face spattered with Pappas's blood. As Hendricks approached, Noah crab-walked backward through the rubble from the upturned table and began to cry.

“Relax,” Hendricks said to him. “I'm not here for you—it's Pappas that I want. Don't cause any trouble, and I promise you'll come out of this unharmed. Understand?”

Noah swallowed hard and nodded.

“Good.”

Hendricks knelt, his gun trained on Pappas, and pocketed the man's dropped pistol—a .45. Its caliber explained the lack of through-and-throughs; fatter rounds spread out more when they hit, which in turn slows them down. That meant the .45 had more stopping power than Milos's .22, but Hendricks didn't trust any gun he hadn't had the chance to inspect.

“What are you after?” Pappas asked through gritted teeth. “Money? Name your sum and I'll gladly hand it over, provided you let me go.”

“I don't want your fucking money.”

“What, then? Revenge? If so, let's not waste time. Pull the trigger and be done with it.”

“Don't worry—we'll get to that, once you tell me everything I need to know. But first, you and I are going for a little trip to someplace where we won't be bothered. Someplace where nobody will hear you scream. I set it up weeks ago for this very occasion. And I promise, once I get you there, you
will
talk.”

Pappas spat. “The fuck I will.”

Hendricks smiled. “You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“Should I?”

“I don't know. I thought you might.”

“Why's that?”

“Last year, the Council paid a man named Engelmann to have me killed.”

The gunshot had rendered Pappas's sun-kissed countenance pale. Hendricks's words made him go paler still. “Wait—you're the guy who's been whacking our hitters?”

Hendricks said nothing.

“Look, you've got to understand, that wasn't my call. I was on the Council for all of a week when they decided to sic that guy on you.”

Hendricks stepped on the hand Pappas held to the bullet wound in his thigh. Pappas screamed and writhed in pain. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Hendricks said. “My best friend is dead.”

Hendricks lifted his foot. Pappas's screaming ceased. “So, what,” he said between gasps, “you plan to take down the Council single-handedly?”

“Of course not. You're going to help me.”

“You're out of your goddamn mind—particularly if you think I'm going to talk.”

“It's not a matter of if. Just when. To be clear, I plan to kill you either way, but you get to decide how quick and painless your death will be.”

Pappas flashed a manic smile that teetered between terror and bravado. “Gee, thanks.”

“Don't blame me. It's the Council that put you in this position. If you'd like to return the favor, you'll tell me everything I want to know.”

“You don't understand. If I talk, they'll kill my family.”

“What do you care? Half your family wants you dead.”

“That doesn't mean that I don't love them,” he said. “Listen, you're a businessman. Let's talk about this. I'm sure we can reach some kind of agreement.”

“We're done talking for now. There'll be plenty of time for us to chat once we get to where we're going. I've got a car out front. Get up, or I will get you up.”

As Hendricks turned toward the door, Pappas shouted, “Wait!”

That's when Hendricks realized that Pappas had been stalling for time all along.

Too late, he wheeled and saw Noah lunging toward him, the fillet knife from the upturned table in his hand.

Goddamn it.

Hendricks tried to bring the .22 around, but there was neither time nor space. The knife slid into his side as Noah slammed into him. Its blade, still specked with salt crust, felt like it was on fire.

Noah drove the knife forward with all his weight. Hendricks dropped his gun, wrapped his hands around Noah's wrists, and tried desperately to halt the blade's progress as they fell, limbs tangled, to the floor.

Noah had gravity on his side. Hendricks had momentum on his. Rather than halt the blade's forward progress, Hendricks wrenched Noah's wrists sideways, angling the blade away from his vital organs. The blade glanced off a rib, parting skin and stinging like a motherfucker, and then wedged itself in the floorboards. Hendricks landed right beside it, but Noah's forward motion sent him tumbling. Hendricks kept hold of Noah's wrists, and Noah somersaulted over him and slammed hard into the floor. He sounded like a sack of flour when he hit. Hendricks yanked out the knife, scrabbled to his feet, and buried it in Noah's chest. Noah's chef's whites blossomed red. His eyelids fluttered, then stilled.