Red Right Hand Read Free Page 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