“Nope. I’m just saying drinks aren’t really my area.”
“Ain’t like shots of whiskey are difficult to make.”
“Apparently, they’re easy enough to drink.”
Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on Hendricks. “Ah. I see. You think I’m hitting the sauce a little hard.”
“Not my business,” she replied.
“No disagreement there.”
“I mean, it’s a little early, is all. Most folks aren’t even off work yet.”
Hendricks went to check his watch, only to discover that he wasn’t wearing one. His eyebrows gathered in obvious puzzlement. “Yeah, well, I’m retired.”
“Retired from what?”
From running false-flag missions for the U.S. government, he thought. From killing hitmen for a living once he got back home. “From giving a shit about what anybody thinks of me getting drunk in the middle of the day,” he said.
She sighed and changed tactics. “How about a bite to eat, at least?” Her tone was solicitous and optimistic. Hendricks pegged her for a chronic overachiever, unaccustomed to failure.
“How about you pour me another goddamn whiskey?”
“Fine.” She ducked behind the bar, fetched a bottle of Early Times from the well, and refilled Hendricks’s shot glass. Then she poured him a cup of coffee from the thermal carafe beside the register. “On the house,” she said.
“Look, kid-”
“Cameron,” she said.
“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.”