Red Right Hand (13 page)

Hendricks fell silent. Steepled his fingers in front of his face, his elbows resting on the table. Pondered. Thompson watched him intently but said nothing. Finally, he put his palms down on the table, looked her in the eye, and said, “No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said no. This whole situation's lousy. Lots of opportunities for it to go sideways and damn few for it to go well. And that's if you're telling the truth. If you're lying, my odds of survival get even worse.”

“Why would I lie? If I knew Evie had a way to draw you out, why go to the trouble of pointing you toward some random old man when I could just have this place surrounded and arrest you here?” She saw him tense up and added, “Relax. I'm just saying.”

“Look, with Lester dead, all I've got left to rely on is my gut—and my gut says this is a bad idea.”

“Segreti's going to die out there, you know. The Council is going to find him, and when they do, they're going to make him pay. They'll take him apart slowly, piece by piece, until his body finally fails. Is that what you want?” She was playing on his sympathies by reminding him what Engelmann had done to Lester. The ploy was as underhanded as it was obvious. Hendricks wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of rising to the bait.

Hendricks shrugged. “If he dies, he dies. That's on you for losing him in the first place. Besides, if everything you've said is true, the guy's as dirty as they come. My guess is, no one's gonna miss him when he's gone.”

He finished his coffee. It was bitter. He winced as it went down. Then he stood and reached for his back pocket. Thompson flinched, her right hand ducking beneath the table, toward the piece Hendricks knew she must have secreted somewhere. But when he removed his wallet from his pocket and tossed some bills onto the table, she relaxed.

“Coffee's on me. I don't want you thinking I owe you anything.”

“Here,” she said, fishing a business card and a pen from her purse, her movements slow, deliberate, unthreatening. She scrawled a number on the back and offered the card to him. “In case you change your mind and need to get in touch. The one in pen's my personal cell.”

He took it. Looked it over. Then he crumpled it and dropped it into his empty mug. “I'm not going to change my mind,” he said. “Don't contact me again.”

F
RANK SEGRETI SAT
with Lois Broussard on her living-room couch. Her house was lit only by the flickering glow of the television. It was after midnight. The curtains were drawn. Lois's dog, Ella, snored at Frank's feet. Sirens droned in the distance, sometimes rising, sometimes falling, but never passing too close by. The house was not on a major through street.

A smattering of empty glasses, plates, and takeout cartons covered the coffee table. Two empty bottles of white wine sat on the floor beside it. Thanks to Frank's encouragement, Lois had polished off most of the wine herself and—with an assist from whatever pharmaceuticals she'd taken before he arrived—wound up sloppy drunk. His plan had been to keep her drinking until she passed out so he'd have the run of her place until the heat died down.

As the evening wore on, Lois careened wildly between manic oversharing—about her childhood in Gulfport, Mississippi; about her garden; about some old jazz record he
absolutely had to hear
—and long jags of tense silence during which Frank could feel the hitch of her quiet sobbing through the couch. When the second bottle ran dry, he told himself he should go grab another, but the truth was, he'd begun to worry about her. So instead, he raided her fridge and laid out an elaborate spread of all the leftovers he could find.

He'd figured if he could get some food into her, he could sober her up some. The fact that he hadn't eaten since first thing this morning didn't even occur to him. Adrenaline had suppressed his appetite. But when he caught a whiff of cold Hunan pork, he started salivating. They both dug in with gusto, wolfing down enough food to sustain twice their number, and Lois even perked up for a while.

Now she dozed fitfully—brow furrowed, whimpering occasionally—while, on her television screen, Jimmy Stewart fished a despondent Kim Novak from San Francisco Bay, two miles and sixty years from where Frank and Lois sat. The bridge towered over them, its supports blissfully undamaged. The choreography of the scene was quite formal by modern standards. Novak dropping flowers one by one into the water before she leaped took on a ritualistic air, and when Stewart emerged slowly from the water with Novak in his arms, it seemed less a rescue to Frank than a baptism.

A few hours ago, Frank had cleaned himself up in the downstairs powder room and—at Lois's insistence—changed into one of her husband Cal's sweat suits so she could throw his clothes in the wash. The house was too damn quiet with the television off and Lois wouldn't let him put on CNN, so Frank was idly flipping channels when he came across his all-time favorite movie—Alfred Hitchcock's
Vertigo
. If Frank were being honest with himself, it's why he settled in San Francisco. There was something haunting and romantic about the way Hitchcock shot the city; the first time he saw the movie, as a teenager, he fell in love.

Turned out,
Vertigo
was one of Cal's favorites too, so they left it on.

“He should have been home by now,” Lois told him more than once, “but his flight was grounded…
because of what happened
.” Always the same euphemistic phrase, always delivered at a stage whisper, as if she couldn't bring herself to fully acknowledge it.

Lois told Frank that Cal's construction firm was putting up a new hotel in Reno, and he'd been out there all week supervising their progress. It was obvious she was having trouble coping without him, and in her medicated, booze-soaked stupor, she found Frank an acceptable enough replacement. He worried about what she'd think of him being here when she finally sobered up—or what Cal would think if Frank was still around when he got home.

Lois shifted on the couch, her eyes active behind closed lids. Then, without waking, she leaned toward him and placed her head on his shoulder. Her cheek was warm against his neck. Her breath was honeyed by the wine. Her hair smelled faintly of apples. Frank's pulse quickened. His face grew hot. It had been a long time since he'd been this close to a woman.

Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, he cleared his throat, and Lois opened her eyes drowsily. She regarded him with an unfocused gaze that made him feel as if she were looking past him—or through him, as if he were a ghost. Her expression indicated neither recognition nor fear.

“C'mon,” he said. “Let's put you to bed.”

“Yes,” she said, fighting through her mental cloudiness, the strain evident in her face. “That's probably a good idea.”

Lois tried and failed to get off the couch. She could barely hold her head up, much less stand. She leaned heavily on Frank the whole way upstairs, Ella trailing close behind. Occasionally, Lois's knees would buckle and she would stumble, then brace herself on the banister while Frank struggled to set her right once more. By the time he got her into bed, he was sweating, and his bum knee was on the verge of giving out. He took her slippers off and tucked her in.

Lois's eyes focused briefly on Frank, lucidity sparking behind them, and then widened. “Wh-who are you? Where's Cal?”

“Cal's stuck in Reno, Lois,” Frank said gently. “Because of what happened, remember? I'm Max. You know me.”

“Max,” she echoed, eyes tearing up a little. “Of course. Will…will you stay the night?” Then she colored, her face a boozy caricature of embarrassment. “Not, uh,
here
…I didn't mean…it's just, the house is so quiet with my Calvin gone…”

“Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere. And it looks like Ella's more than happy to steal Cal's spot.” The tiny dog hopped in place, trying in vain to get on the bed. “Do you mind if I help her up?”

But Lois's eyes drooped, her moment of clarity dissipating as her adrenaline waned. In seconds, she was unconscious. Frank shrugged and set Ella on the bed.

Just leave the lady be,
Frank thought.
She's not your fucking problem.
But he couldn't shake the notion she was going to feel like hell tomorrow morning.

He sighed and picked up the empty glass on her nightstand. Then he ducked into her master bathroom to get her some water.

The bathroom was spacious and dramatic—white walls, ceiling, and vanity, with an original wood floor painted glossy black and a white shag rug. There was a freestanding shower in one corner, and a claw-foot tub tucked into an alcove at the far end of the room.

He started to cross the room to the vanity, then froze. A cell phone lay in the rug's deep pile, where the edge of the rug came closest to the tub. It was one of those oversize Galaxy phones they advertised during ball games, as much a tablet as a smartphone. Water beaded on its glossy surface. In fact, half the rug was soaked, and water pooled in the cracks between the floorboards.

Frank approached the tub. It was still half full, a sopping towel draped over its rim. He remembered Lois's hair was wet when she came to the door. Remembered that the cops had knocked for some time shortly before he tried to break in but had received no answer. She'd been up here in the tub, it seemed—and when she came down, she must have thought Frank was the one she'd heard knocking.

That's when he spotted the side table.

It was black lacquered like the floor and partially hidden from view by the tub. On it was a Bose Bluetooth speaker, a sandalwood pillar candle on a small wrought-iron tray, and a toppled prescription bottle, its lid beside it, pills spilling to the floor.

Frank picked up the bottle. It wasn't Xanax or Valium, as he'd initially suspected, but Flexeril. The label said to take it three times a day as needed for muscle spasms—and warned it didn't play well with alcohol.

He gathered up the scattered pills and put them back in the bottle. A few had rolled under the tub, so he reached under and dragged a palm across the floorboards, trying to blindly sweep them out. His fingertips brushed against something larger and heavier than he'd expected, something about the size of a roll of quarters, but made of wood. He strained to reach it. Managed to grab it between his first and second fingers and tweeze it out.

It was an old-fashioned folding pocketknife with a single blade and a burl handle. At present, it was open—which made Frank grateful it was the handle, and not the blade, his fingers had grazed. Carved into the handle was a set of initials:
CWB.
Calvin Broussard, he assumed, and idly wondered:
William? Walter? Wayne?

Frank closed the knife and slipped it into his pocket. Then he walked around the tub and picked the phone up off the floor. He fumbled with the thing a moment, trying to figure out how to turn it on or wake it up or whatever. Frank was no good with gadgets. He didn't trust them, cell phones in particular. All that information floating around freaked him out. Seemed like it'd be way too easy to tap, track, or intercept.

Something he did worked. The phone lit up in his hand. He found himself looking at some kind of keypad without any numbers.
Okay,
he thought,
let's treat this like a break-in. Look for fingerprints. Guess the pattern.
He tilted the phone a little and saw a streaked zigzag fingerprint overlaying the keypad. Lois didn't seem the sneaky sort, so he tried the most obvious possible direction—top to bottom, left to right—first. The lock screen disappeared immediately, and Frank found himself in Lois's voice mail.

The message that was queued to play was twenty-seven seconds long. Lois must've listened to it multiple times, because there were several fingerprints on the play button, their lines and whorls intersecting. Frank added another and held the phone up to his ear to listen.

“Hey, babe, it's me. Where are you—out in the garden? If so, I hope you get this before I get home, so you have a chance to clean up. I know my flight's not until this evening, but hanging out in Reno alone on a Saturday seemed like a waste, so I rented a car and booked us some massages for this afternoon, followed by dinner at Aziza. Had to call in a favor to score a table, so don't you dare tell me you're in the mood for takeout. I'm on the bridge now, so I'll be home in a few. If you've got some handsome young thing keeping you company in my absence, you'd best tell hi—”

And then there was a roar of fire and static. An explosion of glass, oddly melodic. A sound like a lead weight tumbling in a clothes dryer as the car rolled, Cal screaming the whole time. A rapid series of snaps—the bridge's vertical support ropes, Frank guessed—followed by a moment's silence and then a splash. Cal's screams ceased. The call ended.

Cal Broussard wasn't stuck in Reno. Cal Broussard was dead.

And until the cops had come knocking, Frank realized, Lois had intended to join him.

J
AKE RESTON TRUDGED
from the hospital cafeteria back to his family carrying a green plastic tray loaded precariously with food and drink. It was early Sunday morning. The world outside the hospital's windows was bathed in cool predawn blue.

His head pounded, thanks to the tension in his neck and shoulders. His ears still rang from the explosion. His broken nose throbbed dully. A stink like burning plastic clung to his hair and clothes, although he'd gotten so used to it he barely noticed. He hadn't eaten since yesterday, and now that blind panic had given way to boredom and exhaustion, he was starving, the kind of gnawing hunger that bordered on queasy.

The tray held an egg-and-cheese croissant for Emily. Cereal with almond milk for Hannah, who'd been going through a vegan phase ever since she turned thirteen. A pile of corned-beef hash for Aidan, who enjoyed taunting Hannah by scarfing down all the meat he could. A bagel with cream cheese for himself. A plate of home fries to share. Coffee for the grown-ups. OJ for the kids. And as much bottled water as he could carry because they were all dehydrated and hoarse from smoke inhalation.

The night had been a trying one. Though Hannah had seemed fine at the scene, and she'd never once complained, it turned out she'd fractured her wrist when she fell. The ER physician splinted her arm and told her parents that she'd need to follow up with the orthopedic docs in a few days. The gash on Emily's forehead required twenty stitches. Hannah said they made her look like the bride of Frankenstein—mostly, Jake thought, to get a laugh out of poor Aidan. His leg was badly broken and required surgery. The hours he'd been under were the longest of Jake's life. But the surgeon said that it went well, and Aidan had been moved to a room shortly after. He'd slept on and off throughout the night but woke up hungry and in good spirits not long ago. The whole family was now camped out in Aidan's room, which the staff had mercifully allowed them to take over.

Sophia's brief bout of unconsciousness was still troubling to Jake and Emily, but the baby's head CT was negative, and the doctor who examined Sophia gave her a provisional thumbs-up, although she recommended they monitor her behavior for a couple days. The doc had insisted it was fine for Sophia to sleep, but Emily found herself unable to let her do so for more than ten minutes at a time. As a consequence, both of them were up all night. Thankfully, Emily had finally nodded off two hours ago, and Sophia had followed suit.

Hannah spent half the night watching the hits climb on her cell-phone video—over two million views, last Jake heard—but eventually her phone died and she was forced to get some rest.

Jake, too wired to sleep, had just watched them until Aidan woke. Then he'd headed out to fetch some breakfast.

Jake rounded the corner toward Aidan's room and then stopped short. There was a man waiting just outside. He was lean and weathered—fiftyish, Jake guessed. He had on a navy canvas blazer, a white button-down, and well-worn jeans. Cowboy boots, as creased and tan as the man's face, graced his feet. His thick, wavy hair was dyed a shade too dark to be convincing, gray roots starting to show. A .357 Magnum jutted from a holster on his hip.

The man was scowling at his cell phone when Jake spotted him, but when he sensed Jake's presence, he tucked the phone into the front pocket of his jeans and broke into an easy grin, the corners of his eyes crinkling, smile lines bracketing his mouth. There was something vulpine about his face, Jake thought.

“Jacob Reston?” he said.

“That's right,” Jake replied.

The man produced a wallet from the inside pocket of his blazer and flipped it open with one hand, a practiced motion. There was some kind of government ID inside, the man's face staring back at him. “Chet Yancey,” he said. He put his wallet away and extended his hand. Jake raised the tray a tad to indicate his hands were busy. As Yancey dropped his arm, Jake noted the turquoise pinkie ring the man wore.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Yancey?”

“I had some questions about what happened down at the bridge yesterday, and I thought maybe you could answer them.”

“I already spoke to the police.”

“Course you did. You're a good citizen. Eager to help. You understand that when an attack like this happens, you've gotta step up and do your part. That's why you're gonna talk to me too. It won't take but a minute.”

Jake looked down at the tray in his hands. Thought about telling Yancey to wait a sec while he delivered breakfast to his family. But something held him back. He suspected Yancey would simply follow him, and that didn't sit right with Jake. So he said nothing and stood his ground.

“Sure,” he said.

“Attaboy.” Yancey clapped Jake on the shoulder. The food on Jake's tray jostled, but thankfully nothing fell. Yancey removed a small notepad and pen from his back pocket and clicked the latter open. “How's your family doing, by the way? I peeked in on them, but when I saw your wife and baby were asleep, I thought it best I wait out here for you. I didn't want to disturb them,” he said brightly.

“Uh, they're fine. My littlest—”

“Sophia, right?” Yancey interjected, reading from his notepad.

“That's right,” Jake said, slightly unnerved. “She took a good bump to the head when my wife, Emily, fell, and was unconscious for a few minutes, but the docs say she's doing okay now. They even let her stay down here with the rest of us, instead of up in Peds, but we're supposed to keep an eye on her behavior. Emily needed some stitches, but she's otherwise okay. My son—”

“Aidan,” Yancey said.

“—broke his leg and needed surgery to set it. He's been groggy ever since he came to, but they cleared him for solid food a little while ago and told us he should heal up just fine. And Hannah—the toughest of us, I think—fractured her wrist, but she barely seemed to notice.”

“Hannah's your oldest, right?” Jake nodded. “What a pretty, pretty girl. Takes after her mother, if you don't mind my saying.”

“Actually,” Jake said, bristling, “I kinda—”

“Anyway,” Yancey continued, breezing past Jake's obvious discomfort, “I'm glad everybody's doing okay.” His tone didn't match his words. It sounded hurried, perfunctory, as though Jake's family's well-being didn't matter to him one way or the other. “Now, as my daddy used to say, let's talk turkey. You live in Eugene, right?”

“That's right.”

“Nice country up that way. Lots of green. A little chilly for my taste. What brought you and your lovely family to San Francisco today, Jake?”

“We were headed home from Disneyland,” he said, “and thought we'd stop and see the sights.” He had no wish to tell him the story about his parents' photo.

“Did you visit anyone while you were in town?”

The question puzzled Jake. “No. We just headed to the bridge to get a family picture.”

“A video, you mean.”

“Excuse me?” Jake was thrown by Yancey's correction. He felt defensive, suddenly, as though he'd been caught in a lie, which was ridiculous—he had nothing to hide.

“You headed to the bridge to get a video. It's been all over the news.”

“Yes. Right. Of course. Hannah posted it on Facebook when her friends started asking if she was okay—she'd mentioned we were stopping off in San Francisco. One of them put it up on YouTube. The video was supposed to be for my parents. A surprise for their anniv—”

“What can you tell me about the man who shot the video?”

“Come again?”

“The man who shot the video. Is he an uncle, maybe? A family friend? When I poked my head into your boy's room, I didn't see him.”

“Uh, he wasn't with us. We just bumped into him on the path.”

“Is that so.”

Jake waited for Yancey to continue, but for a long while, he didn't—he just looked at Jake unblinkingly, a silent challenge. Jake withered beneath his gaze like a child called before the principal but said nothing.

“You stopped a stranger on the path and asked him to take a video for you?”

“Yes. It was my son's idea,” he added lamely, wondering why that made his story—the truth, he reminded himself—sound more believable. He somehow felt like he'd just ratted out his own flesh and blood.

“Why this man in particular?”

Jake shrugged, the food on the tray shifting as he did. “I don't know. He was walking alone. Everybody else was in a group or busy.”

“What happened to him? After the blast, where did he go?”

“I have no idea. When the bomb went off, I lost consciousness. By the time I came to, he was gone.”

“Did you happen to get his name?”

“No. It was just a quick thing. A chance encounter. If it wasn't for the explosion and the fact that he caught himself on camera, I doubt I'd even remember what he looked like.”

Jake saw a head poke out of Aidan's room and look his way. It was Hannah, her hair mussed, her face puffy from sleep, her expression one of puzzlement. “Dad? I thought I heard you out here. Who's this guy?”

Jake looked from his daughter to Yancey and back again. Yancey's attention lingered on Hannah, a wide grin spreading across his face. “The name's Chet Yancey, little lady—and I work for your dear old Uncle Sam,” he said, winking.

Jake cleared his throat loudly and said, “Mr. Yancey's got some questions about what happened at the bridge, is all. We're almost done. Go back inside and wake up Mom. Tell her I'll be in with breakfast in a sec.” Hannah ducked back into the room. Jake relaxed perceptibly once she was out of sight.

Yancey's…flirtation?…hadn't been sexual, exactly, but it still felt to Jake as if it were miles from appropriate. Jake couldn't shake the feeling that it had been intended to unnerve him—and it had worked.

Yancey flashed his pearly whites at Jake as if pleased by his discomfort. Then he reached over and plucked a home fry off Jake's tray. He dunked it into one of the paper condiment cups that Jake had filled with ketchup and stuffed it in his mouth. He chewed slowly, as if savoring the tasty morsel. After he swallowed, he licked the grease off his fingers one by one.

“What I'm hearing from you, Jake, is there's not much that you can tell me about the old man in the video. Is that a fair assessment?”

“Yes. I guess. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more assistance,” Jake lied. In truth, all he wanted was to be rid of Yancey.

“You're not holding anything back, are you? Because I'd like to think our conversation's been a friendly one, but if I find out you've been lying to me—and believe me, if you are, I
will
find out—our next talk's gonna be a lot less pleasant. And if I'm forced to haul you in for questioning, who'll look after this beautiful family of yours?” His smile vanished. In its absence, Yancey's face was cold and hard.

“I've told you everything I know. I have no reason to do otherwise.”

“Well, then,” Yancey said, his smile lighting up once more, “thanks for your time!” He clicked his pen closed. Stuck it and his notepad back in his pocket. Produced a card and dropped it onto the tray full of food. It contained nothing but Yancey's name and a phone number—no address, no title, no mention of the organization he worked for. “But do me a favor and hold on to this in case you remember anything else you think I ought to know. And please give my regards to Aidan, Emily, Hannah, and Sophia. You're very lucky they all came through this okay.”

Yancey started to put out his hand again, and then, remembering Jake couldn't shake, he made a pistol of his fingers and aimed it playfully at Jake. He mimed shooting, his thumb twitching as he dropped the hammer, and then he took off down the hall.

Without looking back, he called, “Don't you worry, Jake—if I need anything else from you, I know where to find you.” Then he began whistling idly to himself.

As Yancey rounded the corner, his whistled song echoing down the hall, Jake realized Yancey had never asked him anything about the blast.