The Good Killer Read online

  Nick decides to leave that detail out.

  He shrugs and looks across the desk at Jimmy. “Then there was a fight,” he says.

  Jimmy sips his coffee. Sets the mug aside.

  “This fight,” he says. “This brawl. That’s what I’m interested in. Did Alvin Metzger break my cousin’s nose?”

  “No,” says Nick. “I broke it.”

  “How’d that happen? Was it an accident?”

  Nick shakes his head. “It wasn’t an accident.”

  You hit like a girl. The words set Kelly off. Wrestling with Metzger, trying to knee him in the groin. But it was Nick who put Metzger on the ground, sweeping his legs out from under him. Once he was down, Kelly went crazy: kicking Metzger in the ribs, in the spine, in the head. Not letting him up.

  “I thought he might kill him,” Nick says.

  Jimmy seems unmoved. “And what if he did?”

  “You told us to talk to the guy. To give him a beating if we had to. You didn’t tell us to kill him.”

  Jimmy tips his head to one side. “The way I remember it, I told you to follow Kelly’s lead.”

  That’s true, and it’s exactly what Nick was thinking as he watched Alvin Metzger squirm on the ground. Watched him try to shield himself, try to curl up into nothing.

  “I had to make a decision,” Nick says to Jimmy. “I got between them. Pushed Kelly away. He didn’t like it. He took a swing at me. And I reacted. It was a charged situation.”

  Jimmy brings his feet down off the desk. “So you broke his nose.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because it was a charged situation.” Jimmy braces his hands on the arms of his chair. The hands are broad, with thick tendons and rounded knuckles. But the nails are clean. Hard to tell if they’re the hands of a businessman or a brute.

  “I did what I thought was right,” Nick says.

  Jimmy rises and steps around the desk to the glass wall that separates the office from the lounge.

  “I guess you did,” he says. He’s facing the wall, not Nick. “Let me ask you: Do you think Metzger got the message?”

  Nick pictures the man crying and shaking on the ground.

  “Yes.”

  There’s a moment when Jimmy seems to reach for the cord of the blinds and Nick thinks he’s going to lower them. He thinks Jimmy is going to turn on him and grab him by the collar and haul him out of the chair. Jimmy could do it, with those hands. He could take Nick apart and leave him bleeding. And whatever effort it took, it wouldn’t affect him. It wouldn’t raise his heart rate or make him breathe hard. It wouldn’t show in his eyes.

  The moment passes.

  “I think he got the message too,” Jimmy says. He’s standing still and thoughtful by the glass. “Kelly can be a hothead,” he adds. “But you stayed in control. He’s going to resent you for a while. That’s the way he is. You should watch yourself around him.”

  Just like that it’s over, and Nick knows he’s going to walk out of this room, though he wasn’t sure before.

  Nick gets up and looks through the glass to the lounge. The old lady is gone but the TV is still tuned to CNN. The anchor is there and he’s talking, but whatever he’s saying is just a murmur through the glass. Then he’s gone—replaced by an image set against a blue background. It’s a driver’s license photo of a pasty man with thinning hair. The caption reads: HENRY ALAN KEEN, HOUSTON SHOOTING SUSPECT.

  After a few seconds, the image goes away, replaced by another. This one is a closeup of a man’s face, but it’s not from a driver’s license. It looks like a still frame taken from a video.

  The caption reads: PERSON OF INTEREST.

  The face means nothing to Nick Ensen. He sees a stranger with dark hair, intense eyes. There’s something in the man’s expression that could be sadness or anger. But Nick takes only a passing interest in him. He’s never been able to care very much about strangers. He knows that all of them have their own lives, like he has his. But they’re not fully real to him. Their problems are not his problems.

  He turns to Jimmy and says, “Is it okay if I go now?”

  Jimmy doesn’t answer. His eyes are fixed on the screen. Nick watches his profile and realizes that something has changed. If Jimmy was empty and unreadable before, now he’s alive. As if a charge were running through him. Nick can feel it even across the distance between them.

  “Jimmy?” he says.

  Suddenly the image disappears from the screen and the anchor is back. Jimmy frowns for a few seconds and then snaps into motion. He crosses to the office door and whips it open. Nick follows him into the lounge. Jimmy finds the remote, punches at it with his thumb. The cable news channels are clustered together. He flips from one to the next until he finds one that shows him the image again.

  No name underneath. Just: PERSON OF INTEREST.

  “Do you know that guy?” Nick says.

  But Jimmy just stares at the screen and says nothing at all.

  8

  Jimmy Harper

  At home, Jimmy takes a suitcase from his closet and opens it on his bed.

  It’s close to midnight. He left the auto shop hours ago, and he’s been thinking ever since. About what he needs to do. As if it’s a decision he has to make.

  It’s not though. It was settled a long time ago. He could trace it all the way back if he wanted to. Back to when he was ten years old and his parents brought his brother home from the hospital.

  Cole.

  He was a tiny thing: red faced, crying. Jimmy was unimpressed. He’d seen babies before. He had three younger sisters.

  It was his father who set him straight, oddly enough. His father had never been what you would call sentimental.

  “You’re lucky,” his father said to him.

  The two of them standing by Cole’s crib. Jimmy remembers it was nighttime. The only light was what came in from the hallway. Cole had finally stopped fussing and gone to sleep.

  “You could have missed out on this,” his father said. “I’ll tell you a secret. You can’t tell anybody else.”

  “Okay,” Jimmy said.

  “You love your sisters. I know. But it’s different, having a brother. I was afraid you might not get to have one, but now you do.”

  It was warm in the baby’s room, but there was snow falling outside. Frost on the windows.

  “You’re a lot older than he is,” Jimmy’s father said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “That’s all right. You’ll still be close. Your brother’ll be your friend all your life.”

  The memory of that night is clear to Jimmy, even now. He can recall the smell of whiskey on his father’s breath. Sometimes when his father drank, he talked nonsense or told lies. But what he said that night proved true. Jimmy was far closer to Cole than he was to any of his sisters.

  It was Jimmy who taught Cole how to ride a bike, how to drive a car, what music to listen to, how to talk to girls. They had fights, but the fights didn’t last. When Cole needed anything, he came to Jimmy. Right up till the end.

  As he tosses clothes into his suitcase, Jimmy works it out in his head: five years and ten months. That’s how long it’s been since Cole died.

  Jimmy lived in a house back then, with his wife and his son and his daughter, in Corktown in Detroit. He lives a mile away from that house now, alone, in a two-bedroom condo. His wife is his ex-wife. He still sees his kids, but not every day.

  Back then Jimmy’s mother had a clear mind; she worked part-time as a secretary at her church; she belonged to a book club. Now she can’t focus long enough to read a book. She has to be watched, or she wanders. He caught her once trying to climb out a second-story window. He had to put her in a nursing home.

  These are things that might have happened even if Cole hadn’t died. Jimmy is careful not to link them all together. He can’t blame them all on Sean Garrety. But he can blame Sean for what happened to Cole. That he can do.

  As Jimmy packs his suitcase, he has CNN playing on the TV in the background. They show
Sean’s face periodically. They’ve got different pictures of him now. And they’ve got a name for him: Sean Tennant.

  The rest is muddled. The police keep promising a press conference and keep delaying. But the news goes on. If there are no facts, there are always experts. There’s talk, because there needs to be something. You have to fill the time.

  Most of the talk is about Henry Alan Keen, the schlub who went on a shooting spree. But some of it is about Sean. There’s a narrative being shaped: He took out Keen. He’s a good guy with a gun. But there are dissenting voices too: Did he know Keen? Were they in on it together? Did Sean Tennant change his mind at the last minute?

  And where is he now?

  A commercial comes on CNN and Jimmy flips over to Fox News. There’s a talking head speculating that the police might already have Sean in custody. They might be questioning him. That might be why they’re holding off on the press conference.

  It’s hot air. Jimmy knows it isn’t true. Because Sean is smart enough to run.

  Jimmy’s cell phone is on his bed. There’s a pistol there as well, a Walther PPQ. The cell phone buzzes and the screen lights up. Jimmy recognizes the name. It’s the third call tonight from that particular party. He hasn’t answered so far, and he doesn’t answer now.

  He picks up the Walther and holds it over the open suitcase. You can carry a gun in checked baggage on a plane, but you have to fill out a form. So there’s a record. Jimmy doesn’t want there to be a record. He’ll have to improvise when he gets to Houston.

  He stows the Walther in the drawer of his nightstand.

  When his phone buzzes again, the suitcase is full, the lid zipped shut. He picks up the phone and slides it into his pocket unanswered. He turns off the television and carries the suitcase downstairs. Drops it by the sofa in the living room and starts to pour himself a drink.

  There’s a knock on his front door.

  Jimmy doesn’t need to check the peephole to know who it is. He turns the dead bolt and opens the door.

  “Come on in,” he says.

  Adam Khadduri nods a greeting and steps across the threshold. He’s clean-shaven and wearing a tasteful dark Dunhill suit and a silk tie. His black hair is cut short and swept forward like a Roman emperor’s.

  There’s another man with him, an ex-cop named Tom Clinton. Clinton’s suit is JC Penney, and he’s not wearing a tie. He follows his boss in but then fades into the background, quiet and watchful.

  “I’m glad to see you,” Khadduri says. “I feared something might have happened to you.”

  “No,” Jimmy says.

  “Perhaps you only mislaid your phone.”

  “I was about to call you.”

  “That’s excellent then. I’ve saved you the trouble.”

  There’s a foreign air about Adam Khadduri, though Jimmy knows he was born up in Pontiac. Khadduri has studied abroad and traveled extensively. English is his native language, but he speaks it with an accent that’s vaguely European.

  “You’ve been following the news?” he says.

  “Yes,” says Jimmy.

  “It’s difficult to avoid. Curious the way these shootings occur so frequently. Yet everyone talks about them so breathlessly every time, as if they’re surprised.”

  Jimmy nods but makes no other reply. He pours Khadduri a drink: Johnnie Walker Black. He looks at Clinton and raises the bottle, a silent offer that Clinton refuses with a shake of his head.

  “I confess I’ve become jaded,” Khadduri says. “I don’t blink anymore when I see news of these incidents.” He pauses to sample his drink. “But it’s different this time, isn’t it? At least for you and me.”

  “Yes, it is,” Jimmy says.

  “Sean Garrety seems to have made his way to Houston. Do you suppose he’s been there all along?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You spent a long time searching for him.”

  “Yes.”

  “You had no inkling he was there?”

  “Why would I?”

  Khadduri sips his whiskey, watching Jimmy over the rim of the glass. Then he says, “You can think of no reason he would be drawn to Houston? He has no acquaintances in Texas?”

  “None that I ever knew of.”

  Khadduri lowers the glass, shifts it from one hand to the other.

  “Do you suppose she’s still with him?” he asks.

  “I have no idea.”

  “But if you had to guess?”

  “I’m not going to guess.”

  Khadduri smiles weakly, letting the matter go. He glances at the suitcase by the sofa.

  “You intend to travel to Houston,” he says. “Or am I misreading the situation?”

  “You’re not,” says Jimmy. “I’m on an early morning flight.”

  “Perhaps I could help you.”

  “I appreciate the offer. But I don’t need help.”

  A flash of emotion crosses Khadduri’s face. Disappointment. Frustration.

  “I have interests here,” he says. “Sean Garrety wronged us both.”

  Jimmy watches him coldly. Lets a moment pass. “Me more than you, I think.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Khadduri says, raising his free hand to show he’s not interested in debating the point. “Still, the things he took from me were not inconsequential.”

  “He may not even have them anymore.”

  “I’d like to know, either way. If you’re going to pursue him, you needn’t do it on your own. I can lend you Mr. Clinton.”

  Clinton, lingering by the door, looks up at the mention of his name.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Jimmy says.

  “I could give you Lincoln Reed, if you’d rather.”

  Reed is another ex-cop. He and Clinton handle all of Adam Khadduri’s security. Khadduri is in the import business, and what he imports are antiquities and works of art. The people he buys from aren’t always aboveboard.

  “Or I could let you have the pair of them,” Khadduri says. “Surely they would be useful.”

  If there’s one thing Jimmy has learned in his life, it’s that if you don’t want to argue you don’t have to argue. He stares at Khadduri, lets a few seconds pass, and holds firm.

  “I don’t want them,” he says. Turning to Clinton, he adds, “No offense.”

  Clinton offers no reaction. Quiet in the room. Khadduri lifts his glass until it’s under his chin. He doesn’t drink. He looks troubled.

  “I would like to believe that you and I respect each other,” he says eventually.

  “We do,” says Jimmy.

  “I fear that our interests may diverge in this matter.”

  “I don’t see why they would.”

  Khadduri studies the whiskey in his glass, as if it might offer him counsel. “Then I can rely on you? To recover what is mine. If you can.”

  “If I can.”

  “I will pay you, of course. A finder’s fee. A hundred thousand.” No hesitation about the number, as if he’s had it in mind all along.

  “All right,” Jimmy says.

  “We have an agreement then?”

  Khadduri wants to shake on it. Jimmy doesn’t care to touch him, but it’s worth it to send him on his way. It’s over fast: Khadduri shakes like a European. He lifts Jimmy’s hand up and brings it down and releases it.

  Then it’s a matter of letting him finish his drink and walking him to the door. Clinton goes out first. Khadduri turns back to Jimmy for a final word.

  “It’s odd.”

  “What is?” Jimmy asks.

  “Sean Garrety has remained hidden all these years. It’s strange he should reveal himself in this way. What could he have been thinking?”

  Jimmy can only shrug. “I doubt he was thinking.”

  When they’re gone and he’s alone, Jimmy returns to the drink he poured himself. It’s untouched, but he finds he doesn’t want it now. He carries it to the kitchen and empties it into the sink.

  He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to sleep, but he
decides he should try. He has a few hours before he needs to drive to the airport for his flight.

  He’s not going alone. He’s taking Nick Ensen with him. The kid has proved he can keep a cool head when things go wrong. Jimmy thinks he might be useful.

  Adam Khadduri

  Khadduri and Clinton roll away from Jimmy Harper’s place, the tires gliding smoothly over cracks in the pavement. Khadduri is behind the wheel. He opens the vents to let in the cool night air. Clinton could drive, but Khadduri doesn’t want a chauffeur. The car is a Maserati GranTurismo. There’s no point in owning it, he thinks, if you’re not going to drive it.

  There’s a stop sign up ahead. He brakes completely, then goes through.

  Beside him Clinton says, “I could fly to Houston.”

  “You could,” Khadduri allows. “But to what purpose?”

  Clinton gestures back toward where they’ve come from. “To keep an eye on our friend.”

  “He wouldn’t like that.”

  “Who cares what he likes?”

  Silence for a while. Khadduri steers the Maserati onto the Lodge Freeway, which will take him home.

  “We’ll see what he does,” Khadduri says.

  “Do you think he’ll get you what you want?” Clinton asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Why should he?”

  “He agreed. I believe he’s a man of his word.”

  “You can’t count on that.”

  “Time will tell. I’ve offered him a generous reward.”

  Tom Clinton chuckles softly. Leans his head back against his headrest. “That won’t matter. He has a motive that’s stronger than money.”

  Khadduri drives on in the dark without responding. He doesn’t need to ask what the motive is. He knows. It’s hate.

  He has a certain measure of it himself, though not as much as Jimmy Harper.

  9

  Rafael Garza

  Detective Rafael Garza feels like a latecomer, and he is. By the time he arrives at Sean Tennant’s house in the city of Stafford outside Houston, the investigation of the mass shooting at the Galleria has been under way for sixteen hours.

  In addition to being late, he’s the odd man out. Partnerless at the moment. Garza used to be paired with Don Lefors, but Don got colon cancer. It was only a few weeks ago that Don told him the news. Crudely, the way he always talked: Cancer of the shitter. Can you believe it? Do you know what they do? They cut out your insides. Sew up your asshole. You shit through a little tube that comes out of your gut. It goes into a bag you wear around your waist. Picture it.