CHAPTER 18

In deference to his guests, Bucky has taken to smoking on the porch, although the whole house holds the olfactory ghosts of the hundreds of Pall Malls he’s smoked since relocating from New York. Billy joins him the next morning while Alice is in the shower. And singing in there, which might be the best sign of recovery yet.

‘She says you’re working on a book, ’ Bucky says.

Billy laughs. ‘I doubt if it will mount up to that. ’

‘Says you might like to work on it in the summerhouse today. ’

‘I might. ’

‘She says it’s good. ’

‘I don’t think she has much to compare it to. ’

Bucky doesn’t chase that. ‘I thought she ’n I might do some shopping this morning, give you a chance to get after it. You need a new wig and she needs some lady things. Not just hair dye. ’

‘You’ve already discussed this? ’

‘As a matter of fact we have. I usually get up around five – or rather my bladder gets me up – and after I took care of that business I came out to have a smoke and she was already here. We watched the sun come up together. Talked a little bit. ’

‘How did she seem? ’

Bucky tilts his head toward the sound of the singing. ‘How does she sound? ’

‘Pretty good, actually. ’

‘I think so, too. We might take a ride all the way to Boulder, better selections there. Stop at Ricky Patterson’s used car lot on the backswing. See what he’s got. Maybe have lunch at Handy Andy’s. ’

‘What if they’re looking for you, too? ’

‘You’re the one in the crosshairs, Billy. I imagine they took a look for me in New York, maybe checked out my sister’s place in Queens, then gave me up for a lost cause. ’

‘I hope you’re right. ’

‘Tell you what, the first stop we make will be either Buffalo Exchange or Common Threads. I’ll buy a cowboy hat and yank it down to my ears. Yeehaw. ’ Bucky puts out his current Pall Mall. ‘She thinks the world of you, you know. Thinks you’re the tomcat’s testicles. ’

‘I hope she didn’t put it like that. ’

In the bathroom, the shower keeps on. She’s still singing, which is good, but Billy thinks she may be having a hard job getting clean enough to suit her.

‘Actually, ’ Bucky says, ‘she called you her guardian angel. ’

Half an hour later, after the steam has cleared out of the bathroom, Alice comes to the door while Billy is shaving.

‘You don’t mind if I go? ’

‘Not a bit. Have fun, keep your eyes open, and don’t be afraid to tell him to turn the radio down when your fillings start to rattle. He always had a tendency to blast it when Creedence or Zep came on. I doubt if he’s changed. ’

‘I want to get a couple of skirts and tops as well as the dye for my hair and a wig for you. A pair of cheap tennies. Also some underwear that’s not so …’ She trails off.

‘The kind of stuff your clueless uncle might pick up for you in a pinch? Don’t spare my feelings. I can take it. ’

‘What you got me was fine, but I could use a little more. And a bra that doesn’t have a knot holding one of the straps together. ’

Billy forgot about that. Like the Fusion’s license plates.

Although Bucky is back on the porch, smoking and drinking orange juice (Billy doesn’t know how he can bear the combination), Alice lowers her voice. ‘But I don’t have much money. ’

‘Let Bucky take care of that, and I’ll take care of Bucky. ’

‘Are you sure? ’

‘Yes. ’

She takes the hand not holding the razor and gives it a squeeze. ‘Thank you. For everything. ’

Her thanking him is simultaneously crazy and perfectly reasonable. A paradox, in other words. He keeps this to himself and tells her she’s welcome.

Bucky and Alice leave in the Cherokee at quarter past eight. Alice has done her face and there’s no sign of the bruises. They wouldn’t show much even without the makeup, Billy thinks. It’s been over a week since her date with Tripp Donovan, and the young are fast healers.

‘Call me if you need to, ’ he says.

‘Yes, Dad, ’ Bucky says.

Alice tells Billy she will, but he can see that in her mind she’s already on the road, talking with Bucky the way normal people talk (as if any of this is normal) and thinking about what she will see in stores that are new to her. Maybe trying stuff on. The only sign he’s gotten this morning of the girl who was raped is the way the shower ran and ran.

Once they’re gone, Billy walks the path Alice took yesterday. He stops at the little cabin Bucky calls the summerhouse and looks inside. There’s an unpainted plank floor and the only furniture is a card table and three folding chairs, but what else does he need? Just his word-cruncher and maybe a Coke out of the fridge.

Oh for the life of a writer, he thinks, and wonders who said that to him. Irv Dean, wasn’t it? The security guy at Gerard Tower. That seems long ago, in another life. And it was. His David Lockridge life.

He walks up to where the path ends and looks across the gorge to the clearing, wondering if he might see Alice’s phantom hotel. He doesn’t, just a few charred uprights where it once stood. There’s no condor, either.

He goes back to the house for his Mac Pro and that can of Coke. He sets them on the card table in the summerhouse. With the door wide open, the light is good. He sits in one of the folding chairs gingerly at first, but it seems solid enough. He boots up his story and scrolls down to where Taco was handing the squad bullhorn to Fareed, their terp. He’s about to pick up where he left off when Merton Richter interrupted him, then notices there’s a picture on the wall. He gets up for a closer look, because it’s in the far corner – weird place for a painting – and the morning light doesn’t quite reach there. It appears to show a bunch of hedges that have been clipped into animal shapes. There’s a dog on the left, a couple of rabbits on the right, two lions in the middle, and what might be a bull behind the lions. Or maybe it’s supposed to be a rhinoceros. It’s a poorly executed thing, the greens of the animals too violent, and the artist has for some reason plinked a dab of red in the lions’ eyes to give them a devilish aspect. Billy takes the painting down and turns it to face the wall. He knows that if he doesn’t his eyes will be continually drawn to it. Not because it’s good but because it isn’t.

He cracks the can of Coke, takes a long swallow, and gets going.

‘Come on, you guys, ’ Taco said. ‘Let’s get some. ’ He handed Fareed the bullhorn that had GOOD MORNING VIETNAM on the side and told him to give the house the usual loudhail, which came down to come out now and you come out on your feet, come out later and you’ll be in a body bag. Fareed did it and nobody came out. That was usually our cue to go in after chanting We are Darkhorse, of course of course, but this time Taco told Fareed to give it to them again. Fareed shot him a questioning look but did as he was told. Still nothing. Tac told him to go one more time.

‘What’s up with you? ’ Donk asked.

‘Don’t know, ’ Taco said. ‘Just feels wrong somehow. I don’t like the fucking balcony running around the dome, for one thing. You see it? ’ We saw it, all right. It had a low cement railing. ‘There could be muj behind it, all crouched down. ’ He saw us looking at him. ‘No, I’m not freaking out, but it feels hinky. ’

Fareed was halfway through his spiel when Captain Hurst, the new company commander, came by, standing up in an open Jeep, legs spread like he thought he was George S. Fucking Patton Esquire. On the other side of the street from him were three apartment buildings, two finished and one half-built, all spray painted with a big C, meaning they had been cleared. Well, supposedly. Hurst was green, and maybe not aware that sometimes the hajis crept back, and through even bad optics his head would look as big as a Halloween pumpkin.

‘What are you waiting for, Sergeant? ’ he bawled. ‘Daylight’s wastin’! Clear that fucking hacienda! ’

‘Sir, yes, sir! ’ Taco said. ‘Just giving them one more chance to come out alive. ’

‘Don’t bother! ’ Captain Hurst shouted, and on he sped.

‘The dingbat has spoken, ’ Bigfoot Lopez said.

‘All right, ’ Taco said. ‘Hands in the huddle. ’

We grouped in tight, the Hot Eight that used to be the Hot Nine. Taco, Din-Din, Klew, Donk, Bigfoot, Johnny Capps, Pillroller with his medical bag of tricks. And me. I saw us as if I was outside myself. It happened to me that way sometimes.

I remember sporadic gunfire. A grenade went off somewhere behind us in Block Kilo, that low crump sound, and an RPG banged somewhere up ahead, maybe in Block Papa. I remember hearing a helo off in the distance. I remember some idiot blowing a whistle, fweet-fweet-fweet, Christ knows why. I remember how hot it was, the sweat cutting clean trails down our dirty faces. And the kids up the street, always the kids in their rock n rap T-shirts, ignoring the gunfire and the explosions like they didn’t exist, bent over their scabbed knees and picking up spent shell casings to be reloaded and redistributed to the fighters. I remember feeling for the baby shoe on my belt loop and not finding it.

Our hands all together for the last time. I think Taco felt it. I sure did. Maybe they all did, I don’t know. I remember their faces. I remember the smell of Johnny’s English Leather. He put on a little every day, rationing it out, his own private lucky charm. I remember him once saying to me that no man could die smelling like a gentleman, God wouldn’t let it happen.

‘Give it to me, kids, ’ Taco said, so we did. Stupid, childish – like so many things in war are stupid and childish – but it pumped us up. And maybe if there were muj waiting for us in that big domed house it gave them a moment’s pause, time to look at each other and wonder what the fuck they were doing and why they were probably going to die for some elderly half-senile imam’s idea of God.

‘We are Darkhorse, of course of course! We are Darkhorse, of course of course! ’

We gave our knotted hands a shake, then stood up. I had an M4 and my M24 slung over my shoulder, as well. Next to me, Big Klew held the SAW over one arm, twenty-five pounds or so fully loaded and the belt slung over one massive shoulder like a necktie.

We clustered at the gate in the outer courtyard. Crisscross shadows from the unfinished apartment building across the street made the mural on the wall into a checkerboard – children in some squares, the watching women and the mutawaeen in others. Bigfoot had his M870 breaching tool, a doorbuster shotgun meant to blow the lock on the gate to smithereens. Taco stood aside so Foot could do his thing, but when Pablo gave the gate an experimental push, it swung open with a horror movie creak. Taco looked at me and I looked at him, two lowly jarhead bullet-sponges with but a single thought: how fucking dinky-dau is this?

Tac gave a little shrug as if to say it is what it is, then led us across the courtyard at a run, head down and bent at the waist. We followed. There was a single lonely soccer ball on the cobbles. George Dinnerstein gave it a sidefoot kick as he went by.

We crossed without a single shot fired from the house’s barred windows and finished against the cement wall, four on either side of the double doors, which were heavy wood and at least eight feet high. Carved into each were crossed scimitars over a winged anchor, the symbol of the Ba’athist Battalions. Another hoodoo sign. I looked around for Fareed and saw him back by the gate. He saw me looking and shrugged. I got it. Fareed had a job and this wasn’t it.

Taco pointed to Donk and Klew, signaling them to go left and check the window there. Me and Bigfoot went to the right. I snuck a peek in the window on my side, hoping to pull back in time if some muj decided to blow my head off, but I saw no one and no one shot at me. I saw a big circular room with rugs on the floor, a low couch, a bookcase now containing just one lonely paperback book, a coffee table on its side. There was a tapestry of running horses on one wall. The room was almost as high as the nave of a smalltown Catholic church, rising at least fifty feet to that dome, which was lit by lasers of sunlight made almost solid by dancing dust motes.

I ducked back for Bigfoot to take my place. Since I hadn’t gotten my head blown off, he looked a little longer.

‘Can’t see the doors from here, ’ Foot said to me. ‘Angle’s wrong. ’

‘I know. ’

We turned back to Tac. I rocked my hands back and forth in a gesture that meant maybe okay, maybe not. From beside the window on the other side, Donk conveyed the same message with a shrug. We heard more gunfire, some distant and some closer, but there was none on Block Lima. The big domed house was quiet. The soccer ball Din-Din kicked had come to rest in the corner of the courtyard. The place was probably deserted, but I kept feeling my belt loop for that fucking shoe.

The eight of us drew back together, flanking the door. ‘Gotta stack, ’ Taco said. ‘Who wants some? ’

‘I do, ’ I said.

Taco shook his head. ‘You went first last time, Billy. Quit grubbing for tin and give someone else a chance. ’

‘I want some, ’ Johnny Capps said, and Taco said, ‘You’re it, then, ’ and that’s why I’m walking today and Johnny isn’t. Simple as that. God doesn’t have a plan, He throws pickup sticks.

Taco pointed to Bigfoot, then at the double doors. The one on the right had an oversized iron latch sticking out like an impudent black tongue. Foot tried it, but the latch stayed firm. The courtyard had been open, maybe because kids came in there to play in better times, but the house was locked. Taco gave Bigfoot the nod and Foot shouldered his shotgun, which was loaded with special door-busting shells. The rest of us moved into a line – the ever-popular stack – behind Johnny. Klew was second, because he had the SAW. Taco was behind Klew. I was fourth in line. Pill was at the back of the stack, as he always was. Johnny was hyperventilating, psyching himself up. I could see his lips moving: Get some, get some, fucking get some.

Foot waited for Taco, and when Tac signaled, Foot blew the lock. A good chunk of the righthand door went with it. It shuddered inward.

Johnny didn’t hesitate. He hit the lefthand door with his shoulder and burst into the room, yelling ‘Banzai, motherfuck—’

That was as far as he got before the muj who had been waiting behind the door on that side opened fire with an AK aimed not at Johnny’s back but at his legs. His pants rippled as if in a breeze. He gave a shout. Surprise, probably, because the pain hadn’t hit yet. Klew backed into the room, shouting ‘Get back Marines! ’ We did and when we were clear he opened fire with the SAW. He had it set for rapid-fire rather than sustained and the door blew back against the guy behind it, splinters flying, the crossed scimitars vaporizing. The muj fell out with nothing but his clothes holding him together. And still he was grabbing for one of the grenades taped to his belt. He got it, but it fell from his fingers with the spoon still in. Klew kicked it away. I could see Johnny over Taco’s shoulder. Now he was feeling the pain. He was screaming and weaving around, blood pouring onto his boots.

‘Get him, ’ Taco said to Klew, and then he yelled, ‘Corpsman! ’

Johnny took one more step and then went down. He was screaming ‘I’m hit oh my God I’m hit bad! ’ Klew started forward with Taco right behind him, and that was when they opened up on us from above. We should have known. Those dusty rays of sunlight high in the dome should have told us, because we had observed no windows from the outside. Those were loopholes busted in the concrete, down low, where the waist-high wall around the outside balcony hid them.

Klew was hit in the chest and staggered backward, holding onto the SAW. His body armor stopped that one, but the next round took him in the throat. Taco looked up at the sunbeams, then grabbed for the SAW. A bullet hit him in the shoulder. Two more pinged off the wall. The fourth hit him in the lower face. His jaw turned as if on a hinge. He spun toward us spraying out a fan of blood, waving us back, and then the top of his head came off.

Someone thumped me and for just a second I thought I’d been shot from behind and then Pill ran past, his medical pack now off his back and dangling from his hand by one strap.

‘No, no, they’re up top! ’ Bigfoot shouted. He grabbed the pack’s other strap and yanked our corpsman back, which is the only reason Clayton ‘Pillroller’ Briggs is still in the land of the living.

Bullets hit the big room’s floor, sending chips of tile flying. Bullets hit the rugs, raising puffs of dust and fiber. A bullet hole appeared in the tapestry, taking one of the running horses in the chest. A bullet hit the coffee table and sent it spinning. The mujahedeen on the balcony were firing steadily now. I saw the bodies of Taco and Klew jerk again and again as they shot them some more, maybe to make sure, maybe venting their rage, probably both. But they stayed away from Johnny, who lay in the middle of the floor in a spreading pool of blood. And screaming his head off. They could have taken him out easily, but that wasn’t what they wanted. Johnny was their staked goat.

All of this, from Foot blowing the door to the muj on the balcony pouring fire into the bodies of Tac and Klew, happened in a minute and a half. Maybe less. When things go wrong, they don’t waste time.

‘We have to get Cappsie, ’ Donk said.

‘That’s what they want, ’ Din-Din said. ‘They ain’t stupid, don’t you be. ’

‘He’ll bleed to death if we leave him, ’ Pill said.

‘I got him, ’ Foot said, and ran in the door, bent almost double. He grabbed the back-hook on Johnny’s body armor and started dragging, bullets hitting all around him. He made it as far as the body of the dead muj, then he took one in the face and that was the end of Pablo Lopez of El Paso, Texas. He went over on his back and the insurgents above switched to him for their target practice. Johnny continued to scream.

‘I can reach him, ’ Din-Din said.

‘That’s what Foot thought, ’ Donk said. ‘Those assholes can shoot. ’ He turned to me. ‘What do we do, Billy? Call for air? ’

We all knew that a Hellfire missile could take care of the hajis on the balcony, but it would end Johnny Capps in the process.

I said, ‘I’m going to take them out. ’

I didn’t wait for any discussion. We were way past that. I ran back across the courtyard, dropping my M4 on the cobbles. ‘You guys pull back now, boss? ’ Fareed asked.

I didn’t answer, just ran across the street to the unfinished apartment building. There was no door. Inside it was shadowy and smelled of wet cement. The lobby was a treasure trove of canned goods, snack packs, and Hershey bars. There was a pallet of Coca-Cola and a pile of magazines with a Field & Stream on top. Some enterprising Iraqi tajir had been using this as his trading post.

I started running up the stairs. There was a lot of trash scattered on the first flight. On the second landing someone had spray painted YANKEE GO HOME, an old favorite that never loses its charm. I could still hear fusillades of gunfire from across the street and Johnny Capps screaming. I didn’t hear Pete Cashman get it, but he surely did. Din-Din said Donk’s last words were ‘I can get him no problem, he’s so close now. ’

The walls stopped on the fourth floor and sunlight hit me like a fist. I dodged around a wheelbarrow filled with hardened cement, shoved aside a pile of boards, and kept going up. I was panting like a dog and sweat was pouring off of me. The stairs ended at the sixth floor and that was okay because I was even with the top of the dome across the street and able to look down on the balcony.

There were three of them. They were on their knees with their backs to me. I looped the strap of the M24 over my right shoulder nice and tight and laid the barrel on a handy piece of rebar jutting out of an unfinished wall. All three were laughing and cheering each other on like it was a soccer match and their side was winning. I aimed for the middle guy’s head. It wasn’t as big as a Halloween pumpkin, but it was plenty big enough. I squeezed the trigger and presto, the head was gone. Nothing but blood and brains running down the curved side of the dome where it had been. The other two looked at each other, bewildered – what just happened?

I took out the second one and the third threw himself against the cement railing, maybe thinking it would give him cover. It didn’t. It was too low. I shot him in the back. He lay still. No body armor. He probably believed that Allah had his six but Allah was busy elsewhere that day.

I ran back down the stairs and across the street. Fareed was still standing there. Din-Din and Pill were in the Funhouse, Pill on his knees beside Johnny. He had already cut away the legs of Johnny’s pants. Bone fragments were stuck to the fabric and poking out of Johnny’s skin. Din-Din was yelling into Pill’s walkie, telling someone that we had casualties, many casualties, Block Lima, big domed house, evac, evac, need a dustoff, etc.

‘Hurts! ’ Johnny screamed. ‘Oh Christ it hurts SO FUCKING BAD! ’

‘Take these, ’ Pill said. He had the morphine tablets.

‘Oh God I wish I was dead I wish they killed me OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP! ’

Pill two-fingered Johnny’s mouth open and dumped in the tabs. ‘Chew those and you’re gonna see God. ’

‘What happened here, Marines? ’

I looked around and saw Hurst. Still standing spread-legged, trying his best to do the General Patton thing, but he looked pretty fucking green around the gills.

‘What does it look like? ’ Din-Din said. ‘Fallujah happened. Sir. ’

Pill said, ‘If he doesn’t get some blood ASAP, he’s going to

What brings Billy back from Iraq could have been in Iraq, part of Lalafallujah’s endless soundtrack: Angus Young’s guitar snarling its way through ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. ’ Bucky and Alice must be back from their shopping trip. Billy looks at his watch and sees it’s quarter past three in the afternoon. He’s been here for hours, with no sense of passing time at all.

He finishes that dangling last sentence, saves his work, cases up his lappie, and is about to leave when he happens to glance at the picture he took down, not neglecting to turn it to the wall so he wouldn’t be distracted by those bright primitive colors. He puts it back up on its hook, maybe (probably) because he’s still in Marine mode and remembering Sergeant ‘Up Yours’ Uppington’s dictum: leave no trace when you leave the space.

He studies the painting, frowning. The hedge dog is on the right, the hedge rabbits on the left. Weren’t they the other way around before? And aren’t the lions closer?

I got it wrong, that’s all, he thinks, but before leaving the summerhouse he takes the picture down again. Not neglecting to turn it so it faces the wall.

The music gets louder as he approaches the house. With no neighbors, Bucky can really crank it if he wants to. It must be a mixtape, because as Billy approaches the house AC/DC gives way to Metallica.

They’ve brought back a new vehicle – new to them, at least – and Billy pauses before going up the steps to look it over. There not being any more space under the porch, they’ve parked it at the end of the driveway. It’s a Dodge Ram, the Quad Cab model from early in the twenty-first century, once blue, now mostly gray. There’s no Bondo around the headlights, but the bench seat has been mended with a strip of black tape and the rocker panels are mighty rusty. So is the bed of the pickup, which contains a Lawn-Boy mower maybe older than the truck itself. There’s a trailer hooked up behind, a two-wheeler, pretty battered, nothing in it.

By the time Billy starts up the steps to the porch, Metallica has been replaced by Tom Waits croaking ‘16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six. ’ Billy stops in the doorway. Bucky and Alice are dancing in the middle of the big room. She’s wearing a new shell top, her color is high and her eyes are bright. With her hair in a ponytail – really a horsetail, it goes all the way down to the middle of her back – she looks like a teenager. She’s laughing, having a ball. Maybe because Bucky is a pretty fucked-up dancer, maybe just because she’s having a good time.

Bucky gives Billy a double V and keeps shuffling off to Buffalo. He does a twirl and Alice spins the other way. She sees Billy leaning in the doorway and laughs some more and gives a hip-shake that makes her tied-back hair flip from side to side. Tom Waits ends. Bucky goes to the stereo and turns off Bob Seger before he can get a grip on that song about Betty Lou. Then he collapses on the couch and pats his chest. ‘I’m too bushed to boogaloo. ’

Alice, years from being too bushed to boogaloo, turns to Billy, almost popping with excitement. ‘Did you see the truck? ’

‘I did. ’

‘It’s perfect, isn’t it? ’

Billy nods. ‘Nobody would remember it five minutes after it passed them by. ’ He looks at Bucky over her shoulder. ‘How does it run? ’

‘Ricky says it’s fine for an old girl that’s already made one trip around the clock. Burns a little oil is all. Well, maybe a little more than a little. Alice and me took it for a test drive and it seemed okay. Suspension’s rough, but you gotta expect that in a truck that’s been around as long as this one. Ricky let it go for thirty-three hundred. ’

‘I drove it back, ’ Alice says. She’s still high on the shopping or the dancing or both. Billy is so glad for her. ‘It’s a standard, but I learned on a standard. My uncle taught me. Three on the tree, up to the side when you want a backwards ride. ’

Billy has to laugh. He learned to drive at the House of Everlasting Paint, so he could be more help with the chores after Gad – Glen Dutton in his story – left to go in the service. Mr Stepenek – Mr Speck in his story – taught him those same two rhymes.

‘I got you something, ’ she says. ‘Wait until you see. ’

She runs into the other room to get it, and Billy looks at Bucky. Bucky nods and makes a quick thumbs-up sign: A-OK.

Alice comes back with a box that has SPECIALTY COSTUMERS embossed on the top in scrolly letters. She holds it out to him.

Billy opens it and lifts out a new wig, probably twice as expensive as the one he mail-ordered from Amazon. This one isn’t blond, it’s black threaded with plenty of gray, and longer than the Dalton Smith wig. Thicker, too. His first thought is that if he’s wearing it and gets stopped by a cop, it won’t match his DL photo. Then another thought comes, a much bigger one that drives all other thoughts from his mind.

‘You don’t like it, ’ Alice says. Her smile is fading.

‘Oh, but I do. Very much. ’

He risks a hug. She hugs him back. So that’s all right.

The day Billy and Alice came was like summer, but their second night at Bucky’s is cooler, and the wind hooting around the house is downright cold. Billy brings up some split chunks of maple from under the porch and Bucky fires up the little Jø tul stove in the kitchen. Then they sit at the table looking at the pictures Bucky has printed, some from Google Earth and others from Zillow. They show the exterior grounds and the interior rooms and amenities of a house at 1900 Cherokee Drive in the town of Paiute, which is actually a northern suburb of Las Vegas. It is the residence of one Nikolai Majarian.

The house backs up against the Paiute Foothills. It’s snow white and built on four levels, each one stepped back from the one below so it looks like a giant’s staircase. The view of downtown Vegas must be pretty spectacular at night, Billy thinks, especially from the roof.

On Google Earth they can see a high wall surrounding the property, the main gate, and the driveway – actually a road, it’s got to be almost a mile long – leading to the compound. There’s a barn about two hundred yards from the house. A paddock and an exercise ring for horses nearby. Three other outbuildings, one big and two smaller. Billy thinks the help must stay in the biggest one, which would have been called a bunkhouse in the old days and maybe still is. The other two are probably for maintenance and storage. He sees nothing that could be a garage and asks Bucky about it.

‘Built into this first slope would be my guess, ’ Bucky says, tapping the wooded rise behind the house. ‘Only it’s probably more like a hangar. Room for a dozen cars. Or more. Nick’s got a taste for the classics, or so I heard. I guess everybody’s got an itch that only money can scratch. ’

There are plenty that money can’t scratch, Billy thinks.

Alice is examining the pix from Zillow. ‘God, there has to be twenty rooms. And look at the pool out back! ’

‘Nice, ’ Bucky agrees. ‘All the mods and cons. And he might have added more, because these pictures have to be from before Nick bought it. He paid fifteen mil. I saw it on Zillow. ’

And stiffed me out of a measly million-five, Billy thinks.

The Zillow photos of the exterior show what Google Earth can’t. The vistas of lawn, for instance, brilliant green and dotted with flowerbeds. The paddock is equally green. There are groves of palms, some with groupings of outdoor furniture in their kindly shade. How many hundreds of thousands of gallons of water must it take to keep that estate looking like Eden in the desert? How many groundskeepers? How many on the domestic staff? And how many hardballs are hanging out on the off chance that a hired assassin named Billy Summers might come looking for the rest of his blood money?

‘He calls it Promontory Point, ’ Bucky says. ‘I did some digging, it’s amazing what you can find with a computer these days if you know how to dip into the darker regions. Nick’s been there since 2007, and with his back to the mountains nobody’s ever bothered him. Maybe he’s gotten a little careless, but I wouldn’t count on that. ’

No, Billy thinks, it wouldn’t do to count on it. Someone who could get rid of a valued long-time associate like Giorgio Piglielli can’t be taken lightly. The only assumption he can make is that Nick is looking for him. Waiting for him. What Nick maybe doesn’t understand is how angry Billy is. There was a bargain. He held up his end of it. Instead of holding up the other end, Nick stiffed him. Then tried to kill him. Face to face Nick might deny that, but Billy knows. They both do.

Bucky taps a spot on the Google Earth aerial photo of the grounds. ‘This little square is the gatehouse, and it’ll be manned. Guarded. You can count on that. ’

Billy has no doubt. He wonders again how many men Nick will have guarding his little kingdom. In a Sylvester Stallone or Jason Statham movie there would be dozens, armed with everything from gas-powered light machine guns to shoulder-mounted missile launchers, but this is real life. Maybe five, maybe only four, carrying automatic pistols or shotguns or both. But there’s only one of him, and he’s no Sylvester Stallone.

Alice pulls one of the photos from Google Earth to the middle of the table. ‘What’s this? I don’t see it on any of the Zillow pix. ’

Bucky and Billy look. It’s where the west side of the wall ends against a rocky rise. After a bit Bucky says, ‘I think it must be a service entrance. You wouldn’t bother showing that on a real estate site, any more than you’d show the shed where the trash gets stored for pickup. Real estate sites stick to the glamour. What do you think, Billy? ’

‘I don’t know. ’ But he’s starting to. The more he thinks about that beat-up old truck, the more he likes it. And the new wig. That, too.

After supper, Alice commandeers the bathroom to dye her hair. When Bucky offers her a beer (‘Just to keep up your strength’), she accepts. They both hear her lock the door behind her. Billy’s not surprised. He doubts if Bucky is, either.

Bucky gets two more bottles of beer from the fridge. After Bucky puts on a light jacket and tosses Billy a sweatshirt, they go out on the porch and settle side by side in the rockers. Bucky clinks the neck of his bottle against the neck of Billy’s. ‘Here’s to success. ’

‘Good toast, ’ Billy says, and takes a drink. ‘I want to thank you again for having us. I know you didn’t expect guests. ’

‘You serious about wanting a silencer for the Ruger? ’

‘Yes. Can you also get me a Glock 17 and ammunition for both? ’

Bucky nods. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem, not around here. What else do you need? ’

‘A mustache to match the wig she bought me. I don’t have time to grow one. ’ There’s more, but Alice will have ideas about finding the rest.

‘What are you thinking of doing? Maybe it’s time to tell me so I can try to argue you out of it. ’

Billy tells him. Bucky listens closely and after awhile starts to nod. ‘Going out to his place is risky, bearding the lion in his den type of thing, but it could work. Any bounty hunters looking for you are apt to be downtown, especially around Nick’s casino. Double Deuce, or whatever. ’

‘Double Domino. ’

Bucky leans forward, looking at him. ‘Look, if you’re worried about the money you promised me—’

‘I’m not. ’

‘—you can let it go. I’m doing all right for money, and I’m glad to be out of the city. I have no idea why I stayed so fucking long in the first place. Someday someone’s going to blow up a dirty bomb on Fifth Avenue, or a communicable disease will come along that turns everything from Manhattan to Staten Island into a giant Petri dish. ’

Billy thinks Bucky has been listening to too much talk radio but doesn’t say so. ‘It’s not about your money or mine, although I’ll take it if he has it. He cheated me. He fucked me. He’s a bad person. ’ Billy hears himself falling into the speech patterns of the dumb self and doesn’t care. ‘He killed Giorgio, or had him killed. He meant to do the same to me. ’

‘All right, ’ Bucky says quietly. ‘I get it. A matter of honor. ’

‘Not honor, honesty. ’

‘I stand corrected. Now drink your beer. ’

Billy takes a swig and tilts his head toward the house where the shower is running. Again. ‘How was she on the shopping trip? Okay? ’

‘Mostly. Before we went into Common Threads to buy you a cowboy hat – forgot to show it to you, it’s a fuckin beaut – she had a little bit of a breathing problem and sang something under her breath. I couldn’t make out what it was, but after that she was all right again. ’

Billy knows what it was.

‘At the used car lot she rocked the house. Spotted that truck and bargained Ricky down from forty-four hundred to thirty-three. When he tried to hold steady at thirty-five she grabbed me and said “Come on, Elmer, he’s nice but he’s not serious. ” You believe that? ’

‘Actually I do, ’ Billy says. He laughs, but Bucky doesn’t laugh with him. He’s grown serious. Billy asks him if something’s wrong.

‘Not yet, but there could be. ’ He puts his beer bottle down and turns to look Billy square in the face. ‘The two of us are outlaws, okay? People don’t use that word so much these days, but that’s what we are. Alice isn’t, but if she keeps running with you, she will be. Because she’s in love with you. ’

Billy puts his own bottle down. ‘Bucky, I’m not … I don’t …’

‘I know you don’t want to jump in the sack with her and maybe she doesn’t want to jump in the sack with you, not after what she’s been through. But you saved her life and put her back together—’

‘I didn’t put her back—’

‘Okay, maybe you didn’t, but you gave her the time and space to start doing it herself. That doesn’t change the fact that she’s in love with you and she’ll follow you as long as you let her and if you let her you’ll ruin her. ’

Having delivered himself of what Billy now believes he came out here to say, Bucky pauses for breath, picks up his beer, downs half of it, and gives a ringing belch.

‘Argue me back if you want. Giving you a place to stay for a few days doesn’t give me the right not to hear opposing arguments, so go on and argue me back. ’

But Billy doesn’t.

‘Take her to Nevada with you, sure. Find a cheap place to stay outside the city and leave her there while you take care of your business. If you get out clean and with your money, give her a bunch of it and send her back east. Tell her to stop and see me and remind her those false papers are just short-term camouflage. She can go back to being Alice Maxwell again. ’

He raises a finger, which is starting to show the first twists and gnarls of arthritis. ‘But only if you keep her out of it. Capisce? ’

‘Yes. ’

‘If you don’t get out clean you probably won’t be getting out at all. That will be hard for her to hear, but she has to know. Agreed? ’

‘Agreed. ’

‘Tell her that if a few days go by and she hasn’t heard from you, you pick how many, she should come back here. I’ll give her some money. A thousand, fifteen hundred maybe. ’

‘You don’t have to—’

‘I want to. I like her. She’s not a whiner, and given what happened to her she’d have a right to whine. Besides, it’d be money you made for me. You’re my only client now. Have been for the last four years. No more bankrolling stickups for this kid. Too easy for one of them to come back on me if something went wrong, and I’m too old for prison. ’

‘All right. Thank you. Thank you. ’

The shower goes off. Bucky leans toward Billy again over the arm of his rocker.

‘You know, a baby kitten will take to a dog that decides to groom it instead of chasing it or eating it. Hell, a baby duck will. They imprint. She’s imprinted on you, Billy, and I don’t want her to get hurt. ’

The bathroom door opens and Alice comes out on the porch. She’s wearing an old blue bathrobe that must be Bucky’s; it’s so long it brushes the tops of her bare feet. Her hair is put up, held with what looks like a dozen barrettes, and covered in transparent plastic. She’s not going to be even close to platinum, maybe because her hair was so dark to begin with, but it’s still a big change.

‘What do you think? I know it’s hard to tell right now, but …’

‘Looks good, ’ Bucky says. ‘I was always partial to a dirty blonde. My first ex was a dirty blonde. I saw her hanging by the jukebox and knew I had to have her. More fool me. ’

She gives that a distracted smile but it’s Billy she’s looking at, his opinion that matters. Billy knows exactly what Bucky was talking about. He remembers a video he saw on YouTube, one that showed a bird taking a bath in a dog’s water dish while the dog – a Great Dane – sat and watched. And he thinks of that old saying about how if you save someone’s life, you are responsible for them.

‘You look terrific, ’ he says, and Alice smiles.

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