CHAPTER 19

Billy and Alice stay with Bucky for five days. On the morning of the sixth day – the one where God reputedly created the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air – they pack up the Dodge Ram and get ready to leave. Billy is wearing the blond wig and the fake glasses. Because the truck is the Quad Cab model, they can stow their scant luggage behind the bench seat. The ancient mower is still in the truckbed. It has been joined by a hedger, a leaf-blower, and an old Stihl chainsaw. The trailer, empty when Billy first saw it, now contains four cardboard barrels purchased at Lowe’s. The two men kicked them around awhile to give them the right battered look and filled them with hand tools bought for a song at a bank foreclosure auction in Nederland. The barrels have been secured to the sides of the trailer with bungee cords.

‘You want to look like the twenty-first-century version of a saddle bum, ’ Bucky said while they were playing kick-the-barrels. ‘God knows there are plenty of them in the West Nine. They drift around, find a little work, then move on. ’

Alice asked him what the West Nine were, and Bucky named them off: Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon, and – of course – Nevada. Billy thinks the truck is okay. It might be a needless precaution on their road trip, anyway; Bucky’s right, any bounty hunters will be concentrated in the Vegas metro area. Later, though, when it comes to Promontory Point, the way the truck looks could be vital.

‘This has been a good visit, ’ Bucky says. He’s wearing biballs and an Old [97s] T-shirt. ‘I’m glad you came. ’

Alice gives him a hug. Her new blonde hair looks good in the morning sun.

‘Billy? ’ Bucky holds out his hand. ‘You be safe now. ’

Billy almost hugs him, that’s the way things are done these days, but he doesn’t. He’s never been much for bro-hugs, even in the sand.

‘Thanks, Bucky. ’ He takes Bucky’s hand in both of his and squeezes lightly, mindful of Bucky’s arthritis. ‘For everything. ’

‘Welcome. ’

They get in. Billy fires up the engine. It’s rough at first but smooths out. Bucky has agreed to find someone to drive the Fusion back to its home base, thus protecting the Dalton Smith name. Something else on my tab, Billy thinks.

He gets the old truck’s nose pointed down the road. Just as he puts it in first gear, Bucky makes a whoa, whoa gesture and comes over to the passenger side. Alice rolls down her window.

‘I want to see you back here, ’ he tells her. ‘In the meantime, stay out of his business and stay clean, you hear? ’

‘Yes, ’ she says, but Billy thinks she may only be telling Bucky what Bucky wants to hear. Which is okay, Billy thinks. She’ll listen to me. I hope.

He gives a final blip of the horn and gets rolling. An hour and a half later they turn west on 1-70 toward Las Vegas.

They stop for the night in Beaver, Utah. It’s another motel of the no-tell variety, but not too bad. They get chicken baskets at the Crazy Cow and a couple of cans of Bud at Ray’s 66 on the way back. Later they sit outside their adjoining rooms, draw the obligatory lawn chairs close, and drink the cold beer.

‘I read the rest of your story while we were driving, ’ Alice says. ‘It’s really good. I can’t wait to read more. ’

Billy frowns. ‘I hadn’t planned on going on after Fallujah. ’

‘Lalafallujah, ’ she says, and smiles. Then: ‘But aren’t you going to write about how you got into the business of killing people for money? ’

That makes him wince because it’s so bald. And of course so true. She sees it.

‘Bad people, I mean. And how you met Bucky, I’d like to know that. ’

Yes, Billy thinks, I could write about that, and maybe I should. Because dig, if that muj hiding behind the door had shot Johnny Capps to death instead of just blowing his legs apart, Billy Summers wouldn’t be here now. Neither would Alice. It comes to him as sort of a revelation – although maybe it shouldn’t – that if Johnny Capps hadn’t lived, Alice Maxwell might well have died of shock and exposure on Pearson Street.

‘Maybe I will write it. If I get a chance. Tell me about you, Alice. ’

She laughs, but it’s not the free and easy one he’s come to like so much. This one’s a warding-off laugh. ‘There isn’t much to tell. I’ve always been a fade-into-the-woodwork person. Being with you is the only interesting thing that’s ever happened to me. Other than getting gang raped, I guess. ’ She utters a sad little snort.

But he’s not going to let it go at that. ‘You grew up in Kingston. Your mother raised you and your sister. What else? There must be more. ’

Alice points to the darkening sky. ‘I’ve never seen so many stars in my life. Not even at Bucky’s place. ’

‘Don’t change the subject. ’

She shrugs. ‘Okay, just prepare to be bored. My father owned a furniture store and my mother was his bookkeeper. He died of a heart attack when I was eight and Gerry – she’s my sister – was nineteen and going to beauty school. ’ Alice touches her hair. ‘She’d say I did this all wrong. ’

‘Probably she would, but it looks fine. Go on. ’

‘I was a B student in high school. Had a few dates but no boyfriend. There were popular kids, but I wasn’t one of them. There were unpopular kids – you know, the ones who always get pranked and laughed at – but I wasn’t one of them, either. Mostly I did what my mom and my sister said. ’

‘Except about going to beauty school. ’

‘I almost said yes to that too, because I sure wasn’t going to a smart-peoples’ college. I didn’t take many of the courses you need for that. ’ She thinks about it. Billy lets her. ‘Then one night I was lying in bed, almost asleep, and I all at once came full awake. Snapped awake. Almost fell out of bed. Did that ever happen to you? ’

Billy thinks about Iraq and says, ‘Many times. ’

‘I thought, “If I do that, if I do what they want, it will never end. I’ll be doing what they want for the rest of my life and one day I’ll wake up old right here in little old Kingston. ”’ She turns to him. ‘And do you know what my mom and Gerry would say if they knew what happened to me in Tripp’s apartment, and what I’m doing now, being here with you? They’d say “See what it got you. ”’

Billy puts out a hand to touch her shoulder. She turns to him before he can and he sees the woman she might be, if time and fate are kind.

‘And do you know what I’d say? I’d say I don’t care, because this is my time, I deserve to have my time, and this is what I want. ’

‘Okay, ’ he says. ‘Okay, Alice. That’s fine. ’

‘Yes. It is. You bet it is. As long as you don’t get killed. ’

That’s something he can’t promise, so he says nothing. They look at the stars awhile longer and drink their beer and she says nothing until she tells him she thinks she’ll go to bed.

Billy doesn’t go to bed. He has a pair of texts from Bucky. The first says the landscaping company that does the work at Promontory Point is called Greens & Gardens. The man who runs the crew might be Kelton Freeman or Hector Martinez, but it might be someone else entirely. It’s a high-turnover business.

The following text says that Nick often stays at the Double during the week but always tries to get back to his estate in Paiute for the weekend. Especially for Sundays. Never misses the Giants during football season, Bucky adds. Everybody who knows him knows that.

You can take the boy out of New York, Billy thinks, but you can’t take New York out of the boy. He texts back, Any luck with the garage?

Bucky’s response is quick: No.

Billy has brought the pictures, both Google Earth and Zillow. He studies them for awhile. Then he opens his laptop and looks up a handful of Spanish phrases. He won’t have to say them when and if the time comes but he says them now, over and over, committing them to memory. He almost certainly won’t need all of them. He might need none of them. But it’s always best to be ready.

Me Ilamo Pablo Lopez.

Esta es mi hija.

Estos son para el jardí n.

Mi es sordo y mudo: I am a deafmute.

They go back to the Crazy Cow for breakfast, then get on the road. Billy wouldn’t want to push the old truck, and he doesn’t have to. It’s only a couple of hundred miles to Vegas, and he won’t move against Nick until Sunday, when the pros play football and the compound at the end of Cherokee Drive is apt to be at its most quiet. No groundskeepers or landscapers and hopefully no hardballs. He checked the schedule and the Giants play the Cardinals at four P. M. eastern, which will be one P. M. in Nevada.

To pass the time, he tells Alice how he got into the business from which he now considers himself retired. Johnny Capps was the first link in the chain that ends – so far, there’s at least one more link still to be forged – on Interstate 70 heading west.

‘He’s the one who got shot in the legs in that house. The one they left alive to try and lure the rest of you in. ’

‘Yes. Clay Briggs – Pillroller – got him stabilized and he was airlifted out. Johnny spent a long time in a shitty VA hospital and got hooked on dope while they were trying to rehab what couldn’t be rehabbed. Eventually Uncle Sam sent him back to Queens in his wheelchair, hooked through the bag. ’

‘That’s so sad. ’

Well, Billy tells her, at least the dope addict part of Johnny’s story had a happy ending. His cousin Joey reached out to him, a guy who’d kept the Italian family name of Cappizano, although he was of course called Joey Capps. With permission from one of the larger New York organizations – and of course the Sinaloa Cartel, who controlled the dope business – Joey Capps ran his own little organization, one so modest it was really more of a posse. Joey offered his wounded warrior cousin a job as an accountant, but only if he could get clean.

‘And he did? ’

‘Yes. I got the whole story from him when we reconnected. He went into a rehab – his cousin paid – and then went to NA meetings three and four times a week until he died a few years ago. Lung cancer got him. ’

Alice is frowning. ‘He went to NA meetings to get off dope, but his day job was pushing dope? ’

‘Not pushing it, counting and washing the money from the trade. But yeah, it comes to the same thing, and once I pointed that out to him. You know what he said? That there are recovered alcoholics tending bar all over the world. He sponsored people, he said, and some of them got clean and resumed their lives. That’s how he put it, they resumed their lives. ’

‘God, talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. ’

Billy tells her that he almost signed up for another tour in the suck, decided he’d be crazy to do it – suicidal-crazy – and took off the uniform. Kicked around, trying to decide what came next for a guy whose job for a lot of years had been shooting other guys in the T-box. That was when Johnny got in touch.

There was a Jersey guy, he said, who liked to pick up women in bars and then beat them up. He probably had some kind of childhood trauma he was trying to work out, Johnny said, but fuck a bunch of childhood trauma, this was a very bad guy. He put the last woman in a coma, and this woman happened to be a Cappizano. Only a second cousin or maybe a third, but still a Cappizano. The only problem was this guy, this beater of women, was part of a larger and more powerful organization headquartered across the river in Hoboken.

Joey took Johnny Capps along for a sit-down with the head of this organization, and it turned out the New Jersey guys didn’t have much use for this shitpoke, either. He was trouble, a nasty stronzo madre with rings on the fingers of both hands, the better to beat the living crap out of women instead of taking them home to fuck them as any natural man would want to do, or even fottimi nel culo, which some men liked and even some women. But no woman likes getting her face beat off.

The upshot was that the capo couldn’t give Joey Capps permission to off the stronzo madre, because there would have to be retribution. But if an outsider did it, and if both outfits – the Hoboken organization and the much smaller Queens crew – paid for it, the thorn could be pulled. Call it mob diplomacy.

‘So Johnny Capps called you. ’

‘He did. ’

‘Because you were the best? ’

‘The best he knew, anyway. And he knew my history. ’

‘The man who killed your little sister. ’

‘That, yes. I looked into the guy before I agreed to take the job, got a little of his history. Even went to see the woman he put into a coma. She was on life-support machinery, and you could tell she was never coming back. The monitor …’ Billy draws a straight line above the steering wheel. ‘So I did him. It really wasn’t much different from what I did in Iraq. ’

‘Did you like it? ’

‘No. ’ Billy says it with no hesitation. ‘Not in the sand and not back here. Never. ’

‘Johnny’s cousin got you other jobs? ’

‘Two more, and there was one I turned down because the guy … I don’t know …’

‘Didn’t seem bad enough? ’

‘Something like that. Then Joey introduced me to Bucky, and Bucky introduced me to Nick, and that’s where we are. ’

‘I’m guessing there’s quite a lot more to it. ’

She’s guessing right, but Billy doesn’t want to say any more, let alone go into the details of the jobs he did for Nick and for others. He has never said any of this, not to anyone, and he’s appalled to hear that part of his life told out loud. It’s sordid and stupid. Alice Maxwell, business school student and rape survivor, is sitting in an old truck with a man who killed people for a living. It was his fucking job. And is he going to kill Nick Majarian? If he gets the chance, very likely. So, a question: is killing for honor better than killing for money? Probably not, but that won’t stop him.

Alice is silent for a bit, thinking it over. Then she says, ‘You told me that because you think you might never get a chance to write it down. Isn’t that right? ’

It is, but he doesn’t want to say so out loud.

‘Billy? ’

‘I told you because you wanted to know, ’ he says finally, and turns on the radio.

They register at another off-brand motel. There are a lot of them in a rough ring around the outskirts of Vegas. While Billy registers them as Dalton Smith and Elizabeth Anderson, Alice plugs four dollars in one of the lobby slots. On the fifth, ten fake cartwheels drop into the trough with a clatter and she squeals like a kid. The desk clerk offers her a choice: ten bucks or motel credit in that amount.

‘How’s the restaurant here? ’ Alice asks.

‘Buffet’s pretty good. ’ Then he lowers his voice and says, ‘Take the money, honey. ’

Alice takes the money and they get to-go at the Sirloin Super Burger down the road. She insists that it be her treat and Billy doesn’t argue.

Back in Billy’s room, she sits at the window and watches the endless traffic streaming toward downtown, and the lights of the hotels and casinos coming on. ‘Sin City, ’ she marvels, ‘and here I am in a motel room with a good-looking guy who happens to be twice my age. My mother would just shit. ’

Billy throws back his head and laughs. ‘And your sister? ’

‘Wouldn’t believe it. ’ She points. ‘Are those the Paiute Mountains? ’

‘If that’s north, those are them. I think they’re actually called foothills. If it matters. ’

She turns to him, no longer smiling. ‘Tell me what you’re going to do. ’

He does, and not just because he needs her help with the prep. She listens carefully. ‘It sounds awfully dangerous. ’

‘If it looks hinky, I’ll back off and reconsider. ’

‘Will you know if it’s hinky? The way your friend Taco knew outside that house in Fallujah? ’

‘You remember that, huh? ’

‘Will you? ’

‘I think so, yes. ’

‘But you’ll probably go in anyway. The way you went into the Funhouse and look what happened there. ’

Billy says nothing. There’s nothing to say.

‘I wish I could go with you. ’

He says nothing to that, either. Even if the idea didn’t fill him with horror, the plan wouldn’t work if she were with him and she knows it.

‘How badly do you need that money? ’

‘I could get along without it, and most of it’s going to Bucky anyway. The money’s not the reason I’m going. Nick treated me badly. He needs to pay a price, just like the boys who raped you needed to pay a price. ’

It’s Alice’s turn to be silent.

‘There’s something else. I don’t think it was Nick’s idea to kill me after the job was done, and I know it wasn’t his idea to put a six-million-dollar price on my head. I want to know who that person is. ’

‘And why? ’

‘Yes. That too. ’

The first thing Billy does the next morning is to check the back of the old Dodge truck, because the tools were only tied down, not locked down. Everything is present and accounted for. He’s not surprised, partly because everything in the truckbed and trailer is old and pretty clapped-out, but also because his experience over the years has taught him that the great majority of people are honest. They don’t take what isn’t theirs. People who do – people like Tripp Donovan, Nick Majarian, and whoever is behind Nick – piss him off mightily.

He almost texts Bucky to ask if Bucky can find out what car Nick is currently driving – it would probably be in the VIP area of the Double Domino’s parking garage, undoubtedly something fancy with a vanity plate – then doesn’t do it. Bucky probably could find out, and it might raise a red flag. That’s the last thing Billy wants. He hopes that by now Nick has started to relax.

Once the stores are open, he and Alice go to the nearest Ulta Beauty. This time he’s the one who needs makeup, but he lets Alice do the buying. After that she wants to go to a casino. It’s a bad idea, but she looks so excited and hopeful that he can’t say no. ‘But not the big hotels and not the Strip, ’ he says.

Alice consults her phone and directs them to Big Tommy’s Hotel and Gambling Hall in East Las Vegas. She’s carded before she’s allowed in and flashes her new Elizabeth Anderson DL with aplomb. As she wanders around, gawking at the roulette, craps, blackjack, and the ever-spinning Money Wheel, Billy checks around him for guys with a certain look. He doesn’t see any. Most of them out here in the boonies are moms and pops that could stand to lose a few.

He reflects again that Alice is a different girl from the one he brought in out of the pouring rain. On the way to being a better girl, and if what he’s planning goes wrong and she’s damaged more than she has been already, that’s on him. He thinks, I should just quit this shit and take her back to Colorado. Then he remembers Nick pitching him on the so-called ‘safe house, ’ all the time knowing the ride to Wisconsin was going to last about six miles until Dana Edison put a bullet in his head. Nick needs to pay. And he needs to meet the real Billy Summers.

‘It’s so noisy! ’ Alice says. Her cheeks are bright and her eyes are trying to look everywhere at once. ‘What should I do? ’

After checking out the roulette table, Billy guides her there and buys her fifty dollars’ worth of chips, all the while telling himself bad idea, bad idea. Her beginner’s luck is phenomenal. In ten minutes she’s up two hundred dollars and people are cheering her on. Billy doesn’t care for that, so he guides her to a bank of five-dollar slots where she spends half an hour and wins another thirty bucks. Then she turns to him and says, ‘Push the button and look, push the button and look, rinse and repeat. It’s kinda stupid, isn’t it? ’

Billy shrugs but can’t help smiling. He remembers Robin Maguire saying it’s only a grin when your teeth show, and then it’s nothing else.

‘You said it, not me, ’ he says. And shows his teeth.

After the casino they go to the Century 16 and see not one movie but two, a comedy and an action flick. When they come out of that one, it’s almost dark.

‘How about something to eat? ’ Alice asks.

‘Happy to stop somewhere if you want, but I’m full of popcorn and Sour Patch Kids. ’

‘Maybe just a sandwich. Want to hear something nice about my mom? ’

‘Sure. ’

‘Every now and then, if I was good, we’d have what she called a special day. I could have pancakes with chocolate chips for breakfast and then do almost anything I wanted, like have an egg cream at the Green Line Apothecary, or get a stuffed animal – if it was cheap – or ride the bus to the end of the line, which I liked to do. Stupid kid, huh? ’

‘No, ’ Billy says.

She takes his hand, natural as anything, and swings it back and forth as they walk to the truck. ‘This day has been like that. Special. ’

‘Good. ’

Alice turns to him. ‘You better not get killed. ’ She sounds absolutely fierce. ‘You just better not. ’

‘I won’t, ’ Billy says. ‘Okay? ’

‘Okay, ’ she agrees. ‘All okay. ’

But that night she isn’t. Billy is sleeping just below the surface of wakefulness, or he never would have heard Alice’s knock. It’s light and tentative, almost not there at all. For a moment or two he thinks it’s part of the dream he’s having, something about Shanice Ackerman, then he’s back to the motel room on the outskirts of Vegas. He gets up, goes to the door, and looks through the peephole. She’s standing there in the baggy blue pajamas she bought on her shopping trip with Bucky. Her feet are bare and her hand is at her throat and he can hear her gasping. The gasping is louder than her knock was.

He opens up, takes her by the hand that’s not clasping her throat, and leads her into the room. As he closes the door he sings, ‘If you go down to the woods today … sing it with me, Alice. ’

She shakes her head and tears in another breath. ‘—can’t—’

‘Yes you can. If you go down to the woods today …’

‘You better go …’ Whoop. ‘… in dis … dis …’ Whoop!

She’s swaying on her feet, close to fainting. Billy thinks it’s a wonder she didn’t pass out in the hall.

He gives her a shake. ‘Nope, that’s wrong. Try again. Next line. ’

‘You’re sure of a big surprise? ’ She’s still gasping but looks a little less likely to collapse.

‘Right. Now let’s do it together. And don’t talk it, sing it. If you go down to the woods today …’

She joins him. ‘You’re sure of a big surprise. If you go down to the woods today you better go in disguise. ’ She pulls in a deep breath and lets it out in a series of jerks: huh … huh … huh. ‘Need to sit down. ’

‘Before you fall down, ’ Billy agrees. He still has her hand. He leads her to the chair by the window, the drape now drawn.

She sits, looks up at him, brushes her newly blonde hair off her forehead. ‘I tried in my room and it didn’t work. Why did it work now? ’

‘You needed someone to duet with. ’ Billy sits on the edge of the bed. ‘What was it? Bad dream? ’

‘Horrible. One of those boys … those men … was stuffing a dishrag in my mouth. To make me stop yelling. Or maybe I was screaming. I think it was Jack. I couldn’t breathe. I was sure I was going to choke to death. ’

‘Did they do that? ’

Alice shakes her head. ‘I don’t remember. ’

But Billy knows they did, and she does, too. He has experienced this sort of thing himself, although not as badly or as often as some. He didn’t keep up with the jars he knew in Iraq – Johnny Capps was the exception – but there are websites and sometimes he checks them out.

‘It’s natural, how the minds of combat survivors deal with the trauma. Or try to. ’

‘Is that what I am? A combat survivor? ’

‘That’s what you are. The song may not work every time. A wet cloth across your face may not work every time. There are other tricks to getting through panic attacks, you can read about them on the Internet. Sometimes, though, you just have to wait it out. ’

‘I thought I was better, ’ Alice whispers.

‘You are. But you’re also under stress. ’ And I put you there, Billy thinks.

‘Can I stay here tonight? With you? ’

He almost tells her no, then looks at her pale pleading face and thinks again, I put you there.

‘Okay. ’ He wishes he was wearing more than just a pair of loose boxers, but they will have to do.

She gets in and he gets in next to her. They lie on their backs. The bed is narrow and their hips touch. He looks up at the ceiling and thinks, I am not going to get an erection. Which is like telling a dog not to chase a cat. Their legs are also touching. Hers is warm and firm through the cotton. He hasn’t been with a woman since Phil and he doesn’t want to be with this one, but oh God.

‘Can I help you? ’ Her voice is quiet but not timid. ‘I can’t make love to you … you know, the real way … but I could help you. I’d be glad to help you. ’

‘No, Alice. Thank you, but no. ’

‘Are you sure? ’

‘Yes. ’

‘All right. ’ She rolls on her side, away from him and toward the wall.

Billy waits until her breathing grows long and mild and steady. Then he goes in the bathroom and helps himself.

Days go by, just a few, almost like a vacation, and then it’s almost time. There’s a Target down the road, and after breakfast they shop there. Alice buys a big plastic jug of moisturizer and a spray bottle. Also bathing suits. Hers is a modest blue tank. His are billowy trunks with tropical fish on them. She also buys him a pair of pre-washed bib overalls, yellow work gloves, a denim barn coat, and a T-shirt with a very Vegas slogan on it.

They swim in the motel pool, which they discover is the best part of their current accommodation. Alice plays water volleyball with some kids while Billy lies on a chaise, watching. It all feels natural. They could be a father and daughter on their way to Los Angeles, maybe looking for work, maybe looking for relatives they can touch up for a long-term loan or a place to stay.

The motel clerk was right about the buffet – it’s heavy on mac and cheese and prehistoric roast beef au jus – but after almost two hours in the pool, Alice eats everything on her heaped plate and goes back for more. Billy can’t keep up with her, although there was a time – basic training, for instance – when he could have eaten her under the table. After lunch, she says she wants a nap. Billy isn’t surprised.

Around four o’clock they go shopping again, this time at a farm-and-garden store called Grow Baby Grow. Alice’s great mood of the morning has darkened, but she makes no effort to change his mind about the next day. Billy is grateful. Persuasion might lead to argument and arguing with Alice is the last thing he wants. Not on what could be their last day together.

When they park at the motel, Billy reaches into his back pocket and brings out a folded piece of paper. He unfolds it, smooths it gently, and then attaches it to the dashboard with Scotch tape from Target. Alice looks at the little girl hugging the pink flamingo.

‘Who is that? ’

Shanice’s careful crayon work has blurred a little, but the hearts rising from the flamingo’s noddy head to Shanice’s are still clear enough. Billy touches one of them. ‘The little girl who lived next door to me in Midwood. But tomorrow she’s going to be my daughter. If I need her to be. ’

Billy trusts people not to steal, but only so far. The old tools and dirty barrels are safe enough, but someone might see the stuff they bought at Grow Baby Grow and decide to filch some, so they carry the bags inside and store them in Billy’s bathroom. There are four 50-pound sacks of Miracle-Gro potting soil, five 10-pound sacks of Buckaroo Worm Castings, and a 25-pound sack of Black Kow fertilizer.

Alice lets Billy tote the Black Kow. She wrinkles her nose and says she can smell it even through the bag.

They watch TV in her room and she asks him if he will stay the night with her. Billy says it would be better if he didn’t.

‘I don’t think I can sleep alone, ’ Alice says.

‘I don’t think I can, either, but we’re both going to try. Come here. Give me a hug. ’

She gives him a good one. He can feel her trembling, not because she’s afraid of him but because she’s afraid for him. She doesn’t deserve to be afraid at all, but if she has to be, Billy thinks, this way is better. A lot.

‘Set your phone alarm for six, ’ he says when he lets her go.

‘I won’t have to. ’

He smiles. ‘Do it anyway. You might surprise yourself. ’

In his room next door, he texts Bucky: Have you heard anything about N?

Bucky’s reply is immediate. No. He’s probably there but I don’t know for sure. Sorry.

It’s okay, Billy texts back, then sets his own phone alarm for five. He doesn’t expect to sleep, either, but he might surprise himself.

He does, a little, and dreams of Shanice. She’s tearing up the picture of Dave the Flamingo and saying I hate you I hate you I hate you.

He wakes up at four, and when he goes outside with the new gloves in one hand, Alice is sitting in the eternal motel lawn chair, bundled up in an I LOVE LAS VEGAS sweatshirt and looking up at a rind of moon.

‘Hey, ’ Billy says.

‘Hey. ’

He goes to the edge of the cement walk and scrubs the new gloves in the dirt. When he’s satisfied that they look right, he claps the dust off them and stands up.

‘Cold, ’ Alice says. ‘That will be good for you. You can wear the coat. ’

Billy knows it will warm up fast once the sun rises. It may be October, but this is the desert. He’ll wear the barn coat anyway.

‘You want something to eat? Egg McMuffin? The Mickey D’s down the road is twenty-four-hour. ’

She shakes her head. ‘Not hungry. ’

‘Coffee? ’

‘Sure, that would be great. ’

‘Cream and sugar? ’

‘Black, please. ’

He goes down to the deserted lobby and gets them each a cup from the eternal motel Bunn. When he comes back, she’s still looking at the moon. ‘It looks close enough to reach out and touch. Isn’t it beautiful? ’

‘It is, but you’re shivering. Let’s go inside. ’

She sits in his chair by the window and sips her coffee, then sets it on the little table and falls asleep. The sweatshirt is too big and the neck slips to the side, baring one shoulder. Billy thinks it’s at least as beautiful as the moon. He sits and drinks his coffee and watches her. He likes her long slow breaths. The time passes. It’s got a knack for that, Billy thinks.

When he wakes her up at seven-thirty she scolds him for letting her sleep. ‘We need to get you sprayed up. That goo takes at least four hours to work. ’

‘It’s okay. The game starts at one and I’m not going to move on him until at least one-thirty. ’

‘Still, I wish we’d done this an hour ago, just to be safe. ’ She sighs. ‘Come in my room. We’ll do it there. ’

A few minutes later his shirt is off and he’s rubbing moisturizer over his hands, forearms, and face. She tells him not to neglect his eyelids and the back of his neck. When he’s done, she goes to work with the tanning spray. The first coat takes five minutes. When she’s done, he goes into the bathroom and takes a look. What he sees is a white man with a desert tan.

‘Not good enough, ’ he says.

‘I know. Moisturize again. ’

She uses the spray a second time. When he goes into the bathroom for another look it’s better, but he’s still not satisfied. ‘I don’t know, ’ he tells Alice when he comes out. ‘This might have been a bad idea. ’

‘It’s not. Remember what I said? For the next four to six hours, it will continue to darken. With the cowboy hat and the bib overalls …’ She gives him a critical look. ‘If I didn’t think you could pass for Chicano, I’d tell you. ’

This is where she asks me again to just give it up and come back to Colorado with her, Billy thinks. But she doesn’t. She tells him to get dressed in what she calls ‘your costume. ’ Billy goes back to his room and puts on the dark wig, T-shirt, bib overalls, barn coat (work gloves stuffed in the pockets), and the battered cowboy hat Bucky and Alice bought in Boulder. It comes down to his ears and he reminds himself to raise it up a little when the time comes, to show that long black hair streaked with gray.

‘You look fine. ’ All business, red-rimmed eyes notwithstanding. ‘Got your pad and pencil? ’

He pats the front pocket of the biballs. It’s capacious, with plenty of room for the silenced Ruger as well as the writing stuff.

‘You’re getting darker already. ’ She smiles wanly. ‘Good thing the PC Police aren’t here. ’

‘Needs must, ’ Billy says. He reaches into the side pocket of the biballs, the one that doesn’t hold the Glock 17, and brings out a roll of bills. It’s everything he has left except for a couple of twenties. ‘Take this. Call it insurance. ’

Alice pockets it without argument.

‘If you don’t get a call from me this afternoon, wait. I have no idea what kind of cell coverage they have north of here. If I’m not back by eight tonight, nine at the outside, I’m not coming back. Stay the night, then check out and get a Greyhound to Golden or Estes Park. Call Bucky. He’ll pick you up. All right? ’

‘That would not be all right, but I understand. Let me help you carry those bags of fertilizer out to the truck. ’

They make two trips and then Billy slams the tailgate. They stand there looking at each other. A few sleepy-eyed people – a couple of salesmen, a family – are toting out their luggage and preparing to move on.

‘If you don’t need to be there until one, you can stay another hour, ’ she says. ‘Two, even. ’

‘I think I better go now. ’

‘Yeah, maybe you better, ’ Alice says. ‘Before I break down. ’

He hugs her. Alice hugs back fiercely. He expects her to say be careful. He expects her to tell him again not to die. He expects her to ask him one more time, maybe plead with him, not to go. She doesn’t. She looks up at him and says, ‘Get what’s yours. ’

She lets go of him and walks back toward the motel. When she gets there, she turns to him and holds up her phone. ‘Call me when you’re done. Don’t forget. ’

‘I won’t. ’

If I can, he thinks. I will if I can.

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