CHAPTER 20

An hour north of Vegas on Route 45, Billy comes to a Dougie’s Donuts mated to an ARCO gas station and a convenience store with the unlikely name of Terrible Herbst. It’s a truck stop surrounded by great expanses of parking, big rigs on one side snoring like sleeping beasts. Billy gasses up, grabs a bottle of orange juice and a cruller, then parks around back. He thinks about calling Alice, only because he’d like to hear her voice and thinks she might like to hear his. My hostage, he thinks. My Stockholm Syndrome hostage. Only that’s not what she is now, if she ever was. He remembers how she said Get what’s yours. Not fearless, she hasn’t morphed into some comic book warrior queen (at least not yet), but plenty fierce. He has his phone in his hand before remembering she got as little sleep as he did last night. If she’s gone back to bed with the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging on the door, he doesn’t want to wake her.

He drinks his juice and eats his cruller and lets the time pass. There’s enough of it for doubts to creep in. In some ways – many, actually – it’s like the Funhouse all over again, only with no squad to back him up. He can’t be sure Nick went to Promontory Point for the weekend. He has no idea how many men he may have brought back with him if he did. Some for sure, not bounty hunters from some other outfit but his own guys, and Billy has no idea where they might be placed. He has an idea of the interior layout from the Zillow photographs, but there might have been changes made after Nick bought the place. If Nick is there, rooting on the Giants, Billy doesn’t know where he’ll be watching. He doesn’t even know if he can get in through the service entrance. Maybe sí, maybe no.

There’s a line of Porta-Johns, and he uses one to offload his coffee and juice. When he comes out, a black chick in a halter and a denim skirt short enough to show the edges of her panties is standing nearby. She looks like she’s been up all night and the night was a hard one. The mascara around her eyes reminds Billy – dumb self Billy – of the Beagle Boys in the old Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics he sometimes picks up at rummage and yard sales.

‘Hey, good-looking man, ’ the lot lizard says. ‘Want to date me? ’

This is as good a chance as any to try out his cover story. He takes his pad and pencil from the front pocket of his biballs and writes mi es sordo y mudo.

‘What the fuck does that mean? ’

Billy touches his ears with both hands, then pats his mouth with the other.

‘Forget it, ’ she says, turning away. ‘I ain’t sucking no wetback cock. ’

Billy watches her go, delighted. No wetback cock, huh? he thinks. Doesn’t exactly make me John Howard Griffin, but I’ll take it.

He stays parked behind the donut shop until eleven. During that time he sees the black chick and a few of her co-workers chatting up truck drivers, but none of them come near him. Which is fine with Billy. Every now and then he gets out of the truck, pretending to check his goods, actually just wanting to stretch his legs and stay loose.

At quarter past eleven he starts up the truck (the starter doesn’t catch at first, giving him a scare) and continues north on 45. The Paiute Foothills draw closer. From five miles out he can see Promontory Point. It’s different from the house Nick rented in the city where Billy did his job, but every bit as ugly.

As his GPS is informing him that his turn onto Cherokee Drive is a mile ahead, Billy comes to another rest area, this one just a turnout. He parks in the shade and uses another Porta-John, thinking of Taco Bell’s dictum: Never neglect a chance to piss before a firefight.

When he comes out, he checks his watch. Twelve-thirty. In his big white hacienda, Nick is probably settling in to watch the pregame show with a couple of his hardballs. Maybe eating nachos and drinking Dos Equis. Billy punches up Siri, who tells him he’s forty minutes from his destination. He forces himself to wait a little longer and forces himself not to call Alice. Instead he gets out, grabs a crowbar from one of the dirty barrels, and punches a couple of holes in the Ram’s muffler, which is already distressed. If he comes up to the service entrance with his old truck farting and backing off, so much the more in character.

‘Okay, ’ Billy says. He thinks of giving the Darkhorse chant and tells himself not to be ridiculous. Besides, the last time they all chanted that, their hands in the huddle, things didn’t work out so well. He turns the key. The starter spins and spins. When it starts to lag, he clicks it off, waits, gives the gas pedal a single pump, then tries again. The Dodge fires right up. It was loud before. It’s louder now.

Billy checks for traffic, merges onto 45, then turns off at Cherokee Drive. The grade grows steeper. For the first mile or so there are other, more modest houses on either side of the road, but then they’re gone and there’s only Promontory Point, looming ahead of him.

I was always coming here, Billy thinks, and tries to laugh at the thought, which is not just omenish but pretentious. The thought won’t go, and Billy understands that’s because it’s a true thought. He was always coming here. Yes.

The air is bell-clear outside the smog bowl of Las Vegas, and maybe even has a slight magnifying effect, because by the time Billy is closing in on the compound’s main gate the house looks like it’s rearing back so it won’t fall on him. The wall is too high to see over, but he knows there’s a lookout post just inside and if it’s manned, his old beater is probably already on video.

Cherokee Drive ends at Promontory Point. Before it does, a dirt track splits off to the left. There are two signs flanking this track. The one on the left says MAINTENANCE & DELIVERY. The other says AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY. ONLY is in red.

Billy turns onto the track, not neglecting to set his hat a little higher on his head. He also pats the front pocket of the overalls (silenced Ruger) and side pocket (Glock). Sighting the guns in would be a joke, handguns are really only good for close work, but he realizes he hasn’t test-fired either of them or examined the loads. It would be a fine joke on him if he had to use the Glock and it jammed. Or if the Ruger’s silencer, maybe made in the garage of some guy with a taste for meth, plugged the gun’s barrel and caused it to blow up in his hand. Too late to worry about any of that now.

The compound’s wall is on his right. On the left, piñ ons grow close enough for their branches to thwap the sides of his truck. Billy can imagine bigger vehicles – trash haulers, propane gas delivery, a septic pumper – waddling their way along, their drivers cursing a blue streak every time they have to make this trip.

Then the wall makes a right angle turn and the trees end. The 20-degree grade does, too. He’s now on a plateau, probably bulldozed flat especially for the house and grounds. The maintenance road loops out, then curves back toward the much humbler gate Billy is looking for. Beyond the wall he can see the upper fifteen feet or so of the barn, painted rustic red. The roof is metal, heliographing the sun. Billy keeps his eyes off it after one quick look, not wanting to compromise his vision.

The gate is open. There are flowerbeds on either side of it. There’s a security camera mounted on the wall, but it’s hanging down like a bird with a broken neck. Billy likes it. He thought Nick might be relaxing, letting down his guard a bit, and here’s proof.

In the flowerbed on the left, a Mexican woman in a big blue dress is down on her knees, digging in the dirt with a trowel. A wicker basket half-filled with cut flowers is nearby. Her yellow gloves might have been purchased in the same place Billy bought his. She’s wearing a straw sombrero so big it’s comical. Her back is to him at first, but when she hears the truck – how can she miss it? – she turns to look and Billy sees she’s not Mexican at all. Her skin is tanned and leathery, but she’s Anglo. An old lady Anglo, at that.

She gets to her feet and stands in front of the truck with her feet spread, blocking the way forward. She only moves to the driver’s side when Billy slows to a stop and powers down the window.

‘Who the fuck are you and what do you want? ’ And then, another good thing to go with the broken security camera: ‘Qué deseas? ’

Billy holds up a finger – wait one – and takes the pad from the front pocket of his biballs. For a moment he blanks, but then it comes to him and he writes Estos son para el jardí n. These are for the garden.

‘Got it, but what are you doing here on Sunday? Talk to me, Pedro. ’

He flips a page and writes mi es sordo y mudo. I am a deafmute.

‘You are, huh? Do you understand English? ’ Moving her lips with exaggerated care.

Her eyes, dark blue in her narrow face, are studying him. Two things come to Billy. The first is that Nick may have let his guard down … but not all the way. The security camera is broken and his guys may be in the house watching the football game with him, but this woman is here with her trowel and her basket of blooms. Maybe that’s what his old friend Robin used to call a coinkydink, but maybe it’s not, because there’s a bottle of water and a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper in the shade of a nearby tree. Which suggests she might be meaning to stay for awhile. Maybe until the game is over and she’s relieved.

That’s one thing. The other is she looks familiar. Goddamned if she doesn’t.

She reaches into the cab and snaps her fingers in front of his nose. They stink of cigarettes. ‘Lo entiendes? ’

Billy holds his thumb and forefinger a smidgen apart to indicate that yes, he understands, but only a little.

‘Bet if I asked to see your green card, you’d be shit out of luck. ’ She gives a laugh as raspy as her speaking voice. ‘So why you here on Sunday, mi amigo? ’

Billy shrugs and then points at the barn looming over the wall.

‘Yeah, I didn’t think you came for tea and cookies. What have you got to put in the barn? Show me. ’

Billy likes this less and less. Partly because she could look in the truckbed herself and see the bags of gardening stuff, mostly because of that troubling sense that he’s seen her before. Which can’t be true. She’s too old to be one of Nick’s guard dogs, and he’d never hire a woman for that kind of job anyway. He’s old-school and she’s just old, a domestic they shoved out here to keep an eye on the service gate while they watch the game, and she decided to pass the time by cutting some flowers for the house. But he still doesn’t like it.

‘Á ndale, á ndale! ’ More finger-snapping in front of his face. Billy doesn’t like that, either, although her assumption of superiority – her very Trumpian prejudice, if you like – is another sign that his disguise is working.

Billy gets out, leaving the door open, and walks her to the back of the truck. She ignores that and goes on to the little trailer. She looks in the barrels, gives a disdainful sniff, then comes back to look in the truckbed. ‘How come you’ve only got one bag of Black Kow? What good is that gonna do? ’

Billy shrugs that he doesn’t understand.

The woman stands on tiptoes and slaps the bag. Her sombrero flops. ‘Only one! One! Solo uno! ’

Billy shrugs that he’s only the delivery guy.

She sighs and flicks a hand at him. ‘Well, what the fuck. Go on. I’m not going to call Hector on Sunday afternoon and ask him why he sends a deafmute out to deliver a piddling load of shit, he’s probably watching the fucking game, too. Or a different one. ’

Billy shrugs that he still doesn’t entender.

‘Take that crap in. Tó malo! Then fuck off to the nearest cantina, maybe you’ll be in time for the second half. ’

That is when he should have known. Something in her eyes. But he doesn’t. He only gets lucky. He sees her coming in the driver’s side mirror as he climbs into the cab and slides behind the wheel. He pulls back just in time, dipping his shoulder, and the trowel only scrapes his upper arm below the T-shirt he’s wearing under the overalls. He slams the door, catching her arm in it, and the trowel drops to the floorboards beside his left foot.

‘Ow, fuck! ’

She pulls her arm free so fast and hard that it flies up and knocks off the sombrero, revealing gray hair piled high and pinned that way. That’s when Billy understands where he’s seen her before.

She’s reaching into one of the big side pockets of her gardening dress. Billy gets out of the truck in a hurry and roundhouses her on the left side of her face. She goes sprawling on her back in the flower-bed. The thing she was reaching for falls out of her pocket. It’s a cell phone. It’s the first time in his life he’s hit a woman and when he sees the bruise rising on her cheek he thinks of Alice but doesn’t regret the blow. It could have been a gun.

And she recognized him. Not at first but yeah, she did. Covered it up well, too, until the end. So much for the biballs, tanning spray, wig, and cowboy hat. So much for Shan’s picture taped to the dashboard, the one he could write (with a fatherly smile of pride) was his daughter’s work. Was it because the woman has seen and studied his picture as well as meeting him once in Red Bluff? Or because she’s a woman and they tend to see past disguises quicker? That could be sexist bullshit, but Billy kind of doubts it.

‘You fucking fuck. You’re him. ’

He thinks, She seemed so nice at Nick’s rented house. Almost refined. Of course then she was in serving mode. He remembers now that Nick gave her a wad of cash for Alan, the chef who lit up their Baked Alaska, but none for her. Because she was on the payroll. She was, in fact, family. Pretty funny.

She looks dazed, but that could be another shuck and jive. Either way he’s glad the trowel is in the truck. He puts an arm around her shoulders and helps her sit. Her cheek is puffing up like a balloon, making him think of Alice again, but Alice never looked at him like this woman is looking at him now. If looks could kill, and all that.

With the hand not supporting her, Billy takes the Ruger out of his coat pocket and presses the muzzle lightly against her wrinkled forehead. Frank Macintosh is known (never to his face) as Frankie Elvis, sometimes Solar Elvis. Hair piled up high in front, like hers. Same hair, same narrow face, same widow’s peak. Billy thinks he might have made the connection sooner and saved himself a lot of trouble, if not for the oversized sombrero.

‘Hello, Marge. You’re not as polite as you were when you were serving us our dinner that night. ’

‘You fucking traitor, ’ she says, and spits in his face.

Billy feels a well-nigh insurmountable urge to hit her again, but not because she spat on him. He arms it off his face, leaving her to support herself. She looks perfectly able to do so. She may be in her seventies and a lifelong smoker, but there’s no quit in her, Billy has to give her that much.

‘You’ve got it backwards. Nick’s the fucking traitor. I did the job and instead of paying me he stiffed me and planned to kill me. ’

‘Nick would never do that. He stands up for his people. ’

That might be true, Billy thinks, but I’m not one of them and never was. I’m your basic independent contractor.

‘Let’s not argue, Marge. Time is tight. ’

‘I think you broke my fucking arm. ’

‘And you tried to open up my jugular vein. As far as I’m concerned that makes us even. How many men are in there watching the game? ’

She doesn’t answer.

‘Is Frank in there? ’

She doesn’t reply, but the flicker he sees in those dark eyes tells him what he needs to know. He picks up her cell phone, knocks off the dirt, and holds it out to her. ‘Call him and tell him a guy from Greens & Gardens is dropping off some fertilizer and potting soil. Nothing to worry about. Say—’

‘No. ’

‘Say you told the guy to go ahead and put it in the barn. ’

‘No. ’

Billy has lowered the muzzle of the Ruger. Now he puts it back between her eyes. ‘Tell him, Marge. ’

‘No. ’

‘Tell him or I’ll blow your brains out, then Frank’s. ’

She spits in his face again. At least tries to, there isn’t much to it. Because her mouth is dry, Billy thinks. She’s scared, but she’s still not going to do it. Even if she does, she’ll either tip them off by how she sounds or just go whole hog and scream It’s him, it’s that fucking fuck of a traitor Billy Summers.

Helpless not to think of Alice but reminding himself this isn’t her and never could be, he hits Marge in the temple. Her eyes roll up to whites and she flops back into the flowers. He stands over her for a minute to make sure she’s still breathing, then tosses her phone into the truck. He starts to get in himself, then re-thinks and dumps the cut flowers out of her basket. Under them is a walkie-talkie and a short-barreled. 357 King Cobra revolver. So she wasn’t just gardening. And they didn’t just put her out here as an afterthought. This one’s got a lot of hard bark on her. He tosses the gun and the walkie in the truck.

The starter turns over without catching for ten long seconds and Billy thinks why now, oh Lord, why now. At last the engine fires up and he drives onto the estate. He stops ten feet inside the wall, leaving the truck in neutral, and closes the gate. There’s a huge steel bolt. He runs it through the double catch and heads back to the truck, which is bellowing through its perforated muffler. Doing that seemed like a good idea at the time. Not so much now.

As he climbs into the cab, Marge Macintosh starts pounding on the gate and shouting. ‘Hey! Hey! It’s Summers! It’s Summers in the truck! ’ Billy can’t believe anyone could hear her even if the Dodge’s muffler was intact, but he’s amazed by her vitality. He hit her as hard as he could and she’s already back for more.

Except you didn’t hit her as hard as you could, he thinks. You thought of Alice and held back a little.

Too late now and he doesn’t think it matters. She’d have to run all the way around the wall, shoving her way through the pines, to alert anyone in the little guardhouse by the main gate … assuming anyone is actually in there.

And of course there is. As Billy drives past the barn and the paddock, a guy comes out. He’s got a rifle or a shotgun but for the time being it’s slung over his shoulder. He looks relaxed. He raises his hands to his shoulders with the palms out: Qué pasa?

Instead of heading toward the house as he had intended, Billy reaches out the driver’s side window, gives the guy a thumbs-up, and turns down the main driveway toward the guardhouse.

He pulls up. The guy walks toward him with the gun – it’s a Mossberg – still slung over his shoulder. Billy realizes he knows him. Billy has never been here, but he’s been in Nick’s penthouse suite at the Double Domino three or four times, and on a couple of them this guy was there. Sal something. But unlike Frank’s sharp-eyed mother, Sal doesn’t recognize him.

‘What’s up, partner? ’ he says. ‘Old lady let you through? ’

‘She did. ’ Billy makes no attempt at a Spanish accent, he’d sound like Speedy fucking Gonzalez. ‘I got something for someone to sign. Can you do it? ’

‘I don’t know, ’ Sal says. He’s starting to look troubled. Billy thinks, too late, amigo, too late. ‘Let’s see what you got. ’

Billy’s deafmute pad is sticking up from the front pocket of his overalls. He pats it and says, ‘It’s right here. ’

He reaches past the pad and grabs Don Jensen’s Ruger. For a wonder it comes out smoothly, even with the bulb-shaped silencer on the end. He fires. A hole appears between two of the pearl buttons up the front of Sal’s Western-style shirt. There’s a bursting balloon sound and wouldn’t you know it, the silencer falls in two smoking pieces, one half on the ground and the other in the cab.

‘You shot me! ’ Sal says, staggering back a step. His eyes are wide.

Billy doesn’t want to shoot the guy again because the second one will be a lot noisier, and he doesn’t have to. Sal folds up, knees on the ground and head lowered. He looks like he’s praying. Then he falls forward.

Billy thinks about taking the Mossberg but decides to leave it. As he told Marge, time is tight.

He drives up to the main house. There are three cars parked on the apron, a sedan, a compact SUV, and a Lamborghini that must belong to Nick. Billy remembers Bucky saying Nick has a thing for cars. Billy turns off the noisy truck and walks up the main steps. He has his deafmute pad in one hand. He’s holding the Glock behind it. He just killed a man, and Sal was probably a bad guy who has done many bad things at Nick’s behest, but Billy doesn’t know that for a fact. Now he will kill more, assuming he doesn’t get killed himself. He’ll think about it later. If there is any later.

He puts his finger on the bell, then hesitates. Suppose a woman comes to the door? If that happens, Billy doesn’t think he’ll be able to shoot her. Even if everything turns to shit as a result, he doesn’t believe he’ll be able to. He’d like a chance to go around the house instead, scope it out a little, but there’s no time. Mommy Elvis is on the warpath.

He tries the door. It opens. Billy is surprised but not shocked. Nick has decided he’s not coming. Also it’s Sunday afternoon, the sun is out, and it’s football day in America. Billy believes the Giants have just scored. The crowd is whooping and so are several men. Not close but not far away.

Billy puts the pad back in the front pocket of the overalls and walks toward the sound. Then, just what he was afraid of. Down the main hall comes a pretty little Latina maid with a tray of steaming franks in buns balanced on top of an Igloo cooler that’s probably full of beer. Billy has time to think of an old Chuck Berry lyric, She’s too cute to be a minute over seventeen. She sees Billy, she sees the gun, her mouth opens, the Igloo tilts, the tray of franks starts to slide. Billy pushes it back to safety.

‘Go, ’ he says, and points at the open door. ‘Take that and get out of here. Go far. ’

She doesn’t say a word. Carrying the tray, she walks down the hall and out into the sunlight. Her posture, Billy thinks, is perfect and the sunlight on her black hair suggests that God may not be all bad. She goes down the steps, back straight and head up. She doesn’t look back. The crowd cheers. The men watching do, too. Someone shouts, ‘Fuck ’em up, Big Blue! ’

Billy walks partway down the tiled corridor. Between two Georgia O’Keeffe prints – mesas on one side, mountains on the other – a door is standing open. Through the gap between the hinges, Billy can see stairs going down. There’s a commercial on for beer. Billy stands behind the open door, waiting for it to end, wanting their attention back on the game.

Then, Nick, from the foot of the stairs: ‘Maria! Where are those dogs? ’ When there’s no answer: ‘Maria! Hurry up! ’

Someone says, ‘I’ll go see. ’ Billy isn’t sure, but it sounds like Frank.

Footsteps thumping up the stairs. Someone comes out into the hall and turns left, presumably toward the kitchen. It’s Frank, all right. Billy recognizes him even with his back turned: the pomp trying to cover the solar sex panel. Billy steps out from behind the door and follows him, walking on the sides of his feet, glad he wore sneakers. Frank goes into the kitchen and looks around.

‘Maria? Where are you, honey? We need—’

Billy hits him in the bald spot with the butt of the Glock, raising it high and giving it everything he has. Blood flies and Frank collapses forward, smacking his forehead on the butcher block table in the middle of the room on his way down. His mother’s head was hard, and maybe Frank has inherited that from her along with the widow’s peak, but Billy doesn’t think he’s coming back from this. Not for awhile, anyway, and maybe never. Guys are always getting clonked on the head in films and getting up a few minutes later with little or no damage done, but that’s not the way it works in real life. Frank Macintosh could die of a cerebral edema or a subdural hematoma. It could happen five minutes from now or he could linger in a coma for five years. He might also come back sooner, but probably not before Billy finishes his day’s work. Still, he bends and frisks him. No gun.

Billy walks quietly back down the hall. The game must have resumed, because the crowd is roaring again. One of the men down there in Nick’s man-cave yells, ‘Fucking clothesline him! Yeah! That’s what I’m TALKIN’ about! ’

Billy descends the stairs, not fast and not slow. Three men are watching a TV screen that’s beyond big. Two of them are in bucket chairs. A third bucket chair – probably Frank’s – is empty. Nick is sitting in the middle of the couch with his legs spread. He’s wearing shorts that are too short, too tight, and too loud. His belly is bulging out the front of a New York Giants shirt and supporting a bowl of popcorn. The other two also have popcorn bowls, which is good because it keeps their hands occupied. Billy knows both of them. One he’s seen in Nick’s suite and in the Domino’s main offices. An accountant, maybe, a numbers guy for sure. Billy doesn’t remember his name, Mikey or Mickey or maybe Markie. The other was one of the fake Department of Public Works guys with the Transit van. Reggie something.

‘Well it took you long enough, ’ Nick says. The other two have seen Billy, but Nick only has eyes for the play in progress on the television. ‘Just set it on the—’

He finally registers the shocked expressions of his companions, turns his head, and sees Billy standing two steps from the carpeted floor. The look of fear and amazement that dawns on Nick’s face gives Billy a great deal of satisfaction. It isn’t payback for the last five months of his life, not even close, but it’s a step in the right direction.

‘Billy? ’ The bowl balanced on Nick’s stomach overturns and popcorn goes pattering to the rug.

‘Hello, Nick. You’re probably not glad to see me, but I’m glad to see you. ’ He gestures with the Glock at the accountant guy, who has already raised his hands. ‘What’s your name? ’

‘M-Mark. Mark Abromowitz. ’

‘Get down on the floor, Mark. You too, Reggie. On your stomachs. Arms and legs spread. Like you’re making snow angels. ’

They don’t argue. They set aside their popcorn bowls – carefully – and get down on the floor.

‘I’ve got a family, ’ Mark Abromowitz says.

‘That’s good. Behave yourself and you’ll see them again. Are either of you armed? ’ He doesn’t have to ask about Nick, because in that ridiculous game-day outfit he’s got no place for a hidden weapon, not even an ankle gun.

The two men, face down, shake their heads.

Nick says Billy’s name again, this time not as a question but as an exclamation of delight. He’s striving for his old lord of the manor bonhomie and not finding very much of it. ‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you! ’

Billy wouldn’t bother to answer this ridiculous lie even if he didn’t have a more pressing concern. There’s a fourth chair, and a half-empty bowl of popcorn beside it.

‘They keep it on the ground with Barkley, ’ the play-by-play announcer is saying, ‘with Jones leading the way, and—’

‘Turn it off, ’ Billy says. Nick is king of the house and king of the couch, so of course the controller is beside him.

‘What? ’

‘You heard me, turn it off. ’

As Nick points the remote at the television, Billy is happy to see a slight tremble in his hand. The game goes away. Now it’s just the four of them, but that fourth empty chair with the popcorn bowl beside it says there’s an unaccounted-for fifth.

‘Where is he? ’ Billy asks.

‘Who? ’

Billy points at the empty chair.

‘Billy, I have to explain why I had to wait to get in touch with you. There was a problem at my end. It—’

‘Shut up. ’ What a pleasure to say that, and what a pleasure not to have to play dumb. ‘Mark! ’

The accountant jerks his legs, as if he’s just had an electric shock.

‘Where is he? ’

Mark replies promptly, which is wise. ‘He went to the bathroom. ’

‘Shut up, asshole, ’ Reggie says, and Billy shoots him in the ankle. He doesn’t know he’s going to do it until it’s done but his aim is as good as ever and he regrets it no more than he regrets cold-cocking Frank in the kitchen. Reggie was part of the plan to get rid of dumb old Billy Summers. Get him in the back of the fake DPW van, drive him a few miles out of town, put a bullet in his head, case closed. Besides, this little man-cave trio needs to know who is in charge.

Reggie screams and rolls on his back, trying to clutch his ankle. ‘You fuck! You fucking shot me! ’

‘Shut up or I’ll shut you up. If you don’t believe me, give it a try. ’ He turns the gun on Abromowitz, who’s looking at him with bulging eyes. ‘Where’s the bathroom? Point. ’

Abromowitz points behind the couch. Three pinball machines are lined up against the wall, their lights flashing but all the boops and beeps silenced because of the game. Just beyond them is a closed wooden door.

‘Nick. Tell him to come out. ’

‘Come on out, Dana! ’

So that’s who the missing man is, Billy thinks. Reggie’s DPW partner. The little redhead with the dork knob who talked smack to me in the Gerard Tower. Maybe not the guy who got rid of Ken Hoff, but Billy thinks there’s a good chance that he was. Of course it’s Edison, because every character in a story must be used at least twice: Dickens’s rule. And Zola’s.

He doesn’t come out.

‘Come on, Dana! ’ Nick calls. ‘It’s okay! ’

No answer.

‘He armed? ’ Billy asks Nick.

‘What, are you kidding? You think when I invite friends over to watch a football game they come strapped? ’

Billy says, ‘I think we’re going to find out about that. Nick, do your two friends there on the floor understand that I can shoot? That it’s what I do? ’

‘He can shoot, ’ Nick says. His normal olive complexion has gone yellow. ‘He learned it in the Marines. Sniper. ’

‘I’m going to go over to the bathroom and convince Dana to come out. I guess you can’t run, Reggie, but you still could, Mr Abromowitz. Do it and I’ll kill you. Same goes for you, Nick. ’

‘I’m not going anywhere, ’ Nick says. ‘We’ll work this out. I just have to explain why—’

Billy tells him again to shut up and goes around the couch. Nick is now back to him, an easy head shot if Billy needs to take it. Reggie and the accountant are blocked by the couch, but Reggie has a shattered ankle and he doesn’t think Abromowitz the family man is going to be a problem. It’s Dana Edison he’s concerned with.

He stands beside the pinball machine closest to the closed door. He says, ‘Come on out, Dana. If you do that, you might live. Otherwise, no. ’

Billy doesn’t expect a reply and doesn’t get one.

‘Okay, coming in. ’

Like hell I am, he thinks, but he bends, reaches forward, and grabs the doorknob. The second he rattles it Edison fires four times, the shots so rapid Billy can hardly differentiate them. It’s a thin door and there are no holes, only wood flying in big splinters. Billy senses movement behind him but doesn’t look. Nick and Abromowitz may be on the run, but neither is going to run into Edison’s field of fire to tackle him, any more than that pair of mokes would have run into the Funhouse to try and rescue Johnny Capps.

Edison will expect Billy to hesitate if he’s still alive so he doesn’t. He steps in front of the splintered door and pumps half a dozen rounds into it. Edison shrieks. There’s a clatter and then – only reality can serve up such absurdities – the toilet flushes.

From the corner of his eye, Billy sees Abromowitz heading to the first floor in a series of gazelle-like leaps. Billy has no idea what Nick is up to but he’s not following Abromowitz up the stairs and this is the wrong time to check further. He raises a foot and kicks the remains of the door beside the lock. It flies open. Dana Edison is lying across the toilet, bleeding from the head and throat. His own Glock is lying in the shower along with his little rimless spectacles. He apparently struck the toilet’s flush lever when he went down. His eyes roll up to look at Billy.

‘Doc … tor …’

Billy looks at the blood spilling down the side of the toilet. A doctor isn’t going to help Dana. Dana has bought that place they call the farm. Billy bends over him, gun in hand. ‘Do you remember the last thing you said to me when you came to my office in the Gerard Tower? ’

Edison makes a hoarse huffing sound. A spray of blood comes out with it.

‘I do. ’ Billy puts the muzzle of the Glock against Edison’s temple. ‘You said “Don’t miss. ”’

He pulls the trigger.

When he comes out Reggie is on his knees in front of the couch. Billy can see the top of his head. He sees Billy and raises a small silver pistol that must have been stashed under one of the cushions. Nick wasn’t unarmed after all. Billy puts two rounds through the back of the couch before Reggie can fire and Reggie flops backward out of sight. Billy goes to the couch in three running steps and peers over. Reggie is on his back, the gun on the rug beside one of his outstretched hands. His eyes are open and starting to glaze.

You should have settled for the shattered ankle, Billy thinks. Doctors might have been able to fix that.

Something falls over deeper in the man-cave. Glass shatters and there’s a curse – ‘M’qifsh Karin! ’ Billy hurries that way, bent low. The lights in the area beyond the TV room are off, but Billy can see Nick in the gloom. His back is turned. He’s pushing buttons on a lighted keypad beside a steel door. There’s a billiards table in this adjoining room, and a few vintage slot machines, and a rolling bar that’s lying on its side in a glitter of broken glass and the eye-watering smell of spilled whiskey.

Nick stabs frantically at the buttons, still cursing in Albanian or whatever language he learned as a child and has otherwise forgotten. He only stops when Billy tells him to quit it and turn around.

Nick does as he’s told. He looks like a man on the precipice of death, which is fair because that’s where he is. But he’s smiling. Just a little, but yeah, that’s a smile. ‘I went the wrong way. I should have taken the stairs like Markie, but …’ He shrugs.

‘That your safe room? ’ Billy asks.

‘Yeah. And do you know what? I forgot the fucking combination. ’ Then he shakes his head. ‘Nah, that’s bullshit. I blanked on the combination. Just four numbers and all I could remember is the second one’s a two. ’

‘What about now? ’ Billy asks.

‘6247, ’ Nick says, and actually laughs.

Billy nods. ‘It happens to the best of us and it happens to the rest of us. ’

Nick studies him. He wipes his lips, which are shiny with spit. ‘You sound different. You even look different. You were never as stupid as you made out, were you? Giorgio told me that and I didn’t believe him. ’

‘Before you had him killed, ’ Billy says.

Nick’s eyes widen with what Billy could swear is genuine surprise. ‘Giorgio isn’t dead, he’s in Brazil. ’ He studies Billy’s face. ‘You don’t believe me? ’

‘After the shit you pulled, why would I believe a word that comes out of your mouth? ’

Nick shrugs as if to say point taken. ‘Can I sit down? My legs are all weak. ’

Billy gestures with the barrel of the Glock to the three spectators’ seats beside the pool table. Nick walks unsteadily to the one in the middle and sits down. He reaches behind him and flips a switch that turns on the three hanging lights over the green felt.

‘I never should have taken the contract. But all that money … it blinded me. ’

Billy reckons he has some time. It would be a mistake to push it too far, but he may do so anyway. Because he wants answers. The money seems secondary. Not to mention unlikely. It’s only in movies that the gangster has a wall of cash in his safe room. These days it’s all computer transfers. Money hardly exists at all. Money has become the ghost in the machine.

‘Pigs has got liver disease. You would’ve put money on his heart going, fat as he is, but it was his liver that turned out to be the problem. He needs a transplant. Doctors said no way unless he loses some weight, like two hundred pounds. If he doesn’t, he’ll die on the operating table. So he went to Brazil. ’

‘A fat farm? ’

‘A special clinic. The kind where once you sign in you can’t sign out until you reach your target weight and they let you sign out. He knew that’s the only way it could work, otherwise he’d be gone the first time he got a yen for a Triple Whopper with Cheese. ’

Billy is starting to believe it. Nick is talking about Giorgio mostly in the present tense, and he hasn’t slipped up. In a way it’s like Edison flushing the toilet as he fell, mortally wounded. Some things are too bizarre not to be true. Georgie Pigs in a fat farm gulag is surely one of those things.

‘Giorgio knew he’d be ID’d after you killed Joel Allen, he’s a fucking whale, but he was okay with that. He said it was a way of making sure he wouldn’t back out at the last minute, new liver or no new liver. Plus he wanted to retire. ’

‘Really? ’ Billy would have believed Giorgio was one of those guys who would die in harness.

‘Yeah. ’

‘Sunset years in Brazil? ’

‘I think Argentina. ’

‘Sounds expensive. What kind of a retirement bonus did he get for helping to set me up? ’

Nick hesitates, then says, ‘Three million. ’

‘Three for Giorgio and six for bringing me down. ’

Nick’s eyes widen and he sags in the chair. He’s thinking that if Billy knows that, any chance he might have had of getting out of this alive just flew away. He’s probably right.

‘But you stuck at paying me the lousy million and a half you owed? I knew you were cheap, Nick, but I didn’t peg you for a chiseler. ’

‘Billy, we were never going to—’

‘You were. I want to hear you say it or I’ll kill you right now. ’

‘You’re going to kill me anyway, ’ Nick says, and although his voice is steady enough, a single tear rolls down one plump and beautifully shaved cheek.

Billy doesn’t reply.

‘Okay, yeah. We were going to kill you. That came with the deal. Dana was going to do it. ’

‘I was going to be your Oswald. ’

‘It wasn’t my idea, Billy. I told the client you’d stand up no matter what. He insisted, and like I said, the money blinded me. ’

Billy could ask how much Nick got, but does he want to know? He does not. ‘Who’s the client? ’

Instead of answering, Nick points to the door leading to the panic room. ‘I’ve got money. Not a million-five but at least eighty thousand, probably more like a hundred. I’ll give it to you and I’ll get you the rest. ’

‘I believe that completely, ’ Billy says. ‘I also believe that we won in Vietnam and the moon landing was staged. ’ Something else occurs to him. ‘Did you know about the fire? ’

Nick blinks at the change of subject. ‘Fire? What fire? ’

‘Those flashpots weren’t the only diversion that day. There was a warehouse fire in a nearby town not long before I took the shot. I knew about it ahead of time because Hoff told me. ’

‘Hoff told you? That budalla? ’

‘You sure you didn’t know about it? ’

‘No. ’

Billy believes him, but he wanted to hear him say it, and watch his face as he did. It doesn’t matter, anyway. He’s downriver from all that. ‘Who was the client? ’

‘Are you going to kill me? ’

I should, Billy thinks. You richly deserve it.

‘Who was the client? ’

Nick raises a hand to his face and brings it down slowly, wiping away sweat from his brow and more spit from his lips. His eyes say he has given up hope, and he never had much to begin with. ‘If I tell you, will you at least let me pray before you do it? Or is killing me not enough, do you want me in hell for eternity, too? ’ Now there are more tears.

‘You can pray. Client’s name first. ’

‘Roger Klerke. ’

At first Billy thinks he’s saying Clerk, like the guy who takes your money in a convenience store, but then Nick spells it. The name has a slightly familiar ring, but it’s not one he associates with Nick’s world. Or Bucky Hanson’s, for that matter. More like a name Billy has seen in the newspapers or blogs or heard on a podcast. Maybe on TV. Politics? Business? Billy has little interest in either.

‘World Wide Entertainment, ’ Nick says. ‘It’s okay if you don’t recognize it, WWE’s only one of the four biggest media conglomerates in the world. ’

Nick tries to smile – a man on his deathbed telling a feeble joke – but Billy hardly notices. He’s rewinding, almost all the way to the beginning. To his first meeting with Ken Hoff, who is certainly not looking forward to retirement in South America.

‘Tell me. ’

Nick does, and Billy is so totally amazed by what he hears – and horrified, that too – that he loses track of time. He doesn’t remember that not everyone at Promontory Point has been neutralized until he hears a desolate howl from upstairs. It is the sound only a mother can make when she discovers her son stretched out unconscious and maybe dying. Maybe already dead.

‘Do you want to live, Nick? ’ A rhetorical question.

‘Yes. Yes! If you let me, I’ll see that you get your money. Every cent of it. That’s my solemn promise. ’ His tears stopped while he was telling his tale, but at the possibility of a reprieve they start again.

Billy’s not interested in Nick’s promises, solemn or otherwise. He points to the unadorned steel door to the safe room. Upstairs there’s another howl, then words: ‘Help me! Somebody help me! ’

‘Are there guns in there? ’

Nick is no longer the guy in charge, no longer the host with the most who welcomed Billy with outstretched arms five months ago, no longer the drinker of Champagne who just wanted to help Billy with his getaway. He has been broken down to his basic humanity, which is a desire to continue drawing breath, and so Billy accepts his look of surprise as genuine. ‘In the safe room? Why would I have guns in there? ’

‘Go in. Close the door. Look at your watch. Wait an hour. If you come out before then, I might be gone or I might still be here. ’ As if, Billy thinks. ‘If I’m here, I’ll kill you. ’

‘I won’t. I won’t! And the money—’

‘I’ll be in touch about that. ’

Maybe, Billy thinks. Or maybe I no longer want any of it, considering what I did and who I did it for. Not knowing at the time may be an excuse, but not a good one.

‘Call off the bounty hunters. Tell them I came here, there was a shootout, and I got killed. If there’s still guys on the prod for me, you better hope they kill me because if they don’t, I’ll come back here and kill you. Tell Klerke the same thing. I’ll ask him, and if he says anything different, I’ll come back and kill you. Got it? ’

‘Yes. Yes! ’

Billy gestures toward the TV part of the man-cave. ‘And clean up this mess. Make it go away. Do you understand? ’

‘Help me, he won’t wake up! ’ From upstairs.

‘Do you understand? ’

‘Yes. What are you planning to—’

‘Get in there. ’

Nick has no trouble with the combo this time. The door must be sealed as tight as the airlock of a spaceship, because there’s a faint whoosh when it opens. Nick goes in. He gives Billy a final look from eyes that no longer believe they are master of all they survey, and maybe that’s revenge enough. Or would be, if it were to last. Billy knows it won’t.

‘For once in your life be honorable, ’ Billy says.

Nick closes the door and there’s a thud as it re-locks. Billy sees a cheesecloth bag full of billiard balls hanging from a hook beside the chairs. He takes it and spills the balls onto the green felt of the table. He gets Edison’s Glock from the bathroom and Nick’s hideout gun from where it lies next to Reggie’s dead hand. He puts both guns in the bag. Then he searches Reggie’s pants pockets, an unpleasant task that has to be done because he has no intention of driving out of here in the old pickup with its unreliable starter. He finds the key to Reggie’s vehicle.

Billy has tucked his own Glock in the bib pocket of his overalls. As he mounts the stairs he takes it out. Now he can hear Frank’s mother – who Billy has started to think of as the Bride of Terminator – on the telephone. ‘Nick’s! Yes, you idiot, Nick’s! Why do you think I’m calling you instead of the hospital? ’

Billy goes down the hall to the kitchen, once more walking on the sides of his feet. He can’t see Marge, aka Mommy Elvis, but he can see her shadow pacing back and forth, and the shadow of the landline’s cord. He can also see a Mossberg shotgun lying beside Frank Macintosh’s splayed feet. It’s got to be the one Sal, the gate guard, had slung over his shoulder.

Should have taken it when I had the chance, Billy thinks.

‘Get here fast! He’s barely breathing! ’

Billy drops to his knees and leans forward, hand outstretched. She has used a towel to sop up the blood from the back of Frank’s head and left it on the nape of his neck. Billy snags the shotgun by the trigger guard and pulls it toward him slowly, hoping she won’t hear it and turn. He wants no more to do with Marge.

He feels a sudden cold prickling along the back of his neck and knows it’s Nick. He had a gun in the safe room after all. He came out, he climbed the stairs, and now he’s aiming the gun at the back of Billy’s head. Billy turns, hearing his neck creak, sure it will be the last sound he ever hears, at least in this world. No one is there.

He gets to his feet. His knees pop. Frank’s mother hears it and comes around the fridge (not as big as the TV but almost) and stares at him. Her face is one big bruise and Billy thinks of Alice again. Marge is still holding the phone, but the cord has reached its limit, all its curls now straight. Her lips part in a snarl.

Billy points the Glock at the prone figure of her son, then raises the barrel to his lips: Shhhh.

The snarl stays, but she nods.

Billy leaves, backing down the hall until he gets to the front door.

The SUV parked on the tarmac has a triple-diamond logo on the grill that matches the one on Reggie’s key. When he gets inside it still has that new car smell, although it’s fighting a losing battle against the smell of its late owner’s cigarettes. There’s an aluminum Table Talk pie tin on the console full of butts. Billy rolls down the window and tosses it out. Something else for Nick to clean up.

Marge comes out the door. In bright sunlight she looks like death on a cracker. ‘If my son dies I’ll get you! ’ she hollers. ‘If he dies I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth! ’

And she probably would, Billy thinks, but Frank got what was coming to him and so did you, ma’am.

He never got a chance to show Nick the slogan on his T-shirt, but now he calls it out to her.

He drives past Sal’s body and through the open gate. Once he’s on Route 45 he phones Alice and tells her he’s all right. Against all odds, this is true. His only wound is a scrape from Marge’s trowel.

‘Thank God, ’ Alice says. ‘Are you … did you …’

‘I’ll be there in a couple of hours, maybe sooner. I’ve upgraded my ride. I’m driving a green Mitsubishi Outlander now. I want you to pack up. We’re leaving. I’ll tell you everything on the way. ’

Nor will he omit anything. She deserves to know the whole thing, especially if he’s going to ask for her help with the rest. He hasn’t completely made up his mind about that, has only the vaguest intimations of a plan, but he’s leaning in that direction. It will be her decision, but there are powerful reasons for wanting her in on the rest. And she’ll know it, he thinks.

‘Are we going back to … you know, your friend’s place? ’

‘To start with. You can stay there, or you can come back east with me to finish this business. Your choice. ’

Her reply is instant. ‘I’ll come. ’

‘Don’t decide now. Wait until you hear where I’m going. And why. ’

He ends the call. Ahead of him is the Las Vegas smog bowl, which he will be happy to leave behind. The slogan on his shirt, the very Vegas slogan that he didn’t get to show Frank but called out to Frank’s mom, is IF YOU WANT TO PLAY, YOU HAVE TO PAY. Someone else needs to pay: Roger Klerke.

He’s a very bad man.

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