Billy Summers

Billy is snapped back from Fallujah by the sound of Alice running down the stairs. She bursts into the apartment, hair flying out behind her. ‘Someone’s coming! I was spritzing the plants and saw the car turn into the driveway!’

One look at her face tells Billy not to waste time asking if she’s sure. He gets up and goes to the periscope window.

‘Is it them, do you think? The Jensens coming back early? I turned off the TV but I had coffee, the place smells of it, and there’s a plate on the counter! Crumbs! They’ll know somebody’s been—’

Billy pushes the curtain back a few inches. He couldn’t see the new car if it was able to pull all the way up, the angle is wrong, but because his leased Fusion is in the driveway, he can. It’s a blue SUV with a scratch running down the side. For a moment he doesn’t know where he’s seen it before, but it comes to him even before the driver gets out. It’s Merton Richter, the real estate agent who rented him the apartment.

‘Did you lock the door?’ Billy jerks his chin upward.

Alice shakes her head, her eyes big and scared, but maybe that’s okay. It might be even if Richter tries the door and peeks in when there’s no answer to his knock. The Jensens asked him to water their plants, after all. But he may be coming here, and Billy isn’t wearing the wig, let alone the fake stomach. He’s in a T-shirt and his workout shorts.

The front door opens and they hear Richter step inside. The puke has been cleaned up, but will he detect the smell? It’s not like they opened the door to air out the foyer.

Billy wants to wait and see if Richter goes up to the Jensens’ but knows he can’t afford to. ‘Turn on the computers.’ He sweeps his hand around, indicating the AllTechs. And Christ, Richter isn’t going up there, he’s coming down here. ‘You’re my niece.’

It’s all he has time for. He slams down the lid of the Mac Pro, runs for the bedroom, and shuts the door. As he crosses to the bathroom, where the fake belly is hanging on the back of the door, he hears Richter knock. She’ll have to open it because he’ll know from the car in the driveway that someone is home. When she does he’ll see a young woman half Billy’s age, bruised and still flushed from her run down the stairs. Only that’s not the exercise Richter will think of first. This is bad.

Billy puts the belly in the small of his back so he can cinch the strap, but he misses the buckle and the belly falls to the floor. He picks it up and tries again. This time he gets the strap in the buckle, but he pulls it too tight and can’t turn the belly to his front even when he sucks in his gut. When he loosens the strap, the fucking thing falls down again. Billy bumps his head on the washbasin, picks up the appliance, tells himself to calm down, and buckles the strap. He rotates the belly into position.

Back in the bedroom, Billy can hear the murmur of voices. Alice giggles. It sounds nervous rather than amused. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He yanks on chinos and then the sweatshirt, both because it’s quicker than a button-up and because Alice was right, fat guys think baggy clothes make them look less fat. The blond wig is on the bureau. He grabs it and jams it on over his black hair. In the living room Alice laughs again. He reminds himself not to say her name because for all Billy knows, she’s given their visitor a false one.

He takes two big breaths to calm himself, puts on a smile that he hopes will look embarrassed – as if he’s been caught doing the necessary – and opens the door. ‘We have company, I see.’

‘Yes,’ Alice says. She turns to him with a smile on her lips and an expression of naked relief in her eyes. ‘He says he rented you the apartment.’

Billy frowns, trying to remember, then smiles as it comes to him. ‘Oh yes, right. Mr Ricker.’

‘Richter,’ he says, and extends his hand. Billy shakes it, still smiling, trying to read what Richter is thinking. He can’t. But Richter will have noticed the bruises on her face and her nervousness. Those are impossible to miss. And is Billy’s hand sweaty? Probably.

‘I was in the …’ Billy points vaguely toward the bedroom and the bathroom beyond.

‘Quite all right,’ Richter says. He looks at the screens of the AllTech laptops, which are cycling through all sorts of pre-loaded clickbait: the wonders of acai berries, two weird little tips for erasing wrinkles, doctors plead with you not to eat this vegetable, see what these ten child stars look like now.

‘So this is what you do?’ Richter asks.

‘As a sideline. I earn most of my beer and skittles doing IT work. Travel around a lot, don’t I, dear?’

‘Yes,’ Alice says, and gives another of those jagged giggles. Richter slips her a quick side-glance, and in it Billy sees that whatever Alice may have told Richter while Billy was fumbling with the fucking fake stomach, the man believes that she’s Dalton Smith’s niece like he believes the moon is made of green cheese.