Billy Summers

‘Chat up a barista, maybe,’ Billy says. ‘That is if she’s new in town and hoping to meet someone nice.’

‘Huh?’

Billy kicks him in the leg. It’s not hard, but Martinez cries out and the bungalow chair starts swinging again. It’s a swinging chair for three swinging roommates.

‘What about Hank? When does he get back?’

‘He gets off at four. Why do you—’

Billy raises the can of Easy-Off. It must still look blurry to Martinez, but he knows what it is and subsides.

‘What about you, Jack? How do you earn your beer and bagels?’

‘I’m a day trader.’

Billy goes over to the laptop on the round table. Numbers are flowing across it, most of them green. It’s Saturday, but someone is trading somewhere, because money never sleeps.

‘Is that your van out back?’

‘No, Hank’s. I’ve got a Miata.’

‘Is the van broken down?’

‘Yeah, blew a head gasket. He’s been taking my car to work this week. The store he works at is in the Airport Mall.’

Billy pulls a regular chair over to the hanging bungalow chair. He sits in front of Martinez. ‘I can be done with you, Jack. If you behave. Can you behave?’

‘Yes!’

‘That means when your roomies come home, you keep perfectly quiet. No yelling out a warning. It’s Tripp I mostly want to deal with, but if you alert him, or Hank, I will give you what I was going to give Tripp. Do you understand me? Are we clear?’

‘Yes!’

Billy takes out his phone and calls Alice. She asks if he’s all right and Billy says he is. ‘I’m with a guy named Jack Martinez. He has something he wants to say to you.’ Billy holds the phone out to Jack. ‘Tell her you’re a worthless piece of shit.’

Jack doesn’t protest, perhaps because he’s cowed, perhaps because that’s how he feels just now. Billy is hoping for that. He’s hoping even day traders can learn.

‘I’m … a worthless piece of shit.’

‘Now say you’re sorry.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Martinez says into the phone.

Billy takes the phone back. Alice sounds like she’s crying. She tells him to be careful and Billy says he will. He ends the call and turns his attention to the red-faced man in the bungalow chair. ‘Do you know what you were apologizing for?’

Martinez nods and Billy decides that’s good enough.

9

They sit there and time passes. Martinez says his eyes still burn, so Billy wets another bar napkin in the bar sink and wipes his face, paying particular attention to his eyes. Martinez thanks him. Billy thinks the man may regain his MAGA swagger eventually, but that’s okay because he also thinks Martinez will never rape another woman. He has been rehabilitated.

Around three-thirty someone comes to the door. Billy stands behind it after first looking at Martinez with a finger to the lips of the Melania mask. Martinez nods. It’s got to be Tripp Donovan because it’s too early for Hank. The key rattles in the lock. Donovan is whistling. Billy holds the Ruger by the barrel and raises it to the side of his face.

Donovan comes in, still whistling. He’s looking very young-man-about-town in his designer jeans and short leather coat, the picture finished off to perfection by the monogrammed briefcase in his hand and the scally cap perched jauntily on his dark hair. He sees Martinez in the bungalow chair with his hands bound together and stops whistling. Billy steps forward and clubs him with the butt of the gun. Not too hard.

Donovan stumbles forward but doesn’t go down like the guys on TV do when they get pistol-whipped. He turns around, eyes wide, hand to the back of his head. Now Billy is pointing the business end of the gun at him. Donovan looks at his hand. There’s a smear of blood on it.

‘You hit me!’

‘Better than what I got,’ Martinez says in a grumbly tone that’s almost funny.

‘Why are you wearing that mask?’

‘Put your hands together. Wrist to wrist.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’ll shoot you if you don’t.’

Donovan puts his hands together wrist to wrist with no further argument. Billy tucks the Ruger into his belt at the front. Donovan rushes at him, which Billy expected. He steps aside and aids Donovan’s forward motion with a hearty push into the closed door. Donovan cries out. Billy grabs him by the collar of his trendy leather coat – perhaps purchased at Joseph A. Bank – and pulls him backward, tripping Tripp over one outstretched leg. He falls on his back. His nose is bleeding.

Billy kneels beside him, first putting Don Jensen’s gun in his belt at the back so Donovan can’t make a grab for it, then holding out one of the ties. ‘Put your hands together, wrist to wrist.’

‘No!’

‘Your nose is bleeding but not broken. Put your hands together or I’ll fix that.’

Donovan puts his hands together. Billy binds his wrists and then calls Alice to tell her two down and one to go. He doesn’t put Donovan on the phone because Donovan doesn’t seem like he’s ready to apologize. At least not yet.

10