Billy Summers

‘Bucky’s sixty-five or seventy now. Skinny as hell. Ex-Marine. Pretty much lives on beer, cigarettes, Slim Jims, and rock and roll. He’s good with computers, he has a lot of contacts, and he helps put strings together.’

‘Strings?’

‘Pro stickup guys. Not kids, not junkies, not trigger-happy hot-heads. He’s part agent, part talent scout.’

‘For the underworld.’

Billy smiles. ‘I don’t know if there’s really an underworld anymore. I think the Computer Age pretty much killed it.’

‘And he finds jobs for people like you.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Hired killers.’

So far as Billy knows, he’s the only hired killer Bucky does business with, but he doesn’t disagree. How could he when it’s true? He could tell her again that he only kills people who deserve to be killed, but why bother? Either she believes it or she doesn’t. In any case it’s a moot point. He can’t change his past but he means to change his future. He also intends to have his payday. He earned it.

‘Bucky will have ID for you, I think. It’s one of the things he does. You can be a new person. If you want to.’

‘I do.’ She doesn’t pause to think about it. ‘Although at some point I suppose I’ll want to call my mother again.’ She gives a little laugh and a small shake of the head. ‘You know, I can’t remember the last time she called me. I really can’t.’

‘But you did talk to her?’

‘Yes. While you were … um, visiting Tripp and his roommates.’

‘You didn’t really tell her you were going to Cancun, did you?’

She smiles. ‘I was tempted, but no. I said I had a boyfriend, and we broke up when I quit school, and I needed some time to think about what comes next.’

‘She was okay with that?’

‘It’s been a long time since she was okay with anything I do. Can we talk about something else, please?’

7

The next day is nothing but driving, most of it on I-70. Alice, still recovering from physical and mental trauma, sleeps a lot. Billy thinks about the Fallujah part of his story, which is now stored on a thumb drive in his computer bag. That leads him to Albie Stark, who used to talk about getting his Harley out of storage when he got home and taking a road trip from New York to San Francisco. None of that blue highways shit, either, he said. I be turnpikin’ the whole way. Crank it up to eighty and pull the knobs off. Albie never had a chance to do that. Albie died behind a rusty old Fallujah taxi and his last words were It’s nothing, just clipped me. Only then he started gasping, the way Alice did when she had her panic attacks, and he never got a chance to sing even the first line of ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic.’

They stop for gas and food in the little town of Quinter, Kansas. It’s a Waffle Delite and when they get out of the Fusion and approach, they see a couple of state cops sitting at the counter. Alice hesitates, but Billy keeps going and it turns out fine. The cops hardly give them a glance.

‘If you act right, most times they don’t even notice you,’ Billy says as they walk back to the car.

‘Most times?’

Billy shrugs. ‘Anything can happen to anybody. You play the odds and hope for the best.’

‘You’re a fatalist.’

Billy laughs. ‘I’m a realist.’

‘Is there a difference?’

He stops with his hand on the Fusion’s doorhandle and looks at her. She has a way of surprising him.

‘You’re maybe too smart for business school,’ he says. ‘I think you could do better.’

8

Alice sleeps again, full of waffles and bacon. Billy glances at her from time to time. He likes her looks more and more. He likes who she is. To just slam the door on one life and open the door on a new one? How many people would do that even if they got the chance?

Around four o’clock she wakes up, stretches, then gasps. She’s looking through the windshield with wide eyes. ‘My sainted hat!’

Billy laughs. ‘Never heard that one before.’

‘It’s the Rockies! Oh my God, look at them!’

‘They’re something, all right.’

‘I’ve seen pictures, but it’s not the same. I mean, they just start.’

It’s true. They have driven through hundreds of miles of flatlands and then all at once there they are.

‘I thought we might get to Bucky’s today, and I guess we still could, but I don’t want to drive Route 19 into the mountains after dark. It’s probably twisty.’ What he doesn’t tell her is that he wouldn’t want Bucky seeing headlights pulling into his driveway between ten and midnight. Not after Bucky was so careful about giving out his location. ‘See if you can find us an off-brand motel east of Denver.’

She uses his Dalton phone with the dexterity of the very young. ‘There’s a place called the Pronghorn Motor Rest. That sound off-brand enough for you?’

‘It does. How far?’

‘Looks like about thirty miles.’ She does some more typing and swiping. ‘It’s in a town called Byers. They have a turkey shoot with a big dance after, but it’s not until November. Guess we’ll miss it.’

‘Too bad.’