Billy Summers

Alice looks down at her mac and cheese as if she finds it especially fascinating. Her cheeks turn pink. ‘I guess you could say he picked me up off the street.’

‘Is that so? Huh. Has he shown you his stupid act yet? That is something to see. Give it to her, Billy.’

Billy doesn’t want to, Alice is different from mugs like Nick and Giorgio, but Bucky has given them a place to stay for awhile and he doesn’t want to refuse such a simple request. Only he doesn’t have to do it.

‘I’ve seen it already.’ Alice pauses, then adds, ‘In a manner of speaking.’

She gives Billy a look before addressing her food again, just a quick one, but it’s enough to make him feel sure she’s talking about the first part of his story. The part he wrote knowing Nick or Giorgio was probably reading over his shoulder.

‘Great, isn’t it?’ Bucky says, fetching his own bowl and sitting down. ‘Billy reads all the hard books, but he can also tell you every kid at Riverdale High and how Batman got his cape.’

Billy thinks what the hell, a little won’t hurt. He makes his eyes big and slows his speech. ‘I actually don’t know that part.’

Bucky laughs and points his fork, a macaroni noodle still caught on one of the tines, at Billy. ‘Man, you haven’t lost a step.’

He turns to Alice.

‘Just picked you up off the street, huh? What’s that mean exactly?’

‘That he saved my life.’

Bucky raises his eyebrows. ‘Did he now? I want to hear all about it. In fact I want to hear everything. Especially what went wrong.’

Billy considers this carefully. ‘Everything but Alice,’ he says, and starts laughing. He can’t help it.

13

He again starts with Frank Macintosh and Paulie Logan picking him up at the hotel and goes through it to the end, skimping only on the last part, just saying some guys roughed Alice up and he took care of them.

Bucky doesn’t ask how. He only collects their dishes, takes them over to the sink, and starts running hot water. The little house at the ass end of Edgewood Mountain Drive has a microwave and a satellite dish on the roof, but there’s no dishwasher.

‘I’ll do those,’ Alice says, getting up.

‘No you won’t,’ Bucky says. ‘There’s only a few and I’ll leave the casserole dish to soak. That baked-on cheese is a bitch. Billy, how long do you want to stay? I only ask because if you’re gonna be here long, I’ll have to make a run to King Soopers.’

‘I don’t know, but I’m happy to get the groceries.’

‘I’ll go, too,’ Alice says. ‘Just give me a list.’ She looks in the fridge. ‘You need some vegetables.’

Bucky ignores that. From the sink, back turned, he says, ‘They’re after you, Billy. Not just Nick’s organization, four other brands of competition plus God knows how many independents. One of those occasions, rare but not unheard-of, where everybody’s on the same page. You’re a big topic of conversation in certain chat rooms where you’re referred to as Mr Summerlock.’

‘As in Billy Summers and David Lockridge,’ Billy says.

‘Right.’

‘Is anybody chatting about Dalton Smith?’ Please God no, he thinks.

‘So far as I know Dalton Smith is still good, but these guys have access to all the best investigative agencies, outfits that make the FBI look like rubes, and if you left any loose ends, any at all, Dalton Smith is a goner.’

Bucky turns from the sink, and as he wipes his reddened hands on a dish towel, he looks directly at Alice. He doesn’t have to say anything to make his point.

Billy says, ‘She’s not a loose end. When I leave here, she goes her own way as someone else. If you can put together the documentation, that is.’

‘Oh, I can do that. Did one thing already. There’s nothing like the Internet when it’s hooked up to state-of-the-art equipment.’ He comes back to the table and sits down. ‘How do you feel about being Elizabeth Anderson?’

Alice looks startled, then gives a tentative smile. ‘Fine, I guess. I don’t get to pick my own name?’

‘It’s better that you don’t. Too easy to pick one that links to your past. I didn’t pick it, either. Computer did. A site called Name Generator.’ He looks at Billy. ‘If you trust her, that’s good enough. What about these Jensens? Or the real estate guy? They have any idea you were someone other than Dalton Smith?’

Billy shakes his head.

‘So you’re clean and that’s good, because there’s a bounty on your head.’

‘How much?’

‘Chat rooms say six million dollars.’

Billy gapes. ‘Are you shitting me? Why? They were only paying me two to do the job in the first place!’

‘I don’t know.’

Alice is turning her head from one to the other as if watching a tennis match.

Bucky says, ‘Nick’s handling the contract, but I don’t think it’s his money any more than the money you were promised was his.’

Billy props his elbows on the table and his loosely closed fists on the sides of his face. ‘Who pays six million dollars to kill a shooter who shot another shooter?’

Bucky laughs. ‘Save that one. It’s right up there with she sells seashells down by the seashore.’

‘Who? And why? Joel Allen was nobody, as far as I can tell.’