Billy Summers

Bucky’s cigarette is down to a roach. He butts it. ‘There’s a place on the east side of Sidewinder called Ricky’s Good Used Cars. Kind of a fly-by-night operation. You can buy something there. No, better, I buy something there. I can pay cash and you can give me a Dalton Smith check for the amount. I’ll wait to cash it until you’ve finished this fucktub of an operation.’

‘And if I get killed, you’ll be stuck.’

Bucky flaps a hand at him. ‘I’m not talking about a BMW, just something that’ll roll for as long as you need it to roll. Fifteen hundred dollars, maybe two grand. Maybe not a car at all. Maybe an old pickup truck would be better, something rusted out with bad springs but a worthwhile motor.’ He looks up into the sun, calculating. ‘And maybe pulling one of those little open trailers like landscape guys use to tote their mowers and blowers and shit.’

Billy can see it in his mind’s eye. A truck with paint cracking on the doors, rust on the rocker panels, and Bondo around the headlights. Clap a beat-up old cowboy hat on his head and yes, it could be good camouflage. He’d look like any day-wage drifter.

‘They’ll still be looking for a man alone,’ Bucky says, ‘and that’s where Alice comes in. You two pull into some roadside café where a couple of bounty hunters are drinking coffee and keeping an eye out on Highway 50, they’re going to see nothing but some fella and his daughter or niece in a broke-down old Dodge or F-150.’

‘I’m not taking Alice into a situation that might get bloody.’ The worst thing about it is that she might go.

‘Did you take her with you when you dealt with those dinks who raped her?’

Of course he didn’t, he left her in a nearby motel, but before he can say so, the back door opens and Alice is back.

16

When she comes out on the porch her color is high, she’s smiling, her hair is blown into a haystack, and Billy sees, with only minimal surprise, that, today at least, she’s actually kind of gorgeous.

‘It’s beautiful up there!’ she says. ‘So windy it almost blew me off my feet but oh my God, Billy, you can see forever!’

‘On a clear day,’ Billy agrees, smiling.

Alice either doesn’t get the reference or is too full of what she’s seen to give it even a token smile. ‘There were clouds in the sky above me, but also some below me. I saw this huge bird … it couldn’t have been a condor, but—’

‘Yes it could,’ Bucky tells her. ‘We get them up here now, although I’ve never seen one myself.’

‘And way across, on the other side, this is crazy, but I thought I saw that hotel you talked about. Then I blinked my eyes – the wind was so strong they were tearing up – and when I looked again, it was gone.’

Bucky doesn’t smile. ‘You’re not the only person who’s seen that. I’m not a superstitious man, but I wouldn’t go anywhere near where the Overlook Hotel used to stand. Bad stuff happened there.’

Alice ignores that. ‘It was a beautiful view and a beautiful walk. And guess what, Billy? There’s a little log cabin about a quarter of a mile up the path.’

Bucky is nodding. ‘Kind of a summerhouse type of thing, I guess. Once upon a time.’

‘Well, it looks clean and dry and there’s a table and some chairs. With the door open, it gets some sun. You could work on your story there, Billy.’ She hesitates. ‘If you wanted to, I mean.’

‘Maybe I will.’ He turns to Bucky. ‘How long have you owned this place?’

Bucky thinks about it. ‘Twelve years? No, I guess it’s more like fourteen. How the time slides by, huh? I make sure to come up for a week or a weekend once or twice every year. Get seen around town. It’s good to be a familiar face.’

‘What name do you go by?’

‘Elmer Randolph. My real first name and my middle.’ Bucky gets up. ‘I see you got eggs, and I think the time is just about right for huevos rancheros.’

He goes in. Billy gets up to follow, but before he can, Alice takes his arm just above the wrist. He remembers how she looked when he carried her across Pearson Street through the pouring rain, her eyes dull marbles peeping out between slitted lids. This is not that girl. This is a better girl.

‘I could live here,’ she says again.

CHAPTER 18

1

In deference to his guests, Bucky has taken to smoking on the porch, although the whole house holds the olfactory ghosts of the hundreds of Pall Malls he’s smoked since relocating from New York. Billy joins him the next morning while Alice is in the shower. And singing in there, which might be the best sign of recovery yet.

‘She says you’re working on a book,’ Bucky says.

Billy laughs. ‘I doubt if it will mount up to that.’

‘Says you might like to work on it in the summerhouse today.’

‘I might.’

‘She says it’s good.’

‘I don’t think she has much to compare it to.’

Bucky doesn’t chase that. ‘I thought she ’n I might do some shopping this morning, give you a chance to get after it. You need a new wig and she needs some lady things. Not just hair dye.’

‘You’ve already discussed this?’