Billy Summers

Billy holds his thumb and forefinger a smidgen apart to indicate that yes, he understands, but only a little.

‘Bet if I asked to see your green card, you’d be shit out of luck.’ She gives a laugh as raspy as her speaking voice. ‘So why you here on Sunday, mi amigo?’

Billy shrugs and then points at the barn looming over the wall.

‘Yeah, I didn’t think you came for tea and cookies. What have you got to put in the barn? Show me.’

Billy likes this less and less. Partly because she could look in the truckbed herself and see the bags of gardening stuff, mostly because of that troubling sense that he’s seen her before. Which can’t be true. She’s too old to be one of Nick’s guard dogs, and he’d never hire a woman for that kind of job anyway. He’s old-school and she’s just old, a domestic they shoved out here to keep an eye on the service gate while they watch the game, and she decided to pass the time by cutting some flowers for the house. But he still doesn’t like it.

‘Ándale, ándale!’ More finger-snapping in front of his face. Billy doesn’t like that, either, although her assumption of superiority – her very Trumpian prejudice, if you like – is another sign that his disguise is working.

Billy gets out, leaving the door open, and walks her to the back of the truck. She ignores that and goes on to the little trailer. She looks in the barrels, gives a disdainful sniff, then comes back to look in the truckbed. ‘How come you’ve only got one bag of Black Kow? What good is that gonna do?’

Billy shrugs that he doesn’t understand.

The woman stands on tiptoes and slaps the bag. Her sombrero flops. ‘Only one! One! Solo uno!’

Billy shrugs that he’s only the delivery guy.

She sighs and flicks a hand at him. ‘Well, what the fuck. Go on. I’m not going to call Hector on Sunday afternoon and ask him why he sends a deafmute out to deliver a piddling load of shit, he’s probably watching the fucking game, too. Or a different one.’

Billy shrugs that he still doesn’t entender.

‘Take that crap in. Tómalo! Then fuck off to the nearest cantina, maybe you’ll be in time for the second half.’

That is when he should have known. Something in her eyes. But he doesn’t. He only gets lucky. He sees her coming in the driver’s side mirror as he climbs into the cab and slides behind the wheel. He pulls back just in time, dipping his shoulder, and the trowel only scrapes his upper arm below the T-shirt he’s wearing under the overalls. He slams the door, catching her arm in it, and the trowel drops to the floorboards beside his left foot.

‘Ow, fuck!’

She pulls her arm free so fast and hard that it flies up and knocks off the sombrero, revealing gray hair piled high and pinned that way. That’s when Billy understands where he’s seen her before.

She’s reaching into one of the big side pockets of her gardening dress. Billy gets out of the truck in a hurry and roundhouses her on the left side of her face. She goes sprawling on her back in the flower-bed. The thing she was reaching for falls out of her pocket. It’s a cell phone. It’s the first time in his life he’s hit a woman and when he sees the bruise rising on her cheek he thinks of Alice but doesn’t regret the blow. It could have been a gun.

And she recognized him. Not at first but yeah, she did. Covered it up well, too, until the end. So much for the biballs, tanning spray, wig, and cowboy hat. So much for Shan’s picture taped to the dashboard, the one he could write (with a fatherly smile of pride) was his daughter’s work. Was it because the woman has seen and studied his picture as well as meeting him once in Red Bluff? Or because she’s a woman and they tend to see past disguises quicker? That could be sexist bullshit, but Billy kind of doubts it.

‘You fucking fuck. You’re him.’

He thinks, She seemed so nice at Nick’s rented house. Almost refined. Of course then she was in serving mode. He remembers now that Nick gave her a wad of cash for Alan, the chef who lit up their Baked Alaska, but none for her. Because she was on the payroll. She was, in fact, family. Pretty funny.

She looks dazed, but that could be another shuck and jive. Either way he’s glad the trowel is in the truck. He puts an arm around her shoulders and helps her sit. Her cheek is puffing up like a balloon, making him think of Alice again, but Alice never looked at him like this woman is looking at him now. If looks could kill, and all that.

With the hand not supporting her, Billy takes the Ruger out of his coat pocket and presses the muzzle lightly against her wrinkled forehead. Frank Macintosh is known (never to his face) as Frankie Elvis, sometimes Solar Elvis. Hair piled up high in front, like hers. Same hair, same narrow face, same widow’s peak. Billy thinks he might have made the connection sooner and saved himself a lot of trouble, if not for the oversized sombrero.

‘Hello, Marge. You’re not as polite as you were when you were serving us our dinner that night.’