Billy Summers

He reaches past the pad and grabs Don Jensen’s Ruger. For a wonder it comes out smoothly, even with the bulb-shaped silencer on the end. He fires. A hole appears between two of the pearl buttons up the front of Sal’s Western-style shirt. There’s a bursting balloon sound and wouldn’t you know it, the silencer falls in two smoking pieces, one half on the ground and the other in the cab.

‘You shot me!’ Sal says, staggering back a step. His eyes are wide.

Billy doesn’t want to shoot the guy again because the second one will be a lot noisier, and he doesn’t have to. Sal folds up, knees on the ground and head lowered. He looks like he’s praying. Then he falls forward.

Billy thinks about taking the Mossberg but decides to leave it. As he told Marge, time is tight.

4

He drives up to the main house. There are three cars parked on the apron, a sedan, a compact SUV, and a Lamborghini that must belong to Nick. Billy remembers Bucky saying Nick has a thing for cars. Billy turns off the noisy truck and walks up the main steps. He has his deafmute pad in one hand. He’s holding the Glock behind it. He just killed a man, and Sal was probably a bad guy who has done many bad things at Nick’s behest, but Billy doesn’t know that for a fact. Now he will kill more, assuming he doesn’t get killed himself. He’ll think about it later. If there is any later.

He puts his finger on the bell, then hesitates. Suppose a woman comes to the door? If that happens, Billy doesn’t think he’ll be able to shoot her. Even if everything turns to shit as a result, he doesn’t believe he’ll be able to. He’d like a chance to go around the house instead, scope it out a little, but there’s no time. Mommy Elvis is on the warpath.

He tries the door. It opens. Billy is surprised but not shocked. Nick has decided he’s not coming. Also it’s Sunday afternoon, the sun is out, and it’s football day in America. Billy believes the Giants have just scored. The crowd is whooping and so are several men. Not close but not far away.

Billy puts the pad back in the front pocket of the overalls and walks toward the sound. Then, just what he was afraid of. Down the main hall comes a pretty little Latina maid with a tray of steaming franks in buns balanced on top of an Igloo cooler that’s probably full of beer. Billy has time to think of an old Chuck Berry lyric, She’s too cute to be a minute over seventeen. She sees Billy, she sees the gun, her mouth opens, the Igloo tilts, the tray of franks starts to slide. Billy pushes it back to safety.

‘Go,’ he says, and points at the open door. ‘Take that and get out of here. Go far.’

She doesn’t say a word. Carrying the tray, she walks down the hall and out into the sunlight. Her posture, Billy thinks, is perfect and the sunlight on her black hair suggests that God may not be all bad. She goes down the steps, back straight and head up. She doesn’t look back. The crowd cheers. The men watching do, too. Someone shouts, ‘Fuck ’em up, Big Blue!’

Billy walks partway down the tiled corridor. Between two Georgia O’Keeffe prints – mesas on one side, mountains on the other – a door is standing open. Through the gap between the hinges, Billy can see stairs going down. There’s a commercial on for beer. Billy stands behind the open door, waiting for it to end, wanting their attention back on the game.

Then, Nick, from the foot of the stairs: ‘Maria! Where are those dogs?’ When there’s no answer: ‘Maria! Hurry up!’

Someone says, ‘I’ll go see.’ Billy isn’t sure, but it sounds like Frank.

Footsteps thumping up the stairs. Someone comes out into the hall and turns left, presumably toward the kitchen. It’s Frank, all right. Billy recognizes him even with his back turned: the pomp trying to cover the solar sex panel. Billy steps out from behind the door and follows him, walking on the sides of his feet, glad he wore sneakers. Frank goes into the kitchen and looks around.

‘Maria? Where are you, honey? We need—’

Billy hits him in the bald spot with the butt of the Glock, raising it high and giving it everything he has. Blood flies and Frank collapses forward, smacking his forehead on the butcher block table in the middle of the room on his way down. His mother’s head was hard, and maybe Frank has inherited that from her along with the widow’s peak, but Billy doesn’t think he’s coming back from this. Not for awhile, anyway, and maybe never. Guys are always getting clonked on the head in films and getting up a few minutes later with little or no damage done, but that’s not the way it works in real life. Frank Macintosh could die of a cerebral edema or a subdural hematoma. It could happen five minutes from now or he could linger in a coma for five years. He might also come back sooner, but probably not before Billy finishes his day’s work. Still, he bends and frisks him. No gun.