Billy Summers

‘Did he procure for Mr K when he came to Vegas? It seems like the kind of job you’d delegate to him.’

‘You are a lot smarter than I thought,’ Nick says, as if talking to himself. ‘Smarter than anybody thought. Except maybe for Pigs.’

‘Did he or didn’t he?’

‘Well, yeah. Kinda. Pigs’d get with Judy Blatner when he knew K was coming. They’d go over her picture books, try to find one he’d like. Ten, twelve years ago he woulda wanted two, but his stamina’s declined. He ain’t what you’d call a gentleman, but he does prefer blondes.’

‘And they have to be young.’

‘Well duh,’ Nick says. ‘But the girls he went with in Vegas were never under eighteen. Judy’s been around a long time and runs a legal escort service. That means she can’t say the girls are for sex, but she doesn’t have to. Everyone knows. She steers clear of jailbait, though. Like it was poison. Which it is.’

The thought of that jowly toad even with a girl Alice’s age makes Billy’s stomach turn. ‘When he wanted jailbait he crossed the border.’

‘True.’

‘I want the fat man’s number. Will you give it to me?’

‘Are you going after Mr K?’

He is, but he’s not going to say so even on a burner phone and believing Nick makes sure his personal phone is whistle clean. He only reiterates his request for Giorgio’s number. Nick gives it to him.

‘Will he talk to me?’

‘If I tell him to. If I say you’re going to keep it business. He never would have gone along with this if he didn’t need to do something that would force him to change how he’s been living. If you want to blame someone, blame me. I didn’t need to lose two hundred pounds so the docs would give me a new liver. Like I told you, the money blinded me.’

Billy thinks it’s as honest a confession as Nick will ever give anyone. ‘Tell him I’m going to keep it business. Joel Allen is water under the bridge.’

‘When should I tell him to expect your call?’

‘Not tonight, maybe not for awhile. When’s the transplant scheduled?’

‘It’s not, and won’t be until December at least. Pigs has got to drink a lot of protein shakes and eat a lot of kale between now and then.’

‘All right.’ Billy tucks the cell number into his Dalton Smith wallet, behind his Dalton Smith credit cards. ‘Take care of yourself, Nick.’

‘Wait.’

Billy waits, curious about what else Nick has to say.

‘It was never because K didn’t want to pay you the million-five. That’s pocket change to him. It was because he insisted you be hit once the job was done. Said he wasn’t going to make the same mistake he made with Allen. You get that, right?’

‘Yes.’ And Nick went along with it. He gets that, too.

‘Does your Edward Woodley name still work? The account in Barbados?’

‘Yes.’ Although it’s been dormant except for token deposits and withdrawals since 2014 or 2015.

‘Check it tomorrow. Thank God you didn’t kill Mark Abromowitz. He ain’t great and he ain’t made, but he’s what I got since Pigs went to SA. All I can transfer right now and be safe is three hundred thousand, but I’ll put in more when I can. You’ll eventually get your million-five.’

For once in your life be honorable, Billy told him when he gave Nick back his life, and damned if the man isn’t trying, in the only way he knows how. Money.

‘You’re not going to say thank you and I don’t need you to,’ Nick says. ‘You’re a good workman, Billy. You did the job.’

Billy pushes END CALL without saying goodbye.

8

He cleans himself up with the wipes and baby oil as well as he can, then showers until the brown water running down the drain is mostly clear. But he still gets more smeg on the two bath towels he uses to dry off.

Alice asked him if he’d be able to sleep and he said yes, but for a long time he can’t. The time he spent at Promontory Point – probably only an hour, maybe even less, but it seemed like five – keeps running through his mind. Especially going for Edison. The flying splinters. The flushing toilet.

I thought four made guys was pretty serious, Nick said, but Sal the gate guard never got the Mossie off his shoulder, Frank never turned around, and Reggie wasn’t carrying, had to go for the boss’s hideout gun instead. Only Dana Edison was serious; he took his gun into the crapper with him. And Marge, of course. She was very serious, and she had seen through his disguise almost immediately.

Leave a good tip for the housekeeper, he thinks. Leave a twenty.

He rolls over and is on the edge of sleep when something comes to him that he doesn’t like and he rolls on his back again, staring up into the darkness. No, he doesn’t like it at all. He left Shan’s picture of Freddy the Flamingo – aka Dave the Flamingo – taped to the dash of that old truck. He had time to take it but it never even crossed his mind. All he wanted right then was to get the fuck gone.

Forget it, he tells himself. It means nothing.