Billy Summers

I shoved the money into the pocket of the bomber jacket and brought out the aerosol. Maybe he saw it and maybe he didn’t, but he started to draw the little gun anyway. I made a fist with my free hand and brought it down on his, like a kid playing rock breaks scissors. Then I sprayed him. A white cloud of droplets hit him in the face. It was small, but the result was satisfactory. He rocked back and forth twice, then dropped. The gun fell on the stoop and went off with a report like a small firecracker. They are not supposed to do that, so he must have messed with it somehow. I felt the bullet go past my ankle and turned to make sure it hadn’t hit Alice.

She came running up the steps looking dismayed. ‘Sorry, sorry, that was stupid, I forgot who—’

From inside the house a cracked smoker’s voice shouted, ‘Bill? Bill!’

I almost answered, then remembered that the man lying in the foyer was also a Billy. It’s a common enough name.

‘What was that?’ A loose, phlegmy cough, followed by a throat-clearing sound. ‘Where’s the girl?’

A door opened halfway down the hall. Klerke came through it. He was dressed in blue silk pajamas. His white hair was combed back in a pompadour that made me think of Frank. He had a cane in one hand. ‘Bill, where’s the gir—’

He stopped and squinted at us. He looked down and saw his man sprawled on the floor. Then he turned and hobbled for the door he’d come through, hunched over his thumping cane, holding it in both hands, almost pole-vaulting on it. He was faster than I would have expected, given his age and condition. I ran after him, remembering to hold my breath as I went through the foyer, and caught him trying to shut the door. I shoved it against him and he fell over. His cane went flying.

He sat up and stared at me. We were in a living room. The rug he had sprawled on looked expensive. Maybe Turkish, maybe an Aubusson. There were paintings on the walls that looked equally expensive. The furniture was heavy, upholstered in velvet. There was a chrome stand holding a bottle of no doubt expensive Champagne on a bed of ice.

He started to back away from me on his bottom, groping for his cane. His careful comb-job was coming apart, hair falling in clumps around the wrinkled sag-bag of his face. His lower lip, shiny with spit, stuck out in a kind of a pout. I could smell his cologne.

‘What did you do to Bill? Did you shoot him? Was that a gunshot?’

He got hold of the cane and brandished it at me as he sat there with his legs splayed. His pajama pants were working down, exposing padded hips and graying pubic hair.

‘I want you out of here! Who are you, anyway?’

‘I’m the man who killed the man who killed your son,’ I said.

His eyes widened and he slashed the cane at me. I grabbed it, yanked it out of his hand, and threw it across the room.

‘You had someone set that fire in Cody. Arranged for your camera crew to be the only one at the courthouse when the deal went down. Didn’t you?’

He stared at me, upper lip rising and falling. Doing that made him look like an old dog with a bad temper. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I think you do. That diversion wasn’t for me, it was way too soon. So why?’

Klerke got on his knees and crawled toward the sofa, giving me a much better view of his ass-crack than I wanted. He pulled ineffectually at the waistband of his pants. I could almost feel sorry for him. Except I didn’t. Mr Klerke would like to see your underwear. Mr Klerke would like you to run your tongue around your lips.

‘Why?’ As if I didn’t know. ‘You need to answer me.’

He grabbed the arm of the sofa and pulled himself up. He was gasping for breath. I could see the flesh-colored button of a hearing aid in one ear. He sat down with a thump and a gasp.

‘All right. Allen tried to blackmail me and I wanted to watch him die.’

Of course you did, I thought. And I bet you watched it over and over, both at regular speed and in slow motion.

‘You’re Summers. Majarian told me you were dead.’ And then, with absurd and horrifying outrage: ‘I paid that kike millions of dollars! He robbed me!’

‘You should have asked for a picture. Why didn’t you?’

He didn’t reply and I didn’t need him to. He had been emperor so long he couldn’t conceive of not being obeyed. Film the execution. Kill the executioner. Lift your skirt and show me your panties. This time I want a really young one.

‘I owe you money. Is that what you’re here for?’

‘Tell me something else. Tell me how it was, putting out a hit on your own flesh and blood.’

The lip lifted again, showing teeth too perfect for the face they were in. ‘He deserved it. He wouldn’t stop. He was a …’ Klerke stopped, squinting past me. ‘Who’s that? Is it the girl I paid for?’