Billy Summers

Burg-gurg-gurglers, Billy thinks. Christ, how it all comes back.

He bust in the door like I was pretty sure he would

Not pretty sure, Billy thinks, I knew. Because it was nothing but fiberboard. Cathy and I used to hear them going at it just about every night. In the afternoon, if Ma came home early. But that was another fiction he would leave.

and when he come in I was sitting with my back against the foot of the bed with his gun pointing at him. It was an M9X19 that took 15 Parabellum rounds. I didn’t know that then of course but I knew it was heavy and I held it in both hands against my chest. He said give that to me you useless piece of shit don’t you know kids ain’t supposed to play with guns.

Then I shot him, dead center mass. He just stood there in the doorway like nothing happen but I knew it did because I saw the blood fly out of his back. The M9 recoiled against my chest

Billy remembers making an uh sound. And burping. And later on he had a bruise there above his sternum.

and he fell down. I went over to him and said to myself that I might have to shoot him again. If I had to I would. He was my mother’s boyfriend but he was wrong. He was a bad guy!

‘Except he was dead,’ Billy says. ‘Bob Raines was dead.’

He thinks briefly of deleting everything he’s written, it’s awful, but saves it instead. He doesn’t know what anyone else might think, but Billy thinks it’s good. And good that it’s awful, because awful is sometimes the truth. He guesses he really is a writer now, because that’s a writer’s thought. Émile Zola might have thought the same when he was writing Thérèse Raquin, or when Nana gets sick and all of her beauty rots away.

His face feels hot. He goes back to the kitchenette and splashes water on it, then stands bent over the little sink with his eyes shut. The memory of shooting Bob Raines doesn’t bother him, but it hurts to remember Cathy.

Take care of your sister.

Writing is good. He’s always wanted to do it, and now he is. That’s good. Only who knew it hurt so much?

The landline phone rings, making him jump. It’s Irv Dean, telling him he has a package from Amazon. Billy says he’ll come right down and pick it up.

‘Man, that company sells everything,’ Irv says.

Billy agrees, thinking You don’t know the half of it.

7

It’s not the wigs; even with Amazon’s speedy delivery, those won’t come until tomorrow. What he’s got today would fit in the cubby over the doorway between the office and the kitchen, but Billy has no intention of stowing it there; all his Amazon swag is going back to the yellow house in Midwood.

He opens the box and takes out the things he ordered one by one. From Fun Time Ltd in Hong Kong is a box containing a mustache made of real human hair. Blond, like one of the wigs he’s ordered. It’s a little bushy; when the time comes he’ll trim it. He wants to disguise, not to stand out. Next is a pair of horn-rimmed glasses with clear lenses. These are surprisingly hard to find. You can buy reading glasses at any drugstore, but Billy’s vision is 20/10 and even slight magnification gives him headaches. He tries them on and finds the fit is a little loose. He could tighten the bows, but won’t. If they slide down his nose a bit, they’ll give him a scholarly air.

Last, the most expensive item, the pièce de résistance. It’s a silicone pregnancy belly, sold by Amazon but made by a company called MomTime. It was expensive because it’s adjustable, allowing the wearer to look anywhere from six to nine months pregnant. It attaches with Velcro straps. Billy knows that these fake bellies are notorious shoplifting tools, big-box security personnel are told to be on the lookout for them, but Billy has not come to this small city to shoplift, and it won’t be a woman wearing it when the time comes.

That will be his job.

CHAPTER 5

1

Billy shows up at Nick’s borrowed McMansion a bit before seven on Thursday evening. He has read somewhere that the polite guest arrives five minutes early, no more and no less. Paulie is the official greeter this time. Nick is once more waiting in the hall, thus out of sight of any passing law enforcement drones – unlikely but not impossible. His smile is turned up to maximum, arms outstretched to enfold Billy in a hug.

‘Chateaubriand on the menu. I got a cook, I don’t know what he’s doing in this rinky-dink town, but he’s great. You’re going to love it. And save some room.’ He holds Billy back at arm’s length and drops his voice to a hoarse whisper. ‘I heard a rumor about Baked Alaska. You have to be tired of microwave dinners, right? Right?’

‘That’s right,’ Billy says.

Frank appears. In an ascot and a pink shirt, with his hair combed in gleaming swoops and swirls piled high above an Eddie Munster widow’s peak, he looks like the hoodlum in a gangster movie who gets killed first. He’s got some glasses and a big green bottle on a tray. ‘Champers. Mote and Shandon.’