Billy Summers

‘De Pere, Wisconsin, a thousand miles from here. There’s a safe house. You stay there a couple of days, relax, check your bank account for the rest of your payday, think about how you’re going to spend your money. After that you’re on your own. How does it sound?’

It sounded good. Too good? A possible set-up? Unlikely. If anyone in this deal is being set up, it’s Ken Hoff. Billy’s problem with Nick’s unexpected offer is that he’s never had to depend on other people to disappear before. He doesn’t like it but that wasn’t the time to say so.

‘Let me think about it, okay?’

‘You bet,’ Nick said. ‘Plenty of time.’

3

Billy hauls his suitcase out of the master bedroom closet. He puts it on the bed and unzips it. It looks empty, but it’s not. The lining has a Velcro strip running along the underside. He pulls the lining up and takes out a small flat case. It’s the kind smart people – those who read more challenging stuff than Archie digests and supermarket checkout lane scandal papers – might call an etui. There’s a wallet inside with credit cards and a driver’s license issued to Dalton Curtis Smith, of Stowe, Vermont.

There have been many other wallets and IDs during Billy’s career, not one for each of his assassinations (he calls them what they are) but at least a dozen, leading up to the current one belonging to a make-believe individual named David Lockridge. Some of his previous selves had good ID, some not so good. The credit cards and DL in the David Lockridge wallet are very good indeed, but the stuff in the flat gray case is better. The stuff in there is gold. Putting it together has been the work of five years, a labor of love going back to when he decided he must eventually get out of a business that makes him – admit it – just another bad person.

Dalton Smith isn’t just a Lord Buxton wallet with a legit-looking driver’s license inside; Dalton Smith is practically a real person. The Mastercard, the Amex card, and the Visa all get used regularly. Ditto the Bank of America debit card. Not every day, but often enough so the accounts don’t gather dust. His credit rating isn’t excellent, which might draw attention, but it’s very good.

There’s a Red Cross blood donor card, his Social Security card, and Dalton’s membership in an Apple User Group. No dumb self here; Dalton Curtis Smith is a freelance computer tech with a fairly lucrative sideline that allows him to go wherever the wind blows him. Also in the wallet are pictures of Dalton with his wife (they were divorced six years ago), Dalton with his parents (killed in the ever-popular car crash when Dalton was a teenager), Dalton with his estranged brother (they don’t talk since Dalton found out his brother voted for Nader in the 2000 election).

Dalton’s birth certificate is in the etui, and references. Some are from individuals and small businesses whose computers Dalton has fixed, others from people who have rented to him in Portsmouth, Chicago, and Irvine. His go-to guy in New York, Bucky Hanson, has created some of these references; Bucky is the only person Billy trusts completely. Others Billy created himself. Dalton Smith never stays long in one place, a tumbling tumbleweed is he, but when he’s in situ, he’s a very good tenant: neat and quiet, always pays the rent on time.

To Billy, Dalton Smith with his low-key but impeccable bona fides is as beautiful as a snowfield without a single track on it. He hates the idea of defacing that beauty by putting Dalton to work, but isn’t this exactly what Dalton Curtis Smith was created for? It is. One last job, the ever-popular last job, and Billy can disappear into a new identity. Probably not live the rest of his life in it, but even that’s possible, assuming he can get out of this town without being burned; the five hundred thousand down payment has already made the rounds and finished up at Dalton’s bank account in Nevis, and half a mil’s the biggest sign that Nick isn’t playing this funny. When the work is done, the rest will follow.

Dalton’s DL headshot shows a man of about Billy’s age, maybe a year or two younger, but he’s blond instead of dark. And he has a mustache.

4

The next morning, Billy parks on the fourth level of the garage near the Gerard Tower. After making certain adjustments to his appearance, he walks in the opposite direction. This is Dalton Smith’s maiden voyage.

When the city is small, small distances can make a big difference. Pearson Street is only nine blocks from the Main Street parking garage, a brisk fifteen-minute walk (Gerard Tower still looms close enough to be clearly seen), but this is a different world from the one where guys in ties and gals in click-clack shoes man and woman their posts and lunch in the kind of restaurants where the waiter hands you a wine list along with the menu.