Billy Summers (43 page)

With the hand not supporting her, Billy takes the Ruger out of his coat pocket and presses the muzzle lightly against her wrinkled forehead. Frank Macintosh is known (never to his face) as Frankie Elvis, sometimes Solar Elvis. Hair piled up high in front, like hers. Same hair, same narrow face, same widow's peak. Billy thinks he might have made the connection sooner and saved himself a lot of trouble, if not for the oversized sombrero.

“Hello, Marge. You're not as polite as you were when you were serving us our dinner that night.”

“You fucking traitor,” she says, and spits in his face.

Billy feels a well-nigh insurmountable urge to hit her again, but not because she spat on him. He arms it off his face, leaving her to support herself. She looks perfectly able to do so. She may be in her seventies and a lifelong smoker, but there's no quit in her, Billy has to give her that much.

“You've got it backwards. Nick's the fucking traitor. I did the job and instead of paying me he stiffed me and planned to kill me.”

“Nick would never do that. He stands up for his people.”

That might be true, Billy thinks, but I'm not one of them and never was. I'm your basic independent contractor.

“Let's not argue, Marge. Time is tight.”

“I think you broke my fucking arm.”

“And you tried to open up my jugular vein. As far as I'm concerned that makes us even. How many men are in there watching the game?”

She doesn't answer.

“Is Frank in there?”

She doesn't reply, but the flicker he sees in those dark eyes tells him what he needs to know. He picks up her cell phone, knocks off the dirt, and holds it out to her. “Call him and tell him a guy from Greens & Gardens is dropping off some fertilizer and potting soil. Nothing to worry about. Say—”

“No.”

“Say you told the guy to go ahead and put it in the barn.”

“No.”

Billy has lowered the muzzle of the Ruger. Now he puts it back between her eyes. “Tell him, Marge.”

“No.”

“Tell him or I'll blow your brains out, then Frank's.”

She spits in his face again. At least tries to, there isn't much to it. Because her mouth is dry, Billy thinks. She's scared, but she's still not going to do it. Even if she does, she'll either tip them off by how she sounds or just go whole hog and scream
It's him, it's that fucking fuck of a traitor Billy Summers
.

Helpless not to think of Alice but reminding himself this isn't her and never could be, he hits Marge in the temple. Her eyes roll up to whites and she flops back into the flowers. He stands over her for a minute to make sure she's still breathing, then tosses her
phone into the truck. He starts to get in himself, then re-thinks and dumps the cut flowers out of her basket. Under them is a walkie-talkie and a short-barreled .357 King Cobra revolver. So she wasn't just gardening. And they didn't just put her out here as an afterthought. This one's got a lot of hard bark on her. He tosses the gun and the walkie in the truck.

The starter turns over without catching for ten long seconds and Billy thinks why now, oh Lord, why now. At last the engine fires up and he drives onto the estate. He stops ten feet inside the wall, leaving the truck in neutral, and closes the gate. There's a huge steel bolt. He runs it through the double catch and heads back to the truck, which is bellowing through its perforated muffler. Doing that seemed like a good idea at the time. Not so much now.

As he climbs into the cab, Marge Macintosh starts pounding on the gate and shouting. “
Hey! Hey! It's Summers! It's Summers in the truck!
” Billy can't believe anyone could hear her even if the Dodge's muffler was intact, but he's amazed by her vitality. He hit her as hard as he could and she's already back for more.

Except you
didn't
hit her as hard as you could, he thinks. You thought of Alice and held back a little.

Too late now and he doesn't think it matters. She'd have to run all the way around the wall, shoving her way through the pines, to alert anyone in the little guardhouse by the main gate… assuming anyone is actually in there.

And of course there is. As Billy drives past the barn and the paddock, a guy comes out. He's got a rifle or a shotgun but for the time being it's slung over his shoulder. He looks relaxed. He raises his hands to his shoulders with the palms out:
Qué pasa?

Instead of heading toward the house as he had intended, Billy reaches out the driver's side window, gives the guy a thumbs-up, and turns down the main driveway toward the guardhouse.

He pulls up. The guy walks toward him with the gun—it's a Mossberg—still slung over his shoulder. Billy realizes he knows
him. Billy has never been here, but he's been in Nick's penthouse suite at the Double Domino three or four times, and on a couple of them this guy was there. Sal something. But unlike Frank's sharp-eyed mother, Sal doesn't recognize him.

“What's up, partner?” he says. “Old lady let you through?”

“She did.” Billy makes no attempt at a Spanish accent, he'd sound like Speedy fucking Gonzalez. “I got something for someone to sign. Can you do it?”

“I don't know,” Sal says. He's starting to look troubled. Billy thinks, Too late, amigo, too late. “Let's see what you got.”

Billy's deafmute pad is sticking up from the front pocket of his overalls. He pats it and says, “It's right here.”

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.

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.

Billy walks quietly back down the hall. The game must have resumed, because the crowd is roaring again. One of the men down there in Nick's man-cave yells, “
Fucking clothesline him! Yeah! That's what I'm TALKIN' about!
”

Billy descends the stairs, not fast and not slow. Three men are watching a TV screen that's beyond big. Two of them are in bucket chairs. A third bucket chair—probably Frank's—is empty. Nick is sitting in the middle of the couch with his legs spread. He's wearing shorts that are too short, too tight, and too loud. His belly is bulging out the front of a New York Giants shirt and supporting a bowl of popcorn. The other two also have popcorn bowls, which is good because it keeps their hands occupied. Billy knows both of them. One he's seen in Nick's suite and in the Domino's main offices. An accountant, maybe, a numbers guy for sure. Billy doesn't remember his name, Mikey or Mickey or maybe Markie. The other was one of the fake Department of Public Works guys with the Transit van. Reggie something.

“Well it took you long enough,” Nick says. The other two have seen Billy, but Nick only has eyes for the play in progress on the television. “Just set it on the—”

He finally registers the shocked expressions of his companions, turns his head, and sees Billy standing two steps from the carpeted floor. The look of fear and amazement that dawns on Nick's face gives Billy a great deal of satisfaction. It isn't payback for the last five months of his life, not even close, but it's a step in the right direction.

“Billy?” The bowl balanced on Nick's stomach overturns and popcorn goes pattering to the rug.

“Hello, Nick. You're probably not glad to see me, but I'm glad to see you.” He gestures with the Glock at the accountant guy, who has already raised his hands. “What's your name?”

“M-Mark. Mark Abromowitz.”

“Get down on the floor, Mark. You too, Reggie. On your stomachs. Arms and legs spread. Like you're making snow angels.”

They don't argue. They set aside their popcorn bowls—carefully—and get down on the floor.

“I've got a family,” Mark Abromowitz says.

“That's good. Behave yourself and you'll see them again. Are either of you armed?” He doesn't have to ask about Nick, because in that ridiculous game-day outfit he's got no place for a hidden weapon, not even an ankle gun.

The two men, facedown, shake their heads.

Nick says Billy's name again, this time not as a question but as an exclamation of delight. He's striving for his old lord of the manor
bonhomie
and not finding very much of it. “Where the hell have you been? I've been trying to get in touch with you!”

Billy wouldn't bother to answer this ridiculous lie even if he didn't have a more pressing concern. There's a fourth chair, and a half-empty bowl of popcorn beside it.

“
They keep it on the ground with Barkley
,” the play-by-play announcer is saying, “
with Jones leading the way, and—
”

“Turn it off,” Billy says. Nick is king of the house and king of the couch, so of course the controller is beside him.

“What?”

“You heard me, turn it off.”

As Nick points the remote at the television, Billy is happy to see a slight tremble in his hand. The game goes away. Now it's just the four of them, but that fourth empty chair with the popcorn bowl beside it says there's an unaccounted-for fifth.

“Where is he?” Billy asks.

“Who?”

Billy points at the empty chair.

“Billy, I have to explain why I had to wait to get in touch with you. There was a problem at my end. It—”