‘Don’t bother,’ Billy says, touching her wrist before she can do any serious digging. ‘If I hit it big, I’ll just come down the hall and knock on your door.’
She gives him a smile and an appraising look. There’s no engagement or wedding ring on her third finger left, and Billy thinks that in another life, this is when he’d ask her to come for a drink after work. She might say no, but that look, up from under her lashes, along with the smile, makes him think she’d say yes. But he won’t ask. Meet people, yes. Get liked and like in return, yes. But don’t get close. Getting close is a bad idea. Getting close is dangerous. Maybe after he retires that will change.
3
Billy gets a burger dragged through the garden and sits on one of the plaza benches with Lawyer Jim, whose actual name is Jim Albright. ‘Try one of these,’ he says, holding out a fat onion ring. ‘Fucking delicious.’
It is. Billy says he’s got to get some of those and Jim Albright says goddam right you do. Billy gets his rings in a little paper boat along with some packets of ketchup and goes back to sit with Jim.
‘So what’s your book about, Dave?’
Billy puts a finger to his lips. ‘Top secret.’
‘Even if I signed an NDA? Johnny Colton specializes in em.’ He points to one of his colleagues, over by the Mexican wagon.
‘Not even then.’
‘I admire your discretion. I thought writers loved to talk about what they’re working on.’
‘I think writers who talk a lot probably don’t write a lot,’ Billy says, ‘but since I’m the only writer I actually know, I’m really just guessing.’ Then, and not entirely to change the subject, either: ‘Look at the guy over there at the hotdog wagon. That’s an outfit you don’t see every day.’
The man he’s pointing to has joined some of his colleagues at the Mexican food wagon. Even among the other Business Solutions employees, this one stands out. He’s wearing gold parachute pants that take Billy back to his Tennessee childhood, when some of the would-be town sharpies wore such gear to the Friday night dances at the Rollerdome. Above it is a paisley shirt with a high collar, like the ones worn by British Invasion rock groups in old YouTube videos. The ensemble is finished off with a porkpie hat. From beneath it, lush black hair spills to his shoulders.
Jim laughs. ‘That’s Colin White. Quite the fashion plate, ain’t he? Gay as hell and cheerful as a Sunday afternoon in Paris. Most of the BSers stick to their own. Earning their beer and skittles by dunning people at the end of their financial rope doesn’t exactly make them popular and they know it, but Colin’s a regular social butterfly.’ Jim shakes his head. ‘At least at lunch he is. I have to wonder what he’s like when he’s on the clock, hectoring widows and busted-up vets out of their last quarters and dimes. He must be good at the job, because there’s a lot of turnover at that company and he’s been here longer than I have.’
‘How long is that?’
‘Eighteen months. Sometimes Col comes to work wearing a kilt. Serious! Sometimes a cape. He’s also got a Michael Jackson outfit – you know, the cavalry officer deal with the epaulets and the brass buttons?’
Billy nods. Colin White is currently holding a cardboard box with a couple of tacos in it. He stops to talk with Phyllis, and something he says causes her to throw back her head and laugh.
‘He’s a doll,’ Jim says, with what sounds like genuine affection.
Phyllis strolls off and sits with a few other women. A couple of Colin White’s cohorts make room for him. Before sitting down, he puts one foot behind the other and executes a quick turn that would have done the Gloved One proud. Billy puts him at five-nine, five-ten at most. Another piece of the plan. Maybe. Level 4 in the parking garage, maybe more laptops, and now Colin White. A bird of rare plumage.
4
That afternoon he sets the Mac Pro to playing itself at cribbage, with a five-second delay before each Player 1 move. He also sets it so that Player 2 will beat Player 1 every time. That should hold any lookie-loos for an hour or so. Then he powers up his own Mac, returns to Amazon, and buys two wigs: a blond one with short hair and a black one with long hair. In other circumstances he would have these sent to a storefront mail drop, but on this job there’s no point, not when David Lockridge will be ID’d as the shooter before the sun goes down on the day it happens.
With the wigs taken care of, he puts one of the blank Staples notebooks beside his personal lappie and begins a virtual tour of houses and apartments for rent. He finds a number of possibles, but any boots-on-the-ground investigation will have to wait until he gets his goods from Amazon.
It’s only two o’clock when he finishes his virtual house-hunting, too early to call it a day. It’s time to actually start writing. He’s thought about this quite a lot. At first he assumed he would use his own machine for that. Using the Pro might mean his employer – and possibly his ‘literary agent’ – could be reading over his shoulder, which makes him think of the telescreens in 1984. Would Nick and Giorgio be suspicious if they looked in and didn’t see any copy? Billy thinks they would be. They wouldn’t say anything, but it might give them the idea that Billy knows more about snooping and hacking than he wants them to know.
And there’s another reason to write on the Pro, even though it may be bugged. It’s a challenge. Can he really write a fictionalized dumb self version of his own life story? Risky, but he thinks maybe he can. Faulkner wrote dumb in The Sound and the Fury. Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, is another example. There are probably more.
Billy quits the automated cribbage game and opens a blank Word document. He titles it The Story of Benjy Compson – a nod to Faulkner he’s sure neither Nick nor Giorgio will tip to. He sits for several seconds, drumming his fingers on his chest and looking at the blank screen.
This is a crazy risk, he thinks.
This is the last job, he thinks, and types the sentence he’s been holding in his mind for just this occasion.
The man my ma lived with came home with a broke arm.
He looks at this for almost a minute, then types again.
I don’t even remember his name. But he was plenty mad. I guess he must have went to the hospital first because it was in a cast. My sister
Billy shakes his head and fixes it so it’s better. He thinks so, anyway.
The man my ma lived with came home with a broke arm. I guess he must have went to the hospital first because it was in a cast. My sister was trying to bake cookies and she burnt them. I guess she forgot to keep track of the time. When that man came home he was plenty mad. He killed my sister and I don’t even remember his name.
He looks at what he’s written and thinks he can do this. More, he wants to do this. Before starting to write, he would have said Yes I remember what happened, but only a little. Only now there’s more. Even that short paragraph has unlocked a door and opened a window. He remembers the smell of burned sugar, and seeing smoke seep out of the oven, and the chip on the side of the stove, and flowers in a teacup on the table, and some kid outside chanting ‘One p’tater two p’tater three p’tater four.’ He remembers the heavy clod-clod-clod of that man’s boots coming up the steps. That man, that boyfriend. And now he even remembers the name. It was Bob Raines. He remembers thinking when he heard that man use his fists on Ma, Bob is raining. Bob is raining on Ma. He remembers her smiling after and saying He didn’t mean it. And It was my fault.
Billy writes for an hour and a half, wanting to bolt ahead but holding himself back. If Nick or Giorgio or even Elvis is looking in, they must see the dumb self going slowly. Struggling for every sentence. At least he doesn’t have to deliberately misspell words; the ones the computer doesn’t correct automatically it underlines in red.