Billy guesses the reason for the area’s decline is the vacant lot right across the street from his target house. It’s a big expanse of rubbly, trash-strewn ground. Cutting through it are rusting railroad tracks barely visible in high weeds and summer goldenrod. Signs posted at fifty-foot intervals read CITY PROPERTY and NO TRESPASSING and DANGER KEEP OUT. He notes the jagged remains of a brick building that once must have been a train station. Maybe it served bus lines as well – Greyhound, Trailways, Southern. Now the city’s land-based transportation has moved elsewhere, and this neighborhood, which might have been busy in the closing decades of the last century, is suffering from a kind of municipal COPD. A rusty shopping cart lies overturned on the sidewalk across the way. A tattered pair of men’s undershorts flap from one of its wheels in a hot wind that tousles the hair of Billy’s blond Dalton Smith wig and flutters his shirt collar against his neck.
Most of the houses need paint. Some have FOR SALE signs in front of them. 658 also needs paint, but the sign in front reads FURNISHED APARTMENTS FOR RENT. There’s a real estate agent’s number to call. Billy notes it down, then goes up the cracked cement walk and looks at the line of doorbells. Although it’s just a three-story, there are four bells. Only one of them, second from the top, has a name: JENSEN. He rings it. At this time of day there’s probably nobody home, but his luck is in.
Footsteps descend the stairs. A youngish woman peers through the dirty glass of the door. What she sees is a white man in a nice open-collared shirt and dress pants. His blond hair is short. His mustache is neatly trimmed. He wears glasses. He’s quite fat, not to the point of obesity but getting there. He doesn’t look like a bad person, he looks like a good person who could stand to drop twenty or thirty pounds, so she opens the door, but not all the way.
As if I couldn’t push my way in and strangle you right there in the foyer, Billy thinks. There’s no car in the driveway or parked at the curb, which means your husband’s at work, and those three unmarked bells strongly suggest that you are the only person in this old faux Victorian.
‘I don’t buy from door-to-door salesmen,’ Mrs Jensen says.
‘No, ma’am, I’m not a salesman. I’m new in the city and looking for an apartment. This looks like it might be in my price range. I just wanted to know if this is a nice place. My name’s Dalton Smith.’
He holds out his hand. She gives it a token touch, then draws her own hand back. But she’s willing to talk. ‘Well, it’s not the greatest area, as you can see, and the nearest supermarket’s a mile away, but me and my husband haven’t had any real problems. Kids get into that old trainyard across the way sometimes, probably drinking and smoking dope, and there’s a dog around the corner that barks half the night, but that’s about the worst of it.’ She pauses and he sees her look down, checking for a wedding ring that’s not there. ‘You don’t bark at night, do you, Mr Smith? By which I mean parties and loud music.’
‘No, ma’am.’ He smiles and touches his stomach. The fake pregnancy belly has been inflated to about six months. ‘I like to eat, though.’
‘Because there’s a clause about excessive noise in the rental agreement.’
‘May I ask how much you pay per month?’
‘That’s between me and my husband. If you want to live here, you’d have to take it up with Mr Richter. He’s the man that handles this place. Couple of others down the block, too … although this one’s nicer. I think.’
‘Completely understood. I apologize for asking.’
Mrs Jensen thaws a little. ‘I will tell you that you don’t want the third floor. That place is a hotbox, even when the wind blows from across the old trainyard, which it does most of the time.’
‘No air conditioning, I take it.’
‘You take it right. But when it comes on cold weather, the heat’s okay. Course you have to pay for it. Electricity, too. It’s all in the agreement. If you’ve rented before, I guess you know the drill.’
‘Boy, do I ever.’ He rolls his eyes and finally gets a smile out of her. Now he can ask what he really wants to ask. ‘What about the downstairs? Is that a basement apartment? Because it looks like there’s a bell—’
Her smile widens. ‘Oh yes, and it’s quite nice. Furnished, like the sign says. Although, you know, just the basics. I wanted that one, but my husband thought it would be too small if our application gets approved. We’re trying to adopt.’
Billy marvels at this. She has just revealed a crucial piece of her heart – of her marriage’s heart – after she balked at revealing how much rent she and her husband pay. Which he asked not because he really wanted to know but because it would make him seem plausible.
‘Well, good luck to you. And thanks. If this Mr Richter and I see eye to eye, maybe you’ll see more of me. You have a good day, now.’
‘You too. Nice to meet you.’ This time she holds out her hand for a real shake, and Billy thinks again about what Nick said – You get along with people without buddying up to them. Nice to know that works even if you look fat.
As he walks down the sidewalk, she calls after him, ‘I bet that basement apartment stays nice and cool even in the hottest weather! I wish we’d taken it!’
He gives her a thumbs-up and heads back toward downtown. He has seen all he needs to see and has come to a decision. This is the place he wants, and Nick Majarian doesn’t need to know a thing about it.
Halfway back he comes to a hole-in-the-wall store that sells candy, cigarettes, magazines, cold drinks, and burner phones in blister packs. He buys one, paying cash, and sits on a bus bench to get it up and running. He will use it as long as he has to, then dispose of it. The others as well. Always supposing the deal goes down, the cops are going to know right away that it was David Lockridge who assassinated Joel Allen. They will then discover that David Lockridge is an alias of one William Summers, a Marine vet with sniper skills and sniper kills. They will also discover Summers’s association with Kenneth Hoff, the designated fall guy. What they must not discover is that Billy Summers, aka David Lockridge, has disappeared into the identity of Dalton Smith. Nick can never know that, either.
He calls Bucky Hanson in New York and tells Bucky to send the box marked Safeties to his Evergreen Street address.
‘So this is it, huh? You’re really pulling the pin?’
‘Looks like it,’ Billy says, ‘but we’ll talk some more.’
‘Sure we will. Just make sure it isn’t collect from some tooliebop city jail. You’re my man, hoss.’
Billy ends the call and makes another. To Richter, the real estate guy who is serving as rental agent for 658 Pearson.
‘I understand it’s furnished. Would that include WiFi?’
‘Just a second,’ Mr Richter says, but it’s more like a minute. Billy hears paper rustling. At last Richter says, ‘Yes. Put in two years ago. But no television, you’d have to supply that.’
‘All right,’ Billy says. ‘I want it. How about I drop by your office?’
‘I could meet you there, show you the place.’
‘That won’t be necessary. I just want it as a base of operations while I’m in this part of the country. Could be a year, could be two. I travel quite a bit. The important thing is the neighborhood looks quiet.’
Richter laughs. ‘Since they demolished the train station, you bet it is. But the people out there might trade a little more noise for a little more commerce.’
They set a time to meet the following Monday and Billy returns to Level 4 of the parking garage, where his Toyota is parked in a dead spot neither of the security cameras can see. If they can see at all; they look mighty tired to Billy. He removes the wig, the mustache, the glasses, and the fake pregnancy belly. After stowing them in the trunk, he takes the short walk back to Gerard Tower.