Hoff looks flustered. ‘It’s the one you asked for.’
‘Did you write that down, too?’
‘On the paper I just gave you.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ve got the, uh, tool in a—’
‘I don’t need to know where. I haven’t even decided if I want this job.’ He has, though. ‘Does the building over there have security?’ Another dumb self question.
‘Yeah. Sure.’
‘If I do take the job, getting the tool up to the fifth floor will be on me. Are we good on that, Mr Hoff?’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Hoff looks relieved.
‘Then I think we’re done here.’ Billy stands and holds out his hand. ‘It was very nice meeting you.’ It wasn’t. Billy isn’t sure he trusts the man, and he hates that stupid scruffy beard. What woman would want to kiss a mouth surrounded by red bristles?
Hoff shakes. ‘Same here, Billy. This is just a squeeze I’m going through. You ever read a book called The Hero’s Journey?’
Billy has, but shakes his head.
‘You should, you should. I just skimmed the literary stuff to get to the main part. Straight to the meat of a thing, that’s me. Cut through the bullshit. Can’t remember the name of the guy who wrote it, but he says every man has to go through a time of testing before he becomes a hero. This is my time.’
By supplying a sniper rifle and an overwatch site to an assassin, Billy thinks. Not sure Joseph Campbell would put that in the hero category.
‘Well, I hope you pass.’
2
Billy supposes he’ll get a car eventually if he stays here, but right now he doesn’t know his way around and he’s happy to let Paul Logan drive him from the hotel to where Nick is ‘house-sitting.’ It’s the McMansion Billy was expecting yesterday, a cobbled-together horror-show on what looks like two acres of lawn. The gate to the long curving driveway swings open at a touch of Paulie’s thumb to the gadget on his visor. There is indeed a cherub peeing endlessly into a pool of water, and a couple of other statues (Roman soldier, bare-breasted maiden) that are lit by hidden spots now that dusk is here. The house is also lit, the better to show off its wretched excess. To Billy it looks like the bastard child of a supermarket and a mega-church. This isn’t a house, it’s the architectural equivalent of red golf pants.
Frank Macintosh, aka Frankie Elvis, is waiting on the endless porch to receive him. Dark suit, sober blue tie. Looking at him you’d never guess that he began his career breaking legs for a loan shark. Of course that was long ago, before he moved up to the bigs. He comes halfway down the porch steps, hand outstretched, like the lord of the manor. Or the lord of the manor’s butler.
Nick is once more waiting in the hall, one much grander than that of the humble yellow house in Midwood. Nick is built big, but the man with him is enormous, way north of three hundred. This is Giorgio Piglielli, of course known to Nick’s Las Vegas cadre as Georgie Pigs (and also never to his face). If Nick is a CEO, then Giorgio is his chief operating officer. For them both to be here, so far from their home base, suggests that what Nick called the agenting fee must be very high. Billy has been promised two million. How much have these guys been promised, or already pocketed? Someone is very worried about Joel Allen. Someone who probably owns a house like this, or one even uglier. Hard to believe such a thing is possible, but it probably is.
Nick claps Billy on the shoulder and says, ‘You probably think this fat-ass is Giorgio Piglielli.’
‘Sure looks like him,’ Billy says cautiously, and Giorgio gives a chuckle as fat as he is.
Nick nods. He’s got that million-dollar grin on his face. ‘I know it does, but this is actually George Russo. Your agent.’
‘Agent? Like in real estate?’
‘Nope, not that kind.’ Nick laughs. ‘Come on in the living room. We’ll have drinks and Giorgio will lay this out for you. Like I said yesterday, it’s a beaut.’
3
The living room is as long as a Pullman car. There are three chandeliers, two small and one big. The furniture is low and swoopy. Two more cherubs are supporting a full-length mirror. There’s a grandfather clock that looks embarrassed to be here.
Frank Macintosh, the leg-breaker turned manservant, brings them drinks on a tray: beer for Billy and Nick and what looks like a chocolate malted for Giorgio, who seems determined to ingest every calorie possible before dying at the age of fifty. He chooses the only chair that will fit him. Billy wonders if he’ll be able to get out of it without help.
Nick raises his glass of beer. ‘Here’s to us. May we do business that makes us happy and leaves us satisfied.’
They drink to that, then Giorgio says, ‘Nick tells me that you’re interested, but you haven’t actually signed on for this yet. Still in what could be called the exploratory phase.’
‘That’s right,’ Billy says.
‘Well, for the purposes of this discussion, let’s pretend that you’re on the team.’ Giorgio sucks on the straw in his malted. ‘Man, that’s good. Just the ticket on a warm evening.’ He reaches into the pocket of his suitcoat – enough fabric there to clothe an orphanage, Billy thinks – and produces a wallet. He holds it out.
Billy takes it. A Lord Buxton. Nice, but not fancy. And it’s been slightly aged, with a couple of scuffs and nicks in the leather.
‘Look through it. It’s who you’ll be in this godforsaken burg.’
Billy does. Seventy dollars or so in the billfold. A few pictures, mostly of men who could be friends and women who could be gal pals. Nothing to indicate he has a wife and kids.
‘I wanted to Photoshop you into one,’ Giorgio says, ‘standing at the Grand Canyon or something, but nobody seems to have a photo of you, Billy.’
‘Photos can lead to trouble.’
Nick says, ‘Most people don’t carry pictures of themselves in their wallets, anyway. I told Giorgio that.’
Billy continues to go through the wallet, reading it like a book. Like Thérèse Raquin, which he finished while eating supper in his room. If he stays here, his name will be David Lockridge. He has a Visa card and a Mastercard, both issued by Seacoast Bank of Portsmouth.
‘What are the limits on the plastic?’ he asks Giorgio.
‘Five hundred on the Master, a thousand on the Visa. You’re on a budget. Of course, if your book works out like we hope it will, that could change.’
Billy stares at Giorgio, then at Nick, wondering if this is some kind of set-up. Wondering if they’ve seen through the dumb self.
‘He’s your literary agent!’ Nick nearly shouts. ‘Is that a hoot, or what?’
‘A writer is my cover? Come on, I never even finished high school. Got my GED in the sand, for God’s sake, and that was a gift from Uncle Sam for dodging IEDs and mujies in Fallujah and Ramadi. It won’t work. It’s crazy.’
‘It’s not, it’s genius,’ Nick says. ‘Listen to the man, Billy. Or should I start calling you Dave now?’
‘You’re never calling me Dave if this is my cover.’
Too close to home, far too close. He’s a reader, that’s for sure. And he sometimes dreams of writing, although he’s never actually tried his hand except for scraps of prose here and there, which he always destroyed.
‘It’ll never fly, Nick. I know you guys have already started this going …’ He raises the wallet. ‘… and I’m sorry, but it just won’t work. What would I say if someone asked what my book was about?’
‘Give me five minutes,’ Giorgio says. ‘Ten, tops. And if you still don’t like it, we all part friends.’
Billy doubts if that’s true but tells him to go ahead.
Giorgio puts his empty malted glass on the table (probably a Chippendale) beside his chair and belches. But when he turns his full attention on Billy, he can see what Georgie Pigs really is: a lean and athletic mind buried inside the ocean of blubber that will kill him before many more years. ‘I know how it sounds at first blush, you being the kind of guy you are, but it will fly.’