Exercise also aids thinking, and on one of his sprints up the stairs Billy has an idea. He can’t believe he hasn’t thought of it before. Billy uses the Jensens’ key to let himself into their apartment. He checks Daphne and Walter (both doing well), then goes into the bedroom. Don is a certain kind of guy, likes his football and NASCAR, likes his BBQ ribs and chicken, likes a few brewskis on Friday night with the boys. A man like that almost certainly has a gun or two.
Billy finds one in the nightstand on Don’s side of the bed. It’s a Ruger GP six-shooter, fully loaded. Beside it is a box of .38 centerfire cartridges. Billy sees no reason to take the gun downstairs; if the cops bust in on him, he’s certainly not going to shoot it out with them. But you never know when a gun might come in handy, and it’s good to know where he can lay his hands on one if the need arises. What need that might be he can’t imagine, but there are many twists and turns as one hops down the bunny trail of life. No one knows better than he does.
He gives Bev’s plants a squirt each with the vaporizer, then trots back downstairs. Outside he can hear the wind picking up, blowing across the vacant lot on the other side of the street. The forecast is for rain and even colder temperatures. ‘You might not believe it,’ the lady weatherperson chirped that morning, ‘but there may actually be some sleet mixed in with it. I guess Mother Nature can’t read the calendar!’
Billy doesn’t care if it rains, sleets, snows, or shits bananas. He’s going to be in this basement apartment no matter what the weather is. The story he’s writing has taken over his life because for the time being it’s the only life he has, and that’s okay.
He’s had two brief communications with Bucky Hanson. Last night he texted Are u ok? to which Bucky responded Y. He texted Has the money been paid? to which Bucky responded, as Billy expected, N. He can’t call Giorgio, even with his burner, because the cops may be up on his phone. And what would he get if he took the risk? Almost certainly a female robot telling him that number is no longer in service. Because Giorgio is no longer in service. Billy is sure of it.
In the alternate world of his story, Billy has reached Operation Phantom Fury in November of 2004. He thinks that part may take ten days, possibly two weeks. When it’s done, when he’s put the story of the Funhouse to rest, he’ll pack up his shit and get out of town. The checkpoints will be gone by then, may be gone already.
He sits at the laptop, looking at where he left off. Two days before the assault commenced, Jamieson ordered Johnny and Pablo to get the baseball kids off the base, and they all understood what that meant: they were going in again, and this time they’d be staying in until the job was done.
Billy remembers Zamir looking back at the gate and giving one final cry of ‘He was safe, mothafuckah!’ Then they were gone for good. All these years later they’d be grown men. If they’re still alive.
He starts to write about the day the baseball kids got sent home, but it feels flat. The well is temporarily dry. He saves his copy, shuts down, then walks around to the other laptops, the cheapies. He boots each up in turn, checks that all clickbait is updated (MICHAEL JACKSON’S DYING WISH, ONE SIMPLE TRICK TO BEAT SCIATICA, WHAT THE ORIGINAL MOUSEKETEERS LOOK LIKE NOW), and shuts them down, too. All is well in his little world. He has a plan. He will finish the Iraq part of his story, the Funhouse serving as the natural climax. When that’s done he’ll pack up and get out of this bad luck town. He will drive west, not north, and at some point in the not-too-distant future, he will pay Nick Majarian a visit.
Nick owes him money.
2
Billy’s plan lasts until quarter to midnight. He’s been watching some action movie in his underwear, and although the plot is simple – something about a guy seeking revenge on the men who killed his dog – Billy has lost the thread. He decides to call it a day. He shuts off the idiot box and is heading for the bedroom when there’s a loud squall of skidding tires and badly maintained brakes outside. He braces himself for the sound of the crash, that hollow slam-the-big-door boom as the vehicle goes head-on into a power pole. Instead he hears faint music and loud laughter. Drunken laughter, from the sound.
He goes to his periscope window and shoves back the curtain. There’s a streetlight up the way and it casts just enough glow for him to see an old van with rusty sides. One set of wheels is on the sidewalk running beside the vacant lot. It’s raining now, and hard enough so the van’s headlights look like they’re cutting through a gauze curtain. The long door on the passenger side rolls open on its track. The inside light goes on, but all Billy can make out through the blowing rain are shapes. Three at least, moving around. No, there are four. The fourth is slumped over, head low. Two of them are holding the shape under its arms, which hang down at the elbows like broken wings.
There’s more laughter and talk. Two guys manhandle the slumped shape out of the van while a third stands behind them like he’s supervising. The unconscious person has long dark hair. Probably a girl. The guys take her behind the van and let go of her. She folds up with her top half on the sidewalk and her bottom half in the gutter. The two guys hop back in. The cargo door rolls shut. For a moment the old van stays there, idling with its headlights cutting through the pelting rain. Then it pulls out with a squeal of tires and a belch of exhaust. There’s a bumper sticker on the back, but no way can Billy read it. The light over the license plate is flickering, almost dead.
It’s a girl for sure. She’s wearing sneakers, a skirt hiked up high enough to show nearly all of one bent leg, and a leather jacket. The exposed leg is half submerged in running gutter water. It looks very white. Can she be dead? Would those men have been laughing if she was? After some of the things he’s seen in the desert (and can never unsee), Billy knows it’s possible.
He has to get her, and not just because she might die out there if he doesn’t. This part of town is quiet even at noon on a weekday, but eventually someone will come along and spot her. They might not stop, good Samaritans are always in short supply, but they would surely call 911. Thank God it’s late and thank God he didn’t go to bed five minutes sooner. There would have come a knock on his door, cops canvassing the houses on this side of Pearson Street to find out if anyone had seen the girl dumped, and if the knock came at one or two in the morning, he’d have no chance to even put on the Dalton Smith wig, let alone the fake stomach. Hey, one of the cops might say. You look familiar, buddy. I think you should come with us.
Billy doesn’t bother putting on his pants and shoes, just runs up the stairs in his boxers. He goes through the foyer and down the front steps, leaving the door open to bang back and forth in the wind. He’s aware that he’s gotten a pretty good splinter in the ball of one foot, run it in there deep, but more aware of how fucking cold it is. Not cold enough for the rain to turn to sleet, at least not yet, but close. His arms are covered in goosebumps. The part of his big toe that isn’t there aches. If the girl is still alive, she might not stay that way for long.
Billy goes to one knee and picks her up, so cranked with adrenaline that he has no idea if she’s heavy or light. He looks both ways with rain running down his face and bare chest. His boxers are soaked, hanging low on his hips. He sees no one. Thank God. He splashes back to the apartment side of the street, and as he’s carrying her up the walk, she turns her head, makes a guttural sound, and spews a thin ribbon of vomit down his side and one of his legs. It’s shockingly warm, almost like an electric heating pad.