‘They are going to know where the shot came from,’ Billy says.
‘Sure, but not right away. Because at first everyone will be looking for that outsider. And because there’s going to be a diversion. Also because you’ve always been fucking Houdini when it comes to disappearing after the hit. By the time things start to settle, you’ll be long gone.’
‘What’s the diversion?’
‘We can talk about that later,’ Nick says, which makes Billy think Nick might not have made up his mind about that yet. Although with Nick, it’s hard to tell. ‘Plenty of time. For now …’ He turns to Giorgio, aka Georgie Pigs, aka George Russo. Over to you, the look says.
Giorgio reaches into the pocket of his gigantic suit jacket again and pulls out his phone. ‘Say the word, Billy – the word being the passcode of your favorite offshore bank – and I’ll send five hundred grand to it. It’ll take about forty seconds. Minute and a half if the connection’s slow. Also plenty of walking-around money in a local bank to get you started.’
Billy understands they’re trying to rush him into a decision and has a brief image of a cow being driven down a chute to the slaughterhouse, but maybe that’s just paranoia because of the enormous payday. Maybe a person’s last job shouldn’t just be the most lucrative; maybe it should also be the most interesting. But he would like to know one more thing.
‘Why is Hoff involved?’
‘His building,’ Nick says promptly.
‘Yeah, but …’ Billy frowns, putting an expression of great concentration on his face. ‘He said there’s lots of vacancies in that building.’
‘The corner spot on the fifth floor is prime, though,’ Nick says. ‘Your agent, Georgie here, had him lease it, which keeps us out of it.’
‘He also gets the gun,’ Giorgio says. ‘May have it already. In any case, it won’t be traced back to us.’
Billy knows that already, from the way Nick has been careful not to be seen with him – no, not even on the porch of this gated estate – but he’s not entirely satisfied. Because Hoff struck him as a chatterbox, and a chatterbox isn’t a good person to have around when you’re planning an assassination.
4
Later that night. Closing in on midnight. Billy lies on his hotel room bed, hands beneath the pillow, relishing the cool that’s so ephemeral. He said yes, of course, and when you say yes to Nick Majarian, there’s no going back. He is now starring in his own last job story.
He had Giorgio send the $500,000 to a bank in the Caribbean. There’s a good amount of money in that account right now, and after Joel Allen dies on those courthouse steps, there will be a good deal more. Enough to live on for a long, long time if he’s prudent. And he will be. He doesn’t have expensive tastes. Champagne and escort services have never been his thing. In two other banks – local ones – David Lockridge will have an additional $18,000 to draw on. It’s plenty of walking-around money, but not enough to twang any federal tripwires.
He did have a couple of other questions. The most important was how much lead time he could expect when the deal was about to go down.
‘Not a lot,’ Nick said, ‘but it won’t be “He’s gonna be there in fifteen minutes,” either. We’ll know right after the extradition is ordered, and you’ll get a call or a text. It’ll be twenty-four hours at the very least, maybe three days or even a week. Okay?’
‘Yeah,’ Billy said. ‘Just as long as you understand I can’t guarantee anything if it is fifteen minutes. Or even an hour.’
‘It won’t be.’
‘What if they don’t bring him up the courthouse steps? What if they use another door?’
‘There is another door,’ Giorgio said. ‘It’s the one some of the courthouse employees use. But you’ll still have a sightline from the fifth floor and the distance is only sixty yards or so longer. You can do that, can’t you?’
He could, and said so. Nick lifted a hand as if to wave away a troublesome fly. ‘It’ll be the steps, count on it. Anything else?’
Billy said there wasn’t and now he lies here, thinking it over, waiting for sleep. On Monday he’ll be moving into the little yellow house, leased for him by his agent. His literary agent. On Tuesday, he’ll see the office suite Georgie Pigs has also leased for him. When Giorgio asked him what he’d do there, Billy told him he’d start by downloading ComiXology to his laptop. And maybe a few games.
‘Be sure to write something between funnybooks,’ Giorgio said, half-joking and half not. ‘You know, get into character. Live the part.’
Maybe he will. Maybe he will do that. Even if what he writes isn’t very good, it will pass the time. Autobiography was his suggestion. Giorgio suggested a novel, not because he thinks Billy’s bright enough to write one but because Billy could say that when someone asked, as someone will. Probably lots of someones, once he gets to know people in the Gerard Tower.
He’s slipping toward sleep when a cool idea wakes him up: why not a combination of the two? Why not a novel that’s actually an autobiography, one written not by the Billy Summers who reads Zola and Hardy and even plowed his way through Infinite Jest, but one written by the other Billy Summers? The alter ego he calls his dumb self? Could that work? He thinks yes, because he knows that Billy as well as he knows himself.
I might give it a try, he thinks. With nothing but time on my hands, why not? He’s thinking about how he might begin when he finally drifts off.
CHAPTER 3
1
Billy Summers once more sits in the hotel lobby, waiting for his ride.
It’s Monday noon. His suitcase and laptop case are beside his chair and he’s reading another comic book, this one called Archie Comics Spectacular: Friends Forever. He’s not thinking about Thérèse Raquin today but what he might write in the fifth-floor office he’s never seen. It isn’t clear in his mind, but he has a first sentence and holds onto it. That sentence might connect to others. Or not. He’s prepared for success but he’s also prepared for disappointment. It’s the way he rolls and it’s worked out pretty well so far. In the sense, at least, that he’s not in jail.
At four minutes past twelve, Frank Macintosh and Paulie Logan enter the lobby dressed in their suits. There are handshakes all around. Frank’s pompadour appears to have had an oil change.
‘Need to check out?’
‘Taken care of.’
‘Then let’s go.’
Billy tucks his Archie book into the side pocket of his bag and picks it up.
‘Nah, nah,’ Frankie says. ‘Let Paulie. He needs the exercise.’
Paulie holds his middle finger against his tie like a clip, but he takes the bag. They go out to the car. Frank drives, Paulie sits in back. They drive to Midwood and the little yellow house. Billy looks at the balding lawn and thinks he’ll water it. If there’s no hose, he’ll buy one. There’s a car in the driveway, a subcompact Toyota that looks a few years old, but with Toyotas, who can really tell?
‘Mine?’
‘Yours,’ Frank says. ‘Not much, but your agent keeps you on a tight budget, I guess.’
Paulie puts Billy’s suitcase down on the porch, takes an envelope from his jacket pocket, removes a keyring, unlocks the door. He puts the keys back in the envelope and hands it to Billy. Written on the front is 24 Evergreen Street. Billy, who didn’t check the street sign yesterday or today, thinks, Now I know where I live.
‘Car keys are on the kitchen table,’ Frank says. He holds out his hand again, so this is goodbye. That’s okay with Billy.